of them by the breath of his mouth◠Psal. 33. 6. So doth Christ vanquish his enemies and enable his Ministers to vanquish them Verbo Spiritu oris by his Word and the Spirit of his mouth according to that Hos. 6. 5. I have hewed them by my Prophets and slain them by the words of my mouth I come now to the Second thing I propounded namely to shew that our Saviour in the Gospel when he cited this place alledged it for and according to this and no other meaning The Evangelist relates it thus When the chief Priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that Iesus did and the children in the Temple crying and saying Hosanna to the Son of David they were sore displeased and said unto him Hearest thou what these say how they ascribe the power of salvation which is God's peculiar to thee who art a Son of man Is that solemn acclamation of Save now wherewith we are wont to glorifie God fit to be given to thee Our Saviour answers Yes For have ye not read saith he Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings thou hast ordained strength Consider what that means You will wonder perhaps that a thing so plain could be taken in a differing meaning for it is commonly supposed to be alledged only to prove that children should glorifie Christ whilest the great ones of the world despised him And there are two things which have occasioned this mistake and drawn the sense awry The first is because the Seventy according to which the Evangelist reads this place in stead of strength translate here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 praise Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings thou hast ordained praise Secondly because those that made this acclamation are said to have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Children When they saw the wonderful things which Iesus did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Children crying in the Temple To the first I answer Our Saviour alledged not the words of the Psalm in Greek but in Hebrew where it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ◠Strength which is the constant signification thereof through the whole Bible and never Praise nor do the Seventy themselves ever translate it otherwise save as it seems in this place But whatsoever the use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be otherwise it must be here regulated by the Hebrew verity according to which our Saviour alledged it and must signifie not simply Praise but Robur praedicandum or Robur laude dignum Robur celebrandum Strength worthy to be celebrated or praised or the like To the second That they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Children who made this acclamation of Hosanna to our Saviour I answer Be it so yet I am sure they were no Babes and Sucklings but of reasonable years How then would our Saviour's quotation have in such a sense been pertinent Besides Young children are not properly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Again the Pharisees found no fault with the speakers but with the thing spoken which they thought too much for a man and therefore our Saviour when he alledged this Scripture answered to that and intended not to apologize for the speakers Fourthly In all reason those who cried here Hosanna in the Temple were the same company that brought him crying Hosanna all the way thither But these saith S. Mark were of the multitude which followed him as S. Luke of the multitude of the Disciples who also tells us that the Pharisees who were offended thereat bad him rebuke his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore here signifies either Christ's Disciples or the retinue which followed him and brought him up thither as a King Take which you will you shall not fasten upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any notion other than usual I shall not need to tell you that the Disciples of the Prophets are called the Sons of the Prophets that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or that Herod's Courtiers Matth. 14. 2. are termed his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is Iohn the Baptist c. DISCOURSE X. ZACHARIAH 4. 10. These Seven are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through the whole earth IT is hard to keep a mean which as it appears in many things else so in the Doctrine and Speculation of Angels whereunto men were heretofore so much addicted as they pursued it not only to vain and ungrounded Theories but even to Idolatry and Superstition There were in the Apostles times who intruded into things they had not seen There were then who beguiled men with a voluntary humility in worshipping of Angels Col. 2. 18. What after-times brought forth I shall not need speak That ancient and high-soaring though counterfeit Dionysius describes the Hierarchy of Angels as exactly as if he had dwelt amongst them delivering unto us nine Orders of them out of nine words found partly in the Old partly in the New Testament Seraphims Cherubims and Thrones Powers Hosts and Dominions Principalities Arch-angels and Angels and tells us the several natures distinctions and properties of them all Whereas it cannot be shewn out of Scripture either that some of these names concur not as Angels not to be a common name to all the rest especially to comprehend Arch-angels or that these are denominations of the natures of Angels and not of their offices and charges only yet have these nine Orders passed for current through so many Ages of the Church But we who together with divers Superstitions have justly rejected also these vain and ungrounded curiosities are fallen into the other extreme having buried the Doctrine of Angels in silence making little or no enquiry at all what God in his Word hath revealed concerning them which yet would make not a little for the understanding of Scripture wherein are so many passages having reference to them and therefore questionless something revealed concerning them I shall not therefore do amiss if I chuse for my Discourse at this time a particular of that kind which Dionysius in all his Speculations hath not a word of and yet seems to have strong footing in Scripture It is this The Iews have an ancient Tradition that there are Seven principal Angels which minister before the Throne of God and are therefore called Arch-angels some of whose names we have in Scripture as Michael Gabriel Raphael and in the second Book of Esdras mention is made of Ieremiel the Arch-angel This Tradition we shall find recorded in the Book of Tobit whose antiquity is before the Birth of our Saviour For there the Angel who in the shape of Azariah had accompained his son into Media when he discovers himself speaks in this manner I am Raphael one of the Seven Angels which stand and minister before the Holy Blessed One that is God The Greek hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. which present the Prayers of the Saints and go in
Fathers my Text saith was That they fell or were overthrown in the Wilderness In the back or outside of which words appeareth only a Temporal Punishment which kind seemeth not so appliable in the times of the Gospel as it was in time of the Law Howsoever we see in the general That it is true that the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain Iudgment shall selfe either here or at least hereafter upon all prophaners and misreceivers of those Sacred pledges upon which is called the Name of Christ our Saviour and Redeemer But for the kinds of these punishments whether Temporal only or Eternal or both I answer The Fathers under the Law had Temporal as well as Eternal we in the Gospel chiefly Eternal and yet sometimes Temporal That ours are chiefly eternal or of the life to come the words of our Apostle elsewhere shew evidently Whosoever eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh his own damnation This is certain and this is more than all the torments pains and miseries that this world hath though Phalaris and his Craftsmaster were alive again to invent new ones No tongue is able to express no heart is able to conceive the woe and miseries which the damned Soul in Hell is subject unto which are as endless as they are easeless And though this be great enough yet hath not nor is the unworthy Receiver always been freed from suffering something even in this life We know the Apostle would have the Corinthians take notice of the Wrath of God upon divers of them for receiving the Sacrament unworthily For this cause saith he are many sick and weak amongst you and many are fallen asleep Indeed Fathers correct not their children at riper years after the same fashion they did when they were young and little So hath God not the same Discipline under the Gospel which he had under the Pedagogiâ— of the Law as Chrysostome saith he doth not so often scourge offenders with the rods of Temporal chastisements but rather reserves for them Eternal torments yet who doubts but the hand of God is upon many unworthy Communicants even by sorrow sickness death and sundry other chastisements of this life But for the times under the Law the words of my Text speaking of being overthrown in the Wilderness would seem to imply there was no further thing which befell the unworthy eaters of Manna in the Wilderness and so our Apostle's argument from hence should infer no more to us in the times of the Gospel For answer hereunto I must call to mind something which I have spoken heretofore namely That under the Law Spiritual blessings were enwrapped in corporal and conveyed under and with them as it were in pledges which made the Iew so highly to esteem of worldly prosperities and of those who enjoyed them as accounting them God's special Favorites So also were Spiritual and Everlasting plagues hidden under the curtains of Temporal judgments which were to those upon whom they fell as woful pledges of them and therefore made the Iew account them accursed who were overwhelmed with worldly adversities To come therefore to the words of my Text Canaan was a Type and Pledge of the Heavenly habitation The Wilderness signified our Pilgrimage in this wild ragged rocky and barren world To fell in the Wilderness was a wofull sign of falling short of the Heavenly Canaan and deprival of Eternal life those who fell there especially upon occasion of sin being such as to whom God sware in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest as it is in the Psalm we say every morning Thus we see how the unworthy eaters of the holy Mysteries in the Wilderness were not only liable to plagues in this life but that those plagues served them as Seals of their condemnation in the world to come and therefore if we also eat the same Spiritual meat and drink the same Spiritual drink unworthily we shall eat and drink our own condemnation Having thus seen the wretched condition and woful danger of those who come unworthily to this Spiritual Table the serious consideration hereof may stand up like the Angel with the flaming sword to keep every Adam from eating of the tree of Life It should make every one tremble who approacheth the Lord's Table with unwashed hands I mean a foul conscience whose hearts are full of wickedness whose heads full of ungodly imaginations and their hands defiled with wicked actions how unworthy are they to come at this holy Banquet As Iehu said to Iehoram What hast thou to do with peace So may I say here What have those to do with the Sacrament the Mystery of peace Indeed the Sacrament is a Robe to cover the repenting sinner but no cloak to a prophane Receiver of it such a one shall find it like the forbidden fruit of Paradise the bane of the Eater and like a fair bait swallowed with a deadly hook the death of the Receiver Who being guilty would drink of that cursed water Numb 5. 22. which made the thigh to rot and the belly to swell and who being guilty of gross sin will dare without Repentance to take that Sacrament which shall make him guilty of the Body and Bloud of Christ and become an occasion of his condemnation It is a pitiful thing when the Psalmist's curse befalls any Let their Table be a snare But that this holy Table should become a snare to a Christian soul is more than lamentable Our Saviour said of Iudas It had been good for him if he had never been born and so may we say of such It had been better they had never been Receivers of this holy Sacrament for alas they have eaten and drank their own damnation they had better have eaten some venemous thing or drank some deadly poison for it would only have killed the body but by eating and drinking the Sacrament unworthily they have damned and destroyed both soul and body for ever Lastly This danger may admonish every one of us to come worthily unto this Sacrament For as Manna was unto evâ—â—y man's taste according to his will as S. Austin will have it so is the Sacrament to every one according to his worthiness As therefore the Chamber was trimmed wherein our Saviour kept his Passeover and ordained his holy Manna so should be Chamber of every Christian soul be cleansed from wickedness and adorned with Grace that comes to receive Christ in this Sacrament The washing of the Disciples feet afore Supper what doth it else call for but a cleansing of our hearts before we communicate We are unwilling that men should see us come to this Table with foul hands and should we not be more careful lest God should see us come with foul hearts It will not be enough to say to our Saviour with them in the Gospel We have eaten and drank in thy company we have been at thy Table We must come thither
the Sacrifice of Messiah which these Sacrifices represented was to be finished the third day by his rising from the dead ◠and therefore the Type thereof determined within that time beyond which time it was not accepted for atonement of sin because then it was no longer a Type of him Thus far the Law As for the Prophets I find no express Prediction in them for the time of Christ's rising For that of the case of the Prophet Ionah I take to be rather an Allusion than a Prophecy only in general That Christ should rise again is implied both in that famous Prophecy of Esay the 53. and that of Zachary 12. In the former forasmuch as it is said that after he had made his soul a sacrifice for sin he should see his seed and prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand And again that the Lord should divide him a portion with the great and that he should divide the spoil with the strong because he had poured out his soul unto death Which argues that he should not only live again but be victorious after he had died In that of Zachary it is said the Iews should look upon or see him whom they had formerly pierced and that in that day he would pour upon them the spirit of grace and supplication therefore he was to live again after they had pierced him I come to the Psalms where not only his Rising again is prophesied of but the Time thereof determined though at first sight it appears not so namely in that fore-alledged passage of the sixteenth Psalm Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption All men shall rise again but their bodies must first return to dust and see corruption But Messiah was to rise again before he saw corruption If before then the third day at farthest for then the Body naturally begins to see corruption This may be gathered by the story of Lazarus in the Gospel where Iesus commanding the stone to be rolled from his Grave Martha his sister answered Lord by this time he stinketh for he hath been dead four days Also by that Rule given by the Masters of Physick That those who die of the Apoplexie suffocation of the Mother or like sudden deaths should not be buried till seventy two hours were past because within that time they might revive and Examples are given of those who have done so They give also a reason of it in nature Because say they in that time the Humors of the Body make their revolution the Phlegm in one day or twenty four hours the Choler in two days or forty eight hours the Melancholy in three days which is seventy two hours and this to be the reason why an Ague founded in an inflammation of Phlegm returns every day an Ague which comes from Choler every other day an Ague from Melancholy every third day Now if a Body may be kept so long unburied it is supposed it may continue so long uncorrupted namely where a corruption is not begun before death as in some diseases but longer it will not continue When therefore it is so often inculcated in the New Testament that our Saviour should rise again the third day the Holy Ghost in so speaking respects not so much the number of days as the fulfilling of Scripture That Messiah's body should not see corruption but should rise before the time wherein dead bodies begin to corrupt and indeed our Saviour rose again within forty hours after he gave up the Ghost and was not two full days in the grave Therefore if there be any other Scripture which implies Messiah should rise before his Body should see corruption that Scripture whatsoever it be shews he should rise again within three days DISCOURSE XIV EXODUS 4. 25. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the fore-skin of her Son and cast it at his feet and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sponsus sanguinum tu mihi es THEN that is when she saw the Angel of the Lord ready to kill Moses her husband in the Inne because his son was not circumcised she took a sharp stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is she took a knife which according to the custom then was made of stone sharped This we may learn out of Ioshuah 5. 2. where the Lord says to Ioshuah Make thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sharp knives say we according to the Hebrew knives of stones and circumcise again the children of Israel The Chaldee Paraphrast hath Make thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sharp rasors the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stone-knives Thus far all is clear but for the rest we are to seek First on whom the fault lay and what was the reason of this omission of Circumcision then who and what is meant when it is said she cast or made the fore-skin to touch his feet and above all what is meant by Sponsus sanguinum Zipporah is commonly reputed to have been a perverse and froward woman and Moses the meekest man on earth to have had that mishap in his choice which many a good man hath The reason because she not only hindred her child from being circumcised out of some nicety and aversation thereof as a cruel Ceremony but also when she saw there was no remedy but she must do it to save her husband's life yet she did it with an upbraiding indignation telling him that he was a bloudy husband who must have such a thing done unto his poor child But I see no ground either for the one or the other For that the Circumcision of the child was not deferred out of any aversation of hers of that Ceremony may be gathered First because she was a Midianitesse and so a daughter of Abraham by Keturah and therefore well enough acquainted with and inured to that Rite which not only her Nation the Midianites but all the Nations descended of Abraham observed as may be seen in the Ismaelites or Saracens who learned not this Ceremony first from Mahomet but retained it as an ancient custom of their Nation Secondly She had suffered already her elder son Gershom to be circumcised wherefore then should we think she was a verse from the circumcision of this For that this child for whom Moses was now in danger was Eliezer his youngest son it cannot be denied forasmuch as it is evident that Moses at this time was the Father of two sons which by reason as may seem of this disturbance he sent back with his wife unto her Father Iethro as we may read in the 18. Chapter of this Book By which it may be gathered that the cause of this omission of Circumcision was not any averseness in Zipporah from that Rite but rather because they were in their journey when the child was born and so having no convenient time or place to rest in till the wound might be healed and thinking it