saving waters of grace flowing from the true Rock Jesus Christ. We read what strife and contention was among the Jewes for wells of spring water and now no man will lose a dishful of well water but he will know to whom and shall we onely not care for the water of saving grace which cost Christ so dear before he could open the well of it for us 3. When the woman of Sumaria heard Christ say that he that drank of this water should thirst no more Lord saith she give me this water that I may no more thirst nor come hither to draw Joh. 4. 15. So let it stir up our desires after it also that we may get within the well that springeth up to eternal life 3. What means may we use for the attaining of water out of this Rock Answ. 1. Be an Israelite That Rock was smitten onely for them This Rock is laid in Sion not in AEgypt No AEgyptian no Canaanite no Romish AEgyptian that drinkes of that Popish puddle no profane worldlings taste of these waters swill and draffe is good enough for such swine 2. Come to the place Israel must goe out of them houses as well to fetch water out of the Rock as to gather Manna The place whence the Rock sends water is the threshold of the Sanctuary Ezeck 47. If we will not stir out of our dores we may justly starve 3. Avoid letts and hinderances that dam up these waters As 1. Ignorance of their worth and of thy own need Joh. 4. 10. If thou knewest the gift of God thou wouldst have asked c. Good reason thou want it who thinkest it a thing thou mayst best want Many among us like Tantalus in the midst of water die for thirst 2. Hardnesse of heart which keeps the soul dry and barren and abiding in the natural hardnesse of a Rock all the waters of this spiritual Rock are lost upon it 3. A quenching and grieving of the spirit this turns the stream another way that it finds another chanell Grieve not the spirit but grieve rather that thy self art so strait-necked a vessel 4. Secure neglect of meanes A man that will be rich follows the meanes so he that meaneth to be rich in grace whereas he that meaneth to die a begger casts up all and makes holy-day at his pleasure 4. Provide 1. The bucket of faith to draw for the well is deep and without this bucket thou gettest none John 4. 11. 2. Find a fit vessel to put these waters in As 1. A clean vessel of a pure heart Who would put Aqua vitae or Balm water in a fusty and stinking bottle 2. A whole vessell that it leak not out again This whole vessell is a whole and sincere heart but broken all to pieces No vessell here can hold but a broken and contrite heart God fills the humble the haughty and proud are sent away empty CHAP. XXIV The Brazen Serpent a type THe History of the Brazen Serpent is in Numb 21. 6 7 8. where are two things I. The Disease II. The Remedy The Disease is set down 1. In the occasion ver 5. 2. In the kind by fiery Serpents sent by God to sting them 3. In the effect many dyed In all which Story we must not stick in the letter or bark but break through to the kernel and truth The rather because our Lord Jesus an interpreter beyond all exception brings us hereby to himself and to the consideration both of our disease and of the remedy and the application of it Joh. 3. 14. 15. As Moses lift up the Serpent in the wildernesse so must the Son of man be lift up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternall life It will be now both pleasant and profitable to look a little while upon the apt resemblance of the type with the truth both in the disease and remedy and first of the occasion of the disease Sect. I. I. The occasion of the disease was the peccant humour of ingratitude and murmuring against the grace of God miraculously manifested in the wildernesse Never had any people upon the face of the earth the like mercies from God the like experience of God Never any fed and feasted with so many miracles as it were in ordinary They have water following them every where out of a Rock They have bread from heaven delicate even to a miracle but this Angels food is too light and no bread will serve them but from earth God gave them abundance of it for the gathering he rained it most bountifully round about their tents but their unthankful souls loath it and tread it under foot And therefore rising up against God and tempting him they were destroyed of Serpents 1 Cor. 10. 9. Note here by the way 1. The Justice of God He that brought Manna from heaven to feed them for contempt of his grace now brings Serpents out of the earth to revenge and destroy them Rom. 2. 4 5. The despising of Gods bountifulnesse treasureth up wrath See the same Justice on our selves How lightly did we in our first parents regard that upheaped measure of bounty and grace conferred by God in our Creation and innocency And how justly were we stung to death by the old Serpent for it The unthankfull person is the greatest robber that is 2. See the equity of this Justice on the Israelites They not contented to murmur against the Lord set also upon Moses and Aaron his servants Why have yee brought us into the wildernesse to die Now their punishment is answerable to their sin They transgresse in hot and fiery tongues and are punished by hot and fiery stings Venomous words against God and his servants are revenged by the mouthes of poysoned and venomous Serpents Doe thou at thy perill sting God and his servants with bitter words God will have some Serpent or other to sting thee I am out of doubt that many great plagues have lingred and doe amongst us in this land for the poysoned and reviling speeches cast against God and his servants every where We sting his holy profession and servants incessantly and he stings us with the Scorpions of his Judgements 3. Beware of being weary of Manna Never did man complain of plenty of Manna but was justly stung with want of it Doe thou complain without cause and thou shalt have cause to complain Israel that complains of too much Manna shall shortly change their note and cry out of too many Serpents II. The kind of the disease The Lord sent fiery Serpents to sting them Where 1. Why Serpents 2. Why fiery 3. Why stinging 1. This disease by Serpents lively resembles our disease of soul which is no other than the fiery sting of the old Serpent which is the devill Rev. 12. 9. Our spiritual disease is hence noted to come from that old Serpent at first Now Satan is aptly compared to a Serpent in five respects 1.
onely a purifying of the flesh this of the Spirit and conscience 4. That cleansed from legall and bodily pollution this from morall called dead works 1. Because they proceeded from death of sinne 2. Because they lead to eternall death For the explaining of this ordinance consider four things 1. Whence the Cow must be 2. The properties or qualities 3. The actions about her 4. The use and end of it I. All the congregation must bring an heifer to Moses out of the heard 1. All the congregation for not one in the congregation but needs a meanes of purging 2. This meanes must be a Cow not an Oxe or Bull. The imbecillity of the sexe noteth the great humillity of our Lord Jesus who being the mighty Lyon of the tribe of Judah would so abase and weaken himselfe for our sakes 3. They must take her from the heard so our cleanser must be taken from among our selves being true and perfect man taking our nature and our flesh yea our infirmities as the weak sexe importeth in all things save sinne like unto us II. The properties required in this Cow are four 1. She must be an heifer in her youth and strength Christ offers himself and must be taken for a sacrifice in the flower of his strength at three and thirty yeares He offers his best gifts and dies in his strength and so his offering was more free and acceptable And we also should offer up our youth strength best times and gifts to Jesus Christ who offered himselfe in his best strength to death for us 2. The Cow must be red Signifying 1. The truth of Christs humane nature being of the same red earth that the first Adams body was 2. The grievousnesse of sinne which he was to undertake and the scarlet staine of it 3. The bitter and bloudy passion of Christ and his cruell death The red skin of the Cow resembled the red garments of Christ all besprinkled 1. With his own bloud 2. With the bloud of his conquered enemies 3. Presented unto his father like the coat of Joseph all stained with bloud 3. The Cow must be without spot or blemish to signifie the purity of our Lord Jesus in whom was never any spot or staine of sinne Though he was contented to be counted a sinner yet he was no sinner And though he had sinne on himselfe he had none in himselfe as the Cow was slaine for sinne not being sinful Christ was ruddy through his passion yet most white and spotlesse by his most perfect and absolute righteousnesse 4. She must be without yoke on which never yoke came Signifying 1. That Christ not necessarily but voluntarily took our nature that he might free us from our yoke 2. His absolute freedome from all the yoke of sinne farther than he voluntarily undertook the burthen of it 3. That he was never subject to the yoke of humane precepts and commandements being the Law-giver to prescribe Lawes to all not to receive Lawes from any 4. That none could compell him to suffer for sinne but his whole obedience active and passive was a free-will offering he having power to lay down his life and to take it up againe 5. He was more free from the yoke than any red heifer could be She indeed must be free in her selfe He not onely free in himselfe but he must free all believers from the yoke whom the sonne sets free they are free indeed III. The actions about the Cow were five ver 5. 1. Action 1. The Congregation must deliver the Cow to be slaine so was Christ delivered to be slaine by the whole body of the Jewes 2. She must not be delivered to Aaron but to Eleazer his successor signifying that the death of Christ serveth all the successions and ages of the Church and must be taught by the Ministers of all ages 2. Action She must be led out of the Camp and there burnt whole to ashes her skin flesh bloud and dung ver 5. Signifying 1. That Christ must be led out of the gate of Jerusalem to suffer Heb. 13. and there 2. must be crucified by which he was made a whole burnt offering 3. That whole Christ is our comfort his flesh our meat his bloud our drink yea the very base dung of those contumelies cast upon him were a part of his sacrifice offered up in the fire of his passion for us to sweeten and sanctifie ours 3. Action Eleazer must take of the bloud with his finger and sprinkle towards the foreside of the Tabernacle of the assembly seven times vers 4. Signifying 1. The purging of us by the bloud of Christ sprinkled on the Conscience 2. That Christs death profits none to whom it is not specially applied for the Cowes bloud must be not shed onely but sprinkled 3. That onely the people and Congregation of God have benefit of the death and bloud of Christ for it was sprinkled directly before the tabernacle 4. The seven times sprinkling noteth 1. That that one oblation hath virtue and merit enough 2. The perfection of justification 3. The need of often application of Christs death 4. The duration of it to all ages 4. Action She must be burnt with Cedar wood scarlet lace and hysope all which must be cast into the fire with her vers 6. Signifying 1. Three things in Christ. 1. The Cedar of uncorrupt life 2. The scarlet of fervent love to mankind 3. The hysop of savoury obedience in all things to his father all which were in all his sufferings and fire of his passion sweetning it 2. They noted three things arising from Christs sufferings 1. Immortality signified by the Cedar which is not subject to putrefaction 2. The scarlet the merit of his bloud applyed to justification 3. The hysope of mortification healing our corruptions aâ— hysope hath a healing quality All these three properly arise from the passion of Christ. 5. Action A clean person must gather the ashes of the heifer and lay them without the Camp in a clean place vers 9. Signifying 1. The buriall of Christ in a cleane and new tombe wherein never man lay a clean place never used before 2. That the merit of Christs death is ever laid before God in the highest and holiest heavens 3. The Christians account of Christs merit and passion who layeth them up as his chiefe treasure in the clean place of a pure heart and conscience an onely fit closet to keep the mystery of faith in IV. The use and end of these ashes was twofold vers 9. 1. They must be kept for the Congregation Signifying that there shall never want supply of grace and merit from the death of Christ to any believer that sees his need of them 2. Of them was made a water of separation thus A clean person took of the ashes of the red Cow burnt and put pure water into a vessell and taking hysope dipped it and sprinkled it upon the tent the persons and vessels and
alone Christ being to preach the Gospel fasted so long in the Wildernesse alone 2. Moses comming armed with authority for the Hebrews good was rejected both in his person and doctrine and message The Hebrew could say who made thee a judge And Pharaoh will not hearken Exod. 7. 4. Nay Pharaoh raged and oppressed the more Our true Moses comming to save the Jewes sped no better for thus they protested against him We have no King but Caesar Joh. 19. 15. And we will not have this man to raigne over us Yea his gracious words and potent works were still contemned and envied by the wicked Scribes and Pharisees as at this day by all the wicked in the world and there is no stilling of the rage of the Devil and his instruments where Christ is truly preached 3. Moses refused to be call'd the sonne of Pharaohs daughter and left the Court of Pharaoh to be partaker of the afflictions of Gods people Heb. 11. Christ descended from the Glory of heaven to save his elect and to suffer with them and for them as Moses could not do Yea he tooke on him our infirmities and sorrowes and on earth refused his right to be a King when they would have made him because his Kingdome was not of this world 4. Both were willing to dye at Gods commandement both went up into a mount to dye Moses on mount Abarim Christ on Golgotha Both carefull to supply their absence to their people Moses by appointing Joshua his successor Christ by sending his spirit to lead his people into all truth IV. In sundry particular actions 1. Moses lift up the serpent in the wildernesse So was Christ lift up Joh. 3. 14. 2. Moses obtained flesh in the wildernesse to feed many thousands So Christ in the desert fed many thousands with a few loaves and fishes 3. Moses married an AEthiopisse a stranger blacke Christ marrieth the Gentiles strangers and in the Encomium of his Church it is said I am blacke but comely Cant 1. 4. 4. Moses sweetned the bitter waters of Marah by the tree cast in Exod. 15. 25. Christ sweetens our afflictions by the wood of his Crosse Hebr. 2. 10. 5. Moses was called a God Aarons God for directing him in things of God Exod. 4. 16. and Pharaohs God Exod. 7. 1. For executing on him as God Gods judgements But Christ is indeed God most wise in counsell most potent in revenge 6. Moses delivered Israel through the Red-sea by his Rod Exod. 14. So Christ his Church from death by his Crosse through the red-sea of his bloud 7. Never was God so clearly seen by the eve of flesh as to Moses who talked face to face But never did Creature see his face but Christ Joh. 1. 18. 8. As Moses was transfigured on an hill Sinai and so glorious as Israel could not behold his face So was Christ on mount Tabor so as his disciples were amazed and wist not what they said 9. As Christ after death rose most gloriously So Moses body after his death was most gloriously raised in which he was talking with Christ on the mount in his transfiguration Matth. 17. 2. 10. Moses face was covered with a vaile Our Moses with the vaile of his flesh hid the glory of his Deity and put on vilenesse in stead of majesty that men might behold him and see and hear him and beleeve I. The doctrine of Religion which we teach is of God For 1. We teach no other than what Moses taught nor no other than what Jesus Christ taught the one being faithfull as a servant the other as the sonne in the house For as there were not two Churches of the old and new Testament So is there but one faith one doctrine in substance onely differing in manner of delivery 2. This doctrine was perfectly fully and faithfully delivered to the Church seeing both were so faithfull If there be a doctrine of traditions unwritten If a doctrine of merits of purgatory of intercession of Saints then was Christ unfaithful and did not reveale the whole will of his father Paul a servant revealed the whole will of God Acts 20. 27. Was the Sonne lesse faithfull 3. This doctrine is fully and sufficiently confirmed by many and mighty miracles both in Moses the servant and in Christ the Sonne and being no new doctrine it needs no new miracles It is too idle to call for other miracles when they cannot prove that we bring any other doctrine If we should bring in strange and lying doctrines never known to Moses or Christ as they do we would cast about for lying wonders and pretend fabulous miracles to proove them as they do II. Whatsoever office or function God sets thee in be faithfull so was Moses the servant so was Christ the Sonne Hast thou an high place in Gods house as Moses be faithfull see 1 Tim. 1. 12. Art thou but a door-keeper in Gods house be faithfull in faithfull performing of whatsoever God reveales to be his will Hast thou received any talent lay it out to thy Lords advantage else canst thou not be faithfull Let thy care and study be to be found not onely faultlesse but faithfull in all things according to thy Christian profession that faithfullnes may be thy praise and crown in Magistracy Ministery private life in the whole practise of religion and also thy comfort living and dying when the Lord shall witnesse unto thee as to Moses in his life time Numb 12. 7 8. and dead Deutremon 34. 5 10. Moses the servant of the Lord died and there arose no such Prophet III. Labour to expresse the fruit of faith Heb. 11. 26. to preferre the state of Gods people above all earthly profits and prerogatives account the despised condition of the Saints above the admired happinesse of wicked men Moses would joyne himselfe to them when he might have been in the height of honour Christ would not be in heaven without them but endured more affliction than Moses could to enjoy them Hence observe four sorts of people that are not of Christs nor of Moses minde 1. Polititians who take the honour and profit of the Gospel but will none of the afflictions of Christ. 2. Proud persons who will not looke so low as on afflicted Christians 3. Temporizers that looke a squint on them if any suffer for well-doing 4. Scorners that despise the society and exercises of Gods people as too base company and courses for them Let all such know 1. That Christ in heaven scornes them not nor withdrawes himself from them yea heaven would not please him without them 2. That the fellowship of a Kings Court such as Pharaohs in riot feasting drinking gaming is hatefull to a sound mind in comparison of the society of the miserable and persecuted Saints though a fleshly eye cannot see it 3. That it will be no great comfort to beleeve the Communion of Saints and not enjoy it 4. That they which despise it here
the sea so all beleevers by the death of Jesus Christ. 1. Let us not measure Gods works by carnall senses This made the two disciples going to Emaus Luk. 24. to make but a bad argument He is crucified and behold this is the third day therefore though we thought he should have redeemed Israel we are deceived Whereas faith would have made a clean contrary conclusion He is crucified and this is the third day therefore he is the Redeemer The Jewes not knowing the Scriptures and power of God are hardned against Jesus Christ expecting a great Emperour as Julius Caesar or some great Monarch not able to see that by so base a death life could be procured The carnall protestants are held off from the true embracing of Christ because they see the truth and sincerity of Christ every where so resisted and hated by great Rulers and Doctors as if it had not been so in Christs own person and Ministery or as if Christ was not set as a signe or butt of contradiction whereas therefore it must needs be he 2. Let us admire Gods power and wisedome and patiently with Jonah expect after darknesse light And seeing God can turne the greatest evill into the greatest good of his Church let us labour to make benefit of all evils hapning to our selves and others 1. Even of our sinnes themselves to make us more humble watchful for time to come 2. Of our sufferings as Jonah and Christ learned obedience by the things they suffered V. In the type and truth we have first terror on the one hand secondly comfort on the other 1. We see the weight of sinne committed pressed Jonah into the deepest sea of evills and sinne imputed thrust Christ into a deeper sea even the deepest hell Both seem left of God in the hands of death both cry out as left in the depth of hell 1. Do thou run from God and duty and though thou beest Gods childe thou maist find God pursuing thee as if he were an utter and irreconcileable enemy 2. Make as light a reckoning of sinne as thou canst the least of them shuts us or Christ out of heaven Doth Christ undertake thy sinne he sees not heaven till he die for it Sinne imputed will not let Christ enter into heaven but by his own bloud yea through hell Thy sinne repented of held Christ an innocent out of heaven till he died for it but where shall ungodly and impenitent sinners appear 2. This same collation affords us sundry grounds of comfort First both seem forsaken neither of them was so but both of them go to his God There is no time nor place wherein the child of God may not boldly goe to God and pray to his God and say My God my God Secondly no deepe is so deepe but Gods hand can reach helpe into it even into the Whales belly and heart of the earth Thirdly the extreamest misery and death it selfe work to good to the godly See it in Jonah Where was feared perdition there was found preservation The Whales belly was a prison indeed but to preserve him alive a deepe gulfe and a sea but to save him from drowning Can any man save a man from drowning by casting him into the Sea but God can Fourthly when the case seems most desperate then the Lord steps in to help When no helpe can be expected any other way after three dayes and three nights Jonah must be cast up and Christ raised up Never feare extreamities but then exercise thy faith most for then is God the nearest howsoever trust in him though he kill thee Job 13. 15. Fifthly the deepest sorrowes of Gods children end in greatest joy God hath a dry ground for Jonah after a sea of misery a glorious ascending for Christ after his lowest descent Whatsoever the sorrowful songs be that Gods people sing here in Egypt or Babel they shall end in songs of joy and victory and be changed into the songs of Moses and the Lambe Rev. 15. 3. CHAP. XIII The first-born Types of Christ 4. waies HAving spoken of holy types in sundry speciall persons now of personal types in some rankes and orders of men sanctified and specially separated to the Lord. Of whom 1. Some were sanctified by birth the first-borne 2. Some by office Priests especially the High-Priest 3. Some by vow as Nazarites 4. Some by ceremony as cleane persons legally cleansed from uncleanenesse Of these the first-borne were speciall types of Jesus Christ. 1. As they were Gods peculiar Exod. 13. 2. Sanctifie unto me all the first-born for it is mine Quest. How were they Gods Answ. 1. By common nature But so were all both first and last borne through the world For all the world and inhabitants of it are his Psal. 24. 1. 2. By common grace So all the people of the Jewes by reason of common grace were his with whom God had plighted his gratious covenant which was made to Abraham and all his seed wheresoever they were borne of whom he made choice as his peculiar though all the earth was his Exod. 4. 22. Israel is my first-borne that is not onely the first people and nation that first professed the true worship of God and had priority of the Gentiles who were younger brethren but the first-born by a special election and choice of that from all other people whom he would accept as his beloved in the Messiah the first-born of all creatures and among whom he would stablish his covenant and raise up his worship thus he dealt not with other nations 3. By a speciall right The first-born of Israel were Gods by a singular right as no other Children of any other family were namely by right of that singular deliverance of all the first-born when he destroyed all the first-born of Egypt And therefore presently after that destruction he makes challenge of them Exod. 13. 2. Thus is Jesus Christ the Lords first-born by a singular right not common to man or Angell whether we respect his nature or office 1. In his nature he is first-born as sonne of God the first begotten of all creatures Col. 1. 15. begot before all Creation And thus he is not onely the first begotten before whom there was none but the onely begotten after whom is none Joh. 1. 14. the onely begotten Sonne of the Father the first-born without a second or brother 2. In his office he was first-born by speciall prerogative 1. For the kind 2. For the undertaking 3. For the accomplishing 1. For the kind in that he was Mediator God and man in unity of person and the onely redeemer of his Church In this regard Rom. 8. 29. he is called the first-born among many brethren Which phrase noteth quality not equality with him some similitude but no parity between him and beleevers He holds his birth-right as the Sonne of God by nature and we by grace made the Sons of God he disdaines not to call us brethren
all the members of his mysticall body the Catholike Church First the Spirit descends and sits on Christs head then on the Apostles in likenesse of fiery tongues running down as it were by Aarons beard and from them upon other inferior persons beleeving their word as unto the skirts of his garment Psal. 133. 2. Now a threefold Application hereof I. In the anointing of the high Priest the eminency of Jesus Christ above all creatures whose very name carrieth in it a note of principality being called the high Priest of our profession And in that this whole consecration of the high Priest in most solemne and stately manner was but a dark shadow of his selemne inauguration into his Office And by this anointing Christ is differenced from the most excellent Priests and Prophets that ever were Aaron Moses Elias Some of them had a most glorious vocation as Moses and in the entry of their callings graced with most divine and powerfull miracles but never any had the spirit sitting on his head but he None of them by their anointing had all graces nor any grace in perfection but onely begun and in small degree Moses a beleever wanted faith sometime as when he smote the Rock which he should have spoken to and the meekest man in the world was sometime to seek of his meknesse Aaron though the oyle was powred on his head was weak as in murmuring against Moses in making the calf But in our high Priest all graces virtues were not inchoate onely but perfect In him knowledge of God was most perfect holiness most perfect and all kind of graces in highest degrees Grace sits in his lips not onely to move the mind but to change it None of them by anointing could receive graces for others but for themselves onely but he receives such a measure as runns over to the sanctifying of the lowest and meanest of his members Hence 1 Joh. 2. 27. the anointing which we have of him dwels in you and teacheth you all things And 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. It is God that anointeth us in Christ and sealeth and giveth us the earnest of the Spirit Thus our Lord Jesus is advanced above all his oyle shines brightest and swimmes aloft above all others II. In Aaron's and Christs anointing and furnishing to their Office Ministers must labour for a greater measure of this ointment than others to run down from them to their skirts They must pray by the Spirit watch by the Spirit walk by the Spirit An unconverted Minister may do another good but he hath no prmise of blessing nor doth any good to himselfe As the holy ointment was kept in the Sanctuary So Christ is the Sanctuary whence this oyle comes The pipes are the Word preached Sacraments Prayer societies of the Saints and Gods people And such Ministers as contemptuously contemne the conduit-pipes through which this oyle drops and flowes scorne to come to Sermons and joyne in holy exercises how doth their oyle dry away Instead of this oyle that should fall from them a deale of pitch and slime froth and filthinesse falls on their skirts III. In the communication of this ointment unto us the skirts we learn that Christ is not for himselfe but for us And therefore 1. Examine if thou beest anointed This is to be a Christian to be anointed as Christ was Scornest thou this holy oyle in thy selfe or others Know thou shalt one day wish the mountaines to fall on thee on whom this oyle falls not 2. Hence draw strength in temptation Remember If sollicited to sinne Oh I have the anointing I am taken up and set apart to Gods use I am for God and his glory Neh. 6. 11. 3. Use meanes to attaine a farther measure and be liker Christ. Thou missest a Sermon or the Sacrament thou knowest not what drops of oyle thou hast missed 4. Have a care to walk as such as are anointed smelling sweet every where in holy lives speeches prayers in all things edifying thy self and others Leave a sweet smell every where behind thee Let it drop down from us to others round about us The third thing in the high Priests consecration was sacrificing Exod. 29 1 2. In which 1. Observe in general that the Priests must be consecrated by offering all sorts of sacrifices for them and therefore they must take a calfe two rammes unleavened bread cakes and oyle verse 1 2. 1. Because of the speciall holinesse and honour of their calling who are to come so near unto God who will be specially sanctified in all that come near him 2. Because sinne in them is more hatefull than in any other and in expiating their sinnes as much is required as for the sins of all the congregation 3. Because they were to offer unto God all the gifts and sacrifices of all the people of all sorts and therefore for them must be offered all sorts to sanctifie them not onely in generall but to their speciall services between God and his people 2. In particular The first of these sacrifices must be a sinne offering verse 10. For which they must 1. Take a calfe and offer him for the expiation of sinne verse 14. This young calfe was a type of Christ who onely by his own oblation expiated our sinne which otherwise made our selves and duties most hatefull 2. This calfe must be presented before the Lord and his Congregation signifying the willingnesse of Christ to offer up himselfe for the sinnes of men Joh. 19. 11. 3. Aaron and his sonnes must put their hands on the head-of the calfe verse 10. not onely to confesse they were worthy to die for their own sins but to professe also that the death which they deserved was by the death of the Messiah the high Priest of the new Testament removed off them and transferred upon the beast And not onely the imputation of our sinnes upon Christ but also is signified that we must lay our hand by a true faith upon Christ our head if we expect any comfort from his death and passion 4. The calfe must be killed before the Lord at the doore of the Tabernacle verse 11. signifying both the death and crucifying of Christ as also the fruit of it by the place That by his death as by a doore an entry is made for us into the Church both militant and triumphant Heb. 10 20. 5. The bloud of that sinne-offering for the Priest must be put on the hornes of the Altar and the rest powred at the foot of the Altar verse 12. signifying 1. The sufficiency of Christs death to purge and reconcile us to God 2. The plenty of grace and merit in it for many more than are saved by it For being sufficient for all it is not helpfull to all nor to any that tread under foot this pretious bloud the extent of the benefit is to all the elect 3. The large spreading and preaching of the Gospel of salvation by Christs bloud through
enjoyning single life to the Clergy sent for fish to his ponds and had six thousand heads whereupon sighing he said it is better to marry than to burn Bede denies the story although of Huldericus Bishop of Augusta to Pope Nicholas III. A third Law for common actions He must be very moderate in mourning for the dead Levit. 21. 2 3. the ordinary priest must mourne onely for his mother father sonne daughter brother or his sister if a maid because she was yet in the house and family but without the family he might not lament for any no not for the Prince verse 4. Qu. Might he not mourne for his wife For some think not because she is not named neither in that Law nor in the repetition of it Ezech. 44. 25. Answ. I think he might but the wife is not named because 1. she is one with himselfe 2. If for our daughter and sister much more for wife which is nearer 3. The Prophet Ezechiel was charged not to mourne for his wife being a Prophet and Priest Ezech. 24. 16. which seems an exception from the ordinary manner But for the high Priest Levit. 21. 12. he might not mourne for any of them named neither in likelyhood for his wife nor uncover his head nor rent his clothes nor go to any dead body nor go out of the Sanctuary for the crown of the anoynting oyle of his God is upon his head This Law had in it both ceremony and perpetuity in substance of it In the ceremony the Priest might not mourn for the dead 1. Because mourning for the dead was counted a Legall uncleannesse vers 11. 2. The oyle of holy ointment was upon his head being oyle of gladnesse 3. They must be contrary to the foolish manner and fashion of the Priests and People of the Gentiles who were so passionate and excessive in their affected and sometimes forced mourning as they fell into indecent and unlimited behaviours 4. The Priest and especially the high Priest was to be a type of eternity and therefore must shew no such sign of weaknesse and corruption as weeping is Hence it is that we read not of the death of an high Priest but ever before his death another was appointed and installed So before Aaron dyed Eleazer was installed and before his death was Phinias Numb 20. 28. Hence it is that we read not of their raignes and times and how long or how short any of them lived as of the Judges and Kings which closely noteth and implyeth unto us that they were types of eternity and immortality 5 In the Ceremony this Law had a speciall ayme and respect to Jesus Christ our high Priest in whom was no blot no spot or morall pollution as that high Priest most carefully was restrained from every Legall pollution He wept indeed sundry times for the dead as Lazarus c. because he was to abolish the Legall ceremonies and this among other It being in him sufficient that most perfectly he preserved himselfe from morall pollution In which sence he never uncovered his head that is was never so weak or inglorious by passion but that he ever maintained union with his father and abode the powerfull head of his Church Neither did he rent his garments that is his holy flesh baked as it were in the oven of afflictions extended and rent on the Crosse cast aside in the grave was never rent off from his divinity but was ever from the first moment of Hypostaticall union present with it and shall be for all eternity He never goes out of the Sanctuary to mourne for the dead for the Crown and oyle of God is upon him For as in his life he being mosth oly was not subiect to be quite subdued in the house of death so now after his resurrection he hath attained all excellency of glory and happinesse free from all misery and sorrow never to be interrupted any more by any griefe or adversary power The Crowne of God is set upon his head for ever Revel 4. 9 10. The perpetuity and substance of this Law concernes both Ministers and people 1. To teach both the one and the other not to grow into excesse of sorrow or passion but to be examples of gravity moderation and well wielding of affections and to be patterns of patience and holy obedience in suffering extream adversities as well as in the actions and exercise of practick virtues 2. To give testimony of their hope and assurance of the happy resurrection of their friends for whom they must not sorrow as men without hope 1 Thes. 4. 13. 3. To shew that no occasion or naturall affection no not the nearest and greatest change befalling their outward estate might distract them from their charge and duty or so disquiet the peaceable tranquility of their mindes as any part might be hindered for matter or manner And therefore in this case our Saviour confirming the perpetuall equity of this Law saith Let the dead bury their dead follow thou me Mat. 8. 22. And the Lord is so strict in this case Levit. 10. 6. that when Aarons sonnes were so strangely slaine before his face he must not mourne nor stir a foot out of his Ministery least he dye and therefore the text saith Aaron held his peace vers 3. So no outward respect of duty to friends must call us from duty to God Object If the Priest must not weep how could they seriously repent of their sins Answ. The Priest must not weep for any temporal losses nor for personall losses and in naturall regards he must be impassionate but for his sinnes he might Jeremy a Prophet and Priest wisheth his head a fountaine of tears Jer. 9. 1. The high priest must weep for his own and the peoples sinnes in the day of expiation and if he weep not he must die So Joel 2. 17. all the Priests must howle and cry and weep between the porch and the Altar Christ wept often and all for sinne as for Lazarus on the Crosse over Jerusalem Whence we note 1. That the proper cause of mourning is sinne He that must not shed a teare for any other cause in the world must shed teares for his sinne upon paine of death Oh that they would think of this that glory in their sinne 2. Let us so order our affections as that our principall mourning may be for our sinnes and bind up our affections for outward and naturall losses and crosses so as we may have them loosed in spirituall This Law tells us that sorrow for our onely sonne or brother or the deare wife that lieth in our bosome ought to be no sorrow in comparison of sorrow for sinne Which 1. Separates from God 2 Makes Christ absent and stand aloofe 3. Grieves the the Spirit and makes him heavy towards us 4. Separates soule from body yea without repentance soule and body from heaven and happinesse Let us who have been excessive in worldly
truely humbled and prepared for Christ nor can expect a good estate in him whose daily corrupt issues from an overflowing fountaine make him not seem marvellous filthy and unclean in his own eyes 1. What is the reason that so many do Pharisaically pride themselves if not in the goodnesse of their persons yet in some blind hopes and presumptions that they be not so bad as they are or as some others be but because they never saw themselves in this glasse which onely lets a man see himselfe a masse of sinne a lump of uncleannesse and that no good thing is in his nature which in no part is free from the running issues of that festred and inbred sinne 2. Why do many doat upon their own works and sightly actions either to Popish confidence in them as meritorious or at least with many Protestants to rest in the civility and morality of them without farther pursuit of the power of religion but that they see not that so evill trees cannot send forth any good fruit nor so bitter fountaines any sweet water which could they but discerne they would be weary of the best of their righteousnesse and cast it away with Paul as dung and conclude that when Aloes and wormwood yeeld a sweet taste then might their fruits be sweet and tastfull to God and themselves 3. Why do so many thousands contest against grace stand upon their honesty good neighbourhood hospitality charity they thanke God they are no blasphemers no drunkards adulterers murderers they wash the outside come to Church hear sermons are outwardly clean and formall no man can challenge them no nor they themselves but because they never saw the infection of their soules nor the inordinacy of their inner man which is a fountaine ever overflowing all the banks most dangerous most secret hardest to find out and hardest to cure and this deceives thousands in their reckonings 4. Why is the righteousness of faith in the bloud of Christ so much undervalued and men so hardly driven out of themselves to seek righteousnesse by him But because they see not their own uncleannesse and therein their hatefull estate before God untill Christ the high Priest have made atonement for them For as that man who being sick to death feels not his sicknesse nor discerns the depth and dangers of it seeks not greatly after the Physitian he applies either no meanes or some idle and impertinent things to small purpose so he that sees not the misery of his disease of sinne sees not the need of Christ neglects the right meanes and contentedly deludes himselfe running any whether but to the right remedy It is fit and fruitfull to look a little nearer this disease of nature that we may not onely make conscience of the foulnesse of nature but be thrust out of our selves to the meanes of our cleansing Considering 1. That this uncleane issue which the Legall issues point us unto is a sinne against the whole Law of God in all branches of it whereas other sinnes are against one of the Tables and one of the Commandements 2. This poyson of nature is the same in all men that all may be humbled who are born children of the devill enemies to righteousnesse all of us being in our very birth sonnes of death for in Adam all are dead And as an image of rotten wood must needs be rotten so we hewn out of so rotten a stock Who is it that is not a Leper from the wombe Let any man thrust his hand into his bosome as Moses did Exod. 4. 6. and he shall pull it out againe leprous and as white as snow Every man hath cause to cry with the Leper I am uncleane I am uncleane The spawne of a Serpent are Serpents and what are we but the spawn the seed of Adam 3. This Issue is a generall disorder of the whole man and of all parts Neither is bodily leprosie more generall and universally spread over all the members than sinne in the soule which is seated in all the members so as from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is nothing sound but ataxy or disorder in want of all goodnesse in all parts and pronenesse to all evill 4. Miserable are the effects of this close uncleanenesse As 1. In this Image of sinne no ugly toad can be so hatefull to us as we unto God 2. The whole man lies subject under the curse and wrath of God Rom. 5. 18. the fault came on all men to condemnation 3. Nothing can proceed from us but what is foule and damnable What can a Serpent cast out but poyson Whatsoever our own strength or will can bring forth is tainted with this leprosie for free will remaineth onely to evill 4. Nothing without us that we can touch but we taint till we be cleansed noted in the infection of houses vessels garments Both earthly things all the creatures all our comforts actions to the unpure all is so yea divine actions the word Sacraments prayer almes all polluted by us and to us so long as we be unconverted and in our uncleane nature 5. An unregenerate man can converse with no man but as a Leper he infects him by example provocation corrupt opinions frothy speeches fruitlesse behaviour And if they that poyson mens bodies are worthy extreame punishment and every man detests them how much more severe wrath of God are they liable unto that do nothing but poison mens soules 6. No Leper was so worthily cast out of the campe as all of us by nature are worthily cast out of the society of Saints in earth and in heaven yea from the presence and fellowship of God and Jesus Christ and that for ever Sinne properly shuts out of heaven no unclean thing comes there nothing more hateful to God nothing but that hated by him 7. All this misery we our selves can neither discerne nor remedy It makes us pure in our owne eyes though we be not washed Prov. 30. 12. We lie wallowing in our filthinesse and delight in it as the swine in the myre and never are cured till we get out of our selves to the high Priest in whom onely it is perfectly to cleanse and cure us Now seeing in this glasse our own disease and need of cure let us returne to the meanes of our cure in these three severall sorts of uncleanenesse and in the legall be led to the cure of morall uncleannesse Thus of the kinds of legall uncleanenesse Next all Legall uncleanenesse was to be cured two waies 1. By ablution or washing 2. By oblation or offering Both these were appointed for all kinds as in particular 1. For uncleane touchings and tastings the parties must wash their clothes Lev. 11. 40. 2. For unclean issues they must wash themselves and their clothes Lev. 15. 13. 3. For uncleanness of Leprosie they must wash themselves their clothes and besides shave off all their haire and stay seven daies without the camp
consumed with fire as the burnt offering was but slaine for the expiation of sinne The use of which was to figure and seale up to the Jews the expiation of their sinnes in Christ. Now Christ is made manifest for the doing away of sinne by the slaine sacrifice of himselfe Heb. 9. 26. and see vers 28. The burnt offering was a sacrifice in which the whole beast or bird was consumed with fire offered up therein to God for a savour of rest namely to appease and pacifie Gods wrath for some sinne or sinnes committed Which signified that Christ was to be a whole burnt offering and to be wholly consumed in soule and body with the fire of his Fathers wrath that he might be a sweet smelling savour for us He gave himselfe for us a sacrifice and oblation for a sweet smelling savour Neither did the believing Jewes think that God was appeased by any virtue in the burnt-offering but through the eternall sacrifice of Christ shadowed therein 2. What were the ceremonies about these foules for they all pointed at Christ. 1. For the sinne offering of foules the ceremonies are appointed Levit. 5. 8 9. and they be three 1. Rite The Priest must wring the neck of the Dove asunder but not pluck it clean off and the same rite in the burnt-offering The neck must be pincht with the naile of the Priest to let out the bloud but the head must not be pluckt off from the body Signifying 1. That although Christ was to die yet his divinity and humanity should not be severed 2. That the death of this innocent Dove should not interrupt his headship of the Church He was to be pinched to death but his head should not be severed from his body and members which is the Church 3. That Christ should die indeed but no bone of him must be broken Joh. 19. 36. Shadowed also in the Passover 2. Rite The Priest must sprinkle the bloud of the sinne offering upon the side of the Altar vers 9. and the like in the burnt offering Chap. 1. 15. Signifying that all the virtue and merit of Christs bloud for the purging of sinne was drawn from the Altar of his Deity He must be God that must purchase the Church with his bloud Act. 20. 28. and 〈◊〉 Cor. 5. 19. God was in Christ. 3. Rite All the rest of the bloud must be powred out at the foot of the Altar Signifying not onely the powring out of the bloud of Jesus Christ our true sinne offering upon the Altar of the Crosse without which shedding of bloud can be no remission of sinnes but also the bloud powred at the foot of the Altar that is those clots and drops of bloud plentifully flowing from him in his agony before his passion Luke 22. 44. as he was going up to the Crosse. 2. For the Dove appointed for the burnt offering besides the former rites some other are appointed 1. The Priest must pluck out the maw with his feathers and cast them besides the Altar on the East side in the place of the ashes For these were things unclean and signified that Christ should bring no unclean thing to his suffering but present a most spotlesse and holy oblation to the Lord for else had it not been of sweet smell 2. The Priest must divide and cleave the bird with his winges but not asunder signifying Christ who seemed by his death to be burnt extinct and perished for so he was in the esteem of his own disciples as they were going to Emaus but yet he was not quite sundered but rose againe by his own power and ever liveth sitting at his Fathers right hand to make request for us Yea his own words might seem to imply a sundering when he saith Why hast thou for saken me but that the ingemination of his former words my God my God doth strongly prove the contrary 3. This bird must be throughly consumed to ashes to make it a sweet savour to the Lord Levit. 1. 17. signifying that never was any thing so gratefull and acceptable to the Lord as the whole burnt sacrifice of his Sonne in which he smelled a savour of eternall rest To which the Psalmist alludeth Let him smell a savour of all thy oblations and turn thy burnt offerings into ashes Psal. 20. 3. 4. When all these rites were observed the party that was unclean shall be clean Levit. 12. 8. and Chap. 15. 13 28. signifying that a party justified by Christs bloud and exercising true repentance and the study of holinesse and new life is brought in againe into the right and fellowship of God and his people whatsoever his uncleannesse formerly hath been And thus hath the legall cleansing of this person brought us to the Evangelicall in Jesus Christ I. Sundry grounds of consolation to the Church and people of God 1. As Christ seemed clean divided and sundered from his Father from his Church but was not so his members often seem quite sundered from God and all comfort but are not and Ch. 6. 9. A godly man may be in such a streight as David was when thus he brake forth to Jonathan As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth there is but one step between me and death And yet when he can see no passage God makes a passage forth Hence may a Christian with Paul challenge all perills and dangers and contemne them as too weak to separate us from Christ Rom. 8. 39. yea in all things we are not onely conquerours but more than conquerours So was Christ in death and from under the grave more than a conquerour Let a Christian be slain it hinders him not from being a conquerour and what ever he may loose he looseth not the love of God who loveth him to the end whom he once loveth and therefore onely the sound Christian is in a sure estate If sorrow be for a night joy will returne in the morning after darkenesse as sure to see light As Jesus Christ keeps his headship and death cannot sever him quite so the members may be pinched yet not quite off but abide members still 2. As the speciall providence of God watched his own sonne that though he was in wicked hands that wanted no will yet they were kept from breaking one bone of him so doth the same providence watch over his members that howsoever the wicked of the world pinch and presse them yet the promise is made to them Psal. 34. 20. He keeps all their bones not one of them is broken that is without the will of our heavenly Father as Matth. 10. 29. Not an haire shall fall for the same providence watcheth the head and members This consideration is used by Christ to remove excessive fear of men If thou see thine enemies encrease as bees about thee ready to strike and sting Let thy waies please the Lord he can 1. turne their hearts to peace as Esaus to Jacob when he purposed his death and Labans to
congealed water as upon firme land but they walked in the bottome of the Sea as on dry land Who could deny but it had been a work of omnipotency for the Lord to have made the sea on a sudden a pavement for Israel as hard as Christal to have walked firme upon but because every strong frost congeales the water according to nature that had been lesse glorious more questionable But he provides for the clearness of his own glory by effecting a work above yea against the whole frame of nature 3. That the waters should stand as a solid wall on both sides which are naturally fluid and seeing nothing is so hardly contained within bounds as liquid waters it was exceeding miraculous And that the bottome of the Sea should on the suddain become firme and dry ground Exod. 14. 22. and even as an high way was not the least of these miracles 4. That the same Sea at the same time should be both calm and tempestuous For the mighty winds and tempests were so strong against the Egyptians that it brake their Chariot wheeles and they could hardly move or stirre against it yet all the same time it was a peaceable calm to Israel who were very near them 5. The time of the standing of the waters on so vast an heap whereon learned men agree not any way concluded is most miraculous Some think as Chytraeus that for so many thousands yea hundred thousands of men women and children to walk a soft pace and to drive their cattel so many miles must needs take them four or five dayes time and then the waters to stand so long was admirable Others think they went through in one night for the text mentioneth but one night and then was it no lesse miraculous to convey so much people and cattel so much way in so small time 6. That the same Sea at the same time should be both a gulfe and devourer and yet a saver from devourers That the same Sea at the same time should both retire back and yet return to its course for the Waters returned upon the Egyptians on the one side of the Sea when Israel was not fully over on the other as appeareth by comparing verse 26. with verse 29. That the same Sea at the same time should move and stand with such judgement and distinction as not one Egyptian was saved verse 28. not one Israelite drowned verse 30. II. Now consider this great work of God as a signification and type of Christ which it must needs be as it is a Sacrament which we must consider both in the constitution and in the consequents or effects of it in all directly pointing us to Jesus Christ hereby typified In the first to the Corin. 10. 2. the Apostle saith that all the Fathers were baptized in the sea whence I gather three conclusions I. Conclusion That this was a Sacrament figuring our baptisme and that all necessary institutions of a Sacrament concur in it As 1. The Author was God the Institutor both of the Covenant and seales Exod. 14. 30. 2. The Minister was Moses verse 31. 3. The Covenant sealed was Gods promise and word for their deliverance verse 15. 4. The sign of the Covenant was Moses stretching of his hand both for the dividing of the Sea verse 16. and the returning of it again verse 27. 5. The thing signified was salvation by the Messiah and all spiritual and eternal benefits and deliverances procured by him sealed up in this miracle 6. The faith of the Israelites was the same hand with ours to receive the same benefits and things signified verse 31. They believed God Heb. 11. 29 By faith they passed thorough the Red Sea c. II. Conclusion There was not one of these actions in this temporal deliverance but it signified and sealed such actions to the believing Israelites as both confirmed their faith in the Covenant and set forward their salvation meritted by the Messiah and so still led them to Christ. As in these examples 1. God in leading his people to Canaan made them a safe way through the Sea signifying to their faith that God offered them Jesus Christ the promised Messiah through the red sea of whose death and passion they should find a sure and safe way to passe them through a full sea of troubles to the true celestial Canaan and by him as by a firme way to walk forward to eternal life 2. When they saw the same Jehovah to divide the sea into his division Junius calleth them cuttings off and to drive away the raging waters from overflowing them this action signified to their faith that the Son of God by his merit and mediation would carry them through all difficulties and dangers as deep as the bottome of the sea unto eternal rest and so rebuke the seas of their sorrows and drive back the raging waves of terrors and temptations that threaten their destruction that they shall safely and happily passe through the sea as it were on dry land 3. When they saw Jehovah the Sonne of God present with them in the voyage and that he made the sea return to his force again both to save themselves and to overthrow the Egyptians It signified to their faith the action of Christ freeing his elect from all spirituall forces and armies pursuing them as also by a mighty overthrow swallowing up and devouring in the bottomlesse sea of his wrath all those that come out and stand against them III. Conclusion There is no Evangelicall blessing by Christ sealed to us by baptisme which was not signified and sealed to them in the Red Sea So as Christ was as truly represented to them as to us though not so clearly and the truth and substanre of his merits exhibited to them as to us onely in a manner more obscure and clouded As in examples 1. If the waters of Baptisme seal up to believers that the bloud of Christ alone saveth and defendeth the people of God from eternal death and damnation What could be more plainly signified by the waters of the Red Sea saving Israel from present death and destruction 2. Baptisme signifieth to us that by the bloud of Christ in which Red Sea all believers must be baptised there is a dying and a burial unto sin and a rising unto newnesse of life What could be more plainly signified by the Baptisme of the fathers in the Red Sea who were after a sort buried in the waters but after raised to the shoare and restored to land and life 3. By the benefit of Baptisme in which the Red Sea of Christs bloud is truly applyed our old man and flesh is truly mortified buried and destroyed but the new man is quickned and repaired and now new motions desires affections are stirred up and preserved in the hearts of believers what could be more expresly signified to the Fathers by the overthrow of Pharaoh and his hoste in the Red Sea and the escape of the Israelites
safe and sound 4. When they did see themselves by the benefit of the Red Sea freed from Pharaohs servitude how easily might they gather that by the bloud of Christ every believer of Jewes and Gentiles are freed from the slavery of hellish Pharaoh and all his Armies of sinnes and corruptions And when they did see how the Egyptians once dead and slain could hurt them no more how could they but gather that all the armies of sin once remitted and buried in the death of Christ can no more rise up to condemnation than a drowned Egyptian to drown an Israelite I. To note the mighty power of God who can still and over-master the mighty raging of the Sea which we see here in that its water dry land sands and shoare observe the providence of God and serve for his peoples safety Israel saw the mighty power of God herein Exod. 14. 31. Let us also behold the glory of God herein and fear before him as they did Let not us be more senseless than the senselesse creatures but hear his voice runne out of our own nature to observe his voice sounding in the Scriptures and Ministry of the Gospel II. To see and consider the state of the Church and people of God Canaan whither they goe is a fine and fertile countrey but the way is asperous and dangerous They are still as it were in the bottome of the sea enemies implacable at their heeles in infinite numbers Seas of waters dreadful to behold on both hands yea rising over their heads as mountaines threatning to fall over them and after a deep sea a terrible wildernesse takes them in which is no meanes for meat drink nor cloath A man would think no man could deal so with his children and yet Gods wisdom sees this the fittest way to Canaan He sees how 1. Every small content glewes us to our Egypt 2 What sluggs we are in the way farther than we are chased out 3. How little we care for dependance on himself when we are full of naturall comforts 4. That Canaan is so rich a land as is worthy all our labour and suffering Apply this note to awake thee out of thy ease and carnall slumber If thy way be so easie and pleasing to flesh sure it leads not to Canaan suspect it The Israelites going into Egypt had no enemies nor troubles meeting them but going into Canaan they had nothing else Strait is the way that leads to life and all the way to heaven is strowed with crosses Apply it also to secure thee in thy troubles Art thou in a deep danger or sorrow like the bottome of the sea It is no worse with thee than with the rest of the people of God No affliction overtakes thee but the same hath befaln the Saints in the world Hold on to Canaan and all is safe Canaan is worth all Happy thou if thou canst get to Canaan though thy passage be through the bottome of the sea III. To observe what a many comforts this great work of God will load us withal that are willing to carry them away For. I. The Lord in strange and unwonted dangers can work new and unwonted remedies for his children As we heard before that fire shall not burn them so here the Sea at his word of restraint shall not drown them He can make a wall of water more strong for them than a wall of Adamant yea himself according to their need will be to them either a wall of fire or water II. What danger can prevail against the Church if all these dangers on all hands above them below them afore them behind them at once cannot sinke them No All the gates of hell cannot prevail against it Every main affliction is like a main Red Sea which threatens to swallow us up but it shall in the issue onely preserve the Church What we have most cause to fear the Lord maketh most helpful and soveraign The very raging Sea rather than they shall perish shall open her lap as a tender mother to recieve them from the rage of Pharaoh and his pursuing army Nay the land of Goshen shall not be half so bountiful to them as these waters which gave them freedome victory and the spoiles and riches remaining upon the dead bodies of their enemies III. How unweariably the Lord sets himself to overcome all difficulties for his servants What had it been to have passed the oppressours of Egypt and to have been swallowed up of the sea Therefore he makes a new way where never any way lay before in the bottome of the Sea Afterwards he makes a dry and barren wildernesse comfortable to them dryes up Jordan as strangely for their passage gives them a daily harvest of Manna from heaven breaks a Rock to give them water and happily in time finisheth their long and tedious journey Even so the godly going out of Egypt departing from the kingdome of the devill and hastning out of the world towards heaven come presently into a deep sea not pursued onely by the fury of tyrants and enemies but every where threatned with dangers wants and death it self yet the Lord breakes for them one toyle after another and happily guides them through a deep sea of miseries and never leaves them till they recover the shoare and arrive safely at the haven of salvation where their songs shall be louder than their cryes were and a mighty deliverance shall swallow up all their danger IV. Here is comfort against the fear of enemies 1. Spiritual enemies For here we have both a confirmation and resemblance of the eternal delivery of the Church from the tyranny of the hellish Pharaoh which in spight of him is led through a sea of tribulation every where ready to overwhelme it into the promised rest of everlasting life Again we see here our sinnes also cast into and drowned in the bottome of the Red Sea Mic. 7. 19. These are the strongest and fiercest enemies that pursued us to death but these our furious sinnes as so many Egyptians are drowned in the sea of Christs bloud and extinct in the waters of Baptisme Aug. Psal. 113. 2. Temporal enemies How can the Egyptians hope to stand before Israel to whom the waters give way so strangely The enemy shall find the same sea a wall and a well a safety and a death Let enemies look here as the heathen did and let their hearts faint as theirs to see God make the Sea a wall a lane yea a lap for his people Let them behold the ordinary work of God who commonly joynes the salvation of his Church with the destruction of the enemies So for Mordecaies advancement and the Churches deliverance Haman must be hanged and his posterity destroyed as in a ballance if one scoal goes up down goes the other IV. The godly to partake of these comforts must learn 1. To labour for increase of faith for by faith they passed thorough the Red Sea Heb. 11. 29.
evening of the Sabbath in double quantity because they must not break the Sabbath in gathering any signifying the double diligence that we must use to get Christ while we are in this life which is as the Even of our eternal Sabbath and the incessant labour after a farther degree of grace giving all diligence to make our election sure before we goe hence for when that eternal rest cometh there is no more gathering but a ceasing from all labours And upon condition of our diligence and care here below we shall have supply enough of all grace without labour and gathering when Christ shall be all in all to all Israel gathered unto him Sect. II. Now we are to consider this miraculous food both in the Jewes gathering of it as also in their use of it I. In their gathering are three things the place the time the measure 1. The place where It was about the campe and tents of the Jewes in the wildernesse signifying that Christ the heavenly Manna is given to us in this our wildernesse and while we are in this world we must procure him to our selves or never And farther that his grace is rained down in the Church and no where else is saving grace ordinarily to be found Onely the Israel of God enjoy Christ in the meanes his abode is among the tents of shepherds 2. The time of gathering is 1. The week day the six dayes not the Sabbath for it came not on the Sabbath but as knowing and distinguishing times it would as feed them so teach them namely to rest on the Sabbath day as it did and signified that in that eternal Sabbath we shall enjoy Manna without meanes and shall eat our fill of that hidden Manna laid up and prepared for the Saints Rev. 2. 17. 2. Every day in the week to signifie that we must daily feed on Christ and his grace and that we must daily renew the care of the salvation and sustenance of our soules 3. Every morning of every day early must they gather it the first thing they did To signifie that we must embrace Christ speedily while the meanes last and offer themselves Christ is worth our first care and his commandement is first to seek the kingdome of God The foolish Virgins sought Oyle and Manna too late 3. The measure 1. Every man hath a measure out of the common heap signifying that Christ is the same treasury to poor and rich small and great and every believer and Israelite hath his portion and measure measured out unto him for he must live by his own faith and a severed measure of knowledge and sanctification from others 2. Every man hath the same measure There was one measure for all a Gomer for every person So every Christian hath his Gomer and the same measure For although there is difference in the graces of sanctification some being in the higher formes of knowledge some in lower some of little faith some of great faith some whose zeal is as a smoaking flax in some a bright flame yet justification by Christ is equall to all and doth not admit a more or a lesse The youngling in grace is as truly and fully justified as the ancient believer though not so fully sanctified 3. Every man hath a full Gomer a full measure to signifie that in Christ is no want but we are compleat in him Col. 2. 10. And as the gathering Israelite though he gathered lesse than some other had his Gomer full so he that hath â—he weakest grace and weakest faith if true and sound shall attain the same salvation which the stronger believer attaines For the same precious faith attaines the same common salvation II. We must consider this Manna in the Jewes use of it 1. In respect of the dressing It must be ground and baked before it could be fit food for the Israelites signifying that Jesus Christ must first be ground and broken upon the Crosse and pounded with passion before he could become a fit food and Saviour of his Church Every grain of Manna must be ground and broken so must Christ be broken and bruised in the winepresse of Gods wrath Every grain of Manna must be baked in the Oven so must Christ be parched and baked yea and dryed up in the Oven of his Fathers displeasure And this was extraordinary and above nature in it that one heat namely of the Sunne melted it another heat namely of fire baked it very strange but significative of the same in Christ. The heat of his love to mankind melted him but the heat of his Fathers wrath as hot as fire baked him and fitted him for our spirituall food 2. The Manna being dressed must be eaten that is applied to their substance and digested for their nourishment signifying Jesus Christ who although like the Manna he must be gathered in common and must be received whole as Manna must be gathered whole yet he must be eaten in several that is specially applied to every believer for his food and strength by which application he becomes food in our hunger and physick in our weaknesse as the Manna was to them and other had they none 3. They must use it all and reserve none till the morning for if they did it putrified and wormes grew in it verse 19. 20. To signifie that not the profession of Christ profits any thing without faithful applying of him Yea and as Manna reserved putrified so Christ becomes a scandall and a rock of offence to the unbelieving of the world that content themselves to hear of Christ and have the Word among them but apply it not to their hearts and lives The sweetest Manna becomes a rottennesse and a savour of death to carnall professours Quest. But why did the Lord cause the Manna daily to putrifie if kept Answ. 1. He will have them daily depend upon his hands and provision that was no time nor place to shift covetously for themselves neither was there any need seeing every day supplied them with a new harvest 2. To signifie to them that man lived not by bread onely but by every word of God Mat. 4. 4. How could they think that such corruptible food could preserve them that it self could not be preserved above a few houres but by Gods institution 3. That they might acknowledge God a free and extraordinary worker in all his administration with them For even this Manna which kept an hour beyond a day suddenly rotted if God command to keep it two dayes every week for his worship sake it shall be miraculously preserved sweet and savoury Yea if for a monument of his mercy he shall command to lay a sample of it in the Ark it shall last and be kept in the Holy of holies many ages yea many hundreds of yeares sweet and savoury as at first And all this not without signification that although Jesus Christ was in his flesh and humane nature subject to sorrow death and passion yet
even in that humanity now glorified he is set in the Holy of holies as the Manna in the golden pot before the Lord for ever Exod. 16. 33. and abides for ever in the heavens for all eternity not subject to corruption any more as that golden pot of Manna was Sect. III. II. Now let us see how Christ is infinitely preferred before this type or figure in six severall advancements 1. That Manna had no life in it self but this hath Joh 5. 26. As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Sonne to have life in himself Joh. 6. 35. I am that bread of life 2. That Manna not having life in it self cannot give to others what it self hath not it could onely preserve life given of God But this can convey and give life to others John 6. 33. The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world 3. That Manna preserved onely natural and temporal life as other bread but this preserves spiritual and eternal life in the soul and inward man 4. That Manna could not preserve this temporal life for ever Joh. 6. 49. Your fathers did eat Manna in the wildernesse and are dead nay it could not keep them from hunger above one day to an end But this bread once tasted makes a man live for ever he shall not die ver 50. yea he shall never hunger more verse 35. 5. If a man were dead that Manna could not raise him again to life but this raiseth dead to life as Lazarus which all the food physick and meanes on earth cannot doe Joh. 11. 25. He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live 6. That Manna did corrupt it melted daily when the Sun arose it lasted not beyond a day it continued not beyond the wildernesse and that small portion which the Lord reserved in the Holies of holies perished and was lost after the captivity But this Manna is not subject to corruption but abideth sweet and precious to every hungry heart nor subject to violence but abides in the Holy of holies without all change or fear of danger nor onely lasts in this journey through our wildernesse but is the sweetest and most delicious in our Canaan when he shall be food physick raiment delight and all in all to all the Saints and sonnes of God Sect. IV. Now to Application I. To note God in four things 1. Patience and love 2. Watchfulnesse and care 3. Bountifulnesse and beneficence 4. Wisedome and judgement And all these to his Church both Jewish and Christian and to all the Israel of God Legal and Evangelical Every one of these affordeth us special matter of instruction I. His grace and patience appears in the time of his giving both the typical and the true Manna from heaven Then he pleased to give the Manna to Israel 1. When Israel had great need of Gods help and had no power to help themselves when they were even ready to starve Even so when the Church was in extream need of Christ and altogether helplesse in her self it pleased God to give his Sonne from heaven to save and refresh her Which the Apostle notes Rom. 5. 6. For Christ when we were yet of no strength at his time died for the ungodly 2. Then God gave Israel Manna when Israel murmuring had deserved nothing but wrath and vengeance when they could look for nothing but fire from heaven he gives them food from heaven and such food as was Angels food sweet as honey Oh what a tender Nurse is the Lord become to a froward people he will still the frowardnesse of his first-born rather with the breast than with the rod Even so when by our hateful sinnes of many sorts we could neither deserve nor expect any thing but revenge from heaven God sent his Sonne from heaven the true Manna and bread of life who hath more sweetnesse in him than the honey comb which one gift sweetneth all blessings which else had been so many curses For what had the Israelites deliverance victory lives been worth in the wildernesse without food and Manna which kept them in life and strength Even so had all our outward blessings been to us without Jesus Christ onely a lingring death and misery Oh who would deal thus with his enemy but he that hath an Ocean of mercy Which the same Apostle in the same Chapter ver 8. leadeth us unto where he magnifieth and heightneth Gods love unto us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us yea while we were yet enemies ver 10. he sent us this Manna by whom he reconciled himself unto us Let this consideration be of use 1. To stir up in us a fervent love of God who loved us with a pittifull love when we were in so pitifull a case as also with so seasonable love when our extream need urged us yea with such effectuall love as spared us the greatest gift of love and the richest mercy that heaven and earth can contain to relieve our want 2. To labour to love our enemies as God did us being his enemies For naturall men and hypocrites can love those that love them Mat. 5. 45. but if we love them that hate us we shall be the sonnes of our heavenly Father 3. To move us to cease from our sinnes for who would goe on to provoke so good a God that still prevents us with love and mercy And if he please to reserve love for us while we are yet in our sinnes and in love with them how sweet will his love be when we cease to love them How strong will it be and how constant For doth he not cast us off when we are enemies and deserve hatred and will he ever cast off those whom he thus loveth This love shall be stronger than death for that shall not quench it II. See the watchfulnesse and care of God over his Church The Manna fell with the dew and while the people of Israel slept the Lord watched to spread a table for them because 1. He that keepeth Israel slumbreth not nor sleepeth The eye of the Lord saith Basil is without all sleep ever watchfull 2. Because he is a tender father and Israel is his son and first born A carefull father is waking for his childes good while it sleeps and takes no care In like manner hath this watchful eye kept it self waking from the beginning of the world till this day How did it watch over Abraham and all his believing posterity whilest he and we were all in the night of sin and death And whilest we were in a dead sleep how carefully did he provide this heavenly Manna and spread it about the tents of the Church in all ages 1. In the promise of the blessed seed 2. In the types and shadowes signifying and exhibiting Jesus Christ. 3. In the holy Ministery of Prophets and Apostles in which it was plentifully showred 4.
Because he covered himself with a Serpent when he first stung and deceived mankind 2. He is more subtle than any Serpent crafty to insinuate and deceive 2 Cor. 11. 3. 14. 3. As a Serpent dwels and lies among thornes bushes bryars and feeds upon dust so the devill reigns in the thickets and bushes of worldly cares and lusts and feeds upon worldings exercising his chief power against them 4. As a Serpent casts out of his mouth venome and poyson so the devill casts out nothing but virulent words against God and his Saints and spewes out after the Church a flood of poyson to drown her How he blasphemed Job how he is the accuser of the brethren how of the head Christ himself the Scripture declares 5. As a Serpent is cursed above all beasts so is the devill The first cursed creature in the world was this Serpent and hath ever since remained the cursed head of all cursed rebels and wicked ones to whose custody and condemnation they shall all be gathered in the last day Mat. 25. 41. goe yee cursed c. 2. Why called fiery Serpents Answ. 1. From their colour Through abundance of poyson they had a shining and glistering skinne and they seemed as if they had been made of fire A resemblance we have in our Snakes that seem to shine and sparkle against the Sun 2. From their effect For with their sting they infused such poyson into the bodies of the Israelites as stirred up in them an outragious heat and fire Now these diseases are most painful and so tormentful as if a wild-fire were in the bowels feeding upon the bones marrow and members 3. From their end 1. Because they were appointed by God and after a sort inflamed and kindled with desire of revenge of the Lords wrongs and they so fiercely assaulted the Israelites as if a raging and devouring fire had seised upon them which no way they could avoid 2. That in their punishment they might be admonished both what a fearful fire of Gods wrath they had kindled by their sin against themselves as also that they had deserved a more fearful fire in hell to seize upon their whole man everlastingly 3. Why stinging Serpents Answ. To imply unto us 1. That sin is the sting of this old Serpent even a poysoned sting that he hath thrust into all mankind But with this difference in that this poyson is far more general and the wounds infinitely more mischievous than were those of the fiery Serpents For 1. They stung a few Israelites but not all but this Serpent hath stung all mankind none excepted 2. They stung the bodies onely but these souls and bodies also 3. They stung one part of the body this Serpent all parts and whole man 4. They to a temporal death this to an eternal 2. To imply that sin is the sting of a fiery Serpent 1. Set on fire with wrath and cruelty and desire to poyson and destroy us Rev. 12. 17. 2. Setting on us with fiery darts For so his temptations are called Ephes. 6. 16. for three reasons 1. From the manner and custome of souldiers in times past which cast poysoned darts the poyson of which inflamed the wounded bodies and made the wounds incurable As now many out of desperate malice poyson their weapons and bullets to make sure with their enemy So doth Satan by all meanes poyson his darts to speed the Christians soul. 2. Because as fiery darts they inflame and kindle in the heart all manner of burning lusts and sinnes one of them being but as a spark or firebrand to kindle another 3. Because they leave for most part a cauterized and seared conscience behind them as if they were burnt with an hot iron which makes the sinner stung senslesse of his wound Whence is another miserable difference between the stung Israelite and the stung sinner The former was alwayes felt with grief and pain but this often not felt and so more desperate 3. The effect of this stinging was death in many And so the effect of sin is death in all The stung Israelite had death in his bosome and no other could be expected so the guilty sinner is stung to death In his nature is every man the son of death and can expect nothing but death every moment And as the stung person in the wildernesse had no meanes in himself nor from others to avoid either the Serpent or death from it till God appointed them the brazen Serpent So the poor sinner was destitute of all help in himself and others till the Lord appointed Jesus Christ the promised seed to break the Serpents head There is given no name else whereby we must be saved Act. 4. 12. First Note hence how deceitful are the pleasures of sin It is as a sweet poyson Job 20. 12. sweet in the mouth but poyson in the bowels What wise man would drink a draught of poyson for the sweet taste of it Wicked men hold sin as a sweet morsel but sour sauce follows it Secondly What little cause we have to love our sinnes for that is to love our own bane Prov. 8. 35. He that sinneth against me hurteth his own soul and all that hate me love death No sin but the more pleasing the more poysoning the more delicate the more deadly Sin never so much disguised never the lesse deadly Thirdly That sinners are but dead men while they live 1 Tim. 5. 6. An Israelite stung was but a dead man So although the reasonable soul in a sinner makes him a man yet the want of the Spirit of grace makes him a dead man Death waits upon sin as the wages on the work and hell upon death that comes before repentance Fourthly A fool he is that makes a mock of sin Who would play with a deadly Serpent or make a jest of his own death or drink up the poyson of a Serpent in merriment or cast darts and fire-brands about him to burn himself and others and say Am I not in sport See Prov. 26. 18. and 10. 23. and 14. 9. Oh that we could discern our wounds as sensibly as we are certainly stung It would make us run to God and get Moses to goe to God for us and pray that these Serpemts and painful wounds might be removed If we saw death as present and as ghastly in our sins as Israel did in their stinging we would hasten our repentance and seek after meanes of cure Sect. II. The Remedy is First prescribed Numb 21. 8. Secondly applied vers 9. Thirdly in the same verse is the effect they recovered and lived So then in the Remedy are 1. Ordination 2. Application 3. Sanation or Cure I. The appointing hath First the person appointing which was God himself who devised it and prescribed it to Moses for God will save onely in his own meanes So God himself so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son c. Joh. 3. 16.
habit but considered relatively with his object which is Jesus Christ the Lord our righteousnesse for faith is the eye of the soul. But as it was not the eye of the Israelite but the eye set upon the brazen Serpent that cured him so here faith upon his object cureth because onely faith draweth vertue from Christ as in the Syrophoenician who touched Christ and was cured but not by touching but by believing More plainly in this comparison As a Jewel included in a Ring enricheth a man or healeth him it is not the Ring doth it but the Jewel and yet none have the Jewel without the Ring So Jesus Christ is the onely Jewel and antidote against the deadly poyson of sin This Jewel is included in the Ring of faith Now it is apparently Christ the Jewel that justifieth enricheth cureth but we cannot have him without the Ring of faith which includeth him So as faith saveth and justifieth us onely as a meanes suppose the hand of the soul to convey Christ to us for justification which no other grace can doe So not faith but Christ applied by faith that saveth and cureth us 3. As no Israelite could be cured but by his own sight of the Serpent and no man could be cured by another mans looking or seeing it So must every just man live by his own faith Hab. 2 4 No maâ— can be saved by anothers faith or the faith of the Church but by his own special faith believing in particular upon assured grounds the remission of his own sinnes II. By what marks may I know that I have looked on this brazen Serpent for cure Answ. By four marks 1. If thine eye have been rightly affected which will appear in four particulars First If it be a discerning eye cleared to see in Jesus Christ two things the first his power the second his will to cure That he is able to help being the mighty God and that he is willing to cure being a compassionate Saviour who himself was stung to death that he might have compassion on them that are stung Heb. 2. 18. Secondly If it be a mountfull eye He that had seen the Israelites â—…ing about the braâ—en Serpent should have seen many a 〈◊〉 falling and heard many a deep grâ—an and pittiful complaints of their deadly pain and poyson Hast thou come to Jesus Christ with sorow in thy heart with teares in thy eyes with lamentable groans and complaints of thy misery by sin this is to look upon him for cure Zach. 12. 10. the members of the Church shall behold him and mourn as a man for his onely son Such lookers on him he looketh upon and easeth Mat. 11. 28. Come unto me all that are weary and heavy laden and I will ease you Thirdly If it be a wishing and oraving eye for there is affection as well as vision in the eye As the lame man that lay in Solomons potch Act. 3. 5. wistly looked on Peter and John expecting to receive something from them so no doubt did the Israelites on the Serpent And so must thou hold on waiting and expecting sound cure from Christ and take no denial till thou be fully cured for so did the Canaanitish woman prevail Fourthly If it be a faithfull stedfast eye a believing eye carries cure from Christ. Christ was wont to ask some of his Patients that came for cure if they did believe he could help and in the cure According to thy faith be it unto thee and after the cure go thy way thy faith hath made thee whole and much more works he the cure of soules by meanes of the parties faith and not without it 2. If the sting were gone and the poyson of the Serpent abated this was an infallible sign that the Israelite was cured Consider if the power and rage of sin be removed the guilt of it gone by justification if the poyson and stain of it be abated and daily abolished now art thou in the way of cure But if the poyson remain that sin lives in thee prevailes and raignes in thee and commands thee as formerly thou hast not yet looked on the Serpent for cure Justification and Sanctification are inseparable 3. A ceasing of pain and ease and comfort restored which when the Israelite felt it was a sign he was cured So if after sense of pain and grief of spirit thou hast received sound peace of conscience joy of the holy Ghost and comfort of a good estate in Christ that thou art able upon good grounds to challenge thy righteousnesse in Christ and maintain thy self sted fastly assured and cheared in Gods mercy and the goodnesse of an excusing conscience thou hast now looked upon Christ and Christ upon thee for perfect cure 4. When the sting with the pain was gone the Israelite could goe as strongly and chearfully about his businesse as ever before he had new life new strength new motions by which he might be sure he had looked upon the Serpent So if thou canst find so happy a change in thy soul as new life new motions new actions new affections and in a word the whole renewed nature all these are the fruits and effects of thy faith and faithful beholding of Christ and of his looking upon thee Of this new obedience and renewed strength of a Christian having lately spoken I passe it over more briefly III. Motives to stirre us up to this looking upon our Serpent are 1. Nothing else can cure us but Christ. The Israelites had Gold Silver Manna from heaven Water out of the Rock yea the Ark the Oracle but none of all these can help them onely the Serpent must cure them no sight else can cure Thou mayest see Gold Silver Lands Friends Playes Pleasures nay couldst thou see Heaven it self without Christ there were no help or cure in it In respect of this sight the Apostle counted all things losse and dung and desired to see and know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified and lifted on the wood 2. No not Christ himself can cure without this looking and faithful beholding him as the brazen Serpent not looked on healed not The want of the eye or sight disabled the Israelites from cure though the Serpent were by them so the want of faith disableth God after a sort and Christ himself from doing a man any good Mark 6. Christ could doe no great cure in Capernaum because of their unbelief Neither can any ordinance of God doe him good that wants faith no more than this Serpent ordained by God could doe a blind Israelite good If we should send a man to the Word it must be a word of faith must doe him good that is not onely because it is a begetter of faith but because it must be mingled with faith else it proves unprofitable Heb. 4. 2. If to the Sacraments if he bring not faith they are not to him the seales of faith but as seales set to blanks If to Prayer it must