own Hoard thirdly How he lived amongst the Canaanites and Philistines fourthly In what estate he left his whole Posterity CHAP. XVIII Letters and Writing most probably from Adam as also Altars Of Cain and Abel and the difference of Sacrifices and of theirs in particular Whether they offered in one place and whether Adam offered for them or they for themselves Why Abel more accepted and how Cain knew it THough it hath been thought by many studious of the Pagan Antiquities and too much addicted to credit them that the Patriarchs before the Floud delivered unto their Posterities all the learning which they had by Oral Tradition only and that Writing was first expressed by certain Hieroglyphicks and after Letters formed by the cunning of the Phoenicians or the Greeks yet I must confess I take it to be but an heathenist conceit and not fit to be imagined that the Church of God did ever want its Scriptures out of which by Divine Instinct Moses drew the Abstract of the things that were before his time Which it pleased God to allow only as to be preserved unto after Ages whatsoever is reported about a certain Prophecy of Enoch to which S t Iude is conceived to refer But there is also reference in other places unto certain current Traditions among the Jews It is as easie for me to believe that our Father Adam could as well write and read and teach his Children so to do as speak and set the names on every Creature Should we think it to be too hard for him or that he had not time enough in the nine hundred and thirty years that he lived to accomplish it I cannot so much as think that the Church or the World either could want the use of Letters so long as Seth whose engraven Pillars are spoken of much less as Enoch who was born so long after him though both in the life of Adam The like conceit I must needs retain concerning Altars When God had vouchsafed to reveal unto Adam this Grace and Mystery That whereas he had incurred the guilt of sin and the punishment of death by his transgression an atonement should be accepted for him through the shedding of the bloud of certain clean Beasts which are thought to have been revealed to him together with the first Notion of Sacrifice it self with respect to the Seed of the Woman promised in some uncertain time to come it was so natural to him to erect an Altar for Sacrifice and Oblations that he could not conveniently do any otherwise any more than men can eat without a Table Yet that a standing Altar was not always necessary appears by Abraham's building one in haste when he was tempted to sacrifice his only Son Isaac How Cain and Abel did to begin from thence may worthily be doubted as it is But to set it free as much as may be we must know That whereas not only death eternal but also temporal with many calamities besides the Curse of the Earth were the consequents of sin not only bloody Sacrifices or whole Burnt Offerings as they knew no other before Moses were to be offered for the expiation of sin but also other Offerings in acknowledgment of the Dominion of the supreme Majesty over all in way of thankfulness for plenty and prosperity in way of supplication for encrease and blessings in way of vowing and devoting themselves and the Goods which they enjoyed unto God's service in some acceptable manner The Queries are 1. Whether Cain and Abel offered apart or in one place 2. Whether they offered as for themselves so by themselves or whether they brought them to their Father Adam as the only High-Priest then on Earth and the first Prophet to offer for them 3. How the difference stood or appeared in respect of what they offered and how they were accepted For the first No doubt while they were young and lived in their Fathers house which necessity would teach him to build as well as to make himself Cloaths but that Adam offered for himself and all his Children but when they were able to go abroad and set up a Tent of their own to be filled with their younger Brethren and Sisters and their Children then of common Right Paterfamilias the head of the house was their Priest and in Case he sacrificed all the houshold were sufficiently consecrated to assist him by an implicite Ordinance of God because that which he required could not otherwise be done Some are of opinion that Adam appointed a certain place of meeting for Divine Offices for all his Children where most likely he erected an Altar which of old did as it were constitute a Temple sub dio and that continued some Ages both amongst the people of God and the Heathen There he instructed them there he prayed and offered up praises unto God more especially on the Sabbath Day and did all in substance that belonged unto Sacrifices ever after But against this that passage seems to make that when God demanded of Cain Where is Abel thy Brother He replyed I know not Am I my Brothers Keeper As if God knew they did not use to meet every Day or every Week together So that possibly they might offer in divers places 2. It might so happen that one or other of them might be absent and yet their Father who led a careful and penitential life might offer for which of his Sons came as Iob did for all his Sons when they were absent Yet I know nothing to the contrary but that Cain and Abel when they had housholds of their own might have Altars so too the mystery of oneness of Altars being not as yet revealed 3. For the last Query Why Cain's Sacrifice should not be accepted so well as Abel's Iosephus gives us this reason Because Cain being covetous offered only that which he had forcibly extorted as it were from Nature by the Plow whereas Abel offered things produced of themselves The Rabbi's tell other Dreams relating to the wickedness of the Person and the niggardliness of his Oblations But a clearer reason is hinted in the Text it self when it is said That Cain brought only of the fruits of the ground which was no expiatory Sacrifice for sin but a superfluous Oblation it may be of more splendid things than Abel whereas S t Paul assures us that without shedding of blood there is no remission for sin Which things have been touched before But how should these know the difference of their acceptations If they came to their Father Adam and his Altar by him who was both a Priest and a Prophet and though not in former favour yet not wholly left by God or deprived of all his manifestations to him But if they sacrificed otherwise God did not leave himself without witness till he raised up sufficient Seers to advise them that had to do with him And thus the worship of God came to be
promise He did not leave them so soon as they had left him but he brought them about again by reproving of their sin and setting a better hope before them than they had deserved And the effects themselves will shew it For they not only submitted unto their punishments with thankfulness in that they were delivered both from sudden and eternal death but also oâ—â—ered continual Sacrifices and Oblatitions unto God both of their Herds and Flocks and Fruits and all their encrease or acquists that they had and so they taught their Children all alike that God might be glorified in all and their Children become Partakers of the same hope which themselves through mercy had received Now As for Sacrifices we may well think that it could not lightly enter into their heads to invent them but if they had that God himself was unlikely to be so well pleased with their will-worship as first to accept and after to make a standing Ordinance of them with the addition of many more Rites till the fulness of time should be accomplished Nor is it easie to discover how this kind of service which was a Type and a Mystery came to be first revealed to them I cannot pass the Porch of this Argument but I shall meet Pelagius ready to oppose me with the first For it follows from his opinion That Sacrifices were but of the light of Nature only if the Fathers from Adam to Moses lived by no other light as from Moses to Christ by the Law and we at last by Grace by him also perperam intellectam As for the practice it self there is no doubt for although we do not read that Adam himself did make any Sacrifice or Oblation yet we find that in process of time Cain being a Tiller of the newly accursed ground brought of the fruits thereof an Offering unto the Lord And Abel being a Keeper of the Sheep amongst which the immaculate Lamb was brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof Which how should they do but by their Parents directions That Abraham offered the Tentâ— of his spoils unto Melchisedeck and that Iacob vowed a vow saying If God will be with me c. then shall the Lord be thy God and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee â— If to Sacrifices what should he add If to any Priesthood after the disappearing of Melchisedeck where was the like oâ—der If to any other pious uses since the Building of Altars of Earth or loose Stones was of little charge and Poor he had none Expositors are troubled to shew them unless there be some light arising out of those words And this Stone which I have set for a Pillar shall be Gods House as if he had designed like David to erect a Temple over his Altar if it had pleased God to permit him Only it is manifest that these things were revealed ab initio from the very first Not by the light of Nature For then 1. Adam in innocency had been bound to sacrifice 2. Since Christ's death Sacrifices also would be in force as much as the rest of the Laws of Nature 3. It seemeth rather abhorrent unto Nature to shed the blood of Beasts in vain so that many of the Heaten Philosophers have seemed to symbolize with those passages of the Psalmist Thou desirest not Sacrifice thou delightest not in Burnt-offerings Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats Indeed it is a Question among the School-men whether Christ should have been incarnate though Adam had not sinned but it was never doubted whether he should have been crucified without out it And that the slaying of Beasts prefigured this the common consent of Christians hath made it manifest who ever since the death of Christ did not only cease to sacrifice but declare all sacrificing to be a denial of it and a crucifying of Him afresh And the power of God hath so wrought that where-ever the Gospel came the Heathen Sacrifices also decayed by degrees Nay that where it came not to our knowledg as in America and the utmost Indies the sacrificing of any Beasts was not found in use when later Travellers came amongst them But why they were in use all the World over before the coming of Christ no other reason can be given than that Adam first and after Noah taught their Children all alike to offer Sacrifice But as it went it gathered manifold corruptions for whereas Adam and Abel as Selden and Bertram judg put a difference betwixt the clean and unclean in their Sacrifices the Gentiles afterwards offered Swine and all abominations even Mankind unto some or other of their Idols and by erecting Altars for Sacrifice unto other men they did translate them into the number of their reputed Deities But so much by occasion of Pelagius On another hand who will dare to say That it was lawful to sacrifice which was the special Sacrament of the Old Testament in lieu of which the Papists would set up their Sacrifice of the Altar tanquam incruentum only as a proper Sacrifice of the like kind without an institution Or who can shew the institution before the practice A Point that is like to move the Kidney in two sorts of men The first can never prove That God did directly institute this Ordinance of sacrificing the most substantial part of his worship which no doubt from Adam unto Moses whatever he added to it was not without confession and bewailing of sins so far as the Sacrifices were Sin-offerings that is of expiation or atonement or without prayers if they were but Peace-offerings or Sacrifices of propitiation for obtaining of benevolence nor without certain words of Benediction or Thanksgiving when they were oblations of inanimate things for the blessings that God had bestowed or continued to them How do they then stand so stiffly on it that nothing is to be admitted in the worship and service of God without a positive command extending to all the material circumstances at the least when they cannot find so much as a syllable of the substance of this first Sacrament at all In the New Testament we find no institution neither which will touch them nearer still of the Lords Supper itself which all hold for an Ordinance and a Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it may be a weak pretence why they excuse so many from coming to it and keep so many more from it For when our Lord gave it to his Disciples he only shewed them an example as to some part of the manner not observable or observed since in point of conscience as to be celebrated at the Passover or in the midst or after Supper or sitting kneeling standing or with or without any form or gift of Prayer more than blessing or asking of a blessing before the breaking of the bread and pouring out of the wine but as if he
God by a visible token for his outward benefits according to their several kinds I say we must distinguish betwixt Sacrifices of expiation or atonement for sin which they deny and those others whatsoever they were that were Propitiatory only or Eucharistical And we say That they were all absolutely necessary but especially the first and all alike revealed before they could be tendred unto God Now why Socinus thinks so meanly or indifferently of Sacrifices as not belonging to salvation is not far to seek For he holds as we have hinted before 1. That the light of Nature alone without this excogitation was sufficient 2. That natural Religion is only moral which Sacrifices are not 3. That there is no such thing as expiation or satisfaction for sin but that it is done away by merely pardâ—ning 4. That Christ therefore sâ—â—â—â—red no vicarious punishment for sin â—â—gured by any Sacrifices which themselves imporâ—ed no such matter but that he was only sacrificed as a good man for the publick good But what should move any man to grant unto Socinus that Sacrifices might be found out by men and that they became not figurative or expiatory until Moses and yet oppose him I cannot imagine unless it be to gratifie a more modern Father or because they are well enough assured of sufficient Arguments besides out of the Old and New Testaments to overthrow the Socinian suppositions and so to let this opinion of revelation go how it may to them that are fonder of it suppose some or other of the Calvinists Let it favour or disfavour any Party whatsoever as it may happen I doubt not but that passage of Eusebius which I have borrowed from my Author contains the Catholick Doctrine to be seconded by the authority of more Fathers when I come to prove Vnam esse omnium fidem In the mean while in prosecution of my first Argument set down in the close of the sixth and beginning of the last Chapter I shall endeavour to shew 1. How this revelation of the will of God concerning Sacrifices may be conceived and then 2. That it was necessary to be received and obeyed CHAP. IX The Offering of Sacrifice revealed 1. By the light of Grace The ends of Sacrifice shewed and the true reason of consuming it by fire 2. By the light of Prophecy as the Day of Christ to Abraham That hereupon our first Parents must needs obey 1. FOR the first we may conceive two ways whereby it pleased God to reveal his will unto Adam concerning Sacrifices as a means of his recovery Lumine Gratiae Lumine Prophetiae First In a way of Grace and Mercy which was not so obscurely as obliquely tendred to him For after his Fall Expositors have observed that Gods beginning with the Serpent first to sentence him who was the first in fault imported a reservation of greater mercy to them that were but drawn in and so betray'd And when he had said I will put enmity betwixt the Woman a Type of the Church and the Serpent the Devil and betwixt his Seed the Reprobate World and her Seed the Elect that they were given out of hand to understand that they should not dye presently as they had deserved but should live to see a various Seed And when they heard in the close that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the head of Satan whereas his Seed should only bruise the heel of the other by temporal tribulations they had light enough given them to perceive that they should not only obtain a redemption by that blessed Seed promised but also a certain Victory at the last which some of the ancient Rabbins understood as relating to their Messiah But if any one will rather chuse to be frivolous with the modern Iews it is in vain to stand to beat the truth into them with a Mallet Surely none found the effects more of God's severity or goodness imported in the whole judgment than our first Parents themselves since they both suffered more troubles in the flesh and obtained more favour than any of their Posterity For as Estius counts Adam was a longer Liver being created in perfection of nine hundred and thirty years than Meâ—husalah of nine hundred forty nine who began not to procreate for ought appears till seventy unless it be said that Children of lesser note are wholly omitted in the Genealogy Wherefore when our first Parents saw themselves delivered from the utmost fear to some certain hope they must needs conceive that somewhat was thereupon to be done by them in hope But what that was how could they have possibly imagined if the same Grace that gave the promise had not both enlightned the eyes of their minds to know the meaning of it and what to do in order to obtain it or in expectation of it So that according to Eusebius it must needs be some way or other mercifully insinuated to them that whereas they had deserved death in their own persons by transgression they should put to death in their own steads the fairest of their living Creatures that were clean and not the Serpent and then offer them up unto God above by fire that their prayers might ascend therewith and their sins be forgiven as if they were utterly consumed And here may be a place to shew the reasons of offering by fire If we consider the ends of sacrificing in the general it will soon afford some light into it Which were 1. To represent and to be a memorial of the great Sacrifice of Christ to come who â—hould once be offered up in behalf of Sinners 2. To lecture to them the desert of sin and Sinners death and fire in the death and firing of the Sacrifice before their eyes 3. To acknowledge their Goods received from God in offering up to him somewhat of all they had 4. To be a matter of Worship and Religion in those times of ceremoniousness wherein all did acknowledge their homage to God and true Believers acted their faith on Christ's sufferings 5. To be signs of repentance and pledges of expiation when they should see that is to say the innocent slain instead of the nocent and their sins to pass away as it were with the smoke that ascended from the Altar To these others add That the Sinner was hereby admonisheâ— to burn up as it were all animal-concupiscences within him which have their rise from blood and fat and so to eradicate all vice within them But the main reason is that which God hath given us himself for whereas the Patriarchs offered whole Burnt-offerings without any curious ordering of their Sacrifice when God directed Moses afterwards how to wash the Inwards and divide the parts and how then to put them again together and burn them on the Altar he saith It is a sweet savour an Offering made by fire unto the Lord. Therefore they were to burn their Offering then that the odour thereof might ascend with their
the way which I propounded last was to detect their legerity by arguing à necessario ad impossibile from a thing necessary to a thing impossible I have shewed that Sacrifices were necessary to do away sin if they like not that yet they seem not to deny but that they were apt and fit enough to set forth some conspicuous worship and service unto God And if this sacrificing for either end was a Duty not revealed nor likely nor possible to be excogitated by any man then man was obliged to an impossibility by nature at least excogitating which is absurd Quia nemo tenetur ad impossibile Will they say that it was not necessary from the beginning to offer any Sacrifice at all but only to set up some way of worship and that another way might have been invented if this had not been fit enough They themselves are not able in this light of day so long after to shew what that other way might have been Will they say they deny not some direction but that it came in use divinâ quâdam ratione they know not how but by mens using of their right minds the government of God it may be over-ruling them This I have noted before was the shift of the old Pelagians who finding some Grace to be undeniable would have it all to be placed in the natural gifts of knowledge Free-will and moral Vertues together with the benefits of Gods Providence and Government but all this as I have also shewed before is not enough to constitute a Religion which must needs come from some Law imposed and revealed from God himself much less a Covenant betwixt God and man or a certain sign thereof as Sacrifice was viz. Of our first Parents thereby entring into the Covenant of Grace Gather my Saints together unto me he says Psal. 50.5 those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice Which was not the sign of the Covenant by Moses but only circumcisioâ— But from which of the first reasons however over-ruled should it proceed From Adam's He was at an utter loss and if he had gone about such a thing of his own head more apt to fall into the snare of the Tempter again than to hit it right towards God From Cain He was a Reprobate From Abel Noah and Abraham according to such respective enlightnings as they had Then so many good men so much variety of sacrificing which was all but uniform until the Law of Moses Let us therefore come to the last winding up of the botom 1. It was not probable 2. It was morally impossible that any man should invent sacrificing so as to please God thereby upon their own accounts 1. It was not probable that either Adam or Abel should invent the sacrificing of living Creatures since of Cain there remains no further Question as to his own person whatsoever his Descendents did because he brought only of the fruits of the ground as any acceptable service unto God For Adam and Eve for their parts they being due to death themselves from which they were but reprieved only in respect of temporal death it cannot well be imagined that one of the first thoughts that should enter into their minds should be to kill any of their lower Fellow Creatures as being aâ—raid in themselves to see what natural death might be much more a violent one in any other more especially wrought by their own hands which had brought all other things into bondage with themselves howsoever innocent And as for Abel he could have no less estranged apprehensions from the like slaughter For a righteous man regardeth the life of his Beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel even as the very Sacrifices of the Heathen And Abel besides was a Shepherd which sort of men are so tender of their Flocks that David encountred a Lyon and a Bear in their defence and our Saviour himself saith The Thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy but the good Shepherd giveth his life for the Sheep 2. So that it was morally impossible that such good men as these should ever devise such a way as this of their own heads or approve of it in their own conceits if they had not been informed of a mystery in the Case For it would have been a sin against the Creator to have slain his Creature for no mischief done nor yet for food if he had not required Sacrifice or the death of the innocent which he valued less instead of the nocent which he loved more What was his speech to Ionah Should not I spare Niniveh that great City wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern betwixt their right hands and their left and also much Cattel The Children and the Cattel being innocent alike and so far Objects of Divine compassion according to their different worths and natures We hear what they say That these did it to acknowledge the right and dominion of the Lord of life and death and that it was not unnatural because that God confirm'd it afterwards by Moses and Christ in fine abolish'd it which he never did any Law of Nature which is eternal and immutable But if they did this to acknowledge the right of the Lord of life and death only why did they take his right from him Was that the proper way to acknowledge it For if they slew the Creature in their own right before God had put it into their hands they wronged the Lord of life by bare killing much more by presenting of such a death as an acceptable token to him To the Lord of life a living Present is a fitter token than a dead for he delighteth not in the death of any of his Creatures he willeth not so much as the death of a Sinner but rather that he should turn and live But as the same is the Lord of death by his own free dispensation for again he saith Return ye Children of men so he will be avenged on them that take this out of his hand to hasten the end of any of his Creatures having once said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it saith the Lord. In a word if there had been no mystery in Sacrifices they had been as unâ—atural in themselves as Zipporah counted Circumcision or as we may account the severities of Moses and of Ioshuah and more especially of David who was a merciful man in his own nature who put the Ammonites under Saws and Harrows of Iron and hewed them with Axes and cast them into the Brick-kilns or made them pass through them not only those that resisted at Rablah but all the Children of Ammon A thing which even Turks and Tartars would at this day shrink from committing as contrary to the Laws both of Nature and of Nations So that God's confirming of Sacrifices afterwards doth only prove that they were his Ordinance before and
revealed one part of this mystery to some others a little more to no one the whole Nay it is to be gathered from that place of S t. Peter quoted before that some of them had Commission to prophesie more than the meaning whereof was revealed even to themselves For he saith Of which salvation the Prophets that prophesied have enquired and searched diligently of the Grace that should come unto you and not unto themselves unto whom it was revealed at the last that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you Which things for all their Prophecies the Angels desired to pry into Let us first consider the things believed or to be believed betwixt them and us and secondly then demodo of the manner of their Faith and ours how far they agree or differ First If they and we do agree in the same Creed which is called the Apostles Creed then certainly we both agree in side credendâ in the Faith which is to be believed But why we should not be taken to agree in this since every Article of it may be articulately proved out of the Old Testament there can indeed be no other reason given than that which is insinuated viz. That though the substance be there yet it lyes scattered and was not revealed so much as in the matter all at once nor the end clearly understood by them to whom the matter it self was revealed Now if this Creed which is sufficient be but understood confusedly by many of ours and yet we take it to be ground enough for a saving faith to be built upon it as they know in part how much more may we extend our latitude of Charity to the Saints of the Old Testament who believed upon the matter as much as some of ours before it was propounded in such an order Let me say further That it was enough for them to know in the general that Christ should be born in the time appointed to redeem us without any circumstances to ground even a Fiducial Faith upon that alone But let us see how much they knew more We have proved that our Father Adam offered Sacrifices according unto revelation And if they came in use by revelation it is reasonable to imagine that the end also was some way or other revealed from the first viz. That Christ himself should be offered up unto God in the appointed time to do away that sin which Adam had contracted the punishment whereof deserved death and fire as the act of Oblation required true repentance and contrition with compassion on the innocent that was to dye in the sread of the nocent And was not Abraham taught as much as this do you think when God commanded him to offer up his only Son Isaac and in sparing Isaac provided Abraham of another Sacrifice But when we come to the Book of the Psalms and the Prophets both the death and resurrection and ascension and sending of the Holy Ghost are all described to the life so that the Object of Faith was but only more comfortably enlarged than before and left under less obscurity as the Day-Star and the dawning drew the nearer Nor was all the Scripture of the Old Testament of no profit in its own time which was given by inspiration of God for their instruction in righteousness though many things happened unto them as Types unto us and are also written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come Upon all which S t Augustine is here producible with a clear Verdict Before the Coming of Christ faith he there were righteous men so believing in him to come as we believe in him come The times are varied not the Faith We believe that our Lord was born of a Virgin suffered rose again and ascended They that all this should be thereafter c. Secondly But because neither they nor we could be saved by believing any Articles only howsoever clear let us next consider de modo or de fide quâ by what manner of faith they might believe in Christ as well as we unto justification by him To this we have also an Answer in the general from the same Father Whosoever saith he from the beginning have believed in him however understood whensoever it was or wheresoever they were without doubt they were saved by Him But this Answer will not serve the turn since the late distinction of the School-men about explicit and implicit faith so that we must endeavour to give a clearer and more particular Reply to the thing in Question The Distinction it self seemeth to have been first coined by Aquinas in his Comments on the Master of the Senteces who called this explicit Faith Fidem distinctam in aperto and the other Fideâ—â— velatam in mysterio such a distinct Faith by revelation as Abraham and Moses had and such a veiled Faith in the mystery as they received from them in the after-times to whom no more was revealed but that they must believe as Abraham and Moses had done before having no distinct knowledge of all the Articles of the Faith that were delivered to them But Aquinas's explicit Faith is described to be Quâ quid creditur secundùm se in particulari the believing of a thing by it self and in particular and his implicit to be Quà quid creditur in alio tanquâ—m in universali the believing of a thing that is contained in another as in the general Which at last was wrested to this sense Velut si quis ex animo profiteatur se credere quicquid credit Ecclesia as if any one should profess that he believeth from his heart what the Church believeth which we take to be no faith at all but only a blind obedience But of the Believers of the Old Testament we say first that they had a certain explicite Faith in Christ in some measure every one of them according to the Word of Grace that was any way revealed or transmitted to them And then that there was implicitly more contained in that which they received which was indeed veiled in a mystery than they could possibly conceive Whether they received it in Doctrine or in the Promises or more especially in any of the Types and Figures of the Law But an implicit Faith in their own Church they had not neither could they be saved by the faith of their Progenitors like little Infants as Cunâ—us is apt to think that some of them might be but every one by his own faith and that a Fiducial Faith too wherein I follow Cunaeus for the rest But to avoid that Question of the Schoolmen or to refer my Reader to them How much or how little it was necessary for the ordinary people before the coming of Christ to believe concerning him as also to make way for my more direct proceeding I cannot but take that passage of S t Bernard in my way If