of God looke confidently upon it be it never so unreasonable 〈…〉 There bee foure things which a man shaâ—â— never attaine till the eye of his faith close up the eye of his reason 1. Hee shall never attaine the true knowledge of divine things Gods wisdome hath no greater enemy then humane wisdome not sanctified No men hardlier nor seldomer converted then worldly wise men as the Scriptures which say not many wise and experience shewes daily What wiser men in the world then the Philosophers and Stoicks of Athens but when Paul came to dispute among them of doctrine of religion he was called ababler Act. 17. 18 what will this babler say and reasoning among them of the resurrection hee was derided and mocked ver 32. Was not Festus a wise man and a prudent governour and yet when Paul preached to him no other things then Moses and the Prophets had foretold of these sufferings death and resurrection Festus tells him too much learning had made him mad Act. 26. 24. Ioh. 9. 6 Christ to cure a blinde man tempered clay and spittle together and applyed it to his eyes and bids him goe to Siloe A remedie likelier to put out a mans eyes then to recover sight There was no reason in the earth of the remedy but onely to try whether the blinde man did constantly beleeve Yet if the blinde man had not wholly resigned himselfe to Christ and shut up his owne reason had not he acknowledged Christ able to do what hee would by what hee would and to bee the same God who at first put all sences into a piece of clay and now by a piece of clay would recover his sence he had never seene but remained blinde still So every naturall man borne as blinde as he in spirituall things till he wholly submit himselfe and subdue his reason to the meanes appointed shall never see any thing to salvation but abide in naturall blindnesse still What hope hath he to be taught by the spirit that must give lawes to the Spirit of God or what a short metwand is naturall reason to measure divine things by 1 Cor. 1. 21 1 Cor. 2. 14 Why else did these Jewes esteeme the doctrine of the Gospell scandall but that reason of flesh would not nor could behold life and glory in such a base life and ignominious death as Christs was nor could hold him the Messiah who was made a curse upon the Crosse as if hee had beene crucified through infirmity and this vaile as to them remaineth at this day unremooved And why was Christ foolishnesse to the Graecian but that reason would not yeeld that life should be fetched out of death or salvation to be sought in curse and malediction 2. Hee that shuts not the eye of reason can never attaine faith There bee sixe things which a man cannot beleeve so long as he sticks to naturall reason First he cannot beleeve the word of God nor depend upon but scorne the ordinances of God in the word preached and Sacraments administred which is the visible word Reason unrenewed cares not for this foolishnesse of preaching 1. Cor 1. 21. And to a carnall man the threatnings of God are like Lots warning to his kinsmen he was as one that mocked or jested A promise to a carnall heart is as tastelesse as the white of an egge The wiser men are the further off they are from beleeving in a crucified God or conceiving that by the foolishnesse of preaching God will save such as beleeve Flesh and blood reveileth nothing Secondly hee cannot beleeve the maine promises of God which cannot bee comprehended but by the eye of faith and not by that till the eye of reason bee shut up God hath promised his presence favour and love with his children how can reason conceive the truth of this promise seeing them in hunger thirst wants hearing them reviled slandered disgraced observing them cast out of companies and societies as refuse and out-sweeping that were their hopes here onely they were of all men most miserable Reason will not bee perswaded that God can send us by hell to heaven yet that is his promise Humane reason will never pray My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee How could Abraham have beleeved the promise of a sonne by Sarah had he looked to naturall reason Thirdly he cannot beleeve the maine Articles of faith that hath not resigned up his reason Example Reason will not beleeve an happy resurrection seeing the body raked up in dust and corruption but denies this Article Reason cannot conceive or beleeve an eternall life because it sees it not given but to dead men It cannot apprehend how the Sonne of God should become the son of man or that this Sonne of man was borne of a virgin without man And so of the rest Fourthly he cannot beleeve the miracles of Scripture for confirmation of Gods truth and our faith Naturall reason cannot beleeve that the Sunne ever stood still as in Giâ—eah much lesse went back ten degrees as in Hezekiahs time 2. King 20. 11. Or that fire should descend which naturally ascendeth and feed upon water contrary to nature as at Elias prayer 1. King 18. 39. Or that fire should raine downe as on Sodome which is proper to water Or that fire should not burne the three children Or that water should stand as a wall as in the Red sea and in the river Jordan whose property is to be fluid Fiftly he cannot beleeve the worke of creation if he will beleeve reason the universall consent of which is That of nothing nothing can bee made and not any thing much lesse all things out of nothing To reason therefore it will be incredible that there should be light before the Sunne or fruits before any raine as in the Creation Heb. 11. 3. By faith wee know not by reason that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seene were not made of things which doe appeere Sixtly he cannot beleeve the great work of Redemption For naturall reason thinks it unreasonable that the life of the Church can bee fetched out of the death of Christ. That a man can be justified by the imputed righteousnesse of another and yet there dwell so many sinnes in him Reason will not beleeve that one man can recover life by anothers death no more then one man can live by anothers soule or be wise by anothers learning or be cured and brought to health by anothers disease 3. So long as the eye of reason is open a man shall never attaine sound obedience unto God For much of that obedience required at our hands is cleane against corrupt nature As the whole doctrine of repentance of mortification or watchfull and carefull conversation of restraining our selves in unlawfull liberties yea and in lawfull all crosses reason Had Abraham ever sacrificed his sonne had he consulted with reason Had Paul ever joyned to the disciples to
the Ministery which not the first Adam onely but the second also exercised Dispise at thy perill what they so honoured thinke it too base for thy selfe to attend for thy sonnes to intend Neither the first Adam Lord of the earth nor the second Adam Lord of Heaven and earth did so II. To note the antiquity and authority of the doctrine of free grace by the merit of the Messiah which both the first and second Adam taught neither of them ever dreamed of the doctrine of workes and humane merits What Adam learned of God in Paradise hee taught to his posterity what his posterity heard of him the same they delivered and left to their children but they never heard nor taught any other way to salvation but by the promised seed so also what the Disciples heard of the second Adam that they taught to the Churches but they heard the same of him Act. 4. 12. And our doctrine being the same with theirs is not new but more ancient then any other For as this is the honour of all truth to be before error and falshood so of this truth to have precedency of all truths It truely pleadeth antiquity therefore verity III. In that the Church comes out of Christs side being in the sleepe of death as Eve out of Adams hee sleeping wee learne to seeke our life in Christs death That death should be propagated by the sinne of the first Adam was no marvaile but that life by the death of the second is an admired mystery Here is the greatest work of Gods power fetched out of his contrary of ranke poyson a soveraigne remedy by the most skilfull Physitian of hearts Let the Jewes scorne a crucified God and refuse the life offered by a dead man they know not the Scriptures nor the power of God who can and doth command light out of darknesse life out of death all things out of nothing How easily can â—e repayre all things out of any thing who can fetch and frame all things out of nothing He is of power to make of clay and spittle fit to put out the sight a remedy to restore sight He can as easily save a world by the death of his Son as multiply a world by the sleepe of Adam IV. Labour to bee ingrafted into the second Adam that as thou hast borne the image of the earthly so thou maist beare the image of the heavenly 1. Cor. 15. 49. 1. Because the second Adam repayres whatsoever we lost in the first By the first wee are enemies to God by the second wee are reconciled to him By the first wee all dye by the second wee are all made alive 1. Cor. 15. 22. By the first we are left to Sathans power by the second wee are guided by the Spirit of God By the first we lost all the Creatures by the second we are restored to the holy use of theÌ„ all By the first a necessity of death is brought in Heb. 9. 27. it is appoynted for all men once to dye and then commeth judgement but by the second wee have a recovery of the blessing of immortality and life Whatsoever the first Adam brings into the world by sinne the second carryes out by his righteousnesse 2. Because by Christ the truth wee recover more then we lost or ever should have had by the Type For so the Apostle Rom. 5. 16. the gift by the second Adam hath exceeded the offence of the first That as the first Adam by eating the forbidden fruit hath powred all evill into the soules and bodies of all men though they eate not of the forbidden tree So the second Adam by regeneration is made righteousnesse to those who had wrought no righteousnesse and powred all good things into the soules and bodies of his members The first Adam by sinne helps us into misery but the second Adam not onely helps us out of misery but advanceth us to the highest dignity to be of sonnes of wrath sons of God brethren of Christ members of his body heires of the kingdome of heaven By Adams sinne we are all driven out of Paradise an earthly pleasure in which wee should have enjoyed an inconstant happinesse but by Christ we are brought into the heavenly Paradise our Fathers house By Adams sinne we become unjust but by Christs holinesse we are not just onely but sanctified graced confirmed glorified into whom by faith we come to be ingrafted CHAP. III. 2. Noah a type of Christ 7. waies THe second instance is Noah a manifest type of the true Noah and that in seven respects I. Both were fore-prophesied of to be Saviours Gen. 5. 29. Lamech begat a son and called his name Noah saying This shall comfort us concerning our workes and sorrow and curse of the earth therefore he called him by a name signifying ceasing or rest So of Christ Mat. 1. 21. thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people He shall be the true Noah that shall cause Gods wrath to cease and bring the afflicted soule to true rest and tranquillity II. Both are said to be just and perfect both said to walke with God and both to find grace and favour with God 1. Noah was just in his generation So was Christ have nothing to do with that just man saith Pilates Wife Mat. 27. 19. But with difference Noahs righteousnesse was imputed being righteousnesse of faith Heb. 11. 7. Christs was inherent a righteousnesse of nature person and heart 2. Noah was a perfect and upright man Gen. 6. 9. that is not defiled with Idolatry false religion opinions or externall crimes but Christ was perfect simply and absolutely Noah but comparatively Noah was perfect but in part Christ perfectly perfect Christ Legally Noah Evangelically Noah perfect by the perfection of another Christ by his owne Noah perfect because without open crime Christ being without sinne 3. Both walking with God found grace with God Noah Gen. 6. 8. Christ Luke 2. 40. 52. But Noah found grace by acceptation and imputation Christ by compleat merit and satisfaction Christ found grace by his owne perfection and justice but Noah cloathed with Christs III. Both of them were Preachers of righteousnesse But Christ preached his owne doctrine Noah Christs Both invited unto repentance Both called men to avoid the Judgement to come Both lived and preached in a most corrupt age when there was a generall defection both in doctrine and manners Both their Ministeries were despised and that despight of both fearefully revenged the one by water the other by fire and sword both by utter desolation as the like never heard of before IV. Both of them makers of an Arke and Masters of it But Noah of a materiall Christ of a spirituall the Church Noah to save sinners from the deluge of waters temporall Christ to save sinners from the deluge of Gods wrath eternall In the making of their Arkes they are very like 1.
But we are sure of better meanes or better things without meanes in the hope and expectation of which we must persevere in the faith and walke in hope through our wildernesse The fruits of that good land will be worth all our labour 6. Ioshua brings none into the land but conquerours and divides the land to a conquering people So our Ioshua gives the land onely to him that overcommeth And he that persevers to the end shall be saved CHAP. IX 8. Sampson a type of Christ. 1. IN person and condition 1. His conception foretold by the Angell of God Iudg. 13. 5. So was Christs His office foretold he must be a Saviour So Christ. Borne beyond strength of nature of a mother long before barren Iud. 13. 3. So was Christ. His mother saluted by the Angell as Mary was that though she was barren she should conceive a sonne a saviour the one shall begin to save Israel out of the hands of the Philistims vers 5. the other must save his people from their sinnes And this promise confirmed by a signe to both the mothers Iud. 13. 4. Luk. 1. 30. 2. Both must be Nazarites Sampson by the Law of Nazarites Numb 6. 2. Christ by occasion of the place in which he was educated not by that Law But as a Nazarite signified one that was seperated and severed from the common course of men to a more holy profession of sanctity and to a stricter care to avoid all manner of impurity such a one the Prophets signified Christ should be not onely holy and seperate from sinners but the author of holinesse And as Sampson was sanctified from the womb So was Christ much more So the Angell The holy thing that is in thee is of the holy Ghost And herein beyond Sampson for in Christ are all sanctified 3. Sampson grew and the spirit waxed strong in him so as he became a Saviour of incomparable strength So Christ grew every way in stature in favour with God and man and the Spirit was so strong in him because it was not measured unto him as unto Sampson as he became a Saviour stronger then the strong armed man He was the true Sampson that overcame many enemies and slew heaps upon heaps And although Sampson the type was at last overcome by his enemies our true Sampson is invincible and hath gloriously triumphed over them all Both of them were great deliverers the one from great thraldome and temporall misery the other from a greater spirituall and eternall thraldome under sinne the Law Satan hell c. II. Sampson was a type of Christ in three especiall actions 1. He found meat in the eater and from the strong sweetnesse and brought some of it to his parents Christ by his death which seemed to eate him up brings us meat the bread of life sweeter then hony and out of this dead Lyons mouth that is Christ dead comes sweetnes Thence sprang whole flocks of Christians like so many swarmes of bees 2. Sampson loved strange women and went among the enemies of God for a wife which might seeme a sinne in him but that the text saith It came of God Iudg. 14. 4. A type of Christs love to the Gentiles casting his love on her that was not beloved to make his dispised and dispersed of the Gentiles his spouse and wife as Hos. 2. 23 I will have mercy on her c. Where the whole contract on both parties is set downe at large 3. Sampson put forth his mind in parables and riddles so did Christ his doctrine to the Pharises Mat. 13. 34. III. In passion and suffering they were very like in many passages 1. Both sold for money Sampson by Delilah to the Princes of the Philistims Iudg. 16. 5. Christ for thirty peeces of siluer unto the chiefe Priest Both betrayed by their most familiar the one to the Philistims the other to the Pharisees Both under pretence of love Sampson by Delilah Iudg. 16. 15. Christ by Iudas with a kisse Both apprehended by their enemies both led away both bound both brought forth at a great feast both blinded both scorned both fastened to a post the one of the house the other of the crosse 2. As Sampson offered himselfe freely unto death among wicked men as a most valiant Captaine being called to be a revenger of Gods enemies and therfore it is said Heb. 11. he died not as a selfemurtherer but in faith that is as a faithfull servant of God adventured his owne life for the destruction of the enemies of God and his Country as every good subject and souldier pressed to the field ought to do So Jesus Christ voluntarily offered himself to death and went out to meet the apprehendors and was content to dye among wicked men and to be hanged betweene two theeves that he might destroy and scatter the powers of the enemies of his Churches salvation IV. In victory and fortitude 1. His first stratagem which was as a praeludium to his calling in which he assayed his power was that he overcame a stout Lyon in the desert and slew him with his owne hand ch 14. 6. and tare him as one should have rent a Kid So the first powerfull worke in which our Sampson shewed himselfe was the conquering of the devill that roaring Lyon hand to hand who assaulted him in the wildernesse by three horrible and hellish temptations 2. Sampson slew with his owne hand being alone above a thousand men at once having nothing but the Jawbone of an Asse a weake base and insufficient weapon for so great a warre and victory and as it was unfit so it was an uncleane weapon of an uncleane beast by the Law which his strict profession of a Nazarite should not have touched had it beene out of case of necessity So our true Sampson by as weake and vile instruments and as contemptible in the eyes of flesh conquers thousands daily while by the foolishnesse of preaching by the doctrine of the Crosse by weake earthen vessells he subdues whole countries and kingdomes unto him that the worke may bee knowne to be his owne hand and power and not the instruments 3. Sampson slew more of Gods enemies at his death then in all his life Iudg. 16. 30. And this was the effect of the death of Christ when sinne Satan hell the grave and his enemies seemed to triumph over him and make themselves merry with the Philistims as having in their power their greatest enemie but suddenly he afflicted them more in his death then in all his life This death of Christ pulled Satans house over his head it was the death of death and squeasing of all enemies at once 4. Sampson being in the Citty Azzah and the Citizens now lying in wait to kill him and to make an end of so furious an enemy whom they had sure within their gates he arose at midnight and tooke the doores of the gates of the City and
this is a guilt And who can deny but the corruption and poison of the soule and spirit is farre more poison full and mortall then poison of the flesh 2. Bodily leprosie is a disease of some men sinne is of all men and of all the man Bodily leprosie spreads over all parts of the body but cannot reach the soule but this spreads over the whole man the soule and all the faculties are weakened and tainted there is not a debility onely but a corruption in the understanding will conscience memory in all affections in all sences in all parts no man no part of man exempted or excepted 3. No disease is more stinking and hatefull to men then leprosie So nothing is so hatefull and abominable to God as sinne his eyes cannot abide to behold it hee will not endure it in his dearest servants no nor Angels themselves unrevenged hee esteemes the sinner as dung 4. No disease more contagious and infectious A leper must meddle with nothing unlesse hee would defile it All hee can doe is to make others uncleane by breathing touching conversing The plague of pestilence is not so infectious as the plague of leprosie so called Levit. 13. 20. infecting houses walls vessells garments Nothing is so infectious as sinne which not onely foules the person or house but heaven and earth and all creatures are subject to the vanity of it Neither can an impenitent sinner doe any thing but make himselfe and others uncleane by the filthy breath of his corrupt communication by his wicked example and conversation No leaven is so spreading no pitch so cleaving 5. Leprosie of all diseases separated the infected persons from the fellowship of all men both in civill and divine ordinances for many dayes and if they proved incurable suppose them Kings they were utterly and for ever excluded the host as Vzziah 2. King 15. 5. Neither might they come to the Temple to joine in holy things for the Temple was legally the most holy place and no polluted thing might enter into it So in our sinne unrepented we are out of the campe aliens from God Sinne shuts out of the communion of faith and Saints shuts out of the state of grace and salvation it shuts out of the Congregation of God in earth and heaven No fellowship place or reward with them 6. Of all diseases none is more painfull sorrowfull mortall or incurable and therefore they were enjoyned to put on mournfull garments seeing God had inflicted so lamentable a disease on them so hardly and seldome cured as most did cary it unto death as Gehezi and Azariah In which the Lord as in a glasse would shew us the extreme sorrowes and paines that wait on sinne unpardoned sorrows of this life and of the life to come And that we should put on mourning garments of timely sorrow and afflict our selves for our sinnes seeing wee are all poisoned with so incurable a disease as there is no hope to expect any cure in this life for every man carries the running issues of sinne to his death naturall the most to the death eternall 7. The signes and symptomes of leprosie are most correspondent to the symptoms and effects of sinne in the soule 1. As there is a debility and weaknesse of all parts because the spirits are exhausted so sinne weakens all faculties because the spirit of grace is resisted and driven out 2. There is a tumour and swelling in the flesh here a tumour and proud swelling of minde none more proud then hee who hath least cause 3. There is burning and thirst through the adust and burnt blood by melancholy whereof it ariseth here is inflammation and burning of anger of lust and thirst after the world after revenge after preferments and this insatiable as every sinne is 4. There is filthy putred matter still breaking forth most loathsomely so here from within breaks out corrupt matter of envy of hatred of goodnesse of uncleannesse in speaches and behaviour 5. There is an hoarse and weake voice here the voice so weake as it cannot pray or cannot be heard God heares not sinners for either they pray not at all or they are in their sinnes 6. There is a filthy stinking breath and therefore they must cover their lips that by their breath they might not infect others So here is a filthy breath of corrupt communication of uncleane and adulterous speaches swearing and cursing speaches lying and false speaches slanderous and uncharitable speaches and seldome doe such cover their lips being like the uncleane vessells of the Law which were ever open to the corrupting and poisoning of numbers Sect. IV. I. From the former description of legall uncleannesses note the state of Gods Church and people here upon earth subject unto many sorts of defilements and pollutions within them without them and on every hand of them by foule and uncleane creatures and persons by foule courses and actions which a godly man may not touch or tast but hee is presently defiled as hee that toucheth pitch cannot but be defiled with it Where bee they that will see no Church if they see any uncleannesse Or who say that God is in no such society where any pollution is seeing God vouchsafeth to walk among his owne people who were daily subject to so many legall and morall pollutions God might if it pleased him wholly purge his floore here upon earth but it makes more for his glory to suffer sinne and evill and to set the Saints in the middest of defilements here below 1. There must be a difference betweene this heaven and earth and that new heaven and new earth in which dwells nothing but righteousnesse for had the Saints no warre there needed no watch there could bee no victory if no seede time no harvest 2. GODS mighty power is more manifest in gathering and preserving a Church to himselfe out of sinners and among sinners and hee magnifieth his mercy both in covering and curing so great and many corruptions 3. The godly in sence of their uncleannesse are kept low in their owne eyes and watchfull of their waies and so are driven out of themselves unto Christ for righteousnesse and unto God for strength continually as privy unto their owne continuall weakenesse So to subdue presumption Paul must have a buffeter and to way-lay security comming on Israel all the Canaanites must not be subdued 4. In that they cannot expect freedome from foulenesse and uncleannesse heere below they may the rather desire and aspire to that heavenly Tabernacle into which no uncleane thing can enter Rev. 21. 27. and wish to bee translated thither where righteousnesse shall dwell yea the righteous and holy God shall dwell immediately in the midst of his Saints and all things together with themselves shall be most absolutely cleane and holy II. The Lord by so large a description of legall uncleannesse would have them and us looke more neerely and seriously upon
a folid 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 suddaine 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 calme and tempestuous For the mighty winds and tempests were so strong against the Aegyptians that it brake their Chariot wheeles and they could hardly moove or stirre against it yet all the same time it was a peaceable calme to Israel who were very neere them 5. The time of the standing of the waters on so vast an heape whereon learned men agree not any way concluded is most miraculous Some thinke as Chytraeus that for so many thousands yea hundred thousands of men women and children to walke a soft pace and to drive their cattell so many miles must needs take them foure or five dayes time and then the waters to stand so long was admirable Others thinke 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 cattell 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 yet return to its course for the waters returned upon the Aegyptians on the one side of the sea when Israel was not fully over on the other as appeareth by comparing ver 26. with ver 29. that the same sea at the same time should moove stand with such judgment and distinction as not one Aegyptian was saved ver 28. not one Israelite drowned ver 30. II. Now consider this great worke 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 poynting us to Jesus Christ hereby typified In the first to the Cor. 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 concurre in it As 1. the author was God the Institutor both of the Covenant and seales Exod. 14. 30. 2. the Minister was Moses ver 31. 3. the Covenant sealed was Gods promise and word for their deliverance ver 15. 4. the signe of the Covenant was Moses stretching of his hand both for the deviding of the sea ver 16 and the returning of it againe ver 27. 5. the thing signified was salvation by the Messiah and all spirituall and eternall 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 ver 31. they beleeved God Heb. 11. 29. by faith they passed through the red sea c II. Conclusion There was not one of these actions in this temporall deliverance but it signified and sealed such actions to the beleeving Israelites as both confirmed their faith in the Covenant and set forward their salvation merited 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 celestiall Canaan and by him as by a firme way to walke forward to eternall life 2. When they saw the same Jehovah to divide the sea into his division Iunius 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 deepe as the bottome of the sea unto eternall 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 returne to his force againe both to save themselves and to overthrow the Aegyptians 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 truely represented to them as to us though not so cleerely and the truth and substance 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 beleevers that the blood of Christ alone saveth and defendeth the people of God from eternall death and damnation What could be more plainely signified by the waters of the Red sea saving Israel from present death and destruction 2. Baptisme signifieth to us that by the blood of Christ in which Red sea all beleevers must be baptised there is dying and a buriall unto sinne and a rising unto newnesse of life What could be more plainely 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 blood is truely applyed our old man and flesh is truely 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 beleevers 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 blood of Christ every beleever 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 Aegyptians once dead and slaine could hurt them no more how could they but gather that all the armies of sinne once remitted and buried in the death of Christ can no more rise up to condemnation then a drowned
behaviours as the fame of your sweet savour goes forth in the Church of God to which I doubt not but this Treatise will be the more welcome because of your worthy name prefixed It is an Orphane and the Widow desires it should be your Ward who in your love can best tender it and by your authority defend it sufficiently The God of heaven increase all heavenly graces and comforts in your noble heart abundantly and adde unto your dayes honours and blessings of all sorts till these shadowes flie away and the true Day-starre arise upon you in glory the hearty prayer of one who is and desires to be reckoned among Isleworth Iune 20. 1635. Your Wo truest friends in every good service WILLIAM IEMMAT TO THE CHRISTIAN READER I Have heard of a demurre made as though something were put forth under this Authors name which it none of his I assure thee in the word of a Minister that for the workes that have my Epistle prefixed and I heare of no other published with his name there is not one note nor notion which is not the Authors owne according to his papers And the like I affirme concerning this Treatise of Types which now I publish The use of it is manifold To open divers places of Scripture To shew the meaning of legall shadows and ceremonies To declare the faith of the Elders who received a good report To manifest our faith one with theirs one faith one Lord one Baptisme one salvation To magnifie and commend Christ to every soule that it may be saved and he honoured To discerne and bewaile the blindnesse of Gods ancient people the Iewes and pray for their returne to the truth not catching at shadowes Of whom in present I may say with detestation of their madnesse as he said against the Philosophers Nos qui non habitu c. Wee Christians whose excellencie stands not in outward things but spirituall glorie that we have found what they with all their diligence have sought and could not finde Why are we unthankâ—full Why doe we stand in our owne light if the truth of the Deitie hath in this our age attained to maturitie Let us enjoy and make use of our owne good and follow the truth in truth avaunt superstition be packing all impietie let true religion be preserved and flourish Yet withall seeing there is a promise that all Israel shall be saved let us pray for the performance and that with all earnestnesse as that converted Iew gave exhortation to his sonne So long poure forth thy prayers for the remnant of Israel till God looke from his high habitation and see and have mercy on his people for the Lords sake his Anointed that in our daies Iudah may be saved and the children of Israel may dwell safely in their owne land and spend their daies in good the Lord making his good Spirit to rest upon them William Jemmat A Table of the Contents of this Treatise I. THe Introduction containing five Propositions of the Church salvation covenaÌ„t of grace Christ the ancieÌ„t ceremonies p. 1 Five reasons for those ceremonies 2 Grace in the New Testament specially how 3 Ceremonies called shadowes for foure reasons 4 Threefold use of them to the Iews 5 Gods wisedom in appointing them three wayes ibid. II. The Treatise shewing Christ prefigured by holy persons and things 5 I. Adam a type of Christ in creation office soveraignty conjugation propagation 6 The Ministery reverend for antiquitie 8 Antiquity of the doctrine of free grace ibid. Seeke life by Christs death ibid. Get into Christ the second Adam as thou art surely of the first Motives 9 II. Noah a type for salvation righteousnesse preaching Arke repairing the world sacrifice of rest and a dove sent out of the Arke 10 Preserve integrity in the worst times 14 Sinnes which are signes of judgement approaching 15 Comfort to bee had in Christ our Noah 16 III. Melchizedek a type in Etymologie office originall excellency of person and Priesthood 17 Christ greater than Abraham 20 Comfort by Christ our Melchizedek ibid. We are blessed by our Melchizedek 21 By our Melchizedek the Church abides for ever 22 Excellencie of Christs Priesthood above the Leviticall eight waies ibid. Sin not to be accounted slight whose sacrifice is so costly 24 IV. Isaac a type in birth suffering offering escape marriage 24 A patterne of obedience in 5. things 28. Two rules 29 A type of our resurrection 31 Matter of sweet consolation 32 Look for helpe though the case bee desperate ibid. V. Joseph a type in his person actions passions advancement 33 No newes for good men to be hated for their excellencie 37 All sufferings of the godly come of God ordained and ordered 37 Comfort by Christ our Ioseph foure wayes 38 Do to Christ as Iosephs brethren to him 39 VI. Moses a type in person estate office suffering sundry actions 40 Our doctrine is of God 45 Be faithfull in doing thy office 46 Shew faith in the fruit of it contrary to foure sorts of men 47 Assurance of our resurrection 47 VII Joshua a type in saving calling miracles valour actions 48 A fearfull thing to be an enemy of the Church 51 Comfort in our salvation accomplished 52 Duties wee owe to Christ our Joshua 53 Conditions to be observed in going to heaven 53. Six 54 VIII Sampson a type in person condition actions sufferings stratagems victories 55 Iudge none by outward calamities 58 Strange meanes used by God for the Churches good 59 Our victorie stands in patience and passion 60 Fourefold comfort to Gods people ibid. In Gods cause contemne greatest perill and prepare for death approching 62 IX David a type in person vocation warres kingdome office Propheticall and Priestly 62 Enter upon no office without assistance of the Spirit A note of it 70 Christ the true King of the Church Nine wayes more excellent than David 71 How God brings his servants to honour 74 Church ever pestered with home-bred enemies 75 Comfort to the Church in 3. things 76 X. Salomon a type in person condition peace-making wisedome glory temple justice 77 Duties to Christ our Salomon two 83 Fourefold comfort in our Salomon 84 XI Jonah a type in name office death buriall resurrection 85 Repent at the Ministery of Christs servants 87. Motives 88. Vocation of the Gentiles 89 Our resurrection assured to us 89 Power and wisedome of God to bee admired 90 Terror of sin euen in Gods own children and comfort 91 XII The First-borne types as Gods peculiar fathers of the family preferred before brethren double portion 92 Every mercy is the greater engagement unto God 95 Honour Christ as the first-borne of God and how 96 Threefold comfort in the birthright 97 Forfeit not the birthright by sin 98 Resemble Christ our elder brother 99 XIII Priests types in deputation to office and execution choice consecration apparell actions 100 A cover for us in Christ for all deformities of soule and body
Father So the Jewes by Gods permission breake their sleepe and early in the morning proceed to the condemning of Christ who is called the Hinde of the morning Psa. 22. 1. compassed with dogges that hunted his life and Christ as another Isaac after his passion rose early in the morning to fulfill the worke of his Father 3. Neither of them must be offered every where or any where but both in a mountaine and such a mountaine as must typifie Christs humane nature Mount Moriah must beare the Temple built by Salomon a type of Christs body Ioh. 2. 19. Mount Calvary must beare the body it selfe and these two hills if they be not one and the same as Augustine thinkes and it is not unprobable but that Golgotha was the skirt of Moriah yet could they not be farre distant the one being within the gate of the City and the other not farre without the nearest to the City of all 4. The Father layes first the wood upon both and then both upon the wood both must feele the weight of the wood no small wood to burne a man a whole burnt offering as Isaac but the wood which Christ bore was farre heavier 1. For the greatnesse of the burthen 2. For the burthensomenesse of our sinnes Isay 53. 4. he bare all our diseases And then both by Gods appoyntment were bound on the wood fastened hand and foot not that either was unwilling but to retaine the manner appointed for sacrifice 5. Isaac must be offered alone the servants must stay at the foot of the hill a farre off little knowing the businesse and sorrow in hand So Christ must tread the Winepresse alone Isa. 63. 3. the Disciples feare and fly and little consider the agony of their Master 6. The Father carryes in his hand the sword and fire against his owne sonne the sword signifying the justice of God the fire his burning wrath against the sinnes of men Both bent against Christ both sustained by this Isaac in whom the justice of God is satisfied and the flame of his wrath extinct and quenched IV. In his scape and deliverance 1. The blow is a fetching but Abraham must hold his had Isaacs flesh must not be pierced or cut The souldiers ready to breake the legges of Christ as of the two theeves must stay their hands not a bone of him must be broken 2. Isaac offred and three dayes dead in his fathers purpose and minde yet dyed not but his Father received him as from the dead so Christ offered upon his Divinity dyed not and his humanity dead in the belly of the earth after three dayes he revived and raysed himselfe againe to die no more So both were delivered from death the third day wherein the Apostle plainely makes him a type Heb. 11. 19. from whence he received him as in a type or resemblance that is to be a type or resemblance of Christs resurrection from death 3. The Ramme that was offered for Isaac was caught by the head among the thornes and hanged in a bush Christ our sacrifice was hanged on a tree crowned with thornes and so hung on the Crosse to expiate our sinnes compared to thorns and bryers which would for ever have held us if they had not held him V. In his mariage 1. Rebekah was faire and beautifull so the Church is faire in the beauty of Christ and faire within 2. Shee was of his owne kinred and flesh Gen. 24. 4 so Christs spouse is of the same flesh which himselfe assumed 3. She was wooed by his fathers servants and brought forwards toward Isaac so the Church is wooed by pastors and Preachers the servants of Christ and so brought forwards by his friends towards the bridegroome 4. She resolved to forsake all her friends and comforts to come to Isaac so the Church forsakes all in affection and actually being called to enjoy her head and husband Jesus Christ. 5. She decks her self with jewels and trims her selfe before she comes to Isaac but covers all with a vaile so the Church prepares her selfe as a Bride for a Bridegroome trimms her selfe with faith and graces as Jewells but covers and vailes all with humility modesty shame facenesse as not worthy to be seene much lesse matched to such an husband 6. In her comming towards Isaac Isaac meets her so the Church comming towards Christ he meets her afarre off 1. by his grace of election 2. by his most entyre love and affection 3. by most gracious acceptation 4. In person and Incarnation 5. In glory and power at the last Judgement for her finall salvation I. In the type and truth note a patterne by which to frame our obedience Phil. 2. 8. Let the same minde bee in us that was in them 1. To bee humbly obedient unto our father as they 2. Having never so difficult a Commandement As Abraham rose early to obey God and Isaac as early to obey his Father and Christ was content early in the morning to bee prosecuted to death so let not us procrastinate but hasten to our duty especially to our sacrifices of prayer and prayses early in the morning Psal. 108. 2. 3. As Abraham in offering nor Isaac in obeying consulted not with flesh and blood acquainted neither Sarah nor the servants nor consulted with humane wisdome to hinder obedience no more must we in our obedience So Paul Gal. 1. 16. professeth of himselfe that he communicated not with flesh and blood after he had a calling If flesh and blood will object any thing against obedience and extoll it selfe against the knowledge of God bring it captive into the obedience of Christ 2. Corinth 10. 5. 4. Obey in suffering as well as in doing dayly take up our crosse as both they carried the wood of their offering and not repine nor reply We must not thinke that by carrying our crosse wee can performe the worke of our redemption for to that end it was carried by Christ onely yet we must carry it so farre forth as he is a patterne for our imitation yea that we may be conformable to the image of Christ Rom. 8. 29. 5. For the measure sticke not at heavy crosses and burthens they carried heavy loads of wood Wee must not love our lives to the death if God call us therto For both they were obedient unto the death Phil. 2. 8. Such a testimony is given of the Saints Revel 12. 11. they loved not their lives unto the death Now thus to frame our obedience are required two rules I. A change and renovation of our crooked and corrupt nature which is ever rebelling against the law of the minde Nothing wee say is hard to good will But this good will is not to bee found but in such as are regenerate by the Spirit of God who hath made it of an unwilling a willing will And till this change be made every commandement is impossible and an intolerable yoke Let Christ give
the two posts and lift them away with the barres and layd them on his shoulders and departed ch 16. 3 So when satan and sinners had buried Christ laid a stone on him sealed it and watched him thinking they had him sure enough never to molest them more he like another mighty Sampson rose in his might carried away the gates and barres of death from himselfe and all his members All the bonds of death and sinne with which he was bound in our stead he shooke off as Sampson did the seven greene cords and broke their power as towe is broken when it feeleth fire 5. Sampson never had helpe from any other in slaying the Lyon the enemies but with his owne hand without any other second or weapon So Christ in the wildernesse alone in the garden at prayer alone before Pilate alone all the disciples fled on the Crosse alone No other must tread the winepresse none must share in the honor nor conquest with him I. Not to judge of the piety or impiety of Gods children by their calamities Sampson hath many enemies many conflicts many dangers by the Lyon the Philistims the Azzhites and his owne wife his life painfull his death violent Jesus Christ himselfe beset with enemies on all sides as the sunne with moats never free from conflicts with the Lyon the devill with his owne Jewes with Pharao Saduces Herodians his person despised his miracles traduced his life painfull his death shamefull and accursed Yet may we not judge either of them forsaken of God who still assisted them with his owne strength and was strongest in them when they seemed weakest Neither may we mis-judge the generation of Gods children in their conflicts with Satan with temptation with sinners or with the terrours of their owne hearts If they shall cry out My God why hast thou for saken me wait a while and Gods strength shall doe great things in their weakenesse II. God can and usually doth use strange weake and unexpected meanes to overthrow his enemies and the enemies of his Church his strength is most seene in weake things his wiâ—dome working by the most foolish When a thousand enemies set upon Sampson at once without any weapon or meanes of defence he can use a jawbone to kill a thousand of them when they thinke him farre enough from any weapon and if Sampson wants a better and readier meanes against Gods enemies hee can by two hundred Foxes a most unexpected meanes burne up their graine and fields at harvest time Our Lord by the foolishnesse of preaching can and doth overcome his enemies nay God can and doth by contrary meanes wrack his foes Sampson shall marry a wife among the Philistims to bee an occasion of warre and revenge and this came of God whereas marriages among Princes ordinarily are made to compose and make up differences not to make them Our Lord Jesus overcomes sinne death hell grave by suffering by death by descending into hell by lying in the grave most unlikely or contrary meanes Let Gods enemies feare revenge by every thing even where no feare is An enemy of God and his Church is never safe seeme he never so secure An army of frogges shall drive Pharaoh out of his bedchamber in the middest of his greatnesse a fly shall choake Pope Adrian if other meanes be wanting and proud Herod shall be eaten up not by an army of men but of lice III. The greatest victory against the enemies of the Church is by passion and patience submitting our selves meekely unto God in obedience walking in our callings and doing the worke of God Thus did these two mighty Sampsons most overcome their enemies when they seemed most overcome by them Our warre saith Isidore is contrary to the striving of the Olympicks There hee gets the garland which striketh and overcommeth heere he which is strooke and suffereth There he which being strooke striketh againe heere he which offereth his cheeke to the striker And thus he concludeth Our victory consisteth not in revenging but in suffering Oh let the children of the Church lay aside worldly weapons clamour reviling revenging speeches or actions and betake themselves to the weapons of the Church prayers teares patience weapons mighty under God The power of a Christian is patience who must overcome evill with goodnesse IV. In that Christ is the true Sampson heere is much consolation and many comforts to the Israel of God 1. Comfort As Sampson revenged the wrong offered him in his wife So will Christ Mat. 25. In that yee did it to one of these little ones yee did it to mee And though Sampsons wife may be taken from him and given to another Christs cannot Ioh. 10. 28. none shall pluck them out of my hand 2. Comfort A mightier deliverer is heere then Sampson for Israel For 1. Though Sampson was strong to overcome a Lyon our Sampson is stronger to overcome the Devill not in himselfe onely but for us in us and by us 2. Sampson was strong but might abuse his strength as hee did in whoring and wantonnesse which in prison he repented But Jesus Christ used all his strength for God against sinne and his enemies 3. Sampson abusing it might lose his strength for it was not the parting with his haire but his sinne grieving the Spirit that weakned him but Christ could not lose his strength because hee could not lose his obedience 4. Sampson was so strong as the Philistines thought it bootlesse to assay him with power but by policy and indirect meanes they conquer him but our Sampson cannot bee conquered neither by power nor by policy for hee is stronger then all and in him are treasures of wisedome 5. Sampson overthrew the enemies but that was his owne overthrow but Christ not so his conquest was to his most glorious exaltation 6. Sampson as a type onely began the deliverance of the Church but hindred by death could not perfect it Our Sampson perfected the deliverance and salvation of the whole Church and did more after death then in his life or death and will most fully perfect it for all his members in the resurrection 3. Comfort The glory of Gods children appeares not yet but shall when hee shall appeare 1. Ioh. 3. 2. Sampsons strength for a time lurked in the prison the glory of Christs Deity lay hid a while in the grave but both most powerfully brake forth So shall the glory of the despised Saints Psalm 37. 6. 4 Comfort Wee shall never doubt of meanes to comfort and supply us in want The same God that supplied Sampson a Jawbone against his enemies supplied him out of the same Jawbone a well of water to drinke when hee was ready to faint Trust thy selfe with God in thy wants reserve to him all meanes instruments and wayes of bringing thee helpe If thou see no apparant or great meanes of thy comfort and supply hee can use weake and unexpected meanes onely walke
David had a traine 1. Of poore men and received such to him as were in debt 1. Sam. 22. 2. The Sonne of David had a poore traine and not receiveth onely but calleth all unto him that are heavy laden with the burthen of sinnes called debts promising he will ease them 2. Afterwards David had his thirty seven Worthies that valiantly fought his battells 2. Sam. 23. and by their strength carried wonderfull victories So had the Sonne of David his twelve Apostles and seventy two disciples who as worthy and stout Champions fought the Lords spirituall battells and mightily subdued the world under the government of Jesus Christ in whose place are succeeded pastors and teachers to the end 2. His enemies 1. Open and manifest not onely Goliah that defied all Israel but Saul that casts a speare at him that hunts him as a Partridge that sends out for him to bring him to death and the house of Saul Shimei rayling on him and cursing him with an horrible curse besides Amalekites Philistims c. So our Lord Jesus had open hostility against the great Goliah of hell and encountered him hand to hand and conquers him in the wildernesse But Herod hunts his life every where the Pharisees revile him for a deceiver and Demoniack send out for him to take away his life and the people of the Jews pursuing him with all open hatred and hostility even to the death and all the wicked tyrants and enemies as so many Amalekites and Philistims 2. Secret and underhand enemies that should have beene loyall and loving to him even his owne people that flattered him with their mouths but imagined mischiefe against him Psa. 41. 9. Such as Doeg Achitophel Nay he which eat bread with him at his table his familiar that went up to the house of God with him And more then all this he that came out of his owne loynes his owne son Absalom besides the sonnes of his father 1 Sam. 17. 28. So our true David had not onely his owne Jewes and brethren hating him with an horrible hatred and calling his blood upon themselves but his owne Disciple that had beene so familiar with him that went to the house of God often with him that knew all his haunts and waies betraying him and delivering him to bee crucified And thus Christ himselfe expounds that in Psalme 41. 9. of himselfe and Iudas Luk. 22. 21. And therefore Interpretors expound such execrations as Psa. 59. 13. Consume them that they be no more not so much litterally against Saul and other enemies of David as against the Jewes and enemies of Christ shadowed by them and so conceive them as they be Propheticall predictions of Jerusalem and the Jewes forty yeares after Christs ascension and of the present wrath upon the hardened Jewes whose hatred against Christ liveth at this day as the curse liveth on them 3. His deliverances and victories with many of which the Lord honoured him As 1. Saul layes wait every where to take him and pursues him from place to place but Davids feet were made like Hinds feet in expedition to avoid his enemy whether Saul or Absalom who chased him as hunters the silly hare and he escapes them all though narrowly and strangely Christ Jesus was often sought after and laid for by his enemies no kind of snare was undevised to take him in his talke in his doctrine in his life and conversation no meanes unattempted to take his person but hee escaped their hands strangely Sometimes he went through the midst of them all who having strong purpose yet had no power to take him till the time waâ— come that he delivered himselfe 2. Saul having wearied himselfe in pursuit of David sent messengers to take him three severall times 1 Sam. 19. 20. but they among a company of Prophets began to prophecy the spirit of the Lord comming upon them and they went without him So the Pharisees sent messengers to apprehend Christ and bring him before them but comming to him as Sauls messengers to David and hearing his gracious words had no power to take him but went away preaching and proclaiming as they prophecying never man spake like this man Ioh. 7. 46. 3. In the comparison between Saul and David David having slaine Goliah was sung Saul hath slaine his thousand but David his ten thousand 1. Sam. 18. 10. But there is no comparison betweene the victories of David and of this sonne of David who hath slaine the great Goliah the Devill who defied all the host of Israel and not destroyed the devill onely but overcame death hell the grave and chased before him all the armies of sinnes and bands of temptations which come out against the Israel of God 4. in that noble victory David cuts off Goliahs head with his owne sword So in the wildernesse the devill the great Goliah used Scripture against Christ and Christ overthrowes him and cuts off his head by the same sword of the Spirit the word of God And now daily he convinceth the wicked enemies by the testimony of their owne conscience Rom. 2. 15. He needeth no other sword or weapon against them then their owne IV. David was a type of Christ in his Kingdome first in respect of the entrance secondly of the administration thirdly of the continuance or eternity 1. David entred not without strong opposition much contempt and disdaine so our David For of both it was verified the stone which the builders refused is become chiefe stone of the corner No man was more despised of Sauls courtiers then David who was thought farre enough from the Kingdome so no man so much despised and rejected of the Scribes Pharisees chiefe Priests and people as Christ. Barrabas an honest man to him and yet was mightily and unexpectedly invested into his Kingdome by his glorious rising from the dead 2. In his administration David will judge uprightly and sing mercy and judgement he will endure no hatefull person in his presence But our David is the just and righteous Judge of all the world and most sincerely disspenceth mercy to the penitent sinner but feedes the impenitent with judgement 3. In the continuance or eternity God promised mercy to David and his seed for ever which promises are not to be extended to his carnall succession for the princely dignity is taken from them Their glory was eclipsed in the captivity and where be now any of Davids race according to the flesh But the everlasting seed of David is to bee meant 1. Christ himselfe in whom his kingdome is perpetuated 2. The true Israel as well of Gentiles as of Jewes by faith ingrafted into the Messiah in respect of whom shal be no end of his Kingdome Thus in all those speeches wherein David professeth he will praise the Lord among the Gentiles David must be taken as a type of Christ who by his Spirit set forth the praise and true worship of God among
and terrible day Mat. 25. when all flesh shal see and admire the wisdome and power of God in him to doe justice For application briefly I. A greater then Salomon is heere Luk. 11. 31. 1. Hence our Saviour perswades to come to him to partake of his wisdome wealth peace grace But the Queene of the South shall rise up against this generation For shee 1. a woman of weake sexe 2. a Queene enjoying pleasures at home 3. undertooke a long journey from the ends of the earth Mat. 12. 42. 4. Set aside the weighty affaires of her kingdome the charge of her journey and gifts to Salomon not small 1. King 10. 10 the dangers wearinesse and all to heare the wisdome of Salomon yet as a Gentile did all this But many men and women professing Christianity will not step over their thresholds to heare the wisdome of a greater then Salomon Ob If Salomon or Christ were heere we would Sol. 1. The Jewes would say so but would not 2. Hee that heares you heareth mee 3. He that will not heare us would not heare Christ himselfe Ob Wee have businesse and occasions Sol 1. Many make occasions which might be avoided 2. Many pretend occasions 3. Many have occasions but so had this Queene who would not be hindred from Salomon by the weighty affaires of a kingdome 4. Whose occasions ordinarily hinder them they shall never taste of the supper 2. Hence wee must labour to account it our happinesse that wee may have liberty to wait on the true Salomon So the Queene of Saba Happy are thy servants that may attend on thee and heare thy wisdome So our Saviour himself Happy are they that heare the word and keep it Happy we if we saw our happinesse that we need not with such cost and toyle seeke after our Salomon For he comes to us and knocks at the doores of our hearts and offers to enrich us with treasures of wisdome Let us open our gates that this King of glory may enter in Let us receive the rules of wisdome from his mouth and consider how unhappy they are that despise the word of which both the Salomons were preachers II. Comfort that Christ is the true Salomon 1. Great were the blessings which Salomon procured to Israel but all temporary and outward but our Salomon procures greater spirituall and eternall 2. Salomon prayes and is heard for al that pray in the temple 1. King 8. Christ prayes and merits that all prayers of Saints be heard Ioh. 17. 3. Salomon could not be present in all his Kingdome at once Cant. 8. 11. Salomon had a Vineyard and let it out to dressers vers 12. but my vineyard is set before mine eyes Himselfe still walks in the midst of the golden Candlesticks and watcheth for the good of it 4. All the excellencies which now wee see and enjoy in Christ are nothing to them wee shall see as the Queene of Saba halfe was not told me in my countrey So as the glory delight pleasure which our Salomon now gives us must affect our hearts to renounce carnall delights and pursue those that are above What is earth to heaven that is faith to fruition This is that Cant. 3. 7. Behold his bed is better then Salomons which was for price and safety most excellent for threescore valiant men stood about it every night But the spirituall marriage bed in the mariage chamber the kingdome of glory surpasseth all comprehension all sweetned with incense of holinesse happinesse glory immortality better then the best perfumes there is perfect security lasting joy on their heads for ever CHAP. XII II. Jonah a type of Christ in 4. respects IOnah was a type of Christ as Mat. 12. 39 No signe shal be given them but the signe of the Prophet Jonah I. In his name and office Both Ionahs both doves one in name the other in nature Both mournefull one in a sea of sorrowes shut in the whales belly the other a man of sorrows and such as no man ever sustained and overcame Both Prophets Ionah sent to preach repentance to Niniveh Christ the true Ionah the great Prophet of the Church was sent to preach the same doctrine to the world Mat. 4. 17. Then Iesus beganne to preach and say Amend your lives c. Both of them in expresse words must signifie to their hearers that without repentance they were in state of perdition II. In respect of his death and suffering In the 1. kind 2. manner 3. fruit 1. The kinde it was a willing death a free will offring For as Ionah when the tempest was raysed freely offered himselfe to death when the Mariners would faine have saved him Ion. 1. 12. take me and cast me into the sea that the tempest may cease So when the storme of Gods wrath was boistrous against the sinnes of mankind Jesus Christ our Ionah offered himselfe to the death for he had power either to lay downe his life or to retaine it Ioh. 10. 18. No man taketh away my life from me but I lay it downe of my selfe Ioh. 18. 5 I am he 2. The terrible and dreadful manner For as Ionah was swallowed up of the Whale who made but one morsell of him So Christ was swallowed up of death and seemed wholly devoured of the curse of God And as the one cryed in the Whales belly out of the belly of hell Ion. 2. 2 and vers 4. I am cast away out of thy sight So the other cries upon the Crosse My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Both of them were in so extraordinary death as in their sense they were in the deepest Hell 3. The fruit of it 1. The appeasing of the wrath of God his Father For as Ionah once cast into the Sea the windes were stilled the sea ceased from her raging Chap. 1. 15. and there was a great calme So Christ by his death pacified his Fathers wrath stilled the rage of Satan abolished the horror of death which otherwise had never beene still and calme towards us 2. To save his fellowes For as Ionah must be cast into the sea to save his fellows from drowning Chap. 1. 12 So must Christ bee overwhelmed with the waves of his Fathers displeasure and as Ionah bee put to death by those that should have preserved him but not for any desert of his owne but to save his companions and brethren in the same ship with him from death and drowning For so was the signification of his name Jesus so himselfe affirmed Matt. 20. 28. The Sonne of man came to give his life a ran some for many So also Caiaphas prophecied It is fit that one man die for the people and that the whole Nation perish not Ioh 11. 50. III. In Ionah wee have a type of Christs buriall noted by Christ himselfe For as Ionah was in the belly of the fish three dayes and three nights So must
Christ bee detained in the grave and lie under buriall three dayes and three nights parts put for the whole as perhaps also in Ionah till the case seemed desperate in both not onely in their owne apprehensions as I have before shewed but in the disciples apprehension Luk. 24. 21. Wee thought this should have beene hee that should have delivered Israel and behold this is the third day IV. Ionah was a manifest type of Christ in his resurrection For 1. As Ionah was taken into the belly of the Whale whole and passed through the ranges and armies of teeth as sharpe as speares without breaking or crushing one bone of him or the least limb of his body So Jesus Christ passed through the strait gate of death but as one bone of him was not broken the speciall and extraordinary providence of God in both of them watching the whole businesse 2. As the Lord spake unto the fish and the fish against his will must cast up Ionah on dry ground So the belly of the earth can keepe Christ no longer then the third day no more then the belly of the Whale could keepe Ionah his blessed body must see no corruption 3. As Ionah returned from his grave with a song of praise and thankesgiving Chap. 2 So Jesus Christ returned to life from his grave with a song of triumph and victory fore-prophecied Hos. 13. 14. and accomplished 1. Cor. 15. 55. O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory 4. As Ionah an Hebrew goes not to preach to the Ninivites being Gentiles till after his resurrection out of the belly of the Whale So Jesus Christ an Hebrew not till after his resurrection leaves the obstinate Jewes and by his Apostles ministery and preaching turnes himselfe to the Gentiles Act. 13. 46. 5. As Ionah after this delivery went and preached the doctrine of repentance with great fruit and successe to the conversion of all Niniveh and preventing the fearefull wrath denounced to come within fourty dayes So our Lord Jesus after his resurrection and ascension sending out his Apostles to preach repentance and remission of sinnes mightily prevailed and suddenly converted many nations of the Heathen and brought them to faith and repentance For Application I. Let us acknowledge a greater then Ionah here Matth. 12. 41. Lest as the Ninivits shall rise up against the Jewes they rise also against us if wee convert not nor repent at Christs doctrine as they did at Ionahs For 1. Who are they to us They barbarous Heathens and Gentiles never instructed before wee have beene trained in the Scriptures from childhood 2. What were their meanes to ours Ionah preached but three dayes to them Christ hath preached not three dayes as he nor three yeeres as to the Iewes but aboue threescore yeares He preached one sermon Christ a thousand 3. What was their Preacher to ours 1. Ionah was a weake man Christ is God and man 2. Ionah a sinful man cast into the sea for his owne sinne Christ an innocent man cast into the sea for our sinne 3. Ionah a Prophet a servant Christ the Lord of all the holy Prophets therefore of Ionah 4. Ionah a stranger to them Christ of our owne kindred and family 5. Ionah preached unwillingly Christ preached freely and spent himselfe for us 6. Ionah preached nothing but destruction of them and their City Christ a sweet doctrine of grace salvation and the promise of a kingdome of heaven 7. Ionah came indeed out of the belly of the Whale but did no miracle for confirmation of his doctrine Christ came both from the bosome of the Father and from the heart of the earth and did innumerable signes and miracles in which wee see his glory 8. Ionah a most angry and impatient man would faine die because the Ninevits did not Christ a mirrour of patience will die least his hearers should 9. To Ionah no Prophet gave witnesse or foretold of him To Christ all the Prophets gaue witnesse Act. 10. 43. and spake before of him Shall now Nineveh repent in sackcloth and ashes by Ionahs Ministery of three dayes and shall not wee by Christs constant Ministery of threefore yeares Shall Nineveh condemne Judea for not acknowledging a greater then Ionah and shall it not condemne us not repenting whose sinne shall bee farre greater then that of the Jews who rejected Christ in his abasement and humiliation but we reject the Lord of glory now exalted II. In the type and truth the freedome of Gods favour in the calling of the Gentiles Ionah was a preacher of grace to the Gentiles and Christ was a preacher of grace not to Jews onely but the Gentiles also being given for a light to the Gentiles that he might be the salvation of Gentiles to the farthest parts of the earth For 1. God is not the God of Iews onely but of Gentiles also Rom. 3. 29. 2. Christ was the promised seed in whom all nations must be blessed Gen. 22. 18. Hence comes in our title to grace and not from any desert of ours For what is amiable in the wilde Olive It is onely Gods free calling who calls her that was not beloved to bee beloved Object If we bee grafted into Christ and received into grace all is well we are in state good enough Sol. Some are grafted into the Church by profession of mouth onely as all were not Israel that were of Israel and some planted into it by the faith of the heart The former are not altered from their wilde nature the other are renewed to the Image of Christ. Therefore let none content themselves with externall profession joyning in the word sacraments and prayer but labour for soundnesse of faith and grace by which onely wee become branches of the true Olive whereas to be hanged as a scien by a thred of profession will not keep it from withering III. In both we have a certaine Embleme and proof of our resurrection Rom. 8. 11. If the Spirit of him that raised up Ionah and Jesus be in us he shall also quicken our mortall bodies and if the head be risen the members must rise also For as God spake to the fish and the fish gave up Ionah as from the dead so shall God speake to the earth and sea and all creatures and they shall give up their dead Isa. 26. 19. he shall say to the earth give and to the sea restore my sonnes and daughters and they that are as seed under clods shall awake and sing And these dry bones shall be againe covered with sinews flesh and skin as Ezek. 37. 6. For as it was impossible for Christ to be held ever under death Acts 2. 24. as impossible is it for his members Let us comfort our selves in the approach of death to our selves or our friends and by rising before hand from the grave of our sinnes provide for a blessed and joyfull resurrection 2 King 13. 21. a dead
body cast into Elishaes grave quickned so our soules and bodies IV. The wonderfull power and wisdome of God that can draw light out of darknesse Ionahs casting over board into the sea was the occasion of converting the Mariners Even so Christs death converted many of them that were causes and authors of it Acts 2. 36. 41. And as the Mariners lives were saved by casting Ionah into the sea so all beleevers by the death of Iesus Christ. 1. Let us not measure Gods workes by carnall senses This made the two disciples going to Emaus Luke 24. to make but a bad argument Hee is crucified and behold this is the third day therefore though we thought he should have redeemed Israel wee are deceived Whereas faith would have made a cleane contrary conclusion He is crucified and this is the third day therefore he is the Redeemer The Iewes not knowing the Scriptures and power of God are hardned against Iesus Christ expecting a great Emperour as Iulius 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 imbracing 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 owne person and Ministery or as if Christ was not set as a sign or butt of contradiction whereas therefore it must needs be he 2. Let us admire Gods power and wisdome and patiently with Ionah 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 evills hapning to our selves and others 1. Even of our sinnes themselves to make us more humble and watchfull for time to come 2. Of our sufferings as Ionah 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. Wee see the waight of sinne committed pressed Ionah into the deepest sea of evils 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. Doe thou run from God and duty and though thou beest Gods childe thou maist finde 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 owne blood yea through Hell Thy sinne repented of held Christ an innocent out of heaven till he dyed for it but where shall ungodly and impenitent sinners appeare 2. This same collation affords us sundry grounds of comfort 1. Both seeme forsaken neither of them was so but both of them goe to his God There is no time nor place wherein the childe of God may not boldly goe to God and pray to his God and say My God my God 2. No deepe is so deepe but Gods hand can reach help into it even into the Whales belly and heart of the earth 3. The extreamest misery and death it selfe worke to good to the godly See it in Ionah Where was feared pâ—rdition there was found preservation The Whales belly was a prison indeed but to preserve him alive a deep gulfe and a sea but to save him froÌ„ drowning Can any man save a man from drowning by casting him into the sea but God can 4. When the case seemes most desperate then the Lord steps in to help when no helpe can bee expected any other way after three dayes and three nights Ionah must be cast up and Christ raised up Never feare extremities but then exercise thy faith most for then is God the nearest however trust in him though he kill thee Iob 13. 15. 5. The deepest sorrowes of Gods children end in greatest joy God hath a dry ground for Ionah after a sea of misery a glorious ascending for Christ after his lowest descent Whatsoever the sorrowfull songs be that Gods people sing here in Aegypt 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 borne Types of Christ 4. wayes HAving spoken of holy types in sundry special persons now of personall types in some rankes and orders of men sanctified and specially seperated 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 Iesus Christ. I. As they were Gods peculiar Exod. 13. 2. Sanctifie unto me all the first borne 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 Jews by reason of common grace were his with whom God had plighted his gracious covenant which was made to Abraham and all his seed wheresoever they were borne of whom hee made choice as his peculiar though all the earth was his Exod. 4. 22. Israel is my first borne that is not only the first people and nation that first professed the true worship of God and had priority of the Gentiles who were yonger brethren but the first borne by a speciall election and choice of that from all other people whom hee 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 hee dealt not with other nations 3 By a speciall right The first borne of Israel were Gods by a singular right as no other childreÌ„ of any other family were namely by right of that singular deliverance of all the first borne when he destroyed all the first borne of Aegypt And therefore presently after that destruction he makes challenge of them Exod. 13. 2. Thus is Jesus Christ the Lords first borne 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 Iohn 1. 14. the onely begotten Sonne of the Father the first borne without a second or brother 2. In his office hee was first borne by speciall prerogative 1. for the kinde 2. for the undertaking 3. for the accomplishing
1. For the kinde 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 borne among many brethren Which phrase noteth quality not equality with him some similitude but no parity betweene him and beleevers He holds his birth-right as the Sonne of God by nature and wee by grace made the sonnes of God he disdaines not to call us brethren 2. For undertaking his office 1. In his incarnation he was the first borne of his Mother Mat. 1. 25. till she had brought forth her first borne Son not in respect of any that his mother had after him but because she had none before 2. For the strange maner He was the first borne of a virgine and so never had brother 3. He was the first borne without sinne 3. For accomplishing his office in his resurrection He is called the first begotten or first borne of the dead two wayes 1. In respect of his father who first begot him from the dead Whence his resurrection is called a begetting Act. 13. 33. thou art my sonne this day have I begotten thee the Apostle applying it to the resurrection of Christ. And had not the Father thus begotten his sonne from the dead we had never been raised from death 2. In regard of himselfe whose priviledge it was to raise up himselfe from the dead by his owne power Rom. 1. 4. As himselfe said I have power to take up my life againe And being risen he was the first that ascended in body and soule into heaven Thus consider Christ as God as Mediator as incarnate as raised and ascended he is the Lords first born and the birthright belongs to no other II. The first borne of Israel was the second and next to the father of the family yea after the father instead of the father So is Christ to his family the Church he performes all offices of a carefull and tender father and takes on him not the affection onely of a father but even 1. the name of a father Isa. 9. 6. Father of eternity 2 the office of a father 1. He supplies the meanes of spirituall life as they of naturall 2. Hee nurtures and teacheth his Church 3. Hee provides for the present and bestowes the inheritance of eternall life III. The first born had the preheminence among the brethren and were chiefe in office and authority rulers in the house after their fathers and Priests in the family before the Leviticall order was established Gen. 27. 29. when Isaac blessed Iacob for Esau supposing him the first borne one part of it was Be Lord over thy brethren and let all thy mothers children honour thee So all the sheaves must bowe to Iosephs And Gen. 49. 8. when Iacob blesseth Iudah this is added as his right Thy fathers sonnes shall bowe downe unto thee Here in they were speciall types of Christ who in all things must have the preheminence as first in time in order in precedency first in the excellency and dignity of his person Of whom comming into the world was said Let all the Angels of God worship him And for glory and authority he sits on his fathers throne the onely King of kings who hath a name above all names Phil. 2. 9. And Heb. 2. 9. we see Iesus crowned with glory and honour the head of the mysticall body the Prince and head of all his brethren And besides he is the high Priest of our profession by offering up himselfe a sacrifice for us Thus Christ is first in order in glory in Priesthood IV. The first borne had a double portion in goods Deut. 21 17. Signifying 1. The plenitude of the spirit grace in Christ who was anointed with oyle of gladnesse above all his fellowes 2. The preheminence of Christ in his glorious inheritance advanced in glory and majesty incomprehensible by all creatures I. Out of the occasion of the Law of the first borne learne that the more God doth for any man the more he ought to conceive himselfe to be the Lords and the more right and interest the Lord challengeth in him For therefore the first borne were his by a speciall right because he had not onely delivered them out of Aegypt as others but from the speciall plague of Aegypts first borne Speciall mercies call for speciall service More mercies are more bonds of obedience And new mercies are so many new cords to draw and fasten us to God and duty Is it not reason that the more it pleaseth the Lord to become ours the more we should become his Ought not great benefits become great binders And should not great love bee a great loadstone of love Should not strong cords of Gods love draw us strongly to love our God Examine the encrease of Gods mercies on thee in all kindes and whether they have had this fruit to make thee more dutifull Hath God multiplied blessing on thy head that thou shouldest blesse thy selfe in wickednesse Hath God continued mercy that thou shouldest continue sinne Art thou the Lords by Creation providence redemption stored with all personall kindnesses pertaining to life and godlinesse to continue a slave to sinne and Satan Remember good Iosephs conclusion Gen. 39. 8 9. My master hath dealt thus and thus with me advanced me from nothing to this estate committed all to my trust kept nothing from me but thee How then can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God 2. If Christ be the true first borne of whom all they are but types we must give him the honor of his birth-right The whole Church and all the sonnes of that mother must honour him all the sheaves of the brethren must vaile and bowe to his sheave Let not the basenesse of his birth the humility of his life the ignominy of his death the shame of his crosse the poverty of his professors the weaknesse and frailty of his followers draw our eyes aside from him as the Jews at this day but acknowledge him the first borne esteeming him as doth the Church the chiefe of ten thousand and with the Apostle esteeme to know nothing but Christ and him crucified Quest. How shall we honour Christ as the first born Sol. 1. If we honour him with the same honor that is due to the Father Iohn 5. 23. 2. Advance his estate above our owne or other mens confesse and professe his name though with losse and disfavour 3. Depend upon him and make him our chiefe refuge for all the family depended on the first borne for protection so doe members on the head 4. Greeve to offend him by sin How pitifully can men and women grieve for the death of their first borne So much more should we that our sins have pierced Gods first borne Zach. 12. 10. III. Here is a ground of much consolation 1. In that Christ being the truth of the first borne from him the birthright is
head Not dropped but powred signifying the abundance of gifts and graces most plentifully conferred upon Christ our head For as it was proper to the high Priest to bee anointed on the head whereas the common Priests were anointed but in their hands not on their heads So was Christ as the head anointed with oile above all his fellowes and received the spirit beyond measure signified by powring on the head 3. The communication of this oile It stayed not on Aarons head but ranne downe his beard even to the skirts of his garments signifying that the Spirit of grace distills from the head unto 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 downe as it were by Aarons beard and from them upon other inferiour persons beleeving their word as unto the skirts of his garment 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 darke shadow of his solemne 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 hee None of them by their anointing had all graces nor any grace in perfection but onely begunne and in small degree Moses a beleever wanted faith sometime as when he smote the Rocke which he should have spoken to and the meekest man in the world was sometimes to seeke of his meeknesse Aaron though the oyle was powred on his head was weake as in murmuring against Moses and in making the calfe But in our high Priest all graces and vertues were not inchoate onely but perfect In him knowledge of God was most perfect holinesse most perfect and all kinde of graces in highest degrees Grace sits in his lips not only to move the mind but to change it None of them by anointing could receive graces for others but for themselves onely but hee receives such a measure as runnes over to the sanctifying of the lowest and meanest of his members Hence 1. Ioh. 2. 27. the anointing which wee have of him dwells 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 oile shines brightest and swims aloft above all others II. In Aarons and Christs anointing and furnishing to their Office Ministers must labour for a greater measure of this ointment then others to runne downe from them to their skirts They must pray by the Spirit watch by the Spirit walke by the Spirit An unconverted Minister may doe another good but hee hath no promise of blessing nor doth any good to himselfe As the holy ointment was kept in the Sanctuary So Christ is the Sanctuary whence this oile 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 oile drops and flowes scorne to come to Sermons and joyne in holy exercises how doth their oile drie 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 learne that Christ is not for himselfe but for us And therefore 1. Examine if thou beest anointed This is to bee a Christian to bee anointed as Christ was Scornest thou this holy oile in thy selfe or others Know thou shalt one day wish the mountaines to fall on thee on whom this oile 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 oile thou hast missed 4. Have a care to walke as such as are anointed smelling sweet every where in holy lives speaches prayers in all things edifying thy selfe and others Leave a sweet smell every where behinde thee Let it drop downe 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 generall 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 oile vers 1 2. 1. Because of the speciall holinesse and honour of their calling who are to come so neere unto God who will bee specially sanctified in all that come neere him 2. Because sinne in them is more hatefull then in any other and in expiating their sinnes as much is required as for the sinnes 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 betweene 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 yong calfe was a type of Christ who onely by his owne 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 Iohn 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 sinnes 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 wee 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 ver 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
interest in the death of Christ as also that Christ did not onely deliver himselfe to death for us as this Ram but also giveth himselfe to feed us to eternall life Iohn 6. 55. My flesh is meate indeed 3. It must be heaved up before the Lord aud shaken too and fro every way ver 26. Signifying 1. The lifting up and heaving of Christ upon the Crosse. 2. The heaving up of our hearts in thankfulnesse to God for so great benefits 3. That the merits of Christ our true sacrifice and benefits of his death should by the preaching and publication of the Gospell be spred abroad into all corners of the world as that sacrifice was shaken every way East West North and South 4. This sacrifice must alwayes be offered up with cakes of unleavened bread tempred with oyle ver 23. Signifying 1. the most perfect purity of Christs life and doctrine without all leaven of sinne 2. That Priest and people must in service to God lay aside all leaven of maliciousnesse 3. The oyle notes the soft and loving kindnesse of God and Iesus Christ chearing and suppling the conscience by the sweet meditation of it as also how joyfully and gladly we ought to serve the Lord and with cheerefulnesse present before him all the parts of his worship Note hence as the eare hands and feete of the high Priest must be touched with blood before he attempt any part of his office so our care must be that all our parts all our actions and affections bee touched and purged with the blood of Christ. So David Psal. 51. 2. Wash me throughly Reason 2. Because sinne hath defiled the whole man all his parts all his actions all within him all without him 2. This foulenesse sticks so fast as it is no easie matter to bee cleansed Nothing in the world can fetch out this soile but the blood of Christ. Not all the water in the sea nor all the holy water in the Sea of Rome can wash away one sinne 3. All thou doest or performest depends upon the merit of this blood and dignity of this person and passion for acceptance The knowledge of thy duty must be sprinkled with this blood for that is signified by the eare The undertaking of duty by the hand The progresse and perseverance in it by the foot All must bee presented in him and by him and finde grace and acceptance If I wash thee not thou hast no part in me Qu. How may I know that the blood of Christ hath touched and purged me Ans. 1. It is not enough that Christs blood be shed but it must also be sprinkled If thou contentest not thy selfe that Christ hath died for all but seest how necessary it is to apply it to thy self 2 If thou hast an hand to lay hold on Christs blood and besprinkle thy selfe with it A man washeth his face with his hand This hand is faith which takes up the blood of Christ and applyes it to ones selfe as did Paul who dyed for me 3. If it wash the whole man within and without which no other blood could do The blood of sacrifices under the Law could not sanctifie the conscience but onely the outside Heb. 9. 9. but this can and must purge the conscience from dead workes ver 14. And under conscience is contained the whole innerman purged by the merit of his satisfying blood and by his spirit renewing our nature And for the outward man 1. If thy right eare bee touched thou hast the hearing eare rightly to heare the word of God Thou hearest to learne for to hearken is better then the fat of Rammes 2. If thy right hand be touched that thou art an active Christian not an hearer onely of the word but a doer and unto knowledge of the doctrine of faith joynest obedience of faith thou keepest the faith working as knowing that obedience is better then sacrifice thou darest not doe what seemes good to thy selfe or is right in thy owne eyes but what is rightly ruled by Gods word for that is the right hand touched 3. If thy right foot be touched that thou walkest in the right way with a right foot not making crooked pathes to thy feet but ordering thy conversation aright And all this with right ends and affections the feet of the soule laying aside all sinister ends and intentions in all thy obedience and directing all to the honour of the true Aaron and high Priest Jesus Christ. 4. If thou findest the effects of Christs blood sprinckled 1. Pacification of conscience for this blood speakes better things then Abels for us and in us for us to God by intercession in us by perswasion that the Lord looking on the blood of Christ rests wholly on it as a full satisfaction for all our sinnes for this is the end of shedding remission of sinnes Mat. 26. 28 therefore of sprinkling 2. Daily sanctification through this sprinckling 1 Pet. 1. 2. For out of the side of Christ issues water as wel as blood the one redeeming from condemnation the other froÌ„ vaine conversation the one purgeth froÌ„ the death of works the other from dead works themselves The sprinkling of this blood admits not security or idlenesse and carelesnesse nor suffers a man to sinne against this blood by impenitency unbeleefe despising of grace horrible swearing and foule lusts But makes the Christian truely noble as one now descended of the blood of Christ scorning the base and foule courses he formerly affected Find these markes and comfort thy selfe thou art sprinkled with Christs blood Thy whole course is sanctified all thy hearing all thy obedience be it never so weake in it selfe bee thy unworthinesse never so great it shall bee no barre to thine acceptance with God for every thing sprinkled with this precious blood is sweetned and accepted Sect. III. III. The third thing in the deputation of the Priest to his office is his apparrell appointed by God and called holy garments glorious and beautifull farre differing from all other mens And they signified 1. The function to be glorious and excellent 2. The fitnesse of their persons to that office 3. The glory of the true high Priest Jesus Christ of whom Aaron was but a figure For all the glistering shew of these Priestly garments set forth the more the Angelicall brightnesse of all the vertues which should shine in Jesus Christ. The Priestly garments appointed by God were tenne in number of which â—oure belonged to the inferiour Priests Exod. 28. 40. 42. 1. A linnen garment Which signified the white garment of CHRISTS righteousnesse and innocency which they were to appeare in before the Lord if they would be acceptable in their persons or duties Noting to us by the way that every godly Minister weares a white linnen garment not woven and made by men but by God not without him but within him not a shadow or ceremony but the substance and truth to which all
their neighbours wives and cover the countrey with a bastardly broode and hold in their doctrine better they should have an hundred Concubines then one married wife and in their practise adjudge married ministers to death but adulterous priests to a light penance and that bought out with a trifle or word of a friend One story is memorable out of the booke of the Acts of the Romane Bishops when the Kings visiters in England in the yeare 1538 visited the Abbyes they found in some of their styes rather then religious houses five in some ten in some twenty Sodomits and adulterers of which some kept five some seven some twenty harlots So Gregory the first enjoyning single life to the Clergy sent for fish to his ponds and had sixe thousand heads wherupon sighing he said It is better to marry then to burne Bede denyes the story although of Huldericus Bishop of August◠to pope Nicholas III. A third Law for common actions He must be very moderate in mourning for the dead Lev. 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 ver 4. Quest. Might he not mourne for his wife For some thinke not because she is not named neither in that Law nor in the repetition of it Ezech. 44. 25. Answ. I thinke he might But the wife is not named because 1. she is one with himselfe 2. if for 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 seemes an exception from the ordinary manner But for the high Priest he might not mourne for any of them named neither in likelyhood for his wife nor uncover his head nor rent his clothes nor goe to any dead body nor go out of the Sanctuary for the crowne 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 mourne for the dead 1. Because mourning for the dead was counted a Legall uncleannesse ver 11. 2. The oyle of holy oyntment was upon his head being oyle of gladnesse 3. They must bee 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 show no such signe of weaknesse and corruption as weeping is Hence it is that wee 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 Phinehas Numb 20. 28 Hence it is that wee read not of their raignes and times how long or 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 hath 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 for 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 weake 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 crowne and oyle of God is upon him For as in his life he being most holy was not subject 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 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 moderatiō wel weilding of affections to be patternes of patience and holy obedience in suffering extreame adversities as well as in the actions and exercise of practick vertues 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 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 tranquillity of their minds as any part of their duty might be hindred 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 And the Lord is so strict in this case Lev. 10. 6 that when Aarons sonnes were so strangely slaine before his face he must not mourne nor stir a foote out of his Ministery lest he dye and therefore the text saith Aaron held his peace ver 3. So no outward respect of duty to friends must call us from duty to God Ob. If the Priest must not weepe how could they seriously repent of their sins Answ. The Priest must not weepe for any temporal losses nor for personall losses and in naturall regards he must be impassionate but for his sinnes he might Ieremy a Prophet and Priest wisheth his head a fountaine of teares The high priest must weepe for his owne and the peoples sinnes in the day of expiation and if he weepe not he must dye So Ioel 2. 17. all the priests must howle and cry and weepe between the porch and the Altar Christ wept often and all for sinne as for Lazarus on the Crosse over Ierusalem 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 sin upon pain of death Oh that they would thinke of this that glory in their sinne 2. Let us so order our affections as
our owne misery by sinne both in the cause and in the effects of it The former by bringing us to the contemplation of the foulenesse of our natures and uncleannesse even in our birth and originall For howsoever men little esteeme or bewaile this uncleannesse of nature and originall sinne yet the Apostle better acquainted with the nature of it calls it The sinne and the sinning sinne and the sinne which dwelleth in us and compasseth us about Rom. 7. 17. Neither can a man ever be 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 seeme marvelous filthy and uncleane in his owne eyes 1. What is the reason that so many do Pharisaically pride themselves if not in the goodnesse of their persons yet in some blinde 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 uncleâ—nnesse 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 owne 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 wormewood yeeld a sweet taste then might their fruits be sweet and tastefull 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 heare sermons are outwardly cleane 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 bankes most dangerous most secret hardest to find out and hardest to cure and this deceives thousands in their reckonings 4. Why is the righteousnesse of faith in the blood of Christ so much undervalued and men so hardly driven out of themselves to seeke righteousnesse by him But because they see not their owne 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 feeles not his sicknesse nor discerns the depth and dangers of it seekes not greatly after the Physitian he applyes either no means 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 whither but to the right remedy It is fit and fruitful to looke a little neerer this disease of nature that we may not onely make conscience of the foulenesse 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 poynt 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 borne 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 wee hewne out of so rotten a stocke 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 vncleane I am uncleane The spawne of a Serpent are Serpents and what are wee but the spawne 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 then sinne in the soule which is seated in all the members so as from the crowne of the head to the sole of the foot there is nothing sound but a generall ataxy or disorder in want of all goodnesse in all parts and pronenesse to all evill 4. Miserable are the effects of this close uncleannesse As 1. In this Image of sinne no ugly toad can bee so hatefull to us as wee unto God 2. The whole man lies subject under the curse and wrath of God Rom. 5. 18 the fault came on all to condemnation 3. Nothing can proceed from us but what is foule and damnable What can a Serpent cast out but poyson Whatsoever our owne strength or will can bring forth is tainted with this leprosie for freewill 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 poyson 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 fellowship of God and Jesus Christ and that for ever Sinne properly shuts out of heaven no uncleane 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 lye 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 owne disease and need of cure let us returne to the meanes of our cure in these three severall sorts of uncleannesse and in the legall be led to the cure of morall uncleannesse Thus of the
the blood of this red cow he leads us to the blood of Christ saying If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling them that are uncleane sanctifieth as touching the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead workes wherein he not onely compareth but infinitely advanceth the truth above the type For 1. that was symbolicall and figurative this spirituall and substantiall 2. that was externall and temporary this internall and eternall 3. that 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 proceed from death of sinne 2. because they lead to eternall death For the explaining of this ordinance consider foure 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 humility of our Lord Jesus who being the mighty Lion 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 foure 1. She must be an heifer in her youth and strength Christ offers himselfe and must be taken for a sacrifice in the flower of his strength at three and thirty yeares He offers his best gifts and dyes in his strength and so his offering was more free and acceptable And wee 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 bloody passion of Christ and his cruell death The red skin of the Cow resembled the red garments of Christ all besprinkled 1. With his owne blood 2. with the blood of his conquered enemies 3. presented unto his father like the coat of Ioseph all stained with blood 3. The Cow must be without spot or blemish to signifie the purity of our Lord Iesus 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 slain for sin not being sinfull Christ was ruddy through his passion yet most white and spotlesse by his most perfect and absolute righteousnesse She must be without yoke on which never yoke came signifying 1. that Christ not necessarily but voluntarily tooke our nature that he might free us from our yoke 2. his absolute freedome from all the yoke of sinne farther then he voluntarily undertooke the burthen of it 3. that he was never subject to the yoke of humane precepts and commandement 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 freewill offering hee having power to lay downe his life and to take it up againe 5. he was more free from the yoke then any red heifer could be She indeed must be free in her selfe he not onely free in himselfe but he must free all beleevers 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 Iews 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 blood and dung ver 5. Signifying 1. that Christ must be led out of the gate of Ierusalem 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 meate his blood our drinke 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 blood with his finger and sprinkle towards the foreside of the Tabernacle of the assembly seven times ver 4. Signifying 1. the purging of us by the blood of Christ sprinkled on the conscience 2. that Christs death profits none to whom it is not specially applyed for the Cowes blood must be not shed onely but sprinkled 3. that onely the people and congregation of God have benefit of the death and blood of Christ for it was sprinkled directly before the Tabernacle 4. the seven times sprinkling noteth 1. that that one oblation hath vertue 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 bee burnt with Cedar wood scarlet lace and hysope all which must be cast into the fire with her ver 6. signifying 1. three things in Christ. 1. the Cedar of uncorrupt life 2. the scarlet of fervent love to mankinde 3. the hysope 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 blood applyed to justification 3. the hysope of mortification healing our corruptions as hysope hath an healing quality All these three properly arise from the passion of Christ. 5. Action A cleane person must gather the ashes of the heifer and lay them without the Campe in a clean place ver 9. signifying 1. the buriall of Christ in a cleane and new tombe wherein never man lay a cleane 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 cleane place of a pure heart and conscience an onely fit closet to keep the mystery
my selfe Sol. 1. Therefore as the woman having the bloody issue thrust in daily to touch the hemme of Christs garment Marc. 5. that his blood may heale thy bloody issues 2. As seeing need of daily mercy to true watch joyne prayer as Hezekiah The good Lord be mercifull to him that is sanctified although not according to the purification of the Sanctuary And the Lord heard him So will he thee where he findes a true endeavour after cleannesse Sect. VIII Now followes the oblation for the uncleannesse of leprosie The cleansing of the Leper is in Lev. 14. where we read of two sorts of oblations prescribed 1. For the cleansing of him that hee might come into the tent 2. After his cleansing and comming into the tent hee must offer three Lambes one for a trespasse offering one for a sinne offering another for a burnt offering with a number of ceremonies about the Lambes all leading to Christ. But in this place we are onely to speake of the former concerning his cleansing Lev. 14. from ver 2. to 8. Where 1. The Leper to be cleansed must bee brought to the Priest For he onely must discerne and pronounce of it whether it be cured or uncleane signifying that the sinner that desires to be cleansed must hasten to Jesus Christ the onely high Priest of the new Testament who onely is able to cleanse and heale our leprosie of sinne and herein is farre beyond all those types The Priest could discern of bodily leprosie and pronounce them cleane if they were so but hee could not make them cleane if they were not But Iesus Christ can properly forgive sinne the soules leprosie being the healing God and onely Physitian of soules 2. The Priest must goe out of the campe unto him to consider him to signifie how Iesus Christ findes us when he first comes unto us namely such as having the most loathsome leprosie running upon us have no right to the communion of Saints nor to any of the priviledges of Gods people but outcasts and aliens from God from the faith and from the common wealth of Israel Ephes. 2. 12. 3. The Priest must first see him healed and then proceed to the exact cleansing ver 3. signifying a twofold action of Iesus Christ in the curing of the leprosie of sin For 1. he must heale the sinner by the grace of justification and sound conversion but this is not all for there remains a great deal to do before we can be fouÌ„dly cleansed And therefore 2. he must bestow on us his Spirit to worke in us a daily growth and proceeding in sanctification before we can be pronounced cleane 4. The Priest must prepare 1. two little live birds of the clean kinde ver 4. 1. two birds to note the twofold nature of Iesus Christ his deity and humanity 2. two little birds to note the humility and meane esteeme of our Lord and Saviour Christ. 3. two cleane birds to note the unspotted and surpassing purity of both his natures 4. two live birds one to die and the other to live to note that Christ had one nature to dye in another not subject to death As also the twofold estate of our Lord Iesus his suffering and dying estate and his glorious and exalted estate 2. he must prepare Cedar wood scarlet and â—ysope noting as we have heard the excellent graces that Christ brings to his oblation both in regard of himselfe his Church and his father And signifying that Christ and his graces are inseperable And teacheth that no man can thinke to bee cleansed by the blood of Christ that is carelesse to receive his graces which thou must as eagerly desire as himselfe 5. The use of these materialls of cleansing concerne 1. the dying bird 2. the living bird 3. the party to bee cleansed First concerning the dying birde 1. One of the birds must be slaine pointing at the death of Christ without which is no purging or cleansing of sinne Heb 9. 22. But one bird onely dyed so Christ was put to death concerning the flesh 1 Pet. 3. 18. 2. It must bee slaine over running water that the blood might fall into the water The blood falling into the water signified 1. that a fountaine of grace by the death of Christ is opened both for justification and sanctification For water and blood here meet shadowing the streames of water and blood issuing from the side of Christ in his passion 1 Iohn 5. 6. 2. The bird slaine over running water signified the innocency of the death of Christ for though he must dye yet his blood is in pure streames as running water is 3. That this water must be running water not standing signifying that there is a continuall cocke and conduit of grace overflowing from this fountaine ever running and issuing from Christ to the refreshing of thirsty and weary soules beleeving in his name 4. By the falling of the blood into running water might also be signified that the death of Christ should run into the Ministery of the Gospell as the waters from under the Sanctuary every way As Christ spake of Maries fact preparing him to his death so much more of his death it selfe what he hath done and suffered shall bee every where preached to the worlds end 3. This water must be in an earthen vessell Not onely to signifie that Christ must sweat and powre forth in his death water and blood according to his humane nature which for the time of his abasement was a fraile and brittle vessell subject to infirmities and contempt and in all things like unto ours onely sinne excepted but also that this blessed treasury of the Church should bee retained and held in earthen vessells that is the faithfull ministers of Christ how contemptible soever they are in the world yet these shall cary and disperse these blessed mysteries unto men as 2 Cor. 4. 7. Secondly concerning the live Sparrow The generall signification of it was Christ now alive raised from the dead who can dye no more but ever liveth and sitteth at the right hand of God and that by the power of his divinity And 1. This Sparrow must be used also to the cleansing of the Leper For neither the humanity of Christ without his deity nor his deity without his humanity can cleanse or justifie the sinner Neither the life of Christ without his death nor his death without his life can availe us to righteousnesse Acts 20. 28. God shed his blood to purchase the Church to himself 2. The Priest must dip the live bird and the Cedar and scarlet lace and hysope in the blood of the Sparrow slaine and pure water ver 6. signifying 1. That the deity of Christ which is impassible in it selfe can yeeld us no comfort alone had it not been joyned to an humanity subject to passion which is plainly meant by dipping the live bird in the blood of the slaine For therefore the sonne of God must take our nature to better our nature
and take our flesh that by death he might destroy him that had the power of death 2. The scarlet cedar and hysope must be dipped also to shew that all the graces we receive from him must be dipped in his blood by which alone we have both accesse unto grace and acceptation into grace For by the dipping and union of this live bird and slaine we come into the grace and favour of God being united first to his humanity then to his divinity and so are knit to his whole person and by him we come to the father 3. The Priest must let the live bird goe into the broad field ver 7. signifying 1. Christs escape and deliverance from death and the power of the grave 2. His exaltation after he was once consecrated his ascending on high and being made higher then the heavens Heb. 7. 26. 3. The publication and manifestation of righteousnesse purchased by the death of Christ in the broad open field of the Church and this in the daily ministery of the Gospell Thirdly concerning the party to whom this cure must be applyed The Priest must sprinkle on him that is to be cleansed this blood seven times signifying 1. That only Christ Jesus doth sprinkle his blood on penitēt soules from whom only they must expect pardon purging from sins 2. That Christs blood must be particularly applyed to every beleever to every thing that is to be cleansed Partly by Gods imputation of Christ and his merits to the penitent sinner Partly by his Ministers in the publishing and speciall applying the particular promises to every soule that is weary 3. Seven times sprinkling noteth 1. Perfect justification by the blood of Christ the number of seven times perfect sprinkling he is able perfectly to save all that come unto him and needeth no other seeking of other merits to satisfie or justifie 2. To put the uncleane person in minde how hardly he parts from his foulenesse and us that it is no easie thing to be rid of sinne 3. How weakly and imperfectly our selves apply the blood of Christ that have need of so many sprinklings to humble us for our weaknesse of faith and slow progresse in sanctification Sect. IX I. All these ordinances and ceremonies in discerning and curing this disease in generall teach us two things I. That it is no small businesse to be rid of the leprosie of the soule and infection of sinne which was but shadowed in that as that was occasioned by this For whence is bodily leprosie but from leprosie of the soule Or what is it that strikes the body with such contagious sicknesse but the infection and sicknesse of the soule As in Gehezi Mariam Vzziah whose bodies were so fouly infected and deformed by the leprosie of the soule and corruption of heart And who sees not how the Lord would lead them and us to take speciall notice hereby of the soules leprosie by sinne in that hee committeth the knowledge and discerning of this disease of leprosie to the Priests sending them to the Physitians of their soules and not to the Physitians of their bodies whom one would thinke it more specially and properly concerned This should admonish us all that if there be so much adoe to get cleane bodies cleane faces cleane skins how great our care and businesse should be to get clean soules the soile of which cleaves not to the skin onely but sticks closer to us then our skin or bones and yet wee thinke every slight sigh or Lord have mercy or three words at our death sufficient to rid us of our sinnes and soules leprosie II. How carefull the Lord is to sever the cleane from uncleane for feare of generall infection Teaching 1. the Magistrate that as the Lord puts difference betweene him that sweareth and him that feareth an oath so should they to incourage and countenance the clean person that is the godly and faithfull David set his eyes on the godly in the land not to maligne or wrong them but to cherish their persons and help up religion and the feare of God in them As also to discountenance and terrifie the foule blasphemer the drunkard Sabbath breaker idle persons and gamesters that thrust themselves out of their calling all the week long But if a man by his course shuffle cleane and uncleane together nay runne with the uncleane and countenance gamesters swearers bibbers how doth he execute the judgements of God 2. A good minister then stands in the counsell of God when he severs the precious from the vile Ier. 15. 19. The Priest in the Law must pronounce him cleane that is so indeed He durst not pronounce a foule person to bee cleane nor a cleane person foule Then how dares a man that stands to judge between the Lord and his people scandalize or scorne such as endeavour most to be clean How comes it that we doe not heare drunkards adulterers theeves swearers blasphemours so rated and disgraced as them Or how dare men sell praises of religion to foule Atheists swearers haters and despisers of goodnesse as if men should gild rotten posts or wash dead bricks making them at their death seeme as white as lawne who all their life were white as Lepers Well let not the despised members of Christ be discouraged we know that the judgement of Christ shall passe righteously betweene the cleane and uncleane If thy heart be upright let all men cast the foule brand of an hypocrite on thee Jesus Christ shall pronounce thee cleane 3. Every good man must and will be glad of this separation rejoyce in that arbitrement that differenceth clean and uncleane as most savoury Wicked men can abide nothing lesse then this shedding differencing of men Whence are so many tumults Oh you are more holy then all other you are the pure ones you are all cleane c but because they have learned a trick to deceive themselves and to hide their foulenesse as they thinke by crowding all into one confusion Now is that doctrine onely intolerable that fetcheth them out of their holes and casts them out among their uncleane fellowes for whose company they be a great deale fitter then for the society of Saints and beleevers II. Note in speciall 1. In that the Leper must bee sent to the Priest to have his leprosie discerned we see that our Lord Jesus who was typified by the high Priest can discerne our leprosie Thou maist hide thy sinne from man but thou canst not deceive him no idle excuse or fig-leafe can cover thee If he see thee an adulterer a swearer an unjust person a covetous or proud person if he see thee an enemy a profane person he will judge thee a Leper Thou canst not sinne though never so secretly but thou art sure to be discerned and tryed by him whose eyes are as a flame of fire And if he judge thee a leper he will pronounce thee a leper and thou canst not appeale from but must
a Minister of the Circumcision was also to receive Circumcision himselfe which was shadowed in all their Circumcisions 2. in their shedding of blood by Circumcision was represented to their eyes the shedding of Christs blood not onely in the first fruits of his bloodshed in his Circumcision which was a part of his humiliation and a parcell of the price payed for our sins but also the full powring out of all his blood in sacrifice upon the Crosse wherein the Circumcision of Christ was fully accomplished 3. was shadowed their duty also that having shed the first fruits of their blood in Circumcision in obedience to God they should be ready to shed all their blood for him whom they expected to shed all his blood for them 3. A distinguishing signe of the Jewes from all other people who were without God without Christ and they onely a chosen seed in that blessed seed in whom all their prerogatives were conferred and established 4. A demonstrative signe 1. of the naturall sinne and disease of man and therefore it was placed in the generative part to admonish Abraham and his posterity of their uncleannesse for things cleane need no Circumcision nor ablution Abraham and his seed must be led out of themselves 2. to demonstrate the cure and remedy by the Messiah to come cleansing our natures two waies 1. by bearing upon himselfe the imputation of our impurities 2. by healing them in us partly by his merit and bloody death bestowing a perfect righteousnesse upon us partly by his Spirit daily sanctifying and circumcising our hearts thus hath this Sacrament preached Christ unto us Now the observations to make it usefull I. Take notice of our owne estate to humble us both in state of nature and in state of grace I. In our nature wee are all sprung out of a corrupted seed which although we would forget yet the Lord in this Sacrament tooke care that his people should carry upon their bodies the signe of sinne and death seazing upon their whole nature In place of which comes our Baptisme presently after our birth shewing that a man in his very first frame is filthily polluted and goeth astray even from the wombe Psa. 58. 3. Whence also it is called Originall sinne 1. because it hath beene from the beginning of the world 2. because it is the originall and beginner of all sinne in us it is the first of all our sinnes 3. from our beginning even from our conception Psa. 51. I was conceived in iniquity and we from it called the children of wrath that is laid under wrath even from our childhood Eph. 2. 3. 2. After grace received see the weakenesse of our faith Abraham the father of the faithfull needeth this pledge and seale to support his weake and shaking faith Who can say my faith is strong enough which is ever imperfect in the best who know but in part and beleeve but in part Why else did the Lord appoynt the use of Sacraments to the strongest beleevers and that all their life long but to put them in minde of the weakenesse of their faith which needeth such continuall props and supports Neither is it marvell that men are so heavy to the reverent receiving of the Sacrament because they see no want no neede no benefit of faith they feele not the weakenesse of faith which would breed desire of strength and drive them to the diligent use of the meanes II. If Christ be the truth of circumcision then every Christian in the new Testament must be circumcised as necessarily as the Jewes in the old And though the ceremony and act of circumcision bee worne out yet the truth of circumcisiō as neerely belongs to us now adayes as of old it did unto them In whom wee are circumcised through the circumcision of Christ speaking of the Gentiles converted unto Christ. In which words the Apostle plainely distinguisheth between Jewish circumcision and Christian between legall circumcision and Evangelical between Moses his circumcision and Christs Here 1. What this Evangelicall circumcision is 2. the difference from Legall 3. the marks and notes of it 4. the motives This Christian Circumcision is described Col. 2. 11. to bee a putting off the sinfull body of the flesh that is in plaine termes the mortification of the body of sinnes that are in the flesh For the truth and kernell of Circumcision never stood in the cutting off a peece of skinne that was but the shell of it but in cutting off the lusts of the heart and life and parting from corruptions of nature which rebell against the Spirit And this wee have in Christ alone being as farre beyond the Circumcision of the old Testament as the truth useth to excell the type as far as Christ is beyond Moses or heaven above earth This renovation of minde was 1. signified by that Ceremony 2. promised by every Circumcised person The difference betweene this Evangelicall and that Legall Circumcision is 1. In the efficient That was appoynted by God to bee made with hands but this is a wonderfull worke without hands done by the finger of God himselfe The mortification of sinne is so honourable a worke as the hand of man and Angells cannot do it 2. In the subject That was wrought upon the seed of Abraham according to the flesh this onely upon Abrahams seed according to the faith upon beleevers and members of Christ. That upon the Jew without this upon the Jew within That upon Ismael as well as Isaac here no Ismaelite is circumcised That was Circumcision of the naturally borne and males onely of Jews onely this is of the supernaturally borne againe male or female Jew or Gentile for in Christ all are one 3. In the proper seat That was ceremoniall in the flesh this morall in the heart In that a naturall part was wounded in this the very corruption of nature That dealt with flesh in substance this with the body of flesh in quality 4. In the end In that every man was circumcised in himselfe and his blood shed to fulfill the rite of the Law in this all beleevers men and women are in Christs blood once circumcised to fulfil the rigour of the Law 5. In the effect By that the person was received into the society of Gods people according to externall profession by this the sinner is received into inward and eternall fellowship with God and into communion with Gods people 6. In the latitude or extent In that the Priest circumcised in one part of the body in this Christ our high Priest circumciseth the whole man In that one beloved part was cast away with griefe and sorrow in this the whole corruption of nature and all beloved sinnes with no lesse griefe and sorrow of heart for them 7. In the durance and continuance That was temporary but till the comming of Christ who razed the type and raised the truth but this is to continue for ever
take heed of prophaning this precious blood take heed of sinning against it Consider of that sore punishment which he is worthy of that treads under foot the sonne of God and counteth the blood of the Testament unholy Heb. 10. 29 He cannot expresse the greatnesse of the punishment in words but leaves it to all mens mindes to consider of Quest. How may a man prophane this blood Answ. 1. By undervaluing it as Papists who thinke it insufficient to ratifie the Covenant unto them without other additions and supplies from themselves and others yea ascribe as much to the blood of Thomas Becket and other traytors as to this blood 2. To be ashamed of Christ and his sufferings The Jewes must strike the lintells of their doores with the blood of the Paschall Lambe that all might see they were Israelites signifying that we must openly professe Christ and not be ashamed of his death and ignominy which is the life of the world at which notwithstanding the greatest part of the world stumbleth at this day To shame at the profession of Christ is to contemne his blood 3. To contemne it in the meanes in which the Lord would hold it before our eyes To reject or neglect the preaching of the word wherein Christ is crucified before our eyes as he was to the Galatians chap. 3. 1. To neglect and despise the Sacrament in which his blood is after a sort powred out to the mind and sences Or unpreparedly to receive the Sacrament and in the unworthinesse of a guilty conscience is to make ones selfe guilty of the blood of Christ as Pilate Iudas and the soldiers were 4. To despise and wrong the godly descended of the blood of CHRIST redeemed with the blood of CHRIST To hate the Church of God and abuse the members of Christ is to crucifie againe the sonne of God and despise the price of our purchase In that ye do it to one of these little ones ye did it to me Thou canst not draw blood of the Saints but thou sinnest against the blood of Christ. 5. To prophane it in gracelesse swearing as those branded bell-hounds that sweare commonly by wounds or blood as if this precious blood were to be engaged on every base occasion Well they carry wounds in their consciences and powre out the life blood of their soules Sect. IV. IV. In eating the Paschall Lambe Jesus Christ was typified To this eating many conditions are required concerning 1. time 2. place 3. persons 4. manner 5. measure The time It must be eaten at the same time and in one evening must all Israell eat the Passeover 1. In the evening to signifie our estate of darkenesse and misery by sinne and death till Christ came and when Christ came to be our ransome 2. In one and the same evening to note the holy agreement and consent of the whole Church in the faith of Christs death and passion to which well agrees the constitution of our Church ordaining the supper succeeding it in the same time so all superstition and formality be avoided The place 1. Every particular Lambe must be eaten in one house to signifie the unity of the Church of God the house of the living God and the spirituall conjunction and agreement of all the faithfull in one bread and one body 1 Cor. 10. 17. 2. If one house sufficed not to eate up one Lambe they might call in their neighbours to a competent number which might bee about a dozen as in our Saviours family to signifie 1. that the Gentiles in time by the voice of the Gospell should be called in to the participation of Christ the lambe of God and to the fruition and feeding of the same lambe with the Israelites 2. no number is assigned because the Lord onely knowes who are his 3. because there were many lambes to bee slaine they must be eaten in many houses so as no man must abstaine from the Passeover in paine of death signifying the speciall application of the same Christ to severall persons families and the Church is no salvation 3. In the night of errors heresies afflictions and persecutions for the truth when God revengeth the worlds contempt of his grace if we would bee safe wee must keepe our selves within the Church not departing from the particular house or Church in which we are to joyne to Idolatry or errors least Gods revenge overtake us as the waters overwhelmed all that were without the Arke II. The manner prescribed to all Passeovers ensuing stood in three observations 1. They must eate it with unleavened bread signifying that if we would feed on Christ our Passeover wee must purge out all old leaven and become a new lumpe 1 Cor. 5. 7. This old leaven is the fusty swelling and spreading corruption of our owne wicked nature the leaven of sinne false doctrine heresie corruption of manners sowre and tart affections that will not stand with the receiving of Christ and his benefits All this we must purge out and study for sincerity and truth in judgement in affection in action 2. They must eate the Passeover with sower herbs as sawce signifying 1. true repentance and godly sorrow of heart to bee inseperable with the true apprehender of Jesus Christ 2. that Christ and his Crosse are inseperable and that afflictions as sowre herbs are the most whole some sawce of Christianity Sowre indeed and unpleasing to the flesh but profitable 1. to prepare and provoke the appetite with more cheerefulnesse and ardency to all godly duties of prayer hearing Sacraments mercy patience hope c. Rom. 5. 3 4. 2. to whet and provoke to the practise of all Christian duties of mercy and love 3. to excite the desire to bee fully fed with that sweet tree of life and that blessed Mannah in which is no sowrenesse in the kingdome of glory Rev. 2. 17. 3. They must alwaies in eating repeate and conferre of their deliverance out of Aegypt and in memory of that benefit provoke their thankfulnesse of God ver 26. 27. adding as it were to the Sacrament a word of instruction signifying 1. that we should alwaies remember the death and passion of Christ with due thankefullnesse for so great a deliverance by it if they must still speake of their temporall deliverance much more we of so great and eternall deliverance by it from the spirituall servitude of sinne death the divell and damnation 2. it shadowed herein its successor in the new Testament for the Sacrament of the Supper was therefore instituted to keepe in remembrance the death of Iesus Christ. 1 Cor. 11. 26. As often as ye shall eate this bread and drinke this cup ye shew the Lords death till he come 3. to be a rule for all Sacraments wherein it is necessary that the word be ioyned to the Element I meane the word of Institution and if it may be conveniently of exhortation that the seale may goe with the Charter as
Aegyptian to drowne 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 Exo. 14. 31. Let us also behold the glory of God herein and feare before him as they did Let not us be more senselesse than the senselesse creatures but heare his voice runne out of our owne nature to observe his voice sounding in the Scriptures and Ministery of the Gospell II. To see and consider the state of the Church and people of God Canaan whither they goe is a fine and fertile country 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 dreadfull to behold on both hands yea rising over their heads as mountaines threatning to fall over them and after a deepe sea a terrible wildernesse takes them in which is no meanes for meat drinke nor cloath A man would thinke no man could deale so with his children and yet Gods wisedome sees this the fittest way to Canaan He sees how 1. Every small content glewes us to our Aegypt 2. What sluggs we are in the way farther then we are chased out 3. How little we care for dependance on himselfe 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 Aegypt 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 deepe danger or sorrow like the bottome of the sea It is no worse with thee then with the rest of the people of God No affliction overtakes thee but the same hath befalne 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 worke of God will load us withall that are willing to carry them away For I. The Lord in strange and unwonted dangers can worke new and unwonted remedies for his children As we heard before that fire shall not burne them so here the sea at his word of restraint shall not drowne them He can make a wall of water more strong for them than a wall of Adamant yea himselfe according to their need will be to them either a wall of fire or water II. What danger can prevaile 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 prevaile against it Every maine affliction is like a maine Red sea which threatens to swallow us up but it shall in the issue onely preserve the Church What we have most cause to feare the Lord maketh most helpfull and soveraigne The very raging sea rather then they shall perish shall open her lappe as a tender mother to receive them from the rage of Pharaoh and his pursuing army Nay the land of Goshen shall not be halfe so bountifull 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 himselfe to overcome all difficulties for his servants What had it beene to have passed the oppressors of Aegypt and to have beene swallowed up of the sea Therefore hee 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 Mannah 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 Aegypt departing from the kingdome of the devill and hastning out of the world towards heaven come presently into a deepe sea not pursued onely by the fury of tyrants and enemies but every where threatned with dangers wants and death it selfe yet the Lord breakes for them one toyle after another and happily guides them through a deepe 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 then their cryes were and a mighty deliverance shall swallow up all their danger IV. Here is comfort against the feare of enemies 1. Spirituall enemies For here we have both a confirmation and resemblance of the eternall 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 Againe wee 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 Aegyptians are drowned in the sea of Christs blood and extinct in the waters of Baptisme Aug Psal. 113. 2. Temporall enemies How can the Aegyptians hope to stand before Israell 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 looke here as the heathen did and let their hearts saint as theirs to see God make the sea a wall a lane yea a lappe for his people Let them behold the ordinary worke 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 scoale goe up downe goes the other IV. The godly to partake of these comforts must learne 1. To labour for increase of faith for by faith they passed through the Red sea Heb. 11. 29. So must thou get faith for thy vessell to passe thee through Faith in tryall is a great victory in the bottome of the sea in deepest afflictions it is most glorious It is nothing to beleeve in prosperity but in desperation to beleeve in the bottome of the sea to stand still yea in the bottome of hel to hope for heaven there is faith 2. To joyne to Gods people Let not the Aegyptian thinke the way is made for him Except thou goest out with Israell as Exod. 12. 38. the sea will know thee for an
hee that comes from heaven is above all His person is above all for God hath exalted him and given him a Name above al names Phil. 2. 9. His worke is above all that men and Angels can comprehend in power and merit His place is above all the head of the Church eminent above all men and Angels 3. A Rock for firmnesse and stability Hee is the strength of Israel on this Rock as on a sure and firme foundation the whole Church is laid and the gates of hell shall not prevaile against it Matt. 16. 18. Hence he is a Rock of defence and safety to his chosen and every wise man builds his house on this Rock 4. A Rock of scandall and offence to wicked men Rom. 9. 32. Not in himselfe and his nature for hee is a precious corner stone but accidentally and passively because men dash themselves against him as many at this day bark like doggs against the wholesome doctrine of justification by Christ without the works of the Law Many loose and formall Gospellers scorne the basenesse and meannesse of Preachers and true professours of the Gospel because their darknesse can abide no light to come neere it To all these and thousands moe Christ is a rock of scandall by their owne default 5. A Rock for waight and danger and inayoidable judgement upon his adversaries which on whomsoever it falls it crusheth him all to pieces Matt. 21. 44. If any rise against it they doe but tire and teare themselves but if this Rock rise against any man and fall upon him it breaks him to pouder Witnesse the greatest enemies of Jesus Christ which the world ever had Herod Iudas Iulian Iews Pilate as unable to rise from under his revenge as a man pasht to pieces unable to rise from under a Rock II. It was a type of Christ as it sent out water in abundance to the people of Israel ready to perish for thirst For so Jesus Christ is the onely Rock that sends from himselfe all the sweet waters of life for the salvation of his elect otherwise ready to perish eternally For explanation whereof marke 1. As from that Rock issued waters to wash and cleanse themselves and their garments so from this Rock streame waters of ablution or washing which serve to wash away both the guilt of sinne and staine of sinne For the former the precious blood of Christ streaming out of his side is the onely mundifying water in the world to wash the soule from the guilt of sinne and to scowre away all the execration of sinne from the sight of God 1. Ioh. 1. 7. the blood of Iesus Christ cleanseth us from all sinne For the latter from the same side of Christ our Rock issueth water as well as blood even the waters of regeneration called Tit. 3. 5. the washing of the new birth by the Spirit of grace and holinesse which daily cleanse the staine and filthinesse of sin Of these waters reade Ioh. 7. 38. He that beleeveth in me out of his belly shall flow riuers of water of life This hee spake of the Spirit which he would give 2. As from that rocke issued waters to coole and comfort Israel in their wearinesse and wandrings so from Jesus Christ do issue the waters of refrigeration and comfort to coole and refresh the dry and thirsty soule to allay the heat of a raging and accusing conscience and to revive with new strength the fainting soule in temptation or persecution And therefore the tryed traveller and thirsty passenger is called to these waters Mat. 11. 28 Isa. 55. 1. For nothing but sound grace from Jesus Christ can quench the tormenting thirst of an accusing or distressed conscience 3. As from that rocke streamed abundance of waters to make fruitfull that barren wildernesse wheresoever they ranne so onely from the true rock issue plentifull waters of grace to make our dry and barren hearts fruitfull in all workes of righteousnesse Isa. 44. 3 4 I will poure water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will poure my spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thy buds and they shall grow as among the grasse and as willowes by the rivers of waters All this blessing of fruitfulnesse is from the Rocke See Eph 1. 4. III. In the manner of attaining this water are many sweet resemblances 1. The people might aske Moses water but Moses cannot give it It is God must give it and miraculously fetch it out of a rocke which how it should be Moses cannot conceive So men may seeke justification and to drink waters of salvatiō in themselves either by nature as Pelagians or by merit as Popish justiciaries do either in the Law of Moses as the Jews or in Evangelical Counsells as the fond votaries of the Church of Rome But no Jew can tell how to procure any water to himself neither can Moses give it By the Law of Moses no man can bee justified nor by any fond devises beyond the Law But God of his grace hath devised a way and poynted to us a rocke of living waters to supply unto us that which was impossible to Moses Law because of our infirmitie Rom. 8. 3. 2. The rocke gives water but not till it bee smitten Exod. 17. 6. so Christ the true rock must be smitten with passion he must be smitten with the wrath of his Father and made a curse for us before there can issue out of his side that bloody streame by which the thirst of beleevers can be quenched And as the rocke was smitten twice and waters gushed out both times so Christ was twice smitten first actually in himselfe secondly virtually in the saith of beleevers of all ages the faithfull before him beleeving in the rock that was to bee smitten and suffer death for sinne the faithfull after him beleeving in the rock that was smitten dead and raised already 3. It was the Rod in Moses hand that smites and breakes the rocke Even so it was the Law given by Moses hand and our transgression against it that breaks the true Rock Isa. 53. 5. Gal 3. 13. he was made a curse for us and our transgression of the Law was laid upon him that we might be freed from it And as this was the same Rod that smote the River to bring destruction on the Aegyptians and enemies of the Church so this same Law and Rod of Moses brings the curse and damnation upon all the enemies of God from whom it is not remooved by Jesus Christ. 4. The rocke was smitten but it was not so much the striking on the rock but the Lords standing upon it that gets water for Israel Exod. 17. 6. There was no vertue in the stroake but all depended on Gods commandement and precept and presence even so it is not the death of Christ nor the abundance of price and merit of his blood nor the striking on this rock before mens eyes in the ministery of the word and
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 drowne her How hee blasphemed Iob how he is the accuser of the brethren how of the head Christ himselfe the Scripture declares Fiftly 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 rebells and wicked ones to whose custody and condemnation they shall all be gathered in the last day Mat. 25. 41. goe ye cursed c. 2. Why called fiery serpents Answ. 1. From their colour Through abundance of poison they had a shining and glistring skinne and they seemed as if they had been made of fire A resemblance wee have in our snakes that seeme to shine and sparkle against the Sunne 2. From their effect For with their sting they infused such poison into the bodies of the Israelites as stirred up in them an outragious heat and fire Now these diseases are most painfull and so tormentfull as if a wild-fire were in the bowels feeding upon the bones marrow and members 3. From their end First 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 seased upon them which no way they could avoid Secondly that in their punishment they might bee admonished both what a fearefull fire of Gods wrath they had kindled by their sin against themselves as also that they had deserved a more fearefull fire in hell to seize upon their whole man everlastingly 3. Why stinging serpents Answ. To imply unto us First that sinne is the sting of this old serpent even a poisoned sting that hee hath thrust into all mankind But with this difference in that this poison is farre more generall and the wounds infinitely more mischievous then 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 soules and bodies also 3. They stung one part of the body this serpent all parts and whole man 4. They to a temporall death this to an eternall Secondly to imply that sinne is the sting of a fiery serpent 1. Set on fire with wrath and cruelty and desire to poison and destroy us Revel 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 poisoned darts the poison of which inflamed the wounded bodies and made the wounds incurable As now many out of desperate malice poison their weapons and bullets to make sure with their enemy So doth Satan by all meanes poison his darts to speed the Christians soule 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 sparke 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 betweene the stung Israelite and the stung sinner The former was alwayes felt with griefe and paine but this often not felt and so more desperate Thirdly the effect of this stinging was death in many And so the effect of sinne 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 sonne of death and can expect nothing but death every moment And as the stung person in the wildernesse had no meanes in himselfe nor from others to avoid either the serpent or death from it till God appointed them the brazen serpent So the poore sinner was destitute of all helpe in himselfe and others till the Lord appointed Jesus Christ the promised seed to breake the serpents head There is given no name else whereby we must be saved Act. 4. 12. First note hence how deceitfull are the pleasures of sinne It is as a sweet poison Iob 20. 12. sweet in the mouth but poison in the bowels What wise man would drink a draught of poison for the sweet taste of it Wicked men hold sinne as a sweet morsell but sower sauce followes it Secondly what little cause we have to love our sinnes for that is to love our owne bane Prov. 8. 35. Hee that sinneth against mee hurteth his owne soule and all that hate mee loue death No sinne but the more pleasing the more poisoning the more delicate the more deadly Sinne 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 soule in a sinner makes him a man yet the want of the Spirit of grace makes him a dead man Death waits upon sinne as the wages on the worke and hell upon death that comes before repentance Fourthly A foole hee is that makes a mocke of sinne Who would play with a deadly serpent or make a jest of his owne death or drink up the poison of a serpent in merriment or cast darts firebrands about him to burne himselfe and others and say Am I not in sport See Prov. 26. 18. and 10. 23. and 14. 9. Oh that wee could discerne our wounds as sensibly as we are certainly stung It would make us runne to God and get Moses to goe to God for us and pray that these serpents and painfull wounds might be removed If wee saw death as present and as ghastly in our sins as Israel did in their stinging we would hasten our repentance and seeke after meanes of cure Sect. II. The remedy is First prescribed Num. 21. 8. Secondly applied vers 9. Thirdly in the same verse is the effect they recovered and lived So then in the remedy are I. ordination 2. application 3. sanation or cure 1. The appointing hath First the person appointing which was God himselfe who devised it and prescribed it to Moses for God will save onely in his owne meanes So God himselfe so loved the world that hee gave his onely begotten Sonne c. Ioh. 3. 16. This way of remedy and cure could bee no devise of man nor Angel For 1. The Angels stand still admiring and amazed at it 1. Pet. 1. 12. 2. Men without a superiour teacher cannot conceive it 1. Cor. 2. 14. much lesse invent it Secondly the thing appointed a serpent of brasse resembling Christ in the matter and the forme 1. The matter was of brasse not gold for five reasons 1. God ties not himselfe
religious persons when times do else not To avoid pernicious and dangerous sinnes which law revengeth as murder adultery theft but not covetousnesse not usury not swearing not uncleane lusts Herod will not part with his Herodias Ahab hath no reason to respect Micah when he prophecies evill to him 3. Trades men oppresse cosen lye deceive c because they have reason to make the best of their owne What reason but they may serve a Customer upon the Sabbath so they come to Church They have reason to slip all opportunities of grace all the weeke because they must walke diligently in their callings the sixe dayes Thus reason steps in and thrusts aside the practise of that which men in judgement hold not for good and necessary and like Evah still longing after forbidden fruit Thus of the second observation Sect. VI. III. Seeing all of us in this wildernesse are stung with the old Serpent what are we to doe to be cured Answ. we are to doe five things 1. We must feele our selves stung with our sinnes and confesse our selves stung for so must the Israelite before he could be cured We must feele the poyson and paine of sinne and First that this poyson hath not seated it selfe in one place but hath crept and diffused it selfe through all our parts For therefore it is called venenum quod per venas eat And as the vaynes and blood runne through every part of the body so sinne through every part of the man Secondly as poyson never rests till it come to the heart and there strikes and corrupts the fountaine of life So our sinne hath mortally wounded our very hearts and strikes at the life of grace in the soule Thirdly as poyson inflames the party with an incredible thirst having overcome naturall moysture and eaten up the spirits so sinne in the soule workes an utter defect and dryes up all waters of grace and makes the sinner insatiable in drinking up iniquity like water Fourthly as poyson not prevented brings speedy and certaine death but not without extreame paine and intolerable torture so the poyson of sinne unconquered brings certaine and eternall death attended with horrour of conscience desperate feares and torments most exquisite Thus must we labour to feele the sting of our sin in all parts far more mortall then the most venemous stings of most direfull Serpents 2. When this people felt themselves stung so deadly they come to Moses for counsell so must thou depend upon the Minister for direction as they upon Moses Never was man sensible of this sting but he would runne to the Ministers Act. 2. 37 when they were pricked in their hearts they said to Peter and the rest Men and brethren what shall we doe Act. 16. 30 the poore Jaylor being stung and sensible of his paine came trembling and humbling himselfe to Paul and Silas prisoners saying Sirs what must I doe to bee saved A conscience truely wounded will seeke to God to his word and Ministers for it knowes that God woundeth and healeth The feet of him that brings good tidings are beautifull to an humbled heart even as an experienced Physitian to a sicke party who else were sure to be lost for want of meanes What marveile if a soule truely sensible of his sting and paine can runne to Gods Ministers when a counterfeit humiliation can make as hard hearted a King as Pharaoh runne to Moses and Aaron and beg prayers of them A marveilous thing then that of so many thousands stung so deadly so few are sensible that so few trouble Moses or the Ministers with questions concerning their estates Some stung and guilty consciences not supported by faith in touch of sinne and sence of paine like a Doe shot with an arrow runne every way but the right for ease Some with Asa send to the Physitian to purge away melancholy Some with Saul send for musick esteeming soules sicknesse but a sottish lumpishnesse Some runne into the house of laughter and wicked playhouses to see and heare the Lords Sampsons and worthies derided not without haynous blasphemy Others fall a building with Cain or set upon other imployments perhaps it is but an idle fancy Some runne perhaps to the Witch of Endor in the meane time send away Paul as Felix or runne against Moses and his Ministers But comfort can they have none but from God and his word had not thy word saith David beene my comfort I had perished in my trouble All the Physitians in the world all the Musitians and Magicians put together nor any other meanes could helpe a stunge Israelite he must come to Moses when hee had done all hee could All other by-comforts are worme eaten and as cold water to cure a dropsie or as a cold draught to cure a poyson Some few there are that come unto us who we are sure had never sought to us more then others had they had so little sence of their sting as other have as the Israelites had never come at Moses had they not beene slung Let them be comforted in that they have gone the right way to fetch their comforts which is from God and his word and not from carnall men or councels The Lord in mercy hath brought them light out of darkenesse for pittie had it beene they had wanted the sting of affliction that hath driven them to God and to his word and servants 3. Comming to Moses wherein do they imploy them what questions move they to him Numb 21. 7. Oh their sinne troubles them which they confesse in generall we have sinned and in particular wee have spoken against the Lord and against thee and then pray him to helpe them in removing the Serpents So thou being stung when thou comest to Gods Ministers wilt be conversant in fruitfull and edifiable questions thou must be free in confession of such sinnes as are the likely cause of thy trouble and intent and busie how to be rid of the Serpents and the sting and poyson of thy sinnes Thou will be carefull to know how to get ease of heart and quietnesse of conscience from the paine and sting of sinne So the converts Act. 2 and so the Jaylor What shall I do to be saved The fault of many is when they have meanes of counsell and cōfort present with them to waste their time in trifling and curious questions and impertinent to the cure of the sting of the Serpent Questions which are like Crafishes in which is more picking then meat Questions meerely idle the resolution of which helps them no whit to ease or to heaven An humbled heart will not so lose his time nor dwell in toyes and unnecessaries to thrust out things more profitable A wise heart will not for a shadow forgoe the substance but will be much in that question of the young man Mr. what may I doe to inherit eternall life what may I doe to be saved what may I doe to be rid of this Serpent and
live by faith and die in faith as the Saints in former ages have done for our imitation 3. We must hold on this expectation on our Serpent as the Israelites did till they were perfectly cured And because we can never bee perfectly cured in this life but onely in part wee must still looke up to Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith till we be fully and perfectly healed Hence it is that the Lord will never have this Brazen Serpent taken downe as the other was after a short time but hath appointed the Ministery to lift him up and hold him perpetually before our eyes so long as wee are here below and enjoyned us the constant use of it all the while wee are in this wildernesse which were needlesse if we had once attained our perfect cure This is a strong motive to hold our eyes fast fixed upon Jesus Christ till we come to enjoy him as he is when all Ministery shall cease and the Lamb shall be all in all Sect. VIII From this so excellent a figure ariseth a bright Sunne of light and comfort for all the faithfull 1. The Israelite that could looke to the serpent if his eye were never so tender weake or dimme yet was cured Thou that art the weakest beleever bee comforted thy weake faith shall save thee thy smoking flaxe shall not be quenched but cleared to farther brightnesse Thy weake hand shall bee able to receive and hold the gift of righteousnesse and eternall life It is not the greatnesse of thy faith that saves thee but the truth of it Yet with this caution If it be true it will strive to encrease And if there bee so much comfort in weake faith how much is there in strong 2. The Israelite stung never so often if so often hee did looke on the serpent so often hee was cured Oh singular comfort Thou that renewest thy sinnes every day and every day goest over the same frailties renew also thy faith daily and thy repentance and thou art safe That brazen serpent lost his vertue of healing but our Brazen Serpent never loseth his If thou sinnest seventy times seven times and so many times returnest by faith in Christ and say It repents mee by this looking upon the brazen serpent all those wounds shall be cured Yet with this caution That as he had been a madd Israelite who because there was a serpent set up to cure him would therefore runne of purpose among serpents to be stung by them So is hee no lesse witâ—esse a Christian who therefore willingly makes his sinne abound because grace hath abounded A madd man he is that will therefore breake his head or wound his members because he hath a soveraigne plaister by him 3. The Israelites stung never so deadly never so desperately never so long wounded yet looking on the serpent were cured If thy sinnes bee as redd as scarlet and never so great if in thy sense some one of them deserve a thousand hells and the guilt of it or them rings continually in the eares of thy conscience frighted with feares of hell and death if thy sinnes bee festered and of long continuance Now come to the Brazen Serpent Never was any Israelite that could looke on the serpent sent away uncured But there is ten thousand times more vertue in Jesus Christ then in ten millions of brazen serpents onely looke on this Serpent by the eye of faith turne from all thy sinnes and be saved 4. The Israelites looking on the serpent brought present cure and ease and they went away rejoycing If thou beleevest in Jesus Christ thou art perfectly cured As Christ was wont to say to his patients so I say to thee Goe in peace Thy faith hath made thee whole Onely this grace can quiet the heart distressed and can keepe it from sinking as once it did Peter Mat. 14. 29. In this is the beginning and accomplishment of thy happinesse The converted Gaoler went away rejoycing that he his house beleeved Act. 16. 34. Now if one sight of faith in this our absence from Christ bee so joyfull a thing what shall the â—ight of fruition doe in his presence 5. The Israelites having once the brazen serpent cared not for the fiery serpents They might sting them now but not much hurt them they might now poison them but not kill them So the beleever looking to the true Brazen Serpent may triumph over the old Serpent and all the serpentine seed and say as the Apostle teacheth 1. Cor. 15. 55. Oh sinne where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Nay Thanks bee to God who hath given us victory by our Lord Iesus Christ. Great was the power of the Israelites looking upon that serpent for when the fiery serpents were present it made them powerlesse and not hurtfull Greater is the power of faith in the Lord Jesus which though our sinnes in themselves are most venemous and poisonfull stings and such as wee cannot be rid of them yet it so blunts them and makes them so powerlesse that they kill us not Nay that they hurt us not nay more that they helpe us and make us better more humble more wise more watchfull Thus our good God who out of the most infinite curse of Christ his Sonne on the Crosse brought forth to us the most infinite blessing which fills heaven and earth doth out of our cursed sinnes bring forth his owne glory joyned with our greatest good For which as for all other his unspeakable mercies unto us be praise given in all Churches and from henceforth to all eternities Amen FINIS I. Lambert Martyr Epist. ad Romanos Col. 3. 11â— Rom. 10. 4. Cont. Iul. 9. Do cibis Iud. cap. 5. Cont. Faust. Advers Iud. Heb. 13. 8. John 14. 6. Heb. 1â— 2. Eph. 4. 5. M. Min. Fel. Octav. Rom. 11. 26. Ludov. Caâ—retus 1553. Christ the truth of legall shadows Introduction to this Treatise Sacramenta sunt muâ—ata non fides Aug. God appointed a multitude of ceremonies to the â—ewes for 5. reasons Velata sunt ista donec aspiraret dies removerentur umbâ—â—e Aâ—g Grace in the new Testament specially how Ceremonies called shadows for 4. reasons Non ex opere opâ—ato Vse of them to the Jews Gods wisdome in appointing them The generall division of this Treatise Adam a type of Christ in foure things Vterque ad imaginem Dei conditus uterque Deo charissimus Primus ecclesiae doctor audiens immediate a Deo quae ecclesiae eraÌ„t proponenda ita Christus Vse 1. The Ministery â—everend for antiquity Antiquity of the doctrine of free grace Quod antiquissiâ—â—um verissimuÌ„ Tertul. Seeke life by Christs death 2. Cor. 4. 6. Get into Christ the second Adam as thou art surely of the first Motives 1. Cor. 1. 30. Noah a type of Christ in seven respects Differences betweene Christs and Noahs righteousnesse Christus iam perfectus Noah currâ—ns ad perfectionâ—m August Noahs Arke and Christs 6.