quite conttary to this is so far from such like Tyranny and cruel and handling of others that to satisfie us concerning the justly-suspected wrath of his Father he undergoes all this load himself to win us off to a more perfect and chearful Obedience to his holy Precepts by so great and sensible an Engagement The weight and power of his Scepter being mainly to be felt in the sense of Love which is the strongest â—ie imaginable even to natural Ingenuity But the power of the old Serpent was exercised in fear and terrour and despightfull scorn upon poor distressed mankind There being this great advantage therefore of winning of the Hearts of men from the Kingdome of Darkness to the power of God by Christ's afflictions and sufferings it is no wonder that he submitted himself to them though they were so unspeakably grievous 2. And indeed what can be imagined more grievous then that lively Representation of his bitter Passion unless the Passion it self When in the Mount of Olives at his devotions he was in such an Agony that he sweat as it were great drops of bloud that fel from his face to the ground Besides the despightfull mockings and spittings in his face with cruel and bloody scourgings The consideration whereof would drive a man to any hardship to approve himself faithfull and thankfull to so loving a Saviour What then will the contemplation of his direfull and Tragical Crucifixion where so Divine a person nay where the Son of God in the flesh being disgracefully placed betwixt two thieves his holy and spotless Humanity was so deeply pierced with the present sense and real Agony of Death that the weight and burthen thereof enforced him to cry out Eloi Eloi My God My God why hast thou forsaken me And here he may appeal from the Cross to all the World in the words of Ieremiah Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow 3. Which Sorrow and Passion had it not been as real and as great as it is recounted how slight and ludicrous a matter would the Mystery of Christianity be How prophane therefore and execrable are those wretches that would turn that to the disgrace of Christ which is the Glory of the Gospel as if our Saviour was less Perfect by being thus Passive and so sensible of pain But it is plain that these bold and insolent Enthusiasts which boast so much of Perfection as to equalize themselves or their blind guides with Christ nay prefer them before him I say it is plain they are so ignorant that they doe not know in what the true Perfection consists 4. For I have already declared That in the person of Christ that only which was truly Divine was to have the triumph and victory unassisted with any thing that is precious and praise-worthy in the eyes of the world And the true Perfection approveable before God is found only in that which is Divine not Natural or Animal such as would be applauded by a mere Carnal man And such is Stoicism and Spartanism a power as well relished by wicked men and Apostate Angels nay I may say better then by the holy and regenerate And it is an Exercise of far greater Faith and Obedience to the Divine will to undergoe pain and affliction when it searches us so deep and stings us so vehemently then when by any forced Generosity and Stoutness of Spirit or any Natural or Artificial helps whatsoever we bear against the sense thereof and quit our selves in this heat and stomachfulness as if we were invincible and invulnerable Champions 5. If it had fared thus with Christ at his Death the Solemnity of his Passion had been lost Indeed it had been no Passion nor would have caused any in them that read the Story But his Sufferings being so Great and so Real as they were it is the greatest Attractive of the Eyes and Hearts of men towards him that could possibly be offered to the World Which himself was very well aware of and did foretell it in his life-time When I am lifted up I shall draw all men unto me 6. Which Effects of his Passion those Miraculous Accidents that attended it seem also to presage For what was that rending of the vail of the Temple from the top to the bottome at Ierusalem what were those Earthquakes in more remote places out of Iudea and the torn or cloven Rocks but a Presage how the Earthly Minds and Stony Hearts of all men in time as well Iews as Gentiles would be shaken and broke in pieces with sorrow and grief at his Sufferings who is the Saviour of the World Nay what did the Sun the very life and Soul of the natural world what did that deliquium or swounding fitt of his betoken but that this sad spectacle of the Crucifixion of Christ would so empassion the minds of all ingenuous men and so melt their Hearts with love affection to this universal Saviour that they would willingly die with him that they might also live with him and rejoice with him for ever in Heaven 7. I speak not this to exclude other Significations of these Prodigies For they may also have their truth and use as well as these especially some of them as That of the Eclipse of the Sun which may also signifie that the true light of the world he that was termed by the Prophet The Sun of Righteousness was then a suffering and That of rending the vail of the Temple which no question denoted the rescinding of the Mosaical Rites and Ceremonies and the abrogation of the High-Priests office Christ now having taken away the partition-wall and given every Believer free access to the presence of his Father by his own Death whereby he has reconciled us to God 8. Which offers us a third Reason why this Passion of Christ should be so Tragical as it was and the weight thereof so unsupportable For he bore then the wrath of God for the sins of the World being smitten as the Prophet speaks for our transgressions and the iniquities of us all were laid upon him that is he was an Universal Sacrifice for all Mankind Which the proud and self-conceited Enthusiast that phansies himself so well within that he contemns all external Religion unless it be of his own invention being not at leisure to consider boldly and blasphemously traduces him for weak and delicate that willingly underwent the greatest pain that ever was inflicted upon any mortal that bore a weight more heavy then mount Aetna and too big for the shoulders of any Atlas to bear 9. As little to the purpose are the leguleious Cavils of some Pragmatical Pettifoggers as I may so call them in matters of Divinity who though they be favourable enough to the Person of Christ and seem to condole his ill Hap that he fell thus into the hands of Thieves and Murtherers yet set no price at all upon his Death no more then upon theirs that died with him accounting his
Bloud as common and unholy as that of the malefactors that were crucified with him the Wrath of God being not all atoned as they say by his suffering because it is unjust that an Innocent man should be punished for those that are guilty But what Unjustice is done to him that takes upon him the debt or fault of another man willingly if he pay the debt or bear the punishment provided that he that may exact or remit either will be thus satisfied 10. But such trivial and captious intermedlers in matters of Religion that take a great deal of pains to obscure that which is plain and easie deserve more to be flighted and neglected then vouchsafed any answer For all their frivolous Subtilties and fruitless intricacies arise from this one false ground That the Soveraign Goodness of God and his kind condescensions and applications to the affections of man are to be measured by Iuridical niceties and narrow and petty Laws such as concern ordinary transactions between man and man But let these brangling Wits enjoy the fruits of their own elaborate ignorance while we considering the easie air and sense of Sacrifices in all Religions shall by this means be the better assured of the natural meaning of it in our own CHAP. XIV 1. That Sacrifices in all Religions were held Appeasments of the Wrath of their Gods 2. And that therefore the Sacrifice of Christ is rather to be interpreted to such a Religious sense then by that of Secular laws 3. The great disservice some corrosive Wits doe to Christian Religion and what defacements their Subtilties bring upon the winning comeliness thereof 4. The great advantage the Passion of Christ has compared with the bloudy Tyranny of Satan 1. HOW General the Custome of Sacrificing was in all Nations of the World is a thing so well known that I need not insist upon it and That their Sacrifices were accounted an Appeasment of the Wrath of the Gods and Expiation for their faults is also a Truth so conspicuous that it cannot be denied Hence these Sacrifices we speak of were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Placamina Februa Piamina Much of this nature you may read in Grotius De Satisfactione Christi cap. 10. where he does not only make good by many Expressions and Examples That the Sacrifices of the ancient Heathen pacified the Anger of the Gods but also which is nearer to our purpose That the Punishment of those that were thus reconciled and purged was transferred upon the Beast that was sacrificed for the clearing whereof he alledges many citations and these two amongst the rest One out of Cato Cum sis ipse nocens moritur cur victima pro te Since thou thy self art guilty why Does then thy Sacrifice for thee die The other out of Plautus Men ' piaculum oportet fieri propter stultitiam tuam Ut meum tergum stultitia tuae subdas succedaneum that is to say Is it fit that I should be made a piacular Sacrifice for your foolishness that my back should bear the stripes that your folly has demerited 2. Wherefore this being the sense of the Sacrifices we speak of in all the Religions in the World it is more fit to interpret the Death of Christ who gave himself an Expiation for the sins of the World according to that sense which is usual in the mysteries of Religion then according to the entangling niceties and intricacies of secular laws 3. But as for those busie and Pragmatical spirits that by the acrimonie of their wit eat off the comely and lovely gloss of Christianity as aqua Fortis or rather aqua Stygia laid on polish'd metal what thanks shall they receive of him whom yet they pretend to be so zealous for the most winning and endearing circumstances of his exhibiting himself to the World being so soiled and blasted by their rude and foul breath that as many as they can infect with the contagion of their own Errour Christianity will be made to them but a dry withered branch whenas in it self it is an aromatick Paradise where the Senses and Affections of men are so transported with the Agreeableness of Objects that they are even enravished into Love and Obedience to him that entertains them there And nothing can entertain the Soul of man with so sweet a Sorrow and Joy as this Consideration That the Son of God should bear so dear a regard to the World as to lay down his life for them and to bear so reproachfull and painfull a Death to expiate their sins and reconcile them to his Father 4. But this is not all the Advantage he had to win the Government of the World unto himself For not only his exceeding Love to Mankind was hereby demonstrated but the cruel and execrable nature of that old Tyrant the more clearly detected For whereas the Devil who by unjust usurpation had got the Government of the World into his own hands tyrannizing with the greatest cruelty and scorn that can be imagined over Mankind thirsted after humane bloud and in most parts of the World as I have already shewn required the sacrificing of men which could not arise from any thing else but a salvage Pride and Despight against us This new gracious Prince of God's own appointing Christ Iesus was so far from requiring any such villainous Homage that himself became a Sacrifice for us making himself at once one Grand and All-sufficient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Piamen to expiate the Sins of all Mankind and so to reconcile the World to God CHAP. XV. 1. An Objection concerning the miraculous Eclipse of the Sun at our Saviour's Passion from it s not being recorded in other Historians 2. Answer That this wonderfull Accident might as well be omitted be several Historians as those of like wonderfulness as for example the darkness of the Sun about Julius Caesar's death 3. Further That there are far greater Reasons that Historians should omit the darkness of the Sun at Christ's Passion then that at the death of Julius Caesar. 4. That Grotius ventures to affirm this Eclipse recorded in Pagan writers and that Tertullian appeal'd to their Records 5. That the Text does not implie that it was an universal Eclipse whereby the History becomes free from all their Cavils 6. Apollonius his Arraignment before Domitian with the ridiculousness of his grave Exhortations to Damis and Demetrius to suffer for Philosophy 1. WE have seen how Reasonable the History of Christ's Passion is neither do I know any thing that may lessen the Credibility of it unless it be the miraculous Eclipse of the Sun Not that the Eclipse it self is so incredible but that it may seem incredible that so wonderfull so generally-conspicuous an Accident of Nature should be recorded by none but by the Evangelists themselves Learning and Civility in those times so universally flourishing and there being no want of Historians to recount such things This Objection makes a great shew at first but
others out of the captivity of the Kingdome of darkness and Tyranny of Devil 5. Wherefore if any man start up and pretend an Equality with Christ he is ipso facto convinced of ignorance in the Mystery of Godliness and deprehended to be an Impostour and a Lyar or he is haply a Beast and an Epicure denying the Immortality of the Soul and thereupon building all his slights and contempts of the Personal knowledge of our Saviour he deeming him as all men else wholly Mortal and therefore utterly to have perished above sixteen hundred years agoe CHAP. VI. 1. An objection against Christ's Soveraignty over Men and Angels from the meanness of the rank of Humane Spirits in comparison of the Angelical Orders 2. An Answer to the objection so far as it concerns the fallen Angels 3. A further inforcement of the Objection concerning the unfallen Angels with an Answer thereto 4. A further Answer from the incapacitie of an Angels being a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World 5. And of being a fit Example of life to men in the flesh 6. That the capacities of Christ were so universal that he was the fittest to be made the Head or Soveraign over all the Intellectual Orders 7. Christ's Intercession his fitness for that Office 8. What things in the Pagan Religion are rectified and compleated in the Birth Passion Ascension and Intercession of Christ. 1. BUT it may be further objected That although it be very Reasonable that the Angels and the Spirits of men whether in the body or out of the body be reduced under some Political form of Government yet it seems very incongruous and disproportionable that some one of the lowest rank of all the Orders of Rational Creatures should be made the Soveraign over all over Angels and Archangels and all Principalities and Powers whatsoever whether in Heaven or in Earth 2. But to this I answer That though the Superiour Orders of Intellectual Beings may have far more strength and natural Understanding in them then Man yet the Humanity of Christ may not be inferiour to them in Humility and an holy adhesion to God in Self-resignation and Faith in him who is the Root of all things in Love also and dear Compassion over the whole Creation and in a word in whatever appertains to the Divine life But as for the lapsed Angels let them be otherwise as cunning and knowing in all Arts and Subtilties of Nature let them be as powerfull as Gigantick as they will even to the overturning mountains and striking down steeples at a blow yet Christ has infinitely the preeminence of them in those Divine accomplishments I have recited nay he has a Principle beyond them removed above their Sphere as man has a Principle beyond Beasts And therefore it is no more wonder that God has constituted him Lord over these rebellious Titans then that Man is made superiour to Lions Elephants Whales and other mighty and monstrous Creatures 3. But you 'l say Though it seem just that the usurped Empire of the Devil be taken from him and given to Christ yet there is no reason that the unfallen Angels should be brought under his sceptre they being naturally of an higher order then himself and having forfeited nothing by rebellion or disobedience to God And therefore it had been more Reasonable for God to have united himself Hypostatically as they call it with some Angel then with Humane nature But what art thou O man that pretendest to be so wise as to give laws to God may not he dispose of his own and of himself as he pleases Besides there being so great a Revolt in the Angelical Orders who tempted also Mankind into their lapse the pretermission of them all in the conferring of so great an Honour as was conferred upon Christ was but a just check and slight cast upon all their Orders at once the Angelical bloud as I may so say being tainted with Treason Again the revolt and rebellion of the Apostate Angels being nothing else but a wilde and boundless giving themselves up to the pleasures and suggestions of the Animal life and Christianity as I have already defined it nothing else but a Triumph of the Divine life over the Animal this Triumph Scorn and Insultation over the Animal life is more exactly pursued by how much in every place those things that seem of most value to it are left out as slighted and disregarded and the whole Mystery of the Recovery of the lapsed Creation to God performed by him who undertook it without the false pomp of those needless circumtances of highness of Order Nobleness of Birth worldly Authority Strength and Beauty of body Subtilty of Wit Knowledge of Nature Plausibility of Eloquence or whatsoever else seems precious to the mere Natural or Animal Spirit So that upon this very account the Angels were to be excluded from this function 4. But fourthly and lastly If any Angel would have been competitour with our Saviour in this Honour that question put to Zebedee's Children might well have dash'd him out of countenance in his competition You know not what you ask can you drink of the cup that I am to drink of and be baptized with the Baptisme that I am to be baptized with that is Can you undergoe that shamefull and scornfull death of the Cross Certainly an Angel cannot For if he could be born into the World in Humane flesh and suffer those agonies the Soul of the Messias did this Angel were no Angel but an Humane Soul But perhaps you 'l replie that though an Angel cannot suffer death in an Humane body yet he is so capable of torment and punishment that he may be made an Expiation for the Sinnes of the World But I demand how we that are so much concerned in it shall know of that suffering For the Transactions of men are a spectacle to the Angels but the Transactions of Angels are not discerned by men by reason of the Tenuity of their Vehicles But this suffering Angel would have appeared on purpose Yet how unsatisfactory and phantastical would this have been conceived in comparison of the real and assured Passion of our Saviour Christ. 5. Besides If an Angel had undertaken this office he could not have been so fit an Example of life to us as Christ who was a man subject to the same infirmities with our selves and who really felt what belong'd to the imbecillity of our natures For the Passions of his Minde were no more abated nor destroyed by his union with the Deity then the Passibility of Matter is by being united with a Soul Wherefore Christ wading thus faithfully without sin or blame throughout all the incumbrances of the Flesh which are greater then those that the Angelical Orders are liable unto is a very concerning spectacle of both Men and Angels But what an Angel could do would but very little concern us men 6. Wherefore he who was of so universal a capacity as to be an
cannot better be done then by shewing the Reasonableness and important Usefulness of Christian Religion in the Historical sense thereof and in reference to the very Person of Christ our Saviour which I have I hope abundantly performed in this present Treatise and by discovering the Natural Causes and imposturous Consequences of Enthusiasme which I had done before in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus Which two Treatises I hope will prove two invincible Fortresses against all the force and fury of the Fanatical spirit 7. After this the bold impiety of this present Age engaged my Thoughts in a Subject of no less moment then the former For I saw that other abhorred monster Atheisme proudly strutting with a lofty gate and impudent forehead boasting himself the onely genuine offspring of true Wisdome and Philosophy namely of that which makes Matter alone the Substance of all things in the world This misshapen Creature was first nourished up in the stie of Epicurus and fancied it self afterward grown more tall and stout by further strength it seemed to have received from some new Principles of the French Philosophy misinterpreted and perverted by certain impure and unskilful pens Which unexpected confidence of those blind boasters made me with all anxiety and care imaginable search into the power of Matter and mere Mechanical motion and consider how far they might go of themselves in the production of the Phaenomena of the World But as for the Philosophy of Epicurus it seemed to me at the very first sight such a foolery that I was much amazed that a person of so commendable parts as P. Gassendus could ever have the patience to rake out such old course rags out of that rotten dunghill to stuffe his large Volumes withall But I must confess I did as much admire Des-Cartes Philosophy as I did despise the Epicurean who has carried on the power of Matter for the production of the Phaenomena of Nature with that neatness and coherence that if he had been as ignorant in other things as skilful in Mechanicks he could not but have fancied himself to have wone that crown that many wits have striven for that is the honour of being accounted the most subtil and able Atheist of both the present and past Ages This made me peruse his Writings with still more and more diligence and the more I read the more I admired his Wit but at last grew the more confirmed That it was utterly impossible that Matter should be the onely essential Principle of things as I have in several places of my Writings demonstrated And therefore having clearly vanquished this difficulty I betook my self with greater alacrity to the writing of my Antidote against Atheisme To which presently after I added my Threefold Cabbala as an Appendix to the same design being well advised what a homely conceit our high Wits have of the Three first Chapters of Genesis though they do betray their own ignorance by their mean opinion of them 8. And possibly then I had left off had not a dangerous Sickness that made me suspect that the time did near approach of quitting this my earthly Tabernacle urged me more carefully to bethink my self what reception I might have in the other world And praised be God such was the condition of my Soul though then much overrun with Melancholy that my presages concerning my future state were very favourable and comfortable and my desire was to be gathered to that body of which Iesus Christ is Head even he who was crucified at Ierusalem and felt the pangs of death for a Propitiation of the sins of the world who was then represented to me as visible a Prince and as distinct a person and head Politick as any King or Potentate upon earth And therefore being thus fully convinced with my self that He whose Life was ever to me the most sweet and lovely of any thing I could see or taste was indeed even in his Humane nature made a King and Priest for ever and constituted Soveraign over men and Angels my Heart was full of Ioy but withall accompanied with a just measure of shame that I had spoken hitherto so sparingly of his Royal Office and of the homage due to so Divine a Potentate whose Subject to my great satisfaction I found my self to be and whose presence I did not at all despair of approaching in due time to my eternal comfort and honour Which sense of things made me conceive a solemn Vow with my self if God gave me life to write this present Treatise Which occasion I thought fit not to conceal though I be much averse from speaking any thing over-particularly of my self that the high-flown Fanaticks of this Age may consider more carefully what I have writ and take heed how they either slight or revolt from their Celestial Soveraign But I thought it very convenient before I put in execution this great design to take again into consideration that other weighty Subject The Immortality of the Soul being better appointed and provided for the clearing of that Truth then I was when I first adventured upon the Theory And thus having fully convinced my self and I hope as many else as are capable of judging of the more choice and subtile Conclusions of Reason and Philosophy That there is a God and That the Soul of man is immortal which are the two main pillars upon which all Religion stands I advanced forward with courage having left no Enemy behind and betook my self with great confidence to the finishing and publishing of this present Treatise Of the Mystery of Christianity Which I look upon as the most precious and the most concerning piece of Wisdome that is communicable to the Soul of Man the very chief and top bough of that Tree of Knowledge whose fruit has neither poison nor bitterness And therefore being come to my journeys end I will here sit down with thanks and enjoy my self under this comfortable shade and do assure thee Reader that I am not likely to weary thy eyes with the descriptions of any further discoveries by my pen. 9. Onely that thou mayest view this with the better ease and satisfaction I shall according to my usual manner endeavour to remove all rubs of offence out of thy way by giving thee an account aforehand of whatever may seem to thee a considerable either Superfluity Defect or Aberration in my Performance not omitting to impart to thee the right and proper meaning of the very Title of my Discourse Thou must therefore expect from my terming of it An Explanation of the Mystery of Godliness not a mere verbal Exposition or Declaration what is signified therein but such an orderly Exhibition of the Truths thereof that the Scope of the Whole being understood the Reasonableness of the Particulars thereunto tending may clearly appear And the End to which all Parts of the Christian Mystery point at is the Advancement and Triumph of the Divine Life In the exaltation whereof God is the most
the contrary being disadvantaged by leading a life and offering himself an example of manners that are either scorn'd or hated by every natural man who was still made more odious and contemptible by his suffering a shamefull death betwixt two groâ—s Malefactors I say if an high hand from Heaven had not carried on the affairs of Christianity that is if Christ had not done some such Miracles himself as are recorded if he had not risen from the dead ascended into Heaven and thence powred forth his Spirit upon the Apostles and enabled them to doe such wonderfull works as they did it had been utterly impossible that Christianity could have had any such success in the world as we see it has at this day So that the whole History of Christ is very congruous and coherent and such as according to the nature of the thing ought to be whenever the Messias was to come into the World CHAP. XII 1. Three main Effects of Christ his sending the Paraclete foretold by himself Iohn 16. When the Paraclete shall come c. 2. Grotius his Exposition upon the Text. 3. The Ground of his Exposition 4. A brief indication of the natural sense of the Text by the Author 5. The Prophesie of Christ fulfilled and acknowledged not only by Christians but also Mahometans 6. That the Substance of Mahometism is Moses and Christ. Their zealous profession of One God 7. Their acknowledgment of Miracles done by Christ and his Apostles and of the high priviledge conferred upon Christ. 8. What Advantage that portion of Christian Truth which they have embraced has on them and what hopes there are of their full conversion 1. IT would be too tedious a business particularly to prosecute that ample Success that the Passion Resurrection Ascension of Christ and his Sending the Holy Ghost had in the World but the most universal and farthest-spreading Effects thereof we cannot pass by in silence especially those Three which himself foretells of John 16. That when the Paraclete should come he would convince the world concerning Sin Righteousness and Iudgment Concerning Sin because they believe not on me Concerning Righteousness because I goe to the Father and you see me no more Concerning Iudgment because the Prince of this World is judged 2. All which as Grotius interprets the place in a Forensal sense is of a very large extension and acknowledged as well by Turk as Christian. For that learned Expositour makes Christ to send the Spirit as an Advocate to plead his cause against the World and indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies so and nothing else and thereby to convince the World First of that great Crime of Infidelity and of killing of their true Prophet nay their expected Messias This properly respects the Jews who crucified him and they felt the Divine vengeance for so heinous a fact their City being sacked their Temple demolished and themselves scattered and made underlings in all places of the World Secondly of the Equity and righteous dealing of the just God with Christ who because he had suffered so wrongfully made him a compensation by making him a partaker of his Heavenly glory for the reproach and injury he bore upon the Earth Thirdly lastly of Iustice betwixt party and party and that therefore as the Devil excited the Jews to put Christ to death so by way of Retaliation Christ should put the Devil out of his present dominion and rule in the world by the destruction of Idolatry and the worship of those Apostate Spirits though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems something lame here the members being so heterogeneall one to another 2. But the Exposition will appear sufficiently ingenious for all that if we do but consider what he sets down for the ground of his interpretation That Sin Righteousness and Iudgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answer to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying publica judicia de criminibus but the other two privata judicia unum ex aequo bono which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alterum certam ex lege formulam habens which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which assuredly comprehends such Laws as concern the right of Possession as well as that of Retaliation which Grotius so specially aims at in his citing Levit. 24.20 The Devil therefore being a mere usurper and having no right to the rule and dominion of the World the Action will lie against his Usurpation and thus the Interpretation will be unexceptionable And that the action is of this kind is plain in that Christ the Son of God is heir of all things as himself somewhere intimates and the Apostle also in plain terms declares 4. The sense therefore of the forecited Text in short is this That the Spirit which is called the Paraclete or Advocate when he comes should convince the World of the Veracity of Christ and the Infidelity and Cruelty of the Iews that crucified him who was a true Prophet neither Deceiver nor deceived and of the Equity of God that compensated his sufferings amongst the Jews by taking him to himself and crowning him with immortal glory and of the Iudgment of God against the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God has given sentence against him already that he shall be ejected out of his usurped dominions and that all the Pagan forms of worship shall be abrogated and destroy'd 5. This the Paraclete or Spirit of God coming upon the Apostles and assisting them and the Church so miraculously for many Ages has with such undeniable conviction made good that not only all Christendome is assured thereof but that vast Empire of the Turks and all the Mahometans whereever dispersed in the World So that after a manner the whole Earth is filled with the belief thereof which I thought worth the taking notice of that this Success may not seem less ample then it is 6. For though the Mahometans are not Christians but Pagans in too true a sense yet it is plain that much of the letter of their law is Moses and Christ. And to the confusion of gross Idolatry and Polytheism they profess One only God Creatour of Heaven and Earth and their great stress of their Religion lies upon this main Article with which they are so transported that they spend a great deal of their time in their Mosco's in chanting out this one Truth La illa ilella la illa ilella that is There is but one God as Historians relate But this is no more then the Jews believe nor upon so good grounds but they proceed further as if they were ambitious to make out that broken title that one gives them who calls them Semichristianos Half-christians 7. For partly in their Alcoran and partly in Zuna it is recorded how Iesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost and so born of the Virgin Mary That the Gospel is the way the light and salvation of men and
the Divine Wisdome that does not act according to absolute Power but according to the Congruity of the nature of things is to wind off Mankind from the slavery of the Devil and reclaim them from the irregularities of the Animal life to the embracement of the Divine by such a way as is most accommodate to the humane Faculties and Capacities 12. And what do we think could work more kindly upon the Nature of man to disenslave him from the bondage of Satan and to make him close with the Divine life which he had forsaken then to exhibit a very visible Example thereof in some venerable Person who should earnestly exhort mankind to follow his steps and practices and whose Doctrine should be confirmed with sensible Testimonies from Heaven in approbation and exaltation of his person shewing that he is the only Beloved the Darling and Delight of the Eternal God with some such Expression as this from the very clouds This is my beloved Son hear him In brief That his Birth Life and Death should be adorned with such miraculous and supernatural Circumstances that it may be visible to all men that are not willingly blinde that this man was a true and infallible Messenger sent from God Which would be a very forcible battery laid against their outward senses 13. But being that this had been the sadder message by how much more they had been ascertain'd it had been true That they must forsake the exorbitant pleasures of the Animal Life and keep close up to the Divine it was also requisite that they might be assured of a proportionable Reward for so great an Agony as they were to undergoe in mortifying castigating their natural or habitual desires and betaking themselves to the streighter way And therefore it is fit that that Truth that is so obscure and incredible to the generality of men should be made grosly manifest to the meanest capacities I mean the Reward of a blessed Immortality after this Life and the regaining of Heaven or Paradise which lapsed Mankind had lost The Certainty whereof I cannot tell how it may be better assured to them then by the witness of one whom we are sure is infallible and who saies expressly that he came from thence and after Death is to go thither again and does not only tell the World so but proves it to outward sight he being raise out of his Grave after he was perfectly dead and ascending into the Heavens where flesh and bloud cannot inhabit Which is a visible Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality and as feelingly accommodate to the slowest apprehension as if some man of whose honesty the people were indubitably assured should descend from some high Hill where none of the Country had had the hap to have been as yet and should tell them what pleasant Woods and Groves there were there full of all manner of delicious Fruit a true terrestrial Paradise and that it was not so steep or inaccessible as they imagined and therewith should return thither in the very sight of those that questioned the Matter This consideration would reach their very inward Reason and indispensable Interest For they that are the lowest lapsed are not fallen from the sense of their own good and from a desire of everlasting happiness if they find it possible 14. This were enough to make mankinde weary of the Devil 's Tyrannical yoke But in all revolts there ought to be some Head and no person is so fit for such a purpose as he who is able to reward his followers whose Vertues are eminently opposite to the Vices of the Tyrant and whose Rule when he is installed will as little thwart the usual or natural and innocent propensions of the People as may be Wherefore whereas the Devil's Government is notorious for unspeakable Pride Insolency and Cruelty to Mankind as has been at large discovered in those bloudy sacrificings and despightfully misusings of men in a way of Superstition which no man can doubt to have any better Author then Satan himself the Head of this warrantable Revolt must be singularly kind and tenderly and affectionately loving and compassionate to the Generations of men as also very humble and lowly and be so far from requiring such abominable and bloudy homages as the sacrificing of men to him that he would willingly lay down his life for their sake Which must needs prove an unspeakable endearment of the affections of his followers to him and raise in them a more vehement detestation of the Devil's Tyranny But because Love is ineffectual that has no power of doing good this Head becomes the more perfectly compleat if he be found not only so Kind as to be willing to lay down his life for his Subjects but also to be able to save them from all the inconveniences that opposite Power intangled them in whose wages were no better then Eternal death and therefore it was fitting that he should have a power from God of giving Everlasting Life and crowning them with a blessed Immortality at the last day and of saving them from that general Destruction that will in time seize as well on the rebellious Angels as the unreclaimed Souls of men 15. Lastly Those natural innocent Propensions of Mankind are gratified in this Head we speak of if there be such Properties in him as are sutable to their Opinions Practices and Desires in matters of Religion And we know by History that the Heathen were very prone to suspect those that were their eminent Benefactors to have been born of more then humane Race and that they had so high sense of Gratitude toward them that they Deified them after their Deaths and did them divine Honour Adde to this their conceit of the necessity of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the appeasing the Wrath of the Gods and of the convenience of their Dii Medioxumi Wherefore if Divine Providence add these Gratifications also in the choice of the Head she shall appoint for the opposing and beating down the Kingdome of Satan the matter is still more completely fitted and accommodated to the humane Faculties which having been long abused by idle mistakes cannot but be highly transported with joy upon the discovering their true and warrantable Object and so the Nations will finde such a Prince and Leader as the more they behold him and eye him the more they must become enravished by him Divine Wisdome condescending by this contrivance to the utmost curiosity of Courtship to win off poor lapsed Mankind from the Tyranny of Satan to the Kingdome of God 16. This is a short Review of the more Intelligible part of Christianity the Reasonableness whereof I take to be such that I dare appeal to the judgment of any if it be not so worthy of the Divine Wisdome and Goodness and so fitly suited unto the nature and condition of things and the state of men upon earth that it is indispensable but that Providence
the more dull or illiterate 7. The danger of debasing the Gospel to the dulness or shallowness of every weak apprehension 1. THE Second Derivative Property of the Mystery of Godliness is Communicability For in that it is Intelligible it becomes hereby Communicable Whence it appears what Communication I mean not such as is competible also to Magpies and Parots that is a sound of words or phrases which those Birds are able to repeat after us but a Rational impartment of the matter whereby a mans Understanding is satisfied of the real grounds of our belief This duty the ancient Christians were charg'd with as appears 1 Pet. chap. 3. v. 15. Be ready alwaies to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of that hope that is in you with meekness and reverence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if we be ask'd a reason of our belief and the Apostle requires us to answer assuredly he was not conscious of any Unreasonableness of the Christian Faith in his time That of that witty Father of the Church Credo quia impossibile however it might please the Answerer it could never satisfie the Opposer This would not prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul speaks a defence and confirmation of the Gospel but rather an exposing it to derision and contempt For he that will acknowledge Impossibilities in his Religion gives up the Cause without blowes and yields at once all that his adversary desired namely that his Religion is nothing but a Forgery or Foolery 2. Intelligibleness therefore must precede Communication in him that communicates the Mystery to another so far as he does venture to communicate it Otherwise if he once give his Tongue leave to out-run his Understanding what hopes has he of seeming intelligible to another when himself understands not what he saith Whence unless he meet with a fool he himself will be sure to be found one or accounted an Impostor or Mad-man So little edification can there be in such Discourses But if a man would be a prudent Imparter of Christian Religion indeed he is not onely to take care that what he pronounces of the Mystery is intelligible to himself but also to be very circumspect how he speaks any thing to any one before they be capable of receiving it And therefore if he would use a right Method he must begin with such things as are the most easy to conceive and the most capable of Demonstration and also are the most certain pledges of the Happiness which they may expect who desire to be real and cordial Embracers of Christianity 3. As for example They are to declare how Christ is the Messias expected of old of the Jews though rejected by them when he came That he is the Son of God miraculously born of a Virgin That he was a Sacrifice for sin and underwent the shameful death of the Cross out of love to us That he was raised from the dead the third day and ascended visibly into Heaven and thence is to be expected as Judge of the quick and of the dead and that then those that believe on him shall be crowned with the highest glory and immortality their vile bodies being changed into the similitude of his Heavenly body And that the Resurrection of Christ is a palpable earnest of the purpose of God to reward us thus with everlasting life Such like things as these are to be communicated first by way of proposal they neither vexing nor wearying the apprehension or imagination of man by any difficulty of conception but are so strange that they may well call out the closest attention and put a man upon the most eager inquisition to be satisfied whether they be true 4. The terms of the question therefore being thus easily intelligible in the next place it will be expected that they evidence the Truth of the Narration which is to be done from those clear Prophecies of the coming of the Messias in the Old Testament and of what he was to do and to suffer any by a rational eviction of the incorruptedness and authentickness of the History of Christ in the Gospels and the rest of the Writings in the New And after this orderly and by degrees they are to be led on to those things that are more obscure and mysterious and yet to the patient and well-prepared mind both true and intelligible For though some few points in Christianity may be obscure yet so far forth as the Scripture defines any thing of them they are both intelligible and true So that Truth and Intelligibility is in every warrantable part of Christianity at least to those that have their understandings exercised in rational Speculations But for others whose parts and imploiments have rendred them less fit for any meditation that is subtile and obscure they may content themselves with the safe adhesion to the forme of Sound words delivered in the Scriptures 5. Out of which they are very intelligibly instructed of the Divinity of Christs Person in that they read there how he was declared the Son of God by voices from Heaven That he was begotten not by man but by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost That he did such Miracles also as became the Son of God to do being utterly above the power of nature That in him dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily whenas it dwelt in the Temple of the Jews onely Typically And therefore there is far greater reason that the devotions of Christians should be directed towards Christ then those of the Jews towards the Holy Temple towards which they alwaies worshipped when they put up their supplications to God though they were far distant from it That the Word also is said to be made flesh to wit the Word that was in the beginning with God when all things were made and that this Word also was God and that God was manifested in the flesh by the appearing of Christ in the World 6. That these things are thus really and in truth the Authentickness of the Scriptures makes good But for such as are unexercised in Metaphysical speculations that have not so much as considered the Union of their own Soul with their Body nor once heard of distinction real and formal and other setled notions requisite for the more express apprehension of such high points as the Conjunction of the Divinity and Humanity in Christ and the Triunity of the Godhead the best instruction can be given to them by the Mystagogus is that they would make that up in humble Adoration that they want in Knowledge and that God of his mercy imparted these Mysteries to the World for use and not for curious and vexatious speculation and that they should be so modest as not to think that utterly unintelligible that themselves for the present cannot apprehend 7. That the Truth of the Gospel is a standing and immutable thing not to be altered and changed according to the capacities of men and that if
any external inconvenience but naturally as I may so speak that is from a Divine nature and power in him and therefore with as much chearfulnesse and willingnesse as the natural man does eat and drink And of this Isaac was born Iacob who was called Israel which Philo the Jew interprets one that sees God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but you may be remembred that Ismael in the first signification of his name noted one that did onely know God by hear-say which is quite contrary to the seeing of God For that priviledge is proper to the true Christian to whom Isaac is born and from him Israel but he is quite out of the line of Ismael having now nothing to do with hear-saies and conjectures and fruitlesse disputacity upon the mistaken letter and Polemical Divinity and vain and ridiculous altercations and janglings for he is now a Citizen of that New Ierusalem from above and the onely true Ierusalem according to the notation of the name which they will have to signifie The vision of Peace He is a living stone of the Temple of Him that is greater then Solomon where there is not heard the noise of any axe or hammer Thirdly and lastly This Isaac was not born according to the flesh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Per eam vim extraordinariam quam Deus promiserat for it is a Metonymy as the Interpreter rightly has noted Isaac was not born according to the power of Nature for that Natural power of begetting and bearing Children was then extinct in Abraham and Sarah by reason of old age as the Text tells us but he was born by the power of God working extraordinarily in Nature which power Abraham having a faith in and believing the promise he at the appointed time saw and enjoied the effect of it And this is the precious Christian Faith so mainly necessary and yet so little spoken of by them that spake much in matters of Divinity For without this Faith in the power of God Isaac will not be born in us and if he be not born in us I know no warrant we have to conclude our selves Christians or men under the Second Covenant Wherefore it is a point mainly necessary to be insisted upon that we may at length be really that which we pretend to be that is Sons of the Free-woman and not of the Bond-woman that the true Isaac may be in us which is Christ according to the Spirit the Wisdome and Power of God a Divine vigor and life whereby we are inabled with joy and chearfulnesse to walk in the waies of God 6. And verily it was this so necessary and useful Faith that was so commended in Abraham that it was imputed to him for righteousnesse as I have above noted viz. his believing the Promise of God in things above the ordinary power of Nature For it is the nature of men that make large professions of God and Divine Providence yet never to believe him further then in Natural Causes and humane probabilities But this is not so much to believe God as Nature nor to depend on him but on our own cold and ineffectual Reason concluding from accustomary probabilities Which if Abraham had done it might well have forfeited the birth of his Son Isaac And it will be very reasonable to examine our selves if we do not now hinder the birth of the spiritual Isaac by reason of our unbelief For we finding the generality of men so evil as they are and being conscious to our selves of abundance of corruption and all manner of weaknesse and proclivity to what is bad and finding it so common a thing for men to continue in their evil wayes and not to put off their wonted habits and that in our own attempts and resolutions we have been often baffled and cast back again we are likely through a spirit of Infidelity to conclude that that which is so hard to flesh and bloud and is so seldome seen in the course of the World will not be at all effected in us and therefore either live as it happens or at least make very small progresse in matters of true Religion and Piety I am sure fall short of that high calling whereunto we are called viz. that glorious liberty of the Sons of God from the slavish inveiglements of all uselesse Ceremonies and real sins And this is for want of Abraham's Faith who believed contrary to all probability of Nature that for all his decaied body and Sarah's barren womb yet God would raise up seed to him and that they should have a Son in their old age We are therefore to imitate Abraham the Father of the faithful and what we finde our selves weak in not to distrust but that God in his good time can make it out to us and therefore with patience and perseverance to presse forward and by Faith in the power of God who raised Christ from the dead to expect that after we have been made conformable to his death we shall also partake of the Resurrection from the dead For Christ in our Souls wading through the death with us that is supporting and strengthening us in our greatest Agonies brings up himself and us into a glorious Resurrection from the dead which you may call a Birth if you please as well as a Resurrection using but the same liberty that is already in the Scripture where speaking of his Resurrection the Apostle cites that in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And this is the Son who as he professes of himself if he make us free we are then free indeed For he is the Son of Sarah the Free-woman and we being of one Spirit with him do ipso facto become free 7. And if we would compendiously declare the grand difference betwixt the First and Second Covenant it does consist mainly in these two points we are upon First That a true Christian or one attained to the End and Scope of the Second Covenant is what he is by Faith in a supernatural power working him to it Secondly That that condition he has attained to is a condition of true and perfect Freedome properly so called But he that is under the First Covenant is what he is by the power of Nature onely and by applying himself as well as he can to the external Rule he has set before him And verily he that does no more then thus in Christianity it self that is outwardly apply himself to the Letter of the Gospel has not arrived to the End of the Gospel nor is Isaac yet born in him but is under an outward legal Form in stead of the Law of the Spirit of Life And he cannot be born of the Free-woman forasmuch as the Law of the Spirit of Life is wanting in him which does really free us from the Law of Sin and Death But now by reason that a true Christian arrives to that happy condition he is in by a Supernatural power
Solomon in defining her to be the true Mother that could not endure that the Child should be divided and killed And whatever Church is cruell and remorsless in either Temporall persecution or the Eternall damnation of such men as believe in Christ according to the plain and easie meaning of the Scripture and live accordingly she may approve her self to be an imperious Harlot but no discerning spirit will ever take her for the true Mother that new Ierusalem which is the Spouse of Christ or Wife of the Lamb. Wherefore those are very weak Christians that are so low-belled by this terror as to be taken up and captivated by the Church of Rome and acknowledge her the mother-Church by force of that Argument that demonstrates the contrary to say nothing of their disingenuous abuse of the Charity of the Reformed Churches But for my own part I confess that for sureness I had rather exercise my Charity in wishing them Converts from Popery then express any great confidence of their being safe in that Religion Not that it is possible for me who cannot infallibly demonstrate to my self that all that lived under Paganisme are certainly damned to imagine that all that have gone under the name of Papists have tumbled down into Hell But the case is much like that in Shipwrack on the sea or Pestilence in a City where we will suppose not a house free no man can pronounce that it is impossible that such or such a person should escape nor that any of them are in any tolerable safety The danger is alike to them that adhere to the Apostate Church for though there be a possibility of some mens being saved by an extraordinary or miraculous Providence they breaking through all those impediments and snares that are laid in their way and attaining to a Dispensation above the Church they live in as haply some under Paganisme did yet it cannot be denied but that the Oeconomie of that Church naturally tends to the betraying of Souls to Eternall destruction that falling out which our Saviour said of old of the Pharisees They compass sea and land to make one profelyte and when he is made he becomes twofold more the child of the devil then themselves For he will not stint his Hypocrisie in Religion by the measure of their gain that invented the forme and submit to it for their End but for his own namely that he may excuse himself from all reall holiness by keeping to the observation and profession of their vain inventions And thus are the Commandements of God made of none effect by their Traditions In brief the whole frame of that Church is fashioned out so near to the ancient guise of Idolatrous Paganisme or else to the liveless and ineffectual forme of Judaisme both which Christ appeared on purpose to destroy as either contrary or ineffectuall to Salvation and does explicitly recommend to the world a pure and spirituall worship that we should worship the Father in Spirit and in truth or lastly is so full of Contradictions and Impossibilities in their feigned Stories and imperiously-obtruded Opinions that the natural result of being born under such a Religion or of turning to it is either to become a besotted Superstitionist to believe or do any thing that others will have him to do which is a sign the Spirit of Regeneration has not yet passed upon him and that there is no life nor light in him or else which is too frequent to turn down-right Atheist it being so grosly discernable that the Tenents of their Church are impossible and their Practices fraudulent fitted chiefly for filthy lucre and their Ceremonies useless thankless and ridiculous And therefore if any be saved in the Church of Rome they are such as are not truely of it but above it and fend for themselves as well as they may by some pardonable sleights of Prudence accompanied with an impregnable innocency of Spirit and readiness of doing all possible good they can they sparing their own lives and liberties upon no other account then that and out of a perswasion that he that commanded them to be wise as Serpents as well as innocent as Doves has given them no commission inconsiderately and to no purpose to betray themselves into the power of his usurping Enemy But for others that are perfect Papists and swallow down all that Church proposes to them without chewing or distasting any thing it is a Demonstration there is no Principle of life in them but that they are like dead earthen pitchers which receive poison and wholesome liquors with a like admittance And if there be no principle of life there is no seed of Salvation in a man For it is most certainly true and the Scripture it self doth witness to it That unless a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdome of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit This is the new Creature that is created in wisdome righteousness and true holiness The first of which the Church of Rome expunges in that it gives no leave to a man never so regenerate to judge for himself but he must say as the Church sayes right or wrong and for the other two all their superstitious Ceremonies put together adde nothing to them but rather stifle and sufflaminate them Again S. John tell us That he that hates his brother is in the dark and walketh in the dark and knows no whither he goes But others may know it as appears by another saying of the same Apostle Every one that hates his brother is a murderer and no murderer hath eternall life abiding in him But on the contrary he affirms That Love is of God and that he that loveth is born of God and knowes God Now to apply the Case to these Rules If Love be an essential Character of a Regenerate soul and Hatred of Errour Darkness and Eternal Death or to come yet closer If Hatred it self be Murder what will Murder it self be added thereunto And if any thing be Murder I demand whether this be not namely to take away the life of a member of Iesus Christ who does fully and freely profess the Ancient and Apostolick Faith according to the Letter or History of the New Testament and does seriously compose his life according to the Precepts therein contained and does onely declare against and reject the Contradictious Opinions and Idolatrous Practices that have no ground at all in Scripture nor Reason but are quite contrary to both I say if this be no Murder there is no Murder in the world and how guilty the Church of Rome is of this Crime all the world knowes Wherefore this being one of the Principles of that bloudy Church and he that is a perfect Papist being of one mind and suffrage with his Church in all things for she will be held no less then Infallible 't is apparent that no through-paced Papist can ever go to
heaven while he is such this murderous disposition being a demonstration that he is not born of God but of him that was a murderer from the beginning For Love being the very Heart and Center of Regeneration if there be no Antipathie in us against that which is so contrary to the deepest Principle of the Divine life it is a sign there is none of that Life in us Wherefore this Hypothesis of Mr. Mede cannot be made harsh or odious by the Opposer's surmise there being a capacity of being saved in such as I have above described though of the Papall denomination which are as it were the Woman in the wilderness And for that incapacity of being saved in the other there wants no Apocalypse to reveal the certainty thereof Nor do I know a more uncharitable opinion in the World then that which promises them Salvation that are so far from Charity themselves that they are professedly persecuters and murderers of the innocent nay of the sincere and faithful members of Christ. 27. But the Subtilty of our Adversaries is such that they will reply That there are as many snares and impediments in the Reformed Churches to true Holiness if not to all Holiness in the Opinions of Solifidianisme and Eternall Decrees and as great a demonstration of their utter insensibility of that Principle of the Divine love into which every true Christian is regenerated in their doctrine of Absolute Reprobation and inevitable damnation of innumerable myriads of men Providence determining them upon all the wayes and means thereto as in the Romanists either censuring all out of their Church to be in a state of perdition or in their inflicting a Temporal death upon them that gainsay the Articles of their Church For what is this in comparison of being content that all the World in a manner should be adjudged to everlasting torments for doing such things as they were from all Eternity decreed to do nor could any way possibly avoid it This Objection I must confess is very shrewdly levelled at the mark nor can I well undertake within the narrow limits of my now almost-ended Preface to make a full and direct Answer to the things themselves Onely I shall return thus much First That all of the Reformed Churches are not Solifidians nor hold any thing concerning the Divine Decrees inconsistent with either the Goodness of God or the Advancement of Godliness and that for my own part I am one of that number And then Secondly They that do do not profess themselves infallible in their opinion nor judge others to be in a damnable condition that are not of it and therefore do not low-bell men into their own errour by either uncharitable censurings or bloudy persecutions nor become incorrigible themselves upon pretence of Infallibility but are in a fair way of acknowledging the Truth when it shall be rightly and advantageously proposed Thirdly Their errours are not so many nor managed with that meditated craft and design as in the old Apostate Church they being not invented to serve some avaritious or ambitious end but fallen into if I may so speak by chance upon reading some passages of Scripture that looked upon alone may seem to favour their Conclusions and by reason of the obscurity of the things themselves such as have puzled contemplative men in all Ages and Places And fourthly and lastly If they have made their own Inventions and argumentative Conclusions Articles of Faith it is because they are not yet sufficiently cleansed from the corruption they contracted under the Mother of Apostasy which mainly consists in this in adding the fallible deductions of humane Reason to the infallible Articles of the ancient and Apostolick Faith So that whatever hazard of Salvation there is in the Reformed Churches it is by reason that they do still Romanize and do not clear up into a certain and uncontroverted Apostolick purity exhibiting nothing for Fundamentals but what is expresly so in the Text it self without the slipperyness of humane Ratiocination Which certainly as it is their Duty so is it also their greatest Interest and the most effectuall way for Peace and Righteousness upon Earth 28. As for that abusable Opinion of Imputative Righteousness that I have shewn my dissatisfaction touching that point which ordinarily the worst of men most of all build upon though I do not deny but well-meaning and piously-disposed persons may also heedlesly take up the forme I hope the judicious will not misconstrue it nor take it ill that I have been so free and faithful as to discover the danger and groundlesness of this overmuch Idolized doctrine For indeed it is a very Idol that is Nothing as the Apostle describes an Idol to be I mean nothing of it self but a mere Phrase if you prescind it from what is comprized in Remission of sins through the bloud of Christ shed upon the Cross. For this Remission of sins contains in it such a reconciliation with God that we are safe from all the Effects of his wrath both concerning this state and that which is to come that is to say we shall not be punished by his withholding his Grace from us here or that Glory which is expected in the other Life For these deprivements being the results of sin if we were not secured from them our sins were not remitted which is against the Hypothesis Now I appeal to the judgement and conscience of the most zealous assertour of Imputative Righteousness if he can find any thing more comprized therein then such a remission of sins as we have defined and whether when he talks of being cloathed with Christs righteousness in this imputative sense he can understand any thing but being as it were armed and defended from the wrath of God and all the ill consequences thereof For if this Righteousness we are thus cloathed with were a Righteousness that really kept us suppose from Envy from Drunkenness from Adultery and made us Charitable Sober and Chast it were not then imputative but inherent From whence it plainly appears that if you prescind it from remission of sins through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross this Phrase of Imputative Righteousness has no signification at all and that therefore there is no loss or damage done to our Religion if it be not accounted a distinct Article from the remission of sins in the bloud of Christ. For it cannot afford any true and useful sense distinct there-from nay I may say any that is not very mischievous and dangerous and such as tends to that loathsome and pestilential errour of Antinomianisme But if you will understand by it Remission of sins I do again appeal to the sagacious if there may not yet be a great deal of fraud and hypocrisie in making choice of such an Expression as does easily insinuate to over-many a needlesness of seriously endeavouring to be really righteous we being so warmely secure by the imputation of anothers and does omit such circumstances
their polluted Vehicles less of Heaven then the meanest Regenerate Soul that dwels in these Tabernacles of Earth and that of the Prophet is most true of them that their Sun is gone down at mid-day 3. Sixthly That the Destruction of these Aethereal Vehicles was not an utter Extinction of life to them but onely an Exclusion from the life and pleasures of that Supernal Paradise which they enjoyed in those Heavenly Vehicles For that they now live and move and act is manifest in that the whole World rings of their exploits and villanies 4. Seventhly That the Souls of men which are as much Immortall they being Spirits as those of the faln Angels are are not devoid of life after the death of this Body For as the Souls of the fallen Angels descended from thinner to thicker without the loss of Sense and Life so do our Souls ascend from thicker to thinner habitations with the like if not greater security of acting and living after the Death of the Body 5. Which we shall the easilier believe if we consider how contemptible and homely a thing that Organ is which is the ultimate and immediate conveigher of whatever we perceive in the outward world and which is most remarkable in which alone the Soul has any Sense at all of any thing that arrives to her cognoscence Which if it be not the Animal Spirits within the Brain which makes most of all for us I confess with Cartesius I think it most probable to be the Conarion then which nor Water nor Air nor Aether nor any other Element else seems more Simple and Homogeneal So that the advantage seems not to be in the nature of that Organ but it is because the Soul by those lawes that brought her into the Body has placed her Centre of Perception there 6. Which little Pavilion of the Soul's Centre of Perception being of so gross consistence as it is and becoming thereby less Passive and Alterable it was very requisite that there should be that curious frame of the external Organs of the Eye the Ear the Nose and other parts to strengthen those motions and impressions that they transmit so that they may be able forcibly enough to strike upon the Conarion or at least strike through the Organs and penetrate to the Animal Spirits in the Brain supposing them the most inward and immediate Organ of Perception And that the Conformation of the external Organs of Sense is such that they are to admiration fitted to this end is a thing so well known amongst the Anatomists that I need not insist on the proof of it as it is also among Physitians That none of the external Organs have any Sense at all in them no more then an Acousticon or a Dioptrick glass From whence is discovered the Unreasonableness of their Despair that conceit that when the Soul is devested of her Organical Body she can have no Sense nor Perception of any thing For this curious Organization tends to nothing else but the proportionating the vigour of Motion to the difficulty of its passage through the Nerves or to the grossness of the consistency of the Conarion Which Organical contrivance therefore may not be at all needfull in the Soul separate from the Body the Centre of Perception being placed bare in a more tender and passive Element such as Air Aether and the like So that it will be the greatest wonder in the world that the Soul should sleep after death so small a thing being able to waken her 7. Besides it is not Unreasonable but that She and other Spirits though they have no set Organs yet for more distinct and full perception of Objects may frame the Element they are in into temporary Organization and that with as much ease and swiftness as we can dilate and contract the pupil of our Eye and bring back or put forward the Crystalline humor 8. And not only to respect the Natures of Humane Souls but also the Will and Purpose of God there was never any yet that pretended to knowledge in Philosophy that denied the Immortality of the Soul in this sense which we contend for but they deni'd first a Particular Divine Providence which for my own part I think it is impossible for any one to deny that will diligently and indifferently search into the matter And therefore this Seventh Assertion may very well stand That the Souls of men are Immortal and act and live after Death Of this Subject I have wrote more lately and more fully in my Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul to which the Reader may have recourse CHAP. V. 1. The Eighth Assertion That there is a Polity amongst the Angels and Souls separate both Good and Bad and therefore Two distinct Kingdomes one of Light and the other of Darkness 2. And a perpetual fewd and conflict betwixt them 3. The Ninth That there are infinite swarms of Atheistical Spirits as well Aereal as Terrestrial in an utter ignorance or hatred of all true Religion THE Eighth Assertion is That every Angel Good or Bad is as truly a Person as a man being endued also with Life Sense and Understanding whence they are likewise capable of Ioy and Pain and therefore coercible by Laws And mutual Helps being able to procure what Solitude cannot they must of necessity be Sociable and hold together in Bodies Politick and obey for either hope of advantage or fear of mischief Out of the whole masse therefore of the Angelical Nature taking in also according to Philo the Souls of men be they in what Vehicles they will there arise since their Fall two distinct Kingdoms the one of Darkness whose Laws reach no further then to the Interest of the Animal life the other of Light which is the true Kingdom of God and here the Animal life is in subjection and the Divine life bears rule as the Divine life is trodden down in the other Kingdom and the Animal life has the sole Jurisdiction 2. Now the inward life and spring of Motion in each Kingdom being so different it follows that these two Kingdoms must alwaies be at odds and that there must be a perpetual conflict till victory Which we shall still more easily conceive if we admit what is very reasonable That the Kingdom of Light reaches from Heaven to Earth that is That as there are found on the same surface of the Earth Animals both wilde and gentle harmless and poisonous and men good and bad pious and impious so likewise even in the same Regions of the Air that there are scatter'd Spirits of both Kindes good and evil Subjects of the Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Light In the order of those Aereal Angels the ancient Philosophers ranked the Souls of men deceased whether Vertuous or Wicked unless they had reached to an extraordinary and Heroical degree of Purity and Perfection for then they conceited that they were carried up to those more high and Aethereal Regions 3. Ninthly That there
out Lord save us we perish So natural decorous and becoming are all the Actions and Miracles of Christ. 5. There is only one behinde Instantia monodica as a man may call it an Example not parallel'd in the whole History of the Gospel which is The cursing of the Fig-tree the meaning whereof has puzzled many as the narration it self has scandalized some as if this act was guilty not only of Levity but of a ridiculous kinde of Ferocity with a semblance of Injustice if Injustice can be committed against a Tree For was there any reason that a Tree should be cursed for not bearing fruit when the time of year was not yet for the bearing thereof This seems very odd and preposterous But if it be rightly understood there is nothing more grave more sober nor more weightily mysterious 6. For my own part I make no question but that the genuine meaning of it is this and what it signifies it sets out to the very life viz. That the most acceptable and desireable fruit of the everlasting Righteousness was not then found in the Iudaical dispensation nay I add further That it was never intended that that Tree should bring forth any such fruit but only the fair Fig-leaves of an External and Ceremonial Righteousness and a more overly and Legal kind of Morality but the more perfect fruits of the regenerating Spirit were not to be found there though Christ came into the world to exprobrate to them the want thereof and so to put a period to the Iudaical dispensation so as that it should quite wither away and fall to nothing as we find it come to pass at this very day Which Consideration amongst others that occur in Scripture more evidently confirms what we finde true in effect That according to the Eternal counsell of God Christ was mainly intended for the Gentiles and that breaking this shell of Iudaisme in which he was brooded under so many Types and Shadows he should take his flight thence and after spread his wings from one end of the Earth to the other 7. But this Mystery having something of seeming harshness in it to men of less profound minds such was the sweetness and inoffensiveness of our Saviour's temper that he would neither scandalize them nor grate too hard against the Iudaical Oeconomy which that Nation so highly reverenced and therefore recorded this Truth only in this Enigmatical miracle 8. And thus to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not only usual with the Prophets but practised also by our Saviour himself in other cases as well as in this As in the manner of his healing him that was born blinde John 9. where the Ceremonies he useth seem very uncouth and strange before one knows the meaning of them but rightly understood they must be acknowledged admirably fit for the purpose I mean not for curing of the blinde For what can clay and spittle and the water of a pool avail for the restoring of Sight to one that was born blind but for mysteriously setting out some grand Truths concerning Iesus 9. As that he was the Son of God or that Eternal Word whereby God created the World and framed man of the Earth in token whereof he tempers Clay and Spittle he being about to rectifie and amend the workmanship of his own hands To which Erasmus seems plainly to allude in his Paraphrase upon the place Ejusdem autem Autoris est restituere quod perierat qui condider at quod non erat Besides another Truth of very great importance which is set out to the very life in this Typical cure viz. That we are to expect the Renovation of our minds and our Regeneration from that power that created us That no man can come to Christ as he is a visible person unless the Father that is the Eternal Divinity draw him or as the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians That no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost 10. Now I say That Christ's tempering Clay and Spittle does emblematize the Eternal Deity that created all things and his acting first upon the blinde man so sending of him to the pool of Siloam by which undoubtedly is meant Shilo or the Messias this does plainly figure out the forementioned Truths That those that do come to Christ and faithfully adhere to him are prepared and given to him of God and that by Faith in him they are purg'd and purified from all blindness and filthiness by the assistance of that Spirit which is promised to all that believe in him according to what Christ himself has pronounced He that believeth on me out of his heart shall flow streams of living waters which he understands of the Spirit of which these waters of Siloam are therefore a very fit Figure or Emblem they fitly denoting even from the very name as I have already intimated the clearing and healing Spirit of Christ who is the Shilo or Siloam wherewith we are to be washed and cleansed from that foulness and earthly-mindedness which we had contracted in the state of Nature or First creation before the act of Regeneration has passed upon us 11. We have considered the Miracles of Christ let us give a short glance on his Prophesies In which that which is mainly considerable is that they are very few Which I look upon as a reprehension and reproach of that natural itch in mankind to Divinations and Predictions of which Impostors usually much boast and a Nation of America though more Atheistical then all the rest are so vehemently set upon that they often even grow mad again with that study But very little fell from our Saviour's mouth by way of Prophesie but what was in a manner of indispensable concernment to be foretold Such as his own Sufferings and Resurrection the Destruction of the City the General Iudgment He exercised also his power of Divination in his conference with the woman of Samaria but his applications there were so serious that he forgot the sense of hunger being more pleased with the attempts of her conversion and her Country-men then with the most delicate junkets that could be set before him He foretold also who should betray him but it was to demonstrate that both his Betraying and all his Sufferings else they being foreseen might have been avoided and therefore that he underwent them willingly To which also those Predictions tend When I am lifted up I shall draw all men unto me as also of the good Shepheard laying down his life for his sheep and then presently adding And other sheep I have which are not of this fold meaning the Gentiles who were to be brought in by his Death Which is a plain Demonstration that Christ suffered death voluntarily out of his entire love to the World and that he knew aforehand what an Effectual instrument his Passion would prove for the conversion of the Gentiles to
you will see at length it will come to nothing 2. First therefore let us set down the like Accidents to this that have fallen out and been as conspicuous to all the World As that Sensible obscurity and languor of the Sun in Iulius Caesar's time as also in Iustinian's time and lastly that Bloudy dulness in the face of that Luminary for four daies together in the times of Carolus Quintus things as remarkable in themselves as this Eclipse at the Passion of Christ and all it 's likely proceeding from like Causes But the moderating of these Causes so as that the Effect should take place just at the time of our Saviour's suffering this was miraculous and by special Providence Now I demand for that First observation of the Sun that indured a whole year together was a concomitant of Iulius Caesar's death when there were so many Historians in the after-Age till Suetonius his time viz. Livy Strabo Valerius Maximus Velleius Paterculus Philo Mela Plinius Iosephus Plutarchus Tacitus how many of these recorded so great a Prodigie I doe not find any Historian alledged but Pliny who likely had it from Ovid and Virgil who after the manner of Poets pleasing themselves to record strange things and to magnifie great men recite this Accident in Nature in honour to Iulius Caesar. Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam Cum caput obscurâ nitidum ferrugine texit Impiáque aeternam timuerunt secula noctem At Caesar's death he Rome compassioned In rusty hue hiding his shining head And put the guilty world into a fright They were surpriz'd with an eternal Night As Virgil has it in his Georgicks And Ovid in his Metamorphoses to the same purpose Solis quoque tristis imago Lurida sollicitis praebebat lumina terris The Sun 's sad image Caesar's fate to moan With lurid light to anxious Mortals shone Which condition of the Sun Pliny writes lasted for a whole year The like Cedrenus reports to have happened in Iustinian's time But there were nigh twenty considerable Writers from Iustinian's time till Georgius Cedrenus I would therefore remit the Caviller to peruse these Historians and observe in how few of them this Prodigie in Iustinian's daies is recorded The same may be said of what happened under Carolus Quintus And then if he deprehend that so remarkable Accidents be taken no notice of by many Writers that had a capacity of recording them I would have him also to consider that such like Reasons that might cause them to omit the writing of those Prodigies might also fit those that omitted the setting that down that happened at our Saviour's Passion and to rest contented that he finds it recorded by them that are most concerned in it that is Three of his faithfull followers Matthew Mark Luke who bearing a truer respect to Christ's person then those flatterers of Princes Virgil and Ovid to the deceased Iulius recorded this Miraculous Eclipse to his Honour as they did that long obscuration of the Sun to the honour of their adored Caesar. 3. Neither is this all for I may further add That there are greater Reasons why all saving Christ's own Followers should omit the recording that Eclipse at his Passion then that those Writers we speak of should the continual obscurity of the Sun that was to be observed for a whole year together about the Exitus of Iulius Caesar's Reign For the noveltie of that in Caesar's time might make the greater impression upon mens Spirits whenas that obscuritie of the Sun at our Saviour's suffering though I doubt not but that it was so great as that the Stars appeared through the defect of the Sun 's light so as they may doe in a Summers night might well be neglected by the Nations of the World they having noted already that the Light of the Sun is obnoxious to such obfuscations and dulnesses and that for so long a time together So that although this lurid deadness of the Sun at the Passion was far greater then that at Caesar's death yet it being shorter by far as lasting not above three hours it might seem to them less considerable especially they not knowing what was the meaning of it And when they did they had the less encouragement to record it it making for a new Religion contrary to their own So that even that Consideration may seem a sufficient Reason why this notable Accident may be pretermitted by both Jewish and Heathenish Historians 4. But Grotius out of Phlegon a Pagan writer ventures to answer more point-blank namely That the said Author does affirm that in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad which is the year wherein Christ suffered according to the usual opinion there was the greatest Eclipse that ever was known night surprizing men at the sixth hour of the day which is at noon and being so dark that the Stars were seen at that time of the day He mentions also therewith a mighty Earthquake in Bithynia and how the greatest part of Nicaea was ruined thereby To this purpose is there also recited out of another Pagan writer by Eusebius whom Grotius discovers to be one Thallus Which Testimonies will stand good till the Opposer of the Truth of the Narrations of the Evangelists shall either prove infallibly by Chronology That Christ did not suffer that year or else by Astronomical calculation That there was a natural Eclipse of the Sun in that year he suffered so horrid and dismal as Phlegon describes But Phlegon confining it to no place intimates it was Universal and therefore not Natural Tertullian also speaking to the Pagans concerning this matter appeals to their own Records concerning the Truth thereof And for my own part I make no question but that it is true in the very sense we speak of viz. that it was an Universal Eclipse whatever becomes of the testimonies of Thallus and Phlegon 5. But being the Text does not necessarily implie thus much we may with Calvin restrain it to Iudaea God miraculously intercepting the light of the Sun from those parts only by the interposition of some conspissated body or by raising a black caliginous mist such as he caused in the land of Aegypt For the Scripture will sute well enough with any of these senses so little of any just occasion is there left to the Caviller and Infidel So that the Credibilitie and Reasonableness of the chief Circumstances of our Saviour's Passion is sufficiently cleared 6. To which we have nothing to parallel in Apollonius his life except it be his Arraignment before Domitian Where Domitian quitting him from the charge that was laid against him yet he for ostentation sake to shew what an expert Magician he was vanishes in the midst of the Court to the great amazement of the Emperour and the rest of his Judges But in the mean time he having such a trick of Legerdemain as this to keep himself from peril it makes all his magnanimous Precepts
no not the fear of death or torment could hinder them from being open witnesses to the World of all those things which they had seen and most certainly knew concerning the crucified Iesus the Son of God and Saviour of Mankind 3. We have seen in general how requisite this Supernatural assistance was to the Apostles We shall now take notice in particular how congruous at least decorous the First appearance thereof was at the day of Pentecost The Apostles together with other Disciples being met in an upper room at Ierusalem and being all of one mind and of one faith and expectation of the promise of the Spirit at the above-named day of Pentecost of a suddain there came upon them a sound from Heaven as of a mighty rushing winde which filled the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven Tongues like as of Fire which sate upon each of them and they all filled with the Holy Ghost began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance 4. Supposing a God a Providence and the Ministry of Angels and Spirits there is not a jot of this impossible or incredible But we shall also take notice of the Congruity of circumstances which are either for an handsome Symbolical sense or else for a more indispensable convenience as I conceive the Day to be and their assembling thus together on this day of Pentecost in one place For their seeing what happened thus miraculously to every one of them is a stronger confirmation of all their faiths and they are the more sufficient witnesses to all the World of what thus miraculously befell them And the Day of Pentecost was the most convenient time for this to happen because of the greater concurse of people on that day 5. But it does not exclude that more Mystical and Symbolical sense of S. Austine's That as the written Law was given to the Iews on the fiftieth day after the Passeover so the Law of the Spirit which was to be written in mens hearts was thus wonderfully begun here on the same day by the preaching of the Apostles on whom the Spirit descended in such an extraordinary manner Nor does that other sense concerning the Unity of place exclude that Moral intimation of Grotius Deus dona sua promisit unitati That also of their being seated in an upper room must signifie Morally or nothing considerable for else the more removed from the Earth the never nearer to God especially within the smell of the Atmosphere Which Philosophick contemplation Apollonius pursues with a great deal of pomp and gravity indoctrinating Damis while they were travailing on mount Caucasus which the neighbour Inhabitants look'd upon as the holy Mansion of the Gods as other hills also are call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that opinion that a man is never the nearer the knowledge of Religion and Vertue if he were mounted upon the highest Athos Olympus or all the Caucasus's in the World unless he contemplate religious and Divine matters not so much in a pure and subtile Air as from an undeprav'd and sincere Spirit 6. But that which is of the greatest significancy is the mighty rushing Wind and the fiery cloven Tongues The former whereof is an Emblem of the External violence which God would doe to the World in the introducing of the acknowledgment of his Son into it For without doubt those wonderfull Miracles that were done by the Apostles beat so strongly upon the outward Senses of men that they were after a manner forcibly driven to acknowledge that the hand of God was with them and that the doctrine which they taught was true The knowledge whereof at last with the fame of their Miracles filled the whole World as that Sound from Heaven and mighty rushing Wind filled the whole house where they sate I am sure the chief Priests complained betimes that the Apostles had filled all Ierusalem with their doctrines 7. The latter viz. the Fiery cloven Tongues the fieriness of them intimates the searching penetrating melting and purifying power of the Spirit as their being cloven or divided the effect of the living word which accompanied their preaching which we may better call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then the Stoicks their meager Reason For this is that which is sharper then any two-edged sword dividing the very joints and marrow and piercing to the inmost penetrals of the heart as may be observed at the preaching of Peter's Sermon Or not to be altogether so Mystical or Spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these divided or cloven tongues may be only an external symbol of that inward power given them to speak and understand several Tongues though they were never taught them Which was a gift of very sober and necessary use as all the Miracles are that were done either by Christ or his Apostles they being to preach to men of several Nations then sojourning at Ierusalem and afterwards to travail into several Countries to convert men to the Faith 8. This is a solid account of all the Circumstances of that great Miracle done partly upon and partly by the Apostles after Christ's Ascension into Heaven Which Divine power ever after assisted them in all their travails and labours in the Gospel as you may see in the Acts. Where you shall find them not only endued with this miraculous power themselves but by prayer and imposition of hands conferring it upon others for the benefit of the Church where you shall see them healing the sick making the lame to walk raising the dead casting out devils and doing over again all the most considerable Miracles of our Saviour and some which he never did as the speaking with tongues and healing by the mere shadow of their bodies which seems more wonderfull then by the touching of the hem of Christ's garment To which you may adde what strangely happened to them as upon their praiers and devotions how the house shaked under them as in an Earthquake through the sensible presence of the Divine power attending them Their being transported through the Air by the hand of an Angel from one place to another Their being visited by Angels in prison who opened the prison doors and made the fetters fall off from their bodies of their own accord The transfiguration of their countenances into an Angelical glory and the appearance of Christ from Heaven to them in a splendour more bright and radiant then the Sun at mid-day as it happened to Paul as he was travailing to Damascus The Credibility of which things as also of the Resurrection and Miracles of Christ the Success it self does plainly argue 9. For it seems utterly impossible that Christ a man cut short of all accomplishments that are plausible to flesh and bloud being neither arm'd by the power of Eloquence the knowledge of Philosophy the authority and honour of the World nor the advantages of Birth or Fortune but on
that they that obey it not shall be damned That Christ knew the very thoughts of mens hearts that he raised the dead that he healed men of incurable diseases that he gave sight to the blind and made the dumb to speak That the Apostles of Christ Matthew Peter and Paul healed one Habib Anaiar of the Leprosie at Antioch and raised the King's daughter from the dead as also gave sight to a childe that was born blinde And lastly three Preeminences the Alcoran gives to Christ which it gives not to any other Prophet to Abraham Moses no nor Mahomet himself The first is That he was carried up to Heaven bodie and soul where it is expresly added in Zuna that he shall return from thence to judge the world with righteous judgment The second That he shall be called The Word of God The third That he should be called The Holy Spirit of God These things you may read more at large in Iohannes Andreas his Confusio Sectae Mahometanae as also in others out of whom you may also add that the Turks have so venerable an esteem of S. Iohn's Gospel that they wear it next their bodies as an amulet when they goe to war to keep them from gun-shot 8. This I thought worth the noting partly that that Honour which is due to Christ may not be given to Mahomet of whom the best that can be said is only this That he did not so utterly pervert and deprave the mystery of the Gospel by either his ignorance political tricks or fanatical humours and whimsies but that there was so much of the substance and virtue thereof left as being seconded with the dint of the Sword was able enough to hew down the more gross Heathenish Idolatry chastise the disobedient Hypocritical Christians and ruine the external dominion of the Devil in the World and partly that we may discern what great hopes there are that in due time when the chief scandals of Christendome are taken away they being so far prepared already in their reverend opinion concerning our blessed Saviour the whole Turkish Empire may of a sudden become true Christians that which is vain and false among them having no better prop then the foolish and idle Visions false pretended Miracles and groundless fables of a mere wily phansifull and unclean Impostour whenas the pure Christian Religion comprehended in the Gospel is so solid sincere rational that no man that is master of his wits but may be throughly satisfied concerning the truth thereof CHAP. XIII 1. The Triumph of the Divine Life not so large hitherto as the overthrow of the external Empire of the Devil 2. Her conspicuous Eminency in the Primitive times 3. The real and cruel Martyrdoms of Christians under the Ten Persecutions a demonstration that their Resurrection is not an Allegorie 4. That to allegorize away that blessed Immortality promised in the Gospel is the greatest blasphemy against Christ that can be imagined 1. YOU see then how large the Success or Event of our Saviour's coming into the World is in reference to the external overthrow of the Kingdome of the Prince of this World that old Usurper over the sons of men If you demand of me how great the Triumph of the Divine Life has been in all this victory I must answer I could wish that it was greater then it is that it had been larger and continued longer but something has been done all this time that way too 2. For Faith in God through our Lord Jesus Christ and a firm Belief of a Life to come and the Effect of this Faith which is the very nature and Spirit of Christ dwelling in us consisting of Purity Humility and Charity this sound constitution was very much in the Church in the Primitive times even then when they had no succour nor support from the hands of men nay when they were cruelly handled by them they chusing rather to be banish'd imprisoned tortured and put to any manner of death then to deny him who had redeemed them with his most precious Bloud and had prepared a place of Eternal happiness for them with himself in Heaven 3. Here Faith and the Divine Life was very conspicuously victorious and triumphant in that in the eyes of all the world it set at nought all the cruel malice of the Devil and the terrour of death it self in the most ghastly vizard he could put on as you may see innumerable Examples in the Ten bloudy Persecutions under the Heathen Emperours Which History must needs make a man abominate such light-headed and false-hearted Allegorists that would intercept the Hopes of a future life by spirituallizing those passages in Scripture that bear that sense into a present Moral and Mystical interpretation as if the Gospel and the precious Promises therein conteined reached no further then this life we now live upon Earth 4. Which is the highest reproach and blasphemie that can be invented against Christ Iesus as if he were rather a Betraier then a Saviour of Mankind and that he was more thirsty after humane bloud then those Indian Gods we have spoken of who were so lavish thereof in their sacrifices and as if it were not Love and dear Compassion towards us that made him lay down his life but hatred and a spightfull plot of making myriads of men to be massacred and sacrificed out of affection to him that thus should betray them Wherefore whosoever interprets the New Testament so as to shuffle off the assurance of Reward and Punishment after the death of the Body is either an arrant Infidel or horrid Blasphemer CHAP. XIV 1. The Corruption of the Church upon the Christian Religion becoming the Religion of the Empire 2. That there did not cease then to be a true and living Church though hid in the Wilderness 3. That though the Divine life was much under yet the Person of our Saviour Christ of the Virgin Mary c. were very richly honoured 4. And the Apostles and Martyrs highly complemented according to the ancient guize of the Pagan Ceremonies 5. The condition of Christianity since the general apostasie compared to that of Una in the Desart amongst the Satyrs 6. That though this has been the state of the Church very long it will not be so alwaies and while it is so yet the real enemies of Christ do lick the dust of his feet 7. The mad work those Apes and Satyrs make with the Christian Truth 8. The great degeneracy of Christendome from the Precepts and Example of Christ in their warrs and bloudshed 9. That though Providence has connived at this Pagan Christianism for a while he will not fail to restore his Church to its pristine purity at the last 10. The full proof of which Conclusion is too voluminous for this place 1. WE have given a light glance upon the condition of the Primitive Church before Christianity became the Religion of the Empire what change would be wrought then a man might
likely that at the very last gasp of the power of the Beast the truest and most Apostolick Christians should be in worse plight then ever before But to this I answer That the truth of Mr. Mede's Synchronisms does not at all depend upon this nor is his conjecture so impossible to be true But I must confess I think there is still a better way of answering namely That these Three days and an half are the same that a time and times and half a time that is three times and an half For it is unquestionable but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 often signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now that it should signifie so here besides the improbability of an Effect answerable to the other interpretation or that the Witnesses should be otherwise slain then they have been often or for a long time together that mention of half a day answering to half a time fairly invites us to believe it being also unlikely that Providence would affect the curiosity of counting by half a year a thing not to be sampled in all Divine Prophecies These Three days and an half therefore are first to be changed into Three times and an half and then these Three times and a half into Three years and an half and these Three years and an half into 1260 Prophetick days Which ambages and circuits are not at all improbable if we consider what studied concealments and obscurities there are in this Book of the Apocalypse as particularly in the number of the Beast and of the new Ierusalem upon which we shall touch a little anon To say nothing of a main usefulness of these Three days and an half to determine the true number of a time and times For how can we be assured how many times are designed thereby especially it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Daniel which is the plural number not the dual and therefore bids fair to be more then two times at least three Whence it would be four times and an half But these Three days and an half correct or prevent the mistake by fixing these Time and Times and half a Time to Three Times and an half Which I confess I do little doubt but that it is the true meaning of the Mystery Nor does their being slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at all prejudice our Interpretation For it is not well rendred when they shall have finished nor yet need be rendred while they are making an end of their witnessings as if this should happen at the latter end of it but may very warrantably be expounded dum peragunt while they are performing this office of witnessing from the beginning of the 1260 days to the end thereof Nor yet is that a real but seeming absurdity that this Interpretation brings along with it as if the Witnesses could prophesy while their carcasses lie dead in the streets For it is plain that in that sense they are said to be dead they may prophesy in sackcloth nay they will necessarily do so I mean perform their witnessing with sadness and mourning For their death is nothing else but a Political death their want of power and rule in the World For such is their Resurrection namely Political they being raised to honour and government as Mr. Mede himself acknowledgeth Wherefore there is no absurdity neither in the inward meaning nor outward Cortex of this Prophecy For the inward meaning is such as I have told you And the outward Cortex framed with very graceful artifice like that in the Image of Nebuchadnezar where merely for the decorum of the Type the whole Image is represented as standing and struck upon the legs whenas yet that which was signified by the head by the breast and armes and by the belly and thighs to wit the Babylonian Persian and Greek Monarchies were passed away So for the like decorum in this Type of the Witnesses if not for necessity to avoid a seeming gross incongruity that the Witnesses might not be said to prophesy while their bodies lay dead in the streets the time of their death which really pervades the whole 1260 days is concealed under and contracted into these Three days and an half and made not to appear where in the things signified it is as those parts of the Image were represented as standing when the things that they signified ceased to be Which Scheme is not at all more hard in the one then in the other and in this Type of the Witnesses more useful and necessary 5. Concerning the Sameness of the Beast out of the Sea with the Beast out of the bottomless pit there could have been no scruple if Translators had interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the Sea as it is very well capable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying the same very often in Scripture as Iob 38.30 and chap. 41.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Psalm 105. v. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As also Isay 63.13 Ion. 2.6 and other places Wherefore the Wisdome of God thought good to vary the phrase here onely for concealment as this whole Book of Prophecies is beset with many purposed though not invincible obscurities and difficulties to keep this treasure hid till the time appointed Or it may be the using of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be not to determine the sense to the ten-horned Beast but to give at least a liberty of interpreting it also of the two-horned contemporary with him 6. But in no aspect does this Book of the Apocalypse look so hopeless and discouraging as in that of the First Resurrection Chap. 20. But withall it is to be noted there is no difficulty here but such as will at least equally urge those that begin the Millennium at Constantine's time So that this can be no prejudice to Mr. Mede's Interpretations and Synchronisms For whether we will go the Allegorical way with some and understand this First Resurrection in a Political sense like that of the Witnesses this way is better accommodated to Mr. Mede's Synchronisms then to the other Hypothesis Nor were it any great inconvenience to admit it as true those phrases which at last will have a Literal fulfilling being often used in a Figurative as we may observe in the lake of fire some descriptions of God's coming to particular judgments the six thunders and the like all which expressions will have at last a Literal and Physical completion But though the Figurative sense of Resurrection may be passable and tolerable in this place yet I must confess I dare not avouch it to be wholy true My Reasons shall be suggested in the exposition of the Text which runs thus And I saw Thrones and they sate upon them and judgment was given unto them and I saw the Souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Iesus and for the word of
God and which had not worshipped the Beast neither his Image neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years But the rest of the dead lived not again untill the thousand years were finished This is the First Resurrection Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection on such the second death hath no power but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years There was never any Book penned with that artifice as this of the Apocalypse as if every word were weighed in a balance before it was set down which is manifest out of other places as well as this In which I conceive a double design is aimed at a prediction of a proper Resurrection of the Witnesses to the Truth by their deaths and of a Political Resurrection to the true and Apostolical Church that does survive upon Earth The former are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter those that worshipped not the Beast c. which if they were not distinct from the other it had been better to have omitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to have read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Wherefore this is the first intimation that there are two Orders of men there set down The one that suffered death for the cause of the Gospel The other that are still alive but resolute Opposers of the Beast But there is also a second hint in the following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They lived and reigned The Spirit of God seems on set purpose to make choice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might not bear too hard toward the sense of a literal Resurrection and so urge the Reader too forcibly to understand both these Orders above distinguished to be Candidates of a real and literal Resurrection at this time And therefore he uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in reference to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will naturally implie a literal Resurrection and in reference to the other no literal Resurrection they being not supposed naturally dead but merely a living upon Earth and reigning there with Christ which is their Moral and Political Life and Resurrection The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall reign with Christ in Heaven and those other with Christ on Earth he being universal Prince over both Churches and therefore neither Heaven nor Earth is here mentioned that the sense may be accommodated to either the reigning with Christ in Heaven or in Earth according to the distinct capacities of the persons And the like caution is used in the prefiguration of the time of which there is no necessity to conceit that it signifies just a thousand years literally but that it signifies at least a thousand years and certainly not more then there are daies in that thousand nor in likelihood near so many But the signification is rather Symbolical as the ten daies are chap. 2. v. 10. And ye shall have the tribulation of ten daies that is the utmost extent of tribulation beyond which there is nothing further as there is no number beyond Ten by which therefore must be meant death And that is the reason why presently is added Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee the Crown of life So this thousand years upon earth is a symbol of the Churches stable duration to the end of the world that there shall no Politie flourish beyond it it being a Cube whose root is Ten. And the application of it to the reigning of the children of the Resurrection with Christ in heaven discovers the unshaken stability and endless duration of that celestial Kingdome also beyond which absolutely there is nothing at all But the rest of the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived not again The using of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has plainly respect to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and intimates that their Resurrection was real and literal to which others should not attain till after the Thousand years upon earth After which it is plainly said that there is a general Resurrection and that all the dead do rise ver 12 13 14. Wherefore this general Resurrection being literal and real it is too too harsh and violent to understand this First Resurrection mentioned in this fifth verse to be only Figurative and Mystical But understanding it literally that which follows has a wonderfull natural and easie sense Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first Resurrection which he speaks thus in the singular number one would think on purpose to keep men off from conceiting he means it of the successive body of the Church during the thousand years 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon these the second death has no power namely The lake of fire ver 14. into which Hades or the whole region of mortality is cast the Earth being all on fire But blessed are those that have part in the First Resurrection for they are sped already safe having obtained those celestial bodies that do certainly exempt them from this Fate For these and all such as God shall afterward make partakers of this blessed kind of Resurrection are naturally free from the reach of the second death But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and reign with him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for sureness and for distinction sake simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is They shall be holy sacred and divine persons and live with Christ in his immutable and everlasting Kingdome in Heaven for ever and ever This I conceive to be the most easie and natural sense of this place and that the Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth and of his holy Martyrs is a very rash and groundless and unsafe conceit fit for nothing but heat and tumult both of phansie and action Nor do I think it necessary that the Sons of this first Resurrection should at all appear to us their celestial bodies into which they are vivificated being naturally invisible and therefore a kind of miracle for us to see them and no more necessary then the exhibiting those Souls to view which Christ carried to Heaven in triumph after his Resurrection which yet he did not exhibit to the sight of the world And if he doe here I can imagine no better end then that of Mr. Mede's that it may be for a sign or beckening to the Jews to help on their Conversion but I can affirm nothing of these things Only I am well assured that if Christendome were once well purged of all her Idolatries foolish and contradictious opinions and wicked practices it would be a very great Miracle if the Jews could be kept off from being converted 7. Wherefore in brief to conclude seeing the truth of Mr. Mede's Synchronisms as far as respects this present subject is
that are so transported and overcome with those Allusions and Allegorical Reflexions as such high Attainments that they think themselves illuminated above the capacities of all other Mortals being more pleased with the gaudy colours of the Rainbow then with the pure light which is reflected thence Which yet all true Christians plainly see and feel in the simplicity of its own nature without any such cloudy refractions and know that the rest is not the dictate of the Spirit but the mere service of Phansy lending its aid to the setting forth of divine Perceptions And yet this slight sallad is the chief food this pretended Prophet feeds his followers withall and the greatest demonstration of his being extraordinarily called and inspired 5. For as for Miracles he never did any as you may see in that Book of his Life entituled Mirabilia Dei where nothing miraculous is recorded unless a certain Prophetical Dream wherein he seemed to be frighted together with some devotional expressions after he awakened out of it as also a lucky escape out of the hands of his Persecutors who haply being not so vigilant as they might be the phrase of the story makes them struck with blindness and lastly his witty questions and answers to the Priest or Confessor when he was a child wherein he does so fully utter the chief of his Doctrine that he seems as wise at eight years old as ever he was since though he lived to a very considerable Age. But any one that has any insight in things may easily discern that the Discourse was never intended for a true History but a spiritual Romance So that as petty businesses as these are they have no assurance of their truth 6. Now for his Pretensions of being the most eminent Preacher of Perfection it is a mere Boast For whether he means by Perfection Love which is the perfection of the Law it cannot be more clearly and advantageously preached then it is in the New Testament by Christ and his Apostles And what Comparison is there betwixt such a Teacher of Love who being the declared Son of God by Signes and Miracles gave his life out of dear compassion to mankind and a soft Fellow that onely talks fine phrases to the World Or whether he pretend to a more general Perfection in the divine Graces or holy Life whose Root is true Faith in God and his Promises through Christ and the branches Charity Humility and Purity it shall appear anon that as for true Faith he is perfectly fallen from it and that he is as a dead tree pulled up from the root And for the present it is evident also out of his own writings not to charge him with accusations out of others that he is far from being perfect either in Charity Humility or Purity For what greater sign of Uncharitableness then to charge all men that are not of his Communialty to be of the Synagogue of Satan and children of the Devil and what greater Pride then to prefer himself before Abraham Moses and Christ and make as if he were God himself come to judge the World with his thousands of Saints and Seraphims And lastly what greater Symptoms of Lust Impurity then to be sunk down from all sense and presage of a life to come To say nothing of his complaints in his Glasse of Righteousness of such as came in to spy out their liberty and his lusty animations against Shamefacedness and Modesty in men and women and their shiness to such acts as ordinary Bashfulness is loath to name Which in my apprehension are very foul spots in that Glasse of his as if it had been breathed upon by the mouth of a menstruous Woman 7. But there is also a more subtil Uncleanness from which who is not free if he knew his own weakness he would be ashamed to profess himself perfect and that is the Impurity of the Astral Spirit in which is the Seat and Dominion of unruly Imagination Hence are our Sidereal or Planet-strucken Preachers and Prophets who being first blasted themselves blast all others that labour with the like impurity by their Fanatick Contagion Those in whom Mortification has not had its full work nor refined the Inmost of their natural Complexions are subject to be smitten and overcome by such Enthusiastick storms till a more perfect Purification commit them to the safe custody of the Intellectual Powers Wherefore let this pretended Prophet boast as much as he will of his glorious Resurrection from the dead it is manifest to the more perfect that he has not yet so much as passed through that Death that should have led him to the unshaken Kingdome of Truth and letten him in to the immovable Calmness and serene stilness of the Intellectual World where the Blasts and Blusters of the Astral Spirit cease and the Violence of Phansy perverts not the faithful representations of Eternal Reason For God is not in these fanatick Herricanoes no more then he was in the tempestuous Wind Earthquake or Fire that passed before the Prophet Elias But the Divine Truth is to be found in that still small voice which is the Echo of the Eternal Word not urg'd upon us by that furious Impulse of complexionall Imagination but descending from the Father of lights with whom there is no shadow of change This was an Attainment out of this Boasters reach of which he had not the least sense or presage and therefore was wholy given up to the hot scalding Impressions of misguided Phansy in his Astral Spirit Which being strangely raised and exalted in this false light has a power by words or writings to fire others and to intoxicate them with the same heat and noise in their enravished Imagination whereby that still and small voice of Incomplexionate Reason cannot be heard CHAP. XIV 1. That neither H. Nicolas nor his Doctrine was prophesied of in Holy Scripture That of the Angel preaching the Everlasting Gospel groundlesly applied to him 2. As also that place Iohn 1.21 of being That Prophet 3. His own mad Application of Acts 17. v. 31. to himself 4. Their Misapplication of 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. and Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. to the Doctrine of this new Prophet 5. Their arguing for the authority of the Service of the Love from the Series of Times and Dispensations with the Answer thereunto 6. That the Oeconomie of the Family of Love is quite contrary to the Reign of the Spirit 7. That the Author is not against the Regnum Spiritûs the Cabbalists also speak of but onely affirms that this Dispensation takes not away the Personal Offices of Christ nor the External comeliness of Divine Worship 8. That if this Regnum Spiritûs is to be promoted by the Ministry of some one Person more especially it follows not that it is H. Nicolas he being a mere mistaken Enthusiast or worse 1. AND therefore being blinded with the wind and dust of this Fanatick Tempest they are carried on
Sacrifice according to the eternal counsel of God 3. The sense which we have given of this Prophecie is so coherent and of one piece though taken out of several Interpreters that no sense can be applied to any Writings more naturally So that as I said if Chronologie will but favour the Interpretation it is most certain that what we have given is the meaning thereof And Funccius who has made the Seventy weeks expire exactly with the breath of our Saviour upon the Cross if he could have found the ending but a year sooner had given a tolerable and commendable account of this Prophecie according to the latitude of the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above mentioned And it is not a thing hopeless but that he and other Chronologers may be mistaken a year in their Computations But whoever out of his industry and skill in History and Chronologie shall demonstrate to the World That the Passion of our Saviour fell out some two or three years before the ending or else after the beginning of the last Week his Invention will be more to Christian Religion then either the Venae Lacteae or the Circulation of bloud to Physick and Philosophy For the fulfilling of this Prophecie will appear so clear and complete that if Porphyrius were alive again he would again be driven to say it was writ post eventum that is to say That the Jews have contrived a Prophecie to confute themselves withall 4. The good news therefore that the Angel Gabriel imparts to Daniel in this Prophecie is this That they should return out of Captivity and that from the going out of certain Decree to rebuild Ierusalem and give it the form of a City that is a power of being governed by their own Laws and Magistrates that from that time forward God had determined Seventy weeks for them that he would give them his special Protection so long and they should be his People and their City should be holy their Oblations and Sacrifices should not be antiquated nor their Law and Religion abrogated But within that time a new Law or Religion should begin which should never have an end which therefore is called the Everlasting Righteousness and that the Iudaical Sin-offerings should then cease that is should be no longer warrantable or effectual For the Messiah should by that time be come whom they will slay and he shall by his Death put an end to all other Sacrifices his bloud being sufficient to reconcile the whole World to God But though the design of Divine Providence herein was holy and good yet the Jews crucifying him out of malice and envie enormous wickedness having blinded their eyes the people of the Jews shall be cast out of God's favour nor shall they be the People of the Messiah but a People that shall be the Messiah's viz. the Romans shall come and destroy their City and Sanctuary with an utter Destruction 5. This is a short and easie account of the whole Prophecie in which it plainly appears That the foretelling of the destruction of the City is but an Appendix to the main Prophecie and comes but in by the by as an effect of that foul act of the Jews in slaying their Prince But that the circumscription of the Prophetical Weeks is made by those main Designs they were allotted to the Jews for that is they should not expire till the Everlasting Righteousness was brought in till the Prophecies were fulfilled and the most Holy was anointed that is till the Messiah was come till he suffered rose again ascended into Heaven sent down the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and set the Christian Religion on foot in the World All which was done in the last week After which the City was to be destroyed by the Romans but there was no need of precisely setting down the time when But the noise and clatter of the devastation of it has so disturbed the Judgments and Phancies of many learned Writers that they have very crookedly and unnaturally haled on the extent of the Weeks to reach the destruction of the City and so have caused a needless obscurity in so pregnant a Testimonie of the Truth of our Religion For indeed there can be no genuine or satisfactory Interpretation of Daniel's Weeks unless they all of them the seven the sixty two with the single week follow one another continuedly in one line and such an Epocha be pitched upon as that at the expiring of the sixty nine Weeks the Messiah may be manifested to the World and in the seventieth Week be cut off and be made a Sacrifice for sinne and so abrogate the Jewish Law and bring in the Everlasting Righteousness c. To which the Epocha from the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus does fairly lead nor is there any other tolerable besides it which is a further confirmation of the truth thereof To say nothing how there is none of the three Decrees but that which went out in the seventh year of Artaxerxes that can so fitly be called a Decree for rebuilding the City as I have intimated already CHAP. V. 1. The Application of the First verse of the Prophecie to prove That the Messiah is come 2. The Iews evasions propounded and answered 3. An Application of the Second verse of the Prophecie with a Confutation of those Rabbins opinions that make Cyrus Jehoshua and Zerobabel or Nehemiah their Messiah 4. An Application of the Third verse with a Confutation of the Jews fiction of Agrippa's being the Messiah to be cut off 1. I Have compleated the sense of the Prophecie of Daniel and that with more accuracy then this present occasion required I speak in regard of pitching upon that Epocha with Funccius which is set down Ezra 7. For without being so particular there is strength enough in the Prophecie to evince That the Messiah is already come For from the First verse thereof it is very clear That within Seventy Weeks the Most Holy was to be anointed and an Everlasting Righteousness to be brought in Now I demand of the Iews or any else take their Epocha where they will if they can finde any Everlasting Righteousness Law or Religion that was brought in before the Expiration of Daniel's Weeks if it be not this of Christianity but by the Prophecie there must be some Law or everlasting Righteousness brought in by that time And what or who was that most Holy that was anointed within these Weeks if it was not the very Christ whom we Christians worship The Iews themselves acknowledge the Second Temple was not anointed therefore it must belong to some Person which must be the Messiah mentioned in the following verse I may add also how is Vision and Prophecie fulfilled the most eminent whereof was concerning their Messiah I say how are they compleated within the space of these seventy Weeks if the Messiah be not yet come 2. The Iews have no way in the World to evade here but by forcing the most absurd
that what he did visibly or suffered in the World is circumscribed within those Weeks and therefore we may safely conclude that before the Seventy Weeks expired the Messiah was cut off that is that he was cut off above sixteen hundred years agoe to wit before the destruction of the City as plainly appears in the Text that makes the sacking of Ierusalem a consequent of his death and the number of the Weeks pitch upon what Decree you please must needs expire many years before the taking of the City and therefore the Messiah was cut off and consequently came into the World so many years agoe Here the Iews to evade so manifest a Demonstration tell us a story of one Agrippa their last King and of Mumbas his sonne whom they say Vespasian slew at Rome three years and an half before the destruction of the Temple This was he that was cut off from the Kingdome of Iudaea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it was no longer his nor his Posterities This is the most specious Answer they have made yet but yet upon examination will be found excessively weak For first it is plain from Records of History and Antiquity That Agrippa the last King of the Iews lived nigh upon thirty years after the Destruction of Ierusalem And then in the second place if we should suppose their fiction to be true the last week of the Seventy will either expire many years before or run out beyond the cutting off this Agrippa if you make as you ought the Decree for building of the City the Epocha of the account and affix it to the seventh year of either Funccius his Artaxerxes or Scaliger's To all which you may adde that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put here so absolutely it cannot but be understood of the great Messiah the Jews did and do still expect their own Rabbins expounding it so while they were unprejudiced and that it is most natural to understand the same person spoken of in the whole Prophecie who is first prefigured in the expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which their own Doctors also interpret of their Messiah by which if the Temple had been meant it had been rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore again an anointed Person being understood in the first verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned in the second and third must be the same Person and there being in the first joyned with the mention of him not only so sacred a Title as the Most Holy but also the bringing in of everlasting Righteousness the expiating of sin and fulfilling of Prophecies it is plain that so mean a person as Agrippa or any else they have or can name is unapplicable to this Prophecie of Daniel such things being there foretold as are utterly incompetible to him but such as will anon appear from other Prophecies to be singularly competible to the great Messiah the Jews expected and are the Characteristicals of his Person as we shall fully make good in its due place CHAP. VI. 1. How convincing Evidences those three Prophecies of Jacob Haggai and Daniel are That the Messiah is come 2. That it was the General Opinion of the Jews That the Messiah was to come about that time we say he did 3. Josephus his misapplication of the Prophecie of Daniel to Vespasian 4. A further confirmation out of Tacitus that the Jews about those times expected their Messiah 5. Another Testimony out of Suetonius 1. IN the mean time it is so plain and apparent from these Prophecies of Iacob and Haggai That the Messiah is already come that any one though secluded from all Commerce with these parts of Europe and knowing nothing of the face of things here if he had but onely certain information that the Iewish Politie and Temple were destroyed and could but read the above-named Prophecies he would be sure that the Messiah was come into the World as also out of this Prophecie of Daniel he might without any intelligence at all provided only he took notice of the Epocha of Decrees and how that the Weeks from any one of them would be expired many hundred years ago infallibly inferr That the Messiah was certainly come These things are so perfectly clear that it is needless to add any thing else to confirm the belief of them 2. Which yet some do by appealing to the judgement of their own Rabbins if they themselves did not conclude that their Messiah was to come about that time we say he did Nehemias a Jewish Rabbin that lived some fifty years before Christ did openly declare out of the Prophecie of Daniel that the coming of their expected Messiah could not be prolonged above fifty years as appears out of Grotius if he was not misinformed by Stoctoxus But by what he answers to Sarravius one would think that he saw the place with his own eyes Ostendit istum mihi locum olim Hagae Stoctoxus And that this was not one Rabbin's opinion but the apprehension of many of their wise men is manifest from what Iosephus has written De bello judaico lib. 7. cap. 31. To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which excited them most of all to the warre was a doubtful Prophecie found in the holy Writings as if about that time some one from their Country should be Emperour of the World This the Iews took as properly belonging to them and many of the wise men were deceived in their judgements about the matter Out of which words it plainly appears that the learned of the Iews and in a manner the whole Nation was perswaded that their Messiah whom they thought would be the Prince of the known World was hard at hand In which perswasion they were so serious that they ventured their Lives Liberty Temple and City thereupon that being the greatest thing that animated them to that infortunate Warre Of their firmness in which opinion a further argument is that they were so ready to phansy this or the other their Messiah about those times For there were many looked upon for a while as such as Herod Iudas Gaulonites Ionathas Barchochab and others 3. Neither does Iosephus his note upon the Prophecie that gave the Iews this confidence he calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ambiguous Prediction derogate any thing from the clearness thereof concerning the Time But the character of his Person it seems was not so perfectly set out but that they missed the knowing of him when he was come and therefore it was necessary for Iosephus to say that the Oracle was ambiguous But it were ambiguous indeed if it were as he would make it more applicable to Vespasian then to the true Messiah For that Messiah there prophecied of was to be cut off which Vespasian was not and that before the last week whenas Vespasian besieged Ierusalem about fourty years after Besides that it is ridiculous to resolve the solemnity of the holy Oracles of the Prophets into so petty a business as in stead
describe So that according to this Supposition we will of our own accord acknowledge that several and those of the most eminent Prophecies that characterize the Person of Christ did first touch upon some other Person which was but a fainter Resemblance of him But that after this glance they are carried to their main scope they drive at where they pierce and are fixt as an arrow stuck in the mark 3. Now this Reference is of two sorts either a Perfect Allegorie or Mixt. That I call a Perfect Allegorie when all the expressions concerning the Person first spoke of do very well and naturally fit him but may be interpreted and that more exquisitely it may be of some more illustrious Person that comes after Such Allusions as these are used by the Apostles and Evangelists to the great confirmation of our Faith however the Iews are scandalized at it For there can be no other sense of it then this viz. That either these Interpretations which they put upon the Prophets were the known Interpretations of the Iews and therefore very accommodate to perswade the Iews by and it was a sign they were right Interpretations they being made before prejudice had blinded them Or else that these Expositions were their own that is that they arose in their own minds first which was impossible they should they being but Allusions unless the certain knowledge of what hapned to our Saviour Christ had put them upon it So that those allusive Proofs are to us strong Confirmations that the History of the Gospel in those things that seem most incredible is certainly true I will content my self with that one instance though I might alledge many others of Christ's being born of a Virgin Certainly unless they had known that de facto he was so or that their wise men had interpreted that of Isaiah Chap. 7. to that sense it is incredible that they should ever alledge that place for it and they making no use of any other but this which is only allusory it is plain the certainty of the Event was that which cast them upon the Interpretation 4. I call a Mixt Allegorie that which is partly allusoric as being applicable first to some more inferiour Person whether King Prophet or Priest and then to the Messiah and partly simple and express not applicable to any but the Messiah himself the Prophet being so actuated by the Spirit of God that in the sublimity of that divine Heat he is in his sense and expressions reach out further then the Person that is the Type and strike into such Circumstances that are not at all true but in the Antitype And these Predictions of this nature concerning the Messiah are as Demonstrative to those that are not intolerable Cavillers as if the Prophecie had been wholly carried to the Messiah without glancing or touching upon any other Person 5. These things being premised let us return to Isaiah and peruse his whole Prophecie that we may the more accurately judge thereof Chap. 53. 1. Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed 2. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground he hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him 3. He is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not 4. Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed 6. All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth 8. He was taken from prison and from judgement and who shall declare his generation for he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgressions of my people was he stricken 9. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence neither was deceit in his mouth 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his Soul an offering for sinne he shall see his seed he shall prolong his daies and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand 11. He shall see of the travel of his Soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities 12. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoile with the strong because he hath poured out his Soul unto death and he was numbred with the transgressours and he bare the sinne of many and made intercession for the transgressours 6. The ancient and wisest of the Iews ever interpreted this Chapter of their Messiah And the later Rabbins being convinced of the clearness of the Prophecie and respecting the Authority of those wise Interpreters before them have been some of them forced to acknowledge two Messiahs the one the Son of Ioseph the other of David The former a suffering Messiah the other victorious and triumphant rather then to deny the evidence of this Prophecie Out of which there is also a special Tradition set down in an ancient Book amongst the Iews which is called Pesikta which further confirms our assertion of their interpreting of it concerning the Sufferings of the Messiah How that the Soul of the Messiah was ordained and did gladly accept the condition to suffer from the beginning of the World The Tradition runs thus That when God created the World he put forth his hand under his Throne of Glory and brought forth the Soul of the Messiah and all his Attendants and said unto him Wilt thou heal and redeem my sons after six thousand years He answered he would God said again unto him Wilt thou undergoe the chastisements to purge away their iniquities according as it written it is the Rabbins own application Certè morbos nostros tulit The Soul of the Messiah answered I will undergoe them and that right gladly 7. This is enough to confirm that it was the Opinion of the ancient and unprejudiced Iews That this Prophecie was meant of their Messiah and as I said there is not any one Prophecie so full of Characteristicals of his Person as this though not all of the like Clearness But I dare say no less then these nine are in some sort or other included in it 1. His being rejected by the Jews 2. And
being made a Sacrifice for sin 3. His Resurrection 4. His Ascension 5. His Apotheosis 6. The excellency of his Doctrine 7. His Reception by the Gentiles 8. The Destruction of their Superstition and of that divine Honour done to unwarrantable Persons 9. And the Eternity of His Kingdome 8. I shall briefly intimate in what verses of the Prophecie every of these are hinted His Rejection by his own is plainly intimated vers 1 2 3. His Suffering and being a sacrifice for sinne ver 4 5 6 7 10. His Ascension and Resurrection vers 8 10. His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 9. He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death that is with the wicked rich men that is great Potentates of the Earth who were rich powerfull and injurious those many Nimrods in the World whose Sepulchres and Monuments were after magnificent Temples and themselves deified as Gods Because he had done no violence The reason is incomparably solid For if the Princes and Emperours of the World had divine honours done to them after their death who were but Magnifici Latrones as one calleth them much rather should the Messiah who did no violence but was so faithfull and good in all things be exalted unto this Honour have Temples built to him and be worshipped as a God The 12 verse does further confirm this sense Wherefore I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death Which spoil cannot be so aptly understood of any thing as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it being mentioned so upon these terms after his pouring out his Soul unto death One verse illustrates another so that I think there can be no doubt of the sense The excellency of his Doctrine is understood vers 11. which sets out the success of the Gospel His Reception by the Gentiles vers 10 11. For if the Gentiles had not come in there had been small satisfaction the Jews being excluded or rather they excluding him The Destruction of their Superstition and unwarrantable Worship they did to unworthy Persons this is included in their Reception of Christ. The long Duration of his Kingdome v. 8. And who shall declare his generation that is the permanency of his own royal Person and the succession of his Church that will adhere to him for ever 9. This is a punctual and very reasonable account of this Prophecie but be it how it will yet this is out of question That the Suffering and Glorification of the Messiah is here prefigured and that if that in the general be not understood there is no good sense to be made of this Prophecie For to distort it to the affliction of the Jewish people is very harsh nay impossible as appears from vers 8. For the transgression of my people was he stricken Wherefore it was not the People of God that are here stricken but some person struck by reason of them The most tolerable application of the Prophecie is to the afflictions of Ieremie of whom Grotius has expounded it though not excluding Christ and has made sense of it in so many places that I do not deny but that it may be understood of Ieremie in the first and less-considerable meaning but that withall the application to Christ is not merely allusory but that such things are spoke in this Prophecie as cannot but with an exceeding deal of lameness and ineptness be applied to Ieremie 10. And truly the very beginning of the Prophecie is too magnificent by far for the affairs of Ieremie Who has believed our report c. for there is nothing so incredible in all those transactions concerning him Again vers 5. With his stripes we are healed It is ridiculous to attempt an application of these words to Ieremie For he was no Sin-Offering to appease the wrath of God but what he suffered was rather for their mischief And that is as foolishly applied to him vers 8. And who shall declare his Generation as if it were understood of Ieremie's Longevity then whom far less considerable men have lived much longer So frigid and frivolous is this Interpretation Neither without violence can that Phrase For he was cut off out of the land of the living especially considering the mention of the grave in the next verse be understood otherwise then of the inflicting of Death Which was not Ieremie's case So verse 20. when thou shalt make his Soul an offering for sinne To interpret that of Ieremie is plainly to dote For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a Sin-Offering or Sin it self but God made Ieremy neither Sin nor Sin-Offering for his People And lastly to say nothing of the unfitness of that expression I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong to be applied to that petty business of Ieremie chap. 40. v. 5. where the Captain of the Guard is said to give him Victuals and a Reward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he accommodated him for his Journey the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewing what the whole gift was only a Viaticum and it had been the greatest reproach imaginable for the Prophet to have received any thing more to have made himself rich with the spoils of his own country-men I say to say nothing of the unfitness of that expression to be applied to so small a matter the words following are so full and home because he hath poured out his soul unto death that they cannot signifie less then an actual dying nor is there any example that they signifie otherwise And therefore the division of the spoil with the strong must be after death and denote his Apotheosis It is plain therefore as well out of the confession of the Rabbins themselves as out of the words of the Prophecie that it is not merely an allusorie Prefiguration of the Messiah but a down-right Description of him in such Circumstances as are incompetible to any besides him and therefore as I said is as valid as if it had all been meant of him alone But because all the Characters of him here included are not so full and clear as in other places and those that are the clearest are of so much importance that it will not be any loss of labour to adde other confirmations to them I shall evidence every one of them more fully from other Prophecies CHAP. VIII 1. Further Proofs out of the Prophets That the Messiah was to be a Sacrifice for sinne 2. That he was to rise from the dead 3. That he was to ascend into Heaven 4. That he was to be worshipped as God 5. That he was to be an eminent Light to the Nations 6. And welcomely received by them What is meant by His Rest shall be glorious 7. That he was to abolish the Superstition of the Gentiles 8. And that his Kingdome shall have no end 9. That all these Characters
we needed to charge this Prophecie with though it be probable enough it is contained in it There are sundry other places that serve for the proof of this seventh Character but because it is sufficiently enough demonstrated already and little or no controversie made of it I pass to the eighth 7. Which is the Messiah his abolishing the Superstition of the Gentiles that is such worship as they had no divine warrant for they being so grosly mistaken in the Object This is so plainly included in the two last Characters that I need add no other proof But if there were need that in the 2 and 110 Psalms might further confirme it Where he is constituted a new King and Priest and therefore implies new Religion and Laws and such as the heathen were ignorant of before but such as they must obey upon pain of high displeasure 8. The last Character is the long Duration of the Messiah's Kingdome Psalm 89. v. 35. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lye unto David His seed shall endure for ever and his throne as the Sun before me It shall be established for ever as the moon and as a faithful witness in heaven Also Psalm 45. v. 6. Thy throne ô God is for ever and ever the sceptre of thy Kingdome is a right sceptre c. Which Prophecie makes good the former and shews how it is to be fulfilled in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Messiah See also Psalm 72. which the Hebrew Rabbins do acknowledge to be understood of the Messiah Also Daniel 2.44 and 7.27 This Character is so clear that I need not insist any longer upon it 9. These are the main Marks and Characters of the Person of the Messiah by which we may infallibly find out who he is And who indeed can he be according to these Characters but Iesus whom we Christians worship For what competitor for the Messiahship but he was being a Iew rejected by the Iews and crucified Who is it that arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven but he Who ever delivered so pure Doctrine to purge the World from wickedness and to enlighten the Nations as he It is he therefore whom the Nations waited for and have received It is he for whose sake they parted with their old vain and impure Superstitions by whose Doctrine they are brought to the knowledge of the Eternal God And lastly it is he whom for his bitter sufferings God has exalted above Angels and Archangels and all the host of Heaven and has set him at his own right hand to be a Priest and King over his Church for ever CHAP. IX 1. The peculiar Use of Arguments drawn from the Prophecies of the Old Testament for the convincing the Atheist and Melancholist 2. An Application of the Prophecies to the known Events for the conviction of the Truth of our Religion 3. That there is no likelihood at all but that the Priesthood of Christ will last as long as the Generations of men upon Earth 4. The Conclusion of what has been urged hitherto 5. That Christ was no fictitious Person proved out of the History of Heathen Writers as out of Plinie 6. And Tacitus 7. As also Lucian 8. And Suetonius 9. That the Testimony out of Josephus is supposititious and the reasons why he was silent concerning Christ. 10. Julian's purpose of rebuilding the Temple at Jerusalem with the strange success thereof out of Ammianus Marcellinus 1. WE have now made a very considerable Progress in the proof of the Reality of Christian Religion That it is more then a mere Idea Let us here make a stand and breath a while and contemplate with our selves the peculiar Use and advantage of this present Argument for the stopping the mouths as well of the bold Atheist as the suspicious Melancholist For indeed it is too true and every good man could wish it were not so that the latter Ages of the Church have not dealt faithfully with the World but beyond the bounds of all modesty and conscience obtruded upon the people fond Legends and forged Miracles as if they were given up into their hands onely to be imposed upon and abused Which consideration does cast some men into an unchangeable misbelief of the whole business of Christianity and makes them look upon it all as a mere Fiction and Fable For they measure the Genius of the Primitive Church by what they see practised before their eyes now-adayes and look upon the whole Tribe of the Priests as Impostors Which censure though it be most unjust yet it will be very hard to convince these Censurers but that it is very true unless by some such Argument as now lies before us viz. That the ancient Prophecies in the Old Testament could not be forged by the Christian Priests and that the Jews would not forge them against themselves Nay they that know any thing of the Jews will acknowledge them so religiously addicted to the Letter of these holy Writings that knowingly and wittingly they durst not alter a tittle Wherefore all those Prophecies we have alledged are real and we have made good they clearly foretel That the Messiah should come many hundred years ago therefore it is plain he is come 2. I therefore demand of either the Prophane or Melancholick who is this Messiah if Iesus be not he Nay I appeal to them if the very Characters of his Person be not certainly to be known by their own Senses agreeably to the Prediction of those infallible Oracles The Prophecies have said He should be rejected of his own Ask the Iews they will acknowledge they have rejected him The Prophecies foretold he should be cut off be killed by them Ask the Iews they will not deny but that they did condemn him to death but deservedly as they contend for their own excuse The Prophecies foretold his Doctrine should enlighten the Gentiles Ask thine own eyes if the Gentiles be not turned from their vain unwarrantable Superstitions to the knowledge of that one God that made heaven and earth and of Iesus Christ whom he hath sent The Prophecies prefigured his rising from the dead and his ascending up into Heaven and ask thine own Conscience if thou dost not believe that this was alwaies the belief of the Christians and consult with thine own Reason if it had been possible that the Death of Christ could have drawn all the World after him if it had not been seconded with his Resurrection Certainly those that believed on him before had deserted him after his death if he had not risen from the dead but of that more fully hereafter Lastly the Prophecies foretold that the Messiah should be worshipped as a divine Person and receive divine Honour and that God would make him a King and Priest for ever Ask thine own senses if thou dost not find it so How many thousand Temples are there consecrated to his name in how many Nations and Kingdomes of the earth is he
laid to it by Vespasian first and then by Titus This business was committed to the care of one Alipius of Antioch who had once been Deputy of Britain for the Governours Wherefore when this same Alipius did stoutly urge on the work and the Governor of the Province gave him his assistance dreadfull balls of fire breaking out near the foundation with frequent sallies burning up sundry times the workmen made the place inaccessible And thus the Enterprise ceased the Element directed by a peremptory destiny beating them off from their work CHAP. X. 1. Further Proofs that both Iews and Pagans acknowledge the Reality of the Person of Christ and his doing of Miracles 2. The force of these allegations added to the Prophecie of the Time of Christ's coming and the Characters of his Person 3. That the Characters of his Person are still more exact but not to be insisted upon till the proof of the Truth of the History of the Gospel 4 5. That the transcendent Eminency of Christ's Person is demonstrable from what has already been alledged and from his Resurrection without recourse to the Gospels From whence it necessarily follows That his Life was writ 6. That the Life of Christ was writ timely while Eye-witnesses were alive proved by a very forcible Demonstration 7. That Eternal Happiness through Christ was the hope of the First Christians proved out of Lucian and S. Paul and of a peculiar Self-Evidence of Truth in his Epistles 8. That the first and most early meaning of Christianity is comprised in those Writings 9. That Eternal Salvation depending upon the Knowledge of Christ it was impossible but that the Apostles should take care betimes that the Miracles of Christ should be recorded 10. That the Apostles could not fail to have the Life of Christ written to prevent the erroneous attempts of the Pragmatical to satisfie the Importunity of Believers or in obedience to divine Instigation 11. That it is as incredible that the Apostles neglected the writing of the Life of Christ as that a wise man in the affairs of the World should neglect the writing of his Will when he had opportunity of doing it 12. That it being so incredible but that the Life of Christ should be writ and there being found writings that comprize the same it naturally follows That they are they 1. THese Testimonies out of Heathen Writers may suffice to take off that fond and groundless suspicion of the whole History of Christ being a mere Allegory or Fiction A thing that the greatest Enemies thereof had never the face to object to the Christians neither Iews nor Pagans nor our modern Atheists especially the more nasute sort of them such as Pomponatius and Vaninus who do not only acknowledge Christ's Person but his Miracles only forsooth they referre them to the influence of the Stars and celestial Intelligences of which I shall speak in its proper place The Iews also acknowledge his Miracles but add that he was a Magician And Iulian himself and Celsus who wrote against the Christians never had the face to deny but that Iesus of Nazareth did once live in Iudaea and did strange things though the one revolted from him and the other never believed in him And Hierocles that highly-moral Pagan does not deny the Miracles of Christ nor the excellencie of his Person but contends that Apollonius Tyaneus may at least come into competition with him And to say nothing of Tiberius his purpose of having him entred into the catalogue of the Roman Deities by a decree of the Senate because the report thereof is from parties viz. from Eusebius out of Tertullian we may more appositely adjoin that Adrianus Severus and Heliogabalus though in vain attempted afterward the same thing And particularly of Severus Lampridius an heathen Historian writes that this Emperour intending to erect a Temple to Christ and to worship him amongst the rest of the Gods was hindred by the Priests qui consulentes sacra repererant omnes Christianos futuros si id optatò evenisset templa reliqua deserenda who by some way of divination or other had found out that if the Emperour's mind was fulfilled all would turn Christians and the other Temples would be left desolate So that there was a very high and venerable opinion of Christ even with those that were not Christians 2. Which evidences out of prophane Writers surely even alone can have no small force to beget the belief of that which I now contend for viz. That Christ did once live here on Earth and that he was a Person very famous and remarkable for some things in him done by him or hapning to him To which Testimonies if you add those clear Prophecies that foretold that the Jews Messiah was to come about that time that Christ is said to have lived in which both the Heathen and Christian stories do agree and those Characters that we know for a certain do belong to him such as I have already largely enough insisted upon it is impossible unless Scepticism be heightned unto a disease as perfect as either Madness or down-right Mopedness but that any one should believe more of Christ then I contend for at this present 3. And yet the Characters of his Person set out in the Prophecies are still more exact then what I have produced hitherto to prove that he was indeed the expected Messiah As that he should be of the Family of David of the Tribe of Iuda born of a Virgin and in Bethlehem that he should open the eyes of the blind and make the lame walk and other such like miracles that he should be put to such a death as that his hands and feet should be pierced that they should cast lots for his garment and give him vinegar to drink c. But these particularities having no force till we have proved that the History of the Gospel is true we must defer making any use of them till we have cleared that point In the pursuit whereof we must endeavour to prove these three things 1. That the Life and Death of Christ was writ in a serious manner by some or other not Romantically but Historically as Plutarch Tacitus and Suetonius are conceived to have writ the Lives of Illustrious Persons and Emperours 2. That it was maturely writ while there were living Eye-witnesses of the things related 3. And that those Gospels we receive now-adays are the true Copies of those that were so maturely written 4. The first part seems to me fully demonstrable from what we have proved already without any recourse to the History of the Gospel viz. That there was a very transcendent Eminency in the Person of Christ as to whom both the Time and main Characters of the expected Messiah did so exactly agree Whence he could not but attract the eyes of the World after him and gain very zealous and faithfull Followers that would at least by word of mouth divulge the things they saw and observed so strange
Epicureans and Stoicks Acts 17.18 Wherefore without all controversie the first embracers of Christianity entertained it upon no other terms but manifest proof of Eye-witnesses and the Evidence of such persons as they saw very faithful and serious and as had the effect of this great power of God that raised Iesus Christ from the dead manifestly residing upon themselves whereby they were able to doe Miracles as is also recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 4. Now for the First Authours and Founders of this Religion how weak and contemptible they were as to worldly concernments appears plainly from hence that they were not recommended to the World either for their nobility of Birth or skill in humane Arts and Sciences nor had they any secular power to assist them nor any force of arms to either overcome others or defend themselves for all they were exposed to so great and imminent dangers perpetually Our Saviour himself was but of mean Parentage a Carpenters Son crucified betwixt two thieves as a hainous Malefactor What therefore can there be imaginable that should move his Apostles and Disciples to adhere to him so faithfully after his death and to expose themselves to all manner of jeopardies all manner of sufferings whippings imprisonments long journies tortures and death it self What should cause them to disturb their own peace so and the peace of all men if there were not some very miraculous thing at the bottom and such as was worthy to alarme all the World What message could they have brought to those several Nations they travailed to that themselves would not be ashamed of carrying if it had been only so That the Jews had crucified one Iesus the Son of Ioseph a Carpenter betwixt two thieves at Ierusalem who yet was a very good and Just man It may be so would the Gentiles say More shame for them what is that to us But this man was the promised Messiah and did very strange Miracles cast out devils healed all manner of diseases and was declared the Son of God by an audible voice from the Heavens As for the Miracles you mention would the Gentile reply we have heard strange things done by those that are called Magicians and we had no acquaintance with the party you speak of to discern whether he was so good as you pretend For mens Judgments are ordinarily partial out of affection and friendship and it is strange that if he were so good as you make him and declared from the clouds to be the Son of God that God would suffer him so ignominiously to die betwixt two Thieves on the Cross. Which is a sign that if he did any Miracles they were but from such powers as are subject to the Magistrate and through that faithfull Providence that attends the affairs of men can doe nothing when the Magician is apprehended imprisoned and condemned Truly if there had been no more then this in the Story it seems impossible that the Cause should have had such Success as it has had 5. Wherefore certainly the First Preachers of the Gospel added to all this to the admiration and astonishment of the hearers That this Iesus whom the Jews had thus crucified was by the miraculous hand of God raised out of the grave the third day That after his Resurrection he conversed with his disciples both apart and together That he was seen of above five hundred at once That he staid upon earth for fourty daies and was seen visibly afterward to ascend into Heaven Which things as they were above all expectation marvailous and did if they were true fully argue not only the Innocency but transcendent Divinity of the Person of Iesus so were they so incredible that none could believe them especially to their present peril unless from such as were Eye-witnesses of the same and could send them to many more that were Eye-witnesses and of unsuspected integrity of life or for the better compendium shewed that they were true messengers sent from God by some Signs or Miracles they did upon the spot 6. This therefore was the main of their message which was nothing but matter of Fact which themselves knew certainly to be true and seriously and earnestly declared it to the World not by any Art or Eloquence For the Apostles were but poor illiterate persons Fishermen Publicans and the like had no other weapons to win men to the Faith but by a simple though earnest and serious narration of those things they knew for certain and did avouch with that confidence that they gave up their ease livelihood and lives for a pledge of the truth thereof Which Testimonie could not possibly be false it being as I said before concerning matter of Fact namely the Resurrection of Christ wherein so many could not be deceived Nor is it imaginable how they should goe about to deceive others against their own Consciences or without sufficient knowledge in a thing that gained them nothing but perpetual Hatred and ill will Imprisonments Tortures and Death In the mean time by these poore contemptible Instruments that had neither Political power on their side but were oppressed by it nor had any Art nor Eloquence excepting only Paul who yet made use of neither and by succession of such as they had converted within a few Ages all the World in a manner swarmed with Christians of all qualities and degrees noble and ignoble learned and unlearned though invited thereto by no secular advantage but rather being perpetually exposed to misery and persecution All which things seriously considered together with the exactness and perspicuity of Prophecies concerning the Messiah cannot but seem to any indifferent judge a Demonstration for the Truth of Christian Religion no less certain then Mathematical CHAP. XIV 1. Objections of the Jews against their Messiah's being come answered 2. A pompous Evasion of the Aristotelean Atheists supposing all Miracles and Apparitions to be the Effects of the Intelligences and Heavenly bodies 3. Vaninus his restraint of the Hypothesis to one Anima Coeli 4. His intolerable pride and conceitedness 5. A Confutation of him and the Aristotelean Atheisme from the Motion of the Earth 6. That Vaninus his subterfuge is but a Sel-contradiction 7. That Christianitie's succeeding Judaisme is by the special counsel of God not by the Influence of the Starres 8. Cardanus his high folly in calculating the Nativity of our Saviour with a demonstration of the groundlesness of Vaninus his exaltation in his impious boldness of making Mahomet Moses and Christ sidereal Law-givers of like Authority 9. That the impudence and impiety of these two vain glorious Pretenders constrains the Authour more fully to lay open the frivolousness of the Principles of Astrology 1. THE Objections we were a mentioning are from two hands from the Iew or from the Atheist That from Iew is chiefly this That the condition of the times under Christ is not conformable to what is prophesied concerning the times of the Messiah There is not that
And lastly Porphyrius divides the two Oriental parts of the Zodiack intercepted betwixt the Horizon and Meridian above and below into three equal parts apiece So many waies are there of building Houses or Castles in the Air. 7. That the Erection of a Scheme may foretell right the Fate of the Infant the time of the Birth is to be known exactly For if you miss a degree in the time of the Birth it will breed a years errour in the prognostication if but five minutes a month c. For which purpose also it is a necessary to know the Longitude and Latitude of the place 8. After the Erection of so accurate a Scheme they pretend to be able to foretell the time of the main accidents of mans life and that either by Profection annual and Transition or by Direction The last is the chief and therefore not to fill your eares over-much with the wretched gibberish of Gypsies when I have intimated that the first of the two former run all upon Aspects and that Transition is nothing else but the Passing of a Planet through the places of the Nativity whether its own or of other Planets or of the Horoscope c. I shall force my self a little more fully to define to you out of Origanus the Nature of Direction Which is the invention of the Arch the Aequator which is intercepted betwixt two circles of Position drawn through two places of the Zodiack the one whereof the Significator possesses the other the Promissor and ascends or descends with the Arch of the Ecliptick in the posture of the Sphere given The term from whence the computation is made is the Significator the term to which the Promissor As if Sol be directed to Mars Sol signifies Dignities and Mars the nature of those dignities and the distance of the time is computed by Direction I shall omit to tell you that all the Planets and all the Houses are capable of Direction if we would accurately examine a Scheme But the chiefest Directors or Significators are 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Arabians call Hylech from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Emissor or Prorogator vitae 2. The Moon for the Affections of the Mind 3. The Sun even then also when he is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the condition of Life and Dignities 4. The Horoscope for Health and Peregrinations 5. The Medium Coeli for Marriage and procreation of Children 6. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Part of Fortune for increase or decrease of Riches 9. But the chiefest of all is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as respecting Life it self which is directed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Interfectour or Slayer Which is suppose either some Planet which is present in the eighth house as Saturn or Mars or the Almuten of the eighth house or the Planet join'd to the Almuten or the Almuten of the Planet or the Almuten of the Lord of the eighth house But the huge mystery is and that a sad one that when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes to the place of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Emissor unto the place of the Interfector then wo be to the brat that ever he was born under so unlucky Starrs for there is no remedie but he must die the death Nor will his Alcochodon or Almuten Hylegii avail him any thing when his Hyleck or Emissor is once come into the hands of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or that Celestial Butcher These are the most fundamental and most solemn Fooleries for so I must call them of their whole Art and I shall now set my self to demonstrate them to be so after I have answered those more general Plausibilities they would countenance themselves by CHAP. XVI 1. That the Starrs and Planets are not useless though there be no truth in Astrology 2. That the Starrs are not the Causes of the Variety of Productions here below 3. That the sensible moistening power of the Moon is no argument for the Influence of other Planets and Starrs 4. Nor yet the Flux and Reflux of the Sea and direction of the Needle to the North Pole 5. That the Station and Repedation of the Planets is an argument against the Astrologers 6. That the Influence attributed to the Dog-star the Hyades and Orion is not theirs but the Sun 's and that the Sun's Influence is only Heat 7. The slight occasions of their inventing of those Dignities of the Planets they call Exaltations and Houses as also that of Aspects 8. Their folly in preferring the Planets before the fixt Starrs of the same appearing magnitude and of their fiction of the first qualities of the Planets with those that rise therefrom 9. Their rashness in allowing to the influence of the Heavenly Bodies so free passage through the Earth 10. Their groundless Division of the Signs into Moveable and Fixt and the ridiculous Effects they attribute to the Trigons together with a demonstration of the Falseness of the Figment 11. A Confutation of their Essential Dignities 12. As also of their Accidental 13. A subversion of their Erection of Themes and distributing of the Heavens into twelve Celestial Houses 14. Their fond Pretenses to the knowledge of the exact moment of the Infants birth 15. A Confutation of their Animodar and Trutina Hermetis 16. As also of their Method of rectifying a Nativity per Accidentia Nati 17. His appeal to the skilfull if he has not fundamentally confuted the whole pretended Art of Astrology 1. WHerefore to their First general Pretence That the very Being of the Starrs and Planets would be useless if there be nothing in the Art of Astrology I answer That though there were certain virtues and influences in every one of them yet it does not follow that they are discovered in their Art and then again That though there were none saving that of Light and Heat in the Fixt Starrs it will not follow that they are useless Because the later and wiser Philosophers have made them as so many Suns which Hypothesis our Astrologers must confute before they can make good the force of their first Argument And for the Planets they have also suggested that they may have some such like use as our Earth has i. e. to be the mother of living Creatures though they have defined nothing concerning the natures of them whereby their opinion becomes more harmless and unexceptionable as it is in it self highly probable Forasmuch as the Earth as well as Saturn Iupiter and the rest moves about the Sun and is as much a Planet as any of them as the best Astronomers doe not at all stick now-adaies to affirm Which does utterly enervate the force of this first general Pretence of the Astrologians 2. To the Second I answer That the Starrs are but Lights of much the same nature as our Sun is only they are further removed so that their contribution is much-what the same And again
Art 3. Further Confutations of their bold presumption that their Art alwaies predicts true 4. That the punctuall Correspondence of the Event to the Prediction of the Astrologer does not prove the certainty of the Art of Astrology 5. The great Affinity of Astrology with Daemonolatry and of the secret Agency of Daemons in bringing about Predictions 6. That by reason of the secret Agency or familiar Converse of Daemons with pretended Astrologers no argument can be raised from Events for the truth of this Art 7. A Recapitulation of the whole matter argued 8. The just occasions of this Astrologicall excursion and of his shewing the ridiculous condition of those three high-flown Sticklers against Christianity Apollonius Cardan and Vaninus 1. BUt here their Hold is not so strong as their Impudence great that they will so boldly bear us in hand that by virtue of the Principles of their Art they have foretold any thing to come There are many ludicrous wayes of Divination wherein no man is in good earnest and yet the Predictions and present personall Descriptions of men sometimes fall right but no sober man will impute this to Art but to Chance It was but a fallacy of Neptune's Priest when he would have carried the Spectator into admiration of that Deity from the many Donaries hung up in his Temple by Votaries But he whom he would have thus impos'd upon was too cunning for him For he demanded straightway a Catalogue of those Votaries that had suffered Shipwrack And so do I of those Predictions that have proved false Cardan a reputed Prince in this faculty complains that scarce ten in fourty prove true And Picus a narrow searcher into the Art professes that he has found of his own experience nineteen in twenty false and that in the Prognostication of Weather where no free Agents intermeddle to interrupt or turn off the naturall influence of the Stars 2. But all the Aberrations that either themselves or others may have observed will not bring off the more devoted Admirers of Astrology to acknowledge the vanity thereof For their excuse is first That by History private information and by their own experience they are assured that the Predictions do sometimes fall punctually true to a year nay to a day and sometimes to an hour and that the circumstances of things are so particularly set out that it cannot be Chance but Art that arrives at that accuracy And then secondly That the profession of others and also their own observation does witness to them that when there is any mistake the Errour is in the Artist not in the Art For when they have examined their Astrologicall Scheme they finde the Event was there signified and that it was their own oversight to miss it But to answer to the latter first I say they cannot pretend their Observation universall and they that understand Astrology best will acknowledge there is that intanglement usually and complication of things that it requires a very long time to give due judgement according to Art concerning a Nativity And therefore I say the Representation of the Event being so doubtfull if they chance to predict right at first they easily perswade themselves that was the meaning of the Celestial Theme If they miss they will force on their way further till they finde out what is answerable to the Events which then must needs be the meaning of the Art though the Artist oversaw it nor will they urge themselves to any further accuracy of inquisition for fear they should finde it disagree again or rather out of a strong credulity that if it hit right it is surely from the true meaning and principles of their beloved Science whenas in truth their Themes have no certainty in their representation but are as a piece of changeable Stuffe or creased Pictures look this way it is this colour that way that this way a Virgin that way an Ape or like the Oracles of Apollo who was deservedly called Loxias whose crooked Answers winded so this way and that way that nothing but the Event could tell whither they pointed 3. I might adde further that the pretence of the Schemes themselves be they never so exact I say the pretence of their alwayes representing the Events aright is a most impudent and rash Presumption because as I have intimated already the Objects of their Predictions are so alterable by the interposall of free Agents which interrupt ever and anon the series of Causality in naturall inclinations Whence in reason a man can expect no certain Predictions at all from the significations of the Stars nor that any triall can be made whether there be any thing in the Art or no. And it cannot but seem to every one a very bold surmise to imagine that all that fall in one fight by the edge of the Sword or suffer shipwrack in one Storm or are swept away in one Pestilence had their Emissors and Interfectors in their Nativity answerable to the times of their Death The Artists themselves dare not avouch it and therefore bring in an unobserved caution of having recourse to Eclipses Comets and blazing-Stars to calculate the generall fortune of the place nay of their Parents and Ancestors and of their familiar Friends of which there is no news in the most famous Predictions of Astrologers and therefore these and the like considerations being left out it is a signe their divinations fell true by chance Wherefore it is a shameless piece of Imposture to impute the truth of Predictions to Art where the Rules of Art are not observed I may adde where they are so palpably by Experience confuted For so it is in Twins whose natures should be utterly the same according to their Art and if they could be born at one moment the moment of their death should be the same also And yet those undissevered Twins born in Scotland who lived till twenty eight years of their age prov'd very often dissenting brethren would wrangle and jangle and one also died before the other In answering to which instance in my judgement that ingenious Knight Sir Christopher is very shrewdly baffled 4. And now to the former I say The reasoning is not right to conclude the certainty of the Art from the punctuall correspondence of the Event to the Prediction For it is also true that the Event has been punctually contrary thereto And therefore this is as good a demonstration that it is no Art as the other that it is But it is easie to conceive that both may happen by Chance Again as for that exact Punctuality of time it is most likely to be by Chance because as I have proved above there is no way of rectifying a Nativity to that accuracy they pretend And for particular Circumstances in Horary Questions why may they not be by under-hand information or some tricks and juglings that are usuall amongst Cheats But if the Predictions of Astrologers be free from this and yet be punctuall in time
Formalist perceiving nothing of pleasure and sweetness in Holiness and Vertue in himself if he observe others much devoted thereunto that he must judge them to make use of those things for some other more pleasant enjoiment as Praise and Applause or a future Reward and that they are not delighted with the things themselves Whenas certainly a true member of Christ and one really regenerate into his Image could no more cease from pleasing himself and enjoying himself in the sense and conscience of this Divine Life and the results thereof all holy and becoming actions then the Natural man can cease from the enjoiments of the Body though he knows ere long his Body shall afford him no more enjoiments And yet I must also add That it is the next door to an Impossibility that one that is become thus Divine should not have his Heart fully fraught with the most precious hopes of future Immortality and Glory He asked life of thee and thou gavest him even a long life for ever and ever 16. I have now finished my Parallelisme betwixt the Revilements cast upon our Saviour and those that his truest Members may be obnoxious to Which pains I think I have not at all misplaced they tending only to the stopping of the mouths of carnal Censurers and the animating sincere Christians that they may not be discouraged from following so excellent an Example by the affronts and reproaches of the World but that they may know their own Innocency Safety and Freedome while they keep in the true way that is in Christ the Son of God who making us free we become free indeed that is free from the deceits of our own lusts and free from the awe and terrour of imperious and superstitious men that would obtrude their own Errours upon us with as much earnestness and make them as indispensable as the infallible Oracles of God We having therefore spoken what things we thought most requisite concerning The Example of Christ we proceed now to his Passion which is the fifth Power of the Gospel CHAP. XV. 1. The Passion of Christ the fifth Gospel-Power the Virtue whereof is in a special manner noted by our Saviour himself 2. That the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness was a prophetick Type of Christ and cured not by Art but by Divine Power 3. That Telesmatical Preparations are superstitious manifest out of their Collections that write of them 4. Particularly out of Gaffarel and Gregory 5. That the Effects of Telesmes are beyond the laws of Nature 6. That if there be any natural power in Telesmes it is from Similitude with a confutation of this ground also 7. A further confutation of that ground 8. In what sense the Brazen Serpent was a Telesme and that it must needs be a Typical Prophecie of Christ. 9. The accurate and punctual Prefiguration therein 10. The wicked Pride and Conceitedness of those that are not touched with this admirable contrivance of Divine Providence 11. The insufferable blasphemy of them that reproach the Son of God for crying out in his dreadfull Agony on the Cross wherein is discovered the Unloveliness of the Family of Love 1. AND truly this fifth Gospel-Power the Passion of Christ is of so great efficacy and concernment that our Saviour seems with more then ordinary delight to have ruminated on the wonderfull effects that it would have in the world John 12.32 And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me signifying thereby what death he should die as the Text witnesses This shews what a powerful Engine our Saviour himself thought his Death would prove to draw all the World after him Which is a demonstration that the Mind of a Christian ought to dwell very much in the meditation of the Death and Passion of Christ. The use whereof appears in another intimation of our Saviour's though more Typical yet the Analogie is so plain that no man can miss it John 3. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness so shall the Son of man be lifted up That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life This is so perfect a Representation of our Saviours Passion that I cannot but blame my self for not entring it amongst other Prophecies that I alledged for the Messiah's suffering 2. And it will still appear more plainly that it was intended a Prefiguration or Typical Prophecie of Christ if we consider that Moses was not put upon it by any natural skill as if the Effigies of this Brazen Serpent did by any power of Art or Nature heal the Israelites of their bitings of the fiery flying Serpent But it was an immediate direction of God by whose supernatural power the cure was wrought As the Authour of the Book of Wisdome expresly has noted namely That he that turned towards that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he styles it the sign of Salvation was not saved by the thing that he saw but by him that is the Saviour of all For beside that the whole mystery of Telesmes is but a superstitious foolery much-a-kin to and dependent of that groundless Pretence of such wonderfull influences as the ancient Pagan Ignorance attributed to the Stars the very matter of this Serpent was inconvenient and improper for this Effect as Interpreters on the place have observed To which I might add that there is not any example of any Telesmes that were ever known to cure the diseasement after this sort that is by only looking thereunto And that those that have been made against Scorpions or other hurtfull Creatures they have chaced them out of the place or killed them upon the Spot but if any one were stung by these venomous Serpents there was a tactual application of the Remedy to him that was hurt 3. And yet I will not so much stand upon this as that the whole business of Telesmatical Preparations is superstitious and that they have no Effect by any natural Virtue or Influence This methinks I plainly discover out of their Collections that seem most pleased in the representing of these Curiosities to the eye of the world in their Writings Gaffarel especially who does with plenty of words but no reason at all endeavour to make us believe that the power of Telesmes is natural but I never knew any cause managed with more slight more loose and more frivolous arguments in my daies But out of his own mouth I shall be able to condemn him and upon these two accounts First in that according to his own Conjectures and Relations the erecting and preparing of these Telesmes is as we contend superstitious or paganically Religious and then secondly That the effects of them where they have any are plainly beyond the power of any natural cause 4. As for the first himself does profess that he is of opinion that the first Gods of the Latines which they called Averrunci or Dii Tutelares were no other then these Telesmatical Images And his reason is
Houses it would also have hâ—ndred them from lighting their candles at a tinder-box and warming their fingers in a frosty morning And yet this curious Philosopher seems to lament the losse of that Telesme they having thereby as he saies exposed the City to frequent Scale-Fires ever since But let the Telesmatical Sculpture of Fire and VVater be never so like insomuch that we may hope that it may affect the Spirit of Nature something there being no sagacity nor sense in the River Lycus suppose which Apollonius curb'd with such a device nor in Fire now existent much lesse that which is to come how can they withdraw themselves from such places where Telesmes are laid up they having not as Animals have the power of spontaneous motion Lastly There are Telesmes that have no similitude at all with the things they are to keep off as that Man on Horseback in brasse set up at Constantinople against Pestilential Infection which say they being once demolished the City has been extraordinarily subject to Plagues and fearful Mortalities That Ship also of brasse there Telesmatically consecrated against the dangers of that tempestuous Sea it had no similitude at all of either the Water or VVinde but yet of such force it was that a piece of it being broke off and lost the Sea returned to its former Unrulinesse but being found and put together the Sea became quiet again They took it therefore apieces again for experience sake and the Windes and Sea were suddenly rough and boistrous so that a Ship could not come up into harbour but the brazen Ship being again handsomely compacted the Windes and Sea were again peacefull and calme Wherefore if a man do but cast an indifferent eye upon the whole matter it will be very difficult for him not to pronounce That he that can believe that the power of Telesmes is natural is more irrationally credulous then the most simple Superstitionist in the world 8. Out of what has been said it is evident that the Brazen Serpent erected by Moses in the Wildernesse was not a Telesme in that sense Gaffarel would understand the word that is a Sculpture Statue or Similitude of something made so by Astrological Art that what Effects it has for the keeping off evil or remedying what has already befallen is merely from the concurrence of natural causes though the Application of them was Artificial the chief whereof is the Influence of the Heavens and the Figure of the Telesme For it is apparent there can be no such But if they mean by a Telesme such a Figure of some creature consecrated in a way of Religion for the services above-named nothing hinders but that the Brazen Serpent may be a Telesme whether from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies an Image or from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which denotes Consecration And this of Moses was both a warrantable and effectual Telesme For it was by the prescription of God himself and throughly did the effect it was set up for But the cures that it did being supernatural and neither the Figure nor the Matter of the Serpent contributing any thing to the healing of them that were bitten by those fiery flying Serpents it is plain that Moses had been left free from making any such Telesme of the Figure of a Serpent there being nothing in the thing it self to invite him to it had not God moved him thereto Nor can we imagine any other cause why divine Revelation should suggest such a thing unto him unlesse there were some mystery in it Something therefore that did notably concern the Church of God was denoted thereby and what I was a going to say at first having removed all obstacles I now again resume and dare pronounce That it was a plain though Typical Prophecy of the Messias his Passion and of the use of it and so clear that no words could have more punctually prefigured it to us For the Analogy and Resemblance is most exquisite if we cast our eye upon the whole Scene of things 9. For how naturally doe the Israelites in the Wildernesse represent the Church of Christ in the World and their being bitten with fiery flying Serpents our being poisoned and pained with vexatious lusts and remorse of conscience when sin has entred into our Souls What could more lively represent our Saviour upon the Crosse who knowing no sin yet was made sin for us then this Brazen Serpent set upon a pole in the Camp of Israel Which indeed had the outward shape of a fiery flying Serpent but was so far from being a Serpent that it had nothing of a Serpent but external form thereof and healed all them that were bit with those poisonous and deadly Serpents So our blessed Saviour devoid of Sin himself yet being in the most ugly outward appearance of Sinfulnesse that could be put upon him he suffering betwixt two criminal Malefactors as it was prophesied of him that he should be numbred amongst the transgressors he is in this posture where he looks so like Sinfulnesse it self unto the whole Church of God when they are smitten with the fiery excitements of Sin or the deadly pangs or remorse of Conscience those rancorous wounds that Sin leaves in the Soul when she has been once bitten therewith he is I say thus hanging upon the Crosse if they look upon him with the eye of Faith the most soveraign Remedy and the most presentaneous asswagement of their Pain and Malady that can be offered to the thoughts of men I am sure of any humble and well-meaning man 10. But for those that are self-conceited of a perverse Reason and of an high-flown Luciferian Temper that prefer the subtilty of their own opinionated Wit and curious search into all secrets and magnifie their own natural Worth before the Friendship of him that loved us even to the death these men are not fit Relishers of the Sweetnesse of that abundant Goodnesse and kinde Condescension of Divine Providence in his manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world as neither the fiery Enthusiast filled with the sense of his own foolish Revelations and Divine Visitations as he phansies them so stout so stiffe and so perfect as the flatteries of his own Imagination would bear him in hand that he findes nothing but God and himself worth thinking of and will be an immediate Reteiner to the Almighty without any Interposal whatsoever To that height and hardnesse is he swollen in his own conceit But the true Character of him is that which the Apostle Iude has given him that he is but a mouth filled with great swelling words puffed up sensual knowing not the Spirit Such as these are those in too great a measure that wholly neglect the meditation on Christs Passion though it be of so great efficacy for the quenching and suppressing of all the restlesse and fiery motions of Sin in them But execrable Blasphemers are they whose Pride and Conceitednesse has made
them reproach the person of Christ in his highest Agonies on the Crosse and impute that to a sinful weaknesse and imperfection that was but the due effect of the weight of his Sufferings who bore the Sins of the whole world and made an atonement with God for them Yet because he cryed out in the words of that Psalme which is a lively Prophecie of his Sufferings My God my God why hast thou forsaken me therefore must that Fanatick Fool of Amsterdam and his illuminate Elders that boast so much of Perfection be more perfect then the Son of God himself whose certain appearance in the World is so clearly demonstrated out of the ancient Prophecies of the Old Testament and so manifestly ratified by the Miracles recorded in the New 11. I appeal to all men if Satan himself could vent any thing more despightful and scornful against the endearing sufferings of our ever-blessed Saviour who out of tender love to Mankind underwent those dreadful agonies of Death and waded through the heavy wrath of God for sinners then these Wretches have that would recommend themselves to the VVorld under the false Flourish and Hypocritical Title of the Family of Love whereas by antiquating the use of the Passion of Christ and thus villainously reproaching Christ upon the Crosse they demonstrate to all the world that they have not the least sense or skill in so Divine a Mystery but are wicked Apostates from God who is that pure and Divine Love and Underminers of the Kingdome of his Son Jesus Christ In which neither such high-flown Enthusiasts nor any dry churlish Reasoners and Disputers shall have either part or portion till they lay down those Gigantick humours and become as our Saviour Christ who is the unerring Truth has prescribed like little Children for of such as these onely is the Kingdome of Heaven as the Prince of that Kingdome has declared These therefore he embraced and blessed when he was alive these he dying on the Crosse stretched out his armes to receive to these he wept drops of bloud that they might shed tears for these he was scourged that they might chastise the exorbitancy of their own lusts and evil concupiscences for these he shed his most precious bloud that they might die to Sin and live to Righteousnesse by that power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead This is the Foolishness of the Crosse a Scandal not onely for such as are Unbelievers but even to many of them also that would be accounted zealous and knowing Christians CHAP. XVI 1. The End of Christs Sufferings not onely to pacifie Conscience but to root out Sin witnessed out of the Scripture 2. Further Testimonies to the same purpose 3. The Faintnesse and Uselesnesse of the Allegory of Christs Passion in comparison of the Application of the History thereof 4. The Application of Christs Sufferings against Pride and Covetousnesse 5. As also against Envy Hatred Revenge vain Mirth the Pangs of Death and unwarrantable Love 6. A General Application of the Death of Christ to the mortifying of all Sin whatsoever 7. The celebrating the Lords Supper the use and meaning thereof 1. BUT that this is the meaning of Christs Sufferings that is That we should also suffer in the Flesh and mortifie our sinfull members besides what our Saviour himself has intimated in comparing himself to the Brazen Serpent in the VVildernesse the sight whereof did not onely asswage the pain of them that were bitten but take away the poison whence we may reasonably conclude that the looking on Christ on the Crosse is not onely to heal the Stings of Conscience upon sin committed but to destroy the Poison and corruption of Sin out of us that we may not sin any more is plain in that the Apostles themselves also do urge the Use of Christ Crucified to both those ends and purposes Saint Iohn 1 Epist. chap. 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that you sin not But if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins But this use of the Crosse namely Propitiation and the Peace of Conscience all men catch at There is more need of producing such places as shew the other use thereof for the Mortification of our sins That of Saint Peter 1 Epist. chap. 4. is very expresse For asmuch therefore as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh arm your selves likewise with the same minde for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God For the time past of our lives may suffice to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness lust excesse of wine revelling banquettings and abominable Idolatries To which sense he speaks at least as fully Chap. 2. ver 19. For this is thank-worthy if a man for conscience towards God endure grief suffering wrongfully For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously who his own self bare our sins in his own Body on the tree that we being dead to Sin should live unto Righteousnesse by whose stripes we are healed For ye were as Sheep going astray but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your Souls What can warrant the use of the Crosse for the cure of sins more plainly then this 2. But we will hear also what Saint Paul saith 2 Tim. chap. 2. ver 11. This is a faithful saying If we be dead with Christ then shall we also live with him if we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he will also deny us This is most certainly true as well of inward Mortification as of outward trouble and the mention of the death of Christ is to support our Spirits in the enduring of both And Philip. 3. ver 10. That I may know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death viz. That as Christ died upon the Crosse so he might be crucified to the world and all the vain Lusts thereof and those that walk otherwise he cannot but proclaim them enemies to the Crosse of Christ whose God is their belly and whose glory is their shame who minde earthly things ver 18. And Galat. 6.14 But God forbid that I should glory save in the Crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ by which the world is crucified to me and I unto the world that is The world is but a dead spectacle to me my affections being dead to it I will close all with that excellent place Rom. 6.3 Know ye not that as
Ghost by his mysterious union with the Eternal Word by his miraculous Resurrection from the dead and by his visible Ascension into Heaven and Session now at the right hand of his Father This is warrant enough to do all Divine homage to our blessed Saviour as to the only-begotten Son of God And truly the Church to give them their due has not been sparing the very constitution of our Religion being so effectual for this purpose For so Divine a Person as Christ was namely The very Son of God and yet condescending to undergoe so horrid a death for the World how could engaged Mankind stint themselves from shewing of all manner of expressions of Love and Devotion toward him 3. Wherefore they erected innumerable magnificent Structures of Temples Chappels and other Religious Edifices and consecrated them to his Name They endowed the Christian Priesthood with ample Riches and Dignities set up Church-musick sung divine Anthems in honour of our Saviour adorned their Churches celebrated his Passion with unexpressible reverence instituted Festivals and filled both Time and Place with such variety of Ornaments that a man might observe that the greatest part of the Splendour and Pomp of Christendom was in reference to their Religion Which certainly would have been a very goodly and lovely spectacle if Superstition Hypocrisie and Ecclesiastick Tyranny could have been kept out 4. But this External Worship and the Ceremonies thereof things equally performable by the evil and the good by the regenerate and mere natural man these took growth enormously and like ranck Weeds choaked the Corn or what happens in full and over-fed bodies in which natural heat and activity is very much lost the huge load and bulk of visible Formalities extinguished the Life and Spirit of Religion 5. But however this outward Homage to our Saviour continued and does continue in a great measure over the face of Christendom to this very day though their expressions are not alike courtly every where Which continuation of Divine Honour done unto him cannot but gratifie his faithfully-devoted Servants they having a deep resentment of the shameful Sufferings their Lord and Master underwent out of his dear love to them and therefore do naturally rejoyce at this Tribute of Divine Adoration the World gives to so holy and sacred a Person it being so sutable a part of compensation of his Humiliation and Reproach Besides that they receive some satisfaction that Divine Providence has so brought it about touching the true Members of Christ whose Principles are so opposite to the Guise of the world and their Persons so contemptible that yet the World are fain with the lowest prostrations to adore that in Christ which they kick about and trample upon so in his despised Members But I will insist no longer on this Theme having spoke enough of it elsewhere We have now shewn the Usefulness of the Mystery of Godlinesse in all holy and religious respects I shall adde only a word or two in reference to things of this Life and so conclude the fourth part of my Discourse CHAP. XX. 1. The Usefulnesse of Christianity for the good of this life witnessed by our Saviour and S. Paul 2. The proof thereof from the Nature of the thing it self 3. Objections against Christianity as if it were an unfit Religion for States Politick 4. A Concession that the primary intention of the Gospel was not Government Political with the advantage of that Concession 5. That there is nothing in Christianity but what is highly advantageous to a State-Politick 6. That those very things they object against it are such as do most effectually reach the chief end of Political Government as doth Charity for example 7. Humility Patience and Mortification of inordinate desires 8. The invincible Valour that the love of Christ and their fellow-members inspires the Christian Souldiery withall 1. THat Christianity contributes also to the Happinesse of this present World is evident both from the Testimony of Christ and his Apostles and also from the nature of the thing it self Matth. 6. Where our Saviour having exhorted us not to be over-sollicitous for the things of this Life food and raiment setting before our eyes the care of Divine Providence in Creatures of far lesse price then our selves how the Fowls of the Air are provided for that neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns how gloriously the Lilies of the Field are arraied that neither weave nor spin he concludes That we should not so eagerly and carefully seek after those things as worldly-minded men do But seek ye first the kingdom of God saith he and his righteousnesse and all these things shall be added unto you For your Heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things And Paul to Timothy Godlinesse is profitable for all things having the promise of this life and that which is to come 2. And if we consider the nature of the thing it self there is an accruement of present Happinesse from true Christianity not only by virtue of Promise but even by natural dependence of Causes and Events especially when that Christian frame of Spirit has arrived to any considerable degree of perfection and maturity For there is no such obliging person in the world as a mature and ripe Christian nor any truer Policy then to be obliging Which Temper the more sincere it is the more taking it is and the more sure Fortress against adverse Fortune Wherefore what advantage Humanity has he has it in the greatest measure Besides that his calm and castigate spirit makes him sensible discreet above all expression and of a sagacity beyond all conceit of the unregenerate man His Faithfulnesse also and honest and chearful Industry have their proper blessing attending them And his moderate desires of Riches and Honours and his laudable use of them unblemished with any blot of either sordid Covetousnesse or vain Ostentation prevents or beats back the ill-aimed darts of secret Malice and Envy And if but a meaner share of the things of this world be allotted to him yet his contentments are not the lesse he finding that true which both David and Solomon have pronounced That better is a little that the righteous has then great possessions of the ungodly And when more unsupportable pressures and afflictions fall upon him such as great Fits of Sicknesse Imprisonment and the Approaches of Death his Advantages in this Condition are unspeakably above what any other mortal is capable of For the more these urge his outward man the more his inward is inflamed and excited to the exercise of those powers that are most holy and precious and needing no admonition though so fit and apposite as that of Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Circumstances of things themselves will assuredly awaken this Christian Champion to the exertion of all the strength of his Soul and to the successful use of his spiritual weapons wherewith he is armed against the day of battel For
and more full Interpretation of the whole Transaction 11. Some brief touches upon the Prophesies of Christ. 117 CHAP. IX 1. The Miracles of Apollonius compared with those of Christ. 2. His entertainment at a Magical banquet by Iarchas and the rest of the Brachmans 3. His cure of a Dropsy and of one bitten by a mad dog 4. His freeing of the City of Ephesus from the plague 5. His casting a Devil out of a laughing Daemoniack and chasing away a whining Spectre on Mount Caucasus in a Moon-shine night 6. His freeing Menippus from his espoused Lamia 120 CHAP. X. 1. Apollonius his raising from death a young married Bride at Rome 2. His Divinations and particularly by Dreams 3. His Divinations from some external accidents in Nature 4. His Prediction of Stephanus killing Domitian from an Halo that encircled the Sun Astrology and Meteorology covers to Pagan Superstition and converse with Devils 5. A discovery thereof from this prediction of his from the Halo compared with his phrantick Ecstasies at Ephesus 6. A general Conclusion from the whole parallel of the Acts of Christ and Apollonius 122 CHAP. XI 1. A Comparison of the Temper or Spirit in Apollonius with that in Christ. 2. That Apollonius his Spirit was at the height of the Animal life but no higher 3. That Pride was the strongest chain of darkness that Apollonius was held in with a rehersal of certain Specimens thereof 4. That his whole Life was nothing else but an exercise of Pride and Vain-glory boldly swaggering himself into respect with the greatest whereever he went 5. His reception with Phraotes King of India and Iarchas head of the Brachmans 6. His intermedling with the affairs of the Roman Empire his converse with the Babylonian Magi and Aegyptian Gymnosophists and of his plausible Language and Eloquence 7. That by the sense of Honour and Respect he was hook'd in to be so active an Instrument for the Kingdome of Darkness 8. That though the Brachmans pronounced Apollonius a God yet he was no higher then the better sort of Beasts 124 CHAP. XII 1. The Contrariety of the Spirit of Christ to that of Apollonius 2. That the History of Apollonius be it true or false argues the exquisite Perfection of the life of Christ and the Transcendency of that Divine Spirit in him that no Pagan could reach by either Imagination or Action 3. The Spirit of Christ how contemptible to the mere Natural man and how deare and precious in the eyes of God 4. How the several Humiliations of Christ were compensated by God with both sutable and miraculous Priviledges and Exaltations 5. His deepest Humiliation namely his Suffering the death of the Cross compensated with the highest Exaltation 127 CHAP. XIII 1. The ineffable power of the Passion of Christ and other indearing applications of him for winning the World off from the Prince of Darkness 2. Of his preceding Sufferings and of his Crucifixion 3. How necessary it was that Christ should be so passive and sensible of pain in his suffering on the Cross against the blasphemy â—f certain bold Enthasiasts 4. Their ignorance in the Divine life and how it alone was to triumph in the Person of Christ unassisted by the advantages of the Animal or Natural 5. That if Christ had died boldly and with little sense of pâ—in both the Solemnity and Usefulness of his Passion had been lost 6. That the strange Accidents that attended his Crucifixion were Prefigurations of the future Effects of his Passion upon the Spirits of men in the World 7. Which yet hinders not but that they may have other significations 8. The third and last reason of the Tragical unsupportableness of the Passion of Christ in that he bore the sins of the whole World 9. The Legâ—â—leious cavils of some conceited Sophists that pretend That it is unjust with God to punish the Innocent in stead of the Guilty 10. The false Ground of all their frivolous subtilties 129 CHAP. XIV 1. That Sacrifices in all Religions were held Appeasements of the Wrath of their Gods 2. And that therefore the Sacrifice of Christ is rather to be interpreted to such a Religious sense then by that of Secular laws 3. The disservice some corrosive Wits do to Christian Religion and what defacements their Subtilties bring upon the winning comeliness thereof 4. The great advantage the Passion of Christ has compared with the bloudy Tyranny of Satan 132 CHAP. XV. 1. An Objection concerning the miraculous Eclipse of the Sun at our Saviour's Passion from it s not being recorded in other Hâ—storians 2. Answer That this wonderfull Accident might as well be omitted by several Historians as those of like wonderfulness as for example the darkness of the Sun about Julius Caesar's death 3. Farther That there are far greater Reasons that Historians should omit the darkness of the Sun at Christ's Passion then that at the death of Julius Caesar. 4. That Grotius ventures to affirme this Eclipse recorded in Pagan writers and that Tertullian appeal'd to their Records 5. That the Text does not imply that it was an universal Eclipse whereby the History becomes free from all their Cavils 6. Apollonius his Arraignment before Domitian with the ridiculousness of his grave Exhortations to Damis and Demetrius to suffer for Philosophy 134 BOOK V. CHAP. I. OF the Resurrection of Christ and how much his eye was fixed upon that Event 2. The chief Importance of Christ's Resurrection 3. The World excited by the Miracles of Christ the more narrowly to consider the Divine quality of his Person whom the more they looked upon the more they disliked 4. Whence they misinterpreted and eluded all the force and conviction of all his Miracles 5. God's upbraiding of the World with their gross Ignorance by the raising him from the dead whom they thus vilified and contemned 6. Christ's Resurrection an assurance of man's Immortality 137 CHAP. II. 1. The last End of Christ's Resurrection the Confirmation of his whole Ministry 2. How it could be that those chief Priests and Rulers that hired the Souldiers to give out that the Disciples of Christ stole his body away were not rather converted to believe he was the Messias 3. How it can be evinced that Christ did really rise from the dead and that it was not the delusion of some deceitfull Daemons 4. The first and second Answer 5. The third Answer 6. The fourth Answer 7. The fifth Answer 8. The sixth and last Answer 9. That his appearing and disappearing at pleasure after his Resurrection is no argument but that he was risen with the same Body that was laid in the grave 139 CHAP. III. 1. The Ascension of Christ and what a sure pledge it is of the Soul's activity in a thinner Vehicle 2. That the Soul's activity in this Earthly Body is no just measure of what she can do out of it 3. That the Life of the Soul here is as a Dream in comparison of that life she is awakened unto in her
interpretation upon this Verse of the Prophecie that can be imagined as if the sense were That those things there foretold should come to pass after the seventy Weeks Whenas it is plain That the casting the Weeks so into parts and expresly foretelling that in this part this shall come to pass and in that that it is plain I say from hence That the main scope of the Prophecie is to tell what things will come to pass before their expiration Which we shall be the better assured of if we examine the fondness of the other Supposition and apply it to the words of the Text which are these Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy City or cut out for thy people and for thy holy City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to finish transgression c. If these things that follow in this verse be to be understood as foretold to come to pass after the seventy Weeks what is the sense of the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Questionless there can be but these two senses of it either so as the Septuagint have translated it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. that transgression may be finished as also our English Translatours have rendered it which doubtless is the true sense or else it must signifie the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there is no sense imaginable besides these two that can be pretended If the first the gross Absurdity is this That whereas there has been about three hundred Weeks for the compleating those things mentioned there in that verse and they not yet done according to the Jews opinion yet the Prophecie mentions only Seventy and those wherein they themselves confess nothing at all was to be done of them then which nothing can be imagined more wilde and ridiculous If the second I answer that the Seventy and other unprejudiced Interpreters alway turn it according to the former sense Nay that Abarbanel and Manasseh who otherwise pervert the sense of this Prophecie yet they translate it so too and yield that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until And lastly if it did so yet the sense of the Prophecie would be pittifully lame and imperfect if we compare it with the Event For the sense would be Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people until or before that the everlasting righteousness be brought in the most Holy anointed Vision and Prophecie perfected c. Which certainly supposes that within a little time after at least after less then Seventy Weeks these things should be fulfilled and yet there has thrice seventy Weeks gone over since the expiration of the first Seventy and no tidings of any such things Wherefore it is more clear then the Meridian Sun that the things there understood were to come to pass within the Seventy weeks expressly spoke of by the Prophet Daniel 3. Again from the Second verse of this Prophecie we demonstrate That the Messiah is come Because from the going out of the Commandment or Decree to rebuild the City to the Messiah is but sixty nine weeks Wherefore imagine what Decree you will the time is run out and many hundred years besides And that this Prophecie is to be understood of that great Messiah their Prince and Redeemer appears plainly enough because he is called here by Daniel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absolutely as being his Proper Name whenas in all other places of Scripture it is an Appellative Whence it is more then conjectural that the Iews had the name of their Messiah out of this place and understood it of that Messiah we speak of But after that unhappy mistake of theirs in refusing their Messiah when he came they have forced other Interpretations though utterly unapplicable to the Text some understanding by Messiah King Cyrus others Nehemias others Iehoshua the Priest others Zerobabel none of which conceits are so much as possible For the Epocha from which they must reckon must be from some Command or Decree to rebuild the City For so the words run 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the promulgation of the Decree to restore c. That that is the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is plain from Esther chap. 1. ver 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let there goe forth a royal Command or Decree Whence it is plain that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as a Decree and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Promulgation of it as may be understood also from Luke 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth put the business out of all controversie that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as the Seventy often translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Command not a Foretelling or Talking of things because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not signifie concerning the restoring but to restore So that none that have any either common sense or but moderate skill in the Hebrew but will confess that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies From the Decree to cause to return c. From whence it is very manifest that none of those Persons which the Jews here offer can be accepted for the Messiah mentioned in this Prophecie Not Cyrus because if you will apply him to the first Decree which was his own the account is absurd at first sight For thus you must reckon from the Edict of Cyrus to the same Cyrus The other Decrees are after Cyrus and therefore the sense will be more absurd if any thing can be more The reason is much-what the same concerning Iehoshua and Zerobabel for they were the very persons that immediately executed Cyrus his Decree And for Nehemias he is a great many years too late from Cyrus his Decree and as much too near to that Decree that went out the seventh year of Artaxerxes This I speak in reference to that Evasion they seek in the parting of the number of this Prophecie into seven Weeks and sixty two Weeks as if it should be but seven Weeks from the Decree to the Messiah that is fourty nine years But besides that it is plain Chronologie will not fit their turn for this subterfuge it is further evident that if it would it will yet appear ut a Subterfuge For unless you will joine the Seven Weeks and the fifty two Weeks together it will not make good sense as any one that examines it will easily understand and that the Messiah is not to come within the first Seven Weeks appears in that he is to be cut off after the sixty two Weeks 4. Which shall be a third argument from the Third verse of the Prophecie That the Messiah is come After sixty two weeks the Messiah shall be cut off that is not until the last Week begin and before it expire For there is no question but the Seventy Weeks being thus divided into parts for the setting out the time of the coming and appearing of the Messiah even to his death
rightly either Morall or Divine only tumbling out a Rhapsody of swelling words distorted Allegories and slight allusions to the History of Scripture intermingling them or strinkling them ever and anon with the specious name of Love though there be no motive nor reason that urges the thing it self all the while would give out himself such a Master of this Mystery as that Christianity must be super-annuated and all the devotionall Homage due to our Saviour laid aside all his Offices silenced his Passion slighted nay derided his visible Return to Judgement anticipated and eluded his Resurrection and Ascension misbelieved and the promise of Eternal Life swallowed up in the present glorious enjoyments and enrichments of them that will give up their soundness of judgement and reason to be led about with the May-games and Morrice-dances of that sweet Sect that have usurped to themselves the Title of the Family of Love Whenas the Authour of this Faction as I am well enough informed was more likely to prove a Pimp or second Sardanapalus then a true Instructor of the World in so holy a Mystery being infamous for having suspected Females in his House and living splendidly and deliciously above his rank noted for his crimson-Satten doublet and other correspondent habiliments as also for his large Looking-glass wherein he often contemplated his whole begodded Humanity and composing his long beard and stroaking down his Satten sides might strut in admiration of himself that he found the World so favourable to his false Impostures and lastly ridiculous for his women-Scribes and other such like soft doings not to say impure and obscene All which to any man that has but a moderate nasuteness cannot but import that in the title of this Sect that call themselves the Family of Love there must be signified no other love then that which is merely Natural or Animal though the Preacher of this Love-mystery bears himself so aloft and is so high upon the wing that he cannot phansie himself any thing lesse then that Apocalypticall Angel flying in the midst of Heaven and preaching the everlasting Gospel to the Inhabitants of the World And truly this Gospel of Henry of Amsterdam is likely to be as lasting as the generations of men and I may adde as universall as both Men and Brutes 3. Hear O Heavens and hearken O Earth while I pleade the cause of the just one and despised against the rebellious Hypocrites Thus saith the Lord God Behold I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone a tried stone a precious corner-stone a sure foundation and he that believes thereon shall not be ashamed Iudgement also will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lyes and the waters shall overflow their hiding-places That this corner-stone and sure foundation is Christ that suffered at Ierusalem we are infallibly informed by those that were truly inspired the blessed Apostles That the refuge of lyes and hiding-place is most naturally applicable to this skulking Family is apparent in that the summe of their Religion is nothing but a bundle of lying Allegories and Canting Terms whereby they deal falsly with men and under the pretence of fine Mystical speeches would thrust out of the World the choicest and most beneficiall Truth that ever was imparted to the Sons of men I mean the Truth of the Gospel in the plain simplicity thereof whereby we are so clearly taught what we are to be to do and to expect And the Storm that shall overtake them and the Deluge that shall fall in upon them in their hidden dwellings shall be those Torrents of Reason and that irresistible conviction from the sincere and true-hearted followers of Christ. Tell me therefore O ye conceitedly-inspired whose phancies have blown you above Gospel-dispensations why do you run into the errour of the Jews and refuse this precious corner-stone this sure foundation and build upon disunited Sand and rotten Quagmires that will bear no weight Why do you lay aside Christ in the truth of his History the most palpable pledge of Divine Providence of God's Reconciliation to men and of future Happiness that ever was exhibited to the World and chuse for your Guide a mere Allegorical Whisler an Idol-Puppet dressed up in words and phrases filched out of the Scripture but perverting and eluding the main scope and most usefull meaning thereof Why have ye forsaken the only-begotten Sonne of God and given your selves up to the deceivable conduct of a mere carnall man and wholy destitute not only of true faith in God and Christ but of all substantial Knowledge and Reason Why are you so rash and giddy as to believe one that only testifies of himself and is so impudent a Plagiary as to offer you no wares but such as he has stolne from you if you pretend to be of the Christian Church and those so poisoned and adulterated that you cannot receive them without the danger of being struck into a misbelief of the truth of Christs Gospel and of revolting from him to whom so many illustrious Prophecies of old so many Miracles done by himself to whom his wonderfull Resurrection from the dead and audible voices from Heaven while he was living gave ample testimony that he was indeed the true Son of God 4. What indearing evidence or argument has this Mercer of Amsterdam given you of true compassion and love to mankinde that you should vaunt him so transcendent a Mystagogus in so divine a Mystery that you equalize him to nay exalt him above Christ and his Apostles Did he not live a lazy easie soft life as other rich Shop-keepers do whenas not only our Saviour himself but also his Apostles lived an hard Asketick life full of dangers and afflictions also from without Let S. Paul speak for the rest for they were in a manner all of them in the same case and might justly expostulate with these high fanatick Pretenders in the same words Are they Ministers of Christ I speak like a fool I am more in labours more abundant in stripes above measure in prisons more frequent in deaths often Of the Iews received I fourty stripes save one thrice was I beaten with rods once was I stoned thrice I suffered shipwrack a night and a day have I been in the Deep in Iourneyings often in perils of water in perils of Robbers in perils by mine own Countreymen in perils by the Heathen in perils in the City in perils in the wildernesse in perils at the sea in perils among false brethren in wearinesse and painfulnesse in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakednesse c. To all which you may adde very despightfull and torturous deaths which most of them underwent at last and all this out of a faithfull love to their Lord and Master Jesus Christ and a dear regard to the good and Salvation of mankinde But what was it wherewith this H. N.
obliged the world so that all due homage and divine reverence to the Person of Christ must be laid aside and this bold Impostor silence the constant faith of Christians by his high pretensions of being the Head and Father of such a Family whose Inscription must be Love who with this Family of his is God and Christ and Cherubims and Seraphims Angels and Arch-Angels already busie in their office of judging the quick and the dead and gathering the elect from all the corners of the Earth 5. But in my apprehension at the very first sight he shews himself very injudicious if not malicious in making a difference betwixt the true Houshold of Faith and Family of Love besides his gross and impudent injustice in usurping that badge of honour to himself that was won by another in a field of bloud For as I was going to say what has this H. N. done to merit this title more then in scribling many fanatical Rhapsodies of unsound language abusively borrowed from the sacred Scriptures and in perverting the sense and supplanting the end by his wicked elusions and vain Allegorical evasions and so under pretense of beginning an higher dispensation of Righteousnes and Religion in the world then ever was yet treacherously introducing in stead of true Religion nothing but Sadducisme Epicurisme and Atheisme This voluminous Enthusiasme of his together with the gracing of the Family with the splendour of his crimson habiliments is all I find that can pretend to any contestation or competition with the true Master of Divine Love or to any obligation of his Followers 6. I must confess our Saviour compiled no Books it being a piece of Pedantry below so noble and Divine a person But that short Sentence which he writ with his own most precious bloud As I have loved you so love you one another is worth millions of Volumes though written with the truest and sincerest Eloquence that ever fell from the pen of an Oratour Nor did he wear any gay Clothes but when by force the abusive souldiers put a scarlet robe upon him indespight and mockery Nor was he resplendent in any colours but what was the die of his own bloud in his solemn and dreadful Passion when he was so cruelly scourged when out of agonie of mind he sweat drops of bloud when he was nailed to the Cross and the lance let bloud and water out of his side All which ineffable and unsupportable torments this innocent Lamb of God suffered for no demerit of his for what thank is it to suffer for a factious Impostor or open evil doer but out of mere compassion and hearty love to mankind that he might by this bitter Passion of his and the glorious consequences of it his Resurrection and Ascension gain us to God And now let all men judge if there can be possibly any Authour or pretended Instructer of the World in that holy and divine Love indeed comparable to the Lord Iesus who has given this unparallel'd demonstration of his love unto us CHAP. III. 1. The occasion of the Familists usurpation of the Title of Love 2. Earnest precepts out of the Apostles to follow Love and what kind of Love that is 3. That we cannot love God unless we love our neighbour also 4. An Exposition of the 5 and 6 verses of the 1 chapter of the 2 Epist. of S. Peter 5. Saint Paul's rapturous commendation of Charity 6. His accurate description thereof 7. That Love is the highest participation of the Divinity and that whereby we become the Sons of God And how injurious these Fanaticks are that rob the Church of Christ of this title to appropriate it to themselves 1. HEarken therefore to me yet that would follow after righteousness ye that seek the Lord Look unto the rock whence you were hewen and to the hole of the pit from whence you were digged Look upon him whom ye have pierced and whose bloud is the seed of the Church whose Spouse was taken out of his side as Eve out of the side of Adam Acknowledge your original and recount with your selves the price of your Redemption even the inestimable bloud of that immaculate Lamb Christ Jesus The sense whereof is the strongest cement imaginable to unite us to our Saviour and one unto another But the Church having been given up so long a time to bitter factions and persecutions to warre and bloudshed and all manner of enmity and hostility one against another it is no wonder if a stranger has invaded that Title which she may justly be thought to have either refused or forfeited For my own part I know not how to apologize for either the fond opinions or foul miscarriages of the Wilderness of Christendome But sure I am That the Banner over the true Spouse of Christ is Love That Love is the badge and cognoscence of all his faithful members by which they are known to be His living members indeed That Love and Peace is the last Legacy which was left to the disciples by their dying Lord and Master an inheritance entailed upon all the true sons of God for ever That Love is the fulfilling of the Law and has filled almost every page of the Gospel and all the Writings of the Apostles and when they speak of Faith it is none other Faith then that which worketh by Love 2. Out of the many repetitions and inculcations of this holy and heavenly Vertue I was a gleaning out some to present you withall for an evidence how serious the Gospel of Christ is and how sufficient in the urging of his indispensable duty We go on therefore and adde to what we have already cited these following places Galat. 5.6 For in Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love And if Circumcision be nothing without Faith working by Love what can Baptizing or Rebaptizing or any external ceremony be without this true Faith whose life and spirit is Love which the Apostle directs us to And after v. 13 14. For brethren ye have been called unto liberty only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another For all the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Where this Law of Love is so carefully described that the abuse of this Title to Lust and Libertinisme is plainly excluded against such as talk so much of Love and are but Libertines at the bottom Which caution also is very soberly and prudently put in by S. Iohn Ep. 1. chap. 5. v. 2. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his Commandements Which is a plain demonstration that that Love which Saint Iohn exhorts to so copiously in his Epistle is a Love purely divine and such as no man can be assured he doth practise unlesse he keep all the Commandements of God For even a carnall man may love the Children of