two propositions coupled together must be disjunctively expounded of either proposition divided one from the other Now when it is said He that curseth Father And Mother shall die there be two intire propositions coupled together by this particle And implicitly the explicit sense or Resolution of which speech is this He that curseth his Father shall surely die And he that curseth his Mother shall surely die And if both these propositions conjunctively taken be true this disjunctive will be as true He that curseth either father or mother shall die Secondly the Rule is universally true When two incompatible attributes are conjunctively avouched of one and the same subject in one and the same ê“position universally taken the particle And in this case must be resolved into the particle Or when the universall ê“position or subject of it is divided into its parts Quae dicuntur conjunctim de genere dicuntur divisim de specie As for example the Philosopher describing the native propertie of quantitie saith maximè proprium est quantitati ut ex ea dicantur res aequales inaequales But in as much as equalitie and inequalitie are incompatible if wee apply them to the the same particular things which are compared together for quantitie hence it is that every particular substance which is compared to or measured with another must either be equal or unequal unto it That one and the same particular substance should be both equal and unequal to another for quantitie is impossible So the Philosopher saith and it is a naturall truth which none can deny that the living or sensitive creature universally taken is rational and irrational but because one and the same living Creature cannot be both rational and irrational when wee descend to particular living creatures wee cannot say that any of them is both rationall and irrationall but either rationall or irrationall Yet in as much as every particular living creature is either endowed with reason or not endowed with reason the living creature universally taken that is as it comprehends every particular living creature must be both rationall and irrationall For Quicquid dicitur divisim de Specibus dicitur conjunctim de Genere 9. To give such a direct and punctuall answer to the Cardinals instance out of Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth father and mother shall dye as may satisfie all the rest which he brings or can be brought to like purpose we say as was intimated before there be two intire propositions 1. He that curseth his father shall dye 2. He that curseth his mother shall dye and the explication or unfolding of these two propositions is disjunctively set down by our Saviour himself Matth. 15. 4. He that curseth father or mother shall surely dye But there are not two propositions but one proposition in this Text He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him He doth not say here or elswhere He that eateth my flesh dwelleth in me and I in him and he that drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him Nor is this disjunctive any where in Scripture exprest That he which eateth Christs flesh or drinketh his blood dwelleth in Christ and he in him That instance which the Cardinall would wrest to justifie his interpretation of our Saviours words in the 53. and 56. verses doth make against him His instance is 1 Cor. 11. ver 27. Whosoever shall eat this bread or drinke the cup of the Lord unworthily is guiltie of the body and blood of the Lord. For in as much as S t Paul had said before vers 26. that as often as wee eat this bread and drink this cup wee shew the Lords death till he come it will necessarily follow that albeit wee eat the bread not unworthily and yet put such a Case drink the cup unworthily we become guiltie both of his Body and Blood because in both wee solemnize the memory of his death and he that should both eat the bread and drink the cup unworthily is twice guiltie of the body and blood of the Lord As he that curseth both farther and mother is worthy of double death because he that curseth either father or mother is guiltie of death Nor can it be alledged that the severall parts of this proposition He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me are incompatible or cannot be performed at one and the same sacramentall action by one and the same man or that they are to be universally or collectively understood of the whole Church as consisting of Priests and Laicks and not distributively of every man and therefore to seek a disjunctive sense of these words to this or like effect he that eateth my flesh or drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him is to seek a knot in â—â—ulrush or a division in Unitie Again The form of our Saviours speech ver 53. is exceptive Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you The form is the very same as if we should say Except a man honour his Father and Mother his seed shall not long prosper upon earth Now it would be impiously absurd to make this construction of that Commandment Except a man honour Either his Father Or his Mother his seed shall not long prosper upon the earth And no better then Thus is the Construction which Cardinal Tollet or his followers make of our Saviour's words in the 53. verse Our Saviour had told them before that He was the Bread of life which came down from heaven And pressing the Belief of this Point upon them further not by division but by addition he addeth ver 51. That The Bread which he meant was his Flesh And when the Jews ver 52. strove about this He further adds ver 53. Verily Verily Except ye eat and drink ye have no life in you 10. But besides the former plunge whereto the best Scholars in the Romish Church are put in justifying their practice for Deteining the Cup from the Laitie if This Chapter be meant of Sacramental eating there is another Difficultie which neither the late Device of Drinking Christs Blood per concomitantiam nor the Cardinals interpretation of ver 56. by Disjunction will any way touch much lesse satisfie And the Difficultie is this If these words be literally meant of Sacramental eating and drinking their literal sense must be as plain and as void of all Trope or Metaphor as the words of the Institution related by Saint Matthew Chap. 26. 26. are by them supposed to be Now when Christ saith in Saint Matthew That the bread is his Bodie this speech in the literal sense as they contend inferreth a substantial change of the Bread into the substance of his bodie Now our Saviours words are in this place as plain and as certain as in that He avoucheth again and again that he is the bread of life that the bread which he will
blood he himselfe here saith it He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him and for this reason his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed the onely meat and the onely drink which men should hunger and thirst after Other meates and drinks should be sought for yea life bodily it self should be desired onely to this End that by the prolonging of it wee might be partakers in greater measure of this meat and drink which preserves the Bodie and soul unto everlasting life 5. The Questions then to be discussed are Two First What it is to eat Christs flesh and drink his Blood Secondly What it is for Christ to Dwell or abide in us and us to dwell or abide in Him All agree that there is A Twofold eating of Christs Bodie and A Twofold drinking of his Blood One meerly Sacramental and another Spiritual Which agreement notwithstanding There ariseth A Third Question viz. What manner of eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Blood is in this place either onely or principally meant For the Resolution of this Question we are breifly to explicate each member of this Division viz. 1. What it is to eat Christs Bodie and drink his Blood Sacramentally onely 2. What it is to eat his Bodie and Drink his Blood Spiritually First then All that are partakers of this Sacrament eat Christs Bodie and Drink his Blood sacramentally that is they eat that Bread which Sacramentally is his Bodie and drink that Cup which Sacramentally is his Blood whether they eat or drink faithfully or unfaithfully For All the Israelites 1 Cor. 10. Drank of the same Spiritual Rock which was Christ Sacramentally All of them were partakers of his presence when Moses smote the Rock Yet with many of them God was not well pleased because they did not faithfully either Drink or participate of his presence And more displeased he is with such as eat Christs Bodie and Drink his blood unworthily though they eat and drink them Sacramentally For eating and drinking so onely that is without faith or due respect they eat and drink to their own Condemnation because they do not Discern or rightly esteem Christs Bodie or presence in the H. Sacrament May we say then that Christ is Really present in the Sacrament as well to the unworthy as to the faithful receivers Yes this we must grant yet must we add withal that he is really present with them in a quite contrary manner really present he is because virtually present to both because the operation or efficacie of his Bodie and blood is not metaphorical but real in both Thus the bodily Sun though locally distant for its substance is really present by its heat and light as well to sore eyes as to clear sights but really present to both by a contrarie real operation and by the like contrary operation it is really present to clay and to wax it really hardneth the one and really softeneth the other So doth Christs Bodie and Blood by its invisible but real influence mollifie the hearts of such as come to the Sacrament with due preparation but harden such as unworthily receive the consecrated Elements If he that will hear the word must take heed how he hears much more must he which means to receive the Sacrament of Christs bodie and blood be careful how he receives He that will present himself at this great Marriage Feast of the Lamb without a wedding garment had better be absent It was alwayes safer not to approach the presence of God manifested or exhibited in extraordinarie manner as in his Sanctuarie or in the Ark then to make appearance before it in an unhallowed manner or without due preparation Now when we say that Christ is really present in the Sacrament our meaning is that as God he is present in an extraordinarie manner after such a manner as he was present before his incarnation in his Sanctuarie in the Ark of his Covenant and by the Power of his God-head thus extraordinarilie present he diffuseth the vertue or operation of his Humane Nature either to the vivification or hardning of their hearts who receive the Sacramental Pledges So then a man by eating Christs bodie meerly Sacramentally may be hardned may be excluded from his gracious presence But no man hath Christ dwelling in him by this manner of eating his flesh and drinking his blood unlesse withal he eate the one and drink the other Spiritually The Eating then of Christs bodie and drinking his blood meerly Sacramentally is not the eating and drinking here meant 6. They are said to eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood Spiritually which rightly apprehend his Death and Passion which by Faith meditate and ruminate upon them making application to themselves aswel of the great danger which may ensue upon the neglect of such great benefits as he hath purchased for them as of the inestimable good which alwayes accompanies the right esteeme or contemplation of his Bodie which was given for them and of his Blood which was shed for them He which thus eateth Christs Flesh and drinketh his Blood by Faith although he do not for the time present eat his Bodie or drink his blood Sacramentally hath a true interest in this promise He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him so he do not neglect to eat his Bodie and drink his Blood Sacramentally when occasion requires and opportunitie serves So that Spiritual eating and drinking Christ by Faith is the true preparative for the worthy receiving of his bodie and blood Sacramentally He that doth not so prepare himself for the receiving of his body and blood doth receive him unworthily whilest he receives him Sacramentally The main Question is Whether Christs words be to be understood at all of Sacramental eating and drinking or of Spiritual eating and drinking onely 7. Many there were and yet are in Reformed Churches which deny this place to be meant of Sacramental Eating But as Beza amongst others well observes they which deny this place to be meant at all of Sacramental eating err no lesse then they do which restrain it only to Sacramental eating Their error which deny it to be meant at all of Sacramental eating is so much the worse because it gave advantage to our Adversaries of the Romish Church which want no wit to work upon all advantages given To omit others Jansenius and Dr. Hessels two of the most exquisite expositors of Scriptures and most Judicious Divines which the Romish Church had after the Reformation was begun by Luther and Zuinglius and prosecuted by Calvin expressely deny our Saviours dispute in this Chapter with the Jews to be meant at all of Sacramental eating or drinking The Reason which enforced these two great Divines to slight the authoritie of most writers in their own Church and to wave the authoritie of most ancient Fathers which it is evident do understand this
place of Sacramental eating and drinking was because they saw no possibilitie how to maintain the peremptorie decrees of the Councels of Constance and Basil concerning Communion under one kind if the words of our Saviour ver 53. of this Chapter be to be understood of Sacramental eating and drinking For it is granted by all that the Consecrated bread is Sacramentally his Bodie not his Blood and that the Cup is Sacramentally his Blood not his Bodie And yet our Saviours words are express Except ye eate the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you So that all which hope to have life must Sacramentally drink his blood aswel as eat his flesh if this place be meant of Sacramental eating That evasion which most oâ—â— modern Priests and Jesuites use for eluding rather then answering this Objection was too palpable in the Judgement of these two great Divines as it since hath seemed to others of that Church which yet maintain that the former words of our Saviour are to be understood of Sacramental eating Christs flesh and drinking Christs blood The evasion of modern Priests and Jesuits is that he which Sacramentally receives Christs Bodie under the shape or form of Sacramental bread doth with it receive his blood per Concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because there is blood conteined in his bodie which they thus receive But this cannot satisfie any Romish Divine which understands himself or the ancient Doctrine which that Church pretends to follow For this device of receiving Christs blood in the bread per concomitantiam was but a late invention little above 200. years before Jansenius or Hessels lived And the newnesse of this imagination or invention which was generally applauded in the Romish Church in his time was one special motive why that Reverend Pastor of Blessed memorie Mr. Gilpin did disclaim the Romish Churches Doctrine in the Point of Transubstantiation as Bishop Tunstall his Uncle before him had done Secondly Admitting the bread were turned into Christs very bodie and after this conversion had blood in it as truly as flesh and bones yet all this would not salve the literal sense of our Saviours words in the 53 d verse if the eating and drinking which he there speaks of were Sacramental For suppose a man should feed upon raw flesh or upon flesh which had visible or material blood in it we might say indeed that he did eat blood per concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because the flesh which he eats had blood in it But no man would say That he did drink blood per concomitantiam For eating and drinking are two distinct acts and incompatible at one and the same time He that eateth flesh with blood in it doth not eat the flesh and drink the blood whilest he only eats but eats both together the one as principal the other as an appurtenance if he eat as a man and not as Swine do draugh which is no more an eating then a drinking Or if a man should drink blood mingled with some small portions of flesh we might say He did drink flesh by way of Concomitancie but no man would say that he did eat blood per concomitantiam albeit there were flesh in the blood which he drinks for he drinks both together he doth not eat either And for these reasons Pope Innocent expressely denies that he which eats Christs bodie whilst he only eats it doth drink his blood In his fourth Book Myster Evangel Legis ac Sacramenti Eucharist Chap. 21. Edit Venet. in quarto 8. The only refuge which the most learned in the Romish Church since Jansenius and Hessels dyed have found out for answering the former Objection of Reformed Writers is That the words of our Saviour Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man And drink his blood ye have no life in you are to be Expounded disjunctively as thus Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man Or drink his blood ye have no life in you The use or Corollarie of this Exposition is That if Christian people do Sacramentally Either eat Christs flesh Or drink his Blood as they ought that is with due preparation this will suffice seeing as they pretend there is no Divine precept which enjoynes all Christian People Sacramentally to receive Christs bodie and blood under both kindes Nor all Priests but only such as do Officiate or Consecrate The precept of Institution Bibite ex hoc omnes Drink ye all of this was punctually directed as they alledg to our Saviours Apostles only who were at this time made Priests and authorized to minister Christs bodie and blood after his death Yet were they not by their leave at this time Sacerdotes conficientes Our Saviour Christ himself did Consecrate both the Bread and Wine the Apostles were as much inferior to him as the meanest Lay-people are to the greatest Priest in the Romish Church to the Pope or summus Pontifex himself But the further Discussion of this Point belongs more properly to the words of the Institution The other Point of expounding et by vel or of shuffling in Or for And belongs to the Cognizance of the 53 and 56. verses To justifie this exposition Cardinal Tollet would perswade us That St Johns Greek Text is full of Hebraismes and there is nothing more familiar with Moses or with other sacred Hebrew writers then to use And for Or Et for Vel. And he brings divers instances to this purpose As for example that in Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth father And mother shall surely be put to death So it is word for word in the Hebrew and yet our English Translation as well as the Vulgar Latin renders the Original thus He that curseth father Or mother shall surely be put to death And it would be an ungodly Evasion for any Magistrate not to censure him as a transgressour of this Law which curseth his father albeit he do not curse his mother or which curseth his mother albeit he do not curse but rather blesse his father But must the true interpretation of such as are to judge according to this Law be derived from the peculiar phrase or dialect of the Hebrews No this was Cardinal Tollet's Errour for the Rule of Interpretation so the matter or circumstance be the same would hold as true in any dialect or language whatsoever The Question then is What certain general Rule we have when or in what cases the conjunctive particle And doth produce this or the like disjunctive sense or may warrant this or the like Exposition of this Law He that curseth father And mother shall surely die that is he which curseth Either father Or mother shall surely die For the like Exposition the Rules are Two One General and infallible Rule is this Whensoever the particle And doth couple not two parts of one and the same proposition but two intire propositions together That which is thus conjunctively affirmed of
give is his flesh that his flesh is meat indeed that his blood is drink indeed Now if the sacramental bread in S t Matthew cannot literally be said to be his body unlesse it be converted into the substance of his body then cannot Christ himselfe literally be said to be bread unlesse his substance be converted into the substance of bread His flesh cannot literaly be said meat indeed unlesse it be really and substantially converted into meat his blood cannot be said drink indeed unlesse it be really transubstantiated into drink If they grant these words to be meant of Sacramental eating or to be equivalent to the words of the Institution Now to deny these words to be meant of sacramentall eating is every way lesse expedient for reformed Churches than for the Romish And yet to restrayn them either to Sacramental eating onely or to Spirituall eating excluding sacramental is worst of all We are therefore to consider that sacramental eating and spiritual eating are not opposite or incompatible but subordinate Our eating of Christs body and drinking of Christs blood are then compleat when they are Sacramentally spiritual or spiritually sacramentall For as Calvin excellently observes albeit such as professe themselves zealous followers of him either do not understand him or do not second him to eat Christs body and drink Christs blood Sacramentally is more then to beleive in Christ more than to have our faith awaked or quickned by the sacramentall pledges For no man can spiritually eat Christ but by beleeving his death and passion yet sacramental eating addes some what to spiritual eating how quick and lively soever our faith be whilest wee eat him onely spiritually For though our faith were in both the same as well for degree as qualitie yet the object of our faith is not altogether the same at least the Union of our faith unto the same object is not altogether the same in sacramental and in spiritual eating Christs body and blood are so present in the Sacrament that wee receive a more speciall influence from them in use of the sacrament than without it wee do so we receive it worthily or with hearts prepared by spiritual eating precedent that is by serious meditation of Christs death and passion It is not all one either not to think on Christs death and passion out of the sacrament or to think on them negligently or not reverently and to receive the sacrament of his body and blood unworthily negligently or irreverently Now as the effects or consequence of the unworthy Receiving the Holy Sacrament is more Dangerous then the Effects or Consequence of not eating Christ Spiritually or of Careless Meditation upon Christs death and passion so the Effect of Sacramental Receiving worthily and faithfully performed is a Greater refreshing to the Soul then the effect of Receiving Him Spiritually onely though reverently and as becomes us Now unto the reverent and worthy Receiving of Christs Bodie and Blood both ways that is both Spiritually and Sacramentally as being the most complete performance of the Condition required is the Promise of our Saviour most immediatly annexed He that So eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood Dwelleth in Mee and I in Him The meaning of which Promise was the Second Point proposed paragraph the 5 th and should be next handled but that the Application here desireth to be inserted 11. What hath been spelled apart let us now put together He that intends aright to eat Christs flesh and drink his Blood Sacramentally to his Souls Health must come prepared by a right and worthy receiving of Both Spiritually Now we Spiritually eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood as often as we reverently and faithfully meditate upon Christs Death and remember it aright And this we do when we take a true Estimate of ourselves and of his death and sufferings for us For this is both duely to examine our selves or our own soules and rightly to Esteem or Discern the Lord's Bodie To Discern his Bodie from the bodies of other men we cannot unlesse we believe and acknowledge it to be The Bodie of the Son of God The bodie of God Blessed for ever as was shewed at large before in other Tracts and in the fore-part of this Book And this we may do and yet not rightly esteem that Love which Christ shewed unto us in offering his Bodie and Blood in respect of the love of others which would perhaps adventure their Bodies and shed their blood for us 12. To remember a A Good turn done by a friend and not to value and prize it as we ought is rather to forget then to remember his Friendlinesse Now no man can rightly prize the Death of Christ and the benefits thereof unlesse he truely believe that Christ Dyed for him But is Every one bound to believe This Yes He that doth not believe This doth not believe that Christ is The Messias or the Redeemer of the World To doubt of This is a degree of Infidelitie to denie it is more then Heresie a point of Jewish Infidelitie Yet to believe thus much and no more doth not immediately make a good Christian or worthy receiver of the Holy Sacrament What more then must every one believe That Christ dyed for him in particular certainly he must Nor doth the belief of This make him sure of his Salvation Every one must believe that Christ dyed for him in particular that he may be a worthy Receiver And Every One must worthily receive this Holy Sacrament that is worthily remember Christs death that he may make his Election sure But in what sense must Every one believe that Christ dyed for him in particular not Exclusively as if he dyed not for others as well as for him for this were to have the faith of Christ with respect of persons without charitie and contrarie to reason For if Every one must believe that Christ died for him in particular then every man must believe that Christ dyed for all men as well as for him Otherwise some men should be bound to believe an untruth But if he died for all men how is he said to die for thee and me in particular Verie well Thus. Though He dyed for all as well as for Thee or me yet did he not Die partly for thee and partly for me and partly for others but intirely for every one 13. Plato as Seneca in his 6. Book De Beneficijs Cap. 18. tells us thought himself obliged in kindnesse to one that had Transported him over a River without paying his Fare he reckoned it Positum apud Platonem officium But when he saw others partakers of the same Benefit he Disclaimed the Debt Hence Seneca draws This Aphorism It is not enough for him that will oblige me unto him to do me a good Turn unlesse he do it as to my self directly non tantùm mihi sed tanquà m mihi If upon the like considerations or to the end that they may think themselves obliged to
intimate either a new manner of Gods governing the world or a beginning of his reign over all Nations or of being made Lord and King or of arising to Judge the earth must be meant of God incarnate that is of the Son of God begotten before all worlds and begotten again from the dead For as the Son of God by his death and resurrection became our Lord by a peculiar Title So he was from the ground of the same Title appointed Judge of quick and dead by a peculiar and personal right This is more often and more Emphatically intimated by our Saviour Christ and by his Apostles then observed by many of their profest Interpreters First by St. Peter Acts 10. 40 41 42. Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not unto all the people but unto witnesses chosen before of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead And again by St. Paul Acts 17. 30 31. And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in the which he will Judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead But more fully by the same St. Paul Rom. 14. 9. To this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might he Lord both of the dead and living In this Collection from the Prophet Esay he saith no more then our Saviour hath done Iohn 5. 21 22. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them even so the Son quickeneth whom he will For the Father Iudgeth no man but hath committed all Judgment unto the Son 4. But the Former Question still revolves upon the same Center that it did before The Point or Center is This Whether St. Peter or St. Paul or whether our Saviour himself did deliver the doctrine fore-cited from that authority only which was delegated to them from God within that compass of time wherein they did converse with men here on earth or whether the doctrine which they then delivered were fully ratified by Divine Authority revealed and written before To this we Answer that our Saviour Himself in all his Answers to the Jews did but Comment upon or expound those Texts of holy Scripture which he had put into his Prophets mouthes long before he himself had spoken with the mouth of man One of the most pregnant Texts of the Old Testament is Psal 82. 1 2. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty he judgeth among the Gods How long will ye Judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked I have said ye are Gods and all of you are children of the most High but ye shall die like men and fall like one of the Princes that is like any Princes amongst the Heathen And dying and falling thus they could not expect that they were to rise again to Judge others but rather to be Judged by God himself or by him that was the Son of the most High in another manner then they were who though he were to die as man yet did he not cease to be the Son of God by his death Yea He was declared to be The only Son of God with Power by His Resurrection from the Dead And out of this hope of his future resurrection the Psalmist for Conclusion being as it seems opprest with corruption of Judgment appeals unto the supreme Judge as well of the dead as of the living Arise O God Iudge the earth for thou shalt inherit all Nations ver 8. He doth not say Thou dost inherit all Nations or thou art already set in Judgment but arise O God to Iudge the earth for thou shalt inherit all Nations So that the ground or Title of his universal Jurisdiction or judicature is his Inheritance of all Nations and his Title of Inheritance over all Nations bears date or began to be in Esse from the day of his Resurrection as you heard before out of St Paul Rom. 14. And was before him expresly foretold by the Prophet David Psal 2. 7 8 9. I will declare the Decree the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son This day have I begotten thee Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thou shalt break them with a rod of Iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potters vessel This Decree was executed this promise performed when All Power in Heaven and Earth was given unto Christ Matth. 28. 18. 5. To omit all further variety of Testimonies No other Article in our Creed is or can be so authentickly testified as This One Article of Christs coming to Judgment is Besides that it was expresly and distinctly foretold by the Prophets and the fulfilling of their prophecies expresly avouched by the Evangelists and the Apostles the Truth of it was in special manner sealed by the blood of this Great Judge himself The only matter of death which the malicious wit of his enemies could invent or pretend against him was from his voluntary Confession of this Article in the same Form or Terms wherein we profess our Belief of it For as you may read Matth. 26. 59. After the High-Priest and Elders had found that the Witnesses suborned against him did not agree in their testimonies or else which is more probable that their testimonies though well agreeing did not amount to any matter Capital the High-Priest seeks to intangle him in his own Answers to This Interrogatory I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be The Christ the Son of God ver 63. Our Saviour confesseth the Article or Interrogatory For so much is answered at least in the next words Thou hast said it Nevertheless I say unto you Hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power and coming in the Clouds of Heaven This Adversative Particle Nevertheless hath much troubled some Interpreters and some to ease themselves of further trouble would have it to be no Adversative but an Affirmative As to their apprehensions the Hebrew Ac whereof the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place is the expression in many places of the Old Testament is an Affirmative no Adversative Particle But it were easie to shew them wherein their Observations fail The difficulty of the Construction in this place may be Two wayes salved either 1. by filling up this Hiatus or chink in St. Matthew with the words of our Saviours answer which St. Luke relates Or 2. by borrowing this Adversative Particle from St. Matthew and adding it unto St. Luke's Relation Unto the former
by the Right hand of God only the Power of God be literally meant as many other Protestant Writers take as granted or leave unquestioned then Christ cannot be said to come from the Right hand of God for it is impossible that Christ should come or that there should be any true motion from that which is every where Neither can it be said nor may it so much as be imagined that Christ should depart from the Power of God which wheresoever he be as man doth accompany and guard him But if by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth be literally meant A visible and glorious Throne then Christ may be said as truly and locally to come from thence as from heaven to Iudge the Quick and the dead At least His Throne may remove with him Now that by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth A Visible or local Throne is meant I will at this time add only one Testimony unto the rest heretofore avouched in the handling of that Article which is more literally concludent then all the rest and it is Heb. 12. 2. He endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Not at the right hand of his own Throne but at the right hand of the Throne of God the Father 2. For perfecting this Map or Survey of Christs coming to Judgment already begun would it not be as pertinent to know The Place unto which he shall come as the Place whence he comes By the Rules of Art or method this last Question would be more pertinent then the former But seeing the Scriptures are not in this Point so express and punctual as in the former we may not so peremptorily determine it or so curiously search into it This is certain That Christ after his descending from heaven shall have his Throne or Seat of Judgment placed between the heaven and the earth in the air over-shadowed with clouds But over what part of the earth his throne shall be thus placed is uncertain or conjectural at the most but probable Many notwithstanding as well Antient as Modern are of Opinion That the Throne or Seat of Iudgment shall be placed over the Mount of Olives from which Christ did ascend and This for ought we have to say against it may be A Third Branch of the fore-mentioned similitude betwixt the manner of Christs ascending up into heaven and of his Coming to Judgment that is As he was received in a cloud into heaven over Mount Olivet so he shall descend in the clouds of heaven to Judge the world in the same place But the Testimony of Scripture which gives the best Ground of probability and a Tincture at least of moral certainty to the former opinion or conjecture is that of Zach. cap. 14. ver 3 4. Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those Nations to wit all those Nations which have been gathered in battel against Ierusalem and these in the verse precedent were all Nations as when he fought in the day of battel And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem on the East and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the East and toward the West and there shall be a very great Valley and half of the Mountain shall remove toward the North and half of it toward the South c. This place albeit perhaps in part it were verified in the destruction of Ierusalem yet may it be also literally meant of the Last General Judgment in which the rest of the prophecie following shall punctually and exactly be fulfilled 3. But to leave these Circumstances of Place from which and unto which Christ shall come and utterly to omit the Circumstance of Time which is more uncertain The most useful branch of the Third General Point proposed is to know or apprehend the Terrible manner of his Coming Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord saith our Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 11. we perswade men His Speech is very Emphatical and Significant an Aphorism of Life unto whose Truth every experienced Physician of the soul will easily subscribe For but a few men there be especially in these later times and these must be more then Men in some good measure Christian Men whom we can hope to perswade unto Godliness by the Love of God in Christ our Lord Albeit we should spend our brains in drawing the picture or proportion of the Love exhibited in Christ or give lustre or colour to the proportion drawn by the Evangelists with our own blood But by the Terror of the Lord or by decyphering of that last and dreadful day we shall perhaps perswade some men to become Christians as well in heart as in profession by taking Christ's Death and their own Lives into serious consideration Now of Terror or dread there be Two Corporeal Senses more apprehensive then the rest which are apt rather to suffer or feel then to Dread the evils which befal them The Two In-lets by which Dread or terror enters into the soul of man are the Eye and the Ear. All the Terrors of that last day may be reduced to these Two Heads To the strange and unusual Sights which shall then be seen and unto the strange and unusual Sounds or Voices which shall then be heard If we would search the Sacred Records from the Fall of our first Parents until our restauration was accomplished by Christ or until the Sacred Canon was compleat The notifications or apprehensions of Gods extraordinary presence whether they were made by voice or spectacle unusual have been fearful and terrible to flesh and blood though much better acquainted with Gods Presence then we are When our first Parents heard but the Voice of the Lord God walk in the garden in the cool of the day they hid themselves from his presence amongst the trees of the Garden Gen. 3. 8 10. When Gideon Judg. 6. 22. perceived that he which had spoken unto him albeit he had spoken nothing but words of comfort and encouragement was the Angel of the Lord Gideon said Alas O Lord God because I have seen an Angel of the Lord face to face The issue of his fear was Death which happily he conceived from Gods word to Moses Exod. 33. 20. Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and live But to assure Gideon that he was not compriz'd under that universal sentence of Death denounced by God himself to all that shall see him face to face the Lord saith unto him ver 23 24. Peace be unto thee fear not thou shalt not die and Gideon for further ratification of this Priviledge or dispensation built an altar unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom that is the Lord send peace or the Lord will be a Lord of peace unto his servants Yet could not this assurance made by the Lord himself unto
wrath malice blasphemie silthy communication out of your mouth Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds All of us have put off the old man by profession and Solemn Vow at our Baptism and a double Wo or Curse shall befal us unless we put him off in practise and resolution and labour to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him The particular Limbs of this New man are set forth unto us by our Apostle verse 13 14. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And above all these things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectnesse The particular Duties required of men and women according to their several conditions or states of life as of Wives to Husbands and of Husbands to Wives as of Children to Parents and of Parents to Children of Servants to Masters and of Masters to Servants are set down by the same Apostle in the verses following unto the end of the Chapter Now we must be altogether as certain that we do truely sincerely and constantly perform these duties which are by our Apostle in this place required whether as General to all Christians or such as concern particular estates of life as we are of This general That whosoever doth truly mortifie the deeds of the body and perform the other duties here required shall be undoubted partaker of the Resurrection unto Glory before we can be certain certitudine fidei by certaintie of faith of our salvation or Resurrection unto glory in particular 12. Doth any amongst us upon the examination required before the receiving of the Sacrament find himself extreamly negligent or generally defective in performance of these duties Let not such a one take his negligence past as any sign or undoubted mark of reprobation yet would I withall advise him not to approach the Lords Table without a wedding garment without a sincere and hearty sorrow for his negligences past without a sincere hearty desire of doing better hereafter If consciousness of former negligence in these duties or of practises contrary unto them be seasoned with sorrow and hearty desire of amendment the point whereon I would advise such a man for the present to pitch his faith shall not be his own Election nor the Certaintie of his present and future estate in Grace or Real and infallible Interest in Christ his Resurrection But upon that Character or description of our Saviour given by the Evangelical Prophet Esay 42. 3. and experienced upon Record by the Evangelist St. Matthew Matth. 12. 20. That he quencheth not smoaking flax that he will not shake the bruised Reed Remember that as the Second Resurrection unto glorie must be wrought by vertue of Christs Resurrection from the dead so the first Resurrection from the dead works of sin unto newness of life must be wrought by the participation of his Body which was given and of his Blood which was shed for us Remember that by his death and passion he became not only the Ransom but the Soveraign Medicine for all our sins A Medicine for our sins of wilfulness and commission to make us more wary not to offend A Medicine for our sins of negligence and omission to make us more diligent in the works of pietie And the time and place appointed for the receiving of the body and blood of Christ is the time and place appointed by Him for our cure Heal us then O Lord and we shall be healed Thou O Lord who hast abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel Enliven and enlighten our hearts by thy Spirit and in them thus enlightned kindle a love of doing thy Will bring good intentions to good desires and good desires to firm resolutions and confirm our Resolutions with constancie and perseverance in thy service Amen ALmighty God which hast given thine only Son to die for our Sins and to rise again for our Justification mercifully grant that we both follow the example of his patience and be made partakers of his Resurrection through the same Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Almighty God give us Grace so to cast away the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of light now in the Time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humilitie that at the last day when he shall come again in his Glorious Majestie to judge both the Quick and the Dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holie Ghost now and ever Amen The End of the fourth Section SECTION V. Of the Article of Everlasting life A Transition of the Publishers VVE are now by the Good hand of God upon the Work arrived at The fifth Section A very Considerable Part of this Eleventh Book The Subject matter of this Section according to what was cut out by the Method proposed in the oft mentioned Ninth Chapter is The Final Doom Award or Sentence of Life and Death which The King of Glorie our most worthy Judge Eternal shall respectively pronounce and pass upon all at that Dreadful and yet Ioyful Day of Iudgment when he shall deal and distribute Palms and Prizes Crowns and a Kingdom to the little or in Comparison the less Flock or Sheep set at his Right hand for whom such good things were prepared from the Foundation of the world But utter Extermination to the goats on the Left hand whom he will send accursed into Everlasting Prisons there to be tormented in that fire which was first prepared not for them but for their Tempter and tormentors the Divel and his Angels I confess our Great Author closes not with the Point of Everlasting life till he come to the Twentieth Chapter But I thought my self bound here to insert the Three next Chapters viz. the 17 18 and 19 for these reasons following 1. Because they be Three and the First Three of Thirteen Excellent and most Elaborate Tracts all in order composed upon The sixth Chapter to the Romans and pity it was to sever them from the Other with which they so well consort and sure 2. If I had left out These Three I should not onely have done prejudice to the Author and his work but to the Reader and his Content or benefit who will find that these Three Chapters are as comely and as useful Introductions to his Rich Discourses about the Domus Aeternitatis the two several long Homes of all mankind as any Propylaea or Areae can possibly be to any two Houses of this Worlds Building 3. The Doctrine delivered in these Three Next Chapters is so promotive and incentive of Christian Pietie and some of it so Homogeneal to the ensuing Tracts that they could not be more fitly placed then before the Discourses about the Final Award or Sentence 4.
arraign accuse and judge our selves for our former frequent neglect of our Vow in Baptism Secondly To request Absolution and pardon of God which no man humbly and seriously doth but he solemnly promiseth amendment of what is past Thirdly To implore the special aid or assistance of Gods Spirit for better performance of our Vow and of what we now promise And all this only for the merits of Christ and through the efficacy of his Body and Blood I will conclude with that of the Psalmist Vovete vota reddite Jehovae CHAP. XX. ROMANS 6. 21. 21. For the end of those things is Death 23. For the wages of sin is Death The first and second Death Both literally meant The wages of Sin Both described Both compared and shewed How and wherein the Second Death exceeds the First The greater deprivation of Good the worse and more unwelcom death is Every member of the Bodie every facultie of the Soul the Seat and Subject of the Second Death A Map and Scale The Surface and Soliditie of the Second Death Pain improved by inlarging the capacitie of the Patient and by intending or advancing the activitie of the Agent Three Dimensions of the second Death 1. Intensiveness 2. Duration 3. Un-intermitting Continuation of Torment Poena Damni Sensus Terms Co-incident Pains of the Damned Essential and Accidental Just to punish momentanie sin with pain eternal The reflection and revolution of thoughts upon the sinners folly The Worm of Conscience 1. DEath and life have the same Seat and Subject Nothing dieth unless it first live and Death in the General is An Extinction of life Death in Scripture is two Wayes taken First For bodily Death which is the First Death Secondly For the Death of both Body and Soul which is called the Second Death Both are here literally meant both are the wages of sin The former Death is common to all excepting such of the Godly as shall be found alive at Christs coming to Judgment they shall not die but be changed First then of bodily death and secondly of supernatural or the second death and wherein it exceedeth the first death The Opposition between Bodily Death and Bodily Life is meerly Privative such as is between light and darkness or between sight and blindness And this death must be distinguished according to the degrees of life of which it is the Privation Of life the degrees be three The First of meer Vegetables as of trees of plants of herbs or whatsoever is capable of growth or nourishment The Second is of Creatures indued with sense The third is the life of man who besides sense is endued with reason The reasonable life includes the sensitive as the sensitive doth the life vegetable Whatsoever bodily creature is endowed with reason is likewise endowed with sense But many things which are endowed with sense are uncapable of reason And again what Creature soever it be which is partaker of the life sensitive is partaker likewise of Vegetation of growth or nourishment But many things which are nourished and grow as trees herbs plants grass and corn are uncapable of the life sensitive and yet even these are said to die as they properly do when their nutriment fails But albeit the first beginning of mans life in the womb be only vegetative not sensible or reasonable yet no man dieth according to this kind of death only For such as fall into an Atrophie which is a kind of death or privation of the nutritive facultie yet are they not to be accounted as dead so long as they have the use of any sense no nor after they be deprived of all outward senses so long as their hearts do move or their lungs send out breath So that the bodily death of man includes a privation of sense and motion This difference again may be observed in the degrees of bodily death 2. Trees and vegetables alwayes die without pain so do not man and beast For that both of them are endowed with sense and motion both of them are capable of pain And pain if it be continued and extream drawes sensitive death after it Nor can this death approach or finde entrance into the seat of life but by pain And in as much as this kind of life is sweet death which is the deprivation of it is alwayes unpleasant and terrible unto man not only in respect of the pain which ushers it in but in respect of the loss of vitall sweetness which it brings with it The pains of dying may be as great in beasts as in man so is not the loss of that goodness which is conteined in life for reasonless creatures perceive it not A memorie they have of pains past a sense or feeling of pains present and a fear of death when it approacheth But no fore-thought or reckoning of what followes after death This is proper to the reasonable creature Now this Fore-thought of what may follow after makes death more bitter to man then it can be to reasonless creatures And amongst men the more or greater the contentments of life have been and the better they are provided for the continual supply of such contentments the more grievous is the conceipt or fore-thought of death natural unto them The summons of death are usually more unwelcome to a man in perfect health then to a crased body So it is to a man of wealth and credit more then to one of a forlorn estate or broken fortunes So saith Ecclesiasticus Chap. 41. 1. O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his Possessions unto the man that hath nothing to vex him and that hath prosperitie in all things yea unto him that is yet able to receive meat Yet is not the loss of life of sense or the foregoing of worldly contentments the only cause why men naturally fear death For though it deprive them of all these yet doth not the death of man consist in this deprivation The body loseth all these by the divorce which death makes betwixt it and the soul But seeing the substance of the soul still remains the greatest fear which can possess a natural man is the future doubtful estate of the soul after this dissolution Many which never hoped or expected any Re-union or second marriage between the soul and body after death had once divorced them had yet a true Notion that the soul did not die with the body and out of this conceipt some were more afraid of death then any brutish or reasonless creature can be Some other few became as desirous of it as Prisoners which hope to scape are of a Gaol deliverie and thought it a great freedom especially in their discontented melancholy passion to have the keyes of this mortal prison in their own keeping to be able to let their souls and life out at their pleasure But though it be universally true that the corruptible body during the time of this
shelter of his ey lids which his cruell enemies for increasing his pain and lingring torture had cut off Others again which wanted no contentment either of the outward or internal senses have died through meer grief and sorrow first conceived either from losse of goods or friends or for fear of disgrace and shame and some through excessive and suddain joy So that in this life it is universally true and undoubtedly experienced in all the bodily senses and most other faculties of the soul Nullum violentum est Perpetuum There is no grief no pain or sorrow whether inflicted by external Agents or whether it breeds within us or be hatched by the reflection of our own thoughts upon others wrongs or our own oversights or misdeeds but if it be violent or excessive it becomes like a raging flame which both devours the subject whereon it exerciseth its efficacie and puts an end to its own Being by destroying that fuel which fed it 7. This then is the propertie of the second death and the miserable condition of such as must receive the wages of sin That after the Resurrection of the body the capacitie aswell of the bodily senses as of other faculties are so far improved so far inlarged that no extremity of any external Agent no virulency of any disease which breeds within them no strength of imagination or Reflection upon what they have in time past foolishly done or what they suffer for the present or may justly fear hereafter can either dissolve or weaken their passive capacities or strength to indure the like Every facultie becomes more durable then an Anvil to receive all the blows that can be fastned upon them and all the impressions how violent soever which in this life would in an instant dissolve or dead them So that the second death as is said before is a life or vivacitie continually to sustain deadly pains The Dimensions of this death may be deduced to these three heads First to the intensiveness of the pain or grief which is more extream then any man in this life can suffer because the capacities of every sense or passive facultie are in a manner infinitely inlarged and so is the strength or violence of external Agents and the sting of conscience or perplexed thoughts wonderfully increased Secondly to the duration of all those punishments for it is a death everlasting Lastly to the uncessant perpetuitie of these everlasting pains for they are not inflicted by fits but without all intermission though but for a moment There is not an ill day and a good not an ill hour and a good not an ill minute and a good not an ill moment and a good in hell All times are extreamly evil varietie of torments breed no ease Thus much appeared by the Parable of the rich glutton who could not obtain so much of Abraham as a drop of water to cool his tongue which if it had been granted could not have effected any intermission or intercision of pain nor any abatement for the present which would not have inraged the flame as much in the next moment So that such as suffer the second death know not how to ask any thing for their good because indeed nothing can do them any good but all things even their own wishes conspire unto their harme and increase their wo and miserie 8. Some taking occasion from this Parable have moved a question not much necessarie whether the fire of hell be material fire or no that is such as may palpably or visibly scorch the body and torment the outward senses Sometimes this fire is described by a flame as in the Parable of the rich glutton sometimes by the blackness of darkness as in Saint Jude It is not the flame or visibilitie of this fire which argues it to be material the flame is least material in our fire And palpable it may be though not visible But with this question I will not meddle being impossible to be determined without sight or experience which God grant we never have It shall suffice therefore in brief to shew how this fire or rather the pains of the second death are decyphered or displayed in Scripture Now As the joyes of Heaven are set forth unto us under such Emblemes or representations as are visible or known unto us and yet we do not beleive that they are formally or properly such as these shadows or pictures represent but rather eminently contain the greatest joyes that by these representations we can conceive or imagine So we are bound to beleive That the pains of Hell are at least either properly and formally such as the Scripture describes them to be or more extream and violent then if they were such as the characters which the holy Ghost hath put upon them do without Metaphor import or signifie More extream they are then flesh and blood in this life could endure for a minute For as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven so neither can they endure or inherit the kingdom of Satan there must be a change of this corruptible nature before it be capable of these everlasting pains So much the description of it in holy Scripture doth import The first and that a Terrible description of it is Esai 30. 33. Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared the pile thereof is fire and much 〈◊〉 the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it The like but more terrible hath Saint John Rev. 20. 10. The Divel that deceived them was cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever and as he adds ver 14. This lake of fire is the second death And Saint Jude tels us that The destruction of Sodom and Gommorrah and the cities about them is set forth as an example or type of this eternal fire that is such fearful torments as that people suffered for a moment the damned shall suffer in hell eternally The ruines of Sodom and Gomorah and the dead sea or brimstone Lake wherein neither fish nor other creature liveth was left unto all future ages to serve as a map or picture of that lake of fire and brimstone which Saint Iohn mentions that is of Hell Now the very steam of such a Lake would stifle or torment flesh and blood to death in a moment the outward senses are not capable of its first impressions 9. Some School-men have moved A more pertinent Question whether this punishment of sense which or the instrumental mean of which is thus described unto us by a Lake of fire and brimstone be greater or lesse then the Poena damni that is Whether their imprisonment or confinement to Hell and their subjection to tormenting Fiends be worse then their Exclusion out of Heaven and the perpetual loss of Gods joyful presence The most Resolve That Poena damni the loss of Gods
never dieth which is the chief part of the second Death as heaviness of spirit or grudgings are of Fevers or other diseases which without preventing Physick or diet do alwayes follow them 4. But this Prognostick of the second death or this fear of hell pains which the Sting of Conscience alwayes exhibits must be warily taken and weighed with Judgment The right observance of them as every other good quality or habit is beset with Two contrary extremes The one in defect The other in excess The defect is Carelesnesse The excesse Despere or too much dejection of mind The intimations or Prognosticks which the Sting of Conscience exhibits of death spiritual are often mistaken for the effects of bodily melancholy and the best medicine for melancholy is pleasant society or mirth Out of this mistaking most men prevent that Compassion which is due to their own souls after such a manner as Jewish parents did prevent their natural pity towards their children when they sacrificed them unto Molech by filling their ears with the loud sound of wind Instruments lest the shrikes of the Infants whom they inclosed in an Image of hot glowing brass by entring in at their ears might move their Jewish hearts to pity And most men lest they should be stung with grief of spirit or conscience seek to stifle their first murmurings and repinings either with unhallowed or unseasonable mirth Others by seeking to avoid this common extreme often fall into the contrary which is of the Two the worse to wit dispere or too much dejection of spirit That which the Heathen observed of grief in General is most true of this Particular the grief of a Wounded Spirit Dolori si fraena remitt as nulla materia non est maxima If we let loose the reins to grief or sorrow the least matter or occasion of either will be more weighty then we can well bear Mans unbridled fancie is as a multiplying Glasse which represents every thing as well matter of sorrow as of pleasure in a far greater quantity then it really hath And unless our Cogitations or sad remembrances of sins past be moderated with Judgment and discretion they will appear to our fancies like Cains transgression greater then can be forgiven or then we can hope that the God of mercy will forgive For holding the right mean betwixt these Extrems Carelesnesse and despere there is no means so effectual as to be rightly instructed in the hope of everlasting Life and Fear of everlasting death Immature or unripe hopes of the One ingendereth carelesnesse or presumption so doth erroneous fear of the other bring forth despere He that is perswaded that every one always is in the Estate of the Elect or of the Reprobate cannot avoid the one or other extreme And the only remedy to prevent despere or being swallowed up with grief either in the consciousnes of grosser sins lately committed or whiles we reflect upon sins past is to purge our selves of that Erroneous Opinion concerning Absolute Reprobation or irreversible ordination to death before we were born or from the time of our second birth by baptisme 5 To purge our brain or fancie of this opinion let us take the form and Tenor of the Final sentence into consideration which we may do without digression or diversion Both branches of this sentence we have Mat. 25. The first branch ver 34. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world he doth not say before all worlds though this in a good sense is true most true if we speak of Gods designe or Act for all his Acts or designes are as he is Eternal without beginning so are not the things designed or enacted by him they take their beginning in time or with time The Kingdom prepared for Gods people was prepared when the world was made not before so good and gracious was our God that he did not make man or Angel untill he had prepared a place convenient for them take them as they were his creatures or workmanship and they were all ordained to a life of bliss Paradise was made for man and it may be after man was made but the Heaven of Heavens was prepared for man before he was made and made for the Angels if not before they were made yet when they were made But the Sentence of death ver 41. runs in another Tenor Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire he doth not say prepared for you from the foundation of the world but prepared for the Divel and his angels Those immortal spirits which now are divels were sometime Angels God made them so They made themselves divels Now hell fire was not prepared for them whilst they were Angels not from the foundation of the world but from the time wherein of Angels they became Divels Nor are men at all ordained to it untill of men they become Satans angels And as Satan and his angels the spirits which fell with him continue the self same individual substances which they were when God first created them yet are no way the same but quite contrary for qualitie and disposition so the place whereto they are confined may be for substance space and dimension the same it was at the first creation but not the same for quality it became a prison or place of torment when Satan and other spirits which fell with him of Angels made themselves Divels Satan as some think brought that fire wherein he and his Angels shall be tormented into the bowels of the earth when he fell like lightning from heaven However if the Angels had not sinned there had been no hell no tormenting fire and unless men become the Divels Angels they shall not be cast into hell fire God doth not ordain men to be Satans angels but men continuing his sons or servants God ordaines them to take their portion with him So that if we remove the opinion of Absolute-Reprobation or of irreversible ordination of mens persons unto death before they were baptized or born or if men would be confirmed in faith that no such Sentence or Decree is gone out against them whilst they have either will desire or opportunitie to call upon God through Jesus Christ for remission of sins whether by confession of them or by absolution from them upon such confession or by receiving the Sacrament of Christs body and blood no danger can accrue from the frequent meditation of everlasting death or from such representations of the horrours of it as the often reflecting upon our sins past and the working of the Sting of Conscience upon such reflections will present unto us 6. Another excellent Use and that a Positive One there is of these meditations For no man ordinarily can have a true Tast or rellish of Eternal Life but he which hath had some Tast or grudging of everlasting
Heaven and if those of Sardis were to walk with him in white robes Because they were Worthie The Controversie may seem Concluded That Good Works are meritorious of heavenly Ioyes or of Eternal Life 5. To the latter Objections or frame of Arguments drawn from these and the like places For I was an hungry and you gave me meat c. Calvin makes Answer That these and the like particles Quia Etenim For or Because do not alwayes import or denote The true Cause of things but sometimes only the Order or connexion betwixt them But However this may be True it is not so Punctuall but that Bellarmine and others take their advantage from it as having the Authoritie of the Grammer Rule against it For the particles used in all the places alleged by them are Conjunctions not Copulative or Connexive but Causal And it may seem harsh to say That some conjunction causal doth not import a causalitie It is true Yet sometimes they import no cause at all of the thing it self but onely of our knowledge of it Oft-times again they import no Efficacious causalitie of the thing it self but only Causam sine qua non that is some necessary means or condition without which the Prime and Principal cause doth not produce its Effect To give you examples or Instances of both these observations If there should come into This or the like Corporation A stranger who knowes not any Magistrate by sight he would say surely this is the chief Magistrate Because all others give place unto him because the Ensignes of Authoritie are carried before him Here the word Because must necessarily denote A true cause but not the cause why he is the chief Magistrate for that is only his true and just Election What cause doth it then denote The cause of his knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate Thus when we come to the knowledge of the cause by the Effect The effect is the cause of our knowledge of the cause As others giving place unto him or the carrying of the Ensignes of Authority before him is not the cause why this or that man is the chief Magistrate for the time being but rather his being the chief Magistrate is the cause why all others give him place and why the Ensignes of Authoritie are born before him Yet these and the like Effects are the true cause or reason of a strangers knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate And by this Rule we are to interpret that saying of our Saviour many sins are forgiven her for she loved much In which speech it may not be denied but that the Particle For imports A true cause yet no cause of the thing it self to wit of her love For this were utterly to reverse or thwart our Saviours meaning which was no other then this That the forgivenesse of her sins was the cause of her love so was not her Love the cause of the forgiveness of her sins which by our adversaries confession being of Free Grace and of the First Grace which was bestowed upon her could not be merited or deserved Howbeit the manner of expressing of her loue by washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hairs was The true cause of every understanding or Observant mans knowledge that many sins were forgiven her and unlesse she had an apprehension of her manifold sins thus freely forgiven her she could not have loved him so much or made such expression of her Love 6. Sometimes again this Particle For or the like causal speech imports only a subordinate or instrumental cause or A necessary means or condition required without which the Positive the Principal and only efficacious cause especially if it work freely doth not produce its intended Effect To put the case home in this present business Suppose a great and potent Prince out of his own meer motion and free grace should proclaim a pardon to an Army of Traytors and Rebels which had in Justice deserved death if a man should ask What is the cause or reason why the Law doth not proceed against them no other cause could be assigned besides the gracious favour of the Prince But if one should further ask Why the pardon being freely promised to all the principal malefactors it may be are pardoned or restored to their blood or advanced to dignities whereas others which were included in the same pardon are exiled or put to death The speech would be proper and in its kinde Truly causal if we should say the one part submitted themselves and craved allowance of their pardon whereas the other stood out and rejected it For it is to be presumed that no Prince being able to quell his rebellious adversaries will suffer any to enjoy the benefit of a General Pardon how freely soever it be granted unlesse they submit themselves unto it and crave the benefit of it with such humility as becomes malefactors or men obnoxious Much lesse will he restore any to blood or advance them to dignities whom he knowes or suspects still to continue ill affected or disloyal in heart So then the not-submission or continuance in rebellion is The true and Positive Cause why the one sort enjoy no benefit of the General Pardon but are more severely dealt withall for rejecting the princes Grace then they should have been dealt withall if no Pardon had been granted The humble submission of the other and their penitence for their former misdeeds is Causa sine qua non that is a necessarie means or Condition without which the Prince how gracious soever would not suffer them to enjoy the benefit of their Pardon would not restore them to their blood would not advance them to greater dignities This is the very Case of Adam and all his sons All of us were Traytors and Rebels against the Great God and King of Heaven who is better able to quell the whole host of mankinde than any Prince his meanest Rebellious subjects yet it pleased him to pardon us more freely then any earthly Magistrate can do a malefactor If then the reason be demanded Why any of mankinde are saved Why they are restored unto their blood and advanced to greater dignitie then Adam in Paradise enjoyed no other true cause can be assigned of these Effects besides The meer grace and mercy of the Almighty Judge But if it be further demanded Why some of mankinde enjoy the benefit of this Pardon and inherit Eternal Life Why others are sentenced to everlasting death When as the free Pardon with its benefits were seriously and sincerely tendred to all The Answer is Orthodoxal and True Because some in true humilitie accepted of the Pardon and craved allowance of it whereas others rejected it and sleighted such Proclamations or significations of it as the God of mercy and compassion had given out not to this or that man only but To all the World So that the Omission of those good works which our Saviour mentions in the
affraid of being censured as Puritanes for speaking against them though out of this place then would have blushed to have been spectators of their lewd unseasonable sportings in places not so well be fitting their Calling I will not take upon me to Censure this or any like Recreation as altogether unlawful But what time hath been for sundry years past would God this present did presage much better to come wherein the use of these or other more unquestionable recreations might not justly be censured for superfluous if not preposterous And with what indignitie that worthy Bishop did prosecute these unseasonable vanities of his Countrymen I refer you to his books De Gubernatione Providentia a fit Manual for the volume but in these times an excellent Cordial for the matter Ludicra ergo publica Trever pet is Art thou an inhabitant of the miserable more then thrice ransacked Tryers and seekest thou after such fruitlesse toyes as playes Ubi quoeso exercendae Where on Gods name wilt thou have them acted an super bustum Cineres super sanguinem ossa mortuorum upon the Graves upon the ashes upon the blood and bones of thy massacred brethren and fellow Citizens The continuance of this vainitie in the living did in his estimation surpass the misery and infelicitie which had befalne the deceased 13. Death and the destroying Angel which by their often soaring hovering over our heads had over-shadowed this Citie and for the solitariness of these and like assembles had somtimes almost turned our day into night have now Gods name be praised for it taken their flight another way Yet shall not these Admonitions seem altogether so unseasonable now as our sportings were then Though secured we be from present dread yet may we without offence as men that had passed great dangers in their night Distempers or sudden affrights look back by day in Calm and sober thoughts upon our former wayes And I beseech you take these following speeches that distilled from that sage and learned Bishops zealous Pen as preservatives against the like dangerous times to come not as censures or invectives of mine to gall any for what is past Suppose this Reverend Bishop had lived amongst us how would he have taxed the unseasonable Luxuries of late times Go to now Oye that are strong to pour in wine or ye that have verified the Proverb by your practise that Mans life is but a stage play wherein you know to act none but the mimickes part ye that make your selves mutual sport by grieving or abusing others Go to now ye that have quite inverted Solomons Counsel ye that have wholly consecrated your selves to the house of mirth and feasting and hold it a hell to be drawn into the house of mourning where do ye mean to celebrate your wonted sports where shall your meriments where shall your pleasant meetings be what in the City which the Lord so often hath smitten which so often hath groaned under his heavie hand what even then when the sore did run amongst your brethren O fools and slow of heart to believe the writings of the Prophets and frequent Admonitions of so many holy and Religious men might not nature which nurtereth the heathen which teacheth the beasts of the field and birds of the air to know their season have also taught you how unseasonable your mirth how prodigious your insolence hath been What foul indignitie had you offered though you had offered it to a private man to revell it in the room wherein his children wherein his wife had laid a dying What humane heart what civil though unregenerate ear could endure to hear of one and the same family some in the midst of bitterest Agonies praying others swearing or blaspheming some panting for faintness or ratling for want of breath others cackling or shrugging at the sight of wanton sporting And dare you account them for whom Christ Jesus shed his blood lesse dear to him then dearest children are to loving Parents or wives to most loving husbands And what is this City in respect of him would God you would permit it so to be But at the best could you imagine it any more then the Chamber of the great King whom neither the heaven nor the heaven of heavens can contain Shall not his ear who filleth all places with his presence be as able to discern each dissonant noise or disagreeing speech or carriage within the wals or suburbs of this City as the most accurate musicians ear is to distinguish contrary Notes or jarring sounds within the compasse of a narrow parlour And what musick think you will it make in his ears or how will it sound to those harmonical spirits which by his appointment Pitch about this place when they shall hear in one corner some in the Agonie of their souls sending out grievious screiks and bitter outcries others out of their abundant heat of mirth and pastimes filling the streets with profuse immoderate clamors Some again praying with deep sighes and grievous groanes others foaming out their shame in drunken scurrilous or lascivious songs some having their hearts ready to break for grief others to burst their lungs with laughter These beloved have been the abuses in former times which any Reverent and zealous spirit that had lived amongst us justly might and questionless would have taxt more sharply And yet of such reproofes the best of us might well in some measure have been sharers But these dangers are gone long since would God the guilt of our sins were as far removed from us If it remain like times may return again What then remains but that we repent of what is past and take heed of what is to come Lord never let the pensive sighs the mournful groanes or grievous out-cryes of dying men be mingled with our lavish mirth and sportings O let not the songs of pleasure and the voice of death ascend the heavens or appear at thy Tribunal seat together least This most unseasonable discord sound still in thy ear until the sound of the Angels Trumpet summon us to that fearful Judgement wherein they may laugh and we may cry wherein their comfortless sighes and dolorous groanes may be changed into everlasting Haleluiahs of joy and peace and all immoderate unlawful mirth all unseasonable and untimely pleasures be terminated with endless grief And as for such as seek to raise the spirit of unhallowed mirth and belch out their scurrilous Jests by powring in wine and strong drink even in the dayes wherein the Lord hath called them to fasting and mourning O that they could consider the time may come wherein they shall wish for one drop of that liquor for a whole day which now they pour in hourly without measure to cool their scorched tongues And yet unto their greater misery shall not be heard in so miserable a wish but in the continual want of this and all other comfort their pleasant songs shall be turned into bitter howlings Their
assurance which is conteined in our belief of Christs Death and Passion The first branch of it is That God by giving his only Son for us did give us an inestimable pledge of his love to us in particular This we must believe Certitudine Fidei by Certaintie of Faith Upon this Foundation or Assurance of Faith our Apostle builds another Rom. 5. 9 10. Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him For if when we were Enemies we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled to God we shall be saved by his life And again Chap. 8. 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things These are the Prime Seeds of true Christian Faith and must be undoubtedly planted in every mans heart before he can be a fit Hearer much less a Disputer in other Points of Divinitie as of Election Reprobation c. Whilest we labour to plough up your hearts for the fit receiving of this Seed of Faith we must not baulk that saying of St. John 1 Ep. 3. 3. Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself as he is pure If your perswasions of your assured Estate in Grace grow up together with this Purification of your hearts then are they Perswasions of Faith not Presumptions CHAP. XXXX The Fourth Sermon upon this Text. ROMANS 2. 1. Therefore Thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that Judgest c. The Author Chapt. 38. propounded Three Points He handled The First in the 38 and 39. Chapt. The Second viz. How Papists and Protestants judging the Jew condemn themselves he omitteth having other-where spoken to that Point and Particularly Fol. 3342 3688. of this Book He proceeds here to The Third Point viz. How Jews Papists Protestants evidently condemn themselves vvhilst they Judge the Idolatrie of the Heathen 1. THe very worst that the Jew or Christian can object unto the Heathen as Heathen is the acknowledgement of many gods or the adoring of stocks of stones or as Daniel enstiles them gods of gold of silver brasse iron wood and stone How beit even this Imagination of many gods or the worshipping of many imaginary gods was but a Transfiguration or Transformation of the True and Only God into the similitude of those creatures or visible substances which they represented by the images which they worshipped This was the very height of heathenish Idolatry as our Apostle instructs us Rom. 1. 23. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God that is of the only God into an Image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things Of what things soever the images were which they did worship they changed the glory of God into the similitude of that thing whose Image they worshipped And by this means as the Apostle inferres ver 25. they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the Creature more than the Creator who is blessed for ever So then the Transformation of the Divine Nature into unfit similitudes is it which must give us the True Scale or Scantling for measuring the haynousness of that sin which we call Idolatry He that most grosly transforms mis-pictures or changes the nature of the true and only God is the most gross Idolater be he by profession a Jew a Turk an Heathen or a Christian And it was observed and excellently prosecuted by a Great Prelate a most Reverend and Learned Bishop in this Land That the worshipping of Images and the worshipping of Imaginations so the Imaginations and the Images be alike monstrous or unfitting come both to one Passe 2. In the worshipping of Images the Romish Church and the Heathens do at least for the outward Act too well agree And in this respect the Jew and Mahumetan are more averse from the ancient Heathens then the best in the Romish Church are And if the sinceritie of Gods worship did consist in Negatives as in not worshipping the Images of any living thing the Mahumetan or Jew might have the precedency of Reformed Churches So farre are they from worshipping Images that they do not allow the making of Pictures though for historical use A Painter or Picture-maker is as execrable a creature amongst them as a professed Jew a Turk or Sarazen or worshipper of Idols is amongst us Yet are the Jews and Mahumetans notorious Idolaters in that other main Branch or rather Essential Root of Idolatry that is in worshipping their own Imaginations or in observing the Fables or Traditions of their Ancestors To omit then that Branch of Idolatry which consists in the worshipping of Images we must examine ourselves I mean we Christians whether Papists or Protestants By our adherence to the Root of Idolatry that is the worshipping of Imaginations or the Transformation of the Divine Nature into the similitude of our corrupt desires or affections This is that which gave life and Being to the multiplicitie of imaginary gods amongst the Heathens And the Poyson of this Idolatry may be more malignant in others then it was or is in them for want of vent or issue 3. We of Reformed Churches rightly censure it as a Branch of heathenish Idolatry in the Romish Church in that they teach the people to make solemn supplication unto Saints deceased for their Intercession or mediation with God or Christ And under this Censure fall all their prayers which they make in this or the like form Sancta Maria Sancte Petre c. Ora pro nobis Into this branch of Formal Idolatry they could not possibly slide but through the other which properly consists in the Transformation or changing of the Divine Nature into the similitude of corruptible mans corrupt affections Now how deeply that very Church is tainted with this Idolatry Her own Plea for practising the former Branch in praying unto Saints will give evidence against them For the best warrant which her Sons can pretend unto to mis-perswade the multitude or vulgar is this That God is a Great King the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and therefore good manners requires that we do not preferre our Petitions immediately unto him but use the mediation or intercession of deceased Saints which are in greater favour with him then we wretched sinners are Now by this very Imagination or Conceit they transform the glorious Majestie of the invisible God and of his Christ into the similitude of mortal men of men though greater in power and Majestie then other men are yet for the most part not so good as they themselves are great not so inclinable to poor mens Peritions nor so compassionate of their miseries as meaner men are Or if by nature breeding or civil education these great Potentates of the world be more affable or compassionate then other men are yet are they not able to give dispatch to
them ye shall scourge in your Synagogues and persecute them from City to City That upon you may come all the righteous blood that was shee l upon the earth from the blood of the righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar Verse 36. Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this Generation Or as it is in St. Lukes Narration of our Saviours Comment upon this Story taken by himself or by others who heard him in the very same words wherein he uttered it Therefore also saith the Wisdom of God I will send them Prophets and Apostles some of them they shall or will slay persecute That the blood of all the Prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this Generation from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the Altar and the Temple Verily I say unto you it shall be required of this Generation This vehement reiterated Asseveration literally and punctually referrs unto the words of my Text. The Implication or Importance is as much as if he had said Ye Scribes and Pharisees may call to mind that when your Fore-fathers whose murtherous acts ye acknowledge did slay Zacharias the High-Priest he expired with these words in his mouth Lord look upon it and require it His innocent blood was then in part required upon King Ioash upon the Princes of Judah and other chief offenders But shall now again be required in full and exact measure of this present Generation more murtherous and bloody then their idolatrous fore-fathers at any time were 9. What shall we say then That this last Generation was guilty of the murther of Zachariah or to be plagued for their fathers sins in murthering him This Point will come to be discussed in the Third General And however that may be determined This Case is clear that These later Iews did make up the full measure of their fore-fathers iniquity in killing Gods Prophets especially in murthering Zechariah who was the most illustrious Type of Christ the Son of God in the Manner of his death and for the Occasions which these several Generations took respectively to murther them both The special Occasion which their fore-fathers took to kill Zachariah the Son of Iehoiada or Barachias for he bore both names though both in effect the same or one equivalent to the other was because he taxed them for their idolatry and laboured to bring them again to the worship of the true God The only quarel which the malice of the later Jews could pick against our Lord and Saviour was because he taxed their hellish Hypocrisies which their too Curious Reformation of their fore-fathers Idolatry had bred And taught them how to worship God in spirit and truth not in Ceremonies or meer bodily observance Neither Generation were so blind as to persecute men whom they did acknowledge to be immediately sent from God Yet were both furiously prone to persecute such as indeed were sent from God for pretending or promulging their Commission from God or taking the names of Prophets upon them so often as their doctrine did crosse their practises or violent passions This later Generation of Scribes and Pharisees after they had failed in their Proofs of any Capital matter of Fact or point of doctrine delivered by Christ condemned him for answering affirmatively to this Question proposed Tell us art thou the Son of God or as St. Mark more punctually expresseth it Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed Mark 14. 61. Zechariah as was now said was Christs true Picture for Quality for Office and for the Relation of Names and kindred For Zechariah was a Prophet and a Priest the Son of Iehoida which signifieth as much as The knowledge of God or as our Saviour expresseth the Reality answering to his name The son of Barachias that is The blessed of God And our Saviour was The Son of the only wise God the wisdom of God and The blessed of God the very God of blessing being the Great Prophet of God and high-Priest of our souls Lastly the Princes of Iudah having by glozing flattery perswaded their King to authorize their projects against Zechariah the High-Priest and Prophet of the Lord put them in execution upon the solemn Feast of Attonement or expiation The Scribes and Pharisees equal or Superior to these Lay-Princes in cruelty importuned Pilate by pretended observance and loyal obedience to the Roman Caesar to sacrifice The Son of the Blessed whom they had unjustly condemned unto their malice at that solemn Feast which was prefigured by the Feast of Expiation the Feast instituted in the memory of their deliverance out of Egypt CHAP. XLII MATTH 23. verse 34 35 36 c. Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and Wise men and Scribes and some of them ye shall or will kill and crucifie and some of them shall or will ye scourge in your Synagogues and persecute them from City to City That upon you may come or by which means will come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this Generation 2 Chron. 24. 22. The Lord look upon it and require it Luke 11. 51. Verily I say unto you it shall be required of this Generation THese words were uttered by our blessed Lord and Saviour against the Scribes and Pharisees with their Associates in Blood a little before the Feast of the Passover Whether that Last Passover wherein this Lamb of God prefigured by that Solemn Feast as also by the Death of Abel and his Sacrifice was offered upon the Cross is or may be a Question amongst the learned not at this time to be disputed But rather if occasion serve in the explication of the last verse Verily I say unto you ye shall not see me henceforth till that ye say Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. For gathering the true and full Connexion of this Passage with the former Relations it shall suffice to observe that as our Saviour never spared the Scribes and Pharisees So at this time above others he reproves them most fully and sharply The Matter of this Reproof was their avarice and hypocrisie The End partly to prevent the like desire of vain-glory with other Enormities in his Disciples Partly to cure if it were possible the Scribes and Pharisees of their hereditary disease Hence whereas they most affected Complemental Greetings in publick places or glorious Titles of Rabbies Our Saviour to allay this humour for respectful Salutations presents them Woes instead of glorious Titles he instyles them Hypocrites For striking at seven several Branches of their Hypocrisie he seven times in this Chapter begins his speech in this style Wo
Womans seed And whereas they thought themselves of all men most free from stain of the Prophets blood whose tombs they garnished our Saviour in my Text layes that especially to their Charge indicting them of all the murther committed from the beginning of the world until that present time or at least till Zechariahs death 3. The Indictment we must believe to be most true and just because framed by Truth it self But what the true meaning of it should be is not expressed by any Interpreter we have hitherto met with Such as a man in reason would soonest expect best satisfaction from for the most part pass it over in silence Others like young Conjurers which raise spirits they cannot lay cast such doubts as they are not able to assoil For acquainting you with as much as my reading or Observation upon late desires to satisfie my self in a point so difficult and useful have attained unto give me leave to reflect upon 2 Chron. 24. 22 and to look fore-right also into the words of St. Luke chapt 11. verse 51. Verily I say unto you it shall be required of this Generation Which few words include the greatest measure of righteous blood most unrighteously shed that ever was laid to any People or Nations Charge And yet laid to the charge of the Jewish Nation not indefinitely taken or according to several successions or generations but to the present Generation of this People and so laid by One that could not erre either in giving of the Charge or in point of Judicature upon any matter within the Charge For the Charge is laid by the Wisdom of God by the supreme Judge of quick and dead as you may see from the forty ninth verse Therefore also saith the wisdom of God I will send them Prophets and Apostles and some of them they shall or will slay and persecute that the righteous blood of all the Prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this Generation from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zechariah which perished between the Altar and the Temple Verily I say unto you it shall be required of this Generation The same Charge though with some variation of words yet with full Aequivalencie of sense we have in my Text Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and Wise men and Scribes c. But however the Charge and the Emphatical Ingemination for laying this Charge upon this Generation of Serpents in both Evangelists be for equivalency of sense the very same Yet St. Luke as I take it reherseth the Charge in the self-same words wherein our Saviour uttered it It shall be required of this Generation And in thus saying he declared himself to be Vates tam preteritorum quam futurorum better knowing the true meaning or importance of Zecharias his Imprecation or Prophecy and the time wherein it was to be fulfilled then Zecharias himself although both an High-Priest and a Prophet did when he uttered it The Imprecation or Prophecie of that Zecharias unto whom as I suppose the words recited out of St. Matthew and St. Luke have a peculiar Reference are recorded the 2 Chron. 24. 22. And when he died or as the Original hath it when he was a dying or in the very moment of death he said The Lord look upon it and require it The Exposition of which words First according to the Literal or Grammatical Sense with the Historical Circumstances precedent and subsequent And Secondly according to the Mystical Sense or the Emblematical Portendment of that Prodigious Fact which provoked that Godly High-Priest and Prophet to utter the fore-cited Imprecation Lord look upon it and require it hath been the Subject of my meditations of late delivered in A less and yet a greater Audience The Third General then proposed but left untouched comes now to be handled in this learned Auditory upon another Text. And that was The Discussion of such Questions or Cases of Conscience as were emergent whether out of the Literal or Mystical Sense of Zacharias the son of Jehoiada his dying words especially of such as be useful either for this present or future Times 4. And of such Questions the first is Who this Zachariah in St. Matthew and St. Luke is Whether it be He that was slain as is told 2 Chron. 24. 22. or some other of that name The Second supposing the same Zecharias to be meant in all three places Why the Wisdom of God after he had laid the blood of all the righteous men and Prophets whom their fore-fathers had slain or haply whom they intended to slay should instance in Zachariah the son of Jehoiada or of Barachiah as the last man whose blood was to be required The Third Whether the blood of Zecharias or other Prophets or righteous men slain by their fore-fathers or the blood of the Son of God himself or of his Apostles of whom this present Generation were the murtherers was in strict and Logical Construction of these words required of this present Generation Or in other Terms thus Whether the murther of Our Saviour or of his Apostles plotted or practised by this present Generation or rather the cruelties practised by their Fore-fathers upon the Prophets and other righteous men were the true and Positive Cause of all those unparalleld Plagues and Calamities which befel the Jewish Nation within forty or more years after our Saviours death of the desolation of Jewry and the Jews utter extirpation thence by Titus and Adrian The Fourth In what Cases or how farre the posterity or successors of any people or nation are liable to the punishment of their Ancestors sins or what manner of repentance is required for the known and grosse sinnes of their Fathers The Fifth VVhether it were lawful for any of Christs Apostles or other of his followers at this day upon the like provocations as Zacharias had to curse their persecutors in such manner as he did his upon their death-beds or when they are a dying The Sixth which might as well have been the First is VVith what Intent or to what End The Wisdom of God did send Prophets Apostles and VVise men unto this present Generation or their fore-fathers As whether to rescue them from the Plagues denounced against them by Zachariah and other Prophets or to bring their Righteous Blood upon them 5. To the first Question VVho this Zacharias was Some have questioned whether He was Zechariah Coaeval to Isaiah and witness of his Espousal Isai 8. Others there be of opinion this Zachariah here meant should be Zachariah the Prophet whose Prophesie is extant in the Sacred Volume the last in order but one as he was one of the last in time and prophecied about this peoples return from Babylon And it is true indeed that this Prophet was the Son of Barachiah as appears from the very first words of his Prophecie But this opinion is obnoxious to the same exceptions the former is viz.
it is neither warranted by Scriptures nor by any good Writer Neither is it credible that the Jews then living would kill the Prophet of the Lord immediately after their deliverance from captivity At least the Reverence to the Temple then scarce finished would have made them abstain from shedding his blood within the walls of it near the Altar Others there be amongst the Ancients but few later Writers of better note which think this Zacharias should be John Baptists Father what reason they should have so to think I cannot conjecture save only Our Saviours words in the 35. verse VVhom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar This in ordinary speech may seem to implie that this just man had been killed by this people now living not by their Fathers For so our Saviour happly had said Whom your Fathers slew not Whom YE slew But it is a Rule in Divinity to gather our Saviours and his Apostles meaning by the usual Phrase of Scriptures not by our common manner of speech Now it is usual to the Prophets and Sacred Writers to lay the fathers sins unto the childrens charge if they continue in the like or repent not for them And if this people now living must be plagued for the ancient Prophets blood no question but they were guilty of it and may be said to have slain them in the same sense they are endicted as guilty of it That our Saviour should not mean John Baptists Father is more then probable for these reasons First His death is not mentioned in the New Testament nor in any Good Ecclesiastical Writer Secondly Because it no way benefits the Authors of this Opinion but rather increaseth the difficultie For if he were slain by Herod the Great who was a Philistine by Parentage why should not John Baptist's death be laid to their charge being slain by Herods Son Nay why not our Saviours or his Apostles whom he fore-tels they would shortly kill and persecute This plainly argues that the reason why he names this Zacharias was not his slaughter And besides this reason there is none why we should think this Zacharias was John Baptist's Father As for the Apocriphal Stories or Traditions which are pretended for this guesse or groundless conjecture we have just cause to suspect that it rather brought forth them then that they should first deliver it Not to trouble your patience with any more Reasons for refuting those Opinions it is agreed upon by most late Writers I have read Papists or Protestants and by St. Hierom the best in this kind of all the Ancient that this Zachariah here spoken of was the son of Jehoiada the Priest whose death we have set down 2 Chron. 24. verse 21. And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the Commandement of the King in the Court of the House of the Lord. In what Court it is not specified but it is most probable from the circumstance of the Text that it was in the Court where the Priests offered sacrifices or in the place where he instructed or blessed the people for it is evident that Zechariah was slain in his Pue or publick seat appointed for instructing the People And hereunto the ancient Jews in their Traditions accord This is that our Saviour saith in my Text that he was slain between the Temple and the Altar By the Temple we are to understand the outward Courts or Iles or as we distinguish betwixt the Church and the Chancel the body of the Temple comprehending Atrium Israelis mulierum the Courts wherein the Congregation of men and women stood By the place between these and the Altar the Court where the Priests taught or celebrated their service And so it is said verse 20. That Zachariah should stand above the people when he delivered that message unto them for which they stoned him to death Why this Zachariah should be called the son of Barachiah divers Expositors bring divers reasons all probable in themselves and each agreeable with other Some think his father as was not unusual amongst the Jews had two names or a name and a sur-name Jehoiada and Barachiah Others think that our Saviour did not so much respect the usual Name whereby the Prophets father was called as his Conditions or vertues unto which the name of Barachiah did as well or better agree then Jehoiada although the one of these cannot much disagree in sense from the other for the one signifies The knowledge of the Lord the other to wit Barachiah The blessing of the Lord or Man blessed of the Lord. Well might both names befit that Famous High-Priest famous both for his wisdom and piety every way blessed of God and a great blessing to this people For as it is said 2 Chronicles chap. 24. verse 16. He had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his house In which respect he was buried in the City of David amongst their Kings Admitting then Jehoiada either usually had or were for the reasons intimated capable of these two Names it is not without a special Reason perhaps a Mystery that our Saviour in this place should call Zachariah rather the son of Barachiah then of Jehoiada For the more blessed his Father was of God the greater blessing he had been to Israel the more accursed was this ungratious people in killing his vertuous and religious son in the House of the Lord for disswading them from Idolatry And the more fully did they prefigure the sin of this wicked generation their children which for the like cause did now go about to kill the Son of God Christ Jesus Blessed for ever For hereafter they were to acknowledge Him to be the True Barachiah as it is intimated in the last verse of this chapter Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Thus much of the first Point Who this Zachariah was gives some light unto the Second 6. And the Second Question Why our Saviour should make such special instance in or peculiar mention of the Blood of Zachariah is the least difficult of all the rest and yet a Question not so easily answered as the learned Spanish Iesuite Maldonate in his Comments upon this place would perswade us His best Answer to this Question solemnly proposed by him is This. Christs purpose was only to instance in those Prophets whose slaughter was expresly testified in the Bible least the Scribes and Pharisees might deny them to have been slain by their fore-fathers Now of Prophets whose deaths are mentioned in Scripture Zacharias the son of Jehoiada was the last We have just occasion to suspect his conjecture were it true to be impertinent because the Reason whereby he seeks to confirm it is evidently untrue Seeing Zacharias the son of Jehoiada was not the last of all the Prophets whose bloody deaths are recorded in Scripture For in the 26. chap. of Ieremie There is express mention of one Uriah the son of Shemaiah of
Kiriath-jearim who for prophesying against Hicrusalem was put to death 240. years after Zechariah by Jehoiachim King of Judah and by his Council of State and of Warre and was fetcht back from Egypt whither he had fled for refuge by Elnathan the son of Achbor a great Counsellor of State and other Commissioners for this purpose unto Iehoiachim who slew him with the sword and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people And this Prophets blood and other indignities done unto him and to his Calling after his death were Required of that Present Generation of the King especially For as Ieremie perhaps taking his hint from this Bloody Fact had foretold so it came to pass that Iehoiachim was cast out of Ierusalem not into the Graves of the Common people but into the Open Fields for he had no other burial then the Burial of the Ass or other like contemptible creature But however the blood perhaps of this Prophet amongst many others was to be further Required of this Present Generation Yet Zacharias was the Last and I think the First of all the Prophets which at the moment of his death did beseech God to Require his blood and to revenge his death And this I take is the true Reason why Our Saviour after he had indicted the Jews of the blood of all the Prophets and righteous men shed from the foundation of the world should instance only in Abel the son of Adam and Zacharias the son of Iehoiada or Barachiah Christs Instance in Abel literally and punctually referres to that Dialogue betwixt God and Cain Gen. 4. 10. The Lord said unto Cain where is Abel thy Brother And he said I know not Am my brothers keeper And he said what hast thou done The voyce of thy brothers blood cryeth to me from the ground and now art thou cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brothers blood from thy hand But did the voyce of Zacharias his blood cry in like manner unto the Lord after his death or sollicit the like Curse or vengeance upon them which shed it or their posteritie as Abels did yes besides the fore-mentioned Imprecation Lord look upon it and Require it which was uttered by him after a great part of his blood and Spirits were spent his blood spake as bad things as that of Abels For so the Iewish Rabbins besides that Cluster of seven deadly sins committed by their fore-fathers at once in the murther of Zacharias mention another Circumstance subsequent not recorded in Scripture or not so plainly as a Christian Reader without their Comment or Tradition would take notice of it which in my Opinion doth better illustrate that passage of Scripture whereon they ground or seek to countenance it then any Christian Commentator hath done Our Fathers say they in shedding Zacharias's blood did not observe the Law of the blood of the Deer or Hart For so it was commanded Levit. 17. 13. Whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel or of the strangers that so journ among you which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten he shall even pour out the blood thereof and cover it with dust But Zacharias blood though shed in the Temple was not so covered it was apparent To this purpose they allege that of the Prophet Ezekiel chap 24. 6. Wo unto the bloody City Her blood is in the middest of her she set it upon the top of a rock she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance No question but the Prophets entire purpose was to indict Jerusalem as our Saviour doth in my Text of all the Innocent blood that had been shed before his time within her Territories and withall to note her Impudence in committing such foul sins so openly without care to cover the conspicuous marks of her own shame Yet this no way argues that the Prophets did not point out some Memorable and Prodigious Fact which might serve as an Emblem of her shameless carelessness in all the rest Such Allusions to particulars sufficiently known in their own times are very usual in the Prophets This is the special Reason why their Writings in General are so obscure to us why some of their Metaphors seem harsh or farre fetcht because in truth their speeches in these Cases are not meerly Metaphorical but include Historical References to some famous Accidents present or fresh in memory From the same Cause all antient Satyrists or such as tax the capital vices of their own times are hardly understood by later Ages without the Comments of such as lived with them or not long after them as our Posterity within few years will hardly understand some passages in the Fairie Queen or in Mother Hubbards or other Tales in Chaucer better known at this day to old Courtiers then to young Students It may be these murtherers sayd of Zachariah as their posteritie said of our Saviour His blood be on us and on our Children It is not likely they would be careful to cover it with dust or wipe the stain of it whilest fresh out of the wals or stones of the Temple because they had solemnly forsaken the House of the Lord and made a league to serve Groves and Idols willing perhaps to let the Print of his blood remain to terrifie others from beeing too forward in reproving the King and His Council for their offences against God But whether the marks of it were left on purpose or through mere forgetfulness of this people God in his Providence as the Prophet intimates suffered it so to remain To cause fury to come and to take vengeance For whereas this fact or forgetfulness to cover it was in the words before attributed to Jerusalem Her blood is in the middest of her she set it up on the top of the Rock she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust The Prophet after intimation of the Cause why it so remained To cause fury c. Immediately adds in the Person of God I have set her blood upon the top of a rock that it should not be covered Of these words no meaning can be rendred more natural then This To wit That God did suffer the print of Zachariah's righteous blood to remain in the Temple as it were to sollicit vengeance for all the rest that had been or should be shed in Jerusalem to crie unto him as Abel's did from the earth which as it seems was not covered certainly the voice of it was not smothered with dust How long the stain of blood especially dashed out of the body by violence will be apparent upon stones or moist wals experience doth not often teach because it is usually covered or wiped off whilest it is fresh Yet some prints of blood have longer remained unless Domestick Traditions be false on stones then the blood it self could have done by course of
nature in the veins that inclosed it Albeit we may with good probability presume that Zachariah's blood if we consider the manner of his death might continue by Gods permission or appointment farre above the time that any Ordinary Experience can testifie More strange it is which Ecclesiastical Writers report of this Prophets body that being crushed with stones it should be found otherwise intire and uncorrupt in the dayes of Theodosius which was above a thousand years after his death Unless they had greater Occasion then I can conceive to lie I neither dare distrust this Report of theirs nor the other Tradition of the Jews by whose account the stain of His blood remained a greater part of two hundred years in the Temple However we may with good probability conclude that the true Reason why our Saviour mentioned Zachariah's death as one special Cause of Ierusalems last destruction was not because he was the last or one of the last of the Prophets that had been murthered by the Scribes and Pharisees Fore-elders but rather because his murther was the most foul Prodigious Fact that was committed in that Land and did from the very Commission of it portend Destruction to the Temple and the Consequents of it fore-shadowed the miseries which were afterwards to befal the Nation The truth of this Conclusion will better appear from Discussion of the third Point proposed 7. And this was Whether the blood of Zacharias and other Prophets or of our Saviour and others after him were more especially required of this Generation Or Whether this Generation and their posterity were so grievously plagued as we know they were for their own personal offences against the Person of the Son of God or for communicating with their fathers in shedding the blood of the Prophets and of other righteous men The modern Jews peremptorily deny Their long Exile and Calamitie to have been inflicted upon them as a just punishment for putting Christ to death because their Fathers did not in their judgment therein offend Divers Christian Writers as it usually fals out refuting this Error of theirs run into a Contrary ascribing the Greivousness of their memorable plagues unto their personal offences against our Saviour being otherwise free from the sins wherein their fathers grievously trespassed Maldonate the Iesuite is so farre addicted to this Opinion that he thinks our Saviour in my Text spake but according to Vulgar Language As if to a Malefactor which had escaped often but is afterward taken for some notorious murther which cannot be pardoned men would say he should now pay for all his villanies not that they mean he shall suffer several punishments for several offences or more greivous tortures then were due for his last fact alone but that he should have judgement without mercie and be punished as grievously as might be though for it only Thus much then and no more he thinks our Saviour would have signified That the Scribes and Pharisees should suffer such greivous calamities for murthering Him and his Apostles as they might well seem to be plagued for their Fathers cruelties Howbeit they were not at all punished for them but only for their own For saith he although neither they nor their Fathers had killed either Prophet Apostle or Disciple but Christ alone they had deserved greater plagues for killing him then are recorded by Iosephus This last Assertion I confess is no less true then Non-concludent for the Conclusion to be inferred was not what manner of Plagues they did deserve for putting our Saviour to death but whether these punishments were de Facto inflicted for putting him to death or for the murther of Zachariah and other Prophets whom not their fathers only but they had slain for so our Saviour layeth the Charge of Zachariah's blood unto them in particular whom YE slew between the Temple and the Altar 8. A good Auditor must be able not only to give a true Onus or Charge but withal to make right Allocations or Deductions otherwise he shall often over-reckon himself or wrong such as are to deal with him The like skill is required in making such Calculatory Arguments as Maldonate and many other good Christians use in aggravating the offences of this Present Generation of the Jews against Our Saviour Let them lay the Charge of the later Jews trespasses as deep as they list or can we shall be able to make the Deductions or Allocations much-what equal so that Computatis computandis the greatest part or fullest measure of the blood which came now to be required of this Generation must arise as the literal meaning of my Text imports from the righteous blood of Zacharias and other Prophets unjustly shed in former Ages and unrepented of by this present Generation They must lay their Charge from the Infinite Excess of Christs Dignitie in respect of other Prophets for His Person was in Majestie truly Infinite We are to make the Deduction from his Infinite Power and Facility to forgive offences against himself or his Person For questionless he did as farre exceed all the Prophets in Goodness in Mercie and loving kindness as he did in Majestie and Greatness And had Peculiar Power and Authority to forgive sins and remit those plagues which the Prophets had denounced against Jerusalem and her children Nor could the malice of his enemies against him be more available to procure then His prayers and tears for Jerusalems peace were to pacifie his Fathers wrath against it especially for their offences against his Person alone 9. The flagrant Expressions of his special Love unto Ierusalem not yet alienated from the worst sort of this present Generation if we compare them with this Threatning fore-warning in my Text and in the words before it will bear this sense or brook this Paraphrase However I see and know you more maliciously bent against me then Cain was against his brother Abel then your fore-fathers Prince or People were against Zachariah the son of Iehoiada or of Barachiah however you thirst more greedily and more irrelentingly after my blood then the chafed Hart doth after the brooks of water yet when-ever you have glutted your selves with the sight of it pouout upon the ground In-stead of covering it with dust cast not this foul aspersion or slander upon me or it as if either it or I did or shall sollicit vengeance against you for the cruel indignities which ye have done or shall do either to me or to my followers when I am dead The blood of my Apostles will not speak so bad And My blood shall speak much better things for you then the blood of Abel did for his brother Cain then the blood of Zachariah whom your Fathers slew betwixt the Altar and the Temple did for the then King and the Princes or people of Iudah For my Heavenly Father hath not sent me nor will I give any Commission to my Followers or Embassadors to curse but to bless you not to wound and
of quick and dead But he that by vertue of his Commission as Son of man did freely forgive all other sins did as my Text imports remit all personal offences as they only concerned himself and did not suffer the fruits or effects of these later Jews malice to come upon Jerusalems score for shedding of righteous blood It was not his Will to have any more greivously punished for being malitiously bent against him then they should otherwise have been for the unrelenting habitual bent of their malice against whomsoever it had beene set Never was bitter enmitie practised against any so little desirous of revenge or so unwilling to accuse his enemies as he was for so he protests unto the Jews which sought his life Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father there is one that accuseth you even Moses in whom ye trust John 5. v. 45. Moses though till Christ came the meekest man that had been on earth had foretold and solemnly threatned those plagues whose execution most of the Prophets had sollicited But this Great Prophet beyond all measure of meekness and patience whereof humanity so but meer humanity is capable seeks by prayer by reproof by admonitions and exhortations by all means justly possible to prevent them he often fore-warns what would be the issue of their stubbornness which he never mentions but with greif and sorrow of heart he often intimates that the most malicious murtherer amongst this people was not so desirous of his death as he was of all their lives witness his affectionate prayers seasoned with sighs and tears even whiles they plotted the execution of their long-intended mischeif against him 4. That which first moved me to make and must justifie the interpretation of these words here made is a remarkable Opposition expresly recorded in Scripture betwixt our Saviours and his Disciples desires uttered at their death for this peoples good and the cry of Abels blood and Zachariah's dying voice both solliciting vengeance from Heaven against their persecutors When they were come to the place called Calvarie they crucified him Then said Iesus Father forgive them for they know not what they do Luke 23. ver 33. This Infinite Charity notwithstanding some alwayes jealous least God should shew any token of love towards such as they mislike or Christ manifest any desire of their salvation whom they have markt for Reprobates would have restrained unto the Garrison of Souldiers that conducted him to the Cross But Reasons we have many to think or rather firmly to believe that he uttered those Prayers Indefinitely for all that either were Actors in this business or Approvers of it whether Jews or Gentiles And if both his Doctrines and Miracles whiles he lived on earth as all must acknowledge did why should not his dying Prayers in the first place respect the lost sheep of Israel Roman Souldiers they were not but Jews of the most malignant stamp which martyred St. Stephen yet after he had commended his spirit unto Iesus in near the same terms that Jesus did his unto his Father he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice Lord lay not this sin to their charge And when he had said this he fell asleep Acts 7. 60. It is no sin I hope to suppose that the Master was every way as charitable at his death as his Disciple It is requisite that he which bids us bless our persecutors should set us a more exquisite patern then we are able to express His prayers for his greatest persecutors were more fervent and unfeigned then ours can be for our dearest friends St. Stephen in thus praying for his enemies did but imitate his Master and bear witness of his loving kindness towards all But when Cain had killed Abel the voice of his blood cried unto the Lord from the earth and the cry procured a curse upon him for the earth became barren unto him and he was a fugitive and vagabond from the Land wherein he lived before Herein as St. Augustine excellently observes a Type of the Jewish Nation who having the prerogative of birth-right amongst Gods People for the like sin became fugitives and vagabonds on the face of the earth whilest the good Land which God gave unto their fathers hath been curst with barrenness and desolation for their sakes And this Cry of Abels blood against his brother God would have registred in the beginning of his book as a Proclamation against all like impious and bloody Conspiracies until the worlds end Whereby the Iews to whom the manner of Gods process with Cain was sufficiently known were condemned Ipso Facto without any further folicitation of Gods judgments then their own attempts of like practises No marvel if his punishment foreshadow theirs when as never any did so manifestly and notoriously revive his sin as this Generation here spoken of did Cain saith St. Iohn was of that wicked one and slew his brother And wherefore slew he him Because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 1 John 3. 12. Ye are of your father the divel saith our Saviour to these Iewes and the lusts of your father ye will do he was a murtherer from the beginning Iohn 8. v. 44. And why did they go about to murther him Because he had told them the truth which he had heard of God ver 40. And as he had taught before in the third of S. John They would not receive him although he came as a light into the world because their deeds were evil Moses had foretold That the Great Prophet was to be this peoples Brother and in that they would not hearken to him they stood condemned by Moses's Sentence Deut. 18. 18. Whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him v. 19. Abel as pleasing God by his sacrifice and as being slain by his ungratious brother was the live Type of Christ as man whose murther by his brethren though most displeasant yet his sacrifice was most acceptable unto his God The same God which in the fourth of Genesis admonisheth Cain partly by threatning partly by promises to desist from his wicked purposes doth here in my Text as lovingly and yet as severely dehort these Jews from following his foot-steps least his punishments fall heavier upon them And they not taking warning by Cain's example to repent them of their envie and grudging against their brother the Crie not of Christs blood which they shed but of Abel's overtakes them for Christ was consecrated as the Sanctuary or place of Refuge whereto they should have fled And Abel was the Revenger of blood which did pursue them So likewise doth the Cry of Zacharias's at his death for that was quite contrary to our Saviours and St. Stephen's When he died he said The Lord look upon it and require it 2 Chron. 24. 22 The present Effect of this his dying speech compared with St. Lukes narration of Our Saviours Admonition affords the
them for religious Jehoshaphat and the Righteous sakes that lived in it After Iehoshaphats death Iehoram his son reigns in his stead a successor to the Kings of Israel in all wickedness and Idolatry And as his life was wicked so was his estate unfortunate his end terrible and his death ignominious In his dayes did Edom make his final revolt from Iudah 2 Chron. 21. 10. and Libnah at the same time because he had forsaken the God of his fathers And ver 14. Behold saith Elijah to him by a letter with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people and thy children and thy wives and all thy substance And so Gods judgments came upon him and his Children He himself dies of a lingering loathsom disease without the wonted solemnities of Funerals And Ahaziah his youngest son all the elder being slain by the Arabians 2 Chron. 22. 1. is about a year after killed by Jehu executing judgment upon the house of Ahab After all this were All the Royal Seed of Judah destroyed by Athaliah Ioash son of Ahaziah only excepted whose beginnings were good The reformation of Religion was perfect for the external form so long as Iehoiada the Priest did live but not compleat for the number or quality of such as turned to the Lord their God For the Princes hearts were wholly set upon idolatry And the King himself is drawn upon his own destruction by them after Iehoiada's death As his beginnings were good and godly so were his later dayes idolatrous and cruel and Zachariah's blood was recompensed upon his head and upon the head of Amaziah his son who though he were not like his father guilty as principal of actual murther in putting a Prophet to death yet thus farre by Participation guilty of his fathers sin that he is impatient of the Prophets just reproof As his father killed so he threatens the Prophet for reproving him for his sins for taking the gods of Edom for his gods 2 Chron. 25. 14. Have they made thee the Kings Counsellor Cease thou why should they smite thee And the Prophet ceased but said I know the Lord hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my Counsel His doom is read and judgment followes For he is shamefully foyled 2 Chron. 25. 23. by Ioash King of Israel and led captive home to his own good Town of Ierusalem four hundred cubits of whose wals were broke down to make entrance for his triumphant enemies in the sight of his own people And after his freedom bought with his own treasure and with the treasure of the Lords house his own Subjects conspire against him and pursue him unto death where he dies his fathers death by the hands of his Servants 2 Chron. 25. 27. As Amaziah from good beginnings grew idolatrous so Uzziah his son after good success became in his later end sacrilegiously presumptuous For intermedling with the Priests Office he becomes liable to the Priests Tribunal He is judged a Leper and removed from administration of the Kingdom for the leprosie wherewith the Lord had smitten him 2 Chron. 26. 5. Thus in process of time is still the increase of sin either their Kings are wicked as but two from David to Hezekiah's time which continued in good Or if their Kings be vertuous and religious as Iehoshaphat had been and Iotham son to Uzziah now is yet in his dayes again the peoples hearts are not prepared to serve the Lord 2 Kings 15. 35. But the high Places were not put away for the people yet offered and burnt incense in the high places and so kept in the fire of Gods wrath which had been long kindled against Judah but not suffered to burst out into any flame in the dayes of righteous Jotham and such as by his example followed righteousness Nay to encourage others to follow him the Lord gave him victory over the enemies of Judah and He grew mighty because He directed His wayes before the Lord His God 2 Chron. 27 6. 6. But neither did he nor any Prince of Judah since Righteous David so perfectly direct as Ahaz his son did pervert his wayes before the Lord. This is the first that adds stubbornness to infidelity and drunkenness to thirst as the Spirit tels us 2 Chron. 28. 22. In his tribulation did he yet trespass more against the Lord this is King Ahaz saith the Text you must expect a remarkable monster in his dealings For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus which plagued him and he said Because the gods of the Kings of Aram helped them I will sacrifice unto them and they will help me yet they were his ruine and of all Israel ver 23. This people was alwayes prone to wickedness even during the reign of most religious Kings but are now so violently carried to all mischief having got this preposterous Monster for their Governor that as a ship sailing with advantage of wind and tide and help of oares continues motion when sail is stricken and Rowers cease so Jerusalem and Judah after Ahaz their Commander in mischief ceased from his wicked labours held on still their mischievous courses even in good King Hezekiah's dayes 7. Whereas God 's threatnings had been but particular heretofore either to the King alone or to his Line and House or of some momentary desolation upon the Land Now God thunders out a General Deluge of Calamity to the City and Temple by the Prophet Micah Sion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall be an heap and the mountain of the house shall be as the high places of the forrest Here the scattered clouds of Gods judgments which had long soared over Judah are gathered as it were into one shower ready to fall upon her as it were an Hawk stooping to her prey but that good King Hezekiah and the people by his example laid fast hold upon his mercies and averted his fierce wrath from them by hearty and unfeigned prayer They feared the Lord and prayed before him and the Lord repented him of the evil that he had pronounced against them Whiles I behold the Compleat Reformation which Hezekiah wrought and the peoples will to accord with him therein Me thinks I hear the Lord wishing from heaven as he did sometimes to their fathers in the wilderness Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such an heart in them to fear me and to keep all my Commandements alway that it might go well with them and with their children for ever But Hezekiah did not render according to the reward bestowed upon him For his heart was lifted up and wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem 2 Chron. 32. v. 25. Not that it did seize upon them but that it was ready to smite For as it follows ver 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself after his heart was lift up he and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and the wrath of the Lord came not upon
the widdow These indeed are works of iniquity and deserve Exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven But is it a Work of iniquity not to work at all As not to give meat unto the hungry Not to give drink unto the thirstie Not to cloath the naked or lodge the harbourless Yes even these Omissions deserve Exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven Either by their connexion with sins of oppression because it is scarce possible that any which hear Christs promises should be barren of good Works unless they were too fruitful in the works of impietie and oppression or rather because as our Saviour elsewhere infers that Not to save mens lives when means and opportunitie is offered is to kill Not to feed the hungrie is a bloody sin Not to cloath the naked is as the sin of Oppression The Doing of some Good Works cannot excuse men for the Omission of others which be as necessary To prophesie in Christs name is a Gracious Work to cast out Divels is a Work of Greater Charity and comfort to the possessed then to visit the prisoners and yet such as have done these and many other wonderful Works shall not be admitted at the Last Day Besides the Goodness of the Works which we are bound to do there must be an Uniformitie in them Otherwise they are not done in Faith Now the same Faith and belief which inclines our hearts to works of one kind will incline them to the practise of every kind which we know or believe to be required at our hands by our Lord and Master That even the best Works of mercy or most beneficial unto others are not acceptable unto God unless they be done out of Faith obedience to our Masters Will is clear from our Apostles Verdict of Enoch Heb. 11. 5. Before his translation saith our Apostle he had this testimonie that he pleased God For so it is said Gen. 5. 24. that he walked with God the way by which he walked was his Good Works and Conversation but The Guide of this way and his works was his Faith So the Apostle infers without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ver 6. As God is the Author of goodness yea goodness it self so we cannot come unto him by any other way then by doing good to others yet that which must make even our best Works pleasing to him must be our Belief in him and in his goodness and that he is A bountiful Rewarder of all that do good The good Works even of the Heathen and of such as knew neither him nor his Providence of such as in stead of him worshipped false gods were rewarded by him but with rewards and blessings only Temporal He was their Rewarder but not himself their Reward This was the Peculiar of Abraham his friend and of Abrahams children that is of all such as do the works of Abraham out of the Faith of Abraham that is out of a lively apprehension and true esteem of his goodness Unto all such he himself shall be merces magna nimis or valdè magna Their exceeding great Reward Unto men thus qualified and only unto them it shall be said Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world This Kingdom shall be a Kingdom of everlasting bliss and yet the greatest blessedness of this Kingdom shall consist in the fruition or enjoying of the presence of this Everlasting King who is goodness it self the participation of whose goodness is the very Life and Essence of that happiness which all desire but none shall attain besides such as do His Will by well doing To be separated for ever from his presence is the source of all the miserie which shall befall the damned or accursed But from this place of our Apostle Heb. 11. 6. The Romanist alwayes ready like the spider to suck poison from such flowers in this garden of God as naturally afford honey to such as seek God labours to infer as he doth out of the words of the text That the Everlasting Kingdom here promised is the just Reward of our good works and is as properly merited as everlasting death is by the Omission of the works here mentioned or by the Positive Works of inquitie So that I should here according to my proposed method proceed unto the third point That these good works how necessary soever they be are necessary only Tanquam via ad regnum non tanquam causa regnandi only as the Way and Means which lead unto this Kingdom not as the causes of its preparation for us or of our admission unto it But for the present I chuse rather to make some use or Application of what hath been said concerning the necessity of Good Works then to dispute of their Efficacie or Causality for attaining this Kingdom intending to touch that a little more in the next Chapter though with reference to what I have spoken in the 27. and 28. Chapters 6. You see that Good Works done in faith or which is all one a Working Faith are absolutely necessarie unto salvation But are they as necessary to Justification If they be how is it said by St. Austine and approved by the Articles of the Church of England Bona opera sequuntur hominem justificatum non praecedunt in homine justificando Good works follow Justification they do not go before it This Orthodoxal Truth only imports thus much That no man can do those works which are capable of the promises before he be inabled by God to do them and that this ability to do them is from the Gift of Justifying Faith Now every one that hath this Faith in his heart is said to be Justified that is absolved from the Guilt of sins past and freed from the Tyranny and Dominion of sin by receiving this pledge or earnest of Gods mercie and in this sense is Justification taken by St. James when he saith a man is justified by works that is He is not to be accounted the Son of faithful Abraham nor may he presume upon his own Actual Justification or estate in Grace until he be qualified and enabled to do the Works of Abraham In the same sense is Justification taken by St. John Rev. 22. 11 Qui justus est justificetur ad huc Let him that is righteous be righteous still or more justified And in this sort Children or Infants are said to be Justified by the Infusion of Faith The practise of Good Works is not required to their Justification before they come to the knowledge of good and evil But neither is the apprehension or actual Belief of Gods mercies in Christ required of them Though they be justified and saved for the Merits of Christ and through his blood as we are Yet is not the Rule for Application of these Merits the same in them and
in men of years and discretion Though with some abatement or allowance it holds in such as are converted to Christ upon their death beds These must apprehend Gods mercies in Christ resolve to do Good Works and leave testimonie of sorrow for their past negligence in doing Good Works For in such as are endued with knowledge of Christ and are enlightned to see their miserable estate by nature the self same Faith which apprehends Gods mercies in Christ cannot be idle it will be working that which is Good and acceptable in the sight of God In vain it it shall be for them to sue for mercie at Gods hands through the Merits of Christ unless for love to Christ whose Merits for them and Goodness towards them Faith apprehends they be ready to do the works which he hath commended unto them For as you heard before not every one that saith unto him Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of his Father which is in Heaven and his Fathers Will is that we do those things which he here commands But another special Branch of the same Will is That when we have done all this we faithfully acknowledge our selves to be unprofitable servants This our Plea for mercie as men altogether unworthy for our best Works sake to be partaker of Gods Goodness or of everlasting bliss is that justification which St. Paul so much insists upon in most of his Epistles and unto This Justification that is to our good success in making this Plea Good works are necessary and usually Precedent or as it is usually taught by Good writers Good works are necessary quoad presentiam to justification non quoad efficientiam Their presence is necessarie to Justification their Efficacy or efficiencie is not necessary for as you have heard before and shall afterwards Chap. 31. hear meritorious efficiencie they have none 7. But let us ever remember as I often put the Reader in mind when it is said VVe must renounce all our works in the Plea of Iustification or suite of Pardon for our sins This must be understood Of those good Works which we have done not of those which we have left undone For these are not ours These the Hypocrites and unbeleevers will be ready to renonnce He alone truly renounceth his Works that doth Good Works and yet when he hath done them puts no trust or confidence in them and seeks not to improve them so far as to make them meritorious but wholly relies upon Gods mercies in Christ appealing from the Law unto the Gospel Nor is it every sort of Relyance upon Gods mercies in Christ but A faithful and stedfast relyance that can avail and no man can faithfully rely upon Christs merits but he that is faithful in doing his Fathers VVill. 8. But is this Necessitie of good Works to be equally extended to all sorts of Good works So saith Saint James Chap. 2. 10 11. VVhosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guiltie of all for he that said do not commit adulterie said also do not kill Now if thou commit no adulterie yet if thou kill thou art become a transgressor of the Law His meaning is That albeit we are diligent in many points of Gods service yet if we wittingly dispense with our souls in other parts of it this is an Argument that we Truly and faithfully observe no part For if we did observe Any part of his Commandments out of Faith or sincere obedience to Gods Will we would observe as much as in us lies every branch of his Will revealed For as true Faith will not admit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Respects of Persons which was the fault in the beginning of that Chapter taxed by St. Iames and gave occasion to the Maxim or principle in the words last cited so doth it exclude all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Partialitie to Gods Commandments or branches of His Will revealed If we love and prize one we must love and value all We may not love and respect One and neglect another This is the true intent and meaning of the Apostle which some to the wounding of their brethrens weak consciences have extended too far who say expresly or at least are so defective in expressing themselves as they occasion others to think That if a man either positively or more grievously transgress in breach of Gods Negative Precepts or often fail in performance of some Positive Duties commanded by him it is all one as if he had transgressed all Gods Commandments This is more then can be gathered from St. James in this place or from any other part of Gods word which only condemnes Partialitie to Gods Commandments Now a man may trespass oftner and more grievously against some one or more of Gods commandments whether Negative or Affirmative then he doth against others and yet do all this not out of any passionate affected Partialitie towards Gods Commandments or for want of uniformitie in his Faith or Affections towards Christ but only out of the Inequalitie of his own natural or acquired inclinations to some peculiar sins or vices in respect of others Some men as well before Regeneration or knowledge of Christ as after may be naturally or out of custome more prone to wantonness then unto covetousness Others again by natural disposition or bad custome may be more prone to covetousness to ambition or unadvised anger then unto wantonness Others again by bad education may be more prone to rash oathes or causless swearing then to any the former vices One sort after their regeneration or after they come to make Conscience of their wayes may offend more often and more grievously against the third Commandment then against the sixth or seventh Another sort may offend more grievously against the sixth Commandment Thou shalt not kill then against the seventh Thou shalt not commit adulterie A third sort such as are by natural disposition or custom given to wantonness may offend more grievously against the seventh Commandment then against the sixth A fourth sort more pecularly prone to covetousness or ambition may offend more grievously and more often against the last Commandment Thou shalt not covet then against any of the former And yet none of them fall under that censure of Saint James Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guiltie of all For they may all respectively offend in some one part or few points not out of any Partialitie to Gods Law or Commandments but out of the Inequalitie of their particular or peculiar dispositions to observe them Their desires or endeavours to observe those duties which they more neglect may perhaps be Greater then their desires or endeavours to observe those wherein they are less defective However this may fall out Yet this Rule is certain that Whosoever truly observes any or more of Gods Commandments out of Faith and sincere obedience to his
of Syria and he went away from Jerusalem But though the Chaldeans had burnt the House of God and the Palaces of Ierusalem with fire had destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof yet the Lord doth not utterly forsake his vineyard his Church the Quire of Saints still nestles in the branches that are transplanted whose off spring within seventy years is restored unto their native soyl Jerusalem repaired the Temple re-edified and the Land of Iudah sown with the seed of man and beast After this State thus raised again from Civil Death if posterity will not believe nor bring forth better fruits then heretofore their fathers have done neither would they believe though Moses and the Prophets were raised from the dead to exhort them to repentance For this reason after their return from Babylon and re-edification of the Temple God sends no more Prophets save such as they brought with them until the fulness of time or the Third Climacterical Period of this State wherein the disease being become more desperate he sent his only Son the Heir of all things as knowing that if he could not none ever after should be able to recover it This his Son was that Lord which by his peculiar presence had brought this vine out of Egypt but after he had planted it in Iudea and let it out unto these husbandmen went into a farre Country that is he appeared not unto them as he did to Moses to Joshuah c. until in the last dayes he descended from Heaven in the true form and substance of man to receive the fruits He looked at this time especially his vineyard should had brought forth grapes but it brought forth more wild grapes then before He looked for weighty matters of the Law and behold tithing of Mint Annise and Cummin He looked for judgment mercy and faith But behold covetousness extortion pride and cruelty grapes more bitter then the grapes of Sodom Sourness it self the very leaven of Hypocrisie yet upon the first denial of such fruits as he expected he departs not from them he accuseth them not unto his Father But as they had two or three fore-warnings more remarkable then ordinary in several Generations of their Ancestors so he expects a loyal Answer at more times of fruit then one or two presenting himself to them for three years and more together at every several Passover besides other anniversary solemnities And yet at last for constant delivery of that Embassage which he had from his father they caught him and condemned him in the vineyard but carry him out of it to be crucified in Mount Calvarie And thus at length Zachariah's Prophecie against Ioash and his wicked Princes and his Imprecation at his death are fulfilled in this wicked generation they formally forsook their God when they cried We have no King but Caesar and demanding Barabbas a murtherer the son of their father the Divle they destoyed Iesus the Son of God And the Lord hath utterly forsaken them not the Temple and City only but the Inhabitants but the whole race of the Jewish Nation and hath let forth His Vineyard to us Gentiles They were so rich by his bounty that they were ashamed to acknowledge so mean a man as Our Saviour for their Lord and Owner of the Land they inhabited And as the Prophet foretold they hid their faces from him And therefore as Moses testified against them in his dying Song The Lord hides his face from them Darkness did over-spread the Land of Iudah at his Passion and the light of his countenance since that time hath never shined upon that Nation They lost Gods extraordinary Illumination by Urim and Thummim as some hold at Zachariah's death as most agree at the destruction of Salomon's Temple but now are destitute of the light of Scripture without all knowledge of Gods Word since they rejected Him which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world In the very sun-shine of the Gospel they grope like blind men that cannot see a beaten way and must so continue throughout their generations unto the worlds end until they shall unfeignedly confess the iniquity of their fathers and that they have walked contrary unto me And that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies Lev. 26. 40 41. As the sins of those Jews which rejected the Light of the world and solemnly revolted from their King have been thus remarkably visited upon their children that will not confess their sins in so doing nor acknowledge him whom they rejected for their expected Redeemer So were the sins of that generation which slue Zachariah visited upon this which crucified our Saviour because they neither did truly confess them but rather revive and increase them nor finally admit of his Sacrifice which was appointed for the expiation of that Prodigious Fact as of all others wherewith the City and Temple had been polluted Unless God's mercy had warded off the stroke of his justice Ierusalem it self had been made an heap of stones when King Ioash stoned Zachariah to death So had the Temple it self wherein his guiltless blood lay uncovered been covered with Dust The whole Nations plagues in rigour of justice might have been much greater at that time then they have been since Now all the mercie or mitigation of Justice which former Generations found was through the Mediation of the Son of God And seeing these later have been more refractorie to this their Mediator himself then were their fathers to his Prophets seeing they have solemnly disavowed him and bid a defiance to his Embassadors Gods mercies which had daily shrowded Ierusalem from his wrath as the hen doth her young ones from the storm leave it and her children open to his justice For Resolution of the main Point or difficulty proposed The forsaking or putting the Son of God to death is for ought I can gather no direct and positive cause of all the miseries expressed or intimated in my Text Only such a Cause of Ierusalems destruction as the Pilots absence is of shipwrack a Cause of it only in this sense that her inhabitants by forsaking him have exempted themselves from his wonted protection and God's justice which had long watched his departure from the City and Temple as Sergeants do their egress which have taken Sanctuary now attatches them when there is none to become their Surety none to intercede for mitigation of Justice none to hinder why judgments heretofore alwayes abated and oft-times altogether deferred may not be executed upon them in full measure But that their Personal Offences against their Mediator should wholly or specially procure this woful doom or come at all into the Bill of their Indictment is in my Opinion no way probable The character of his own speeches as well in my Text or elsewhere altogether disclaims this Assertion as unconsonant to the form of wholsome doctrine But may we say that albeit his blood did not augment their
plagues that shed it because never laid unto their charge it may notwithstanding exempt them and their children from hope of mercy or mitigation of punishments due unto them for other sins Or that such as since his death have pined away in their own sins and the sins of their fathers did therefore perish because he had absolutely decreed not to save them or grant them means of repentance God forbid This were more then to say They stumbled that they should fall And in as much as the riches of the world will be much greater by their fulness then by their Fall or diminution the fault is ours as well as theirs that their Conversion is not accomplished Both we and they are liable to a strict account That we would not be gathered when God would have gathered us CHAP. XLIV 2 KINGS 23. 26 27. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Iudah because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal And the Lord said I will remove Judah also out of my sight as I have removed Israel and will cast off this City Jerusalem which I have chosen and the house of which I have said my Name shall be there 1. THe Points to be discussed are Two First How the Lord might justly punish Iudah for Manasseh's sins and sins committed in His time in the dayes of good Josiah and His Sons Secondly In what manner God proceeded to execute this his fierce wrath denounced against Iudah For your better satisfaction in the Former Point You are to consider the Nature and Tenor of Gods General Covenant with this people The miraculous Blessings and extraordinary Curses proposed unto the two several wayes of Life and Death which Moses first had set before this people are sufficiently known being most expresly set down Levit. 26. and Deut. 28. throughout the whole Chapters The like Covenant was renewed with Davids Line in the same Tenor. Psal 89. 29 c His Seed will I make to endure for ever and his Throne as the dayes of Heaven But if his Children forsake my Law and walk not in my judgments If they break my Statutes and keep not my Commandements Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes Neverthelesse my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulnesse to fail Or Neither will I falsifie my truth This promise was Absolute for Christ Conditional for the other Sons of David and consists not in their Immunitie from punishments but in the Assurance of their recovery upon their penitencie The Tenor of both Covenants then in brief was Thus. Following the foot-steps of Abraham or David they should be blessed extraordinarily Forsaking their wayes and following the Customs of other Nations they should be punished more severely then other men yet so that if in their distress they did turn again unto the Lord for Abraham's and for David's sake they should be restored to his wonted mercie and favour So saith the Lord Levit. 26. 44 45 And yet for all that he supposeth his plagues denounced had already overtaken them When they be in the land of their enemies I will not cast them away neither will I abhorre them to destroy them utterly and to break my Covenant with them for I am the Lord their God But I will remember them according to the Covenant of old Or I will for their sakes remember the Covenant of their Ancestors whom I brought forth out of the Land of Egypt And in the 42. verse of the same Chapter when they shall confesse their iniquity before him in their distresse He saith He would remember His Covenant with Jacob and also his Covenant with Isaac and with Abraham The same Covenant is more solemnly established at the Dedication of the Temple 2 Chron. 6. by Salomon He supposed this People should be plagued for their sins as others were But yet if they turned to the Lord with all their heart and with all their soul in the Land of their captivity the effect of his Petition is That the Lords eyes should be open and his ears attent unto the prayers which they made towards the Temple which he had built And in this sense is God said to shew mercie unto thousands in such as love Him and keep his Commandements Because for Abraham and for David's sake they still enjoyed the assurance of recovering their ruinate and decayed Estate 2. Yet here we are again to consider that the Covenant was not made In capita as if it were to begin intirely with every particular Man but rather with their whole Successions in their several Generations They stood all joyntly bound to obey the Lord their God So as Posterity must make up the Arrerages of their Fathers ryot by their warie and diligent observance of those Commandements which the other had broken If the Fathers had sinned by Idolatry the Posterity must redeem their sins or break them off by preaching reformation of Religion and restoring the true Worship of God again If the Fathers had caused Gods wrath upon the Land by oppression extortion and cruelty the Children must divert it by mercie bountie and open-handedness towards the Poor and by restitution of goods ill-gotten by their Fathers unto their proper Owners or by restoring goods rightly enjoyed but imployed amiss unto their natural and right use If the Fathers have transgressed all or most of Gods neg Commandments the children are bound to rectifie their errors by practising the affirmative duties of the Law In a word as the Fathers offences have been greater either in multitude magnitude or continuance so must the Vertues and Piety of Posterity abound in Perfection of Parts Intention of Degrees and Duration of time For although it be most true that the Childrens teeth are not set on edge for their Fathers eating sour grapes but the soul that sinneth it shall die Ezek. 18. Yet is not this so to be understood but that the son may be punished for those sins which his Father only did actually commit if so he seek not to rectifie his errors by inclining to the Contrary Duties For not so doing His fathers sins are made his by participation and the Curse becomes hereditary As he that helpeth not when he may doth further or abett the evil done by others and is thereby made Accessary or part-taker of other mens sins So likewise are the Children guilty of their fathers transgressions and liable to Gods wrath caused by them if they seek not to rectifie the same by their zealous prayers speedie repentance and unfeigned turning to the Lord. So is it said Ezek. 18. 14. The Son that seeth all his fathers sins which he hath done and feareth neither doth such like but rather if the father have cruelly oppressed and spoiled his brother by violence he feeds the hungrie and clothes the naked and keeps all Gods Statutes he