conflict O how was the soul preserved when the body was forced to rain blood when every Pore gasped as if the soul meant to follow and he to die as often as it had places to expire at Indeed well it might for this single Death was conceived as a multitude of Deaths a Death for those that died before and after Behold a ghastly sight for he that never committed one sin to be charged with so many heaps of sin whose load could not chuse but be the heavier because Innoccency lay under and came so near to Guilt as to be punished the Cup of sower Grapes mixed with those thoughts burst out into billows of Sweat so that Floods ran over him Psal 69. Oh what bleeding was within when it streamed so without never was such a Sweat because never such a Cause no such heat but that of Hell Sin being the Fewel of both by whose vehemency each Pore became an Eye and each Member wept that by the tears of his whole body the whole body of his Church might be cleansed and yet his sufferance swells to the largest extent of Obedience exercised in sundry torments by all persons upon his parts Friend and Foe Jew and Gentile King Priest and People all joyn against him in the Front of which conspiracy comes Judas a Wolf trained up in the school of a Lamb with a Kisse Was ever such a salutation between God the Devil with a kisse doth this courteous blood-sucker kil his Masters Traytor Dost thou so kisse the Son lest he be angry Well take thy leave Judas never shalt thou come so near again this hanging about Christs neck shall cost thine own a worser hanging whilest Heaven and Earth for betraying him that came from both shall with vengeance thrust thee from them and leave thy Carcasse to thy new Master the Prince of the Aire It could not chuse but make his Enemies bold to see his Disciple so cruel who now prepare to kill the true Passeover though not for their own but our eating the seed of Abraham came out with Bills and Staves to take him who came down from Heaven to take the seed of Abraham and violently attach him with their hands whom they could not apphehend with their hearts They take him but as Sampson was taken by the Philistines to the losse and ruine of themselves both felt the God of Israel when they held him in bondage both smarted under their prisoner By tying his hands which might have loosed theirs they tied themselves in a double knot but that hindred not his proceeding who through Adams captivity through a rash freedome regained us liberty with a deliberate captivity Thus with bonds of liberty he travelled to Caiphas a man that went for a High Priest but first Murther must call in Annas his reverend Father-in-Law that so the generation of Vipers might be more allied in bloud After Annas Caiphas with good manners may be avillain a zealous counterfeit who having with deep conjuration wrung out the truth accuseth God himself of Blasphemie The watch word being given the servants are diligent in reviling him that never spake amiss they blind his eys challenge a Prophesie that so they might prove him a Seer by making him not to see they pluck off his hair Esay 5. 6. that no hair of us might perish threshing his cheeks with buffets wherein our offences have a hand Yet to all these reproaches he sets his face at a flint Esa 5. 6. as flint indeed from whence those smiters smore fire for their own Damnation The night being spent with those hellish Pastimes they benight the Day with Actions of Darknesse their fury hurries him to Pilate where the Scribes ommitting Blasphemie as an idle brangling before a secular Judge object him a Traytor against the God Caesar this killing Plea they keep till last and make it the first Argument of his guilt that They brought him as if their infallible Chair could neither erre nor slander whereas affectors of credit are most commonly Liars these holy Murtherers though by no meanes they will enter the Judgement Hall because of the Passeover nor be defiled with a place of bloud yet with a clear Conscience they prosecute that deed which defiles the place Pilate espying their malice makes a friend of a bad office shifts him over to Herod This King was more like a Courtier then himself a most Herod his Character curious piece of Vanity who after some discourse of stately impertinency would fain have God recreate his Highnesse with a Miracle Behold a Miracle of Patience Our Saviour returns him and his scoffs not so much as a word Silence is the best reply to a A speaking silence Babler which both secretly darts at the Conscience of the Adversary and retains the station of Meeknesse Our Saviour was often dumb as a Lamb his dumbnesse now hath made him white as a Lamb for Herod mocking him with a white Robe as a Candidate or suitor onely for a Kingdome unwillingly deciphers his integrity in its true colours thus attired he is tosled back again like a Tennis-ball to Pilate where death is little unlesse an odious comparison with Barrabas kill him double this of the two is the Goat which to the utter pollution of the Dismissers is set at liberty Gen. 16. and the destroyer of the living is thought more worthy of life then he that raised their dead Pilate being weary of being just against the stream delivers him to the place of crucifying to be scourged by souldiers a punishment ordained by the Romanes for small offences as the Axe for capital But Christ who suffered for our slips as well as for our crimes endured not onely the Crosse but scourging a punishment most suitable to the nature of sin whereof any Act though never so little makes as many breaches in the Law is the lash imprints in the body When the whip had launced our Saviours flesh their own humour bad Commands are still over-done proceeds to scorn him in state and inviting the multitude to their pettulant fury they repeat what was done last night with advantage with thorns they crown his head not remembring the Parable of Jotham that fire might come out of the Bramble All Crowns are thornie and the Heathenish Sacrifices used to be crowned but when this Sacifice of Jew and Gentile is crowned with thorns when his head is tyed in the thickets is not this the Oblation that was slain for Isaac and all the flock of the Faithfull Next in ridiculous honour they invest him in a Purple garment Why should their spight be at such charges the white Robe now clapt on his bleeding Members would soon take the dye of a better Purple But to make him a compleat mock-Emperour with bended knees they gave him a Reed for a Scepter Innocent King herein thy obedience is most remarkable for whereas other members were meerly passive here the hand was made an instrument of its own shame
Darius would not be drawn to look upon his daughters Chap. 5. c. Chap. 6. Sect. 2. The proportion of our bodies probably proving the reasonablenesse of our souls V Chap. 1. c. Chap. 2. c. Chap. 3. VItellius board Chap. 4. Sect. 4. Vain verses and Ribauld talk Chap. 5. Vainness of Women in their Attire Chap. 6. Vigour cannot be in assum'd or counterfeit bodies The end of the Table DISCOVERIES CHAP. I. That the Angels know both what hath been and what is done here on Earth SOme of latter times tells us of a wonderfull Glasse wherein the saints and angels behold whatsoever is done nay whatsoever is thought in the Church below I know not how we may be sure that that Glasse is of Gods making and if it be not it must needs be a false one but if they mean by that glasse a special Revelation making known to those blessed spirits whatsoever may redound to the honour of the Trinity by their knowledge we may safely take them at their words for though God conceal the works of his goodnesse mercy truth and holinesse already past I make no question but his glorious Redemption admirable Dispensation and all other occurrent favours meeting â—â—gether in one center for the good of those appointed to Salvation have been and are always revealed to the whole Court of Heaven SECT II. Whether by the light of Reason onely Salvation may be purchased There hath not wanted those who have peremptorily affirmed an opinion in these our days too much prevaent That all of all nations and people shall be saved and conducted in this manner to heaven The Jews by Moses the Christians by Christ the heathen by Mahomet As I affirm not that the light of naturall reason is enough to save a man so on the other side I dare not aver that none at all were saved till the 15 year of Tiberius and that heaven was quite shut up till after Christs passion were an assertion befitting the mouth of Sergius the Maniche that vouched it against St. Augustine I conclude that all that died of old were saved by a prioristical knowledge of Christ and that it is at the entrance of the heavenly Jerusalem as it was at Christ entrance into Jerusalem below you shall read that those that went before as well as those that came after cried Hosanna to the son of David i. e. save we pray thee oh Messiah incarnate SECT III. The strange opinions of the Iewish Rabbins concerning the resurrection no difficulty therein in respect of God Ask the Jewish Rabbins how the Read more of this Cha. 6. §. 3. resurrection of our bodies shall be wrought and they will tell you of a certain little bone in spina dorsi in every mans back that shall never be subject to any putrefaction and they will find you text for it too in 3. 4. Psal where 't is said he keepeth all their bones so that one of them unum ex ijs as they make the Prophet speak shall never be broken and this bone say they at the last day shall be mollified and softned by a dew from heaven and it shall swell as having the nature of Leven and it shall diffuse its vertue to the collecting of all the dust that belongs to its own body and so fit and prepare it for a resurrection I shall not be so audacious as to passe a definitive sentence or positively to determine how this to humane reason incredible resurgation is effected I had rather make Ezekiel my Oracle who gives the manner how thus he shal breath upon the slain and they shal live Authors of unquestionable repute and dayly experience informs us that the juyce of herbs and minerals extract are of sufficient force to restore sick persons Apio the Gramarian Pliny na hist by the power of Cinocephalia revived Homer how facile then may we conclude it for the supream Architector and Gubernator of the earth by his word alone to actuate an universal resurrection and that though the bodies of all mankind were crumbled into dust and that dust scattered before the wind or were they distilled into water attenuated into ayr or though they were eaten by Canibals and those Canibals devoured by fishes and those fishes by men again I say though they had all these dispersions and alterations and transmigrations yet were they still in the store-house of a powerfull God to whom the whole world is but as one repository or larger cabinet and all the elements but severall drawers in that great frame and those lesser creatures the craws of Ravens bellies of fishes and intrails of beasts but as smaller boxes included in the greater so that wheresoever we shall be laid God will know where to find us though our bodies may be hid to sense yet they are not lost to him he that called us at first out of nothing can by the same mighty voice raise us again from nothing SECT IIII. Yet of the same The Jewish Rabbins tell us of three keys that God keepeth always in his own hands the Key of the Womb whereby he lets us into this life the Key of the Clouds by which he nourisheth and refresheth us with rain and the Key of the Resurrection by which he loseth us from the prisons of death and gives us entrance into a new life I willingly grant the Key of the Resurrection to be in Gods power onely for Christ is that key Clavis Resurrection is as Tertullian calls him he shall open and bring us out of our graves as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks The wiser sort of heathens believed a resurrection and a restitution of our bodies but then they thought the stars and the Planets by whose decay and continuance they measured the stability and perpetuity of all sublunary things to be the onely causes of it and so they ran giddily into Platos circulation of years CAAP. II. That we cannot conscienciously censure the ancient Heathen Sages as damned NOt onely St. Chrisostome but many other of the fathers have set open a dore for Socrates Aristotle c. to enter into heaven by Philosophy alone and Causabon in his animadversions upon Baronius saith that those places in the fathers which seem to look that way are candida interpretatione mollienda to find a favorable interpretation with us since it were not pious in us to improve an uncharitable opinion of them for their perhaps over charitable opinion of the heathen As I dare not therefore with Iustin Martyr rank Socrates and Heraclitus in heaven and as I cannot think Aristotle by writing his books de Coelo hath himself gained a place there so neither dare I passe the sentence of eternal damnation upon them it were sacriledge in any man to rob them of Gods mercy which is over all his works and who is he that shall presume to set bounds to the overflowing Ocean of his compassion to say unto it thus far shalt thou go and no further for might not
to the measure of the Age of Christ Whether in our Resurrection our hair and our nails that have been cut whether those excrementious parts shall not rise with us Then for the time of the Resurrection Whether it shall be in April as Athanasius thinks in his sixth Homily and for the time of the day Whether it shall be early in the morning which we have cause to think because Christ rose at that time or in the middle of the night as St. Hierome thinks because Christ 't is said shall come as a Thief in the night and as St. Ambrose collects from those words viz. In that night two shall be lying in one bed c. Then for the place where we shall be raised whether in the valley of Megiddo where Iehosaphat fell as the Rabbins think or at least in some part of the Holy Land the reason perhaps why Ioseph and the Patriarchs were so solicitous to have their bones carried from Aegypt and other places to be buried there Then whether we shall rise naked or cloathed which we may justly dispute because the seed that springs up is covered with a husk Whether God will not use the help of the Angels in raising us whether they shall gather our bones and dust together as Suarez thinks and we have some ground to beleeve because 't is said in the Parable of the Sower The Angels are the Reapers and they shall separate the wicked from the just Lastly when we rise whether there shall be any distinction of Sexes Male or Female amongst us Scotus thinks there shall not and perhaps that Text may intimate as much where it is said There is no Marrying nor giving in Marriage but we shall be like the Angels of God A SERAPHICK RHAPSODY ON The Incarnation the Progression And the PASSION OF Iesus Christ By SAMUEL SHEPPARD LONDON Printed by B. Alsop MDCLII A SERAPHICK RHAPSODIE On the Passion of Christ CHrist comming to write our acquittance with his bloud knew well that humility would suit best with the head when the body was sick with pride He bowed the Heavens and came down i e the honour of his Godhead was not put off by cloathing it with rags of flesh from his birth to his burial reacheth the humiliation of his manhood never ceasing till his head was thrown under earth his footstool Thus his passion began in the stable where he was no sooner born but the Creed immediately tels us he suffered the bloud of his circumcision was but so many warning drops of this great shower in his passion and whereas others were born to live his onely errand was to die to this end he villified himself being brought up in poverty ranked with the meanest no companion but for Publicans and Sinners never taken notice of by the chiefer sort The Jews grossly expected the Messiah in worldly pomp as if God would be known by his cloaths such is the Sorcery of bewitching Mammon that a gawdy traine would have gone further with them then a miracle but doth any come to Petition in State or to beg in robes humility was the right garb of Christs intendment for none can vault or mount himself without shrinking his joints none can raise another unlesse he stoop to do him courtesie the surest building hath the lowest foundation and Christ our Corner-stone our strong Tower whereby we ascend into heaven must be first deep layed in the bowels of the earth In the eye of man Christ humbled himself but the object of his obedience was God whether active in fulfilling the law or passive in bearing the punishment for the law this latter obedience neither contradicts his equality with the father nor his willingnesse in suffering for his brethren because an equal may be sent by his equal performing the task undertaken by his own consent the Heathen superstitiously thought it ominous when the Oxe was not half a Priest not religiously bowing his neck to the stroke Christ then could be no gratious sacrifice unlesse his bloud was sent out as willingly as it was cruelly drawn Obedience is better then sacrifice but sacrifice with obedience is far better both which were gently united by our Saviour who voted his death presented his person and quietly admitted violence as much without the assailers compulsion as his own command witnesse his injoyning the peace to his followers the Host of Angels shall have no watch-word for they were the taller souldiers because he will not be rescued from surprizing miseries Peter shall not perswade nor the Jews work him out of his peremptory resolution De cruce non vult descendere qui potuit de morte resurgere saith St. Augustine he will not keep himself alive that can rise being dead others as they are not born when they will so neither can they die when they will Voluntary expence of life is but a glorious murther and so the example of Christs death might bring us thither from whence the benefit redeems us but our Saviour having life in his own dominion had power to lay it down power to take it up again no man took it from him he layed it down of himself John 10 18. so that Pilate's arrogance herein was much out who had no authority to condemn but from the person condemned wherefore that perplexed and passionate Pilate reluctancy but an ambush to the Divel reluctancy of his appetite was but an bush to the Divel and to Christs obedience a Trophey for as the one would not scarce have ventured without imitation so the other could not have conquered without opposition The fire of virtue having not matter to scedon will die of idleness passion augments the liberty of the wil whose active courage runs best w th fetters most declares her magnanimity in a stiff contradiction Christ therefore whose Ely took our infirmities was freely troubled both for the greater proof of his manhood and greater victory nay valour was here the cause of fear and all these unwilling motions proceed of very willingness neither can affections being naturall powers be made unlawful by workings but over-masterings and these inferior orbs of the soul may enjoy their proper course so they turn with the swinge of ther prime mover not spurning at the wills decrees Isaack may ask his father where is the Lamb for innocency cannot die without a word and our Saviour may well begin his prayer with an If but the conclusion is absolute the cup shall not passe from him and I likewise will pass to it The soul her self though impenetrable must not scape which being the original womb of Disobedience in us first returns his paenal Obedience in Christ the very Qualm seisure of his Agony was heavier then unto Death whose pangs were known before they were felt known augmented by that accurate apprehension which in the heat of his fit made the soul work more upon the body then the body wrought afterwards upon the soul For how sharp was the