conquer Hell then If he did what was it with What did his Soul there to conquer Hell How he conquered Hell and Death by dying and rising we can tell but how his Soul conquered with bare going thither who can tell you Or did he augment the torments of the Devils and damned That needed not nor indeed could it be done as I shall shew afterwards What then did Christs Soul there in its Triumph unless as He Veni vidi vici I came I saw I overcame it conquered Hell by looking into it Natura nihil facit frustra Nature does nothing in vain much less the God of nature And Christ in his life time never did spoke thought any thing in vain And it is unhansom to think that his Soul after death should go out of the bosom of his Father into Hell to do no body can imagine what For who can tell what it did in Triumphing there II. Was not Christ under his Humiliation till his Resurrection Was he not under it whilst he lay in the grave He himself accounts it so Psal. XVI 10. Thou wilt not suffer my Soul being in the state of separation my Body to see corruption to be trampled on by death to be triumphed over by Satan that yet had it there If you imagine his Soul triumphing or vapouring in Hell for I cannot imagine what it should do there unless to vapour how might Satan vapour again Thou Soul of Jesus dost thou come to triumph here Of what I pray thee Have I not cause to triumph over thee Have I not procured his death Banished thee out of his body and got it into the grave And dost thou come to triumph here Let us first see whether he can get out from among the dead before we talk of his triumph over him that had the power of death So that if we should yield to so needless a point as Christs going to triumph in Hell yet certainly it would be but very unseasonable to have gone thither when he had not yet conquered but his body was still under death and as yet under the conquest of Satan This had been to triumph before Victory as Benhadads vapour was to Ahab when he received that answer Let not him that girdeth on his sword boast himself as he that putteth it off The beginning of Christs Kingdom was his Resurrection for then had he conquered death and him that had the power of death the Devil And so the Scripture generally states it I need cite no proof but two of his own speeches Matth. XXVI 29. I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the Vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Fathers Kingdom that is after my Resurrection when I have conquered the Enemies of God and set up his Kingdom And Matth. XXVIII 18. And Jesus came and spake unto them saying All power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth And this was after his Resurrection But is it not improper to dream of a Triumph before a Conquest That Christ should Triumph as King before he had put on his Kingdom As Esth. V. 3. On the third day she put on the Kingdom For so it is in the Hebrew The days before she had been under fasting mourning humiliation and that was not a time of Royalty and Triumph So on the third day Christ rose and put on his Kingdom the days before he had been under death had abased himself a very unfit and unseasonable time for his Soul to go and triumph III. As concerning Christs triumphing over Devils His Victory over Satan was of another kind of nature than to go amongst them to shew terribly or speak terribly for what else can we imagine his Soul did in that Triumph in Hell It is said Heb. II. 14. That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil Destroy him How We may say of him as he of the Traitor Vivit etiam in Senatum venit He lives yea he comes into the Council-house So Is the Devil destroyed He is alive walketh rageth ruleth He walked about the Earth before Christs death Job I. So hath he done ever since 1 Pet. V. 8. Your adversary the Devil as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour He was a murtherer from the beginning to Christs death Joh. VIII 44. So hath he been ever since he goes about seeking to devour and he doth devour He wrought in the children of disobedience before and he now worketh Eph. II. 2. And how hath Christ conquered destroyed him You must look for the Conquest and Triumph of Christ over him not so much in destroying his Person as destroying his Works 1 Joh. III. 8. For this purpose the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil I might here speak of many things I shall only mention two or three particulars wherein the Victory of Christ over the Devil by his death doth consist 1. By his death he hath conquered the very clamors of Satan paying a ransom for all his people Rom. VIII 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect Satan is ready to say I lay a charge and claim to them for they have been disobedient But Christ hath paid a satisfaction for all their disobedience Satan thou art cast in thy suit the debt is paid How is the Devil confounded at the loss of such a prize as he expected And how does the Death and Merits of Christ here Triumph Now Goliah David defies thee touch one in the Camp of Israel if you can or dare they are all redeemed and ransomed thou hast nothing to do with them And the ransomed of the Lord shall go to Sion with everlasting joy Rejoyce O Heathens for the false accuser is cast out Here is a glorious Triumph by the righteousness and holiness of Christ delivering all his people 2. By his death he brake the partition wall and brings in the Heathen Oh! how did Satan hold them in slavery Pharaoh let my people go No. I know not the Lord nor will I let them go But thou shalt be brought to it and by the death of a Paschal Lamb they shall go whether thou wilt or no. Two thousand years had they been in his slavery sure thought he this shall be for ever But by the death of poor despised Jesus at Jerusalem the prison doors are open and all these captives are gone free Rejoyce ye prisoners of hope as they are called Zech. IX 11 12. I cannot but think of the case of Paul and Silas Act. XVI in an inner prison their feet in the stocks the doors fast and a strong guard and there comes one shake and all fly open and all the prisoners are loosed Jaylor what sayest thou now Thou mayst even draw thy sword and end thy self all thy prisoners are gone 3. Nay yet further Jaylor thou must to prison thy self Ponder on those words Rev. XX. 1
truth that death is the wages of sin yet is it not to be understood so much of those very pangs whereby the Soul and Body are disjoyned as the continuation of the divorce betwixt Soul and Body in the Grave VERS XXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell IT is well know what the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in Greek Authors viz. the state of the dead be they just or unjust And their Eternal state is distinguished not so much by the word it self as by the qualities of the persons All the just the Heroes the followers of Religion and Vertue according to those Authors are in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades but it is in Elysium in joy and felicity All the evil the wicked the unjust they are in Hades too but then that is in Hell in torture and punishment So that the word Hades is not used in opposition to Heaven or the state of the blessed but to this world only or this present state of life which might be made out by numberless instances in those Authors The Soul of our Saviour therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 descended into Hell i. e. he passed into the state of the dead viz. into that place in Hades where the Souls of good Men went But even there did not God suffer his Soul to abide separate from his body nor his body to putrifie in the Grave because it was impossible for Christ to be holden of those bands of death seeing his death was not some punishment of sin but the utmost pitch of obedience he himself being not only without sin but uncapable of committing any VERS XXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let me speak freely c. IT is doubted whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be rendred I may or let me If that which R. Isaac saith obtained at that time viz. Those words my flesh shall rest in hope teach us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That neither worm nor Insect had any power over David u u u u u u Mâ—dr Till fol. 13. 4. then was it agreeable enough that St. Peter should by way of Preface crave the leave of his Auditory in speaking of David's being putrified in the Grace and so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is well rendred let me But I may pleaseth me best and by this Paraphrase the words may be illustrated That this passage Thou shalt not leave my soul in Hell c. is not to be applied to David himself appears in that I may confidently averr concerning him that he was dead and buried and never rose again but his Soul was left 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the state of the dead and he saw corruption for his Sepulchre is with us unto this day under that very notion that it is the Sepulchre of David who dyed and was there buried nor is their one syllable any where mentioned of the Resurrection of his body or the return of his soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the state of the dead I cannot slip over that passage w w w w w w Hieros Chaâ—ig fol. 78. 1. R Jose ben R. ben saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 David dyed at Pentecost and all Israel bewailed him and offered their Sacrifices the day following VERS XXXIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Lord said unto my Lord. c. SEEING St. Peter doth with so much assurance and without scruple apply these words to the Messiah it is some sign that that Comment wherewith the later Jews have gloz'd over this place was not thought of or invented at that time Glossing on the words thus The Lord said unto Abraham sit thou on my right hand x x x x x x Sanhedr fol. 108. 2. Sem the great said unto Eleazar when the Kings of the East and of the West came against you how did you do He said unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God took up Abraham and made him sit at his right hand He threw dust upon them and that dust was turned into Swords Stubble and that Stubble was turned into Darts so it is said in David's Psalm the Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand Where the Gloss very cautiously notes that these words The Lord said unto my Lord are the words of Eleazar whose Lord of right Abraham might be called y y y y y y Nederim fol. 32. 2. R. Zechary in the name of R. Ismael saith God had a purpose to have drawn the Priesthood from Sem according as it is said he was the Priest of the Most high God But when he pronounced his blessing of Abraham before his blessing of God God derived the Priesthood from Abraham For it is said and he blessed him saying Blessed be Abraham of the Most High God possessor of Heaven and Earth and blessed be the Most High God Abraham saith unto him doth any one put the blessing of the Servant before the blessing of his Lord Immediately the Priesthood was given to Abraham As it is said The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand It is written afterward thou art a Priest for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the words of Melchizedek who had not placed his blessings in due order And forasmuch as it is written And he was a Priest of the Most High God it intimates to us that he was a Priest but his seed was not Can we think that this Gloss was framed at that time when St. Peter so confidently as though none would oppose him in it applied this passage to the Messiah which also our Saviour himself did before him to the great Doctors of that Nation and there was not one that opened his mouth against it Matth. XXII 44. VERS XXXVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be Baptised every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ. BEZA tells us That this doth not declare the Form of Baptism but the scope and end of it Yet this clause is wanting in the Syriack Interpreter Wherever he might have got a Copy wherein this was wanting yet is it not so in other Copies But to let that pass What he sayeth that this doth not declare the Form of Baptism is I fear a mistake for at that time they Baptised amongst the Jews in the name of Jesus although among the Gentiles they Baptised in the Name of the Father and the Son and holy Ghost that Jesus might be acknowledged for the Messiah by them that were Baptised than which nothing was more tenacionsly and obstinately denyed and contradicted by the Jews Let the Jew therefore in his Baptism own Jesus for the true Messiah and let the Gentile in his confess the true God three in one VERS XLI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There were added about three thousand souls AND Chap. IV. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 About five thousand To which I would referr that passage in Psal. CX 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
use of this Sacrament might shew that they renounced their Judaism and professed the Faith and Oeconomy of the Gospel III. Our Communion therefore in this Sacrament is not so much Spiritual as External and declarative of our common and joynt profession of the Christian Faith We are far from denying that the Saints have a Spiritual Communion with God and among themselves in the use of the Eucharist yea we assert there is a most close Communion between true believers and God But what is that Spiritual Communion of Saints among themselves Mutual love one heart prayers for one another c. But they may exercise the same Communion and do exercise it when they meet together to any other part of Divine Worship They may and do act the same thing when they are distant from one another Therefore their Communion in this Sacrament which is distinctly called the Communion of the Eucharist is that they meet together and by this outward sign openly and with joynt minds profess that they are united in one sacred knot and bond of Christian Religion renouncing all other Religions IV. When therefore we approach to the Eucharist in any Church we do not only communicate with that congregation with which we associate at that time but with the whole Catholic Church in the profession of the true Evangelic Religion VERS XXVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye do shew the Lords death IT is known what the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Passover Supper was namely a Declaration of the great works of God in the deliverance of the people out of Egypt The same as it seems would these Judaizing Corinthians retain in the Lords Supper as if the Eucharist were instituted and superadded only for that commemoration The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does very well answer to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Declaration and while the Apostle admonisheth them that the death of Christ is that which is to be declared it may be gathered that they erred in this very thing and looked some other way VERS XXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unworthily THE Apostle explains himself vers 29. Where we also will speak of this verse VERS XXVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let a man examine himself c. HE had said before verse 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they which are approved may be made manifest And in the same sense he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let a man approve himself in this place not so much Let him try or examine himself as Let him approve himself that is Let him shew himself approved by the Christian Faith and Doctrine So Chap. XVI 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whomsoever ye shall approve We meet with the word in the same sense very often VERS XXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not discerning the Lords body THIS is to be meant of the proper act of the understanding viz. Of the true judgment concerning the nature and signification of the Sacrament If it were said indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not discerning the Lord it might be rendred in the same sense as He knew not the Lord that is he loves him not he fears him not he worships him not But when it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not discerning the body it plainly speaks of the act of the understanding He does not rightly distinguish of the body of the Lord. And this was a grievous error of these Judaizing Corinthians who would see nothing of the body of Christ in the Eucharist or of his death their eyes being too intent upon the commemoration of the Passover They retained the old Leaven of Judaism in this new Passover of the Eucharist And this was their partaking of the Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unworthily as assigning it a scope and end much too unworthy much too mean Ther are alas among Christians some who come to this Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unworthily but whether this unworthily of the Corinthians be fitly applied to them I much doubt How mean soever I am let me speak this freely with the leave of good and pious men that I fear that this discourse of the Apostle which especially chastized Judaizers be too severely applyed to Christians that Judaize not at all at least that it be not by very many Interpreters applied to the proper and intended scope of it Of these Corinthians receiving the Eucharist unworthily in the sense of which we spake the Apostle speaks two dreadful things I. That they became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Guilty of the body and blood of the Lord vers 27. With this I compare that of the Apostle Heb. X. 29. He hath trampled under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant by which he the Son of God was sanctified a common thing And Heb. VI. 6. They crucify again to themselves the Son of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and put him to an open shame Of whom is the discourse Not of all Christians that walked not exactly according to the Gospel rule although they indeed esteem and treat Christ too ignominously but of those that relapse and Apostatize from the Gospel to Judaism whether these Corinthians too much inclined and are admonished seasonably to take care of the same guilt for when any professing the Gospel so declined to Judaism that he put the blood of Christ in subordination to the Passover and acknowledged nothing more in it than was acknowledged in the blood of a Lamb and other Sacrifices namely that they were a mere commemoration and nothing else oh how did he vilify that blood of the eternal Covenant He is guilty of the blood of the Lord who assents to the shedding of his blood and gives his vote to his death as inflicted for a mere shaddow and nothing else which they did II. That they ate and drank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgment to themselves But what that judgment is is declared vers 30. Many are sick c. It is too sharp when some turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Damnation when the Apostle saith most evidently vers 32. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When we are judged we are chastened that we should not be condemned Thus as in the beginning of the Mosaical Dispensation God vindicated the honour of the Sabbath by the death of him that gathered sticks and the honour of the worship in the Tabernacle by the death of Nadab and Abihu and the honour of his Name by the stoning of the Blasphemer so he set up like monuments of his vengeance in the beginning of the Gospel Dispensation in the dreadful destruction of Ananias and Sapphira for the wrong and reproach offered to the Holy Ghost in the delivery of some into the hands of Satan for contempt of and enmity against the Gospel in this judgment for the abuse of the Eucharist in the destruction of some by the Plague for Nicolaitism Revel II. 23 c. VERS XXXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
ways of glorifying himself and is not tyed to this or that way by any necessity But the reason of the difference lyeth First In his own Will as the Apostle resolves it He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth But Secondly As in reference to the persons raised he raiseth what souls he raiseth by virtue of his Covenant of grace but he raiseth not all the bodies he raiseth by the same virtue It is said concerning Christ himself that God brought him from the dead by the bloud of the everlasting Covenant Heb. XIII 20. So doth he by the blood and virtue of the same Covenant bring from the dead every soul that he brings from the dead but he doth not so every body that he brings from the dead Now the tenor of the Covenant is Hearken to my voice and live Es. LV. 3. Incline your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live And to the very same tenor are those word of our Saviour mentioned before Joh. V. 25. The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live What kind of language is this The Dead shall hear All the Dead shall hear and yet only they that hear shall live What needed more to have been said than that the Dead shall hear his voice and live But his meaning is all the dead Heathen shall have the Gospel and hear the word of it brought among them and they that hear it that is obey it and follow it shall live Let me repeat that which I alledged from Esay LV. 3. and add what follows there Hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of David Now that by sure mercies of David is meant the resurrection of Christ the Apostle teacheth us in Act. XIII 34. And as concerning that he raised him from the dead now no more to return to corruption he said on this wise I will give you the sure mercies of David The resurrection of Christ therefore are the sure mercies of Christ. For that by David is meant Christ it were easy to shew and it is so confessed by the Jews themselves in their expositions of that place It was the sure mercy that God gave to Christ himself of which he so rejoyceth Psal. XVI 9. My heart is glad my glory rejoyceth and my flesh also shall rest in hope Because thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell c. And it is the sure mercy of Christ that God gave to the members of Christ that he raised him from the dead and imparts to them the benefit of his Resurrection And this is called there an Everlasting Covenant that he makes with them That as he gave Christ a resurrection so he will give them a resurrection The first and the latter rain the first and the latter resurrection First to raise their Souls by the virtue of his Covenant from the death of sin in his good time and to raise their bodies by virtue of the same Covenant at the last day Of which last our Saviour speaks three times over Joh. VI. ver 39. This is my Fathers will which hath sent me that of all that he hath given I should lose none but raise him up at the last day ver 40. And this is the Will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him should have eternal life and I will raise him up the last day And ver 44. None can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day Will Christ raise up all persons in the world at the last day upon these terms Ye see No but only those that comply with his Covenant to come to him see him believe in him His power and justice will raise all others the virtue of his Covenant will raise these Now I suppose you easily see how to distinguish twixt the Tenor of his Covenant and the Virtue of his Covenant The Tenor of his Covenant is Hear and obey my voice and live The Virtue of his Covenant is his unfailing truth power goodness that will give life to them that hear his voice and obey him Thus you see one reason of the difference why he raiseth but some souls here from the death of sin but will raise all bodies from the death of the grave Thirdly Another reason of difference may be given for that at the last day he will raise all the persons in the world from their graves that he may glorifie himself but he raiseth only some few from their sins that they may glorify him And there is a great deal of difference twixt Gods glorifying himself upon men as he did upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians and bringing men heartily and laboriously to glorifie him and to live to his glory But Secondly a main difference in these two resurrections the soul from sin and the body from the grave is that the first resurrection is with the desire of him that is raised the latter will be in despite of thousands that will have no mind of it God will bring thee to jugement Eccles. XI 9. is a cutting saying but all the World shall never be able to take the edge of it off But let wicked men struggle and strive and tug never so hard against the resurrection God will bring them to it and no resisting But the first resurrection or the raising a soul from the death of sin how sweet how welcome how comfortable is it to every one to whom it comes Thy people will be willing in the day of thy power and help forward their own rising as much as they can and the Spirit and Bride say come and the soul and heart say Come Lord Jesus come quickly and let me see this resurrection And thus have we seen some circumstances in which the first and second resurrection differ and are at distance let us now consider wherein they agree and shake hands one with another Observe that the Scripture speaks in some places of the Resurrection as if it were to be no Resurrection but of just and holy ones only as you may take notice in 1 Cor. XV. and 1 Thes. IV. That there shall be a Resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just the Scripture assures us over and over again but it more especially calls that a Resurrection that is a Resurrection indeed and and not a raising to be cast down again Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more as the Apostle tells us Death hath no more dominion over him And the Scripture doth more especially call that a Resurrection that is written after his Copy for a man to rise from the dead to die no more That man is but little helped which we read of in the Prophet that in the way met a Lyon and flying
understanding immortal substance that is not extinguished by sin nor cannot be by any thing And so when God forbids Murther he doth it with this argument That he that kills a Man destroys one that carries the image of God And yet then the likeness of God in Man Holiness and Righteousness was utterly gone but the image of God in these essential constitutives in soul were still remaining in him Upon that saying of God Whoso sheddeth Mans blood by Man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he Man if any Man question Is this meant of every Man in the world Can any doubt it Unless the Murther of some Men were allowed though of others forbidden Upon the very same argument we may urge the love of every man to every man because in the Image of God he created him And if thou canst find any man without the Image of God in his Soul then hate him and spare not But then it will further be Objected Then by this Argument I should love the Devil for he was created in the Image of Cod that is He is a spiritual intellectual immortal substance as well as any mans Soul I Answer He is so indeed but these two things make now the vast difference First He is in a sinful estate utterly irrecoverable And so we cannot say of any soul in the world The Apostle saith of the Angels that fell That God cast them down into Hell upon their Fall 2 Pet. II. They are damned already irrecoverably but you cannot say of any soul in the World absolutely that it cannot be saved Whether all Souls in the World be salvabiles in a savable condition we shall not dispute nor whence their salvability comes if it be so But certainly you and I nor no Man in the world can say of any Man that he cannot be saved True we may truly and justly say that if he continue and dye in such and such sins and wicked courses he cannot be saved But of his soul considered in its bare essence we cannot say so Nay we must pray for his Salvation This then is that that beautifies a Soul and makes it lovely and upon which we are to love every Man because he hath a soul capable of enjoying God and Salvation Shall I hate any Mans soul It may be united to God Hate any Mans body It may be a Temple of the Holy Ghost any Mans Person He may be an Inheritor of Eternal Glory Scorn not poor Joseph for all his rags and imprisonment he may come to sit upon a Throne Despise not poor Lazarus for all his Sores and Tatters he may be carried by Angels into Abraham ' s bosom Secondly Christ dyed for Souls he dyed not for Devils And this is no small demonstration of the Excellency and preciousness of a Soul viz. That the Son of God himself would dye for it It is therefore the Apostles Argument once and again Offend not him for whom Christ dyed Destroy not him for whom Christ dyed Rom. XIV 1 Cor. VIII Darest thou hate him for whom Christ dyed Darest thou wrong him for whom the Son of God would shed his blood A SERMON PREACHED upon GENESIS III. 20. And Adam called his Wives name Eve because she was the Mother of all living ADAMS story is all wonder Dust so raised to become so brave a Creature that Bravery so soon lost so soon repaired and so hughly repaired to a better condition That he is sensible of in the Text therefore he calls his Wives name Eve because Mother to all living He had named her quoad sexum as to her sex Chap. II. 23. Now he gives her another name of distinction Then she was called Woman because she was taken out of Man Now Eve because all living were to come out of her Adam shewed Wisdom in naming the Beasts here he shews that and more viz. Faith and sense of his better Estate She was rather the Mother of Death having done that that brought death into the world but he sensible of a better life to come in by her calls her Eve Life as the word signifies Lay this to that in Joh. I. 4. In him was life speaking of Christ and the life was the light of men Eve was the Mother of all living viz. of Christ and all that live by him So that hence I make this Observation That Adam and Eve believed and obtained life For the proof of this let us view their story I. God saith I will put enmity between thee and the Woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel vers 15. Satan had accompanied with them till this Promise came He keeps to them to chear them he perswaded them to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord. But now she sets him at defyance She sees her error The Serpent saith she deceived me grows at enmity with him having now a surer comfort promised to rely upon II. God clothed them with skins vers 21. Which is an evidence that they sacrificed For they had no need of slaying Beasts for any other purpose Flesh they might not eat They were slain for sacrifice and their skins served for clothing Thus Body and Soul were provided for And in these Sacrifices they looked after Christ and saw him in figure The first death in the world was Christs dying in figure Noah knew clean and unclean Beasts and sacrificed This undoubtedly he had learned from the beginning III. Observe that Luk. I. 70. As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets which have been since the world began Hinting that from the very beginning of the world there were Prophets of the Messias Thus Adam was a Prophet of Christ and prophesied of him in the name of Eve signifying life And Eve prophesied of him in the name of Cain Gen. IV. 1. She conceived and bare Cain and said I have gotten a man from the Lord Or I have begotten a man the Lord as the words may be rendred And in the name Seth Gen. IV. 25. She bare a Son and called his name Seth For God saith she hath appointed me another seed IV. The promise of the Messiah was not given to a Castaway It was given to Abraham and David and others that were righteous men V. Religion began to be planted by Adam Cain and Abel brought Sacrifice to God Which shews that Religion had been planted before VI. Christ prevailed against the Serpent from the beginning and had a seed The Church began with Adam Else what confusion would there have been in the world VII The Sabbath was given from the beginning and Adam kept it VIII All Gods dealings with him were to forward Faith in him Such were his Cursing the ground his expelling him out of Eden his enjoyning him Sacrifice and the Sabbath IX Adam is ranked with holy ones Gen. V. These things laid together may be sufficient to prove that Adam and Eve believed
their character of Hades 1. They thought it was a place under the Earth And the reason is because they thought none went to Heaven but those that were to be gods all others went to Hades Hence Aeneas and Ulysses went down into the Earth to the World of Souls there to confer with some dead friends Hence the cheat of the Devil to bring Ghosts as ascending out of the Earth 1 Sam. XXVIII 13. 2. This place of Souls had two parts viz. Elysium and Tartarus and those parted with a deep gulph of a deadly River and that from one side they could see and talk to the other According to this common opinion Christ frames his Parable Luke XVI 23. He in Hades in the place of torment looks over the gulph and talks with Abraham So that both good and bad when dead went to Hades the good to the place of rest and delight the bad to the place of sorrow and pain So the Greek Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Both go to Hades c. Lazarus went to Hades and so did the rich man too but to contrary conditions IV. In this sense then is the Article to be taken as speaking according to the common notion That Christs Soul went to Hades to the other World to the place where good Souls went which Scripture hath taught us is Heaven The word Hell now is come to signifie only the place of torment but of old it signified larger as the word Hades does and by the Greek word and its signification we must construe it Let me give you a word parallel The word Knave is now taken only in a bad sense of old it signified a Servant So some old Translations express A Servant of the Lord by A Knave of the Lord. When we read that we do not construe it by the present sense of the word but by the old and by the original Hebrew So when in this Article we read the word Hell we must not construe it according to our present common acceptation but as of old it signified the place and state of all Souls departed And so in this Article there are these three Doctrines comprised I. That Christ had a true humane Soul like other men Like to us he had a Soul that was reasonable that inlivened the Body that was whole in it and not the Divinity that inlivened and actuated his Body II. That when Christ died there was a real separation of Soul and Body as it is with other men The Soul slept not with the Body but was separate from it Though it was to come into the Body again yet it forsook the Body and was separate III. As soon as it was departed it went into another World of Souls to a place where holy Souls go viz. to Heaven And there continued till it was to return to the Body It was in Paradise all the while the Body was in the grave Object Is this the meaning of Act. II. 27. Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell or Hades If Hades mean Paradise why should Christ pray against being left in Hades My Flesh shall rest in hope that it shall not be left in Hades and hopes he not that his Soul shall not be left in Hades as he hopes his Body shall not see corruption Answer He doth not pray thus as if it were not well with his Soul in Hades as to what it enjoyed but that it was not well while separate from the Body for that it was while Christ was under death As if he should say Thou wilt not leave me under death my Soul in separation This would be the Triumph of the Devil Observe Christs Soul was in glory the while his Body was in the Grave and yet desires to return to the Body Why That he may finish the work of God by his Resurrection to conquer death As I said It is Hell to the Devil not to be doing evil so it is Heaven to Christ to do the Will of God He left the bosom of the Father to come into the World and when his Soul was in the bosom of his Father again in those joys that are not expressible yet it would rather do the work of God Ask a Soul there wouldest thou be on Earth again No. But wouldest thou be on Earth to do God service there Yes it is as Heaven to be doing any thing for God Ubi Imperator ibi Roma Where the Emperor is there is Rome so wheresoever a man can please God it is Heaven to him Here is the happiness of Saints in Heaven that their Will is wholly swallowed up in the Will of God It is a question where Lazarus his Soul was while he was four days dead Why undoubtedly no where but in Heaven But the reason of the objection is Because it was but a wrong or misery to his Soul to send it from Heaven again Blessed Soul dost thou think so No any thing to obey the Will of God So the Soul of Christ was in glory in the midst of unspeakable joys yet he would not have it continue there till the work of God was done Soul thou art well be content keep in Paradise still let the Body lye in the Grave it feels not hurt Ah! but all this while Satan Death is not conquered Gods cause is not pleaded and finished let that work first be done and then both to glory That that I speak to and that that the Article aims at is that Christ had a humane Soul like other men but that not sinful and that it departed as the Souls of other men Some on Gen. I. 26 27. And God said Let us make man in our image say God set Christ before him and made man after the image of Christ as though they would say God made the first Adam in the image of the second whereas we should say the contrary God made the second Adam in the image of the first So Phil. II. 7 8. He made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man c. Not man at first created in the likeness of Christ but Christ was brought into the World in the likeness of man And how Christs Soul was like other mens I shall observe to you in three things I. In its infusion into the Body II. In its existence and acting in the Body III. In its going out of the Body Men saw his Body like other mens and in these his Soul shewed it self like other mens also I. By its infusion or induction into the Body But here you will say the Copy is darker than to know what to write after it It is controverted how Souls are put into the Body and there are two mistakes about it viz. Praeexistence and Generation which this may rectisie Some hold Praeexistence of Souls that they were created at the beginning of the World and put in at last into Bodies And
Souls to be disposed of according to its sinfulness or goodness But why should God thus dispose as to the taking men out of this World Why not the wicked Soul and Body to Hell and no more ado And why not the holy Soul and Body to Heaven I might say That Simeon and Levi that have been brethren in Evil might be scattered in Jacob that they conspire evil no more That Soul and Body that have been compartners in â—inning might be severed from conjoyning to sin any more But what need we say more than that God hath thus sentenced upon sin that the Body that was created immortal should dye and see corruption and that Soul and Body that were in the nearest conjunction in this World should be disunited and the bonds of life dissolved and Soul and Body parted into two several Regions Oh! how bitter is this parting how dreadful the very thought of it to most in the World Why Christ did as really undergo this separation in his death as any other whatsoever Observable is the expiring of Christ upon his cross both in regard of the thing it self and of the manner of it Comparing the Evangelists together we shall see it the better S. John seems to make It is finished his last words Joh. XIX 30. S. Luke Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke XXIII 46. And add but the construction that the Centurion makes upon his crying out Mark XV. 39. Truly this was the Son of God They all say in our English He gave up the Ghost Which two of them viz. Mark and Luke express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He breathed out his Spirit according as other dying persons do But Matthew and John have expressions very feeling Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He let go his Spirit or his Soul And John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He delivered it up Christ could not dye nay I may say he would not dye till all things were fulfilled that were written concerning his death Therefore when he had hung above three hours and knowing it was written They gave me Vinegar c. he said I thirst He tastes and finds it Vinegar and says It is finished now all is accomplished so he bows his Head and composeth himself to dye and cries Father into thy hands c. And having so said He let go his Soul and Delivered it up into the hands of God Remember that Joh. X. 17 18. and you see the sense of these expressions I lay down my life that I may take it again No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again He had life in his own hand and the Jews could not take it from him but he let it go himself and delivered it up When the Centurion saw that he thus cried out and gave up the Ghost he said Surely this man was the Son of God Doubtless this man hath the Disposal of his own life So strong a cry is not the cry of one that is spent and dying through weakness and faintting but it argues life strong and vigorous to be still in him and therefore he dies not of weakness but gives up his life at his own pleasure Shall we pass this great passage of our Saviour without a meditation Mortal men and women if your Lives and Souls were so at your own disposal could you so readily so willingly part with them and give them up to God They are not and time is a coming when we must part with them whether we will or no. Our Saviour hath taught us what to do against they be called for to get them in readiness to be comfortably willing to part with them and give them up into his hands I remember that passage of a good man dying Egredere anima quid times c. Go Soul depart why art thou affraid Thou hast served a good Master be not affraid to go to him It will be a hard pull to have the Soul and Body parted We had need to be getting the Soul loosned that when God calls it may not be unwilling and hang on and stick and be loth to go It was a hard perplexity with him that cried out Animula vagula blandula c. Ah! poor Soul thou must go and whither art thou to go To leave all thy worldly pleasures and delights and must away thou knowest not whither The hard and dreary parting is when the Soul is chained to the World as well as to the Body when it sticks to these things as well as to the Body and must be torn from all these too He that is dead to the World how easie how comfortable is it for that man to dye When he dies he hath nothing else to do but to resign his Soul to him that gave it So that though the manner of Christs parting Soul and Body were extraordinary yet his Soul and Body were as really parted at his death as other mens are III. His Soul thus parted from his Body went to Hades into another World to the place whither holy Souls go after death which himself expresseth in those words to the good Thief To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise What does a Soul instantly after its departure Some say Walks the regions of Air and sees the secrets of nature there But Souls go not into another World to study but to receive rewards And I may say of any Soul departed as Christ of Peter Joh. XXI 18. When thou wast young thou girdest thy self and walkest whither thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not So when the Soul was in the Body it went whither it would moved the Body whither it thought good did what it pleased was at its own pleasure but now being departed another hath girded it and if it be an evil Soul he carries it whither it would not if even the best Soul he hath fixed it that it is not at its own liberty as it was before The other World is the fixing of Souls in their place and condition that they flit no more change no more that as the Soul then is not in a mutable condition as it is here so not in a self-moving condition as here Observe that Eccles. XII 7. Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it A good Soul returns to God and a bad Soul too returns to God that gave it both return to God How Now they come intirely into Gods hands to be disposed of according to what was done by them in the flesh and he instantly disposeth them into Heaven or Hell That is the very day of retribution See Luke XVI 22 23. And it came to pass that the Begger died and was carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosom The rich man also died and was
for fine Flower are Micmash and Zanoah and next to them Ephraim in the Vale. JOHN Chap. XII from begin to Ver. 12. A Supper at Bethany Jesus his feet anointed THe connexion of this story to the preceding Chapter is plainly made by the Evangelist himself Compare ver 55. of Chap. 11. and ver 1. of this Though there were a Proclamation out against Jesus for his life Chap. 11. 57. yet cometh he for Jerusalem and Lazarus at Bethany is not afraid to entertain him He may well venture his life for him who had received it from him It was their Sabbath day at night when he had this Supper a time that they used to have extraordinary cheer Mary who had anointed his feet before Luke 7. 38. doth the like again There is a groundless and a strange opinion of some that the Supper in Matth. 26. 6 7. and Mark 14. 3. was the same with the Supper in John 12. An imagination that I cannot enough admire at seeing there are so many things plainly to gainsay it but the discussion of it shall be deferred till we come to those Chapters Only one particular here may not be omitted without observation and which will make something at present toward the confutation of that opinion and that is our Saviours answer in the vindication of Maries act Let her alone against the day of my burial hath she kept this or rather She hath kept it Not that he meaneth that this anointing of his feet was her anointing him against his burial but that she had kept some of this oyntment yet for that purpose hereafter Judas repined at the expence of the oyntment that she used for the anointing of his feet and pleaded that it had been better bestowed upon charitable uses for the poor Why saith Christ she hath kept it yet and not spent all that she may bestow it upon a charitable use the anointing of my body to its burial For 1. neither the text doth any whit assert that she spent the whole pound that she brought nor indeed in reason was so great a quantity needful 2. It was not so proper to apply it to his burial now when as he was to ride in triumph to Jerusalem to morrow as it was two daies before the Passover when the other Supper and anointing was which was the very night when Judas compacted for his betraying 3. Then Christ saith she poured it upon his body Matt 26. 12. which cannot be of the same sense with pouring it upon his feet only She therefore six days before the Passover anointed his feet which was an ordinary use among the Jews to have their feet anointed and the Talmudists give some rules about it in Talm. Jerus Sanhedr fol. 21. col 1. and this she doth in dear love and affection to him But two daies before the Passover she doth not so much anoint his head as pour the Ointment upon his head that it might run all over his body and this she did towards his burial not only in his construction but in her own intention she being the first we read of that believed his death as she was the first that saw him after his resurrection Her faith and fact he foresaw and therefore saith now at the anointing of his feet that she yet kept it for the anointing of his body which when she did he extols the fact with this encomion that wheresoever the Gospel should be preached that action of her the example of the first faith in his death should be published in memorial of her Thus did this Mary who as hath been shewed was Mary Magdalen anoint Christ three several times his feet at her first conversion and his feet again at this time six daies before the Passover and his head and body two daies before the Passover even that night that Judas first went about to make his bargain for betraying him SECTION LXXII MATTH XXI from the beginning to Ver. 17. MARK XI from the begin to the middle of Ver. 11. LUKE XIX from Ver. 29. to the end JOHN XII from Ver. 12. to Ver. 20. CHRIST rideth upon an Ass into Jerusalem JOHN maketh the connexion plain when he saith On the next day c. And sheweth that as Christ went up at this time in the evidence and accomplishment of that Prophesie Zech. 9. 9. so he also went up in the equity and answering of that Type of taking up the Paschal Lamb on the tenth day Exod. 12. 3. for this was on that very day and the Lamb of God doth now go in as giving up himself for the great Paschal John telleth us that he lay at Bethany the night before this and yet the other Evangelists have related it that when he came to Bethpage and Bethany he sent two of his Disciples for the Ass c. The Jews Chorography will here help us out They tell us 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two thousand cubits was the Suburbs of a City Maym. in Schabh per. 27. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two thousand cubits were the bounds of a Sabbath or a Sabbath days journey Talm. in Sotah per. 5. 3. Bethpage was of this nature it was not a Town upon mount Olivet as it hath been very generally supposed and accordingly placed in the most Maps but it was some buildings and that space of ground that lay from Jerusalem wall forward towards mount Olivet and up mount Olivet to the extent of two thousand cubits from the wall or thereabout and hereupon it was reputed by the Jews of the same qualification with Jerusalem as a part of it in divers respects Talm. Bab. Pesachin fol. 63. fac 2. He that slays a Thanksgiving Sacrifice within while the bread belonging to it is without the wall the bread is not holy What means without the wall R. Jochanan saith Without the wall of Bethpage The Gloss there â—aith Bethpage was an outer place of Jerusalem And the same Gloss useth the very same words again upon the same Tract fol. 91. fac 1. And again in the same Treatise fol. 95. fac 2. the Mishna saith thus The two loaves and the shewbread are allowable in the Temple Court and they are allowable in Bethpage Nay the Gloss in Sanhedr fol. 14. fac 1. saith Bethpage was a place which was accounted as Jerusalem for all things So that the place so called began from Jerusalem and went onwards to and upon mount Olivet for the space of a Sabbath daies journey or thereabout and then began the coast that was called Bethany And hence it is that Luke saith that Christ when he ascended into Heaven led forth his Disciples as far as Bethany Luke 24. 50. which elsewhere he sheweth was the space of a Sabbath days journey Acts. 1. 12. which cannot be understood of the Town Bethany for that was fifteen furlongs or very neer two Sabbath daies journey from Jerusalem but that he led them over that space of ground which was called Bethpage to that part of Olivet
a singular raging against the Gospel the devil bestirring himself in them now he knew their time was so short THE EPISTLE OF JUDE As the second Epistle of Peter and this of Jude are very near akin in style matter and subject so it is fairly conjecturable in them that they were not far removed in time speaking both of wicked ones and wickedness at the same height and ripeness They are one to another as the Prophesie of Obadiah and Jerem. 49. 14 c. speaking the same thing using the same manner of arguing and oftentimes almost the same words It may be Jude stands up in his brother James his charge among the Circumcision of Judea and directs his Epistle to all those that were sanctified and preserved in those Apostatizing times as his brother had done to all the twelve Tribes in general In citing the story of Michael the Archangel contending with the devil about the body of Moses ver 9. he doth but the same that Paul doth in naming Jannes and Jambres namely alledge a story which was current and owned among the Nation though there were no such thing in Scripture and so he argueth with them from their own Authors and concessions It is harsh to strain Zech. 3. 1 2. to speak such a story when neither the name Michael is mentioned nor any thing like the body of Moses or akin to it But among the Talmudicks there seems to be something like the relicks of such a matter viz. of Michael and the Angel of death disputing or discoursing about fetching away the soul of Moses His alledging the Prophesie of Enoch is an arguing of the very like nature as citing and referring to some known and common tradition that they had among them to this purpose The Book Sepher Jesher an Hebrew Writer speaketh of Enoch after such a tenour And in both these he useth their own testimonies against themselves as if he should thus have spoken at large These men speak evil of dignities whereas they have and own a story for current that even Michael the Archangel did not speak evil of the devil when he was striving with him about the body of Moses c. And whereas they shew and own a Prophesie of Enoch of God coming in Judgment c. why these are the very men to whom such a matter is to be applied c. It is no strange thing in the New Testament for Christ and the Apostles to deal and argue with the Jews upon their own concessions THE THREE EPISTLES OF JOHN Among all the Apostolick Epistles there is none about whose time of writing we are so far to seek as we are about these And it is neither satisfactory to remove their place nor is it satisfactory to take their time according to their place or to conceive them to be written after the Epistles of Peter because they are placed after them Any conjecture that is to be had of them may best be taken from the third Epistle Gaius to whom that Epistle is directed by that encomiastick character that John giveth of him seemeth to be Gaius the Corinthian the host of the whole Church Rom. 16. 23. for since he is commended for entertainment and charity both to the Church and strangers particularly to those who had preached among the Gentiles taking nothing of them we know not where to find any other Gaius to whom to affix this character but only this and we have no reason to look after any other And upon this probability we may observe these other I. That that third Epistle was written when those that preached to the Gentiles and took nothing of them were still abroad upon that imployment for he urgeth him to bring them forward on their journey ver 6. Now under that expression of taking nothing of the Gentiles we can understand none but Paul and Barnabas and those that were of their several companies for the Scripture hath named none other And if it refer to Paul and his company for we find not that Barnabas had any thing to do with Gaius then we must conclude that it was written a good while before this time that we are upon unless we will suppose Paul after his freedom from imprisonment at Rome was got travelling and preaching in those parts again But I should rather suppose that John sent this third Epistle to Gaius to Corinth by Timothy from Ephesus who was setting away thence for Rome upon Pauls sending for him to come to him thither 2 Tim. 4. 9 11 21. In which journey as we have shewed before he was to call at Corinth and to take Mark along with him who was there And of them may Johns advice to Gaius be well understood Whom if thou bring forward on their journey thou shalt do well For for his sake they went out taking nothing of the Gentiles Mark with Barnabas and Timothy with Paul II. Before John wrote this Epistle to Gaius he had written another Epistle to some Church it may be that of Corinth of which Gaius was I wrote saith he unto the Church but Diotrephes who loveth to have the preeminence receiveth us not This must needs be understood of The first Epistle of John unless we will conceive unwarrantably that I may say no worse that any of Johns writings are lost III. Upon and with the forementioned supposal that John sent his Epistle to Gaius by Timothy from Ephesus we cannot but also suppose that John spent some time in the Asian Churches to which afterward from Patmos he writes his Epistles And if any one be not satisfied with that interpretation that was given before about the Epistle from Laodicea Colos. 4. 16. let him rather understand it of The first Epistle of John as written by him from Laodicea then think it was an Epistle written by Paul from Laodicea and that that Epistle is lost In both his later Epistles he intimateth his hopes and purpose shortly to come to them from which we may construe that his intention was to travel from Asia the less where he now was and from whence he wrote all his three Epistles westward into Greece and in this journey you have him got into Patmos Rev. 1. from whence he writes back to Asia again In all his Epistles he exhorteth to love and constancy in the truth a lesson most needful in those divided and Apostatizing times He giveth notice of many Antichrists now abroad and these he sheweth to have been such as had once professed the truth but were apostatized from it They went out from us but they were not of us c. And this Apostacy he calleth The sin unto death To such he adviseth they should not so much as say God speed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their vulgar language Jerus Taamith fol. 64. col 2. The Rabbins saw a holy man of Caphar Immi and went to him and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God speed But he answered them nothing Id. in Sheviith fol. 35. 2.
some machination against himself he had now shut up in prison and intended him presently for the execution but that his sickness whereof he died seizing on him gave some more space to the imprisoned and some hopes and possibilities of escaping His disease was all these mixed together an inward burning and exulceration an insatiable greediness and devouring the Chollick the Gout and Dropsie his loins and secrets crawling with lice and a stink about him not to be indured These wringings and tortures of his body meeting with the peevishness of old age for he was now seventy and with the natural cruelty which always had been in him made him murderously minded above all measure insomuch that he put to death divers that had taken down a golden Eagle which he had set up about the Temple And when he grew near to his end and saw himself ready to die he slew his Son Antipater and caused great multitudes of the Nobility and People to be closed up in a sure place giving command to slay them as soon as he was dead for by that means he said he should have the Jews truly and really to sorrow at his death Vid. Joseph Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 8 9 10. and de Bel. lib. 1. cap. 21. Vers. 20. For they are dead that sought the young childs life The like saying is to Moses Exod. 4. 19. where the word they may be understood of Pharaoh and his servants which jointly sought his life for the Egyptians sake whom he had slain and were now all dead and worn out in the fourty years of his being in Midian But here it is true indeed that the seeking of the childs life may well be applied to Herods Servants as well as himself but that all they died with him or about the time of his death who in flattery or favour or obedience to him had promoted the slaughter at Bethlehem and had sought the childs life I know not upon what ground it should be conceived I should therefore by the they in this place understand Herod and his Son Antipater jointly together For if it be well considered how mischievous this Antipater was against his own Brethren and how he wrought their ruine and misery for fear they should get betwixt him and the throne yea how he sought the destruction of his own Father because he thought he kept him out of the Throne too long it may very well be believed that he would bloodily stir against this new King of the Jews that the wisemen spake of for fear of interception of the Crown as well as his Father He died but five days before his fathers death as it was touched before out of Josephus and thus God brought this bloodliness of the Father and the Son and the rest of their cruelties to an end and upon their own heads at once and in a manner together and thus may the words of the Angel be very fairly understood Take the child and return to the Land of Israel for Herod and Antipater are dead that sought his life Ver. 22. Archelaus did reign in Iudea in the room of his Father Herod Herod had first named Antipater for his Successor in the Throne of Judea but upon detection of his conspiracy against him he altered his mind and his will and nominated Antipas and changing his mind yet again he named Archelaus and he succeeded him a man not likely to prosper in a Throne that was so bebloodied His conclusion was that in the tenth year of his reign he was accused by the Nobles of Judea and Samaria to Augustus banished to Vienna and his estate confiscate Jos. Ant. lib. 17. cap. 15. Ver. 23. He shall be called a Nazarene From Isa. 11. 1. where the Messias is called by the title Nezer which indifferently signifieth A branch and the City Nazaret one and the same word denoting Christ and the place where he should be born SECTION VIII S. LUKE CHAP. II. Christ sheweth his wisdom at twelve years old Ver. 40. AND a a a a a a Compare Exod. 2. 10. 1 Sam. 2. 26. Jud. 16. 24. the Child grew and waxed strong in spirit filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him 41. Now his Parents went to Ierusalem b b b b b b Exod. 23. 15. 17. every year at the Feast of the Passover 42. And when he was twelve years old they went up to Ierusalem after the custom of the Feast 43. And when they had fulfilled the days as they returned the Child Iesus tarried behind in Ierusalem and Ioseph and his mother knew not of it 44. But they supposing him to have been in the company went a days journey and they sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance 45. And when they found him not they turned back again to Ierusalem seeking him 46. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the Temple sitting in the middest of the Doctors both hearing them and asking them questions 47. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers 48. And when they saw him they were amazed and his mother said unto him Son why hast thou thus dealt with us Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing 49. And he said unto them How is it that ye sought me Wist ye not that I must * * * * * * Or In my Fathers house be about my Fathers business 50. And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them 51. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart 52. And Iesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men Reason of the Order THE Order of this Section dependeth so clearly upon the proper Order of that preceding that that being made good to lie where it doth as in the proper place the subsequence of this to it can nothing at all be doubted of For whereas all the Evangelists have unanimously passed over in silence all those years of Christs minority which intervened or passed between his return out of Egypt and this passage of his at twelve years old there is nothing possible to be found in the Gospels that can come between to interpose this order and connexion The carriage and demeanour of our Saviour in the time between is only briefly comprised in the first verse of this portion And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him Harmony and Explanation Ver. 40. And the child grew c. TWO years Old he was when he went into Egypt and there he aboad in his Exile a very small time it may be some two or three months about such a space as Moses had been hid in Egypt in his Fathers house from the fury of Pharaoh When he returned to Nazareth his Mothers City being now about two years and a quarter old he
words of Christ the man had received healing though he had said no more to him since none that came to him in faith went away not sped Yet herein lyeth some scruple and question how the forgiveness of his sins could have influence into the healing of his disease Since that is the cure of the soul and not of the body and since justified persons are as incident to diseasdness and to death as those that are not justified There is a passage in the Prophet Esay something agreeable to this matter in hand and that is in Chap 33. 24. The Inhabitant shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity Now in such passages as these there seemeth reference to be had to those curses threatned for violation of the Law in Deut. 28. amongst which there are sad diseases of body and mind mentioned and denounced vers 21 22 27 28 35 59 60 61. And from that ground seemeth to have risen their giving up men that were palpable offenders to a Cherem or a curse and the giving up of men to Satan For as for incorrigible offenders that would not be reclaimed by correction and for whom there was no express and positive Law to put them to death what was there to be done with them But to devote them solemnly and to leave them to those curses that God denounced against such violaters of his commandements which Judicial process founded upon the warrant and belief of his word it pleased the Lord very often to follow with answerable effect and such a person became a curse among his people as Numb 5. 27. And this I suppose to be the giving up to Satan mentioned in the Scripture as devoting such a wretch out of the care and protection of God to the power and disposal of the Devil And this that common and proverbial speech among the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pack to Satan which is to be found in their Talmudical writers seemeth to have respect and reference unto And accordingly divers diseases in the Gospel are ascribed to the inflicting of Satan as Luke 13. 16. 11. 14. c. And the giving up of the person to Satan 1 Cor. 5. must be for the destruction of the flesh vers 5. Vers. 5. Whether it is easier to say Thy sins be forgiven thee c. It was indeed a truth that the Scribes aimed at when they said this man blasphemeth namely that none can forgive sins but God only but their ignorance concerning the person about whom they spake did cause themselves to blaspheme when they said he blasphemed In this answer of Christ to them whether it is easier to say c. 1. He meaneth not whether is it easier to pronounce those words but whether is it easier to effectuate those words that is to do those things that the words do mean namely to forgive sins or to heal a palsie 2. He meaneth that it had been an easier thing to have said Rise take up thy bed and walk and so to have recovered the man of his malady as a Prophet or one indued with the gift of miracles might have done But 3. that he said Thy sins are forgiven thee purposely that they might take notice not only by his uttering of the words but also by the effect that was to follow them that he had power to forgive sins As he had mightily revealed his power in the two cures that he had wrought in the stories before in casting out a Devil and healing a Leper so doth he here shew this power a greater power than either of those and it may be conceived That he purposely useth those word Thy sins are forgiven thee for the mans healing rather than Rise take up thy bed not only because he would shew his own power to forgive sins but because he would glorifie the doctrine of forgiveness of sins before these Pharisees who stood altogether upon legal righteousness And so at once would shew the great work of the Messias to save his people from their sins as Matt. 1. 18. and the great tenor of the Gospel faith and remission of sins He saw their Faith and said Thy sins are forgiven Vers. 9. He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the Receipt of Custom Matthew is now writing his own story and he is not ashamed to speak the worst of himself that the grace of God might be the more magnified in him and to tell you that he was of the worst sort of men namely a Publican as he speaks it out Chap. 10. 3. He was also called Levi for so Mark and Luke do style him and whether he carried these names one before his calling and the other after it is but needless to enquire since double-namedness among the Jews was so familiar He was the Son of Alpheus or Cleopas and so Christs kinsman and thus that one man hath four sons that were Apostles namely James called the less and Judas called also Lebbeus and Thadeus and Simon called the Canaanite and Levi called also Matthew Matthew it seemeth was a Publican at Capernaum Custom-house on the Sea side for so it appeareth by the relation of Mark to gather tribute or Custom of Passengers over the water and of those whose imployment lay in that Sea of Galilee And here I cannot but mention a Gloss of Rabbi Solomon on Judg. 5. 10 11. You saith he that walk afoot by the way speak and mention this deliverance which you have from the noise of those that shot at you from Ambushes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thieves and Publicans that lay in wait by stocks to surprise those that came over the waters And the Chaldee Paraphrast at the same place speaketh of the Publicans sitting besides the waters And to this purpose also may be produced that Tradition in the Treatise Sabbath per. 8. To carry out ink on the Sabbath to write with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the Publicans Tickets and to carry out one of the Publicans Tickets was unlawful The Gemarists there explain what these Publicans Tickets were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How big say they was one of these Publicans Tickets It was two great Letters written in Paper or on something else c. And the intent of these Tickets were that he that had paid his whole toll or Custom on this side the water shewing it when he came on the other side of the water he was freed from paying any more Now Publicans were of two sorts either those that voluntarily set themselves to a mony-changing and mony-breaking trade and in that trade by cheating and oppression raised profit and such Baal Aruch meaneth when he speaketh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Publican that sets up of himself or such as were set up by the Romans to gather their Tribute of the Jews as saith Haggaon and they favoured some in partiality and on others they laid load and exacted more than right and proved but thieves Aruch
doth hereby more clearly open that mystery of God in Christ than if he had spoken only of believing himself or only of believing the Father 2. There are some that conceive that he speaketh of believing him that sent him rather than of believing him himself that by this humble reference of all to God he might make his speech more accceptable to the hearers 3. Compare this passage with Exod. 20. 19. and Deut. 18. 16 17 18. His expression of passing from death to life seemeth to refer either to the doom upon Adams not hearkening to the voice of God thou shalt die the death or to the codition under which every man is left by the Law namely under a curse from which hearkning to the voice of the Gospel is deliverance Or it may be it is spoken in some parallel to the case of the man healed for he by hearkening to the Word of Christ received health of body so whosoever heareth his Word obtains life of the Soul And thus doth Christ still make good the word that he had spoken to the man for a dispensation with the Sabbath and argueth that he might do such a thing because he was to give the Law and Word of the New Testament as the Father had done of the Old and sheweth that though violation of the Sabbath deserved and had been punished with death yet obedience to his Word and Command was discharge and a passing from death to life Vers. 25. The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voyce of the Son of God c. 1. These words are most generally understood as aiming at those dead that Christ raised by his voyce or word to life again as saying to Jairus daughter Talitha Kumi to the widdows son of Naim Young man arise and to Lazarus Lazarus come forth And being taken in such a relation the connexion of them to the words going immediately before lyeth thus Christ had spoken there of his spiritual reviving whosoever should believe his Word and here he either produceth a proof and evidence of what he had there spoken or else alledgeth it as another wonder and virtue of his power that by his voyce he would raise those that were bodily deceased And he ascribeth this reviving to the hearing of his voyce partly because he had ascribed the spiritual reviving to the hearing of his Word and partly to distinguish his rasing of those dead from the raising of those that were revived under the Old Testament for they were not raised by a word but by other applications 1 King 17. 21. 2 King 4. 34. 13. 21. 2. It was the opinion of the Jews that there should be a resurrection in the days of Messias The Chaldee Paraphrast glosseth Hos. 6. 2. thus He will revive us in the days of consolation Luke 2. 25. which are to come in the day of the Resurrection of the dead And Hos. 14. 8. thus They shall be gathered out of their captivity they shall sit under the shadow of their Messias and the dead shall revive and good shall be multiplyed on the Earth And Esay 49. 9. I give thee for a Covenant to the people to raise the righteous that lye in the dust And Kimchi on Esay 26. 19. The Holy blessed God will raise the dead at the time of deliverance And in Jer. 23. 20. In that he saith Ye shall consider it and not They shall consider it it intimateth the Resurrection of the dead in the days of the Messias And on Ezek. 37. It may be God shewed Ezekiel the vision of the dead bones reviving to signifie to him that he would raise the dead of Israel at the time of deliverance that they also might see the deliverance Ab. Ezr. in Dan. 12. 2. The righteous that dyed in the captivity shall revive when the Redeemer cometh c. And this was so far the opinion of the Nation that they understood the term The World to come of the state of glory and yet of the days of Messias as shall be shewed when we meet with that phrase Now there was a Resurrection in the days of the Messias accordingly not only of those three that have been named but also of divers Saints whose graves were opened and bodies arose Mat. 27. 52. And if the words that we have in hand be applyed to the raising of dead in a bodily sense they may most properly be pointed to that Resurrection which was so parellel to the expectation of the Jews and Christ asscribing such a matter to himself doth prove himself to be the Messias even they and their own opinion being Judges 3. But the raising of the dead is taken in Scripture also in a borrowed sense namely for the reviving and quickning of those that were dead in trespasses and sins c. as Ephes. 2. 1. And that sense doth seem more agreeable to this place because our Saviour in the verse before doth apparently speak of such spiritual reviving The calling in of the Gentiles to the Gospel is called a Resurrection in divers places of the Scripture as Esa. 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my Body they shall rise awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the Earth shall cast out her dead What dead these are that were to rise with Christs body from the dead is not so much intimated in that passage of the Evangelist The bodies of divers Saints arose Matth. 27. 52. as in that saying of our Saviour There shall no sign be given them but the sign of Jonah the Prophet By which he doth not only signifie his own death and Resurrection but he doth also gall the Jews with an intimation of the calling of the Gentiles upon his Resurrection as the Ninivites were called upon Jonahs Resurrection out of the grave of the Whales belly And that dew of his that should inliven men as the dew doth herbs is the dew of the Doctrine of the Gospel as Deut. 32. 2. And so likewise Hos. 6. 2. speaketh to the very same tenor of Christs raising the dead in a spiritual sense upon his own Resurrection which was on the third day And so is the Resurrection in Ezek. 37. plainly expounded in that very chapter to be in a spiritual sense and so the Apostle construes it Rom. 11. 15. Amd the calling of the Gentiles is styled the first Resurrection Rev. 20. 5. c. That Christ meaneth the dead and the raising of the dead in this sense in this place might be argued upon these observations 1. Because throughout his speech hitherto and some steps further the scope of his discourse is namely to prove his all powerful rule and disposal of the affairs under the Gospel equal to what the Father had under the Law of which the calling of the Gentiles was one of the most eminent and remarkable 2. Because as was said before his very last words preceding were of passing
Bullock whereof mention is made Deut. 16. 2. 2 Chron. 35. 7 8 9. Now these Bullocks were indeed slain at Passover time but not for the Passover beast properly taken for that must be of a Lamb or Kid unalterably but these Bullocks were slain as attendants upon the Paschal from the nature of which Sacrifice they differed in these particulars First the Paschal Lamb was always and all of him rosted these were sodden 2 Chron. 35. 13. Secondly the Paschal Lamb was rosted whole and eaten without breaking the bones these were broken piecemeal and so parted among the people The Paschal Lamb was a necessary service to which they were bound by command these were arbitary according to their stay in Jerusalem in the Passover week for if they would they might return home the next morning after the Paschal Lamb was eaten Deut. 16. 7. and then they needed no Bullock to be killed for their dyet the rest of the Feast but if they stayed any more days of the Feast at Jerusalem than the first then was not their dyet arbitary to eat any thing what they would but they must eat of these Bullocks because their dyet must be holy at time Hence resulteth another difference betwixt the Paschal Lamb and these which is this that these were not of the first institution of the Passover nor had they any Bullocks slain at the Passover in Aegypt but Lambs only SECTION XIX That the supper in Ioh. 13. was not the Passover Supper FIRST It is very commonly held that the Supper in John 13. was the Passover Supper and that Judas stayed not the Sacrament of the Lords Supper for that our Saviour having dipped a sop into the bitter or sowre sawce which they used to the Paschal Lamb and given it to him Satan with it entring into him he packed him away with What thou doest do quickly An opinion mistaken in the ground-work that it builds upon and consequently in the structure built upon it For that that was no passover at all the Evangelist makes it most plain in ver 1. when he saith it was before the Feast of the Passover and Matthew in Chap. 26. 2. telleth it was two days before and indeed two miles from Jerusalem namely in Bethany The serious Harmonizing of the four Evangelists together at this place will make this most clear Secondly if then it were not the Passover Supper there can be no Paschal Lamb looked for at it nor no Haroseth or sawce of bitter herbs to eat it with but the meat that they were then eating and the sawce in which our Saviour dipped the sop was ordinary meat and ordinary sawce Thirdly Judas when he was packed away with his Quod facis fac cito went not from Jerusalem to Gethsemanai where Christ was apprehended by him on the Passover night but he went from Bethany to Jerusalem to bargain with the chief Priest for his betraying which when he had done he returned to Bethany again SECTION XX. Borrowing Egyptian Iewels Exod. 12. 35 36. IT may be equally questionable whether Israel shewed less honesty in borrowing what they meant not to restore or Aegypt less wisdom in lending what they knew would not be restored For the first it is easily aswered that they had the express warrant of God who cannot command unrighteousness and whom to obey in all things is piety The second is as easily resolved thus that Idolaters in the worship of their Idols used to deck themselves with Jewels and Ear-rings and fine things thereby to make them as they thought the more acceptable to their fine decked Diety So do the Aegyptians now conceive of Israel that seeing they desired these their fine knacks being now going to sacrifice they intended to sacrifice to the Aegyptian gods as they had done heretofore and they thought sure there can be no danger of departing the Land because they still adhere to our Religion For Moses had but still spoken of going three days journey into the Wilderness to worship SECTION XXI Rameses and Succoth vers 37. THE most famous of the Dieties of Aegypt was their Goddess Isis mentioned in all Heathen Authors of her doth the last Syllable in Raam-ses and Rame-ses seem to sound as being Towns that bare the name of this Goddess and importing the Town or Temple or some such thing of Isis. For that which the Aegyptians called Ses or Sis other Languages in pronouncing would augment with a vowel before for so was it ordinary Aegypt at home was called Cophti but forreigners did call it Ecopti and so it came to be Egypti So the Sea that lay among the Gentiles of Greece was in Hebrew Mare Goiim the Sea of the Gentils but other Nations would put E before and so it came to be called Egoiim or Egaeum The Syrian and Arabick Testaments and the writing of Jewish Authors are full of examples of this nature Succoth is held to have been so called because Israel here lodged and pitched their tents in their March out of Aegypt but they marched too much in suspition of Pharaohs pursuit to settle a Camp and to pitch tents so near him But it rather seemeth to have taken denomination from the cloud of glory coming upon them in this place which was as a covering to them Psalm 135. 39. This their Divine conducter stayed with them till Moses death save that it was taken up for a while because of the golden Calf as Moses death it departed from them for when they are to march through Jordan the Ark is to lead the way which while the cloud was with them it never did but went in the body and very heart of the Army As the cloud departed at the death of Moses the first Prophet so is it restored and seen apparently at the sealing of the great Prophet Luke 9. 30. SECTION XXII The decree at Marah Exod. 15. 25. SHAM Sam lo hhok umishpat There he set a decree and a judgment for them God is beginning now to compose and platform the people into a setled policy which while they were under the fear and danger of Pharaoh could not be done And here he passeth a decree and judgment upon them what they must look for in the wilderness according to their dealing with him If they will diligently hearken to his words c. he will heal and keep them free from diseases as he healed those brackish waters and of bitter had made them sweet but if otherwise they must expect accordingly Those that have obscured this place by questioning whether this Ordinance at Marah were for the Sabbath or for the red Cow or for the trial of the suspected Wife or for the dimensum of their diet in the Wilderness have made obscurity where there is none at all and have supposed this to have been an Ordinance whereafter Israel was to walk whereas it was rather a decree whereafter God would deal with them according to their walking And answerably seem the latter words Vesham Nissahu to
danger themselves Here was a prize for the greedy appetite of Tiberius when so many of the best rank and purses were fallen into his lurch and their moneys lent fallen into forfeiture because of their unlawfull lending The guilty Senate obtain the Emperours pardon and eighteen moneths are allowed for bringing in of all mens accompts In which time the scarcity of mony did pinch the more when every ones debts did come to rifling and in the nick of that there followed a great disturbance about buying Lands which before was invented for a remedy against the former complaints But the Emperour was glad to salve up the matter by lending great sums of mony to the people gratis for three years § 3. Tiberius still cruel With this one dram of humanity he mingled many ounces of cruelty and blood-shed For Considius Proculus as he was celebrating his birth day without fear and with Festivity is haled out of his own house brought to the bar and condemned and his Sister Sancia interdicted fire and water Pompeia Maâ—rina banished and her Father and Brother condemned and slew themselves But this year there is no reckoning of the slaughtered by name for now their number grew numberless All that were imprisoned and accused for conspiracy with Sejanus he causeth to be slain every mothers son Now saith mine Author there lay an infinite massacre of all sexes ages conditions noble and ignoble either dispersed or together on heaps Nor was it permitted to friends or kindred to comfort bewail or behold them any more but a Guard fet which for the greater grief abused the putrified bodies till they were haled into Tiber and there left to sink or swim for none was suffered to touch or bury them So far was common humanity banished and pity denyed even after death revenge being unsatisfied when it had revenged and cruelty extended beyond it self Nor did the accusers speed better than the accused for he also caused them to be put to death as well as the other under that colour of justice and retaliation satisfying his cruelty both ways to the greater extent It were to be admired and with admiration never to be satisfied were it not that the avenging hand of God upon the bloody City is to be acknowledged in it that ever a people should be so universally bent one against another seeking the ruine and destruction one of another and furthering their own misery when they were most miserable already in him that sought the ruin of them all A fitter instrument could not the Tyrant have desired for such a purpose than themselves nor when he had them so pliable to their own mischief did he neglect the opportunity or let them be idle For as he saw accusations encrease so did he encrease his Laws to breed more insomuch that at the last it grew to be capital for a servant to have fallen before or near the image of Augustus or for any man to carry either coin or ring into the Stews or house of Office if it bare upon it the image of Tiberius §. 3. A wicked accusation Who can resolve whether it were more vexation to suffer upon such foolish accusations or upon others more solid but as false as these were foolish That was the fortune of Sextus Marius an intimate friend of the Emperours but as it proved not the Emperour so of his This was a man of great riches and honour and in this one action of a strange vain-glory and revenge Having taken a displeasure at one of his Neighbours he inviteth him to his house and there detained him feasting two days together And on the first day he pulleth his house down to the ground and on the next he buildeth it up far fairer and larger than before The honest man when he returned home found what was done admired at the speed of the work rejoyced at the change of his house but could not learn who had done the deed At the last Marius confessed that he was the agent and that he had done it with this intent to shew him that he had power to do him a displeasure or a pleasure as he should deserve it Ah blinded Marius and too indulgent to thine own humours seest thou not the same power of Tiberius over thee and thy fortunes pinned upon his pleasure as thy neighbours upon thine And so it came to pass that fortune read him the same lecture that his fancy had done another For having a young beautiful Daughter and such a one as on whom the Emperour had cast an eye and so plainly that the Father spyed it he removed her to another place and kept her there close and at distance lest she should have been violated by him who must have no denyal Tiberius imagined as the thing was indeed and when he seeth that he cannot enjoy his love and satisfie his lust he turneth it to hate and revenge And causeth Marius to be accused of incest with his daughter whom he kept so close and both Father and Daughter are condemned and suffer for it both together § 5. A miserable life and death In these so feareful and horrid times when nothing was safe nothing secure when silence and innocency were no protection nor to accuse no more safeguard than to be accused but when all things went at the Emperours will and that will always cruel what course could any man take not to be intangled and what way being intangled to extricate himself The Emperours frowns were death and his favours little better to be accused was condemnation and to accuse was often as much that now very many found no way to escape death but by dying nor to avoid the cruelty of others but by being cruel to themselves For though self-murder was always held for a Roman valour yet now was it become a meer necessity men choosing that miserable exigent to avoid a worse as they supposed and a present end to escape future evils So did Asinius Gallus at this time for the one and Nerva the other This Gallus about three years ago coming to Tiberius upon an Ambassy was fairly entertained and royally feasted by him but in the very interim he writeth letters to the Senate in his accusation Such was the Tyrants friendship and so sour sawce had poor Asinius to his dainty fare A thing both inhumane and unusual that a man the same day should eat drink and be merry with the Emperour and the same day be condemned in the Senate upon the Emperours accusation An Officer is sent to fetch him away a Prisoner from whence he had but lately gone Ambassadour The poor man being thus betrayed thought it vain to beg for life for that he was sure would be denyed him but he begged that he might presently be put to death and that was denyed also For the bloody Emperour delighted not in blood and death only but in any thing that would cause other mens misery though it were their life So having once committed one of
Apostle or Antioh a chief Church above others more than by humane preferring or Antioch yet a Church and were all these proved which never will be yet is the inference or argumentation thereupon but of small value and validity 6. His last Argument is from Authorities which at last he gathereth into the Center of a Councel at Rome pag. 332. But Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas As for his answers to Eusebius that calleth Evodius the first Bishop of Antioch his answer to Ignatius that saith he was placed there by the Apostels more than one and to Onuphrius that maketh Peter Bishop of Rome before he was Bishop of Antioch be they referred to the perusal of his own Text for the matter is not worth the labour of examining them Vers. 32. Lydda This seemeth to be the same with Lod 1 Chron. 8. 12. A City in the Tribe of Benjamin mentioned Ezra 2. 33. Vers. 35. Saron Heb. Sharon A fertile valley famous in Scriptures as 1 Chron. 27. 29. Esa. 33. 9. Cant. 2. 1 c. where the Targum renders it the garden of Eden and the LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a field or plain the masculine Article sheweth it is not named of a City And so do the LXX article it Esa. 33. 9. There is mention of a Sharon beyond Jordan 1 Chron. 5. 16. inhabited about by Gileadites by which it seemeth it was a common name for plain champion grounds wheresoever Vers. 36. Tabitha which by interpretation is called Dorcas Tabitha the Syriack and Dorcas the Greek do both signifie a Hind or Doe Capream as Beza renders it Now the reason why Luke doth thus render the one into the other seemeth to be because Tabitha was a Grecizing Jewesse and so was commonly called by these two names by the Syrian among the Hebrews and by the Greek among the Greeks Vers. 37. Whom when they had washed Whether it were a common custom among the Jews to wash all their dead bodies before they buried them as is concluded by many upon this place we will not insist to question nor whether it were in token of the resurrection or no as some apply it only the other application that they make hereupon I cannot pass over untouchâ—â— which is that Paul spake in reference to this custom and to that intention is this custom when he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1 Cor. 15. 29. Else what shall they do which are baptised for the dead c. as our English reads it as if the Apostle produced this custom as an argument for the resurrection as meaning to what purpose should dead bodies be washed if not to betoken this thus he is conceived to argue whereas by the juncture of the thirtieth verse to this it seemeth that he intended a clean contrary or different thing by being baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely being baptized so as baptism signifieth death by matyrdom or suffering for the truth as Matth. 20. 22 23. Luke 12. 50. And his arguing is to this sense if the dead rise not again what will become of those that are baptized with a martyrial baptism or that do suffer death for the profession of the truth why are they then baptized for the dead yea and why stand we in jeopardy every hour of such a baptism and matyrdom also Why do they suffer and why are we daily in danger to suffer for the truth if there be no resurrection And so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie not vice or supra but pro that is in such a sense and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mean In such a sense as baptized meaneth dead or martyred As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken in this clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fabius delivered the power or Army to Minucius under this intent and meaning or condition that he should not fight Plut. in Fab. § They laid her in an upper chamber This probably was the publick meeting room for the believers of that Town Dorcas being a woman of some good rank as may be conjectured by her plenteousness of good works and alms-deeds Now they purposely disposing of the dead corps that Peter if he would come might exercise a miracle upon it they lay it in that publick room that the company might be spectators of the wonder but Peter would not suffer them so to be for some singular reason vers 40. Acts X. § Some things remarkable about the calling in of Cornelius First the Gospel had now dilated it self to the very utmost bounds of the Jews territories in Canaan Judaea Samaria and Galilee had been preached to and through and now is it got to the very walls of their dominions round about And there wanteth nothing but laying the partition wall flat that the Gospel may get out unto the Gentiles and that is done in this Chapter where the great partition and distance that was betwixt Jew and Gentile is utterly removed and taken away by God himself who had first pitched and set it betwixt them Secondly the two first and mainest stones of interposition that were laid in this wall were circumcision and diet the one in the time of Abraham Gen. 17. the other in the time of Jacob Gen. 32. 32. And in reference to these two it is that they of the Circumcision contend with Peter upon his return to Jerusalem for they are grieved that he went in to men uncircumcised and ate with them Chap. 11. 3. These were the proper distinguishers betwixt Israel and other Nations for all their other Ceremonies were not so much to distinguish them from other people as to compose them among themselves and towards God they being first distinguished from others by these Of these two singularity of Dyet or Prohibition of certain meats was the more proper difference and the more strict distinctive For all the seed of Abraham was circumcised and so in regard of that Ceremony there was no difference betwixt an Ismaelite and a Jew But abstaining from such and such meats was a proprium quarto modo a singularity that differenced an Israelite from all the world besides Thirdly therefore it was most proper and of most divine reason that the liberty of eating any meats did denote and shew a liberty of conversing with any nation and that the inlarging of the one is the inlarging of the other Fourthly the first-fruits of this inlargement and entertainment beyond the partition wall is Cornelius a Convert but not a Proselyte a man that was already come in to God but not come in to the Church of Israel a man as far contrarily qualified for such a business in all humane appearance as what could be most contrary as being a Roman a Souldier a Centurion and yet he of all men chosen to be the first-fruits of the Gentiles that God herein might be the more plainly shewed to be no respecter of persons Fifthly it had been now 2210 years since the Heathen were cast
his seed to Molech or useth Sorcery or profaneth the Sabbath or eateth holy things in his uncleanness or that cometh into the Sanctuary he being unclean or that eateth fat or blood or what is left of the sacrifice or any sacrificed thing not offered in season or that killeth or offereth up a sacrifice out of the Court or that eateth leaven at the Passover or that eateth ought on the day of Expiation or doth any work on it or that makes oil or incense like the holy or that anoints with holy oil that delayeth the Passover or Circumcision for which there are affirmative precepts All these if done wilfully are liable to cutting off and if done ignorantly then to the fixed sin-offering and if it be unknown whether he did it or no then to a suspensive trespass-offering but only he that defiles the Sanctuary and its holy things for he is bound to an ascending or descending offering Now that we may the better understand what Death by the hand of Heaven and Cutting off mean we are first to take notice that neither of them was any penalty inflicted by the hand or sentence of man but both of them do import a liableness to the wrath and vengeance of the Lord in their several kinds And the Jews do ever account Cutting off to be the higher and more eminent degree of Divine vengeance As to spare more evidences of this which might be given copiously this passage of Maymonides is sufficient and it is remarkable when he saith f f f Maym. in Biath Mikdash per. 4. Is it possible for a Priest that serveth in his uncleanness to stay so little in the Court 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As that he should be guilty of death by the hand of Heaven only and not guilty of cutting off He had had those words but a little before which were cited even now An unclean person that serveth in the Sanctuary profaneth his Service and is guilty of death by the hand of Heaven although he stay not there and then he comes on and is it possible saith he that he should stay so little as to be guilty only of death by the hand of Heaven and not to be guilty of cutting off Apparently shewing that cutting off was the deeper degree and die of guilt and vengeance by the hand of God and Divine indignation By Death by the hand of Heaven in their sense therefore is to be apprehended some such a sodain avengeful stroke as the Lord shewed upon Nadab and Abihu or Ananias and Saphira to take them away And this may the better be collected by two passages usual in the Rabbins about this matter First In that they give up the offence of the Priests drinking wine before they went to serve which is held to have been the offence of Nadab and Abihu g g g â—â—â— per. 1. to death by the hand of Heaven which argues that they mean such a kind of stroke as they two had And secondly In that wheresoever the Law enjoyneth Aaron and his sons and the people about the affairs of the Sanctuary they shall or they shall not do thus or thus lest they die they interpret this of death by the hand of Heaven But what to understand by Cutting off is not so readily agreed among them h h h Kimchi in Esay â—8 Kimchi alledgeth it as the opinion of their Doctors That Dying before fifty years old is death by cutting off Compare Joh. 8. 57. i i i R. Sol. in Gâ—â— 17. Rabbi Solomon saith It is to die childless and to die before his time Baal Aruch giveth this distinction between Cutting off and Death by the hand of Heaven that k k k Arâ—â—h in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cutting off is of himself and of his children but Death by the hand of Heaven is of himself but not of his children But mean it which of these you will or all these together or which may have good probability to conceive a liableness to cutting off from the life of the world to come both this and Death by the Hand of Heaven were held by that Nation with whom the phrases were so much in use to mean not any censure or punishment inflicted by man but an impending vengeance of God and a continual danger and possibility when indignation should seize upon him that was faln under these gilts Anathema Maran Atha one under a curse whensoever the Lord shall come to inflict it as Joh. 3. 18 36. SECT III. Penalties inflicted upon unclean persons found in the Temple Whipping and the Rebels beating IT was not a small awe that this might work in the hearts of the people towards their restraining from going into the Sanctuary in their uncleanness to have this impressed and inculcated upon them as it was continually that such a venture did hazard them both body and soul and brought them ipso facto into Gods dreadful displeasure and into undoubted danger of accrewing judgment But did they let the offender thus alone that had offended as if he was fallen under the guilt of death by the Hand of Heaven or under the guilt of cutting off that they had no more to do with him but leave him to the justice of God and to judgment when it should fall upon him Many a wretch would make sleight of this matter and because sentence upon his evil work was not executed speedily his heart would be fully set in him to do so again as Eccles. 8. 11. Therefore they let not the Delinquent so escape but as he had fallen under the wrath of God so they also brought him under a penalty by the hand of man And this penalty was twofold either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whipping by the appointment of the Judges or mawling and beating by the people 1. There was the penalty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whipping or scourging upon the censure of the Judges according to the Law Deut. 25. 2. Where he was to receive forty stripes but their Tradition brought it to forty save one 2 Cor. 11. 24. And the reason of this was because they would make a hedge to the Law and whereas that commands that they should not give to a Delinquent that was whipt above forty stripes lest their brother should seem vile unto them they abated one of forty to make sure to keep within compass The measure and manner of their whipping is largely described in the Treatise Maccoth thus in their own words a a a Maccoth per. 3. How many stripes do they give him saith the Mishueh there Why forty lacking one As it is said by a certain number forty stripes that is a number near to forty Rabbi Judah saith he is beaten with full forty and where hath he the odd one above thirty nine Between his shoulders They allot him not stripes but so as they might be triplicated They allot him to receive forty he hath had some of them
Covenant made with Israel to which they were sworn was Ceremonial and Judicial containing fifty seven Precepts they were not sworn to the Ten Commandments 714 715 Covenant of Grace This was made with Adam did belong to Jew and Gentile both before the Law and also after it 376 Covetousness the strange consequences of it in a Prince 850 851 Council of the Chief Priests were of the seed of Aaron of the Scribes were of the Tribe of Levi and of the Elders were of the People who were mear Laymen 439 440 Courage of the Jews and their Resolution admirable 773 Court of the people what 721 722 Courts there were two Courts of Judges consisting of twenty three in the Temple besides the Sanhedrim p. 447 Courts of the Temple described with their use p 549 to 551. 1088. * Court of Women described not called by that name in Scripture p. 1090. * Court of the Priests 2025 to 2029. * Cow red Cow how the Priest was to prepare himself in order to the burning her 2024. * Coyns Jewish the value of several of them 1096. * Creation three usual Observations from it p. 691. Creation of Man was performed about nine a Clock in the Morning p. 692. This shews a God The time and manner of the Creation with the divine improvement of the Doctrine of it 1020 1021 Creation new the divers steps of it 1021 1022 Creatures such creatures came in homage to the Second Adam as did not come to the First 634 Creed of the believing Jews contained in ten Articles drawn out of the Law of Moses with a Comment 712 to 714. The Apostles Creed was not made by the Apostles 884. Cruelty of the Jews most barbarous and unparalleld they murdered at one time of Greeks and Romans four hundred and sixty thousand men eat their flesh devoured their intrals daubed themselves with their blood p. 289 366. And after this multitudes of thousands of Jews were destroyed viz. above four hundred thousand Adrian walled a Vineyard sixteen miles about with dead bodies a Man's height The Brains of three hundred Children were found upon one stone p. 368. Cruelty great 796 to 799 802 Cruelty moves pity 333 334 Cubit there was one of five and another of six hands breadth 1051. * Cup of Blessing what 964 965 Curious and Chaldean Arts what 820 Custom in a way of Religion often carry's it against Truth Page 1007 Cutting off meaning by the Divine Hand there was thirty six sorts of it how distinguished from Death by the Hand of Heaven p. 900 902. For what it was to be done a great penalty 929 930 933 972 Cyrus was joyned with Darius in Conquest and Government p. 134 135. He was a greater Prince than Darius 137 D. DAniel his Seventy weeks what p. 136. His Prophesie was read to Alexander the Great Page 2065. * Darius and Cyrus were joyned in Conquest and Government p. 134 135. Darius his History as referring to the Scripture p. 2064 2065. * Darius and Astyages the same 135 Darkness at high noon when Christ was crucified what 268 David a glorious Type of Christ. 71 Day of the week First Second Third c. is a Phrase purely Judaical p. 270. The Day begun from Sun-setting among the Jews yet they made Midnight a distinctive Period so as that which was done before Midnight was looked upon as done the Day before p. 643 644. The first Natural Day was thirty six hours long to that part of the world where Eden stood 691 Days last Days often put for the days foregoing the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish State not the World 276 Deacons such as had charge of the poor were of common use in all the Jews Synagogues and thence translated into the Christian Church p. 279. How the seven Deacons came to be chosen p. 279. Their several Qualifications p. 308. This Office was to provide for and take care of the poor c. 778 Dead Minstrels used to play in a mournful tone over the dead p. 232. The Jews used to wash the Bodies of their dead 841 Death of the Patriarchs c. usually mentioned in Scripture by Anticipation p. 15. Death sometimes called Baptism 250 Death second a phrase used by the Jewish Writers p. 354. Death miserable 797 Deaths Judicial the manner of them amongst the Jews 2006 2007. * Dedication The Feast thereof 98 979 Deities of the Egyptians what 1027 Demas his embracing the present World may denote his returning to his worldly Employment c. for we find him the next year with Paul again 322 323 326 Denial of Christ by Peter was foretold by Christ at two distinct times 249 Desks the Desks of the Levites described p. 2025 to 2029. * Devils whence their original p. 2. The Devil hath several ways of undoing Men the Church by persecution the World by delusion of Oracles Idolatry False Miracles c. p. 353. Three of his Names p. 496. The Devil hurrying Christ about in the time of his Temptations affords some material and profitable Considerations 506 Devout Man a Title for the first Professors of the Gospel 871 Diana's Temple what 305 306 Dionisius the Areopagite one of the Bench at Athens converted by Paul 295 Dipping in Baptism not always practised in the beginning of the Gospel 584 585 Disciples why they could not cast out one evil Spirit 339 340. The Seventy Disciples sent forth by Christ to go and Preach to those places where he himself was to come because he intended now fully to reveal himself to be the Messias p. 242. Christ received young Infants as Disciples declaring them to be such and blessed them p. 248. Disciples called Children p. 759. When or where first called Christians p. 871. A Title given to the first Professors of the Gospel Page 871 Discipling was not of Persons already taught but such as entred themselves that they might be taught 272 Dissembler his Character in Tyberius p. 768. In Cain 828 829 Divinity of the Jews when Christ came into the World was only to instruct in Carnal Rites and heighten their Spirits to Carnal performances c. but they knew nothing of Regeneration or the work of Grace 574 575 Division the Jews were generally divided among themselves yet all oppose Christianity to the utmost even when they themselves were in their greatest Afflictions p. 371. Division Faction and Schism produced sad effects in the Church of Corinth some of them mentioned 301 to 304 Doctors one of the Titles the Jews gave their Learned Men and Scribes also any that were ordained were so called c. 566 638 653 654 Doing by another is the same as if one do it by himself for it is ordinary in Scripture to ascribe that as done by a Man himself that is done by another at his appointment 581 Door through which none was to pass what p. 1079. * The Great Door was ever opened before the morning Sacrifice was killed 1079. * Doors of the Holy Place described 1078
c. * Doves how offered 935 Dreams intimating various events 20 Dreamers and Interpreters of Dreams were common among the Jews even the most Learned of them taught their Scholars this sort of delusion 371 Drink Offering what 938 939 Drought mingled with fire from Heaven 92 Drought or want of Rain great 116 Dust shaking dust off the feet what p. 291. Dust that was to be put into the Water of Jealousie whence to be taken 1080. * E. EARTH burning up only denoted the destruction of Jerusalem and that cursed Nation p. 338. Earth new Earth and new Heaven denote the new State of the Church under the Gospel 338 Earthly and Heavenly Things what as used by Christ. 576 Easter how old its celebration 548 Edom by this term the Hebrew Writers commonly express the Romans 349 Egyptian Deities what 1027 Elders one of the Titles of the Gospel Ministers p. 223. They were Ordained by Imposition of Hands p. 289. They were of two sorts in every Synagogue one that ruled in Civil Affairs another that laboured dayly in the Word and Doctrine p. 302. This should be imitated in the Christian Churches Christ and the Apostles keeping close to the Platform of the Synagogue p. 302. Their several Qualifications p. 308. Both Peter and John stile themselves Elders intimating that the Apostick Function must ceâ—se but the Ministerial abide p. 340. Every Synagogue had two Elders one that ruled that was a Student in Divinity another that was the Minister of the Congregation called the Angel of the Church and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Overseer 611 612 Elders for Seniors and Senators of some of the Tribes 760 Eldest son a younger reckoned for eldest 384 Elements melting and Earth burning up only denoted the destruction of Jerusalem and that cursed Nation Page 338 Elias his History p. 82. What opinions the Rabbins had of his first and second coming with his Estate after his first departure and his frequent invisible coming as at every Circumcision c. p. 522 523. What he shall do at his second visible coming p. 523 524. Also multitudes of Ancient and Modern Christian Writers have asserted that before Christs second coming Enoch and Elias should come again visibly to destroy Antichrist to Convert the Jews c. confuted 524 Elisha his History 86 87 Elohim denotes distinction of Persons in the Trinity 394 Elymas which is the same in sense with Magus was a Magical Jew who with tricks and wonders went up and down confronting the Gospel 289 Emblem of the Divine Glory at the Temple mentioned in several Scriptures explained p. 2052 to 2060. * The Moral of it 2055 to 2060* Emmanuel Nomen Naturae 419 End coming Matth. 24. 14. And the coming of the Lord drawing nigh and the Judge standing at the door expressions only shewing destruction and vengeance upon Jerusalem drawing near 332 333 335 End of things the Heavens passing away the Elements melting and the Earth burning up only denoted the destruction of Jerusalem and that cursed Nation 338 England some remarkable Things referring to its antient State p. 328. It was invaded by the Roman General and afterwards by his Master Claudius the Emperor An. Dom. 44. p. 888. England and these parts of the World was planted by Javans posterity 996 Enochs Prophesie was some common Tradition among the Jews p. 339. Enoch many Christian Writers hold that he and Elias should visibly come again to destroy Antichrist and to convert the Jews before the second coming of Christ. 524 Ephah what sort of Measure 545 546 Ephod of the High Priest what 727 905 Epicurus was a term used among the Jews for such as despised the Doctors 297 Epiphany or the Wise-mens coming to Christ on the thirteenth day after his birth or within forty days shewed to be improbable and that they came not till about two years after his Birth 432 to 434 Episcopus an Overseer is a Synagogue Term so are most of his Qualifications fetched thence p. 308. So the Angel or Minister in the Synagogue stood over those that read to see that they read right hence called Chasan that is Episcopus Overseer c. 375 611 to 618 Epistle from Laodicea is an Epistle from that Church to Paul 326 Er and Hezekiah were born when their Fathers were very young 105 Esau all hairy when born like a kid 14 Eser but an additional Title for the Assyrian Monarchs 104 Esseans though they differed from other Hereticks yet they harmonized with the rest to oppose the Gospel and Christianity p. 373. Their Original Name Quality and Principles 457 458 459 Evangelists one of the Titles of the Gospel Ministers 223 Eunuch his Conversion and who he was 281 Eutyches and Valentius averred Christ to have only a Body in appearance confuted 397 Execution of Malefactors among the Jews was attended by their bewailing p. 268. Where and how performed 2006 2007. * Ezra the Sacred Writer considered as President of the Sanhedrin with the time of his Death 2007 2008. * Exorcists Vagabond Jews that went up and down to oppose the Gospel with Magical Tricks p. 289. See Barjesus Expiation day what service belonged to it the High Priest was ingaged in all the Service of it p. 971. The Scape Goat was the principal business besides other Offerings p. 971 c. It was a strict Fasting day Page 972 F. FAction Division and Schism producing sad Effects in the Church of Corinth some of them mentioned Page 301 to 304 Faith it makes improbable things to be accepted of God p. 49. Jewish and Evangelical what p. 247. Faith why set after Repentance 630 Fall of Man p. 2. Of Adam 1022 Fan of Christ is the Gospel with the Preaching and Publishing thereof 468 Fasting and Praying used in the Synagogues p. 925. Of Christ wonderful considering the Time Place his present Posture he fasted nights as well as days 502 503 Fasting Day the Day of Expiation was a strict Fasting Day 792 Fasts of the Captived Jews were kept in several Months p. 143. Publick Fasts what p. 288. They were upon important Occasions used by the Jews 289 Fathers what to teach their Children 295 Festivals Three principal ones The Passover Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles all the Men that were Free were to appear at them 950 951 Feast Governour of the Feast who he was called Architriclinus He was not the same with the Symposiarchus the Governour or Moderator of the Heathen Feasts p. 547. Feast of Tabernacles the Actions attending it p. 243. The Nature Occasion and Reasons of its Institution p. 477. Feast of Charity or Agapae what 315 Feasting among the Jews was performed upon Beds 539. Marg. Feasts Women were not bound to appear at the three solemn Feasts of the Jews yet they usually did 956 Feet anointed of ordinary use among the Jews 252 Felix shewed to be an ill Man 320 Figs ripened at differing seasons 253 First Fruits and first Fruit Sheaf the way of gathering and offering them 969
that they might receive their hire and he gave him a compleat hire with the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the labourers murmured saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have laboured hard all the day and this man only two hours yet he hath received as much wages as we The King saith to them He hath laboured more in those two hours than you in the whole day So R. Bon plied the Law more in eight and twenty years than another in a hundred years 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Early in the morning b b b b b b Gloss. in Bab. Bava Mezia fol. 83. 2. The time of working is from Sun-rising to the appearing of the Stars and not from break of day And this is prov'd from the Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the President of the Priests saith to them c c c c c c Joma Chap. 3. Tamid Chap. 3. where they say 'T is light all in the East and men go out to hire labourers whence it is argued that they do not begin their work before the Sun riseth It is also proved from the Tract Pesachin where it is said that it is prohibited on the day of the Passover to do any servile work after the Sun is up intimating this that that was the time when labourers should begin their work c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To hire Labourers Read here if you please the Tract Bava Mezia Chap. VII which begins thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that hireth Labourers and Maimonides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tract intitled d d d d d d Chap. 9. 11. Hiring VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Agreed for a penny a day A Penny of silver which one of gold exceeded twenty four times for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A penny of gold is worth five and twenty of silver e e e e e e Gloss. on Cherithuth Chap. 2. The Canons of the Hebrews concerning hiring of labourers distinguish as reason requires between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being hired by the day and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being hired only for some hours which may be observ'd also in this Parable for in the morning they are hired for all the day and for a penny but afterwards for certain hours and have a part of a penny allotted them in proportion to the time they wrought VERS VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Call the Labourers FOR it is one of the Affirmative precepts of the Law that a hired labourer should have his wages paid him when they are due as it is said You shall pay him his wages in his day and if they be detain'd longer it is a breach of a negative precept as it is said The Sun shall not go down upon him f f f f f f Maimon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chap. 11. c. VERS XIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Didst not thou agree with me for a penny IN hiring of labourers the custom of the place most prevail'd hence came that Axiom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Observe the custom of the City f f f f f f Beb. Bava Mezia fol. 83. 2. speaking of this very thing There is also an example g g g g g g Hierof Mezia fol. 11. 2. Those of Tiberias that went up to Bethmeon to be hired for labourers were hired according to the custom of Bethmeon c. By the by also we may observe that which is said by the Babylonians in the place last cited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as the Gloss renders it Notice must be taken whether they come from several places for at some places they go to work sooner and at some later Hence two things may be clear'd in the Parable before us 1. Why they are said to be hired at such different hours namely therefore because they are supposed to have come together from several places 2. Why there was no certain agreement made with those that were hired at the third sixth and ninth hour as with those that were hired early in the morning but that he should only say Whatsoever is right I will give you that is supposing that they would submit to the custom of the place But indeed when their wages were to be paid them there is by the favour of the Lord of the vineyard an equality made between those that were hired for some hours and those that were hired for the whole day and when these last murmured they are answer'd from their own agreement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You agree'd with me Note here the Canon h h h h h h Maimon as before Chap. 9. The master of the family saith to his servant Go hire me labourers for four pence he goes and hires them for three pence although their labour deserves four pence they shall not receive but three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they bound themselves by agreement and their complaint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 murmuring in the 11th verse is against the servant VERS XXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The baptism that I am baptized with THE phrase that goes before this concerning the cup is taken from divers places of Scripture where sad and grievous things are compared to draughts of a bitter cup. You may think that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The cup of vengeance of which there is mention in Bab. Beracoth i i i i i i Fol. 51. 2. means the same thing but it is far otherwise give me leave to quote it though it be somewhat out of our bounds Let them not talk say they over their cup of blessing and let them not bless over their cup of vengeance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is the cup of vengeance The second cup saith R. Nachman bar Isaac Rabbena Asher and Piske are more clear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he shall drink off two cups let him not bless over the third The Gloss He that drinks off double cups is punisht by Devils But to the matter before us So cruel a thing was the Baptism of the Jews being a plunging of the whole body into water when it was never so much chilled with Ice and snow that not without cause partly by reason of the burying as I may call it under water and partly by reason of the cold it us'd to signifie the most cruel kind of death The Hierusalem Talmudists relate That in the days of Joshua ben Levi some endeavoured quite to take away the washings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baptisms of women because the women of Galilee grew barren by reason of the coldness of the waters k k k k k k Berac 6. 3. which we noted before at the sixth verse of the third Chapter CHAP. XXI VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An Ass and her fold IN the Talmudists we have the like phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l l l l l l Hierof Bava Mezia Fol. 11. 1. An ass and
truth as to the thing it self for from the Resurrection of Christ the glorious Epoch of the Kingdom of God took its beginning as we said before which he himself also signifieth in those words Mat. XXVI 29. and when he arose not a few others arose with him What they thought of the Resurrection that was to be in the days of Messias besides those things which we have already mentioned you may see and smile at in this one example y y y y y y Jerus Cheâ—ubboth fol. 35 â— R. Jeremiah commanded when you bury me put shoes on my feet and give me a staff in my hand and lay me on one side that when the Messias comes I may be ready VERS LIV. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Truly this was the Son of God THAT is This was indeed the Messias Howsoever the Jews deny the Son of God in that sense in which we own it that is as the second person in the holy Trinity yet they acknowledged the Messiah for the Son of God not indeed by nature but by adoption and deputation see Mat. XXVI 63. from those places I Chron. XVII 13. Psal. II. 12. LXXXIX 26 27. and such like The Centurion had learnt this from the people by conversing among them and seeing the Miracles which accompanied the death of Christ acknowledged him to be the Messias of whom he had heard so many and great things spoken by the Jews In Luke we have these words spoken by him z z z z z z Chap. XXIII 47. Certainly this was a righteous man Which I suppose were not the same with these words before us but that both they and these were spoken by him Certainly this was a righteous man Truly this was the Messias the Son of God Such are those words of Nathaniel Joh. I. 49. Thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel Peter when he declared that Christ was the Son of the living God Mat. XVI 16. spoke this in a more sublime sense than the Jews either owned or knew as we have said at that place VERS LVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mary Magdalen THAT Magdalen was the same with Mary the sister of Lazarus Baronius proves at large a a a a a a Annal. ad An. Christ. 32. pag. 147 148 c. whom see It is confirmed enough from this very place for if Mary Magdalene was not the same with Mary the sister of Lazarus then either Mary the sister of Lazarus was not present at the Crucifixion of Christ and at his burial or else she is past over in silence by the Evangelists both which are improbable whence she was called Magdalene doth not so plainly appear whether from Magdala a Town on the Lake of Genesareth or from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a playting or curling of the hair a thing usual with harlots Let us see what is spoken by the Talmudists concerning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mary Magdala who they say was Mother of Ben Satda b b b b b b Bab. Sanhedr fol. 67. 1. They stoned the Son of Satda in Lydda and they hanged him up on the evening of the Passover Now this Son of Satda was Son of Pandira Indeed Rabh Chasda said the husband of his mother was Satda her husband was Pandira her husband was Papus the Son of Juda but yet I say his mother was Satda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely Mary the plaiter of women's hair as they say in Pombeditha 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she departed from her husband These words are also repeated in Schabbath c c c c c c Fol. 104. 2. c Chagigah fol. 4. 2. Rabh Bibai at a time when the Angel of death was with him said to his Officer Go 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bring me Mary the plaiter of womens hairs He went and brought to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mary the plaiter of young mens hair c. The Gloss The Angel of death reckoned up to him what he had done before for this story of Mary the Plaiter of women's hair was under the second Temple for she was the mother of N. as it is said in Schabbath See the Gloss there at the place before quoted d d d d d d Gittin fol. 90. 1. There are some who find a fly in their cup and take it out and will not drink such was Papus ben Judas who lockt the door upon his wife and went out Where the Glossers say thus Papus ben Juda was the husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Mary the Plaiter of womens hair and when he went out of his house into the street he lockt his door upon his wife that she might not speak with any body which indeed he ought not to have done and hence sprang a difference between them and she broke out into adulteries See Alphesius on Gittim e e e e e e Fol. 605. I pronounce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ben Satda not that I am ignorant that it is called Ben Stada by very learned men The reason of our thus pronouncing it we fetch from hence that we find he was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ben Sutdah by the Jerusalem Talmudists f f f f f f Sanhedr fol. 25. 4. to which the word Satda more agrees than Stada By the like agreement of sounds they call the same Town both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Magdala and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mugdala as we have observed elswhere As they contumeliously reflect upon the Lord Jesus under the name of Ben Satda so there is a shrewd suspition that under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mary Magdala they also cast reproach upon Mary Magdalen The title which they gave their Mary is so like this of ours that you may with good reason doubt whether she was called Magdalene from the Town Magdala or from that word of the Talmudists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Plaiter of hair We leave it to the learned to decide VERS LVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ioses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Josi A very usual name in the Talmudists g g g g g g Jerus â—â—vamâ—tâ— fol. 2. 2. five were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be R. Josi Ismael Lazar Menahem Chelpatha Abdimus Also h h h h h h Ibid. fol. 4. 3. R. Jose ben R. Chaninah c. g g g g g g See Jathasiâ— fol. 61. 62. One may well enquire why this Mary is called the mother of James and Joses and not also of Judas and Simon as Mark VI. 3. VERS LVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Begged the body of Iesus IT was not lawful to suffer a man to hang all night upon a tree Deut. XXI 23. Nay nor to lye all night unburied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whosoever suffers a dead body to lye all night unburied violates a negative precept but they that were put to death
Israel The Lord thy God is one Lord. And so being blind as to the mystery of the Trinity are the more hardened to deny that Our Saviour strenuously asserts here the God-head of the Son or Messiah namely that he hath the same power with the Father the same honour due to him as to the Father that he hath all things in common with the Father and hence he makes this reply upon them about healing on the Sabbath my Father worketh on the Sabbath day so do I also VERS XIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Son can do nothing of himself THAT is The Messiah can do nothing of himself For he is a Servant and sent by his Father so that he must work not of his own will and pleasure but his Father's Isai. XLII 1. Behold my servant Targ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold my Servant the Messiah So Kemch in loc and St. Paul Philip. II. 7. The Jew himself however he may endeavour to elude the sense of that phrase The Son of God yet cannot deny the truth of this Maxim That the Messiah can do nothing but according to the will and prescription of his Father that sent him Which he also will expound not of the weakness and impotency but the perfection and obedience of the Son that he so doth VERS XXV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The hour cometh and now is when the dead shall hear c. THE Jews as we have said before looked for the Resurrection of the dead at the coming of Messiah and that truly and with great reason though it was not to be in their sense The Vision of Ezekiel about the dry bones living Chap. XXXVII and those words of Isaiah thy dead men shall live c. Chap. XXVI 20. suggesting to them some such thing although they grope exceedingly in the dark as to the true interpretation of this matter That of R. Eliczer is well enough n n n n n n Chetub â—ol 3. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The people of the Earth the Gentiles do not live which somewhat agrees with that of the Apostle Ephes. II 2. Ye were dead in trespasses and sins Nor does that of Jeremiah Bar Abba sound much differently o o o o o o Sanhedr fol. 92. 2. The dry bones Ezek. XXXVII are the Sons of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whom is not the moisture of the Law It is true many bodies of the Saints arose when Christ himself arose Matth. XXVII 52. But as to those places in Scripture which hint the Resurrection of the dead at his coming I would not understand them so much of these as the raising the Gentiles from their spiritual death of sin when they lay in ignorance and Idolatry to the light and life of the Gospel Nor need we wholly expound Ezekiel's dry bones recovered to life of the return of the Tribes of Israel from their Captivity though that may be included in it but rather or together with that the resuscitation of the Israel of God that is those Gentiles that were to believe in the Messiah from their spiritual death The words in the Revel XX. 5. This is the first Resurrection do seem to confirm this Now what and at what time is this Resurrection When the great Angel of the Covenant Christ had bound the old Dragon with the Chains of the Gospel and shut him up that he should no more seduce the Nations p p p p p p 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by lying Wonders Oracles and Divinations and his False-gods as formerly he had done that is when the Gospel being published amongst the Heathen Nations had laid open all the devices and delusions of Satan and had restored them from the death of sin and ignorance to a true state of life indeed This was the first Resurrection That our Saviour in this place speaks of this Resurrection I so much the less doubt because that Resurrction he here intends he plainly distinguishes it from the last and general Resurrection of the dead vers 28 29. this first Resurrection from that last which he points therefore to as it were with his finger the hour is coming and now is c. VERS XXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To execute judgment also because he is the Son of man DAN VII 13. Behold one like the Son of Man came with the Clouds and came to the Antient of days and there was given him dominion and glory c. To this our blessed Saviour seems to have respect in these words as the thing it self plainly shews R. Solomon upon the place One like the Son of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the King the Messiah R. Saadias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Messiah our righteousness When our Saviour declared before the Sanhedrin Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the Clouds they all said art thou Christ the Son of the blessed God by which they imply that the Son of God and Christ are convertible terms as also are Christ and the Son of Man And it plainly shews that their eyes were intent up-this place Art thou that Son of Man spoken of in Daniel who is the Son of God the Messiah So did Christ in these words look that way VERS XXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As I hear I judge HE seems to allude to a custom amongst them q q q q q q Sanhedr cap. ult hal â— The Judge of an inferior Court if he doubts in any matter goes up to Jerusalem and takes the determination of the Sanhedrin and according to that he judgeth VERS XXXV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A burning and shining light HE speaks according to the vulgar dialect of that Nation who were wont to call any person famous for life or knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Candle r r r r r r Beresh rabba fol. 95. 4. Shuah the Father-in-law of Judah Gen. XXXVIII was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Candle or light of the place where he lived The Gloss is One of the most famous men in the City inlightning their eyes hence the title given to the Rabbins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Candle of the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lamp of light VERS XXXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Search the Scriptures THIS seems not to be of the imperative but indicative mood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye search the Scriptures and in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they that testifie of me yet ye will not come to me that ye might have life What 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 means is not unknown to any that have but dipt into Jewish Authors It denotes a something more narrow search into the Scriptures something between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an enquiry into the literal and Cabbalistical sense of the words as R. Bechai in every leaf shews by several
send drink-offerings the drink-offerings are offered but if he send no drink-offerings drink-offerings are offered at the charge of the Congregation Observe that We have the same elsewhere b b b b b b Fal. 166. 2. Vajicra Rabba fol. 166. 2. And it is every where added that this is one of the seven things that were ordain'd by the great Council and that the sacrifice of a Gentile is only a whole burnt-offering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the thank-offerings of a Gentile are whole burnt-offerings and the reason is given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The mind of that Gentile is toward heaven Gloss. He had rather that his sacrifice should be wholly consum'd by fire to God than as his thank-offerings be eaten by men d d d d d d See also Menacoth fol. 72. 2. Temura◠fol. 103. 1 c. That of Josephus is observable e e e e e e De Bell. lib. 2. cap. 30. Eleazar the Son of Ananias the High Priest a bold young man perswaded those that ministred in holy things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they should accept of no sacrifice at the hands of a stranger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This was the foundation of the war with the Romans For they refus'd a sacrifice for Cesar. f f f f f f Ibid. cap. 31. The Elders that they might take off Eleazar and his followers from this resolution of theirs making a speech to them among other things say this That their fore-fathers had greatly beautify'd and adorn'd the Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from things devoted by the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Always receiving the gifts from forreign Nations not having ever made any difference in the sacrifices of any whomsoever for that would be irreligious c. When they had spoken this and many more things to this purpose they produc'd several Priests skill'd in the ancient customs of their forefathers who shew'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all their ancestors received offerings from the Gentiles II. Nor did the Gentiles only send their gifts and sacrifices but came themselves personally sometimes to the Temple and there worship'd Hence the outward Court of the Temple was call'd the Court of the Gentiles and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Court to which that in the Book of the Revelations alludes Chap. XI 2. But the Court which is without the Temple leave out and measure it not for it is given to the Gentiles And of those there shall innumerable numbers come and worship And they shall tread the Holy City forty and two months It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall tread it under foot as enemies and spoilers but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall tread it as worshippers So Isa. I. 12. g g g g g g Remid◠rab fol. 224. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Syrians and those that are unclean by the touch of a dead body enter'd into the mountain of the Temple h h h h h h Hieros Avodah Zarah fol. 40. 1. Rabban Gamaliel walking in the Court of the Gentiles saw an heathen woman and blessed concerning her i i i i i i Ioseph ubi sup◠They would provoke the Roman armes espouse a war with them introduce a new worship and perswade an impiety with the hazard of the City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If no stranger but the Jews only may be allow'd to sacrifice or worship Hence that suspicion about Trophimus being brought by Paul into the Temple is not to be suppos'd to have been with reference to this Court but to the Court of the women in which Paul was purifying himself k k k k k k Pesachin fol. 3. 2. There is a story of a certain Gentile that eat the Passover at Jerusalem but when they found him out to be an heathen they slew him for the Passover ought not to be eaten by any one that is uncircumcised But there was no such danger that an uncircumcised person could run by coming into the Court of the Gentiles and worshipping there VERS XXIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Except a corn of wheat HOW doth this answer of our Saviours agree with the matter propounded Thus Is it so indeed do the Gentiles desire to see me The time draws on wherein I must be glorify'd in the conversion of the Gentiles but as a corn of wheat doth not bring forth fruit except it be first thrown into the ground and there die but if it die it will bring forth much fruit so I must die first and be thrown into the earth and then a mighty harvest of the Gentile world will grow up and be the product of that death of mine Isa. XXVI 19. Thy dead men shall live 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together with my dead body shall they arise so our translation with which also the French agrees Rescusciteront avec mon corps They shall rise with my Body But it is properly Corpus meum resurgent They shall arise my Body so the interlineary Version The Gentiles being dead in their sins shall with my dead body when it rises again rise again also from their death Nay they shall rise again my Body that is as part of my self and my Body Mystical VERS XXVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have both glorify'd it and will glorifie it again THIS Petition of our Saviours Father glorifie thy name was of no light consequence when it had such an answer from heaven by an audible voice And what it did indeed mean we must guess by the Context Christ upon the Greeks desire to see him takes that occasion to discourse about his death and to exhort his followers that from his example they would not love their life but by losing it preserve it to life eternal Now by how much the deeper he proceeds in the discourse and thoughts of his approaching death by so much the more is his mind disturbed as himself acknowledgeth ver 27. But whence comes this disturbance It was from the apprehended rage and affault of the Devil whether our Lord Christ in his agony and passion had to grapple with an angry God I question but I am certain he had to do with an angry Devil When he stood and stood firmly in the highest and most eminent point and degree of obedience as he did in his sufferings it doth not seem agreeable that he should then be groaning under the pressures of Divine wrath but it is most agreeable he should under the rage and fury of the Devil For I. The fight was now to begin between the Serpent and the seed of the woman mention'd Gen. III. 15. about the glory of God and the salvation of man In which strife and contest we need not doubt but the Devil would exert all his malice and force to the very uttermost II. God loosed all the reins and suffered the Devil without any kind of restraint upon him to
For so was he indeed distinguished from all mortals and Sons of men And God saith he had then begotten him when he had given a token that he was not a meer man by his divine power whereby he had raised him from the dead And according to the tenor of the whole Psalm God is said to have begotten him then when he was ordained King in Sion and all Nations subdued under him Upon which words that passage of our Saviour uttered immediately after he had arisen from the dead is a good Commentary All power is given unto me c. Matth. XXVIII What do those words mean Matth. XXVI 29. I will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the Vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Fathers Kingdom They seem to look this way viz. I will drink no more of it before my Resurrection For in truth his Resurrection was the beginning of his Kingdom when he had overcome those enemies of his Satan Hell and Death from that time was he begotten and established King in Zion I am mistaken if that of Psal. CX v. 3. doth not in some measure fall in here also which give me leave to render by way of paraphrase into such a sense as this Thy people shall be a willing people in the day of thy power it shall be a willing people in the beauties of holiness it shall be a willing people from the Womb of the morning thine is the dew of thy youth Now the dew of Christ is that quickning power of his by which he can bring the dead to life again Isai. XXVI 19. And the dew of thy youth O Christ is thine That is it is thine own power and vertue that raiseth thee again I would therefore apply those words from the womb of the morning to his Resurrection because the Resurrection of Jesus was the dawn of the new world the morning of the new Creation VERS XXXIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sure mercies of David IT hath been generally observed that this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken from the Greek Version in Isai. LV. 3. But it is not so generally remarked that by David was understood the Messiah which yet the Rabbins themselves Kimchi and Ab. Ezra have well observed the following Verse expressly confirming it The Resurrection of our Saviour therefore by the interpretation of the Apostle is said to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sure mercies of Christ. And God by his Prophet from whence this clause is taken doth promise the raising again of the Messiah and all the benefits of that Resurrection He had fortold and promised his death Chap. LIII But what mercies could have been hoped for by a dead Messiah had he been always to have continued dead They had been weak and instable kindnesses had they terminated in death He promises mercies therefore firm and stable that were never to have end because they should be always flowing and issuing out of his resurrection Whereas these things are quoted out of the Prophet in the words of the LXX varying a little from the Prophets words and those much more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold ye despisers and wonder c. vers 41. it might be enquired in what language the Apostle preached as also in what language Moses and the Prophets were read in that Synagogue vers 15. If we say in the Greek it is a question whether the Pisidians could understand it If we say in the Pisidian language it is hardly to be believed the Bible was then rendred into that language It is remarkable what was quoted above out of Strabo where he mentions four tongues amongst them the Greek and the Pisidian distinct from one another But this I have already discusst in the Notes upon Verse 15. of this Chapter VERS XLI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Behold ye despisers c. DR Pocock a a a a a a Poc. Miscell 3. here as always very learnedly and accurately examines what the Greek Interpreters Hab. I. read saving in the mean time the reading which the Hebrew Bibles exhibit for it is one thing how the Greek read it and another thing how it should be truly read VERS XLII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Gentiles besought c. IT is all one as to the force of the words as far as I see whether you render them they besought the Gentiles or the Gentiles besought them the later Version hath chiefly obtained but what absurdity is it if we should admit the former And doth not the very order of the words seem to favour it If it had been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one might have inclined to the later without controversie but being it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is place for doubting And if it were so that the Jews resented the Apostles doctrine so ill that they went out of the Synagogue disturbed and offended as some conjecture and that not improbably we may the easilier imagine that the Apostles besought the Gentiles that tarried behind that they would patiently hear these things again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 On the next Sabbath I. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lexicons tell us amongst other things denotes hence forward or hereafter Now this must be noted that this discourse was held in the fore noon for it was that time of the day only that they assembled in the Synagogue in the afternoon they met in Beth Midras Let us consider therefore whether this phrase will not bear this sense They besought that afterwards upon that Sabbath viz. in the afternoon they would hear again such a Sermon And then whether the Gentiles besought the Apostles or the Apostles the Gentiles it dot not alter the case II. Let us inquire whether the Apostles and the Christian Church did not now observe and celebrate the Lord's day It can hardly be denyed and if so then judge whether the Apostles might not invite the Gentiles that they would assemble again the next day that is upon the Christian Sabbath and hear these things again If we yield that the Lord's day is to be called the Sabbath then we shall easily yield that it might be rightly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sabbath after And indeed when the speech was amongst the Jews or Judaizing Proselytes it is no wonder if it were called the Sabbath As if the Apostles had said to morrow we celebrate our Sabbath and will you on that day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have these words preached to you III. Or let 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the week betwixt the two Sabbaths as that expression must be rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I fast twice in the week then as the sense is easie that they besought them the same things might be repeated on the following week so the respect might have more particularly been had to the second and fifth day in the week when they usually meet together in the Synagogue
Text agrees with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He finisht his work on the sixth day c. You will say the Greek Version translated according to the Samaritan Text. I say the Samaritan Text was framed according to this Greek Version Who shall determine this matter between us That which goes current amongst the Jews makes for me viz. that this alteration was made by the Seventy two h h h h h h Megill fol. 9. 1. Massech Sopher cap. 1. But be it all one which followeth the other in this agreement we next produce in the same Chapter Gen. II. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord God had formed out of the ground The Greek words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord God formed as yet out of the ground The Samaritan Text agrees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We will not enquire here which follows which but we rather complain of the boldness of both the one to add the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as yet which seems to perswade us that God after he had created Adam and Eve did over and above create something anew which as yet to me is a thing unheard of and to whom is it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is no resurrection In my notes upon Matth. III. 9. I take notice out of the Gloss upon Bab. Beracoth if he be of any credit that there were Hereticks even in the days of Ezra who said that there is no world but this which indeed falls in with Sadducism though the name of Sadducee was not known then nor a long time after But as to their Heresie when they first sprung up they seem principally and in the first place to have denyed the immortality of the Soul and so by consequence the resurrection of the body I know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Jewish Writers is taken infinite times for the Resurrection from the dead but it is very often taken also for the life of the dead So as the one denotes the resurrection of the body the other the immortality of the Soul In the beginning of the Talmudick Chapter Helec where there is a discourse on purpose concerning the life of the world to come they collect several arguments to prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the life of the dead out of the Law for so let me render it here rather than the resurrection of the dead And the reason of it we may judge from that one agrument which they bring instead of many others viz. i i i i i i Sanhedr fol. 90. 2. Some do say that it is proved out of this Scripture He saith unto them But ye did cleave unto the Lord your God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are alive every one of you this day Deut. IV. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is plain that you are now alive when Moses speaks these things but he means this that in the day wherein all the world is dead ye shall live That is ye also though dead shall live which rather speaks out the immortality of the Soul after death than the resurrection of the body So our Saviours answer to the Sadducees Matth. XXII 31 32. from those words I am the God of Abraham c. is fitted directly to confute their opinion against the immortality of the Soul but it little either plainly or directly so proves the resurrection of the body but that the Sadducees might cavil at that way of proof And in that saying of the Sadducees themselves concerning the labourer working all the day and not receiving his wages at night there is a plain intimation that they especially considered of the state of the Soul after death and the non-resurrection of the body by consequence Let the words therefore be taken in this sense The Sadducees say Souls are not immortal and that there are neither Angels nor Spirits and then the twofold branch which our sacred Historian speaks of will the more clearly appear when he saith but the Pharisees confess both It is doubtful from the words of Josephus whether the Essenes acknowledge the resurrection of the body when in the mean time they did most heartily own the immortality of the Soul k k k k k k Iâ—s de excidâ— lib. 2. c. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This opinion prevails amongst them that the body indeed is corruptible and the matter of it doth not endure but Souls endure for ever immortal So that the question chiefly is concerned about the Souls Imortality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither Angel nor Spirit They deny that the soul is immortal and they deny any spirits in the mean time perhaps not denying God to be a Spirit and that there is a Spirit of God mentioned Gen. I. 2. And it is a question whether they took not the occasion of their opinion from that deep silence they observe in Moses concerning the Creation of Angels or Spirits or from something else There is frequent mention in him of the apparitions of Angels and what can the Sadducee say to this Think you the Samaritans were Sadducees If so it is very observable that the Samaritan Interpreter doth once and again render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels So Gen. III. 5. Ye shall be as Elohim Samar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye shall be as Angels Chap. V. 1. In the similitude of God Samar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the similitude of Angels So also Chap. IX 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the similitude of Angels And whereever there is mention of Angels in the Hebrew Text the Samaritan Text retains the word Angels too Did not the Sadducees believe there were Angels once but their very being was for ever vanisht that they vanisht with Moses and were no more Did they believe that the soul of Moses was mortal and perisht with his body and that the Angels died with him otherwise I know not by what art or wit they could evade what they meet with in the Books of Moses concerning Angels that especially in Gen. XXXII 1. You will say perhaps that by Angels might be meant good motions and affections of the mind The Pharisees themselves do sometimes call evil affections by the name of Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an evil affection is Satan But they do not call good affections Angels nor can ye your selves apply that passage so The Angels of God met him and he called the name of that place Mahanaim i. e. two Camps or two hosts One of those Camps consisted of the multitude of his own family and will you have the other to consist of good affections If the Sadducees should grant that Angels were ever created Moses not mentioning their Creation in his History I should think they acknowledged the being of Angels in the same sense that we do in the whole story of the Pentateuch but that they conceived that after the History of
cursed that Adam and all the Saints of God might not look for blessedness upon the Earth but in Christ nor for Christ nor his Kingdom upon this cursed Earth but in Heaven O Jew the Earth is cursed where canst thou find a place upon it for Messias blessed Kingdom All is but as Meshek and the Tents of Kedar to him he finds not a place here to lay his head I may say the title over Christs head was and is a stumbling block under the Jews feet where it was written Jesus of Nazareth and they looked for Messias of Bethlehem King of the Jews and they saw nothing in him but poverty and contempt In Joh. XVII 24. Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am Where I am where is that Not here wherein is poverty contempt and dishonor as he experienced when he was here but to see my glory there where he is glorified Alas What treatment can he provide for them here Can he spread a table for their full satisfaction in this Wilderness where he found none for himself The dish he sets before them is In this world you shall have tribulation but be of good chear there is better chear provided for you in my Fathers house This is but a Wilderness you are passing through Canaan is the land provided for the flowing with milk and hony In my Fathers house there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many abiding places here you are flitting from place to place and no abiding but I have prepared a Rest for the people of God An unfit place here where there is nothing but changes and vicissitudes and where in a moment Amnons mirth and feasting may be turned into mourning and misery All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change cometh saith Job Why he met with changes enough but he means his great change when he should be changed no more than that that he looks for and trusts in An unfit place this when the house may be blown down whilst we are feasting in it as it happened to Jobs children This World then is no fit place for Christ to entertain his people in Secondly A believer in this World is not yet capable of the Entertainment that Christ has to give him therfore that is reserved for him in his Fathers house As Christ tells his Disciples I have many things to speak to you but you cannot bear them So I say in our present case Christ hath many excellent treatments to entertain them withal but here they are not fit for them while we are in this corruptible flesh we want the wedding garment Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God So corruptible bodies are not garments fit for these divine entertainments 1. The Soul in these bodies does not act to the utmost extent its nature is capable of It is like a bird that let out injoys a whole World of liberty but not before There is a kind of immensity in the Soul and this is one part of Gods image Any one Soul among us could hold as much wisdom goodness c. as God in its degree and capacity but it is straitned in these bodies that it cannot act to such an extensiveness As the River is straitned within its banks till it fall into the Ocean so the Soul here is straitned by ignorance infirmities pressures but at death it slips into the Ocean of Eternity where there is no more straitness 2. How impossible is it in these mortal bodies to see God as he is How hard through the fogs of flesh to see the things of God How impossible to behold God in his essence In the mount will the Lord be seen and not in the low vallies of mortality and corruption Oh! I cannot but with rapture consider of the strange and blessed change that blessed Souls find as soon as ever departed Here we are groping after him and much ado we have to discern a little of him here one cloud or other is interposing twixt our contemplation and that Sun But as soon as we are got out of the body we behold that incomprehensible light as he is Oh! what rapture of Soul will it be to see all clouds dispelled and to look with open full eye upon the Sun Oh! this is our God we have groped we have waited for him What the Apostle saith II Cor. III. ult But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory This is of transcendent comfort for believers it being their happiness here to behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord and to be changed into the same image What ravishment of Joy will it be to find it effected to the utmost in Eternity 3. How impossible is it to keep the heart fixed on God here While flesh hangs on it that will be making it to flag aside A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise April 6. 1666. I JOHN V. 16. There is a sin unto death I do not say that he should pray for it AND it is a deadly sin indeed that outvies and excludes the charity of this Apostle A man as his Writings evidence of him and as Ecclesiastical History testifies concerning him composed altogether of Charity His Epistles evidence to you how urgent he is for love one to another and Ecclesiastical History will tell you that his common salutation to all he met was Let us love one another But here he hath met with a wretch to whom he cannot find in his heart to say God speed A deadly sin and a deadly sinner to whom he cannot allow the Christian the Common the needful Charity of his own or other mens prayers O no It is a sin unto death The uttering of the first clause There is a sin unto death may not undeservedly nor impertinently move such another inquiry in the Congregation as the uttering of those words of our Saviour One of you shall betray me did move at his Table every one then to say Is it I and every one here to say is the sin mine As it was time for every one of Israel to look about him lest the thing should fall to his share when Joshua proclaimed among them There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee O Israel Josh VII 13. So when the Holy Ghost proclaimeth in the words of the Text There is a sin unto death is it not time is it not pertinent for every one that is within hearing to look about and take heed lest this dead Concubine do lie at the threshold of his door as she did in Gibeah Judg. XIX And what hath any notorious sinner to say for himself why the Law of the Text should not proceed against him and condemn his profaneness uncleanness wickedness unconscionableness under the name and title of a sin unto death seeing it seemeth a great deal more currant that
there is sin unto death than that there should be any sin that is not unto death as our Apostle saith there is in the words immediately going before these that I have chosen In these that I have chosen you see there are two clauses and out of either of them arise two Questions Out of the former I. What sin it is the Apostle means And II. Why he titles it by such a name A sin unto death Out of the latter I. Why he forbideth to pray for it And II. Why he forbideth not to pray for it I mean why he speaketh not out in down right terms I say that he should not pray for it but says only I say not that he should The Rhemists Popish Expositors upon the place will answer you even all these questions with a breath if you will but take their words and little more than their bare word must you expect for the proof and confirmation of what they tell you 1. They will tell you that the sin our Apostle means is any sin whatsoever that any one lives in unrepentant all his time 2. They will tell you that it is titled A sin unto death because he lives in it till his death and so dies in it 3. They will tell you that the Apostle by not praying for him means not praying for him when he is dead but he that sins not a sin unto death that is that lives not in his sin till he die but repents of it before for him you must pray after his death For that the place is most properly or only meant of praying for the departed say they this convinced that neither the Church nor any man is debarred here from praying for any sinner while living nor for remission of any sin in this life And so they go on When I read these mens Annotations on this Scripture they often mind me of Benhadads servants with ropes about their necks catching at any word that fell from the King of Israels mouth that might be for any advantage to their forlorn and lost cause and condition These mens Popish cause hath had the rope about its neck now a long time and been in a lost and forlorn case and I cannot tell whether I should laugh or frown to see what pitiful shift and shameful scrambling they make for it by catching at any word or syllable in the Scripture or Fathers and wresting and twisting and twining it to any seeming or colourable advantage to their condemned cause to save it from execution Certainly they are at a very hard pinch for proof of praying for the dead when they make such a scraping in this portion of Scripture to rake it out thence whereas the words are as far from meaning the living praying for the dead as the dead praying for the living And at the very same game they be in their notes upon our Saviours words concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost that it shall never be forgiven in this World nor in the World to come Matth. XII 32. Their note is that some sins may be remitted in the next life and consequently this proves Purgatory As the poor frantick distracted wretch at Athens that fed and pleased himself with this fancy that every ship that came into the Port was his ship that all the goods that came into the Town were his goods whilst he himself in the mean time was miserably poor naked and ready to famish so these men think every verse in Scripture brings in something to their stock every saying of the Fathers something to their bank whilst in the mean while their pitiful cause walks starven and poor and blind and naked and stands in need of all things The sin against the Holy Ghost indeed is distinct and something different from this sin unto death that our Apostle speaketh of yet since there is such a particular sin against the Holy Ghost that is so deadly why should not these men think that sin in the Text that carries so deadly a name is a particular sin likewise It is true indeed that a sin in which a man continues unrepenting until his death and in which he dies may very justly be called A sin to death that is a sin until his death and it will prove A sin to death eternal but that the Apostle means here a particular sin and that he estimates it not by its length but by its weight not by how long the party continues in it but by how grievous the sin is in it self will appear as we go along partly by discovery of the reason of the title he puts upon it and partly by discovery of the very sin it self that is here intended But before we begin with the discovery of the reason of the title let us a little look first into the meaning of those words of our Saviour Joh. XX. 22. He breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted to them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained Do not the Apostles here receive a new power or priviledge or guift which Christ had not imparted to them before Else why such an action as he had never used toward them before so breathing on them The common acceptation of these words whose soever sins ye remit or retain are remitted or retained is to make them to mean the same thing with what ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. But besides that the expressions are of a vast difference why if Christ had given them the very same power in those words that he doth in these why should he repeat it especially why should he use such a solemn and unusual rite toward them to breath upon them He had given them power of miracles and healing and casting out Devils before without breathing upon them He had given them power of binding and loosing that is of establishing or abolishing the rites and Laws of Moses for so the Phrase in the common acceptation of the Nation did only signifie and this he did without breathing upon them Therefore certainly in this his new action and these his new words as I may call them he gives them some new power and that in two kinds 1. In his breathing upon them and bidding them receive the Holy Ghost he gives the Holy Ghost to give again or he gives them power by the imposition of their hands to bestow the Holy Ghost as the sacred Story tells you the Apostle did and none but the Apostles could do And 2. In his words whose soever sins ye remit or retain he gives them a punitive or executive double power viz. To strike desperate or incorrigible and horrid transgressors with some corporal punishment or stroke or else to give them up to Satan to be tortured and scourged in body and vexed and disquieted in mind Where had Peter his warrant to strike Ananias and Sapphira with death but from these words And Paul
God the true Messias And the Jews that would not believe that no sign would serve to make them believe That indeed you 'l say gave assurance to all men that he was the Son of God the true Messias but how did that give assurance that there should be an universal Judgment and he the Judge Truly he that knows what the true Messias means needs no more proof and demonstration of that than his very Character He is heir of the World he is Prince and Saviour he is King in Sion he is set up above all Principality and power as the Scripture speaks these and divers other things of him and doth any man need more evidence of his being judge of all the World But our question is how that is inferred or argued from his Resurrection The Resurrection of Christ did beget and effectuate a double Resurrection for you have mention of a two fold Resurrection in Scripture First There is mention of the first Resurrection Rev. XX. 5. The Millenary not able to clear the notion whereof nor to spell out the meaning hath bewildred himself in those wild conceptions as he hath done The first Resurrection began and took place presently after our Saviours own Resurrection for it means no other than the raising the Heathen from their death in sin blindness and Idolatry to the life light and obedience of the Gospel And so the Apostle titles their estate writing to the Ephesians which had been some of them Ephes. II. 1. You hath he quickned who were dead in trespasses and sins And to that very tenor are those words of the Prophet Esay XXVI 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise The Gentiles to be raised from their spiritual death presently upon his raising from his bodily And who so shall well weigh those words of our Saviour Joh. V. 25. The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live will clearly find them to mean nothing else So that the Resurrection of Christ had first influence and virtue to cause this spiritual Resurrection the Resurrection of souls the raising up of the Gentiles from the death of sin And whence it had this influence it is easie to read viz. because by his Resurrection he had conquered the Devil who had so long kept the poor Heathen under that spiritual death Will you have a Commentary upon that passage in Psal. CX 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power First His Resurrection day of power Rom. I. 4. Then look into the story of the Acts of Apostles the history of the times next following his Resurrection You may wonder there to see people coming in by flocks and thousands to the acknowledgment and entertaining of the Gospel three thousand at one Sermon Chap. II. five thousand at another Chap. III. and further in that book in a little time the Gospel running through the World and imbraced and intertained of all Nations Oh! It was the day of his power and thy people shall be willing in day of thy power He had now Conquered Hell and Satan by his death and rising again whose captives those poor heathen had been two and twenty hundred years and now he said to the captives Go free and to the prisoners Go forth and so they did And upon the very like account his Resurrection hath influence to the causing and effectuating the general Resurrection at the last day For though it might be a little too long to hold that the wicked shall be raised by the very same virtue of Christs Resurrection that the godly shall yet it is not too large to hold that they shall be raised by some virtue of his Resurrection viz. as his Resurrection had conquered death and brought him to those articles that he must in time give up and restore all prisoners and dead that they may come and give account to him that conquered him I have the keys of the grave and death faith he in the Revelations he had wrung the keys out of the jaylors hand and opened the prison doors that the prisoners should come out when he calls Very observable to the purpose we are upon viz. that Christs Resurrection did assure that judgment and that he should be judge is that in Phil. II. 8. 9. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross Wherefore also God hath highly exalted him Obedience was that debt that was to be paid to God Whereas much stress is laid upon the torments that Christ suffered it is very true that he suffered as much as I may say God could lay upon him short of his own wrath and as much as the Devil could withal his wrath but that was not the debt that was due and to be paid to God Wrath and torment and damnation was rather the debt that was to be paid to man But the debt was obedience For easie is it to observe how Satan had got the day of God as with reverence I may speak it when he had brought the chief creature of Gods creation and in him all mankind to disobey God and to be obedient to him and had carried it for ever had not an obedience been paid again to God that outvied that disobedience How might Satan triumph Man that is the darling creature to the Creator and that is set up Lord and Ruler of all Creatures and to whom even the Angels are appointed to be ministring Spirits I have brought this brave Gallant to forsake his Creator and to follow and obey me But forth steps this noble Champion of God and in the form of a servant incounters this triumpher and mauger all his spite and power and vexatiousness he pays God an obedience incomparably beyond the obedience that Adam should have paid incomparably outweighing the disobedience that Adam shewed He paid an obedience that should answer for the disobedience of all his people An obedience that should be a stock for all his people Nay he paid an obedience that outvied all the disobediences of all men and Devils For he paid an obedience that was infinite Now his Resurrection did demonstrate that he had made full payment or else Satan and Death might have kept him still in the grave their prison if a farthing had been yet unpaid Now he having by his Resurrection consummated the payment of so great obedience and vindicated the honour and quarrel of God against his enemies In all justice and equity the Lord exalted him above all that all should be subject and homagers to him and that he might take account and reward accordingly those that obey him and that obey him not And so the Lord hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by him whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he raised him from the dead And are you assured that there will be
true when he said Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life What will any man take for his life to pass it away What jewels what rubies what riches will buy his life from him No he accounts it too precious to part with his life for mony or monies worth And this doth enhance the preciousness of life that it is not only so excellent a being in it self but without it all things are nothing to him that hath lost it Bring a dead man bags of gold and heaps of silver fill his coffin up with pearls and jewels strew his grave with diamonds and rubies there is no hearing no minding no affecting when his jewel that was more worth then all these his life is gone Now who is the Preserver of this dear jewel while we carry it about us Is it we our selves The Psalmist tells us that It is he that made us and not we our selves Psal. C. And reason may tell us that it is he that preserves us and not we our selves For can we any more preserve our lives of our selves than we can give life to our selves When a desperate danger is ready to swallow us up if God withdraw his preserving providence can man bring his life out of danger In Scripture Phrase for a man to put his life in his own hand Judg. XII 3. is to venture it to danger where there is no safety but in the hands of God it is secure while he will take charge of it Feeling is that passage of Daniel to Belshazzar Dan. V. 23. The God in whose hand is thy breath Canst thou take it into thine own hand and there hold it The Jews tell a story of the Angel of death sent to take away the soul of Moses but Moses withstood him and he could not do it but when God saw his time to take it no withstanding The Angel of death in their meaning is the Devil and the Apostle speaks to their opinion Heb. II. 14. That through death he might destroy him that â—ad the power of death that is the Devil Now wherein lies the reason why Satan takes not away our lives when he pleaseth Is it in our selves Would not he think you carry away all men bodily to his den if it were in his power And is it our power that doth restrain him Think of those poor possessed ones in the Gospel whom the Devil hurried so up and down at his pleasure Is it our own power that doth restrain him that he useth not us so When we read or hear such stories have we not cause if we had hearts to look up at a higher power than our own that we are not as they were in his power And was it his courtesie that he spared their lives when God had given him liberty to use their bodies as he did Or was it not that God restrained him you may guess it by Jobs case betwixt whose life and Satans malice against him God had put this bar Only take not away his life But when God himself comes by death resolvedly to take away any mans life whose power is it in to hinder When he is resolved to tear body and soul assunder who shall say what dost thou When he will preserve life no longer who can make it out and preserve it himself The Lord giveth life and the Lord taketh it away in his hand only is the disposal of our life and being Secondly God shews himselves tender of our lives doth not only preserve them but shews that he is tender of them and willing to preserve them God is the fountain of being and giver of life and it is agreeable to his nature to maintain the being of men and their lives but it is not so agreeable to him to destroy them it is said of him that he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. III. And he saith of himself that he hath no pleasure in the death of the sinner Ezek. XVIII And no wonder for it is somewhat besides his nature q. d. for it is his nature to give being and not to destroy it Now that God is tender of the lives of men and preservs them willingly and tenderly you have it evidenced in the mouth of three or four witnesses that the truth of it may be established 1. He is tender of the lives of very birds and beasts and therefore forbids all cruelty towards them Balaam for cruelty towards his poor Ass is reproved both by the Angel and the Ass her self And how does God forbid to kill a beast and her young on the same day to take a bird and her young at the same time but if he take the young to let the dam go forbids to seeth a kid in his dams milk and in a word it is a token the Holy Ghost gives of a good man that he is merciful to his very beast 2. Is it not an evidence that God is tender of mens lives when he hath made so severe a Law against murther or taking them away And what strange discoveries hath he made of murthers and murtherers that he that hath taken away a mans life may not go unpunished So tender is God of the life of man that as man hedgeth in a choice tree or plant that he is tender of so hath God mans life with such a siry law as well as he doth also with his providence 3. Doth not God tender the life of man when he would have all men to spin out their lives to life eternal and shewed them a way how to do it if they would but take his way God had rather thy life should reach Heaven and Eternity there than to drop into Hell in the end and be drowned in eternal death And this is one thing amongst others that doth highly enhance the preciousness of mans life that it may be translated to Eternity 4. And Lastly If you yet need any evidence and demonstration of Gods tenderness to mens lives and willingness to preserve them and unwillingness to destroy them look upon your selves as you are alive here this day And whence is it that you are so Can you give any other proper reason than this because God is tender of your lives and is not willing to destroy them Hath he not power enough to have cut them off and destroyed them long ago And have we not given him cause enough to have destroyed them over and over Whence is it then that we are all here this day God hath spared our lives preserved our lives tenderly preserved them or our souls had long ago dwelt in silence And are we not in debt to God for this care and tendering of us Is there nothing to be paid him not one half shekel for all our preservation Doth not all the reason in the world dictate that when we live by him we should live as he would have us that when he spares and preserves our lives we should lead and
of these Commandments or to go beyond the Sea to learn the equity of these precepts Do we need to dig deep to find a reason why we should be bound to these things Do they not of themselves speak all equity and reason in the World And as it is Rom. XII that we should offer up our selves a holy living sacrifice to God is it not a most reasonable service that is required of us Upon what hath been spoken these two consequences must needs be concluded First That if there be so great reason to keep the Commandments of God how unreasonable a thing then is it not to keep them The Scripture speaketh not in vain when it calls wicked men Fools for they go against all reason and have even lost their reason unreasonable men as the Apostle calls them men that are without all reason Is there any pleading for Baal as Gideons Father spoke Is any reason to be pleaded for mens transgressing the Commands of God Produce your arguments bring forth your strong reasons to plead for your Idols and Idolatry saith God in derision to those that worshipped stocks and stones Produce your arguments bring forth your strong reasons why you should transgress any of the Commands of God And think you you can answer or satisfie God with all the arguments you can invent I must break such a Command or I shall lose my pleasure such a Command or I shall lose my profit such a Command or I am crost and shall lose my will Excellent reasons Wherewithal to out-argue the divine will of God and excellent pleadings To lay before God at the great day of judgment and very likely to come off fairly with A good man according to S. Peters counsel should be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in him Can a wicked man give any reason either of any hope in him or of the evil that proceedeth from him Sinning is a thing unreasonable and where there is so great reason for the keeping of Gods commands the breaking them must needs be against all reason And from this very thing if there were no other must the Conscience of ungodly men in Hell torture them for ever because reason is now awaked with them which they lulled a sleep in their lusts here and now they see how it was against all reason that they transgressed Gods commands Secondly If there be so great reason and equity to bind men to keep the Commandments of God certainly there is some reason and equity to bind them over to punishment if they keep them not Does God ever Command and never demand what becomes of his Commands Did he give them in such terror and will no terror follow the breach of them A SERMON Preached upon REVELAIONS XX. 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished This is the first Resurrection WHAT is meant by the first Resurrection here is to be discerned by the verses preceding They tell you of Christ the Great Angel binding the Devil in a great chain and casting him into the bottomless pit a thousand years 1 2 3 verses and of thrones set and some sitting on them and judgment given to them and those that were martyred for the profession of Christ living and reigning with him a thousand years vers 4. But the rest of the dead lived not again c. The end for which Christ thus bound the Devil being considered will help to clear and unfold the whole matter and that you have vers 3. That he should deceive the Nations no more i. e. that he should not delude the Heathen or Gentiles as he had done From the casting off the Gentiles at Babel the Devil had kept all the world under a perpetual cheat to worship Idols to sacrifice to Devils to live and walk in all the ways of the Devil till Christ sent his Gospel among them to teach them better This then was the Chain whereby the Great Angel of the Covenant Christ tyed up the Devil that he should not cheat the world as he had before done viz. sending the Gospel among them by the preaching and power of which he restrained and quelled that power and deluding of the Devil The Heathen by the instruction of the Gospel come to know and worship and fear the true God to cast away their Idols to defy the Devil and his works and to laugh his Oracles and delusions to scorn Dagon is now fallen before the Ark of God and his head and hands broken off and now Dagon is left but a meer stump Jericho's walls are fallen flat with no other Engin but only the sound of Trumpets made of rams-horns the strong hold of Satan cast down with the only sound of the great trump of the Gospel and he himself tyed up that he shall no more cheat and cousin the world till a thousand years be expired and then he is loosed again and cousins the world by Popery now as he had done by Heathenism then The poor Heathen thus recovered out of the power of Satan by the coming in of the Gospel among them did creep out of their graves of Ignorance Idolatry and Sinfulnss in which they had layn stinking and rotting so many ages together had life put into them to live to God they are awaked out of their dust and long sleep to see and act and live as the children of God And this is that which is here called The first Resurrection And the very same title doth our Saviour give to the very same thing John V. 25. Verily verily I say unto you The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live That he speaks of the first resurrection and of the last at vers 28 29. Marvel not at this for the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice And shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation And do but consider how great and near a parallel there is twixt this first and that last resurrection That last shall raise men from the death of the body this raised the Heathen from the death of the Soul That shall be by the powerful sound of the Trump of God this was by the powerful sound of the Trumpet of the Gospel That will be acted by an infinite power raising men dead in the grave this was acted by an infinite power raising men dead in sins But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished And did they live then The Millenary will tell you Yes For his conceit about these thousand years is this That at the begining of the thousand years those that suffered martyrdom for Christs sake shall be raised out of their graves and reign with Christ a thousand years and when the thousand years are
finished there shall be the general resurrection And accordingly they construe the words before us to this sence The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years were finished And then lived An opinion as like the opinion of the Jews as one egg is like another They think Christ shall reign among them on earth a thousand years pompous reign So do these They think that at the beginning of his reign the holy Prophets and Patriarchs shall be raised from death and reign with him So these They think that at the end of his thousand years reign there shall be the general resurrection and world of Eternity so do these So that the Millenary doth Judaize and he knows it not he is fallen into the Jews opinion and is not aware of it This book of Revelations is exceeding full of expressions that allude to the Jewish customs and opinions I say again is exceeding full but it were ridiculous to think that such passages are to be construed in the same literal sense that the Jews took them in Only those common and well known things as being familiar to the Nation are used to signifie or illustrate some spiritual sence or matter Expressions are used in this place that are agreeable in sound to the opinion of the Jews but not agreeable in sence but signifying something else They conceit a personal pompous reign of Christ on earth a thousand years in all earthly state and gallantry These words speak of a reign of Christ a thousand years but they mean his reign and ruling by his Word and Spirit and of his subduing and bringing the Nations into subjection and obedience but by the Ministry of the Gospel They speak of those that had been martyred reigning with him but the meaning only is to intimate that the children of his kingdom must suffer persecution and that they shall lose nothing by their persecution but as the Apostle speaks If they suffer with him they shall also reign with him Let us read the verse before I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God And which had not worshiped the beast neither his image neither had received his his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished And did they live then That is not imaginable the time of reviving being then past and over For at the end of the thousand years Satan is let loose again brings in Popery and Mahumetism and the World grows as Heathenish as it had been before Satans binding and imprisoning So that they had lost the opportunity of reviving which was in the thousand years The word Until signifies doubly either concluding or else excluding you may see my meaning by these examples The Master in the Parable gives Talents to his servants and bids them Occupy till I come Here the word until concludes that he would come again This iniquity shall not be purged from you till you dye Es. XXII 14. Here the word till excludes them from ever having their iniquity purged The word until in the text is of this latter construction and means that they let slip and embraced not the opportunity of reviving all the thousand years when was the time of reviving and so they lived not again at all And if we well observe the Histories both of the Heathen and of the Church we shall find that all along this time that the Gospel was dispersing through the World there were multitudes of Heathens that would not forsake their Heathenism and multitudes in the Church in a little time fell to superstition and worshiping of Images and so even turned to Heathenism also Therefore God suffers Satan to be let loose again to go about in the world again with his delusions he brings in Popery in the West and Mahumetism in the East and so the whole World is returned to blindness and darkness again because when the light shone they would none of the light They would not embrace the offer of reviving when the time and opportunity of reviving was therefore they lived not again till those thousand years were finished and then the time of living again was over So that in the words before us we observe three things I. That the raising of the Gentiles from the Death of Sin is called the first Resurrection II. That in that time of raising some lost the opportunity and would not be raised III. That they losing the opportunity of rising and living missed always of rising and living I. As to the first thing named That the raising of the Gentiles from the death of sin is called the first Resurrection It gives us occasion to consider how a mans getting out of the state of sin into the state of grace is a Resurrection or a rising from the dead And with all to compare this first and last resurrection together and to see what connexion there is between them I. To Sadduces and Atheists that deny the resurrection at the last day because they can see no reason for it I should propose this question Whether there hath not been a raising of dead souls from the death of sin Abraham once an Idolater was not his soul dead then Yet afterwards he was the great Father of the faithful Was there not then a Resurrection of that dead soul Manasseh the King an Idolater a Conjurer a Sacrificer of his Sons to Molech was not this man dead in trespasses and sins and yet this man afterwards was a Penitent a Convert a Promoter of piety and the true worship of God Was not here a Resurrection of a dead Soul Is God less able to raise a dead body out of the grave than to raise a dead soul out of its sins Nay is not this as great a work of God as that will be Christ that can make such vile souls that they may be like unto his most glorious soul cannot he make these vile bodies that may be like his most glorious body according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself II. But let us look upon this first resurrection a little and blessed and holy is he that hath part in it over such an one shall the second death have no power In some things it is not parallel or like to the second resurrection in more it is First The Second Resurrection shall be of all bodies this First is not of all souls And if we come to seek for the reason of the difference where shall we find it Cannot the same power that shall raise all bodies also raise all souls The reason of the difference lies not in the difference of that power Were it not as much for the glory of God to raise all souls as to raise all bodies The reason of the difference lyes not there neither For God chooseth freely the
and as thy soul is risen from the death of sin so mayest thou expect thy bodies rising from death in the grave The Jews speak of a little bone in some part of a mans body they call it Luz which they say will never be consumed in the grave but will be as it were a seed sown in the ground out of which will spring the Resurrection of the whole body I may say graciousness in the soul is rather the seed of the Resurrection of the body that will cause it to rise to life and happiness And thus much concerning the first Observation II. That in the time of the first Resurrection that is the raising the Gentiles from the Death of sin some lost the opportunity and would not be raised The rest of the dead lived not again because they were not raised by a first Resurrection when season and opportunity of living again was in date that is for the thousand years mentioned in the Text. Whether you take the thousand years for a certain determinate time of exactly so many years or that a certain number is used for an uncertain and this number the rather because it is used by the Jews whether the one or the other you are to begin to count from the time the Gospel was first sent among the Gentiles And count such a space of time forward and you will find in story that though the Gospel had gone through the world in that time and made the world Christian and vast numbers were converted to Christianity yet there was still a struggling to have kept the World Heathen and multitudes were unwilling to come off from their old Heathen and Idolatrous Religion For three hundred years the Emperors and all the Magistrates were enemies to the Gospel and if any of them did not persecute the Christians as but few but did yet they maintained their Heathen Religion might and main And the great wise men of the World as they were esteemed the Philosophes and learned ones were the greatest sticklers for the maintaining of the worshiping of their many false and idol Gods all along when the Emperours were become Christians Which may very well make us to remember the words of the Apostle 1 Cor. I. 26. Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise I cannot omit two remarkable passages The one of Julian the Emperor who was brought up a Christian but turned Heathen nay who as stories relate of him had been a Lecturer in a Christian congregation but became the bitter enemy to Christianity He when the Emperors had been Christian for two successions viz. Constantine and Constantius and the Christian Religion had flourished in their times well towards forty years and the Heathen Idolatrous Temples shut up and Christian Churches opened He opens the Heathen Temples shuts up the Christian promotes Idolatry again and the worship of the Heathen Gods and hath many Heathen Philosophers Jamblichus Maximus Ecebolus Libanius and I know not how many more to spur him on to it And the other passage I have is a clause in a letter of Adrian the Emperor to one of his Nobles in which he tells him I have been in Egypt and there I observed the Christians worshiping Christ and Idols yea the Christian Bishops worshiping Christ and Serapis Which Serapis was the great God and Idol of the Egyptians By all which we may see the truth of what is asserted in the Text That the rest of the dead lived not again but continued still in their dead condition of blindness and Heathenism And may also see the reason why they lived not again viz. because they would not but chose death before life to continue in their dead condition of being Heathens rather than to become Christians and live And from this we may see how just it was with God to let Popery and Mahumetism invade the world and to reduce it to its heathenish ignorance blindness and superstition again because it was so unwilling to part with its ignorance blindness and superstition Because they would not receive truth in the love of it as the Apostle sayes it was just with God to give them up to strong delusions to believe a ly And by that sad example we may observe how men lose and let slip the opportunities that God affords them for their own good and so losing them they lose themselves Jerusalem knows not the time of her Visitation and the things of her peace and so poor Jerusalem is lost and her opportunity gone for ever There is a critical time when there is a season opportune for the good of the Souls and the clock strikes Time is but foolish men too commonly take so little notice of it that the brazen head cryes Time is past and breaks to pieces If we should take up the Dispute whether God do not set his time and stint how long he will let men have opportunity of rising from the death of sin are there not many evidences for the affirmative that he doth He sets his stint and date how long he will afford a man the opportunity that his body may live and doth he not the like for the living of the Soul Doth not God shut the gates of mercy against sinful Souls even in this life and doth he not shut the gates of Repentance These in the Text that lived not again was not all possibility of living again taken again from them because they had let the time and opportunity of reviving let slip and go and neglected it Esau lost his opportunity and having lost that he found no place of recovery though he sought it with tears And Joh. XII 39 40. They could not believe because Esaias had said he hath blinded their eyes c. Why were Esaias words a charm to them that they could not believe No they could not believe because those words of Esaias were verified upon them And they had so long wilfully blinded their own eyes and hardned their hearts that God had put to his Seal and blinded and hardned them that they were now past all possibility of believing In that great dispute and iniquiry how God hardneth mens hearts of which there is so frequent mention and intimitation in Scripture the first crisis toward the determination of it is that God hath set such men a time how long they may be in a possibility of repenting and believing which when it is come and they are still impertinent and unbelieving and will not repent and believe he shuts the door against them that they shall not repent and believe Upon the consideration of all which we have advertisement what we have to do viz. to strive after this first Resurrection while the Lord affords time and opportunity and when God offers the advantage of our living again not to be enemies of our own reviving A SERMON Preached upon 2 SAMUEL XIX 29.
and the first temptation presented to him Now all the power and army of Hell is let loose all the machinations of the bottomless pit put in practise against the second Adam but all to no purpose he stands like a rock unmoved in his righteousness and obedience and by such a death destroys him that had the power over death the Devil II. As the Dâ—â—â—l must be conquered so God must be satisfied And as Christs obedience did the one work so it did the other Obedience was the debt of Adam and mankind and by disobedience they had forfeited their Bonds Then comes this great Undertaker and will satisfie the debt with full interest yea and measure heaped and running over Does not the Apostle speak thus much Rom. V. from vers 12. forward particularly at vers 19. By the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Nor was this all that mans debt must be paid but Gods honour lay at stake too and that must be vindicated God had created man his noblest creature that he might glorifie and honour his Creator by his obedience Satan brings him to disobey his Creator and to obey him How might Satan here triumph and the honour of God lie in the dust I have mastered the chief Creation of God might Satan boast and made him that carried the badge and livery of his image now to carry mine I have frustrated the end and honour of the Creator and now all is mine own How sad a time were those three hours or thereabouts that passed betwixt the Fall of Adam and the promise of Christ Adam in darkness and not the least glimpse of promise or comfort Satan triumphing and poor manking and Gods honour trampled underfoot But then the Sun of righteousness arose in the promise that the seed of the woman should break the head of the Serpent And shall this uncircumcised Philistin thus deâ—ie the honour and armies of the living God saith Christ shall Satan thus carry the day against man and against God I will pay obedience that shall fully satisfie to the vindication of Gods honour to confound Satan and to the payment of mans debt to his reinstating and recovery And that was it that he paid consummatively in his Obedience to the death and in it and to the shedding of his blood Of which to speak in the full dimensions of the height depth length bredth of it what tongue can suffice what time can serve T is a Theme the glorified Saints deservedly sing of to all Eternity I shall speak in little of that which can never be extolled enough these two things only I. That he died merely out of obedience The Apostle tells us in Phil. II. 8. He became obedient to the death the death of the Cross. And what can ye name that brought him thither but Obedience Christs dead body imagine lies before you Call together a whole College of Phisitians to diffect it and to tell you what it was of which he died And their Verdict will be Of nothing but Love to man and Obedience to God For Principles of death he had none in his nature And the reason of his death lay not in any mortality of his body as it does in ourâ— but in the willingness of his mind Nor was his death his wages of sin as it is ours Rom. VI. ult but it was his choise and delight Luke XII 50. I have a baptism to be baptised withal and how am I straitned till it be accomplished Ask the first Adam why he sinned when he had no principles of sin in him and the true answer must be Because he would sin And so ask the second Adam why he died when he had no principles of death in him his answer must be to the like tenor He would lay down his life because he would be obedient to the death He came purposely into the World that he might dye Behold I tell you a mystery Christ came purposely into the World that he might dye and so never did Man but himself never will man do but himself True that every Man that comes into the World must dye but never Man came purposely that he might dye but only He. And he saith no less than that he did so Joh. XII 27. Father save me from this hour but for this cause came I to this hour And John XVIII 37. For this cause came I into this World to bear witness to the Truth Even to bear witness to the Truth to Death and Martyrdom II. Now add to all this the dignity of his Person who performed this Obedience that he was God as well as Man That as he offered himself according to his Manhood so he offered himself by the Eternal Spirit or as he was God as this Apostle saith Chap. IX 14. And now his obedience his holiness that he shewed in his death is infinite And what need we say more So that lay all the disobedience of all men in the World on an heap as the dead frogs in Egypt were laid on heaps that they made the land to stink again yet here is an Obedience that out-vies them all For though they be infinite in number as to mans numbring yet lay them all together they are finite upon this account because committed by creatures finite But here is an Obedience a holiness paid down by him that is infinite And now Satan where is thy Triumph Thou broughtest the first Adam to fail of perfect Obedience that he should have paid his Creator and here the second Adam hath paid him for it infinite Obedience And what hast thou now gained Therefore to take account from whence comes that infinite Virtue of Christs blood and death that the Scripture so much and so deservedly extols and magnifies Because as the Evangelist â—aith Out of his side came water and blood so out of his wounds came obedience and blood holiness and blood righteousness and blood and that obedience holiness righteousness infinite because he that paid it down and performed it was infinite And now judge whether it may not very properly be said That Christ was sanctified by his own blood As Aaron was sanctified for his Priesthood by his Unction and Garments Christ was consecrated fitted capacitated by his infinite obedience and righteousness which he shewed to the death and in it to be an High Priest able to save to the uttermost all those that come to him For first as in reference to himself it is said by this Apostle that he was raised from the dead by the blood of the Covenant Chap. XIII 20. And it was not possible but he should be raised for when he had performed such obedience and righteousness as in it was infinite in its validity subdued Satan in its alsufficiency satisfied the justice of God it was impossible that he should be held of death which is the wages of sin and disobedience And as he was thus raised by
ye are of the murtherer Secondly The first man dying was Christ in figure as the first death that of Sacrifice was Christ in figure also The Jews say that when Cain killed his Brother he made wounds in his hands and feet Thirdly That Cain who was first born into the world should so miscarry So the first estate of Man miscarried Eve hoped well of him when she named him Cain saying I have gotten a man from the Lord or a man the Lord. But the first born miscarried And so Esau the first born lost his birth-right But to return to our subject He slew his Brother We may cry Murther Murther with a witness If it had been a stranger that had been slain or an enemy or one that had been too many in the world but a Brother an only Brother the only man in the world this vastly aggravates the crime Fratricide is horrid this without parallel or possibility of parallel It is justly said that he was of that Wicked one Else this story would have choaked all belief How think you was Adam amazed when he heard it but when he resolved it thus he is of him that murthered mankind this ceased his wonder From hence I raise this Doctrine How much devilishness can the Devil infuse into Mans Nature This story is set first after the Fall to shew how much of Devil breathed in our Nature and how far it may be enhanced to devilishness Seth was begotten in the image of Adam Cain of the Devil See against how many Divine and Humane Laws and bonds he did this Act. 1. It was besides reason There was room enough in the world for both It was not with them as it was afterwards with Lot and Abraham Gen. XIII 6. The Land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together Nor as it was after that with Jacob and Esau Chap. XXXVI 7. Their riches were more than that they might dwell together and the Land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their Cattel 2. It was contrary to reason 1. In that they should have been mutually helpful And 2. Why should not Abel live as well as he 3. It was contrary to Nature He was his Brother-twin with him 4. Contrary to the tender dealing of God 5. Contrary to all reason and Religion He slew him because his works were righteous As Caligula slew a man because he was a proper man But Cain was not alone I might shew as much Devilishness appearing in others as in Pharaoh Ahab Nero c. Men in all things like the Devil and Cain And the reasons of this are I. Because the Soul of Man is capable of all evil to all extremity Not only that Gen. VI. 5. that the wickedness of Man was great and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually but he is capable of all manner and degrees of evil Not only that in Matth. XV. 19. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts Murthers Adulteries Fornications Thefts false-witness Blasphemies but these to the utmost extremity That in Rom. VII 18. In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing is short of the utmost extremity by far 1. The Soul is large enough to hold all evil Immensity is part of the Image of God in it desires it hath never satisfied covetuousness voluptuousness never satisfied it is a gulph that never says Enough 2. The spawn of Original Sin contains all sin in it As a spark is enough to consume all if fuelled As the Mud after the overflowing of Nilus produceth all Monsters And the Leprosie spreads all over if let alone Consider these three things of our Nature First It being contrary to God contains all evil as he all good It is a question in the Schools whether sin is contrary to Gods Nature or Will Our sinful nature is contrary to both To his Will 1 Thess. IV. 3. For this is the will of God even your sanctification To his Nature He light but we are darkness He holiness but we sin and impurity Other Creatures are not contrary to God but divers and different from him but sinful Creature is contrary Our nature as evil is contrary to the Divine Nature Our misery is not only in the loss of the Image of God but in the obtaining the contrary Image Secondly There is nothing in our nature to limit its breaking out to evil It is an untamed Heifer will bear no yoke It is like waters running downwards without bounds Nay there is that in us that breaks all bounds as the stirring of Conscience the Motions of the Spirit Education Laws all bounds but those of Grace Our principle is to please self to have our own Wills Now this consists of an hundred unsatiable gulphs to satisfie Pride Covetousness Envy Lust. Self Conjures up these Devils but there is nothing in us to conjure them down again The body breeds a disease but can master it but the Soul cannot because it is overcome with content in its disease Thirdly These distempers of our Nature are boundless in themselves No bottom no stop but Grace or Death II. Another reason how it comes to pass that there is so much Devilishness in some Mens nature is because the Devil is still urging and never saith Enough As we are ever stirring evil in our selves so he is hatching evil in us We read of some that were taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. II. 26. But I will not insist any longer on the proof Let us consider in the next place what sins are most devilish and how men come up to them James III. 15. This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devilish There are degrees of sin first earthly then sensual and lastly devilish The Devil himself is without an earthly mind and without sensuality He is not covetous he offers Christ all the Kingdoms of the world Matth. IV. Nor is he lascivious They misconstrue Gen. VI. 2. that thought from thence that the Angels lay with Women Nor is he luxurious No the Devil flies at higher game to defy God and damn souls All sin bears his stamp but some his picture As namely these that follow 1. Pride and to be puffed up against God and his charge and bounds which he hath set This is the Devils peculiar sin See 1 Tim. III. 6. Not a Novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil 2. Hatred and cruelty Satan is an Enemy a Murtherer Joh. VIII 44. a roaring Lion and devours them that serve him 3. Enmity against Righteousness and the ways of God See vers 10. of this Chapter His name is Satan that is an Enemy to what is good 4. Lying and falshood That appeared sufficiently in the story of the Fall And in Joh. VIII 44. He is a Lyar and the Father of it Now are not some as devilish as the Devil himself in these 1. In Pride Some will be
them was the greater matter whether of them the greater work Was not the Resurrection Not indeed in regard of the Power that effected both but in regard of the effect or concernment of man 1. By his Resurrection he had destroyed him and that that had destroyed the Creation viz. Sin and Satan and did set up a better world a world of Grace and Eternal Life 2. Had it not been better that Man as he now was sinful had never been created than Christ not to have risen again to save and give him life As it was said of Judas It were better if he had never been born so it were better for sinful men if they had never been born than that Christ should not have been born from the dead to restore and revive them Observe that the Resurrection of the Heathen from their dead condition took its rise and beginning from the Resurrection of Christ as Christ himself closely compares it from the example of Jonahs rising out of the Whales belly and converting Nineveh To that purpose is that prophesie Esai XXVI 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust The dead Heathen that had lain so long in the grave of sin and ignorance when Christs body rose had life put into them from that time and they rose to the life of grace For by his Resurrection he had conquered him that had kept them so long under death and bondage Now was it not most proper for the Church of the called Heathen to have a Sabbath that should commemorate the cause time and original of this great benefit accruing to them A SERMON PREACHED upon EXODUS XX. 12. Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee THIS is the First Commandment of the Second Table and it is the first with promise Eph. VI. 2. Why it is the first of the second Table the reason is easie because when the second Table teaches our duty towards our Neighbour it is proper to begin with the Neighbour nearest to us such is our Father and Mother and with the Neighbour to whom we owe most peculiar Duty as we do to those that are comprehended under this title of Father and Mother But why this is called the First Commandment with promise is not so easie to resolve The difficulties are in these two things I. Because that seems to be a promise in the Second Commandment Shewing mercy unto thousands c. II. And if it be to be understood the first of the Second Table that hath a promise annexed unto it that is harsh also because there is no other promise in the Second Table and the First Commandment with promise argues some other Commandments with promise to follow after Now to these difficulties I Answer First That in the Second Commandment is rather a description of God than a direct Promise A jealous God visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children c. and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me As much Gall is mingled there as Honey as dreadful threatnings as comfort and therefore not to be looked on as a clear promise but as an argument and motive to Obedience taken from both mercy and judgment Secondly It is true there is never a promise more in the Second Table that comes after this but there are abundance of promises after in the rest of the Law And so may this be understood it is the First Commandment with promise in the whole Law from the Law given at Sinai to all the Law that Moses gave them afterwards And the first promise in the Law given to Israel is the promise of long life That thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee So that here especially are four things to be spoken to I. The nature of the promise that it is a temporal promise concerning this life II. The matter of the promise Length of life in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee III. The suitableness of the Promise to the Command Honour thy Father and Mother that thy days may be long c. IV. The extent of the Promise to all that keep the Commandment Which four heads will lead us to the consideration of several Questions The first leads us to this Observation That the Promises given to Israel in the Law are I. most generally and most apparently promises temporal or of things concerning this life First look upon this Promise which is first in the Law and whereas it may be construed two ways yet both ways it speaks at first voice or appearance an earthly promise There may be an Emphasis put either upon Thy days shall be long or upon Thy days long in the land Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long that thou mayst have long life Or Honour thy Father and thy Mother c. That thou mayst have long possession of the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and mayst not be cast out of it as the Canaanites were before thee Now take it either way what speaks it else but a temporal promise and that that refers to this life and to our subsistence in this world And so look upon those promises that are in Levit. XXVI and Deut. XXVIII and you find them all referring to temporal and bodily things And hereupon it may be observed that you hardly find mention of any spiritual promises especially not of eternal in all Moses Law No mention of Eternal Life joys of Heaven Salvation or Everlasting glory none but of things of this life Hence it was that the Sadducees denyed the Resurrection and the world to come because they only owned the five Books of Moses and in all his Books they found not mention of any such thing And therefore when our Saviour is to answer a Cavil of theirs against the Resurrection Mark XII 18 c. observe what he saith vers 26. Have you not read in the Book of Moses c. For he must prove the thing out of Moses to them or they would take it for no proof And observe also how he proves it by an obscure collection or deduction viz. because God says I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Therefore they lived though they were dead Which he would never have done had there been plain and evident proof of it And which if there had been they could never have denyed it And that which we are speaking to that the promises of the Law are of temporal things is also asserted by that Heb. VIII 6. He is the Mediator of a better Covenant established upon better promises If the promises of the Law had been Heavenly promises there could not have been better promises Had they been of Grace and Glory there could not have been better promises but those of the Law were
by considering what is the proper end and aim of mens living Friend wherefore camest thou hither Why did God bring thee into the world and why dost thou live A question very pertinent and very considerable For the greatest number of Men and Women in the world go out of the world before they know or consider why they came in Much like Ahimaaz 2 Sam. XVIII 29. That entreats Joab to let him run to David and runs hard and when he comes to David to his journeyes end all that he can relate is When Joab sent thy Servant I saw a great tumult but I cannot tell what it was God brings men into the world to run their race they see a great bustle in the world and they keep a great stir themselves and when they come to their journeyes end they cannot give account what the business was for which they came into the world What do you think he thought he came into the world for that when he dyed commanded this to be written on his Tomb-stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I have eaten much and drunken much and done much mischief in my time and now here I lye Who among thousands in his life or indeed in his thoughts owns the proper end of living The Apostle tells us what it is Act. XVII 26 27. God hath made all Nations of men c. That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him c. And the same Apostle 2 Cor. V. 15. They which live should not live to themselves but to him by whom they live The Schools do very truly tell us that God created reasonable creatures Men and Angels that they might serve God and partake of God which unreasonable creatures cannot do So that here is the proper answer to the question Why do we live And the proper end of our living to serve God by whom we live and to get interest in him and participation of him to live to God here that we may live with him and enjoy him hereafter And by this are we to judge of the blessing of a long life and not by any earthly thing or occurrence in our lives Long life is not therefore a blessing to any because he lives long in peace and prosperity because he gets much wealth much credit experience wisdom in so long a time but because he hath got much interest in God and done much service to God That of Solomon must be understood prudently and we must be sure to take his right meaning in it Eccles. III. 4. Better than either living or dead is he that hath not yet been Is this absolutely true No but only relatively viz. relating to earthly miseries For the missing of these he scapes best that never was and never saw the evil done under the Sun But as to the thing it self absolutely considered that paradox that is sometimes maintained in dispute in the Schools is true in some kind and degree Praestat esse miserum quam non esse It is better to be miserable than not to be at all He that never was nor never shall be he that never lived nor never shall live shall never praise God never see the works of God never enjoy God and that is worse than induring the miseries that Men meet withal upon Earth This is the proper end of life and the blessing of life viz. to praise serve enjoy God And by this we must state the blessing of a long life viz. as allowing more time and space to accomplish and perfect those ends And upon the aim at these ends it is that the Saints of God have begged of God for long life Psal. XXXIX ult That I may recover strength and be fitter for my duty and thy work and fitter for thee when thou callest Psal. LXXI 18. Now also when I am old forsake me not until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation and thy power to every one that is to come Esai XXXVIII 19. The living the living he shall praise Thee as I do this day This was the end and blessing of prolonging Ezekiah's life that he was still alive to praise God And this is the work of those whose lives are preserved and prolonged To prove the blessing of prolonging life let me first appeal to any here Man or Woman art thou prepared to dye if God should call at this very instant If God send a messenger to bid thee set thy house in order for thou shalt die couldst thou take it better than Ezekiah did Dost thou not desire that God would spare and yet give some more respite some longer time some more space added to thy life And why Thou darest not say that I may enjoy the world take my pleasure gather wealth live in earthly delights yet longer Why then O! that I may be better fitted for Heaven that I may have more repentance a better composure of heart a better stock good works and provision for Eternity This by thy confession is the blessing and a choice blessing of a long life that a man may do God the more service serve his generation the more stock himself the more fully with grace for glory Herein then properly is the blessing of prolonged life that men have time to do for God and their Souls to lay up good store for Heaven and Eternity to stock up the comforts of a good Conscience and store of grace which in old age makes them fresh and flourishing and does as it were revive them and make them young again And now Brethren let my Exhortation be to you that are aged and gone far in years to consider seriously with your selves whether your prolonged time hath been made a blessing to you by your improvement or not Let me be a Monitor this day to all gray heads here to remember their age God hath prolonged your time some to fifty sixty seventy years some to more What blessing hath this prolonging been to you And to youth that desire long life my Exhortation to them is to set in a good course betime that God may delight to prolong their life and that the lengthning of their life may be a Blessing A DISCOURSE UPON THE FOURTH ARTICLE OF THE Apostolic Creed He descended into Hell THE ground of this Article of the Creed is in Act. II. 27. Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell The reason of its insertion we shall see afterwards An Article obscure and that hath bred many disputes and the rendring of it so in English some offences For it seemeth harsh that Christs soul descended into Hell which in our English Language speaketh most plainly and usually The place of the damned a place very improper to look for the soul of Christ in when departed out of his body He and his betrayer Judas to meet in the same place He that had by death purchased Heaven for others himself after death to descend into Hell Not an Article in our Christian Faith hath more
seeing it is most holy and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the Congregation to make attonement for them before the Lord. Let me ask those that hold this Opinion two or three questions Was Christ so much as punished by God Much less then was he overwhelmed by the wrath of God damned by God Was a Lamb punished that was sacrificed He was afflicted but not punisht for punishment argues a crime or fault preceding Lam. III. 39. Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins Were the sad sufferings of Christ laid on him as punishments Certainly not for his own sins no nor for ours neither He suffered for our sins bare our sins but his sufferings were not punishments for our sins For observe two things First Christ merited by suffering Is it good sense to say he merited by being punished Strange sense to say he merited Salvation for his by being punisht for their sins but most divine to say by suffering for the redeeming of them He suffered as a Sacrifice to attone not as a sinner to be punished Secondly Did Christ dye upon any debt to the Law Much less upon any debt that he owed to Gods wrath Did the Law lay any thing to Christs charge did the Law condemn him And then can we dream of the wrath of God charging him and damning him It is true that it is said Gal. III. 13. Christ hath delivered us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us as it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree But doth this mean accursed of God Was the good Thief accursed of God when he hung upon the cross The meaning is that he appeared so to the view of men So that as it is impossible that Christ should lye under the wrath of God for any fault of his own so it is not imaginable that he did for ours V. It is impossible that Christ should suffer the torments of Hell or be in the case of the damned A Priest could not fall under the Plague of Leprosie and yet is the high Priest under a damned condition Certainly if his Body could not see corruption his Soul could not feel damnation If his Body were not under that which the Bodies of the best Saints fall under certainly his Soul could not be under that which damned Souls fall under I might clear this by considering especially three things which are the chief torments of Hell 1. Separation from God without any glimpse of his favour 2. Horror and Hell in the Conscience because of guilt 3. Utter despair Now need I to shew that it was not possible that any of these should seize upon Christ And these things be spoken to shew first what is not the meaning of this Article Now to come to the sense of the Article And for a beginning I may say as Moses does Numb XI 29. Would all the Congregation were Prophets So would all the Congregation were Grecians for then this would be easie The Creed was written in Greek and in the interpretation of this Article we are not tyed to the strictness of the English word but we must fly for refuge to the sense of the Greek word And if any of the opinions mentioned before should urge It is Hell therefore must be so understood as he said once To the Law and to the Testimony so I would answer To the original Greek and to the propriety of the phrase there In Isa. XXIX 10. The Lord hath poured out upon you the Spirit of Slumber In the Greek and in Rom. XI 8. it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compunction clean contrary to the Prophets meaning What shall we do here Not stick to the strict propriety of the Greek Translation but have refuge to the word in the original Hebrew and construe the Greek word by that So in our English Translation Hell seems to speak that that is neither warrantable by Scripture nor reason therefore we must not stick to the strict propriety of the word but to the Greek In the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He went down to Hades Which I shall explain to you by and by I. The Article refers to the passage of Christs Soul after his death I say of his Soul For what was done to his Body is specified in the Articles before Crucified dead and buried But what became of his Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He descended into Hell Now this Article is left out of divers Confessions of Faith in the Fathers and out of divers Creeds Vice plurium instead of more observe the Nicene Creed Was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate He suffered and was buried And the third day he rose again Which shews it was added occasionally and for some illustration Councils and Fathers commonly inserted some Articles into Confessions to face some Heresie then appearing And this Article was inserted to outface some error about Christs person The Heresies and mistakes about Christs person were numerous and among others this was one that he had not a real humane Body but Airy and again that though he had a real Body yet he had not a humane Soul but that the Divine Nature supplied the place of his Soul These Articles that concern his death outface both these He had a real Body for he was really Crucified dead and buried And a real Soul for when dead he went to Hades Or whether it had been enough to have said He died and was buried but of him such addition was not needless because of misconstruction II. The Heathens owned another World and the immortality of the Soul though they had no Bible to tell them it yet they believed that there was another World after this Socrates discoursed of this before his death which Cleombrotus reading cast himself from a Tower that he might become immortal A strange affectedness with this point and a strong perswasion It is a wonder the Sadducees that had the Scriptures should deny this and Christians that hear so much of it be affected so little Tully shews arguments whereby they gathered that men lived in another World one of which was from the apparitions of some dead men In which thing while the Devil went about to cosin them to think them dead men which indeed was his own appearing yet he cosined himself too while he taught them by it to believe a life after death How they came thorowly to be grounded in this point I shall not insist upon to examine but they did believe that there was another World after this when the dead lived again III. This place and state they called Hades that is a place obscure and invisible The Phrase is infinitely frequent Achilles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sent him before to Hades Sophocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Before the going to Hades Leonidas to his Souldiers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To sup in Hades that is in another World Shall I give you
they would argue from this reason God finished creating in Principio in the beginning therefore he creates not a Soul now I answer He finished creating genere specierum the kinds of all species but not Species generum the Species of all kinds When he brought Frogs and Lice on Egypt it was a creation of the things but the kind was created from the beginning The same must be said of Souls Let Christs Soul be the instance Was the Soul of the Messias created at the beginning If so what did it all the while till it was united to the Body Where was it What did it Was Christs Soul ever not acting for the good of his people As soon as ever it was put into the Body it began the work of Redemption viz. Christ there sanctifying our Nature by the Union of the humane nature to the Divine His Soul is now in Heaven in the work of mediation for his people It is hard to think that his Soul should be almost four thousand years in being and doing nothing for mens Salvation And we cannot call Christ Christ till he be compleated in our nature Soul and Body So that Christs Soul as ours was infused by immediate Creation in the Body which Body was prepared in the womb for the receiving of it So that though he was not like to us in regard of his begetting in the womb yet he was like in the Union of his Soul to his Body there For II. Christ had a Soul like ours in all things sin excepted It is a question Whether all Souls are equal There is some colour for it Psal. XXXIII 15. Hesashioneth their hearts alike And thence some argue the equality of Souls But I answer 1. That place may be taken thus That God alike is the Creator of all Souls rich and poor wise and foolish 2. It is undoubted all Souls are alike in regard of the ' Essentials of Souls they are all intellectual Spiritual immortal and in regard of their Essential faculties Whether they are alike as to the use and excellency of those faculties I shall not dispute Doubtless Christs Soul was the most excellent and yet like ours in all things that simply relate to the Essence of Souls or the humane nature I need not speak of the Essentials of a Soul he had the Infirmities of a humane Soul viz. those that in themselves are sinless I might so apply that Matth. VIII 17. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses He was subject to grief in Soul Matth. XXVI 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Soul is exceeding sorrowful To fear Heb. V. 7. In that he feared Joh. XI 33. He groned in spirit and was troubled These are natural infirmities or affections to humane Souls Adam might have had these in innocency if occasion offered The Apostle makes comfortable use of this likeness of Christs Soul to ours Heb. IV. 15. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin And so may a Christian in sadness fear hunger persecution he may refuge to a High Priest that himself was sensible what these things were Non ignara mali c. Oh! what access hath God given to sinners Not only to one in their own nature but that partook of the very infirmities of nature Except sin Name but one that he had not A poor man dying assaulted with Satan fearing pains How comfortably may he refuge to Christ who by experience knew all these III. He was like other Souls in the manner of his departure out of the body and going to another World And this I shall speak to in three Particulars I. Although the reason of Christs death was different from the reason of the death of all other men yet the nature and definition of Christs death agrees withal Though the conception and birth of Christ was different from all others yet the nature of his death was not different the manner of dying indeed differed That in Heb. IX penult reacht Christ as well as others it was appointed for him to dye though upon a far different reason from what other men dye It is worth observing that Christs death was published and pronounced of before the death of Adam was denounced against him In Gen. III. 15. the death of Christ is mentioned in vers 19. the Death of Adam Which speaks that Christ died not of the Plague of mortality of which Adam and all his posterity dye but that his death was upon another kind of account Though Christ the second Adam was incomparably above the first in his innocence in regard of the Perfection of his nature and Person yet in regard of the certainty of Death as I may say he was beneath him For the excellency of his nature so far beyond him that whereas Adam was without sin Christ was without possibility of sinning But for certainty of dying so far otherwise that whereas Adam might not have dyed Christ could not but dye Socinians say Adam was created mortal because he was in a possibility to dye and because he died whereas indeed actually he was created immortal not as yet having any seeds or principles of mortality in his nature sin not being yet come there Christ was so much more without principles of mortality in him as that whereas Adam was sinless He could not sin and yet as I may say he had the principles of dying in him but not so much in his body as mind not in any failing of nature but in the holy bent of his own Will Death was not to him the wages of sin as it is to others nor to end sinning as it is to others but from clear contrary principles viz. Love to Man and Obedience to God The Death of Adam and of all other Men proceeded from disobedience the Death of Christ only from obedience The Death of Adam because he loved not himself nor his seed the death of Christ because he loved his people more than himself So that as to the reason of the death of Christ Jordan was driven back the stream ran a clean contrary way to the reason why other men dye and yet as to the nature and definition of his dying it agreed with the nature of the dying of other men For II. Define death What is it It is the separation of Soul from Body Mortal thou must once find this definition to be most true The Soul that that inliveneth the Body that gives it freshness of colour warmth life and motion when the Soul is departed all these are gone and the Body dead Here is the difference twixt death and a swoon or trance God shewed in Enoch and Elias what he would have done if man had continued innocent viz. Have translated Body and Soul to glory But when sin came in death came in and Soul and Body must be parted the Body to corruption the Soul into the World of
buried And in Hell he lift up his Eyes being in torment c. Both suddainly disposed of the one to Heaven the other to Hell So we may take example from the two Thieves on the Cross the good Thief went presently to Paradise and the bad to his place and both these to Hades the word in the Creed Christ commends his Soul into his Fathers hands and it went into the hands of God What to do For God to dispose of it And how think you God would dispose of the Soul of Christ The Schools question whether Christ merited Salvation pro se for himself because the reason of the question is whether he set himself to merit pro se Did he or did he not the Soul of Christ after so holy a life and death could not but go to Salvation For what had the Soul of Christ now to do more towards mans Salvation and what could be done more towards its own Now having done all this what had the Soul of Christ to do more but to go to its rest till it be put again into its Body for the raising of that As the Scripture tells us holy Souls go to rest till at the last day they must meet their Bodies and then both shall rest together This passage of our Saviours Soul to Heaven upon his death is called his going to Hades the World of Souls and the place of holy Souls a place invisible to mortal Eyes which though it seems harshly expressed He descended into Hell yet must be interpreted from the Greek expression in this sense And the Phrase in the Greek teacheth that the Soul sleepeth not with the Body stayeth not here on Earth where the Body doth but hath a life when the Body is dead and goeth into another World to have a living or dying life Christs Soul to be separate but thirty six hours and yet it doth not stay and sleep with the Body but takes wing and flies into another World The Sadducee that thought the Soul died with the Body little considered what the nature of the Soul was Christian dost thou consider it Dost thou know what it is No I cannot see it But I may say as it is Rom. I. 20. The invisible things of God are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made So the invisible things of the Soul i. e. its spiritualness and immortality may be seen by the things it acts Prov. XX. 27. The Spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord. It s the Lords candle like that in the Tabernacle that never went out but was drest Morning and Evening and kept burning continually It is the Lords candle Searching all the inward parts of the Belly that is able to acquaint man with himself with his conscience his thoughts affections A candle that searcheth the things of nature looketh into the things of God Compare this Spirit with the Spirit of a Beast a Swine an Ox the acting of the Soul of Man in Wisdom Learning Contrivance with the acting of a Brute and then guess what is the nature of the Soul And if it be so active in the Body when fettred in flesh what think you it will be when loosed out And that it will be one day and go into another World not to be at its own liberty there but it goes to God to dispose of it and so he doth to Heaven or Hell Go away then with this meditation in thy bosom and keep it there My Soul must certainly one day go into the hands of God to receive her due reward FINIS A Chorographical Table OF THE Several Places contained and described in the Two Volumes of Dr. LIGHTFOOTS Works By Iohn Williams THe Jewish Writers divide the World into the Land of Israel and without the Land Vol. II. Pag. 1. The Land of Israel first called the Land of the Hebrews then Canaan and Palestine c. may be considered as to its length and breadth v. II. p. 327. The length of it is said in Scripture to be from Dan to Beersheba and from the entring in of Hamath North to the Sea of the Plain or Dead Sea South v. I. p. 90. v. II. p. 44 The Jews do reckon it from the Mountains of Amana or the upper Tarnegola which is at the neck of Anti-Libanus to the River of Egypt v. II. p. 3 62 517 Others do measure it by the Coast and if Phaenicia be included then from Sidon to Rhinocorura or the River of Egypt is 232 miles according to Antoninus But if Phaenicia be excluded then from the South bounds of that to Rhinocorura are 189 miles according to Pliny v. II. p. 10 322 The breadth of the Land within Jordan is not always the same since the Seas bounding on all sides here the Mediterranean there those of Sodom Genesaret and Samochonitis with the River Jordan cannot but make the space very unequal by their various Windings But if we take the measure of it from the Bay of Gaza to the Shoar of the Dead Sea it is upward of 50 miles and if we extend it also beyond Jordan then from Gaza to Pâ—tra the Metropolis of Moab is 110 miles as may be computed from Ptolomy and Pliny v. II. p. 320 321 The Jews do say That the Land of Israel contained a Square of Four hundred Parsae a Parsa is four miles which make 1600 miles v. II. p. 318 And they have a Tradition and not amiss that the utmost Bounds of the Land of Israel including the Land beyond Jordan was within three days Journey of Jerusalem v. II. p. 319. Sometimes the Land of Israel is bounded with Euphrates East as indeed the Holy Scriptures do and contiguous with Mesopotamia the River only between v. II. p. 365 The several Divisions of the Land It was anciently divided according to the People and Nations that inhabited it viz. the Canaanites Perizzites c. Vol. II. p. 202 328 When first possess'd by the Children of Israel it was parted among the twelve Tribes and upon the Division of the ten Tribes they were known by the two Names of Judab and Israel But after their return from Babylon it was divided by the Jews into Judea Galilee and the Land beyond Jordan or Peraea excluding Samaria To which if we add Idumea then was Palestine divided into five Countries viz. Idumea Judea Samaria Galilee and the Country beyond Jordan Vol. I. Pag. 282 â—64 Vol. II. Pag. 4 61. There was also an Imperial Division of it viz. 1. Into Palestine more especially so called the Head of which was Caesarea 2. Palestine the second the Head of which was Jerusalem And 3. Palestine called Salutaris or the Healthful which its likely was the same with Idumea the less the Head of which may be supposed to be Gaza Asâ—alon or Elâ—utheropolis v. II. p. 293. A. ABel Abila are one and the same the Hebrew Abel being according to the Greek Termination Abila or Abella There were many places of that name Vol. II.
what 358 Council of the Jews of what Authority in the time of Christ of its place of residence and what sort and number of Men it was compounded of p. 248 to 251. The Council of the Jews transgressed many of their own Canons in Judging Jesus Christ. p. 263. Council used for Sanhedrin 355 Courses of the Priests in the second Temple did something differ from those in the first p. 377. Course of Abiah what p. 377. How many Courses were there and what were their turns in which they did Circulate p. 377 378 379 380. Stationary Men among the Courses what 378 Court of the Gentiles among the Jewish Writers is ordinarlly called the Mountain of the House those that were unclean might enter into this p. 28 29. The Gates of it 29 Court of the Women its dimensions situation Gates and parts 29 30 Court of the Temple its parts its length and breadth 32 33 Courts of Judicature there were three in the Temple 395 Coins some of the Jews Coins of the smaller value mentioned 142 Creation God created all things in six days and why not in a moment p. 1322. The World was created in September p. 1322 c. A new Creation or Redemption was performed on the day Adam was created p. 1315. Creation and Resurrection of Christ whether the greater work 1330 Creature all Creatures or every Creature a speech common among the Jews by which is understood all Men or all Nations but especially the Gentiles 359 360 1149 Criminals capital Criminals if Israelites were not Judged by the Sanhedrin with the Reasons why p. 611 to 614. The Sanhedrin gave to Jewish criminals a full hearing even after sentence if they themselves or any other had any thing to say for them p. 675. They were buried in differing places from other Men and had the Stone Wood Sword or Rope wherewith they were executed buried with them 676 Cruelty of the Jews great most barbarously destroying two hundred and twenty thousand Greeks and Romans at one time feeding on their flesh eating their bowels besmearing themselves with their blood and covering themselves with their skins c. p. 686 c. They also in Egypt and Cyprus destroyed two hundred and forty thousand Men in a most barbarous manner p. 686 687. Cruelty or slaughter prodigious in the East Indies 1295 Cup that Cup which Christ used was mixed with water 777 Cup in the Sacrament is not only the sign of the Blood of Christ and a Seal as a Sacrament but the very Sanction of the New Testament 778 Curses in the Old Testament the Jews applied to the Gentiles not to themselves 535 Cursing and Blessing how practised among the Jews 136 Custom of the Jews in praying what p. 1139. They said not Amen in the Temple but in Houses and in Synagogues p. 1139. What they said by way of response in the Temple 1139 Cutheans were Israelites and very exact in the Jewish worship c. 52 53 Cuthites and their Kingdom what p. 496. Cuthites for the Samaritans and whence p. 503. How far their Victuals were lawful to the Jews p. 538. What dealings the Jews might have or not have with them these Cuthites here spoken of were Samaritans 539 Cutting off in Scripture doth not intend Excommunication but the Divine Vengeance 142 Cymbal and tinkling Cymbal were two Balls of brass struck one against another 782 D. DAlmanutha what and whence the Name Page 307 309 310 Damascus spoke to as the scene of Paul's conversion 682 Damned it is impossible Christ should suffer the torments of Hell or be in the case of the damned p. 1350. The Damned not tormented under Ground 1342 Dan why not named among the sealed of the twelve Tribes Rev. 7. 1067 Dancing one way of expressing joy 196 Daniel how he came to scape when Nebucadnezzer's Image was set up as say the Jews 657 Daphne and Riblah the same Josephus mentions another Daphne 62 to 64 David put for the Messias 691 Day of the Lord Christ's coming in Glory and in the Clouds signifie only Christ's taking vengeance on the Jewish Nation p. 244 624. The Son cometh was exprest to be the same 245 Day of Judgment and Day of Vengeance put for Christ's coming with Vengeance to judge the Jewish Nation there are six differing ways of expressing it 346 Days of the week how reckoned by the Jews by the name of first and second c. of the Sabbath p. 274. The third Day much taken notice of by the Rabbins 481 Days of the Messias and the World to come sometimes distinguished sometimes confounded 743 Daemons Angels and Spirits distinguished among the Jews 483 Deacons there were three Deacons or Almoners in the Jews Synagogues 132 134 662 Dead what mourning was used for the Dead also what feasting and company p. 173. The Dead live in another World p. 230 231. The Jews had an opinion that the Dead did discourse one among another and also with those that were alive p. 457. Mourning for the Dead the way and method of it The Jews used to comfort the Mourners both in the way and at home p. 581 582. The washing used after touching a dead Body what p. 790. Praying for the dead founded by the Rhemists on that Text 1 John 5. 16. refuted 1094 Deaf and Dumb unfit to sacrifice c. 210 384 Death looks awakening and terrible upon the most Moral and Learned Men p. 16. Four kinds of Death were delivered into the Hands of the Sanhedrin p. 683. They are continued say the Jewish Writers by a Divine Hand now the Sanhedrin is ceased p. 705. Death what it is p. 1353. Why do Men dye i. e. why are they not removed Soul and Body into the other World without any more ado p. 1354. The difficulty of the Soul and Bodies parting at death 1354 Death of sin God stints the time of Mens rising from it which slipped is not to be retrieved 1238 1239 Decapolis the Region of it not well placed 314 Deciarii were one sort of Publicans 466 Dedication the Feast of it why called by the name of Lights 576 577. The Feast of Dedication is mentioned but once in all the Scripture and that only by bare naming of it in John 10. 22. p. 1033. The Original institution of this Feast of Dedication collected out of the Talmud Maimonides Josephus and the first Book of Maccabes p. 1035. It was kept on the twenty fifth day of the Month Cisâ—en or November p. 1035. Dedication the strange custom of lighting up of Candles therein used 1039 Defendant and Plaintif chose their Judges c. among the Jews 755 Degree and Pomp of the World countervail nothing with God 1210 1211 1212 Demoniacks why so many in Christs time more than at other times Page 175 Denarius and Luz were of the same value amongst the Rabbins 343 c. Dens and Caves vastly large and very numerous in the Land of Israel many of these were digged out of Mountains and Rocks by the
so long and not given to the World before Adam Enoch Noah Eber c. were not circumcised because to them a fixed and setled place for the Church to reside together was not designed but when such a one is designed to Abraham then circumcision is given also The Land of Canaan was bequeathed to Sem by his father Noah the occasion was because Cham and his Son Canaan derided Noahs nakedness as he lay asleep in the midst of his Tent when therefore that Land is to be setled upon the right heirs of Sem to which God in the Prophetick spirit of Noah intended it a seal and an assurance thereof is given in that member which had been derided by Canaan to his loss of that Land and to his perpetual slavery This was a main reason why Males alone were circumcised and why in that member because a male alone and that member in him was so derided Other reasons of the institution of the Ceremony and only for masculines and in that part might concur for instruction such as are given by Lumbard Aquinas Biel Lyra and others but that they were not of the nature or essence of the Sacrament and that this forementioned was the vigor and spirit of it may be concluded by these two things First That Circumcision concerned not the children of Israel only but the whole seed of Abraham For those children of his by his Concubines that lived in Arabia as Ismaelites Dedanites Medianites Midianites Shuhites Amalekites and the rest were circumcised as well as Israel in Palestina Those Countries whither Abraham had sent them to inhabite were once in the possession of Canaanites till he obtained them by conquest of the four Kings Gen. 14. and thither he sendeth them with the seal of Circumcision upon them which gave them interest in the Land there as well as Isaac had elswhere Abraham taught his children and his houshold after him to keep the way of the Lord Gen. 18. 19. which though this off-spring of his in Arabia did not long in other things yet in circumcision it did So that from hence may result the observation of another end and reason of the institution of this Ceremony namely for distinction not of Israel from other Nations as Lyranus would have it but of the seed of Abraham from all other people Secondly Howsoever all the Israelites dwelling before the coming of our Saviour out of the Land of Canaan as both of the Babylonian and Grecian dispersion used Cicumcision in Heathens Lands and used it lawfully yet it was because their claim and interest to the Land of Canaan did still continue nay this was one reason why it held up some store of years after Christ his coming and ascension but when Jerusalem was destroyed and their lease of that Land of promise either expired or forfeited or both then did this seal of it fall and come to ruine also and might not lawfully be used ever after and when they must for ever relinquish the Land they must for ever also relinquish this seal or Ceremony that had assured it This well considered will cause us also to observe First That the interest of Israel in the holy Land began to shake when baptism came to shoulder out Circumcision Secondly That John most properly preached much of the Kingdom of Heaven for their earthly one began to cease when baptism began to extinguish Circumcision As Circumcision it self had relation to the inheritance of the Land of the Canaanites so the fixed time for the administration of it namely the eighth day seemeth also to have some aim and respect to the same thing For seven nations were in that Land which the Children of Abraham were to subdue and dwell in their stead Canaanites Hittites Hivites Perizzites Girgashites Amorites and Jebusites Deut. 7. 1. Josh. 3. 10. In correspondency to this number of seven Nations that were to be subdued Jericho the first field fought in that Land is compassed seven days and seven times the seventh day And in like answerableness every child of Abraham for seven days was like the children of those seven Nations but on the eighth day he was to receive circumcision the pledge of that interest and claim that he had in that Land which those seven Nations had usurped This then was the ground-work and Original of that Sacrament that every Son of Abraham might bear in his body the seal of the inheritance of the Land of promise and the badge of distinction from all other people and that this visible sign might make him strive after the invisible grace which it sealed the inheritance of Heaven and walking as the peculiar of the Lord. From which appropriated and restrictive ends of the Rite the necessity of the changing of it at the coming of Christ doth plainly appear for when there was to be no more distinction betwixt the children of Abraham and other people and no one land more peculiarized then another but of every Land and Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him that badge of appropriation and seal of singularity must either clean come to nothing or become unnecessary Now that baptism did succeed in the stead thereof some reasons may be given As first because the Sacraments of the New Testament were to be gentle and easie in stead of the smart and burdensom ones of the Law Secondly Because God would comply with men even in their own common custom of washing children when they are newly born Ezek. 16. 4. 9. and turn the common to a sacred use thereby to catch and win them the more But thirdly this one main reason may serve for all namely the near correspondency that is between the Sacrament and the thing signified and the full significancy that the element beareth of the grace that it signeth forth To which fourthly might be added that baptism took place in the Christian Church to fulfil the types and predictions that had gone before of it under Moses Law and before As in the flood and Ark 1 Pet. 3. 21. in the passage through the red Sea and Jordan 1 Cor. 10. 2. in the purifications and sprinklings at the Sanctuary But especially in four remarkable particulars was this fore-signified and typed out in a special manner First In Jacobs admission of the preserved Sichemites to his family and communion Gen. 35. 2. And Jacob said to his houshold and to all that were with him Put away the strange Gods that are among you and be clean and change your garments Wherein he injoyneth them three things for their admission to his Church 1. To relinquish their idolatry 2. To wash or baptize their bodies for so must the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Make your selves clean be understood and so it is well rendred by Aben Ezra Especially 3. Since he giveth order for the changing of their garments All three containing the cleansing of their minds bodies and cloaths And there observe first that when Circumcision in the
next Chapter before had proved a Sacrament of death to the Sichemites Jacob useth baptism for admission of Proselytes in the stead thereof Secondly That the company to be admitted are females unless there were some Syrian male Idolaters for all the males of Sechem were slain Gen. 34. 25. or at the least the most of them and therefore he useth a Sacrament which women also might come under for under circumcision they did not come Secondly In the admission of the Israelites to the hearing of the Law by sanctification and washing Exod. 19. 10. from which the Jews themselves did ground the baptizing of Proselytes as a special ground Thirdly At the making of the Covenant at Sinai the introduction of Israel to the visible Church was by baptism or the sprinkling of water as well as of blood as saith St. Paul Heb. 9. 19. yea and even the Jews themselves Our Rabbins teach saith Rabbi Solomon that our Fathers entred into the Covenant and baptism and sprinkling of blood for there was no sprinkling of blood without baptism R. Sol. in loc 4. In that in the times of David and Solomon when heathens were converted to the Jews Religion by multitudes their admission to their Church was by baptism and not by circumcision And the groundwork of this their practise was because Israel coming out of Egypt washed their garments and the Priests coming from their common employments to their function washed their bodies Let all be concluded in the words of the Talmud Rabbi Akiba said O Israel you are blessed Before whom are ye justified or cleansed Or who is he that cleanseth you It is your heavenly Father as it is said I will pour clean water upon you In Kippurim Our Masters say That bastards and Gibeonites shall be all iustified in time to come And this is the doctrine of Ezekiel as it is written I will pour clean water upon you In Kiddushin Matth. 3. ver 11. Unto repentance Here the Schools think they find a main difference between the baptism of John and the baptism used in the Christian Church because that was only the baptism of repentance and the other of grace and remission of sins but that there was no essential or substantial difference between them shall be seen anon Luke 3. ver 16. But one mightier then I cometh Though by this mightiness of Christ above the Baptist his omnipotency or all-powerfulness as he is God may well and truly be understood as many Expositors do take it yet since John speaketh of him as he should shew himself among the people when he came and in comparison with himself as concerning preaching and baptizing it cannot be but his words have respect to some particular things wherein Christ shewed this mightiness above John yea even conversing among men in his humane flesh and in what respected his preaching and ministerial Office And these may be reduced unto these four heads First The power of miracles which Christ had but John had not For John wrought no miracle Joh. 10. 41. Nor was it fit he should since he in whom that power rested as in its proper center was so near to come and so ready to shew it Secondly In the different power of the Preaching of John and of our Saviour and their conversion of the people John many but Christ far more as Joh. 3. 26. Thirdly In the seal and confirmation of their Doctrine and Ministry for whereas John sealed it with his death our Saviour did not only so but also with his resurrection Fourthly In continuance and increase of their preaching and Disciples and this difference John sheweth himself Joh. 3. 30. To which may be annexed the excellency of Christs baptism above that of Johns which is the very thing that is in comparison I baptize you with water but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost §. The latchet of whose shoos I am not worthy to unloose The sense is but strained which delighteth so many namely that John confesseth under this simile that he is unable to resolve the great mystery of the incarnation Seeing Matthew giveth this his speech in other words and Mark by adding one word more to these maketh it more necessary to take them in their literal meaning For Matthew hath it thus Whose shoos I am not worthy to bear and Mark. The latchet of whose shoos I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose Both joyntly shewing that the Baptist hath no mystical and figurative meaning in this his speech but doth in plain and down-right terms aver his inferiority to Christ that was to come after him to be infinitely great and more then a servants that ties his Masters shoos or carries them is to his Master For these meanest and basest of offices of servant to Master he instanceth in that he might express the infinite distance betwixt him and Christ the more to the life and to the peoples apprehension §. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost Hence ariseth that opinion so mightily taken up in the Schools and imbraced concerning the great disparity and difference betwixt the Baptism used in the Christian Church and the Baptism of John for this say they could not confer grace but the other doth and Johns was but as a mean betwixt the purifications of the Jews and the baptism of Christians In which first the words of the Baptist are misconstrued and secondly there is a difference pretended where there is none at all For first John compareth not his own baptism with ours but his own with Christs For that he meaneth not the baptism that Christ instituted to be used by others but that he practised and exhibited personally himself is plain in that he mentioneth not water in Christs baptizing which our Saviour himself doth when he speaketh of the baptism that they mean Joh. 3. 5. and in that he saith personally that Christ should baptize which with water he never did Joh. 4. 2. Secondly By the Holy Ghost wherewith Christ should baptize is not meant the grace concomitant to our Christian baptism as they suppose but his sending down the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit as is plain by our Saviours own exposition Act. 1. 5. For John indeed baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence Where using the very same words with these of the Baptist and applying the baptizing with the Holy Ghost plainly and undeniably to his sending down of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost day he hath given a sure plain and undoubted explanation of these words Thirdly Neither if the baptism of John and the baptism used in the Christian Church be well compared together will any such difference or diversity be found betwixt them nay set the form of words aside no difference at all For first They both had the same institution from Christ for he that sent the Apostles to baptize sent also the Baptist John 1. 33. Secondly They both had the same element water Thirdly
Feast-days the Jews were not wont so much as to tast any thing of meat or drink nor indeed hardly of other days o o o o o o Maimo Sch ib. cap. 30. This was the custom of the Religions of old first to say over his morning prayers on the Sabbath-day with those additional ones in the Synagogue and then go home and take his second repast For he had taken his first repast on the evening before at the entrance of the Sabbath Nothing might be tasted before the prayers in the Synagogue were finisht which sometimes lasted even till noon-day for so the Gloss upon the place When they continue in the Synagogue beyond the sixth hour and an half which is the time of the great Minchah for on a Feast-day they delay'd their coming out of the Synagogue then let a man pray his prayer of the Minchah before he eat and so let him eat And in those days it was that that commonly obtain'd which Targ. in Coheleth noteth p p p p p p Cap. 10. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After they had offer'd the daily Sacrifice they eat bread in the time of the four hours i. e. in the fourth hour In Bava Meziah q q q q q q Fol. 83. 2. a certain officer of the Kings teacheth R. Eleazar the Son of R. Simeon how he should distinguish betwixt Thieves and honest men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 go saith he into the Taberne on the fourth hour and if thou seest any person drinking Wine and nodding while he holds his Cup in his hand c. Where the Gloss hath it The fourth hour was the hour of eating when every one went into the Taberne and there eat So that these whom ye deride O ye false mockers are not drunk for it is but the third hour of the day that is it is not yet the time to eat and drink in VERS XVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the last days THE Prohet Joel hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After these things Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After these things Where Kimchi upon the place hath this note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it shall come to pass after these things is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it shall come to pass in the last days We have elsewhere observed that by the last days is to be understood the last days of Jerusalem and the Jewish Oeconomy viz. when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the Jewish world r r r r r r Vide Matth. XXIV 3. 1 Cor. X. 11. drew near And there would be the less doubt as to this matter if we would frame a right notion of that great and terrible day of the Lord that is The day of his vengeance upon that place and Nation Which terror the Jews according to their custom and fashion put far off from themselves and devolve it upon Gog and Magog who were to be cut off and destroyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh The Jews cautiously enough here though not so honestly apply this Prophesie and promise to Israel solely as having this for a Maxim amongst them That the Holy Ghost is never imparted to any Gentile Hence those of the Circumcision that believed were so astonished when they saw That on the Gentiles also was poured out the Gift of the Holy Ghost Chap. X. 45. But with the Jews good leave whether they will or no the Gentiles are beyond all question included within such like promises as these All flesh shall see the Salvation of God Isai. XL. 5. And All flesh come and worship before the Lord Isai. LXVI 23 c. VERS XIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And vapor of smoke THE Prophet hath it in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and pillars of smoke St. Luke follows the Greek who as it should seem are not very solicitous about that nice distinction between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pillaring smoke or smoke ascending like a staff and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Smoke dispersing it self here and there A distinction we meet with in Joma s s s s s s Fol. 38. 1. where we have a ridiculous story concerning the curiosity of the Wisemen about the ascending up of the smoke of Incense As to these prodigies in blood fire and smoke I would understand it of the slaughter and conflagrations that should be committed in that Nation to a wonder by seditious and intestine broils there They were monsters rather than instances than which there could never have been a more prodigious presage of the ruine of that Nation than that they grew so cruel within themselves breathing nothing but mutual slaughters and desolations VERS XXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Him being delivered by the determinate Council and fore-knowledge of God ye have taken c. WE may best fetch the reason why St. Peter adds this clause from the conceptions of the Jews Can he be the Messiah think they that hath suffered such things What! The Messiah Crucified and slain Alas how different are these things from the character of the Messiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 t t t t t t Rambam in Artic. fid Iud. Sanhedr fol. 121. 1. To him belongs honour and glory and preeminence above all Kings that have ever been in the world according as all the Prophets from Moses our Master to whom be peace to Malachy to whom be peace have Prophesied concerning him Is he then the Messiah that was spit upon scouged thrust through with a Spear and Crucified Yes saith St. Peter these things he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God And these things had been foretold concerning him from Moses to Malachy so that he was never the less their Messiah though he suffered these things nor did he indeed suffer these things by chance but by the determinate counsel of God What the learned have argued from this place concerning God's decrees I leave to the Schools VERS XXIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Having loosed the pains of death LET these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be either the pains of death or the hands of death yet is it doubtful whether St. Peter might speak only of the death of Christ or of death in general so that the sense may be that God raised him up and by his Resurrection hath loosed the bands of death with respect to others also But supposing the expression ought to be appropriated to Christ only whom indeed they do chiefly respect then by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are not to understand so much the torments and pangs in the last moments of death as those bands which followed viz. the continued separation of Soul and Body the putrefaction and corruption of the body in the Grave which two things are those which St. Peter acquits our Saviour from in the following words For however it be a great