wherewith our first Parents and in them their whole posterity were bound by Satan For albeit the first sinne found entrance into our nature by incogitancy and had its period or accomplishment in pride yet were not pride or incogitancy the only strings of that snare wherein Satan had taken us The bonds and ties by which hee tooke and holds us captive are mentioned by S. Iohn in his first Epistle 2. Chap. ver 15 16. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world From these three heads or sources all the overflowing of ungodlinesse may be derived and these found entrance into this visible world through our first Parents folly and Satans subtilty For albeit the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life tooke their distinct specificall being or live-shape from the first sinne yet were the seeds of all these sinnes sowen by Satan in our first Parents soules and senses before the body of sinne with its members were framed or animated There was an extravagant desire of the eye an irregular appetite of the flesh by which the Serpent tolled on the first woman to eat the forbidden fruit and the eating of it did hatch this three-fold brood in kinde The woman saith Moses Gen. 3.6 saw through false spectacles of Satans making that the tree was good for food here was the embryon or seed of the lust of the flesh and that it was pleasant to the eye here were the first lineaments of the lust of the eye and a tree to bee desired to make one wise this was the inchoation of the pride of life And shee tooke of the fruit thereof and did eate and gave also to her husband and hee did eate and by their eating the former desire of forbidden food was turned into the lust of the flesh The curiosity of the eye was turned into the lust of the eye and the desire of knowledge or proper excellency was changed into the pride of life So that the truth of S. Iames his observation Chap. 1. ver 13 14. was remarkably experienced in the manner of our first Parents fall Let no man say when hee is tempted I am tempted of God For God cannot bee tempted with evill neither tempteth be any man But every man is tempted when hee is drawen away of his owne lust and entised Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sinne and sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death Now to dissolve these three temptations or cords of vanity wherewith our first Parents were taken captives the Sonne of God immediatly upon his Baptisme was led by the Spirit into the wildernesse to be tempted 2. Our first Parents being placed in Paradise a place furnished with variety and plenty of food by too much indulgence unto their appetite or by incogitancie to bridle it by reason could not abstaine from that fruit which onely was forbidden them Power they had to have abstained but they did not use it when they had no necessity no urgent provocation to eate at all much lesse to eate of that fruit The Sonne of God made a man more subject to bodily harmes by long forbearance of meat than our first Parents were after forty dayes continuance in a vast and barren wildernesse wherein no food or fruit did grow could not in his hunger bee tempted to eate any food which the ordinary providence of God did not reach unto him Ingeus iedam necessitas Necessity as we say hath no law there is no fence against it Cogit ad turpia it makes men otherwise honest to doe many things which are not comely And for this reason the great tempter at the first bout assaults our Saviour with this fiery dart of necessity If thou be the Sonne of God command that these stones be made bread As if he had said Long fasting hath made it apparant that thou art a man subject to weaknesse and infirmity and if thou be withall the Sonne of God thou canst and a necessity is laid upon thee as man to provide thy selfe of food for without food man cannot live Yet this fiery dart though steeled and pointed with the tempting delight of manifesting his owne worth or excellencie is wholly diverted by that shield of Faith It is written Man shall not live by bread onely but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God So Moses had said unto Israel I fed thee with Manna to teach thee that man liveth not by bread but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live Israel then did live for a long time both by Manna and by the word of God on which without Manna they would not have relied Manna was as the body and the word of God spoken by Moses as the soule or spirit of that food by which they lived both Manna and that word of God make but an Emblem or type of the eternall Word of God who is the food of life Life it selfe and yet at this time as man was an hungred So then as hee was the Sonne of God hee was able of stones to make bread and as he was a man subject to infirmities hee had just occasion at this time to use his power Yet as man invested with the forme of a servant he could not be induced to use this power For as hee often professeth he came not to doe his owne will no not in things lawfull and most agreeable to nature but the will of him that sent him though that did enjoyne him to doe or suffer things most displeasant to nature This was the time wherein he was by his Father appointed to conquer the irregular appetite of the sense of taste and the lust of the flesh 3. Our first Parents being Gods Vicegerents here on earth Lords of all his visible creatures not therewith content by Satans inticements aspired to be like unto God higher than Angels than other powers or principalities The Sonne of God albeit hee were by nature Lord of men and Lord of Angels cannot be allured to exercise his command over them albeit they were commanded to attend him Satans pretence in his second assault was very faire and seemed to be countenanced by Scripture If thou bee the Sonne of God cast thy selfe downe for it is written Hee shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall beare thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone Fitter occasion to any mans seeming could not be offered for the exquisite verification or exact fulfilling of this Prophecy than by this adventure to throw himselfe downe from the pinacle of the Temple But the Sonne of God who gave the Law being now made under the
them and mystically of Lucifer But they sinne no lesse for the act which say in their hearts or presuppose in their implicit thoughts altissimus est similimus mihi the most high God hath determined nothing concerning men or Angel otherwise than wee would have done if we had been in his place They preposterously usurpe the same power which God in his first Creation did justly exercise who though not expresly yet by inevitable consequence and by implicit thoughts make a God after their own image and similitude A God not according to the relikes of that image wherein hee made our first Parents but after the corruptions or defacements of it through partiality envy pride and hatred towards their fellow creatures But of the originall of transforming the Divine nature into the similitude of mans corrupted nature I have elswhere long agoe delivered my minde at large And I would to God some as I conjecture offended with what I there observed without any reference or respect either to their persons or their studies had not verified the truth of my observations in a larger measure than I then did conceived they could have been really ratified or exemplified by the meditation or practice of any rationall man This transformation of the Divine nature which is in some sort or degree common to most men is in the least degree of it one of those works of the Devill which the Sonne of God came into the world to dissolve by doctrine by example and exercise of his power But what bee the rest of those works besides this All I take it may be reduced to these generall heads First the actuall sinnes of our first Parents Secondly the remainder or effects of this sinne whether in our first Parents or in their posteritie to wit that more than habituall or hereditary corruption which we call sinne originall Thirdly sins adventitious or acquired that is such vitious acts or habits as doe not necessarily issue from that sinne which descends unto us from our first Parents but are voluntarily produced in particular men by their abuse of that portion of freewill which was left in our first Parents and in their posterity and that was a true freedome of will though not to doe well or ill yet at lest inter mala to doe lesse or greater evill or to doe this or that particular ill or worse Originall sinne is rather in us ad modum habitus than an habit properly so called All other habituall sinnes or vices are not acquired but by many unnecessitated vicious acts But to distinguish betweene vice and sinne or betweene vicious habits and sinfull habits is to my capacity a work or attempt rather of the same nature as if one should goe about to divide a point into two portions or a mathematicall line into two parallels 6. Nor are these sinnes enumerated nor sinne it self formally taken the onely works of the Devill which the Sonne of God came to destroy but these sinnes with their symptomes and resultances For the Devill sinneth from the beginning in continuall tempting men to sinne although his temptations doe not alwayes take effect He sinneth likewise in accusing men before their Creator or solliciting greater vengeance than their sinnes in favourable construction deserve Now that neither his temptations nor accusations do alwayes finde that successe which hee intends this is meerely from the mercy and loving kindnesse of our Creator in sending his Sonne to dissolve the works of Satan The generall symptome or resultance of all sinne originall or actuall is servitude or slavery unto Satan and the wages of this servitude is death not this hereditary servitude onely but death which is the wages of it is the work of Satan Yet a work which the Sonne of God doth not utterly destroy untill the generall resurrection of the dead Nor shall it then bee destroyed in any in whom the bonds of the servitude and slavery unto sinne have not been by the same Sonne of God dissolved whilest they lived on earth Hee was first manifested in the flesh and forme of a servant to pay the ransome of our sinnes and to untie the bonds and fetters of sinne in generall Hee was manifested in his resurrection to dissolve or breake the raigne of sinne within every one of us For as the Apostle speaks He died for our sinnes and rose againe for our justification And he shall lastly bee manifested or appeare in glory utterly to destroy sinne and death CHRIST saith the Apostle was once offered to beare the sinnes of many and unto them that look for him shall he appeare the second time without sin unto salvation Heb. 9.28 SECTION 2. Of the more speciall qualifications and undertakings of the Sonne of God for dissolving the works which the Devill had wrought in our first Parents and in our nature and for cancelling the bond of mankindes servitude unto Satan CHAP. VI. Of the peculiar qualifications of the Sonne of God for dissolving the first actuall sinne of our first Parents and the reliques of it whether in them or in us their sinfull posterity 1. THe qualifications or undertakings of the Sonne of God for dissolving or remitting such actuall sinnes as doe not necessarily issue from our first Parents and for bringing them and us unto greater glory than they affected doe challenge their place or proper seat in the Treatise designed to his exaltation after death and his consecration to his everlasting Priesthood Wee are now to prosecute the points proposed in the title of this Section and in the first place such points as were proposed in the title of this Chapter 2. The rule is universally true in works naturall civill and supernaturall but true with some speciall allowances Vnum quodque eodem modo dissolvitur quo constituitur Though the constitution and dissolution of the same work include two contrary motions yet the manner or method by which both are wrought is usually the same onely the order is inverted And wee should the better know how man 's first transgression was dissolved by Sonne of God if wee first knew how it was wrought by Satan or wherein the sinne it selfe did properly consist Infidelity or disobedience it could not bee for these are symptomes of sinnes already hatched Whatsoever else it was the first transgression was pride or ambitious desire of independent immortality Now the Sonne of God begun his work where Satan ended his dissoluing this sinne of pride by his unspeakable humility And to take away the guilt of mans disobedience or infidelity which were the symptomes or resultances of his intemperate desires the Sonne of God did humble himselfe to death even to the death of the Crosse reposing himselfe in all his sufferings upon God The first man was the onely Favourite which the King of kings had here on earth the onely creature whom hee had placed as a Prince in Paradise a seat more than royall or monarchicall with hopes of advancement unto heaven it selfe It was a
Moses in those men which were excluded by oath from the land of Canaan Num. 14.20 21 22 23. And the Lord said I have pardoned according to thy word But as truely as I live all the earth shall bee filled with the glory of the Lord. Because all those men which have seene my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wildernesse and have tempted mee now these ten times and have not hearkened to my voice Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers neither shall any of them that provoked me see it All these which were all the Males of Israel above twenty yeares of age save Caleb Ioshua and Moses who was in part involved in this sentence did beare a true type or shadow of those who offending in like manner against Christ and his Gospel we call Reprobates yet not so true types of such a sinne against the holy Ghost as those which went to search the land of Canaan And the men which Moses sent to search the land who returned and made all the Congregation to murmure against him by bringing up a slander upon she land Even those men that did bring up the evill report upon the land after they had seene the goodlinesse and tasted the pleasant fruits of it died of the plague before the Lord. But Joshua the sonne of Nun and Caleb the sonne of Jephunneh which were of the men that went to search the land lived still and many happy dayes after that time Numb 14.36 37 38. 6. Very probable it is though I will not determine pro or con that the irremissible sinne whereof our Saviour and S. Paul speake for which there remaineth no satisfaction was if dot peculiar yet Epidemicall unto those primitive times wherein the kingdom of heaven was first planted here on earth by our Saviour and the holy Catholike Church was in erection by the ministery of the Apostles or in times wherein the extraordinary gifts of the holy Spirit were most plentifull and most conspicuous Even in those times into this wofull estate none could fall which had not tasted of the heavenly gift of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come and had not beene partakers of the holy Ghost Nor did such men fall away by ordinary sinnes but by relaps into Iewish blasphemy or heathenish Idolatry and malicious slander of the kingdom of heaven of whose power they had tasted God was good to all his creatures in their creation and better to men in their redemption by Christ of this later goodnesse all men werein some degree partakers The contempt or neglect of this goodnesse was not irremissible the parties thus farre offending and no further were not excluded from the benefit of Christs satisfaction or from renewing by repentance but of the gifts of the Spirit which was plentifully poured out after our Saviours ascension all were not partakers This was a speciall favour or peculiar goodnesse whose continued contempt or solemne abrenuntiation by relapse either into heathenisme or Jewish blasphemy was unpardonable not in that it was a sinne peculiarly committed against the person of the holy Ghost but because it did include an extraordinary opposition unto the indispensable law of justice or goodnesse which God the Father Sonne and holy Ghost are 7. Some sinnes then there be or some measure of them which being made up no satisfaction will be accepted for them It is impossible according to the sacred phrase that the parties thus delinquent should bee renewed by repentance But whether according to this dialect of the holy Ghost that grand sinne whereof our Saviour and the Apostle speakes be absolutely irremissible untill death hath determined their impenitency which committed it or onely exceeding dangerous in comparison of other sinnes I will not here dispute much lesse dare I take upon me to determine either branch of the maine question proposed As whether satisfaction were absolutely necessary for remitting the sinnes of our first Parents or their seed Or whether the Son of God could have brought us sinners unto glory by any other way or meanes than that which is revealed unto us in his Gospel It shall suffice me and so I request the Reader it may doe him to shew that this revealed way is the most admirable for the sweet concurrence of Wisdome Justice Mercy and whatsoever other branches of goodnesse else bee which the heart of man can conceive more admirable by much than wisdome finite could have contrived or our miserable condition desired unlesse it had been revealed unto us by God himselfe 8. For demonstration of this conclusion and for deterring all which pretend unto the priviledge or dignity of being the Sonnes of God from continuance in sinne no principle of faith or passage in the sacred Canon can bee of better use then that 1. Ioh. 3.8 He that committeth sinne is of the Devill for the Devill sinneth from the beginning For this purpose the Sonne of God was manifested that hee might destroy the works of the Devill However the words which severall translations doe render one and the same word in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bee of different signification in point of Grammar yet is there no contradiction betwixt them upon the matter Our later English which I alledged readeth that he might destroy the former that hee might dissolve the works of the Devill Neither of them much amisse and both of them put together or mutually helping one another exceeding well Some works of the Devill the Sonne of God is said more properly to dissolve others more properly to destroy Sinne it selfe as the Apostle tells us is the proper worke of the Devill his perpetuall worke for he sinneth from the beginning And for this cause the man that committeth sinne is of the Devill the Devills workman or day labourer so long as hee continues in knowne sinnes Sinne the best of men dayly doe But it is one thing to sinne and doe a sinfull Act another to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the phrase used by our Apostle a worker or doer of evill operarius iniquitatis Such workmen the sonnes of God or servants of Christ cannot be at lest so long as they continue sonnes or servants The points most questionable in those forecited words of S. Iohn now to bee discussed in this preamble to the manner how the Son of God did dissolve or destroy the works of the Devill are two The first from what beginning the Devill is said to sinne or to continue in sinne The second what speciall workes of the Devill they were which the Sonne of God did or doth undoe or for whose dissolution or destruction hee was manifested in our flesh CHAP. IV. From what beginning the Divell is said by S. John to sinne Whether sinne consist in meere privation or have a positive entity or a cause truely efficient not deficient onely 1 THe word Beginning is some times taken universally and absolutely
busie himselfe about small matters It must be a thing either visible or invisible and if it bee comprehended under either part of this division why are wee taught to beleeve that God the Father Almighty is the Maker not onely of heaven and earth but of all things visible and invisible in them If all things were made by him what could be left for Satan to work or make The apparance of this difficulty moved that acute and learned Father S. Austin sometime to say that sinne was nothing and oftentimes to allot it a cause deficient onely denying it any true positive efficient And many good Writers since his time in our dayes especially overswaid with this Fathers bare authority will have sinnes of what kinde soever to be privations onely no positive entities But they consider not that the selfe same difficulties besides other greater more inevitable inconveniences will presse them no lesse who make sinne to bee a meere privation or to have a cause deficient onely than they doe others who acknowledge it to have a positive efficient cause and a being more then meerly privation 6. What then bee the speciall inconveniencies wherewith their opinions are charged which make sinne either nothing or but a meere privation First wee account it a folly in man a folly incident to no man but an Heautontimorymenon to bee angry or chasing hot for nothing Hence seeing the Almighty Judge doth never punish either man or Devill but for sinne we shall cast a foule aspersion on his wisdome and Justice by maintaining sinne to bee nothing But fewer in our times there be though some I have heard out of the Pulpit which under pretence of St. Augustins authority make sinne to bee meere nothing But many there bee who hold it to be a meere privation which is a meane betweene meere nothing and a positive entitie Yet admitting not granting the nature of sinne to consist formally in privation meere privations for the most part have causes truely efficient fewer causes merely deficient if there can bee any causality in deficiencie Blindnesse deafenesse dumbnesse are privations and yet more men lose the sense of hearing sight or feeling in some particular members by violent blowes or by oppression of raging humours than by meere defect or decaying of spirits And where one man drops into his grave for meere age as ripe apples doe from the trees they grow on to the ground without blasts of winde or shaking a thousand die a violent or untimely death by true and positive efficient causes either externall or internall 7. That which either hath deceived or emboldned many Divines to allot sinne a being onely privative is a Philosophicall or metaphysicall Maxime most true in it selfe or in its proper sphere but most impertinently applied to the point now in question The Maxime is Omne ens quà ens est bonum Every entity in that it hath a being is good Most true if wee speake of transcendentall goodnesse or bonum entis for every thing which hath a true being is accompanied with a goodnesse entitative But the question amongst Divines is or should be about moral goodnesse or that goodnesse which is opposed to malum culpae that evill which wee call sinne Now if every positive entitie or nature were necessarily good according to this notion of goodnesse every intelligent rationall creature should be as impeccable as his Creator and wee should truely sinne if to speake untruly bee a sinne when wee say the Devill is a knave or any man dishonest For if every nature or entity as such were morally good it were impossible any nature or positive entity should bee evill qualified should be laden with sinne that is with that evill which is opposed to goodnesse moral or to holinesse whether this evill be a meere privation or positive entitie For in as much as the sight or visive facultie is the property of the eye or in as much as this proposition is true Oculus quà oculus videt this conclusion is most necessary when the eye hath lost the sight or visive facultie it is no more an eye unlesse in such an equivocall sense as wee say a picture hath eyes though not so properly If a man cannot see as we say stime but with one eye we account it no solecisme to say hee hath lost the other The case in the former instances is more cleare If Satan or man were morally good because they have a positive entity or nature neither of them could possibly be morally evill neither of them sinfull creatures albeit wee should grant sinne to bee as meere a privation as blindnesse is 8. It is a maxime in true Logick that is in the faculty or science of reasoning absolutely true and therefore true in Divinity also for truth is but one and it is her property not to contradict her selfe though examined in severall subjects Quicquid convenit subjecto quà tale non potest abesse sine subjecti interitu No naturall property can cease to bee or perish but together with the subject which supports it Whence if that Angel which is now the Devill had been truely good quà Angelus or if goodnesse moral had belonged unto him as he was a positive entitie or rationall creature hee had ceased to be either a rationall creature or any thing else when hee lost his goodnesse 9. Of sinnes of omission it is most true that they finde place in our nature rather by deficiency than efficiency and yet even this deficiencie for the most part is occasioned by some formall positive act or habit For this cause it is questioned among Schoolemen Whether there is or can bee any sinne of meere omission that is not occasioned by the commission of some other sinfull acts precedent or linked with some such act present To deny all sinnes of meere emission in nature already corrupted would bee more probable than in the first sinne whether of man or Angel Neither of them could possibly have committed sinne or done that which they ought not to have done without some precedent omission of that which they ought to have done But of this elswhere more at large and somewhat of it briefly in the next Chapter 10. Sure I am that the work which Satan wrought in our first Parents and in our nature had a cause truely efficient hath a being more than meerely privative For it was a work so really great and so cunningly contrived that the strength and wisdome of the Sonne of God was required as being onely all-sufficient to dissolve or destroy it and is it possible that any so great a work could be wrought by deficiencie or a defective worker Not Satan onely but his instruments are as positive as industrious efficients as effectuall workers of iniquity as the best man which ever lived the man CHRIST JESUS onely excepted was or is of righteousnesse But it is true againe that neither Satan nor his instruments can produce or make any substances or subjects these
plot as malicious as cunning in Satan to dispossesse man of his present dignity and to throw him downe from this height of hope to hellish slavery to make him a creature more miserable than the earth water or other inferiour element harboured any Yet was his misery if wee found the very depth of it not commensurable to the excessive measure of his pride The ground or bottome of his pride was lower than the lowest part of the earth as low as nothing the height of it reached above the highest heavens Man who as St. Augustine saith was but terrae filius nihili nepos the sonne of the earth and nephew of nothing Man who if he had looked back to his late beginning might have said to the silly earth-worme Thou art my sister and to every creeping thing Thou art my brother became so forgetfull of his originall that hee sought by the suggestion of Satan to become like his Almighty Creator who out of the same earth had made him so much more excellent than all earthly or sublunary creatures as they were than nothing But let the first mans pride or Satans malice in hatching it and the rest of that sinfull brood receive all the degrees of aggravation which the invention of man can put upon them yet the medicine prepared by the Sonne of God will appeare more ample than the wound is wide and more soveraigne than it is dangerous Satans cunning in working mans fall doth no way equalize the wisdome of the Sonne of God in dissolving this work It is not probable as was observed before that Satan could so farre infatuate the first man as to make him affect to bee every way equall with his God but onely to be like or equall unto him in some prerogative as in the knowledge of good and evill and probable it is hee did desire that his immortality and soveraignty over other creatures might be the one independent and the other supreme Now these and all other branches of pride whereof wee can imagine the humane nature by the Serpents suggestion to be capable are more than countervailed every way over-reached by the first degree of the humiliation of the Sonne of God Hee was not onely like but equall to the Father not in some one or few but in all the prerogatives of the Divine nature Hee was saith the Apostle in the forme of God and therefore thought it no robbery to be equall with God Yet hee vouchsafed to become not like to man onely but truely man more then equall to other men in sorrows and sufferings 3. Whatsoever equality or similitude with God it was at which the first mans pride through incogitancy did aime it was not effected but affected onely by way of triall He could not out of a deliberate choise or setled resolution assure himselfe that hee should become such as hee desired to be But the Sonne of God who was truely God out of unerrable unchangeable infinite wisdome determined with himselfe to become truely man How man whilest man should become more than man truely God neither the wit of man nor the subtilty of the Serpent could have devised although by divine permission or grant they had been enabled to accomplish whatsoever to this purpose they could devise or imagine But the Wisdome and Sonne of God found out a way by which hee might still continue God and yet become as truely man as he was God a way by which the diversity of these two natures might still remaine unconfused without diversity of persons or parties Though mans ambition had reached so high as to aspire from that condition of being wherein God had estated him to bee absolutely equall with God yet his ambition had not been equall to that humiliation which the Son of God did not onely affect but attaine unto For although he became a man of the same nature that Adam was of or any man since hath been yet was he a man of a lower condition of as low condition as any earthly creature could be for as the Psalmist in his person complaines Psal 22.6 Hee became a worme and no man the reproach of men one whom the very abjects amongst men did think they might safely tread upon with scorne 4. For the Sonne of God to bee made man to be made a man of this low estate or condition whencesoever hee had taken his humane substance was a satisfaction all-sufficient to the justice of God for mans pride a dissolution most compleat of the first work that our first Parents suffered the Devill to work in our nature if we respect onely the substance of it But that no part of Satans work no bond or tie of circumstance wherewith hee had intangled our nature might remaine undissolved the Sonne of God was made of a woman and this was to secure the woman or weaker sex that hee came to dissolve the works which Satan had wrought in them For as the Apostle saith The first woman was in the transgression not the man the man at lest not so deepe in the same transgression as the woman Shee alone for ought we reade committed the robbery in taking the forbidden fruit from off the tree her husband was the receipter onely And by swallowing it by the Serpents suggestions shee first conceived and brought forth death without her husbands consent or knowledge Her transgression was twofold Trust or confidence in the Serpents promise want of credence through pride to Gods threatnings To dissolve this work of the Devill so farre as it was peculiar to the woman the Sonne of God was conceived of a woman without the knowledge or consent of man Satan used the Serpent for his proxie to betroth himselfe unto our nature the holy Ghost by the ministery of an Angel winnes the blessed Virgins assent or accord to become the mother of the Sonne of God Seeing the first woman became the mother of sinne whilest shee remained a virgin though then a wife the Sonne of God would have a virgin for his mother yet a virgin wife a virgin affianced to a man And thus as the first woman being not begotten but made of man did accomplish Satans plot in working his fall and corrupting our nature so the Sonne of God being made man of a woman doth dissolve this work by purifying what she had corrupted and by repayring what the first man and woman had undone 5. There is a tradition concerning the Messias conception and his mothers father'd upon an ancient Jewish Rabbin by Petrus Galatinus but as I conjecture rather a Commentary upon his owne fancie or some Monkish Legendary whom hee was pleased to grace The abstract of this Legend with his Cōment upon it is thus There was one special part of Adams bodily substance priviledged from the contagion of the first sin and this propagated by one speciall line unto posterity untill it came to the mother of the Messias who from the vertue of this preserved portion of Adams nature was conceived
him These were the weapons by which he foiled the old Serpent and obtained the victory by managing our weaknesse and infirmities better then our first Parents did those great abilities wherewith their Creator had endowed them to resist temptations The weapons which the old Serpent used in the conquest of our first Parents and by which hee retained their posterity in continuall slavery were their owne desires and affections these hee improved so farre that they became unweeldy And he having gotten as wee say the better end of the staffe did wrest our wills at his pleasure to doe those things which God forbids us to do and make us furious executioners of his cunning contrivances against our own soules The particularities of his sleights or cunning for bringing us into thraldome inextricable unlesse the Sonne of God set us free are elswhere deciphered These two are the maine generals First the extension of our naturall desire of things within their bounds good and pleasant Secondly the improvement of our feare of things distastfull to nature as of death disgrace or torture Now that the Sonne of God might thus beate him at his owne weapons it was necessary that he should first take upon him the forme or essentiall condition of a servant for without this first voluntarily undertaken by him the rule of justice could not possibly have suffered him to have suffered so much as he did for our redemption Wherein then did the state or condition of a servant which he tooke upon him formally consist Or when did he first become a servant from the first moment of his birth or conception 2. I cannot brooke their opinion who think our Saviour was by birth a legall servant as being filius ancillae the sonne of an handmaid or bond-woman This grosse heresie hath been well refuted by some late Schoolemen whose names I now remember not nor the names of the Authors or abettors of this opinion The mother of the Sonne of God was indeed ancilla an handmaid but to him onely whose service is perfect freedome So the Psalmist in the person of the Sonne of God to be manifested in our flesh or as his type directs his prayer Psal 116.16 O Lord truely I am thy servant and the sonne of thy handmaid CHRIST as all Christians grant was the Sonne of Gods Handmaid after such a manner and in such a sense as never any man besides him was For hee was the promised womans seed and the sonne of a woman in such a sort as hee was not the sonne of any man Againe hee was the servant of God after such a peculiar manner as neither man or woman had been or ever shall be But how doth this peculiar service of his fit our servitude unto sinne Even as the medicine doth the disease or as the plaister doth the wound for which it is prepared In the Sonne of God made man there were two distinct wills the one truely Divine the other truely humane To deny this distinction of wills in Christ were to revive the heresie of the Monothelites so called because they held but one will in Christ to wit the Divine An errour into which they haply fell as many since their time have done into a worse by not distinguishing betweene voluntas and arbitrium Our Saviour CHRIST whilest hee lived here on earth had a reasonable will of the same nature or quality our will is of sinne excepted And by this will he could not but desire his owne particular good as health welfare and other lawfull contentments of the humane nature which are requisite to true joy or happinesse But in as much as the Sonne of God from the beginning of mans servitude unto Satan became our Surety to make satisfaction for our sins did in the fulnesse of time take our nature upon him hee did wholly submit his reasonable will all his affections and desires unto the will of his heavenly Father And in this renouncing of the arbitrament of his will and in the entire submission of it unto the will of his Father did that forme of a servant whereof our Apostle speakes formally consist For unto the essentiall definition or constitution of a servant these two onely concurre First the use of reason for fooles infants or reasonlesse creatures cannot bee servants Secondly Carentia arbitrii proprii want of right or arbitrary power to dispose of their bodily actions or employments according to the desire or lawfull choise of their reasonable will So then the generall definition or abstract forme of a servant is univocally the same 1 in legall servants 2 in servants to sin and 3 in the Sonne of God during the time of his humiliation here on earth or whilest hee became hostage for our Redemption But the service of these three sorts of servants is in the concrete most different And the difference ariseth from the matter or subject in which they are respectively deprived of proper right or arbitrary power to dispose of themselves or of their actions A legall servant wants power to dispose of his employments or bodily actions in matters temporary concerning this life Servants to sin such all the sonnes of Adam are by nature want power to dispose of their actions or course of life in matters morall spirituall or such as concerne their consciences All and every one of us have a desire to be happy and yet all of us until we be freed by the Son of God from this naturall servitude are by the prince of darknesse usually diverted from this strait way which leads to happinesse unto the crooked by-paths which tend to death and inextricable misery The Sonne of God although according to his humane nature hee had a reasonable will and desire of happinesse which could never in any particular become exorbitant or diverted from that which is most holy and just yet even hee in the dayes of his humiliation wanted power to reape the wages of righteousnesse or fruits of holinesse Though joy and comfort was as pleasant to him as to any man besides though compleat happinesse was due unto him as hee was a most just and righteous man personally united to the Son of God yet having taken upon him the forme of a servant hee did with unspeakeable patience and obedience beare all the griefes and sorrows which Satan and his instruments by divine permission could invent against him and cheerefully undergoe the heaviest burden which his heavenly Father was pleased to lay upon him for our redemption 3. From this peculiar condition of a servant which the Sonne of God did voluntarily take upon him that maine objection which some moderne Arrians or Photinians make against the absolute satisfaction of our Lord Redeemer for our sinnes may easily bee answered or rather will dissolve it selfe God say these men could not without tyrannicall injustice require full satisfaction for the misdemeanors of all wicked and naughty men from one most just and holy man To slay the righteous with the wicked that
Law submits himselfe unto that legall precept Thou stalt not tempt the Lord thy God and with this Scripture retorts Satans attempted blow upon himselfe But what temptation of God had it been in the Sonne of God to have throwen himselfe downe from the pinacle of the Temple to have given proofe that hee had been that just man over whom God had given his Angels charge Some there bee who reply that Satan did alledge this Scripture impertinently imperfectly For the Psalmist saith He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keepe thee in all thy wayes Now the wayes of men are not in the aire but upon the earth This interpretation I neither much dislike nor altogether approve because our Saviour doth not taxe Satan for his impertinent or imperfect allegation of the former Scripture Nor doe I see any reason why flying in the aire might not be one of the wayes of the Sonne of God made man as well as walking upon the Sea in a tempest if so it had pleased him or his heavenly Father by whose appointment or disposing hee did doe or suffer all things Now it was his Fathers will that by his walking on the water he should manifest himselfe to be the Sonne of God able to command either winde or water It was likewise his Fathers will that at this time as man hee should conquer the pride of life or that deepely implanted desire in all men of proper excellency or advancing themselves before due time By this free resignation of his authority over the Angels hee makes satisfaction for our first Parents pride in seeking to advance themselves above the Angels 4. Againe Paradise did affoord our first Parents as full satisfaction for the delight of the eye as it did for food and yet desire of that food which they needed not found entrance into their hearts or fancies by their eyes But the Sonne of God being made the Sonne of man having neither place to lay his head nor any prospect for the present to please his eye had all the kingdomes of the earth and their glory represented unto him with proffer of their sale or donation rather onely upon condition that hee would doe that homage unto this great Prince of the world which many Princes doe to Kings or Emperours or Emperours themselves had done to Popes or Prelates The pretence was faire and the temptation the strongest of all the three For what man who is but meere man would not adventure upon any practice for the gaining the Kingdome or Monarchy which their Ancestors had foolishly lost Now Adam was Lord and Monarch of this visible world untill hee suffered himselfe to bee conquered by Satan who did remaine de facto if not by right of conquest the Prince of it and Lord of men untill the Sonne of God made man did throw him out of possession But that houre of his was nor yet come so farre was hee from affecting the kingdomes of this world that hee was yet acting the part of a servant in it but a servant to his father onely not to men or Princes in this world Of how meane a condition soever he were as man yet he disdained to worship men or Angels though but with civill worship for any preferment and therefore dismisses this great Usurper thus with indignation Avoid Satan Satan it seemes had a prenotion or suspition that Christ was that Just and holy man whom the Psalmist describes Psal 91. Or such a Sonne of God as they were which appeared before the Lord when he was permitted to tempt Iob. That hee was the onely Sonne of God or equall with God was more than hee then knew 5. These three temptations wherein our Saviour foiled Satan are parallel'd to the first temptation of Iob which was losse of worldly substance more generally all the evills which the Sonne of God did suffer in our flesh or whilest he was conversant with men in the forme of a servant did beare Analogie to the Evills which Iob did suffer but for particulars more in number and more grievous there was no evill that comes ab extra which hee suffered not in greater measure than Iob did any As for losse of goods or worldly substance Iob made no reckoning the Sonne of God though heire of all things did not vouchsafe so much as to grace these by being owner or possessor of them He renounced the world and all things in the world before he came into it he would not be intangled or medle with them that he might please him who had chosen him to be his souldier his onely champion in this great conflict with the Prince of darknesse But to parallel Iobs other temptations with our Saviours CHAP. XI A parallel between Jobs second temptation and the Sonne of Gods sufferings in our flesh before the houre of his Agony or his Crosse 1 IOb was smitten with sores from the crowne of his head to the soles of his feet his disease was more than naturall at least incurable for he was thus smitten by Satan But was the Sonne of God thus smitten durum est affirmare Satan had no power thus immediatly to smite him For bodily diseases wee doe not reade of any that did take possession of his sacred body wee reade that he cured all maner of diseases but never stood in need of the Physicians helpe for himselfe No disease did breed in his body being free from sinne and being anointed to cure all he did not hee could not take any by contagion But though hee cured all manner of diseases or all the diseased which were brought unto him yet we doe not reade that he cured all in Judea which were diseased For so none should have died in that land during the time of his three yeares pilgrimage through it from his baptisme to his death Albeit hee cured many of diseases naturall yet not all that were naturally diseased though weake or sicke unto death For he was not manifested to dissolve or destroy the works of nature albeit he gave profe by many experiments that he was able to destroy or divert the whole course of nature But wee reade That JESUS of NAZARETH being anointed by the Holy Ghost went about from his baptisme to his death doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the Deuill Acts 10.38 And many were so oppressed which were not possessed Many diseases which to us would have seemed naturall or casually bred were as immediatly procured by Satan as Iobs plagues were and in these bonds of bodily affliction Satan had held them longer than he held Iob. Such was that womans disease whose cure being wrought by the Physician of our soules upon the Sabbath day the Ruler of the Synagogue did maligne as an ungodly work but the Sonne of Gods reply doth justifie as well the truth of our assertion as the lawfulnesse of his practice Hypocrite doth not each one of you on the Sabbath day loose his Oxe or his Asse from the stall and
any other mortall man by their enemies And though the death of the Crosse was in it selfe an ignominious and cruell death yet in our Saviours particular that was most true mortis modus morte pejor the manner of his apprehension of his double arraignement and conviction of his usage before he was brought to the place of execution and all the time whilst the malice of Jew and Gentile was wreaked upon him was more grieuous then the death of the Crosse it selfe without these grievous concomitants could have been To scan these briefly and in order The very manner of his apprehension made some impression of sorow and indignation in him as appeares by the character of his speech Luk. 12.32 c Then Iesus said to the chife Priests and Captaines of the Temple and the Elders which were come to him Be yee come out as against a thiefe with swords and staves when I was dayly with you in the Temple yee stretched forth no hand against me but this is your houre c. And so no question did their binding of him in bonds by all probability and circumstances more grievous and more disgracefull than ordinary felons theeves or murtherers in those dayes were liable unto especially before legall conviction For Iudas who had bargained with the high Priests and Elders for making delivery of him into their hands had forewarned them Matt. 26.48 Lead him away safely as if hee had said Bee sure yee make him fast Whether the Traytor thus spake out of a desire to have him put to death or onely to secure himselfe against all quirks of Law concerning his bargaine in case JESUS as hee oft had done should escape out of their hands I will not peremptorily determine albeit I am not ignorant that divers of the exquisitest Interpreters and other good writers are of opinion that Iudas betrayed him not so much out of malice as out of covetousnesse being perswaded hee was able to quit himselfe from any restraint that they could lay upon him In the meane time however it fared with his Master or with them to whom he delivered him hee resolved to free his gainefull bargaine from further question And this may be the probable reason of his relentance after he saw his Master condemned to death without all hope of reskue or reprivall So it often falls out that when the events fall out worse than the Projectors intended albeit their first intentions were in themselves wicked the consideration hereof brings them commonly to such remorse as causeth despaire sooner than any degree of true repentance And for Iudas to make his gaine or to redeeme the losse which hee had suffered by the wast of ointment as hee interpreted it powred upon his head by the delivery of his Master although hee did not at all intend his death was an odious treason which is alwayes the proper fruit of a base and covetous minde And both branch and fruit the covetousnesse and the treason might be a corrasive to our Saviour and in part occasion his Agony So might the malicious disposition and ignominious proceeding of the Priests and Elders against him be more grievous to him than the paines of death or publique disgraces which he suffered by them The suborning of false witnesses against him were more distastfull to his righteous soule than all the sufferings and scornfull revilings which they bestowed upon him But amongst all the indignities which Satan and his instruments could invent these were the most grievous First their begging of Barabbas his pardon when Pilate would have dismist or reprived JESUS This was a cruell kinde of mercy the true effect of preposterous zeale and Pharisaicall hypocrisie For this custome of shewing mercy or begging pardon for some prisoner at the great Feast of the Passeover was first instituted in the remembrance of the mercy which God had shewed unto their Fathers in delivering them out of Aegypt And in requitall of this extraordinary favour which the Lord God of Israel had shewed to their Fathers they deliver him to be crucified by the Gentiles being set up by Pilate an heathen Governour in competition for this poore favour with Barabbas a notable rebell thiefe and murderer Another indignity was the sudden execution of this most unjust sentence not giving him such competent time as other prisoners had to dispose of himselfe and of his estate or to make preparation for death For this Session was not called for him but for others who had been in custody before yet he is cast into the bargaine as a fragment or refused remnant as a party no more considerable than a Cutpurse taken in the maner in open Court whilest others are arraigned Now all these indignities and many more as the Evangelists tell us CHRIST did foresee before his Agony seized upon him And might not the foresight or due apprehension of them and of the lingring death which these did usher in or both put together more probably cause that Agony and sweat in the garden then the apprehension of death and indignities approaching or then the extremity of some diseases doe the like effects in other men 10. As for the sweating of blood in some diseases that is never occasioned by any apprehension of the disease occurrent but onely by the ingruence of the disease it selfe whereof it is an effect or symptome Or if it bee objected that our Saviour might have a deeper apprehension of his death approaching than any other man had of diseases before they did actually seize upon him Yet is there no reason to suspect that he had not the same apprehension long before he entred into the garden or that this apprehension whether of death or indignities should not bee improved by sensible experiments of the violences after done unto him in the high Priests hall by the Roman Souldiers or by his scourging at Pilates command which was more cruell than others condemned to die the death of the Crosse did suffer because Pilate hoped that the sight of his gory stripes might quench the malitious heat of the Jews and acquit him from further condemnation Yet in all his ensuing sufferings we doe not reade or finde that hee had any symptomes of that anguish which came upon him in the garden Hee did not so much as pray unto his Father for any release from the tortures and indignities which he actually felt by sensible experience but rather for his enemies which had procured them Or if his bloody sweat in the garden had been occasioned as in all probability it was not from any foresight or apprehension of his indigne usage by the Jews and by the Roman Souldiers whilest he was in hold or upon the Crosse it could not bee any symptome of hellish or infernall paines 11. Yet that he suffered such paines upon the Crosse hath been avouched too confidently by some and more peevishly maintained by others One especiall ground pretended for this ill sounding doctrine is that exclamation uttered by him a
our Creator more grievously than any man can wrong another Now in that our God and Creator is withall the eternall rule of justice or rather Justice it selfe it was requisite that satisfaction should bee made unto him in the fullest degree For one man for all men which had done this wrong to make satisfaction to infinite Majestie either in whole or in part was impossible Though all mankinde had been condemned to suffer uncessantly both in body and soule they might by this meanes have been continually making satisfaction but never have made it albeit their sufferings had been endlesse Therefore was this great work undertaken by the Son of God made man for us 2. Suppose then all this had been foreknown before our Saviour was incarnate ever since the fall of our first Parents and the sentence denounced against them it would have been a more grievous sinne in our first Parents or in any of their posterity than the sinne of the old Serpent in seducing them or us to yeeld to his suggestions to have besought God the Father that his onely Sonne should make satisfaction for us in the very same kind which we should have made but could never make that is by suffering the paines of Hell That the man Christ Jesus might suffer such paines as the damned shall doe was perhaps the desire of Satan that which the great Enemy of mankinde did most earnestly labour to effect And if thus he did but desire this was the greatest actuall sinne which either hee or his infernall associats ever had committed or can commit Whatsoever they might desire all that our heavenly Father could require of his onely Sonne after hee became our surety was to make full satisfaction for all our sinnes against his Deity or the eternall rule of justice But all this he knew might bee accomplished by his onely Sonne after a more excellent maner than either by exercising his wrath due unto us or by suffering Satan whose redemption his Sonne did no way undertake to wreake the utmost of his malice or foehood against mankinde upon him For my selfe amongst others I must confesse I could never understand the language of many professed Divines who would perswade us that the full vialls of Gods wrath due unto our sinnes were powred upon his Sonne Whatsoever their meaning be which I presume is much better than I can gather from their expressions the maner of speech to say no worse is very improper and to me unpleasant For how was it possible God the Father should bee wroth with him in whom alone he was alwayes well pleased But wrath or anger against any one are alwayes the effects of some displeasure precedent and no satisfaction can be made whilest displeasure is taken or wrath kindled against the party which seeks to make satisfaction or reconciliation Now the infliction or permission of Hell paines to bee inflicted upon any is the award not of Gods judgement but of his wrath and fury 3. If it be objected that our sinnes were infinite though not for number yet for quality because committed against an infinite Majestie and consequently that no satisfaction according to the exact rule of justice could bee made without punishment or penalties truely infinite the answere is as Orthodoxall as easie or common That the satisfaction made for us by the Sonne of God was more truely infinite than the sinnes of mankind were For it was absolutely infinite Non quia passus est infinita sed quia qui passus est erat infinitus The person or party who made satisfaction for us or party which undertooke the satisfaction was both in Majesty and in goodnesse as truely infinite as the Majesty and goodnesse whom we had offended and by whom exact satisfaction was required both of them were both wayes absolutely infinite J omit the weaknesse of such calculatory arguments as this Our sinnes were absolutely infinite because committed against an infinite Majesty as too well knowen to most students and often enough if not too often deciphered in other of my meditations For this being admitted all sinnes should bee equall because all are committed against the same infinite Majesty and goodnesse As for the true measure of our sinnes and ill deservings that must be taken from the measure of Gods displeasure against them and that is but equall to the severall degrees of our disobedience to his most holy Lawes and Commandements This then we verily beleeve that the full height and measure of all disobedience and rebellions against God was neither higher or greater than the obedience which his Sonne performed in our flesh or whilest hee stood in the condition of a servant that our heavenly Father was never so much displeased at all our disobediences as hee was well pleased with the obedience of his onely Sonne or with their obedience that are truely ingraffed in him and are made partakers of his obedience in his sufferings Both parts of this conclusion may with facility be evinced in the judgement of all men which have subscribed unto or doe admit the principles in Divinity whether Legall or Evangelicall 4. It was a maxime undoubted in the time of the Law that obedience was better than sacrifice the corrollary or consequence of which maxime doth amount to this point that obedience without sacrifice was alwayes better than sacrifice without obedience Yet such sacrifices as were appointed by God being offered out of the spirit of obedience were alwayes more acceptable than obedience alone Such sacrifices as were appointed by God himselfe unlesse they were offered in obedience and out of conformity to his Law were abominable The principall part of obedience which the Law required was the humble confession of the parties sinnes for whose sakes they were offered This confession was made over the heads of the beasts which were offered the parties offering them alwayes acknowledging either expresly by their tongues or implicitly in heart that they had better deserved a cruell death than the dumbe creatures which they sacrificed had done Briefly Legall sacrifices were then acceptable when their offerers put on such affections as David maketh expression of when he saw the people plagued for his sinnes or at lest when the punishment of their owne sinnes came suddenly upon them through his folly Loe I have sinned and I have done wickedly but these sheepe what have they done Yet even whilest the best of Gods people thus affected did offer the best kinde of Legall Sacrifices bullocks whilst their hornes and hoofes began to spread their sacrifice and obedience did but lovingly meet they were not mutually wedded or betrothed But whilest the Sonne of God did offer up himselfe for us upon the Crosse his sacrifice and obedience were more strictly united than man and wife than mans soule and body For betwixt these there is oft times dissention or reluctance so was there never betwixt Christs Divine person who was the offerer and the humane nature which was the offering His humane
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unknowne sufferings Such I take it as no man in this life besides our Saviour alone did suffer nor shall ever any man suffer the like in the life to come in which the paines of Hell shall be too well knowne unto many But that our Saviour in this life should suffer such paines is incredible for this being granted the powers of darknesse had prevailed more against him than Satan did against Iob. For the actuall suffering such paines includes more then a taste a draught of the second death unto which no man is subject before he die the first death nor was it possible that our Saviour should ever taste them either dying or living or after death This error it seemes hath surprized some otherwaies good Divines through incogitancie or want of skill in Philosophie For by the unerring rules of true Philosophy the nature quality or measure of paines must bee taken not so much from the force or violence of the Agent as from the condition or temper of the Patient Actus agentium sunt in patiente rite disposito The fire hath not the same operation upon Gold as it hath upon Lead nor the same upon greene wood which it hath on dry Or if a man should deale his blowes with an eeven hand betweene one sound of body and of strong bones and another sickly crasie or wounded the paines though issuing from the equality of the blowes would be most unequall That which would hardly put the one to any paine at all might drive the other into the very pangs of death Goliath did looke as big did speake as roughly and every way behave himselfe as sternly against little David as hee had against Saul and the whole hoast of Israel Yet his presence though in it selfe terrible did make no such impression of terrour upon David as it had done upon Saul and the stoutest Champions in his hoast And the reason why it did not was because David was armed with the shield of faith and confidence in the Lord his God a secret Armour which was not then to be found in all the Kingdome of Israel besides But a farre greater then Goliath associated and seconded with a farre greater hoast both for number and strength than the Philistines in Davids time were able to make more maliciously bent against the whole race of Adam than the Philistines at this or any other time were against the seed of Abraham was now in field And all of us are bound to praise our gracious God that in that houre wee had a Sonne of David farre greater than his Father to stand betweene us and the brunt of the battell then pitched against us For if all mankinde from the East unto the West which have lived on earth since our Father Adams fall unto this present time or shall continue unto all future generations had been then mustred together all of us would have fled more swiftly and more confusedly from the sight or presence of this great Champion for the powers of darknesse than the hoast of Israel did from the Champion of the Philistines when hee bid a defiance unto them All of us had been routed at the first encounter without any slaughter been committed alive to perpetuall slavery and imprisonment But did this Sonne of David obtaine victory in this Duel with the Champion for the powers of darknesse at as easie a rate as his Father David had done over Goliath No If wee stretch the similitude thus farre wee shall dissolve the sweet harmony betweene the type and the Antitype The conquest which the Sonne of David had over Satan and the powers of darknesse whether in the garden or upon the Crosse was more glorious then that which David had over Goliath or Israel over the Philistines David was Master of the field sine sanguine sudore multo without blood or much sweat The Sonne of David did sweat much blood before hee foiled his potent Adversary And the present question is not about the measure but about the nature and quality of the pains which the Sonne of David in this long Combat suffered in respect of the paines which David or any other in the behalfe of Gods people had suffered As the glory of our Saviour Christ is now much greater than the glory of all his Saints which have been or shall be hereafter so no doubt his sufferings did farre exceed the sufferings of all his Martyrs But all this and much more being granted will not inferre that he suffered either the paines of Hell or hellish paines poenas infernales aut poenas inferorum such paines as the power of darknesse in that houre of extraordinary temptation had cast all mankinde into unlesse the Sonne of David had stood in the breach Admit the old Serpent had been in that houre permitted to exert his sting with all the might and malice he could against the promised womans seed that is the manhood of the Sonne of God yet seeing as the Apostle saith the sting of death is sinne not imputed but inherent it was impossible that the stinging paines of the second death should fasten upon his body or soule in whom there was neither seed nor relique neither root or branch of sinne Or againe admit hell fire whether materiall or immateriall be of a more violent and malignant quality than any materiall fire which we know in what subject soever it bee seated is and that the powers of darknesse with their entire and joint force had liberty to environ or begirt the Sonne of God with this fire or any other instruments of greater torture which they are enabled or permitted to use yet seeing there was no fuell either in his soule or body whereon this fire could feed no paines could bee produced in him for nature or quality truely hellish or such as the damned suffer For these are supernaturall or more than so not only in respect of the Agents or causes which produce them but in respect of the Subject which endures them Satan findes alwayes some thing in them which he armes against them some inherent internall corruption which hee exasperates to greater malignity than any externall force or violence could effect in any creature not tainted with such internall corruption from which the promised womans seed was more free than his crucified body was from putrifaction The Prince of darknesse and this world could finde nothing which hee could exasperate or arme against him 4. In respect of Divine justice or of those eternall rules of equity which the Omnipotent Creator doth most strictly observe it was not expedient only but necessary that the Son of God should in our flesh vanquish Satan and vanquish him by suffering evills even all the evills incident to our mortall nature There was no necessity no congruity that the Sonne of God should vanquish this great Enemy of mankinde by suffering the very paines of Hell or hellish torments These properly taken or when they are suffered in
of his purpose that Sathan himself had he beene present could not have reply'd unto it 4 For that 8. Psalme as the Jews cannot deny was composed in honour of the God of Israel that it was also propheticall and to be fulfilled in time is to all Christians apparent from our Apostles allegation of another place to the like purpose Hebrews 2.6 7. of whose fulfilling hereafter The first part of the prophecie that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God their Lord which as hath beene before observed was the peculiar title of God the Sonne or of God to be manifested in the flesh was never punctually fulfilled untill the children cryed Hosanna to the Sonne of David in the Temple In these congratulations they did by divine instinct or disposition of the All-seeing providence proclaim the expected Son of David to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that very God their Lord in whose praise this Psalme was conceived The Babes then did spel the Prophets meaning not amisse But our Saviour and the present circumstances of the time did put their lisping syllables together more rightly and fully answerable to the meaning of the Propheticall vision For so it followeth in the same Psalme that this God their Lord did therefore ordain his praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings because of his enemies that he might still the Enemie and Avenger Psalme 8.2 And so the malicious Priests and Scribes were put to a Non plus upon our Saviours allegation of this prophecie in justification of himself and of these Infants whose testimonies they sought to elevate and to impute the acceptance of it to his folly Now albeit our Saviour left them at this Non plus for the present yet within a day or two after he putteth the very Pharisees the most learned of them to a greater non plus by another testimony parallel to this of the 8. Psalme While the Pharisees saith S. Matthew were gathered together Iesus asked them saying What think ye of Christ Whose Sonne is he They say unto him The Sonne of David He saith unto them How then doth David in spirit call him Lord saying The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstoole If David then call him Lord how is he his Sonne And no man was able to answer him a word neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions Matth. 22.41 42 c. All this argues a full conviction of their consciences and that unlesse they had suffered their splenatick passions to conquer their consciences for the present or had not hoodwinked their intellectuals with malicious habits of their hearts they must of necessity have confessed as much as the little children in this expression before had done to wit that he was not onely the promised Sonne of David but that the promised Sonne of David was to be Davids Lord this whole peoples God and Lord. For it is observable that David in the beginning of the 110. Psalme saith not Iehova said unto Iehova but Iehova said unto Adonai Sit thou on my right hand not thereby denying that this Adonai was to be Iehova but that he was to be as the Author of the 8. Psalme saith both his God and his Lord It is againe to my present apprehension observable that after Nehemiah had revived the solemnity of the feast of Tabernacles and moved the people to renew the Covenant which their forefathers had made for faithfull observance of Gods Laws given by Moses they nuncupate this their solemn vow unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Lord our God And the rest of the people to wit all besides those who had sealed to the Covenant before with Nehemiah the Priests the Levites the Porters the Singers the Nethinims and all they that had separated themselves from the people of the Lands unto the Law of God their Wives their Sonnes and their Daughters every one having knowledge and understanding They clave to their Brethren their Nobles and entred into a curse and into an oath to walk in Gods Laws which were given by Moses the servant of God and to observe and doe all the Commandements of the Lord our Lord and his judgements and his statutes Nehem. 10.28 29 c. But this solemne vow and Covenant confirmed by oath of keeping Gods Laws was more shamefully broken by this perverse and gainsaying generation then those Laws themselves had been by Antiochus or other Heathen which had never sworne vnto them For the chiefe Priests the Scribes the Elders notwithstanding the former convictions of their consciences hold on to persecute this God their Lord unto whose honour their forefathers had dedicated this vow with greater cruelties and more malicious indignities then Antiochus had used towards the meanest of his people and so at length to bring that curse annexed to the former vow upon themselves and upon their children unto this day 5. Thus much of the Prophecies or foresignifications of his triumphant ingresse into Jerusalem and of his entertainment there untill the Feast of the legall Passeover whose mystery he did accomplish by his death Points not handled either so fully or so punctually as was requisite by any Commentators Postillers or others whom I have read And this hath emboldned me to enlarge my meditations upon this small part of my Comments on the Creed As for the Prophecies types or other foresignifications of what he did or suffered from the time of his sacred Supper untill his resurrection from the dead these have been so plentifully and so punctually handled by many especially by the learned Gerard that much cannot be added without a great deale of superfluous paines And yet I know it will be expected that I say somewhat of this argument SECTION 4. The Evangelicall relations of the indignities done unto our Saviour by sinfull men and of his patience in suffering them respectively prefigured and foretold by the Prophets and other sacred Writers Or a Comment upon the Evangelicall History from the institution of his Supper unto his death and buriall CHAP. XXIII Of the betraying of our Saviour of his apprehension and dismission of his Disciples And how they were foretold or prefigured in the old Testament 1 OF the sweet Harmony betweene the institution occasion and celebration of the legall Passeover and the continuation of the Lords Supper or Sacrament of his body and blood instituted in lieu or rather in remembrance of the accomplishing of it I have in other meditations delivered my minde at large And if if it shall please the Lord God to grant mee life and health what I have either uttered in Sermons or otherwayes conceived concerning this Argument shall be communicated to this Church wherein I live if not to others in the Article of the Catholique Church which did beginne to bee on earth from our Saviours resurrection or from his ascension into heaven and descending of the Holy Ghost At the accomplishment of
see one joyfull day the light of Gods Countenance did not shine upon them as the history of the Old Testament especially of the Bookes of Kings and Chronicles do sufficiently testifie Nor did this Nation from the day of our Saviours death enjoy one quiet or secure day not one houre wherein there either was not apparent danger or some secret breeding of new calamities nor shall they enjoy any till it please him whom they crucified to restore them againe to the land of their Inheritance from which they are scattered or at least to their spirituall state from which they are fallen 6 That the forementioned lamentation or threne did in the literall and historicall sense referre unto the untimely death of good Iosiah that the calamities which ensued upon his death did typically portend just matter of greater sorrow for the death of the Lords Anointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messias that one place of the Prophet Zachariah to omit others perswades me They shall mourne for him as one who mourneth for his onely sonne and shall be in bitternesse for him as one that is in bitternesse for his first borne In that day shall there be a great mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo Zachar. 12.10 11. c. For in the valley of Megiddo Iosiah was slaine as it is recorded 2 Chron. 35.22 23. And all Ierusalem and Iudah mourned for Iosiah and Ieremiah lamented for Iosiah and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Iosiah in their Lamentations to this day and made them an ordinance in Israel and behold they are written in the Lamentations This disaster occasioned by his owne oversight or forwardnesse to fight with Necho befel Iosiah after he had wrought that remarkable reformation in the house of the Lord and after hee had celebrated the Passeover with such solemnity as had not been seen before in Jerusalem nor after It was the eminency of Iosiah his zeale and fidelity in setting forth that solemnity and other services of God which occasioned this people even the Prophets first to conceive that they should prosper under his shadow and after these hopes had failed to lament his death in such passionate expressions as the faithfull amongst his people even our Saviours Disciples did his death But we trusted that it had beene he who should have redeemed Israel Luke 24.20 The extremity of sorrow upon our Saviours death foreshadowed by the Lamentations for Iosiahs losse was fulfilled pro illâ vice in that compunction of heart and spirit in Saint Peters Auditors Acts 2.37 Now when they heard this they were pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we doe But the full accomplishment of those mournfull Lamentations for our Saviours death whether foreshadowed or foretold or inchoated whether in the Old Testament or in the New is not to be expected before the conversion of the Jews which will not be publick or Nationall untill they seriously and publiquely repent them of their owne sinnes and of the sinnes of their forefathers for putting the Lord of life and King of glory to a bitter and shamefull death Nor is the Nation of the Jews onely but all the kinreds of the Earth to bewaile him and repent for all were causes of his death Behold he commeth saith Saint Iohn with clouds and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all kinreds of the earth shall waile because of him Rev. 1.7 7 A fitter Subject for meditations to make either a private Christian truely wise or wise men especially Governors whether Ecclesiasticall or civill truly Christian I could not commend unto the one or other though bound so to doe upon my deathbed then the sacred historie concerning the estate of Judah from the death of good Iosiah to the end of the Babylonish Captivitie and the history of Iosephus and others who have decipherd the estate of the Jews since they put the Lord of life to death This parallel betweene Jerusalems two progresses to her first and second destruction was the maine theame of my first ministerial meditations the contents wherof would bee too laborious to collect and their expressions too long to bee interserted in this Treatise To returne therefore to the former path from which I have somewhat though not impertinently digressed 8 Of that glory of Christ which shall be revealed when every eye shall see him when they that crucified and pierced his body shall mourne after such a manner as Zacharie and St. Iohn in the places forecited import Hee himselfe in the houres of his greatest humiliation immediately after his agony in the garden and as I take it before Iudas did deliver him up to the high Priest and Officers did exhibite some rayes or glimpses by striking the Armed band which came to attach him backwards downe to the ground with the sole words or breath of his mouth And again by the deliverance of his followers from such rage and tyranny as they practiced against him that the words of the Prophets not their projects and his exposition of their meaning might be fulfilled I will smite the Shepheard and the sheep shall be scattered This prophecy wee have Zachar. 13.7 The accomplishment of this prophecy was in part exemplified by the scattering of his Apostles and Disciples upon his apprehension and death And so were the words immediately following in the Prophet punctually verified and really exemplified in recollecting them again after his Resurrection and the feast of Pentecost next ensuing The full accomplishment of the prophecy as it concerns the scattering of the flock or sheep was not publiquely declared or exemplified before the destruction of the second Temple and dispersing of the Jewish Nation The other parts of the same prophecy must be afterwards accomplisht in the conversion of the Jews CHAP. XXIIII Of the predictions or prefigurations of our Saviours sufferings after his apprehension in the High Priests hall c. 1 ALL these rayes or glimpses of the Sun of Righteousnesse did interpose themselves in the dayes of his humiliation and obscuritie before he was led bound to Caiaphas the high Priest But after Iudas of a close Ahitophel or cunning traitour became an open Dalilah and had betrayed his Master into their hands with a kisse this Sampson the Sun of righteousnesse became like another man or like the moone in eclipse More weak and impotent for any attempt of resistance or escape then Samson was after the razor had gone over his head and taken off the Ensigne of the Nazarite These enemies of the God of Israel did sport themselves more cruelly with the bodily miseries and calamities of the true Nazarite then the Philistines had done themselves with Sampson untill he resumed his former strength by dying So then Sampson in his strength and weaknesse or dejected estate was a lively type of JESUS of Nazareth in both his estates and conditions of life whilest he
any man to death Iohn 18.31 How true or pertinent this answer was I will not here dispute But thus they answered as the same Evangelist there tells us that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled signifying what death he should die and by whom This saying or prophecy of our Saviour to which St. Iohn refers is punctually set downe by S. Matthew 20.17 18 Iesus going up to Ierusalem took the twelve Disciples apart in the way and said unto them Behold we goe up to Ierusalem and the Sonne of man shall be betrayed unto the chief Priests and unto the Scribes and they shall condemne him to death and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucifie him Unto this death of the crosse they brought him by their importunate and subtill sollicitations of Pilat to proceed against him upon another capital crime then they by their pretended law had condemned him for For they pronounc'd him as worthy and guilty of death by their law for blasphemy whereas now before Pilat they frame a new accusation against him for rebellion against Caesar because he profest himself to be King of the Jews as in truth he was for royall pitty and compassion towards them but without any purpose to move the people to take armes or to exercise any royall authority over them or any others upon earth because his kingdome was not of this world 2 Whilest the high Priest and Elders sate as Judges in their owne Councell-house they suborn'd false witnesses against him but whilest they accuse him before Pilat they themselves become the most malicious and falsest witnesses that ever were produced or offered themselves voluntarily to testifie in open Court against any living man in a cause criminall or capitall All these malicious practices against him were clearly foretold by the Psalmist his forerunner in the like sufferings and in particular I take it by David himselfe Psalme 35. False witnesses did arise they laid to my charge things that I knew not They rewarded me evill for good to the spoyling of my soule But as for mee when they were sick my cloathing was sackcloth I humbled my soule with fasting and my prayer returned into mine owne bosome I behaved my selfe as though he had beene my friend or brother I bowed downe heavily as one that mourneth for his mother But in mine adversity they rejoyced c. ver 11 12 13. c. Thus did the Composers of this Psalme and of some others to the like effect complaine every man respectively in their owne persons and upon just occasions And however they did not in their murmuring complaints yet in the causes or occasions of the sufferings they did really prefigure juster occasions more grievous matter of complaint on the behalf of their expected Redeemer And he must have uttered the like complaints in a farre higher straine if he had beene but a meere man not armed with patience or long suffering truly divine The indignities done unto him by Pilat and the Roman Souldiers by Herod and his men of warre were perspicuously foretold by David Psal 2. Why do the Heathens rage and the people imagina vaine thing This parallel between the prophecy of David and the historicall events answering to it not the Apostles onely but other inferiour Disciples did unanimously acknowledge upon the deliverance of Peter and Iohn and the rest of the Apostles from such violence intended against them by the Rulers and Elders of the Jews as had been practised by them upon our Saviour for working of a miracle in his name When they had further threatned them they let them goe finding nothing how they might punish them because of the people for all men glorified God for that which was done For the man was above forty yeares old on whom this miracle of healing was shewne And being let goe they went to their owne company and reported all that the chief Priests and Elders had said unto them And when they heard that they lift up their voice to God with one accord and said Lord thou art God which hast made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is who by the mouth of thy Servant David hast said Why do the heathens rage and the people imagin vaine things The Kings of the Earth stood up and the Rulers were gathered together against the Lord and his Christ For of a truth against thy holy childe JESUS whom thou hast annointed both Herod and Pontius Pilat with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to doe whatsoever thy hand and thy Counsaile determined before to be done Acts 4.21 22. c. 3. All of our Saviours Persecutors whether Jews or Gentiles per dicta facta malè ominata did reade their own doome and the doome of all such unto the worlds end as shall continue the course that they begun The Roman Souldiers clothing him in a purple robe by putting a crown of thornes upon his head and by crying All haile unto the King of the Jews did act that part in jest or comicall merriment which they must one day act in earnest and more then tragicall sorrow For he had sworne it long before That all knees should bow unto him and in that day they which crowned him with thornes shall see him crowned with Majesty and glory Herod in sending him back to Pilat in a white or candid robe did beare witnesse of his innocency and integrity and withall of Herod his fathers scarlet sinnes in putting so many poore Innocents to a bloudy death upon the notice of his Nativitie And as for Pilat and the Roman state by whose authority he was scourged with rods here on earth hee whose seat is in the heavens did even then laugh them to scorne and since hath broken the whole race of Roman Caesars with a rod of iron and dasht them and their Monarchie to pieces like a Potters vessell What more shall be done against these cruell Actors or Abetters of their cruell practices against this King of Kings I leave it wholly with all submission to his sole determination But that the Indignities done unto him by the Jews by the Roman or other heathen Governors and the visible revenge which hath since befalne them were punctually foretold by David Psalme 2. the testimony before cited Acts 4. is a proofe most authentick and most concludent 4. Yet of all the sufferings which he suffered under Pontius Pilat besides the indignities done unto him in the extremities of his paines upon the Crosse at which Pilat was not present the rejection of him by the Jews when this heathen Governor out of a good nature or well meaning policy had proposed him with an infamous theef or murderer was far the worst and doth deserve the indignation of all that loved him And this circumstance is prest home to them by S. Peter Acts 3.13 14. The God of Abraham and of Isack and of Jaacob the God of our Fathers
they would not enter into the Common-hall or publique Court of Justice to indite him there being immediatly after to celebrate the usuall service for that day in the Temple It was againe an extraordinary courtesie in Pilat towards them that he would vouchsafe to take their accusations in the pavement or Court adjoyning to the Pretorium But as well the curtesie of the one as the hypocrisie of the other friendly conspired to accomplish the will of God which was to have his onely Sonne made that day a sacrifice of atonement for the sinnes both of the Jews and Gentiles whereas if Pilat had stood upon points of Authoritie or prerogative it is more then probable the Priests and Elders would rather have deferred their accusations for that instant then have entred into the Pretorium or Common-hall But having once obtained their desire in the Pavement they immediately returned into the Temple where Iudas attended them And having resolved as hee thought to have set his house or worldly businesse in such order as Ahitophel had done his hee went forth and hanged himself So that albeit Iudas had seene his Master dead in law that is sentenced to death by the high Priest and Pontius Pilat upon the Jews importunat accusations and testimonies against him Yet the Traitor having no witnesse produced against him besides his owne conscience No Judge or appointed Executioner besides himself did die an accursed death before his Master had made an atonement for the sinnes of the world So the Psalmist by way of imprecation had foretold Let sudden destruction come upon him unawares or as others let destruction come upon him and let the net that hee hath made for others catch himself into that very destruction let him fall Psalm 35.8 How this imprecation though not directed against Iudas alone did punctually fall upon him will better appeare anon in the discussions how the imprecations reiterated in the 109. Psalme were most punctually fulfilled in him That which for the present I intended to advertise the Reader of is briefly this That if we referre the time of Iudas death unto this point of time intimated the parallel betwixt St. Matthews relation of his fearefull end and other sacred passages in the Evangelists and Apostles will be more cleare St. Matthews relation yee have in the 27. Chapter 3. Then Iudas which had betrayed him when he saw that he was condemned repented himself and brought againe the thirty pieces of silver to the chief Priests and Elders saying I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood And they said What is that to us See thou to that And hee cast downe the pieces of silver in the Temple and departed and went and hanged himself And the chief Priests took the silver pieces and said It is not lawfull to put them into the Treasury because it is the price of blood And they tooke counsell and bought with them the Potters field to bury strangers in Wherefore that field was called The field of blood unto this day Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the Prophet Ieremiah saying And they took the thirty pieces of silver the price of him that was valued whom they of the children of Israel did value and gave them for the Potters field as the Lord appointed mee 2. But where this casting downe of the thirtie pieces of silver in the Temple was foretold or by whom there is and hath been great varietie of opinions amongst learned Interpreters as well Ancient as Moderne so great that many of them have rather soiled then any way cleared the meaning of the Evangelist and left the investigation of the truth more difficult to the ingenuous and sagacious Reader then if they had not medled with it or left it untoucht to his privat search The first difficulty is about the Grammaticall signification of some words in the Originall The second pitcheth upon a misnomer of the Prophet as whether that Prophecie which the Evangelist said was fulfilled in this fact of Iudas was uttered or written by Zachariah or the Prophet Ieremiah or respectively by both The third admitting thus much was either onely foretold or both foretold and forepictured either by Ieremiah or by Zachariah or by both whether they spoke in their owne persons or in the person of Iudas or of Christ or of both The first difficulty or rather discord about the literall sense of the Prophets words as they are related by the Evangelist hath been occasioned partly by the Translation of the Septuagint and partly by the Author of the vulgar Latin For whereas wee reade as well in St. Matthew as in the Prophet Zachariah And I cast them ad figulum to the Potter the vulgar Latine hath it And I cast them ad Stataarium to the Statue maker in the house of the Lord. The Septuagint thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast them into the furnace or to the metal-melter The Greek might import though not so directly as the Latine a Potters furnace But if we take Statuarius which is the expression of the vulgar Latine in its proper sense for a Statue maker whether in stone or of metall wrought with toole or molten there could be no use of such an Artificer in that Temple wherein all Statues or Images of what stuffe soever they could be made were most strictly forbidden Or in that people among whom the erecting or making of them was a crime capital To avoid this absurditie in their Authenticated Translation the Sectaries of the Romish Church by the Statuarie would have us understand GOD himself who is the former or fashioner of all things And for this Interpretation they alledge some ancient Greek Fathers but whose Authority they themselves will sleight or passe such censures upon their Authors as they will not permit us in like case to doe whensoever they make against their pretended Catholick tenets The most learned Interpreters in the Romish Church do partly bewray and sometimes openly professe that this Interpretation is too farre fetcht and farre wide from the meaning of the Prophet whosoever he was as he is alledged by the Evangelist What then could move so many of them to embrace or rather not to disclaime these roving collections Onely the authority of the Trent Councell which hath so fettered them in this and other like points that they dare not say that their reasonable Soules are under God their owne but are content to sacrifice learning reason and common sense to many illiterat resolutions of wilfull partial and corrupt men in that Councel assembled If the ingenuous Reader will not beleeve me in this particular let him take the pains to satisfie himself by observing how Ribera and Castrus with some other men very well learned and ingenuous so farre as they durst have utterly lost themselves in their Commentaries upon the 11. of Zacharie 3. Concerning the second difficultie many both in the Romish and reformed Churches will in no case admit of a misnomer in
My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee Mark 15.33 34. S. Matthew relateth the same story in the same order and circumstance of time onely with this variation in words Eli Eli lamasabacthani Matt. 27.46 S. Mark it seemes relateth the words in the Syriack or Chaldee then usuall S. Matthew in the same syllables our Saviour spoke them and as they are in the Psalmist for Eli comes neerer to the name of Elias then Eloi and might more easily occasion that mistake in the multitude which both the Evangelists relate then if hee had cried Eloi for that was the usuall appellation of God in those times Some of them that stood by saith S. Mark when they heard it said Behold he calleth Elias Mark 15.35 Some of them saith S. Matthew that stood there when they heard that said This man calleth for Elias And straightway one of them ranne and took a sponge and filled it with vineger and put it on a reed and gave it him to drink the rest said Let bee let us see whether Elias will come to save him Matth. 27.47 c. Betweene S. Matthew and S. Mark in this last clause concerning vinegar which was given unto him there is some variation in words And one ranne saith S. Mark and filled a sponge full of vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink saying Let alone let us see whether Elias will come to take him downe Mark 15.36 S. Mark appropriateth that speech unto the party which ranne to give him vinegar which S. Matthew ascribeth to the rest of the multitude seeking as his words seeme to import to inhibite him from doing that which he did This variation in words betwixt these two Evangelists hath occasioned a question more proper to the Schooles of Physick then of Divinity as Whether the drinking of vinegar be more effectuall to prolong life or hasten death in bodies fainting specially for want of blood S. Marks relation seemeth to imply that the intention of the party which rann to give him vinegar was to prolong his life for a while to trie whether Elias would come and take him downe from the Crosse But from S. Matthews relation of the same story it is probable that the multitude which heard him utter these words My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee did presume that vinegar would shorten his life and for this reason as much as in them lay did inhibite the other to give him vinegar lest it might have been replied that Elias would have come to releeve him if he had not hastned his death But vinegar as it is thought by Galen himself if some good Commentators doe not misquote him mingled with hyssop is a strengthener and that the vessell of vinegar which S. Iohn saith stood by the Crosse was set there on purpose to keepe such as were crucified from fainting However there is no contradiction betweene the Evangelists For the multitude did therefore inhibite him that ranne for vinegar lest by thus doing hee should prolong his life as if they had said Seeing he calls for Elias stay thine hand and see whether Elias will come to recover him in his fainting And he which gave him vinegar after he had given it him did conforme himself unto the rest as if hee had said I have done this kindnesse for him to prolong his life a while let us see whether Elias will come and take him downe and free him from the Crosse The truth is that albeit he which made such hast to minister vinegar unto him did doe this feat at the same time or about that instant wherein our Saviour cried out Eli Eli lamasabacthani yet this exclamation did no way cause him to make such speed but rather moved the rest which heard these words perhaps better then hee did to disswade him from doing that which he intended upon another occasion That which moved him to doe as he did was another speech of our Saviours uttered by him when he was on the Crosse either immediatly before or immediately after hee cried out Eli Eli c. though not with such a loud voice as hee uttered that And this speech is mentioned onely by S. Iohn 19.28 29. Iesus knowing that all things were now accomplished that the Scripture might bee fulfilled said I thirst Now there was a vessell full of vinegar and they filled a spunge full of vinegar and put it upon hyssope and put it to his mouth When Iesus therefore had received the vinegar he said It is finished So that the intention of him that filled the spunge with vinegar and put it upon hyssop and put it to his mouth was to quench his thirst whereof hee complained But whether St. Iohn meaneth the same thing by hyssop which the other two Evangelists meane by the reed or whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Ecclesiasticall Greek bee the same with that which wee call hyssop or rather rosemarie which is rather a frutex then an hearb and better resembleth a reed then hyssop let professed Criticks or such as have leasure to peruse Herbalists or such as write of plants determine Many probabilities there are and to my remembrance alledged by Gerard not the famous Herbalist but that learned Divine yet living which half perswades me that the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Ecclesiasticall Greek seems to be derived was the branches or stalks of Rosemary But these are points wherein a man may bee altogether ignorant without any detriment or very skilfull without any great advantage to the knowledge of JESUS CHRIST and of him crucified But unto this Ocean of celestiall knowledge the fulfilling of every prophecie of every legall ceremonie of every historicall type or shadow maketh some addition 8. Amongst other prophecies or testimonies typically propheticall which remained to be fulfilled after our Saviour cried out with a loud voice Eli Eli lamasabacthani that complaint of the Psalmist 69.22 was one They gave mee also gall for to eate and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink Hee saith not They gave him gall to eate in his hunger and for this reason haply hee would not receive the wine which was mingled with gall by way of scorne or mocking at S. Luke instructs us 23.36 as being then neither hungry nor thirstie But S. Iohn informeth us hee received the vinegar offered unto him at the ninth houre because he was in extremity of thirst At this houre and not before that of the Psalmist 22. was remarkably fulfilled in him My strength is dried up like a poâ—sheard and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws Thou hast brought me to the dust of death verse 15. As after his fasting forty dayes in the wildernesse hee was tempted with hunger so after his lingring paines upon the Crosse hee was truely thirsty and upon this sensible experience of the greatest bodily grievance that can befall a man hee said I am athirst but not with a loud voice or
importance of the word Ecce in this place as in many others is the present exhibition of that which was promised or portended The mystery foreshadowed or portended by the anniversary sacrifices of the Paschal Lamb by the daily morning and evening sacrifices by those sacrifices of the Atonement whose blood was brought by the high Priest unto the Sanctuary was in brief this that all these rites or solemnities should expire upon the death or sacrifice of the true Lamb of God and thus much and more is sealed unto us by that speech of our Saviour a little before his death Consummatum est All is finished Iohn 19.30 Now the rending of the vaile immediately after our Saviour had commended his Spirit into his Fathers hands did betoken that now and not before the entrance or passage into that most holy place which was prefigured by the materiall Sanctum Sanctorum was set open not to Priests onely but to all true beleevers That the coelestiall Sanctuary whether that be coelum empyr aeum the seat of our future blisse or some other place was now instantly to be hallowed or consecrated by the blood of the high Priest himself as the terrene Tabernacle or Sanctuary was by the legal high Priest with the blood of bullocks or goats c. 5. Whithersoever the soule of this our high Priest went that day wherein he offered the sacrifice of himself as whether into the nethermost hell or into the place where the soules of the righteous men did rest there is or should be no question among good Christians but that he was that evening in Paradise For so had he promised unto the penitent Malefactor who was crucified with him with an asseveration equivalent to an oath Amen dico tibi hodie mecum eris in paradiso Verily I say unto thee this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise As for those sophisticall Novelists to say no worse who thus mispoint the words of his promise Amen dico tibi hodie mecum eris in Paradiso Verily I say unto thee this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise to wit sometimes hereafter as at the generall resurrection of the just though not this very day they declare themselves to be in this particular as in most others more unfit to interpret sacred Oracles then Apes to be principall Actors in stately dolefull Tragedies For our Lord and Saviour did most graciously grant this poore soule more then he durst petition for and with better expedition then he could hope for to wit a present estate of blessednesse whereas he requested onely to be remembred with some mercy or favour without indenting any point of time after our Saviour had entred into his Kingdome And his entrance into that Kingdome was not upon the same day wherein he suffered nor within forty dayes after The Kingdom of heaven was not set open to any beleevers not to Abraham himself upon our Saviours passion or resurrection whether that Kingdome import the same place wherein Abraham before that time was or some other For it is one thing to say that the soules of righteous men deceased were in heaven before our Saviour ascended thither another to say they were in the Kingdome of heaven or Citizens of that Kingdome which upon the day of our Saviours victory over death was not erected And he who denyeth the souls of the Patriarchs to be partakers of the Kingdome of heaven before our Saviours death cannot be concluded to grant that they were either in Limbo or in any other region under the earth or under the stars 6. But to waive further dispute about this point for the present Our Saviours soule upon the same day wherein he dyed was in paradise and so was the soule of the penitent Malefactor yet not at the same instant perhaps not within the compasse of the same houre wherein our Saviours soule went thither in what region soever whether of heaven or earth this paradise was seated For it is evident out of the Evangelicall histories that our Saviour did surrender his soule into his fathers hand before either of them who were crucified with him did expire For as was before recited out of S. Matthew 27.50 immediatly upon the ninth houre our Saviour yeelded up the Ghost This testimony alone or this at least with the like Mark 15.37 had been sufficient to prove the Article of our Saviours death But for the more full satisfaction of all posterity as well of Jews as of Gentiles God would have the death of his onely Sonne to be remarkably recorded by the solemn testimony of the Roman Centurion taken upon examination before Pilat And now when the even was come that I take it was betwixt five and six of the clock because it was the preparation that is the day before the Sabbath Joseph of Arimathea an honourable Counsailer who also waited for the Kingdome of God came and went in boldly to Pilat and craved the body of JESUS And Pilat marvailed if he were already dead and calling unto him the Centurion he asked him whether he had been any while dead And when he knew it of the Centurion he gave the body to Joseph Mark 15.42 43 c. That our Saviour died before the other which were crucified with him is more apparant from the parallel testimony of S. Iohn 19.31 32 c. The Iews therefore because it was the preparation that the bodies should not remain upon the crosse on the Sabbath day for that Sabbath day was an high day besought Pilat that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away Then came the Souldiers and brake the legs of the first and of the other which was crucifyed with him But when they came to JESUS and saw that he was dead already they brake not his legs 7. And thus we may observe that aswell the malignant Jews as Christs Disciples of the Jewish Nation and the Roman Souldiers though unwittingly did strangely combine for the accomplishment of divers prophecies or prefigurations concerning the death of the Sonne of God Had hee not died before the other two which were crucified with him his legs had been broken with theirs and his body had not been interr'd before the setting of the Sunne as is probable from Pilats demand to the Centurion whether he had been any while dead before he would give Ioseph leave to bury his body Now if his body had not been interr'd before the Sun-set or at least before the starrs appeared the mystery prefigured by the imprisonment of Ionas three dayes and three nights in the belly of the whale could not by any Synecdoche have been exactly fulfilled by his blessed rest in the grave but of this hereafter Again if the breaking of his legs had not been prevented by his dying before the other two which were crucifyed with him the harmony betwixt the manner of his death and the death of the Paschal Lamb could not have been so exact for no bone of it