meaning if I render it thus Israel that very day committed seven deadly sins at once that is without interposition or intervention of any good work or thought First They allege Zechariah was their High Priest and to kill a Priest though of inferior rank was a sin amongst all Nations more then equivalent to the killing of a meer secular Potentate A sin sometimes more unpardonable then any sin could be committed within this Kingdom besides the making of Allom. Secondly As these Jews allege Zechariah was a Prophet and to kill a Prophet was the next degree of comparison in iniquity unto the laying of violent hands upon Kings and Princes for he which forbid To touch his annointed did also forbid to do his Prophets any harm both are given in the same charge Thirdly Zechariah was a second Magistrate among his People and to kill a prime Magistrate is more then murther or at least a mixture of Murther and Treason Fourthly This Priest and great Magistrate by the Testimony of their sons who murthered him was upright and entire in the discharge of all his Offices and a man unblemished for his life and conversation Fifthly they polluted the Courts of the Lords House within whose precincts Zechariahs bloud was shed without such reverence to the place as Jehoiada his Father upon a farre greater exigencie for the preservation of Ioash and his Kingdom did observe For he would not suffer Athaliah though guilty of murther of the Royal Seed and of high Treason against the Crown of David to be put to death within the Courts of the Temple but commanded her to be killed at the Gates of the Kings House Chap. 23. 14. Sixthly As these Iewish Rabbins observe Their fore-fathers polluted the Sabbath of the Lord for on a Sabbath day as it is probable not from their testimony only but from the Text Zachariah was thus murthered That which makes up the full number of seven and the measure of their unexpiable iniquity the Sabbath wherein this unexpiable murther was committed was the Sabbath of the great Feast of Attonement All these transgressions or deadly sins for every circumstance seems a transgression or principal sin not an accessary were committed in one day or at once Another circumstance these later Iews charge their fore-fathers withal That they did not observe the Law of the * Deer or of the Hart after they shed Zachariah's innocent blood for they did not so much as cover it with dust But this Circumstance will fall into the discussion of the Third General proposed The sins or circumstances hitherto mentioned were enough to sollicitate the Execution of Zachariah's dying prayers or imprecations Lord look upon it and require it Another circumstance for aggravation of this sin specially on King Io ash his part omitted by the later Iews might here be added For that this good man this godly Priest and Prophet of the Lord Zachariah was by birth and bloud of nearest kindred as we say Cousin Germane to Ioash as being the Son by lawful descent of Iehoshabeath daughter of Iehoram sister to Ahaziah and so Aunt to King Ioash whom Iehoiada the Priest had to wife 2 Chron. 22. 11. 7. But did these Aggravations or curious Commentaries of later Jews upon this and the like sins of their fore-fathers any way help to prevent the like diseases in such as made them Rather their Exclamations against them and Rigid Reformation of them and their affected Zeal unto the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered did cast them into farre worse diseases of pride and hypocrisie whose symptomes were fury madness and splenctical passions which in the issue brought out more prodigious murther as will better appear in the Second General proposed which was The Emblematical portendment of this cruel and prodigious Fact against Zechariah or the accomplishment of his imprecations according to the mystical sense For proof of our last Assertion or Conclusion of the Literal sense no better Authority can be alleged or desired then the authority of our Saviour Christ No better Commentaries can be made upon the mystical sense of the former History then he who was the Wisdom of God made upon it Matth. 23. verse 29. Wo to you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites so he had indicted them seven or eight times in this Chapter before But the height or rather the depth of their hellish hypocrisie was reserved unto this verse and the original thus expresseth it Because ye build the tombs of the Prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous and say If we had been in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets wherefore ye be witnesses unto your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets What if they were so What will follow Must the children be punished for their fathers sins or for the acknowledgment of them Surely no! if they had repented of them But to garnish the Sepulchers of the Prophets or the righteous men whom their Fathers had killed was no good Argument of their true Repentance So farre was this counterfeit Zeal unto the memory of deceased Prophets from washing away the guilt of blood wherewith their fore-fathers had polluted the Land that it rather became the nutriment of hatred and of murtherous designs against the King of Prophets and Lord of life And to this effect the words of the Evangelist St. Luke chap. 11. ver 48. would amount were they rightly scann'd and fully express'd Truly ye bear witness and allow the deeds of your fathers for they killed them to wit the Prophets and righteous and ye build their sepulchres In building the Sepulchres and acknowledging their fathers sins which killed the Prophets they did bear Authentick Witness that they were their sons And in not bringing forth better fruits of Repentance then the beautifying of their Graves they did bear witness against themselves that they were but as Graves as our Saviour saith in the 44. verse which appear not or do not outwardly shew what is contained in them and the men that walk over them are not aware of them 8. That the Scribes and Pharisees who were respectively Priests and Lawyers did more then witness that they were the sons of them which killed the Prophets that they did though not expresly yet implicitely more then allow their Fathers deeds and were at this instant bent to accomplish them is apparent from our Saviours fore-warnings or threatnings against them Matt. 23. 32 33. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers ye generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of hell or the judicature unto Gehennah That the Scribes and Pharisees and the People misled by them were now prone to make up the full measure of their Fathers sins is apparent from Matth. 23. 34 and 35. Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and Wisemen and Scribes and some of them ye shall or will kill crucifie and some of
by the Right hand of God only the Power of God be literally meant as many other Protestant Writers take as granted or leave unquestioned then Christ cannot be said to come from the Right hand of God for it is impossible that Christ should come or that there should be any true motion from that which is every where Neither can it be said nor may it so much as be imagined that Christ should depart from the Power of God which wheresoever he be as man doth accompany and guard him But if by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth be literally meant A visible and glorious Throne then Christ may be said as truly and locally to come from thence as from heaven to Iudge the Quick and the dead At least His Throne may remove with him Now that by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth A Visible or local Throne is meant I will at this time add only one Testimony unto the rest heretofore avouched in the handling of that Article which is more literally concludent then all the rest and it is Heb. 12. 2. He endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Not at the right hand of his own Throne but at the right hand of the Throne of God the Father 2. For perfecting this Map or Survey of Christs coming to Judgment already begun would it not be as pertinent to know The Place unto which he shall come as the Place whence he comes By the Rules of Art or method this last Question would be more pertinent then the former But seeing the Scriptures are not in this Point so express and punctual as in the former we may not so peremptorily determine it or so curiously search into it This is certain That Christ after his descending from heaven shall have his Throne or Seat of Judgment placed between the heaven and the earth in the air over-shadowed with clouds But over what part of the earth his throne shall be thus placed is uncertain or conjectural at the most but probable Many notwithstanding as well Antient as Modern are of Opinion That the Throne or Seat of Iudgment shall be placed over the Mount of Olives from which Christ did ascend and This for ought we have to say against it may be A Third Branch of the fore-mentioned similitude betwixt the manner of Christs ascending up into heaven and of his Coming to Judgment that is As he was received in a cloud into heaven over Mount Olivet so he shall descend in the clouds of heaven to Judge the world in the same place But the Testimony of Scripture which gives the best Ground of probability and a Tincture at least of moral certainty to the former opinion or conjecture is that of Zach. cap. 14. ver 3 4. Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those Nations to wit all those Nations which have been gathered in battel against Ierusalem and these in the verse precedent were all Nations as when he fought in the day of battel And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem on the East and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the East and toward the West and there shall be a very great Valley and half of the Mountain shall remove toward the North and half of it toward the South c. This place albeit perhaps in part it were verified in the destruction of Ierusalem yet may it be also literally meant of the Last General Judgment in which the rest of the prophecie following shall punctually and exactly be fulfilled 3. But to leave these Circumstances of Place from which and unto which Christ shall come and utterly to omit the Circumstance of Time which is more uncertain The most useful branch of the Third General Point proposed is to know or apprehend the Terrible manner of his Coming Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord saith our Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 11. we perswade men His Speech is very Emphatical and Significant an Aphorism of Life unto whose Truth every experienced Physician of the soul will easily subscribe For but a few men there be especially in these later times and these must be more then Men in some good measure Christian Men whom we can hope to perswade unto Godliness by the Love of God in Christ our Lord Albeit we should spend our brains in drawing the picture or proportion of the Love exhibited in Christ or give lustre or colour to the proportion drawn by the Evangelists with our own blood But by the Terror of the Lord or by decyphering of that last and dreadful day we shall perhaps perswade some men to become Christians as well in heart as in profession by taking Christ's Death and their own Lives into serious consideration Now of Terror or dread there be Two Corporeal Senses more apprehensive then the rest which are apt rather to suffer or feel then to Dread the evils which befal them The Two In-lets by which Dread or terror enters into the soul of man are the Eye and the Ear. All the Terrors of that last day may be reduced to these Two Heads To the strange and unusual Sights which shall then be seen and unto the strange and unusual Sounds or Voices which shall then be heard If we would search the Sacred Records from the Fall of our first Parents until our restauration was accomplished by Christ or until the Sacred Canon was compleat The notifications or apprehensions of Gods extraordinary presence whether they were made by voice or spectacle unusual have been fearful and terrible to flesh and blood though much better acquainted with Gods Presence then we are When our first Parents heard but the Voice of the Lord God walk in the garden in the cool of the day they hid themselves from his presence amongst the trees of the Garden Gen. 3. 8 10. When Gideon Judg. 6. 22. perceived that he which had spoken unto him albeit he had spoken nothing but words of comfort and encouragement was the Angel of the Lord Gideon said Alas O Lord God because I have seen an Angel of the Lord face to face The issue of his fear was Death which happily he conceived from Gods word to Moses Exod. 33. 20. Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and live But to assure Gideon that he was not compriz'd under that universal sentence of Death denounced by God himself to all that shall see him face to face the Lord saith unto him ver 23 24. Peace be unto thee fear not thou shalt not die and Gideon for further ratification of this Priviledge or dispensation built an altar unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom that is the Lord send peace or the Lord will be a Lord of peace unto his servants Yet could not this assurance made by the Lord himself unto
consecration to the priesthood after the order of Melchisedec His presentation of himself to his Father as our High-Priest and as the First fruits from the dead was the most acceptable offering or sacrifice that ever was offered unto God a matter of greater joy and triumph to all the inhabitants of Heaven then Isaac's safe return from the intended sacrifice was to Abrahams familie or then Josephs advancement in Egypt was to old Jacob. Now if the First fruits from the dead were thus acceptable unto God we cannot distrust but that the after-crop shall prosper and shall be gathered by the Angels of God when the the time of ripeness shall come into everlasting habitations However in the mean time it be sown it shall be reaped in Glory and possesse its glory in immortalitie This Article then of Christs Resurrection from the dead and of his becoming the First fruits of them that sleep is the ground or root of all our Apostles Inferences from vers 35 to the end of this chapter concerning the Resurrection or the estate of their bodies that shall be raised to life but of these we have spoken at large before The sum of all is intimated by our Saviour himself John 12. 23 24. The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified Verily I say unto you except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone but if it die it bringeth forth muh fruit Thus much likewise was foretold by the Prophet Esay in that Evangelical Prophecie Esay 53. 10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his Seed he shall prolong his dayes and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand Now this pleasure of the Lord was our full Redemption 10. To conclude this point Albeit our Sins were taken away by Christs death in both the Senses before mentioned and albeit in this life we be Actually Justified that is actually acquitted from the guilt of sins past by Belief in Christs Death and Resurrection and freed likewise from the rage and tyrannie of sin by Participation of his Grace and Inhabitation of his Spirit in us yet shall we not be Absolutely and Finally Justified that is freed from all Reliques of sin inherent until we be made partakers of his Glorie This must be the Accomplishment of our Justification by Faith in this life And it is no Paradox or strange opinion to say that We sinful men shall be finally Justified by utter extirpation of sin out of our nature at our last Resurrection When as Christ himself in whom sin never took any root much less bore any branch into whom no seed of sin did ever fall is said to be Justified by His Resurrection from the Dead that is acquitted from all burthen of our sins But where is Christ said in this sense to be Justified In the 1 Tim. 3. 16 Without controversie Great is the mysterie of godlinesse God was manifested in the flesh and Justified in the Spirit To omit all other interpretation of this phrase St. Paul means the very self same thing by saying Christ is Justified in the Spirit that St. Peter means when he saith He was quickened in the Spirit 1 Pet. 3. 18. Both mean That he was Justified or freed by the Spirit or Power of the Godhead from death or any other further burthen of our sins Christ saith St. Paul Heb. 9. 28. was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation that is to free us from the power of death and all burthen of sin from which he himself was freed at His Resurrection So then it is in its time and place most true which the Romish Church doth most untruly teach that there is a Justification by inherent righteousnesse But this Justification cannot be had may not be expected in this life it cannot be accomplished in us until that Change be wrought whereof our Apostle speaks verse 51. of this Chapter This Final Justification by this blessed Change is the full Effect or final issue of Christs Resurrection from the dead he that doth not believe this future change or final issue of Christs Resurrection doth bear false Testimonie of God or against him even whilst he saith that he believeth that Christ was raised from the dead For to grant Christs Resurrection from the dead and to deny or doubt of this Final Justification or Absolution of all true believers in his Resurrection from the reliques of sin is to cast an Aspersion upon God himself as if he had wrought this great work of Christs Resurrection frustra that is to no Use or End correspondent to such a mighty Ground-work or Foundation 11. Every man then is bound to believe That all true Beleivers of Christs Resurrection from the dead shall be undoubted partakers of that endlesse and immortal glory unto which Christ hath been raised But no man is bound to beleive his own Resurrection in particular unto such glory any further or upon more certain terms then he can upon just and deliberate Examination find that he himself doth truly and stedfastly believe this Fundamental Article of Christs Resurrection from the dead Now if it were certainly determined and agreed upon by all what it were truly and stedfastly to believe this Article all the controversies concerning the Certaintie of Salvation or Irrevocable Justification in this life by Faith would determine themselves and be at an end But of the Examination of our Faith or of its truth sincerity or strength we shall have fitter occasion and more full time to speak in unfolding of the last part of the Article of Christs coming to Judgment that is the manner of the Process in the Award of final Sentence In the mean time it shall suffice to admonish the Reader That he rate not the truth or measure the strength of his Belief in this main Article of Christs Resurrection only by the strength of his perswasions of its Speculative and General Truth specially in the absence of temptations to the contrarie or whiles it is opposed to the exceptions of Atheists or Insidels which deny or oppugn it How then must the truth or strength of our Belief or Faith in this Article be measured Only by our stedfast and constant practise of the Special Duties whereunto the belief of it doth bind all professors of it Now the Special Duties whereunto the Belief of it doth bind us are succinctly and pithily set down by our Apostle Col. 3. 1 2. If then ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God set your affections on things above not on things on earth c. And verse the 5. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon earth fornication uncleannesse inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is Idolatry And verse 8. Put off all these anger
experience of did acknowledge as much as hath been formerly delivered out of Gods word to wit That men are usually misdrawn to do those things in particular which in general they desired not to do and to leave those things undone which in the calm of composed affections they desired to do either by the hope of some bodily pleasures or by fear of some bodily pain And unto this two-fold inconvenience he prescribed this brief Receipt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That men in youth especially should accustome themselves to abstinence and sufferance to abstinence from evil and to sufferance of evil that is unto abstinence from unlawful pleasures which we call Malum culpae or Evil of Sin and to endure with patience malum poenae the evil of pain or of some loss rather then hazard The quiet of Conscience by doing that which is evil or unlawful or by not doing that which is good specially when we are thereto required But this brief receipt or diet of the Soul without some other addition will rather serve to condemn us Christians then enable us to live a true and Christian life The Receipt though is good in the General but defective in these Particulars First Unless he knew more of Gods Will or of the mysteries of Christian Religion then we know any means by which he could possibly know either being an Heathen he was ignorant of many evils from which he was bound to abstain and altogether as ignorant what those good things were for whose love he was to suffer malum poenae the evil of pain loss or grievance rather then disclaim them Secondly Albeit he had known what was to be done what to be left undone yet being ignorant of this main Article of Christianity to wit of A Life everlasting which is the reward of well-doing the Crown of Holiness and of an everlasting Death which is the wages of sin and issue of unlawful pleasures His Receipt of Sustine Abstine was altogether as fruitless and vain as if a Physician should prescribe a Dosis or Recipe to his Patient of such Simples or compounded Medicines as cannot be had in this part of the world but must be sought for at the East or West-Indies or at the Antipodes whence there is no hope they can be brought before the Patient be laid in his Grave The Medicine which he prescribes is no where to be found but in the Word of God The Simples whereof it is compounded can grow from no other root or branch then from The Articles of everlasting Life and everlasting death The Belief of the One is the root of Abstinence from sinful or unlawful Pleasures The Belief of the other is the root of Patience or sufferance of malum Poenae or of sufferance for well-doing Howbeit to speak exactly both parts of his Receipt may be had from the Belief either of Everlasting Life or Everlasting Death but most compleatly from the belief of both The manner how thence they may be gathered is expressed by our Apostle St. Paul Rom. 8. 16. c. The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God And if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together for I reckon that the suffrings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us c. 2. If all the sufferings of this life be not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us as the Rule of Faith teacheth us then conscience and reason it self bindes us to suffer all the Persecutions or Grievances which can be laid upon us rather then hazard our hopes or forfeit our Interests in the Glory that shall be revealed in all such as with patience suffer persecution or other temporal loss or detriment for the truths sake And this hope of Glory is as the Root whence Christian patience or sufferance must grow So is the fear of everlasting Death the root of our abstinence from evil or of repentance for former want of this abstinence This is the same Apostles Doctrine 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men To what doth he perswade men To do those things which are good and which being done shall be rewarded not in Judgement but in mercy and loving kindness Those things by which we shall be reconciled unto God But were not these Corinthians reconciled to God before our Apostle thus perswaded them Yes so saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 18. God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ And when our Apostle and those to whom he wrote were reconciled unto God through Jesus Christ we that are now living were by the same means reconciled unto God For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself Now if the world that is not this or that man not this or that generation of men but all generations the world of mankind were reconciled unto God when our Apostle wrote this Epistle yea when Christ offered himself upon the Crosse what need is there of any further reconciliation For that which God doth he doth most perfectly most compleatly 3. It is true Our reconciliation was most perfectly most compleatly wrought on Gods part by Christs death upon the Crosse he payed the full price of our Redemption of our reconciliation nothing may or can be added thereto Yet A Reconciliation there is to be wrought on our parts though wrought it cannot be but by the spirit of God and wrought it is not ordinarily but by the ministry of men as Gods Deputies or Embassadors So the Apostle adds ver 19. God hath committed to us to wit his Ministers the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though Christ did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God So then God hath reconciled us all unto himself from the hour of Christs death and yet every one of us for his own particular must be reconciled to God by the Ministry of his Embassadors And the efficacy of their Ministry is demonstrated by working true repentance in us The means again by which they work this true repentance must be by representing the Terrour of the Lord or as our Apostle saith Act. 17. 30. by putting them in mind of the last and dreadful day The times of this ignorance to wit of the old world before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Thus
Will as his love and zealous Observance of those commandments in whose practise he finds less difficultie increaseth his proneness to transgress the other from whose observance he is by nature or custom more averse will still decrease his Positive diligence or care to practise those duties which are not so contrary to his natural inclinations will alwayes in some proportion or other raise or quicken his weak desires or inclinations to observe those duties which he hath formerly more often and more grievously neglected or opposed 9. But some happily will here demand why our Saviour in this place of St. Matth. 25. 34. c. seeing all Good works are necessarie unto Salvation should instance only in works of one kind that is in works of Charitie towards others and not in works of Pietie and sanctitie as in fasting and praying It is an Excellent observation and so much the more to be esteemed by us in that it was made by Jansenius a learned Bishop not of Reformed but of the Romish Church that However fasting and other exercises of mortification be duties necessary in their time and place yet God is better pleased with us for relieving and comforting others in their affliction be it affliction of body or of soul then for afflicting our own souls and bodies And as for fasting One good Use of it is To learn by our voluntarie want of food truly to pitie and comfort others which want it against their wills we then truly fast or our fast is then truly religious when we fast not for thrift or sparing or for the health of body but that what we spare from our selves we may bestow not sparingly but cheerfully upon our needy brethren So the Prophet instructs us Esai 58. 5 6 7. Is it such a fast that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his soul is it to bow down his head as a bul-rush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him wilt thou call this a fast an acceptable day to the Lord Is not this the fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh Again Fasting is useful or expedient only at some certain times and seasons These duties here mentioned Mat. 25. 34. c. are at all times necessarie they are never out of season they are upon the respects last mentioned most seasonable when we Fast and yet in some sort more seasonable when we Feast For feasting of our selves or of the Rich being unmindful of the poor and needy is to bring a curse upon our selves and upon our plentie As we see it set forth in the parable of Lazarus and Dives See Pro. 22. 16. Luke 14. 13. St. Austine observes that the duty of praying continually is not literally meant of praying alwayes with our lips nor of multiplying set hours of Devotion but Omne opus bonum Every good work is a Real Prayer specially if we consecrate our selves to it by prayer The continuance of Good works begun and undertaken by prayer is a continuation of our prayers So that by Praying often and doing Good to others continually we may be said to observe or fulfill that precept Pray continually 10. As we cannot more truly imitate or express our Savior's disposition in more solid Characters then by the practise of these duties for he went about doing good healing all that were oppressed so are there no Duties which are so easie for all to imitate him in as these are None can plead exemption for want of means or opportunity to practise them For though some be so needy themselves that they cannot clothe the naked or feed the hungry yet may they visit the sick or resort to such as are in Prison As every one in some kinde or other may be the object of his neighbors charity so may every one be either Instrument or Agent in the doing thereof The rich may stand in need of visitation or of their Neighbors Prayers either for continuance or restauration of health and they cannot want other on whom to exercise their charity For as our Saviour saith Pauperes semper habebitis vobiscum You shall always have the poor amongst you And who knows whether the Lord in mercy hath not suffered the poor in these places to abound that the rich or men of competent means might have continual and daily occasion to practise these Duties here continually injoyned We of this place cannot want soil to sow unto the Lord For as the former Parable imports we shall not want occasion to put out the Talent wherewith God hath blest us to advantage So Solomon saith He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord and look what he layeth out it shall be payed him again Pro. 19. 17. What greater Incouragement can any man either give or require to the performance of this service then that which Our Lord and Master hath given to all which either truly love him or esteem of his love What can the Eloquence of man adde to this Invitation in this place What better Assurance could any man require then the solemn promise of so powerful and gracious a Lord Or what greater Reward or Blessing could any man expect to have assured unto him then that which our Savior here assures us Whatsoever we do to the poor and distressed he will interpret it as done to himself and really so reward it And with Reference to this Last Day of Final Retribution did the Psalmist say Psal 41. Blessed is the man that provideth for the sick and needy the Lord shall deliver him in time of trouble Sickness Death and Judgement are Critical days of Trouble But I know it will be Objected that The greatest part of the poor which dwell and sojourn amongst us are not such Little Ones as our Savior here speaks of that is not his Brethren Men or Children they be which for the most part draw near unto him with their lips when they hope to receive an Alms through his Name but are far from him in their hearts more ready at most times and upon no occasion to abuse his Name with fearful Oathes then to call upon it in Prayer in Reverence and Humility Would God the matter Objected were not too true However The truth of it doth not so much excuse the Contraction as it doth exact the Extension of your bowels of compassion towards them 11. Seeing for them also Christ shed his blood their ignorance of Christ and his goodness should move us all to a deeper touch of Pity and Compassion towards them then sight of their bodily distress of their want or calamity can affect us with And this
entertained with battel invade the borders of any Nation In such a Case t is held a point of politick husbandry to waste the Country round about them least it might maintain their Armies But heretofore I have had and elsewhere shall have occasion to decypher all the symptoms of a dying State either set down by the Word of God or observed by the expert Anatomists of former dead bodies politick 14. My message unto you my Brethren the Sons of Levi is briefly this Add not Gods anger to our Countries Curse which at this day whether just or no is bitter and rife against us as if we were all or most of us like the companions of Jesus the son of Josedech persons Prodigious but in a worse sense then they were Persons that had procured her much and did yet portend her greater sorrow partly by our Dastardly silence in good causes but especially by our prophesying for Rewards and humoring the great Dispensers of those dignities on which our unsatiable desires are now unseasonably set It was a saying amongst the Ancient Romans Qui Beneficium accipit libertatem vendit It is thus far improved in true modern English He that will purchase preferments Ecclesiastick especially must adventure to lay his soul to pawn What remedie Only this to make a virtue of necessitie For so must every one do that means to live as a Christian ought Let us not look so much upon the sinister intentions of corrupt minds as upon the purpose of our God even in mens most wicked projects And who knowes whether The Lord by acquainting us with mens bad dealings in dispensing Ecclesiastical honour do not lay the same restraint upon us his children which he did upon Baruch Without all question he absolutely forbids us to seek afer great matters in this age in that he hath cut off all hopes of attaining them by means lawfull and honest And all this he doth for our good that using Baruchs freedom or Jeremies Resolution in our ambassage we may be partakers of their Priviledge in the Great day of visitation wherein such as in the mean time crush and keep us under by their greatness will be ready to give their wealth for our poverty and change their honor for our disgrace upon condition they might but enjoy life with such libertie and contentments as we do Or in Case they shorten our dayes by vexation or oppression yet faithfully discharging our duties whether we live or die we are the Lords And though they out live us an hundred years yet shall they be willing to give a thousand yea ten thousand lives if so many they had so they might be but like us for one hour in the day of death We need not search forain Chronicles nor look far back into ancient Annales The registers of our own memories and our fathers relations may afford examples of some sons of Levi men if we rightly value their admirable worth of place and fortunes mean in respect of our selves which after their death hastned perhaps by hard usage have fild both this and forrain Lands with their good name as with a perfume sweet and precious in the nostrils of God and man whilst those great lights of state so they seemed whilst parasitical breath did blaze their fame which had condemned them to privacie and obscuritie were suddenly put out but with an everlasting Stinch God grant their successors better successe that a precious well deserved fame may long survive them For our selves Beloved as we all consort in earnest desires and hearty prayers that the Lord would renew his Covenant made with Levi his Covenant of life and peace so let us joyn hearts in this meditation The only way to derive this blessing from this our father unto us his sons must be by arraying our selves with Phineas our eldest brothers integritie by putting on his zeal and courage to walk with the Lord our God in peace and equitie and to turn many away from iniquitie And now remember them O my God that defile their Priesthood and break the Covenant of the Priesthood and of Levi Smite them through their loyns that make a prey of his possessions and grinde their heads as thou didst Abimelechs with broken milstones from the wals or with the reliques from the ruinated houses yea grinde all their heads O Lord to powder that grinde the faces of his poor and needy children But peace be upon all such as walk according to this Rule here set to Baruch and upon all those that Love God To this God The Father The Son and the holy Ghost be ascribed all honour and glory now and ever Amen Imprimatur Ric. Baylie Vicecan Oxon. The Publisher To the Readers of these two last Sermons WHo may see That this great Author was not affraid Most aculâ—atly to reprove the sins of his own Time nor is The Advertiser ashamed to set his seal to the justnesse of them by a full and true Publishing his Reproofes Let the Lord be glorified though with our shame and justified when he speaketh Judgement And to Gods glory be it spoken This word hath prospered in the thing where unto God sent it in some of the Gentrie and Clergie Yet can it not be denied but there is still too great store of matter of Reproof in the same kinde Many whose estates are sore diminished have minds still set upon Great Things what ever they have lost they find pleasure Had The Author lived to this day I am perswaded he would have gone on with The Holy Bishops complaints Perdidere tot calamitatum utilitates Pacem et divitias priorum Temporum non habent Omnia aut ablata aut imminuta sunt sola tantum vitia creverunt nihil de Prosperitate pristina reliquum nisi peccata quae prosperitatem non esse fecerunt c. These are wracks indeed To Misse the Good which may be got by suffering evil is the worst of evils To lose that gain which should be gotten by losses is of losses the greatest But to grow worse with suffering evil is perdition it self Now if any one of Prosperous condition when he reads this shall triumph and bless himself in his heart saying We have not sinned in devouring these men I beg his Pardon and beseech him to read on if he saw our faults in the last he may perhaps see his own in the next And humbly desire leave to say 1. A man may punish sin and yet inter puniendum Commit a sin greater then that be punisheth 2. In these times and among the persons promising Reformation there hath been Greater seeking after great things and that with greater Inordination too then was in former Times Our Author complained that the Baruchs of his Time sought great things by the Art of Philip of Macedon Would God my Clergy Brethren so I do esteem such and none but such as were begotten to our mother by the R. R. Fathers of the Church had not used
in his time yet herein indued with wisdom in an higher rank then the stateliest Potentates are wont to trouble themselves withal in that he could so well foresee There was no counsel against the Lord whose Decrees concerning any Land or People then usually take place when as Posterity seeks earnestly by secular Policie to patch up the rents and breaches of a State decayed ruinate by the heavie burthen of their Predecessors sins Such was the temper of Iosiah's States-men Princes though his heart was of another metal and had been fashioned in another mold Wherefore the Book of the Law which had long laid buried is now risen out of the dust to proclaim Ierusalems downfal and Sions burial in her ashes And this sentence of the Law now found is ratified by the Prophetess Huldahs mouth Gods wrath shall presently be kindled against this place and shall not be quenched But unto good Josiah who sought the Prophetesses and not the Politicians advice is this sole comfort left To the King of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord so shall ye say unto him Because thine heart did melt and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this place and against the Inhabitants of the same to wit that it should be destroyed and accursed and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me I have also heard it saith the Lord. Behold therefore I will gather thee to thy fathers and thou shalt be put in thy grave in peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place 2 King 22. 18. 8. But should not his righteousness have saved him Or is this to be put in his grave in peace to be slain by his enemies Yes this his burial was in peace in that he was buried in the Sepulchres of his Fathers and mourned for by all his people without the molestation of their enemies This was a blessing of peace which none of his Sons or Successors enjoyed For of them all not one but dies captive in the enemies Land or in their own without the decencie of Princely funerals And who knows Whether Iosiah's violent death was deserved by going to battel without the Lords advice Yea who knows whether the Lord did not thus suddenly take him away partly to prevent the increase of that disease wherewith no Prince of all the stock of Iudah but had been more or less infected and which now as it seemeth was growing on him All of them in their prosperity began to trade in secular Policie whose practise was Jerusalems ruine and Iudahs wreck howsoever right dear in the sight of the Lord was the death of this holy and religious King who if he had lived the longer should have died the oftner His Childrens and peoples sins are now full ripe for the sword and their vengeance hastens on so fast that either he must suddenly die or else see their manifold miseries farre worse then so many several deaths For what pangs would it have caused in his tender heart which melted even whilest the noise of Ierusalems curse did but approach his ears if his eyes should have beheld the flames of Gods fierce wrath devouring her gates and his ears had been filled with her woful out-cries in the dayes of mourning For Ieremie or Baruch two Prophets so poor that their fore-warnings of these miseries could not merit any credit with this politick generation to live and see the event was a blessing of God and bare life given them a bountiful prey But what benefit could so great a Prince have reaped by life What comfort in length of dayes to have seen the children of his loins born unto higher hopes then any Princes of the world besides either led captive into the enemies land or made a prey unto the birds of heaven in their own Much better an enemies arrow stick once for all fast in his side then that the sword should continually pierce thorow his soul whilst he should see his dearest people cut down like grass and Iudah the Lords inclosure laid open like a common field to their bordering enemies spoil and Ierusalem his hearts joy which the Lord had hedged and walled about laid waste like a forlorn vineyard whose grapes were wild and naught Yet such are the dayes which immediately ensue his death The Land is one while ransackt by the Egyptian another while made tributary to the Chaldean another while forraged by the Aramite Ammonite and Moabite until it was utterly laid waste For judgment is here begun already at the house of God and in godly Iosiah's fall might the ungodly Iudah read her Fatal Destiny registred in Characters of blood And doubtlesse at this his sudden unexpected end the execution of Gods fierce and violent wrath did begin Of the successive degrees whereof I shall God willing hereafter speak For the Manner of it I only note thus much now in general That not all the wisdom of their most Politick Enemies albeit the Lord had given them libertie to have plotted this peoples overthrow at their pleasure could have invented so readie and sure a course for their swift destruction as this people themselves in great Policie to their seeming still make choice of Not one project which they can forecast but proves an inevitablegin to intrap themselves and is as a fatal snare unto their owne feet 9. First good Josias without Warrant from God or his Prophets advice thinks it in Policie the safest course to assault the Egyptian in the confines of his Country lest afterwards he should be enforced to defend himselfe upon harder termes nearer to the heart of Judah from his Enemie strengthned with the spoile of her borders so jealous he is of Nechoh's purpose which meant him no harm that his word will not serve him for warrant albeit his words as the Text saith were from the mouth of God The issue of his policie is that he himself is slain and Pharaoh Nechoh by this his unseasonable provocation took a fair pretence of invading the Land after his death and condemns it in an hundred talents of Silver and a talent of gold And for the effecting of this his purpose the people themselves had given occasion for they no doubt out of some politick purpose had preferred the * younger brother Iehoahaz to the Kingdom who poor Caitiff in stead of swaying Davids Scepter in the promised Land is after three months space led Captive in chains like a Bond-slave into Egypt whence the Lord had redeemed the meanest of this peoples forefathers So contrary hath Iudah been in all her courses that all the glorious hopes of Davids Line run backwards So farre is the Calendar of Ierusalems good dayes run out of date such are the revolutions of times that this Light which they had set up for David hath taken darkness for its habitation The Sun of their Comfort is set before it came to the
and Last consists of Thirteen Select Sermons the fittest I could chuse out to aid and accompany the precedent Discourses especially to attend the Tracts Of Christs coming to Judgment Of the Resurrection Of Life and Death Eternal which as they most flagrantly set forth THE TERROR OF THE LORD so are they most likely by startling and amateing the Conscience to prepare mens minds that the Impressions of those Sermons may be most penetrative and permanent As in the last mentioned Tracts me-thinks I find A Particular Summons directed to my self Prepare to meet thy God Give an Account of thy Stewardship So in the annexed Sermons I find peculiar and proper Remembrances of several things wherein I have done very foolishly deeds that ought not to be done For this cause I bow my knees and pray the Reader to lift his heart up in my behalf to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for Pardon and Peace and that what I have here printed in this Book may so be written in the Table of my heart not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God that I may not only wait for but haste to the Coming of the Day of God Having transferred these things unto my self and thus far made the Reader yea the World it self my Confessor I hope none will offend if I shew what respective parts of the ensuing Work may by others be usefully applyed to themselves And first of all The Sorrowful and rightly suffering soul if his actings be according may reap harvests of Comfort from what Our Author hath written About Judgment Resurrection and the Life to Come Whereas he that adds sin to miserie and wrath may certainly presume all the Desolations and Destructions God hath brought upon the Earth as so many Tastes and pledges of Greater to ensue The Woes past are but Schiographies and portendments scarce beginnings of future evils And I earnestly beseech all of the former sort as to fortifie themselves with Arguments to Charitie and forgiving injuries out of Chap. 32. So to regulate their Conversation and Demeanour by the Directions to be sound Chap. 35. The Section Of Christs coming to Judgment is very useful for such as take upon them places of Judicature and most useful for such as judge in matters of Highest Nature and Difference The Precept of Deborah Judg. 5. 10. Meditate ye Ye that sit in Judgment is the same with that of David Psal 2. 10 12. Be Wise Kiss the Son And the Question which David puts in that Golden Psalm Ne perdas will again be put to the Question by the Son of David when he comes to judge the Judges of the Earth Are your minds set upon righteousness O ye Congregation And do ye judge the thing that is right O ye sons of Men Whether ye do or no will then be justly and finally judged The Tract Of the Resurrection who can express the use of it An astonishing Meditation it is to think I now see as surely the eyes of some shal see those Christian brethren that fel in any late Battail were buried where they fell rising out of their places of Burial whether impleading or forgiving one another and with haste marching into the Valley of Jehoshaphat to see the day won or lost there and whose Heads shall then be crowned with Glory Yet is this but as the drop of a bucket to the Ocean of that days Terrors The Sermons upon that Precept of Christ I might say of Noah and Tullie Do as you would be done to are worth their weight in Gold of Ophir and useful for all Christians of what condition soever There came out a Book some sixteen years ago intituled Autocatacrisis Ladensium To the Partie or Persons that Composed or applauded that Book wherein Our Author is named I would especially recommend His Discourses upon Rom. 2. 1. presuming that that those with the Verifications of them exhibited in these late Revolutions will convince Him or them sufficiently That it is no difficult matter to compile a Larger Volume of Particularities wherein they that have judged others have by doing over and over again and again the same things or things more then equivalent condemned themselves and justified those whom they have condemned The Sermons upon 2 Chron. 24. and Matth. 23. contein very sound reproof of the Pharisaical Duplicitie of such as built the Sepulchres of ancient and yet persecuted the present Prophets and therein of such as in our dayes commend the Lives and condemn the Authors of the Deaths of Bishop Cranmer Hooper Ridley Ferrar Father Latimer c. And yet destroy their successors in Order Discipline and Doctrine I call heaven and earth to Record this day not to condemn such but to convince them that they may be saved That Those Men whom they have cast out as enemies to the Church of England and in Effect by driving them out from the Inheritance of the Lord tempted saying Go serve other Gods are The Men that bear the Burthen and heat of the day in all Contests betwixt parties of the English and Romish Churches and that preserve their undoers from being overborn with Romish Errors And this they do upon disadvantages unimaginable save only to such as have experimented them for want of their own Libraries Their former accommodations of Secessus Otia c. Besides Those Sermons will shew That the guilt of Blood will lye long upon a Nation That it justly may and certainly will be required of late Posterity unless A Signal Repentance of the same and especial abstinence from the like sins intervene I appeal to the meekest Moses upon earth what Degree of Guilt he would apportion to that Communitie suppose it in any Forrain Kingdom or the Posteritie thereof which being not only A Pretender to Christianitie but to the Puritie thereof did Sit as a Spectator whilst a Tumultuous Tempest of People for divers hours together did hunt and chase an Aged man were he good or bad unto the Death Yet was this thing done in our Metropolis which is a kind of standing Representative of the whole Nation some thirtie yeers ago Or what censure he would pass upon three Kingdomes the Generality whereof did though but ex-post-facto only by rejoycing at the deed consent to the Assassination of A Prince the man whom the King had honoured Yet was this also done about the same number of years since It is true Justice did treatably overtake the Partie that did this Fact But Who ever sorrowed for the Joy conceived at it These two seem to have been Portentuous Aboadments of Calamities ensuing as the daily visible desolation and Profanation of Gods House is of future woe And I remember them not as making Intercession against Israel or as things I have whereof to accuse mine own Nation with delight but upon the same account that I call mine own sins to remembrance that God may be intreated for the Land to blot them out of His.
work let us still call to mind that it now is in Executione Officii and its Office is to be our Remembrancer of that which our Apostle admonisheth us 1 Cor. 11. 31. If we would judge our selves we should not be judged In this Judgment or examination of our selves Nature her self would teach us thus much so we would be observant of the Process That seeing Conscience is not onely the Lamp of the Lord but also a part of our selves a principal Ray or beam of our souls it could not be so suspitious of our actions or so inquisitive after every circumstance that may make against us when we do evil unless it were deputed by a supreme Judge to bring us to a Judgment and either in this life to acquit us by perswading us to judge our selves or in that last day to accuse and condemn us It would teach us again That albeit there be a General day for final Judgment appointed wherein Christ himself shall sit as Judge yet he every day holds or cals A private Sessions within our brests wherein Conscience sits his Atturney or Deputy Again let us still remember that albeit the work of the Law be written in our hearts so it was in the hearts of the very heathens that albeit we give Conscience full Audience and leave to examine us by the Law of God whether written in our hearts or in the sacred Book yet is it but a small part of our accounts which we shall be able to read in the Register of our own Consciences in respect of what is to be found written in that Book or Scrowl which shall be opened and unfolded in the day of final Iudgement Rev. 20. 12. Howbeit even so much as every man which will diligently hearken to his own Conscience shall in this life be able to read and hear distinctly will make deep impression in his heart and wound his very spirit And as Solomon speaks a wounded Spirit who can bear rather who can heal it None but he that shall be our Judge Yet may we not look that when he shall come to judge all he will vouchsafe to heal any He healeth all our infirmities as he is our High-Priest not as he is our Judge And so healed by him our Consciences must be in this life otherwise the wound will prove deadly and incurable in that last day Nothing besides the wounds of Christ can cure the wounds and sores of our spirits and consciences Therefore was he smitten and bruised therefore was he wounded unto death that his blood poured forth might be as a Fountain of Oyl or Balm to cure and heal the broken hearted For The broken hearted onely are his true Patients All of us one time or other must feel the sting of Serpents more fiery then such as stung the Israelites in the wilderness even the sting of death and of that old Serpent which in our first Parents envenomed our nature before we can thirst after this fountain of life with that fervencie of spirit which he requireth in his Patients without this thirst thus occasioned by this sting of conscience and poyson of sin in some measure apprehended by us we cannot drink the water of life or suck in the balm of health and salvation which issued out of Christs wounds in such a plentiful measure as may cure the festered wounds of our souls and consciences and purge us from that corruption which we and our Fathers have sucked from our first Parents or contracted by the incessant overflow of our actual and daily sins 10. Yet is not this apprehension of our actual and daily sins or the smart or sting of conscience so perpetually uncessant in any one of us but that we may feel or perceive some interposed gleams of joy and comfort some Gratulations of our Consciences for businesses sincerely managed by us or for those particular actions or good deeds which in respect of some one or other circumstance we have done amiss but for their substance well and with a good intention and without a sinister respect to our own private temporal ends or to the prejudice of others with whom we live So that no man unless he be much wanting to himself can want undoubted Experiments in himself of a future and Final Judgement or of the Two-fold sentence which in it shall be awarded to all according to the diversity of their ways As often then as any of us shall feel the sting or perceive the check of our consciences for the evils we have done let us take this irksomness or indisposition of our minds and souls not for a meer effect of natural Melancholie though that perhaps may concur as a cause to increase our heaviness but rather take all together as a Crisis of that disease growing upon our souls which unless it be cured by our heavenly Physician in this life will prove incurable in that last and dreadful day and will bring upon us perpetual weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth If our Consciences again at any time shall Congratulate us for well doing we may take these Congratulations or Applauses of our souls and spirits as so many undoubted pledges or earnests of that unspeakable and uncessant joy which the supream Iudge shall award to all that by constancy in well-doing acknowledge him for their Soveraign Lord and expect him as their supream Iudge If we cease not to continue these good actions or performances he will not cease to renew the undoubted pledges or earnests of eternal Joy unto us daily For so S. Paul saith He will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortalitie eternal life But unto them that are contentious indignation and wrath tribulation anguish c. 11. The best use which the Heathens as meer Heathens made of such Notions as nature had implanted in them of a future Judgement or rather their misapplications of what nature did rightly suggest unto them to this purpose cannot better be resembled then by the use or applications which men naturally make of Dreams Now of Dreams some are vain and idle as arising onely from the Garboils of the Phantasie most frequent in men sick or distempered or from such thoughts discourses or speeches as we have entertained by day or been entertained with for some short time before Of these Dreams and of their serious observation that of The Son of Sirach Eccl. 34. 1 2 3. is most true The hopes of a man void of understanding are vain and false and dreams lift up fools Who so regardeth dreams is like him that catcheth at a shadow and followeth after the wind The vision of dreams is like the resemblance of one thing to another even as the likeness of a face to a face Howbeit even such Dreams may be resolved into some natural Causes precedent Nor do men fail in the apprehension of particulars represented
〈◊〉 or Word which since hath been made flesh as all unbelievers and disobedient men since hee was made flesh Now to fortifie this inference he addeth ver 12. Vivus est sermo Dei The Word or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whom wee are to render an accompt is quick and power full more piercing then any two edged sword So farre from winking at the ignorance of these times that all things are naked and open unto his eyes His countenance as saint John saith was as the Sun shineth in his strength Rev. 1. 16. and his eyes as a flame of fire vers 14. unto his eyes thus opened when the Judgment shall be set the bookes as Daniel saith were opened Dan. 7. 10. And this prophecie is unfolded by St. John Rev. 20. 12. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were Judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works 17. This is the next part of the Process and by the Books which are opened the best Interpreters Ancient and Modern understand the Books of Conscience which until that day shall not be unfolded or become fully legible no not unto them which keep these Books though every man have one of them or at least an exact Copie or Exemplification of them For it may be that the Authentick Copie or Register of every mans Conscience is treasured up in this Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their Copies shall become legible by his appearance Many actual sins many secret thoughts or evil words have been daily practised or entertained by us w ch leave no print or impression in our Phantasies of their passage The memorie of many gross sins which for the present make deep impression daily wears out or decayes to our apprehensions their print or Character in some being defac'd or obliterated by new ones more gross as if a man should write in Capital Letters upon a paper already written in a smaller Character and more obscure In others the Records of Conscience though in themselves legible so they would look into them are wrapt up in multiplicitie of business But when the Judge shall appear in his Glorie the Book shall be fully opened the Character or impression of every sinful thought or action shall then become legible not a syllable of what we have spoken to our selves shall be lost and every letter and every syllable which hath not been washt away or purified by the Blood of the Lamb shall be as a stigma or brand to the Soul and Conscience wherein it is found and shall fret as an incurable Gangren or Canker Every seed of corruption whether propagated from our first parents or sown by our selves which seemed to lie dead without all motion unlesse they be truly mortified by the spirit shall at the appearance of the Sun of Righteousness begin to quicken and grow ripe in a moment And albeit these seeds be as many in number as the sand though our whole flesh or bodily man be more full of them then any fishes ventricle is full of Spawn yet the least of them shall grow for its malignant quality into a Serpent and sting the soul and body wherein it bred like an Adder These are the best fruits which they that daily sow unto the flesh shall then reap of the flesh even corruption sorrow and torments incorruptible and unsufferable yet perpetually to be suffered by them But of the quality and perpetuity of these pains hereafter by Gods assistance when we come to the Award or Sentence 18. Now to conclude Albeit this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Eternal Word of God before whose Judgment Seat we must appear and to whom we are to render our final accompt were made flesh to the end and purpose that the very words of God immediately uttered by himself which formerly so uttered did sound nothing but death and destruction to flesh and blood might become the very food of life being thus distilled and uttered by an Organ of flesh yet such they are only unto such as receive him and are purified in soul and conscience by them To such as received him saith S. John he gave this priviledge to become the Sons of God John 1. 12. But every man saith the same S. John 1 Epist cap. 3. ver 3. that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure As for the disobedient and such as wallow in filthiness the presence or voice of God though he appear or speak unto us in our nature shall not be less dreadful to them then it was before the word was made flesh but rather his appearance in our nature shall add terror and dread to his voice and presence And therefore it is remarkably added by S. John Rev. 6. 16. that the disobedient shall say unto the Mountains and Rocks Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For though the wisdome of the flesh did alwayes include an Enmitie unto the puritie of the Divine Nature yet this Enmitie or Antipathie is most directly against the innocencie and integritie of the Lamb It is under the same Kind with the Enmitie of the womans seede and the Serpents nor shall the malignitie of it fully appear or come unto a perfect Crisis until the Lamb appear in Judgment He is now a Lamb mild and gentle and easy to be intreated by all such as seek to become like him in innocencie and puritie of life but shall in that day manifest himself to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to execute vengeance upon all such as have abused his patience and long suffering by continuance in beastlines or enmitie to Lamb-like innocency and purity He shall then appear an inflexible Judge but yet continues a mercifull and loving High-priest to make intercession for us Seeing then saith St. Paul Heb. 4. 14. c. and it is his Conclusion of his former description of him as our Omnipotent Alseeing Judge that we have a great High-priest that is passed into the heavens Jesus the Son of God this is a Title more mild and comfortable then the former of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word of God Let us hold fast our profession For we have not an High-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need This Time of need is the day of judgment or time of death But whereby shall we make just proof and trial whether we hold our profession fast or no By no other means then by the preserving the integritie and puritie of our Conscience For we do not truly acknowledge or believe him to
seem a welcom Messenger and loss of life and external senses a gainfull exchange if by their loss we might be exempted or acquit from those fearfull Sights wherewith the eyes or from those hideous noyses wherewith the eares and hearts of all then living shall be filled But most men hope for or at least expect a dissolution of this sensitive life before the appearance of that great and terrible day And this very Imagination or conceipt that all our senses shall be locked up by death the eares utterly deprived of hearing the eyes of sight that the whole body even the heart if self being bestript of all feeling or motion shall put on a thick covering of sad earth doth for the most part benum our senses enfeeble our faith and dead our apprehensions either of the Terrours of that day or of the joyes that shall ensue unto all them that do escape them Whilst we think of death or of their estate which have been long dead and consumed in the grave we say in our hearts not as the Psalmist did Lord shall the dead praise thee but shall the dead fear thee O Lord shall such as descend into the pit are covered with dust and resolv'd into rotteness be affrighted with thy voice or stand amazed at thy appearance Thus then as there is no Article of Christian Faith more available to make men live a Christian life then this Article of the last general Judgement So is there no branch either of this general nor any other Article of Christian Faith in particular which requireth more fortification whether from the store-house of the book of Nature or from the book of Grace then this point of the Resurrection doth This is the Hold which Satan the sworn enemy of our Souls eternal peace and welfare seeks by all means to surprize and subvert and unto whose speedie surprizal or utter subversion flesh and blood have been in all Ages most prone to yeild their consent and furtherance As Christ Crucified was the main stumbling-block to the Iew So the preaching of his Resurrection and of our hopes of a joyful Resurrection by the power and virtue of His was the main rock of offence of Contradiction or gain-saying to the Infidels or irreligious Heathens When the Athenians saith S. Luke Act. 17. 32. these were the most civil and learned people amongst the Heathen heard of the Resurrection of the dead some mocked others said we will hear thee again of this thing The rest of his Learned and Philosophical discourse all of them heard with atention and would he have spoken more they would have been willing to have heard him longer upon any other Argument But their entertainment of this Treatise of the Resurection was generally so rude so unrespective on their parts and so unwelcome to him that he immediately departed from them Howbeit God did not leave the truth deliverd by him even in this point without competent Testimonie for Denys of Areopagus and a woman named Damaris with some others did believe Paul But these were but a few in respect of them that did not believe or did mock him Now it is a Rule undoubted that The same motives or temptations which drew the heathen to contradict or oppugn the truth will abate or weaken the Assent of Christians unto the same truth unless they be removed by discovery of their original error 2. The Errors concerning the Final Judgment in general or indefinitely considered are specially Three The First of such as denied the Divine Providence over men or did confine it to this transitory life without expectation of any account or reckoning to be made after death And these were but few among the ancient Heathens to wit the sect of Epicures whose opinion was refuted by the verdict of most other Heathens and by the contradiction which the denial of the Divine Providence did include unto the opinions of the Epicures themselves The Second gross Error or branch of infidelity concerning the Final Judgement was The denial of the Immortality of the human soul And this was accounted an Heresie or impious opinion by the most and hath been exquisitely refuted by the most learned amongst the Heathens The third Error or branch of infidelity concerning the Final Iudgment was The denial ignorance or doubt of the Resurrection of the body or of the whole man as consisting of body and soul And this Error in some degree or other was most general to all the heathen All such as denied either the Divine Providence or the Immortality of the Soul all such as doubted or were ignorant of either of these truths did likewise deny or were doubtful or ignorant of the Resurrection of the body But on the contrary neither all nor most of such as did deny or were ignorant or doubtful of the Resurrection of the body did either deny or were ignorant or doubtful of the immortality of the soul But no marvel if the heathens which did not doubt of the immortality of the soul were altogether or for the most part ignorant of the Resurrection of the body when as in this Church of Corinth which God had visibly graced with many excellent gifts of the Spirit there were some a great sort too many which said There was no Resurrection of the dead and the Thessalonians a people docile and apt to take the impression or most lively character of Christianity a people excelling other Christians in brotherly love were ignorant in part of this great Mystery and from their ignorance or scant measure of knowledge in it did mourn beyond measure for their dead 1 Thess 4. 13 c. Of these Corinthians and Thessalonians and of the Heathens that of our Saviour unto the Sadduces Matth. 22. 29. is most true They therefore erred because they knew not the Scriptures nor the Power of God We are then First To remove that Obstacle of Impossibility which is pretended from Nature and may seemingly be argued by natural and Philosophical Reasons Secondly To set down the manner of the Resurrection and the positive Proofs of it out of the Scriptures or Word of God 3. Albeit none of the heathens did expresly acknowledge such a Resurrection as we believe although the most of them were ready to deny it when it was proposed unto them yet many of them had divers Implicit Notions of it There were though not in any one Sect of their Philosophers yet in divers Sects such scattered Reliques or Fragments of this Eternal Truth as being skilfully put together will represent more then most Christians conceive of it The First Fragment or implicit Notion of it was That antient Opinion fathered upon Pythagoras That the soules of men after their departure from their proper bodies did according to their several demeanors enter into bruit Beasts or other creatures The souls of men which had been given to spoil and raven were in this Philosophers opinion to be imprisoned in the bodies of
indeed would directly follow He that is able to make men live again that have been dead for a thousand years is also able to quicken the corn in the next month which died the last month This kind of Argument would be as clear as if you should say That he that is able to make ready payment of a thousand pounds may soon and easily pay an hundred But you would take it as an impertinent or indiscreet allegation to say I know this man is able to pay you an hundred pounds therefore I would perswade you to take his bond for a thousand But our Apostles Argument in this place may seem less probable and it is at least to appearance but Thus God dayly raiseth up corn within a year after it is sowen Ergo he shall raise up Adams body which was consumed to dust five thousand years ago 6. To frame the Apostles Argument which is an Argument of Proportion aright you must take his Principles or grounds into your consideration Now he first supposeth and takes it as all good Christians ought to do for granted that God doth give that body unto every seed with which it ariseth or cometh out of the ground The increase of things sown or planted is not in his Language or Philosophie the meer Effect or gift of Nature For even Nature her self or whatsoever she hath to bestow is the gift of God That which Philosophers call Nature is in true Divinity nothing else but The Law which God hath set to things natural or subject to change or motion Now he which made this Law whether for guiding bodies sublunary or celestial can dispense with it at his pleasure He sometimes inhibits the ordinary course of the Law of Nature by substraction as it were of his Royal Assent or by suspending the concurrence of his Operative Power And sometimes again he advanceth the state of things natural by creating or making a New Law unto the manner of their Being or of their Operations that is he changeth their Qualities though not their Natures or Essences Thus much presupposed or premised our Apostles Inference is as firm and strong as it is Emphatical Stulte Tu quod Seminas O Fool that which THOU sowest is not quickened except it die c. The force or Emphasis may be gathered thus If God doth give a body unto that seed which thou sowest for thine own use and benefit much more will the same God give a body to The Seed which He Himself doth sow much more will he quicken it after it hath been dead seeing the End why he sowes it is not thy temporal benefit or commodity but His Own immortal glory When God did enact that severe Law from which death natural takes its original Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return the Intent or purport of that Law was not that man by returning to dust should utterly or finally perish and be for ever as if he never had been What then was the intent or purport of this Law That mans body should be committed unto the earth as seed is committed to the ground that as the corn which springs out of the earth returns to earth again and is still raised up with advantage and increase unto the Sower So the bodies of men after that by the first mans folly they became corruptible and certain to suffer corruption whether in the earth in the air or in the Sea might be raised again but not to corruption that God may receive the seed which is sown with increase of Glory to himself this increase of Glorie being rooted in the increase of their happiness by whose immortalitie he is immediately glorified Thus much of the former difficulty to wit how our Apostles Instance or experiment in the work of nature doth infer his intended Conclusion to wit the future Resurrection from the dead And from the Solution of this Former the Second may easily be assoyled 7. The second Difficulty was How this Instance or Experiment of the Corn dying and being quickened again can fit or parallel the Resurrection of the body seeing the Corn which is quickened or springeth up is not The same body which was sown Whereas it is a Point of our Belief that the same numerical bodies which die and return to dust or are resolved into ashes or into the Elements of which they consist shall be raised up at the last day For if The Body raised up were not the self same that died the Body which died should not be parttaker either of pain or joy everlasting but another Bodie should be tormented or glorified instead of the Body which died Every man should not receive reward or punishment according to that which he had done in the body or at least this reward or punishment should not be received in the same Body in whhic he had done ill or well Aquinas a Great School-man in his time labours to assoyl the proposed Difficultie by framing the Apostles Argument Thus. If Nature can repair that which dies Idem Specie that is If Nature can make it to be of the same Kind it was though not the same numerical body it was as he that sows Wheat reaps Wheat not Rie or Barley though not the self same grains of Wheat which he sows Then The God of nature and Creator of all things shall raise up the bodies of men which are his seed and proper husbandry the very self same which they were not the self same for kind or specifical Unity but the same Individuals Of all the bodies which have died not one shall miscarry not so much as a hair of any mans head or any least part of his body shall finally perish But though all this be True yet is it Impertinent it fals not within the compass of our Apostles Inference in this place who neither affirms nor denies nor took it so much as into his consideration whether the Corn which springs up be the same Individual Nature or substance which did putrifie and die in the ground The utmost Circumference of his considerations or thoughts extends no further then thus That the Body which God doth give to every seed is not for qualitie the same which was sown for it was sown Bare Corn without blade husk or ear and loseth that corpulencie or quantitie which it had But it springs not up bare Corn. The new life which it gets in the womb of the earth is cloathed with a fresh body capable of nourishment and growth of both which it was uncapable whilst it was severed from the ear wherein it grew or after the stalk was cut down And This Change or alteration in the Corn sown and springing up doth well fit the Change or alteration which shall be wrought in our Bodies at the Resurrection or last day Our bodies by death become more uncapable of nourishment then the corn severed from the ear or cut down for they are utterly deprived of life of sense of
it is fitting that we refer the particular manner how our bodies shall be intirely restored unto God himself We will not dispute whether the Resurrection of every man in his own body shall be wrought de facto by recollecting of the dust into which men are turned or of the same material parts which every man had when he died or whether it shall be wrought by Creation of some new matter or only by preparing some other Elementary matter prae-existent and working it into the same individual temper or constitution into which our bodily food or nutriment was wrought whilst we lived It sufficeth to have shewed that every man may arise with his own body by any of the former wayes or partly by one partly by another Lastly the Recollection of the same material fragments or reliques into which our bodies are dissolved is no more necessary by the Principles of nature or true Philosophie unto the constitution of the same bodies at the day of the Resurrection which before have been then the recollection or regresse of the same matter or nutriment whereof our blood or flesh was made or by which our life was preserved in childhood is unto the continuance or constitution of the same life flesh or blood in old age The life of every man in old age is the same the body the same the flesh the same the blood the same which it was it childhood albeit the blood or greatest part of our bodies in childhood was made of one kind of nutriment and the blood which we have in mature or old age be made of another much different nutriment Yea albeit we alter our food or diet every year yet our bodies remain still the same every finger the same whilst it continues in the body and whilst this bodily life continues For albeit the nutriment be of divers kinds yet nature or the digestive facultie works all into one temper and this temper continues the same in divers portions of the matter which is continually fluent and the same only by Equivalencie Now if nature by Gods appointment and co-operation can work divers kinds of food or nutriment into the same form or constitution it will be no improbable supposall to say that The God of nature can work any part of the Element of water of ayre or of earth any fragment or relique of Adams body into the same individual form or mould wherein the bodily life of the man that shall be last dead before Christs coming to Judgement did consist Yet will it be no hard thing for God to make Adam the self same body wherein he died out of the reliques of this mans body To work this mutual exchange between the material parts of several mens bodies without any hinderance or impeachment to the numerical Identity of any mans body or without any prejudice to this truth That every man shall arise with his own body which we Christians believe is impossible to nature or to any natural causes they can be no Agents in this work yet it is no wayes impossible for it implyeth no contradiction for nature thus to be wrought and fashioned by the Creator and preserver of mankind In avouching thus much we say no more then some I take it meer Philosophers have delivered in other Termes Quicquid potest prima causa per secundam idem potest per se sola Whatsoever the first cause doth by the instrumental Agencie or service of second causes the same he may do by his sole Power without the service of any instrumental or second cause Now God by the heart by the Liver and by the digestive facultie as by causes instrumental or secondary doth change the substance of herbs of fruits of fish of roots into the very substance of mans body without dissolving the unitie of his bodily life and therefore if it please him may change the material parts of one man into another mans body or substance without the help or instrumental service of the nutritive or digestive faculty or any other instrumental cause All this he may do immediatly by His sole Power But whether it be His Will so to do or no at the last day be it ever reserved with all reverence and submission to his infinite wisdom alone 9. One scruple more there is wherewith ingenuous minds and well affected may be sometimes touched The doubt may be framed Thus. Although it be most true and evident from the Book of nature that the natural or digestive faculty of man doth preserve the unitie of bodily life entire by diversitie of mater or nutriment yet the living body so preserved is one and the same by continuation of existence or duration His dayes whilst natural life continues are not cut off by death he doth not for a moment cease to be what he was But when we speak of Resurrection from death when we say the dead shall arise with their own bodies here is a manifest interruption of bodily life or of mans duration in bodily life His body ceaseth to be a living body as it was And therefore if he must live again in the body the body to which his soul shall be united at his Resurrection may be called his own body because it shall be inhabited or possessed with his immortal soul but how shall it be The same body which he formerly had seeing the existence or duration of him or of his soul in the body is divided by death and division destroyeth unitie This leaf or paper is one yet if we divide it in the middle it is no more one but two papers The question then comes to this short and perspicuous issue Whether the uninterrupted continuance of duration or existence or unitie of time wherewith the duration of mans life is measured be as necessary to the Unitie or Identity of his bodily Nature or Being as Unitie or Continuation of Quantitie is unto the Unitie of Bodies divisible or quantitative The determination or Judgment is easie The Book of Nature being Judge it is evident That Unitie of Time or continuation of mans life without interruption is but Accidental to the unitie of bodily nature or being It is a circumstance only no such part of the Essence or nature as continuation or unitie of quantitie is of the unitie of bodies divisible for time and quantitie are by nature divisible whereas the nature of man or other things that exist in time is indivisible It is true Division makes a pluralitie in things that are by nature divisible but not in natures indivisible Every thing that is divisible though it be unum actu yet it is plura in potentiâ In that it may be divided it is not purely simply or altogether one but may be made two or more And whilst it remains one it is one by conjunction of parts The entire substance of any natural bodie as it is divisible or subject to dimension cannot be contained under one part of quantitie but part of it is
contained under one part of quantitie part of it under another For Omne quantum habet partem extra partem and in that regard is divisible The whole substance divisible cannot subsist but in the whole quantitie or measure The higher and lower parts of a tree or pillar have no unitie betwixt themselves but as both are united to the middle parts If it be divided in the middle the union and unity is lost after the division made it is not one but two one division makes its two two divisions makes it three But in bodies sensible or vegetable considered as parts of the nature or essence of such Bodies the case is quite otherwise A man is the same man the self same bodily substance or vegetable this year which he was three years ago and his bodily substance this year is not therefore one and the same with the bodily substance which he had three years ago because it is one with the bodily substance which he had the last year but intirely one and the same in all We cannot say that part of his bodily nature was existent in the first year part in the second year and part in the third year for his whole bodily nature was intirely in the first year and in every part or hour of the first year The same bodily nature was intirely in every hour of the second year and so in every hour of the third year For though mans body be divisible in quantitie though his duration be likewise divisible yet his bodily nature is indivisible and intirely the same in every moment of its own duration And for this Reason Although death may make a division or interruption in its duration or existence yet it makes no pluralitie or division in its nature in what part of time soever his nature gets new existence it is intirely and indivisibly the same it was 10. The former Instance drawn from the Divisibilitie of a bodie subject to quantitie or dimension would hold much better Thus. As one part of such a body being separated from the rest suppose a branch or slip of a tree being united to another tree by inoculation or ingrafting remains the self same substance it was though it now exist not in the same tree but in another So the bodily substance of man though cut off by death from the company of the living and severed from all co-existence with the things which now are may be the self same substance which it sometimes was although it get no co-existence with the things which now are but with the substances which shall be many hundred years hence it may be at that time the same which formerly it was as truly and properly as if it had continued its co-existence or actual being with the things which now are or actually shall be till it be again As a slip or branch taken from a tree in France and ingrafted in a tree in England is as truly and properly the same branch it was as if it had continued still united to the same tree wherein it did first grow In this later Case there is only A separation of place a pluralitie only of Unitions or Co-existences of the same branch with divers trees no pluralitie of branches Suppose God had cut off Adams dayes on earth at the instant wherein he did eat the forbidden fruit and deferred his replantation in the Land of the living again until these times wherein we live here had been a separation of him from those times wherein he lived many hundred of years here had been a pluralitie of times wherein he lived a pluralitie of his Co-existences with divers times and with divers men no pluralitie of humane natures in Adam His nature might have been one and the same as truly and as indivisibly one and the same in these times distant one from the other by the space of five thousand years as if he had lived from his first creation till the sounding of the last trump unto Judgment And thus much of the Exceptions or Cavils made by Atheists or Infidels against This Article of the Resurrection In which we Christians believe That every man shall arise with his own body the same bodily substance which he had or was whilest he lived here on earth 11. And now for Application or Conclusion let us here suppose that the Atheist as he makes himself worse then a beast whilst he lives on earth could hope to make himself equal to beasts in his death or to be transformed into a swine Imagine he should endeavour to drown his immortal soul in a Tavern or to bury his bodily natural Essence in the Stews suppose his body might by Venus fire or other loathsom fruits of filthy lusts be dissolved into ashes and the ashes of it be dispersed through all the winds Imagine his bones might in some filthy puddle be resolved into slime and become the food or nutriment of crawling toads or of other more venemous creatures The pursuit of these his fearful desperate hopes could nothing avail him they would be at best but as pledges of greater shame and misery to befal him The powerful hand of his Almighty Iudge will raise him up at the last day with the same body which he had exposed to all this shame and misery with the self same body for nature and substance but not the same for qualitie or durabilitie For it shall after death be ten thousand times more capable of pain then in this life it was of pleasure All his bodily pleasures came to an end before he came to an end of his bodily life These alwayes die before he dies that hath wedded himself unto them But his pain shall never die his paines though deadly shall never come to an end These are the endless fruits of that mans short dayes on earth which wholly mispends his time in foolish bodily pleasures or noysom lusts But for the souls of the Righteous whatsoever become of their bodies after death They are still in the hands of God they are wholly at his disposal whether those Bodies wherein they dwelt do fall by the enemies sword or come unto their graves in peace whether they become a prey unto the beasts of the field to the fowls of the Air or to the fishes of the Sea And let us whilst we live establish our souls with this Doctrine of our Apostle And also lay that saying of Tertullian recited before chapter 13. § 9. unto our hearts Consider a teipsum O homo fidem rei invenies Recogita quid fueris antequam esses utique nihil Consider thy self O man and thou shalt find the undoubted truth of what we teach recal to mind if thou canst what thou wast before thou wast and thou shalt find that thou wert nothing Qui non eras factus es cum iterum non eris fies There was a time when thou wast not and yet there was a time wherein thou wast made and albeit the times be now coming
the world and the flesh had been greater than the meer natural man had any the just Lord would not punish them more severely than he doth the heathen or meer natural men for suffering themselves to be vanquished by his enemies They which deny any grace or talent to be always given in baptisme or affirm this Talent to be given onely to some few which are of the number of the Elect either do not understand or do not call to minde what baptisme is Now Baptisme on our part is an Astipulation or promise 1 Peter 3. ver 21. And it is no lesse on Gods part It is a mutual Covenant or Astipulation between God and us And in every Covenant or Astipulation there is Ratio dati et accepti somewhat given and and somewhat taken The giving is properly on Gods part the taking on ours For in true and proper terms we cannot give any thing to God because all we have even we our selves are his by double right by right of creation and redemption Yet it is his pleasure that we in baptisme should sincerely and heartily surrender that unto him which is his own even our selves our souls and bodies And he upon this surrender or vow if it be sincerely made doth give to us that which was not ours even his only son with all the benefits of his death and passion All of us put him on in baptism though not all in the same degree and we may rest assured that God would never presse us in baptisme to fight under the banner of his Son unless he were ready to furnish us with strength with weapons and skill to fight his battails So we will as our Apostle exhorts us yeeld our members unto his service he will teach our hands to War and our fingers to fight and every facultie of our body and soul to do their part 6. The Abstract or Briefe of our Apostles discourse in this chapter is to stir up that Gift of God in these Romans which they had received in baptism or which is all one to animate or incourage them to imploy that talent which God in that Sacrament had concredited unto them unto his glory And this his Exhortation is grounded upon their Profession of dying to sin which they had made in baptisme or upon the assurance of Gods spirit in the sacred War so we will take heart and courage to undertake the fight There is not one branch of this Exhortation from the second verse of this chap. to this one and twentieth but is rooted in one of these two considerations or joyntly in both That all of us in baptisme are dead to sin in that sense which we have shewed before that is by solemn vow or by Professing our death unto it our Apostle infers ver 3. and not onely dead but buried And both this Death and Burial unto sin was solemnly professed not by Word or Vow only but by matter of fact or visible Ceremony then usuall in Baptisme for every one that was baptized seeing all that were baptized were of good years and strength of body to undergo this Ceremony were ter demersi in aquis their whole bodies were plunged thrice in the water to represent their vowed death and buriall unto sin This Ternal demersion of their Bodies as some collect was not only to represent The Holy and blessed Trinitie of the Divine Persons in whose names they were baptized but withall to represent the three several dayes wherein Christ lay buried in the grave Therefore saith the Apostle we are buried with him by Baptisme unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newnesse of life ver 4. 7. The meaning of the former Ceremony was and so of Baptisme to this day is That as Christ did leave the burthen of our sins and put off the form of a servant which for our sakes he undertook in the grave so we by baptisme and buriall into his death should put off the old man or body of sin and be raised unto newness of life and become partakers of his Resurrection unto glory This raising unto newnesse of life by the Sacrament of Baptisme was represented by the safe Ascension of their Bodies out of the water in the which they had been thrice plunged And of our Resurrection unto glory we receive the pledge or earnest when we receive the Grace of Regeneration that is the Grace which enables us to walk in newnesse of life And this is called the First Resurrection without which no man shall be partaker of the second unto Glory Now that all such as are truly buried with him by baptisme into death that is all such as observe and perform their vow made in baptisme shall undoubtedly be partakers of his Resurrection unto Glory the Apostle inferres ver 5. For if we have been planted together in the likenesse of his death we shall be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection and vers the sixth Knowing this that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin For he that is dead is free from sin ver 7. that is He that is dead to sin in this life is freed from the life or reign of sin For it is observable that he doth not say if we have been planted together in his death but if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death It is not required that we should die the death of the body as Christ did but to die as Isaac did in the similitude and figure of his death that is we should die to sin or crucifie that sin in us for which Christ was crucified And as it is not required that we should die the death of the body in baptisme so is it not to be expected that we should forthwith be raised unto that glory whereunto he rose but to be raised unto A similitude or likeness of it that is unto newness of life which is the First Resurrection And of this Resurrection we shall not fail to be actual partakers by vertue of baptisme if we be rightly implanted into the similitude of his death for so the Apostles words are If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection But what is it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 planted together or with whom are we planted we Gentiles together with the Jews So some conjecture But the more ancient and better exposition is that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Christ planted together with Him yet not so planted together with him as one tree is planted together by another Arbor inter or juxta Arbores each having its several root But as Christ was planted by his death and burial and consecrated to be the root of life So we likewise should be planted by Baptisme in Him to die
shelter of his ey lids which his cruell enemies for increasing his pain and lingring torture had cut off Others again which wanted no contentment either of the outward or internal senses have died through meer grief and sorrow first conceived either from losse of goods or friends or for fear of disgrace and shame and some through excessive and suddain joy So that in this life it is universally true and undoubtedly experienced in all the bodily senses and most other faculties of the soul Nullum violentum est Perpetuum There is no grief no pain or sorrow whether inflicted by external Agents or whether it breeds within us or be hatched by the reflection of our own thoughts upon others wrongs or our own oversights or misdeeds but if it be violent or excessive it becomes like a raging flame which both devours the subject whereon it exerciseth its efficacie and puts an end to its own Being by destroying that fuel which fed it 7. This then is the propertie of the second death and the miserable condition of such as must receive the wages of sin That after the Resurrection of the body the capacitie aswell of the bodily senses as of other faculties are so far improved so far inlarged that no extremity of any external Agent no virulency of any disease which breeds within them no strength of imagination or Reflection upon what they have in time past foolishly done or what they suffer for the present or may justly fear hereafter can either dissolve or weaken their passive capacities or strength to indure the like Every facultie becomes more durable then an Anvil to receive all the blows that can be fastned upon them and all the impressions how violent soever which in this life would in an instant dissolve or dead them So that the second death as is said before is a life or vivacitie continually to sustain deadly pains The Dimensions of this death may be deduced to these three heads First to the intensiveness of the pain or grief which is more extream then any man in this life can suffer because the capacities of every sense or passive facultie are in a manner infinitely inlarged and so is the strength or violence of external Agents and the sting of conscience or perplexed thoughts wonderfully increased Secondly to the duration of all those punishments for it is a death everlasting Lastly to the uncessant perpetuitie of these everlasting pains for they are not inflicted by fits but without all intermission though but for a moment There is not an ill day and a good not an ill hour and a good not an ill minute and a good not an ill moment and a good in hell All times are extreamly evil varietie of torments breed no ease Thus much appeared by the Parable of the rich glutton who could not obtain so much of Abraham as a drop of water to cool his tongue which if it had been granted could not have effected any intermission or intercision of pain nor any abatement for the present which would not have inraged the flame as much in the next moment So that such as suffer the second death know not how to ask any thing for their good because indeed nothing can do them any good but all things even their own wishes conspire unto their harme and increase their wo and miserie 8. Some taking occasion from this Parable have moved a question not much necessarie whether the fire of hell be material fire or no that is such as may palpably or visibly scorch the body and torment the outward senses Sometimes this fire is described by a flame as in the Parable of the rich glutton sometimes by the blackness of darkness as in Saint Jude It is not the flame or visibilitie of this fire which argues it to be material the flame is least material in our fire And palpable it may be though not visible But with this question I will not meddle being impossible to be determined without sight or experience which God grant we never have It shall suffice therefore in brief to shew how this fire or rather the pains of the second death are decyphered or displayed in Scripture Now As the joyes of Heaven are set forth unto us under such Emblemes or representations as are visible or known unto us and yet we do not beleive that they are formally or properly such as these shadows or pictures represent but rather eminently contain the greatest joyes that by these representations we can conceive or imagine So we are bound to beleive That the pains of Hell are at least either properly and formally such as the Scripture describes them to be or more extream and violent then if they were such as the characters which the holy Ghost hath put upon them do without Metaphor import or signifie More extream they are then flesh and blood in this life could endure for a minute For as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven so neither can they endure or inherit the kingdom of Satan there must be a change of this corruptible nature before it be capable of these everlasting pains So much the description of it in holy Scripture doth import The first and that a Terrible description of it is Esai 30. 33. Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared the pile thereof is fire and much 〈◊〉 the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it The like but more terrible hath Saint John Rev. 20. 10. The Divel that deceived them was cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever and as he adds ver 14. This lake of fire is the second death And Saint Jude tels us that The destruction of Sodom and Gommorrah and the cities about them is set forth as an example or type of this eternal fire that is such fearful torments as that people suffered for a moment the damned shall suffer in hell eternally The ruines of Sodom and Gomorah and the dead sea or brimstone Lake wherein neither fish nor other creature liveth was left unto all future ages to serve as a map or picture of that lake of fire and brimstone which Saint Iohn mentions that is of Hell Now the very steam of such a Lake would stifle or torment flesh and blood to death in a moment the outward senses are not capable of its first impressions 9. Some School-men have moved A more pertinent Question whether this punishment of sense which or the instrumental mean of which is thus described unto us by a Lake of fire and brimstone be greater or lesse then the Poena damni that is Whether their imprisonment or confinement to Hell and their subjection to tormenting Fiends be worse then their Exclusion out of Heaven and the perpetual loss of Gods joyful presence The most Resolve That Poena damni the loss of Gods
reckoning of it That part which we account as present is equally divided between death and us Not unconsonantly to that of David Psalm 103. 15. The dayes of man are but as grasse He flourisheth as a Flour of the Field As soon as the wind goeth over it it is gone c. Or to that of Job Man that is born of a woman is of few dayes and full of trouble he cometh forth like a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not The Addition or Comment upon this in our Liturgie is That in the midst of life we be in death that is we die as fast as we live The first part of our life is the beginning of our death and death it self differs from life but as the Point doth from the Line which it terminates or as the line doth from the surface or the surface from the body whose surface it is Mors ultima line a rerum est The whole course of our life is full of interpunctions or Commaes death is but the Period or full point Take it at the very best it is in respect of true life or stedfast Being but as the Reflex or Image of a star in a flowing stream The seat or subject of life doth not continue the same it was no not for a moment it is but one by continuation or fresh supply of the like As an Army is said to be the same which consists of the like number of men though most of the Commanders and Souldiers of the first levie be slain So Darius the Persian had a Legion which they called Immortal because it was continually supplied with the like number of new Souldiers when the old ones failed For the same reason some have compared the life of man unto a Lamp which burneth so long as it hath supply of oyl but is presently extinguished when the oyl doth fail And indeed as the oyl and light is to the Lamp wherein the one is contained the other shineth so is the natural heat and moisture unto the soul especially as to life sensitive But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption our souls shall then be in our glorified bodies as light is in the stars in their proper sphere Our life shall be one and the same not by continuation or succession of bodily parts So as this first life and that other life which we expect differ for their Tenure and manner as the representation or figure of the Sun in the water and the Sun in its sphere The Tenure of the one is fluent and transitory The Tenure of the other is solid and permanent And proportionable to this difference of their Tenures or durations are the different joyes or contentments If all the possible contentments in this life suppose they were far more in number then they are were put together they could not equalize the Contentments of one minute in the life to come 3. Our desires in this life are vast and our capacities to enjoy the good of what we desire but narrow and slender They consort no better than a decrepit gluttons eye or appetite with his digestive facultie Now it is a miserie to have vast or strong desires and not to be able to give them satisfaction most miserable to take those courses which exclude them from possibilitie of satisfaction Hence an Heathen Philosopher took the want or Emptinesse of this miserie to be the compleat Sphere of true happinesse and out of this conceit defined a happy man briefly this Beatus est qui vivit ut vult He is happy or blessed which hath all the contentments that he desires or wishes But St. Austine tells us that another Heathen whom he names not but whose saying he often applauds corrected this Definition thus Beatus est qui vivit ut vult modo nihil velit quod non debet He is a happy man that hath all that he desireth so he desire nothing but what he ought to desire And certain it is that the former Definition without this Correction comes far short of that true happiness which is contained in everlasting life or which all men by nature confusedly desire For a man in this life may have every thing which in this life his heart desires and yet not have his hearts desire This no man can have in this life nor doth the meer natural man find the way or entrance to it See Christs Answer to Johns Disciples pag. 17. Solomon had tried as great varietie of particular contentments as any man living can project unto himself and yet after long experience of every particular that he could propose unto himself gives up this general verdict Vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation of mind Yet is this vanitie seated in the unsetled and fluctuant desires of man not in the things themselves which he desires for these have their right Use so they be referred to their proper End which is no other then true happiness and no man can have his hearts desire until his heart do pitch and settle on this as its Center Hence some would Define True happiness to be Plenitudo desideriorum the full satisfaction of our desires This all seek after without cessation and some print some Sent or rellish of it we find in most desires of it Somewhat there is in the right use of every Creature which would lead us the right way unto it did we not run Counter striving to make up a full measure of joy by the abundant fruition of these materials wherein we delight Whereas the delight and contentment which we find in any Creatures should turn our thoughts from them unto the inexhaustible fountain whence all the goodness that we find in them or in our selves is derived The neerer we draw to him the neerer we are to true happiness truly happy we cannot be until we enjoy his presence Irrequietum est cor nostrum ad te Domine donec quiescat in te Our hearts are restless in the pursuit of happiness until they rest in thee O Lord. 4. The first step to happiness which we can make is to be perswaded That true happinesse cannot in this life be obtained Our Senses are uncapable of the Accidental joyes or concomitant glory which attend this happiness And our Reasonable Soul how magnificently soever Philosophers speak of its nature is more uncapable of Essential joy and happiness That consists in the Fruition or enjoyment of the Divine Nature which is Happiness it self All the Contentments of this life will serve to no other use then to be as a Foyl to set forth the happinesse of the life to come All the Contentments possible of this life are entertained either by our bodily Senses or by the internal faculties of our Souls Now by the discovery of the imperfections of such Contentments we may ascend by degrees to some competent Scale or view for discovering the perfection of Joyes in the Life to come
you see how the terrour of the last day or fear of everlasting death must work in us an Abstinence from evil or repentance for evil past as the Hope of Everlasting Life doth work patience and constancie in persecution Yet both parts of that brief Receipt Sustine et Abstine may be effected by our serious meditation upon either branch of our belief concerning life and death everlasting For if all the sufferings of this life be not worthy of or equivalent unto the glory which shall be revealed in us we must needs be worthy of and obnoxious to everlasting death if we do not with patience suffer persecution in this life rather then hazard our hopes of Life Eternal Again if the sufferance of everlasting death be much worse then the suffering of all persecutions possible in this life our not repentance at the Terrour of it doth make us uncapable of everlasting life Our hopes of avoiding it by repentance if they be sound and firm will animate and in a manner impell us to follow the wayes of life to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance 4. Seeing then we are thus invironed on the right hand and on the left having the hopes of Eternal Life set before us to encourage us to constancy and resolution and are so strongly beset with inevitable fear of everlasting death if like faint hearted souldiers we should retreat or revoke our vow in Baptisme may not the Lord in Justice take up that complaint against us which sometimes he did against Jerusalem and Judah What could I have done more for my vineyard that I have not done unto it Other means to make men either good men or good Citizens the old world knew none nor could the wit of the wisest Law-givers devise any besides poena et praemium Reward and punishment Now what Kingdom or Common-wealth had either so bountiful Rewards or so dreadful punishments proposed unto them as we Christians have What then is the reason why we of all others are more defective in good duties most fruitful in evil lesse observant or more desperate transgressors of our Princes Lawes then the subjects or Citizens of any other well governed Kingdoms ever were how often do we pawn our hopes of everlasting life upon less occasions then Esau did his birth-right and set Christ our acknowledged Lord and Redeemer to sale at a lower price then Judas did The original of this our desperate neglect or contempt must either be misbelief or unbelief of the Reward promised to well doing or of the Punishment threatned to evil doers And it would be a point very hard to determine Whether of such as make any conscience of their wayes especially since the reformation of Religion more have miscarried through misbelief or through unbelief of this Great Article of our Creed Everlasting life and everlasting death Our Misbelief for the most part concerns the Article of everlasting life Of everlasting death we are rather unbelievers then misbelievers Misbelief alwayes includes a strong belief but the stronger our belief the more dangerous it is if it be wrested or misplaced and the worst way we can misplace our belief of heavenly joyes is when we make our selves certain of our salvation before our time or ranke our selves amongst the elect or heirs not disinheritable of the heavenly kingdom before we have made our Election sure 5. As the absolute infallibilitie of the present Romish Church doth make up the measure of heathenish Idolatry or iniquity So the immature belief of our own salvation or Election doth make up the measure of Jewish or Pharisaical Hypocrisie The manner how it doth so is this If no covetous if no sacrilegious person if no slanderer of his brethren or reviler of his betters can enter into the Kingdom of heaven as it is certain they cannot untill they repent then no man which is certain of his salvation can perswade himself or be perswaded that he is a covetous or sacrilegious person that he is a slanderer of his brethren or a reviler of his betters and hence the Conclusion arising from the Premisses is inevitable that albeit such men as presume of their Election or salvation before their time before they be throughly sanctified do all that covetous or sacrilegious men do be continual slanderers or malicious revilers of their brethren yet it is impossible that they should suspect much less condemn themselves of these crimes until they correct their former errours and rectifie their misbelief or presumption of their immutable estate in grace Yea their errour not being corrected makes them confident in these wicked practises and causes them to mistake hatred to mens persons or envy to others good parts for zeal to Religion and stubbornness in Schisme and faction for Christian charitie or good affection unto truth And if any man of better insight in the Stratagems of Satan shall go about to detect their error or convince them by strength of Reason grounded upon Scripture that their mis-perswasions do branch into Blasphemie and can bring forth no better fruit then Pharisaical hypocrisie yet they usually requite his pains as that young Spanish spark did the Physician which had well nigh cured him of a desperate Phrensie no sooner had he brought him to know what he was indeed no more then a Page though to a great Duke or Grandee of Spain but the Youth instead of a Fee or thankful acknowledgement began to revile and curse the Physician for bringing him out of a pleasant dream of golden mountains much richer then the King of Spain had any it seemed as a kind of hell unto him to see himself to be but a Page who in his raving fits had taken upon him to create Dukes and Earls and to exercise the Acts of Royal Authoritie Very much like him in Horace Epistol Libr. 2. Ep. 2. Fuit haud ignobilis Argis Qui se credebat miros audire Tragoedos In vacuo laetus sessor plausorque Theatro Hic ubi cognatorum opibus curisque refectus Expulit helleboro morbum bilemque meraco Et redit ad sese pol me occidistis amici Non servastis ait cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus Error But with the Originals of Mis-belief besides what is said in our Fifth Book of Comments upon the Creed in this particular we shall have fitter occasion to meet hereafter And the greater part of men amongst us I am perswaded offend more in Unbelief then in Mis-belief 6. And by Unbelief lest we should be mistaken we understand somewhat less then the lowest degree of Infidelity Now of Infidels there be two degrees or ranks Infideles Contradictionis and Infideles purae Negationis He is an Infidel in the former sense that contradicts or opposeth the truth of Scriptures especially concerning Everlasting Life and Everlasting Death and such Infidels I presume there are none amongst us He is an Infidel in the Later Sense that doth not believe the
tast of it he shall be saved without addition of any other Grace besides that which it is supposed he hath Is it then apparent that a man may fall from that Grace or lose the Tast of that Grace in which if he did continue or not lose the Tast of it he should be saved Yes This is as clear as the day light For whosoever doth continue in the Participation of the Holy Ghost or doth not lose the Tast of the heavenly Gift or of the Powers of the World to come shall never perish shall be saved Impossible it is that any man should enter into the estate of death or of reprobation so long as he hath the Tast of the life to come implanted in his heart and spirit and this is for nature and quality saving Grace But some that have tasted of this Grace do utterly lose the tast of it and so fall from Grace in it self sufficient to save their souls For though all that lose this tast do not sin against the Holy Ghost yet no man can sin against the Holy Ghost until he lose this tast and yet no man can lose this tast but he that hath had it The Conclusion then is most pregnant that it is more possible or a shorter passage for a man to fall from seving Grace or to lose the tast of it then to sin against the Holy Ghost The most useful meditations then will be to discover the Means whereby such as once have had the tast of the heavenly Grace do come to lose it with their several degrees and these are divers 5. First It is to be supposed that God doth by his Spirit infuse this tast into mens souls not continually or uncessantly But as we say by Fits or Turns This tast of the powers of the Life to come is sometimes Transient we cannot have it when we list but must expect Gods providence and attend his pleasure for the renewing of it and crave the assistance of his Spirit for producing it by humble supplication and prayer Want of the due esteem of it whilst we have it negligence in the duty of prayer and other Godly exercises doth deprive us of it when we might have had it renewed in us God doth not promise that any shall injoy this pearl besides such as diligently seek after it And when they have found it or rather when it hath found them do duly prize it And as this Tast of eternal life is often for a time lost or much prejudiced by meer negligence in sacred duties so it may be choaked and stifled by errors or misperswasions which insinuate themselves into mens thoughts or phantasies after they have been partakers of it Many there be which will unfeignedly acknowledge that the pledge or Earnest of Eternal Life which they have received is of more worth and value then all the pleasures or contentments of this world which can oppose or countersway the desires of it And yet the same men through the sleights and subtilty of Satan play but the Sophisters with their own souls Thus Assuming or Resolving That albeit the tast of the heavenly Gift be more to be desired then all the temporal contentments which are incompatible with it yet the Tast of these heavenly joyes and the contentments of this life which may be enjoyed with it are better then it alone for One good how little soever being added to another how great soever makes some addition of goodness Thus many covetous men and oppressors will easily be perswaded that they may increase their temporal estate without any forfeiture of their estate in Gods spiritual blessings The ambitious or aspiring mind thinks he may glorifie God more by his high place or dignitie in Church or Common-wealth then by continuing a private and retired life As for the drunkard the glutton and the lascivious man they seldom are perswaded that they may continue their wonted courses and enjoy the Tast of the heavenly Gift And for this reason many that have been subject to these sins have been more easily won to the love of truth and of saving grace then the Proud the Covetous the Ambitious or Envious men are because the one in his sober thoughts fore-sees the danger and acknowledgeth his sins whereas the other rejoyceth continually in his courses without suspition of danger 6. Or if the covetous or ambitious mind sometimes suspects his wayes yet being ingaged to pursue them lest he might be thought to have varied in his course of life the best repentance which he usually attains unto is but like his in the Poet Id primum si facta mihi revocare liceret Non coepisse fuit caepta expugnare Secundum est If I were to begin the world again I should happily make choice of another kind of life but being ingaged the next point is to make the best of that course of life which I have chosen And yet the more he makes of it the worse he speeds in it in the main chance the more he prejudiceth the Habitual or Actual Tast of Eternal life for the more we are accustomed to any course of life the more we delight in it and are weaned from it with greater difficultie And yet we must be weaned even from the world it self before we can rightly Tast the sincere milk of the Gospel or be capable of that strong meat which is contained in this Article of Eternal Life and others concerning Christ by which The Tast of this Life must be fed and nourished So that of all sins pride covetousness and Ambition are the most dangerous both because they be of more credit or less infamie in the world and because they multiply their Acts the most and may work uncessantly But though it be for the most part as true of these times wherein we live as it was in the days of our Saviours conversation here on earth that Publicans and open sinners are oftentimes neerer to the Kingdom of heaven then many which live a more sober or civil life but yet are covetous vain-glorious or envious as the Scribes and Pharisees were yet there is no man that sets his heart to Tast of any unlawful pleasures though of those pleasures which in his sober thoughts he condemnes but doth hereby weaken or dead his Tast of the food of Life and make himself subject to former temptations whensoever they shall assault him However in the absence of temptations they may seem unto themselves and unto others to repent yet when fresh ones arise they usually come to the same vent at which the affections of that incestuous wanton in the Poet broke out when she said Denique non possum innoxia dici Quod superest multum est in vota in crimina parvum I am an offender already and if I shall go on but a little this may give greater satisfaction unto my desires then it can adde unto the measure of my sin But voluntarily to give satisfaction to
came to Elijah the Tishbite saying seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me for he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly because he humbleth himself before me I not will bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Such was that Message which Hulda the prophetesse delivered unto Josiahs messengers But to the King of Judah which sent you to enquire of The Lord thus shall ye say to him Thus saith the Lord God of Israel as touching the words which thou hast heard because thine heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this place and against the inhabitants thereof that they should become a desolation and a curse and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me I also have heard thee saith the Lord Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace and thine eye shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place Yet did the arrowes of Israels and Judahs most inveterate enemies the arrowes of the Aramites and Aegyptians make violent entrance for death into both these Princes bodies long before the time by ordinary course of nature prefixed for dispossession of their souls How then should life be unto Baruch as a welcome Prey being to be fully charged with all these hard conditions and bitter grieviances whose release or avoidance made untimely bloody death become A kind of gracious Pardon unto Ahab and a grateful Boon or Booty to good Josias For what evil did the Lord either threaten or afterward bring upon Iosiahs posteritie or people which Baruchs eyes did not behold Nor did this lease of life and libertie here bequeathed unto him expire till long after Jerusalems glasse was quite run out till after her whitest Towers were covered with dust and all the cities of Judah and Benjamin laid wast till the King the Princes and nobles were led captives or slain and the remnant which War had left in Iudah as a gleaning after harvest disperst and sowen throughout the Land of Egypt never to be reapt but by the Sword which even there pursues them excepting a very small number that escaped Ierem. 44. 28. And what greater evil could Iosias's eyes have seen though he had lived as long as Baruch The Difficulty therefore seems unanswerable How life should be a more grateful prey unto Baruch then it might have been unto Josias 6. But here if we rightly distinguish the Times the Persons and Offices We may easily derive the violent shortning of good Josias his dayes and this lengthening of Baruch's to see the evil which Josias desired rather to be sightless then to see from one and the same loving kindness of the Lord. Josias we must consider was The Great Leader of Gods People and could not but wish their Fall should be under some other then himself It was a Donative more magnificent then the long reign of Augustus that being slain in warre he should go to his grave in peace For this included his peoples present safety whose extirpation had been till this time deferred for his sake though now at length he must be taken out of the way that the Messengers of Gods wrath which could forbear no longer may have a freer passage throughout the Land No marvel if after thirtie one years raign in prosperitie and peace he patiently suffered violent death being thus graced with greater honour then either Codrus the last King of Athens or the Roman Decius purchased by voluntary sacrificing themselves for their people Perhaps the plagues which these men feared might otherwise have been avoided Or it may be the fear it self was but some vain delusion of Satan alwayes delighted with such sacrifices But that Ierusalem and Iudah standing condemned before Iosias's birth were so long reprieved so well intreated for his sake we have the great Judges Sentence for our warrant And therefore the Word of The Lord which Huldah the Prophetess had sent must needs seem good to him It was a message more unwelcome then such a death as Iosias suffered which Isaias brought to his great Grand-father Hezekiah lately delivered from the Assyrian and miraculously restored to life but more forward to receive Presents from Berodash King of Babylon then to render praise and thanksgiving to his God according to the Reward bestowed upon him Behold the dayes come saith Isaias that all that is in thine house and that which thy Fathers have laid up in store unto this day shall be carried unto Babylon nothing shall be left saith the Lord. And of thy sons which shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget shall they take away and they shall be Eunuchs in the Palace of the King of Babylon Doth he repine or mutter at this ungrateful Message No But with great submission replies Good is the Word of the Lord which Thou hast spoken And he said Is it not good if peace and truth be in my dayes Isaiah 39. 8. Shall we hence collect that this Good King was of that wicked Tyrants mind who as he had shortened her dayes from whom he had beginning of life so did he envie his Mother Nature should survive him wishing the world might be dissolved at his death and that Old Chaos might be his Tomb God forbid we should wrong the memory of so Gracious a Prince by the least suspicion of such ungracious thoughts Rather his heart did smite him for shewing his Treasury his Armory and other provision wherein he had gloried too much unto the King of Babels Messengers This sin he knew to be such as his Father Davids had been in numbring the Hosts of Israel The plagues now threatened by his God he could not but acknowledge to be most just and great therefore must his mercy toward him needs seem to be in that for his sake who had so ill requited this strange Delivery and Recovery he would yet deferre them But seeing the wickedness of Manasseh and the mighty encrease of this peoples iniquity from Hezekiah's death did earnestly sollicit the Day of Visitation the former adjourning of it must cost Iosiah dear And Gods Arrows being flesht in him No marvel if they return not empty from the blood of the slain or from the fat of the mighty Having begun with so good A King it might well be expected they would make an end of so naughty a people This was he of whom not the people only but the Prophet hath said Under his shadow we shall be safe As he was a shadow without question of that Great Shepheard which was to be smitten ere the flock were scattered upon the occasion of whose death his Disciples likewise said We trusted it had been he which should have redeemed Israel And for Josias to become the true shadow or the bloody
die then to pollute the Sabbath by making up the breaches made in their wals or fortifications as ye may gather 1 Maccab. 2. And Plutarch in his Book De Superstitione taxes them for their Follie. As Iuvenal Satyr 14. scornes them for observing the Rest of the Day Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem Judaica ediscunt quae jura volumine Moses Tradidit arcano Cui Septima quaeque fuit Lux Ignava partem vitae non attigit ullam Their Fathers sinned grievously in taking that liberty upon the Sabbath which the Law of God had denied them These later Jews sin in refusing to use that liberty which God had in some Cases allowed them or at least in applauding themselves for their strict Reformation and condemning others which in matter of doctrine or practise opposed them And this their Fervent zeal to maintain their own Rigid Reformation did in the issue draw them to worse practises then their Fathers had committed in their grossest prophanation of the Sabbath Their Fathers were not at any time more violently bent against Esay Jeremy or others of Gods Prophets who taxt their scandalous breach of the Sabbath then these later Jews were bent against our Saviour for not complying with them in their Rigid Reformation of former abuses Their Fathers were not more apt to persecute the Prophets as peevish disturbers of their peace by reproving their prophaneness then these later Jews were to persecute our Saviour for a prophane Fellow or Sabbath-breaker for doing works of mercie and charitie upon the Sabbath albeit he wrought all his Cures without any manual labour or servile work 9. The Antient Iews were so delighted in gross Idolatry That they left the house of the Lord God of their Fathers and served Groves and Idols by a common consent of the King and his Princes as you may read 2 Chron. 24. 17. And not herewith content they stoned Zachariah the Son of Jehoida their High-Priest to death in the house of the Lord for opposing their practise or controlling the Kings Licence by a Countermand from the Lord as it is ver 20 21. This was a Prodigious Fact as the later Jews have curiously aggravated it and his blood did crie for vengeance even upon that later generation which thought they had so acurately reformed their Fore-fathers abuses As Our Saviour tels us Luke 11. 51. Verily I say unto you IT to wit the blood of Zacharias shall be required of this generation But how did these Jews make up the measure of their Fathers sins which shed Zacharias blood for disswading them from Idolatry Seeing they did detest this very Fact and the occasions of it By no other means then by Over-prizing their Rigid Reformation and by their distempered Zeal to maintain it against all that should contradict it So farre they sought to root out this sin that they made not only all Causes but all probable or remote Occasions of renewing Idolatry to be matter of death yea they did rather chuse to die themselves then to admit so much as an Image or Picture in their Temple or upon the wals of it though set up but for Historical or Civil use So vehemently did they distaste and loath the very conceit of multiplicity of Gods that this their extream opposition unto the Heathens did so farre mis-sway them as they could not be brought to admit a Distinction of Persons in the Trinity How often did they accuse our Saviour of blasphemy for saying he was the Son of God or God as well as man In fine The cheif matter or occasion which they took to persecute our Saviour unto death was for that he would not consent unto them either for doctrine or practise in their Rigid Reformation of those gross sins which their Fathers had committed or in their uncharitable Expositions of the second and fourth Commandement Hee could not away with their Sabbaths Is 1. 13. To omit other places for the present That one place of St. John chap. 5. shall suffice There you may read ver 8. that he had cured a man by his meer word which had been sick of a grievous infirmitie thirty eight years together But after the Iews knew that it was Iesus which made him whole they sought to slay him because he had done these things on the Sabbath day And when our Saviour makes this Reply Pater meus adhuc operatur ego operor giving them a true Exposition concerning the negative Precept of the Sabbath which did prohibit only works resembling the works of Creation not works resembling Gods everlasting preservation of things created They sought the more to kill him not only because he had broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God Verse 17 18. 10. To Parallel both their misdemeanors with the Issues The Fathers for love unto heathenish and sense-pleasing Idolatry did forsake their God and the service of his house wherein he had promised to dwell These later Jewes for their delight and complacencie in their known freedom from these and the like particular sins of their fathers solemnly forsake and utterly disclaim the same God even when according to his promise made to Moses he had his Tabernacle among them and did walk with them as the ancient Jewes expected their Messias should in visible manner Their fathers slow their High-Priest in the Temple these in killing Christ did destroy the Temple and Tabernacle of God so his body was Thus to forsake or disclaim their Messias they had a plausible pretence or shew of truth That he whom they saw to be a man did take upon him that Authoritie which was proper to God alone For so we read that when he said to one whom he cured of the palsie Be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee The Scribes and Pharisees which were then present began to reason saying who is this that speaketh blasphemy who can forgive sins but God alone And for thus censuring Him they presumed they had the warrant of God himself Isai 43. 25. I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins It was most true what they from this place allege That God alone can forgive sins But from this present miracle and the manner of our Saviours conversation here on earth and their own wicked dealing with him if they had compared these with the words immediately precedent in the Prophet ver 24. they might have gathered that He was that only God which did forgive sins For so the Prophet had said unto Israel in the person of this only God Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities This is One of those many places which even by the Jews confessions were evidently meant of God himself and yet were never literally and punctually fulfilled or verified but of God incarnate For God did never serve with this peoples sins was
Lord to utter these words Or which is all one The fulfilling of his imprecation according to the Mystical sense Third The discussion of such Cases of Conscience or controversed Divinity as are naturally emergent out of the Mystical or Literal sense and are useful for this present or future Ages To begin with the Circumstance of the time wherein they were uttered That apparently was the dayes of King Joash Heir and Successor unto Ahaziah King of Judah who was next Successor save one unto good Jehoshaphat by lineal direct descent but no Successor at all to him in vertue or goodness or happiness of Government For Ahaziah was Pessimi patris haud melier proles a very wicked son of a most wicked father and too hard to say whether he or his Father Jehoram were the worse King or more unfortunate Governour But Joash the Orphan Son of Ahaziah hath the Testimonie of the Spirit of God That he ruled well whilst Jehiiada the High-Priest did live 2 King 12. 2. And his zeal to the House of the Lord recorded at large in this chapter as also in the 2 Kings 12. 4. was so great as more could not be expected or conceived either of Jehoshaphat Hezekiah or good Josiah And thus he continued from the seventh year of his Age until the five or six and thirtieth at the least A competent time a man would think for a full and firm growth in goodness But amongst the Sons and Successors of David we may observe that some begun their Reign very well and ended ill Others being extream bad in their beginning did end better then the other begun So Manasses in the beginning and middle of his Reign filled the City with innocent blood and died a Penitentiary This present King Joash begun and continued his Reign for thirty years or thereabouts in the spirit but ended in the flesh or rather in blood leaving a perpetual stain upon the Throne and Race of David This strange Apostacie or Revolt argues that his fore-mentioned goodness and zeal unto the House of the Lord was Adventitious and not truly rooted in his own brest That the fair Lineaments of a pious man and noble Prince were drawn not by his own skill but by the manuduction of Jehoiada the High-Priest as Children oft-times make fair letters while their Tutors guide their hands but spatter and blot and dash after they be left to their own guidance Jehoiada saith the Text waxed old and was full of dayes an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died and they buried him in the City of David among the Kings because he had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his House The solemnization of his death was a strong Argument of the respect and love which both Prince and People did bear unto him whilst he lived and much happier might both of them have been had they continued the same respect unto his Son and Successor But they buried their love unto Jehoiada and which was worst the zeal which he had taught unto the House of God in his Grave For so it followeth verse 17 18. Now after the death of Jehoiada came the Princes of Iudah and made obeysance to the King Then the King hearkened unto them and he left the House of the Lord God of their Fathers and served Groves and Idols Yet Gods love to them doth not determine with the beginning of their hate unto the House of God and to his faithful Servants For notwithstanding that wrath came upon Iudah and Ierusalem for this their trespasse yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again to the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear And the Spirit of the Lord came upon or cloathed Zechariah the Son of Iehoiada the Priest who stood above the people and said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Commandement of the Lord that ye cannot prosper Because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the Commandment of the King in the Court of the House of the Lord. Thus Ioash the King remembred not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done unto him but slew his Son and when he dyed he said or inter moriendum dixit The Lord look upon it and require it 3. But did the Lord hearken to him or require his blood at the Kings and Princes hands which slew him Yes that he did oftner then once For it was required of their posterity But for the present he did visit both the King and his Princes most remarkably by an unexpected Army of the Syrians unto whose Idolatrous Rites they had now conformed themselves complying too well with them and with their neighbors the Heathen in all sorts of wickedness But here the Polititian will reply That the Syrians did upon other occasions intend to do some mischeif to the King the Princes and People of Judah For it was never unusual to that Nation to vex or molest Israel or Judah Nunc olim quocunque dabant se tempore vires As often as opportunity served as often as they could spy advantage And to assign the Probable or meritorious Causes of such Plagues as befal any Nation by their inveterate enemies unto the Judgment of God for this or that sin is not safe specially for men not endued with the Spirit of Prophecie In many Causes I confess it is not yet in this particular we need not be afraid to say as much as the Spirit of God or sacred authority of his Word hath taught us We say no more as indeed we need not for the point is so plainly and punctually set down by the pen-man of this Book from verse 23. to the 26. as it needs no Comment no paraphrase or marginal conjecture any of which would rather soyl then clear the meaning of the Text. And it came to passe at the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against him and they came to Judah and Ierusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from amongst the people and sent the spoyls of them to Damascus c. 4. The Observations or plain Uses which these Literal Circumstances of this Story afford are many I shall touch upon some principal ones As First To admonish Kings or other supreme Magistrates to reverence and respect their Clergy seeing Ioash did prosper so well while he followed the advice and counsel of the High-Priest Iehoiada but came to this fearful and disastrous end first by contemning the warning of Zechariah the Cheif-Priest and afterward by shedding of the innocent blood of this great Prophet of the Lord. But this will be a common place not so proper to this time and place wherein we live wherein there is such happy accord between the supream Majestie and the Prelacie and Clergie of this Kingdom as no good Patriot can desire more then the continuance of it
nature in the veins that inclosed it Albeit we may with good probability presume that Zachariah's blood if we consider the manner of his death might continue by Gods permission or appointment farre above the time that any Ordinary Experience can testifie More strange it is which Ecclesiastical Writers report of this Prophets body that being crushed with stones it should be found otherwise intire and uncorrupt in the dayes of Theodosius which was above a thousand years after his death Unless they had greater Occasion then I can conceive to lie I neither dare distrust this Report of theirs nor the other Tradition of the Jews by whose account the stain of His blood remained a greater part of two hundred years in the Temple However we may with good probability conclude that the true Reason why our Saviour mentioned Zachariah's death as one special Cause of Ierusalems last destruction was not because he was the last or one of the last of the Prophets that had been murthered by the Scribes and Pharisees Fore-elders but rather because his murther was the most foul Prodigious Fact that was committed in that Land and did from the very Commission of it portend Destruction to the Temple and the Consequents of it fore-shadowed the miseries which were afterwards to befal the Nation The truth of this Conclusion will better appear from Discussion of the third Point proposed 7. And this was Whether the blood of Zacharias and other Prophets or of our Saviour and others after him were more especially required of this Generation Or Whether this Generation and their posterity were so grievously plagued as we know they were for their own personal offences against the Person of the Son of God or for communicating with their fathers in shedding the blood of the Prophets and of other righteous men The modern Jews peremptorily deny Their long Exile and Calamitie to have been inflicted upon them as a just punishment for putting Christ to death because their Fathers did not in their judgment therein offend Divers Christian Writers as it usually fals out refuting this Error of theirs run into a Contrary ascribing the Greivousness of their memorable plagues unto their personal offences against our Saviour being otherwise free from the sins wherein their fathers grievously trespassed Maldonate the Iesuite is so farre addicted to this Opinion that he thinks our Saviour in my Text spake but according to Vulgar Language As if to a Malefactor which had escaped often but is afterward taken for some notorious murther which cannot be pardoned men would say he should now pay for all his villanies not that they mean he shall suffer several punishments for several offences or more greivous tortures then were due for his last fact alone but that he should have judgement without mercie and be punished as grievously as might be though for it only Thus much then and no more he thinks our Saviour would have signified That the Scribes and Pharisees should suffer such greivous calamities for murthering Him and his Apostles as they might well seem to be plagued for their Fathers cruelties Howbeit they were not at all punished for them but only for their own For saith he although neither they nor their Fathers had killed either Prophet Apostle or Disciple but Christ alone they had deserved greater plagues for killing him then are recorded by Iosephus This last Assertion I confess is no less true then Non-concludent for the Conclusion to be inferred was not what manner of Plagues they did deserve for putting our Saviour to death but whether these punishments were de Facto inflicted for putting him to death or for the murther of Zachariah and other Prophets whom not their fathers only but they had slain for so our Saviour layeth the Charge of Zachariah's blood unto them in particular whom YE slew between the Temple and the Altar 8. A good Auditor must be able not only to give a true Onus or Charge but withal to make right Allocations or Deductions otherwise he shall often over-reckon himself or wrong such as are to deal with him The like skill is required in making such Calculatory Arguments as Maldonate and many other good Christians use in aggravating the offences of this Present Generation of the Jews against Our Saviour Let them lay the Charge of the later Jews trespasses as deep as they list or can we shall be able to make the Deductions or Allocations much-what equal so that Computatis computandis the greatest part or fullest measure of the blood which came now to be required of this Generation must arise as the literal meaning of my Text imports from the righteous blood of Zacharias and other Prophets unjustly shed in former Ages and unrepented of by this present Generation They must lay their Charge from the Infinite Excess of Christs Dignitie in respect of other Prophets for His Person was in Majestie truly Infinite We are to make the Deduction from his Infinite Power and Facility to forgive offences against himself or his Person For questionless he did as farre exceed all the Prophets in Goodness in Mercie and loving kindness as he did in Majestie and Greatness And had Peculiar Power and Authority to forgive sins and remit those plagues which the Prophets had denounced against Jerusalem and her children Nor could the malice of his enemies against him be more available to procure then His prayers and tears for Jerusalems peace were to pacifie his Fathers wrath against it especially for their offences against his Person alone 9. The flagrant Expressions of his special Love unto Ierusalem not yet alienated from the worst sort of this present Generation if we compare them with this Threatning fore-warning in my Text and in the words before it will bear this sense or brook this Paraphrase However I see and know you more maliciously bent against me then Cain was against his brother Abel then your fore-fathers Prince or People were against Zachariah the son of Iehoiada or of Barachiah however you thirst more greedily and more irrelentingly after my blood then the chafed Hart doth after the brooks of water yet when-ever you have glutted your selves with the sight of it pouout upon the ground In-stead of covering it with dust cast not this foul aspersion or slander upon me or it as if either it or I did or shall sollicit vengeance against you for the cruel indignities which ye have done or shall do either to me or to my followers when I am dead The blood of my Apostles will not speak so bad And My blood shall speak much better things for you then the blood of Abel did for his brother Cain then the blood of Zachariah whom your Fathers slew betwixt the Altar and the Temple did for the then King and the Princes or people of Iudah For my Heavenly Father hath not sent me nor will I give any Commission to my Followers or Embassadors to curse but to bless you not to wound and
manner of Gods augmenting the punishments or plagues upon succeeding Generations which would not take warning by the punishments of their fore-fathers usually runs by the scale of seven Every man that seeth me saith Cain after the Lord had convented him for killing his brother will kill me whereas there was not a man in the world besides his father and himself But a mans Conscience as we say is a thousand witnesses And his Conscience did sufficiently convict him to have deserved Execution whereas there was neither Witness nor Executioner According to this Sentence engraven in this murtherous heart did God afterwards enjoyn Noah and gave it in express Commandement under his hand to Moses Whosoever doth shed mans blood by man shall his blood be shed If this Law were Just amongst the Israelites why was it not executed upon Cain the first Malefactor in this kind Nay why doth God expresly exempt him from it and punish him with exile only Doubtless this was from His Gracious Universal Goodness which alwayes threats before it strike offereth favour before he proceed to Judgment and mingleth Judgment with Mercie before he proceed in rigor of Justice Now Cain had no former warning how displeasant murther was to God and therefore is not so severely punished as every murtherer after him must be For so it is said Gen. 4. 15. Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold Yet for any of Seths Posteritie to have killed murtherous Cain had been a sin in its nature farre less then for Cain to murther his righteous brother yet by Rule of divine Justice to be more greivously punished then Cains murther was because in him they had their Warnings 6. The same Proportion God observes in visiting the sins of Fathers upon their Children So in that Great Covenant of Life and Death made with the Israelites Levit. 26. 14 15 16. After promise of extraordinary blessings to the Observers of his Law the Lord thus threatneth the transgressors But if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these Commandements And if ye despise my Statutes or if your soul abhor my Judgments so that ye will not do all my Commandements but that ye break my Covenant I also will do this unto you I will even appoint over you terror consumption c. But if for all this they will not yet turn unto him he will plague them still with the pursuit of their enemies Nay it followeth verse 18 And if ye will not hearken unto me then will I punish you seven times more for your sins and if all this will not reclaim them these later plagues shall be seven times multiplied and this third plague three hundred forty three times greater then the first and the fourth Transgression shall likewise be multiplied by seven So that the same Apostasie or rebellion not amended after so many warnings if we may call the literal meaning to strict Arithmetical Account shall in the end be One thousand one hundred ninety seven times more severely punished then the first But it is likely that a Certain Number was put for an uncertain That the visitation of sins of Fathers upon their Children may be continued seventy Generations even from the first giving of the Law by Moses unto the worlds End is apparent from the verses following Levit. 26. 37. unto This Yet will the Lord still remember the Covenant made with Abraham c. For not putting this Rule or Law of confessing their fathers sins in practise the Children of that Generation which put our Lord and Saviour to death are punished this day with greater hardness of heart then the Scribes and Pharisees were For however They were the very Paterns of Hypocrisie yet had they so much sense or feeling of conscience that they did utterly dislike their Fore-fathers Actions and thought to super-erogate for their Fathers transgressions by erecting the Tombs or garnishing the Sepulchres of the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered or stoned to death But these modern scattered Jews will not to this day confess their fore-fathers sins nor acknowledge that they did ought amiss in putting to death the Prince of Prophets and Lord of Life And their Fathers sins until they confess them are become their sins and shall be visited upon them To confess the sins of their Fathers according to the intendment or purpose of Gods Law implies an hearty Repentance for them and repentance truly hearty implies not only an Abstinence from the same or like transgressions wherewith their Fathers had provoked Gods wrath but a zealous Desire or Endeavour to glorifie God by constant Practise of the Contrary vertues or works of Piety This Doctrinal Conclusion may easily be inferred from the afore-cited 18. of Ezekiel 7. Sin is more catching then the Pestilence and no marvel if the plagues due for it to the Father in the course or doom of Justice seize on the Son seeing the contagion of sin spreads from the unknown Malefactor to his neighbors from the Fields wherein it is by Passengers committed into the bordering Cities or Villages unless the Attonement be made by Sacrifice and such solemn deprecation of guilt as the Law in this Case appoints Deut. 21. 1 2 c. If one be found slain in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possesse it lying in the field and it be not known who hath slain him Then thy Elders and Judges shall come forth and shall measure to the Cities which are round about him that is slain And it shall be that the City which is next unto the slain man even the Elders of that City shall take a Heifer which hath not been wrought with and which hath not drawn the yoak And that City shall bring down the Heifer into a rough valley which is neither cared nor sown and shall strike off the Heifers neck there in the valley And the Priests the sons of Levi shall come neer for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him and to bless in the name of the Lord and by their word shall every controversie and stroke be tryed And all the Elders of that City that are next to the slain man shall wash their hands over the Heiser that is to be beheaded in the valley And they shall answer and say Our hands have not shed this blood neither have our eyes seen it Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whom thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy People of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. The nearer unto us Actual Transgressors be the more they should provoke our zealous endeavors for performance of contrary duties otherwise Gods Justice will in time over-sway his mercie and plagues first procured by some one or few mens sins will diffuse themselves from the
intended by Maldonate and others That the plagues here threatned by our Saviour must wholly be ascribed to the murthering of Him and his Apostles without any Reference to the slaughter of Gods Prophets The Infiniteness of the Person offended makes up but one and not the greatest Dimension in the body of sin the Soliditie or heynousness of it must be derived from another Root And though it be most true that every sin is an offence against an Infinite Majestie yet is He whose Majestie is Infinite in a manner infinitely more offended with some sinnes then with others 2. Ignorance of those great mysteries which we beleive and acknowledge did somewhat mitigate the Iews offences as personal against our Saviour and excuse their Persons a Tanto though not a Toto We speak the Wisdom of God which none of the Princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory 1 Cor. 2. 7 8. And again They of Jerusalem and their Rulers because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets they have fulfilled them in condemning him Acts 13. 27. St. Peter hath avouched as much upon his own knowledge as St. Paul did in mitigation of these Jews offence And now brethren I wot that out of ignorance ye did it as did also your Rulers Act. 3. verse 17. Some rigid Accuser of these hateful men would perhaps reply that they were ignorant through their own default All this being granted their fault lies properly in the true and immediate Cause of their Ignorance not in that ignorance which was no otherwise Cause of their actual murther then by not restraining their malice which first brought forth ignorance and then murther What then were the true and proper Causes of their malitious Ignorance Self-conceit of their own righteousness pride ambition covetousness unto all which as also to their obdurateness in all these and like enormities such partial apprehensions of their fathers idolatry and cruelty in killing the Prophets as we have of their hypocrisie and cruelty against Christ did concurre as Accessarie or Causes Collateral Being so much addicted to covetousness to pride and ambition and so self-conceited of their own righteousness in respect of other men it was impossible they should not do as they did These Collections to my apprehension are the same with that of our Saviour He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God And this is their condemnation What That they went about to kill Christ No but that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light But why did they so Because their deeds were evil For every one that doth evil hateth the light He that now is otherwise as evil as they were before Christ came would have hated him and his Disciples as much as they did and is as liable as they were to any punishment which they suffered for their trespasses against him Suppose he had come into the world in the dayes of Joash who put Zachariah to death done the same works used the same admonitions and reproofs to have recalled that headstrong generation from Idolatry which he did to reclaim the Scribes and Pharisees from their hypocrisie and malice Gods Prophets which knew their temper would not I am perswaded have been too forward to have been their Bails for much better behaviour towards their Lord and Master then they had shewed towards themselves his servants St. Stephen's Censure of this people from time to time Ye do alwayes resist the holy Ghost As your fathers did so do ye gives us occasion to suspect that they were sometimes afore Christs time so wicked as if he had come in their dayes they would have done as this later generation did But these have killed him De Facto Their sin notwithstanding is not hereby greater then theirs that would have been as forward to kill him if he had given them the like provocation For so his manifestation in the flesh should necessarily have made this later Generation worse then any former had been and God had dealt less graciously with them in presenting his Son unto them then with their wicked fathers which never had seen him But against these and the like necessary Consequences of the former Position our Saviour protests God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved John 3. 17. And this salvation was first out of love no doubt to be tendred unto Ierusalem and her children 3. The Issue of these Deductions in brief is this The Scribes and Pharisees did no way exceed their fathers in wickedness unless perhaps in Hypocrisie or unwillingness to be reclaimed Christ was a better Teacher then the Prophets were and unto us it is manifest that these Scribes and Pharisees which would not learn goodness of him were most wickedly wilful But whether more wicked or wilful then any of their fathers before or others that lived since that time have been is more then man can determine It must be left to his judgment which judgeth not as man doth by the Event but by clear sight of the heart For the same reason it cannot be resolved whether they that put our Saviour to death were greater sinners then King Ioash and his Princes Only this we know and must believe That these later did fill up the measure of their fore-fathers iniquity that the complement of their iniquity being come the vials of Gods wrath were poured more plentifully upon this last Generation then upon any former but should not have been so plentifully poured upon it unless Zacharias and the Prophets had been so desperately slain by their fathers And for any Argument that can be brought to the contrary had Christ been crucified when Zacharias was slain and Zacharias slain when he was crucified all other proper Circumstances of each Fact besides this change of time continuing the same it is probable from my Text That Gods judgments upon this Nation had been less in the former age then they were and more greivous more sudden and terrible in the later then are now recorded Nor can this Consequence be any whit prejudiced albeit we grant the practises of cruelty against our Saviour to have been seven hundred thousand times more heynous in themselves then any could have been attempted against Zacharias The destruction of our Saviours Enemies upon the first Arrest or shameless abuse of His sacred Body in justice might and without his Intercession perhaps would have been more sudden and dreadful then Sodoms was Obdurate pride unrelenting cruelty and general impenitencie for other foul sins as they concerned the Whole Trinity or were matter of sin against the Holy Ghost he could not remit or make intercession for them in the dayes of his flesh but is to call their Authors to strict account as he is the Judge
them for religious Jehoshaphat and the Righteous sakes that lived in it After Iehoshaphats death Iehoram his son reigns in his stead a successor to the Kings of Israel in all wickedness and Idolatry And as his life was wicked so was his estate unfortunate his end terrible and his death ignominious In his dayes did Edom make his final revolt from Iudah 2 Chron. 21. 10. and Libnah at the same time because he had forsaken the God of his fathers And ver 14. Behold saith Elijah to him by a letter with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people and thy children and thy wives and all thy substance And so Gods judgments came upon him and his Children He himself dies of a lingering loathsom disease without the wonted solemnities of Funerals And Ahaziah his youngest son all the elder being slain by the Arabians 2 Chron. 22. 1. is about a year after killed by Jehu executing judgment upon the house of Ahab After all this were All the Royal Seed of Judah destroyed by Athaliah Ioash son of Ahaziah only excepted whose beginnings were good The reformation of Religion was perfect for the external form so long as Iehoiada the Priest did live but not compleat for the number or quality of such as turned to the Lord their God For the Princes hearts were wholly set upon idolatry And the King himself is drawn upon his own destruction by them after Iehoiada's death As his beginnings were good and godly so were his later dayes idolatrous and cruel and Zachariah's blood was recompensed upon his head and upon the head of Amaziah his son who though he were not like his father guilty as principal of actual murther in putting a Prophet to death yet thus farre by Participation guilty of his fathers sin that he is impatient of the Prophets just reproof As his father killed so he threatens the Prophet for reproving him for his sins for taking the gods of Edom for his gods 2 Chron. 25. 14. Have they made thee the Kings Counsellor Cease thou why should they smite thee And the Prophet ceased but said I know the Lord hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my Counsel His doom is read and judgment followes For he is shamefully foyled 2 Chron. 25. 23. by Ioash King of Israel and led captive home to his own good Town of Ierusalem four hundred cubits of whose wals were broke down to make entrance for his triumphant enemies in the sight of his own people And after his freedom bought with his own treasure and with the treasure of the Lords house his own Subjects conspire against him and pursue him unto death where he dies his fathers death by the hands of his Servants 2 Chron. 25. 27. As Amaziah from good beginnings grew idolatrous so Uzziah his son after good success became in his later end sacrilegiously presumptuous For intermedling with the Priests Office he becomes liable to the Priests Tribunal He is judged a Leper and removed from administration of the Kingdom for the leprosie wherewith the Lord had smitten him 2 Chron. 26. 5. Thus in process of time is still the increase of sin either their Kings are wicked as but two from David to Hezekiah's time which continued in good Or if their Kings be vertuous and religious as Iehoshaphat had been and Iotham son to Uzziah now is yet in his dayes again the peoples hearts are not prepared to serve the Lord 2 Kings 15. 35. But the high Places were not put away for the people yet offered and burnt incense in the high places and so kept in the fire of Gods wrath which had been long kindled against Judah but not suffered to burst out into any flame in the dayes of righteous Jotham and such as by his example followed righteousness Nay to encourage others to follow him the Lord gave him victory over the enemies of Judah and He grew mighty because He directed His wayes before the Lord His God 2 Chron. 27 6. 6. But neither did he nor any Prince of Judah since Righteous David so perfectly direct as Ahaz his son did pervert his wayes before the Lord. This is the first that adds stubbornness to infidelity and drunkenness to thirst as the Spirit tels us 2 Chron. 28. 22. In his tribulation did he yet trespass more against the Lord this is King Ahaz saith the Text you must expect a remarkable monster in his dealings For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus which plagued him and he said Because the gods of the Kings of Aram helped them I will sacrifice unto them and they will help me yet they were his ruine and of all Israel ver 23. This people was alwayes prone to wickedness even during the reign of most religious Kings but are now so violently carried to all mischief having got this preposterous Monster for their Governor that as a ship sailing with advantage of wind and tide and help of oares continues motion when sail is stricken and Rowers cease so Jerusalem and Judah after Ahaz their Commander in mischief ceased from his wicked labours held on still their mischievous courses even in good King Hezekiah's dayes 7. Whereas God 's threatnings had been but particular heretofore either to the King alone or to his Line and House or of some momentary desolation upon the Land Now God thunders out a General Deluge of Calamity to the City and Temple by the Prophet Micah Sion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall be an heap and the mountain of the house shall be as the high places of the forrest Here the scattered clouds of Gods judgments which had long soared over Judah are gathered as it were into one shower ready to fall upon her as it were an Hawk stooping to her prey but that good King Hezekiah and the people by his example laid fast hold upon his mercies and averted his fierce wrath from them by hearty and unfeigned prayer They feared the Lord and prayed before him and the Lord repented him of the evil that he had pronounced against them Whiles I behold the Compleat Reformation which Hezekiah wrought and the peoples will to accord with him therein Me thinks I hear the Lord wishing from heaven as he did sometimes to their fathers in the wilderness Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such an heart in them to fear me and to keep all my Commandements alway that it might go well with them and with their children for ever But Hezekiah did not render according to the reward bestowed upon him For his heart was lifted up and wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem 2 Chron. 32. v. 25. Not that it did seize upon them but that it was ready to smite For as it follows ver 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself after his heart was lift up he and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and the wrath of the Lord came not upon