some other speedy death but there fastned to remain till near the going down of the Sun and then taken and buried that the land might not be defiled by his being above ground Gal. 3 13. See Deut. 21.23 as hath bin said already § § 83 Secondly because our sins deserved the utmost torments and even these eternal and our Lord in this case undertaking the satisfaction of Gods Justice for them this death by crucifying was chosen as being of all those ordinarily inflicted on Malefactors the most dolorous and tedious being only a wounding or piercing of exterior parts the hands and feet that approach not the principal or vital members the Head or Heart and so preserving an integrity of sense Nor was any great effusion of the blood caused by such wounds so to exhaust the spirits for the nailes still filled the holes they made but on the other side this piercing being made in the most nervous parts which Nerves are the Organs of sense produced a most acute pain and so the person was left in this posture fastned hand and foot on the rack abandoned to the Fowles or to Famine if a fever caused by these extream torments did not dispatch him sooner the body usually remaining in such torment for many hours if not daies Our Lord hung so for three hours before he expired in a Miraculous patience resignation and silence all the words he spake scarce taking up three or four minuts of it and when this time was run out the Roman Governour wondred if he was dead so soon and both the other Malefactors were then still alive Therefore the Apostle speaking of this our Lords death puts such an Emphasis upon it That he was obedient to the death even to this death of the Cross By the greatness of his sufferings therefore our Lord would have us learn the true weight and heinousness and desert of our sins the cancelling of which cost him so dear As also such exquisite pains both he and God his Father chose to shew their great love to man and his salvation and if there were no absolute necessity for the Son of Gods satisfaction for us by such exquisite torments the least prick of whose finger would have bin a ransome for a thousand worlds yet surely the more he suffered for us the more he shewed he loved us and the less of his pains were necessary for any satisfaction the more these so greivous demonstrate the greatness of his affection § 84 Thirdly such an horrid and lingring death was chosen by our Lord to remain for ever an example and pattern and consolation to all his followers in their sufferings again for him so often as they call to mind that he endured first far greater for them and that God doth not treat us servants and sinners so severely as he did his innocent and only Son and that we might be ashamed of our tergiversation or impatience of any small sufferings having seen his resignation and alacrity and voluntarily undertaking for us of so much greater § 85 Fourthly setting now aside the extream torments thereof this death seems to be chosen in many other regards For next by it this Evangelical Sacrifice hath a nearer resemblance to all those former made under the Law that were only Types of it Resemblance In our Lords being laid and spread when they fastned him with nails on the wood of the Cross to be consumed on it by degrees so those Sacrifices laid on the wood of the Altar but this on the Cross during much longer before it was consumed the heat of which torture also forced a sitio from our Lord. So saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.24 Ipse pecâ—ata nostra pertulit in corpore suo super lignum And S. Paul Eph. 5.2 Tradidit se ipsum pro nobis oblationem hostiam Deo in odorem suavitatis Again in our Lord 's being elevated and lifted up toward Heaven as those also were on an Altar raised up in Salomons Temple ten cubits high 2 Chron. 4. and ascended by steps and the Sacrifice also upon this Altar was elevated or heaved up again and waved before the Lord in the hands of the Priest and the Altar of the oblation of incense was made also of wood Again this death seems the most convenient also for the pouring out of the blood of this Sacrifice even the whole Mass of it gathered to the heart in a great stream at the foot of the Cross as the Priest did to that of the legal Sacrifice at the foot of the Altar as it were all at once by the Soldiers lance instead of the Priests knife but this not till such tedious and lingring torments for several hours first endured whereas the legal was presently dispatched out of its pain and lay a long time indeed to be consumed on the Altar but after it was first deprived of life and sense This death most convenient also for this Lamb of God fulfilling the type of the Paschal Lamb and the prophecies whereby God signified that he would not have a bone of his only Son to be broken nor his body any way mangled or divided any further than four holes made in his hands and feet and a wound in his side whilst meanwhile his stripping and then his long and scorching pains suffered from the fire of Gods wrath against our sins falling all upon him which he endured on the Cross answers to that Lambs being first flayed and then whole and entire stretched out at length and by degrees rosted by fire Thus then this Evangelical Sacrifice in this manner of the offering thereof most resembled the legal § 86 Fifthly this death on the Cross was a death most visible to all and publickly exposed in which could be used no personating fraud or concealment the body nailed up on high naked to be surveyed by the eyes of whatever Spectators for many hours nay examined and discoursed with so that there could be here no pretension of a delusion or cheat And if notwithstanding this so many Hereticks even in the Apostles daies thinking this too great a disparagement to the Son of God have denied the reality thereof what would they have done had our Lord suffered in some other manner less conspicuous § 87 Sixthly a death of those that are violent the most convenient and proper for those pious and charitable words and actions that were to be performed at his death In his making his Will as it were and disposing of his afflicted Mother his great care to the provision of his best beloved Disciple In testifying his free forgiveness of his Enemies Revilers and Torturers by his Praying to his Father also for their pardon In receiving to Mercy at the same time by the vertue of that his death on the Cross the penitent Robber a symbol of his doing the same to all sinners whatever that should at any time repair to him for salvation through those sufferings In manifesting his patience obedience and love
fulfilled to stand silent by and hear his sweet colloquies with his Bride Jo. 3.29 § 7 2 Lastly after the like vertues and actions to our Saviors John also run before him in the like sufferings Persecuted by the Pharisees and call'd by them a Demoniack as our Savior was Luk. 7.30 34 persecuted by Herod and ungratefully imprisoned by him at the solicitation of his Wife whom before he had heard gladly and in many things obeyed his Holy Counsel Mark 6.20 and afterward kill'd by him only for bearing witness unto the truth a year before our Savior a well-dancing Girle being preferred before this great Prophet Kill d whilst Herods conscience pleaded for him as Pilat's did for Jesus and both were by both out of a base fear destroyed Kill'd at a solemn Feast in Galilee that was kept on Herods birth day as our Savior was at the Pascal feast none of the many great Guests there opening their mouth for him beheaded in prison privatly and unheard condemn'd without witnesses as Jesus by false ones Put to death by Herod partly out of religion too to keep his oath forsooth as Jesus was by the Jews to preserve their Law And then his Reverend Head and countenance which living none beheld without a religious awe and respect not committed to a decent Grave but carried away in triumph and serv'd up in a dish at Herods bloody Table who now feared no more his righteous Tongue there rejoiced over and made merry with the fate of great Saints Rev. 11.10 and exposed to the derision and abuse of his malicious enemies as also our Saviors sacred Head and countenance was treated but this when alive both by his blind folders and his Crowners hands knocked spit on peirced by them at pleasure and lastly as it was exposed to derision also for many hours upon the Cross With such sufferings God here rewards his worthiest Servants And thus much being said in honour of this great I know not whether I may say in some manner the greatest excepting the Blessed Virgin of Saints the Baptist Now let us turn our eyes toward our Blessed Lord that followed him § 8 Six months after the conception of the Baptist the same glorious Angel Gabriel was sent to an opposite side of Palestine far distant from the country of the Baptist that the validity of his testimony concerning Jesus might not be weakned by any acquaintance between these two Kinsmen to Nazareth a small and contemptible City see Jo. 1.46 of Galilee by the Jews a much despised Country see Jo. 7.41 52. a place the farthest remote from the Royal City and the Temple and from the noble Tribe of Judah and the Linage of David from which was expected the Messias and a place of extraordinary darkness and ignorance as we may gather from Mat. 4.15 16. a people that sat in darkness and in the region and shadow of death bordering upon and being it self half Gentile And this remote ignoble Region Gods wisdom chose for the habitation and education of his own Son and the Lord of all the Earth For which country of his our Savior suffered much mortification and scorn all his life from the great ones of the Jews saying that the Messias could not come from such a place and was also afterward by the enemies of Christianity Julian and others reproachfully call'd the Galilean And this we may imagine done by the Divine Wisdom for many reasons First that his own Son might here in all things represent to us the greatest humility and man might hereafter be ashamed to be proud and boast himself of the Nobleness of his City or Country And secondly that he might here the better be concealed and live in obscurity who was to suffer death from sinners before his publick exaltation and glory 3ly Again that where more darkness was there they might enjoy the more light and the efficacy of the Divine Grace more manifest it self in Mans weakness much of our Saviors teaching being spent amongst this dull and ignorant people and that the more to exalt Gods power from this dark region those persons should cheifly be taken by our Savior being his own Country-men who should enlighten the whole world 4ly And lastly that by this Countries confinment upon and mixture with the Gentiles God might shew his Son a common Savior coming to all not only the Jew but us Gentiles § 9 Hither was this great Angel sent from God in his name to salute and in a special manner espouse unto Him if I may use the expression of the Prophets Ezech. 16. Hos 2.19 that holy Virgin Mary a Daughter of David found out in this obscure corner so far removed from the Tribe and house of her progenitors and kindred a person singled and chosen out of all the daughters of Adam of all generations curiously viewed by his all-searching eies whom he thought the most worthy to make the Holy Mother of his only Son and the second Eve to bring salvation to mankind as the first had caused their ruin Which person since she was thus singularly gratious in Gods eies above all mortals that ever were and destined to that high honor as never any other creature was to have a God to be her Son and cloth himself with part of her substance to be nourished with her milk to hang on her Brests and to be carried about in her armes And since God makes all things proportionable and fit for the ends he designs them to we may justly imagine her purity and cleanness from sin her graces and perfections in all vertues to have surpassed those of the greatest Saints whatever And all those enamoured praises which God giveth in the Canticles to his Spouse the Church Behold thou art fair my Love behold thou art fair thou hast Doves eies Thou art all fair my Love there is no spot in thee A garden inclosed is my Spouse A spring shut up a Fountain sealed How fair and how pleasant art thou O Love for delights looking-forth as the morning fair as the Moon and clear as the Sun c. Cant. 4.1 7 12. 7.6 We may conceive in a singular manner to be verified above all other faithful in this Blessed Virgin the most high and the most elevated amongst all the members of this his Spouse the Church If therefore the Baptist who was to be but our Saviors Messenger was for this office filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb Luk. 1.15 Surely so was she who was to be his Mother and probably this is the reason that when as the Evangelist saith of Elizabeth and of Zacharie before their Doxologies and Hymns and of Peter and others before their Sermons that they were filled with the Holy Ghost yet no where is such expression used of this Blessed Virgin either before her Magnificat or on any other occasion because she from her very beginning was so § 10 And then she being supposed so sanctified from the womb First what holy stories see
just cause highly displeased thereat and so much the more if at their Espousals she had covenanted with him a perpetual Virginity and so intended to rid his hands of her and to put her away She could not but observe his changed and troubled countenance and could not but guess aright the cause thereof For which suspected crime if he being a just man should have proceeded against her according to Law what means had she at all to manifest or prove her innocence which also her straying so far from home gave them still more cause to question And not absolved her punishment was no less then death to be carried before the door of her fathers house and there to be stoned to death see Deut. 22.21 and 24. Or if this could some way be avoided yet so could not the loss of her reputation in the highest degree in being reported dishonest and an harlot § 19 This was also aggravated by the great affection and reverence the Virgin bare to her offended husband Of whom besides that the Scripture gives this testimony that he was a just and righteous man that also which we said before of the blessed Virgin may be in some sort applied to him that he was certainly a most eminent Saint and one chosen by God out of many thousands and with suitable Graces and perfections endued who was to have that transcendent honour above all other holy men as to be the third person in the family of Jesus and so often visited by Angels from God to direct him what he should do see Mat. 1.20 -2.13 22 to be the nursing Father of Gods only Son and the Guardian of his Infant exile into a forraign land to be his Governour and Master of his House to whom the Son of God should be subject and serve with the strict duty of a Son to his Parent in those necessary offices and affairs wherein he should imploy him without any medling with other matters we may presume for the major part of his life here on Earth except only for some three daies space when twelve years old that his zeal was permitted to follow his own fathers business Again who should have the nearest relation of any upon Earth to the Mother of God committed to his care to undergo for her and her Son all labours and provide all necessaries and defend them from all injuries that a Mother and an Infant in a poor and mean condition are subject to Surely great must be the perfections of his person who was thought worthy to guide such a family and exteriourly to govern him that governs the world And the dearer he was to the Blessed Virgin for these the greater torment to her must be his displeasure which displeasure tho on her par groundless yet had she no likely means to remove Should she go to him and tell him the story of what had happened to her But then in so much intimacy of acquaintance why had she not done this before when she as yet had no concernment to tell him an untruth And since it was such a wonder as was hard to be assented to or believed by her when an Angel from Heaven told it to her as joyful news how much more incredible would it seem to him when a woman with child by another then her husband brings it for her excuse and pretends an heavenly visit and intercourse to Veil a supposed Crime Besides her great humility and modesty her religious silence of Gods secret and intimate transactions with her hindred her that she knew not as yet how to reveal to any a thing which tended so much to her own praise and honour For so also the Holy Ghost not she had formerly disclosed it to Elizabeth Wherein she remaineth to all Christians an everlasting pattern in any such extraordinary visits and favours of God of what is safest for them and more perfect if not their duty to do Safest I say to conceal such favours for many reasons 1 Because ordinarily such favours cannot be related without some vanity and self-conceit 2 Because the publishing such things begets estimation amongst men and this begets pride in the esteemed and this pride ruins that for which we are esteemed 3 Because by it at least we seem to others to magnify our selves and so indeed lose our former reputation with them by seeking to increase it 4 Or at least seem to disparage others who receive not the like favours 5 Or to disparage Gods wisdom in representing him more favourable to the more unworthy She therefore in all this storm held her peace and patiently endured her beloved Josephs strangeness to her armed as we may piously believe both with an holy resolution and resignation of her self to suffer cheerfully and willingly whatever human crosses such celestial Graces and favours should draw aster them and also with an extraordinary confidence in God that he would in due time make known her innocence at least if not her honour and own his Son without casting the justification thereof upon the modesty of a woman For why should he not defend her whom her obedience to him only had exposed to reproach and why not in this time of need reveal as much to Joseph as he had done when no such exigency before to Elizabeth § 20 Meanwhile Joseph being a good man was not hasty out of a suddain passion to make her a publick example but restroined himself for some time thinking to do it privily perhaps haps by concealing the betrothment or giving her a bill of divorce upon some other pretence so as might less redound to her disgrace whose former vertues and perfections now faded and withered as he supposed he could not but still reverence and lament Yet this his merciful delay served also to continue so much longer both his and her affliction At length when the matter was ready to break forth between his resolution and the execution thereof Haec eo cogitante saith the text before the least rumour of any such suspition was divulged that we may see as Saints are patient in their sufferings so Gad is as perfect and exact in his deliverance the Angel now steps in with the mission of whom God could have prepared Joseph as well had he pleased before he had first seen the Virgins swelling womb and in the due time frees them both from their sorrows and fears He therefore now the first time appearing to Joseph in a Vision by night and courteously saluting this mean Artificer with the title of the Son of David to mind him of his more particular relation to the Messias descending from Davids race reveals to him that Maries conception was of the Holy Ghost and that she should bring forth a Son that should save his people from their sins Mat. 1.21 and therefore when born he should call his name JESUS The Angel here as Zacharie in his Hymn signifying that his Kingdom was not to be a temporal but which only much concerned us
presume from his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of sorrows Esai 53. and full of tears see Heb. 5.7 Luk. 19.41 Jo. 11.35 fell a weeping as other Infants do but this not for the paines which that tender age then feels from the straines and crushings of the parturition or sudden chilness of an open Air not yet for his cold harbour and Straw-bed which miseries he foreknew and voluntarily chose and with a smiling patience underwent but for mans sin the cause of all our and his misery now beginning his Intercessions for mans offences and offering these first tears for the expiation thereof Thus come amongst us poor and naked his pious Mother whom we may imagine free from Eves curse to have brought forth without pain him that she conceived without sin and so who was enabled presently to perform the office of a Nurse after that of a Mother took him up Luk. 2.7 and cast such poor cloths about him as her fortune and so long a journy afforded and instead of a Cradle laid her Babe down to rest in the Manger of the Stable being but a cold and hard pillow for him if cut out of the Rock and this Cradle at his birth not much unlike his grave at his Death § 29 After this low manner if I may be permitted to stay a little in Contemplation of this great wonder of our Lords Exinanition to teach haughty man humility Digress and to confound his pride was the Son of God pleased to enter into the world Thus was he born because thus born he would be who alone amongst all Infants foreknew and preelected both the place and manner of his birth Thus was he pleased to be brought into it amongst beasts as afterward to be carried out of it amongst theeves Thus was the second Adam who might had he thought fit have bin created with the same preeminences as the first in a perfect and flourishing age pleased to oblige himself for his birth unto a woman and for his life unto the subjection and infirmities of youth and infancy and this place was the Paradise wherein he was put He not an Adam from the Earth hut the Lord from Heaven 1 Cor. 15.47 For the entertainment of whom when Salomon with all his wisdom and wealth had built his golden Temple yet was he ashamed that it was so mean and so unworthy to receive him Thus to expiate the former Adams Ero similis Altissimo Gen. 3.5 this Altissimus became similis Homini Like to man in every thing so far as to be conceiv'd and born of a Woman because his brethren were so That he might fulfil the Spouse's wish in the Canticles c. 8. v. 1. O that thou wert as my brother that sucked the brests of my Mother to please this his Spouse as her brother he was in every thing not leaving out nor skipping over that sleeping and unactive age in the womb and that loathsome and impotent condition of a new-born Infant of which see Ezec. 16.4 Tho he was not intended by his Father to be imployed in our affairs till 30 years of age yet Pudorem exordii nostri non recusavit saith S. Hilary sed naturae nostrae contumelias transcurrit He submitted himself to be imprisoned for so long a time in so dark and strait a cell as a womans womb Wherein some observe that he began his sufferings much earlier then the rest of the sons of men because supposed to have from his very first Conception from the Union of the human nature to his Divine person a perfect use of his intellectual faculties and sense of these his sufferings when as God in these first beginnings of our miserable life hath suspended in others the use of reason to hinder the sense of pain Now after that we once understand what a close imprisonment that of the womb is what evil would not we chuse rather then once more undergo it and what horrour had Nicodemus thereof when he thought our Saviour had prescribed it Jo. 3 Yet so fervent was our Saviours love unto mankind that he thought himself not sufficiently intimate and united unto him unless he took up his first lodging tho known to be so inconvenient even within his very bowels And as this he did at his coming into the world so again at his going out of it in the mysterious Eucharist he contrived a way how his Sacred body might enter again into us and he dwell again within us As soon also as freed from this first restraint he submitted himself to have his Hands and Feet whose omnipotent hands had formerly made the World taken and bound anew with swathbands which were at last when sufficiently grown for it to be bound with cords and fastned with nails Not to mention yet-another binding namely that of his Tongue to so long a time of silence no small misery to that feeble age which wants most help yet can ask none but a greater humiliation to the Son of the Almighty that this essential Word of God and Wisdom of his Father should empty it self into so long dumbness and silence being already an agnus ligatus se obmutescens non aperiens os suum Who also after he had the use of speech yet underwent so great a self-denial in this Kind that tho all his words flowed with wisdom Grace being poured into his lips Psal 47.2 and were all carefully laid up by his observing Mother yet it seemed good unto him that his Historians four of them should not mention one Word that came from this Word till he was 12 years old and that first word mentioned by them was a profession of his zealous obedience to the will of his Father Luk. 2.49 Again like to man he became so far as to be made under the same Laws with them Gal. 4.4 not only under the Moral but Ceremonial too which cost his infancy a bloody Circumcision not under God's but Cesar's Laws too the punctual obedience to which wherein it were strange if a woman so great with child might not have bin dispensed with had not God in his secret wisdom more exacted this submission of the child than the Mother cost him so many afflictions attending his Nativity Wherein he descended far below his servant the rigid Baptist who was born at home with great resort of congratulating neighbors And thus early began himself to give a pattern to his followers in leaving his house and his country and his Father in some sense out of whose bosome he came and the society of Angels into this place of Beasts Here look upon Him now at his very lowest and weakest And how well doth S. Pauls expression of his exinanition suit with it That he who was in the form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet made himself of no reputation in taking upon him the condition of such a forlorne Infant And that he that was so rich yet became to such a degree
poor to make us rich And how well now do his own words Mat. 11.29 in this posture and in this age the emblem of humility especially become Him Learn of me for I am meek and lowly and Matt. 20.28 The Son of man came not to be ministred unto § 30 And thus it seemed meet to him who justly proportioneth all things the exaltation suitable to the humiliation and the measure of glory to that of ignominy Phil. 2.9 Heb. 2.9 12.2 in his intending to build the exaltation of this man Jesus higher then all to lay his humiliation lower then all and this King being to have not one but two comings into this lower world the latter whereof was to be with exceeding pomp and glory and attendance with shouting and sound of Trumpet 1 Thes 4.16 with the whole Court of Heaven in all their glory Luk. 2.26 and all the Chariots of God Mat. 24.30 Psal 104.3 waiting on Him with his bright beams streaming from the East unto the West Mat. 24.27 Thus it seemed meet to his Father to dispose the first coming in exceeding lowness and contempt desertion and poverty that he might appear in one as novissimus Hominum Esai 53.3 who in the other was to appear as primo-genitus Dei. And we find Moses that great type of our Lord in being also a glorious deliverer of Gods people out of their house of bondage and their Lawgiver treated in his infancy much what after the same manner when he lay amongst Crocodiles a weeping and sorlorne Infant in a bulrush cradle floating in the flags of Nile and his poor life sought-for by Pharaoh as this Infant 's by Herod Lastly thus it seemed fit unto Him who bestows not heaven on man for nothing to disguise his only Son through the belief in whom we can only attain eternal life in so many Veiles and unlikelyhoods now laying him in a Cratch then hanging him on a Cross to advance in us so much the more the worth and dignity of our Faith to which what praise and thanks would it have bin to have believed on him appearing in Majesty and glory like a Son of God and such as we shall see him in his next Advent where no offence of the Manger nor of the Cross Gal. 5.11 Therefore it pleased God by eclypsing his own Sons honour to dignify mans faith and so increase his reward as likewise to discover to this faith his infinite power in raising such greatness out of such littleness in making all Kings submit their Scepters to such a poor born-child and all nations to do him service Psal 72.11 nay above all things to glory in his shame and in his Cross and to build a Temple even over this Manger § 31 The Infant being thus swath'd and cradled we may suppose the Holy Joseph and Mary who thro this veil of his poverty yet well discerned who he was and presently fell down and worshipped this new-born Emanuel turning this privacy and solitude and freedom from the tumult of the Town desertion of attendance and silence of the night to an elevation of their devotion and Christmas Vigils well pleased to see themselves surrounded tho with poor yet none but innocent Creatures and such as had never offended their Maker whilst sinful man was deem'd unworthy of such a celestial society Overjoyed in their first sight of this divine person the desire of all ages dedicating the whole service of their lives to his constant attendance and again receiving from him those sweet smiles and those indearing looks which the love and gratitude of one who tho an Infant in age yet was then mature in all wisdom and who had nothing of a child in him save the weakness and humility did think fit to return to so great pains and so devout adoration Thus they remained solicitous for nothing in so great extremity but saying to themselves some such thing as S. Paul in contemplation of the riches of the same Lord Rom. 8.32 God that hath given us his only Son how shall he not with him also freely give us all things § 32 Leaving now these holy persons in the deep and silent contemplation of the mysteries of the Almighty in that God-infant which lay before them and exercising the greatness of their faith in the lowness of outward appearances Let us go forth and see what meanwhile occurred in the feilds near adjoining § 33 The same night that our Saviour was born there happened to be some Shepheards whilst all the rest of the world were at their ease and asleep watching over their flocks in the same plaines where heretofore David himself the Father of our Lord had many a night watched over his these Bethleemites being his successours in the same trade and occupation Which innocent and simple manner of life spent in guarding the most harmless and the most profitable and the most shiftless of all creatures not engaged in much business solitary and leaving the mind free for much contemplation was also that of the first Saint Abel and of the Patriarchs before David to whom the promises of the Messias were made Poor and mean persons they were as we may gather from their imployment who else would have had a servant to have watched for them on so long nights in so sharp a season God's great love to man and to the honour of his Son was pleased instantly to communicate and reveal both to the Jew and to the Gentile yet not to all but to some chosen witnesses of both the birth of his Son the same Saviour to all people Luk. 2.10 that this Prince at his first entrance into the world might receive due adoration and homage from the representatives of them both He therefore for the body of the Jews in his infinite wisdom made election of these poor Shepheards as he did at the same time of the Magi for the body of the Gentiles § 34 Hereupon to these Shepheards descendeth an Angel vested with very great glory and light saith the Teâ—t Luk. 2.9 for doing this new-born Prince the honour in such his low condition to tell them the joyful news of the birth of a Saviour which was Christ the Lord. Luk. 2.11 a Saviour not of our bodies or estates from our temporal enemies for a while unconsiderable salvations fear not them that can kill the body c. Mat. 10.28 but of our Souls from our sins from our Ghostly enemies from spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places from Abaddon the Prince of the bottomless pit from prisons and chains and darkness and tortures and deaths eternal And the Angel gave them this sign to know him by that they should find him lying in the Manger of a Stable a strange sign of so great a Prince but yet not so improper for such a Saviour who was to restore the world by humility and sufferings as it fell by pride and a very distinctive sign such as was common to no other Infant and a sign which could not but
that use the world as tho they did not use it and tho they be as big as Camels yet they must become as small as a thred to get into this Kingdom Mat. 19.16 21 23 24 26. which only admits the small things of this world Which thing since it is so hard to do tho possible therefore hath voluntary secular poverty ever since the times of the coming of this Prince bin had in such esteem because the poor only in spirit that remain still rich in Fortunes are forced to bear one heavy Cross more than any other poor which many of them sink and miscarry under and are not able to go through with it namely the trouble and anxiety of a prudent dispensing those goods and revenues of which God hath made them only his Stewards not Masters and by possessing living in a continual Temptation from them Now since this Kingdom hath such an Antipathy to this present world First none surely are more fit to entertain or be entertained by this King then those who have least of it Like adheres to its like and had the Great ones bin sent to the Stable to worship this Prince lying amongst their horses instead of the Shepheards likely their knees would have bin more stiffe and they that asked Can such a Prince come out of Galilee or Nazareth would much more Can such a Prince come out of a Stable and scorning to be subject to one so far below them would have become Traitors to Him as Great Herod was sooner then Disciples 2ly None so fit also to preach such a Kingdom to the world as the poor and those who were not themselves full of the possession of those things the contempt whereof they counselled to others § 41 Now to return to the Blessed Virgin and her husband We see how the same night that was so full of straits the joyful Shepheards coming in and relating see Luk. 2.19 as an occasion of their coming their vision the message and song of Angels revives their spirits and recreats their affliction Their heaviness endured not all the night but joy overtook it before the morning and the scandal of the Stable was removed by the glorious appearance in the feild whilst the child despised by earth was magnified by heaven And we may observe that this great humiliation of the Son of God was every where mingled with some state state beyond all other sons of men When conceived a great Angel of presence is sent before with the news of it the Virgin going to Elizabeth She inspired from heaven falls a-magnifying him and his Mother return'd to Joseph an Angel declares to Him the Holy Conception and greatness of this Prince Born in so mean a roome at Bethleem Angels appearing in the Air discover it to the Jews and sing a Gloria in excelsis to Him to counterpoise that ignominy in infimis And a new Star appearing in the heavens at the same time manifests it to the Gentiles And so hereafter when presented in the Temple Holy Simeon and Anna proclaim him The Infants life conspired against by Herod an Angel discovers the plot and afterward in Egypt reveals to them the death of his enemy Baptized by John the Holy Ghost in the shape of a Dove comes down and fits on his head Upon his fasting and humiliation in the Wilderness Angels come and Minister unto him Before his going up to Jerusalem to suffer Moses and Elias in great glory visit him In his greatest agony and faintings in the Garden an Angel is sent to restore strength to him And to shew the common intercourse he had with Angels and how he had these subjects of heaven continually at his beck and service see what he saith to Nathaniel Jo. 1.51 and to Peter Mat 26.53 Lastly when murthered by the Jews the Sun loseth its light and the earth so trembleth that the Rocks of it rent in peices when his body buried Angels sit at the Head and feet of his Grave After so shameful a death followed so glorious a resurrection and ascension into Heaven in a bright cloud of Angels Thus to great humiliations God not only giveth afterward after a resurrection or so but presently intermingleth great honours and like exaltations and hath given an example thereof in this Head that the same might be securely expected by the members § 42 Now whilst these honours were done Mary's Blessed Infant from on high in which honours of their children Mothers use to glory more then in their own the Evangelist noting the modest and silent behaviour of the Virgin saith that whilst all that heard wondred at and magnified these things she kept and pondered them in her heart Luk. 2.18 19. took great notice without much talk tho her glorying in Him had bin a right glorying being glorying in the Lord. 1 Cor. 1.31 covering all these things that had happened for the present with great taciturnity and humility and perhaps not without some presage of the hatred and envy which her Son was afterward to suffer which things in due time after our Saviours humiliation and resurrection was passed she revealed to the Apostles and other disciples from whom this Evangelist received them Luk. 1.1 Meanwhile we may imagine how these strange accidents still increased if capable of increase the silent and reverent deportment both of Joseph and Mary toward the child Jesus whilst the little Babe in the cratch by the secret influence of his divine power guided all these occurrences and made these persons so near him to do only such things as done might be acceptable to Him § 43 A compleat week was now passed over and the eighth day the number for all perfection was now come at which time the law required Circumcision of all male children Lev. 12.3 so to enroll them into the family of Gods Church and render them heirs of the Covenant made with faithful Abraham of redemption benediction and an eternal inheritance thro his seed that was to come our Lord Christ Of which Covenant Circumcision was from Abrahams time appointed in Gods Church as a Sacrament and seal Gen. 17. The Blessed Virgin therefore and her most â—â—us husband diligently performed to this Holy Babe the solemnities thereof Of which solemnity if we may make where the Law is silent any conjecture of the Ancient from the modern rites the manner of later times is that it may be done by any person even the Father of the Child and we see Moses his Sons were circumcised by their Mother Exod. 4.24 but yet is usually procured to be done by some person well experienced in the practice thereof may be done also in any place either more solemnly in their School or Synagogue or more privatly in their own house Two of the kindred or near relation are as it were a God-Father and God-Mother to the Child the woman bringing the Infant to the place of Circumcision The man sitting down and holding it in the Circumcision after which done with a
Priest that after their second Captivity at Babylon conducted the People again into the land of promise and rebuilt the Temple of the Lord formerly demolished Against whom in the visions of the Prophet Zachary cloathed in poor and filthy Garments Satan before the Lord bringing great Accusation God rebukes him Satan for it and commands Joshuahs filthy Garments to be taken away from him and him to be clothed with change of Raiment and a Miter and Crown to be set upon his head See Zach. 3.3 c. and 6.11 c. In both which places is joined a promise concerning this our Jesus called there by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Oriens Or as the Hebrew Germen who was typified by the other and who is our everlasting High Priest That he should build the Temple of our Lord and should bear the Glory and should sit and rule upon his Throne and be a Priest upon his Throne c. § 59 But tho Jesuses these two were before him and both sent deliverers of Gods people after a Captivity and both reconductors of Gods people into Canaan yet far short they came of this Jesus who saved mankind from a far higher slavery and of another kind than those other were and indeed from the only Captivity that could make us truly miserable Viz from the Captivity of sin Satan and death Triumphing in his Cross and Resurrection and descent of the Holy Ghost over these three the only terrible enemies of poor mankind who before that this Saviour came sat in chains and darkness and in the shadow of death trembling under Gods wrath and appointed to eternal torments § 60 This great Saviour came saith the Apostle 1 Thes 1.10 that he might save us from the wrath to come 1 For our salvation from Satan By him saith the Apostle Col. 1.15 we are delivered from the powers of Darkness And 1 Jo. 3.8 for this was he made manifest that he might destroy the works of the Devil And Col. 2.15 He spoiled Principalities and Powers and made an open shew and spectacle and triumph over them both in his life and in a Resurrection from the death that they had most cruelly contriv'd against him 2 And so for our saving from sin Sermo omni acceptione dignus saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 1.15 a comfortable saying beyond all other sayings this that Jesus came into the world to save sinners Especially when our conscience adds Quorum ego primus 3 Lastly for the salvation from death O Death saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.55 where is now thy sting O Grave where thy victory Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory over these thro our Lord Jesus And for the manner also of our Salvation by this Jesus much more misterious miraculous and indearing it was as to the delivered than that of any other Saviour whatever hath or can be For this Jesus came if I may so say not so much with his power to save us as with his patience and conquered not by his enemies sufferings but his own 1 To conquer those powerful spirits he took upon him weak flesh by this flesh they conquered us and in this flesh he redeemed us 2 To conquer Death Himself under-went and suffered Death but it could not hold him Act. 2.24 and by this his death destroyed Him that had the power of death Heb. 2.14 To save our lives he laid down his own Jo. 10.15 and healed our wounds with his own stripes Esay 53.5 3 So for sin He came in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh Rom. 8.3 And to free us from a Curse became himself a Curse for us Gal. 3.13 Such was this Salvation of this Jesus and such the way of it worthy a God O Blessed Jesu O ever blessed Name A name and the mistery thereof hid from ages and from generations and now made manifest and revealed What comfort could any other name expressing perhaps the Majesty or power or holiness or justice or eternity of this Prince have afforded to a poor guilty sinner trembling and despairing for the judgment to come but only this Or what comfort would this have aforded if it had bin only a Jesus from some temporal Tyranny from a Pharaoh or a Nabuchadnezzar or a Cesar and not a Jesus from the Devil or Hell or the Grave to which these other deliverances though for a time never so glorious would have left us still in bondage and in fear all our lives after a few daies to be devoured and swallowed up by them for ever Blessed name at which all the Spiritual Apolluons and destroyers of mankind all spiritual Pangs and anguishes of souls all the corporal messengers and arrows of death are afraid and tremble and from which only pronounced they do so often fly away Blessed name a poor sinners only consolation on his death-bed when the Grave opens her mouth for him and these spiritual Foes on every side invade him and Hell-fire eternal burns before him Blessed therefore be this name Jesus and exalted above all names at which Name let every knee bow of things in heaven in earth and under the earth and every tongue confess this Jesus Lord to the Glory of God the Father Amen § 61 After our Lord thus had received Circumcision as a Son of Abraham and entered into Gods Covenant and the name of Jesus as ordained the Saviour of the World and whilst Joseph and Mary abode still at Bethleem because this City near to Jerusalem and their own country very remote expecting the appointed time of the Purification of the Mother and presentment of the Child in the Temple certain persons both rich noble and Learned and probably much addicted to the study of Astronomy being directed by a Star came from the Oriental parts much more famed for wisdom to adore and do homage to this new-Born King and to present him with the most precious things those Countries afforded in behalf of the Gentiles as the poor and simple Shepheards being instructed by an Angel had done formerly in behalf of the Jews The Divine Providence so disposing it that our Lord to the Gentiles more contemplating the Creature should be manifested by a Star rather and the Jew as acquainted with the true worship of the Creatour by an Angel For both Jew and Gentile were now to have an equal share and a General Union in this Prince of Peace And the event corresponding exactly to these beginnings hath shewed us that after some few for the most part poorer and meaner and so humbler sort of the Jewish Nation were for the present by our Lord and his followers converted to the Faith represented by the Shepheards the riches and wisdom of the Gentiles hath bin brought into the obedience of the Gospel represented by the Magi till a compleat harvest of both shall be reaped by the Addition to them of the full Body of the Jews § 62 Now the Adoration and doing homage of the
them § 96 Meanwhile the Divine Justice and Vengeance upon bloody Herod slumbred not Our Lord is by many conjectured not to have remained fully two years in Egypt before the Angel brought Joseph tidings of his death Certum est saith Tirinus Chron. Sacr. c. 49. Dominum ibi non haesisse toto Biennio And Hanc communem esse sententiam antiquitus pro vulgari habitam c. And thus Eusebius Hist l. 1. c. 8. Statim post necatos infantes nulla ne minima quidem dilatione interposita divina ultio illum dum adhuc in vivis manebat exagitavit referring to the History of Josephus And Josephus tho he makes no mention of the slaughtered Infants no more than he doth of many other eminent occurrances of the Evangelical story as he being no friend to Christianity and mistaking Vespasian for the true Messias yet could not but observe the divine hand in Herods sickness and fall Supplicia saith he Antiq. Judai l. 17 c. 9. Deo commissi sceleris expetente tho he mistaking the scelus And again Dicebatur saith he ab his quibus inerat divinandi peritia divinitus has paenas ob impietatem ejus multa crudeliter gesta deposci And he thus describes his horrid disease Ibid. Ignis quippe lentus inerat non tantum conflagrationem in superficiem corporis agentem prodens quantum intrinsecus crescens operabatur incendium Aviditas quoque inexplebilis semper inerat cibi nec tamen satietas unquam rabidis incitatam faucibus valebat implere ingluviem Intestina internis ulceribus tabida putrescebant doloribus quoque coli saevissimis cruciabatur humor liquidus ac luridus erga pedes tumidos oberrabat Similis illi quoque circa pubem erat afflictio Sed verenda ipsa putredine corrupta scatebant vermibus spiritus quoque incredibilis erecta tentigo quae fuerat satis obscaena diritate foetoris anhelitus respiratione creberrima contractus quoque per cuncta membra subsistens vim noxiam operabatur quae omnem tolerantiae abstulerat firmitatem He relates also his attempt to have killed himself with a knife had not one observing it suddainly stopt his hand The sword also departed not from his own house See Joseph Antiq. l. 15. c. 9.16 c. 3.17 from c. 1. to 11. For after a former slaughter of his two sons Alexander and Aristobulus and of several of his wives some of them at least innocent upon jealousies and continual accusations of one another for preparing of poison and for other conspiracies against him He five daies before his death commanded the slaughter of his Son Antipater And Antipater Joseph Antiq. l. 17. c. 8. also having formerly accused two other sons of Herod Archelaus and Philip of like treason against their Father in making his will he also passed-by them and nominated a younger Son Herod Antipas heir of his Crown But after Antipater put to death changing his mind again he resumed Archelaus and so these two brethren Archelaus and Antipas after his death upon his varying wills contended for the Kingdom He had great misfortunes also in his kindred and Relations Herod's brother Pheroras was poisoned and his wife being accused of it made away herself His Father in law Simon the High-Priest was deposed from his Office And lastly Josephus observes concerning Herod's posterity Antiq. l. 18. That though it was very numerous yet within an hundred years there was none or very few remaining Vt innotescat saith he nihil prodesse vel exercitus aut vim Corporis vel alia quae videntur mortalibus appetenda sine pietate qua colitur Deus intra centum annorum spacium praeter paucos nam admodum plures erant cuncta Herodis origo consumpta est Super haec etiam ad humilitatem modestiam humanum genus adducitur cum illius familiae calamitates audierit Thus He. Besides such cruelties to his wives and children the same also overflowed toward all the Jewish Nobility For when some Jews upon a rumour of his Death had defaced some of his as they esteemed them prophane Ornaments of the Temple he so much gloried in He summoning all the Jewish Nobility upon pain of Death to the absent under shew of taking their advice for punishing such an insolency and then imprisoning all those who came Ordered that at the time of his own expiring they also should be by his Souldiers put to death the better he said to secure his Kingdom to his posterity and that he might make those mourn who otherwise would have rejoyced at his death But this was not executed nor did such an unheard-of cruelty survive in any after him § 97 So miserablely died this Anti-Messiah who how much wiser had he and how much happier bin he and his if he had humbly with the Magi submitted his Scepter to and going with them adored the new-born Saviour of the world One who came onely to give to mortals a heavenly Kingdom and not to disturb in the least any ones temporal Dominion And so also how much more happy as well as pious had the chief Priests and Scribes and the whole Jewish Nation bin had they accompanied him in such a Devout Procession and as they could readily tell Herod the place of his Birth so had taken notice also of the time Of which God his Father had given them such an eminent Signal and Testimony by the forraign message sent to them of the Magi and the Star But though their Relation wrought so far with them saith the Text as to trouble Herod and all Jerusalem with him yet not so as to make them sensible of this infinite Honour newly done them in their long expected Messias's coming It troubled them but reformed them not to pay him at least the same homage as did those strangers or to provide him so much as a lodging or a bed Therefore we read of the effect of Gods displeasure at this time not only falling upon Herod but on the Jews too For not only about the time of Herods decease died many other great persons and therefore it is said Mat. 2.20 They are dead who sought the childs life Viz. such as whom their having relation to Herod he marrying the daughter of an High Priest made zealous of his greatness And several also of the Sanedrim and Pharisees were slain by him for refusing to swear Allegiance to him and forty persons burnt alive for defacing the golden Eagle set up by Herod before the gate of the Temple But immediatly after Herods death happened many rebellions of the Jews seeking to regain their liberty before the settlement of Archelaus by Augustus and during our Lords quiet recess in Egypt which rebellions were suppressed with great slaughter of them § 98 For first in an Insurrection against Archelaus about three thousand Jews were slain at the celebration of their next Paschal feast after Herods decease And in a Rebellion revived again at the Feast of Pentecost the
such as a wise man suffers whose duty obligeth him to the service and sometimes undiscreet commands though in things lawful of a person of much less understanding unless we may rather think that the Holy Spirit by him guided his Parents in all those commands whereto it required his obedience § 124 And among such his mortifications this seems no small one that considering who he was the word and wisdom of God and by whom God formerly made the world he should have a law of silence for so long a time imposed upon him as to any function as yet of his ministry or discovery of his wisdom even when there was in his seeing the great follies of the world occasion shall I say or rather a great necessity thereof Nay in the Sabbaths when all frequented the Synagogues which were in every City and there the law and Prophets read to the people Act. 13.27 and among others his most devout Parents together with himself that after his forementioned dispute with the Doctors at Jerusalem and after he was now arrived to mans estate from 20 years old till 30 he should patiently stand there among the rest in the quality of a mean labourer and this the Law-giver himself in silence hear the expositions of it not alwaies free from errour by others which rendered his fellow-Citizens so astonisht when afterward he who had bin so long an Auditor with them now shewed himself a Doctor A stupendious Humility and Obedience this so long practised in so Soveraign a dignity and an hard lesson for those to imitate who have parts To our Lord therefore stooping by Obedience to such a condition seems principally to be applied that complaint of the Psalmist Psalm 38. Posui ori meo custodiam cum consisteret peccator adversum me Obmutui humiliatus sum silui a bonis sermonibus dolor meus renovatus est Concaluit cor meum intra me in meditatione mea exardescet ignis whilst he whom a fire of Zeal for his Fathers glory and for the salvation of mankind continually burnt and consumed See Jo. 2.17 Conversed among the ignorant and sinners without being permitted either to instruct the one or reprove the other whilst he who to use the expression of Elihu Job 32 was full of words and his belly as new Wine without vent and that breaketh new Vessels was so long to be dumb and as one that heareth not and in whose mouth are no reproofs No discourses I say saving such as did not transcend the appearance of his exteriour condition and manner of Education and emploiment and such conversation as in a private life gave good example to his few acquaintance and friends remaining so many years even whilst repairing in the State of his man-hood to Jerusalem and the Temple and the great Assemblies of the Nation at the publick feasts as it were a Candle hid under a Bushel and not suffered to diffuse its light walking in this most difficult obedience for so many years to the good pleasure of his heavenly Father as also the same obedience practised the like silence whilst he suffered so many false accusations before his Passion § 125 And the Nazarens rude and uncivil entertainment of him when visiting them afterward and his Brethren and kindred their not believing on him shew well how much he had in his youth ecclipsed and made himself of no account among them at least those that were not more intimately acquainted Wherein he gave the world a great lesson and example of trampling under foot any vain honour and Reputation save that with God and the Citizens of Heaven But indeed had our Lord sooner manifested himself to Israel supposed even from his youth we may conjecture such effect thereof either that the glory of his wisdom and mighty works with the envy of the Great ones accompanying these would have hastened his Death and brought it so much sooner Or such his Excellencies and Dignity of his person in a long time of Conversation with them better known to the Nation would have daunted his enemies and prevented his Death and deprived the world of the precious Benefits thereof and we may say his Father was pleased that he should be so long concealed to us that he might dye for us § 126 In this time of our Lords living at Nazareth and before the 30th year of his age is supposed to have happened the death of S. Joseph there being no more mention made of him as of his Mother and our Lord's Brethren after our Lords publick appearance either at the Marriage in Cana or else-where It seeming good unto his heavenly Majesty that after his Manifestation though a Mother did yet no Father real or reputed should appear that God might be the more looked-on as his Father who also was professed by him to be so no other being in sight nor receiving any honour as such Therefore also is our Lord in St. Mark probably after Josephs decease himself called the Carpenter and the Son of Mary But when ever S. Josephs Death happened doubtless it was undergone with great Resignation and content and after our Lord 's having first made known his heavenly Father's good pleasure both to him and his Mother in which all three most affectionately acquiesced though Joseph by his Death in some sense was to leave and lose his most beloved Jesus Viz. as to the presence of his Humanity wherein his Saints by death do now enjoy him § 127 Now that after so profound an Annihilation and latitancy of our Lord in so mean a fortune and obscure place the time drew near of his manifestation to Israel being God at last descended upon earth to reveal to men the whole Will of his Father and all the Secrets of Heaven A great person and one sanctified from the womb and Quo non major inter natos mulierum as our Lord saith of him was sent some time before to proclaim to the world the near approach and appearance of this heavenly Prince for begetting a greater reverence in them to his person And also to prepare all men by a due Confession of and repentance and doing penance for their sins and correction and amendment of their evil lives which is called the levelling Hills and filling Valleys and making the high waies streight and lastly by their being purified by Baptism for a more worthy and Honourable reception of this great Lord whose Kingdom was not temporal but Spiritual that so nothing in his Subjects at his coming might disgust or displease him And lastly was sent after his making such a proclamation of him before hand to shew also and demonstrate with the finger his very person to them for removing all possible mistake or just excuse § 128 The miraculous Nativity of this Forerunner of Christ in the old age of his Parents foretold by the same Angel as was our Lords and his being full of the Holy Ghost from his very first Being his leaping and
most unreasonably a further sign from him and urged that Moses had given them Manna from Heaven and there also in like manner our Lord presently told them of his Death and his feeding them with his Flesh and Blood and then of their having everlasting life by it and his raising them up at the last day things at which some of them also then took great offence So here also they whether misconstruing his words as if he had said first that he would destroy their Temple for this at his Death they urged against him and the false witness Mark. 14.5 to speak home interposeth that he said he would destroy the Temple made with hands and in three daies raise up another made without hands and then that he in three daies would build it again a Temple that they said was forty six years in building in the one made him impious in the other ridiculous and so turned his mention of this his greatest work for the salvation of mankind into a great scorn and flighting of him and into the cause of a quarel against him till at last they contrived his Death the destroying of the Temple he here speaks of and brought these his words against him to justify it and so He in raising up again this Temple of his Deity thus destroyed exhibited to the World this great Sign which at this beginning of his preaching he engaged here This was the success of our Lords first Sermon and appearance amongst them as to the Pharisees and their followers already much degusted with him and filled with envy § 183 Yet many others there were that seeing his Miracles believed on him at least that he was some great Prophet sent from God among whom was Nicodemus But our Lord saith the Evangelist did not commit himself unto them admitting them not into his familiar society nor relied on their fidelity for he knew well what was in them and that several of them would fall away and especially in his last tryal most unworthily desert him Therefore our Lord usually when at Jerusalem after his publick teaching them in the Temple and his daies work there done withdrew himself and had no private meetings and conferences as he said at his tryal that in secret he had said nothing and many times at night removed with his Disciples out of the City neither though several in the Country are mentioned do we hear of our Lords admitting any entertainments in the City though we may presume he wanted not some Invitations And all this was but necessary for deferring the Conspiracies of his enemies till the due time of his offering-up appointed by his Father § 184 Our Lord continuing his publick teaching in the Temple and doing Miracles during the Paschal feast Nicodemus a Pharisee a ruler of the Jews as he is stiled here vers 1. One of the Sanedrim and a person studied in the law for our Lord chap. 3. vers 10. stiles him a Master in Israel shewing also herein to him that he knew who he was and on that account blames his ignorance being already a Convert as it is said Jo. 12.42 many other among the chief Rulers were afterward but timorous to confess him came privatly to our Lord by night for fear of losing his Reputation with his fellow-Rulers which shews a great envy and hatred toward our Lord already kindled in them to be farther instructed of him in the matters of the Kingdom of God and life eternal confessing to him that his Miracles had convinced him that he was an extraordinary Teacher sent from God Our Lord very courteously received him and in a few words manifested to him fully who himself was and the whole substance of the Gospel At the first he began to acquaint him with the first Foundation of the Christian Religion Regeneration which at the beginning he proposed some what obscurely perhaps to humble Nicodemus his too much conceit of his own knowledg telling him that to enter into the Kingdom of God one must necessarily be born again which word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated here again signifies also from above which Nicodemus much wondring at and speaking of entring again into our Mothers womb our Lord graciously explained it to him that he must be born again not of a woman or the flesh which would produce nothing but flesh but of water the external Ceremony appointed by God to be used in the new birth signifying a being cleansed and purifyed from former sin and of the Spirit which might render a man spiritual and enabled therewith to bring forth good works which spirit inspires as it pleaseth 1 Cor. 12.4 Mark 4.27 unperceived by sense and being as the wind of which we know not whence or whither it goes but by its effects do discern the presence thereof and then gently reflected on Nicodemus his ignorance so to render him more docible and humble that he being a Master in Israel should know nothing of this For this Holy Spirit and our Renovation by it is frequently spoken of in the Old Testament and so also many types of Baptism and of the Sacraments of the new Testament found there See Psal 50.12 13 14 9. 142.10 11. Ezec. 11.36 1 Cor. 10.2 3 4. Further told him that these things he now spake to him were the lowest matters but that there was much higher that he came to reveal to mankind from Heaven and from God his Father For that he was the only begotten Son of God descended from Heaven and again ascendeth thither and which also according to his Divinity remains alwaies there who spake nothing but what he knew and had seen with the Father See the like vers 32. and Jo. 8.38 5.19 30. Because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that men might not perish but have everlasting life i. e so many as believed in him and that as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness so he was to be lifted up See the like Jo. 8.28 So acquainting him but obscurely with his death sufferings That whosoever stung with sin beheld and believed on him might not perish but that those whoso did not believe on him were already condemned by occasion of his preaching to them not for their former sins which he came to take away but for their disbelief See Jo. 9.39 12.47 48. without which belief in him no forgiveness of Sin That he was the Light that was come into the world avoided only by those whose works were evil and so who feared the discovery of them by it and therefore made such opposition to him But that he that did truth would come to it as not fearing the manifesting of his deeds by it § 185 All these things he gratiously revealed to Nicodemus which delivered with his accustomed Majesty and Power must needs elevate Nicodemus into the highest admiration and reverence of his person love and gratitude towards his mercy and familiar condescendence especially having already seen his mighty
in this his travelling through these Cities and Coasts bordering on the west side of the Lake having made himself so publickly known was by the concourse of people still increasing forced frequently to change his place and at last saith the Evangelist absent himself from the Cities and repair into solitudes and desarts where company if not wholly prevented yet was somewhat lessened and so he might communicate his doctrine and mighty works more freely to new Auditors which excessive concourse of people we may imagine he avoided upon many other reasons not only for procuring hereby some time of necessary rest both to himself and his Disciples but also for the not giving any jealousy to Herod and for preventing any disturbance from his Officers for declining the suspition of affecting popularity and applause and for remedying the inconveniences such great multitudes of men women and children remote from Cities might suffer for want of provisions § 217 After some time thus spent in Galilee for the further spreading still of his new Gospel he gave order to his Disciples to pass over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee Mat. 8.18 Upon which a Scribe came to him and offered his service to attend upon him whithersoever he went his intentions herein are not mentioned but by our Lords answer it may be suspected that upon seeing such wonderful works of our Lord and such a fame of and concourse to him he hoped like Simon Magus the purchase of some great reputation or gain to himself also thereby Our Lord the better to inform him of the hardship and poverty of such a service told him that the Foxes perhaps intimating therein the cunning and wise men of this world had provided themselves holes and the wandring birds nests where to repose and retire themselves but the Son of man had not where to lay his head For our Lord had no house no possessions of his own even in Capernaum was only a sojourner in anothers house probably Peters and in his travels and peragrations it seems by Mark. 1.45 took up his lodgings on nights sub dio in desart places His great fame also and conflux of people to him hindring saith the Evangelist that he could no more openly enter into the Cities Which desarts in any remission of business and vacancy from the crowds of people he made use of for praier Luk. 16. So Mark. 6.46 at night after he had miraculously fed such a multitude he went higher into the Mountain and there taking up his lodging and it seems by what happened to his Disciples in a very tempestuous night continued in praier till the fourth watch or the third hour in the morning And again Mat. 15.32 he is said to have remained three daies together in a desart Mountain and many thousands with him among which many women also and children whom it seems much transported with his discourses and having taken little care of themselves he miraculously fed that they might not be famished And the like was his practice at Gethsemane at the foot of Mount Olivet at the times when he preached in Jerusalem Yet surely such hardships our Lord underwent not necessitated thereto either for want of friends and benefactors who had obliged so many with his miracles or also of an inheritance though this small from his parentage but such poverty and dereliction of all things he rather chose for a single attendance without any other solicitudes or embarrasments whatever on the Gospel because the labourer he knew at least from the Divine provision could not want his salary viz. necessaries and also for a recommendation of the like condition to others that desired to be more perfect And some such thing we see he proposed to the young rich man upon the account of attaining perfection Mat. 19.21 with which answers of our Lord it is probable the Scribe here as that young man disheartned cooled-in and receded from his former purpose and pretentions § 218 Upon this free offer of the Scribe S. Matthew infers another and S. Luke a third though perhaps not all occurring at the same time of two other persons who offered their constant attendance upon our Lord either freely on their own accord or also by him invited to it only requested his leave to dispatch one business first and this in order thereto the one of them the burying of his Father news being supposed to have come then suddainly to him of his death a matter seemingly of great piety and capable also of no long retardment or delay though some other Commentators think that his Father being aged and near his Grave the Disciple desired to be dispenced with till after his death The other desired his permission only first to shew the civility to his friends and kindred at home of bidding them Adieu a thing of less stay or demur than the other Yet our Lord to shew us the great importance of immediatly prosecuting good purposes and especially the things belonging to the Kingdom of God and the nothingness of and danger of temptation by such secular diversions and Ceremonies franckly denies both these seeming small and reasonable requests Answering them in Parables or Metaphors § 219 To the one he said let the Dead bury their Dead shewing what esteem our Lord had of the men of this world viz. as of dead in it as on the other side the Apostle makes Gods Saints dead to it and intimating the nobleness of this mans present calling in respect of his former sad condition Coloss 3.2 and of those of his Relations dead to God and spiritual things and that there was enow of them to do this office to his Father and that the employment he was graciously invited to was not to bury but raise the Dead to newness of life To the other that whoso puts his hands once to the Plow and looketh back is not fit for the Kingdom of God for if the Plow-man looks back but for a minute his plow cannot go right Signifying in both his answers great intentiveness and diligence without any distractions required in prosecuting that only business our Salvation and especially such as are imployed in the procuring also the salvation of others and seeing much better then they the harm to their new good resolutions that might be incurred by these impediments that the one in burying his Father would next be ingaged about settling the inheritance too and the other by his kindred disheartned in his present good purposes and allured by some other baits from further pursuing them Which answers of our Lord call to mind the Lesson elsewhere to his Disciples Matt. 6. Quaerite regnum Dei reliqua adjicientur and to Martha concerning unum necessarium and his Admonition Luk. 17.31 non descendat in domum tollere vasa sua memores estote uxoris Lot and S. Pauls practices Phil. 3.13 Quae retro sunt obliviscens ad priora contendo § 220 When our Lord was entered into the
of the Evangelical Counsels but by the rigour of them if now unseasonably applyed some of them might rather be discouraged and apt to fall away from their new profession as also he told his disciples a little before his passion that he had many things to say to them which as yet at that time they could not bear Jo. 16.12 § 236 This was said by our Lord without the least disparagement as the Pharisees expected or rather with the great advancement of fasting compared here to new cloth and new wine and without any displaying to the people the Pharisees Hypocritical fasts least this Duty might seem to have bin any way aspersed by his mentioning the misbehaviour of the persons Neither doth he prejudice the fastings of the Disciples of John who had now bin under a longer discipline than our Lords and so were capable of higher undertakings But yet so far as their prayers or fastings were acceptable to God so far were these performed by the renovation of the same spirit in them which was also in their Master the Baptist and which Spirit flowed originally from our Lord the fountain thereof and which from this Lord was daily to be increased in them as in his new disciples As for the disciples practice of fasting after the Bridgroom's departure see Act. 13.3 17.22 27.21 2 Cor. 6.5 11.27 1 Cor. 7.5 9. ult And in all times from the beginning where was an absence of the Bridgroome and any adversity or distress fasting joyned with prayer was repaired to as a remedy publick 1 Esdras 8.21 Judith 4.8 2 Chron. 10.3 Jonah 3.5 Ester 4.16 Private 2 Sam. 12.6 1 King 21.17 Dan. 9 3. 10.3 c. § 237 This discourse and Apology of our Lord for his Disciples was interrupted by Jairus one of the Rulers of the Synagogue at Capernaum who had one only daughter about twelve years old and now entring upon the flower of her age lying at the point of death He came therefore in hast and fell down at our Lords feet and besought him that he would vouchsafe to come to his house and lay his hands upon her that she might be healed The divine Providence thus supporting our Lords authority by other great persons as this Ruler here and before the Regulus or noble man of Capernaum and afterward the Centurion obliged by our Lords favours to them against the envy and malice of the Pharisees Our Lord though he could presently with a word and without a journey have cured his daughter as he had done before the noblemans Son yet gratiously bearing with the infirmity of the Rulers faith who thought his coming to her and imposing his hands upon her necessary to her recovery and also the more to oblige him and heighten the miracle by the account which afterward happened went along with him together with his disciples and a crowd of people toward his house § 238 In his passing along a certain woman that had suffered a flux of her blood during twelve years and spent all her means on the Physitians without remedy not able for the press to get to prefer her request to our Lord or perhaps nor daring to appear and make known her malady to him which rendred her unclean and so all those whom she touched said to herself that if she could but come behind and secretly touch the fringe or hem of his garment she should be cured Matt. 9.20 For the fringe so it was that God would have his own people distinguished from the rest of the world as in their flesh by circumcision so externally and visibly by his appointing upon the border of their garment round about to be worn a blew or Heaven and Sky-coloured ruban which the Pharisees loved also to have broader than ordinary to the end saith the Text Numb 15.39 that they looking upon it both their own and that of anothers should remember all Gods commandments to do them and not seek after the lusts of their own hearts and eyes Some therefore think the womans devotion directed more particularly to the hem of our Lords vest as counted more sacred Of which see what is said Zachar. 8.23 But the other Evangelists express it more generally of her touching any part of his clothes which her desire as soon as the woman had attained she perceived her blood presently stopped So that afterward when this thing better known in their bringing to our Lord Mat. 14.37 36. very many sick they besought him for saving more trouble that they might only touch the Hem of his garment and so many as did it were cured This woman then according to her faith coming behind him and touching secretly his cloths had immediatly her blood stopped Only in this deficient that she thought this might happen without his knowledg § 239 Our Lord to manifest this womans great faith and the effect thereof and to propose it to the imitation of others and particularly to strengthen that of the Rulers standing by much inferiour to hers Lastly to shew himself omniscient of all that passed and that God might not lose the due glory thereof suddainly turning about asked who it was that had touched him Whereupon whilst the Disciples excused the matter from the pressing of the multitude the woman knowing what was done in her fearing and trembling faith the Text presented her self and fell down prostrate before him and confessed the fact Our Lord on the other side much comforting her recommending to the people the greatness of her faith and imputing to it her cure Hist 7. l. 14. c. Eusebius relates this woman to have bin an inhabitant of Cesarea Philippi and there in gratitude before her door to have erected a brazen statue of our Lord and another of hers prostrate at his feet and that under our Lords statue grew an unknown kind of herb which when so high as that it touched our Lords vest reaching to his ankles was medicinable and cured any disease This Statue Eusebius saith he had the curiosity to go to the city and there saw which Zozomen saith was afterward caused to broken by Julian the Apostate Lib. 5. cap. 20. and his own placed instead thereof But this by lightening to have bin cut in the middle and the upper part thrown down to the ground Ex quo quidem tempore saith he ad hodiernum diem atra tanquam fulminis ictu ambusta manet § 240 During this our Lords stay about the woman and Jairus still attending on him a sad message came to him that his daughter was already departed so that our Lord needed not to be troubled any further who though he had done many wonderful cures of several kinds yet is not related hitherto to have manifested his power in raising any from the dead Our Lord comforted the much-dejected Ruler bidding him not to be affraid only believe and went on his journey Come to the House all was found full of lamentation the minstrels and solemn Mourners according to
take up his bed and walk Upon which the impotent man was instantly cured and carrying his bed on the Sabbath was presently questioned by the Jews probably these inquirers being either the Pharisees great zelots for the Sabbath or some of their Disciples for the breach of it in so doing who answered them that he was bid to do so by the person that cured him But our Lord there being a throng of people in the place he presently conveyed himself away and returned into the Temple All which occasioned the cure to be more taken notice of and the person looked after that had done it nor could the poor man give any account of him But a little after he repairing also to the Temple probably there to render more solemn thanks to God for his cure Our Lord now discovers himself to him and minding him of the mercy he had received exhorted him to amendment of life least a worse thing yet should happen unto him in die irae if not in this Rom. 2.4 5. yet after this life § 245 The man after he had paid his due adoration and thanks hasted to the former busy enquirers after the Author of his cure and told them it was Jesus doubtless thinking he should advance his honour and esteem with them thereby But it happened much otherwise for instead of this they sought his death for his own breaking in doing this cure and causing the other man also to break the Sabbath Our Lord then questioned by them concerning it as he was often for the like and made them great variety of answers and defences for it by which they were still silenced at this time answers them as absolute Lord of the Sabbath that he was to do the works for which God his Father had sent him among which was restoring the lame giving sight to the blind c. Mat. 11.5 whether this were on Sabbath or week daies or whoever should suffer scandal thereat But his answer now again was made by them worse than his fault collecting hence an higher accusation for destroying him because faith the Text he not only hath broken the Sababth Jo. 5.18 but said also that God was his Father and made himself equal with God which equality had the Jews miscollected from our Lords words as the Arrians say they did probably our Lord or the Evangelist would have reflected on it § 246 But our Lord well knowing his time not yet come of being delivered into their hands with the same undaunted courage and infinite charity and zeal after their salvation prosecuted his former discourse and took this opportunity to declare to them plainly and fully who he was his Union and intimacy with God his Father and why he was sent by and from him into the world and with what authority and power that all might provide for their Salvation by the believing in and the honouring of him as they did the Father See his Sermon made to them Jo. 5. The chief Contents whereof were these That in nothing he sought his own will our Lord having the same natural affections as other men but these in all things subjected to the Divine good pleasure and disposal but the will of his Father That he did nothing of himself but what he saw his Father do and that as he heard of him so he judged that all judgment also was by the Father committed into his hands see the like Mat. 11.27 Jo. 3.35 and the power of doing whatever the Father doth That every one who heard his words and believed that God had sent him should not come into condemnation .i. e. for his former sins now remitted in him but was passed from death to life speaking of death and life spiritual and eternal and of their regeneration thereto by the Spirit See 1 Jo. 3.14 that they who marvelled now so much at the present works he did namely in curing of diseases c. should yet hereafter see far greater from him namely upon the hearing of his voice by the Archangel all that are in their graves coming forth and receiving from him their final doome the good to the resurrection of life the evil to the resurrection of damnation the like things of his hereafter coming in the clouds c. he told to them before his passion Mat. 26.64 and to Nathanael Jo. 1.51 Angels waiting upon him and going hither and thither as he sent them that therefore it was the Fathers pleasure that all should believe in and do honour unto the Son as they did to the Father whose words and actions were the same and they saw and heard God the Father in the Son And concerning his being such a person and the words he spake to them Truth that they had an abundant testimony though considering his person his own was sufficient Jo. 8.14 16. First from his Father 1 both that which he gave them from heaven concerning him at his Baptism the like to which was done twice afterwards at our Lords tranfiguration before three witnesses Mat. 17.5 which is mentioned again by S. Peter 2 Epis 1.16 17. and at his solemn entrance into Jerusalem before his passion God the Father then from heaven speaking to him Jo. 12.20 23. perhaps for a testimony also to the Greeks or Gentiles see Jo. 7.35 who then first admitted by the Apostles came to worship and to make their humble addresses to him which foresignifyed salvation to be shortly after communicated to them by his now approaching death And a-again 2ly that testimony which his Father gave to him in the Miracles which he wrought by him which testimony he frequently urgeth See Jo. 10.25 38. 15.24 2ly A Testimony from John the Baptist though having that of God he needed not that of men which John was sent before him amongst them as a burning and shining light till the time he was to be eclipsed and silenced and they some of them at least were willing for a season to rejoyce in his light 3ly Testimony also from the Scriptures in which they thought were contained the way to eternal life which Scriptures had they duly searched they might have found them abundantly witnessing of him Lastly testimony from their lawgiver Moses in whom they had so much confidence who also spake clearly of him Jo. 1.45 Deut. 18.15.18 where upon petitioning that they might not hear again the voice of God nor see that terrible fire c he tells them that God would raise them up a Prophet like unto him and would put his own words into his mouth c and to him they should hearken whose words would sufficiently accuse unto God his Father their infidelity though our Lord should hold his peace But that notwithstanding such witness and evidences they would not believe because they had not the love of God in them nor as our Lord did sought the honour that only cometh from him through whatever worldly disesteem but was envious ambitious which shews he spake chiefly to the Pharisees and
to every tittle that the Body of heaven and earth was after a certain time to vanish and pass away but no so one letter of Gods word Again that for the moral commandements and precepts of the Law much less came he to give any relaxation to mens former obedience thereto but to exact the observance of them to the least iota having procured for them from his Father the Holy Spirit for enabling them also to such observance and that he who did not endeavour to keep those that were slighted and accounted the least of these Commandements some of which he mentions below vers 22 28 34 39. not being angry not lusting in our heart not swearing at all c. not rendring evil for evil c. as well as those thought greater could not reach Heaven or eternal happiness In prosecution of which our Lord began to expound to them the true meaning and just extent of several of these Laws corrupted by the former glosses of the Pharisees and human Tradition That the precept of not killing or committing murder extended not only to not taking away our Neighbours life but to any reproaching or vilifying them by words as calling him silly or a fool which said without cause and in malice toward him incurreth not the sentence of a Civil Judg to some corporal punishment or also death in these lesser Courts in the several Cities or that greater at Jerusalem but even of damnation to hell-fire again extendeth also to any anger or disaffection against him in our heart Therefore that before they brought any Sacrifice offering or gift or made any addresses to God concerning themselves or implored his pardon of their faults or any his favours to them they should call to remembrance if there were any displeasure or disgust between them and their neighbour and should presently procure a reconciliation with him especially if such neighbour have any just quarrel against them on the former account that thus they might wisely prevent their neighbours complaints to God the Supreme Judg of all Whose exact justice upon such wrong done would certainly cast them into prison and before any releasment require of them the uttermost farthing if they were not diligent thus before hand and whist they have opportunity in this life to make their composition and peace with him § 266 Our Lord having said this in exposition of the Commandment proceeds to the second of committing Adultery the most natural impetuous and troublesome of our passions being these two Anger and Lust the one from an excess of hate towards another the other of Love After the bridling of the one he now prescribes that of the other and to this purpose tells them that this precept also of not committing adultery extended not only to not actually lying with our neighbors wife but not to much as looking on her or any other woman not our own wife with any lustful thoughts for that all such persons were guilty of committing adultery already with such persons in their heart And therefore that it even our right eye or right hand should be the instrument or tempter to offend God in such a manner it were better if we could procure no other remedy of committing such sin without doing this even to pluck out this though our right eye or cut off our right hand than to sin against God and so have not this eye or hand only lost but our whole Body cast for such offence into eternal flames Intimating at least our cutting-off the observed occasions of sin even though these seem as precious and dear unto us as our eye or right hand That also in marriage they were religiously to observe such an Holy Contract and patiently bear this great Yoke when not well and discreetly engaged without expecting any relief or indulgement of a separation or divorce afterward contrary to the great liberty they had taken herein except in the case of Fornication And in such case also that the parties might not upon this presently clap up new marriages better suting with their new affections and amours but were to live continently and single for God gives ability in such a separation Things which said by our Lord elsewhere the Disciples so check d at Mat. 19.10 that they concluded it was better to forbear marriage if having so streit obligations upon it § 267 From this he proceeds to some liberties and indulgments they practised contrary to the intention of the Divine Law in their conversation with their neighbour especially in a custome of oaths and other aggravating asseverations mostly coming from an evil root in their discourses and treatings which is contrary to the simplicity and moderation that ought to be in their words and reverence towards God and his creatures in relation to him that ought to be observed in their Oath In which matter he instructs them that the precept concerning an oath Lev. 19.12 and Deut. 6.13 Viz. that they should not forswear themselves and should perform unto the Lord their Oaths did not allow them a liberty to swearing also whenever they spake a truth swearing either by God himself or by any of his Creatures Or secure them that swearing also by some of Gods creatures at least such as by some Consecration had not a more special relation to him as the Sacrifice the Gold of the Temple c. signifyed nothing and had no guilt in it according to their false Glosses thinking reverence in using Oaths was only confined to the name of God and to his name not as to swearing but only false-swearing by it But that Mat. 23.16 excepting where necessity and matters of great consequence required it in which case we find Gods greatest Saints for advancing truth to have used it Heb. 6.16 And an end of all strifes among men faith the Apostle is an Oath their ordinary communication and discourse and dealing with their Neighbour was to be without any swearing at all either by God himself whose name they were at no time to take in vain Or by any of his Creatures over the least of which even an hair they had no power to make it white or black and all which they ought to reverence for the relation they have to him who at the first made them and alwaies replenishes and dwelleth in them But that their ordinary communication should be plain and simple and without endeavouring with any such attestations or artifice to add weight to their words Yea Yea Nay Nay as our Lords Amen Amen their assertion only being reiterated where less credited for that what was more than this came of Evil i. e. some irreverence toward God in himself or in his Creatures and again of evil either others having more jealousy of the truth of our words than they ought which in them is malice or from our own desiring to add more weight to our words than the matter requires which in us is a faulty ambition See this Lesson of our Lord repeated
for them and in especial manner for Peter their cheif and Leader whose forwardness he saw would expose him to so much more tryal and danger that his faith however shaken in this storm yet might not utterly fail and that in his deficiency to confess him he might not also cease to believe in him and that speedily recovering of his lapse he might also be an instrument of confirming the rest § 1 Whilst our dear Lord continued thus partly comforting his sad Disciples and partly recommending them unto his Father and petitioning him for their perseverance in the faith of him in this great time of tryal Meanwhile Judas was departed before out of this holy Society either upon the violent instigation of Satan that he should not omit the present fair opportunity to perform his Treason or also perhaps because he was disgusted that our Lord should discover before the company though this done out of great compassion to him if he would yet perhaps repent of it his purpose of acting that which yet he had already proceeded in so far as to have agreed with the Jews on the very price of his Masters liberty if not life or also because after his silly fancy that he had carried his matter so secretly as that our Lord knew nothing thereof he now perceived by our Lords open discourse of this treason and also his direct answer to his impudent question Master is it I whereby he expected to have bin cleared together with the rest that his plot was already known and without much hast would have bin prevented and so both the reward thereof and his credit be lost Judas I say thus having left the company was gone in all hast to the cheif Preists and Pharisees to give them notice of this opportunity both of the time in the setting of the Evening and covert of the Night and place whither he presumed according to his custome our Lord would resort a private Garden remote from the City his Attendants very few onely Eleven persons the solemn Festival of the next night not affording the same conveniency of a numerous company to apprehend him and if this deferred till after the Feast that he would suddainly retire again out of the way as he had done twice formerly § 3 The High Preist and the Councel in their Assembly called together Jo. 11.47 upon our Lord 's raising of Lazarus from the dead not long before this and such a multitude of people converted to him by it had formerly concluded upon apprehending and putting him to death lest the Romans should make a quarrel upon it and question the whole Nation for a conspiracy against the Empire and setting up a King of their own and had given a strict charge Jo. 11.57 That if any man knew where he was he should shew it that they might take him Which made our Lord also to forbear appearing in publick and to absent himself from the City Jo. 11.54 till his entring in triumph thither upon Palme Sunday when was the time preappointed for offering up himself for the sins of the world But now after his publick appearance again in such a manner and such new acclamations given to him they were by this still more enraged and confirmed in their purpose And it seems from Mat. 26.3 compared with vers 57. and from Luk. 22.4 That upon Judas his repairing unto the High Priests Palace or also before they were met again and in serious consultation how they might apprehend him before the Feast lest done in the time of the Feast it should raise some tumult as also that thus might be prevented the peoples concourse to him in the Feast time And all this they did out of zeal to the safety of the state in shew but out of meer malice and envy to him in truth And for this Judas his arrival was no unwelcome accident with whom also they sent some of the Councel together with the Tribune and Soldiers for his apprehension and meanwhile attended the success see Luk. 22.52 § 4 And now very busy Judas and the Officers are in gathering sufficient forces to apprehend him which consisted partly of the Roman Soldiers or cohort with their Tribune guarding the Temple at these great Festivals and concourse of the people for preserving the publick peace which Guard the Roman Governour it seems permitted the Sanhedrim to make use of see Mat. 27.65 Jo. 18.12 And partly of the Jews own Officers and Serjeants called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministri of whom we find frequent mention see Jo. 7.32 45 -18.3 12 22 -19.6 Mark 14.65 Act. 5.22 26. Together with their Commander see Act. 4.1 5 24. and partly of the servants and other adherents of the cheif Priests and Pharisees with whom also as is said were some Zelots of the cheif Priests and Elders themselves Luk. 22.52 in all a great multitude some armed with swords and other weapons some also with staves or clubs as the hast of the business would permit they having not above an hour or two's warning Who carried also with them some Lanthorns and Torches because of the darkness of the night it seems extraordinary suitable to this great work of the Prince of Darkness for this was the time of the full Moon unless We will say these lights were to make a more narrow search if need were in the grots or other Garden-houses § 5 This Garden where they expected to find their Prey was situate beyond the brook Cedron on the Ascent of the Mount of Olives not altogether so remote as Bethany which also stood on the side at the foot of the same hill and probably belonged to Lazarus or some other Disciple of Jesus whither our Lord was wont to retire at night with his twelve Disciples see Jo. 8.1 2. as he had formerly done also at the Feast of Tabernacles partly for his security the Jews now more vehemently seeking his life see Jo. 7.30 8.59 10.39 and partly for his Prayers and Devotions being private and disengaged of those crowds of people with which he was environed on the day time in the City and Temple and sometimes here as other times in Bethany it seems he with his Disciples took all the night-repose they had otherwise Judas his Troops would not have come so late with Torch-light to have sought him here It being night already as S. John saith Jo. 13.30 when Judas left our Lord. Nor would he have bin so confident or have informed them that there they should find him if his Nights lodging was in Bethany which being about a mile further was somewhat too remote from the City or elsewhere And it seems also his Disciples expected no other lodging in their betaking themselves there to their rest See below § And perhaps from hence it was though called Bethany because not far from it see Luk. 24.50 compared with Act. 1.12 That our Lord returned in the morning so hungry that he went as he passed to get some figs. And from thence
considering their human infirmity when his divine Society or his fortifying grace is never so little suspended or also already being faln into Satans temptation elevating our abilities by Grace into presumption which is the usual forerunner of every fall returned an hasty and confident Answer against the infallible Word and prophecy of their Master that they would never forsake him viz. That as they had abode with him hitherto in his temptations twice followed him of late when he fled for his safety and when he returned to his dangers when also one of them Jo. 11.16 that was afterward as backward in his faith as any resolutely said Let us also go that we may dy with him so they would still be faithful and constant to him But especially Peter as more affectionatly loving our Lord so more forward in expressing it now also carrying one of the two Swords said That though all the rest should possibly withdraw themselves and he stand alone yet he would never leave him would go with him into prison and to death would dye with him and for him To whose confidence our meek Saviour replyed onely to this purpose That though it was now already night yet before the Cock-crow of the very next morning he that was so forward now to dye for him should not once but thrice deny him And indeed amongst others at the questioning of a silly Maid he did not onely say but swear and curse not onely that he was none of his followers or company but that he not so much as knew him A Passage very punctually related by all the Evangelists though Peters friends That this example might remain for ever upon Register to shew the world what the best of men what the very chief of the Apostles of God is when in an hour of temptation God's supporting grace is for never so little time withdrawn from him that the highest Saints to keep themselves from falling might learn to walk in profound humility and perpetual fear of falling and might also learn to compassionate the falls they daily see of their weaker Brethren and to bear with them their burdens Gal. 6.2 3. whilst as the Apostle if any man whatever thinketh himself to be something except only our Lord who stood in his temptation and by his standing we also stand when he is nothing he deceiveth himself Yet after this which was said by our Lord to Peter we find that Peter replyed again more vehemently That if he should dye with him he would not deny him in any wise Mark. 14.31 § 9 Thus he passed through the vally of Jehosaphat the vally of Judgment as some think it shal be and over the Brook Cedron an Emblem of the torrent of Gods wrath of which he was now to drink to the full Psal 110. and so came to the garden a Garden of sorrows to expiate herein what the first Adam had trespassed in a garden of pleasure Of which Passage of our Lord David in some manner seems to have bin a Type when he passed over the same brook toward Mount Olivet flying from the face of his ungrateful son Absalon conspiring against him and seeking his life see 2 Sam. 15.23 Where also he worshipped wept and prayed vers 30.32 And was heard and delivered from death but not so our Lord Where Ittai also his friend vers 21. promised like St. Peter and the Apostles to live and dye with him but was more faithful and stedfast herein than St. Peter was And where Hushai another friend vers 34. departed from him to the adverse party that sate in Concil against him as also Judas did but it was to betray them not him Here arrived this careful Shepheard seeing this great storm now ready to fall first thinks on the safety of those poor sheep whom his father had committed to him and seeing greater danger toward their souls from Satan who was now permitted to invade both them and their Master with all his powers of darkness and who had gotten one sheep from him already by his wiles not by any defect of this vigilant Pastor Jo. 17.12 but by his own naughtiness and Gods permission than toward their bodyes from their Fellow-Disciple and his Troops our Lord sets no sentinels nor provides no defence against these corporal Enemies but the better to prepare his Disciples for the tryal and sufferings approaching so soon as entred into the Garden straitly chargeth them not to sleep that night but to spend it in watching and prayer that they might not fall into or at least in their Temptation Thus leaving eight of his Disciples who perhaps might have bin apt to take some offence at the sight of his Agonies to their devotions near the entrance of the Garden and foreseeing his own great desolation of spirit approaching he takes those three of them more especially loved and familiarly treated by him and conducts them to the further part of the Garden that those whom he had formerly as it were to forearme their faith against this hour taken apart into Mount Tabor to behold his Glory might now be Spectators also of this his great Eclipse and exinanition § 10 And thus far all things being managed with most divine calmness readiness and courage now the combat begins not onely with his followers but himself Righteous Job yet not altogether sinless was delivered into the hands of Satan and Powers of Darkness but with a Reservation of his life But this Righteous and sinfree Person was delivered into the hands of that Enemy of Mankind and of his cruel Instruments life and all Abraham was strongly exercised and tempted by God concerning the loss of his onely Son but in fine his sons life was preserved and there was a commutation of the Sacrifice Isaac the Type proceeded so far as the carrying of his Wood but escaped the being burnt upon it But now the bowels of God his Father for the yearning of his bowels upon us had no compassion on this righteous Job stript first of all he had even to his innermost vesture nor on this onely Son the King and heir of Heaven and Earth but dy he must and the manner thereof to be committed to the malitious contrivance of the Enemy of God and man § 11 And in his entrance thereto first begins a spiritual combat far more sharp and desolate than those corporal ones that followed As in all afflictions commonly the first assault is the most grievous and least supportable Where we are to imagine that not only a natural fear of Death seized on our Lord by the suspending of other thoughts and considerations that might counterpoise it but also a most extraordinary and supernatural desolation and terror was brought upon his Spirit and that those divine consolations which God sometimes withdraws from his Saints which hath left them in very great perplexity heartlesness and aridity whereof they also make sad complaints as of even the greatest of mortal sufferings the same but in a much
by it on those who deprive themselves of their share in the sufferings of this Lamb of God Under the weight then of this heavy burden freely undertaken by him for love of us and our eternal safety he falls down on his knees and prayes on this manner Abba Father Mat. 26. peircing words like those of Isaac Gen. 22.7 from so innocent a person and also an onely Son going to the slaughter If it be possible as all things are possible unto thee Mark 14.36 let this cup pass from me And thus far as he being true man Nature for self-preservation presents to God its own innocent and harmless desires and inclinations but then as also being a most faithful Subject and servant obedient in all things to the will of God proceeds further in another Note Nevertheless Not what I will but what thou wilt And herein consisted his innocency not in wanting these natural desires of self-preservation for this would take away all merit of obedience but in submitting them Such desires of nature being sinful not wherever they are but onely where they rule contrary to what a Superiour power exterior or interior commandeth or requireth of them And to instruct us that no man ought to take such desires arising in him so long as the person thus concludes them in Not what I will to be sin the Son of God also for our consolation sheweth them in himself And from him we may also learn that he as we dayly had and underwent all those other harmless appetites and inclinations of Nature respecting food rest apparrel lodging society and other delights of the senses and that in the confining of these within their due limits in obedience to his Fathers commands consisted the merit of his innocency never any one of these appetites throughout all his life though from time to time motioning their natural contents yet having bin for once any way exorbitant or transgressed the bounds his Father and his God had prescribed it § 16 Therefore we find that two or three daies before as he was in the Temple upon the like natural sense of Death he made the like prayer set down by St. John chap 12. as it were in lieu of this in the Garden which that Evangelist wholly omits who it seems writ his Gospel upon occasion of some Hereticks so early denying our Lords Divinity chiefly to Register therein those discourses and works of our Lord which more manifested to the world his Divinity than those discovering his human infirmities In the Temple then certain devout Gentiles by the divine providence now desiring to be brought to him and to be made acquainted with him as it were already suing to be admitted into his fold which thing was only hindred by his death not as yet accomplished our Lord took great notice of it and upon this occasion foretelling the coming in of the Gentiles and how assoon as he was once lifted up upon the Cross assoon as this standard was erected and he displayed upon it he should draw all the world unto him Upon the mention of that cruel death he there also let fall this expression to them Jo. 12.27 Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say And there also first he makes his request as a man sensible of misery Father save me from this hour but then as a Son and a Servant perfectly obedient he with his Superior reason and the Spirit restrains these sensitive desires in their true bounds in saying to himself again But for this cause came I unto this hour and then adds an Act of Resignation Father Glorify thy name i. e. in any sufferings of mine whatsoever which may be for the enlarging of thy Glory even to the Gentiles and to all the world At which time also after his prayer his Father answered him with a voice from heaven which the People called an Angel's speaking to him Jo. 12.29 as here he sent an Angel to him to shew that he alwaies heareth and accepteth prayers joined with such a Resignation from all his sons See Jo. 12 30.-11.42 So again at the Table in looking upon the horrid design of his own Servant against him read in his heart it is said by the same Evangelist that he was troubled in Spirit chap. 13.21 But straight his absolute Resignation to his Fathers will appears in his permission of Satan to enter and act further against him in that malitious Soul and in his saying then That thou dost do quickly So in his last sufferings on the Cross wherein he seems to have undergone a second Desolation of Spirit when he began those words of the 21 Psalm composed by his Father David touching his Passion My God My God why hast thou forsaken me This also was then accompanied with a most placid Resignation of himself into his Fathers hand that smote him saying presently after these words Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit But to return This Request and perfect Resignation being offered together that Model that should be of all our prayers also he returns in this his Agony to receive the solace of the company of his three dearest Disciples left not far behind him as also like an ever-careful shepheard to look to his sheep and so afford them his company and assistance in this hour of their temptation as well as his And behold he finds them being stupified with sorrow Luk. 22.45 and amazement at such a fight of his sorrow and amazement and for the sad presage he had made to them of his approaching death Peter and all fallen a sleep Our Lord straight awakening them asks Peter who had but now made such great promises of going to Prison and dying with him how it chanced that he and his Followers could not for so little a time as he had now to spend with them even for one hour so much as watch a little with him And this for his own sake too to spend it in prayer to be delivered from that great temptation that was coming especially on Peter But this meek Lord what with one word he questioned presently with another he excuseth in saying with much compassion for them The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weak Upon which Flesh of theirs not onely their greif but Satan probably at this time was permitted to have some influence in this first degree of their desertion of our Lord Where also by his mentioning the weakness and infirmity of their Flesh which he now also felt extraordinarily in himself but without sin he excites them also to a stronger vigilancy over it Then repeating again to them the same charge of watching to praier in this dreadful hour of temptation which he gave them before He departs again to a certain distance sore prest with that great weight that lay upon him and on his knees made a second time the same request with an earnestness of Praier Luk. 22.24 increasing according to his Agony when also his innocent words conclude
again in the same manner Not my will My Father but thine be done And as S. Matthew gives his last words Mat. 26.42 If this Cup may not pass from me except I drink it Thy will be done Then rising up and adding no more words after these as it were hereby restraining his innocent desires of self-preservation from being too importunate and shewing his perfect resignation also in the shortness of his Request he visits again agitated still to and fro with his unparallelled sorrow his three most trusted Friends and finds them fallen asleep again speaks to them and now receives from them no answer For saith the Evangelist their eyes were heavy neither wist they what to answer him thereunto like to those three Comforters of Job who sate down by him but in a deep silence Thus solitary and destitute of any Companion in his sorrow not answered by his Father nor his Friends here those complaints of the Psalmist are verifyed which he spake of him in this his state of Desolation Psal 141. voce sua ad Dominum clamavit voce sua ad Dominum deprecatus est Effudit in conspectu ejus orationem suam tribulationem suam ante ipsum pronunciavit in deficiendo ex se spiritum suum ante ipsum qui cognovit semitas suas rectas Considerabat ad dextram videbat non erat qui cognosceret se Periit fuga ab illo non erat qui requirat animam ejus qui sollicitus esset de vita ejus servanda Yet knowing this for at time of his treading the Wine-press all alone Esay 63.3 he again straight withdraws himself from them and as the floods of his Anguish grew still higher who drank a larger cup of Desolation than ever any other man did according to his greater capacity to receive it and greater cause the sins of the whole world past and to come of undertaking it He returns a third time in the continuance still of the heavy hand of his Father upon his spotless Innocency who stood now over him as it were with a knife in his hand ready to slay his only Son to save the life of some inconsiderable wretches He returns I say a third time to the ordinary remedy of afflicted persons And now falling prostrate on his face he beseecheth him yet once more on the same manner but still concluding with the same perfect obedience and resignation rendred so much more precious to the Divine Majesty by how much the natural motions of his Humanity were more intense to the contrary saying again O My Father not my will but thine be done In all this leaving to us a perfect pattern of our behaviour in Prayer when distressed both of perseverance in demanding what we have need of and of resignation to acquiesce in what God pleaseth to grant § 17 And now that we may understand how terrible this Spiritual combat was and how great this Desolation and desertion being now come to its height besides his strong cries and tears mentioned by the Apostle though not by the Evangelists When Heb. 5 7. saith he in the daies of his Flesh he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death he was heard c. I say besides these his whole body though in a very cold Evening for they made a fire in the High Priests Hall Mark. 14.54 poured out a Sweat and this no ordinary Sweat of a Dewy tenuious and aqueous matter but a thick viscous and clammy Sweat such only as is seen to happen in great agonies and in the Pangs of death But yet his sweat beyond this too for it was saith the Evangelist as it were great drops of blood the pores of his body by the strange pressure of his Spirit from within opening and enlarging themselves and letting out the grosser part also of that substance running in his Veines and this in such quantity as the drops fell on the ground where he lay whether true blood or some other glutinous humor clotted like it who can tell But a strange and miraculous Sweat it was and a miraculous cause it must have and such as no other Son of sorrow hath tryed the like And could we now go no further what world can there be so numerous or its sins so great that the only Son of God might not end his Passion here and offer only this as over-sufficient to redeem it and thus pay the due sufferings in such an afflictive Deprecation of his sufferings § 18 And now in this extremity God his Father heareth him and sendeth help But this sutable to the present state of his humiliation not immediatly but by the Instrumency of one of those creatures to whom our Lord had formerly given and at this instant also sustained their very life and being who now comes to sustain his and administer strength to it for still more sufferings before its dissolution When methinks in great confusion this his Vassal prefaceth to him in some such manner as his servant John did at his Baptism Lord I live and move and have my being by thee and must my Lord thus be strengthned by me To whom this answer seems to be returned I Permit it to be so now For thus it is meet to fulfil all sufferings and to give my Servants an Example of disdaining help from none of Gods Creatures though in Dignity never so inferior to them This Angel then some think the chiefest S. Michael some S. Gabriel named Gods strength and the Messenger formerly of our Lord's Incarnation appears from Heaven strengthening him strengthening him corporally that his sufferings might not end here where it seems Nature was brought to the utmost of her passibility and was dissolving her self in a mortal Sweat and strengthning him spiritually in the Ministery of of those Motives and consolations externally to him which internally he himself withheld from his lower self probably representing to him the infinite Glory to God and benefit to men and Exaltation to himself The fulfilling of Prophecies and of the will of his Eternal Father the rescuing of mankind from everlasting destruction according to his Father's preconstitution His approaching Resurrection and entrance into Glory that should arise from accomplishing the rest of his appointed sufferings Our Lord vouchsafing now to receive as it were by the reflection of an Angel the vivificating sound of his own words that were spoken but two or three daies before in the Temple with much rejoycing in his future Passion when he said Jo. 12.23 c. Now the time is come when the Son of man should be glorified And except a corn of Wheat fall into the ground and dy it abideth alone but if it dy it bringeth forth much fruit And Father Glorify thy name Now shall the Prince of this world be cast forth And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me And if any man
meo custodiam cum consisteret Peccator adversum me Psal 37.13 Opprobrium insipienti dedisti me And obmutui non aperui os meum quia tu fecifti Qui inquirebant mala mihi locuti sunt vanitates dolos c. Ego autem tanquam surdus non audiebam sicut mutus non aperiens os suum And Factus sum sicut homo non audiens non habens in ore suo redargutiones Ego in flagella paratus sum dolor meus in conspectu meo Quoniam iniquitatem meam That of the whole world taken upon me annuntiabo cogitabo pro peccato meo i.e. meorum § 34 This silence as the High Priest much wondred at so he little imagined the reason of it seeing the great advantages he had of a Reply And convinced already without his Plea of the vanity and contradiction of the accusation deviseth another way that might succeed better and being the main matter upon the stage that had bin many times undoubtedly heard from him and which either affirmed or denyed must equally ruin him And that he might no way be defeated by his silence he solemnly adjures him by the living God a custome amongst the Jews in their Courts where wanting some other Evidence see 1 Kings 8.31.32 Numb 5.19 1 Thess 5.27 to declare then openly whether indeed he was the Messias and the Son of God Which if he now denyed having before professed it he might pass for a grand Impostor and Deceiver formerly or if he confessed it with the Court it amounted to blasphemy and the punishment thereof Death and which the divine Wisdom then so ordered That what our Lord had so often declared in his life and confirmed with Miracles he might also witness before all the world at his Death and seal this great truth with his blood for the greater confirming of true Believers and greater conviction of all Opposers at the day of Judgment § 35 Thus therefore our Lord presently confessed openly what he was without those qualifications with which formerly he was wont sometimes to veil it thereby not to prevent or anticipate his sufferings His answer there Thou sayest that I am being amongst the Jews a modest way of Asseveration concerning a thing that includes some self-dignity or commendation Thou sayest that I am being as much as thou sayest that which I am See the same language used by our Lord before to Judas Mat. 26.25 and the High Priest his renting his clothes for Blasphemy shews our Lords Answer to be understood as a clear confession Therefore S. Mark puts instead of it more breifly I am And it may be here observed that when as he said the same thing often in his life time and they upon it had charged him with blasphemy and so went about to stone and kill him see Jo. 5.18 Jo. 10.32 c. He there confuted them and stopped their mouths by many proofs that this was no falshood or blasphemy viz. by his so many miraculous works by the Testimony of the Holy Baptist by the immediate testimony of his Father from heaven lastly by the infallible Scriptures calling those Gods to whom God had given some extraordinary commission or authority whereas himself had received beyond them such a Plenitude of Sanctification appearing by the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon him at his Baptism by the Purity of his life and Doctrine and mighty works see Jo. 5.20 21 33 37. the 10.33 37 yet here at their crying Blasphemy he repeats no such defence notwithstanding all the Nation could witness the truth of it but retireth again to his former silence as loath to disappoint their purpose now his hour was come § 36 Only in great pity and charity to his impious oppressors and to remove the scandal taken at that which ought to be infinitely admired his present voluntarily-assumed humiliation he modestly tells them that although these titles he owned might seem somewhat disfutable to his present low condition yet one day their eyes should behold this now so mean a Son of man exalted to sit on the right hand of Power as David had foretold of the Messias Psal 109.1 which Messias his sitting on the right hand of Power and so being Davids Lord the Pharisees could not reconcile with the Messias being also Davids Son when our Lord asked them this question Mat. 22.44 No more than they could now his bonds with it and that they should also see him come in the clouds of heaven as Daniel had foretold of the Messias Dan. 7.13 to judg the world and even them his then Judges Of which he had also in his preaching told his auditory many times before see Mat. 16.27 Where advising them not to mind the gain of this world but to save their poor Souls in the next he tells them that the Son of man for so he stiles himself also there shall come in the glory of his Father which shewed him the Son to another higher than man with his Angels and then reward every one according to his works And this his premonition here given to his unjust Judges shall again bear witness against them in that his day of Judgment when saith the Prophet Zachary chap. 12. Aspicient in eum quem transfixerunt And Ecce venit in nubibus videbit eum omnis oculus qui eum pupugerunt saith S. John Apoc. 1.7 Nay a-modo saith S. Matthew chap. 26.64 very suddenly within three daies after his saying this they should see the beginning of this his Exaltation and Glory He being exalted by the right hand of God saith S. Peter Acts 2.33 after his Resurrection and Ascension hath shewed forth this ye now see and hear In which speech of our Lord thus standing at the bar we may observe that his singular modesty was accompanied with a great freedom Authority and Majesty Nor had their treatment any way daunted him or remitted the resolution and courage belonging to an innocent person to the dignity of his office and to the necessary confession of truth as appears in his whole carriage at his apprehension Are ye come out as against a Theif c. I sate with you teaching in the Temple c. And here at his appearance before the High Priests and Jewish Courts Askest thou me ask them that heard me And afterwards before the Roman Governor sayest thou this of thy self c. And for this cause come I into the world c. And every one that is of the Truth heareth my voice And Thou couldest have no Power against me but what is given thee from above Jo. 19.11 § 37 But this forewarning them of his Exaltation and judgment to come which should have struck some fear into them and in which his Servant S. Paul had better success Acts 24.25 their malice made also ill use of and improved it so much more to compleat his blasphemy And presently the High Priest fell a rending his clothes as it was the manner
should take such person and hang him upon a Tree before the face of the Sun and after this take down and bury this accursed Corps before night that the land might not be defiled therewith For this see Numb 25.4 Josh 10.26 2 Sam. 21.6 Our Lords death then being appointed and offered to Gods Justice for the Expiation of all even the most horrid crimes of the whole world Jew and Gentile ever since the fall of Adam he voluntarily became such a curse for us and was to undergo this solemnly accursed death to be suspended on a Tree before the Sun and taken down and buried before the Evening as the Apostle hath observed Gal. 3.13 and cites the place in Deuteronomie for God's pronouncing this particular death accursed § 50 This then being the particular way of our Lord 's suffering death which the Jews now in no way at all could inflict the Execution of it was left to the Gentile who more used Crucifixion that so both Jew and Gentile whose sins were equally expiated by it might have a joint concurrence in contriving it § 51 Though Pilats sentence for our Lord's Execution was now the main thing wanting and sought for yet for satisfaction of the Counsellors absent the night before and that all the Jewish consistory might have an equal hand in his condemnation and blood Our Lord is called again before them And without producing any accusation or witness to confirm and make it good here again they require him to tell them whether he was the Christ To whom our Lord shewing his prescience of their thoughts replies that whatever he testified they would not believe Nor if he argued the case with them as he had many times formerly done see Mat. 21.24 22.45 John 5.36 convincing them from the testimony of the Prophets of John Baptist of his Father from heaven of his miraculous works would they answer him Nor upon the truth said dismiss him their distemper lying not indeed in their understanding but in their will But however that they should one day find true what the Scriptures had foretold of him that this Son of man that stood before them now so despicable and vilifyed should hereafter sit on the right hand of the power of God Upon which speech they collecting plainly from this Exaltation spoken in Scripture of the Son of God that he made himself so the question was put again to him now by them all saith the Text Luk. 22.70 which was over night only by the High Preist whether then he was the Son of God And the same answer was returned to it now also the second time Whereupon all pronounced the same sentence as was given over night and concluded that there needed no further witnesses against a Person sufficiently condemned from his own mouth § 52 Upon this they commanded that he should be bound again Mat. 27.2 for whilst he stood before the Council his bonds were loosed according to the custome Acts 22.30 and so without delay led him away to the Roman Governour Pilat to request that by his authority the sentence of Death which his crimes had deserved might speedily be executed before the great Feast commenced or any Insurrection of the populacy to his rescue famed for a Prophet Though indeed they wanted not other motives of deferring this proceeding as also afterward Herod did concerning Peter Acts 12.4 since they could not so well then present him in Pilats Court nor enter into it for fear of defiling themselves by touching persons unclean who were that night to eat the Paschal Lamb. And again should the persons executed have hung upon the Gibbet so long as was needful in so lingring a torment for the finishing of their life they had continued upon it some of them perhaps till the next day which would have bin a great Prophanation of their highest Feast but malice is impatient § 53 In this consult also they prepared many other strong accusations that might be more specious and current with the Governour and the Roman Soldiery than those meerly touching their Law and Religion such as these that besides his blasphemy and making himself the Son of God capital by their law his threatning to destroy their Temple his breaking the Sabbath and justifying it his setting himself above Moses and the Law and former Traditions and endeavouring to abolish them c. he was also highly delinquent against the Romon-state and the Emperour had gotten a great multitude of Followers and Disciples and raised Tumults and Seditions amongst the people frequently followed by many thousands of them whom also he feasted and who had a purpose also to make him their King calling him that was born and bred not in the Tribe of Juda but in the outskirts of Galilee the Son of David That his assumed title of the Messias includes also that of a King that he refused to pay tribute to Cesar that having skill in the black art he deceived the common sort with many miracles and cast out Devils also with the Devils consent That for his ends though professing great Sanctity he kept company with prophane and lewd people lived mostwhat in the out-skirts of the countrey remote from Jerusalem the place of Justice and from the Presidents residence who might observe and curb his Insolencies These crimes I say and the like for we may imagine there was nothing in our Lord's actions capable of an ill sense as most actions of great persons are that the Devil now loosed did not suggest to the High-Preiâ—t's malice And the Evangelists Mat. 27.13 14. Mark 15.4 5. say that they accused him of many things in so much as the Governour questioned our Lord continuing in a constant silence whether he did not hear how many things they witnessed against him § 54 Whilst such accusations were designed before the Council arose comes in Judas now as much tormented in his consciscience as he was over-night pleased in his sin to whom then by Satan were presented many plausible imaginations to induce him to so foul an Act. As that he should remain undiscovered therefore went he at some distance before the band and as a servant did reverence to his Master that our Lord could suffer nothing by what he gained but at pleasure as formerly could withdraw himself and escape therefore some think he bad them look that they held him fast or that in any trial his innocency and doing all things well whom none could truely accuse of any sin would easily free him or if finding some injustice in the Court the people at least so taken with his Sermons and miracles would quickly rescue him So the Devil at first by diminishing the fault enticeth men to commit it but when done by as much aggravating it to their sight strives to usher in a second and greater sin Despair and to shut the door to pardon God before sin is represented by him all mercy after it all Justice and contrary to this worketh the Holy Spirit
deterring us before by Gods purity and Justice from so vile an act but after it inviting to repentance and reformation § 55 He then having heard or perhaps seen how far they had proceeded against his innocent Master sentenced him to dy and were now carrying him away to Pilat to procure the Execution now too late repenting himself of his horrid fact brought back to them the money he had received of them but a few hours before and told them he had grieveously sinned in betraying innocent blood Which was thus ordained by divine Providence after the opposition made before by those two upright Counsellors Joseph and Nicodemus that these his Judges might also reflect on their own crime by Judas his confessing his in their condemning that innocent blood he had betrayed But they regardlesly bidding him to look to his own faults himself and asking what his infidelity to his Master was to them hastily repelled him from before them What is thâ—t to us say they Mat. 27.4 Yes surely something 't is to you for besides that you Preists are the Physitians of sick souls to whom poor sinners repair for your Spiritual Counsel and making their attonement and reconciliation with the offended God you may remember that you are the persons that hired this poor Wretch to commit this sinful Act or if he did well in it your charity stood engaged to pacify and assure therein his troubled conscience § 56 Judas receiving no consolation or thanks from them nor seeing any hopes of their relenting or dismissing his Master and they rejecting also the mony which he would now have bin glad to have refunded for his Masters ransome he presently went and threw his poor recompence of his wickedness in the Temple where their Officers might find and dispose of it and so went and hanged himself to get out of his present pain thus dying the accursed death before spoken of not able any longer to endure the goads and pangs of his conscience setting before him the innocency of our Lord the dignity of his person his love and affection to him in great humility washing his feet but last night at Supper so requited all our Lord 's sweet Sermons and charitable actions unworthy of such a treason lastly the divine vengeance and those last words of our Lord concerning him at Supper Mat. 26.24 Filius quidem hominis tradetur sed vae homini illi bonum erat illi si non esset natus homo ille for the Devil we may imagine suggested whatever might more swell his Despair Here was a most bitter Compunction for his sin repentance and confession and that publick lastly restitution and all too little for him who had done such despight to the Spirit of Grace and was now fallen into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.29 30. and a fearful expectation of Judgment and fiery indignation Cap. 10.27 which spirit now having abandoned him all such his relenting could not be sound sincere or acceptable to God but like that of Esau not finding place of a right Repentance though sought carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 § 57 After his having thus made away himself the divine vengeance also pursued him further which seems to be pointed-at by the Psalmist Psal 108.18 Intret Maledictio sicut aqua in interiora ejus For his body thus hung up burst in peices and his bowels so void of compassion to the persecuted Innocent were ejected and emptied out of his body full of stench and corruption and most noisome to all that approached and beheld it Which strange and sad accident also could not but be presently diffamed and spread abroad and might have bin a second warning to those others Actors in this Murther so to prevent that unparallelled Judgment that shortly after followed upon the whole Nation in which also by Josephus this is noted as one of the greatest Roman torments used towards those poor Jews who fled to them for mercy that the Soldiers frequently ripped up their bowels for swallowed Gold § 58 His money thrown down in the Temple afterwards the cheif Preists took up for none else might touch things dedicated And because it was the price of blood though themselves were the Purchasers of it their devotion thought not fit to put it into the Treasury of Holy things there God having prohibited less scandals than this to be brought into the Temple Deut. 23.18 and not permitting David because a shedder of blood though such as ought to be spilt to have a hand in building it they resolved therefore to dispose of it some other way and the divine Wisdom so ordered it that they should lay it out upon land a known peice of ground that ever after called the field of Blood might perpetuate the memory of their wicked fact This ground they designed for a burying place for strangers such Proselytes of the Gentiles as much resorted to their solemn feasts their buryals generally being out of the City a type of Christs blood benefitting those strangers whilst they that shed it lost their share in it Nec introierunt in requiem ejus and a type of the Gentiles now admitted by the Purchase of that blood to be joined and to take their everlasting rest and repose with his former people the Church of the Jews All these particulars we have punctually foretold by the Prophet Zachary Zac. 11.12 13. both the just summ of the price thirty shekels or pieces of silver and the vileness of it exaggerated being the value of a Servant in case his Master was any way deprived of him Exod. 21.32 and the projection of this money in the Temple and the disposing of it to a Potter yet had not these learned men that fulfilled it light to discover it To a Potter i. e. one that traded in vile and cheap ware which shewed the summ fit for a very mean purchase The field it seems by the price of it was some neglected place perhaps where potsherds were cast out as Montetestaced at Rome or where clay was digged for pot-making and it was ever after by the people called the field of blood for a Witness against the cruel purchasers but also as it seems by St. Peters words Acts 1. upon this account that Judas chose the same piece of ground wherein to make away himself and where his bowels and blood by the divine Justice poured out before our Lord's became such a loathsome and offensive spectacle to the beholders § 59 Now to return to the High Priests They and the Scribes and the Elders the whole Multitude of them saith S. Luke Luk. 23.1 not spending much time in consultation concerning a matter long before resolved betimes in the morning Jo. 18.28 led away our Lord thus condemned and bound to the Roman President 's Pallace and delivered him up into the hands of the Romans And so were they themselves afterwards for it the whole Nation led into captivity by Titus their City destroyed a thing sadly foreseen and deplored
to the Crown of Juda or whether he had it from the relation of others viz. the High-Priests the envious oppressors of his innocency and merits as the Presidents own conscience witnessed unto him The Governour replyed that he a Roman understood none of those matters about his Messias-and Kingship but that it was his own Nation that accused him of it and had delivered him as a person very criminous and deserving death Then our Lord to inform him further of the truth answered that the Kingdom he only ownned was not a Kingdom of this World nor such as did disturb any Prince's temporal Rights as did sufficiently appear that he had no Subjects to fight for him or rescue his person from his Enemies and persecutors You are King then said Pilat Our Lord answered he was and that he was sent into the world to bear witness of the truth which himself was and that this was a Spiritual Kingship over hearts there to rule over and destroy all Error and that all those who were the sons of Truth would hear and obey his Doctrine and become his Subjects The Governour asked him what was that Truth he spake of and wherein he laboured to render all men his Schollars and Subjects and having no mind to engage any further discourse about matters as he supposed of the Jewish Religion debated between our Lord and their High Priests he rose suddenly from the bench and went forth the second time to the Jews taking our Lord with him and told them that he found no fault at all in the man § 63 This much enraged them and made them redouble their accusations to all which our Lord as calme as they were furious answered not a word Whereupon Pilat wondring asked Jesus whether he heard not how many things they witnessed against him But neither to Pilat answered he a word which saith the Evangelist Mat. 27.14 made the Governour wonder exceedingly as both knowing his innocency and himself countenancing it § 64 Amongst other things they informed the Governour that he had gone every where raising Sedition amongst the people beginning in Galilee first the out skirts of the countrey and so coming up with Multitudes and Tumults even to Jerusalem perhaps relating to his last triumphal entrance into the City five daies before on Palm-Sunday Pauper humilis riding upon a poor young colt of an Asse without a Saddle and weeping as he went along and a great part of his applause the Hosannas of the children Now Galilee was a place noted formerly for several rebellions See Acts 5.37 38. how one Theudas appeared there that made himself a Prophet and pretended he could do miracles and drew much people after him mentioned but mis-timed by Josephus Antiq. Judaic lib. 20. cap. 5. and after him Judas of Galilee about the birth of our Saviour in the time of the enrolment under Cyrenius Luk. 2.2 which Judas also opposed the paying of taxes or tribute to the Romans Both which Rebels and all their Followers were dissipated and destroyed After these also it seems some Galileans within a few years before had so highly offended Pilat in his government that when they came up to Jerusalem at the solemn Feast to offer Sacrifice he caused them to be put to death and that in some cruel suddain and unexpected manner it should seem by the expression in the Text Luk. 13.1 and by their relating it to our Lord some think they might be some relicks of Judas his Sect that denyed tribute to Cesar for which reason also some made mention of them to our Lord to hear his judgment of their opinion and that made at Jerusalem some opposition in the Feast to the Sacrificing for the safety and prosperity of the Emperour And Pilat is noted both by Philo Judeus De legatione ad Caium and Josephus to have bin pervicaci duro ingenio and very uncompliant with the Jews and who at last complained-of by the Nation to Vitellius then a Superior Prefect of Syria for a slaughter made upon the Galileans was sent by him to Cesar to give an account thereof and so deprived of his government and confined The Jews mention therefore hereof Galilee seems to have conduced much to their purpose But when this was suggested to Pilat he made another use of it and though Herod and he were now at enmity between themselves perhaps for Pilat's cruelty shewed to the Galileans forementioned yet resolved to send to him the Prisoner who was born as was commonly imagined his Subject Galilee being under Herods jurisdiction and lived most of his time in his territories as being desirous to rid his hands of this business with as little displeasure to the Jews as might be and to devolve the odium of it upon Herod now come up to the Feast and because Herod being well acquainted with the Jews law and Religion which also he profest might better discover the Justice of the quarrel the Jews had against him about his Messiasship and the Truth he said he came to promulgate and would perhaps protect him as his Subject against the High Priests malice Thus Satan to whom God gave leave to persecute his only Son not excepting his life as he did Job's hurried our Lord as it were in Triumph to prolong his sufferings before inflicting the last of death from one great person to another to make him the more publick object of scorn and contempt and that all might have an hand in his afflictions and torments the Court of Galilee as well as that of Judea foretold by David Psal 2. Principes convenerunt in unum adversus Christum tuum and observed by S. Peter Acts 4.27 § 65 Herod having never seen our Lord but heard much of his fame and of his miracles rejoiced much on this occasion hoping to have seen him now for his greater reputation or at least the saving of his life do some notable miracle before him which John the Baptist never did Here upon our Lords appearance he fell on questioning him about many things of which he had the curiosity to be informed we may imagine about his Doctrine his Descent his pretension to his Messiasship what evidence he could give of such a pretended extraordinary Mission from God c. And perhaps any one Miracle done by our Lord would have defeated the persecutions of the Jews confirmed the reputation of his being an extraordinary Prophet and procured his liberty For Herod also had the Baptist in great esteem and was drawn both to his imprisonment by the importunity of a woman that bewitched him with her love and to his death by a rash promise which after much afflicted him § 66 But our Lord resigned to his Fathers known will concerning him and thirsting for the salvation of the world by his sufferings and death and the accomplishment of all the Prophecies made of him formerly by the Holy Ghost and justly refusing also projicere sanctum canibus or to satisfy the curiosity of
so wicked a person polluted with Incest and Murder stood silent before him instead of rendring him by some obsequious answer his Friend and Patron But silent he was with that meek and humble countenance and carriage as that Herod rather took him for a simple person and a fool and not answering the report he heard of him than for any dangerous conspirator against the State Meanwhile the High Priests and Scribes had pursued him thither and before Herod and his Court reiterated the accusations which before Pilat by Herods killing of the Baptist that gave testimony of our Lord having some hopes of his doing the same to him all which unjust slanders our Lord heard and entertained with a profound silence and without any defence of his Innocency But Herod little regarded their clamours as one who had well bin informed of our Lord's actions and integrity and being a crafty Fox as our Lord once stiled him had formerly watched him very narrowly and his Jealousy as the Pharisee truely informed our Lord wanted only some fair occasion to have destroyed him But his generally doing all manner of good and giving heavenly counsel without Wealth without Arms preaching only humility and patience working also great cures ejecting Devils c. our Lords Apology for himself when the Pharisee told him Herod would kill him as also sending his Disciples abroad without any weapon for their defence were things this Tyrant could not make criminous But from such his silence conceiving him without wit to answer for himself and to shew he had no jealousy of his Crown from such a poor Rival thought fit only to make sport with him and treat him as a Fool and a Mock-King for his Kingship was the thing his Accusers most pressed And so after he himself resenting his silence had shewed some scorn and neglect of him he gave order to his men of war to array this their new King according to his dignity in a white Garment the Ornament of Priests and Princes some old cast-off Robe taken out of his wardrobe and after much jeering and slighting of him and some Giuoco di Mano's doubtless mixed the like usage to that received over-night from the High Priests Officers he returned him in this dress to Pilat with his Guards commanded to wait upon his Majesty and the people deriding and hooting at him as he passed according to the Prophecy concerning him Psalm 21.8 Omnes videntes me deriserunt me locuti sunt labiis moverunt caput But Herod by this dress sufficiently signifyed his mind to Pilat that his person was rather an object of scorn or pity then of his Justice which no doubt gave little satisfaction to the cruel Higst Priests in whom neither Pilat's nor Herod's absolving him nor yet the admirable meekness of our Lord who they well knew wanted not words to defend his Innocency and who by his silence seemed to conspire with them against himself and to long for his Cross before it was brought him could work any relentment or reflection on their Guilt § 67 Meanwhile this civility of Pilat shewen to Herod in a place where the Judicature belonged to himself was kindly accepted and repaired their broken friendship and Herod also thus became an Accessary and party in the unjust proceedings against the common Saviour This friendship also of theirs mystically signified our Lords reconciling and the union to God both of Jew and Gentile in the benefits of his sufferings and death Ipse enim est pax nostra qui fecit utraque unum Eph. 2.14 And the white Garment wherein he was arrayed in derision was truly a symbol of his purest Innocency and a vestment suting to his Sacerdotal as well as Regal office And as for Herod his unjust Judge he as also Pilat by the divine Justice was ejected from his Government and dyed miserably in Exile and disgrace § 68 The Prisoner thus returned treated more like a Fool than a Criminal and his mock-Robe pulled off Pilat calling together again the cheif Priests and the Rulers and the People also Luk. 23.13 who at this time had a custome by the common suffrage to free a Prisoner and setting him before them told them that whereas they had brought him to him as a seditious person and a Perverter of the people he upon due examination of him before them could clear no such thing That he had also sent him to Herod the Tetrarch of Galilee and ruling where this man most converst and where he was said to have done most of his works and that neither had Herod done any thing to him worthy of death that therefore he would chastise him perhaps guilty of some smaller imprudences and excesses of undiscreet zeal in his former behaviour and so release him And in speaking thus of releasing he put them in mind of the custome at this great Feast of his releasing such a Prisoner to them but probably of such whom he thought fit to nominate as they should demand which also the people that stood about as readily called for Luk 2.18 compared with Mark 15.8 And it is said to have bin a custome first instituted as a grateful remembrance of their freedome at that time from the Egyptian bondage used long before their subjection to the Romans and so indulged still after it Or perhaps rather some later favour of the Roman Governours allowed them after the power of condemning or pardoning any capital offender taken from them So the Governour upon this account motioned to them that is to the people whom he knew better affected to our Lord the release of Jesus § 69 Now there was another Prisoner a person well known who was in bonds for really committing that of which our Lord was falsly accused viz. the causing an Insurrection among the people and in it also committing Murther So either some other making mention of this Barabbas to be released or Pilat in whose power was the proposal of the persons left to their choice he fulfilling the Prophecies Esay 53. cum sceleratis deputatus est matched the chiefest offender he could find with Jesus to determine the people's election on him rather And it seems the people were not so ill inclined toward our Lord as rather to free the Murtherer but the cheif Priests and great ones using their authority and perswasions with the multitude and perhaps representing our Lords pretended blasphemies and destroying the Law of Moses c. as much more hainous and perilous to the Nation than the other mans Guilt at last prevailed with them And those who cried Hosanna to our Lord men women and children and spread their garments in the way but five daies before are now as loud for the Release of Barabbas before him Away with this man cry they Luk. 23.18 and release to us Barabbas And Pilat much displeased at it asking them what then they would have done with Jesus whom this Heathen by a particular divine instinct called also the Christ and
cepissent jam spacium crucibus deerat corporibus cruces and this misery brought upon them when at this great Festival the whole body of the Nation as it were was gathered together in Jerusalem and so was encompassed and shut up there by the Romans See Euseb Ecclesiast Hist lib. 3. cap. 5. and Joseph de Bell. Judaic lib. 7. cap. 17. Ab omnibus regionibus ad Azymorum diem festum congregati bello subito circumfusi sunt c. Thus they devoted themselves here to God's Justice and thus it happened to them But their words taken in a better sense and as the divine goodness and pity is pleased to interpret them for all Penitents are a Prayer piously offered not only by them but the whole world to his offended Majesty to be saved through the sprinkling upon them of the blood of Jesus Our Lord's blood also crying to God from the Earth not as that of Abel or any other just Person 's shed by the impious for vengeance but for Mercy Nor hath the whole world any salvation or shelter but from his blood being upon it and its children for ever who also all had a hand both Jew and Gentile in offering it and in this sense God also will admit this prayer to be fulfilled see Rom. 11. but in the last place upon this most miserable Nation § 80 The Governour after having thus washed his hands sate down again and gave the final sentence upon our Lord released to them their precious choice Barabbas and committed Jesus to the Centurion and his Soldiers to be crucified according to their request § 81 Now this death on the Cross which our Lord was sentenced to and the Jews with so great clamour called for as it was often foretold expressly by our Lord see Mat. 20.19 Jo. 18.32 and other-while called by him his Exaltation Jo. 12.32 And I if I be exalted from the earth will draw all men unto me signifying saith the Evangelist what death he should die and by the context vers 34. it appears the people well understood his language And again Jo. 8.28 When ye have saith he exalted the Son of man then shall ye know that I am he So was it foresignified by many expressions in the Old Testament See Psal 21.17 The Council of the malignant hath besieged me they have digged my hands and my feet they have numbred in that racking posture all my bones they have beheld and considered me every limb of me stretched out before them and then speaking of his being stript of his cloaths They have divided my garments amongst them and upon my Vesture they cast lots To which stripping of him also that expression seems chiefly to relate where he saith Psal 68.8 That Confusion covered his face See Zachary 13.6 where the Prophet mentions this smiting of his Pastor and the man that clave to him and so scattering of his sheep vers 7. speaking thus of his being treated by his nearest relations as a false Prophet that he shall be asked What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands and he shall answer with these was I wounded in the house of my friends To which wounds also is applied that loving expression Esay 49.16 Ego tamen non obliviscar tui in manibus meis descripsi te I have engraven thee upon the palmes of my hands See Zech. 12.10 where speaking of the conversion of the Jews in the latter times and the great sorrow they shall then have for their crucifying their Messias the Prophet saith Et adspicient ad me quem confixerunt plangent eum planctu quasi unigenitum c. See Jer. 11.19 Ego quasi agnus mansuetus qui portatur ad victimam cogitaverunt super me consilia dicentes mittamus lignum in panem ejus for his bread eradamus eum de terra viventium To it likewise seems to relate Esay 52.13 Ecce intelligit servus meus exaltabitur elevabitur sublimis erit valde For it follows Sicut obstupuerunt super te multi inglorius erit inter viros aspectus ejus forma ejus inter filios hominum like to vers 2. of the next chapter Iste asperget gentes multas And Esay 11.12 Et levabit signum in nationes Concerning his thirst also in the violent and fervorous heat of such lingring pains see Psal 21.16 Aruit tanquam testa virtus mea lingua mea adhaesit faucibus meis And Psal 68.22 Dederunt in escam meam fel in siti mea potaverunt me aceto Typified also this death of the Cross was by many instruments of the peoples preservation in the Old Testament By the Tree of life provided to remedy the mischiefs done by the Tree of Good and Evil by the blood of the Lamb sprinkled upon the posts of the door that the destroying Angel seeing it might pass-over Gods people by Moses his Rod smiting the Rock and bringing out of it a fountain of water for refeshing the people By the Brasen Serpent listed up on high and fastned to a pole curing all that looked upon it of the other fiery Serpents bitings which our Lord also mentions as a Type of his own Elevation and drawing the eies of all upon him Jo. 12.32 Jo. 3.14 Sicut Moyses exaltavit serpentem in deserto ita exaltari oportet filium hominis ut omnis qui credit in ipsum looks upon him with the eie of faith non pereat By the Expansion of Moses his Armes and Hands on high made in the Mount for the conquest of Amalek which posture of his also by others help was continued for several hours and being any way altered changed presently the fortune of the battel By Elias his lying with armes stretched out upon the Child to raise him again to life By marking with the letter Thau the form of a cross the foreheads of those that were to be saved from the slaughter of the six destroying Angels Ezech. 9.4 Lastly by Abraham's only Son Isaac carrying the wood upon which he was afterwards laid and destined to be Sacrificed But God was more favourable and kind to Abraham if I may so say than to himself § 82 And as this manner of death was often foresignified and typified in the Old Testament so doth it seem before all other to have bin chosen by the Divine Counsel and our Lords designment who as he voluntarily suffered for us so what death he pleased for many special reasons First because his suffering being to save us and we by our sins having incurred the curse of God and so he for us taking this curse upon himself this was that special death which had Gods curse annexed to it Deut. 21.23 when upon some grievous crime God required the Malefactor to be hanged up upon a Tree before the Sun and as it were openly in his sight to be hanged up as unworthy to touch or tread upon the Sanctified land and not to be dispatched in a moment as by stoning or
ordained this accident thus significative also of a greater matter viz. That our Lord would not bear his cross alone but that all his Followers for ever were to bear their parts of it § 92 Whilst our Lord passed along in this solemn Procession to his offering up the divine Majesty provided that amidst so many stony-hearted Jews that thirsted after his blood wherewith the Psalmist Psal 21.13.17 describes him compassed about with so many ravenous Dogs and fierce Bulls there should not want those that accompanied such sufferings with their tears and lamented and deplored these pittiless and undeserved cruelties for a testimony against the others as before Joseph and Nicodemus and Pilat's wife and Judas also when too late were Many persons there were of the more devout and compassionate Sex and more secure from the soldiers affronts that followed and lamented him Luk. 23.27 So holy and innocent a person from whom they had heard so many charming Sermons and in whom seen such mighty works Among whom we may imagine were those Galilean Women that in his former life time had waited on and ministred unto him and his beloved Mary and Martha All whose exceeding affection to our Lord doubtless had so conquered their fears as to run thither wherever they could have a sight of him of whom they were likely so soon to be totally deprived § 93 These probably before had stood with the rest of the people in the common Piazza before Pilats Tribunal and there saw and heard all that sad Tragedy that had passed between our Lords own people persecuting and the stranger-Govervour defending him whose miserable usage there still heightned their love and compassion and in them added to all the former endearments of him as it did in the people to their rage and fury Especially amongst these the Blessed Virgin his afflicted Mother who could not be absent from him in life or death where she could have any access and who here most diligently observed all her Son said or did or that was done to him as the Evangelist saith Luk. 2.19 she formerly did those even in his minority and childhood she I say especially may be supposed to be wounded at the heart not only when she stood by the Cross but during all this time with those Sword-points of most pungent Grief which Simeon foretold her of in her and the rest of her Friends hearing their away with this fellow and their crucifiges and their acclamations for Barabbas before the Son of God And the sight of him so used when Pilat cried Ecce Homo and again Ecce Rex Vester that had no operation of pity upon the hard-hearted Jews I may say had too much on them But that we are to believe his Holy Mother as being full of Grace and of the Holy Ghost to have bin indued with a most perfect patience and resignation and silence and her carriage also to have bin an edifying pattern to the rest Thus was our Lord in all those his former sufferings beheld and lamented by his Friends But now after his Condemnation and the Jew's cruelty according to the divine Will satisfied the tide in the people also began to turn and these of our Lords former acquaintance to have many Companions of their Grief and such a mind began to repossess some of them at least as they had had when but two daies before they heard and admired him in the Temple and as they had on Palm-Sunday and those also of the people who all this while retained the same affection toward him his safety now despaired of began more to shew it And thus a great multitude attended our Lord his death and Funeral full of bitter lamentation though amongst these the more or more open in their grief were those of the female Sex On whom our Lord lifting up his all-bloody and disfigured Countenance in great comiseration not of himself suffering nothing but what he pleased but of them being infinitly afflicted for the sins of his own people to whom he came in such love and they received him not but were now casting him the only Son and heir out of his Vineyard and killing him and for the unparallelled judgments of God that he saw now approaching upon them for this fact brake out into that passionate and prophetick speech ye Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but for your selves and your children telling them the daies were now at hand if their tears at least of their own particulars prevented them not wherein they should bless the barren that never had any children prepared for such a misery wherein they should wish the Mountains to fall on them and the Hills to cover and bury them deep from the face of the divine vengeance Hos 10.8 Is 2 10 19. Apoc 6.16 descending from above on that people For if the flames of Gods wrath meerly for their sakes and sins brake out now in such a manner upon him a Tree alwaies green and flourishing and fruitful and no way deserving or qualified with any cumbustible matter for them to feed on what would this fire do where their impenitence should make them unworthy of his blood to quench it upon their dry dead fruitless wood serviceable for nothing else and so well prepared for it The consideration of which had but a few daies before drawn tears also from himself when the Evangelist saith he in the midst of his triumph from Mount Olivet beholding the City wept over it saying with sobbs interrupting his speech If that thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day c. Luk. 19.41 This then our Lord in pity to them said to procure the application of their tears not to his sufferings but rather to the cause of them to their own sins and the sins of their people as doubtless from his powerful words many of them afterwards did apply themselves and found mercy obtaining salvation by his blood within the arms of the Church and so when the time came fled from the face of that fire and escaped in the time of that destruction when the Romans the same Instruments the Jews employed to consume this Green-wood were used afterwards by God to burn the dry For it is observed that those Jews of the christian Profession warned from our Lords prediction by their retiring betimes out of the City and out of Judea were generally preserved § 94 Thus this Anathema for us was conveyed out of the Holy City or that should have bin so as an accursed thing for as the devoted Goat laden with the iniquities of the children of Israel was carried out of the Holy Camp Lev. 16.10 and the bodies of those beasts which were offered for expiation of sins and whose blood was carried by the High Priest before God into the Sanctuary were burnt also without the Camp It is the Apostle's observation Heb. 13.11 12 13 so was it to be here in the prototype whose Blood was afterward carried into the Heavenly
Sanctuary to make an atonement for the world and was carried thither by himself the Priest as well as the Sacrifice none else worthy or sufficient for either of these There they brought him to a rocky Hill on the North-West side of the City where it seems Executions were usually made by the Hebrew name of it Golgotha signifying a skull perhaps from some bones of the Malefactors lying scattered upon it where the rock affordeth little conveniency for covering them Here in the soft stone of the rock were digged several holes wherein to put the crosses Three such are there seen at this day about Eighteen inches deep saith Eugen. Roger. La Terre Saincte lib. 1. cap. 14. and nine the Diameter and the distance one from another near two yards and between two of these a rent or cleft in the rock from the one side of the Hill to the other which hill runs length-way Northward about a Palme breath but the profundity of it he saith not discoverable And on this same Hill probably it was that Abraham was appointed by God to offer up his only Son Isaac Gen. 22.2 For it was to be upon a certain Hill that God would shew him in terra Moriae or visionis as the land thereabouts was called of which Hills that of Calvary was one God having placed his own people and his true worship in the middle of the Nations round about Ezec. 5.5 and again Jerusalem in the middle of this § 95 Arrived now at the place of his suffering it is said to have bin the custome of the Jews from the precept given them Prov. 31.6 but so was it also of the Romans from a natural compassion to tender to persons condemned before the undergoing their torments some comforting and strengthening drink and that ordinarily mingled with some aromatical ingredients that had a stupifying quality and one of these to be Myrrhe To observe the custome therefore and as it were to prepare and strengthen our Lord for the great sufferings that were to follow who was almost spent by those endured already and who but now fainted under his Cross they brought him some of this compounded wine but their malice first mingled it with gall changing this cup which common pity provided for the consolation and refreshment of poor condemned persons into a Nauseating and bitternes not to be endured A circumstance of their barbarous treatment of him not neglected to be taken notice by the Psalmist in the description of his sufferings Dederunt in escam meam fel c. Psal 68.21 for it was given to him whatever was deserved by us of whom the Prophet Jer. 8.14 Potum dedit nobis aquam fellis peccavimus enim Domino Our Lord though he well knew their inhuman composition of this cup yet to avoid the shewing any offence or passion tasted it and consolated himself in calling to mind the prophecy of it but here left to his liberty would not drink it though no doubt he then laboured with very great thirst if we consider all his former usage the time of the year the climat the crowd about him no sustenance since that which he said should be his last cup at the Paschal Supper at which time doubtless a cup of cold water would have bin a great refreshment to him but none offered it to him He would not drink it as no way serving for that end for which he needed it the quenching of thirst but rather the contrary and again as not admitting any artificial means of accelerating his death or stupifying his senses if such a vertue this drink had for he knew how great our debt in this kind to his offended Father was and desiring to pay it to the uttermost would accept nothing that might any way lighten or mitigate it § 96 After this they hasting to his Execution the Centurion with the rest of the Cohort standing by as a Guard four of the meanest of the Soldiers to whom this base imployment might be a little beneficial stript our Lord of all his clothes whatever which fell to their share onely putting a small cloth over those parts which for decency were to be covered and leaving him his Crown of Thornes the points of which we may imagine as so many weapons sticking in the wounds and never drawn out whilst he lived after thrust into them caused a perpetual torture from the time of his mock-coronation till his giving up the Ghost Thus made naked and the wounds which he had received but an hour or two before exposed to the cold air and made raw again by their pulling away his clothes that sticking to them served him for a plaister they spread him upon the wood of the Cross and racking his arms to their utmost extent with great spikes of Iron driven through the palmes of his hands fastned them to the cross-piece thereof and so also his feet stretched out and put one upon the other with one spike driven through them fastned them to the long beam of the Cross whilst our Lord without reluctancy permitted them facere etiam in se quaecunque voluerunt Mat. 17.12 yielding his body and stretching out his Limbs so as they required cum pateretur non comminabatur sed tradebat judicanti se injuste 1 Pet. 2.23 saith S. Peter and meanwhile amidst those sharp pains he must needs feel in those most nervous and sensible parts afflicted himself for their sins and compassionating their condition as he did before in the way that of the Daughters of Jerusalem he prayed for them to his Heavenly Father and pleaded to him their ignorance of what a person he was Prayed for them not only for those Soldiers who so cruelly tortured him but for all whosoever Jew or Gentile that had their hands in his death saying aloud those words which might have melted down such stony-hearts Father forgive them for they know not what they do Which admirable Pattern of this meek Lamb of God who had no gall in him being set to all his Followers in whatever their sufferings the Prophet Esay in his prophetick History of him chap. 53.12 le ts not pass unmentioned where he saith Ideo dispertiam ei plurimos fortium dividet spolia pro eo quod tradidit in mortem animam suam cum sceleratis reputatus est peccata multorum even of those scelerati tulit pro Transgressoribus rogavit Whose prayer also was heard by his Father not only for the more simple but even for the most culpably ignorant so they were penitent a great company of the Priests also afterward becoming obedient to the Faith Act. 6. And among others St. Paul a great Persecutor of our Lord in his Members saith he obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1.13 Quia nesciens fecit And S. Peter Act. 3. invites the People and their Rulers to repentance for this fact upon this account for that if they had known who he was they would never have done it And a great
this Mary had bin the Blessed Virgin 's own sister her Name would not have bin also Mary this being not usual or convenient to call two sisters undistinguishable by the same Name There was also present Salome John's Mother and others and John likewise our Lords beloved Disciple whose confidence above the rest we saw in the High Priests Palace was there with them but likely none other of the Eleven at least so near affraid of being apprehended if they should have appeared and perhaps John more presuming here as in the Palace because known to the High Priest Here then stood the sad Mother of our Lord beholding and hearing all that was done to and said against her Son with the like patience and resignation as he suffered it and ready with Abraham for the love of God to have offered him up her self had he commanded it Here she and the rest heard also that admirable confession of our Lord by the penitent Thief and our Lord 's gracious answer to him which must needs be a great consolation to them After which Answer our Lord looking down upon his Mother and compassionating her condition as well as Grief spake to her first and calling her Woman perhaps for preventing those affronts to which her near relation to him hated of all if it had bin known made her liable recommended John his beloved Disciple to her love and affection instead of himself as one that thence forward would perform the duty and observance to her of a Son and then speaking to John recommended to him the care and providing for her now aged about fifty and a desolate widow Joseph being formerly dead and now also her only Son taken from her as his Mother he being a single person and Virgin as she and having no Wife or family of his own to take care of as many others had and by reason of his wealthy parents out of which wealth also Johns mother formerly made provision many times for our Lord having the command of so much maintenance as was necessary for their decent subsistance Which recommendation of our Blessed Lady to John shews that notwithstanding the mention we find of her sister and four of our Lords Brethren yet that they were not of so near a Relation as that our Lords Mother after the death of Joseph had any family of her own or these had any constant habitation with her so as that she might rather have bin committed to their care and provision in her now declining age § 101 Our Lord having thus made his Will and disposed of his onely charge his dear Mother whom St. John took to himself and served with all fidelity and supplied with all necessaries till her death spake not at all after this for near the space of three hours from about the sixth till the ninth hour a little before he gave up the Ghost but continuing in silence and prayer and his countenance lift up towards heaven went on finishing that Sacrifice which was to be the redemption of the world consuming and melting away in the flames of Gods wrath toward sinners now in its effects seizing on him in their stead for all the offences of all mankind that had or should be When as he grew nearer to his end the Sun now at midday see Amos 8.9 and when not capable of any natural Ecclipse the Moon being now at the full and at its greatest distance from it began to be darkned and to lose its light this noblest body of the Creation sympathizing as it were with its Lord and covering its face at such a horrid Spectacle and indicating to the hard-hearted Spectators the true Sun of righteousness and that true Light that enlightneth every one that cometh into this world to be now setting and its glory ecclipsed so far as the malice of the Prince of Darkness and his Instruments could effect it and intimating now also the cheif reign of the power of darkness permitted by God to the Prince thereof § 102 All things were now full of terrour and amazement and mens hearts with fear began now to melt and relent and their former taunts and merriments to be changed into a deep silence and expectation what would be the Issue suspecting more miraculous things to follow when about the ninth hour or three of the clock in the afternoon the solemn time of offering up the Evening Sacrifice our Lord when now seeming to be quite spent and near his expiration cried out with a loud and strong voice and such as was not usual to such a manner of death exhausting all their spirits and strength before taking away their life to shew that he laid his life down not compelled but when he pleased though without shortning the time of the sufferings belonging to that cruel death and to testify also against Hereticks the Reality of his sufferings saying with great force that all the multitude heard him those first words of the Psalm penned by the Holy Ghost for a Description of his Passion Eloi Eloi lamma Sabbacthani My God My God why hast thou forsaken me expressing the last pangs of death now approaching and the inexplicable torments and anguish of Body and Soul due to our sins that now lay upon him which he calls his sins in the following part of this verse of that mourning Psalm longe a salute mea verba delictorum meorum and which sin of ours made this patient Lamb of God after three hours silence so break out into this complaint under them where more greivous than the corporal sufferings was the interior anguish of Spirit in his Divinity its suspending from his Humanity all those consolations which might any way relieve its sorrows and with which his Servants in their greatest sufferings are usually refreshed This like to that his Agony in the Garden but now without an Angel where the Apostles mention Heb. 5.7 of our Lord in the daies of his flesh offering up to God prayer and supplications with strong cryes and with tears may well be understood as of the tears and prayers and strong cryes made and shed in the Garden so of these now iterated on the Cross for the weight of Gods wrath lying on our sins which he assumed is inexplicable These words of that prophetick Psalm might have hinted to the learned High Priests and Elders that the Tragedy of this Psalm was just now acted and lively expressed in every part of it and they those miserable Wretches by whose persecutions this prophecy was fulfilled and so might have begotten some compunction in them But either they so blinded as not to understand those words or the other common-people at least mistaking them nor knowing them for the beginning of the Psalm and hearing them pronounced with such a loud voice thought from the similitude of the word Eloi twice repeated that our Lord called upon Elias that he would not forsake him in this his misery but come to help him For it was the common belief that
with our persons Heb. 10.19 § 109 Together with this stream of blood gushed out also another very Miraculous stream of water distinct from it for otherwise by reason of the strong tincture of blood this water could not have bin discerned if mingled with it A Type of which was Moses his smiting the rock and the water gushing out whereof the Apostle also speaking saith the rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 And these two the water and blood lively represented the two Sacraments left by our Lord to the Church for the cleansing of sin and commemoration of his death the Sacrament of Baptism and of the Eucharist And thus as out of Adams side when lying a sleep was formed his Wife Eve so by the water and blood issuing out of Christs lying in the sleep of his death was formed in these two Sacraments his Spouse the Church regenerated in the one by Christs Spirit and nourished in the other with his grace redeemed by the shedding of blood and cleansed by the water § 110 St. John a spectator all this while and diligent observer of all that passed takes great notice of this with these words concerning it And he that saw it bare record and knoweth that he saith true that we might believe By which he saith the Prophecies were fulfilled that the Executioners should pierce his Sacred body but not break a bone and saith that this water and blood in the two Sacraments and the plentiful effusion that was not long after accomplish'd at Pentecost of the Holy Ghost and which also continues to the end of the world begetting and nourishing children to God joined with them are the three Witnesses that here on Earth give testimony continually of this redemption which the same Evangelist that saw this prosecutes also thus in one of his Epistles 1 Jo. 5.6 8. This is he that came by water and blood Jesus Christ not in watâ—r only but in water and blood and in these it is the Spirit that testifyeth that Christ is the Truth For there be three that give testimony in Earth the Spirit Water and Blood Thus S. John Meanwhile abstracting from this contemplation we may imagine what a ruful Spectacle this was to our Blessed Lady and the women with her in beholding such barbarous cruelty used to her Son even after his death and his most precious blood so spilt on the ground § 111 Whilst these things passed Joseph of Arimathea a noble Senator and one of the great Council of the Sanedrim a good man and a just saith S. Luke chap. 23.50 of him one who had not consented to their Counsel and doings but expected the Kingdom of God formerly a Disciple also of our Lord but secretly as also was another great man Nicodemus for fear of the Jews their estates and their Esteem lest either should be lost making them more timorous this Nobleman residing constantly in Jerusalem and rich had in a garden of his close by the place of our Lord's execution newly caused to be hewed out of the soft rock of the hill a Monument or Sepulcher for himself but ordained by the divine predesignment for the interring of our Lord's body near hand so that all things might the better serve for the evidence of his ensuing Resurrection He therefore though so timorous before and who had now also a special reason of not touching or coming near a dead corps because of eating the Paschal Lamb at even prohibited to any unclean as those were to be for seven daies that touched a dead body Numb 19.14 yet probably much animated both by our Lords patient and innocent sufferings and besides his former Doctrine and Miracles the many signs he saw now from Heaven and Earth of the transcendent dignity of his person and that he was what he believed him to be having heard also of the order of the persons executed their being presently taken down or perhaps being one of them also that procured it boldly saith the Text went in to Pilat to beg our Lord's Body of him though well foreseeing he must incur a great hatred from the cheif of the Jews his acquaintance herein Pilat after he had called the Centurion and certainly informed himself of his being already dead and no design herein of saving his life freely gratified him with it and commanded it should be delivered him not prohibiting him a decent Burial whom he had alwaies esteemed an innocent person That Joseph might not undergo this sad office alone without a companion and for the greater honour of our Lords funeral the time of whose humiliation was now expired with his death Nicodemus another great person one that had formerly by night conversed with our Lord and also in the Council spoken in his defence John 7.51 and probably more familiarly acquainted with Joseph by reason of their condiscipleship joined with him in this service mutually encouraging one another against the Priests and Elders of the Jews who must needs be much displeased with this fact as upbraiding them with the Murther if not of the Messias or a Prophet yet of a just person Joseph therefore suddenly prepared fine linnen for a Syndon and Nicodemus a great quantity of Spices about an hundred pound weight saith the Text and so coming to Calvary by the Governours authority took down the naked body from the Cross and removing it into Joseph's Garden close by probably there performed to it all the usual Ceremonies before burial washing his stripes and wounds and cleaning it from all those indignities the malitious Jews and Soldiers had done to it anointing it with sweet Oyles and wrapping it in the linnen filled with the spices and sweet odours and binding a Napkin about his head used for hindring the falling of the Jaws all to make good that in the Prophet Esay 11.10 Et erit Sepulchrum ejus gloriosum In which office we may imagine these great persons were assisted as with their Servants so with the help of the blessed Mother of our Lord and S. John more punctually relating this story than the rest who we may not think left our Lord after expired but waited still in the same place to observe how God would dispose of his Sacred Body and no doubt were much comforted in seeing that authority committed into the hands of those honourable persons our Lords Devotes and formerly known to them as such § 112 The Body thus decently and sumptuously accommodated was presently carried by this small train of Mourners and laid in the new hewn Sepulcher near at hand a place as convenient for the future events of our Lords Resurrection so a Monument durable and not subject to ruin as other the noblest Sepulchers ordinarily are For what more permanent than a Cave made in a Rock but such as also the place wherein he first lay when he came into the world the Manger that might continue to all posterity and such as remains to this day and is continually visited by a great confluence of devout
often so heavily accused our good Lord. But all this their diligence by the Divine providence was turned quite contrary to their intents and rendred our Lords Resurrection much more clear and evident whilst this very Guard were the first witnesses of it and that to the High Priests themselves and quite took away the pretence which else they might not only have reported but verily believed of his Disciples carrying away his body Which witness of the Watch doubtless confirmed the faith of many who would not give so easy credit to the Disciples Testimony of it and was a means of converting some of the High Priests also And their testifying likewise our Lords prediction of it before Pilat still added more to the truth and reputation of this Event Of all which Daniels being cast into the den of Lyons and the entrance into it being sealed by his Enemies that no fraud might be used in his deliverance out of it seems to have bin a prerepresentation and type § 114 The Sabbath the day of rest thus passed over the time was come that the grave the belly of the Whale that had swallowed him could detain our Lords body no longer nor the sealed Sepulcher or Guards hinder his Resurrection according to his many predictions early in the morning of the third day that is after the six daies wherein the world was created and the seventh wherein was to be its rest the eight day or the first day of the new Creation of all things the day wherein after a week of daies compleated all things shall be perfected in the general Resurrection that shall be A day advanced ever since this act into the solemn Festival of Christians in an eternal memory of the joy of this day Early on this day our Lord resumed and clothed with immortality that most Sacred body of his that had before so highly merited it by passing through so many cruel torments Here also great Multitudes of Angels attended on this our Lord in their white and shining Robes as may be gathered by their frequent apparitions within and without the Sepulcher and the women's discription of them And since a multitude of the heavenly Host appeared praising God at our Lords Nativity and the beginning of his Humiliation we cannot imagine less solemnities at the beginning of his Exaltation and triumph whom also we had found before waiting on him at his former conquest over Satan with prayer and fasting in the Desert And if they shew their Joy at the conversion of a sinner how much more now did they at the Redemption of the world And by these or by our Lord at his rising and for a clear argument also of it the linnen clothes wherein our Lord lay the only prey which a Robber would have looked after were decently folded up and the Napkin about his head as if taken off after them laid in a diverse place from the rest At the same time as before at our Lords death happened a terrible Earthquake And an Angel of great Majesty his countenance like lightning saith the Evangelist and his raiment white as Snow was seen by the astonished Guards to descend and roll away the stone so to expose the open Sepulcher to every ones view after our Lords glorious Body had already passed through it when yet shut up and sealed The All-glorious Angel when he had done this sitting down upon the stone that he had rolled away as if he would now be the sole Guarder of that place So terrible was this sight as also the Earthquake that the Soldiers though they fell not into a sleep as they afterward reported yet fell into a swoon and became for a while saith the Evangelist as dead men Mat. 28.4 After some time recovering a little strength and seeing the Sepulcher thrown open the body gone and only the linnen clothes and spices wrapt up and left behind which though it had bin much for their interest or excuse in raising a report of its being stolen away as well as profit to have taken and their necessity but two daies before had shared his former garments yet they durst not touch but from the Angel's presence speedily fled away and in a great fright some of them came to the chief Priests and related all that had hapned our Lords Body gone the Sepulcher empty the linnens and spices left behind touch them he that durst the terrible apparition of the Angel with an Earthquake breaking their seal and rolling away the stone and there staying and sitting upon it § 115 The chief Priests not a little concern'd in this news of our Lords being revived to which also his Predictions now added some credit who had their hands already embrewed in his blood now repent their late diligence to prevent it whereby the very Soldiers could witness it against them and presently assembled all the Ancients of the Jews before whom on this occasion the Guards relate the like things the Divine Providence thus effecting a great divulging of it and that by such Witnesses as they could not but believe The result of this consultation was that a large summ of mony probably taken out of the same Church-Treasury as also Judas his was should be given to them to report that in the night whilst they were asleep our Lords Disciples came and stole away his Body And because the negligence of these Guards confessing themselves to sleep when they should have watched if coming to the Governours ears was highly punishable the chief Priests engaged also that in any such accident they would satisfy the Governour and secure them considering well if they could not smother and hide the truth in this matter the publick odium and loss of reputation which they should incur both with the People and the Governour in their prosecuting so vehemently against the inclinations of both these the death to say no more of so just and innocent a person Thus one sin to justify it self where no repentance engageth us on another and still makes the sinners condition more desperate Thus were the wily taken in their own craftiness and by their setting the Watch those truths are now declared both to the people and themselves not by the Followers of our Lord but their own Officers and Servants which otherwise they might with some shew of a good conscience have disbeleived and endeavoured to suppress but now acted purely against it § 116 This of the Soldiers flying from the Sepulcher and testifying in the City our Lords Resurrection but besides these were also some other extraordinary witnesses thereof For in the great Earthquake and at the same time as our Lord's were other Sepulchers and graves about the city opened and out of them also by vertue and in honour of our Lords Rising came forth the revived Bodies of many other formerly deceased Saints That as his triumphant Soul entring into the innermost bowels of the Earth brought a multitude of other overjoyed Souls attendants upon it from thence
res varias omninoque diversas versaretur For that naturally one action hinders another at least as to the highest intention of it which hindrance might also be in our Lord so far as his Divinity pleased to leave in his humanity also these sinless infirmities as a resemblance of the constitution of other men § 145 We read of a like thing done by our Lord afterward That before the solemn election of those persons who were to be chosen by him for the promulgation of the Gospel through the world after his departure hence that he retired alone into a solitary Mountain the evening before and there continued all night in praier Luk. 6.12 As also when he was in Capernaum being much followed and pressed upon by the people he is said to have made use of the solitude of the night and to have risen a great while afore day and to go into a solitary place to his praiers Mark 1.35 and said Luk. 5.16 to have withdrawn himself into the Desart for performing this duty But however this be stated concerning the advantage our Lords Devotions might receive from Solitude doubtless one principal end of this his forty daies and all his other retirements afterwards was that he might give us an example herein and shew us the great necessity of solitude fasting and withdrawing from secular affairs for our enjoying a nearer conversation with God and our overcoming of Temptations and especially for our better Preparation in the undertaking any weightier affairs such as is in the first place the Ministry and predication of the Gospel And another end seems to be this also that He who as other Teachers sent from God must necessarily spend the most of his time in an active life and common conversation yet might also in these his practices and especially this his for so long a time inhabiting the Desart allow also and countenance and recommend to those that have more need of and are more disposed to it the other life that is more addicted to solitude fasting continual praier and contemplation In the same manner then as our Lord is said to have passed that whole night before the Election of his Apostles and the other times of his repairing to Mountains and Desarts Viz. in praier and contemplation so may we rationally imagine him to have spent these forty daies and nights and his fasting in so great a suspension of his natural faculties to have bin an individual companion thereof § 146 In which forty daies fast and Devotion Moses as a type had preceded him once and again both first in his receiving the Law from God Exod. 24.18 34.28 which he was to communicate to the children of Israel as our Lord now was the Gospel and a second time in his making intercession for the people and obtaining their pardon Concerning which he saith Deut. 9.18 That he fell down before the Lord as at the first forty daies and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water because of all their sins which they sinned and that the Lord hearkned unto him And in his then being admitted also upon his earnest supplication to see Gods glory Exod. 33.18 34.5 and as also according to this action of Moses before we may suppose our Blessed Lord to have thus also prostrated himself before his Father in these forty daies and forty nights for the sins of the world and to have offered himself as Moses to be made a curse for our sakes see Gal. 3.13 and Exod. 32.32 compare Deut. 9.26 and so to obtain pardon for all true believers Of whom also the Goat sent into the Desart laden with the peoples sins was herein a type And as this type Moses in the Law so another preceded in the Prophets in Elias their Head his fasting forty daies in the same desart and Mountain as Moses and He there having also the Vision of and extraordinary communion with God As also our Lord's humanity afterward in the Holy Mount was admitted to behold his Fathers Glory in a bright cloud descending upon the Hill and to partake of the splendours thereof and also these two Men Moses and Elias representing the Law and Prophets were there present to do him Homage in whom both these were to be compleated Such exact resemblance were the Law and Prophets to have with the Gospel § 147 The similitude also here is not to be passed by which our Lords being here first conducted by his Father into the Desart before his beginning to take his possession of the inheritance both of the Jew and Gentile promised him by his Father hath to that former divine conduct of the Israelites Ps 2.8 first into the Wilderness after our Lord also as they had bin called out of Egypt Mat. 2. and the correspondence also which his forty daies abode there hath to their forty years Yet in this much unlike that he in this Desart being pressed also with the same necessities as they I mean as to hunger and thirst after so long a fast and upon it by the Devil much urged to the like offending of God Viz. not by not waiting his good time Yet he stood where they fell and with all patience contrary to them though having Miracles in his own power attended the time of the Divine good pleasure for his relief and here also He receiving at length the supply of his hunger from Angels sent to him may be said in some sense as they to have bin fed with their food § 148 This then was another end of our Lords withdrawing into this desolate place that he might be there tempted of the Devil saith S. Matthew chap. 4.1 and fulfil his Fathers good pleasure in his being exposed also like unto us unto the encounters and strangely-rude treatments of the enemy of mankind Satan For who hath bin in his temptations so rudely handled and carried about by him as our Lord was and that he might thus be as the Apostle observes Heb. 2.17 4.15 a more merciful High Priest to succour and assist us in those our temptations the like to which he had experimentally suffered himself and again that He might also in his fasting solitude and praier shew to us the armes by which we also may obtain the Victory over this Tempter It was also most congruous that the second Adam should undergo the same combat with him as the first who was foiled in it and ruined by it that so he might recover mankind after the same way as he was undone and having first mastered this strong man who could find nothing in him Jo. 14.30 no pride of life no disobedience no lust of the eyes or of the flesh he might proceed to spoil his house and his goods and the long possession he had gotten of wretched mankind as indeed our Lord did triumph over him in his following Life Death and Resurrection § 149 To these I may add yet another reason of our Lords withdrawing himself from John and the people namely
to qualify and lessen the great and suddain fame that might be of him which also was done for our example from that publick testimony they saw given by the other persons of the Trinity the Father and the Holy Ghost as also in the rest of his life he used frequent concealments of himself and enjoyned others silence for the non-preventing his future sufferings that so his six weeks absence and non-appearance might a little remit the former expectation and the Baptists immediatly sending all men after him whose manifestation was only to be discovered by certain degrees and therefore when returning from the Desart his stay with the Baptist much proclaiming him was only for two or three daies § 150 After his forty daies abode in this desolate place prostrated as Moses in his Fast before the Divine Majesty in praiers and intercessions and such Contemplations of God as his types Moses and Elias had formerly enjoyed and probably accompanied as they with a suspension of his natural faculties and a perpetual fast our Lord began when such his Devotions were ended and nature returned to its ordinary functions to be vehemently an hungred The Devil even the Prince of them as may appear from Matt. 25.41 Apoc. 12.9 who had narrowly watched Him hitherto and looked upon him with such an envious eye as he did on our first parents in their Innocency but could not attack him whilst in praier when this was ended and he saw also so great an hunger to pinch our Lord which our first parents had not when he prevailed with them to eat forbidden meats had entertained hence some hopes of prevailing upon his infirm humanity as he did on theirs viz. not to wait for his Fathers Provision for him in due time of such food as was necessary but with a power of Miracles presently in an extraordinary manner after such a meritorious Act of forty daies fast to supply himself with it In which Temptation also he hoped to make some advantage in reminding him of the dignity of his person and suggesting unto him that he was the Son of God Especially at this time the honour done him lately not only by the Baptist but from God himself both the Father and the Holy Ghost from heaven and now also the great Change of his life entring upon the office of the Messias might seem to have elevated his thoughts and ambitions above the temper of his former meanly entertained condition For tho the Devil had heard those glorious words pronounced from Heaven but lately at his Baptism and in his ranging every where for prey probably was well acquainted also with all the former miraculous passages of his life lead also hitherto without all sin and with all the prophecies concerning our Lord if we see how readily he afterwards quotes Scripture to him and how in his first accosting of him he pressed his being the Son of God yet since our Lord was also clothed with our infirm flesh he might not so perfectly discern the Hypostatical Vnion of such his lately assumed Humanity with the Deity nor how far it might be invested or assisted therewith and its weakness receive influences from it For this General enemy of mankind saw this his human nature clothed with all the infirmities as here in suffering hungar and passions or affections of it Whereby his flesh or sensitive appetite at that of others did naturally desire things delectable to it as meat drink rest sleep c. But yet these desires were alwaies such as were perfectly subjected to the guidance of right reason and wholly ordered and moderated by it and such wherein he had hitherto never sinned though it is most likely that Satan had not forborn before to tempt him as others to some exorbitancy therein even from his child-hood and again were such wherein he was also by reason of the Hypostatical Union of this nature to the Deity and perfect sanctification thereof by it utterly impeccable though this not known to the Devil Our Lord saith the Apostle not only felt our infirmities Heb. 4.15 but was in all points tempted like as we are i. e. by external objects occurring and inviting his nature to the use of them but without sin this sensitive nature was ever so overruled by reason as never by the least consent of his will to proceed to any excess beyond the bounds set by the Divine Commands Poterat quidem anima Christi saith S. Thomas 3. Q. 15. Art 4. resistere passionibus ut ei non supervenirent praesertim virtute divina sed propria voluntate se passionibus subjiciebat And In nobis quandoque hujusmodi motus non sistunt in appetitu sensitivo sed trahunt rationem quod in Christo non fuit quia motus naturaliter humanae carni convenientes sic ex ejus dispositione in appetitu sensitivo manebant quod ratio ex his nullo modo impediebatur facere quae conveniebant § 151 Therefore from this his liability to passions and the new change of his life Satan conjectured a fair opportunity for begetting in his humanity in his former life hitherto so poorly treated some Elation of mind and vain ostentation of its transcendent dignity and present advancement Or supposing Satan knew such an Union of this his humanity to the Deity as that our Lord could not possibly commit the least sin and that his present temptations were but in vain as all his former had bin yet was his malice to him so extream as it could not let him rest so far as God permitted and he rejoyced to give him some molestation though with a greater mischief to himself a quality we observe also in the Devil's children malicious men who do not forbear to afflict their neighbors in their own suffering much greater dammage § 152 He then as soon as God had relaxed his chain invades our Lord and probably appears to him in some comely and Glorious shape as we may conjecture from his last temptation wherein he desires Adoration from him Or as some think to be more sutable to the place shewed himself in the habit of some religious Hermite Or perhaps not disguising at all who he was which also was well known to our Lord subtilly desired some evidence of the supereminent Dignity of our Lords person as it were for his own satisfaction and that he might know his due subjection to him His request therefore was that if he were the very Son of God as he was lately proclaimed from heaven to be he would for the honour also of his human nature hitherto so meanly treated now shew an act of his Divine omnipotency and taking some pitty of its present necessities command those Stones that lay before him to become so many loaves of bread especially since in that desart place he could expect no other ordinary supply As indeed long ago in the like necessity the same Lord out of the stony Rock in the Desart brought forth water And the more kind