thither Again there was no end why Christ should do thus Either as the Papists hold to bring souls out of hell Vestigia nuâ—â—a retroâ—sum Because this is a rule in Divinity That souls that are once in bell shall never come out thence Or to make further satisfaction for the sins of his people upon earth because Christ had fully satisfied Gods wrath upon the Cross and therefore cried out It is finished Or to vanquish and overcome the Devil because he spoiled Principalities and Powers and triumphed over them in the same Cross Christ by dying destroyed him who had the power of death that is the Devil Heb. 2.14 His Resurrection When the Philistines thought they had Sampson sure within the Ports of Azzah he arose at midnight and took the doors of the gates of the City and the two posts and carried them away with the bars thereof on his shoulders up to the top of the mountain which is before Hebron But our mighty Conqueror and Deliverer Qui agnus extiteâ—at in passione factus est Lâ—â— in resurrectione Bernard hath more excellently magnified his power For being closed in the grave the Sepulchre sealed and guarded with soldiers a stone rolled to the mouth of the grave and he thus clasped in the bands of death He rose again the third day before the rising of the Sun he carried like a Victor the bars and posts of death away â—s upon his shoulders and upon the Mount of Olives he ascended on high leading Captivity captive The manner or specialty of Christs rising 1. In the same Body that fell Feel it saith he to his Disciples Else no resurrection And in this proportion all rise 2. So as he saw no corruption because he knew no sin A specialty and priviledge above the sons of men who must say to corruption Thou art my father 3. By his own power I have power to lay down my life Virtute proprid ut victor prodiâ—t dâ— sepulturâ Idem and to take it up again 4. As a Common blessing as a Representative and not as a Private person All his did the same with him that were within the purchase of his blood Our Phaenix consumed to ashes is now revived The young Lyon of the tribe of Judah of late sleeping in the grave by the quickning yell of his Sire viz. the Power of the Godhead was raised and roused up The stately Stag resumed his shed horns The late withered Flower of the root of Jesse reflourished The Sun of Righteousness once shadowed with a cloud and eclipsed with disgrace shineth put again with brighter beams All was done for which he was put into the grave and why should he be kept any longer in prison the debt being paid Christ is risen from the dead 1 Cor. 15.20 and become the first fruits of them that slept Ascension As the Grissin is like a Lamb in his legs the Lyon in his back and the Eagle in his beak so Christ in his Passion was a Lamb in his Resurrection a Lyon and in his Ascension an Eagle for He went away to his Father Christus ascendit Quo In coelum Aërium Stellatum Empyreum Which is called Domicilium Dei Angelorum hominum beatorum novus Mundus Coelum novum Coelestis Hierosolyma Paradisus Sinus Abrahae c. Thus Christus excelsior coelis factus Secundum quam naturam Humanam hinc localiter visibiliter Quâ potentiâ Suâ non alienà Quando 40 dies post Resurrectionem ut 1. Certi simus de ejus resurrectione 2. Instruat suam Ecclesiam de regno suo ut discerent quae docerent discipuli Effecta sequentia 1. Intercessio Christi 2. Nostra glorificatio 3. Testimonium peccata esse remissa 4. Christum victorem esse 5 Missio Spiritus 6. Nunquam nos carere consolatione Christum nos semper defensurum Hinc in câ—elum circumfusa nube sublatus est ut hominem quem dâ—lexit quem induit quem à morte protexit ad patrem victor imponeret Cypr. de Idol van Thou hast ascended on high Psal 68.18 thou hast led captivity captive When he ascended up on high Eph. 4.8 he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men For such an high Priest became us Hebr. 7.26 who is holy harmless undesiled separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens His session at the Fathers right hand A King having an onely begotten may set him in the throne as heir and successor to reign with him and use right of dominion over all as partner in the Empire Thus David dealt by Solomon Vespasian by Titus and our Henry 2. by his eldest son Henry whom he crowned while he was yet alive though afterwards he suffered him not to be what himself had made him This Exaltation of Christ Christus sedet ut judex stat ut vindex is an argument sufficient to prove his Deity He that sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty on high is God Scripture doth not say he standeth though in another sense he is said so to do that belongs to servants and inferiors but he sitteth Kings Senators Judges sit when they hear causes He sits not at the commandment or appointment of another but of himself He knows his place and takes it not at the left hand but which is higher at the right hand his Fathers Equal Out of this we have two notable comforts If Christ sitteth above in the highest places then he beholdeth all things here below A man that is upon the top of some high Tower may see farre and Christ being in the high Steeple and Tower of Heaven can see all things on Earth If the wicked be laying of plots and snares against his children Christ being in Heaven sees them and in due time will overthrow them He that sitteth in Heaven laugheth them to scorn Moreover this is a singular comfort that our Head King and Defender is in Heaven and hath equal power glory and majesty with God We have a friend that sitteth on the right hand of God and hath all power in Heaven and Earth therefore let us fear nothing he will keep us none shall do us any harm but it shall all turn to our good in the end As Christ sitteth in the heavens so we shall one day sit there with him Many shall come from the East and from the West and from the North Luk. 13.29 and from the South and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God Mat. 19.28 Ye shall sit on the twelve seats and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel Which is not spoken of all the Apostles for Judas never sate there nor yet of the Apostles only but of all Christians Know ye not that we shall judge the world We shall one day sit in heavenly places with Christ we sit there already in our Head but we shall likewise sit there in our own persons with our Head Let this comfort us against
All of us lay miserably prest under the grievous weight of sin surrounded with extreme miseries the foiles that Satan gave us and the wound that sin made in us put us into such perplexities and streights that did not that good Samaritan the Lord Jesus raise us up did he not pour oile into our wounds and bind up our killing sores we had perished everlastingly without hope of recovery Which that he might perfectly effect he took part of our flesh and blood whereby being capable of death he might through death destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil Heb. 2.14.15 and deliver them that through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage To this accord Epiphanius his words Chistus seipsum exinanivit forma servi assumpta non ut quod liberum erat in servitutem redigeret Epiphanius sed ut in forma quam assumpsit obedientes servos liberaret Christ being in the form of God equal with God made himself of no reputation Phil. 2.6 7 8. but took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likenesse of man wherein he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the crosse not that he might bring into servitude what before was free but that in that assumed form he might free from base servitude obedient servants You may remember what Zacheus said to Christ Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof yet he did So might we say Lord we are not worthy that thou shouldest dwell among us and become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone yet Christ neglecting the Apology came unto us in our nature united to himself which the Postiller calls Divinitatis domum the house of his Divinity Aug. Medit. Upon which Saint Austin grounds this comfortable meditation if the book be his Desperare potuissem propter nimia peccata mea nisi verbum tuum Deus caro fieret habitaret in nobis I could despair O my God by reason of the multitude of my sins were it not that thy Word were made flesh and dwelt in us Wherefore his coming into the world and that in mercy to save sinners that could not save themselves may keep our hearts from distrust from despair and cause us to set up our rest and confidence in him alone who hath suffered for sin the just for the unjust Lastly Christ's humiliation is a work of justice For it is just with God to put in execution what before all times he did determine should come to passe All mankind stood guilty and forlorn before the barre of Gods exact justice until our Advocate who is the propitiation for our sins did fetch us off which could not be so fairly so conveniently done unlesse he were made like unto us his brethren The supreme wisdom therefore to preserve his justice unspotted and withal to manifest the riches of his grace upon the vessels of his mercy made his Son in the fulness of time the Son of man that so his justice as was right and meet might receive a plenary satisfaction from that nature that had offended Hence it was the Lords resolution in bringing many Sons to glory according to his determinate counsel to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings This was in equity requisite Heb. 2.10 Quod per eum homo redimendus erat in quo redemptio nostra ab aeterno paedestinata fuerat For that by him we were to be redeemed in whom from all eternity our redemption was decreed Trelcatius Institut cap. 2. By him we were to be made up again by whom we were first made We ought to be partakers of the love of God in him who was the onely Son of Gods eternal love In a word we were to receive the right of adoption and liberty of sons through him who by nature was the everlasting Son and heir of the Father Hence saith the Apostle God sent forth his Son made of a woman Gal. 4.4 5. made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons Wherein that we might have a sure interest and just claime without any strife Christ must needs have suffered Thus was Christ fitted in power in mercy in justice to be made a sacrifice for sin whom we will now consider more particularly according to the parts of the text and first of the person humbled which is Christ Christ was design'd from all eternity to be the sole Mediatour between God and man and to this end was both God and man to reconcile both God and man together Because both stood at an infinite distance and could not come together but by an infinite person which is God alone Our sins like a cloud interposed betwixt God and us made us strangers to heaven so that the light of Gods countenance could not be listed up upon us nor the comfortable heames of his saving grace reflect upon our soules Could any of the sons of Adam dispel the cloud of our sins or make way for Gods grace to descend to us or for us to ascend to God there could not We have all erred with our first father and cannot indure the presence of the Almighty Fear and trembling seize upon soul and body upon the apprehension of his presence But could any of the Angels work our peace with heaven there could not For they being creatures mutable in their wills as well as men stood in need of an Head by whose neer union unto them they should inseperably be joined unto God For ever then most lamentable had been the condition of man did not Gods infinite Majesty vouchsafe to descend to us ascendere nostrum non erat it was not in our power to ascend to him Hence is he called Immanuel God with us which name imports thus much that as he hath joined his Divinity with our nature so hath he coupled our nature to his Divinity that so he might be a perfect and sufficient Mediatour according to that 1 Tim. 2.5 One God and one Mediatour betwixt God and man the man Christ Jesus For did he not participate of both natures had he not been man as well as God he had been a stranger to us and therefore unfit for the office of Mediatour To bring us therefore unto God he united our man-hood to his divine nature by which union we are made partakers of the divine nature whereby our peace is for ever concluded upon The great acts and worthy designs that by him as Mediator were undertaken to be performed shew how he was God and Man He did so restore us into the favour of our God that of the sons of men we became the sons of God and that of the heirs of Hell he made us heirs of Heaven But who could bring this to pass unless the Son of God were made the Son of Man and unless what was his by
the Christ the Son of God is most forward to deny him his former protestations were forgotten his present commodity only thought upon And when the rascal multitude came forth with swords and staves and brought him to the Council all his friends forsook him the Shepherd smitten the sheep were scattered Friends and foes Jews and Gentiles men and women high and low rich and poor Prince and people added something to his Passion to augment his woe The Kings of the earth took counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed The Elders of the people the chief Priests and the Scribes beat their brains together to take away his life They send him to Pilate Pilate sends him to Herod Herod sends him to Pilate again and Pilate sends him to his death Thus was he tossed from post to pillar In all these places he suffered in his good name by blasphemous speeches uttered against him in numbring him amongst transgressors placing him betwixt two thieves In his honor and glory by opprobrious terms and scandalous irrisions and mockings In his substance in that they took away his garment In his soul he suffered sorrow and anguish and great fear surprised his heart In his body he suffered wounds and stripes Insomuch that it may be said Was ever any sorrow like his sorrow Were you present to behold the whole passage of his Passion you might see his head compassed about with a crown of sharp thorns instead of a crown of pure gold you might see his glorious Visage which the very Angels admired contemptuously spitted upon and his cheeks smitten with the palms of their hands You might see his hands and feet fast nailed to the Cross which he himself did carry and his sides thrust thorow with a spear You might see his blood trickling down to the ground and himself through the pangs of death and apprehension of the Fathers wrath lighting upon him for our sins crying My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Hereupon saith Bernard O bone Jesu quid tibi est nos peccavimus tu luis opus sine exemplo gratia sine merito charitas sine imo O blessed Saviour what ails thee We sinned and thou by thy blood dost expiate our sins here is a work without example grace without merit and love beyond all measure He felt the wrath of God upon his soul he felt the hand of a sin revenging Judge taking vengeance for the sins of the world upon him then taking away the sin of the world Where you might see also no sense free from passion As for his Touch he was smitten and nails thrust through his flesh as for his Taste he drank unpleasant vinegar and gall as for his Smell he was in an infectuous place the place of dead mens skuls as for his Hearing he was vexed with the uproars and hideous blasphemies of those that blasphemed and derided him as for his Seeing he beheld with grief his Mother and the Disciple that loved him shedding tears for him and observed no noubt in the anguish of his spirit the madness of the actors of his death Hence proceeded that heavenly prayer Father forgive them they now not what they do This was the lamentable case he was in until he gave up his Ghost They gave him no rest no rest in his body nor in his soul until his soul departed Thus he suffered and thus in suffering he died died the most ignominious and cursed death 2 Cor. 5. ult God made him to be sin for us that knew no sin that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for cursed it every one that hungeth on a tree Gal. 3.13 Nothing could appease the wrath of the Father but the death of his Son Who died First to satisfie the justice of God for the sin of mankind for he once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 being put to death in the flesh 2. To manifest the truth and reality of the nature assumed to wit his manhood that he was true man and no phantasme 3. That by his death he might free us from the fear of death Forasmuch then as we are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through the fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage 4. That by dying corporally for sin and unto sin he might give us an example of dying spiritually to sin for in that he died he died unto sin once Heb. 2.14 15. but in that he liveth he liveth unto God Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 6.10 11. Crux pendent is Cathedra docentis Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow is steps 1 Pet. 2.21.5 That by rising from the dead he might make known the power whereby he overcame death and give unto us a lively hope of our resurrection from the dead And thus much for the sufferings of Christ generally exprest and specially implied The next point is the necessity of the sufferings and death of Christ Christ must needs have suffered It was necessary that Christ should suffer and in suffering die Necessitate decreti by the necessity of Gods Decree and infallible prescience Truly Luke 22.22 the Son of man goeth as it was determined Which determination is more plainly exprest Acts 2.23 Him that is Christ being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain In which respect it was inevitable And albeit he prayed Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me yet he submit shiâ— will to the will of his Father in saying yet not my will but thy will be done It was the eternal will of God and his unchangeable Decree that Christ should suffer for us it was foreordained before the foundation of the world 1 Pet. 1.20 And although his will was that that cup might passe over him that so his life might be prolonged yet consider this vitam appetit ut homo saith Theophilact Theophil in Luke 22.42 he desired life as he was man yet as an obedient child ever correspondent to his Fathers desire adds this withal not my will but thy will be done which is not seperate from my divine will saith the same Father It was necessary necessitate obligationis by the necessity of a promise whereby God was obliged and bound to see it actually performed Promises are a due debt Promissa cadunt in debitum That God promised this it is apparant by that speech of his the seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head and
in the salvation of penitent and beleeving soules the glory of his justice in the condemnation of obdurate and perverse malefactors As it is a perfect law so it is a law of liberty oppos'd to the Mosaical which is lex senvitutis a law of thraldome The liberty of this law in respect of our twofold condition is twofold 1. Gracious here in the life of grace wrought by Christ the Son of the everliving God if the Son make us free we are free indeed Joh. 8.36 Wherefore we have a free accesse at all times to call upon the Father of mercys imploring his powerful assistance in holy actions and invincible protection from all evil 2. Glorious in the life of glory called Vindicationis libertas the liberty of compleat redemption the creature being delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God Phrasis qulgatissima est Deum colere Non secus at que agri fertiles inprimis optimi sic Dei cultus fâ—uctus fert ad vitam aternam uberrimos Of this twofold liberty there are these parts 1. A liberty from sin our submission to the Gospel and faithful embracing of the promises of God in Christ frees us both from the raigning power of sin and from the condemning power For being made free from sin we become servants to God and have our fruit unto holiness and the and everlusting life Rom. 6.22 2. A liberty from the yoke of the ceremonial law and bondage of the morall From the yoke of the ceremonial law which was so ponderous as that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear but now by Christ and the law of faith it is blotted out quite abolished and taken out of the way And from the bondage of the moral law in these ensuing particulars 1. From the curse and consequently from the punishment of sin the transgression of the law Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us Gal. 3.13 Rom. 8.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Apostle certifies us that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus 2. From the rigour and exaction of the law requiring of us for our justification perfect righteousness inherent in us and perfect obedience to be practis'd by us 3. From the terrour and coaction of the law which ingendereth servile fear in those who are under it and compelleth them through the horror of torment as bond-slaves by the whip or rack to the outward though unwilling performance of it But those that are under the law of grace are zealously addicted to good works and services of God which are over done by them with the free consent of a plous mind the original cause whereof is not any natural disposition but the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given unto us 4. from the instigation of the law for which reason saith Pareus on 1 Cor. 15.56 it hath got the name of the strength of sin whereby sin appears more sinfull which is not caused by any fault in the law in it self good and condemning sin but through the viciousness of our unregenerate nature that takes occasion from the sacred prohibitions of it to transgresse which irritation is accidentall not essentiall to the undefiled law of the righteous Lord. Another part of this liberty is a liberty from death which is twofold the first and the second They that are effectually in subjection to the Gospel the glad-tidings of peace are free from the first death as it is a punishment And from the second over them the second death shall have no power Tollitur morâ— non ne fiat sed ne obsit Aug. To them the nature of the first death is changed and made but transitus ad vitam a passage from death to life it is the end of sin and misery and the beginning of our unspeakable happiness the high-way from the vale of teares to the Kingdom of glory and Celestiall joyes the Period of a mortall life and the innitiation of a life immortal Last of all there is a liberty from Sathan and the world granted to the sons of God adopted in the Son of God the Son of God hath over come the strong man Not imperium Principis but Carnificis à Lapide and bound him as being stronger than he thorough death he destroyed him that had the power of death that is the Devil and delivereth them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2.14 Get thee behind us Satan as Christ said to Peter and let the wicked world follow thee which Christ hath over-come Joh. 16. ult And since O loving Saviour we live free men free from sin reigning condemning free from Satan and the world under the easy yoke of thy Evangelical Law and under the protection of thy wings We will with thy disciples follow thee whithersoever thou goest and run after thee whither thy good Spirit shall lead us Thus it is apparent how the Gospel of Christ is a perfect Law of liberty into which whoso looketh and continueth therein he being not a forgetfull hearer but a doer of the work shall be blessed in his deed From the bottome of the stairs or ladder we now go up the steps the first whereof is speculation whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty Joh. 5.39 Audite saeculares comparate vobis Biblia animae Pharmaca Chrysost Prono capite propenso collo accurate in trospieere 1 Pet. 1.12 It was a good advice blest be the mouth that gave it Search the Scriptures which is made good by the reasons rendred for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testify of me saith our Saviour hence this search must not be slight this speculation not vain this looking not perfunctory our Knowledge of Christ and eternal life depending on it This is intimated in the original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying an exact and accurate prying into a thing as if one to find out somewhat difficult to find out should stand in this posture with his body or head bended towards the earth his eyes contracted and fixed upon some object as if he did intend to look it through and so to inform himself fully Thus when we attempt to look into the abstruse mysteries of divinity to acquaint our selves with the sacred Principles of Religion a superficial view is of no avail Profound matters require a serious and frequent meditation an indefatigable study hence the Apostle St Peter describing the desire of the Angels to know the hidden mysteries of salvation expresseth it by the same word the Angels desire to look narrowly into the things revealed to us by the Holy Ghost a work worthy their and our pains not to be posted over with a careless run but to be stuck close unto and prosecuted until finished and the mind in
in terrâ Creator coeli creatus sub coelo being the Child of Mary sine quo pater nunquam fuit sine quo mater nunquam fuisset So that as David sang This is the day which the Lord hath made we may say This is the day wherein the Lord was made we will rejoyce and be glad in it This was that Holy that Stone cut out of the mountain without hands that Flower of the field growing without mans labour When the fulness of the time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman Gal. 4 4. Joh. 1.14 1 Tim. 3.16 And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us God was manifesi in the flesh Passion It was a great kindness which Abraham shewed unto Lot when he hazarded his own life and the lives of his family to recover him out of the hands of Chedarlaomer But not comparable to that kindness which our Kinsman the Lord Jesus shewed us when he gave his life to deliver us from the hand of our enemies Mortuum Caesarem quis metuat Sed morte Christi quid efficacius If Caesar he once dead who will â—ear Christ even when dead is terrible to his enemies Nothing more effectual than his death By suffering death he destroyed him who had the power of death When he was condemned of man he condemned sin that it should not condemn man Passus est ut infirmus operatus ut fortis Aug. He suffered as a weak man but wrought as a strong one As the Serpent without life erected in the wilderness overcame the living serpents that stung Israel So the Lord Jesus by suffering death slew that Serpent that living in us had stung us to death Sanguis ejus effunditur Patre ordinante filio volente Spiritu sancto dante Gorran Judâ tradente Judaea procurante Pilato judicante Gentili exequente The High Priest under the Law as he was a type of Christ in sundry respects so likewise in his death He who killed a man negligently fled to the City of refuge and stayed there until the death of the High Priest and then he was free Jesus Christ by his death frees us and sets us at liberty One saith Christ continued in his torment twenty hours at the least Others say Sedul Homâ— â— that he was so long on the Cross as Adam was in Paradise in pleasure Origen de morte magni Regis The Theeves fared better on their Crosses than Christ on his for they had no â—rrision no superscription no taunts no insultations they had nothing but pain to encounter but death to grapple with but he death and scorn Pro servis dominus moritur pro sontibus insons Pro aegroto medicus pro grege pastor obit Pro populo rex mactatur pro milite ductor Pro opere ipse opifex pro homine ipse Deus As Eve came out of Adams side sleeping so the Church is taken out of Christs side bleeding Vt effundatur sanguis Christi ne confundatur anima Christiani A flux of blood in the head is stanched by opening a vein in the foot But here to save all his members from bleeding to death blood must be drawn from the head Which of Christs senses was not a window to let in sorrow He sees the tears of his Mother hears the blasphemy of the multitude is put to death in a noisom place to his scent his touch felt the nails and his taste the gall a reed for reproach is put into his hand a diadem in scorn is set upon his head his head harrowed with thorns his face of whom it was said Thou art fairer than the children of men is all besmeared with the filthy spettle of the Jews those eyes clearer than the sun are darkned with the shadow of death those lips which spake as never man spake are now drenched in gall and vinegar Nam cum mortis aculcum non possit accipere natura deitatis noscendo tamen sâ—scepit de nobis quod pati posset pro nobis Leo. Serm. 8. de Pas Hoc primum tormentum magnum mysterium quod passibilis factus est Hillar de Trin. l. 10. Christi humilitas est nostra sublimitas Christi crux nostra victoria Christi patibulum noster triumphus Orig. Hom 8. L. 9. and those feet that trampled on the Powers of darkness are now nailed to the footstool of the Cross Though Christ were both God and Man yet he suffered not in his Divine but in his Humane nature which may be thus illustrated 1. A Man we know consisteth both of soul and body and yet when he is dead we do not understand it of his soul for that cannot die but his body only 2. Thus The Sun shines on a Tree the Carpenter cuts down the Tree but wounds not the Sun 3. Or as the two Goats mentioned Levit. 16. the one is slain but the other escapes so of Christ in his two natures God the Creator suffers in the flesh that the flesh of the creature should not suffer for ever God himself reconciled the world unto himself God himself became Mediator God himself redeemed Mankind with his own blood He who was offered assumes the flesh of the creature and becomes Reconciliator We may say of Christs bloody sweat what the Poet Lucan having his veins cut dying said Sanguis erant lachrymae quaecunque foramina novit Humor ab his largus manat cruor ora redundunt Et patulae nares sudor rubet omnia plenis Membra fluunt venis totum est pro vulnere corpus Englished by D.T. His blood were tears and what pores sweat did know Blood in great plenty did spring forth and flow Through 's mouth and nose his sweat was red each lim Swet with full veins all 's but one wound in him Read Isa 53. all along His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree 1 Pet. 2.14 that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed Is it nothing to you 1. am 1.12 all ye that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger Descensio Christi ad Inferos Sepultura Christi est requies Christiani Ambros Buried our Saviour was 1. That none might doubt of his death 2. That our sins might be buried with him 3. That our graves might be prepared and perfumed for us as so many beds of roses or delicious dormitories Isa 57.2 If Christ did descend personally into Hell he must either descend in body or in soul Now his body could not go into hell for that was laid in the grave that very night by Joseph of Arimathea And for his soul that could not be in hell for Christ said to the Thief upon the Cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And how could that be if his soul did then go
John 12.31 1 John 3.8 for this purpose the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil The works of the Devil are sin and death for by him came sin into the world and death by sin Again we are hereby freed from the punishment of sin which is death He did bear our griefs and carried our sorrows Isa 53. He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his striper we are healed He poured out â—is soul to death and bare the sin of many Now we are freed from the punishment of sin two wayes 1. Directly because his passion was a sufficient and superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the whole world Wherefore Thomas-Aquin Exhibita satisfactionâ— sufficienti tollitur reatus paenae saith Aquinas upon the exhibition of a sufficient satisfaction the punishment is quite taken away So that God cannot punish that again in his servant that he hath already punisht in his Son 2. Indirectly Ambros super Beati immacalati in as much as the passion of Christ is the cause of the Redemption of sin which is the cause of punishment Ille suscepit mortis servitutem ut tibi tribueret aternae vitae libertatem Moreover by the sufferings of Christ our reconciliation with God is wrought and our peace is made with him for ever We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. 5.10 and that two wayes 1. By removing of sin whereby we were made his enemies Ephes 5.2 2. By offering up himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Lastly hereby the gate of heaven is open for us We have boldness to enter into the holyest by the blood of Jesus Hebr. 10.19 for he went before us to prepare a place for us that where he is we might be also So that now he hath obtained for us eternal salvation By way of desert he hath deserved that by him we should be saved By way of satisfaction for the greatness of his love out of which he suffered for the dignity of his life which he laid down for us it was the life of God and man and for the generality and weight of sorrows and paines that he suffered for us hence he is a sufficient satisfaction called the Propitiation for our sins Heb. 9.26 Verse 15. At Paris ut vivat regnetque beatus cogi posse negat Hor. Epist 1. 1 Joh. 2.2 By way of sacrifice which was meritorious deserving life for whom he suffered death In the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself And by way of redemption for he was engaged for us and paid the utmost farthing for which end he was sent into the world God sent not his Son into the world to condemne the world but that the world through him might be saved Joh. 3.17 Saved from sin from the power of Satan from death Hence called our Redemption and we come to be at peace with God and in that peace we enter into heaven to be partakers of those joyes that are at Gods right hand for evermore Having waded thus farre I seale up this discourse with a pathetical conclusion in way of application O how far is the love of God extended to us miserable sinners He was provident before our fall to find out away whereby to be saved after we fell His Son must die to save us from death He must fall into the hands of sinners that we may not fall into the hands of Satan And if he have thus given us his Son how shall he not with him give unto us all things We may conclude for certain we shall want nothing for the furtherance of our salvation since that he with-held not his onely Son from us Let this love of God to us extract love from us to God As he bought us dear with the losse of his Son so must we think nothing too deare to part withal to gain our God We must be content to lose our life and all than to lose our God who is all in all for the gaining of life and all Seeing that Christ ought to have suffered for our sins we may well grieve that we should be the authors of his death and yet rejoyce that we have escaped Gods fearful vengeance by his sufferings Grieve then my beloved for your sins for which Christ died Royard in Postill and go and sin no more And let your soules magnify the Lord and rejoyce in God your Saviour Non gaudere ingratitudinis est non dolere crudelitatis saith Royard not to be glad for Gods mercy and Christ's love in redeeming us is a point of ingratitude not to grieve that we gave occasion of his death is a point of the greatest cruelty Let us then grieve together with him that we may reigne and rejoyce together with him Gods decree is unutterable he ordained that Christ should die and Christ did die He promist it and 't is fulfill'd He revealed it and 't is so come to passe He is as good as his word Heaven and earth shall passe away but not the least tittle of his word shall go unfulfilled What therefore soever God hath determined concerning any one shall certainly fall out so there is no avoidance What he hath denounced against sinners let them expect it for they shall surely have it Our God is a God of truth You may collect out of this discourse that Christ is a perfect and sufficient Redeemer Heb 10.14 on whom alone dependeth our salvation For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified As Moses said to the children of Israel the Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace So I may say that Christ onely fought for us we did nothing whereby to acquire a life that is endless Wherefore if we will be perfectly saved rely upon the Redeemer of Israel for he is onely the Captain of our salvation Look up as sometimes the Israelites on the brazen serpent upon him stretched out upon the crosse where he is ready to receive all that come unto him and beleeve in his name Caput Christi inclinatum ad osculandum cor apertum ad diligendum brachia extensa ad amplexandum totum corpus expositum ad redimendum August lib. de virginit he hath his head bended down to kisse you his heart opened to love and affect you his armes stretched forth to embrace you his whole body exposed to redeem you Consider of what great consequences these things are that Christ hath done for your soules weigh them in the ballance of your hearts Vt totus vobis figatur in corde qui totus pro vobis fixus fuit in cruce that he may be wholly fastned to you in your hearts who was wholly fastned for you on the crosse Let us go forth therefore unto
die so was it necessary he should live again 1. In regard of Gods Decree Isa 53.10 revealed in his Word promising that He should see his seed that is the Just and that He would prolong his days Peter in his Sermon on the day of Pentecost averrs That David in the 16. Psalm spake of Christ's Rising by way of prediction the knowledge whereof came unto him by Divine infusion Act. 2.31 2. It was necessary for the instruction and settlement of our Faith we being naturally prone to infidelity And that 1. Concerning the Divinity of our Saviour Christ the glory and truth whereof had not been made sufficiently apparent had he not used his power in rising again But in that he is risen he hath mightily declared himself to be the Son of God i.e. Ex afflicto ejus statu as Gal. 4.14 very God of very God Who although he was crucified through weakness yet he liveth by the power of God 2 Cor. 13.4 If Christ be not risen saith the same Apostle 1 Cor. 15. then our preaching is in vain and in vain our faith By his Resurrection therefore we obtain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fidei a full measure of faith in this that there is no place of doubting left us but that we firmly may believe that Jesus Christ is true God for whom to be held bound in the strict chains of a powerful death is a matter of the greatest impossibility Again it was necessary for the settlement of our Faith 2. Concerning the victory Christ hath gotten over death The weaker is overcome of the stronger so that if Christ had not risen he had been weaker than Death had not been a sufficient Redeemer we had been still in our sins we could not have been perswaded God had received perfect satisfaction But being that he is revived by the same Power that giveth life unto all Death hath no longer dominion over him Gods justice is satisfied and we remain no longer in our sins Wherefore we may well in the language of triumph proclaim O death where is thy sling O grave where is thy victory And we continuing the same note may adde by the vertue of a lively faith Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 3. It was necessary for the comforting assistance of our Hope lest it should be converted into a Desperate humour Our propensity to Desperation is by woful experience too well known But inasmuch as our Saviour our Head Clarissima fidei confâ—ssio Brentius Brevis longa totaque aurea est haec Apologia saith another had a glorious Exit out of the grave and an absolute conquest over death it is forcible enough to make us hope that we his members united unto him by the indissoluble bond of the Spirit shall also rise again after death Upon this hope was that speech of Job grounded I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reins be consumed within me Job 19. Were it not for Christ's Resurrection hope herein might have failed both him and us for his is the cause of ours therefore is he stiled Primitiae dormientium The first-fruits of them that sleep 4. It was necessary for the compleat and perfect consummation of our eternal happiness For in that he was humbled to sustain great evils by dying for our freedom from all evil so was he glorified by his Resurrection for our promotion to all â—ood He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification Rom. â— ult And as it is Heb. 7.25 He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them 5. It was necessary in regard of the compleat discharge of his office of Priesthood to which he was from all eternity anointed of the Father If he had not risen again he had not performed the full duty of that calling which required that he should make satisfaction for the sins of people which he did by offering up himself an Offering and a Sacrifice to God of a sweet smelling favour upon the Cross And further that calling required also that he should apply the vertue of this Sacrifice the merit of his death to every true Believer which could not be performed without his Resurrection So that as he died to satisfie the justice of God so was it requisite he should rise from death to make to us a particular application of the vertue of his Passion by his effectual Intercession unto his Father in heaven for us upon earth Whereupon comes the Apostles Quaere and Answer Rom. 8.34 Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Thus much of the Necessity of Christ's Resurrection The second point is concerning the Ends of his Resurrection which are divers Viz. 1. In regard of himself 2. In regard of the Law 3. In regard of us In regard of himself the end of his Rising was twofold 1. To declare that he himself that Holy and Just one whom the Jews had by wicked hands crucified and slain was the Prince of life Who at his pleasure as he could give life to others so unto himself Act. 3.15 though he were brought to the lowest step of an humbled state though death held him in its hands For if at his Crucifying the shaking of the earth the rising of some dead bodies the obscuration of the Sun not hap'ning within the compass of the course of nature because not at the usual time of the conjunction of those two Planets the Sun and Moon wrested a confession out of the spectators that He was the Son of God much more may his Resurrection evict thus much that He is the Prince of life who might lay down and take up his life when he pleased And 2. That having finished and perfected the great work of our Redemption he might reign thenceforth for ever in glory â—â—n 7.14 Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and whose Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed Albeit he seemed for a time to be deposed from his Royalty whilst he submitted himself to death yet it was but a short cessation that he might come off with the greater honour and so to enter into his greatest glory In regard of the Law the end of his Rising was to ratifie the truth of that Promise of life which was pass d unto man upon the performance of that Covenant passed betwixt God and man Do this and thou shalt live It could not be but that in equity Christ should live again being that he did fulfill exactly and precisely
the ordinance of God for He did all things well Wherefore to shew that God keeps his word and that the truth of his promises is infallible He rose again from the dead In regard of us the end of his Rising is threefold Viz. 1. For our Example 2. For our Justification 3. For our Faith c. First for our Example tending to the information of us in the ways of righteousness in the paths of life That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life that the body of sin might be destroyed Resurectione Domini configuratur vita quae hic geritur and that henceforth we should not serve sin Rom. 6.4.6 The Resurrection of Christ from the dead should be a pattern for us wherein there is some effective vigor to raise us from the death of sin to a gracious life The power of effecting both is in God A Dâ—o est quod unima vivat per gratiam corpus per Animam That the soul lives by grace and the body by the soul comes from God Aquinas who is the Author of life And saith Ames Christ rising from death is tum demonstratio quam initiatio as well a demonstration as the initiation or beginning of our Rusurrection by whom we pass from death unto life Secondly for our Justification They are the express words of the Apostle He was raised again for our justification Rom. 4. ult For now that he hath gotten the victory over death by reviving he applies by the vertue thereof all the benefits of the Gospel unto us to the exceeding great consolation of our souls Lastly for the establishment of our faith concerning the obtaining of life everlasting For indeed if the Head be risen the members may be sure to rise too and if the Head receive life and glory doubtless the members which have their proper dependunce of him shall receive the like perfection for a glorified Head cannot be without a glorified body Now Christ is the head of the body the Church Col. 1.18 who is the beginning the first-born from the dead that in all things he may have the preheminence Of the fulness of whose glory in the day of our perfect redemption we shall all receive a full measure For a Conclusion Communi naturae lege moriuntur homines The sons of men composed of dust and ashes die by the common law of nature Eternity is proper to another world not to this to this Inconstancie The Son of the most High himself when he became the Son of man was subjected to Mortality He pleaded no Prerogative royal to be exempted from that end which God setled in the course of nature Our times upon the Earth may be said to be lasting but not everlasting though in the hands of God Heaven decreed a period to our Lives which we cannot prevent and to which Christ at the appointed houre did submit himself with all obedience not able to avoid it Necessity was laid upon him to pay the dubt to Nature which might serve for a payment of our debt to God yet not respectu peccuti Wâ—ems Protralcture of Gods image in man pag. 43. but respectis poenae this necessity was not in respect of sin He was a Lamb without blemish and without spot but in respect of that punishmenâ— which he did oblige himself to undergo for the sins of men Est illata necessiaâ— Adamò innata necessit as nobis assumpta necessitas in Christo Necessity of death was laid upon Adam for his sin necessity of death is imbred in us and by a voluntary assumption there was a necessity of death in Christ A man willingly gives his word for such a summe for his friend but when he hath willingly given it he must of necessity pay it So Christ willingly took this debt upon him and in the fulness of time when 't was exacted paid it down even his life to God and nature But albeit he thus parted from the world yet God hath raised him up Etiam animalula quaedam typâ— Resurrectionis sunt Lavat in Job 14.12 having loos'd the paines of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it So though the hand of fate by Natures unconfused order reduce us to our first principles yet shall we rise again by the mighty power of our eternal Maker The Judge of all the word hath appointed a day wherein to judge the world to which all must rise And as all must die and after death come to judgment so Christ was once offered to bear the â—ius of many and unto them that look for him shall be appear the second time without sin unto salvation THE BLESSED AMBASSADOR OR THE Best sent into the Basest GALATH. 4.6 And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father GODS love wherewith he hath embrac'd the sons of men in his onely Son is of such large extent as cannot be limited as cannot be measured the breadth and length and depth and height thereof Eph. 3.18 19. doth passe our knowledge Doth passe our finding out The length the breadth the depth of the earth the sea the heavens Mathematicians by their speculations do conjecture but the love of God the most ingenious and judicious cannot it so exceeds so much as conjecture much lesse perfectly know because infinite Would a man part with his only son and alone darling and he content he should die a most ignoble and ignominious death to ransome his servants his cantives his slaves rebels that would cut his throat I cannot be perswaded the world affords such a man such a Phenix there was but one in all the world Abraham found willing to slay his son to rip up his bowels that spruug out of his own when God commanded it Yet the Lord of heaven and earth whose mercies are over all his works sent his only Son to save sinners to dye that by his death we may live Though servants Cantives slaves rebels yet by his Son made Kings Priests Prophets sons and heirs of an eternal inheritance O the depth the height and length and breadth of Gods love He sent his Son forth from him to bring us to him he freely gave him to redeem us from the insulting power of Sathan from the captivity and dominion of sin from the oppressing tyranny of the world to bring us into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God This liberty this sonship is obtained by faith for to as many as beleeve in his name hath he given power to become the Sons of God All ye then that beleeve are no more servants but sons not sons of wrath but sons of God not sons by nature but sons by grace And because sons behold the Lords bounty is enâ—arged toward you the treasures of his graces are open for you the store-house of his riches is
Picture can express foolish Creatures that confine him within the narrow lines of any Image 1 Kings 8.27 2 Chron. 2.6 Isa 66.1 Jer. 23.24 Behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee The Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Footstoâ—l Do not I fill Heaven and Earth saith the Lord Of Gods Omnipotency Such is Gods Omnipotency and Infiniteness of power as that to him nothing is impossible Psal 103.20 Other Spirits are Potent Angels excell in strength but he is Omnipotent The Almighty power of this Spirit distinguisheth him from all other spirits Dicitur omnitotens quia omnium tenet potestatem Isidor Thus 1. In that it is Essential for whatsoever God doth is in and by his own Essence but there is a quality 2. In him it is Original in them derived for this is that beginning of all power in the Creature 3. In him it is Absolute whereby he can do whatsoever he will in them it is limited that they can do but what he will 4. In him it is Infinite not only in regard of his infinite Being nor only in regard of infinite Objects which he hath done and can do but also in regard of the powerful manner of effecting things for he never did any thing so powerfully but he could have done it more powerfully he never made any thing so good but he could have made it better In the Creatures there is an Essence and a Paculty whereby they work as in fire the substance and the quality of heat between these God can sunder Dr. Preston and so hinder their working as in the Babylonish fire In the Angels there is an Essence and an executive power God comes between these often and hinders them for doing what they would But now it s otherwise in God he is most simple and entire without mixture or composition Hence his Almightiness is his Essence and his whole Essence is Almighty He is not mighty in respect of some part or faculty as the Creature is but all in God is Mighty There is the 1. Absolute Power of God And 2. Actual Power of God By the former he can do whatsoever he pleaseth make Iron swim Rocks stream forth water stones to yield children unto Abraham Of this when I have spoken my utmost I must intreat the Reader as one the Oratour did his when he spake of Socrates and Lucius Crassus Cicer. 3. â—s Oratore Vt magis quiddam de â—is quà m quae scripta sunt suspicarentur That they should imagine some greater matter than here they find written For well did Gratianus the Emperour observe in his Epistle to Ambrose Loquimur de Deo non quantum debemus sed quantum possumus In speaking of God also of his power we speak not what we ought but what we are able But it is his actual power that men must look to and in this he hath tyed the end and the means together in which respect there are things he cannot say Divines because he will not that is he will not bring man to the end without their using those means which tend thereunto In a word He can do all things possible and honourable he cannot lye dye deny himself for that implieth impotency He can do more than he will but whatsoever he will that he doth in Heaven and Earth and none can say What dost thou Let us therefore tremble before this Mighty God who can with as much ease as Caesar once threatned Metellus in a Bravado and in as little time undo us as bid it be done If the breath of God blow man to destruction and we are but Dust-heaps if he can frown us to death with the rebuke of his countenance What is the weight of his hand that Mighty hand as James calls it wherewith he spans the Heavens and weigheth the Earth in a Ballance Trust we also in his power for performing his promises Deo confisi nunquam confusi He that believeth shall not be ashamed he need no more but stand and see the salvation of the Lord. And let Gods people be comforted in consideration of his power Contemno minutos istos Deos modo Jovem habeam propitium said that Heathen If God be for us What need we fear what Man or Devil can do unto us Yea let us commit our selves unto him who is able to do for us above all we can ask or think and to keep for us what we commit unto him for howsoever the power of all Creatures may be letted by impediments from doing us good yet nothing can be an impediment to hinder his power for our good Gen. 17.1 Cap. 18.14 Dan. 4.37 Luke 1.37 Rev. 4.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the Almighty God Is any thing too hard for the Lord Those that walk in pride he is able to abase With God nothing shall be unpossible Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty Of Gods Omnipresence God is a Spirit everywhere included Deus ubique semper est nowhere excluded He is purely and simply by his Essence and Presence everywhere A God within all things but contained of nothing a God without all things but sustained of nothing a Spirit dwelling everywhere but without sense or motion In respect of his Essence he is everywhere but in regard of the bright manifestation of his grace and glory he is said to dwell in Heaven Thus also he is said to be far from the wicked not in respect of Essence but the manifestation of his favour and grace Again when God is said to depart and return we must not understand it by motion of Essence but of effect nor by change of place but by change of his action and declaration of some mercy where he is said to return and of his justice where he is said to depart A man in a Boat thinketh the Bank moves though that be unmoveable and all the motions in the Boat so God moveth in regard of his effect in us himself abiding unmoveable he moveth and changeth all things without any motion or change in himself Empedocles could say that God is a Circle whose Center is everywhere whose circumference is nowhere Other Heathens that God is the Soul of the World and that as the Soul is tota in toto and tota in qualibet parte so is he that his eye is in every Corner c. To which purpose they so pourtraied their Goddess Minerva that which way soever one cast his eye she alwayes beheld him Let us therefore in every place fear his presence and avoid sin the Judge is present even to the thoughts Sub Jove sâ—mper erâ—s c. Jovis omnia plena set thy self ever in his sight as David walk with God as Enoch and be sincere in all thy course he filleth all places either to comfort or confound God saith a late Writer is not so far from us as the Bark is from the
Asps is under their lips Rom. 3.13 There are six properties in a Serpent to be imitated 1. He being assailed will strive to defend his head so ought a Christian in all afflictions to strive to preserve his faith and hope in Christ Psal 58.5 2. To prevent charming or incantation he fast stops his ear of which Austin thus Quum caeperet incantatorem suum pati allidit unam aurem terrae caudâ obturat alteram That the Serpent when she beginneth to feel the Charmer clappeth one of her ears close to the ground and stoppeth the other with her tail Pliny speaks to this purpose and the like is affirmed by Hierom and Cassiadore So ought Christians to beware of the worlds allurements and Satans incantations but to hearken to the wise charmings of the Gospel 3. Swimming over a river he strives to hold up his head so ought Christians to take heed they be not drowned in the world 4. He shuns the society of man as his deadly enemy 1 Tim. 6 9. and chuseth rather to inhabit the Wilderness and even to haunt briars and brambles for his defence So ought the godly rather to seek peace and comfort in solitary retiredness than to be amongst their profest enemies yea chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God Heb. 11.25 than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season 5. The Serpent is vigilant sleeps little but less when he suspects danger So ought Christians Ephes 5.15 6. They once a year cast their coat and renew themselves So ought Christians to labour to be rid of old corruptions and to get new sanctified souls Ephes 4.22 23 24. for Gal. 6.15 There are also six properties in a Serpent to be shunned 1. He hath a very lofty spirit reaching not only at men but birds But let Christians take heed of pride and ambition 2. They embrace while they sting lying in the green grass and sweet flowers to destroy the passenger But let Christians avoid flattery which tickles a man to death 3. The Serpent is unthankful he will kill him that nourisheth him But let not Christians be guilty of that hateful sin of ingratitude which renders a man the Prodigie of nature 4. They are marvellous voracious killing more than they can eat But let Christians beware they turn not covetous engrossers Wo unto them that joyn house to house that lay field to field Isa 5.8 till there bo no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of the carth 5. Their hostility and murtherous mind they would kill all to set up their own kind Such is the depopulator that thinks he hath not room enough unless he could be rid of the Poor and make them harbourless But let Christians avoid this as they would the aforementioned woe 6. Their enmity to man whom they ought to reverence Malice saith Chrysostom turneth men into serpents The like are the Jesuites that deny allegiance to Kings c. But Christians are taught another Lesson Rom. 13. Be ye therefore wise as Serpents Mat. 10.16 and harmless as Doves Beasts The sixth day God made beasts over the wildest of whom once man had power and dominion till he rose up and rebelled against God they were subject unto him but man rebelling against God they rebelled against man so that now it is from Gods special Providence that they hurt us not Amongst other beasts that are famous in Scripture there is the Lyon Which is 1. A Noble and Kingly creature 2. Strong 3. Venterous and bold 4. But cruel and bloody 5. Libidinous It is said he is so fearless of any other creature that when he is fiercely pursued he will never once alter his gate though he dye for it No more will the righteous man his resolution against sin such is his Christian-courage Prov. 28.1 Elephant Called Behemoth that is Beasts in the Plural for his hugeness as if he were made up of many beasts So strong that he can bear a wooden Tower upon his back and upon that several men standing to fight therefrom He is the hugest of all earthly creatures saith Pliny Nine cubits high saith Elian of some But certainly the wonders of Gods glory do marvellously appear in him he being the Master-piece among all earthly irrational creatures in strength and understanding Of this Animal at large Job 40. Wild-Ass A most untameable and untractable creature To the Colt of this wild creature is a natural man compared by Zophar Job 11.12 for his extream rudeness and unruliness Fox To which Persins Adversaries of the Church are fitly compared 1. For their craft Astuam vapido servans sub pectore unlpem Vulpes pellem mutat non naturam The Fox may change his countenance Iâ—dor Etym. â—b 1â— 1 but not his condition 2. For their cruelty they do great burt among Lambs and fowls for lacking meat they fain themselves dead and so the birds hasting down as to a carcase volucres rapiunt devorant they seize upon the birds and devour them Conie I only conclude with her who what she wants in strength hath in wisdom Proverbs 30.26 Gandet in effossis habitare cuniculus antris she secures her self in the rocks and stony places It shall be our wisdom to work our selves into the Rock Christ Jesus where we shall be safe from Hellish Hunters The very beasts will teach us to know and own God from whom we receive so much good so many benefits And God said Gen. 1.24 25. Let the earth bring forth the living Creature after his kind Cattel and the Beast of the earth after his kind and it was so And God made the Beast of the earth after his kind and Cattel after their kind c. Ask now the Beasts and they shall teach thee Job 12.7 Isa 1.3 The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass his masters Crib but Israel doth not know Paradise Terrestrial that most pleasant and fruitful Garden wherein Adam and Eve were placed in the Creation Which Eden was as is conceived in the upper part of Chaldea whereabout Babel was founded It was destroyed by the deluge Cecidit rosa mansit spena Herod l. 1. Plin. l. 6. c. 16. the place indeed remaineth but not the pleasantness of the place And yet that Countrey is very fruitful returning seed beyond credulity as Pliny and Herodotus report Herein grew the Tree of life so called per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 effecti or by a Sacramental signification of Christ who is so called Rev. 22.2 Also the Tree of knowledge of good and evil so called from the event God forewarning our first Parents that they should know by woful experience unless they abstained what was the worth of good by the want of it and what the presence of evil by the sense of it Multi etiam hodie propter arborem scientiae amittunt arborem vitae Aug. in terris manducant quod apud inferos digerunt Caelestial of
under correction Alexander forgave many sharp swords but never any sharp tongues Moreover God hath bedged in this unruly evil with a double hedge of lips and teeth And it is placed on purpose in the midst betwixt the brain and the heart that it might take the advice of both It is also tied fast by the root There is much need you see of reforming and polishing this member Death and life saith Solomon are in the power of the tongue Upon the right or ill using of it a mans safety doth depend And lest you should think the Scripture only intendeth temporal safety or ruine Our Saviour saith By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words condemned One of the prime things that shalt be brought forth to judgment are your words Again He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction The wise man intimateth a similitude of a City besieged to open the gates betrayeth the safety of it all watch and ward is about the gate So the tongue is the gate or door of the Soul by which it goeth out in converse and communication to keep it open and loose guarded letteth in an enemy which proveth the death of the Soul Face The Face is the table of beauty or comelinesse and when that is abused it is made the seat of shame hence spitting in the face is such an act of reproach And cocovering the face as in Haman the mark of a condemned man It is reported of Malcotius as also of Augustus that the majesty of his countenance Turk Hist fol. 415. with the resplendant beams issuing out of his eyes as it bad been the rayes of the Sun were of such piercing brightnesse that no man was able with immoved and fixed eye long to behold the same Likewise in the description of Tamerlane amongst the rest Fol. 235. in his eyes sate such a rare majesty as a man could hardly endure to behold them without closing of his own And many in talking with him and often beholding of him became dumb which caused him oftentimes with a comely modesty to abstain from looking too earnestly upon such as spake unto him or discoursed with him En quam difficile est animum non prodere vultu The face varieth as the mind varieth Index animi valâ—us That is seen in the face which is out of sight Four things are chiefly seen in the face 1. Pride Psal 10.4 2. Fear Dan. 5.6 3. Envie and Discontent Gen. 31.2 5. 4. Guilt and shame Gen. 4.7 Thus the evidences of the heart are read there and we may take the copy of a mans spirit in his countenance Dugge God hath placed the womans Dugge saith Weemse in her breast Duplex est causa Physica moralis and not in her belly as in beasts and that for two causes 1. Physical 2. Moral The Physical cause God hath placed them so near the liver that the milk might be the better concocted and the more wholesome for the child The Moral cause that the woman might impart her affection and love more to her child by giving it suck with hen dugge which is so near the heart Hence the giving of suck was one of the greatest obligations of old betwixt the mother and the children Hand Amongst the several outward members of the body the Hand is of great use Fox 1. By the Hand we promise and threaten Hence the right hand of fellowship Turk Hist fol. 1392. â—he left hand is the most honourable amongst the Turks 2. We reckon by it the Ancients reckoned upon their left hand untill they came to an hundred years Prev 3.16 and then they began to reckon upon their right hand Hence Solomon Wisdom cometh with length of dayes upon the right hand meaning that Wisdom should make a man to live a long age 3. We worship with the hand Idolaters used to kisse their Idols but because they could not reach to the Moon to Kisse her they kissed their hand in homage before her To this practice Job seems to bear reference when he saith My mouth hath not kissed my hand Cap. 31.27 The Ancients do understand all that which is from the shoulder to the fingers ends to be the hands subdivided into three parts bracbiums cubitum extremam manum purging himself of this kind of Idolatry as some conceive In a word it is the Organ of Action and the special Providence of God is to be marked that he hath made man to take his meat with his hand and hath not left him to gather it up with his lips as the Beasts do for if a man did so his lips would become so thick that he could not speak distinctly as we see by experience by those that have so Heart The Jewes compare the heart of Man for the excellency of it to three things 1. To the Holiest of all where the Lord gave his answers so the Lord gives his answers first out of the heart 2. To Solomons Throne as the stateliest place where the King sits so the Lord dwells in the heart of man as in his Throne 3. To Moses Tables in which he wrote the Law so God promiseth to write his Law in mans heart Three things God holdeth in his own hand 1. Revenge 2. Future Events 3. Searching of mens hearts Principale animae non secundùm Platonem in cerebro sed juxta Christum in corde 'T is not the eye that seeth but the heart not the ear that heareth but the heart not the tongue that speaketh but the heart Yea there is in the heart both 1. Talking Psal 14.1 and 2. Walking Ezek. 11.21 In Gods account Quicquid con non facit non fit The heart is the first mover of all the actions of man for as the first mover carrieth all the spheres of Heaven with it so doth the heart of man carry all the members of the body with it In natural Generation the heart is first framed and in supernatural Regeneration it is first reformed The heart is primum vivens ultimum moriens So the spiritual life of grace begins in the heart first and is last felt there Hence it is that Michael the Archangel and the Devil strove no faster about the body of Moses than they do about the heart of man Liver Next to the heart in man is the Liver and from hence it hath in latine the name jecur quasi juxta cor as it were placed near unto the heart This is the shop of sanguification or fountain of blood from whence by the channels of the * Especially vens sorta and vena cava veins it is carried over the several Provinces of mans body God hath fenced the noblest parts as the brain with Pia mater and Duramater the heart with Pericardia so the liver is enclosed by a Net called Roticulum Lungs The Lungs are the bellows of the voyce and are seated near the heart to
that the Rabbins say If the Heavens were parchment and the Sea ink it would not serve to write down the praises of it Eutychides drew his Gally neer where the Persians had entrenched themselves Sir W. R. and spake to the Ionians a people camped amongst them more for fear than favor and bid them remember liberty The like did Themistocles to the Eubaans which much prevailâ—d to make them either dissert or mutiny Christian liberty consists in Deliverance from evil in respect of the Law 's 1. Breach for There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus He was made a curse to deliver us from the curse 2. Bond which obligeth us in our own persons to very perfect righteousness to attain everlasting salvation Non â—stis sub lege sed sub gratiâ according to the tenor of the Law Do this and live But now we may with the Publican and Prodigal condemn our selves and appeal from the bar of Gods justice to the Court of his mercy Freedom in good in respect either of the 1. Creator having free access to God in the blood of Jesus Christ hath an easie yoke the service of God is not a bondage but a freedom 2. Creatures in that all things are pure to the pure For the dominion of the creatures lost by Adam was restored again by Christ All are yours you Christ's and Christ God's In maximâ— libertate minima licentia Therefore let us not be worse because we should be better Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Gal. 5.1 13. and be not intangled again in the yoke of bondage For brethren ye have been called unto liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another Scandal Scandalum est rei non bonae sed malâ— exemplum Tertul. Aquin. adificans ad delictum Est dictum aut factum minùs rectum prabens occasionem ruinae A Scandal or Offence properly Scandalum est quo quis impellitar in ruinam evertitur Cameron is a stone or block or rub in the way whereat a man stumbles and either hinders or hurts himself In borrowed sense it is any offence cause or occasion given or taken whereby a man hurteth or hindereth himself or others in matter of Religion and Salvation whether by word or deed There is Scandalum Datum Acceptum 1. Offence is given By wicked and false Doctrine corrupt and false Opinions c. Thus were the Sorcerers a slumbling-block to Pharaoh and the false Prophets to Ahab Yea and good men are apt by untryed counsels to give offence as Peter to Christ Mat. 16.23 2. By wicked and bad example of life So were Eli's sons scandalous And thus good men by improvidence may give great offence as David by his soul sins made the enemies to blaspheme 2 Sam. 12.14 3. By discouraging with threats reproaches or oppositions the good way of God Thus Saul wasted the Church 1. Offence is taken sometimes from evil things as when men provoke themselves to liberty in sin by examples of good men in the Scripture as Noah David Peter c. Whereas these should rather put us upon watchfulness and fear 2. Sometimes from good things Bonares neminem scandalizaâ— nisi malam mentem Tertul. Even the best things a man may turn to his bane And thus was the word out of Christs own mouth to the Jews and Pharisees Mat. 15.12 Joh. 6.60 Nay unto some Christ himself is a rock of offence and a stone to stumble at 1 Pet. 2.8 3. Sometimes men take offence ungiven from the inevitable occurrences of Gods providence all which he turns to the good of his Church And thus many cast themselves back by the Heresies in the Church by the dissentions in opinions by persecution and oppression of the ungodly by the paucity and contempt of such as cleave unto Christ by the prosperity of wicked men by the use or not using Christian liberty Sicut ubicunque fuerit triticum necesse est ut inveniatur illic zizania sic ubicunque fuerit bonum Dei illic erit scandalum inimici Chrys in Mat. 6 Hom. 33. Sicut necesse est ignem calere nivem frigere ita est necesse ut iniquitas mundi erroribus plena scandala pariat c. Hieron in Mat. 18.7 What is there spoken is Necessitate consequentiae because of the wickedness of men it will certainly be so And God justly permitteth the same for causes to him best known But yet by what follows it appears that Gods permission neither forceth mans will nor excuseth any evil act Peccare non tantum in se perditionis habet Hom. 25. in Epist ad Rom. quantum quod reliqui ad peccandum inducuntur saith Chrysostom To sin hath not so much perdition in it as to induce others to sin To shew in the glass of the Word the hatefulness of this evil To give offence or take it 1. It 's against the rule of Christian charity in a most high kind The former wounds thy brother the latter thy self not in body but in soul and conscience 2. Thou sinnest against Christ 1. Cor. 8.12 It is not only to destroy a member but to reach at the head so strait is the union betwixt Christ and his members Mat. 25.45 Nay it 's an high sin against the blood of Christ and vertue of his death Rom. 14.15 3. A sin it is that pulls most severe woes upon the sinner The Serpent was more punished than Eve Eve than Adam Jesabel than Ahab and Jeroboam than Israel Adde what a dreadful curse also it is to be given up to admit strong delusions and to be carried away against the care of a mans own salvation by any occasion whatsoever A plague inflicted on the limbs of Antichrist 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. But especially if they gather offence from that which should be the occasion of their holiness and happiness as Christ and his Word Give none offence neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles 1 Cor. 10.32 nor to the Church of God Constancy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is but almost done is not done saith Basil Et non quaruntur in Christianis initia sed finis saith Hierom. Temporary flashings are but like Conduits running with wine at a Coronation Or like a Land-flood that seems to be a great Sea but comes to nothing Tutius recurrere quà m malè ourrere was an Emperors symbol Better run back than run amiss But to run well till a man sweats and then to sit down and take cold may cause a consumption It was excellently resolved by a Martyr The Heavens shall sooner fall than I will deny my dear Lord. And another Though ye may pluck my heart out of my bowels yet shall you never pluck the truth out of my heart Hierom of Prague said Make the fire in my sight for had I feared it I had never come hither Castalia Rupea
constrained to fell one of his sons into perpetual bondage that he might thereby save the rest from a present famine who calling all his dear children unto him and beholding them as Olive-branches round about his table could not resolve which he might best spare His eldest son was the strength of his youth even he that called him his father and therefore not willing to part with him his youngest boy was his nest-chick whom he dearly beloved A third resembled his progenitors having his fathers bill and his mothers eye and for the rest one was more loving and another more diligent a third more manly c. Therefore he could not afford to part with any Like as a Father pitieth his children Psal 103.13 Mother The Greeks commonly called their children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latine Chari 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 darlings and so they are especially to mothers which usually are most tender of them There is an Ocean of love in a parents heart a fathomlesse depth of desire after the childs welfare in the mothers especially I was my fathers son Prov. 4.3 tender and onely beloved in the sight of my mother Widow It is a calamitous name The word by which a widow is expressed in the Hebrew as well as her condition calls for help and pity It comes from a root that signifies either 1. To bind indeed the widow may be so called both because she is as it were bound about with afflictions and sorrows As also by the rule of contrary speaking bound that is she is not at all bound but free and loosed from her husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 7.1 2 3. 1 Cor. 7.39 Or 2. To be silent death having cut off her head she hath lost her tongue and hath none to speak for her When the Apostle saith of the widow indeed that she is desolate he seemeth to allude to the Greek word for a widow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desolor destituo which comes of a verb that signifies to be desolate and deprived So the Latine Vidua à viduando God therefore pleads for such as his Clients and takes special care for them The Pharisees are doomed to a deeper damnation for devouring their houses Mat. 23.14 And Magistrates charged to plead for them Isa 1.17 And all sorts to make much of them and communicate to them Deut. 24.19 20 21. Plead for the widow Isa 1.17 Fatherless These two desolate names are often found alone but oftener as one in Scripture the widow who is dis-joyned from her husband and the fatherlesse who are bereaved of their parents Per viduam Pupillum omne genus miserorum hominum significatur Pined are commonly joyned together And in a large sense these two names signifie any that are in distresse and need out charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tenebrae orphans are as it were darkling We are orphans and fatherlesse saith the Church Lam. 5.3 And we are all Orphans said Queen Elizabeth in her speech to the children of Christs Hospital let me have your prayers and you shall have my protection Judge the fatherlesse Isa 1.17 Infant As a tree by the roots is fastned to the earth and by the fibrae the little strings upon them draws nourishment from the earth so is it with an infant in the womb the Navel fastens it to the mother and by the veine and arteries in the Navel it fetcheth in nourishment and spirits Hence Plutarch likens the Navel to the roap and Anchor which stayes the Infant in that harbour of the mothers womb and when it is cut the Infant goes from harbour to the sea and stormes of the world Hence some make the Infants tears a presage of sorrows as if he wept to think upon what a shore of trouble he is landed or rather into what a sea of stormes he is lanching when he comes into the world such storms as he shall never be fully quit of till he is harboured in his grave Infants are not innocents Infantes non sunt insontes but estranged from the womb they go astray as soon as they be born Psal 58.3 The first sheet wherein they are covered is woven of sin and shame Vt uâ—tlea statim urit cancri retrecedunt â—â—hiuus asper ell Ezek. 16. Infants have sin though unable to act itâ— as Pauls viper stiffe with cold might be handled without harm yet was no lesse venemous But no sooner can they do any thing but they are evil-doing as young nettles will sting young crab-fish go backward and as the young urching is rough Therefore an Infant as soon as he liveth hath in him the seeds of death Not onely is man acting sin but nature infected with sin the subject of and subjected to the power of death Rom. 5.14 Sin is the â—eed of death and the principle of corruption God doth Infants no wrong when they die their death is of themselves for they have the seed of death in them The Macedonians being to conflict with the Grecians took their young King in his cradle and brought him into the field thinking either they could not be beaten their Soveraign being present or that none would be so inhumane as to hurt an helplesse infant Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not Luke 18.16 for of such is the kingdome of God Birth The first woman was in a sense born of a man Mulier dicitur virago quia de viro sumpta from which she receives her name but since all men are born of a woman That is the formation and production of man is from the woman in her the body of man is framed by the mighty power of God and all the pieces of it put together and in her man receives his life and quickning Hence it was that Adam who at first called his wife woman because she was taken out of man calls her afterwards Eve because she was the mother of all living And upon this ground some Nations have made a Law that all descents should be reckoned by the mother because the mother gives the greatest contribution towards the birâ—h and bringing forth of man Plut. de clar Mulâ—er cap. 9. Apud Lycios siquis percontetur quà familiâ ortus c. A matribus genus suum repetere solebant quod plurima substantia quâ constamus materna sit The birth of man speaks two things his 1. Frailty 2. Faultinesse For he is born of a woman the weaker vessel who both breedeth beareth and bringeth forth in sorrow a weak sorry man And is ante partum onerosa in partu dolorosa post partum laboriosa every way calamitous neither is the child in a better condition And as that which is weak cannot produce that which is strong so neither can that which impure send forth that which is clean An Heathen could say cum primum nascimur in omni continuo
all Believers die in Christ and are blessed and that presently then none are to be purged Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord Rev. 14.13 from henceforth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. è vestigio ab ipso mortis tempore à modo à modo jam Burial It is the last office of love to bring the deceased Saints honorably to their long home to lay them in their last bed to put them into the grave as into an haven and harbour where they may rest from their labours This is to deal kindly with the dead In hoc peccatur bifariam Lavat 1. Si prorsus contemnatur ut Diogeniani fatiunt jubentes se in aquis aut in sterqùilineum projici 2. Qui nimium tribuunt sepultura ut illi qui miris ceremoniis consecrarunt ut afficere dixerunt animam nisi in consecrato corpora fuerint sepulta Media tenenda via Si possimus habere honestam sepulturam nè contemnamus eam Si corpus avibus aut feris projiciendum intelligamus rem Deo committemus cujus ut Psaltes dicit terra est plenitudo ejus It hath been ever the fashion to be careful of Burial The Jews anointed their dead bodies wrapt them in Syndon laid them in covered Sepulchres hewed out of stone The Egyptians embalmed and filled them with odoriferous spices reserving them in Glass or Coffins the Assyrians in Wax and Honey The Scythians carried about the cleansed Carkasses to the friends of the deceased for forty days with solemn banquets The Romans used Funeral honors and ceremonies with ointments images bon-fires of most precious woods sacrifices and banquets burning their dead bodies wherein they were excessive until about the time of Theodosius laws were enacted to restrain the excess None neglected it but savage Nations In the womb a foot contents us three foot in the cradle though betwixt the cradle and the grave a whole world not contents us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sepulchrum domus mea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eccl. 12.5 Domus saculi sive aeternitatis as Bactrians which cast their dead to the dogs some varlet Philosophers as Diogenes who desired to be devoured of fishes some dissolute Courtiers as Mecoenas who was wont to say Non tumulum curo c. And as another said De terrâ in terram quavis terra sepulchrum The place of Burial is called by S. Paul seminatio in respect of the assured hope of Resurrection Of the Hebrews The house of the living As a Church-yard is called of the Germans Gods acre or field in the same respect In the like sense Tombs were called Requietoria Ossuaria Cineraria domus aternae Of Lucian Camps and Cottages of Carkasses scoffingly It is remarkable that the first purchase of possession mentioned in Scripture was a place to bury in not to build in Joseph of Arimathea had his Tomb in his garden to season his delights very like with the meditation of his end The Egyptians had a Deaths-head carried about the table at their feasts The Emperors of Constantinople had a Mason came to them on their Coronation-day with choice of Tomb-stones and these verses in his mouth Elige ab his saxis ex quo Invictissime Caesar Ipse tibi tumulum me fabricare velis Our first Parents made them garments of fig-leaves but God misliking that gave them garments of skins And such did the austere Baptist wear to discover our mortality Want of Burial Senec. ad Martiam the Jews accounted worse than death the Romans extreme cruelty Immanitatis est Scythicae non sepelire mortuos Alexander the Great lay unburied thirty days together His Conquests above ground purchased him no title for habitation under ground So Pompey the Great of whom Claudian Nudus pascit aves jacet en qui possidet orbem Exiguae telluris inops Of Tiberius the Emperor it is storied That he was so hated for his Tyranny that when he was dead some of the people would have had him thrown into the river Tiber some hang'd up in an ignominious manner others also made prayer to mother Earth to grant him now dead no place but among the wicked Contrarily when Dio died the people of Syracuse would have gladly redeemed his life with their own blood which because they could not they buried him very honorably in an eminent place of their city The Romans of old after the Funeral solemnities ended which were very many used to take their farewell of the dead body in these words Vale vale vale nos te ordine quo natura permiserit sequemur To have a comely burial is a great blessing It was threatned upon Jehojakim the son of Josiah as a curse that he should be buried with the burial of an Ass drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem Jer. 22.19 It is like that man had lived like a beast and God threatens him by name that when he died he should be used as a beast True it is they whose souls are with God in heaven Facilis jactura sepulchri may be without a burying place on earth The bodies of many of the servants of God have been and may be scattered upon the face of the earth like dung according to that Psal 79.2 Yet even then unto them there is this blessing reserved beyond the blessing of a burial They are laid up in the heart of God and he takes care of them yea He imbalms them for Immortality when the remains of their Mortality are troden under foot or rot upon a dunghill Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was Eccl. 12.7 and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it Resurrection It was not possible that Christ should be holden of death Act. 2.24 This impossibility sprang chiefly from an utter inconsistencie with the righteousness and goodness of God to suffer a Person so innocent and holy as Christ was and withall having fully accomplished what he undertook by dying to remain any longer in the bands and prison of death For this act of raising of Christ is to be looked upon as an act of righteousness and equity as well as of power Again there was necessity for it on Gods part too by way of design or wisdom viz. to accommodate the great end of glorifying himself in the salvation and condemnation of men They that are saved could not be saved at least on such terms without being justified Justified they could not be without believing Believe they could not but by and through the rising again of Christ from the dead Hence 1 Pet. 1.21 Rom. 4.25 Thus the righteousness and wisdom which together shine forth in it give as it were a gracious lustre and set off to the Power that appeared in it Basil saith that the Resurrection of the body is a Creation And he shews that there are three sorts of Creation 1. When a thing is made of nothing as in the first Creation 2. When
and Charon the ferry-man of hell And Aetua which they fancied to be hell Saxum ingens volvunt alii And hell it self to be a continual rowling of stones upon dead bodies with many other fancies Inque tuo sedisti Sisyphe saxo Ovid. Metam l. 10. But to let them passe such a woful place there must needs be 1. That so the wicked may receive proportionable punishment both in soul and body That of Jerom was not true Infernum nihil esse nisi conscientiae horr orem to the sins they committed here upon earth 2. Therefore of necessity there must be an hell to keep men to all eternity that by their everlasting torments Gods justice might be satisfied which otherwise it could not be 2 Thes 1.5 3. The very tetrors of conscience that are in wicked men at least when they are dying declare there is a hell a place of torment provided for them There are many words in Scripture by which hell is exprest 1. Sheol 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the grave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we lye buried there in a second death 2. Abaddon all are there in a perishing state 3. Tsalmaveth or the shadow of death death never triumphs so much in its strength as it doth in hell It s the strength and power of death 4 Etachtithrets signifying both the lowest and most inferior earth whence hell is called the bottomlesse pit And also it imports fear vexation and trembling hell is a land of trembling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a land of fear 5. Bor shachath that is the pit of corruption though the wicked shall be raised immortal yet filthinesse shall be upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. Erets Nesciah the land of forgetfulnesse God will remember them no more to do them any good but to their torment and confusion he will remember them for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. Erets choscec a land of darknesse Darknesse was their choyce in this life and it shall be their curse in the next 8. Gehinnom whence the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the valley of Hinnom in which the Idolatrous Israelites did sacrifice their children with horrible cruelty There are other terms which set out Hell this place of the damned As Unquenchable sire Dicitur stagnum quia ut lapis mari ita animae illue immerguatur Anselm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Kings 23.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 3.17 A Furnace of sire Matth. 13.42 A Lake of fire Rev. 19.20 Eternal fire Jude 7. Utter darknesse Matth. 22.13 The blacknesse of darknesse Jude 13. Chains of darknesse 2 Pet. 2.4 Damnation Mat. 23.33 A place of torment Luke 16.28 Wrath to come 1 Thes 1.10 A Prison 1 Pet. 3.19 Tophet Isa 30.33 A bottomlesse pit Rev. 9.1 The second death Rev. 2.11 Destruction Matth. 7.14 Everlasting punishment Matth. 25 46. Corruption Gal. 6.8 So that Hell is a place of torment ordained by God for Devils and reprobate sinners wherein by his justice they are deprived of his favour and confined to everlasting punishment both in soul and body If any ask whether Hell were created of God I answer Consider Hell as a place simply And it is very probable that Angels falling hell making was both together it was created at first by God when he distinguished all places but as it is Hell a place of torment it was not so by creation Satan and mans sin brought that name and use unto it And thus Tophet may be said to be prepared of old as a punishment for sin and a place for justice to be inflicted upon sin committed against God For the locality of Hell all agree in this that there is such a place only where that place of the damned should be Omnia entia sinita necesse est in aliquo ubi there are variety of opinions about it Gregory Nyssen and his followers hold it is in the air groundlesly grounding on Ephes 2.2 and cap. 6.12 Isidore but nothing probable will have it under the Globe of the earth A third confutable enough in the valley of Jehoshaphat from Joel 3.12 A fourth opinion owned of many learned men but without foundation from the Word is that Hell is in the very center of the earth Others with Keckerman that Hell is in the bottome of the Sea this they build upon that phrase Matth. 8.29 Luke 8.31 Aug. lib. 2. Retract c. 24. This indeed seems to carry some show of reason but cannot be the sense of the place Those that write with most sobriety say only in general Gehennam esse locum subterranenm The truth is Scripture doth not relate the very particular place where Hell is and perhaps it is concealed to prevent curiosity in many to keep faith in use and exercise as also to rouze men from security and to make them fearful of sin in every place yet there is warrant enough for the belief of two things in general 1. That there is such a place as Hell that is a place distinct from Heaven 2. That this place wherever it is it must be below Heaven Prov. 15.24 Luke 8.13 Rev. 14.11 Job 11.8 Deut. 32.22 Psal 55.15 If any should aske any farther I answer in anothers words Vbi sit sentient qui curiosiùs quaerunt where it is they shall find one day who over-curiously enquire At least I may say as Socrates did I was never there my self nor spoke with any that came from thence Let us labour more to avoid Hell than endeavour to find out the place where it is else Hell where-ever it is will find us out Though we know not the place for certain yet we may certainly know this that sin is the very high road to Hell and the direct way thither Prov. 7.26 And let us take heed of sin in every place seeing we know not where the particular place of Hell is Hell follows sin at the heels If we sin against God God knows how near Hell we are A guilty and galled conscience joyned with a profane wicked life is the lively picture of Hell it selfe Gebenuâ nihil grovius sed ejus meâ—â— nibil uâ—â—lius Hell is called by the Latins Infernus ab inferendo from the Devils continually carrying in souls to that place of torment I conclude with Chrysostom There is nothing more grievous than Hell but nothing more profitable than the fear of it Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared Isa 30.33 he hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it Hells Torments We silly fishes see one another jerked out of the pond of life by the hand of death but we see not the frying-pan and the fire that they are cast into that die in their sins and refuse to be reformed Cast they are into utter darknesse Vtinam ubique
and frequently iterated purified not the conscience did not abolish trespasses merited not celestial blessings But the Word of the Oath after the Law Heb. 10.14 did constitute Christ for ever a Priest to purifie the conscience to abolish trespasses to merit celestial blessings For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified As one therefore said to David Thou art worth ten thousand of us so we may say of Christ our High-Priest because God did swear Thou art worth ten thousand worlds of the other And such an High-Priest became us Thus much for the manner of Christs taking the holy order of Priesthood which was by Covenant by Oath both binders His executing of this place is in the next place to be considered which as the former deserves our most reverend regard Fidelity and assiduity both commend the undertakers of a weighty matter and both are met in Christ for the important work of our Redemption by grace All his force was ever bent that way to ruine our adversaries and raise us In the administration of his Priestly office he practised it offerendo intercedendo by Sacrisicing by Interceding which were the two things that held most of that Order in continual imployment He stood our friend without the least flinching usque ad aras to the very death when we stood in opposition to God to him to our selves Before he presented himself an Oblation to the Father of Spirits he prepared himself for it by a most submissive humiliation a most sincere obedience by most zealous supplications and a most exquisite sense of humane infirmities all which out-stretch the limits of all thoughts of man He suffered the brightness of that glory which he had with the Father before the world was for a time to suffer an eclipse He was without form and comeliness and when men saw him Isa 53.2 there was no beauty that they should desire him His entertainment in the world was but discourteous and poor At his first entrance he was laid in a manger and after though he was Lord of Heaven and earth yet had be not whereon to lay his head Necessity forc'd him to fly and oft to hide himself because his hour was not yet come to save his life Uncivil language slanderous reports extream indignities were heapt upon him These were the several stiles wherewith the wicked world was pleased to honour him A Samaritan a Glutton a Wine-bibber a Seducer a Traitor a Friend to Publicans sinners a Devil at least one possest of a Devil yet all this made him not tread one step awry from the hallowed paths of a filial obedience for notwithstanding he was a Son Heb. 5.8 Schola crucis schola lucis yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered He suffered the first part of his Passion in a Garden for sin where sin was first committed where he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he was raised up by the unresisted power of his Almighty working Soon after was he betrayed apprehended bound and forsaken Betrayed to expiate our treason in Adam Apprehended to restore us Captives unto liberty bound to dissolve the chains of our sins Forsaken to perform the work of satisfaction and redemption all alone by himself He was arraigned condemned whipped and crowned with thorns Arraigned by Jew and Gentile He stood there for both their sakes to exempt them from the Tribunal of the Judge of all the world Condemned to justifie us in the sight of God by his incomparable innocence Whipped to deliver us from the spiritual corporal and eternal scourge which we deserved Crowned with thorns to 1. Signifie his pacification of God for our ambition in Adam 2. His meriting for us an eternal crown 3. His collecting a Kingly people out of the most thorny and burtful nations which as a crown should compass God about in serving and honoring of him 4. His bearing of our thorny cares that we might quietly repose our trust in him He was clothed with a Purple garment and in his hand was there put a Reed both intimating he was a King though both done in derision Isa 63. The first shews he was that Warriour forespoken by the Prophet Who is this that comes from Edom with red garments The other that he was he that should break the Serpents head For 't is the observation of some learned that a Reed is most mortal to a Serpent and therewith were men used to kill them Besides that by it as by a Pen he did obliterate the hand-writing in the Lords Debt-book that was against us He suffered in Golgotha and naked too in Golgotha a place of dead mens bones where malefactors suffered to raise up the banner of righteousness and salvation even in the place of death and condemnation But he suffered there naked too to satisfie for our first parents transgression who were spoiled of the garment of Innocency and perhaps to shew how we should enter into Heaven as Adam into Paradise naked in body but clad in soul with innocency with immortality In a word 't was to expiate our shameful nakedness to which our first sin exposed us And this is the naked truth of the Truth This done all was not done for which Christ came into the world for 't was but preambulatory to a greater work ensuing what was hitherto done for hereby was he compleatly sitted to give himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Eph. 5.2 There did therefore succeed this 1. The offering up of his Body by the effusion of his precious Blood upon the high Altar of the Cross where he suffered the loss of his life the price of our Redemption without blood there being no remission Heb. 9.22 View him there and he is just as the Prophet did describe him Isa 53. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Here he was lifted up to answer the elevation of the Sacrifices of the Old Law all types of him Isaac represented him in umbra in the shadow when the substance followed even in this point so did the Brasen Serpent they are the words of our Saviour As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness There it was Vide vive here Crede vive even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Joh. 3.14 He was lifted up in the air that he might overcome the Prince of the air and the Spiritual wickednesses in high places triumphing over them in it He was lifted up in the air to hang on a tree that as death by a tree entred into the world so on a tree it should be destroyed and life brought back again and besides that he might bear the curse of the Law Col. 2.15 being made a curse for us
became us For our better assurance of our High-Priests original and actual righteousness whereby he was harmless and undefiled he was being planted in a noble height seperate from sinners not but that he did communicate of the same common nature with all men but not of their guilt which is a necessary consequent of the violation of the heavenly law for where there is no transgression there is no guilt which is a binding over the offendor to receive a deserved puishment 'T is true One of those natural notions the Devil could never blot out of mans mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the punishment due to sinners was transfer'd to him but by his own voluntary submission thereunto as not for any sin of his own committing so without any guilt of his own contracting for had he been guilty before God the just Judge of all the world he could never be a propitiation for the sins of the whole world he could never satisfie the provoked justice of the Almighty thereby to appease his wrath and effect an eternal reconciliation betwixt him and us he could never obtain the free remission of our sins whereby to bring us into grace again neither were his intercession for transgressors any way available being subject to the same condemnation As he could not give a sufficient ransome for the redemption of mankind by the sacrificing of himself were he conscious of those crimes whereof sinners are So neither would his supplications prevail to benefit us for we know that God heareth not sinners Joh. 9.31 Wherefore to remove all rubs out of the way that might hinder his faithful execution of the Priestly function in all its parts and that there might no question be made of an absolute impetration and procurement of salvation to be confer'd upon as many as do beleave in him and obey him to the end he was as in respect of sin so in respect of guilt seperate from sinners This seperation was not local or in regard of place he dwelt among us and came to call sinners to repentance but vertuall in relation to his unstained condition and those divine qualities where with be was replemisht and whereof sinful men during their abode in the flesh are altogether uncapable By this means all his moral actions done in obedience to the supream authority which were infallible tokens of his inwrad pureness were meritorious for us Such is their unparalell'd worth that though them for the Authors lake the father is become propitions unto men Insomuch as for our everlasting comfort I may speak it Christ Jesus our high-Priest is able to save them to the utmost that come unto God by him Now there remaines no more but that with David we betake our selves to him q. d. abseis ergo ut de islâ—s quisquiliis sim anxius Beza with the words of the same King Now Lord what wait we for our hope it even in thee Psal 39.7 Our hope is in thee to take off from us the weight of our sins our hope is in thee to suppresse the dominion of death our hope is in thee to deliver us from the Tyranny of the Prince of darknesse and to bring us reconcil'd into the highest place where thy honour dwelleth where thou are made higher than the heavens Thus am I happily devolved to the speculation of the dignity to which our high-Priest as became both him and us is above all heavens advanced After our Saviours humiliation there followed his exaltation for as he descended from heaven to earth so when he had finisht what he came for he ascended from earth to heaven returning to the place whence he came Albeit he endured many a fierce combate here yet having at length obtained the victory be went in triumph leading captivity captive to the place of his glory Ascendit ad Caloâ— Ruffin in Symbol Apostel non ubi verbum Deus anté non fuerat sed ubi verbum care factum ante non sederas Saith Ruffinus he went up into heaven not where the Word that was made God never was before but where the Word made flesh never sate before Something was to be done above by the man Christ Jesus when glorified as well as here below when humbled This was the place for oblation specially but that for perpetuall intercession Here he died for our sins but rose again for our justification Ephes 4.10 and ascending up on high fitteth in Majestie at the right hand of God making intercession for us that so he might fulfil all things all things requisite for the salvation of man that were to be expected from a Mediatour So that now he is declared mightily not onely to be the onely Son of God but to be our High-Priest for ever In being made higher than the heavens Earth which is his foot-stoole was no fit place for his glorious presence but his throne which is heaven For had he taken up his rest here for ever then had he not entred into the holyest of all not of this building but eternal in the heavens Now that he entred but once for all unto this whereas the Priests of Aarons order entred once annually into the sepond Tabernacle which was within the vaile called the most holy place 't is an argument of the perfection of his Priesthood of the imperfection of theirs for as it is Heb. 9.24 Christ is not entred into the holy place made with hands which are the figures of the true but into heaven it self to appear in the presence of God for us having obtained eternal redemption What Priest of what order soever beside him ever came to this height Who as he hath done ever paid such a price as the eternal redemption of the wicked is worth Or by their own power passed into heaven to appear as an Advocate to plead in the be half of sinners we find none but this we find First that hereby the world sin death the grave and hell are past peradventure overcome he remained not under their dominion but when brought to the lowest â—â—be of a wretched estate up he gets again and gets all power both in heaven and earth Mat. 2.18 to be given to him So that better may this King of Kings say than the King of Spain Sol mihi semper lucet for he is Catholick Monarch Secondly hereby he hath opened the gates of heaven for all beleevers and made way for them to God wherein he hath shewed himself to be our Priest abundantly for if the were on earth he should not be a Priest saith the Authour to the Hebrewes Cap. 8.4 for if he had not gone before us it is impossible sin lying so heavily upon us we should have admission into his presence in which there is fullness of joy foâ— evermore but now he is there to prepare immortal mansions for them that come to him whereby they may dwell with him in happiness There saith Anselme Infirmitas Anselm de similitudin bus
number the mercies of God to me in particular saith he were to number the drops of water which are in the Ocean the sands on the shore the stars in the sky Mirrour of Martyrs This one act of his good will his Sons mission exceeds the capacity of a whole world of men to give it a due value He would not destroy us being his enemies when he might in justice destroy us but to save us inglorious miscreants sent his Son from glory and did as Abraham would have done with Isaac his onely and beloved darling offer him up to death to redeem us from it As King Solomon said to Abiathar the Priest Thou art worthy of death but I will not at this time put thee to death So said the Soveraign of Soveraigns to us His Son is destined to what we deserved to make us partakers of his deserts Salvator noster natus est nobis crucifixus mortuus est pro nobis ut morte suâ mortem nostram destrueret Aug. Man cap. 27. saith an uncertain Author Our Saviour is born to us crucified and dead for us that by his death lie might destroy our death for ever Wherefore the Lord Jesus upon the Cross giving the foil to our malicious enemies Sin Satan and Death Sin Satan and Death have lost the day to our endless comfort and the glorious manifestation of Gods good-will towards men I may not smother in thankless silence the blessed consequences of my Saviours life and death tendred for our restauration how happily they took effect with the Father in our behalf and accorded in every point of his decree with the good pleasure of his will For first there followed the imputation of Christs righteousness for the remission of our sins And then the Sanctification of us by his Spirit sent into our hearts for the suppressing of the dominion of sin in us Both which shew as speaks the Apostle the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness to us Ephes 2.7 through Christ Jesus First it pleased the Father that the fulness of the Spirit should dwell in him and that of his fulness we should all receive His righteousness then is made over unto us by the goodness of a righteous God whose purity as it admits no mixture of imperfection so neither without Christs perfection any justification of a sinner For none are justified but such to whom God imputes no sin and such are they only to whom God imputeth righteousness without works Which righteousness Rom. 4.6 7. being without our works and imputed must proceed not from our selves full of the soul stains of ugly sins but from another even from him alone in whom dwell all perfections Jesus Christ the righteous Thus and thus alone is God in his Son the Author and finisher of our salvation not imputing our sins unto us but reconciling us unto himself by the imputed righteousness of his Son by whom we have access unto the Father and are no more counted strangers forreiners and exiles but are reimpatriated and made fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God Whereupon it is that by the grace of God to use the Apostles speech we are what we are And if by the grace and good will of God then surely not of debt not of merit for grace excludeth both To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace Rom. 4.4 Cap. 11.6 but of debt And here I could wish with all my soul that this and other infallible Oracles of highest Truth could heat our adversaries from Humane Merits and bring them to the Divine Mercies from Free-will and Possibilities of Nature to the Grace and Good-will of God To merit Heaven by all we can do is a fetch beyond all power of Nature and to aver it a strain as of excessive pride so beyond all true Divinity Merits in us are no such props to our faith as Mercies in God The first grounded upon self-conceit and fond opinion the last upon the demonstration of the Spirit The first all of the Romish faction receive for Orthodoxal truth which we reject for false the last they reject for false which we embrace for truth That Italian-Priest who Achan-like troubles all Israel the festered Head of an infected Body hath so distempered the world with this plausible assertion as that all his Abettors from the most learned Dogmatist to the meanest Papist stand rather to their own strength for their Justification than fly to Gods mercy as having more confidence in their own abilities and pretended merits than in the alsufficiency of Christs Mediation and Redemption or at least as much Who whilst they stand thus affected what do they but detracting both from the Lord and from his Anointed ascribe the honour of the day and glory of our salvation as well to the Free-will of Man Saunders his Petition as Good-will of God But O my soul come not thou within their secrets neither be partaker of their defections Chuse rather than combine with them ever to pray with that zealous Martyr in this wise O my heavenly Father look upon me in the face of Christ or else I shall not be able to abide thy countenance such is my filthiness The best of us may confess with the leprous person We are unclean we are unclean and therefore without him no blessedness to be obtained by the best of us Joh. 14.6 No man cometh to the Father but by me saith Christ And no man cometh unto me saith Christ again except the Father draw him Thus betwixt the Father and the Son we are well provided for without whom who thinks to be saved Plaut Merca. doth take his mark amiss Vbicunque putant vivere runnt maximè as the Comedian speaks Where they think to live most happily they die most wretchedly Wherefore for us to repose any confidence in our own imperfect works or to seek a shelter under the Merits of Saints recorded in the Pope's Kalendar or wheresoever else is utterly to renounce the Merits of Christ and the good-will of God Neque enim qui habet virtutem amplius opus habet neque qui valet viribus Clem. Alex. eget instauratione saith Clement of Alexandria For he that is perfect needs not to be beholding to another neither needeth he any reparation his proper strength is already compleat They that are whole need not the Physician but they that are sick saith the Physician of souls Let then the swolne Pharisees of the Roman Court in humility of spirit learn here to check their insolent boasting of their natural goodness and meritorious actions referring all to the goodness of the Chiefest Good Let them march under Christs colours as the Captain of their salvation Let them set up their rest in him as the securest Sanctuary for distressed souls O worthy Elizeus how affectionate were thine Obsequies You may remember that he could neither be perswaded nor beguiled nor forced from Elijah when he
short of an invention how to scape his sury and obtain his favour how to satisfy his justice and redeem our lives from hell and death Behold before the foundation of the world was laid he resolved to send his own only Son begotten by an eternal generation who should quell the power of our afflicting enemies stop the mouth of the roaring lyon overcome the world sin death the grave and hell and lay open a plain passage into the Kingdom of heaven Which eternal resolution was in the fulness of time perfectly effected for God then sent forth his Son into the world to assume our nature that we might assume his grace to suffer for our sins what we should of merit suffer to be obedient to the cursed death of the crosse that we might escape the curse of God and not be subject to the second death And albeit hereby he made himself of no reputation who thought it no robbery to be equall with God yet by this meanes he did make way to be highly exalted to get a name which is above every name and to be glorified with the glory which he had with the Father Ne Jesum quidem aâ—ias gloriosum nisi videris crucisixum Luther to Melanchton before the world was This he himself in a conference with some of his Disciples after his resurrection wherein doubtless he did recapitulate his several sufferings certified to the world Ought not Christ to have suffered those things and to enter into his glory Luk. 24.26 This Scripture points at Christ considered in part of his twofold state 1. His state of humiliation quoad mortem as touching his death Christ's suffering or passion 2. His state of exaltation quoad resurrectionem as touching his resurrection In his humiliation we find him ignominiously crucified and made a curse for us In his exaltation gloriously raised that he might be supereminently glorified and our selves blest in him for ever In this he shall judge as in the former he was judged My pen is now conversant about the first part Wherefore assistance O my souls Saviour and Soveraign I intreat thee that in all humility of soul I may declare what for our salvation thy Majesty didst suffer in all humility And first of my Saviours humiliation in general Of all the works of God done for and to the children of men Some are Opera potentiae works of power Some opera pietatis works of mercy Some opera justitiae works of justice all righteous works Yet if we seriously fix our thoughts upon the humiliation of our alsufficient-Redeemer we shall find it to be a work of 1. Power 2. Mercy 3. Justice All these that otherwise are disperst in his several works are compacted and meet together in this one First then it is a work of power 1. In it self 2. Towards us In it self 't is a work of power God was made man but not sinful man which none could bring to passe but God that first made man without sin The Creator of all made himself a creature which none could do but the Creator of all Whereupon it was that at the conception of the Son of God in the Virgins womb Luk. 1.35 the holy Ghost came upon her and the power of the most high did overshadow her Hence saith one after God had made man he left nothing but to make himself man A dignity to which the Angels are not call'd wherewith our nature above all is blest Tom. 10. Pag. 595. It is Austins speech In creatione mundi homo factus est ad imaginem Dei in nativitate Christi ipse factus est ad imvginem hominis when the world was created man was made in the image of God when Christ was born God was made in the image of man Both which are to be refer'd to divine Omnipotencie For that God and man might be one in Covenant Lib. 2. Institut Ood used his power to make himself and man both one in person Non communicatione gratiae fed naturae veritate non consusione substantiae sed unitate personae saith Trelcatius not by communication of grace Epiphanius but by reality of nature not by an undistinct confusion of substance but by a personal unity So that as Epiphanius speaks Christ was homo in veritate natus Isa 7.14 Deus in veritate existens true God and true man in one and the same person which is implied by the Prophet calling him Immanuel that is God with us or God in our nature Luk. 1.35 Exprest by the Angel calling him the Son of God that should be born of the Virgin Mary And manifested by the Apostle averring him to come of the Fathers as concerning the flesh Rom. 9.5 and yet to be over all God blessed for ever This might seem exceeding strange yet it proves not more strange then true God and man who stood at an infinite distance are now everlastingly linkt together in one person according to the mighty working of his power Thus Christ's humiliation in being incarnate is a work of power in it self It is likewise a work of power towards us Since Adams rebellion we were all captives unto sin and Satan untill God incarnate did vindicate our liberty We were extremely weakened our spirits fail'd us until the Lords anointed the mighty God of Jacob did infuse into our hearts the strength of his Spirit His Incarnation made way for our salvation and his taking unto him our humanity makes us by faith to partake of his Divinity Anselme moves three questions Anselm Meditat c. 8. to which he gives one solid resolution the questions are these 1. What offence could man commit which the Son of God made man could not exprate 2. Who could be so much swell'd up with that uncharitable vice of pride which so great humility could not pull down 3 What dominion could death have over us which the death of the Son of God could not destroy for us The answer 's this Certainly if the iniquity of sinful man and the grace of my unspotted Lord were wigh'd in an even ballance the East is not so much distant from the West nor the lowest hell from the highest heaven as my Redeemers goodnesse in his humility doth exceed the wickednesse of a sinner To this I adde he hath shewn greater power in this act for our redemption than the malice of all the Devils in hell could put in practice for our confusion Thus Christ's humiliation is a work of power towards us And so much the rather he being after this sort humbled was once offered to bear the sins of many Again it is a work of mercy Deus propter hominem sactus est homo ut esset redemptor qui est Creator ut de suo ridimeretur homo saith Austin Aug. Manual c. 26. God for mans sake was made man that he might be our Redeemer who is our Creator and so we have of our own wherewith to be redeemed
nature he had made ours by grace And here we may be as bold as to conclude we are the sons of God because the natural Son of God assumed body of our body flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones that he might be the same with us and we the same with him Thus he became our Kinsman to whom of property by the old Law it did belong to redeem his brethren Which that he might effect he did conquer Death and who could do this but he who is our Life He did vanquish Sin and who could do this but Righteousness it self He did bring into his subjection the Forces of the world and the Powers that rule in the air and who could do this but he that is the Power of God And who is this Life this Righteousness this Power of God but Jesus Christ very God of very God and yet the Son of Man Christ was God and Man Man that sin might be punished in the nature offending yet Man without sin to fulfill that Righteousness which none of us sold under sin can fulfill He was Man that as by the disobedience of the first Adam sin entred into the world so by the obedience of him who is the second Adam righteousness should bring justification to life And as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous By the righteousness of his obedience Active and Passive Active in perfecting all the duties injoined by the Law Passive in suffering the wrath of God the punishment of our disobedience Thus our confusion is taken away and life and righteousness are restored unto us And he was God withal that the Justice of God might receive compleat satisfaction by a punishment that should be infinite or equal to infinite which none but God could give And therefore Christ is said as God to have purchased his Church with his own blood Act. 20. 1 Joh. 3.16 and to lay down his life for us And though his punishment was not so infinite but that it was finite yet it was only finite for time but was for value as it ought to be infinite Thus the Son of True God did bear the burden of his Fathers wrath in our nature which no other Nature ought to do but the soul that sinned which no other but God could do because God is a consuming fire and his wrath unquenchable by any creature Forasmuch as God alone could not die because not subject to passion nor Man alone overcome death because too weak It was requisite that our Redeemer who should die for our sins should be both that by the weakness of the one nature he might submit himself to the power of death thereby to undergo punishment due to sin and by the strength of the other he should by sustaining the Manhood make good his part against death and swallow it up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory But thanks be to God Sarcasmo conflat hostili derisione quâ mors ridenda propinatur saith one that hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ And thus much of the Person humbled which is Christ God and Man The next point to be discuss'd is Wherein his Humiliation did consist that is in general He suffered From the time of his nativity to the very hour of his death was he not free from suffering He was no sooner born but Herod sought his life He was subject to the infirmities of our nature sin excepted He was hungry and thirsty weary and faint sorrowful and discontented his poverty was extream though Lord of all and Possessor of heaven and earth he had not so much as whereon to lay his head Grievous was the temptation he suffered by Satans onset infinite were the injuries that were offered him by the cursed brats of Satan both in word and deed In word by false calumnies and forged accusations by contumelious detractions and cursed blasphemies In deed by framing of projects and laying of plots how to take away his life He was despised and rejected of men a man of sorrowes and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him Isa 53. He was despised and we esteemed him not surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrowes Yet we esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted His whole life was a perpetual passion He was never let alone until upon the Cross he gave himself a ransom for all and his enemies never ceased until they drew out his hearts blood which he for our redemption in his loving kindness was willing to part withall He had power in his own hand to lay down his life and he had power to assume it again For albeit his life lay at the stake yet could he were he so disposed command legions of Angels beside his own power which was alsufficient to deliver him either by putting his enemies to flight or by repressing their violence that either they would not or they should not hurt him or by utterly subverting them But being that he came into the world to the end to suffer to compass for us a world without all end he withdrew not his neck from the yoke but set himself forward to bear the iniquity of us all laid upon him Thus Christ was subject to passion but not according to his divine but humane nature For as he is God he is Actus purissimus and cannot suffer but yet he being God suffered in the nature assumed which was capable of suffering that is in his Manhood So that here we have the highest Person and the lowest Humiliation met together Wherefore in this suffering of our Lord there are three things according to Bernards observation specially noted Bernard Opus modus causa In opere patientia in modo humilitat in causa charitas commendatur Patientia singularis humilitas admirabilis sed charitas inestimabilis There are the work the manner of performing and the cause In the work which is suffering his patience is commended in the manner his humility in the cause his charity for charity moved him to suffer with patience and humility His patience is singular none like it his humility admirable none ever came never shall come near it his charity inestimable for it is incomparable All which may appear unto you by presenting to your view his special sufferings immediately preceding his death In these sufferings of our Saviour you may see the foulest act of Treason that ever was committed the greatest Cruelty that was ever heard of both hatcht in the pit of hell Judas his familiar friend comes and betrays him with a false-hearted complement a Kiss his love was only from the teeth outward deceit was in his heart and the poison of asps under his lips but no wonder the Devil was in him Peter his Disciple than whom none more forward in times past to confess him to be
speaking unto Abraham he saith That in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed It was necessary necessitate praecepti by the necessity of precept Hitherto are referred the Types of Christ which were significant intimations of his succeeding passion As Abrahams offering up his son Isaac the brazen Serpent erected in the Wildernesse according to that John 3.14 As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wildernesse even so must the Son of man be lifted up The Paschal Lamb was a type hereof for Christ is called the Lamb of God John 1.29 that takes away the sins of the world Besides this the Prophets did precisely foretel the particulars of his suffering how his familiar friend should betray him Psal 41.9 What price he was sold at for thirty pieces of silver Zech. 11.12 What became of these thirty pieces ver 13. What time he should suffer Daniel How his Disciples forsooke him and Peter denied him Psal 38.11 Zech. 13.7 It was foretold that he should be falsely accused Psal 41. That the great ones of the world should plot his fall Psal 2. His silence is noted Isa 53. So are the spittles wherewith they defiled his face Isa 50. And the buffettings and smitings that he suffered at their hands Isa 53. The Reed in his hand the mockings and reproaches the Vinegar and Gall the parting of his rayment the piercing of his hands and feet and sides the staring upon him and wagging their heads his crucifying betwixt two thieves and his last parting with the very words he used then were precisely revealed by God to the Prophets and set down by them in Scripture Our Saviour himself saith Luk. 9.22 that the Son of man that is himself must suffer many things and be rejected of the Elders and chief Priests and Scribes and be slain Caiphas being high Priest prophesied as much John 11.50 That it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation perish not And as the Poet speaks Vnum pro multis dabitur caput It was necessary necessitate indigentiae by the necessity of our want We stood in need of his sufferings without which we could not be saved for without the shedding of blood Hebr. 9.22 there is no remission It was the ordinance of God from eternity that by blood we should be redeemed and no otherwise Not that he could not redeem us otherwise but that he would not otherwise deeming this way the most convenient And therefore lastly It was necessary necessitate commoditatis by the necessity of commodiousness and conveniencie There was no better away to free us from sin to work our salvation to reconcile us to God than by the sufferings and death of the Son of God I doubt not but God in his infinite wisdom might have used another means for the saving of our souls besides this but lest we disparage Gods judgment we cannot say but this was the most convenient and best because it was the determination of his will before all time Which was the reason that Saint Cyprian aver'd this Non reconciliare Deo potuerit exules damnatos quaelibet oblatio nisi sanguinis hujus singulare sacrificium not every oblation could reconcile such unto God as are banished from the presence of God and worthy of condemnation but only the peculiar and only propitiatory sacrifice of the blood of Christ The necessity of this conveniencie consists in these respects beside freedome from sin and reconciliation to God 1. In that it serves for the manifestation of the love of God to us according to that Rom. 5.8 God commended his love toward us in that whiles we were yet sinners Christ died for us And herein is the love of Christ also commended greater love can no man shew than to lay down his life for his friends but Christ did his for his foes Now it was necessary for us to have assurance of the favor of God which is given us by the death of his Son 2. In that it serves for an example to us of obedience to the pleasure of our heavenly Father Of humility of constancie of righteousnesse and of other vertues and graces manifested in his Passion 1 Pet. 2.21 Christ suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps 3. In that it served to procure for us with a great deale more conveniencie Hebr. 10.20 justifying grace and eternal glory by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh 4. In that there is brought upon man a greater necessity of keeping himself free from sin being that he understands that he is redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 6.20 The Apostle saith that ye are bought with a price therefore glorifle God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods The consideration of Christ's death should be a means to deteine us from transgressing the Divine Ordinances and to keep us within the compasse of his Law Passe the time of your sojurning hear in fear for as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from year vain conversation but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.17 18 19. 5. In that it serves for the greater dignity of man That as man was deceived seduced and overcome of Satan So Satan might be overcome by a man And as man deserved death so death might be overcome by a man the man Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 15.57 Thanks be to God saith the Apostle which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ And thus much of the necessity of the sufferings of Christ of the necessity of Gods Decree of his Promise of precept of our want and of conveniencie Here is no coactive necessity whether he would or not to suffer for he saith I lay down my life for my sheep He did suffer willingly yet his sufferings were not so voluntary as that they became arbitrary in his choise that is he might choose to suffer or not to suffer for Amâ—s Si Christi passiones nullâ fuissent lege impositae nihil pertinerent ad satisfactionem Now listen to the effects that these sufferings of his wrought for us By them we are freed from sin For He loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood Rev. 1.5 And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin 1 John 1.7 And from the power of Satan We meritted to be delivered up unto Satan the justice of God did so require it The Devil himself endeavoured to stop from us the way to life but the death of Christ opened the way for us and did exceed that power that was given to Satan of God by the righteousnesse of Christ he was overthrown Now saith our Saviour shall the Prince of this world be cast out And
him without the camp bearing his reproach for here we have no continuing City Heb. 13.13 14 15. but we seek one to come by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name who is the Author and finisher of our salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed all honour glory power and dominion in heaven and in earth by men and Angels both now and for ever world without end Amen The Necessity of CHRISTS PASSION AND Resurrection ACTS 17.3 Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead GLory which is the proper scope of a noble disposition and the intended end of honourable intents did Christ make to be the necessary consequence of his fore-running passion His life seem'd to the worlds eye inglorious in that he affected not popularity so did his death to those that knew not the mystery of our Redemption By general judgment he was reputed the most unhappy breathing he was rejected and despised of men Yet in this his rejected and contemptible condition was sowen his immortal happiness which indeed was sowen in weakness but was raised in power sowen in dishonor but raised in glory For as by the eternal constitution of the Almighty he ought to have been brought to the lowest degree of misery by suffering divers and fearful punishments so ought he not perpetually to abide in that state but at length to be elevated thence to the highest pitch of glory In order to which as Christ must needs have suffered so also must he rise again from the dead The point now by divine assistance to be discust is part of Christs exaltation a theame of an high nature And herein first of the person exalted Christ Christ was exalted according to both natures 1. In regard of his Godhead 2. In regard of his Manhood The exaltation of the Godhead of Christ was the manifestation of the Godhead in the Manhood mightily declaring therein that he was the Son of God Which manifestation was altogether active no way passive the effects produced by him having no other proper agent but God For who could overcome Satan death the world the grave but God And albeit the Divine nature be thus exalted yet it is without all manner of alteration For to speak properly in it self it cannot be made the subject of exaltation but as it is considered joined with the Manhood into the unity of one person For albeit Christ from the very time of the assumption of our nature whereby he was incarnate was both God and man and his Godhead all the time he liv'd dwelt in his Manhood yet from the hour of his Nativity unto the hour of giving up the Ghost and a while after the Godhead did little shew it self The glorious majesty of his Deity whiles he was in the for me and low state of a servant lay hid under the vaile of his flesh as the soul doth in the body when a man is sleeping And in the time of his passion the brightness of the glory of the sun of righteousnesse was obscured as the sun running in the height of heaven oftimes over clouded or eclipsed by a darker body thereby in 〈◊〉 humane nature to undergo the curse of the law and perfect the work of our redemption in subjecting himself to the death even the cursed death of the crosse But as soone as this work was finished and happily accomplished he began by degrees to make known the power of his Godhead in his Manhood And so to rise again Secondly Christ was exalted in regard of his Manhood which consisteth in these two things In depositione servilis suaâ—conditionis in laying down and quitting himself from all the infirmities that 〈◊〉 mans nature which he submitted himself unto except sin so long as he remained in the state of a servant he was subject to weariness to hunger to thirst to fear to death from all which in this state of exaltation he is perfectly delivered his natural body is a glorious body those wounds and stripes which in his body he suffered for our sins remain not in him as testimonies of that compleat conquest to be obtained over his and our enemies But are rather quite abolished because they were a part of that ignominious condition wherein our Saviour was upon the crosse whereof in his glorified state he is not to be partaker Yet if they still remain as some think they do they are no deformity to the glorious body of the Lord but are in him in some unspeakable and to us unknown manner glorified In susceptione donoxum in receiving such graces and qualities of glory as bring with them ornament beauty perfection happiness exceeding the or 〈◊〉 beauty perfection and happiness of any other creature in heaven or earth 〈◊〉 to his soul and body As for his soul look upon the intellectuall part you shall find a mind enrich with as much knowledge and understanding as well in respect of the act as the habit as a creature can possibly be capable of the measure of it being more than all men and Angels put together have Look upon his will and affections you shall find them furnished with the fulness of grace and compleatly adorned with the invaluable riches and incomparable gifts of Gods holy Spirit As for his body it is not now subject to dissolution from being natural it is become spiritual not by the destruction of the essence but by the alteration of the qualities Aquinas Est ejusdem naturae sed alterius gloriae said Thomas for God would not suffer his holy one to see corruption The nature and essential proprietles of a true body as length breadth thickness locality still remain in him the addition of glory and brightness not changing the nature of it so that it is free from all bodily imperfections and made bright and glorious a resemblance whereof was his transiguration on the mount Matth. 17. where his face did shine as the sun and his rayment was as white as the light the purity whereof is unblemished the agility whereof such as is indifferent to move upward or downward the brightness thereof cannot be obscured nor the strength thereof match't by any creature For by his power he shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Hhil 3.21 according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself These gifts of glory in Christ's body are not infinite but bounded within limits because his humane nature being but a creature and therefore finite could not receive infinite graces and gifts of glory To make then infiniteness ubiquity and omnipotency incommunicable attributes of God attributes of Christ's glorified body is to destroy the nature of a body and say that the body of Christ is transformed into the Deity or Deified and that he is all
God no man all spirit no body And besides it argues an impossibility for no creature can be changed into the Creatonr no finite body into an infinite and eternal substance It sufficeth us to know that Christ's soul and body were conditioned according to the description given when he entred into his glory And thus much of the person exalted Christ who for the joy that was set before him endured the crosse despising the shame Hebr. 12.2 and is set down on the right hand of the throne of God We are next to consider Christ's exaltation the degrees of which are threefold the first degree is his Resurrection answering to the first degree of his humiliation which was his death The second degree is his ascension answering the second of his humiliation which was his burying The third degree which is the height of his exaltation is his sitting at the right hand of God opposed to the lowest of his humiliation which was his descâ—nt into hell his remaining in the state of the dead By these degrees Christ entred into his glory My text limits me to the first degree of his exaltation which is his Resurrection from the dead It was a cruel conflict that Christ had upon the crosse he had his own Father against him taking vengeance upon him for the sins of the world he had Satan against him who out of a malicious disposition plotted and attempted his ruine he had the world against him in bruing their hands and their hearts in his blood his blood be upon us and our children say the Jewes The chief Priests the Scribes the common people the souldiers bandied themselves together against the Lord and against his annointed So close was their pursuing of him that indeed he received the foile they pierced his hands and his feet with nailes and his sides with a speare in the end they ended his dayes the height of their malice But not long after he reviv'd for the third day he rose again which he did for his own greater glory for his and our enemies more shamefull overthrow and for his disciples firmer consolation This was foretold by himself this was testified by men and Angels and is beleeved that he rose the third day Our faith in this is underpropt not only by the testimony of Angels and men Luk. 24.46 but also by Scripture and Arguments Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day By Arguments containing manifest demonstrations of the truth of his resurrection drawn from 1. His body 2. His soulâ— In that which is drawn from his dody Christ doth declare three things 1. That his body was a true real substantial and sollid dody And not framed onely in the imagination or compos'd all of an airy substance Feele and see saith he a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have 2. That his body was a humane body by shewing how that he had the true and perfect effigies and expressions or a man to be seen by the eye 3. That it was the very same numerical body which he hâ—d before by laying open to the view the grievous wounds which he suffered in his body Behold my hands and my feet that it is my self The wounds in his body discover the naked truth of his resurrection In the Argument which is deducted from his soul reunited to his body his resurrection is proved and that by the operations and works of the threefold life proceeding from the soul whereof man is partaker 1. By the works of the nutritive life in that he did eat and drink with them 2. By the works of the sensitive life his answers to his disciples giving evidences of his hearing his discerning them from others of his seeing 3. By the works of the intellective life in his discourses and explications of the profound mystery of the crosse Moreover the time when he rose was the third day He lay not dead in the grave three compleat dayes under the dominion of death for then he should not have risen till the fourth day So that he was but one day and two pieces of two dayes in the grave for he was buried in the evening before the Sabbath and rose in the morning the next day after the Sabbath The Friday evening he was buried the sunday morning he rose again which was the first day of the week and is now our Sabbath observed in memory of his glorious rising who is the Sun of Righteousness from death unto life And as in the first Day of the first World Light was commanded to shine out of darkness upon the deeps So in the first Day of this new World made new by Christ this glorious Sun after its Eclipse come to its period appeared in the brightness of his glory and gives light for ever to those that sit in darkness and dispels those clouds of obscurity that were under the Old Testament from the Christian world So long he rested in the grave as three days yet not full for a demonstraiton of the truth of his death And no longer that his body might not see corruption For had he risen presently we might doubt of the truth of his death Had he remained longer in the grave or unto the end of the world his body would according to the course of nature be corrupted and we might doubt of the truth of his Divinity which required for the manifestation of his power a quick resurrection of his body and a reuniting of the soul thereunto To confirm therefore our faith in both He rose the third day from the dead to enter into his glory As for the power by which he was raised it was not by any other than his own Though this act be attributed to the Father Act. 2.24 yet it is his power too For whatsoever is the Father's is his because He and the Father are one It was the power of his Divinity Superas evadere ad auras Hic labor hoc opus est that effected this great work Destroy this temple and within three days I will raise it again Joh. 2.19 I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again cap. 10.18 Secundum Divinitatis virtutem corpus resumpsit animam quam deposuerat anima corpus resumpsit quod dimiserat sic Christus propriâ virtute resurrexit saith Aquinas According to the mighty working of the Godhead his body reassumed the soul which it did resigne and the soul that body out of which it parted and thus Christ by his own proper power did rise from the dead For indeed it was not possible that he should be holden of it Act. 2.24 for then should he not enter into his glory Here come two points occasioned by these words to be treated of Viz. 1. The Necessity of Christ's Resurrection 2. The Ends thereof Of the Necessity of his Resurrection As it was necessary that Christ should
The company that were invited to a feast were otherwise imployed but that excused them not No pleasure no business should keep us from performing what God requires When God bids us do one thing what have we to do to do another He will come upon us as he did on the Jewes with a Quis rogavis Isa 1. Who required this at your hands Do what God bids and what is done at Gods bidding cannot be done amiss There is another sort to be reprehended Those that do nothing but plot mischief that watch their opportunity to catch men napping These are the limbs of the Devil scholars of his own bringing up They take time but 't is to do evil They watch but never pray to God They are always doing but 't is iniquity No more of these Gains who are all upon the point of eternal condemnation Others are to be condemned who softer and cocker up themselves in Idleness that do not so much as the Israelites in Egypt as pick straws God breathes into men the breath of life Idle men Prodigi temporis unthristy husbands of Time make a shift to breathe it out again and care not how God gives life so that life is the gift of God and he that spends not his life well shall answer well for it God allows them no mear that labour not for it He that laboureth not shall not eat First sweat then eat But many call daily for daily bread who seek not how to deserve it And here I come to our selves It is not for us to sit all day long in our Studies like Diogenes in his Tub for fashion sake to keep up our credits and to get unto our selves the name of painful Students except we apply our studies in good earnest They that use that trick do not so much keep their Studies as their Studies keep them Our brains should sweat in contemplation our hands in action and not like the sluggard hand over head or under A little more sleep expecting the good time of the day to be told them by the Bell. I may say more truly of them than Pharaoh said of the Israelites They are idle they are idle It is as great folly in them who because they cannot be idle at home they will gad abroad like Dinah and there he idle and lose their virginity I mean the flower of their youth and so for a Six days something they will bring you home a Six days nothing except it be a full belly and an empty brain like Epicures as for the Seventh day they may rest by Law I speak no more but their case is miserable They may know and know much but this is all they can attain to know to know that they know nothing And for this improficiencie God will say as it was said of Judas Let another take his place I speak in way of prevention Dii talem nobit avertiâ—â— pestem Here I may tax such Ministers as neglect their function They are content to take a place in the land of the living but never labour to build up the Israel of God That take Duties but never do their Duties If they preach four times in a year or now and then they think that fair whether they be there or no any other time it makes no matter When they should be present among them always teaching by their own Example as by dumb Sermons Or if they get others to supply their turns all is husht up as if all were well But Paul preached as it is probable three years in Arabia and Damascus and lived there all that while Be ye beloved Brethren O be ye when God calls you unto that Calling abroad followers of him as he was of Christ Jesus I may tax more sin but this is enough for a taste of so four sauce As for you that count Time precious Comfort ye comfort ye my people You that number and redeem your days and years with S. Paul here I do say you are happy for making use of your time in searching out your sins and repenting for them when you have done God considered his created Light and saw that it was good to teach us to consider our offensive Darkness and see that it is naught We must search every corner of our hearts narrowly as God is said to search Jerusalem with a candle All that I have hitherto spoken tends to this To teach us to forsake our sins and to give our selves to the works of our Vocation Rom. 12.21 Not slothful in business fervent in spirit serving the Lord that we may work out our salvation with fear and trembling Therefore we need not to trouble our selves with things unneedful as to be prying into Gods secrets to study to find flaws in the Patent of our salvation Gods Will and Testament Syrach Eccl. 19.24 They may be exquisite subtilties quirks of wit but unrighteous But to apply our selves to sound doctrine and to avoid vain bablings as the Apostle exhorts us Suffer therefore Ye sons of Light the words of exhortation I doubt not but some are troubled with the question Viri fratrésque quid faciemus Men and brethren what shall we do Number and redeem your four years your seven years time all your time more or less that none may find holes in your coat Do something every day go from one point to another and stand not upon points with others Run with the Time Apelles like Nulla dies sine linea Let no day pass thy head without some line Let the line of thy Calling run parallel along with the line of the Day Thus may you learn line upon line precept upon precept until you be perfect men in Christ Jesus This remedy will cure the symptoms of ignorance and sin My life for yours Idleness is the worst thing of a thousand Inficit interficit Affect it not lest it infect you it kill you God set Adam to dress the Garden not allowing man Idleness in Innocency how much less in the state of corruption Honest minds will not seek for that now which was unlawful then I need press this no further but take example by Pauls preaching three years that ye may give the like account of your time with a safe conscience Do as S. Hierom's Matrons were used to do contend who should get most Scripture by heart Again Satan we know will besiege us therefore as we victual our selves twice a day or oftner to gather strength against bodily death the least we can is twice if not oftner the oftner the better to victual our selves against our spiritual enemies that threaten death to our souls This is our comfort that we know the best of our defences God and the worst of our enemies power Satan's Let us not therefore fear the worst of our enemies power Satan's while we know the best of our defences God Let us so carry our selves that none carry us away Quid statis otiosi said the Lord of the Vineyard Why
of ignorance suggest unto us that the Scriptures are obscure and so unfit for the Vulgar to look into beleeve it not 't is a false alarum 't is a bold tale by Davids help ye may desâ—ry them Thy Word is a light unto my feet Psal 119.105 2 Pet. 1.19 and a lanthorn unto my paths faith the blessed King Saint Peter calls it a light that shineth in a dark place which if the darknesse comprehend not the aspersion is not to be cast upon the Word but upon us in whom the darknesse dwelleth The Sun is not a jot the more obscure that a blind man seeth it not no more is the Word of God that a natural man understands it not for it is impossible for him so considered 1. In regard of his natural corruption whereby he loves darknesse more than light 2. In regard of his natural dimnesse whereby saith Justin Martyn he is too weak to apprehend clearly the greater matters 3. In regard of the malice of our ancient enemy who labours to take that seed which is sowen out of our hearts and make it unprofitable Yet this word is to be lookt into of all to be heard received meditated and discourst of because by this means we may in time attain to the understanding of it But specially by the guidance of the unerring Spirit that teacheth us all things for which we must daily supplicate unto the Father of wisdom to make us wise unto salvation For if he be once confer'd upon us 1 Cor. 2.10 we are fitted then to search all things even the deep things of God Until which there remains a vail over the heart and scales of ignorance which must first fall loâ— as those did from Pauls eyes It is not every one that bringeth with him a rational soul that is capable of Divine Revelations 't is true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The mind seeth the mind heareth Epicharmus said it Epicharmus yet never is it fit to entertain sacred and supernatural objects until first rectified by the Spirit of truth For the Gentile that is the unregenerate walkers in the vanity of their minds until the power Divine actuate them anew until the holly Ghost who is the anointing eye-salve Joh. 14.26 open their eyes and teach them all things remain in that dark condition Velamen amove volumen evolve Hence proceeded Davids Petition Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Laâ— Psal 119.18 If God open the heart of man as he did the heart of Lydiu What should 〈◊〉 from reading Gods mind in his written Word For this the Bereans won the reputation of being Noble which none but the ignoble brood of the lying Whore of Babylon oppose who were not their faces thatcht over with impudence as is their devotion laid over with ignorance might extremely be ashamed For which grand Sacriledge they pretend Apostolical authority derived from the Popes Chair under the disguise of holinesse wherein lyes a deep plot how to cheat mens souls of saving knowledge and thereby men of their souls The scope of which damned project is to keep the people in a servile awe at their back and make them submit to what they prescribe whereby poor souls they are hurried alougâ—ood winckt into an unavoidable destruction I would to God they were better advised A Chancellour in England advising a Judge told him it was his duty to open the Jurors eyes and not to lead them by the nose So I may say to the Popish Clergy it is their duty not to debarre any Lay-man for looking into the perfect law of liberty which is all the evidence they can shew for the Kingdom of heaven the land of the living but to let them use that granted liberty for their own satisfaction and better assurance Let them then say what they will the Scriptures are not for hardnesse like unto the Cities of the Anakims which were so strong and so walled that they made the Israelites quake to think of them Numb 6.13 neither are they for danger so perillous as they report to be medled with as the tree of knowledge of good and evil that brought death to them that tasted it but it is the power of God unto salvation and to them that keep it there is great reward I advise you therefore to fear nothing but in the strength of the Lord seek to know your Fathers will every way that you may be the better enabled to do it to your endlesse comfort and his endlesse glory who is God over all blessed for ever For what remains I contract my discourse The second step is Perseverance And continueth therein That is persevereth in the study of this holy doctrine and remaine thin the Knowledge belief and 〈…〉 Non quaruntuâ— in Christianis initis sed finis Hierom. 〈…〉 their glory when they lest their love to the truth It is the evening that crownes the day and the last act that commands the whole scene If ye continue in my word then are ye my disciples indeed Joh. 8.31 The third step is Remembrance He being not a forgetfull hearer There is an Hebraism in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an hearer of oblivion a term answering the former similitude Wicked men are often expressed by their bad memories and the sins of Gods people are usually sins of forgetfulnesse and incogitancy Our souls saith one are like filthy ponds in which fish die soone frogs live long Prophane jests are remembred pious passages forgotten Our memories naturally are very false and there is a wilful forgetfulnesse of the best things Therefore we should use the best helps As Attention Prov. 4.21 Affection Psal 119.97 Application Job 5.27 Meditation Luke 2.19 And Practice Psal 119.49 All these are great friends to memory which is the Chest and Ark of Divine Truths Isa 42.23 in which we should see them carefully locked up We should lay up something for the time to come and learn that in Zion which may support us in Babylon The fourth step is Practice But a doer of the work That is laboureth to refer and bring all things to practice Non quid legerint sed quid eperint non quid dixerint sed quomode vixerint This is the end of all our reading and hearing that we may do it it is not knowing but practising that bringeth blessednesse At the last day Christ will demand not what have we read or said but what have we done One practical Christian brings more glory to God than a thousand notional formal professors Is Optimè legit Scripturas qui verba vertit in opera An evidence we are truly godly when the Word is written in the heart and held forth in the life Phil. 2.16 It is not talking of wine but drinking of it that comforts and chears the heart The Theory of Musick is delightfull but the practice is far more excellent and pleasant A real good man is
you after rain fair weather after darkness light after tempestuous storms a gentle calm after a temporary misery everlasting glory And this honour have all his Saints And thus much concerning the Attribute of special honour This honour The last part of the Text is the latitude or extent of this special honour All Gods Saints have it This honour have all his Saints Every one whom the Lord of Hosts calls to bear arms or to expose his life or fortunes to dangers in this spiritual war He doth furnish him with all military habiliments und confers upon him that strength whereby he may return conqueror upon whose victorious return unto him from whom he came he crowns him with glory and honor Every particular Saint hath due unto himself by promise a crown of life laid up for him which the righteous Judge shall at the last day give unto him Peter Paul James John and every sanctified man shall not miss of the King of Kings royal pay Be thou faithful unto death saith the Spirit in the Revelation and I will give thee the crown of life He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end to him will I give power over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessel of a potter shall they be broken to shivers To him again saith the same Spirit that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne So that all and every one of his Saints hath the honour of overcoming and triumphing upon the overthrow of their Antagonists God will thus deal with you too if you keep on hostility against the enemies of your salvation if you be faithful defenders of the true faith An honorable end ever crowns honorable actions And what other can be the expectation of the Heirs of salvation which is the proper title of Gods Sâ—ints and I trust that title with all the concomitants thereof ours Be ye sure then to make your Election your Justification your Sanctification sure For not those that are registred Saints in Popes Calendars are thus honored but only they that are cleansed with the blood of Christ they that are sanctified with the holy Spirit only they who are Canonized in heaven and belonging to the election of grace Who to their exceeding joy at the last day shall hear that fearful sentence of death pronounced against their enemies Go ye cursed c. And this judgment have all the wicked And that comfortable sentence of an endless life prono need to them Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world which Kingdom is called by the Apostle the inheritance of the Saints in light And this honour have all his Saints Amen WARRANTABLE SEPARATION WITHOUT Breach of Union GAL. 2.9 And when James Cephas and John who seemed to be pillars perceived the grace that was given unto me they gave to me and Barnabas the right bands of fellowship that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision VERITAS semper habet inimicos pictas semper derisiones truth is never free from foes ever ignorant piety never free from division ever prophane but truths triumph rests in this invicta manet that it stands for ever because a beam of the divine wisdom Pieties glory consists in this it fits for heaven They that continue to the end in truth and piety here is their triumph here is their honour they shall be saved and reign with God Coheirs with Christ in the likeness of God as at the beginning What truth more hated than the truth of the Gospel by the Jew the Jew 's convinct What piety or Religion more contemned than Christian piety by the Jew also the Jew is forsaken Who more hated for the truth and pious living than Christ the Lord of glory received into glory After Christ who more despised hated reviled persecuted for the constant profession of the truth of the Gospel both in life and doctrine than Paul now clothed with glory and majestey for thus shall it be done to him whom the King delighteth to honour Was it not thus with Paul had he not false brethren that said to him as the Jewes did to Christ What new doctrine is this Or as the Epicurean and stoick Philosophers said unto him may we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is thou bringest strange things unto our eares Did not false brethren creep in derogating from his Apostolical dignity but such was his undoubted resolution that neither their great words nor their high looks could daunt him Weather-beaten-souldier as I may so speak in Christianity See his defence in the first Chapter of this Epistle like that among the Philosophers in the midst of Mars hill continuing unto this verse in hand where he shakes off his viperous opponents with as much ease as he did the viper from off his hands I need not point out the several verses tending to his purpose but rather confine my self to the text Onely thus much in general false brethren there were as he calls them in the 4th verse of this Chapter contradicting the Gospel preached by him and Christian liberty to whom he yeelded not a foot of ground or advantage Whereupon the Apostles subscribe unto him on sure grounds and plain demonstrations in the 7. and 8. verses and in the text And this is the occasion Thus you see truth stands firme piety unalterable 1 Cor. 11.1 Be ye therefore followers of me as I am of Christ Jesus saith Paul and ye shall stand firme unmoveable Vincenti corona to him that overcomes will I give a Crown Apoc. 3. and he shall sit in my throne saith Christ Thus Paul gets the glory of the day witness the parts of the text which may seem to be a Paradox 1. An union admitting a separation 2. A separation without breach of the union 1. In the union are the persons united James Cephas John and Paul and Barnabas with a description of the former from their offices who seemed to be pillars 2. The ground of the union perceived the grace that was given unto me and the consequitur thereof the act of union they gave unto me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship Thus by the grace of God they are united And by the same grace separated Se via sindit in ambas that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision And here I cannot let passe any name without note To begin with the persons uniting worthy of that title the Scripture gives unto the Giants in the sixth of Genesis men of renown stiled here to that effect Pillars James Cephas and John in number three not haply without mystery intimating how in the counsel of he wen it was determined before by the highest powers the powers