of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth Yet so wert thou made flesh as not by conversion into flesh but as by assumption of flesh to thine eternall Deity assumption not into the nature of the Godhead but into the person of thee who art God everlasting O mystery of Godlinesse incomprehensibly glorious Cease cease O humane curiosity and where thou canst not comprehend wonder and adore SECT. III. BUt O Savior was it not enough for thee to be manifested in flesh Did not that elementarie composition carry in it abasement enough without any further addition since for God to become man was more then for all things to be redacted to nothing but that in the rank of miserable manhood thou wouldst humble thy self to the lowest of humanity and become a servant Shall I say more I can hear Bildad the Shuhite say Man is a worm and I hear him who was a noble Type of thee say as in thy person I am a worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of the people O Saviour in how despicable a condition do I find thee exhibited to the world lodged in a stable cradled in a manger visited by poor shepheards imployed in an homely trade attended by mean fishermen tempted by presumptuous Devils persecuted by the malice of envious men exposed to hunger thirst nakednesse wearinesse contempt How many sclaves under the vassalage of an enemie fare better then thou didst from ingratefull man whom thou camest to save Yet all these were but a mild and gentle preface to those thy last sufferings wherewith thou wert pleased to shut up this scene of mortality there I find thee sweating blood in thine agonie crowned with thorns bleeding with scourges buffeted with cruell hands spat upon by impure mouths laden with thy fatall burden distended upon that torturing crosse nailed to that tree of shame and curse reviled and insulted upon by the vilest of men and at last that no part of thy precious bloud might remain unshed pierced to the heart by the spear of a late and impertinent malice Thus thus O God and Saviour wouldst thou be manifested in the flesh that the torments of thy flesh and spirit might be manifested to that world which thou camest to redeem thus wast thou wounded for our transgressions thus wast thou bruised for our iniquities thus were the chastisements of our peace upon thee and thus with thy stripes are we healed O blessed but still incomprehensible mystery of Godliness God thus manifested in the flesh in weakness contempt shame pain death Once only O blessed Jesus whiles thou wert wayfaring upon this globe of earth didst thou put on glory even upon Mount Tabor in thy heavenly transfiguration then and there did thy face shine as the Sun and thy raiment was white as thy light How easie had it been for thee to have continued this celestiall splendor to thy humanity all the whole time of the so journing upon earth that so thou mightest have been adored of all mankinde How would all the Nations under heaven have flockd to thee and fallen down at the feet of so glorious a Majesty What man in all the world would not have said with Peter Lord it is good for us to be here Or if it had pleased thee to have commanded Moses and Elias to wait upon thee in thy mediatorie perambulation and to attend thee at Jerusalem on the Mount of Sion as they did in the Mount of Tabor whom hadst thou not in a zealous astonishment drawn after thee But it was thy wil and the pleasure of thy heavenly Father that this glorious appearance should soon be over shadowed with a cloud And as those celestiall guests now in the midst of thy glory spent their conference about thy bitter sufferings and thine approaching departure out of the world So wert thou for the great work of our Redemption willing to be led from the Mount Tabor to Mount Calvarie from the height of that glory to the lowest depth of sorrow pain exinanition Thus vile wert thou O Saviour in the flesh but in this vilenesse of flesh mannifested to be God how did all thy Creatures in this extremity of thine abasement agree to acknowledge and celebrate thine infinite Deity The Angels came down from heaven to visit and attend thee the Sun pulled in his head as abhorring to look upon the sufferings of his maker the Earth was covered over with darkness and quaked for the horror of that indignity which was offered to thee in that bloody passion the rocks rent the graves opened themselves and sent up their long-since putrefied Tenants to wait upon thee the Lord of life in thy glorious Resurrection so as thou in thy despised and crucified flesh wert abundantly manifested to be the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth SECT. 4. O blessed Saviour thou the true God manifested in the flesh be thou pleased to manifest unto the soul of thy servant the unspeakable riches of thy love and mercie to mankind in that great work of our Redemption Vouchafe to affect my heart with a lively sense of that infinite goodnesse of thine towards the wretcheddest of thy creatures that for our sake thou camest down and cloathedst thy self in our flesh and cloathedst that pure and holy flesh with all the miseries that are incident to this sinfull flesh of ours and wast content to undergo a bitter painfull ignominous death from the hands of man that by dying thou mightest overcome death and ransome him from that hel to which he was without thee irrecoverably forfeited and fetch him forth to life liberty and glory O let me not see only but feel this thy great mysterie of Godlinesse effectually working me to all hearty thankfulnesse for so inestimable a mercie to all holy resolutions to glorifie thee in all my actions in all my sufferings Didst thou O Saviour being God eternall take flesh for me and shall not I when thou callest be willing to lay down this sinfull flesh for thee again Wert thou content to abridge thy self for the time not onely of thy heavenly magnificence but of all earthly comforts for my sake and shall not I for thy dear sake renounce all the wicked pleasures of sin Didst thou wear out the dayes of thy flesh in poverty toil reproach and all earthly hardship and shall I spend my time in pampering this flesh in wanton dalliance in the ambitious and covetous pursuit of vain honours and deceivable riches Blessed Lord thou wert manifested in the flesh not only to be a Ransome for our souls but to be a Precedent for our lives Far far be it from me thus to imitate the great pattorn of holiness O Jesu the author and finisher of my faith and salvation teach me to tread in thy gracious steps to run with patience the race that is set before me to endure the cross to despise the shame to be crucified to the world to work all righteousnesse
of living and powerful agents It is not for us to contend about words those that are disposed to devise paradoxes may frame to themselves what senses they please of their own terms this we are sure of that the Angels are truly existing spirituall intelligent powerfull eviternall Creatures whose being is not exposed to our sense but evidenced both to our faith and reason not circumscribed in any grosse locality but truly being where they are and acting according to their spiritual nature Of these Angels O blessed Saviour wert thou seen manifested in the flesh to their wonder and gratulation That thou who hadst taken our flesh wert visible was no whit strange herein thou wert a plain and happy object to all eyes but how the Angels being meerly spirituall substances could see thee may be part of this great mysterie Doubtlesse they saw thee both before and ever since thou camest into the world with eyes like themselves spirituall and not seldome saw thee being incarnate with the assumed eyes of those bodies wherein they appeared Thus they saw and adored and proclaimed thee in thy first saluration of the world when thou layest in that homely posture in the Manger at Bethlehem singing that sweet and celestiall caroll at thy nativity Glory be to God in the highest They saw thee in the wild desert where no creatures appeared to thee but either beasts or Devils there they saw thee pined with fasting conflicted with the Prince of darknes they saw thee foiling that presum ptuous enemy not without wonder doubtlesse at the boldnesse of that daring spirit and joyfull applause at thy happy victory they saw thee but as knowing there was no use of seconds in this duel of thine unseen of thee till the full end of that great combat then they shewed themselves to thee as willing to be known to have been the secret witnesses of the fight and glad congratulators of thy Triumph then they came and ministred unto thee Never were they but ready to have visibly attended thee hadst thou been pleased to requite so sensible a service but the state of a servant which thou choosedst to undergoe suited not with the perpetuity of so glorious a retinue whether therefore they were seen to thee or not seen it was their great honour and happinesse and a main part of the great mysterie of Godliness that thou who art the true God manifested in the flesh wert seen of Angels They saw thee in the garden in thy sad agonie and if Angels could have been capable of passion in that state of their glory could have been no doubt content to suffer in and with thee with what eyes do we think they lookt upon thy bloody sweat and the frownes of thine heavenly Father which they saw bent against thee in our persons for the sin of mankind which thou camest to expiate Now in this dolefull condition so wert thou seen of Angels that the Angels were seen of thee For lo there appeared an Angell from heaven strengthening thee O the deep humiliation of God manifested in the flesh that thou O Jesu the God and Lord of all the Angels of heaven shouldst in this bloody conflict with thy Fathers wrath for our sins need and receive comfort from a created Angel thy servant Whilest thou wert grapling with the powers of darkness there was no need of aid only after the fight Angels came and ministred to thee but now that thou must struggle under the wrath of thy Father for mans sin there was use of the consolation of one of those Angels whereof thou commandest millions O blessed Saviour had not the face of thy heavenly Father been clouded to thee standing in the stead of our guiltinesse it had been no lesse then presumption in any finite power to tender thee any suggestions of comfort but now alas those beatificall beams were so for the time hid from thine eyes and the sweet influences of light and joy arising there-from were for that sad instant suspended so as nothing appeared to thee that while but the darknesse of displeasure and horrour now therefore the comforts of a creature could not be but seasonable and welcome so that thou disdainedst not to be strengthened by an Angel Extreme distresse looks not so much to the hand that brings supply as to the supply it brings If but one of thy three drouzy clients could have shaken off his sleep and have let fall to thee some word of consolation in that heavy fit of thine thou hadst not refused it how much lesse the cordiall intimations of an heavenly monitor neither was it improper for thee who wast content to be made a little inferiour to the Angels to receive some spirituall aid from the hands of an Angell What then O Saviour was the strengthening which thou receivedst from this officious spirit in this pang of thine agony Doubtless it was not any communication of an additionall power to bear up under that heavy pressure of the sins of the whole world which drew from thee those sweats of blood No Angell in heaven was able to contribute that to the Sonne of God but it was a sweet and forcible representation to thy disconsolate humanity of the near approach of an happy eluctation out of those torments of thy sufferings and of the glorious crown of thy victory immediately succeeding SECT. X. ANd now soon after those Angels that saw thee sweating in thine agonie and bleeding on thy crosse saw thee also triumphing over Death in thy Resurrection they attended thee joyfully in the vault of thy sepulture and saw thee trampling upon the last enemie being then sutably habited to so blessed an occasion in white shining vestures how gladly were they imployed about that most glorious solemnity both as actors in the service and as the first heralds of thy victories over Death I find one of them obsequiously making ready for thy coming out of those chambers of death upon thine Easter morning rolling away that massy stone which the vain care of thine adversaries had laid curiously sealed upon the mouth of that Cave for the prevention of thy fore-threatned resurrection and sitting upon it with a countenance like lightning and his garment white as snow the terrour of whose presence made the guard to shake and to become as dead men I find two of them no lesse glorious sitting the one at the head the other at the feet of that bed of earth whereon thou hadst newly slept By these Angels wert thou both seen and attended and no doubt but as at thy first coming into the world when but one Angell published thy birth he was seconded by a multitude of the heavenly host praising God with hymns of rejoycing for thy nativity so when but one or two Angels were seen at thy second birth which was thy glorious resurrection there were more of that heavenly company invisibly celebrating the joyfull triumph of that blessed day wherein having conquered Death and Hell thou
is the case through their wilfull incredulity altered they are the dogs and we the children we sit at a full table whiles their hunger is not satisfied with scraps The casting away of them was the reconciling of the world their fall our exaltation It is not for us to be high-minded but to fear The great sheet with four corners is let down from heaven with al manner of four-footed beasts of the earth and creeping things and fowls of the air we may kill and eat without any difference of clean or unclean but even of clean meats we may surfet O Saviour it is thy great mercie that thou hast been thus long preached amongst us Gentiles that we in the remote ends of the World have seen the salvation of our God but if we shall abuse thy graces to wantonness and walk unanswerably to this freedome of thy Gospell how both just and easie is it for thee to withdraw these blessings from us and to return us to the wofull condition of our old forlornnesse O let it not be enough that thou art preached amongst us Gentiles but do thou work us to an holy obedience of thy blessed Gospell reclaim us from our abominable licentiousnesse of life from our hellish heresies of opinion and teach us to walk worthy of that great salvation which thou hast held forth unto us so shall it be our happiness that thou wert preach'd to us Gentiles otherwise our condemnation shall be so much the deeper as our light hath been more clear and our means more powerfull SECT. XIII SO poor and despicable O Saviour wouldst thou have thy coming in the flesh that it is no marvail if the vain world utterly disregarded thee For what is the mis-judging world led by but by outward pomp magnificence yea thy very domestick followers after so long acquaintance with thy person and doctrine even when thou wert risen from the dead could thinke of the royalty of a temporall kingdome to be restored to Israel and still the perverse generations of Jewish Infidels after the conviction of so many hundred years gape for an earthly Monarchy of their expected Massiah that therefore appearing to the world in so contemptible means so born so living so dying thou shouldst be universally beleeved on in the world is the just wonder of the mysterie of Godlinesse It was the largness of thy divine bountie to allow thy Gospell preached to every creature but alas it is liberally preached sparingly received Who hath beleeved our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed It was the complaint of thy chosen vessell the Doctor of the Gentiles We preach Christ crucified to the Jewes a stumbling block to the Greeks foolishnesse What a power therefore is there in the mysterie of Godlinesse that thou art not preached only but beleeved on in the world Hadst thou exhibited thy self in the magnificence and majesty of the Son of God attended either with the glorious Angels of heaven or the mighty Monarchs of the earth scattering honors and riches upon thy followers in abundance how large a train wouldst thou have had how would all the Earth have rung with Hosonnas to the highest but now that thou wouldst come as the Son of man in the homeliest condition of birth education life and death not having so much as an house wherein to put thy head or a grave wherein to lay thy dead body now that thou wouldst suffer thy self to be spat upon scourged crucifed reviled that the stub born hearts of men should be so convinced by the truth and power of thy Deity that thou art beleeved on in the world is the great mysterie of Godlinesse The powers of darknesse could not but see their kingdome shaken by thy coming down to the earth upon this errand of thy Mediation How busie and violent therefore were those gates of hell in opposing so glorious a worke How did they stirr up cruell Tyrants in the first dawning of thy Gospell furiously to persecute this way unto death what exquisite torments of all kinds did they devise for the innocent professors of thy name How drunken was the earth with the blood of thy Martyrs in all parts And when they saw how little force could prevaile since this Palm-tree grew the more by depression how did they set their wits on work in attempting by fraud to bring about their cut fed designes How cunningly did they go about to undermine that wall which they could not batter now whole troops of the skilfullest Engineers of hell are sent up by damned heresies to blow up and overthrow that truth which they could not beat down One while thine eternall Deity another while thy sacred humanitie is impugned by those who yet stile themselves Christians One while either of thy natures another while thy intire Person is laid at by those that profess themselves thy friends and clients One while thine Offices another while thy Scriptures are opposed by those who yet would seem thine And though their insinuations have been so eraftily carried and their colours so well laid that no small part of the world hath been for the time beguiled by them and drawn into a plausible misbeleef yet still great hath the truth ever been and ever prevailed happily triumphing over those damnable heresies that have dared to lift up their head against her and chasing them into their hell So as in spight of men and Devils the great mysterie of Godliness is gloriously vindicated and God manifested in weak flesh is beleeved on in the world SECT. XIIII The world is not all of one making there is a world of creatures not capable of beleef there is a world of men that lyeth in wickednesse refusing to beleeve there is a world of faithfull souls that do beleeve and in beleeving are saved And O blessed Saviour that thou wouldst graciously enlarge this world of beleevers Wo is me what a world of this world of men lyes still under the damnable estate of unbelief Alas for those poor savage Indians that know nothing of a God which out of their fear and tyrannicall superstition worship Devils that they may not hurt them for those ignorant and wofully blindfolded Mahumetans that are not allowed to see any more then one blinke of thee as a great Prophet being taught to blaspheme thy Deity and to enslave their faith to a wretched Impostor for those obstinate Jews that are wilfully blind and will not see the light of that truth concerning thee their Messiah which shineth forth clearly to them in the writings of the Prophets in the undeniable accomplishment of all former predictions in the powerfull conviction of miraculous works What Christian is there whose bowels do not yearn whose heart doth not bleed at the thought of so many millions of miserable unbeleevers O thou the God of infinite mercy and compassion in whose hands are all the hearts of the sons of men look down graciously from heaven
shewedst thy self in a glorified condition to the redeemed world of men After this when for the securance of thy Resurrection upon which all our faith justly dependeth thou hadst spent forty dayes upon earth I find thee upon Mount Olivet at thy most glorious ascension not seen only but proclaimed and fore-promised in thy certain and at least equally-glorious return by the blessed Angels And behold while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up two men stood by them in white apparel which also said Ye men of Galilee why stand yee gazing up into heaven This same Jesus which is taken from you into heaven shall so come again as ye have seen him go into heaven But O Saviour these views of thee by thine Angels hitherto were but speciall and visible even by bodily eyes How do I by the eyes of my soul see thee both attended up in that heavenly progresse and welcomed into thine Empyreall heaven by all the host of those celestiall spirits no small part of whose perpetuall happiness it is to see thee in thy glorified humanity sitting at the right hand of Majestie there they enjoy thee there they sing continuall Hallelujahs to him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever SECT. XI If thine Angels O blessed Jesu desired to look into this great and deep mysterie of the Gospell their longing is satisfied in the sight of thy blessed incarnation and the full accomplishment of the great Office of thy Mediatorship since now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places is made knowne the manifold wisdome of God in this wonderfull work of mans Redemption which from the beginning of the World hath been hid in God who created all things by thee But that the unsearcheable riches of Christ should be preached to the Gentiles how marvailous an accession is it to the greatness of this divine mysterie of godlinesse of old In Judah was God known his name was great in Israel In Salem was his Tabernacle and his dwelling place in Sion but in the mean while we miserable Gentiles sate in darknesse and in the shadow of death without God in the world exposed to the displeasure of heaven tyrannized over by the powers of hell strangers from the covenants of promise for lorn without hope of mercy That therefore O Saviour thou vouchsafedst in the tender bowels of thine infinite compassion to look down from heaven upon us and at the last graciously to visit us in the clear revelation of the saving truth of thy Gospell to break down the partition wal whereby we were excluded from any participation with thee to own us for thy people and to admit us unto the fellowship of thy Saints O the wonderfull mysterie of Godlinesse effectually manifested to us out-cast Gentiles to our conversion to our eternall salvation What a vail O God was spread over all Nations A dark vail of ignorance of errour of impiety How did our fore-fathers walk in their own wayes following the sinfull lusts of their own hearts worshipping dumb Idols sacrificing to all the host of heaven offering not their substance only but their sons and daughters to Devils It was thine own infinite goodnesse that moved thee to pity our woful and despaired condition and to send thine eternall Son into the world to be no lesse a light to lighten the Gentiles then to be the glory of thy people Israel How fully hast thou made good thy gracious promises long since published by thy holy Prophets It shall come that I will gather all Nations and tongues and they shall come and see my glory And again It shall come to pass in the last dayes that the mountain of the Lords house shall be established in the top of the mountaines and shall be exalted above the hils and all Nations shall flow to it And many people shall go and say Come ye let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us his wayes and we will walk in his paths And again Behold thus saith the Lord I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles and set up my standard to the people and they shall bring thy sons in their arms and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders And again Behold thou shalt call a Nation that thou knowest not and Nations that know not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God and for the holy One of Israel for he hath glorified thee O blessed then ever blessed be thy name O God that thou wouldest vouchsafe to be made known among us Gentiles Give unto the Lord O ye kindreds of the people give unto the Lord glory and strength Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name All the earth shall worship thee and shall sing unto thee they shall sing unto thy name All the ends of the world shall remember and run unto the Lord and all the kinreds of the Nations shall worship before thee How did we O Saviour of old lye under the pity and contempt of those thy people which challenged a peculiarity of thy favour We have a little sister said thy Iewish Spouse and she hath no brests what shall we do for our sister when she shall be spoken for Take no thought for us O thou oncebeloved Synagogue of the Jews thy little sister is not only spoken for but contracted but happily married to her Lord and Saviour having been betrothed to him for ever in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies so as we can now return our pity to thee and say We had an elder sister which had brests but her brests are long since wrinkled and dryed up what shall we doe for our sister in these dayes of her barrennesse and just neglect We shall surely pray for our sister that God would be pleased to return to her in his compassion of old and restore her to the happy state of her former fruitfulnesse We follow them with our prayers they us with malice and despight with how envious eyes did they look upon those first heralds of the Gospell who carried the glad tidings of salvation to the despised Gentiles what cruell storms of persecution did they raise against those blessed messengers whose feet deserved to be beautifull wherein their obstinate unbelief turned to our advantage for after they had made themselves unworthy of that Gospell of peace that blessing was instantly derived upon us Gentiles and we happily changed conditions with them The naturall branches of the good Olive tree being cut off we that were of the wild Olive contrary to nature are graffed in O the goodness and severity of God! on them which fell severity on us which succeeded goodness They were once the children and we the dogs under the table the crums were our lot the bread was theirs now