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A80971 An off-spring of mercy, issuing out of the womb of cruelty. or, A passion sermon preached at Christs-Church in Oxford, by that late renowned ornament of the University, William Carwright. Cartwright, William, 1611-1643. 1652 (1652) Wing C713; Thomason E1287_2; ESTC R208967 9,757 37

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indeed had he not given up himsell too 〈◊〉 not himself as 't were been of counsell against himself and conspired to his own delivery His fathers will was so much his as that I may say his father onely did not forsake him but he himself also in a manner forsook himself for his willingnesse to die was such that his Isa 53. 11 Passion which Isaiah cals his Bruising and the Travell of his Soul he himself cals but a Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 12. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He came to his death as to a holy dipping or washing something that would consecrate him and to all his sufferings as to so many Ceremonies of honour There are indeed passages in Scripture that seem to expresse a drawing back of our Saviour and a kinde of reluctance of that great Sacrifice But if we more warily consider them they shew only a large and handsome fear of the danger not any close or dishonourable desire to avoid the encounter In Saint Mathew 't is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he began to be sorrowfull and heavy words Mat. 26. 37. that expresse a greatness and weight of the danger with a just apprehension of it Not any dejection of spirit but a solemn grief and sad oppression of it such as is eminent in afflicted fortitude In Saint Mark it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he Ch. 14. v. 33. began to be sore amazed a word that intimates astonishment and standing agast at the danger not through any failing of courage but through a serious manage of it he had a generous horrour of the cup that was to be drunk of a noble and allowable amazement as when natures affection flies back from the face and presence of the evill but reason corrects it and thrusts on to the heat and businesse and trade or the danger These his few deliveries of himself this from their intended stoning and that from their plotted precipitation of him were not so much declinings of sufferings as reservations of himself to this kinde of suffering And this very expiring in this at last not John 19. 30. of necessity but choice for 't is said then He bowed the head and gave up the ghost not bowing because he had given it up already but bowing because he now would None of the most innocent Saints that had sleep most at command so slumbred when he would as Christ dyed when he would He expected that hour which could not compell him when it came and he resigned his life not to the law of humane nature which Socinus unadvisedly affirms but to that deliberate and definite constitution of eternal order so that His fathers fore-knowledge and counsell asserted his death from casualty His own obedience in laying his life down exempted it from necessity His expectation of suffering freed it from immaturity And his manner of suffering not how nor when they would but how and when himself would vindicated it from the conquest of malice And thus he was that most absolute sacrifice fore-known decreed obedient fitted and himself his own Priest We see hence God foresaw and from Eternity decreed the passion of his Son as being the authour of all good But the sins of those that were the Executors of it he foresaw only without decreeing as being the Authour of no evill which will somewhat appear in our consideration of The Inferiour Agents the Jews Their manner of Operation a thing of malice taking and by wicked hands crucifying and slaying The last thing to be spoken of Him being delivered c. And if delivered by the determinate counsell of God how could he not be taken or how taken by wicked hands what the Almighty foresees is it not because he foresees And what is because he foresees is it not good These Questions I must confesse are certainties in things naturall but vain doubts only in morall For that necessity of unavoidable being from the fore-sight of God bindes not in morality because man is a free and master-creature A Lord of himself and others and comes not out with a yoke upon his neck as the rest of the universe his Servants do The things of nature God foresees as the object of his knowledge and the effects of i● too but the actions of men he foresees not as the effects but the objects only Or if you will thus The foreknowledge of God causeth things not simply to be but to be as he foreknows them He then making the Agent contingent foresees his actions contingent and so is a cause that they are not necessary We may not then say because by the fore-knowledge and counsell of God Christ took flesh that what was fore-known might be done that God by that fore-knowledge and counsell caused it to be done or because God knew that the Jews would apprehend our Saviour that he arm'd them to apprehend him The will to die and the slaying of him that would die were too much enemies to come from the same inspiration Each Leo Serm. 16. on Pass action is stampt good or bad from the intent and root from which it springs God delivered Jesus out of Love the Jews took him and slew him out of Envy There the integrity of the designe made his death a sacrifice Here the blemish made it a murder thence came a Savour of life unto life hence of death unto death But whence there that chain of order Whence such aeconomy and method in their sinne Why though God be the Authour of no sinne he is yet the orderer of all who squar'd not the sinnes of his enemies to the sufferings of his Son but the sufferings of his Son to the sinnes of his enemies And so extracting good of bad when bad was used this malice of the Jews and as a Physician who is not the Authour of that poyson which he imploys made a restorative of those who had made themselves a Generation of vipers And this is that Serm. 11. on Pass which Leo saith While they were intent to serve themselves by wickednesse they ministred to one whom they thought not of God according to Saint Augustines observation fullfilling his own good purposes by the purposes of men that are not good But I consider that God hath trusted us with his Commandements and not with the order of the Universe and that our own endeavouvs are therefore to be lookt a ter by us and the unsearchablenesse of his charge to be left to himself 'T was not then out of obedience which cannot be but with knowledge of the rule which was here secret but out of malice that the Jews took our Saviour and Saint Peter here justly chargeth that whole Nation with it they being all guilty as Calvin states it either by action or consent or silence in the cause of that righteous one There were Gentiles 't is true in the plot as well as Jews but the Gentiles did not know him the Jews did The Gentiles
higher then themselves and adjure by a name mightier then their own But Christ as one himself sufficing to himself made his own name the conveyance of his power and tbought it no robbery to be equall with God We reade often in the Gospel that Virtue went out of him Mar. 5. 30 Luk. 6. 19. So that he received not anothers power but used his own An Argument of his Divinity so forcible that he himself who did the works appealed from himself to his works John 10. 38. Etiamsi mihi non creditis operibus credite though ye beleeve not me beleeve the works But to shew his Divinity only by miracles was not enough Sic debuit per miracula Deitatem ostendere Leo Serm. de pass ut crederetur veritas humanitatis ipsius he was to shew his Divinity so as that his humanity might be beleeved too And this he did by many but chiefly by that greatest miracle of all his shewing that he who did these miracles could die and that so great power of God could come wrapt up in so much infirmity of the flesh You may now think that one who laboured thus by doctrine and miracles to bring the Nation of the Jews to salvation who not content with ordinary and each daies innocence lived at that rate of perfection that he reckoned lesse good among ill and thought nothing enough where there is room for more One that brought in Religion as the best policy of Kingdomes and that preached high virtues but practised higher still conquering the hardnesse of his precept by the seconding it with a more hard example You may certainly I say think that the Jews would have demanded this man of miracles this man himself a miracle greater then those he did for their King to go in and out before them But Qui vident videre nolunt though he was approved among them by miracles and they themselves also knew it they accused him of Treason and the common cry ran We have no King but Caesar Let me a●k you O ye perversest of Nations Did Angels appear at the birth of Caesar Was Glory to God on high on Earth peace good will towards men sung by them when he came into the world Was Caesar the glory of Israel and a Horn of salvation to his people But alas not to take him into the throne was not so great an ignominy To preferre a Robber a Murderer before him this was the Dregs of Scorn Away with this man and release unto us Barrabas And again Not Luk. 23. 18 21. him but Barabas What spirit of contempt is here It runs not thus Away with Jesus and not Jesus But away with this man and not him They account him so vile that as their superstition was not to name the thing they held execrable they endeavoured to abolish his memory before his person But what Barabbas O yee seeing who see not One that fed your multitudes Not one that robbed them of that which should have fed them What Barabbas One that cured your blinde or healed your halt and lame no one whose violences maimed them and by the frequency of his injury occasionally encreast the number perhaps of those miracles that Jesus wrought Did he use or deserve the whip Did Barrabas purge the Temple of theeves or make it their Denne Did he cast out Devils or do Acts by the instigation of the Prince of them A wicked generation they were to ask a signe but more wicked Matt. 12. 39. not to beleeve when they had so many given them Nor are they so quietly and civilly impious as not to beleeve that they go on to despight the Authour of Miracles by tempting him to do one upon himself If thou art the Son of God come down from the Crosse Why the very condition forbids the inference He therefore will not come down because he is the Son of God and came to obey his Father by whom he was delivered which cals me from the Patient to the superiour Agent God with his manner of Operation A thing of Providence Delivering by determinate counsell and fore-knowledge the second thing to be spoken of Him being delivered by the determinate counsell and fore-knowledge of God Secondly Superiour Agent and his operation Had not God from the beginning decreed the passion of his Son Jesus our redemption had been a thing of rashnesse altogether unworthy either the performance or acceptance of a Deity And chance being more eminent then care and love in the salvation of mankinde the death of our Saviour had been a ryot rather then a sacrifice As the devils craft projected and brought about our slavery by the labours and anxiety of malice So the wisedom of God was to exclude fortune from the businesse of our redemption by the counsell and contrivance of love By the subtlety of the Destroyer the sting of sin entring into one wounded the world and the infection of the person spread it self in equall widenesse with the nature By the wisedome then of the preserver the righteousnesse of one was to justifie the world and the merits of that person to extend themselves to the utmost skirts of nature too The Passion therefore of one Christ was purposely projected so numerous that not a single lamb was offered but the herd of the world that mankinde rather then one man suffered and so the Kingdom of that Prince of darknesse was dissolved Dissolved indeed occasionally by that which raised it sin Death destroyed death and iniquity loosed the bands of iniquity and the works of that malicious one overthrew themselves And to this stratagem was there not required the fore-knowledge and counsell and determination of the Deity The Schools have found out 3. waies by which the father is said to have delivered his Son 1. Praeordinando ejus passionem ex Aquin. p. 3. q. 47. Ar. 3 suâ voluntate by preordaining his passion from his eternall will and this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2. 8. that determinate counsell and foreknowledge of God in the Text. And according to this they say his thirst upon the Crosse was not of nature but decree preordained from everlasting not casuall or emergent for the time 2. Inspirando ei voluntatem patiendi by inspiring him with a willingnesse to suffer and hence it is that the Apostle saith he became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedient to the death even the death of the Crosse And this his thirst when he was stretch't upon it was not to fullfill any desire but that of our redemption 3. Non protegendo eum a passione by not protecting him from his sufferings but wholly exposing him to the bitternesse of them Insomuch that he who was one with the father complain'd of the fathers dereliction and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text the being given and delivered up into wicked hands But was not the Sons love the lesse in that his father thus gave him up It had been so
had no Law nor Scripture The Jews pretended to know and search both The Jews were inexcusable because they knew what they did the Gentiles were so farre excusable that Christ himself seem'd to pray for them as for a people not knowing what themselves did The imputation therefore of the Death is the Jews by excellence And our Saviours sufferings were in this the greater that they were from such a people For if we consider the whole Nation what were they The slaves of the Romans then and the refuse of the world ever A people as at this day hating all and hated of all A Nation that God chose as himself intimates not for any worth or bravery of spirit but that he might glorifie himself in the vile things of the earth and shew his strength in weaknesse no comfort then to our Saviour from the Authour of his passion nor the fall any way ennobled by the hand from whence it came He had that utmost of misfortune in death not to finde an honourable enemy Their behaviour then was viler then their persons The Religious and heavy malice of the Priests and Elders the solemn and severe impiety of the Scribes and Pharisees seriously advising that no tumult may disturb the feast You may think this was from the very chair of Religion The Court indeed pretended devotion but served a most impious design This fear of tumult in the solemnity as is observed by one of the Fathers was not that the people might not sin but that they might not save him They feared not Prophanation but a rescue These were wicked intentions I am sure what must the hands then be that executed them why stand a while and observe and then conclude Jesus taken if he may be said taken who came into their hands is hurried from place to place posted from Judge to Judge put over from torment to torment from the Garden to Annas from Annas to Caiphas from Caiphas to Pilate from Pilate to Herod from Herod to Pilate again Cruelty walking the circle and impiety if ever now treading the ring His apprehending joyn'd to his Agony his accusation to his apprehending and his condemnation to that Then his condemnation received by irrision irrision by stripes stripes by crowning with thorns 'T is not to be told with the same continuation that he suffered it Then carrying his Crosse extension nayling lifting up and after all this businesse and tumult of motion his rest only upon the Crosse A rest indeed such as wity cruelty when it imploys and tasks invention to serve it would at last give A rest by which torment ceased not but was continued A rest that detain'd the soul only to make it part with more torture the strugling Spirit escaping by parcels as water out of a narrow mouth'd vessell the man dying not once but long And were not these wicked hands But there is yet something behinde to make even the Crosse more infamous more a Crosse They crucified him as it is generally observed In medio terrae in the very center and navell of the earth In medio populi in the middle channell of flouds of people In medio malefactorum between theeves as the more thief In an infamous place on high without garments in the force of day that nothing could be hidden Lastly at the Feast of their Passeover those Nundinae Religiosae those publique Wakes of Religion and generall Mart of Sacrificing were not these if any wicked hands wicked indeed to the utmost if you consider only the Action But if the intention the book of Infamy wants a name to brand them For they did this to despight the Lord of life and to grieve his Spirit who was to seal them to the day of redemption And now after these hands Is this he that is more beautifull then all the Sonnes of men This that goodly person that whosoever looked on blest the Womb that bare him and the paps that gave him suck This that face that the Angels cannot look on and yet will not look off yes I adde to this their malice hath augmented that beauty Quae dabo magis ex horrido Seneca speciosa Miseries consecrate worthy countenances and make that which entire was our pleasure broken become our worship Perdiderunt tot mala they lost all their injuries That their spunge swel'd with gall and vinegar did as that froward Painters spunge perfect that work they thought to spoil For when he had drunk He said Consummatum est It is finisht and so by a largenesse of charity freely breathing out his saving spirit into the world revived the nations dead in trespasses Here me thinks I see the Crosse set up as the bound and pillar of the Law and hear God himself saying Hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here shall thy killing letter it self die Thus was it his determinate counsell that the Old Testament should be swallowed up in the New that all those Ceremonies of sacrifice should be buried in that immaculate sacrifice that he himself delivered and that the Sepulchre of Moses so long hid from the world should be found at last in our Saviour Christ Thus did the Sun of Righteousnesse set with more grace and sweetnesse then either he did rise or run his course with and enlightning his thorns in so many pointed Rayes of that his greatest work His death made glories and circles of lustre for all the rest of his actions Thus when the Jews by divine fore-knowledge had brought the Deity to that despicablenesse that they occasioned those miracles That He should be impleaded and condemned who is Judge of all He laden with curses that scatters blessings as Sunne-beams over the face of the world That health it self languisht and the very impassible suffered God who is wont to take his rise where men stop was pleased to strike miracles out of these greater then these For behold An Off-spring of Mercy issuing out of the womb of Cruelty A bundle of new miracles as farre beyond the former as they are opposite to them A condemnation that absolves us A curse that blesseth us A sicknesse that recovers us and a death it self that quickens us So much was his love stronger then death who Heb. 5. 8 9. though He were a Son yet learn'd he obedience by the things he suffered and being made perfect he became the Authour of eternall salvation to all them that obey him Among which number O Lord write our names for his sake who this day suffered to blot out that hand-writing that was against us Amen