weighing this place alone For so far hath the misapprehended Doctrine of Predestination and Certaintie of their own Estate in Salvation misswaded some as they have not been affraid to affirm That the Angels are in some sort inferiour to themselves because They minister to them as they are Heires of Salvation Ministers they are indeed yet not to us but to God or Christ though for our good So is every Magistrate so is every Pastor in his place yet God forbid that inferiours should hence collect That their Magistrates and Pastors should be Inferiour to all them for whose good they are Ministers 3. The next Point to be examined is the Extent of this our High Priests Exaltation about the Bounds or limits whereof the Controversies are more then any difficulties in the Rule of Faith do minister but not so many as men of rash or audacious understandings make and the most of them prosecuted with greater vehemencie of contention then the spirit of sobrietie which should be in every good Christian will approve The Questions of more profitable Use are generally Two The First concerns the Logical Subject of Christs Exaltation comprehended in this Title of Sitting at the Right-hand of God and the like And the Issue is this Whether Christ be exalted only as he is the Son of David or as he is the Son of God or according to both his natures as well Divine as humane The second Quaerie is about the Extent or Limits of the Exaltation of his humane Nature The one Question as Logicians speak is about the Extent or limit of the Subject The other about the Extent or limit of the Attribute That Christ was exalted according to his Humane Nature or as he was the Son of David all Christians agree But that he should be exalted as God or according to his Divine Nature which is absolutely Infinite may well seem impossible for the matter and for the Phrase very harsh Howbeit this is avouched by many Orthodoxal and worthy Divines And if Christ be as most Protestants avouch our Mediator Secundum utr amque naturam according to Both Natures why may he not be said to be Exalted according to Both Natures Yet a Difference there is which will disjoynt this Consequence For to be a Mediator betwixt two doth not necessarily include any Defect or inequalitie in the partie mediating in respect of the parties between whom he is a Mediator Whereas to be Exalted doth necessarily include or presuppose some Lower degree from which he is Exalted to an higher And if Christ according to his Divine Nature be alwayes equal to God the Father he was and is and shall be Absolutely Infinite And Absolute Infinitie cannot admit of any Degrees specially of Exaltation This necessarily argues that Christs Divine Nature could in it self receive no Degree of Diminution or Exaltation If then according to his Divine Nature he was exalted this Exaltation was not by any Real Addition of Dignitie to his Nature but only quoad nos in respect of us And it is perhaps one thing to say that Christ was Exalted according to his Divine Nature Another to say That Christ was Exalted as he was the Son of God However thus much we are bound to believe and thus much we may safely say That Christ as God was exalted in the same Sense and manner that he was Humbled as God Now that the Son of God who was as truly God as God the Father truly equal to God the Father did truly humble himself unto death even to the death of the Cross was in the first Chapter of our Eighth Book deduced out of the second to the Philippians Nor did he humble himself only according to his Humane Nature for he humbled himself not only by his life and death here on earth but by taking the Humane Nature in which he was humbled The Humane Nature could not be humbled by being united to his Divine Nature but rather Exalted So that the first and Prime Subject of his humiliation was if not his Divine Nature yet his Divine Person The Person of the Son of God was humbled by his Incarnation or Conception by his Birth by his Life by his Death and Passion And for every degree of his humiliation there is a correspondent degree of his Exaltation by his Resurrection by his Ascension into heaven and by his Sitting at the Right-hand of God the Father In what Sense our Apostle saith He was humbled according to his Divine Person hath been discussed at large before The sum was this If he that thought it no robberie to be equal with God had been at any time pleased to have assumed a body or created substance into the unitie of his Infinite Person such Glorie and honour was unto that his bodie or created substance due as exceeds the Glorie and honour of all other bodies or created substances infinitely more then any creature can possibly exceed another And yet we know that the Son of God who was from Eternitie equal to his Father did in the Fulnesse of Time assume into the unitie of his Divine Person a Bodie and Soul subject to all the infirmites sin only excepted that humane nature is capable of And by assuming such a bodie and by exposing it to all the miseries of mortalitie the Son of God was truly said to be humbled and the Degrees of his humiliation were as many and large as are the Degrees by which his immortal glorified Bodie doth exceed his mortal Bodie as many and large as are the Degrees of Honour and Excellencie betwixt that Royal Priesthood which now he exerciseth and the Form of a Servant wherein he appeared So that not only the Humane Nature of the Son of God but the Son of God in his Humane Nature is truly exalted according to all the Degrees of his former Humiliation But is this all that we are bound to believe or may safely acknowledge concerning the Exaltation of Christ both as he was the Son of God and as he was the Son of David 4. If this were all then his Exaltation as the Son of God should meerly consist in the Abdication or putting off the Form of a Servant It could not include or presuppose any positive Ground of any new and Real Attribute but only a Relation to his former humiliation Some good Divines as well Ancient as modern suppose that albeit man had never sinned yet should the Son of God have been incarnate that is have taken our nature upon him yet our nature not humbled or obnoxious to death but alwaies clothed with glorie and immortalitie For Illustration or Example sake Suppose the Son of God had taken an humane bodie altogether as glorious as now it is from the very first moment of its assumption into the unitie of his Divine Glorious Person Could the assumption of such a bodie how glorious soever or how perpetual soever its glorie had been have added any least degree of Exaltation unto the Son of
the world and the flesh had been greater than the meer natural man had any the just Lord would not punish them more severely than he doth the heathen or meer natural men for suffering themselves to be vanquished by his enemies They which deny any grace or talent to be always given in baptisme or affirm this Talent to be given onely to some few which are of the number of the Elect either do not understand or do not call to minde what baptisme is Now Baptisme on our part is an Astipulation or promise 1 Peter 3. ver 21. And it is no lesse on Gods part It is a mutual Covenant or Astipulation between God and us And in every Covenant or Astipulation there is Ratio dati et accepti somewhat given and and somewhat taken The giving is properly on Gods part the taking on ours For in true and proper terms we cannot give any thing to God because all we have even we our selves are his by double right by right of creation and redemption Yet it is his pleasure that we in baptisme should sincerely and heartily surrender that unto him which is his own even our selves our souls and bodies And he upon this surrender or vow if it be sincerely made doth give to us that which was not ours even his only son with all the benefits of his death and passion All of us put him on in baptism though not all in the same degree and we may rest assured that God would never presse us in baptisme to fight under the banner of his Son unless he were ready to furnish us with strength with weapons and skill to fight his battails So we will as our Apostle exhorts us yeeld our members unto his service he will teach our hands to War and our fingers to fight and every facultie of our body and soul to do their part 6. The Abstract or Briefe of our Apostles discourse in this chapter is to stir up that Gift of God in these Romans which they had received in baptism or which is all one to animate or incourage them to imploy that talent which God in that Sacrament had concredited unto them unto his glory And this his Exhortation is grounded upon their Profession of dying to sin which they had made in baptisme or upon the assurance of Gods spirit in the sacred War so we will take heart and courage to undertake the fight There is not one branch of this Exhortation from the second verse of this chap. to this one and twentieth but is rooted in one of these two considerations or joyntly in both That all of us in baptisme are dead to sin in that sense which we have shewed before that is by solemn vow or by Professing our death unto it our Apostle infers ver 3. and not onely dead but buried And both this Death and Burial unto sin was solemnly professed not by Word or Vow only but by matter of fact or visible Ceremony then usuall in Baptisme for every one that was baptized seeing all that were baptized were of good years and strength of body to undergo this Ceremony were ter demersi in aquis their whole bodies were plunged thrice in the water to represent their vowed death and buriall unto sin This Ternal demersion of their Bodies as some collect was not only to represent The Holy and blessed Trinitie of the Divine Persons in whose names they were baptized but withall to represent the three several dayes wherein Christ lay buried in the grave Therefore saith the Apostle we are buried with him by Baptisme unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newnesse of life ver 4. 7. The meaning of the former Ceremony was and so of Baptisme to this day is That as Christ did leave the burthen of our sins and put off the form of a servant which for our sakes he undertook in the grave so we by baptisme and buriall into his death should put off the old man or body of sin and be raised unto newness of life and become partakers of his Resurrection unto glory This raising unto newnesse of life by the Sacrament of Baptisme was represented by the safe Ascension of their Bodies out of the water in the which they had been thrice plunged And of our Resurrection unto glory we receive the pledge or earnest when we receive the Grace of Regeneration that is the Grace which enables us to walk in newnesse of life And this is called the First Resurrection without which no man shall be partaker of the second unto Glory Now that all such as are truly buried with him by baptisme into death that is all such as observe and perform their vow made in baptisme shall undoubtedly be partakers of his Resurrection unto Glory the Apostle inferres ver 5. For if we have been planted together in the likenesse of his death we shall be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection and vers the sixth Knowing this that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin For he that is dead is free from sin ver 7. that is He that is dead to sin in this life is freed from the life or reign of sin For it is observable that he doth not say if we have been planted together in his death but if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death It is not required that we should die the death of the body as Christ did but to die as Isaac did in the similitude and figure of his death that is we should die to sin or crucifie that sin in us for which Christ was crucified And as it is not required that we should die the death of the body in baptisme so is it not to be expected that we should forthwith be raised unto that glory whereunto he rose but to be raised unto A similitude or likeness of it that is unto newness of life which is the First Resurrection And of this Resurrection we shall not fail to be actual partakers by vertue of baptisme if we be rightly implanted into the similitude of his death for so the Apostles words are If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection But what is it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 planted together or with whom are we planted we Gentiles together with the Jews So some conjecture But the more ancient and better exposition is that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Christ planted together with Him yet not so planted together with him as one tree is planted together by another Arbor inter or juxta Arbores each having its several root But as Christ was planted by his death and burial and consecrated to be the root of life So we likewise should be planted by Baptisme in Him to die
death might have put an unquestionable end to all the Controversies betwixt him and his persecutors there had been no gain but losse rather in the prolongation of his life But when men truly professing the power of Christianitie may be devout be religious be obedient without danger of persecution the case is altered So that our Apostles saying doth not concern the peaceable and prosperous estate of Christians but the iniquitie of those times and of such Times as those 3. But we must consider that there is a great deal of difference between contradicting infidelitie or express denyall of the souls immortalitie or the Resurrection of the body and such an implicit or indistinct notion of some recompence for wel-doing and punishments for ill doings as the wiser Heathens did acknowledge Such of them as constantly acknowledged but thus much though not without interposition of some doubting or distrusting fits concerning the souls imortalitie without any notion at all of the bodies Resurrection did fully accord with our Apostle in this place That the service of sin or to speak in their language a voluptuous life was altogether Fruitless So the Roman Orator tels us Omnis voluptas pro nihilo putanda est quod cum praeterierit perinde sit ac si nulla fuisset All pleasure is to be accompted as nothing worth because when it is once past it is as if it had never been that is it leaves no fruit behind it it is at the best but as a blossom or bud which withers or falls away before the fruit be set and a blossom without hope of fruit is altogether fruitless and of no esteem Thus he spake of Voluptas that is of pleasure of the body but he alwayes mainteined the contrary concerning Gaudium which we call the pleasure or joy of the mind or the inward testimonie of a good Conscience In this Point the same Roman Orator with Seneca and divers other Heathen Poets and Philosophers did accord aswell with Solomon as in the other sentence he did with Saint Paul to wit That a good conscience was a continual Feast See the tenth Chapter of this Book And See Tullie de Finib Lib. 2. De Senectute And his Paradoxes 4. But I know what a more dissolute Heathen then Tullie was or a voluptuous Christian or carnal Gospeller would at this day object that they are acquainted with greater bodily pleasures then the Heathen Philosophers or precise Christians have experience of And for this reason will appeal from us as incompetent Judges And I confesse it is true A dissolute or voluptuous man whether Heathen or Christian oftimes enjoyes for a space some greater pleasures of the flesh then any civil or modest man can do And this was the miserie or ignorance of the best sort of Heathens which did excuse them a Tanto though not a Toto that is in respect of us not simply in that they did not know or suspect an invisible Adversarie which deals with us as a cunning Quacksalver or craftie Mountebank one that secretly corrupts our dyet and by degrees insensible brings many diseases upon us That he may gain credit or esteem by giving us some present ease or pleasant remedie though never any perfect cure And yet the Heathen Philospher had observed that most of those pleasures of the body or flesh by which men are specially drawn from the practise of vertue or moral honestie were usually apprehended to be much greater then they truly were both because most men look upon their faces or approaches in coming towards them not upon their departure or back parts at their going away and because they are the remedies or present abatements of some grievous disease which it were much better not to have then to stand in need of any medicine how pleasant soever He that is cured of a deep wound or sore feels more ease or pleasure when it growes toward the healing then he should have done in that part if it had continued whole Yet who would long for a wound to find such ease and contentment He that is sick of a burning feaver will take more pleasure for the time being in drinking a cup of cold water then a man in perfect health would do in a draught of the pleasantest wine Yet who would chuse to be sick to enjoy such pleasure There is I take it no greater pleasure of any sense then cooling moisture in the extremitie of thirst But it is a greater miserie to be put unto this need or exigence So is it with all dissolute or voluptuous men Take them for the present as they are overgrown in dissoluteness and intemperancie and it is a great pleasure for them to have their desires satisfied But it is a kind of Hell in the mean time to be pestered with such desires which are alwayes more permanent and more durable then their satisfactions or contentments can be Besides that the ease and remedies which for the present they find do in the issue increase and malignifie the nature of their disease And if they had been once acquainted with the true delight and pleasures of a moderate and sober life they would loath their desires as much as a man that knowes what health is would dislike the momentany pleasures of the sick 5. That commendation which the Governour of the marriage feast of Canaa in Galilee did give the Bridegroom in comparison of ordinarie Inne-keepers or wine-drawers in his time may serve to set forth the difference between the service of righteousness and the service of sin or between the the contrary Method which our Lord and master and the prince of this world observe in rewarding their followers Every one saith the Governour of the feast John 2. 10. doth at the beginning set forth good wine and when men have well drunk then that which is worse This is the very picture or image of Satans practise But thou saith the same Governour of the feast unto the Bridegroom hast kept the good wine until now that is until the close of the feast And this is the Type or Emblem of our Saviours Method To apply it more plainly The Divel still labours to glut men in their best dayes with the sweetest pleasures or contentments of the body and when he hath made them drunk or brought upon them an unquenchable thirst or longing after the like then he vents his â—uffes or refuse upon them and plyes them untill they drink the very dregs of Gods wrath But our Saviour keepes his best fruits unto the last and by his first blessings doth but as it were prepare and qualifie our corrupted nature to be every day then other more capable of better And as of Satans malice and mischief so of his mercy and goodness there is no end to such as embrace them untill they bring us to an endless and most blessed life The beginnings of sin are alwayes pleasant at least sin puts us to no pain in producing the
lives or consecrate our selves to his honor and service to offer our selves in sacrifice to him when he requires not only in remembrance of what he hath done for us which we would not for ten thousand lives but he had done but in respect of Future Hopes which it were better we had never been then they should not be accomplished We look he should in the last day acquit us from the accusations of Satan the great Accuser and in the mean time give Testimonie of us as his faithful servants to his Father The dutie which we owe to Him is in this life to be witnesses of the truth he taught to testifie unto the world that he hath appeared by our lives and conversations answerable to His by our readiness to suffer povertie exile disagrace or ignominious death for defence of His Lawes to fear him whether in life or death 12. To every thing we can desire of God there is A semblable Dutie to be performed by us without whose performance we cannot pray to Him in Faith To pray in Faith is to be so surely perswaded of Gods Benignitie as to be ready to render up all that he requires of us to abstain from those things which we know to be offensive to him especially from such as have any particular repugnance to that we seek If we expect God should provide for us as for his children we must honor and reverence Him as an Almighty and everlasting Father If we desire he should protect us we must fear him as our Greatest Lord. A son honoureth his Father and a servant his master If I then be a Father where is my Honor and if I be a master where is my fear saith the Lord of Hosts unto you Mal. 1. 6. If ye offer the blind for sacrifice is it not evil and if ye offer the lame and sick is it not evil offer it now unto thy Prince will he be content with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of Hostes and now I pray you pray before God that he may have mercy upon us This hath been by your means will he regard your persons saith the Lord of Hosts No! they did not pray in Faith For so to pray presupposeth a fidelitie in the discharge of duties appointed for their calling God for his part never changeth I am the Lord I change not Mal. 3. 6. As if he had said This is my nature and essence to be immutable And therefore Ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed For so they had been unless his mercies had continued the same But to do them that good they desired or to deal as graciously with them as he had done with their fathers he could not if with Reverence I may so speak because of their infidelitie or unbelief for which cause the Evangelist saith Christ could not work many miracles amongst His Countrymen Matth. 13. 58. From the dayes of your Fathers you are gone away from mine Ordinances and have not kept them Now there must needs have been a Change in God if he had dealt as bountifully with this back-sliding Generation as with their Godly Predecessors that had been sted fast in his Covenant But let them be as their fathers were and He will be to them as he was to their Fathers For he is no accepter of persons but rewardeth every one according to his works Wherefore he saith Return unto me and I will return unto you ver 7. But they were so far from returning that they would scarce acknowledge their sin For they said wherein shall we return They should have done unto their God accordingly as they desired he should do to them They desired the Lord should blesse them as Moses had spoken In the City and in the field in the fruit of their bodies and in the fruit of their grounds in the fruit of their cattel and in the increase of their kine and in the flocks of their sheep Deut. 28. 4. But God at this time had done to them in some fort as they had done to him They had robbed him in tithes and offrings ver 8. Therefore were they oursed with a curse ver 9. Notwithstanding if they would deal better with him he assures them he will deal better with them Bring ye all the Tithes into the Storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me herewith saith the Lord of Hostes if I will not open the windows of Heaven unto you and pour you out a Blessing without measure And I will rebuke the Devourer for your sakes and he shall not devour the fruit of your ground neither shall the Vine be barren in the field saith the Lord of Hosts And all Nations shall call you blessed saith the Lord of Hosts As he that had wrong'd his brother was the forwarder to repine against Moses so the words of such in this people as had most robbed and spoiled God were most stout against him They said It was in vain to serve God And what profit is it that we have kept his Commandments And that we have walked humbly before the Lord of Hosts Therefore they accounted the proud blessed even they that work wickednesse are set up and they that tempt God yea they are delivered It is not likely that they would thus speak with their mouthes for so they should have had no occasion to demand as they did V. 13. What have we spoken against thee But that they thought in their hearts That God did not respect them according to their deserts or that his Bounty had not been so great to them as to their Fathers If they said not they thought with Gideon Ah my Lord if the Lord be with us why then is all this come upon us and where be his miracles which our Fathers have told us and said did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of the Medianites He thought this Change was in God not in himself or in his Countrymen As most men at this day think that God is not as ready to hear our prayers as he was to hear the Israelites or the Fathers in the primitive Church When as the reason why he hears them not is because we are not so ready to do His will If we perform any obedience to his Laws it is for the most part such as those murmurers did we offer unto him either the vile or the lame or else but half that which is due and yet perswade our selves we deal bountifully with him too In Fine we do so much as serves to ground a Pharisaical conceit of our selves not so much or not so sincerely as may induce Our God who knows our hearts to think well of us We do not so to him as we desire he should do to us for we desire that he should bless us above the ordinary means of humane forecast or procurement but we adventure not any practice injoyned by him
ferratusque sones Ego divitis Aurum Harmoniae dotale geram It was a dishonour in her esteem to be disclaimed by an Imprecation for a Princes Daughter to adorn her head and neck with costly Jewels like a Bride whilest her Husband was clad in steel and yet so clad every hour in peril of life During the time of this his danger abroad she desires no greater train at home then would suffice to expel Melancholick fear And that artire doth please her best which best suted with her pensive heart most likely to move her Gods to Commiseration of her widdowhood For such costly ornaments as were now profferd she thought a fitter time would be to wear them when her Husband returned in peace with such rich spoiles from the enemies Court And in this Resolution well fitting her present estate she leaves them to the proud upstart insolent baggage whose longing desires after those unseasonable fooleries had inchanted the poor Prophet her husband to Countenance an Ominous unfortunate war the issue whereof was this that after most of the Noble Argives sent thither by the enemies sword the Prophet himself went quick down to hell This Conclusion you will say is false in the litteral sense or rather fained but I would to God the Fiction were not too true an Emblem of the most State-Prophets in later Ages Such as are here represented and no better are the usual fruits of untimely desires or discording appetites of parties united in strict bond of common dutie especially in men consecrated to publick ministerie Alwayes they are displeasing to God in nature preposterous hateful as death to civil and ingenuous minds 10. But herein the Poet as the Philosopher well observes exceeds the Historian for moral instructions He may paint men and women as they should be not as they are whereas the Historian must express them as he finds them Most Women indeed are not for their affections like this Poetical Picture of Argia Yet the Carriage of Portia as the ingenious Historian hath exprest it did farre exceed it When her Husband Brutus had disclosed that inward grief and perplexitie by his ill rest by night which he had purposely concealed from her in his waking thoughts she takes his Concealment as a disparagement to her birth and education and as a tacit impeachment of her honestie Brutus saith she I had Cato to my Father and was matched into thy family not as a whore to be thy Companion only at bed and bord but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be as true a Consort of thy miseries as of thy welfare I had never cause to complain of thy usage no occasion to suspect thy loving affection towards me but what assurance canst thou have of my love to thee If I may not be permitted to sympathize with thee in thy secret greif nor bear a part in those anxieties whose communication might ease thy mind and much set forth my fidelitie I know well the imbecillity of our Sex we need no rack to wrest a secret from us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But know O Brutus that there is a secret vertue in good parentage ingenuous breeding and conversation for setling and strengthening the frame of our affections even where they are by nature brickle and unconstant And this is my portion in these Pre-eminences A woman I am by sex but Cato his Daughter and Brutus his Wife To give him a sure experiment answerable to these Protestations how ready she could be in all misfortunes to take grief and sorrow at as low a Note as for his life he could She had cast her self into a burning Feaver by a grievous wound of her own making before she vented the former complaint which she uttered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the extremity of her Fit or pangs I may truly here apply that verse of old Ennius as the late extinguished Lamp of this University once out of this Lantern in another Case did Vos Juvenes shall I say nay verily Nos viri Patres Fratres animos gerimus muliebres Illaque Virgo viri Was this praeeminency that she was Cato's daughter and Brutus's wife of power sufficient to arm her female heart with man-like resolution and true heroical constancy to bear the yoke of all misfortunes with her Conjugal Mate and is it no Praerogative in Christian men before a Heathen woman that they have God for their father and holy Church for their mother Christ Jesus supream Governour of the world the Lord of life and Conquerour of Death and Hell for their Brother Is Baptisme into his death but a naked name that our professed unitie therein cannot unite our hearts in like affections Is the effusion of Gods spirit but as the sprinkling of Court Holy-water are our dayly Sermons but as so many Bevers of wind whose efficacy vanisheth with the breath that uttereth them or hath the frequent participation of Christ precious body blood no better operation on our harts then the exhalation of sweet odours upon our brains Be they no longer comfortable then whilst they be in taking Are all those glorious similitudes of one head and many members of one Vine and many branches but Hyperbolical Metaphors Is our mystical union only a meer Mathematical imagination are those or the like Praerogatives of our calling but like the Soloecisms of the Romish Church matters of meer title or ceremony without realitie Beloved in Christ if either we actually were or heartily desired or truly meant to be true branches of that Coelestial Vine were it possible the strongest boughes thereof should be so often shaken with dangerous blasts of temptations and we no whit therewith moved could so many flourishing Boughes dayly fade and we hope that our Luxuriant branches should always flourish should their goodly leaves hourly fall and we live still as if we never looked for any winter or should God so often threaten to pluck up the vineyard which his own right hand hath planted and yet the dressers of it still seek after great things for themselves as if they never dreamt of dispossession would the most of us either seek to raise our selves as high as the highest room in the Lords house or make it a chief part of our care how to forecast mispense of time in merriment gameing or other worldly pleasures or contentments whilst sundry of our poor brethren and fellow Prophets perhaps in worth our betters die of discontent whilst others younger run mad after riot abroad least they should be attached by sorrow and grief at home whilst other begin to expect a change and entertain a liking of Romish Proffers Others which have ever hated Rome more then death begin to loath their lives and set their longing on the Grave desirous to give their bodies to be devoured by that earth which hath not ministered necessary sustenance to them as being overcharged with maintaining the unnecessary desires and superfluous pleasures of worse deservers Or would so many were they
manner of Gods augmenting the punishments or plagues upon succeeding Generations which would not take warning by the punishments of their fore-fathers usually runs by the scale of seven Every man that seeth me saith Cain after the Lord had convented him for killing his brother will kill me whereas there was not a man in the world besides his father and himself But a mans Conscience as we say is a thousand witnesses And his Conscience did sufficiently convict him to have deserved Execution whereas there was neither Witness nor Executioner According to this Sentence engraven in this murtherous heart did God afterwards enjoyn Noah and gave it in express Commandement under his hand to Moses Whosoever doth shed mans blood by man shall his blood be shed If this Law were Just amongst the Israelites why was it not executed upon Cain the first Malefactor in this kind Nay why doth God expresly exempt him from it and punish him with exile only Doubtless this was from His Gracious Universal Goodness which alwayes threats before it strike offereth favour before he proceed to Judgment and mingleth Judgment with Mercie before he proceed in rigor of Justice Now Cain had no former warning how displeasant murther was to God and therefore is not so severely punished as every murtherer after him must be For so it is said Gen. 4. 15. Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold Yet for any of Seths Posteritie to have killed murtherous Cain had been a sin in its nature farre less then for Cain to murther his righteous brother yet by Rule of divine Justice to be more greivously punished then Cains murther was because in him they had their Warnings 6. The same Proportion God observes in visiting the sins of Fathers upon their Children So in that Great Covenant of Life and Death made with the Israelites Levit. 26. 14 15 16. After promise of extraordinary blessings to the Observers of his Law the Lord thus threatneth the transgressors But if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these Commandements And if ye despise my Statutes or if your soul abhor my Judgments so that ye will not do all my Commandements but that ye break my Covenant I also will do this unto you I will even appoint over you terror consumption c. But if for all this they will not yet turn unto him he will plague them still with the pursuit of their enemies Nay it followeth verse 18 And if ye will not hearken unto me then will I punish you seven times more for your sins and if all this will not reclaim them these later plagues shall be seven times multiplied and this third plague three hundred forty three times greater then the first and the fourth Transgression shall likewise be multiplied by seven So that the same Apostasie or rebellion not amended after so many warnings if we may call the literal meaning to strict Arithmetical Account shall in the end be One thousand one hundred ninety seven times more severely punished then the first But it is likely that a Certain Number was put for an uncertain That the visitation of sins of Fathers upon their Children may be continued seventy Generations even from the first giving of the Law by Moses unto the worlds End is apparent from the verses following Levit. 26. 37. unto This Yet will the Lord still remember the Covenant made with Abraham c. For not putting this Rule or Law of confessing their fathers sins in practise the Children of that Generation which put our Lord and Saviour to death are punished this day with greater hardness of heart then the Scribes and Pharisees were For however They were the very Paterns of Hypocrisie yet had they so much sense or feeling of conscience that they did utterly dislike their Fore-fathers Actions and thought to super-erogate for their Fathers transgressions by erecting the Tombs or garnishing the Sepulchres of the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered or stoned to death But these modern scattered Jews will not to this day confess their fore-fathers sins nor acknowledge that they did ought amiss in putting to death the Prince of Prophets and Lord of Life And their Fathers sins until they confess them are become their sins and shall be visited upon them To confess the sins of their Fathers according to the intendment or purpose of Gods Law implies an hearty Repentance for them and repentance truly hearty implies not only an Abstinence from the same or like transgressions wherewith their Fathers had provoked Gods wrath but a zealous Desire or Endeavour to glorifie God by constant Practise of the Contrary vertues or works of Piety This Doctrinal Conclusion may easily be inferred from the afore-cited 18. of Ezekiel 7. Sin is more catching then the Pestilence and no marvel if the plagues due for it to the Father in the course or doom of Justice seize on the Son seeing the contagion of sin spreads from the unknown Malefactor to his neighbors from the Fields wherein it is by Passengers committed into the bordering Cities or Villages unless the Attonement be made by Sacrifice and such solemn deprecation of guilt as the Law in this Case appoints Deut. 21. 1 2 c. If one be found slain in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possesse it lying in the field and it be not known who hath slain him Then thy Elders and Judges shall come forth and shall measure to the Cities which are round about him that is slain And it shall be that the City which is next unto the slain man even the Elders of that City shall take a Heifer which hath not been wrought with and which hath not drawn the yoak And that City shall bring down the Heifer into a rough valley which is neither cared nor sown and shall strike off the Heifers neck there in the valley And the Priests the sons of Levi shall come neer for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him and to bless in the name of the Lord and by their word shall every controversie and stroke be tryed And all the Elders of that City that are next to the slain man shall wash their hands over the Heiser that is to be beheaded in the valley And they shall answer and say Our hands have not shed this blood neither have our eyes seen it Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whom thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy People of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. The nearer unto us Actual Transgressors be the more they should provoke our zealous endeavors for performance of contrary duties otherwise Gods Justice will in time over-sway his mercie and plagues first procured by some one or few mens sins will diffuse themselves from the
the words of the Text. ☞ What it is to punish Children for their fathers sins What it it is to visit the sins of fathers c. Two particulars hastening and justifying the visiting of the Fathers sins upon the children Note here 1. That God made this Covenant with them and their Posterity in successive Generations as with one man or one aggregate Body or Corporation 2. It was not only a Covenant of Life and Promises but of Threatnings and Death also God left Israel a Register of Good and Evil How neglect of Gods Forewarnings past hastens judgements See this Author's second Sermon upon Ier. 26. How Children are bound to repent of Fathers sins See this Authors second Sermon on Jerem. 26. A short Application This referres to the third Question propounded Fol. 3729. handled Fol. 3733. See Fol. 3341. and Book 8. in quarto pag. 142. Luke 23. 34. They know not what they do Doth God punish men for what they would have done in such and such Cases Quaye According to this opinion Matth. 12. 32. may have a very commodious Interpretation This relates to the fifth Question This relates to the third Question After the Citation of Levit 26. 14 c. and multiplication of the plagues by seven This followed relating to the fourth Question Le. 26. 38. ☞ See one example in the next Sermon ☜ See St. Chrysost upon the fifth of Isaiah Judahs Climacterical Seasons 1. at the death of Zechariah Second Climacterical of Judah at the carrying into Babylon This Referres to the sixth Question The Third Climacterical Period of Judah at Christs coming Though there be a Sermon upon Matth. 23 37. yet I thought it best to intersert This here before it Levit. 26. Deut. 7. 14. and 28. Amos 3. 2. Confession of fore-fathers sins a necessary Ingredient of Repentance ☞ Reasons why a people lesse actually sinful is more plagued Psal 78. ver 34. ☜ A view of the Kingdom of Judah through out David Solomon Rehoboam 1 Kin. 14. 25. Abijam Asa Vid. Ecclus. Cap. 49. 4. All except David Hezekias and Iosias committed wickedness for even the Kings of Iudah forsook the Law of the most High and failed Iehoshaphat Ahaziah Athaliah Ioash Amaziah Uzziah Iotham Ahaz Hezekiah Manasses 2 King 21. 16. Amon. Good Iosiah See this Auchor's Sermons on Jer. 26. Ezek. 14. 14. Ier. 15. Francis Sforza It is significantly added He should be put in his grave in peace because he is the last King of Judah whose Funeral Rites are not at their enemies disposing See the foregoing Sermon upon Jer. 45. fol. 3668. ☞ 2 Chr. 35 22 Iohanan or Iehoahaz Iehoiakim * Quaere See 1 Chr. 3. 15 where Johanan is called the first-born yet Josephus l. 10. c. 5. in english sayes that Eliakim who is also Jehoiakim was elder brother to Iehoahaz ☜ See the foregoing Sermon on Matth. 23. 34. See Signs of the Times pag. 24. Two Points propounded God earnestly desires the conversion of such as perish The former Point Isai 56. 4 About this distinction see Book 6. or Attributes chap. 15. and Book 9. chap. 5. An odd Glosse refuted Luke 11. 39 The 2 d Point How is it possible they should not be gathered if God so earnestly will c. as fol. 3 769. Quare whether he mean not Jer. 44. 22. Three Objections against this Doctrine Answer to the first Second Objection and Answer The third Objection Answer Another Objection with the Answer thereto See this Authors 6 Book or Attributes Chap. 16. and Chap. 20. See Book the 6. The whole Use of this Doctrin See Fol. 3341. See Book 8. cha 6 7. c. See Fol. 3412 c. a Discourse upon this Subject The Question What Word is here meant Verbum Domini or Verbum Dominus Paraeus his Reason why he denies it to be meant of God the Word Yet doth S. John 1 Ep. 1. 1. call Him The Word of Life and Rev 19. 13. The Word of God Two Points proposed Iustin Martyr expresses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Ratio Rationem reddere S. Chrysostom Theophylact
God It could not There had been indeed an Exaltation of the bodie so assumed but none of the Nature or Person assuming it How then is the Son of God said now to be Exalted by his bodily Ascension into Heaven or by his Sitting at the Right-hand of the Father in our Nature wherein he was formerly humbled Take the Resolution plainely thus God the Father had remained as glorious as now he is although he had never created the world For the creation gave much even all they had to things created it gave nothing unto God who was in Being infinite yet if God had created nothing the Attribute of Creator could have had no real Ground it had been no real Attribute In like manner Suppose the Son of God had never condescended to take our nature upon him he had remained as Glorious in his Nature and Person as now he is yet not glorified for or by this Title or Attribute of Incarnation Or suppose he had not humbled himself unto death by taking the Form of a Servant upon him he had remained as glorious in his Nature and Person and in the Attribute of Incarnation as now he is but without these glorious Attributes of being our Lord and Redeemer and of being the Fountain of Grace and Salvation unto us All these are Real Attributes and suppose a Real Ground or foundation and that was his humbling himself unto death even unto the death of the Cross Nor are these Attributes only Real but more Glorious both in respect of God the Father who was pleased to give his Only Son for us and in respect of God the Son who was pleased to pay our ransome by his humiliation then the Attribute of Creation is The Son of God then not the Son of David only hath been Exalted since his death to be our Lord by a new and Real Title by the Title of Redemption and Salvation This is the Sum of our Apostles Inference concerning our Saviours Exaltation Phil. 2. 11. That every tongue should confesse that Jesus Christ is The Lord unto the Glorie of God the Father To shut up this Point Though Christ Jesus be both our High-Priest and Lord not only as he is the Son of David but as he is the only begotten Son of God and so begotten from all Eternitie yet was he neither begotten a Priest nor Lord from all Eternitie but made a Priest and made a Lord in time The Word of the Oath saith the Apostle Heb. 7. 28. which was since the Law maketh the Son a Priest who was consecrated for evermore And in the very same Charter wherein this Word of the Oath or uncontrollable Fiat for making the Eternal Word an Everlasting Priest is contained this Peculiar Title of Lord is first inferred For so that 110 th Psalm begins Jehovah said to my Lord Sit thou at my right hand untill I make thine Enemies thy foot-stool Not that Adonai importeth lesse Honour or Majestie then Jehovah doth as the Jews and Arians ignorantly and impiously collect but with purpose to notifie that this Title of Lord or Adonai was to become as peculiar to Jehovah the Son of God as the Title of Cohen or Priest But this Title of Lord as peculiar to Christ will require and doth well deserve a peculiar discourse and the place allotted it is in the beginning of the second Section 5. Now for Use or Application These insuing Meditations and Considerations offer themselves What branch of sorrow of bodily affliction or anguish of soul or Spirit can we imagin incident to any degree condition or sort of men to any son of man at any time unto which the waters of Comfort may not plentifully be derived from this inexhaustible Fountain of Comfort comprised in This Article of Christs Sitting at the Right-hand of God the Father Almighty No man can be of so low dejected or forlorn estate for means or friends re or spe either by birth or by misfortune but may raise his heart with this Consideration that it is no servitude or beggerie but freedom or riches to be truly entitled A Servant to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings to whom Angels and Principalities as Saint Peter speaks even those Angels and Principalities to whom not Kings and Monarchs but even Kingdoms and Monarchies are Pupils are subject and his fellow servants Or in case any poor dejected soul should be surprized with distrust or jealousie lest his Lord in such infinite height of Exaltation and distance should not from heaven take notice of him thrown down to earth let him to his comfort consider That the Son of God and Lord of Glorie to the end he might assure us that he was not a Lord more Great in himself then Gracious and loving unto us was pleased for a long time to become a Servant before he would be made a Lord and a Servant subject to multitudes of publick despights disgraces and contempts from which ordinarie servants or men of forlorn hopes are freed If he willingly became such a Servant for thee to whom he owed nothing wilt not thou resolve to make a vertue of necessitie by patient bearing thy meannesse or misfortunes for his sake to whom even Kings owe themselves their Scepters and all their worldly glorie But though it be a contemplation full of comfort to have him for our Supreme Lord and Protector who sometimes was a Servant cruelly oppressed by the greatest Powers on earth without any power of man to defend or protect him yet the sweet streams of joy and comfort flow more plentifully to all sorts and conditions of men from the Attribute of his Royal Priesthood To be a Priest implies as much as to be a Mediator or Intercessor for averting Gods wrath or an Advocate for procuring his Favours and blessings * And what could Comfort her self wish more for her children suppose she had been our mother then to have Him for our perpetual Advocate and Intercessor at the Right-hand of God who is equal to God in Glorie in Power and Immortalitie and yet was sometimes more then equal unto us in all manner of anguish of grievances and afflictions that either our nature state or casual condition of life can be charged with * Albeit he knew no sin yet never was the heart of any the most grievovs sinner no not whilest it melted with penitent tears and sorrow for misdoings past so deeply touched with the fellow-feeling of his brothers miseries of such miseries as were the proper effects or fruits of sin as the heart of this our High-Priest was touched with every mans miserie and affliction that presented himself with prayers unto him his heart was as fit a Receptacle for others sorrows of all sorts as the eye is of colours Who was weak and he was not weak who was grieved and he burned not who was afflicted and he not tormented 6. There be Two more special and remarkable Maxims of our Apostles for our comfort The One Heb.
place of Sacramental eating and drinking was because they saw no possibilitie how to maintain the peremptorie decrees of the Councels of Constance and Basil concerning Communion under one kind if the words of our Saviour ver 53. of this Chapter be to be understood of Sacramental eating and drinking For it is granted by all that the Consecrated bread is Sacramentally his Bodie not his Blood and that the Cup is Sacramentally his Blood not his Bodie And yet our Saviours words are express Except ye eate the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you So that all which hope to have life must Sacramentally drink his blood aswel as eat his flesh if this place be meant of Sacramental eating That evasion which most oâ—â— modern Priests and Jesuites use for eluding rather then answering this Objection was too palpable in the Judgement of these two great Divines as it since hath seemed to others of that Church which yet maintain that the former words of our Saviour are to be understood of Sacramental eating Christs flesh and drinking Christs blood The evasion of modern Priests and Jesuits is that he which Sacramentally receives Christs Bodie under the shape or form of Sacramental bread doth with it receive his blood per Concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because there is blood conteined in his bodie which they thus receive But this cannot satisfie any Romish Divine which understands himself or the ancient Doctrine which that Church pretends to follow For this device of receiving Christs blood in the bread per concomitantiam was but a late invention little above 200. years before Jansenius or Hessels lived And the newnesse of this imagination or invention which was generally applauded in the Romish Church in his time was one special motive why that Reverend Pastor of Blessed memorie Mr. Gilpin did disclaim the Romish Churches Doctrine in the Point of Transubstantiation as Bishop Tunstall his Uncle before him had done Secondly Admitting the bread were turned into Christs very bodie and after this conversion had blood in it as truly as flesh and bones yet all this would not salve the literal sense of our Saviours words in the 53 d verse if the eating and drinking which he there speaks of were Sacramental For suppose a man should feed upon raw flesh or upon flesh which had visible or material blood in it we might say indeed that he did eat blood per concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because the flesh which he eats had blood in it But no man would say That he did drink blood per concomitantiam For eating and drinking are two distinct acts and incompatible at one and the same time He that eateth flesh with blood in it doth not eat the flesh and drink the blood whilest he only eats but eats both together the one as principal the other as an appurtenance if he eat as a man and not as Swine do draugh which is no more an eating then a drinking Or if a man should drink blood mingled with some small portions of flesh we might say He did drink flesh by way of Concomitancie but no man would say that he did eat blood per concomitantiam albeit there were flesh in the blood which he drinks for he drinks both together he doth not eat either And for these reasons Pope Innocent expressely denies that he which eats Christs bodie whilst he only eats it doth drink his blood In his fourth Book Myster Evangel Legis ac Sacramenti Eucharist Chap. 21. Edit Venet. in quarto 8. The only refuge which the most learned in the Romish Church since Jansenius and Hessels dyed have found out for answering the former Objection of Reformed Writers is That the words of our Saviour Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man And drink his blood ye have no life in you are to be Expounded disjunctively as thus Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man Or drink his blood ye have no life in you The use or Corollarie of this Exposition is That if Christian people do Sacramentally Either eat Christs flesh Or drink his Blood as they ought that is with due preparation this will suffice seeing as they pretend there is no Divine precept which enjoynes all Christian People Sacramentally to receive Christs bodie and blood under both kindes Nor all Priests but only such as do Officiate or Consecrate The precept of Institution Bibite ex hoc omnes Drink ye all of this was punctually directed as they alledg to our Saviours Apostles only who were at this time made Priests and authorized to minister Christs bodie and blood after his death Yet were they not by their leave at this time Sacerdotes conficientes Our Saviour Christ himself did Consecrate both the Bread and Wine the Apostles were as much inferior to him as the meanest Lay-people are to the greatest Priest in the Romish Church to the Pope or summus Pontifex himself But the further Discussion of this Point belongs more properly to the words of the Institution The other Point of expounding et by vel or of shuffling in Or for And belongs to the Cognizance of the 53 and 56. verses To justifie this exposition Cardinal Tollet would perswade us That St Johns Greek Text is full of Hebraismes and there is nothing more familiar with Moses or with other sacred Hebrew writers then to use And for Or Et for Vel. And he brings divers instances to this purpose As for example that in Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth father And mother shall surely be put to death So it is word for word in the Hebrew and yet our English Translation as well as the Vulgar Latin renders the Original thus He that curseth father Or mother shall surely be put to death And it would be an ungodly Evasion for any Magistrate not to censure him as a transgressour of this Law which curseth his father albeit he do not curse his mother or which curseth his mother albeit he do not curse but rather blesse his father But must the true interpretation of such as are to judge according to this Law be derived from the peculiar phrase or dialect of the Hebrews No this was Cardinal Tollet's Errour for the Rule of Interpretation so the matter or circumstance be the same would hold as true in any dialect or language whatsoever The Question then is What certain general Rule we have when or in what cases the conjunctive particle And doth produce this or the like disjunctive sense or may warrant this or the like Exposition of this Law He that curseth father And mother shall surely die that is he which curseth Either father Or mother shall surely die For the like Exposition the Rules are Two One General and infallible Rule is this Whensoever the particle And doth couple not two parts of one and the same proposition but two intire propositions together That which is thus conjunctively affirmed of
two propositions coupled together must be disjunctively expounded of either proposition divided one from the other Now when it is said He that curseth Father And Mother shall die there be two intire propositions coupled together by this particle And implicitly the explicit sense or Resolution of which speech is this He that curseth his Father shall surely die And he that curseth his Mother shall surely die And if both these propositions conjunctively taken be true this disjunctive will be as true He that curseth either father or mother shall die Secondly the Rule is universally true When two incompatible attributes are conjunctively avouched of one and the same subject in one and the same ê“position universally taken the particle And in this case must be resolved into the particle Or when the universall ê“position or subject of it is divided into its parts Quae dicuntur conjunctim de genere dicuntur divisim de specie As for example the Philosopher describing the native propertie of quantitie saith maximè proprium est quantitati ut ex ea dicantur res aequales inaequales But in as much as equalitie and inequalitie are incompatible if wee apply them to the the same particular things which are compared together for quantitie hence it is that every particular substance which is compared to or measured with another must either be equal or unequal unto it That one and the same particular substance should be both equal and unequal to another for quantitie is impossible So the Philosopher saith and it is a naturall truth which none can deny that the living or sensitive creature universally taken is rational and irrational but because one and the same living Creature cannot be both rational and irrational when wee descend to particular living creatures wee cannot say that any of them is both rationall and irrationall but either rationall or irrationall Yet in as much as every particular living creature is either endowed with reason or not endowed with reason the living creature universally taken that is as it comprehends every particular living creature must be both rationall and irrationall For Quicquid dicitur divisim de Specibus dicitur conjunctim de Genere 9. To give such a direct and punctuall answer to the Cardinals instance out of Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth father and mother shall dye as may satisfie all the rest which he brings or can be brought to like purpose we say as was intimated before there be two intire propositions 1. He that curseth his father shall dye 2. He that curseth his mother shall dye and the explication or unfolding of these two propositions is disjunctively set down by our Saviour himself Matth. 15. 4. He that curseth father or mother shall surely dye But there are not two propositions but one proposition in this Text He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him He doth not say here or elswhere He that eateth my flesh dwelleth in me and I in him and he that drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him Nor is this disjunctive any where in Scripture exprest That he which eateth Christs flesh or drinketh his blood dwelleth in Christ and he in him That instance which the Cardinall would wrest to justifie his interpretation of our Saviours words in the 53. and 56. verses doth make against him His instance is 1 Cor. 11. ver 27. Whosoever shall eat this bread or drinke the cup of the Lord unworthily is guiltie of the body and blood of the Lord. For in as much as S t Paul had said before vers 26. that as often as wee eat this bread and drink this cup wee shew the Lords death till he come it will necessarily follow that albeit wee eat the bread not unworthily and yet put such a Case drink the cup unworthily we become guiltie both of his Body and Blood because in both wee solemnize the memory of his death and he that should both eat the bread and drink the cup unworthily is twice guiltie of the body and blood of the Lord As he that curseth both farther and mother is worthy of double death because he that curseth either father or mother is guiltie of death Nor can it be alledged that the severall parts of this proposition He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me are incompatible or cannot be performed at one and the same sacramentall action by one and the same man or that they are to be universally or collectively understood of the whole Church as consisting of Priests and Laicks and not distributively of every man and therefore to seek a disjunctive sense of these words to this or like effect he that eateth my flesh or drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him is to seek a knot in â—â—ulrush or a division in Unitie Again The form of our Saviours speech ver 53. is exceptive Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you The form is the very same as if we should say Except a man honour his Father and Mother his seed shall not long prosper upon earth Now it would be impiously absurd to make this construction of that Commandment Except a man honour Either his Father Or his Mother his seed shall not long prosper upon the earth And no better then Thus is the Construction which Cardinal Tollet or his followers make of our Saviour's words in the 53. verse Our Saviour had told them before that He was the Bread of life which came down from heaven And pressing the Belief of this Point upon them further not by division but by addition he addeth ver 51. That The Bread which he meant was his Flesh And when the Jews ver 52. strove about this He further adds ver 53. Verily Verily Except ye eat and drink ye have no life in you 10. But besides the former plunge whereto the best Scholars in the Romish Church are put in justifying their practice for Deteining the Cup from the Laitie if This Chapter be meant of Sacramental eating there is another Difficultie which neither the late Device of Drinking Christs Blood per concomitantiam nor the Cardinals interpretation of ver 56. by Disjunction will any way touch much lesse satisfie And the Difficultie is this If these words be literally meant of Sacramental eating and drinking their literal sense must be as plain and as void of all Trope or Metaphor as the words of the Institution related by Saint Matthew Chap. 26. 26. are by them supposed to be Now when Christ saith in Saint Matthew That the bread is his Bodie this speech in the literal sense as they contend inferreth a substantial change of the Bread into the substance of his bodie Now our Saviours words are in this place as plain and as certain as in that He avoucheth again and again that he is the bread of life that the bread which he will
children were taught amiss to know the nature of God or of his Enemy by vulgar Pictures or Representations For so the fashion was long before and continued till his time to picture God or the blessed Trinity in some fair and beautiful form and to paint the divel in some foul loathsom or ugly shape And this good Writer to correct their error well admonished as well the parents as their children That if they would learn to know what God was they must first be taught to know what Goodness is what Justice is what Mercy is what Bounty or loving kindness is And if they desire to know what maner of creature the divel is who is the chief enemy of God they should first be taught to know what malice is what filthiness is what loathsomness is what villany or treachery is For Satan is but a Compost of these or an extract of all that children or their parents acknowledge for evil Howbeit if either children or parents could be taught to know what Iustice is what Mercy is what loving kindness is or if they could be taught to know that God is what all these are even Iustice it self even mercy it self loving kindness it self wisdom it self or Wisdom Justice Mercy and loving kindness it self truly infinite yet his wisdom his mercy and loving kindness would be to us incomprehensible unapprehensible even in that these Attributes in him are infinite We could have no true or lively apprehension either speculative to inform our understandings what were good and ought to be followed or moral to enable and qualifie our hearts and affections to imitate or express that patern of goodness or so much of it as we apprehend in God if we should look upon these Attributes as they are in God the Father only or in the Divine nature But as he that cannot look upon the Sun in its strength or brightness or at the noon day may take the model of it in the water or in the Moon at full So we that cannot behold the glory of Divine Majesty in the Godhead may safely behold the Map or Model of his incomprehensible Goodness in the Man Christ Iesus All His actions and endeavors were with such wisdom set and bent upon mercy on goodness on loving kindness that every one which saw and duly considered his maner and course of life here on Earth might collect that he truly was as himself avouched more then the Son of man the very Son of God himself who is good and gracious to all For Christ as Man went about doing good to all doing hurt to none Now as the Son of Syrach saith Ecclus. 22. 3. That an evil son is the dishonor of his father So it will follow by the Rule of Contraries That a wise or good son is the honor of his father So Solomon hath said in express terms Prov. 10. 1. A wise son maketh a glad father but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother Now Christ as we know is called The Wisdom of the onely wise immortal God his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased And well pleased with him he is for that he is the honor of his Father And as Christ by confessing God and by real expression of his Goodness in his life and actions did truly glorifie his Father as he himself expresly avoucheth John 17. So all that really confess Christ to be the Lord that is all which throughly express the Map or Model of his Goodness in their lives and conversations do truly glorifie God the Father 9. Briefly then Every tongue truly and rightly confesseth Christ to be the Lord that observes his Commandments or that observes the Commandments of God more strictly and more religiously then others do who although they profess they honor God yet do not honor him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ or do not honor Jesus Christ as his only Son This is that special Will of the Father which is in heaven and that which must be done by all which mean to enter into Heaven that every one which honoreth the Father should also honor the Son Joh. 5. 23. Honor the Son they must not in words or title only but by performance of real Service Every one that thus honoreth the Son doth hereby glorifie God the Father Hence saith our Savior Matth. 5. 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven And again Ioh. 15. 1. Our Savior compares himself to the Vine and his Father unto a Husbandman which expects the fruit of his vineyard So that the end why the Son of God did descend from heaven why he was planted and took root here on earth was that the sons of Adam or Abraham might be ingrafted in him and the End of our ingrafting in him was that we might bring forth fruit unto his Father But What comfort is it to have Christ Our Lord if by Allegeance to him we be more strictly bound to do the will of God then those which do not acknowledge Him their Lord I Answer 1. It is a credit by consent of Nations and repute of men naturally wise if not A Real Comfort to have him Our Lord who governs his people by the most excellent and equitable Laws Such were those which the Son of God gave the Jews What are these now refined in the Gospel All men naturally desire happiness As by those Laws God directed the Jews so by these he disciplines Us for our Good seeking occasion or Title in our obedience to exercise his bounty by rewarding us for doing good to our selves and others at his command He that sins against the laws of Christ doth it in Sui damnum sins against his own soul and by straying from them goes out of that way which only can lead him to the happiness he desireth 2. It is comfort that our Lord rules not with rigor but masters his Dominion with Equity Novit figmentum nostrum having Himself been compassed with the infirmities of mans nature all but such as did proceed from sin or lead unto sin he can by acquaintance and experience of them tell both how willing the spirit and how weak the flesh of miserable Mortals be and ready is he to give allowance accordingly But Thirdly Here is comfort indeed That as JESUS CHRIST the Righteous is our Lord so He is The Lord our Righteousness so is He our Sollicitor our Advocate our most compassionate High-Priest who ex officio negotiates on our behalf by mediation and intercession with the Father for pardon of all our transgressions negligences ignorances both of all sins committed and duties omitted or performed untowardly and amiss He made One Propitiation by his death and he lives for ever to make intercession for us Yea so gracious is This our Lord that he seems in a manner during this Acceptable Day or time of Grace to lay aside The Title
fulfilled until the last Judgement or in the life to come is acknowledged and well observed by a late learned Jesuit And this Interpretation being proffered by a man of that profession I entertain the rather because it affords us a facile and commodious interpretation of all or most of those places whether in the Old Testament or in the New which the Romish Church the Iesuits in special insist upon for the glorious Prerogatives of the visible Church and of the visible Roman Church above all Churches visible How many instances soever or places they bring whether general for the visible or militant Church or for the glory of the Roman Church in special this One Answer will give satisfaction to all They are meant of the visible or militant Church Inchoativè but of the Church triumphant Consummativè They are meant of the visible or militant Church indefinitely that is some particular members of the visible Church have undoubted pledges or earnests of those glorious promises in this life which notwithstanding shall not be either universally punctually or solidly accomplished save onely in the members of the Church triumphant Christs Church whether we consider it as militant or triumphant is an essential or integral part of his Kingdom and as his Kingdom so his Church hath its first plantation or beginning here on earth Both have a right or interest in the glorious promises made to the Church universal neither Church nor Kingdom here on earth can have entire possession of the blessings or prerogatives promised until it be given them by the Great King at the day of Final Judgment Of this rank is that prophecie Jer. 31. 34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more This Place no man denies was literally verified in the Effusion of the Holy Ghost upon our Saviours Ascension But shall not be punctually and solidly fulfilled until the day of Judgment be past Then the true members of Christs Church shall neither need Tradition nor the written Word they shall be all immediately taught of God and have his Laws most perfectly and indeliblely written in their hearts The gates of hell shall not then in any wise prevail against them not so far as to annoy their bodies or interrupt their peace and happiness Of this intire happiness and perfection the Church Militant had a pledge or earnest in the effusion of the Holy Ghost and all that be true Members of Christs Church have a superficial draught or picture of this entire happiness in their hearts But Christ at his Ascension was so far from annulling the use of preaching or teaching one another that as the Apostle tels us Eph. 4. 11 12 13. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers more extraordinary then any had been during the time of the Law for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of faith c. 10. Thus to interpret the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning the Church indefinitely taken can be no Paradox seeing the predictions of our Saviour himself concerning his Kingdom must of necessity be thus interpreted witness that Prediction to omit others Matth. 16. 27 28. The Son of man shall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works Verily I say unto you there be some standing here that shall not tast of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom The later part of this Prediction or the Experiment answering unto it was exemplified in Peter Iames and John within seven dayes after For these Three were Spectators of his Transfiguration in the Mount And his transfiguration was but a representation or exemplification of that glory wherein he shall appear in the day of Judgment when he shall give these Apostles and all that shall obey his precepts full possession of the Kingdom of God prepared for them But albeit these three Apostles had not onely their eyes but their ears true witnesses of his glory as of the glory of the onely begotten Son of God for so it is said Matth. 17. 2. His face did shine as the Sun and his raiment was white as the light and ver 5. A bright cloud over shadowed them and behold a voice out of the cloud which said This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased hear him Yet miserable men had they been for all this if their hopes or expectations had been terminated or accomplished with this transient glorious spectacle or voice Both the voice and the spectacle were but earnests or pledges of that everlasting joy or happiness which they were to expect in the perpetual fruition of the like sights or sounds in the life to come Of this sort or rank is that Prophecie of Esay 2. 4. And he shall judge among the Nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into Plow-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation neither shall they learn War any more There was at the birth of this great Judge a glimps exhibited of this Universal Peace which shall not be universally established before the last and final Judgement All the Nations of the Earth were quiet and free from any noise of War when he came first into the World For Janus his Temple was then shut And after he shall be revealed again unto the World from Heaven there shall be neither Death nor Famine nor the Sword Howbeit even the dearest of his Saints which have lived since his first Birth were to endure a perpetual War in their Pilgrimage here on earth and the end of their War is to make them capable of this everlasting peace 11. Another Prediction of his coming to Judgement there is which must be interpreted according to the former Rule that is Inchoativè or in part of his first coming to visit us in humility and to instruct the World but Completivè or fully of his second coming to Judge the World Mal. 3. 2 3. But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sope And he shall sit as a refiner or purifier of silver and he shall purifie the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness So certain and so general is the former Rule of interpretation that not this prediction of Malachi's onely and the like of other Prophets but the fulfilling of them related by the Evangelists cannot rightly be interpreted without the
Turk from them For what Jew or Turk is there that would not be ready to relieve a Christian with some off-fals from his Table whom he sees ready to pull the flesh off his own arms to satiate hunger yet this is more then the most loving Husband may do unto his dearest Wife then a Father may wish to his Son or any Friend that dies in the Lord may do unto another after death unless they both repair to one Home and be not divided by that Gulf which was set between Dives and Lazarus You know the Story how that Lazarus was not permitted to minister so much as a drop of water unto Dives to cool his tongue Nor shall the Father which dies in the Lord be permitted to do or wish so great a kindness unto the Son nor the Husband to the Wife which live and die in their sins What remedie then can be prescribed for preventing the just occasions of this grief but that Husband and Wife Father and Son Mother and Daughter and others linkt in any bend of love and friendship do mutually labour to wain each others Affections from earth and earthly things and each lend other their helping hand to fasten their affections on things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God CHAP. XV. The Objections of the Atheist and the Exceptions of the Naturalist Both put fully Home and as fully Answered The falsitie of the Supposals and Paradoxes rather then Principles of the Atheist discovered and made even Palpable by ocular demonstration and by Instances in bodies vegetant and sensitive A Scruple that might trouble some Pious mind after all this satisfied A short Application of the Doctrine contained in the whole Chapter 1. BUt here the Atheist will except That the former Reasons are Concludent only in Case the whole substance or bodily part of man be annihilated That indeed which is annihilated is as if it had never been and is as capable of Creation as it was at the first or at the time when it was Nothing For Creation makes that to be which is not and that is most properly said to be created which is made of nothing or without any matter or stuffe pre-existent But thus it is not in the Bodies of men that are dead these are not annihilated or resolved into nothing the matter of them still remaineth though not in the same Place or shape but some part of it in This Body some part in That Of a mans Body which died twenty years ago some part is changed or transformed into the nature of earth some part resolved into vapors or Exhalations Some part into grosser moisture whereof other live creatures are produced No part of it returns into meer Nothing Whatsoever bodily substance hath been by God created out of Nothing hath all its reliques one where or other still remaining And the very least Fragment of the meanest of them is a great deal more then Nothing And here the subtil Naturalist coming in demands What possibilitie can be conceived that the self same Bodies which were consumed a thousand years ago should be intirely restored again This supposed Restauration must either be by a New Creation or it must be only by a Recollection or gathering together of the reliques or matter which have been dispersed and scattered through divers places and transformed into so many several bodies 2. That the bodies which have been dissolved should at the last day be made the self same they were by a new Creation properly so called seems impossible For every bodie must have its proper and immediate Matter and no bodie can be created without the Creation of such a Matter The soul of man may be created in the Body without creation of the Matter whereto it is annexed because the soul is no material substance But the creation of a bodily or material substance essentially includes a Creation of the Matter and this Matter may be either created before The Compound into which it is afterward formed as the Body and Matter of the First Man was created out of the earth before it was wrought by the breath of God into a living or sensitive substance or this Matter may be concreated with the body or Compound whose matter it is Thus the Fishes in the Sea and the Plants in the Earth were each of them created by one intire Creation there was not one creation of their proper Matter and another of their proper Form The bulks or stems of trees were not made or created out of the earth before the vegetable or vital facultie was infused into them Both were made at once The several branches of the Difficulty in this Argument may be framed thus If the bodies of men which have been resolved into dust perhaps into as many several bodies as there be men now living must all be created again and every one created again the self same it was Then either the matter must be the self same which it was or else it must have some new matter equivalent or of the self same use or service in respect of the soul unto which the former matter had been and this new matter not altogether the same but the same by Equivalencie is or is to be united That the self same matter which was in a mans body when he died should become the same again by a new creation ex nihilo implies a Contradiction For that very material substance which was in Adam at his death is not to this day annihilated not the least scrap or fragment of it but is now existent in some body or other And that which at this very hour actually is or existeth in some other body cannot at this very hour begin to Be cannot at this very hour be made of nothing because it self already is something If the matter of Adams bodie which we suppose not to be utterly annihilated could be created again whiles it so continues it should be existent and not existent it should begin to be and not begin to be at the same point of time Both which imply a manifest Contradiction and all Contradictions though in matters meerly speculative are as contrary to the Unitie and truth of the Godhead as dissimulation fraud or cozenage are to the Holiness of God To make both parts of a Contradiction true fals not under the Object or exercise of His Almighty Power If then the Body of Adam cannot be created the same it was unless the self same matter whereof his bodie was first made be restored it is clear that the self same matter cannot be intirely restored by Creation unless those bodies wherein it is be first annihilated or turned into nothing For whilest they remain something or rather whilest the matter which was in Adam remaineth in them the same matter being something in them cannot properly be Created again or begin to Be out of Nothing 3. But that the Body of Adam should be
Cause And we may safely Infer First That unless the Son of God had been incarnate Gods Goodness to us had not been so admirably manifested Secondly Unless the Son of God had become man man could not have been delivered from the fetters and chains of sin much less restored to his first dignitie And yet more in that the Son of God became man this is an Argument evident to us from the Effect that man by sin had become the Son of Satan Sin then was the cause of Christs Incarnation and Christs Incarnation is the cause or means of our deliverance or Redemption from sin Again Unless man by Sin had become the servant of sin and bond-man of Satan the Son of God had not taken upon him the Form of a Servant But in as much as the Son of God was found in the true Form of a Servant this is an Argument from the Effect evident to convince our consciences that we Sons of men were by nature the servants or bond-men of Satan Lastly Unless the wages of sin and of our service done to Satan by working the works of sin had been death the true and natural Son of God had not been put to death Our sins then and the wages due to our sins that was death were the Causes of his death And in that he truly dyed for us This is an Argument evident from the Effect Therefore we were dead in our sins Be it so Yet seeing the Son of God died for our sins before he was raised from the dead how saith our Apostle in the 17. verse If Christ be not raised ye are yet in your sins Could these Corinthians or any others be still in their sins after their sins were taken away Or will any man deny that their sins were taken away by Christ's death at the very instant of his souls departure from the bodie or when he said Consummatum est it is finished What was finished The work which he undertook and that was the Taking away of our sins or the work of our Redemption Now if this work were finished when our Saviour Christ said It is finished these Corinthians sins were taken away before Christs Resurrection And if sin by Christs death had been actually and utterly taken away our Apostles Inference in this place had been unsound none had remained in their sins albeit Christ had not risen again Sin then even the sins of the world were taken away by Christs death but not actually and utterly taken away If sin had been so taken away by Christs death there had been no such necessity of Christs Resurrection from the dead as our Apostle here presseth upon the Corinthians not as matter of Opinion but as a Fundamental Principle of Faith It remains then to be declared In what sense or how far sin was taken away by Christs death In what sense it hath been or how far it shall be taken away by his Resurrection 7. First then Christs death was a Ransome all-sufficient for the sins of the world the full price of redemption for all mankind throughout the world from the beginning to the end of it But did not many who died before Christ die in their sins They did yet He was promised to our first Parents To the end that even these might not die in their sins How these come to forfeit their Interest in the Promise made to Adam and to all that came after him That we leave to the Wisdom of God Of this we are sure That the Wisdom and Son of God did die for all men then living and for all that were to live after unto the worlds end And in as much as he dyed for all he is said to take away the sins of all that is he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all and purchased A General Pardon at his Fathers hands and he himself by dying became an universal inexhaustible soveraign Medicine for all sins that were then extant in the world or should be extant in man untill the worlds end So then by his death he took away the sins of the world in a Twofold Sense First In that he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all men Whatsoever sins were past could be no prejudice to any so they would imbrace Gods Pardon sealed by Christs death and proclaimed by his Apostles and Disciples after his death In this sense we may say The Kings General Pardon takes away all offences and misdemeanors against his Crown and Dignitie albeit many afterwards suffer for such Misdemeanors only because they do not sue out their Pardons or crave allowance of them Christ is said again to take away the sins of the world by his death in as much as by his death he became the universal and soveraign medicine for all mens sins But many dyed in Israel not because there was no Balm in Gilead as many do amongst us not so much for want of good Physick or soveraign Medicines as for want of will to seek for them in due time or for wilfulness in not using Medicines profered unto them So then it will not follow That no man dies in his sin since Christs Death Albeit we grant that the sins of all were taken away by his death For They were not so taken away as that men might not resume or take them again And the greatest condemnation which shall befal the world will be That when God had taken away their sins they would not part with their sins That when God would have healed them they would not be healed But had these Corinthians been any further from having their sins taken away by Christs death if Christ had truly died for them and yet but only died for them and not risen again Yes Though Christ had dyed for All yet all had died in their sins if He had only died and had not been raised again This Inference is expresly avouched by our Apostle in the 17 and 18 verses If Christ be not raised then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished and yet he supposeth that they believed in Christs Death But though the Inference be most true because avouched by our Apostle yet is it not Universally but Indefinitely true How far and in respect of what sins or in what degree of perishing it is true That is the Question 8. Christ was delivered saith the Apostle his meaning is He was delivered unto death for our sins and he was raised again for our Justification Rom. 4. 25. Are we then Otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then we are by His Death So our Apostles words import And if otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then by His Death Then are our sins Otherwise taken away by vertue of His Resurrection then by vertue of His Death they were taken away What shall we say then That Christs Death did not Merit all the benefits which God had to bestow upon us God forbid all this notwithstanding We do not receive
of them are but Unprofitable servants 2. It was free then for God to create or not to create man but as it was his pleasure to create him so it was necessary that man being created by him he should be created good and righteous Suppose then the First man had continued in his First Estate that is righteous and good his righteousness could have merited nothing of God much lesse Eternal Life It was as free to God to have annihilated him or to have resolved him into nothing as it was to make him of nothing Indeed to have punished him with everlasting death unlesse he had wilfully and through his own default lost his Orginal righteousness could not have stood with the righteousness or goodness of God There was a morall necessity that his Creator should not punish him with everlasting death unlesse he had transgressed his Law and made himself unworthy of everlasting life But the First Man did wilfully and freely that is without any necessity transgresse the Law of his God and make himself and his posteritie unworthy of eternal life That God upon this transgression did not instantly punish him with everlasting death this was An Act of the Free Grace and mercy of God thus he might have done without any impeachment to his Justice without any disparagement to his Goodnesse That unto man thus ill deserving he made A Promise of Redemption and of Restitution to a better Estate then he lost this was An Act of his Mercie and gracious goodness a more Free Act then his first Creation For that was not deserved and therefore Free But not so Free as the Promise of his Redemption after he had justly deserved the contrary to wit condemnation unto everlasting death But this Promise of Redemption through the Womans Seed being freely made is not the performance of it on Gods part necessary Is he not bound by promise to bestow his Grace on all them to whom he promised Redemption Though he be Debter unto no man yet he is Faithful in himself and cannot deny himself or not perform what he hath promised It is true if the parties to whom he promiseth do so demean themselves as they should or as by the Second Covenant they stand bound But who is he can make this Plea with God Who is he that can truly say there was any necessity at that time when the promise was made to our first Parents in the Womans Seed that he should be begotten or born or that he was such a child of promise from the time of Adams Fall as Isaac was And if there were no necessity then that he should be born what necessity is there that he should be partaker of Grace after he is born Or what necessity is there that after the Grace of Baptism received he should come to be of the number of the Elect No man can plead any worth or merit in himself for the receiving of Grace or any necessity whereby God is tyed by promise or otherwise to bestow Grace or perseverance in Grace upon him in particular These and the like Favours must still be sought for by the Prayer of Faith that is by unfeigned acknowledgement of our own unworthinesse and of Gods Free Mercie not only in making the First Decree concerning mans Redemption but in continual dispensing the Effects of the same Decree or the means of our Salvation This is the only way To lay hold upon the General Promise 3. It was no Contradiction in Cardinal Bellarmine as some conceive it after he had strongly disputed for Merit of Works thus to conclude Tutissimum est It is the safest way to place our Confidence in the Merits of Christ This Resolution of his will truly inferre that albeit the Question concerning Merits were doubtful yet we Protestants take the more useful and safer way and the way which Cardinal Bellarmine himself in his Devotions and as I hope on his death bed did take Yet admit his Doctrine concerning Merits had been true indefinitely taken There had been no Contradiction between his Premisses and Conclusion For many things which are unquestionable in Thesi or in the General are doubtful or vncertain in Hypothesi when we come to make particular Application This Doctrine is most true in Thesi That God is faithful in all his promises that he cannot deny himself or falsifie his promise Yet is it not safe for Thee or Me thus to infer that God cannot deny eternal life to us in particular because he hath promised it as sincerely to Thee or Me as to any others The absolute and unchangeable Fidelity of God will not inferre how strongly soever we believe it That either Thou or I are faithful for the present or shall continue faithfull unto the End or until our finall victory over the divel the world and the flesh which is the True Importance of this Phrase To the End in many places of Scripture Now Gods promise of eternal Life is not immediately terminated To any mans Person or Individual Entity but unto such as continue faithful unto the End or unto such as overcome as you may observe in many places of Scripture especially in the second and third Chapters of The Revelation of St. John Now it is a great deal more easie for a man to assure himself that he is faithful for the present or victorious in respect of instant temptations then to assure himself that he shall continue victorious in respect of temptations that may befal him And yet in respect of the deceitfulness of our own hearts it is not safe for most men to make it as an Article of their Faith or point of Absolute Belief that they are so faithful for the present as that God cannot deny Eternal Life unto them though not in respect of their Merits yet in respect of his Promise if they should instantly depart this life So that such as have as full and perfect Interest in the Promises of God as others have may forfeit their Interest as well by Immature Perswasions or Presumptions that they are of the number of the Elect as by conceit of Merit or Confidence in works Both perswasions are dangerous because both prejudice the Free Mercie and Grace of God in bestowing eternal Life or in dispensing the means required unto it The Romish Church saith it was Free for God to give us Grace or ability to do the works of Grace or not to give it but this Grace being Freely given and the works performed it is not Free but Necessary in respect of Gods Justice to give eternal Life as the Reward of Works Others opposite enough to the Papists say that it was Free for God to Elect or not to Elect us unto eternal Life but being Elected it is not Free for God to deny eternal Life unto us For this in their language were to deny himself or falsifie his promise Yet by their leave If we were thus Elected from Eternity it was never Free
outwardly and for fashion sake unless it be to persons of their own Rank whose evils and calamities they can apprehend as their own Secondly which is the worst of evils that can be imagined whilst they perform some Branches of the Affirmative Precept that is whilst they seek to pleasure others in their eagre desires of preferment or such things wherein they would be pleasured again they bring a necessity upon themselves of transgressing the Negative part of this Precept that is Of doing that to others which they would not have done unto themselves if they were in their Case I am perswaded That the miseries which fall upon the inferior sorts of men by the mutual desires of great men to do one to another as they would be done unto that is by pleasuring one another in their suites of honour preferment or inlarging their estates are more then all that God doth otherwise lay upon them in this life Many thousands whom God never cursed are by these meanes forced to seek their bread in stony places And is it possible that any man can perswade himself that if he were in such poor mens Cases he should be well pleased with their dealings who seek to enlarge their superfluities by the certain diminishing of other mens necessaries for life And yet who is he almost that thinks he doth not observe this Precept well enough if he be willing to do another man as good a Turn as he expects from him although he know not to whose harm it may redound If no determinate person for the present feel the smart they think Conscience hath no cause to cry As if God Almighty did not see as well what evil will hereafter insue as what is present and did not punish immoderate desires which necessarily bring on with them publick Calamities as well as outragious but private Facts 7. With this Fallacie A Dicto secundum quid ad Simpliciter we usually deceive our selves in the performance of this Dutie We think it sufficient to do as we have been done unto or if we do to some one or few as we expect from them or as we could desire to be done unto if their Case were ours Whereas we should examin it not from our affection to This or That man but by our Indifferencie of receiving and Returning good towards All. Oft-times to do one man good may be conjoyned with some others harm whom we have more reason to respect And here we may quickly mistake in the proposal of their Exigence as our own If you fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture which saith Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self ye do well saith St. James Chap. 2. 4. But if ye regard persons ye commit sin and are rebuked of the Law as Transgressors The Apostles Discourse in that place inferres as much as I have said And his meaning is that which our Saviour had taught in the Parable of the Samaritan That every man as man is our neighbor and therefore this Dutie of loving others as our selves and doing as we would be done unto was to be performed to all alike without respect of persons For that which we are to respect is the Exigence of their estate So much is Formally and Essentially included in the Dutie it self Not that we may not be more ready to do good to one man then to another for this we may do without respect of Persons Do good to all but especially to such as are of the Houshold of Faith The Object of this Dutie is man as man in his lawful desires Our love then or readiness of doing good must be increased according to the just exigencies of their desires where These are equal our desire of doing good may be augmented according to particular respects of nearness c. as To a Christian before a Turk to an English man before another For if we must love others as our selves we must be most ready to respect that in others which we in a Regular Way desire should be most respected in our selves Now next to eternal happiness life and the necessities thereof we most respect And if we stand in danger of losing the one or suffer want of the other we desire that those main Chances as we say may be secured before we begin to hunt after pleasures or superfluities If then we must Do to all men as we would be done unto without respect of persons that is excluding none we must first releive the necessities of such as want and tender the life of such as are in sickness or danger and then if occasion require we may require or deserve kindnesses in matters of innocuous pleasure as in feasting sporting furthering mens advancements or the like Otherwise to respect the pleasuring of a Dear Friend in these before the Releif of an Enemies necessities is preposterous and a breach of the Law Because it is to have respect of persons 8. The Rule is General in all Christian duties Our affections must be directed to the Adaequate Object as we term it and set not more upon one part then another but upon every essential part alike Or if any increase of affection or liking be to be made it should alwayes proceed from the increase of some Exigence essentialy included in the right Motive or Ground of our affection or from some Actual Intention of that Qualitie or Propertie in some part of the Object which is the Modus Considerandi or which is the allurement or Term of our desires or affections Otherwise setting our affections more upon one part than upon another for some Extrinsecal or Accidental Reasons not included as we say in modo Considerandi in the Formal Reason or property of the Object the observing of our duty in that part doth usually inforce a Defalcation or breach of it in some other just as uneven and irregular zeal to one or some few Commandments doth alwayes produce a dispensing with or neglect of the rest Ense Thyestaeo poenas exegit Orestes Orestes in seeking to Revenge his Fathers unnatural violent Death did no otherwise then he himself would have given the Son of his Body in charge if he had lyen upon his Death-bed But yet he ought this honour to his cruel and adulterous Mother to have let her die at least by some others Hands not to have imbrued his own in her blood not to have taken life from that body from which he received life The Poets Censure of his Fact is accute Mixtum cum pietate nefas dubitandaque Caedis Gloria maternae laudem cum crimine pensat A righteous man saith Solomon is merciful to his beast but the mercies of the wicked are cruel Pity upon dumb beasts is commanded in the Law especially to such as do man service And he that is merciful unto them upon a true respect in as much as they are partakers with us of Life and sense and communicate with us in our more general nature will be
which knows no Law could make the use of the Law unlawful to him because most unexpedient for the present So the Lord had said Jerem. 16. 9. Behold I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes even in your dayes the voice of mirth and the voyce of gladness the voyce of the Bridegroom and the voyce of the Bride And seeing the Lord at this time had determined not to pipe unto this people Ieremy had greatly offended if he had been taken in their marriage Dances He knew Children were an heritage which cometh from the Lord that the fruit of the womb was his reward and that in the multitude of sons was store of blessings Marriage he knew to be honorable amongst all but at this time unseasonable for him Good seed is well sown when it is likely the Crop may stand and prosper He planteth well that plants in hope to reap the fruits of his own Labours But who sowes wheat unto the winter floods or plants a vineyard for his fuel why then should Jeremy at this time become an Husband to beget Sons unto the sword Or take a Wife to bring forth Daughters to destruction To this purpose the Lord had inhibited Jeremy in particular But the Reason of the inhibition in like times is perpetually General Yhou shalt not take thee a VVife nor have Sons nor Daughters in this place For thus saith the Lord concerning the Sons and concerning the Daughters that are born in this place and concerning their Mothers that bear them and concerning their fathers that beget them in this Land They shall die of grievous deathes and diseases they shall not be lamented neither shall they be buried but they shall be as dung upon the earth and they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and for the beasts of the earth Ier. 16. 1. The Prophets and sweet singers of Ierusalem and Iudah had sometimes brought them such joyful Ambassages of their espousals unto their God Their Princes and people had formerly known such happy dayes of joy securitie and peace that for Ieremy and Baruch to have then affected this rigid course of life which now they follow would have been but as the taking up of a sad or doleful Madrigall at a marriage feast or as the acting of some ominous direful Tragedy upon a Coronation day But seeing the glory is now departing from Israel the Bridegroom leaving their coasts their mother whom the Lord had once betrothed unto himself in surest bonds of dearest love stands liable to the sentence of final divorce The Children of the Bride-chamber specially Ieremiah and Baruch must betake themselves to fasting prayer and mourning Now to have used their wonted solace mirth or feasting would have been all one as if the one had piped the other had danced a wanton Jigge or Corranto in the Solemnities of their mothers Funerals or as if they had marcht together in a morisce-dance over their fathers Grave 6. Had that late Fugitive or other his Fellow Postillers learned thus to distinguish times and seasons The supposed difference between Precepts necessary to all and Evangelical Counsels peculiar to such as aim at Extraordinary perfection would clearly appear to be but a Dream or imagination which hath no root but ignorance Their error perhaps may thus be rectified if to discover the Original thereof be enough to rectifie it Many Divine Precepts there be from whose absolute and soveraign Necessitie no powers on earth can plead exemption and yet the practises enjoyned by them are neither necessary to all nor expedient for any at sometimes or in some places Because the Precepts themselves may be Disjunctive or opposite branches of some more General Mandate It will not follow This or That man in former Ages hath done many Good works pleasant and acceptable unto God such as not the godliest man living is bound at this time to do Ergo he did supererogate in doing them that is in plain English he did more then he was bound to do For though rebus sic stantibus no man be bound yet every man say we stands bound by the Eternal and unchangeable Law of God to do the like as often as the same external occasions shall be offered or the like internal suggestions be made unto him by The signes of the Times or disposition of Gods providence But here By the Eternal Law of God we are not bound to understand only the Ten Commandments The Decalogue if without offence Gods Words may be so compared contains only the Praedicamental Rules or Precepts of the eternal Law Other divine precepts there be more Transcendental which have the same Use in matters of Christian practise or true Observation of the ten Commandments as General maxims have in particular Sciences Such a Precept in respect of the second Table is that Love thy neighbor as thy self By this precept every man stands necessarily bound to perform more then ordinary Charitie toward his neighbour as often as his neighbours occasions to use his charitable help are more then ordinary The same Use in respect of both the Tables hath that other Precept Whatsoever ye would have done to you so do ye to others Most General likewise and most indispensable are these Two mandates Let every man walk as he is called Time must be redeemed when dayes are evil And seeing the inhabitants of every Country stand bound Jointly and severally to glorifie God by due observation of his Commandments The more licentiously others violate any one or more negative precepts his Children alwayes know themselves tyed in conscience to so much more strickt observance of the contrary Affirmatives which are alwayes understood in the Negative The measure of their sobrietie and devotion must be taken from others excess in Luxury and prophaneness Briefly the prohibitions or injunctions expresly contained in the Decalogue or others parts of the moral Law describe the General bounds or limits without which we may not within which we must continually walk Our observation of Gods Providence and signes of the times will best direct us to such particulars within those Limits as are most expedient for the present The several exigence of every season and the necessitie and conditions of the parties with whom we live will notifie the definite measure or exact quantitie of such good offices or performances as the eternal Law requireth of us To be well instructed what is most fitting for the season every man must ask counsel of his own heart but after his heart examined by the Rules of the eternal Law hath informed him what is fit and expedient it is no matter of Counsel but of necessary Precept to do it and that in such measure as the Exigence of time of place and persons require Albeit others which have not had the like occasions to consult their own hearts be not bound to do the like And some it may be
came to Elijah the Tishbite saying seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me for he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly because he humbleth himself before me I not will bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Such was that Message which Hulda the prophetesse delivered unto Josiahs messengers But to the King of Judah which sent you to enquire of The Lord thus shall ye say to him Thus saith the Lord God of Israel as touching the words which thou hast heard because thine heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this place and against the inhabitants thereof that they should become a desolation and a curse and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me I also have heard thee saith the Lord Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace and thine eye shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place Yet did the arrowes of Israels and Judahs most inveterate enemies the arrowes of the Aramites and Aegyptians make violent entrance for death into both these Princes bodies long before the time by ordinary course of nature prefixed for dispossession of their souls How then should life be unto Baruch as a welcome Prey being to be fully charged with all these hard conditions and bitter grieviances whose release or avoidance made untimely bloody death become A kind of gracious Pardon unto Ahab and a grateful Boon or Booty to good Josias For what evil did the Lord either threaten or afterward bring upon Iosiahs posteritie or people which Baruchs eyes did not behold Nor did this lease of life and libertie here bequeathed unto him expire till long after Jerusalems glasse was quite run out till after her whitest Towers were covered with dust and all the cities of Judah and Benjamin laid wast till the King the Princes and nobles were led captives or slain and the remnant which War had left in Iudah as a gleaning after harvest disperst and sowen throughout the Land of Egypt never to be reapt but by the Sword which even there pursues them excepting a very small number that escaped Ierem. 44. 28. And what greater evil could Iosias's eyes have seen though he had lived as long as Baruch The Difficulty therefore seems unanswerable How life should be a more grateful prey unto Baruch then it might have been unto Josias 6. But here if we rightly distinguish the Times the Persons and Offices We may easily derive the violent shortning of good Josias his dayes and this lengthening of Baruch's to see the evil which Josias desired rather to be sightless then to see from one and the same loving kindness of the Lord. Josias we must consider was The Great Leader of Gods People and could not but wish their Fall should be under some other then himself It was a Donative more magnificent then the long reign of Augustus that being slain in warre he should go to his grave in peace For this included his peoples present safety whose extirpation had been till this time deferred for his sake though now at length he must be taken out of the way that the Messengers of Gods wrath which could forbear no longer may have a freer passage throughout the Land No marvel if after thirtie one years raign in prosperitie and peace he patiently suffered violent death being thus graced with greater honour then either Codrus the last King of Athens or the Roman Decius purchased by voluntary sacrificing themselves for their people Perhaps the plagues which these men feared might otherwise have been avoided Or it may be the fear it self was but some vain delusion of Satan alwayes delighted with such sacrifices But that Ierusalem and Iudah standing condemned before Iosias's birth were so long reprieved so well intreated for his sake we have the great Judges Sentence for our warrant And therefore the Word of The Lord which Huldah the Prophetess had sent must needs seem good to him It was a message more unwelcome then such a death as Iosias suffered which Isaias brought to his great Grand-father Hezekiah lately delivered from the Assyrian and miraculously restored to life but more forward to receive Presents from Berodash King of Babylon then to render praise and thanksgiving to his God according to the Reward bestowed upon him Behold the dayes come saith Isaias that all that is in thine house and that which thy Fathers have laid up in store unto this day shall be carried unto Babylon nothing shall be left saith the Lord. And of thy sons which shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget shall they take away and they shall be Eunuchs in the Palace of the King of Babylon Doth he repine or mutter at this ungrateful Message No But with great submission replies Good is the Word of the Lord which Thou hast spoken And he said Is it not good if peace and truth be in my dayes Isaiah 39. 8. Shall we hence collect that this Good King was of that wicked Tyrants mind who as he had shortened her dayes from whom he had beginning of life so did he envie his Mother Nature should survive him wishing the world might be dissolved at his death and that Old Chaos might be his Tomb God forbid we should wrong the memory of so Gracious a Prince by the least suspicion of such ungracious thoughts Rather his heart did smite him for shewing his Treasury his Armory and other provision wherein he had gloried too much unto the King of Babels Messengers This sin he knew to be such as his Father Davids had been in numbring the Hosts of Israel The plagues now threatened by his God he could not but acknowledge to be most just and great therefore must his mercy toward him needs seem to be in that for his sake who had so ill requited this strange Delivery and Recovery he would yet deferre them But seeing the wickedness of Manasseh and the mighty encrease of this peoples iniquity from Hezekiah's death did earnestly sollicit the Day of Visitation the former adjourning of it must cost Iosiah dear And Gods Arrows being flesht in him No marvel if they return not empty from the blood of the slain or from the fat of the mighty Having begun with so good A King it might well be expected they would make an end of so naughty a people This was he of whom not the people only but the Prophet hath said Under his shadow we shall be safe As he was a shadow without question of that Great Shepheard which was to be smitten ere the flock were scattered upon the occasion of whose death his Disciples likewise said We trusted it had been he which should have redeemed Israel And for Josias to become the true shadow or the bloody
entertained with battel invade the borders of any Nation In such a Case t is held a point of politick husbandry to waste the Country round about them least it might maintain their Armies But heretofore I have had and elsewhere shall have occasion to decypher all the symptoms of a dying State either set down by the Word of God or observed by the expert Anatomists of former dead bodies politick 14. My message unto you my Brethren the Sons of Levi is briefly this Add not Gods anger to our Countries Curse which at this day whether just or no is bitter and rife against us as if we were all or most of us like the companions of Jesus the son of Josedech persons Prodigious but in a worse sense then they were Persons that had procured her much and did yet portend her greater sorrow partly by our Dastardly silence in good causes but especially by our prophesying for Rewards and humoring the great Dispensers of those dignities on which our unsatiable desires are now unseasonably set It was a saying amongst the Ancient Romans Qui Beneficium accipit libertatem vendit It is thus far improved in true modern English He that will purchase preferments Ecclesiastick especially must adventure to lay his soul to pawn What remedie Only this to make a virtue of necessitie For so must every one do that means to live as a Christian ought Let us not look so much upon the sinister intentions of corrupt minds as upon the purpose of our God even in mens most wicked projects And who knowes whether The Lord by acquainting us with mens bad dealings in dispensing Ecclesiastical honour do not lay the same restraint upon us his children which he did upon Baruch Without all question he absolutely forbids us to seek afer great matters in this age in that he hath cut off all hopes of attaining them by means lawfull and honest And all this he doth for our good that using Baruchs freedom or Jeremies Resolution in our ambassage we may be partakers of their Priviledge in the Great day of visitation wherein such as in the mean time crush and keep us under by their greatness will be ready to give their wealth for our poverty and change their honor for our disgrace upon condition they might but enjoy life with such libertie and contentments as we do Or in Case they shorten our dayes by vexation or oppression yet faithfully discharging our duties whether we live or die we are the Lords And though they out live us an hundred years yet shall they be willing to give a thousand yea ten thousand lives if so many they had so they might be but like us for one hour in the day of death We need not search forain Chronicles nor look far back into ancient Annales The registers of our own memories and our fathers relations may afford examples of some sons of Levi men if we rightly value their admirable worth of place and fortunes mean in respect of our selves which after their death hastned perhaps by hard usage have fild both this and forrain Lands with their good name as with a perfume sweet and precious in the nostrils of God and man whilst those great lights of state so they seemed whilst parasitical breath did blaze their fame which had condemned them to privacie and obscuritie were suddenly put out but with an everlasting Stinch God grant their successors better successe that a precious well deserved fame may long survive them For our selves Beloved as we all consort in earnest desires and hearty prayers that the Lord would renew his Covenant made with Levi his Covenant of life and peace so let us joyn hearts in this meditation The only way to derive this blessing from this our father unto us his sons must be by arraying our selves with Phineas our eldest brothers integritie by putting on his zeal and courage to walk with the Lord our God in peace and equitie and to turn many away from iniquitie And now remember them O my God that defile their Priesthood and break the Covenant of the Priesthood and of Levi Smite them through their loyns that make a prey of his possessions and grinde their heads as thou didst Abimelechs with broken milstones from the wals or with the reliques from the ruinated houses yea grinde all their heads O Lord to powder that grinde the faces of his poor and needy children But peace be upon all such as walk according to this Rule here set to Baruch and upon all those that Love God To this God The Father The Son and the holy Ghost be ascribed all honour and glory now and ever Amen Imprimatur Ric. Baylie Vicecan Oxon. The Publisher To the Readers of these two last Sermons WHo may see That this great Author was not affraid Most aculâ—atly to reprove the sins of his own Time nor is The Advertiser ashamed to set his seal to the justnesse of them by a full and true Publishing his Reproofes Let the Lord be glorified though with our shame and justified when he speaketh Judgement And to Gods glory be it spoken This word hath prospered in the thing where unto God sent it in some of the Gentrie and Clergie Yet can it not be denied but there is still too great store of matter of Reproof in the same kinde Many whose estates are sore diminished have minds still set upon Great Things what ever they have lost they find pleasure Had The Author lived to this day I am perswaded he would have gone on with The Holy Bishops complaints Perdidere tot calamitatum utilitates Pacem et divitias priorum Temporum non habent Omnia aut ablata aut imminuta sunt sola tantum vitia creverunt nihil de Prosperitate pristina reliquum nisi peccata quae prosperitatem non esse fecerunt c. These are wracks indeed To Misse the Good which may be got by suffering evil is the worst of evils To lose that gain which should be gotten by losses is of losses the greatest But to grow worse with suffering evil is perdition it self Now if any one of Prosperous condition when he reads this shall triumph and bless himself in his heart saying We have not sinned in devouring these men I beg his Pardon and beseech him to read on if he saw our faults in the last he may perhaps see his own in the next And humbly desire leave to say 1. A man may punish sin and yet inter puniendum Commit a sin greater then that be punisheth 2. In these times and among the persons promising Reformation there hath been Greater seeking after great things and that with greater Inordination too then was in former Times Our Author complained that the Baruchs of his Time sought great things by the Art of Philip of Macedon Would God my Clergy Brethren so I do esteem such and none but such as were begotten to our mother by the R. R. Fathers of the Church had not used
die then to pollute the Sabbath by making up the breaches made in their wals or fortifications as ye may gather 1 Maccab. 2. And Plutarch in his Book De Superstitione taxes them for their Follie. As Iuvenal Satyr 14. scornes them for observing the Rest of the Day Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem Judaica ediscunt quae jura volumine Moses Tradidit arcano Cui Septima quaeque fuit Lux Ignava partem vitae non attigit ullam Their Fathers sinned grievously in taking that liberty upon the Sabbath which the Law of God had denied them These later Jews sin in refusing to use that liberty which God had in some Cases allowed them or at least in applauding themselves for their strict Reformation and condemning others which in matter of doctrine or practise opposed them And this their Fervent zeal to maintain their own Rigid Reformation did in the issue draw them to worse practises then their Fathers had committed in their grossest prophanation of the Sabbath Their Fathers were not at any time more violently bent against Esay Jeremy or others of Gods Prophets who taxt their scandalous breach of the Sabbath then these later Jews were bent against our Saviour for not complying with them in their Rigid Reformation of former abuses Their Fathers were not more apt to persecute the Prophets as peevish disturbers of their peace by reproving their prophaneness then these later Jews were to persecute our Saviour for a prophane Fellow or Sabbath-breaker for doing works of mercie and charitie upon the Sabbath albeit he wrought all his Cures without any manual labour or servile work 9. The Antient Iews were so delighted in gross Idolatry That they left the house of the Lord God of their Fathers and served Groves and Idols by a common consent of the King and his Princes as you may read 2 Chron. 24. 17. And not herewith content they stoned Zachariah the Son of Jehoida their High-Priest to death in the house of the Lord for opposing their practise or controlling the Kings Licence by a Countermand from the Lord as it is ver 20 21. This was a Prodigious Fact as the later Jews have curiously aggravated it and his blood did crie for vengeance even upon that later generation which thought they had so acurately reformed their Fore-fathers abuses As Our Saviour tels us Luke 11. 51. Verily I say unto you IT to wit the blood of Zacharias shall be required of this generation But how did these Jews make up the measure of their Fathers sins which shed Zacharias blood for disswading them from Idolatry Seeing they did detest this very Fact and the occasions of it By no other means then by Over-prizing their Rigid Reformation and by their distempered Zeal to maintain it against all that should contradict it So farre they sought to root out this sin that they made not only all Causes but all probable or remote Occasions of renewing Idolatry to be matter of death yea they did rather chuse to die themselves then to admit so much as an Image or Picture in their Temple or upon the wals of it though set up but for Historical or Civil use So vehemently did they distaste and loath the very conceit of multiplicity of Gods that this their extream opposition unto the Heathens did so farre mis-sway them as they could not be brought to admit a Distinction of Persons in the Trinity How often did they accuse our Saviour of blasphemy for saying he was the Son of God or God as well as man In fine The cheif matter or occasion which they took to persecute our Saviour unto death was for that he would not consent unto them either for doctrine or practise in their Rigid Reformation of those gross sins which their Fathers had committed or in their uncharitable Expositions of the second and fourth Commandement Hee could not away with their Sabbaths Is 1. 13. To omit other places for the present That one place of St. John chap. 5. shall suffice There you may read ver 8. that he had cured a man by his meer word which had been sick of a grievous infirmitie thirty eight years together But after the Iews knew that it was Iesus which made him whole they sought to slay him because he had done these things on the Sabbath day And when our Saviour makes this Reply Pater meus adhuc operatur ego operor giving them a true Exposition concerning the negative Precept of the Sabbath which did prohibit only works resembling the works of Creation not works resembling Gods everlasting preservation of things created They sought the more to kill him not only because he had broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God Verse 17 18. 10. To Parallel both their misdemeanors with the Issues The Fathers for love unto heathenish and sense-pleasing Idolatry did forsake their God and the service of his house wherein he had promised to dwell These later Jewes for their delight and complacencie in their known freedom from these and the like particular sins of their fathers solemnly forsake and utterly disclaim the same God even when according to his promise made to Moses he had his Tabernacle among them and did walk with them as the ancient Jewes expected their Messias should in visible manner Their fathers slow their High-Priest in the Temple these in killing Christ did destroy the Temple and Tabernacle of God so his body was Thus to forsake or disclaim their Messias they had a plausible pretence or shew of truth That he whom they saw to be a man did take upon him that Authoritie which was proper to God alone For so we read that when he said to one whom he cured of the palsie Be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee The Scribes and Pharisees which were then present began to reason saying who is this that speaketh blasphemy who can forgive sins but God alone And for thus censuring Him they presumed they had the warrant of God himself Isai 43. 25. I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins It was most true what they from this place allege That God alone can forgive sins But from this present miracle and the manner of our Saviours conversation here on earth and their own wicked dealing with him if they had compared these with the words immediately precedent in the Prophet ver 24. they might have gathered that He was that only God which did forgive sins For so the Prophet had said unto Israel in the person of this only God Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities This is One of those many places which even by the Jews confessions were evidently meant of God himself and yet were never literally and punctually fulfilled or verified but of God incarnate For God did never serve with this peoples sins was
meaning if I render it thus Israel that very day committed seven deadly sins at once that is without interposition or intervention of any good work or thought First They allege Zechariah was their High Priest and to kill a Priest though of inferior rank was a sin amongst all Nations more then equivalent to the killing of a meer secular Potentate A sin sometimes more unpardonable then any sin could be committed within this Kingdom besides the making of Allom. Secondly As these Jews allege Zechariah was a Prophet and to kill a Prophet was the next degree of comparison in iniquity unto the laying of violent hands upon Kings and Princes for he which forbid To touch his annointed did also forbid to do his Prophets any harm both are given in the same charge Thirdly Zechariah was a second Magistrate among his People and to kill a prime Magistrate is more then murther or at least a mixture of Murther and Treason Fourthly This Priest and great Magistrate by the Testimony of their sons who murthered him was upright and entire in the discharge of all his Offices and a man unblemished for his life and conversation Fifthly they polluted the Courts of the Lords House within whose precincts Zechariahs bloud was shed without such reverence to the place as Jehoiada his Father upon a farre greater exigencie for the preservation of Ioash and his Kingdom did observe For he would not suffer Athaliah though guilty of murther of the Royal Seed and of high Treason against the Crown of David to be put to death within the Courts of the Temple but commanded her to be killed at the Gates of the Kings House Chap. 23. 14. Sixthly As these Iewish Rabbins observe Their fore-fathers polluted the Sabbath of the Lord for on a Sabbath day as it is probable not from their testimony only but from the Text Zachariah was thus murthered That which makes up the full number of seven and the measure of their unexpiable iniquity the Sabbath wherein this unexpiable murther was committed was the Sabbath of the great Feast of Attonement All these transgressions or deadly sins for every circumstance seems a transgression or principal sin not an accessary were committed in one day or at once Another circumstance these later Iews charge their fore-fathers withal That they did not observe the Law of the * Deer or of the Hart after they shed Zachariah's innocent blood for they did not so much as cover it with dust But this Circumstance will fall into the discussion of the Third General proposed The sins or circumstances hitherto mentioned were enough to sollicitate the Execution of Zachariah's dying prayers or imprecations Lord look upon it and require it Another circumstance for aggravation of this sin specially on King Io ash his part omitted by the later Iews might here be added For that this good man this godly Priest and Prophet of the Lord Zachariah was by birth and bloud of nearest kindred as we say Cousin Germane to Ioash as being the Son by lawful descent of Iehoshabeath daughter of Iehoram sister to Ahaziah and so Aunt to King Ioash whom Iehoiada the Priest had to wife 2 Chron. 22. 11. 7. But did these Aggravations or curious Commentaries of later Jews upon this and the like sins of their fore-fathers any way help to prevent the like diseases in such as made them Rather their Exclamations against them and Rigid Reformation of them and their affected Zeal unto the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered did cast them into farre worse diseases of pride and hypocrisie whose symptomes were fury madness and splenctical passions which in the issue brought out more prodigious murther as will better appear in the Second General proposed which was The Emblematical portendment of this cruel and prodigious Fact against Zechariah or the accomplishment of his imprecations according to the mystical sense For proof of our last Assertion or Conclusion of the Literal sense no better Authority can be alleged or desired then the authority of our Saviour Christ No better Commentaries can be made upon the mystical sense of the former History then he who was the Wisdom of God made upon it Matth. 23. verse 29. Wo to you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites so he had indicted them seven or eight times in this Chapter before But the height or rather the depth of their hellish hypocrisie was reserved unto this verse and the original thus expresseth it Because ye build the tombs of the Prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous and say If we had been in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets wherefore ye be witnesses unto your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets What if they were so What will follow Must the children be punished for their fathers sins or for the acknowledgment of them Surely no! if they had repented of them But to garnish the Sepulchers of the Prophets or the righteous men whom their Fathers had killed was no good Argument of their true Repentance So farre was this counterfeit Zeal unto the memory of deceased Prophets from washing away the guilt of blood wherewith their fore-fathers had polluted the Land that it rather became the nutriment of hatred and of murtherous designs against the King of Prophets and Lord of life And to this effect the words of the Evangelist St. Luke chap. 11. ver 48. would amount were they rightly scann'd and fully express'd Truly ye bear witness and allow the deeds of your fathers for they killed them to wit the Prophets and righteous and ye build their sepulchres In building the Sepulchres and acknowledging their fathers sins which killed the Prophets they did bear Authentick Witness that they were their sons And in not bringing forth better fruits of Repentance then the beautifying of their Graves they did bear witness against themselves that they were but as Graves as our Saviour saith in the 44. verse which appear not or do not outwardly shew what is contained in them and the men that walk over them are not aware of them 8. That the Scribes and Pharisees who were respectively Priests and Lawyers did more then witness that they were the sons of them which killed the Prophets that they did though not expresly yet implicitely more then allow their Fathers deeds and were at this instant bent to accomplish them is apparent from our Saviours fore-warnings or threatnings against them Matt. 23. 32 33. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers ye generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of hell or the judicature unto Gehennah That the Scribes and Pharisees and the People misled by them were now prone to make up the full measure of their Fathers sins is apparent from Matth. 23. 34 and 35. Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and Wisemen and Scribes and some of them ye shall or will kill crucifie and some of
it is neither warranted by Scriptures nor by any good Writer Neither is it credible that the Jews then living would kill the Prophet of the Lord immediately after their deliverance from captivity At least the Reverence to the Temple then scarce finished would have made them abstain from shedding his blood within the walls of it near the Altar Others there be amongst the Ancients but few later Writers of better note which think this Zacharias should be John Baptists Father what reason they should have so to think I cannot conjecture save only Our Saviours words in the 35. verse VVhom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar This in ordinary speech may seem to implie that this just man had been killed by this people now living not by their Fathers For so our Saviour happly had said Whom your Fathers slew not Whom YE slew But it is a Rule in Divinity to gather our Saviours and his Apostles meaning by the usual Phrase of Scriptures not by our common manner of speech Now it is usual to the Prophets and Sacred Writers to lay the fathers sins unto the childrens charge if they continue in the like or repent not for them And if this people now living must be plagued for the ancient Prophets blood no question but they were guilty of it and may be said to have slain them in the same sense they are endicted as guilty of it That our Saviour should not mean John Baptists Father is more then probable for these reasons First His death is not mentioned in the New Testament nor in any Good Ecclesiastical Writer Secondly Because it no way benefits the Authors of this Opinion but rather increaseth the difficultie For if he were slain by Herod the Great who was a Philistine by Parentage why should not John Baptist's death be laid to their charge being slain by Herods Son Nay why not our Saviours or his Apostles whom he fore-tels they would shortly kill and persecute This plainly argues that the reason why he names this Zacharias was not his slaughter And besides this reason there is none why we should think this Zacharias was John Baptist's Father As for the Apocriphal Stories or Traditions which are pretended for this guesse or groundless conjecture we have just cause to suspect that it rather brought forth them then that they should first deliver it Not to trouble your patience with any more Reasons for refuting those Opinions it is agreed upon by most late Writers I have read Papists or Protestants and by St. Hierom the best in this kind of all the Ancient that this Zachariah here spoken of was the son of Jehoiada the Priest whose death we have set down 2 Chron. 24. verse 21. And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the Commandement of the King in the Court of the House of the Lord. In what Court it is not specified but it is most probable from the circumstance of the Text that it was in the Court where the Priests offered sacrifices or in the place where he instructed or blessed the people for it is evident that Zechariah was slain in his Pue or publick seat appointed for instructing the People And hereunto the ancient Jews in their Traditions accord This is that our Saviour saith in my Text that he was slain between the Temple and the Altar By the Temple we are to understand the outward Courts or Iles or as we distinguish betwixt the Church and the Chancel the body of the Temple comprehending Atrium Israelis mulierum the Courts wherein the Congregation of men and women stood By the place between these and the Altar the Court where the Priests taught or celebrated their service And so it is said verse 20. That Zachariah should stand above the people when he delivered that message unto them for which they stoned him to death Why this Zachariah should be called the son of Barachiah divers Expositors bring divers reasons all probable in themselves and each agreeable with other Some think his father as was not unusual amongst the Jews had two names or a name and a sur-name Jehoiada and Barachiah Others think that our Saviour did not so much respect the usual Name whereby the Prophets father was called as his Conditions or vertues unto which the name of Barachiah did as well or better agree then Jehoiada although the one of these cannot much disagree in sense from the other for the one signifies The knowledge of the Lord the other to wit Barachiah The blessing of the Lord or Man blessed of the Lord. Well might both names befit that Famous High-Priest famous both for his wisdom and piety every way blessed of God and a great blessing to this people For as it is said 2 Chronicles chap. 24. verse 16. He had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his house In which respect he was buried in the City of David amongst their Kings Admitting then Jehoiada either usually had or were for the reasons intimated capable of these two Names it is not without a special Reason perhaps a Mystery that our Saviour in this place should call Zachariah rather the son of Barachiah then of Jehoiada For the more blessed his Father was of God the greater blessing he had been to Israel the more accursed was this ungratious people in killing his vertuous and religious son in the House of the Lord for disswading them from Idolatry And the more fully did they prefigure the sin of this wicked generation their children which for the like cause did now go about to kill the Son of God Christ Jesus Blessed for ever For hereafter they were to acknowledge Him to be the True Barachiah as it is intimated in the last verse of this chapter Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Thus much of the first Point Who this Zachariah was gives some light unto the Second 6. And the Second Question Why our Saviour should make such special instance in or peculiar mention of the Blood of Zachariah is the least difficult of all the rest and yet a Question not so easily answered as the learned Spanish Iesuite Maldonate in his Comments upon this place would perswade us His best Answer to this Question solemnly proposed by him is This. Christs purpose was only to instance in those Prophets whose slaughter was expresly testified in the Bible least the Scribes and Pharisees might deny them to have been slain by their fore-fathers Now of Prophets whose deaths are mentioned in Scripture Zacharias the son of Jehoiada was the last We have just occasion to suspect his conjecture were it true to be impertinent because the Reason whereby he seeks to confirm it is evidently untrue Seeing Zacharias the son of Jehoiada was not the last of all the Prophets whose bloody deaths are recorded in Scripture For in the 26. chap. of Ieremie There is express mention of one Uriah the son of Shemaiah of
nature in the veins that inclosed it Albeit we may with good probability presume that Zachariah's blood if we consider the manner of his death might continue by Gods permission or appointment farre above the time that any Ordinary Experience can testifie More strange it is which Ecclesiastical Writers report of this Prophets body that being crushed with stones it should be found otherwise intire and uncorrupt in the dayes of Theodosius which was above a thousand years after his death Unless they had greater Occasion then I can conceive to lie I neither dare distrust this Report of theirs nor the other Tradition of the Jews by whose account the stain of His blood remained a greater part of two hundred years in the Temple However we may with good probability conclude that the true Reason why our Saviour mentioned Zachariah's death as one special Cause of Ierusalems last destruction was not because he was the last or one of the last of the Prophets that had been murthered by the Scribes and Pharisees Fore-elders but rather because his murther was the most foul Prodigious Fact that was committed in that Land and did from the very Commission of it portend Destruction to the Temple and the Consequents of it fore-shadowed the miseries which were afterwards to befal the Nation The truth of this Conclusion will better appear from Discussion of the third Point proposed 7. And this was Whether the blood of Zacharias and other Prophets or of our Saviour and others after him were more especially required of this Generation Or Whether this Generation and their posterity were so grievously plagued as we know they were for their own personal offences against the Person of the Son of God or for communicating with their fathers in shedding the blood of the Prophets and of other righteous men The modern Jews peremptorily deny Their long Exile and Calamitie to have been inflicted upon them as a just punishment for putting Christ to death because their Fathers did not in their judgment therein offend Divers Christian Writers as it usually fals out refuting this Error of theirs run into a Contrary ascribing the Greivousness of their memorable plagues unto their personal offences against our Saviour being otherwise free from the sins wherein their fathers grievously trespassed Maldonate the Iesuite is so farre addicted to this Opinion that he thinks our Saviour in my Text spake but according to Vulgar Language As if to a Malefactor which had escaped often but is afterward taken for some notorious murther which cannot be pardoned men would say he should now pay for all his villanies not that they mean he shall suffer several punishments for several offences or more greivous tortures then were due for his last fact alone but that he should have judgement without mercie and be punished as grievously as might be though for it only Thus much then and no more he thinks our Saviour would have signified That the Scribes and Pharisees should suffer such greivous calamities for murthering Him and his Apostles as they might well seem to be plagued for their Fathers cruelties Howbeit they were not at all punished for them but only for their own For saith he although neither they nor their Fathers had killed either Prophet Apostle or Disciple but Christ alone they had deserved greater plagues for killing him then are recorded by Iosephus This last Assertion I confess is no less true then Non-concludent for the Conclusion to be inferred was not what manner of Plagues they did deserve for putting our Saviour to death but whether these punishments were de Facto inflicted for putting him to death or for the murther of Zachariah and other Prophets whom not their fathers only but they had slain for so our Saviour layeth the Charge of Zachariah's blood unto them in particular whom YE slew between the Temple and the Altar 8. A good Auditor must be able not only to give a true Onus or Charge but withal to make right Allocations or Deductions otherwise he shall often over-reckon himself or wrong such as are to deal with him The like skill is required in making such Calculatory Arguments as Maldonate and many other good Christians use in aggravating the offences of this Present Generation of the Jews against Our Saviour Let them lay the Charge of the later Jews trespasses as deep as they list or can we shall be able to make the Deductions or Allocations much-what equal so that Computatis computandis the greatest part or fullest measure of the blood which came now to be required of this Generation must arise as the literal meaning of my Text imports from the righteous blood of Zacharias and other Prophets unjustly shed in former Ages and unrepented of by this present Generation They must lay their Charge from the Infinite Excess of Christs Dignitie in respect of other Prophets for His Person was in Majestie truly Infinite We are to make the Deduction from his Infinite Power and Facility to forgive offences against himself or his Person For questionless he did as farre exceed all the Prophets in Goodness in Mercie and loving kindness as he did in Majestie and Greatness And had Peculiar Power and Authority to forgive sins and remit those plagues which the Prophets had denounced against Jerusalem and her children Nor could the malice of his enemies against him be more available to procure then His prayers and tears for Jerusalems peace were to pacifie his Fathers wrath against it especially for their offences against his Person alone 9. The flagrant Expressions of his special Love unto Ierusalem not yet alienated from the worst sort of this present Generation if we compare them with this Threatning fore-warning in my Text and in the words before it will bear this sense or brook this Paraphrase However I see and know you more maliciously bent against me then Cain was against his brother Abel then your fore-fathers Prince or People were against Zachariah the son of Iehoiada or of Barachiah however you thirst more greedily and more irrelentingly after my blood then the chafed Hart doth after the brooks of water yet when-ever you have glutted your selves with the sight of it pouout upon the ground In-stead of covering it with dust cast not this foul aspersion or slander upon me or it as if either it or I did or shall sollicit vengeance against you for the cruel indignities which ye have done or shall do either to me or to my followers when I am dead The blood of my Apostles will not speak so bad And My blood shall speak much better things for you then the blood of Abel did for his brother Cain then the blood of Zachariah whom your Fathers slew betwixt the Altar and the Temple did for the then King and the Princes or people of Iudah For my Heavenly Father hath not sent me nor will I give any Commission to my Followers or Embassadors to curse but to bless you not to wound and
present generation in my Text had crucified But so returning unto him by true Repentance he will return unto them in mercie and be as gracious and favourable to the last Generations of this miserable people as he was of old unto the first or best of their Fore-fathers For in this Case especially and in this and the like alone that Saying of our Apostle which some in our dayes most unadvisedly and impertinently mis-apply and confine to their own particular state in Grace or Gods Favour is most true The Gifts of God are without repentance That Lord and God whom they solemnly forsook hath not finally forsaken them but with unspeakable patience and long-suffering still expects their Conversion For which Christians above all others are bound to pray Convert them Good Lord unto the Knowledge and us unto the Practise of that Truth wherewith thou hast elightened our souls that our Prayers for them and for our selves may ever be acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and our Redeemer Amen Amen CHAP. XLIII The Second Sermon upon this Text. MATTH 23. verse 34 35 36. Wherefore Behold I send unto you Prophets and some of them ye will kill c. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth c. Verily I say unto you All these things shall come upon this Generation 2 Chron. 24. 22. And as he was dying he said The Lord look upon it and Require it Luke 11. 51 Verily I say unto you IT that is ver 50. The blood of all the Prophets shed from the Foundation of the world shall be Required of this Generation 1. OF several Queries or Problems emergent out of these words proposed unto this Audience a year ago One and that one of greatest difficultie was How the sins of former Generations can be required of later specially in so great a distance of time as was between the death of Abel and of Zachariah and this last Generation which crucified the Lord of life the Discussion whereof is my present Task In this disquisition you will I hope dispense with me for want of a formal Division or Dichotomie because the Channel through which I am to pass is so narrow and so dangerously beset with Rocks and shelves on the right hand and on the left as there is no possibility for two to go on brest nor any room for Steerage but only Towage One passage in my Disquisition must draw another after it by one and the same direct Line For first if I should chance to say any thing which either Directly or by way of Consequence might probably inferre this Affirmative Conclusion That God doth at any time punish the children for the fathers sins or later generations for the Iniquities of former This were to contradict that Fundamental Truth which the Lord himself hath so often protested by Oath Ezek. 18. 1 2 c. And the word of the Lord came unto me again saying What mean ye that ye use this Proverb concerning the Land of Israel saying the Fathers have eaten sour grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge As I live saith the Lord God ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel Behold all souls are mine as the soul of the Father so also the soul of the Son is mine the soul that sinneth it shall die And again verse the last I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth saith the Lord God wherefore turn your selves and live ye Now to contradict any Branch of these or the like Protestations or Promises would be to make shipwrack of Faith more dangerous then to rush with full sail upon a Rock of Adamant On the other hand if I should affirm any thing either directly or indirectly which might inferre any part of this Negative That God doth not visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children or of former Generations upon later This were to strike upon a shelf no less dangerous then to dash against the former Rock directly to contradict Gods solemn Declaration in the second Commandement of His Proceedings in this Case which are no less just and equal then the former Promise Ezekiel the 18. By this you see the only safe way for passage through the straits proposed must be to find out the middle Line or Mean whether Medium Abnegationis or Participationis or in one word The difference betwixt this Negative God doth not punish the Children for the Fathers sins and the other Affirmative God visiteth the sins of the Fathers upon the Children even unto the third and fourth Generation c. 2. But in the very first setting forth or entry into this narrow Passage some here present perhaps have already discovered a shelf or sand to wit that the passage fore-cited out of the second Commandement doth better reach or fit the Case concerning Josiah his death and the calamity of his people then the present difficultie or Problem now in handling For Josiah was but the third in succession from Manasseh and dyed within fewer years then a Generation in ordinary Construction imports after his wicked Grand-father But if the blood of Zachariah the son of Jehoiada or other Prophets slain in that Age or the Age after him were required of this present Generation God doth visit the sins of Fore-fathers upon the Children after more then three or four after more then five times five Generations according to St. Matthew's account in the Genealogie of our Lord and Saviour Yet this seeming Difficulty to use the Mariners Dialect is rather an Over-fall then a shelf or at the worst but such a shelf or sand as cannot hinder our passage if we sound it by the Line or Plummet of the Sanctuary or number our Fathoms by the scale of sacred Dialect in like Cases For when it is said in the Second Commandement that God doth visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him This is Numerus certus proincerto aut indefinito an expression or speech equivalent to that of the Prophet Amos. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away the punishments thereof For three transgressions of Tyrus and for four for three transgressions of Ammon and for four c. Throughout almost every third verse of the first Chapter and some part of the Second The Prophets meaning is that all the Kingdoms or several Sovereignties there mentioned by him especially Judah and Israel should certainly be punished not for three or four only but for the multitude of their continual transgressions and many of them transgressions of a high and dangerous nature Both speeches as well that in Amos as in the Second Commandement reverently to compare magna parvis are like to that of the Poet O terque quaterque beati that is most happy So that unto the third and fourth generation may imply more then seven
of quick and dead But he that by vertue of his Commission as Son of man did freely forgive all other sins did as my Text imports remit all personal offences as they only concerned himself and did not suffer the fruits or effects of these later Jews malice to come upon Jerusalems score for shedding of righteous blood It was not his Will to have any more greivously punished for being malitiously bent against him then they should otherwise have been for the unrelenting habitual bent of their malice against whomsoever it had beene set Never was bitter enmitie practised against any so little desirous of revenge or so unwilling to accuse his enemies as he was for so he protests unto the Jews which sought his life Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father there is one that accuseth you even Moses in whom ye trust John 5. v. 45. Moses though till Christ came the meekest man that had been on earth had foretold and solemnly threatned those plagues whose execution most of the Prophets had sollicited But this Great Prophet beyond all measure of meekness and patience whereof humanity so but meer humanity is capable seeks by prayer by reproof by admonitions and exhortations by all means justly possible to prevent them he often fore-warns what would be the issue of their stubbornness which he never mentions but with greif and sorrow of heart he often intimates that the most malicious murtherer amongst this people was not so desirous of his death as he was of all their lives witness his affectionate prayers seasoned with sighs and tears even whiles they plotted the execution of their long-intended mischeif against him 4. That which first moved me to make and must justifie the interpretation of these words here made is a remarkable Opposition expresly recorded in Scripture betwixt our Saviours and his Disciples desires uttered at their death for this peoples good and the cry of Abels blood and Zachariah's dying voice both solliciting vengeance from Heaven against their persecutors When they were come to the place called Calvarie they crucified him Then said Iesus Father forgive them for they know not what they do Luke 23. ver 33. This Infinite Charity notwithstanding some alwayes jealous least God should shew any token of love towards such as they mislike or Christ manifest any desire of their salvation whom they have markt for Reprobates would have restrained unto the Garrison of Souldiers that conducted him to the Cross But Reasons we have many to think or rather firmly to believe that he uttered those Prayers Indefinitely for all that either were Actors in this business or Approvers of it whether Jews or Gentiles And if both his Doctrines and Miracles whiles he lived on earth as all must acknowledge did why should not his dying Prayers in the first place respect the lost sheep of Israel Roman Souldiers they were not but Jews of the most malignant stamp which martyred St. Stephen yet after he had commended his spirit unto Iesus in near the same terms that Jesus did his unto his Father he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice Lord lay not this sin to their charge And when he had said this he fell asleep Acts 7. 60. It is no sin I hope to suppose that the Master was every way as charitable at his death as his Disciple It is requisite that he which bids us bless our persecutors should set us a more exquisite patern then we are able to express His prayers for his greatest persecutors were more fervent and unfeigned then ours can be for our dearest friends St. Stephen in thus praying for his enemies did but imitate his Master and bear witness of his loving kindness towards all But when Cain had killed Abel the voice of his blood cried unto the Lord from the earth and the cry procured a curse upon him for the earth became barren unto him and he was a fugitive and vagabond from the Land wherein he lived before Herein as St. Augustine excellently observes a Type of the Jewish Nation who having the prerogative of birth-right amongst Gods People for the like sin became fugitives and vagabonds on the face of the earth whilest the good Land which God gave unto their fathers hath been curst with barrenness and desolation for their sakes And this Cry of Abels blood against his brother God would have registred in the beginning of his book as a Proclamation against all like impious and bloody Conspiracies until the worlds end Whereby the Iews to whom the manner of Gods process with Cain was sufficiently known were condemned Ipso Facto without any further folicitation of Gods judgments then their own attempts of like practises No marvel if his punishment foreshadow theirs when as never any did so manifestly and notoriously revive his sin as this Generation here spoken of did Cain saith St. Iohn was of that wicked one and slew his brother And wherefore slew he him Because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 1 John 3. 12. Ye are of your father the divel saith our Saviour to these Iewes and the lusts of your father ye will do he was a murtherer from the beginning Iohn 8. v. 44. And why did they go about to murther him Because he had told them the truth which he had heard of God ver 40. And as he had taught before in the third of S. John They would not receive him although he came as a light into the world because their deeds were evil Moses had foretold That the Great Prophet was to be this peoples Brother and in that they would not hearken to him they stood condemned by Moses's Sentence Deut. 18. 18. Whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him v. 19. Abel as pleasing God by his sacrifice and as being slain by his ungratious brother was the live Type of Christ as man whose murther by his brethren though most displeasant yet his sacrifice was most acceptable unto his God The same God which in the fourth of Genesis admonisheth Cain partly by threatning partly by promises to desist from his wicked purposes doth here in my Text as lovingly and yet as severely dehort these Jews from following his foot-steps least his punishments fall heavier upon them And they not taking warning by Cain's example to repent them of their envie and grudging against their brother the Crie not of Christs blood which they shed but of Abel's overtakes them for Christ was consecrated as the Sanctuary or place of Refuge whereto they should have fled And Abel was the Revenger of blood which did pursue them So likewise doth the Cry of Zacharias's at his death for that was quite contrary to our Saviours and St. Stephen's When he died he said The Lord look upon it and require it 2 Chron. 24. 22 The present Effect of this his dying speech compared with St. Lukes narration of Our Saviours Admonition affords the
husbandmen which shall render him the fruits in their season Matth. 21. Luke 20. Most men I doubt not understand the General meaning of the Parable And it is in effect the same with the Prophets Song of his Beloved concerning his vineyard Esay 5. 1. The one is as a Paraphrase upon the other The histories of this Nation from that time to this is as a full and just Commentary upon both The vineyard of the Lord of hoasts saith the Prophet v. 7. is the house of Israel and the men of Judah his pleasant plants And being reasonable plants they were also the husbandmen here meant The fruits looked for were Iudgment and in stead of it behold oppression righteousness and in lieu hereof behold a Cry These were wild grapes If any list to descend to more particulars By the fruitful hill wherein the vineyard was seated he may understand the hill of Sion or Jerusalem by the Tower the Temple By the hedge the fortifications of Hierusalem begun by David without which our Saviour who is the heir meant in the Gospel was crucified being sentenced to execution within the vineyard The judgment which the chief Priest and Elders gave against themselves was by the Prophet referred unto the Inhabitants of Hierusalem and men of Judah The Tenour of it is the same in the Prophet and the Evangelist I will tell you saith the Prophet what I will do to my vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be troden down And I will lay it waste and it shall not be pruned or digged But there shall come up briars and thorns I will also command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it That is Not whiles it remained in Judah whose mountains are now become like the mountains of Gilboah accursed for the slaughter of the King of Israel The execution of this Sentence was fitted to divers times in different measure according to their unfruitfulness or fertility in bringing forth wild grapes when good grapes were most expected More exactly parallel to the Parable as it is proposed by our Saviour we may besides all other particular diseases or distempers of this flourishing State observe Three principal Climacterical Seasons In the first and second it escapes very hardly and dies in the last The First we take from Zachariah's death a Season wherein God the men or Iudah being Judges might justly expect extraordinary fruit of his vineyard For Jehoiada the High-Priest father in Zachariah had lastly pruned and drest it re-ingrafting Joash as a forlorn Plant into the stock of David from which he had been for a while dis-planted by Athaliah the Queen Regent through whose cruelty all the rest of the Royal Branches utterly perished But instead of grapes the Princes bring forth wild grapes After the death of Jehoiada Came the Princes and made obeysance to the King who hearkened unto them And they left the House of the Lord and served groves So wrath came upon Judah for this trespass Yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear After all this the Spirit of the Lord came upon Zachariah and he said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Lords Commandements that ye cannot prosper 2 Chron. 24. 17 22. He said no more then Moses their Law-giver had expressed in that Divine Song Deut. 32. which this people were to teach their children that it might be a witness against them Notwithstanding in despight of Moses Law and the Spirit of the Lord which emboldened Zachariah to preach it they confirm their desperate league with the Prophets blood that did disswade it Of those other Servants of the Lord sent unto them about the same time we may without breach of charity suspect one at least was beaten and another slain Because it is certain that Zachariah whose Father had deserved so well of King Princes and People of Judah was by the Kings appointment stoned to death And besides the Calamities of warre which befell the Land in the end of that year the Temple in which he died was by his dying curse designed to ruine and destruction It could not be purged from guilt of his guiltless blood but by that fire which in the next generation did devour it Yet before the approach of this Second Climacterical Season The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his Messengers rising up betimes and sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place But they mocked the Messengers of God despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose till there was no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 15 16 17. 8. This affectionate description of Gods tender care and compassion in sending Prophets to reclaim them argues what Our Saviour expresseth in the Parable That he sent moe then before And in the age following Zachariah's death lived all the Prophets whose Prophecies are extant But unto all those though moe they did as they had done unto the former Isaiah as the Jews confess was slain by Manasses Uriah as you heard before was killed by Jehoiakim and Jeremiah sometimes beaten sometimes imprisoned perpetually abused during the reign of Iehoiakim and Zedekiah And so at length the plagues threatned and in part executed upon this people immediately after Zechariah's death are multiplied upon that wicked generation The Rod of Gods wrath is for fashion the same but now more sharp and terrible Their fathers had slain Zachariah in the Temple And for this sin not expiated but continued and approved at least by like practises of this Generation The Lord brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their Sanctuary and had no compassion upon young men or maidens old men or him that stoopeth for age he gave them all into his hand And all the vessels of the House of God great and small and the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of the King and of his Princes all those he brought to Babylon 2 Chron. ch 36. v. 17 18. What are those but meer enlargements of the former calamities which ensued the Butchery of Zacharias which were these It came to pass in the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against Joash and they came to Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from among the people and sent all the spoil of them unto the King of Damascus 2 Chron. 24. 23. Some principal particulars of the spoils here intimated are fully expressed 2 Kings 12. where the rest of this story is omitted And Jehoash King of Judah took all the hallowed things and all the gold found in the treasures of the House of the Lord and in the Kings house and sent it to Hazael King
of Syria and he went away from Jerusalem But though the Chaldeans had burnt the House of God and the Palaces of Ierusalem with fire had destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof yet the Lord doth not utterly forsake his vineyard his Church the Quire of Saints still nestles in the branches that are transplanted whose off spring within seventy years is restored unto their native soyl Jerusalem repaired the Temple re-edified and the Land of Iudah sown with the seed of man and beast After this State thus raised again from Civil Death if posterity will not believe nor bring forth better fruits then heretofore their fathers have done neither would they believe though Moses and the Prophets were raised from the dead to exhort them to repentance For this reason after their return from Babylon and re-edification of the Temple God sends no more Prophets save such as they brought with them until the fulness of time or the Third Climacterical Period of this State wherein the disease being become more desperate he sent his only Son the Heir of all things as knowing that if he could not none ever after should be able to recover it This his Son was that Lord which by his peculiar presence had brought this vine out of Egypt but after he had planted it in Iudea and let it out unto these husbandmen went into a farre Country that is he appeared not unto them as he did to Moses to Joshuah c. until in the last dayes he descended from Heaven in the true form and substance of man to receive the fruits He looked at this time especially his vineyard should had brought forth grapes but it brought forth more wild grapes then before He looked for weighty matters of the Law and behold tithing of Mint Annise and Cummin He looked for judgment mercy and faith But behold covetousness extortion pride and cruelty grapes more bitter then the grapes of Sodom Sourness it self the very leaven of Hypocrisie yet upon the first denial of such fruits as he expected he departs not from them he accuseth them not unto his Father But as they had two or three fore-warnings more remarkable then ordinary in several Generations of their Ancestors so he expects a loyal Answer at more times of fruit then one or two presenting himself to them for three years and more together at every several Passover besides other anniversary solemnities And yet at last for constant delivery of that Embassage which he had from his father they caught him and condemned him in the vineyard but carry him out of it to be crucified in Mount Calvarie And thus at length Zachariah's Prophecie against Ioash and his wicked Princes and his Imprecation at his death are fulfilled in this wicked generation they formally forsook their God when they cried We have no King but Caesar and demanding Barabbas a murtherer the son of their father the Divle they destoyed Iesus the Son of God And the Lord hath utterly forsaken them not the Temple and City only but the Inhabitants but the whole race of the Jewish Nation and hath let forth His Vineyard to us Gentiles They were so rich by his bounty that they were ashamed to acknowledge so mean a man as Our Saviour for their Lord and Owner of the Land they inhabited And as the Prophet foretold they hid their faces from him And therefore as Moses testified against them in his dying Song The Lord hides his face from them Darkness did over-spread the Land of Iudah at his Passion and the light of his countenance since that time hath never shined upon that Nation They lost Gods extraordinary Illumination by Urim and Thummim as some hold at Zachariah's death as most agree at the destruction of Salomon's Temple but now are destitute of the light of Scripture without all knowledge of Gods Word since they rejected Him which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world In the very sun-shine of the Gospel they grope like blind men that cannot see a beaten way and must so continue throughout their generations unto the worlds end until they shall unfeignedly confess the iniquity of their fathers and that they have walked contrary unto me And that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies Lev. 26. 40 41. As the sins of those Jews which rejected the Light of the world and solemnly revolted from their King have been thus remarkably visited upon their children that will not confess their sins in so doing nor acknowledge him whom they rejected for their expected Redeemer So were the sins of that generation which slue Zachariah visited upon this which crucified our Saviour because they neither did truly confess them but rather revive and increase them nor finally admit of his Sacrifice which was appointed for the expiation of that Prodigious Fact as of all others wherewith the City and Temple had been polluted Unless God's mercy had warded off the stroke of his justice Ierusalem it self had been made an heap of stones when King Ioash stoned Zachariah to death So had the Temple it self wherein his guiltless blood lay uncovered been covered with Dust The whole Nations plagues in rigour of justice might have been much greater at that time then they have been since Now all the mercie or mitigation of Justice which former Generations found was through the Mediation of the Son of God And seeing these later have been more refractorie to this their Mediator himself then were their fathers to his Prophets seeing they have solemnly disavowed him and bid a defiance to his Embassadors Gods mercies which had daily shrowded Ierusalem from his wrath as the hen doth her young ones from the storm leave it and her children open to his justice For Resolution of the main Point or difficulty proposed The forsaking or putting the Son of God to death is for ought I can gather no direct and positive cause of all the miseries expressed or intimated in my Text Only such a Cause of Ierusalems destruction as the Pilots absence is of shipwrack a Cause of it only in this sense that her inhabitants by forsaking him have exempted themselves from his wonted protection and God's justice which had long watched his departure from the City and Temple as Sergeants do their egress which have taken Sanctuary now attatches them when there is none to become their Surety none to intercede for mitigation of Justice none to hinder why judgments heretofore alwayes abated and oft-times altogether deferred may not be executed upon them in full measure But that their Personal Offences against their Mediator should wholly or specially procure this woful doom or come at all into the Bill of their Indictment is in my Opinion no way probable The character of his own speeches as well in my Text or elsewhere altogether disclaims this Assertion as unconsonant to the form of wholsome doctrine But may we say that albeit his blood did not augment their
them for religious Jehoshaphat and the Righteous sakes that lived in it After Iehoshaphats death Iehoram his son reigns in his stead a successor to the Kings of Israel in all wickedness and Idolatry And as his life was wicked so was his estate unfortunate his end terrible and his death ignominious In his dayes did Edom make his final revolt from Iudah 2 Chron. 21. 10. and Libnah at the same time because he had forsaken the God of his fathers And ver 14. Behold saith Elijah to him by a letter with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people and thy children and thy wives and all thy substance And so Gods judgments came upon him and his Children He himself dies of a lingering loathsom disease without the wonted solemnities of Funerals And Ahaziah his youngest son all the elder being slain by the Arabians 2 Chron. 22. 1. is about a year after killed by Jehu executing judgment upon the house of Ahab After all this were All the Royal Seed of Judah destroyed by Athaliah Ioash son of Ahaziah only excepted whose beginnings were good The reformation of Religion was perfect for the external form so long as Iehoiada the Priest did live but not compleat for the number or quality of such as turned to the Lord their God For the Princes hearts were wholly set upon idolatry And the King himself is drawn upon his own destruction by them after Iehoiada's death As his beginnings were good and godly so were his later dayes idolatrous and cruel and Zachariah's blood was recompensed upon his head and upon the head of Amaziah his son who though he were not like his father guilty as principal of actual murther in putting a Prophet to death yet thus farre by Participation guilty of his fathers sin that he is impatient of the Prophets just reproof As his father killed so he threatens the Prophet for reproving him for his sins for taking the gods of Edom for his gods 2 Chron. 25. 14. Have they made thee the Kings Counsellor Cease thou why should they smite thee And the Prophet ceased but said I know the Lord hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my Counsel His doom is read and judgment followes For he is shamefully foyled 2 Chron. 25. 23. by Ioash King of Israel and led captive home to his own good Town of Ierusalem four hundred cubits of whose wals were broke down to make entrance for his triumphant enemies in the sight of his own people And after his freedom bought with his own treasure and with the treasure of the Lords house his own Subjects conspire against him and pursue him unto death where he dies his fathers death by the hands of his Servants 2 Chron. 25. 27. As Amaziah from good beginnings grew idolatrous so Uzziah his son after good success became in his later end sacrilegiously presumptuous For intermedling with the Priests Office he becomes liable to the Priests Tribunal He is judged a Leper and removed from administration of the Kingdom for the leprosie wherewith the Lord had smitten him 2 Chron. 26. 5. Thus in process of time is still the increase of sin either their Kings are wicked as but two from David to Hezekiah's time which continued in good Or if their Kings be vertuous and religious as Iehoshaphat had been and Iotham son to Uzziah now is yet in his dayes again the peoples hearts are not prepared to serve the Lord 2 Kings 15. 35. But the high Places were not put away for the people yet offered and burnt incense in the high places and so kept in the fire of Gods wrath which had been long kindled against Judah but not suffered to burst out into any flame in the dayes of righteous Jotham and such as by his example followed righteousness Nay to encourage others to follow him the Lord gave him victory over the enemies of Judah and He grew mighty because He directed His wayes before the Lord His God 2 Chron. 27 6. 6. But neither did he nor any Prince of Judah since Righteous David so perfectly direct as Ahaz his son did pervert his wayes before the Lord. This is the first that adds stubbornness to infidelity and drunkenness to thirst as the Spirit tels us 2 Chron. 28. 22. In his tribulation did he yet trespass more against the Lord this is King Ahaz saith the Text you must expect a remarkable monster in his dealings For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus which plagued him and he said Because the gods of the Kings of Aram helped them I will sacrifice unto them and they will help me yet they were his ruine and of all Israel ver 23. This people was alwayes prone to wickedness even during the reign of most religious Kings but are now so violently carried to all mischief having got this preposterous Monster for their Governor that as a ship sailing with advantage of wind and tide and help of oares continues motion when sail is stricken and Rowers cease so Jerusalem and Judah after Ahaz their Commander in mischief ceased from his wicked labours held on still their mischievous courses even in good King Hezekiah's dayes 7. Whereas God 's threatnings had been but particular heretofore either to the King alone or to his Line and House or of some momentary desolation upon the Land Now God thunders out a General Deluge of Calamity to the City and Temple by the Prophet Micah Sion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall be an heap and the mountain of the house shall be as the high places of the forrest Here the scattered clouds of Gods judgments which had long soared over Judah are gathered as it were into one shower ready to fall upon her as it were an Hawk stooping to her prey but that good King Hezekiah and the people by his example laid fast hold upon his mercies and averted his fierce wrath from them by hearty and unfeigned prayer They feared the Lord and prayed before him and the Lord repented him of the evil that he had pronounced against them Whiles I behold the Compleat Reformation which Hezekiah wrought and the peoples will to accord with him therein Me thinks I hear the Lord wishing from heaven as he did sometimes to their fathers in the wilderness Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such an heart in them to fear me and to keep all my Commandements alway that it might go well with them and with their children for ever But Hezekiah did not render according to the reward bestowed upon him For his heart was lifted up and wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem 2 Chron. 32. v. 25. Not that it did seize upon them but that it was ready to smite For as it follows ver 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself after his heart was lift up he and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and the wrath of the Lord came not upon