the reason he has left will rather oblige him to sit down under a wild suspicion that his Life is a waking Dream that the Heaven and the Earth and all things else about him are but false representations made by some hidden accursed power that is always deluding his fancy and that there is nothing in the World but the Devil and himself fit Companions for one another And having thus discours'd Historically of the Matter of Fact which the Prophet delivers in the Text I shall now proceed to consider but very briefly of the Mystery of Faith the consequence or effect of these great things that Christ either did or suffered for us so the power of his Resurrection as St. Paul calls it is also set down in these words He shall revive us He shall raise us up again and we shall live in his sight He shall come unto us as the rain as the latter and former rain unto the earth This Similitude is taken from a thing that is most common that is Rain and yet this Philosophical or at least this Experimental Age will allow me thus much That the richest Notes and the most undoubted Conclusions in the Book of Nature are such as we draw from the most vulgar and therefore the most constant Observations Therefore of all the Similitudes upon which the Divine Prophecies and Parables in the Old and New Testament are turn'd and form'd there are no Comparisons so frequently used as these between the products of Nature and the growth of Grace between the Fruits of the Earth and the encrease of heavenly Vertue and Glory in the humane Soul and Body no temporal Blessings are so often promis'd or so constantly perform'd to put us in mind of the Spiritual as the sending of the former and the latter rain the shining of the Sun on the just and on the unjust the watering the earth and blessing it and making it very plenteous The Church is every where represented as God's Husbandry as God's Vineyard and Christ himself is by himself resembled to a Corn of Wheat that fell into the Ground and dy'd as if he had said The Corn of Wheat this my Body the Corn of Wheat which falls into the ground and dies this is my Body which is given and broken for you To the same intent and purpose 't is observable that the Ceremony of waving the Sheaf of the first-fruit of the Harvest on the next day after the Feast of the Passoever was appointed in the Law of Moses as a significant Type of the Resurrection or of Christ's reviving and raising our mortal Bodies as His Sheaves with him and 't is yet more observable that God's peculiar Providence over-ruling the blind Jews to defer their Feast until Saturday that year when our Saviour suffered order'd it so that they wav'd the Sheaf exactly on the first Easter-morning when Christ arose But these effects on our Bodies are not the only or the greatest effects of Christ's Resurrection the Power and Wisdom of God in it is greater still in comparison of this Wisdom the Apostle counted all things no better than dung good only as that is to manure the Ground to prepare it for that good Seed and for this blessed Rain that should come upon it that was all that all the knowledge of the World was good for to those who knew not Christ But of what consequence now to our Souls as well as our Bodies is the Knowledge and Belief of this prime Fundamental Article The summ of all this Because Christ did and suffered all this for us therefore did God his Father give him by the Holy Spirit a power to raise up himself first and then all that are his with all manner of Resurrections both of Soul and Body from all manner of Deaths to which they were obnoxious Therefore the Scripture in some places uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is his full and intire Resurrectim the whole 6th of the Romans and most of the 5th is upon the force of his Passion and his Resurrection where 't is made the Idaeal Cause the very similitude and pattern of our Resurrection and more than so a vital influence is supposed to be derived from him upon us to assimilate or make us like him as well in our Souls as our Bodies that as we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection For this implanting viz. in our Baptism supposes a drawing of Vertue from Christ and is secur'd on his part to our lives end there is imply'd not only our Obligation but our Ability by the power he gives us that we also should walk as he did after this day forty days together in newness of life supposing that none can raise their hearts from the World and be thus renewed but by thinking on these things And this falls in with my third and last Part the Obligation upon our parts or the Condition imposed upon us if we mean to reap advantage from this revealed Doctrine of Christ's Resurrection and ours then must these Principles be pursued extreamly home and we must go on throughout the whole course of our lives to practise accordingly Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord For in the very next words to those of my Text the Prophet takes up this lamentation O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee O Judah what shall I do unto thee For your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away It seems that these men whom the Prophet had to do with were men of good intentions but so they say Hell it self is full of good intentions that is 't is full of those that one time or other intended to do well but here was their great mistake they thought the great work was done as soon as it was but intended Alas we are apt to take every faint endeavour and every feeble attempt for overcoming the World But then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord that is if we proceed in taking just pains with our selves till we love what we know or else we know nothing yet as we ought to know He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love That Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners this is not only a faithful saying but avowed with good reason by the Apostle to be worthy of all men to be received but every thing in Nature is received according to the capacity and figure of the worthy or unworthy Receiver Our Christian Philosophy 't is a most noble speculation Angels delight to pry into it Unbelievers themselves will acknowledge in their sober moods that our main Body of Divinity is a piece of magnificent Wit admirably refin'd and strongly knit together But because they want a soul for it to ponder and contemplate these great and amazing Truths till they come to practise as they ought therefore the men
A SERMON Preached before the KING On Easter-Day 1684. By Francis Lord Bishop of Rochester and ALMONER to His MAJESTY Published by his Majesties special Command LONDON Printed by J. Macock for R. Royston Book-seller to His most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1684. Hosea VI. 2 3. After two days will He revive us in the third day He will raise us up and we shall live in his sight Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord his going forth is prepared as the morning and He shall come unto us as the rain as the latter and former rain unto the earth SUCH an August and Solemn Assembly as this how well does it suit with those Glorious Titles the Ancient Fathers bestow upon Easter-Day the Feast of Feasts the Solemnity of Solemnities the Queen or Empress of all the Churches Festivals And well may the Christian Church be allowed to pay the highest observance and greatest reverence to the memory of his Resurrection Whom God hath raised up to be a Prince and a Saviour as St. Peter styles Him to be our God and our Lord as Saint Thomas calls him when even the Gentile World whom ever they took upon them to worship as a God their natural Religion dictated to them this That Feasts in Honour of Him should be observed The Roman Emperour Tiberius as Eusebius relates upon that amazing Story he received from his Lieutenant Pontius Pilate concerning our Saviours Death and Resurrection was very desirous to have Deified our Lord Christ But by the special Providence of God the Senate found a pretence to cross that Design of Tiberius for Christ would never be beholding to the Secular Heathen Powers to advance his Divinity which was to astonish the World into its belief by a quite contrary method of suffering their Persecutions and dying for it But since all the Triumphs of Christ that were the consequence of his Death and Passion began from his Resurrection Because he was obedient unto death even the death upon the Cross therefore God also hath highly exalted him again God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ which implies that Christ was made more The Christ that is more The Anointed Son of God by his being the first-begotten from the dead this Day then we must needs allow this Day a preference to all others in our Christian Calendar This is foretold As the Day of his Power when the people should offer him free-will Offerings with an holy worship when he was first enabled to declare All power is given unto me in Heaven and earth This is the Day which Christ has call'd properly His Father Abraham desired to see my Day and he saw it and was glad to see it then when he received Isaac from the dead in a Figure a Type of Christ This is the Day which the Lord hath made I could alledge a great consent of the Antients interpreting that Passage of the Psalmist as Prophetical of Easter-Day a Festival that we hear of in as old a Record and as venerable a Piece of Antiquity as is the Story of Polycarp St. John's Disciple a Festival which Constantine the first Great Christian Emperour commanded by a special Edict to be observed which Socrates our Ecclesiastical Historian assures us that in his time no Hereticks had impudence enough to disparage nay that all of them kept it Now methinks 't is exceeding strange that so many of our Schismaticks should have so much zeal as they pretend to have for the Weekly Festival and none for the Annual Commemoration of our Blessed Lords Resurrection that the Lords Day being confessedly derived from this Day every Sunday but as a shadow of Easter Yet some almost Judaizing in the Doctrine of the Sabbath should refuse to join with the rest of the Christian World in honouring of this Day whence the other one and fifty Days in the Year had all their beginning and borrow all their Glory But as for you that come hither on the score of Devotion I may address my self to you as the Angel began to those that had the honour to hear the first welcome News of this Day Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified He is risen The Christian Saints of old when they met upon Easter-Morning the one accosted the other with this Salutation Christ is risen the Custom still continues in the Greek Churches to which the other joyfully echoes and replies Yes Christ is risen But I will not say with the Angel Ye seek Jesus He is not here Indeed he was no longer there in his Monument but he is here in the Blessed Sacrament which shall be in the worthy Receivers as Seeds of the Resurrection 't is Irenaeus's expression to make our vile Bodies like his glorious Body and he is here in the Text as I shall clearly shew though it were but an obscure Prophecy to the Jews as every Prophecy is a Mystery till it be fulfilled yet now 't is turn'd into the plain Story of this time to us Christians 't is a demonstration if it pleases Christ to open our hearts as he did those of the two Disciples that went to Emmaus when he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures and all the Prophets the things concerning himself That Christ ought to have suffered those things and to enter into his Glory for unless he open our eyes as he did theirs while he opened the Scriptures to them we may be but as they were slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Saint Paul who tells some parts of this Story concerning the Resurrection more punctually than even the Gospels have done tells us that Christ rose the third Day according to the Scriptures The Resurrection is the only Article of our Creed that has the circumstance of time particularly annexed to it and this he says was according to the Scriptures that Christ rose the third Day Which are those Scriptures then For he must needs mean those in the Old Testament and which are those None more plain than this place of Hosea which therefore I have chosen to discourse upon though it be not so commonly observed and though it be left for an exercise of our Christian Industry which should be much employ'd in searching the Scriptures for this is a Text not quoted in any place of the New Testament Yet I shall not deny but this Prophecy might also signifie that reviving or restoring of Gods people from their woful Captivity in which they were as it were dead men and dry bones as the Prophet Ezekiel calls them Recovering their Liberty was like receiving new life after those two days or two calamitous times first of the Assyrian Captivity then of the Babylonian and then a third glorious Day broke out joyful and happy to them upon the Victories and Triumphs of the Great Cyrus whom the Prophet Isaiah calls by his Name some Ages before he was born Who hath said
undoubted credit For the time when all this should come to pass that Messiah the Prince should be cut off and to make an end of transgression 't is so exactly set down in the Prophecy of Weeks in Daniel that I may call that Prophecy a persect Gospel The very time of Lent of fasting and mourning for our sins is expresly predetermined as I may say in the Prophecy of Zechariah chap. 12. ver 10 11. applied by the Apostle directly to the passion of our Lord They shall look upon him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only Son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddo But that mourning in Jerusalem certainly was for that excellent King Josiah an undoubted Type of Christ And since it is here foretold that the Church of Christ the true Jerusalem should so mourn for Christ as the Jews did for Josiah it follows forcibly That as the mourning for Josiah was an annual or yearly Solemnity so ours for Christ must be and so is our Good-Friday and indeed the whole Great Week as 't is usually styl'd before this Capital Feast in memory of his Resurrection As for his Resurrection it self what Prediction more plain and clear than the Text in the 16th Psalm on which St. Teter made his Sermon Acts 2. on which St. Paul preach'd Acts 13. Therefore my heart Christs heart was glad and my glory rejoyced my flesh also shall rest in hope for why Thou shalt not leave my soul in Hell neither shalt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption Whoever can but say his Creed may in that Verse find most of the prime Articles of the Christian Faith the Death and Burial of Christ his Descending into Hell his rising again from the Dead to which if my Text be added After two days he will revive us in the third day he will raise us up then what is wanting in this Confession that we ought to believe as Fundamental in the Dectrine of the Resurrection Some indeed think themselves most learned when they can shew these Prophecies literally fulfill'd in the Types of Christ as this in David himself Be it so but yet says the Apostle David saw corruption implying strongly that it was applicable to David in so poor and so low a sense it could hardly be so applied that even according to the Letter as we say it was more truly as well as more gloriously accomplish'd in Christ the Son of David To tell you the worst thought that can arise in an unbelieving heart It has been thought by some or said at least That some Enthusiastick Spirits writ these strange things we call the Prophecies of the Old Testament and then some others either as much transported with devout Phancies or else far engaged in design to set up a new Divinity have adapted those Characters and alluded from these seeming Predictions to such and such Passages in the Life and Death of Christ which Passages either they really credited in pious ignorance or cunningly pretended to do so But if we consider how undeniably prov'd are these Matters of Fact in the Story of Christ that answer to those Prophecies then I hope all is firm then the Foundation of God is sure Now 't is too short an expression to say we have the same assurance of the truth of these things in the Life of Christ as of any thing in the Life of Alexander the Great whose Victories and Monarchy were foretold and show'd him in the Prophecy of Daniel had we none but Quintus Curtius and the other Heathen Writers of the Greek Story we had reason enough to believe there was such a Conqueror as Alexander because indifferent persons have recorded it such as liv'd so near his time they could not be deceived nor could they have any interest to deceive us this may create a Humane Faith that 't is morally impossible such a Matter of Fact should be false But we have more reason by far to give credit to things attested by such persons as are mightily concerned and engaged by their Party to gainsay them Now 't is the peculiar strength of the Christian Faith that two Parties which hate it most I mean the Jews and the Heathens do very strongly support it and prove it against their Wills For the Jews confess and contend that such Prophecies as these were left them nay the most learned Jewish Doctors Ancient and Modern interpret most of these Prophecies to concern their Messiah whom they expected to come and to suffer many things though not Death But then our other Adversaries the Heathens Celsus and Julian and the rest cannot but acknowledge many of Christ's Miracles though most unreasonably they impute them to his skill in some forbidden Arts And for those Miracles which they are loth to confess yet they dare not deny but his Followers dy'd to attest not only their constancy to such a belief for so have Jews and Heathens done but to attest such Matters of Fact as they had seen with their eyes as well as such Matters of Faith once delivered to the Saints and such Evidence as this impossible not to be true must be allow'd as sufficient to found a Divine Faith upon which the Church is built as upon a Rock and the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it For first I suppose that if Christ wrought such Miracles and rose from the Dead and gave his Apostles like power to raise the Dead then all that believe a God and his Providence must admit the whole Christian Faith For Miracles and especially raising the Dead are the Great Seals which God keeps in his own hands to set to his Truth when he sees occasion If the Devil himself were able to raise the Dead why has he never done so once at least after the Executioner has done his Office dextrously upon some one of his faithful Servants He has had above 1600. Years to try but could never shake Christianity as he might have done by raising the Dead so as the act might have born the Test of a fair and full Examination Secondly Then I suppose it possible for men of common sense to be infallibly sure of some notable and very remarkable Matter of Fact which they all believe and think that they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and their hands handle at the same time For if we cannot be sure of so much as this comes to then we may all be dead men or no men but beasts for any thing we can discern But if we can be certain of thus much then we must allow it as possible for those who pretended to have seen Christ raised from the Dead to be as infallibly certain that they were not mistaken Thirdly I suppose it very possible for some
Matter of Fact that was not seen with ones own eyes suppose it be done in the next room to be so undeniably witnessed as shall abundantly supply the want of ocular demonstration Lastly I assume That if we can be sure of any Matter of Fact which we did not see with our own eyes then we may be infinitely surer of the wonderful Works of Christ and especially of his Glorious Resurrection That Christ was openly crucified or nailed to a Cross before a multitude of Enemies That after exquisite pains he gave up the Ghost Then to make all sure That he was thrust into the vital parts that the water gush'd out of his side without which Cooler he must needs have been parch'd to death if he had not undergone many deaths before that the Apostle St. John who saw this with many others bare record That their record is true That the Enemies of Christianity knew it to be so uncontroulably true as to the point of this Dying that scarce any Jew or Heathen has ever been so impudent as to deny the certainty of his Death That this extraordinary Person so publickly executed was closed and sealed up in a Sepulchre and his Body guarded by Orders thus strictly issued forth Ye have a Watch go make it as sure as you can That after three days he appeared alive again in the same Body That he appeared several times in divers places to many Spectators at once to above five hundred Persons That he had threatned his Foes beforehand that he would unbar the Gates of Death let them do what they could to debar or hinder him for it was their own Deposition before Pontius Pilate himself Sir we remember that this Deceiver said while he lived The third day I will rise again That he provok'd some that believed not for joy and some that obstinately disbelieved to feel his Pulse to handle and see the print of the nails and to thrust their hands into his side till the most incredulous man assented whether he would or no These Matters of Fact were immediately proclaim'd and preach'd to all the World by such Eye-Witnesses every where as not only were ready to seal it with their bloud That this Testimony of theirs was true but God also set to his Seal That many of those who were ready thus to lay down their lives and who took it upon their deaths that they saw Christ raised from the Dead should themselves be enabled to work undeniable Miracles and even to raise the Dead No wonder then if the Gospel spread so fast For if a man of God how contemptible soever should revive but one Malefactor after he had been openly put to death it would not be many Months e're the whole World would have an account of it But then their working of Miracles as a demonstration that their Witness was most true who affirmed they had seen Christ risen comes to be as unquestionably asserted by many other Eye-Witnesses and by so many others that had it from the mouths of these they made up a Noble Army of Martyrs who lov'd not their lives in comparison of this Truth which they advanc'd by their deaths viz. That they had seen the Apostles or Apostolical men confirming the Word by Signs following And lastly That there were such a Glorious Company of Martyrs such as endured a thousand indignities and as it were died often with this Testimony of Jesus in their mouths this Testimony I say of the Martyrs is confess'd and acknowledged by all the adverse Parties no Jew no Pagan no Persecutor of Christianity no Atheist no Devil had ever the hardiness to deny what themselves had inflicted and for what these men had suffered And all this put together were enough one would think to secure the Doctrine of the Resurrection and by consequence the Christian Faith No It is said That one man may possibly deceive or be deceived If one then two then three then thirty then thirty thousand then all the whole Company of Martyrs Truly 't is extremely hard to conceive that in things so gross and palpable and of highest consequence any one man of common sence could be impos'd upon much less deceitfully impose on others and those that were dearest to him where he could have no imaginable interest to do so as it was in this Case of the Primitive martyr'd Christians But what if humane Nature might admit of this highest depravation of sence and reason in one single Example What if an Heap of Corn being poured out at randome on a large Threshing-Floor it may happen after many tryals that some of the Grains may fall into some regular Figure would it follow thence that this whole World of Beauty and Order could have been composed by a casual motion of Atoms What if a Printers Characters being thrown together at all adventures it may come to pass after ten hundred thousand essays that such of the Letters may accidentally meet as may make up the two or three first words of my Text yet could it enter into the heart of man to think it possible for them so to be joined by mere chance as to make up all this Divine Prophecy of Hosea or to put the Case yet higher to make up all the Sacred Volumes of the Old and New Testament To cut the matter short Can Chance produce effects as wise as any God can produce But if all reason abhors the Atheist's wild supposition That such blind Causes as an Heap of Corn or a Printers Letters that have no greater tendency one way than another should produce effects so extravagantly wise by Chance only then if we follow the Grain of the same Argument and pursue it home it runs more clearly and ends in a more infallible Conclusion against the Deists as they love to style themselves or the Disbelievers of the Resurrection and Christianity than against the Atheists For that a World of knowing and rational Beings or Men at least of common sense that have a natural appetite an inseparable inclination to their own happiness which those inanimate things have not that all of them could act so extreme unnaturally in an Affair that concerned all their good in this life as well as in the next as all of them wilfully to deceive the Children of their own Bowels or all of them to be so senselesly negligent as to suffer themselves to be perpetually abused when they needed but open their eyes to discover the imposture if there had been any in these Matters of Fact this is utterly impossible to conceive and is really beyond the reach of all imagination If it be possible I say but if still if it be possible for any very considering man to debauch his Reason into a real disbelief of the Resurrection and of those things which are most surely believed among us and upon many infallible Proofs as St. Luke declares that man can have no reason in the world to conclude there is any thing real nay all