none can conclude the debt either paid by him or forgiven to him but by the release of his person Who could believe Christ to have been a God and a Saviour while he was hanging upon the Tree A dying crucified God a Saviour of the World who could not save himself would have been exploded by the Universal consent of Reason as an horrible Paradox and absurdity Had not the Resurrection followed the Crucifixion that scoff of the Jews had stood as an unanswerable Argument against him Mark 15.31 Himself He cannot save and in the 32. v. Let Him come down from the Cross and we will believe in Him Otherwise surely that which was the lowest instance of humane weakness and mortality could be no competent demonstration of a Deity To save is the effect of Power and of such a Power as prevails to a compleat victory and a Triumph But it is expresly affirmed 2 Cor. 13.4 That Christ was crucified through weakness Death was too hard for his humanity and bore away the spoils of it for a Time So that while Christ was in the Grave Men might as well have expected that a person hung in chains should come down and head an Army as imagine that a dead body continuing such should be able to Triumph over Sin and Death which so potently Triumphs over the Living The discourse of the Two Disciples going to Emmaus and expecting no such thing as a Resurrection was upon that supposition hugely rational and significant Luk. 24.21 We trusted said they that this had been He who should have redeemed Israel thereby clearly implying that upon his Death they had let that confidence fall to the ground together with Him For they could not imagine that a breathless carcase could chase away the Roman Eagles and so recover the Kingdom and Nation of the Jews from under their subjection which was the Redemption that even the Disciples till they were further enlightened promised themselves from their Messiah But the Argument would equally nay more strongly hold against a Spiritual Redemption supposing his continuance under a State of Death as being a thing in it self much more difficult For how could such an one break the Kingdom of darkness and set his Foot upon Principalities and Powers and Spiritual Wickednesses in High places Who himself fell a Sacrifice to the wickedness of mortal Men and remained a Captive in the lower parts of the Earth reduced to a Condition not only below Men's Envy but below their very Feet 5. The Fifth and Last Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's perpetual continuance under a State of Death was the Nature of the Priesthood which he had took upon him The Apostle Heb. 8.4 says That if He were upon Earth He should not be a Priest Certainly then much less could he be so should He continue under the Earth The two great works of his Priesthood were to offer Sacrifice and then to make intercession for Sinners correspondent to the two works of the Mosaical Priesthood in which the Priest first slew the Lamb and then with the bloud of it entred into the Holy of Holies there to appear before God in the behalf of the People Christ therefore after that he had offered himself upon the Cross was to enter into Heaven and there presenting himself to the Father to make that Sacrifice effectual to all the Intents and Purposes of it Upon which Account the Apostle to express his fitness for the Priesthood infinitely beyond any of the Sons of Aaron states it upon this Heb. 7.25 That He lives for ever to make intercession for us and upon that very score also is able to save to the uttermost But surely the dead could not intercede for the Living nor was the Grave a Sanctum Sanctorum Had not Christ risen again His bloud indeed might have cryed for Vengeance upon his Murderers but not for Mercy upon Believers In short It had spoke no better things than the bloud of Abel which call'd for nothing but a fearful Judgment upon the Head of him who shed it Christ's Death merited a Redemption for the World but Christ while dead could not shew forth the full effects of that Redemption He made the purchace at his Death but He could not take Possession till he was returned to Life Ever since Christ ascended into Heaven He has been pursuing the great Work begun by him upon the Cross and applying the vertue of his Sacrifice to those for whom it was offer'd It is affirmed by some and that not without great probability of Reason That the Souls of the Saints who dyed before Christ's resurrection did not actually enter into a State of Compleat Glory till Christ the Great Captain of their Salvation upon his Ascension first entred into it himself and then made way for others So that according to that Divine Anthem of the Church After that he had overcome the sharpness of death then at length and not till then He opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers And thus I have given five several reasons why it was not possible that a State of Death should finally prevail over Christ which was the thing to be proved And I have nothing further to recommend to your consideration but only Two things which the very Nature of the Subject seems of it self to imprint upon all pious Minds 1. The First is a Dehortation from Sin and that indeed the strongest that can be For can we imagine that the Second Person in the Glorious Trinity would concern himself to take upon him our Flesh and to suffer and die and at length rise again only to render us the more secure and confident in our Sins Would he neither see nor endure any Corruption in his Dead Body that we should harbour all the Filth and Corruption imaginable in our Immortal Souls Did he Conquer and Triumph over Death that we should be the Slaves and Captives of that which is worse than Death Christ has declared that he will dwell in those whom he assumes into the Society of his Mystical Body But can we think that he who passed from a clean new Sepulchre into an Heavenly Mansion will descend from thence to take up his Habitation in the Rotten Sepulchre of an heart possessed and polluted with the Love of that which he infinitely Hates It will little avail us That Christ rose from a Temporal Death unless we also rise from a Spiritual For those who do not Imitate as well as Believe Christ's Resurrection must expect no benefit by it 2. Christ's Resurrection is an high and Soveraign Consolation against Death Death we know is the Grand Enemy of Mankind the Merciless Tyrant over Nature and the King of Terrors But Blessed be God Christ has given a Mortal blow to his Power and broke his Scepter And if we by a through Conquest of our Sins and Rising from them can be but able to say O Sin where is thy Power We may very Rationally and Warrantably say thereupon O
Death where is thy Sting So that when we come to resign back these frail Bodies these Vessels of Mortality to the Dust from whence they were taken we may yet say of our Souls as Christ did of the Damosel whom he raised up That she was not dead but only Slept for in like manner we shall as certainly rise out of the Grave and Triumph over the dishonours of its Rottenness and Putrefaction as we rise in the Morning out of our Beds with Bodies refreshed and advanced into Higher and Nobler Perfections For the Head being once risen we may be sure the Members cannot stay long behind And Christ is already risen and gone before to prepare Mansions for all those who belong to him under that High Relation That where He is They to their Eternal Comfort may be also rejoycing and singing Praises and Hallelujahs to him who sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for Ever and Ever To Whom Be Rendered and Ascribed as is most due all Glory Might Majesty and Dominion to Eternal Ages Amen THE Christian Pentecost OR THE Solemn Effusion of the Holy Ghost IN THE Several Miraculous Gifts Conferred by Him upon the Apostles and first Christians Set forth in a SERMON Preached At Westminster-Abbey 1692. 1 COR. XII 4 Now there are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit OUR Blessed Saviour having Newly Changed his Crown of Thorns for a Crown of Glory and ascending up on high took Possession of his Royal Estate and Soveraignty according to the Custom of Princes is here treating with this Lower World now at so great a distance from him by his Ambassador And for the greater Splendour of the Embassy and Authority of the Message by an Ambassador no ways Inferiour to Himself even the Holy Ghost the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity in Glory Equal in Majesty Co-eternal and therefore most peculiarly fit not only as a Deputy but as a kind of Alter Idem to supply his Place and Presence here upon Earth and indeed had he not been Equal to him in the Godhead he could no more have supplyed his Place than he could have filled it which we know in the Accounts of the World are Things extreamly different as by sad and scandalous Experience is too often found Now the summ of this his Glorious Negotiation was to Confirm and ratifie Christ's Doctrine to seal the New Charter of the Worlds Blessedness given by Christ Himself and drawn up by his Apostles and Certainly it was not a greater Work first to Publish than it was afterwards to Confirm it For Christianity being a Religion made up of Truth and Miracle could not Receive its Growth from any Power less than that which first gave it its Birth And being withal a Doctrine Contrary to Corrupt Nature and to those Things which Men most Eagerly Loved to wit their Worldly Interests and their Carnal Lusts it must needs have quickly decayed and withered and dyed away if not Watered by the same Hand of Omnipotence by which it was first planted Nothing could keep it up but such a standing mighty Power as should be able upon all occasions to Countermand and Controul Nature such an one as should at the same time both Instruct and Astonish and baffle the Disputes of Reason by the Obvious overpowering Convictions of Sense And this was the Design of the Spirit 's Mission That the same Holy Ghost who had given Christ his Conception might now give Christianity its Confirmation And this he did by that wonderful and various Effusion of his Miraculous Gifts upon the first Messengers and Propagators of this Divine Religion For as our Saviour himself said John 4.48 Vnless you see signs and wonders you will not believe So that Sight was to introduce Belief and accordingly the first Conquest and Conviction was made upon the Eye and from thence passed victorious to the Heart This therefore was their Rhetorick this their method of Perswasion Their Words were Works Divinity and Physick went together They Cured the Body and thereby Convinced the Soul They Conveyed and enforced all their Exhortations not by the Arts of Eloquence but by the Gift of Tongues These were the Speakers and Miracle the Interpreter Now in Treating of these Words I shall Consider these Three Things First What those Gifts were which were conferred by the Spirit both upon the Apostles and first Professors of Christianity Secondly What is Imported and to be understood by their Diversity and Thirdly And Lastly What are the Consequences of their Emanation from one and the same Spirit First And first for the first of them These Gifts are called in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Acts of Grace or favour and signifie here certain Qualities and Perfections which the Spirit of God freely bestowed upon Men for the better Enabling them to Preach the Gospel and to settle the Christian Religion in the World and accordingly we will Consider them under that known Dichotomy or Division by which they stand divided into Ordinary and Extraordinary And first for the Ordinary Gifts of the Spirit these he conveys to us by the mediation of our own Endeavours And as He who both makes the Watch and Winds up the Wheels of it may not Improperly be said to be the Author of its motion so God who first Created and since sustains the Powers and Faculties of the Soul may justly be called the Cause of all those Perfections and Improvements which the said faculties shall attain unto by their Respective Operations For that which gives the form gives also the Consequents of that form and the Principle with all its appendant Actions is to be referred to the same Donor But God forbid that I should determine God's Title to our Actions barely in his giving us the Power and Faculty of Acting Durandus indeed an Eminent Schoolman held so and so must Pelagius and his followers hold too if they will be True to and abide by their own Principles But undoubtedly God does not only give the Power but also vouchsafes an Active Influence and Concurrence to the production of every particular Action so far as it has either a Natural or a Moral goodness in it And therefore in all acquired Gifts or Habits such as are those of Philosophy Oratory or Divinity we are properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Co-workers with God And God ordinarily gives them to none but to such as Labour hard for them They are so his Gifts that they are also our own Acquisitions His assistance and our own study are the joint and adequate Cause of these Perfections And to imagine the Contrary is all one as if a Man should think to be a Scholar barely by his Master's Teaching without his own Learning In all these Cases God is ready to do his Part but not to do both His own and ours too Secondly The other sort of the Spirit 's Gifts are Extraordinary Which are so absolutely and entirely from God that the Soul
they still sunk and came to Nothing It must be confessed indeed that there rose up such Counterfeits after Christ as well as before Him yet still I think their defeat ought to be ascribed to His Coming because as a Light scatters the Darkness on all sides of it So there was such a Demonstration and Evidence given of Jesus's being the True Messias by his Coming in the Flesh that it cast its discovering Influence both backwards and forwards and equally baffled and confuted the Pretences of those who went before and of those who Rose up after Him So Potent and Victorious is Truth especially when it comes upon such an Errand from Heaven as to save the World Amongst those several false Messias's it is remarkable that one called himself Barchocab or the Son of a Star but by his fall he quickly shew'd himself of a Nature far differing from this Glorious Morning Star mentioned in the Text Which even then was fixed in Heaven while it shone upon the Earth It was not the Transitory light of a Comet which shines and glares for a while and then presently vanishes into Nothing but a Light Durable and Immortal and such an One as shall outlive the Sun and shine and burn when Heaven and Earth and the whole World shall be reduced to Cinders Having thus shewn how Christ resembled a Star in respect of His external visible shinings to the World by which He drove away much of the Heathenish Idolatry all the Jewish Ceremonies together with the Pretences of all counterfeit Messias's as the light dispels and chaces away the Darkness Come we now in the Second place to see how He resembles a Star also in respect of its Internal secret Operation and Influence upon all Sublunary Inferior beings And indeed this is the Noblest and the greatest part of the Resemblance Stars are thought to Operate powerfully even then when they do not appear and are felt by their Effects when they are not seen by their Light In like manner Christ often strikes the Soul and darts a secret beam into the heart without alarming either the Eye or Ear of the Person wrought upon And this is called both properly and elegantly by St. Peter in 2 Ep. â— 19 The Day-star's arising in our Hearts that is by the secret silent workings of His Spirit He illuminates the Judgment bends the Will and the Affections and at last changes the whole Man and this is that powerful but still Voice by which He speaks Eternal Peace to the Souls of His Elect in the Admirable but Mysterious Work of their Conversion So that our great Concern and enquiry should be whether those Heavenly Beams have reached us inwardly and pierced into our Minds as well as shone in our Faces and whether the Influence of this Star upon us has been such as to govern and draw us after it as it did the Wisemen and thereby both make and prove us Wise unto Salvation For Light is Operative as well as Beautiful and by working upon the Spirits affects the Heart as well as pleases the Eye Above all things therefore let us be strict and impartial in this search where the Thing Searched for is of such Consequence For since there are False Lights Light it self should be tryed And if we would know infallibly whether it be the Light from Above by which we are led and live and whether this Morning-Star has had its full efficacy upon or rather within us Let us see whether or no It has scattered the Clouds and darkness of our Spiritual Ignorance and the noysom foggs of our Lusts and vile Affections Do we live as the Sons of Light Do we walk as in the Day without stumbling into the mire of our old Sins These are the only sure Evidences that Christ is not only a Star in Himself but such an One also to us For when the Day-spring from on high visits us truely and effectually it first takes us out of these Shaddows of Death and then guides our Feet into the Ways of Peace To Which God of His Mercy Vouchsafe to bring us all To Whom be Rendred and Ascribed as is most due All Honour c. Jesus of Nazareth PROVED The True and Onely promised Messiah IN A SERMON Preached At S t Mary's Oxon. Before the University ON Christmas-Day 1665. JOHN I. 11 He came to His Own and His Own received Him not I cannot think it directly requisite to the prosecution of these Words nor will the Time allotted for it permit to assert and vindicate the foregoing verses from the perverse Interpretations of that false Pretender to reason and real Subverter all Religion Socinus Who in the Exposition of this Chapter together with some part of the 8 th both of them taken from the Posthumous Papers of his Uncle Lelius laid the foundation of that great Babel of Blasphemies with which he afterwards so amuzed and pestered the Christian World and under Colour of Reforming and Refining forsooth the best of Religions has imployed the utmost of his skill and art to bring Men indeed to believe none And therefore no small cause of Grief must it needs be to all pious minds that such horrid Opinions should find so ready a Reception and so fatal a Welcome in so many parts of the World as they have done considering both what they tend to and whom they come from For they tend only to give us such a Christ and Saviour as neither the Prophets nor Evangelists know nor speak any thing of And as for their Original if we would trace them up to that through some of the chief Branches of their Infamous Pedigree we must carry them a little backward from hence First to the forementioned Faustus Socinus and his Uncle Lelius and from them to Gentilis and then to Servetus and so through a long Interval to Mahomet and his Sect and from them to Photinus and from him to Arius and from Arius to Paulus Samosatenus and from him to Ebion and Cerinthus and from them to Simon Magus and so in a direct Line to the Devil himself Under whose Conduct in the several Ages of the Church these Wretches successively have been some of the most Notorious opposers of the Divinity of our Saviour and would undoubtedly have overthrown the belief of it in the World could they by all their Arts of wresting corrupting and false interpreting the Holy Text have brought the Scriptures to speak for them which they could never yet do And amongst all the Scriptures No One has stood so directly and immoveably in their way as this first Chapter of St. Iohn's Gospel A Chapter carrying in it so bright and full an Assertion of the Eternal Godhead of the Son that a Man must put common sense and reason extreamly upon the Rack before he can give any tolerable Exposition of it to the contrary So that an Eminent Dutch Critick who could find in his heart as much as in him lay to interpret away that
suffering for Sin but his being punished for Sin And that I am sure is spoke so plain and loud by the Universal Voice of the whole Book of God that Scripture must be Crucified as well as Christ to give any other tolerable sence of it But since Heresy has made such bold invasions upon those Sacred Writings we will consider both those sences which these words are asserted to be capable of 1. First of all then some assert That to be stricken for Transgression imports not here a Punishment for Sins past but a Prevention or taking away of Sin for the future So that Christ is said to be stricken to suffer and to die for Sin because by all this He confirmed to us an Excellent and Holy Doctrine the belief of which has in it a natural Aptness to draw Men off from their Sins In a word because Christianity tends to make Men holy and cease from Sin and because Christ by His bloud sealed the Truth of Christianity therefore is He said to die for Sin A strange and remote deduction and such an one as the Common rules and use of speaking would never have suggested But then besides because it is easy to come upon the Authors of this perverse Interpretation by demanding of them what fitness there could be in Christ's death to confirm His Doctrine And what Reason the World could have to believe Christianity True because the Author of it a Pious Innocent Excellent Person was basely and cruelly put to Death Therefore they further say that this Effect of its confirmation is really and indeed to be ascribed to His subsequent Resurrection though only his Death be still mentioned that being the most difficult and Heroick passage of all that he either did or suffered for our sakes and consequently the greatest Instance of his Patience and perswasion of the Truth of that Doctrine for which he suffered But by their favour if Christ is said no otherwise to die for Sin than because he delivered a Doctrine the design of which was to draw Men off from Sin and which was confirm'd to be true only by his Resurrection How comes it to pass that this effect is still joyned with his Death but never with his Resurrection It being said over and over that He dyed for Sin suffered and bled for Sin but never that He rose again for Sin It is indeed said once that he rose again for our justification but in the very foregoing words it is said that he was delivered to death for our Offences Which shews that those words for our Offences and for our justification have there a very different sence and bear a different relation to the words with which they are joined in that as well as in the other Scriptures But this whole Invention is so forced and far fetched and so much out of the Road of Common reason that it is impossible it should gain but by the strengths and prepossessions of Prejudice and where prejudice stands for judgment for ought I see it is as vain to urge Arguments as to quote Scriptures 2. The other sence of these words and which alone the Catholick Church receives for true is That Christ's being stricken for Sin signifies his being punished for Sin The word For in this case denoting the Antecedent Meritorious cause of his suffering and not the Final as the School of Socinus does assert and consequently must directly relate to the removal of the guilt of Sin and not the Power as is also affirmed by the same Persons Now that Christ's suffering and being stricken for Transgression imports that suffering to have been Penal and Expiatory as it might with the highest Evidence be demonstrated from several Scriptures so at this time I shall confine my self within the limits of the Chapter from whence I took my Text and here I shall found the proof of it upon these two expressions First That Christ is said to have born our Sins in the 12. v. Now to bear Sin is an Hebrew Phrase for that which in Latin is Luere peccatum and in English to be punished for Sin And if to bear another Man's Sin or iniquity by suffering does not imply the undergoing of the punishment due to that Man's Sin We must invent a new way of expounding Profane Writers as well as Sacred and of interpreting the common speeches of Men as well as the word of God Secondly The other Argument shall be taken from that Expression which declares Christ to have been made a Sacrifice or an Offering for Sin in the 10. v. When Thou shalt make His Soul an Offering for Sin The proof of what I here affirm is grounded upon the use and design of a Sacrifice as it has been used by all Nations in the World which was to appease the Deity by paying down a Life for Sin and that by the substitution of a Sacrifice whether of Man or Beast to die and pay down his Life instead of the Sinner For there was a tacit acknowledgment universally fixt in the Hearts of all Mankind that the Wages of Sin was Death and that without shedding of bloud there could be no Remission upon which was built the reason of all their Sacrifices and Victims So surely therefore as Christ was a Sacrifice and as the design of a Sacrifice is to pay down a Life for Sin and as to pay down a Life for Sin is to be Punished for Sin so sure it is that Christ's Death and Sufferings were Penal Now it being clear that the foundation of all Punishment is compensation or exchange that is to say something paid down to divine Justice for something done against it and since all compensation implies a Retribution equivalent to the Injury done therefore that Christ might be qualified to be a Sacrifice fit to undergo the full Punishment due for the Sins of Mankind two things were required 1. An infinite dignity in his Person for since the Evil and Demerit of Sin was Infinite and since Christ was so to suffer for it as not to remain under those sufferings for an Infinite duration that Infinity therefore was to be made up some other way which could not be but by the Infinite worth and Dignity of his Person grasping in all the Perfections and Glories of the Deity and by consequence deriving an Infinite Value to his Sufferings 2. The other Qualification required was a perfect Innocence in the Person to suffer for so much was specified by the Paschal Lamb of which we still read in Scripture That it was to be a Lamb without blemish And there is no doubt but had Christ had any Sin of his own to have satisfied for he had been very unable to satisfy for other Men's He who is going to Gaol for his own debts is very unfit to be a Security for anothers But now this perfect Innocence which I affirm necessary to render Christ a fit and proper Sacrifice is urged by our Adversaries to be the very Reason
the Concurrence of Both no less a Power was imployed to raise Christ out of the Grave than that which first raised the World it self out of Nothing 2. Let us consider God's immutability in respect of his Word and Promise for these also were engaged in this affair In what a clear Prophecy was this foretold and dictated by that Spirit which could not lye Psalm 16.10 Thou shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption And Christ also had frequently foretold the same of himself Now when God says a thing he gives his Veracity in pawn to see it fully performed Heaven and Earth may pass away sooner than one Iota of a Divine Promise fall to the ground Few things are recorded of Christ but the rear of the Narrative is still brought up with this That such a thing was done That it might be fullfilled what was spoken by such or such a Prophet Such a firm unshaken adamantine connexion is there between a Prophecy and its accomplishment All things that are written in the Prophets concerning Me says Christ must come to pass And surely then the most Illustrious Passage that concerned him could not remain under an uncertainty and contingency of event So that What is most Emphatically said concerning the persevering obstinacy and Infidelity of the Jews John 12.39 40. That they could not believe because that Esaias had said that God blinded their Eyes and hardened their Hearts that they should not see with their Eyes nor understand with their Hearts and so be converted and He should heal them The same I affirm may with as great an Emphasis and a much greater clearness to our Reason be affirmed of Christ that therefore Death could not hold him because the Kingly Prophet had long before sung the Triumphs of His glorious Resurrection in the forementioned Prediction In a Word whatsoever God purposes or promises passes from Contingent and meerly Possible into Certain and Necessary and whatsoever is Necessary the contrary of it is so far Impossible But when I say that the Divine decree or promise imprints a Necessity upon things it may to prevent misapprehension be needful to Explain what kind of Necessity this is that so the liberty of second Causes be not thereby wholly cashiered and took away For this therefore we are to observe that the Schools distinguish of a Two-fold necessity Physical and Logical or Causal and Consequential which Terms are Commonly thus explained viz. That Physical or Causal Necessity is when a thing by an Efficient Productive Influence certainly and naturally causes such an Effect and in this sence neither the Divine Decree nor Promise makes things necessary for neither the decree nor promise by it self produces or effects the Thing decreed or promised nor exerts any active influence upon Second Causes so as to impell them to do any thing but in point of Action are wholly ineffective Secondly Logical or Consequential Necessity is when a thing does not efficiently cause an Event but yet by certain infallible Consequence does infer it Thus the fore-knowledge of any Event if it be true and certain does certainly and necessarily infer that there must be such an event for as much as the certainty of knowledge depends upon the certainty of the thing known And in this sence it is that God's decree and promise give a necessary Existence to the thing decreed or promised that is to say they infer it by a necessary infallible consequence So that it was as impossible for Christ not to rise from the Dead as it was for God absolutely to decree and promise a thing and yet for that thing not to come to pass The Third Reason of the Impossibility of Christs detention under a State of Death was from the Iustice of God God in the whole procedure of Christ's sufferings must be considered as a Judge exacting and Christ as a Person paying down a recompence or satisfaction for Sin For though Christ was as pure and undefiled with the least spot of Sin as purity and innocence it self yet he was pleased to make himself the greatest Sinner in the World by Imputation and rendring himself a surety responsible for our debts For as it is said 2 Cor. 5.21 He who knew no Sin was made Sin for us When the Justice of God was lifting up the Sword of Vengeance over our Heads Christ snatch'd us away from the blow and substituted his Own Body in our Room to receive the whole stroke of that dreadful Retribution inflicted by the Hand of an Angry Omnipotence But now as God was pleased so to comport with his Justice as not to put up the injury done it by Sin without an Equivalent compensation so this being once paid down that proceeding was to cease The Punishment due to Sin was Death which being paid by Christ Divine Justice could not any longer detain him in his Grave For what had this been else but to keep him in Prison after the debt was paid Satisfaction disarms Justice and payment cancells the Bond. And that which Christ exhibited was full measure pressed down and runing over even adequate to the nicest proportions and the most exact demands of that severe and unrelenting Attribute of God So that his Release proceeded not upon Terms of Courtesy but of Claim The gates of Death flew open before him out of duty and even that Justice which was Infinite was yet circumscribed within the inviolable limits of what was due Otherwise guilt would even grow out of expiation the reckoning be enflamed by being paid and punishment it self not appease but exasperate Justice Revenge indeed in the hand of a sinful mortal Man is for the most part vast unlimited and unreasonable but Revenge in the Hands of an Infinite Justice is not so Infinite as to be also Indefinite but in all its actings proceeds by Rule and Determination and cannot possibly surpass the bounds put to it by the Merits of the Cause and the Measure of the Offence It is not the effect of meer choice and will but springs out of the unalterable relation of Equality between Things and Actions In a word The same Justice of God which required him to deliver Christ to Death did afterwards as much engage him to deliver him from it 4. The Fourth Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's perpetual continuance under Death was the Necessity of his being Believed in as a Saviour and the impossibility of his being so without rising from the dead As Christ by his Death paid down a Satisfaction for Sin so it was necessary that it should be declared to the World by such Arguments as might found a Rational Belief of it So that Men's Unbelief should be rendred inexcusable But how could the World believe that he fully had satisfyed for Sin so long as they saw Death the known wages of Sin maintain its full force and power over him holding him like an obnoxious Person in Durance and Captivity When a Man is once imprison'd for debt
Princes by disposing their hearts to such Vertuous and Pious Courses as he has promised a blessing to and by restraining them from those ways to which he has denounced a Curse And this is the greatest deliverance of all as having a prospect upon the felicity of both Worlds and laying a foundation for all other Deliverances For it is this that qualifies and renders a Man a Subject Capable of and fit for a Deliverance King Abimelech was about to do an Action that would certainly have drawn Death and Confusion after it Thou art but a Dead Man says God to Him in Gen. 20.3 But preventing Grace snatched Him from the Brink of Destruction and delivered him from Death by restraining Him from the Sin I with-held thee says God in the 6 th from Sining against me See the force of Princely Piety in the Person of Hezekiah God tells him that he should die and bids him prepare for it But Piety is stronger than Death and reverses the fatal Edict The Assyrians Invade his Kingdom and take his fenced Cities but how does he withstand them Why he puts on Sackcloath for his Armour and it was neither the Valour nor the Number of his Troops but the Prayer of Hezekiah and the Irresistible force of a King fighting upon his knees that routed Sennacherib Vertue Entitles a Prince to all the Mercies of Heaven all the Favours all the Endearments of Providence It has a present and a future Influence one upon his Person the other upon his Posterity So that in 1 Kings 11. when God declared his purpose to Remove the Kingdom from the House of Solomon for all his Idolatries and Abominations Yet in the 34. v. he says howbeit I will make him King all the days of his Life for my Servant David's sake because He kept my Commandments and my Statutes And in the 32. v. He declares that his Son after Him should have one Tribe for his Servant David's sake Nay the Piety of a King diffuses a Blessing and a Protection upon the whole Kingdom For how often upon the Provocations of Iudah did the Memory of David's Piety as it were disarm the Divine Vengeance and interpose between them and the destroying Sentence So that in the second Book of Kings it is said three several times upon three several Remarkable Occasions that God would not destroy Judah and Jerusalem for his Servant David's sake And who knows but the Piety the Vertues and the Christian sufferings of the late Martyred King may be one great preservative of the present Peace of this wretched and ungrateful Nation so that when God lately sent his Destroying Angel with his drawn Sword over Poland Germany Holland and other Countries He has looked upon the Blood of that Royal Martyr shed for the Rights and Liberties of his Kingdoms and bid the Destroying Angel pass over England and draw no more Blood there where the Memory of that Sacred Blood had made such an Atonement and expiation and cryed aloud for Mercy upon all even those that shed it not excepted Certain it is that the Vertues of a Prince are a blessing to more than to Himself and His Family They are a publick Seminary of Blessings they are the Palladiums and and the strong holds nay the Common stock and the Inheritance of the Kingdom and in a word an Exchequer that can never be shut up And thus much for the second General thing proposed which was to shew the several ways and means by which God does after such an extraordinary manner save and deliver Sovereign Princes All which for Memories sake it may not be amiss to rehearse and summ up in short As namely he delivers them 1. By endowing them with a more than Ordinary Sagacity and Quickness of Understanding above other Men. 2. By giving them a singular Courage and Presence of Mind in Cases of Difficulty and Danger 3. By disposing of Events and Accidents in a strange Concurrence for their advantage and preservation 4. By Wonderfully Inclining the Hearts and Wills of Men to a benign affection towards them 5. By rescuing them from unseen and unknown mischiefs prepared against them 6. By Imprinting a Certain Awe and Dread of their Persons and Authority upon the minds of the People 7. Seventhly and lastly By disposing their hearts to such Vertuous and Pious Courses as God has Promised a Blessing to and by restraining them from those ways to which He has denounced a Curse And these are the several ways by which Providence gives salvation unto Kings I proceed now to the 3. General thing proposed which is to shew the Reasons why Providence is so much concerned in the Salvation and deliverance of Kings Which that we may the better do we must know that there are two things by which God supports the Societies of Mankind which He will certainly maintain and preserve as long as He suffers the World to last and Men to live in it and these are Government and Religion which being so I suppose we need alledge no other Reason for Gods peculiar Care over the Persons and lives of Sovereign Princes if we demonstrate 1. That they are the greatest Instruments in the hand of Providence to support Government and Civil Society in the World And 2. That they have the most Powerful Influence upon the concerns of Religion and the Preservation of the Church of all other Persons whatsoever And first for the first of these That Kings are the greatest Instruments in the hand of Providence to support Government and Civil Society in the World The Proof of which I conceive will be fully made out by these two things 1. By shewing that Monarchy or Kingly Government is the most excellent and best Adapted to the Ends of Government and the Benefit of Society And 2. That the greatness or strength of a Monarchy depends chiefly upon the Personal Qualifications of the Prince or Monarch 1. And first let us shew that Monarchy or Kingly Government is the most Excellent and best adapted to the Ends of Government and the benefit of Society This is too large and Noble a subject to be fully managed in such a discourse At present let it suffice to say That Monarchy in the kind of Government is the First and Consequently the most Perfect of all other sorts It is an Image of the Divine Supremacy Man's Imitation of Providence a Copy of God's Government of the Universe in a lesser draught For the World has but one Sovereign Ruler as well as but one Maker and every Prince is both his Lieutenant and his Resemblance too The Excellency of any Government consists in the Natural firmness of its Constitution freeing it from the Principles of dissolution And the Dissolution of Government as of most other Things proceeds chiefly from the Internal Fightings and Conflicts of Contrary parts But now Unity excludes Contrariety and that which is but One cannot disagree or jarr with it self It is multitude only that admits of the Contests