Scripture The one was when he came in the flesh in the form of a servant to die for us that he might reign upon the tree as some readings have it in the Psalms The other will be when he shall come in the clouds with power and glory attended with Angels to judge the world at that great and dreadful day when the trumpet shall summon all to appear before the tribunal And when that 's done he shall deliver up the Kingdom to his Father and the time of this his coming and the end of the world he hath left here to be the subject of our prayers and not of our inquiries to exercise devotion not curiosity the uncertainty of the time being an argument to quicken our diligence in preparing for it that we may watch and pray he having told us afore-hand that he will steal upon us as a thief in the night But what need we trouble our selves about the age of the world when our own time is so uncertain that we cannot call the next hour our own and know not how soon the arrest of death may hurry us away to judgement He that dies now in the Lord rests from his labour his good works follow him and if we cannot properly say that the Kingdom of God is come to him we may safely say he is gone to it At the end of the world then is Christ's great coming and the general judgement but at every single death there is a particular doom past when the soul immediately after it's delivery out of the body is dispatched either into the regions of life or lodged in the chambers of death so that in this sense Christ may be said to come too And there is a gracious visit when he comes and knocks at the heart and calls to his beloved by his word When he comes into us to a feast and banquet of love furnished with the consolations of the spirit The sum of this request is that God would declare his power even to the heathen that know not his name and make discoveries of his Majesty by his outward administrations not leaving himself without witness but convince profane spirits that there is a God that rules in the world that he would manage the affairs of the world for his peoples good and for the advancement of the Kingdom of his Son that he would bless the civill societies of men that he would fill Soveraigns with wisdom to go in and out before the people and people with loyalty to their rulers and with love to one another That he would establish the state wherein we live in peace and order preserving us on one hand from the tyranny and oppression of superiours and on the other hand from rebellion and conspiracy of inferiors That he would save the King whom he hath set under himself our supream Head and Governor from all treasons and treacherous designs that he would subdue the people under him cloath his enemies with shame and upon himself let his crown flourish that he would give the King his judgements and make our Magistrates men of courage fearing God and hating covetousness That he would preserve us from all dreadfull calamities the plague pestilence and famine from wars fires inundations from murder and sudden death That he would take a special care of his Church and his chosen ones that he would send labourers into his vineyard that he would endue his Ministers with righteousness that he would illuminate all Bishops and Pastours with true knowledge and understanding of his word that both by their preaching and living they may set it forth and shew it accordingly That he would inlarge the tents of Japhet remember his ancient people the Iewes gather in the remnant of the gentiles send forth his Gospell into the dark corners of the earth and publish the glad tidings of salvation unto all mankind that he would fill up the number of his elect and hasten the glorious appearance of Christ That he would confound the devices of all that have evill will to Zion and turn the hearts of hereticks schismaticks and bloody tyrants That he would assist those that suffer for the testimony of a good conscience with strength from above and send them the comforter That he would destroy the man of sin with the breath of his mouth That he would garrison our hearts with his grace that he would teach us his laws that we may walk in his statutes and keep his commands That he would mortify the desires and lusts of the flesh subdue us to himself and make us a willing people in the day of his power That he would open our hearts for the receiving of his word and rule in them by his spirit That his Kingdom may first enter into us that we may enter into it Lastly that we may have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospell live in a constant exspectation of our great change that when our Lord comes he may find us doing his will on earth as it is in Heaven And blessed is he whom his Lord when he comes shall find so doing THY WILL BE DONE The nature of God is not made up of a body and soul nor hath he bodily parts as eyes hands feet c. or faculties of mind as understanding memory affections and 't is no less improper to say of God that he knows or wills any thing as that he walks sees c. which are metaphorical expressions taken from men God being pleased in holy writ to condescend to our capacity and speak of himself after the manner of men God is all understanding all will nor is there any thing in God which is not infinite i.e. himself His will then is not a thing really distinct from his understanding or indeed from his essence neither is it a blind power as it is in us that needs the guidance of reason and the light of another faculty to be convey'd into it to represent the object and advise it to choose the good and eschew the evil but is of it self most free most wise most good It self is a law and rule to it self determins it self and is the measure and standard of all goodness righteousness and holiness The Lord is righteous in all his wayes and holy in all his works And his pracepts are more to be desired then gold yea then fine gold sweeter then hony the hony-comb Now there is a twofold will of God that of his decrees and that of his commands Nor do these two cross and oppose the one the other as if God decreed one thing should be and commanded the contrary but they keep a sweet harmony and mutuall correspondence God's word and his providence may seem sometimes to clash and justle one another yet they do keep the same road of righteousness nor does God ever contradict himself or speak one thing and mean another Let God be true and every man a lyar '
thy beams As God has made the poor his receivers so he has appointed thy debtors and trespassers his assigns What they can't pay thee God strikes off of thy account what thou forgivest them is discharg'd out of God's bill against thee Thus our forgiveness like quit-rent or a legal cheat stands for a hundred times it's value and our enemies prove our greatest friends by injuring us to our happiness and turning our shame into the advantage of our glory by procuring us pardon of our sins whilest we forgive THEM THAT TRESPASS AGAINST US 'T is such an argument as the Centurion used and shews as much charity as his did faith Doe but speak the word sayes he and my servant shall be healed For I also am one in a petty authority and have souldiers under me and say to one Goe and he goes to another Come and he comes to a third Doe this and he doth it So we are taught to plead this request Forgive us our sins for we also forgive offences committed against us We have superiours that oppress us and we bear with patience equals that scorn us and we in honour prefer them inferiours that neglect us and we use them kindly we have hard masters severe teachers base friends abusive companions stubborn children spightfull neighbours unfaithfull servants and yet we return not evill for evill but give place to wrath and according to thy command overcome their evill with our good We bless those that curse us pray for those that wrongfully use us doe all the good we can to those who doe us all manner of ill and endeavour as much as in us lyes to keep peace with all men and readily forgive every one that doth us any unkindness and with our Saviour on the cross pray that our heavenly Father will forgive them too and with the first Christian Martyr that God will not lay what they doe to their charge And will not the Father of mercies do so by us and much more will not he forgive with whom there is forgiveness that he may be feared God would want worshippers no body would fear him were he a cruel God and delighted in the death of a sinner and would accept of no other sacrifice for sin but the soul that commits it He is mercifull and gracious long suffering full of loving kindness and plenteous in redemption as he has express'd himself in the vision of Moses That he may forgive us as we forgive others let us learn of him to forgive to be reviled and not revile again to love our enemies to pass by offences to wink at great faults not to be strict in observing what is done amiss For if God should doe so who would be able to stand for who knows how oft he offends to make a candid interpretation of other mens carriage and judge the best of their actions to put up wrongs at least to put them upon God's account as David said of Shimei God hath sent him to curse me this day and to look upon every enemy thou hast as God's scourge and 't will become a dutifull child to submit to his father's correction though administred by a servant's hand For he appoints the hand as well as the rod. God has severall wayes to chastise his children and punishes some with a malicious tongue to blister their good name to some a marriage bed proves their purgatory or an ill neighbour-hood To others men of violence come with a commission from heaven as God's Takers and seize on all the comforts of their lives and remember amongst all these injuries of men God doth no man wrong and he may take what course he please to reduce a rebell subject to his obedience And lastly how malitious so ever the intentions of men may be God means all this vexation for good and would not apply this strong Physic but that he finds it necessary for the health of thy soul. What little reason hast thou to be offended at any man whom God imployes in the drudgery of his chastisements How much reason hast thou to forgive and thank too any one that doth thee such kind injuries which reclaim thee from thy sins and put thee in a capacity of God's pardon And shall he that is at this pains about thee to fetch thee home to thy Father and bring thee to Heaven be thought to doe thee ill offices and not deserve a pardon for his courteous malice What good shrewd turns are these What friends more beneficial then such foes whose mistaken rage meaning to kill cures by breaking an Impostume of pride or lust whose cruelty while it would drive us from earth would but give us an earlier possession of heaven and banish us into bliss But may one say if this reasoning be good to what purpose are lawes whereby mens persons and properties are secured from wrong To what end courts of judicature where injur'd persons may have right done them Besides that war upon this account will be as unlawfull as murder and if men may not be allowed to preserve their rights by laws and where they are over-power'd to maintain them by arms in a short time they would have nothing to loose for one injury will invite another till they have eaten out their patient entertainer To this I answer 't is true the whole tenor of the Gospell is for self-denyall taking up the cross and bearing chearfully all that an injurious world can put upon us that the great character of a Christian is to be a sufferer and that the scope of this very petition is in short that we should deal with others as we will have God deal with us which is freely to forgive all trespasses that are committed against us without any exception for no other pardon can serve our turn from God's hand any one sin unpardon'd will damn us Yet God has for the preservation of the civil societies of men implanted principles of moral honesty in the minds of men and hath prescribed rules of equity in his word and hath set up his Vicegerents Kings and Magistrates under them to keep good order that no person of loose principles that has debauch'd his notions may disturb others to gratify his own lust but may be made give account to him that beareth not the sword in vain And one may in some cases nay must out of charity to the publick prosecute notorious offenders as traitors murtherers thieves c. least by a patient sufferance of their mischiefs we encourage them in their wickedness and become accessary to the guilt of any other villany they shall commit afterwards As for private wrongs as slanders c. ones own ease would be argument enough to put a supersedeas to Law with an ingenuous man who knows no ill by himself it being generally seen that he that 's over eager to prosecute a scandal justifies it To conclude there can be no offence so hainous no miscarriage so
the same nature and essence with the Father begotten of his substance before all time God of God Light of Light very God of very God equal to him in all things as to the God-head Christ as the Son of God had no Mother as the Son of the Virgin no Father who became Man that he might in the flesh satisfy for the sins of the flesh yet continued God that he might appeas the anger of an offended God Man that he might suffer death God that he might overcome it God and Man that he might be a perfect Mediator and might reconcile God to Man by atoning wrath and man to God by destroying sin wherefore he took up humane nature put not of the divine But these two natures were united and as it were married in the one Person of Christ. OUR LORD In respect of God Christ is called the Son which shews his essence in respect of us a Lord which shews his dignitie Now he is our Lord both by right of creation because he made us and by right of redemption because he hath bought us with a price and purchased us with his blood to be a peculiar people We are no longer then our own that we should fulfill the lusts of the flesh But we are Christ's the Lord's to doe his Will and keep his Commands The several Steps by which Christ humbled himself and Divine Love moved towards us are his Conception Birth Passion Crucifixion Death Burial and Descent to Hell The infinite is conceiv'd the everlasting is born the Blessed suffers the King of Heaven is nailed to a Cross the immortal dyes the Immense is buried and the King of Glory goes down to Hell What strange contradictions have our sins put the Son of God upon who to procure our Salvation denyed himself and put on the form of a servant Which was conceived of the holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary CONCEIVED That is cloathed with flesh formed and fashioned into bodily parts indued with sense motion and a reasonable soul inlivened cherished produced preserved increased and in one word made man Humane nature being taken up and joyn'd to the Divine OF THE HOLY GHOST Not begotten of his substance for then the third Person should be Father too which is contrary to Faith but by the operation of the holy Spirit the power of the Highest overshadowing her the Virgin without the help of man conceived which is a miracle foretold by the Prophets and fulfill'd in our Messias Behold a Virgin shall conceiv and bring forth a Son now the holy Ghost did separate that most pure mass of flesh blood of which the Body of Christ was to be formed from all corruption of our nature and the stain of sin to which all other the Virgin her self not excepted are lyable who are born after the ordinary way of generation Behold saith David a man after God's own heart I was conceived in sin and in iniquity hath my mother brought me forth Moreover 't was necessary that he should be born without sin who came to die for other's sins and the Lamb of God which was to take away the sins of the world should himself be spotless He could not have been our surety had he been himself a debtour nor satisfied justice for us could the law have charged him with any guilt of his own BORN Having taken upon him a true body being in all things made like unto us sin only excepted flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone that he might truely become the Son of Man he observed the lawes and customs of humane nature and after he had continued in the womb the usual time he was at length brought forth into light laid in a manger wrap't in swadling cloaths and attended by the Virgin and bred up passed his child hood in performing obedience to his parents and grew in stature and wisdome OF THE VIRGIN It became God thus to be born not without a miracle Our Faith is full of miracles a Three-One God a God-Man Christ a Virgin-Mother Mary A Virgin she was before her delivery in her delivery and after her delivery for they who are called the brethren of the Lord are after the manner of the Hebrew speech to be understood as Kinsmen She was indeed espoused to Ioseph but she knew no man Her Virginitie dignifies a single life her betrothing justifies the married state It pleased God to choose a woman without the help of man in the business of our salvation for the honour and comfort of that sex that as by the disobedience of the first woman mankind fell so it might be recovered by the birth of the Virgin and Mary might make amends for the miscarriage of Eve MARY For the greater certainty the name of the Royal Maid is expressed she being of the tribe of Iudah of the linage of David the King according to the Prophecies concerning the Messias Yet the Mother of the Lord this Blessed Virgin was very poor to shew that Christ's Kingdom was not of this world and in this were the blind Jewes offended that they looked for outward pomp the glory of an earthly crown little heeding the foretellings of the Prophets wherein Christ is described a man of sorrows to suffer all the punishment due to our sins to wit death and all the miseries of an afflicted life Suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried We pass immediately from his birth to his Passion for indeed his whole life from his cradle to the Cross was nothing else but a continual passion being spent in hunger thirst fasting watching and travelling grief reproach and shame and he was therefore sent into the world that he might die and to this end God prepared him a body that he might lay down his life for His. SUFFERED Having undertook our cause he satisfied divine Iustice by undergoing those penalties which God in his word hath threatned to the transgressors of the law He was by the sentence of an earthly Iudge condemned to death that we might be acquitted before the heavenly Father UNDER PONTIUS PILATE In that time wherein Pontius Pilate was Governour of Iudea being set over that Nation by the Roman Emperour when was fulfilled that Prophecie which foretold the coming of the Messias should be when the Scepter was departed from Iudah that is when the Iews should be subject to a forreign power having lost their own government CRUCIFIED Christ being betraid by Iudas forsaken of his disciples apprehended as a malefactor is brought to the judgement hall and having been spit upon and mocked by the souldiers accused by the Priests with the charge of blasphemy persecuted with the hatred of the people crying Crucifie him Crucifie him scourged with whips crowned with thorns and besprinkled with large showers of his innocent blood is at last by Pilate delivered up to the will malice of his enemies who nailing his blessed hands stretched wide open to the Cross
beam and his holy feet closed together to the upright beam of the Cross exposed him naked to publick shame being hung betwixt two theevs in a place without the city at the Feast of Passeover and when he had given up the ghost with many pains and groans a souldier pierced his side with a launce that that saying might have place they shall look on him whom they have pierced DEAD By the separation of soul and body for his body remain'd upon the Cross and his soul return'd immediately to God as himself told the penitent theef This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise He was not born after an ordinary manner neither dyed he a common death for as much as beside the extream pain he suffered whilest he hung with the weight of his body upon the Cross and the great shame to which he lay open he lay under a curse the Law pronouncing him cursed that hangs upon the tree AND BURIED Taken down from the Cross embalm'd with spices wrapped up in fine linnen and laid in a tomb where none had lay'n before by the care and cost of Ioseph of Arimathea And the malice of his enemies persued him beyond death and attended him to his very grave who that he might not rise again as himself had promised rolled a great stone to the mouth of the tomb and clapping on their own seals set a guard to watch him HE DESCENDED INTO HELL That is he went down into the lower-most parts of the earth and for the space of three dayes remain'd in the grave amongst the dead Or as some expound it he suffered the pains of Hell and the wrath of God due to our sins and underwent the curse of the law and terrours of conscience to which we were lyable Others take the words as they sound of the place that he did coveigh himself into the regions of darkness and discovered to the divels and to the wicked spirits the glory of his presence and routing the powers of Hell leading captivity captive and trampling Satan that old serpent the enemy of mankind under his victorious feet according to the first Prophesie of Christ The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head And in this sense this article is the beginning of Christ's exaltation The other degrees are his Resurrection his Ascension his Sitting at the right hand of God the Father and his Coming to judgement THE THIRD DAY After that he had lain three dayes in the grave as Ionas who ws the type of the Son of Man continued three days in the whale's belly It being observ'd that on the fourth day the body begins to corrupt which was not to happen to Christ David thus speaking concerning him My flesh shall rest in hope because thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption Wherefore early in the morning on the third day which was for that reason appointed the Christian Sabbath HE ROSE AGAIN Partly raising himself by his own virtue and divine power as himself saith I lay down my life that I may take it up again I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Partly being raised by God the Father who when his Iustice was fully satisfied released Christ out of the prison of the grave and to that purpose sent his Angels to roll away the stone death having now no more dominion over him who having finisht the work of our redemption rose again for our justification FROM THE DEAD He return'd to life appeared to his Disciples and others several times shewed the wounds which he had received on the Cross and made Thomas who was hard of belief to feel his side that he might know it was a true body And having for fourty dayes together conversed upon earth and given orders to the Apostles how they should goe into all the world and preach the Gospell and plant churches promising them the assistance of the spirit he took his leave of them in this manner as followeth HE ASCENDED In the sight of his Apostles from the top of mount Olivet where he had bin formerly used to spend much of his time in holy retirements and spiritual exercises he lifted up himself from the ground and so mounting upward through the aire was received by a cloud and to the wonder of them all carried aloft out of sight two Angels telling them as they stood gazing that as they had seen him goe away so he should come again INTO HEAVEN The seat of the blessed where God sits on his Throne attended by millions of Angels far above the sphear of the stars the sky to wit the highest heaven For having dispatched the business for which he came down on earth he return'd to the Father by whom he had bin sent to intercede with him in our behalf and make out to us thence the benefit of all those things which he had done and suffer'd for us here And having conquer'd sin and death and broken the power of Hell what remains but that he should as in triumph ride upon the wings of the wind ascend to Heaven as the prize of his glorious conquest AND SITTETH To note that he hath fully accomplished the work of our Salvation he is said at last to sit down that he may as it were rest from his labours For the servant stands or goes whilest he is employ'd and sits not down till his work be done Now Christ put on the form of a servant and came as he saith of himself to wait not to be waited on That he sits also is a token of that authority which the Father hath given him having delivered unto him all power both in heaven and in earth and put all things under his feet So God sits in Heaven to order all things at his pleasure Again to sit sometimes signifies stay he sits there not to return before the end of the world Lastly by this word is expressed the blessed and glorious condition of the Saints in the life to come who shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Heaven and therefore to shew the greatness of the dignitie to which Christ according to his humane nature is advanced is added At the right hand of God the Father Almighty The right hand usually expresseth strength and honour power and glory besides to give the right hand is a sign of fellowship and friendship wherefore God calls him the man my fellow Now to speak properly God hath no right hand or left nor any bodily parts but that he may apply himself to our capacities he doth use to speak of himself after the manner of men Becuse earthly Princes are wont to place those at their right hand whom they favour and would shew a particular honour as Solomon entertained his mother The meaning is that God hath raised him to the highest pitch