commission to go preach among the Gentiles Acts 22. 18 21. And so he returneth from Jerusalem to Antioch where we shall have him the next year §. 2. Peter not this year at Rome This year the Romanists have brought Peter to Rome and made this the first year or beginning of his Episcopacy there For thus Baronius That Peter came to Rome this second year of Claudius the Emperor it is the common Opinion of all men And to this purpose he alledgeth Eusebius his Chronicle and Jerome de scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis and concludeth that others have written the same things concerning the time that there can be no doubt left of it It may be tolerated to insist a little the more largely upon the examination of this opinion not for that it is of any such great import in its own nature as for that it is made of so great by them for their own advantage For were it granted that Peter was Bishop of Rome and that he went thither in this year yet what great matter were there in this in common sense and reason But because unreasonable men have from hence or upon this foundation built the supremacy of the Pope the great delusion of the world let the same common sense and reason equally and impartially judge of the probability or improbability of this thing in these two parts into which this tenet doth fall of it self 1. Whether it be probable that Peter was Bishop of Rome at all 2. Whether it be possible that he could come thither this year according as they themselves have laid his progress and that he should set up an Episcopacy there Weigh the first by these First Peter was Minister of the Circumcision why then should he go settle himself to live and die among the uncircumcised He might indeed have preached to the uncircumcised as he travailed up and down as Paul did to the circumcised being the Minister of the uncircumcision but to take up his abode and residence and there to settle to live and die among them was a thing neither probable in the eyes of other men nor justifiable in him himself Secondly If Peter were at Rome in the sense and extent that the Romanists will have it then hath the Scripture omitted one of the greatest points of salvation that belongeth to Christianity For how many main points of Faith hath Popery drawn out of this one conclusion that Peter was Bishop of Rome as the Primacy of the Pope the infallibility of his Chair his absolute power of binding and loosing no salvation out of the Church of Rome and divers other things which all hang upon the Pin forenamed And it is utterly incredible 1. That the Holy Ghost that wrote the Scriptures for mans salvation should not express or mention a thing that containeth so many points of salvation 2. That Luke that undertook to write the Acts of the Apostles should omit this one act of Peter which is made of more consequence than all the actions of all the Apostles beside It is above all belief that he that would tell of Phillips being at Azotus and going to Caesarea Chap. 8. 40. Sauls going to Tarsus Chap. 9. 30. And Barnabas his going thither to him and divers other things of small import in comparison should omit the greatest and most material and of the infinitest import that ever mortal mans journy was for to that height is the journy of Peter to Rome now come if there had ever been such a thing at all Thirdly It is as incredible that Paul sending salutations to so many in Rome and again from so many there should omit to have named Peter at one time or other if he had been there What was become of Peter in these reciprocal kindnesses and salutations of the Saints one to another was he a sleep or was he sullen or what shall we make of him or was he not indeed at Rome at all But not to insist upon this question whether Peter were at Rome at all which hath been proved negatively by many Authors and by many undeniable Arguments let us look a little upon this foundation of his being there which hath been laid namely his coming thither this year which is the second thing to be taken into consideration And about this point there have been divers simple Ignoramus's in former time who so they held this first Article of the Roman Creed That Peter was Bishop of Rome five and twenty years and died in the last year of Nero and so believed as the Church believed they never cared to bring the head and heels together or to observe how the times agreed but have easily swallowed this camel of sensless computation that Peter went from the Councel of Jerusalem Acts 15. to Rome and there sate Bishop five and twenty years which expired in the last of Nero whereas betwixt the Councel at Jerusalem and the last of Nero there were but twenty years in all if there were so many But nimbler wits that cannot be caught in so plain and apparent a trap as this have found out a quainter and more curious date from which to begin the Chair of Peter at Rome than this and that is from the Story in the twelfth of the Acts of the Apostles Where Peter being apprehended by Herod after his murder of James the great and being delivered by an Angel and having acquainted the Disciples with his delivery they being together in John Marks house he is said to depart to another place which they say and you must believe it or they will take it very ill was to Rome and this was say they the second year of Claudius A long journey believe it to run to Rome to avoid danger at Jerusalem and Rome but a mad place to set up an Episcopacy in at this time as hath been plain in the preceding and will be also in the subsequent story of it But that we may see if not the impossibility yet the utter improbability of that his journy in this second of Claudius if that were the journy in the twelfth of the Acts it will not be impertinent to insert a story out of Josephus concerning Agrippa's return from Rome to Jerusalem where he slew James and imprisoned Peter PART II. The JEWISH Story §. Herod Agrippa his coming to Jerusalem CLAUDIUS the Emperor having attained the Empire as we have seen the more easily and readily by the mediation and agitating of Agrippa he would requite him like an Emperor for that his service and therefore he confirmed to him by Charter that Kingdom in which he had been inthroned by Caius adding also Judea and Samaria which had belonged to his Grandfather Herod from hence it may seem that he took that name and Abilene and the Region near it and appertaining to it in Lebanon which had belonged to Lysanias He caused also the Articles of a League betwixt himself and the King to be cut in brass and to be set up in the midst of
upon all that believed but upon the believing Gentiles most especially both because of the multitude that were justified and men that before had been so far from righteousness You may see a picture of what is intended in this Text in the fourth of the Revelation where there is a scheme of this new World that our Apostle speaketh of from the promise in the Prophet There is a scene fashioned of Christ sitting in the midst of the Gospel Church platformed according to the form of Gods dwelling in the midst of the people of Israel in his Tabernacle and upon the mercy seat His throne is said to be in Heaven in the second verse but it means in his Church for so Heaven is taken in most places in the Revelation And observe before his Throne in Heaven is a Sea of glass vers 6. as the molten Sea was before the Temple there is an Altar before the Throne and offering of Incense Chap. VIII 3. as there was at the Temple nay there is the Temple it self filled with smoke Chap. XV. 8. as the Tabernacle and Temple were at their Dedication About his Throne were First four living Creatures on the four sides of it as the four squadrons of Priests and Levites pitched on the four sides of the Tabernacle betwixt God and the people On the outside of them sat four and twenty Elders the representative of the whole Church as the squadrons of the people pitched on the one side of the squadron of the Priests and Levites And it is said these four and twenty Elders were clothed in white which speaks the very things we are speaking of for so doth the Holy Ghost himself explain it in the XIX Chap. vers 8. The fine linnen is the righteousness of the Saints And in Chap. VII 14. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Strange washing washt them white in blood You would think that should make them of another colour but the whiteness that we are speaking of is the pure white of Justification and nothing can purifie to that dye but the blood of Christ. And here let me also crave your patience a little to speak to another Text of Scripture which speaketh fully to the matter we are upon but which is not so clearly rendred to its proper purpose but that it hath produced no little controversie And that is these words in Rom. IV. 11. Abraham received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised Generally all Translations run in the same tenor whereas these words which he had yet are not at all in the Original as you that cannot read the Original may see by that that they are written in a different character The Greek hath it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verbatim to be rendred thus He received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of faith in the uncircumcision And not to be understood of the righteousness of faith which Abraham had in his uncircumcision though it is true he had it but a seal of the righteousness by faith which was to be in the uncircumcision or in the believing Gentiles And that this sense is most agreeable to the intent of the Apostle in that place needs no more proof then the serious observing of the nature of his discourse from those words forward And that it is most agreeable to the end of the institution of circumcision needs no more proof than the serious observing of the story of its institution That you have in Gen. XVII where this promise is given to Abraham Thou shalt be the father of many Nations In what sense the father of many Nations the Apostle clears in the words next following those that we are upon That he might be the father of all them that believe though they be not circumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also So that this was the Covenant that God makes with Abraham there that the uncircumcision should believe and become the sons of Abraham imbracing his faith This Covenant and promise God confirms with a double seal 1. With the change of his name from Abram to Abraham from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a high father to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the father of a great multitude and 2. With the seal of Circumcision A seal of the righteousness by faith which should be in the uncircumcision or in the Gentiles that should believe Ponder the words and the context and the story of the institution of Circumcision well and you will find this to be the main aim and end of it Not a seal of the righteousness by faith which Abraham had being uncircumcised but of the righteousness by faith that the uncircumcision should have when they came to believe And it speaks the very same thing with the Text that when God should create the new Heavens and the new Earth of the Gentile Church when the Jewish should be cast off that righteousness or justification by faith should dwell and shine in it I have been something long in the explanation of the words but the necessity of the thing may plead my excuse And now they being thus explained they offer three most noble Themes for discourse before us I. Here is mention of a new World II. Of Gods Promise III. Of Justification or Righteousness And upon which of these shall I fix Any of the three would take up the time that is allotted therefore I will lay my right hand upon Ephraims head which is the youngest The word righteousness you see is last born in the Text and yet indeed the birthright is due unto it It is the first aim of our Apostle that he looketh at and the other two are but appendices to it in his aim Follow his eye with yours and see where he sixeth Righteousness is the thing he looketh after the new Heavens and the new Earth are the state and place where he looketh for it and the promise is the prospective through which he looked at it I shall therefore pitch upon that as the main subject of the Text and from the eye of the Apostle so intent upon it Observe How desirable a thing to be looked after righteousness is as it speaks justification Me thinks Peter speaks here concerning this righteousness much like the tenour that the Psalmist doth concerning God in Psal. LXXIII 25. Their is nothing in the new Heaven but thee and nothing in the new Earth that I look after besides thee His brother Paul is of the same mind and song Phil. III. 8 9. I do count all things but dung that I may win Christ. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but the righteousness which is of God by faith Offer him as Satan once did to our Saviour and try him with haec omnia tibi dabo Paul choose through all the World what thou wilt have honours riches pleasures profits
long it so continued is not easily determined but that it did not always so continue is as easily proved The Apostle gives us cause to suspect that some corruptions were crept in there even in his own time when in his Epistle to them Rom. XVI 17. he speaks of divisions and scandals as it seems among them contrary to the Doctrin they had learned And in his Epistle to the Philippians written from Rome he intimates that some preached the Gospel as it seems there not purely but of strife and contention Phil. I. 14 15. However though we cannot punctually determine the time and degrees by which the Church of Rome did degenerate yet that it is degenerate from the purity of that first Church there and from the purity of the Gospel primitively professed there is written so plainly that the dimmest eye may read it if a man will not shut or put it out How is the faithful City become an Harlot righteousness once lodged there but now murtherers is the sad question and complaint of the Prophet Esay concerning Jerusalem in his first Chapter How and by what degrees it came to be an Harlot and to what an high degree of harlotry it was come the former was not easie to determine and the latter not easie to express yet that it was so was but too plain And the very like may be said in this case and of this City The City once faithful is become an harlot but how and by what degrees and to what a degree let her look to that at her peril It is not so very material to determine of the time and degrees of her degeneration as to consider how grosly she is degenerate If we should go about to particularize in every thing concerning faith and manners wherein that Church hath forsaken the right way and is gon astray we had need to take up the longest day in summer to speak out that matter rather than to confine our selves to a piece of an hour and it would require our examining even their whole doctrine and practice We we will touch but two instead of two hundred First The Apostle Chap. I. 8. saith the Faith of the primitive Church at Rome was renownedly spoken of through the world Now do you think it was such an implicit faith as the Church of Rome teacheth now That it sufficeth if a man believe as the Church believes though he know not what either the Church or himself believeth Do we think that the first Founders of the Church in that City be it Peter as they will have it or Paul as he had some concurrence to it or those that I have mentioned do we think I say that they ever broached such a doctrine there It is enough if you believe with an implicite faith or as the Church belives The right way of believing in Christ the Apostle laid down most divinely in such expressions as these Let every one be assured in his own mind I know whom I have believed Have Faith in God and if thou hast Faith have it to thy self c. importing a knowledge and certainty of what is believed and not that faith should grope in the dark and believe it cannot tell what but only as others believe The right way that the Primitive Church of Rome was in was the way of knowledg and understanding that they knew and understood the things of salvation and were acquainted with the things of God and the way of eternal life Can he that reads the divine Epistle to the Romans think otherwise Or that hears the Apostles commendation of them think otherwise Now hath not that Church forsaken the right way that teacheth That Ignorance is the mother of devotion and practiseth accordingly to keep the people in ignorance Was Paul of that mind think you when he writ his Epistle to the Romans He might have very well saved that labour of instituting them in those many high and excellent poynts that he doth in that Epistle if he had been of the mind the now-Church of Rome is that the way to build people up in devotion is to keep them in ignorance His counsel is Be not Children in understanding but theirs By all means to make them in understanding children And when as our Saviour tells that blind guides lead blind people into the ditch these teach that blindness is that that will lead to Heaven Have not these forsaken the right way to Heaven that choose the ways of darkness to lead thither Secondly Certainly that Church hath forsaken the right way that goes clean contrary to the right way If the right way is to search the Scriptures as Joh. V. 39. then they have forsaken the right way for their way is to keep men from searching them If the right way is to use a known tongue in publick worship as 1 Cor. XIV their way is to use a tongue not understood If the right way is to administer the Cup in the Sacrament their way is to forbid its administration The right way is Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve certainly they have forsaken the right way that worship Angels and Saints departed that worship Crucisixes and Images that worship and adore a piece of bread Thirdly In a word for it were endless to reckon all their aberrations Is there any wrong way in the world if blowing up of Parliaments be not out of the right one If this be the right way then Pharaoh was in the right way when he plotted the drowning of the Infants of Israel Jezabel was in the right way when she murthred the Prophets of the Lord. And Nebuchadnezzar was in the right way when he threw the three young Nobles of Judah into the fiery furnace Either this is not the right way or the best of the Saints of God were in the wrong for they ever walked in a way clean contrary to this kind of dealing They were many of them slain for the truth you shall never find so much as one of them that slew any for the truth Do you think that Peter the founder of their Church as they pretend would ever have consented with them had he been alive to the blowing up of a Parliament And do they find any direction or encouragement to such a thing in any of his writings Though he was once so fiery as to draw his sword and cut off the High Priests Servant's ear yet I believe he would never have been perswaded to have been a Faux a Garnet or a Catesby in such a design as this His Master had cooled his courage for swording it again with that Cooler He that smiteth with the sword shall perish with the sword And these men might have learned that lesson if they had been either his or Christs Disciples When the two Sons of Zebedee James and John misconstruing the meaning of their name Boanerges would have fired a village of the Samaritans our Saviour checks them with You know
be touched meaning Mount Sinai but ye are come to Mount Sion One would think when he spake of Mount Sinai he should rather have called it the Mount that might not be touched for God charged that neither man nor beast should touch it Exod. XIX But you may see the Apostles meaning That the Mystical Mount Sion is not such a gross earthly thing as Mount Sinai was that was subject to sense and feeling to be seen and felt and trod upon but that Sion is a thing more pure refined and abstract from such sensibleness spiritual and heavenly And from this undeniable notion of a Church invisible we may easily answer that captious and scornful question that you know who put upon us Where was your Church and Religion before Luther Why it was in the Jerusalem that is above out of the reach and above the ken of mans discerning it was upon Mount Sion above the sphere of sight and sense It was in such a place and case as the Church and Religion was in when there were seven thousand men that never bowed the knee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Golden Heiser at Dan or Bethel and yet the greatest Prophet then being could not discern the least sign of any Church at all Now Thirdly The new Jerusalem must be known by her Pearls and Jewels upon which it is founded and built up True Religion is that that must distinguish and discover the true Church And where that is it is like the Wisemens Star over the house at Bethlehem that points out and tells Jesus and his Church is hero I must confess I do not well understand that concession of some of our Protestant Divines that yield That the Church of Rome is a corrupt Church indeed but yet a true Church For I do not well understand how there should be a true Church under a false Religion If the Church of the Jews under the great corruption of Religion that was in it might be called a true Church that was all it could look for And it must have that title rather because there was never a Church in the World beside it than from any claim by Religion But what do you call true Religion 1. First That which is only founded on the Word of God as the Wall of the new Jerusalem in vers 14. of this Chapter is founded upon twelve pearls engraven with the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. 2. That Religion that tends directly to the honouring of God and saving of souls and is adequate to these ends In short That Religion that can bring to Heaven For I so little believe that any man may be saved in any Religion that I believe there is only one Religion in which any man may be saved And when Moses can bring Israel only to the skirts of the Land of Promise I hardly believe that any Religion will bring them into it Though one should not stick to grant that a person may be saved in the Church of Rome yet should I question whether in the Faith of Rome And it is the Faith or Doctrine of a Church more especially that I mean by the Religion of it Let a Romanist ride all the stages of his Religion from his uncouth kind of Baptism to his extream Unction through his auricular Confessions and Absolutions through his Penances and Pardons through his Massings and Crossings through all his Devotions and Austerities will all these bring to Heaven if the main fundamentals of Faith be faulty and failing Nay if the main fundamentals of belief be clean contrary to the way of God to Heaven A Scribe or Pharisee in old Jerusalem is as devout in Religion and as strict and severe in outward conversation as is imaginable that you would think sanctity it self were there yet will all this bring to Heaven when the chief principles of his Faith are directly contrary to the way of Salvation while he believes to be justified by his own works and places all in opere operato in a little formal and ceremonial service Like him in the story and on the stage that cried O! Heaven and pointed down to the Earth these pretended for Heaven in their practical Devotions but pointed downward in their Doctrinal principles I shall not insist to illustrate those particulars that I mentioned I suppose they carry their own proof and evidence with them that they are most proper touchstones whereby to try the truth of a Church and Religion And it is our comfort that we can that we do that we desire to bring our Religion to such Tests and touchstones and refuse not but most gladly appeal to the impartial Judge the Word of God to give judgment of it I shall not therefore undertake so needless a task as to go about to prove the truth of our Faith and Religion since so many Protestant pens have so clearly and so abundantly done it far more learned than my Tongue And since I may make such an Appeal to you as the Apostle did to King Agrippa King Agrippa believest thou the Prophets I know thou believest Fathers and Brethren believe you the Truth of our Religion I know you believe it Then I have no more to do but to offer two or three words of humble exhortation and entreaty viz. Prize it Cleave to it Beautifie it I. Prize it for it is the chiefest jewel in all our Cabinet And the wisest Merchant in all your City cannot find out a Pearl of greater price It is the life of our Nation at home and it is the honour of our Nation abroad It is that that makes our Land a Royal Street of the new Jerusalem It is that that must make your City a holy City We see a new London as our Apocalyptick saw a new Jerusalem The buildings stately and magnificent the furniture sumptuous and very splendid the shops rich and bravely furnished the wealth great and very affluent but your Religion the all in all As it was said in old time that Athens was the Greece of Greece and as it may be said at this time that London is the England of England so let your Religion be the London of London It is that by which your City must stand and flourish by which your prosperity must be watered and maintained and the Anâ—ile which kept in safety will keep us in safety II. Keep therefore close to your Religion and leave it not Dread revolting from the true Religion The Apostasie in the Apostles times was the sin unto death in our Apocalypticks first Epistle and last Chapter And there is an Apostasie in our time but too common and to be deplored with tears to a Religion but too like to that to which they then revolted I would therefore that those that are tempted either by the lightness of their own hearts or by the Emissaries of Rome to revolt from their Religion would remember that dreadful saying of the Apostle Heb. X. 26. If we sin wilfully after
for fine Flower are Micmash and Zanoah and next to them Ephraim in the Vale. JOHN Chap. XII from begin to Ver. 12. A Supper at Bethany Jesus his feet anointed THe connexion of this story to the preceding Chapter is plainly made by the Evangelist himself Compare ver 55. of Chap. 11. and ver 1. of this Though there were a Proclamation out against Jesus for his life Chap. 11. 57. yet cometh he for Jerusalem and Lazarus at Bethany is not afraid to entertain him He may well venture his life for him who had received it from him It was their Sabbath day at night when he had this Supper a time that they used to have extraordinary cheer Mary who had anointed his feet before Luke 7. 38. doth the like again There is a groundless and a strange opinion of some that the Supper in Matth. 26. 6 7. and Mark 14. 3. was the same with the Supper in John 12. An imagination that I cannot enough admire at seeing there are so many things plainly to gainsay it but the discussion of it shall be deferred till we come to those Chapters Only one particular here may not be omitted without observation and which will make something at present toward the confutation of that opinion and that is our Saviours answer in the vindication of Maries act Let her alone against the day of my burial hath she kept this or rather She hath kept it Not that he meaneth that this anointing of his feet was her anointing him against his burial but that she had kept some of this oyntment yet for that purpose hereafter Judas repined at the expence of the oyntment that she used for the anointing of his feet and pleaded that it had been better bestowed upon charitable uses for the poor Why saith Christ she hath kept it yet and not spent all that she may bestow it upon a charitable use the anointing of my body to its burial For 1. neither the text doth any whit assert that she spent the whole pound that she brought nor indeed in reason was so great a quantity needful 2. It was not so proper to apply it to his burial now when as he was to ride in triumph to Jerusalem to morrow as it was two daies before the Passover when the other Supper and anointing was which was the very night when Judas compacted for his betraying 3. Then Christ saith she poured it upon his body Matt 26. 12. which cannot be of the same sense with pouring it upon his feet only She therefore six days before the Passover anointed his feet which was an ordinary use among the Jews to have their feet anointed and the Talmudists give some rules about it in Talm. Jerus Sanhedr fol. 21. col 1. and this she doth in dear love and affection to him But two daies before the Passover she doth not so much anoint his head as pour the Ointment upon his head that it might run all over his body and this she did towards his burial not only in his construction but in her own intention she being the first we read of that believed his death as she was the first that saw him after his resurrection Her faith and fact he foresaw and therefore saith now at the anointing of his feet that she yet kept it for the anointing of his body which when she did he extols the fact with this encomion that wheresoever the Gospel should be preached that action of her the example of the first faith in his death should be published in memorial of her Thus did this Mary who as hath been shewed was Mary Magdalen anoint Christ three several times his feet at her first conversion and his feet again at this time six daies before the Passover and his head and body two daies before the Passover even that night that Judas first went about to make his bargain for betraying him SECTION LXXII MATTH XXI from the beginning to Ver. 17. MARK XI from the begin to the middle of Ver. 11. LUKE XIX from Ver. 29. to the end JOHN XII from Ver. 12. to Ver. 20. CHRIST rideth upon an Ass into Jerusalem JOHN maketh the connexion plain when he saith On the next day c. And sheweth that as Christ went up at this time in the evidence and accomplishment of that Prophesie Zech. 9. 9. so he also went up in the equity and answering of that Type of taking up the Paschal Lamb on the tenth day Exod. 12. 3. for this was on that very day and the Lamb of God doth now go in as giving up himself for the great Paschal John telleth us that he lay at Bethany the night before this and yet the other Evangelists have related it that when he came to Bethpage and Bethany he sent two of his Disciples for the Ass c. The Jews Chorography will here help us out They tell us 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two thousand cubits was the Suburbs of a City Maym. in Schabh per. 27. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two thousand cubits were the bounds of a Sabbath or a Sabbath days journey Talm. in Sotah per. 5. 3. Bethpage was of this nature it was not a Town upon mount Olivet as it hath been very generally supposed and accordingly placed in the most Maps but it was some buildings and that space of ground that lay from Jerusalem wall forward towards mount Olivet and up mount Olivet to the extent of two thousand cubits from the wall or thereabout and hereupon it was reputed by the Jews of the same qualification with Jerusalem as a part of it in divers respects Talm. Bab. Pesachin fol. 63. fac 2. He that slays a Thanksgiving Sacrifice within while the bread belonging to it is without the wall the bread is not holy What means without the wall R. Jochanan saith Without the wall of Bethpage The Gloss there â—aith Bethpage was an outer place of Jerusalem And the same Gloss useth the very same words again upon the same Tract fol. 91. fac 1. And again in the same Treatise fol. 95. fac 2. the Mishna saith thus The two loaves and the shewbread are allowable in the Temple Court and they are allowable in Bethpage Nay the Gloss in Sanhedr fol. 14. fac 1. saith Bethpage was a place which was accounted as Jerusalem for all things So that the place so called began from Jerusalem and went onwards to and upon mount Olivet for the space of a Sabbath daies journey or thereabout and then began the coast that was called Bethany And hence it is that Luke saith that Christ when he ascended into Heaven led forth his Disciples as far as Bethany Luke 24. 50. which elsewhere he sheweth was the space of a Sabbath days journey Acts. 1. 12. which cannot be understood of the Town Bethany for that was fifteen furlongs or very neer two Sabbath daies journey from Jerusalem but that he led them over that space of ground which was called Bethpage to that part of Olivet
are called the brethren of Jesus were the sons of Joseph by another wife as some have thought them they had been fittest to have been charged with the maintenance of the widdow About the ninth hour Jesus crieth out Eli Eli lama sabachthani that is My God my God why hast thou left me Not forsaken him as to the feeling of any spiritual desertion but why left to such hands and to such cruel usage Some said hereupon he called Elias but was this said in mockery or indeed did they think his words Eli Eli meant Elias Two things might make them really think so the unusualness of the word Eli or Elohi in their Syriack tongue the word Mari being it by which they commonly expressed the sense of that And 2. the common opinion and legends that they had of Elias his coming to comfort and resolve men in distress and perplexity of which their Talmuds give not a few examples Complaining of thirst he had vinegar given him which having tasted and feeling the pangs of death come upon him he saith It is finished and giving up a great cry and committing his Spirit to God he dieth at the time of the evening sacrifice At which instant there was an Earthquake which rent the rocks and the vail of the Temple was then also rent in the middle The Priest that offered Incense that evening sacrifice time could bring an amazed testimony of this when he came forth The renting of the rocks light in such a place as where were the graves of many Saints hewn out which now were opened and shewed the conquest over the grave and at another Earthquake at which Christs grave was opened on the morning of his resurrection the mouldred bodies of these graves revived and after his rising they came out of the graves also and came into the holy City Observe that Matthew calls Jerusalem The holy City when it hath now murdered Christ chap. 27. 53. How great a matter must it be that must unchurch a Nation The Centurion and the company present at the sight of what strange things had occurred return much affected and full of thoughts about what was done As the evening grew on the Jews desire and obtain that the legs of them might be broken so to hasten their end that they might not hang on the Cross all night This dispatcheth the penitent thief howsoever it did the other as we may conclude from the words of Christ that told him of being that day in Paradise But Christ being dead already they brake no bone of him but one with a Spear pierceth him and out of his side cometh water and blood distinct and discernable the one from the other At Even Joseph of Aramathaea Samuels Town 1 Sam. 1. 1. a Priest or a Levite one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Council-chamber of the Temple begs the body of Jesus which otherwise should have been buried in the common graves of Malefactors and intombs it in his own Tomb Nichodemus joyning with him and the Women observing where he was laid go and prepare spices for his further imbalming when the Sabbath was over all shewing their love to him but in this very action shewing their little expecting his Resurrection SECTION LXXXVII MATTH Ch. XXVIII from the beginning to Ver. 16. MARK Ch. XVI from the begin to Ver. 12. LUKE Ch. XXIV from the begin to Ver. 13. JOHN Ch. XX. from the begin to Ver. 19. CHRISTS Resurrection his first appearing viz. to Mary Magdalen AS for the subsequence of this Section to the preceding there can be no scruple but it requires some heedfulness to lay the story in it in its proper currency because of some seeming diversities in the four in their relating the story of it The Lord of life was under death about 36 hours and so long was that day wherein the Sun stood still in the time of Joshua as Kimchi saith it is the acknowledgment of the Jews on Josh. 10. Christ himself calleth this space three daies and three nights Matth. 12. 40. whereas it was but two nights and one whole day and two small parts of two more And yet herein he speaketh warrantably even by the known and allowed Dialect of the Nation Both the Talmuds in the Treatise Shabba per. 9. do dispute about the three daies that Israel separated from their Wives before the giving of the Law Exod. 19. 15. and among other things they have these passages R. Akibah made the day a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the night a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so did R. Ismael But this is a tradition R. Eliezer ben Azariah saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A day and a night make a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a part of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is accounted as the whole Observe these last words to the purpose that we are upon Three natural daies by this rule were three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and any part of any of these was accounted as the whole of it The Evangelists seem to differ somewhat in the mention of the time of the Womens coming to the sepulchre John saith Mary Magdalen came while it was yet dark Matthew when it began to dawn whereas Mark saith she and the other women came thither at Sunrising All which together speak the story to the full to this tenour That at the dawning and while it was yet dark the Women as soon as they could see at the least Mary Magdalen set out to go to the Sepulchre and that was at the very instant of Christs rising when there was a great Earthquake and an Angel came and rolled away the Stone Mary Magdalen came from Bethany from her brother Lazarus his house if she came from her own home and the other Women were at their several lodgings and to get them all together for they were to go about this work all together would spend some time so that though Mary were so early stirring yet before they were all got together to the Scpulchre it was Sunrising These Women little knew of the watch that was set over the grave and the sealing of the stone which was done on the morning of the Sabbath for all their care is how to get the stone rolled away When they come there they find that done already and the Watch was fled and the Angel that had rolled it away sitting on it on the right hand of the entring in and when they were entred in they saw another Angel which both told them of his being risen And thus Matthew and Mark that mention but one Angel are to be reconciled to Luke who speaketh of two The Women return and tell the Disciples what they had seen but their words seemed to them as idle tales yea Mary her self yet believed not that he was risen It is worth studying upon the faith of the Disciples it was a saving faith in Christ and yet they believed not that he should die till he was dead nor believed that he
the fury of thy wrath lay hold of them c. Which while the Master of the house is praying one runs to the gate or door of the house and sets it wide open in sign of their deliverance and in hope of Elias his coming to tell them of the approach of the Messias And presently in comes one cloathed in white that their children may believe that Elias is now come among them indeed And in the eleventh Chapter of the same book he relateth that every Sabbath day at night they call hard upon Elias and since he vouchsafed not to come among them on the Sabbath which is now past they earnestly intreat him that he would come the next Sabbath day And their Rabbins and Wisemen have taught them that Elias every Sabbath day sitting under the tree of life in Paradise takes account of and writeth down the good works of the Jews in their keeping of the Sabbath I shall trespass too much upon the Readers patience if I trouble him with any more such trash and ridiculous sluff as this is about this matter Ihave been the bolder with him that I might the more fully shew the earnest and foolish expectation of that blinded Nation in this particular I shall only crave leave to alledge some few expressions more out of their own Authors upon this subject that here once for all their doctrine and opinion of the coming of Elias which cometh in mention now and then in the Evangelists may be handled and may trouble us no more Their second and greater expectation then of Elias is that he will come visibly and bodily before the coming of the Messias and that he will do great things when he cometh The Disciples well knew and spake the common opinion of the Nation when upon our Saviours discourse concerning his own resurrection they make this reply Why then say the Scribes that Elias must first come Matth. 17. 10. And so are their Authors full of assertions to such a purpose The four Carpenters in Zechary saith Rabbi Simeon are Messias ben David Messias ben Joseph Elias and the Priest of righteousness vid. Kimch in Zech. 1. Elias shall restore three things in Israel saith Rabbi Tanchuma the pot of Manna the cruse of the anointing oyl and the cruse of water And as some say also Aarons rod with its blossoms and almonds Tauch on Exod. 1. The Talmudists in Erubhim Perek 4. are discoursing of this coming of Elias and inquiring the time and they have this conclusion That Israel is assured that Elias will not come but on the evening of the Sabbaths or on the evening of Feastival days and when he cometh they shall say to the great Sanhedrin He is come fol. 43. And in the Treatise of the Sabbath they intimate that one work of Elias when he thus cometh shall be to destroy Every one say they that observes stedfastly three repasts on the Sabbath is delivered from three vengeances From Messias his destroying from the Judgment of hell and from the war of Gog and Magog From the destruction of Messias It is written here The day viz. remember the Sabbath day and it is written there Behold I send unto you Elias the Prophet before the day come c. Perek 16. fol. 118. And in a common and current proverb among them they hold that another work of Elias when he cometh shall be to resolve doubts and scruples and to unite doctrinal knots And that he shall purifie Bastards and make them fit to come into the congregation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Kimch in Zech. 9. And that he shall be one of the seven Shepherds and eight principal ones mentioned Michah 5. 5. Our Rabbins say Who are the seven Shepherds David in the middle Seth Enoch and Methuselah on his right hand and Abraham and Jacob and Moses on his left And who are the Eight principal ones Jesse Saul Samuel Amos Zephany Ezekiah Elias and Messiah Kimch in Mich. 5. And for this coming of Elias doth Elias Levita so heartily pray in Tisbi in rad Tishbi Elias was in the days of Gibeah So let it be Gods good will that he may be with us in this time and let that verse be accomplished upon us Behold I send you Elias So is the prayer of Elias the Author By these and divers other speeches of the like nature which might be produced out of the Hebrew Authors shewing the common opinion of that people concerning the coming of Elias bodily before the coming of Christ it is no wonder if when the Jews saw so eminent a man as John the Baptist come in so powerful a way of Ministry so great a change of a Sacrament and so strict austerity of life they question with themselves and with him whether he be not the Messias and when he denies that then whether he be not Elias But it is some wonder and that the rather because our Saviour hath long ago resolved what was meant by that place of the Prophet Behold I send Elias and hath plainly told that John the Baptist was the Elias that was to come I say it is a wonder this considered that ever this Jewish opinion of Elias coming before the coming of the Messias should be so transplanted into the hearts of Christians under this notion of Elias his coming before Christs second coming as that so many understand it as literally personally and really as ever the grossest Jew in Judea did It were endless to reckon their names both Ancient and Modern that have verily believed and as boldly asserted that Enoch and Elias shall come visibly and bodily to destroy Antichrist to convert the Jews and to build up the elect in the faith of Christ. He that desires names may see enow in Bellarmine de Roman Pontif. lib. 3. cap. 6. where he proves that the Pope is not Antichrist by this argument that Elias and Enoch never came against him in Cornel. a Lapide in Apocal. 11. where he holds the two witnesses to be these two men Enoch and Elias It is somewhat beside our work to take up this controversie in this place but it may not be besides the advantage of the Reader to take up two or three considerations upon this matter and to ruminate and study upon them towards the confutation of this groundless opinion 1. That the great and terrible day of the Lord before which Elias was promised to come is exceedingly mistaken by those that understand it of the day of Judgment for it meaneth only the day of the destruction of Jerusalem as might be proved at large by divers other places of Scripture where the same phrase is used And the like misconstruction is there of the phrase in the last days by taking it for the last days of the world whereas it meaneth only the last days of Jerusalem 2. Those two witnesses mentioned Rev. 11. upon whom there are so various glosses and different opinions are pictured and charactered out like Moses and Elias
Sacrament too No doubt we should have some very learned distinction to shew the difference § In Cana of Galilee Expositors even generally do speak here of a Cana the great and Cana the less the greater near Sidon the less they agree not where the one as Maldonate tells us called Cana Sidoniorum or Cana of the Sido ians and the other Cana of Galilee I cannot track this distinction further back than to Hierom in locis Hebraicis and withall I cannot see why it should be so currently and generally entertained as it is unless he had given better grounds for it than I find any It is true indeed that the Scripture speaketh of a double Cana one in the tribe of Asher Josh. 19. 28. and the other in the tribe of Ephraim Josh. 16. 8. 17. 9. That in the tribe of Asher is mentioned indeed with great Sidon not with any inference that it lay so very near it but that the lines of Ashers coast went up towards Sidon for of that and not of Cana's being near Sidon is that place to be understood Now this Cana was certainly in Galilee past denyal for Asher was in Galilee and where to find another Cana in Galilee I believe it will be impossible to tell This therefore I cannot but conclude to be the place and that it is called Cana of Galilee to distinguish it from the other Cana in the tribe of Ephraim which was Cana of Samaria And thus supposing this our Cana to be in the tribe of Asher as the Scripture sheweth it us those words of Jacob may not unfitly be applyed to this present occurrence there that now Asher yeeldeth royal dainties indeed Gen. 49. 20. when Christ turneth water into wine Joseph once resided in this Town as he testifieth himself In vita sua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I was at that time in the town of Galilee called Cana and he relateth that having a sudden occasion to go from thence to Tiberias he marched all night and came thither early in the morning § And the mother of Jesus was there His Father Joseph it is like was now dead for there is no mention of him any more in the Gospel and when Christ dyed then it is apparent that Mary was a widdow for he commendeth her to his Disciple John and he taketh her to his own house Joh. 19. 26. c. Now Mary had very near kindred in this town of Cana namely Mary the wife of Alpheas or Cleopas and all that family by that relation For 1. Mary the wife of Cleopas is called her sister Joh. 19. 25. and that same Mary is called the mother of James and Joses Matth. 27. 56. which were undoubtedly the sons of Alpheus Mark 3. 18. So that Alpheus and Cleopas were but one and the same name and Mary his wife was very near allyed to the Virgin Mary 2. Alpheus and his family lived in Cana as may be collected by this that one of his sons namely Simon is called a Canaanite to distinguish him from Simon Peter Mark 3. 18. 6. 3. And he is called a Canaanite as meaning and importing that he was a man of Cana. That this marriage therefore was in Alpheus his house may be supposed upon this That 1. Mary and Jesus their near kindred are invited and all Jesus Disciples for his sake 2. That Mary the mother of Jesus is so carefull about the wine lest the feast should be spoiled and the Bridegroom and his family should be disgraced by it And 3. in that the Evangelist presently after the story of this feast speaketh of brethren of Jesus that is his kinsmen that went with him to Capernaum ver 12. whereas he had no kinsmen in his company before this feast at all Now these kinsmen or brethren were James and Judas and Simon and Joses Mark 6. 3. Ver. 3. The mother of Iesus saith unto him They have no wine As it is apparent by the very frame of these words that the Virgin looked after a miracle so it is something strange upon what ground she doth expect it Had she seen any miracle done by him heretofore Some conceive she had as that in the poor and indigent estate of Joseph he had sometimes supplyed necessaries by miracle when he lived there as a private man but this hath not such certainty in it self or ground in Scripture as to be a sufficient resolution that this was the ground upon which his mother now desires a miracle But this is undoubted that she knew him to be the Messias and the Son of God this she had had so many evidences and assurances of that that was past all denial with her and it may be that was it that she built upon when she proposeth to him to povide wine in a miraculous way It is true no question that her eye was upon that and upon that power that was lodged in his being the Son of God as knowing that he was able to do such a thing if it pleased him but what warrant had she to urge the acting of that power since for ought we find she had never seen him do any miracle before nay where or whence had she intimation of his doing any miracle at all Yes she had intimation of such a thing and of such a thing to be begun ere long from those words of Christ spoken but the day before From henceforth ye shall see the Heavens opened and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man From those very words I conceive she took the rise of her demanding a miracle from her son For in them he had plainly told his Disciples then present with him and there is very good ground to suppose her then to be in the company too that they should see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that time some divine and heavenly manifestation of him though he were the Son of man yet to be the Son of God and that now he would begin to shew himself in his actings and working of wonders agreeable and suitable to one that had Heaven and Angels at his will and attendance Upon this it is that she builds her request and proposal at this time and her words are words of faith for she believeth what Christ had spoken and therefore she speaketh and although she receiveth some check in Christs answer to her for her going about to limit and determine the hic nunc of those his miraculous actions yet was the proposal it self a fruit of her faith and Christ seeth so much in her and refuseth her not Ver. 4. Woman what have I to do with thee There is exceeding much ado among the Romish party to mince and to qualifie these words that they may not be a reprehension for they cannot endure that any one should think that the Virgin Mary ever did any thing worthy of reproof The Rhemists gloss upon the words shall serve to shew their industry in this matter to spare the alledging
with Christ near upon half a year seen his miracles heard his Doctrine and never been from him and therefore it is not imaginable but that they had learned exceeding much concerning Christ and the Gospel and it cannot be conceived but they would be uttering and publishing those things And so the whole verse may be understood in much facility to this sense I and these my Disciples that do and whosoever shall preach these things of the Kingdom of God speak things known and tried not as your Doctors do that teach you know not what and yet thou and the rest of thy judgment and opinion will not intertain and believe our Doctrine Christ and his Disciples had known and seen he al-knowing and they in experience the reality and truth of the New birth and divers other mysteries of the Kingdom of God but how is his taxation of the others unbelief proper upon this ground when they were as ignorant or knew as little that he and they had known and seen these things as they were ignorant of the things themselves Answ. 1. He speaks this in that style of opposition that was mentioned before Ye are believed though ye teach ye know not what and yet will not ye believe us that know and have seen what we teach 2. He seemeth to allude to that that was taken for a competent witness before any of the Judicatories for he is speaking to one that was a Judge in the highest Court and that was this that the witness saw and knew the fact Lev. 5. 1. And is a witness whether he hath seen or known of it if he spake upon certain knowledge or sight his witness was intertained but we speak what we know and testifie what we have seen but ye receive not our witness 3. Nicodemus had confessed Christs miracles to be most admirable and divine and therefore Christ might very well conclude that he would also give weight unto his words and acknowledge the truth of this that he spake though he knew not the certainty of it upon his own knowledge and experience Vers. 12. If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not c. By earthly things divers understand diversly Some conceive Christs speech to look so far back as to his discourse with the people at Jerusalem at the Passover about building up of the Temple in three days and that his words do result to this sense It is no wonder that thou dost not believe this high mysterious doctrine of Regeneration when the Jews could not entertain that more facil and plain Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Messias on the third day Others retaining the same opinion that heavenly and earthly things do signifie the difference of more sublime and more facil doctrines do expound it thus If ye believe not these plain and first rudiments of the Doctrine of the Gospel namely about Regeneration how will you believe those high and sublime mysteries about the eternal generation of the Son the procession of the Holy Ghost c But the most received construction of these words is this If ye believe not when I speak to you in a plain and low style and explain things by earthly comparisons as Gal. 3. 15. How will you believe if I should teach the great things of salvation in their own abstract and simple notions lingua Angelorum as Grotius expresseth it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is the common Rabbinick Maxime The Lord speaketh in the Scripture in such expressions as best suit with the capacity of the hearers that they may understand for the simple abstract Doctrines of Divinity are too hard for dull apprehensions Christ is discoursing with Nicodemus about the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven or the Gospel state He first teacheth him about denying of his birth priviledge from Abraham and about the Doctrine of Baptism by which a man is brought into that visible Gospel-state And now saith Christ If you believe not when I tell you of the earthly things of the Kingdom of Heaven that is those things that are most visible and apparent to be understood how will you believe if I should speak of the high things of the Kingdom the incarnation righteousness by Faith peace and joy in the Holy Ghost c Vers. 13. And no man hath ascended up into Heaven c. To clear the conjuncture of these words with the preceding is of some difficulty and that hath caused variety of guesses upon it Some tie them not to the last words of all but to some that lie a great way off namely to Nicodemus first words to our Saviour in verse 2. Whereby he sheweth that he took Christ only for a Prophet Now these words of this verse satisfie him say they against that bare opinion when Christ telleth him that he is not as the Prophets were who indeed were sent of God but never were off the earth but lived continually upon it but he himself came down from Heaven c. Others that do tie them to the very last words preceding do give them in this sense and juncture How will you believe if I speak unto you heavenly things And yet if I should speak such things I deserve to be believed because I came down from Heaven and though none ever preached such things before me nor though I can produce no witnesses with me of what I speak yet am I to be believed because though no man had been in Heaven yet I have been there for I came thence c. Others conceive that they fall in with the last words thus that whereas in the former verse he had spoken of uttering heavenly things he comes on now and doth speak of some such things as namely of his two natures in this verse and of Salvation by his passion and Faith in him in the next Other conjectures at this matter might be alleadged which are severally made but they shall be spared and we will fall upon the words themselves and hearken after their meaning and connexion with the former by the observation of these three things 1. That in all the words of Christ following to the end of his speech viz. to vers 22. his main aim is apparently this namely to shew that he is set up as the object of Faith or he who is to be believed and to be believed in and by believing in whom everlasting life is to be obtained as this scope is most plain in verse 14 15 16. 18. 2. That by the phrase No man hath ascended his meaning is No man can ascend into Heaven as No man hath seen God at any time Joh. 1. 18. meaneth No man hath seen him or can see him 1 Tim. 6. 16. Who hath known the mind of the Lord Rom. 11. 34. meaneth his ways are unsearchable and his Judgments past finding out ver 33. and who can know them c. 3. That Ascending into Heaven is intended to the same purpose and sense with that in Deut. 30.
by such like passages as these All the commandments of the Law be they preceptive or prohibitive if a man transgress against any of them either erring or presuming when he repents and turns from his sin he is bound to make confession Whosoever brings a sin or trespass offering for his error or presumption his sin is not expiated by his offering until he make a verbal confession And whosoever is guilty of death or of whipping by the Sanhedrin his sin is not expiated by his whipping or his death unless he repent and make a confession And because the Scapegoat is an atonement for all Israel the High Priest maketh a confession for all Israel over him The Scapegoat expiateth for all transgressions mentioned in the Law be they great or little Maym. in Teshubah per. 1. This their wild doctrine about repentance and pardon being considered in which they place so much of the one and the other in such things as that the true affectedness of the heart for sin or in seeking of pardon is but little spoken of or regarded we may well observe how singularly pertinent to the holding out of the true doctrine of repentance this word is which is used by the Holy Ghost which calleth for change of mind in the penitent and an alteration of the inward temper as wherein consisteth the proper nature and vertue of repentance and not in any outward actions or applications if the mind be not thus changed And thus as our Saviour urging the duty of repentance upon them from this reason because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand argueth to them from one of their own confest opinions so in this original word by which repentance is called for another opinion of theirs seemeth also to be looked upon but with gainsaying and confutation because they placed so much of repentance if not all repentance in outward things And so when the Ministery of the Gospel calleth for Repentance and in such a word as betokeneth a change and alteration of the mind it doth at once confute the double error that was amongst them which was either about not needing of repentance but insisting upon legal righteousness or if they were to repent it was to be chiefly performed by confession or offerings or some outward action III. Thirdly It is observable in this preaching of Christ that to his admonition to repent he also adjoyneth the other To believe the Gospel which John the Baptist that we read of had not done Matth. 3. 2. And yet John preached the Gospel too for his Ministery is called the beginning of it Mark 1. 1 2. and he preached that they should believe Joh. 1. 7. But his doctrine did mainly aim at the declaring of him that was to preach the Gospel that when he came to preach it he might the more readily be believed Joh. 1. 31. Act. 19. 4. Johns chiefest and most intended task and purpose was to point out Christ and to bring the people to be acquainted with his person and to take notice of him as the Messias the great Prophet to whom it was reserved to publish the great things of the Gospel that when he came openly to preach it as now he doth he might be the better intertained and hearkned after And thus John makes ready a people prepared for the Lord Luke 1. 17. And now that this great Preacher for whom attention and regard was prepared by all the bent of Johns Ministery is come to preach and publish the Gospel in its full clearness and manifestation He calleth for repentance and belief of it as Act. 20. 21. Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith or believing in order of the work of grace is before repentance that being the first and mother grace of all others yet is it here and in other places named the latter 1. Because though faith be first wrought yet repentance is first seen and evidenced both to the heart of him that hath it and to the eyes of others 2. Because a poor broken and penitent heart is the most proper receptacle of the Gospel Esay 61. 1. Matth. 11. 5. Now by the Gospel is not only here meant the good and glad tidings of Salvation as the word signifies in the original and as it is taken in other places but it is also held out here by our Saviour with a singular emphasis and circumstance namely as the new Law and Covenant which God had promised to give unto his people and which they expected from the Messias The Gospel as it signifies the good tidings of Salvation and Salvation by Christ was very abundantly held out in the Law and the Prophets and if Christ proposed the word here but in that sense he proposed his Ministery but like unto theirs But as in the Synagogue of Nazareth he had begun to assert himself the highly anointed one of the Lord for the singular work of publishing the new Law Luk. 4. 18. so now and forward he doth openly proclaim himself to be he whom the Lord had appointed and anointed for that end and that his Ministry and doctrine was that Gospel or glad tidings which God had promised to send by the Messias And in this sense it is that he calls upon them to believe the Gospel not only in regard of the tenour but also in regard of the dispenser and dispensation of it he the great Prophet and that according to the promises of God and the expectation of the Nation The Lord had foretold them copiously by the Prophets that Messias should be the great Teacher and Lawgiver in the last days and this had put them in expectation of a new Law and doctrine when he should come Esay 2. 1 2 3. In the last days the mountain of the Lords house shall be established on the top of the mountains c. And many people shall say Come and let us go up c. And he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths c. This Teacher saith David Kimchi is the Messias And wheresoever it is said in the last days it meaneth the days of Messias And so in Esa. 11. 4. With righteousness shall be judge the poor and reprove with equity This the Chaldee Paraphrast expresly and nominatim understandeth of Messias And so he doth that in Esa. 42. 1. c. And so in Esa. 52. 7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings or that preacheth the Gospel which though the Apostle in Rom. 10. 15. apply generally to the Ministry of the Gospel yet doth the Context in the Prophet shew that it is primarily and especially to be understood of Christ whom the Chaldee Paraphrast nameth Syllabically at vers 13. Such another Prophesie of Christ being the great Teacher when he should come is that which is so much retched and abused towards the countenancing of Enthusiasm Esa. 54. 13. And all thy children shall be taught of God where
Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son This is but the same in sense and substance with those many places of Scripture where the Lord setteth up Christ as King and Lord of all things as Psal. 2. 7 8. c. Psal. 89. 27. Esay 9. 6 7. Heb. 1. 2 6. c. Dan. 7. 13 14. Esay 42. 1 2. c. Jer. 3. 9. Mat. 28. 18. Rev. 16. 19. c. It pleased the infinite wisdom of God to use this most divine and mysterious dispensation that the Son of God should become the Son of man and this God-man the Lord Christ should be set up the head of all Principality and power Col. 2. 9. and King and Ruler and Judge of all things And this dispensation the Scripture ascribeth to divers reasons 1. To Christs natural and essential interest as I may express it for he was the only begotten of the Father and so necessarily the heir of all things Heb. 1. 2. 2. To Gods love of the Son because he laid down his life for mans redemption Joh. 10. 17. Philip. 2. 8 9. He became obedient to the death c. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him 3. To Gods willingness and contrival that man should have the utmost means of the knowledge and for the honouring of God that was possible namely by revealing his Son in humane flesh yet in the highest evidence of Divine power Matth. 21. 37. Heb. 1. 1. When men for all the means that he had used for the bringing of them to the knowledge of himself yet would not know God nor worship him as God but doted after Gods that were visible the Lord sends his own Son in visible shape and in visible demonstration of his Divinity in that he raised himself from the dead Rom. 1. 4. and setteth him up as Lord of all things to be worshipped as God blessed for ever and in and through him the Father to be worshipped who sent him 4. The Scripture holdeth out Christ as the arm of the Lord Esay 53. 1. 40. 10. the Combatant and Champion against Satan and all the Lords enemies Gen. 3. 15. Revel 19. 11. c. And the Lord hath set him up to reign till all these enemies be put under his feet 1 Cor. 15. 24 25. 5. God hath given him authority to execute judgment Because he is the Son of Man John 5. 27. which we shall speak to when we come to that verse Vers. 23. That all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father The great design of the blessed Trinity was to reveal it self the eternal God-head to be worshipped Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity In the times of the Old Testament the Father was worshipped and acknoweledged dispensing indeed his administrations by the Son the Angel of the Covenant and the Arm of the Lord but himself more especially owned as the Fountain and Original of all Divine dispensations as Psal. 2. 6. c. Exod. 23. 20 21. Prov. 8. 22. Esai 42. 1. c. Under the New Testament the Son was visibly exalted and set up as the Lord to whom every knee should bow and every tongue confess in that he gave the Gospel as the Father had done the Law subdued Satan triumphed over death ascended visibly by his own power into heaven and did as visibly pour out and send down the Holy Ghost which he had promised That as all men had honoured the Father under the Old Testament so all men should equally honour the Son under the New The Arian in denying the God-head of Christ and his coequality with the Father is not only injurious to his person but also contradicteth the highest and greatest design of heaven for Christs exalting And the Jews Turks and whosoever take upon them to honour God and acknowledge not Christ their undertaking is but vain since they honour not the Son whom he hath set up and exalted over all Vers. 24. He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me These words and those in the verses following have their rise from verse 21. and lie in connexion with the sense of those words and are in explanation of them There he had said that As the father raised the dead so the Son quickneth whom he will and in these verses he speaketh to that point and in this verse he sheweth how he quickneth spiritually and in the following how he quickneth bodily and both his assertions he setteth on with this asseveration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The matter of this verse seemeth to be taken from those words in Esay 55. 3. Incline your ear and come unto me Hear and your soul shall live Upon which last words Aben Ezra giveth this gloss It meaneth that the soul abideth though the body dye or it meaneth that the Messias shall revive those that turn to the Law of God And so likewise do other Jews confess there that those words and the context before do speak of the teaching of the Messias Our Saviour in the verses before had pleaded his equal acting as he was Messias with God the Father as he shewed himself in the administration of the Old Testament that as the Father raised the dead by Prophets then so he quickened whom he pleased and as the Father had judged so now he had committed all Judgment unto him and here he cometh on with a third parallel and that is that as the Father had given the Law or the Word of the Old Testament so he should give the Gospel the Word of the New And as it was life to hearken to the Work of the Father Deut. 30. 15. 20. so he that heareth his Word hath life everlasting c. He was the Word of the Father that came out of his bosom to reveal him Joh. 1. 18. He was the great Teacher promised and expected Deut. 18. 15. Acts 3. 23. and sealed and proclaimed Matth. 17. 5. 1 Pet. 1. 17. He was to be the destroyer of the works of Satan the hearkning to whose word had been mans confusion and therefore it would not only be their piety to hearken to him who revealed the Father nor would it be only sutable to their expectation who looked for the great Teacher and were resolved to be taught by him but it would be eternal life and everlasting healing to the Soul against those wounds that hearkning to the words of the Tempter had made in it Now in that he saith And believeth on him that sent me 1. He doth most properly center the ultimate fixing and resting of belief in God the Father For as from him as from the fountain do flow all those things that are the objects of Faith in its living and moving namely free Grace the gift of Christ the way of redemption the gracious promises c. So unto him as to that Fountain doth Faith betake its self in its final repose and resting namely to God in Christ as 2 Cor. 5. 19. and he
had joyned to them and came out with them On the second day of the month and of their arrival there Moses goeth up into the mountain being called up by the Lord vers 3. and when he cometh down telleth the people the words of the Lord vers 5. If ye will hear my voyce indeed and keep my Covenant ye shall be my peculiar people To which the people even before they know what the Commandments of the Lord would be do promise to obey and hearken not by rash undertaking to perform they knew not what as some have been bold to tax them nor yet presuming upon their own ability to keep the Law as others have concluded upon them but having been trained up from their infancy and instructed in the doctrine of Faith they piously conclude when God cometh to give them a Law and to make a covenant with them that God would not cross himself in the Doctrine of salvation but that the Law that he would now give them should be a Law conducing and leading to Faith still a Schoolmaster to Christ and not an extinguisher of the doctrine of Salvation by him On the third day of the month Moses goeth up into the mountain again vers 9. and is charged to sanctifie the people which accordingly is done on that day and on the fourth and fifth and on the sixth day in the morning the ten Commandements are given SECTION XXVI The Iews Tenet concerning the Law Talm. in Maccoth Rab. Abhuhahh Ner. 1. THE whole Law say they was given to Moses in six hundred and thirteen precepts David in the fifteenth Psalm bringeth them all within the compass of eleven 1. To walk uprightly 2. To work righteousness 3. To speak truth in the heart 4. Not to slander 5. Not to wrong a Neighbour 6. Not to entertain or raise an ill report 7. To vilisie a reprobate 8. To honour them that fear the Lord. 9. That altereth not his oath 10. Not to lend to usury 11. Not to take bribes against the Innocent The Prophet Isaiah brings these to six in Chap. 33. 15. 1. To walk justly 2. To speak righteously 3. To refuse gain of oppression 4. To shake hands from taking bribes 5. To stop the ears from hearing of blood 6. To shut the eyes from seeing of evil Micha reduceth all to three Chap. 6. 8. 1. To do justly 2. To love mercy 3. To walk humbly with God Isaiah again to two Chap. 56. 1. 1. Keep judgment 2. Do justice Amos to one Chap. 5. 4. Seek me Habakkuk also brings all to one Chap. 2. 4. The just by his Faith shall live Thus the Jews witness against themselves while they conclude that Faith is the sum of the Law and yet they stand altogether upon works A Testimony from Jews exceedingly remarkable SECTION XXVII Articles of a believing Iews Creed collected out of Moses Law 1. I believe that salvation is by Faith not by Works WHEN the Talmudick Jews make such a confession as is mentioned instantly before wherein they reduce all the tenor and marrow of the Law under this one doctrine of living by Faith Hab. 2. 4. The just by his Faith shall live it is no woader if the more ancient and more holy Jews under the Law looked for salvation not by their own merits and works but only by Faith This fundamental point of Religion they might readily learn by these two things 1. From the impossibility of their keeping the Law which their consciences could not but convince them of by their disability to hear it and by their daily carriage 2. In that they saw the holiest of their men and the holiest of their services to receive sanctitie not from themselves but from another So they saw that the Priest who was or should be at least the holiest man among them was sanctified by his garments and that the sacrifices were sanctified by the Altar From these premises they could not but conclude that no man nor his best service could be accepted as holy in it self but must be sanctified by another 2. I beleive that there is no salvation without reconciliation with God and no reconciliation without satisfaction The first part of this Article is so plain that nature might teach it and so might it the latter also and laying hereto Moses his lex talionis eye for eye tooth for tooth it made it doubtless 3. I believe that satisfaction shall once be made This they might see by their daily sacrifice aiming at a time when there should full satisfaction be made which these poor things could not do No less did their Jubilec year intimate when men in debt and bondage were quitted The very time of the year when the Jubilee year began calling all Israel to think of a Jubilee from sin and Satans bondage into which mankind fell at the same time of the year 4. I believe that satisfaction for sin shall be made by a man This is answerable to reason that as a man sinned so a man should satifie but Moses's Law about redemption of Land by a kinsman taught Israel to expect that one that should be akin in the flesh to mankind should redeem for him morgaged heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hebrew is both a kinsman and a Redeemer 5. I believe that he shall be more than a man This they learned from the common service about the Tabernacle wherein the high Priest a man as fully hallowed and sanctified as man could be for his outward function yet did he offer and offer again for the people and himself and yet they were unclean still This read a Lecture to every ones apprehension that a meer man could not do the deed of satisfaction but he must be more 6. I believe the redeemer must also be God as well as man The disability of beasts to make satisfaction they saw by their dying in sacrifice one after another and yet mans conscience cleansed never the better The unability of man we saw before The next then that is likely to do this work are Angels But them Israel saw in the Tabernacle curtains spectators only and not actors in the time and work of reconciliation From hence they might gather that it must be God dwelling with man in one person as the cloud the glory of God never parted from the Ark. 7. I believe that mans Redeemer shall die to make satisfaction This they saw from their continued bloody sacrifices and from the covenants made and all things purged by blood This the heedless man-slayer might take heed of and see that as by the death of the high Priest he was restored to liberty so should mankind be by the death of the highest Priest to the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Their delivery from Egypt by the death of a Lamb taught them no less 8. I believe that he shall not die for his own sins but for mans Every Sacrifice read this Lecture when the most harmless of beasts and birds were offered
the Jewish Doctors or some of their Sayings or Determinations but really was either a lye or some of their Magical Tricks p. 253 372. They affirm it supplied the place of Urim and Thummim 485 486 Bathuseans differed from other Hereticks among the Jews yet harmonized with them to oppose the Gospel and Christianity 373 Basilides an Heretick sprung from among the Jews 372 373 Basons What they were and of what use in the Temple 2048 * Bath what sort of measure 545 546 Battlements were to be made on the tops of the Jewish Houses and why 1069 * Beasts at Ephesus what 299 Beating was one sort of Jewish penalty inflicted upon Malefactors 901 902 Beds Men used to ly on them to feast and dine c. 539 Marg. Beelzebub or Belzebub or Belzebul a term taken from the Jewish Writers and what the thing 228 229 105 106 Believers this Title sometimes includes children p. 277 294. A title given to the first Professors of the Gospel 871 Believing gave admission for a whole Houshold unto Baptism the Head thereof being converted p. 294. Believing in Christ is excellently illustrated by being healed and by looking on the brazen Serpent 579 Believing the Gospel how it was above what John the baptist did propose p. 630. Why believing or faith is set after Repentance 630 Ben Cozba Ben Coziba A Pseudo Messias owned by almost all the Jews but destroyed by Titus with all his followers as also the Temple and City of Jerusalem 362 366 367 Ben Saida a blasphemous Name given to our Saviour by the Jewish Writers 228 229 Berenice Niece and Wife to Herod and after his death more familiar with her Brother Agrippa and Titus Vespasian's Son than was for her credit 321 Bethabara supposed to be the place of Israels passage over Jordan but it was rather over against Galilee than Jericho 528 529 Beth Din or The consistory of Priests transacting business in the Temple being the Counsellors thereof 914 Bethany put for the Coast of Bethany it 's not usually understood 252 Bethesday what p. 661 667. Pool of Bethesday whence it received its waters whence it had its excellent vertues 667 668 Beth Midrash or the Jewish Divinity School where their Doctors disputed of the more high and difficult matters of the Law 299 Bethsaida made a City whence it had its name 533 Binding and loosing a phrase most familiar among the Jewish Writers by which they understand their Doctors or Learned Mens teaching what was lawful and permitted or unlawful and prohibited p. 238. In this sence Christ useth it viz. doctrinally to shew what was lawful and unlawful p. 238. And so Peter practised shewing it belonged to Things and not to Persons 847 848 Birthright had many precious things wrapped up in it 15 Bishops one of the Titles of the Gospel Ministers p. 223. Not successors to the Apostles as the Popish Writers hold 787 789 Blasphemy dreadful in Simon Magus 787 Blemishes of the Priests did not exclude them from the Services of the Temple for there were several things they might do there 1093 * Bloud the not eating it expounded by the Jews 293 Bloudy Issue what 232 Bones of all the Patriarchs as well as Joseph's brought out of Egypt and buried at Sichem 781 782 Book of the wars of the Lord what 36 392 Books of Jasir of Gad of Iddo of the wars of the Lord are cited by the Old Testament as not disapproved nor approved above humane 392 Born again what 561 567 570 571 Bowing low at the going out of the Temple what 950 Boyling places within the Temple what and where placed 1092 1093 * Breaking of Bread denotes both ordinary meals and receiving the Sacrament 755 Breast-plate of the High-Priest what 724 905 Breeches of the High Priest what 905 Brethren was a Title given to the first Professors of the Gospel 871 Bridegrooms friend what 585 586 Britain or England Some remarkable things referring to its ancient state p. 328. The Language of it near a thousand years ago what 1017 * Brother offending how to be dealt with 241 Buildings in the Court Wall on the East and South side of the Temple what 1104 * Burning one sort of capital punishment among the Jews how performed 2006 * Burnt Offering or Sacrifice the matter and manner thereof in all its actions as Bringing into the Court Laying on of Hands upon the Head killing of it Fleaing it Sprinkling of the Bloud Lamb to be slain The salting the Parts of the Sacrifice before it was offered How it was laid on the fire 926 to 929 Burnt Offering The Altar of it what p. 1029. * The description of it in Scripture is very concise p. 2029. * How so many Burnt Offerings could be offered on this one Altar in so small a time p. 2029 2030. * Burying Place of Golgotha what 267 C. CABBALAH of the Jews was their unwritten Traditions c. Page 457 458 652 Cabbalists what 998 Cain and Abel were Twins born at the sametime 693 Calf Golden Calf Israels punishment for it 715 Calling of the Gentiles was a thing highly disgusted by the Jews 621 Candlestick Golden Candlestick over the Temple door described with its use p. 1078. * There was also a Golden Candlestick in the room of the holy Place its Magnitude shape and signification 1081 1082. * Called to be called a thing in Scripture is to be the thing so called 399. Marg. Calling of the Jews how p. 375. Not so Universal as some suppose 375 376 377 Calling of the Gentiles p. 314. It was a matter the Jews could never hear of with patience 621 Cana two of the Name where 541 Candlestick of Gold 720 721 Capernaum what Here Christ inhabited p. 530. whence derived and how otherwise called 439. Marg. Captain of the Temple that is of the Garrison which was there what he was 759 1060. * Castor and Pollux 322 Caesar the common Name of the Roman Emperor as Abimelech of the Philistine Kings and Pharaoh of the Egyptians 423. Marg. Cephas Peter's Name given him by Christ which was after of common use whether the same with Cepha what it signifies p. 531. The reason of Christs giving him this Name 532 Cesarea a famous place was also famous for Learned Men. p. 285. There was the Seat of the Roman Court p. 285 286. It was a City of the Jews and Greeks and an University of the Jews 321 Ceremonial Law what and how Christ fulfilled it p. 475 476. How it differs very much from the Grace and Truth of the Gospel p. 500. How far it obliged the Jews as particular Men and as Members of the Congregation of Israel p. 548 549 Chains of Peter in which he lay in Prison are supposed by the Papists to have the vertue to work Miracles to diffuse Grace to provoke to Holiness to heal Diseases to affright the Devil and to defend Christians 886 Chasing-dishes what they were and of what use in the Temple 2049 * Chaldeans took their
water hath never seen any rejoycing at all This offering of water they say was a Tradition given at Mount Sinai a a a a a a Rambam in loc and that the Prophet Jonah was inspired by the Holy Ghost upon this offering of water b. If you ask what foundation this usage hath Rambam will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— Gloss in lot there are some kind of remote hints of it in the Law however those that will not believe the Traditional Law will not believe this article about the sacrifice of water I. They bring for it the authority of the Prophet Isaiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of drawing for it is written Ye shall draw waters with joy c. Isa. XII 3. b b b b b b Succah fol. 50. 2. This rejoycing which we have describ'd before they call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rejoycing of the Law or for the Law for by waters they often understand the Law Isa. LV. 1. and several other places and from thence the rejoycing for these waters II. But they add moreover that this drawing and offering of water signifies the pouring out of the Holy Spirit c c c c c c â—…h rabba fol. 70. 1. Why do they call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of drawing because thence they draw the Holy Spirit Gloss in Succah ubi supr In the Jerusalem Talmud it is expounded that they draw there the Holy Spirit for a divine breathing is upon the man through joy Another Gloss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Flute also sounded for encrease of the joy Drawing of water therefore took its rise from the words of Isaiah they rejoyc'd over the waters as a symbol and figure of the Law and they lookt for the Holy Spirit upon this joy of theirs III. But still they add further d d d d d d â—oh Hashaâ—â—h fol. 16. Why doth the Law command saying offer ye water on the feast of Tabernacles The Holy Blessed God saith offer ye waters before me on the Feast of Tabernacles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the rains of the year may be blest to you For they had an opinion that God decreed and determin'd on the rains that should fall the following year at that Feast Hence that in the place before mention'd e e e e e e â— Taanith fol. 2. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Feast of Tabernacles it is determin'd concerning the waters And now let us reflect upon this passage of our Saviour Whosoever believeth in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water They agree with what he had said before to the Samaritan woman Chap. IV. 14. and both expressions upon the occasion of drawing of water The Jews acknowledg that the latter Redeemer is to procure water for them as their former Redeemer Moses had done f f f f f f Midras Coheleth fol. 85. But as to the true meaning of this they are very blind and ignorant and might be better taught by the Messiah here if they had any mind to learn I. Our Saviour calls them to a belief in him from their own boast and glorying in the Law and therefore I rather think those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Scripture hath said should relate to the foregoing clause Whosoever believeth in me as the Scripture hath spoken about believing in Isa. XXVIII 16. I lay in Sion for a foundation a try'd stone He that believeth c. Habak II. 4. The just shall live by faith And the Jews themselves confess g g g g g g Maccoth fol. 24. 1. that six hundred and thirteen precepts of the Law may all be reduc'd to this The just shall live by faith And to that of Amos v. 6. Seek the Lord and ye shall live II. Let these words then of our Saviour be set in opposition to this rite and usage in the Feast of Tabernacles of which we have been speaking Have you such wonderful rejoycing at drawing a little water from Siloam He that believes in me whole rivers of living waters shall flow out of his own belly Do you think the waters mention'd in the Prophets do signifie the Law they do indeed denote the Holy Spirit which the Messiah will dispense to those that believe in him and do you expect the Holy Spirit from the Law or from your rejoycing in the Law the Holy Spirit is of faith and not of the Law Gal. III. 2. VERS XXXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this Holy Ghost was not yet THESE words have relation to that most receiv'd opinion of the Jews about the departure of the Holy Spirit after the death of Zachary and Malachi to this also must that passage be interpreted when those of Ephesus say Act. XIX 2. We have not yet heard whether there were a Holy Ghost or no. That is we have indeed heard of the Holy Ghosts departure after the death of our last Prophets but of his return and redonation of him we have not yet heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Lord revive thy work in the midst of the years in midst of the years make known Hab. III. 2. He calls the seventy years of Captivity the midst of the years For on the one hand it had been seven times seventy years from the birth of Samuel the first of the Prophets to the Captivity Act. III. 24. and on the other hand it was seven times seventy years from the end of the Captivity to the death of Christ. The prayer is that the gift of Prophesie might not be lost but preserv'd whiles the people should live exil'd in an heathen Country And according to the twofold virtue of Prophesie the one of working miracles the other of foretelling things to come he uses a twofold phrase revive thy work and make known Nor indeed was that gift lost in the Captivity but was very illustrious in Daniel Ezekiel c. it return'd with those that came back from the Captivity and was continu'd for one generation but then the whole Canon of the Old Testament being perfected and made up it departed not returning till the dawn of the Gospel at what time it appear'd in inspiring the Blessed Virgin John Baptist and his Parents c. and yet the Holy Ghost was not yet come that is not answerably to that large and signal promise of it in Joel II. 28. VERS XLIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This people c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the people of the earth in common phrase oppos'd to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the disciples of the wise men whom they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy people h h h h h h Setah fol. 39. 1. but the former they call the accursed VERS LII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Art thou also of Galilee IT seems to be spoken scoffingly Art thou of those Galileans that believe in this Galilean CHAP. VIII EXPOSITORS
shelter of the Night He was to go two miles viz. from Bethany to Jerusalem then was he to seek out and get the Chief Priests together to make his bargain with them for betraying Christ. Whether he did all this this very night or the day following as the Holy Scripture sayeth nothing of it so is it of no great moment for us to make a business of enquiring about it It is not so difficult to shew how many difficulties they involve themselves in that would have all this done the very same night wherein the Paschal Supper was celebrated as it is a wonder that the favourers of this opinion should take no notice thereof themselves VERS XXXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Little Children BEhold h h h h h h Vajicra rabb fol. 177. 3. I and the Children whom God hath given me Isai. VIII 18. Were they indeed his Sons or were they not rather his Disciples Hence you may learn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That any one's disciple is called his Son Nor is it unlikely but that Christ in calling his Disciples here my little Children might have an eye to that place in Isaiah For when the Traitor the Son of Perdition had removed himself from them he could then properly enough say Behold I and the Children which thou hast given me VERS XXXVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cock shall not crow WE must not understand this as if the Cock should not crow at all before Peter had denied Christ thrice this had not been true because the Cock had crowed twice before Peter had denied him But we must understand it the Cock shall not have finished his crowing c. Nor indeed was that time above half over before Peter had denied his Master i i i i i i Joma fol. 21. 1. The Jewish Doctors distinguish the Cock crowing into the first second and third The first they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cock crowing The second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he repeats it The third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he does it a third time The distinction also amongst other Nations is not unknown When the time indeed was near and the very night wherein this was to happen then Christ saith This very night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cock shall not crow his second time c. But here two days before that night he only saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cock shall not crow That is shall not have done all his crowing before thou deny me And thus our Saviour meets with the arrogance of Peter foretelling him that he should not have the courage he so confidently assumed to himself but should within the time and space of Cock-crowing deny him thrice CHAP. XIV VERS I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let not your heart be troubled THEY could not but be exceedingly concerned at the departure of their Master drawing on so very near But there were other things besides his departure that grieved and perplext their minds I. They had run along with their whole Nation in that common expectation that the Kingdom should be restored unto Israel through the Messiah Acts I. 8. They had hoped to have been rescued by him from the Gentile Yoke Luke XXIV vers 21. They had expected he would have entertained his followers with all imaginable pomp and magnificence splendor and triumph Matth. XX. 20. But they found Alas all things fall out directly contrary they had got little hitherto by following him but poverty contempt reproach and persecution and now that their Master was to leave them so suddenly they could have no prospect or hope of better things Is this the Kingdom of the Messiah Against this depression and despondency of mind he endeavous to comfort them by letting them know that in his Father's House in Heaven not in these Earthly Regions below there Mansions were prepared for them and there it was that he would receive and entertain them indeed II. Christ had introduced a new rule and face of Religion which his Disciples embracing did in a great measure renounce their old Judaism and therefore they could not but awaken the hatred of the Jews and a great deal of danger to themselves which now they thought would fall severely upon them when left to themselves and their Master was snatcht from them That was dreadful if true which we find denounced a a a a a a Sanhedr cap. Helek hal 1. The Epicurean that is one that despises the Disciples and Doctrine of the Wise Men have no part in the world to come and those that separate themselves from the customs of the Synagogue go down into Hell and are there condemned for all Eternity These are direful things and might strangely afright the minds of the Disciples who had in so great a measure bid adieu to the customs of the Synagogues and the whole Jewish Religion and for him that had led them into all this now to leave them What could they think in this matter To support the Disciples against discouragements of this nature I. He lays before them his Authority that they ought equally to believe in him as in God himself where he lays down two of the chief Articles of the Christian Faith 1. Of the Divinity of the Messiah which the Jews denied 2. As to true and saving Faith wherein they were blind and ignorant II. He tells them that in his Fathers House were many Mansions and that there was place and admission into Heaven for all Saints that had lived under different Oeconomies and administrations of things Let not your heart be troubled for this great change brought upon the Judaick dispensation nor let it disquiet you that you are putting your selves under a new Oeconomy of Religion so contrary to what you have been hitherto bred up in for in my Fathers House are many Mansions and you may expect admission under this new administration of things as well as any others either before or under the Law VERS III. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I go to prepare a place for you COmpare this with Numb X. 33. And the Ark of the Lord went before them to search out a resting place for them VERS VI. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the way the truth and the life WHY is this superadded of truth and the life when the question was not only about the Way I. It may be answered that this was perhaps by an Hebrew Idiotism by which the way the truth and the life may be the same with the true and living way Jerem. XXIX 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To give you an end and hope or expectation That is an hoped or expected end So Kinch in loc A good end even as you expect II. Our Saviour seems to refute that opinion of the Jews concerning their Law as if it were the way the truth and the life and indeed every thing and assert his own Authority and power to introduce a new rule of
h h h h h h De Bell. Sacr. lib. 10. cap. 31. VERS VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He will reprove the world of sin c. THE Holy Spirit had absented himself from that Nation now for the space of four hundred years or thereabout and therefore when he should be given and pour'd out in a way and in measures so very wonderful he could not but evince it to the world that Jesus was the true Messiah the Son of God who had so miraculously pour'd out the Holy Spirit amongst them and consequently could not but reprove and redargue the world of sin because they believed not in him VERS X. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Of righteousness c. THAT this righteousness here mention'd is to be understood of the righteousness of Christ hardly any but will readily enough grant but the question is what sort of righteousness of his is here meant whether his personal and inherent or his communicated and justifying righteousness we may say that both may be meant here I. Because he went to the Father it abundantly argu'd him a just and righteous person held under no guilt at all however condemn'd by men as a malefactor II. Because he pour'd out the Spirit it argu'd the merit of his righteousness for otherwise he could not in that manner have given the Holy Spirit And indeed that what is chiefly meant here is that righteousness of his by which we are justify'd this may perswade us that so many and so great things are spoken concerning it in the Holy Scriptures Isai. LVI 1. My Salvation is near to come and my righteousness to be revealed Dan. IX 29. To bring in everlasting righteousness Jer. XXIII 6. This is his name by which he shall be called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS And in the Epistles of the Apostles especially those of St. Paul this righteousness is frequently and highly celebrated seeming indeed the main and principal subject of the Doctrines of the Gospel In the stead of many others let this serve for all Rom. I. 17. For therein viz. in the Gospel is the righteousness of God reveal'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from faith to faith which words may be a good Comment upon the foregoing Clause I. The Law teacheth faith that is that we believe in God But the Gospel directs us to proceed from faith to faith viz. from faith in God to faith in Christ for true and saving faith is not a meer naked recumbency immediately upon God which faith the Jews were wont to profess but faith in God by the mediation of faith in Christ. II. In the Law the righteousness of God was reveal'd condemning but in the Gospel it was reveal'd justifying the sinner And this is the great mystery of the Gospel that sinnes are justify'd not only through the grace and meer compassion and mercy of God but through Divine justice and righteousness too that is through the righteousness of Christ who is Jehovah the Lord our righteousness And the Spirit of Truth when he came he did reprove and instruct the world concerning these two great articles of faith wherein the Jews had so mischievously deceiv'd themselves that is concerning true saving faith faith in Christ and also concerning the manner or formal cause of Justification viz. the righteousness of Christ. But then how can we form the Argument I go unto the Father therefore the world shall be convinc'd of my justifying righteousness I. Let us consider that the expression I go unto the Father hath something more in it than I go to Heaven So that by this kind of phrase our Saviour seems to hint That work being now finisht for the doing of which my Father sent me into the world I am now returning to him again Now the work which Christ had to do for the Father was various The manifestation of the Father Preaching the Gospel vanquishing the enemies of God sin death and the Devil but the main and chief of all and upon which all the rest did depend was that he might perform a perfect obedience or obediential righteousness to God God had created man that he might obey his Maker which when he did not do but being led away by the Devil grew disobedient where was the Creator's glory The Devil triumphs that the whole humane race in Adam had kickt against God prov'd a rebel and warr'd under the banners of Satan It was necessary therefore that Christ clothing himself in the humane nature should come into the world and vindicate the glory of God by performing an intire obedience due from mankind and worthy of his Maker He did what weigh'd down for all the disobedience of all mankind I may say of the Devils too for his obedience was infinite He fulfilled a righteousness by which sinners might be justify'd which answer'd that justice that would have condemned them for the righteousness was infinite This was the great business he had to do in this world to pay such an obedience and to fulfill such a righteousness and this righteousness is the principal and noble theme and subject of the Evangelical Doctrine Rom. I. 17. of this the world must primarily and of necessity be convinc'd and instructed to the glory of him that justifieth and the declaration of the true Doctrine of Justification And this rightequsness of his was abundantly evidenced by his going to the Father because he could not have been receiv'd there if he had not fully accomplisht that work for which he had been sent II. It is added not without reason and ye see me no more i. e. Although you are my nearest and dearest friends yet you shall no more enjoy my presence on earth by which may be evinced that you shall partake of my merits especially when the world shall see you enricht so gloriously with the gifts of my Spirit VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Of judgment because the Prince c. IT is well known that the Prince of this world was judged when our Saviour overcame him by the obedience of his death Heb. II. 14. and the first instance of that judgment and victory was when he arose from the dead the next was when he loos'd the Gentiles out of the chains and bondage of Satan by the Gospel and bound him himself Revel XX. 1 2. which place will be a very good Comment upon this passage And both do plainly enough evince that Christ will be capable of judging the whole world viz. all those that believe not on him when he hath already judg'd the Prince of this world This may call to mind the Jewish opinion concerning the judgment that should be exercis'd under the Messiah that he should not judg Israel at all but the Gentiles only nay that the Jews were themselves rather to judg the Gentiles than that they were to be judg'd But he that hath judg'd the Prince of this world the author of all unbelief will also judg every unbeliever too VERS XII
Israelite and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An uncircumcised Priest R. a a a a a a Hieros Pesach fol. 36. 2. Jochanan in the name of R. Benaiah saith They sprinkle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon an uncircumcised Israelite b b b b b b Levachin cap. 2. hal 1. All the Sacrifices whose blood is received by an Alien 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The uncircumcised Priest lamenting c. are not approved R. Simeon saith They are approved And c c c c c c Hieros in the place before R. Lazar in the name of R. Haninah saith There is a story 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of an uncircumcised Priest who sprinkled blood at the Altar and his sprinklings were approved d d d d d d Gloss in Zevachin An uncircumcised Priest is a Priest whose brethren died by circumcision And An e e e e e e Arâ—ch ex Câ—â—liâ— uncircumcised Israelite is whose brethren died of circumcision and yet he is an Israelite although uncircumcised For the Israelites are not bound to perform the precepts where Death will certainly follow For it is said Laws which if a man shall observe them he shall live in them not that he dye in them Hence if the first second third son should dye by circumcision those that were born after were not circumcised but were always uncircumcised and yet Israelites in all respects Priests in all respects f f f f f f Hieros Jevamoth fol. 7. 4. R. Nathan saith I travailed to Cesarea of Cappadocia and there was a woman there who had brought forth male children which had died of circumcision the first the second the third they brought the fourth to me and I looked upon him and saw not in him the blood of the Covenant He advised them to permit him a little while though not circumcised and they permitted him c. Now Jew tell me Whether Circumcision is any thing especially whether it be of so much account either to Justification or to Sanctification as you esteem it when an Israelite might be a true Israelite and a Priest a true Priest without Circumcision II. Circumcision is nothing in respect of the time for now it was vanished the end of it for which it had been instituted being accomplished That end the Apostle shews in those words Rom. IV. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A seal of the Righteousness of the Faith in uncircumcision But I fear the words are not sufficiently fitted by most Versions to the end of Circumcision and the scope of the Apostle while they insert some thing of their own The French Translation thus Scean de la justice de foy Laquelle il avoyt durant le prepuce A seal of the righteousness of Faith which he had during uncircumcision The Italian thus Segno della giustitia della fede laquale fu nella circoncisione A Seal of the Righteousness of the Faith which was without circumcision The Syriac reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And a sign of the Righteousness of his Faith The Arabic of the righteousness of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was in uncircumcision Others to the same sense as though Circumcision were given to Abraham for a sign of that righteousness which he had while as yet he was uncircumcised which we deny not in some sense to be true but we believe Circumcision especially looks far another way Give me leave to render the words thus And he received the sign of Circumcision a seal of the Righteousness of the Faith which should hereafter be in Uncircumcision I say Which should be not which had been Not which had been to Abraham as yet uncircumcised but which should be to his seed uncircumcised that is To the Gentiles that should hereafter imitate the faith of Abraham For mark well upon what occasion Circumcision was appointed to Abraham laying before your eyes the history of it Gen. XVII First This promise was made him Thou shalt be the Father of many Nations in what sense the Apostle explains in that Chapter and then a double Seal is subjoyned to establish the thing viz. The changing of the name Abram into Abraham and the institution of Circumcision ver 4. Behold my Covenant is with thee Thou shalt be the Father of many Nations Why is his name called Abraham For the sealing of this promise Thou shalt be the Father of many Nations And why was Circumcision appointed him For sealing the same promise Thou shalt be the Father of many Nations So that this may be the sense of the Apostle very agreeable to the institution of Circumcision He received the sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Righteouss of Faith which herafter the Uncircumcision or the Gentiles was to have and obtain Abraham had a double Seed a natural seed that of the Jews and a Faithful seed that of the believing Gentiles The Natural seed is signed with the sign of Circumcision first indeed for the distinguishing it self from all other nations while they were not as yet the seed of Abraham But especially in memory of the justification of the Gentiles by Faith when at last they were his seed Therefore upon good reason Circumcision was to cease when the Gentiles should be brought in to the Faith because then it had obtained to its last and chief end and from thenceforth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision is nothing VERS XXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be ye not the Servants of men I Ask whether the Apostle speaks these words directly and as his own sense or by way of objection to which he answereth in the verse following The Jews were wont thus to object concerning themselves by reason of their liberty obtained by the redemption out of Egypt so that they would not endure by any means to be called Not free Joh. VIII 33. Rabban g g g g g g Kiddush fol. 22. 2. Jochanan ben Zaccai said The blessed Lord saith The ear which heard my voice upon mount Sinai at what time I said For the children of Israel are my Servants and not the Servants of Servants but it goes and obtains to its self the Lord let that ear be bored Perhaps these new Christians that were of a servile condition laboured under this pride not as yet instructed concerning the true sense of Evangelical Liberty Or this scruple stuck with them whether it were lawful for a Christian to serve a Heathen An Atheist An Idolater c. such Questions are moved by the Masters Whether an Israelite is to be sold for a Servant to a Heathen Whether an Israelite that is a Servant is to be pressed with the same service as a Canaanite If the Apostle speaks directly he does not discourse concerning Servants particularly but of all Christians in general And it is far from his intention to take away the relation that is between Masters and Servants but he admonisheth all Christians that they serve not the evil lusts and wills of men
speak two or three LET one sing who hath a Psalm let another teach who hath a doctrine and if a third bath exhortation or comfort as vers 3. Let him also utter it VERS XXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by THAT is very frequently said of the Jewish Doctors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He sate which means not so much this barely He was sitting as He taught out of the Seat of the Teacher or he sate teaching or ready to teach So that indeed he sate and he taught are all one Examples among the Talmudists are infinite In the same sense the Apostle If something be revealed to some Minister who hath a seat among those that teach c. not revealed in that very instant but if he saith that he hath received some revelation from God then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let the first be silent let him be silent that hath a Psalm and give way to him VERS XXXV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is a shame for women to speak in the Church COmpare that q q q q q q Megill fol. 23. 1. The Rabbins deliver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every one is reckoned within the number of Seven of those that read the Law in the Synagogues on the Sabbath day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even a child even a woman But the Wise men say let not a woman read in the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the honour of the Synagogue Note that it was a disgrace to the Church if a woman should read in it which was allowed even to a child even to a servant much more if she usurped any part of the Ministerial Office It was also usual for one or the other sitting by to ask the Teacher of this or that poynt but this also the Apostle forbids women and that for this reason Because it is not allowed women to speak but let them be subject to their husbands vers 34. It was allowed them to answer Amen with others and to sing with the Church but to speak any thing by themselves it was forbidden them CHAP. XV. VERS V. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that he was seen of Cephas NAmely going to Emmaus See what we have said at Mark XVI VERS VI. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once IN a Mountain of Galilee Mat. XXVIII 16. When it is added by the Evangelist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But some doubted which is to be warily understood not that some of the Eleven now still doubted of his Resurrection for Thomas himself had believed before but that some of that multitude assembled there with the Eleven doubted Therefore it is not only congruous but necessary to render that verse thus And they the Eleven Disciples seeing him worshipped him but others doubted Not some of the Eleven but others of the company VERS VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After that he was seen of Iames. WHAT James The Son of Zebedee or of Alpheus It is more probable to understand it of James the Son of Alpheus and that he was alive when Paul wrote this and that the Apostle seems on purpose to treat of the appearance of Christ to Peter and James the Minister of the Circumcision and to himself the Minister of the Uncircumcision See the story of one James a Disciple as he is stiled of Jesus a a a a a a Avodah Zarah fol. 16. 2. 27. 2. VERS VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. As one born out of due time c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An untimely birth Job III. 16. to the LXX Interpreters is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which is to be marked they render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An hidden untimely birth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an untimely birth proceeding out of his mothers womb when the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hidden seems rather to denote the contrary namely That it never went out of its mothers womb but was always hidden there So the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an untimely birth hidden in the womb Hence the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very usual among the Talmudists for a woman bringing forth an abortive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A b b b b b b Cherithuth cap. 1. hal 3. woman that comes before her time and brings forth in the figure of a beast or a bird 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coming before her time and bringing forth a sandal secundine or a figured lump c. Numb XII 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As an untimely birth coming out of the mothers womb and devoureth the half of her flesh As though the Apostle should say How far am I from an Apostle As much as some mishapen and desormed lump brought forth by an abortive birth differs from the shape of a man You may render the words in English more apt and clear unless I am mistaken in my conjecture after this manner As to a thing born out of due form than as they are rendred As to one born out of due time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A child not shaped So the LXX in Exod. XXI 22. VERS XX. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first fruits of them that slept ALthough the Resurrection of Christ compared with some first fruits hath very good harmony with them yet especially it agrees with the offering of the Sheaf commonly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only as to the thing it self but as to the circumstance of time For first there was the Passover and the day following was a Sabbatic day and on the day following that were the first fruits offered So Christ our Pasover was crucified The day following his crucifixion was the Sabbath and the day following that he the first fruits of them that sleep rose again VERS XXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are baptized for the dead I. IN this sense you may best understand these words Otherwise what shall they do who undergo martyrdom and are baptized in that sense as baptism denotes death by martyrdom if the dead are not at all raised For I. That Baptism is taken for martyrdom appears enough Mat. XX. 22 23. II. See how very well the connection of the following verse agrees to this sense What shall they do who have undergone and do undergo martyrdom if there be not a Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And why do we also every day and every moment go in danger of martyrdom III. He argues from them that die in Christ that is in the Faith of Christ ver 18. And do you believe he would omit an argument from those that die for the Faith of Christ IV. He saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What shall they do Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What do they Not what they mean or denote or signifie by this that they are baptized c. But what shall they do Or what shall become of them They have delivered their bodies
dreadful accomplishment of that denuntiation The other Texts I mentioned they shew the natural and genuine product of the Gospel They shall beat their swords into plow shares c. But when will that be Never according to universal obtaining Ever have been Wars and ever will be because ever will be Lusts. And yet these are fulfilled in the sence proposed by the Prophets viz. that God hath fully afforded means for this The Gospel hath enough in it to move men to peace but the fault is in themselves God hath not failed but men fail As it is in Rom. III. 3. What if some did not believe shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect So what if some be unpeaceable shall their divisions make the Gospel of peace of none effect So in other prophesies to make like construction Jer. XXXI 34. They shall no more teach every man his neighbour for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest It never was never will be Esa. LXV 20. There shall be no more thence an Infant of days nor an old man that hath not filled his days It never was nor will be Yet God hath accomplished what he promised He hath afforded means that it might be so Let me therefore leave this great copy of peaceableness and communion with you A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE Staffordshire-Natives At St. Mary Wolchurch LONDON Novemb. 22. 1660. S. JUDE Vers. 12. These are spots in your Feasts of Charity I Must take up that Stile and Strain of excuse to begin withal that St. Paul doth to his Countrymen about his Appeal unto Coesar I have nothing saith he to accuse my Nation of though I have been put upon it to make such an Appeal So I I have nothing Dear Country-men to accuse this your Feast of Charity of nor nothing to accuse any of that are to come to it though I have chosen these words that speak so point blank of spots that occurred in such kind of Feasts But I have fixed upon the words partly that I might speak in some kind of parity to that discourse that I made to you at our last meeting upon this occasion and chiefly that I might give you caution against such that to Feasts are spots to Charity destructive and to all meetings dangerous Who they were that our Apostle meaneth I shall clear to you by these two Observations I. That as it was foretold by the Holy Spirit in the Prophets that the best and most comfortable things that ever should accrue to the Church of the Jews should accrue to them in the last days that is of Jerusalem For so is that expression the last days in most places of Scripture to be understood So was it also foretold by the same Spirit that the worst things that ever should accrue to it should be in those last days also It was foretold that in those last days Esa. II. 2. That the mountain of the Lords house should be established in the top of the mountains and should be exalted above the hills and that all Nations should flow unto it That in those last days Joel II. 29 30 c. God would pour out his Spirit upon the servants and upon the handmaids and that he would shew wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth c. That in those last days Hos. III. 5. the Children of Israel should return and seek the Lord their God and David their King and should fear the Lord and his goodness And all other things of the greatest comfort So it was also foretold That in those last days perilous times and persons should come II Tim. III. 1. In those last days there should come scoffers walking after their own lusts II Pet. III. 3. In those last days there should be many Antichrists I Joh. II. 18. And by this we know that it is the last time Among all other the sad things that befel in those last days of Jerusalem and the Commonwealth of the Jews one of the greatest was that there was a most horrid and very general Apostacy or falling away from Faith in the most Churches of the Jews that had embraced the Gospel they turning back to their old Judaism and vain Traditions again Of this the Spirit had spoken expresly I Tim. IV. 1. Of this our Saviour had foretold in that sad application of the Parable Matth. XII 45. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking rest and findeth none Then he saith I will return into my house from whence I came out and when he is come he findeth it empty swept and garnished Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation The Devil had been cast out of a very great part of the Nation of the Jews He thought to find rest there but found none such notable success had the Gospel of Christ found in that Nation Upon which the Devil marshalleth up all his malice strength and subtility taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and so he at last prevails to cause a grievous defection in the People from Christianity they enter in and dwell there and their last state was worse than their first So was it with that generation Of this he had foretold Matth. XXIV 12. And because iniquity shall abound the Love of many shall wax cold Of this the Apostle speaketh II Thess. II. That before the terrible day of the Lord and his vengeance against Jerusalem for â—â— that phrase doth signifie almost continually there should be a falling away Of this you find sad footings in the Church of Galatia Gal. III. 3. IV. 9 10. of Colosse Col. II. 20. of Ephesus Revel II. 4. And indeed you may track the footing of it in all the Epistles of the Apostles II. The chief cursed promoters and procurers of this backsliding was that multitude of false Teachers of the Jewish Nation that went about pretending to have the Spirit of Prophesie and Revelation and many of them working Miracles by the power of Magick so shaâ—â—ing the minds of men and drawing them away from the Faith of the Gospel of Christ. Of these our Saviour had foretold when he foretold of the miseries that should occur in those last days of Jerusalem Matth. XXIV 24. Of these the Apostle foretold when he spake of the Jewish Antichrist for of the Jew he speaks II Thes. II. and saith he would come after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders vers 9. And of these the same Apostle speaks in that obscure place I Cor. XII 3. No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed For divers went about pretending to the Spirit and yet cursed our Lord Jesus Mention and footing of these you may
there were no age but there would be some persons Oracular as Moses If any limit then where is it fixed I say at the fall of Jerusalem And I will prove it by what they bring to prove Prophesie for these days Act. II. 17. And it shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and their sons and their daughters shall Prophesie c. By the last days they would understand it of the World I of Jerusalem So in divers places besides That it is so to be understood in the place S. Peters application makes out Who applies this place of the Old Testament unto himself and the Christians at that time upon occasion of their speaking strange Languages What absurdity would there also be in his applying this place The old Oeconomy is as the old World the Evangelical is the new Heaven and the new Earth So that the last days of the old World are the last days of the old Oeconomy Hence the destruction of Jerusalem is spoke of as the destruction of the old World and Christs coming is said to be in the last days So that if we take not the pouring out of the Spirit in the last days in that sence we swerve from the sence of the phrase in Scripture And hence it appears that Spirit to be in those last days and that it was affixed to them from propriety of phrase To this we might add the manner of imparting the Spirit in those times It was either by effusion upon many together Act. II. X. or by imposition of hands upon some single ones Now who dares think that ever was since the fall of Jerusalem such manner of giving or ever will be And these are the only ways of imparting the Spirit that are spoke of since Christ ascended To all we might add that at the fall of Jerusalem all Scripture was written and Gods full will revealed so that there was no further need of Prophesie and Revelation Therefore those places they cite are misapplied both as to the time and also as to the proper sence of them So that here is a discovery of the third delusion that Prophesie still continues whereas it was to cease at the fall of Jerusalem and there is no promise whereupon any hath reason to expect it in these times IV. The standing Ministry is the ordinary Method that God hath used for the instruction of his Church It has ever been Gods way since he first wrote words to teach his Church by a studious learned Ministry who were to explain the Scripture by study not by the Spirit Mistake not this Ministry consisted not of Prophets they were occasional and of necessity but of Priests and Levites We are sent to them Hag. II. 11. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts ask now the Priests concerning the Law Mal. II. 7. For the Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts We have mention made of the sons of the Prophets in the Old Testament these were not inspired but understanding was instilled into them by Elias and they sat at his feet such were those of Issachar So the Disciples sat at the feet of Christ. The true Apostles indeed were inspired because there was a necessity of it But when the New Testament was written there was no further need of inspiration And then the Church was sufficiently instructed by ordinary Ministers therefore was Timothy left at Ephesus Titus in Creet Thefore was the Imposition of Hands Hebrews VI. 2. I conclude all with that suitable advise of St. John I Chap. IV. 1. Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the World A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE Staffordshire-Natives At St. Michaels Cornhil LONDON Novemb. 26. 1663. ROM V. Vers. 1. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God THIS Text may seem very unsuitable to this occasion but certainly to no occasion no company no season can it be unsuitable can it be unseasonable to speak hear meditate of the infinite mercy of God in justifying men and of the unexpressible happiness of man in having peace with God But I have chosen this Subject to treat upon in a methodical succession to what I have discoursed upon heretofore being called to this Employment At my first being upon this task before you from those words in X. Joh. 22 23. which speaks of Christs being at Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication I shewed you at large how our Saviour held Communion with the Church of the Jews and thereupon I spake of such unity against Schism At my second from those words Jud. vers 12. These are spots in your Feasts of Charity I shewed that the spots spoken of were false Teachers that went abroad pretending to the Spirit and so deceiving and thereupon I spake of taking heed of such delusions against Heresie and Error And now what can I more orderly and methodically speak upon after speaking of keeping Peace with the Church and keeping Peace with the Truth than of having Peace with God Yes you will say To have taken in first having peace one with another True that might not have been immethodical But you speak that in my stead this Loving Friendly Brotherly meeting discourses that for me and makes a visible Sermon of your peace one with another And I have made that as it were a Text whereupon to raise an occasional meditation to the tenor of that which the Text that I have read speaks And let me raise it thus If it be so good and pleasant and happy a thing to see brethren thus live together in unity thus to meet together to walk together to Feast together in Love Unity and Peace Sursum corda lift up your hearts and from this lustre you see of the Sun shining in this water below look up to the light that is in the body of the Sun it self and meditate how excellent how pleasant how happy a thing it is to have peace with God to walk in peace with God in his own ways to converse in peace with God in his own House to Feast in peace with God at his own Table and at night to lie down and sleep in peace with with God in his own Bosom This is the last Epistle the Apostle wrote before his apprehension and imprisonment He wrote it from Corinth where he touched in his journy to Jerusalem his last journy thither He wrote it in the second year of Nero immediately after Easter when Claudius who had hindred the Mystery of iniquity from its working in its full scope by his discountenancing the Jewish Nation had now been taken away above a year and an half ago And now that mystery did find it self loose and acted in its full activity those of that Nation that had not embraced the Gospel persecuting it with all
virulency and multitudes of those that had embraced it apostatizing from it and becoming its bitter enemies This double fruit of gall and wormwood proceeded from one and the same root of bitterness viz. Their doting upon Judaism the word taken in a Civil sence as they accounted it a privilegial excellence to be a Jew or in a Religious sence as they expected to be justified by their Judaical works So that the very season and present juncture of affairs might very well give occasion unto the Apostle to handle the two Themes that faced these two great delusions so copiously in this Epistle above all other places viz. The casting off the Jews and coming in of the Gentiles to decry their boasting of being Jews and Justification by Faith to face their dangerous principle of Justification by their Works How he prosecutes his Discourse upon the point of Justification by Faith from the beginning of his Epistle hither any one may see plainly first confuting the opinion concerning Justification by Works and then proving that it is by Faith As to the former in Chap. I. he speaks of the works of the Heathen most abominable and clean contrary to justifying in Chap. II. of the works of the Jews most failing and infinitely short of justifying and yet concludes as to the second head he handles that the Believers of the one Nation and the other are justified Chap. III. 30. as well the circumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by faith and not by works as the uncircumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through faith though it had been of so contrary works In Chap. IV. he instanceth in Abraham as serving to both his purposes shewing that he was not justified by his Works but by believing and that the rather because it was a common opinion and saying among the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Abraham performed all the Law to a little and consequently that he was justified by that performance He sheweth that he believed and was justified by his faith before he received circumcision in which they placed so much of justification and that he received Circumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had being yet uncircumcised and a seal of the righteousness of faith which should be in the uncircumcision or Gentiles that should come to believe as those words will also bear that he might be the Father of all that believe though they be not circumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also vers 11. In this verse before as he begins to apply the Doctrine he had cleared and the word Therefore infers no less Upon which I shall not insist to examine whether by it he infers only the first clause of the Text as proved already That Justification is by Faith or the second also as proved likewise or now added to be proved That being Justified by Faith we have peace with God Nor shall I insist upon the connexion but take the words as they lie singly before us and methinks they are as Ephraim and Manasseh before Jacob both clauses so excellent that we may be at a stand on which to lay the right hand so great the mystery of Justification and so incomparable the happiness of having Peace that on which shall we fix to discourse in this hour I may not pass the former but in a word or two by the way hint something of the great mystery of Justification I. It is a mystery and wonder that I may say with that Apostle even the Angels desire to look into and that men have cause with amazement to look upon that ever a sinful wretch a condemned person should be justified before God But so it was in the Law he that was unclean with the deepest died legal uncleanness that could be if purified with the Purification of the Sanctuary he became clean II. It is a mystery that a sinner should be justified and yet whiles he lives in this world he is sinful still But so likewise it was in the Law the Leper was cleansed yet he was a Leper still Levit. XIII 13. In a case there mentioned the Priest was to pronounce him clean His condition was changed as to his restoring to the publick Worship and to the Congregation but his inherent distemper was not wholly removed III. It is a mystery that a sinner should be justified by Gods justice the property of which is to condemn sin and to punish sinners For we are justified not only by the grace and mercy of God but by the very justice of God And methinks the very word Justification speaks no less I am sure the Apostle speaks so in Chap. I. 17. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith In the Law was revealed the righteousness or justice of God condemning and in the Gospel the righteousness or justice of God justifying IV. It is a mystery that mans believing should justifie it being an Act of man and so infinitely unadaequate to Gods justifying But as in the Law he that would have his attonement made at the Altar and have his acceptance there must of necessity take the Priest in his thoughts and in his way to do it for him so Faith doth inevitably include also Christ the object of believing and his merit So that you cannot define this Gospel faith but with this comprehension that it is a trusting in the grace and promise of God through Christ. V. It is a mystery that a sinner should be justified or made righteous by the righteousness of another This is strange to the ears of the Jews who expected to be justified every one by his own righteousness Whereas they might have learned at the Temple that even the holiest things there were not holy of themselves but made holy by something else the Sacrifice by the Altar the Priest by his garments And this is that Faith that the Apostle speaks of in the place mentioned before The righteousness of God revealed from Faith to Faith I. Rom. 17. i. e. a righteousness beyond that that the Jew expected by Faith in God who immediately trusted in God upon the account of his own righteousness whereas This is a Faith or trusting in God upon the righteousness of Christ. VI. It is a mystery that whereas Faith is not the same for degree and measure in all that believe yet justification is the same in all that believe though their belief be in different measures and degrees So once in the Wilderness all gathered not Manna in the same measure yet when all came to measure they had all alike none above an Omer none under Sanctification indeed receiveth magis minus and one hath a greater degree or less of holiness than other but Justification is not so For all are justified alike the truth of faith justifying not the measure So actual sinfulness recipit magis minus and so some are greater sinners some less but origine sui 't is not so
take what thou wilt and have Lord let me have the righteousness which is of God by faith All things in the World are but dung to it His great Master had taught him and teacheth us all that this is the thing so desirable and to be longed after Matth. V. 6. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness How shall I speak upon this subject A theme fit to be discoursed on by the Tongue of an Angel or by the Tongue of a Saint in glory If a Lazarus should come out of Heaven to preach on Earth as the rich man would have had him in that parable how would he upon his own experience of the excellency of it magnifie this righteousness Nay if a Dives could return from Hell to preach to his brethren and advise them that they should not come into the place of torment he would tell them that all things in the world are but dung and there is but unum necessarium to get that righteousness which is of God by faith Lazarus how camest thou to Heaven Why I was justified Rom. VIII 30. Whom he justified them he also glorified Dives how camest thou to be damned Because I was not justified I shall not enter into any of the various and nice disputes about Justification I shall only speak something of the incomparable excellency of it that if it may be I may warm your hearts a little in the desire and longing after it which is so desirable and to be longed after And this I shall do by considering the nature of it and the effects and I need to look no further It s like the Ark of the Covenant overlaid with gold within and without T is all glorious within in its own nature and all glorious without in its fruits and effects For the first the nature of justification How shall I define or describe it As the Apostle doth Faith Heb. XI 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen not so exactly desining it to speak out its whole nature but as best applicable to his present discourse So I of this to speak of it according to the theme proposed as it is desirable and to be longed after let me say Justification is a mans being interessed in all Christs righteousness and if any thing be to be longed after sure that is To be interessed in all Christs righteousness Laban spake high when he said All these things thou seest are mine these Children are my Children c. XXXI Gen. 43. But how high and glorious is that that may be said of a justified person All thou hearest of Christ is thine his life is thine his death is thine his obedience merit righteous spirit all is thine The Jews speak much when they say all the six hundred and thirteen precepts are comprehended in Justus ex fide vivet The just shall live by faith But they are far from construing the thing aright when they look for justification by their own works and it is a monster of Doctrine in their ears that men are to be justified by the righteousness of another and by the obedience of another But the Gospel as the Apostle tells us Reveals that great mystery For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith Rom. I. 17. Here are two scruples 1. Did not the Law reveal the righteousness of God How then is it ascribed to the Gospel that it reveals it And 2. How doth it reveal it from faith to faith True indeed the Law revealed Gods condemning righteousness but the Gospel his justifying righteousness the righteousness of God in a more singular excellency Glorious is the righteousness of God in all its actings his condemning justice his rewarding justice but most singularly glorious is his justifying justice and this most especially is exalted in Scripture as the righteousness of God of the choicest eminency And secondly this Righteousness is revealed in the Gospel from faith to faith How is that I cannot take it only from one degree of faith to another but from one kind of faith to another The Jews that expected justifying by their own works yet had they a faith in God they believed in him looked for good from him but they knew not what faith in God through Christ was they looked for justifying from God and had a faith or belief they should observe it but were utter strangers to justifying through faith in Christ this therefore the Gospel reveals as the great mystery of salvation The righteousness of God justifying a sinner and this from immediate believing in God to believing in him through Christ Jesus and expecting justifying from by our own righteousness to expecting justifying by the righteousness of Christ. The Apostle in Rom. V. from vers 12. forward confirms that that I propose that justification is by imputation of Christs righteousness and the comparison that he there useth clears the matter fully He to open that great point of justification by the righteousness of Christ takes a parallel from the imputation of Adams sin and you may see how all along he sets the one against the other let us speak a little to that parallel 1. Does not the matter of imputation in his discourse there and in deed in it self argue some descending relation as I may tell it Imputation is upon relation of descention He speaks of Adams sin imputed to whom To them that are in relation to him in descent all his posterity The Angels sin is not imputed to him nor his to Angels nor Angels to Angels but Adams to all his posterity because of their relation to him The sin in violating the command given him is imputed to all his posterity because his posterity for they all were in him and inclosed in the Covenant for it was made not with Adam as one man but with all humane nature included in him and so his guilt descended to them upon that relation So the righteousness of Christ is imputed to whom To those that are related to him his seed such as are born of him The comparison of the Apostle must run parallel Adams sin imputed to his seed Christs righteousness to his 2. All the seed of Adam are made sinful alike by his sin so all the seed of Christ are justified a like by his obedience Original sin hath not magis minus but all originally sinful alike though all not actually sinful alike So Justification hath not magis minus but all that are justified are justified alike Sanctification hath its degrees Adams righteousness and holiness were equally perfect but the righteousness and holiness of Saints not so for they are justified by an infinite righteousness but they are not sanctified by an infinite holiness 3. All the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him Not one Saint one part another another but every one all As anima tota in toto tota in qualibet parte So all the righteousness
to the wisdom of this World are the great matters and mysteries of the Gospel and of Salvation The Judgment to come that he speaks of in this verse he characters or pictures in divers colours or circumstances I. The object of it He shall judge the World II. The manner He shall judge it in Righteousness III. The time At a day which he hath appointed IV. The agent to be imploied in it The man whom he hath ordained V. And lastly the certainty of it He hath given assurance thereof c. There is some controversie about the translating of that clause He hath given assurance In the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which will admit a double construction The Vulgar Latin and the Syriack gives one our English and the French another The Vulgar Latine renders it Fidem praebens omnibus Which I should have supposed might freely have been rendred in the sense our English gives Giving assurance to all but that I find some expositions constrain him another way viz. Affording faith to all and the Syrian inclines the same way for it renders Restoring every man to his faith or to faith in him As if the meaning were that God by the Resurrection of Christ did restore the World to faith and believing from that ignorance and infidelity which it lay under before which is a real and a very noble truth but I question whether that be the Apostles meaning in this place For he is shewing That God had appointed an universal Judgment and hath ordained Christ to be Judge and for proof and confirmation of both especially of the latter he saith as our English well renders he hath given assurance and as the French he hath given certainty in that he hath raised and the Greek very clearly bears such a sense And this to be the sense that is intended is yet further clear by observing the argumentation of the Apostle in this place Read the verse before The times of their ignorance God winked at but now commandeth every man to repent Because he hath appointed a day c. Why Was not this day appointed before that time that Christ was risen The Jews will tell you that Heaven and Hell were created before the World then certainly the Judgment that was to deem to Heaven or Hell was appointed before But our Saviour in the sentence that he shall pronounce at that Judgment Matth. XXV Come ye blessed of my Father receive the Kingdom prepared for you c. shews that the appointing of the day of Judgment was of old time long and long ago before Christs Resurrection but the Apostle tells that he had never given such assurance of it before as he did then by raising him that should be Judge The Apostle at this portion of Scripture doth plainly shew three things First He lays down a doctrine Secondly He proves it And thirdly He makes application His doctrine is That God hath appointed a day wherein he will Judge the World in Righteousness His proof From Gods own real vouchment He hath given assurance in that he raised Christ from the dead His application therefore Let all men in every place repent I should deserve a just censure if I should refuse the Apostles method to take another and not tread in the steps of that Logical proceeding that he had printed before Yet I shall decline to insist much upon the confirmation of the doctrine as a particular head by it self since the taking up the second thing the proof of it is the doing the same thing Only I shall call out as the Prophet Esay doth in the place cited who assoon as he had said Thy heart shall meditate terrors presently subjoyns where is the Scribe c. So while our heart is meditating of terrors of the thing we are speaking this day which God hath appointed wherein he will Judge the World c. Where is the Sadducee where the Atheist where the Disputer of this World What say they to this thing I. The Sadducee will tell you That there is no Resurrection neither Angel nor Spirit Act. XXIII 8. And would perswade us that Moses was of the same opinion because he speaks not of any such things in terminis in all his book It is a common received opinion among the Learned that the Sadducees refused all the Books of the Old Testament but only the five Books of Moses If they mean it absolutely I must confess my small reading hath not taught so far as to be satisfied in that But if they mean it with some qualification then I believe the thing is very true In such a qualified sense as to say the rest of the Jews refused the third part of the Bible which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christians render the word Hegiographa that is they refused to have it read in the Synagogue The Law and Prophets they read there every Sabbath Act. XIII 15. but admitted not the reading of Job Psalms Solmons books Daniel Lamentations Chronicles Ezra c. not so much out of the undervaluation of those books but because they accounted the other were sufficient So if you say the Sadducees admitted no other Books of the Old Testament to be read in their Synagogues on the Sabbath but only the books of Moses I doubt not but you speak very true but that they utterly rejected and made nothing of the rest of that Sacred Volume I am yet to seek for satisfaction And I suppose something may be said out of the ancient records of the Jews that might countenance the contrary but it is not now time and place to enter into such a discourse But you will say If they had them in their closets though not in their Synagogues If they read them though not there If they believed them how could they be ignorant of the resurrection Judgment to come and World to come of which there is so plain declaration in the rest of the Old Testament though not in Moses The answer is easie Because they had this principle that nothing is to be believed as a fundamental Article of Faith but what may be grounded in Moses The very Pharisees themselves did not far differ from them in this principle and I could produce a Pharisee in their own writings saying That if a man believed the Resurrection c. yet believed not that it was taught and grounded in the Law of Moses he should not be Orthodox Now why Moses did so obscurely intimate these great fundamentals in comparison of other parts of the Bible I shall not trouble you with discussing though very acceptable reasons may be given of it We find the Resurrection asserted by our Saviour out of Moses by one argument and we find it asserted by many arguments by the Pharisees against the Saducees in the Jews own Pandect and so we leave the Sadducees to take his answer and confutation there But II. Behold a worse then a Sadducee is here and that is a Christian
this their dispersion because he had done that which he threatned them to do viz. to scatter them among the Nations but withal some singular Providence of God appears by his singular disposal in managing this dispersion Not to speak how he had promised Abraham a numerous seed and now so numerous as to be scattered strangers through the World He had chosen them for his own people yet they were thus disunited had promised them the Land of Canaan and yet dispersed them into all Lands a peculiar people and still they are so notwithstanding their Dispersion for they run into one knot and retain their Families as the Poets fain the River Arethusa to remain unmixed in the Sea Take them as a contrary Religion to all Nations yet retaining their Religion among all Nations when there was such promoting nay forcing them to Idolatry III. The great dispersion was from the two Tribes The ten Tribes were shut up in the remote parts of Assyria in Halock Habor c. And you bear no more of them but of the two Tribes were all these Dispersions in Babylonia Egypt all Persia over and the Roman Empire IV. As the Curse on Levi Gen. XLIX 7. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel had a blessing in it to others so here They the sons of Levi were scattered but it was to be Teachers to the Nation So these two Tribes were dispersed about the World but wheresoever they came they carried the doctrine of the true God with them Ezek. XXXVI 22. There it is said That they professed the Name of God among the Heathen where thy were scattered though they profaned it Here are two things observable First That the Two Tribes were dispersed the Ten shut up because the Two carried the true Profession of God the Ten had been Idolaters Secondly So had the Two indeed been but after the Captivity never and from thence they were dispersed to disperse the Name and knowledge of the true God Thus God did prefoce to the Introduction of Religion among the Gentiles as by scattering the Greek Tongue he made way for the New Testament that was written in that Tongue Seneca questions Ad Helviam cap. 6. Quid sibi Volunt in mediis Barbarorum regionibus Graecae urbes Quid inter Indos Persasque Macedonicus sermo What it meant that the Greek Language and Greek Cities were found among Barbarous Nations It was strange but a singular Providence viz. that the New Testament might reach to and be understood by those remote Countries So if you ask why there were Jews in all Nations I answer for a punishment to them and withal for a singular Providence to all the World viz. to acquaint the World with the true God against the time when the Gospel came to the Heathen V. All this diffused dispersion kept the same Religion nay the same Traditions when they came up All zealous of the Tradition of their Fathers The Sadducees indeed differed in the Resurrection and in Traditions yet kept exceeding much in the same rites though they pleaded another original It is a wonder how the same spirit should be in all those in Babylon Judaea Egypt except about Onias Temple these places to which Peter writes Greece all the World over the Leaven leavened the whole lump Trace the Apostle Paul you find he hath the same opposition every where upon the same account because he opposed their customs See 1 Thes. II. 14 15 16. For ye Brethren became followers of the Churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus for ye also have suffered like things of your own Country men even as they have of the Jews Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and have persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary to all men Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved Where you see all of them in general wheresoever dispersed in Judaea or out of it yet were of the same disposition all zealous of their own Traditions and bent upon persecuting the Preachers and Professors of Christian Religion because that opposed them There is that think that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us in Heb. XII 1. meaneth this that this was the sin that did hang on the Hebrews However it were undoubtedly this was their Epidemical sin plague and undoing For VI. For this God gave them up to a reprobate sense As once for their sins God turned and gave them up to worship the Host of Heaven Act. VII 42. So for this God cast off the generality of the Nation as in a desperate and incurable condition even before he destroyed their City See 1 Thes. II. 16. There it is said that wrath was come upon them to the uttermost And that Epistle was writ the first of all the Epistles And the Apostle S. Paul Rom. XI even concludes that they were cast off already though when he wrote it was long before the City was destroyed Nay go further back Joh. XII 39. Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said He hath blinded their Eyes and hardened their hearts Mark IV. 12. That seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand lest at any time they should be converted Which places speak Gods giving them up and induration of them Nay yet further back Matth. III. 7. O Generation of Vipers who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come Even in John the Baptists time they were destined for Gods wrath See also 1 Pet. II. 10. Which in time past were not a people but are now the people of God which had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy This is spoke of the Dispersion that believed Before they imbraced the Faith God had rejected them they were not a People VII But God had a remnant in that Nation that should be saved Therefore he destroyed not the Nation utterly and continued a publick Worship among them See how S. Peter mentioning the Dispersion in Pontus Galatia c. styles them Elect in the first Chapter and 2. vers and here in the Text elected together Take two or three other places Matth. XXIV 22 24. For the Elects sake those days shall be shortned There shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect Rom. XI 5. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of Grace These places infer that God had a peculiar people in that Nation that he had not give up To those this Apostle refers in the second Epistle III. 9. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering to us ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance God stayed his judgment that he threatned upon
blessed for ever So that the great Angel Christ at the giving of the Law was the speaker and all the created Angels his silent Attendants And this Observation might be useful in some points of Divinity that Christ gave the Law as well as he gave the Gospel But Thirdly The Prophets and Ministers in Scripture phrase are usually called Angels Do I need to give instance Eccles. V. 6. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin neither say before the Angel or Minister at the Temple that it is an error Mal. II. 7. The Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the Messenger or Angel of the Lord of Hosts And Chap. III. 1. Behold I send my Angel i. e. my messenger before thy face And to spare more you remember that in Revel I. ult The seven stars are the Angels or Ministers of the seven Churches So that the words before us may be reduced to this sense Ye received the Law by the disposition preaching and explaining of the Prophets and Ministers and have not kept it And to this sense speaks that Heb. II. 2. For if the word spoken by Angels that is Gods messengers the Prophets were stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord. That is If the word in the mouth of the Prophets might not be transgressed but there was a just recompence of reward paid to the transgressor much more he must be paid that neglects the Salvation spoken by the Lord Christ. And to the like sense may that be taken in Gal. III. 19. The Law was added because of transgression being ordained disposed of preached by Angels i. e. Prophets and Ministers in the hand of a Mediator And this sense of Angels in the Text agrees very well with the words of Steven a little before Your Fathers persecuted and killed the Prophets the Lords Angels or Messengers and ye have received the Law by such Angels or Ministers but have not kept it For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel in the Greek Tongue signifies any messenger among men as frequently as it does the Angels in Heaven And so taking all these constructions together the words do fairly lead us to consider what cause or reason God hath given men to keep his Law and Commandments but men will not keep them Some have written large and excellent Discourses concerning the equity and reasonableness of Christian Religion And how large a discourse might be made upon this particular in our Religion How it is agreeable to all the reason in the World to obey and keep Gods Commandments which he hath given The Socinian requires a natural reason for what is supernatural or else he must not believe it Because it cannot be demonstrated in Logick Philosophy Mathematicks how three should be one and one should be three therefore we must not believe that there are three Persons in the Trinity and but one God But the wiser and more solid discourse would be rather to shew a reason why we are to believe such a thing than to seek a reason why or how such a thing is For there may be a plain reason to believe an article of Faith the reason of which thing reason cannot fathom So it may be but a sawcy wild inquiry what reason God had to give such and such particular commands But it may be a pious and humble inquiry to search what reason we have to keep his Commandments now he hath given them I. And the first reason we meet withal in all regular method and order is because he hath given them therefore we should keep them Ye received the Law by the disposition of Angels therefore ye should have kept it The Command in it self does not only challenge our obedience of it but the very giving of it does also challenge it There is a bond in the giving as well as a bond in the Command it self viz. a bond of love and mercy that would impart his Will and Commands David in Psal. CXLVII ult accounts it an incomparable mercy that Israel had above other Nations That God made his Law known to Jacob and his statutes to Israel And dealt not so with any Nation besides neither had they knowledge of his Law And God himself instituted the Feast of Pentecost at that just time of the year when the Law was given that they might celebrate the Memorial of that great mercy as he had instituted the Feast of the Passover at that just time of the year when they were delivered out of Egypt that they might commemorate the memory of that mercy He would have them to own the giving of the Law an equal mercy with their delivery out of bondage And what was the treasure of the Ark or the precious things that were laid up there The two Tables and Pot of Manna The Pot of Manna that minded them of the merciful and miraculous food wherewithal the Lord fed their bodies and the two Tables which minded them of the divine and heavenly food of their Souls that Man liveth not by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God That passage is worthy a great deal of meditation Luke XII 47 48. He that knew his Masters will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes But he that knew it not and committed things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with a few stripes Now whether do you think it better to know our Masters will or not to know it To have God to impart his Commands to us or not to impart them Herein it might seem better not to know his Commands because it we keep them not not knowing them there will follow the fewer stripes but the more if we know them and break them But this weighs the ballance down on the other side that it is impossible to avoid stripes if there be not the knowledge of Gods Commands it is possible to avoid them if there be knowledge More stripes indeed will be added if we keep them not but if we keep them no stripes at all If we should dispute this question whether God shewed more mercy in giving his Law and Commandments or in giving the Gospel and promises This might make some stand about the determination because though the promises are given of an infinite mercy yet there is no possibility of coming up to the attaining of the promises but in the way of the Commandments In the Promises God shews that he would do good to us and save us and in the Commandments he shews that he would have us to do good to our selves and save our selves Say not therefore that it was any severity in God to lay any such binding Commandments upon men acknowledge it mercy that he would make known his Will and Commandments to thee Wouldst thou
the virtue of his blood i. e. of his obedience and righteousness so see what the same Apostle saith of his Exaltation Phil. II. 8 c. And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name That at the Name of JESUS every knee should bow c. And think here Christian what a stock of obedience and righteousness here is for thee to answer and satisfie for thy disobedience and unrighteousness if thou become a child of the Covenant as this blood was the blood of the Covenant It is said in Dan. IX 26. That Messiah should be cut off but not for himself This blood of the New Testament was not shed for himself but for many And here is enough for every soul that comes to him be they never so many Like the Widdows oyl in the Book of the Kings there is enough and enough again as long as any Vessel is brought to receive it And this may direct us toward the forming of the reliance of our Faith upon the blood of Christ the great work that a Christian hath to do for his Justification and Salvation Which will be the more cleared to us by considering how his blood is the blood of the Covenant Which is the next thing we should speak to had we time to do it A SERMON PREACHED UPON HEBREWS XIII 10. We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle THERE is one that asks our Saviour Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life Mat. XIX 16. And another that asks his great Apostle What must I do to be saved Act. XVI 30. The questions mean one and the same thing but only proposed in different expressions And the answers tend to one and the same purpose though proposed in terms very different Our Saviour answers If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments The Apostle answers If thou wilt be saved believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The one proposeth Faith the other proposeth Good works not in such contrariety as the Apostle James speaks of Faith and Works Chap. III. but in such consonancy as that the one is subservient unto the other keeping of the Commandments towards the bringing on of Faith and Faith to the breeding and forwarding the keeping of the Commandments and both to obtain eternal life I will speak at present of the absolute necessity of Faith for the obtaining eternal life and therefore have I chosen these words which I have read to you which seem at first sight to be meer strangers to such a subject but when explained and rightly understood are very pertinent to such a matter I say rightly understood for there are many the Popish Expositors especially that understand them exceedingly wrong and as far from the Apostles meaning as likely can be By we have a Altar they understand the Altar in their Churches viz. the Table where they administer the Sacrament and thence they call the Sacrament The Sacrament of the Altar A title that hath been too common in England and which hath cost many a good man very dear The Lord grant the title be never known here any more But the title of the Altar is commonly known among us still and ask many why they call it an Altar they will be ready to produce this place of the Apostle We have an Altar As if the Apostle who had been crying down the service and sacrifices of the Altar all along this Epistle and shewed that they were but shadows and to vanish when the substance appeared should set them up again and build up anew what he had so earnestly set himself to destroy As if Gedeon that destroyed the Altar of Baal in the night should fall awork in the morning and build it up again But the Altar in the Apostles meaning here is Christ himself And as he had called him an High Priest and a Sacrifice along in the Epistle before so he calls him also the Altar here shewing that all those things did but represent him and that he was the substance and reality of those shadows He shews how he was the Great High Priest in the later end of the fourth and along the fifth Chapter He shews how he was the great Sacrifice in the ninth and tenth Chapters and how he was the great Altar he shews at this place We have an Altar And that he means Christ by the Altar is apparent by two things that follow to omit more that might be collected by the context The first is in the words immediately following For those beasts whose blood was brought by the High Priest into the holy place for sin their bodies were burnt without the Camp Therefore Jesus also that he might sanctifie the people with his own blood suffered without the gate His argumentation is this The great solemn Sacrifice for sin on the day of attonement was not burnt upon the Altar in the Temple but was burnt without the City so Christ was sacrificed without the gate so that whosoever will partake of that true Sacrifice for sin must go to the Altar there and not to the Altar within the Temple And in the next verse but one he shews yet more plainly that he means Christ by our Altar ver 13. Therefore by him let us offer the sacrifice of praise continually to God As on the Altar in the Temple they offered their Sacrifices and Thank-offerings so by him as on our Altar Let us offer our sacrifice of praise to God So that in the words you have an Affirmative assertion and a Negative The Affirmative That we have Christ for our Altar The Negative That they that serve the Tabernacle have no right to eat of this Altar The Affirmative comfortable to every true Christian the later seems comfortless for every true Jew The reason of the Negative assertion we may inquire more particularly into afterwards To the former to speak at present we take up this Observation from it That he that will offer any sacrifice acceptable to God must go to Christ as the true Altar on which to offer it No sacrifice among the Israelites could be accepted if it were not offered on the Temple-altar And it was Gods special command Thou shalt not offer thy sacrifice in any of thy Cities but shalt go to the Altar of the Lord thy God in the place which he shall chuse Nor can any sacrifice be acceptable to God of any Christian but what is offered to him upon the Altar of his appointment the Lord Christ where alone is attonement for sinners As Priesthood and Sacrifice were typical and signified to this purpose so also was the Altar of the same signification And whereas there were two Altars at the Temple one for Sacrifice the other for Incense they did both but represent Christ and his acting
in his two great works viz. His offering himself a sacrifice by his death and his offering the continual incense of his mediation And how methodically did the representation proceed suitable to the reality For first the Priest offered the Sacrifice upon the Altar and then went in within the Tabernacle and offered incense So Christ first offered himself at his death and then went into the highest Heaven to make Intercession The Papists in their Mass take upon them to offer Christ as a Propitiatory sacrifice for quick and dead So they are the Altar and Christ is the offering But we learn better to make Christ the Altar and we our selves and our services the offering offered upon it For the clearing of the thing before us and to reduce these words of the Apostle to a Doctrine of Faith whither he intends them let us premise these four things I. That every Christian hath three spiritual Sacrifices to offer to God Himself his Devotions and Religious services and his good works and Religious walking 1. Himself Rom. XII 1 2. I beseech you Brethren that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God 2. His prayers Devotions and Religious services Mal. I. 11. In every place incense shall be offered unto my Name and a pure offering And 3. His holy walking 16 ver of this Chapter To do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifice God is well pleased Christ is to be offered to God no more as Papists take on them to offer him every Mass but man is to offer himself to God the only sacrifice that God now requireth Now II. On what Altar is this spiritual Sacrifice to be offered and presented to God On some spiritual Altar as it is a spiritual offering Those Sacrifices that were earthly and material required an earthly and material Altar but those that were spiritual must be offered on some spiritual Altar else the manner of offering them contradicts their nature Now what the Apostle speaks concerning the Rock in the Wilderness The Rock was Christ so we may say concerning the Altar under the Gospel The Altar is Christ. In the Law the offering was to be put into the hands of a Priest or it could not be accepted so our services are to be put into the hands of Christ to be presented to God else no acceptance And the sacrifice was to be laid upon the Altar or it could not be accepted so must ours be laid on the altar Christ or no acceptance For III. The Altar must sanctifie the Sacrifice to make it acceptable and so our Saviour tells Mat. XXIII 19. It was not enough that the Sacrifice was a clean Beast and not unclean nor that it was without fault or blemish to make it an acceptable Sacrifice But it must be laid upon the Altar for that to sanctifie it and to make it a right Sacrifice IV. And here I cannot but take up the Jewish Doctors most true and pertinent explication of that point about the Altars sanctifying the gift viz. The Altar sanctified that that was fit for it The Altar could not sanctifie an unclean Beast a Dog or an Ass or a Cat to make it a Sacrifice but only a Beast that was clean And if the Beast were a clean Beast in his nature yet if he had faults or blemishes the Altar did not sanctifie him for a sit Sacrifice but it sanctified only that that was fit for it By all which laid together we may learn and observe the great Doctrine of Faith about our acceptance with God only by Christ. Which to view particularly let us begin from this First None can come to God to find acceptance with him but he must first give himself into the hand of Christ to bring him to God for acceptance The Apostle tells us that all acceptance is in the Beloved and to be expected no other way Ephes. I. 6. This is the great mystery of the Gospel For the want of which duly owned Turks and Jews are at loss and are lost from God for ever They both pretend for Religion pretend for Heaven but they both miss the door by which alone they are to enter and so are excluded eternally missing of Christ by whom only we come there Our Saviour indeed speaks of entring and getting into the sheepfold some other way than at the door but he saith they are thieves and robbers His meaning is of false teachers that can find a way to creep into the sheepfold the Church to seduce and destroy the sheep some other way than at the right door But whosoever will get either into Heaven or indeed into the true and sincere Religion that leadeth thither must enter by Christ the Door or he will never come there Joh. XIV 6. I am the Way the Truth and the Life none can come to the Father but by me Consider of that I am so the Way that none can come to the Father but by me Then sure the Papists are out of the way as well as Turks and Jews when they think to come to God by the mediation of Saints and Angels None can come to God but by me saith our Saviour but I can come to God saith a Papist by the Virgin Mary by Peter Paul and the mediation of other Saints in Heaven Certainly they must have some nice distinction here or they contradict Christ to his face and take his honour and give it to another Heb. VII 25. Christ having an unfailing Priesthood is able to save to the uttermost those that come to God by him If you come to God you must come by him and that only is the way to be saved But if you expect to come to God by any other means whatsoever you are out of the way and will be lost 1 Pet. III. 18. Christ suffered once for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God If there were any other way to come to God than by Christ the death of Christ was but to little purpose and our believing in him to as little And we may justly say with the Apostle 1 Cor. XV. 14. Our preaching is in vain and your faith is also vain It is said of Christ that he is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek Psal. CX Though he died and offered himself the great Sacrifice for sinners yet he is a Priest for ever still offering sacrifice to God but no more himself but his peoples sacrifice And that offering is twofold viz. offering the persons of his people to God as an acceptable living sacrifice and offering their services as an acceptable spiritual sacrifice to God Of the former you have testimony from his own words Isa. VIII 18. Behold I and the children which the Lord hath given me Of the later Revel VIII 3. where you read of his offering the prayers of all Saints upon the Golden Altar which was before the Throne What the manner of Christs mediation is is
reliance upon Christ comes not into date till a man do the best he can to fit himself to be a sacrifice for that Altar The Altars sanctifying of the gift came not in date till the offering was fit for the Altar There must be these concurrents First It must be of the clean kinds of Beasts or Birds Oxen or Sheep or Goats Sparrows Pigeons or Turtles not Dog Cat Ass Bear not a Crow Raven Owl or Vultur Then it must be viewed by some skilful person that it be without blemish as well as that it be clean viz. That it be not a blind Bullock or Lamb that it be not broken diseased c. And lastly the Offerers free-will and mind in his offering must be concurrent And thus qualified it was fit for the Altar and the Altar sanctified it Now was there all this care about the offering of a beast upon a material Altar of brass or stone and is not as much at least required for the offering of a souls own self on Christ the Altar Must any thing polluted or unclean come near that Altar Faith in Christ is not so easie a matter as men take it for a man must first do all he can in purifying himself before he can believe For his believing is his refuging to Christ to make out for him when he sees he cannot do it himself And by this appears the vast difference 'twixt the believing of a Jew and the faith of a true Christian. The Jew as he thought performed the Law and believed that he should be justified by his performance and looked no further A true Christian observes the Law the best he can but when he hath done all he finds himself but an unprofitable servant and that he comes infinitely short of Justification by all he can therefore casts himself upon Christ to satisfie for him The sacrifices of God are a broken heart a broken and a contrite spirit O God thou wilt not despise Psal. LI. 17. Under the Law nothing that was broken or bruised was to be offered under the Gospel no heart but broken or bruised is to be offered And whereupon bruised and broken not only upon sight of the evil they have committed but also upon sense how little they can do of good when they have done their best And then lay such an heart upon the Altar Christ and the Altar sanctifies the gift and makes out for it Brethren take heed you be not deceived about Faith by which you must stand or fall to all eternity It is more than fancy or thinking or hoping you shall be saved by Christ it is more than taking on you to pray in the name of Christ more than begging mercy for the sake of Christ. It is working and labouring in the way of Gods Commandments till you be weary and heavy laden and then resting your selves in Christ for safety and refreshing It is doing your duty all you can and still leaning on Christ to make out all failings for you It is that that must bring up the reer of your best endeavours As Simon of Cyrene was laid hold upon to bear the Cross of Christ after him when it was too heavy for him So on the contrary lay hold on Christ and get him to bear your burthen for you when you your selves are not able to bear it II. By this also we may observe the absolute necessity of keeping Gods Commandments for salvation as well as the absolute necessity of faith for salvation and the amicable and indeed unseparable agreement 'twixt these two It is impossible to find acceptance with God for justification and salvation unless by faith in Christ we be presented as living sacrifices upon him the Altar And it is impossible to be fit sacrifices for that Altar unless by keeping the Commandments of God we be purified and fitted For as Faith purifieth the heart where it is once come Act. XV. 9. So keeping the Commandments of God is purifying the heart that Faith may come Consider of that 1 Pet. I. 22. Seeing you have purified your hearts in obeying of the truth Now what is obeying of the truth but doing what God in the word of truth directeth and commandeth and this also purifieth the heart toward believing as Faith doth when a man now believes And thus believing and obeying are so twisted together that without keeping of Gods Commandments the best you can you cannot come by Faith and Faith when it is come it cannot be without keeping of Gods Commandments the best you can For as to the former we may not unproperly apply those words of the Apostle Gal. III. 23. For before faith came we were kept under the Law shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed And as to the later that in Jam. II. 26. As the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also And now to make some Application upon what hath been spoken and to take up the words in order First From the title here given to our Saviour that he is our Altar upon and through whom to offer our selves and all our services to God we may observe that the bare offering of Christ himself upon the Cross is not the all that a Christian hath to look after for his salvation but he himself is also to offer himself through Christ to God Christ was a dying sacrifice a Christian must be a living and as Christ voluntarily offered himself to God so is he also to do in his place and station How oft do we find in Scripture that the death of Christ doth challenge our dying to sin and not living to our selves 1 Cor. V. 7. Purge out the old leaven that ye may be a new lump for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us 2 Cor. V. 15. And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that died for them And so there are divers other places to the like tenor The obedience of Christ does not dissolve the obedience of a Christian but enhance it For his obedience was not to disannul our obedience but to challenge it to love him who loved us first His offering himself was to lead us the way and to teach and engage us to offer our selves also He to die according to the will of God and we to live according to his will that is to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness Secondly Now since every one that is accepted of God is to be presented to him as a sacrifice offered through Christ as the most Sacred Altar it may give us just cause daily to examine our selves how fit we are to be presented to that Altar and from that Altar to God The Sacrifice under the Law was to be examined whether it were fit or no by one that was skilful in such a scrutiny The work now under the Gospel must be our own every one to examine his own heart since the heart
other standers by reviled him with If he be Christ let him come down from the Cross And let God deliver him if he will have him And so it doth magnifie Divine grace the more if it checkt him in his very reviling and made that tongue that reproached Christ in the very next instant to confess and adore him So Saul was happily checked even while he was breathing rage and revenge against the Church and he brought to be a most special member and minister in it The cause of this mans Conversion we must all ascribe to Gods infinite grace and goodness But the means that that grace and goodness used for his conversion I cannot but ascribe to these two things a Doctrine and a Miracle as in those times Doctrines and Miracles went very commonly together I. I cannot but suppose that the darkness that then began to be over all the Land wrought something with this man to bring him to some consideration with himself of the present case which he had not before His fellow Thief it seems was not moved with it at all but I cannot but believe that This was so deeply affected with it that it proved a means of his Conversion They both of them knew very well that Jesus suffered meerly because he professed himself to be the Christ. That is plain by their saying to him If thou be the Christ save thy self and us And now this man seeing so strange an occurence as had been not seen or heard of at any mans Execution before begins to be convinced that he was the Christ indeed for whom such a wondrous miracle was wrought and manifested And then II. It may very probably be conceived that he remembred those passages of the Prophet Esay describing his Passion and suffering Chap. LIII and particularly that vers 12. He was numbred with the transgressors A clause which the Jewish Expositors wrest some one way some another because they cannot abide to hear of Messias sufferings But which we may very well think that as Divine grace brought his Soul to the acknowledgment of Christ so it brought also that prediction of Christs sufferings and with such company to his remembrance as a means to work him to that acknowledgment For how might he argue This Jesus after all the great miracles that he hath done agreeable to the working of Messiah hath asserted and maintained that he is Messiah to the very death this strange and wondrous darkness that is begun over all the Land cannot but bear witness to such a thing And when it is so plainly prophesied by the Prophet Esay that he should suffer and be numbred with such Malefactors as I and my fellow are I am past all doubting that this Jesus is the promised Messiah Therefore He said unto Jesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom A great faith that can see the Sun under so thick a Cloud that can discover a Christ a Saviour under such a poor scorned despised crucified Jesus and call him Lord. A great Faith that when he sees Jesus struggling for his own life and no deliverer come to him yet sees reason to cast himself upon him for his Eternal state and Everlasting condition and pray to him Lord remember me A great Faith that could see Christs Kingdom through his cross and grave and death and where there was so little sign of a Kingdom and pray to be remembred in that Kingdom I doubt the Apostles reached not to such a Faith in all particulars They acknowledged Jesus indeed to be Christ while he lived but when he is dead they are at it We trusted that it had been he that should have redeemed Israel Luk. XXIV 21. But now they could not tell what to make of it But this man when he is dying doth so stoutly own him They looked for a Kingdom that Christ should have indeed but they little looked that Christ should suffer and so enter into his kingdom as it is intimated in the same Chapter vers 26. But this man looks for it through and after his sufferings That it is no wonder if he sped at the hands of Christ when he brings so strong a Faith with him and that when he pours out his Prayer Lord remember me c. in such strength of believing it is no wonder if he hear from him in whom he so believes Verily I say unto thee To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And could such a Faith be without a parallel and sutable measure of Repentance Our Saviour very well saw that it was not And the Evangelist gives some intimation that it was not For he tells that he confessed his own fault which is one sign of his Repentance We are here justly and receive the due reward of our doings And that he reproveth his fellow and would fain have reduced him which is another Fearest thou not God seeing thou art in the same condemnation And that he pleadeth for the innocency of Christ which is a third This man hath done nothing amiss And in what words and meditations he spent the three or four hours more that he hung alive upon the Cross it is easie to conjecture though the Evangelist hath spoken nothing of it The great sum and tenor of the Gospel is Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved And as Christ himself did seal the truth of the Gospel with his own death so was he pleased that that main truth of the Gospel should be proved and confirmed by this noble and notable example even whilst he was dying And accordingly it hath pleased the Spirit of God to give a demonstration of this mans believing in the Lord Jesus Christ more copiously and apparently than of his repantence though he hath given very fair demonstration of that also That as all posterity was to read that great Doctrine of Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for Salvation so they might have this illustrious and lively Commentary of the truth and proof of it in this mans believing and in his Salvation And now having seen this great monument of Faith and Repentance and Pardon What say we to it As the Evangelists tell us that they that had seen the passages at Christs death returned from the Cross striking upon their breasts and no doubt very full of cogitations So what are the thoughts of our hearts upon this passage which was not the least remarkable among them A great matter that the light of the Suu should be so darkned and not a small that such a dark soul should be so enlightned A great matter that the Earth should quake the Rocks rent and the Vail of the Temple be torn from top to bottom and not a small matter that such a stupid soul should be moved that such a strong heart should be dissolved broken and brought to softness The spactators then present considered of those things Our present work is to consider of these and what do we think of them I
been blessed and honoured withal clean departed and gone away And hence it was that the Samaritans durst compare with the Jews for the better Religion and mount Gerizim at Sechem compares with Jerusalem as the truer and purer place of worship For the honour and ornaments of Jerusalem were gone her Prophets and the Spirit of Prophesy It is observable what is said in the last clause of the Text The Pharisees confess both III. Why He had spoken of three things that the Sadducees denyed The Resurrection Angel Spirit And therefore it seems more proper to have said The Pharisees confess all when he speaks of three than to say they confess both when he speaks of three But he makes these two later but as one and so distinguishes the things into two parts the Resurrection was one thing the Sadducees denied and Angels and Spirits was another one thing And so by the addition of the word Spirit he intimates that the Sadducee denyed all Angelical and Spiritual Substance And so Expositors observe upon this That he thought that even God himself is not a Spiritual but a Corporeal or bodily substance That the Good or Evil Angels that are mentioned mean nothing but good and evil motions of mens minds And that the Soul of man is not a Spirit but a Crasis or mixture of some certain humors and temperaments And that by the Spirit of God is meant only his Mind and by the Spirit of man his breath Strange and mad Divinity and Philosophy And a strangeworld that this man conceives A world that hath neither Angel in it nor Devil and only a Corporeal God in it Souls that are bodily in the midst of the body and that must dye as well as the body when the body dies And a world that must comprehend all that ever must be And that there is to be no world to come nor any other world but this Men of gross and thick and muddy minds that either could not believe but what they saw or could not but believe that what they saw not was like to what they saw That could not believe that there were Angels or Spirits because they saw them not and could not but believe that God and Souls were like to bodily thing that they saw Their sad and fatal case and blindness may justly give us warning and advise what clear minds we ought to get to judge of divine things and rightly to apprehend of things that are above sense or seeing The greatest things of our concernment are out of sight viz. God our Souls Guilt Grace Hell Heaven and Eternity to omit to speak of Angels and Devils We are not to look to the things that are seen but to the things that are not seen as the Apostle gives us intimation 2 Cor. IV. ult and in divers other places Now what are we to do in this case Not believe them because we do not see them This is Thomas his faith or infidelity rather not to believe that Christ is risen unless we see in his hands the print of the nayls Or shall we cavil with God for that he hath not made these things visible and not laid them conspicuous to our eyes as he hath done bodily things God would be loved served feared Why doth he not shew himself visibly to us that we might see him and so love and serve and fear him He would have us to avoid sin and guilt if he had made these things visible as a dangerous pit or gulph or precipice is visible we should then avoyd them But now we must avoid a thing we see not We are bidden to resist the Devil Why we cannot see him and we would not see him And we are bidden to take care of our Souls They are things invisible and we cannot see what they are and how they are Yes God hath given us an eye to see those things an invisible eye to see things invisible So it is said of Moses that he saw him that was invisible For the discerning of any thing there are three things requisite an Eye to see and Light to see by and a just or competent distance that the thing to be seen be not too far for then it is not to be seen God hath provided for us all these things for our seeing and knowing the things which it concerns us to know though they be invisible if we be not wanting to our selves How much is comprehended in those words of God which he uses when he is about to create man Let us make man after our own image And God made man after his own image Now you must refer this Image or Similitude more especially to the Soul for the Body can little be said to be the Image of God who is not a Body But in how many things doth the Soul resemble him God is Invisible And so is the Soul God is Spirit And so is the Soul God is Immortal And so is the Soul But more especially doth the Soul resemble God in the faculty and constitution of the mind God being a pure Intellect or Mind and all-knowing and the mind of man representing him in its great capacity of knowledge and understanding That the Soul represents God in being Invisible Spiritual Immortal as He is we may call it a passive representation of God pictured upon the constitution of the Soul But the Souls representing God in knowing understanding discerning of things we may very properly call an active representation of him laying forth in action as he also acteth The Serpent in tempting Eve concludes that the proper and most compleat resemblance of God is in Knowledge Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil And he guessed not amiss as relating to that representation of God that is in the Essence of the Soul For observe that of the Apostle Col. III. 10. And have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him And the only specimen or evidence and declaration that Adam gave of the perfection of his nature while he stood in innocency was the demonstration of his wisdom or knowledge in that he could and did name all creatures according to their nature God brought all creatures to him to see what he would name them and he had the knowledge upon the very first sight of them to understand their nature and he named them according to their nature Knowledge and Understanding was natural and essential to Adam as he was a man a reasonable creature Therfore by his fall he did not lose that Faculty though he abated of the measure of it For it was essential to his Soul to be an understanding Soul and it could not be a Soul without it Let us compare the Angels that fell and Adam falling together They were both created holy and righteous alike For I make no question but Adam was created every whit as holy as those Angels were created And they were both created of great knowledge
and obtained life Let us now in the next place view the means of their believing II. A New Covenant was made with them They were under two Covenants in one day As Noah saw two Worlds so Adam saw an old Creation and a new As it was said of him Idem dies vidit Consulem exulem The same day saw him Consul and a banished man So the same day saw Adam under two vastly different conditions according to the tenor of the two Covenants The form of either Covenant was not exprest plainly but resulting The Covenant of Grace and the Covenant of Works both somewhat obscure to him But I. The enjoyment of God was necessarily intimated in both not the enjoyment of the Creature Adam was made a reasonable Soul for this purpose II. Obedience was the way This is a Duty to God and this is the way of the enjoyment of him when we conform to God III. He saw he had now lost obedience and the power of obedience He had lost God and the power of the enjoyment of him IV. God held out one that should recover him And he 1. A root of a seed as Adam was 2. Of an infinite Righteousness and Obedience beyond Adam 3. One that should by Obedience destroy the works of the Devil for his own seed V. Adam saw no way of recovery but by trusting in him God must be satisfied he could not do it obeyed he could not obey Therefore he had no way but to cast himself on Christs obedience VI. The Covenant only held out Christ to be trusted and believed on Obedience was required even by the Law of Nature and creatureship Faith was therefore enforced because they could not perfectly obey VII The Promise given in the curse of Satan that God would put enmity between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent and that the Womans seed should bruise the Serpents head this had that effect upon them that they set themselves to defy Satan and cleave to the seed promised VIII That Mercy that created them in an instant so perfect recovered them in an instant Let us now in the third place view their condition under believing III. I. They were now representative no more as they were of mankind before the Fall They were stated in another representative Christ. Now they acted for themselves and he for them Hence their Faith was not imputed to posterity though their sin was II. They were built on another foundation than they were before Then it was on Nature Self-holiness Freedom of Will sandy foundations because changeable Now on a Rock Grace and the Righteousness of Christ. III. Now they have the Spirit of God working in them With Christ God gave his Spirit whereas before they had only natural abilities IV. Now they were under a Promise before not That Christ should break the head of the Serpent contained the promise of all good things V. They were under such Evangelical revealings that they wanted nothing needful for Salvation The Improvement of this discourse shall be in two or three Uses I. This magnifies Gods Grace to them and mankind How great is this Grace which will appear if you consider these things 1. There was as much done to provoke God for ever as was possible Compute the sin of Adam with all its circumstances 2. Here was greater Mercy than to the Angels that fell 3. Nay than to the Angels that fell not 4. Grace restored man to a better condition than he was in before We may admire all this and resolve all into Grace What comfort then is here to poor sinners Look on an Example that of St. Paul who was the chief of sinners yet Grace was exceeding abundant towards him 1 Tim. I. 14 15. He was a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious Here were sins like scarlet yet forgiven You that are under the pangs of conscience consider this Grace Thou canst not sin so hainously as Adam did if thou addest not wilfulness and impenitency nor fall so high nor damn posterity as he did and yet he obtained pardon Take one Example more There were some pardoned that Crucified the second Adam II. See the wretchedness of the sin of Devils that is beyond pardon Their unpardonableness in what lay it In these two things 1. They sinned of pride and malice Adam and Eve of ignorance and weakness Take heed of sinning proudly and presumptuously 2. They were in the state of Eternity therefore their change to evil was unchangable Man carried the plea of weakness in his nature they not III. There is the same Grace Christ Promise Covenant from the beginning A SERMON PREACHED upon 1 JOHN III. 12. Not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his Brother and wherefore slew he him Because his own works were evil and his Brothers righteous THESE words refer to vers 11. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning that we should love one another and indeed to the tenor of all John's Epistles every where exhorting to love and not to be as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his Brother He had given two marks of one not born of God vers 10. Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God neither he that loveth not his Brother They are both here in Cain Who was so far from love and righteousness that he hated his Brother and slew him Wicked mens sins are set down that we may avoid them as Rocks 1 Cor. X. 6. These things were our Examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted But Cain's sin reads more It is the first story after the Fall And it shews I. The enmity 'twixt the seeds II. What poison Satan bad breathed into mans nature The Holy Ghost in that story bids us look on him Thou art the Man This is Man fallen Of Seth it is said Gen. V. 3. that he was begot in Adam's image here it needs not be said it is so plain In the words we have a description of the Father and the eldest son viz. the Devil and Cain I. The Devil described by a most proper denomination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The wicked one II. Cain by his extraction and action He was of the wicked one and slew his Brother We will first clear these and then make some observations from them I. The denomination of the Devil That wicked one So he is stiled Matth. XII 45. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other Spirits more wicked than himself Eph. VI. 16. Taking the shield of Faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the siery darts of the wicked So some understand that petition in the Lords Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deliver us from Evil that is the Evil one Nay Ephes. VI. 12. the Devil is called Wickedness in the Abstract We wrestle c. against spiritual wickedness in high places First He is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Balaam loved the wages the wages of unrighteousness yet he could wish to dye the death of the righteous Numb XXIII 10. Even Conscience beareth witness to this truth that dying in any sin is damnable But how is it possible but some sin will stick to the best of men I answer II. True that there is no man living without sin but we are to distinguish upon two things First Twixt sin and guilt If we consider presly it is not the sin that immediately damns but the guilt of the sin A thief hanged the sin of robbing is past and gone but the guilt of it brings him to the gallows so sin as to the act is over and gone but the guilt sticks Now there is some sin which binds not a man over to guilt to condemn him Psal. XXXII 2. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin There is sin but the guilt of it is not charged on men But what sin is that I might answer All sins already pardoned have they been never so great Rom. VIII 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth But we speak of sins that stick at the instant of death Therefore Secondly We distinguish upon the sticking of sin to the flesh and to the heart A Saint hath sin sticking to the flesh not to the heart Rom. VII ult With the mind I serve the Law of God but with the flesh the Law of sin As if we get the disease from the heart it is not so deadly so Saints having got sin from their hearts it is not damning to them They hate it but it cleaves to their flesh So that the guilt of such sins is pardoned all along because the Saint all along strives and prays against them It is not I but sin in me Not my heart or consent but sin in my flesh that will neither be got out nor quiet In a word a dying sin cannot kill a dying man Sin is mortified all along and if in death it stirs yet it is dying and hath not power to kill And this have I spoken to remove that error about this Article of the Creed that Christ descended to Hell to fetch Souls to Heaven that yet wanted something to bring them thither II. A second opinion and interpretation is that he descended locally to triumph over II. the Devils and the damned An Interpretation that seems to carry more sense and innocence and yet is far from the meaning of the Article To take it into examination First To consider something concerning Christs Soul when separate from his body I. It is undoubted that it went to Heaven assoon as departed and it is very unwarrantable to look for it in Hell unless we have good evidence of the Scripture at least of reason for it His words on the Cross to the good thief were To day shalt thou be with me in Paradice Luke XXIII 43. and his last words to God were Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit vers 46. Now who can doubt but he was instantly in Heaven and his Soul with God And when and indeed why should it go to Hell Christ was dead but thirty six hours and his Soul to be on the Cross in Heaven and Hell in that time is a flitting up and down that unless the Spirit of Christ himself in Scripture tell us so how can we believe it That it flitted from the Cross to Heaven Scripture is plain but that it flitted from Heaven to Hell we are yet to seek Ye shall seek me and not find me Truly according to this opinion we know not where to seek him nor to find him in that time If you will take the propriety of his own words Luke XXIII 46. Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit And John XVII 11 13. I am no more in the World but these are in the World and I come to thee And now I come to thee you may certainly conclude that his Soul was with God while it was separate but that it was in Hell any moment of that time there is not one tittle of Scripture to give any evidence but Act. II. 27. Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell and this Article of which we shall shew a far other sense II. Was it possible that Christs Soul should go from Heaven to Hell The Souls of the glorified Saints cannot and I question whether Christs could or not See Luke XVI 26. Between us and you there is a great gulph fixed so that they which would pass from us to you cannot Whence I observe two things 1. What is meant by a great Gulph an unsuperable unpassableness from one to another But especially 2. They that would pass from hence to you Are there any in Heaven that ever would go to Hell The Devils indeed chose it but I question whether they understood what Hell meant so well as they do now But never blessed Soul did nor could do it They are too much delighted with the happy enjoyment of God to make such a choise But Christ by that expression in the Parable does the more shew how it is impossible for a Soul once in Heaven to go thence to Hell that if it could be supposed they would do it it cannot be done And could Christs Soul do it any more Could Christs Soul have any delight to leave the joys of Heaven to go to Hell III. There is no reason no Scripture to tell us that Christs Soul had any thing to do as to the work of Redemption or Mediatorship when separate from the body What will you make of this Triumphing Was it any part of his Redeeming or Mediatorship If it were not what was it If it were why not acted per totum Christum by whole Christ Christ performed the whole Law as Totus Christus whole Christ viz. As to his humane nature in Soul and Body He was upon the Cross as Totus Christus Whole Christ he rose ascended sits in Heaven as Totus Christus Whole Christ Body and Soul And we are bound to believe in toto Christo In whole Christ as Redeemer and Mediator as God so perfectly Man of Body and Soul consisting And it were but an improper piece of Faith to believe so great a thing as his work in Hell is made to be to be done by a part of Christ for his Soul was but one part of him But Secondly Let us speak a little to this Triumphing I. The opinion is taken up I suppose in allusion to the custom of the Romans They conquered and then led their prisoners in Triumph the Conqueror in his triumphal Chariot the Captives in chains after it Cleopatra would kill her self rather than be thus led in triumph Now what was this but a pompous proud and vain shew And what will they make of this Triumph of Christ Nothing but a shew For what did he in this Triumph Who can imagine what but shew himself there Did he