yet it is possible to discern true miracles from lying wonders Else our Saviour's miracles had been in vain and could not have been brought as a proof that he was the Christ the Son of God We may in this weighty matter be preserved from mistake if we consider it with that due application which becomes us I shall therefore now prove That our Saviour's were true and unexceptionable miracles My meaning is that they were a good proof of his doctrine and that he was what he professed himself to be the Christ the Son of God And for the farther proof of this I shall offer the following particulars to be considered not onely separately but in conjunction with one another 1. The Authour of these miracles was Jesus a person of a most innocent and usefull life Had he been a profligate person or had he been ever detected of an untruth the miracles which he did would not have been enough to gain him credit He was far removed from ostentation and vain glory a great example of meekness and humility of purity and peaceableness of an ardent love to God and contempt of the World Nothing but impudent malice could accuse our Lord. He did good to all and did not hurt the poorest and vilest man in the world He did not come to destroy but to save the lives of men He gained no wealth by his works who had not where to lay his head He desired no applause for he charges those that saw his works that they should tell no man He affects no Dominion and did not make his power of doing these works a step to worldly greatness Indeed he bids John Baptist's Disciples shew John the things which they saw and heard but this was an effect of his Charity to them or to their Master and not because he affected popular fame He was so innocent a person that the very Judge who delivered him to death did pronounce him innocent and he that betrayed him was overtaken with that horror that he went and hanged himself He was judged a righteous person by strangers and his enemies were forced to make use of false and incoherent witnesses of loud clamours and the specious pretence of Caesar's friendship to procure his death He spent his time in doing good and was the greatest example that ever appeared in the world of the most spotless purity the profoundest humility and the most inflamed and universal charity The miracles of such a Person are of mighty force For if an holy and good life do very much commend a Doctrine surely such a life as our Saviour's was accompanied with the mighty works which he did is of great moment to assure us of the truth of what he taught 2. I consider next the doctrine which the works that Jesus did do confirm This doctrine was like Jesus himself holy just and good It is the wisest and the best Religion in the world and that which tends to make men good and happy It does not consist in a number of ceremonies and rituals a few small and trifling opinions it is not a doctrine which promotes a secular and worldly interest that indulges men in their lusts and onely robs them of their wealth It is a doctrine that is holy and innocent that teaches us to love God with our whole heart and our neighbour as our Selves It permits us not to doe any evil and requires us to doe all the good we can It is so far from allowing us to doe an injury that it will not suffer us to revenge it It teaches us to be humble and modest chast and temperate very frequent and very fervent in our prayers to God sincere in all our promises and professions and very bountifull in our mercy which we shew to the poor and miserable A Religion that requires the Service of the heart that lays before us the best precepts and propounds the most incomparable rewards It abstracts us from the world and puts us upon pursuance of life and immortality It does not onely forbid Adultery Murther and Theft but every impure thought every angry word every covetous desire It comports with our wisest faculties quiets our minds perfects our natures kills our lusts and joys our hearts It bids us doe as we would be done by obey our Superiours be gentle to our Servants kind to the poor just to all men It allows us not to think any evil and does strictly require that we speak evil of no man It forbids not onely all swearing but all dissimulation and every idle word It commends to us patience contentedness resignation to the will of God and a thirst after heaven and heavenly things A Religion that is able to make us very wise and very happy rendring us at once at peace with God and with one another and filling our souls with a peace that passeth understanding It is the best security and the greatest blessing to Kingdoms and Commonwealths and all societies of men It disowns every thing that is unjust and untrue that is sneaking and unbecoming that is low and mean It designs to conform us to the likeness of God And whoever looks into its laws may soon discern that it is a blessed institution and not a systeme of craft and worldly policy to keep the world in awe withall It is full of weighty principles of divine and heavenly precepts of the most endearing and pathetick motives to obedience It hath nothing trifling in it but is fraught with a wisedom that is divine and is placed above the contempt and scorn of men It commends it self to the consciences of all that are ingenuous and inquisitive And no man will speak evil of it but a fool that understands it not or the debauched sinner who is condemned by its precepts and denounced against by its severest menaces When I speak thus of Christian Religion I speak of it as it is in its self and to them who give up themselves to the obedience of it Christianity I know is depraved and greatly corrupted by the Church of Rome and there are but few of those who understand their Religion better that have any more than a form of godliness when they continue enemies to the power of it 3. I consider in the next place the great design of the miracles which Jesus did We shall find that they tended to the destruction of the Devil's Kingdom It was most maliciously and foolishly said by the Pharisees that our Lord cast out Devils by the Prince of Devils Matt. 12.24 This is sufficiently refuted by our Saviour Every Kingdom says he divided against it self is brought to desolation ver 25. and every City or House divided against it self shall not stand And if Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himself How shall then his Kingdom stand And if I by Beelzebub cast out Devils by whom do your Children cast them out therefore they shall be your Judges The miracles which Christ did destroyed the Devil's Kingdom
another Saviour of the World and of my posterity That Shilo should come to whom the gathering of the people shall be Agreeable to what hath been said are these words of Zacharias who said of the Lord God of Israel that he had raised up an Horn of Salvation for us in the house of his servant David Luk. 1.69 By Horn of Salvation for us is denoted the Kingdom and Power of our blessed Saviour And for the better understanding of this expression it is to be remembred that Dominion and Power is expressed by Horn among the Hebrew Writers Thus in the Prophet Daniel the ten Horns are said to be ten Kings c. 7. v. 24. Again I will make the Horn of David to bud Ps 132. v. 17. Instead of Horn the Chaldee Paraphrast hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a glorious King Kimchi in Psal 132. v. 17. And one of the learned Jews and a bitter enemy to Christianity confesses that that verse speaks of the Messias that was to come So that the Horn of Salvation does intimate to us the greatness of that deliverance which our Lord hath wrought Besides 't is said of Simeon that when he took Jesus into his Arms and blessed God he said Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seen thy salvation Luk. 2.29 30. Which agrees well with the words of Jacob I have waited for Thy Salvation O Lord. Indeed Aben Ezra tells us from R. Isaac Aben Ezra in Gen. 49.18 that Jacob having likened Dan to an adder by the path did thereupon fall into a fear and then as fearfull men are apt to call for help and deliverance he added I have waited for thy salvation O Lord And another of the Jewish Commentators would have those words to contain the prediction that Sampson's eyes should be put out by the Philistines R. Solom in loc and then that they imply that prayer of Sampson at the last O Lord God remember me I pray thee and strengthen me I pray thee onely this once O God that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes Judg. 16.28 It is enough that I have named these opinions I shall not need refute them for besides that their authority is not great who are the Authours of them they are not backed with any reasons at all But to return As those deliverances of Joshuah and the other Worthies were but temporal whereas our Lord 's was eternal So They were but Carnal but our Lord's is Spiritual They delivered their people from thraldom and bondage the yoke of a Tyrant the tribute of an Oppressour the chains and fetters of some potent Prince But our Jesus saves his people from their sins Mat. 1.21 He was manifested to take away our sins 1 Joh. 3.5 And to destroy the works of the Devil v. 8. Or as Zacharias expresses it we are delivered out of the hands of our enemies that we might serve God without fear In holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life Luke 1. 74 75. This is the deliverance that our Lord hath wrought He sets us free from our sins and hath redeemed us from the wrath to come This Jesus does for all them that will obey him He destroyed the Devil's Kingdom stopt his mouth in his Oracles overturned his Temples dispossessed him of his Idols destroyed his Worship and baffled him in all his Designs He cast him out not of the bodies onely but of the souls and hearts of men and wrested from him that Kingdom which he had so long and so unjustly got the possession of The World was over-run with Idolatry and Superstition with violence and oppression with ignorance and prophaneness Men were proud and covetous unchast and intemperate full of envy and malice But Our Lord came and by his life and doctrine by his death and divine grace he sent away that darkness that overspread the World he knocked off those Chains in which men were shackled and restored Mankind to the Worship of the true God and to his image and likeness Let 's hear the excellent words by which the Apostle expresseth all this For we our selves says he also were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hatefull and hating one another But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward mankind appeared Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour Tit. 3.3 Such was the deliverance which our Jesus wrought For the grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2.11 Moses delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians he brought them from the bondage of those Infidels but he did not save them from their infidelity For we see they could not enter into the promised land because of their unbelief Heb. 3.19 Joshua brought them into Canaan but left them on this side heaven Others delivered them from the men of Midian and the Philistines but none of them delivered them from the evil men themselves They were saved from their enemies frequently but not from their sins They fell into their folly and their misery again But our blessed Redeemer saves us from our sin He gives repentance and forgivenss of sins Acts 5.31 And turns us from our iniquities Acts 3.26 This exalts him above Moses and Joshua this speaks him the great Redeemer and Shepherd of our Souls The Jews expected a Temporal Messiah one that would restore them their Kingdom and advance them to worldly splendour and greatness But our Lord came to erect a spiritual Kingdom in the hearts and minds of men He came to vanquish our lusts and destroy the power of sin in the hearts of men This was a design worthy of God and becoming our Lord Jesus And that which the greatest Kings and Princes were never able to doe Our Lord hath wrought the greatest deliverance Others have conquered their Enemies Our Lord hath done more He hath reconciled them and made them friends Others have killed the bodies of men our Lord hath done more he has saved their souls Others have gotten wealth and worldly greatness our Lord does more when he enables his followers to despise these things Others have saved their followers from dying our Lord delivers us from the fear of death He kills our pride destroys our covetousness purges away our lust plants in us the love of God and the contempt of the World
and therefore could not be done by his assistance and power Mar. 5.7 Matt. 12.29 They were a torment to the Devil and when Satan was cast out it must be granted that it was done by a power superiour to that of Satan himself Our Lord cast the Devil out of the bodies of men and did by thus confirming his Religion destroy the Kingdom of Satan in the world He is forced out of his ancient possessions and no longer suffered to delude the silly world as he had done before in his Oracles and by his Idolatrous worship and superstition Our Saviour turn'd him out of his Temples and threw him out of the bodies and hearts of men 4. I come in the next place to consider with all possible care and application the works themselves which Jesus did with the circumstances and adjuncts which attended them And I perswade my self that the more we consider them the more we shall believe that they were divine and consequently a good proof that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God 1. They were most stupendious works Joh. 11. He raised the dead and one that had been dead four days and was interred He cured the most inveterate and Chronical diseases Mar. 5.25 Luk. 13.13 Joh. 5. Joh. 9. Matt. 8.3 15. ch 9.25 ch 8.6 13 16. ch 14. ch 12.13 ch 21.19 and such as were beyond the help of art A woman that laboured twelve years of an Issue of bloud that had wasted her estate upon Physicians without success he cures her with the touch of his Garment He cures another that had a Spirit of infirmity eighteen years that was bowed together and could in no wise lift up heo self He heals another with a word of his mouth who had an infirmity eight and thirty years And restores one to his Sight who was born blind He cures the Leper and Peter's Wife's Mother that was sick of a Fever and two Blind men with a touch Cures the Paralytick and dispossesseth the Demoniacks with a word of his mouth He multiplies a few loaves and Fishes to the relief of five thousand and the fragments are many when the first store was small He cures the withered hand and with a word of his mouth dryes up the barren fig-tree The Devils obey his word he treads on the Waters as on a pavement and checks and controlls the uncertain winds and the raging Sea He restores to health and raises to life with a word of his mouth or a touch of his garment The dead hear his voice and he does these mighty works without delay and without labour He did not doe as Elisha did 2 King 4.33 2. His works were various and of several kinds He might have been presumed to have had some particular skill or gift had he onely cured one disease But here 's no room left now for suspicion Matt. 4.23 24. ch 9.35 For he healed all sorts of diseases restored the blind cleansed the lepers governed the sea and winds and makes the grave give back its dead All this could not be imputed to any particular gift or skill Joh. 9.32 It was never heard that any man let him be never so great an Oculist opened the eyes of one that was born blind It must be granted that here was the hand of God 3. These were works of mercy and kindness also Plin. which speaks them to be from God The Heathen could say Deus est mortali juvare mortalem To doe good speaks a divine principle and likeness The Jews had no cause to suspect that our Saviour was assisted by the Devil the enemy of mankind He might have confirmed his Doctrine by terrible miracles he chuses to doe it by great acts of mercy and relief He might have shaken the pillars of the earth cast a veil upon the luminaries above and confirmed his Doctrine by thunder and lightning by tempest and thick darkness and other terrible effects of his power and displeasure But our Lord delighted in mercy and his miracles were so many acts of mercy and relief He confirms his words and relieves the afflicted at the same time and makes joy and gladness where-ever he comes He cleanseth the lepers restores the blind and lame and raises the dead while the poor have the gospel preached unto them What great joy must this make where-ever he comes to them who were sed and restored and dispossessed how much joy must this needs bring to the persons relieved and to all their friends and relatives He exerts his power to relieve not to grieve or afflict mankind His miracles were so many proofs of his mercy as well as of his power It was an argument of power to dispossess a Demoniack but to the possessed it was a great act of compassion 'T was a great power that multiplied the loaves and fishes but it was bounty too to doe it for the hungry multitude There is required an infinite power to raise a dead man but 't was a great act of compassion also to raise the onely Son of the widow of Naim Luk. 7. His turning water into wine was an act of mercy and relief It was a poor wedding we suppose where the provision was spent while the guests remain and in such cases men are generally ashamed that they are not able to entertain their friends He manifested his glory when he did it and his kindness also It is a God-like thing to be great and good to use power as our Lord did his to the rescue and relief of the poor and of the miserable Our Lord went about doing good 'T is the Devil the great enemy of mankind who goes about seeking whom he may devour Our Lord 's very miracles were acts of great mercy and relief It is true our Lord cursed the Fig-tree and destroyed the herd of Swine Vid. Dr. H. More Mystery of Godliness Book 4. chap. 8. But then it is to be considered that the Fig-tree was barren to say nothing of the aenigmatical meaning of that passage and the Swine which were drowned were unclean by the law of Moses Besides in both he confirmed his Doctrine and gave great assurance of his power And it appeared in the case of the Swine that the Devils had no power to hurt those creatures without his leave 4. Our Lord's miracles were done publickly and not in a corner Matt. 9.8 ch 12.22 23. Luk. 7.11 12. Joh. 5. Luk. 4.33 Joh. 11.45 Our Lord did not shun the light When the Paralytick was cured the multitude were witnesses of the cure And when the blind and dumb was healed all the people were amazed When the Widow's Son of Naim was restored to life there was much people with Jesus When the man was cured that had been 38 years under his affliction 't was done in the City of Jerusalem and at a festival when all the tribes were there The Demoniack was dispossessed in a Synagogue and when Lazarus was raised many of the Jews were