grow unto an holy Temple in the Lord. 9. Christ as you heard before is not the Corner-stone or Foundation only but the Temple of God A Greater and more spacious Temple then all the building which is erected upon him which groweth up in him We must be living stones we must be Pillars in the house of God we must be Temples of God that is an habitation of God through the Spirit but no Foundations no chief corner-stones these are Christs prerogatives Behold I have graven thee to wit the Spiritual Sion saith the Prophet Isa 49. 16. upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me that is as a late Interpreter of the Romish Church saith I have pitched thy foundations in my hands by the wounds which I received in them By whose diduction or rent a place was opened for this future edifice to be erected in him And for this cause Christ who is the Rock was every way digged into in his side in his hands in his feet The mysterie whereof is that he might exhibit a firm foundation out of which the fabrick of the Church should grow That we then become living stones in this edifice it is from our immediate Union with this chief corner-stone being united to him he is fashioned in us and by him fashioned in us we become living stones growing stones we grow from living stones to living pillars from living pillars to living Temples or habitations for our God That the children of God are not onely living stones but from living stones grow into pillars our Saviour himselfe hath taught us by S. John Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcometh will I make A Pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out and if wee be pillars in the temple of God we must be as immediately placed on the foundation or chief corner-stone as S. Peter or Christs other Apostles were We must be as intire Temples as they were And for this reason our Saviour adds upon every one whom he makes a pillar the name of God and the name of the City of God the new Jerusalem which cometh out of Heaven Know ye not saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 6. 19. That your bodie is the temple of the Holy Ghost As wee say the Kings presence makes the Court So it is Gods Holy Spirits extraordinary presence in man which makes him his Temple And the Reason why Christ is called The Temple of God is because the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily And for the like reason every one in whom Christ dwelleth by faith is in a participated sense called The Temple of God And as visible Cities consist of severall houses and as the beautie of every Citie consists in the Uniformitie of houses well built and joyned together so the heavenly Jerusalem consists of several Temples whose beautie or Uniformitie consists in this that Christ Jesus is the life and light of every severall Temple and that his spirit is uniformely diffused through all 10. Christ as you have read before Communicates his Titles unto his Saints but not the Reall Prerogative of his Titles He is The Rock so was Peter a rock so are wee rocks but not The rock on which the Church is built He is the Chiefe Corner-stone we are living stones he is the temple and the Priest of the most high God and he makes us both temples and Priests unto his God So saith S. Peter 1. Ep. cap. 2. vers 5. Yee all as lively stones are built up a spirituall house an holy Priest-hood to offer up Spirituall sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ The Modell of this spirituall Temple and Priest-hood that is of the new Jerusalem and the service of God performed in it was exhibited by Moses Exod. 24. 4 5. at the making of the first covenant Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and rose up earely in the morning and builded an altar under the Hill and twelve pillars according to the 12. tribes of Israel And he sent yong-men of the Children of Israel which offered burnt offrings and sacrificed peace offerings of Oxen unto the Lord. Immediately after this Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu saw the God of Israel and there was under his feete as it were a paved work of a saphire stone and as it were the bodie of Heaven in his clearnesse ver 9. The yong men which he sent to offer sacrifices as the best interpreters observe were the first-born of their families For till that time and at that time which was before the consecration of Aaron and his sonnes it was Lawfull for the First born male of every family to execute the office of the Priest This was his dutie So that every family was as a little parish-Church and had his Priest to performe this service of God Now though all that are built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles are not admitted to be Architects or master-builders though all be not publick teachers or pastors yet all that are or hope to be parts of this building have the same Prerogative which the First-born males of Israel had before Aaron was consecrated All must be Priests to offer up Spiritual Sacrifices unto God But seeing wee must grow unto an holy temple and growth as was said before supposeth nutrition let us now see what is the nourishment by which we must grow from living stones to be living pillars from pillars to be living Temples yea Kings and Priests unto our God 11. The nature and qualitie of the Nutriment by which wee must grow cannot in fewer words be more pithily exprest than it is by S. Peter 1 Pet. 2. cap. vers 2. It is the sincere milk of the word But how good soever the nutriment be it doth not kindly nourish unlesse wee have an appetite to it Therefore the same Apostle addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desire or long after the sincere milk of the word We must then desire to have the word dwell in us plentifully and wee must desire to have it sincere that is pure and unmingled Now this milk may become unsincere or mingled sometimes by the default of the Pastor or teacher sometimes by the default of the hearers The dutie which concernes us teachers is that wee do not mingle the word with the Traditions of men how ancient soever they be This is the fault of the Romish Church which the Church our mother hath sufficiently prevented by publick edicts or decrees But many otherwise averse enough from Traditions of the Romish or other ancient Church ofttimes corrupt it with their own Conceits or Phansies which will easily mingle themselves with the word unlesse we speak out of premeditation and have both art and leasure to revise and examine aswell our own meditations as the meditations or expositions of others whose help wee use Since the ordinary Gifts of the Spirit did cease there is no facultie under the sun which more requires the help of art and study than the
Or did he give us as the Church of Rome saith Evangelical Counsels as Additionals unto the Law In no wise Christ taught no other things then his Apostles after his resurrection did preach and his Apostles taught no other things then Moses and the Prophets had taught Acts 26. 22. But these they taught after another maner then the Scribes and Pharisees did then the ordinary Expositors of the Law and the Prophesies had done So that Gods will concerning man was more fully declared by Christ then it was by Moses or by the Prophets the very true meaning of Moses himself and of the Prophets was more fully revealed and clearly manifested unto mankinde in Christ then it was to Moses himself or to the Prophets Unto me saith our Apostle Ephes 3. 8 9 10. who am less then the least of all Saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mysterie which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ To the intent that now unto the Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God And by this more full declaration of Gods Will in Christ we Christians are tyed unto more strict observance of His Will known then men were tyed unto before Christ was declared to be the Lord Admitting the Services to be the very same yet the same services are now due under a double Title They are due to God the Father by right of Creation and due to Christ as he is Lord For God the Father is to be honored not onely in himself but in Christ 6. God when he gave the moral Law to Israel useth this Preface I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt This was his peculiar right or Title unto Israel and the Precept grounded upon this Title follows Thou shalt have no other Gods but me But you may remember how it was foretold by the Prophet Jeremie Jer. 23. 7 8. That it should no more be said the Lord liveth which brought the children of Israel out of Egypt But the Lord liveth which brought up the seed of the house of Israel out of the North Land Or according to the prime Grammatical sense of the word principally intended by the Holie Ghost out of the Land of darkness and This was fulfilled onely in Christ So that He who was the Lord of Israel by right of redemption from Egyptian bondage is now become the Lord of every Language of every Nation and Kindred by a more peculiar Title by right of redemption from the Powers of darkness and from Hell it self Hence saith our Apostle 1. Cor. 8. 5 6. Though there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth as there are Gods many and Lords many But to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him As the Israelites are forbid to have any other God besides the Lord which brought them out of the Land of Egypt so are we Christians forbid to have any Lords or Masters besides Christ So saith our Saviour Matth. 23. 8 9 10. Be not ye called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ call no man your father upon the Earth for one is your Father which is in heaven And he repeats the former Caveat Neither be ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ He that forbids them to be called Masters over others doth likewise forbid them to be servants to other Masters besides himself And this Duty is more fully exprest by our Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 23. Ye are bought with a price be not ye the servants of men He no way forbids bodily service but rather injoyns such as were servants properly so called that is slaves or bond-men to continue in their calling ver 20 21. as knowing bodily servitude not to be incompatible with Christian liberty no not with the Liberty of the Sons of God He that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lords free-man likewise he that is called being a Free-man is Christs servant What service of men then doth Christ or his Apostles forbid The vassalage of our reason or understanding or the submission of our consciences to the pleasures or services of men or of the corrupt times wherein we live Thus to alienate our service from Christ to any mortal men is whether you list to call it a branch of Sacriledge or Idolatry if not more gross yet certainly more deadly in all such as confess Christ to be their Lord then the worshipping of stocks and stones was either in the Heathen or in the Israelites themselves before Christ was declared to be the Son of God and solemnly proclaimed to be the Lord. To give you another Instance how Gods Will is more exactly done by Real Confession of Christ to be THE LORD 7. This is the will of God saith the Apostle 1 Thess 4. 3. Even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor not in the lust of concupiscence even as the Gentiles which know not God To this duty the Israelites were as truly tyed as we Christians are It was as the Apostle intimates a necessary branch or fruit of the true knowledge of God a service due unto him as he was the Creator But unto this same duty the Israelites were not bound by so many ties as we Christians are It is required of us by a strict peculiar Title not onely by our knowledge of God as our Creator nor by our acknowledgement of Christ to be the Lord as this Title of Lord hath relation onely unto servants he may and doth exact this duty at our hands not onely by right of Redemption or by paying the ransom for our sins upon the Cross but by right of Espousals or by Title of Lord as he is the Head and Husband of his Spouse the Church No motive can be so forcible to deter men from transgressing this negative Commandment or for incouraging them to do Gods Will in the affirmative part of the former Commandment as that of our Apostle 1 Cor. 6. 13. 14 15. Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid And again ver 20. Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods 8. It was well observed long ago by Occolampadius that
an Inequality or diversity of Duties belonging to those several Estates The meaning then is thus Whatsoever you could wish that men should do unto you supposing you were in the same estate they are in that you must do to them now they are in that estate Thus the Greatest Monarch on earth in as much as He is but man and might have been or may be yet subject to anothers pleasure must stoop to this consideration what usage he would expect of his Prince if he himself were a Subject and he must afford the self fame to them So must the Father likewise consider what usage he did expect of his Parents and the like he must afford unto his children So likewise must every Inferiour seriously consider with himself what respect he would desire of his Inferiours were he in place of Authoritie and the self same he must afford unto such as are his lawful Magistrates Otherwise besides the evil of confusion if either Superiour or inferiour use other loss respectively or more contemptuously then they would be content withall themselves the Righteous Judge will reduce all to equality Thus St. Paul teacheth Colos 3. ver 20. Children saith he obey your parents in all things for that is well-pleasing to the Lord and verse 21. Fathers provoke not your children to anger And concerning servants he saith more expressly Eph. 6. v. 5. Servants be obedient unto them that are your masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as men pleasers but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart and ye masters as it followes in the 9. verse do the same things unto them putting away threatning and know that your master also is in Heaven neither is there respect of persons with him If either servants would use their masters otherwise then they would be used if they were masters or masters Use their servants otherwise then they would be Used if they were such God will bring a more miserable servitude on the One and continue it on the other From these places of St. Paul we may likewise frame a Second Answer to to the former Objection Thus. If we compare men in their several estates wherein they live wherein they are not wherein they may be then this mutual Duty of doing as we would be done unto must not be paid as we say in Kind but in Proportion The Rule is this seeing all men delight in comfort and contentation of mind only that is such which is truly good in respect of the party which desires it every man should be desirous to do that good to others which is best befitting his estate wherein he may take true comfort and best content Seing great personages take great comfort in honour and serviceable respects inferiours should with a good mind give Honor to whom Honor is due and they should be as ready though not to Honor their inferiours yet to afford them that wherein they have more delght as in relieving the poor and needy by Hospitalitie in countenancing others of competent estate in their commendable courses in protecting them from wrong or in a word according to the Exigence of their several states or occasions 6. Again it may be objected That this Rule however we interpret it must be violated by the Publick Magistrate in inflicting punishment upon Offenders For many a man that hath deserved Death according to Positive Laws will naturally and that I think without offence be most desirous of life and would make earnest suit for his release The Question is Whether the publick Magistrate in this Case should do as he would be done unto if he were in the like Case For it may seem that either he must transgress the Positive Laws to which he is sworn or violate this Law of Nature which is more sacred then any Positive Law The Answer is easie from that which hath been said before No publick Officer is here to propose unto himself this one man or Malefactors Case but rather the Common-wealths or such in it as deserve better and yet might be further endangered by Malefactors escaping unpunished if his Case were theirs he would be desirous to have the Law executed and therefore must afford them this their just desire if it be in his power otherwise such pity finds oft-times at Gods hands the reward of Cruelty A notable Example whereof we have in Alexander de Medices the first of that Family that took upon him to be the Prince of Florence but not so willing to execute Justice as to usurp Authority He contrary to his Country Laws granted pardon to a Murtherer at one of his neer Kinsmens Request who afterwards willing to purchase Fame by freeing his Country from his Kinsmans Duke Alexanders Tyranny used the former Malefactors help in killing the Duke which had given him life at his request 7. But to return to that we were upon when these Objections crossed our way God weighs our secret thoughts more exactly then we can do bodies gross and sensible As the Balance is just in our sight when both ends are even and both alike apt to be aequally moved with equal weights so are our thoughts in Gods sight just when we are as apt to do good as ready to receive it We may desire or receive good either from men or from God and we may return good respectively to both kindnesses as we say in kind to men Duties of obedience praise and thanks c. unto God To men we may repay good either for their own sakes or because we would desire good from them in like case or else because we expect good from God The equalitie of our conditions as men as fellow-creatures or brethren in Christ bindes us to afford the same measure of good to others not which they have measured to us but as we desire they should do to us if we were in their case Every man knows his own desires and therefore cannot he ignorant what he should do If they have dealt ill with us we may not in any case deal so with them for we were unwilling to receive ill and therefore should be as unwilling to repay it and the rather for fear God do to us as we do to them Because in so doing we took his office into our hands If they have done us any good we are more strictly bound to repay them in larger measure then we received it because we were prevented by them As in a Balance even set the Rebound doth alwayes exceed the first sway or motion so in repaying such good to our brethren as God hath graciously dealt to us we should exceed the former proportion because we are bound to distribute to their necessities so is not He to ours And alwayes the freer the Gift is the greater should the receivers thankfulness be This was that which aggravated the unthankful servants offence that seeing his master had freely forgiven him yet he would not forgive his fellow
entertained with battel invade the borders of any Nation In such a Case t is held a point of politick husbandry to waste the Country round about them least it might maintain their Armies But heretofore I have had and elsewhere shall have occasion to decypher all the symptoms of a dying State either set down by the Word of God or observed by the expert Anatomists of former dead bodies politick 14. My message unto you my Brethren the Sons of Levi is briefly this Add not Gods anger to our Countries Curse which at this day whether just or no is bitter and rife against us as if we were all or most of us like the companions of Jesus the son of Josedech persons Prodigious but in a worse sense then they were Persons that had procured her much and did yet portend her greater sorrow partly by our Dastardly silence in good causes but especially by our prophesying for Rewards and humoring the great Dispensers of those dignities on which our unsatiable desires are now unseasonably set It was a saying amongst the Ancient Romans Qui Beneficium accipit libertatem vendit It is thus far improved in true modern English He that will purchase preferments Ecclesiastick especially must adventure to lay his soul to pawn What remedie Only this to make a virtue of necessitie For so must every one do that means to live as a Christian ought Let us not look so much upon the sinister intentions of corrupt minds as upon the purpose of our God even in mens most wicked projects And who knowes whether The Lord by acquainting us with mens bad dealings in dispensing Ecclesiastical honour do not lay the same restraint upon us his children which he did upon Baruch Without all question he absolutely forbids us to seek afer great matters in this age in that he hath cut off all hopes of attaining them by means lawfull and honest And all this he doth for our good that using Baruchs freedom or Jeremies Resolution in our ambassage we may be partakers of their Priviledge in the Great day of visitation wherein such as in the mean time crush and keep us under by their greatness will be ready to give their wealth for our poverty and change their honor for our disgrace upon condition they might but enjoy life with such libertie and contentments as we do Or in Case they shorten our dayes by vexation or oppression yet faithfully discharging our duties whether we live or die we are the Lords And though they out live us an hundred years yet shall they be willing to give a thousand yea ten thousand lives if so many they had so they might be but like us for one hour in the day of death We need not search forain Chronicles nor look far back into ancient Annales The registers of our own memories and our fathers relations may afford examples of some sons of Levi men if we rightly value their admirable worth of place and fortunes mean in respect of our selves which after their death hastned perhaps by hard usage have fild both this and forrain Lands with their good name as with a perfume sweet and precious in the nostrils of God and man whilst those great lights of state so they seemed whilst parasitical breath did blaze their fame which had condemned them to privacie and obscuritie were suddenly put out but with an everlasting Stinch God grant their successors better successe that a precious well deserved fame may long survive them For our selves Beloved as we all consort in earnest desires and hearty prayers that the Lord would renew his Covenant made with Levi his Covenant of life and peace so let us joyn hearts in this meditation The only way to derive this blessing from this our father unto us his sons must be by arraying our selves with Phineas our eldest brothers integritie by putting on his zeal and courage to walk with the Lord our God in peace and equitie and to turn many away from iniquitie And now remember them O my God that defile their Priesthood and break the Covenant of the Priesthood and of Levi Smite them through their loyns that make a prey of his possessions and grinde their heads as thou didst Abimelechs with broken milstones from the wals or with the reliques from the ruinated houses yea grinde all their heads O Lord to powder that grinde the faces of his poor and needy children But peace be upon all such as walk according to this Rule here set to Baruch and upon all those that Love God To this God The Father The Son and the holy Ghost be ascribed all honour and glory now and ever Amen Imprimatur Ric. Baylie Vicecan Oxon. The Publisher To the Readers of these two last Sermons WHo may see That this great Author was not affraid Most aculâ—atly to reprove the sins of his own Time nor is The Advertiser ashamed to set his seal to the justnesse of them by a full and true Publishing his Reproofes Let the Lord be glorified though with our shame and justified when he speaketh Judgement And to Gods glory be it spoken This word hath prospered in the thing where unto God sent it in some of the Gentrie and Clergie Yet can it not be denied but there is still too great store of matter of Reproof in the same kinde Many whose estates are sore diminished have minds still set upon Great Things what ever they have lost they find pleasure Had The Author lived to this day I am perswaded he would have gone on with The Holy Bishops complaints Perdidere tot calamitatum utilitates Pacem et divitias priorum Temporum non habent Omnia aut ablata aut imminuta sunt sola tantum vitia creverunt nihil de Prosperitate pristina reliquum nisi peccata quae prosperitatem non esse fecerunt c. These are wracks indeed To Misse the Good which may be got by suffering evil is the worst of evils To lose that gain which should be gotten by losses is of losses the greatest But to grow worse with suffering evil is perdition it self Now if any one of Prosperous condition when he reads this shall triumph and bless himself in his heart saying We have not sinned in devouring these men I beg his Pardon and beseech him to read on if he saw our faults in the last he may perhaps see his own in the next And humbly desire leave to say 1. A man may punish sin and yet inter puniendum Commit a sin greater then that be punisheth 2. In these times and among the persons promising Reformation there hath been Greater seeking after great things and that with greater Inordination too then was in former Times Our Author complained that the Baruchs of his Time sought great things by the Art of Philip of Macedon Would God my Clergy Brethren so I do esteem such and none but such as were begotten to our mother by the R. R. Fathers of the Church had not used
Dominion of propertie for the most part respects things corporall Howbeit even men or reasonable creatures are sometimes subject to both Branches of Dominion but in different measure according to the severall rites or customes of diverse ages nations or people Such as the Latins call Servi or Servuli slaves or servants properly so called were in bonis Domini they were the goods or possession of their Masters These bodily Lords had not only Dominion of Jurisdiction over but Dominion of propertie to their persons No law did restrain their Masters from disposing of these servants as they pleased as either to exchange give away or sell them and their children The poor servants did oftentimes mutare dominum non servitutem change their Lords without any exchange or alteration of their slaverie Sometimes the Romans had and some other nations at this day have Dominium vitae necis power or dominion to kill maim or wound their servants without any restraint or controll of law But this absolute power to dispose of their slaves or servants was afterwards by the Romane Law inhibited Lords and Masters of private servants were lyable to the sentence of publick Law if they did use intolerable crueltie or severitie towards their slaves But by the Lawes or most Christian nations this absolute Dominion of Lords over their servants and consequently this kind of subjection and slaverie is taken away For every Christian is an Israelite or Hebrew and somewhat more All are in reputation the Sons of Abraham Now the positive Law of God before our Saviours time did exempt the Sons of Abraham by the free woman from slaverie The Kings of Judah might not make bondmen of their brethren the Sons of Jacob. 3. Albeit we retein the name of Masters and Servants yet neither are the one sort properly called Domini nor the other Servi A master with us is no more then Pater familias amongst the Latines and those whom we call servants are famuli Every Father of a familie hath Dominium Jurisdictionis a right or power of Jurisdiction over his familie but not Dominium proprietatis not right or power of propertie in their persons Howbeit even this power or Dominion of Jurisdiction is limited as well by the Lawes of God as of man No father of his family may correct any of his familie as he pleaseth but in such cases and so far as the Law will permit And according to the different condition of the parties over whom the Father of the familie hath this power of Jurisdiction or correction must the exercise of it be alwayes tempered No husband or Master of a familie may exercise the same power over his wife which he doth over his children No man by the Law of nature ought to use his children as his servants or apprentices unlesse they be such by estate or condition of life Nor can a Master of a familie which is of a more ingenuous or generous profession put his servants or apprentices which are of the same profession upon such services as a Master of some inferiour trade or profession may put his servants to A Merchant may not imploy an apprentice to that profession in such workes and services as are proper to and well befitting a Tinker or Cobler or some other inferiour crafts-man or day labourer Howbeit every Master of an apprentice or hired servant hath a right or power not only of Iurisdiction or of government but of propertie though not over his servants bodie or person yet over his bodily labours or imployments Apprentices or servants which are as free born and of parentage as good perhaps better then their Masters have no power to dispose of their own Labours or imployments but must herein follow their Masters directions and appointment and in case they alienate their industrie from their Masters service though to their owne profit without his leave they are subject to his power or Jurisdiction he may authoritatively admonish chastise or otherwise require satisfaction for wronging him by mis-expense of time or in that power or interest which he hath by Covenant in their labours or imployments Yet may not any master of a familie punish a servant as he pleaseth or as his passion shall suggest but so far only as the Law shall permit For every master of a private familie is under the power or Dominion of the publick Magistrate and subject if he be a Christian to Ecclesiastick Censure in case he transgresse the manner or measure of the punishment which the Law of God or of man doth permit him to excercise only within his familie Nor may any Master exact those services or bodily imployments of his servants or apprentices at all times or upon all dayes which at sometimes or upon most dayes he may If a servant should refuse to labour in his ordinary vocation upon the Lords day though commanded so to do by his Master the Master hath no lawfull power of Iurisdiction over him no power to chastise him for such refusall because the Masters right or power to dispose either of his own or of his servants imployments for that day is inhibited by the Law of God and of his Church which hath Dominion of Iurisdiction in those Cases over Masters 4. The issue of these Generalities concerning Lordship or dominion is this Though there be many which are called Lords and Masters and many there be which really and indeed are such yet is there in truth but One Absolute Lord whether we speak of the Lordship or Dominion of proprietie or of Iurisdiction and that is God For by right or title of Creation he hath more absolute power over all his creatures then any creature then absolute Kings and Monarchs as we call them then any chief Lord hath over his Lands or Goods over any thing which they can call theirs whether by gift purchase or inheritance For whatsoever by these or any other means is theirs as money goods or any other bodily substance they did not make any parcel or matter of the substance of it but only acquired a right or title to it being made As they cannot create or make any thing out of nothing so can they not utterly destroy or annihilate any thing created or made The height of all created Power is only to amend or marre the fashion of things and this is but permitted yea even the permission it self presupposed this power is still subordinate in the exercise of it to an higher power But God doth found his right of Dominion over all things or his power to dispose of them and of their appurtenances in their very radical Being This is his sole Gift Nor is His power or dominion only more Soveraign or intensively greater over the most noble bodily substance that is then any creature can have over the least thing that is but it extends also unto those substances which are not subject to man or any creatures dominion He hath a more Soveraign Title of dominion
him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the Judgement was set and the Books were opened The Fiery Wheels are Emblems of his suddain approach or of the swiftness of his Judgements to overtake his Enemies Though the Vision was new and uncouth yet the Branches of the things seen or revealed unto Daniel were known before unto Gods Prophets His Seat or Throne was prepared of old so faith the Psalmist Psal 9. 4. Thou hast maintained my right and my cause thou satest in the Throne Judging right And again ver 6 7. O thou enemy destruction is come to a perpetual end and thou hast destroyed Cities their memorial is perished with them But the Lord shall endure for ever he hath prepared his Throne for Judgement See Psal 96 ver 10. 13. And Psal 98. ver 8 9. But Daniel saw more seats and Thrones then one albeit he mention as perhaps he saw none sitting in them This as one wittily commenteth upon this place of Daniel is an Emblem of the Law which was an Emptiness or vacuum in respect of the Gospel and as all things else in the Law prefigured or forepainted were solidly accomplished in the Gospel So these Seats which are here indefinitely represented unto us by Daniel without any specification of their number without intimation of any sitting on them are pictured unto us by St. John with 24. Elders sitting upon them Rev. 4. 4. And round about the Throne were 24. seats and upon the seats I saw 24. Elders sitting and clothed in white raiment and they had on their heads Crowns of Gold Our Savior had said unto his Apostles Matth. 19. 28. that They should sit upon twelve seats Iudging the twelve Tribes of Israel And twelve Heads of the Tribes of Israel or the like number of Select Ones who lived under the Old Testament may make up the number of 24. That as all the Truths of both Testaments will consummately be fulfilled so the Saints of Both may then be most perfectly united in the Church Triumphant 9. But to proceed to such other Representations as are to be found in the Scripture This manner of Christs coming to Judge the earth or of his appearance in glory was represented unto Moses and to the Israelites Exod. 24. 10. 17. The sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel And this fire had devoured them if they had approached the mountain or Gods presence without Gods invitation But Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and 70. of the Elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a Saphir stone and as it were the body of Heaven in its clearness And upon the Nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand This was a Peculiar Priviledge or dispensation Also they saw God and did eat and drink and in this they represented the state of the Elect which notwithstanding the terror of that last day shall be invited by Christ and be admitted to eat and drink with him in his Kingdom But this dispensation during the time of the Law was not granted to all Israel but to Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and to the 70. Elders or Nobles of Israel only unto all the rest whom God did not vouchsafe to invite the Spectacle though seen afar off was Terrible so terrible that they durst not approach unto it So shall the coming of the Son of Man be to all the kindreds of the earth which have not hearkned to his sweet and loving Invitations here on earth All such as have neglected them or make their appearance before him without a garment or habit in some sort suitable to the Marriage unto which they have been invited shall be everlastingly excluded and cast into utter darkness where shall be nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth But the thred which I am now to follow is the forementioned Prophecie Dan. 7. v. 9. 10. Now whether in the vision of the Ancient of days God the Father were personally represented or whether it were a representation of the Godhead or Divine Power onely as it is indivisibly in the Blessed Trinity without any note of Personal difference or whether at the last day there shall be any distinct representation of Christs sitting at the right hand of the Father or whether The Throne of the Son of God shall then onely appear are Questions which I will refer wholly to the Schools It sufficeth us to believe and know that the Father Judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgement especially this Final Judgement to the Son and that the SON OF MAN shall then appear in the Glory of his God-head in Glory equal to God the Father What Manner of appearance this shall be and how the world shall be affected with it we are now to inquire so far as is fitting taking the description of it from Gods written word And haply lest we should conceive of God the Father as more ancient for dayes then the Son which Transformation of the Divine Nature the pictures of the Blessed Trinity seen and allowed by the Roman Church do naturally and inevitably suggest to the unlearned St. John doth describe the Son of Man or that glory wherein the Son of God and the Son of Man shall then appear much what after the same manner that Daniel had done the Ancient of dayes Dan. 7. 9 10. The description of the Son of God and of the Son of Man taken by St. John is Rev. 1. 13 14 15 16. And I saw in the middest of the 7. Candlesticks one like unto the Son of man clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle His head and his hairs were white like wooll as white as snow and his eyes were as a flame of fire And his feet like unto fine brasse as if they burned in a furnace and his voice as the sound of many waters And he had in his right hand seven stars and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword and his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength You have heard before out of the seventeenth of St. Matthew that St. Peter Iames and John when they were spectators of his transfiguration which was but a representation of the Son of Mans coming in his kingdom when they heard the voice out of the cloud fell on their faces and were sore afraid until he came and touched them and said arise be not afraid This sight or vision of his glory Apoc. 1. 17 18. was more terrible then the Voice which they then heard When I saw him saith St. John I fell at his feet as dead and he laid his right hand upon me saying unto me fear not I am the first and the last I am be that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore
its course it could not without a positive force or power communicated unto it from The Creator in whom as the Apostle speakes it moves But it ceased for a while to move without any positive force or power to inhibit or restrain its course But as we said by meer substraction of that power by which it moves So long as it continues its course it both moves and hath its Being in God and it is partaker of two branches of His Almighty Power But when it stood still it onely had its Being in him The influence of the other branch of Power was intercepted Now the Argument drawn from those works which we call The works of nature unto works miraculous or supernatural would in this case hold a majore He that dayly makes the Sun to compasse the world is able to stay its course when he pleaseth 4. A miracle likewise it was and a great one too that The three Children should be untouched in the midst of the flaming furnace yet neither was there a greater nor more immediate positive effect of Gods Power in the restraint of that fire then then was in the sustaining other Fire which at other times devoured the bodies of his Saints The Holy Martyrs who loved not their lives unto the death but gave them up for the Testimonie of the Lord Jesus For Without the co-operation or concurse of Gods Power the fire could not have touched their bodies Wherein then did the Miracle Recorded in Daniel and experienced in the three children properly consist Not so much if at all in fencing their bodies from the violence of the flame by imposition or infusion of any new created qualitie into their bodies as in substracting or withdrawing his ordinary Co-operation from the fire whose natural propertie is to consume or devour bodies combustible such as the bodies of the three Children by nature were The only cause why the fire did not burn them was the substraction or withdrawing of Gods Co-operative Power without whose strength or assistance the hottest furnace that Art or experience can devise cannot exercise the most natural operation of fire For as the substance of the fire cannot subsist or have any place in the Fabrick of this universe unless it be supported by Gods Power sustentative So neither whilst it subsists or hath actual being amongst Gods creatures can it work or move without the assistance of Gods co-operative or all-working Power In Him both these Powers are one both as he is are infinite But as communicated unto his creatures they are not altogether one but two participated branches of his infinite Power And in the burning of the Martyrs or in other destructions made by fire both branches as well of his sustentative as of his co-operative power are manifested Whereas in the preserving of the three Children from the violence of the flaming furnace the one branch only to wit His Power sustentative was communicated to the fire the other branch to wit the participation of his co-operative or working Power was for the time being lop't off from the body or substance of the fire Now this withdrawing of his co-operative Power from the fire was a true document or proof that he is the God and guide of nature That without him the fire even whilst it is for nature and substance most compleat cannot perform the proper work or exercise of its nature The necessary consequence of which Proof or experiment is this That he is the Author or fountain as well of all the works or exercises of natural causes as of natural bodies or substances themselves And if we consider his Power not in it self but as communicated to his Creatures or natural Agents it is and ought to be acknowledged greater in those works which we call works of nature and of which we have dayly experience then it was in either of these two Miracles before mentioned Both of them were for this Reason only Miraculous in that they were most unusual and without the circuit of any experiment or observation in the course of nature before the times wherein they hapned 5. To raise Mens Bodies out of the Grave or out of the Elements into which they have been dissolved is far more unusual then to raise up Corn out of putrified seed and in this respect the Resurrection which we hope for must be acknowledged a work more Miraculous and wonderful then the yearly springing of Corn of fruits of herbs or grass But may we say in this Case as in the former that the Power of God is no less but rather greater in these ordinary works of nature as in causing herbs fruit or corn to sprout or fructifie with advantage of increase then it shall be in the Resurrection of the dead which is a work not of Nature but miraculous and supernatural a work in which natural Causes shall not be entertained nor imployed by God No there shall be a manifestation of greater Power then either of Gods Sustentative Power by which all things that were created are still preserved or of His Co-operative Power without whose participation nothing which is so preserved can work at all or perform the exercises of its proper nature The Power indeed by which He Preserveth all things is the self same Power by which He Made all things out of nothing The Preservation of things that are is but a continuation or proroguing of the first Creation As all things are made of Nothing so would they instantly return into Nothing were they not continually supported and preserved by the self same Power by which they begun to Be when they were not Creation and preservation differ onely in sensu connotativo only in relation not in substance Creation includes a Negation of Being before For all things that are took their beginning by Creation Conservation supposeth a beginning of things that are and includes a Negation of their returning into nothing These Two Negations being abstracted or sequestred the Creation of all things and their Conservation are as truly and properly the same Power or work of one and the same party as the way from Athens to Thebes and from Thebes to Athens is the same But if the Continuation of things that are be a Creation or if the self same Almighty Power be still manifested in the preservation of things temporal that was manifested in the first Creation what greater power can be manifested in the Resurrection from the dead then is daily manifested and ought to be acknowledged in the preservation and daily increase of herbs of fruits of corn sown and springing out of the earth Or if any greater power shall be manifested in the Resurrection from the dead then is daily experienced in these works of nature how shall we justifie our Apostles Argument in this place to be an Argument of proportion or an Argument as we said before from the greater to the lesse or an Argument à pari from The like Case or Instance The Argument
must in this Case exceed little children must be out of the consciousness of this our Impotencie or infirmitie to frame our Petitions unto God with the Prophet Psal 51. 2. Wash me throughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin And again ver 10. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy spirit from me Again Little Children though they be set upon their feet after their Fall they are not able to stand upright although they adventure not to go unless they be supported by their nurses or other helper and it is our Apostles advice unto such as stand to take heedlest they fall But is this circumspection in their power after Grace received No no more then it is in the power of Little Children to keep themselves from falling To what end then doth this Admonition serve To make us more careful by the knowledge of this our infirmitie continually to use that or the like prayer Prevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy gracious favour and further us with thy continual help If we truly acknowledge our selves to be but Little Children we cannot but know that without his preventing Grace we must still wallow in our natural filthiness and uncleanness that without his Concomitant Grace we cannot stand and that without his Subsequent Grace we can make no progress towards eternal Life All our doings must be begun must be continued and ended in him by his Grace otherwise we shall fail of the end here proposed unto us by our Apostle Again Little Children are sensible of hunger or want of Food yet cannot provide it cannot be their own carvers of it cannot take it unless it be reached unto them We then become in some degree the children of God when we feel a want of spiritual Food or when we hunger and thirst after righteousness But power we have none after Grace received to give satisfaction to this hunger and thirst after good things The best knowledge that in this Case we have is To Beg Food Convenient at our heavenly Fathers hands in that or the like Form of Prayer Give us this day our daily bread And thus to beg it out of full assurance that he is more ready to hear our requests then any earthly Father is to give his children bread or any earthly Mother to give her sucking Infants milk when they cry for it For some Mothers are unnatural others may forget their children but so will not God forget his so they be children in malice not in the Knowledge of his Goodness Little Children again if they be exposed to cold or heat or any other danger that may accrew from hostile or ravenous creatures have no power or strength to defend themselves all that they can do is but to cry for help from others Now the spiritual and Ghostly enemies of every Child of God and the dangers whereto they daily expose themselves are more in number then the bodily dangers whereof little Children are capable Lesse able we are though endowed with some measure of Grace to resist the Devil who goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour then a sucking child to withstand a Bear or Wolf that should come upon him To what end then doth God bestow his Grace upon us if with this we cannot defend our selves as with a weapon Only to this end that we should daily pray for his special protection as his Son hath taught us Lord lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil specially from the Author of evil for thine is the Kingdom the power and the glory Thou only art able to subdue and conquer the Prince of this world and to destroy him who hath the power of death Lastly albeit we must exceed Little Children in the acknowledgment of our infirmities and though our capacities to conceive these and the like forms of prayer be greater then theirs yet in respect of most particulars we are in this too like Little Children that we know not how to pray or ask those things which for the present we stand most in need of And in this point our Knowledge must exceed theirs that we must have a knowledge of this infirmity and out of the consciousness of it pray more fervently unto our heavenly Father that he would teach us how to pray or hear the supplications of his Spirit for us whose language we perfectly understand not and not to indent with him for other particulars but only to grant us what he knows to be best for us and most available though not for our present occasions yet for the attainment of Everlasting life Until we learn this lesson of Humility and meekness which The Son of God himself so often commends unto us by his own example by Precept and Instances we shall find no true Rest unto our souls we shall not have that Full Assurance of hope unto the end whereof our Apostle speaks Heb. 6. 9. But is this Qualification of becoming like Little Children alone sufficient No he that saith Whosoever receiveth not the Kingdom of heaven as a little child shall not enter therein hath also said Matth. 5. 20. Except your righteousnesse shall exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Doth he Instance in them as in the most wicked men that were So his Instance should not have been so pertinent at least his Admonition not so peremptory The Scribes and Pharisees if they had not thought so of themselves were the most righteous men then living they were the only Precisians of those times and observed many Rules of righteousness more exactly then most men now living do any Wherein then did they come short of the promise By making Extraordinary Conscience of some necessary duties and little or none at all of others The old Serpent deceived them as he doth many Christians to this day by that Fallacie or Sophism which we call A Dicto secundum quid ad simpliciter that is in using their known zealous observance of some good duties as an Argument that they were simply and absolutely more righteous then other men specially then those whom they saw gross transgressors of some Commandements which they made conscience of They did acknowledge that they had received many Graces from God for which they thanked him but yet they gloried as if they had not received them and this polluted all their works A good man saith Solomon is merciful unto his beast This property of Good men is in the Turks for they are more compassionate towards their dogs more careful for begging them benevolence of strangers and passengers for feeding them in the open streets then most Christians are for the relief of their poor brethren yet is that property of wicked men which Salomon in the same place describes more remarkable in them Their mercies are
no dependence of man upon the Divine Power did often shew commendable effects of this Law written in their hearts in sundry duties of Good neighborhood as we speak and civil kindnesses As for any Affinity or Bonds of society between man and man at least between men of divers Countries more then is between beasts of the same kind most of them acknowledged none nor did they acknowledge as much affinity betwixt Creatures of any kind as we do that acknowledge all things to have one Creator Herein then is Our Equalitie and Affinity greater that we all acknowledge one God for our Father who is in a more peculiar sort the Creator of every man then of any other corruptible Creature Again All we Christians acknowledge One Christ for our Head of whose Body we are Members hence ariseth another Peculiar Equalitie from the equal price of our Redemption which was all one for the Rich and Poor for the Little and Mighty Ones of the Earth This God pre-figured in the Law Exod. 30. verse 11 12 15. Afterwards the Lord spake unto Moses When thou takest the sum of the Children of Israel after their number then they shall give every man a Redemption of his life unto the Lord when thou tellest them that there be no plague among them when thou countest them The Rich shall not passe and the poor shall not diminish from half a shekel when ye shall give an Offering unto the Lord for the Redemption of your Lives From this strict Dependencie of all men upon one and the same Creator and this Equality and Brother-hood which we have in one Father doth our Saviour Christ Luke 6 v. 36. draw that precept Of loving our Enemies which he makes as it were an Essential property of all such as truly acknowledge One God Not that all men were not bound thereto and might have known so much by nature but that it was a greater shame and more praeposterous sin in such as did acknowledge One God not to perform that Duty The Consciences of the Gentiles as St. Paul saith might secretly accuse them But the Others words and speeches did bear open Testimony against them if they neglected so to do so saith our Saviour Christ immediately upon the words of the Text For if you love them which love you what thank shall you have for even the sinners love those that love them And if you do good for them which do good for you what thank shall ye have for even the sinners do the same And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive what thank shall ye have for even the sinners lend to sinners to receive the like Wherefore love ye your enemies and do good and lend looking for nothing again and your reward shall be great and ye shall be the children of the most High for he is kind to the unkind and to the evil 15. This further confirms what out of the principles of Nature was formerly gathered to wit that where it is said Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you do ye so unto them The meaning is not What ye would have this or that man do unto you do ye so unto the same man but rather thus Whatsoever ye would that any man should do unto you do ye the like in like case to every man in that he is man in that he is your fellow Creature in that he is the Son of your heavenly Father be he otherwise friend or foe Yet further we may nay we must inlarge this Precept if we will have the full meaning of it Thus. Whatsoever ye would should be done unto you whether by Man by Angel or any other of Gods ministring Spirits or procurer of mankinds good or by God himself That do to every man because every man that God to his Father who as He hath a care and providence over all so is it his will that every Creature under him all men especially that call him Father should be his Ministers in procuring and furthering any others good of whom this our heavenly Father vouchsafes to take care and charge A lively Emblem of this Duty we have in the Ravens feeding of Eliah being destitute of all ordinary means of Food If we consider the nature of this Bird none more Ravenous none more Greedy of the Prey then it yet because the Lord feeds the young Ravens when they call upon him being otherwise destitute of ordinary relief from their Dams or old Ones as both Aristotle and Plinie observe and the Psalmist alludes to it in that speech Therefore the Lord commanded them to afford the like help to Elias being forsaken or rather persecuted by the King and his Officers who should have yielded him house and harbour and from their example we should learn the practise to do for others as either the Lord hath done or we expect he should do for us Thus much I say is fully and directly included in our Saviours Deductions and Conclusions drawn from this Principal Rule albeit so much be not fully exprest in his words especially if we observe the Greek phrase only But the language whose manner of Dialect the Evangelists retain though writing in the Greek Tongue will very well bear and our Saviours words Luke 6. 36. verse enforce as much Be ye therefore merciful as your H. Father is merciful and in the 6. of Matth. v. 14. He tels us that if we look for mercie at Gods hand we must shew mercie unto men not to our friends or brethren by kindred or Nation but unto men The place is so much the more worth our observation because he adds no Exposition or Comment to any one Petition in all the Lords Prayer save only that He gives this Note upon that And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us his Note is this If ye forgive men their Trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if you do not forgive men their Trespasses no more will your Heavenly Father forgive you your Trespasses Wherefore as we desire God to forgive us our Trespasses though we have been his Enemies so must we be ready to forgive our Enemies and as we desire all good of him so must we be ready not only to forgive but even to do any good to our enemies If he be our enemie deservedly we should therefore do him good that we might make amends for the occasion offered if our Enemy he be without any just occasion given by us we should consider that this voluntary Enmity in him is the work of Satan but he Himself as man is our fellow Creature the workmanship of Gods own hand God made him man but the Divel made him an Enemy And we should seek by all meanes possible to dissolve the works of Satan and to repair the handy work of God that is we should love his person and seek to reform his vice we should overcome his evil with our good-will to him if
which knows no Law could make the use of the Law unlawful to him because most unexpedient for the present So the Lord had said Jerem. 16. 9. Behold I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes even in your dayes the voice of mirth and the voyce of gladness the voyce of the Bridegroom and the voyce of the Bride And seeing the Lord at this time had determined not to pipe unto this people Ieremy had greatly offended if he had been taken in their marriage Dances He knew Children were an heritage which cometh from the Lord that the fruit of the womb was his reward and that in the multitude of sons was store of blessings Marriage he knew to be honorable amongst all but at this time unseasonable for him Good seed is well sown when it is likely the Crop may stand and prosper He planteth well that plants in hope to reap the fruits of his own Labours But who sowes wheat unto the winter floods or plants a vineyard for his fuel why then should Jeremy at this time become an Husband to beget Sons unto the sword Or take a Wife to bring forth Daughters to destruction To this purpose the Lord had inhibited Jeremy in particular But the Reason of the inhibition in like times is perpetually General Yhou shalt not take thee a VVife nor have Sons nor Daughters in this place For thus saith the Lord concerning the Sons and concerning the Daughters that are born in this place and concerning their Mothers that bear them and concerning their fathers that beget them in this Land They shall die of grievous deathes and diseases they shall not be lamented neither shall they be buried but they shall be as dung upon the earth and they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and for the beasts of the earth Ier. 16. 1. The Prophets and sweet singers of Ierusalem and Iudah had sometimes brought them such joyful Ambassages of their espousals unto their God Their Princes and people had formerly known such happy dayes of joy securitie and peace that for Ieremy and Baruch to have then affected this rigid course of life which now they follow would have been but as the taking up of a sad or doleful Madrigall at a marriage feast or as the acting of some ominous direful Tragedy upon a Coronation day But seeing the glory is now departing from Israel the Bridegroom leaving their coasts their mother whom the Lord had once betrothed unto himself in surest bonds of dearest love stands liable to the sentence of final divorce The Children of the Bride-chamber specially Ieremiah and Baruch must betake themselves to fasting prayer and mourning Now to have used their wonted solace mirth or feasting would have been all one as if the one had piped the other had danced a wanton Jigge or Corranto in the Solemnities of their mothers Funerals or as if they had marcht together in a morisce-dance over their fathers Grave 6. Had that late Fugitive or other his Fellow Postillers learned thus to distinguish times and seasons The supposed difference between Precepts necessary to all and Evangelical Counsels peculiar to such as aim at Extraordinary perfection would clearly appear to be but a Dream or imagination which hath no root but ignorance Their error perhaps may thus be rectified if to discover the Original thereof be enough to rectifie it Many Divine Precepts there be from whose absolute and soveraign Necessitie no powers on earth can plead exemption and yet the practises enjoyned by them are neither necessary to all nor expedient for any at sometimes or in some places Because the Precepts themselves may be Disjunctive or opposite branches of some more General Mandate It will not follow This or That man in former Ages hath done many Good works pleasant and acceptable unto God such as not the godliest man living is bound at this time to do Ergo he did supererogate in doing them that is in plain English he did more then he was bound to do For though rebus sic stantibus no man be bound yet every man say we stands bound by the Eternal and unchangeable Law of God to do the like as often as the same external occasions shall be offered or the like internal suggestions be made unto him by The signes of the Times or disposition of Gods providence But here By the Eternal Law of God we are not bound to understand only the Ten Commandments The Decalogue if without offence Gods Words may be so compared contains only the Praedicamental Rules or Precepts of the eternal Law Other divine precepts there be more Transcendental which have the same Use in matters of Christian practise or true Observation of the ten Commandments as General maxims have in particular Sciences Such a Precept in respect of the second Table is that Love thy neighbor as thy self By this precept every man stands necessarily bound to perform more then ordinary Charitie toward his neighbour as often as his neighbours occasions to use his charitable help are more then ordinary The same Use in respect of both the Tables hath that other Precept Whatsoever ye would have done to you so do ye to others Most General likewise and most indispensable are these Two mandates Let every man walk as he is called Time must be redeemed when dayes are evil And seeing the inhabitants of every Country stand bound Jointly and severally to glorifie God by due observation of his Commandments The more licentiously others violate any one or more negative precepts his Children alwayes know themselves tyed in conscience to so much more strickt observance of the contrary Affirmatives which are alwayes understood in the Negative The measure of their sobrietie and devotion must be taken from others excess in Luxury and prophaneness Briefly the prohibitions or injunctions expresly contained in the Decalogue or others parts of the moral Law describe the General bounds or limits without which we may not within which we must continually walk Our observation of Gods Providence and signes of the times will best direct us to such particulars within those Limits as are most expedient for the present The several exigence of every season and the necessitie and conditions of the parties with whom we live will notifie the definite measure or exact quantitie of such good offices or performances as the eternal Law requireth of us To be well instructed what is most fitting for the season every man must ask counsel of his own heart but after his heart examined by the Rules of the eternal Law hath informed him what is fit and expedient it is no matter of Counsel but of necessary Precept to do it and that in such measure as the Exigence of time of place and persons require Albeit others which have not had the like occasions to consult their own hearts be not bound to do the like And some it may be
the time of his imprisonment in Constantinople This Busbequius the Legate there for Ferdinand being requested by some of Sandeus's quondam followers now his companions in captivity to comfort their master by his letters tels us Ego recusabam quod mihi non ratio non oratio suppetebat quâ hominem tam graviter afflictum consolarer It is a true and lively Symptome of a great spirits temper whom the Lord begins to humble once subject to the Almighties discipline which the same Author hath observed upon this occasion Erat Sandeus ingentis spiritus vir spei abundans timoris nescius sed qui sunt hujusmodi ut omnia quae optant sperant sic post quam cuncta retrò ferri et contra animi sententiam evenire experiuntur Ita plerunque animis concidunt ut non sit facile ad aequitatem eos erigere 4. Pearls are precious and as he sayes cara auro contrà though such simple creatures as Aesops cock value them lower then a grain of barley And life at all times is sweet alwayes more worth then any pleasure wealth or honour unless that honour which cometh from God alone however haughty cock-brains or furious hot-spurs esteem it lighter then a puff of popular fame But besides the untimely losse of life or ordinary dread of violent or bloody death the manner how it is God grant we never know by experience but so assuredly it is That When the wrath of God once throughly kindles against any Land or people it puts an unusual terror upon the countenances of their enemies an unusual edge upon their swords It sharpens the sting of natural death and so envenomes the jawes and teeth of famine and his fellow messengers that the smart of their impressions or the mere terror of their threatnings becomes unsufferably grievous beyond all measure of former experience or precedent cogitation Nothing before hath been held so base whereunto greatest spirits will not then be fain to stoop Nothing so cruel or unnatural unto whose practise the mildest and lovingest natures will not be brought upon Condition yea upon Hope nay upon probable Presumption that they might become but half sharers in the Donative which is here bestowed on Baruch Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest Not the most womanish among the weaker sex in this whole Land but would presume of so much manlike resolution as by one means or other to lay down the wearisome burthen of an irksome life rather then she should be inforced to seek the preservation of it by killing them whom she had lately quickened or devouring their flesh whom she lately brought forth with sorrow and dayly fed with her own substance Suppose we then that those mothers of Jerusalem which re-intombed their sucking infants in their wombs were naturally more cruel and savage than other women ordinarily are No! The Lord himself hath fully acquitted them of this imputation The hands of the pittiful women saith the Prophet Lament 4. 10. have sodden their own children they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people And if women women of pitie in the time of War can thus bestrip themselves of all wonted bowels of compassion towards the tender off-spring of their wombes shall not the strong man put off his valour and the valiant forget to fight shall not flight be far from the swift and wisdom perish from the Politick It is the day of the Lords wrath saith the Prophet and who can stand who can abide it Not such as for any motion of fear have stood more immoveable then a rock whilst the strongest wals of their defence have been terribly shaken with the enemies shot The stronger their wonted confidence had been the greater their horrour and confusion when they shall discern the finger of God beginning once to draw the dismall lines of their disasterous Fates or when with Belshazzar they begin to read their Destinyes in visible but Transient and unknown Characters then feebleness wo and sorrow come upon the mightiest men as upon a woman in her travel breeding a dissolution in the loyns and causing their knees to smite one against another The terrors of War or other affrightments whereunto they have formerly been accustomed though oft-times very great did never appear more then finite because alwayes known in part But of these Panici terrores or Representations which usher Gods wrath in the day of vengeance that is most true which the Philosopher gives as the Reason why uncouth wayes seem alwayes long Ignotum quà ignotum infinitum est And as the the Kingdom of God so his judgements and the terrors which accompany them come not by Observation In respect of this sudden dread or un-observable terror wherewith the Almighty blasts their souls whom he hath signed to fearful destruction They may say of their adversaries most furious assaults as he did of his Antagonists most blustering words Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta ferox Dii me terrent et Iupiter hostis One while they shall seek for death but it will not be found of them Another while death shall present it self to them and they shall make from it and yet it in the very next moment wish they had entertained it And though life abide with them still yet shall it not be as a Prey unto them but as a Clogg their persons being exposed unto their enemies pleasure perpetually tortured either between vain hopes of escape and uncertain expectance of an ignominious doom or between their desires of speedy and gentle death and the lingering grievances of miserable and captived life In all these respects the Prophets Advice is good seek ye the Lord all the meek of the earth which have wrought his judgements seek righteousness seek lowlinesse if so be that you may be hid in the day of the Lords wrath 5. But be it true in Thesi That life in its naked substance is sweet That ingenuous Libertie though mixt with povertie is as a pleasant sauce to make it rellish better yet who shall perswade Baruch as The Case stands with him so to accept it Nay me thinks flesh and blood should regurgitate his former murmurings upon this motion made by Jeremy and interpret the Prorogation of his life as a fresh heap of sorrowes laid unto the burthen of griefs under which he fainted Profers made by earthly Princes must be respected by their followers though worth little in themselves for unto them Court holy-water must seem sweet although it have no smel of gain But shall the The King of Kings obtrude That as an Extraordinary blessing upon his poor distressed servant which had been adjudged as his own word bears Record for a bitter curse or grievious plague from which Two Kings the one of Israel the other of Judah were not exempted but upon great humiliation and penitent tears For was it not The word of the Lord which
picture of that Great Shepheards death was a greater honour then if the shadow in the Dial of Ahaz had returned backward ten degrees in token of prolonging his dayes as long as Hezekiah's had been specially if we consider that the Saying fulfilled in the Great Prophet was verified in him Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none Though he were slain yet his Army returned home safe and he went to his grave in peace being buried in his own Sepulcher by his Servants 7. But alas Baruch lives in an Age super-annuated for any such Grace or Favour as Hezekiah or Iosias found in a City in which though Noah Iob and Daniel lived together yet as I live saith the Lord God they shall deliver neither son nor daughter they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness And shall not the Word of the Lord which Ieremy hath spoken unto Baruch be good For is it not good that when the Lord hath determined to send his four sore judgments upon Ierusalem the Sword and the Famine and the noysom Beast and the Pestilence to cut off from it man and beast yet his life shall be a prey not unto these but to himself Yes this is much better considering the season then if he had been sole heir to Hezekiah or Iosias Three or four of whose Successors all in their turns Kings of Judah he lived to see led bound in chains and their Nobles linkt in fetters of Iron For Baruch with reference unto these mens persons and present calamity to have such an ample safe Conduct as no Monarch living could have granted him License to travel whither he listed with full assurance of life was An Honour peculiar to Gods Saints A Reward wherein at this time my Prophet Ieremy and Ebedmelech which had received Ieremy in the name of a Prophet ministring bread and water c. unto his necessities were to be his only partners 8. But though they had liberty to travell whither they please will they be as careless passengers without all regard of their mothers sorrows wherewith the Lord had afflicted her in the day of his fierce anger Jeremie doubtless would have endured all the tortures cruel Babylon could have devised upon condition Jerusalem and Judah might still have dwelt in saftie The Galatians were not more affectionate towards Paul then Jeremy was to the meanest branch that sprang from good Josias willingly would he have pluckt out his own to have redeemed Zedekiah's eyes or to have prevented that lamentable Farewel which they were to take of sight the barbarous massacre of his dearest children And how then can this short prolongation of life be sweet to Jeremy the Aged or unto Baruch the Scribe being now to see such miserie fall upon their native Country King and people as they might justly wish their mothers wombs had been their graves rather then they should have been brought forth to behold it A thousand lives had been well spent upon condition such calamity had never been seen in Jury and yet the prorogation of Baruchs and Ieremies life though certain to see the execution of all the plagues here threatned these becoming now at length without any fault or negligence in them but rather by others neglect of their forewarnings altogether Fatal and inevitable is much better then a thousand years spent in mirth and jollity But would they not sorrow day and night for the slain of the daughter of their people The Book of the Lamentations will witness tears not sweet wine to have been the drink of him that wrote them And shall life though it have continuall sorrow for its sauce be sweet whose heart among us would not be sad even full of sorrow whose eyes would not overflow with tears at the Tragical representation of their disasters and calamities whose living persons we had alwayes honoured whose memory and never dying Fame we reverence And yet to minds deckt with more polite literature or mollified with the Muses songs the secret delight which in this Case ariseth from the Poets Art and contrivance much more from our Observation of the strange concurrence of real causes conspiring to work designes worthy of God whether for mercy or for vengeance is infinitely more sweet and pleasant then the profuse mirth of lascivious Comedies on any other positive delight whereof humane senses whether external on internal are capable And if with Reverence any may be thereto compared This secret placid delight which is thus accompanied with sighes and composed sadnesse most perfectly resembles the internal comfort of the spirit alwayes rejoycing in tribulation Such truly was the joy and comfort which Ieremy and Baruch found who had now been admitted spectators twentie years and more of a true unfained Tragedy whose Catastrophe was to contain the most doleful spectacle the great eye of the world since it first rolled in his sphere untill this time had ever beheld Had they lookt upon the several parts of this Tragedy the last Scene especially with natural eyes the gastly sight had doubtless inspired them with some desperate Romane Resolution to have acted the like crueltie upon themselves as the Babylonians had done upon their brethren to have set a full and Capital Period to all the woes which they had written against this people with their own blood spilt in the ruines of the Temple or mingled with the ashes of the Altar But now that The Lord hath enlightned their hearts to discern the sweet disposition of his all-seeing Providence still counterplotting the subtle Projects of man and making the Politicians which had accounted his Prophets silly fools unexperienced Idiots or raving Bedlames more curiously cunning then the spider to weave the net which he had ordained to spread upon them the more they sorrowed to see the desolation of their country the greater still was their solace in contemplating the justice power and wisdom of their God in accomplishing his indignation contrary to Prince and peoples expectation but agreeable to their predictions Finally as men compacted of flesh and blood they could not but sympathize with miserable men even their brethren their flesh and bones As faithfull men they could not but be in mind and affection conformable to The Lord their God by whose good spirit their hearts were toucht and their souls illuminated to fore-see the contrivance of his designes upon these his disobedient children which had so often refused the wayes of peace which he would have led them in but they would not follow 9. From this Double Aspect the One of Nature the other of Grace and this Twofold Sympathie thence arising the one with their Creator the other with their fellow-Creatures doth the Lord frame this Pathetical and forcible Charge vnto Baruch Behold that which I have built will I break down and that which I have planted will I pluck up even this whole Land and seekest thou great things for thy self Seek them not The Exegesis or Implication fully unfolded
is more then a Premiss or Antecedent a Precedent or Ruled Case to his own Conviction or condemnation Now as to make a man grant any Conclusion which he is willing to deny or conceal there is no way so expedite as to press the Premisses upon him from which it necessarily follows so to bring a man to condemn or judge himself for any fault or error committed by him there is no means so available as to let him see how he hath judged or condemned some others for the same or like Fault Every Sentence or judgment which a man makes against himself is a Conclusion and for the most part a Conclusion which no man is willing to grant unless he be by this means drawn unto it Had that Prophet of whom we read 1 Kings 20. 35. delivered his message from the Lord unto King Ahab without any Premisses or Preamble in these or like plain Terms Because thou hast suffered Benhadad King of Syria to scape out of thine hands he shall do to thee as thou shouldst have done to him Ahab would have put him to his Apologie or rather have left him inexcusable for medling in affairs of State But the same Spirit of God which gave him knowledge of Ahabs transgression and Resolution to tax or censure him for it did likewise teach him The Art of Discretion for the manner of delivering his message and for the clearer Conviction of this Unruly King He first disguised himself with Ashes upon his face lest the King by his habit should discern him to be a Prophet And making Ahab no partie He proposeth the Case as his own or as the Case of some inferior man or common Souldier He cried unto the King and said Thy servant went out into the midst of the battel and behold a man turned aside and brought a man unto me and said keep this man if by any means he be missing then shall thy life be for his life or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver and as thy servant was busie here and there he was gone Here is the Case or Species Facti The Kings Sentence upon it is more breif ver 40. So shall thy judgment be Thy self hath decided it And the King having granted these Premisses the Prophet knew it was too late for him to deny the Conclusion which he immediately presseth upon him Thus saith the Lord because thou hast let go out of thy hands a man whom I appointed to utter destruction therefore thy life shall go for his life and thy people for his people and upon this Conviction the King of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased Had the Prophet told the King the same Truth directly and bluntly it might perhaps have displeased him more but it could not have made him so heavy as now he was for his displeasure would have found a Vent and ended in rage and fury against the Prophet But being thus left without Apology or excuse by condemning another for a less fault if it had been true then he himself had really committed his displeasure or rage was swallowed up in silent heaviness of heart If Ahab upon this Conviction had been as ready to judge himself by humble Confession of his fault which he could not deny as he was to condemn the disguized Prophet for a farre less He might have escaped the judgment of the Lord which was here threatned and did afterwards befall him By the like Sacred Art or cunning the Prophet Nathan brought King David unwittingly to condemn himself by judging the rich man which as the Prophet feigned had taken away his poor Neighbors Lamb for entertaining his guests Had Nathan immediately and directly told this otherwise Good King as afterwards upon this premised Parable he did Wherefore hast thou despised the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the Sword and hast taken his Wife to be thy VVife and hast slain him with the Sword of the Children of Ammon the Kings anger which was greatly kindled against the supposed Rich man which had wronged his poor Neighbor would have kindled more fiercely against Nathan But now that his anger against this supposed Rich man was so truly and really kindled as it burst forth into this Sentence denounced by solemn oath As the Lord liveth The man that hath done this thing shall surely die The blow which he thus fiercely intended against a shadow doth wound himself at the Rebound for when Nathan upon the former Premisses makes this Conclusion Thou art the man Thus saith the Lord God of Israel c. He left him altogether without Plea or Excuse as standing condemned by his own judgment upon another And though the Prophet brought him unwittingly to condemn himself yet after his Conviction he willingly acknowledged his fault and so by judging himself escaped the judgment of the Lord in part at least though not wholly The Facts for which these Two Kings did judge these imaginary or feigned Persons were not so hainous or so palpable if they had been true as were the Real Transgressions of which the Prophets did clearly convince themselves And whosoever doth the self-same Facts or Facts worse then those for which he judgeth another is altogether Inexcusable and stands convicted by his own Conscience condemned by his own mouth 4. But albeit This Major or Universal Proposition be unquestionably true VVhosoever doth the same things for which he judgeth another doth condemn himself because the doing of the same Fact doth necessarily draw the same Sentence which he passeth upon others upon himself Yet all this how Universally how Unquestionably true it be doth not to my apprehension make up the Full meaning of this Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Full Meaning according to the Original I take to be this Every one that is apt to Iudge or Censure others is without Apologie without Excuse The word in the Original rendred by Mr. Calvin qui Iudicas and in our English thou that Judgest is a Participle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Participles of the Greek Testament or the Septuagint are to be taken according to the Rate or Value of the Hebrew Now the Hebrew Participles as every one that hath any insight in that Dialect will observe do more properly denote the Habits or custom then the transient Acts and are of the same value with the Latine Verbals So the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faciens malum is as much as Factor mali Or Operarius iniquitatis A Malefactor or Worker of Iniquity So in the fourth of St. Matthew ver 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So 1 Thess 3. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Matth. 13. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so in this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is more then he that judgeth as much in Latine as Judex or Censor Hee that is A Judge or Censurer Now as a man may appetere vinum and yet not
Lord to utter these words Or which is all one The fulfilling of his imprecation according to the Mystical sense Third The discussion of such Cases of Conscience or controversed Divinity as are naturally emergent out of the Mystical or Literal sense and are useful for this present or future Ages To begin with the Circumstance of the time wherein they were uttered That apparently was the dayes of King Joash Heir and Successor unto Ahaziah King of Judah who was next Successor save one unto good Jehoshaphat by lineal direct descent but no Successor at all to him in vertue or goodness or happiness of Government For Ahaziah was Pessimi patris haud melier proles a very wicked son of a most wicked father and too hard to say whether he or his Father Jehoram were the worse King or more unfortunate Governour But Joash the Orphan Son of Ahaziah hath the Testimonie of the Spirit of God That he ruled well whilst Jehiiada the High-Priest did live 2 King 12. 2. And his zeal to the House of the Lord recorded at large in this chapter as also in the 2 Kings 12. 4. was so great as more could not be expected or conceived either of Jehoshaphat Hezekiah or good Josiah And thus he continued from the seventh year of his Age until the five or six and thirtieth at the least A competent time a man would think for a full and firm growth in goodness But amongst the Sons and Successors of David we may observe that some begun their Reign very well and ended ill Others being extream bad in their beginning did end better then the other begun So Manasses in the beginning and middle of his Reign filled the City with innocent blood and died a Penitentiary This present King Joash begun and continued his Reign for thirty years or thereabouts in the spirit but ended in the flesh or rather in blood leaving a perpetual stain upon the Throne and Race of David This strange Apostacie or Revolt argues that his fore-mentioned goodness and zeal unto the House of the Lord was Adventitious and not truly rooted in his own brest That the fair Lineaments of a pious man and noble Prince were drawn not by his own skill but by the manuduction of Jehoiada the High-Priest as Children oft-times make fair letters while their Tutors guide their hands but spatter and blot and dash after they be left to their own guidance Jehoiada saith the Text waxed old and was full of dayes an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died and they buried him in the City of David among the Kings because he had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his House The solemnization of his death was a strong Argument of the respect and love which both Prince and People did bear unto him whilst he lived and much happier might both of them have been had they continued the same respect unto his Son and Successor But they buried their love unto Jehoiada and which was worst the zeal which he had taught unto the House of God in his Grave For so it followeth verse 17 18. Now after the death of Jehoiada came the Princes of Iudah and made obeysance to the King Then the King hearkened unto them and he left the House of the Lord God of their Fathers and served Groves and Idols Yet Gods love to them doth not determine with the beginning of their hate unto the House of God and to his faithful Servants For notwithstanding that wrath came upon Iudah and Ierusalem for this their trespasse yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again to the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear And the Spirit of the Lord came upon or cloathed Zechariah the Son of Iehoiada the Priest who stood above the people and said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Commandement of the Lord that ye cannot prosper Because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the Commandment of the King in the Court of the House of the Lord. Thus Ioash the King remembred not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done unto him but slew his Son and when he dyed he said or inter moriendum dixit The Lord look upon it and require it 3. But did the Lord hearken to him or require his blood at the Kings and Princes hands which slew him Yes that he did oftner then once For it was required of their posterity But for the present he did visit both the King and his Princes most remarkably by an unexpected Army of the Syrians unto whose Idolatrous Rites they had now conformed themselves complying too well with them and with their neighbors the Heathen in all sorts of wickedness But here the Polititian will reply That the Syrians did upon other occasions intend to do some mischeif to the King the Princes and People of Judah For it was never unusual to that Nation to vex or molest Israel or Judah Nunc olim quocunque dabant se tempore vires As often as opportunity served as often as they could spy advantage And to assign the Probable or meritorious Causes of such Plagues as befal any Nation by their inveterate enemies unto the Judgment of God for this or that sin is not safe specially for men not endued with the Spirit of Prophecie In many Causes I confess it is not yet in this particular we need not be afraid to say as much as the Spirit of God or sacred authority of his Word hath taught us We say no more as indeed we need not for the point is so plainly and punctually set down by the pen-man of this Book from verse 23. to the 26. as it needs no Comment no paraphrase or marginal conjecture any of which would rather soyl then clear the meaning of the Text. And it came to passe at the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against him and they came to Judah and Ierusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from amongst the people and sent the spoyls of them to Damascus c. 4. The Observations or plain Uses which these Literal Circumstances of this Story afford are many I shall touch upon some principal ones As First To admonish Kings or other supreme Magistrates to reverence and respect their Clergy seeing Ioash did prosper so well while he followed the advice and counsel of the High-Priest Iehoiada but came to this fearful and disastrous end first by contemning the warning of Zechariah the Cheif-Priest and afterward by shedding of the innocent blood of this great Prophet of the Lord. But this will be a common place not so proper to this time and place wherein we live wherein there is such happy accord between the supream Majestie and the Prelacie and Clergie of this Kingdom as no good Patriot can desire more then the continuance of it
it is neither warranted by Scriptures nor by any good Writer Neither is it credible that the Jews then living would kill the Prophet of the Lord immediately after their deliverance from captivity At least the Reverence to the Temple then scarce finished would have made them abstain from shedding his blood within the walls of it near the Altar Others there be amongst the Ancients but few later Writers of better note which think this Zacharias should be John Baptists Father what reason they should have so to think I cannot conjecture save only Our Saviours words in the 35. verse VVhom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar This in ordinary speech may seem to implie that this just man had been killed by this people now living not by their Fathers For so our Saviour happly had said Whom your Fathers slew not Whom YE slew But it is a Rule in Divinity to gather our Saviours and his Apostles meaning by the usual Phrase of Scriptures not by our common manner of speech Now it is usual to the Prophets and Sacred Writers to lay the fathers sins unto the childrens charge if they continue in the like or repent not for them And if this people now living must be plagued for the ancient Prophets blood no question but they were guilty of it and may be said to have slain them in the same sense they are endicted as guilty of it That our Saviour should not mean John Baptists Father is more then probable for these reasons First His death is not mentioned in the New Testament nor in any Good Ecclesiastical Writer Secondly Because it no way benefits the Authors of this Opinion but rather increaseth the difficultie For if he were slain by Herod the Great who was a Philistine by Parentage why should not John Baptist's death be laid to their charge being slain by Herods Son Nay why not our Saviours or his Apostles whom he fore-tels they would shortly kill and persecute This plainly argues that the reason why he names this Zacharias was not his slaughter And besides this reason there is none why we should think this Zacharias was John Baptist's Father As for the Apocriphal Stories or Traditions which are pretended for this guesse or groundless conjecture we have just cause to suspect that it rather brought forth them then that they should first deliver it Not to trouble your patience with any more Reasons for refuting those Opinions it is agreed upon by most late Writers I have read Papists or Protestants and by St. Hierom the best in this kind of all the Ancient that this Zachariah here spoken of was the son of Jehoiada the Priest whose death we have set down 2 Chron. 24. verse 21. And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the Commandement of the King in the Court of the House of the Lord. In what Court it is not specified but it is most probable from the circumstance of the Text that it was in the Court where the Priests offered sacrifices or in the place where he instructed or blessed the people for it is evident that Zechariah was slain in his Pue or publick seat appointed for instructing the People And hereunto the ancient Jews in their Traditions accord This is that our Saviour saith in my Text that he was slain between the Temple and the Altar By the Temple we are to understand the outward Courts or Iles or as we distinguish betwixt the Church and the Chancel the body of the Temple comprehending Atrium Israelis mulierum the Courts wherein the Congregation of men and women stood By the place between these and the Altar the Court where the Priests taught or celebrated their service And so it is said verse 20. That Zachariah should stand above the people when he delivered that message unto them for which they stoned him to death Why this Zachariah should be called the son of Barachiah divers Expositors bring divers reasons all probable in themselves and each agreeable with other Some think his father as was not unusual amongst the Jews had two names or a name and a sur-name Jehoiada and Barachiah Others think that our Saviour did not so much respect the usual Name whereby the Prophets father was called as his Conditions or vertues unto which the name of Barachiah did as well or better agree then Jehoiada although the one of these cannot much disagree in sense from the other for the one signifies The knowledge of the Lord the other to wit Barachiah The blessing of the Lord or Man blessed of the Lord. Well might both names befit that Famous High-Priest famous both for his wisdom and piety every way blessed of God and a great blessing to this people For as it is said 2 Chronicles chap. 24. verse 16. He had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his house In which respect he was buried in the City of David amongst their Kings Admitting then Jehoiada either usually had or were for the reasons intimated capable of these two Names it is not without a special Reason perhaps a Mystery that our Saviour in this place should call Zachariah rather the son of Barachiah then of Jehoiada For the more blessed his Father was of God the greater blessing he had been to Israel the more accursed was this ungratious people in killing his vertuous and religious son in the House of the Lord for disswading them from Idolatry And the more fully did they prefigure the sin of this wicked generation their children which for the like cause did now go about to kill the Son of God Christ Jesus Blessed for ever For hereafter they were to acknowledge Him to be the True Barachiah as it is intimated in the last verse of this chapter Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Thus much of the first Point Who this Zachariah was gives some light unto the Second 6. And the Second Question Why our Saviour should make such special instance in or peculiar mention of the Blood of Zachariah is the least difficult of all the rest and yet a Question not so easily answered as the learned Spanish Iesuite Maldonate in his Comments upon this place would perswade us His best Answer to this Question solemnly proposed by him is This. Christs purpose was only to instance in those Prophets whose slaughter was expresly testified in the Bible least the Scribes and Pharisees might deny them to have been slain by their fore-fathers Now of Prophets whose deaths are mentioned in Scripture Zacharias the son of Jehoiada was the last We have just occasion to suspect his conjecture were it true to be impertinent because the Reason whereby he seeks to confirm it is evidently untrue Seeing Zacharias the son of Jehoiada was not the last of all the Prophets whose bloody deaths are recorded in Scripture For in the 26. chap. of Ieremie There is express mention of one Uriah the son of Shemaiah of
present generation in my Text had crucified But so returning unto him by true Repentance he will return unto them in mercie and be as gracious and favourable to the last Generations of this miserable people as he was of old unto the first or best of their Fore-fathers For in this Case especially and in this and the like alone that Saying of our Apostle which some in our dayes most unadvisedly and impertinently mis-apply and confine to their own particular state in Grace or Gods Favour is most true The Gifts of God are without repentance That Lord and God whom they solemnly forsook hath not finally forsaken them but with unspeakable patience and long-suffering still expects their Conversion For which Christians above all others are bound to pray Convert them Good Lord unto the Knowledge and us unto the Practise of that Truth wherewith thou hast elightened our souls that our Prayers for them and for our selves may ever be acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and our Redeemer Amen Amen CHAP. XLIII The Second Sermon upon this Text. MATTH 23. verse 34 35 36. Wherefore Behold I send unto you Prophets and some of them ye will kill c. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth c. Verily I say unto you All these things shall come upon this Generation 2 Chron. 24. 22. And as he was dying he said The Lord look upon it and Require it Luke 11. 51 Verily I say unto you IT that is ver 50. The blood of all the Prophets shed from the Foundation of the world shall be Required of this Generation 1. OF several Queries or Problems emergent out of these words proposed unto this Audience a year ago One and that one of greatest difficultie was How the sins of former Generations can be required of later specially in so great a distance of time as was between the death of Abel and of Zachariah and this last Generation which crucified the Lord of life the Discussion whereof is my present Task In this disquisition you will I hope dispense with me for want of a formal Division or Dichotomie because the Channel through which I am to pass is so narrow and so dangerously beset with Rocks and shelves on the right hand and on the left as there is no possibility for two to go on brest nor any room for Steerage but only Towage One passage in my Disquisition must draw another after it by one and the same direct Line For first if I should chance to say any thing which either Directly or by way of Consequence might probably inferre this Affirmative Conclusion That God doth at any time punish the children for the fathers sins or later generations for the Iniquities of former This were to contradict that Fundamental Truth which the Lord himself hath so often protested by Oath Ezek. 18. 1 2 c. And the word of the Lord came unto me again saying What mean ye that ye use this Proverb concerning the Land of Israel saying the Fathers have eaten sour grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge As I live saith the Lord God ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel Behold all souls are mine as the soul of the Father so also the soul of the Son is mine the soul that sinneth it shall die And again verse the last I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth saith the Lord God wherefore turn your selves and live ye Now to contradict any Branch of these or the like Protestations or Promises would be to make shipwrack of Faith more dangerous then to rush with full sail upon a Rock of Adamant On the other hand if I should affirm any thing either directly or indirectly which might inferre any part of this Negative That God doth not visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children or of former Generations upon later This were to strike upon a shelf no less dangerous then to dash against the former Rock directly to contradict Gods solemn Declaration in the second Commandement of His Proceedings in this Case which are no less just and equal then the former Promise Ezekiel the 18. By this you see the only safe way for passage through the straits proposed must be to find out the middle Line or Mean whether Medium Abnegationis or Participationis or in one word The difference betwixt this Negative God doth not punish the Children for the Fathers sins and the other Affirmative God visiteth the sins of the Fathers upon the Children even unto the third and fourth Generation c. 2. But in the very first setting forth or entry into this narrow Passage some here present perhaps have already discovered a shelf or sand to wit that the passage fore-cited out of the second Commandement doth better reach or fit the Case concerning Josiah his death and the calamity of his people then the present difficultie or Problem now in handling For Josiah was but the third in succession from Manasseh and dyed within fewer years then a Generation in ordinary Construction imports after his wicked Grand-father But if the blood of Zachariah the son of Jehoiada or other Prophets slain in that Age or the Age after him were required of this present Generation God doth visit the sins of Fore-fathers upon the Children after more then three or four after more then five times five Generations according to St. Matthew's account in the Genealogie of our Lord and Saviour Yet this seeming Difficulty to use the Mariners Dialect is rather an Over-fall then a shelf or at the worst but such a shelf or sand as cannot hinder our passage if we sound it by the Line or Plummet of the Sanctuary or number our Fathoms by the scale of sacred Dialect in like Cases For when it is said in the Second Commandement that God doth visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him This is Numerus certus proincerto aut indefinito an expression or speech equivalent to that of the Prophet Amos. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away the punishments thereof For three transgressions of Tyrus and for four for three transgressions of Ammon and for four c. Throughout almost every third verse of the first Chapter and some part of the Second The Prophets meaning is that all the Kingdoms or several Sovereignties there mentioned by him especially Judah and Israel should certainly be punished not for three or four only but for the multitude of their continual transgressions and many of them transgressions of a high and dangerous nature Both speeches as well that in Amos as in the Second Commandement reverently to compare magna parvis are like to that of the Poet O terque quaterque beati that is most happy So that unto the third and fourth generation may imply more then seven
times seven generations as many several successions of men or families as have lived since Abels death unto this present day All this being supposed or admitted yet the Expression of Gods mercies in the same Commandement unto the children of such as love him and keep his Commandements is a lively Character of that Truth which we must believe to wit That Gods Mercie as farre exceedeth his Justice towards men as a thousand doth three or four unless they desperately make up the full measure of their own and their fore-fathers sins either by positive transgressions or by slighting or not repairing in time unto the out-stretched wings of his Mercie In this Case they provoke or pull down the heavy stroak of his out-stretched Arm of Justice 3. This difficultie in the Entry into or Barre of this narrow passage being cleared we may safely proceed by the former way proposed that is by searching the Mean or sounding the difference between these two Absolute Truths 1. God never punisheth the Children for their Fathers sins Secondly God usually visiteth the sinnes of the Fathers upon the Children c. The most punctual difference of these two undeniable Truths to my apprehension and Observation is this To punish the Children for their Fathers sins implies a punishment of some persons be they more or few without any personal guilt in them or actual transgressions committed by them And thus to do in awarding punishments temporarie whether Capital or Corporal for with punishments everlasting or in the world to come I dare not meddle or interpose my verdict were open injustice The sons of Traytors or Rebels against the Crown and dignitie of the State wherein they live are not by humane laws obnoxious to any Corporal or Capital punishment unless they be in some degree guilty of their Fathers treason or rebellion not by misprision only but by Association And however Good Laws do deprive guiltless Children of the Lands and Titles of honour which their Fathers enjoyed yet are they oftentimes upon their good demeanor restored to their blood and to the lands and dignities of their Ancestors even by such Princes as are no fit paterns of that Clemencie which becometh Princes Not so much as good foyls to set forth or commend the clemencie and benignitie of God if we consider it as it is avouched by Ezekiel in the eighteenth Chapter However earthly Princes may demean themselves towards the guiltless or well-deserving sons of Traytors or Rebels the reason or intendment of severest publick Laws in this Case provided was not to lay any punishment upon the Children but rather a Tye or bond upon their Fathers not to offend in this high kind so often as otherwise they would do save onely for the love they bear unto their Children and posterity or for the fear of tainting their blood or dishonouring their Friends and Families Of the equity or good intendment of such Laws we have the fairest patern in the fore-cited place of Ezekiel chap. 18. 31 32. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit For why will ye die O ye house of Israel For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth saith the Lord God wherefore turn your selves and live ye 4. To visit the sins of the Fathers upon their Children alwayes supposeth some degree of personal guilt in the Children yet such a guilt or such transgressions as would not be punished so greivously either for measure or manner as usually they are unless their Fathers had set them bad Examples by sinning in the same or like kind But the Circumstances or Conditions which most aggravate or bring the heaviest visitation of Fathers sins upon the Children are these First if their Fathers have been punished citra condignum that is in a less measure or lower degree then their personal transgressions had deserved The Second if their Fathers punishments have been upon Register or Record so remarkably suited unto their sins that their Children might as they ought have taken notice of the occasions of Gods displeasure against them or punishing hand upon them To draw these Generals more close unto the Hypothesis or to joyn them together by annexing some particular Instances unto them Few here present can be so ignorant either of domestick or publick Statutes amongst us but may easily observe that the same offence being re-iterated or often committed by one and the same party is or ought to be more greivously punished for the second Turn then for the first more greivously for the third time then for the second more for the fourth then for all the three former This manner of proceeding in Colledges or Academical Societies is most agreeable to the Ancient Constitutions of this Kingdom for the manner of Processes in Courts Ecclesiastick The not appearing upon lawful Summons in Courts Ecclesiastick was for the first neglect but a mulct of Twenty pence according to the Rate of money in those dayes The second mulct for not appearing upon like Summons did double the first and so did the third the second The mulct for the fourth neglect did more then double or treble all the former For the party thus offending the fourth time in the same kind became liable to the Writ De Excommunicato Capiendo without more ado And this was an heavie punishment if it were executed according to William Rufus his Constitutions Now the Covenant of Life and Death which God made with the Seed of Abraham or with the Sons of Jacob upon their deliverance out of Aegypt afterwards in more express words with the house of David or tribe of Judah throughout their generations is the true Patern or Authentick leading Case of all Just and Legal Proceedings with One and the same Partie for often committing the same Offence especially in Case he had been solemnly fore-warned whether without any punishment at all or with some light punishment annexed for the first time Every fore-warning makes the following offence though in it self not so great a great deal more hainous and liable to more greivous punishment 5. To take a more particular view of the peculiar Aspect which these heavenly Lights Gods Laws I mean had to the Seed of Jacob or Kingdom of Israel and Judah For in respect of other Kingdoms or Nations their aspect admits some variation To keep the seed of Jacob upright in the wayes of Faithful Abraham the God of their fathers left them a Twofold Register to be perpetually continued by his Prophets or other sacred Writers The One containing their fore-fathers Good deeds and the prosperity which alwayes did attend them The Other of their Fore-fathers grossest sins or transgressions and of the calamities which pursued them The former Register was to encourage them to do that which was good and acceptable in his sight The other to deterre them from evil from turning aside from him and his Laws The
manner of Gods augmenting the punishments or plagues upon succeeding Generations which would not take warning by the punishments of their fore-fathers usually runs by the scale of seven Every man that seeth me saith Cain after the Lord had convented him for killing his brother will kill me whereas there was not a man in the world besides his father and himself But a mans Conscience as we say is a thousand witnesses And his Conscience did sufficiently convict him to have deserved Execution whereas there was neither Witness nor Executioner According to this Sentence engraven in this murtherous heart did God afterwards enjoyn Noah and gave it in express Commandement under his hand to Moses Whosoever doth shed mans blood by man shall his blood be shed If this Law were Just amongst the Israelites why was it not executed upon Cain the first Malefactor in this kind Nay why doth God expresly exempt him from it and punish him with exile only Doubtless this was from His Gracious Universal Goodness which alwayes threats before it strike offereth favour before he proceed to Judgment and mingleth Judgment with Mercie before he proceed in rigor of Justice Now Cain had no former warning how displeasant murther was to God and therefore is not so severely punished as every murtherer after him must be For so it is said Gen. 4. 15. Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold Yet for any of Seths Posteritie to have killed murtherous Cain had been a sin in its nature farre less then for Cain to murther his righteous brother yet by Rule of divine Justice to be more greivously punished then Cains murther was because in him they had their Warnings 6. The same Proportion God observes in visiting the sins of Fathers upon their Children So in that Great Covenant of Life and Death made with the Israelites Levit. 26. 14 15 16. After promise of extraordinary blessings to the Observers of his Law the Lord thus threatneth the transgressors But if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these Commandements And if ye despise my Statutes or if your soul abhor my Judgments so that ye will not do all my Commandements but that ye break my Covenant I also will do this unto you I will even appoint over you terror consumption c. But if for all this they will not yet turn unto him he will plague them still with the pursuit of their enemies Nay it followeth verse 18 And if ye will not hearken unto me then will I punish you seven times more for your sins and if all this will not reclaim them these later plagues shall be seven times multiplied and this third plague three hundred forty three times greater then the first and the fourth Transgression shall likewise be multiplied by seven So that the same Apostasie or rebellion not amended after so many warnings if we may call the literal meaning to strict Arithmetical Account shall in the end be One thousand one hundred ninety seven times more severely punished then the first But it is likely that a Certain Number was put for an uncertain That the visitation of sins of Fathers upon their Children may be continued seventy Generations even from the first giving of the Law by Moses unto the worlds End is apparent from the verses following Levit. 26. 37. unto This Yet will the Lord still remember the Covenant made with Abraham c. For not putting this Rule or Law of confessing their fathers sins in practise the Children of that Generation which put our Lord and Saviour to death are punished this day with greater hardness of heart then the Scribes and Pharisees were For however They were the very Paterns of Hypocrisie yet had they so much sense or feeling of conscience that they did utterly dislike their Fore-fathers Actions and thought to super-erogate for their Fathers transgressions by erecting the Tombs or garnishing the Sepulchres of the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered or stoned to death But these modern scattered Jews will not to this day confess their fore-fathers sins nor acknowledge that they did ought amiss in putting to death the Prince of Prophets and Lord of Life And their Fathers sins until they confess them are become their sins and shall be visited upon them To confess the sins of their Fathers according to the intendment or purpose of Gods Law implies an hearty Repentance for them and repentance truly hearty implies not only an Abstinence from the same or like transgressions wherewith their Fathers had provoked Gods wrath but a zealous Desire or Endeavour to glorifie God by constant Practise of the Contrary vertues or works of Piety This Doctrinal Conclusion may easily be inferred from the afore-cited 18. of Ezekiel 7. Sin is more catching then the Pestilence and no marvel if the plagues due for it to the Father in the course or doom of Justice seize on the Son seeing the contagion of sin spreads from the unknown Malefactor to his neighbors from the Fields wherein it is by Passengers committed into the bordering Cities or Villages unless the Attonement be made by Sacrifice and such solemn deprecation of guilt as the Law in this Case appoints Deut. 21. 1 2 c. If one be found slain in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possesse it lying in the field and it be not known who hath slain him Then thy Elders and Judges shall come forth and shall measure to the Cities which are round about him that is slain And it shall be that the City which is next unto the slain man even the Elders of that City shall take a Heifer which hath not been wrought with and which hath not drawn the yoak And that City shall bring down the Heifer into a rough valley which is neither cared nor sown and shall strike off the Heifers neck there in the valley And the Priests the sons of Levi shall come neer for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him and to bless in the name of the Lord and by their word shall every controversie and stroke be tryed And all the Elders of that City that are next to the slain man shall wash their hands over the Heiser that is to be beheaded in the valley And they shall answer and say Our hands have not shed this blood neither have our eyes seen it Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whom thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy People of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. The nearer unto us Actual Transgressors be the more they should provoke our zealous endeavors for performance of contrary duties otherwise Gods Justice will in time over-sway his mercie and plagues first procured by some one or few mens sins will diffuse themselves from the
hearts be humbled and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity Then will I remember my Covenant with Jacob and also my Covenant with Isaac and also my Covenant with Abraham will I remember and I will remember the land Gods Covenant is with his people whether Jews or Gentiles and their children joyntly Every Child is born as it were heir to his Fathers sins and their plagues unless he renounce them by taking their guilt upon him in such hearty Confession as this law prescribes and patient submission of himself to Gods correction To satisfie Gods justice for the least trespass committed by our Ancestors is impossible But to avert their just punishment from our selves by unfeigned Conversion unto God in those particulars wherein our fathers have forsaken him is a duty possible because necessary to every faithful soul As if the father have been an unconscionable gatherer or cruel oppressor the son is more strictly bound then otherwise he were to abound in works of mercie towards the poor to give liberally to such as need to lend freely to such as desire rather their kindness then meer Almes If the father have been a blasphemer or greivous swearer the son must consecrate his tongue to God and use no speech but such as may minister grace unto the hearers Briefly Posterity besides performance of duties common to all must alwayes be zealous observers of those precepts which their fore-fathers have principally transgressed The truth of this Inference is warranted by that very Text of Scripture intirely considered whose first passages are by worldlings brought against it What more common shelter for security in this kind then the Prophets speech The soul that sinneth it shall die Ezek. 18. v. 4. But every soul that sees his fathers sins and sorrows not for them sins them over again And now Lo saith the Prophet if he beget a son that seeth all his fathers sins which he hath done and considereth and doth not such like one that hath not oppressed any nor with-held the pledge one that hath not spoiled by violence shall he by not doing all or any of these escape Gods wrath kindled against his father No Performance of Negatives makes no man just If doing none of these he hath given his bread to the hungry whom his father deprived of food covered the naked whom his father spoiled with a garment And taken off his hand from the poor on whom his fathers hand was heavy if he hath not received usury nor increase but hath executed my judgments and hath walked in my statutes he shall not die for the iniquity of his father saith the Lord he shall live Ezek. 18. 14 15 16. From these Laws thus expounded specially from that of Gods visiting the sins of fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation The reason is plain why some Royal or noble families have had their Fatal Periods in the dayes of such as to the sight of men were no way so heynous offenders as their fore-elders had been With instances to this purpose you that can read may furnish your selves out of Histories sacred and moral domestick and forreign Every one of you may without reading observe that many extortioners or cruel oppressors children come oft-times to greater misery then their fathers in this life suffered albeit they did not so well deserve it in your judgments But if positive or actual transgressions otherwise equal be liable by the Rule of Divine Justice to more then double punishment in the son that hath had fair warnings in his father It is very consonant to the same Rule that the son albeit he do not imitate his fore-fathers in actual transgressions should suffer greater temporal punishments then they did for not confessing their sins as Gods Law requires or not glorifying Gods name by his fidelity in contrary practises of charity and godliness Many children by not making restitution of goods ill gotten by some of their Ancestors have forfeited unto Gods hands whatsoever all had gotten The best way for all to make kingdoms or private inheritances greater in length or duration would be to diminish them in mass or substance by paring off what is tainted or corrupted But leaving these particulars to the Application let us apply the doctrine hitherto generally delivered unto the point in Question We must consider that the Jewish Nation had many fore-warnings of Gods displeasure in the Ages before Zacharias That in his time both Prince and People the whole Nation stood as condemned by that his sentence solemnly pronounced Ex Cathedra ye shall not prosper ye have forsaken the Lord and the Lord hath forsaken you though God tempering his judgments with mercy reprieved this State in hope of amendment But of succeeding Princes some proved more gross Idolaters then Joash had been viz. Ahaz Some shed more innocent blood then he had done so did Manasses And of the people more grew worse few better then their fathers had been such as were better were not so forward to expiate the sins of former times as the worse sort were to augment them And according as they were augmented Gods judgments did gather and multiply by degrees against this people And the sentence solemnly denounced by Zachariah often re-iterated in more severe termes by later Prophets is executed at length according to the full measure of their iniquity witness the first and second destruction of the City and Temple the desolation of the Land and captivity of the whole Nation The whole manner of Gods proceeding against them first in Mercie then in Judgment lastly in Severity and fury is most directly set forth unto us by Our Saviour in the Parable of the Vineyard let out to husbandmen whose estate in it was utterly void upon the first Non-payment of rent if the Lord had dealt in justice with them But though of his servants or rent-gatherers they had beaten one and killed another and stoned a third yet in merciful expectation of their amendment he sent other servants mo then the first and they did unto them likewise Though this iniquity exceeded the former yet the Lords mercy exceeded both and out of his abundant kindness last of all he sent His Son saying They will reverence my Son But as mercy had abounded so their sins did still super-abound For when they saw the Son they said among themselves This is the Heir Come let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance And as they said so they did They caught him and cast him out of the Vineyard and slew him So fully ripe for Justice was iniquity once come to this height that they themselves whom this Case concerns adjudge the authors of this murther uncapable of mercy For to Our Saviour demanding of them When therefore the Lord of the vineyard cometh What will he do unto these husbandmen They make Reply He will miserably destroy those wicked men and will let out his vineyard unto other
husbandmen which shall render him the fruits in their season Matth. 21. Luke 20. Most men I doubt not understand the General meaning of the Parable And it is in effect the same with the Prophets Song of his Beloved concerning his vineyard Esay 5. 1. The one is as a Paraphrase upon the other The histories of this Nation from that time to this is as a full and just Commentary upon both The vineyard of the Lord of hoasts saith the Prophet v. 7. is the house of Israel and the men of Judah his pleasant plants And being reasonable plants they were also the husbandmen here meant The fruits looked for were Iudgment and in stead of it behold oppression righteousness and in lieu hereof behold a Cry These were wild grapes If any list to descend to more particulars By the fruitful hill wherein the vineyard was seated he may understand the hill of Sion or Jerusalem by the Tower the Temple By the hedge the fortifications of Hierusalem begun by David without which our Saviour who is the heir meant in the Gospel was crucified being sentenced to execution within the vineyard The judgment which the chief Priest and Elders gave against themselves was by the Prophet referred unto the Inhabitants of Hierusalem and men of Judah The Tenour of it is the same in the Prophet and the Evangelist I will tell you saith the Prophet what I will do to my vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be troden down And I will lay it waste and it shall not be pruned or digged But there shall come up briars and thorns I will also command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it That is Not whiles it remained in Judah whose mountains are now become like the mountains of Gilboah accursed for the slaughter of the King of Israel The execution of this Sentence was fitted to divers times in different measure according to their unfruitfulness or fertility in bringing forth wild grapes when good grapes were most expected More exactly parallel to the Parable as it is proposed by our Saviour we may besides all other particular diseases or distempers of this flourishing State observe Three principal Climacterical Seasons In the first and second it escapes very hardly and dies in the last The First we take from Zachariah's death a Season wherein God the men or Iudah being Judges might justly expect extraordinary fruit of his vineyard For Jehoiada the High-Priest father in Zachariah had lastly pruned and drest it re-ingrafting Joash as a forlorn Plant into the stock of David from which he had been for a while dis-planted by Athaliah the Queen Regent through whose cruelty all the rest of the Royal Branches utterly perished But instead of grapes the Princes bring forth wild grapes After the death of Jehoiada Came the Princes and made obeysance to the King who hearkened unto them And they left the House of the Lord and served groves So wrath came upon Judah for this trespass Yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear After all this the Spirit of the Lord came upon Zachariah and he said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Lords Commandements that ye cannot prosper 2 Chron. 24. 17 22. He said no more then Moses their Law-giver had expressed in that Divine Song Deut. 32. which this people were to teach their children that it might be a witness against them Notwithstanding in despight of Moses Law and the Spirit of the Lord which emboldened Zachariah to preach it they confirm their desperate league with the Prophets blood that did disswade it Of those other Servants of the Lord sent unto them about the same time we may without breach of charity suspect one at least was beaten and another slain Because it is certain that Zachariah whose Father had deserved so well of King Princes and People of Judah was by the Kings appointment stoned to death And besides the Calamities of warre which befell the Land in the end of that year the Temple in which he died was by his dying curse designed to ruine and destruction It could not be purged from guilt of his guiltless blood but by that fire which in the next generation did devour it Yet before the approach of this Second Climacterical Season The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his Messengers rising up betimes and sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place But they mocked the Messengers of God despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose till there was no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 15 16 17. 8. This affectionate description of Gods tender care and compassion in sending Prophets to reclaim them argues what Our Saviour expresseth in the Parable That he sent moe then before And in the age following Zachariah's death lived all the Prophets whose Prophecies are extant But unto all those though moe they did as they had done unto the former Isaiah as the Jews confess was slain by Manasses Uriah as you heard before was killed by Jehoiakim and Jeremiah sometimes beaten sometimes imprisoned perpetually abused during the reign of Iehoiakim and Zedekiah And so at length the plagues threatned and in part executed upon this people immediately after Zechariah's death are multiplied upon that wicked generation The Rod of Gods wrath is for fashion the same but now more sharp and terrible Their fathers had slain Zachariah in the Temple And for this sin not expiated but continued and approved at least by like practises of this Generation The Lord brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their Sanctuary and had no compassion upon young men or maidens old men or him that stoopeth for age he gave them all into his hand And all the vessels of the House of God great and small and the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of the King and of his Princes all those he brought to Babylon 2 Chron. ch 36. v. 17 18. What are those but meer enlargements of the former calamities which ensued the Butchery of Zacharias which were these It came to pass in the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against Joash and they came to Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from among the people and sent all the spoil of them unto the King of Damascus 2 Chron. 24. 23. Some principal particulars of the spoils here intimated are fully expressed 2 Kings 12. where the rest of this story is omitted And Jehoash King of Judah took all the hallowed things and all the gold found in the treasures of the House of the Lord and in the Kings house and sent it to Hazael King
them for religious Jehoshaphat and the Righteous sakes that lived in it After Iehoshaphats death Iehoram his son reigns in his stead a successor to the Kings of Israel in all wickedness and Idolatry And as his life was wicked so was his estate unfortunate his end terrible and his death ignominious In his dayes did Edom make his final revolt from Iudah 2 Chron. 21. 10. and Libnah at the same time because he had forsaken the God of his fathers And ver 14. Behold saith Elijah to him by a letter with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people and thy children and thy wives and all thy substance And so Gods judgments came upon him and his Children He himself dies of a lingering loathsom disease without the wonted solemnities of Funerals And Ahaziah his youngest son all the elder being slain by the Arabians 2 Chron. 22. 1. is about a year after killed by Jehu executing judgment upon the house of Ahab After all this were All the Royal Seed of Judah destroyed by Athaliah Ioash son of Ahaziah only excepted whose beginnings were good The reformation of Religion was perfect for the external form so long as Iehoiada the Priest did live but not compleat for the number or quality of such as turned to the Lord their God For the Princes hearts were wholly set upon idolatry And the King himself is drawn upon his own destruction by them after Iehoiada's death As his beginnings were good and godly so were his later dayes idolatrous and cruel and Zachariah's blood was recompensed upon his head and upon the head of Amaziah his son who though he were not like his father guilty as principal of actual murther in putting a Prophet to death yet thus farre by Participation guilty of his fathers sin that he is impatient of the Prophets just reproof As his father killed so he threatens the Prophet for reproving him for his sins for taking the gods of Edom for his gods 2 Chron. 25. 14. Have they made thee the Kings Counsellor Cease thou why should they smite thee And the Prophet ceased but said I know the Lord hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my Counsel His doom is read and judgment followes For he is shamefully foyled 2 Chron. 25. 23. by Ioash King of Israel and led captive home to his own good Town of Ierusalem four hundred cubits of whose wals were broke down to make entrance for his triumphant enemies in the sight of his own people And after his freedom bought with his own treasure and with the treasure of the Lords house his own Subjects conspire against him and pursue him unto death where he dies his fathers death by the hands of his Servants 2 Chron. 25. 27. As Amaziah from good beginnings grew idolatrous so Uzziah his son after good success became in his later end sacrilegiously presumptuous For intermedling with the Priests Office he becomes liable to the Priests Tribunal He is judged a Leper and removed from administration of the Kingdom for the leprosie wherewith the Lord had smitten him 2 Chron. 26. 5. Thus in process of time is still the increase of sin either their Kings are wicked as but two from David to Hezekiah's time which continued in good Or if their Kings be vertuous and religious as Iehoshaphat had been and Iotham son to Uzziah now is yet in his dayes again the peoples hearts are not prepared to serve the Lord 2 Kings 15. 35. But the high Places were not put away for the people yet offered and burnt incense in the high places and so kept in the fire of Gods wrath which had been long kindled against Judah but not suffered to burst out into any flame in the dayes of righteous Jotham and such as by his example followed righteousness Nay to encourage others to follow him the Lord gave him victory over the enemies of Judah and He grew mighty because He directed His wayes before the Lord His God 2 Chron. 27 6. 6. But neither did he nor any Prince of Judah since Righteous David so perfectly direct as Ahaz his son did pervert his wayes before the Lord. This is the first that adds stubbornness to infidelity and drunkenness to thirst as the Spirit tels us 2 Chron. 28. 22. In his tribulation did he yet trespass more against the Lord this is King Ahaz saith the Text you must expect a remarkable monster in his dealings For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus which plagued him and he said Because the gods of the Kings of Aram helped them I will sacrifice unto them and they will help me yet they were his ruine and of all Israel ver 23. This people was alwayes prone to wickedness even during the reign of most religious Kings but are now so violently carried to all mischief having got this preposterous Monster for their Governor that as a ship sailing with advantage of wind and tide and help of oares continues motion when sail is stricken and Rowers cease so Jerusalem and Judah after Ahaz their Commander in mischief ceased from his wicked labours held on still their mischievous courses even in good King Hezekiah's dayes 7. Whereas God 's threatnings had been but particular heretofore either to the King alone or to his Line and House or of some momentary desolation upon the Land Now God thunders out a General Deluge of Calamity to the City and Temple by the Prophet Micah Sion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall be an heap and the mountain of the house shall be as the high places of the forrest Here the scattered clouds of Gods judgments which had long soared over Judah are gathered as it were into one shower ready to fall upon her as it were an Hawk stooping to her prey but that good King Hezekiah and the people by his example laid fast hold upon his mercies and averted his fierce wrath from them by hearty and unfeigned prayer They feared the Lord and prayed before him and the Lord repented him of the evil that he had pronounced against them Whiles I behold the Compleat Reformation which Hezekiah wrought and the peoples will to accord with him therein Me thinks I hear the Lord wishing from heaven as he did sometimes to their fathers in the wilderness Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such an heart in them to fear me and to keep all my Commandements alway that it might go well with them and with their children for ever But Hezekiah did not render according to the reward bestowed upon him For his heart was lifted up and wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem 2 Chron. 32. v. 25. Not that it did seize upon them but that it was ready to smite For as it follows ver 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself after his heart was lift up he and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and the wrath of the Lord came not upon
them in the dayes of Hezekiah but of Manasseh his son who pulled it down upon his own and his peoples heads For as it is registred 2 Kin. 21. 3. He went back and built the high places which Hezekiah his Father had destroyed and erected Altars for Baal and made a grove as did Ahab King of Israel and worshipped all the Hoast of Heaven and served them And as if he meant to thrust the Lord out of his own House He built Altars in it of the which the Lord said In Jerusalem will I put my Name And he built Altars for all the Hoast of Heaven in the two Courts of the House of the Lord ver 45. And besides these and many other sins wherewith he caused Judah to sin and to do evil in the sight of the Lord after the abominations of the Heathen which the Lord had cast out before them he filled Jerusalem from corner to corner with innocent blood whose cry did fill the Courts of Heaven So both he and his people are plagued for their grievous sins He is the First King of Judah that is led into Captivity yet upon his returning to the Lord his God he is restored again But his good example doth not move his peoples hearts unto like repentance as his former bad example had caused them to sin Wherefore albeit the Lord repent him of the evil which had befallen his person yet Amon his son and successor imitating his fathers sins but not his repentance 2 Chron. 33. 21. doth he not turn away from his fierce wrath wherewith he was angry against Judah albeit Josiah his vertuous Nephew or Grand-child had turned to him with all his heart and with all his soul according to all the Law of Moses Manassch's sin therefore is said to be the Cause why the Lord did cast off Judah in such a sense as the Addition of the last weight may be said to cast the scale which was inclined that way before albeit restrained from motion by a counterpoize until the last weight over-powred the Restraint God's wrath remained stil upon the Land from Salomon's and Rehoboam's reign And the weight of his judgments was daily increased more and more howsoever the final execution of them was deferred at the instant prayers of religious Kings and righteous people But now Manassch hath made up the full measure of all his fore-fathers sins the weight of God's Judgments hath so farre over-grown his Mercies that there is no hope of recovery left unless Prince Priest and People would fill Jerusalem as full with their repentant tears as Manassch had with blood and devote the whole course of their life to doing good as their fore-fathers had sold themselves to work wickedness which good Josiah for his part performs and so deads the stroke of God's judgments whilst they are in motion But his peoples hearts are not so strongly set on their God Although they joyn with him in renewing the Covenant betwixt God and them the chief strength of their zeal and fervencie is spent in the first Act of Repentance or in the Motion of their Retire to God Their Permanent Disposition and Propension is not firm Their very turning unto God is rather forced then voluntary so as they hold off God's judgments only for a time As if a man by haling and pulling with might and main should keep some heavie and mighty body from falling or some great weight from swaying the full compasse whereas the solid weight of it still remains the same and will have full sway when his actual strength fails him Thus they quickly become weary of well-doing and God's heaviest judgments take their course For however it be said 2 Chron. 34. 33. That they did not turn back from the Lord God of their fathers all the dayes of Josiah Yet was this their cleaving to him but compelled It consisted more in the outward solemnity or publick fashion then in inward sincerity and integrity They did not profess or openly practise the solemn worship of strange gods but had still a longing after foreign fashions as appears out of the Prophet Zephanie who wrote of those times Chap 1. 8 9. And it shall be in the day of the Lord's sacrifice that I will visit the Princes and the Kings Children and all such as are clothed with strange apparel In the same day also will I visit all those that dance upon the threshold so proudly which fill their Masters houses by cruelty and deceit The corruption of both the Clergy and Magistracie had continued greivous from Hezekiah's dayes wherein it cried for vengeance And this peoples repentance of these sins in Josiah's dayes was either none or but feigned and hypocritical as the same Prophet testifieth Chap. 3. ver 1 2 3 4. Wo to her that is filthy and polluted to the robbing City She heard not the voice She received not correction She trusted not in the Lord She drew not near to her God Her Princes within her are as roaring Lyons Her Judges are as Wolves in the evening which leave not the bones till the morrow Her Prophets are light and wicked persons Her Priests have polluted the Sanctuary they have wrested the Law And even for this peoples pronenesse to fulfil the measure of their fore-fathers sins was good Iosiah removed from off the earth lest Gods judgments should come upon Jerusalem in his dayes And no marvel if the fulness of Judah's sin be accomplished in Iosiah's dayes though he were the most righteous Prince of David's line For sin and iniquity may so abound in a Land and people that albeit Noah Job and Daniel lived amongst them they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness And it is one of the best notes that I have somewhere found That men should not lay all the blame on Princes where States miscarry seeing it is said that Hosea in whose dayes Israel was led into captivity was either the best or least evil of all the Kings of Israel 2 King 17. He did evil indeed in the sight of the Lord but not as the Kings of Israel that were before him ver 2. Which equity of Gods judgments in like Cases Franciscus Sforza the last Duke of that race in Millain and the far best of all his kindred except the first did with humility acknowledge before the foolish Politicians School-mistress Experience taught him the truth by the evidence of the event For when his wise and gravest Counsellors did humbly intreat him in the behalf of State and Country to suffer at least some provisions to be brought up secretly as his own lest Millain might be delivered up to some Forrainer He requested them to set their hearts at rest The unhappy family had run their race and it was impossible but that the bloody practises of his Ancestors should blot out the very name in him A Prince though otherwise in Charles the fifths esteem the wisest of all the Italian Princes
in his time yet herein indued with wisdom in an higher rank then the stateliest Potentates are wont to trouble themselves withal in that he could so well foresee There was no counsel against the Lord whose Decrees concerning any Land or People then usually take place when as Posterity seeks earnestly by secular Policie to patch up the rents and breaches of a State decayed ruinate by the heavie burthen of their Predecessors sins Such was the temper of Iosiah's States-men Princes though his heart was of another metal and had been fashioned in another mold Wherefore the Book of the Law which had long laid buried is now risen out of the dust to proclaim Ierusalems downfal and Sions burial in her ashes And this sentence of the Law now found is ratified by the Prophetess Huldahs mouth Gods wrath shall presently be kindled against this place and shall not be quenched But unto good Josiah who sought the Prophetesses and not the Politicians advice is this sole comfort left To the King of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord so shall ye say unto him Because thine heart did melt and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this place and against the Inhabitants of the same to wit that it should be destroyed and accursed and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me I have also heard it saith the Lord. Behold therefore I will gather thee to thy fathers and thou shalt be put in thy grave in peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place 2 King 22. 18. 8. But should not his righteousness have saved him Or is this to be put in his grave in peace to be slain by his enemies Yes this his burial was in peace in that he was buried in the Sepulchres of his Fathers and mourned for by all his people without the molestation of their enemies This was a blessing of peace which none of his Sons or Successors enjoyed For of them all not one but dies captive in the enemies Land or in their own without the decencie of Princely funerals And who knows Whether Iosiah's violent death was deserved by going to battel without the Lords advice Yea who knows whether the Lord did not thus suddenly take him away partly to prevent the increase of that disease wherewith no Prince of all the stock of Iudah but had been more or less infected and which now as it seemeth was growing on him All of them in their prosperity began to trade in secular Policie whose practise was Jerusalems ruine and Iudahs wreck howsoever right dear in the sight of the Lord was the death of this holy and religious King who if he had lived the longer should have died the oftner His Childrens and peoples sins are now full ripe for the sword and their vengeance hastens on so fast that either he must suddenly die or else see their manifold miseries farre worse then so many several deaths For what pangs would it have caused in his tender heart which melted even whilest the noise of Ierusalems curse did but approach his ears if his eyes should have beheld the flames of Gods fierce wrath devouring her gates and his ears had been filled with her woful out-cries in the dayes of mourning For Ieremie or Baruch two Prophets so poor that their fore-warnings of these miseries could not merit any credit with this politick generation to live and see the event was a blessing of God and bare life given them a bountiful prey But what benefit could so great a Prince have reaped by life What comfort in length of dayes to have seen the children of his loins born unto higher hopes then any Princes of the world besides either led captive into the enemies land or made a prey unto the birds of heaven in their own Much better an enemies arrow stick once for all fast in his side then that the sword should continually pierce thorow his soul whilst he should see his dearest people cut down like grass and Iudah the Lords inclosure laid open like a common field to their bordering enemies spoil and Ierusalem his hearts joy which the Lord had hedged and walled about laid waste like a forlorn vineyard whose grapes were wild and naught Yet such are the dayes which immediately ensue his death The Land is one while ransackt by the Egyptian another while made tributary to the Chaldean another while forraged by the Aramite Ammonite and Moabite until it was utterly laid waste For judgment is here begun already at the house of God and in godly Iosiah's fall might the ungodly Iudah read her Fatal Destiny registred in Characters of blood And doubtlesse at this his sudden unexpected end the execution of Gods fierce and violent wrath did begin Of the successive degrees whereof I shall God willing hereafter speak For the Manner of it I only note thus much now in general That not all the wisdom of their most Politick Enemies albeit the Lord had given them libertie to have plotted this peoples overthrow at their pleasure could have invented so readie and sure a course for their swift destruction as this people themselves in great Policie to their seeming still make choice of Not one project which they can forecast but proves an inevitablegin to intrap themselves and is as a fatal snare unto their owne feet 9. First good Josias without Warrant from God or his Prophets advice thinks it in Policie the safest course to assault the Egyptian in the confines of his Country lest afterwards he should be enforced to defend himselfe upon harder termes nearer to the heart of Judah from his Enemie strengthned with the spoile of her borders so jealous he is of Nechoh's purpose which meant him no harm that his word will not serve him for warrant albeit his words as the Text saith were from the mouth of God The issue of his policie is that he himself is slain and Pharaoh Nechoh by this his unseasonable provocation took a fair pretence of invading the Land after his death and condemns it in an hundred talents of Silver and a talent of gold And for the effecting of this his purpose the people themselves had given occasion for they no doubt out of some politick purpose had preferred the * younger brother Iehoahaz to the Kingdom who poor Caitiff in stead of swaying Davids Scepter in the promised Land is after three months space led Captive in chains like a Bond-slave into Egypt whence the Lord had redeemed the meanest of this peoples forefathers So contrary hath Iudah been in all her courses that all the glorious hopes of Davids Line run backwards So farre is the Calendar of Ierusalems good dayes run out of date such are the revolutions of times that this Light which they had set up for David hath taken darkness for its habitation The Sun of their Comfort is set before it came to the
Master good Service in so just a quarrel would first begin to try his Valour in the Reformation of his own life in expelling all dissolute and inveterate lusts all immoderate and unruly desires out of his own heart So shall the words of his mouth and the Meditations of his heart be alwaies acceptable in the sight of the Lord his only strength and his Redeemer In whose strength and valor alone we must assault and vanquish our malicious Adversaries And unless Reformation do certainly judgement will begin at the Houses of God at those living Temples of his which have the platformes of true Religion in them but are not edified in good works Let not the Eunuch say I am a dry tree Nor let the meanest amongst us either in Learning Wit or outward Estate think that he can do nothing in this case For if we have but true faith we all know That it is not the resolute Soldiers arm nor these verest Magistrates sword nor the cunningest Politicians head nor the Potent Custom of Law that sets or keeps Kings Crownes upon their Heads but the lifting up of pure hearts and holding up clean hands to him that giveth wisdome to the Wise and strength to the Strong to him which hath the Soldiers arme the Magistrates sword the Politicians Wisdom all Power all Fulness at his disposal Wherefore Beloved in our Lord If either love to God or love to Prince if either love to that Religion which we professe or love unto those pleasant places which we inhabit or the good things belonging to them which we possesse If love to any or all of these can move our hearts as whose heart is there but is moved to some of these Oh let them move them in time unto repentance that we may enjoy these blessings the longer Let us draw neer unto our God and he will draw near to us Let us cleanse our minds and lift up pure hands and hearts unto the Lord for only such can lay fast hold upon his mercie lest our continuance in our own dayly transgressions added to the heavy weight of our predecessors sinnes pull downe Gods sudden judgements upon this Land Prince and People 13. And as for such O Lord as set their faces against heaven and against thee to work wickedness in thy sight and hold on still to fill up the full measure of their forefathers sins and cause the over-flowing vengeance of thy wrath Lord let them all perish suddenly from the earth and let their posterity vanish hence like smoke ere for their provocations wherewith they provoke thee daily the breath of our nostrils thine annointed Servant be taken in those nets which the uncircumcised daily spread for him And let us Beloved whom he loves so dearly seek to fill this Land with the good example of our lives and incense of our hearty prayers That under his shadow and the shadow of his Royal Off-spring we of this place with this Land and People may be preserved alive from all strange or domestick tyrannie Amen CHAP. XLV MATTH 23. verse 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent to thee how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not 1. THe Summe of my last Meditations upon the former verses was That notwithstanding our Saviours Prediction or threatning of all those plagues shortly to befal Jerusalem there was even at this time A Possibilitie left for this people to have continued a flourishing Nation A Possibilitie left for their Repentance That their Repentance and Prosperity was the End whereat the Lord himself did aim in sending Prophets and Wise-men and lastly his only Son unto them The Former of the two Parts The Possibilitie of their Prosperitie and Repentance was proved from the perpetual Tenor of Gods Covenant with this people first made with Moses afterward renewed with David and Solomon and ratified by Jeremie and Ezekiel The Tenor of the Covenant as you then heard was a Covenant not of Death only but of Life and Death of Life if they continued faithful in his Covenant of Death if they continued in disobedience The later Part of the same Assertion viz. That this Peoples Repentance and Prosperitie was the end intended by God was proved from that Declaration of his desire of their everlasting Prosperitie Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such a heart in this people to fear me and keep my Commandments alwaies that it might go well with them and their posteritie for ever And the like place Psalm 81. v. 13. Isai 48. 18. These places manifest Gods love and desire of this peoples safety But the Abundance the Strength with the unrelenting Constancie and tenderness of his love is in no place more fully manifested then in these words of my Text. The abundant fervencie we may note in the very first words in that his mouth which never spake idle nor superfluous word doth here ingeminate the Appellation O Jerusalem Jerusalem This he spake out of the abundance of his love But Love is oft-times fervent or abundant for the present or whiles the Object of our love remains amiable yet not so constant and perpetual if the qualitie of what we loved be changed But herein appears the strength and constancie of Gods love that it was thus fervently set upon Ierusalem not only in her pure and virgin dayes or whiles she continued as chaste and loyal as when she was affianced unto the Lord by David but upon Ierusalem often drunk with the cup of Fornications upon Her long stained and polluted with the blood of his dearest Saints which she had even mingled with her Sacrifices Upon Jerusalem and her children when after he had cleansed her infected habitations with fire and carried her inhabitants beyond Babylon into the North-land as into a more fresh and pure aire Yet after their return thence and replantation in their own Land returned with the dog to his vomit and with the washed Sow to wallowing in the mire God would have gathered even as the Hen doth her chickens under her wings c. 2. In which words besides the tendernesse of Gods Love toward these Castawayes is set out unto us the safety of his Protection so they would have been gathered For as there is no creature more kind and tender then the Hen unto her young ones none that doth more carefully shroud and shelter them from the storm none that doth more closely hide them from the eye of the Destroyer so would God have hidden Jerusalem under the shadow of his wings from all those stormes which afterward overwhelmed her and from the Roman Eagle to whom this whole generation present became a prey If so Jerusalem with her children after so many hundred years experience of his fatherly love and tender care had not remained more foolish than the new hatched brood of reasonless creatures If so they had not been
Prophets Wise men and Apostles to reclaim them if they would have hearkned to him or his Messengers Admonitions S. Luke puts this out of Controversie for repeating part of this story he saith expresly Therefore also said the Wisdom of God I will send them Prophets c. And Christ is styled The Wisdom of God not as man but as God and Consequently He spake these words not as man only but as God The same compassion and burning Love the same thirst and longing after Jerusalems safety which we see here manifested by a manner comprehensible to flesh and blood in these words of our Saviour in my Text or the like uttered by him Luke 19 with tears and sobs we must believe to be as truly as really and unfeignedly in the Divine Nature though by a manner incomprehensible to flesh and blood How any such flagrant desire of their welfare which finally perish should be in God we cannot conceive because our minds are more dazeled with that inaccessible Light which he inhabits then the eyes of Batts and Owles are by gazing on the Sun To qualifie this Incomprehensible Glorie of the Deitie the Wisdom of God was made Flesh that we might safely behold the true module or proportion of Divine Goodness in our Nature as the eye which cannot look upon the Sun in his strength or as it shines in the Firmament may without offence behold it in the water being an Element homogeneal to its own substance Thus should all Christs Prayers desires or pathetical wishes of mans safetie be to us as so many visible pledges or sensible Evidences of Gods Invisible and Incomprehensible Love and so he concludes his last Invitation of the Jewes I have not spoken of my selfe but the Father which sent me he gave me Commandment what I should say and what I should speak And I know that his Commandment is everlasting life whatsoever I spake therefore even as the Father said unto me so I spake Joh. 12. ver 49 50. And what saith our Saviour more in his own then the Prophet had done in the Name and Person of his God Isai 49. v. 14. Sion complained the Lord hath for saken me and my Lord hath forgotten me But he answered Can a woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee Behold I have graven thee upon the palmes of my hands c. These and the like Places of the Prophets compared with our Saviours speech here in my Text give us plainly to understand That whatsoever Love any mother can bear to the fruit of her womb unto whom her bowels of compassion are more tender then the fathers can be or whatsoever affection any dumb Creature can afford unto their tender brood the like but greater doth God bear unto his children Unto the Elect most will grant But is his Love so tender towards such as perish Yes the Lord carried the whole Hoste of Israel even the stubborne and most disobedient as the Eagle doth her young ones upon her wings Exod. 19. 4. Earthly Parents will not vouchsafe to wait perpetually upon their children The Hen continueth not her Call from morning to night nor can she endure to hold out her wings all day for a shelter to her young ones as they grow great and refuse to come she gives over to invite them But saith the Lord by his Prophet I have spred out my hand all the day unto a rebellious people which walketh in a way that was not good after their own thoughts A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face that sacrificeth in gardens and burneth incense upon Altars of bricks which remain among the graves and lodg in the monuments which eat Swines flesh and broth of abominable things is in their vessels which say adding hypocrisie unto filthinesse and Idolatry stand by thy self come not neer unto me for I am holier then thou Isai 65. ver 2 3 4. Such they were and so conceited of our Saviour with whom he had in his life time oft to deal and for whose safetie he prayed with teares before his Passion These and many like passages of Scripture are pathetically set forth by the Spirit to assure us That there is no desire like unto the Almighties desire of sinful mans Repentance no Longing to his Longing after our Salvation If Gods Love to Iudah comen to the height of rebellion had beene lesse then mans or other Creatures Love to what they affect most dearely If the Meanes he used to reclaim her had been fewer or lesse probable then any others had attempted for obtaining their most wished End his Demand to which the Prophet thought no possible Answer could be given might easily have been put off by these incredulous Jewes unto whom he had not referred the judgment in their own Cause if they could have instanced in man or other Creature more willing to do what possibly they could do either for themselves or others then he was to do whatsoever was possible to be done for them And now O Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judg I pray you betwixt me and my Vineyard what could more have been done to my vineyard that I have not done to it Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes Isa 5. v. 3 4. 6. But the greater we make the Truth and Extent of Gods Love the more we increase the difficultie of the Second Point proposed For amongst women many there be that would amongst dumb Creatures scarce any that would not redeeme their sucklings from death by dying themselves Yet what is it that they can do which they would not do to save their owne lives And did not God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son for it Yes for the world of the Elect I see not why any should be excluded from the number But to let that passe Gods desire of their repentance which perish is undoubtedly such as hath been said Yet should we say that he hath done all that could be done for them How chanceth it that all are not saved Was the Vineyard more barren then Sarah the fruit of whose womb he made like the Stars of the sky or as the sands by the Sea shore innumerable Was it a matter more hard to make the impenitent Jew bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance then to make a Virgin conceive and beare a son If it were not how chanceth it the Word of the Lord and that but a short one should bring the One to joyful Issue whilst the other the repentance of the Jewes and other ungodly men after so many exhortations and threatnings after so many promises of comfort and so many denunciations of woes as the Prophets the Apostles and their Successors have used is not to this day nor ever will be accomplished If repentance of men born and brought up in