genitor posthac non versificabor Or not coneiv'd the Divine Mind not able to do that when it would which his did against his will Secondly had they been the result of humane Industry it could not be of those men that were not in Being till after he was in his Grave as the Christian Name it self was And lastly had he had Authority on his side which is the main proof in matters of fact he would rather have produced Witnesses to depose who was the suspected father by what Legerdemain they gain'd the repute of being Sibyls and that among the Romans where none could be canonized for such till they had undergone the severest censure that humane Wit could invent to try their legitimacy by than attempt to prove them Bastards by such weak reasons as have not force enough to repel the single Testimony of any one person that is not of profligated credit much less the united Vote of the uninterrupted succession of the whole College of the Quindecim-viri and most knowing Pagan Divines who before Tully was born upon serious examination had past them for Sibylline and after the divulging his reasons to the contrary persisted in the Opinion That they were not of humane Invention but divine Extraction Briefly I shall despair of ever disputing those men out of their preoccupations with whom the Rhetorical flourishes of one Orator or the Fancy of one Augur and he prejudic'd by interest is of more weight than the joynt authority of so many Sages and the general Voice of all people who had no temptation to be too favourable but rather over-severe in their sentencing those Books to be Sibyls which imported not only such alterations in general as the forethought of is naturally sormidable to all honest men of settled and composed spirits that love not to fish in troubled waters but particularly the erecting of a Monarchy in Judea that should over-top the Roman Empire Having therefore thus laid the foundation and proved the Sibylline Oracles to have been in common repute of divine Original and those to have past for Sibyls by the Vote of those Ages were best able to judge out of which the Primitive Church made her allegations I proceed to shew that all they who imbraced those Oracles and they were the far greater part of the cultivated World were of opinion if not faith that the Universal Redeemer could not be any created blessed Spirit but the Eternal God himself who to that end was to be incarnate this being the Respond of those Oracles they held to be divine § 5. Erythraea in the beginning of her Song celebrates the Son of the high God with these Titles Lactant. de vera sap 4. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The all-refreshing Creator who gives the sweet Spirit to all and whom God hath made the head over all Gods And concludes that Song thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Him hath God given to all that believe in him to bring them to honour or God hath given to all men that believe to crown him with honour or to esteem him the ancient of days for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senex and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honor are so near a kin as the one is derived of the other and that in the judgment of Plato who in the 2. of his Polit. hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having old men in honour However Sibyl here teacheth That the same God is the cherisher the refresher the restorer of all who is the Creator of all and whom God hath made high above all Gods and given to them that believe to honour him as him that bringeth them to Glory Another Sibyl quoted by the same Father sings thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acknowledge him for thy peculiar or proper God who is the Son of God This brings to mind that fore-cited passage in Porphyry The intellectual Soul cannot by any Theurgical purgations be made capable to apprehend its proper God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as it confirms the legality of this quotation for it was from this Sibylline and no where else that I can find that that great Philosopher had this Notion so it implies the learned World's preoccupation with this conceit That none of their reputed Gods was that proper Saviour of Mankind who was to work out the Souls perfect Redemption and seems to be a transcript of that older one He is the Lord thy God and worship thou him Psal. 45. A Cure to be effected only by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word as Sibyl elsewhere expresseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Working all things and curing all diseases by his word They conceiv'd God might delegate particular Cures to Local Deities but the all-curing God must be the all-making God and that none could restore but that Word by which all things were created In manifest allusion to that of the Psalmist In them he hath set a tabernacle for the sun Another Sibyl thus warbles quoted by Lactan. de divino praemio 7. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God shall send a King from the Sun who shall make peace all over the Earth To which Julian alluded in that quotation of his which hath formerly been alledged who not daring to question the authentiqueness of this Sibylline and taking it for granted that the common Saviour must come from the Sun that his Aesculapius might according to this Oracle be qualified for that Office fancied him to have descended by the Sun-beams into this World And St. James in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness nor shadow of change The comprehensively good and every way perfect Gift the All-heal descends not from this visible Sun which every day appears in several habitudes and positions and every year is farther from us or nearer to us after the proportion of its moving toward the Northern or Southern Tropick from whence it casts several shadows to the several parts of the World some being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that cast no shadows at all some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that cast shadows on one side and some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that cast shadows round about But from that Fountain of Light that 's exempted from all mutation From inacceisible Light came that Sun of righteousness which arose upon all Nations with healing under his Wings This is the only God can save to the uttermost whom as the Oracle of the Milesian Apollo Lactant. de ira Dei describes the God of Judea infernal Devils fear Of which and the like Responds St. Austin de consensu Evangelist 1. 15. de civitate Dei 19. 23. writes thus Quidam eorum Philosophi sicut Porphyrius Siculus in libris suis prodidit consuluerunt Deos suos quid de Christo responderent illi autem Oraculis suis Christum laudare compulsi sunt nec
to be not of God's Will as St. Austin de haeresibus affirms Hermes to have thought the ineffable Word to be Filius benedicti Dei bonae voluntatis The Son of the blessed God and his good Will upon which St. Austin thus flouts the Pagan Quaerebas Pagane conjugem Dei audi Mercurium Abjiciatur quaeso ex corde tuo impura pravitas Conjux Dei bona voluntas est Thou demandest of what Wife God begat his Son Let Mercury answer thee Cast I pray thee impure pravity out of thine heart The wife of God is his own good Will of that he begat his Son In the expressing of whose Eternal Generation though the Gentiles spake not by Rule as we do yet they blunder'd out our sence and communicated the Reliques of the Old Tradition of the eldest Nations in such Terms as they could Trismegistus referente Lactantio de vera Religione 4. 6. in his Book entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfect Word The Lord and Creator of all things whom we usually call God begat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the second Person visible and sensible I call him sensible not saith Trismegistus because he hath sence that 's not our business now to resolve but because the Father sends him to reveal himself to the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 parallel to St. Paul's God manifest in the flesh to our Saviours He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also and to St. John's No man hath seen God at any time but the only begotten son who is in the bosom of God he hath reveil'd him Hermes proceeds because therefore he produced him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first and one and alone and because he was pleasing in his sight and full of Grace of all truly good things he sanctified him and loved him exceedingly as his own proper Son Upon which St. Austin hath this Observation Quem primò factum dixit poste à unigenitum appellavit Augustin de 5. haeresibus him whom before he said God made he afterwards calls his Son and begotten This Son of God Trismegistus as he is there quoted by Lactantius de vera Religione l. 4. c. 6. stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Workman and Sibyl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Counceller because by his Councel and Hand he fram'd the World These passages in truth as well in the judgement of Lactantius and St. Austin for he makes the same both quotations and applications of Hermes and the Sibyllines tom 6. de quinque haeresibus are a Transcript of that divine Discourse of Solomon touching Wisdom Prov. 8. 22. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old when he prepared the heavens I was there then was I by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight Trismegistus referent Lactant. l. 4. c. 7. affirms That the Cause of this Cause is the Will of the sacred Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which produced that God God the Son whose name it is not possible for humane mouth to express and a little after speaking to his Son saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is a certain ineffable word of Wisdom of that Lord of all of whom we have preoccupations or preconceptions which to expressis above the power of man This ineffable word Zeno asserts to be the Maker and Governour of the whole World Id. ib. cap. 9. item Tertual apolog contragentes cap. 21. Apud vestros quoque sapientes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est sermonem atque rationem constat artificem videri universitatis Hunc enim Zeno determinat factorem qui cuncta in dispositione formaverit c. § 3. Now that he who is this Light of Light this God-born of the Essence of his Father before all Worlds was in the opinion of the wisest Heathens to become Man for the Redemption of the World to become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mortal in regard of his assumed humane Nature as the Milesian Oracle answered those that enquired whether he were God or man may be evident from the Testimony of the Sibyls and indeed was from thence so clearly evinc'd by the Patriarchs of the Christian Cause as the Adversaries had no place of refuge left but this sorry one That the Verses alledged were not Sibylline but forged by the Christians as long since complain'd St. Austin Quod à sanctis Angelis vel ab ipsis Prophetis nostris habere poterunt quae cùm proferimus à nostris ficta esse contendunt August de consens Evangel lib. 1. c. 20. Tom. 4. pag. 164. b. That which the Sibyls sing touching Christ They might learn either of the holy Angels or the Writings of the Prophets but when we urge Pagans with their Verses they contend that we Christians forged them And before him Constantine in his Oration cap. 19. where he mentions and answers that Calumny In which way of calumniating that most immaculate Spouse of Christ the Primitive Church with a suspicion of the most damnable Adulterations that any Society can be guilty of some of our Modern Criticks have not been afraid nor asham'd to run with the Pagan Wits but with far more excess of impious scorn and to the utter subversion of all rational Belief for if that Church was so far deserted not only of Grace but common Honesty as to forge Sibylline what assurance can we have that she did not forge Divine Oracles I shall therefore first for the preventing of an inundation of Irreligion make up the Bank that has been cut by those too sharp Wits to whom nothing was wanting to render them absolutely and without exception judicious save the learning of the first Lesson in that Science To be wise with Sobriety 1. Lactanctius de vera sapientia 4. 15. would tell these Calumniators that were they as well read as they pretend themselves to be they would never have made this Objection Quod profectò non putabit qui Ciceronem Varronémque legerint aliósque veteres qui Erythraeam Sibyllam caeterásque commemorant quarum exempla proferrimus qui Authores autè obierunt quà m Christus secundùm carnem nasceretur The Verses of the Sibyls which the Church alledged she found quoted in the writings of Tully Varro and other old Writers who were in their Graves before the blessed Babe lay in the Manger Touching Varro the same Father de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 6. gives us this account and therein resolves the Question of Tacitus whether there were more Sibyls than one Annal. 6. An una seu plures fuerint Sibyllae M. Varro than whom never man was more learned either among the Greeks or Latins in those Books which he writ to Caesar the Great Pontiff speaking of the Quindecimviri saith that the Sibylline Books were not the Works of any one Sibyl though they were all called Sibylline because all Women-prophetesses were of the ancients called Sibyls either from the Delphick Prophetess of that name or from their
this Story neither names Israel but Saturn whose Soul after his death assumed for its heavenly body the Planet so called nor his but his wifes the Nymph Anobretha sacrificing of her only Son after the death of his Father 3. Thirdly he relates this fact of Saturn or his Wife as an imitation of the ancient Custom of that Nation to sacrifice the Princes most beloved Son in times of eminent danger to that Deity that takes vengeance of sin for the pacifying of his wrath Morem priscis cùm itaque Saturnus rex Eus. pr. evan 1. 7. So far is Porphyry out in his alledging Abraham or Israel as the Samplar out of which the Heathen World transcrib'd that bloody Copy as his own Author makes that very fact of Abraham which he alledgeth to have been done in observance of a Custom in ure long before Abraham was 4. Porphyry for the credit of Sanchoniathon affirmeth that he gather'd his Antiquities out of the Records of the several Cities the sacred Inscriptions in the Temples and of Jerom-Baal the Priest of the God Irvo or Jao If we admit this Jerom-baal to have been Gideon whom the Scripture calls Jerub-baal which is of the same sense in the Phoenician Language only after their custom changing one b into m as in Ambubaiae Sambucus c. it will not follow that this Author was contemporary with Gideon for he might use Gideon's Records after his death and in all likelihood came to the knowledg of him and them by means of that intercourse betwixt the Israelites and the Inhabitants of Berith where Sanchoniathon lived the worship of whose God Baal-Berith the Israelites fell to after Gideon's death But that he was not elder than Gideon doth necessarily follow from hence see Dr. Stillingfleet Orig. l. 1. cap. 2. sect 3. 4. and indeed 't is manifest he was much younger than Gideon from which Chronological Concession of those that are of opinion that the Heathens sacrificed Children in imitation of Abraham I argue against that opinion thus If the story of Abraham's Fact had not till that time arrived by Oral Tradition at their next door neighbours the Phaenicians but must be fetch'd out of Hebrew Records till then unknown to the greatest Antiquary the Heathen World affords how can it be imagin'd that the report thereof should reach all over Canaan so many hundreds of years before that wherein children were made oblations so long even before Moses as he speaks thereof as of ancient use among them Even their sons and their daughters have they burn'd in the fire to their Gods Deut. 12. 31. In which particular God himself is so far from suspecting the Gentiles would or did follow Israel as he gives Israel caution not to follow the Gentiles Thou shalt not enquire after their Gods saying How did these Nations serve their Gods even so will I do likewise vers 30. which would have been to small purpose had the Gentiles in those oblations followed Abraham for the Jew might then have replyed to the Prophets rebuking him for that practise that therein he followed the Nations in nothing but wherein they followed Abraham whom those very Prophets bid them look to who were sent to rebuke them for sacrificing their sons and daughters to Molech It would have been more seasonable in that case had the case been as our Opponents imagine to have warned them not to look to Abraham but to the intentions of God to try Abraham's Love and Faith in his tempting him to offer his only Son and his Son of Promise But the Psalmist Psal. 106. 35. hath determin'd it beyond all doubt that the Israelites in sacrificing their Sons and Daughters served the Idols of Canaan and learned their works that is those abominations which the Canaanites had practised as Moses saith before Israel came among them and for which Israel should have rooted them out Nay so far were the Canaanites from learning these works of Abraham which Abraham's Posterity learn'd of them as that before Abraham's tryal the old Inhabitants of Canaan by reason of these works began to look white towards Harvest though as yet their sins were not fully ripe Gen 15. 16. yea Moses having spoken of offering sons to Molech among other of their bestialities Levit. 18. 21. as the sins that God visited upon the Canaanites vers 25. tells the Israelites ver 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all these same abominations have the men of this Land who were before you done and this Land hath been defiled upon which Text Philo Judaeus saith Barbaras quoque gentes per multas aetates litasse mactatis filiis cujus sceleris Moses eos accusat de Abrahamo pag. 243. It appears that the Gentiles for many Ages before Abraham did sacrifice children from Moses his saying The men of this Land Canaan who inhabited it before you did do all these abominations and the land was defiled 5. Had those circumjacent Nations taken up that practice from Abraham's Example what better Argument could they have used than that to induce the Jews to it and sure had the Jews upon that reason conform'd to that Gentile Rite we should have heard them plead that for their adhering to it rather than those sorry reasons they bring for their resolute contumacy and pertinacious resistance of the Prophet's motion to them to forsake it As for the word that thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord we will not hearken to thee we will do as we have done for then it was well with us we had plenty and peace c. how much more strenuous would this reply have been then we did well for we followed Abraham 6. If the Phoenicians had no knowledg of Abraham's fact till Sanchoniathon found it in the Jewish Records so long after Moses how could the knowledge of it reach in almost as short a time as far south as Affrica as far north as Scythia as far east as India for 't is not to be conceiv'd from whence but India or Tartary the Americans derive their Pedigree or the Inhabitants of the Caroline Islands the worship of Molech whose Images in that form wherein they are described by Diodorus Siculus in the twentieth Book of his Bibliotheca were found there by the first discoverers of that Island who also affirmed that they threw children as sacrifices into the glowing hands of that Idol who were there scalded to death by vertue of a fire within the hollow body of the Image of all which Vives received good intelligence just as he was commenting upon the 19. Chapter of the 7. Book of St. Austin de Civitate Dei which treats upon that subject As far west as Hercules Pillars that is through all the Nations of which ancient History gives us account For this custom of sacrificing men to appease the divine wrath will appear to have been in a manner universal almost if not altogether as early as that Age wherein the most critical Computers affirm Sanconiathon
lib. 1. cap. 10. 11. But to spare the labour of multiplying Instances that place of Plato I mention'd at the beginning of this discourse is abundantly sufficient where those blessed spirits that descended to take care of Mankind are said to have given them Laws neither that of Origen against Celsus lib. 5. cap. 1. whom he charges in his affirming that never any God or Son of God came down from Heaven to reveal divine Counsels to oppose the Vulgar and received Opinion of Philosophers and proves that charge by many clear instances one of which we have Act. 14. 12. when St. Paul had by a word speaking presently and perfectly cured the man that was born lame the Lystrians conceived him to be Mercury appearing in humane form because he was the chief speaker clearly expressing this to be their Opinion that the healing God was to be the great Gods Messenger and to restore men's discomposed Minds as well as Limbs by his word the very Office which the Prophets assigned to the Messias and the Apostles and Evangelists applyed to Christ A prophet shal the Lord raise unto you of your brethren like unto me as touching his humane but infinitely superiour to me in respect of his divine Nature And that 's the scope of that so much abused Text all thy children shall be taught of God Isa. 54. 13. if Christ be better at expounding Scripture than our new illuminates Who when the Jews excepted against his affirming himself to come down from Heaven because they knew his Father and Mother supposing him to be the Son of Joseph as they said Joh. 6. ver 42. gives them this reply That no man could come to him that is as one that came down from Heaven and whom they were bound to hear under pain of extermination except the Father drew him ver 44. not as a log by main force of hand but as a man by strength of Argument by teaching him the meaning of that Text in the Prophet and they shall all be taught of God ver 45. which cannot be understood of the person of the Father for no man hath seen the father but the son ver 46. Nor of the Spirits teaching for that the Church had from the beginning thou gavest them thy good spirit Nehem. 9. 10. But of the Person of the Son who was in the Fullness of Time to assume Flesh and dwell among us and teach not only Jews but Gentiles what they must do to be saved So as in the last revelation of the divine Will God will no longer deal by proxy but himself in the Person of the Son will speak face to face which you might have learn'd in Hypothesi had you diligently weighed that Text of Isa. and though I in respect of my humane Nature am the son of Mary and as you suppose of Joseph whom you know yet at my Baptism you might have learn'd that I had another Generation for then my Father bare witness by a voice from Heaven that I was the son of God and at my transfiguration having avouched me to be his well beloved Son he gave command that I should be receiv'd as that Prophet whom all are to hear every man therefore that hath heard and learn'd this of my Father concerning me that I am that great Prophet that was to come into the World like to my Brethren as to my Manhood but equal to the Father touching my Godhead will certainly come to me and learn of me as to those whom my Father by these clear convictions and furthermore by that Seal he hath set to my Commission to teach in those Miracles I work does not draw into a full perswasion 't is impossible that they while they are under that obstinacy should come unto me Hence it is that our Saviour so much presseth and layeth so much stress upon the believing that he was he that should come to tell men all things hence St. Paul begins his Epistle to the Hebrews with the proof of this that Jesus of Nazareth was that divine Person the express Image of the Fathers person by whom according to the Prophecies that went before God hath spoak in the last that is the Evangelical Age. § 8. Humane Laws we say are Nets which small fish escape through and great ones break but Christ's Law is so framed his Gospel net so knit as the Vulgar fry stick in it by the Finns and Gills of common Sentiments And the greatest disputers are intangled in it by strugling It takes the poor of this World by the compliance with their innate Notions and the wise in their own craftiness By it Learning was pos'd Philosophy was set Sophisters taken in a Fisher's net Plato and Aristotle were at a loss And wheel'd about again to spell Christ's Cross. As our great British Divine and Divine Poet sings in his Church tit Providence in which Poem as he hath given us an abstract of Church-history so I fear there is a more discerning spirit of Prophecy expressed therein than in all our modern golden Dreams and Comments upon Daniel and the Revelation these Predictions being but guessings at if not perversions of the sence of dark Texts his the applications of as clear menaces as any are in the whole Bible and these too commented upon by the constant method of Providence in the World which usually so shapes its rewards and Punishments to mens demerits as for our knowing what will betide our selves we need not consult ambiguous Oracles but such plain sanctions of the royal Law as have been made good upon and befallen other Churches for examples to us for if we will not be diverted from following Egypt and Greece's steps we must arrive at their dismal end if we by our debaucheries of mind or life put the Gospel from us and draw upon our selves strong delusions a Revelation-Criticism will not secure the one to us nor us from the other But to return from this Digression The constitution of Christian Religion is such as it finds all that is of man left in man a party for it in the Market and all true Philosophy a party for it in the Schools of Philosophers saith Clem. Alexandr Strom. l. 1. pag. 94. whether of the Barbarians or Grecians I mean not the Stoick Platonick Epicurean Aristotelian but whatsoever any Sect rightly taught whatsoever they taught Pious or Just is but a Branch of eternal Truth pluck'd from the Tree of Life the ever-being Word An observation grounded upon these Prophecies I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen and close up the breaches of it and build it as in the days of old build the old wasts raise up the former desolations the foundations of many generations Amos 9. 11. Isa. 61. 4. Isa. 58. 12. and this to the end that the residue of men that is the Gentiles might seek the Lord Act. 15. 16. as St. James expounds the Prophets which inforceth us to interpret those Prophecies not of Persons only but
by Moses or by Christ I insert this clause as the case then stood because Christ and his Apostles denyed not but plainly affirmed That Salvation had been of the Jews that is that Salvation was attainable in the Jewish Religion by all those that in observance of it look'd to the end of it Christ. But the Question then was Whether the great Prophet that is in the bosom of the Father being come and his Law being gone out of Sion and the word of the Lord himself from Jerusalem that old Religion had not lost its salvifick Power which that it had the Apostle maintains and proves by many Arguments amongst which this is not the least That God expected more now from the sons of men to testifie the sincerity of their Love to him and to make them capable of his acceptance of them as sincere than he did during those darker Revelations of his Grace and more sparing allowances of divine Aid In the demanding whereof the old Religion coming short was thereby disinabled and become uncapeable to save it being possible that a man might after the coming of Christ perform what it required on condition of Salvation and yet not make those returns to God for the rich Revelation of his Grace by Christ as he would accept of for good payment or as might denominate him an honest man a man keeping a good Conscience towards God and not dealing fraudulently with him As he must do if he pay no more Rent of Thankfulness and Obedience now that his Farm is improv'd and manur'd with the Lamb's Blood then was by Contract payable before that Improvement 2. And that therefore Justification by Faith implies God's demand of a greater rent now under the Gospel than would have passed for good payment during the first Lease or Law of Works Not as if either then or now that Righteousness of Heart or Life that was or is required could or was intended to be paid as the least part of our Ransom as a Fine for our Forfeiture of the original Contract betwixt God and us in a state of Innocency No it cost more to redeem a Soul by way of price than all the Righteousness of Angels and Men summ'd up together can amount to that must be let alone for ever and wholly exterminated from the limits of our discourse touching Justification when the Question is Whether we are justified by faith or works But Christ having stood to and fulfill'd the Terms of that Covenant whose Condition was Perseverance in Innocency and paid the Forfeiture that we had made in both which he supererrogated exhibiting that active and passive Obedience which infinitely exceeds in worth what was required of us For that Law demanded man's Obedience or Death but he tender'd both and in both not only man 's but God's the Person subjecting himself to Obedience being God-man upon which consideration our Kinsman not only redeem'd the Inheritance that we had lost but purchas'd a better for us It were therefore against all Reason and Equity that he should be denyed a power to dispose of his own Purchace to whom and upon what Terms he pleaseth which his good pleasure he hath from time to time by some means or other revealed and at the last in his own person communicated wherein it hath pleased his infinite Wisdom to proceed in this Method that in all other former dispositions of the good things he had undertaken to purchase for us he accepted of less acknowledgment from us than in this his last will and Testament made after his actual Purchace bequeathing Himself and Benefits upon different Terms and Conditions suitable to the Revelations of his Grace the Emanations of divine Power and the Obligations he hath laid upon us Hence is that observation of St. Jerom on Gen. 6. 9. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation Signanter ait in generatione sua ut ostenderet non juxtà justitiam consummatam sed juxta justiciam generationis suae fuisse justum It is to be mark'd that he calls him just in his Generation to signifie that he was not so in respect of consummate Justice but that he was just for a man of that age for one that lived under that Dispensation of the Covenant of Grace Christ observing in these his disposals that generally-acknowledged Rule of common Equity so often inculcated in the Evangelists That to whom men concredit much of them shall much be required and of them that have received little of them little shall be expected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to expect the same things à summo minimóque of Children and of men the same tale of Brick from them to whom Straw is given and them that must gather Stubble in stead of Straw to lay equal burdens upon unequal strengths to require the same Interest for the loan of different Summs of them to whom hundreds were and of them to whom thousands are concredited is extremely unequal But the account of the difference betwixt Moses and Christ as the Antinomians casts it up is as monstrously unjust as John Scotus his partition of the two great Fishes to himself who was a little man and the one little one to the two tall Persons that sat next him at the French King's Table giving this Reason to the King accusing him of making an unequal division contrary to his order that he had exactly perform'd his Majesty's Injunction for here meaning himself and the two great Fishes upon his own Trencher is one little one and two great ones there pointing to the two proper and corpulent Person 's and the little Fish he had laid before them are two great ones and one little one The Joque might pass as witty from his Jeaster but sure the Action could not arride the King as just and becoming a Philosopher except Scotus came nearer to Truth than he did here to Justice when to the King asking him what was the difference between a Scot and a Sot he answered the Table if it please your Majesty the King sitting right over against him Camden's Remains by no better Rules of Equity do the Solifidians proceed in their discriminating the two Testaments assigning the Gyants work to the Pigmie and the Pigmie's to the Gyant A partition that may pass for currant with silly Women laden with Lusts and those monsters of men whose souls are fallen down into their Paunch or Groin those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persons of dislocated Minds whose Intellects are put out of joynt by being precipitated from the Pinacle of the Head to the baser parts those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brutish Animals that corrupt themselves in those things they naturally know who make no other use of Religion but to bribe and gag Conscience or to be a Pander to their Lusts such a Cover may fit such Pottage-pots Such Lettice may sute such lips The Image of God in the Gospel thus turn'd heels upwards may please such as have no other thoughts concerning him
Covenant to Abraham and his Seed in respect of which former Bargain contracted with the Father of the Faithful he could not salvâ side without suffering his Faithfulness to fail without impairing his Truth as well as in respect of his great name King of Saints cast off the Carnal Seed wholly from being his Kingdom till he had taken his Spiritual Seed into their room And indeed God's punishing of his Rebels with total Rejection before he had erected his Kingdom of Grace in the midst of his Enemies the Gentiles would have been the punishing of himself with the forfeiture of his Visible Kingdom of Grace and the stripping of himself into the bare Kingdom of his Providence So far would God have been from encreasing his wealth by their price as he would have made a losing Bargain and bankrupt himself of a peculiar People if he had cast off Judah before the accession of the Gentiles to his Scepter of Grace which did not happen till their flocking in to Christ's Standard As is manifest from their Prophets speaking of this gathering of the Gentiles to Shilo even to the last of them as of a thing de futuro He shall lift up an ensign to the Gentiles Isa. 11. 12. Thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee Isa. 55. 5. My name shall be great among the Gentiles Mal. 1. 11. So that at the Expiration of Old Testament Prophecy this gathering was yet to come It was yet in the shell of the Promise And since Malachy there hath not been any gathering of Gentile Nations to the God of Israel to make his name great in all the Earth saving that of the Christian Flock to that Shepherd whom the God of Israel is not asham'd to call his Fellow his Equal and of whom the Prophets have foretold that he should bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Hitherto therefore that Plea was prevalent We are thy people save us thou never barest rule over them If thou destroy this people What will become of thy great name what will become of thy Promise to Abraham of thy Kingdom of Grace For God was obliged by the Interest of his Glory and by his Promise to the Patriarchs not to remove the Scepter from Judah till Shilo come and the Gentiles were gather'd to him But when Shilo was come the Baptist forewarns Abraham's Children not to trust any longer to that Plea as their security against approaching vengeance Think not to say when you are consulting how to escape wrath to come we are Abraham's children That Plea is now growing out of date For God is able to raise up children to Abraham and a People to himself of stones that is out of the obdurate Gentile World men as hard as Stones and hitherto in respect of Gods Covenant with Abraham and pre-ingagement as uncapable as Stones of becoming the People of the God of Israel in your room of becoming as you are now the Kingdom of God or as Ireneus Advers her lib. 4. cap. 16. renders it of them that worship Stones as the Gentiles did it being usual in the holy Dialect to call Nations by the name of the Idols which they worship as Bell boweth down c. This God was ever able to do in respect of his absolute Power but that Power being as to the exercise of it bounded by his Will for it were Impotency in God to do what he will not and his Will declared to Abraham he became Debter to his own Faithfulness and Truth so far as he had not a Moral Power to do it that is could not do it without impeachment of his Truth before this Fulness of Time came wherein God is to raise up a new Seed to Abraham and to call them a people that were no people to make Japhet dwell in the tents of Sem ejecio scilicet Israele St. Jerom in Gen. 9. 27. i. e. to take the place of Israel to graft the wild Olive Branches upon the Root and Father of the Faithful implied as Isidore Pelusiota well observes in the following words Now is the axe lib 1. epist. 64. Eulampio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to wit of this acute and evangelical Decision that every Tree that brings not forth good Fruit be hewen down laid to the root of the tree not a Mattock to dig the Roots up to make the Covenant with Abraham touching his Seed void but an Axe to cut off witherd Branches after the Gentiles that were grafted in had taken root By which Axe or two-edged Sword as the Apostle stiles it Heb. 4. Is cut in pieces that double Dilemma whereby the carnal Jew deceived himself and thought to intangle God 1. If we be rejected who have Abraham to our Father God breaks the Covenant he made with him And 2. Leaves himself destitute of a People we being his peculiar People and the only Nation in the World over whom he is King The Reply which the Apostles gave to this first Objection was That the prime Article of God's Covenant with Abraham was That he should be a father of many nations that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed and therefore should he not take the Gentiles into his Kingdom now that one Seed that is Christ was come he would have broke Covenant with Abraham As to the Jews he sent Jesus Christ first to bless them but seeing they refused to be blessed upon those Terms of Faith upon which God blessed Abraham thereby declaring themselves to be the Devil's Children quarrelling with that Covenant as the Devil did with that which God made with Adam and not Abraham's who without Hesitancy tergiversation or making his own terms with God simply and unreservedly submitted to God's and seeing the Gentiles accepted of them thereby becoming the Children of faithful Abraham It was not consistent with God's Promise to Abraham to leave him childless as they so far as lay in their power had made him much less would it stand with his Oath that he would bless them that blessed him and curse them that cursed him not to bless those Heathens with the adoption of Sons and reception into Abraham's Family who blessed Abraham with a spiritual Seed and acknowledged themselves his Children by becoming of his Faith and treading in his Steps and that in favour of that fleshly Seed which would have left him no Seed of the Promise no Seed of his Faith but have brought upon him if they might have had their will the Curse of Sterility in that juncture of Time wherein God had promised to multiply it as the Stars of Heaven and to make him a Father of many Nations Act. 13. 46. It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you Jews but seeing you put it from you and judg your selves unworthy of everlasting life loe we turn to the Gentiles for so hath the Lord commanded us saying I have set thee
for a light to the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth Isa. 49. 6. and when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And Rom. 4. 16. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many nations Paralel or answerable to him whom he believed even God who quickneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were who against hope believed in hope that he should become the Father of many Nations answerable to him that is as God is not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles so should Abraham be the Father both of Jewish and Gentile-believers the believing of which as to the Gentiles was as noble a degree of Faith as that whereby Abraham believed the Promise that in Isaac his Seed should be blessed when he was about to sacrifice him this being no more against hope than that God would raise up a seed to him of Gentiles dead in Sins And to the second they answered that the Jew need not trouble his head with contriving how or where God would find Subjects if he were rejected for the Gentiles were flocking in apace to the Standard of Messias and ere long the Fulness of them would be come in and so all Israel be saved that is Dr. Ham. annot in Rom. 11. 12. 25. they should every where act the Call of the Gospel come in in such numbers as they would in every City and eminent Town afford matter enough for the constituting of Evangelical Churches or visible Assemblies of Christians there by which means the Jews will at length be provoked to believe and so all the true Children of Abraham Jews and Heathens both but particularly the Remnant of the Jews shall repent and believe in Christ. And for them that will not be gain'd by these Methods God may cast them off upon gainful Terms having in lieu of them a great multitude of Subjects which no man could number of all Nations and Kindreds and People and Tongues Rev. 7. 9. Christ foretells that upon the Builder's rejecting the precious Stone and its becoming a Corner-stone the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to another Nation Mat. 21. 42. 43. And according to this Prophecy of Christ and Application of Jacob's Prophecy which Christ and his Apostles made to the time of Jerusalem's final Desolation God did then remove his Scepter from Judah that ceasing then to be God's Kingdom and the Kingdoms of the World becoming the Kingdoms of God and of his Christ within a few Centuries afterwards when Christs Royal Law came to be established and protected by the Imperial Sanction and the Edict of Princes become Christian. In whose Territories in the mean time God had his imperial Cities his Cities on Hills that could not be hid Christian Churches so visible and conspicuous as spake him to be King of all the Earth in the same sence that he had been King of Judea that is in respect of his Kingdom of Grace of his golden Scepter Briefly there was such a gathering of the Gentiles to Shilo before that rejected King's coming to destroy miserably those bloody Rebels and to root out their Place and Nation as he need not be to seek for Subjects when he cast off Judah and chose the Gentiles any more than when he refused the Tabernacle of Joseph and chose the Tribe of Judah Psal. 78. 67. 68. for the Gospel had then been preach'd to and brought forth fruit in all the World God manifested in the Flesh had been preach'd to the Gentiles and believedon in the World as hath been formerly shewed § 4. But then this being laid for a Ground that the Scepter 's departure imports properly and firstly the Removal of the Thearchy from the Jews and translating it to the Gentiles and the time of its departure being thus stated to have been in such a Juncture as wherein God might and did break up his Court in Judea without impeachment of his Truth or Honour which he could not do before It will be obvious enough that that Prophecy consequentially to this implies as the effect of it a gradual withdrawing of their outward Polities Liberties and Privileges thereon depending as the Sun being set the light of it departs by degrees till it wholly disappear Of which though we can make no Demonstration while it is in Motion it takes such minute and insensible steps much less from thence convince an obstinate and captious Adversary that the Sun is set if it be not seen at its going down till the Light of it be impair'd to a degree beyond what the most gloomy Sky the thickest Mist or the most dismal Eclipse can reduce it to yet when its Light is dwindled into such a degree of privation 't is a palpable evidence that the Sun its Fountain is departed our Horizon As therefore I have been forc'd to prove that the Scepter notwithstanding any loss of Light it did or could sustain before the Gentiles flock'd in to our Saviour's Standard was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 departed there having been from David to Christ no greater diminutions of its Light then had been from Jacob to David and therefore the Jew upon the same reason that he will not look downwards in Judah's Line for Shilo as low as our Jesus must look upwards for him beyond David for if those castings down of the Crown to the ground which it sustain'd by the Apostacy of the ten Tribes the Babylonish Captivity the Persecution of Antiochus the Dictatorship of the Macabees or what else occurs in the History of that Interval speak the departure of the Scepter much more must it be departed in the interval before David in the Egyptian Bondage or under the Judges of which time their own Scriptures affirm that there was then no King in Israel Nor till our Saviour's time which is my Herculean Argument was there any such concourse of a new People to Israel's God as could have justified him from the imputation of making a losing Bargain should he have cast off his far more numerous old and have adopted that new People Though I confess that great access of Proselytes in Solomon's Reign said to be an hundred three and fifty thousand by Dr. Lightfoot in his Parergon of the fall of Jerusalem cap. 12. might occasion the Jew to think it was the Gentiles gathering to Shilo and boaded the departure of the Scepter in the falling away of the ten Tribes and doubtless those Gentile Converts together with the Levites and those that feared God adhering to the house of Judah being so numerous as in the worst of times there were seven thousand of them fill'd up the rent that was made in Judah's Royal Robe
denyed that God was first to be represented by Images made like man they overthrew their own Doctrine that man was made after the similitude of Cod. Id. Ib. cal 19. The Son is the only express Image of the Fathers Person and therefore we worship him by that Image only Nay he argueth for the worshipping of Angels and Daemons from what Opinions Christians hold touching the Creation you profess saith he that all Creatures are governed and order'd by the appointment of God that Angels Devils Men and all Creatures have assigned them powers allotted by him such as he thinks meet to confer upon them why then may not we worship them as Creatures endowed with power to help or hurt us as the Princes Favourites Id. lib. 7. cal 20. as if we could not honour them as Gods friends without imparting to them their Masters due divine honour He gives still further and clearer evidence of the delivery of this Article of our Christian Faith while he indulgeth himself the liberty to deride that Truth which was once delivered to the Saints The Jews saith he in a corner of the VVorld Palestine conspiring together invented the Fable of Gods forming Man and breathing into him the breath of Life of VVoman brought out of his side of man's receiving a Precept from God and preferring the Serpents Precept above Gods of Gods casting Adam iuto a sleep and taking Eve out of Adam's rib c. Orig. Contr. Celsum lib. 4. cal 15. It is easier to call this Sacred History a Fable than to prove it one This same Epicurean Hog thus grunts out Calumnies against the Circumstances of Gods making Heaven and Earth lib. 6. 23. 24. c. God said let there be light Did the Maker of all things borrow Light to work by as we light our Candle at our Neighbours God did not borrow but made Light not for himself to see by but to illustrate his Creatures Can any thing be more ridiculous than to assign certain days to the Creation of the World in the first whereof God perfected one kind of being in the second another in the third another c. and in the sixth and last Man The Matter of visible and invisible things God created in a moment and in the same moment educ'd the invisible World out of that Matter But that he should for instance create a Natural Day which was his first days work consisting of twenty four hours in less than twenty four hours implies a Contradiction and that day being the first and pattern of all the rest that is consisting the first half of it of night and the other of day it was impossible but that Darkness must be upon the face of the Deep one twelve hours and Light in the upper Hemisphere other twelve hours Or that he should to instance in the fourth days work make Sun and Moon and set them in the Firmament of Heaven and make them successively make a day and night in less time than twenty four hours does equally imply a Contradiction And for the rest they being more gross bodily substances educ'd out of the first Matter it implies a Contradiction that they should move in an instant to those forms the Divine Power first bestow'd upon them and it was most congruous seeing they could not be made but in some time to perfect them also in such a proportion of time by his own free choice as the nature of the things themselves required which were made the first and fourth day Besides the Light created on the first day which must necessarily move sphaerically or it could not have made a natural day might be instrumental towards the producing those powers which God by his Fiat gave the Matter into effect and then before the earth was all over-spread with Grass and Cattle and the Sea with Fish c. that Light must shine upon them from one end of the Heaven to the other which could not be done in less space than twenty four hours And that God should rest on the seventh day as if like a lazie Artificer he had been tyred and must then keep holiday Could there be days before the Sun was made whose Motion measures Time that lucid Cloud created the first day had a circular Motion and thereby measured time till on the fourth day God made the Sun Vide Zanch. de operibus Dei par 1. l. 1. c. 2. There is nothing saith he in the whole History of Gods making the World according to the Christian Hypothesis but what is incompetent to the Divine Nature but their credulity proceeds from their believing that God made Man after his own Image an opinion as absurd as any of the rest for he is not at all like us but incomprehensible innominable wherein he contradicts not only his own late recited opinion but his own Sect for Apuleius the Epicurean in Tull. de Natura deorum lib. 1. shapes God in all points even of bodily Members like to Man And manifestly wrests Moses who discourseth of the Creation in such borrowed Terms as are most familiar in vulgar use and introduceth God resting not out of lassitude but in complacencie with the Goodness and Beauty of his Work and that for our imitation that we might rest in contemplation of that eternal Wisdom in which he made them neither did God in that rest cease from work altogether but from Creating-work § 2. Article 2. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord. If the Christians saith Celsus worship'd no other but God the Father Maker of Heaven and Earth they might without blame contemn all our Gods but who can endure that they should despise those whom the whole World in a manner do worship for Deities and in the mean time cry up Christ for God who we all know was but born the other day Christ as to his Man-hood was born in the fulness of Time assigned by the Prophets as he was God his Generation was from Eternity Nay that they should not worship the Father but together with this Author of their Religion whom they call the Son of God Orig. con Cel. 8. cal 3. 4. The Christians worship the Father through the Son and whosoever expects acceptance with the Father but through the Son worships an Idol a God of his own framing They avoid our Altars Statues Temples sacred Rites that they may keep untainted that Faith they have plighted to Christ they will not with 〈◊〉 worship the one God the common God of all Nations that they may among themselves worship Christ as God Id. Ib. cal 6. To which Pliny gives his suffrage in the place fore-quoted The Christians sing Psalms to one Christ whom they repute to be God And Licinius in his Speech to his Soldiers encouraging them to the engagement against Constantine with this Argument that he had cast off the Gods of his Father and Country and put his trust in a new and strange God one Jesus of Nazareth Euseh de vita Constant. l.
their own Prophets foretold they would make to that Question Listen in their Synagogues if thou canst hear the blessed Jesus named except it be in execrations spie if thou canst see the Symbol of his precious Death except it be in their barbarous representation thereof by some Crucified Christian Infant Observe if there be any Signs of their relenting for Murdering that holy and just One of their bitter mourning over their Fathers sin in choosing a Murderer before the Innocent Lamb of God If thou discernest one tear to trickle down from their eye while 't is fixt upon him except it flow from their spightful envy to see him exalted adored and worshipt of all people but themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isidor Pelus l. 4. ep 74. They are preserv'd alive that they may be vexed at the heart by beholding the glory of Christ shining every where Or be in revenge of that vengeance upon them by which Christ has paid himself for the Travel of his soul for that unthankful Nation and vindicated the honour of his Deity in the opinion of all men but themselves by which they that would not receive instruction are made an instruction to others and they who would not by all the plainest Demonstrations which Christ or his Apostle did lay before them be convinc'd are become a Demonstration to convince the World that that Jesus whom they slew and hanged upon a Tree is the very Christ For as their Fathers by condemning him so the Children of that stock of Abraham by persisting in their denial of him not knowing him nor the voyces of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day have been and are still fulfilling those Prophets as to this Point of their Prediction that that People should reject their own Messias Act. 13. 27. § 2. A second Branch of Prophecy whose Fruit hangs yet upon it whose Effect is still permanent to be seen felt and handled is that touching Gods Rejection of the Jews for their rejecting of his Son Of the truth of which that Nation is a manifest proof and stands as a Pillar of Salt to season all Ages with the belief of the Supernaturalness of those Revelations wherein that event was foretold And of the warrantableness of the Churches Application o◠them to the Blessed Jesus whereupon Celsus having excepted against that Opinion of the Christians That the Jews had moved Gods displeasure against them for their Crucifying and disowning Christ Origen replies What Is not the dispersion of their Nation the ruine of their Temple City c. sufficient indications of Gods rejecting that people I dare say they shall never be restored Origen contra Celsum l. 3. cal 10. I hope the English Atheist is not so much a French Gentleman as to take it in Dudgeon that I lay some grains of this Salt on his Trencher or rather advise him to help himself to some now that it stands at his Elbow for I fancy him yet in Belgium taking out the first Lesson touching the Jews disowning of Christ And now that he is amongst those Keepers of our Rolls those bearers of our Books let him search whether those Prophecies which foretell that upon that Nations refusing to accept their own Messias their Fathers God should wholly disown them be the inventions of Christians the pious frauds of our Church or the Responds of their own Prophets Ask a Jew of whom that Prophet of theirs whom for honours sake they call Angel Jeremy speaks chap. 6. I will bring evil upon this people because they have rejected the word of the Lord because they said we will not walk in the good way wherein they were promised to find rest for their souls because they would not hear the sound of the Trumpet that sound which the Gentiles would hear Hearken therefore hear ye Nations hear O earth I will bring evil upon this people reprobate Silver shall men call them because God hath rejected them Can the most obstinately blinded Jew shut his Eye so close as he shall not here see the glimmerings of those unwelcome Truths 1. That this is an Evil the Effects whereof should be so palpable as all Nations should so manifestly see the Marks of Gods rejecting them as the name whereby they should in common speech be called is reprobate Silver a refuse Nation a People cast off of God a name which God was angry with the Heathen for fastning upon them in the saddest dereliction of that people formerly That 2. The word for their rejecting whereof they were rejected of God The good old way for their refusing to walk wherein they were left out of the road of Mercy can be none other but that eternal Word who proclaimed himself to be the Way and offered Soul-rest to them would come to him is manifest For 1. This is absolutely and without compare the good old Way the saving Word that was chalk'd out that was Preach'd to Abraham before he was Circumcised 400 years before the good old Way of Moses was known Nay preach'd by Noah that Preacher of Righteousness by Faith many Generations before Abraham and by God himself in Paradise tendering Life through Faith in the Blood of the Womans Seed which was the only thing saving in all the After-dispensations of that Covenant of Grace 2. This is the only Word and Way which the Jews totally rejected the Word spoken by Moses and the Prophets their Fathers in some part for some time neglected but never totally renounc'd it and the Modern Jew does too tenaciously stick to the Letter of that Word and the external Form of that Way 3. The only Sound of the Trumpet which the Gentiles hearken to in order to their finding rest to their Souls is that sound of the Apostles which from Jerusalem is gone into all the Earth and to the uttermost parts of the World the sound of that Trumpet whereby Christ is Proclaimed the Word of God the everlasting Way of Salvation § 3. Ask a Jew whether the same Prophet chap. 16 and 17. threaten not a more dreadful Judgment then impending over that Nations head than the Northern Captivity to wit a dissipation into Strange lands that neither they nor their Fathers knew whereas Chaldaea and all the Nations into which they were carried Captive before their Crucifying the Lord of Life were their door Neighbours with whom they had Commerce where God would shew them no favour as he had done in all other Captivities but take away his peace from them even loving kindness and mercy where they should be hunted from every Mountain and Hill and Hole wherein not only all the Treasures of Gods Mountain in the Field the riches of that Covenant of Grace sometimes deposited with that faithless and fruitless People should be given as a spoile to the Gentiles But the holy Mountain her self discontinue from that heritage which God had given her and he burnt up and made desolate by a fire that should be kindled in Gods anger and burn
themselves though not the Types and therefore was filled with a greater Glory when he appeared in it in whom the Godhead dwells bodily who is the Ark and Propitiation c. And that Gods withdrawing these visible Signs by degrees was an Argument the Sun was towards Rising and should have been to the Jews a provocation to expect so much more earnestly its arising as they saw the Stars disappearing one after another Yet because these Answers do not beat the Jew off from his presumption but by seeming to yeild that as to matter of fact all these were wanting harden him in his conceit that he has not sustain'd this loss upon the account of his being found guilty of our Saviours Blood I shall here shew that most of if not all these five things were in the Literal sence in the Second Temple and in being in or not long before our Saviours Time That the Ark was in the Second Temple against the Testimony of the Cabbalists I set the whole Company of the return'd from the Babylonish Captivity to attest in one of those Songs of degrees so called not because they were sung upon steps either the 15 of the ascent into the Temple or other places of advantage where the Levites stood for all Psalms were sung upon Ascents or Scaffolds Nehem. 9. 4. but because they were Sung at the Dedication of the second Temple by them that had ascended out of the Abyss of Captivity as the Chaldee Paraphraseth this Title upon their fixing of which Title first to the 120 Psalm grew that wild Talmudical story of the rising up of the Abyss at the building of that Temple which I would not have nam'd but that as ridiculous as it is it serves to prove that in their opinion the Psalms thus intituled by whomsoever at first pen'd were by the Spirit of Prophecy fitted to the case of them that ascended from the Captivity and accordingly used by them in their Singing Praise Of which mind also is Theodoret and Euthymius and to this agrees the Syriack making the Contents of Psalm 120. to be a Prayer of the People detain'd in Babel and of the following a Song of Eduction or Ascent out of Babel the best exposition of the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cùm Cyrus praecepit ut ascenderet Captivitas These Captives return'd in Psal. 122 mention the Thrones of Judgment there set the Thrones of the House of David one of which Thrones was that of the Glory of God the Ark of his presence saith R David and ver 4. they mention the going up of the Tribes to the Testimony of Israel that is saith R. Obad. to be resolv'd in their doubts that could not by other evidence be determined by the Priest consulting God before the Ark as they were directed Deut. 17. The Ark is called the Ark of Testimony partly because the Law was kept in the Ark in its Original by which all Copies were to be examin'd and what was doubtful in them by it to be determined partly because from the Oracle over the Ark between the Cherubims God testified what his will was in such cases which he had not so distinctly declared in that common Rule hence the Oracle upon the Ark or the Ark in respect of that Oracle is called simply The Testimony in distinction to the Law in that Text Isa. 8. 26. To the Law and to the Testimony where we must not think the Holy Spirit Tautologizeth in giving so short a direction but as the Heathens enquired in their Pontifical Books and at vive-voyce Oracles where those Books came short of a Determination so God appoints his people first to the Law and then to the living Oracle The sence then which their own most learned Rabbies and such as flourish'd before their Enmity to the Gospel put their Expositors to wrest the Scriptures into a thousand forms that they might not speak for the Christians put upon those Texts is such as speaketh the return'd in the Second Temple to have rejoyced in this that they had an opportunity and invitation to go up to the Ark of the Testimony to the Throne of Gods presence the Ark. The learned Castellio goes so far along with me and these most antient Rabbies as to render Testimony by Oracle In another of those Psalms of ascent the whole Choire of them ascended out of Babylon introduce the Ark into the second Temple in this form of words Psal 132. 8. Arise O Lord and come into thy resting place thou and the Ark of thy strength the same in sence that Solomon used at the Dedication of the first Temple saith R. David For the Ark as it went with them into so it returned with them out of Captivity saith Heb. Syr. upon Verse 6. We found it in the Fields expounding the Fields by Mich. 4. 10. Thou shalt dwell in the Field thou shalt go to Babylon I do not mean it was carried into Babylon but hid together with the Tabernacle and Altar of Incense by Jeremy 2 Maccab. 2. 4. an authority which though ingeniously confest by the Writer to be but humane will with unbyast Persons out-weigh the word of the whole Tribe of Cabbalists And that the Ark was restored is further manifest because the return'd from Captivity do direct their Worship towards it in ver 7. We will worship at his footstool Whether of these Opinions is of harder digestion That those purified sons of Levy newly come out of the Furnace of Affliction should offer the Sacrifice of Fools not considering what they said should sprinkle God with the Court-holy-water of Complemental Thanks for what they had not been blest with should dance before the Lord after the Pipe of their own deluded Fancy and praise him with Songs made in their golden Dreams of an Ark when they had not the Ark or that their degenerate successors should belye the goodness of God in denying the Typical as they do the real Ark of Gods presence to have been in that Temple and which of these Testimonies is most credible This of the blinded modern Jewes who that they might with more liberty blaspheme the blessed Jesus have conjured out of one Letters want in a word the Second Temples want of five things which the First had and among them the Ark of the Covenant Or that of the antient and impartial Rabbies who in their Comments upon these Texts introduce their Forefathers blessing God after their Restauration from the Babylonish Bondage for restoring to them that Symbol of his presence upon whose Testimony 't is so far from being a Fable as Weemes is pleas'd to call it I think it may be concluded as more then probable that the Second Temple enjoyed the Ark as long as Jerusalem enjoy'd the Temple that is till it was brought in Triumph to Rome § 2. But they are more impudent in reckoning the holy Fire to have been wanting in the Second Temple against the manifest Testimony of their Progenitors the Jews of
obtains place § 2. The God of Israel hath his Priests amongst the Gentiles § 3. No acceptable Oblation but what Christians offer tender'd to Israels God § 4. The Gospel hath utterly abolish'd Idols made Virmin-Gods creep into holes § 5. Daphnaean Apollo choak'd with the Bones of Babilas Heathen Testimony for the silencing of Oracles the Vanity of their Reasons § 6. Gross Idolatry in the Roman Pale by her own Doctors Confessions and Definitions the Legend of the Golden Calf yet not in the proper and prophetick sence § 1. A Third point of Prophecy the accomplishment whereof is permanent and now in being to the beholding of which I refer the Atheist for Conviction that the Author of our Scriptures hath an infinitely perfect fore-comprehension of Contingencies Is that wherein it is fore-told That this by them rejected Messiah of the Jews was to be called The God of the whole Earth That this Christ this Son of God against whom the Jews took Counsel the Bond of whose Covenant they brake asunder the Cords of whose Royal Laws they cast from them was to receive of his Father The Heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his possession Psal. 2. was to Reign from Sea to Sea and to fill The whole Earth with his Majesty Psal. 71. That to this Shilo after the Departure of the Scepter from Judah The Gentiles should be gathered Gen. 49. That this Branch out of the Root of Jesse wherein the Jews saw no form nor comliness is to reign over the Centiles Isa. 21. in whom the Gentiles are to trust Isa. 42. to whom the Nations are to come saying Our Fathers have inherited vanity Jer. 16. That in the days of this Kings Son All the ends of the earth shall remember themselves and turn to the Lord and all the kindreds of the Nations shall worship before him Ps. 22. That to him Princes should come out of Aegypt Aethiopia should soon with the first stretch out her hands unto God That his Dominion shall be so far extended as all Kings should worship him all Nations do him homage Psal. 68. 31 That it was too small a thing that he should raise up the Tribes of Jacob and that therefore God would give him for a Light to Lighten the Gentiles and to be his Salvation to the ends of the earth Is. 49. 6. That at what time the Lord of Hosts should refuse to accept an offering at the hands of the Jews and take no pleasure in them or their Legal services his Name should be dreadful among the Heathen great among the Gentiles and that in every place from the rising of the Sun to the going down thereof The God of Israel should have Incense offered to his Name and a pure offering Mal. 1. 10. and 14. Let the Atheist consult his Reason and then try if he can conceive how that God who spake by the Prophets so many things touching the Messias which are all come to pass and verified in the blessed Jesus could possibly be ignorant of or falsifie in the main in the Subject it self of all those Prophesies the Person of the Messias Or that he who foresaw the Rejection of the Jews would not provide himself of another People But I will not put him to the expence of what he hath not in the purchase of Faith His own Senses where ever he comes will inform him of the accomplishment of these Predictions what part soever of the old World he travels through he may hear the Name of the God of Israel celebrated he may see the Trophyes of Christs Victories standing there hear the Confession of all men with one mouth that the God of Abraham is the God that made Heaven and Earth with which rebound the Mahometan Moscos the Christian Churches the Jewish Synagogues for Pagan Temples he will find none where the Gospel has been Let him ask where he comes at the hearing of what Doctrine it was that their Gentile Progenitours came in to the acknowledgment of the God of Israel confessing that their Fathers had inherited Vanity had made lyes their Refuge I am perswaded the Mahometan will have so much Ingenuity as to confess that their Religion found all those parts of the World whither it hath come worshipping the God of Israel and therefore that was not the Light God set up to the Gentiles to bring them in to guide them to the one true God of Israel that theirs found the world inheriting the Christian Religion which Mahomet himself will not call a Vanity but for the time its Virtue lasted that is till he put forth his Alcharon confesseth to have been a saving and the only saving Religion as being the Appointment of God himself by the hand and Ministry of his Beloved Son Jesus Christ the greatest Prophet that ever was till Mahomet by Mahomets own Confession And the Jew may easily be confuted if he shall have the simplicity to say that that is a Prophecy of the Repentance of their Forefathers when they forsook the Idolatries of the Nations they were mixed with for 't is the Gentiles are to come and say Our Fathers inherited Vanity and the truth is the repenting Jews could not in verity make this Confession for though they for some time took long Leases of the Idolatry of the Heathens yet those Idolatries never obtain'd that Prescription as to become their Inheritance as they did in the Heathen World where long time out of mind from Father to Son no other Gods but Idols were worship'd Or if he should have the face to deny that it was the Preaching of the Gospel which prevail'd with the Nations of the World to come in to Israel's God confessing that the Religions of their Forefathers were all Vanity For before the Preaching of the Gospel 't is manifest that all Nations walked in their own way and in the name of their own Gods and the Jew was so far from introducing the Worship of their sometimes God into the Roman Capitol as they had much adoe to keep that Monster of all Roman Gods Caligula from receiving Divine honours in the Temple of Jerusalem and could not prevent the erecting of his Statue in their Temple at Alexandria nor the Adoration of it in the Presence-Chamber of the God of Israel Besides let them say by which of their Rabbies India by which Aethiopia by which Spain by which Eritain the utmost Coasts of Europe Asia Affrica were converted from Idols to the One living God as we can shew by what Apostles and Apostolical Persons the World was by piece-meal brought under the Obedience of God and of his Christ. § 2. Let him next observe if Israels God have that service perform'd to him which by his Prophets he had declared he would only accept when he should be called the God of all the Earth any where but in the Christian Church If since his rejection of the Levitical Priesthood which then virtually commenc'd when Christ as a Priest
after Aarons order made upon the Altar of his Cross by the oblation of himself a full and perfect Propitiation for the sins of the whole World and was then actually inflicted when in the virtue of that Attonement God sent him as a Priest after the Order of Melchisedech to bless the Nations by turning them from their sins If this God of Israel hath where he is invocated any Priests taken from among the Gentiles but those of Christs Institution that call themselves and are called that is known by the name of the Priests of the Lord. He may find this name scorned by such punie Antichrists as the Gospel tells us have ever been and foretells us will ever be in the Church but not of the Church who being under a Form of Godliness deny the Power and either out of a blind zeal or for a cloak of Covetousness decry the Evangelical Priest-hood casting contempt upon and practising to abolish that Name which the God of Israel hath said the Evangelical Ministers should be called by doing what in them lay to overturn the Foundation of Christian Faith For if there be not an order of Men taken out from the rest from among the people called the Priests of the Lord the Gentiles are not yet called nor that God whom we invocate the God of Israel nor that Jesus whom we worship the Christ the promised Messiah for of the days of Messias it is prophesied Is. 66. 8. I will gather all Nations and Tongues and they shall come and see my glory and this I will do by setting a Sign amongst them by erecting the Standard of the Cross For those that escape those of the Jews that save themselves from the untoward Generation by embracing Christ I will send to the Nations disperse them over the World to Tarshish Pul and Lud to Tubal and Javan to the Isles afar off that have not heard my fame neither have seen my Glory and they shall declare my Glory Preach Christ the Brightness of my Glory Heb. 1. 3. among the Gentiles And they shall bring all your Brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all Nations and of them that shall be converted out of all Nations I will take for Priests and Levites For as the new Heavens that I create remain before me so shall your Seed and your Name remain for ever And again Isa. 61. 6. Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord men shall call you the Ministers of our God See here what tender Consciences those tender ear'd men have and how well those Laodicean Church-men consult the promoting of the honour of Christ and the salvation of Souls through his Blood that rather than we should offend the itching ears of those white Devils would have us wave the use of so harsh a word so grating a name as that of Priests though it be of the mouth of the Lords naming and the bearing of it among the Gentiles one of those Demonstrations of the Spirit of Prophesie that Christ is come and that he whose Priests we are is the God that made Heaven and Earth Not but that the Romish Sacrificers have Sacrilegiously abused this name to the abetting their Sacrifice of the Mass or as if names or things whose use is not necessary may not be laid aside when abused as God took the name of Baal out of his peoples mouth after it had been appropriated to Idols and Hezechiah broke the Brazen Serpent after the Idolatrous use of it Yet he that upon that pretence would banish the name of Jehovah or other Names of God out of Christian use would leave us never a Name to call him by for all his Names that the Gentiles could get at the Tongues end they applied to their Idols and should we exterminate every Word or Thing that has been made an evil use of we must speak by Signs renounce our Creed our Meat Drink and Sleep How much more cautious should we be of entertaining those Principles of a squeasie and mis-inform'd Conscience as induce us to a disuse of that Name which God himself hath stampt upon the Ministers of the Gospel as their Memorial for ever But Odi prophanum vulgus arceo I should blame my self for making this excursion before the Atheist if it were not to inform him that in case while he is seeking for the accomplishment of this Prophesie he meet with such as disclaim this and call themselves by another Name and thereby be confirm'd in his Atheism the Church is free of his blood for there never hath been any Christian Church upon Earth whose Ministers are not known and called by the name of the Priests of Israel's God § 3. Let him enquire what Sacrifices and Oblations have been offered him since his Name was Great in all the World but that commemorative one of the great Propitiation which our high Priest made once for all That Thanksgiving-Sacrifice of the Eucharist that well-pleasing Sacrifice of a sweet odour we tender him in our Works of Charity in our honouring him with our substance that living and reasonable Service wherein we offer up our selves Souls Bodies and Spirits to the disposal of his Royal Law What Incense hath been burnt before him but Prayer from a Devout and flaming Heart What Libations have been powred out in his presence but penitential Tears flowing from a contrite spirit Let him travel Aegypt through and through he will find no Altar there erected to the God of Israel but that Table-throne of Grace whereon we offer to him his Creatures of Bread and Wine and make a Commemoration of his Son's Death No Pillar there set up to the Lord but the eternal Monument of his dear Love the Triumphant Standard of the blessed Cross. He will find the Jew the Assyrian the Aegyptian serving the God of Israel joyntly in the practise of no Religion but the Christian. And then I leave it to the Atheists Discretion to judge whether it be conceivable that that God who was so wise as to foresee and so powerful as to effect this great Change we see wrought in the World by the Gospel should be so far wanting to himself and those of Mankind that most sincerely love him as to have none to worship him in a way of his own Institution this sixteen hundred years ever since he by his Providence hath made it impossible to tender him that Worship himself had formerly commanded the place being destroyed where God will only accept of such like services and the Jews having been terrified from rebuilding it under Julian so as they never since durst reattempt it The Story of which their Consternation is thus reported by Greg. Nazianzen Oratione 48. in Julianum 2. Julian invited the Jews to return into Judaea and rebuild their Temple whereupon multitudes of them repair thither and busie themselves in that work with as much zeal as our City-Matrons exprest When those Forts and Lines of Communication were cast up whereby they
excluded themselves from the Protection of the best of Kings and cooped up themselves to be a prey to the worst of Tyrants for as ours then so the Jewish Matrons now spared neither their tender Limbs nor fine Cloaths nor richest Jewels but as they expended their Treasures in hiring Labourers so they themselves did not disdain to serve the Workmen by carrying Baskets of Rubbish till both Masons and Servitours were forc'd from their work by Balls of Fire issuing from the trembling and gaping Earth by which they that were not kill'd had their Garments or Bodies inured with the Sign of the Cross by which Marks of God's displeasure many of them were so far convinc'd that no other Religion was acceptable to God but the Christian as they with one voyce invocate the help of Christ and were by Baptism initiated in the Christian Faith The substance of this Story I have elsewhere alledged out of Ammianus Marcellinus one of Julian's Captains And Nazianzen affirms that when he wrote this Oration these Prints and Marks upon their Cloaths were still to be seen Is 't then I say imaginable in reason that ever since the disannulling of the Mosaical Service of Legal Sacrifices God has been no where worship'd in a way of his own institution Or is it possible to point out any People upon Earth save the Christian Church that worship him in that way which God himself foretold he would erect at the vacateing of the old § 4. The fourth and last instance I shall give of Prophecies touching meer Contingencies that have been so palpably fulfill'd as the Effect of the accomplishment is now existing is of those which foretold That after Israel had cast off their Messiah and their God cast off them and taken the Gentiles to be his People Those Gentiles as they came into Christ should cast a way all their former Idol-Gods so as never again to return to them Of which Tenour are those Texts Isa. 2. 18. 20 21. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day and the Idols shall he utterly abolish and they shall go into the holes of the Rocks and into the Caves of the Earth for fear of the Lord and for the Glory of his Majesty when he ariseth terribly to shake the earth In that day shall a man cast his Idols of Silver and Gold which they made each one for himself to worship to the moles and to the batts This day is that when all Nations shall flow unto the Mountain of the Lords House c. ver 1. The same Prophecy is repeated Is. 31. 7. and the Effect of it dated when the Lord the Shepherd of Israel shall rise up against the multitude of Shepherds called forth against him the whole Crew of Idols erected by the Gentile world to affront the Majesty of Heaven and make no more of them than a Lyon doth of unarmed Shepherds who would scare him away with their voyce when he comes to take their Flock from them and when those Flocks shall be turned unto that God from whom the Children of Israel have deeply revolted In that day shall every man cast away his Idols c. And Isa. 45. and 46. Chapters When all the ends of the Earth shall look unto God when to him every Knee shall bow every Tongue shall swear c. Then Bel boweth down Nebo stoopeth their Idols were upon the Beasts your carriages were heavy laden they are a burden to the weary Beasts they stoop they bow down together they could not deliver the burden but themselves are gone into Captivity That is the Heathen Great Pontiffs and Philosophers shall not be able to maintain the Cause of those false Gods whom by office and inducement of State they are bound to support but shall fall down under the weight of that Vanity and Impiety the Gospel shall charge them with and throw off their load and themselves become Christs Captives so mighty were the Weapons of the Apostles Warfare to cast down those vain Imaginations that had exalted themselves against the knowledge of the true God and to bring into obedience to Christ the strongest holds that Satan by his Deputies held in the Heathen World And Zech. 13. 2. In that day when a Fountain should be open'd to those Inhabitants of Jerusalem to that House of David that should mourn every Family apart over him whom they had pierced which cannot be meant of the Jews after the Flesh for it was the Gentiles that pierced Christ it was the Roman Soldiers that platted the Crown of Thorns and set it upon Christs Head that Nailed his Hands and Feet to the Cross that peirced his Side with a Spear to which external peircing of Christs Body and not to that Sword which the unthankful Jew ran through his Soul the Evangelist applies this Text John 19. 37. The Spirit of Grace and Supplication is not promised to the breakers of his Heart but Bones the Gentiles Heart that broke his Bones shall be broken when the spirit convinceth them of that sin but the Jews generally lost under Judicial blindness in that day I say that the spiritual Judah shall repent and be baptized St. Jerom expounds this Fountain to be Christian Baptism that Laver of Regeneration It shall come to pass saith the Lord of Hosts that I will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land c. and cause the unclean spirits to pass out of the Land Was ever any thing foretold with more plainness and perspicuity most of those Oracles and a great many more which for brevity sake I omit are as transparent as if they had been writ with a Sun-beam in this copious variety of expressions there is not one ambiguous Word not one dark Syllable a Child may run and read these Visions Would then such eminent Persons as their Prophets were in their several Generations have run the hazard of having their Memories traduc'd in after-ages by such plain speaking having no imaginable Secular Temptation to it but against it had they not been beyond all possibility of mistake assured of the Infallibility of that Spirit by which they were moved Now the same Degree of Assurance which they had à priori from the Cause we may have à posteriori from the Effect they could not by that more then Scientifical Vision of those things in the Divine Mind that essential Cognition that simple Contact and Feeling of God's Will Tactus quidam divinitatis notitiâ melior essentialis cognitio divinorum contactus quidam essentialis simplex Jamblicus de cognit divinorum be more certain that this would be than we may that it is come to pass by observing the Event For never were any Predictions more manifestly fulfill'd than these not one title of them is faln to the Earth There is not now nor has not been in any part of the World since Christian Religion was planted in it the least Relique of those numberless Pagan Gods it swarmed with before that
the expiration of the thousand years in which Christ should Reign as sole Lord upon the Earth so as he should not deceive the Nations any more that is as he had done till the end of those years and then he should be loosed for a little space and go out and deceive the Nations and draw them into a desperate engagement against the holy City and the Camp of the Saints Expositors do macerate themselves and perplex the Church with disputes about the sence of this Text. But they are most at a loss in placing the Aera of the commencement of these 1000 years and that rightly stated will give light to all the rest I therefore begin there and date it at the Empires submitting it self to the Sceptre of Christ when he gave the World as the Empire was then reputed to be that terrible shake as made it cast its old Gods When at the rising of his Majesty so gloriously as the Emperour acknowledged it the Imperial Laws were made to serve Christ which till then had been against him for awe of which the Idols were hid in the holes of the Rocks even by such as did not believe as they had been broken before by them that were believers as St. Austin well applies that distinction Isa. 2. Donec projicerentur à credentibus Idola à non credentibus absconderentur August de consensu Evang. 1. 28. And since which time Satan hath been wholly restrained from prevailing with the Nations either to erect new Gods or to restore the old Though I am not very solicitous to assign the precise point of time when the Kingdoms of this World so became the Kingdom of God and of his Christ as Satan was ejected out of his as he and his Angels the Daemon-Gods and the Creatures whom he had perswaded the World to worship before the Creator were cast out both these growing up by such degrees both as to place and thing as 't is far easier to see the effects than observe the steps they made while they were in motion toward that existence Herbam crevisse apparet crescentem non cernimus We must not deny the Grass to be grown at Midsummer because we cannot tell in what minute of the Spring it began to put forth or saw it not growing yet these Particulars are beyond dispute 1. That Pagan Idolatry kept possession even of those Provinces of the Empire whose Local Governours were Christians before the Conversion of the Emperour of which we have a clear Instance in Paphos where though the Governour thereof Sergius Paulus was converted to the Faith early in the days of the Gospel yet we find the Temple of Venus there long after that for Titus Vespasian visited it and had fortunate Responds thence touching the Jewish Wars and his own Affairs Tacit. Hist. 2. Sergius might as the Jaylor as the Centurion purge his own Family but the reforming of his Province was no more in his power saving what his Example and the exemplariness of his Family contributed thereto than the Jaylor had to reform his Prisoners or the Centurion had to reform his Band. 2. That after the Conversion of the Empire every particular Province thereof was not actually brought under the obedience of Christ but those earliest which were nearest the Imperial Seat and most under their observation and obnoxious to the due execution of its Laws for Christ. Thence we find the Gandavi not converted nor their Altars of Mercury demolished until the Reign of Heraclius anno 612. Nor Flanders submitting to Christs Sceptre till anno 648. Nor Germany scarce attempted by the Preaching of the Gospel till Gallus and Columbinus communicated it anno 688. Nor Westphalia till that anno 690. Abbus and Niger converted it to the Faith Nor Frisia till Pippin having subdued their Pagan Duke anno 696. Wilibrod Bishop of York planted the Gospel there Nor Holland or Saxony till about the year 670. they were brought under Christs Yoak by the Preaching of Swibert Winefred and Aderbert English Bishops Nor Denmark till King Herald their first Christian King anno 826. Nor Hungary till Geiffa anno 1010. received it from Henry the 2d as the condition of his marrying the Emperours Sister Gisela that himself and his subjects should be baptized Nor Pomerania till anno 1106. Nor the Vandals till anno 1125. Nor the Prusians till anno 1164. nor the Rugians till Jeremare anno 1168. became both their Prince and Priest Nor Livonia till anno 1186. nor Tartary till 1249. nor Lithuania till 1387. Asted chron Convers. 3. The Incroachments which Christianity it self made upon the Emperors was by degrees It prevail'd upon Tiberius his conscience so far as he forbad the prohibition of it but not as to put him upon the practice of it It obtain'd of Philip Arabs who began his Empire anno 244 so far as he made Profession of it but did not enjoyne it to his Subjects It obtain'd of Severus to permit his Mother Mammea to profess it even in the Imperial Court and Origen to Preach it in the Royal Family but himself did not embrace it Constantius the Father of Great Constantine though the Gospel prevail'd not with him so far as to make him a Christian yet he was so much a favourer of Christians as to give them a Toleration in his Dition who fled from the rage of his three bloody persecuting Colleagues and to retain those as his Domestick Servants in the Palace who stood firmest to the Profession of the Christian Faith rejecting such as he found contrary to their better perswasion conforming to the Pagan Worship to please him saying they that would not be true to their God would dissemble with their emperour Euseb. de vita Constantini lib. 1. cap. 9 10. And toward the close of his Life renounc'd the Politheism of the Gentiles and betook himself to the service of the one only God so as his Court bare some resemblance of a Church there being in it the Ministers of the Lord dayly officiating for him and praying with him Id. Ib. cap. 11. It gain'd so much Authority over Constantine the Great as he not only profest it but commanded his Subjects to practise it but yet the Ethnick Worship was still publickly allowed Christianos optavit esse omnes coegit neminem titulus decret Eus. de vita Con. lib. 2. cap. 55. Constantine order'd as that which was manifestly behooveful for the Tranquillity of the Empire in that time that every one should have liberty to chuse and worship what God pleased him best Eus. Ec. Hist. 10. 5. And not only in 〈◊〉 but his Successors Reign to Gratian Paganism was allowed in the Senate-house where the Pagan Senators the Christians looking on the Ashes from the Altar the Smoak from the Sacrifice choaking them took their Oath at the Altar before their giving their Vote To which purpose after Gratian had demolisht it the Pagans moved Valentinian to restore it at the publick charge as being of
Infidels into the Abyss The Goats are cast into it after they are convict by the Covenant of Grace White Throne New Heaven and Earth Flames of Fire divided § 6. They that are in Christ rise first but Infidels are first Judged The Objection from their being in termino § 7. The Jews Septimum Millenarium is the eternal Sabbaoth The days of a Tree Isa. 65. 28. The Text Paraphrased § 1 THat this loosing of Satan shall not be till the Dawning of the Day of Judgement touching which I humbly submit to the candid Censure of the Church these my conjectures with my Reasons for them That Text Rev. 20. He shall gather them together from the four corners of the Earth seems to allude to Mat. 24. 31. and to be subsequent to that gathering of the Elect. He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet and they shall gather his elect from the four winds and from the one end of the heaven unto the other touching which first gathering of the Elect St. Paul tells us it shall be in order to their meeting of Christ in the day of Judgment at the sound of which Trumpet the dead in Christ shall rise first and then those Christians whom that day shall find alive shall in the twinckling of an eye be changed into the same form and condition of body with those that arose from the Dead and be caught up in the Air to meet Christ. Qui merebantur compendio mortis per demutationem expunctae concurrere cum resurgentibus Tertul. de resur cap. 41. They who obtained by that short cut of death cancel'd by change the priviledge to run together with them that rise to the place of Judgment And the ancient Church generally thought that the Center to which this gathering of the Saints should be is the Valley of Jehoshaphat whither she expected Christ would come to judge the World and in testimony of that her expectation and that she might in all her religious Assemblies be found waiting for that appearance of her Lord and be mindfull of that our general gathering unto Christ she turn'd her face while she worship'd toward that point of the Earth and therefore the sacred Places of Publick Worship were built with their Chancells where the Communion-Table the visible Throne of Grace stood at the East end if the place were Westward but at the West end of their Church if the place were East of that Valley that so in what coast soever the Name of Christ was invocated their Eyes and Minds might be directed thither this is the very reason why the Chancel of the Patriarchall Church of Antioch stood at the West-end and without doubt all the Churches within that Patriarchat that stood East of Judea were conformable to the Mother-Church as that was to the Practise of the Universal which from every point of the Circumference had its Lines drawn to that Navel of the Earth that Center of the general Assembly And therefore Socrates is out in his giving the standing of the Chancel of that Church contrariwise to the Chancels of the European and Natolian Churches for an Instance of the different Usages and Rites of some Churches from others for though in the rest of the Examples that he produceth one Church differ'd from another without breach of Charity or contempt of Religion yet in this Ceremony of looking towards the Valley of Jehosaphat there was an Universal Conformity no Church having so little manners as to turn her breech upon the place of Judgment while she worshipp'd the Judge and made Confession of her belief that she dayly expected his appearance over that place where at his ascension he was taken out of the sight of his Disciples into heaven and his Angels after that assured them that he should so come in like manner as they had seen him go into Heaven Which among other circumstances must imply that of the Place if not mean that above any other For as to other manner of his second Coming it will be with a far greater Train of Angels than they then saw him ascend with and in far greater Glory § 2. The Elect that is all that have profest the Worship of the true God or as David calls them Gods Saints that have made a Covenant with him by Sacrifice being gather'd to the place of Judgment or during their gathering thither For it seems Tertullian thought the Pagans would be at the heels of the rising Saints and that they might not surprise the Saints then living they should be changed in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye be in readiness to march up to the place of Judgement with those that are risen before the Antichristian party both of the then living and immediately to be rais'd could seize upon them Hujus gratiae privilegium illos manet qui ab adventu Domini deprehendentur in carne propter duritias temporum Antichristi moriebuntur compendio mortis c. Tertull. Ibidem This Election I say being gathered or a gathering to the place of Judgements the reprobates that is all Idolaters the whole Pagan World that have lived and died in Gentilism shall be raised and those that are living shall be changed And Satan now let loose the whole Church waiting in the Air the Judges coming will re-enter upon his old Demesne and drive all the Cattle he there finds as his own as weises and strays from the great Shepherd of Souls and perswading them perhaps that he raised them from the dead and would now at last be reveng'd on Christ and his Saints and dequoying them into an opinion that they had a fair opportunity of making havock of the City and People of God altogether of swallowing up the little Flock of Christ at one morsel now they were all in a body and a body so contemptible in comparison of those multitudes which he headed being as the Sand on the Sea-shore or by whatsoever insinuations he will prevail with them to march up under his and his Angels conduct from all parts of the World Gog and Magog tectum intectum as St. Jerom expounds Ezek. 28. and 29 the hidden Climes of the lower the known World of the upper Hemisphere against the holy Land and the Camp of the Saints which while they are encompassing the Judge appears and with that devouring fire that goes before him destroyes them in a moment For they being taken in the act of Rebellion as Cora and his Complices divine justice shall not need to proceed against them in a formal way of trial but the Earth chapt with this Fire of the last Conflagration cleaves asunder opens her mouth and receives them with the dregs of the whole Creation into that Abyss whither that Deluge of Fire to which the Heaven and Earth that now are are reserved shall drive them Judicium quod est retributio pro peccatis omnibus competit judicium quod est discussio meritorum solis fidelibus nullo
called Baalim Lords Meed's Apostacy of the later Times by whom as middle and indifferent Agents betwixt those superiour Gods and us Men they thought we received all manner of Good Now as the Soberer Party of Gentiles held There was but one only supreme God so also that there was some one individual Lord the common Saviour in whom should centre all those saving Properties that were scrambled by blind Devotionists amongst the crowd of their Local Presidents and by whom the supreme God would give not some things to all as he doth by the host of Heaven nor some things to some either Countries as their Local Presidents or Men as their Lares or Members as those divine Relievers to whom Jamblicus assigns the Cure of several Maladies afflicting the several Members of Man's Body were supposed to do But all things to all men Jamblicus de mysteriis titul de supplicationibus Hence Caligula who put in for the repute of a God-saviour among all Nations was not content with that honour which the several parts of the World had confer'd upon their respective Heroes but challengeth in gross what they had attain'd to in parcels and habits himself with all their Ensigns and Symbols with Hercules his Club and Lions Skin with Castor's Cap with Bacchus his Ivy and Javelin Mercury's Caducaeus Wings and Cloak Apollo's radiant Crown Bow Arrows Graces Praeans Mars his Gorget Helmet Shield Sword and not questioning his passing for a God incarnate in the rest of the Roman Provinces he commands his Statue to be erected in the Temple of Jerusalem with this Title NOVI JOVIS ILLUSTRIS CAII Of the new helping Father Caius outshining the ancient Heroes Philo Judaeus legatione ad Caium I expound Jupiter Juvans Pater the helping Father by the authority of Lactantius de falsa Religione l. 1. c. 11. who affirmeth that those Philosophers gave that Etymon who said they worshipp'd under that name the best and greatest God that is the Everlasting Father as our Scriptures stile God Redeemer And by his Novi I think he understood that new-born Saviour or God incarnate whom the Oriental Prophecy mention'd as about that time to appear in the World CHAP. VI. God the Light Man's Reliever § 1. Phebean Light mistaken for the true All-healing Light Joves and Vaejoves Mythology an help at a dead lift § 2. Wisdom begotten of God Man's Helper the Fathers Darling § 3. Made Man Sibyls maintain'd as quoted by Fathers Come short of Scripture-Oracles § 4. Virgil out of Sibyl prophesied of Christ. The Sibyllines brought to the Test. Tully ' s weak Exceptions against the Sibyllines § 5. Sibyl ' s Songs of God Redeemer the Eternal Word the Creator Apollo commends Christ. Local Saviours exploded § 1. THe Gentiles we see in their second thoughts pitch'd upon the Notion of one only Lord-saviour We will next enquire whom they conceived this Saviour to be or what And let the most learned and sagacious of all Heathen Philosophers determine this Question in the general I mean Varro who as he is quoted by Lactantius de falsa Religione l. 1. c. 21. and by Macrobius Saturnal l. 1. c. 7. affirmeth That Saturn was to be atton'd by the Oblation of Light and that Faunus mistook that Oracle which commanded him to offer to the Father of Gods Saturn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by misinterpreting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie Men as sometimes it used to do among the Ancients whence arose that barbarous Custom of sacrificing Men which Hercules abrogated by informing the Hetrurians that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was meant Light and by instituting the Oblation of the Image of Men made of Osiers which being set on fire were thrown down from the Milvian Bridge into Tyber In which Motion they resembled the Light immersing it self into the Abyss in the form of man and in particular represented the Sun falling into Thetis or the Sea For the World being impregnated with this Notion That God the Light was to be Man's Advocate with the Father or that God the Word of God is that true Light that enlightens with relief the whole World of Mankind a point which St. Austin saith he had met with in the Platonick Writings Confession l. 7. c. 9. And wanting patience to stay as to her application of that Maxim till the Fulness of Time was come when that Light should dwell amongst us And seeing for so many Ages nothing appear comparable to the Sun for splendour brought forth this false and precocious Conception That sure the Sun was that Light to whom therefore the Priests in that Prayer that Macrobius mentions Saturn 1. cap. 23. thus applied themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oh Almighty Sun Life of the World power of the World Light of the World Hence those Titles given to Apollo that is the Sun as Macrobius evinceth from the Titles themselves Saturnal 1. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sospitalis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remover of evil author of health Hence they pictur'd him with the Graces in his right hand and a Bow in his left as one by whom God communicated to us all good and protected us from all evil Hence the same Author asserts and proves by particulars That all the rest of the Gentile God-saviours Janus Saturn Apollo Bacchus Mars Mercury Esculapius Salus Hercules Isis Osiris Adonis Attine Horus Jupiter Adad were not Deities but either Instruments by which the Sun works or Emblems of those particular salvisick Properties which are altogether eminently and radically centred in the Sun Saturnal l. 1. à cap. 17. ad cap. 23. To Macrobius our own learned Antiquary Mr. Selden assents in his Diis Syriis and proves all the Syrian and Egyptian Gods to have been representations of the Vertues of that Hermaphrodite-light the Sun and Moon the Ancients thinking that the Soul of God-saviour either had been or was to be assumed into those Planets after he had performed his saving Gests upon Earth his animus the divine part of it into the Sun his anima or humane Soul into the Moon as being a Saviour of both Sexes upon which reason they called Apollo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Twin because he exhibited saith Macrob. Saturn 1. 17. a two-fold appearance of his Deity by illuminating and forming the Moon for from one Fountain of Light doth that Twin-constellation illuminate the spaces of Day and Night Whence the Romans worshiped the Sun by the appellation didymaei Apollinis under the name and form of the two-fac'd Janus And yet to exclude all other Deities from partaking with him in the honour of Mediatorship the same Author ibid. tells us That Numenius derived his Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his opening of obscure things but from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the ancient use of that word signifying one and alone That the Assyrian Adad the same with the Sun had that name from its Oneness and signifies
the one Lord Saturnal l. 1. c. 23. Upon which Johan Isaac hath this Note Significaverit itaque appellatio Dei unum at ipse Deus Solem The name of that God signisieth one the God himself signifieth the Sun To which will give light that of Herodotus l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the Gods they worship only the Sun And that of Plutarch de Iside Osiride 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The one Zoroastres calls Oromazes the good God the other Arimanius the Vejove or the evil God betwixt them both they place Mithra the Sun whom therefore the Persians call Mediator This Entire Opinion of the Persians Manes the Patriarch of the Manichees espoused That of there Jove and Vejove in his two-fold Principle good and bad this of the Sun in that Opinion which St. Austin asscribes to the Manichees contrà Faustum l. 20. c. 1. Vestrae vanitati placuit in Sole ponere virtutem filii in Luna sapientiam Your vain mind pleaseth it selfwith placing the virtue of Christ in the Sun and his Wisdom in the Moon The excellent Vossius opposeth these two Testimonies of Herodotus and Plutarch and upon the authority of the latter rejects the assertion of the former That the Persians worshipp'd no God but the Sun But if we duly weigh them they are not contradictory but explicatory of one another For Herodotus speaks of God-mediatours whereof amongst those many which after-ages erected the Persians only worshipp'd the Sun adhering in that point to the elder Tradition And Plutarch's Oromazes is nothing else but that God-Creator whom the ancient Persians worshipp'd without an Image or Temple conceiving him infinite and incomprehensible whereas of God-saviour they made Representations which at first were the Images of those Heroes whom they mistook for the promised Seed and in process of time the Symbols of the Sun into whose Body they conceived the Souls of their Heroes to be assumed Now it is no wonder that not being able to salve the appearance of evil with the goodness of God they fancied a Vejove another Eternal Principle of Evil betwixt which two Principles they placed God-mediatour as they called their Mithra that he might on man's behalf repel the evil of the one and procure benefits from the other Chrisippus saith Macrobius derived his name Apollo from the privitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he is the alone God-saviour and hath no partakers That I do not strain courtesie with Chrysippus his sence in this Interpretation is manifest from that other Etymology of that Name which is there subjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they think Apollo hath that name from his curing diseases to him therefore did the Milesians sacrifice under the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 salvifick in order to their obtaining health as saith Meandrius And Pherecydes reports that Theseus when he was carried into Crete to the Minotaur made a Vow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the health-conferring Apollo and Artemis that is the Moon And that we are here to take health in its largest sence as it comprehends all kind of Welfare and salvation from misery appears from the account that Macrobius gives of the Institution of the Ludi Apollinares among the Romans which were first instituted in the Punick War by the motion of Cornelius Rufus the Decemvir upon his finding in the Sibyls Books this Oracle HOSTEM ROMANI SI EX AGRO EXPELLERE VULTIS VOMICAM QUE QUAE GENTIUM VENIT LONGE APOLLINI CENSEO VOVENDOS HOC SI RECTE FACIETIS GAUDEBITIS SEMPER FIET QUE RESPUBLICA MELIOR NAM IS DIVOS EXTINGUET PERDUELLES VESTROS QUI VESTROS CAMPOS PASCUNT PLACIDE If you would O Romans expel the enemy out of your coast and the vomit cast from a Country so far distant I advise you to vow sacred Games to Apollo after the Grecian mode c. This if you perform regularly you shall always rejoice and your Republick shall grow better for that God will extinguish your enemies which so sweetly forrage your fields One point of the Grecian Rite which they observed in celebrating these Games was their offering to Apollo an Oxe to Latona an Heifer with gilt Horns the first to the Male the second to the Female-light By all which Testimonies it is as clear as the Sun that the Gentiles thought Light to be that God to whom they were to apply themselves for the removal of all sorts of maladies not only bodily but ghostly à quo vis salubris subvenit animis corporibúsque mortalium Maerob Saturn l. 1. cap. 20. as to him from whom a saving power was administred for the succour of Soul and Body as to him by whom Saturn the father of Jove the healing Father the sacer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the blessed Mind or sator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the creating Mind whose quatripartite issue were the four Elements Jupiter the Fire Juno the Air Neptune the water and Pluto the Earth was to be appeased as Fulgentius Mytholog l. 1. titulo De Saturno observes out of Apollophanes Heraclitus Theopompus and Hellanicus As also Vives de civitate l. 7. c. 19. out of Dionysius Plutarch Varro Festus Agellius Macrobius Propertius Lactantius and Ovid where he quotes Manetho the Aegyptian Historian relating how Amasis instituted the Consecrations of Wax-tapers to Saturn which they lighted and set upon his Altars to attone him saith Macrobius Saturnal l. 1. c. 7. This was to denote the expiatory sufferings of this heavenly Light in an earthly Body Upon which which reason they that took the Sun to be that Light did not only conceive him to fall every night into the Ocean but to run his course through the Zodiack beset with Monsters the conquering of which put him to such pain as gave ground to the Proverb Herculean Labours while he is supposed to encounter with the pushing Ram the goring Bull the stinging Scorpion c. And to have been wounded and hard put to it in his contending with Python But I shall have occasion hereafter to express the sence of the most industrious Heathen touching the Passion of the Common Saviour I will therefore conclude this Section with one critical Note more out of Macrobius and one upon him both tending to the illustration of this Point That which I note of him is that the Sun's Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from healing which the Grecians abbreviated into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that form of Invocation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Medere Paean Heal us Paean when they begg'd health for themselves but when they invok'd his aid against an enemy by way of imprecation they used this Form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Let thy arrows fly Paean this Form Latona used when she spurr'd the Sun on to repulse the assaults of Python this Form the Delphick Oracle taught the Athenians what time they begg'd Apollo's help