soul an offering for sin hee shall see his seed saith the Prophet Esaias t A seed shall serve him it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation saith his Father David likewise of him and he himselfe of himselfe u Behold I and the children which God hath given me VVhence the Apostle deduceth this conclusion x Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and bloud he also himselfe likewise tooke part of the same He himselfe that is he who was God equall to the Father for who else was able to make this y new creature but the same z God that is the Creator of all things no lesse power being requisite to the effecting of this then was at the first to the producing of all things out of nothing and these new a babes being to be b borne of the Spirit who could have power to send the Spirit thus to beget them but the Father and the Sonne from whom he proceeded the same blessed Spirit who framed the naturall body of our Lord in the wombe of the Virgin being to new mould and fashion every member of his mysticall body unto his similitude and likenesse For the further opening of which mystery which went beyond the apprehension of c Nicodemus though a master of Israel we are to consider that in every perfect generation the creature produced receiveth two things from him that doth beget it Life and Likenesse A curious limmer draweth his own sonnes portraiture to the life as we say yet because there is no true life in it but a likenesse only he cannot be said to be the begetter of his picture as he is of his Son And some creatures there be that are bred out of mudde or other putrid matter which although they have life yet because they have no correspondence in likenesse unto the principle from whence they were derived are therefore accounted to have but an improper and equivocall generation whereas in the right and proper course of generation others being esteemed but monstrous births that swarve from that rule every creature begetteth his like nec imbellem feroces Progener ant aquilae columbam Now touching our spirituall death life these sayings of the Apostle would be thought upon d Wee thus judge that if one dyed for all then were all dead and that be dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which dyed for them and rose againe e God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin hath quickened us together with Christ f And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath hee quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses g I am crucified with Christ Neverthelesse I live yet not I but Christ liveth in mee and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved mee and gave himselfe for me From all which we may easily gather that if by the obedience and sufferings of a bare man though never so perfect the most soveraigne medicine that could be thought upon should have beene prepared for the curing of our wounds yet all would be to no purpose we being found dead when the medicine did come to be applyed Our Physitian therefore must not only be able to restore us unto health but unto life it selfe which none can do but the Father Son and holy Ghost one God blessed for ever to which purpose these passages of our Saviour also are to be considered h As the father hath life in himselfe so hath he given to the Son to have life in himselfe i As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me k I am the living bread which came downe from heaven if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever and the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world the substance whereof is briefly comprehended in this saying of the Apostle l The last Adam was made a quickening spirit An Adam therefore and perfect Man must he have been that his flesh given for us upon the Crosse might be made the conduit to convey life unto the world and a quickening spirit he could not have been unlesse he were God able to make that flesh an effectuall instrument of life by the operation of his blessed spirit For as himselfe hath declared m It is the Spirit that quickeneth without it the flesh would profit nothing As for the poynt of similitude and likenesse we reade of Adam after his fall that he n beg at a son in his owne liknesse after his image and generally as well touching the carnall as the spirituall generation our Saviour hath taught us this lesson o That which is borne of the flesh is flesh and that which is borne of the Spirit is spirit Whereupon the Apostle maketh this comparison betwixt those who are borne of that first man who is of the earth earthy and of the second man who is the Lord from heaven p As is the earthy such are they that are earthy and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly and as we have borne the image of the earthy we shall also beare the image of the heavenly We shall indeed hereafter bear it in full perfection when q the Lord Jesus Christ shall change our base body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby hee is able even to subdue all things unto himselfe Yet in the mean time also such a conformity is required in us unto that heavenly man that r our conversation must be in heaven whence we look for this Saviour and that we must s put off concerning the former conversation that old man which is corrupt according to the deceitfull lusts and be renewed in the spirit of our mind and put on the new man which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holinesse For as in one particular point of domesticall authority t the Man is said to be the image and glory of God and the Woman the glory of the Man so in a more universall maner is Christ said to be u the image of God even x the brightnesse of his glory the expresse image of his person and we y to be conformed to his image that he might be the first-born among those many brethren who in that respect are accounted z the glory of Christ We read in the holy story that God a tooke of the spirit which was upon Moses and gave it unto the seventy Elders that they might bear the burden of the People with him and that he might not beare it as before he had
was therefore commanded to be b made with Cherubims to shew that we come c to an innumerable company of Angels when we come to Iesus the Mediatour of the New Testament who as the Head of the Church hath power to d send forth all those ministring spirits to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Lastly we are to take into our consideration that as in things concerning God the maine execution of our Sauiours Priesthood doth consist so in things concerning Man he exerciseth both his Propheticall office whereby he openeth the will of his Father unto us and his Kingly whereby he ruleth and protecteth us It was indeed a part of e the Priests office in the old Testament to instruct the people in the Law of God and yet were f they distinguished from Prophets like as in the new Testament also g Prophets as well as Apostles are made a different degree from ordinary Pastours and Teachers who received not their doctrine by immediate inspiration from heaven as those other h holy men of God did who spake as they were moved by the holy Ghost Whence Saint Paul putteth the Hebrewes in mind that God who i in sundry parts and in sundry manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets hath in these last dayes spoken unto us by his Son Christ Jesus whom therefore he styleth k the Apostle as well as the high Priest of our profession who was faithfull to him that appointed him even as Moses was in all his house Now Moses we know had a singular preeminence above all the rest of the Prophets according to that ample testimony which God himself giveth of him l If there be a Prophet among you I the Lord will make my self knowne unto him in a vision and will speake unto him in a dream My servant Moses is not so who is faithfull in all mine house with him well I speake mouth to mouth even apparently and not in dark speeches and the similitude of the Lord shall be behold And therefore we finde that our Mediatour in the execution of his Propheticall office is in a more peculiar manner likened unto Moses which he himself also did thus foretell m The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me umto him ye shall hearken According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly saying Let me not heare againe the voyce of the Lord my God neither let me see this great fire any more that I dye not And the Lord said unto me They have well spoken that which they have spoken I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee and will put my words into his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him And it shall come to passe that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him Our Prophet therefore must be a man raised from among his brethren the Israelites n of whom as concerning the flesh he came who was to performe unto us that which the fathers requested of Moses o Speak thou to us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we dye And yet that in this also we may see how our Mediatour had the preeminence p when Aaron and all the children of Israel were to receive from the mouth of Moses all that the Lord had spoken with him in mount Sinai they were afraid to come nigh him by reason of the glory of his shining countenance so that he was faine to put a vaile over his face while he spake unto them that which he was commanded But that which for a time was thus q made glorious had no glory in respect of the glory that excelleth and both the glory thereof and the vaile which covered it are now abolished in Christ the vaile of whose flesh doth so overshadow r the brightnesse of his glory that yet under it we may s behold his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father yea and t we all with open face beholding as in a glasse the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord And this is daily effected by the power of the ministery of the Gospell instituted by the authority and seconded by the power of this our great Prophet whose transcendent excellency beyond Moses unto whom in the execution of that function he was otherwise likened is thus set forth by the Apostle u He is counted worthy of more glory then Moses in as much as he who hath builded the house hath more honour then the house For every house is builded by some one but he that built all things is God And Moses verily was faithfull in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after but Christ as the Son over his owne house x This house of God is no other then the Church of the living God whereof as he is the only Lord so is he properly the only Builder Christ therefore being both the Lord and the y Builder of his Church must be God as well as Man which is the cause why we finde all the severall mansions of this z great house to carry the title indifferently of a the Churches of God and b the Churches of Christ True it is that there are other ministeriall builders whom Christ employed in that service this being not the least of those gifts which he bestowed upon men at his triumphant Ascension into heaven that c he gave not only ordinary Pastours and Teachers but Apostles likewise and Prophets Evangelists for the perfecting of the Saints for the worke of the ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ Which what great power it required he himself doth fully expresse in passing the grant of this high Commission unto his Apostles d All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world Amen S. Paul professeth of himself that he e laboured more abundantly then all the rest of the Apostles yet not I saith he but the grace of God which was with me And therefore although f according to that grace of God which was given unto him he denieth not but that as a wise master-builder he had laid the foundation yet he acknowledgeth that they upon whom he had wrought were Gods building as well as Gods husbandry For who saith g
the dead presenting himselfe in Heaven before him unto whom the debt was owing and maintaining his standing there hath hereby given good proofe that he is now a free-man and hath fully discharged that debt of ours for which he stood committed And this is the evidence we have to shew of that righteousnesse whereby we stand justified in Gods sight according to that of the Apostle y Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Now although an ordinary man may easily part with his life yet doth it not lye in his power to resume it againe at his own will and pleasure But he that must doe the turne for us must be able to say as our IESVS did z I lay down my life that I may take it again No man taketh it from me but I lay it downe of my selfe I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it againe and in another place a Destroy this Temple and in three dayes I will raise it up saith he unto the Jewes speaking of the Temple of his body An humane nature then he must have had which might be subject to dissolution but being once dissolved he could not by his owne strength which was the thing here necessarily required raise it up againe unlesse he had b declared himselfe to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead The Manhood could suffer but not overcome the sharpnesse of death the Godhead could suffer nothing but overcome any thing He therefore that was both to suffer and to overcome death for us must be partaker of both natures that c being put to death in the flesh he might be able also to quicken himselfe by his owne Spirit And now are wee come to that part of Christs mediation which concerneth the conveiance of d the redemption of this purchased possession unto the sons of men A deare purchase indeed which was to be redeemed with no lesse price then the bloud of the Sonne of God but what should the purchase of a stranger have been to us or what should we have beene the better for all this if we could not derive our descent from the purchaser or raise some good title whereby we might estate our selves in his purchase Now this was the manner in former time in Israell concerning redemptions that unto him who was the next of kinne belonged the right of being e Goël or the Redeemer And Iob had before that left this glorious profession of his faith unto the perpetuall memory of all posterity f I know that my Goël or Redeemer liveth and at the last shall arise upon the dust or stand upon the earth And after this my skinne is spent yet in my flesh shall I see God Whom I shall see for my selfe and mine eyes shall behold and not another for me Whereby we may easily understand that his and our Redeemer was to be the invisible God and yet in his assumed flesh made visible even to the bodily eyes of those whom he redeemed For if he had not thus assumed our flesh how should we have been of his bloud or claimed any kindred to him and unlesse the Godhead had by a personall union beene unseparably conjoyned unto that flesh how could he therein have beene accounted our next of kinne For the better clearing of which last reason we may call to mind that sentence of the Apostle g The first man is of the earth earthy the second man is the Lord from heaven Where notwithstanding there were many millions of men in the world betwixt these two yet we see our Redeemer reckoned the second man and why but because these two were the only men who could be accounted the prime fountains from whence all the rest of mankinde did derive their existence and being For as all men in the world by meane descents do draw their first originall from the first man so in respect of a more immediate influence of efficiencie and operation do they owe their being unto the second man as he is the Lord from heaven This is Gods own language unto Jeremy h Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and this is Davids acknowledgement for his part i Thy hands have made me and fashioned me k thou hast covered me in my mothers wombe l thou art he that took me out of my mothers bowels and Jobs for his also m Thy hands have made me and fashioned me together round about thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh and hast fenced me with bones and sinews and the n Apostles for us all In him we live and move and have our being who inferreth also thereupon both that we are the off-spring or generation of God and that he is not farre from every one of us this being to be admitted for a most certaine truth notwithstanding the opposition of all gain-sayers that * God doth more immediately concurre to the generation and all other motions of the creature then any naturall agent doth or can doe And therefore if o by one mans offedce death raigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace of the gift of righteousnes shall raign in life by one Jesus Christ considering that this second man is not only as universall a principle of all our beings as was that first and so may sustaine the common person of us all as well as he but is a far more immediate agent in the production thereof not as the first so many generations removed from us but more near unto us then our very next progenitours and in that regard justly to be accounted our next of kinne even before them also Yet is not this sufficient neither but there is another kinde of generation required for which we must be beholding unto the second man the Lord from heaven before we can have interest in this purchased Redemption For as the guilt of the first mans transgression is derived unto us by the meanes of carnall generation so must the benefit of the second mans obedience be conveyed unto us by spirituall regeneration And this must be layd downe as a most undoubted verity that p except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdome of God and that every such must be q born not of bloud nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God Now as our Mediatour in respect of the Adoption of Sons which he hath procured for us r is not ashamed to call us Brethren so in respect of this new birth whereby he begetteth us to a spirituall everlasting life he disdaineth not to owne us as his Children s When thou shalt make his
he is Paul and who is Apollo but ministers by whom you beleeved even as the Lord gave to every man I have planted Apollo watered but God gave the increase So then neither is he that planteth anything neither he that watereth but God that giveth the increase Two things therefore we finde in our great Prophet which do far exceed the ability of any bare Man and so do difference him from all the h holy Prophets which have beene since the world began For first we are taught that i no man knoweth the Father save the Son and hee to whomsoever the Son will reveale him and that k no man hath seen God at anytime but the only begotten Son which is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him Being in his bosome he is become conscious of his secrets and so out of his own immediate knowledge enabled to discover the whole will of his Father unto us whereas all other Prophets and Apostles receive their revelations at the second hand and according to the grace given unto them by the Spirit of Christ Witnesse that place of S. Peter for the Prophets l Of which salvation the Prophets have enquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you searching what or what manner of time THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST WHICH WAS IN THEM did signifie when it testified before hand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow and for the Apostles those heavenly words which our Saviour himselfe uttered unto them whilst he was among them m When the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himselfe but whatsoever he shall heare that shall he speake and he will shew you things to come He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine shew it unto you All things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you Secondly all other Prophets and Apostles can do more as hath been said but plant and water only God can give the increase they may teach indeed and baptize but unlesse Christ were with them by the powerfull presence of his Spirit they would not be able to save one soule by that ministery of theirs We n as lively stones are built up a spirituall house but o except the Lord doe build this house they labour in vaine that build it For who is able to breath the spirit of life into those dead stones but he of whom it is written p The hour is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God and they that hear it shall live and again q Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Who can awake us out of this dead sleep and give light unto these blinde eyes of ours but the Lord our God unto whom we pray that he would r lighten our eyes least we sleep the sleep of death And as a blinde man is not able to conceive the distinction of colours although the skilfullest man alive should use all the art he had to teach him because he wanteth the sense whereby that object is discernable so s the naturall man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishnesse unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned VVhereupon the Apostle concludeth concerning himselfe and all his fellow-labourers that t God who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Iesus Christ but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us Our Mediatour therefore who must u be able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him may not want the excellency of the power whereby he may make us capable of this high knowledge of the things of God propounded unto us by the ministery of his servants and consequently in this respect also must be God as well as Man There remaineth the Kingdome of our Redeemer described thus by the Prophet Esay x Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdome to order it and to establish it with judgement and with justice from henceforth even for ever and by Daniel y Behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the Ancient of daies and they brought him near before him And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdome that all people nations languages should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not passe away and his kingdome that which shall not be destroyed and by the angel Gabriel in his ambassage to the blessed Virgin z Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Iesus He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David And he shall reigne over the house of Iacob for ever and of his kingdome there shall be no end This is that new a David our King whom God hath raised up unto his b owne Israel who was in truth that which he was called the Son of Man and the Sonne of the Highest that in the one respect c we may say unto him as the Israelites of old did unto their David d Behold we are thy bone and thy flesh and in the other sing of him as David himself did e The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou at my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstoole So that the promise made unto our first parents that f the seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents head may well stand with that other saying of S. Paul that g the God of peace shal bruise Satan under our feet seeing h for this very purpose the Son of God was manifested i in the flesh that he might destroy the works of the Divel and still that foundation of God will remaine unshaken k I even I am the Lord and beside mee there is no Saviour l Thou shalt know no God but me for there is no Saviour beside me Two speciall branches there bee of this Kingdome of our Lord and Saviour the one of Grace whereby that part of the Church is governed which is militant upon earth the other of Glory belonging to that part which is triumphant in Heaven Here upon earth as by his Propheticall office he worketh upon our Mind and Understanding so by his Kingly he ruleth our Will and Affections m casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it selfe against the