prevail against his Church which Prophecie is made good thus long till this day and is as a continual argument to justifie the Divinity of the Author The continuance of the Religion helps to continue it for it proves that it came from God who foretold that it should continue and therefore it must continue because it came from God and therefore it came from God because it does and shall for ever continue according to the word of the holy Jesus But after our blessed Lord was entred into glory the disciples also were Prophets Agabus foretold the dearth that was to be in the Roman Empire in the days of Claudius Caesar and that S. Paul should be bound at Jerusalem S. Paul foretold the entring in of Hereticks into Asia after his departure and he and S. Peter and S. Jude and generally the rest of the Apostles had two great predictions which they used not only as a verification of the doctrine of Jesus but as a means to strengthen the hearts of the Disciples who were so broken with persecution The one was that there should arise a Sect of vile men who should be enemies to Religion and Government and cause a great Apostasie which happened notoriously in the Sect of the Gnosticks which those three Apostles and S. John notoriously and plainly do describe And the other was that although the Jewish Nation did mightily oppose the Religion it should be but for a while for they should be destroyed in a short time and their Nation made extremely miserable but for the Christians if they would fly from Jerusalem and go to Pella there should not a hair of their head perish the verification of this Prophecy the Christians extremely long'd for and wondred it staid so long and began to be troubled at the delay and suspected all was not well when the great proof of their Religion was not verified and while they were in thoughts of heart concerning it the sad Catalysis did come and swept away 1100000. of the Nation and from that day forward the Nation was broken in pieces with intolerable calamities they are scattered over the face of the earth and are a vagabond Nation but yet like oyl in a vessel of wine broken into bubbles but kept in their own circles and they shall never be an united people till they are servants of the holy Jesus but shall remain without Priest or Temple without Altar or Sacrifice without City or Country without the Land of Promise or the promise of a blessing till our Jesus is their high Priest and the Shepherd to gather them into his fold And this very thing is a mighty demonstration against the Jews by their own Prophets for when Isaiah and Jeremiah and Malachi had Prophesied the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles and the change of the old Law and the introduction of a new by the Messias that this was he was therefore certain because he taught the World a new Law and presently after the publication of this the old was abrogate and not only went into desuetude but into a total abolition among all the World and for those of the remnant of the scattered Jews who obstinately blaspheme the Law is become impossible to them and they placed in such circumstances that they need not dispute concerning its obligation for it being external and corporal ritual and at last made also local when the circumstances are impossible the Law that was wholly ceremonial and circumstantial must needs pass away and when they have lost their Priesthood they cannot retain the Law as no man takes care to have his beard shaved when his head is off And it is a wonder to consider how the anger of God is gone out upon that miserable people and that so great a blindness is fallen upon them it being evident and notorious that the old Testament was nothing but a shadow and umbrage of the new that the Prophecies of that are plainly verified in this that all the predictions of the Messias are most undeniably accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ so that they cannot with any plausibleness or colour be turned any other way and be applied to any other person although the Jews make illiterate allegations and prodigious dreams by which they have fool'd themselves for 1600. years together and still hope without reason and are confident without revelation and pursue a shadow while they quit the glorious body while in the mean time the Christian prays for his conversion and is at rest in the truth of Jesus and hath certain unexpressible confidencies and internal lights clarities of the holy Spirit of God and loves to the holy Jesus produc'd in his soul that he will die when he cannot dispute and is satisfied and he knows not how and is sure by comforts and comforted by the excellency of his belief which speaks nothing but holiness and light and reason and peace and satisfactions infinite because he is sure that all the World can be happy if they would live by the Religion of Jesus and that neither societies of Men nor single persons can have felicity but by this and that therefore God who so decrees to make Men happy hath also decreed that it shall for ever be upon the face of the earth till the earth it self shall be no more Amen Now if against this vast heap of things any Man shall but confront the pretences of any other Religion and see how they fail both of reason and holiness of wonder and Divinity how they enter by force and are kept up by humane interests how ignorant and unholy how unlearned and pitiful are their pretences the darknesses of these must add great eminency to the brightness of that For the Jews Religion which came from Heaven is therefore not now to be practised because it did come from Heaven and was to expire into the Christian it being nothing but the image of this perfection and the Jews needed no other argument but this that God hath made theirs impossible now to be done for he that ties to Ceremonies and outward usages Temples and Altars Sacrifices and Priests troublesome and expensive rites and figures of future signification means that there should be an abode and fixt dwelling for these are not to be done by an ambulatory people and therefore since God hath scattered the People into atomes and crumbs of society without Temple or Priest without Sacrifice or Altar without Vrim or Thummim without Prophet or Vision even communicating with them no way but by ordinary providence it is but too evident that God hath nothing to do with them in the matter of that Religion but that it is expired and no way obligatory to them or pleasing to him which is become impossible to be acted whereas the Christian Religion is as eternal as the soul of a Man and can no more cease than our spirits can die and can worship upon Mountains and Caves in Fields and Churches in
the birth of this young Child which was thus glorified by a Star was also signified by an Angel and was effected by the holy Spirit of God in a manner which was in it self supernatural a Virgin was his Mother and God was his Father and his beginning was miraculous and this matter of his birth of a Virgin was proved to an interested and jealous person even to Joseph the supposed father of Jesus it was affirmed publickly by all his family and by all his disciples and published in the midst of all his enemies who by no artifice could reprove it a matter so famous that when it was urged as an argument to prove Jesus to be the Messias by the force of a Prophecy in Isaiah A Virgin shall conceive a Son they who obstinately refused to admit him did not deny the matter of fact but denied that it was so meant by the Prophet which if it were true can only prove that Jesus was more excellent than was foretold by the Prophets but that there was nothing less in him than was to be in the Messias it was a matter so famous that the Arabian Physicians who can affirm no such things of their Mahomet and yet not being able to deny it to be true of the Holy Jesus endeavour to elevate and lessen the thing by saying It is not wholly beyond the force of nature that a Virgin should conceive so that it was on all hands undeniable that the Mother of Jesus was a Virgin a Mother without a Man This is that Jesus at whose presence before he was born a Babe in his Mothers belly also did leap for joy who was also a person extraordinary himself conceived in his Mothers old age after a long barrenness signified by an Angel in the Temple to his Father officiating his Priestly Office who was also struck dumb for his not present believing all the People saw it and all his Kindred were witnesses of his restitution and he was named by the Angel and his Office declared to be the fore-runner of the holy Jesus and this also was foretold by one of the old Prophets for the whole story of this Divine person is a chain of providence and wonder every link of which is a verification of a Prophecy and all of it is that thing which from Adam to the Birth of Jesus was pointed at and hinted by all the Prophets whose words in him passed perfectly into the event This is that Jesus who as he was born without a Father so he was learned without a Master he was a Man without age a Doctor in a Child's garment disputing in the Sanctuary at 12. Years old He was a sojourner in Egypt because the poor Babe born of an indigent Mother was a formidable rival to a potent King and this fear could not come from the design of the Infant but must needs arise from the illustriousness of the Birth and the Prophecies of the Child and the sayings of the Learned and the journey of the Wise-men nd the decrees of God this journey and the return were both managed by the conduct of an Angel and a Divine dream for to the Son of God all the Angels did rejoyce to minister This Blessed Person made thus excellent by his Father and glorious by miraculous consignations and illustrious by the ministery of Heavenly spirits and proclaimed to Mary and to Joseph by two Angels to the Shepherds by a Multitude of the Heavenly Host to the Wise men by a Prophecy and by a Star to the Jews by the Shepherds to the Gentiles by the three Wise men to Herod by the Doctors of the Law and to himself perfectly known by the inchasing his humane nature in the bosom and heart of God and by the fulness of the Spirit of God was yet pleased for 30. Years together to live an humble a laborious a chast and a devout a regular and an even a wise and an exemplar a pious and an obscure life without complaint without sin without design of fame or grandeur of spirit till the time came that the clefts of the rock were to open and the Diamond give its lustre and be worn in the Diadems of Kings and then this Person was wholly admirable for he was ushered into the World by the voice of a loud Crier in the Wilderness a Person austere and wise of a strange life full of holiness and full of hardness and a great Preacher of righteousness a Man believed by all the People that he came from God one who in his own Nation gathered Disciples publickly and which amongst them was a great matter he was the Doctor of a new institution and baptized all the Country yet this man so great so rever'd so followed so listned to by King and People by Doctors and by ideots by Pharisees and Sadducees this man preached Jesus to the People pointed out the Lamb of God told that he must increase and himself from all that fame must retire to give him place he received him to Baptism after having with duty and modesty declared his own unworthiness to give but rather a worthiness to receive Baptism from the holy hands of Jesus but at the solemnity God sent down the holy Spirit upon his holy Son and by a voice from Heaven a voice of thunder and God was in that voice declared that this was his Son and that he was delighted in him This voice from Heaven was such so evident so certain a conviction of what it did intend to prove so known and accepted as the way of Divine revelation under the second Temple that at that time every Man that desired a sign honestly would have been satisfied with such a voice it being the testimony by which God made all extraordinaries to be credible to his People from the days of Ezra to the death of the Nation and that there was such a voice not only then but divers times after was as certain and made as evident as things of that nature can ordinarily be made For it being a matter of fact cannot be supposed infinite but limited to time and place heard by a certain number of persons and was as a clap of Thunder upon ordinary accounts which could be heard but by those who were within the sphere of its own activity and reported by those to others who are to give testimony as testimonies are required which are credible under the test of two or three disinterested honest and true Men and though this was done in the presence of more and oftner than once yet it was a divine testimony but at first but is to be conveyed by the means of Men and as God thundred from Heaven at the giving of the Law though that he did so we have notice only from the Books of Moses received from the Jewish Nation so he did in the days of the Baptist and so he did to Peter James and John and so he did in the presence of the Pharisees and many of the
they were accepted by all Churches at the very first notice except some few of the later which were first received by some Churches and then consented to by all they were acknowledged by the same and by the next age for genuine their authority published their words cited appeals made to them in all questions of Religion because it was known and confessed that they wrote nothing but that they knew so that they were not deceived and to say they would lie must be made to appear by something extrinsecal to this inquiry and was never so much as plausibly pretended by any Adversaries and it being a matter of another mans will must be declared by actions or not at all But besides the men that wrote them were to be believed because they did Miracles they wrote Prophecies which are verified by the event persons were cured at their Sepulchres a thing so famous that it was confessed even by the enemies of the Religion and after all that which the World ought to rely upon is the wisdom and the providence and the goodness of God all which it concerned to take care that the Religion which himself so adorned and proved by miracles and mighty signs should not be lost nor any false writings be obtruded in stead of true left without our fault the will of God become impossible to be obeyed But to return to the thing All those excellent things which singly did make famous so many sects of Philosophers and remarked so many Princes of their sects all them united and many more which their eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dark and dim could not see are heaped together in this system of wisdom and holiness Here are plain precepts full of deepest mystery here are the measures of holiness and approaches to God describ'd obedience and conformity mortification of the body and elevations of the spirit abstractions from earth and Arts of society and union with heaven degrees of excellencies and tendences to perfection imitations of God and conversations with him these are the heights and descents upon the plain grounds of natural reason and natural religion for there is nothing commanded but what our reason by nature ought to choose and yet nothing of natural reason taught but what is heightned and made more perfect by the Spirit of God and when there is any thing in the Religion that is against flesh and blood it is only when flesh and blood is against us and against reason when flesh and blood either would hinder us from great felicity or bring us into great misery To conclude it is such a Law that nothing can hinder men to receive and entertain but a pertinacious baseness and love to vice and none can receive it but those who resolve to be good and excellent and if the holy Jesus had come into the World with less splendor of power and mighty demonstrations yet even the excellency of what he taught makes him alone fit to be the Master of the World But then let us consider what this excellent person did effect and with what instruments he brought to great things to pass He was to put a period to the Rites of Moses and the Religion of the Temple of which the Jews were zealous even unto pertinacy to reform the manners of all Mankind to confound the wisdom of the Greeks to break in pieces the power of the Devil to destroy the worship of all false Gods to pull down their Oracles and change their Laws and by principles wise and holy to reform the false discourses of the World But see what was to be taught A Trinity in the Unity of the God-head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Christian Arithmetick Three are one and one are three so Lucian in his Philopatris or some other derides the Christian Doctrine See their Philosophy Ex nihilo nihil fit No Ex nihilo omnia all things are made of nothing and a Man God and a God Man same person finite and infinite born in time and yet from all eternity the Son of God but yet born of a Woman and she a Maid but yet a Mother resurrection of the dead re-union of soul and body this was part of the Christian Physicks or their natural Philosophy But then certainly their moral was easie and delicious It is so indeed but not to flesh and blood whose appetites it pretends to regulate or to destroy to restrain or else to mortifie fasting and penance and humility loving our enemies restitution of injuries and self-denial and taking up the Cross and losing all our goods and giving our life for Jesus As the other was hard to believe so this is as hard to do But for whom and under whose conduct was all this to be believed and all this to be done and all this to be suffered surely for some glorious and mighty Prince whose splendor as far out-shines the Roman Empire as the jewels of Cleopatra out-shined the swadling clothes of the Babe at Bethlehem No it was not so neither For all this was for Jesus whom his followers preached a poor Babe born in a stable the son of a Carpenter cradled in a cratch swadled in poor clouts it was for him whom they indeed call'd a God but yet whom all the World knew and they themselves said was whip'd at a Post nailed to a Cross he fell under the malice of the Jews his Countrymen and the power of his Roman Lords a cheap and a pitiful sacrifice without beauty and without splendor The design is great but does not yet seem possible But therefore let us see what instruments the Holy Jesus chose to effect these so mighty changes to perswade so many propositions to endear so great sufferings to overcome so great enemies to master so many impossibilities which this Doctrine and this Law from this Master were sure to meet withal Here here it is that the Divinity of the power is proclaimed When a Man goes to war he raises as great an Army as he can to out-number his Enemy but when God fights three hundred men that lap like a dogg are sufficient nay one word can dissolve the greatest army He that means to effect any thing must have means of his own proportionable and if they be not he must fail or derive them from the mighty See then with what instruments the holy Jesus sets upon this great reformation of the world Twelve men of obscure and poor birth of contemptible Trades and quality without learning without breeding these men were sent into the midst of a knowing and wise World to dispute with the most famous Philosophers of Greece to out-wit all the learning of Athens to out-preach all the Roman Orators to introduce into a newly setled Empire which would be impatient of novelties and change such a change as must destroy all their Temples or remove thence all their gods against which change all the zeal of the World and all the passions and all the seeming pretences
which they could make must needs be violently opposed a change that introduced new Laws and caused them to reverse the old to change that Religion under which their Fathers long did prosper and under which the Roman Empire obtained so great a grandeur for a Religion which in appearance was silly and humble meek and peaceable not apt indeed to do harm but exposing men to all the harm in the world abateing their courage blunting their swords teaching peace and unactiveness and making the Souldiers arms in a manner useless and untying their military girdle a Religion which contradicted their reasons of State and erected new Judicatories and made the Roman Courts to be silent and without causes a Religion that gave countenance to the poor and pitiful but in a time when riches were adored and ambition esteemed the greatest nobleness and pleasure thought to be the chiefest good it brought no peculiar blessing to the rich or mighty unless they would become poor and humble in some real sense or other a Religion that would change the face of things and would also pierce into the secrets of the soul and unravel all the intrigues of hearts and reform all evil manners and break vile habits into gentleness and counsel that such a Religion in such a time preached by such mean persons should triumph over the Philosophy of the World and the arguments of the subtle and the Sermons of the eloquent and the power of Princes and the interest of States and the inclinations of nature and the blindness of zeal and the force of custom and the pleasures of sin and the busie Arts of the Devil that is against wit and power and money and Religion and wilfulness and fame and Empire which are all the things in the World that can make a thing impossible this I say could not be by the proper force of such instruments for no Man can span Heaven with an Infants palm nor govern wise Empires with Diagrams It were impudence to send a footman to command Caesar to lay down his arms to disband his legions and throw himself into Tyber or keep a Tavern next to Pompeys Theatre but if a sober man shall stand alone unarm'd undefended or unprovided and shall tell that he will make the Sun stand still or remove a Mountain or reduce Xerxes his Army to the scantling of a single Troop he that believes he will and can do this must believe he does it by a higher power than he can yet perceive and so it was in the present transaction For that the holy Jesus made invisible powers to do him visible honors that his Apostles hunted the Daemons from their Tripods their Navels their Dens their hollow Pipes their Temples and their Altars that he made the Oracles silent as Lucian Porphyrie Celsus and other Heathens confess that against the order of new things which let them be never so profitable or good do yet suffer reproach and cannot prevail unless they commence in a time of advantage and favour yet that this should flourish like the Palm by pressure grow glorious by opposition thrive by persecution and was demonstrated by objections argues a higher cause than the immediate instrument now how this higher cause did intervene is visible and notorious The Apostles were not learned but the holy Jesus promised that he would send down wisdom from above from the Father of spirits they had no power but they should be invested with power from on high they were ignorant and timorous but he would make them learned and confident and so he did he promised that in a few days he would send the holy Ghost upon them and he did so after ten days they felt and saw a glorious immission from heaven lights of movable fire sitting upon their heads and that light did illuminate their hearts and the mighty rushing wind inspired them with a power of speaking divers languages and brought to their remembrances all that Jesus did and taught and made them wise to conduct souls and bold to venture and prudent to advise and powerful to do miracles and witty to convince gain-sayers and hugely instructed in the Scriptures and gave them the spirit of Government and the spirit of Prophecy This thing was so publick that at the first notice of it three thousand souls were converted on that very day at the very time when it was done for it was certainly a visible demonstration of an invisible power that ignorant persons who were never taught should in an instant speak all the Languages of the Roman Empire and indeed this thing was so necessary to be so and so certain that it was so so publick and so evident and so reasonable and so useful that it is not easie to say whether it was the indication of a greater power or a greater wisdom and now the means was proportionable enough to the biggest end without learning they could not confute the learned World but therefore God became their Teacher without power they could not break the Devils violence but therefore God gave them power without courage they could not contest against all the violence of the Jews and Gentiles but therefore God was their strength and gave them fortitude without great caution and providence they could not avoid the traps of crafty Persecutors but therefore God gave them caution and made them provident and as Besaleel 〈◊〉 Aâ—oliâ—h received the spirit of God the spirit of understanding to enable them to work excellently in the Tabernacle so had the Apostles to make them wise for the work of God and the Ministeries of his Diviner Tabernacle which God pitched not man Immediately upon this the Apostles to make a fulness of demonstration and an undeniable conviction gave the spirit to others also to Jews and Gentiles and to the Men of Samaria and they spake with Tongues and prophesied then they preached to all Nations and endured all persecutions and cured all diseases and raised the dead to life and were brought before Tribunals and confessed the Name of Jesus and convinced the blasphemous Jews out of their own Prophets and not only prevailed upon Women and weak Men but even upon the bravest and wisest All the disciples of John the Baptist the Nazarens and Ebionites Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea Sergius the President Dionysius an Athenian Judge and Polycarpus Justinus and Irenaeus Athenagoras and Origen Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria who could not be such fools as upon a matter not certainly true but probably false to unravel their former principles and to change their liberty for a Prison wealth for poverty honor for disreputation life for death if by such exchange they had not been secured of truth and holiness and the will of God But above all these was Saul a bold and a witty a zealous and learned young man who going with Letters to persecute the Christians of Damascus was by a light from Heaven called from his furious march reproved by God's Angel for persecuting