was not weaned if in this he followed the use and custom of the Jewish children as it is like he did but still sucked his Mothers breasts As he grew in body he grew much more in mind for so the phrase He waxed strong in Spirit seemeth to be understood by the Evangelist taking Spirit not so much for the Holy Ghost though it is past question he was filled with that as for his Soul or spiritual part of his humane nature And so he describeth his growth in both parts in the two expressions The child grew in body and waxed strong in intellect and soul filled with wisdom in an extraordinary manner above other children and a graciousness appeared in him both in person and actions Ver. 41. Now his Parents went to Jerusalem c. Joseph is called the Parent of Christ as Paul calleth preaching foolishness 1 Cor. 1. 21 23. because he was so commonly reputed by men And as for Womens going up to this Festival whereas the Law required only the Males appearance before the Lord three times in the year we shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter Ver. 42. And when he was twelve years old c. At what age our Saviour sheweth his admirable wisdom in the Temple among the Doctors in this Story at the same age had Solomon shewed his in the matter of the two Hostesses about the dead and living child 1 King 3. 25. 28. For that he was twelve years old at that time may be conceived upon these collections First Absalom began to rebel in the thirty seventh year of Davids Reign or three years before his death or thereabout This is to be picked out of that dateless reckoning of years 2 Sam. 15. 7. And after forty years Absalom said let me go pay my vow c. These forty years are counted from the time that Israel asked a King three of Sauls Reign 1 Sam. 13. 1. and seven and thirty of Davids and then began Absalom to challenge the Kingdom and the reckoning from that date giveth this hint and intimation that as their asking a King then did sore displease the Lord so now are they punished in the proper kind for it when they have so many Kings that they know not well which to follow and many of them perish in following the usurper Secondly Before his open rebellion Absalom had been two years in Jerusalem and not seen the Kings face 2 Sam. 14. 28. Thirdly Before that time he had been three years in deserved exile in Geshur 2 Sam. 13. 38. Fourthly And two years had passed betwixt the rape of Tamar and slaughter of Amnon which occasioned him into that exile 2 Sam. 13. 23. So that counting all these years together they appear clearly to be ten at the least betwixt the rape of Tamar and Davids death and so are they so many of Solomons age at the same time Now that there was some good space that passed betwixt these sums of time mentioned as betwixt the birth of Solomon and the rape of Tamar betwixt Absaloms seeing of the Kings face and his breaking out after into that rebellion and other spaces it cannot be denied upon serious and considerate casting up of the Story But to find out the exact space and measure of time is hardly possible and so is it to determine the age of our Saviour at the time of his disputing with the Doctors For though the Evangelist say that he was twelve years old yet hath he left it doubtful whether current or compleat and that it was a whole half year under or over it cannot be denied seeing that he was born about September and this his disputing was at the Passover about March or April So when we say Solomon was twelve years old when he began to Reign and when he determined the controversie of the two Hostesses it is not necessary punctually to pick out and shew that space of time to all exactness it sufficeth to shew that the Text bringeth him near to that age under or over See Ignat. Martyr in Epist. ad Magnes Vers. 43. The child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem and Joseph and his Mother knew not of it That morning that they were to depart to their own home it was the custom to go first to the Temple and to worship the Lord 1 Sam. 1. 19. Now the multitudes that went together at these times were exceeding great and many all the males of the Nation and very many of the females being constantly present at these occasions When therefore Joseph and Mary and the Galilean company that went along with them departed from the Temple to go their Journey it is likely that Christ stayed behind them in the Temple Court where also he haunted till they found him again Now he having been absent from them and in other companies sometimes before in the Festival week as it can hardly be doubted it is not to be wondred if they were not so punctually exact as to be sure to bring him with them in their sight out of the Temple and the City For they knew not nor could they conceive that he had any thing to do or how he could stay behind them when they were gone and therefore though they saw him not yet doubted they not but he was with some of his acquaintance or other in that vast and numerous multitude Yea so confident they were of this that when after a while they missed him yet did they not suspect his staying behind them in Jerusalem but went that days journey forward searching and inquiring for him among their kindred and acquaintance that went along with them for so are those words to be understood till they came to their lodging And by that time not having found him they resolve and accordingly do on the next morning return for Jerusalem It is conceived by some that the multitudes going to and from these festivals went the men by themselves and the women by themselves and the children indifferently with either parent as they thought good and so Mary supposed that Jesus was with Joseph and Joseph supposed that he was with Mary and by this mis-apprehension they went their first days journey till they met at their lodging before they mist him But if that were certain which is very doubtful that they thus travailed males and females apart yet it is clear by the Text that they jointly mist him in their first days journy and betimes in the journey long before they came to their Inn and yet would not return to seek him at Jerusalem where they could not so much as suspect that he would stay behind when he saw all the company setting homewards but they still go on their journey and inquire up and down in the company for him till their not meeting him at night resolves them that he was not in the company at all Vers. 46. After three days they found him in the Temple That is on the third day for one they spent in
birth of his mother to conduce to it For if Christ did use an undoubted word to signifie from above and Nicodemus did undoubtedly understand him to speak of being born from above yet certainly he could not understand it of being born from Heaven locally any more than when he saith that Christ was sent from God he understood that locally too which none will say he did And then if he did not understand this birth from above locally his answer though indeed improper in it self yet is as proper to that phrase of being born from above as to the other of being born again from above he cannot b b b b b b To see the Kingdom of God is to enter into it vers 5. or to partake of it as to see corruption Psal. 16. 10. to see Death Luke 2. 26. Joh. 8. 51. to see evil Psal. 90. 15. to see sorrow Rev. 18. 7. to see good Eccles. 6. 6. c. is to be in these estates or to partake of them See vers 36. To see life is to have life see the Kingdom of God 4. Nicodemus saith unto him How can a man be born c c c c c c Being old So is the Greek verbatim and being so rendred it leaveth the matter less scrupulous than being expressed when he is old for that might seem to restrain the new birth ever till a man be old The Syrian hath kept close to the sense given Can an old man be born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being old Can he enter the second time into his mothers womb and be born 5. Iesus answered Verily verily I say unto thee Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit 7. Marvel not that I said unto thee d d d d d d Except a man be born in ver 3. is here explained Ye must be born And so doth not only shew a command included in a doctrinal lesson but also that the words We and Ye are sometimes to be taken indefinitely though they seem only to speak of a fixed number And so in vers 2. We know that thou art a Teacher the word we must be so taken compare Matth. 5. 3 4 5. c. where it is said blessed are they with Luke 6. 20 21. where blessed are ye Ye must be born again 8. The e e e e e e The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used hath been understood by some for the holy Spirit which word indeed is used constantly for it in the Scripture and some of that opinion have strengthened themselves in it by this because a voluntary action is ascribed unto it It bloweth where it listeth which cannot be ascribed say they unto the wind The word indeed in the Greek is of various signification as is the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Hebrew and as it doth very commonly and very properly signifie the eternal Spirit the Holy Ghost and the created Spirits Angels and the souls of men so doth it also the sensible Spirits the breath of our mouths and the wind of Heaven In this last sense which is the sense that we have in hand it is taken by the Septuagint Gen. 8. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord brought a wind over the Earth And 1 King 18. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold a mighty strong wind c. but the Lord was not in the wind c. And so doth Aristotle confess that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. de Mund. And in that sense do Cyrill Chrysostome Theophylact his mouth and other of the Fathers take it here For 1. otherwise here would be no comparison which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So doth shew there is And to take the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the holy Spirit in the beginning of the verse as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the latter end is to be taken in that sense would make a very harsh and rugged construction 2. It is very improper to say that Nicodemus now had heard the sound or voice of the Holy Ghost being as he was yet so far to seek in the things of Salvation And 3. whereas it is said the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bloweth where it listeth as if a voluntary action were ascribed to it it is but such another speech as when the Sun is said to know his going down Psal. 104. 19. Now there is as little knowledge in the Sun as there is voluntariness in the wind unless with the Jews we will hold the Sun Moon and Stars to be intellectual creatures and yet such an expression is used of it for elegancy and fulness of expression wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the Spirit 9. Nicodemus answered and said unto him How can these things be 10. Iesus answered and said unto him Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things 11. Verily verily I say unto thee we speak that we do know and testifie that we have seen and ye receive not our witness 12. If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things 13. And no man hath ascended up into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man which is in Heaven 14. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up 15. That whosoever believeth in him should no perish but have eternal life 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life 17. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved 18. He that believeth on him is not condenined but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God 19. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil 20. For every one that g g g g g g By this he expresseth the Hebrew phrase so common in the Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which is used generally of all the Kings of Israel and of too many of the Kings of Judah He did evil in the sight of the Lord. doth evil hateth light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved 21. But he that h h h h h h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gen. 24. 49. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Josh. 2. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. doth truth cometh to the light that his deeds might be manifest
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the priviledge of their descent and extraction from Abraham Insomuch that even upon that account they doubt not to reckon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That all Israel is to have share in the world to come Sanhedr ubi sup See Matth. 3. 9. John 8. 39. Act. 13 26. Now that fond reliance doth Christ oppose and confute in this speech and useth the very same method and matter of discourse with this Pharisee that John the Baptist doth with those that came to him Matth. 3. 9. to take him off from leaning on that broken staff and that whereas now he had spied some glimpse and dawning of the Kingdom of Heaven in the great and wondrous workings of Christ he should not think to slip into it and enjoy the happiness of it without more ado because he was an Israelite of the seed of Abraham for that earthly priviledge and pedegree and birth would not serve his turn but he must be born from above by a new and supernal birth or else he could not see the Kingdom of God And that Christ referreth to this their descent and birth of Abraham upon which they stood so much it is to be confirmed not only by comparing this his method of teaching with that of Johns but also by what is spoken by him in the sixth verse That which is born of the flesh is flesh It is true indeed that there were other principles in Nicodemus that had need to be met with a confutation as much as this as his reliance upon his own righteousness and legal performances and his gross conceptions about the Kingdom of Heaven but this was the first that lay in the way and which was first to be removed and upon which the other were not a little built and when this hath been spoken to in the beginning of Christs discourse he falls upon the other in the verses following Now whereas this construction of the words of Christ which makes them to face their reliance upon their birth of Abraham may seem to render them applicable only to the Jews and no nation else because they alone stood upon that priviledge it is easie to see by the rule of comparison how they reach to every man and woman under Heaven that desires to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven for if the Jews that had that priviledge and advantage of their birth yet in this matter were nothing at all priviledged and advantaged by it but must be born anew and from above much more must they be concluded under the necessity of a new birth that have not so much as that prerogative of birth at all but are of the root of the wild olive Vers. 4. How can a man be born being old Among that Nation they had this Maxim and Tradition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That A Gentile that is Proselyted and a servant that is set free behold he is as a child new born for all the kindred which he had whilest he was a Heathen and a servant he now must know no more for his kindred Maym. in Issure biah per. 14. Compare 2 Cor. 5. 6. Here is a new birth in a kind of a sense with which it is likely Nicodemus was acquainted but it is but low terrene and carnal about earthly affinity and relations but to hear of a new birth from above is a doctrine so new and strange in his ears that even a child might have made a pertinent a reply upon it as doth this great Teacher of Israel They were so satisfied with their birth from Abraham that they never cared to hearken after other and they were so taken up with earthly rites that any other doctrine was but a paradox Vers. 5. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit We first here meet with the question whether water and the Spirit in these words are to be taken distinctly for two several things or whether they mean but one and the same thing There be that hold this manner of speech to be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only one thing meant by two expressions and that the conjunction And is only exegetical and they give the sense of the clause thus Except a man be born of water that is of the Spirit which is compared to water But others and those not without good reason and those also not the least among the learned have made a clear distinction betwixt water and the Spirit and by water do understand Baptism Chemnitius pleads this distinction very earnestly and fully and concludes Tota Antiquitas semper simplicissime haec verba Christi de Baptismo intellexit that all Antiquity hath clearly understood these words of Christ concerning Baptism I shall only produce two or three of the ancients where I might produce a whole cloud of witnesses Chrysostome Hom. 24. in Johan so understands it and he makes this Paraphrase upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I created man saith God whom he brings in so speaking of water and earth and the Creature became unprofitable and the vessel was mard I will no more create of water and earth but of water and the Spirit Cyrill Alexandrinus expounds the words so likewise and alludes the matter thus As man consists of two parts soul and body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so will he need a twofold cure for his regeneration His spirit is sanctified by the Spirit and his body by the water sanctified or set apart And he follows it with this comparison As water in a caldron set to the fire receives the force of the fire so the water of Baptism by the Spirit is raised to a divine and ineffable vertue Augustine construes water here also for Baptism and addeth this gloss That as the bowels of the Mother do avail for the breeding of a child once for the natural birth so the bowels of the Church towards the spiritual birth every one to be once baptized I might be endless in alledging names and glosses upon this place and matter all holding Baptism to be here meant and some comparing the Water to the Mother and the Spirit to the Father in the new birth some paralleling betwixt our birth of water by the power of the Spirit and the birth of Christ of a Virgin by the vertue of the Holy Ghost And some making one allusion or comparison upon the matter and some another and all peremptorily concluding and that not without very good ground that Baptism must needs be here understood For 1. Christ was opening to Nicodemus in this answer what was obscure to him in his other words and if he intended but one thing by water and the Spirit he spake in obscurity still and did but explain one difficulty with another 2. In the like expression He will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire Matth. 3. 11. though there be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confessed and it be construed Baptizabit spiritu igneo yet was the fire there a visible
amongst them yet were they not exactly Eleven then for Thomas was absent Joh. XX. 24. 2. When the Eleven are mentioned we must not suppose it exactly meant of the number of Apostles then present but the present number of the Apostles VERS XXXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They supposed they had seen a Spirit WHereas the Jews distinguished between Angels and Spirits and Daemons Spirits are defined by R. Hoshaiah l l l l l l Beresh rabb◠fol. 34. 2. to be such to whom souls are created but they have not a body made for those souls But it is a question whether they included all spirits or souls under this notion when it is more than probable that apparitions of Ghosts or deceased persons who once had a body were reckoned by them under the same title Nor do I apprehend the Disciples had any other imagination at this time than that this was not Christ indeed in his own person as newly raised from the dead but a Spectrum only in his shape himself being still dead And when the Pharisees speak concerning Paul Acts XXIII 9. That if an Angel or a Spirit hath spoken to him I would easily believe they might mean it of the Apparition of some Prophet or some other departed just person than of any soul that had never yet any body created to it I the rather incline thus to think because it is so evident that it were needless to prove how deeply impressed that Nation was with an opinion of the Apparitions of departed Ghosts VERS XLIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms IT is a known division of the Old Testament into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law the Prophets and the Holy Writings by abbrevation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I. The Books of the Law and their order need not be insisted upon called commonly by us the Pentateuch but by some of the Rabbins the Heptateuch and by some Christians the Octateuch m m m m m m Schabb. fol. 116. 1. R. Samuel bar Nachman saith R. Jonathan saith Wisdom hath hewn out her seven Pillars Prov. IX 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are the seven Books of the Law The Book of Numbers compleats the seven Books of the Law But are there not but five Books only Ben Kaphra saith the Book of Numbers is made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three Books From the beginning of the Book to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it came to pass when the Ark set forward Chap. X. 35. is a Book by it self That verse and the following is a Book by it self And from thence to the end of the Book is a Book by it self The reason why they accounted this period Chap. X. 35. 36. to be one Book by it self was partly because it does not seem put there in its proper place partly because in the beginning of it it hath the letter Nun inverted thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so after the end of it in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in both places is set for a boundary and limit to distinguish that period from the rest of the Book Whatever therefore goes before from the beginning of the Book to that period is reckoned by them for one Book and whatever follows it for another Book and the period it self for a third Eulogius speaking concerning Dosthes or Dositheus a famous seducer of the Samaritans hath this passage n n n n n n Apud Phot. Cod. ccxxx 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He adulterated the Octateuch of Moses with spurious writings and all kind of corrupt falsifyings There is mention also of a Book with this title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 o o o o o o Cod. xxxvi The Christians Book An Exposition upon the Octateuch Whether this was the Octateuch of Moses it is neither certain nor much worth our enquiry for Photius judgeth him a corrupt Author besides that it may be shewn by and by that there was a twofold Octateuch besides that of Moses Now if any man should ask how it come to pass that Eulogius and that probably from the common notion of the thing should divide the Books of Moses into an Octateuch I had rather any one else rather than my self should resolve him in it But if any consent that he owned the Heptateuch we have already mentioned we should be ready to reckon the last Chapter of Deuteronomy for the eighth part Aben Ezra will smile here who in that his obscure and disguised denial of the Books of the Pentateuch as if they were not writ by the pen of Moses he instances in that Chapter in the first place as far as I can guess as a testimony against it You have his words in his Commentary upon the Book of Deuteronomy a little from the beginning p p p p p p Cap. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if you understand the mystery of the twelve c. i. e. of the twelve Verses of the last Chapter of the Book for so his own Country-men expound him thou wilt know the truth i. e. that Moses did not write the whole Pentateuch an argument neither worth answering nor becoming so great a Philosopher For as it is a ridiculous thing to suppose that Chapter that treats of the death and burial of Moses should be written by himself so would it not be much less ridiculous to affix that Chapter to any other volume than the Pentateuch But these things are not the proper subject for our present handling II. There also was an Octatuech of the Prophets too q q q q q q Bava bathra fol. 14. 2. All the Books of the Prophets are eight Josuah Judges Samuel Kings Jeremy Ezekiel Isaiah and the twelve For the Historical Books also were read in their Synagogues under the notion of the Prophets as well as the Prophets themselves whose names are set down You will see the title prefixt to them in the Hebrew Bibles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the former Prophets as well as to the others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter Prophets The Doctors give us the reason why they dispose the Prophets in that order that Jeremiah is named first Ezekiel next and Isaiah last which I have quoted in Notes upon Matth. XXVII 9. and let not the Reader think it irksome to repeat it here r r r r r r Bava bathra ubi supr Whereas the Book of Kings ends in destruction and the whole Book of Jeremy treats about destruction whereas Ezekiel begins with destruction and ends in consolation and whereas Isaiah is all in consolation they joyned destruction with destruction and consolation with consolation III. The third division of the Bible is intitled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Writings And here also is found an Octateuch by some body as it seems though I know not where to
Text agrees with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He finisht his work on the sixth day c. You will say the Greek Version translated according to the Samaritan Text. I say the Samaritan Text was framed according to this Greek Version Who shall determine this matter between us That which goes current amongst the Jews makes for me viz. that this alteration was made by the Seventy two h h h h h h Megill fol. 9. 1. Massech Sopher cap. 1. But be it all one which followeth the other in this agreement we next produce in the same Chapter Gen. II. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord God had formed out of the ground The Greek words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord God formed as yet out of the ground The Samaritan Text agrees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We will not enquire here which follows which but we rather complain of the boldness of both the one to add the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as yet which seems to perswade us that God after he had created Adam and Eve did over and above create something anew which as yet to me is a thing unheard of and to whom is it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is no resurrection In my notes upon Matth. III. 9. I take notice out of the Gloss upon Bab. Beracoth if he be of any credit that there were Hereticks even in the days of Ezra who said that there is no world but this which indeed falls in with Sadducism though the name of Sadducee was not known then nor a long time after But as to their Heresie when they first sprung up they seem principally and in the first place to have denyed the immortality of the Soul and so by consequence the resurrection of the body I know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Jewish Writers is taken infinite times for the Resurrection from the dead but it is very often taken also for the life of the dead So as the one denotes the resurrection of the body the other the immortality of the Soul In the beginning of the Talmudick Chapter Helec where there is a discourse on purpose concerning the life of the world to come they collect several arguments to prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the life of the dead out of the Law for so let me render it here rather than the resurrection of the dead And the reason of it we may judge from that one agrument which they bring instead of many others viz. i i i i i i Sanhedr fol. 90. 2. Some do say that it is proved out of this Scripture He saith unto them But ye did cleave unto the Lord your God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are alive every one of you this day Deut. IV. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is plain that you are now alive when Moses speaks these things but he means this that in the day wherein all the world is dead ye shall live That is ye also though dead shall live which rather speaks out the immortality of the Soul after death than the resurrection of the body So our Saviours answer to the Sadducees Matth. XXII 31 32. from those words I am the God of Abraham c. is fitted directly to confute their opinion against the immortality of the Soul but it little either plainly or directly so proves the resurrection of the body but that the Sadducees might cavil at that way of proof And in that saying of the Sadducees themselves concerning the labourer working all the day and not receiving his wages at night there is a plain intimation that they especially considered of the state of the Soul after death and the non-resurrection of the body by consequence Let the words therefore be taken in this sense The Sadducees say Souls are not immortal and that there are neither Angels nor Spirits and then the twofold branch which our sacred Historian speaks of will the more clearly appear when he saith but the Pharisees confess both It is doubtful from the words of Josephus whether the Essenes acknowledge the resurrection of the body when in the mean time they did most heartily own the immortality of the Soul k k k k k k Iâ—s de excidâ— lib. 2. c. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This opinion prevails amongst them that the body indeed is corruptible and the matter of it doth not endure but Souls endure for ever immortal So that the question chiefly is concerned about the Souls Imortality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither Angel nor Spirit They deny that the soul is immortal and they deny any spirits in the mean time perhaps not denying God to be a Spirit and that there is a Spirit of God mentioned Gen. I. 2. And it is a question whether they took not the occasion of their opinion from that deep silence they observe in Moses concerning the Creation of Angels or Spirits or from something else There is frequent mention in him of the apparitions of Angels and what can the Sadducee say to this Think you the Samaritans were Sadducees If so it is very observable that the Samaritan Interpreter doth once and again render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels So Gen. III. 5. Ye shall be as Elohim Samar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye shall be as Angels Chap. V. 1. In the similitude of God Samar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the similitude of Angels So also Chap. IX 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the similitude of Angels And whereever there is mention of Angels in the Hebrew Text the Samaritan Text retains the word Angels too Did not the Sadducees believe there were Angels once but their very being was for ever vanisht that they vanisht with Moses and were no more Did they believe that the soul of Moses was mortal and perisht with his body and that the Angels died with him otherwise I know not by what art or wit they could evade what they meet with in the Books of Moses concerning Angels that especially in Gen. XXXII 1. You will say perhaps that by Angels might be meant good motions and affections of the mind The Pharisees themselves do sometimes call evil affections by the name of Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an evil affection is Satan But they do not call good affections Angels nor can ye your selves apply that passage so The Angels of God met him and he called the name of that place Mahanaim i. e. two Camps or two hosts One of those Camps consisted of the multitude of his own family and will you have the other to consist of good affections If the Sadducees should grant that Angels were ever created Moses not mentioning their Creation in his History I should think they acknowledged the being of Angels in the same sense that we do in the whole story of the Pentateuch but that they conceived that after the History of
been blessed and honoured withal clean departed and gone away And hence it was that the Samaritans durst compare with the Jews for the better Religion and mount Gerizim at Sechem compares with Jerusalem as the truer and purer place of worship For the honour and ornaments of Jerusalem were gone her Prophets and the Spirit of Prophesy It is observable what is said in the last clause of the Text The Pharisees confess both III. Why He had spoken of three things that the Sadducees denyed The Resurrection Angel Spirit And therefore it seems more proper to have said The Pharisees confess all when he speaks of three than to say they confess both when he speaks of three But he makes these two later but as one and so distinguishes the things into two parts the Resurrection was one thing the Sadducees denied and Angels and Spirits was another one thing And so by the addition of the word Spirit he intimates that the Sadducee denyed all Angelical and Spiritual Substance And so Expositors observe upon this That he thought that even God himself is not a Spiritual but a Corporeal or bodily substance That the Good or Evil Angels that are mentioned mean nothing but good and evil motions of mens minds And that the Soul of man is not a Spirit but a Crasis or mixture of some certain humors and temperaments And that by the Spirit of God is meant only his Mind and by the Spirit of man his breath Strange and mad Divinity and Philosophy And a strangeworld that this man conceives A world that hath neither Angel in it nor Devil and only a Corporeal God in it Souls that are bodily in the midst of the body and that must dye as well as the body when the body dies And a world that must comprehend all that ever must be And that there is to be no world to come nor any other world but this Men of gross and thick and muddy minds that either could not believe but what they saw or could not but believe that what they saw not was like to what they saw That could not believe that there were Angels or Spirits because they saw them not and could not but believe that God and Souls were like to bodily thing that they saw Their sad and fatal case and blindness may justly give us warning and advise what clear minds we ought to get to judge of divine things and rightly to apprehend of things that are above sense or seeing The greatest things of our concernment are out of sight viz. God our Souls Guilt Grace Hell Heaven and Eternity to omit to speak of Angels and Devils We are not to look to the things that are seen but to the things that are not seen as the Apostle gives us intimation 2 Cor. IV. ult and in divers other places Now what are we to do in this case Not believe them because we do not see them This is Thomas his faith or infidelity rather not to believe that Christ is risen unless we see in his hands the print of the nayls Or shall we cavil with God for that he hath not made these things visible and not laid them conspicuous to our eyes as he hath done bodily things God would be loved served feared Why doth he not shew himself visibly to us that we might see him and so love and serve and fear him He would have us to avoid sin and guilt if he had made these things visible as a dangerous pit or gulph or precipice is visible we should then avoyd them But now we must avoid a thing we see not We are bidden to resist the Devil Why we cannot see him and we would not see him And we are bidden to take care of our Souls They are things invisible and we cannot see what they are and how they are Yes God hath given us an eye to see those things an invisible eye to see things invisible So it is said of Moses that he saw him that was invisible For the discerning of any thing there are three things requisite an Eye to see and Light to see by and a just or competent distance that the thing to be seen be not too far for then it is not to be seen God hath provided for us all these things for our seeing and knowing the things which it concerns us to know though they be invisible if we be not wanting to our selves How much is comprehended in those words of God which he uses when he is about to create man Let us make man after our own image And God made man after his own image Now you must refer this Image or Similitude more especially to the Soul for the Body can little be said to be the Image of God who is not a Body But in how many things doth the Soul resemble him God is Invisible And so is the Soul God is Spirit And so is the Soul God is Immortal And so is the Soul But more especially doth the Soul resemble God in the faculty and constitution of the mind God being a pure Intellect or Mind and all-knowing and the mind of man representing him in its great capacity of knowledge and understanding That the Soul represents God in being Invisible Spiritual Immortal as He is we may call it a passive representation of God pictured upon the constitution of the Soul But the Souls representing God in knowing understanding discerning of things we may very properly call an active representation of him laying forth in action as he also acteth The Serpent in tempting Eve concludes that the proper and most compleat resemblance of God is in Knowledge Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil And he guessed not amiss as relating to that representation of God that is in the Essence of the Soul For observe that of the Apostle Col. III. 10. And have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him And the only specimen or evidence and declaration that Adam gave of the perfection of his nature while he stood in innocency was the demonstration of his wisdom or knowledge in that he could and did name all creatures according to their nature God brought all creatures to him to see what he would name them and he had the knowledge upon the very first sight of them to understand their nature and he named them according to their nature Knowledge and Understanding was natural and essential to Adam as he was a man a reasonable creature Therfore by his fall he did not lose that Faculty though he abated of the measure of it For it was essential to his Soul to be an understanding Soul and it could not be a Soul without it Let us compare the Angels that fell and Adam falling together They were both created holy and righteous alike For I make no question but Adam was created every whit as holy as those Angels were created And they were both created of great knowledge
〈◊〉 of two repugnant significations because the Arabick sometimes translating it according to some of their Lexicographers is of that kind I know that the English to lett signifying to permit comes from the Dutch word Belaten not from letten but the word lett in English signifying to hinder is written with the same letters and answers to the Dutch letten in one sense whence one might infer that letten in the Dutch should have the same significations But I fear I shall almost tyre my Reader before I come to that I principally designed which was the benefit and advantages of Talmudical and Rabbinical Learning the chief talent of this learned and laborious Author This kind of study hath now flourished in these Western parts about the space of one Century and somewhat more But at present begins as it seems to be neglected and laid aside partly because it is thought that the best of it is already extracted and prepared to our hands by the hard and assiduous labours of many both Learned and Judicious Men in which may be much mistake partly because it requires much time and pains not attended with such secular Advantages as other Studies more easie and delightful Since its restauration it hath had somewhat the fortune of Chymistry and hath been by degrees inspected improved and used not only by men of whimsey memory or vanity but by the more Wise Judicious and Philosophical Many of both sorts have given us a large account and examples of the great usefulness of it perhaps besides some more instances of what they have observed I may suggest or more insist on one or two which they have not taken so much notice of First then The very knowledge of the opinions and customs of so considerable a part of mankind as the Jews now are and especially have been heretofore is valuable both for pleasure and use It is a very good piece of History and that of the best kind viz. of Humane Nature and that part of it which is the most different from us and commonly the least known to us And indeed the principal advantage which is to be made by the wiser sort of men of most writings is rather to see what men think and are than to be informed in the Natures or Truth of things they write of To observe what thoughts and passions have run through mens minds what opinions and manners they are of Particularly it is of good importance here to take notice of the strange ignorance the putid fables the impertinent trifling the ridiculous discourses and disputes the odd conceits the fantastical observations and explications the childish reasonings the groundless arrogance and self-conceit the superstitious temper of this people universally except Maimonides and one or two Modern more Philosophically given who yet had enough of it too The very Spirit of Hypocrisie Weakness Pride and Superstition which our Saviour and the Prophets those illustrious Preachers of inward and real Righteousness of a solid and intelligent Piety and Virtue reproved and inveighed against in their times runs still generally through their writings It appears yet by them how blindly or hypocritically they prize the smaller matters of their Religion and their own additional circumstances beyond the weightiâ—r and more important They make a great noise of their being Gods peculiar people in special Covenant with him of the Divinity of their Religion and the jus Divinum of all their little institutions and non-sensical mysteries especially of their Cabbala either from the groundless and whimsical interpretation of some command of their Law or from uncertain or false tradition when in the mean time they little mind the great end and design of what is true and useful in them They will dispense with Charity and Humanity it self to observe their own decisions while they think it lawful to compass the Death of an Israelite who wears Linsey-woolsey and unlawful to take up a Heathen out of the Sea ready to perish They talk as if God were so enamoured of their Ancestors and doted on their posterity that he made the World only for their sake and thought himself still so obliged to them for their honour they do to him by preferring and chusing him and his Laws and Religion before others that he must needs be their Protector and Saviour nor ever suffer one of those his dear people to perish or scarce come to any harm This is a disease in all Religions and but too ready to creep into the best of Religions Christianity it self Which hath so expresly discover'd and severely condemned it in the foolish Hypocrites of the Mosaical Religion to which it succeeds We may further also observe how much the Jews and other Oriental people are given to strange uncouth and strong imaginations especially about intellectual things like the Pythagorean's and Platonists who had their Learning and Notions from the East and the South which as it hath its use for invention and discovery sometimes of more than what ever enters into the thoughts of the dull generality of mankind so it is a great disadvantage of nature too stuffing the mind with a great many impertinencies follies and falshoods and that believed with great pertinacity unless it be managed by the supreme faculties of understanding reason and judgment After all this a man may meet with some opinions among them either by chance or Tradition and many Institutions Rites and Laws with the explication and application of them which may be good hints to Wiser Men. Though I have been generally inclinable to believe that the most of the considerable Doctrines among them about intellectual matters in Divinity and Philosophy As concerning the Nature and Attributes of God some things of the Messia the nature and orders of Angels of the Holy Spirit and Divine presence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Resurrection of the dead the Immortality of Souls and their states after death of the first and second death of a kind of Purgatory of the day of judgment of original sin c. of some of which there is some account in the Theol. Jud. of Du Voisin I say I have been always prone to think that the Jews especially the Modern such as Ramban Rasi Saadia Kimchi Abarbanel c. have received them though insensibly and not known to themselves and with some mixture and interpolation of their own from Heathen and Christian Philosophers Fathers Schoolmen who first taught them and set them about in the World I have said the most not all and this I think I could make probable in many particulars if this were a place for it But this is enough for the first Advantage A second use of the Talmudical and Rabbinical Authors may be the confirmation of the History of our Saviour Jesus the true Messias That there were such persons as Jesus and his Disciples who lived in such a Country and in such an Age that he performed such actions and delivered such
demonstration of the Holy Ghost his resting upon Christ and anointing him for his Ministration so that the visibility of the Spirit was as much as was required and there needed no reality of a living body Secondly The Text saith expresly in all the Evangelists that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like or as it were a Dove which plainly sheweth the similitude to such a thing and not the being of the very thing it self Thirdly In apparitions of the like nature when the furthest end of the body appearing was but for visibility the bodies that were seen were not of the very existency and nature of those that they represented but of another As the Angels that appeared in humane shapes had not very living humane bodies but only bodies assumed and framed to such a representation And so the fire in the bush on Sinai and with the cloven Tongues was not very real fire but only a visible resemblance of it and the like must be held of this Dove or else it will be such an apparition as never was before nor since Fourthly The parallel betwixt the appearing of our Saviour in humane flesh and the appearing of the Holy Ghost in a living Dove is not only very improper but also somewhat dangerous For if they appeared alike then may the Holy Ghost be said to be a very Dove for Christ was a very man and that were improper and in its kind to be incarnate for Christ was incarnate and that is dangerous And Fifthly As for fallacy or deceiving there could be none no more than there had been in all other apparitions since the world began since in such things the verity and reality of the body that appeared was not looked after but only the conspicuity and the spirit that lay hid under that body Now reasons why the Holy Ghost appeared in the shape of a Dove rather than of any other creature are conceived some to have concerned Christ some to have concerned the Holy Ghost himself and some to have concerned man As First To shew Christs innocency purity simplicity charity and love for all these qualities are observable in a Dove Secondly To shew the like graces of the Holy Ghost and Aquinas and Ludolphus do parallel the seven graces of the Spirit Isa. 11. 2 3. to seven properties of a Dove as if any be so curious as to see them he may in Lud. in loc and Aquin. par 3. quest 39. Art 6. Thirdly To shew what innocency and harmlesness should be in those that are baptized Fourthly To answer the figure in Noahs flood for as a Dove did at that time bring tidings of the abating of the waters so doth it now of the abating of the wrath of God upon the preaching of the Gospel These are the common and most current reasons that are given by Expositors to which may be added Fifthly That since Christ was to have visible testimony from Heaven it was fittest it should be by the likeness of a fowl of Heaven For it was not fitting that fire should have come thence upon him for he was to baptize and not to be baptized with fire and for a cloud to come from thence upon him was reserved till another time namely at his transfiguration and what then can be imagined to descend upon him but a bird And what bird so sit as a Dove which was the only fowl that was clean and allowed for sacrifice Lev. 1. 14. Matth. 3. ver 16. And lighting upon him In the strictness of the Greek it is coming upon him which is to the very same signification especially the addition of the Baptist himself being laid unto it viz. that it abode upon him Joh. 1. 32. Some conceive and that not improperly that the Dove sate upon his head which if it did it was like the inscription in the golden plate that was on the fore-head of the High Priest and declared him to be Kodesh Laihovah The Holy one of the Lord Exod. 28. 36. How long the Dove sat upon him is not to be questioned because not to be answered it is not unlike that it did so all the while he was in the sight of John at this time especially seeing that the Text saith that straightway this Spirit drove him into the wilderness Ver. 17. And lo a voice from Heaven The testimony of two witnesses is a confirmation past denial and greater witnesses than these two could not be produced the Father and the Holy Ghost because a testimony could not be given to a greater than to Christ. Nor could these two witnesses have properly gone single one without the other the descending of the Dove to point out to whom the voice was intended and the descending of the voice explaining what was meant by the descending of the Dove §. A voice Both the Talmudick and the latter Rabbins make frequent mention of Bath Kol Filia vocis or an Echoing voice which served under the second Temple for their utmost refuge of revelation For when Urim and Thummim the Oracle was ceased and Prophecy was decayed and gone they had as they say certain strange and extraordinary voices upon extraordinary occasion which were their warnings and advertisements in some special matters Infinite instances of this might be adduced if they might be believed one allegation in the Talmud shall serve for all concerning Jonathan the Chaldee Paraphrast When Jonathan the Son of Uzziel say they had composed the Targum of the Prophets there came Bath Kol or a divine voice and said who hath revealed my secrets to the Sons of men And when he went about to explain the Chetubbim or the books of Holy Writ there came a Bath Kol or a divine voice again and said It is enough What is the reason Because in them is revealed the end of the Messias In Megillah Now here it may be doubly questioned First Why they called it Bath Kol The Daughter of a voice and not a voice it self And secondly Whether this voice that we have in hand were such a voice as that or no To the first If the strictness of the Hebrew word Bath be to be stood upon which it always is not it may be answered that it is called the Daughter of a voice in relation to the Oracle of Urim and Thummim for whereas that was a voice given from off the Mercy Seat within the vail and this upon the decay of that Oracle came as it were in its place it might not unfitly nor unproperly be called a Daughter or successor of that voice But to the second and which is more material and pertinent to the subject in hand it may be answered that this voice was not of the nature of their Bath Kol upon these two reasons First Because this voice came descendingly from Heaven but their Bath Kol cannot be proved to have descended or at least to have constantly come from Heaven For the Migremus hinc which gave warning of the destruction of the City came not
as to the instruction conviction benefit and advantage of men And therefore although the humane nature of Christ through the uniting of it to the Godhead did abound in all holiness and wisdom and graces as to the knowing of God and the best things to the enjoyment of the vision of God and communion with him to the being and persisting absolutely without the least corruption to the entire performing of the whole Law and to a non-possibility of committing sin all which capacities tended towards the satisfaction of Gods justice and mans redemption yet for the ministration of the Gospel and for his working upon the bodies minds and affections of men by teaching preaching and working miracles he is indued with the immediate gifts of the Spirit as it was the way of God to deal with Prophets and prophetick men which gifts did not so properly accrew from the union of the two natures as from the unction of the Spirit The result of the union of the two natures being more properly acceptance with God in the work of Redemption and the fruits of this unction being to the acceptance with men in the work of the Ministery And whereas it is not to be denied but that Christ before the Holy Ghost came upon him at his baptism had the power of miracles and Prophetick wisdom in him as appeareth by his disputing with the Doctors at twelve years old this was through the fulness of the Holy Ghost that was in him even from his mothers womb as it was and much more than it was with John the Baptist Luke 1. 15. and that with this difference from what it is now that it was then upon him as one to be ordained and now upon him as ordained already to the Ministery Now the difference of the fulness of the Holy Ghost in Christ from other men who are also said to have been filled with the Holy Ghost as Luke 1. 67. Acts 6. 5. may appear in these particulars 1. In the measure which may be measured by consideration of the difference of the persons and of their employments for Christ was more capable by infinite degrees of the fulness of the Holy Ghost than meer men were or could be and his employment being also so infinitely beyond the employment of men the measure of the Holy Ghosts fulness in him must needs be accordingly beyond all measure 2. In the manner and vigor of acting The power of the Prophets in working of miracles was exceeding great indeed and wondrous and their descrying and discovering the will of God and things to come was exceeding wonderful and sublime but they could neither do nor tell all things nor could they act upon all occasions but had always their bounds and had sometimes a recess of the Spirit or departure of it from them As Isaac can see what shall befal Jacob and Esau many hundred years after yet cannot know Jacob from Esau when he is in his arms And Jacob can tell what shall become of all his sons in the last time to come yet cannot tell what is become of his best son Joseph in his own time for 13 years together So Moses hath power over Egypt yet hath not power over his own stammering and the Prophet at Bethel can command the Altar that it rent it self but cannot command the Lion not to rent him Thus to this great gift of Prophecy on men as to the Ocean God set its bound which it might not pass and so far might the operating of it go and might go no further but with Christ it was not so He could work what miracles he would when he would how he would and on whom he would he could reveal all truths resolve all doubts clear all difficulties know all thoughts and had no limit of the vigor and acting of the Spirit upon him but his own will §. Was led by the Spirit into the wilderness Namely into the wilderness of Judea For 1. that was in mention in the story next preceding Matth. 3. 2 3. and a wilderness being here spoken of without any further mention what wilderness it was none can so properly be understood as that of Judea which was last named before 2. It is said by Luke that Jesus returned from Jordan by the word returned importing that he came back when he went to his temptation on the same side Jordan on which he was baptized Now that the wilderness of Judea lay on that side is more evident than needeth any demonstration Chemnitius indeed hath supposed this wilderness where our Saviour was tempted to have been the great desert of Horeb or Sinai and he giveth these three reasons for it 1. Because other wildernesses have their distinguishing titles as of Ziph 2 Sam. 23. 14. Shur Exod. 15. 22. Engedi 1 Sam. 24. 11. c. but this wilderness of Horeb is called the wilderness by a special emphasis without any other addition and so is the wilderness mentioned in this story But this is easily answered that it wants its distinctive title here because it was named by it a little before and called the wilderness of Judea 2. Because saith he Mark saith that Christ in this wilderness was with the wild beasts now in other wildernesses there are either dwellings of men here and there or they are not altogether remote from the converse of men but in the great desart of Horeb there were only wild beasts as there are mentioned to have been here Ans. Mark when he saith Christ was with wild beasts doth not therefore inforce that that wilderness was without either men or dwellings But first That Christ for that time avoided both the one and the other and kept himself in the wildest places and most retired from humane society And secondly the Evangelist seemeth to regard rather the state of Christ than the state of the place and to shew Christ to be the second Adam as in the temptation which he was now about so in his safety and security among the wild beasts as Adam in innocency had been and they hurt him not The wilderness of Judea had indeed both cities and villages and dwellings of men in it but withall it had some places wild in it without any such habitations and it had wild beasts in it in those places 1 Sam. 17. 28. 34. 2 Sam. 23. 20. Jer. 49. 19. 3. By this supposal he addeth that this wilderness where Christ was tempted was the great desart of Horeb there is a fair answerableness found out between this story and the story of Israel in that place and betwixt this fasting of Christ and of Moses and Elias in the same desart Answer it is true there would be so indeed but the being of the thing cannot be grounded upon this correspondency but this correspendency must be built upon the thing first found so to be and if this may argue for Horeb desart we may as well argue for Judea wilderness for there the sore tryals of David under the persecution
3. 15. Vers. 21. Art thou Elias When he hath resolved them that he is not the Messias they presently question whether he be not Elias Messias his fore-runner for their expectation was of the fore-runners bodily coming as well as of Christs Their opinions concerning Elias his first coming and who he was then and of his latter coming and what they look for from him then it is not impertinent to take up a little in their words and Authors Some of our Rabbins of happy memory saith Levi Gershom have held that Elias was Phinehas and this they have held because they found some correspondency betwixt them And behold it is written in the Law that the blessed God gave him his covenant of peace And the Prophet saith My Covenant was with him of life and peace And by this it seemeth that God gave to Phinehas length of days to admiration And behold we find that he was Priest in the days of the Concubine at Gibeah and in the days of David we find it written And Phinehas the son of Eleazar was ruler over them of old and the Lord was with him 1 Chron. 9. 20. And he was the Angel that appeared to Gedeon and to Jephthah and the Spirit of the Lord carried him like an Angel as we find also of Elias And for this it is said They shall seek the Law at his mouth for he is the Angel of the Lord and for this cause also he saith Before time and the Lord was with him And behold we find Elias himself saying unto the Lord Take now my life from me for I am no better than my fathers meaning that it was not for him to live always in this world but a certain space after the way of the earth for he was no better than his fathers We find also that he died not after he was taken away from the head of Elisha for there came afterward a writing of Elias to Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat as it is mentioned in the book of Chronicles Thus Ralbag on 1 King 17. And thus the Jews hold Phinehas and Elias to have been but one and the same man And what they held concerning Elias his singular eminency for Prophesie whilst he lived it appeareth by R. Samuel Lanjado in his Comment on 2 King 2. Elias saith he was so indued with Prophesie that many of the children of the Prophets prophesied by his means Our wise men of happy memory say Whilst Elias was not laid up the Holy Ghost was in Israel as it is said the children of the Prophets that were at Bethel said to Elisha To day God will take thy Master from thy head they went and stood afar off and they passed over Jordan It may be because they were but a few the sense telleth that there were fifty men of the sons of the Prophets It may be they were private men The text saith Thy Master It is not said our Master but thy Master shewing that they were wise men like Elias When Elias was taken up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 treasured up the Holy Ghost departed from them as it is said And they said Behold there is with thy servants fifty men men of strength let them go and seek thy Master c. And concerning the departure of Elias and his estate after the same Author giveth the opinion of his Nation a little after in these words I believe the words of our wise men of happy memory That Elias was taken away in a whirlewind in the Heaven that is in the air and the Spirit took him to the earthly paradise and there he abideth in body and soul therefore they say that Elias died not and they say moreover that he went not into the firmament And they say that some have seen him in the School 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that he shall come before the great and terrible day of the Lord come Now his coming before the day of the Lord they hold to be twofold one invisible as that he cometh to the circumcision of every child and therefore they set him a chair and suppose he sitteth there though they see him not And the Angel of the Covenant which you desire behold he cometh Mal. 3. 1. The Lord shall come to his Temple this is the King Messias who also is the Angel of the Covenant or he saith The Angel of the Covenant in reference to Elias And so it is said That Elias was zealous for the Covenant of Circumcision which the Kingdom of Ephraim restrained from themselves as it is said I have been exceeding zealous for the Lord God of Israel for the children of Israel have forsaken thy Covenant He saith unto him Thou wast zealous in Shittim Phinehas in Numb 25. and art thou zealous here concerning Circumcision As thou livest Israel shall not do the Covenant of Circumcision till thou seest it with thine eyes From hence they have appointed to make an honorable Chair for Elias who is called the Angel of the Covenant Thus Kimch on Mal. 3. 1. Of this matter and of the Jews present expectation of Elias at every circumcision learned Buxtorfius giveth an ample relation in his Synagoga Judaica cap. 2. On the eighth day in the morning saith he those things that are requisite for the Circumcision are duly prepared And first of all two seats are set or one seat so made as that two may sit one by another in it covered with rich coverings or cushions according as every ones state will bear In the one of these seats when the child cometh to be circumcised sitteth the Sponsor or Godfather of the child and the other seat is set for Elias For they conceive that Elias cometh along with the Infant and sitteth down in that seat to observe whether the Circumcision be rightly administred and this they conceive from Mal. 3. 1. And the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye seek behold he cometh when they set that seat for Elias they are bound to say in express words This is the seat of the Prophet Elias That seat is left standing there three whole days together Rabbi Juda the holy once perceived that Elias came not to one Circumcision and the reason was because the child circumcised should once turn Christian and forsake his Judaism They use to lay the child upon Elias his cushion both before and after his Circumcision that Elias may touch him Thus he and more largely about their fancy of Elias his invisible coming upon that occasion And in the thirteenth Chapter of the same book he relateth how they expect him visibly at the other Sacrament even every Passover when among other rites and foolish customs they use over a cup of wine to curse all the people of the world that are not Jews as they are and that they do in this prayer Pour out thy wrath upon the Nations which have not known thee and upon the Kingdoms that have not called upon thy name Pour thine anger upon them and let
Septuagint Psal. 10. 13. 22. 27. as well as here 2. To heal the broken hearted here is the heart a degree lower than in the former expression and the operation of the Gospel a degree higher Every broken hearted soul is also poor in spirit but not e contra for an humble and poor spirited soul may yet some time be free from these breakings of heart which many a one hath met withall and which it self may meet withall at another time For being brought poor in spirit and made sensible of its own unrighteousness by the Preaching of the Law and so intertaining the Gospel it is by degrees even broken also by the Gospel the heart melting in the sense and apprehension of the dear love of God to sinners and of its own sinfulness and untowardness towards him 3. To Preach deliverance to the Captives This may very well allude to the Jews expectation who looked for and do still a bodily deliverance from all their captivities and calamities by the coming of Messiah now Christ came to Preach deliverance to captived ones but not in this sense but in a higher in as much as he was a higher Saviour than their ordinary deliverers 4. Recovering of sight to the blind This may look also at the Gentiles who sate in the darkness of all manner of ignorance Error and Idolatry And though it be most true that every one naturally is blind as to the things of Heaven and that the Gospel giveth new sight to those that receive it yet since the Heathen are especially set out as sitting in blindness this clause may very well be applyed to them as in a singular propriety The Evangelist doth here somewhat differ from Esays Text as also do the Septuagint whom he followeth for Esay hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And opening of prison to those that are bound as our English translates it There is some scruple among translators about rendering the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what to make of them but the other word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth plainly enough and without all difficulty signifie Bound and yet the Greek hath uttered it blind 1. The words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are taken by divers to be not two but one word doubled as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and many other of the like nature and that it signifieth by the duplication the more emphatically and eminently which opinion is the more justified by this that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter part of it by it self can be made nothing of such a word not being to be found again in Scripture but uncertain and unprofitable conjectures only are given of it As that it should signifie a prison as is the conceit of Dav. Kimchies Father or that it should signifie a taking out of Prison as is fancyed by Kimchi himself and both taking away the first syllable in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mint this word but by what warrant and after what example they do not shew 2. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth properly refer to opening of the eyes and it is hard I believe to find where it signifies any other kind of opening and therefore the Chaldee Paraphrast to close as near with the very propriety of it as he thought the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would suffer him hath given it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 revealing to the light 3. Observe that this clause in the Prophet is of a higher tenor than that next before for there was mention of captivity but here of imprisonment in captivity for it is a sad thing to be captived into a strange land but it is a sadder to be bound in chains or lockt up in a prison there Now the Evangelist as he translates the Prophet speaks of a higher degree of misery still and that is to be imprisoned having his eyes put out as it was the case of Sampson Judg. 16. 2. and Zedekiah 2 Kings 25. 7. and as it was the custom much in those eastern parts and is at this day in Turkey The Evangelist therefore willing to render the Prophet to the Highest comfortable sense that might be useth an expression that meeteth with the highest misery that was couched and included in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that is when men were not only shut up in a blind prison where they could see no light but when they had also their eyes put out that they could not see light if there were any He telleth therefore that Christ should not only Preach deliverance to captives but also restoring of light to captive prisoners nay yet more recovery of sight to blinded prisoners and so doth he sweetly set out Christs delivery of men from the captivity of Satan chains of corruption and blinding of ignorance and so he doth not cross the Prophets expression but explain it to the highest sweetness 5. To set at liberty them that are bruised This clause is not verbatim in that Text in the Prophet from whence the rest are alleadged yet is it generally in all copies here and in all Translations How it came into this Text some are very bold and indeed uncivil with the Text in imagining that it crept in out of the margin of the Septuagint being set there by some body that thought he had met with a fit parallel to that that was in the Text. Sed quisquis hunc locum primus annotavit ad marginem saith Beza res sane dissimillimas inter se comparavit Poterat autem quisquis ille fuit alium locum prorsus similem conferre ex cap. 42. 7. I should rather confess my own ignorance and say I cannot understand how this came into the Text or rather bewray my own folly in giving some conjecture at it some other way than in thus down-right tearms to conclude that it came in from the marginal notes of some one or other that knew not well what he noted I would give some aim at it the result whereof shall be to the undervaluing of my judgment rather than thus to determine to the undervaluing of the sacred Text. It was allowed and used in their Synagogues as was toucht even now in the reading of the Prophets to skip from Text to Text upon occasion take the tradition at the full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that readeth in the Prophets may skip from one Text to another but he may not leap out of one Prophet into another but in the twelve small Prophets only And he may not leap from the end of a Book to the beginning of it And whosoever leapeth thus must not stay on the Text whither he skips longer than the Interpreter gives the interpretation of it Maymon in Tephillah per. 12. Now I should rather think that Christ as he read in the Prophet skipped into another Text of the same Prophet and brought it in hither than to think it crept out of the margin of the Septuagint of I know not whose setting there This their
body and to cure the leprosie of the body and none did it none could do it till he came Elisha would not so much as touch Naaman in concurrency to this truth III. Those whom the Devil thus seized on bodily we may distinguish into two sorts or ranks 1. Those whom he possessed so as to wrack and torture them or to infect them with some disease as Mark 5. 5. Luke 9. 39. 13. 16. Mat. 12. 22. And 2. those whom he dwelt in bodily to make them by false miracles and predictions instruments of his seduction and delusion as Acts 16. 16. and as Sibylla Cumaea is described by the Poet Talia cui fanti non vultus non color unus Non comptae mansere comae sed pectus anhelum Et rabie fera corda tument majorque videri Nec mortale sonans afflata est numine quando Iam propriore Dei c. And a little after Bacchatur vates magnum si pectore possit Excussisse Deum tanto magis ille fatiga◠Os rabidum fera corda domans fingitque premendo Now to be bodily possessed by the Devil was the saddest earthly misery could befal a man and therefore giving up to Satan was the highest punishment could be inflicted 1 Cor. 5. 5. 1 Tim. 1. 20. For how doleful a thing must it needs be reputed 1. When that body which should be the Temple of the Holy Ghost should become the very local cage and bodily habitation of Satan 2. When the Members were acted and used by the Devil as if he had been the very soul that did animate the body 3. When mans greatest enemy should so apparently dwell within him and have such power over him And 4. When he either carried the Devil or the Devil him or indeed both whithersoever he went Yet were there degrees of this misery and the latter kind mentioned was the worse and the more grievous of the two though it seemed not always so in appearance for in the former possessedness it was possible that the Devil might not have seisure on the soul though he had of the body as Mark 9. 21. But in the latter he had possession of both IV. Of this latter sort was this man in the Text namely a man possessed with a Spirit of divination whom the Devil filled and acted under the notion of an Enthusiast or Prophet to decieve the People For 1. he is said by Mark to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In an unclean Spirit as the words do properly signifie whereas indeed the unclean spirit was in him intimating that he was in the acting or a Prophetick rapture of the Devil as true and holy Prophets indeed in the actings and raptures of the Ghost are to be in the Spirit Rev. 1. 10. 2. Luke hath expressed it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he had the Spirit of the Devil namely in such a kind of sense as on the contrary part the Holy Prophets are said to have the Spirit of God Dan. 4. 5 6. c. 3. Both the Evanglists do style the Spirit wherewith he was possessed An unclean Spirit which as in general it stands in direct opposition to the term The Holy Spirit so is it most properly and singularly applyed to the Spirit of error and false teaching Zech. 13. 2. Rev. 16. 13 14. And 4. the words that the Devil uttered by the mouth of the possessed man tend directly and only to deceive and to withdraw from Christ as is apparent in their construction Vers. 24. Let us alone what have we to do with thee c. It is all one as to the sense of the words insuing be the first worn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken either for an Adverb of grief and wonder and a Greek expression of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or be it taken for a Verb as the Syrian Vulgar and our English take it when they render it Let alone The scope of the mans words in the whole verse may be taken up in these observations 1. That though indeed it were the Devil within the man that dictated the words to him yet was it the man that uttered them and the men of the Synagogue heard the man speaking The Greek Syntax in the Text of the Evangelists especially of St. Luke maketh it plain 2. When he useth the plural number We and Us What have we to do with thee art thou come to destroy us he speaketh of himself and the rest of the men of the Synagogue with him for that these words are not applicable to the Devils which was but one in the possessed needeth no more proof than what is in the verse it self where when the Devil or the man by instinct of the Devil speaketh of himself he useth the singular number I know thee 3. When he proclaimeth Christ the holy one of God as he is styled Psal. 16. 10. Dan. 9. 24. c. he neither doth it as a voluntary confession of him for that cannot be expected from the Devil nor as a strained or forced confession by the power of Christ for Christ commands his silence but it is such a confession and proclamation of Christ as whereby he might make the men of the Synagogue afraid of him and not daring to have to deal with him because of his dreadfulness So high and dreadful things are spoken concerning the coming of Christ in the Scripture as Mal. 3. 2. and so terrible apprehensions had the Jews concerning the fatal destruction of some men to be made when Messias came that the Devil by these taketh opportunity to affright the men of the Synagogue with the presence of Christ among them as if he were but come among them to destroy them And he would disswade them from the imbracing of Christ by the terrors of Christ. The Jews had such dreadful opinions as these about Christs coming In Sanhedr per. Helek fol. 97. In the Generation when the son of David cometh say they scholars of the wise shall be rare and as for the rest of the people their eyes shall fail for sorrow and grief and great afflictions and sore decrees shall be so renewed that before the first is ended the second shall come In the week of years Dan. 9. 24. when the son of David shall come The first year that shall be fufilled I rained upon one City and rained not upon another Amos 4. The second year the arrows of famine shall fly abroad The third year the famine shall be so great that men women and children yea good and godly men shall die and the Law shall be forgotten by its Disciples On the fourth year a kind of plenty yet not plenty indeed On the fifth year great plenty and they shall eat and drink and rejoyce and the Law shall be restored to its scholars On the sixth voices or thunders On the seventh war and in the end of the seventh the son of David cometh When the son of Dovid cometh the Assembling places shall become slews
couples for breed and the odd one for Adams sacrifice upon his fall but of unclean only one couple for the propagation of the kind Vers. 26. Man created by the Trinity about the third hour of the day or nine of the clock in the morning CHAP. II. The three first verses that treat of the institution of the Sabbath are according to their proper Order of time to be taken in at the end of the third chapter Vers. 4. c. On the morning of the sixth day a mist that had gone up from the Earth fell down upon it again in rain or dew and watered the Earth with which watering the trees and plants budded to maturity in a trice this dew being as a natural cause thereof yet the effect being withal exceeding supernatural because â—o speedy Vers. 7. Of the dust of the Earth thus watered God created the body of man and to this the Psalmist alludeth The dew of thy youth Psal. 110. 3. And into that Earth so prepared he breatheth the Spirit of Life and Grace Ephes. 4. 24. Vers. 10. Eden watered by a river that overflowed it once a year after the manner of Nilus and Jordan Chap. 13. 10. To Adam thus created and made Lord of the creature the Lord himself bringeth the creatures to receive their names which he giveth to them agreeable to their natures and that at the first sight shewing at once his dominion over them and his wisdom among them all he seeth no fit match for himself but by seeing every one of them mated and that they came before him by pairs he is brought to be sensible of his own want of a fellow which thereupon God provideth for him out of his own body of a rib which part of him might best be spared And thus the Creation endeth in the making of the woman CHAP. III. The woman thinking it had been a good Angel that spake in the trunk of the Serpent she entreth communication with the Devil who perceiving her both to add and to diminish to and from the Commandment that was given them groweth the more impudent to tempt and seduceth her by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life as 1 John 2. 16. And she perswadeth her husband and so they both are fallen on the very same day that they are created Gen. 9. 1 2 3. Psal. 49. 12. Christ is promised before the man and the woman are censured and they are questioned also before they be sentenced but so was not Satan for God had mercy in store for them but none for him The curse is not upon man himself but upon the Earth to teach him to set his affections on things above and not on the cursed ground and not to look for an earthly Kingdom of Christ on this Earth which the Lord hath cursed Adam apprehendeth and layeth hold upon the promise by Faith and in evidence of this his faith he calleth his wives name Eve or Life because she was to be the mother of Christ according to the flesh by whom life should come and of all believers that by faith should live in him for an outward sign and seal of this his Faith and for a further and more lively expression of the same God teacheth him the rite of sacrifice to lay Christ dying before his eyes in a visible figure And with the skins of the sacrificed beasts God teacheth him and his wife to cloath their bodies And thus the first thing that dieth in the world is Christ in a figure At the end of this third chapter imagine the three first verses of Chap. 2. concerning the Sabbath to be observed to come in and suppose the texture of the story to lye thus Adam thus fallen censured recovered instructed and expelled Eden on the sixth day the next day following he by Gods appointment keepeth for a Sabbath or an holy rest and spendeth it only in divine duties Now the reason why it standeth in the place where it doth Chap. 2. Is partly because Moses would lay the seven days or the first week of the world altogether without interposition and partly because he would shew by setting it before Adams fall that had he persisted in innocency yet must he have observed a Sabbath The seventh day or Sabbath is not bounded in the Text with the same limits that the other days are for it is not said of it as it was of them The Evening and the Morning were the seventh day because a time should come when it should have a new beginning and end and though to the Jews it was from Even to Even yet from the beginning it was not so expressed CHAP. IV. Cain and Abel twins of one birth and first was born he that was natural and after he that was spiritual The faith of Abel appeared in the very materials of his sacrifice it being of slain beasts and so a representation of the death of Christ for this it is fired from Heaven and Cain's is not though his dry ears of Corn were materials far more combustible Cain and Abel were both their own Priests for it cannot be proved that Sacrifices were ever offered but upon emergent occasions till the Law fixed it for a common service and he that had such an occasion had liberty to be his own Priest even under the Law as it appeareth by Gedeon Manoah c. and then much more was that liberty before The word Sin in vers 7. seemeth rather to signifie an offering or attonment for sin than punishment For first God cometh not to deject Cain lower than he was but to raise him from his dejection as it appeareth both by his deigning to give him an Oracle from Heaven and also by the words wherewith he beginneth Secondly If the words Sin lieth at the door intend suddain Judgment ready to devour him what dependance can the words following have with these If thou do not well thou shalt certainly be punished and thy brothers desire shall be subject to thee for this were to threaten poor Abel more or at least as much as Cain Thirdly The Original word Chateath as it signifies Sin so also doth it the sacrifice for sin as Hos. 4. 8. 2 Cor. 5. 21. And all along Leviticus and it was the custom according to which Moses speaketh as best known to lay the Sacrifice at the Sanctuary door Vers. 14. Cain sensible of his punishment though he was not of his sin beggeth of God that he might die to ease him of it Therefore let any one that findeth me kill me but this God denyeth to him reserving him to a lingring punishment and Cain being assured of long life giveth himself to all sensuality to sweeten it as much as he can and this is the way of Cain Jud. vers 11. Vers. 23. Lamech in horrour of Conscience for his Polygamy which now began to be examplary to the general corruption of the world acknowledgeth his sin seventy times greater than
Exod. 36. 26 27 28. thus There were numbred of Israel from twenty years old and upward six hundred thousand and three thousand five hundred and fifty men Reckon thus The Talent of the Sanctuary contained one hundred and twenty pound the pound twenty five shekels or fifty half shekels so that every Talent contained three thousand shekels or six thousand halves so that six hundred thousand half shekels given by six hundred thousand men do amount to an hundred talents Now there were three thousand five hundred and fifty men besides which gave so many half shekels or one thousand seven hundred seventy five whole one with which were made the hooks of pillars c. Exod. 38. 28. These hundred Talents of silver were thus wrought Each one was cast into a solid piece of thirteen inches and an half long and nine inches square in the side that laid upward was a morteise hole near unto the end now two and two were laid close together end to end and the morteises were not in the ends that joyned but in the utmost ends Now every plank whereof the sides were made was in height five yards but in breadth three quarters just as broad as two of these pieces of silver were long at the foot of the plank at either corner was a tenon made the plank being cut down or abating so much between the tenons as the tenons themselves were in length so that when the tenons were shrunk in the morteises the middle of the plank setled upon the pieces or Bases SECTION XXXIV The walls and juncture of the Tabernacle THese silver Bases then were thus laid forty at the South side forty at the North side and sixteen at the West end laid as close together as was possible so that though there were so many pieces yet was it but one intire foundation Here are fourscore and fifteen of the hundred Talents disposed of in the two sides and the West end what became of the four talents remaining and of the East end we shall see hereafter These Bases thus laid the planks were set in them one plank taking up two Bases twenty planks making the South side and twenty the North and eight the West end these were five yards long apiece and so when they were set up they made the Tabernacle five yards and a little more high upon the walls Now for the making of these planks sure and to stand stedfast the two corner planks were great helps of which first you remember the length of the sides namely fifteen yards or twenty planks of three quarters breadth apiece The West end had six planks intire besides a plank at either corner joynting end and sides together These corner planks were of the same breadth that all the other were and thus set The middle of the breadth of the one plank was laid close to the end of the South side or to that plank that was furthest West so that a quarter of a yard of the breadth of the corner plank was inward to make up the Tabernacle breadth a quarter was taken up with the thickness of the side plank to which it joyned and a quarter lay outward Thus at the South-west just so was it at the North-west corner Then count the two corner planks were inward a quarter of a yard apiece and the six planks that stood between them of three quarters apiece behold five yards just the breadth of the house between wall and wall These corners knit end and side together and were the strength of the building as Christ is of his Church making Jews and Gentiles one spiritual Temple Besides these corners strengthening the Fabrick there were seven bonds to make all sure First planks to planks were close joynted at the foot so that the Text calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or twins Secondly each plank was linked to the next at the top with a golden link Thirdly on the side staples of Gold were fastned in every plank so that four bars of Shittim wood overlaid with Gold were carryed in the staples from one end of the Tabernacle to another Besides these there was also another bar of the same wood that ran from end to end through the body or thickness of the planks a hole being bored through each plank for the purpose By these bars Christ is fitly resembled who is conveyed throughout the whole Scripture in the rings of divers passages and stories In the fourth Chapter of the Ephesians there are seven bonds that bind the Church to unity First one Body secondly one Spirit thirdly one Hope of our calling fourthly one Lord fifthly one Faith sixthly one Baptism seventhly one God and Father of all Now view in imagination the body of the Tabernacle as it stands only planked without any more addition to it with planks of Shittim wood The length fifteen yards from end to end the breadth five yards from side to side The sides and West end planked up five yards high and somewhat more the foundation of those planks massy pieces of silver The top of the house and the East end left open till they be covered hereafter First then of the covering of the top and sides and West end SECTION XXXV Of the curtains of the Tabernacle THE Tabernacle was bounded with Curtains as lightest for carriage which Curtains covered top and sides These Curtains were Tapestry work The ground was of fine yarn dyed blew Purple and Scarlet woven together the embroydery was of Pictures of Cherubims These Curtains were in number ten each one being twenty eight cubits or fourteen yards long and four cubits or two yards broad They sewed together five Curtains in one piece and five in another so that they made two large pieces of Tapestry of fourteen yards long and ten yards broad These two pieces are called couplings Exod. 26. 5. And these two were thus joyned together In the edge of either were made fifty loops of blew tape one answerable or correspondent to another or one over against another and with fifty hooks or clasps of gold he linked the loops together and so the two main pieces were made one covering or Tabernacle Exod. 36. 13. Quest. Why are not all the ten Curtains sewed together on one piece but five and five sewed together to make two pieces and then those two thus looped together with a button or clasp of gold Answ. First the Tabernacle consisted of two parts the holy place and the most holy which two were divided one from another by a vail of which hereafter Now according to this division of the house was also the division of the Curtains For Exod. 26. 32. it is plain that the vail that parted the holy from the most holy was hung just under these golden clasps that knit the five and five Curtains together So that five Curtains lay over the holy place and the other five over the most holy but with this difference The holy place was ten yards long and the five Curtains
metropolitan See submit to her letters and are too ready to perform her will Among the rest he obtaineth commission for Damascus whither a poor Church having but lately overrun persecution is ready now to be overrun by it again But by the way he is met with by Christ and from a Lion made a Lamb and he that went to lead captivity is himself captived In the story of this great wonder the Text and the matter it self calleth upon us to consider these things 1. That the most notorious persecutor that the Gospel had yet found is chosen of all others to be the Doctor of the Gentiles that even his own example or rather the glorious example of Gods mercy in his conversion might be a comfortable Doctrine to those notorious sinners of the Gentiles as well as his preaching 2. That the like divine violence was never used for the converting of a sinner either before or since but 1. it was necessary that he should see Christ as Vers. 17. because it was a necessary ingredient toward the making of an Apostle to have seen the Lord 1 Cor. 9. 1. And 2. it was needful that the Lord should appear to him in such daunting power not only for his own quelling but also for the terrour of all persecutors for the time to come 3. This appearance of the Lord unto him was not so much in his person as in his glory nor what he saw of him besides the light that stroke him blind was with the eyes of his body but of his spirit 4. The place was near Damascus from whence had sprung one of the sharpest persecutors that Israel had groaned under 2 Kings 11. 32. Amos 13. compare Gen. 14. 15. 5. The manner is so plainly set down in the Text that it is needless to insist upon it only these two or three things may not unfitly be touched upon and taken to thought 1. That more was spoken from heaven than Luke hath here related as appears by Pauls own relation of it Acts 26. 16 17 18. but the Holy Ghost frequently useth to speak out stories to the full some parts in one place some in another challenging the readers pains and study to pick them up 2. That whereas in Chap. 6. 7. it is said that those that travailed with Paul heard the voice but in Chap. 22. 9. that they heard not the voice it is to be understood that they heard the voyce of Paul speaking to Christ but not Christs voice to him or if they heard the voice from heaven yet they understood not what it said 3. Whereas in Chap. 9. 7. it is said these men stood speechless but in Chap. 26. 14. that they fell all to the ground the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Chap. 9. 7. standeth in opposition to their going forward and not to their falling to the earth and meaneth that their amazedness fixed them that they could not flee nor stir § 2. The year of his conversion Some have conceived that he was rapt into the third heaven and learned the Gospel by revelation as 2 Cor. 12. in those three days that he was blind after the sight of this glorious light and whilst he fasted and prayed Act. 9. 9. And from this conceit hath another grown as a supporter of that that bred it namely that he was not converted till seven years after our Saviours Ascension This latter opinion was first invented that his writing of the second Epistle to the Corinthians might be brought within the compass of about fourteen years after his conversion for so long a time and no more he setteth betwixt his rapture and that Epistle 2 Cor. 12. 2. and it was also originially grounded upon this supposition that his rapture was in the time of that his blindness Two surmises probable and plausible enough to behold at distance but approaching nearer to them they will lose of their beauty and upon serious weighing they will prove but a shadow The question how he came to the knowledge of the Gospel so soon in so much that he so soon preached it very likely gave the first occasion of the first opinion namely of his rapture in his three days blindness A question to which an answer may be easily given and yet no such consequence concluded upon it 1. It is true indeed that he received not the knowledge of the Gospel of man nor was he taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ as himself saith Gal. 1. 12. yet might he have such a revelation without any such rapture For there were three other special ways whereby God used to reveal himself and his will to his Prophets and Servants and those were by dreams by visions and by a suddain and immediate suggestion or revelation which is called telling in the ear as 1 Sam. 9. 15 17. 2 King 20. 4. And as for raptures they were the most extraordinary and the least familiar of all other And how easily might Paul be taught the mistery of the Gospel by some of the other means especially since the Text hath expresly told that he had his visions Acts 9. 12. 2. Paul himself telleth of an extasie or rapture that he was in as he was praying in the Temple at Jerusalem Acts 22. 17. Now that that was in the second year of Claudius as shall be shewed by and by when he went to carry the almes of the Disciples to Jerusalem Acts 11. 30. it may be confidently concluded upon because that God in that his rapture telleth him that he must thence forward go far away to preach unto the Gentiles Acts 22. 21. and when he returneth from Jerusalem to Antioch he is sent by the Church upon that imployment by a special charge of the Holy Ghost Acts 13. 2. And that from that time to the time of his writing the second Epistle to the Corinthians were about fourteen years as himself summeth it we shall evidence by some particulars before we part from this Subject Thus then in the first place we see that neither his rapture was at the time of his conversion nor that his conversion is to be cast six or seven years forward that it may be within fourteen of that Epistle in regard of his rapture But not to intricate our selves any more in the variety of opinions that have fixed some one time some another to the conversion of this Apostle the next readiest and surest way that I have found to resolve upon this doubtful question and to determine this scruple is to go by these collections and degrees I. That the famine prophecied of by Agabus and which is said to have fallen out in the time of Claudius the Emperour Acts 11. 28. fell out and came to pass in his second year And for this we have the testimony of a Roman Historian even Dion Cassius who under the Consulship of Claudius II. and Caius Largus which was in the second year of Claudius his reign speaketh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which
begin to fall about it for when there were additional sacrifices besides the dayly as the Passover or the like then it was necessary for them to begin to prepare the sacrifices from that time that it was lawful to begin about them which from that time of the day it was all the time from thence forward till night being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between the Evenings according to the letter of the Law Exod. 12. 6. Numb 28. 4. And to this sense speaketh the Text 1 King 18. 19. When noontide was passed and they had now prophecied till the offering of the Minchah not till the very time of the very firing of the sacrifice for that the verses following deny but to the time of the Minchah in that sense that we have in hand and to this purpose the difference of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vers. 36. is very remarkable So that Peter in this practise of praying about the sixth hour intimated the custom of the Jews and though he had so long been a Convert to the Gospel yet doth he not forsake their manner of worship no more did the other Disciples as hath been shewed elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An extasie fell upon him and so Chap. 22. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I was in an extasie This was the highest and excellentest way of all other of revelations when a man was rapt even from himself into heaven for so Paul calls it 2 Cor. 12. 2. and was wholly in the spirit for so John calls it Rev 1. 10. being for the time as it were out of the body and in the very next degree to souls departed enjoying God Seven manner of extraordinary ways did God use to reveal himself and his will to his people in ancient times 1. By Dreams 2. By Apparitions when they were awake 3. By Visions when they were asleep 4. By Voyce from heaven 5. By Urim 6. By Inspiration or Revealing of the ear 7. By Rapture or Extasie and this last the excellentest as to him that did injoy it And of this should I understand that deep sleep that fell upon Adam Gen. 2. 21. Vers. 12. Fourfooted Beasts and wild Beasts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beasts tame and wild for so doth the Scripture most frequently distinguish them Vers. 15. That call not thou common Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do not thou pollute that is do not thou call or account polluted Vers. 28. For so is the use of Scripture very frequently to speak as in an effective or active sense and to intend only a declarative as Gen. 41. 13. Me he restored to my office but him he hanged Ezek. 43. 3. When I came to destroy the City The Priest did make clean or make unclean the Leper Lev. 13. 6. 8. c. which was only pronouncing clean or unclean as our English hath well rendred it or teaching what was clean and what unclean as Chap. 14. 57. And in the very same sense is the binding and loosing to be understood Matth. 16. 19. and 18 18. for teaching what is bound and what loose what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews speak or what lawful what unlawful Vers. 28. Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Iew to keep company c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which words is not to be understood as if a Jew might have no dealing at all with a Gentile for they might walk and talk and traffick with them and it was within a little of impossible to do otherwise they living exceeding many of them in heathen Cities And Gentiles came continually in way of trade to Jerusalem Neh. 13. 16. But the unlawfulness of their conversing with the Gentiles was conversing in near and more close society as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth and that especially in these two things not to eat with them and not to go into their houses And this is that for which they of the Circumcision excepted at Peter upon his return Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them Chap. 11. 3. § But God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean This vision that Peter had when this satisfaction was given him to learn to call nothing common was only of beasts and fowles and creeping things yet might he learn that the lesson was also to be understood of men because the distinction between men and men in regard of common and unclean was first made and most strictly made by the difference betwixt meats and meats For the very first distinguisher that ever began to inclose Israel for a peculiar from other people was the not eating of the sinew that shrank Gen. 32. Circumcision distinguished the seed of Abraham from other people but this began to distinguish Israel from the other seed of Abraham And it is observable that that ceremony or distinctive rite was first taken up when Jacob first received the name of Israel Now it is true indeed that their forbearing to eat the sinew that shrank was not as if they accounted it common or unclean but it was in regard of the honorable memorial â—â—at they read upon it yet was that ceremony the first and proper distinguisher of an Israelite from all other people under heaven some hundreds of years till more distinctive rites came in and more things were prohibited to be eaten for the surer distinction There was distinction of clean and unclean beasts before the flood as appeareth Gen. 7. 8. but this was in reference to sacrifice only and not in reference to diet at all for till the flood they ate nothing but the fruits of the ground till God gave Noah liberty to eat flesh and to eat any thing that was wholesome for diet And in this liberty did the world continue till the Law given at Sinai save only an Israelites not eating the sinew that shrank And this liberty some Jews themselves confess shall be in the days of Messias which now first taketh place at this vision of Peter and forward And here doth Peter begin to put in use and ure that power of binding and loosing which Christ had put into his hands when he put into his hands the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven And this very place doth so clearly expound and interpet that speech of our Saviour to him that it is a wonder that ever there should be such scruple and controversie about it For 1. Here beginneth the Kingdom of Heaven when the Gentiles are received to favour and to the Gospel who had been so long cast off and layn in ignorance and idolatry and when no difference is made betwixt them and the Jews any longer but of every nation they that fear God and work righteousness are accepted of him as well as Israel This is the very first beginning or dawning to the
common in all their Authors When they cite any of the Doctors of their Schools they commonly use these words Amern rabbothenu Zicceronam libhracah in four letters thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus say our Doctors of blessed memory But when they speak of holy men in the Old Testament they usually take this Phrase Gnalau hashalom on him is peace in brief thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus when they mention Moses Solomon David or others this is the memorial they give them The Arabians have the like use in their Abbreviation of Gnalaihi alsalemo on whom is peace The words in Hebrew want a verb and so may be construed two ways On him is peace or on him be peace The learned Master Broughton hath rendered it the former way and his judgement herein shall be my Law To take it the latter way seems to relish of Popish superstition of praying for the dead which though the Jews did not directly do yet in manner they appear to do no less in one part of their Common Prayer Book called Mazkir neshamoth the remembrancer of Souls which being not very long I thought not amiss to Translate out of their Tongue into our own that the Reader may see their Jewish Popery or Popish Judaism and may bless the Creator who hath not shut us up in the same darkness CHAP. XL. Mazkir neshamoth or the Remembrancer of souls in the Iews Liturgy Printed at Venice THE Lord remember the soul or spirit of Abba Mr. N. the son of N. who is gone into his world wherefore I vow to give Alms for him that for this his soul may be bound up in the bundle of life with the soul of Abraham Isaac and Jacob Sarah and Rebecca Rachel and Leah and with the rest of the righteous men and righteous women which be in the garden of Eden Amen The Lord remember the soul of Mrs. N. the Daughter of N. who is gone to her World Therefore I vow c. as in the other before Amen The Lord remember the soul of my father and my mother of my grandfathers and grandmothers of my uncles and aunts brethren and sisters of my cosens and consenesses whether of my fathers side or mothers side who are gone into their world Wherefore I vow c. Amen The Lord remember the soul of N. the son of N. and the souls of all my cosens and cosenesses whether on my fathers or mothers side who were put to death or slain or stabd or burnt or drowned or hanged for the sanctifying of the Name of God Therefore I will give Alms for the memory of their souls and for this let their souls be bound up in the bundle of life with the soul of Abraham Isaac and Jacob Sarah and Rebecca Rachel and Leah and with the rest of the righteous men and righteous women which are in the garden of Eden Amen Then the Priest pronounceth a blessing upon the man that is thus charitable as it followeth there in these words He that blessed our father Abraham Isaac and Jacob Moses and Aaron David and Salomon he bless Rabbi N. the son of N. because he hath vowed Alms for the souls whom he hath mentioned for the honour of God and for the honour of the Law and for the honour of the day for this the Lord keep him and deliver him from all affliction and trouble and from every plague and sickness and write him and seal him for a happy life in the day of Judgment and send a blessing and prosper him in every work of his hands and all Israel his brethren and let us say Amen Thus courteous Reader hast thou seen a Popish Jew interceding for the dead have but the like patience a while and thou shalt see how they are Popish almost entirely in claiming the merits of the dead to intercede for them for thus tendeth a prayer which they use in the book called Sepher Min hagim shel col Hammedinoth c. which I have also here turned into English Do for thy praises sake Do for their sakes that loved thee that now dwell in dust For Abraham Isaac and Jacobs sake Do for Moses and Aarons sake Do for David and Salomons sake Do for Jerusalem thy holy Cities sake Do for Sion the habitation of thy glories sake Do for the desolation of thy Temples sake Do for the treading down of thine Altars sake Do for their sakes who were slain for thy holy Name Do for their sakes who have been massacred for thy sake Do for their sakes who have gone to fire or water for the hallowing of thy Name Do for sucking childrens sakes who have not sinned Do for weaned childrens sakes who have not offended Do for infants sakes who are of the house of our Doctors Do for thine own sake if not for ours Do for thine own sake and save us Tell me gentle reader 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. whether doth the Jew Romanize or the Roman Judaize in his devotions This interceding by others is a shrewd sign they have both rejected the right Mediator between God and Man Christ Jesus The prophane Heathen might have read both Jew and Papist a lecture in his Contemno minutos istos Deos modo Jovem propitium habeam which I think a Christian may well English let go all Diminutive Divinities so that I may have the great Jesus Christ to propitiate for me CHAP. XLI Of the Latine Translation of Matth. 6. 1. ALms in Rabbin Hebrew are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tsedhakah righteousness which word the Syrian Translator useth Matth. 6. 1. Act. 10. 2. and in other places From this custom of speech the Roman vulgar Translateth Attendite ne justitiam vestram faciatis One English old manuscript Testament is in Lichfield Library which hath it thus after the Latine Takith hede that you do not your rightwisnes before men to be seyne of hem ellis ye shullen have no mede at your fadir that is in hevenes Other English Translation I never saw any to this sense nor any Greek copy It seems the Papist will rather Judaize for his own advantage than follow the true Greek The Septuagint in some places of the Old Testament have turned Tsedhakah Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Almsdeeds or little or to no sense As the Papists have in this place of the New Testament turned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Almsdeeds by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Righteousness to as little purpose In the Hebrew indeed one word is used for both Tsedhakah for Almsdeeds which properly signifies Righteousness upon what ground I know not unless it be to shew that S◠Chrysostom hath such ◠touch Alms must be given of rightly gotten good or else they are no righteousness or they are called Zadkatha in Syrian Hu ger zadek le mehwo they are called righteousness because it is right they should be given and given rightly The Fathers of the Councel of Trent speak much of the merit of Alms whom one may
not what it means let him lay it up until Elias shall come 5. That we be not tedious it shall be enough to produce a few passages out of d d d d d d Fol. 43. 2. Bab. Erubhin Where upon this subject If any say Behold I am a Nazarite on the day wherein the Son of David comes it is permitted to drink wine on the Sabbaths and feast days it is disputed what day of the week Messias shall come and on what day Elias where among other things these words occur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elias came not yesterday that is the same day wherein he comes he shall appear in publick and shall not lie hid to day coming yesterday The Gloss thus If thou say'st perhaps he shall come on the Eve of the Sabbath and shall preach the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the Sabbath you may answer with that Text Behold I send you Elias the Prophet before the day of the Lord come you may argue that he shall preach on that very day in which he shall come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Israelites are certain that Elias shall come neither on the Sabbath Eves nor on the Eves of the feast days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By reason of labour And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elias cometh not on the Sabbath day Thus speak the Scholars of Hillel e e e e e e Hieros Pesach fol. 30. 2. We are sure Elias will not come on the Sabbath nor on a feast day The Glossers give the Reason Not on the Sabbath Eves or the Eves of the feast days by reason of labour that is by reason of the preparation for the Sabbath namely lest they should leave the necessaries for the Sabbath unfinished to go to meet him nor on the Sabbaths by reason of labour in the Banquets that they omit not those feastings and eatings which were esteemed so necessary to the Sabbath whilst they went out to meet Elias Let these three Observations out of the Glossers upon the page cited serve for a conclusion 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Before the coming of the Son of David Elias shall come to preach of him 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Messias cometh not on the first day of the Sabbath because Elias shall not come on the Sabbath Whence it appears that Elias is expected the day before the Messias appeared 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is not Messias ben Ioseph to come first II. We meet with numberless Stories in the Talmudists concerning the apparitions of Elias according to that which was said before by Aben Ezra It is without controversie that Elias was sâ—… in the days of our wise men There is no need of Examples when it may not be so much doubted who of these wise men saw Elias as who saw him not For my part I cannot esteem all those stories for mere Fables but in very many of them I cannot but suspect Witchcrafts and the appearances of Ghosts which we also said before concerning the Bath Kol For thus the Devil craftily deluded this Nation willing to be deceived and even the capacity of observing that the coming of the Messias was now past was obliterated when here and there in this age and in the t'other his Forerunner Elias appeared as if he intended hence to let them know that he was yet to come VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he shall restore all things THE Jews feign many things which Elias shall restore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f f f f f f Bab. Kiddâ—shin fol. 71. 1. Kimchi in Zach. Chap. IX He shall purifie the Bastards and restore them to the Congregation He shall render to Israel the pot of Manâ—a the Viol of Holy oyl the Viol of water and there are some who say the Rod of Aaron g g g g g g Tanchum in Exod. I. c. Which things alas how far distant are they from those which are spoken concerning the Office of Elias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall restore or make up not into the former state but into a better There were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Times of restitution of all things determined by God Acts III. 21. wherein all things were to be framed into a Gospel state and a state worthy of the Messias A Church was to be founded and the Doctrine of the Gospel dispersed the hearts of the Fathers the Jews to be united to the Sons the Gentiles and the hearts of the Sons the Gentiles to the Fathers the Jews which work was begun by the Baptist and finished by Christ and the Apostles Which term of the Restitution of all these expiring the Common-wealth of the Jews expired also and the gifts of Revelation and Miracles granted for this purpose and so necessary to it failed However therefore ye have crucified Christ saith Peter in that place of the Acts now cited yet God shall still send you Jesus Christ in the preaching of the Gospel to fulfil these things Him indeed as to his person the Heavens do contain and shall contain until all these things be perfected Expect not therefore with the erring Nation his personal presence always on Earth but he shall make up and constitute all things by us his Ministers until the Terms determined and prefixed for the perfecting of this Restitution shall come VERS XV. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is Lunatick LUke IX 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A spirit taketh him Mark IX 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hath a dumb spirit I. He that is skilled in the Talmudick Writings will here remember what things are said concerning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A deaf and mad man concerning whom there is so much mention in their Writings h h h h h h Truma cap. 1. Hal. 1. There are five who do not pay the Trumah but if they do their Trumah is no Trumah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The deaf and dumb the lunatick c. i i i i i i Cholin cap. 1. Hal. 1. Any one is fit to sacrifice a Beast except 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A dumb and deaf a lunatick and a child and very many passages of this nature c. I have rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deaf and dumb according to the sense of the Masters who in the place first cited do thus interpret the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning which the wise men speak is he who neither heareth nor speaketh See there the Jerusalem Gemara where among other things this occurs not unworthy our noting That all the sons of R. Jochanan ben Gudgoda were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deaf and dumb II. It was very usual to the Jews to attribute some of the more grievous diseases to evil spirits specially those wherein either the body was distorted or the mind disturbed and tossed with a phrensie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k k k k k k Maimon in Gerushâ—n cap. â— If any one vexed with an evil Spirit
should be cut down unless upon a very indispensible occasion g g g g g g Bava kama fol. 91. 1. Rabb saith cut not down the Palm that bears a cab of dates They urge and what of the Olive that that should not be cut down If it bear but the fourth part of a cab R. Chaninah saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Son Shibchah had not died had he not cut down a Fig-tree before its time VERS VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will dig about it and dung it THE Talmudists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b b b b b b Shtviith fol. 35. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They dung it and dig it c. The Gloss is They lay dung in their Gardens to moisten the earth they dig about the roots of their trees they pluck up the suckers they take off the leaves they sprinkle ashes and they smoke under the trees to kill worms VERS XI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Having a spirit of infirmity I. THE Jews distinguish between Spirits and Devils and good Angels i i i i i i Bemidb. rabb fol. 157. 2. Midras Schir fol. 2. 3. All things do subserve to the Glory of the King of Kings the Holy blessed one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even Spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also ministring Angels The difficulty is in what sense they take spirits as they are distinguisht from Angels and Devils when it is probable they did not mean humane souls But these things are not the business of this place II. Therefore as to this phrase in St. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spirit of infirmity Let us begin our enquiry from this passage k k k k k k Horaioth fol. 10. 1. It is written if I put the plague of Leprosie in an house of the land of your inheritance l l l l l l Levit. XIV 34. R. Judah saith this foretells such plagues to come upon them R. Simeon saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He excepts those violent plagues that do not render a man unclean Where the Gloss is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If those plagues come by the insufflation of the Devil which do not defile the man And the Gemara a little after Rabba saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he excepts the plagues of spirits Rabh Papa saith he excepts the plagues of inchantments Where the Gloss again hath it Those plagues which are inflicted by the insufflation of the Devil not by the hands of men 1. You see therefore first that it was a most received opinion amongst the Jews that diseases or plagues might be inflicted by the Devil Which is plain also from the Evangelists because our Saviour in this very place tells us that the bowing together of this Woman was inflicted upon her by Satan 2. They conceived further that some diseases were inflicted that were unclean and some that were not unclean The unclean were the Leprosie Issues c. Not unclean were such as this Woman's infirmity c. III. They distinguish betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an evil spirit and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unclean spirit Not but they accounted an unclean spirit ill enough and an evil spirit to be unclean enough but that they might distinguish the various operations of the Devil as also concerning the various persons possest and afflicted by him 1. They acknowledged that evil Spirits might inflict diseases m m m m m m Erubhin fol. 41. 2. Whomsoever either the Gentiles or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 evil spirits drive i. e. beyond the bounds of the Sabbath Where the Gloss is The evil spirit is the Devil that hath entred into him disturbs his intellectuals so that he is carried beyond the bounds But Rambam saith They call all kind of melancholy an evil spirit And elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an evil spirit i. e. a disease 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The unclean spirit amongst them was chiefly and more peculiarly that Devil that haunted places of burial and such like that were most unclean n n n n n n Gloss. in Sanhedr fol. 65. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The unclean spirit i. e. the devil that haunts burying places Thither the Necromancer betook himself as the Gemara hath it which I have also quoted in another place and when he had macerated himself with fasting he lodgeth amongst the Tombs to the end that he might be the more inspired by the unclean spirit Nor is it much otherwise as they themselves relate it with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Python or prophesying spirit For the Rabbins deliver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Python is he that speaks between the parts The Gloss is He that raiseth a dead person and sits between the parts of the bones c. Hence that reason of our conjecture concerning that demoniack Luke IV. 33. that he was either a Necromancer or Pythonist taken from that unusual way expressing it which is there observable not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having an unclean spirit nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having an unclean devil but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having a spirit of an unclean devil There were therefore two sorts of men whom they accounted under the possession of an unclean spirit in their proper sense so called Those especially who sought and were ambitious to be inspired of the devil amongst tombs and unclean places And those also who being involuntarily possessed by the Devil betook themselves amongst Tombs and such places of uncleanness And whether they upon whom the Devil inflicted unclean diseases should be ranked in the same degree I do not determine There were others who were not acted by such diabolical furies but afflicted with other kind of diseases whom they accounted under the operation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of an evil spirit of disease or infirmity Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of uncleanness but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of infirmity And perhaps the Evangelist speaks according to this Antithesis that this Woman had neither a spirit of uncleanness according to what they judged of a spirit of uncleanness nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a disease of uncleanness but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spirit of infirmity VERS XV. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doth not each one of you on the Sabbath day loose his Ox THAT disceptation in Schabh o o o o o o Cap. 2. hal 1. doth attest this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how far a beast going forth Where it is very much cautioned that the beast be not brought out on the Sabbath day carrying any thing upon him that might be a burden not permitted to be born on that day They allow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a Camel be led out with an Halter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Horse with a Collar c. that is when they are led out either to pasture or watering Nay the Gloss
d d d d d Hieros Chagiâ—ab fol. 77. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who never committed one trespass all the days of his life excepting this one misfortune that befel him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that once he put on the Phylacteries for his forehead before the Phylacteries for his arms A wondrous fault indeed and what pity is it that for this one trespass of his life he should lose the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one perfectly holy Yet for this dreadful crime is the poor wretch deprived of a solemn interment and by this was his attonement made We meet with this distinction of just persons in Beracoth e e e e e e Fol. 34. 2. R. Abhu saith in the place where stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Penitents there do not stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfectly just This distinction also appeared both in the tongues and persons of those that were dancing in the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles f f f f f f Succah fol. 53. 1. Some of them said blessed be our youth that have not made our old men ashamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these were the holy and men of good works Others said blessed be our old men who have expiated for our youth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these were they who became Penitents This phrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfectly just persons puts me in mind of that of the Apostle g g g g g g Heb. XII 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spirits of just men made perfect Where if I understand aright the scope of the Apostle in the argument he is upon he speaks of just men who are still in this life and shews that the souls or spirits of believers are made perfectly righteous by faith contrary to what the Jews held that men were compleat in their righteousness by works even bodily works Seeing those whom they accounted perfectly just are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of works so that perfectly just and men of works were convertible terms it may not be improbable but the Essenes or Essaei may have there name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that they might be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is workers and by that be distinguisht from the penitents But of that matter I will raise no dispute III. Now which of these had the preference whether perfect righteousness to repentance or repentance to perfect righteousness it is not easie to discern at first view because even amongst themselves there are different opinions about it We have a disputation in Beracoth in the place newly cited h h h h h h Fol. 34. 2. in these words R. Chaiah bar Abba saith R. Johanan saith All the Prophets did not prophesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless for those that repent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as for those that are perfectly just eye hath not seen besides thee O God i i i i i i Isai. LXIV 4. But R. Abhu contradicts this for R. Abhu saith the penitent do not stand in the place where the perfectly just stand as it is said peace peace to him that is far off and to him that is near k k k k k k Isai. LVII 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He names him that is far off first and then he that is nigh But R. Johanan Who is he that is far off He that was far off from transgressing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his first original And who is he that is nigh He that was next to transgression but now is afar off from it These passages of the Talmud are quoted by Kimchi upon Isai. LVII 19. and out of him by Drusius upon this place but as far as I can perceive very far wide from the mind of Kimchi For thus Drusius hath it R. David Isai. 57. 19. Hoc in loco c. In this place the penitent is said to be far off and the just to be nigh according to the antients but he that is far off is preferred whence they say the penitents are better than the perfectly just As if this obtained amongst them all as a rule or maxim when indeed the words of Kimchi are these He that is far off that is he that is far off from Jerusalem and he that is near that is he that is near to Jerusalem But their is a dispute in the words of our Rabbins about this matter And some of them interpret it otherwise for they expound him that is afar off as to be understood of the penitent and him that is near as meaning the just from whence they teach and say that the penitent are better than those that are perfectly just Some indeed that do so expound it they say that those that are penitent are to be preferred before those that are the perfectly just but this was not the common and received opinion of all Nay the more general opinion gave so great a preference to perfect righteousness that repentance was not to be compared with it Hence that of R. Johanan approved of by R. Chaijah the great Rabbin that those good and comfortable things concerning which the Prophets do mention in their prophesies belong only to those who were sometimes wicked men but afterwards came unto repentance but they were far greater things that were laid up for perfectly just persons things which had never been revealed to the Prophets nor no prophetick eye ever saw but God only things which were indeed of an higher nature than that they could be made known to men for so the Gloss explaineth those words of theirs In this indeed they attribute some peculiar excellency to the penitent in that although they had tasted the sweets of sin yet they had abandoned it and got out of the snare which it might have been a question whether those that are perfectly just would have done if they had tasted and experienced the same But still they esteemed it much nobler never to have been stained with the pollutions of sin always to have been just and never otherwise than good Nor is it seldom that we meet with some in the Talmudists making their own perfection the subject of their boast glorying that they have never done any enormous thing throughout their whole life placing those whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy or good men who were also the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfectly just placing them I say in the highest form of just persons IV. After all this therefore judge whether Christ spoke simply or directly of any such persons as if there were really any such that could need no repentance or rather whether he did not at that time utter himself according to the common conceptions that nation had about some perfectly just persons which he himself opposed And this seems so much the more likely by how much he saith I say unto you as if he set himself against that
But read and read again the whole story Act. XIX and there is not a syllable of any wrong that Paul at that time endured in his person VERS XXXVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fool. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would the Talmudists say Sot mad man g g g g g g Gloss. In Taanith fol. 1â— 1. Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai answered the Baithuseans denying also the Resurrection of the dead and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fools whence did this happen to you c. VERS XLV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so it is written c. OF the former no doubt is made for it is written Gen. XI 7. But where is the latter Throughout the whole sacred book thence the Jews speak so many things and so great of the Spirit of Messias and of Messias quickning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The last Adam was made a quickning Spirit Job XIX 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand in the latter day upon the earth Job seems to me in this place in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak in the same sense with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The last Adam Of the former Adam it was said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return And I know saith Job that my Redeemer liveth and he shall arise from the dust another or a latter and I shall see the Lord made of the same flesh that I am of c. Intimating the Incarnation of the Messiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A quickning Spirit The Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the waters Gen. I. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Spirit of King Messias So the Jews speak very frequently And also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Messias shall quicken those that dwell in the dust It cannot be past over without Observation by what authority Paul applies those words of Psal. XCII Thou Lord in the beginning hast founded the earth c. to the Messias Heb. I. 10. to prove his Deity and dignity But thou art deceived O Paul would a Hebrew say These words are to be applied to God the Father not to the Messias The Apostle hath what to reply from the very confession of the Jewish Nation You acknowledge that Spirit which was present at and president over the Creation was the Spirit of the Messias It ought not also be past by without observation that Adam receiving from him the promise of Christ and believing it named his wife Chava that is Life So the Seventy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Adam called his wives name Life Gen. III. 20. What Is she called life that brought in death But Adam perceived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The last Adam exhibited to him in the Promise to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A quickning Spirit and had brought in a better life of the Soul and at length should bring in a better of the body Hence is that Joh. I. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In him was life VERS XLVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The second man is the Lord. GEn. IV. 1. Eve conceived and brought forth Cain and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have possessed or obtained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man the Lord that is That the Lord himself should become man For let me so turn it depending upon these reasons I. That this Interpretation is without any manner of wresting the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea it is according to its most proper signification and use II. That without doubt Eve had respect to the promise of Christ when she named her son as Adam had respect to the promise in the denomination of Eve VERS LV. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. O death where is thy c. HOs XIII 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Seventy read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where is thy revenge O Death And thus speaks Aben Ezra There are some which invert the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will be as though it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where And very truly as it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 10. Where is thy King Where the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not I will be thy King but Where is thy King So that the Greek Interpreters and the Apostle after them translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where properly and truly The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Prophet is rendred by the Targumist and the Rabbins to signifie A Word but some as Kimchi acknowledges understand it to signifie The Plague and that upon good ground because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Destruction is joyned with it as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Destruction and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Plague are joyned together Psal XCI Where see the Targum and R. Solomon and compare the Greek Interpreters with them CHAP. XVI VERS I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now concerning the Collection for the Saints UNLESS I am much deceived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Jerusalem Writers denotes in the like sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Collection for the wise men They have this story a a a a a a Hoâ—aioth fol. 48. 1. R. Eliezer R. Josua and R. Akiba went up to Chelath of Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Employed in the Collection for the wise Men. One Abba Judah was there who performed the Law with a good Eye Being now reduced to poverty when he saw the Rabbins he was dejected He went home with a sad countenance His wife said to him Why doth thy countenance languish He answered The Rabbins are come and I know not what to do She said to him You have one field left Go and sell half of it and give to them Which he did And when they were departed he went to plow in the half of his field and found a great treasure c. I produce this the more willingly that it may be observed that collections were made among the Jews in forrain Nations for the poor Rabbins dwelling in Judea in the same manner as they were made among Christians in forrain Nations for the poor Jews converted to Christianity in Judea VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 On the first day of the Week 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the first of the Sabbath would the Talmudists say I. That day was every where celebrated for the Christian Sabbath and which is not to be past over without observing as far as appears from Scripture there is no where any dispute of that matter There was controversie concerning circumcision and other points of the Jewish Religion whether they were to be retained or not retained but no where as we read concerning the changing of the Sabbath There were indeed some Jews converted to the Gospel who as in some other things they retained a smatch of their old Judaism so they did in the observation of days Rom. XIV 5. Gal. IV. 10. but yet not rejecting or neglecting the
such as I described unto you false Teachers that pretended to the Spirit and to preach and work Miracles by the Spirit And I shall discourse a little concerning the great delusion that is by pretence of the Spirit and this the rather that I may speak something like in subsequence to that I treated upon at our last Meeting Then I exhorted you to hold Communion by the example of Christ. For separation I then told you was the undoing of our Church Now I give caution against the pretence of those that Preach and Expound Scripture by the Spirit For that is the cause of Separation and hath proved the ruine of Religion And although this change of times doth seem to promise that this delusion in time will dye so that the present discourse may seem not so very pertinent yet doth that mischief now live move delude and captivate silly souls little less than it hath done all along Therefore give me leave a little to discover this delusion to you that you may not only be the better fenced against it that it do not deceive you but that you may be the better furnished to stop the mouths of those that pretend to it For the prosecuting this argument you must distinguish between the false pretence to the Spirit of Sanctification and to the Spirit of Revelation By the former men deceive themselves by the latter others They deceive themselves by conceiving they have the former because they have something like it but these deceive others by the pretence of the latter though they have nothing like it There is no grace but there is a false coin minted by the Devil to dissemble it As the Harlot takes the live-child from the unwitting mother and fosters the dead one in the room and so lyes the poor woman deceived and so the poor man is deceived and thinks he hath saving grace when t is but common and the Spirit of Sanctification when t is but the Spirit of Bondage But I shall not insist on this But proceed to the other pretence viz. to the Spirit of Revelation and Prophesie whereby these in the Text deceived others I shall not need to shew you how this hath been the great cheat in all times There were false Prophets before the captivity and false Prophets after it such pretenders almost in all times I shall strip this delusion naked and whip it before you by observing these four things I. No degree of holiness whatsoever doth necessarily beget and infer the Spirit of Revelation as the cause produceth the effect It is the first cheat that these men put upon themselves and others by concluding I am a Saint therefore I have the Spirit and I preach and expound Scripture by the Spirit whereas I say no degree of Sanctification doth necessarily beget and produce that of Revelation I clear this from the nature of the thing it self and by examples First From the nature of the thing The Spirit of Holiness and Revelation are far different therefore the one is not the cause of the other The cause and the effect have a parity and similitude one with another but these are far from being so 1. They are impartible to different subjects Holiness only to holy men the Spirit of Revelation sometimes to wicked men So it was imparted to Balaam Numb XXIII so likewise to Judas and Caiaphas 2. They are bestowed upon different ends Holiness for the good of him that hath it Revelation for the benefit of others 3. They are of different manners and operations The Spirit of Sanctification changeth the heart Paul is a Saul no more Revelation doth not Judas is Judas still 4. They are of different Diffusion in the Soul Sanctification is quite through I Thess. V. 23. Revelation only in the understanding 5. They are of different Effects Sanctification never produceth but what is good Revelation may produce what is evil Knowledge puffeth up Now see what a cheat they are in This to themselves if they believe it themselves and to others that believe it in this argumentation I am holy therefore I have the Spirit of Revelation To the further confuting of this add but two Examples 1. The first Adam He was as holy as created nature could be and yet had he the Spirit of Revelation Not the Spirit at all He was most holy yet had not the Spirit of Sanctification most full of knowledge yet had not the Spirit of Revelation but all his holiness was founded only in his nature as he was created God made him holy and left him to stand upon his own holiness and had not the assistance of the Spirit at all So he had great knowledge yet not the Spirit of Revelation either to know things to come or to know things beyond their natures and causes But 2. Consider the second Adam He was holiness it self yet had he not the Spirit of Revelation by that holiness In Christ there were two things The holiness of his person by union with the Godhead and the Indowment of the Spirit upon his person He was so holy that he was not only without sin but he was impeccable Rom. VIII 2. as we are a Law that cannot but sin so he contra Now this holiness of Christs person or nature is to a clean different end to what the guifts of the Spirit upon him were His person was so holy that he might perform the Law satisfie justice pay obedience conquer Satan But the guifts of the Spirit were to fit him for Mediatorship to cast out Devils to reveal the will of God to work Miracles to confirm that Doctrine As these differ in their ends so are they from different originals holiness from the purity of his nature indowments by extraordinary donation If he had the Spirit in extraordinary guifts of Revelation and Miracles by vertue of his holy nature why was that Spirit given so visible Matth. III. and given when he was to begin his Mediation Consider his own words Mark XIII 32. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man no not the Angels which are in Heaven neither the Son but the Father Some are ashamed to confess their ignorance of any thing yet he doth it plainly For the Divine Nature in Christ acted not to the utmost of its power T is clear from this passage of Christ that by his nature he had not the Spirit of Revelation but he had it by the immediate guift of God For it pleased not God so to reveal that day and hour to him while he was here on Earth So that by this example you may see much more the fallacy of that argument I am a Saint therefore I have the Spirit of Revelation Whereas Christ himself could not say so II. The Spirit of Revelation is given indeed to Saints but means little that sence that these men speak of but is of a clean different nature The Apostle prays Ephes. I. 17. That God would give unto them the Spirit of Wisdom
of spirit Why to east down thy thirty pieces of Silver which thou hadst got so notoriously and bought so duly Oh! Conviction of mine own Conscience which bears me down and lies heavier on my Soul than a thousand thousand milstones They shall say to the Rocks fall on us and to the Hills cover us And those weights seem lighter than the burden of Conscience that lies upon them Here is Conviction of Conscience overpowering ad ultimum quod sic as far as possible in that kind and as far as possible in this World a man so throughly convinced of his lost undone damnable condition that his Conviction is his Hell already and he cannot suffer or feel more of Hell till he come there But Secondly There is a Conviction of Conscience overpowering to the utmost effect of Conviction that is smoother like Jacob and not such a rough thing as this Esau a child of the freewoman and of the promise and not of this spirit of horror and bondage and that is when a man is so convinced in Conscience concerning his duty that he cannot but with all earnestness set to it and keep to it As in Jer. XX. 9. The word of the Lord was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones that I was weary of forbearing and could not stay This I shall illustrate to you by looking into a case or state of Conscience referring something to the Conviction spoken of last before and also to this we are speaking of now Many a dear child of God walks in darkness and sees no light from the time of his new birth to his grave he walks in brokenness of Heart and dejection of Spirit and never sees good day His example may be instance enough for all others in Psal. LXXXVIII 15 16 17. I am afflicted and ready to die even from my youth up I suffer thy terrors I am distracted Thy fierce wrath goeth over me and thy terrors have cut me off They came round about me daily like waters they compassed me about together Now what is that that bears such a Soul up that it does not sink under despondency and despair It is a wonder that such a one can live and what is it that he lives upon Upon the strong and overpowering Conviction and sence of his duty Every child of God that is born to God by the new birth is in Rebecca's case with a Jacob and Esau struggling in her but the younger overcoms the elder He hath a twofold overpowering of Conscience in him namely concerning his lost condition and concerning his duty and the latter overcoms the former He hath those pangs and anguishes of Conscience through the sight of his sins and sence of Gods displeasure that it brings him to the very brink of Hell and of the gulph of dispair but he hath withal so strong an impression of his duty that that keeps him from sinking or falling in A travailer towards Heaven walks upon two legs Hope and Sence of his duty Now many and many a time his hope like Jacobs thigh is sinnew-shrunk and lame and hath no strength at all in it yet he makes shift to bear upon his other leg the sence of his duty that Jacob-like at last he limps out to his journies end The hope of a good Soul may be in the dark that he cannot see the glimmering of the least spark of it but the sence of his duty is always in his sâ—ght that he cannot but look on it and walk after it The case of Jonah in the Whales belly Jon. II. 4. I said I am â—â—t off from the light Why Jonah then thy case is desperate and there is no hope But I will yet look toward thy holy Temple That is my duty and I must not give out from it That good man in Psal. LXXXVIII thou seest thou hast waited and prayed and laboured for comfort all thy time and no comfort comes there is no hope strive no longer I but it is my duty to wait and pray and labour and I must hold to that and not give out Job dost thou not see thy hopeless case dost thou still hold thine integrity blessing God and dying Ah! thou speakest like a fool saith he though God kill me yet will I trust in him I will wait on him this is my duty and I must do it Oh! This is worth your laying to heart If ever your case come to despond in hopes and comforts yet to â—ear up with this Though I cannot see it is the Will of God to shew me comfort yet I am sure it is his Will that I should hold out in doing my duty I long for assurance of pardon of my sins and cannot find it I pray and wait and labour for grace and hope and comfort and cannot feel it My heart is as sad as ever as dull as slippery as incumbred as ever yet come what will I must not leave my hold I must pray and wait and labour still it is my Duty Thus hath many a sad Soul been born up under despondencies that have seen no light hope nor comfort that it hath been a wonder how they have holden up yet have lived upon a hidden manna as in Revel II. 17. have been born up upon this crutch the overpowering Conviction of their Conscience concerning their Duty IV. Fourthly Every Conscience in the World must at one time or other come to such ultimate Conviction in the one kind or other either to confusion and horror or to conversion and setting to his duty Cain if thou do well shalt thou not be accepted but if thou do not well sin lies at the door Gen. IV. 7. The word in the Original â—â—â—â—â—fies sin but more commonly a sin-offering and that laid at the door And that I take to be the meaning of the place and this to be the first doctrine of Repentance in the Bible Though thou do not well yet there is a sin-offering to make thy peace repent and thou shalt be pardoned but if thou do not repent sin and vengeance lies at the door ready to seize upon thee Sinner if thou improvest trying Conviction as thou oughtest to do thou mayest come to the kindly overpowering Conviction to set thee to thy duty for thy everlasting comfort but if not expect overpowering Conviction at one time or other to thy eternal horror And to this sence could I easily be induced to believe those borrowed expressions of Daniel mean Dan. XII 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth Joh. V. 28 29 shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt A resurrection of dead Consciences as well as dead bodies Conscience of it self is one of the sleepiest things in the World if God would let it sleep but he will suffer no Conscience to sleep for ever But up sluggard Jonah why sleepest thou either call upon thy God or betake thy self to thy duty or into the
say unto him I profess this day unto the Lord thy God that I am come unto the Country which the Lord sware unto our Fathers for to give us And the Priests shall take the basket out of thine hand and set it down before the Altar of the Lord thy God And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God A Syrian ready to perish was my Father and he went down into Egypt and soiourned there with a few and became there a Nation great mighty and populous c. likewise there was a form appointed to be said over the beheaded Heifer XXI Deut. 6 7. c. And all the Elders of that City that are next unto the slain man shall wash their hands over the Heiser that is beheaded in the Valley And they shall answer and say Our hands have not shed this blood neither have our eyes seen it Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whom thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy people Israels charge The Priests when they blessed the people had also a form prescribed them VI. Numb 23 24. c. Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons saying On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel saying unto them The Lord bless thee and keep thee The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee The Lord lift up his Countenance upon thee and give thee peace And David appointed Psalms for the Tabernacle 1 Chron. XVI 7. And the Schools of the Prophets no doubt had Forms delivered to them So John and Christ taught their Disciples to Pray as wellas to Preach He had not been the Great Teacher had he not taught a Form of Prayer We should have been left untaught in not the least thing Consider also in the behalf of prescribed Forms that we poor creatures short fighted in divine things know not what we ought to pray for Peter at the Transfiguration prayed he knew not what IX Luke 33. We often as Adonijah are ready to ask our own Bane There is no man but if God had granted all that ever he asked it would have been worse with him Midas his wish may teach this But that place of the Apostle will be objected against me in Rom. VIII 26. The Spirit helps our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered Therefore we need no forms as long as what we are to pray is dictated to us by the Spirit But I answer T is the Spirit not an Oracle within us to teach us immediately The Word teaches us what and how to ask But the Office of the Spirit is to help our infirmities in asking our infirmities of memory our want of application to ourselves of what we know to be our wants So in the application of Doctrines of Promises the Spirit teaches us no new thing but minds us and brings home to the feeling of our Souls those things we learnt from the Word Consider moreover we had need to be taught of God what language to use when we are speaking to God T is no small thing to betake our selves before him and to speak to him who is the great and living God Now is it an easie thing to speak as we ought to do unto him Jobs friends spake not right things of God XLII Job 7 8. For which God tells them his wrath was kindled against them and requires them to make attonement for it by offering up seven Bullocks and seven Rams Moses could not speak unto Pharaoh IV. Exod. 10. Much less how shall the poor creature address unto the great God Therefore we are advised by the Prophet Hosea when we approach unto God to take words along with us XIV Hos. 2. Take with you words and turn to the Lord say unto him Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously so will we render the Calves of our lips Where you see are express words put into our Mouths to use when we go and make our Confessions unto God Ah! Gracious God how ready art thou to give that biddest us Ak and teachest us to ask also That puttest Words into our Mouths and teachest us what to say to thee He must needs be ready to pardon sin that would prevent sin in our prayers that are begging for pardon Christ well knew the Majesty of God and the necessities of men the need of Prayer and our disability to pray and therefore he left not himself without a witness of infinite mercy and condescention nor us without one of the greatest things that we could have prayed for when he left us this Platform of Prayer When ye pray say c. And so I come to the Prayer or Form it self When ye pray say Our Father c. It is an opinion then that I can rather wonder at then understand that bids when we pray Say not Our Father As I have often grieved to see the neglect and disuse of the Lords Prayer and to hear the reproach that some have cast upon it so have I as seriously as I could considered what ground these have had for the disusing of it and to this hour I rest admiring and no way satisfied why they should refrain it when Christ hath commanded the use of it as plain as words can speak Matth. VI. 9. After this manner pray ye and again in the Text When ye pray say The Cavils that are made against the use of it are obvious I. To avoid superstition for unto such ends it hath been used Here I cannot but think how wild it is to extinguish a thing good per se because another useth it ill To cut down Vines to avoid drunkenness How subject is he that makes it all his Religion to run from a Superstition to run he knows not whether II. Such a narrow Form straitens the heart is too strait stinting the exercise of the gift of Prayer And here I cannot but think of Soloecisms in pride of apparel It is monstrous to make cloths our pride which are only a badge of sin and cover of shame So it is a Soloecism to cast away this Prayer upon presumption that we can pray so well when it is mainly given because we cannot pray at all III. It is generally questioned whether it be a Form of Prayer or a Copy to pray by IV. If a Form yet what warrant have we to subjoyn it to our Prayers as we usually do V. And if both yet that it is not lawful for every one to say Our Father I shall not dispute these Questions The words of the Text plainly answer the most of them Nor that I go about to give the sense of the Petitions There are many good Comments upon them I shall only consider the nature of the Prayer and the manner of its giving that we may be the better satisfied in the manner of its use First As the Ten Commandments are
creation totus Mundus Ethnicus the whole Heathen World groneth and travaileth in pain together until now For it might be shewed that at this time there were some extraordinary stirrings as the child in the womb among the Heathen towards this delivery vers 23. And not only they but our selves also which have the first fruits of the Spirit even we our selves grone within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the Redemption of our Body And so I am come to my Text. In it are three words especially observable towards opening the sense of it I. We. II. First fruits of the Spirit III. Our Body I will take them up inverso ordine the last first I. Body I cannot understand it of the body we carry about us For the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Adoption of the Body or the Adoption of the Soul set alone is unusual in Scripture but Adoption is of the whole person But I take it for the mysticacl body of Christ of which the Gentiles were the far greater part And than this acceptation of the word nothing is more usual God had promised the Adoption of numberless sons from among the Gentiles and this was to make up the whole mystical body And this we grone for waiting for the Adoption to wit the Redemption of our Body This this same Apostle calls the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ Eph. IV. 13. He hath ordained in his Church divers orders of spiritual men some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists c. for the edifying the body of Christ for the bringing it to its full growth Till we all come in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Christs mystical Body was growing up from time to time under the preaching and publishing of the Gospel by the Apostles Prophets Evangelists c. and was not yet arrived to a perfect man but when the Gentile World came in then it attained to its manhood to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. II. First fruits of the Spirit This refers to afterfruits not to grace or glory But the first fruits of the Spirit implies that the Spirit was first given to them and that it was afterwards to be given to others As the Priests had the first fruits and the afterfruits or the rest the people had So 1 Cor. XV. 23. Christ the first fruits and those that are Christs the afterfruits And this clears the meaning of the first word III. We. That is we Jews among whom God bestowed his Spirit I need not prove that God bestowed his Spirit first on the Jews The Prophets oft call the Jewish Nation Pools of Water for this and the Gentiles a dry Wilderness for want of this but foretel that the Wilderness should become Pools of water And this we grone for that is we Jews for them Gentiles that they might partake of this Spirit as well as we Or take it we Christians or Saints that have first received the Spirit we grone that God would make good the like upon the fulness of the Gentiles This Exposition I leave at your feet If it be not as agreeable to the Apostles discourse for he presently after begins with Election and Reprobation that may fall out to be thought of upon Gods calling of the Gentiles if not as agreeable to the whole tenor of Scripture if not as full of plainness and clearness if not as warrantable by the Language as any of the three I mentioned refuse it nay if it were not so I my self should never own it However I will not so confine you to my sense as to ground the foundation of my ensuing Discourse upon my interpretation but I take up one clause without consideration of the connexion and that whose construction is unquestionable viz. We that have the first fruits of the Spirit Not to insist upon the word first fruits I will leave it out and speak to this Question What it is to have the Spirit A question pertinent to be looked after both because of that in vers 9. where it is said That if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his and because of the common delusion I have the Spirit I doubt not the Apostle speaks of the sanctifying Spirit and so I shall handle it I shall answer this Question in seven or eight Observations I. Observe Having of the Spirit is spoken of man only considered under his Fall I mean the Spirit of Grace and so the Apostle here I mean not in opposition to his recovery but to Innocency and Glory Adam in innocency had not the Spirit nor Saints in glory but man only in the middle condition True Adam was perfectly righteous intirely holy and absolutely able so to act but this was not founded in his having the Spirit but meerly in his nature He had the Image of God not the Spirit of God God having created him left him to himself did no more to him but as Creator His holiness was not founded in Sanctification but in Creation The Spirit created him but left him to himself and did no more to him And let me ask Could he have fallen if he had had the Spirit As the Spirit created him impeccaminosum without sin so if he had had the Spirit inhabiting and acting as in Saints it had made him impeccabilem without possibility of sinning The Spirit raiseth the fallen preserveth that good men fall not finally and yet they are sinful allow the same property of operation in Adam and could he have fallen Nay he had not so much as the Spirit of Prophesie Which is less than the Spirit of Sanctification For Balaam and Caiaphas had that His knowledge was great but it was not prophetick foreknowledge He could see future things as wrapt in causes but not things contingent Knowledge is part of Gods Image Col. III. 10. The new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him This Adam had when he knew God himself and the Creature as perfectly as possible flesh and blood could But to know things to come was not for created knowledge but the Creators And the Serpent tickles him not with the promise of knowing future things but of good and evil And our new Creation in knowledge Col. III. 10. is to know God not to know future events On the other hand Saints in glory have not the Spirit nostro sensu in the sense we are now speaking of for cui sini to what purpose They are beyond sanctification and now need it no more the Spirit hath done his work with them And as Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to God so the Spirit his Sanctified ones Ecce ego filii quos dedisti Behold here I am and the sons which thou hast given me Grace is now
turned into Glory Faith into fruition Sanctification into impeccability and there will be no need of the Spirit in our sense any more So that Having the Spirit is understood of man considered only under the Fall II. Having the Spirit speaks of having it for mans Recovery The Spirit is given for his Recovery viz. what God will have recovered Let us look back to the Creation That lesson is divine and pertinent Eccles. XII 1. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth There is more in it than every one observes It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy Creators in the plural and teaches two things That as the first lesson Youth is to learn is to know his Creator so therewith to learn to know the Mystery of the Trinity that created him God created all things and man an Epitomy of all by the Word and Spirit Son and Holy Ghost XXXIII Psal. 6. By the word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his Mouth Joh. I. 3. All things were made by him and without him was not any made that was made Job XXXIII 4. The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life Now when Gods creation in man was spoiled by Son and Spirit it is repaired So that as Christ saith of himself I come to seek and to save that which was lost so the Spirit came to restore and repair what was decayed This is the meaning of the new creature 2 Cor. V. 17. If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creature Eph. II. 10. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Who works this Christ and the Spirit Something Christ doth by his blood viz. restores righteousness the rest by his Spirit viz. recovers holiness Nay I may add the Spirit is given only for mans Recovery The Spirit created man so perfect to try him Spiritus movens the Spirit moving is to try man outward administrations are to try him but when sanctification comes it hath a further purpose Compare man in innocency with man after the fall His state in which he then was was to try him But will the Spirit alway have his work of so uncertain issue Will he never act but for trial and leave the issue to the will of man God when he intended not innocency for the way of Salvation left man to himself Doth the Spirit the like in a way intended for Salvation Who then could be saved Spiritus movens the Spirit moving I said was given to try inhabitans inhabiting only and undoubtedly to Recover III. Having the Spirit presupposeth having of Christ vers 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of Christs contra If any have the Spirit he hath Christ. These terms are convertible He that hath Christ hath the Spirit and vice versa he that hath the Spirit hath Christ. As He that hath the Father hath the Son and he that hath the Son hath the Father also As Son and Spirit cooperated in mans creation so in his renovation Personal works are distinct but never separate Christ to Justifie the Spirit to Sanctifie but never one without the other The Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ is it possible then to have the Spirit absque Christo without having Christ And he is called his Spirit not only quia procedit a filio because he proceeded from the Son but because he gives him and is a purchase of his blood As the Spirit moved on the Waters so he moves on the blood of Christ he comes swimming in that and it is ex merito sanguinis from the merit of his blood whosoever hath him See Gods way of cleansing the Leper which is an Emblem of cleansing a sinner XIV Levit. 14 15 17. And the Priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering and the Priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed c. And the Priest shall take some of the Log of oyl c. And the Priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear c. First Blood and then Oyl On whom is the unction of the Spirit on him is first the unction of blood As the person is accepted before his Service Gen IV. 4. The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering So the person is first Justified before Sanctified God doth not new-create a person whom he accepts not IV. He that hath the Spirit hath a twofold work of the Spirit common grace and sanctifying grace We may consider the Spirit as Creator and Sanctifier and thirdly acting in a Work between both When he teacheth man arts indues him with intellectual abilities he then works as Creator in bonum Universi for the good of the Universe When he sanctifieth he doth it for the recovery of the Soul Now there is a work between both that is more than he doth as Creator and less than as Sanctifier but in tendency to the latter but as yet it is not it viz. Common grace Such is Illumination to see ones Condition Conviction with feeling Conscience active thoughts of Soul This is called grace because more than nature Common because wicked men have it sometimes as appears by Heb. VI. 4. And you read of Felix his trembling at S. Pauls Sermon Now the Spirit never worketh sanctifying grace but first useth this to make way He plows the heart by common grace and so prepares it for sanctifying grace In this Chapter at vers 15. There was the Spirit of fear before that of adoption As the Law was given first so the work of the Law is first Rom. VII 9. When the Commandment came sin revived and I died As Moses delivered the people of Israel into the hand of Joshua so the Law when it hath sufficiently disciplined us commits us into the hand of Grace As in Gal. III. 17. The Covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ the Law c. cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect The Law is subservient to the promise so this work of the Law to Grace Is a meer work of the Law sanctifying Grace True the work of the Law goes along with grace hence many a gracious heart is under terrors But is the first work of the Law Grace No it is to fit the heart to receive Grace Many now a days say I have the Spirit How came they by it If they have it it is an unnatural birth not bred and born after Gods ordinary way To day debauched to morrow turn Sectary and then have the Spirit That was a wonder in the Prophet speaking of one that before she travailed was delivered such a wonder is this if it be so No God causeth this work of Common Grace to prepare and fit us for the reception of the Holy Spirit V. The Spirit worketh both these by the
Word The Spirit gave the Scriptures and he useth them for the end why they were given viz. mans Salvation The Spirit unhingeth not the Essential actings of the Soul but works with them Now the acting of the Soul is by reasoning and perswasion The Will chooseth being perswaded by the Understanding and the Understanding is perswaded by the object And so the Spirit does in the work of Grace Gen IX 27. God shall perswade Japhet 2 Cor. V. 11. We perswade men Now this is not done but by the Word The heart is moulded by the Spirit to receive perswasion but by the Word he works perswasion in us Common grace first grace growth of Grace are thus all wrought by the Word I mean Common grace where sanctification is to follow Sometime there is stirring of Conscience in wicked men from horror and affrightments and sometimes from the Law for the glorifying of it but where healing must come the wound is made by the Word and the healing is effected by the Word A man is perswaded and satisfied that he is in an undone condition How is he so perswaded By the Word The Law does it Rom. VII 9. before mentioned A man is perswaded to rest on Christ. The Word doth it Faith comes by hearing That in Joh. VI. 45. will illustrate this It is written in the Prophet And they shall be all taught of God Taught of God who had been taught of the Devil Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me Cometh unto me as Teacher And how did they hear and learn from the father but from the Word of the Father Growth of grace also is built up by the Word 1 Pet. II. 2 3. As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby What sets man upon obedience and striving against sin longing after God c The Word continually applied Man lives by the Word grows by the Word This is the means that the Spirit useth They that speak of a Light within them that serves for all if they mean Light from the Word let them then own the Word if they mean the Light of nature that never yet lighted man to Heaven That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the World viz. The Gospel that went through the World t is clear that the Evangelist means that there Joh. I. 9. VI. Having the Spirit speaks not perfection in him that hath it It speaks Holiness not Sinlesness Take this in the mouth of two witnesses as holy as any First S. Paul Rom. VII 17. Sin dwelleth in me and 25. vers with the flesh I serve the Law of sin Secondly S. John 1 Ephes. I. 8. If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us To them that distinguish not betwixt holiness and perfection but say they are perfect because they think they are holy I say two things 1. They are little seen in their own hearts 2. Little seen in the Scripture and Divinity For the Scripture is abundant to the contrary and Divinity makes the contrary most plain and facil to be understood It is a Paradox Adam had perfection though not the Spirit a Believer hath the Spirit yet not perfection and yet the Believers imperfection is more excellent than Adams perfection I might instance First in the foundation of eithers holiness Adams from his Creation and nature a Believers from the Spirit and grace Secondly In the amissibleness of Adams Adams was liable to losing a Believers not Thirdly In the manner of Acting of which anon I cannot but observe that in Ephes. IV. 24. The new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is rendred two ways and both to the present purpose The English well and according to the Hebrew Idiom reads true holiness and so the Apostle seems to compare the holiness of the new man with Adams His was true holiness but this truer and more excellent though imperfect It is rendred also The holiness of truth The Gospel is oft called Truth and if it be so to be rendred here then it means Evangelical holiness not only in opposition to Legal but to Adams Evangelical holiness is the holiness and that that indeed restores the Image of God After God created in righteousness and the holiness of truth Hence is that in 2 Pet. I. 4. That by these ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature Adam was not partaker of Gods holy nature but only of his creation if his holiness were any yet it was mans only but a Believer is partaker of the Spirit when he hath holiness Let me ask this Question and Answer it and that will clear all Why are we justified by perfect justification and righteousness for so we are because it is by the righteousness of Christ which is called the righteousness of God when we are not sanctified by perfect sanctification and holiness though sanctified by the Spirit of Christ I answer First It is needful that Justification be perfect for if we are not justified from every sin it is all one as if we were from none As break one Command and break all so unjustified from one sin and unjustified from all For 1. Such persons are not accepted of God 2. They are liable to condemnation therefore Justification must be perfect But in sanctification t is not so as I shall observe by and by A man may be truly though not perfectly holy Secondly It is Gods will and disposition to glorifie his grace in holiness by its living and acting in and against contrariety As it was Abrahams glory in Rom. IV. 18. Who against hope believed in hope Whether is it greater to be holy in the midst of sinfulness or as Adam to be holy when no sin touched him Which was greater for Lot to be holy in Sodome or in Abrahams house Compare a Believer with Adam Adam had Gods Image the Believer hath Gods Image restored What was Gods Image in Adam It consisted first in the Essence of his Soul and made him spiritual intellectual immortal and secondly in the qualification of his person and made him holy righteous The former is not lost nor extinguished by sin nor could only spoiled and soiled The Devils for all their sin yet are spiritual intellectual immortal substances The latter did embalm and keep fresh the former His holiness kept his spiritualness his intellectual nature in the right temper while he kept it Now to a Believer there is so much holiness as to do the same thing He is spiritual though he be flesh his Holiness makes his intellect right viz. To know God and love him and preserves him to immortality nay goes beyond Adam in operation As namely 1. He knows God in Christ which full revealing of God Adam did not attain to 2. He loves God more excellently than Adam did or could do Adam had no pul-back
to hinder him from the Love of God the Believer hath Sin the World the Flesh the Devil nay Deum Visum iratum God himself when he seems to be angry yet he loves God through all these Whereas Adam fell in the first opposition 3. A Believers obedience is more excellent than Adam did or could perform Adam had no hindrance nay he was not in a condition of passive obedience A Believer obeys through poverty sadness pains nay to death it self Thus Having the Spirit speaks not perfection yet at last brings to perfection in Heaven Adam begun in perfection and grew imperfect Holiness begins and sojourns in imperfection here and ends in perfection hereafter VII Having the Spirit speaks having it for ever XIII Joh. 1. Having loved his own which were in the World he loved them unto the end The falls of them that have the Spirit as for example of Peter of David speaks not the loss of the Spirit nor the weakness of the Spirit but only the Spirits disposing Every sickness is not loss of life so every fall is not the loss of the Spirit I might illustrate this from the Spirits acting in ruling and guiding the course of nature The Spirit as Creator preserves the Universe in its being and order How In that he hath set rules in the course of nature that there should be such seasons such productions such causes to produce such effects that warmth and nearness of the Sun should cause Spring and Summer and so contra And the Spirit sits above all and gives influence So when Nature is inverted that there happen winter-weather in Summer and contra Summer-weather in Winter the Spirit is not departed from his work nor is he become weak but so disposes and that after his own Rule viz. Northern cold winds and rain to breed cold though in Summer thick cloudy air and sky warmth even in Winter So though he fails of the Rule set in regard of the seasons yet not of the Rule set of such causes producing such effects So the Spirit hath set a Rule in Course in the work of Grace that such cause produce such effect that it should be Summer or Winter with the Christian as the Sun of Righteousness is near or far off And in Winter we have not lost the Sun though he be not so near Now when the Course of Grace is inverted and man falls the Spirit is not lost but this is according to the Rule set of causes and effects care of mens ways to produce growth and comfort neglect thereof to produce failings But yet the Spirit is not quite gone from his work VIII Having the Spirit speaks not having the gift of Prophesie As some did not distinguish before concerning the Indowments of the Spirit so do others not distinguish here or at least confound Hence some will say I believe therefore I have the Spirit of prophesie Of all men I believe least they have the Spirit that boast of it But to this I shall only say two things First Did the very holiness of Christs person necessarily indue him with the Spirit of Prophesie If so then what need had he of the gift of the Spirit It is said of John Luke I. 15. That he should be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mothers womb But it is not said so of Christ. Nor was John Baptist filled with the Holy Ghost in that sense Secondly These are of so different natures that one is not the cause of the other 1. The Spirit of Sanctification is only to help our infirmities c. the Spirit of Prophesie not 2. The Spirit of Sanctification is beneficial to the person in order to his Salvation the other not 3. The Spirit of Sanctification only proves good the other may be the occasion of evil S. Pauls revelations were in danger to puff him up 2 Cor. XII 7. Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the Revelations there was given unto me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet me 4. The Spirit of Sanctification changeth the heart the other not 5. It goeth through the whole soul the other not And thus I have done with the eight Observations I named which may serve as good directions for our understanding what it is to have the Spirit and what is the nature of his operations I might add more As First One may have the Spirit and not know it Secondly One may have a great measure of the Spirit and yet doubt whether he have it at all Thirdly The Spirit is not had upon courtesie of mans will but by the over-powering of Gods grace Fourthly The chief way of the working of the Spirit is to work Faith and Love and to build up Christians by Faith and Love A SERMON PREACHED AT S. MARIES Cambridge June 24. 1660. 1 COR. XIV 26. How is it then Brethren When ye come together every one of you hath a Psalm hath a Doctrine hath a Tongue hath a Revelation hath an Interpretation let all things be done to edifying THE last time I spoke of one abuse in the Publick Assembly of this Church of Corinth and that was misjudging and misreceiving the Holy Sacrament Here in the Text is another disorder and confusedness in the exercise of the Publick Ministry from what arising uncertain but certainly ending in non-edification as the Apostle intimates by the conclusion of the verse Such confusion indeed in their business that we know not where to find them and indeed the Chapter is very hard very hard either to find out what it was they did or what it is the Apostle would have them do or whence proceeded that enormity that he doth correct We will inquire after it the best we can and keep as near as we can to the words of the Text. In it are three parts I. What to do in a certain case How is it then Brethren II. The case propounded When ye come together every one of you hath a Psalm hath a Doctrine a Tongue hath a Revelation hath an Interpretation III. The Determination given Let all things be done to edifying I. What to do in a certain case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a School-phrase and if I be not much deceived the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word used infinitely in the Talmud and in Tanchum of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word occurs a thousand times It means most commonly What is to be done in this case or May such a thing be done Either will serve here Every one hath a Psalm hath a Doctrine hath a Tongue c. What is to be done in this case Or may we do thus and keep to this Custom The Apostle resolves the case in the end of the Verse Let all things be done to edifying And so vers 15. compared with vers 14. If I pray in an unknown Tongue my spirit prayeth but my understanding is unfruitful And then comes on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is
out its own Eyes and chuse to be blind and live in darkness when it hath Eyes and light A doleful thing that men should be killed because they will not be fools Think of the hundreds that have gone to the fire and faggot because they could not believe Transubstantion because they could not believe that which is contrary to Reason Religion and the trial of the Sences therefore they must be put to a most cruel death Poor England because she will not be Popish must be no more because she will not lose her wits she must lose her life Poor Abel must be murthered because he will not be such a wretch hypocrite and vilain as Cain This is all the quarrel they had against us because we would not be of such a Religion as they are of and had no mind to build our Salvation upon straw and stubble Think of this and of the constant practise of Rome to seek to destroy those that will not be of her mind and Religion then guess who is the Gog and Magog in the Text that takes up persecution and fighting against those that will not be deceived by Satan as they themselves are The design of this day engageth us to hate Popery that must be maintained and propagated with blood and force I shall not dispute which is the true Religion the Protestant or the Popish Only set Jacob and Esau before you whether of the two is more lovely Popery is rough and rugged witness the Inquisition the Massacre the Marian days and the fift of November Think of these and hate Popery Let me enlarge my self a little upon this subject what a great cheat Satan puts on men when he deceives them to become enemies to true Religion There was hardly ever any persecutor of the truth in the World but he would confess this truth so that I might need no other proof of it but the confession of such enemies Paul when he murthered the members of Christ without mercy or measure he would be ready enough to say Oh! it s a cursed cheat the Devil puts upon men when he sets them to be enemies to persecute the true Religion but this Sect of Nazarens that I persecute they are Hereticks Apostates and t is a good deed to persecute them for they are fallen from the Religion of their Fathers Bonner that Butcher of Hell that so bloodily murthered so many of the Saints of God in Queen Maries time he would be ready enough to say Oh! it s a cursed cheat of the Devil to set men upon persecuting true Religion but these Lollards these Protestants are desperate Hereticks horrid Apostates that have fallen away from holy Mother Church of Rome and it is fit such men should not live And none that hates and persecutes another for Religion but he will be ready to say in the like kind this being one arrand and very general cheat of Satan to make all men though of the falsest worst and most damnable Religion or profession of Religion to believe theirs is the best The greatest Dispute in the World is which is the true Religion and as the Apostles upon Christs speaking of one betraying him every one asked Is it I So will every Religion in the World upon this Question Which is the true Religion answer It is I. The Jew saith His the Turk His the Papist His the Protestant His one Protestant his manner of worship and profession is best another His and a third His. Like the two Hostesses before Solomon about the living and dead child one saith the dead Religion is thine and the living mine and another nay my Religion is the living but thine the dead How is it possible to determine this controversie about which there hath been so much quarreling and so many many vast Volumes written And if we do not determine which is true Religion we can make nothing of the Doctrine before us which speaks of Sataus cheating men to be enemies to it It would speak high to undertake to determine when dispute is betwixt so Learned Men. But let me give you these two marks of it which also may help to give some caution against being enemy to it I. That is the true Religion and true Religiousness that the Devil hates most That is the King of Israel that the Captains of the Syrians bend themselves most to fight against 1 Kings XXII Need I to tell you how the Devil in the Revelations is continually fighting against the true Saints of God and their Religion It hath been his quarrel ever since God set the enmity between the Womans seed and him Gen. III. 15. Now certainly it may be a very pregnant mark of discerning what a mans Religion and Religiousness is by computing whether the Devil have reason to hate it or no. In the great question twixt Papists and us whether is the true Religion Bring them to the touchstone hath the Devil any cause to hate worshiping of Images to hate the casting away the Scripture and taking up the wretched Traditions of Men to hate their nurseling of the people in Ignorance and the blind leading the blind into the ditch to hate the Popes pride and arrogance against God and Christ and Kings and Princes the Clergies domineering over the Consciences of Men to keep them blind and so as they may make a prey of them In a word hath the Devil any reason to hate that Religion that is nothing but paint and show and outside and no life of Religion at all in it These things make for him and are on his side and bring him Souls to Hell heaps upon heaps and he hath no reason to be an enemy to these Hath the Devil reason to hate or hinder the Religion and Devotion of him that is huge devout in the Church in all ceremonial and formal appearance and they would take him for a Saint or an Angel but out of the Church he is loose covetous malicious cruel prophane and no better than a Devil Such mens Religion will never do the Devil any disadvantage or be any diminishment to his Kingdom But that Religion that gives God his due in holy and spiritual Worship in holy and spiritual walking that devotion that serves God in Spirit and Truth that Ministry that in care and constancy and conscientiousness is always striving to bring Souls to God and to bring them beyond the form to the power of godliness and to deliver them from the power of darkness to the Kingdom of Gods dear son Let any man of reason and understanding guess whether Satan do not cannot choose but hate such a Religion Devotion Ministry So that as Solomon judged this live child is that Womans because her bowels earn towards it so may we very well judge that to be the true and best Religion and Religiousness that the Devils bowels earn against that he cannot but hate and be enemy to II. That is the best and truest Religion and Religiousness that sheweth forth
some from thence would gather the praeexistence of souls some the equality of souls certainly this may be that God made no difference of his working when he made all Secondly As all the men of the world are of this parity and equality in regard of the Creators work that made them so also in regard of the matter or mettle of which they are made Did God chuse any finer clay for the making of one than for another Dust thou art was the character of the first Adam and does any of his posterity differ from that character Did God look out for finer clay to make a great rich man of than he did to make a poor Jer. XVIII 4. The vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the Potter so he made it again another vessel as seemed good to the Potter to make it The Potter hath a pot on the wheel and it hits not to the fashion he aimed at so that he workes it up to vessel of another fashion but the same clay still So however there may be some variety in the frame of the vessel made some diversity in the composure of men some fair some foul some black some white some a smooth Jacob some a rough Esau yet the clay that these diversified vessels are made of is but one and the same You remember that Esay XLV 9. Wo to him that striveth with his Maker let the potsheard strive with the potsheards of the earth The meaning of the latter clause The potsheards of the earth is Men to strive with men is something like equal match and if they will needs strive let them strive one with another but Wo to him that striveth with his Maker You see the title given to all on earth they are but earthen potsheards but as bits of a broken pitcher While the pitcher was whole it was but an earthen pitcher while Adam was in innocency he was but a vessel of clay though a vessel of honour but his fall hath broke the pitcher all to pieces and all the men of the world are but as sheards of a broken picher It may be one piece of the potsheard may be bigger than the others are yet that is but a potsheard still and of the very same mettle with the other It may be one piece is finely painted and coloured which the other is not yet it is but a potsheard for all its painting and but of the very same clay with the other bits for all its bravery Thirdly And as all are of the same dust in their original and no difference so is there any difference in the dust to which they shall return Shall great and rich less turn to dust than mean and poor or shall they turn to nobler dust than the other Shall a more noble or gentile worm seise upon a great man in the grave than does upon a mean or a more gallant corruption devour the rich man than doth the poor There the Kings and Counsellors of the earth lie down together Job II. 14. And there the poor and rich have the same lodging and the Servant hath the same bed with his Master And do they not all go to the same the very same dust and doth not the same the very same corruption seize and consume them Psal. CIII 14. The Lord that made us knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust Dust in our beginning dust at our latter end and one and the same dust both in our beginning and end and no difference And therefore how can he in this regard but value all at one rate and when the poor and rich come to pay tribute for the preservation of this dust our bodies that all should contribute alike the rich no more and the poor no less But are all mens Souls alike too that God should rate them all alike too Take the word in the text in the proper sence you shall make an attonement for your Souls are all Souls looked upon by God alike too It was an old question in the Schools An animae sint aequales Whether all Souls are equal And our inquiry adds one question more Whether God weigh all Souls alike And the the question lies not so much in this Whether God prize not an holy Soul above a sinful as whether every Soul be of the same value as a Soul And the reason of the question is from the vast difference of the tempers of men in which the acting and nature of the Soul appears And it were wonder if some of the Jews did not cavil at this Law upon this very poynt They took upon them to be exceeding wise and abundance of them gave themselves that title and must they be valued with fools and Ideots I am not curious to discuss this question copiously It might be a very proper answer to this question such as is Joh. XXI 21. Where Peters inquisitivness receives an answer What is that to thee So when any are curious to know whether all Souls are alike whether an unlearned Soul is like a learned an Heathen like a Christian an Ideot like a solid man I may say What is that to thee search and try and examine and take care of thine own Soul Yet to speak something to this case First Distinguish between the Activity of the Soul and the Capacity of it what it does and what it is able to do It is a Maxim A posse ad esse non valet consequentia From what a man can do it will be but a weak consequence to conclude that therefore he will do it The Leper to our Saviour understood Logick better and concludes not that he would make him clean because he could do it but he begs that he would do it seing that he could Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean It is a good consequence to say a Man does thus therefore he can do it but a wild one to say therefore he can do no otherwise So as to the judging of the true quality of the Soul if you would take measure of a Soul aright you must not barely look at its present acting but at its capacity and what in its full largeness and latitude it is able to act not take measure of a reasonable Soul as it is in its childhood but when it is in its full growth and capacity Secondly Now the acting of a Soul in its full capacity cannot be while it is in the body It cannot see God face to face nor the Devil as he is a Spirit which it may do when out of the body It cannot converse with things in eternity which it cannot but do when out of the body either blessed or miserable It cannot here but be deceived many a time over there it cannot possibly be deceived and so I might speak in other particulars So that the proper judging of the nature of the Soul and its capacity is to take it as God did Israel at Sinai when he would know
ways of glorifying himself and is not tyed to this or that way by any necessity But the reason of the difference lyeth First In his own Will as the Apostle resolves it He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth But Secondly As in reference to the persons raised he raiseth what souls he raiseth by virtue of his Covenant of grace but he raiseth not all the bodies he raiseth by the same virtue It is said concerning Christ himself that God brought him from the dead by the bloud of the everlasting Covenant Heb. XIII 20. So doth he by the blood and virtue of the same Covenant bring from the dead every soul that he brings from the dead but he doth not so every body that he brings from the dead Now the tenor of the Covenant is Hearken to my voice and live Es. LV. 3. Incline your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live And to the very same tenor are those word of our Saviour mentioned before Joh. V. 25. The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live What kind of language is this The Dead shall hear All the Dead shall hear and yet only they that hear shall live What needed more to have been said than that the Dead shall hear his voice and live But his meaning is all the dead Heathen shall have the Gospel and hear the word of it brought among them and they that hear it that is obey it and follow it shall live Let me repeat that which I alledged from Esay LV. 3. and add what follows there Hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of David Now that by sure mercies of David is meant the resurrection of Christ the Apostle teacheth us in Act. XIII 34. And as concerning that he raised him from the dead now no more to return to corruption he said on this wise I will give you the sure mercies of David The resurrection of Christ therefore are the sure mercies of Christ. For that by David is meant Christ it were easy to shew and it is so confessed by the Jews themselves in their expositions of that place It was the sure mercy that God gave to Christ himself of which he so rejoyceth Psal. XVI 9. My heart is glad my glory rejoyceth and my flesh also shall rest in hope Because thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell c. And it is the sure mercy of Christ that God gave to the members of Christ that he raised him from the dead and imparts to them the benefit of his Resurrection And this is called there an Everlasting Covenant that he makes with them That as he gave Christ a resurrection so he will give them a resurrection The first and the latter rain the first and the latter resurrection First to raise their Souls by the virtue of his Covenant from the death of sin in his good time and to raise their bodies by virtue of the same Covenant at the last day Of which last our Saviour speaks three times over Joh. VI. ver 39. This is my Fathers will which hath sent me that of all that he hath given I should lose none but raise him up at the last day ver 40. And this is the Will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him should have eternal life and I will raise him up the last day And ver 44. None can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day Will Christ raise up all persons in the world at the last day upon these terms Ye see No but only those that comply with his Covenant to come to him see him believe in him His power and justice will raise all others the virtue of his Covenant will raise these Now I suppose you easily see how to distinguish twixt the Tenor of his Covenant and the Virtue of his Covenant The Tenor of his Covenant is Hear and obey my voice and live The Virtue of his Covenant is his unfailing truth power goodness that will give life to them that hear his voice and obey him Thus you see one reason of the difference why he raiseth but some souls here from the death of sin but will raise all bodies from the death of the grave Thirdly Another reason of difference may be given for that at the last day he will raise all the persons in the world from their graves that he may glorifie himself but he raiseth only some few from their sins that they may glorify him And there is a great deal of difference twixt Gods glorifying himself upon men as he did upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians and bringing men heartily and laboriously to glorifie him and to live to his glory But Secondly a main difference in these two resurrections the soul from sin and the body from the grave is that the first resurrection is with the desire of him that is raised the latter will be in despite of thousands that will have no mind of it God will bring thee to jugement Eccles. XI 9. is a cutting saying but all the World shall never be able to take the edge of it off But let wicked men struggle and strive and tug never so hard against the resurrection God will bring them to it and no resisting But the first resurrection or the raising a soul from the death of sin how sweet how welcome how comfortable is it to every one to whom it comes Thy people will be willing in the day of thy power and help forward their own rising as much as they can and the Spirit and Bride say come and the soul and heart say Come Lord Jesus come quickly and let me see this resurrection And thus have we seen some circumstances in which the first and second resurrection differ and are at distance let us now consider wherein they agree and shake hands one with another Observe that the Scripture speaks in some places of the Resurrection as if it were to be no Resurrection but of just and holy ones only as you may take notice in 1 Cor. XV. and 1 Thes. IV. That there shall be a Resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just the Scripture assures us over and over again but it more especially calls that a Resurrection that is a Resurrection indeed and and not a raising to be cast down again Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more as the Apostle tells us Death hath no more dominion over him And the Scripture doth more especially call that a Resurrection that is written after his Copy for a man to rise from the dead to die no more That man is but little helped which we read of in the Prophet that in the way met a Lyon and flying
reliance upon Christ comes not into date till a man do the best he can to fit himself to be a sacrifice for that Altar The Altars sanctifying of the gift came not in date till the offering was fit for the Altar There must be these concurrents First It must be of the clean kinds of Beasts or Birds Oxen or Sheep or Goats Sparrows Pigeons or Turtles not Dog Cat Ass Bear not a Crow Raven Owl or Vultur Then it must be viewed by some skilful person that it be without blemish as well as that it be clean viz. That it be not a blind Bullock or Lamb that it be not broken diseased c. And lastly the Offerers free-will and mind in his offering must be concurrent And thus qualified it was fit for the Altar and the Altar sanctified it Now was there all this care about the offering of a beast upon a material Altar of brass or stone and is not as much at least required for the offering of a souls own self on Christ the Altar Must any thing polluted or unclean come near that Altar Faith in Christ is not so easie a matter as men take it for a man must first do all he can in purifying himself before he can believe For his believing is his refuging to Christ to make out for him when he sees he cannot do it himself And by this appears the vast difference 'twixt the believing of a Jew and the faith of a true Christian. The Jew as he thought performed the Law and believed that he should be justified by his performance and looked no further A true Christian observes the Law the best he can but when he hath done all he finds himself but an unprofitable servant and that he comes infinitely short of Justification by all he can therefore casts himself upon Christ to satisfie for him The sacrifices of God are a broken heart a broken and a contrite spirit O God thou wilt not despise Psal. LI. 17. Under the Law nothing that was broken or bruised was to be offered under the Gospel no heart but broken or bruised is to be offered And whereupon bruised and broken not only upon sight of the evil they have committed but also upon sense how little they can do of good when they have done their best And then lay such an heart upon the Altar Christ and the Altar sanctifies the gift and makes out for it Brethren take heed you be not deceived about Faith by which you must stand or fall to all eternity It is more than fancy or thinking or hoping you shall be saved by Christ it is more than taking on you to pray in the name of Christ more than begging mercy for the sake of Christ. It is working and labouring in the way of Gods Commandments till you be weary and heavy laden and then resting your selves in Christ for safety and refreshing It is doing your duty all you can and still leaning on Christ to make out all failings for you It is that that must bring up the reer of your best endeavours As Simon of Cyrene was laid hold upon to bear the Cross of Christ after him when it was too heavy for him So on the contrary lay hold on Christ and get him to bear your burthen for you when you your selves are not able to bear it II. By this also we may observe the absolute necessity of keeping Gods Commandments for salvation as well as the absolute necessity of faith for salvation and the amicable and indeed unseparable agreement 'twixt these two It is impossible to find acceptance with God for justification and salvation unless by faith in Christ we be presented as living sacrifices upon him the Altar And it is impossible to be fit sacrifices for that Altar unless by keeping the Commandments of God we be purified and fitted For as Faith purifieth the heart where it is once come Act. XV. 9. So keeping the Commandments of God is purifying the heart that Faith may come Consider of that 1 Pet. I. 22. Seeing you have purified your hearts in obeying of the truth Now what is obeying of the truth but doing what God in the word of truth directeth and commandeth and this also purifieth the heart toward believing as Faith doth when a man now believes And thus believing and obeying are so twisted together that without keeping of Gods Commandments the best you can you cannot come by Faith and Faith when it is come it cannot be without keeping of Gods Commandments the best you can For as to the former we may not unproperly apply those words of the Apostle Gal. III. 23. For before faith came we were kept under the Law shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed And as to the later that in Jam. II. 26. As the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also And now to make some Application upon what hath been spoken and to take up the words in order First From the title here given to our Saviour that he is our Altar upon and through whom to offer our selves and all our services to God we may observe that the bare offering of Christ himself upon the Cross is not the all that a Christian hath to look after for his salvation but he himself is also to offer himself through Christ to God Christ was a dying sacrifice a Christian must be a living and as Christ voluntarily offered himself to God so is he also to do in his place and station How oft do we find in Scripture that the death of Christ doth challenge our dying to sin and not living to our selves 1 Cor. V. 7. Purge out the old leaven that ye may be a new lump for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us 2 Cor. V. 15. And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that died for them And so there are divers other places to the like tenor The obedience of Christ does not dissolve the obedience of a Christian but enhance it For his obedience was not to disannul our obedience but to challenge it to love him who loved us first His offering himself was to lead us the way and to teach and engage us to offer our selves also He to die according to the will of God and we to live according to his will that is to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness Secondly Now since every one that is accepted of God is to be presented to him as a sacrifice offered through Christ as the most Sacred Altar it may give us just cause daily to examine our selves how fit we are to be presented to that Altar and from that Altar to God The Sacrifice under the Law was to be examined whether it were fit or no by one that was skilful in such a scrutiny The work now under the Gospel must be our own every one to examine his own heart since the heart
The whole Quire of Angels sang and shouted for joy to see that great work of the Creator to go so wonderfully And it was worthy of all their shouting and singing and rejoycing But here is a business that God himself joyns himself with the Quire and rejoyces and triumphs with Angels too And what can move God and Christ and Angels to rejoyce but this Think seriously of this question What could move them to rejoyce but only this Look all the World through and think what in it might move joy in Heaven but this Gold and silver and wealth and earthly pomp is but a drug as we say reputed there And bring tidings of that and what is that to Heaven That that we so dote on that we are ready to venture Soul Body Eternity all for i. e. the pelf and prosperity of the World offer it to God Christ Angels or glorified Spirits by bags barns by heaps by mountains what are all these to Heaven As much despised as Earth is below Heaven No it could be none of these earthly treasures that moved the joy of Heaven nothing but the repentance of a sinner Most true God and Christ would be never the less blessed and holy and glorious if never man in the World should repent For God receiveth no addition from man but man from God And the blessed Angels would be never the less blessed and happy if never Person should repent For their happiness is Primitive and Original to them and not Accidental If all the World were in Hell what were God less in Majesty and Glory And what were the Angels less in blessedness and purity And therefore it is the more ravishing a consideration that God and Angels should rejoyce when any come to Heaven But the Repentance and Salvation of men is not a thing that God could not be without For he was the same God before there was a World that he will be for ever Nor is it a thing the Angels could not be without For the Angels were what they are before man was in being But God would not Angels would not be without mens repentance and salvation and as I may say with reverence they are not satisfied will not be satisfied without mens salvation The principle of this desiring is in the goodness of their own will not in any pinching urgency in their own want A poor miserable begger a poor miserable prisoner that the one should come to a better estate and the other obtain his liberty if we have any whit Divine or Angelick hearts we should wish it should be so and we should rejoyce if it were so but this not out of any pinching need we have of the bettering of their estate for we are not the worse while they are in poverty and prison and we should not be bettered by their being out But something within of Love Charity Pity and Goodness is that that moves us to desire their bettering at least should do And how many inward Principles as with reverence I may call them there are to move God and Christ and Angels so to desire mans repentance the way to his salvation not a small time would serve to discourse I shall only observe these two things concerning it First God created the World for Man and Man in the World more especially to shew and communicate his Goodness Consult Psal. CXXXVI and it will inform that the bottom of Gods design in creating all things was to impart his Mercy He made the Heavens Why Because his Mercy endureth for ever He stretcheth the Earth upon the Waters Why Because his Mercy endureth for ever That made two great Lights Because his Mercy endureth for ever c. Shewing all along that that which moved God to create the World was Mercy and because he would impart Mercy to the Creature especially Man for whom he created all things It is true that he Created the world to shew his Eternal Power and Godhead and so the Apostle intimates Rom. I. 20. But he created the World more especially to shew that which he meant to communicate which was his Mercy whereas his Eternal Power and Godhead he cannot so communicate But Secondly By the fall of man the brave workmanship and design of God is ruined Man that he created to be his servant is now become the Devils bondslave and he to whom he intended his mercy hath now utterly lost his mercy and is under the worst of misery Satan hath now got the day and all is his own but the Zeal of the Lord of Hosts will not suffer it Mercy doth not forsake poor man in misery but doth double it self and become Grace Mercy had made him of a condition happy Grace restores him from a condition miserable Mercy had made him able to do for himself and when that was lost Grace raiseth up Christ to do and suffer for him Mercy had made him partaker of the Divine Image Grace makes him partaker of the Divine Nature There is a Principle in God as I may call it that cannot but be moving for the good of man And a Principle in Angels that cannot but delight in that Principle of God I say that cannot but be moving when indeed the wheel that stirs all and necessitates that notion is only the goodness of God and the Love of Angels to Men. As the moving so the reason of the moving is within themselves Object Why then are not all men saved If there be such an essential moving in God for the good of Man why do not all men partake of that goodness And if such joy in Heaven for a sinners repentance why doth not God bring all the World to repentance For if he would he could do it and if he so delight in it why doth he not do it Answer I remember the saying of the Prophet The Lord is pleased for his righteousness sake to magnifie the Law and make it glorious As the Lord is pleased to magnifie his Grace in mans Salvation so God is pleased to magnifie the means of Grace and that man should magnifie the means of Grace or no Salvation God never intended that men should leap into Heaven without more ado but that they should take Jacobs ladder the means that he hath appointed to get up thither In that opposition that God sets in the Prophet betwixt his ways and mens ways Are not my ways equal are not your ways unequal he plainly directs to take his ways whosoever intends to come to him For it is not mans ways it is no other way that will bring to him Now the means of Grace and Salvation we may distinguish into what God hath afforded for mans direction and forewarning and what a man is to practise according to that direction The Word and Ordinances of God is that that God hath afforded for direction and forwarding And for the Practical means I shall mention but these three instead of more A mans striving to get clear from Satan his labouring to
and of Grace in its nature and end But that that I shall insist upon shall be to consider something concerning the Spirits overpowering of Men their Actions Tongues Hearts or all And though here was no overpowering the Heart of this wretch but of his Tongue only yet I shall speak more especially of overpowering of â—â—e Heart as most material in this subject and which understood the Spirits overpowering of the Tongue and Action will be understood with little ado I shall couch what I have to speak under these following Obrvations I. I may take up that Gen. VI. 3. And the Lord said My Spirit shall not always strive with man He saith not with this or that or the other man in particular but with man in general Because the Spirit of God strives with every man in the World at some time and in some degree or other Act. VII 51. Ye stif-necked and uncircumcised in Heart and Ears ye do always resist the Holy Ghost The Spirit strove with those wretches though this striving was to no purpose or effect because of their resistance And so in that exhortation 1 Thes. V. 19. Quench not the Spirit is intimated that they that quench the Spirit and let not his sparks grow to any thing yet that they have these sparks striving together if they would let them alone Christian I shall not be solicitous to prove this because it needs not And I must tell thee it is not so well and right with thee as it should if thou findst not the proof and experience of this truth in thine own Heart if thou find not some knocking 's at that door that calls and tells It is time to awake out of sleep and set to work some checkings of Conscience when thou goest about knowingly to sin and some reprovings of Conscience when thou hast so sinned some stirrings of Heart upon hearing the threatnings and curses of the Law of God in a powerful Ministry some trouble of Soul upon sight of Gods judgments upon thy self or others in a word if thou find not thy Conscience as a voice behind thee calling after thee This is the way walk in it If thou find any such things listen and improve them It is the voice of my beloved putting as it were his finger in at the hole of the door to see whether thou wilt open It is the Spirit of God striving with thy Heart But if thou find not any such thing take heed lest thou hast wearied the Spirit of God that he will strive no more II. The Spirit is able to overpower any Heart that he strives withal I need not to prove this neither to any that understand what the Spirit of God is which I hope you all understand A Macedonian or Socinian that denies the Godhead of the Holy Ghost yet I see not how he can deny this if he do but confess the Holy Ghost to be the Spirit of God Let me even challenge of you that have been better taught to attest this truth with me and to look up towards Heaven with due consideration of the sacred Spirit and to acknowledge in the words of Job Chap. XLII 2. I know thou canst do all things and that no thought can be holden from thee God in Jer. XXXII 27. proclaims Behold I am the Lord the God of all flesh Is there any thing too hard for me If we should take the words as spoken particularly of the holy Spirit are they not most true to every tittle Is not the Holy Ghost Jehovah Is he not the Lord Is he not the God of all flesh and all Mens Spirits And then can any thing can any Heart be too hard for him But if any desire a particular proof of the thing we assert viz. That the Holy Spirit is able to overpower any Heart whatsoever that he strives withal Let him either look at a prophane wretch that always resisted the strivings of the Spirit now come under horror of Conscience Or let him well ponder upon the state of the damned in Hell who were such resisters while they were here And first let him read that Esa. XXX 33. The breath or Spirit of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it In that horrid torture of Conscience of theirs where the worm ever gnaweth and never dieth do you not think their Hearts are overpowered Are not now those brazen gates and iron doors that would bar out the overcomings of the Spirit broke open and broke all to pieces Vicisti Galilaee as Julian once so do not they everlastingly confess that God is proved too hard for them And how is this alto-shattering of their Hearts and Consciences come upon them The breath or Spirit of the Lord like a river of brimstone is gushed in upon them and overflows them with horror and they cannot resist It is the everlasting vengeance of the Spirit of God upon them thus to crush their Consciences with everlasting confusion and torture because they did they would resist his strivings while they were here No no resist damned Souls now resist and keep the doors fast barred that the power the vengeance of the Spirit cannot break in No it will not be the Spirit is all powerful if he will is able to overpower any Heart he strives with here he will with vengeance do it to him that resists hereafter III. The first aim of the Spirit in his striving is to try men It is apparent by Scripture that God by the motions of his Spirit comes to try those men who he knows will not receive the motions of his Spirit As in 2 Chron. XXXII 31. In the business of the Ambassadors of the Princes of Babylon God left him to try him that he might know all that was in his Heart God withdrew or suspended the acting of the Spirit of grace to try him So God doth on the other hand employ some actings of the Spirit to try whether men will entertain them God tries men by his Word whether they will obey him or no Exod. XX. 20. God is come to prove you and that his fear may be before your faces that ye sin not saith Moses to the people of Israel concerning Gods giving them his Law Mat. XXIII 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets c. how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gâ—thereth her chickins under her wings and ye would not I tried whether thou wouldest be gathered but thou wouldest not He tries men likewise by his Providences how they will demean themselves under them Deut. VIII 2. Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the Wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine Heart whether thou wouldest keep his Commandments or no. So he doth by his Spirit in that noted place Revel III. 18. Behold I stand at the door and knock He that stands at the door could break down the door
sad thing it is to be separate from Christ as a thing accursed and to consider with our selves how the case may be with us as to this particular Now he that knows what Christ is needs no more proof to shew what it is to be I. separate from him If in him alone be life Joh. I. 4. to be separate from him can be nothing else but death And if there be no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. VIII 1. there can be nothing but condemnation to him that is not in him It is the saying of our Apostle 2 Cor. XII 2. I knew a man in Christ taken up into the third Heaven What by the rule of contraries can become of him that is out of Christ I would we could but seriously lay these three things to heart which are the particulars of the matter before us First How sad a thing it is for Christ to have nothing to do with a man but to disclaim him Secondly How sadder if sadder needs be is it for Christ to be ashamed of a man and disdain to own him And Thirdly Yet sadder if possible for Christ to curse a man or at least to look upon him as a thing accursed Are not all these included in the Apostles expression here And is not any of these the saddest thing that can possibly befal a man It may be you will say Hell fire is worse than these the Worm that never dyes Eternal wrath and vengeance are worse than these But doth not this separation from Christ include all these And can any other come of it but Fire and Wrath and Vengeance How then is the case with thee as to this particular Oh! I doubt not but I am II. Gods I hope Christ owns propriety and interest in me But upon what ground dost thou think that God owns thee What reason hast thou to think that Christ acknowledges thee for a sheep of his against the claim of the Wolf and the roaring Lion I have heard of a man that laid claim unto a very great Estate upon no other ground in the world but because he dreamed one night that that Estate was his Mens confidence about their spiritual welfare most commonly proceeds from no other ground but merely because they dream so like them who in reference to outward welfare 1 Thes. V. dreamt of Peace Peace when sudden destruction was just entring in at the door It makes me remember that saying of Jude vers 8. These filthy Dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignites And why does he call them Dreamers rather than any other title Because all their confidence in what they did came but from a fancy and dream and had no better foundation and though they did this evil yet they dream they shall speed well enough God lays claim to no man but because he seeth that in him that pleaseth him He calls none his that is offensive to him The wit of man cannot invent a reason why God should own a man that goes on in his wickedness and lay claim to him for his own that is continually offending him Plead Election plead the infiniteness of Gods mercy plead the freeness of his Grace plead what you can you can never give real satisfaction to your own heart that God claims any interest in you or owns you for his own till you walk so as to please him For what does an ungodly and wicked man differ from a separate thing from Christ and one that he hath no claim to and nothing to do withal The Scripture tells us That God hates the proud abhors the covetous scorns the scorners frowns upon the ungodly and despiseth evil doers And this fruitful Meditation I have gathered from the mention that is here made of being accursed or separated from Christ. Now from the consideration of the person that could be willing to undergo this separation and of the reason why viz. the saving of the souls of the Jews his Brethren I may gather as fruitful a Doctrine And that is this That the souls of other men should be dear to us as well as our own And that it is cause of grief to see any soul perish That the souls of these men were dearer to the Apostle than his own in that he could be content that his should perish so that theirs might not is a thing of rare Example and whether we are to write after such a copy is a question yet to be discussed But that the souls of others should be dear unto us is so plain in this copy that he that runs may read it It is not for kindreds sake barely that he is so affectionate to them though he call them Brethren and Kinsmen but it is their souls that he looks after that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus and not perish It were needless to shew how earnestly he laboured to save as many souls as possible and if it were possible that no soul should perish His pains and Preaching his actions and Epistles breathed such affection every where and to all persons But this you will say belonged to his Function as he was an Apostle and Minister But doth this belong to every private person to be so tender to the souls of all I am loath this Question should be asked it is so like Cains question Am I my Brothers keeper Have I any thing to do with another mans soul that I should trouble my self about it But how shall we interpret that great Command Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self But first Who is my Neighbour Our Saviour Answers it with a Parable Let me Answer it with another question nay Who is not thy Neighbour In that Parable of the Man that fell among Thieves and the good Samaritan relieving him our Saviour shews that even one of another Nation even one of an Enemy Nation is to be accounted a Neighbour For so were the Samaritans to the Jews and yet the Samaritan that pitied was Neighbour in our Saviours construction to him that fell among Thieves The Greek and Latine word that is used to signifie a Neighbour signifies properly one that is near to one but it means nearness of relation and affection rather than nearness of place Nearness of relation that is as all are made of one blood and nearness of affection that should be as all are of one shape and image Every one is our Neighbour of what Land or Nation state or condition soever because every one is related to us by these respects Well every one is our Neighbour and we are to love our Neighbour that is every one as our selves to hate none to malice none to be enemy to none but to love every one And what especially to love in him That that is the chief and most regardable and most precious in him and that is his Soul To have an affection a regard a kindness for every mans Soul and to
one against another whereas there is nothing in the world of which you can give less a reason Why a Man should love every Man in the world I can give variety of reasons but why any one should hate any one Man in the world the invention of Men and Devils cannot give a solid reason He hath wronged thee So hast thou done others He hath deceived thee So hast thou but too oft done thy self He hath been offensive to thee So hast thou been to God Thou canst give no reason why thou shouldst hate thy Brother but the same will be reâ—orted upon thee that for the same cause thou shouldst hate thy self II. To love our Neighbour as our selves This is a Royal Law Jam. II. 8. or the Law of the King And that which the King of his Church hath not only given but a Law which he put himself also in subjection to Deny else his doing for mankind Did he not love his Neighbour Man as himself when he left the bosom of his Father to take the nature the infirmities the sins of Man upon him Did he not love his Neighbour Man as himself when he laid down his life for him and that with as exquisite cruelty anguish and torture executed against him as Men and Devils could invent And if you doubt of his love to Man his Neighbour look into the wound in his side and put your finger into the print of the nails in his hands and feet and ask how those came there And when this Patern and Copy of Love sends his choise Apostle into the world to testifie his love to the world he warrants and he inables him to express as much love to Men as it was possible for Man to express Look else upon his indefatigable pains for the good of Men his sufferings his troubles his bonds and imprisonment and in a word the constant course of his life and ministry And all for the benefit of Men in the service of his Master And then believe the better what he speaks here That he could wish himself accursed that they might be saved This is the Copy of a Christian and not of an Apostle only And this must every one of us write after in the best degree we can Now if any inquire what is the proper reason and ground of the love of our Neigbour I might treat at large of these things That a Christian is to love every one I. For his own sake II. For Gods sake III. For his Souls sake I. For his own sake If any ask why the Answer is ready because he is thine own flesh and blood All the Nation of Israel is akin to our Apostle as all descending of one blood So this same Apostle tells that all the men in the world do Act. XVII 26. God hath made of one blood all Nations of Men. Men of all Nations are akin for they are all of one blood Nay that of the Prophet seems to bring the kindred something nearer Es. LVIII 7. That thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh The Prophets meaning is That thou hide not thy self from the poor when he comes to seek relief and comfort from thee A poor tattered miserable creature that it may be thou wouldst scorn to look upon or be loath to come near or have any thing to do withall yet for all thy goodliness he is thine own flesh II. For Gods sake Because he commands it urges it and it is pleasing to him Doest thou love God This Love of God is to keep his Commandments And there is hardly any Command that is urged more than Love and Unity and affection one towards another III. A third bond that should tye us to love our Neighbour is For his Souls sake This was that that especially moved the Apostle to such an Affection towards his Nation He had as little cause upon any outward or carnal respect to love them as a man could have They were indeed his Brethren but Brethren Enemies they were his Kinsmen but spiteful Kinsmen he never enjoyed peace or safety for them When were they not clamouring against accusing whipping persecuting imprisoning him and seeking his life And yet he cannot but love them wish them well for their Souls sake You would think the Apostle little loved the incestuous Person 1 Cor. V. but his very severity was out of love to his Soul vers 5. That the spirit might be saved When he gave up Hymeneus and Alexander to Satan one would think he heartily hated them when he dealt so severely with them but it was that if possible good might accrue to their Souls For consider his reason of that action I have given them up to Satan Why Not that I might plague them revenge my self on them bring them to ruine but that they might learn not to blaspheme 1 Tim. I. 20. That if it may be they may learn better manners and Religion The Kings Daughter is black but comely Cant. I. Black because the Sun hath looked upon her She was born in the Morians Land But she is glorious within because of her virtuousness and goodness The sinful Souls of men as they are sinful are black deformed things but as they are Souls and in regard of their Essential constitution they are lovely and precious And there is more in any Soul in the World to move thee to love him than there is in his Person or Actions to move thee to hate him And how great is the beauty of the Soul when it carries the image of God himself Even the poorest and most contemptible Soul in the world carries the image of God upon it It is Gods own argument against Murther Gen. IX 6. Whoso sheddeth Mans blood by Man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he Man The very same may be used against the hating of our Neighbour the seed of Murther thou shalt not hate thy Neighbour for in the image of God he made thy Neighbour Object But I had thought that by the fall of Man the image of God had been quite lost from him For I have often heard that every Man is born in the sinful image of Adam but the glorious image of God is utterly gone off from him And so the Apostle Rom. III. 23. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God Answer Do you not observe that Gen. I. 26. where mention is made of Adams Creation that God said Let us make Man in our image after our likeness Where the image of God refers to the Essence of mans Soul the likeness to the qualities The Qualities were Holiness and Righteousness in the likeness of God And so the Apostle Eph. IV. 22 c. tells That when any soul is restored again to the likeness of God it is in Holiness and Righteousness This is utterly lost in humane nature till Grace restore it in any Person But the image of God that is in the Soul viz. as the Soul is a Spiritual
all to pieces and the noblest Creature to whom God put all other Creatures in subjection was himself become like the beasts that perish the beasts that were put in subjection to him and when Satan the enemy of God as well as man had thus broke all to pieces the chief work-manship of God here the world was mar'd as soon as made And as God in six days made Heaven and Earth and all things therein so before the sixth day went out Satan had mar'd and destroyed him for whom all these things were created God therefore coming in with the promise of Christ who should destroy Satan that had destroyed all and having now created a new world of grace and brought in a second Adam the root of all were to be saved and having restored Adam that not only from his lost condition but into a better condition than he was in before as having ingrafted him and all believers into Christ a surer foundation than natural perfection which he had by Creation but had now lost then he rested as having wrought a greater work than the Creation of nature But then you will say that the first Sabbath was of Evangelical institution not of moral that then the law for keeping of it was not written in Adams heart but was of Evangelical revelation I may answer truly that it was both For though Adam had not sinned yet must he have kept the Sabbath And to this purpose it is observable that the institution of the Sabbath is mentioned Gen. II. before the fall of Adam is mentioned Gen. III. partly because the Holy Ghost would mention all the seven days of the first week together and partly to intimate to us that even in innocency there must have been a Sabbath kept a Sabbath kept if Adam had continued in innocency and in that regard the Law of it to him was Moral and written in his heart as all the Laws of piety towards God were It is said Gen. II. 15. The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress and keep it Now if Adam had continued in innocency do you think he must have been at work dressing and keeping the Garden on the Sabbath day as on the other six He had Gods own copy so laid before him of working six days and resting the seventh that he could not but see that it was laid before him for his Example But you will say All the Moral Law was written in Adams heart as soon as he was created now the Law to keep the Sabbath could not be because the Sabbath was not yet created nor come And by then the Sabbath came the Law in his heart was blurred by sin and his fall I answer The Law writ in Adams heart was not particularly every Command of the two Tables written as they were in two Tables line by line but this Law in general of piety and love toward God and of justice and love towards our neighbour And in these lay couched a Law to all particulars that concerned either to branch forth as occasion for the practice of them should arise As in our natural corruption brought in by sin there is couched every sin whatsoever too ready to bud forth when occasion is offered So in the Law in his heart of piety towards God was comprehended the practice of every thing that concerned love and piety towards God as occasion for the practice was offered Under this Law was couched a tie and Law to obey God in every thing he should command And so though the command Eat not of the forbidden fruit was a Positive and not a Moral Command yet was Adam bound to the obedience of it by virtue of the Moral Law written in his heart which tyed him to love God and to obey him in every thing he should command And so the Sabbath when it came although you look upon it as a positive command in its institution yet was it writ also in Adams heart to obey God in that Command especially when God had set him such a Copy by his own resting II. A second thing observable in that first Sabbath and which was transmitted to posterity as a Law to keep is that now it had several ends As in man there is something of the perfection of every Creature a Spirit as Angels Life as Beasts Growth as Trees a Body as Stones so the Sabbath hath something of the excellency and of the end of every Law that was or could be given There are four sorts of Laws which God hath given to men Moral Commentorative Evangelical and Typical Moral Laws are given in the Ten Commandments Commemorative Laws as the Law of the Passover to commemorate the delivery out of Egypt Pentecost to commemorate the giving of the Law Typical as Sacrifices Priesthood Purifications sprinkling of blood to signifie good things to come as the Apostle speaks and to have their accomplishing in Christ Evangelical such as repentance self-denial believing c. Now the Sabbath is partaker of all these Ends together and hath the several excellencies of all these ends included in its self And so had that first Sabbath appointed to Adam First The Moral end is to rest from labours So in this fourth Commandment six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt do no manner of work c. So Jer. XVII 21. Thus saith the Lord Take heed to your selves to bear no burthen on the Sabbath day nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem Neither bring forth a burthen out of your houses neither do you any work but hallow the Sabbath day as I commanded your fathers Oh! then I celebrate the Sabbath saith the Sabbath-breaker for I do no work but play and recreate and drink and sit still and do no work at all Friend dost thou think God ever established idleness and folly by a Law That he hallowed the Sabbath day to be a playing fooling sporting day But Christian how readest thou as a Christian The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God not a Sabbath for thy lust and laziness And in it thou shalt do no manner of work of thine own but the work of the Lord thy God And the rest that he hath commanded is not for idleness but for piety towards God for which end he gave all the Laws of the first Table viz. to leave communion with the world and worldly things that day and to have it with God as in Esai LVIII 13 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy will on my holy days and call the Sabbath a delight As Moses to betake our selves to the mount of God and there to have communion with him To get into the Mount above the world and there to meet God and converse with him To be in the Spirit on the Lords day and not to recreate the Body but the Soul
need of Explication to bring it to common reason or Analogy of Faith The course I shall take in Explication of it shall first be to clear it from that meaning that is improper and offensive and that carries not probability with it and then to unfold the proper and genuine meaning of it I. The general interpretation of it in the Church of Rome is That his Soul really and I. locally descended into the place of torment but upon some other errand namely as they themselves express it That Christ in his Soul went to Hell to deliver the Patriarchs and all just men there holden in bondage till his death So the Rhemists on Act. II. 27. To this they apply Eph. IV. 9. Now he that ascended what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the Earth Where the same Rhemists He meaneth specially of his descending into Hell Likewise they apply to the same sense 1 Pet. III. 19. By which also he went and preached unto the Spirits in prison And there they go further and say that Christ also preached in Hell and delivered some thence that had been there since the days of Noah Some that were good men but had not believed Noah his word about the flood but when they saw it come believed and were sorry for their error and indeed died by the flood corporally but in the state of salvation and being chastised in the next life for their unbelief were delivered by Christs descending thither Do you not see plainly whither all this ado tends Namely To prove their Purgatory and to maintain the profit they get by it The Doctrine of which business is this That some dying not so bad as to be damned yet not so absolutely good yet as to go to Heaven are sent to Purgatory and there their sins scoured away by fire and torment yet some after an hundred some after two hundred years c. go to Heaven but that the Pope by his power and the Priests by their singing Masses and Dirges can bring them out sooner than otherwise their time should be And hence so vast revenues have been bestowed upon their Monasteries Chappels and Chanteries upon this reason that the Priests there should say Masses and use Dirges and Prayers for the Souls of the Founders to deliver them out of Purgatory And thus they make this Article of Christs descent a matter rather of Profit than of Faith of Mony rather than of Edification And were not profit or worldly advantage in the Wind there would never be such strugling with them to maintain points against reason and religion as there is Some Protestants hold Local descent but under another notion viz. That Christ went to triumph over the Devils and damned To which opinion viz. The Local ascent to speak in gross and to these particular reasons of it First Let us take up the two places last alledged for the first I shall take up afterwards Ephes. IV. 9. Now that he ascended what is it but that he descended first into the lower parts of the Earth Where it is first observable that they conclude Hell to be under the Earth or within it which is a fancy of the Heathen Poets and others that concluded both the place of torment and of happiness to be down in the Earth These men have learned from Scripture that the place of the blessed is above in Heaven and so they refuse that part of the Heathens opinion but retain the other that Hell is under ground Upon what ground who can shew It is neither agreeable to reason nor at all to Scripture Not to reason to imagine a place under ground to be a place for Souls and Spirits which are so far from an earthly substance Not to Scripture which tells us Ephes. II. 2. That the Devil is the Prince of the Air and not dwelling under ground That tells us Rev. XIV 10. That the damned are tormented before the Angels and before the Throne of the Lamb not in the bottom of the Earth or under ground And time will be when there will be no Earth at all and where will Hell be found then May we never know where the place of Hell is but certainly it is a most sensless and irrational thing to hold it to be within this Earth And to take up the words of the Apostle he speaks of Christs ascending and descending And whence did Christ ascend to Heaven Not from Hell but from off the Earth Act. I. And what then means his descending but from Heaven to Earth And whereas he saith To the lower parts of the Earth he compares Earth to Heaven not Earth with it self As if he should say He descended from Heaven to these lower parts of the Earth to dwell among men as the Scripture doth generally expound his descending from Heaven in such a sense 1 Pet. III. 19. By which he went and preached to the Spirits in prison It is plain here S. Peter speaks of Christs preaching by his Spirit in the mouth and Ministry of Noah As I have somewhere explained it These Texts thus spoken to whereby they would prove Christ descended into Hell to preach to and deliver Souls now let us take their opinion in pieces and consider them several And first comes to be observed how improbable ridiculous and irreligious an opinion it is to conceive that the Patriarchs were in Limbo Dato uno absurdo multa sequuntur Yield one absurdity and many more follow So grant this and these rough and rugged absurdities follow 1. That it was almost four thousand years before any Soul went to Heaven Christ died Anno Mundi MMMDCCCCLX but forty short of four thousand and is it not absurd to think Heaven empty all that while At the Creation the Earth the Air the Waters were filled with Inhabitants and Heaven to be a Tenement that stood empty Sure God was a very hard Landlord that would take in no Tenant of so long a time 2. It is as absurd a thing to think a Thief should be the first that went to Heaven For by this Opinion the good Thief did so The house to stand long empty and a Thief that repents but at the last gasp taken in first and Abraham Isaac and Jacob not yet entertained nor admitted there Publicans and Harlots shall enter in before you Yes before you Scribes and Pharisees that shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven against your selves But for Abraham and Moses and the other antient Prophets and good men that sought after Heaven all their time to be shut out and a Thief and a Robber let in before them this is hardly hansom to conceive 3. It is an absurd thing that Abraham while he lived should be a friend of God converse with God entertain God at his Table and when he is dead he is become a meer stranger to God thrust into a hole where there is no sight of God no communion with him but God and Abraham now are
Balaam loved the wages the wages of unrighteousness yet he could wish to dye the death of the righteous Numb XXIII 10. Even Conscience beareth witness to this truth that dying in any sin is damnable But how is it possible but some sin will stick to the best of men I answer II. True that there is no man living without sin but we are to distinguish upon two things First Twixt sin and guilt If we consider presly it is not the sin that immediately damns but the guilt of the sin A thief hanged the sin of robbing is past and gone but the guilt of it brings him to the gallows so sin as to the act is over and gone but the guilt sticks Now there is some sin which binds not a man over to guilt to condemn him Psal. XXXII 2. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin There is sin but the guilt of it is not charged on men But what sin is that I might answer All sins already pardoned have they been never so great Rom. VIII 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth But we speak of sins that stick at the instant of death Therefore Secondly We distinguish upon the sticking of sin to the flesh and to the heart A Saint hath sin sticking to the flesh not to the heart Rom. VII ult With the mind I serve the Law of God but with the flesh the Law of sin As if we get the disease from the heart it is not so deadly so Saints having got sin from their hearts it is not damning to them They hate it but it cleaves to their flesh So that the guilt of such sins is pardoned all along because the Saint all along strives and prays against them It is not I but sin in me Not my heart or consent but sin in my flesh that will neither be got out nor quiet In a word a dying sin cannot kill a dying man Sin is mortified all along and if in death it stirs yet it is dying and hath not power to kill And this have I spoken to remove that error about this Article of the Creed that Christ descended to Hell to fetch Souls to Heaven that yet wanted something to bring them thither II. A second opinion and interpretation is that he descended locally to triumph over II. the Devils and the damned An Interpretation that seems to carry more sense and innocence and yet is far from the meaning of the Article To take it into examination First To consider something concerning Christs Soul when separate from his body I. It is undoubted that it went to Heaven assoon as departed and it is very unwarrantable to look for it in Hell unless we have good evidence of the Scripture at least of reason for it His words on the Cross to the good thief were To day shalt thou be with me in Paradice Luke XXIII 43. and his last words to God were Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit vers 46. Now who can doubt but he was instantly in Heaven and his Soul with God And when and indeed why should it go to Hell Christ was dead but thirty six hours and his Soul to be on the Cross in Heaven and Hell in that time is a flitting up and down that unless the Spirit of Christ himself in Scripture tell us so how can we believe it That it flitted from the Cross to Heaven Scripture is plain but that it flitted from Heaven to Hell we are yet to seek Ye shall seek me and not find me Truly according to this opinion we know not where to seek him nor to find him in that time If you will take the propriety of his own words Luke XXIII 46. Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit And John XVII 11 13. I am no more in the World but these are in the World and I come to thee And now I come to thee you may certainly conclude that his Soul was with God while it was separate but that it was in Hell any moment of that time there is not one tittle of Scripture to give any evidence but Act. II. 27. Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell and this Article of which we shall shew a far other sense II. Was it possible that Christs Soul should go from Heaven to Hell The Souls of the glorified Saints cannot and I question whether Christs could or not See Luke XVI 26. Between us and you there is a great gulph fixed so that they which would pass from us to you cannot Whence I observe two things 1. What is meant by a great Gulph an unsuperable unpassableness from one to another But especially 2. They that would pass from hence to you Are there any in Heaven that ever would go to Hell The Devils indeed chose it but I question whether they understood what Hell meant so well as they do now But never blessed Soul did nor could do it They are too much delighted with the happy enjoyment of God to make such a choise But Christ by that expression in the Parable does the more shew how it is impossible for a Soul once in Heaven to go thence to Hell that if it could be supposed they would do it it cannot be done And could Christs Soul do it any more Could Christs Soul have any delight to leave the joys of Heaven to go to Hell III. There is no reason no Scripture to tell us that Christs Soul had any thing to do as to the work of Redemption or Mediatorship when separate from the body What will you make of this Triumphing Was it any part of his Redeeming or Mediatorship If it were not what was it If it were why not acted per totum Christum by whole Christ Christ performed the whole Law as Totus Christus whole Christ viz. As to his humane nature in Soul and Body He was upon the Cross as Totus Christus Whole Christ he rose ascended sits in Heaven as Totus Christus Whole Christ Body and Soul And we are bound to believe in toto Christo In whole Christ as Redeemer and Mediator as God so perfectly Man of Body and Soul consisting And it were but an improper piece of Faith to believe so great a thing as his work in Hell is made to be to be done by a part of Christ for his Soul was but one part of him But Secondly Let us speak a little to this Triumphing I. The opinion is taken up I suppose in allusion to the custom of the Romans They conquered and then led their prisoners in Triumph the Conqueror in his triumphal Chariot the Captives in chains after it Cleopatra would kill her self rather than be thus led in triumph Now what was this but a pompous proud and vain shew And what will they make of this Triumph of Christ Nothing but a shew For what did he in this Triumph Who can imagine what but shew himself there Did he
they would argue from this reason God finished creating in Principio in the beginning therefore he creates not a Soul now I answer He finished creating genere specierum the kinds of all species but not Species generum the Species of all kinds When he brought Frogs and Lice on Egypt it was a creation of the things but the kind was created from the beginning The same must be said of Souls Let Christs Soul be the instance Was the Soul of the Messias created at the beginning If so what did it all the while till it was united to the Body Where was it What did it Was Christs Soul ever not acting for the good of his people As soon as ever it was put into the Body it began the work of Redemption viz. Christ there sanctifying our Nature by the Union of the humane nature to the Divine His Soul is now in Heaven in the work of mediation for his people It is hard to think that his Soul should be almost four thousand years in being and doing nothing for mens Salvation And we cannot call Christ Christ till he be compleated in our nature Soul and Body So that Christs Soul as ours was infused by immediate Creation in the Body which Body was prepared in the womb for the receiving of it So that though he was not like to us in regard of his begetting in the womb yet he was like in the Union of his Soul to his Body there For II. Christ had a Soul like ours in all things sin excepted It is a question Whether all Souls are equal There is some colour for it Psal. XXXIII 15. Hesashioneth their hearts alike And thence some argue the equality of Souls But I answer 1. That place may be taken thus That God alike is the Creator of all Souls rich and poor wise and foolish 2. It is undoubted all Souls are alike in regard of the ' Essentials of Souls they are all intellectual Spiritual immortal and in regard of their Essential faculties Whether they are alike as to the use and excellency of those faculties I shall not dispute Doubtless Christs Soul was the most excellent and yet like ours in all things that simply relate to the Essence of Souls or the humane nature I need not speak of the Essentials of a Soul he had the Infirmities of a humane Soul viz. those that in themselves are sinless I might so apply that Matth. VIII 17. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses He was subject to grief in Soul Matth. XXVI 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Soul is exceeding sorrowful To fear Heb. V. 7. In that he feared Joh. XI 33. He groned in spirit and was troubled These are natural infirmities or affections to humane Souls Adam might have had these in innocency if occasion offered The Apostle makes comfortable use of this likeness of Christs Soul to ours Heb. IV. 15. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin And so may a Christian in sadness fear hunger persecution he may refuge to a High Priest that himself was sensible what these things were Non ignara mali c. Oh! what access hath God given to sinners Not only to one in their own nature but that partook of the very infirmities of nature Except sin Name but one that he had not A poor man dying assaulted with Satan fearing pains How comfortably may he refuge to Christ who by experience knew all these III. He was like other Souls in the manner of his departure out of the body and going to another World And this I shall speak to in three Particulars I. Although the reason of Christs death was different from the reason of the death of all other men yet the nature and definition of Christs death agrees withal Though the conception and birth of Christ was different from all others yet the nature of his death was not different the manner of dying indeed differed That in Heb. IX penult reacht Christ as well as others it was appointed for him to dye though upon a far different reason from what other men dye It is worth observing that Christs death was published and pronounced of before the death of Adam was denounced against him In Gen. III. 15. the death of Christ is mentioned in vers 19. the Death of Adam Which speaks that Christ died not of the Plague of mortality of which Adam and all his posterity dye but that his death was upon another kind of account Though Christ the second Adam was incomparably above the first in his innocence in regard of the Perfection of his nature and Person yet in regard of the certainty of Death as I may say he was beneath him For the excellency of his nature so far beyond him that whereas Adam was without sin Christ was without possibility of sinning But for certainty of dying so far otherwise that whereas Adam might not have dyed Christ could not but dye Socinians say Adam was created mortal because he was in a possibility to dye and because he died whereas indeed actually he was created immortal not as yet having any seeds or principles of mortality in his nature sin not being yet come there Christ was so much more without principles of mortality in him as that whereas Adam was sinless He could not sin and yet as I may say he had the principles of dying in him but not so much in his body as mind not in any failing of nature but in the holy bent of his own Will Death was not to him the wages of sin as it is to others nor to end sinning as it is to others but from clear contrary principles viz. Love to Man and Obedience to God The Death of Adam and of all other Men proceeded from disobedience the Death of Christ only from obedience The Death of Adam because he loved not himself nor his seed the death of Christ because he loved his people more than himself So that as to the reason of the death of Christ Jordan was driven back the stream ran a clean contrary way to the reason why other men dye and yet as to the nature and definition of his dying it agreed with the nature of the dying of other men For II. Define death What is it It is the separation of Soul from Body Mortal thou must once find this definition to be most true The Soul that that inliveneth the Body that gives it freshness of colour warmth life and motion when the Soul is departed all these are gone and the Body dead Here is the difference twixt death and a swoon or trance God shewed in Enoch and Elias what he would have done if man had continued innocent viz. Have translated Body and Soul to glory But when sin came in death came in and Soul and Body must be parted the Body to corruption the Soul into the World of
Souls to be disposed of according to its sinfulness or goodness But why should God thus dispose as to the taking men out of this World Why not the wicked Soul and Body to Hell and no more ado And why not the holy Soul and Body to Heaven I might say That Simeon and Levi that have been brethren in Evil might be scattered in Jacob that they conspire evil no more That Soul and Body that have been compartners in â—inning might be severed from conjoyning to sin any more But what need we say more than that God hath thus sentenced upon sin that the Body that was created immortal should dye and see corruption and that Soul and Body that were in the nearest conjunction in this World should be disunited and the bonds of life dissolved and Soul and Body parted into two several Regions Oh! how bitter is this parting how dreadful the very thought of it to most in the World Why Christ did as really undergo this separation in his death as any other whatsoever Observable is the expiring of Christ upon his cross both in regard of the thing it self and of the manner of it Comparing the Evangelists together we shall see it the better S. John seems to make It is finished his last words Joh. XIX 30. S. Luke Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke XXIII 46. And add but the construction that the Centurion makes upon his crying out Mark XV. 39. Truly this was the Son of God They all say in our English He gave up the Ghost Which two of them viz. Mark and Luke express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He breathed out his Spirit according as other dying persons do But Matthew and John have expressions very feeling Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He let go his Spirit or his Soul And John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He delivered it up Christ could not dye nay I may say he would not dye till all things were fulfilled that were written concerning his death Therefore when he had hung above three hours and knowing it was written They gave me Vinegar c. he said I thirst He tastes and finds it Vinegar and says It is finished now all is accomplished so he bows his Head and composeth himself to dye and cries Father into thy hands c. And having so said He let go his Soul and Delivered it up into the hands of God Remember that Joh. X. 17 18. and you see the sense of these expressions I lay down my life that I may take it again No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again He had life in his own hand and the Jews could not take it from him but he let it go himself and delivered it up When the Centurion saw that he thus cried out and gave up the Ghost he said Surely this man was the Son of God Doubtless this man hath the Disposal of his own life So strong a cry is not the cry of one that is spent and dying through weakness and faintting but it argues life strong and vigorous to be still in him and therefore he dies not of weakness but gives up his life at his own pleasure Shall we pass this great passage of our Saviour without a meditation Mortal men and women if your Lives and Souls were so at your own disposal could you so readily so willingly part with them and give them up to God They are not and time is a coming when we must part with them whether we will or no. Our Saviour hath taught us what to do against they be called for to get them in readiness to be comfortably willing to part with them and give them up into his hands I remember that passage of a good man dying Egredere anima quid times c. Go Soul depart why art thou affraid Thou hast served a good Master be not affraid to go to him It will be a hard pull to have the Soul and Body parted We had need to be getting the Soul loosned that when God calls it may not be unwilling and hang on and stick and be loth to go It was a hard perplexity with him that cried out Animula vagula blandula c. Ah! poor Soul thou must go and whither art thou to go To leave all thy worldly pleasures and delights and must away thou knowest not whither The hard and dreary parting is when the Soul is chained to the World as well as to the Body when it sticks to these things as well as to the Body and must be torn from all these too He that is dead to the World how easie how comfortable is it for that man to dye When he dies he hath nothing else to do but to resign his Soul to him that gave it So that though the manner of Christs parting Soul and Body were extraordinary yet his Soul and Body were as really parted at his death as other mens are III. His Soul thus parted from his Body went to Hades into another World to the place whither holy Souls go after death which himself expresseth in those words to the good Thief To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise What does a Soul instantly after its departure Some say Walks the regions of Air and sees the secrets of nature there But Souls go not into another World to study but to receive rewards And I may say of any Soul departed as Christ of Peter Joh. XXI 18. When thou wast young thou girdest thy self and walkest whither thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not So when the Soul was in the Body it went whither it would moved the Body whither it thought good did what it pleased was at its own pleasure but now being departed another hath girded it and if it be an evil Soul he carries it whither it would not if even the best Soul he hath fixed it that it is not at its own liberty as it was before The other World is the fixing of Souls in their place and condition that they flit no more change no more that as the Soul then is not in a mutable condition as it is here so not in a self-moving condition as here Observe that Eccles. XII 7. Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it A good Soul returns to God and a bad Soul too returns to God that gave it both return to God How Now they come intirely into Gods hands to be disposed of according to what was done by them in the flesh and he instantly disposeth them into Heaven or Hell That is the very day of retribution See Luke XVI 22 23. And it came to pass that the Begger died and was carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosom The rich man also died and was
buried And in Hell he lift up his Eyes being in torment c. Both suddainly disposed of the one to Heaven the other to Hell So we may take example from the two Thieves on the Cross the good Thief went presently to Paradise and the bad to his place and both these to Hades the word in the Creed Christ commends his Soul into his Fathers hands and it went into the hands of God What to do For God to dispose of it And how think you God would dispose of the Soul of Christ The Schools question whether Christ merited Salvation pro se for himself because the reason of the question is whether he set himself to merit pro se Did he or did he not the Soul of Christ after so holy a life and death could not but go to Salvation For what had the Soul of Christ now to do more towards mans Salvation and what could be done more towards its own Now having done all this what had the Soul of Christ to do more but to go to its rest till it be put again into its Body for the raising of that As the Scripture tells us holy Souls go to rest till at the last day they must meet their Bodies and then both shall rest together This passage of our Saviours Soul to Heaven upon his death is called his going to Hades the World of Souls and the place of holy Souls a place invisible to mortal Eyes which though it seems harshly expressed He descended into Hell yet must be interpreted from the Greek expression in this sense And the Phrase in the Greek teacheth that the Soul sleepeth not with the Body stayeth not here on Earth where the Body doth but hath a life when the Body is dead and goeth into another World to have a living or dying life Christs Soul to be separate but thirty six hours and yet it doth not stay and sleep with the Body but takes wing and flies into another World The Sadducee that thought the Soul died with the Body little considered what the nature of the Soul was Christian dost thou consider it Dost thou know what it is No I cannot see it But I may say as it is Rom. I. 20. The invisible things of God are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made So the invisible things of the Soul i. e. its spiritualness and immortality may be seen by the things it acts Prov. XX. 27. The Spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord. It s the Lords candle like that in the Tabernacle that never went out but was drest Morning and Evening and kept burning continually It is the Lords candle Searching all the inward parts of the Belly that is able to acquaint man with himself with his conscience his thoughts affections A candle that searcheth the things of nature looketh into the things of God Compare this Spirit with the Spirit of a Beast a Swine an Ox the acting of the Soul of Man in Wisdom Learning Contrivance with the acting of a Brute and then guess what is the nature of the Soul And if it be so active in the Body when fettred in flesh what think you it will be when loosed out And that it will be one day and go into another World not to be at its own liberty there but it goes to God to dispose of it and so he doth to Heaven or Hell Go away then with this meditation in thy bosom and keep it there My Soul must certainly one day go into the hands of God to receive her due reward FINIS A Chorographical Table OF THE Several Places contained and described in the Two Volumes of Dr. LIGHTFOOTS Works By Iohn Williams THe Jewish Writers divide the World into the Land of Israel and without the Land Vol. II. Pag. 1. The Land of Israel first called the Land of the Hebrews then Canaan and Palestine c. may be considered as to its length and breadth v. II. p. 327. The length of it is said in Scripture to be from Dan to Beersheba and from the entring in of Hamath North to the Sea of the Plain or Dead Sea South v. I. p. 90. v. II. p. 44 The Jews do reckon it from the Mountains of Amana or the upper Tarnegola which is at the neck of Anti-Libanus to the River of Egypt v. II. p. 3 62 517 Others do measure it by the Coast and if Phaenicia be included then from Sidon to Rhinocorura or the River of Egypt is 232 miles according to Antoninus But if Phaenicia be excluded then from the South bounds of that to Rhinocorura are 189 miles according to Pliny v. II. p. 10 322 The breadth of the Land within Jordan is not always the same since the Seas bounding on all sides here the Mediterranean there those of Sodom Genesaret and Samochonitis with the River Jordan cannot but make the space very unequal by their various Windings But if we take the measure of it from the Bay of Gaza to the Shoar of the Dead Sea it is upward of 50 miles and if we extend it also beyond Jordan then from Gaza to Pâ—tra the Metropolis of Moab is 110 miles as may be computed from Ptolomy and Pliny v. II. p. 320 321 The Jews do say That the Land of Israel contained a Square of Four hundred Parsae a Parsa is four miles which make 1600 miles v. II. p. 318 And they have a Tradition and not amiss that the utmost Bounds of the Land of Israel including the Land beyond Jordan was within three days Journey of Jerusalem v. II. p. 319. Sometimes the Land of Israel is bounded with Euphrates East as indeed the Holy Scriptures do and contiguous with Mesopotamia the River only between v. II. p. 365 The several Divisions of the Land It was anciently divided according to the People and Nations that inhabited it viz. the Canaanites Perizzites c. Vol. II. p. 202 328 When first possess'd by the Children of Israel it was parted among the twelve Tribes and upon the Division of the ten Tribes they were known by the two Names of Judab and Israel But after their return from Babylon it was divided by the Jews into Judea Galilee and the Land beyond Jordan or Peraea excluding Samaria To which if we add Idumea then was Palestine divided into five Countries viz. Idumea Judea Samaria Galilee and the Country beyond Jordan Vol. I. Pag. 282 â—64 Vol. II. Pag. 4 61. There was also an Imperial Division of it viz. 1. Into Palestine more especially so called the Head of which was Caesarea 2. Palestine the second the Head of which was Jerusalem And 3. Palestine called Salutaris or the Healthful which its likely was the same with Idumea the less the Head of which may be supposed to be Gaza Asâ—alon or Elâ—utheropolis v. II. p. 293. A. ABel Abila are one and the same the Hebrew Abel being according to the Greek Termination Abila or Abella There were many places of that name Vol. II.
that Nation for some time that so all that belonged to the Remnant might come in and that none of them should perish It might be questioned whether any Jews persevered in the Gospel till the destruction of the City but those that were the Elect. True many had embraced it but God and trial had sifted them and there were many heresies and a great Apostacy So that Matth. XXIV 24. argues that the Elect only held out And thus we come to understand the Reason I. Why the Apostle speaks so much of their Election viz. Because the Nation before were rejected and there was only a Remnant to be saved II. Why he conceals the word Ecclesia Church viz. Partly because the other word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 elected together speaks it enough and partly because his mind was to pitch upon that that made and preserved a right Church indeed in those times that it was elected chosen and taken out from among the rest of people rejected and cast off And now we come to take up some Theological Observations I. A Church at Babylon 1. How doth Grace appear here to abound where sin abounded At Babel was the Confusion of Tongues at Babel was the beginning of Heathenism there was Idolatry practised in its height and from Babel proceeded a continual persecution of Gods Church of the Jews and yet now there is a Church How was that fulfilled in Psal. LXXXVII 4. I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me To which also that is consonant in Esa. XIX 23. In that day there shall be a High way out of Egypt into Assyria and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians God has delighted to set up monuments of his grace for encouragement of sinners to come in to him and that both in places and persons In places for Example Besides this of Babylon I will instance in Antioch and Egypt Antioch was built by Antiochus the greatest persecutor of Gods people yet Christians did afterwards so flourish at Antioch that believers were first styled Christians there And so Egypt was the great enemy of Israel and yet in Psal. LXXXVII 4. I will make mention of Rahab that is Egypt And out of Egypt God called his Son In Persons Adam after the Devil caused his fall was restored to a better condition that he was in before it Paul who once was the great persecutor and waster of the Church was afterwards sent to the Gentiles and became the great planter and builder of it among them And he gives that very reason that God called him by his grace to reveal his Son in him that he might preach him among the Heathen Gal. I. 15 16. So much did the goodness of Gods grace out face sin and the power of grace exceed the power of the Devil 2. Places or persons on this side contempt of the Gospel may be capable of Gods turning to but after that that capacity is lost To that sense is that in Heb. X. 26. If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin This Place and all the East Country are Witnesses of this 3. Peter at Babylon and a Church with him Ubi Imperator ibi Roma Where the Emperor was there was Rome Where the Apostles come presently there grows a Church Trace St. Paul and you find it so trace S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles and still you find it so T is observable how God when the fulness of time came inclined the hearts of the Jewish people to come in to the Gospel You read of three thousand souls converted in II. Act. 41. and five thousand in IV. Chap. 4. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many myriads XXI Chap. 20. And among the Gentiles they flocked into Christ as the Doves to the windows insomuch that God in the Prophet says Who begot me these c. they were so numerous Certainly this was more than the effect of mans own Vires naturae strength of nature but rather it must be referred to the mighty grace of God Hence our Saviour in IV. John 35. useth those words Say ye not there are four months and then cometh Harvest behold I say unto you lift up your Eyes and look on the fields for they are white already to Harvest This Harvest respects the Harvest of the Gospel among other Nations besides the Jews for he spake these words when he was among the Samaritans And that of the Apostle illustrates this further viz. of the Gentiles coming into Christ in VIII Rom. 19. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God Where creature is to be understood as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in Mark XVI 15. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every creature i. e. to the Gentile World They had an earnest expectation of these times of the Messias and groaned and travailed in pain together for this Gospel But I shall not insist on that II. The Elect of God elect together or alike 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First observe hence That Election doth not admit of magis minus 1. All are within the same act of Election in eternity Ephes. I. 4 6. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the World c. 2. All are elect a like in Christ as the Head 3. All partake of the same love the same infinite love is to all alike in Joh. XVII Christ makes that prayer for them all without any distinction 4. All are appointed to the same determinate end the sprinkling of blood obedience perseverance and Glory Perseverance I say and that is a second thing observable Secondly then observe how much this Apostle stands upon Election because of the Apostatizing times wherein he lived So great an Apostacy was there in those days that it might be a question whether any Jews were then so much as in the true profession of the Gospel but those that were Elect. See Matth. XXIV 24. and compare this with it It was a time of trial and sifted them out Whence we might build this Doctrine That Election is the great cause of Perseverance 1 Pet. I. 3. The Elect in the second verse are said to be begotten to a lively hope and vers 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are said to be kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation A SERMON PREACHED AT S. MARIES Cambridge Novemb. 27. 1659. ROM VIII 23. And not only they but our selves also which have the first fruits of the Spirit even we our selves grone within our selves waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our Body MANY verses in the Scripture are facil taken single by themselves but difficult when they are to be construed in connexion with the preceding Of such nature is this verse Take the words singly and they are easie to construe We which
have the first fruits of the Spirit even we grone within our selves waiting c. They may be interpreted to a facil sense but construe them in connexion and conformity to the sense of the verses before as the first clause of this verse And not only they but we our selves c. does argue they must be and there will appear aliquid difficultatis propter vicinam difficultatem some difficulty in them because of a difficulty near them We may take Joh. III. 1 2 3. for an instance There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus a Ruler of the Jews The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him Rabbi we know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles that thou dost except God be with him These words make a difficulty in the next verse which is how our Saviours reply there should correspond with Nicodemus his words Jesus answered and said unto him Verily Verily I say unto thee Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God Which words are easie in themselves but the difficulty is to find out the relation they bear to the former There must be something understood to make Christs words an answer to Nicodemus his Peter saith 2 Pet. III. 16. that in S. Pauls Epistles there are some things hard to be understood This â—is probable is one of those hard places But Expositors aut inveniunt aut faciunt either invent the difficulties or make them before they were so and indeed most when they have expounded these words leave them more obscure than they found them The main difficulty is what sense to put on the word Creature vers 19. For the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God And I find especially three 1. Sedulius applies it to good Angels they grone for mans conversion But how are they subject to vanity vers 20. He hath an Interpretation for that which is not worth the trouble of your patience to hear 2. Primasius out of Austin understands it of Man only considered sinful Signaculo imaginis Dei amisso remansit tantum creatura Man having lost the mark of the Image of God there remained nothing but the creature And Creature ipsa est quae nondum vocatur filiorum forma perfecta sed tantum creatura The creature is that which hath not yet obtained the name of Sons but creature only But how this is applicable to the whole passage without much harshness I leave to your own thoughts to consider 3. A third and which is most entertained is that by Creatura is meant Ipsissima mundi machina coelesti elementari regione constans the very fabrick of the world consisting both of the heavenly and elementary region all subject to change and vanity and corruption because of sin Et convexo nutans pondere ready to sink with its weight labouring to be got into a better condition Accordingly Beza renders it Mundus hic creatus this created World and comments largely to this purpose and brings 2 Pet. III. 10 12. that speaks of the dissolution of the World to this purpose Out of which two places so taken what collections are made I need not tell you viz. That after the Resurrection Mundi Machina the Fabrick of the World shall not be dissolved but there shall be a Bodily creature still but purified and in an uncorrupt condition But quorsum haec cui â—ini Why is all this and to what end But I shall not now dispute this only I would recommend to you to consider whether taking up this sense the Apostles argumentation be proper If I be not deceived there are two phrases in the verses as keys hanging at their own girdle that do clearly unlock them into a sense far different from these but yet a sense plain and probable enough The first I shall take up is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole creation in the vers before we find the word in two places more The former is in Mark XVI 15. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to every creature There it means all Nations For Matthew so renders it in the parallel place Matth. XXVIII 19. Go ye therefore and teach all Nations The second place is I. Col. 23. The Gospel c. which was preached to every creature There it means the same and is as it were but an eccho to that in Mark. There was the Command here the performance The Apostle here speaks Attic Language but Jerusalem sense Greek but in a Jewish Idiom For the expression does but render a phrase most usual among the Jews viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All creatures which they use for all men or Nations as I might shew you by multitudes of Examples Now since in the two places mentioned it means all the Nations or Gentiles he offers violence to Scripture and frames a construction on his own head and not on his own heart that shall not construe it so here And for ought I see one might translate it omnis mundus Ethnicus all the Heathen World with as good warrant as Beza doth Totus hic mundus creatus all this created World A second key that I shall take up and use for the explaining this place is the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vanity vers 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the creature was made subject to vanity It is well translated Vanity but the word is ill construed It is generally taken for a vanishing fading condition whereas it signifies Vanity of mind This Apostle is a good Lexicon for this Rom. I. 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 became vain in their imaginations Eph. IV. 17. That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lay these two places to the Text and see how they speak the same thing And now to take up the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Paraphrase vers 18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us For the very Gentiles look after this glory to be revealed vers 19. For the earnest expectation of the creature of all Nations or the Heathen waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God God had spoke much of his sons among the Gentiles and now the Gentiles did wait for the manifestation of these Sons of God vers 20. For the creature was made subject to vanity the Nations or Gentiles were subject to vanity of mind not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope vers 21. Because the creature the heathen World it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God vers 22. For we know that the whole
and understanding but not both alike for I make no question but the Angels were endued with the more knowledge But how was it with them when they fell First they both did quite lose their holiness and righteousness For that was not essential to their being but additional to their perfection And their perfection they lost by their Fall their Essence and being they could not lose Now though they both alike lost and quite lost their Holiness and Righteousness yet their loss of it was not alike For the fallen Angels lost also the capacity the possibility of ever being holy and righteous again fallen man did not so Secondly As to their Knowledge and Understanding they neither of them utterly lost that nor what they retained of that did they retain alike For fallen man lost the greatest and main part of that knowledge wherein he was created but the fallen Angels lost not so much Whatsoever they lost of the knowledge of Spiritual things they lost little of the knowledge of Natural But fallen man lost the knowledge of both But he lost not the capacity of recovery of the better part viz. the knowledge of Spiritual things again Those Hebrew words of Moses Gen. I. 14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our English hath rendred Let there be lights in the Firmament of Heaven some would have rendred Let there be Light-fats or Light-Vessels viz. to receive and hold that light that had shone the three first days of the Creation before Sun and Moon were made As if the Sun and Moon were not light bodies of themselves but only bodies fitted to hold that light that shone before Our minds now under our Fall God knows are opacous and dark things and we can know nothing as we ought to know But yet our minds are Vessels capable to receive and hold that knowledge and understanding that we have lost And it is not impossible for us to receive and recover that knowledge the loss of which hath undone us As the Schools distinguish between Potentia and Actus so are we here between Capacity and Activity Our natural minds as of themselves are far from knowing spiritual things as we ought to know them but there is a possibility a capability in our minds to know them Any one mind is able to receive and hold all the knowledge that is in the world if God put it there The mind is capable to know things distant things out of sight things invisible all things that are needful to be known and to know them as they ought to be known And if a Sadducee will not believe what he cannot see it is not through any uncapability in his mind wanting in the constitution of his Soul but it is through his own perverting of his mind that he will not labour his mind to discern what he might do It is an old question in the Schools An animae sint aequales Whether all Souls are alike Is the Soul of him that sits upon the throne and of the servant behind the mill alike Are the Souls of the learned Doctors in the chair and of him could never read a letter alike All Souls are mine saith God Ezek. XVIII And all Souls are his alike under divers notions But are all alike in themselves Yes as to the essential constitution of the Soul they are alike The beggars Soul Intellectual Spiritual Immortal as well as the Soul of the Prince or Potentate The Soul of the most unlearned indued with Will with a Conscience I and with capacity of knowing as well as the profoundest Scholar viz. Of knowing those things that are needful for him to know If there be concurrence of those circumstances that may bring that capacity into act You know who they are that cry up so much the light within them Which when IV. they have the made best of they can they can make no more of it than The light of nature which is but a dim light to lead to Heaven May we not distinguish between the light of Morality and the light of Divinity The light of nature is the light of Morality And even a natural unregenerate person hath the light of Morality within him that teacheth him Thou shalt not steal thou shalt not kill nor commit adultery nor be a false witness and Thou shalt do to another as thou wouldest be done to thy self Though too commonly such persons put the light under a bed or under a bushel But can this light teach him the great misteries of salvation Grace Faith Justification Eternity Hell and Heaven Another kind of light is required for this than the dim candle of the light of nature David made the Word of God the light to his feet and the lantern to his paths and the light within him did not serve his turn And the very reason why both Sadducees and Pharisees fell and continued in their error and blindness was because they would not use the Scripture for their guid to lead them better The Sadducees refused the other parts of Scripture besides Moses which would have instructed them better about the Resurrection and the World to come And the Pharisees abused both Moses and the other parts of Scripture by their Glosses and Traditions Whereby they made them speak their own mind and not the mind of God And it is no wonder if they both walked blindly in the dark when they refused the light that should have guided them It is true that there is a capability in the minds of all men to know what they ought V. to know for their salvation but that that capacity should come into act and reality is required more than the more composure of our natural minds For the Apostle tells us That the natural man receiveth not the things of God nor can he discern them because they are spiritually to be discerned The Lamps in the Tabernacle and Temple were to burn continually but the Priest was to dress them morning and evening else they would not burn as they should do The mind or Spirit of man within him as Solomon tells us is the Lords candle But every man is to be a Priest to himself in this regard to dress and snuff and take care of this candle that it may burn bright For you read of a corrupt mind of a fleshly mind of a vain mind and such a candle is like to burn but coursly if there be not constant care to mend it The word Mind or the thing the Mind of man doth signifie and import two things VI. viz. The Understanding and the Bent or Inclination of the Soul The Mind and the Spirit of the mind as the Apostle expresses it Be renewed in the Spirit of your Mind Eph. IV. 23. The mind knows and understands such and such things but the Spirit of the mind may sway clean contrary to what it understands And it is too commonly the cause of mens erring about things of Religion that the bent of their mind is
averse to embrace and receive that that their mind doth or might know In a natural and unregenerate Soul the Will generally sways both Understanding and Conscience But in a good Soul Understanding and Conscience sways the Will it is moved by those wheels but it moves not them You remember that saying of the Apostle they would not receive the love of the truth therefore c. And this is a very common cause of ignorance and error because men will not know and embrace the truth My people love to have it so as God complains in the Prophet There is no ignorance like the ignorance that is wilful and none so blind as he that will not see but will put out his own eyes These Sadducees might have seen better might have known better but they would not know nor see The Pharisees might have taught them better in those poynts about which they erred but they scorned to be taught by them The Word of God would have taught them better if they would have embraced it But they were prejudiced against it and forestalled by their own opinion They had drunk in their error about No resurrection and no Angel nor Spirit from their Teachers and from their Youth and to that they will stick and hear nothing against it As he of old Though I see reason in that thou teachest when one taught the Gospel yet I have been taught and trained up otherways and there I must and will hold And this is all the reason that the most in the Romish Religion can give of their Religion It is the old Religion the Religion in which their Fathers Grandfathers and Ancestors were born bred lived and dyed and by no means must they forsake their Fathers Religion As he in the story that professed that he would go to Hell whether he was told his Ancestors were gone because they were Heathen rather than to go to Heaven alone In enumerating the immediate causes of heresie and error this comes not in the last rank of them that men are and will be wedded to their own opinion and will not be moved from the fancy that they have enclined to and taken up And those words of the Apostle may hint another cause and reason of it 2 Pet. III. 5. For this they are willingly ignorant of And that willing and wilful ignorance is most commonly the parent of such a paradox and strange brood The only Inference I shall make from the whole discourse is that we labour to know the truth and to keep it Christians it is not a small promise that our Saviour maketh Joh. VIII 32. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free There is a wheel within a wheel one promise within another First the truth shall make you free Secondly Ye shall know the truth without which the other promise would little avail them The freedom he speaks of is freedom from sin as he shews in his discourse following and the way the only way to come to attain this freedom is by the knowledge of the truth So great a thing is it to know the truth to embrace the truth and to keep in it And it is not so slight and small a thing as men commonly make of it to take up new opinions either impertinent to the truth or contrary to it By our standing to the truth or falling from it we must stand or fall And as we have stood to it or fallen from it we must be judged at the last day But in the different and various opinions that are abroad in the world how shall I do to pitch upon the right I am unlearned and cannot sist differing opinions with reason and argument as learned men can and therefore how should I do to chuse the right and keep in it An objection that a stander by at Jerusalem that was neither Pharisee nor Sadducee might have made about the poynts in controversie between these two Sects The Pharisee says There is a Resurrection of the dead there are Angels and Spirits And the Sadducee denies both How should I that am unlearned know whether side to take and whether opinion to cleave to The first answer I should make not to wade into any Scholastic dispute upon this matter should be Pray earnestly to God for his direction to the God of truth that he would direct you into the way of truth At the Tabernacle and Temple when the Lamps were dressed and mended Incense also was offered at the same time Prayer is to go along with the dressing of the candle of our minds It was Davids constant prayer for himself that God would inlighten his understanding and it was the Apostles prayer for Timothy The Lord give thee understanding in all things It was the Profession once of a very good man and a very learned I ever obtained more knowledge of divine things by prayer than by all my study He took the right way to attain knowledge following the rule prescribed by the Holy Apostle If any man want wisdom let him ask it of God Jam. I. 5. And he had Solomons copy before him Lord give me wisdom And it is not the least cause of the ignorance that is in the world that men do no more pray for understanding How needful is such prayer every Lords day morning but how few do conscientiously make it We think we are wise enough and know enough and that a little ado will help us to stock enough of understanding So did the great wise ones among the Jews They were called the Wise men and they thought they were Wise men And This people that knoweth nâ—t the Law are cursed but they knew it And The people are blind but Are we blind also And yet those Wise men knew not the things of their Peace nor the day of their Visitation Secondly A means and an only means to know truth to avoid error and to judge clearly of the things we ought to know is to get and keep our minds clear from lusts If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light And 2 Pet. III. 1. Stir up your pure minds Such minds are likely to receive the truth in love As the pure in heart shall see God So they shall see the things of God Lusts like coloured glass make men misjudge Heresie seldom proceeds from bare ignorance but from one lust or other A SERMON PREACHED upon JOHN XI 51. This spake be not of himself but being High Priest that year be Prophesied That Iesus should dye for that people AND is Caiphas among the Prophets And is his counsil among the Prophesies He the wickedest man then upon Earth excepting Judas Iscariot and His the wickedest counsil that ever was given since the Serpent counselled Eve to destroy mankind Had not the Spirit of Prophesie by the pen of this our Evangelist made this Interpretation of it who could ever have thought it of such a construction If it may be wished I would the same