which they could make must needs be violently opposed a change that introduced new Laws and caused them to reverse the old to change that Religion under which their Fathers long did prosper and under which the Roman Empire obtained so great a grandeur for a Religion which in appearance was silly and humble meek and peaceable not apt indeed to do harm but exposing men to all the harm in the world abateing their courage blunting their swords teaching peace and unactiveness and making the Souldiers arms in a manner useless and untying their military girdle a Religion which contradicted their reasons of State and erected new Judicatories and made the Roman Courts to be silent and without causes a Religion that gave countenance to the poor and pitiful but in a time when riches were adored and ambition esteemed the greatest nobleness and pleasure thought to be the chiefest good it brought no peculiar blessing to the rich or mighty unless they would become poor and humble in some real sense or other a Religion that would change the face of things and would also pierce into the secrets of the soul and unravel all the intrigues of hearts and reform all evil manners and break vile habits into gentleness and counsel that such a Religion in such a time preached by such mean persons should triumph over the Philosophy of the World and the arguments of the subtle and the Sermons of the eloquent and the power of Princes and the interest of States and the inclinations of nature and the blindness of zeal and the force of custom and the pleasures of sin and the busie Arts of the Devil that is against wit and power and money and Religion and wilfulness and fame and Empire which are all the things in the World that can make a thing impossible this I say could not be by the proper force of such instruments for no Man can span Heaven with an Infants palm nor govern wise Empires with Diagrams It were impudence to send a footman to command Caesar to lay down his arms to disband his legions and throw himself into Tyber or keep a Tavern next to Pompeys Theatre but if a sober man shall stand alone unarm'd undefended or unprovided and shall tell that he will make the Sun stand still or remove a Mountain or reduce Xerxes his Army to the scantling of a single Troop he that believes he will and can do this must believe he does it by a higher power than he can yet perceive and so it was in the present transaction For that the holy Jesus made invisible powers to do him visible honors that his Apostles hunted the Daemons from their Tripods their Navels their Dens their hollow Pipes their Temples and their Altars that he made the Oracles silent as Lucian Porphyrie Celsus and other Heathens confess that against the order of new things which let them be never so profitable or good do yet suffer reproach and cannot prevail unless they commence in a time of advantage and favour yet that this should flourish like the Palm by pressure grow glorious by opposition thrive by persecution and was demonstrated by objections argues a higher cause than the immediate instrument now how this higher cause did intervene is visible and notorious The Apostles were not learned but the holy Jesus promised that he would send down wisdom from above from the Father of spirits they had no power but they should be invested with power from on high they were ignorant and timorous but he would make them learned and confident and so he did he promised that in a few days he would send the holy Ghost upon them and he did so after ten days they felt and saw a glorious immission from heaven lights of movable fire sitting upon their heads and that light did illuminate their hearts and the mighty rushing wind inspired them with a power of speaking divers languages and brought to their remembrances all that Jesus did and taught and made them wise to conduct souls and bold to venture and prudent to advise and powerful to do miracles and witty to convince gain-sayers and hugely instructed in the Scriptures and gave them the spirit of Government and the spirit of Prophecy This thing was so publick that at the first notice of it three thousand souls were converted on that very day at the very time when it was done for it was certainly a visible demonstration of an invisible power that ignorant persons who were never taught should in an instant speak all the Languages of the Roman Empire and indeed this thing was so necessary to be so and so certain that it was so so publick and so evident and so reasonable and so useful that it is not easie to say whether it was the indication of a greater power or a greater wisdom and now the means was proportionable enough to the biggest end without learning they could not confute the learned World but therefore God became their Teacher without power they could not break the Devils violence but therefore God gave them power without courage they could not contest against all the violence of the Jews and Gentiles but therefore God was their strength and gave them fortitude without great caution and providence they could not avoid the traps of crafty Persecutors but therefore God gave them caution and made them provident and as Besaleel 〈◊〉 Aâ—oliâ—h received the spirit of God the spirit of understanding to enable them to work excellently in the Tabernacle so had the Apostles to make them wise for the work of God and the Ministeries of his Diviner Tabernacle which God pitched not man Immediately upon this the Apostles to make a fulness of demonstration and an undeniable conviction gave the spirit to others also to Jews and Gentiles and to the Men of Samaria and they spake with Tongues and prophesied then they preached to all Nations and endured all persecutions and cured all diseases and raised the dead to life and were brought before Tribunals and confessed the Name of Jesus and convinced the blasphemous Jews out of their own Prophets and not only prevailed upon Women and weak Men but even upon the bravest and wisest All the disciples of John the Baptist the Nazarens and Ebionites Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea Sergius the President Dionysius an Athenian Judge and Polycarpus Justinus and Irenaeus Athenagoras and Origen Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria who could not be such fools as upon a matter not certainly true but probably false to unravel their former principles and to change their liberty for a Prison wealth for poverty honor for disreputation life for death if by such exchange they had not been secured of truth and holiness and the will of God But above all these was Saul a bold and a witty a zealous and learned young man who going with Letters to persecute the Christians of Damascus was by a light from Heaven called from his furious march reproved by God's Angel for persecuting
the birth of this young Child which was thus glorified by a Star was also signified by an Angel and was effected by the holy Spirit of God in a manner which was in it self supernatural a Virgin was his Mother and God was his Father and his beginning was miraculous and this matter of his birth of a Virgin was proved to an interested and jealous person even to Joseph the supposed father of Jesus it was affirmed publickly by all his family and by all his disciples and published in the midst of all his enemies who by no artifice could reprove it a matter so famous that when it was urged as an argument to prove Jesus to be the Messias by the force of a Prophecy in Isaiah A Virgin shall conceive a Son they who obstinately refused to admit him did not deny the matter of fact but denied that it was so meant by the Prophet which if it were true can only prove that Jesus was more excellent than was foretold by the Prophets but that there was nothing less in him than was to be in the Messias it was a matter so famous that the Arabian Physicians who can affirm no such things of their Mahomet and yet not being able to deny it to be true of the Holy Jesus endeavour to elevate and lessen the thing by saying It is not wholly beyond the force of nature that a Virgin should conceive so that it was on all hands undeniable that the Mother of Jesus was a Virgin a Mother without a Man This is that Jesus at whose presence before he was born a Babe in his Mothers belly also did leap for joy who was also a person extraordinary himself conceived in his Mothers old age after a long barrenness signified by an Angel in the Temple to his Father officiating his Priestly Office who was also struck dumb for his not present believing all the People saw it and all his Kindred were witnesses of his restitution and he was named by the Angel and his Office declared to be the fore-runner of the holy Jesus and this also was foretold by one of the old Prophets for the whole story of this Divine person is a chain of providence and wonder every link of which is a verification of a Prophecy and all of it is that thing which from Adam to the Birth of Jesus was pointed at and hinted by all the Prophets whose words in him passed perfectly into the event This is that Jesus who as he was born without a Father so he was learned without a Master he was a Man without age a Doctor in a Child's garment disputing in the Sanctuary at 12. Years old He was a sojourner in Egypt because the poor Babe born of an indigent Mother was a formidable rival to a potent King and this fear could not come from the design of the Infant but must needs arise from the illustriousness of the Birth and the Prophecies of the Child and the sayings of the Learned and the journey of the Wise-men nd the decrees of God this journey and the return were both managed by the conduct of an Angel and a Divine dream for to the Son of God all the Angels did rejoyce to minister This Blessed Person made thus excellent by his Father and glorious by miraculous consignations and illustrious by the ministery of Heavenly spirits and proclaimed to Mary and to Joseph by two Angels to the Shepherds by a Multitude of the Heavenly Host to the Wise men by a Prophecy and by a Star to the Jews by the Shepherds to the Gentiles by the three Wise men to Herod by the Doctors of the Law and to himself perfectly known by the inchasing his humane nature in the bosom and heart of God and by the fulness of the Spirit of God was yet pleased for 30. Years together to live an humble a laborious a chast and a devout a regular and an even a wise and an exemplar a pious and an obscure life without complaint without sin without design of fame or grandeur of spirit till the time came that the clefts of the rock were to open and the Diamond give its lustre and be worn in the Diadems of Kings and then this Person was wholly admirable for he was ushered into the World by the voice of a loud Crier in the Wilderness a Person austere and wise of a strange life full of holiness and full of hardness and a great Preacher of righteousness a Man believed by all the People that he came from God one who in his own Nation gathered Disciples publickly and which amongst them was a great matter he was the Doctor of a new institution and baptized all the Country yet this man so great so rever'd so followed so listned to by King and People by Doctors and by ideots by Pharisees and Sadducees this man preached Jesus to the People pointed out the Lamb of God told that he must increase and himself from all that fame must retire to give him place he received him to Baptism after having with duty and modesty declared his own unworthiness to give but rather a worthiness to receive Baptism from the holy hands of Jesus but at the solemnity God sent down the holy Spirit upon his holy Son and by a voice from Heaven a voice of thunder and God was in that voice declared that this was his Son and that he was delighted in him This voice from Heaven was such so evident so certain a conviction of what it did intend to prove so known and accepted as the way of Divine revelation under the second Temple that at that time every Man that desired a sign honestly would have been satisfied with such a voice it being the testimony by which God made all extraordinaries to be credible to his People from the days of Ezra to the death of the Nation and that there was such a voice not only then but divers times after was as certain and made as evident as things of that nature can ordinarily be made For it being a matter of fact cannot be supposed infinite but limited to time and place heard by a certain number of persons and was as a clap of Thunder upon ordinary accounts which could be heard but by those who were within the sphere of its own activity and reported by those to others who are to give testimony as testimonies are required which are credible under the test of two or three disinterested honest and true Men and though this was done in the presence of more and oftner than once yet it was a divine testimony but at first but is to be conveyed by the means of Men and as God thundred from Heaven at the giving of the Law though that he did so we have notice only from the Books of Moses received from the Jewish Nation so he did in the days of the Baptist and so he did to Peter James and John and so he did in the presence of the Pharisees and many of the
prevail against his Church which Prophecie is made good thus long till this day and is as a continual argument to justifie the Divinity of the Author The continuance of the Religion helps to continue it for it proves that it came from God who foretold that it should continue and therefore it must continue because it came from God and therefore it came from God because it does and shall for ever continue according to the word of the holy Jesus But after our blessed Lord was entred into glory the disciples also were Prophets Agabus foretold the dearth that was to be in the Roman Empire in the days of Claudius Caesar and that S. Paul should be bound at Jerusalem S. Paul foretold the entring in of Hereticks into Asia after his departure and he and S. Peter and S. Jude and generally the rest of the Apostles had two great predictions which they used not only as a verification of the doctrine of Jesus but as a means to strengthen the hearts of the Disciples who were so broken with persecution The one was that there should arise a Sect of vile men who should be enemies to Religion and Government and cause a great Apostasie which happened notoriously in the Sect of the Gnosticks which those three Apostles and S. John notoriously and plainly do describe And the other was that although the Jewish Nation did mightily oppose the Religion it should be but for a while for they should be destroyed in a short time and their Nation made extremely miserable but for the Christians if they would fly from Jerusalem and go to Pella there should not a hair of their head perish the verification of this Prophecy the Christians extremely long'd for and wondred it staid so long and began to be troubled at the delay and suspected all was not well when the great proof of their Religion was not verified and while they were in thoughts of heart concerning it the sad Catalysis did come and swept away 1100000. of the Nation and from that day forward the Nation was broken in pieces with intolerable calamities they are scattered over the face of the earth and are a vagabond Nation but yet like oyl in a vessel of wine broken into bubbles but kept in their own circles and they shall never be an united people till they are servants of the holy Jesus but shall remain without Priest or Temple without Altar or Sacrifice without City or Country without the Land of Promise or the promise of a blessing till our Jesus is their high Priest and the Shepherd to gather them into his fold And this very thing is a mighty demonstration against the Jews by their own Prophets for when Isaiah and Jeremiah and Malachi had Prophesied the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles and the change of the old Law and the introduction of a new by the Messias that this was he was therefore certain because he taught the World a new Law and presently after the publication of this the old was abrogate and not only went into desuetude but into a total abolition among all the World and for those of the remnant of the scattered Jews who obstinately blaspheme the Law is become impossible to them and they placed in such circumstances that they need not dispute concerning its obligation for it being external and corporal ritual and at last made also local when the circumstances are impossible the Law that was wholly ceremonial and circumstantial must needs pass away and when they have lost their Priesthood they cannot retain the Law as no man takes care to have his beard shaved when his head is off And it is a wonder to consider how the anger of God is gone out upon that miserable people and that so great a blindness is fallen upon them it being evident and notorious that the old Testament was nothing but a shadow and umbrage of the new that the Prophecies of that are plainly verified in this that all the predictions of the Messias are most undeniably accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ so that they cannot with any plausibleness or colour be turned any other way and be applied to any other person although the Jews make illiterate allegations and prodigious dreams by which they have fool'd themselves for 1600. years together and still hope without reason and are confident without revelation and pursue a shadow while they quit the glorious body while in the mean time the Christian prays for his conversion and is at rest in the truth of Jesus and hath certain unexpressible confidencies and internal lights clarities of the holy Spirit of God and loves to the holy Jesus produc'd in his soul that he will die when he cannot dispute and is satisfied and he knows not how and is sure by comforts and comforted by the excellency of his belief which speaks nothing but holiness and light and reason and peace and satisfactions infinite because he is sure that all the World can be happy if they would live by the Religion of Jesus and that neither societies of Men nor single persons can have felicity but by this and that therefore God who so decrees to make Men happy hath also decreed that it shall for ever be upon the face of the earth till the earth it self shall be no more Amen Now if against this vast heap of things any Man shall but confront the pretences of any other Religion and see how they fail both of reason and holiness of wonder and Divinity how they enter by force and are kept up by humane interests how ignorant and unholy how unlearned and pitiful are their pretences the darknesses of these must add great eminency to the brightness of that For the Jews Religion which came from Heaven is therefore not now to be practised because it did come from Heaven and was to expire into the Christian it being nothing but the image of this perfection and the Jews needed no other argument but this that God hath made theirs impossible now to be done for he that ties to Ceremonies and outward usages Temples and Altars Sacrifices and Priests troublesome and expensive rites and figures of future signification means that there should be an abode and fixt dwelling for these are not to be done by an ambulatory people and therefore since God hath scattered the People into atomes and crumbs of society without Temple or Priest without Sacrifice or Altar without Vrim or Thummim without Prophet or Vision even communicating with them no way but by ordinary providence it is but too evident that God hath nothing to do with them in the matter of that Religion but that it is expired and no way obligatory to them or pleasing to him which is become impossible to be acted whereas the Christian Religion is as eternal as the soul of a Man and can no more cease than our spirits can die and can worship upon Mountains and Caves in Fields and Churches in
the cause of Jesus was sent to the City baptized by a Christian Minister instructed and sent abroad and he became the prodigy of the World for learning and zeal for preaching and writing for labor and sufferance for government and wisdom he was admitted to see the holy Jesus after the Lord was taken into Heaven he was taken up into Paradise he conversed with Angels he saw unspeakable rayes of glory and besides that himself said it who had no reason to lie who would get nothing by it here but a conjugation of troubles and who should get nothing by it hereafter if it were false besides this I say that he did all those acts of zeal and obedience for the promotion of the Religion does demonstrate he had reason extraordinary for so sudden a change so strange a labour so frequent and incomparable sufferings and therefore as he did and suffered so much upon such glorious motives so he spared not to publish it to all the world he spake it to Kings and Princes he told it to the envious Jews he had partners of his journey who were witnesses of the miraculous accident and in his publication he urged the notoriousness of the fact as a thing not feigned not private but done at noon day under the Test of competent persons and it was a thing that proved it self for it was effective of a present a great and a permanent change But now it is no new wonder but a pursuance of the same conjugation of great and Divine things that the Fame and Religion of Jesus was with so incredible a swiftness scattered over the face of the habitable World from one end of the earth unto the other it filled all Asia immediately it passed presently to Europe and to the furthest Africans and all the way it went it told nothing but an holy and an humble story that he who came to bring it into the world died an ignominious death and yet this death did not take away their courage but added much for they could not fear death for that Master whom they knew to have for their sakes suffered death and came to life again But now infinite numbers of persons of all sexes and all ages and all Countries came in to the Holy Crucifix and he that was crucified in the reign of Tiberius was in the time of Nero even in Rome it self and in Nero's family by many persons esteem'd for a God and it was upon publick record that he was so acknowledged and this was by a Christian Justin Martyr urged to the Senate and to the Emperors themselves who if it had been otherwise could easily have confuted the bold allegation of the Christian who yet did die for that Jesus who was so speedily reputed for a God the Cross was worn upon breasts printed in the air drawn upon fore-heads carried on banners put upon crowns Imperial and yet the Christians were sought for to punishments and exquisite punishments sought forth for them their goods were confiscate their names odious prisons were their houses and so many kinds of tortures invented for them that Domitius Vlpianus hath spent seven Books in describing the variety of tortures the poor Christian was put to at his first appearing and yet in despite of all this and ten thousand other objections and impossibilities whatsoever was for them made the Religion grow and whatsoever was against them made it grow if they had peace the Religion was prosperous if they had persecution it was still prosperous if Princes favored them the World came in because the Christians lived holily if Princes were incensed the World came in because the Christians died bravely They sought for death with greediness they desired to be grinded in the teeth of Lions and with joy they beheld the wheels and the bended trees the racks and the gibbets the fires and the burning irons which were like the chair of Elias to them instruments to carry them to heaven into the bosom of their beloved Jesus Who would not acknowledge the Divinity of this person and the excellency of this institution that should see Infants to weary the hands of Hangmen for the testimony of Jesus and wise Men preach this doctrine for no other visible reward but shame and death poverty and banishment and Hangmen converted by the blood of Martyrs springing upon their faces which their impious hands cords have strain'd through their flesh who would not have confessed the honour of Jesus when he should see miracles done at the Tombs of Martyrs and Devils tremble at the mention of the name of Jesus and the World running to the honour of the poor Nazaren and Kings and Queens killing the feet of the poor servants of Jesus Could a few Fishermen and a Publican effect all this for the son of a poor Maiden of Judaea can we suppose all the World or so great a part of Mankind can consent by chance or suffer such changes for nothing or for any thing less than this The son of the poor Maiden was the Son of God and the Fishermen spake by a Divine spirit and they catched the World with holiness and miracles with wisdom and power bigger than the strength of all the Roman Legions And what can be added to all this but this thing alone to prove the Divinity of Jesus He is a God or at least is taught by God who can foretell future contingencies and so did the holy Jesus and so did his Disciples Our blessed Lord while he was alive foretold that after his death his Religion should flourish more than when he was alive He foretold Persecutions to his Disciples he foretold the mission of the holy Ghost to be in a very few days after his Ascension which within ten days came to pass he prophesied that the fact of Mary Magdalen in anointing the head and feet of her Lord should be publick and known as the Gospel it self and spoken of in the same place he foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the signs of its approach and that it should be by War and particularly after the manner of Prophets symbolically nam'd the Nation should do it pointing out the Roman Eagles he foretold his death and the manner of it and plainly before-hand published his Resurrection and told them it should be the sign to that generation viz. the great argument to prove him to be the Christ he prophesied that there should arise false Christs after him and it came to pass to the extreme great calamity of the Nation and lastly he foretold that his beloved Disciple S. John should tarry upon the earth till his coming again that is to his coming to Judgment upon Jerusalem and that his Religion should be preached to the Gentiles that it should be scattered over all the World and be received by all Nations that it should stay upon the face of the Earth till his last coming to judge all the world and that the gates of hell should not be able to