Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	father_n	mountain_n	worship_v	1,874	5	9.7184	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63641	Antiquitates christianæ, or, The history of the life and death of the holy Jesus as also the lives acts and martyrdoms of his Apostles : in two parts.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Great exemplar of sanctity and holy life according to the christian institution.; Cave, William, 1637-1713. Antiquitates apostolicae, or, The lives , acts and martyrdoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour.; Cave, William, 1637-1713. Lives, acts and martydoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour.	1675 (1675)	Wing T287; ESTC R19304	1,245,097	752

death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the 〈◊〉 extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideons Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jewes themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jewes or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all 〈◊〉 and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their 〈◊〉 unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined onely to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or

The Samaritans coming to Jesus V. 28. The woman left her water pot went her way into the city saith to the men Come see a man which told me all things that ever I did is not this the Christ Then they went out of the city came unto him V. 39. Many of the Samaritans beleived on him for the saying of the woman when they were come to him many more believed because of his own word 1. WHen Jesus understood that John was cast into prison and that the Pharisees were envious at him for the great multitudes of people that resorted to his Baptism which he ministred not in his own person but by the deputation of his Disciples they finishing the ministration which himself began who as Euodins Bishop of Antioch reports baptized the Blessed Virgin his Mother ther and Peter only and Peter baptized Andrew James and John and they others he left Judaea and came into Galilee and in his passage he must touch Sychar a City of Samaria where in the heat of the day and the weariness of his journey he sate himself down upon the margent of Jacob's Well whither when his Disciples were gone to buy meat a Samaritan woman cometh to draw water of whom Jesus asked some to cool his thirst and refresh his weariness 2. Little knew the woman the excellency of the person that asked so small a charity neither had she been taught that a cup of cold water given to a Disciple should be rewarded and much rather such a present to the Lord himself But she prosecuted the spite of her Nation and the interest and quarrel of the Schism and in stead of washing Jesus's feet and giving him drink demanded why he being a Jew should ask water of a Samaritan for the Jews have no intercourse with the Samaritans 3. The ground of the quarrel was this In the sixth year of Hezekiah Salmanasar King of Assyria sacked Samaria transported the Israelites to Assyria and planted an Assyrian Colony in the Town and Country who by Divine vengeance were destroyed by Lions which no power of man could restrain or lessen The King thought the cause was their not serving the God of Israel according to the Rites of Moses and therefore sent a Jewish captive Priest to instruct the remanent inhabitants in the Jewish Religion who so learned and practised it that they still retained the Superstition of the Gentile rites till Manasses the Brother of Jaddi the high Priest at Jerusalem married the daughter of Sanballat who was the Governour under King Darius Manasses being reproved for marrying a stranger the daughter of an uncircumcised Gentile and admonished to dismiss her flies to Samaria perswades his Father-in-law to build a Temple in Mount Gerizim introduces the Rites of daily Sacrifice and makes himself high Priest and began to pretend to be the true successor of Aaron and commences a Schism in the time of Alexander the Great From whence the Question of Religion grew so high that it begat disassections anger animosities quarrels bloudshed and murthers not only in Palestine but where ever a Jew and Samaritan had the ill fortune to meet Such being the nature of men that they think it the greatest injury in the world when other men are not of their minds and that they please God most when they are most furiously zealous and no zeal better to be expressed than by hating all those whom they are pleased to think God hates This Schism was prosecuted with the greatest spite that ever any was because both the people were much given to Superstition and this was helped forward by the constitution of their Religion consisting much in externals and Ceremonials and which they cared not much to hallow and make moral by the intertexture of spiritual senses and Charity And therefore the Jews called the Samaritans accursed the Samaritans at the Paschal solemnity would at midnight when the Jews Temple was open scatter dead mens bones to profane and desecrate the place and both would fight and eternally dispute the Question sometimes referring it to Arbitrators and then the conquered party would decline the Arbitration after sentence which they did at Alexandria before Ptolemaeus Philometor when Andronicus had by a rare and exquisite Oration procured sentence against Theodosius and Sabbaeus the Samaritan Advocates The sentence was given for Jerusalem and the Schism increased and lasted till the time of our Saviour's conference with this woman 4. And it was so implanted and woven in with every understanding that when the woman perceived Jesus to be a Prophet she undertook this Question with him Our Fathers worshipped in this mountain and ye say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship Jesus knew the Schism was great enough already and was not willing to make the rent wider and though he gave testimony to the truth by saying Salvation is of the Jews and we know what we worship ye do not yet because the subject of this Question was shortly to be taken away Jesus takes occasion to preach the Gospel to hasten an expedient and by way of anticipation to reconcile the disagreeing interests and settle a revelation to be verified for ever Neither here nor there by way of confinement not in one Countrey more than another but where-ever any man shall call upon God in spirit and truth there he shall be heard 5. But all this while the Holy Jesus was athirst and therefore hastens at least to discourse of water though as yet he got none He tells her of living water of eternal satisfactions of never thirsting again of her own personal condition of matrimonial relation and professes himself to be the Messias And then was interrupted by the coming of his Disciples who wondred to see him alone talking with a woman besides his custom and usual reservation But the Woman full of joy and wonder left her water-pot and ran to the City to publish the Messias and immediately all the City came out to see and many believed on him upon the testimony of the Woman and more when they heard his own discourses They invited him to the Town and received him with hospitable civilities for two days after which he departed to his own Galilee 6. Jesus therefore came into the Countrey where he was received with respect and fair entertainment because of the Miracles which the Galileans saw done by him at the Feast and being at Cana where he wrought the first Miracle a Noble personage a little King say some a Palatine says S. Hierome a Kingly person certainly came to Jesus with much reverence and desire that he would be pleased to come to his house and cure his Son now ready to die which he seconds with much importunity fearing left his Son be dead before he get thither Jesus who did not do his Miracles by natural operations cured the child at distance and dismissed the Prince telling him his Son lived which by

yet in the midst of judgment he remembers mercy he tells them that though he would not suffer his patience to be eternally prostituted to the wanton humours of wicked men yet that he would bear with them CXX Years longer in order to their reformation So loth is God to take advantage of the sins of men not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto repentance In the mean time righteous Noah found favour with Heaven a good man hath a peculiar guardianship and protection in the worst of times and God orders him to prepare an Ark for the saving of his House An Hundred Years was this Ark in building not but that it might have been finished in a far less time but that God was willing to give them so long a space for wise and sober considerations Noah preaching all the while both by his doctrine and his practice that they would break off their sins by repentance and prevent their ruine But they that are filthy will be filthy still the hardned World persisted in their impieties till the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost and destroyed the World of the ungodly God shut up Noah his Wife his three Sons and their Wives into the Ark together with provisions and so many Creatures of every sort as were sufficient not only for food but for reparation of the kind Miracles must not be expected where ordinary means may be 〈◊〉 and then opened the Windows of Heaven and broke up the Fountains of the Deep and brought in the Flood that swept all away Twelve months Noah and his Family continued in this floating habitation when the Waters being gone and the Earth dried he came forth and the first thing he did was to erect an Altar and offer up an Eucharistical Sacrifice to God for 〈◊〉 remarkable a deliverance some of the Jews tell us that coming out of the Ark he was bitten by a Lion and rendred unfit for Sacrifice and that therefore Sem did it in his room he did not concern himself for food or a present habitation but immediately betook himself to his devotion God was infinitely pleased with the pious and grateful sense of the good man and openly declared that his displeasure was over and that he would no more bring upon the World such effects of his severity as he had lately done and that the Ordinances of Nature should duly perform their constant motions and regularly observe their periodical revolutions And because Man was the principal Creature in this lower World he restored to him his Charter of Dominion and Soveraignty over the Creatures and by enacting some Laws against Murder and Cruelty secured the peace and happiness of his life and then established a 〈◊〉 with Noah and all Mankind that he would no more drown the World for the ratification and ensurance whereof he placed the Rain-bow in the Clouds as a perpetual sign and memorial of his Promise Noah after this betook himself to Husbandry and planting Vineyards and being unwarily overtaken with the fruit of the Vine became a scorn to C ham one of his own Sons while the two others piously covered their Fathers shame A wakeing out of his sleep and knowing what had been done he prophetically cursed Cham and his Posterity blessed Sem and in Japhet foretold the calling of the Gentiles to the worship of God and the knowledge of the Messiah that God should enlarge Japhet and that he should dwell in the Tents of Shem. He died in the DCCCCL Year of his Age having seen both Worlds that before the Flood and that which came after it 16. SEM and Japhet were the two good Sons of Noah in the assigning whose primogeniture though the Scripture be not positive and decretory yet do the most probable reasons appear for Japhet especially if we compute their Age. Sem was an Hundred Years old two Years after the Flood for 〈◊〉 he begat Arphaxad now the Flood hapned just in the DC Year of Noah's Age whence it follows that Sem was born when his Father was Five Hundred and Two Years old But Noah being expresly said to have begotten Sons in the Five Hundredth Year of his Age plain it is that there must be another Son two Years Elder than Sem which could be no other than Japhet Cham being acknowledged by all the Younger Brother And hence it is that Sem is called the Brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Japhet the Greater or as we render it the Elder They were both pious and devout Men having been brought up under the religious Institutions not only of their Father Noah but their Grand-father 〈◊〉 and their Great-grand-father Methuselah who had for some Hundreds of Years conversed with Adam The holy story records nothing concerning the state of Religion in their days and little heed 〈◊〉 to be given to the Eastern Writers when they tell us of Sem that according to the command of his Father he took the Body of Adam which Noah had secretly hidden in the Ark and joyning himself to Melchisedec they went and 〈◊〉 it in the heart of the Earth an Angel going before and conducting them to the placewith a great deal more with little truth and to as little purpose As for the 〈◊〉 born after the Flood little notice is taken of them besides the 〈◊〉 mention of their names Arphaxad Salah Eber. Of this last they say that he was a great 〈◊〉 that he instituted Schools and Seminaries for the advancement and propagation of 〈◊〉 and there was great reason for him to bestir himself if it be true what the Arabian Historians tell us that now Idolatry began mightily to prevail and men generally carved to themselves the Images of their Ancestors to which upon all occasions they addressed themselves with the most solemn veneration the Daemons giving answers through the Images wich they worshipped Heber was the Father of the Jewish Nation who from him are said to have derived the title of Hebrews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus tells us though there want not those who assign other reasons of the name and that the Hebrew Language was preserved in his family which till his time had been the mother-tongue and the common Language of the World To Eber succeeded his son Peleg a name given him out of a Prophetical foresight of that memorable division that hapned in his time For now it was that a company of bold daring persons combining themselves under the conduct and command of Nimrod resolved to erect a vast and stupendous Fabrick partly to raise themselves a mighty reputation in the World partly to secure themselves from the Invasion of an after-deluge and probably as a place of retreat and defence the better to enable them to put in practice that oppression and tyranny which they designed to exercise over the World But whatever it was God was displeased with the attempt and to shew how easily he can basfle the

of his Neighbour-creatures the skins of Beasts 〈◊〉 hair and a Leathern girdle and herein he literally made good the character of Elias who is described as an hairy man girt with a Leathern girdle about his Loins His Diet suitable to his Garb his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Locusts accounted by all Nations amongst the meanest and vilest sorts of food wild honey such as the natural artifice and labour of the Bees had stored up in caverns and hollow Trees without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up Indeed his abstinence was so great and his food so unlike other Mens that the Evangelist says of him that he came neither eating nor drinking as if he had eaten nothing or at least what was worth nothing But Meat commends us not to God it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of Heaven The place of his abode was not in Kings houses in stately and delicate Palaces but where he was born and bred the Wilderness of Judaea he was in the Desarts until the time of his shewing unto Israel Divine grace is not consined to particular places it is not the holy City or the Temple at Mount Sion makes us nearer unto Heaven God can when he please consecrate a Desart into a Church make us gather Grapes among Thorns and Religion become fruitful in a barren Wilderness 4. PREPARED by so singular an Education and furnished with an immediate Commission from God he entred upon the actual administration of his Office In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr calls him the Herald to Proclaim the first approach of the Holy Jesus his whole Ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him For this is he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias saying The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight He told the 〈◊〉 that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand and his Kingdom ready to appear that the Son of God was come down from Heaven a Person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest Offices that he came to introduce a new and better state of things to enlighten the World with the clearest Revelations of the Divine will and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaic Dispensation and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows and to open a Fountain of grace and fulness to Mankind to remove that state of guilt into which humane nature was so deeply sunk and as the Lamb of God by the expiatory Sacrifice of 〈◊〉 to take away the sin of the World not like the continual Burnt-offering the Lamb offered Morning and Evening only for the sins of the House of Israel but for Jew and Gentile Barbarian and Scythian bond and free he told them that God had a long time born with the sins of Men and would now bring things to a quicker issue and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the Gospel that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external priviledges the Fatherhood of Abraham and their being God's select and peculiar People that God would raise up to himself another Generation a Posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles who should walk in his steps in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience and that if all this did not move them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance the Axe was laid to the root of the Tree to extirpate their Church and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable Fire His free and resolute preaching together with the great severity of his life procured him a vast Auditory and numerous Proselytes for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and the Region round about Jordan Persons of all ranks and orders of all Sects and Opinions 〈◊〉 and Sadducees Souldiers and Publicans whose Vices he impartially censured and condemned and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations Those whom he gained over to be Proselytes to his Doctrine he entred into this new Institution of life by Baptism and hence he derived his Title of the Baptist a solemn and usual way of initiating Proselytes no less than Circumcision and of great antiquity in the Jewish Church In all times says Maimonides if any Gentile would enter into Covenant remain under the wings of the Schechina or Divine Majesty and take upon him the yoke of the Law he is bound to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering and if a Woman Baptism and an Oblation because it is said As ye are so shall the stranger be as ye your selves 〈◊〉 into Covenant by Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering so ought the Proselyte also in all Ages to enter in Though this last he confesses is to be omitted during their present state of desolation and to be made when their Temple shall be rebuilt This Rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the Law So Maimonides By three things says he the Israelites entred into Covenant he means the National Covenant at Mount Sinai by Circumcision Baptism and an Oblation Baptism being used some little time before the Law which he proves from that place 〈◊〉 the People to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes This the Rabbines unanimously expound concerning Baptism and expresly affirm that where-ever we read of the Washing of Clothes there an obligation to Baptism is intended Thus they entred into the first Covenant upon the frequent violations whereof God having promised to make a new and solemn Covenant with them in the times of the Messiah they expected a second Baptism as that which should be the Rite of their Initiation into it And this probably is the reason why the Apostle writing to the Hebrews speaks of the Doctrin of Baptisms in the plural number as one of the primary and elementary Principles of the faith wherein the Catechumens were to be instructed meaning that besides the Baptism whereby they had been initiated into the Mosaic Covenant there was another by which they were to enter into this new 〈◊〉 that was come upon the World Hence the Sanhedrim to whom the cognizance of such cases did peculiarly appertain when told of John's Baptism never expressed any wonder at it as a new upstart Ceremony it being a thing daily practised in their Church nor found fault

had bravely discoursed of the happy state of good men in the other Life plainly consessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and 〈◊〉 which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our 〈◊〉 state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it 〈◊〉 uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the insluences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and sloods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit 〈◊〉 enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to 〈◊〉 in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this 〈◊〉 is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods 〈◊〉 by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he 〈◊〉 down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when out Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so t were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious

and therefore less likely to deceive for which reason it is said that he shall deceive if it were possible the very elect that is therefore not possible because that by which he insinuates himself to others is by the elect the Church and chosen of God understood to be his sign and mark of discovery and a warning And therefore as the Prophecies of Jesus were an infinite verification of his Miracles so also this Prophecy of Christ concerning Antichrist disgraces the reputation and faith of the Miracles he shall act The old Prophets foretold of the Messias and of his Miracles of power and mercy to prepare for his reception and entertainment Christ alone and his Apostles from him foretold of Antichrist and that he should come in all Miracles of deception and lying that is with true or false Miracles to perswade a lie and this was to prejudice his being accepted according to the Law of Moses So that as all that spake of Christ bade us believe him for the Miracles so all that foretold of Antichrist bade us disbelieve him the rather for his and the reason of both is the same because the mighty and surer word of Prophecy as S. Peter calls it being the greatest testimony in the world of a Divine principle gives authority or reprobates with the same power They who are the predestinate of God and they that are the praesciti the foreknown and marked people must needs stand or fall to the Divine sentence and such must this be acknowledged for no enemy of the Cross not the Devil himself ever foretold such a contingency or so rare so personal so voluntary so unnatural an event as this of the great Antichrist 12. And thus the Holy Jesus having shewed forth the treasures of his Father's Wisdom in Revelations and holy Precepts and upon the stock of his Father's greatness having dispended and demonstrated great power in Miracles and these being instanced in acts of Mercy he mingled the glories of Heaven to transmit them to earth to raise us up to the participations of Heaven he was pleased by healing the bodies of infirm persons to invite their spirits to his Discipline and by his power to convey healing and by that mercy to lead us into the treasures of revelation that both Bodies and Souls our Wills and Understandings by Divine instruments might be brought to Divine perfections in the participations of a Divine nature It was a miraculous mercy that God should look upon us in our bloud and a miraculous condescension that his Son should take our nature and even this favour we could not believe without many Miracles and so contrary was our condition to all possibilities of happiness that if Salvation had not marched to us all the way in Miracle we had perished in the ruines of a sad eternity And now it would be but reasonable that since God for our sakes hath rescinded so many laws of natural establishment we also for his and for our own would be content to do violence to those natural inclinations which are also criminal when they derive into action Every man living in the state of Grace is a perpetual Miracle and his Passions are made reasonable as his Reason is turned to Faith and his Soul to Spirit and his Body to a Temple and Earth to Heaven and less than this will not dispose us to such glories which being the portion of Saints and Angels and the nearest communications with God are infinitely above what we see or hear or understand The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu who didst receive great power that by it thou mightest convey thy Father's mercies to us impotent and wretched people give me grace to believe that heavenly Doctrine which thou didst ratifie with arguments from above that I may fully assent to all those mysterious Truths which integrate that Doctrine and Discipline in which the obligations of my duty and the hopes of my felicity are deposited And to all those glorious verifications of thy Goodness and thy Power add also this Miracle that I who am stained with Leprosie of sin may be cleansed and my eyes may be opened that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law and raise thou me up from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that I may for ever walk in the land of the living abhorring the works of death and darkness that as I am by thy miraculous mercy partaker of the first so also I may be accounted worthy of the second Resurrection and as by Faith Hope Charity and Obedience I receive the fruit of thy Miracles in this life so in the other I may partake of thy Glories which is a mercy above all Miracles Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean Lord I believe help mine unbelief and grant that no 〈◊〉 or incapacity of mine may hinder the wonderful operations of thy Grace but let it be thy first Miracle to turn my water into wine my barrenness into fruitfulness my aversations from thee into unions and intimate adhesions to thy infinity which is the fountain of mercy and power Grant this for thy mercie 's sake and for the honour of those glorious Attributes in which thou hast revealed thy self and thy Father's excellencies to the world O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The End of the Second Part. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Second Year of his PREACHING until his ASCENSION WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE THIRD PART Seneca apud Lactant. lib. 6. c. 17. Hic est ille homo qui sive toto corpore tormenta patienda sunt sive flamma ore recipienda est sive extendenda per patibulum manus non quaerit quid patiatur sed quàm bene LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675 TO The Right Honourable and Vertuous Lady The LADY FRANCES Countess of CARBERY MADAM SInce the Divine Providence hath been pleased to bind up the great breaches of my little fortune by your Charity and Nobleness of a religious tenderness I account it an excellent circumstance and handsomeness of condition that I have the fortune of S. Athanasius to have my Persecution relieved and comforted by an Honourable and Excellent Lady and I have nothing to return for this honour done to me but to do as the poor Paralyticks and infirm people in the Gospel did when our Blessed Saviour cured them they went and told it to all the Countrey and made the Vicinage full of the report as themselves were of health and joy And although I know the modesty of your person and Religion had rather do favours than own them yet give me leave to draw aside the curtain and retirement of your Charity for I had rather your vertue should blush than my unthankfulness make me ashamed Madam I intended by this Address not onely to return you spirituals for

hand or foot or extinguish the offending eye rather than upon the support of a troublesome soot and by the light of an offending eye walk into ruine and a sad eternity where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched And so Jesus ended this chain of excellent Discourses 18. About this time was the Jews Feast of Tabernacles whither Jesus went up as it were in secret and passing through Samaria he found the inhabitants of a little village so inhospitable as to refuse to give him entertainment which so provoked the intemperate zeal of James and John that they would fain have called for fire to consume them even as Elias did But Jesus rebuked the furies of their anger teaching them to distinguish the spirit of Christianity from the ungentleness of the decretory zeal of Elias For since the Son of man came with a purpose to seek and save what was lost it was but an indiscreet temerity suddenly upon the lightest umbrages of displeasure to destroy a man whose redemption cost the effusion of the dearest bloud from the heart of Jesus But contrariwise Jesus does a Miracle upon the ten Leprous persons which came to him from the neighbourhood crying out with sad exclamations for help But Jesus sent them to the Priest to offer for their cleansing Thither they went and but one only returned to give thanks and he a stranger who with a loud voice glorified God and with humble adoration worshipped and gave thanks to Jesus 19. When Jesus had finished his journey and was now come to Jerusalem for the first days he was undiscerned in publick conventions but heard of the various opinions of men concerning him some saying he was a good man others that he 〈◊〉 the people and the Pharisees sought for him to do him a mischief But when they despaired of finding him in the midst of the Feast and the people he made Sermons openly in the midst of the Temple whom when he had convinced by the variety and divinity of his Miracles and Discourses they gave the greatest testimony in the world of humane weakness and how prevalent a prejudice is above the confidence and conviction of a demonstration For a proverb a mistake an error in matter of circumstance did in their understandings outweigh multitudes of Miracles and arguments and because Christ was of Galilee because they knew whence he was because of the Proverb that 〈◊〉 of Galilee comes no Prophet because the Rulers did not believe in him these outweighed the demonstrations of his mercy and his power and Divinity But yet very many believed on him and no man durst lay hands to take him for as yet his time was not come in which he meant to give himself up to the power of the Jews and therefore when the Pharisees sent Officers to seise him they also became his Disciples being themselves surprised by the excellency of his Doctrine 20. After this Jesus went to the mount of Olivet on the East of Jerusalem and the next day returned again into the Temple where the Scribes and Pharisees brought him a woman taken in the act of Adultery tempting him to give sentence that they might accuse him of severity or intermedling if he condemned her or of remisness and popularity if he did acquit her But Jesus found out an expedient for their difficulty and changed the Scene by bidding the innocent person among them cast the first stone at the Adulteress and then stooping down to give them fair occasion to withdraw he wrote upon the ground with his finger whilest they left the woman and her crime to a more private censure Jesus was left alone and the woman in the midst whom Jesus dismissed charging her to sin no more And a while after Jesus begins again to discourse to them of his Mission from the Father of his Crucifixion and exaltation from the earth of the reward of Believers of the excellency of Truth of spiritual Liberty and Relations who are the sons of Abraham and who the children of the Devil of his own eternal generation of the desire of Abraham to see his day In which Sermon he continued adding still new excellencies and confuting their malicious and vainer calumnies till they that they also might 〈◊〉 him took up stones to cast at him but he went out of the Temple going through the midst of them and so passed by 21. But in his passage he met a man who had been born blind and after he had discoursed cursorily of the cause of that Blindness it being a misery not sent as a punishment to his own or his parents sin but as an occasion to make publick the glory of God he to manifest that himself was the light of the World in all sences said it now and proved it by a Miracle for sitting down he made clay of spittle and anointing the eyes of the blind man bid him go wash in Siloam which was a Pool of limpid water which God sent at the Prayer of Isaiah the Prophet a little before his death to satisfie the necessities of his people oppressed with thirst and a strict siege and it stood at the foot of the mount Sion and gave its water at first by returns and periods always to the Jews but not to the enemies And those intermitted springings were still continued but only a Pool was made from the frequent effluxes The blind man went and washed and returned seeing and was incessantly vexed by the Pharisees to tell them the manner and circumstances of the cure and when the man had averred the truth and named his Physician giving him a pious and charitable testimony the Pharisees because they could not force him to disavow his good opinion of Jesus cast him out of the 〈◊〉 But Jesus meeting him received him into the Church told him he was CHRIST and the man became again enlightned and he believed and worshipped But the Pharisees blasphemed for such was the dispensation of the Divine mysteries that the blind should see and they which think they see clearly should become blind because they had not the excuse of ignorance to lessen or take off the sin but in the midst of light they shut their eyes and doted upon darkness and therefore did their sin remain 22. But Jesus continued his Sermon among the Pharisees insinuating reprehensions in his dogmatical discourses which like light shined and discovered error For by discoursing the properties of a good Shepherd and the lawful way of intromission he proved them to be thieves and robbers because they refused to enter in by Jesus who is the door of the sheep and upon the same ground reproved all those false Christs which before him usurped the title of Messias and proved his own vocation and office by an argument which no other shepherd would use because he laid down his life for his sheep others would take the fleece and eat the flesh but none but himself would die for his sheep but he would first