openeth the womb shall be called Holy unto the Lord Ergo To be the Lord's and to be Holy are Synonyma's Though therefore the Gentiles Court had no sanctity of legal distinction yet had it the sanctity of peculiarity to God-ward and therefore not to be used as a common place The Illation proceeds by way of Conversion My House shall be called the House of Prayer to all Nations or People Ergo The House of Prayer for all Nations is my Father's House And the Emphasis lies in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators were not so well advised of when following Beza too close they render the words thus My House shall be called of all Nations the House of Prayer as if the Dative Case here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were not Acquisitive but as it is sometimes with passive verbs in stead of the Ablative of the Agent for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which sense is clean from the scope and purpose of the place whence it is taken as he that compares them will easily see and I shall make fully to appear in the next part of my Discourse which I tendred by the name of an Observation To wit That this fact of our Saviour more particularly concerns us of the Gentiles than we take notice of Namely we are taught thereby what reverent esteem we ought to have of our Gentile Oratories and Churches howsoever not endued with such legal sanctity in every respect as was the Temple of the Iews yet Houses of Prayer as well as theirs This Observation will be made good by a threefold Consideration First of the Story as I have related it secondly from the Text here alledged for warrant thereof and thirdly from the circumstance of Time For the Story I have shewed it was acted in the Gentiles Court and not in that of the Iews because it is not credible that was thus prophaned It cannot therefore be alledged that this was a place of legal sanctity for according to legal sanctity it was held by the Iews as common only it was the place for the Gentiles to worship the God of Israel in and seems to have been proper to the second Temple the Gentiles in the first worshipping without at the Temple-door in the holy Mountain only Secondly The place alledged to avow the Fact speaks expresly of Gentile-worshippers not in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only but in the whole body of the context Hear the Prophet speak Esay chap. 56. ver 6 7. and then judge The sons of the stranger that joyn themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the Name of the Lord to be his servants every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold of my Covenant namely that I alone shall be his God Even them will I bring to my holy Mountain and make them joyful in my House of Prayer their burnt-offerings and sacrifices accepted upon mine Altar Then follow the words of my Text For my House shall be called that is shall be it is an Hebraism a House of Prayer for all People What is this but a Description of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gentile-worshippers And this place alone makes good all that I have said before viz. That this vindication was of the Gentiles Court Otherwise the allegation of this Scripture had been impertinent for the Gentiles of whom the Prophet speaks worshipped in no place but this Hence also appears to what purpose our Evangelist expressed the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely as that which shewed wherein the force of the accommodation to this occasion lay which the rest of the Evangelists omitted as referring to the place of the Prophet whence it was taken those who heard it being not ignorant of whom the Prophet spake Thirdly the circumstance of Time argues the same thing if we consider that this was done but a few days before our Saviour suffered to wit when he came to his last Passeover How unseasonable had it been to vindicate the violation of Legal and typical sanctity which within so few days after he was utterly to abolish by his Cross unless he had meant thereby to leave his Church a lasting lesson what reverence and respect he would have accounted due to such places as this was which he vindicated DISCOURSE XII S. IOHN 4. 23. But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth For the Father seeketh such to worship him THEY are the words of our Blessed Saviour to the Woman of Samaria who perceiving him by his discourse to be a Prophet desired to be resolved by him of that great controverted point between the Iews and Samaritans Whether Mount Garizim by Sichem where the Samaritans sacrificed or Ierusalem were the true place of worship Our Saviour tells her that this Question was not now of much moment For that the hour or time was near at hand when they should neither worship the Father in Mount Garizim nor at Ierusalem But that there was a greater difference between the Iews and them than this of Place namely even about That which was worshipped For ye saith he worship that ye know not but we Iews worship that we know Then follow the words premised But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth It is an abused Text being commonly alledged to prove that God now in the Gospel either requires not or regards not External worship but that of the Spirit only and this to be a characteristical difference between the worship of the Old Testament and the New If at any time we talk of external decency in rites and bodily expressions as sit to be used in the service of God this is the usual Buckler to repel whatsoever may be said in that kind It is true indeed that the worship of the Gospel is much more spiritual than that of the Law But that the worship of the Gospel should be only spiritual and no external worship required therein as the Text according to some meus sense and allegation thereof would imply is repugnant not only to the practice and experience of the Christian Religion in all Ages but also to the express Ordinances of the Gospel it self For what are the Sacraments of the New Testament are they not Rites wherein and wherewith God is served and worshipped The consideration of the holy Eucharist alone will consute this Gloss For is not the commemoration of the Sacrifice of Christ's death upon the Cross unto his Father in the Symbols of Bread and Wine an external worship And yet with this Rite hath the Church in all Ages used to make her solemn address of Prayer and Supplication unto the Divine Majesty as the Iews in the Old Testament did by Sacrifice When I say in all Ages I include also that of the Apostles For so much S. Luke testifieth of that first Christian society
Acts 2. 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They continued in breaking of Bread and in Prayers As for bodily expressions by gestures and postures as standing kneeling bowing and the like our Blessed Saviour himself lift up his sacred eyes to heaven when he prayed for Lazarus fell on his face when he prayed in his agony S. Paul as himself saith bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ He and S. Peter and the rest of the Believers do the like more than once in the Acts of the Apostles What was Imposition of hands but an external gesture in an act of invocation for conferring a blessing and that perhaps sometimes without any vocal expression joyned therewith Besides I cannot conceive any reason why in this point of Evangelical worship Gesture should be more scrupled at than Voice Is not confessing praising praying and glorifying God by Voice an external and bodily worship as well as that of Gesture why should then the one derogate from the worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth and not the other To conclude There was never any society of men in the world that worshipped the Father in such a manner as this interpretation would imply and therefore cannot this be our Saviour's meaning but some other Let us see if we can find out what it is There may be two senses given of these words both of them agreeable to Reason and the analogy of Scripture let us take our choice The one is That to worship God in Spirit and Truth is to worship him not with Types and shadows of things to come as in the Old Testament but according to the verity of the things exhibited in Christ according to that The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. Whence the Mystery of the Gospel is elsewhere by our Saviour in this Evangelist termed Truth as Chap. 17. ver 17. and the Doctrine thereof by S. Paul the word of Truth See Ephes. Chap. 1. ver 13. Rom. 15. 8. The time therefore is now at hand said our Saviour when the true worshippers shall worship the Father no longer with bloudy Sacrifices and the Rites and Ordinances depending thereon but in and according to the verity of that which these Ordinances figured For all these were Types of Christ in whom being now exhibited the true worshippers shall henceforth worship the Father This sense hath good warrant from the state of the Question between the Iews and Samaritans to which our Saviour here makes answer which was not about worship in general but about the kind of worship in special which was confessed by both sides to be tied to one certain place only that is of worship by Sacrifice and the appendages in a word of the Typical worship proper to the first Covenant of which see a description Heb. 9. This Iosephus expresly testifies Lib. 12. Antiq. cap. 1. speaking of the Iews and Samaritans which dwelt together at Alexandria They lived saith he in perpetual discord one with the other whilst each laboured to maintain their Country customs those of Ierusalem affirming their Temple to be the sacred place whither sacrifices were to be sent the Samaritans on the other side contending they ought to be sent to Mount Garizim For otherwise who knows not that both Iews and Samaritans had other places of worship besides either of these namely their Proseucha's and Synagogues wherein they worshipped God not with internal only but external worship though not with Sacrifice which might be offered but in one place only And this also may seem to have been a Type of Christ as well as the rest namely that he was to be that one and only Mediator of the Church in the Temple of whose sacred body we have access unto the Father and in whom he accepts our service and devotions according to that Destroy this Temple and I will rear it up again in three days He spake saith the Text of the Temple of his Body This sense divers of the Ancients hit upon Eusebius Demon. Evang. Lib. 1. Cap. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not by Symbols and Types but as our Saviour saith in Spirit and Truth Not that in the New Testament men should worship God without all external services For the New Testament was to have external and visible services as well as the Old but such as should imply the verity of the promises already exhibited not be Types and shadows of them yet to come We know the Holy Ghost is wont to call the figured Face of the Law the Letter and the Verity thereby signified the Spirit As for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Spirit and Truth both together they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but once found in holy Writ to wit only in this place and so no light can be borrowed by comparing of the like expression any where else to expound them Besides nothing hinders but they may be here taken one for the exposition of the other namely that to worship the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with to worship him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But howsoever this exposition be fair and plausible yet methinks the reason which our Saviour gives in the words following should argue another meaning God saith he is a Spirit therefore they that worship him must worship in Spirit and Truth But God was a Spirit from the beginning If therefore for this reason he must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth he was so to be worshipped in the Old Testament as well as in the New Let us therefore seek another meaning For the finding whereof let us take notice that the Samaritans at whom our Saviour here aimeth were the off-spring of those Nations which the King of Assyria placed in the Cities of Samaria when he had carried away the Ten Tribes captive These as we may read in the second Book of the Kings at their first coming thither worshipped not the God of Israel but the gods of the Nations from whence they came wherefore he sent Lions amongst them which slew them Which they apprehending either from the information of some Israelite or otherwise to be because they knew not the worship of the God of the Country they informed the King of Assyria thereof desiring that some of the captiv'd Priests might be sent unto them to teach them the manner and rites of his worship which being accordingly done they thenceforth as the Text tells us worshipped the Lord yet feared their own Gods too and so did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Chrysostome speaks mingle things not to be mingled In this medley they continued about three hundred years till toward the end of the Persian Monarchy At what time it chanced that Manasse brother to Iaddo the High Priest of the returned Iews married the daughter of Sanballat then Governour of Samaria for which being expelled from Ierusalem by Nehemiah he fled to Sanballat his Father in Law and after his
though never so carefully and exactly written could possibly scape at such a a rate of judging as this But to speak yet more closely to the present Exception Thoughâ— here was a mistake in applying the Fourth Viol to that Northern King yet that mistake in the particular is no real prejudice to the general and main scope of his Interpretation of that part much less of the other parts of the Vision And considering the abstruseness of the matter it may be held very laudable not toto coelo errare in the explication of some part of a Vision especially when other Learned men are deprehended to do so not only in some one whole Vision but in a manner universally in the whole Apocalyps and that not only in those Visions which relate to things unfulfill'd and future Events about which if a careful Interpreter be at a loss sometimes and chance to misconjecture it is more pardonable but in such Visions and Prophecies as are already fulfill'd wherein to mistake is the less excusable because Prophecies are suppos'd to clear up when accomplish'd according to that of Irenaeus which is sometimes quoted to an ill purpose viz. to damp all modest Enquiries into Prophetical Scriptures Cùm evenit quod propheratum est tunc Prophetiae liquidam habent certam expositionem And here if it were not an over-tedioâ—â— Digression it would be no hard task to bring in a large Catalogue of gross Parachronisms manifest misapplications and mistakes of another nature than this single one they urge against our Author and these not a few nor thinly scatter'd in their Comments but to be met with in every page The reason of which Misfortune in which the Interpreters that go the new way are as much concern'd as any is plainly this Their want of attending to that only safe Rule and Ground-work of Interpretation the Apocalyptical Synchronisms the usefulness and necessity of attending to which is fully made out by Mr. Mede to omit other places in his Corollary at the end of his Clavis Apocalyptica Without this Clue Interpreters will miserably lose themselves in this Sacred Labyrinth without this Card to guide them in this Mystical Sea they must needs like distressed Mariners reel to and fro and often be at their wit's end Lastly Let it be considered that this short passage concerning the Application of the Fourth Vial excepted against is not any part of the Author 's large and more throughly-concocted Commentary upon the Apocalyps for that ends with Chap. XIV And as for the following Chapters what he has briefly observed upon some passages therein as in Chap. XVI which treats of the Vials he calls only Specimina his Essays and First adventures intending if he had health and free leisure to go over them again and then to perfect his thoughts and as fully to enlarge himself upon them as he had done upon the foregoing Chapters This he expresly advertises the Reader of at the end of his Commentary upon Chap. XIV in the mean while commending these Specimina which at the sollicitation of some Friends he permitted to go along with his Commentary to the Reader 's Candour and Benignity persuading himself as the best natures at least apt to suspect any unkindness that what he thus offer'd with his right hand others would not take with their left This is enough to wash away the supposed stain of this Exception and perhaps more than was needful but that some devoid of Charity and therefore but tinkling Cymbals made such a noise about it such as childishly affect excitare fluctus in simpulo and love to make ex musca elephantem ex festuca trabem in the mean while through fond self-love and partiality not minding the more than motes the great beams in their own eyes or in the eyes of those whose persons they have in admiration But to such our Saviour's Counsel is not unseasonable Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye 21. Proceed we now cum bonâ— Deo to the Vindication of our Author from the other Exception which in short is this That he may seem to have afforded too much countenance to the Opinion of the Chiliasts This Exception though not the former is taken notice of by that Reverend person who was familiarly acquainted with Mr. Mede and wrote that short View of his Life published at the end of his Epistles And the Sum of the Answer he there returns to this Exception is this That what Mr. Mede did herein cannot be justly counted any blemish to his name and honour For grant that Opinion were an Error yet saith he it hath very much to plead its toleration and their pardon that hold it Whatever it be it past for a precious Truth even in the purest and most untainted Ages of the Church those next the Apostles for the space of above 300. years and had the suffrages of the most eminent Doctors that lived in those times viz. Iustin Martyr who lived within 30 years of S. Iohn's death Irenaeus who was brought up at the feet of Polycarpus who was S. Iohn's Disciple they both lived and conversed with the Apostles immediate Disciples as also Tertullian the most ancient of the Latin Fathers now extant Cyprian Bishop of Carthage and Lactantius besides several others of whose Writings we have only some small Fragments all these within 300. years after Christ. Nor was it ever discountenanced till the Church recovering breath from her Persecutions began perhaps a little too much to prize her peace and disvaluing her expectations to set up her rest in her enjoyed tranquillity And certainly not to argue its verisimilitude from the consonancy it seems to have with the many glorious Prophecies of Christ's Kingdom in the Old Testament which otherwise find many cold interpretations among Expositors a man can hardly without admitting it make good sense of those places in the 20 and 21 Chapters of the Revelation which tell us of a First and Second Resurrection and of a Ierusalem descending out of Heaven from God Which last I have often heard our Author say seemed to him extremely harsh to expound of the State of Bliss in Heaven and to make descending out of Heaven to signify ascending up thither was more absurd than that of the Canonist who expounded Constituimus by Abrogamus So that he was compelled by that and many other places against his inclination to allow so much of Chiliasm as might make sense of those Prophecies yet alway keeping himself from falling into those dotages which some of that opinion fansied or at least were charged with neither denying any necessary Catholick Verity nor admitting any thing inconsistent with the analogy of Faith and submitting his Opinion to the judgment of the Church And within these limits I never yet learned why he or any
he detects the impertinency of that trivial shift of the Romanists in distinguishing between Idolum and Imago with much more of the like import in that Treatise of his which the Learned Is. Casanbon worthily styles Exactissimae fidei diligentiae Scriptum To conclude It may not be amiss here to add a short story not impertinent to the argument in hand Mr. Mede having lately preached a Sermon at S. Marie's in Cambridge upon Eccles. 5. 1 about the Reverence of Gods House a young Master of Arts took the freedom sometime after to tell him as who might not be free with him a person of such exemplary Humility and Condescensions That from some passages in that Discourse the world concluded that he had changed his Opinion and that he did not now think as formerly that the Pope was the Hoghen Moghen that was his drolling expression No replied Mr. Mede But I do and shall think so as long as I live for all this 42. And here we have a fair occasion to represent another of those worthy Qualities that adorn'd his Character His well-grounded Constancy and Vnchangeableness of Iudgment We say Well-grounded otherwise for a man to persist resolvedly in an Opinion because it has been his Opinion is neither Vertue nor matter of Praise but rather a piece of troublesome Stiffness and Pertinacity usually accompanied with fond Self-conceitedness and a design to secure his fame and some emolument he receives from his easie admirers From which humour none was more free than our Author who would profess That so far as he could judge of himself by experience he was as willing to embrace Truth when he saw evidence for it as any man living as well considering that it is the part of a true Christian as Aristotle observes it to be of a true Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the interest and advancement of Truth to forgoe and quit his own private conceits and speculations how dear soever they were formerly unto him and on the contrary an argument of a low and servile spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be either fondly addicted or enslaved to any Hypothesis and Opinion either of his own or others Our Author was not indeed light of belief nor would be easily take up an Hypothesis But when any new Notion was presented to him by others or offered itself to his thoughtful mind he would first make a stand and pause well upon it strictly examining the Grounds thereof and if upon a serious and due weighing of all that was fit to be taken into consideration he found it to be a solid Truth he was not apt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be shaken from his judgment a right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle both in his Ethicks and Rhetorick styles a Vertuous man or in the Apostles language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stedfast unmovable and established in the present Truth Yea he was ever so impartial and constant a Lover of Truth that nothing but the Holy Scripture and sound Reason could prevail upon him 'T is true To conceal his judgment not to divulge every thing that was Truth to him he was not hard to be perswaded The remembrance of the Apostles Rule Rom. 14. Hast thou faith have it to thy self as also his own Charity Prudence and Peaceableness of spirit did dispose him to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and wheâ—e it was convenient But neither Friends nor Interests nor any worldly Allurements whatsoever were of force to corrupt his affections or pervert his judgment much less could they prevail with him unworthily to deny any Truth how unplausible soever it was to some men and therfore disadvantageous to himself For a proof of his constant and unremovable affection to Truth as also of his patient enduring the contradiction of others against himself take this Instance viz. That in the revolution of about twenty years by-past the saying was his own he had by the self-same persons been look'd upon and accordingly reported of as Popish Protestant and Puritane and yet he would protest it as in the presence of God that to his knowledge he had not in the least receded from his very first perswasions So that all the while he was the same without wavering although varied to their appearance because they sailing with the tide and wind varied towards him Thus they in the Vessel under sail being always in motion think the Land moves so it seems to their erring sense which yet is never the less fixed and unmoved for their thinking amiss But our Author as he consider'd that Precept in Siracides chap. 5. 10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be thou stedfast in thy understanding so he knew likewise that the ready way to attain to this establishment was this according to the counsel in the foregoing verse not to winnow or sail with every wind But we must not indulge our selves the liberty of enlarging upon every thing in our Author which render'd him justly exemplary worthy of praise and imitation Return we therefore from this Digression to what has a near affinity to our former argument In speaking to which and the remaining particulars we must study to be short and take the nearest way to our journeys end left we over-drive the more infirm and therefore the more querulous sort of Readers and wear out their patience otherwise to those that are of sounder and stronger judgments and consequently capable to value and honour and love the Author we doubt not but a larger Narrative than this would seem not tediously long but too short rather as indeed the most enlarged History of his Life his Piety and Learning is in itself and upon a true account a short History too short if we consider the great Worth and manifold Perfections of the Person of whom though we should speak much we shall yet certainly come short if we may here use in an inferior sense what is said of God by the Son of Sirach chap. 43. To proceed then 43. As he abhorr'd Idolatry and Superstition so he likewise abhorr'd Sacriledge and all Profanation of Holy things As for Sacriledge his judgment is well known to those who have read his Works with attention amongst which to omit several passages in his other Discourses there is one Diatriba wholly spent upon the Story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. wherein the nature and proper notion of the Sin there mentioned is clearly explained as also the hainousness and danger of Sacriledge is fully proved from several Examples of special remark in H. Scripture all eminently verifying that of Solomon It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy With the consideration whereof our Author being deeply affected as also of the great disservice done hereby to any Intendment of Pious Charity and the no less dishonour done to Religion when what is devoted to Pious purposes is less secure from the
and with as great Solidity of Reason and Embroidery of Rhetorick pressed as his Theme led him Works of Charity Among other passages he exhorted his Hearers to make this Experiment When they had received good gain by Traffick or Bargain c. to take 6 d or 4 d in the Pound and put it in a Purse by it self for works of Piety This he warranted as it would be very beneficial to their Estate so it would take away all secret Grudgings For now they had lay'd so much aside for such a purpose they would rather wish for an Opportunity of disbursing it c. After Sermon being visited by a neighbour-Divine and one allied to him they presently fell into discourse about that Subject and Mr. Whateley's Iudgment was desired more particularly concerning the Quotapars to be so devoted As for that saith he I am not to prescribe to others but since here are none but very good friends and we are all so private I will tell you what hath been my own practice of late and upon what occasion You know Sir some years since I was often beholden to you for the Lone of 10â— at a time The truth is I could not bring the year about though my Receipts were not despicable and I was not at all conscious to my self of any vain Expences or of Improvidence At length I began to examine my Family what Relief was given to the Poor And although I was assured that was not done niggardly yet I could not be so satisfied but resolved instantly to lay aside every Tenth shilling of all my Receipts for Charitable uses And to let you see how well I have thrived this way in a short time now if you have occasion to use an 100â— or more I have it ready for you Iust Mr. Mede's Method and with a like prosperous Success This I can avouch for I was present both at the Sermon and at the Conference Neither do I conceive I have been wandering far from Mr. Mede all this while these two Persons meeting so near in so many Respects Both of them of the same House in the University both Contemporaries both Eminent though in far distant ways both inviolably kept their Principles of Loyalty to their Prince and Obedience to their Mother the Church both suffered injuriously some when time was made themselves too Poetically merry with Mr. Whately's Name both met in the same practice of Charity for which chiefly the latter was instanced in lastly both of them were peaceably and honourably Interred a little before the late unnatural War I do not ask the Reader 's Pardon for this seeming Impertinency because I rather expect his Thanks for helping him to so rare a Project how he may no less certainly than Piously improve his Estate if he please to make due Trial of it Howsoever I shall make him amends as to Brevity in the ensuing Particularities Whereof the next is 2. Concerning Mr. Mede's Communicativeness AS to be Communicative of Good is a Royalty and Beam of Glory even in the Divine Majesty itself so upon what Person soever this shall be more or less shed and diffused it must needs render him proportionably God-like Now that such a Quality was eminently conspicuous in this divine Person is altogether as unquestionable as Whether there ever was such a Man as Mr. Ioseph Mede I shall not instance in his Writings wherewith he hath blest the world concerning which I speak of those few then extant if the commending of them would not be but as the Gilding of Gold and the Painting of Rubies I could give you the opinion of one among many others who was Master of as great a Treasure of choice Learning and of as curious a Pen and Tongue as few Ages have seen which he hath often expressed to me in these words I never in all my life met with such a Vseful Critick as Mr. Mede with many other Encomiums That I have now to speak to is his Communicativeness in ordinary Discourse And this indeed he made the main of his Divertisement and Recreation I never heard he used any other unless it were in and upon the Fellows Orchard the Beautifying whereof he took great delight in and towards that he would not only lend his handsome and happy Contrivances but also disburse Money before-hand till the Colledge-Audit Here he hath been found very busie at due hours and sometimes knuckle-deep when he would say smiling Why this was Adam's work in his Innocency But then instantly taking for his Theme either a Plant or a Weed or almost any thing next hand he would fall into some very significant discourse All his Discourses to speak it once for all were extremely distant from any thing that looked like either Levity or Vanity or Paedantry These Charitable works of his Tongue for so I call Mr. Mede's Discourses as well as those other of his Hand proved no less Gainful to himself than they were Beneficial to others A double Gain he hath often acknowledged came in to him this way One That his Notions by often Repeating them became more fixed and rivetted in his Memory And therefore he would merrily say to a Familiar whose Studies lay quite another way and in that kind of Learning was confessedly incomparable and unmatchable when he seemed not so attentive to some of his Discourses Chuse saith he whether you will hear me or no I love to repeat what I have been gathering though it be but to the Walls for my own Memorie 's sake The other Gain was That hereby his Notions were better shaped and formed and so more accommodated to use For said he every time I am imparting them to others it is great odds but some fitter and clearer Expression will casually come out of my Mouth than at first came into my Mind So that his Notions always lay by him ready in good Currant Coin whiles others who too much affect the hoarding up have theirs at the best but in the Barre and Ingot and perhaps sometimes but in the Ore Wherefore I am apt to believe it was not a mere Complement of Mr. Mede's when he thanked those for Hearing him who thought they had a great deal more reason to thank him for his so Edifying them because he knew his own Gains hereby were still multiplied When my Acquaintance with him was of that Standing as to take the Degree of one of his Familiars he would treat and entertain me in this manner After some short prelusory talking of News and Occurrences Come now saith he what be your Questions Which as I was never to come unprovided of so was he always much more provided to resolve them to my unspeakable satisfaction Yea more than that such was his Obligingness he would sometimes fetch out of his Study divers of his Colledge and Publick Exercises and sometimes one peculiar Paper-book wherein he was wont to write sundry knotty Questions and difficult Texts of Scripture and under them set down
in brief his present Conjectural thoughts which afterwards at better leisure he would bring to the Test and pursue with more accurateness Pitching upon some of these he hath done me the honour to promote me to be his Amanuensis And then first causing me to turn to Texts in the Hebrew Fountain and in the LXX he would Critically give the Importance of the words and here drop many a rich Observation That done he would take down many of the Ancients whether Church-Historians or Fathers Greek and Latin c. and directing me to what places I should turn make me read them to him Upon which again he would by the By give out very considerable Notes and still as he had done with each Author would say You see it holds yet and yet c. So at last one of those Conjecturalls and What Ifs as he call'd them became an adopted Verity And this he called Hunting of Notions At this Sport no less profitable than pleasant we have upon Fasting-days continued from three after Mid-day until the knocking of the Colledge-gates at Night and then he has dismissed me richly laden 3. Of his Advice to young Students in Divinity TO those who intended Curam Animarum he would give among many other these Three Counsels 1. That they familiarly acquaint themselves with and constantly make use of that Golden Observation of Is. Casaubon viz. Vniversam Doctrinam Christianam Veteres distingâ—ebant in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 idest ea quae enunciari apud omnes poterant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 arcana temere non vulganda It is in his Exercit. XVI ad Annal. Eccles. Which whole Exercitation he would commend to their often reading and indeed the whole Book And here he would sadly complain to the same effect and almost in the same words with the Admired Lord Verulam It is a Point of great Inconvenience and Perill to entitle the People to hear Controversies and all kinds of Doctrine They say no part of the Counsel of God is to be suppressed nor the People defrauded So as the Difference which the Apostle maketh between Milk and Strong Meat is confounded and his Precept That the weak be not admitted unto Questions and Controversies taketh no place Upon neglect of which sage Counsel we have lately seen those Dismal and Tragical Consequences which Mr. Mede did indeed Prophetically presage would be thereupon And for the present he gave some Instances but not without Indignation of them who under pretence of Revealing the whole Truth to the People would make choice of strange Texts in Leviticus and elsewhere and out of them vent such Stuffe as no modest Ear could endure to hear 2. His next Counsel was That with other Practical Doctrines they should not forget to preach and press Charity and this not in a slight perfunctory manner but Studiedly and Digestedly to give the People the true Nature of it the full latitude of it the absolute and indispensable Necessity of having it both Praecepti and Medii and as the L. Verulam hath express'd it to bring down Doctrines and Directions ad Casus Conscientiae otherwise the Word the Bread of Life they will but toss up and down and not break it 3. His last Counsel was When they had some Necessary Truths to deliver against which the present Humour of the Times ran counter that in this case they should go Socratically to work as to lay down at a convenient distance first one Postulatum and then another that will be clearly inferred from the former and so a third and a fourth c. still depending upon and strengthning each other A Truth brought in thus Backward saith he will be swallowed down unawares Whereas if you first shew its Horns there will be such startling and flinging that there will be no coming near with it 4. How far he was from Ambition FOR proof hereof we cannot desire a clearer Evidence or Demonstration then his so constant declining Preferments even then when they sought him out Witness his Answer to the Letter of the Fellows of Trinity Colledge near Dublin And by the way that Election into that Provostship was so firm as well as free that he was desired to make a Formal Resignation before his Successor could be elected and admitted into it which he did as himself hath told me more than once Witness again his Third Letter to the then Lord Primate what time some new hopes began to be raised of his acceptance of the same Provostship upon the remove of Bishop Bedel To all this I can add two more Instances which I believe are not known to many One That divers years after the refusal of the Provostship he received a Letter from a Friend in Ireland assuring him there was then kept for him a Dignity worth at the least 1000â— per ann and staied only for his acceptance To persuade him to which he used many potent arguments among the rest this The great freedom from molestations and incumbrances that place would indulge him in c. This Letter he was pleased to communicate to my self when freshly received concealing indeed the Name subscribed though that was not hard to guess at But here again his Modesty proved inflexible The other Instance is this When he newly related to his then Grace of Canterbury and now glorious Martyr neither of whom I believe had seen each others face in all their lives I am sure he told me so not long before his death he desired me to tell him freely what I heard men say concerning his Chaplainship c. The sum of my Answer was That I perceived he was looked upon as a Rising man and that many rejoyced at it because of his known merits c. To the latter part of my Answer he replied I am much beholden to my Friends for their good opinion of me c. But no man knows my Defects so well as my self And this was but the native Language and Dialect of his innate Modesty But when he came to reply to the former part which spake him a Rising man here he used more than ordinary Solemnity and with a grave composed countenance uttered these words At to my Rising come now I will make you my Confessor I can safely appeal to that Infinite Majesâ—y who hears me which words were accompanied with a gesture of great Reverence that if I might obtain but a Donative sine cura sine cura he repeâ—ted it which I may keep with my Fellowship I would set up my staffe for this World And the reason why I desire this is that I mought be able to keep a Nag for my Recreation sometimes in taking the air and in visiting my friends in the Countrey since this my Corpulency then growing upon him makes me unwieldy for walking In pursuance of this discourse I chanced to smile at a Conceit then coming into my mind which he quickly observed and was very earnest to know the reason of it
one who durst First presume upon a notorious Sin thereby to give Warning to all others As upon Cain the first Murtherer upon Corah and his Complices who first moved a Sedition upon the point of Equality in the Priesthood upon Absolom the first unnatural Rebel c. But now for this Sin of Sacrilege as God began to punish it very early even in Paradise itself ut suprà so hath he continually pursued and hounded this Sin as in Achan in the Old Testament in Annanias and Sapphira in the New that no man may pretend the Antiquateness of the Old Testament c. And in latter Ages besides what the learned Pens of Sr. Henry Spelman and others have published he had collected many rare Instances of his own private Observation which upon prudential Considerations I forbear to recite And now after all this Is it not admirable to consider how strangely the seeming present Profit of this Sin doth infatuate men That though they daily experiment these Truths yet they will not be persuaded either from Venturing on the Sin or from Continuing in it What doth this but betray in Men the same Shortness and Shallowness of Understanding that we see in Rooks and Martins and other silly Fowls which will needs be building every year in those very places where they are sure to be disturb'd and endanger'd themselves and to have their Nests demolished and their Young destroyed or if any chance to escape yet they always lie at the mercy of every Passenger 6. Of his becoming Facetiousness THose his so grave knotty and crabbed studies did not at all render him Sour or Morose but in due Time and Place he knew how to be Pleasant and Facetious To give the Reader a Tast of this for Divertisement By this time perhaps he will but need it having tired himself with reading these dull and flat Narratives 1. The Chamber he kept in was known to be a Ground-chamber just under the Colledge-Library Partly for the benefit of that for the Library was his other Study and Closet and partly for the conveniency of having no Students over him to disturb him by walking c. he continued there very many years His Bed-chamber-window opened into the Street and in the Summer-time when the Evenings were clear and serene he would leave his Window open all night for fresh air This was not long un-observed by the Hooker who once began to draw away his Bed-cloaths whiles he lay awake Nay friend saith he I pray thee stay till I am asleep c. with that the Hooker ran away and he slept securely with his window still open Not long after the same or another of his Tribe came again and then he was asleep But when the Fellow was plucking away the Cloaths he soon awakened and then said Oh friend if thou takest away my Bed-cloaths his wearing-cloaths he had secured well enough I shall take cold c. And so he was rid of his Chapman again and never heard more of him though his windows were still continued un-shut With which pretty Confidence of his he overcame that of the Hookers and made himself very merry with the story among his friends 2. In the Vacations he was wont to be invited into the Country by a Kinsman and a Knight At his first coming thither being then a young Master of Arts he in curiosity stood observing the Falconer feeding his Hawk and in way of complaisance began to praise the Hawk As first What a brave sharp Bill she had Bill said the Falconer it is a Beak Sir By and by What notable Claws she had Claws Sir said he they are Pounces Anon he commended her fine Feathers Feathers Sir they are Plumes After that her goodly Tail Tail Sir it is a Train Mr. Mede not a little abash'd that he should be thus mistaken all along in those Terms of Art and believing the Falconer would expose him for his Ignorance to his fellow-servants he studied this innocent piece of Revenge The Falconer he saw used to wait at Table and therefore taking his time three or four days after when he thought the thing was quite forgotten he sets them all at the Table on reading of Riddles And when they were well in he turning to the Falconer asked him Friend What kind of Bird is that which hath neither Bill nor Claw nor Feathers nor Tail The Falconer was utterly posed and stood mute Why then said Mr. Mede I will tell you It is your Hawk That hath no Bill but a Beak no Claws but Pounces no Feathers but Plumes no Tail but a Train There was I even with him would he say triumphingly 3. Such Fellow-commoners who came to the University only to see it and to be seen in it he call'd The Vniversity-Tulips that made a Gaudy shew for a while c. To these might be added many more whereof some perhaps would tast a little too salt to some but all of them would relish well enough to younger Palats But I must remember the Gravity of the Person I am speaking of and whiles I am upon this pleasant Argument shall endeavour to imitate his Practice which was to make his Facetiousness always usher in something that was Serious To the next then 7. Some of his handsome and serious sayings SO I call them rather than Apophthegms though some of them may possibly lay claim to that Title 1. It was often in his Mouth Over-doing always undoes very applicable many ways 2. To that stale triumphing Demand of the Romanists Where was your Church before Luther he answered with another Question Where was the fine Flour when the Wheat went to the Mill 3. Where there is Siding and Studium partium the prevailing Party always makes the other complain Iust as it is at the great Crowding in the Commencement-House when an extraordinary Praevaricator comes up the Crowdsways sometimes on one side then they that are crushed to the walls cry out Oh Oh and being sensible of the pain they set their feet against the walls and with their backs and all their strength cause the Press to turn as much to the other side and then these cry out as fast oh oh as the other did before and so alternis vicibus 4. To that old Complaint now newly dressed up and followed with such noises and Hubbubs Is it not great pity that men should be silenced and laid aside only for their not Subscribing his answer was So it is great pity that some goodly fair Houses in the vâ—idst of a populous City should take fire and therefore must of necessity be pulled down unless you will sâ—ffer the whole Town to be on a flame and consume to ashes 5. That which followeth cannot properly be called a Saying but rather a Discourse resembling a rich Iewell made up of divers costly Gemms After he had been speaking very Iudiciously and very Piously what great reason we all had to pray earnestly for our Governours in the Church That God
New the Christian Clergy or Clerus so called from the beginning of Christian Antiquity either because they are the Lord 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Portion which the Church dedicateth unto him out of her self namely as the Levites were an offering of the Children of Israel which they offered unto him out of their Tribes or because their inheritance and livelihood is the Lord's portion I prefer the first yet either of both will give their Order the title of Holiness as doth also more especially their descent which they derive from the Apostles that is from those for whom their Lord and Master prayed unto his Father saying Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanctisie them unto or for thy Truth thy Word is Truth that is Separate them unto the Ministery of thy Truth the word of thy Gospel which is the truth and verification of the promises of God It follows As thou hast sent me into the world so have I also sent them into the world this is the key which unlocks the meaning of that before and after And for them I sanctifie my self that they might be sanctified for thy Truth that is And forasmuch as they cannot be consecrated to such an Office without some sacrifice to atone and purifie them therefore for their consecration to this holy function of ministration of the new Covenant I offer my self a Sacrifice unto thee for them in lieu of those legal and typical ones wherewith Aaron and his sons first and then the whole Tribe of Levi were consecrated unto thy service in the old An Ellipsis of the first Substantive in Scripture is frequent So here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Truth for the Ministery of Truth Now that the Christian Church for of the Iewish I shall need say nothing hath alwayes taken it for granted that those of her Clergy ought according to the separation and sanctity of their Order to be distinguished and differenced from other Christians both passively in their usance from others but especially actively by a restrained conversation and peculiarness in their manner of life is manifest by her ancient Canons and Discipline Yea so deeply hath it been rooted in the minds of men that the Order of Church-men binds them to some differing kind of conversation and form of life from the Laity that even those who are not willing to admit of the like discrimination due in other things have still in their opinions some relick thereof remaining in this though perhaps not altogether to be acquitted of that imputation which Tertullian charged upon some in his time to wit Quum excellimur inflamur adversùs Clerum tunc unum omnes sumus tunc omnes Sacerdotes quia Sacerdotes nos Deo Patri fecit Quum ad peraequationem Disciplinae Sacerdotalis provocamur deponimus insulas impares sumus When we vaunt and are puffed up against the Clergie then we are all one then we are all Priests for he made us Priests to God and his Father But when we are called upon to equal in our lives the example of Priestly Discipline then down go our Miâ—res and we are another sort of men Another sort of things Sacred which I named was Sacred Places to wit Churches and Oratories as the Christian name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth them to be that is the Lord's A third Sacred Times that is dedicated and appointed for the solemn celebration of the worship of God and Divine duties such are with us for those of the Iews concern us not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord's dayes with other our Christian Festivals and Holy-dayes Of the manner of the discrimination from common or sanctifying both the one and the other by actions some commanded others interdicted to be done in them the Canons and Constitutions of our Church will both inform and direct us For holy Times and holy Places are Twins Time and Place being as I may so speak pair-circumstances of action and therefore Lev. 19. 30. and again 26. 2. they are joyned together tanquam ejusdem rationis Keep my Sabbaths and reverence my Sanctuary The fourth sort of Sacred things is of such as are neither Persons Times nor Places but Things in a special sense by way of distinction from them And this sort containeth under it many particulars which may be specified after this manner 1. Sacred Revenues of what kind soever which in regard of the dedication thereof as they must not be prophaned by sacrilegious alienation so ought they to be sanctified by a different use and imployment from other Goods namely such a one as becometh that which is the Lord's and not man's For that Primitive Christian Antiquity so esteemed them appears by their calling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they did their Place of Worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their Holy day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all of the Lord as it were Christening the old notion of Sacred by a new name So Can. Apostol XL. Manifestae sint Episcopi res propriae si quidem res habet proprias manifesta sint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. res Dominicae Let it be manifest what things are the Bishop's own if he have any things of his own and let it be manifest what things are the Lord 's Author constitut Apost Lib. 2. c. 28. al. 24. Episcopus ne utatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dominicis rebus tanquam alienis aut communibus sed moderatè Let not the Bishop use the things that are the Lord's as if they were another's or as if they were common but moderately and soberly See also Balsamon in Can. 15. Concilii Ancyrani and the Canon it self 2. Sacred Vtensils as the Lord's Table Vessels of ministration the Books of God or Holy Scripture and the like Which that the Church even in her better times respected with an holy and discriminative usance may be learned from the story of that calumnious crimination devised by the Arrian Faction against Athanasius as a charge of no small impiety namely that in his Visitation of the Tract of Marcotis Macarius one of his Presbyters by his command or instinct had entered into a Church of the Miletian Schismaticks and there broken the Chalice or Communion-Cup thrown down the Table and burnt some of the Holy Books All which argues that in the general opinion of Christians of that time such acts were esteemed prophane and impious otherwise they could never have hoped as they did to have blasâ—ed the reputation of the holy Bishop by such a slander Touching the Books of God or Holy Scripture which I referred to this Title especially those which are for the publick service of God in the Church I adde this further That under that name I would have comprehended the senses words and phrases appropriated to the expression of Divine and Sacred things which a Religious ear cannot endure to
he blaspemes that God who brings that punishment upon them Eusebius lib. 4. Hist. Cap. 17. cites the same out of both with approbation So doth Oecumenius upon the last Chapter of the first of S. Peter Epiphanius against Heresie 39. gives the same as his own assertion almost in the same words with Iustin and Irenaeus though not naming them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Before the coming of Christ the Devil did not dare to speak a blasphemous word against his Lord for being in expectation of the coming of Christ he imagined he should obtain some mercy I will not enquire how true this Tenet of theirs is but only gather this that they could not think the Devils were cast into Hell before the coming of Christ For then how could they but have known they should be damned if the execution had already been done upon them Saint Augustine as may seem intending to reconcile these places of Peter and Iude with the rest of Scripture is alledged to affirm that the Devils suffering some Hell-like torment in their Aiery Mansion the Air may in that respect in an improper sense be called Hell But that the Devils were locally or Actually in Hell or should be before the Day of Iudgment it is plain he held not and that will appear by these two passages in his Book de Civitate Dei First where he saith Daemones in hoc quidem aere habitant quia de Coeli superioris sublimitate dejecti merito irregressibilis transgressionis in hoc sibi congruo velut carcere praedamnati sunt Lib. 8. Cap. 22. The Devils indeed have their habitation in this Air for they being cast out of the highest heaven through the due desert of their unrecoverable apostasie and transgression are fore-condemned and adjudged to be kept in this Aiery region as in a prison very congruous and fit for such transgressors The other in the same Book chap. 23. where he expounds that of the Devils Matth. 8. Art thou come to torment us before the time that is saith he ante tempus Iudicii quo aeternâ damnatione puniendi sunt cum omnibus etiam hominibus qui eorum societate detinentur before the time of the last Iudgment when they are to be eternally punished together with all those men who are entangled in their society The Divines of latter times the School-men and others to reconcile the supposed Contrariety in Scripture divide the matter holding some Devils to be in the Air as S. Paul and the History of Scripture tell us some to be already in Hell as they thought S. Peter and S. Iude affirm'd which opinion seems to be occasioned by a Quaere of S. Hierom's upon the sixth of the Ephesians though he speaks but obscurely and defines nothing But what ground of Scripture or Reason can be given why all the Devils which sinned should not be in the same Condition especially that Satan the worst and chief of them should not be in the worst estate but enjoy the greatest liberty It follows therefore that these places of S. Peter and S. Iude are to be construed according to the sense I have given of them namely That the evil Spirits which sinned being adjudged to Hellish torments were cast out of Heaven into this lower Region there to be reserved as in a prison for chains of darkness at the Day of Iudgment DISCOURSE V. 1 COR. 4. 1. Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God A Man would think at first sight that this Scripture did exceedingly warrant our use of the word Minister in stead of that of Priest and leave no plea for them who had rather speak otherwise Howsoever I intend at this time to shew the contrary and even out of this Text that we have very much swerved herein from the Apostles language and abuse that word to such a sense as they never intended nor is any where found in Scripture I favour neither superstition nor superstitious men yet truth is truth and needful to be known especially when ignorance thereof breedeth errour and uncharitableness My Discourse therefore shall be of the use of the words Priest and Minister wherein shall appear how truly we are all Ministers in our Apostle's sense and yet how abusively and improperly so called in the ordinary and prevailing use of that word I will begin thus All Ecclesiastical persons or Clergy-men may be considered in a Threefold relation First to God secondly to the People thirdly one toward another In respect to God all are Ministers of what degree soever they be because they do what they do by commission from him either more or less immediate for a Minister is he qui operam suam alicui ut superiori aut domino praebet who serves another as his Superior or Master In respect of the People all are Bishops that is Inspectores or Overseers as having charge to look unto them But lastly compared one to another he whom we usually call Bishop is only Overseer of the rest Inspector totius Cleri Deacons are only Ministers to the rest Ministri Presbyterorum Episcoporum and in that respect have their name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are properly but two Orders Ecclesiastical Presbyteri Diaconi the one the Masters Priests the other the Ministers Deacons The rest are but diverse degrees of these Two As Bishops are a degree of Presbyters of divine ordinance to be as Heads Chiefs and Presidents of their Brethren So Subâ—deacons Lectors and indeed any other kind of Ecclesiastical Ministers whether in Ecclesia or Foro Ecclesiastico I mean whether they attend divine Duties in the Church or Iurisdiction in Ecclesiastical Courts are all a kind of Deacons being to the Presbyters either single or Episcopal as the Levites were to the Sacerdotes in the Old Testament namely to minister unto or for them Thus when we say Bishops Presbyters and Deacons we name but two Orders yet three Degrees These grounds being forelaid and understood I affirm first That Presbyters are by us unnaturally and improperly called Ministers either of the Church or of such or such a Parish we should call them as my Text doth Ministers of God or Ministers of Christ not Ministers of men First Because they are only God's Ministers who sends them but the People's Magistri to teach instruct and oversee them Were it not absurd to call the Shepherd the Sheeps Minister If he be their Minister they surely are his Masters And so indeed the People by occasion of this misappellation think they are ours and use us accordingly Indeed we are called Ministers but never their Ministers but as you see here God's Ministers Christ's Ministers who imployeth us to dispense his Mysteries unto his Church There are Three words in the New Testament translated Minister 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—the first is most frequent but not one of them is given to the Apostles
their assembly mine honour be not thou united And thus much of our first Observation There is another Lesson yet more to be learned from this Act of the Angels namely That if they glorifie God for our Happiness and the Favour of God towards us in Christ much more should we glorifie and magnifie his Goodness our selves to whom solely this Birth and the benefit of this Birth redounds If they sing Glory be to God on high for his Favour toward men we to whom such Favour is shewn must not hold our peace for shall they for us and not we for our selves No the Quire of Heaven did but set us in we are to bear a part and it should be a chief part since the best part is ours As therefore the Church in her publick Service hath ever since kept it up so must every one of us in particular never let it go down or die in our hands THUS much of the Quire Now come we to the Amhem or Song it self whose contents are two First The Doxology or Praise Glory be to God on high Secondly A Gratulation rendring the reason thereof Because of Peace on earth Good-will towards men For the conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not to be taken here for a copulative but as Vau is frequently in the Hebrew for a conjunction causal or for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glory to God in the highest for that there is Peace on earth and Good-will towards men Or if we retain the copulative sense yet we must understand the words following as spoken by way of Gratulation Glory be to God on high and welcome Peace on earth Good-will towards men Or both causally and gratulatorily thus Glory be to God in the highest for ô factum bene there is Peace on earth and Good-will towards men To begin with the First The Doxology or Praise Glory be to God in the Highest that is Let the Angels glorifie him who dwell on high for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be referred to Glory and not to God the sense being Glorified be God by those on high and not God who dwells on high be glorified This may appear by the like expression in Psalm 148. 1 2. whence this Glorification seems to be borrowed Praise ye the Lord from the Heavens praise him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest Praise ye him all his Angels praise ye him all his Hosts And therefore Iunius for Praise ye the Lord from the Heavens hath Laudate eum coelites Praise him ye that dwell in Heaven The Chaldee for Praise him in excelsis hath Praise him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye high Angels In like manner here Gloria in excelsis Deo Glory to God in the highest are the words of the Angelical Quire inciting themselves and all the Host of Heaven to give glory and praise unto God for these wonderful tidings Now therefore let us see What this Glory is and How it is given to God To tell you every signification of the word Glory in Scripture might perhaps distract the hearer but would inform him little Nor will it be to purpose to reckon up every signification it hath when it is spoken of God I will therefore name only the two principal ones And first Glory when it is referred to God often signifies the Divine Presence or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in this Chapter a little before my Text when it is said The GLORY of the Lord shone round about the Shepherds and they were sore afraid But this is not the signification in my Text but another which I shall now tell you For Glory besides signifies in Scripture the high and glorious Supereminency or Majesty of God which consisteth in his threefold Supremacy of Power of Wisdom and of Goodness And as words of Eminency and Dignity with us as Majesty Highness Honour Worship are used for the Persons themselves to whom such Dignity belongeth as when we say his Majesty his Highness his Honour his Worship so in the Scripture and among the Hebrews His Glory or the Glory of the Lord is used to note the Divine Essence or Deity it self As in 2 Pet. 1. 17. There came a voice saith S. Peter from the excellent GLORY that is from God the Father This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Rom. 1. 23. the Gentiles are said to have changed the GLORY of the incorruptible God into the likeness of things corruptible As it is said in Psal. 106. 20. of the Israelites in the Wilderness that they changed their GLORY into the similitude of an Oxe that eateth grass S. Iohn chap. 1. 14. of his Gospel says of the Son We beheld his GLORY the glory as of the only-begotten Son of God According to which sense he is called Heb. 1. 3. The Brightness of his Father's glory and the express Image of his person where the latter words are an exposition of the former Image expounding Brightness and Person or Substance expounding Glory If Glory therefore signifie the Divine Majesty or Greatness to Glorifie or give Glory unto God is nothing else but to acknowledge and confess this Majesty or Greatness of His namely his Supereminent Power his Wisdom and Goodness for in the peerless supereminency of these Three under which all his other Attributes are comprehended his Glorious Majesty consisteth Take this withal That all the religious service and worship we give unto God whether we praise him pray or give thanks unto him is nothing else but the acknowledging of this Glory either in deed or word namely by confessing it or doing some act whereby we acknowledge it To come to particulars By our Faith we confess his Wisdom and Truth by our Thanksgiving his Goodness and Mercy when we Pray we acknowledge his Power and Dominion and therefore the form of prayer our Saviour taught us concludes For thine is the Kingdom Power and Glory In Praise we confess all these or any of them according to that in the Hymn of the Church Te Deum laudamus Te Dominum confitemur We praise thee O God we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All which is evident by those forms of Glorification set down in the Apocalyps which are nothing else but express and particular acknowledgements of the Greatness or Majesty of God and his peerless prerogatives When the four Wights are said to have given Glory Honour and Thanks to him that sate upon the Throne what was their Ditty but this Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created When the Lamb opened the Book with seven Seals the Wights the Elders and every creature in Heaven in earth and under the earth sung Worthy is the Lamb to receive Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honour and Blessing And again Blessing Honour Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and
a comparative prayer as if he had said Rather than either Poverty or Riches Give me O Lord if it be thy will the Mean between both Feed me with Food convenient for me For though all three estates be indifferent yet comparatively and for choice the middle is the best and happiest condition Such speeches by way of Opposition or Antithesis yet implying in their sense a choice or Protimesis are frequent in Scripture I will have mercy and not sacrifice not to be understood as though God forbade Sacrifice but thus I had rather have mercy than sacrifice So in S. Matthew Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth but lay up for your selves treasures in heaven not to be understood as a plain prohibition to lay up earthly treasures but by way of choice or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rather lay up treasures in heaven than treasures upon earth Have a greater care of the one than of the other And many the like for it is a frequent expression Thus having made the way plain and open to my Text I come now to consider the several parts thereof and First The Request or Thing prayed for where of the two ways whereby it is expressed I must for the more easie unfolding thereof begin with the Affirmative Feed me with Food convenient for me For if this be understood we cannot be long ignorant of the other If we know the Mean once which Agur chuseth we shall soon guess what he understands by Riches and Poverty the Extremes which he refuseth Feed me saith he with Food convenient for me This convenient food is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Panis dimensi mei The bread of my competent allowance The Septuagint turns it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Things fit and sufficient Symmachus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Competent diet The Chaldee Paraphrast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bread or Food sufficient for me for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies for it is the word for Sufficit in the 15. verse of this Chapter Four things say not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sufficit It is enough it is the word for Sufficient Exod. 36. 7. where it is said of the offering for the Tabernacle that which was offered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was sufficient for all the work and in 2 Sam. 24. 16. where God says of the plague 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sufficit It is enough Now by Bread or Food the Hebrew understands All provisions for the use of life so competent Food is a competent Maintenance Which to be the true meaning of this Panis dimensi Agur's deprecation of Poverty on the one side and of Riches on the other is a firm demonstration For what else can it be but a state of Competency which he begs as the Mean between Want and Superfluity And this is even that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that daily bread which Christ our Lord in his Prayer hath taught us all to pray for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as S. Luke hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Give us day by day our daily bread Where the meaning in general is indifferently well agreed upon but much ado there is what this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should signifie But not to trouble you with the rehearsal of so many varieties of interpretation as the singularity of this word hath begotten some nearer some altogether wide of the mark the plain truth is That as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word like unto this was first devised by the Septuagint so was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this prayer made by the Evangelists in imitation thereof neither of both being any where to be found but in Scripture only For the Septuagint of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying Abundantia Exuperantia abundance and superfluity formed the Adjective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to express the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Peculiar people rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Supernumerary people a people wherein God had a Superlative propriety and interest above and besides his common interest to all the Nations of the world For so he saith Exod. 19. 5. Thou shalt be unto me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Peculiar people above all people for all the earth is mine as if he should say But you shall be mine in a degree above the rest According to the Example and Analogy of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I say the Evangelists here formed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies an Abundance or Superfluity of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Being and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ultra or super as it were an Over-Being so would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie a Sufficiency as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is adequate to Being or as Suidas hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fit for our Being and Supportance Therefore as of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abundance the Septuagint made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abounding so the Evangelists of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sufficiency made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sufficient And this is agreeable to the Syriack Translation the Language our Saviour spake which hath here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The bread we have need of Thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Sufficient bread and opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Superfluous and Superabounding bread All which will appear most clearly and elegantly if we do but parallel these two words in the Petition by way of Antithesis in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Superfluous and Superabounding bread but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sufficient bread give us O Lord this day And thus we have seen that this Prayer of Agur in my Text is the self-same with that our Saviour taught us in the Gospel which Tremellius well observing in his most elegant Hebrew Catechism renders that petition in these very words of Agur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though our Saviour had reference to them Now for the right understanding of this Sufficiency we are to pray for we must know that a Competency is twofold Either in regard of Nature which sufficeth to support a man in his natural life and health or secondly a Competency in regard of a mans condition which is sufficient to support and maintain him in that condition order degree and calling wherein God hath placed him Both these degrees of Sufficiency are meant in the Prayer our Saviour taught us Give us this day our daily bread and in this of Agur Feed me with food convenient for me namely for Agur. For perhaps that may not be sufficient for Agur's condition which might suffice for another But if Agur's condition were such as some mans is that he needed no more than was convenient to maintain himself in his natural life and health then the Competency he must pray for is no more than a Competency
utmost with meditation prayer and practice But on the contrary we must resist and crush every exorbitant thought which draws to sin at the first rising Tutissimum est It is most safe saith S. Austin Epist. 142. for the Soul to accustom it self to discern of its thoughts ad primum animi motum vel probare vel reprobare quid cogitat ut vel bonas cognationes alat vel statim extinguat malas and at the first motion thereof either to approve or else to disallow what the Mind is thinking of and so either to cherish and improve the thoughts and motions of the Mind if goodâ— or presently to extinguish them if evil 3. Lastly Let him that will indeed guard his Heart as it should be take heed of familiar and friendly converse with lewd prophane and ungracious company There is a strange attraction in ill company to poison and pervert even the best dispositions He that toucheth pitch saith the Son of Sirach shall be defiled therewith Can a man take fire in his bosom saith Solomen and his clothes not be burnt For believe it when a man is accustomed once and wonted to behold lewd and ungodly behaviour there steals upon him insensibly first a dislike of sober courses next a pleasing approbation of the contrary and so presently an habitual change of affections and demeanour into the manners and conditions of our companions It is a point that many will not believe but few or none did ever try but to their cost It was wise counsel had it not been in a sinful business which Ieroboam advised If this people saith he go up to sacrifice at Ierusalem then shall the heart of this people turn again to their lord even to Rehoboam king of Iudah and they shall kill me and go again to Rehoboam king of Iudah O that some men would be as wise for their good as he was for his sin THUS I have done with the first part of my Text The Admonition Keep thy heart with all diligence or above all keeping Now I proceed to the Motive For out of it are the issues of life that is All spiritual life and living actions issue from thence All living devotion all living service and worship of God issues from the Heart from those cleansed and loyal affections and dispositions of the Soul and inward man whereof I spake before Where such a Heart is not the Fountain there no action to God-ward liveth but is spiritually dead how gay and glorious soever it may outwardly seem No outward performance whatsoever be it never so conformable and like unto a godly man's action yet if it be not rooted in the Heart inwardly sanctified it is no issue of spiritual life nor acceptable with God Even as Statues and Puppets do move their eyes their hands their feet like unto living men yet are they not living actions because they come not from an inward Soul the fountain of life but from the artificial poise of weights and device of wheels set by the workman So is it here with heartless actions they are like the actions of true Christians but not Christian actions because they issue not from a Heart sanctified with purity and loyalty in the presence of God who tries the heart and reins but from the poise of vain-glory from the wheels of some external respects and advantages from a rotten heart which wrought not for the love of God but for the praise of men As therefore we judge of the state of natural life by the Pulse and beating of the Heart so must we do of spiritual No member of the body performs any action of natural life wherein a Pulse derived from the Heart beats not So is it in the spiritual man and the actions of Grace That lives not which some gracious and affectionate influence from the Heart quickens not Now this Issuing of our works and actions from the Heart is that which is called Sincerity and Truth so much commended unto us in Scripture For this Sincerity and Truth which is said to be in the works and actions of all such as fear and serve the Lord with acceptance is nothing else but an agreement of the outward work seen of men with the inward and sutable affection and meaning of the heart which God and our selves alone are privie to For as our words and speeches have truth in them when we speak as we think so our works and actions are done in sincerity and truth when they are done according to our heart's affection Sincerity therefore and Truth is the life of all our works of devotion and obedience unto God without this they are nothing but a carkase they are dead they live not neither doth God accept them For he desireth truth in the inward parts Psal. 51. 6. that is truth which proceedeth or issueth from the inward parts The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him that call upon him in truth Psal. 145. 18. For God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Iohn 4. 24. Whatsoever ye do saith S. Paul Col. 3. 23. do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men Our faith must be unfeigned 1 Tim. 1. 5. that is in truth and in sincerity Also our Love must not be in speech and tongue only but in deed and truth 1 Iohn 3. 18. And this is the highest Perfection attainable in this life for which God accepteth of our obedience as perfect which springeth from it though it be stained with much corruption and full of imperfection That which is wanting in the measure of obedience and holiness is made up in the truth and sincerity thereof If it have not this whatsoever it be it is good for nothing because it wants the Issue of life And such Actions are all the Actions of Hypocrites For Hypocrisie is the contrary to Sincerity and wheresoever Sincerity and Truth is not there Hypocrisie is being nothing else but a counterfeiting and falsehood of our actions when they come not from a Heart sutably affected and therefore is otherwise in Scripture understood by the name of Guile when those who serve God in sincerity and truth are said to be without guile that is without hypocrisie So Nathanael Iohn 1. 47. is called an Israelite indeed in whom there was no guile And of the Virgin-Saints Rev. 14. 5. it is said that in their mouth was found no guile for they are without fault before the Throne of God that is they served God without hypocrisie in sincerity and truth and therefore God accepted of their obedience as if it were without fault and imperfection as he is wont to do the works of those who serve him in that manner If therefore Sincerity be the life of our obedience and that which makes it graceful in the eyes of God then is Hypocrisie the death thereof which makes him loath and abhor it as a stinking carkase Hitherto have I
spoken of the Influence of life into a Christian's actions in general But as in natural life so in spiritual are many Branches as the words of my Text imply speaking not singularly of one Issue but plurally of many Issues of life For that which lives exerciseth many living acts as so many streams flowing from the Fountain of life none of which belong unto that which liveth not These Issues in Nature are five Health Nourishment Growth Sense and Motion and the Heart is the Fountain of them all without it they are not they cannot be but as it fareth so fare they all The like unto these are to be found in our spiritual life of which I will speak somewhat in special the rather because every of them are as so many Motives to incite us to the attainment of this life to God-ward by serving him in Sincerity and Truth 1. The first Issue of Spiritual life flowing from the Heart is spiritual Health For the curing of our Souls of their Spiritual diseases must begin at the Hearts and the inward causes of corruption must thence be purged before there can be any true Reformation or sound Health in the outward parts Even as the heat of the Face is not much abated by casting water and cooling things upon it but by allaying inwardly the heat of the Liver Again That which seems to spring and flourish in our lives unless it be rooted in the Heart will wither and die The Fig-tree that only made a shew with leaves having no fruit in the end being cursed lost the leaves too wherewith it deceived our Saviour So the Seed which sprouted upon the stony ground is said to have withered because it had no root And if an Apple seem never so beautiful yet if it be rotten at the core it will quickly putrifie 2. The second Issue of spiritual life is spiritual Nutrition whereby the Soul continually feeds upon Christ in his Word and Sacraments But this is in none whose works and actions issue not from the Heart by Sincerity and Truth For where Hunger and Thirst is not the body is not nourished He must have a stomach to his meat that will have good by it Chewing in his mouth will not do it though he swallow it if his stomach be against it he will vomit it up again And can this spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst be where the inward man is not sanctified Can he have a Spiritual stomach whose heart is not cleansed 3. The third Issue of Spiritual life is spiritual Growth It is God's wont to reward the sincerity of a little grace with abundance of great graces Nathanael a man of no great knowledg yet being a true Israelite void of guile is further enlightened by our Saviour who gives him a sight of the true Messiah endues him with true faith and promises him still greater matters A weak and dim knowledg had the Eunuch and Cornelius in the Mystery of Godliness yet because they worshipped God sincerely an Evangelist was sent to the one and an Angel and an Apostle to the other to give them clearer light of the Gospel and a fuller largess of spiritual gifts The curse of God is upon Hypocrisie to destroy a great deal a great stock of grace but his blessing is upon Sincerity to improve a little portion to a greater measure A little Spring is better than a great Pond for in Summer when Ponds are dried up little Springs will still hold out 4. The fourth Issue of Spiritual life is spiritual Sense the Sense and feeling of the favour of God This no man shall ever find who lives not the life of sincerity For this is the most found and undeceivable evidence of our portion and interest in the power and purity of Christ's saving passion and sanctifying bloudshed 5. The fifth Issue of Spiritual life is spiritual Motion such I call Alacrity and Courage Sincerity is the cause of these It makes us chearful in all duties of service and obedience unto God it makes us valiant and courageous in all dangers trials and temptations begetting in us a true manly generous and heroical spirit The wicked saith Solomon Prov. 28. 1. flee when no man pursueth but the righteous are bold as a Lion DISCOURSE XXXVIII ISAIAH 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon I Will not speak of the coherence of these words for they are an entire sense of themselves and contain in them two parts First The Conversion of a sinner Secondly The Condition of one so converted The Conversion of a sinner is exprest in three degrees In the forsaking of wicked wayes In the forsaking of evil thoughts and thirdly In returning again unto the Lord. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord. The Condition or State wherein he stands who hath done all this is no state of Merit but of Mercy no not so much as a little Merit but even abundant Mercy If the Lord after all this accepts him it is because he will have mercy upon him if our God forgive he doth even abundantly pardon Of these I intend to speak in order and first of the First which is The Conversion of a sinner which is as I have said laid down in three degrees or steps the latter always excelling the former Even as in the Temple of Solomon he that would approach the Mercy-seat of God must ascend through three parts of the Temple the Court the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies So must he that will attain this Condition of Mercy mount these three steps of Repentance that he may enter into that glorious Sanctuary which is not made with hands where the great God that â—hews mercy unto thousands lives for ever and ever The first two of these forementioned degrees To forsake a wicked way To rid the heart of evil thoughts lest they seem but one thing expressed in many words I must handle both together that by comparing I may the better distinguish them As for the latter therefore of these words they have no great difficulty and therefore will not need much explication but in the former Let the wicked man forsake his way the Metaphor of way causeth some obscurity which I think is thus to be unfolded Every way implies a walking a way being that wherein men use to walk In whatsoever sense therefore the Metaphor of walking is taken elsewhere in Scripture in the same is way taken here But To walk in Scripture seems in a special and proper sense to signifie the outward life and conversation of men For as in the natural man the act of progression or moving to and fro is the most external act of all others and the most obvious to the sense of every one So in a man
fulfilled amongst us Christians the new people of God There were false Prophets among the people of Israel even so saith my Text were there to be false Teachers among Christians who should bring in damnable Heresies Which that you may the better do Know first that the Israelites did at no time altogether renounce the true and living God not in their worst times but in their conceit and profession they acknowledged him still and were called his people and he their God though they worshipped others besides him So Christians in their Apostasie neither did nor were to make an absolute Apostasie from God the Father and Christ their Redeemer but in outward profession still to acknowledge him and to be called Christians Secondly There are two main Apostasies of Israel recorded in Scripture The First is styled The sin of Ieroboam the son of Nebat as a principal establisher thereof And this was to worship the true God himself under an Image For he set up Calves at Dan and Bethel and consecrated them in this manner Behold Israel the Gods which brought thee out of the land of Egypt For those are Calves indeed which here think he took the Calves themselves to be Gods The truth was Because he would not have the people go to the Temple of Ierusalem where the Ark the pledge of God's presence was therefore he made these Calves in stead thereof supposing as the Gentiles did of their Gods that the true God would have yielded his presence to an Image made in honour of him And therefore they used when they came to make vows or oaths at the Calf to swear Iehovah liveth as Hosea 4. 15. When therefore our Papists worship God the Creator under an Image and Christ their Redeemer in a Cross Crucifix or in a piece of Bread this is the very same Apostasie with that of Ieroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin And as false Prophets taught Israel that so have false Teachers brought into Christendom the very same as you see was prophesied The Second main Apostasie of Israel is called The way of Ahab not because he was the first bringer in but the chief establisher thereof And this was not only to worship the true God idolatrously in an Image as Ieroboam did but to worship other Gods besides him namely Baal-gods or Baalim supposing either by these to have easier access unto the Lord of Hosts the Soveraign God or that these he might resort unto at all times and for all matters as being nearer at hand and not of so high a Dignity whereas the Soveraign God Iehovah the God of Israel either managed not smaller and ordinary matters or might not be troubled with them For such as I told you was the conceit of the Heathen as that the Souls of some great ones after death had the honour to be as Agents betwixt the Soveraign and Superior Gods and men as being of a middle nature between them which in Greek are called Daemons in the Scriptures Baalim When therefore those who are called Christians and have given their faith to Christ Iesus to be their only Mediator and royal Agent between them and his Father when these do worship and invocate Saints or Angels whether with Images or without to be as under-Mediators with God for them or of themselves to bestow some favour upon them those who do this as you know who do are fallen into the Apostasie of Ahab and are worshippers of Baalim For the Idolatry of Saints is altogether the same with that of Baalim HAVING therefore thus seen the verity of S. Peter's Prophecy for the first mark to know of what kind of Heresie should be the Christian Apostasie even like unto that of Israel now let me tell you what use to make of S. Peter's comparison and thus coupling the one by the other First That wheresoever you read in Scripture of the Idolatry of Ieroboam's Calves and of Ahab's Baalim you think of what I have told you and know that whatsoever God speaks against those things there the same he speaks of the Apostate Christians under Rome whose case is in all respects the same If therefore other points be hard and such as you cannot understand yet this of Idolatry is an easie mark for you to know the true Church from the false by and almost every leaf in the Scripture will help you Bless the Lord therefore and never cease to bless him who hath delivered us from those woful abominations and Idolatries wherewith the Church was so long overwhelmed and hath restored unto us the sincerity of his Gospel Secondly Seeing the Holy Ghost hath taught us here to compare the Christian's Apostasie with that of Israel we may hereby learn also what was the state and condition of true Christian Believers under the Apostasie of Antichrist namely the same with the true Israelites under the Apostasie of Israel Where was the true Church in Ahab's time was it not covered so under the Apostate Israelites that Elias himself who was one of it could scarce find it 1 Kings 19. 10. Where was the company of true worshippers in Manasses time the worst time of all or had the Lord no Church at all Yes he had a Church even then even hidden in the body of that Idolatrous Nation yea a strong party though not seen as appeared presently upon Manasses death when Iosiab came to reign who at eight years of age a very child yet was able to reform all again When therefore the Papists shall ask us where our Church was before Luther let us answer She was as the true Israelites were then buried under the Apostate body of Christendom she was even there whence God in his good time called her out viz. she was in the Spiritual Babylon If Rome now be Babylon and your Mother-Church that ancient Spouse of Christ which hath been so long an abominable Strumpet committing Fornication with strange Gods as we are sure she is we cannot chuse but know where ours was in the mean time until it pleased God to call her thence even amongst you she was then and where she is now you know and shall one day feel until you bite your tongues for pain But how could the faithful company of Christ live in the midst of Idolaters and have means of Salvation I answer Even as the true Israelites lived in the midst of the Apostasie of Israel But you may ask further When the face of the Church and the whole visible worship therein was so universally stained with abominable Idolatries how and whereby should a man gather that there were any such sincerer company amongst them who had not defiled their garments I might tell you that Histories though written by our enemies do mention many such discovered at several times But I will give you another sign to know it namely The light of God's word and some other Divine Truths still remaining For it was not so much
one and the other were Spiritual or Sacramental namely in being Signs resembling and assuring Christ with the Spiritual Blessings through him 3. In what sense these Sacraments are said to be the same with ours to wit not in the Signs but in the Spiritual thing signified which is the Soul and Essence of a Sacrament We come now to such Observations as these Words and Explications will afford us The first whereof is That if the Seals and Sacraments under the Law were the same with ours then must they also have the same Covenant of Grace with us for the Sacraments are Seals of the Covenant If the Seals then were the same as our Apostle affirmeth how should not the Covenant also be the same and seeing their Sacraments were differing in the Signs from ours how could they be any way the same with ours but only in what they sealed and signified The Fathers therefore were saved by Grace and through Christ as well as we So true is that the Apostle says Acts 4. 12. There is no other name under Heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved For Iesus Christ as it is Heb. 13. 8. is the same yesterday and to day and for ever that is He was a Saviour of old is still and shall be for ever hereafter This is that which S. Peter yet more expresly affirmeth Acts 3. 25. saying Ye are the children of the Prophets and of the Covenant which God made with our Fathers saying to Abraham And in thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed Yea not only from Abraham but even from that time when God said The seed of the Woman shall break the Serpent's head was this Covenant made with men and at length diversly shadowed in the Types and Sacrifices of the Law until Christ himself was revealed in the flesh For the better understanding of this we must know what a Covenant is and what are the kinds thereof A Covenant is as it were a Bargain between God and man wherein God promises some Spiritual good to us so we perform some duty unto him if not then to incur everlasting punishment This Covenant is of two sorts the one is called The Covenant of Works the other The Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Works is wherein God on his part makes us a promise of Eternal life if we on our part shall perform exact obedience unto his Law otherwise to be everlastingly condemned if we fail The Covenant of Grace or of the Gospel is wherein God on his part promises us sinners Christ to be our Saviour and Redeemer if we on our part shall believe on him with a lively and obedient faith otherwise to be condemned The Covenant of Works God made with man at his Creation when he was able to have kept the conditions he required but he through his disobedience broke it and so became liable to death doth Corporal and Spiritual And though the Covenant of Grace then took place as we have said yet was the former Covenant of Works still in force until Christ who was promised should come in the flesh And therefore was this Covenant renewed under Moses with the Israelites when the Law was given in Horeb as Moses sayes Deut. 5. 2. The Lord God made a Covenant with us in Horeb. For all the time under the Law the open and apparent Covenant was the Covenant of Works to make them the more to see their own misery and condemnation and so to long after Christ who was yet to come and at whose coming this obligation should be quite cancelled Yet nevertheless together with this open Covenant there was a secret and hidden Covenant which was the Covenant of Grace that they might not be altogether without the means of Salvation whilst Christ yet tarried This truth is plain Gal. 3. 17 c. where the Apostle affirms That the Covenant of Grace in Christ was four hundred and thirty years afore the Law was given and that therefore the Law could not disannul it or make it of none effect but that the Law so he calls the Covenant of Works was only added to it because of transgressions until the blessed Seed should come v. 19. and that it might be a Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ v. 24. For in the Moral Law of God under whose curse they stood bound they might as in a Glass see their sin their guilt their want of Righteousness and in their Ceremonies and Sacrifices they might again as in Shadows of Heavenly things behold the means of their Reconciliation through his bloud who was to be slain and offered to God for them Now though this Covenant of Grace afore Christ be the same for substance with that under which we are now since his coming yet the circumstances and outward fashion thereof are so varied that the Scripture for this regard makes of this one Covenant two Covenants calling one the Old Covenant for the old manner thereof under the Law and the other a New Covenant for the new manner thereof now the Gospel is revealed Having therefore already seen the agreement and onâ—ness of them for the inward part let us now behold their differences for the outward fashion and so we shall see that as the Fathers ate the same Spiritual meat and drank the same Spiritual drink and yet there was some difference in them so the Fathers were under the same Covenant of Grace with us and yet after a different fashion This difference S. Paul Gal. 4. 1. c. setteth forth thus by a similitude The heir as long as he is a child c. i. e. The difference of the condition of those afore Christ and since is but as the condition of Heirs when they are under age and when they come to full years They are Heirs and Lords of all in both conditions as well in one as the other only the difference is that in the one condition they are in the state of Servants under Tutors and Governors in the other they enjoy the freedom of Sons So the faithful in the Law enjoyed the same Covenant of Grace with us but under the bondage of worldly Elements but we now have the same in a state of freedom as not held under such burthensome Elements and Pedagogies as they were But elsewhere he shews this difference more expresly both on God's part and our part First On our part Heb. 8. and elsewhere thus The Old Covenant which required so many external services is called a carnal Covenant the New wherein no such are required but works of the Spirit only is a Spiritual Covenant whereof God means when he saith v. 10. I will put my Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts and so he will be their God and they shall be his people For in the Old Covenant he wrote a Law as it were upon their hands and fleshly members in that he required so many fleshly washings and sprinklings and
novissimos decem Reges in quos divideretur regnum illorum super quos Filius perditionis veniet Cornua dicit decem nasci Bestiae c. The prophet Daniel eying the end of the Fourth or Last Kingdom that is those Ten Kings into whom their Kingdom should be divided and upon whom the Son of Perdition should come viz. the Little Horn that should domineer and overtop them saith chap. 7. that the Beast had Ten Horns grow out of his Head and that there came up among them another little Horn and that before this Horn Three of the first Horns were pluck'd up by the roots Yea a little after he tells us that S. Iohn in his Ten Kings which should receive their Kingdoms at one hour with the Beast expounds this of Daniel Manifestius adhuc de novissimo tempore de his qui sunt in eo decem Regibus in quos dividetur quod nunc regnat Imperium significavit Ioannes Domini discipulus in Apocalypsi edisserens quae suerint decem cornua quae à Daniele visa sunt c. What was before prophesied concerning the Last Times and the Ten Kings therein amongst whom the Empire that now reigns should be divided Iohn the disciple of our Lord hath more clearly exprest in his Apocalypse where he tells what those Ten Horns were which Daniel saw viz. Ten Kings which had received no Kingdom as yet but were to receive power as Kings one hour with the Beast Chap. 17. 12. Nay S. Ierome in his Comment upon this seventh chapter of Daniel will give us to understand that all the Ecclesiastical Writers delivered this to be the true exposition For having there confuted Porphyrie who to derogate from the divinity of this Prophecy would have it meant of Antiochus Epiphanes and therefore written when the Event was past he concludeth thus Ergo dicamus quod omnes Scriptores Ecclesiastici tradiderunt In consummatione inundi quando regnum destruendum est Romanorum decem futuros reges qui â—rbem Romanum inter se dividant undecimum surrecturum esse Regem parvulum qui tres reges de decem regibus superaturus sit in quo totus Satanas habitaturus sit corporaliter Let us therefore affirm agreeably to the concurrent judgment of all Ecclesiastical Writers That in the consummation of the world when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed there shall arise Ten Kings who shall share the Roman world among themselves and that an Eleventh King the little Horn in Dan. 7. shall arise who shall subdue Three of those Ten Kings in which little Hornish Tyrant Satan shall dwell entirely and bodily Who these three Kings were which this Horn displanted to make himself elbow-room you shall hear more anon But I will not conceal that I have heard of another Exposition which fits our turn for the Beginning of the Apostasie no less than that of the Fathers namely That by Ten Kingdoms may be meant the full Plurality of the Roman Provinces so much whereof as Three is of Ten should have the Imperial power rooted out of them and fall under the Dominion of the Antichristian Horn who should act the Sovereignty of the Latter times or the last Sovereignty of that Kingdom Now it is most true that the Pope's Patriachdom in the West holds just that scantling of the ancient Territory of the Roman Empire which a man may judge by his eyes or compasses in a Map and yet I prefer the other Exposition before it To come to an issue It is apparent by all that hath been said that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latter times with that wicked Sovereignty which should domineer in them were to take beginning from the wound the fall the ruine the rending in pieces or rooting up of the Imperial Sovereignty of the City of Rome When that City should cease to be the Lap of that Sovereignty which the Caesars once held over the Nations and many new upstart Kings should appear in the place and Territory of that once-one Empire then should the Apostasie be seen and the Latter times with that Wicked one make their entrance Now in what Age this fell out I think no man can be ignorant who hath but a little skill in History CHAP. XIV That we are not to reckon the Latter Times or the Times of the Empire 's ruine and the Apostasie attending from the full height thereof This illustrated from other Computations in Scripture The Three main Degrees of the Roman Empire's Ruine Who are those 3 Kings whom the Little Horn or Antichrist is said in Dan. 7. to have displanted or deprest to advance himself About what time Saint-worship began in the Church That we are not too curiously to enquire from which of the 3 degrees of the Empire 's ruine the Apostatical or Latter Times take their beginning BUT you will say The Imperial Sovereignty of Old Rome fell not all at once but had divers steps and degrees of Ruine so that the doubt will be notwithstanding from which of these steps of the Fall thereof these Latter times must be reckoned I answer From any of them For as the Imperial Sovereignty fell by degrees so the Apostasie under the lattermost Sovereignty grew up also by degrees and for every degree which the ruinous Empire decayed was the rising Son of perdition a degree advanced Secondly All the main and evident degrees of the Empire 's ruine fell in the compass of an Age and the knowledge and observation of that Age only within which the Times of this Fall are comprehended was sufficient both to warn them who then lived that that which should come was then a coming and to inform us who now live that it is already come Now which were these main and evident degrees of the Empire 's falling and at what time I will tell you as soon as I have removed an usual mistake in this business which is to reckon the times of the Empire 's ruine and so likewise of the Apostasie attending it only from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full height thereof But this is too much against Reason and not agreeable to the course we otherwise use in the like For as when we reckon the Age of a man we reckon not from the time since he came to mans estate but from the time of his birth so should we do here for the Times of the Man of sin I say not we should begin to count his Age from his conception for that we use not in other things but from the time he was first editus in lucem when he first began to appear in the world and so likewise the Fall of the Empire and the Apostasie not from the time they were consummate but from the time they first evidently appeared As therefore I hold their opinion the best and most agreeable to truth who begin the 70 years of the Iewish captivity in Babylon not from the consummation thereof under Zedekiah when the City and
way Howsoever it be I see no way but this to keep the Syntax true and even and wholly to avoid the fore-mentioned inconveniences which as it is easie and obvious and not strained so I hope to let you see the Event to have been most answerable thereunto That this was the Manner and this the Means this the Quality of the Persons whereby the Doctrine of Damons was first brought in advanced and maintained in the Church viz. Through the hypocerisie feigning craft or counterfeiting of those who told lies of those who had their consciences seared c. As for the use of the Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie causam instrumentum or modum actionis he that is not a stranger in the Scripture knows it to be most frequent the Greek Text borrowing it from the use of the Hebrew Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Hebrews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as when it signifies In 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Subjecti But two or three examples will not do amiss Matth. 5. 13. If the salt hath lost its savour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith shall it be salted Acts 17. 31. Because God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the man whom he hath ordained 2 Pet. 3. 1. I stir up your pure minds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of remembrance Tit. 1. 9. That he may be able 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by sound doctrine to exhort and convince the gainsayers And most naturally to the business we have in hand 2 Thess. 2. 9 1◠of the Man of sin Whose coming saith the Apostle is after the working of Satan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all power and signs and lying wonders or through them and through all deceivableness of unrighteousness c. So in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. through the hypocrisie of Liers c. CHAP. II. The words of the Text explained That for the Character or Quality of the Persons that made way for or brought in the Great Apostasie some were Liers some had seared Consciences some forbade Marriage and Meats others were guilty of all these imputations What is meant by The Hypocrisie of Liers That this appeared in 3 things 1. Lies of Miracles 2. Fabulous Legends 3. Counterfeit Writings under the name of Antiquity That Lies of Miracles appear'd in 1. Their Forgery 2. Illusion 3. Misapplication What is meant by Having seared Consciences That the strange and indecent Tales wherewith the Legends and the like Writings are stuft argue those that did either vent or believe them to be men of seared that is hard and unfeeling consciences Some Instances of the indecency of those Stories NOW for the unsolding of the words this must first be observed in general That they are not to be so understood as if those who are the bringers in and advancers of the Doctrine of Daemons should every one of them be guilty of all the several imputations in this Description but they are to be construed rather as an Asyndeton by understanding the Conjunction as if it had been uttered thus Through the hypocrisie of Liers and Through the hypocrisie of men of seared consciences and lastly By the hypocrisie of those who forbid marriage and meats or thus Through the hypocrisie partly of Liers partly of men of seared consciences partly of those who forbid marriage and command to abstain from meats that so though many were guilty of all yet some may be exempt from some as namely some might be guilty of the last note of forbidding marriage and abstaining from meats and yet free of the former of being counterfeit Liers and men of seared Consciences which I speak for reverence of some of the Ancients who though otherwise holy men yet cannot be acquitted from some of the imputations here mentioned nor altogether excused from having an hand accidentally through the Fate of the times wherein they lived in laying the ground-work whereon by others the Great Apostasie was builded This therefore being remembred I come now to the unfolding of them in several and first of the first The hypocrisie of Liers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies dissimulation a feigning counterfeiting a semblance and shew of that which is not so indeed as it seemeth And this word we must repeat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as belonging in common to the rest which follows For all should be counterfeit Lying should carry the counterfeit of Truth the seared Conscience a semblance of Devotion the Restraint of Marriage should be but a shew of Chastity and Abstaining from meats a false appearance of Abstinence For the Persons of whom they are spoken should either make a shew of what themselves knew was not or that which they thought they had should be no better than a false shew and counterfeit of that they took it for The Vulgar Latine in Mark 12. 15. and the Syriack in the same place turn the word Hypocrisie versutia dolus craft and subtilty which sense if need were would not be denied admittance here But I return to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Hypocrisie of Liers which I conceive to be the same and no other than that which our Apostle speaks in the same case 2 Thess. 2. where he tells us That the coming of the Man of sin and the Apostasie attending him should be after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of unright ousness or unrighteous and ungodly deceiving and that God should send them strong delusions that they might believe a lie c. Yea some of this and of that which follows in that place may extend also to the rest which follows in my Text howsoever the most thereof as you hear doth most evidently expound this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Hypocrisie of Liers Now according to the Event this Hypocrisie of Liers doth appear in three things 1. Lies of Miracles 2. Fabulous Legends of the Acts of Saints and Sufferings of Martyrs 3. Counterfeit Writings under the name of the best and first Antiquity Lies of Miracles will display their Hypocrisie in three particulars 1. Forgery 2. Illusion 3. Misapplication 1. Forgery of Miracles never done as were the reports of wondrous Dreams and Visions which had no other credit but the Author's honesty or miraculous Cures by the power and Reliques of Saints deceased as when those who never were blind made others believe they had newly received sight 2. Illusion when though something were done yet it was but a seeming and a counterfeit only of a miraculous work indeed some jugling trick of the Devil or his instruments 3. Lastly Misapplication either when that was attributed to a Divine power which was nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work and operation of the Devil or when it was interpreted or abused to invite and confirm men in some Idolatrous
Daniel's Vision of Four Beasts omits the first which was to be while the Fourth Beast yet lived and designs the last only when that ruffling Horn's time being finished and the Beast destroyed The Ancient of daies gives the Son of man a Kingdom wherein all nations tongues and people should serve and obey him Dan. 7. 13. The Reason Nebuchadnezzar a Gentile was a Type of the Gentiles who were to have their part in both estates of Christ's Kingdom wherefore both are shewn him Daniel a Iew was a Type of the Iews whoâ—e nation should have no share in the first but only in the last and therefore the last is only shewn him This Vniversal Kingdom of the Son of man revealed in the clouds of heaven which Daniel here saw and which the Angel expounds to be the Kingdom of the Saints of the most High is the same with that voiced in the Apocalyps upon the sound of the seventh Trumpet All the Kingdoms of the World are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Compare them Whence it will follow That those finishing times of the Fourth Beast called A Time Times and half a Time during which that wicked Horn should domineer and ruffle it among his ten Kings are the self-same Time which the Angel in S. Iohn forewarn thâ— should be no longer as soon as the seventh Angel began to sound Chap. 10. 6. The self-same Times whose finishing the same Angel swears unto Daniel in the same form and gesture he doth to S. Iohn should be the period of those wondrous afflictions of the Church and of the scattering of the power of the holy people Dan. 12. 7. And consequently those very Times of the Gentiles whereof our Saviour speaks Luke 21. 24. that the treading down of Ierusalem and dispersion of the Iews should last until the Times of the Gentiles were finished even the same Times whereof Tobit harped Chap. ult That notwithstanding Iudah should again after a while return and build a second Temple yet should not the Vniversal restitution be nor Israel return from all places of their Captivity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly the same Times with S. Iohn's Apocalyptical Times of the renewed Beast's blasphemous reign and profanation of the Temple and City of God forty two months or 1260 days Forasmuch as the same Kingdom of our Lord Christ is the immediate and common consequent to them all Compare them When Daniel's times are done the Son of man comes in the clouds of heaven to receive the Empire of all the Kingdoms of the world Dan. 7. 14. When S. Lukes times of the Gentiles are finished then shall be Signs in the Sun and Moon the Son of man comes also in the clouds of heaven ver 27. the redemption of Israel ver 28. and the Kingdom of God is at hand ver 31. When S. Iohn's Apocalyptical Beasts forty two months reign with the Witnesses 1260 days mourning determine the Ark of the Covenant is seen in heaven and all the Kingdoms of the world become the Kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ Apocal. 11. 15. ad finem An APPENDIX The First coming of Christ was to be while the Fourth Kingdom was yet in being his Second when it should end The hewing of the Stone out of the mountain which is the rearing of the Kingdom of Christ was before it smote the Image upon the feet and upon the destruction thereof became so great a Mountain as filled the whole earth Therefore the hewing out of this Stone was while this Image was yet in being Daniel himself interprets the Stone to be the Kingdom of Christ not Christ himself and saies that the God of heaven should set it up in the days of those Kings or Kingdoms that is adhuc currente horum Regum periodo vel diebus Tetrarchiae hujus nondum expletis whilest the daies of those Kingdoms of the Gentiles yet lasted or before they expired namely whilst the last of those Kingdoms was still current and in being He that shall here expound in the daies to mean after the days shall give me leave not to believe him unless also he can perswade me that the Stone which smote the Image was hewed out of the mountain after the Image was dashed in pieces and vanished The Iews in our Saviour's time expected the Messiah's coming before the times of the Fourth Kingdom expired For they looked it should be destroyed by him after he was come and then the Kingdom restored to Israel According to that of Dan. 7. when the Beast should be slain and his body destroyed the Kingdom should be given to the people of the Saints of the most High Only they thought not the distance between the first coming of Christ and his destruction of the Fourth Beast to be so long Whence was that question of the Apostles to our Saviour at his Ascension Wilt thou now restore the Kingdom to Israel But I am gone much further than ever I intended and therefore will here make an end I make question whether you can read my scribling If you can I hope you will excuse my hast And so I commend you to the divine protection and am Your loving Friend Ioseph Mede Christ's Colledge Iuly 22. EPISTLE IX Mr. Hayn's Third Letter to Mr. Mede about several passages in Daniel and the Revelation SIR I Confess that conference by writing multiplies words by giving more scope to deliberation and may justly make you backward to Collations in this kind But the disquisition and finding of truth countervails all than which I seek nothing more by this my pains To that part of your answer received Iuly 22. I have inclosed a Reply and expect the rest of your Answer formerly intended when you should return to Cambridge And now to this present Reply as your occasions will permit Such Writings as I have seen of yours testifie to me both your plentiful reading and diligent observation of matters most remarkable therein as also I am perswaded in this Argument Yet cannot all that yet you have said drive me from my hold I reverence the Learned on both sides and will ever give them all duerespect and will not be found to stand single in any opinion But the persons of men shall not sway me against the native light of the Sacred Text which I know makes for me If Alsted and some others have lest their Masters in some of these points I think we shall find others as Glassius of equal judgment to Alsted to run this way But 't is to be considered herein not so much Qui dicunt pro auâ— contra as Quid dicunt And therefore I will not put into the scales mens Authority but their Reasons And hope that after your perusal of this present Reply you will be more inclinable to a different judgment from some of your former Tenets And thus leaving you to the protection and direction of the God of Truth I rest Your very loving Friend Tho. Hayne
Octob. 8. 1629. from Christ's Hospital London THE ground of the expectation of the coming of Christ and his Kingdom was say you the near expiration of Daniel's Seventy weeks The expectation of Simeon Anna and others of the Magi and them of the East was seventy years before the end of Daniel's Seventy weeks according to your opinion For you hold that the Seventy weeks end at Ierusalem's overthrow which was after Christ's Birth seventy years Therefore it could not be any mark for the looking for of Christ. 2. At the end of the Seventy weeks according to your judgment the City and Sanctuary was to be destroyed sacrifice ended and desolation brought on the Iews Therefore the Seventy weeks according to your Tenet is a mark of other matters not of Christ's or the Saints Kingdom but rather of Vespasian's as Iosephus saith which ensued just upon the end of the Seventy weeks But in truth Daniel's Seventy weeks end at Christ's death and seeing Christ was expected to be King of the Iews all that truly kept account of the Seventy weeks might rightly conceive that Christ about thirty years before the expiration of the Seventy weeks should be born and so about thirty years old which are years fit for publick charge should enter upon that Kingdom Of this reason I forbore to write formerly because I saw that we should differ about the beginning and end of Daniel's Seventy weeks which would bring on a new controversie between us That Christ's Kingdom was as you affirm to be revealed in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Fourth Kingdom I see no Text that proves it nor that Christ's Kingdom should be consummated at the end of the Roman Kingdom At the end of the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel it was to begin Chap. 7. And that it was perfected in Christ Iesus is evident for he overcame the Devil Death Hell and all and teaches that all power is given him in heaven and earth that all things bow to him and that he led captivity captive Further I have good ground for to say that the extirpation of the Fourth Kingdom was one sâ—re mark of Christ's coming and his Kingdom for that only is the mark of the same Chap. 2. and 7. where that Kingdom is mentioned You will not admit the Greeks any Rule after Antiochus Epiph. death because the Holy Ghost ends their Kingdom in him I say the Holy Ghost ends the domineering violence and persecution of the Saints in him but there were to be clayie feet after him Stories shew that many Kings of the Greeks ruled after him and in the end Cleopatra a woman as Iosephus saith of chief Nobility in those times even Caesar at first umpired between her and her brother in matters of difference between them She had the revenue of Iericho and Arabia and other parts she killed all her kindred that might stand in her wayâ— and desired Antonie to do the like by them of chief bleâ—d in Syria that she in right of the Greeks might have all She with the rest after Epiphanes were sufficient to express the clayie legs And that Rule is sufficient and all that I stand for Besides the Stone as cut out not as growing to a Mountain is to fall on the toes So that if by the legs the Romans be understood Christ was not to come in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but at their fall Evident it is that Christ's Kingdom took place as frequent mention of it in the New Testament shews at his first coming and so began at the beginning of the Roman persecutions not at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of them they were abundant and manifold afterward The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their Empire hath nothing to do here You hold still that the Roman Kingdom was revealed to Daniel but not according to the distinct Fates and Times as to Iohn I shewed that the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel was revealed to him most distinctly for the original proceeding strength acts persecution sufferings fall All the 〈◊〉 are revealed to Iohn about the Roman Kingdom Now if they should both speak of the Roman Kingdom but in these points 〈…〉 it be true in Iohn that this Book was opened by none as you limit it according 〈…〉 distinct Fates before by Christ Therefore the limitation propounded by you cannot hold I say not that the Iews after the Apostles times brought in or invented the opinion That the Romans were Daniel's Fourth Kingdom but that they endeavoured to perswade it whoever were the brochers of it Ionathan Ben Uziel or any other surely some of their stamp And the rather they then did and now do perswade to it because some Christians by assenting to them give them advantage therein If Porphyrie an enemy to Christians overcome by the evidence of truth confessed it that is a greater confirmation of the truth The Devil confessed Christ to be the Son of the living God though the Devil be a liar commonly yet now he spake that which was most true Besides in S. Ierome it appears that Porphyrie was not alone in that opinion but that divers others held the same And in the eleventh chapter S. Ierome goes along with Porphyrie in most things but addeth this That Antichrist and his doings were there typed And in points in which S. Ierome crosseth Porphyrie his arguments are sometimes but his own bare assertion sometimes weak If you please to set the best edge on them that may be we will try them And Porphyrie had Suctorius his Author To the writing in a different hand You hold Christ's Kingdom to be double First Regnum Lapidis while the times of the Four Kingdoms lasted I say it cannot be in the time of the three former Kingdoms for it was preached by Christ and the Apostles to be at hand in the time of the Romans Antiochus Epiphanes his time whom you make the last of the Greeks being past well-near or full hundreds of years before Besides I object That if Christ's Kingdom be set up in the Fourth Kingdom 's time it must be set up in the three formers time also For it confounded the gold silver brass iron as well as fell on the clayie legs Again if you make the Sâ—one to continue a Stone from Christ's time till ours and some years after God knows how long to smite the feet of the Image you will make the legs and feet of the Image above 1600 years long three times and more as long as all the body The Second Kingdom of Christ you hold to be Regnum montis that shall fill the whole earth to arise when the Image shall be utterly destroyed 1. I say This division of Christ's Kingdom is no where in Scripture plainly expressed though this Kingdom be most frequently handled If such a thing had been it would in one place or other in the various handling of it have been plainly taught 2. The Stone spreads it self over the whole earth presently
The third day Herbanus required to end the controversie that if Iesus of Nazareth were indeed living and reigning in Heaven and if those who worshipped him had any power with him that he would upon their prayers manifest himself from Heaven and they would then believe in him Thereupon all the multitude of Iews cried out in derision Ostende nobis Christum tuum Vae quia fiemus Christiani c. The conclusion was that Christ Iesus after a dreadful Thunder and Lightning appeared from Heaven with beams of glory walking upon a purple cloud with a Sword in his hand and a Diadem of inestimable beauty upon his head and over the Assembly uttered a voice Appareo vobis in oculis vestris ego crucifixus à Patribus vestris Which having spoken the cloud took him presently out of their sight The Christians shouted Domine miserere the Iews were all stricken blind and received not their sight till they were all baptized This Story whereof I tell you but the brief hath been long unknown to these Western parts and was brought in our time from the Eastern among divers other Greek Manuscripts and published in Greek and Latin by Nicolaus Gulonius in octavo under the name of Gregentii Archiepiscopi Tephrensis Disputatio cum Herbano Iudaeo The beginning is imperfect In the end is the Story I have related I have seen and used that Book but could not be owner of it But the Latin translation is inserted into the Bibliotheca Patrum of the edition of Colen in the fifth Tome pag. 919. which if you read I could wish you would joyn with it the Story of the Martyrium Omeritarum published by Baronius out of a Vatican Manuscript in his sixth Seculum about the middle It is worthy your reading and supposed to have happened a little before this Conversion of the Iews I speak of which Baronius nevertheless then knew not of as being published after he had written that Tome The Persecution was raised by Dunaan a Iew who had gotten the Kingdom of the Omerites and meant to extinguish the Christian City and Dition of Nargan which was subject as many other small Reguli were to that Kingdom c. If this Story be true it makes much for a probability of such a conjecture for the future If it be counterfeit at least it argues that some many ages ago thought such a mean not unlikely For Poets themselves are wont to feign Verisimilia So howsoever I am not the first that thought of such a matter That which you say of S. Paul's miraculous Conversion that by it he had Apostolical authority immediate and independent as having his Mission from Heaven and not from Men I acknowledge it But that this should be the only end of his so being converted I suppose it is not necessary For it might have pleased God to have converted him by an ordinary mean and yet have given him a Mission for his Apostleship by an immediate and extraordinary way The immediateness of Apostolical Mission depended not upon such a miraculous Conversion though it pleased God at one and the same time by one and the same miraculous manifestation both to convert him to the Faith of Christ and send him to be an Apostle to the Gentiles But it is now time to give over I have been tedious and troublesome I know and perhaps not well busied in spending so many words and paper about a wavering and uncertain Speculation But because in my first Letter I had unawares discovered my fancy I was somewhat solicitous till I had more fully explained my self lest I might seem to believe much upon very little reason or be supposed to be more confident in this conceit than I am But he that seeks for that which is yet to find must be poring as well where it is not as where it is God Almighty the Father of Lights direct us in the search of his Truth and give us grace when we find it to use it to his Glory and our own Salvation To whose protection I commend your self not forgetting my best respect who am Your assured Friend Ioseph Mede Christ's Colledge Decemb. 2. 1629. I shall bid you farewel for this year and write shorter Letters the next that so I may hold out I have made a saltus in my Meditations by these Discourses of the Great Day I am not come to it yet I have much to think of and bring to more perfection which is preceding to it The Witnesses Dragon Beast c. EPISTLE XVIII Mr. Mason's Letter to Mr. Mede touching the Millenaries Good Mr. Mede I Think my self much indebted unto you that you do so freely communicate unto me your learned Writings I wish I had been more conversant in studies of this nature that I might in some sort be able to talk with you in your own language But you have had the happiness to follow these studies with good leisure and much opportunity and I to say nothing of other wants have been hindred both with businesses of my place and weakness of my body that I have scarce had time to think on any thing but what hath been necessary for my present imployment and so it happeneth to me in my studies as to poor men in getting of their living we have nothing but from hand to mouth The consciousness of these wants maketh me to write so seldom and so slightly Else if I had any thing in my thoughts that might be fit for your reading I would be as free in communicating my studies with you as you are in imparting yours unto me especially in this business wherein you have travelled with such success I only now can say that I wish I may see the full finishing of your intended Work and so do others abroad also but yet I had rather stay your leisure till you have concocted all according to your mind than to hasten you forward before the time Dr. Potter hath read your former Papers which you committed to Mr. D. and by occasion thereof hath proceeded to read others of the same Argument which when I understood I desired him to peruse two Writings of Dr. Gerhard of the same Argument both purposely intended against the Millenaries the one is in the second part of his Disputationes Theologicae Disp. 3. de novis Fanaticis the other in the ninth Tome of his Common Places Loc. de Consummatione seculi cap. 7. p. 442 c. Vpon the reading of those Treatises he sent a Letter expressing his mind and judgment concerning them which I received this evening And because I know you desire to hear the opinion of Learned men I have sent down inclosed herein so much of his Letter as concerneth that business Which I did the rather also because I suppose this may give you ocâ—â—sion to answer such grounds as Gerhard hath laid to the contrary Perhaps if you consider him well you may find a tacit Answer to that which you object against S. Hierome for
and their Lord should reign for ever See the place and consider it This opinion is here and there also dispersed in the Chaldee Paraphrase and in the Talmud as of ancient Tradition and is the opinion of the Iews at this day who as they look not for the Kingdom of their Messiah until Dies Iudicii magni so they expect that their forefathers at least such as were just and holy should rise at the beginning of the same and reign in the land of Israel with their off-spring under Messiah I can hardly believe that all this smoke of Tradition could arise but from some fire of Truth anciently made known unto them Besides why should the holy Ghost in this point speak so like them unless he would induce us mutatis mutandis to mean with them In fine the Second and Universal Resurrection with the State of the Saints after it now so clearly revealed in Christianity seems to have been less known to the ancient Church of the Iews than the First and the State to accompany it Lastly This was the Opinion of the whole Orthodox Christian Church in the Age immediately following the death of S. Iohn when yet Polycarp and many of the Apostles Disciples were living as Iustin Martyr expresly affirmeth whose passage to that purpose when I return again to Cambridge I will send you illustrated with some Notes and the reading in one place restored from a corruption crept thereinto by fraud or otherwise A testimony absolute without all comparison to perswade such as rely upon Authority and Antiquity It is to be admired that an Opinion once so generally received in the Church should ever have been cried down and buried But those Times which extinguished this brought other Alterations into the Church besides this Et quidem sic fieri oportuit I will say something more observed perhaps by few of those which have knowledge enough of the rest namely That this Opinion of the First Resurrection was the true ground and mother of prayers for the dead so anciently received in the Church which were then conceived after this manner Vt partem haberent in Resurrectione prima See Tertullian who first mentions them The reason was because this having part in Resurrectione prima was not to be common to all but to be a priviledge of some namely of Martyrs and Confessors equipollent to them if God so would accept them Moreover the belief of this Prerogative of Martyrs in Resurrectione prima was that which made the Christians of those times so joyously desirous of Martyrdom These things will perhaps seem strange but they will be found true if duly examined Thus I have discovered my opinion of the thing which I suppose the Scripture hath revealed shall be But de modo how it shall be I would willingly abstain from determining We must be content to be ignorant of the manner of things which for the matter we are bound to believe Too much adventuring here without a sure guide may be dangerous and breed intolerable fancies as it did among some in those ancient times which occasioned as may seem the death and burial of the main Opinion it self so generally at first believed Yet thus much I conceive the Text seems to imply That these Saints of the First Resurrection should reign here on earth in the New Ierusalem in a state of beatitude and glory partaking of Divine presence and Vision of Christ their King as it were in an Heaven upon earth or new Paradise immutable unchangeable c. Secondly That for the better understanding of this Mysterie we must distinguish between the State of the New Ierusalem and State of the Nations which shall walk in the light thereof they shall not be both one but much differing Therefore what is spoken particularly of the New Ierusalem must not be applied to the whole Church which then shall be New Ierusalem is not the whole Church but the Metropolis thereof and of the New world The State of the Nations which shall walk in her light though happy and glorious yet shall be changeable as appears by the commotio◠of the Nations seduced at the end of the Thousand years But the State of those wh◠dwell in the New Ierusalem shall be extra omnem mutationis aleam Blessed are thos◠who have part in the First Resurrection for on them the Second Death hath no power I differ therefore from Piscator and agree with Alstedius That the Saints of th◠First Resurrection should reign on Earth during the Millennium and not in Heaven I differ from both in that I make this State of the Church to belong to Secundus Adventus Christi or Dies Iudicii Magni when Christ shall appear in the clouds of Heaven to destroy all the professed enemies of his Church and Kingdom and deliver the creature from that bondage of corruption brought upon it for the sin of man Whereas they make it to precede the Day of Iudgment and Second coming Though this Notion may seem to make but little alteration of the thing believed yet it is of no small moment to facilitate the understanding of Scripture and puts upon the thing it self another nature than is conceived by those who apprehend it otherwise In a word Ours conceive this State to be ante Diem Iudicii Others though wrongfully suppose the ancient Chiliasts to have held it to be post Diem Iudicii But the truth is it is neither before nor after but ipsa Dies Iudicii ipsum tempus Secundae apparitionis Christi And it is to be remembred here that the Iews who gave this time the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Day of Iudgment and from whom our Saviour and his Apostles took it never understood thereby but a Time of many years continuance yea some mirabile dictu of a thousand years and the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Day of Iudgment is more frequent in their Writings than in the New Testament it self It is mentioned I know not how many times in the Chaldee Paraphrase of that little Book of Ecclesiastes The word Day is in the Hebrew notion used ordinarily for tempus yea longissimum as in the Prophets for the seventy years Captivity for the time of their great and long Captivity for the time of their pilgrimage in the wilderness Psal. 95. according to the LXX and S. Pauls translation Hebr. 3. The day of temptation in the wilderness when your Fathers tempted me and proved me and saw my works forty years See the thirteenth verse of that chapter where a Day includes every Day So should Day be taken in the Lord's Prayer for the time of this our life Compare it with S. Luke whose words are Give us every day our daily bread See the longest day of all days in the last words of S. Peter's last Epistle in the Greek and Latin for our English obscures it with a general expression It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dies
us was none of the Sublata though somewhere it be as well as the rest And the field of my defence is so much the larger if it be considered that one of the three Res sacrae is capable of Subdivision But enough of this it being no well-becoming Theme to dispute upon I said there was eadem ratio Loci temporis not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but eadem ratio Loci Temporis sacri to wit for the Sanctification i. e. holy and discriminative usance due unto them both and the formal reason in respect whereof it is due For the reason why a thing is to be Sanctified or Sanctè habendum is because it is Sanctum or Sacrum Now whatsoever is appropriate unto God and his Service is such whether the determination thereof be by God's own immediate Ordination or mans Devotion it is all one in this respect so the Appropriation or Dedication thereof be supposed lawful and agreeable to the Divine will For this Sanctification we speak of depends not either upon the difference of the cause or manner whereby the thing is consecrated nor upon the diversity of Natural and Artificial being but upon the Formalis ratio of the Object because it is Holy or Sacred therefore to be sanctified with holy usance For to Sanctifie in Scripture is not only to make holy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to do unto a thing as becometh its holiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moreover I believe the Sanctification of Place to be intended in the Fourth Commandment as well as that of Time and that not only from the Rule observed in the interpretation of the rest of the Commandments by one of the kind named to understand all the rest ejusdem generis but especially the Lord himself hath conjoyned them as pairs Levit. 19. 30. Keep my Sabbaths and reverence my Sanctuary And why not when they are so near a-kin being both Circumstances of Action why may I not then say Quae Deus conjunxit nemo separet And it may be if it be well looked into the Sanctification of the Lord's-day might be urged with far more advantage upon the ground I intimate than upon that other which is so much controverted But it is partialitie that undoes all It seems by this Objection I have now answered you supposed the Argument of my Book to be The Reverence of holy Places which is only The Antiquity of them You ask me if I believe indeed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was Ignatius his word I say I do till I hear some sufficient reason why I should not For that of my not being able to give an instance of the like either in his time or within 100 years after seems to me to have no force of concluding at all When I affirmed in my Altare That the name of Table could not be shewed given to that whereon the Eucharist was celebrated in any Ecclesiastical Writer confessed to be genuine before 200 years after Christ I inferred not therefrom that therefore the name Table was never used all that time nor if I had would you have believed me And yet to tell you the truth when I wrote that I had some persuasion or suspicion that that Name could not be shewed in any Writer for 3 hundred years after Christ but durst not affirm so much as I thought because I was not sure of Origen But when a Friend of mine soon after wondred how I durst avouch in publick a thing so incredible as this to him seemed to be I discovered that I had affirmed somewhat less than I believed and desired him to make trial whether he could find it in 300 years or not wherein when he had spent some time he could not He alledged indeed Cyprian de Coena Domini but I told him that was confessed of all sides to be none of his c. And now see the luck of it The week before I received yours a Friend shewed me the New Articles of the New Bishop of Norwich his Diocesan wherein besides some other unwonted things which some body will startle at the Bishop avouches upon the credit of his reading That the name Table in that sense is never to be found in any Ecclesiastical Writer of the first 300 years save only once in an occasional passage of Dionysius Areop agita Now Sir what think you of this Yet you see I can shew the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oftner than once in those first 300 years Yea if you would grant me that the Author of that Hierarchical Treatise whosoever he were lived but within the compass of 200 years after Christ I could give you an instance both of the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 within the time by you limited For this Dionysius in his Mysterium Synaxeos describes the Deacons standing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in his Theory of the same mentions the sending of the Euergumeni at the time of the Eucharist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 However it be it follows not that because I can shew it but once within that 200 years therefore I should believe it was used never Besides methinks I observe some unreasonableness used in this kind viz. Notwithstanding such paucitie of Monuments remaining unto us of those first Ages upon every unconcluding suspicion to discredit those we have and then when we have done to require proof that such things were in those times which we without proof deny when those who alone could give testimony are disenabled and sometimes for no other reason but because they give such testimony Is this dealing reasonable As for the taking down of S. Gregorie's Church I answer In the Law some things Sacred were unalienable even quoad Individuum as for example such as were consecrated by way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See Levit. 27. 28 29. Others were unalienable as touching the kind only and therefore if need were the Individuum might be changed so it were for the better and with the Lord's advantage which the Law provides should be by adding a fifth part thereunto See the rest of the Chapter quoted But what is this to the deciding of the lawfulness or truth of what is in question to alledge that which men do Is not all the world full of Contradictions I verily believe that even those who are zealous for the Sanctification of the Lord's-day do in their practice if not in their Theory too overthrow the Principles whereupon it stands I think I have no more to make answer to and I confess I have done this not without some tediousness For you must pardon me if judging as a Stander-by I am not persuaded you are by nature so prone and pliable as you think to the way which you say I take Yes I now find one thing more S. Gregorie's Church you say is going down at least is to be built elsewhere but we never yet heard the like of the Lord's-day◠No but I have namely that
a great man in the Reformation had once a Consultation to have translated the Lord's-day unto Thursday upon pretence to take away Superstition and though that Consultation succeeded not yet he is known to have been no great friend to the hallowing thereof How true this is I know not penes authores fides esto but such a thing I have read I can assure you Thus with my heartiest affection which I never found my self prone to change for mere difference of Opinion I commend you and yours to the Divine blessing and am still Your assured Friend Ioseph Mede Christ's Coll. Iuly 21. 1638. EPISTLE LXVI Mr. Hartlib's Letter to Mr. Mede with an Extract of a Letter concerning Dr. Alting's Censure of Dr. Field's opinion Worthy Sir I Cannot but confess my self much obliged unto you for the Papers which you have been pleased to impart unto me You do well to help us by a fuller unfolding of those excellent Mysteries which divers will take for Paradoxes But I return to your Letter and assure you that I will have a special care to send back your Papers In the mean time I pray accept of these inclosed which concern the work of Pacification Mr. Dury remembers his respects unto you and will be glad to embrace your Letter when-ever it comes He hath not yet read your Book because he can get none for himself the Book becoming now rare every way When you have done with the Papers I pray let me have them again some of them I had not leisure to read over The printed Treatise I got from beyond the Seas the Author of it thus writes unto me Adsui Doctori Altingo Is maximopere optat non praemisissem meo contra Bodsaccum Exercitio istud ex Fieldo excerptum Ratio 1 a Quia falsa sunt quae ille tum de Orientalium hodierna tum de Occidentalium ante Lutherum Religione refert 2 a Quia Lutherani indè capient calumniandi ansam quasi Universalem aliquam Religionum conciliationem moliamur Intellexi simul hâc occasione Genevae imprimis Novum Testamentum linguâ Graecâ qualis nunc est adeò ut non tantùm Originale Graecum sed Versionem Graecam simus habituri quam ad rem 1000 Imperiales Domini Ordines dederunt ut mittantur Exemplaria in Graeciam Inter argumenta cur Fieldi sententiam rejicit est quòd Witebergensis quidam olim ad Graecum Patriarcham miserit Confessionem Augustanam ut approbaret sed illam ut heterodoxam rejecisse Quòd hodiernus Patriarcha alius sit id personale esse facilè apparere ex quibus scriptis ille hauriat Sepultus est hâc hebdomade noster Burgersdicius c. But I would fain know your judgment about this Censure of Field it being a thing of very great consequence Dr. Alting I hear is writing an Ecclesiastical History Thus expecting your Answer I rest for ever Your assured and affectionate Friend Sam. Hartlib London March 13. 1634. EPISTLE LXXVII Mr. Mede's Answer to Mr. Hartlib vindicating Dr. Field's Tenet and shewing in what sense it may be said that the Roman and Greek Church have not erred in Primariis Fundamentalibus Fidei Articulis Mr. Hartlib I Received not your Packet till yesterday at dinner-time I send with this inclosed a Book to Mr. Dury which I was fain to rob a Friend of promising to give him another as good but I send the Book and this my Letter apart that the one may bring news of the other if they should chance not to arrive at your hands together I thank you for Mr. Streso Concerning that of Dr. Field I have hitherto subscribed to it according as I conceived to be his meaning though whether the particulars of his narration be every one of them true I cannot affirm the most I believe are But it is no marvel though such a Tenet make your forein Divines to startle That notion is almost proper to our English to maintain that the Roman Church much more the Greek â—rreth not in Primariis Fundamentalibus Fidei Articulis because explicitely they profess them howsoever by their Assumenta implicitely and by consequent they subvert them This your forein Divines and some too of our own think to be an harsh assertion because they rightly conceive not our meaning whereof you may be more fully informed by Dr. Crakenthorp against Spalato cap. 47. and by Dr. Potter in his Charity mistaken You may remember also that Bishop Davenant in the Discourse you shewed me at London by the name of Fundamental Articles understands the Articles of the Creed of all Christians and no other Take notice likewise that we say the Roman Church and Ours differ not in the Articles we account to be Fundamental not that we differ not and mainly too in those which they account Fundamental Nor do we say but by consequent they ruin too even those Articles we account Fundamental though explicitely they profess them In a word we hold That all the Roman Errors consist in the Assumenta they have added to the Foundation and not in the Foundation it self which they profess notwithstanding Besides that in the main Points of Controversie between them and us the Truths we affirm against them were heretofore freely maintained in their Church as for the substance from time to time and though for the most part the opposite Faction overtopped them yet were not the Tenets of that Faction made the Tenets of their Church till the Council of Trent decreed them and condemned the other This is the sum of the Tenet of ours But what do I write of these things in so tumultuary a manner It is a point that requires a man should have his brains at home What though the Patriarch Ieremy rejected the Augustane Confession for Heterodox when it was sent him It is true that often one Sect of Religion condemns that in another which it self affirms because it understands not its own in anothers terms and after another way Besides though the Patriarch rejected the Confession â—n gross yet it follows not he rejected it for those Points whereof Dr. Field affirms but because it condemned likewise their Assumenta For it is certain that in the Assumentis we differ mainly from them and they from us Now the clock strikes three I must an end So with my best affection I rest Your assured Friend Ioseph Mede Christ's Coll. March 18. 1634. EPISTLE LXXVIII Ioan. Duraei Epistola ad Ios. Medum Cratiam Pacem Clarissime Doctissime Vir HVmanissimis tuis Literis praeclaro illo quod amicitiae mecum initae pignus esse voluisti Scripto cujus priorem ante aliquot annos posteriorem nunc primùm video partem ità animum meum affecisti ut sufficientes neque jam scribere neque posthac habere gratias queam quas quia me referre posse desperâ— ideo debitorem me tibi agnosco Sed ante omnia Candorem tuum exosculor
City taken by Totilas and a third part thereof demolished and the rest left for a while memorandum Fortunae ludibrium without an inhabitant and lastly the Ostrogothish Kingdom which a while as a blaze continued the light of the dying Caesars in Italy by Narses utterly extinguished WOE WOE WOE The Fifth Trumpet is the First Woe and brings the Saracen Locusts upon the world proceeding out of the smoaky and darkning Seduction of Mahomâ—t conjured up by the Angel of the bottomless pit who though a warlike people and well armed yet had not power to destroy either the State of Caesars in New Rome or the Papal Principality sprung out of the Empire 's ruine in the Old but only Scorpion-like to torment and vex them as their Tail or hindermost Troups out of Africk did Italy and Western Rome 150 years The Sixth Trumpet is the Second Woe and brings upon the Roman Provinces the barbarous and dreadful â—nâ—ndation of the Turks loosing them from the great River Euphrates where they had been long before prepared and now let go as a plague for the Idolatry of Christians 〈◊〉 only as the Saracen Locusts to plague and torment the Roman State buâ— in part tâ— utterly slay and destroy it as they have done in the Empire of Greece which the Saracens had no power to do The Seventh and Last Trumpet is yet to come the entrance whereof is the Last Woe wherein all the Reliques of the Roman Beast with the last Principality of the City of Rome yet surviving shall together with the rest of the enemies of Christ be utterly abolished in the Great Day of Armagedden that all the Kingdoms of the world may become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Ch. 11. 15. Note that when the Angel comes at the Seventh Trumpet because the Event thereof is the common issue to both Prophecies he therefore suspends it a while till he hath fetch'd up Chap. 11. a transcurrent and through-running Vision of the Second Prophecy unto it and then joyns them together in one and the same close The Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. The Second Prophecy The Opened Book containing Fata Ecclesiae I. By the Inmost and Measured Court of the Temple I understand the Church in her Primitive Purity whenas yet the Christian Worship was unprophaned and answerable to the Divine Rule revealed from above By the War between Michael and the Dragon about the Woman 's manly Off-spring contemporary with the Measured Court I understand that long and bloudy Combate which Christ our Lord animating with his Spirit his undaunted Souldiers fought with the Devil possessing and reigning in the Ethnick Roman State that is the Times of the Primitive Persecution by the Heathen Emperors a War lasting long and costing the lives of many a valiant Martyr yet at 300 years end when a Christian was installed in the Imperial Throne the old Dragon was dismounted and overthrown and the Souldiers of Christ our Lord prevailed For they overcame him by the bloud of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and loved not their lives unto the death Note that the Description of this Vision is double in the Text 1. more General The Dragon's endeavour to destroy the Woman's Off-spring from ver 1. to the 7. verse 2. more Particular of his Battel with Michael the Woman's Champion For that these two Descriptions are of the same thing and same time is manifest in that one and the same Event The Woman's escape into the Wilderness is the Consequent to them both II. 1. By the Second or Outward Court trampled by the Gentiles and not to be measured I understand the Apostasie under the Man of Sin when the Visible Church being possessed by Idolaters and Idolatry like that of the Gentiles became so inconformable and unapt for Divine measure that it was to be cast out and accounted as prophane and polluted For the Apostasie of the Church is Ethnicismus Christianus 2. By the Witnesses in sack-cloth I understand the mournful Prophecy of God's true Ministers during all that time who when toward the end of their days of mourning they should be about to put off their sack-cloth and leave their lamentation seeing the Truth they witnessed beginning to take place by publick Reformation the Beast which ascends out of the Abyss shall slay them and rejoyce over them as dead three days and an half that is so many years 3. By the Woman in the Wilderness Ch. 12. I understand the condition of the true Church in respect of her Latency and Invisibility to the eyes of man As the Israelites when they had escaped the rage and gotten out of the reach of the Egyptian Pharaoh yet lived a long time after but in a Wilderness an infrequent and barren place where they could not have lived without being extraordinarily fed with Manna from Heaven Such was the condition of the Apostolical Woman and Church of Christ when she had escaped the rage and fury of the Dragon persecuting in the Seven-headed Empire 4. By the Virgin-Company of the 144000 Sealed ones I understand the opposite State of the unstained Church unto the Kingdom of Apostasie in their sincerity of Service and faithful adherence to their Lord and Master whilst the rest worshipped the Beast and his Image These are those who when the Trumpets were to sound were secured by the Mark of Divine protection lest their Society should have been extinguished in those Calamities which then fell upon the Empire How could this Holy Company else but have perished in such Confusions In that place they were represented by the Tribes of Israel for the present Church of the Gentiles is but Israel surrogatus and so by God accounted until the Fulness of the Gentiles come in 5. By the Seven-headed Ten-horned Beast the Two horned False-Prophet and Babylon the Mother of Harlots I understand the State and Kingdom of Apostasie according to three subordinate parts thereof 1. The Body 2. the Head 3. the Seat For Kingdoms especially of the ancient form consisted of three parts Regnum Rex Metropolis Regni So in the Kingdom of Apostasie for such it was to be are Regnum Apostaticum Rex Apostaticus Metropolis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Kingdom of Apostasie was to be the Roman Empire upon a deadly wound of the Caesarean Sovereignty shivered into a Plurality of Kingdoms yet all joyntly as one Body anew acknowledging the Motherdom of the Roman City This is that Seven-headed Beast with Ten crowned Horns upon the Seventh Head whereof S. Iohn speaks Chap. 13. whose description there I understand as if he had said I saw a Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns with Diadems which upon the recovery of a deadly wound in one of his Heads arose out of the Sea and succeeded in the Throne Power and
22. 32. I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living p. 801 Chap. 23. 19 the Altar that sanctifies the Gift p. 376 Verse 39. Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. p. 519 Chap. 24. 14. And the Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world p. 705 and then shall the End come p. 36 Verse 20. Pray that your flight be not in the winter nor on the Sabbath-day p. 841 Verse 29. Immediately after the tribulation of these days shall the Sun be darkned and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars shall fall from heaven p. 615 753 Verse 34. This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled p. 752 Chap. 25. 33 34. And he shall set the Sheep on his right hand but the Goats on the left Then shall the King say to them on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom c. p. 841 Chap. 27. 34. They gave him vineger to drink mingled with gall p. 518 S. MARK Chap. 1. 14. Now after that Iohn was put in prison Iesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God pag. 97 Verse 15. And saying The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and believe the Gospel p. 106 Chap. 11. 17. Is it not written My house shall be called a House of Prayer to all the Nations p. 44 Chap. 15. 23. And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrhe p. 518 S. LUKE Chap. 1. 28. Hail thou highly-favoured one p. 181 Verse 72. To shew mercy or kindness to our Fathers p. 801 Chap. 2. 1. that all the World should be taxed p. 705 13 14. And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly Host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest c. p. 89 Chap. 6. 12. he continued all night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 67 Chap. 7. 47. Her sins which are many are forgiven therefore she loved much p. 766 Chap. 16. 9. Make to your selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness c. p. 170 Chap. 18. 28. Lo we have left all and followed thee p. 120 Chap. 21. 24. Vntil the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled p. 709 753 Verse 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then shall be Signs c. p. 744 753 Chap. 22. 20. This Cup is the New Covenant in my bloud p. 372 Chap. 24. 45 46. Then opened be their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures And said unto them Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day p. 49 S. IOHN Chap. 1. 14. And the Wâ—rd was made flesh and tabernacled in us p. 266 Chap. 4. 20. Our Fathers worshipped in this Mountain p. 263 Verse 22. Ye worship what ye know not we worship what we know p. 49 Verse 23. But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth p. 46. Chap. 7. 37. As the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water p. 62 Chap. 10. 20. He hath a Devil and is mad p. 28 Chap. 12. 28. Then came there a voice from heaven The people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundred p. 459 Chap. 17. 17. Sanctifie them unto or fâ—r thy Truth thy Word is Truth p. 14 Verse 19. And for them I sanctifie my self that they might be sanctified for thy Truth ibid. Chap. 18. 36. My kingdom is not of this world if my kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight p. 103 Chap. 21. 22. If I will that he stay till I come p. 708 ACTS Chap. 2. 5. And there were sojourning at Ierusalem Iows devout men out of every Nation under heaven p. 74 Verse 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 364 Verse 45. See Chap. 4. 34 Verse 46. And they continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the House ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart p. 322 Chap. 3. 19. Repent and be converted c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so the times of refreshing may come p. 612 Chap. 4. 34 35. As many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the Apostles feet p. 127 Chap. 5. 3 4. And Peter said Ananias why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the holy Ghost and to purloin of the price of the land c. p. 115 Chap. 10. 1 2. There was a certain man in Caefarea called Cornelius a Centurion of the Italian band a devout man and one that feared God c. p. 165 Verse 4. Thy Prayers and thine Alms are come up for a memorial before God p. 164 Chap. 13. 48. And there believed as many as were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to eternal life p. 21 Chap. 14. 15. Who in times past suffered all Nations to walk in their own ways p. 515 Chap. 15. 16 17. After this I will return and will build again the Tabernacle of David which is fallen c. That the residuc of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom my Name is called p. 455 Chap. 16. 13. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river-side where there was taken or where was famed to be a Proseucha and Verse 16. It came to pass as we went to the Proseucha p. 67 Chap. 17. 4 There associated themselves to Paul and Silas of the worshipping Greeks a great multitude p. 19 Verse 18. He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange Gods because he preached unto them Iesus and the Resurrection p. 635 Chap. 18. 22. And he sailed from Ephesus and when he had landed at Caesarea having gone up and saluted the Church he went down to Antioch p. 323 Chap. 24. 16. ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this cause do I exercise my self to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and men p. 871 ROMANS Chap. 1. 23. They changed the Glory of the incorruptible God into an Image c. p. 5 Verse 25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie and served the creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 49 Chap. 8. 20. For the creature was made subject to vanity Because the creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God p. 230 812 Chap. 9. 1. my Conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost p. 118 Chap. 11. 11 15. Through their fall Salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousie For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world p. 455
35 Schism the evil and danger of it 876 Scripture The Holy Scripture is not to be kept in an unknown tongue 190. whether the silence of Scripture be an argument sufficient to conclude against matter of fact 840. an account of some Idioms or Forms of speech in Scripture 161 and 347 349 380 285 and 352 Sea what it signifies in the Prophetick style 462 The Sealing of the 144000 in Apocal. 7. what it means 584 Seed of the Woman meant of Christ's person and Christ mystical 236 Serpent why the Devil took this shape 223 289. the Curse was pronounced upon both the Serpent and the Devil 229. what kind of Serpent was accursed 230. how God could in Iustice punish the brute Serpent 229 230 his Curse was To go upon his Breast and not only on his Belly 231 232. as also To feed on dust 233 234. Enmity between Man and the Serpent 234. The Serpents Seed meant of the Devil and wicked men 236. The Serpents Head or Headship is Principatus mortis 237 Set Forms See Prayer Seven eyes of the Lord are the seven Archangels 41 43 Seven Heads of the Beast signifie both 7 Hiâ—s and 7 Successions of different sorts of Governours 524 Seven Seals in Apocal. 6. what is meant thereby 441 917 c. Seven Trumpets See Trumpets Seven Vials See Vials Seventy Weeks See Daniels Weeks Seventy years See Years Shechinah or Gods special presence in a place is where the Angels keep their station 343 c. Sheep set at Christs right hand 841 Shiloh the name of Messiah 34 it signifies a Peace-maker 35 Silence in holy offices was a point of Religion 458 Simeon Metaphrastes his fabulous Legends 682 c. his design therein 683 c. Sin compared in Scripture to an Heavy Burthen in respect of the Weight of Punishment and of Loathsomness 151. the reason of Sins Loathsomness 152. Conformity between the Sin and Punishment in 4 particulars 144. the hainousness of a Sin to be estimated from the hearts election 350. Commission of one Sin makes way for another 135. what it is to forsake Sin 207. Rules to know whether our purpose to forsake Sin be real 152 153 Sin-offering what 287 Sincerity of Heart what it is how it may be known and attain'd 217 218 Sitting at Gods right hand what it signifies 638 639. that it is a priviledge appropriate to Christ. ibid. Some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word doth not always in Scripture imply a small number 648 c. Socinian Tenets censured 869 883 Son of man whence Christ is so called 764 788 Spirit sometimes in Scripture signifies Doctrine 626 Spirit and truth See Worship in spirit and truth Spirits Good or Evil how they appear and converse with men 223 224 Spiritual blessings were veiled in Earthly Promises under the Law 249 250 Stealing is either by Force or by Fraud both forbidden in the 8 Commandment 132. See more in Theft Sun Moon and Stars what they are according to the Prophetick style in the Political world 449 450 466 615 Synagogues how they differ'd from Proseucha's 66. their antiquity 839 Synchronisms what 491. their usefulness 431 581 T. TAbernack of meetingâ— so call'd from God's meeting there with men 343. Feast of Tabernacles wherein it was a Figure of Christ 266. how it was neglected to be kept from Iosua's time to Nehemiah's 268. what this Omission may seem to imply 268 Table sometimes in Scripture put for Epulum or the Meat it self 386. Table of the Lord in 1 Cor. 10. why so called 375. the name Table not used in any Ecclesiastical Writer before 200 years after Christ 860. Table and Altar how they differ 389 Holy Table Name and Thing 844 Temple what the Gentiles Notion of a Temple was 335 336. why the primitive Christians for the most part abstain'd from the name Temple 336 337 Temple at Ierusalem it s 3 Courts in our Saviours time 44 45. it was the Third or Gentiles Court that was prophaned by the Iews and vndicated by our Saviour 45 46. This Temple is called in Scripture Gods Throne 438 439 917. In what respects it was a Type of Christ. 48 407 263 Temples of the Heathen why they are said by the ancient Fathers to be nothing else but the Sepulchres of dead men 633 Ten Horns signifie in Dan. and the Apocal. Ten Kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was shivered 661. that they belong to the Seventh or Vppermost Head of the Beast 499 737 Ten Kings See Ten Horns Teraphim what they were and how they answered to Vrim and Thummim 183 Terumah or Heave-offering defined 288 the Terumoth or Heave-offerings were either First-fruits or Tithes or Frâ—e-will-offerings 290 Theft in no case lawful 133. the trial of it in doubtful cases was in the Iewish Polity by the parties Oath Hence Perjury and Theft are forbidden together in Scripture 133 Three Kings whom the Little Horn should depress to advance himself 779 Throne to be taken up to Gods Throne what 494 Thummim See Vrim Thunder See Bath Kol Time Times and half a Time what 497 656 744. Times of the Gentiles 753. Times put for Things done in time 737 Tithes How the question of the due of Tithes is to be stated 120 Tituls why Houses and Churches were so called 5 327 328 Tobit's prophesie of the Iews Captivity and Restauration explain'd 579 Transubstantiation promoted by lying Miracles 688 Trees what they signifie in the Prophetick style 460 Trespass-offering how it differed from the Sin-offering 287 Tribes why the 12 Tribes are in Apocal 7. reckoned in a different order than elsewhere in Scripture 455 c. Tribute See Rent Trumpets Seven Trumpets their meaning 595 Turks why described in Apocal. 9. by the army of Horsemen 473 Twelve why each of the 24 Courses or Quires of Singers in the Temple consisted of Twelve 3 Typical speeches often true in the Type and Antitype 285. when what is attributed to the Type belongs to the thing typified 468 V. VEspers See Even-song Vials Seven Vials their meaning 585 923. the agreement between the 7 Vials and 7 Trumpets 585 Vintage what it means in the Propherick style 521 c. Visions Apocalyptick whether represented in the Seven-sealed Book to be seen or to be read by S. Iohn 787 An Vnrepentant Sinner is an Insidel 153 Vnworthy receiving See Sacraments Vows The 3 Vows common to all Monks viz. Vow of Chastity Poverty and Abstaining from meats the Fourth Vew viz. of Obedience not common to all nor so old 689 Vrim and Thummim what they signifie 183. they were a Divine Oracle ibid. the Matter thereof and the Manner of enquiring thereby 184 185. How Vrim and Thummim did typisie something in Christ. 185 186 W. WAldenses See Albigenses White To walk in white To be clothed with white raiment what meant thereby in the Apocalyps 909 Whore and Whoredom meant according to the Prophetick style of Idolatry 645 646. Whoe of Babylon in Apocal. 17. why this Vision only of all
the Apocalyptick Visions is expounded by the Angel 432 582. why she is said to have a golden cup in her hand and her Name written in her forehead 525 Wilderness Israel's being in the Wilderness and the Churche's abode in the Wilderness compared 906 907 Wing signifies in Dan. 9. an Army the fitness of the word to signifie thus 707. Wing of abominations is an Army of Idolarrous Gentiles ibid. How the Roman Army was the Army of Messiah 708 Witnesses why Two and in sackcloth 480 481. the two Wars of the Beast against them 765. their Slaughter how far it extends 760 761. their Death and Resurrection how to be understood 484 Women Why the Corinthian women are reproved for being unveiled or uncovered in the Church 61. how they are said to prophesie 58 59 Works Good Works 3 qualifications of them 217 c. 3 Reasons for the necessity of them 215 c. God rewards our Works out of his mercy not for any merit in them 175 World Heaven and Earth put according to the Hebrew idiom for World 613. That the World should last 7000 years and the Seventh Thousand be the Beatum Milleunium was an ancient Tradition of the Iews 892. World sometimes in Scripture put for the Roman Empire 705 Worship External worship required in the Gospel 47. Four Reasons for it 349 350. The Iews worshipped versus Locum praesentiae 394. That such Worshipping is not the same with worshipping God by an Image 395 To worship God in spirit and truth what 47. 48. The Worship directed to God is Incommunicable and why 638 639 Y. YEars That the Antichristian Times are more than 3 single Years and an half proved by 5 Reasons 598. The 70 years Captivity of the Iews in Babylon whence to be reckoned 658 Z. ZAchary The 9 10 and 11 Chapters in his Book seem to befit Ieremy's time better 786 833 c. Zebach or The bloudy Sacrifice defined 287 Zipporah deferred not the circumcision of her child out of any aversation of that Rite 52. her words in Exod. 4. 25. vindicated from the common misconstruction 53 c. ERRATA Page 481. line 3. read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 790. l. 14. for Page r. Figure pag. 495. l. 10. r. Angelo pag. 496. l. antepenult r. legibus pag. 498. l. 1. r. crudelitate l. 41. r. Caesarum imperium A Catalogue of some Books Reprinted and of other New Books Printed since the Fire and sold by Richard Royston viz. A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the Books of the New Testament by H. Hammond D. D. in Fol. Third Edition Ductor Dubitantium or the Rule of Conscience in Five Books in Fol. by Ier. Taylor D. D. and late Lord Bishop of Down and Gonnor The Practical Catechism together with all other Tracts formerly Printed in 4 o in 8 o and 12 o his Controversies excepted now in the Press in a large Fol. By the late Reverend H. Hammond D. D. The Great Exemplar or the Life and Death of the Holy Iesus in Fol. with Figures suitable to every Story Ingrav'd in Copper By the late Reverend Ier. Taylor D. D. Phraseologia Anglo Latina or Phrases of the English and Latine Tongue By Iohn Willis sometimes School-master at Thistleworth together with a Collection of English Latine Proverbs for the use of Schools by William Walker Master of the Free-School of Grantham in 8 o new The Whole Duty of Man now Translated into the Welch Tongue at the command of the four Lord Bishops of Wales for the benefit of that Nation By Io. Langford A. M. in 8o. The Christian Sacrifice a Treatise shewing the necessity end and manner of Receiving the Holy Communion together with suitable Prayers and Meditations for every Month in the Year and the Principal Festivals in memory of our Blessed Saviour in 8 o By the Reverend S. Patrick D. D. Chaplain in Ordidinary to his Sacred Majesty A Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Non-conformist in 8o. Peace and Holiness in three Sermons upon several occasions the First to the Clergy Preached at Stony-Stratford in the County of Buoks being a Visitation-Sermon published in Vindication of the Author The Second preached to a great Presence in London The Third at the Funeral of M rs Anne Norton by Ignatius Fuller Rector of Sherrington in 8 o new A Discourse concerning the true Notion of the Lords Supper to which are added two Sermons by R. Cudworth D. D. Master of Christs-Colledge in Cambridge in 8o. The Works of the Reverend and Learned Mr. Iohn Gregory sometimes Master of Arts of Christ-Church in Oxon. 4o. The Sinner Impleaded in his own Court to which is now added the Signal Diagnostick by Tho. Pierce D. D. and President of St. Mary Magdalen-Colledge in Oxon. in 4o. Also a Collection of Sermons upon several occasions together with a Correct Copy of some Notes concerning Gods Decrees in 4o. Enlarged by the same Author Christian Consolations drawn from Five Heads in Religion I. Faith II. Hope III. The Holy Spirit IV. Prayer V. The Sacrament Written by the Right Reverend Father in God Iohn Hacket late Lord Bishop of Leichfield and Coventry and Chaplain to King Charles the First and Second in 12 o new A Disswasive from Popery the First and Second Part in 4 o by Ier. Taylor late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor The Principles and Practises of certain several Moderate Divines of the Church of England also The Design of Christianity both which are written by Edward Fowler Minister of Gods Word at Northill in Bedfordshire in 8o. A Free Conference touching the Present State of England both at home and abroad in order to the Designs of France in 8 o new to which is added the Buckler of State and Iustice against the design manifestly discover'd of the Universal Monarchy under the vain Pretext of the Queen of France her pretensions in 8o. Iudicium Vniversitatis Oxoniensis à Roberto Sandersono S. Theologiae ibidem Professore Regio postea Episcopo Lincolniensi in 8o. The Profitableness of Piety open'd in an Assize Sermon preach'd at Dorchester by Richard West D. D. in 4 o new A Sermon preached at the Funeral of the Honourable the Lady Farmor by Iohn Dobson B. D. Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen-Colledge in Oxon. in 4 o new THE END * All of them except some few mentioned at the end of this Preface * None of which were number'd among the Errata * Pag. 109. lin 21. ‖ These the Author a little before calls the Two parts of Repentance Aversion from sin the first Conversion to God the second part ‖ See p. 280. lin ult ‖ See p. 276 279 281. * Luk. 6. * Chap. 4. 15. * Chap. 2. ‖ Rev. 10. 9. * See a particular account both of the Enlargements and of the Additiâ—nals at the end of this Preface * See a particular account both of the Enlargements and of the Additiâ—nals at the end of this Preface * See Epistle 97. p. 881. * p.