death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the 〈◊〉 extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideons Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jewes themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jewes or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all 〈◊〉 and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their 〈◊〉 unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined onely to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or
to natural light being conversant about those things that do not derive their value and authority from any arbitrary constitutions but from the moral and intrinsick nature of the things themselves These Laws as being the results and dictates of right reason are especially as to their first and more immediate emanations the same in all Men in the World and in all Times and Places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ' as the Jewes call them Precepts that are evident among all Nations indeed they are interwoven into Mens nature inserted into the texture and constitution of their minds and do discover themselves as soon as ever they arrive to the free use and exercise of their reason That there are such Laws and Principles naturally planted in Mens breasts is evident from the consent of Mankind and the common experience of the World Whence else comes it to pass that all wicked Men even among the Heathens themselves after the commission of gross sins such as do more sensibly rouze and awaken conscience are filled with horrours and fears of punishment but because they are conscious to themselves of having violated some Law and Rule of Duty Now what Law can this be not the written and revealed Law for this the Heathens never had it must be therefore the inbred Law of Nature that 's born with them and fixed in their minds antecedently to any external revelation For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature by the light and evidence by the force and tendency of their natural notions and dictates the things contained in the Law these having not a Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the reasonings of their minds in the mean while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by turns accusing or else excusing one another that is although they had not a written Law as the Jewes had of old and we Christians have at this day yet by the help of their natural Principles they performed the same actions and discharged the same Duties that are contained in and commanded by the written and external Law shewing by their practices that they had a Law some common notions of good and evil written in their hearts And to this their very Consciences bear witness for according as they either observe or break these natural Laws their Consciences do either acquit or condemn them Hence we find God in the very infancy of the World appealing to Gain for the truth of this as a thing sufficiently plain and obvious Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen if thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be lift up able to walk with a pleased and a chearful countenance the great indication of a mind satisfied in the conscience of its duty but if thou doest not well sin lies at the door the punishments of sin will be ready to follow thee and conscience as a Minister of vengeance will perpetually pursue and haunt thee By these Laws Mankind was principally governed in the first Ages of the World there being for near Two Thousand Years no other fixed and standing Rule of Duty than the dictates of this Law of Nature those Principles of Vice and Vertue of Justice and Honesty that are written in the heart of every Man 3. THE Jewes very frequently tell us of some particular commands to the number of Seven which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Precepts of the Sons of Noah Six whereof were given to Adam and his Children and the Seventh given to Noah which they thus reckon up The first was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning strange worship that they should not give Divine honour to Idols or the Gods of the Heathens answerable to the two first commands of the Decalogue Thou shalt have no other Gods but me thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath or in the Water under the Earth thou shalt not bow down thy self to them or serve them for c. From the violation of this Law it was that Job one of the Patriarchs that lived under this dispensation solemnly purges himself when speaking concerning the worship of the Celestial Lights the great if not only Idolatry of those early Ages says he if I beheld the Sun when it shined or the Moon walking in her brightness and my heart hath been secretly inticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge for I should have denied the God that is above The second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning blessing or worshipping that they should not blaspheme the Name of God This Law Job also had respect to when he was careful to sanctifie his Children and to propitiate the Divine Majesty for them every Morning for it may be said he that my Sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts The third was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the shedding of blood forbidding Man-slaughter a Law expresly renewed to Noah after the Flood and which possibly Job aimed at when he vindicates himself that he had not rejoyced at the destruction of him that hated him or lift up himself when evil found him Nor was all effusion of humane blood forbidden by this Law capital punishments being in some cases necessary for the preservation of humane Society but only that no Man should shed the blood of an innocent Person or pursue a private revenge without the warrant of publick Authority The fourth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the disclosing of uncleanness against filthiness and adultery unlawful marriages and incestuous mixtures If mine heart says Job in his Apology hath been deceived by a Woman or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's door then let my Wife grind c. for this is an heinous crime yea it is an iniquity to be punished by the Judges The fifth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning theft and rapine the invading another Man's right and property the violation of bargains and compacts the falsifying a Man's word or promise the deceiving of another by fraud lying or any evil arts From all which Job justifies himself that he had not walked with vanity nor had his foot hasted to deceit that his step had not turned out of the way nor his heart walked after his eyes nor any blot cleaved to his hands And elsewhere he bewails it as the great iniquity of the Times that there were some that removed the Land-marks that violently took away the Flocks and fed thereof that drove away the Asse of the Fatherless and took the Widows Oxe for a pledge that turned the needy out of the way and made the poor of the Earth hide themselves together c. The sixth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
of his Neighbour-creatures the skins of Beasts 〈◊〉 hair and a Leathern girdle and herein he literally made good the character of Elias who is described as an hairy man girt with a Leathern girdle about his Loins His Diet suitable to his Garb his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Locusts accounted by all Nations amongst the meanest and vilest sorts of food wild honey such as the natural artifice and labour of the Bees had stored up in caverns and hollow Trees without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up Indeed his abstinence was so great and his food so unlike other Mens that the Evangelist says of him that he came neither eating nor drinking as if he had eaten nothing or at least what was worth nothing But Meat commends us not to God it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of Heaven The place of his abode was not in Kings houses in stately and delicate Palaces but where he was born and bred the Wilderness of Judaea he was in the Desarts until the time of his shewing unto Israel Divine grace is not consined to particular places it is not the holy City or the Temple at Mount Sion makes us nearer unto Heaven God can when he please consecrate a Desart into a Church make us gather Grapes among Thorns and Religion become fruitful in a barren Wilderness 4. PREPARED by so singular an Education and furnished with an immediate Commission from God he entred upon the actual administration of his Office In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr calls him the Herald to Proclaim the first approach of the Holy Jesus his whole Ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him For this is he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias saying The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight He told the 〈◊〉 that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand and his Kingdom ready to appear that the Son of God was come down from Heaven a Person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest Offices that he came to introduce a new and better state of things to enlighten the World with the clearest Revelations of the Divine will and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaic Dispensation and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows and to open a Fountain of grace and fulness to Mankind to remove that state of guilt into which humane nature was so deeply sunk and as the Lamb of God by the expiatory Sacrifice of 〈◊〉 to take away the sin of the World not like the continual Burnt-offering the Lamb offered Morning and Evening only for the sins of the House of Israel but for Jew and Gentile Barbarian and Scythian bond and free he told them that God had a long time born with the sins of Men and would now bring things to a quicker issue and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the Gospel that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external priviledges the Fatherhood of Abraham and their being God's select and peculiar People that God would raise up to himself another Generation a Posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles who should walk in his steps in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience and that if all this did not move them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance the Axe was laid to the root of the Tree to extirpate their Church and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable Fire His free and resolute preaching together with the great severity of his life procured him a vast Auditory and numerous Proselytes for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and the Region round about Jordan Persons of all ranks and orders of all Sects and Opinions 〈◊〉 and Sadducees Souldiers and Publicans whose Vices he impartially censured and condemned and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations Those whom he gained over to be Proselytes to his Doctrine he entred into this new Institution of life by Baptism and hence he derived his Title of the Baptist a solemn and usual way of initiating Proselytes no less than Circumcision and of great antiquity in the Jewish Church In all times says Maimonides if any Gentile would enter into Covenant remain under the wings of the Schechina or Divine Majesty and take upon him the yoke of the Law he is bound to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering and if a Woman Baptism and an Oblation because it is said As ye are so shall the stranger be as ye your selves 〈◊〉 into Covenant by Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering so ought the Proselyte also in all Ages to enter in Though this last he confesses is to be omitted during their present state of desolation and to be made when their Temple shall be rebuilt This Rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the Law So Maimonides By three things says he the Israelites entred into Covenant he means the National Covenant at Mount Sinai by Circumcision Baptism and an Oblation Baptism being used some little time before the Law which he proves from that place 〈◊〉 the People to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes This the Rabbines unanimously expound concerning Baptism and expresly affirm that where-ever we read of the Washing of Clothes there an obligation to Baptism is intended Thus they entred into the first Covenant upon the frequent violations whereof God having promised to make a new and solemn Covenant with them in the times of the Messiah they expected a second Baptism as that which should be the Rite of their Initiation into it And this probably is the reason why the Apostle writing to the Hebrews speaks of the Doctrin of Baptisms in the plural number as one of the primary and elementary Principles of the faith wherein the Catechumens were to be instructed meaning that besides the Baptism whereby they had been initiated into the Mosaic Covenant there was another by which they were to enter into this new 〈◊〉 that was come upon the World Hence the Sanhedrim to whom the cognizance of such cases did peculiarly appertain when told of John's Baptism never expressed any wonder at it as a new upstart Ceremony it being a thing daily practised in their Church nor found fault
had bravely discoursed of the happy state of good men in the other Life plainly consessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and 〈◊〉 which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our 〈◊〉 state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it 〈◊〉 uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the insluences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and sloods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit 〈◊〉 enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to 〈◊〉 in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this 〈◊〉 is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods 〈◊〉 by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he 〈◊〉 down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when out Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so t were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious
the first-fruits of the Ground but an honest heart and a pious life and a grateful acknowledgment of our dependance upon God in the publick Solemnities of his praise and worship For the Law and the Gospel did not differ in this that the one commanded publick worship the other not but that under the one publick worship was fixed to one only place under the other it is free to any where the providence of God has placed us it being part of the duty bound upon us by natural and unalterable obligations that we should publickly meet together for the solemn Celebration of the Divine honour and service 13. NOR is the Oeconomy of the Gospel less extensive in time than place the Old Testament was only a temporary dispensation that of the Gospel is to last to the end of the World the Law was to continue only for a little time the Gospel is an Everlasting Covenant the one to be quickly antiquated and abolished the other never to be done away by any other to succeed it The Jews indeed stickle hard for the perpetual and immutable obligation of the Law of Moses and frequently urge us with those places where the Covenant of Circumcision is called an Everlasting Covenant and God said to chuse the Temple at Jerusalem to place his name there for ever to give the Land of Canaan to Abraham and his seed for an everlasting possession thus the Law of the Passeover is called an Ordinance for ever the command of the First-fruits a statute for ever and the like in other places which seem to intimate a perpetual and unalterable Dispensation But the answer is short and plain that this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever though when 't is applied to God it always denotes Eternity yet when 't is attributed to other things it implies no more than a periodical duration limited according to the will of the Law-giver or the nature of the thing thus the Hebrew Servant was to serve his Master for ever that is but for seven years till the next year of Jubilee He shall walk before mine anointed for ever says God concerning Samuel that is be a Priest all his days Thus when the Ritual services of the Mosaick Law are called Statutes for ever the meaning is that they should continue a long time obligatory until the time of the 〈◊〉 in whose days the Sacrifice and Oblation was to cease and those carnal Ceremonies to give way to the more spiritual services of the Gospel Indeed the very typical nature of that Dispensation evidently argued it to be but for a time the shadow being to cease that the substance might take place and though many of them continued some considerable time after Christ's death yet they lost their positive and obligatory power and were used only as things indifferent in compliance with the inveterate prejudices of new Converts lately brought over from Judaism and who could not quickly lay aside that great veneration which they had for the Rites of the Mosaick Institution Though even in this respect it was not long before all Jewish Ceremonies were thrown off and Moses quite turn'd out of doors Whereas the Evangelical state is to run parallel with the age and duration of the World 't is the Everlasting Covenant the Everlasting Gospel the last Dispensation that God will make to the World God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his 〈◊〉 in which respect the Gospel in opposition to the Law is stiled a Kingdom that cannot 〈◊〉 moved The 〈◊〉 in the foregoing Verses speaking concerning the Mosaical state Whose voice says he then shook the Earth but now he hath promised saying Yet once more I shake not the Earth only but also the Heaven a phrase peculiar to the Scripture to note the introducing a new scene and state of things and this word Yet once more signisieth the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made that those things which cannot be shaken may remain that is that the state of the Gospel may endure for ever Hence Christ is said to have an unchangeable Priesthood to be a Priest for ever to be consecrated for evermore From all which it appears how incomparably happy we Christians are under the Gospel above what the Jews were in the time of the Law God having placed us under the best of Dispensations freed us from those many nice and troublesome observances to which they were tied put us under the clearest discoveries and revelations and given us the most noble rational and masculine Religion a Religion the most perfective of our natures and the most conducive to our happiness while their Covenant at best was faulty and after all could not make him that did the service perfect in things pertaining to the Conscience Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see for I 〈◊〉 you that many Prophets and Kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them The End of the APPARATUS THE GREAT EXEMPLAR OF Sanctity and Holy Life according to the Christian Institution DESCRIBED In the HISTORY of the LIFE and DEATH of the ever-Blessed JESUS CHRIST THE SAVIOUR of the WORLD WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES IN THREE PARTS The Fifth Edition By JER TAYLOR Chaplain in Ordinary to King CHARLES the First and late Lord Bishop of Down and Conner LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1675. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE and most truly Noble Lord CHRISTOPHER LORD HATTON Baron HATTON of Kirby c. MY LORD WHEN Interest divides the Church and the Calentures of men breathe out in Problems and unactive Discourses each part in pursuance of its own portion follows that Proposition which complies with and bends in all the flexures of its temporal ends and while all strive for Truth they hug their own Opinions dressed up in her imagery and they dispute for ever and either the Question is indeterminable or which is worse men will never be convinced For such is the nature of Disputings that they begin commonly in Mistakes they proceed with Zeal and fancy and end not at all but in Schisms and uncharitable names and too often dip their feet in bloud In the mean time he that gets the better of his adversary oftentimes gets no good to himself because although he hath fast hold upon the right side of the Problem he may be an ill man in the midst of his triumphant Disputations And therefore it was not here that God would have Man's Felicity to grow For our condition had been extremely miserable if our final state had been placed upon
revealed and we shall remain ignorant for ever of many natural things unless they be revealed and unless we knew all the secrets of Philosophy the mysteries of Nature and the rules and propositions of all things and all creatures we are fools if we say that what we call an Article of Faith I mean truly such is against natural Reason It may be indeed as much against our natural reasonings as those reasonings are against truth But if we remember how great an ignorance dwells upon us all it will be found the most reasonable thing in the world only to enquire whether God hath revealed any such Proposition and then not to say It is against natural Reason and therefore an Article of Faith but I am told a truth which I knew not till now and so my Reason is become instructed into a new Proposition And although Christ hath given us no new moral Precepts but such which were essentially and naturally reasonable in order to the End of Man's Creation yet we may easily suppose him to teach us many a new Truth which we knew not and to explicate to us many particulars of that estate which God designed for Man in his first production but yet did not then declare to him and to furnish him with new Revelations and to signifie the greatness of the designed End to become so many arguments of indearment to secure his Duty that is indeed to secure his Happiness by the infallible using the instruments of attaining it 30. This is all I am to say concerning the Precepts of Religion Jesus taught us he took off those many superinduced Rites which God injoyned to the Jews and reduced us to the natural Religion that is to such expressions of Duty which all wise men and Nations used save only that he took away the Rite of sacrificing Beasts because it was now determined in the great Sacrifice of Himself which sufficiently and eternally reconciled all the world to God All the other things as Prayers and Adoration and Eucharist and Faith in God are of a natural order and an unalterable expression And in the nature of the thing there is no other way of address to God than these no other expression of his Glories and our needs both which must for ever be signified 31. Secondly Concerning the Second natural Precept Christian Religion hath also added nothing beyond the first obligation but explained it all Whatsoever ye would men should do to you do ye so to them that is the eternal rule of Justice and that binds contracts keeps promises affirms truth makes Subjects obedient and Princes just it gives security to Marts and Banks and introduces an equality of condition upon all the world save only when an inequality is necessary that is in the relations of Government for the preservation of the common rights of equal titles and possessions that there be some common term indued with power who is to be the Father of all men by an equal provision that every man's rights be secured by that fear which naturally we shall bear to him who can and will punish all unreasonable and unjust violations of Property And concerning this also the Holy Jesus hath added an express Precept of paying Tribute and all Caesar's dues to Caesar in all other particulars it is necessary that the instances and minutes of Justice be appointed by the Laws and Customs of the several Kingdoms and Republicks And therefore it was that Christianity so well combined with the Government of Heathen Princes because whatsoever was naturally just or declared so by the Political power their Religion bound them to observe making Obedience to be a double duty a duty both of Justice and Religion And the societies of Christians growing up from Conventicles to Assemblies from Assemblies to Societies introduced no change in the Government but by little and little turned the Commonwealth into a Church till the World being Christian and Justice also being Religion Obedience to Princes observation of Laws honesty in Contracts faithfulness in promises gratitude to benefactors simplicity in discourse and ingenuity in all pretences and transactions became the Characterisms of Christian men and the word of a Christian the greatest solemnity of stipulation in the world 32. But concerning the general I consider that in two very great instances it was remonstrated that Christianity was the greatest prosecution of natural Justice and equality in the whole world The one was in an election of an A postle into the place of Judas when there were two equal Candidates of the same pretension and capacity the Question was determined by Lots which naturally was the arbitration in questions whose parts were wholly indifferent and as it was used in all times so it is to this day used with us in many places where lest there be a disagreement concerning the manner of tithing some creatures and to prevent unequal arts and unjust practices they are tithed by lot and their sortuitous passing through the door of their sold. The other is in the Coenobitick life of the first Christians and Apostles they had all things in common which was that state of nature in which men lived charitably and without injustice before the distinction of dominions and private rights But from this manner of life they were soon driven by the publick necessity and constitution of affairs 33. Thirdly Whatsoever else is in the Christian Law concerns the natural precept of Sobriety in which there is some variety and some difficulty In the matter of 〈◊〉 the Holy Jesus did clearly reduce us to the first institution of Marriage in Paradise allowing no other mixture but what was first intended in the creation and first sacramental union and in the instance he so permitted us to the natural Law that he was pleased to mention no instance of forbidden Lust but in general and comprehensive terms of Adultery and Fornication in the other which are still more unnatural as their names are concealed and hidden in shame and secrecy we are to have no instructer but the modesty and order of Nature 34. As an instance of this Law of Sobriety Christ superadded the whole doctrine of Humility which Moses did not and which seem'd almost to be extinguished in the world and it is called by S. Paul sapere ad sobrietatem the reasonableness or wisdom of sobriety And it is all the reason in the world that a man should think of himself but just as he is He is deceived that thinks otherwise and is a fool And when we consider that Pride makes wars and causes affronts and no man loves a proud man and he loves no man but himself and his flatterers we shall understand that the Precept of Humility is an excellent art and a happy instrument towards humane Felicity And it is no way contradicted by a natural desire of Honour it only appoints just and reasonable ways of obtaining it We are not forbidden to
which thou hast laid for the foundation of thy Church and the structures of a vertuous life Remember me with much mercy and compassion when the sword of Sorrows or Afflictions shall pierce my heart first transfix me with love and then all the Troubles of this world will be consignations to the joys of a better 〈◊〉 grant for the mercies and the name sake of thy Holy Child Jesus Amen DISCOURSE III. Of Meditation 1. IF in the Definition of Meditation I should call it an unaccustomed and unpractised Duty I should speak a truth though somewhat inartificially for not only the interior beauties and brighter excellencies are as unfelt as Idea's and Abstractions are but also the practice and common knowledge of the Duty it self are strangers to us like the retirements of the Deep or the undiscovered treasures of the Indian Hills And this is a very great cause of the driness and expiration of mens Devotion because our Souls are so little 〈◊〉 with the waters and holy dews of Meditation We go to our prayers by chance or order or by determination of accidental occurrences and we recite them as we read a book and sometimes we are sensible of the Duty and a flash of lightning makes the room bright and our prayers end and the lightning is gone and we as dark as ever We draw our water from standing pools which never are filled but with sudden showers and therefore we are dry so often Whereas if we would draw water from the Fountains of our Saviour and derive them through the chanel of diligent and prudent Meditations our Devotion would be a continual current and safe against the barrenness of frequent droughts 2. For Meditation is an attention and application of spirit to Divine things a searching out all instruments to a holy life a devout consideration of them and a production of those affections which are in a direct order to the love of God and a pious conversation Indeed Meditation is all that great instrument of Piety whereby it is made prudent and reasonable and orderly and perpetual For supposing our Memory instructed with the knowledge of such mysteries and revelations as are apt to entertain the Spirit the Understanding is first and best imployed in the consideration of them and then the Will in their reception when they are duly prepared and so transmitted and both these in such manner and to such purposes that they become the Magazine and great Repositories of Grace and instrumental to all designs of Vertue 3. For the Understanding is not to consider the matter of any meditation in itself or as it determines in natural excellencies or unworthiness respectively or with a purpose to furnish it self with notion and riches of knowledge for that is like the Winter-Sun it shines but warms not but in such order as themselves are put in the designations of Theology in the order of Divine Laws in their spiritual capacity and as they have influence upon Holiness for the Understanding here is something else besides the Intellectual power of the Soul it is the Spirit that is it is celestial in its application as it is spiritual in its nature and we may understand it well by considering the beatifical portions of Soul and body in their future glories For therefore even our Bodies in the Resurrection shall be spiritual because the operation of them shall be in order to spiritual glories and their natural actions such as are Seeing and Speaking shall have a spiritual object and supernatural end and here as we partake of such excellencies and cooperate to such purposes men are more or less spiritual And so is the Understanding taken from its first and lowest ends of resting in notion and ineffective contemplation and is made Spirit that is wholly ruled and guided by God's Spirit to supernatural ends and spiritual imployments so that it understands and considers the motions of the Heavens to declare the glory of God the prodigies and alterations in the Firmament to demonstrate his handy-work it considers the excellent order of creatures that we may not disturb the order of Creation or dissolve the golden chain of Subordination Aristotle and Porphyry and the other Greek Philosophers studied the Heavens to search out their natural causes and production of Bodies the wiser Chaldees and Assyrians studied the same things that they might learn their Influences upon us and make Predictions of contingencies the more moral AEgyptian described his Theorems in Hieroglyphicks and phantastick representments to teach principles of Policy Oeconomy and other prudences of Morality and secular negotiation But the same Philosophy when it is made Christian considers as they did but to greater purposes even that from the Book of the Creatures we may glorifie the Creator and hence derive arguments of Worship and Religion this is Christian Philosophy 4. I instance only in considerations natural to spiritual purposes but the same is the manner in all Meditation whether the matter of it be Nature or Revelation For if we think of Hell and consider the infinity of its duration and that its flames last as long as God lasts and thence conjecture upon the rules of proportion why a finite creature may have an infinite unnatural duration or think by what ways a material fire can torment an immaterial substance or why the Devils who are intelligent and wise creatures should be so foolish as to hate God from whom they know every rivulet of amability derives This is to study not to meditate for Meditation considers any thing that may best make us to avoid the place and to quit a vicious habit or master and 〈◊〉 an untoward inclination or purchase a vertue or exercise one so that Meditation is an act of the Understanding put to the right use 5. For the Holy Jesus coming to redeem us from the bottomless pit did it by lifting us up out of the puddles of impurity and the unwholsome waters of vanity He redeemed us from our vain conversation and our Understandings had so many vanities that they were made instruments of great impiety The unlearned and ruder Nations had fewer Vertues but they had also fewer Vices than the wise Empires that ruled the World with violence and wit together The softer Asians had Lust and Intemperance in a full Chalice but their Understandings were ruder than the finer Latines for these mens understandings distilled wickedness as through a Limbeck and the Romans drank spirits and the sublimed quintessences of Villany whereas the other made themselves drunk with the lees and cheaper instances of sin so that the Understanding is not an idle and useless faculty but naturally drives to practice and brings guests into the inward Cabinet of the Will and there they are entertained and feasted And those Understandings which did not serve the baser end of Vices yet were unprofitable for the most part and furnished their inward rooms with glasses and beads and trifles fit for an American Mart. From all
parts concurring to his integral constitution Body and Soul and Spirit and all these have their proper activities and times but every one in his own order first that which is natural then that which is spiritual And what Aristotle said A man first lives the life of a Plant then of a Beast and lastly of a Man is true in this sence and the more spiritual the principle is the longer it is before it operates because more things concur to spiritual actions than to natural and these are necessary and therefore first the other are perfect and therefore last And who is he that so well understands the Philosophy of this third principle of a Christian's life the Spirit as to know how or when it is infused and how it operates in all its periods and what it is in its being and proper nature and whether it be like the Soul or like the faculty or like a habit or how or to what purposes God in all varieties does dispence it These are secrets which none but bold people use to decree and build propositions upon their own dreams That which is certain is * That the Spirit is the principle of a new life or a new birth * That Baptism is the Laver of this new birth * That it is the seed of God and may lie long in the furrows before it springs up * That from the faculty to the act the passage is not always sudden and quick * That the Spirit is the earnest of our Inheritance that is of Resurrection to eternal life which inheritance because Children we hope shall have they cannot be denied to have its Seal and earnest that is if they shall have all they are not to be denied a part * That Children have some effects of the Spirit and therefore do receive it and are baptized with the Spirit and therefore may with Water which thing is therefore true and evident because some Children are sanctified as Jeremy and the Baptist and therefore all may And because all Sanctification of persons is an effect of the Holy Ghost there is no peradventure but they that can be 〈◊〉 by God can in that capacity receive the Holy Ghost and all the ground of dissenting here is only upon a mistake because Infants do no act of Holiness they suppose them incapable of the grace of 〈◊〉 Now 〈◊〉 of Children is their Adoption to the Inheritance of sons their Presentation to Christ their Consignation to Christ's service and to Resurrection their being put into a possibility of being saved their restitution to God's favour which naturally that is as our Nature is depraved and punished they could not have And in short the case is this * Original righteousness was in Adam 〈◊〉 the manner of Nature but it was an act or effect of Grace and by it men were not made but born Righteous the inferiour Faculties obeyed the superiour the Mind was whole and right and conformable to the Divine Image the Reason and the Will always concurring the Will followed Reason and Reason followed the Laws of God and so long as a man had not lost this he was pleasing to God and should have passed to a more perfect state Now because this if Adam had stood should have been born with every child there was in Infants a principle which was the seed of holy life here and a blessed hereafter and yet the children should have gone in the road of Nature then as well as now and the Spirit should have operated at Nature's leisure God being the giver of both would have made them instrumental to and perfective of each other but not destructive Now what was lost by Adam is restored by Christ the same Righteousness only it is not born but superinduced not integral but interrupted but such as it is there is no difference but that the same or the like principle may be derived to us from Christ as there should have been from Adam that is a principle of Obedience a regularity of 〈◊〉 a beauty in the Soul and a state of acceptation with God And we see also in men of understanding and reason the Spirit of God 〈◊〉 in them which Tatianus describing uses these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soul is possessed with sparks or materials of the power of the Spirit and yet it is sometimes ineffective and unactive sometimes more sometimes less and does no more do its work at all times than the Soul does at all times understand Add to this that if there be in 〈◊〉 naturally an evil principle a proclivity to sin an ignorance and pravity of mind a disorder of affections as experience teacheth us there is and the perpetual Doctrine of the Church and the universal mischiefs issuing from mankind and the sin of every man does witness too much why cannot Infants have a good principle in them though it works not till its own season as well as an evil principle If there were not by nature some evil principle it is not possible that all the world should chuse sin In free Agents it was never heard that all individuals loved and chose the same thing to which they were not naturally inclined Neither do all men chuse to marry neither do all chuse to abstain and in this instance there is a natural inclination to one part But of all the men and women in the world there is no one that hath never sinned If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us said an Apostle If therefore Nature hath in Infants an evil principle which operates when the child can chuse but is all the while within the Soul either Infants have by Grace a principle put into them or else Sin abounds where Grace does not superabound expresly against the doctrine of the Apostle The event of this discourse is That if Infants be capable of the Spirit of Grace there is no reason but they may and ought to be baptized as well as men and women unless God had expresly forbidden them which cannot be pretended and that Infants are capable of the Spirit of Grace I think is made very credible Christus infantibus infans 〈◊〉 sanctificans 〈◊〉 said Irenaeus Christ became an Infant among the Infants and does sanctifie Infants and S. Cyprian affirms Esse apud omnes 〈◊〉 Infantes 〈◊〉 majores 〈◊〉 unam divini muneris aequitatem There is the same dispensation of the Divine grace to all alike to Infants as well as to men And in this Royal Priesthood as it is in the secular Kings may be anointed in their Cradles Dat Deus sui Spiritûs 〈◊〉 gratiam quam etiam latenter infundit in parvulis God gives the most secret Grace of his Spirit which he also secretly infuses into Infants And if a secret infusion be rejected because it cannot be proved at the place and at the instant many men that hope for Heaven will be very much to 〈◊〉 for a
concernment to God's glory to gain the Gentiles than to retain the Jews and yet if it had not the Apostles were bound to bend to the inclinations of the weaker rather than be mastered by the wilfulness of the stronger who had been sufficiently instructed in the articles of Christian liberty and in the adopting the Gentiles into the Family of God Thus if it be a question whether I should abate any thing of my external Religion or Ceremonies to satisfie an Heretick or a contentious person who pretends Scandal to himself and is indeed of another Perswasion and at the same time I know that good persons would be weakned at such forbearance and estranged from the good perswasion and Charity of Communion which is part of their Duty it more concerns Charity and the glory of God that I secure the right than twine about the wrong wilful and malicious persons A Prelate must rather fortifie and encourage Obedience and strengthen Discipline than by remisness toward refractory spirits and a desire not to seem severe weaken the hands of consciencious persons by taking away the marks of difference between them that obey and them that obey not and in all cases when the question is between a friend to be secured from Apostasie or an enemy to be gained from Indifferency S. Paul's rule is to be observed Do good to all but especially to the houshold of Faith When the Church in a particular instance cannot be kind to both she must first love her own children 12. Eighthly But when the question is between pleasing and contenting the fancies of a Friend and the gaining of an Enemy the greater good of the Enemy is infinitely to be preferred before the satisfying the unnecessary humour of the Friend and therefore that we may gain persons of a different Religion it is lawful to entertain them in their innocent customs that we may represent our selves charitable and just apt to comply in what we can and yet for no end complying farther than we are permitted It was a policy of the Devil to abuse Christians to the Rites of 〈◊〉 by imitating the Christian Ceremonies and the Christians themselves were before-hand with him in that policy for they facilitated the reconcilement of Judaism with Christianity by common Rites and invited the Gentiles to the Christian Churches because they never violated the Heathen Temples but loved the men and imitated their innocent Rites and only offered to reform their Errors and hallow their abused purposes and this if it had no other contradictory or unhandsome circumstance gave no offence to other Christians when they had learned to trust them with the government of Ecclesiastical affairs to whom God had committed them and they all had the same purposes of Religion and Charity And when there is no objection against this but the furies or greater heats of a mistaken Zeal the compliance with evil or unbelieving persons to gain them from their Errors to the ways of Truth and sincerity is great prudence and great Charity because it chuses and acts a greater good at no other charge or expence but the discomposing of an intemperate Zeal 13. Ninthly We are not bound to intermit a good or a lawful action as soon as any man tells us it is scandalous for that may be an easie stratagem to give me laws and destroy my liberty but either when the action is of it self or by reason of a publick known indisposition of some persons probably introductive of a sin or when we know it is so in fact The other is but affrighting a man this only is prudent that my Charity be guided by such rules which determine wise men to actions or omissions respectively And therefore a light fame is not strong enough to wrest my liberty from me but a reasonable belief or a certain knowledge in the taking of which estimate we must neither be too credulous and easie nor yet ungentle and stubborn but do according to the actions of wise men and the charities of a Christian. Hither we may refer the rules of abstaining from things which are of evil report For not every thing which is of good report is to be followed for then a false opinion when it is become popular must be professed for Conscience sake nor yet every thing that is of bad report is to be avoided for nothing endured more shame and obloquy than Christianity at its first commencement But by good report we are to understand such things which are well reported of by good men and wise men or Scripture or the consent of Nations And thus for a woman to marry within the year of mourning is scandalous because it is of evil report gives suspicion of lightness or some worse confederacy before the death of her husband the thing it self is apt to minister the suspicion and this we are bound to prevent And unless the suspicion be malicious or imprudent and unreasonable we must conceal our actions from the surprises and deprehensions of suspicion It was scandalous amongst the old Romans not to marry among the Christians for a Clergy-man to marry twice because it was against an Apostolical Canon but when it became of ill report for any Christian to marry the second time because this evil report was begun by the errors of Montanus and is against a permission of holy Scripture no Lay-Christian was bound to abstain from a second bed for fear of giving scandal 14. Tenthly The precept of avoiding Scandal concerns the Governours of the Church or State in the making and execution of Laws For no Law in things indifferent ought to be made to the provocation of the Subject or against that publick disposition which is in the spirits of men and will certainly cause perpetual irregularities and Schisms Before the Law be made the Superiour must comply with the subject after it is made the subject must comply with the Law But in this the Church hath made fair provision accounting no Laws obligatory till the people have accepted them and given tacite approbation for Ecclesiastical Canons have their time of probation and if they become a burthen to the people or occasion Schisms Tumults publick disunion of affections and jealousies against Authority the Laws give place and either fix not when they are not first approved or disappear by desuetude And in the execution of Laws no less care is to be taken for many cases occur in which the Laws can be rescued from being a snare to mens Consciences by no other way but by dispensation and slacking of the Discipline as to certain particulars Mercy and Sacrifice the Letter and the Spirit the words and the intention the general case and the particular exception the present disposition and the former state of things are oftentimes so repugnant and of such contradictory interests that there is no stumbling-block more troublesome or dangerous than a severe literal and rigorous exacting of Laws in all cases But when Stubbornness or a Contentious
an uncharitable circumstance do not commit the same fault which in them we so hate and accuse Let no man speak any thing of his neighbourhood but what is true and yet if a truth be heightned by the biting Rhetorick of a satyrical spirit extended and drawn forth in circumstances and arts of aggravation the truth becomes a load to the guilty person is a prejudice to the sentence of the Judge and hath not so much as the excuse of Zeal much less the Charity of Christianity Sufficient to every man is the plain story of his crime and to excuse as much of it as we can would better become us who perish unless we be excused for infinite irregularities But if we add this also that we accuse our Brethren 〈◊〉 them that may amend them and reform their error if we pity their persons and do not hate them if we seek nothing of their disgrace and make not their shame publick but when the publick is necessarily concerned or the state of the man's sin requires it then our accusations are charitable but if they be not all such accusations are accepted by Christ with as much displeasure in proportion to the degree of the malice and the proper effect as was this Acculation of his own person 9. But Pilate having pronounced Jesus innocent and perceiving he was a Galilean sent him to 〈◊〉 as being a more competent person to determine 〈◊〉 one of his own jurisdiction Herod was glad at the honour done to him and the person brought him being now desirous to see some Miracle 〈◊〉 before him But the Holy Jesus spake not one word there nor did any sign so to reprove the sottish carelesness of Herod who living in the place of Jesus's abode never had seen his person or heard his Sermons And if we neglect the opportunities of Grace and refuse to hear the 〈◊〉 of Christ in the time of mercy and Divine appointment we may arrive at that state of 〈◊〉 in which Christ will refuse to speak one word of comfort to us and the Homilies of the Gospel shall be dead letters and the spirit not at all refreshed nor the Understanding instructed nor the Affections moved nor the Will determined but because we have during all our time stopt our ears in his time God will stop his mouth and shut up the springs of Grace that we shall receive no refreshment or instruction or pardon or felicity Jesus suffered not himself to be moved at the pertinacious accusations of the 〈◊〉 nor the desires of the Tyrant but persevered in silence till Herod and his servants despised him and dismissed him For so it became our High Priest who was to sanctifie all our sufferings to consecrate affronts and scorn that we may learn to endure contempt and to suffer our selves in a religious cause to be despised and when it happens in any other to remember that we have our dearest Lord for a precedent of bearing it with admirable simplicity and equanimity of deportment and it is a mighty stock of Self-love that dwells in our spirits which makes us of all afflictions most impatient of this But Jesus endured this despite and suffered this to be added that he was exposed in scorn to the boys of 〈◊〉 streets For 〈◊〉 caused him to be arrayed in white sent him out to be scorned by the people and hooted at by idle persons and so remitted him to Pilate And since that Accident to our Lord the Church hath not undecently chose to cloath her Priests with Albs or white garments and it is a symbolical intimation and representment of that part of the Passion and 〈◊〉 which Herod passed upon the Holy Jesus and this is so far from deserving a reproof that it were to be wished all the children of the Church would imitate all those Graces which Christ exercised when he wore that garment which she hath taken up in ceremony and thankful memory that is in all their actions and sufferings be so estranged from secular arts and mixtures of the world so intent upon Religion and active in all its interests so indifferent to all acts of Providence so equal in all chances so patient of every accident so charitable to enemies and so undetermined by exteriour events that nothing may draw us forth from 〈◊〉 severities of our Religion or entice us from the retirements of a 〈◊〉 and sober and patient spirit or make us to depart from the courtesies of Piety though for such adhesion and pursuit we be esteemed fools or ignorant or contemptible Iesus is scourged by the Souldiers Mar 15 14. Then Pilate said unto them why what evill hath he done and they cried the more exceedingly Crucify him 15 And so Pilate willing to content the People released Barabbas unto them and delivered Iesus when he had scourged him to be Crucified They Crown him with Thornes Mat 27. 28. And they stripped him and put on him a Scarlet robe 29 And when they had platted a crown of Thornes they put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand and they bowed the knee before him mocked him saying Hayle King of the Iews 10. When Pilate had received the Holy Jesus and found that Herod had sent him back uncondemned he attempted to rescue him from their malice by making him a donative and a freed man at the petition of the people But they preferred a Murtherer and a Rebel Barabbas before him for themselves being Rebels against the King of Heaven loved to acquit persons criminal in the same kind of sin rather than their Lord against whom they took up all the arms which they could receive from violence and perfect malice desiring to have him crucified who raised the dead and to have the other 〈◊〉 who destroyed the living And when Pilate saw they were set upon it he consented and delivered him first to be scourged which the souldiers executed with violence and unrelenting hands opening his virginal body to nakedness and tearing his tender flesh till the pavement was purpled with a shower of holy bloud Itis reported in the Ecclesiastical story that when S. Agnes and S. Barbara holy Virgins and Martyrs were stripp'd naked to execution God pitying their great shame and trouble to have their nakedness discovered made for them a veil of light and sent them to a modest and desired death But the Holy Jesus who chose all sorts of shame and confusion that by a fulness of suffering he might expiate his Father's anger and that he might consecrate to our sufferance all kind of affront and passion endured even the shame of nakedness at the time of his scourging suffering himself to be devested of his robes that we might be clothed with that stole he put off for 〈◊〉 he 〈◊〉 on him the state of sinning Adam and became naked that we might 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 with Righteousness and then with Immortality 11. After they had scourged him without remorse they clothed him
in his name to plant the Faith to govern and superintend the Church at present and by their wise and prudent settlement of affairs to provide for the future exigencies of the Church III. The next thing then to be considered is the nature of their Office and under this enquiry we shall make these following remarks First it is not to be doubted but that our Lord in founding this Office had some respect to the state of things in the Jewish Church I mean not only in general that there should be superiour and subordinate Officers as there were superiour and inferiour Orders under the Mosaic dispensation but that herein he had an eye to some usage and custom common among them Now amongst the Jews as all Messengers were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Apostles so were they wont to dispatch some with peculiar letters of authority and Commission whereby they acted as Proxies and Deputies of those that sent them thence their Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every man's Apostle is as himself that is whatever he does is look'd upon to be as firm and valid as if the person himself had done it Thus when Saul was sent by the Sanhedrim to Damascus to apprehend the Jewish converts he was furnished with letters from the High Priest enabling him to act as his Commissary in that matter Indeed Epiphanius tells us of a sort of persons called Apostles who were Assessors and Counsellors to the Jewish Patriarch constantly attending upon him to advise him in matters pertaining to the Law and sent by him as he intimates sometimes to inspect and reform the manners of the Priests and Jewish Clergy and the irregularities of Country-Synagogues with commission to gather the Tenths and First-fruits due in all the Provinces under his jurisdiction Such Apostles we find mention'd both by Julian the Emperor in an Epistle to the Jews and in a Law of the Emperor Honorius imploy'd by the Patriarch to gather once a year the Aurum Coronarium or Crown-Gold a Tribute annually paid by them to the Roman Emperors But these Apostles could not under that notion be extant in our Saviour's time though sure we are there was then something like it Philo the Jew more than once mentioning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sacred messengers annually sent to collect the holy treasure paid by way of First-fruits and to carry it to the Temple at Jerusalem However our Lord in conformity to the general custom of those times of appointing Apostles or Messengers as their Proxies and Deputies to act in their names call'd and denominated those Apostles whom he peculiarly chose to represent his person to communicate his mind and will to the World and to act as Embassadors or Commissioners in his room and stead IV. Secondly We observe that the persons thus deputed by our Saviour were not left uncertain but reduced to a fixed definite number confin'd to the just number of Twelve he ordained twelve that they should be with him A number that seems to carry something of mystery and peculiar design in it as appears in that the Apostles were so careful upon the fall of Judas immediately to supply it The Fathers are very wide and different in their conjectures about the reason of it S. Augustine thinks our Lord herein had respect to the four quarters of the World which were to be called by the preaching of the Gospel which being multiplied by three to denote the Trinity in whose name they were to be called make Twelve Tertullian will have them typified by the twelve fountains in Elim the Apostles being sent out to water and refresh the dry thirsty World with the knowledge of the truth by the twelve precious stones in Aaron's breast-plate to illuminate the Church the garment which Christ our great High Priest has put on by the twelve stones which Joshua chose out of Jordan to lay up within the Ark of the Testament respecting the firmness and solidity of the Apostles Faith their being chosen by the true Jesus or Joshua at their Baptism in Jordan and their being admitted in the inner Sanctuary of his Covenant By others we are told that it was shadowed out by the twelve Spies taken out of every Tribe and sent to discover the Land of Promise or by the twelve gates of the City in Ezekiel's vision or by the twelve Bells appendant to Aaron's garment their sound going out into all the World and their words unto the ends of the Earth But it were endless and to very little purpose to reckon up all the conjectures of this nature there being scarce any one number of Twelve mentioned in the Scripture which is not by some of the Ancients adapted and applied to this of the Twelve Apostles wherein an ordinary fancy might easily enough pick out a mystery That which seems to put in the most rational plea is that our Lord pitched upon this number in conformity either to the twelve Patriarchs as founders of the twelve Tribes of Israel or to the twelve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or chief heads as standing Rulers of those Tribes among the Jews as we shall afterwards possibly more particularly remark Thirdly these Apostles were immediately called and sent by Christ himself elected out of the body of his Disciples and followers and receiv'd their Commission from his own mouth Indeed Matthias was not one of the first election being taken in upon Judas his Apostasie after our Lord's Ascension into Heaven But besides that he had been one of the seventy Disciples called and sent out by our Saviour that extraordinary declaration of the Divine will and pleasure that appeared in determining his election was in a manner equivalent to the first election As for S. Paul he was not one of the Twelve taken in as a supernumerary Apostle but yet an Apostle as well as they and that not of men neither by man but by Jesus Christ as he pleads his own cause against the insinuations of those Impostors who traduced him as an Apostle only at the second hand whereas he was immediately call'd by Christ as well as they and in a more extraordinary manner they were called by him while he was yet in his state of meanness and humiliation he when Christ was now advanced upon the Throne and appeared to him encircled with those glorious emanations of brightness and majesty which he was not able to endure V. Fourthly The main work and imployment of these Apostles was to preach the Gospel to establish Christianity and to govern the Church that was to be founded as Christ's immediate Deputies and Vicegerents they were to instruct men in the doctrines of the Gospel to disciple the World and to baptize and initiate men into the Faith of Christ to constitute and ordain Guides and Ministers of Religion persons peculiarly set apart for holy ministrations to censure and punish obstinate and contumacious offenders to compose and over-rule
not absolutely priviledg'd from failures and miscarriages in their lives these being of more personal and private consideration yet were they infallible in their Doctrine this being a matter whereupon the salvation and eternal interests of men did depend And for this end they had the spirit of truth promised to them who should guide them into all truth Under the conduct of this unerring Guide they all steer'd the same course taught and spake the same things though at different times and in distant places and for what was consign'd to writing all Scripture was given by inspiration of God and the holy men spake not but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Hence that exact and admirable harmony that is in all their writings and relations as being all equally dictated by the same spirit of truth Thirdly They had been eye-witnesses of all the material passages of our Saviour's life continually conversant with him from the commencing of his publick ministery till his ascension into heaven they had survey'd all his actions seen all his miracles observ'd the whole method of his conversation and some of them attended him in his most private solitudes and retirements And this could not but be a very rational satisfaction to the minds of men when the publishers of the Gospel solemnly declared to the world that they reported nothing concerning our Saviour but what they had seen with their own eyes and of the truth whereof they were as competent Judges as the acutest Philosopher in the world Nor could there be any just 〈◊〉 to suspect that they impos'd upon men in what they delivered for besides their naked plainness and simplicity in all other passages of their lives they chearfully submitted to the most exquisire hardships tortures and sufferings meerly to attest the truth of what they published to the World Next to the evidence of our own senses no testimony is more valid and forcible than his who relates what himself has seen Upon this account our Lord told his Apostles that they should be witnesses to him both in Judaea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth And so necessary a qualification of an Apostle was this thought to be that it was almost the only condition propounded in the choice of a new Apostle after the fall of Judas Wherefore says Peter of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went 〈◊〉 and out among us beginning from the Baptism of John unto the same day that he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his 〈◊〉 Accordingly we find the Apostles constantly making use of this argument as the most rational evidence to convince those whom they had to deal with We are witnesses of all things which Jesus did both in the Land of the Jews and in Jerusalem whom they slew and hanged on a tree Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto witnesses chosen 〈◊〉 of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he that is ordained of God to be Judge of the quick and dead Thus S. John after the same way of arguing appeals to sensible demonstration That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have look'd upon and our hands have handled of the word of life For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew unto you that cternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us This to name no more S. Peter thought a sufficient vindication of the Apostolical doctrine from the suspicion of forgery and imposture We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye-witnesses of his majesty God had frequently given testimony to the divinity of our blessed Saviour by visible manifestations and appearances from Heaven and particularly by an audible voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Now this Voice which came from Heaven says he we heard when we were with him in the holy Mount IX Fourthly The Apostles were invested with a power of working Miracles as the readiest means to procure their Religion a firm belief and entertainment in the minds of men For Miracles are the great confirmation of the truth of any doctrine and the most rational evidence of a divine commission For seeing God only can create and controll the Laws of nature produce something out of nothing and call things that are not as if they were give eyes to them that were born blind raise the dead c. things plainly beyond all possible powers of nature no man that believes the wisdom and goodness of an infinite being can suppose that this God of truth should affix his seal to a lye or communicate this power to any that would abuse it to confirm and countenance delusions and impostures Nicodemus his reasoning was very plain and convictive when he concludes that Christ must needs be a teacher come from God for that no man could do those Miracles that he did except God were with him The force of which argument lies here that nothing but a Divine power can work Miracles and that Almighty God cannot be supposed miraculously to assist any but those whom he himself sends upon his own errand The stupid and barbarous Lycaonians when they beheld the Man who had been a Cripple from his Mothers womb cured by S. Paul in an instant only with the speaking of a word saw that there was something in it more than humane and therefore concluded that the Gods were come down to them in the likeness of men Upon this account S. Paul reckons Miracles among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the signs and evidences of an Apostle whom therefore Chrysostom brings in elegantly pleading for himself that though he could not shew as the signs of his Priesthood and Ministry long Robes and gaudy Vestments with Bells sounding at their borders as the Aaronical Priests did of old though he had no golden Crowns or holy Mitres yet could he produce what was infinitely more venerable and regardable than all these unquestionable Signs and Miracles he came not with Altars and Oblations with a number of strange and symbolick Rites but what was greater raised the dead cast out Devils cured the blind healed the lame making the Gentiles obedient by word and deed thorough many signs and wonders wrought by the power of the spirit of God These were the things that clearly shewed that their mission and ministry was not from men nor taken up of their own heads but that they
the Opinions of Men about him were various and different that some took him for John the Baptist lately risen from the dead between whose Doctrine Discipline and way of life in the main there was so great a Correspondence That others thought he was Elias probably judging so from the gravity of his Person freedom of his Preaching the fame and reputation of his Miracles especially since the Scriptures assured them he was not dead but taken up into Heaven and had so expresly foretold that he should return back again That others look'd upon him as the Prophet Jeremiah alive again of whose return the Jewes had great expectations in so much that some of them thought the Soul of Jeremias was re-inspired into 〈◊〉 Or if not thus at least that he was one of the more eminent of the ancient Prophets or that the Souls of some of these Persons had been breathed into him The Doctrine of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transmigration of Souls first broached and propagated by Pythagoras being at this time current amongst the Jews and owned by the Pharisees as one of their prime Notions and Principles 2. THIS Account not 〈◊〉 our Lord comes closer and nearer to them tells them It was no wonder if the common People were divided into these wild thoughts concerning him but since they had been always with him had been hearers of his Sermons and Spectators of his Miracles he enquired what they themselves thought of him Peter ever forward to return an Answer and therefore by the Fathers frequently stiled The Mouth of the Apostles told him in the name of the rest That he was the Messiah The Son of the living God promised of old in the Law and the Prophets heartily desired and looked for by all good men anointed and set apart by God to be the King Priest and Prophet of his People To this excellent and comprehensive confession of Peter's Our Lord returns this great Eulogie and Commendation Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven That is this Faith which thou hast now confessed is not humane contrived by Man's wit or built upon his testimony but upon those Notions and Principles which I was sent by God to reveal to the World and those mighty and solemn attestations which he has given from Heaven to the truth both of my Person and my Doctrine And because thou hast so freely made this Confession therefore I also say unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it That is that as thy Name signifies a Stone or Rock such shalt thou thy self be firm solid and immoveable in building of the Church which shall be so orderly erected by thy care and diligence and so firmly founded upon that faith which thou hast now confessed that all the assaults and attempts which the powers of Hell can make against it shall not be able to overturn it Moreover I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven That is thou shalt have that spiritual authority and power within the Church whereby as with Keys thou shalt be able to shut and lock out obstinate and impenitent sinners and upon their repentance to unlock the door and take them in again And what thou shalt thus regularly do shall be own'd in the Court above and ratified by God in Heaven 3. UPON these several passages the Champions of the Church of Rome mainly build the unlimited Supremacy and Infallibility of the Bishops of that See with how much truth and how little reason it is not my present purpose to discuss It may suffice here to remark that though this place does very much tend to exalt the honour of Saint Peter yet is there nothing herein personal and peculiar to him alone as distinct from and preserred above the rest of the Apostles Does he here make confession of Christ's being the Son of God Yet besides that herein he spake but the sence of all the rest this was no more than what others had said as well as he yea besore he was so much as call'd to be a Disciple Thus Nathanael at his first coming to Christ expresly told him Rabbi thou art the Son of God Thou art the King of Israel Does our Lord here stile him a Rock All the Apostles are elsewhere equally called Foundations yea said to be the Twelve Foundations upon which the Wall of the new Jerusalem that is the Evangelical Church is 〈◊〉 and sometimes others of them besides Peter are called Pillars as they have relation to the Church already built Does Christ here promise the Keys to Peter that is Power of Governing and of exercising Church-censures and of absolving penitent sinners The very same is elsewhere promised to all the Apostles and almost in the very same termes and words If thine offending Brother prove obstinate tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And elsewhere when ready to leave the World he tells them As my Father hath sent me even so send I you whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained By all which it is evident that our Lord did not here give any personal prerogative to S. Peter as Universal Pastor and Head of the Christian Church much less to those who were to be his Successors in the See of Rome But that as he made this Confession in the name of the rest of the Apostles so what was here promised unto him was equally intended unto all Nor did the more considering and judicious part of the Fathers however giving a mighty reverence to S. Peter ever understand it in any other sence Sure I am that Origen tells us that every true Christian that makes this confession with the same Spirit and Integrity which S. Peter did shall have the same blessing and commendation from Christ conferr'd upon him 4. THE Holy Jesus knowing the time of his Passion to draw on began to prepare the minds of his Apostles against that fatal Hour telling them what hard and bitter things he should suffer at Jerusalem what affronts and indignities he must undergo and be at last put to death with all the arts of torture and disgrace by the Decree of the Jewish Sanhedrim Peter whom our Lord had infinitely incouraged and indeared to him by the great things which he had lately said concerning him so that his spirits were now afloat and his
34. Behold I send unto you prophets and wisemen and scribes some of them ye shall kill and crucifie some of them shall ye scurge in your synagogues and persecute them from Cyty to City The Sacred History sparing in the Acts of the succeeding Apostles and why S. Andrew's Birth-place Kindred and way of Life John the Baptist's Ministry and Discipline S. Andrew educated under his Institution His coming to Christ and 〈◊〉 to be a Disciple His Election to the Apostolate The Province assigned for his Ministry In what places he chiesly preached His barbarous usage at Sinope His planting Christianity at Byzantium and ordaining Stachys Bishop there His travails in Greece and preaching at Patrae in Achaia His arraignment before the Proconsul and resolute defence of the Christian Religion The Proconsul's displeasure against him whence An account of his Martyrdom His preparatory sufferings and crucifixion On what kind of Cross he suffered The Miracles reported to be done by his Body It s translation to Constantinople The great Encomium given of him by one of the Ancients 1. THE Sacred Story which has hitherto been very large and copious in describing the Acts of the two first Apostles is henceforward very sparing in its accounts giving us only now and then a few oblique and accidental remarques concerning the rest and some of them no further mentioned than the meer recording of their Names For what reasons it pleased the Divine wisdom and providence that no more of their Acts should be consigned to Writing by the Pen-men of the Holy story is to us unknown Probably it might be thought convenient that no more account should be given of the first plantations of Christianity in the World than what concerned Judaea and the Neighbour-countries at least the most eminent places of the Roman Empire that so the truth of the Prophetical Predictions might appear which had foretold that the Law of the Messiah should come forth from Sion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Besides that a particular relation of the Acts of so many 〈◊〉 done in so many several Countries might have swell'd the Holy Volumes into too great a bulk and rendred them less serviceable and accommodate to the ordinary use of Christians Among the Apostles that succeed we first take notice of S. Andrew He was born at Bethsaida a City of Galilee standing upon the banks of the Lake of Gennesareth Son to John or Jonas a Fisherman of that Town Brother he was to Simon Peter but whether Elder or Younger the Ancients do not clearly decide though the major part intimate him to have been the younger Brother there being only the single authorlty of Epiphanius on the other side as we have formerly noted He was brought up to his Father's Trade whereat he laboured till our Lord called him from catching Fish to be a Fisher of men for which he was fitted by some preparatory Institutions even before his coming unto Christ. 2. JOHN the Baptist was lately risen in the Jewish Church a Person whom for the efficacy and impartiality of his Doctrine and the extraordinary strictness and austerities of his Life the Jews generally had in great veneration He trained up his Proselytes under the Discipline of Repentance and by urging upon them a severe change and reformation of life prepared them to entertain the Doctrine of the Messiah whose approach he told them was now near at hand representing to them the greatness of his Person and the importance of the design that he was come upon Besides the multitudes that promiscuously flock'd to the Baptists discourses he had according to the manner of the Jewish Masters some peculiar and select Disciples who more constantly attended upon his Lectures and for the most part waited upon his Person In the number of these was our Apostle who was then with him about Jordan when our Saviour who some time since had been baptized came that way upon whose approach the Baptist told them that this was the 〈◊〉 the great Person whom he had so 〈◊〉 spoken of to usher in whose appearing his whole Ministry was but subservient that this was the Lamb of God the true Sacrifice that was to expiate the sins of Mankind Upon this testimony Andrew and another Disciple probably S. John follow our Saviour to the place of his abode Upon which account he is generally by the Fathers and ancient Writers stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the first called Disciple though in a strict sence he was not so for though he was the first of the Disciples that came to Christ yet was he not called till afterwards After some converse with him Andrew goes to acquaint his Brother Simon and both together came to Christ. Long they stayed not with him but returned to their own home and to the exercise of their calling wherein they were imployed when somewhat more than a Year after our Lord passing through Galilee found them 〈◊〉 upon the Sea of Tiberias where he fully satisfied them of the Greatness and Divinity of his Person by the convictive evidence of that miraculous draught of Fishes which they took at his command And now he told them he had other work for them to do that they should no longer deal in Fish but with Men whom they should catch with the efficacy and influence of that Doctrine that he was come to deliver to the World commanding them to follow him as his immediate Disciples and Attendants who accordingly left all and followed him Shortly after S. Andrew together with the rest was called to the Office and Honour of the Apostolate made choice of to be one of those that were to be Christ's immediate Vice-gerents for planting and propagating the Christian Church Little else is particularly recorded of him in the Sacred story being comprehended in the general account of the rest of the Apostles 3. AFTER our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and that the Holy 〈◊〉 had in its miraculous powers been plentifully shed upon the Apostles to fit them for the great errand they were to go upon to root out prophaneness and idolatry and to subdue the World to the Doctrine of the Gospel it is generally affirmed by the Ancients that the Apostles agreed among themselves by lot say some probably not without the special guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost what parts of the World they should severally take In this division S. Andrew had Scythia and the Neighbouring Countries primarily allotted him for his Province First then he travelled through Cappadocia Galatia and Bithynia and instructed them in the Faith of Christ pasling all along the Euxin Sea formerly called Axenus from the barbarous and inhospitable temper of the People thereabouts who were wont to sacrifice strangers and of their skulls to make Cups to drink in in their Feasts and Banquets and so into the solitudes of Scythia An ancient Author though whence deriving his intelligence I know not gives us a more particular