wherewith our first Parents and in them their whole posterity were bound by Satan For albeit the first sinne found entrance into our nature by incogitancy and had its period or accomplishment in pride yet were not pride or incogitancy the only strings of that snare wherein Satan had taken us The bonds and ties by which hee tooke and holds us captive are mentioned by S. Iohn in his first Epistle 2. Chap. ver 15 16. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world From these three heads or sources all the overflowing of ungodlinesse may be derived and these found entrance into this visible world through our first Parents folly and Satans subtilty For albeit the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life tooke their distinct specificall being or live-shape from the first sinne yet were the seeds of all these sinnes sowen by Satan in our first Parents soules and senses before the body of sinne with its members were framed or animated There was an extravagant desire of the eye an irregular appetite of the flesh by which the Serpent tolled on the first woman to eat the forbidden fruit and the eating of it did hatch this three-fold brood in kinde The woman saith Moses Gen. 3.6 saw through false spectacles of Satans making that the tree was good for food here was the embryon or seed of the lust of the flesh and that it was pleasant to the eye here were the first lineaments of the lust of the eye and a tree to bee desired to make one wise this was the inchoation of the pride of life And shee tooke of the fruit thereof and did eate and gave also to her husband and hee did eate and by their eating the former desire of forbidden food was turned into the lust of the flesh The curiosity of the eye was turned into the lust of the eye and the desire of knowledge or proper excellency was changed into the pride of life So that the truth of S. Iames his observation Chap. 1. ver 13 14. was remarkably experienced in the manner of our first Parents fall Let no man say when hee is tempted I am tempted of God For God cannot bee tempted with evill neither tempteth be any man But every man is tempted when hee is drawen away of his owne lust and entised Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sinne and sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death Now to dissolve these three temptations or cords of vanity wherewith our first Parents were taken captives the Sonne of God immediatly upon his Baptisme was led by the Spirit into the wildernesse to be tempted 2. Our first Parents being placed in Paradise a place furnished with variety and plenty of food by too much indulgence unto their appetite or by incogitancie to bridle it by reason could not abstaine from that fruit which onely was forbidden them Power they had to have abstained but they did not use it when they had no necessity no urgent provocation to eate at all much lesse to eate of that fruit The Sonne of God made a man more subject to bodily harmes by long forbearance of meat than our first Parents were after forty dayes continuance in a vast and barren wildernesse wherein no food or fruit did grow could not in his hunger bee tempted to eate any food which the ordinary providence of God did not reach unto him Ingeus iedam necessitas Necessity as we say hath no law there is no fence against it Cogit ad turpia it makes men otherwise honest to doe many things which are not comely And for this reason the great tempter at the first bout assaults our Saviour with this fiery dart of necessity If thou be the Sonne of God command that these stones be made bread As if he had said Long fasting hath made it apparant that thou art a man subject to weaknesse and infirmity and if thou be withall the Sonne of God thou canst and a necessity is laid upon thee as man to provide thy selfe of food for without food man cannot live Yet this fiery dart though steeled and pointed with the tempting delight of manifesting his owne worth or excellencie is wholly diverted by that shield of Faith It is written Man shall not live by bread onely but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God So Moses had said unto Israel I fed thee with Manna to teach thee that man liveth not by bread but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live Israel then did live for a long time both by Manna and by the word of God on which without Manna they would not have relied Manna was as the body and the word of God spoken by Moses as the soule or spirit of that food by which they lived both Manna and that word of God make but an Emblem or type of the eternall Word of God who is the food of life Life it selfe and yet at this time as man was an hungred So then as hee was the Sonne of God hee was able of stones to make bread and as he was a man subject to infirmities hee had just occasion at this time to use his power Yet as man invested with the forme of a servant he could not be induced to use this power For as hee often professeth he came not to doe his owne will no not in things lawfull and most agreeable to nature but the will of him that sent him though that did enjoyne him to doe or suffer things most displeasant to nature This was the time wherein he was by his Father appointed to conquer the irregular appetite of the sense of taste and the lust of the flesh 3. Our first Parents being Gods Vicegerents here on earth Lords of all his visible creatures not therewith content by Satans inticements aspired to be like unto God higher than Angels than other powers or principalities The Sonne of God albeit hee were by nature Lord of men and Lord of Angels cannot be allured to exercise his command over them albeit they were commanded to attend him Satans pretence in his second assault was very faire and seemed to be countenanced by Scripture If thou bee the Sonne of God cast thy selfe downe for it is written Hee shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall beare thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone Fitter occasion to any mans seeming could not be offered for the exquisite verification or exact fulfilling of this Prophecy than by this adventure to throw himselfe downe from the pinacle of the Temple But the Sonne of God who gave the Law being now made under the
plot as malicious as cunning in Satan to dispossesse man of his present dignity and to throw him downe from this height of hope to hellish slavery to make him a creature more miserable than the earth water or other inferiour element harboured any Yet was his misery if wee found the very depth of it not commensurable to the excessive measure of his pride The ground or bottome of his pride was lower than the lowest part of the earth as low as nothing the height of it reached above the highest heavens Man who as St. Augustine saith was but terrae filius nihili nepos the sonne of the earth and nephew of nothing Man who if he had looked back to his late beginning might have said to the silly earth-worme Thou art my sister and to every creeping thing Thou art my brother became so forgetfull of his originall that hee sought by the suggestion of Satan to become like his Almighty Creator who out of the same earth had made him so much more excellent than all earthly or sublunary creatures as they were than nothing But let the first mans pride or Satans malice in hatching it and the rest of that sinfull brood receive all the degrees of aggravation which the invention of man can put upon them yet the medicine prepared by the Sonne of God will appeare more ample than the wound is wide and more soveraigne than it is dangerous Satans cunning in working mans fall doth no way equalize the wisdome of the Sonne of God in dissolving this work It is not probable as was observed before that Satan could so farre infatuate the first man as to make him affect to bee every way equall with his God but onely to be like or equall unto him in some prerogative as in the knowledge of good and evill and probable it is hee did desire that his immortality and soveraignty over other creatures might be the one independent and the other supreme Now these and all other branches of pride whereof wee can imagine the humane nature by the Serpents suggestion to be capable are more than countervailed every way over-reached by the first degree of the humiliation of the Sonne of God Hee was not onely like but equall to the Father not in some one or few but in all the prerogatives of the Divine nature Hee was saith the Apostle in the forme of God and therefore thought it no robbery to be equall with God Yet hee vouchsafed to become not like to man onely but truely man more then equall to other men in sorrows and sufferings 3. Whatsoever equality or similitude with God it was at which the first mans pride through incogitancy did aime it was not effected but affected onely by way of triall He could not out of a deliberate choise or setled resolution assure himselfe that hee should become such as hee desired to be But the Sonne of God who was truely God out of unerrable unchangeable infinite wisdome determined with himselfe to become truely man How man whilest man should become more than man truely God neither the wit of man nor the subtilty of the Serpent could have devised although by divine permission or grant they had been enabled to accomplish whatsoever to this purpose they could devise or imagine But the Wisdome and Sonne of God found out a way by which hee might still continue God and yet become as truely man as he was God a way by which the diversity of these two natures might still remaine unconfused without diversity of persons or parties Though mans ambition had reached so high as to aspire from that condition of being wherein God had estated him to bee absolutely equall with God yet his ambition had not been equall to that humiliation which the Son of God did not onely affect but attaine unto For although he became a man of the same nature that Adam was of or any man since hath been yet was he a man of a lower condition of as low condition as any earthly creature could be for as the Psalmist in his person complaines Psal 22.6 Hee became a worme and no man the reproach of men one whom the very abjects amongst men did think they might safely tread upon with scorne 4. For the Sonne of God to bee made man to be made a man of this low estate or condition whencesoever hee had taken his humane substance was a satisfaction all-sufficient to the justice of God for mans pride a dissolution most compleat of the first work that our first Parents suffered the Devill to work in our nature if we respect onely the substance of it But that no part of Satans work no bond or tie of circumstance wherewith hee had intangled our nature might remaine undissolved the Sonne of God was made of a woman and this was to secure the woman or weaker sex that hee came to dissolve the works which Satan had wrought in them For as the Apostle saith The first woman was in the transgression not the man the man at lest not so deepe in the same transgression as the woman Shee alone for ought we reade committed the robbery in taking the forbidden fruit from off the tree her husband was the receipter onely And by swallowing it by the Serpents suggestions shee first conceived and brought forth death without her husbands consent or knowledge Her transgression was twofold Trust or confidence in the Serpents promise want of credence through pride to Gods threatnings To dissolve this work of the Devill so farre as it was peculiar to the woman the Sonne of God was conceived of a woman without the knowledge or consent of man Satan used the Serpent for his proxie to betroth himselfe unto our nature the holy Ghost by the ministery of an Angel winnes the blessed Virgins assent or accord to become the mother of the Sonne of God Seeing the first woman became the mother of sinne whilest shee remained a virgin though then a wife the Sonne of God would have a virgin for his mother yet a virgin wife a virgin affianced to a man And thus as the first woman being not begotten but made of man did accomplish Satans plot in working his fall and corrupting our nature so the Sonne of God being made man of a woman doth dissolve this work by purifying what she had corrupted and by repayring what the first man and woman had undone 5. There is a tradition concerning the Messias conception and his mothers father'd upon an ancient Jewish Rabbin by Petrus Galatinus but as I conjecture rather a Commentary upon his owne fancie or some Monkish Legendary whom hee was pleased to grace The abstract of this Legend with his Cōment upon it is thus There was one special part of Adams bodily substance priviledged from the contagion of the first sin and this propagated by one speciall line unto posterity untill it came to the mother of the Messias who from the vertue of this preserved portion of Adams nature was conceived
as it reacheth to the first moment of time or to the first beginning of heaven and earth of all things visible and invisible which have beginning of being From this utmost extent of the word beginning S. Iohn in the beginning or entrance into his Gospel strongly inferrs that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word by whom all things were made was truely God without beginning or end of dayes because he was in the beginning that is had a true and reall existence when all things whether visible or invisible which were created by him did but begin to be But the beginning mentioned by the same Apostle in the forecited place 1. Iohn 3.8 may not be stretched so farre as to make it pitch upon the first beginning of time or of all things made or created First it is neither certaine nor probable that any of the Angelicall substances were created or begun to bee before all other creatures Secondly it cannot be certainely knowne whether the blessed Angels which keepe their station and the collapsed Angels were all created in the same instant or if it were certaine or granted that some of them were created before others though all of the same day yet could there be no certainty or probability that the collapsed Angel which is become a Devill or prince of Devils who S. Iohn saith sinned from the beginning was created before all other Angels or with the first that were created Most probable it is in my opinion that the Angels were all created in the fourth evening and morning together with the Sunne and Moone and the Starres of the Firmament two dayes before man was created Thus much those words of God unto Iob Chap. 38. ver 4. seeme to import Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the world c. or when the morning starres sang together and all the sonnes of God shouted for joy If by the sonnes of God in this place the Angels be meant then Lucifer by which name we commonly describe the Devill was then the sonne of God an Angel of light and did with the whole hoast of heaven praise laud and magnifie his Creatour whensoever hee was created God created him righteous and just 2. Now albeit he was the first of all Gods visible creatures that became evill though sinne it selfe did take its beginning from him yet undoubtedly he had a perfect being before sinne did begin to be in him hee did not he could not sin in the same point of duration in which hee was created Some therefore for this reason referre the beginning mentioned in S. Iohn to the beginning of sinne as if his meaning in their construction were thus Satan sinneth perpetually from the beginning of sinne which had its first beginning in him But though this be true yet if wee stretch the beginning of our Apostle thus farre it will not close so well with his collection or inferences For the Devill in the same place is instiled a sinner from the beginning especially if not onely with reference to those works which the Sonne of God was to dissolve or destroy But the Sonne of God did not manifest himselfe on purpose to dissolve the works which the Devill had wrought in himselfe or in the collapsed Angels his associats but the works onely which they had wrought in man For this cause saith the Apostle He tooke not on him the nature of Angels but hee tooke on him the seed of Abraham Heb. 2.16 As the Devill is a liar and father of lies since the beginning so he was a sinner not onely in himselfe but the beginner or begetter of sinne in man And since he first begot sinne in him he sinneth still as a worker or foster-father of sinnes in mans posterity 3. Whether our first Parents did sinne upon the same day whereon they were created is to me uncertaine and for this reason I will not dispute either upon the improbabilities or probabilities of the affirmative opinion which is maintained by many of whose opinion I had rather make some good use than move any controversie about it Most certaine it is that the old Serpent and his associats were sinners themselves before they seduced our first Parents to that first and hainous sinne of mankind Whether one or more of them had possessed the visible Serpent which Moses saith was subtiler then all the beasts of the field as the fittest instrument or organ for accomplishing their designe against poore innocent man his ruine was projected before hee or they could accomplish it Most probable againe it is that they had grievously sinned against their God and Creator if not before yet at least from the Creation or first beginning of man whose estate they envied yet whether they were irreversibly cast out of Gods gratious presence before the accomplishment of this their project against man is not so certaine More probable to me it is that the accomplishment of this wicked project which they could not hope to effect but by slandering their Creator did make up the measure of their former sinnes unto an unpardonable height unto an height more unpardonable then the sinne against the holy Ghost is in men during this life For wee reade not of any curse or wofull Sentence pronounced much lesse peremptorily denounced against the old Serpent and his associats untill God had convented this visible Serpent and the woman whom he had beguiled But the curse denounced against that visible Serpent did fall upon the whole Legion of uncleane spirits which had possessed it or used it as their instrument though perhaps possessed but by one 4. In this seduction of our first Parents if not before the Devill committed sinne no lesse then rebellion or high treason against his maker In this alone if not otherwise he proudly sought to be like God in that he made man of a servant or sonne of God to become his slave or vassall He was of Iulius Caesars minde or rather Iulius Caesar of his and more affected ro be Lord Paramount over earth and the visible creatures in it then inferiour or Compeere to any Celestiall creature And no marvell or matter of wonderment it is if this combination of rebellion against God and of envie against man by God appointed the supreme Lord of all visible creatures did make the breach of Satans allegiance to his Creator so irreconcileable that the true and onely Sonne of God would not vouchsafe to become his Lord Redeemer as hee is of men whom hee seduced But whether S. Iohns meaning in the forecited place be that the Devill sinneth from the beginning of sinne in man or from the beginning of sinne in himselfe From the one or from the other beginning hee still continueth to sin against God and man without end or intermission 5. But is sinne in man in deed and truth the work of Satan If truely and properly it bee a work it is something or more then something as being the work of him who doth not
the conflict betwixt the Serpent and the womans seed continued As it is the property of some biting Serpents to make way or entrance by their venemous teeth for the infusion of more deadly poison from some other parts of their body so this generation of Vipers which persecuted the Sonne of God used the civill power of Pilat and the Roman souldiers to open his veines and lance his flesh that their tongues might instill the poison of Aspes into his glorious stripes and bleeding wounds But with the bitter taunts and indignities offered unto him even whilest he was upon the Crosse I am not to meddle in particular they have proper seasons allotted for their memoriall It sufficeth therefore to observe that the obedience and patience of the Sonne of God in these most grievous sufferings were so absolute that wee must borrow the patience of Iob not in the second temptation by bodily grievance but in his first temptation by losse of goods or worldly substance for a scale to set it forth In all his sufferings in all that his enemies tongues or hands could doe or say unto him this servant of God did not sinne so much as in word but offered the sacrifice of prayers and supplications with the sacrifice of his soule and spirit for his persecutors 3. Yet admit Iobs patience in his bodily afflictions had been more perfect than in the first temptation it was for losse of bodily goods and his obedience most compleat both without mixture of impatiencie without staine of disobedience the full measure of both had not been equivalent to the least scantling of the obedience or patience of the Sonne of God made man for those acts though otherwise equall are alwayes best which are done ex officio Prayers or solemn services officiated by a Priest and justice awarded by a Magistrate are more acceptable unto God and more beneficiall unto men than if the same Act or Offices were more accurately performed by private men without a calling Now Iob and other holy men became pro modulo in some sort the servants of God by obedience It was the greater measure of their obedience which made their service more acceptable But the obedience of the Sonne of God made man did result or issue from the forme of a servant which hee voluntarily and on purpose tooke upon him that hee might in it and by it performe obedience more than sufficient for dissolving the force and strength of that disobedience and rebellion which the Devill had wrought in the Father of mankinde which with its curse became hereditary to his sinfull posterity The first Adam was created in the image of God not in respect of holinesse onely but in respect of soveraignty and dominion The second Adam though he were the Son of God was molded in the forme of a servant even from his first conception For as the Apostle saith he who was in the forme of God did empty or annull himselfe taking upon him the forme of a servant This was the terminus ad quem the intrinsecall terme of the Sonne of Gods first humiliation for as was said before the Sonne of God did not humble or empty himselfe onely in his manhood or according to his manhood after it was assumed but in the very assumption of the manhood thus moulded in the forme of a servant His humility as man was the humility of a servant it was not affected but a native branch of his present calling His obedience was not forced by constraint or feare it was more than a branch the very essence of his calling For he tooke upon him the forme of a servant it was not put upon him against his will as it was upon Iob. Nor was his obedience as man more excellent than any other mans had been in respect of its root or originall onely as being the formall effect of his calling that is of the forme of a servant which he tooke upon him but most compleat in respect of the end or finall effect For having annulled himself by taking upon him the forme of a servant hee further humbled himselfe and became obedient unto death even to the death of the Crosse Other servants may with their earthly Masters consent be set free and supreme authority may in some cases command their Masters to set them free But the forme of a servant was so closely united or wedded unto the Sonne of God manifested in the flesh that it could not bee cut off or divorced from him save onely by death and by the death of the Crosse which was a servile death and the accomplishment of his service But in what peculiar acts was the obedience or exercise of the forme of a servant which the Sonne of God tooke upon him most conspicuous or more remarkable than they have been in other men 4. It is a great deale more usuall to our Saviour than to any Prophet to any sacred Writer or other Messenger of Gods will to tell his hearers that hee came not of himselfe but was sent that being sent he came not to doe his owne will but the will of him that sent him that hee spake nothing of himselfe but as his Father had appointed him so he spake and so he did What was the reason that hee that spake as never man spake and did those works which none besides could doe should so often use these or like speeches to his Auditors Sure his speeches unto this purpose are neither apologeticall nor preventive as if his authority had been more questionable or his practices more suspitious than the authority and practices of the Prophets and other holy men had been And what was it then that gave occasion to this peculiar forme of speech or made the use of it so familiar and frequent All his speeches to this purpose are but the characters or expressions of the forme of a servant which hee tooke upon him His whole course of life his undertakings and encounters with this stubborne people or with Satan and his instruments might have testified to any considerate unpartiall man that no man being left free to himselfe would have adventured upon them out of the deliberate choise of an humane or reasonable will Specially his last sufferings were such as no wise man how godly soever would have undergone unlesse they had been put upon him by authority supreme and irresistable We may further observe how the forme of a man and the forme of a servant which had layed quiet for three and thirty yeares without any Crisis of their difference did upon the approach of his death and passion begin to struggle but without all strife or hostile dissention as Esau and Iacob towards the time of their birth had done in their mothers wombe Even in the height of that triumphant and more than royall entertainment which the multitude made him at his entrance into Jerusalem as if hee had then come to take possession of the Crowne of his father David even whilest his
hands of a woman yet hee died by the hands of his Page or Armour-bearer And a certaine woman cast a piece of a milstone upon Abimelechs head and all to brake his scull Then hee called hastily unto the young man his Armour-bearer and said unto him Draw out thy sword and slay mee that men say not of me A woman slew him And his young man thrust him through and hee died Judg. 9.53 54. But as some Schoolemen have in the disquisition of this point gone too farre so others have acutely resolved the difficulty and elegantly reconciled the difference in opinions Mors Christi non fuit verè miraculosa erat tamen miraculum in morte Christi Christ did no way make away himself or die by miracle but by course of nature Yet was it a true miracle that his life and spirits being so farre spent he should have speech and memory so perfect as to make delivery of his soule into his Fathers hands viva voce at the very moment of his expiration The Jews and Romans did truely and properly take away his life and yet hee did as truely and properly animam ponere lay downe his life for his sheepe in that hee patiently submitted himself to their tyrannicall cruelty and more sweetly and placidly resigned up his soule into his Fathers hands at the instant of death by course of nature or perhaps a little after it than a sheepe doth his fleece unto the shearer or his owner In this resignation or bequeathing of his soule thus placidly into his Fathers hands in his inimitable patience in all his sufferings whether of torture or indignities there was a most exact concurrence or coincidence rather of all former sacrifices and obedience more then the quintessence of those sacrifices wherewith God was alwayes best pleased that is the sacrifice of a contrite spirit and broken heart not humbled but humbling it self unto death The most ful and proper satisfactory sacrifice that could be required by God or desired by man a sacrifice so compleat as no wisedome besides wisedome truely infinite could have conceived no person besides the person of him that was truly God could have offered or performed CHAP. XXX That the Sonne of God should be offered up in bloody sacrifice was concludently prefigured by the intended death of Isaac 1 THat the Sonne of God should be thus offered as a true and proper bloody sacrifice was concludently prefigured by the sacrifice of Isaac intended by his father Abraham That the Crosse whereon he offered himselfe should be the very Altar of Altars the body which the legal Altars did foreshadow and that this Crosse should be erected without the gate of Jerusalem was foreshadowed by other matters of fact recorded by Moses To begin with the first type to wit Isaac The place appointed by God himself for the sacrifice of Isaac was either the Mount whereon the Temple stood or some Mount neer unto it if not Calvary it self And when Abraham came neere to the foot of the Mount which of the Mountains of Moriah soever it were he laid the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac his sonne Isaac then bare his crosse unwittingly and was afterwards willing by gentle perswasions to die upon the wood which he bare For if he had detested or abhorred the fact intended upon him hee was of years and strength sufficient to have resisted his father he being at least twenty five years of age and Abraham one hundred twenty five Now our Saviour as the Evangelists record went forth bearing his crosse unto a place called in Hebrew Golgotha either a place where the sculs of dead men were laid or rather for the forme or fashion of it like a scull But here some curious Inquisitor or one disposed to examine or scann the relations of the Evangelists as Lawyers doe later evidences by more ancient deeds would interpose this or the like exception Non concordat cum originali For our Saviour CHRIST as the Evangelists record was really sacrificed actually crucified and put to death but so was not Isaac as Moses tels us But all this will inferr no more then all good Christians must of necessity grant to wit that the Evangelicall records are more than meer exemplifications of Moses For that which was verified or truly foreshadowed in Abrahams readinesse to sacrifice his onely sonne and in his sons willingnesse to be sacrificed by him was to be really and exactly fulfilled of God the Father who had bound himself by promise to give his onely sonne unto Mankinde and in the willingnesse of this his onely sonne JESUS CHRIST to be offered up in sacrifice for the sinnes of the world Our Apostle is not afraid to say that Abraham by faith offered up his onely sonne that very man upon whose life or death the fulfilling of the promises made to Abraham and his seed did depend accounting or being resolved that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure Heb. 11.17 18. Isaac then was a true figure both of Christs death and resurrection And Abraham first in stretching forth his hands to slay his onely sonne and secondly in being prohibited by God from accomplishing his resolution did accurately foreshadow those fundamentall truths which wee Christians beleeve concerning the true and bodily death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Abraham by benigne Interpretation of the minde or resolution for the very fact or deed did both sacrifice his onely son and receive him from the dead 2. But was there no more then a tentation or tryall of Abrahams faith in that story of Moses Gen. 22 If no more then so the tempting or tryall it self might seem superfluous For God who knoweth all things aswell possible as determinate or future did most infallibly know what Abraham would do upon his command what hee would leave undone upon expresse prohibition This onely concludeth that the omnipotent and all-seeing Father of power did not stand in need of the determination of Abrahams will either to foresee or determine that which upon this actuall obedience of Abraham he did first binde himself by oath to performe That which long before he had decreed ad extra and in his generall expression of his mercy and loving kindnesse he had promised to doe We had his promise before Mankinde was actually propagated or multiplyed upon the earth that the womans seed should bruise the old Serpents head which had seduced her The like comfortable words were at sundry times interposed by God himself to Noah and Abraham 3. But upon this present fact of Abraham the same Lord interposeth his oath and it was the first oath which we reade that God did make for the fulfilling of the generall promise in one of Abrahams seed Because thou hast done this thing and hast not spared thine onely sonne by my self have I sworne that in thy seed all the Nations of the Earth shall be blessed But did not
that grand mystery which this strange temporall healing did prefigure and that was the future cure of our Soules our deliverance from the tyranny of the old Serpent by the Sonne of God becomming the Sonne of man and vouchsafing to bee lift up from the earth upon the Crosse For it was requisit that upon them exercising tyranny should come penury which they could not avoid but to these it should onely be shewed how their Enemies were tormented For when the horrible fiercenesse of beasts came upon these and they perished with the stings of crooked Serpents thy wrath endured not for ever But they were troubled for a small season that they might bee admonished having a signe of salvation to put them in remembrance of the commandment of thy Law For hee that turned himself toward it was not healed by the thing which hee saw but by thee which art the Saviour of all Wisd 16.4 5 6 7. 3. Shall wee say then that the brazen Serpent was a true picture or type of Christ So many have from the forecited place of S. Iohn concluded and of these many not a few have sought out divers properties of brasse and of Serpents more then accurate naturalists before had knowne to salve up the apparant incongruity betwixt the picture and the body which they would have it to represent But when they have said all they can or others more then they could for them the congruity will bee no better then si gryphes jungantur equis For what correspondencie or conveniency can there bee betweene the Serpent and the womans seed Shall we attempt to foreshadow light by darknesse or make a league betwixt Christ and Beliall All that which our Saviours exposition upon Moses his fact will concludently inferre is briefly this that the mystery of his suffering upon the Crosse was prefigured by the erection of the brazen Serpent and by the comfort which the wounded Israelites found by looking upon it 4. Ahitophels treachery against his Master David did truely foreshadow the betraying of Davids Lord by Iudas yet no man will hence conclude that Ahitophel was a type of Christ or of his death but rather of Iudas and his fearefull end Nor was the brazen Serpent any other wayes a type of Christs person then Ahitophel was that is no type at all yet a more excellent type of that old Serpent whom the womans seed was to vanquish then Ahitophel was of Iudas And the erection of this Serpent upon a pole or tree was a prophecie or speaking picture that the victory of the womans seed or Sonne of God over Satan should be accomplisht upon the Crosse This Interpretation I learne from our Saviour himself Iohn 12.31 Now is the judgement of this world now shall the prince of this world bee cast out Now that is when the Sonne of man shall bee lift up The Crosse then was the scene or stage wherein the long duell was to bee determined and the destruction of the old fiery Serpent upon the stage was excellently foreshadowed by the lifting up of the brazen Serpent in the wildernesse which questionlesse did better represent a dead wounded or bruised Serpent then a live or active one This interpretation or display of that sacred Embleme is most consonant to the historicall circumstances and occasions which Moses had to make and set up the brazen Serpent upon a pole to the view of all the people God from the fall of our first Parents did by way of punishment as well upon the woman and her seed as upon the Serpent and his seed which had seduced her denounce a perpetuall enmity betweene them Now albeit this enmity did principally consist between the womans seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is our Saviour and the old Serpent that is the Devill and their followers Yet this spirituall enmitie was visibly represented to the world by that antipathy which in course of nature is usually experienced betweene men and bodily Serpents And this enmity specially on the Serpents part was never more remarkable then in the wildernesse when the murmuring Israelites did tempt the Lord their God after the same manner as the first woman had done that is by lusting after meats for that time and place forbidden by loathing Manna and heavenly food which God had plentifully provided for them And they departed from the mount Hor by the way of the red Sea to compasse the land of Edom and the people were sore greeved because of the way And the people spake against God and against Moses saying Wherefore have yee brought us out of Aegypt to die in the wildernesse for here is neither bread nor water and our soule loatheth this light bread Wherefore the Lord sent fiery Serpents among the people which stang the people so that many of the children of Israel died Therefore the people came to Moses and said Wee have sinned for wee have spoken against the Lord and against thee pray unto the Lord that hee take away the Serpents from us And Moses prayed for the people And the Lord said unto Moses Make thee a fiery Serpent and set it upon a pole and it shall come to passe that every one that is bitten when hee looketh upon it shall live And Moses made a Serpent of brasse and put it upon a pole and it came to passe if a Serpent had bitten any man when hee beheld the Serpent of brasse hee lived Num. 21.4 5 6 7 8 c. 5. The importance or implication of the historie is that as God had now brought that curse upon them which had been denounced against the womans seed from her first sinne so in case they would not tempt the Lord their God by renewing their first Parents sinne they should in good time see the curse denounced against the old Serpent that is the crushing of his head as exactly fulfilled as the punishment upon the womans seed had beene by the fiery Serpents in biting their heeles That the same Lord who had now saved them from the poison of these lesser bodily Serpents would in his good time deprive the old Serpent of his deadly sting and destroy death it self by dying upon the Crosse The experience of woes or calamities threatned against disobedience is usually given by Gods Prophets as a pledge or earnest for the accomplishment of the good things which he hath promised to the penitent 6. That which specially did first perswade me thus to display the Embleme of the brazen Serpent was the demolition of it by good Hezekiah who questionlesse would never have done to it as he did had hee knowen or taken it to have been the type or figure of his expected Redeemer rather then of his Enemy The good King by this zealous fact did foreshadow the future accomplishment of that grand mystery which the erection of the brazen Serpent was appointed to represent to wit the dissolution of the old Serpents Kingdome over this world The adoration of this Serpent whilst