Lord But if it were thus in the Hebrew the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must have been put after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas here it is before it Others seem to take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a particle aequivalent with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the interlinear ipsum Decretum but it is more reasonable to take it as vulgarly it is for a preposition signifying de and then it will be best rendred I will tell of a decree or covenant V. 8. Son That David as a King exalted by Gods peculiar command should be stiled Gods Son or that the time of his inauguration or instating in that power taking possession of his throne and subduing his enemies on every side should be exprest by the day of Gods begetting hath nothing strange in it It is affirmed in the name of God Psal lxxxix 26 He shall cry unto me Thou art my Father and v. 27. Also I will make him my first-born higher then the Kings of the earth where each King of the earth is lookt on as a Son of God but he as being higher then they his first-born We know an adopted Son is stiled a Son and Salathiel Mat. i. 12 is said to be begotten by Jechoniah because he succeeded him in the Kingdom though he were not indeed his Son And so may David be Gods Son being immediately exalted by him and indeed all other Kings who are said to reign by him And that the time of his Coronation should be lookt on as his birth-day and accordingly kept festival as the birth-day was that is familiar in all Countreys The Feast of commemorating the building of Rome we know was called Palilia and this title was by decree given to the day of Caius the Emperour his advancement to the Empire Decretum ut dies quo cepisset imperium Palilia vocaretur 'T was decreed that the day on which he began his Reign should be so called and accordingly celebrated And the Emperour generally had two natales or birth-birth-days kept Natalis Imperatoris and Imperii the birth-day of the Emperour and of the Empire the first to commemorate his coming into the World the second his advancement to the Imperial Dignity So Spartianus in Adriano tells us of the Natalis adoptionis the day of his adoption i. e. his civil birth on V. Ides of August and then Natalem Imperii the birth-day of his Empire on the III. And Tacitus of Vespasian Hist l. ii Primus Principatus dies in posterum celebratus the first day of his Empire was celebrated afterwards But then in the mystical sense some difficulty there is what Sonship or begetting of Christ is here meant The Schoolmen from some of the Ancients understand it of the eternal Generation of the Son of God and interpret the hodiè to day of an hodiè aeternitatis a day of eternity But the Apostle S. Paul Act. xiii 33 applies it distinctly to his resurrection He hath raised up Jesus again as it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee and so Heb. v. 5. it is brought as an evidence of Christ's being consecrated by his Father to his Melchizedekian High-Priesthood which we know was at his Resurrection Christ glorified not himself to be made an high-Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee who in the dayes of his flesh v. 7. being made perfect became the Author of eternal salvation called of God an high-Priest v. 9 10. So Heb. 1.5 where this Text is again recited the Context refers it to the exaltation of him in his humane nature when having purged our sins he sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high being made so much better than the Angels v. 3.4 And to this belongs that of St. Hierom ad Paulin. David Simonides noster Pindarus Alcaeus Christum lyrâ personat decachordo Psalterio ab inferis suscitat resurgentem David our Divine Poet sounds out Christ upon his Harp and with his Psaltery of ten strings awakes him rising from the dead Only it must be remembred that as it was an act of his divine power by which he was raised and so his resurrection was an evidence demonstrative that he was the promised Messias of whom the Learned Jews themselves resolved that he was to be the Son of God and that in an eminent manner so the High-Priest Mat. xxvi 63 Tell us whether thou art the Christ the Son of God and Joh. i. 20 Rabbi thou art the Son of God the King of Israel so this begetting him from the grave to a life immortal did comprehend and presuppose the truth of that other fundamental Article of our Creed that he was that eternal word or Son of God which thus rose Thus the Apostle sets it Rom. i. 4 speaking of Jesus Christ our Lord made of the seed of David according to the flesh and adding that he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the Resurrection from the Dead Now that this his resurrection and exaltation consequent to it is here fitly exprest by Gods begetting him will easily be believed upon these two accounts 1. That in respect of his humane nature it was a second as that from the Mothers Womb a first entrance on humane life the grave was but a second womb from which now he came forth and it is not unusual to call the resurrection of one of us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new or second birth 2. That Princes or Rulers are in Scripture style called Gods and children or sons of God I said you are Gods and you are all children of the most high and then instating Christ in his Regal Office is the begetting him and so the saying Thou art my son i. e. by saying constituting him so the second sort of Natalis or birth-day the birth-day of his Kingdom yea and Melchizedekian Priesthood too to that the Apostle applies it Heb. v. 4.5 for to both these he was solemnly installed at his Resurrection The Chaldee of all the Interpreters seem alone not to have understood this mysterie who render it Thou art beloved by me as a Son by a Father thou art pure to me as if this day I had created thee V. 8. Vtmost parts That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 finitus terminatus consumptus est signifies the utmost skirts the extreme parts of that which is spoken of there can be no question All that is here to be noted is the dubious notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earth that is joyned with it For if that be interpreted of the Vniverse or whole World then there can here be no place for the historical sense respecting David for it is certain he was never constituted by God the Vniversal Monarch of the whole World Yet on the other side if it be not taken in this latitude it will
who can dwell with everlasting burnings and all little enough to rouze you out of that dead prodigious sleep of sin to retrench the fury of one riotous lust I beseech you tell me is there ever a judgement to come ever an account to be given for moral vertues Do you so much as fear that for every unclean embrace or dalliance every shameless loud riot for every boisterous rage or execration that I may not add for every contumelious rude address to the throne of grace every base contempt of that majesty that fills this place God shall one day call you into judgement if you do and yet go on in these believe me you are the valliantest daringst persons in the world and if death be not more formidable to you than hell you are fit for a reserve or forlorn hope for the Cannons mouth for Cuiraisiers for fiends to duel with and let me for once set up an infamous trade read you a Lecture of cowardise and assure you that a judgment to come may be allow'd to set you a trembling that it may be reconcilable with Gallantry to fear him that can cast both body and soul into hell and put you in mind of that which perhaps you have not considered that you are not Atheists enough to stand out those terrours when they begin to come close up to you in a death-bed-clap of thunder Cain that was the first of this Order was not able to bear that near approach he went out from the presence of the Lord and the Rabbins have a fansie of Absalom that when he was hang'd by his hair in the midst of his rebellion he durst not cut it because he saw hell below him but chose to die rather than adventure to fall into that place of horrour that his attached conscience had prepared for him They are believe it such unreformed Atheistical hights as these that have made it so indifferent a choice Whether the kingdom be destroyed or no whether it be peopled with Satyrs or with wilder men become all desart or all Bedlam This heaviest judgment that ever fell upon a Nation extream misery and extream fury is I confess a most direful sight but withall a more inauspicious prognostick a sound of a Trumpet to that last more fatal Day with an Arise thou dementate sinner and come to judgment When all our most bloudy sufferings and more bloudy sins got together into one Akeldama or Tophet shall prove but an adumbration of that heavier future doom after which we shall do that to some purpose which we do now but like beginners by way of essay curse God and die suffer and blaspheme blaspheme and suffer for ever But then secondly this doctrine of justice and continence and judgement to come is most necessary as to awake the courtly Governour Felix so in the next place to convert the unbelieving heathen Felix Will you see the first principles of the doctrine of Christ when they are to be infused into such an one or as the Original hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 6.1 the doctrine of the beginning of Christ the laws of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or initiation of a heathen Convert the elements of his Catechism they are in that place Heb. 6.2 1. Repentance from dead works And 2. Faith towards God 3. Resurrection And 4. Eternal judgment and believe me for him that thus comes unto God out of his animal heathen unregenerate life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catalogue of the necessariò credenda is not over large he must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder Heb. 11.6 this and it seems no more but this is the minimum quod sic the summ of the faith without which 't is impossible to please him and therefore perhaps it was that Ammianus Marcellinus expresses his wonder that Constantius should call so many Councils whereas before Christian Religion was res simplicissima a plain Religion without contentions or intricacies and Epiphanius of the primitive times that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divided the Church into its true and erroneous members Impiety the only Heretick good life the orthodox professour Next the acknowledgment of the one God and his eternal Son the crucified Messias of the world and the Holy Ghost those one and three Authors of our Religion into which we are baptized and those few other branches of that faith the judgment to come and the practice of Christian vertues in the elevated Christian pitch is the prime if not only necessary And though there be more to be known fit to exercise his industry or his curiosity that hath treasur'd up these fundamentals in an honest heart yet sure not to serve his carnal mind to purge his spleen to provoke his choler to break communions to dilapidate that peace that charity that Christ beyond all other inheritances bequeathed to his disciples Let us but joyn in that unity of spirit in those things which we all know to be Articles of Faith and the precise conscientious practice of what we cannot chuse but know to be branches of our duty and I shall never lead you into any confounding depths or mazes divert you one minute by a walk in the gallery from that more Christian imployment and task in the workhouse And that will be the improvement of the second particular Lastly as the Felix was guilty of those sins which those vertues did reproach to him This Felix is to be met with in our books presented to us on a double view of Tacitus and Josephus Tacitus renders him an Eques Romanus that Claudius had sent Procurator of Judaea to manage it for a time and saith he did it per omnem saevitiam libidinem in the most cruel arbitrary manner and then see the difference of an Apostolick Preacher from Tertullus the Rhetor the one at his humble address and acknowledgment of the obligations that the whole Nation had received from this most excellent Felix ver 2. But Saint Paul in a pricking close discourse of justice and upon neglect of it judgment to come Josephus he looks nearer into his actions and finds him a tyrannical usurper of another mans wife Drusilla seduced to his bed from her husband Azys the King of the Emessâ—ni And then the Sermon of the faith on Christ presently lets loose at this adulterous couple and so you have the seasonableness of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too of chastity to the unchaste Felix and of judgment to come on such wasting sins This will certainly teach the Preacher the combatant of the Lord the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the regular manner of his duelling with sin not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wounding the empty air lashing those sins or sinners that are out of reach of his stripes but the closer nearer encounter the directing his blows at those crimes that are present to him most culpable and visible in his Auditory and thus grasping with the Goliah
morning in the resurrection in which the just shall judge the world and so subjugate the wicked wordlings to all eternity Then follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their beauty or form or figure so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 effinxit formavit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a contraction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which being an imperfect sense must be supplied from that which went before and their form i. e. so likewise shall their form do as the upright shall in the resurrection have dominion over the wicked rise and raign joyfully so likewise shall their form or figure referring to the restauration of their bodies they shall rise again in their old shapes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the failing of Hades from an habitation to it i. e. where Hades shall fail to be an habitation to it i. e. when the grave or common repository of the dead in which their beauty form and figure was consumed shall it self decay and lose its strength death having forfeited her sting and the grave her victory no longer to be a mansion to the bodies of the just And this being here spoken in general of all just men is by David particularly applied to himself v. 15. But God will deliver my soul from the power of the grave c. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LXXII read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their help as from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 petra a rock and by metaphore strength refuge and so help and the Latine follows them but Syriack reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their form or image And so this is the interpretation of this whole verse the principal part of difficulty in this parable or dark saying for which this Psalm was designed V. 15. Receive me God 's receiving here is to be understood in the same sense as Enochs being received or taken by God Gen. 5.24 or as we find Psal 73.34 thou shalt after receive me to glory Thus Jonah 4.3 he prays take I beseech thee my life And then it will signifie Gods future receiving him to glory V. 18. Though whilst he lived The Hebrew of the 18. verse is thus literally and clearly rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for in his living or life time he blest his soul the impious worldling applauded much his own present state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but men shall praise thee or thou shalt be praised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if or when thou dost well to thy self i. e. for doing well to thy self for doing that which may tend really and eternally to thy good and not for saying well for applauding thy present felicity V. 19. Shall go To go or to be gathered to the fathers is a known expression of dying in peace and the same is the importance of the phrase here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall go to the generation of his fathers So the Chaldee read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the memory of the just shall come and be added to the generation of their fathers but the wicked shall never see light The Fiftieth PSALM A Psalm of Asaph Paraphrase The Fiftieth Psalm is a solemn magnifying of Gods power and majesty and a description of the calling of the Gentiles and of the true Evangelical way of worshipping God It was composed probably by David and appointed to be sung by Asaph a Levite appointed by David to attend the Ark and to record and to thank and to praise the Lord God of Israel 1 Chron. 16.5 1. The mighty God even the Lord hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof Paraphrase 1. The decree is gone out from the Omnipotent God of heaven the supreme eternity Lord and Judge over all the world that he will assemble and convocate the whole Nation of the Jews from Dan to Bersheba from sea to sea from East to West to reduce and take them off from their hypocritical and abominable practises and bring them to the due acknowledgment and pure worship of the true God and the practise of all virtue 2. Out of Sion the perfection of beauty God hath shined Paraphrase 2. To this end as God hath fixt his Tabernacle on Mount Sion presentiated himself as illustriously there as he did at the giving the Law on Mount Sinai so shall the Son of God in the fulness of time descend to this earth of ours the true light John 1.9 shall shine forth the Messias shall be born of our flesh of the seed of David and having preacht repentance to the Jews and being rejected by their Sanhedrim and Crucified by them he shall rise from death and ascend to his Father and then send his Spirit on his Apostles thereby commissionating them to reveal his Gospel to all the world beginning from the place where God hath been pleased in a special manner to reside this most beautiful mount of Sion there he now presentiates himself and from thence he shall then begin to shine forth and inlighten the heathen world the preaching of his Gospel to all the world shall commence and proceed from thence 3. Our God shall come and shall not keep silence a fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him Paraphrase 3. What is thus decreed shall certainly come to pass in its appointed time and be lookt on as an extraordinary and signal work of Gods power wherein much of his divine presence shall be discernible and the immediate attendants of it shall be very dreadful and terrible above that of the giving the Law to the Jews from Mount Sinai 4. He shall call to the Heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge his people Paraphrase 4. And it shall begin with a summons as to a solemn Assises for the examining the actions of men good and bad those that have resisted and despised the Messias and those that have subjected themselves to him All shall be judged by him the former punished and the latter rewarded And Angels and Men shall be summoned and called in to be executioners of these his judgments 5. Gather my Saints together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by sacrifice Paraphrase 5. And the good Angels his ministers of preservation shall be appointed to take special care of all the pious believing Jews Mat. 24.31 Rev. 7.3 who have sincerely given themselves up to his service received the Christian faith and in their baptism made vow of performing it faithfully which adore and pray constantly to him and not to suffer any harm to come nigh to these 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness for God is Judge himself Selah Paraphrase 6. And so accordingly shall they do rescuing all faithful believers out of the calamities that attend the crucifiers A thing much to be taken notice of as an act of most
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in seculum is capable of the right sense he that hath dominion over the world the very paraphrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which God is known in the Creed the ruler of all things The Sixty Seventh PSALM TO the chief Musitian upon Neginoth a Psalm or Song Paraphrase The sixty seventh is a Psalm of supplication and thanksgiving and was committed to the Praefect of the Musick to be sung to the stringed instruments See note on Psal 4. a. 1. God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us Selah Paraphrase 1. The good God of heaven pardon our sins supply our wants bestow his blessings both spiritual and temporal behold us with favour and acceptation and for ever continue them to us 2. That thy way may be known upon earth thy saving health among all nations Paraphrase 2. And this will be a means of propagating the fear worship and service of the true God to the whole heathen world when they shall see and consider the eminent miraculous acts of thy providence over us in delivering us from the dangers and distresses that have been upon us 3. Let the people praise thee O God let all the people praise thee Paraphrase 3. And this of an universal reformation and acknowledgment of the one God of heaven and earth is a mercy so much to be wished for and desired by every pious man the inlargement of Gods kingdom that I cannot but give my suffrage to it and most affectionately call upon all to joyn in it and beseech God to give this grace of his to all the men in the whole world 4. O let the nations be glad and sing for joy for thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth Selah Paraphrase 4. And for them that are admitted to this honour of being ruled and directed by God 't is matter of infinite joy and exultation his statutes being so admirably good and agreeable to all our interests and the administration of his works of providence so perfectly wise and just that all the world are in prudence and care of and love to themselves obliged with joy to submit to the erection of his Kingdom in their hearts 5. Let the people praise thee O God let all the people praise thee Paraphrase 5. 'T were a happy and blessed thing if all the world would be duly sensible of it and so all joyn to acknowledge and worship serve and obey and partake of this mercy of God and so be induced to magnifie his Name for it 6. Then shall the earth yield her increase and God even our own God shall bless us Paraphrase 6. His mercies are afforded to all the rain from heaven and the fruitful seasons peculiar acts of his providence see note on Act. 14.17 and such as oblige all the most heathen men in the world to acknowledge and bless and give up themselves to the obedience of the God of heaven It remains that we continually pray to the same God who hath exprest himself so gratiously to us that he will bestow his benediction both on us and on all that he hath so richly afforded us 7. God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him Paraphrase 7. And may it thus be The Lord of heaven crown us with his blessings and may all the most barbarous people in the world be brought to the acknowledgment and worship and uniform obedience and subjection to him Annotations on Psalm LXVII V. 4. Govern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 duâ—cit seems here to signifie in a comprehensive latitude all acts of conduct as of a pastor toward his sheep leading them into their pastures guiding and directing men into those courses which are most eminently profitatable for them of a General toward his Souldiers marshalling them and going before them and so prospering them in their fight against all kinds of enemies and lastly of a King ruling and ordering his subjects and so doth God those that will sincerely submit to him All which the word lead or conduct may contain under it and so that will be the fitter because the more literal and withall more comprehensive rendring and to be preferred before that of governing V. 6. Shall yeeld The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in the praeter tense is so interpreted by the Antients The LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earth hath given or yeelded her fruit the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earth hath given and the Syriack in the same words and so the Latine Terra dedit and the Arabick and Aethiopick And therefore although it be frequent when the sense requires it to interpret the Hebrew praeter tense in the future yet the sense not requiring it here and the Interpreters according in the contrary there will be no reason here to admit of it but to set it as the Hebrew lies as an argument to infer the universal confessing and acknowledging and serving of God v. 5. as it is set by S. Paul to the heathens Act. 14.17 And then that which follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be best rendered in form of benediction God bless us even our God and so the LXXII read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latins Benedicat both here and in the beginning of the next verse The Sixty Eighth Psalm TO the chief Musitian A Psalm or Song of David Paraphrase The sixty eighth Psalm beginning in the same manner as Moses's song at the setting forward of the Ark did Num. 10.35 was composed by David afterward as appears by the mention of the Temple i. e. the Ark and Sanctuary at Jerusalem v. 29. in commemoration of the great deliverances afforded to the Israelites and judgments inflicted on their enemies especially in that of their coming up out of Egypt and mystically conteining and predicting the resurrection of Christ and the exaltation of the Christian Church consequent thereto It seems to have been formed by David on the like occasion as Moses's was at the bringing up of the â—rk 2 Sam. 6.12 and was committed to the Praefect of his Musick to be sung with all Musical instruments of joy 2 Sam. 6.15 1. Let God arise let his enemies be scattered let them also that hate him flee before him Paraphrase 1. The Ark is a token of the special presence of Almighty God who when he is pleased to interpose subdues all before him no enemy of his or of his people can stand or prosper And so when Christ mystically typified by the Ark of God comes into the world it is the great God of heaven and earth that exhibites himself in our mortal flesh and being crucified by the Jews he shall by his own almighty power be raised again and ascend to heaven and then subdue or destroy convert by the preaching of the Gospel or utterly
eminent plant the whole people of the Jews whom God had chosen and so his right hand is truly said to have planted it And then that will direct us farther in the interpretation of the latter part of the verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the son or upon the son which thou hast made strong for thy self where as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is most probably an expletive of no signification or possibly refers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 look foregoing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 look upon so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 son in accordance with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the root or plant of the vine must denote the son of that plant and that is according to the Hebrew style a bough or branch of it So Gen. 49.22 Joseph is a fruitful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 son i. e. bough by a spring whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 daughters i. e. branches run over the wall by the same proportion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies sucking children from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to suck is here v. 11. used for branches And then in proportion with the people being meant by the root or plant the branch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rod or tribe of Judah the Regal tribe of which David was who being by God invested with power and as his proxy and minister on earth it is properly said that God hath made him strong for himself The Chaldee therefore paraphrase it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the Messiah i. e. anointed King whom thou hast confirmed or established for thy self And in the prophetick sense that will be farther extended to Christ the King or Ruler of his Church and so saith Aben Ezra this may be understood of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messiah Ben-Ephraim others call him Ben-Joseph who they say is to be killed in war being prest by the text in Zachary to acknowledge a suffering Messiah as Messiah Ben David for they admit of two is to conquer all the world R. Obadiah also interprets it of the Messiah And the LXXII reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and on the son of man and so the Latine and Syriack the title by which any eminent man a Prince is fitly exprest and by which Christ is so frequently called and so most expresly v. 17. the man of Gods right hand and the son of man not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 son simply but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 son of man is set to signifie the King But it is possible also and I suppose more probable that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or branch may be set to denote the Temple for of that it follows immediately v. 16. It is burnt with fire it is cut down or as it may best be rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being cut down it is burnt with fire the vine when 't is cut down being good for nothing else Ezek. 15.3 4. shall wood be taken thereof to do any work or will men take a pin of it to hang any thing thereon It is cast into the fire for fewel the fire devoureth both the ends of it and the midst of it is burnt is it meet for any work This belongs not well to the King but agrees perfectly to the Temple at this time of the captivity And so the phrase which thou hast made strong for thy self seems to be borrowed from Moses's song Exod. 15.17 where it is spoken of the Temple Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance in the place O Lord which thou hast made for thee to dwell in in the Sanctuary O Lord which thy hands have established And in this sense it will well agree with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or plant foregoing that signifying the nation of the Jews which God brought in and planted in Moses's dialect and with which the Temple is joyned Joh. 11.48 they will take away our place and nation by those two words there expressing more plainly what is here in poetick style the root or plant and branch i. e. the whole Commonwealth of the Jews so stiled Mal. 4.1 It shall leave them neither root nor branch People nor Temple Of both these it here follows in the plural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall perish at the rebuke of thy countenance i. e. If to the spoil of violent men foregoing the boar out of the wood and the wild beasts of the field v. 13. thou add thine anger and inflictions both root and branch People and Temple shall be utterly consumed To avert which it follows Let thine hand be upon the man of thy right hand and the son of man which in all reason by the characters of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be interpreted of the King The Eighty First PSALM TO the chief Musitian upon Gittith A Psalm of Asaph Paraphrase The eighty first Psalm said to be composed by Asaph for the feast of trumpets Lev. 23.24 Numb 29 1. and 10.10 which was instituted to commemorate the deliverance out of Egypt the sounding of the trumpet being a token of liberty Lev. 25.10 is a solemn invitation to all to sing praises to God for his great deliverances and special mercies to his people whose sins are the only averters of his favour and originals of their misery It was set to the tune called Gittith see Psal 8. a. and committed to the Praefect of the Musick 1. Sing aloud unto God our strength make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. 2. Take a Psalm and bring hither the timbrel the pleasant harp with the Psaltery 3. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast-day Paraphrase 1 2 3. The God of Jacob is our only refuge preserver and deliverer O let us joyn in the most solemn joyful expressions of thankfulness to him All the sweetest and most pleasant instruments of Musick are in all reason to accompany and indeavour to improve our lauds and all the whole nation to be assembled at those times which are solemnly set apart for these offices the beginning of every month to consecrate all that follows 4. For this was a statute for Israel and a law of the God of Jacob 5. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony when he went out through the land of Egypt where I heard a language that I understood not Paraphrase 4 5. And this is but agreeable to the ordinances of divine service given by God himself on mount Sinai for all posterity most strictly to observe soon after that great and signal time of his shewing himself in power and majesty against Pharaoh and the Egyptians when he lived among strangers and were cruelly handled by them 6. I delivered his shoulders from the burthen his hands were delivered from the pots Paraphrase 6. 'T was then the mighty work of his over-ruling power upon our addresses made to heaven
affairs and shut up from the conversation of men And in proportion with these they that are dead and laid in their graves are here said to be free i. e. removed from all the affairs and conversation of the World even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the commandments say the Jews of them that are dead Nidda fol. 76. Thus is death described Job 3. by lying still and quiet and at rest v. 13. in desolate places v. 14. where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary be at rest v. 17. where the prisoners rest together and hear not the voice of the oppressor v. 18. and where the servant is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as here free from his master v. 19. In this verse there seems to be a gradation To be slain is more than to dye to be in the grave more than either but to dye by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be cut off by excision not to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the remembrance of blessing to be utterly forgot and have no share in the world to come which they say every Israelite hath is the utmost pitch of misery V. 10. Dead That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signifies the dead those that lye in the grave there can be no question The Chaldee render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the carcasses that are putrified in the dust So Isa 26.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall not rise is but the interpretation of what went before they are dead they shall not live and so v. 19. the earth shall cast out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the dead bodies So Prov. 21.16 the man that wandreth from the way of understanding shall remain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the congregation of the dead the Chaldee reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the sons of the earth The same word is elsewhere used for gyants Gen. 14.5 and Isa 17.5 which makes it probable that the word comes from a notion of the root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not ordinarily taken notice of by Lexicographers who generally take it for healing and curing such as may be common to these two so distant derivatives dead men and gyants The gyants we know are in most languages exprest by phrases taken from the bottom or bowels of the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and terrae filii born from or sons of the earth and just so the Chaldee even now rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 't was used for dead bodies Prov. 21.16 which gives us reason to resolve that the Radix originally signified something pertaining to the lower parts of the earth and so 't will be fitly communicated to these two which in the notion of healing it will not be And to this accords a notion of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Hebrews for metals minerals gold silver coral c. which are digged out of the earth and from the very bottom of the Sea the abysse which is very agreeable to both these notions of the word the dead being there laid and disposed of after their departure out of this world their bodies in the grave and their animal Souls in Scheol the state of separation not otherwise capable of being described but by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disappearing the abyss or deep and the gyants by their great strength and exercise of it in invading and oppressing others and by being of uncertain originals phansied to have received their birth from some subterranean powers and so called by that title The LXXII deducing the word from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to heale render it here and elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Physitians and the Latine medici but the Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strong men or Gyants V. 18. Acquaintance From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was darkned is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here an obscure dark place an hole or hiding-place and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a darke place or hole to my acquaintance signifies the lying hid and sculking of friends hiding themselves for fear they should be seen by him and called to help him The Jewish Arab reads And mine Acquaintance are become as darkness The Eighty Ninth Psalm MAschil of Ethan the Ezrahite Paraphrase The 89 Psalm is a commemoration of the mercies performed and promised to be continued to David and his posterity to the end of the world but now in the time of some great affliction on Prince and People probably in the captivity v. 38. c. see note i. seemingly interrupted by their sins and their breach of Covenant with God together with an hearty prayer for the return of them The Author of it is not known It was set to the tune of a Song of Ethan the son of Zerah called Maschil see note on Psalm 88. b. 1. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations Paraphrase 1. The mercies of our God in making such gracious and glorious promises to his people and his exact fidelity in performing them is so great that it exacts all our lauds and most magnificent commemorations thereby to proclaim and divulge them to all posterity 2. For I have said Mercy shall be built up for ever thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens Paraphrase 2. God hath promised abundant kindness and mercy and that to endure to us to all our posterities and so I am most confident he will perform make good by his continual faithfulness from his seat of mercy and of justice what he hath thus promised us 3. I have made a Covenant with my chosen I have sworn unto David my servant Paraphrase 3. This promise of his was most solemnly made by way of a sworn Covenant stricken with David whom he chose to be King over his people when he rejected and removed Saul 4. Thy seed will I establish for ever and build up thy throne to all generations Selah Paraphrase 4. And the sum of his Covenant was not only that he should be King over his people but that this dignity should be continued to his posterity for many generations and that in some degree though with great disturbances which their sins should bring upon them as long as this Nation should continue and that toward the time of the destruction thereof the Messias should be born of this very race of David and erect a spiritual Kingdom in the hearts of all faithful men the only true genuine posterity of Abraham and David which should undoubtedly endure to the end of the world 5. And the heavens shall praise thy wonders O Lord thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the Saints Paraphrase 5. This is a most glorious Covenant of transcendent and wonderful mercies which as thou hast made so thou shalt exactly perform to us the glories thereof shall be admired and celebrated by all the Angels in heaven when they are met together for the praising and
out of the hand of the wicked Paraphrase 10. O let all that pretend to love or honour or serve him fly from all pollution both of flesh and spirit all that he hath forbidden all that may any way provoke his wrath who is a God of pure eyes and cannot behold iniquity And if all their lives be laid out on this one care of approving themselves to him their time will be well spent in this service and beside the endless reward in another world they shall not fail of the evidences of his goodness and graciousness here in giving them signal preservations and deliverances from all the machinations of wicked men and in his time rest and cessation of persecutions peaceable assemblies and opportunities of serving him 11. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Paraphrase 11. For though the service of God under the Gospel have an annexation of tribulations which must be expected and chearfully supported in this life being dispensed by the divine providence for many falubrious and beneficial ends yet is there that seed and foundation of joy and abundant delight to all honest and truly pious hearts sown there that shall not fall to bring forth all comfortable and blessed effects to them even in this life by the practice of Christian vertues by the comforts and peace of conscience and that lively hope that is afforded to all faithfull obedient disciples and over and above after this life the fruition of endless bliss and glory 12. Rejoyce in the Lord ye righteous and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Paraphrase 12. This therefore is matter of the greatest exultation and thanksgiving and commemoration of God's infinite goodness and mercy to all truly pious men Annotations on Psal XCVII V. 2. Habitation of his throne From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prepared fitted confirmed is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used for a place seat but especially a basis whereon any thing is set from whence the LXXII had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for basis 1 King 7.27 The Chaldee here retains the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the LXXII from the notion of the verb for fitting reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the setting right of his throne the Syriack by way of paraphrase by equity and judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy throne is confirmed all which concurr to the notion of basis and foundation which is the thing which gives the rectitude first and then the stability to the chair or throne that is set on it And so that is without question the right intelligible rendring of the phrase Righteousness and judgment are the not habitation but basis of his throne i. e. his sentences decrees judicatures are all built upon righteousness and judgment as a throne is built and established on a foundation The Jewish Arab renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the condition state or manner V. 7. Gods That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifies Angels hath been formerly noted And that in this place it doth so and not as it doth afterward v. 9. and Psal 96.4 5. the Gods of the Gentiles the Idol false Gods or as here the Chaldee understand it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the nations that serve Idols is manifest not onely by the LXXII that render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Angels and the Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the same sense and so the Latin c. but especially by the Apostle Heb. 1.6 where speaking expresly of Christ's preeminence above Angels and bringing testimonies of it out of Scripture he adds that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it i. e. the Scripture would introduce the first born i. e. the Messias into the world i. e. that superiour world call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world to come c. 11.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let all the Angels of God worship him Which words being evidently taken from the LXXII in this place as they convince 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here to signifie Angels so they are a key to admit us into the full importance of this whole Psalm that it is the introducing the Messias into heaven a description of Christ's middle coming so frequently styled in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the coming or presence as here v. 5. of the Son of man and the kingdom of God and of heaven viz. his ascent thither and so entring on his regal power v. 1. which he was to exercise there To which therefore are annext the effects thereof on those that would not permit or allow him to reign over them destroying the obstinate rebels both Jews and Gentiles and giving all cause of rejoycing to all that received the faith and subjected themselves to his Government That this so usefull a key to this Psalm may not be wrested from us it is not amiss to take notice that some shew of probability there is that the words Heb. 1.6 may be taken from Deut. 32.43 and not from this Psalm where the LXXII reade these very words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let all the Angels of God worship him But first the Hebrew in that place hath no such words but onely these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Chaldee and Syriack and Samaritan and Arabick and Vulgar Latin all with exact accord render Praise his people ye Gentiles or proclaim depredicate his people promulgate God's special favour to them for which the cause is rendred in the next words for he will avenge the bloud of his servants whereas the LXXII as our Copies now have it presents us with this great variety no less than four express Scholions for this one plain sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rejoyce ye heavens together with him and let all the Angels of God worship him Rejoyce ye Gentiles with his people and let all the sons of God be strong to him Of these it may be observed that as onely the first and the third pretend to be rendrings of the Hebrew and the second and fourth paraphrases or explications of their meaning in them so the false reading of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with him for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his people hath begotten them both For having rendred that in the former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together with him they have converted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nations into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heavens then annext the second to render an account of that let all the Angels of God worship him signifying the Angels worshipping him to be that which they meant by the heavens rejoycing together with him and so those heavens those Angels in them to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nations there called to to praise or rejoyce with him In the third they have rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rejoyce ye nations which differs but lightly from
the moon the fit seasons of husbandry and other humane actions are measured and directed according to the different quarters thereof on this depend the stationary returns of tides the growth of plants the increase and decrease of humours in the body even of man and peculiarly his brain the seat of his understanding is much concerned in it In all which respects it is that the sun which hath so much to do in the governing and blessing every part of the world doth not always keep up in any horizon but leaves some part of every natural day to that other luminary to manage 20. Thou makest darkness and it is night wherein all the beasts of the forrest creep forth 21. The young Lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God Paraphrase 20 21. And as between these the day and the night are divided so there are evidences of God's wisedom in each of these special uses for each The dark of the night is useful to beasts of prey which are pursued by mankind and are fain to keep in their holes and caverns all day when if they should come abroad they would much disturb the quiet of men but then by advantage of the darkness of night are inabled to ravage and feed and sustein themselves and though the Lions for want both of swiftness and of scent be ill qualified to provide for themselves yet hath divine providence taken care of them directed them to make use of another creature which is swift and of a quick scent and that joyns in league with them and having sâ—ised the prey stands by till they have filled themselves A wonderfull dispensation to which and to the hand of God in it they owe their food as discernibly as they would do if God in answer to their roaring as by way of return to our prayers immediately power'd down or bestowed their food upon them 22. The sun ariseth they gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens 23. Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour untill the evening Paraphrase 22 23. And the day is more eminently usefull for other offices the doing all the works incumbent on us for the culture of the earth c. and for this a fair space is assigned from sun-rise till sun-set all which space those beasts of prey lie close in their dens to which they gather themselves in companies though by the same providence it is ordered that they go not out in herds if they did there would be no resisting them and thither they betake themselves at the same time that men rise to their labour i. e. constantly every morning 24. O Lord how manifold are thy works in wisedom hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy riches 25. So is this great and wide sea wherein are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts 26. There go the ships there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein Paraphrase 24 25 26. Thus hath God created and disposed not onely these but all things else in all variety of excellencies his wisedom and his bounty is seen in all things and not onely in the earthly part of the globe but in the other as to appearance barren and destructive element that most vast and spacious ocean furnished with such a multitude of fishes of all sorts and sizes usefull also to the benefit of men by navigation and famous for the great sea-dragon the whale which is fortified against all force and art so as to contemn all assaults of men 27. These wait all upon thee that thou mayest give them their meat in due season 28. That thou givest them they gather thou openest thy band they are filled with good Paraphrase 27 28. And for all these hath God made abundant provision of food to support and refresh them when they stand in need of it and that by ways of his own wise dispensing without any care or solicitude of theirs requiring no more of them than to partake of that festival entertainment which he hath prepared for them 29. Thou hidest thy face they are troubled thou takest away their breath they die and return to their dust 30. Thou sendest forth thy spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the earth Paraphrase 29 30. And from him their very life and all the joys and comforts thereof every minute depend The withdrawing his favour and benign aspect and concurrence and sustentation is the cause of all their misery of all the strokes and judgments that light upon any part of this lower world and of their present death and return to the elements whereof they are compounded when he sees fit to summon them And as at first by his bare will and command as by a breath and word of his mouth all these were created out of nothing so by the same omnipotent creative power and wise disposal of his own meer will and pleasure he continues the species of each by seed and succession by which as by a natural stock of supply to all that decays and departs he doth yearly and daily renew the world and keep it up as full as if nothing ever perished in it an emblem of his future dealing with us men in the resurrection 31. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever the Lord shall rejoyce in his works Paraphrase 31. This method and course of Gods for the setting out and illustrating the glory of his infinite power and providence shall thus last as long as this world continues and as God in the first creation had his rest and sabbath took delight in his own work lookt on it altogether and behold it was exceeding good the same complacency hath he in the continuance and managery of it ever since O let not us men be the onely ungratefull part of his creation let us for ever praise and glorifie his name transcribe that festival Sabbath of his and return him the tribute of our obedience and our most pious acknowledgments for these and all his abundant mercies afford him that equitable content and delight of not pouring out his benefits on such unworthy receives as we men most frequently are and as we shall be if we live not in uniform obedience in all works of piety before him 32. He looketh on the earth and it trembleth he toucheth the hills and they smoak Paraphrase 32. And as his providence so his sovereign power and dominion is continued over all the creatures in the world As one breath or act of his will created all so one look of his one least expression of his displeasure is enough to set the whole earth a trembling and the loftiest parts of it the mountains a smoaking and so to cast the stoutest proudest sinner into an agony of horrour and dread 'T is a most formidable thing to fall into the hands of the living Lord. As the Law was given on Sinai with thundrings and lightnings
the Lord call upon his name make known his deeds among the people Paraphrase 1. O let us all in our daily prayers to God confess and acknowledge and proclaim to all the world the great and gracious works which he hath wrought for his people 2. Sing unto him sing Psalms unto him talk ye of all his wondrous works 3. Glory ye in his holy name let the heart of them rejoyce that seek the Lord. Paraphrase 2 3. Let us both in his publick service and in our more private discourses and conversation indeavour to promulgate his miracles of mercy and so bring all other men that worship God to do it with all delight and joy as to him that hath most abundantly obliged and ingaged them 4. Seek the Lord and his strength seek his face evermore Paraphrase 4. And so in like manner let our prayers be constantly addrest to him in his sanctuary and all the relief and deliverance we at any time want be begged from his omnipotence 5. Remember his marvellous works that he hath done his wonders and the judgments of his mouth 6. O ye seed of Abraham his servant ye children of Jacob his chosen Paraphrase 5 6. To both these constant duties of prayer and praise the people of the Jews and all that transcribe the copy of Abraham's or Jacob's fidelity are eternally obliged by the great and miraculous mercies afforded them by God and the portentous judgments and punishments on their enemies which he by a word of his mouth by the exercise of his immediate power hath wrought for them 7. He is the Lord our God his judgments are in all the earth Paraphrase 7. By his mercy and providence and the exercise of his omnipotence it is that we have been conducted and supported and our heathen enemies wheresoever we came subdued under us 8. He hath remembred his covenant for ever the word which he commanded to a thousand generations 9. Which covenant he made with Abraham and his oath unto Isaac 10. And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a Law and to Israel for an everlasting Covenant Paraphrase 8 9 10. And all this as the exact performance of his part of that Covenant and Law which he solemnly and by oath established with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their posterity after them that not to them onely but to all their successors to the end of the world he would be a most constant protector and rewarder in case they adhered faithfully to him and in case of their apostasie and rebellion he would yet make good that promise to all others that should come in and transcribe that copy of fidelity performed by those Patriarchs receive the faith of Christ and perform sincere uniform constant obedience to him 11. Saying Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan the lot of your inheritance 12. When they were but a few men in number yea very few and strangers in it 13. When they went from one nation to another from one kingdom to another people Paraphrase 11 12 13. The summ of this Covenant as it concerned Abraham and his seed according to the flesh was the bringing them into a most fruitfull and desirable land the land of Canaan a type and image of the state of the Gospel and joys of heaven dispossessing the inhabitants thereof and conducting them to a quiet secure injoyment of it as of an inheritance bequeathed to them by God himself and not to be acquired by any strength of their own In which respect it was that as God chose to make â—his promise to him Gen. 12.6 7. at a time when he had none but his wife and so could hardly make up a number a pitifull weak family and those but in a journey admitted but as strangers to lodge in their passage to Sichem v. 6. so that they might be obliged to acknowledge the whole work to be wrought by God in relation to his promise he so disposed it that they should not now rest but be removed out of Canaan and pass from one nation and kingdom to another from Sichem where he built one Altar to God v. 7. to a mountain on the East of Bethel where he built another v. 8. and from thence to Aegypt v. 10. 14. He suffered no man to doe them wrong yea he reproved Kings for their sakes 15. Saying Touch not mine anointed and doe my Prophets no harm Paraphrase 14 15. When they were there God was pleased to afford them one special instance and pledge of his favour to them and protection over them when the King of Aegypt took Sarah into his house Gen. 12.15 and was in danger to have defiled her and so again ch 20. in Gerar when Abimelech King of Gerar took Sarah v. 2. a like passage there was afterward betwixt Abimelech King of the Philistims and Rebecca Isaac's wife Gen. 26.8 God plagued that King Gen. 12.17 and severely threatned the other Gen. 20.3 and suffered neither of them to violate her chastity v. 6. but told Abimelech that Abraham was a Prophet v. 7. and one very highly valued by him designed to be the root of a potent Kingdom and the stock from whom the Messias should come and therefore commanded him by a most severe interdict not to doe any harm to him or his wife 16. Moreover he called for a famine upon the land he brake the whole staff of bread Paraphrase 16. After this in Jacob's time the season being not yet come of performing this promise unto Abraham's seed and that God's work of possessing them of Canaan might be the more remarkable and wholly imputable to him and not to any strength of their own or to natural proceedings or casual event God thought fit so to dispose of it that all the posterity of Abraham should be removed out of this land where yet they were but as sojourners And thus it was There fell out to be a very sore famine in all that land of Canaan so that they had not corn for the necessities of life and so Jacob was forced to send his sons down into Aegypt to buy corn for his family 17. He sent a man before them even Joseph who was sold for a servant Paraphrase 17. And herein a wonderfull act of providence was discernible Joseph one of Jacob's sons being envied and hated by the rest of his brethren had been first taken and cast into a pit then by occasion of some Ismaelite merchants coming by in that nick of time Gen. 37.25 taken out and sold to them and carried into Aegypt and there bought by Potipher for a servant 18. Whose feet they hurt with fetters he was laid in irons Paraphrase 18. Where being falsely accused by his mistress he was cast into prison and fetters and extremely injured and afflicted by this calumny 19. Untill the time that his word came the word of the Lord tried him Paraphrase 19. And so continued till God by revealing to him the interpretation of
The Hundred and Tenth PSALM A Psalm of David The hundred and tenth Psalm was certainly composed by David see Matt. 22.43 not concerning himself and God's promising the Kingdom to him after Saul as the Chaldee suppose but by way of prophesie of the exaltation of the Messias see Matt. 22.44 Act. 2.34 1 Cor. 15.25 Heb. 1.13 to his Regal and which never belonged to David Sacerdotal office both which are by him exercised at the right hand of his Father and settled on him as the reward of his humiliation and passion see Phil. 2.8 9. 1. THE Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool Paraphrase 1. The Messias which is to come into the world is to be looked on by all men with adoration as being though born in the mean estate of humane flesh and of King David's seed yet really much higher than David which he could not be if he were not God himself the King of Kings and Lord of lords And of him Jehovah the one supreme God Creator of heaven and earth hath decreed that having been for some time opposed and at length crucified by those whom he was sent to call powerfully to repentance he should be exalted in that humane nature which here he assumed to the highest pitch of glory and majesty and authority in heaven there to exercise all power over this inferior world to reign 1 Cor. 15.25 till he hath subdued all that opposeth thâ— his kingdom 1. his crucifiers by converting some and destroying others 2. the Idolatrous heathen world by subjecting them to the Gospel 3. the power of sin and 4. Satan in mens hearts and at last 5. death it self 1 Cor. 15.26 And when all this is done at the conclusion of this world then shall he give up his power into his Father's hand from which he had it and himself be subject to him that put all things under him 1 Cor. 1â— 27 2. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Sion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies Paraphrase 2. This kingdom of his is to be a spiritual kingdom exercised by the sword or sâ—epter of his sweet but powerfull spirit the Gospel of Christ the power of God unto salvation to all that believe and obey it And this shall first be preached after his resurrection and ascension by his Apostles at Jerusalem see Psal 2.6 to those that crucified him and from thence it shall be propagated to all Judaea and then to all parts of the habitable world on purpose designed to bring home sinners to repentance and change of life And the success thereof shall be admirable a Church of humble obedient Christians gathered from amongst his greatest enemies some of the rebellious Jews and great mâ—ltitudes of heathen Idolaters Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth Paraphrase 3. At the going out of the Apostles upon their great expedition their sacred warfare to conquer the obdurate world all that have any thing of humility or piety wrought in their hearts by the efficacy of his preventing grace shall come in and receive the faith of Christ most willingly forsake and leave all to follow him and attend him in his Church and the multitude of disciples shall be as the stars of heaven the sands on the sea-shore or the dew that in the morning covers the face of the whole earth 4. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek Paraphrase 4. And as he is to be a King so is he to be a Priest also At his exaltation and ascending to heaven God his Father hath firmly decreed that he shall be advanced to such a sort of Priesthood as that of Melchizedek was see Heb. v. 6. and 7.17 who had those two great offices of King and Priest united in him so shall Christ be instated at the right hand of his Father in the full power of entertaining and blessing his faithfull servants such as Abraham was when he was entertained and treated by Melchizedek and blessed by him And the interpretation of this his benediction is his giving them grace to turn away every man from his iniquities Act. 3.26 to aid them against all their spiritual enemies and support them in all their necessities And this office commencing at his ascension is never to have an end never to be succeeded in by any as the Aâ—ronical priesthood descended from father to son but to continue in his hands and to be most successfully exercised till it be at the end of this world delivered up to God the Father 5. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through Kings in the day of his wrath Paraphrase 5. But as he shall be a most mercifull High Priest to all that humbly receive and obey and address themselves to him so to all obdurate sinners that stand out and oppose his power in their hearts that will not suffer this Priest to bless this King to reign over them he shall manifest himself a most terrible Judge and destroy the mightiest grandeur and prowess upon earth that doth not come in unto the faith 6. He shall judge among the heathen he shall fill the places with the dead bodies he shall wound the heads over many countreys Paraphrase 6. All the impenitent wicked world both of Jews and Heathens he shall most illustriously destroy make them a kind of Akeldama and the greatest Antichristian Monarchy in the world most eminently that of heathen Rome which so bloodily persecutes the Christians shall be demolished see Rev. 18.2 and Christian profession set up in the place of it 7. He shall drink of the brook in the way therefore shall he lift up the head Paraphrase 7. Thus shall the Messias and his Kingdom be advanced And all this but a proportionable reward designed by his Father to his great humiliation and patience and fidelity and constancy in the pursuit and discharge of the office prophetick assigned him here on earth the calling home sinners to repentance In this he shall be so diligent and industrious so vigilant and intent on all opportunities of advancing this end of doing the will of his Father the work for which he was sent that he shall wholly neglect himself his own will his own ease his own ordinary food take that which comes next and is most mean and vile like a General in his keenest pursuit of his enemies that satisfies the necessities of nature with water out of the next brook c. and with the same alacrity he shall at last undergo the most contumelious death and for this espousing of God's will and despising and contemning himself God shall highly exalt him and possess him of that both Regal and Sacerdotal power to continue to him and by his hands in
that humane nature wherein he thus served his Father to be administred for ever Annotations on Psal CX V. 1. My Lord That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to my Lord here denotes the Messiah will appear not only by our Saviour and his Apostles who insist on this Psalm above any Text in the Old Testament as the late Jews and some others who are willing to be lookt on as very good Christians are most industrious to evade it but even by the testimonies of the ancient Jews themselves the evidence of truth breaking forth in despite of the most partial and resolved interest Moses Haddarsan on Gen. 37.12 saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Redeemer whom I will raise up from among you shall not have a father according to that of Zach. 6.12 behold the man whose name is the branch and Isa 53. he shall come up c. So also David saith of him Psal 110.3 out of the womb c. lastly the Scripture saith of him This day have I begotten thee Psal 2. So on Gen. 18. Hereafter God holy and blessed shall set the King Messias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on his right hand as 't is written Psal 110. The Lord said c. And to the same purpose again on Gen. 14.18 So Midrash Tehillim on occasion of these words I will declare the Law c. Psal 2. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the affairs of the Messiah are set forth in the scripture of the Law of the Prophets and of the Hagiographa In the Law Exod. 4.22 In the Prophets Isa 52.13 and 42.1 In the Hagiographa Psal 110. The Lord said and the dew of thy birth c. So again Midr. Tehil on Psal 18.35 thy right hand shall uphold me saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. R. Joden said that in the age of the Messiah the blessed God will set the King Messiah at his right hand as it is written The Lord said to my Lord. R. Saad Gaon on Dan. 7.13 he came with the clouds of heaven saith And this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Messiah our righteousness as 't is written The Lord said c. So thâ— â—erusalem Talmud tract Berachoth c. 5. saith this verse the dew of thy birth c. is to be explained by Mich. 5.7 V. 3. Thy power For the explicating this very obscure verse the first thing to be taken notice of is the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power or strength as that signifies an army or military forces as we call them The Messias in the former verses is set upon his throne for the exercise of his regal power with a sword or scepter in his hand and as such he is supposed to rule in the world to go out to conquer and subdue all before him The army which he makes use of to this end is the college of Apostles sent out to preach to all nations and the time of their thus preaching is here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the day of his power or forces or army 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the day that he shall wage war or joyn battel saith the Chaldee In which day saith the Psalmist the people that belong to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy people those that are at all affected to piety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fit for the Kingdom of God Luk. 9.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disposed arrayed ordered on file for the kingdom of heaven Act. 13. 48. all that are any way listed among God's souldiers all these shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. repeating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again a people of voluntary oblations so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies liberal voluntary spontaneous oblation or contribution to the service of God such as shall willingly offer up and consecrate themselves and all that they have to God's service forsake all and follow Christ bring their estates and lay them at the Apostles feet as we know the believers did Act. 2. an essay of the great charity and liberality which the faith of Christ brought into the world This they shall do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the beauties of holiness or of the Sanctuary i. e. I suppose mystically in the Christian Church beautified with all those graces which the spirit of Christ works in the hearts of believers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 King 7.18 signifies the Ark of the Covenant or Sanctuary and from thence the place in the Temple where the Ark was placed was called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy of holies and so I suppose the LXXII understood it here when they rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of thy holies for so the plural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every where signifies the Sanctuary and the beauties of the Sanctuary are literally the ornaments of the Priests and Levites their Urim and Thummim which they have on when they carry the Ark see note on Psal 29. b. But mystically these are the graces of Christ the inward beauty or glory which shines in the Christian Sanctuary or Church which is as it were the arena or place where these forces of God are mustered Or perhaps in the beauties of holiness as that signifies no more than God's sacred Majesty in whose service they are listed and on whose expedition ingaged according to Castellio's reading quo die expeditionem sacrâ oâ—m majestate facies in the day when thou shalt with thy sacred majesty make thine expedition Another sense the words may be capable of which the comparing the mention of Sion v. 2. and beauty of holiness here suggesteth by taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power or host or army in the sense that frequently belongs to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies an host in scripture viz. the attendance on the Sanctuary the Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 warring his warfare i. e. officiating And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will simply import free-will offerings and the sense run thus Thy people will be a free-will offering in the day of thy Assemblies in the Sanctuary shall offer in stead of any thing else themselves lively sacrifices holy and acceptable And this if accepted need not be deemed to exclude the other rendring but the priestly and kingly offices of Christ being both here set down in this Psalm the words as is frequent in these compositions may have been purposely contrived to fit both Then follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may perhaps be thus most literally rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy children or progeny so the Chaldee must understand it when they joyn it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to thee i. e. shall be to thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the womb of the morning i. e. according to the proportion of the dew which the morning brings forth as it were out of its womb in such plenty as to cover the face of the
Annotations on Psal CXXXV V. 14. Judge The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies frequently not onely to judge or give sentence of punishment but to contend in judicature and that again not onely as an accuser or Plaintiff in the notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answerable to it for suing 1 Cor. 6.1 but also as Defendant or Advocate and so 't is to plead or take ones part and patronize his cause and so to bring sentence of mulct or punishment against the adversary In this notion of defending or pleading for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is oft used see Psal 7.8.10.18.26.1.35.24.43.1.72.4 And so is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also so Gen. 30.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath judged me saith Rachel and heard my voice i. e. taken my part given me a son whose name therefore she called Dan a word from this theme So Deut. 32.36 whence this whole verse is verbatim taken In like manner the nouns both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doing are not so fitly rendred doing judgment as pleading a cause So Psal 140.12 I know that the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will plead the cause of the afflicted and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the right of the poor And so Psal 9.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast pleaded my right and my cause to which is there added thou sattest in the throne judging right not as the same again but differing from it as the part of a Judge doth from that of an Advocate the Psalmist there signifying that God had taken both parts first contended for him then judged the controversie on his side defended him and so pleaded his cause and overthrown his enemies which was the passing of right judgment for him for that seems to be the full importance of that Verse And so we know our Saviour is both our Advocate and our Judge and herein our happiness consists that he which is our Judge is our Advocate also Then for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that may be either from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to grieve and then 't is duly rendred will repent himself or else from another if not contrary notion of the same word for taking comfort and so by the LXXII 't is rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be comforted and so by the Syriack takes comfort but by the Latin deprecabitur This rendring of the Latin as it may seem to be an imitation of the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not in the notion of being comforted but intreated and so to be in a passive though unusual sense deprecabitur shall be deprecated yet doth it well sort with the former notion that of repenting for so God is said to doe when he is intreated for his people and removes their punishments from them So the Jewish Arab understood it who renders it will spare or pardon his servants And to this notion of repenting the context both here and Deut. 32.36 where we have the same words inclines it viz. God's repenting himself of his anger of which we often reade i. e. returning to mercy and favour toward those with whom he was formerly displeased and so the whole verse shall signifie God's returning from punishing to assisting and taking the part of his people and that the Chaldee hath of all others best exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall return in mercies or compassions toward his just servants And then pleading for and such returning do perfectly accord V. 17. Neither is there any breath That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a nose is unquestionable and that it so signifies here is first the affirmation of the Chaldee who render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrils and so of the Arabick also which thus interprets it and transcribes the following verse also from Psal 115. and herein recedes from the LXXII contrary to their use And secondly when 't is considered that here it comes in conjunction with mouths and eyes and ears there will be less doubt of this rendring And thirdly when 't is evident the foregoing verses do clearly answer the fourth and fifth and part of the sixth verse of Psal 115. and there follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a nose to them or they have a nose and they smell not there will remain no question but so it is to be rendred here also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a nose i. e. a nose they have they have no breath in their nostrils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having no peculiarity to signifie the mouth in distinction from the nose their no breath being fairly equivalent to no smelling no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which they should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smell The Hundred and Thirty Sixth PSALM The hundred thirty sixth is the magnifying of God's continual mercies in the exercise of his power in the creation of the world redemption and preservation and advancement of his people and is one of them which is intitled Hallelujah which probably it had in the front though now it be placed in the close of the former Psalm both in the Hebrew and Chaldee and is by the Jews called the great Thanksgiving 1. O Give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Paraphrase 1. Let the whole world in a most solemn humble devout manner acknowledge the great bounty and liberality of God and the continual exercises of his mercy which is not nor ever shall be at an end but is constantly made good unto his servants in all the motions of their lives 2. O give thanks unto the God of Gods for his mercy endureth for ever 3. O give thanks unto the Lord of Lords for his mercy endureth for ever Paraphrase 2 3. Let them adore and worship and praise him with all possible expressions of veneration and admiration as the onely and supreme Governour of the whole world infinitely above all the heathen most adored deities and above the greatest potentates on earth and withall as a most gracious Father of infinite never-failing mercies toward those that adhere to him 4. To him who alone doeth great wonders for his mercy endureth for ever Paraphrase 4. There is nothing so difficult which he is not able to bring to pass all nature is subject to his power as it is not to any other whose essence and power both are finite and limited and overruled by him and this power of his most signally exercised for the supporting and assisting of his servants 5. To him that by wisedom made the heavens for his mercy endureth for ever Paraphrase 5. A work of that power it was by which he at first created the upper part of the world the body of the heavens and air and in the fabrick thereof was infinite wisedom exprest as well as power yea and infinite mercy also to us men for whose uses and benefit that stately fabrick
none that requireth or avengeth for my soul none that defends or vindicates it V. 7. That I may praise The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad laudandum to praising may indifferently be rendred either in the first person that I or in the third plural that they may praise i. e. the just in the next words And to that latter sense the following words seem to incline it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in me shall the righteous come about in me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for my cause saith the Chaldee shall they come about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the just shall make thee a crown of praise say they not come about me or as the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they watch for me in the notion wherein they render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expect wait for Job 36.11 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that signifies for me or for my cause on occasion of me come about incompass God believe in him praise his name when so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be rendred they see how graciously God hath dealt with me The Jewish Arab reads And the righteous shall take me for a crown to them The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies so to incompass or come about as when a multitude of people assemble on any occasion so Prov. 14.18 the simple inherit folly but the prudent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall incompass knowledge i. e. seek it and follow it with all diligence and so to incompass God is to frequent his sanctuary devoutly and diligently to make addresses to him The word also in Arabick dialect signifies â—o be multiplied and so it will commodiously be rendred on occasion of me the righteous shall be multiplied when they see thy mercifull returns or dealings toward me The Hundred and Forty Third PSALM A Psalm of David The hundred forty third is a mournfull supplication for deliverance from powerfull enemies and was composed by David as some think at the time of Absalom's rebellion as others more probably and in harmony with the two former at the time of his being pursued by Saul in the Cave of Engedi 1. HEar my prayer O Lord give ear to my supplications in thy faithfulness answer me and in thy righteousness Paraphrase 1. O Lord I beseech thee to hear and answer my requests which my present distresses force me to present to thee and thy abundant grace and promises of never-failing mercy give me confidence that thou wilt favourably receive and perform unto me 2. And enter not into judgment with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified Paraphrase 2. I know my sins have justly provoked and brought down these pressures on me but thou art graciously pleased to be reconciled with humbled penitent sinners thou hast promised by a covenant of mercy not to charge on such with severity all the sins of which they have been guilty and were it not for that covenant 't were impossible for any frail imperfect sinfull creature such as every meer man is to appear with hope or comfort before thine exact tribunal To this thy promised mercy mine onely appeal lies and having sincerely vow'd to perform unto thee all faithfull be it never so mean and imperfect obedience I can put in my claim founded on thy faithfull promise v. 1. and hope and beg for this seasonable mercy and deliverance from thee 3. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul he hath smitten my life down to the ground he hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead Paraphrase 3. For my malicious enemies have calumniated first then persecuted me and now at length brought me to a very sad and dejected estate forced me to hide my self under ground to fly from one cave to another from the cave of Adullam 1 Sam. 22. to the cave of Engedi ch 24. 4. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me my heart within me is desolate 5. I remember the days of old I meditate on all thy works I muse on the work of thy hands Paraphrase 4 5. This hath cast me into great perplexity see Psal 142.3 filled me with a most anxious horrour wherein yet I have been able to support my self by reflecting on thy former mercies and deliverances which thy acts of power have been signally interposed to work for me 6. I stretch forth my hands unto thee my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land Selah Paraphrase 6. To thee therefore I address my prayers with all the earnestness which my distresses can infuse into me The ground that is parcht with heat and drought and gaspes for some showre from the clouds to refresh it is an emblem of me at this time who pant and gasp and call importunately for some refreshment and relief from thee having no other means in the world to which I can apply my self 7. Hear me speedily O Lord my spirit faileth hide not thy face from me lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit Paraphrase 7. O Lord I beseech thee hasten to my relief my present exigences challenge and importune it from thee If thou do not interpose in my behalf I shall suddenly be overwhelmed by mine enemies and destroyed 8. Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning for in thee do I trust cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my soul unto thee Paraphrase 8. O be thou graciously pleased to shew forth thy pity and thy bounty timely and speedily to me who have no other refuge to resort to but that of thine overruling sovereign aid in this is my confidence for this I offer up the humblest devotions of my soul O be thou my guide to direct me to that course whatever it is which thou shalt chuse and wilt prosper to me 9. Deliver me O Lord from mine enemies I flee unto thee to hide me Paraphrase 9. Lord to thee do I betake my self as to mine onely refuge under the safeguard of thy protection I desire to secure my self O be thou graciously pleased to afford me that mercy and thereby to rescue me out of mine enemies hands 10. Teach me to doe thy will for thou art my God thy spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness Paraphrase 10. Above all by thy paternal goodness I beseech thee be thou pleased so to conduct me in all my ways that I may doe nothing but what is perfectly good and acceptable in thy fight To which end Lord let thy gracious and sanctifying spirit the onely fountain and author of all goodness and holiness direct and assist me in every turn and motion of my life and bring me into a steady constant course of all strict and righteous living that antepast or first part of heaven on earth which thou wilt be sure to crown with a state of â—â—â—fect purity and impeccability
which the fisher boys toll and catch with the foam of the Sea and signifies proverbially 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that is quickly and easily drawn or seduced or deceived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hesychius and this by way of paraphrase yet also with respect to the original notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simple or foolish But Aquila and Theodotion reade more literally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 presently CHAP. VIII 1. DOth not wisedom cry and understanding put forth her voice 2. She standeth in the top of high places by the way in the places of the paths 3. She crieth at the gates at β the entry of the city at the coming in at the doors Paraphrase 1 2 3. In this is the infinite goodness and abundant care and solicitude of God expressed that when they provoke him in the highest measure to leave them to their own ungodly desires and purposes and to forsake them utterly without ever recalling them to repentance he contrariwise is most importunate in his calls to them by the law of reason and conscience in the heart by voices from heaven by judgments by mercies by Moses and the Prophets and at last when all other means were successless by his own Son God-man the great Prophet fore-promised and after him by the descent of his Holy Spirit on the Apostles commissionated by him by these so many distinct articulate ways of revelation making known his will to them in such a manner as if he were resolved to leave no one man in the world ignorant of his duty and of his own nearest concernments in the discharge thereof Should divine knowledge be imagined to be an Herald with a Trumpet in his hand or a Crier with his Oies sounded aloud in the presence of the whole world on a place of the greatest advantage to be heard in those meetings of ways entrances into cities and houses that no man living might possibly be left ignorant of that which is proclaimed it could not by that means be more audible and leave mankind more inexcusable in going on in their sinfull ways than now it is and doth by means of those loud calls that God hath vouchsafed to the world 4. Unto you O men I call and my voice is to the sons of men Paraphrase 4. And is it not a great enhansement of the mercy to mankind that when a multitude whole legions of Angels were fallen into an abyss of sin and misery as well as mankind yet this favour being not shewed to any one lapsed Angel of all that multitude all the whole race and kind of men were thus graciously considered by God as to have God's calls nay his Son Christ the most articulate calls communicated to them Gentiles the most idolatrous polluted Gentiles as well as Jews the most proud provoking rebellious crucifying Jews all of each sort redeemed by him and no one of all mankind left out of that purchase and his calls to repentance dispatched to all by the Apostles in his name preaching pardon for what was past and now commanding all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 5. O ye simple understand wisedom and ye fools be ye of an understanding heart Paraphrase 5. And the interpretation of that is that they should rescue themselves from the reproach and wretched effects of the utmost folly judge what the rules of true wisedom or but craft and subtlety and care of their own interests will exact from them and set cordially and resolutely to the practice of it 6. Hear for I will speak of excellent things and the opening of my lips shall be right things Paraphrase 6. This certainly may deserve audience from us being a most venerable and excellent subject and all other knowledge unworthy to compare with it either for profit or certainty 7. For my mouth shall speak truth and wickedness is an abomination to my lips 8. All words of my mouth are in righteousness there is nothing froward or perverse in them 9. They are all plain to him that understandeth and right to them that find knowledge Paraphrase 7 8 9. The precepts which thus are given us by God in order to the regulating our lives are most just and righteous precepts most extremely far removed from all iniquity or impurity such as the law of reason in men's hearts if it do not exact of all men doth applaud and highly approve in those that practise them Onely those that go on in their wicked courses obstinately and imperswasibly that keep at a distance from them that never had the least experience of the pleasures which vertue yields they may doubt of the reasonableness of these precepts imagine them too severe design'd to betray them to a joyless life But for all that apply themselves to true wisedom moderation of affections acting according to rules of vertue as they are most plain and obvious to be understood as visible as what is directly before me so are they most agreeable to the better part of the man to reasonable and ingenuous nature 10. Receive my instruction and not silver and knowledge rather than choise gold 11. For wisedom is better than rubies and all the things that are to be desired are not to be compared to it Paraphrase 10 11. And indeed if the comparison should be made betwixt the practice of vertue in the one scale and all the silver and gold and most precious stones and whatsoever is most valued and eagerly pursued among men it is certain the amiableness and true excellency of the former would in any sober man's esteem infinitely outweigh all the rest amassed together All that outward plenty and splendour can never make any man contented much less happy but generally brings additions of fears and turmoils and so of miseries to the possessours Onely the practice of all vertue moral and christian are the foundation and matter of a pure immixt substantial lasting satisfaction and happiness to all that are uniformly exercised therein 12. I wisedom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions Paraphrase 12. And let all the cunning and subtlety in the world combine in the most dextrous artificious projects which wicked men use in the bringing their unjust machinations to pass the practice of vertue constant and uniform will be able to outvie and outwit them all and though at first the subtlety of the world may seem to get the start yet vertue will carry it at long running and in fine approve it self the onely true policy 13. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil pride and arrogancy and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate Paraphrase 13. This vertue if it be such as will approve it self to God consists in the forsaking of every wicked way it being certain that not onely some but every sort of such in thought deed and word is most detestable in the sight of God The wisedom
that is from above is extremely opposite to pride and haughtiness of mind and to every wicked work and word and therefore such must our practice be never indulging to any known sin of any kind but on the contrary uniformly averting and detesting and abstaining from all such whatsoever the temptation be 14. Counsel is mine and sound wisedom I am understanding I have strength Paraphrase 14. And as this is the onely true wisedom such as will make us most like unto God so is it also the best sort of secular policy tending most to our preservation in this world no outward fortifications can so secure us against all mischief as this and this both upon terms of reason what is rationally to be expected for who will harm you if you be followers of that which is good 1 Pet. 3.13 and upon the ensurance of God's providence which will watch over such peculiarly without which guard of his no other means can secure any 15. By me kings reign and princes decree justice 16. By me princes rule and nobles even all the judges of the earth Paraphrase 15 16. And as for private men in their several capacities so for Kings Princes Nobles and all the Judges and Magistrates of this world there is nothing can more secure them in their several superiour orbs and spheres of motion than the exact observation of those rules which piety directs to strict justice in all their undertakings never varying from that on any seeming reasons of state It being most certain as it is most regular that as all power comes down to Princes from God a ray derived from that fountain of light his supreme power Rom. 13.1 and when it comes into the hands of oppressing Tyrants it is not without God's special providence thus scourging the peoples sins as St. Austin concludes from this and another Scripture so the onely means duly to manage this policy and to secure it to them is the regulation of it and all their affairs by those laws which God hath prescribed them Those Princes which with Solomon make wisedom their option which if they beg of God and sincerely labour for before wealth or any thing else shall be secured hereby of those additions the greatest abundance of all worldly blessings peace and plenty and dignity in this world 17. I love them that love me and those that seek me early shalâ— find me Paraphrase 17. And the reason is clear those that adhere to God God will adhere to and patronize and take all care of them and in that all safety consists and those that constantly pray for God's directions being duly qualified to receive shall not miss of them and having and cleaving stedfast to them all felicity is constantly consequent thereto which concludes for Princes as well as all other men that true piety is the onely policy for the perpetuating their power and prosperity 18. Riches and honour are with me yea durable riches and righteousness Paraphrase 18. For certainly God is the disposer of all the wealth and honours of this world 't was but a boast of Satan's to assume that they were in his power to give them to whomsoever he pleased and the onely way to perpetuate either of these to our selves and our posterities is to keep close to those rules of exact righteousness of all sorts performance of all duty to God to man and to our selves which he requires of us and wherein our wisedom truly so called consists 19. My fruit is better than gold yea than fine gold and my revenue than choice silver Paraphrase 19. But beside this the advantages of true piety are infinitely greater than such inferiour acquisitions can amount to All the wealth of the world ammast together is not fit to be compared with the one benefit and comfort of a good conscience with the great tranquility and peace which that affords in general and the practice of every particular vertue justice charity sobriety meekness contentedness and the like the satisfactions that result to the spirit of a man from the constant exercise of all and each of these are inestimable 20. I lead in the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of judgment 21. That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance and I will fill their treasures Paraphrase 20 21. This kind of wisedom is of a vast extent belongs to all the actions of private and publick life justice in all our transactions but especially in government and judicature and the practice exact practice of those rules which God gives for the conducting each of these as it renders us acceptable to him and cannot miss of a future eternal reward and crown of glory so it is the foundation of all durable wealth and prosperity in this life No inheritance descends more surely upon an eldest son from his Father than those seem to be entailed on the exercise of these vertues A man would think that God had no other design in prescribing these than by that means to ensure all felicity in the greatest abundance upon us 22. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old 23. I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was 24. When there were no depths I was brought forth when there were no fountains abounding with water 25. Before the mountains were settled before the hills was I brought forth 26. While as yet he had not made the earth nor the fields nor the highest part of the dust of the world Paraphrase 22 23 24 25 26. And indeed there will be no wonder in all this when it is considered that the wisedom which directs us to all this is but a ray of that eternal wisedom of the Father the Word and Son of God which in the fulness of time was to be incarnate on purpose to call mankind to repentance to redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works to give us the most divine sublime precepts and promises and grace to perform the one and embrace the other but before all time was present with God through that eternal ineffable generation from everlasting before any part of this world earth sea fountains hills valleys or mountains were created 27. When he prepared the heavens when he set a compass upon the face of the depth 28. When he established the clouds above when he strengthened the fountains of the deep 29. When he gave to the Sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment when he appointed the foundations of the earth 30. Then was I by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him 31. Rejoycing in the habitable part of his earth and my delights were with the sons of men Paraphrase 27 28 29 30 31. So likewise in the creation of the Universe that admirable work of divine wisedom wherein the circle of the heaven
created heaven and earth And so the Latin creabit and in all probability the phrase belongs to the great Title of God as Creatour This onely is to this matter worthy to be observed 1. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which here the Chaldee use though it be used of Creation Gen. 1.1 and in other places yet it is also taken in a greater latitude for any kind of production so Job 3.3 speaking of birth and conception the Chaldee reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the latter of these and Psal 51.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used which we render create a clean heart but that evidently in the notion of making and Psal 102.18 the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that shall be born not created And so Ps 104. speaking of the creatures of the world already made which at God's hiding his face is troubled at his taking away their breath die v. 29. 't is added thou sendest forth thy spirit they are created which what it signifies is made evident by the following words thou renewest the face of the earth 2. that when it signifies Creation properly and strictly so called then the LXXII do not render it by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gen. 1.1 they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord made the heaven and the earth and so the Authour of the Book of Maccabees 2 Mac. 7.28 speaking of the Creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God made them of that which was not and the Authour to the Hebrews ch 11.3 uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being framed and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being made speaking of the Creation but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. that this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used is frequently found in the looser notion for any kind of production and yet more loosely for ordaining or appointing and so is not peculiar to that which we ordinarily call Creation or which the Arians meant by it viz. production out of nothing So when Ecclus 7.5 't is said of husbandry that 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we render ordein'd of the most High and ch 38.1 of the Physician that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath created i. e. appointed him and ch 40.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 death and bloodshed strife and sword are created i. e. appointed for the wicked If we should here take it in this notion then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would be not he created but he set me over his works viz. those which should after be created or for his works for the creating them and to that agrees v. 23. I was set up and constituted from everlasting But if we shall rather take it to denote generation then as it best accords with v. 24 and 25. so that at utmost it will conclude no more than what the Church hath always thought of the eternal generation of this wisedom of the Father the Son of God without the least shew of patronizing the heresie of the Arians who from hence conclude the second person to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a creature created out of that which was not out of nothing as all the visible world was Thus 't is certain St. Cyprian interpreteth it in the beginning of his second book against the Jews Christum primogenitum esse ipsum esse sapientiam Dei per quam omnia facta sunt apud Solomonem in paroemiis Dominus condidit me initium viarum suarum in opera sua c. that Christ is the first begotten and that he is the wisedom of God by which all things were made is testified by Solomon in the Proverbs The Lord framed me the beginning taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of a noun of his ways on or over his works So Tertullian adversus Hermogenem c. 18. sophiam condit generat in semetipso Dominus inquit condidit me initium viarum suarum in opera sua God framed and generated wisedom in himself as in Solomon wisedom saith the Lord framed me c. So Lactantius de ver Sap. l. 4. p. 281. Ipse est filius qui per Solomonem locutus est Deus condidit me in initio viarum suarum in opera sua c. It is the very Son of God which spake by Solomon The Lord framed me in the beginning of his ways for or over his works c. adding that he was by Trismegistus called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's builder and by Sybilla 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's counsellour because he was furnished by God with so great wisedom and power that God used his counsel and ministery in the building of the world Of the force of this place under the style of Dominus condidit vel creavit me The Lord hath framed or created me see S. Hilary de Synodis adver Arianos where though he oppose and anathematize the Arians conclusion that Christ is a Creature meaning one created out of nothing or that had any beginning of being yet he infers hence the generation of Christ and the immutable nature of God quae creavit ex seipsa quod genuit which created out of it self that which is begot and concludes that the profession of the natural generation extinguishes the heresie and wicked opinion of being a Creature of God out of nothing And so S. Jerom though he change the translation and reade possedit me the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways and on Isa 26. resolve that it is an ill reading quaedam etiam exemplaria male pro possessione habent Creaturam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some Copies reade amiss creating for possessing yet he allows and makes no change in this part of the sense Vox Christi saith he qui vera est Patris Sapientia quae ante omnem Mundi Creaturam ineffabiliter ex Patre genita c. it is the speech of Christ who is the true wisedom of the Father which before the Creation of the world was ineffably begotten of the Father By all this it appears 1. how little reason there is to imagine a false reading in this passage of the LXXII 2. how little cause to fear any advantage to the Arian heresie from hence when the Fathers as before so in their disputes against the Arians acknowledge this reading and 3. that the words thus read are favourable to nothing but that Catholick Doctrine of the Church concerning the eternal generation of the Son of God and so assure us that this part of the description of Wisedom is to be interpreted peculiarly of this uncreated Wisedom of the Father his eternal Word or Son though the former part from the beginning of this Chapter to ver 22. be intelligible of the Law of God as that is revealed to us but that again most eminently by Christ since his Incarnation yet not without some reflexion on this eternal Son of God in the sublimer sense as when v. 15. it is said By me Kings
Mahomet to be a talking with God whil'st he lies foaming in an Epileptick fit but is content to be judged and discerned by the old plain Doctrines of the Gospel a regular authorized ordinary sober Spirit 3. The Zelotick Spirit was a thing peculiar among the Jews introduced and settled by the example of Phineas and Elias by way of precedent and standing Law to that Nation whereby 't was lawful when a man was taken in some notorious facts specifi'd by their Law Idolatry c. to run him through to kill him in the place without expecting any Legal process against him This was expresly commanded by Moses Numb 25.5 Slay ye every one the men that are joyned to Baal-peor and accordingly practised by Phineas upon incitation from God and when 't was done so by a Jew in the cases provided by the Jewish Law and by divine impulsion and the person assured that it was so there was then no harm in it but when that incitation from God was but pretended only not true when in any case but that prescribed by the Law then 't was perfect butchery and villany even among those Jews and unless in those few precedents of Phineas and Elias and the Maccabees i. e. Zelots for so the word Maccabee signifies in the Syriack 't will be hard to find either in Scripture or Josephus where there were whole multitudes of such men any one example of this practice justifiable even in a Jew And in opposition to and not compliance with that is the Gospel-spirit quite contrary to the heights of the Jewish practice never sheds bloud upon any but regular commissions an obedient orderly temperate cool Spirit 4. The Cursing spirit that may be of two sorts either in passing judgments on mens future spiritual estates a censorious damning spirit such as hath been usual in all kind of Hereticks almost that ever came into the Church nos spirituales we the spiritual and in the King of China's style filii coeli sons of heaven and all others animales psychici animal carnal men or 2. in wishing praying calling for curses either on God's or our enemies And you may know the Gospel-spirit by the opposition to these a hoping charitable merciful deprecating blessing Spirit Lastly the Fiery spirit is a vehement violent untractable unreconcileable spirit sets all where ever it comes into a flame and combustion and will never have peace with any thing which it can possibly consume nay farther it infuseth warmths and distempers and turbulencies into all that come within any reach of it communicates and diffuses its violencies to all others And the Gospel-spirit is direct antipodes to that an allaying quenching quieting cooling Spirit And so you see this new Spirit the Spirit of the Gospel of what a temper it is in all these respects a Spirit more fit than Lightning to melt the swords in our scabbards to new forge these hostile weapons into those that are more civil and profitable and that was the second course by which Christianity was to work this metamorphosis to beat these swords c. 3. And lastly our Saviour hath contributed toward this great work by the exemplariness of his own practice in this kind Not only in the first place in refusing to have the fire from heaven that the Boanerges would have help'd him to against the Samaritans profest enemies of Christ and of all that had any kind looks toward Jerusalem and besides notorious Hereticks and Schismaticks and yet pretenders to the only purity and antiquity against all sense and reason and so most arrogant Hypocrites also and yet all this not enough to inflame Christ's Spirit into that of Elias's or to change his temper into any thing of zeal or anger against these Nor only in the second place in reprehending and trashing of St. Peter's zeal when it drew the sword in his Master's defence against the high Priest's servants and indeed against the very Crucifiers of Christ Nor only in the third place in refusing the aid even of Angels from Heaven when they were ready upon his summons against the Heathens that attach'd him But fourthly and above all by that answer of his to Pilate John 18.36 If my Kingdom were of this world then should my servants fight c. which was certainly part of that good confession before Pilate mentioned with such honour 1 Tim. 6.13 inferring that because his Kingdom was not of this world because he was not a worldly or an earthly King therefore his servants were not to fight for him against a legal power of Heathens though 't were but to save him from Crucifying 'T is clear 't was one of his Accusers main hopes to find him in Judas Gaulonita's Doctrine That 't was unlawful for God's people and so for him that undertook to be God's Son to be subject to Idolaters making advantage of Piety as the Gnosticks after did toward their secular ends the freeing themselves from subjection in this world But our Saviour every where disclaims that Doctrine both Matth. 22.21 vindicating Caesar's Prerogative by his Coin and in that good confession to Pilate From which 't is demonstrable that what was not to be done in defence of Christ when he was in that danger and under that persecution is no more to be attempted in that case for Religion for Christianity it self I shall shut up this by leaving in your hands that most glorious lively Image of his whole Soul and Life delivered to us in one Medal that Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your Souls To which if you add the sealing and the practising of this in the giving up his Soul laying down his Life an Offering of Charity even for enemies and yet farther for those enemies Souls this one Amulet hung about your necks one would think were sufficient to charm all the weapons of our warfare that are so unmercifully carnal to exorcize and conjure all the swords and spears out of the world to work new transfigurations and metamorphoses among us to return the Bears and Vultures into their old humane shapes again and proclaim an universal truce to all the military affections we carry about us to our wraths our covetings our aspirings a Sabbath a Jubilee of rest and peace like that which Jamblichus talks of in the Sphears a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a catholick constant harmony and accord a present pacification of all our intestine broils and so a quiet and rest unto our souls and till this be done till this Advent Prophecy be fulfilled in your ears you must know there is little of Christianity among us little of Evangelical graces or Evangelical Spirit nothing but Legal at the best That in God's good time there may be more not in the brain or tongue to elevate the one or adorn the other but in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the depth and sincerity of the heart more of the work and power the spirit and
through the ear by his old Master rather than thus dignified with the Title of Free-man and denied the Libertinism that belongs to it But the truth is there is a third notion of these words which will be a Supersedeas to that of a Promise and that is as this art of promising is only an excuse or shift or pretence to get off the present smart of the rod or the importunity of the Prophet to escape the smiting or the being smitten the cross or following of Christ Should the unmanaged Horse instead of the Bullock in the Text desire his Rider to put off his Spurs and Whip and at once to ease him both of Bit and Saddle and then promise to be the tractablest Beast in nature but till then profess that all those Instruments of Discipline should never tame him I beseech you what would be thought of this Oration would you certainly be perswaded that the Beast spake reason that it was a serious design of a generous obedience a gallantry of a voluntary unconstrained vertue If so you may believe the Beast within you that makes the same proposal to God and you In the mean time 't will not be amiss to resolve that he that hath exceptions to God's methods hath some other Master to whom he is more inclinable to retain he that will not serve God for nought that is all for the thriving Piety the gainful Godliness that must have his reward just as he is a doing the work a payment in hand even before he sets about the duty will sure bring in little profit to God be he fed never so high very thin returns of good life for all his donatives He that will not now mend under the rod edifie by so many doleful Lectures as have been read us out of a Zachary's and a Jeremy's roll that hath arrived to Theodoret's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mind that can reverberate judgments and make them rebound in more provoking sins against the hand that sent them is of the Pharaoh the anvil-temper and let him pretend or promise or flatter himself what he please by holding out his white Flag for Treaty he desired to be in case to maintain his Fort still against God and 't is not victualling and bribing but starving and storming must help to drive him out of it Which brings me to the third and last particular The stating of this difficulty betwixt God and man and in it the falseness of man's judgment and fallaciousness of such his promise both in respect of God who will never send them Prosperity that Adversity wrought no good on and of Prosperity it self which would never do the work if God should send it For the first in respect of God who will never send them Prosperity that Adversity wrought no good on this you may judge of not only by that great Rule of State in Heaven of God 's resisting the proud and Surely God heareth not sinners compounded into one Gospel-aphorism the incorrigible beggar can never have audience in heaven nor returns from thence save only of stones and thunder-bolts but especially on that wise ground of divine oeconomy on which all these stripes are sent God's first method of calling us off from the world is the soft and friendly the having therefore these promises let us cleanse our selves a Heaven a Paradise and a Canaan to confirm Angels and bring men to bliss to draw with the cords of a Man with the bands of love and if that prevail Afflictions are superseded and were it not that there is another special use of them to illustrate our Christian vertues and improve our Crown and withall to confute Satan when he accuses us of unsincerity the reformed Christian should never be thus exercised But when Prosperity will not work when the calmer physick is digested into nourishment of the disease then and not till then the vomit comes in on the reserve the tempest and deluge to drown those Serpents that had ingendred and thriven in the shallow and stlll waters as to them that are sick of perfumes the noisomest Smell is the only Cordial and then as Cusanus observes there is in God coincidentia contrariorum this severity is the only mercy these wounds the only balsame the hostile approach the most obliging charity and as by the Heathen artifice in Hero's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as soon as ever the fire was kindled upon the Altar the plummets fell and the doors flew open and the God appeared upon the Chair of State so by this rarifying power of flames and judgments the earthly obstacles are oft removed and the Deity set up and inthron'd in the heart and then sure 't was good for that man that he was in trouble And generally the rule is true in Gerson Omnes poenae non exterminantes sunt medicinales All mulcts that are not undoing and our Law admits not of any but such as are salvo contenemento are a piece of charity and physick in the Judge For this cause are many sick and weak nay many fallen asleep if we will believe the Apostle and all these judgings of the Lord the only Antidotes against that fatal poyson the being condemn'd and ruin'd with the world And then you will not blame the wit or piety of the old Heathens who deifi'd all their Benefactors that they had Temples for such Fevers as these the friends that had so oblig'd them I 'm sure St. Augustine makes it his wonder that upon that score they had not erected one Altar more impietati hostium to the impiety and rapine of their enemies which was constantly if they had but the grace to make use of it so royal a Benefactor The sovereign power of this Recipe being thus considered you will give it leave to be the last in God's prescribing and the most depended on and the Patient being not fit for the cost or trouble of any farther experiments when these have proved successless the greatest mercy of the Physician is to leave him with these Cupping-glasses at the neck that if there be ever a spark of vital spirit within it may by this assistance discharge it self of that poysonous vapour and yet possibly overcome and quit the danger but if not 't is sure too late to divert to any new course the fetching out the Cordials will but enhance the Bill and maintain the Lamp a little longer will never beget a new stock of spirits or spring of life when 't is once so quite exhausted and therefore the conclusion is clear and the Prophet Amos hath exprest it by an apt resemblance Amos 3.5 Shall one take up a snare from the earth and take nothing at all Shall God remove his judgments from a Nation while the sins are still at the high-water Infallibly he will not do it If he do 't is a sad presage his soft hand is but absolute desertion the leaving to our selves is the giving us up to our bloudiest enemies that unseasonable
a passive obedience to Heaven The submitting to God's will in suffering what he lays upon us the utmost degree of Patience that the most of us attain to and when we have done that think our selves Champions and Martyrs of the first magnitude is but a very moderate degree of Christian fortitude that which Christ needed not have ascended to the Cross to preach unto us a man must be a kind of mad Atheist to come short of that for what is it but Atheism to think it possible to resist his will and what but madness to attempt it 'T is that high Philosophy of submitting to his wisdom the acknowledging God the best chuser for us the stripes which he sends far fitter for our turns than all the boons we pray for his denying of our demands the divinest way of granting them and in a word the resolving that whatever is is best whatsoever he hath done best to be done whatsoever permitted best to be permitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that very fury and madness of earth and hell is a piece of God's oeconomy whatsoever is revealed to be his will by its coming to pass among us is though the Actors in that Tragedy shall pay dearly for it yet better and more desirable and eligible for us than all friends and Patron-guardians in heaven and earth yea and our own Souls could have contrived and chosen for us The good Hezekiah's Good is the word of the Lord which he hath spoken when it denounced destruction to his whole family old Nahum's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even this for good to the heaviest news that ever came so oft repeated that we find him in Elias Levita surnamed Gamzo Even this the firm adherence to the truth of that Apostolical Aphorism that all things tend to good to them that love God from tribulation through seven degrees to sword or death it self and the forming all our lives by the plastick vertue of this one Article this submission I say to his wisdom superadded to that other to his will and that attended with its natural consequent a rejoycing in tribulation is the lesson God's rod must teach us yea and submission in actions as well as sufferings to his precepts as well as to his decrees doing chearfully as well as patiently enduring his will or else we are still but punies in St. Paul's Academy but triflers in the School of the Cross of Christ Once more Denunciations of God's wrath may set us a praying oftner than we were wont before make us assiduous and importunate in that duty The tempest in Jonah may cast the heathen Mariners upon their knees crying every man unto his God and yet for want of the clean hands to spread forth towards Heaven of the new Soul to exhale and breath forth those prayers the liveliest of those flames like all those which our earthy fire brings forth faint and extinguish long before they come to that Region of purity 'T was the blind man's Divinity Now we know that God heareth not sinners a principle of blind Nature and Hierocles a Philosopher descants excellently upon it The sacrifice of such unreformed fools is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but a feast for the fire to prey on their offerings to the Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a prize for the sacrilegious to seize on the wise man is the only Priest the only friend of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only man that knows how to pray offering up himself for a sacrifice hewing his lower Soul into an Image his upper into a Temple of his Deity I might shew you some more of these inferiour uses imperfect sudden motions that these judgments may have forced from us and so still like Chymicks in the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone we meet with may handsome Experiments by the way please our selves in our journey though never attain to our journeys end These sad Times and this forced study and contemplation of God in his Judgments may have cast us upon some considerable Christian vertues and yet not advanced us within any ken of that great transcendent treasure to which all the ignis and the sulphur the fire and the brimstone of his Judgments that vast expence of thunder-bolts to the emptying of his Armory was design'd Repentance is a higher pitch than any or all of these and 't is only Repentance is the proper Use of this sad Doctrine and not all kinds that pass under that Title neither and that must be shewed you in our next stage And first the Repentance we speak of is not Sorrow whether for misery or for sin For Misery that sluce which lets out such rivers of tears which get away all the custom from godly sorrow or humiliation Such sorrow as this is admirably described by God Hos 7.14 and call'd assembling themselves for corn fasting and praying only upon the loss and for the recovering of worldly plenty and this it seems very reconcileable with all the impiety in the world for it follows and they rebel against me Nor bare sorrow for sin neither that which some men call Repentance and by so doing have fill'd Hell with none but Penitents for I am confident there is not an unhappy creature there which hath not both these parts of sorrow both for his misery and for his fall that betray'd him to it had he not Hell were not half so much hell as 't is two of the sorest tormentors would be missing the sense of the flames and the gnawing of the worm the one extorting the tears the other the gnashing of the teeth Nor secondly Humiliation alone though that were a great rarity to be found among us for though that might prevail to avert or defer secular calamities from a Kingdom as it did from Ahab and therefore our Satan that accuses this Nation day and night before God will not allow us this common grace after all our sufferings the whole Nation God knows is as unhumbled as ever yet will not a bare humiliation under God's rod be accepted for a sufficient return when Repentance and change is call'd for No nor thirdly the sudden passionate motions toward Reformation the shooting up of the seed in the stony ground many such weak false conceptions there are in the world and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or speedy abortion the common fate of them all like the Goats in the Philosopher that give milk when they are stung but never else When he slew them they sought him and turned them early and enquired after God Every one of these is but a poor imperfect paiment of that great arrear that God's terrors and imminent Judgments are come like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Gospel to arrest us for and if we do not presently make our peace with our adversary by rendring him that only royal tribute the sincere impartial uniform obedience of our whole age to come and counting the time past of our lives sufficient to have wrought the will
quietly stilly without some opposition of the other And then comes in in the third place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soul the Elective Faculty i. e. the Will betwixt them courted and sollicited by both as that which hath the determining casting voice if the beast can carry it if the sensual suggestions get the consent of the Will obtain the embrace have its carnal proposals yielded to then in the Apostles phrase lust conceives and within a while proceeds from consent to act bringeth forth sin but when the Spirit prevails when the Reason the Conscience the God within the is allowed to be heard when that chaste sober matronly Spouse gets the embraces the consent of the Will then the Spirit conceives and from thence spring all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Scripture speaks of the fruits and productions of the Spirit You see now the competition the constant importunities and sollicitations the rivalry for thy soul not an action of moment or importance in thy life but the house is divided about it the spirit for one way and the flesh for another and that that prevails i. e. gets the Will of its side denominates the action and the action frequently and indulgently reiterated denominates thee either flesh or spirit either captive to the law of sin or obedient to the commands and dictates of Christ a carnal sinner or a spiritual disciple And then my brethren by way of Use 1. You see the answer to that hard probleme what is the reason and ground of the infiniteness of those punishments that await sinners in another world Here you have the oyl that maintains that accursed Vestal fire so much beyond Tulliola's or Pallas's Lamp in Licetus burning so many Ages under ground and not consumed I mean this competition in this Text the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which of the two infinites will you and that other we mention'd of life and death blessing and cursing set before us by God the leaving to our option whether of the two infinites we will have This and nothing but this hath made it most perfectly reasonable that Despisers should perish eternally that he that will contemn immortal life that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens St. Pauls contemporary calls it that eternity put into our hands by Christ and make his deliberate covenant with death that his immortal part may die eternally should be thought worthy as the Book of Wisd hath it to take his portion or part with it And then 2. O how much the more care and caution and vigilance will it require at our hands to keep guard over that one faculty that spring of life and death that fountain of sweet and poysonous water that of chusing or rejecting willing or nilling never to dispense those favours loosly or prodigally never to deny them rashly or unadvisedly but upon all the mature deliberation in the world Keep thy heart with all diligence the heart this principle of action keep it above all keeping for out of it are the issues of life Prov. 4.23 That when I would do good evil is present with me temptations of the carnal appetite to the contrary it matters little so I hold off my consent resist their importunity and that all the Devils in Hell are a whispering blasphemy within me it matters as little so I reject the suggestions Resist and he shall flie that he is loose to tempt this is my infelicity perhaps but not my guilt I and that mishap improved into a blessing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this tempter a kind of donative of Heaven to busie my patience and exercise my vigilance to set out my Christian valour to make me capable of the victory first and then the crown the nations left to prove Israel Jud. 3.1 yea and to teach them war verse 2. at least such as before knew nothing thereof Only be sure that those Nations get not the upper hand to that purpose that they be not pamper'd and fed too high till they grow petulant and unruly that this jumentum hominis as St. Jerom calls it this Ass or beast-part of the man prove not the Rider's Master this is the greatest danger first and then reproach in the world which you will more discern if you proceed from the competition to the Competitors and consider who they are in us spirit and flesh God and Devil as in the Jews Barabbas and Christ my second particular 'T is none of the least of God's mercies among his dispensations of providence that the competition falls to be betwixt such persons so acknowledgedly distant and hugely contrary a Christ and a Barabbas the one so pretious and the other so vile the Prince of Peace and the Author of an Insurrection a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour and a Destroyer had it been betwixt a Christ and a Nicodemus a Carpenters Son and a Rabbi or Ruler in Israel the choice might have been more difficult or the mistake more pardonable But so God loved the world such were the riches of his goodness to an infatuated rebellious people he sets before them a beautiful Christ and an odious foyl to make him more beautiful to make it impossible for them to be so mad as to refuse and finally to reject Christ that was on such grounds and in such company a suing and importuning for their favour none but a Barabbas to pretend against him that that notion had of him might serve instead of the fishes gall to recover the blind Tobits sight help the blindest natural man to discern somewhat tolerable if not desirable in the Christ that in so poor a choice an undervalued prejudg'd scandalous Jesus might have leave to be considered and owe a preferment aliâ—nis vitiis to the faults of the other though not virtutibus suis to any thing amiable or esteemable in himself The same oeconomy you may generally observe even from the first of Paradise to this day When our first Parents were the prize the Competitors were of somewhat a distant making God and the Serpent not the King of Heaven and one of his chief Courtiers God and an Archangel of light but God and a damned Spirit a black Prince and he but in very homely disguise but of a Serpent which though he were then a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Cedrenus out of some of the Antients will have it somewhat a taller and goodlier creature than now the Serpent is that his Legs be cut off yet the Text saith a beast for all that I and that beast branded for craft infamous for the subtilest creature and so not likely to prove the most honest and solicitous of their good and this cunning Pytho had made friends to speak contrary to his kind there was sure some sorcery in that and all this one would think was enough to have added authority to God by such a prejudg'd Competitor And just so was it to the Israelites at their coming out
on the N. T. published 1657. with this Advertisement TO THE READER MY fear that these Additional Notes may fall into some hands which for want of sufficient acquaintance with the larger Volume may miss receiving the desired fruit from them hath suggested the affixing this Auctarium of two plain intelligible discourses the one prepared for an Auditory of the Clergy the other of Citizens or Laity and so containing somewhat of useful advice for either sort of Readers to whose hands this Volum shall come That it may be to both proportionably profitable shall be the prayer of Your Servant in the Lord H. HAMMOND THE PASTORS MOTTO The XI SERMON Preach'd to the Clergy of the Deanery of Shorham in Kent at the Visitation between Easter and Whitsuntide A.D. 1639. held at S. Mary-Cray 2 COR. 12.14 For I seek not yours but you THis Text hath somewhat in it seasonable both for the assembly and the times I speak in For the first It is the word or Motto of an Apostle Non vestra sed vos not yours but you transmitted to us with his Apostleship to be transcribed not into our rings or seals of Orders but our hearts there if you please to be ingraven with a diamond set as the stones in our Ephod the jewels in our breast-plate gloriously legible to all that behold us And for the second consider but the occasion that extorted from our humble Saint this so magnificent elogie of himself you shall find it that which is no small part of the infelicity of his successors at this time the contempt and vileness of his ministery a sad joyless subject of an Epistle which would have been all spent in superstruction of heavenly doctrine upon that pretious foundation formerly laid in dressing of those noble plants that generous vine Isa 5. that had cost him so much care to plant but is fain to divert from that to a comfortless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a parenthesis of two or three chapters long to vindicate himself from present danger of being despised and that even by his own children whom he had begotten in the Gospel but other pseudo's made up all of lying and depraving had debauch'd out of all respect to his doctrine or estimation to his person I should have given a S. Paul leave to have hoped for better returns from his Corinthians and now he finds it otherwise to have express'd that sense in a sharper strain of passion and indignation than Tullie could do against Antonie when on the same exacerbation he brake out into that stout piece of eloquence quid putem contemptumne me non video quid sit in moribus aut vitâ meâ quod despicere possit Antonius But there was another consideration which as it composes our Apostles style so it inlarges it with arguments all that he can invent to ingratiate himself unto them because this contempt of their Apostle was a most heinous provoking sin and withal that which was sure to make his Apostleship succesless among them And then though he can contemn reputation respect any thing that is his own yet he cannot the quaero vos seeking of them that office that is intrusted him by Christ of bringing Corinthians to heaven Though he can absolutely expose his credit to all the Eagles and Vultures on the mountains yet can he not so harden his bowels against his converts their pining gasping souls as to see them with patience posting down this precipice by despising of him prostituting their own salvation And therefore in this ecstatick fit of love and jealousie in the beginning of chap. 11. you may see him resolve to do that that was most contrary to his disposition boast and vaunt and play the fool give them the whole tragedy of his love what he had done and suffered for them by this means to raise them out of that pit force them out of that hell that the contempt of his ministery had almost ingulph'd them in And among the many topicks that he had provided to this purpose this is one he thought most fit to insist on his no design on any thing of theirs but only their souls Their wealth was petty inconsiderable pillages and spoil for an Apostle in his war-fare too poor inferior gain for him to stoop to A flock an army a whole Church full of ransomed souls fetched out of the Jaws of the Lion and Bear was the only honourable reward for him to pitch design on Non quaero vestra sed vos I seek not yours but you In handling which words should I allow my self licence to observe and mention to you the many changes that are rung upon them in the world my Sermon would turn all into Satyre my discourse divide it self not into so many parts but into so many declamations 1. Against them that are neither for the vos nor vestra the you nor yours 2. Those that are for the vestra but not vos the yours but not you 3 Those that are for the vos you but in subordination to the vestra yours and at last perhaps meet with an handful of gleanings of pastors that are either for the vestra yours in subordination to the vos you or the vos you but not vestra yours Instead of this looser variety I shall set my discourse these strict limits which will be just the doctrine and use of this text 1. Consider the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the truth of the words in S. Pauls practice 2. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end for which they are here mentioned by him 3. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how far that practice and that end will be imitable to us that here are now assembled and then I shall have no more to tempt or importune your patience First of the first S. Pauls practice in seeking of the vos you that his earnest pursâ—it of the good of his auditors souls though it have one very conpetent testimony from this place v. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most willingly will I spend and be spent for your souls even sacrifice my soul for the saving of yours yet many other places there are which are as punctual and exact for that as this in this text nay 't is but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seek here but you shall find it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contend in many other places all the agonistical phrases in use among the antient Grecians cull'd out and scattered among his Epistles fetch'd from Olympus to Sion from Athens to Jerusalem and all little enough to express the earnest holy violence of his soul in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good fight as he calls his ministery running and wrestling with all the difficulties in the world and no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 price or reward of all that industry and that patience but only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you gaining so many colonies to heaven But then for the non vestra not yours his absolute
be true which Pamelius cites out of Honorius that instead of the antient oblation of bread and wine the offering of money was by consent received into the Church in memory of the pence in Judas sale Only 't were well if we were a little more alacrious and exact in the performance of the duty and more care taken in the distribution especially that that notorious abuse of this most Christian custome which they say I hope unjustly some part of this city is guilty of in converting this inheritance of the poor into a feast of entertainment for the Officers of the Church may be branded and banish'd out of kenn It is yet but a sin which like some in Aristotle hath never a name had never yet the honour to be forbidden if it should chance to live to that age thrive and prove fit for an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the imposition of a name let me have the favour to Christen it A new-found sacriledge a most inhumane at once and unchristian profanation And if you want an embleme for it that antient piece of Nathans designing will serve the turn the rich man feasting on the poor mans ewe lamb his luxury maintained by the others bloud 'T were an admirable work of Ecclesiastick discipline some way or other to bring the Corban in such favour with us that it might prove a bank or storehouse in every parish able to supply the wants of all but much better if we would fall in love with it our selves as a way of binding up both the tables of the Law into one volume of ministring both to God and man by this one mixt act of charity and piety of mercy and of sacrifice and so in the wise mans phrase to lay up our riches in Gods storehouse without a metaphor But if it please you not that any body though in the resolution it be Christ himself should have the disposal of your alms as charity now adaies is a pettish wearish thing ready to startle and pick a quarrel with any thing that comes to meddle with it then shall I not pursue this design any farther So thou art really and sincerely affected to the setting out of the third years tithing thou shalt have my leave to be thine own Almoner have the choice of the particular way of disposing and ordering it thy self And yet three things there are that I cannot choose but be so pragmatical as to interpose in this business 1. For the quando when this tithe should be set out Let it not be deferred till the Will be a making till death forces it out of our hands and makes it a non dat sed projicit only a casting over the lading when the ship is ready to sink nor yet till our coffers be ready to run over till a full abundant provision be made for all that belong to us for that is to feed the poor like the dogs only with the orts of the childrens table but as other tithes are paid just as the increase comes in presently after the whole field is reap'd so must the poor mans tithing also set out I say then dedicated to that use that we may have it by us at hand told out ready when the owner calls for it 'T was a thing that Antoninus recounts as matter of special joy that which he numbers amongst the felicities for which he was beholden to the Gods that he was never ask'd of any that he thought fit to give to that he was answered by his Almoner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there was not store at hand to perform his will A most joyous comfortable thing in that heathen Emperors opinion and yet that that will hardly be attained to unless we take some such course as this mentioned in terminis by S. Paul 1 Cor. 16.2 Vpon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gathering when I come a weekly provision laid in and ready in numerato for this purpose that you be never surprized on a sudden and so disabled to perform this duty 2. For the quibus I would answer To all whom Christ hath made our neighbours and brethren and I know not any that are excluded from this title But you would then think I were set to sollicite against the laws of this realm and plead the cause of the idle wandering beggar that most savage barbarous unchristian trade among us set a man would think in the streets by the devil on purpose to pose and tire and non-plus mens charity to dishearten and weary them out of this Christian duty No we have a countermand from the Apostle against these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly walkers 2 Thes 3.7 that if any would not labour neither should he eat v. 10. the best alms for them the seasonablest provision and charity to such is the careful execution of laws upon them to set them every one single in an orb to move in by that means perhaps to teach them the skill in time to be alms-givers themselves at least to become fit to be receivers For such of all others is the fixt stationary diligent labouring poor man whose motion is like that of the trembling sphere not able to advance any considerable matter in a whole age be they never so restless whose hands with all their diligence cannot give content to the mouth or yield any thing but stones many times to the poor child that calls for bread All that I shall interpose for the quibus shall be this that seeing a do good to all is now sent into the world by Christ and that but little restrained in any Christian Kingdom by an especially to the houshold of Saints all Christians being such and seeing again no man hath hands or store to feed every mouth that gapes in a kingdom or particularly in this populous city we may do well to take that course that we use in composing other difficulties referatur ad sortem let the lot decide the main of the controversie and reserving somewhat for the publick somewhat for the stranger somewhat for common calamities somewhat as 't were for the universal motion of the whole body somewhat for excentricks let the place whereon our lot hath cast us be the principal orb for our charity to move in the special diocess for our Visitation And when that is done and yet as 't is in the parable there be still room store left for others also then to inlarge as far as we can round about us as motion beginning at the centre diffuses it self uniformly sends out his influence and shakes every part to the circumference and happy that man who hath the longest arm whose charity can thus reach farthest The third thing is that my text obliges me to the how much out of every mans revenues may go for the poor mans due which brings me to the second particular the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here
August de Civit. Dei and other of the Fathers will number them out to you And thus far this tyrant over Impiety and Lust will be a Pelagian as to order all his deviation by imitation of Adam's Every breach of one single Law shall contain a brood or nest into which it may be sub-divided and every circumstance in the Action shall furnish him with fresh matter for variety of sin Again How imperious is he in triumphing over a sin which he hath once atchieved If he have once got the better of good nature and Religion broke in upon a stubborn sullen vice that was formerly too hard for him how often doth he reiterate and repeat that he may perfect his conquest that it may lie prostrate and tame before him never daring to resist him And if there be any Virgin modest sins which are ashamed of the light either of the Sun or Nature not coming abroad but under a veil as some sins being too horrid and abominable are fain to appear in other shapes and so keep us company under the name of amiable or innocent qualities then will this violent imperious sinner call them out into the Court or Market place tear away the veil that he may commit them openly and as if the Devil were too modest for him bring him upon the stage against his will and even take Hell by violence and force Thus are men come at last to a glorying in the highest impieties and expect some renown and credit as a reward for the pains they take about it and then certainly honour is grown very cheap when it is bestowed upon sins and the man very tyrannical over his spectators thoughts that requires to be worshipped for them This was a piece of the Devils old tyranny in the times of Heathenism which I would fain Christianity hath out-dated to build Temples and offer sacrifice to sins under the name of Venus Priapus and the like that men that were naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superstitious adorers of Devils or any thing that was called God might account Incontinence Religion and all impieties in the world a kind of adoration Thus to profess whoredoms and set up trophies in our eyes to build their eminent place in the head of every way in the verse next to my Text was then the imputation of the Jews and pray God it prove not the guilt of Christians from whence the whole Church of them is here styled An imperious c. Thus hath the Apostate Jew represented to you in his picture and resemblance the Libertine Christian and Ezekiel become an Historian as well as Prophet Thus hath indulgence in vice among Professors of Christianity been aggravated against you 1. By the weak Womanish condition of it nature it self and ordinary man-like reason is ashamed of it 2. By the Adulterous Unfaithfulness 1. Want of Faith 2. Of Fidelity bewray'd in it 3. By the imperiousness of the behaviour 1. In shamelesness 2. In confidence and spiritual security 3. In tyrannizing over himself and faculties by force compelling and then insulting over his goods and graces prodigally mis-spending them in the prosecution of his lusts and Lording over all that come near him men or sins first pressing then leading the one and both ravishing and tormenting the other to perform him the better service Now that this discourse may not have been sent into the air unprofitably that all these prophetical censures of sin may not be like Xerxes his stripes on the Sea on inanimate senseless bodies 't is now time that every tender open guilty heart begin to retire into it self every one consider whether he be not the man that the parable aims at that you be not content to have your ears affected or the suburbs of the Soul filled with the sound unless also the heart of the City be taken with its efficacy Think and consider whether 1. This effeminacy and womanishness of heart and not weakness but torpor and stupidity 2. This unfaithfulness and falseness unto Christ exprest by the spiritual incontinence and whoredoms of our souls and actions 3. That Confidence and magnanimous stately garb in sin arising in some from Spiritual Pride in others from Carnal Security whether any or all of these may not be inscrib'd on our Pillars and remain as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against us to upbraid and aggravate the nature and measure of our sins also I cannot put on so solemn a person as to act a Cato or Aristarchus amongst an Assembly that are all Judices critici to reprehend the learned and the aged and to chide my Teachers you shall promise to spare that thankless task and to do it to your selves It will be more civility perhaps and sink down deeper into ingenuous natures fairly to bespeak and exhort you and from the first part of my Text only because 't would be too long to bring down all from the weakness and womanish condition of indulgent sinners to put you in mind of your strength and the use you are to make of it in a word and close of Application We have already taken notice of the double inheritance and patrimoney of strength and graces which we all injoy first as Men secondly as Christians and ought not we Beloved that have spent the liveliest and sprightfullest of our age and parts in the pursuit of Learning to set some value on that estate we have purchased so dear and account our selves somewhat the more men for being Scholars Shall not this deserve to be esteemed some advantage to us and a rise that being luckily taken may further us something in our stage towards Heaven That famous division of Rational Animals in Jamblichus out of Aristotle into three different species that some were Men others Gods others such as Pythagoras will argue some greater priviledges of Scholars above other men That indeed the deep Learneder sort and especially those that had attained some insight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in divine affairs were in a kind of a more venerable species than ordinary ignaro's And for the benefits and helps that these excellencies afford us in our way to Heaven do but consider what a great part of the world overshaded in Barbarism brought up in blind Idolatry do thereby but live in a perpetual Hell and at last pass not into another kind but degree of darkness Death being but an officer to remove them from one Tophet to another or at most but as from a Dungeon to a Grave Think on this and then think and count what a blessing divine knowledge is to be esteemed even such a one as seems not only the way but the entrance not only a preparation but even a part of that vision which shall be for ever beatifical and therefore it will nearly concern us to observe what a talent is committed to our husbanding and what increase that hard Master will exact at his coming For as Dicaearchus in his Description of Greece saith of the
them was demonstrated to come from God also as much as the prediction of the Kings death which was confirm'd by this means It may very probably be guest by Mattathias his words in that place that there were no precedents of the zelotick spirit in the Old Testament but those two for among all the Catalogue of examples mentioned to his sons to enflame their zeal to the Law he produceth no other and 't is observable that though there be practices of this nature mentioned in the story of the New Testament the stoning of St. Stephen of St. Paul at Iconium c. yet all of them practised by the Jews and not one that can seem to be blameless but that of Christ who sure had extraordinary power upon the buyers and sellers in the Temple upon which the Apostles remembred the Psamists Prophecy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the zeal of Gods house carried him to that act of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of indignation and punishment upon the transgressors And what mischief was done among the Jews by those of that sect in Josephus that call'd themselves by that name of Zelots and withal took upon them to be the saviours and preservers of the City but as it prov'd the hastners and precipitators of the destruction of that Kingdom by casting out and killing the High-Priests first and then the Nobles and chief men of the Nation and so embasing and intimidating and dejecting the hearts of all the people that all was at length given up to their fury Josephus and any of the learned that have conversed with the Jewish Writers will instruct the enquirer And ever since no very honourable notion had of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament one of the fruits of the flesh Gal. v. of the Wisdom that comes not from Heaven Jam. iii. and in the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bitter zeal a gall that will imbitter all that come near it The short of it is the putting any man to death or inflicting other punishment upon any terms but that of legal perfectly legal process is the importance of a zelotick Spirit as I remember in Maimonides him that curses God in the name of an Idol the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that meet him kill him i. e. the zelots permitted it seems if not authorized to do so And this is the Spirit of Elias that is of all others most evidently reprehended and renounced by Christ. The Samaritans no very sacred persons added to their habitual constant guilts at that time to deny common civility of entertainment to Christ himself and the Disciples asked whether they might not do what Elias had done call for fire from Heaven upon them in that case and Christ tells them that the Gospel-Spirit was of another complexion from that of Elias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turn'd to them as he did to Peter when he said Get thee behind me Satan as to so many fiery Satanical-spirited men and checkt them for that their furious zeal with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The least I can conclude from hence is this that they that put any to death by any but perfectly legal process that draw the sword upon any but by the supream Magistrates command are far enough from the Gospel-Spirit whatever precedent they can produce to countenance them And so if they be really what they pretend Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are in a prodigious mistake or ignorance They know not what Spirit they are of Yet farther it is observable of Elias that he did execrate and curse call for judgments from Heaven upon mens persons and that temper of mind in the parallel you may distribute into two sorts First in passing judgments upon mens future estates the censorious reprobating Spirit which though we find it not in Elias at this time yet is a consequent of the Prophetick Office and part of the burthen received from the Lord and layed upon those guilty persons concerning whom it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal that secret of his Cabinet but then this rigor cannot without sin be pretended to by any else for in the blackest instances charity believes all things and hopes all things and even in this sense covers the multitudes of sins Now this so culpable an insolent humour rashly to pass a condemning sentence was discernible in the Pharisees this Publican whose profession and trade is forbidden by that Law and this people that know not that Law is cursed so likewise in the Montanists nos spirituales and all others animales and Psychici so in the Romanists who condemn all but themselves and in all those generally whose pride and malice conjoined most directly contrary to the Gospel-Spirit of humility and charity doth prepare them one and the other inflame them to triumph and glut themselves in this spiritual assassinacy this deepest dye of blood the murthering of Souls which because they cannot do it really they endeavour in effigie anathematize and slaughter them here in this other Calvary the place for the crucifying of reputations turning them out of the Communion of their charity though not of bliss and I am confident reject many whom the Angels entertain more hospitably Another part of this cursing Spirit there is more peculiarly Elias's that of praying and so calling for curses on mens persons and that being upon the enemies of God and those appearing to Elias a Prophet to be such might be then lawful to him and others like him David perhaps c. in the Old Testament but is wholly disliked and renounced by Christ under this state of higher Discipline to which Christians are designed by him in the New I say not only for that which concerns our own enemies for that is clear When thine enemy hungreth feed him and somewhat like that in the Old Testament When thine enemies Ox c. But I extend it even to the enemies of God himself and that I need not do upon other evidence than is afforded from the Text the Samaritans were enemies of Christ himself and were barbarous and inhumane to his person and they must not be curst by Disciples And he that can now curse even wicked men who are more distantly the enemies of God can call for I say not discomfiture upon their devices for that is charity to them to keep them from being such unhappy Creatures as they would be contrivers of so much mischief to the world but Plagues and Ruine upon their persons which is absolutely the voice of Revenge that sulphur-vapor of Hell he that delighteth in the misery of any part of Gods Image and so usurps upon that wretched quality of which we had thought the Devil had gotten the Monopoly that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joying in the Brother's misery but now see with horror is got loose out of that Pit to rave among us he that would mischief if it were in his power and now it is not by unprofitable
spring before we die that we would but answer those invitations of mercy those desires of God that we should live with an inclination with a breath with a sigh toward Heaven Briefly If there be any strong violent boisterous Devil within us that keeps possession of our hearts against God if the lower sensual part of our Soul if an habit of sin i. e. a combination or legion of Devils will not be over-topped by reason or grace in our hearts if a major part of our carnal faculties be still canvasing for Hell if for all our endeavors and pains it may appear to us that this kind of evil spirit will not be cast out save only by Fasting and Prayer Then have we yet that remedy left First To fast and pine and keep him weak within by denying him all foreign fresh Provision all new occasions of sin and the like and so to block and in time starve him up And then secondly To pray that God will second and fortifie our endeavors that he will force and rend and ravish this carnal Devil out of us that he will subdue our wills to his will that he will prepare and make ready life for us and us for life that he will prevent us by his grace here and accomplish us with his glory hereafter Now to him c. SERMON VII JER V. 2 Though they say the Lord liveth surely they swear falsely NOT to waste any time or breath or which men in this delicate and effeminate Age are wont to be most sparing and thrifty of any part of your precious patience unprofitably but briefly to give you a guess whither our discourse is like to lead you we will severally lay down and sort to your view every word of the Text single and so we may gather them up again and apply them to their natural proper purposes First then the particle Though in the front and surely in the body of the Text are but bands and junctures to keep all together into one proposition Secondly the Pronoun They in each place is in the letter the Jews in application present Christians and being indefinite might seem to be of the same extent in both places did not the matter alter it and make it universal in the former and particular in the latter for Artists say that an indefinite sign where the matter is necessary is equivalent to an universal where but contingent to a particular Now to say the Lord liveth was and is necessary though not by any Logical yet by a Political necessity the Government and humane Laws under which then the Jews and now we Christians live require this profession necessarily at our hands but to swear falsly not to perform what before they profest is materia contingens a matter of no necessity but free will and choice that no humane Law can see into and therefore we must not interpret by the rules of Art or Charity that all were perjur'd but some only though 't is probable a major part and as we may guess by the first verse of this Chapter well nigh all of them Thirdly to say is openly to make profession and that very resolutely and boldly that none may dare to distrust it nay with an Oath to confirm it to jealous opinions as appears by the latter words They swear falsly while they do but say and Jer. iv 2 Thou shalt swear the Lord liveth c. Fourthly the Lord i. e. both in Christianity and Orthodox Judaism the whole Trinity Fifthly Liveth i. e. by way of Excellency hath a life of his own independent and eternal and in respect of us is the Fountain of all Life and Being that we have and not only of Life but Motion and Perfection and Happiness and Salvation and all that belongs to it In brief to say the Lord liveth is to acknowledge him in his Essence and all his Attributes contained together under that one Principle on that of life to believe whatever Moses and the Prophets then or now our Christian Faith hath made known to us of him Sixthly to falsifie and swerve from Truth becomes a farther aggravation especially in the present instance though they make mention of that God who is Yea and Amen and loves a plain veracious speech yet they swear though by loud and dreadful imprecations they bespeak him a Witness and a Judge unto the Criminal pray as devoutly for destruction for their Sin as the most sober Penitent can do for its Pardon yet are they perjur'd they swear falsly More than all this they openly renounce the Deity when they call upon him their hearts go not along with their words and professions though it be the surest truth in the World that they swear when they assert that the Lord liveth yet they are perjur'd in speaking of it though they make a fair shew of believing in the brain and from the teeth outward they never lay the truth that they are so violent for at all to their hearts or as the Original hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vanum to no purpose 't is that they swear no man that sees how they live will give any heed to their words will imagin that they believe any such matter So now having paced over and as it were spell'd every word single there will be no difficulty for the rawest understanding to put it together and read it currently enough in this proposition Amongst the multitude of Professors of Christianity there is very little real piety very little true belief In the verse next before my Text there is an O Yes made a Proclamation nay a Hue and Cry and a hurrying about the streets if it were possible to find out but a man that were a sincere Believer and here in my Text is brought in a Non est inventus Though they say the Lord liveth a multitude of Professors indeed every where yet surely they swear falsly there is no credit to be given to their words infidelity and hypocrisie is in their hearts for all their fair believing professions they had an unfaithful rebellious heart V. 23. and the event manifested it they are departed and gone arrant Apostates in their lives by which they were to be tryed Neither say they in their hearts let us fear the Lord V. 24. whatsoever they flourished with their tongues Now for a more distinct survey of this horrible wretched truth this Heathenism of Christians and Infidelity of Believers the true ground of all false swearing and indeed of every other sin we will first examine wherein it consists secondly whence it springs the first will give you a view of its nature the second its root and growth that you may prevent it The first will serve for an ocular or Mathematical demonstration called by Artists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is so the second a rational or Physical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how it comes about the first to convince of the truth of it the second
most insolent tyrannizing passions which domineer over us which keep us in awe and never suffer us to stir or move or walk or do any thing that is good will yet give us leave to understand as much as we would wish they have only fettered our hands and feet have not blinded our Eyes as one shut up in the Tower from the conversation of men may be yet the greatest proficient in speculation The affections being more gross and corporeous from thence called the heels of the Soul and so easily chained and fettered but the understanding most pure and spiritual and therefore uncapable of shackles nay is many times most free and active when the will is most dead and sluggish And this may be the natural reason that even Aristotle may teach us why the greatest Scholars are not always the best Christians the Pharisees well read in the Prophets yet backwardest to believe because faith which constitutes a Christian is a spiritual prudence as 't is best defined and therefore is not appropriate to the understanding but if they be several faculties is rather seated in the Will the objects of Faith being not meerly speculative but always apprehended and assented to sub ratione boni as being the most unvaluable blessings which ever we desired of the Lord or can require The speculative part of divine wisdom may make us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intelligent spirits nay possibly do it in the worst notion render us Devils Real practical knowledge only prudence will make Angels ministring spirits unto God teach us to live and be better than we did So then in the first place learning doth neither make nor suppose men Christians Nay secondly it doth per accidens many times hinder put a rub in our way and keep us from being Christians Philoponus and Synesius Miracles of learning were therefore hardest to be converted they were so possest and engaged in Peripatetical Philosophy that however they might be perswaded to the Trinity they will not believe the Resurrection 'T was too plain a contradiction to philosophical reason ever to enter theirs Thus in the 1 Cor. i. 21 the World by wisdom knew not God they so relyed on their reason and trusted in it for all truths that they concluded every thing impossible that would not concur with their old Principles But this resistance which reason makes is not so strong but that it may easily be supprest and therefore Synesius was made a Bishop before he explicitly believed the resurrection because they were confident that he which had forsaken all other errors would not long continue perverse in this and so good a Christian in other things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not choose but be illuminated in time in so necessary a point of Faith and indeed so it happened in them both But there are other more dangerous engins more insidious courses which learning uses to supplant or undermine belief other stratagems to keep us out of the way to anticipate all our desires or inclinations or thoughts that way-ward and these are spiritual pride and self-content Men are so elevated in height of contemplation so well pleased so fully satisfied in the pleasures and delights of it that the first sort scorn to submit or humble themselves to the poverty and disparagement of believing in Christ the second are never at leasure to think of it For the first spiritual pride 't is set down as a reason that the natural man receives not the things of the spirit 1 Cor. ii 14 receives them not i. e. will not take them will not accept of them though they are freely given him for they are foolishness unto him i. e. so his proud brain reputes them The pride of Worldly wisdom extremely scorns the foolishness of Christ and consequently is infinitely opposite to Faith which is wrought by special humility Secondly for self-content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Heraclitus in Hesych Wise men need no friends they are able to subsist by themselves without any help they will have an happiness of their own making and scorn to be beholding to Christ for a new Inheritance they are already so fully possest of all manner of contents Let any man whisper them of the joys of the new Jerusalem of the Intercessor that hath saved of the way thither and made it passable of all the priviledges and promises of our adoption they will hear them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as old wives fables they have the fortunate Islands too their exactest tranquillity and serenity of mind in a perpetual contemplation and all the golden Apples in Paradise shall not tempt or allarm them out of it 'T is strange to see when such a man is called what a do there is to get him out of his Dream to hale him out of his study to the Church how sleepy and drowsy and lethargical he is in matters of Religion how soon a little devotion hath tired him out that could have pored over a Book incessantly all his life long and never thought thus to have been interdicted the delights of humane learning thus to have been pluckt and torn from the embraces of his Athenian Idol His conversion is much unlike another mans that which calls others into compass seems to let him loose thrust him abroad into the World teaches him to look more like a man than ever he meant makes him a member of the Common-wealth that was formerly but an Anchoret and forces him to walk and run the way of Gods commandments that had once decreed himself to a Chair for ever In brief there is as little hopes of one that indulges himself and gives himself up to the pride and contents of any kind of learning of him that terminates knowledge either in it self or else in the ostentation of it as of any other that is captiv'd to any one single worldly or fleshly kind of voluptuousness This of the brain in spight of the Philosopher is an intemperance as well as that of the throat and palate and more dangerous because less suspected and seldomer declaimed against and from this Epicurism especially of the Soul good Lord deliver us Not to heap up reasons of this too manifest a truth would God it were not so undeniable take but this one more of the unsufficiency of learning never so well used to make a man a Christian Let all the knowledge in the World prophane and sacred all the force and reason that all Ages ever bragg'd of let it concur in one brain and swell the head as big as his was in the Poem that travell'd of Minerva let all Scriptures and Fathers join their power and efficacy and they shall never by their simple activity produce a saving faith in any one all the miracles they can work are only on the understanding the will distinctly taken is above their sphear or compass or if their faculties are not distinguisht and to will is present with me Rom. vii 18 as well as to
Orpheus the inventer of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 professing and worshipping 365. Gods all his life time at his death left in his will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that however he had perswaded them all the while there was indeed but one God And lastly how these two affections in them admiration and gratitude admiration of men of extraordinary worth and gratitude for more than ordinary benefactions done either to particular men or Nations were the chief promoters of idolatry making the Heathens worship them as Gods whom they were acquainted with and knew to be but men as might be proved variously and at large If I could insist upon any or each of these it would be most evident what I hope now at last is proved enough that the ignorance of those times was not simple blind ignorance but malign perverse sacrilegious affected stubborn wilful I had almost said knowing ignorance in them which being the thing we first promised to demonstrate we must next make up the Proposition which is yet imperfect to wit that ignorance in these Heathen in Gods justice might have provoked him to have pretermitted the whole world of succeeding Gentiles which I must dispatch only in a word because I would fain descend to Application which I intended to be the main but the improvident expence of my time hath now left only to be the close of my discourse The ignorance of those times being of this composition both in respect of the superstition of their worship which was perverse as hath been proved and the prophaneness of their lives being abominable even to nature as might farther be shewed is now no longer to be called ignorance but prophaneness and a prophaneness so Epidemical over all the Gentiles so inbred and naturalized among them that it was even become their property radicated in their mythical times and by continual succession derived down to them by their generations So that if either a natural man with the eye of reason or a spiritual man by observation of Gods other acts of justice should look upon the Gentiles in that state which they were in at Christs coming all of them damnable superstitious or rather idolatrous in their worship all of them damnable prophane in their lives and which was worse all of them peremptorily resolved and by a law of homage to the customs of their fathers necessarily ingaged to continue in the road of damnation he would certainly give the whole succession of them over as desperate people infinitely beyond hopes or probability of salvation And this may appear by St. Peter in the 10. of the Acts where this very thing that the Gentiles should be called was so incredible a mystery that he was fain to be cast into a trance and to receive a vision to interpret it to his belief and a first or a second command could not perswade him to arise kill and eat verse 16. that is to preach to Gentiles he was still objecting the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prophaneness and uncleanness of them And at last when by the assurance of the spirit v. 15. and the Heathen Cornelius his discourse with him he was plainly convinced what otherwise he never dreamt possible that God had a design of mercy on the Gentiles he breaks out into a phrase both of acknowledgment and admiration Of a truth I perceive c. verse 34. and that you may not judge it was one single Doctors opinion 't is added verse 45. And they of the Circumcision which believed were astonished because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost Nay in the 3 to the Ephesians verse 10. it is plain that the calling of the Gentiles was so strange a thing that the Angels themselves knew not of it till it was effected For this was the mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God verse 9. which was now made known by the Church to principalities and powers verse 10. The brief plain meaning of which hard place is that by St. Pauls preaching to the Gentiles by this new work done in the Church to wit the calling of the Gentiles the Angels came to understand somewhat which was before too obscure for them till it was explained by the event and in it the manifold wisdom of God And this Proposition I might prove to you by many Topicks 1. By symptoms that their estate was desperate and their disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very very mortal as that God when he would mend a people he punisheth them with afflictions when he intends to stop a current of impetuous sinners he lays the ax to the root in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or total subversion of them but when his punishments are spiritual as they were here when he strikes neither with the rod nor with the sword but makes one sin the punishment of another as unnatural lust of idolatry and the like when he leaves a nation to it self and the very judgement laid upon them makes them only less capable of mercy then is it much to be feared that God hath little mercy intended for that people their desertion being a forerunner of judgment without mercy 2. I might prove it ab exemplo and that exactly with a nec datur dissimile in Scripture that the nine Monarchies which the learned observe in Scripture were each of them destroyed for idolatry in which sin the Heathen now received to mercy surpass all the precedent world and for all their many destructions still uniformly continued in their provocation These and the like arguments I purposely omit as concerning St. Peters vision mentioned before out of the 10 of the Acts sufficiently to clear the point and therefore judging any farther enlargement of proofs superfluous I hasten with full speed to Application And first from the consideration of our estate who being the off-spring of those Gentiles might in the justice of God have been left to Heathenism and in all probability till St. Peters vision discovered the contrary were likely to have been pretermitted eternally to make this both the motive and business of our humiliation for there is such a Christian duty required of us for which we ought to set apart some tithe or other portion of time in which we are to call our selves to an account for all the general guilts for all those more Catholick engagements that either our stock our nation the sins of our progenitors back to the beginning of the world nay the common corruption of our nature hath plunged us in To pass by that ranker guilt of actual sins for which I trust every man here hath daily some solemn Assizes to arraign himself my text will afford us yet some farther indictments if 1700 years ago our father were then an Amorite and mother an Hittite if we being then in their loyns were inclosed in the compass of their idolatry and as all in Adam so besides
that we again in the Gentilism of our Fathers were all deeply plunged in a double common damnation how are we to humble our selves infinitely above measure to stretch and rack and torture every power of our souls to its extent thereby to enlarge and aggravate the measure of this guilt against our selves which hitherto perhaps we have not taken notice of There is not a better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the world no more powerful medicine for the softning of the soul and keeping it in a Christian tenderness than this lading it with all the burdens that its common or private condition can make it capable of this tiring of it out and bringing it down into the dust in the sense of its spiritual engagements For 't is impossible for him who hath fully valued the weight of his general guilts each of which hath lead enough to sink the most corky vain fluctuating proud stubborn heart in the world 't is impossible I say for him either wilfully to run into any actual sins or insolently to hold up his head in the pride of his integrity This very one meditation that we all hear might justly have been left in heathenism and that the sins of the Heathens shall be imputed to us their children if we do not repent is enough to loosen the toughest strongest spirit to melt the flintiest heart to humble the most elevated soul to habituate it with such a sense of its common miseries that it shall never have courage or confidence to venter on the danger of particular Rebellions 2. From the view of their ignorance or impiety which was of so hainous importance to examine our selves by their indictment 1. For our learning 2. For our lives 3. For the life of grace in us 1. For our learning Whether that be not mixed with a great deal of Atheistical ignorance with a delight and aquiescence and contentation in those lower Elements which have nothing of God in them whether we have not sacrificed the liveliest and spritefullest part of our age and souls in these Philological and Physical disquisitions which if they have not a perpetual aspect and aim at Divinity if they be not set upon in that respect and made use of to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clement their best friend they are very hurtful and of dangerous issue Whether out of our circle of humane heathen learning whence the Fathers produced precious antidotes we have not suckt the poyson of unhallowed vanity and been fed either to a pride and ostentation of our secular or a satiety or loathing of our Theological learning as being too coarse and homely for our quainter palates Whether our studies have not been guilty of those faults which cursed the Heathen knowledge as trusting to our selves or wit and good parts like the Philosophers in Athenagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not vouchsafing to be taught by God even in matters of religion but every man consulting and believing and relying on his own reason Again in making our study an instrument only to satisfie our curiosity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only as speculators of some unknown truths not intending or desiring thereby either to promote vertue good works or the Kingdom of God in our selves or which is the ultimate end which only commends and blesses our study or knowledge the glory of God in others 2. In our lives to examine whether there are not also many relicks of heathenism altars erected to Baalim to Ceres to Venus and the like Whether there be not many amongst us whose God is their belly their back their lust their treasure or that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that earthly unknown God whom we have no one name for and therefore is called at large the God of the world Whether we do not with as much zeal and earnestness and cost serve and worship many earthy vanities which our own phansies deifie for us as ever the Heathen did their multitude and shole of gods And in brief whether we have not found in our selves the sins as well as the blood of the Gentiles and acted over some or all the abominations set down to judge our selves by Rom. i. from the 21 verse to the end Lastly for the life of grace in us Whether many of us are not as arrant heathens as mere strangers from spiritual illumination and so from the mystical Commonwealth of Israel as any of them Clem. Strom. 2. calls the life of your unregenerate man a Heathen life and the first life we have by which we live and move and grow and see but understand nothing and 't is our regeneration by which we raise our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still mere Gentiles and Tatianus farther that without the spirit we differ from beasts only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the articulation of our voice So that in fine neither our reason nor Christian profession distinguisheth us either from beasts or Gentiles only the spirit in the formalis ratio by which we excel and differ from the Heathen sons of darkness Wherefore I say to conclude we must in the clearest calm and serenity of our souls make a most earnest search and inquest on our selves whether we are yet raised out of this heathenism this ignorance this unregeneracy of nature and elevated any degree in the estate of grace and if we find our selves still Gentiles and which is worse than that still senseless of that our condition we must strive and work and pray our selves out of it and not suffer the temptations of the flesh the temptations of our nature the temptations of the world nay the temptations of our secular proud learning lull us one minute longer in that carnal security lest after a careless unregenerate natural life we die the death of those bold not vigilant but stupid Philosophers And for those of us who are yet any way Heathenish either in our learning or lives which have nothing but the name of Christians to exempt us from the judgment of their ignorance O Lord make us in time sensible of this our condition and whensoever we shall humble our selves before thee and confess unto thee the sinfulness of our nature the ignorance of our Ancestors and every man the plague of his own heart and repent and turn and pray toward thy house then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling place and when thou hearest forgive remember not our offences nor the offences of our Heathen Fathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins but spare us O Lord spare thy people whom thy Son hath redeemed and thy spirit shall sanctifie from the guilt and practice of their rebellions Now to God who hath elected us hath c. Pars Secunda SERMON XIII ACTS XVII 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent THey which come from either mean or dishonoured Progenitors will desire to make up their Fathers defect by
and sentences are subject either not to be understood or amiss and may either be doubted of by the ignorant or perverted by the malicious You have learnt so many words without Book and say them minutely by heart and yet not either understand or observe what you are about but this unwritten Law which no Pen but that of nature hath engraven is in our understandings not in words but sence and therefore I cannot avoid the intimations 't is impossible either to deny or doubt of it it being written as legible in the tables of our hearts as the print of humanity in our Foreheads The commands of either Scripture or Emperour may be either unknown or out of our heads when any casual opportunity shall bid us make use of them but this law of the mind is at home for ever and either by intimation or loud Voice either whispers or proclaims its commands to us be it never so gag'd 't will mutter and will be sure to be taken notice of when it speaks softliest To define in brief what this law of nature is and what offices it performs in us you are to know that at that grand forfeiture of all our inheritance goods truly real and personal all those primitive endowments of Soul and Body upon Adams Rebellion God afterwards though he shined not on us in his full Image and Beauty yet câ—st some rayes and beams of that eternal light upon us and by an immutable Law of his own counsel hath imprinted on every Soul that comes down to a body a secret unwritten yet indeleble Law by which the Creature may be warn'd what is good or bad what agreeable what hurtful to the obtaining of the end of its creation Now these commands or prescriptions of nature are either in order to speculation or practice to encrease our knowledge or direct our lives The former sort I omit as being sitter for the Schools than Pulpit to discourse on I shall meddle only with those that refer to practice and those are either common which they call first principles and such are in every man in the World equally secundum rectitudinem notitiam saith Aquinas every one doth both conceive them in his understanding what they mean and assent to them in his will that they are right and just and necessary to be performed and of this nature are the Worship of God and justice amongst men for that lumen super nos signatum in Bonaventures phrase that light which nature hath seal'd and imprinted on our Souls is able to direct us in the knowledge of those moral principles without any other help required to perswade us or else they are particular and proper to this or that business which they call conclusions drawn out of these common principles as when the common principle commands just dealing the conclusion from thence commands to restore what I have borrowed and the like And these also if they be naturally and directly deduced would every man in the World both understand and assent to did not some hindrance come in and forbid or suspend either his understanding or assent Hindrances which keep him from the knowledge or conceiving of them are that confusion and Chaos and black darkness I had almost said that Tophet and Hell of sensual affections which suffers not the light to shew it self and indeed so stifles and oppresses it that it becomes only as Hell fire not to shine but burn not to enlighten us what we should do but yet by gripes and twinges of the conscience to torment us for not doing of it And this hindrance the Apostle calls ver 21. the vanity of imaginations by which a foolish heart is darkned Hindrances which keep us from assenting to a conclusion in particular which we do understand are sometimes good as first a sight of some greater breach certain to follow the performance of this So though I understand that I must restore every man his own yet I will never return a Knife to one that I see resolved to do some mischief with it And 2. Divine laws as the command of robbing the Aegyptians and the like for although that in our hearts forbid robbing yet God is greater than our hearts and must be obeyed when he prescribes it Hindrances in this kind are also sometimes bad such are either habitude of nature custom of Country which made the Lacedemonians esteem theft a virtue or a-again the Tyranny of passions for every one of these hath its several project upon the reasonable Soul its several design of malice either by treachery or force to keep it hood-winkt or cast it into a Lethargy when any particular vertuous action requires to be assented to by our practice If I should go so far as some do to define this law of nature to be the full will of God written by his hand immediately in every mans heart after the fall by which we feel our selves bound to do every thing that is good and avoid every thing that is evil some might through ignorance or prejudice guess it to be an elevation of corrupt nature above its pitch too near to Adams integrity and yet Zanchy who was never guest near a Pelagian in his 4. Tome 1. l. 10. c. 8. Thesis would authorize every part of it and yet not seem to make an Idol of nature but only extol Gods mercy who hath bestowed a Soul on every one of us with this character and impression Holiness to the Lord which though it be written unequally in some more than others yet saith he in all in some measure so radicated that it can never be quite changed or utterly abolished However I think we may safely resolve with Bonaventure out of Austin against Pelagius Non est parum accepisse naturale indicatorium 't is no small mercy that we have received a natural glass in which we may see and judge of objects before we venture on them a power of distinguishing good from evil which even the malice of sin and passions in the highest degree cannot wholly extinguish in us as may appear by Cain the Voice of whose Conscience spake as loud within him as that of his Brothers blood as also in the very damn'd whose worm of sence not penitence for what they have done in their flesh shall for ever bite and gripe them hideously This Light indeed may either first be blindness or secondly delight in sinning or thirdly peremptory resolvedness not to see be for the present hindred secundum actum from doing any good upon us He that hath but a vail before his Eyes so long cannot judge of colours he that runs impetuously cannot hear any one that calls to stop him in his career and yet all the while the light shines and the voice shouts and therefore when we find in Scripture some men stupefied by sin others void of reason we must not reckon them absolutely so but only for the present besotted And again though they
to conceive all holy graces spiritually in thee and if thou canst not suddenly receive a gracious answer that the Holy Ghost will come in unto thee and lodge with thee this Night yet learn so much patience from thy Beggarly estate as not to challenge him at thy own times but comfortably to wait his leisure There is employment enough for thee in the while to prepare the room against his coming to make use of all his common graces to cleanse and reform thy foul corruptions that when the spirit comes it may find thee swept and garnish't All the outward means which God hath afforded thee he commands thee to make use of and will require it at thy hands in the best measure even before thou art regenerate though thou sin in all thy unregenerate performances for want of inward sanctity yet 't is better to have obeyed imperfectly than not at all the first is weakness the other desperate presumption the first material partial obedience the second total disobedience Yet whilst thou art preparing give not over praying they are acts very competible thou maist do them both together Whilst thou art a fortifying these little Kingdoms within thee send these Embassadors abroad for help that thou maist be capable of it when it comes But above all things be circumspect watch and observe the spirit and be perpetually ready to receive its blasts let it never have breathed on thee in vain let thine Ear be for ever open to its whisperings if it should pass by thee either not heard or not understood 't were a loss that all the treasures upon Earth could not repair and for the most part you know it comes not in the thunder Christ seldom speaks so loud now adays as he did to Saul Acts ix 't is in a soft still voice and I will not promise you that men that dwell in a mill that are perpetually engaged in Worldly loud employments or that men asleep shall ever come to hear of it The summ of all my Exhortation is after Examination to cleanse and pray and watch carefully to cleanse thy self incessantâ—y to pray and diligently to watch for the Sun of Righteousness when he shall begin to dawn and rise and shine in thy heart by grace And do thou O Holy Lord work this whole work in us prepare us by thy outward perfect us by thy inward graces awaken us out of the darkness of death and plant a new Seed of holy light and life in us infuse into our Heathen hearts a Christian habit of sanctity that we may perform all spiritual duties of holiness that we may glorify thee here by thy Spirit and be glorifyed with thee by thy Christ hereafter Now to him that hath elected us hath c. SERMON XVI 2 PET. III. 3 Scoffers walking after their own Lusts THAT we may take our rise luckily and set out with the best advantage that we may make our Preface to clear our passage to our future Discourse and so spend no part of our precious time unprofitably we will by way of introduction examine what is here meant 1. By Scoffers 2. By walking after their own lusts And first Scoffers here do not signifie those whom confidence join'd to a good natural wit hath taught to give and play upon every man they meet with which in a moderate use is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 facetiousness in an immoderate scurrility But Scoffers here are of a more special stamp those who deal out their scoffs only on God and Religion The word in the Original signifies to mock to abuse and that either in words and then 't is rendred scoffing or in our actions when we promise any man to perform a business and then deceive his expectation and then 't is rendred deluding So Matth. ii 16 when Herod saw he was mocked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was deluded by the magicians So that in the first primitive sense Scoffers must signifie those who either laugh at God or else delude him in not performing what he expects and they by their profession promised In the secondary notion to scoff is by way of argument to oppose any truth contumeliously or bitterly as Solomon begins his Discourse of the Atheists scoffs Wisd ii 1 The ungodly said reasoning with themselves and these are said to set their mouth against Heaven managing disputes which have both sting and poyson in them the first to wound and overthrow the truth spoken of the other to infect the Auditors with a contrary opinion And these rational scoffs for which Socrates antiently was very famous are ordinarily in form of question as in the Psalmist often Where is now their God i. e. Certainly if they had a God he would be seen at time of need he would now shew himself in their distress In which they do not only laugh at the Israelites for being such Fools as to worship him that will not relieve them but implicitely argue that indeed there is no such God as they pretend to worship And just in this manner were the Scoffers in my Text who did not only laugh but argue saying Where is the promise of his coming Verse 4. perswading themselves and labouring to prove to others that what is spoken of Christs second coming to Judgment was but a mere Dream a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Bugbear or Fable to keep men in awe and therefore laugh at it as the Athenians did at the resurrection Acts xvii 32 and when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some mocked c. i. e. disputed sarcastically and contumeliously against it that certainly there was no such matter And thus also is the same word used of those which joined their reason and malice to disprove Christs Omnipotence Mat. xxvii 42 where they reviled and mocked him saying He saved others himself he cannot save In which speech the bitterest part of the scoff was the reason there used plausible enough amongst ignorant Jews that surely if he had any power he would make use of it for himself Thirdly To scoff is sometimes without words or actions to shew a contempt or neglect of any body So Herods mocking of Christ is set as an expression that he did not think him worthy talking with Luke xxiii 11 He set him at nought and mockt him and sent him back to Pilate he would not vouchsafe to take notice of him nor to be troubled with the Examination of so poor contemptible a fellow And so in Aristotle not to know a mans name not to have taken so much notice of him as to remember what to call him is reckoned the greatest neglect the unkindest scoff in the World and is ordinarily taken very tenderly by any one who hath deserved any thing at our hands So that in brief to gather up what we have hitherto scatter'd the Scoffers here meant are those who promising themselves to Gods service do delude him when he looks to find them amongst
abroad in Tents we have seen or heard of him but have not yet brought him home into our hearts there to possess and rectify and instruct our wills as well as our understandings Thirdly The whole mystery of Christ articulately set down in our Creed we as punctually believe and to make good our names that we are Christians in earnest we will challenge and defie the Fire and Faggot to perswade us out of it and these are good resolutions if our practices did not give our Faith the lye and utterly renounce at the Church Door whatsoever we profest in our Pews This very one thing that he which is our Saviour shall be our Judge that he which was crucified dead and buried sits now at the right hand of God and from thence shall come to judge the world this main part yea summ of our belief we deny and bandy against all our lives long If the story of Christ coming to judgment set down in the xxv of Matthew after the 30. Verse had ever entred through the doors of our Ears to the inward Closets of our hearts 't is impossible but we should observe and practise that one single duty there required of us Christ there as a Judge exacts and calls us to account for nothing in the World but only works of mercy and according to the satisfaction which we are able to give him in that one point he either entertains or repels us and therefore our care and negligence in this one business will prove us either Christians or Infidels But alas 't is too plain that in our actions we never dream either of the Judgment or the Arraignment our stupid neglect of this one duty argues us not only unchristian but unnatural Besides our Alms-deeds which concern only the outside of our neighbour and are but a kind of worldly mercy there are many more important but cheaper works of mercy as good counsel spiritual instructions holy education of them that are come out of our loyns or are committed to our care seasonable reproof according to that excellent place Lev. xix 17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart but in any wise reprove him a care of carrying our selves that we may not scandal or injure or offer violence to the Soul and tender Conscience of him that is flexible to follow us into any riot These and many other works of mercy in the highest degree as concerning the welfare of other mens Souls and the chief thing required of us at the day of Judgment are yet so out-dated in our thoughts so utterly defaced and blotted out in the whole course of our lives that it seems we never expect that Christ in his Majesty as a Judge whom we apprehend and embrace and hug in his humility as a Saviour Beloved till by some severe hand held over our lives and particularly by the daily study and exercise of some work of mercy or other we demonstrate the sincerity of our belief the Saints on Earth and Angels in Heaven will shrewdly suspect that we do only say over that part of our Creed that we believe only that which is for our turn the sufferings and satisfactions of Christ which cost us nothing but do not proceed to his office of a Judge do not either fear his Judgments or desire to make our selves capable of his mercies Briefly whosoever neglects or takes no notice of this duty of exercising works of mercy whatsoever he brags of in his theory or speculation in his heart either denies or contemns Christ as Judge and so destroys the summ of his Faith and this is another kind of secret Atheism Fourthly Our Creed leads us on to a belief and acknowledgment of the Holy Ghost and 't is well we have all conn'd his name there for otherwise I should much fear that it would be said of many nominal Christians what is reported of the Ephesian Disciples Acts xix 2 They have not so much as heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. But not to suspect so much ignorance in any Christian we will suppose indeed men to know whatsoever they profess and enquire only whether our lives second our professions or whether indeed they are mere Infidels and Atheistical in this business concerning the Holy Ghost How many of the ignorant sort which have learnt this name in their Catechism or Creed have not yet any further use to put it to but only to make up the number of the Trinity have no special office to appoint for him no special mercy or gift or ability to beg of him in the business of their Salvation but mention him only for fashion sake not that they ever think of preparing their Bodies or Souls to be Temples worthy to entertain him not that they ever look after the earnest of the spirit in their hearts 2 Cor. i. 22 Further yet how many better learned amongst us do not yet in our lives acknowledge him in that Epithet annext to his title the Holy Ghost i. e. not only eminently in himself holy but causally producing the same quality in us from thence called the sanctifying and renewing spirit How do we for the most part fly from and abandon and resist and so violently deny him when he once appears to us in this Attribute When he comes to sanctifie us we are not patient of so much sowreness so much humility so much non-conformity with the world as he begins to exact of us we shake off many blessed motions of the spirit and keep our selves within garrison as far as we can out of his reach lest at any turn he should meet with and we should be converted Lastly The most ordinary morally qualified tame Christians amongst us who are not so violent as to profess open arms against this Spirit how do they yet reject him out of all their thoughts How seldom do many peaceable orderly men amongst us ever observe their wants or importune the assistance of this Spirit In summ 't was a shrewd Speech of the Fathers which will cast many fair out-sides at the bar for Atheists That the life of an unregenerate man is but the life of an Heathen and that 't is our Regeneration only that raises us up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still mere Gentiles He that believes in his Creed the Person nay understands in the Schools the Attributes and gifts of the Holy Ghost and yet sees them only in the fountain neither finds nor seeks for any effects of them in his own Soul he that is still unregenerate and continues still gaping and yawning stupid and senseless in this his condition is still for all his Creed and Learning in effect an Atheist And the Lord of Heaven give him to see and endeavours to work and an heart to pray and his spirit to draw and force him out of this condition Fifthly Not to cramp in every Article of our Creed into this Discourse we will only insist on two
and religion but that this is not the business of the Text but a praecognoscendum or passage to the clearing of it Briefly therefore to conclude this note Paul is the chief example mentioned in Scripture and there be not many though some more that were called from the height of impiety from the gall of bitterness to this mystical third Heaven or so high degree of Saint and Apostle The more ordinary course of Gods proceeding if we may possibly judge of the Decree by events and examples is to call such to the state of grace and so consequently of glory who have passed their unregeneracy most innocently and kept themselves least polluted from the stains of habituate wickedness that is have lived as much as natural men can do in the plainest honestest course of morality it being presupposed that among all other moral vertues they have purchased humility the best if there be any preparative for the receiving of grace Mean while we are not to be mistaken as if we thought Gods purposes tyed to mans good behaviour or mans moral goodness to woo and allure Gods spirit as that the Almighty is not equally able to sanctify the foulest Soul by his converting grace and the less polluted or that he requires mans preparation but our position is that in ordinary charitable reason we ought to judge more comfortably and hope more confidently of a meer moral man naturally more careful of his ways that he shall be both called and saved that God will with his spirit perfect and crown his morally good though imperfect endeavours than of another more debauch't Sinner utterly negligent of the commands of either God or nature Which position I have in brief proved though nothing so largely as I might in confutation of them who do utterly condemn unregenerate morality and deject it below the lowest degree of prophaneness as if they would teach a man his way to Heaven by boasting arrogantly what Paul converted confesses humbly I am the nearer to Christs Salvation because of all sinners I am the chief The Vse in brief of this Thesis shall be for those who not as yet find the power of the regenerating spirit in them for I am to fear many of my auditors may be in this case and I pray God they feel and work and pray themselves out of it the Use I say is for those who are not yet full possessors of the spirit to labour to keep their unregeneracy spotless from the greater offence that if they are not yet called to the preferment of Convâ—rts and Saints the second part of Heaven that Earthly City of God that yet they will live orderly in that lower Regiment wherein they yet remain and be subject to the law of nature till it shall please God to take them into a new Common-wealth under the law of grace to improve their natural abilities to the height and bind their hands and hearts from the practice and study of outragious sins by those ordinary restraints which nature will afford us such as are a good disposition education and the like not to leave and refer all to the miraculous working of God and to encrease our sins for the magnifying of the vertue in recalling us God requires not this glory at our hands that we should peremptorily over-damn our selves that he may be the more honoured in saving us His mercy is more known to the World than to need this woful foil to illustrate it God is not wont to rake Hell for Converts to gather Devils to make Saints of the Kingdom of Heaven would suffer great violence if only such should take it If Saul were infinitely sinful before he proved an Apostle though by the way we hear him profess he had lived in all good Conscience yet expect not thou the same Miracle nor think that the excess of sins is the cue that God ordinarily takes to convert us The Fathers in an obedience to the discipline and pedagogy of the old Law possest their Souls in patience expecting the prophesied approach of the new did not by a contempt of Moses precipitate and hasten the coming of the Messias Cornclius liv'd a long while devoutly and gave much alms till at last God call'd him and put him in a course to become a Christian and do thou if thou art not yet called wait the Lords leisure in a sober moral conversation and fright not him from thee with unnatural abominations God is not likely to be woed by those courses which nature loaths or to accept them whom the World is ashamed of In brief remember Saul and Cornelius Saul that he not many were called from a profest Blasphemer Cornelius that before he was called he prayed to God alway and do thou endeavour to deserve the like mercy and then in thy Prayer confess thine undeserving and petition grace as grace that is not as our merit but as his free-will favour not as the desert of our morality but a stream from the bounty of his mercy who we may hope will crown his common graces with the fulness of his spirit And now O powerful God on those of us which are yet unregenerate bestow thy restraining grace which may curb and stop our natural inordinacy and by a sober careful continent life prepare us to a better capability of thy sanctifying spirit wherewith in good time thou shalt establish and seal us up to the day of redemption And thus much concerning Saul unconverted how of all Sinners he was the chief not absolutely that he surpassed the whole World in rankness of sin but respectively to his later state that few or none are read to have been translated from such a pitch of sin to Saint-ship Now follows the second consideration of him being proceeded Paul i. e. converted and then the question is Whether and how Paul converted may be said the chief of all Sinners 'T were too speculative a depth for a popular Sermon to discuss the inherence and condition of sin in the regenerate the business will be brought home more profitably to our practice if we drive it to this issue That Paul in this place intending by his own example to direct others how to believe the truth and embrace and fasten on the efficacy of Christs Incarnation hath no better motive to incite himself and others toward it than a recognition of his sins that is a survey of the power of sin in him before and a sense of the relicks of sin in him since his Conversion Whence the note is That the greatness of ones sins makes the regenerate man apply himself more fiercely to Christ This faithful saying was therefore to Paul worthy of all acceptation because of all Sinners he was the chief S. Paul as every regenerate man is to be observed in a treble posture either casting his Eyes backward or calling them in upon himself or else looking forward and aloof and accordingly is to be conceived in a trebâ—e meditation either of
is esteemed unnecessary and burthensom You need not the application Again the husbandman can mend a dry stubborn wayward fruitless earth by overflowing of it and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite discipline to punish it for its amendment But there is a ground otherwise well tempered which they call a weeping ground whence continually water soaks out and this proves seldom fruitful if our learned Husbandmen observe aright wherefore there is sometime need of draining as well as watering The application is that your Soul which either hath been naturally dry and barren or else over-wrought in the business of the World needs a flood of tears to soften and purge it But the well temper'd Soul which hath never been out of heart but hath always had some inward life some fatness of and nourishment from the spirit is rather opprest than improved by such an overslow The Christian is thereby much hindred in his progress of good works and cannot serve the Lord with alacrity that so perpetually hangs down his head like a Bulrush Wherefore the Country rule is that that ground is best which is mellow which being crusht will break but not crumble dissolve but not excessively Hence I say the habituate believer need not suspect his estate if he find not in himself such an extremity of violent grief and humiliation as he observes in others knowing that in him such a measure of tears would both soil the face of his devotion and clog the exercise of it His best mediocrity will be to be habitually humbled but actually lively and alacrious in the ways of godliness not to be too rigid and severe a Tyrant over his Soul but to keep it in a temper of Christian softness tender under the hand of God and yet man-like and able both in the performance of Gods worship and his own calling And whensoever we shall find our selves in either extreme either too much hardned or too much melted too much elevated or too much dejected then to pray to that Holy Spirit so to fashion the temper of our Souls that we neither fail in humbling our selves in some measure for our sins nor yet too cowardly deject and cast down our selves below the courage and comfort and spiritual rejoycing which he hath prescribed us O Holy Lord we are the greatest of Sinners and therefore we humble our selves before thee but thou hast sent thy Christ into the World to save Sinners and therefore we raise up our spirits again and praise and magnifie thy name And thus much of this point and in brief of the first consideration of these words to wit as they are absolutely a profession of Paul himself to which end we beheld him in his double estate converted and unconverted In his unconverted state we found though a very great Sinner yet not absolutely greater than those times brought forth and therefore we were to think of him relatively to his future estate and so we found him the greatest Sinner that ever was called in the New Testament into so glorious a Saint Whence we observe the rarity of such conversions that though Saul were yet every blasphemous Sinner could not expect to be called from the depth of sin to regeneracy and salvation and this we proved both against the ancient Romans and modern Censors of morality and applied it to the care which we ought to have of keeping our unregeneracy spotless from any reigning sin Afterward we came to Paul converted where we balk't the Discourse of the condition of sin in the regenerate and rather observed the effect of it and in it that the greatness of his sin made as Paul so every regenerate man more eagerly to fasten on Christ Which being proved by a double ground we applied first by way of caution how that proposition was to be understood 2. By way of character how a great Sinner may judge of his sincere certain Conversion 3. By way of comfort to others who find not the effects of humiliation and the like in themselves in such measure as they see in others and so we have past through the first consideration of these words being conceived absolutely as St. Pauls profession of himself we should come to the other consideration as they are set down to us as a pattern or form of confessing the estate and applying the Salvation of Sinners to our selves which business requiring the pains and being worthy the expence of an entire hour we must defer to a second exercise Now the God which hath created us hath elected redeemed called justified us will sanctifie us in his time will prosper this his ordinance will direct us by his grace to his glory To him be ascribed due the honour the praise the glory the dominion which through all ages of the world have been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the Holy Spirit and Lamb for evermore Pars Secunda SERMON XIX 1 TIM I. 15 Of whom I am the chief IN all Humane Writings and Learning there is a kind of poverty and emptiness which makes them when they are beheld by a Judicious Reader look starved and Crest-faln their Speeches are rather puft up than fill'd they have a kind of boasting and ostentation in them and promise more substance and matter to the Ear than they are able to perform really to the understanding whence it falls out that we are more affected with them at the first hearing and if the Orator be clear in his expression we understand as much at the first recital as we are able to do at the hundredth repetition But there is a kind of Excellency in the Scripture a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sublimity above all other Writings in the World The reading of every Section of it leaves a sting in the mind and a perpetual conceit of a still imperfect understanding of it An intelligent man at every view finds in it a fresh mystery and still perceives that there is somewhat beyond not yet attain'd to like men digging in Mines the deeper he dives he finds the greatest treasure and meets with that under ground which looking on the outward turf or surface he never imagined to have been there This I observe unto you to shew you the riches both of all and especially of this Scripture whereinto the deeper I dig the more Ore I find and having already bestowed one hour in the discussing of it without any violence or wresting or wire-drawing find plenty of new materials We have already handled the Words at large in one consideration as they are a profession of Paul himself I will not repeat you the particular occurrents We now without any more delay of Preface come to the second consideration of them as they are spoken by Paul respectively to us i. e. as they are prescribed us for a form of confessing the estate and applying the Salvation of Sinners unto our selves teaching each of us for a close of our Faith and Devotion to confess
to God in a firm expectation of this state even in the midst of all manner of Worldly evils mentioned Isa viii 17 I will wait upon the Lord which hideth his face and I will look for him i. e. I will wait his leisure patiently for I am sure he will uncover his face And Job more plainly and vehemently Though he kill me yet will I trust in him So verbatim Rom. viii 25 then do we in patience wait for it and 2 Thes iii. 5 The patient waiting for Christ Fourthly As an effect of this patience a silence and acquiescence in the Will of God without any desire of hastning or altering any effect of it So Psa xxxvii 7 Rest in the Lord where the Hebrew hath it be silent to the Lord and wait patiently for him i. e. as the consequents interpret it quarrel not with God for any thing that happens according to his will but against thine as the prosperity of the wicked and the like Fifthly A confirmation of the mind as making our hope the anchor of our soul sure and stedfast Heb. vi 17 that we may thereby in patience possess our souls Luke xxi 19 And lastly a desire of sanctifying our selves according to that 1 Jo. iii. 3 Every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as Christ is pure These six effects briefly set down may be certain marks to you by which you may judge how just grounds your assurance stands on and whereby it is to be distinguished from presumption O Lord let the fulness of thy Holy Spirit overshadow us and encrease our weaker Faith into a richer measure of assurance and our more fearful hopes into a degree of full perswasion and certain expectation of those Visions that thou shalt reveal and that blest estate that thou shalt bestow upon us and lest our confidence may either be or seem but a presumption work in us those effects of patience of silence of joy of delight of confirmation of mind and above all a desire and ability of sanctifying our lives unto thee Thus have I with all possible haste made an end of these words and at this time out of the cadence of them observed to you the tenderness of St. Paul and every regenerate man at the least mention of a sin or Sinner illustrated by the opposite hardness of heart proved of soft tender parts of our body and made use of for a crisis or judgment of our estate and livelyhood in grace Secondly out of the words themselves we observed the necessity and method of aggravating our sins especially original sin against our selves which we made use of against those that are more quicksighted in other mens estates and guilts than their own Thirdly We closed all with that comfortable doctrine of assurance discussed to you in brief with six effects of it proposed for an Example to your care and imitation Now the God which hath created us redeemed called justified us will sanctifie in his time will prosper this his ordinance to that end will direct us by his grace to his glory To him be ascribed due the honour the praise the glory the dominion which through all ages of the world have been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the Holy Spirit and to the Lamb for evermore DISSERTATIONES QUATUOR QVIBVS EPISCOPATUS JURA EX S. Scripturis Primaeva Antiquitate ADSTRVVNTVR Contra Sententiam D. BLONDELLI ET ALIORUM Quibus Praemittitur Dissertatio Prooemialis DE ANTICHRISTO De Mysterio Iniquitatis de Diotrephe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Gnosticis sub Apostolorum aevo se prodentibus AUTHORE Henrico Hammond S. S. Theol. Professore PRESBYTERO ANGLICANO LONDINI Typis Tho. Newcomb Impensis R. Royston Bibliopolae Sacrae Regiae Majestati ad Insigne Angeli in Amen-Corner R. Davis Bibliopolae Oxon. 1683. EPISTOLA AD Virum Integerrimum § 1. QUaeris à me vir Integerrime quid rei sit aut quid in excusationem nostram apud exteros obtendi possit quâ ratione aut quibus demum patrociniis propugnanda Gentis existimatio seu potius coeli hominumque invidia amolienda sit quòd cùm duo inter Reformatos magna nomina Claudius Salmasius David Blondellus Episcoporum ordinem tam strenuè prolixè invaserint universa apud nos literatorum natio quae satis novit non solùm fortunas famam suas verùm ipsum corporis Christi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum dignitate istius ordinis conjuncta esse tam profundo interim silentio rem omnem permiserit ex torpore seu veterno suo quo jamdiu sepulta gens apud proximos eviluit nullâ hostium provocatione aut minis nullâ calamorum quasi arundinum apparatu nullo pugnantium celeusmate nullis triumphantium vel Io canentium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excitanda § 2. Nec certè dissimulaverim illud nobis expectandum fuisse ut qui res nostras per decennium utrique regimini tam saeculari quà m Ecclesiastico adeò improsperè succedentes Benignissimo Patre ob impietates Sacrilegia nostra sic jubente vel qui Genium Populi praecipuè literatorum apud Anglos ingenium è longinquo non suis sed aliorum oculis perlustraverint hanc nobis dicam impingerent § 3. Verùm cùm recognoverint viri boni rerùmque existimationum nostrarum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indagatores quà m non calamis hîc sed sclopetis non pacatis animorum sed ferocibus brachiorum impulsibus res universa gesta fuerit quà m nobis jamdiu nihil profuerint imò quà m miserandâ sorte obfuerint firmissimarum rationum momenta quibus contra populares contribules nostros districtis ensibus omnes controversiarum nodos discindere paratos nec syllogismis sed tormentis bellicisque omne genus machinis acropoles nostras impetentes Episcoporum Jura non indiligenter sed tamen frustra tuebamur Cùm rursus meminerint quemadmodum insula haec naturâ contra exteros munita eorum jamdiu formidinem abjecit à quibus toto Pelago divisa fuerit sic Ecclesiam Anglicanam quamvis cum Vniversâ Primitivâ Ecclesiâ cum aliis omnibus quibus ista non displicuit concordiam intimam sedulò colat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tamen jure gaudentem sub Monarchâ primùm Fidei Defensore ChristÃque in Regno ipsius Vicario dein salvis Regni juribus sub Primate suo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suis privilegiis munitam suis columnis innixam nullique externo tribunali 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 causam suam coram transmarinis actoribus neutiquam dicendam censuisse nec quidem anxiè aut sollicitè curavisse quam de ipsâ utcunque asperam sententiam dissentientium unus aut alter injussus pronunciaverit Cùm denique in mentem revocaverint quantò magis in evolvendis quà m scribendis libris Doctores Professores nostri operas diligentiam suam exercuerint quà m obnixè