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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13010	XI. choice sermons preached upon selected occasions, in Cambridge. Viz. I. The preachers dignity, and duty: in five sermons, upon 2. Corinth. 5. 20. II. Christ crucified, the tree of life: in six sermons, on 1. Corinth. 2. 2. By John Stoughton, Doctor in Divinity, sometimes fellow of Immanuel Colledge in Cambridge, late preacher of Aldermanburie, London. According to the originall copie, which was left perfected by the authour before his death.	Stoughton, John, d. 1639.; Burgess, Anthony, d. 1664.	1640 (1640)	STC 23304; ESTC S100130	130,947	258

by Christ did overflow and superabound and the riches of grace the exceeding great love of Christ and the bredth and the length and the height and the depth of love A man would thinke that Paul had spent all his Arts all his Rhetorick in Pleonasmes and Hyperbolies his Geometry in taking the height of his desert and could not attaine it And indeed they are words of wonder wondrous words or rather as he sayes wonders not words to expresse his absolute perfection to omit all these I say I will content my selfe with two or three witnesses to ratifie it which shall be past exception Iohn 1. 29. Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sinne of the world saith Iohn Baptist of Christ Will you believe the Lords Messenger Behold the Lamb what shall we behold in a Lamb Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sinnes of the World Iohn 19. 30. It is finished saith Christ Iesus himselfe It what the Redemption of mankind what of the Redemption It is finished will you believe the Lord and Master Let no man think to thrust his Sickle into another mans harvest for it is finished Matth. 3. last This is my welbeloved sonne in whom I am well pleased saith God the Father This which even Christ Iesus what of Christ This is my welbeloved sonne in whom I am well pleased will you believe the Lord and Maker Let no man feare any after reckoning the Lord will looke for no more he will take no more for he is already pleased for in his welbeloved sonne he is well pleased I thinke there 's no man can slight the credit of these witnesses for Iohn hee said no more then he saw and Christ he affirmed no more then he performed and God spoke that which be received his acquittance could be no larger then his acceptance and therefore needs must all these make it irrefragable Neither was their witnesse a perfunctory testimoniall but a peremptory proofe of his fufficiencie for Iohn was nothing but a voice and the voice of a cryer and yet this is all that he said with such earnest contention and God said it not in a silent manner whispering not in a secret place but it was a voice from Heaven and Christ said it not in his ordinary speech but when he was upon the Crosse then he said a great voice as S. Matthew and S. Marke note then he said it with his last breath and seald it with his dearest blood And therefore I hope that this will suffice to have spoken of his sufficiencie I come now to the second point That Faith is sufficient to make him our Saviour which I will handle according to my former order but exceeding briefly 1. What faith is viz. out of the true sence of our own misery by nature and sweet apprehension of Gods mercy offered an humble denyall of our selves and all creatures and confident relying on the mercy of the Lord in Christ Iesus This may serve for a weake delineation of that worthy grace framed according to the proportion of my former principles And that this is sufficient needs no more proof but to point at that which ye have heard already for seeing our Salvation must be wrought by another and he that wrought it is Christ what can be further requisite then that Christ and his merits be made ours which can be done by faith only beside which there can be no other affection betweene God and man for the Spirit of God is the bond that unites and knits us to Christ by faith and faith is the hand that receives the treasure of Christs merits that inrich us and Christ is all our riches for being once transplanted out of the old Adam and ingrafted into the new which is Christ and made one with him the Lord cannot chuse but repute us righteous through the imputation of his righteousnesse Hence it is that all our sinnes are remitted and blotted out of the booke of remembrance and our selves re-admitted into his favour and into his family hence it is that we are adopted to be his sonnes and adorned with his sonnes holinesse hence it is that the curse of our sinnes is take away and we have peace with God and all his creatures the Angels pitch their Tents about us and the stones of the field are in league with us for it is written He hath given his Angels charge over us to preserve us in all our wayes least at any time we should hurt our foot against a stone hence it is that the old man with the lusts of the same dye in us and decay and the new man is renewed daily As soone as we begin to believe in the Lord Iesus the scales fall from our eyes that we can not only read in the book of the Scripture the will of God which before was a booke closed a booke sealed up to us but also lift up our eyes to Heaven and looke into the volumes of eternitie and read our names written in the booke of life The shackels also fall from our feet and we being inlarged are enabled not only to walk in the Lords Statutes but also to run the way of his Commandements And though we groane under the burden of our sinnes so long as we live here cloathed with this body of death yet we are freed from the bondage of them and still grow on to perfection which then wee shall attaine when we shall bee translated into the Heavens where we shall receive the end of our faith even the salvation of our souls through his mercy who hath so dearely bought us and brought us thither where we shall enjoy the blessed presence of God in whose presence there is fulnesse of joy and pleasure for evermore Blessed are the people that are in such a case in such a place yea blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. But all this is made ours by faith only which entitles us to the merits of Christ who purchased it for us therefore faith is sufficient I should now justifie this by Scripture but to say truth this truth and this Text is the only scope of the Scripture the theme of Theologie the pith of all piety and therefore because it deserves some better observation I will deferre it to some better opportunitie Μόνῳ τῷ Θεῷ δόξα 1 Corinth 2. 2. For I determined to know nothing among you but Christ Jesus and him Crucified WHen I first tooke this place in hand I thought to have finished it out of hand the same time I began but it fared with me as it did with Simonides who the more time they gave him to assoyle the question what God was the more he craved And what marvaile since Christ is the argument we have in hand They talk of a fabulous purse of Fortunatus I thinke few are so credulous to believe it but this we may and must believe for the Spirit of truth avouches

them new Sepulchers and adore them as the Pharisees did in Christs time If Christ be sufficient then why doe you not make an Index expurgatorius for the Bible as the Jesuites have done already for the Fathers and spung out all but Christ crucified for that is sufficient whereas the Scripture sayes all Scripture is inspired of God profitable c. and Christ himself sayes that he came to fulfill not to disanull the Scripture You heare what the curious Rabbins may object I dare not undertake to relate what answer the Apostle might make them lest I should sinke under the gravitie of so great a person you may presume it was divine sed nostro non referenda sono But yet because it concernes the Text I have in hand very nearely I will endeavour in that respect to give satisfaction Every word of God is pure like Gold tryed in the fire seven times and what was said of the Orator that the addition or detraction of a word would marre the grace or clyp the meaning of their sentence is most true in Gods word and therefore we read this just and severe sanction of his Books authority he that adds to this booke God shall adde to him all the plagues that are written in this booke hee that detracts any thing his name shall be razed out of the book of life and what was said in another case is most true in this not an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the least letter nor the least tittle thereof shall passe because not so much as one of them is idle or superfluous And for profit the very leaves thereof are for the healing of the nations and the fruit is the fruit of the tree of life the leaves are physicke and the fruit is meate the fruit is preservative and the leaves are restorative the leaves are health the fruit is immortality for this book is not for sight but for meat as appeares by Iohn who ate the booke that the Angell gave him beside that it is sweeter then the hony and the hony combe as David that hath tasted hath testified How then this resolution of S. Paul doth not abolish the Scripture but establish it for Christ crucified and faith in him is the summe and scope of all the Scripture And thus you see I have overtaken or rather met with the same point and in the same place where I left it the last time for as you may remember after I had treated of the sufficiency of faith in Christ I propounded consequently that it was the summe of Divinitie and the scope of the Scripture that it was the summe of Divinitie as I could I then evinced by casting up the reckoning of both the parts thereof faith and obedience which amounted to no more but this for wee found that Christ was the foundation of faith and the fountaine of obedience the Iacobs Ladder of ascent and descent descent of God to man ascent of man to God and as the Spouse speaks in the Ganticles he is Sigillum cordis Sigillum brachii for he is the stampe of faith in the heart that is Sigillum cordis and he is the stampe of good works in the hand that is Sigillum brachii in the hands the following character but in the heart the leading character for he is both Sigillum cordis and Sigillum brachii as the Spouse speaks in the Canticles Thus is Christ the summe of Divinitie It remaines now then that we should cleare the other that he is the Scope of all the Scripture which I will do first in generall and so leade you on into the particulars In generall this may be demonstrated by that which hath been before delivered for if faith in Christ be the Epitome of the Rule of Divinitie then needs must it be so likewise of the Scripture that containes that Rule and that in a double respect 1. As the immutable substance of the Rule is considered the substance was alway that which leads man to eternall Salvation which is by Christ Iesus only and this is the maine scope of the Scripture in generall For all the sonnes of Adam being guilty of high treason against the most High the hand writing of the Law inditeing us Heaven and earth witnessing against us the Grand jurie of the blessed Angels finding us guiltie our owne consciences answering guilty what remaines but to heare the terrible sentence of condemnation pronounced against us by the mouth of the most just Judge the Lord Almightie Yet the mercy of the Lord was such that when the Law had cast us the Lord called us to pardon And as the Clergie of our Land is priviledged in many cases to have their booke so was it his pleasure to give his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his inheritance his peculiar their booke that by their booke they may be saved and this booke is the booke of the Scripture The Scripture againe is the Letter of the Almightie to the sonnes of men as one cals it indited by God himselfe and the Angell of his great counsell Christ Iesus for so Esay stiles him together with his Spirit penned by his principall Secretaries the holy Prophets and Apostles and sealed with the blood of the Lamb let me goe a little further they are the Literae laureatae the Superscription is To the faithfull the Salutation is Salutem in Christo The Argument is nothing but a Proclamation of a generall pardon in his name to all penitent and believing sinners This is the Summe of the Scriptures in generall and this is the first demonstration that Christ is the summe thereof because Divinitie and it like two twinnes keepe pace with a mutuall correspondency like two parallels runne on in equall extent beginning and ending both together and the summe of the one is the summe of the other and the summe of both is eternall happines which is to bee looked for and can bee found in Christ alone 2. This is the first proportion we find between them the second offers it selfe to your consideration as the Scripture may be accommodated to the mutable circumstances of the Rule according to the difference of time before and after Christ. The Lord made in the beginning duo magna Luminaria the great to rule the day and the lesse to rule the night the Sunne and the Moone Much like to this there be two portions of the light which God hath revealed concerning our salvation given to guide two times the old Testament the lesser light like the Moone to rule the night of ignorance when the Doctrine of the Messiah was more obscurely delivered the New the greater light like the Sun to rule the day of knowledge which the faithfull have injoyed ever since Christ the Sunne of righteousnesse appeared When it was night there must needs be many Ceremonies like many shadowes and many humours by reason of the feeble light and heat the influence of the Moone

vanitie of men that are so greedy of vanities whereas the whole World appeares to him as the territory of Athens to Alcibiades in Lucian but a spot of earth he scornes the best Orators to perswade him as Nazianzene saith of Cyprian that he did in his Letters exhortatory to Martyrdome to think that swords have not met all in them to do him hurt that fire is cold that wild beasts are gentle that famine is dainties that the hottest flames that ever Martyrs were burned in for Chrict's sake were but like Eliahs fiery Chariot wherein he rode in triumph into Heaven and which is more that these are are not Paradoxes in Christianity I can remember but one that gave such testimony of the power of any humane writing and that was Cleombrotus I thinke of Platoes booke of the immortality of the Soule which when he had read he was so afflicted that hee killed himselfe to learne that without booke in the Elysian fields that he had read there and injoy that good that he imagined out of it But how many thousand Martyrs have set a feale of blood to Gods booke and tooke it upon their death that it was the most powerfull of all other But to bound my selfe I purposed only to treat of the first worke which I have already done Yet I will adde one thing more and but one thing The untamed horses of distempered passions as Plato cals them which many times so hurry and wheele about the crazie chariot of reason that they set the wheeles of judgement upon which it should runne steadily cleane besides the socket even these are charmed and tempered by this heavenly musick as the evill spirit in Saul was by the Harpe and hand of David Excellently Lactantius Da mihi iracundum da libidinosum da avarum c. and I will so inchant him with a few syllables he sayes no more but paucis syllabis out of Gods word that I will make him meeke chaste liberall and concludes this confident assertion with this Epiphonema Tanta divine sapientiae vis est ut in hominis pestus infusa matrem delictorum stultitiam uno semel impetu expellat It is more then time to shut up this point briefly therefore it is absurd to say of naturall generation Sol homo generant hominem and yet to thinke of spirituall regeneration that the sonne of man can doe it without the sonne of righteousnesse And if the principles be true that the masters of that art have delivered in conveyance of water Aqua tantum ascendit quantum descendit then this water of life which makes a man ascend to God must needs have descended from God first and the Conduit-pipes the Ministers of God must needs be Organicall not Authenticall agents in the cures they worke with it they must be the instruments of God Gods Ambassadors The third degree followes which is the heart of man conferres nothing to this worke to this great worke not so much as a naturall receptivitie if there were apprehension in nature the difficultie would not be such as to prove a Divinitie but to make Adamants receive impressions like waxe to teach a stone to fly like a bird to swimme against the streame to croud against the multitude to saile against the windes to make a man against the corruption of his nature against the nature of his corruption a man of the World to savour and relish the things of God I know not what strength in nature can make it good what authority can warrant it The best wisdome of the flesh is saith the Apostle enmitie with God most significantly the most refined wisdome is not only an enemy but even enmity to God Non vitiosus homo es Zoile sed vitium said the Poet with some affinity to this phrase I will illustrate this but with a word or two out of Nazianzen and so leave it because I perceive the time passes and the thing hath beene touched in part already Such is the corruption of man that propound any divine good to it saith he it is entertained as fire by water or wet wood with hissing So grace is almost hissed off the stage with scoffs and taunts I cannot tell but me thinks I could bid the secure and carnall men if there were any such among us beware least it prove that they have learned that hissing facultie from the hissing serpent but to goe on propound any evill like fire to straw as he shewes elegantly like the foolish Satyre that made haste to kisse the fire like that unctuous matter which the naturalists say that it sucks and snatches the fire to it with which it is consumed Nay this is the great difficultie of a Pastorall cure saith the same Father that whereas in other medicinall the diseased party is termed a patient and may be so because hee is willing to subscribe to that which his Physitian shall prescribe him In this theologicall it is cleane contrary a mans selfe is his greatest sicknesse like a franticke person that fals foule with his best friends we are valiant against our selves and we defend what we affect like corrupt Lawyers to plead an ill cause and they which are more generous without all colouring or cloaking the matter runne bare-headed as we say runne on shamelesse to all wickednesse who shall helpe poore man in this miserable condition nam quid miserius est misero non miserante seipsum saith Austin in his Confessions even thou O God who art Pater miserationum which workest mightily with thine owne word in the mouth of thy Ministers thy Ambassadors The fourth and last degree will make this proofe square and sure a good proofe like Aristotles good man quadrangular and therfore we must not omit it This worke of the Ministers upon the heart which is so effectuall and yet so much against the haire against the bent of the heart besides all these it is done with silly instruments The Philosophers and Rhetoricians make a Goddesse of their eloquence and by the power of her divinity thinke to bewitch and inchant their auditors as they please and to scrue themselves into the most retired parts to take the heart the chiefe City or Metropolis of mans affections they admire her they studie her they pray her charme this man yea and to say the truth who is such an infant that hath not heard of the power of eloquence And yet it is not this that doth this great worke it is another perswasive goddesse that breeds this setled confidence this grounded perswasion of a Christian it is humilitie and simplicitie and plainnesse of speech that doth it as the Apostle declares to the Corinthians such is the Scripture language such the Ministers And as Plutarch observed out of the naturalists that the seed of those that are lascivious and incontinent is not fruitfull and applies it to the great talkers so I make no question but

the Lord had not beene on our side they had swallowed us up quicke But thanks be to God in Christ Iesus the net is broken and we are escaped and behold they are dead that sought our lives The Divell like a Serpent in the Garden stirred Adam to sinne and Sinne like a Serpent in the Wildernesse stung Israel to the death but our Saviour hath overcome them all he tamed the Serpent in the wildernesse that tempted Adam in the Garden to sinne and he tooke out the sting of sinne the Serpent of the Desart by the desert of his suffering for sinne was the Serpent and the sting of sin was death and death he vanquished in the grave even in his owne denne even on his owne dunghill So that if death should now reason that he hath us still in captivitie because he hath us still in keeping we may say as Tully once to Atticus O mors ubi est acumen tuum or rather as S. Paul prompteth us O death where is thy sting ô grave where is thy victorie And thus was Christ the Lambe sltaine the price paid the propitiatory sacrifice for his chosen and this was his passive obedience whereby he suffered and overcame that which we should have suffered but could not have overcome satisfying even the rigorous exaction of Gods exact justice and these are both the parts of the payment which he tendred up to God in our behalfe and for our behoofe by which he hath not only freed us from our naturall misery which was the first part of Salvation and hath beene shewed hitherto but hath also filled us with all good things which as the former consists in two things Holinesse and Happinesse Both which Christ hath furnished us withall out of the rich storehouse of his merits for what he did he did for us and we are righteous in his righteousnesse and what he merited for us he merited and we are victorious in his victorie in a word he hath cloathed us with an undefiled immaculate robe of righteousnesse and crowned us with an immortall crown of glory even in incorruptible crowne of inconceivable glory with righteousnesse irreprehensible with glory incomprehensible And if any man doubt yet of the sufficiency of his satisfaction weighing the heinousnesse of our transgression let that man consider but who it was that did these things and what the things were that he did and suffered and then I hope he shall be sufficiently satisfied It was the Lord of glory that emptied himselfe into the forme of a servant it was the Lord of life that shed his precious blood for us he humbled himself to be a man yea a servant of whom it was every way true if ever it were true there is one servant only which is master of the house yea not a man a worme and no man he humbled himselfe to the death the death of the crosse the most ignominious and ignoble death of all other● he descended out of the bosome of blessednesse into the bottome of basenesse and therefore needes must his passion be very meritorious whose person was so magnificent his desert must needs be great whose descent was so glorious Neither need any man doubt of Gods acceptation for beside that which hath beene said that what he did and what he suffered it was for us because he was man he tooke not the nature of Angels upon him but of man and it was sufficient because hee was God which adds infinite value to both beside this I say who could be so fit to reconcile man to God as he who was both God and man Man quia solus Deus sentire God quia solus homo superare non potuit mortem quam pro nobis obire debuit yea and it was the counsell of the Lord that this should be the meanes to bring this to passe and therefore hee laid his wrath upon him which otherwise had beene injustice his wrath I say so heavily upon him that it wrung out strange words My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and therefore he that accounted him a sinner for our sakes must needs accept of the sacrifice that he offer'd for our sins Now when I review all that I have said for his sufficiency me thinks I need not have gone further off my text for demonstration of this truth for Paul saith he determined to know nothing but Christ Iesus and him crucified therefore he is Christ and Iesus and crucified therefore he is an alsufficient Saviour for these three like the three termes of a Syllogisme draw in a demonstrative Conclusion like the three tongues that were written upon the Crosse Greeke Latine Hebrew to witnesse Christ to be the King of the Iewes doe each of them in his severall Idiom avouch this singular Axiom that Christ is an alsufficient Saviour and a threefold cord is not easily broken He was that Christ which was annointed and appointed of God for that purpose and therefore filled and furnished with all graces fit for the accomplishment According to the smell of thine Ointments thy Name is an Ointment powred forth therefore the virgins love thee saith the Spouse in the Canticles His name is the Annointed and in him many graces concurred to make a full performance as in a precious ointment many spices concurre to make a sweete perfume Therefore the virgins love thee the virgins that are pure in heart hence they fetch Oyle for their Lamps and therefore they burne in love virgins love ointment for their beautie thy Name is an ointment powred forth therefore the virgins love thee the wise virgins love thee because they are wise and so would the foolish too but that they are foolish 2. This Christ was crucified for us there was the whole box of ointment broken and powred forth there all the spices gave their smell a sweet smelling savour which ascended into the nosthrils of the Lord and became to him a dutifull smell in which he is well pleased And therefore 3. He must needs be Iesus whether you derive the name from the Greeke as some have done to heale more finely then fitly and yet more fit then finely for he hath healed all our infirmities by the merit of his blood and the annointing of his Spirit or from the Hebrew as it is most truly for he hath saved us from our sinnes from all our sinnes and therefore is a true Iesus a Saviour a perfect Saviour for so the Angell that imposed his name expounded it And therefore is an Angell from Heaven preach any other doctrine then this let him be accursed saith S. Paul I need not heape up any more yet it will not be amisse to let you heare the voice of the Scripture where to omit the common consent of the whole frame and phrase of the booke and the murmure of every letter which all of them proclaime this truth and beside those words of note which note thus much every where as Grace

line as you have seene the golden line in the Genealogies a via lactea to lead to Christ in whom all Genealogies are ended and accounted by Paul in the same ranke with Mataeologies and old wives Fables And therefore Matthew begins his Gospell with this and cals it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Booke a Bible because this is the very Map and Epitome of the whole Bible as it was in the old Testament that he might by this divine art of insinuation teach the end and use of all that was then written The like may be picked out of the very names there registred for though the conceit of the Cabalists be fond and vaine that patch up the names of Mary and Iesus by a strange Alchymie of Rapsodies and Anagrams out of diverse passages of the Scripture yet this ought to be of some importance that religious parents imposed such names to their children as might be monuments of the Messiah Master Broughton hath observed many and I spare to repeate any View againe the Succession of Kings Priests and Prophets you shall finde that all those severall currents emptie themselves into Christ as rivers into the Ocean and Crown him with a triple Crown for hee is the King Priest and Prophet of his Church of whose comming all the rest were but Harbengers I say they three like the three Wisemen offer Gold and Myrrhe and Frankincense and so make a triple Crowne for Christ and so again make a three twined scourge to whip the usurping Whore out of the Temple of God as Christ served the Trucksters buyers and sellers and money changers Thus is the series of the storie contracted into Christ the summe of all the same lesson may be read written in great letters that hee that runnes may read them in those many illustrious examples of all those three kinds recorded in Scripture so that if there were not many expresse notes yet there were many notable impressions many vistigia omnia te adversum spectantia all looking to Christ-ward each of them giving a taste of that which Christ performed in all fulnesse 1 For Priests I need not name any because they all represented Christ if not in their personall excellencies yet in their officiall performances 2. For Prophets I will name a few because they were so many Two ascended into Heaven Enoch before the Law Elias in the Law thus was Christs ascension who was primitiae dormientium a maine Article of our faith prefigured Three before Christ were raised from the dead one by Eliah another by Elisha a third by touching the bones of Elisha being dead revived even as three were raised in the Gospell the daughter of Iairus in the house the Widowes son in the gate Lazarus stinking in the grave thus was one of the greatest miracles of our Saviour and his owne resurrection who was primitiae dormientium prefigured Elias after his wearie persecution by Ahab lying under the Juniper tree complained and desired that he might die so did Ionas when the Sunne beate upon his head after the Gourd was withered and something more frowardly thus was the passion of Christ prefigured and the most uncouth exigent thereof for when the wrath of God the Father like the rayes of the Sunne beat upon him when hee hung upon the Crosse then was hee brought under the Juniper tree for the heat of the heat of the wrath of God was hotter than Juniper coales yet he underwent it for the love of us men and our salvation constrained him for the fire of love is hotter then the coales of Juniper Moses and Elias fasted forty dayes in the Wildernesse so did Christ who notwithstanding fed five thousand with five loaves as Elisha typically had done before him I had intended to have propounded more but it shall be enough digitum ad fontes as they say to have set the wheeles of your better meditations a going 3. Many Kings and Iudges were types of Christ in the storie as Moses a lawgiver in the Wildernesse Iosua a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediator of the true Mediator a leader of Israel into the land of Canaan a Iosua of the true Iosua the true Iesus David that fought the Lords battailes and foiled the great Goliah that defied the hoast of Israel Salomon the beloved of the Lord the Prince of peace and otherwise were they but glasses which did not bound the light but transported the godly to the contemplation of Christ The accommodation is easie but I hasten yet I cannot passe by the type of Sampson it was so lively for as Sampson by his owne death was the death of thousands of Philistims and David slew Goliah with his owne sword so Christ overcame death by undergoing death and brake the head of the Serpent by suffering him to bruise his heel for in him the fiction of Achilles is no fiction that being otherwhere impenetrable his heele was not for Christ was only penetrable in his heele his humanitie his Deitie remaining altogether impassible I am ravished with delight in these sacred reliques of antiquitie yet I must cut off what I thought to have added and me thinks I heare some wondring what all this makes to the argument in hand I answer as Tamar convinced Iudah by his staffe and his signet and Theseus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that made him knowne were a pasport and certificate to his father of his legitimation so Christ is acknowledge to be Iesus to be Messiah by these performances for these are the tesserae of commerce the watch word betweene the old and new Testament the badges of the whole booke proclaiming to us they doe belong the joynts and gimmers by which either of them is as it were scrued into the other Mercuriall statues pointing the way to Christ Starres in storie like the starre that appeared to the Wisemen guiding them to Bethlehem where it stood still for all ended in Christ and he is the end of all Thus the Historicall part of the old Testament is full of Asterisks and hands and lines that draw the intelligent reader to Christ To conclude this point this is the use of Genealogies to track the way of salvation by the golden line that leades to Christ and this is the wisdome of wisemen to follow the conduct of the starre till we come to him who is the true morning-star the true Load-starre that guides our wandring feet in our wearie pilgrimage to eternall rest in the heavenly Canaan The Propheticall part is more plaine by many degrees almost palpable for there was not any thing almost fulfilled by Christ but it was foretold by the Prophets as there was not any thing foretold by the Prophets which was not fulfilled by Christ See this 1. In the maine Articles of the Creed he was borne of the Virgin Mary so Esay Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare Suffered under Pilate so Iacob The Scepter shall not depart from