with us which all the Fathers did but see in a cloud the Angels peep'd at the Heathen world gap'd after but we beheld as in a plain at mid-day For since the veil of the Temple was rent every man that hath eyes may see Sanctum Sanctorum the Holy of Holies God with us Fourthly To make a real use of this Doctrine to the profit of our Souls that if God have designed to be Emmanuel and Jesus an Incarnate God and Saviour to us that then we will fit and prepare and make our selves capable of this Mercy and by the help of our religious devout humble endeavours not frustrate but further and promote in our selves this end of Christs Incarnation the saving of our Souls and this use is effectually made to our hands in the twelfth to the Hebrews at the last Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom that cannot be moved i. e. being partakers of the Presence the Reign the Salvation of the Incarnate God Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear And do thou O powerful God improve the truth of this Doctrine to the best advantage of our Souls that thy Son may not be born to us unprofitably but that he may be God not only with us but in us in us to sanctifie and adorn us here with his effectual grace and with us to sustain us here as our Emmanuel and as our Jesus to crown and perfect us hereafter with glory And so much for this point That Jesus and Emmanuel import the same thing and there was no Salvation till this presence of God with us We now come to the substance it self i. e. Christs Incarnation noted by Emmanuel which is by interpretation c. Where first we must explain the word then drive forward to the matter The Word in Isaiah in the Hebrew is not so much a name as a sentence describing unto us the mystery of the Conception of the Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with us God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is taken in Scripture either absolutely for the nature of God as for the most part in the Old Testament or personally and so either for the Person of the Father in many places or else distinctly for the Person of the Son so Hos i. 7. And will save them by the Lord their God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their God i. e. Christ and so also most evidently in this place out of Isaiah where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Son Incarnate God man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and many the like especially those where the Targum paraphrases Jehovah or Jehovah Elohim by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word of the Lord i. e. Christ Jesus Joh. i. 1. As for instance Gen. iii. 22. that Word of the Lord said and Gen. ii 6. the Word created Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies in its extent near at with or amongst Thirdly the Particle signifying us though it expresses not yet it must note our humane nature our abode our being in this our great World wherein we travel and this our little World wherein we dwell not as a mansion place to remain in but either as an Inn to lodge or a Tabernacle to be covered or a Prison to suffer in So that the words in their latitude run thus Emmanuel i. e. The second Person in Trinity is come down into this lower world amongst us for a while to travel to lodg to sojourn to be fetter'd in this Inn this Tabernacle this Prison of mans flesh or briefly at this time is conceived and born God-man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same both God and Man the Man Christ Jesus And this is the cause and business the ground and theme of our present rejoycing in this were limited and fulfilled the expectation of the Fathers and in this begins and is accomplished the hope and joy of us Christians That which was old Simeons warning to death the sight and embraces of the Lords Christ Luk. ii 28. as the greatest happiness which an especial favour could bestow on him and therefore made him in a contempt of any further life sing his own funeral Nunc dimittis Lord now lettest thou c. This is to us the Prologue and first part of a Christians life either the life of the World that that may be worthy to be call'd life or that of Grace that we be not dead whilst we live For were it not for this assumption of flesh you may justly curse that ever you carried flesh about you that ever your Soul was committed to such a Prison as your Body is nay such a Dungeon such a Grave But through this Incarnation of Christ our flesh is or shall be cleansed into a Temple for the Soul to worship in and in Heaven for a robe for it to triumph in For our body shall be purified by his Body If ye will be sufficiently instructed into a just valuation of the weight of this Mystery you must resolve your selves to a pretty large task and it were a notable Christmas employment I should bless God for any one that would be so piously valiant as to undertake it you must read over the whole Book of Scripture and Nature to this purpose For when you find in the Psalmist the news of Christs coming Then said I loe I come you find your directions how to tract him In the volume of thy book it is written of me c. i. e. either in the whole book or in every folding every leaf of this Book Thou shalt not find a Story a Riddle a Prophecy a Ceremony a downright legal Constitution but hath some manner of aspect on this glass some way drives at this mystery God manifest in flesh For example perhaps you have not noted wherever you read Seth's Genealogies more insisted on than Cain's Sem's than his elder brother Ham's Abraham's than the whole World besides Jacob's than Esau's Judah's than the whole twelve Patriarchs and the like passages which directly drive down the line of Christ make that the whole business of the Scripture Whensoever I say you read any of these then are you to note that Shiloh was to come that he which was sent was on his journey that from the Creation till the fulness of time the Scripture was in travel with him and by his leaping ever now and then and as it were springing in the Womb gave manifest tokens that it had conceived and would at last bring forth the Messias So that the whole Old Testament is a Mystical Virgin Mary a kind of Mother of Christ which by the Holy Ghost conceived him in Genesis Chap. iii. 15. And throughout Moses and the Prophets carried him in the Womb and was very big of him And at last in Malachi Chap. iii. 4. was in a manner delivered of him For there you shall find mention of John Baptist who was
immortalitatis and in time encrease and grow up to immortality There is no such encumbrance to trash us in our Christian Progress as a fancy that some men get possessed with that if they are elected they shall be called and saved in spight of their teeth every man expecting an extraordinary call because Saul met with one and perhaps running the more fiercely because Saul was then called when he was most violent in his full speed of malice against Christians In this behalf all that I desire of you is First to consider that though our regeneration be a miracle yet there are degrees of miracles and thou hast no reason to expect that the greatest and strongest miracle in the world shall in the highest degree be shewed in thy Salvation Who art thou that God should take such extraordinary pains with thee Secondly To resolve that many precious rays and beams of the Spirit though when they enter they come with power yet through our neglect may prove transitory pass by that heart which is not open for them And then thirdly You will easily be convinced that no duty concerns us all so strictly as to observe as near as we can when thus the Spirit appears to us to collect and muster up the most lively quick-sighted sprightfullest of our faculties and with all the perspectives that spiritual Opticks can furnish us with to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of its fire or light We have ways in nature to apprehend the beams of the Sun be they never so weak and languishing and by uniting them into a burning Glass to turn them into afire Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spiritual estate then it were easie for those sparks which we so often either contemn or stifle to thrive within us and at least break forth into a flame In brief Incogitancy and inobservance of Gods seasons supine numbness and negligence in spiritual affairs may on good grounds be resolved on as the main or sole cause of our final impenitence and condemnation it being just with God to take those away in a sleep who thus walked in a dream and at last to refuse them whom he hath so long sollicited He that hath scorned or wasted his inheritance cannot complain if he dies a bankrupt nor he that hath spent his candle at play count it hard usage that he is fain to go to bed darkling It were easie to multiply arguments on this theme from every minute of our lives to discern some pawn and evidence of Gods fatherly will and desire that we should live Let it suffice that we have been large if not abundant in these three chief ones First The giving of his Son to the World Secondly Dispatching the Gospel to the Gentiles And lastly The sending of his Spirit We come now to a view of the opposite trenches which lie pitched at the Gates of Hell obstinate and peremptory to besiege and take it Mans resolvedness and wilfulness to die my second part Why will you die There is no one conceit that engages us so deep to continue in sin that keeps us from repentance and hinders any seasonable Reformation of our wicked lives as a perswasion that God's will is a cause of all events Though we are not so blasphemous as to venture to define God the Author of sin yet we are generally inclined for a fancy that because all things depend on God's decree whatsoever we have done could not be otherwise all our care could not have cut off one sin from the Catalogue And so being resolved that when we thus sinned we could not chuse we can scarce tell how to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors the same excuses which we have for having sinned formerly we have for continuing still and so are generally better prepared for Apologies than Reformation Beloved it will certainly much conduce to our edification instead of this speculation whose grounds or truth I will not now examine to fix this practical theorem in our hearts that the will of man is the principal cause of all our evil that death either as it is the punishment of sin eternal death or as it is the sin it self a privation of the life of grace spiritual death is wholly to be imputed to our wilful will It is a Probleme in Aristotle why some Creatures are longer in conceiving and bringing forth than others and the sensiblest reason he gives for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hardness of the Womb which is like dry earth that will not presently give any nourishment to either seed or plant and so is it in the spiritual conception and production of Christ that is of life in us The hardness and toughness of the heart the womb where he is to be born that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that dry Earth in the Philosophers or that way-side or at best stony ground in Christs phrase is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us the only cause of either barrenness or hard travail in the Spirit Be the brain never so soft and pliable never so waxy and capable of impressions yet if the heart be but carnal if it have any thing much of that lust of the flesh 1 John ii 15. in its composition it will be hard for the spiritual life to be conceived in that man For Faith the only means by which Christ lives and dwells in us Ephes iii. 17. is to be seated in the heart i. e. the will and affections according to the express words That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith So that be your brains never so swelled and puft up with perswasions of Christ our Saviour be they so big that they are ready to ly-in and travail of Christ as Jove's did of Minerva in the Poem yet if the heart have not joyned in the conception if the seed sown have not taken root and drawn nourishment from the will it is but an aerial or phantastical birth or indeed rather a disease or tympany nay though it come to some proof and afterward extend and increase in limbs and proportions never so speciously yet if it be only in the brain neither is this to be accounted solid nourishment augmentation but such as a Camaelion may be thought to have that feeds on air and it self is little better and in sum not growth but swellings So then if the will either by nature or custom of sinning by familiarity and acquaintance making them dote on sensual objects otherwise unamiable by business and worldly ambitious thoughts great enemies to faith or by pride and contentment both very incident to noble Personages and great Wits to Courtiers and Scholars In brief if this Will the stronger and more active part of the Soul remain carnal either in indulgence to many or which is the snare of judicious men in chief of some one prime sin then cannot all the faith in the world bring that man to Heaven it may
with a great deal of Atheistical ignorance with a delight and acquiescence 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 course 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 deisie 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 meer 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 meer Gentiles and Tatianus farther that without the spirit we differ from beasts only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the articulation of our voice So that in fine neither cur reason nor Christian profession distinguisheth us either from beast or Gentiles only the spirit is 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 then that still senseless of that our condition we must strive and work and pray our selves our 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. The XIII Sermon 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 their own industry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Leo in his Tacticks Will be more forward to undertake any valiant enterprize to recover that reputation which their Ancestors cowardice and unworthy carriage forfeited So doth it nearly concern the son of a bankrupt to set upon all the courses of Thrift and stratagems of fiugality to get out of that hereditary poverty in which his fathers improvidence had engaged him Thus is it also in the poverty and bankrupt estate of the Soul they who come from prodigal Ancestors which have embezled all the riches of Gods mercy spent profusely all the light of nature and also some sparks out of the Scriptures and whatsoever knowledg and directions they met with either for the ordering of their worship or their lives spent it all upon harlots turned all into the adoring of those Idol-gods wherein consists the spiritual adultery of the soul Those I say who are the stems of this ignorant profane Idolatrous root ought to endeavour the utmost of their powers and will in probability be so wise and careful as to lay some strict obligations on themselves to strive to some perfection in those particulars which their Ancestors fail'd in that if the Gentiles were perversly blind and resolutely peremptorily ignorant then must their Progeny strive to wipe off the guilt and avoid the punishment of their ignorance Now this ignorance of theirs being not only by Clemens and the fathers but by Trismegistus in his Paemander defined to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a prophaneness an irrational sleep and drunkenness of the soul in sum an ignorance of themselves and of God and a stupid neglect of any duty belonging to either this ignorance being either in its self or in its fruits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wickedness of the soul and all manner
the covetous man's sad galling Mules burthens of Gold his Achans Wedge that cleaves and rends in sunder Nations so that in the Hebrew that sin signifies wounding and incision Joel ii 8. and is alluded to by his piercing himself thorow with divers sorrows 1 Tim. vi 10. his very Purgatories and Limbo's nay Hell as devouring and perpetual as it and the no kind of satisfaction so much as to his eye from the vastest heaps or treasures were he not in love with folly and ruin had he not been drenched with philtres and charms had not the Necromancer plaid some of his prizes on him and as S. Paul saith of his Galatians even bewitched him to be a fool would we but make a rational choice of our sins discern somewhat that were amiable before we let loose our passion on them and not deal so blindly in absolute elections of the driest unsavory sin that may but be called a sin that hath but the honor of affronting God and damning one of Christ's redeemed most of our wasting sweeping sins would have no manner of pretensions to us and that you will allow to be one special accumulation of the folly and madness of these simple ones that they thus love simplicity The second aggravation is the continuance and duration of this fury a lasting chronical passion quite contrary to the nature of passions a flash of lightning lengthned out a whole day together That they should love simplicity so long It is the nature of acute diseases either to have intervals and intermissions or else to come to speedy crises and though these prove mortal sometimes yet the state is not generally so desperate and so it is with sins Many the sharpest and vehementest indispositions of the Soul pure Feavers of rage and lust prove happily but flashing short furies are attended with an instant smiting of the heart a hating and detesting our follies a striking on the thigh in Jeremy and in David's penitential stile a So foolish was I and ignorant even as a beast before thee And it were happy if our Feavers had such cool seasons such favorable ingenuous intermissions as these But for the hectick continual Feavers that like some weapons the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 barbed shafts in use among the Franks in Agathias being not mortal at the entrance do all their slaughter by the hardness of getting out the Vultures that so tyre and gnaw upon the Soul the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that never suffer the sinner fool to make any approach toward his wits toward sobriety again This passionate love of folly improved into an habitual steady course of Atheisticalness a deliberate peremptory final reprobating of Heaven the purity at once and the bliss of it the stanch demure covenanting with death resolvedness to have their part to run their fortune with Satan through all adventures this is that monstrous brat That as for the birth of the Champion in the Poet three nights of darkness more than Egyptian were to be crowded into one all the simplicity and folly in a Kingdom to help to a being in the World And at the birth of it you will pardon Wisdom if she break out into a passion and exclamation of pity first and then of indignation How long ye simple ones c. My last particular The first debt that Wisdom that Christ that every Christian Brother ows and pays to every unchristian liver is that of pity and compassion which is to him of all others the properest dole Look upon all the sad moanful objects in the world betwixt whom all our compassion is wont to be divided First the Bankrupt rotting in a Gaol secondly the direful bloody spectacle of the Soldier wounded by the Sword of War thirdly the Malefactor howling under the Stone or gasping upon the Rack or Wheel and fourthly the gallant person on the Scaffold or Gallows ready for execution And the secure senseless sinner is the brachygraphy of all these You have in him 1. A rich patrimony and treasure of grace purchased dear and setled on him by Christ most prodigally and contumeliously mispent exhausted 2. A Soul streaming out whole Rivers of blood and spirits through every wound even every sin it hath been guilty of and not enduring the Water to cleanse much less the Wine or Oyl to be poured into any one of them the whole Soul transfigured into one wound one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 congelation and clod of blood Then thirdly beyond this all the racks and pangs of a tormenting conscience his only present exercise And lastly all the torments in Hell the Officer ready hurrying him to the Judg and the Judg delivering him to the Executioner his minutely dread and expectation the dream that so haunts and hounds him And what would a man give in bowels of compassion to Christianity or but to humane kind to be able to reprieve or rescue such an unhappy creature to be but the Lazarus with one drop of water to cool the tipof the scalding Tongue that is engaged in such a pile of flames If there be any Charity left in this frozen World any Beam under this cold uninhabitable Zone it will certainly work some meltings on the most obdurate heart it will dissolve and pour out our bowels into a seasonable advice or admonition that excellent Recipe saith Themist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That supplies the place and does the work of the burnings and scarifyings A cry to stop him in his precipitous course a tear at least to solemnize if not to prevent so sad a fate And it were well if all our bowels were thus employed all our kindness most passionate love thus converted and laid out on our poor lapsed sinner-brethrens souls to seize upon those fugitives as Christ is said to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. xi 16. to catch hold and bring them back ere it be yet too late rescue them out of the hands of their dearest espoused sins and not suffer the most flattering kind of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Gal. de Athl. the Devil in the Angelical disguise the sin that undertakes to be the prime Saint the zeal for the Lord of Hosts any the most venerable impiety to lay hold on them Could I but see such a new fashioned Charity received and entertained in the World every man to become his brothers keeper and every man so tame as to love and interpret aright entertain and embrace this keeper this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Guardian Angel as an Angel indeed as the only valuable friend he hath under Heaven I should think this a lucky omen of the worlds returning to its wits to some degree of piety again And till then there is a very fit place and season for the exercise of the other part of the passion here that of Indignation the last minute of my last particular as the how long is an expression of Indignation Indignation not at the men for however
Aristotles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man ought to have indignation at some persons may seem to justifie it Our Saviour calls not for any such stern passion or indeed any but love and bowels of pity and charity toward the person of any the most enormous sinner and S. Paul only for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the restoring setting him in joynt again that is thus overtaken in any fault but Indignation I say at the sin at the simplicity and the folly that refuse reproachful Creature that hath the fate to be beloved so passionately and so long And to this will Aristotles season of indignation belong the seeing favors and kindness so unworthily dispenced the upstarts saith he and new men advanced and gotten into the greatest dignities knowledge to be profestly hated and under that title all the prime i. e. Practical Wisdom and Piety and simplicity i. e. folly and madness and sin to have our whole souls laid out upon it O let this shrill Sarcasm of Wisdoms the How long ye simple ones be for ever a sounding in our ears Let this indignation at our stupid ways of sin transplant it self to that soyl where it is likely to thrive and fructifie best I mean to that of our own instead of other mens breasts where it will appear gloriously in S. Pauls inventory a prime part of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the durable unretracted repentance an effect of that godly sorrow that worketh to Salvation And if it be sincere O what indignation it produceth in us What displeasure and rage at our folly to think how senselesly we have moulted and crumbled away our souls what unthristy bargains we have made what sots and fools we shall appear to Hell when it shall be known to the wretched tormented Creatures what ambitions we had to be but as miserable as they upon what Gotham arrants what Wild-goose chases we are come posting and wearied thither O that a little of this consideration and this passion betimes might ease us of that endless wo and indignation those tears and gnashing of teeth quit us of that sad arrear of horrors that otherwise waits behind for us Lord do thou give us that view of our ways the errors the follies the furies of our extravagant Atheistical lives that may by the very reproach and shame recover and return us to thee Make our faces ashamed O Lord that we may seek thy Law Give us that pity and that indignation to our poor perishing souls that may at length awake and fright us out of our Lethargies and bring us as so many confounded humbled contrite penitentiaries to that beautiful gate of thy temple of mercies where we may retract our follies implore thy pardon deprecate thy wrath and for thy deliverance from so deep an Hell from so infamous a vile condition from so numerous a tale of deaths never leave praising thee and saying Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory Glory be to thee O God most high To whom with the Son and the Holy Ghost be ascribed c. The IV. Sermon MAT. I. 23. Emmanuel which is by interpretation God with us THe different measure and means of dispensing Divine Knowledge to several ages of the World may sufficiently appear by the Gospels of the New and Prophecies of the Old Testament the sunshine and the clearness of the one and the twilight and dimness of the other but in no point this more importantly concerns us than the Incarnation of Christ This hath been the Study and Theme the Speculation and Sermon of all holy Men and Writers since Adam's Fall yet never plainly disclosed till John Baptist in the third of Matth. and the third Verse and the Angel in the next verses before my Text undertook the Task and then indeed was it fully performed then were the Writings or rather the Riddles of the obscure stammering whispering Prophets turned into the voice of One crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the wayes of the Lord c. Isa xl 3. Then did the cry yea shouting of the Baptist at once both interpret and perform what it prophecyed At the sound of it Every valley was exalted and every hill was brought low the crooked was made straight and the rough places plain v. 4. That is the Hill and Groves of the Prophets were levell'd into the open champain of the Gospel those impediments which hindred Gods approach unto mens rebel hearts were carefully removed the abject mind was lifted up the exalted was deprest the intractable and rough was render'd plain and even in the same manner as a way was made unto the Roman Army marching against Jerusalem This I thought profitable to be premised to you both that you might understand the affinity of Prophecies and Gospel as differing not in substance but only in clearness of revelation as the glorious face of the Sun from it self being overcast and mask'd with a cloud and also for the clearing of my Text For this entire passage of Scripture of which these words are a close is the Angels message or Gospel unto Joseph and set down by S. Matthew as both the interpretation and accomplishment of a Prophecy delivered long ago by Isaiah but perhaps not at all understood by the Jews to wit That a Virgin should conceive and bear a Son and they should call his name Emmanuel Where first we must examine the seeming difference in the point of Christs Name betwixt the place here cited from Isaiah and the words here vouched of the Angel V. 21. and proved by the effect V. 25. For the Prophet says he shall be called Emmanuel but the Angel commands he should be and the Gospel records he was named Jesus And here we must resume and enlarge the ground premised in our Preface that Prophecies being not Histories but rude imperfect draughts of things to come do not exactly express and delineate but only shadow and covertly vail those things which only the Spirit of God and the event must interpret So that in the Gospel we construe the words but in Prophecies the sence i. e. we expect not the performance of every Circumstance exprest in the words of a Prophecy but we acknowledge another sence beyond the literal and in the comparing of Isaiah with St. Matthew we exact not the same expressions provided we find the same substance and the same significancy So then the Prophets and call his name Emmanuel is not as humane Covenants are to be fulfill'd in the rigour of the Letter that he should be so named at his Circumcision but in the agreement of sence that this name should express his nature that he was indeed God with us and that at the Circumcision he should receive a name of the same power and significancy Whence the observation by the way is that Emmanuel in effect signifies Jesus God with us a Saviour and from thence the point of Doctrine that Gods coming
to us i. e. Christs Incarnation brought Salvation into the World For if there be a substantial agreement betwixt the Prophet and the Angel if Emmanuel signifie directly Jesus if God with us and a Saviour be really the same title of Christ then was there no Saviour and consequently no Salvation before this presence of God with us Which position we will briefly explain and then omitting unnecessary proofs apply it In explaining of it we must calculate the time of Christs Incarnation and set down how with it and not before came Salvation We may collect in Scripture a three-fold incarnation of Christ 1. In the Counsel of God 2. In the Promises of God 3. In a Personal open exhibiting of him unto the World the effect and complement of both Counsel and Promises 1. In the Counsel of God so He was as slain so incarnate before the foundation of the World Rev. xiii 8. For the word slain being not competible to the Eternal God but only to the assumption of the humane nature presupposes him incarnate because slain God then in his Prescience surveyingbefore he created and viewing the lapsed miserable sick estate of the future Creation in his Eternal Decree foresaw and preordained Jesus the Saviour the Author and Finisher of the Worlds Salvation So that in the Counsel of God to whom all things to come are made present Emmanuel and Jesus went together and no Salvation bestowed on us but in respect to this God with us 2. In the Promises of God and then Christ was incarnate when he was promised first in Paradise The seed of the Woman c. and so he is as old in the flesh as the World in sin and was then in Gods Promise first born when Adam and man-kind began to die Afterwards he was not again but still incarnate in Gods promise more evidently in Abraham's time In thy seed c. and in Moses his time when at the addition of the Passeover a most significant representation of the incarnate and crucified Christ he was more than promised almost exhibited Under which times it is by some asserted that Christ in the form of Man and habit of Angel appeared sundry times to the Fathers to give them not an hope but a possession of the Incarnate God and to be praeludium incarnationis a pawn unto them that they trusted not in vain And here it is plain thorowout that this Incarnation of Christ in the Promise of God did perpetually accompany or go before Salvation not one blessing on the nations without mention of thy seed not one encouragement against fear or unto confidence but confirm'd and back'd with an I am thy shield c. i. e. according to the Targum my Word is thy shield i. e. my Christ who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word in the first of Joh. i. Not any mention of Righteousness and Salvation but on ground and condition of belief of that Jesus which was then in promise Emmanuel God with us 3. In the Personal exhibiting of Christ in form of flesh unto the World dated at the fulness of time and call'd in our ordinary phrase his Incarnation then no doubt was Emmanuel Jesus then was he openly shewed to all people in the form of God a Saviour which Simeon Luk. ii 30. most divinely styles God's Salvation thereby no doubt meaning the Incarnate Christ which by being God with us was Salvation Thus do you see a three-fold Incarnation a three-fold Emmanuel and proportionably a three-fold Jesus 1. A Saviour first decreed for the World answerable to God incarnate in Gods Counsel and so no man was ever capable of Salvation but through God with us 2. A Saviour promised to the World answerable to the second God with us to wit incarnate in the Promise and so there is no Covenant of Salvation but in this God with us 3. A Saviour truly exhibited and born of a Woman answerable to the third Immanuel and so also is there no manifestation no proclaiming no preaching of Salvation but by the birth and merits of God with us To these three if we add a fourth Incarnation of Christ the assuming of our Immortal Flesh which was at his Resurrection then surely the Doctrine will be complete and this Emmanuel incarnate in the Womb of the grave brought forth cloath'd upon with an incorruptible seed is now more fully than ever prov'd an Eternal Jesus For when he had overcome the sharpness of Death he opened the kingdom of Heaven to all believers as it is in our Te Deum as if all that till then ever entred into Heaven had been admitted by some privy key but now the very gates were wide opened to all believers This last Incarnation of Christ being accompanied with a Catholick Salvation that Jesus might be as Eternal as Immanuel that he might be as Immortal a Saviour as a God with us 'T were but a superfluous work further to demonstrate that through all ages of the World there was no salvation ever tendred but in respect to this Incarnation of Christ that the hopes the belief the expectation of Salvation which the Father 's lived and breathed by under the types of the Law was only grounded upon and referred unto these promises of the future Incarnation that they which were not in some measure enlightned in this mystery were not also partakers of this Covenant of Salvation that all the means besides that Heaven and Earth and which goes beyond them both the brain of Man or Angel could afford or invent could not excuse much less save any child of Adam That every Soul which was to spring from these loins had been without those transcendent mercies which were exhibited by this Incarnation of Christs plung'd in necessary desperate damnation Your patience shall be more profitably imployed in a brief Application of the point First That you perswade and drive your selves to a sense and feeling of your Sins those sins which thus pluckt God out of Heaven and for a while depriv'd him of his Majesty which laid an engagement upon God either to leave his infinite Justice unsatisfied or else to subject his infinite Deity to the servile mortality of Flesh or else to leave an infinite World in a common damnation Secondly To strain all the expressions of our hearts tongues and lives to the highest note of gratitude which is possible in answer to this Mystery and Treasure of this God with us to reckon all the Miracles of either common or private preservations as foils to this incomparable Mercy infinitely below the least circumstance of it without which thine Estate thy Understanding thy Body thy Soul thy Being thy very Creation were each of them as exquisite Curses as Hell or Malice could invent for thee Thirdly To observe with an ecstasie of joy and thanks the precious priviledges of us Christians beyond all that ever God profest love to in that we have obtained a full revelation of this God
work so much miracle as Simon Magus is said to have done who undertook to raise the dead give motion to the head make the eyes look up or the tongue speak but the lower part of the man and that the heaviest will by no charm or spell be brought to stir but weigh sink even into Hell will still be carcass and corruption Damnation is his birth-right Ecclus xx 25. And it is impossible though not absolutely yet ex hypothesi the second Covenant being now sealed even for God himself to save him or give him life It is not David's Musick that exorcised and quieted Saul's evil spirit nor Pythagoras's Spondees that tamed a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set him right in his wits for ever that can work any effect on a fleshy heart So that Chrysostom would not wonder at the voice that cried O Altar Altar hear the voice of the Lord because Jeroboam's heart was harder than that nor will I find fault with Bonaventure that made a solemn prayer for a stony heart as if it were more likely to receive impression than that which he had already of flesh It were long to insist on the wilfulness of our fleshy hearts how they make a faction within themselves and bandy faculties for the Devil how when grace and life appear and make proffer of themselves all the carnal affections like them in the Gospel Joyn all with one consent to make excuses nothing in our whole lives we are so sollicitous for as to get off fairly to have made a cleanly Apology to the invitations of God's Spirit and yet for a need rather than go we will venture to be unmannerly We have all married a Wife espoused our selves to some amiable delight or other we cannot we will not come The Devil is wiser in his generation than we he knows the price and value of a Soul will pay any rate for it rather than lose his market he will give all the riches in the world rather than miss And we at how low a rate do we prize it it is the cheapest commodity we carry about us The beggarliest content under Heaven is fair is rich enough to be given in exchange for the Soul Spiritus non ponderat saith the Philosopher the Soul being a spirit when we put it into the balance weighs nothing nay more than so it is lighter than vanity lighter than nothing i. e. it doth not only weigh nothing but even lifts up the scale it is put into when nothing is weighed against it How many sins how many vanities how many idols i. e. in the Scripture phrase how many nothings be there in the world each of which will outweigh and preponderate the Soul It were tedious to observe and describe the several ways that our devillish sagacity hath found out to speed our selves to damnation to make quicker dispatch in that unhappy rode than ever Elias his fiery Chariot could do toward Heaven Our daily practice is too full of arguments almost every minute of our lives as it is an example so is it a proof of it Our pains will be employed to better purpose if we leave that as a worn beaten common place and betake our selves to a more necessary Theme a close of Exhortation And that shall be by way of Treaty as an Ambassador sent from God that you will lay down your arms that you will be content to be friends with God and accept of fair terms of composition which are That as you have thus long been enemies to God proclaiming hostility perpetually opposing every merciful will of his by that wilfulness so now being likely to fall into his hands you will prevent that ruine you will come in and whilst it is not too late submit your selves that you may not be forced as Rebels and outlaws but submit as Servants This perhaps may be your last parley for peace and if you stand out the battery will begin suddenly and with it the horrendum est Heb. x. 31. It is a fearful hideous thing to fall into the hands of the living God All that remains upon our wilful holding out may be the doom of Apostates from Christianity a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries Vers 27. And methinks the very emphasis in my Text notes as much Why will you die As if we were just now falling into the pit and there were but one minute betwixt this time of our jollity and our everlasting hell Do but lay this one circumstance to your hearts do but suppose your selves on a Bed of sickness laid at with a violent burning Fever such a one as shall finally consume the whole world as it were battered with thundering and lightning and besieged with fire where the next throw or plunge of thy disease may possibly separate thy soul from thy body and the mouth of Hell just then open and yawning at thee and then suppose there were one only minute wherein a serious resigning up thy self to God might recover you to Heaven O then what power and energy what force and strong efficacy would there be in this voice from God Why will you die I am resolved that heart that were truly sensible of it that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it would find such inward vigor and spirit from it that it would strike death dead in that one minute this ultimus conatus this last spring and plunge would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingring sickness and perhaps overcome and quit the danger And therefore let me beseech you to represent this condition to your selves and not any longer be flattered or couzened in a slow security To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you let it alone till this day come in earnest you may then perhaps heave in vain labour and struggle and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward Heaven The hour of our death we are wont to call Tempus improbabilitatis a very improbable inch of time to build our Heaven in as after death is impossibilitatis a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from Hell If nothing were required to make us Saints but outward performances if true repentance were but to groan and Faith but to cry Lord Lord we could not promise our selves that at our last hour we should be sufficient for that perhaps a Lethargy may be our fate and then what life or spirits even for that perhaps a Fever may send us away raving in no case to name God but only in oaths and curses and then it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be carried to But when that which must save us must be a work of the Soul and a gift of God how can we promise our selves that God will be so merciful whom we have till then contemned or our souls then capable of any holy impression having
alive to the end saith he that thereby he might make the dissensions of Carthage and Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not possibly to be composed but to be prosecuted with a perpetual hostility This was the effect of Achitophel's counsel to Absalom that he should lye with his fathers concubines and this also was the Devils plot upon the Gentiles who as if they were not enough enemies unto God for the space of 2000 years Idolatry at last resolved to fill up the measure of their rebellions to make themselves if it were possible sinful beyond capability of mercy and to provoke God to an eternal revenge they must needs joyn in crucifying Christ and partake of the shedding of that blood which hath ever since so dyed the souls and cursed the successions of the Jews For it is plain 1. by the kind of his death which was Roman 2. by his Judge who was Caesaris rationalis by whom Judaea was then governed or as Tacitus saith in the 15. of his Annals Caesar's Procurator all capital judgments being taken from the Jews Sanhedrim as they confess Joh. xviii 21. it is not lawful for us to put any one to death 3. by the Prophecy Mat. xx 19. They shall deliver him to the Gentiles by these I say and many other arguments 't is plain that the Gentiles had their part and guilt in the crucifying of Christ and so by slaying of the Son as it is in the parable provoked and deserved the implacable revenge of the Father And yet for all this God enters league and truce and peace with them thinks them worthy to hear and obey his laws nay above the estate of servants takes them into the liberty and free estate of the Gospel and by binding them to ordinances as Citizens expresseth them to be civitate donates caelesti within the pale of the Church and covenant of salvation They which are overcome and taken captives in war may by law be possest by the victor for all manner of servitude and slavery and therefore ought to esteem any the hardest conditions of peace and liberty as favours and mercies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Marcus in Polybius they which are conquered must acknowledg themselves beholding to the victor if he will upon any terms allow them quarter or truce Thus was it above all other sinners with the Gentiles of that time after 2000 years war with the one God they were now fallen into his hands ready to receive the forest strokes to bear the shrewdest burdens he could lay on them had it not been then a favour above hope to be received even as hired servants which was the highest of the Prodigals ambition Luke xv 19. Had it not been a very hospitable carriage towards the dogs as they are called Mat. xv 26. to suffer them to lick up those crums which fell from the childrens table Yet so much are Gods mercies above the pitch of our expectation or deserts above what we are able or confident enough to ask or hope that he hath assumed and adopted these captives into sons And as once by the councel of God Jacob supplanted Esau and thrust him out of his birth-right so now by the mercy of God Esau hath supplanted Jacob and taken his room in Gods Church and Favour and instead of that one language of the Jews of which the Church so long consisted now is come in the confusion of the Gentiles Parthians Medes Elamites and the Babel of tongues Act. ii 9. And as once at the dispersion of the Gentiles by the miracle of a punishment they which were all of one tongue could not understand one another Gen. xi 9. so now at the gathering of the Gentiles by a miracle of mercy they which were of several tongues understood one another and every Nation heard the Apostles speak in their own language Acts xi 6. noting thereby saith Austin that the Catholick Church should be dispersed over all Nations and speak in as many languages as the world hath tongues Concerning the business of receiving the Gentiles into covenant St. Austin is plentiful in his 18. Book de Civit. Dei where he interprets the symbolical writings and reads the riddles of the Prophets to this purpose how they are called the children of Israel Hos I. 11. Hos i. 11. as if Esau had robbed Jacob of his name as well as inheritance that they are declared by the title of barren and desolate Esa LIV. 1. Esa liv 1. whose fruitfulness should break forth surpass the number of the children of the married wife To this purpose doth he enlarge himself to expound many other places of the Prophets and among them the Prophecy of Obadiah from which Edom by a pars pro toto signifying the Gentiles he expresly concludes their calling and salvation but how that can hold in that place seeing the whole Prophecy is a denunciation of judgments against Edom and ver 10. 't is expresly read For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee and thou shalt be cut out for ever How I say from that place amongst others this truth may be deduced I leave to the revealers of Revelations and that undertaking sort of people the peremptory expounders of depths and Prophecies In the mean time we have places enough of plain prediction beyond the uncertainty of a guess which distinctly foretold this blessed Catholick Truth and though Peter had not mark't or remembred them so exactly as to understand that by them the Gentiles were to be preach't to and no longer to be accounted prophane and unclean Acts x. yet 't is more then probable that the devil a great contemplator and well seen in Prophecies observ'd so much and therefore knowing Christs coming to be the season for fulfilling it about that time drooped and sensibly decayed lost much of his courage and was not so active amongst the Genti'es as he had been his oracles began to grow speechless and to slink away before hand lest tarrying still they should have been turned out with shame Which one thing the ceasing of Oracles though it be by Plutarch and some other of the devils champions refer'd plausibly to the change of the soyl and failing of Enthusiastical vapours and exhalations yet was it an evident argument that at Christs coming Satan saw the Gentiles were no longer fit for his turn they were to be received into a more honourable service under the living God necessarily to be impatient of the weight and slavery of his superstitions and therefore it concern'd him to prevent violence with a voluntary flight lest otherwise he should with all his train of oracles have been forced out of their coasts for Lucifer was to vanish like lightning when the light to lighten the Gentiles did but begin to appear and his laws were outdated when God would once be pleased to command Now that in a word we may more clearly see what calling what entring into covenant with the
Lord. And again Phil. iii. 13. most evidently Forgetting those things that are behind and reaching out to those things which are before I press toward the mark c. like a racer in the heat of his course whose eyes desires to anticipate his feet and enjoy the goal before he reach it These three carriages of the regenerate man fully prove our observation for if either of the two former sights could afford him any content if either his former or present state did not sufficiently terrifie him he would not be so eager on the third it being the folly of humane pride and self-love to contemn any forraign aid as long as it finds either appearance or hope of domestick If in the view of his former life he should find any thing either good or not extremely bad and sinful he would under-prize the mercy of that Saviour that redeem'd him from so poor a guilt if he could observe in his present state any natural firmness or stability any inherent purity any essential justice he might possibly sacrifice to his own nets and reckoning himself in perfect peace with God neither invoke and seek nor acknowledge a Mediatour But when in his former life he shall find nothing but the matter and cause of horrour and amazement nothing but hideous ghastly affrightments yea and a body of damnation when in hope to mend himself and ease his fears he shall fly to the comfort of his present converted state and yet there also espy many thorns of temptations how can he but be frighted out of himself How can he but fly from the scene of those his torments and seek out and importune the mercy of a Saviour which may deliver him out of all his fears After the example of our Apostle in my Text where he does more peremptorily apprehend Christ and more bodily believe That he came into the world to save sinners because of all sinners he was chief making his own sinfulness being the object and external motive of Gods mercy an argument and internal motive of his own faith and confidence The plain meaning of this Thesis is that among men things are not alway valued according to the merit of their nature for then each commodity should be equally prized by all men and the man in health should bestow as much charges on physick as the diseased but each thing bears its several estimation by its usefulness and the riches of every merchandize is encreased accordingly as men to whom it is proferred do either use or want it Moreover this usefulness is not to be reckoned of according to truth but opinion not according to mens real wants but according to the sense which they have of their wants so a man distracted because he hath not so much reason about him as to observe his disease will contemn Hellebore or any other the most precions Recipe for this cure and generally no man will hasten to the Physician or justly value his art and drugs but he whom misery hath taught the use of them So then unless a man have been in some spiritual danger and by the converting Spirit be instructed into a sense and apprehension of it he will not sufficiently observe the benefit and use of a deliverer unless he feel in himself some stings of the relicks of his sin some pricks of the remaining Amorite he will not take notice of the want and necessity which he hath of Christs mediation But when he shall with a tenderness of memory survey the guilt of his former state from the imputation not importunity whereof he is now justified when he shall still feel within him the buffetings of Satan and sensibly observe himself not fully sanctified then and not before will he with a zealous earnestness apprehend the profit yea necessity of a Saviour whose assistance so nearly concerns him The second ground of this position is That an extraordinary undeserved deliverance is by an afflicted man received with some suspition the consideration of the greatness of the benefit makes him doubt of the truth of it and he will scarce believe so important an happiness befaln him because his misery could neither expect nor hope it Hence upon the first notice of it he desires to ascertain it unto his sense by a sudden possession of it and not at all to defer the enjoying of that mercy which his former misery made infinitely worthy of all acceptation Thus may you see a ship-wrackt man recovered to some refuge cling about and almost incorporate himself unto it because the fortune of his life depends on that succour The new regenerate man finding in the Scripture the promise of a Redeemer which shall free him from those engagements which his former bankrupt estate had plung'd him in cannot delay so great an happiness but with a kind of tender fear and filial trembling runs and strives as the Disciples to the Sepulchre to assure his necessitous soul of this acceptable salvation even sets upon his Saviour with a kind of violence and will seem to distrust his promise till his seal shall authorize and confirm it Thus did the greatness of the work of the unexpected resurrection beget in Thomas a suspition and incredulity I will not believe c. where our charity may conjecture that he above all the rest was not absolutely resolved not to believe the resurrection but that he being absent at the first apparition would not take so important a miracle upon trust but desired to have that demonstrated to his sense which did so nearly concern his faith that so by putting his finger into the print of the nails and thrusting his hand into his side he might almost consubstantiate and unite himself unto his Saviour and at once be assured of the truth and partake of the profit of the resurrection Hear but the voice of the Spouse and any further proofs shall be superfluous where in violence and jealousie of love she importunes the Eternal presence of the Beloved Set me as a seal upon thy heart as a seal upon thine arm for love is strong as death jealousie as cruel as the grave the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a vehement flame She had before often lost her beloved which made her so fiercely fasten on him for having roused him ruit in amplexus she rusht into his embraces she held him and would not let him go Thus you see the jealousie and eagerness of love produc'd by either a former loss or present more then ordinary want of the object both which how pertinent they are to the regenerate man either observing his past sins or instant temptations this discourse hath already made manifest The Use of this Thesis to wit that the greatness of ones sins makes the regenerate man apply himself more fiercely to Christ is first by way of caution that we mistake not a motive for an efficient an impulsive for a principal cause For where we say