True it is that from the first day of his birth to the last minute of his Passion the foxes had holes the birds had their nests but the Son of man had no place of habitation Born in a Stable Here is no preparation no solemnity as if we were to expect not a man but the worm of men and the outcast of the people Alas dear Virgin comfort thy self thy Babe is thy Comforter thy Comforter thy Saviour for behold from henceforth all generations shall call thee blessed Alas sweet Babe pardon our unkindness and discourtesie in thy entertainment thou thy self hast taken the nature of man and what is man but grass and hay well befitting a Stable and therefore as thou thy self hast infinitely abased thy self so pardon our unthankfulness if in stead of Princely Palaces rich Pavilions Ivory Beds thoâ—… wert born in a Stable and laid in a Manger And thus much for the Place now I come to the Time It was in the sixth Age of the World As man was created on the sixth day so in the sixth Age God intended the renewing and redemption of man We are not to demand why sooner or later he took not our flesh for this was in the free choice and election of God onely this probable reason may be given That as wise Physicians then labour to purge the disease when it is grown to his height and ripeness so God expected the time when Charity was grown cold the Kings office decayed the Priests duty neglected the Synagogue divided into Sects and Schisms and this is in some sort resembled by the barrenness of the earth for he came in the winter season And it is to be feared lest our Sects and Divisions our sins our crying sins will hasten his second Coming in Judgement His coming was in Solstitio Brumali when the days were at the shortest and then began to increase And hence is gathered though a common yet a witty observation of S. Ambrose that as John the Baptist decreased so Christ should increase John Baptist born at Midsummer when the dayes shorten and Christ with the lengthning of days increasing in glory See here an admirable Providence in every the least circumstance Christ was born at midnight as may appear by the Shepherds watch which argues the worlds universal darkness and that his coming in the flesh was to cover and conceal sin that in the day of Gods wrath he might take our iniquities upon himself and impute his Righteousness to us and therefore it was an approved and laudable custome of the Fathers to keep their watchings the same night and to offer up their prayers and thanksgivings in memory of the hour of his Nativity And so I come to such things as are Consequentia such as followed his Nativity I will not speak of the Angels song to the Shepherds which was the Calling of the Jews I will not speak of the Stars appearing which guided the Wise-men to the place of his birth where they worshipped and were the first-fruits of the Gentiles I will onely name one action which is the Murther of Infants the Martyrdome of Innocents It should seem then that the birth of Christ was not a matter of small importance or little moment in the eyes of Princes that Herod should slay all the children from two years old and under for the assurance of his State and Kingdom But here observe the Providence of God Herod in revenge and to satisfie his own ambition attempted such an horrible cruelty God permitted the action 1. For the punishment of the Jews who for not affording place for our Saviours birth they justly incurred his wrath and indignation insomuch that their own eyes beheld the slaughter of their own babes flesh of their flesh and bones of their bones late conceived in the womb now committed to the grave from the Cradle to the Coffin late pampered in the bosom novv putrifying in the dust 2. That the prophesie might be fulfilled In Rama was a voice heard mourning and weeping and great howling Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they were not Jer. 31. 15. 3. For the manifesting of his own glory that upon his entrance into the world so many happy infants should be ordained from all eternity to suffer Martyrdome for his Cause the day of their death was much more happy to them then was the day of their Nativity and therefore we celebrate and keep solemn a certain Feast-day in memory of those Innocents 4. Since Moses was a type of Christ for both of them were Law-givers as the children of the Hebrews were put to death at the birth of Moses so the death of these infants might give testimony to a second to a new Law-giver Thus as King Pharaoh did persecute Moses so King Herod persecuted Christ Moses was laid in a Basket Christ in a Manger And as they thus agreed in the circumstances of their Nativity so in the manner and course of their lives Moses led the Israelites through the Red-sea Christ led his people through Baptism and so through his own blood Both of them fasted forty days Moses appointed Seventy Elders Christ Seventy Disciples Moses sent out Twelve Spies to discover the promised Land Christ sent out Twelve Apostles into the world to publish the Kingdom of Heaven Moses wrought his Miracles by a Rod Christ by his Cross and therefore as Moses Rod was laid up in the Ark so the Cross of Christ hath ever been most precious in the Church Moses delivered his people from the bondage of Egypt and Christ delivered his from the thraldome and slavery of sin Thus do the two Law-givers agree whereby it appears that Moses was but a type of Christ and the Law only a preparation to the Gospel But I will leave the Jews and descend to the Gentiles whose posterity we are and I will take a view what hapned amongst them upon the birth of our Saviour Certain it is that the Oracles then spake that Nature had brought forth a King and immediately the Images which were wont to be worshipped in Churches fell down and were broken which many referred to the greatness of Augustus though truly it was competent to Christ. Eusebius reports that at the same time there sprang out of the earth a River of Oyl which argues that grace was now to be conferred to the Gentiles and that he was now born who was anointed with the oyle of gladness above his fellows Orosius reports that Augustus Caesar then Emperor commanded on the same day that no man hereafter should call him Lord or Master as if God had secretly inspired in his heart that then was born the Lord of lords the King of kings Christ Jesus God and Man and therefore it was impiety and sacriledge for any vassal of his during his presence to accept the Title of Lord or Master Suidas reports that when Augustus Caesar having offered his Sacrifice demanded of
life to all others yet hereby he makes himself lyable to death without which there could be no satisfaction Thus God becoming man he is interessed in the cause and so the Justice and Mercies of God are fully reconciled in Christ. Thus the Incarnation being presupposed let us now consider what inconveniency or disparagement it may be or rather what advantage or prerogative may thereby accrue to the Deity and how all the creatures are thereby exalted and honoured but man especially is infinitely tyed to his thankfulness For any dishonor to the Deity certainly there can be none at all for the whole universe in respect of God is as nothing and therefore what aspersion may arise from the Creatures and be cast on the Deity it doth utterly vanish and come to nothing Thus the mists and ill vapours of the earth ascend no higher then the middle region of the aire and there they are dissolved into Showers Storms and Tempests and so fall again to the earth thus Blasphemies and sins done in contempt of God yet no way sasten on God or any way obscute his honor but thereby God takes occasion in justice to powre down his wrath and vengeance upon the transgressors Thus God according to his own ubiquity is every where and in every Creature yet without the least disparagement to himself as the Sun-beams or light shining upon the most unclean and sordid places yet are thereby no way tainted or infected much less can the Godhead receive any blemish or stain from his Creatures So there being no inconvenience let us see what advantage benefit and honor redounds to the Godhead by the Incarnation First we know and our Fathers have told us that the love of God towards man is infinite but how shall this appear really and actually if all the fruits of Gods love towards man be finite and so bounded therefore it is requisit that some act of this infinite love might appear this is done by an infinite bond by an hypostaticall union of God with our nature and this is such a bond as that God himself can do no more he cannot come nearer man then by uniting the two natures in one Person and this we must truly confess to be the fruit and plainly to demonstrate Gods infinite love towards man Secondly we confess Gods omnipotency but how shall this appear unless there should be some infinite Creature It is true that making must something of nothing there being an infinite distance a non ente adens it needs argue omnipotency yet this is only in respect of the manner but that Gods omnipotency might every way appear it is necessary there should be an infinite Creature and here behold God and Man are united and become one Christ who is truly infinite and omnipotent and therefore doth every way confirm Gods omnipotency Thirdly the Incarnation seems to adde some perfection to God and to improve Gods knowledge it is true God knowes all the miseries and sorrowes of man all his imperfections and weakness but he knew them not in that manner as now he doth for he knew them not by way of triall and experience in himself The sick patient who feeles the smart and sorrow of his disease may seem to have better knowledge then the Physitian who hath it onely by speculation God himself had not that experimentall knowledge of mans condition before he became man and put on our nature and in his own Person became subject to passion Fourthly to vindicate the Justice of God for God requires no more of man then what God performed to man The Creation was done by the word of his mouth verbo virtutis suâ—… with the greatest ease and facility but what God requires of man it is accomplished with sorrow labour and misery therefore here is no proportion Now to stop the mouthes of blasphemers God himself hath taken up mans nature thereby to make himself subject to passion and so to perform more in his own person to man then he requires of man or that man can perform unto God for that God died for man but man dies for his own sins Fifthly as God was the Creator of all things the end and conclusion of all so it was necessary he should be the Mediator and Redeemer of man that so God might be all in all the beginning the means and the end Sixthly it was a great addition and increase of honor to God which I prove by the Title which God assumes to himself for whereas before he was called The God of heaven and earth The Lord of the Universe The Maker and Creator of all things The Lord God of Hosts now he assumes another Title and style of honor to be called The God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob which is a more honorable style then to be called The God of heaven and earth seeing that he was then in their loins who did infinitely exceed the whole Universe And as this was his Title in the Old Testament so in the New he is called more particularly The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and this is Gods greatest honor Seventhly and as these advantages and prerogatives accrue unto the Deity by the incarnation of Christ so there are great priviledges which befal the Creatures in having God to be one of their number and society for without this priviledge the Creatures might have expostulated with God that although they were made of nothing yet still in respect of God they were nothing Now God is verity and truth and therefore according to verity and truth they were yet still as nothing See then how much God is disparaged in the work of his Creation that he should create nothing of nothing See how man and all the Creatures are become contemptible for that in respect of God that is in verity and truth they are nothing this were to abate their thankfulness to God and to make them dislike their condition and man himself though he may seem to boast of Gods love that he was created according to Gods image yet still he discerns that there is an infinite distance between God and man but when as once God became man and the Creator was made a Creature this did not onely shorten the distance between both but did indeed incorporate them and made both Natures God and Man to be one Person as if God should descend from the Throne of his Majesty and come nearer the Creature and stretch a hand out of the clouds while poor man out of the dust raised by Gods grace lifts up his hand of Faith and Hope and while these two hands meet and are joyned and coupled together there becomes a perfect marriage both are united in one Person the Deity puts on our weakness and our manhood is clothed with Gods 〈◊〉 And thus is there a perfect union in the Person of Christ. Eighthly though the Creatures were made by God yet still
be exempted from that penalty though free from the sin yet lyable to the punishments as sustaining the person of whole mankinde and with his undeserved punishment satisfying for all but for our actuall transgressions as he was likewise free from these sins so neither could the vengeance of God due for those particular sins seise upon Christ no error in his understanding no perverseness in his will no blemish in his body nothing defective in his members no sickness could attach him no leprosie infect him and therefore the price of his innocent bloud being of infinite value was made an infinite ransome for sin and takes away the guilt both of originall and of our actuall sins for he dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification and thus is the Word made flesh God is manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of the Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up in glory And now I come to the manner and circumstances of Christs Birth and Nativity not intending to speak any more of the mystery it self I wil only insist in some very few outward circumstances not unlike our unskilful Historians who sometimes unacquainted with the secresies of State the close carriage of business and the inward affaires of kingdomes are able notwithstanding to discover many severall circumstances and outward occurrences whereby the judicious reader better conceives then the Author could happily inform so here for want of due knowledge I will only acquaint you with the circumstances reserving the mysterie it self to your godly and serious meditations these circumstances I will divide according to the Schooles division Antecedentia concomitantia subsequentia First in the preparatives to his coming I might be infinite in relating the severall promises of God as touching the seed of the woman the Stock Tribe and Family to which these promises were tyed and intayled the truth of these promises continued in many prophesies acted out in Types resembled in figures shadowed in parables offered up in bloody sacrifices and in a word sealed and confirmed unto us in the whole scope and intent of the Law from hence proceedeth such a certain expectation of the Fathers that in their infallible hope and assurance they went so far as to make his nuptiall Song the Song of Songs the Canticles as if they had been to bo sung on the day of his marriage and in their deaths that it might appear that still their hopes did survive them I will only instance in Jacob Expectabo salutare tuum Domine in token hereof as it were making his last Will and Testament bequeathing his soul unto God he takes order for his Christian buriall layes a charge on his Son to carry his dead body out of Egypt as it were then going to Jerusalem in Pilgrimage that so Christ at his coming might tread upon his dead bones and that he might for ever rest near the place of his rest the holy Sepulcher But I will here only make choyce of prophesies for that it is said that Christ before his coming was Assimilatus in manibus prophetarum framed out in wax in the hands of the prophets not unlike a custom of Princes who intending to match with strangers as it well beseemes their high condition and stands with the policy of government State having no opportunity upon all occasions or suddenly to meet themselves first they send their Ambassadors to treat of a marriage and together with them their own pictures to move love and affection So Christ intending to espouse himself to the Church willing not personally to appear before the fulness of time were accomplished first sends out his prophets who so lively and accurately describe him to the world as that in his coming we could not mistake either in his person or in his condition but if I should give way to all severall prophesies I should prove infinite How am I plunged with varieties and over-laded with plenty in this argument I will only tye my self to some few prophesies which point out the very instant time of his coming Gen. 49. 10. The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a l. a wgiver from between his feet untill Shiloh come and the people shall be gathered unto him that this is meant by the Messias all confess and it is manifest by the word Shiloh which signifies the prince of peace that the time is now accomplished it is apparent in Herod who first succeeded and put down their Sanedrim or councell house consisting especially of the chosen men of the tribe of Judah in so much that many of the Jewes well perceiving that the time was now come and knowing Gods promises to be certain and infallible they began to acknowledge Herod for their Messias as succeeding the tribe of Judah in the government of that State and from thence they are called Herodians as they are mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles Others seeing that all things were not accomplished in Herod began to acknowledge Vespasian the Emperor for their Messias as having the government of the Roman Empire and pretending that he was descended by his Mothers side from the high Priest and the tribe of Judah A third sort seeing that all things were not accomplished in Herod or Vespasian began presently to rebell and stir up in Armes against their Prince and the Romans as then expecting upon this occasion that their Messias should manifest and discover himself and at length recover their weak decayed and ruinated Monarchy The best of them the high Priests the Scribes and the Levites sent to John Baptist to know whether he were that expected Messias or not as being privy and guilty to themselves that the time was now come for the approach of the Messias How were these men deluded when through pride and hardness of heart they went a whoring after their own inventions expecting a Lord ike and a temporall Messias and looking to the glory of this world their eyes were dazelled and they could not discern Majesty clothed in humility power shadowed in weakness our expected Shiloh our deer and blessed Messias Christ Jesus even at that time born of a Virgin and laid in a Manger The second Text of Scripture to prove the just time of his coming is taken out of the ninth of Daniels Prophesie whereby the number of weeks the time is described so that by the exact computation of Chronologie it cannot possibly betoken any other time then the Birth and Nativity of our Saviour The third Testimony is taken out of the second of Aggay 7 Yet a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the Sea and the dry Land and I will move all Nations and the desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory saith the Lord of Hosts this could not happen at any other time but in the dayes of our Saviour and
name of John which signifies the grace of God and points out the proper time of the Gospel But if you look to the totall abrogation of the Law as it was intimated in the dumbness of Zacharias when he was sacrificing so not the Priest alone but the Temple it self did suffer in the passion of Christ for the vayle of the Temple was rent as if God were then dissolving and pulling down his own Temple with an intent no longer to inhabite there and so the Temple was afterward destroyed by Titus As he forsook his Leviticall Priests by degrees though formerly he had committed his Laws and his doctrin to their custody for upon the Birth of Christ they were able to direct Herod to the place of his birth but they had not the grace to go to adore him so herein they were only defective Mat 2. then in the next place Know you not that it is expediâ—…nt that one should die for the people S. John the 11â— here God gave them power to speak truth but God suffered them through their own malice to erre not understanding their own truth but in the last place they sought false witnesse against Christ Mat. 26. here was malice ignorance and perjury and as there was renouncing of God in words so in deeds because Christ made himself what indeed he was the son of God therefore they cryed Crucifie him crucifie him and here was Deicidâ—…m the greatest of all the sins of the world so far forth as it lay in their power they did murther God Thus they fell by degrees together with their Law and their Temple yet no doubt but God had many servants who then were in the state of Salvation for here is the difference between the Synagogue and the Church many were saved out of the Synagogue as the Ninevites but the Church is the mother of all the faithfull and without the Church there is no hope of Salvation the reason hereof I conceive to be because the Synagogue was hedged in within the bounds of Palestina but the Church is Catholick over the face of the whole world So they are in excusable who do not adhere to the Church All this I write to the Jews that seeing the whole Law was referred to Christ all their sacrifices directed to Christ all their prophets prophesiing of Christ many types and figures of Christ and all due preparations for his entertainment surely this must needs argue the Godhead of Christ for here was a worship onely proper to God Or if we look not to the service of God then take Gods Judgements upon the Jews they are become slaves and vassâ—…ls to all Nations I never heard that any of them had so much as a Seigniory though certain it is that they are the most expert and skilful Merchants in the world and the richest a wonder it is but some of them should intend a Plantation and erect a Government I do likewise conceive them to be the best Physicians in the world not onely because their Ancestors lived in the East Countreys where the best drugges and simples are and so they were better acquainted with their virtues and operations by the daily experience of them and certainly they did leave the knowledge of them by tradition to their successors which they keep secret among themselves while throughout the whole world they are become slaves and vagabonds ever since the passion of Christ even as Cain was upon the murder of Abel that now in the whole world they have not one place for sacrifice their tribes are confounded their Temple destroyed and this hath continued longer then their own Mosaicall Law continued in his vigor which could never stand with the goodness and providence of God to permit had it not been that the Law was accomplished and therefore abrogated by God himself that the Gospell might succeed Thus I think now at length I have satisfied the Jews and made it appear that their Anâ—…estors had some certain knowledge of the Trinity and that the Messias was to be the Son of God more then ordinary man one of the Persons of the Diety and if this will not servo to give them satisfaction then I have paid them home at last that is I have come to their own homes I have dispersed them I have scattered them and in effect dissolved them so that as a Nation they shall no longer oppose or continue obstinate it must be now held self-will perverseness and every mans particular contumacy So from the Jews I come to Gentilisme which as it was accompanyed with infidelity and Atheisme so you shall give me leave to strike at the Root that I may eradicate both Root and Branch and because the Gentiles had no other pretence but human reason I will now give satisfaction to human reason in this high mysterie of the Trinity not that reason can comprehend the mysterie for neither Scraphins nor Cherubins nor all the Angels in heaven can fully understand God For to understand God it is indeed to be God and to make his understanding equall to that eternall Word in the understanding of God But I do undertake to satisfie human reason in this mysterie notwithstanding our own ignorance First I will make it appear that there is a God and but one God then that this God is every way incomprâ—…hensible whereby it must follow that the blessed Trinity exceeds mans reason no further then all the rest of his attributes do Then I will bring some proofes for the blessed Trinity and lastly I will seal and conclude all with miracles works above naturall power to confirm words above naturall knowledge This world being the workmanship of God serves as a book or a volume whereby every letter or punctilio points out the Maker I shall not need to insist in the motion of the heavens the influence of Starres the strange and wonderfull meteors but take the least flie or worm and it shall afford infinite arguments for the proof of the Deity and I do here call heaven and earth to witness and I desire God that my tongue may cleave to the roof of my mouth and that my right hand may forget her cunning if ever I shall faile in any the least creature to produce infinite invincible demonstrative arguments for the proof of the Deity And therefore of all others the cursed Atheist is the greatest impostor denying a God he makes himself God for denying his Maker he must needs make himself and consequently makes himself God who cannot adde one haire to his own growth nor a minute to his age Yet some such there are who continue thus in their mad Blasphemy and here I call all the creatures to witness against them and all Arts and Sciences shall concurre in the same Testimony and utterly condemne them Whatsoever is seen or unseen whether it belongs to the visible or invisible world every thing points out a Deity and from the severall perfection of