distant the one from the other the one in heaven the other on the earth God would have his image placed in the two extremities of the world as in two several Tables He hath placed the one in the highest story of the Universe the other in the lowest the one at the centre the other in the circumference To the end that on what part soever our soul casteth the eye be it on heaven or on earth we may contemplate God himself in the one or the other of these two kindes of creatures which bear his image What ought to be gathered from this That God imposed names upon the day the night the heavens the earth the sea yet hath given no general name to signifie the whole world God hath given particular names to all the great pieces of the Universe Gen. 1.5 8 10. but hath not given a name to all of it together Likewise the Hebrew Tongue in which God pronounced his first Oracles never nameth the world in one onely word but expresseth always either the heaven or the earth or both of them together when it would say the world I passe by the question Why in the Creation God hath not given a word which should universally signifie this whole bulk in which is comprehended the entire assembly of all his works But we are to learn by his example still to make a difference between heaven and earth The earth in which man was made the heaven for which he was made Without this distinction it is impossible to know what is the world Whence cometh it that the spirit of man is pleased with variety Not onely the Spirit but also the Senses the Sight especially the Taste love variety This instinct proceedeth from a secret intelligence The wisedom of God could not well be taken notice of but in a great diversity of works of matters and forms different unlike yea oft times contrary in qualities motions and circumstances Hence it is that it hath brought forth so many kindes of food so many of savours so many of colours and generally so great a variety of objects as well for the Senses as the Spirit Now to the end that man should study them to know the perfections of their authour God hath given that curiosity to invite him to passe from one object to another as by change of Lecture which ought to render him more knowing Of the Providence of God Why the Scripture oftener nameth the Hand or the Arm of God then the Heart of God VVE see better the works of his hand then the intentions of his heart His works and actions are perceptible to our eyes but the reasons are for the most part hidden from our souls and inclosed in the brest of that great Worker For Who hath known the minde of the Lord Hence it cometh that himself speaking unto us oftener mentioneth his Hand of which we see the effects then his Heart of which we know not the secrets Of the fundamental Law of the Creation and of the excellent instructions which issue from it In the Creation God hath formed the principles of all Laws yea the Creation is a Law visible and speaking If it were well considered many questions would be cleared which remain undecided and many opinions against which we dispute would not â—eed any other confutation then what is found written in this primitive Law I speak not of that which is well known unto all to wit That by this Law it is forbidden to pervert the order established from the beginning to separate what God hath joyned or joyn together what God hath separated Hence it cometh to passe that the Scripture condemneth Polygamie because God created but one wife for Adam Hence also proceedeth the superiority of the man over the woman because he was first created of them 1 Tim. 2. By this Law of the Creation it is forbidden to multiply the number of species which God hath created at the beginning or to confound them one with another Hence it cometh that the Scripture hath noted with infamy him that first invented the procreation of mules a bastard kinde which God created not Gen. 36.24 By the same Law it is forbidden to destroy a whole species of what creature soever even of those that are most contrary to man It was in the power of Noah when he had within the Ark Tygers Vipers and other pernicious creatures to destroy them to cause the whole breed to be lost for then there were no more of them in the world But it was not permitted to him rather to the contrary he had order to preserve them It is lawful for us to destroy the particular of such kindes but not to proceed to a suppression of the whole kinde though it lay in our power for this were to tear out a leaf of that great Book which containeth the catalogue of the works of the Creation By the same Law it is impossible to reduce any creature to nothing that is to say to make it simply nothing One matter may be changed into another as a living body is resolved into dust but it never cometh to be nothing The Church of Rome doth not formally say that the bread wine are annihilated in the Eucharist but it saith that they vanish without withdrawing themselvs to some other place without entering into the body of Christ without being turned into any other matter Now according to these suppositions it is necessary that the bread and wine be annihilated and come to nothing But this pretended annihilation is contrary to the fundamental Law of the Creation It is impossible and unlawful It is impossible for as God alone had the power to create all things out of nothing so he alone can reduce any thing to nothing It is unlawful for God himself though he can yet never did annihilate any of his creatures no not the devils O Eternal God all thy works subsist by thee If thou withdrawest thine hand they will fall into nothing but if thou sendest forth thy Spirit they shall be as of new created How many times the general order of the world hath been interrupted since the Creation Three times it hath had an interruption to wit twice in heaven once on the earth In heaven when the Sun and the Moon were stayed in the time of Joshua and again when the Sun went backward in the days of Hezekiah For these two wonders changed the measures of the day and night prolonging the light in one half of the world and the darknesse in the other beyond their times In the earth also when the waters of the Deluge made it not habitable for the space of a whole yeer and in the six later months of that yeer there was neither born nor died any humane creature nor any beast of the earth nor fowl of the air God having for a time suspended both birth and death For no creature either was born or died within the Ark. An example of instructions wherewith the
which were raised out of the dust Matth. 27.52 53. Afterward that of Tabitha Acts 9.40 And for the third example that of the young man Eutychus Act. 20.9 10 11 12. There are notable resemblances between the three that were raised under the Old Testament and the three which Jesus Christ raised before his death The first raised from the dead in the Old Testament was the onely son of a widow and the first raised â—n the New Testament was the onely son of a widow The one in Sarephta the other in Naim In both the Testaments God began the Resurrection of the dead by the demonstration of his Mercy as well as that of his Power Moreover the last of the three raised before the coming of Christ was already entered into the grave where he touched the bones of the Prophet Elisha and the last of the three raised by Christ to wit Lazarus had already stayed four days within the Sepulchre Why Christ rose not again the day after his death but suffered the whole Sabbath day to passe over before he returned to life I passe by the ordinary reasons which are brought concerning this and will onely observe a Maxime which I finde in this matter to wit That never any dead man was raised again on the Sabbath day The Son of God hath healed many sick on the Sabbath day but ye read not that on that day he raised any dead And in sum none of all those which were returned to life as well under the one as the other Testament and of whom we have considered the catalogue and the order according to which they are ranked hath been raised on the Sabbath day I shall verifie this when I shall come to expound the fourth Commandment of the Decalogue For the present question we may say that Jesus Christ who is the Head of the Resurrection would shew the communion which is between him and others that are raised in whom we have a preludium of the general Resurrection And forasmuch as none of them recovered life on the Sabbath day he also not to seem to disjoyn himself from them would not that his Resurrection should fall on that day This excludeth not the other reasons of the time of his stay among the dead A comparison of the time which God employed in the Creation with that which he employed in the Redemption And of the days of the one and the other The time of the Creation was six Days that of the Redemption was but of three Days which is the lesse by one half But the Wisdom of God hath divided the time of the Creation in two equal parts each of three days the first three being distinguished from the three following by a most evident mark The first three days of the world with their nights had neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars but preceded the being of all these lights in which they have been different from all other days that since have come As therefore the Creation hath had three days extraordinary so the Redemption in the which the world hath been as created anew hath had these three marvellous days in the which Christ continued among the dead It is to be observed that himself speaking of the three days of his stay within the bowels of the earth Matth. 12. which ought not to be understood of three entire days had regard to the history of the Creation which reckoneth the Evening and the Morning for a Day a part for the whole Gen. 1.5 8. The first and neerest cause of the three days detaining of Jonah in the whales belly The intention of God indeed was to present unto men in Jonah a type of the Resurrection of Christ as every one knoweth But there was first another reason for which the Prophet was not delivered before the third day The chastisement of the sinner oftentimes answereth to the fault even to circumstances This happened to Jonah His History telleth us that Nineveh was a City of three days journey chap. 3.3 For having refused to take this walk of three days in Nineveh he was condemned to keep prison three days within the whale The three days which he would not passe over in a great City among men it was necessary for him to passe in the intrails of a fish out of the sight of men and sun From this historical consideration we come to that of this great mystery which is enclosed in the detention and deliverance of Jonah The Resurrection of Christ figured in Hezekiah by a double resemblance It is sufficiently known that this Resurrection as touching the circumstance of the Third Day hath been prefigured in Isaac in Jonah in Hezekiah A Patriarch a Prophet a King have been the types Isaac destined to be offred an whole-burnt-offering and remaining as dead in the brest of his father is as returned to life on the third day Gen. 22. Heb. 11.19 And this for the more ample correspondence happened very neer the same place where Christ afterward was buried and where he rose from the dead Jonah issuing from the depth of the sea giveth the term of fourty days to the Ninevites And this figure which marketh out the Resurrection of Christ on the third day extendeth also all along the fourty days which Christ gave unto the world after his Resurrection before he left the earth The healing also of Hezekiah is considered as a type He was held in the rank of the dead and his bed was to him a grave He was raised up miraculously on the Third Day as it were surviving himself 2 Kings 20.5 But that which I observe concerning this last and which I adde to the observations of those which have gone before me is another correspondence which is found between the wonders that befell in this subject the one in the sicknesse of Hezekiah and the other in the death of Christ In both these there was a Miracle in the Sun For the Eclipse of this Luminary which happened at the death of Christ was supernatural as well as the going back in the sicknesse of Hezekiah So that this type meeteth with Christ dead and raised from the dead by a double resemblance But the shadow which returned ten degrees backward to foreshew the return of Hezekiah to the course of his life was not so miraculous as the return of Christ from among the dead verified by ten Appatitions by which as by so many degrees he shewed himself living again upon the earth before he ascended into heaven Why none ever was raised again the third day after his death but onely Christ Of all those whom God hath caused to return into the world after they were dead there is not one whom the Scripture saith to have been raised on the Third Day If there had been any one this circumstance had not been omitted in History All have been raised either before or after the Third Day after their decease but none on that day The son of the widow of Sarephta the daughter
people since the yeer foregoing it is found that their number was yet justly and precisely six hundred three thousand five hundred and fifty men In which is seen a proportion which God held in the multiplication of that people There is also observed a mystery in the exact number of the two and twenty thousand Levites which were then reckoned Numb 3.39 For the rest I contest not against the common opinion touching the hundred fourty and four thousand of the seventh of the Revelation that they ought to be taken for an indefinite number as well as the seven thousand which had not bowed the knee to Baal But it ought to be considered why the holy Ghost who speaketh nothing superfluous is not contented to have named the total sum of them that were sealed in Israel but also divideth it in twelve times twelve thousand distributed by equal portions among the twelve Tribes every one of which is mentioned the one after the other with the expression of its particular number For this sheweth that the number of the Elect and the multitude of Believers are measured by certain proportions which are known to him who is the Authour Certainly the resemblance of the seventy Disciples of Christ to the seventy Judges which were substituted to Moses and to the seventy children which Jacob had when he went down into Egypt is a line of this admirable symmetrie with the which God hath limited and proportioned the body of the Church Now this fortifieth that Maxime That the number of the Elect cannot suffer addition nor diminution And That Election proceedeth not from the will of the Elect but that of God which prevented them For can it be said that all the Elect from the beginning of the world to the end have agreed together to make a company composed precisely of a number certain and regular Of the small number of believers in the three several comings of the Son of God Resemblances on this subject When the Son of God came in the Spirit before the Deluge to preach to the men of that time the Church was found reduced into the sole family of Noah 1 Pet. 3.18 19 20. When the Son of God came in the Flesh being made man there were but a few persons that were disposed to receive him And when he shall come finally in Glory shall he finde faith on the earth Luk. 18.8 As there were in the Ark seven creatures of every clean kinde so also there were not above seven that were clean in heart For of the eight which were preserved from the Deluge there was one which was impure to wit Cham. The number of the faithful was somewhat greater when Jesus Christ was born Neverthelesse the Scripture nameth but seven as the most notable to wit Joseph and the Virgin Simeon and Anna the Prophetesse Zacharias and Elizabeth his wife and John the Baptist their son who was born a little before Three several states of the Church in three several times and three several titles of it Before the Law the Church was to use this term Oeconomical Under the Law it was National And under the Gospel it is become Catholike or Universal It is known that God extended it by degrees At the beginning it consisted onely of families which were those of the Patriarchs and continued so till after the death of Joseph and his brethren Afterward these families being multiplied so far as to surpasse the number of the Egyptians it began to make the Body of a Nation and God imposed upon it Laws and Rules afterward gave it a Countrey where it might live apart Finally the Gospel being gone forth from thence and published thorow all the earth the Church hath been no more bounded within an enclosure of one people but of National which it was it is become Universal A difference between the Church of the Old Testament and that of the New iâ— regard of the Communion of thâ—se things which were ordained to sanctity The Law as it is sufficiently known distinguisheth the things that were onely holy or sanctified from those which were most holy that is to say which served also to sanctifie others For example the aromatical confection which was used for the anointing of the Priests Item all Expiatory sacrifices certain kindes of Oblations and the Altar which sanctified the Sacrifices all these things were called thrice holy Lev. 2.3 and 6.14 Num. 18.9 Exod. 28. Now it is to be observed that the Priests onely had the right of touching those things that were most holy This was a priviledge of their Office The people never touched the Altar never might use an ointment like that of the Priests nor might ever taste of any Sacrifice of Expiation as we shall see when we come to treat of the Supper of the Lord. In sum it is a Maxime That every thing which had the quality of most holy was interdicted to the people which in this regard had no communion with the Priests We go not about here to sound the depth of this mystery It sufficeth us to observe that the New Testament hath taken away this difference All Christians at this day are Priests all have received the Priestly Unction all have right to eat that which is most holy and which hath the power to sanctifie to wit the Expiatory Sacrifice that is the Body of Christ Thus the Communion of Saints is now more complete and more universal then it was under the Law Four several buildings of which God hath been the Architâ—ct representing severally the estate of the Church We finde four buildings of which God himself hath set down and ordered the structure The first is the Ark in which he preserved Noah during the Deluge The second is the Tabernacle which was built in the Desert about the which were encamped the Tribes The third is the Temple built upon a mountain where was held the general assembly of the people of God The fourth is the heavenly Jerusalâ—m described Rev. 21. But there is a great difference between these four buildings The first that is the Ark had no oother foundation then the waters upon which it floated The second to wit the Tabernaâ—le was truely placed upon the earth but it was ambulatory having no resting place as being composed of pieces that were taken down and transported from one place to another The third to wit the Temple was fixed founded upon a rock of strong matter that promised a long continuance But it was combustible and subject to be demolished As in effect it was twice overthrown from the top to the bottom But the fourth which is Jerusalem above builded by Gods own hand without any workman possesseth a firmnesse without shaking and a continuance without end This fourth building is the scope and perfection of the three foregoing the which having successively represented the Church in several degrees of weaknesse determine in this estate unmoveable in which it shall be being placed in heaven Why the most notable