therefore he is Eternal and self-existent and consequently God They are the words of the Author to the Hebrews which have been already cited Melchisedek being by interpretation King of Righteousness and after that also King of Peace without Father without Mother having neither beginning of Days nor end of Life but made like unto the Son of God abideth a Priest continually he was so like him that he was certainly the same for there is but one Eternal and Everlasting High Priest but one Mediatour betwixt God and Men the Man Christ Jesus who was King of Righteousness and King of Peace in whose Dispensation and Person that saying was fulfilled Mercy and Truth have met together Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other at whose auspicious birth the quire of Heaven proclaimed with ravishing Notes and charming Voices Glory be to God in the highest on earth peace good will towards Men his Gospel was the Gospel and he was the Prince of Peace and his Spirit is the Spirit and the Soul of Peace and Love and he is said to be like Melchisedek as he is said in another place to have thought it no robbery to have been equal with God because he was indeed the very same besides that the first ingredient in that notion which we mortals are used to entertain of God is that he is a self-originated self-existent Being without beginning of Days or end of Life who is the first cause the first principle and mover upon which all other things whether in Heaven or on Earth have a necessary dependance as upon their primitive Sourse and Fountain and we are as sure that there can be but one such being as that there can be but one God and that there is none besides him But Seavently My seventh Argument shall be taken from those words of our Saviour in St. John No man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of Man which is in Heaven now it is clear that in one sense our Saviour had not yet ascended up to Heaven nor was he like to do it till after his Resurrection till when his Body and his Human Nature were to be confined to the Earth and it is further clear that in this very Sense Elijah had ascended in his Fiery Chariot before him and so had Enoch too before him wherefore we must refer this Saying to the ubiquitariness and omnipresence of the Divine Nature by which he was in Heaven and Earth at the same time and was alike present to all places at once no man hath ascended up into heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of Man which is in Heaven or else we must understand the Word Heaven of God as the Jews in their Writings do frequently understand it and to this Sense it is used in several Places of the New Testament and in one of the Old and so the Sense will be this no Man hath ascended up to God that is no man enjoys a perfect and entire Commerce and Correspondence with him but he that came down from God even the Son of Man which is in God as our Saviour says expresly of himself elsewhere that he is in the Father and the Father in him and by this way of Interpretation the Vnion of the Divine and Human Nature in the Person of Christ will be very fitly and aptly represented but otherwise than by one of these two Interpretations I do not see what Sense can be made of the Place Eightly and lastly For I shall mention no more though there be a Cloud of other Witnesses which have been already summoned by other learned Men to give their Evidence to this mighty Truth the Divinity and Co-essentiality of the Person of Christ with that of God the Father I argue the same thing from the nature of that Sacrifice which he performed for us upon the Cross for it is certain that all the Jewish Sacrifices did point at this great and final Propitiation which was in the fulness of time to be made and therefore he is called Christ our Pass-over and the Author to the Hebrews expresly makes the Sin and the Trespass-Offering among the Jews to have been Typical of the Sufferings of Christ upon the Cross it is certain likewise that those Sacrifices were looked upon to be of an expiatory Nature by the Priest or the Owners laying his hand upon them as it were to transfer the guilt upon their heads and by the Blouds being forbidden to be eaten among the Jews because it had contracted a Levitical Uncleanness by the guilt of the offending Parties as also by the Sin and the Trespass-Offerings being burnt in many cases without the camp because of it's Uncleanness as Christ suffered without the Gate For the same reason if we will believe the Author to the Hebrews that by this he might answer the Sin-Offering among the Jews Lastly it is certain that this Expiation of the Jewish Sacrifices whatever Opinion the Jews themselves might have of it was not real but typical and pointed at that great Sacrifice which was indeed and in truth to expiate for the Sins of the whole world For it was not possible that the bloud of Bulls and Goats should take away Sins as the Author to the Hebrews tells us and for the same reason it was as little possible that the blood of one man should be able to atone and expiate for the sins of another and much less for those of all mankind so that it was utterly impossible that any thing but the blood of God himself should be able to work so great so universal and so lasting an Atonement which is all that I shall offer at present as to the second branch of the Text which concerns the Divinity of the Person of Christ only from what hath been said there are some practical Improvments to be made which I will but name From his being born of a Virgin we are in a Figure acquainted with the purity and cleanness of his Person and his Doctrine and with that Chastity and Innocence which is expected from us if we pretend to be his Followers and Disciples and from the Divinity of his Person there is a twofold Lesson which we are to learn First the Infiniteness and unconceivable vastness of that condescension by which he did not only stoop to human nature but to the worst and most afflicting Circumstances of Poverty Disgrace Contempt and Scorn that it can be loaded withal and to the most vile painful and ignominious Death which human Nature was capable of Suffering and this ought when ever we consider it to be a powerful and present Remedy against all manner of Insolence and Pride in our best Condition when the Son of God who was God himself humbled himself so much for our sakes and gave us through the whole course of the time he spent upon Earth a perpetual Example of humility and Meekness Secondly it ought to arm us with
from Epicurus so whether his Cometology the absorption of his Stars and the Formation of his Planets were not a part of the Philosophy of the antient World may be a question which deserves to be considered For some such thing seems to be alluded to in that Expression of St. Jude v. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wandring or Planetary Stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever SECTION III. Des Cartez an Atheist his Argument from the Idaea represented BUt I am firmly of opinion whatever the Philosophers are pleased to say who whether they be more conceited of themselves or of their Master Des Cartez is hard to determine that Des Cartez was as rank an Atheist and a far more dangerous one than either Diagoras or Theodorus or any of those whom Antiquity hath branded with that Name and that he had a Design of introducing Atheism and a Belief of nothing but Body into the World For though indeed he does very rightly affirm the Notions of extension and cogitation to be as they are very different from one another yet when he makes extension to be the very Essence and constitutive Nature of matter and takes upon him to assert not only that all matter is extended but also that nothing is extended but what is matter the consequence of this is when I come afterwards to consider that I can have no notion of Substance without extension and I have already granted extension and matter to be the same that cogitation shall be only a certain mode or disposition of the infinitely diversifyed and variously complicated Parts of this extension Again his rejecting those arguments for the existence of a God which have been used all along to be taken from the Fabrick and contrivance of the World as indeed it was necessary for him to do who had contrived such a giddy Vniverse of his own and substituting in the stead of it that Bulrush of an Idea unable to withstand the least puff of disputation which instead of defending the existence of a God is manifectly to betray the cause of God and of Religion does but too plainly discover what thoughts we are to entertain of him by whom so fallacious and inconclusive an argument was substituted in the stead of that which is so strong in it self and hath been so successful in all ages to preserve the belief and worship of a God among Men. To be sure David and this Philosopher were not of a mind for he tells us very honestly for want of this new Philosophy wherewith after ages have been blessed The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard Their line is gone out through all the Earth and their words to the end of the World And that we may see the better how weak and inconclusive his argument drawn from the Idea is I will explain as clearly as I can what it is that he understands by it he tells us therefore what is very true that we are all of us born Infants and that we come into the world without any knowledge or experience of the things about us from whence it so falls out that in some things we pass a wrong Judgment our selves and in others we are deceived by taking things upon trust from those that are themselves mistaken that having once embraced an errour and espoused it for a long time it is very hard as indeed it is for us to undeceive our selves or to believe otherwise of it then as of a most certain and undoubted truth he saith that our senses do in many things delude us and impose upon us as a stick in the water shall appear crooked tho' it be indeed straight and a square Tower or Building shall at a distance have the appearance of round and a Marble touch'd by two fingers crossing one another shall affect one with a Sense as if it were two though it be indeed but one he tells us that in our dreams things do appear to us to be as real as when we are never so wide awake and that there is no certain way to distinguish betwixt the realities of the day and the delusions of the night since the one doth always appear as real as the other and at that time when they strike our Imagination we do as really believe them to be true there are many saith he that argue from a false Principle and then it is impossible but all the Conclusions that are built upon it must either be false or uncertain there are others that let their Principle be never so right yet they do not argue rightly from it and on both sides it happens that those things are taken for certain Demonstrations which are indeed nothing better than very foul and palpable Mistakes and upon such considerations as these he exhorts his Disciple as the best way to discover the Truth to doubt of all things the truth of his Faculties the evidence of his Senses the certainty even of direct and Mathematical Demonstrations but yet at the same time saith he it is impossible I should believe otherwise but that I that doubt must be For I can never give my Assent to this Proposition That that which is not can either doubt or think therefore he lays down this as the first proposition of which we can be certain I doubt therefore I am or I think therefore I am that is I am as yet uncertain of the Existence of my body which being only an Object of my Senses I may be deceived in it as well as in any other sensible Object whatsoever but yet still notwithstanding it is most certainly true I doubt therefore I am that is that thing or nature whatever it is which doubts or thinks or disputes with it self about all other things must of necessity have a real and undoubted Existence of its own and though I be deceived in all the Judgments which I make upon the things about me or that appear to me as if they had a Being yet thus much is still unquestionably true I am deceived therefore I am for that which is not cannot be deceived Wherefore being certain of the Truth of this first Proposition that is so certain that it is impossible for me to doubt of it any longer I doubt or I think or I am deceived therefore I am his next Enquiry is into the nature of this Being that thus pronounces of it self and from it's thinking infers it's Existence and saith he when I look into my self I find the Sphere of my knowledg to be very short and all that I pretend to know very doubtful and uncertain when I look back I cannot recollect that I have been long in Being and when I look forward I have no certainty that I shall exist the next moment from whence he infers of himself That he is
A DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE MESSIAS In Three CHAPTERS The First concerning the Preparatories to his Appearance in the Types and Prophesies of the OLD-TESTAMENT The Second demonstrating that it was Typically or Prophetically necessary that he should be born of a VIRGIN The Third that he is GOD as well as MAN To which is prefixed a large Preface asserting and explaining the Doctrine of the Blessed TRINITY against the Late Writer of the Intellectual System And an Appendix is subjoyned concerning the Divine Extension wherein the Existence of a God is undeniably proved and the main Principles of CARTESIANISM and ATHEISM overthrown By John Turner Hospitaller of St. Thomas Southwark and late Fellow of Christ's College in CAMBRIDGE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid that shall not be known LONDON Printed by T. B. for Randolph Taylor near STATIONERS-HALL MDCLXXXV TO MY HONOURED AND Dear Friend Robert Nightingale Esq SIR THE Obligations for which I stand indebted to Your Goodness are so many and so great and the Friendship with which you have been pleased to own an unprofitable Servant so constant so syncere so zealous that I am forced to break out into this publick Resentment rather out of necessity than deliberation or choice to ease my self of a Load of Gratitude which is very troublesom to me while it keeps within and preys upon it self without any hopes of ever being consumed like the Torments of that miserable State to which the unthankful as well as the unjust or cruel or intemperate are condemned rather than that I have any prospect of doing any thing by it which You will interpret a Service or a respect whose Modesty is such in the midst of many excellent Vertues that it endeavours to conceal them even from Your self and will scarce endure to hear of them from others You must Pardon me therefore if being provoked to extremity by an importunate Goodness that pursues me with so unusual an Affection through every Stage and every days Journey of my Life I now endeavour to make You as You ought to be an Example to the World that You may not shine any longer in darkness and obscurity though that be no more than the best Diamonds are known to do but that like the Sun the King and Fountain of the Day You may communicate the Brightness and Influence of Your Temper to the cold and insensible Corners of the Earth where the Poles of Humanity move with a listless Pace and where true Honour and Friendship are not known Not that I intend to present You with a Character of Your self For it may be dangerous to tell You all Your own as humble and as equal as You are as free from any thing of Vanity or Affectation But instead of that as a further Testimony to and a new Tryal of the Goodness and Gallantry of Your mind I lay this worthless Trifle at Your Feet and bid You good morrow by the Name of Patron which I hope You will bear with Patience not only for my sake but as You do an hard Frost or the Mid-summer Heats or the Autumnal Faintings and Decays of Nature For this is no more than one of the common Calamities incident to human Life and the natural Inconvenience of being an Author's Friend Yet when I call it worthless and Trifle two very ill Names to make a Present withal I mean it only with respect to the transcendent Merit of Him to whom it is offered to the smalness of it's Bulk and the greater meanness and littleness of the Writer who hath scarce any thing else to value himself upon besides Mr. NIGHTINGALE's kind and charitable Opinion otherwise for the Subject there can be nothing greater than that which is concerning that auspitious Birth with which impatient Time and Expectation were so long in labour in which so many Predictions and Prophesies were fulfilled so many Mystic Types and Shadows answered so many and so costly Sacrifices and Expiations ended and for my Management of it I am so far from being one of those that do magnificè sentire of themselves especially without and contrary to Reason as most of those magnificent Opiniators do That all I dare pretend to say concerning it is only this that I have endeavoured to do something which may in some measure excuse and justifie Your Friendship to me Particularly what I have written in the First Part of this Discourse concerning Moses and Joshua and the rest of the Judges and Saviours of Israel concerning Hobed and Jesse and Saul and David and Solomon as having all of them in their Names or Offices or both a preparatory Allusion to the Coming of the Messias the quality of his Person and the nature of his Dispensation is I think so plain and so convincing to any Man that shall consider those Instances singly and by themselves and much more all of them in Confederacy together That I am confident there is no Man who hath seriously consider'd with himself how full of Types and Symbols the Old Testament is both as to the Names and Things that are contained in it but will be forced to confess what I without much Vanity may affirm to be true That it is no inconsiderable Service which is done to the Gospel the Person the Authority of Christ and consequently to Religion by it There may yet perhaps be some Scruple concerning the Etymology of David which I have made to be as much as Dod or The Beloved but as it cannot be questioned but Dod is a very proper Contraction of Daoud and that Doudaim a Word of the Dual Form in the Story of the Mandrakes is as much as Daoudaim so it can as little be doubted that David and Daoud are exactly the same only that the former is more usually the Chaldee Form as the latter is the Hebrew and yet there are not wanting other Words of exactly the same Form in the Hebrew Bibles themselves as Nagid a Participial Noun for a Captain or Commander from the Adverb Neged and so also Phakid or Phakoud are indifferently used for a Visitor Intendant or Inspector In the Second Part which is a Defence of the Chastity of the Virgin-Mother against the Jewish Cavils and Misinterpretations I see not that it is possible that any thing should be plainer than that Sarah and Elizabeth were very proper Types of a conceiving Virgin as she is by the Evangelists represented to have been and whether the undoubted Agreement as to Signification in the Names of Sarah and Mary with one another the first of which seems to have received some little alteration on purpose that it might exactly suit and correspond with the latter do not give invincible strength to the Force of this Conjecture I leave it to Your self or to any other candid Interpreter of things impartially to consider So also for the Exposition of Psal 45. v. 16 17. all that I shall say for it is That it must be
had lost and so the Apostles Barnabas and Paul in the Acts of the Apostles assure us that in the worst of times when God seemed to have left the World wholly to it self and to suffer all Nations to walk in their own wayes nevertheless he left not himself without Witness in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our Hearts with food and gladness And so the latter of these Apostles tells us in the first Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans at the twentieth Verse That the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead But yet the works of Nature how pregnant arguments soever they may afford in themselves of the being of a God and how instructive soever they may appear to a considering Man as to the true way by which he ought to be worshipped yet not being sufficiently attended to by sensual or heedless Men the World for all this was quickly over-run with vice and naughtiness in civil conversation and with Idolatry in Religious worship and therefore such were the exceeding riches of the Divine love and goodness so tender were his Mercies and so compassionate Nature that he did not think it sufficient to have left Men without excuse by the works of his Hands and by the wonders of his Providence unless he did also by express Messengers dispache as it were on purpose from himself admonish them of their sin and of their danger To which purpose it is that soon after the fall of our first Parent God raised up Seth in opposition to the accursed Seed of Cain who carries envy and disobedience in his Name to be a Preacher and example of unblemished life and of a sound and Orthodox Religion and to restore that righteous Seed which was to bruise the Serpents Head and which was in so great danger of being lost and extinguisht in the death of Abel for so saith the Scripture expresly concerning Seth that his Mother who bare him called his Name Seth for this reason for God saith She hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew and to continue this Blessed Seed to posterity that it might never fail Enos not long after was descended of Seth and in his time it is said expresly if we will follow that reading which the present Masorethical Bibles do embrace az Houchal likroth beshem Adonai that then Men began to call upon the Name of the Lord. Of the Posterity of Enos down to Noah we have no particular account transmitted to us only thus much is certain that none of them are any where taxed with any thing of bad example that Enoch is expresly said to have walked with God that is to have lived in his fear and in his favour and to have enjoyed a constant intercourse and communion with him which is not so to be interpreted as if the rest did not do so too but only that his virtue was of a more eminent and extraordinary nature then any of his Predecessours which was the reason of his Translation to a better place before the course of nature was expired and of Noah the last of that succession before the Floud it is said that Lamech his Father who it seems was not without a Prophetic foresight of what was afterwards to befall his Son called his Name Noah saying This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our Hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed He was to take off that curse of Barrenness from the ground by removing first the cause of it which was the disobedience of our first Parent for it is said of him Gen. 6. 9. That He was a just Man and perfect in his Generation and Noah walked with God and secondly by removing the effect of that curse which was the Barrenness and Unfruitfulness of the Earth by Natural and Secondary means by his Skill and Diligence in Husbandry and Tillage as it is in the 9th Chapter at the 20th Verse That He began to be an Husbandman and planted a Vineyard And in the second Epistle of St. Peter he is called the eighth Preacher of Righteousness Chap. 2. v. 4 5. God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to Hell and delivered them into Chains of darkness to be reserved unto Judgment and spared not the old World but saved Noah the eighth Person a Preacher of Righteousness bringing in the Floud upon the world of the ungodly Where what we translate the eighth Person the word Person being supplyed by the Translators to fill up the sense is by a Learned Prelate of our Church translated more exactly thus and spared not the old World but saved Noah the eighth Preacher of Righteousness which implies as much as if he had said that there were seven before him or that all the Patriarchs from Enos down to Noah were Preachers of Righteousness and Repentance to the World so true is it that God did never leave the World without a Witness of himself in the worst of times and in the most degenerate ages that have happened for it was at the conclusion of this interval that it is said That God saw that the wickedness of Man was great in the Earth and that every Imagination of the thoughts of his Heart was only evil continually that the Earth was Corrupt before God and the Earth was filled with violence that God looked upon the Earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the Earth so that it repented the Lord that he had made Man in the Earth and it grieved him at his Heart And yet in this very time as bad as it was God did not only give Testimony to himself by the works of the Creation but also by living Witnesses and express Messengers who as it seems were assisted and acted by an extraordinary Spirit otherwise they would have wanted courage to deliver their Message in so degenerate and corrupt an Age and so St. Peter tells us concerning Noah who was the last Preacher of Repentance to the old World That Christ was put to death in the Flesh but quickned by the Spirit by which also he went and Preached unto the Spirits in Prison which some time were disobedient when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the Ark was a preparing where it is manifest that the Spirits in Prison being interpreted of those disobedient and unreclaimable Persons for whom the long suffering of God waited with so much patience in the days of Noah while the Ark was a preparing the Preaching of Christ must be inpreted of the Preaching of Noah the eighth Preacher of Righteousness by the mission and authority of Christ and by the immediate help and assistance of his Spirit For as the same learned Man whom I have last mentioned with great Judgment observes
considered apart from the Man because it is concerning her particularly that God discourses with the Serpent in that place Gen. 3. 13. And the Lord God said unto the Woman what is it that thou hast done And the Woman said the Serpent beguiled me and I did eat upon which v. 14. The Lord God said unto the Serpent because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all Cattle and above every Beast of the Field upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life and I will put enmity between thee and the Woman and between thy Seed and her Seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel and then it follows verse 17. And unto Adam he said because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy Wife c. From whence it is manifest that the Man and the Woman are here distinguished plainly from one another and consequently that what was above prophesyed of the Seed of the Woman must be understood of that Seed considered apart from the Man But to these Testimonies which have been already made use of by learned Men and the two first of them interpreted of the Messias by the Jews themselves I will now add some more which have not been taken notice of by any before which will give an undeniable strength to the Evidence of this truth that the Messias was to be born of a Virgin and the first thing which I shall instance in shall be the Conception of Sarah which was without question Typical of that of the blessed Virgin for Ifaac was a Type of Christ as is acknowledged by all and his Fathers going about at the command of God to make him a Sacrifice upon the Altar was a Type of that Sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God which was in the fulness of time to be offered up for the sins of the whole World Isaac carries joy and gladness in his Name because in his Seed all the Generations of the Earth were to be blessed as being the Progenitor of him who was the desire and was to be the joy of all nations of whom the Angel said to the surprized Shepherds as they were watching of their Flocks by night Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all People for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord and then it follows And suddainly there was with the Angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God and saying Glory to God in the Highest on Earth peace good will towards Men. The joy was so exceeding great that immediately upon the salutation of Mary the Babe leaped in the Womb of Elizabeth for joy and she spake with a loud voice and said blessed art thou among Women and blessed is the Fruit of thy Womb and whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come unto me And upon an errant preparatory to this happy birth immediately before the birth of John the Baptist it was that the Angel Gabriel was dispatched to Zacharias with this message Thy Wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a Son and thou shalt call his Name John and thou shalt have joy and gladness and many shall rejoyce at his birth and when Zacharias questioned whereby shall I know this the Angel answering said unto him I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God and am sent to speak unto thee these glad tidings the glad tidings of the birth of John who came in the Spirit of Elias and was the forerunner of the Christ that was to come of whom when Mary was convinced that she should be the happy instrument of bringing him into the World she broke out immediately into that lofty and triumphant Song my Soul doth magnifie the Lord and my Spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour for he hath regarded the low Estate of his Hand-maiden For behold from henceforth all Generations shall call me Blessed And more to the same purpose and good old Simeon was so exceedingly transported that he desired to live no longer having once seen the desire and expectation of Israel and of all Nations Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation which thou hast prepared before the Face of all People a light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of thy People Israel Isaac was a Type of Christ as by reason of the great joy that was conceived at his birth after it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of Women so also in this that he was the only Son of his aged Father as our Jesus was the only begotten of God and therefore by Philo Byblius the Translator of Sanchuniathon an antient Phaenitian Writer he is called Ieoud which answers to the Hebrew Iachid and is as much as to say the only begotten and as Isaac was a Type of Christ so was Sarah his Mother of the Blessed Virgin and therefore it is remarkable that the signification of both their Names though the one be Hebrew the other Calday or Syriac is exactly the same signifying a Queen or Princess or a Woman of Principal ranck or quality as that heap of stones which was by Jacob called in Hebrew Galheed an heap of Witness or Testimony was by Laban in the Syriac or Chaldaean Tongue stiled Iegar Sahadoutha and in this an old Woman so far stricken in Years that she was uncapable naturally to conceive or to bear or bring forth any more Children was a very proper Type of conception by a Virgin since both of them are equally impossible by the course of Nature and depend wholly upon the Divine Power which nothing hinders but it may exert it self equally in one case as well as the other And the same was true in the second place concerning Elizabeth the Mother of John whom the Scripture declares expresly to have been a forerunner of Christ for she also was old and so far beyond the least thought or hopes of any issue to be descended from her that Zachariah could not believe the message of the Angel when it was first delivered Whereby shall I know this said he For I am an old Man and my Wife well stricken in Years and the Angel himself confessed that it was impossible by the course of nature and that nothing but the immediate and miraculous Power of God was capable of bringing such an effect to pass in what he saith afterwards to the Blessed Virgin Behold thy Cousin Elizabeth she hath also conceived a Son in her Old Age and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren for with God nothing shall be impossible But though Sarah and Elizabeth might both of them be very proper Types and Forerunners of a Conceiving Virgin because of the natural inabilities for Conception which were equal on both sides yet of any other young and teeming Woman they could not so that
left in Hell neither his Flesh did see Corruption and to the Testimony of St. Peter we may add that of St. Paul in the 13th of the Acts from the 34th to the 37th verses And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead now no more to return to Corruption he said on this wise I will give you the sure mercies of David wherefore he saith also in another Psalm Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy one to see Corruption for David after he had served his own Generation by the will of God fell on sleep and was laid unto his Fathers and saw Corruption But he whom God raised up saw no Corruption From which places compared with the words of our Saviour himself the argument is clear David as his words are expresly applied by two of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul introduces Christ addressing himself to God the Father in such terms as do manifestly ascribe the miracle of the Resurrection to his Power but our Saviour he ascribes the same miraculous event to himself destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up the result of which two places compared together is unavoidably this that Christ and God the Father are the same the same in substance although they be divided and distinguished in Person Further yet Jonas his being three days and three nights in the Whales Belly was Typical of Jesus lying for the same space of time in the Grave by the application of our Saviour himself for so he tells us Mat. 22. at the 39th and 40th verses An evil and adulterous Generation seeketh after a sign and there shall be no sign given it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the Whales Belly so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the Heart of the Earth and if the swallowing up of Jonas was Typical of the burial of Christ and the continuance of the one under that Calamity Typical of the continuance of the other then certainly the escape of Jonas after three days was likewise Typical of the Resurrection of Christ after the same space of time but now Jonas his deliverance was wrought by the immediate Power of God Jonah 2d and the 10th And the Lord spake unto the Fish and it vomited out Jonas upon the dry Land and therefore though the Scripture had not expresly asserted it yet the Analogy of Type and Antitype would have required that the Resurrection of Jesus should be owing likewise as indeed it was in it self a much more miraculous event unto the same Divine Power but yet our Saviour as hath been shewn ascribes the same event wholly to himself therefore God and Christ are certainly the same and this is my second argument for the Divinity of Christ which is taken from his Resurrection from the dead But thirdly he that made the World and all things that are therein he certainly was God as well as Man but Christ made the World and all things that are therein therefore Christ certainly was God as well as Man That no Human Power or Vnderstanding nay that nothing short of the Divinity it self could possibly create contrive dispose and preserve the World will I suppose be granted by all it being utterly unconceiveable that any skill or power but what is infinite should be able to bring so prodigious an effect to pass but now that Christ made the World is as plainly asserted in the New Testament as any one thing that is in it so the Author to the Hebrews tells us God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son whom he hath appointed Heir of all things by whom also he made the World who being the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person and upholding all things by the word of his Power when he had by himself purged our sins sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high and again Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thine Hands they shall perish but thou remainest and they shall all wax old as doth a Garment and as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail so also St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians By him were all things Created that are in Heaven and that are on Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were Created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist St. John likewise tells us that the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth in which nothing can be plainer then that by the word Jesus the Son of God is understood who did indeed take our Flesh and dwell among us he took upon him the likeness of Men and put on the form of a Servant and it is of this very word that he says the word was with God and the word was God and that all things were made by him which is my third Argument for the Divinity of Christ which is drawn from the Creation But fourthly St. John goes further all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made from whence the inference is plain that he himself was never made for then there would have been something made without him for nothing can make it self but if he were unmade and uncreated it follows of necessity that he was Eternal and self-existent and consequently God Fifthly St. John does not only tell us that he made all things and that without him was not any thing made that was made but he says likewise In the beginning was the word now this beginning cannot be understood of the beginning of the Creation as it is in the 1st Chapter of Genesis In the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth for he that made the World must of necessity have had his Existence before it and all being nothing else beyond the Creation but a great and vast Eternity behind it not divided by any Periods or Epochas of time it is manifest that this word beginning as it is here used can imply nothing else but the Eternity or self-existence of him of whom it is affirmed for if there was any thing that was before him then it would not be true that he was in the beginning that is there was no assignable no conceiveable moment of Eternity wherein he did not exist and this is my fifth Argument But Sixthly he that hath neither beginning of Days nor end of Life is Eternal and consequently God but Christ had neither beginning of Days nor end of Life