out Lord save us we perish So natural decorous and becoming are all the Actions and Miracles of Christ. 5. There is only one behinde Instantia monodica as a man may call it an Example not parallel'd in the whole History of the Gospel which is The cursing of the Fig-tree the meaning whereof has puzzled many as the narration it self has scandalized some as if this act was guilty not only of Levity but of a ridiculous kinde of Ferocity with a semblance of Injustice if Injustice can be committed against a Tree For was there any reason that a Tree should be cursed for not bearing fruit when the time of year was not yet for the bearing thereof This seems very odd and preposterous But if it be rightly understood there is nothing more grave more sober nor more weightily mysterious 6. For my own part I make no question but that the genuine meaning of it is this and what it signifies it sets out to the very life viz. That the most acceptable and desireable fruit of the everlasting Righteousness was not then found in the Iudaical dispensation nay I add further That it was never intended that that Tree should bring forth any such fruit but only the fair Fig-leaves of an External and Ceremonial Righteousness and a more overly and Legal kind of Morality but the more perfect fruits of the regenerating Spirit were not to be found there though Christ came into the world to exprobrate to them the want thereof and so to put a period to the Iudaical dispensation so as that it should quite wither away and fall to nothing as we find it come to pass at this very day Which Consideration amongst others that occur in Scripture more evidently confirms what we finde true in effect That according to the Eternal counsell of God Christ was mainly intended for the Gentiles and that breaking this shell of Iudaisme in which he was brooded under so many Types and Shadows he should take his flight thence and after spread his wings from one end of the Earth to the other 7. But this Mystery having something of seeming harshness in it to men of less profound minds such was the sweetness and inoffensiveness of our Saviour's temper that he would neither scandalize them nor grate too hard against the Iudaical Oeconomy which that Nation so highly reverenced and therefore recorded this Truth only in this Enigmatical miracle 8. And thus to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not only usual with the Prophets but practised also by our Saviour himself in other cases as well as in this As in the manner of his healing him that was born blinde John 9. where the Ceremonies he useth seem very uncouth and strange before one knows the meaning of them but rightly understood they must be acknowledged admirably fit for the purpose I mean not for curing of the blinde For what can clay and spittle and the water of a pool avail for the restoring of Sight to one that was born blind but for mysteriously setting out some grand Truths concerning Iesus 9. As that he was the Son of God or that Eternal Word whereby God created the World and framed man of the Earth in token whereof he tempers Clay and Spittle he being about to rectifie and amend the workmanship of his own hands To which Erasmus seems plainly to allude in his Paraphrase upon the place Ejusdem autem Autoris est restituere quod perierat qui condider at quod non erat Besides another Truth of very great importance which is set out to the very life in this Typical cure viz. That we are to expect the Renovation of our minds and our Regeneration from that power that created us That no man can come to Christ as he is a visible person unless the Father that is the Eternal Divinity draw him or as the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians That no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost 10. Now I say That Christ's tempering Clay and Spittle does emblematize the Eternal Deity that created all things and his acting first upon the blinde man so sending of him to the pool of Siloam by which undoubtedly is meant Shilo or the Messias this does plainly figure out the forementioned Truths That those that do come to Christ and faithfully adhere to him are prepared and given to him of God and that by Faith in him they are purg'd and purified from all blindness and filthiness by the assistance of that Spirit which is promised to all that believe in him according to what Christ himself has pronounced He that believeth on me out of his heart shall flow streams of living waters which he understands of the Spirit of which these waters of Siloam are therefore a very fit Figure or Emblem they fitly denoting even from the very name as I have already intimated the clearing and healing Spirit of Christ who is the Shilo or Siloam wherewith we are to be washed and cleansed from that foulness and earthly-mindedness which we had contracted in the state of Nature or First creation before the act of Regeneration has passed upon us 11. We have considered the Miracles of Christ let us give a short glance on his Prophesies In which that which is mainly considerable is that they are very few Which I look upon as a reprehension and reproach of that natural itch in mankind to Divinations and Predictions of which Impostors usually much boast and a Nation of America though more Atheistical then all the rest are so vehemently set upon that they often even grow mad again with that study But very little fell from our Saviour's mouth by way of Prophesie but what was in a manner of indispensable concernment to be foretold Such as his own Sufferings and Resurrection the Destruction of the City the General Iudgment He exercised also his power of Divination in his conference with the woman of Samaria but his applications there were so serious that he forgot the sense of hunger being more pleased with the attempts of her conversion and her Country-men then with the most delicate junkets that could be set before him He foretold also who should betray him but it was to demonstrate that both his Betraying and all his Sufferings else they being foreseen might have been avoided and therefore that he underwent them willingly To which also those Predictions tend When I am lifted up I shall draw all men unto me as also of the good Shepheard laying down his life for his sheep and then presently adding And other sheep I have which are not of this fold meaning the Gentiles who were to be brought in by his Death Which is a plain Demonstration that Christ suffered death voluntarily out of his entire love to the World and that he knew aforehand what an Effectual instrument his Passion would prove for the conversion of the Gentiles to
to so great a piece of Folly as to fansy this mistaken Wight so Sacred and Divine a person as to be prophesied of in the Holy Scriptures But the places that are alledged are so weakly and ineptly applied that it is a further confirmation of their being strangely hood-winked and held down with an over-bearing effascination and witchcraft For how vain a thing is it to make this Man that Angel that preached the Everlasting Gospel whenas that Angelical Preachment was at least seven or eight hundred years before he lived according to all those Interpreters that have endeavoured to give a solid and coherent account of S. Iohn's Prophecy But this is more then I need attempt or it may be can be done to confute this assertion by Chronological demonstration It is sufficient to note that it is groundless a mere phansy unbacked by Reason and Argument whenas on the contrary there is evident Reason against it This person whom they so much adore being rather a Decryer of the Everlasting Gospel then a Preacher of it as shall appear in due time 2. The Second conceit of his being prophesied of in Scripture is fixt upon that of S. John 1. verse 21. where they would have him to be That Prophet viz. an eminent Prophet distinct from Elias and Christ. But it is very discernable how weak an Alledgement this is For first if there were such an eminent Prophet expected distinct from Elias and Christ it does not follow it is he And then again this expectation of the Jewes is no Divine Testimony And thirdly as some Interpreters have noted they expected him before the coming of Elias as Elias before the coming of Christ. Others understood by That Prophet the Prophet Ieremie who is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Prophet of God And lastly amongst the rest that excellent Critick and pious Interpreter Castellio renders it simply a prophet the sense being At least art thou a Prophet See Castellio upon the place So many weaknings are there of this groundless Fiction of his being prophesied of in this place of Scripture 3. But I shall produce a Third place and that of his own chusing Acts 17. where God is said to have appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead This shameless Enthusiast does not stick to apply to himself this place as if he were the man prophesied of therein Whenas it is manifest it is meant of the Person of Christ whom God had corporeally raised from the Grave as a palpable Pledge and Assurance that the World should be judged by him according to the Scriptures Math. 25.31 But supposing the meaning to be that which this fanatick Boaster would have it see what sense it will make with the preceding verse which would be this That God now commands all men every where to repent namely because 1500 years hence he will raise up H. Nicolas from the dead in a moral sense who shall judge the world by his doctrine What Bedlam Madness is this to vent such Expositions of the Holy Writ upon pretence of higher Inspiration then ever was yet in the World The Apostle's exhortation would be as wild sense as if one should earnestly cry unto the people walking in Paul's to run out of the Church as fast as they can because it is ready one thousand five hundred years hence to fall down upon their heads 4. That I may not omit any places that they alledge I will adde also 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. For we know in part and we prophesy in part But when that which is perfect is come then that which is imperfect shall be done away And Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ let us go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation of Repentance from dead works and of Faith toward God of the doctrine of Baptisme laying on of hands and of the Resurrection of the dead and of the Eternal judgement From these two places they are wont to gather that the Doctrine of Christ is imperfect and a more perfect Doctrine was to come which is say they the Doctrine of Hen. Nicolas Which argument is as weak and frivolous as blasphemous For it is plain that in the former place he compares not any Doctrine to be set on foot on earth with the present Doctrine of Christ and knowledge of the Apostles but the condition of the knowledge of the Christian Church in this life with that which she shall have in Heaven and therefore he saith Now I know in part but then I shall know even as I am known What does S. Paul mean that he shall know nothing clear till H. Nicolas his time O the madness and impudence of these giddy Interpreters And to the latter Text What would they have us to let go our Christian Creed under pretence of a new Doctrine which is more perfect Yea certainly they would so as will appear more plainly anon But how shamefully they abuse this Scripture to that execrable end is evident from the following verse And this will we do if God permit That is The Apostle himself will deliver that doctrine of Perfection he mentions in the first verse and therefore it is no Prophecy of the Doctrine of H. Nicolas but a more exquisite Declaration of the excellency of Christs Priesthood which is too long and too accurate to fill a short Creed But what pittiful shifts are these deluded Fanaticks put to when they have no better Alledgements then these for their rebellious Errours against Christ 5. I shall conclude my examination of their grounds of believing this Fanatick so great and eminent a Prophet with something a more trim conceit of his followers whereby they would countenance their high opinion they have of him which is hinted also from himself namely That the Series of Times and Providence seem to give witness to the mighty Professions he makes of his own Ministry For as there was for a time a Service of the Law under God the Father and then a Service of the Belief under Christ the Son so likewise the Holy Ghost must have his turn and have his Service and what Service can that be but the Service of the Love To which I answer That if they speak this in good earnest in reference to the three Hypostases of the ever-Blessed Trinity it is plain that that Mystery was not communicated to the World under the Law of Moses but concealed in the hidden Cabbala among the Wise men and Prophets not to be published till Christ for the better clearing and fitter recommending the Theory of his Union with the Eternal Word With the appearance therefore of Christ with whom all the fulness of Divine Wisdome was to be imparted to men a distincter knowledge of the Deity and clearer assurance of
mentioned they be proposed in the Scripture but in a more shady obscure and general way that being enough to serve the End they are proposed for And if any one be at a loss how to conceive the Mystery let him make it up with devout admiration and humble veneration Affections better becoming every holy man then a fierce and peremptory pursuit of his own conceited Reason and bold attempt to pry into those things that God has thought fit to hide from him Which is a saucy and clownish as forcibly to unveil or unmask some noble Matron or modest Virgin whether they will or no. 5. But that no fraud be done to Truth nor mankind left liable to all the incredible forgeries and fables of covetous Priests and Impostors we shall more carefully limit this our exaction of Reverence only to such Articles of Religion as are recommended to us not only upon account of Divine Revelation and Serviceableness to some laudable end but are also clear from contradiction and incompossibility For for my own part I am well assured That God who made our Faculties will never offer any thing to us to believe that upon close debate does plainly contradict them Else all Religions were alike credible and the Moons coming out of Mahomet's sleeve as passable as the History of Ionas his being three dayes and three nights in the Whales belly and afterwards coming out alive Which though it be miraculous is not at all impossible 6. And therefore I do with all confidence imaginable assert That the Divinity of Christ and the Triunity so far forth as the Scripture has de-declared it self in these points have nothing of contradiction nor impossibility in them Nay I will go one step further Athanasius his Creed which one would think is expresse enough concerning this Mystery if certain words in it be but varied in that latitude of sense which they are capable of and not only so but must of necessity have in the Creed there may be such an interpretation made of it as the most captious Reason can finde no cavil against CHAP. II. 1. That there is a latitude of Sense in the words of Athanasius his Creed and that One and Unity has not the same signification every where 2. The like in the terms God and Omnipotent 3. Of the word Equal and to what purpose so distinct a knowledge of the Deity was communicated to the Church 4. In what sense the Son and Holy Ghost are God That Divine adoration is their unquestionable right And that there is an intelligible sense of Athanasius his Creed and such as supposes neither Polytheisme Idolatry nor Impossibility 5. That there is no intricacy in the Divinity of Christ but what the Schools have brought in by their false notions of Suppositum and Union Hypostatical 6. That the Union of Christ with the Eternal Word implies no Contradiction and how warrantable an Object he is of Divine worship 7. The Application thereof to the Iews 8. The Union of Christ with God compared with that of the Angels that bore the Name Jehovah in the Old Testament 9. The reasonableness of our Saviours being united with the Eternal Word and how with that Hypostasis distinct from the others 1. NOw that there is necessarily understood this latitude of variety in the sense of several of the words of the Creed is apparent from the consent of those that do subtilize this Mystery to the utmost curiosity For it is impossible for them or any else to think that the Godhead of the whole Trinity is One in the same sense that the Father considered alone is One or the Son or Holy Ghost so considered For then there being no more Unity in the single Hypostases then in the whole Trinity every Hypostasis will be Triune which no man will assert Wherefore there is a latitude of sense in the word One or Unity allowable in the Creed 2. So when the Father is said to be Omnipotent the Son Omnipotent and the Holy Ghost Omnipotent it is evident that Omnipotent has not the same sense in all For the Father has the power of Eternal Generation of the Son and both Son and Father of an Eternal Emission of the Spirit but the Son does not proceed from the Spirit neither is the Father generated of the Son Yet the Spirit and the Son which are both from the Father how infinitely do they exceed the Creation of the World And the like may be said of the term God by which if you understand That which is first of all in such a sense as that all else is from him and he from none the Son and the Spirit cannot be said to be God in this signification because the Father is not from them but they from the Father 3. And therefore it is further manifest that the word Equal is not to be understood mathematically and absolutely but in an useful reference to us Which is a Key that will easily open the whole Mystery of the Creed which God did not communicate to the world to spin and weave unprofitable cobwebs out of but did thus explicitly impart the knowledg of his Divine glory that understanding the Distinctness of his Godhead in the Triunity thereof the Divinity of Christ might the better be conceived and how warrantable an Object he is of our worship Divine Adoration For it passing through the Titles of the Humanity to the Eternal Son of God there cannot be the least scruple or show of Idolatry in such Divine worship 4. For the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God as well as the Father that is to say they are all Eternal Omnipresent Omniscient Omnicreant and therefore Divine Adoration is due without question to the whole Trinity from the Creatures And not upon this account onely but because they are so perfectly One and have the same indivisible Omnipresency and therefore are One entire Godhead One coequal Glory and Majesty coeternal I say then that this latitude of sense being once admitted which is necessarily implied the meaning of Athanasius his Creed may prove such as no imputation of either Polytheisme Idolatry or unconceivable Impossibility can be alledged against it and the end of this Mystery fully served in such an intelligible Interpretation But I shall not undertake any such Paraphrase in this place And what I have already ventured at is rather by way of Essay or invitation to others to make trial then peremptory assertion in so profound a point that deserves rather our humble admiration then curious disquisition It is sufficient that so far as Scripture has determined of this Article it is without exception or Contradiction 5. The Divinity of Christ in my apprehension is a more easie Object of belief being as intelligible as the Union of our Soul and Body For as they two make up one man so God and Man make one Christ as Athanasius himself has expressed it This the Schools call Hypostatical Union which has no intricacy
look upon as fundamentally repugnant to Christianity it self if the New Testament be the foundation of Christianity For I know nothing more express then that in those Writings And therefore the denying of the Trinity is the denying of the Authority of the New Testament Or if they will pretend they can interpret things there so as to evade this doctrine by the same reason I think they may evade any and so still the sacred Writ shall stand for a cypher and signifie nothing which tends mainly to the enervating of our Faith and is a gross entrenchment upon the third Rule 4. And truly I think it may be made to appear that it is also particularly against the second For the Divinity of Christ does not fall in so handsomly and kindly without the supposition of a Trinity as I have elswhere intimated and therefore I look upon it as a special piece of Providence that so explicite a knowledge of the Godhead in the Triunity thereof was so generally made known to the world together with Christianity that the Eternal Son of God might be worshipped through Christ and the whole Deity as I may so say distinctly honour'd and adored 5. But they will reply that though they deny the Trinity and Divinity of Christ namely that the Eternal Word was made Flesh yet they assert that Divine Honour is due unto him and therefore do not transgress against the second Rule For they acknowledge that though Christ be but man yet God has given him all power in Heaven and in Earth and that he shall return visibly to judge the quick and the dead and that as the Father has life in himself so has he given him to have life in himself that is the power of enlivening us and quickening us at the last and of changing these vile bodies of ours into the similitude of his glorious body And therefore that their Opinion serves the End of Christianity as well as the other in reference to Divine Worship due to Christ and is more sutable to the fourth Rule these perplexities of Christs Divinity and the Triunity of the Godhead making our Religion less passable and recommendable to those that are without 6. But to this I answer First as before That to take away the Trinity and Divinity of Christ is to take away the Authority of the New Testament or to take such a liberty of forcing and distorting the sense of things as will make it contemptible and useless then which what can be of more dangerous consequence It will be a Trespass not only against one but against all the Rules I have set down and make the Gospel pass very ill not only with strangers but our selves too and turn Christendome back to Infidelity and Paganisme But Secondly I deny that the Scripture declares any thing concerning the Divinity of Christ or the holy Trinity that is impossible contradictious or more unintelligible then things that men do ordinarily assent to that are free Philosophers and admit nothing upon force or Superstition but upon Reason and That the Union of the Eternal Word with the humane Nature of Christ is as conceivable for the Modus as the Union of the Soul and Body That the Intricacies of the Schools are fooleries and not to be taken into our Religion That the Scripture only sets forth a Triunity in the Godhead in general not obscured by any terme that can entangle any one of a tolerable wit and understanding unless he will be so blockish as to think because the second Hypostasis in this Trinity is called Son that the Father was married and had a wife as the Turks fondly object whenas nothing else is signified but that the Son is from the Father and the Holy Ghost from both Thirdly That the first Author Beginner or at least the most eminent Renewer of this Sect that so boldly and stoutly denies the Trinity was one though of a leguleious Wit yet so inept and averse from Divine matters that he flatly denies that the Existence of God is discoverable by the light of Nature and Reason And after he has found him by help of Scripture as he thinks yet he has missed him For that which is not Infinite in Essence cannot be God And therefore it is no wonder if he hangs off so heavily from the admission of that more distinct and full knowledge of him manifested in the holy Oracles that those that symbolize so much with his Genius in other things follow him also in this Fourthly The noblest Spirits best Philosophers that ever appear'd in the world for the Knowledge of Nature and of God and that some Ages before Christ of their own choice without force or obtrusion held the Triunity of the Godhead which though I will not avouch to be perfectly right in all things they being even over-accurate in the describing of it therefore well may trip yet for the main is such that there is reason for it but none at all against it it is very sutable in the general to those general intimations in the Scripture Nor do I believe any Christian bound to hold the Theory in the set formes of humane Invention though he may peruse them believe as much as he thinks good and do think it a decent thing that his Reason cannot perfectly reach nor exhaust so profound a Mystery that therefore he is to make up the rest in humble Adoration Fifthly and lastly By denying the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ other Articles of our Faith are made incredible and that Divine Adoration we give to Christ suspected of Idolatry For it will not seem credible to strangers especially that abhor such superstitions that God ever exalted any mere man to such a pitch as the Socinians themselves acknowledge Christ is exalted but that it is some cunning plot to lapse the World or retain it in Idolatrous Worship It will also seem to them incredible if Christ be mere man that he should by a power in himself as he professes be able to perform his promise at the last day that is to raise us all to a glorious and immortall life changing these bodies of flesh into a pure celestial substance which is an act for none but the Deity to doe And therefore if it be done by any thing in himself it is by the Deity residing in him by the Eternal Word by whom all things were created Who was said to be the Son of God before the Incarnation and after the Incarnation both he that was born in time and this Eternal Word is look'd upon as one Son of God by real and Physical union From whence that is easily understood which we alluded to before As the Father has life in himself so has he given to the Son to have life in himself But our Adversaries way is very unconceivable and unintelligible and therefore doth plainly transgress against the Rule he pretends it most agrees with the
and what he utters concerning the Spirit chap. 16.14 He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you Wherefore I say the Fathers being every way so fairly invited to bring the Platonick Notion of the Trinity into the Church assuredly if themselves had been Platonists and had fetched the Mystery from that School they would not have failed to have done it 7. Secondly Admit that the ancient Fathers were Platonists and brought the Mystery of the Trinity into the Church of the Christians it does not straight follow That it is therefore a Pagan or Heathenish Mystery Pythagoras and Plato having not received it from Pagans or Heathens but from the learned of the Iews as sundry Authors assert the Iews themselves in long succession having received it as a Divine Tradition and such is Platonisme acknowledged to be by Iamblichus who sayes it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And assuredly if there had not been some very great reason for it men so wise and profoundly knowing as Pythagoras Plato Plotinus and others would never have made so much adoe about it 8. Thirdly and lastly I say it is not only impious but vain and foolish to asperse that Mystery with the reproch of Paganisme that is so plainly to them that be not prejudiced set down and held forth in the Holy Scripture For the very Forme of Baptisme prescribed by our Saviour evidently enough denotes Three Divine Hypostases Of the Father there is no question Concerning the Divinity of the Sonne we shall speak more fully in the Second point we proposed That the Holy Ghost is not a mere Power Property or Attribute of God but an Hypostasis one free enough from being swai'd by Tradition or Authority of any Church and as himself conceits a very close and safe adherer to Scripture does grosly enough acknowledge while he makes it some created Angel that bears the sacred Title of the Holy Ghost and undergoes those Divine functions that are attributed to him But we need not maintain Truth by any mans Error it being sufficiently able to support it self and therefore we will make use of no advantage but what Scripture it self offers us And this Forme of Baptisme affords us something to the evincing that the Holy Ghost is not an Attribute but an Hypostasis For sith that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to give up a mans self to the Discipline Government and Authority of this or that Person it is the most natural sense to conceive that all Three mentioned in the Forme are Persons we being so well assured that two of them are But there are other passages of Scripture that will make the point more clear Rom. 15.13 The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost Now if the Holy Ghost were but a Power not a Person what a ridiculous Tautology would it be for the sense would be through the power of the holy power Again John 16.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very ill Syntax were it not that there is a Personality in the Holy Spirit which by what follows is most undeniably evident For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak To receive of one and communicate to others by way of hearing and speaking what can that belong to but a Person or Hypostasis To this you may adde also Mark 13.11 Whatsoever shall be given you in that hour that speak ye for it is not you that speak but the Holy Ghost Now that this Hypostasis is not a created Angel amongst other Reasons the Conception of Christ may well argue it being more congruous That that spirit that moved upon the waters and created the world should form that holy Foetus in the womb of the Virgin then that any created Angel should apply himself to that work for he had not then been the Son of God but of an Angel as in reference to his birth in time 9. Besides this one Individual Spirit in Scripture in represented as every where ready to sanctify to regenerate to distribute various gifts and graces to the Church to have spoke by the mouth of the Prophets to be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a discerner of the thoughts of the heart Baptisme also and Benedictions are imparted in his name he is also called to witness which is a piece of Divine worship all which seems more naturally to be understood of him whom we properly call the Spirit of God then of any particular created Angel whatsoever 10. We shall onely adde one place more which will put all out of doubt to them that do not doubt of the Text it self 1 John 5.7 There are three witnesses in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are One What can be writ more plain for the proof of the Triunity of the Godhead But for those that suspect the Clause to be supposititious I shall not trouble my self to confute them that task being performed so solidly and judiciously by a late Interpreter that nothing but Prejudice and Wilfulness can make a man depart unsatisfied with so clear a demonstration Wherefore secure of this Point Concerning the Trinity we go on to the next concerning The Divinity of Christ. CHAP. V. 1. That the natural sense of the First of S. Iohn does evidently witness the Divinity of Christ. 2. A more particular urging of the circumstances of that Chapter 3. That S. Iohn used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Iewish or Cabbalistical notion 4. The Trinity and the Divinity of Christ argued from Divine worship due to him and from his being a Sacrifice for sin 5. That to deny the Trinity and Divinity of Christ or to make the Union of our selves with the Godhead of the same nature with that of Christ's subverts Christianity 6. The uselesness and sauciness of the pretended Deification of Enthusiasts and how destructive it is of Christian Religion 7. The Providence of God in preparing of the Nations by Platonisme for the easier reception of Christianity 1. THat Christ is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a mere Creature but a divine Hypostasis or truly really and Physically not Allegorically and Morally joyn'd with that Divine Hypostasis which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if men would not bring their own sturdy preconceptions but listen to the easy and natural aire of the Text the Beginning of S. Iohns Gospel would put out of all controversy For I 'le appeal to any supposing the Union of Christ's Humanity with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be true in what fitter more significant or better-becoming way could it be expressed then already it is in the Beginning of that Gospel Wherefore to interpret it in any other sense is to delude themselves and to abuse the Scripture through the prepossessions of their
Soul upon the out-side of his Body as a shirt or surplice which done they examine him whether he believe in the Law of Mahomet with a deal of other stuff to that purpose That also is a wonderfull fine fiction of his That when he was four year old the Angel Gabriel took him by the hand and led him behinde a Hill and there with a sharp rasor cut up his breast and took out his Heart which having cleansed of a black speck he after put it in again But it is evident from the effect that the Angel did not use his incision-knife for the best advantage for preventing of those so many and so enormous acts of Adultery which Mahomet was famous for or it may be the meaning is that that black speck being taken out he was then impeccable I mean in that Fanatick sense that doe what he would he could not sin no not though he lay with his own Mother or murthered his Father a wilde conceit of some Enthusiasts of these daies 4. It would be an endless labour to record all the Follies of this Prophet the most judicious whereof is his Pretense to Miracles For he that has neither Miracles nor can feign any what face has he to profess himself a Prophet The first Miracle he pretends to we have mentioned already which was the cleansing of his Heart of the black spot which makes men obnoxious to be assaulted by the Devil as the Mahometans conceive The second happened when he was seventeen years old when a Cloud like a Canopy kept over his head in an hot day as he travailed with his masters Camels To these you may adde his being saluted by an Angel in the cave and spoken to by Stones and Trees and brute Creatures with this compellation Haile MAHOMET the Messenger of God as also the weeping of a dry trunk of a Palm-tree at his departure and exile from Mecha 5. But the Three most notable Miracles are still behind The First whereof is the cleaving of the stock of a Tree by Mahomet's stumbling at it as he was walking with his eyes devoutly looking up unto Heaven For the Tree clove of it self to give the holy Prophet passage but when he was gone by presently grew together again The Second is the cluttering of Trees together to keep the Sun off from him and the retiring of them every one to his own place at his command in Zuna Mahomet more particularly affirms that on a day he doing the necessities of Nature in an open place he commanded two Trees to come to him to keep off the heat of the Sun from him which they did immediately their roots being torn out of the Earth and that he commanding them to return the Trees obeyed and were fastened into the Earth in their own place as before But the last and most notable Miracle which equally argues his Ignorance of Nature as well as the Wildness of his Phansie is his dividing of the Moon into two parts and making one part goe into one of his sleeves and the other into the other and both of them to come out at his neck and then soadering of both parts together and so restoring her to the same place in Heaven from whence by his prayer he made her to descend Of which Miracles this is briefly to be noted That as some of them are not possible so none of them that are are pretended to be done before witnesses and that most of them are very foolish and ridiculous 6. These things are recorded by a very grave and pious person and a true and sincere Christian so far as I can discern Iohannes Andreas the son and successour of Abdalla a Mahometan Priest a man throughly-well skill'd in the Religion and Law of Mahomet who after his conversion to Christianity wrote a Book and in my apprehension with a great deal of honesty and judgment concerning the Imposture of Mahometism out of which I have recited what you have heard and might adde much more both out of him and other Writers But this will suffice to demonstrate Mahomet to be such as I have characterized him and make us by such comparison as these the better understand and the more sensibly relish the Sobriety Decency and unexceptionable Solidity of our own Religion CHAP. XI 1. Three main Consequences of Christ's Apotheosis 2. of the Mission of the Holy Ghost and the Apostles power of doing Miracles 3. The manner of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them at the day of Pentecost 4. The substantial Reasonableness of the circumstances of this Miracle 5. The Symbolical meaning of them 6. What was meant by the rushing winde that filled the whole house 7. What by the fiery cloven tongues 8. A recital of several other Miracles done by or happening to the Apostles 9. The Congruity and Coherence of the whole History of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles argued from the Success 1. AFter our something-long but needfull Digression to view the false and unsound waies that Mahomet David George and his Fanatical fellow of Amsterdam would lead men in we return now to that faithfull way and true guide Iesus Christ whose Resurrection Ascension and Apotheosis we having passed through we shall now proceed to the Three last things we propounded all which are very natural and suitable Consequences of his Apotheosis his sitting and ruling of the world at the right hand of the Father And they are these His sending of the Holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost and enabling his Apostles and Disciples to doe Miracles The great Success of their Endeavours in the World they being thus assisted by so Miraculous a power And Christ's visible return into the World to judge the quick and the dead 2. The First of these which is The Mission of the Holy Ghost and the enabling of his Apostles to work Miracles it was not only fitting to be performed as being first promised by Christ while he was with them here on Earth but also needfull to have been done though it had not been promised that when they went out to preach the Gospel to the Nations they might not seem wholly ridiculous and contemptible in propounding such vain and incredible things as they would seem to the World and such as had some kind of blemish or reproach with them recommending to them one for the Son of God whom the Jews had crucified for a Malefactor betwixt two thieves Certainly if an extraordinary power had not assisted them and they could not have done something beyond Nature they would have been laughed at and hissed out of every place they came to But having this supernatural assistance both their own Faith was the more firmly rooted thereby they finding that Iesus approved himself to the utmost to be all that with his Father which he professed himself to be and they were so exceedingly encouraged and emboldened through this sensible presence of the Deity going along with them that no dangers nor affronts
believe any other Service or Information but what is administered by the Elders in the house of the Love enjoins them to give up their Understandings wholy to the Eldest of the Family and to give ear to none else but the Teachers of his own Sect. Nay he will not so much as suffer them to appeal to the Light that is within them nor to judge themselves nor be judged by their own Consciences but only by the Elders of the house of the Love concerning whom they must not have the least suspicion of Errour or Unfaithfulness Which is the greatest Tyranny and Slavery upon the Soul of man that can be devised and a shrewd Indication that those Elders will approve and advise things against express Scripture Reason and Conscience And thus is many a poor simple Lamb catched out of the Fold of Christ and carried quite away without recovery into the thickest and remotest Woods and darkest Caverns or Dens to be devoured by this white Wolf who by his gracious speeches heart-melting insinuations soft-soothing language that is oiled and perfumed with nothing but Love first intices the little ones after whom his mouth most of all waters to a great esteem of himself and then utterly extinguishes in them to their Eternal Destruction all that Faith they had in the Person and Promises of our ever-blessed Saviour Which he does by intercepting all aid that the use of Reason and the Knowledge of the Scripture could administer giving them such hard language as we have above recited the civilest aspersion he bestows being the Imagination of the Knowledge but magnifying himself and his Service of the Love that is his own Doctrine above whatever yet appear'd to the sons of men as you shall now hear 4. For he sets himself above Abraham Moses David and all the Prophets above Iohn the Baptist yea above the Person of Christ himself For indeed he will allow that the service of the Fathers in the Covenant of Circumcision until Moses was the Forefront of the true Tabernacle and that Moses in figures and shadows set out the true being of the true sanctuary of God in the Spirit and that to David and the Prophets was shewn the true Being in the Spirit of their sight That Iohn the Baptist was a Preparation by Repentance to an entrance into the Holy of the true Tabernacle and that this Holy of the true Tabernacle is the Service of Christ in the Belief But the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy this he reserves to himself and his Service of the Love Wherein as he boasts is the Perfection of Life the Completion of all Prophecies from the beginning of the World the righteous Judgment of God the Throne of Christ before which all things must needs be manifested the perfect Being of the Godhead and the true Rest of the chosen of God He calls also this his Service of the Love the Last Day and the Perfection and Conclusion of all the works of God Whereby he would intimate it to be an everlasting Seventh day or Sabbath And yet he will have it also the Eighth Day as if he affected an holy-day beyond that of God himself and a time beyond Eternity 5. Again in his Prophecie of the Spirit of Love he sets himself highest in the enumeration of the Three principal Services namely the Service of the Law under God the Father the Service of the Belief under Christ the Saviour and the Service of the Love under the Holy Ghost The affectation of which office he learnt of his master David George as is noted by them that have wrote of these Enthusiasts I omit to speak of lesser Encomiums of his doctrine as That it is the last Trump that sure word of Prophecie that his day of the Love is that new day that the Lord has made abundant in clearness and full of Eternal joy the new Ierusalem descending from Heaven and the Inheritance of the Right-perfection We will conclude all with what he writes in his Revelation of God Behold presently in this day is the Kingdome of the God of Heaven and his Righteousness the godly Majesty and his Glory as also the salvation of Christ and the eternal life appeared in perfect Clearness with great Triumph and Ioy The Resurrection also of the dead the cleansing of the Earth the blessing of all Generations the righteous Iudgment of God the Glorious coming of Christ with all the thousands of Saints and the everlasting Condemnation of all ungodly in the hellish Fire What therefore can you expect more then is accomplished in his Service of the Love and what greater Person can there be then he who sets so glorious a Dispensation on foot on the earth Let us therefore take notice what he makes himself in the midst of this Glory and Pomp which he sets out 6. As if it were a small thing for him to be raised from the dead and to be anointed with the holy Ghost he boasteth further that God has sealed in him the Dwelling of his Glory and of his Holy Name and elsewhere that he is Godded with God and consubstantiated with the Deity and expresly in his Evangely Chap. 34. he declares how God has manned himself with him and Godded him with his Godhead to a living Tabernacle a House for his dwelling and to a seat of his Christ the seed of David and how the Judgment-seat of Christ is revealed out of Heaven from the right hand of God and that on the same Judgment-seat of Christ there sitteth one meaning himself in the Habitation of David which judgeth uprightly thinketh upon equity and requireth righteousness and that through him God will judge the compass of the Earth This in his Introduction to the Glass of Righteousness is the right Messias the high Priest for ever in the most holy the noble King of Israel and Iuda that possesses the seat of his Father an everlasting peaceable Prince over the house of Iacob according to the promises But you 'l say this cannot be understood of H. Nicolas but of Christ according as he has wrote elsewhere that there is in his Communialty of the Love a true Iudge Iesus Christ our Lord and King which executes the right Iudgment of his Father according to the truth But we are also to understand that This Christ that sits on the throne of his Father David is the eldest Father of the Family of Love as appears out of his Evangelium Cap. 31. sect 14. and 16. Which places compared with what has been recited it is clear that H. Nicolas is this Christ on the seat of David for his life-time and which is still worse and the seed of endless Madness and Blasphemie that this wild Presumption of the eldest in the Family being the very Christ from Heaven returned to judge the World with equity will be entailed upon their Successors for ever And that the appearance of this Christ may be the more glorious
the Immortality of the Soul the main Branches of the ancient Cabbala was also communicated But it is no where said nor can be conceived That God the Father distinctly from the Son and Holy Ghost gave the Law to Moses but it was an act as all acts ad extra are of the entire Godhead Nor is the Father nor the Holy Spirit excluded in the oeconomie of the Gospel but their Glory is acknowledged coequal and their Majesty coeternal Nor again can the Church ever cease to be under the Belief of Iesus Christ so as that any other God-service should justle that out by its succession For the Belief of the Promises of Christs coming again visibly to Judgement and Crowning his true members with Eternal Life and Glory must of necessity continue till the Promises themselves be fulfilled Which are but phantastically conceived to be fulfilled in the Service of the Love 6. Moreover how can that Dispensation pretend to be the Ministry of the Spirit where men are kept off from believing the inward manifestations of their own Mind where alone they can be properly said to be taught of God and urged to give up all their Light and Consciences to be rul'd at the pleasure of the Elders of his Family This is not to be inspired by God but to be taught merely by men and to be carved and shaped out like a piece of dead Marble by the hand of the Statuary So wholy unlike the Dispensation of the Spirit is this Oeconomie of the Service of the Love Beside that it is a piece of Rapine and Robbery to appropriate that to their Family which is the Peculiar of every true Believer in Christ who assuredly have the assistance of the Holy Spirit as I have proved at large in the following parts of my Discourse 7. But if any one will adventure to affirme That after this dead Forme of Religion and external flattery of the Person of Christ which has continued too-many Ages there will succeed a more general Reign of the Spirit of Life and experimental knowledge of his Sceptre and Power in us subduing all his enemies there under his feet and renewing the World in true Righteousness and Holiness it is that which I in no wise oppose nay I must confess I have a fatal and unalterable propension to think it to be true and that this may be that Regnum Spiritús which the Cabbalists of old did presage and does begin with the Reviving of the Witnesses in the Apocalypse of S. Iohn Of which things I have already spoke But in the mean time this is not the special work of any one man but like the Vision of Ezekiel where Breath comes from the four Winds of Heaven upon the bones already covered with sinews flesh and skin and behold they lived and stood upon their feet an exceeding great Army an orderly Company such as the Church of Christ ought to be For this Internal power of the Spirit will not annul or destroy the External Frame of Christian Religion as it referrs to the Offices of the Person of Christ the Head of his Church as these Satanical Impostors would pretend but rectifie and corroborate it and make it more irreprehensibly and enravishingly beautifull as there was more lustre in those raised Bodies after the Spirit of life had entred into them then when they were mere dead carkasses 8. Besides if we did conceive that this Dispensation of Christ in the Spirit was to be in a more special manner promoted by the Ministry of some one Person it does not at all follow that H. Nicolas is the man and not onely so but I am confident I shall make it manifest that it is impossible that it should be he Which I shall have sufficiently performed when I have demonstrated that he is nothing at all of that which he pretends to be but only a mere mistaken Enthusiast if not worse which was the last part of my Purpose And this I conceive is fully evinced by proving him to have laid aside all the Offices of the Person of Christ as he is Man and intercepted all the hopes of his Visible Return to Judgement in the clouds of Heaven and of rewarding all true Believers with that glorious Crown of Life in an Heavenly Body at the last day Which things are so clear in Scripture that the Scripture it self must loose its authority if these things once loose their belief as is manifest by what we have said already in this present Treatise And therefore he that denies these things it is plain he is not inspired of God but is a Minister and Factor for the Devil CHAP. XV. 1. That the Personal Offices of Christ are not to be laid aside That he is a Priest for ever demonstrated out of sundry places of Holy Writ 2. That the Office of being a Iudge is also affixed to his Humane Person proved from several Testimonies of Scripture 3. Places alledged for the excluding Christ's Humanity with Answers thereto 4. The last and most plausible place they do alledge with an Answer to the same 1. NOW that the Humane person of Christ as I may so call it is not to be laide aside is evident not to repeat what I have elsewhere alledged from the whole Epistle of the Author to the Hebrews For he that there is said to be an high Priest for ever is that very man who was crucified on the Cross at Ierusalem who was said to be like unto his brethren in all things that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things appertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that tempted And it is further clear that it is this very man we speak of in that he is said to be born not of the Tribe of Levi but of the Tribe of Iuda chap. 7.14 and yet he is there declared a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec Read the whole Chapter nothing can be more clearly asserted then the Everlasting high-Priesthood of this man who sanctifying the People with his bloud suffered without the gate Which are such particularities as must needs affix the Eternal high-Priesthood to the Humane person of Christ. Again in that he is said to suffer but once it is apparent that it is to be literally understood of his Humane person And every priest standeth dayly ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away sins But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down at the right hand of God c. And yet more fully in the foregoing Chapter For Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entreth into
Ghost by his mysterious union with the Eternal Word by his miraculous Resurrection from the dead and by his visible Ascension into Heaven and Session now at the right hand of his Father This is warrant enough to do all Divine homage to our blessed Saviour as to the only-begotten Son of God And truly the Church to give them their due has not been sparing the very constitution of our Religion being so effectual for this purpose For so Divine a Person as Christ was namely The very Son of God and yet condescending to undergoe so horrid a death for the World how could engaged Mankind stint themselves from shewing of all manner of expressions of Love and Devotion toward him 3. Wherefore they erected innumerable magnificent Structures of Temples Chappels and other Religious Edifices and consecrated them to his Name They endowed the Christian Priesthood with ample Riches and Dignities set up Church-musick sung divine Anthems in honour of our Saviour adorned their Churches celebrated his Passion with unexpressible reverence instituted Festivals and filled both Time and Place with such variety of Ornaments that a man might observe that the greatest part of the Splendour and Pomp of Christendom was in reference to their Religion Which certainly would have been a very goodly and lovely spectacle if Superstition Hypocrisie and Ecclesiastick Tyranny could have been kept out 4. But this External Worship and the Ceremonies thereof things equally performable by the evil and the good by the regenerate and mere natural man these took growth enormously and like ranck Weeds choaked the Corn or what happens in full and over-fed bodies in which natural heat and activity is very much lost the huge load and bulk of visible Formalities extinguished the Life and Spirit of Religion 5. But however this outward Homage to our Saviour continued and does continue in a great measure over the face of Christendom to this very day though their expressions are not alike courtly every where Which continuation of Divine Honour done unto him cannot but gratifie his faithfully-devoted Servants they having a deep resentment of the shameful Sufferings their Lord and Master underwent out of his dear love to them and therefore do naturally rejoyce at this Tribute of Divine Adoration the World gives to so holy and sacred a Person it being so sutable a part of compensation of his Humiliation and Reproach Besides that they receive some satisfaction that Divine Providence has so brought it about touching the true Members of Christ whose Principles are so opposite to the Guise of the world and their Persons so contemptible that yet the World are fain with the lowest prostrations to adore that in Christ which they kick about and trample upon so in his despised Members But I will insist no longer on this Theme having spoke enough of it elsewhere We have now shewn the Usefulness of the Mystery of Godlinesse in all holy and religious respects I shall adde only a word or two in reference to things of this Life and so conclude the fourth part of my Discourse CHAP. XX. 1. The Usefulnesse of Christianity for the good of this life witnessed by our Saviour and S. Paul 2. The proof thereof from the Nature of the thing it self 3. Objections against Christianity as if it were an unfit Religion for States Politick 4. A Concession that the primary intention of the Gospel was not Government Political with the advantage of that Concession 5. That there is nothing in Christianity but what is highly advantageous to a State-Politick 6. That those very things they object against it are such as do most effectually reach the chief end of Political Government as doth Charity for example 7. Humility Patience and Mortification of inordinate desires 8. The invincible Valour that the love of Christ and their fellow-members inspires the Christian Souldiery withall 1. THat Christianity contributes also to the Happinesse of this present World is evident both from the Testimony of Christ and his Apostles and also from the nature of the thing it self Matth. 6. Where our Saviour having exhorted us not to be over-sollicitous for the things of this Life food and raiment setting before our eyes the care of Divine Providence in Creatures of far lesse price then our selves how the Fowls of the Air are provided for that neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns how gloriously the Lilies of the Field are arraied that neither weave nor spin he concludes That we should not so eagerly and carefully seek after those things as worldly-minded men do But seek ye first the kingdom of God saith he and his righteousnesse and all these things shall be added unto you For your Heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things And Paul to Timothy Godlinesse is profitable for all things having the promise of this life and that which is to come 2. And if we consider the nature of the thing it self there is an accruement of present Happinesse from true Christianity not only by virtue of Promise but even by natural dependence of Causes and Events especially when that Christian frame of Spirit has arrived to any considerable degree of perfection and maturity For there is no such obliging person in the world as a mature and ripe Christian nor any truer Policy then to be obliging Which Temper the more sincere it is the more taking it is and the more sure Fortress against adverse Fortune Wherefore what advantage Humanity has he has it in the greatest measure Besides that his calm and castigate spirit makes him sensible discreet above all expression and of a sagacity beyond all conceit of the unregenerate man His Faithfulnesse also and honest and chearful Industry have their proper blessing attending them And his moderate desires of Riches and Honours and his laudable use of them unblemished with any blot of either sordid Covetousnesse or vain Ostentation prevents or beats back the ill-aimed darts of secret Malice and Envy And if but a meaner share of the things of this world be allotted to him yet his contentments are not the lesse he finding that true which both David and Solomon have pronounced That better is a little that the righteous has then great possessions of the ungodly And when more unsupportable pressures and afflictions fall upon him such as great Fits of Sicknesse Imprisonment and the Approaches of Death his Advantages in this Condition are unspeakably above what any other mortal is capable of For the more these urge his outward man the more his inward is inflamed and excited to the exercise of those powers that are most holy and precious and needing no admonition though so fit and apposite as that of Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Circumstances of things themselves will assuredly awaken this Christian Champion to the exertion of all the strength of his Soul and to the successful use of his spiritual weapons wherewith he is armed against the day of battel For
own Prejudice Of which violence they do thereto they cannot well be sensible they thinking they have full commission to distort it into any posture rather then to let it alone in that which so plainly points to a Mystery which they hold impossible and self-contradictious For so has their bold and blind reasoning concluded aforehand concerning the Trinity and Divinity of Christ. But to those that are indifferent this Text bears such evidence with it that it cannot but settle their belief 2. For why should the Euangelist omit the manner of Christ's Birth as he was Man but that he was intent upon his Eternal Generation as he was God Or why should he not call him by that name that was given him at his Circumcision or by the name of Crist or the Messias who was a Person expected in time but that his thoughts were carried back to that of him which was from all Eternity Nor is it imaginable that he should be here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of Iesus or Christ unless there were some valuable Mystery in it which the learned easily unriddle from Iewish Interpreters they speaking often of The Word of the Lord as an Hypostasis distinguishable from God and yet that by which he created Adam and the rest of the Creatures And for my own part I make no question but that the Greek Philosophers as Pythagoras and Plato had not onely their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the whole Mystery of their Trinity from the Divine Traditions amongst the Jews Philo the Jew speaks often of this Principle in the Godhead calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 other sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and attributes unto it the Creation of the World as also the Healing of the diseases of our Mindes and the Purging of our Souls from sins insomuch that this Author might be a good Commentator upon this first Chapter of S. Iohn 3. Wherefore there being this Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amongst the Jews to which the Creation and Government of the World is attributed the same also being done here what can be more likely then that S. Iohn means the very same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Creator and Governor of all Which the very Phrase and Posture of things will yet further confirme For assuredly this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Gospel is the same with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first Epistle of S. Iohn and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the same Epistle will explicate chap. 2.14 I write unto you Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because you have known the Eternal and Christ by the Prophet Esay is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Father For that is the most proper meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears Esay 57.15 Thus saith the high and lofty one who inhabits Eternity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inhabiting Eternity Nor is it incongruous for the same Being to be the Son of God and the Father and Governour of all the Creatures And the Prophet Micah chap. 5. prophesying of Christ describes him thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His emanations are from the Beginning from the dayes of Eternity Which agrees well with what Christ professes of himself Iohn 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for if he was before Abraham there is little question but he was before all things and that of the Psalmist is but his due attribute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Before the mountains were brought forth or the Earth was formed even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God And now for the Posture of things after the Evangelist has twice asserted That he was from the beginning that you may not mistake and think he means the beginning of his Ministry as the Messiah he tells you according to the Doctrine of the Jews That all things were created by him and at the tenth verse that you may have no subterfuge he sayes That even that world that was made by him knew him not which excludes all Moral and Mystical interpretations and shews plainly that wicked men though not their wickedness are his Creation and consequently all the world besides And the Author to the Hebrews is a farther witness of this Truth citing that of the Psalmist concerning the Son of God Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thy hands There is yet another argument of the Divinity of Christ which I need not prove it being acknowledged even by our Adversaries and it is Religious worship due to him which I conceive is due to none but God 4. The Holy Trinity and Divinity of Christ we have hitherto proved out of the Scriptures and might adde many places more but the Reason and Nature of the thing it self shall be the last Confirmation That Christ is to be worshipped is acknowledged of all hands But to worship one that is not God is to relapse into the ancient rites of the Pagans who were Men-worshippers and eaters of the sacrifices of the dead For Iupiter Belus Bacchus Vulcan Mercurius Osiris and Isis and the rest of the Gods of the Heathen what were they but mere men whose Benefactions extorted divine honours from Superstitious posterity after their Death Wherefore Christ ought not to be a mere man but God that is he ought to be really and physically united to the Deity it being present not by Assistance onely but by Information that as Body and Soul are one Man so God and Man may be one Christ. But if there were no Trinity but One Hypostasis in the Deity and the Humanity of Christ thus joyn'd with it How could he be a Sacrifice for sin there being none beside himself to whom he should be offer'd or How could he be sent by another when there is none other to send him and the Son of God out of the bosome of his Father could not be said to suffer but he that is offended to be sacrificed to pacifie himself which things are very absurd and incongruous But you 'l say the Absurdity still remains in the Second Hypostasis For was not Sin as contrary to Him as to the First and Third and consequently He as much offended and therefore He dying in our nature was sacrificed to pacify Himself In answer to this I admit that all Three Hypostases were alike offended at Sin and withall alike compassionate to Sinners Which Compassion was in the Deity towards Mankind before the Incarnation and Death of Christ. But the formal Declaration and visible Consignation of this Reconcilement was by Christ according as he is revealed in the Gospel whose Transactions in our behalf are nothing else but a sweet and kind Condescension of the Wisdome of God in this Mystery accommodating himself to our humane capacities and properties to win us off in a kindly was to Love and Obedience And
therefore all the Three Hypostases being alike offended at Sin and alike prone to pardon the Sinner and recover him to Obedience contrived such a way of declaring their pardon as might shew their highest dislike of sin and win most upon the Sinner by moving his affections to a serious Sorrow and Remorse Wherefore the Divine complotment was this That the Eternal Son of God should be made Flesh and to testifie the Hatred of God to Sin and his Love to mankind should be sacrificed for an Atonement for the sins of the world Then which a greater Engine cannot be imagined to move us to an Abhorrence of sin and to the Love of his Law that thus redeemed us and wrought our reconciliation with the Father To whom being as I may so say the Head in the Divinity and of all things and having in his Paternal right the First power of punishing and pardoning this Pacification is naturally directed For it is as if a Father of a Family or the Prince of a Nation having a minde to pardon some Malefactor that he might not seem too prone to Mercy and so encourage men to Rebellion should plot with his Eldest Son to be an earnest Intercessor in the behalf of the party when yet the Son disrelisheth the crime of him he intercedes for as much as his Father did There is the same Reason in the Intercession of Christ with the Eternal Father saving that it was with more earnestnesse and greater agony even unto death and of farre higher consequence But that such an Intercession and Pacification as this should be made up in the solitary Scene of one Person is impossible 5. Wherefore the denying of either the Divinity of Christ or the Trinity seems a Subversion of the Christian Religion And not onely so but that Fanatical piece of Magnificency of some Enthusiasts who would make their Union with God the same with that of Christ's For then were they truly God and Divine Adoration would belong unto them or if not it is a sign they are not God and that therefore Christ is not Either of which confounds or destroys our Religion But if you demand what the Difference is betwixt the Union of Christ and Ours with the Divinity I have intimated it before In one the Divinity is Forma informans in the other but Forma assistens in the one it is as Lux in Corpore lucido in the other as Lumen in Corpore diaphano The Divinity in Christ is as the Light in the Sun the Divinity in his Members as the Sun-shine in the Aire 6. And this distinction and due distance being kept which some saucy and high-flown Enthusiasts do not observe there is yet scope and encouragement enough for them to strive to be full as good as they pretend I am sure farre better then they are there ordinarily being no difference betwixt them and the meanest Christians but that their Tongues are swelled with greater tumor and turgency of speech and their Minds filled with more vain phantasyes and exorbitant Lunacyes whenas the other speak conformably to the Apostolick Faith and with less noise live more honestly But that no less Union with God then Real and Physical Deification must make them Good is a sign they are stark naught and that Pride has laid wast their Intellectuals For is not that Spirit that created and framed all things able to reforme us unto the most unblamable pitch of Humility Self-denial Dependency upon God Love of our neighbour Obedience to Magistrates Faith Temperance and Holiness without being any more Hypostatically united with us then with the Earth Sea Sun Moon and Starres and the Natural parts of the Creation Wherefore we conclude That to assert That the Union of any true Christian with God is the Same with that of Christ's is a bold useless and groundless Opinion and inconsistent with and destructive of the Christian Religion 7. We have seen How Necessary and Essential to Christianity the Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ is and consequently of the Trinity without which the other cannot be rightly conceived and therefore we do not onely disapprove of those frivolous slanders and cavils that would brand that Sacred Mystery with the infamous note of Paganisme but highly magnifie and humbly adore the Providence of God that that Truth should be kept so long warme and be so carefully polished by those Heathens that knew not the main Use thereof or to what end the Tradition was delivered to the ancient Patriarchs Prophets or holy Sages of old in either Aegypt or Iudaea from whence Pythagoras and Plato had it and prepared those parts of the World where their Philosophy had taken foot-hold to an easy reception of Christianity but this we have glanced at elsewhere CHAP. VI. 1. The danger and disconsolateness of the Opinion of the Psychopannychites 2. What they alledge out of 1 Cor. 15. set down 3. A Preparation to an Answer advertising First of the nature of Prophetick Schemes of speech 4. Secondly of the various vibration of an inspired Phansie 5. Thirdly of the ambiguity of words in Scripture and particularly of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. And lastly of the Corinthians being sunk into an Unbelief of any Reward after this life 7. The Answer out of the last and foregoing Premisse 8. A further Answer out of the first 9. As also out of the second and third where their Objection from verse 32. is fully satisfied 10. Their Argument answered which they urge from our Saviours citation to the Sadducees I am the God of Abraham c. 1. WE proceed now to the Third and Last Point propounded which is Concerning the state of Souls departed which we assert not to sleep that is not to be void of all Operation and Sense of Joy or Punishment but that they have a Knowledge and Apprehension of their own condition be it Good or Bad. Which Article I hold as undoubtedly True though not so indispensable as the Two former and though not so Necessary yet exceeding Convenient to be entertain'd It being a great Abater to our zeal and fervency in Religion to think that in the end of our life we shall be dodged and put off by a long senseless and comfortless Sleep of the Soul under the sods of the Grave for many hundreds if not for some thousands of years Besides an indulgence to such a Dulness and Heartlesness of Spirit as to be content to intermit the Functions of Life for so long a time may at last work the Soul into a sottish mistrust of ever being awaked and make her conclude the Mystery of Christianity within the narrow verges of this mortal life as David George and other Enthusiasts did who were more in love with many Wives then with any Article of Faith that promised such pleasures as might not be reaped in this Flesh. 2. But we are here to deal not with such vain Fanaticks but with severely-devoted Sons of
World who have ever and anon had new Instances of Apparitions and Communications with evil Spirits and fresh occasions of executing the Laws they had made against Witches and wicked Magicians 4. I should now pass to the second head I propounded could I abstain from touching a little upon the circumstances of the Birth of that famous Corrival of our Saviour Apollonius Tyaneus whose story writ by Philostratus though I look upon it as a mixt business partly true and partly false yet be it what it will be seeing it is intended for the highest Example of Perfection and that the Heathen did equalize him with Christ you shall see how ranck his whole History smells of the Animal Life and how hard a thing it is either in actions or writings to counterfeit that which is truly holy and divine For which end I shall make a brief Parallelisme of the Histories of them both in the chief matters of either that the Gravitie and Divinitie of the one and the Ridiculousness and Carnality of the other may the better be discerned 5. As in this very First point is plain and manifest which is dispatched in a word For in that Philostratus writes how Apollonius was of an ancient and illustrious Pedigree of rich Parents and descended from the founders of the City Tyana where he was born is not this that which is as sweet as honey to the Natural man and such as an holy and divine Soul would set no esteem upon Like to this is his Mother's being waited upon by her Maidens into a Meadow being directed thereto by a Vision where while her servants were straying up and down making of posies and chaplets of flowers O what fine soft pompous doing is here and her self disporting her self in the grass she at last falls into a slumber the Swans in the mean time rangeing themselves in a row round about her dancing and clapping their wings and singing with such shrill and sweet accents that they filled the neighbouring places with their pleasant melody they being as it were inspired and transported with joy by the gentle breathings of the fresh and cool Zephyrus whereupon the Lady awaking is instantly delivered of a fair Child who after his Fathers name was called Apollonius 6. The amenity of the story how gratefull and agreeable it is to flesh and bloud But how ridiculous is that dance and rountlelay of the musical Swans compared with that Heavenly Melody of the holy Angels at the Nativity of Christ For that if it could be true is but a ludicrous prodigie and presignification that Apollonius would prove a very odde fellow and of an extraordinary strein and serves only for the magnifying of his person But this is a grave and weighty indication of the Goodness of God and the Love of his holy Angels to men and a prediction of that peace and grace which should be administred unto them through Jesus Christ that was then born Behold said the chief Angel whose glorious presence surrounded the shepheards with light Behold said he I bring you good tidings of Great joy which shall be unto all people For unto you is born this day a Saviour which is Christ the Lord whereupon there was suddenly with this Angel a multitude of the heavenly Hoast praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men CHAP. III. 1. That whatever miraculously either happened to or was done by our Saviour till his Passion cannot seem impossible to him that holds there is a God and ministration of Angels 2. Of the descending of the Holy Ghost and the Voice from Heaven at his Baptisme 3. Why Christ exposed himself to all manner of hardship and Temptations 4. And particularly why he was tempted of the Devil with an answer to an Objection touching the Devil's boldness in daring to tempt the Son of God 5. How he could be said to shew him all the Kingdoms of the Earth 6. The reason of his fourty daies fast 7. And of his Transfiguration upon the Mount The three first reasons 8. The meaning of Moses and Elias his receding and Christ's being left alone 9. The last reason of his Transfiguration That it was for the Confirmation of his Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul 10. Testimonies from Heaven of the Eminency of Christs person 1. WE have done with the Birth of Christ we proceed now to his Life wherein we shall consider only those things that extraordinarily happened to him or were miraculously done by him till the time of his Passion wherein nothing will be found impossible to them that acknowledge the Existence of God the active malice of Devils and the Ministery of Angels But that which I intend mainly to insinuate is the comeliness and sutableness of all things to so Holy and Divine a person which that it may the better appear I shall after shew the difference of this true example of solid Perfection Christ and that false pattern of feigned holiness in that Impostour Apollonius whom the later Heathen did so highly adore 2. The chief things that happened in an extraordinary way to Christ before his Passion are these Three 1. The descending of the Holy Ghost upon him in the shape of a Dove at his being baptized and the emission of a Voice from Heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased 2. The Temptation of the Devil upon his fasting and 3. His Transfiguration upon the Mount Concerning the First there is great reason for that Miracle For God having a design to set on foot the Divine life in the World by his Son Iesus Christ why should he not countenance the Beginning of his Ministery by some notable sign by which men might take notice that he was the Messias sent of God And Iohn the Baptist confesses himself assur'd thereof by this Indication And being there was to be some extraordinary appearance what could be more fit then this of a Dove a known embleme of Meekness and Innocency inseparable branches of the Divine life and Spirit and at what better time then when Iesus gave so great a Specimen of his Meekness and Humility as to condescend to be wash'd as if he had been polluted when he was more pure then light or snow and to be in the form of a disciple to Iohn when he was able to teach him and all the world the Mysteries of God Which may be noted to the eternal shame of our conceited Enthusiasts who phansying they have got something extraordinary within contemn and scorn the laudable Institutions of the Church which is an infallible argument of their Pride as this of our Saviour's Humility But while he humbled himself thus God did as highly advance him adding to this silent show an articulate voice from Heaven the better to assure the by-standers that he was the Messias the Son of God 3. As for his being tempted of the Devil it has the same meaning that the
quite conttary to this is so far from such like Tyranny and cruel and handling of others that to satisfie us concerning the justly-suspected wrath of his Father he undergoes all this load himself to win us off to a more perfect and chearful Obedience to his holy Precepts by so great and sensible an Engagement The weight and power of his Scepter being mainly to be felt in the sense of Love which is the strongest â—ie imaginable even to natural Ingenuity But the power of the old Serpent was exercised in fear and terrour and despightfull scorn upon poor distressed mankind There being this great advantage therefore of winning of the Hearts of men from the Kingdome of Darkness to the power of God by Christ's afflictions and sufferings it is no wonder that he submitted himself to them though they were so unspeakably grievous 2. And indeed what can be imagined more grievous then that lively Representation of his bitter Passion unless the Passion it self When in the Mount of Olives at his devotions he was in such an Agony that he sweat as it were great drops of bloud that fel from his face to the ground Besides the despightfull mockings and spittings in his face with cruel and bloody scourgings The consideration whereof would drive a man to any hardship to approve himself faithfull and thankfull to so loving a Saviour What then will the contemplation of his direfull and Tragical Crucifixion where so Divine a person nay where the Son of God in the flesh being disgracefully placed betwixt two thieves his holy and spotless Humanity was so deeply pierced with the present sense and real Agony of Death that the weight and burthen thereof enforced him to cry out Eloi Eloi My God My God why hast thou forsaken me And here he may appeal from the Cross to all the World in the words of Ieremiah Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow 3. Which Sorrow and Passion had it not been as real and as great as it is recounted how slight and ludicrous a matter would the Mystery of Christianity be How prophane therefore and execrable are those wretches that would turn that to the disgrace of Christ which is the Glory of the Gospel as if our Saviour was less Perfect by being thus Passive and so sensible of pain But it is plain that these bold and insolent Enthusiasts which boast so much of Perfection as to equalize themselves or their blind guides with Christ nay prefer them before him I say it is plain they are so ignorant that they doe not know in what the true Perfection consists 4. For I have already declared That in the person of Christ that only which was truly Divine was to have the triumph and victory unassisted with any thing that is precious and praise-worthy in the eyes of the world And the true Perfection approveable before God is found only in that which is Divine not Natural or Animal such as would be applauded by a mere Carnal man And such is Stoicism and Spartanism a power as well relished by wicked men and Apostate Angels nay I may say better then by the holy and regenerate And it is an Exercise of far greater Faith and Obedience to the Divine will to undergoe pain and affliction when it searches us so deep and stings us so vehemently then when by any forced Generosity and Stoutness of Spirit or any Natural or Artificial helps whatsoever we bear against the sense thereof and quit our selves in this heat and stomachfulness as if we were invincible and invulnerable Champions 5. If it had fared thus with Christ at his Death the Solemnity of his Passion had been lost Indeed it had been no Passion nor would have caused any in them that read the Story But his Sufferings being so Great and so Real as they were it is the greatest Attractive of the Eyes and Hearts of men towards him that could possibly be offered to the World Which himself was very well aware of and did foretell it in his life-time When I am lifted up I shall draw all men unto me 6. Which Effects of his Passion those Miraculous Accidents that attended it seem also to presage For what was that rending of the vail of the Temple from the top to the bottome at Ierusalem what were those Earthquakes in more remote places out of Iudea and the torn or cloven Rocks but a Presage how the Earthly Minds and Stony Hearts of all men in time as well Iews as Gentiles would be shaken and broke in pieces with sorrow and grief at his Sufferings who is the Saviour of the World Nay what did the Sun the very life and Soul of the natural world what did that deliquium or swounding fitt of his betoken but that this sad spectacle of the Crucifixion of Christ would so empassion the minds of all ingenuous men and so melt their Hearts with love affection to this universal Saviour that they would willingly die with him that they might also live with him and rejoice with him for ever in Heaven 7. I speak not this to exclude other Significations of these Prodigies For they may also have their truth and use as well as these especially some of them as That of the Eclipse of the Sun which may also signifie that the true light of the world he that was termed by the Prophet The Sun of Righteousness was then a suffering and That of rending the vail of the Temple which no question denoted the rescinding of the Mosaical Rites and Ceremonies and the abrogation of the High-Priests office Christ now having taken away the partition-wall and given every Believer free access to the presence of his Father by his own Death whereby he has reconciled us to God 8. Which offers us a third Reason why this Passion of Christ should be so Tragical as it was and the weight thereof so unsupportable For he bore then the wrath of God for the sins of the World being smitten as the Prophet speaks for our transgressions and the iniquities of us all were laid upon him that is he was an Universal Sacrifice for all Mankind Which the proud and self-conceited Enthusiast that phansies himself so well within that he contemns all external Religion unless it be of his own invention being not at leisure to consider boldly and blasphemously traduces him for weak and delicate that willingly underwent the greatest pain that ever was inflicted upon any mortal that bore a weight more heavy then mount Aetna and too big for the shoulders of any Atlas to bear 9. As little to the purpose are the leguleious Cavils of some Pragmatical Pettifoggers as I may so call them in matters of Divinity who though they be favourable enough to the Person of Christ and seem to condole his ill Hap that he fell thus into the hands of Thieves and Murtherers yet set no price at all upon his Death no more then upon theirs that died with him accounting his
that are so transported and overcome with those Allusions and Allegorical Reflexions as such high Attainments that they think themselves illuminated above the capacities of all other Mortals being more pleased with the gaudy colours of the Rainbow then with the pure light which is reflected thence Which yet all true Christians plainly see and feel in the simplicity of its own nature without any such cloudy refractions and know that the rest is not the dictate of the Spirit but the mere service of Phansy lending its aid to the setting forth of divine Perceptions And yet this slight sallad is the chief food this pretended Prophet feeds his followers withall and the greatest demonstration of his being extraordinarily called and inspired 5. For as for Miracles he never did any as you may see in that Book of his Life entituled Mirabilia Dei where nothing miraculous is recorded unless a certain Prophetical Dream wherein he seemed to be frighted together with some devotional expressions after he awakened out of it as also a lucky escape out of the hands of his Persecutors who haply being not so vigilant as they might be the phrase of the story makes them struck with blindness and lastly his witty questions and answers to the Priest or Confessor when he was a child wherein he does so fully utter the chief of his Doctrine that he seems as wise at eight years old as ever he was since though he lived to a very considerable Age. But any one that has any insight in things may easily discern that the Discourse was never intended for a true History but a spiritual Romance So that as petty businesses as these are they have no assurance of their truth 6. Now for his Pretensions of being the most eminent Preacher of Perfection it is a mere Boast For whether he means by Perfection Love which is the perfection of the Law it cannot be more clearly and advantageously preached then it is in the New Testament by Christ and his Apostles And what Comparison is there betwixt such a Teacher of Love who being the declared Son of God by Signes and Miracles gave his life out of dear compassion to mankind and a soft Fellow that onely talks fine phrases to the World Or whether he pretend to a more general Perfection in the divine Graces or holy Life whose Root is true Faith in God and his Promises through Christ and the branches Charity Humility and Purity it shall appear anon that as for true Faith he is perfectly fallen from it and that he is as a dead tree pulled up from the root And for the present it is evident also out of his own writings not to charge him with accusations out of others that he is far from being perfect either in Charity Humility or Purity For what greater sign of Uncharitableness then to charge all men that are not of his Communialty to be of the Synagogue of Satan and children of the Devil and what greater Pride then to prefer himself before Abraham Moses and Christ and make as if he were God himself come to judge the World with his thousands of Saints and Seraphims And lastly what greater Symptoms of Lust Impurity then to be sunk down from all sense and presage of a life to come To say nothing of his complaints in his Glasse of Righteousness of such as came in to spy out their liberty and his lusty animations against Shamefacedness and Modesty in men and women and their shiness to such acts as ordinary Bashfulness is loath to name Which in my apprehension are very foul spots in that Glasse of his as if it had been breathed upon by the mouth of a menstruous Woman 7. But there is also a more subtil Uncleanness from which who is not free if he knew his own weakness he would be ashamed to profess himself perfect and that is the Impurity of the Astral Spirit in which is the Seat and Dominion of unruly Imagination Hence are our Sidereal or Planet-strucken Preachers and Prophets who being first blasted themselves blast all others that labour with the like impurity by their Fanatick Contagion Those in whom Mortification has not had its full work nor refined the Inmost of their natural Complexions are subject to be smitten and overcome by such Enthusiastick storms till a more perfect Purification commit them to the safe custody of the Intellectual Powers Wherefore let this pretended Prophet boast as much as he will of his glorious Resurrection from the dead it is manifest to the more perfect that he has not yet so much as passed through that Death that should have led him to the unshaken Kingdome of Truth and letten him in to the immovable Calmness and serene stilness of the Intellectual World where the Blasts and Blusters of the Astral Spirit cease and the Violence of Phansy perverts not the faithful representations of Eternal Reason For God is not in these fanatick Herricanoes no more then he was in the tempestuous Wind Earthquake or Fire that passed before the Prophet Elias But the Divine Truth is to be found in that still small voice which is the Echo of the Eternal Word not urg'd upon us by that furious Impulse of complexionall Imagination but descending from the Father of lights with whom there is no shadow of change This was an Attainment out of this Boasters reach of which he had not the least sense or presage and therefore was wholy given up to the hot scalding Impressions of misguided Phansy in his Astral Spirit Which being strangely raised and exalted in this false light has a power by words or writings to fire others and to intoxicate them with the same heat and noise in their enravished Imagination whereby that still and small voice of Incomplexionate Reason cannot be heard CHAP. XIV 1. That neither H. Nicolas nor his Doctrine was prophesied of in Holy Scripture That of the Angel preaching the Everlasting Gospel groundlesly applied to him 2. As also that place Iohn 1.21 of being That Prophet 3. His own mad Application of Acts 17. v. 31. to himself 4. Their Misapplication of 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. and Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. to the Doctrine of this new Prophet 5. Their arguing for the authority of the Service of the Love from the Series of Times and Dispensations with the Answer thereunto 6. That the Oeconomie of the Family of Love is quite contrary to the Reign of the Spirit 7. That the Author is not against the Regnum Spiritûs the Cabbalists also speak of but onely affirms that this Dispensation takes not away the Personal Offices of Christ nor the External comeliness of Divine Worship 8. That if this Regnum Spiritûs is to be promoted by the Ministry of some one Person more especially it follows not that it is H. Nicolas he being a mere mistaken Enthusiast or worse 1. AND therefore being blinded with the wind and dust of this Fanatick Tempest they are carried on
tell you of them Sing unto the Lord a new song and his praise from the end of the earth ye that go down to the sea and all that is therein the Isles and the inhabitants thereof Let the Wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice the villages that Kedar doth inhabit Let the inhabitants of the rock sing let them shout from the top of the mountains let them give glory unto the Lord and declare his praise in the islands The Lord shall goe forth as a mighty man he shall stir up jealousie like a man of war he shall cry yea roar he shall prevail against his enemies I have long time holden my peace I have been still and refrained my self now will I cry like a travailing woman I will destroy and devour at once I will make wast mountains and hills and dry up all their hearbs I will make the rivers Islands and I will dry up the pools And I will bring the blind by a way that they know not I will lead them in paths that they have not known I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight These things will I doe unto them and not forsake them 4. It is a very high representation of that mighty power of God from above that assists his Church and how Christ by the dispensation of the Gospel does set us free from the bondage of sin how he opens the understandings of the ignorant and procures liberty for those that were shut up in the dungeon of a dark conscience and held in captivity under sin how those that are dry and barren like the wilderness and the tops of rocks shall be watered with springs of living water and how the villages that Kedar possesses that is those that are overshadowed with sorrow and darkness a light shall spring up unto them and how they shall give glory unto the Lord for that he himself will be their champion he shall fight their battels and by the power of his Spirit and by that fire wherewith he will plead with all flesh wither the top and flower of their pride and dry up their restagnant lusts and lighten their paths before them and lead them forth into the land of Righteousness These are the true Warfares and Victories of the Church of Christ as those that have the veil taken off from their eyes and hearts can easily discover And surely with any other usefull sense then this cannot we ordinarily read the like descriptions of the Churches triumphs by Christ over her enemies or by those that have been Types of him as David was an eminent one And therefore if I would read the 18 Psalm I will love thee O Lord my strength c. I should hope for very small edifying thereby but in such a Mystical sense as this is that is by supposing that in me which partakes of Christ that is my inward Mind or Spirit raising war against Saul which is the power of the Flesh the craving pit of Hell that sin that lodges in this mortal body whose vain desires have no bottom nor end 5. I might abound with these allegations out of the Prophets and Psalms but I have given a Key into the hand of the judicious and he may unlock those treasures himself if he desires to have his Faith enriched and strengthened by those plentiful Promises of this assistance we speak of made to them that are serious professors of the Gospel I shall only adde one testimony more which in my apprehension is very express and that is Isa. 35. Strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees Say to them that are of a fearfull heart Be strong fear not behold your God will come with vengeance even God with a recompence he will come and save you Then shall the eyes of the blinde be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped Then shall the lame man leap as an Hart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing For in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desart And the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land Springs of water In the habitations of dragons in the places where they lay shall be grass with reeds and rushes And an high-way shall be there and a way and it shall be called a way of holiness the unclean shall not passe over it but he shall walk in the way with them and the simple shall not erre No Lion shall be there nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon it shall not be found there but the redeemed shall walk there And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads they shall obtain joy and gladnesse and sorrow and sighing shall flee away CHAP. IX 1. The great use of the belief of The Promise of the Spirit 2. The eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his bloud what it is 3. Further proof of the Promise of the Spirit 4. That we cannot oblige God by way of Merit 5. Other Testimonies of Scripture tending to the former purpose 1. THese places which we have recited out of the Old Testament cannot but warm and encourage him that reads them by reason of the loftinesse of their Prophetical style provided that he have in himself a facility of mystically applying of things to the great purpose they drive at But what we shall adde out of the New though they will not strike the phansy with so high language yet they will it may be reach ones Reason more surely and extort assent more powerfully even from them that are loth to finde it true That there is such a mighty supernatural assistance afforded from God viz. the Cooperation of his holy Spirit in our conflicts against sin Which perswasion is of great consequence to make us resolute in resisting all Temptations and to gain the victory in every assault and therefore we will produce sufficient evidences of the truth thereof 2. And the first that occurs to my minde is that of our blessed Saviour Luke 11.13 If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your Children how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him And that this Dispensation of the Spirit of Sanctification is a common gift to all Christians appears out of what we have already recited out of S. Matthew where Iohn professes himself only able to baptize with water unto repentance but that the Baptisme of Christ should be with the holy Ghost and with fire that is with the power of the Spirit that will melt and purifie us as silver is purified in the fire Also from Ioh. 6. where Christ styleth himself the Manna that came down from Heaven and declareth that he that eateth his flesh and drinketh his bloud hath eternal life with other expressions of the like nature Wherefore his Disciples began to be scandalized at it but Jesus answered and
infallible Oracles and will more easily discern the prevarications of their Teacher But for the greater assurance against any foul play of this kinde his misinterpretations of these Holy Writings to Loosnesse and Libertinism should be the forfeiture of the exercise of his Function 11. Besides I do not speak so much to exclude Preaching as to bring Catechizing and Expounding into more request which are abundantly more useful and edifying Nay I think that some well-tuned strains of unaffected Eloquence at the chief Festivals of the Year and in occasional Exhortations to the people upon observation of what is most amiss amongst them done with a great deal of seriousness and gravity as also at publick Fasts and Thanksgivings were a thing of excellent use and of the more efficacy it being the more seldom But for other days If our Saviour Christs Sermon on the Mount were read with much reverence and emphatick distinctness it being the advice of so sacred and infallible a person in whose mouth there was neither Errour nor Guile who was the Son of God clothed with the formalities of our flesh on purpose to take the chair awhile amongst us and to read us sound and warrantable Lectures of Divinity in whose behalf God the Father condescended to do the Office of a Praeco and commanded silence out of the Clouds saying This is my beloved Son hear him who was so faithful and compassionate a Pastour to his Flock that he laid down his life for his Sheep and so beloved of his Father that he was miraculously raised from the dead and taken up into heaven and lastly who shall visibly descend thence and judge every man according to his works If this Sermon I say of wholsome advice and holy Precepts were read distinctly and reverently to the people how can it but be more edifying and work more upon their spirits for their good then the sophisticated and affected Rhetorick of a fallible Mortal Besides the keeping out the danger of being either choaked with the crooked and spinose Controversies of Polemical Divinity or of being poisoned or intoxicated with the unwholsome sugar-sops of Antinomianism and Libertinism 12. And lastly to answer still more home to the point If thou hast a desire to magnifie thy Ministry in an eximious manner in stead of ostentating thy Gifts exercise and improve thy Graces to the highest thou canst Endeavour to the utmost to be an unblemished Example to thy flock of Humility of Brotherly kindeness of Obedience to the Magistrate of Temperance of exact Iustness in thy dealing of Compassion to the poor and needy Use thy best Prudence to keep Peace and Love amongst thy charge as it becomes Christians and to invite the more able to a charitable relief and help of those that are in want and necessity that no unsupportable distresse may make the lives of our fellow-members comfortless as also privately to reprove those that are guilty of any scandalous miscarriages but with the wisest and discreetest applications that may be that thy Reprehensions as they ought so they may appear to proceed from nothing but from love and from care and conscience of thy duty In which if thou wouldest not lose thine authority and confidence thou must live exactly in the indispensable Laws of Christ thy self nor make these solemn Reproofs but for the breach of such But if thou be really vitious thy self in these or to make thy self seem more holy rebuke for the neglect of some petty mock-vertues of thine own chusing thou shalt not fail to be either odious or ridiculous But here the great Hypocrisie is this That to compensate their neglect in these indispensable and highly-concerning Duties of the Ministry they abound in empty Lip-labour and endeavour to conciliate authority to themselves by their pretended spiritual Gifts of extemporary Praying and Preaching in stead of that unblemished Sanctity of life of useful Prudence in behalf of their Charge and of Christian Goodnesse and Charity And that they may keep up their credit more certainly with the people they lay their foundation wisely namely by giving them to understand that there is no hope of living as we should do or any need thereof and so making their whole flock as rotten as themselves both in Principles and Practice there being none left to reprove the false Prophet by either example of life or contrariety of doctrine he thus secures to himself his authority entire by his admired clack of the Tongue which some call The knack of preaching and praying Which yet where better intended is of as little efficacy as a Tar-bottle hung out on a Thorn-bush if compared with personal application and private information and reproof For that is like the Adfriction of the pastoral medicine to a diseased Sheep without which the formality of the Bottle on the Bush will do no cure let the flock be gathered about it never so solemnly 13. Touching the Communion None are to be excluded therefrom that professe their belief of the Holy Scriptures of the Apostles Creed in the plain literal and Historical sense thereof unless they stand guilty of some gross and scandalous sins which are to be nominated in some known Law concerning this matter and not to be left to the uncertainty of any private Ministers Judgement and do persist therein impenitent and unreclaimed For it were the greatest treachery to the party that could be by admitting him to this Holy Communion to make him more secure in such sins as will be sure while they are unrepented of to exclude him from that Heavenly Communion of Saints for ever Besides the Scandal and Offence to the rest of the serious and sincere-hearted Communicants to whom the sight will appear as ugly as if one having fallen over head and ears into the dirt should in that black miry hue droppingly dirty place himself at table amongst persons of quality whom the Master of the Feast had invited upon some special entertainment And as for the Posture of the Communicant as there are none that are so curious as to reduce it to that in which Christ and his Disciples celebrated his last Supper so none ought to be so captious as to take offence if one receive the Communion kneeling in devotion to God and humble thankfulnesse for that great Benefit that is signified thereby namely the Death of Christ with the Results thereof and the participation of his body and bloud in that sense I have spoken of elsewhere nor if another take it sitting as it is a celebration of a Supper or that he may clear himself of the suspicion of Idolizing the outward Elements of Bread and Wine For it is as well unjust as uncharitable to be at all scandalized at actions that have such innocent and allowable grounds and the most unsufferable at the celebrating of such a Mystery as is wholly made up of love and affection to Christ and to one another I confess an Uniformity would look better in outward shew but
the Earth and Air when once that Final Vengeance has seised upon the Wicked 5. This is the sad Evening-close of that terrible Day of the Lord and the Morning-Appearance thereof will not be much more chearful to either the Hypocrite or Prophane person For the hopes of the Hypocrite cannot but fail and his heart sink like a stone while he sees the righteous Judge that tries the heart and reins coming in the clouds of Heaven to execute vengeance on the wicked and to deliver the godly from that imminent fate that attends the Earth And the proud scoffing Epicurean that laugh'd at Religion as a piece of weakness and foolery and impudently denied there was either God or Providence in the world he will then to his utter shame and confusion acknowledge his own Philosophy which he thought such an high piece of wit before the most unhappy Folly and Madnesse he could have light upon For he shall be confuted to his very outward Senses when he shall see Christ himself appear with all his Heavenly Host attending him when he shall hear the sound of the Trump and see forthwith the whole Air filled with his glittering Legions consisting of Saints and Angels For the Trump shall sound saith the Apostle and then those that have already departed this life shall immediatly appear in their celestial Harness in their glorified bodies For those that are alive shall not prevent those that are dead but rather the contrary For those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him and harness them with the bright Armour of Life and Immortality whereby they become part of that glorious Angelical Host wherewith our dread Soveraign and blessed Saviour Jesus Christ will face the Earth a while to the exceeding great astonishment and terrour os the wicked World 6. Out of which by the Ministry of his Angelical Troops will he gather his Saints that are found alive in the flesh from all the corners of the Earth as the Angels plucked Lot out of Sodom when the City was to be destroyed with Fire and Brimstone from Heaven a Type questionless of this Final Judgement And whether it be by the quick descent of fiery Chariots like that of Elias who was safely thereby conveighed to Heaven and about a thousand years after conversed with our Saviour on the Mount or bright shining clouds glistering with the glory and lustre of their celestial guides be made foot-stools for them to get up on for there is no fear that the weight of their Bodies should break through their Earth and Flesh being of a sudden changed into pure Aether or whatever other pomp and solemnity there may be in their transportation from the rest of the World unto that glorious Company that strikes all mens eyes with amazement while they look up into the sky This visible Selection of the Good from the Bad must needs fill the hearts of the Wicked with unspeakable Dread and Horrour And that partly by reason of the present wonders of this unexpected supernatural Visitation which thus suddenly has surprised them through unbelief and partly from the sad presage of what will follow even that horrid and dismal Tempest which we have already described that endless Night of Thunders and Lightnings and Earthquakes of roarings and howlings and utter confusion and destruction for ever 7. Which direful vengeance having once entred upon that execrable crue forsaken of God and given up to the merciless Rage of the incensed Elements the victorious Church of Christ retreats with the rest of the Angelical Hosts marching up the Ethereal Regions in goodly Order and lovely Equipage filling as they go along the re-echoing sky with Songs of Joy and Triumph For this is the greatest day of Solemnity the highest Festival that can be celebrated in the Heavens whose Inhabitants if they rejoice at the conversion of one sinner what Joy and Rejoicing must they express at the complete Redemption of the whole Church when Jesus Christ the Prince of our Salvation who is able to save to the utmost has perfectly redeemed us body and soul and leading Captivity captive rescuing us from the power of Hell Death and the Devil does resettle us again in our own Land and reestablish us into the ancient Liberties of the Sons of God making us fellow-citizens with the pure and unpolluted Angels and free Partakers of all the Rights and Immunities of the celestial Kingdom even of that Kingdom where there is Order and Government without Envy and Oppression Devotion without Superstition Beauty without Blemish Love without Lust Sweetness without Satiety where there is outward Splendidness without Pride Musick without Harshness Friendship without Designe Wisedom without Wrinkles and Wit without Vain-glory where there is Kindnesse without Craft Activity without Weariness Health without Sickness and Pleasure without Pain and lastly where there is the Vision of God the Society of Christ the Familiarity of Angels and Communion of Saints where there is Love and Joy and Peace and Life for evermore Upon the consideration of which ineffable Happiness what inference can be more genuine then what S. Paul has made already on the same Subject Wherefore my beloved Brethren be stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. CHAP. XIX 1. That there can be no Religion more powerful for the promoting of the Divine Life then Christianity is 2. The external Triumph of the Divine Life in the person of Christ how throughly warranted and how fully performed 3. The Religious Splendour of Christendom 4. The Spirit of Religion stifled with the load of Formalities 5. The satisfaction that the faithfully-devoted Servants of Christ have from that Divine homage done to his Person though by the wicked 1. I Have now sufficiently exposed to your view the Nature and Use of this seven-fold Engine these Seven Powers of the Gospel how potent they are to beat down every strong hold of sin and to raise up the Divine Life and Spirit of Righteousness in us That they have done so little execution in Christendom hitherto that disquisition I shall deferre till its due place In the mean time I appeal to all the World if there can be invented a Religion more powerful for this purpose then the Christian Religion is 2. But for the external Triumphs of the Divine Life in reference to the Person of Christ the Usefulness of our Religion in that point is demonstrable not only from the Frame thereof in it self but from the long and constant Effects it has had in the Christian World For as for the Frame of our Religion we have therein a full warrant to do the highest Divine homage to Christ that we can express He being so clearly therein declared The true Son of God not only by several Testimonies from Heaven but also by that supernatural manner of his generation in the womb of the Virgin by the overshadowing of the Holy