And therefore to satisfie us in this also after he had abode some time upon Earth after his Resurrection and satisfied his Disciples by frequent converses with them that he was really risen and given them all necessary Orders for their future conduct in the propagation of his Gospel he carried them out to Bethany where after he had lift up his hands and blessed them he ascended before their eyes into Heaven upon which it is said Luke 24.52 That they worshipped him and returned to Ierusalem with great Ioy surely not because their dear Lord was gone from them never in this World to be seen by them more that was cause of sorrow rather than joy to them but because he was gone to the right hand of the Father there to intercede in Person for them and for ever to exhibite that wounded and bleeding body of his by which he had made expiation for the sins of the World and purchased the promise of the Spirit and of eternal life upon this account indeed they had great cause to rejoyce because now they knew they had a sure Friend in Heaven where their main hope and interest lay even that very Friend who not long before had freely exposed himself to a most shameful and tormenting death to rescue them from death eternal and who after such an instance of love they could not but conclude would employ his utmost interest with the Father in their behalf and in a word who being the only begotten of the Father whose precious Bloud he had graciously accepted as a ransom for the sins of the World could not but have an interest with him infinitely sufficient to obtain for them all the graces and favours that were fit either for them to ask or for his Father to bestow So that now if we heartily comply with him as Mediating for his Father with us we have all the encouragement in the world to depend on him as Mediating for us with his Father since he doth not Mediate with him by a second hand or at a distance but in his own Person in that very Person which is not only infinitely dear to the Father as being his only begotten Son but hath also infinitely merited of him by offering him his own life at his command as a Sacrifice for the sins of the World. And accordingly upon this consideration the Apostle founds the hope of Christians 1 Iohn 2.1 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that ye sin not but if any man sin let him not presently give up himself as hopeless and irrecoverable for we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins VI. And lastly Another thing which the Scripture proposes to our belief concerning this Mediator is that upon his return from us to Heaven there to Mediate Personally for Men with God he substituted the divine and Omnipresent Spirit Personally to promote and effectuate his Mediation for God with Men. When he went up to Heaven there to Mediate for us with God he did not thereby abandon his Mediation for God with us but immediately substituted a certain mighty spiritual Being to act for him whom he calls the Advocate or as we render it the Comforter and the Holy Ghost and who was to Mediate with Men in his behalf even as he Mediated with them in the behalf of his Father and to Advocate for his Authority as he Advocated for his Father's For so he tells his Ministers whom he left behind him to assert and propagate his Authority in the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter or Advocate i. e. to plead for and inforce your Ministry in my behalf whose Ministers you are that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth c. I will not leave you comfortless or without an Advocate I will come to you that is by this Spirit of Truth who is to be my Vicegerent even as I am my Father's Iohn 14.16 17 18. But for the fuller explication of this great and necessary Article I shall first shew what this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence Secondly I shall explain his subordination and substitution to Christ in this part of his Mediation Thirdly I shall shew what it is that he hath done and still continues to do in order to the effecting this Mediation First What this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence I answer it is the third Person in the Tri-une Godhead For that besides the Father and the Son there is a third divine Person subsisting in the Godhead seems to have been a current Doctrine among the ancient Writers both Gentile and Iewish and is most plainly and expresly asserted in holy Scripture which third Person is known in Scripture by the name of the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of the Lord. For that the Holy Ghost so often named in the New Testament is the same with that Spirit of the Lord so much celebrated in the Old S. Peter expresly asserts 2 Pet. 1.2 For the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost from which words it is evident that this Holy Ghost whom S. Peter here mentions is the very same with that holy Spirit or Spirit of the Lord by whom as we are told in the Old Testament the ancient Prophets were inspired vid. Isa. 63.11 2 Sam. 23.2 Mich. 2.7 and abundance of other places and accordingly S. Peter applies that Prophecy of Ioel 2.28 I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh to that miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost Acts 2.16 17. but this is that saith he which was spoken by the Prophet Ioel c. which could not be true if Peter's Holy Ghost were not the same with Ioel's spirit of the Lord. But it is most certain that the Holy Ghost whom S. Peter and the New Testament so often mention was in the first place a real Person and not a meer Quality as the Socinians vainly dream For so we every where find personal properties and actions attributed to him Thus he is said to speak Acts 28.25 and Heb. 3.7 yea and his speeches are frequently recorded so Acts 10.20 The Spirit said unto Peter arise therefore get thee down and go with them for I have sent thee and Acts 13.2 The Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and how can we without horrible force to such plain historical relations which ought to be literal and not figurative attribute these speeches to a meer Vertue or Quality And elsewhere he is said to reprove the world Iohn 16.8 and to search into and know the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 11. and to divide his Gifts
Spirit or Holy Ghost whom Christ hath substituted to carry on his Mediation for God with men in his absence is no other than the third divine Person subsisting in the eternal Godhead And indeed considering the mighty part he was to act viz. to Mediate under Christ for God with men the same reason which rendered it necessary for Christ to be God to qualifie him for this Office vide Page 24. do render it altogether as necessary for the Holy Ghost to be so And indeed how is it possible he should operate upon so many men together at such remote distances as he is obliged to do by his Office and at once move every member of that vast Body of Christ the Catholick Church dispersed over the Face of the whole Earth unless like an Omnipresâ—nt soul he be diffused through the whole and co-exists with every part and if he be Omnipresâ—nt â—e must be God. And now having given an account of the Person and Quality of this Divine Spirit I proceed Secondly To explain his subordination and substitution to Christ in this part of his Mediatorship for God with men In order to which it is to be considered that this subordination of the sacred Persons in the holy Trinity proceeds not from any inequality of Essence but from the inequality of their personal Properties For as to their Essence they are all of them God i. e. infinite in being and perfections and being infinite they must all be equal there being no such thing as more or less in infinity and then being equal in Essence they must necessarily be equal in essential Power and Dominion and consequently as such are no way subject or subordinate to one another But as to their personal Properties it cannot be denied but they are unequal for the Father who begot must in that respect be superiour to the Son who was begotten and the Holy Ghost who proceeded must in that respect be inferiour to the Father and Son from whom he proceeded and upon this inequality their subordination is founded For as there is a stated Number in the Trinity by which the sacred Persons are determined to Three so there is also a stated Order by which they are ranked into a First a Second and a Third which Order is not made by mutual consent or arbitrary constitution but founded in the nature of those personal properties by which they are distinguished from one another For as the Father being the Fountain of Godhead to the Son must be first in order of nature and as the Son together with the Father was the Fountain of Godhead to the Holy Ghost and therefore must be second to the Father and in order of nature before the Holy Ghost so the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son must of the Three be in order of nature the Third For so the Scripture expresly asserts that he proceeded from the Father John 15.26 and also that he is the Spirit of the Son Gal. 4.6 and the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8.9 and the Spirit of Iesus Christ Phil. 1.19 And being the Spirit both of the Father and the Son he must be supposed to proceed from both And where-ever the Holy Ghost is in the Old Testament called the Spirit of God it is in the Hebrew Ruach Elohim in the Plural which seems to intimate that he proceeded not from one but from two divine Persons i. e. not from the Father alone but from the Son also So that though as to their Godhead they are all equal yet in order of nature and in respect of their personal properties the third is inferiour the second superiour and the first supreme and being unequal in those personal Properties by which they stand related to each other it is very reasonable that according to these their personal inequalities they should be subordinate to one another and consequently that the Father who is the Fountain of the Divinity should be supreme in the Divine Monarchy and that the Son who was begotten of him should minister to him and that the Holy Ghost who proceeded from the Father and the Son should minister to both And accordingly in all its external actions and administrations this hath ever been the Oeconomy of the Holy Trinity for the Father to act by the Ministry of the Son and the Son by the Ministry of the Holy Ghost For so before the Fall of man and consequently before this Mediation of the Son commenced it is evident that even in creating the World the Father acted by the Son and therefore is said to have made the World by him Heb. 1.2 and the Son acted by the Spirit who is said to have moved upon the face of the Chaos Gen. 1.2 for that by the Spirit of God there is meant the third Person in the Holy Trinity we have reason to believe because he is elsewhere said to have made man and to have garnished the Heavens as hath been already shewn And in the same Method of subordination the Godhead hath always proceeded in its transactions with the world and that more especially and remarkably in this great affair of Mediating with mankind wherein the Father hath always used the Ministry of the Son and the Son the Ministry of the Holy Ghost but in the matter of the Mediation it is evident that this subordination of these sacred persons was founded not only in these their personal inequalities but also in a mutual agreement between them in which the Son agreed with the Father that in case he would be so far reconciled to Rebellious Mankind as to grant them a Covenant of mercy and therein among other blessings to promise them his Holy Spirit he himself would assume our natures and therein not only treat with us personally in order to the reducing us to our bounden Allegiance but also die a Sacrifice for our sins upon which agreement the Father long before the Son had actually performed his part of it even from our first Apostasie granted his Spirit to mankind which Spirit was granted to this end that under the Son he should Mediate with men in order to the reducing them to their due subjection to the Father For all that heavenly influence which the Holy Ghost sheds forth upon the minds of men is wholly Mediatorial in God's behalf and in order to the reconciling men's minds unto him and therefore in this his Mediation he must be supposed to act in subordination to the Son who is supreme Mediator and accordingly as the Son hath been and will be always Mediating with men by this blessed Spirit even from his Ascension to the end of the World so I make no doubt but he always Mediated with them by the same Spirit even from the Fall of man to his Incarnation For so in the time of the Old World we read of the Spirit 's striving with men i. e. in order to the subduing their stubborn Wills to a due subjection to the Will of the Father Gen.
6.3 in doing of which he even then Mediated for God with Men under the Great Mediator and so he hath continued to do through all successive Ages of the World. For there is nothing more apparent from Scripture than that it is under Christ that the Spirit acts in the Kingdom of God upon which account he is called the Spirit of Christ 1 Pet. 1.11 even as by the ancient Jews he is called the Spirit of the Messias as was observed before and this Spirit whom St. Peter calls the Spirit of Christ was as he himself there tells us the Spirit which was in the ancient Prophets by which it is evident that long before Christ came this Spirit was his and that he acted by him And even when he came down into the World to transact personally with men he generally acted by this holy Spirit For so at his Baptism we are told that the Holy Ghost descended on him in a bodily shape Luke 3.22 upon which it is said that he went away full of the Holy Ghost Luk. 4.1 after which it is plain that it was by this Holy Ghost in him that he Prophesied and wrought his Miracles for so Isa. 61.1 the Prophet attributes the whole Prophecy of Christ to the Spirit of the Lord which was upon him and in Matt. 12.28 our Saviour himself affirms that he cast out Devils by the Spirit of God and therefore he calls the Jews attributing his miraculous works to the Devil blasphemy against the Holy Ghost Matt. 12.31 because it was by the power of the Holy Ghost that he wrought them Now as the Father's acting by the Son implies the Son's Subordination to him so the Son 's acting by the Spirit implies the Spirit 's subordination to him which subordination of the Spirit in his Mediatorial Office is immediately founded in that Compact of the Son with the Father upon which he undertook the Mediation For the Spirit was a part of the purchace of the Son's Bloud and whatsoever he purchased he purchased of the Father by compact and agreement with him so that now he hath a right to the Spirit 's Ministry not only by vertue of his proceeding from him together with the Father but also by the purchace of his own Bloud whereby he obtained the promise of him from the Father For so the Holy Ghost is said to be shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour i. e. through the Intercession he makes in vertue of his meritorious Sacrifice Tit. 3.5 6. For whatsoever comes to us from God through Christ is part of what he hath purchased for us and in Rom. 5.5 6. he makes Christ's dying for the ungodly the reason of the giving the Holy Ghost to us The promise of the Holy Ghost therefore being part of the purchace of Christ's bloud he by his Advocation in Heaven obtained the performance of it of the Father even as he doth the performance of all his other promises For the Father being the supreme person in the Holy Trinity is the prime and Original Fountain of all our blessings and every good thing we receive is derived from him to us through the Son and by the Holy Ghost and even the Holy Ghost himself is derived to us from the Father through the Advocation of the Son. For so he himself tells us I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter namely the Holy Ghost Iohn 14.16 So that though Christ hath purchased the Holy Ghost of the Father as he hath also all the other blessings of the New Covenant yet it is plain this Purchace vests him not with a right to bestow and send him without the Father but only to obtain him of the Father upon his Prayer or Advocation and so of all those other blessings So that still the Father is the supreme Source from whence the Spirit and all those blessings are derived to us and it is from his hands that the Son procures them by his powerful Intercession in short therefore Christ by his death purchased a right of the Father to obtain of him by his Intercession Authority to send the Holy Ghost to Minister for and under him in his Mediation for God with men and accordingly he promises his Disciples that when he departed this World he would send the Comforter to them Iohn 16.7 where he uses the very same phrase as he did when he Commissioned his Apostles to minister under him As the Father hath sent me so send I you John 20.21 and accordingly his sending the Comforter must denote his Commissioning him by the Authority he had received from the Father to minister under him in his Mediation for the Father For so in Iohn 15.26 When the Comforter is come whom I will send to you from the Father even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father he shall testifie of me where first the Son is said to Commission or send him Secondly to Commission or send him from the Father i. e. by Authority from him And thirdly to Commission or send him to testifie of him and therein to minister to him and so in Luke 24.49 when he was just ascending into Heaven he tells his Disciples Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you i. e. the promise of the Holy Ghost and accordingly Acts 2.33 St. Peter tells us upon that miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost that Christ being exalted to the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost i. e. having by his Intercession received authority of the Father to send the Holy Ghost according to that promise which he had before purchased of him with his bloud he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear i. e. this Miraculous Gift of the Holy Ghost in all which places it is evident that the Holy Ghost was substituted commissioned and sent by the Son authorized thereunto by the Father to minister under him For as the Son acts by the Father's Authority as he is his Minister so all that authority which he communicates to others to act under him he must derive Originally from the Father and consequently that Authority by which he sent the Spirit to act as his Minister he must have derived from the Father whose Minister himself is and hence the Father is said to send the Spirit in the name of the Son i. e. to appoint the Spirit to act under the Son and by his authority Iohn 14.26 as the Son is said to send the Spirit from the Father i. e. by the authority which he had received of the Father and this I verily believe is the reason why the Apostle in Eph. 4.8 quotes the Psalmist with that variation he ascended up on high saith he speaking of Christ he led Captivity Captive he gave gifts unto men whereas the words of the Psalmist are He received gifts for men Psal. 68.18 to denote that that gift of the Holy Ghost which Christ gave
word before God and all the People Now this Prophetick Office of Christ consisted not so much in foretelling of future events though this he also did so far as it was needful for the Church as in expounding declaring and making known the Will of God to us by divine revelation For so to Prophesie signifies no more than to speak from or in the stead of another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in composition being all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus Exod 7.1 God said to Moses I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet that is he shall be thy mouth to deliver to Pharaoh what I shall deliver to thee For so the word is explained Exod. 4.16 He shall be thy spokes-man he shall be to thee instead of a Mouth And in this sence the Poets were anciently called the Prophets of the Muses so Theocritus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the sacred Prophets of the Muses and Saint Paul himself Tit. 1.12 calls the Heathen Poets their Prophets quoting a passage out of Epimenides who though he is stiled by Laertius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great Favourite of the Gods and as he relates the Story directed the Athenians how to Lustrate their City in a time of Pestilence yet if we may credit Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. he never prophesied of things to come Rhet. l. 3. c. 17. but was only a Divine as Plutarch calls him and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a friend of God and one that had a deep insight into divine things By which it is evident that Prophesying doth not necessarily include in the true acceptation of it foretelling futurities but only denotes declaring the Mind and Will of God in any matter by divine inspiration For so Iustin Mart. in Cohortat ad Graec. tells us that the Prophets declared those things to the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. which the Holy Ghost descending upon them had intended by them to teach those persons who were truly willing to be instructed in the true Worship of God. And accordingly S. Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Prophet is only an Interpreter but an Interpreter of God. And so also Dionys. the Areop stiles the Prophets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Fathers of secret wisdom Epist. 9. because they discovered those things to the World which were discoverable only by divine inspiration And in this large sence of the word Christ's Prophetick Office is to be understood viz. as a declaring and signifying the Will of God to Mankind concerning the Way and Method of our reconciliation to God and eternal salvation by him But for the fuller explication of this his Mediatorial Office I shall endeavour first to shew how excellently he was fitted and accomplished for it and secondly how fully and effectually he hath discharged it As for the first how excellently he was fitted and accomplished for this Office will evidently appear by these three considerations I. That when he came down to Prophesie to us he came immediately from the bosom of the Father For as he was the Eternal Son of God he was always with him from all Eternity and always intimate and infinitely dear and familiar to him and therefore as such must not only be supposed fully to comprehend his Nature and perfectly to know his Will but also to be privy to his most secret Thoughts and Councils And it is upon this account perhaps chiefly that he is called the Logos or Word of God because as S. Gregory Nazianzen discoursed Orat. 36. he hath the same relation to God the Father that a word or inward thought hath to the mind not only in regard of his generation without any passion but because of his intimate conjunction with him by which he perfectly understands him and so hath full power to declare him For the Father is known saith he by the Son and the Son is a brief and easie demonstration of the Father as every thing that is begotten is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the silent word of that which begat it So that as it is the Office of our Speech to declare our Minds to one another so it is the Office of this Eternal Word of the Father to declare his Mind and Will to the World and who can be so proper to declare the Father's mind to us as he who from all Eternity hath been so familiar to his inmost thoughts and purposes Hence S. Iohn John 1.18 No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him and indeed his being in the bosom of the Father i. e. being most near and intimate to him did perfectly qualifie him to declare him for in that nearness and intimacy he could not but have a most perfect knowledge of him and this not by the Instructions of Angels nor by Dreams or Visions as other Prophets had no nor meerly by the Holy Ghost neither but by an immediate personal Intuition of his Father's thoughts and purposes which from all Eternity were exposed to his view and prospect II. It is also to be considered that as he came down immediately from God to Prophesie to us so he came down into our own nature which gave a vast advantage to his ministry For had he preached to us as he did to the Iews from Mount Sinai in his divine person the Glory and Majesty thereof would have so amazed and confounded us that like them we should not have been able to attend to him and our minds would have been so struck with the terrible manner of his Ministry that we could never have fixed our thoughts as we ought upon the matter of it For so the Jews upon God's preaching personally to them in the proper equipage of his divine Majesty were struck with such a sacred Horrour as that they were not able to bear it but made it their request that they might not hear the voice of the Lord any more and that for the future he would speak with them by Moses whose voice they could more easily bear and better attend to which request of theirs God thought so reasonable that he promises to raise up unto them a Prophet of their own Brotherhood like unto Moses meaning the Word incarnate and bids them hearken to him Deut. 18.15 16. i. e. since you cannot endure to hear me speaking to you in the Majesty of my Divinity I will hereafter allay and qualifie it by assuming one of your own kind and kindred into personal union with it in and by whom I will vouchsafe to speak to you in such a familiar and condescending manner as that you shall be able freely to attend without any terrour or disturbance And indeed the most natural way of instructing humane minds is by humane means as for voices from Heaven or from bright and glorious appearances on earth they are more apt to confound than to
Imprimatur CAROLUS ALSTON R.P.D. Hen. Episc. Lond. Ã Sacris Domesticis â—nii 26. 1686. THE Christian Life PART II. Wherein that FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF Christian Duty THE Doctrine of our SAVIOURS Mediation is Explained and Proved VOLUME II. By JOHN SCOTT D. D. Rector of S. Peters Poor London The Second Edition LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in S. Paul's Church-Yard and Thomas Horn at the South Entrance of the Royal Exchange 1687. AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER THis second Volume of the second Part of the Christian Life had long since been made Publick had it not been for an unfortunate Accident which befel me when it was almost finished by which I was necessitated almost to begin again and cast the whole into a different Method from what I first designed for according to my first Draught this second Volume had not ammounted to much above half of what it now is only I intended to have added some Notes at the end of it for the fuller proof and explanation of several Points therein handled which now I am forced to leave out the Book being already swell'd so much beyond my first Intention only three or four of them I am forced to Print with it because I had referr'd to them in two of the Sheets which were Printed before I new model'd the whole Design I pray God prosper this Work according to its honest Intention and that will be an abundant compensation for all the Pains and Labor I have undergone in composing it THE CONTENTS SECT I. OF the Signification and Notion of a Mediator pag. 4 c. Six general Articles proposed to our belief in Scripture concerning the Person and Offices of the Mediator First That he is designed and authorized to this Office by God who is our absolute Lord and Sovereign 6. Vpon what accounts the belief of this is necessary 8. Secondly That this Office to which he is Authorized consists in acting for and in the behalf of God and Men who are the Parties between whom he mediates 10. the belief of which Article carries with it the most indispensible Obligations to Christian Piety and Vertue 11. Thirdly That his Mediation proceeds upon certain terms and stipulations between God and Man which terms he obtained of God for us and in Gods Name hath published to us 17. what these terms are ibid. the performance of these Terms our Saviour solicits both of God and us 18. Fourthly That as he acts for and in the behalf of God and Men so be partakes of the Natures of both 23. That he should partake of the Nature of God was highly necessary to qualifie him for this sublime Office of mediating for God with Men 24. and the same necessity there was that he should partake of the nature of Man 27. That he should also partake of the nature of both no less requisite to qualifie him to Mediate for Men with God 30. That he is God as well as Man proved from Scripture 34. and also that he is Man as well as God 39. Fifthly That as he partakes of the Natures of both so that he might transact Personally with both he was sent down from Heaven to us and is returned from us to Heaven 42. Of the Birth and Personal Vnion of the Divine and Humane Natures in Christ 44. Of his Death Resurrection and Ascension 46 c. Sixthly That upon his return to Heaven there to mediate Personally for Men with God he substituted the Divine and Omnipresent Spirit personally to promote and effectuate his mediation for God with Men 49 50. This Divine Spirit is the third Person in the Triâ—une Godhead 50. That there is a third Person subsisting in the Divine Nature and that he is the same with the Spirit of God in the Old Testament 51. And first That this Spirit is a Person ibid. Secondly That he is a Divine Person 53. Thirdly That he is the third Divine Person 56. Of the subordination of these Divine Persons and that it arises not from any inequality of Essence but from the inequalities of their Personal properties 57 c. That there was always a subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Ghost to both 58. That in the affair of the Mediation this subordination was founded not only in the inequalities of their Personal properties but also in a mutual compact and agreement 59. That the Holy Spirit acts and hath always acted under Christ in the Kingdom of God 60. That by the Holy Spirit Christ himself acted while he was upon Earth 60 61. That this Spirit is sent both from the Father and the Son and of the different nature of their Missions 61 c. Some things which the Holy Spirit hath done in the pursuance of his Ministry to our Saviour and hath long since ceased to do as first he inspired the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour with the gift of Languages 65 66. Secondly He fully instructed them by his immediate Inspirations in the Doctrine which they were to teach the World 67 c. Thirdly He gave the most convincing evidence of the Truth and Divinity of their Doctrine 70. Fourthly He conducted them by his infallible advice through all the emergent difficulties of their Ministry 72. Of the cessation of these miraculous Assistances 74 c. Other things which the Holy Spirit hath always done and always continues in pursuance of this his Ministry as being continually present with the Church 76. We receive him in our Baptism 77. Of the different manner of his ordinary Operations now from what it was heretofore 78 c. That these his ordinary Operations are all performed by impression of thoughts 81 82. they are all reduced to five Heads First Illumination 83 c. Secondly Sanctification 85. Thirdly Quickning or Excitation 88. Fourthly Comforting and supporting 90. Fifthly Intercession 93. SECT II. Concerning the particular Offices of Christs Mediation From the respective states and conditions of the Parties between whom Christ mediates is shewn the necessity of his being Prophet Priest and King 98. The order in which our Saviour proceeds in the discharge of these Offices 100. SECT III. Concerning the Prophetick Office of Christ. The great need of this Office 101. That the Messias was to be a Prophet 102. Of the import of the word Prophesie 103. The admirable accomplishments of our Saviour for this Office shewn in three Particulars First That when he came down to Prophesie to us he came immediately from the Bosom of the Father 104. Secondly That he came down into our own Natures 160. Thirdly That while he abode among us he was always full of the Holy Ghost 109. how effectualy he discharged this Office shewn in six Particulars First He made a full declaration of his Fathers Will to the World 113. Secondly He proved and confirmed what he declared by Miracles 116. Thirdly He gave a perfect example of Obedience to what he declared and proved to be his Fathers
severally to every man as he will 1 Cor. 12.11 And not only so but such things and actions are attributed to him as can in no sence be attributed to the Father which would be non-sence if he were only the vertue or power of the Father and not a real Person distinct from him Thus the Holy Ghost is said to come as sent from the Father in the name of Christ Iohn 14.26 and in Iohn 16. he is said to come as sent from Christ verse 7. And when he comes Christ promises them that he shall guide them into all truth for he shall not speak of himself saith he but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak ver 13. Again he shall glorifie me saith Christ for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you verse 14. And to name no more the Holy Ghost is said to make Intercession for the Saints according to the Will of God Rom. 8.27 none of which things can in any tolerable sence be said of God the Father Since therefore not only personal actions but such personal actions also as cannot be attributed to the Father are frequently attributed to the Holy Ghost it hence necessarily follows that he is not meerly the vertue or power of the Father but a distinct principle of action from him that acts from and by himself and consequently is a real person or subsistence It being evident therefore from what hath been said that the Spirit of the Lord in the Old Testament is the same with the Holy Ghost in the New and that the Holy Ghost in the New is a real person distinct from the Father it hence follows in the second place that this Holy Ghost is a divine person because in the Scripture-forms of Baptism and Benediction he is always ranked with divine persons viz. the Father and the Son thus Baptism is in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Matth. 28.19 And the Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ and the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all is the usual form of Benediction 2 Cor. 13.14 Now that the Father is a divine person all acknowledge and that the Son is so too hath been proved at large and therefore since the Holy Ghost is ranked with the Father and the Son both in our Baptismal Dedication and form of Benediction that is a sufficient evidence that he is a divine person also For what likelihood is there that in such solemn acts of Religion a meer Creature should be taken into copartnership with the divine Father and Son But besides both in the Old and New Testament divine actions and perfections are attributed to him Thus in Iob 33.4 Creation is ascribed to him The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life So also Iob 26.13 By his Spirit he hath garnished the Heavens Since therefore to Create is a divine Act and since every Act flows from the Essence of the Agent it follows that the Essence of this Spirit from which this divine Act of Creation flows is divine Again in Psal. 139.7 Omnipresence is attributed to this divine Spirit Whither shall I go from thy Spirit And if there be no place whither we can go from him as the Question plainly implies there is not then he must necessarily fill all places and be Omnipresent So again 1 Cor. 2.10 Omniscience is attributed to him for the Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God and that by searching here is not meant Enquiry but Knowledge and Comprehension the next verse will inform us For what man knows the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man save the Spirit of God. If then the Spirit 's search be knowledge and his Knowledge comprehends all things what else is this but Omniscience And as the Actions and Attributes which the Scripture attributes to the Holy Ghost are divine so are the Honours also For so 1 Cor. 6.19 our bodies are said to be the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us now since there is nothing can make a Temple which as such is the house of God but only the Inhabitation of a divine Person and since no person can have right to the honour of a Temple which as such is made for divine Worship but he to whom divine Worship is due it will hence necessarily follow both that the Holy Ghost is a divine Person and that he hath right to divine Worship and accordingly 1 Cor. 3.16 the Apostle makes the Inhabitation of God's Spirit in us to be that which constitutes us Temples of God but how could his Spirit 's dwelling in us constitute us Temples of God unless he himself were God Besides all which he is in express words affirmed to be God. So in 2 Cor. 3.15 16 17. Even unto this day when Moses is read the Vail is upon their hâ—arts nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord the Vail shall be taken away now the Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty in which words the Apostle as all agree refers to Exod. 34.34 When Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him he took the Vail off until he came out from whence I argue that Lord whom Moses went in to speak with was Iehovah the true God this Iehovah the Apostle tells us is that Spirit this Spirit he also tells us is the Spirit of the Lord or the Holy Ghost therefore the Holy Ghost is Iehovah the true God. So also Acts 5.3 4. Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost c. Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God i. e. in Lying to the Holy Ghost who is God for if he were not God as we are sure he is not man it might as well have been said thou hast not lied unto men only no nor to the Holy Ghost only but unto God and indeed it ought to be so expressed supposing that by the Holy Ghost and God he did not mean the same thing because the design of the words was to aggravate Ananias his crime from the consideration of the greatness of the Person against whom it was committed and therefore had the Holy Ghost been any thing less than God as we are sure the Apostles were to whom the lye was immediately told he ought to have pursued the 〈◊〉 as well to the Holy Ghost as to men and then it must have been it was not meerly to men that thou didst lye no nor to the Holy Ghost meerly but unto God himself since therefore he places the Aggravation of his lying to the Holy Ghost in this only that he lyed not unto men but unto God it is plain that by the Holy Ghost and God he meant the same thing From all which Testimonies it is very apparent that this great
to his Church was nothing but what he himself had first received from the Father so that though it was from the Father that the Son had his authority to send the Holy Ghost yet it was from the Son that the Holy Ghost had his Mission immediately And accordingly you may observe that after Christ's departure from this World the Holy Ghost acted immediately under Christ as the supreme Vicegerent of his Kingdom For next and immediately under Christ he Authorized the Bishops and Governours of the Church and constituted them overseers of the flock of Christ Acts 20.28 it was he that chose their Persons and appointed them their Work Acts 13.2 and gave them their several Orders and Directions Acts 15.28 Acts 16.6 in all which it is evident he acted under Christ and still continues to act as his supreme Substitute and Vicegerent and accordingly he is stiled by Tertullian the Vicarious vertue or power as he was the supreme Vicar and Substitute of Christ in mediating for God with Men so that now the Holy Ghost is subordinated to the Son not only by vertue of his procession from him together with the Father but also by vertue of his being purchased and obtained by him of the Father by his meritorious Death and Intercession I proceed III. To shew what it is that this Holy Spirit hath done and still continues doing in order to the effectuating this his Mediation For there are some things which he hath done and now ceases to do and some things which he hath always done and will still continue doing to the end of the World of both which I shall give some brief account in order to the fuller explication of the Ministry of the Holy Ghost under Jesus the great Mediator First therefore there are some things which he hath done and now ceases to do and of this sort were those extraordinary operations he performed in order to the Planting and Propagating Christ's Gospel in the World upon and after that his Miraculous Descent of which we read in Acts 2. For when Christ was departing from his Disciples into Heaven he ordered them to stay at Ierusalem and not to undertake that mighty work of Planting his Gospel through the World till they were endued with power from on high Luke 24.49 which power from on high was no other than that miraculous assistance which upon his Descent the Holy Ghost did afterwards vouchsafe them upon which Order they return to Ierusalem and there continue till the day of Pentecost fasting and praying together in an Upper Room when all of a sudden the Holy Ghost descended upon them in a visible body of bright shining fire and endowed them with all those Heavenly powers which were requisite to qualifie them for the propagation of Christ's Gospel through the World. For as they were to be the first Planters of the Gospel it was requisite First that they should be able to speak the several Languages of those Nations to whom they were to preach Secondly that they should be fully and clearly instructed in the Doctrines which they were to preach Thirdly that they should be able to give the most convincing evidence of the truth and divinity of their Doctrines Fourthly that they should be conducted by Infallible advice through all the emergent difficulties of their Ministry against all which necessities the Holy Ghost abundantly supplied them For First He inspired them with the gift of Languages without which they must have spent a great part of their lives before they could have been capable of preaching the Gospel to the World in learning the several Languages of the several Nations they were to preach to which must have very much retarded the progress of the Gospel And therefore the Holy Ghost upon this his miraculous Descent did in an instant infuse into them the Habit of speaking several Languages insomuch that all of a sudden and without any Rules of Grammar or previous instructions they were heard to speak to the great astonishment of their Auditors in the fifteen several Tongues of fifteen several Nations Acts 2.4 c. And though they were immediately dispersed abroad in the World and some of them into remote Countries whose names perhaps they had never heard of yet still where-ever they came they were inspired with the Language of the Country which they spake as freely as their own Mother Tongue And this was a vast advantage to them in their Ministry because they were not only enabled by it to preach the Gospel to all Nations but were enabled in such a manner as gave a mighty confirmation to their Doctrine For their very gift of speaking being a miraculous effect of divine power was an undeniable demonstration that what they spake was divine Secondly The Holy Ghost fully and clearly instructed them in the Doctrines which they were to preach and this was no more than what was necessary For what they preached who were the first Planters of the Gospel was to be the standard of truth and falshood to all succeeding Generations and therefore it was highly necessary that they should be fully and clearly instructed in the Doctrine of the Gospel that so their Successors in all Ages might safely relie on their Authority But whilst they were under the Personal Discipline of our Saviour who instructed them by Humane Methods i. e. by proposing his Doctrine to their Ears and through their Mediation to their Vnderstandings it is plain they made but very slow and slender improvements For after all his pains with them they continued very ignorant of some of the most material Articles of Faith and at best they had but gross Apprehensions of the nature of Christ's Kingdom and of the ends and reasons of his Death and were very diffident even of his Resurrection and the reason was that Christ taught them as a man doth a man i. e. by words which are only the audible Images and Representations of things which being liable to misapprehension and oblivion some of them they utterly foâ—got and some of them they grosly misunderstood But when the Spirit came upon them a wondrous Light broke all of a sudden into their Vnderstandings by which they discovered farther into the Gospel Mysteries in an instant than they had done under all our Saviour's teaching For though the Spirit taught them no new Doctrines but did only repeat and explain to them what our Saviour had taught them before for he shall receive of mine saith Christ i. e. of my Doctrine and shall shew or explain it unto you yet it is evident he taught them much more effectually than our Saviour For he spoke not to their Ears but to their Minds and represented things more nakedly and immediately to their understandings he conversed with their spirits even as Spirits do with Spirits without involâ—ing his sense in articulate sounds or material representations but objected it to them in its own naked light and characterized it immediately on their understandings And as he immediately
edifie our understandings and therefore for this reason among others Christ thought meet to assume our natures that so he might treat with us in such a way as is most accommodate thereunto and deliver his divine Doctrines to us in a humane form and voice that so being conveyed to us in the most natural and familiar manner they might not so alarm our dread as to confound our attention but might instruct our minds instead of scaring and amusing them And therefore he did not only qualifie the terrour and dreadfulness of his divine Majesty by putting on our nature but together with it he put on all the condescensions and sweetnesses of a most familiar and endearing conversation and conversed among men in such a generous friendly and courteous manner as charmed and enamoured all ingenuous minds and thereby attracted their attention to his Doctrine So that as Christ was the Son of God he perfectly understood his Father's Will and as he was the Son of Man he was perfectly fitted to reveal and declare it to Mankind And as by being God-man he was most perfectly accomplished to declare God's Will to us so he was also to give us a perfect Example of Obedience to it which as I shall shew hereafter was a necessary part of his Prophetick Office. For without assuming humane Nature he could never have been an example of humane Vertue which consists in acting sutably to the nature of a Man who is a Compound of Spirit and Matter Reason and Sense Angel and Brute from which contrary Principles there arise in him contrary inclinations and affections in the good or bad government whereof all humane Vertue and Vice consists How then could he have practised those vertues which consist in the dominion of spiritual and rational faculties over brutal and sensitive such as Temperance Chastity Equanimity and the like had he not assumed that nature which is compounded of both How could he have shewn us by his own example how to govern the Passions and conduct our selves in the Circumstances of men had he not communicated with us in the Passions and Circumstances of humane Nature He might have come down from the Heavens to us inrobed with splendor and light or have preached his Gospel to the World in the midst of a Choir of Angels from some bright Throne in the Clouds and it would have been more convenient for himself to have done so because more sutable to the natural Dignity and Majesty of his Person but he consulted not so much his own convenience as ours he knew well enough that his appearance among us in such an illustrious equipage would have been more apt to astonish than to instruct us to have amused our thoughts into a profound admiration of his glories than to have directed our steps in the paths of Piety and Vertue and that it would be much more for our interest that he should conduct us by his example than amaze us by his appearance and therefore he rather chose to appear to us in our own nature that so by going before us as a man he might shew us by his example what became men to do and trace out to us the way to our happiness with the print of his own footsteps So that his coming among us in our own nature was of vast moment to his Prophetick Office both in declaring his Father's Will to us and setting us an example of obedience to it III. And lastly It is farther to be considered that as he came down immediately from the Father to Prophesie to us in our own natures so while he abode among us he was always endued with the Holy Ghost the Spirit of the Lord from whom all Prophetick Inspiration proceeds rested on him and made its constant residence and abode in his humane nature So that whereas it descended upon other Prophets only at certain times and upon certain occasions by reason of which it was not in their power to Prophesie when they pleased but they were fain to attend the arbitrary motions of the Holy Ghost and like dead Organ Pipes were mute and silent as oft as he withdrew and ceased to breath into them his divine Enthusiasms our blessed Saviour had the Prophetick Influx at command and could Prophesie whensoever he pleased For the Holy Ghost resided in his mind and like an assisting Form or Genius was always present with his Understanding and being as was shewed before subordinate to him both by personal Property and Agreement with the Father it operated in him whensoever howsoever and whatsoever he pleased and was as intirely at his disposal as his own most voluntary motions So that whensoever he had occasion for a Revelation he no sooner willed it but the Holy Ghost immediately inspired it into him and whensoever he wanted a Miracle to confirm a Revelation he no sooner called for it but the Holy Ghost immediately exerted it by him For as I shewed before he did both Prophesie and effect his Miracles by the Holy Ghost that was in him and that was so entirely subject to him through the whole course of his Ministry that he could Prophesie and do Miracles by him whensoever he pleased and hence he is said to be anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Acts 10.38 that is to be consecrated to the Prophetick Office by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him by whom he was impowered to Prophesie and to confirm his Prophecy by Miracles for so it follows He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed with the Devil for God was with him and accordingly at his Baptism he was solemnly consecrated the great Prophet of God by a visible Vnction of the Holy Ghost who as St. Luke tells us descended on him in a bodily form or appearance Chap. 3. ver 22. which St. Matthew thus expresses the Spirit of God descended like a Dove and light upon him Chap. 3. ver 16. not as if he descended in the form of a Dove but as it seems most probable he assumed a body of light or fire and therein came down from above just as a Dove with its Wings spread forth is observed to do and gathering about our Saviour's head crowned it with a visible Glory For so in the Nazaren Gospel as Grotius observes it is said that upon this descent of the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. there immediately shone a great light round about the place and Iustin Martyr tells us that when Christ was Baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there was a fire lighted in the River Iordan that is by the reflection of that bright and flaming appearance in which the Holy Ghost descended the River seemed to be all on fire So that as God did signalize his presence in the Old Tabernacle by a visible Light or Glory so the Holy Ghost by descending on our Saviour in this shining appearance declared him to be the Tabernacle of his divine Presence wherein he meant from
Gideon Judg. 6.22 and the Children of Israel Exod. 20.19 and Moses himself Exod. 3.6 So that among the Ancients it seems it was a received opinion that the appearance of this illustrious one did commonly abode death unto those that beheld him Since therefore the Prophet had the same dreadful apprehension upon his vision of God in the Temple that all men had before him upon the appearance of this Angel Iehovah to them it is at least very probable that that God and this Angel were the same divine person Fourthly That this divine Person was not the most High God the Father For besides that our Saviour tells the Jews that they had not heard the Father's voice at any time nor seen his shape or appearance John 5.37 which is a plain evidence that that divine Person who spake and appeared to their Fathers in a humane voice or shape was not God the Father of whom the same Apostle tells us that no man hath seen God at any time John 1.18 whereas it is expresly said of Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and the seventy Elders of Israel that they saw the God of Israel viz. upon Mount Sinai and as it is evident from the Text it was in a humane shape that they saw him for there was under his feet as it were a paved work of Saphir stone Exod. 24.9 10. and if he appeared to them with feet it is reasonable to suppose that he appeared with all the other parts of a humane body for though Moses tells the People that they saw no similitude on the Mount but only heard a voice Deut. 4.12 yet this doth not at all hinder but that Moses and the seventy Elders with him might and did for so when Moses desired to see the glory of God upon the Mount God tells him thou art not able to see my face i. e. by reason of the glory and lustre of it for no man shall see my face and live i. e. no man can endure without great hazard of his life the brightness and splendor of my countenance and from this passage in all probability sprang that common opinion in mens minds that they should surely die whenever they saw God or the Angel Iehovah and then God proceeds and tells Moses that he would place him in the Clift of the Rock and cover him with his hand whilst he passed by and that when he was passed by he would take away his hand and permit him to see his back parts Exod. 33.20 21 22 23. by all which it seems evident that this Apparition of God upon the Mount which Moses and the Elders saw was in a humane form since it had not only feet but face and hands and back parts which is not only a farther Evidence that this God was the same divine Person with that Angel Iehovah who appeared so often in humane shape but also a plain argument that he was not God the Father who as S. Iohn tells us was never seen in any shape or appearance whatsoever besides all which I say how can the Father who is the first and supreme person in the holy Trinity from whom both the Son and holy Spirit are sent be in any sence stiled as this divine Person of whom we are treating is the Angel of Iehovah For the word Angel which imports a Messenger implies some kind of Inferiority to him whose Angel or Messenger he is therefore can in no sence be truly and properly applied to the most high God and Father Fifthly and lastly That this divine Person was God the Son. For First that it was he who appeared to the Patriarchs and particularly to Abraham those words of our Saviour plainly imply in Ioh. 8.56 Your Father Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it and was glad where by Abraham's seeing of Christ's day must necessarily be meant his real and actual and personal sight of Christ himself for so the Jews understood it Thou art not yet say they in the following verse fifty years old and hast thou seen Abraham As much as if they should have said How is it possible that ever thou shouldest personally and actually see Abraham or he thee as thy words do import when as yet thou art not fifty years old and it is many Ages since that Abraham died If therefore the Jews did not mistake Christ's sence it is plain that by seeing his day he meant personally and actually seeing himself but that they did not mistake him is evident because if they â—ad Christ ought to have corrected them by explaining himself into some other sence and not suffer them to run away with such a gross mistake in a matter of such mighty moment instead of which he plainly allows and câ—untenances their sence in the Answer which he gave them verse 58. Verily verily I say unto you before Abraham was I am as much as if he had said it is no such impossible matter as you imagine that Abraham should see me and I hâ—m because I have a fix'd and eternal existence and therefore was in being before ever he was boâ—n So that either the Jews apprehended Christ aright and if so Abraham really and actually saw him or Christ in his Answer prevaricated with them and meerly plaid upon their mistake and if Abraham personally saw Christ it is certain that Christ must be that divine Person that appeared to him But then Secondly That it was he also that brought Israel out of Aegypt and descended upon Mount Sinai at the giâ—ing the Law to them i. e. who declared himself to be the Lord their God that brought them out of the Land of Aegypt is apparent from Heb. 12.26 where it is expresly affirmed that it was Christ's voice which then did shake the Earth i. e. when the Law was delivered in Thunder from Mount Sinai which is a plain argument that Christ was that Iehovah who came down upon Mount Sinai and whose voice caused the whole Mount to quake greatly Exod. 19.18 the same also is evident from Eph. 4.8 Wherefore he saith i. e. the Psalmist Psalm 68.18 when he i. e. Christ of whom he had been speaking just before verse 7. ascended up on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men so that either Christ must be the Person of whom the Psalmist speaks or the Apostle must grosly mis-quote and mis-apply him and if he be the same Person then from that Psalm it is evident First That it was he that went before the People and marched with them through the Wilderness verse 7. to 15. Secondly That it was he that was among the thousands of Angels in Sinai in the holy place and by their Ministry promulgated the Law from thence verse 17. Thirdly That it was he who was the God and King whose goings were seen in the Sanctuary ver 24. Fourthly That it was he who was the God of the Temple at Ierusalem vers 29. For all these things are expresly spoken of him that
of sin is in Scripture frequently attributed to the Father as well as to the Son So 1 Iohn 1.9 If we confess our sins he i. e. the Father is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and Eph. 4.32 Forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you From whence it is plain that forgiveness of sin appertains to God as well as Christ and that both have their appropriate shares in it and therefore since it is impossible that the same individual action should proceed from two distinct Agents in this Act of forgiveness the Father must do something which the Son doth not and the Son must do something which the Father doth not They must both of them act an appropriate part in it and each have a distinct agency from each other For the fuller explication therefore of this Article I shall endeavour to shew first what it is which the Father doth in forgiving sins and secondly what the Son doth I. What is it that the Father doth in this Act of forgiveness of sin To which in short I answer That the Fathers part herein is to make a general grant of pardon to offenders upon such a consideration as he shall think meet to accept and with such a limitation and restriction he shall think fit to make which general Grant is nothing else but those glad tidings of the Gospel which he proclaimed to the World by Jesus Christ viz. that in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice he would freely forgive all penitent and believing sinners their personal obligation to eternal punishment and receive them into grace and favour So that in forgiving our sins there are these three things peculiar to God the Father First His making a general Grant of Pardon to us Secondly His making it in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice Thirdly His making it with those restrictions and limitations of Faith and Repentance First One thing peculiar to God the Father in forgiving sins is his making a general Grant of pardon and forgiveness to sinners For the Law against which all men had sinned and by which they were obliged to eternal punishment was strictly and properly the Law of God the Father who being the first and supreme person in the Godhead was consequently always the first and supreme in the divine Dominion Now the divine Dominion consisting even as all other Dominions do of a Legislative and executive power the Father must be supreme in both and consequently the Laws of the divine Dominion must be more especially and peculiarly his And hence it is called The Will of the Father Mat. 7.21 so in the Lords Prayer the Divine Law is in a peculiar manner stiled the Will of God the Father Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Matth. 12.50 our Saviour stiles it the Will of his Father which is in Heaven and elsewhere the Commandment of his Father vid. Ioh. 12.5 Mat. 15.3.6 Mar. 7.8 9. by all which it is evident that the Divine Law against which we have all offended and by which we are obliged to punishment is appropriately and peculiarly the Will and Commandment of God the Father and it being so the right of exacting or remitting the punishment of this Law must be peculiarly and appropriately inherent in him For the penalty of the Law is due to him whose Law it is and it is he alone can loose us from it who bound it upon us so that it was the Fathers peculiar as to give the Law so to indemnifie offenders from the Penalty of it and accordingly we find that publick Grant of pardon which through Jesus Christ is made to sinners is in Scripture every were attributed to the Father so we are told that it is God who for Christs sake hath forgiven us Eph. 4.32 and that it is God who hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation though faith in his bloud to declare his Righteousness for the remission of sins that are past that he might be just and the justifier of them that believe in Iesus Rom. 2.25 26. that it was God who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses unto them 2 Cor. 5.19 And in a word that it is God who is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 1 John 1.9 where his being faithful and just plainly refers to some publick Grant and Promise by which he hath obliged himself to penitent offenders And indeed the whole new Covenant in which this publick Grant of remission of sins is contained vid. Heb. 8.12 is the act and deed of God the Father It was he that in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice granted this grand Charter of mercy to the World for seeing it was to the Father that that Sacrifice was offered in consideration of which the new Covenant was granted vid. Eph. 4.2 compared with Col. 1.20 the grant of it must necessarily be from the Father And as it was the Father that made this publick grant of Remission to sinners so II. It was he that made it in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice for so Christ himself tells us that it was by commandment which he received from his Father that he laid down his life Iohn 10.17 18. and when he was going to offer up himself upon the Cross he tells his Disciples As the Father gave me Commandment even so do I arise let us go hence i. e. to execute that Command which the Father hath given me to lay down my life for the sheep Ioh. 10.15 from whence it is evident that it was the Father who exacted the Death and Sacrifice of Christ in consideration of that publick Grant of forgiveness which he made to the World for it was through his blood that we have redemption the forgiveness of sins according to the Riches of his i. e. the Fathers grace Eph. 1.7 and that blood of his was an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Eph. 5.2 So that it was God the Father that did both exact and accept the sacrifice of Christ which as I have shewed at large Sect. 4. was in consideration of his pardoning and forgiving Sinners III. And lastly It was God the Father also that made this Grant of forgiveness to us with these restrictions and limitations of our believing and repenting For as the promises of the Covenant were his in which remission of sin is proposed to us so must the conditions of it be also by which it is limited and restrained Because it can belong to none but the giver to limit and conditionate his own Gifts and Grants Now the Conditions of our forgiveness are faith and repentance oâ—â—ather the condition of it is such a Faith such a lively and active belief in Jesus Christ as doth beget in us sincere repentance and renovation of life for so S. Paul tells us again
and general account of it in Scripture where we are only told that they shall awake to everlasting shame and contempt Dan. 12.2 and that they shall come forth to the Resurrection of Damnation John 5.28 and that upon their Resurrection they shall be judged according to their works and cast into the Lake of fire Rev. 20.13.15 from whence it is apparent that they shall be raised for no other end but to be punished to endure that vengeance which shall then be rendered to them even the vengeance of eternal fire for that will be their doom Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Since therefore their Resurrection will be only in order to their being fetched from Prison to Iudgment and sent from Iudgment to Execution to be sure their bodies will be raised in full capacity to suffer the fearful execution of their doom that is with an exquisite sense to feel and an invincible strength to sustain the torment of eternal fire For since they must suffer for ever they must be raised both passive and immortal with a sense as quick as lightening to perceive their misery and yet as durable as Anvil to undergo the stroaks of it which to all eternity will be repeated upon them without any pause or intermission Thus shall they be raised with a most vivacious and everlasting sense of pain that so they may ever feel the pangs of death without ever dying so St. Cyril Catech. illum 4. p. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. wicked men shall be cloathed with eternal bodies that in them they may suffer the eternal punishment of their sins and so they shall have strength to suffer as long as vengeance hath will to inflict and therefore since it is the will of divine vengeance that they should suffer eternal fire the divine power will furnish them with such bodies as shall be able to endure everlasting scorching in that fire without being ever consumed by it for at their Resurrection their wretched Ghosts shall be fetched out of those invisible Prisons wherein they are now reserved in chains against the Judgment of the great Day to suffer in that body wherein they sinned and that therein they may be capable of lingring out an eternity of torment they shall be reunited to it in such a fatal and indissoluble bond as neither Death nor Hell shall ever be able to unloose And this is all the account we have from Scripture concerning the change that shall be made by the Resurrection in the bodies of wicked men viz. that from weak and corruptible bodies they shall be changed into vigorous and incorruptible ones and be endued with a quick and everlasting sense of all that everlasting punishment which they are raised to endure Thus having given an account at large of this second Regal Act which our blessed Saviour is yet to perform viz. Raising the dead I proceed to the III. And last viz. his judging the World. In treating of which great and fundamental Article of our Faith I shall endeavour First To prove the truth of the thing that our blessed Saviour shall judge the World. Secondly To give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judge it Thirdly To shew the manner of his coming Fourthly To explain the whole process of his judgment I. I shall endeavour to prove the truth of the thing viz. that our Saviour shall judge the World than which there is no one Proposition more frequently and plainly asserted in holy Scripture Thus Acts 17.31 we are told that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained and that this man is Jesus Christ we are assured Acts 10.42 And he commanded us to preach unto the People and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead So also 2 Tim. 4.1 I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom And accordingly we are told that we shall all stand before the Iudgment seat of Christ Rom. 14.10 And all appear before the Iudgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 And to the same purpose our Saviour himself tells us that the Father judgeth no man that is immediately but hath given all judgment to his Son and afterward he gives the reason of it because he is the Son of man Iohn 5.22.27 that is because he dutifully complied with his Fathers Will in chearfully condescending to cloath himself in Humane Nature and therein to offer up himself a willing Victim for the sins of the World for so Rev. 5.9.12 Worthy is he alone to receive the Book of judgment and to open the Seals thereof because he was slain and hath redeemed us to God by his blood worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive the power and honour the glory and blessing appendent to his high Office of judging the World. From all which it abundantly appears that this great action of judging the World is to be performed by Christ. I proceed therefore to the Second general Head I proposed to treat of which was to give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judgment For before he actually appears he will give the secure World a fearful warning of his coming by hanging out to its publick view a great many horrible signs and spectacles for thus the Prophet Ioel Ioel 1.30 31. I will shew wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord which Prophesie of his is particularly exemplified by our Saviour Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the Sun be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars of Heaven shall fall and the Powers of the Heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven Matt. 24 29 30. and more particularly Luke 21.11.25 Great Earthquakes shall be in divers places and Famines and Pestilences and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from Heaven and there shall be signs in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the Earth distress of Nations with great perplexity the Sea and the Waves roaring and then it follows then shall they see the Son of man coming It is true this Prophesie of our Saviour immediately respects the destruction of Ierusalem and was in part accomplished in it several of these very signs being a little before the Calamity of that City actually exhibited to the publick view of the World as both Iosephus and Tacitus assure us and several others of them were exhibited immediately after
is actually and as they will be at the day of Judgment when the good are Crowned and the wicked consigned to that fearful Execution Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that did put all things under him which necessarily implies that then he should enter into a different state of subjection to the Father from that wherein he was before Why Then shall the Son himself be subject to him Was he not subject to him before Yes doubtless he was and therefore either this then must be impertinent or then he shall be so subject to him as he was not before before he was subject to him as he was his Mediatorial King or Viceroy as he reigned under him and by his Authority but then he is to be subject to him after a different manner For the explication of which it is to be considered that now the Son considered as Mediator reigns under God in the right of what he did and suffered in his human Nature Hypostatically united to his God-head for it was because he humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the Death of the Cross that God highly exalted him Phil. 2.8.9 Now 't was as he was Man that he became obedient to death and 't was in the right of that obedience that God exalted him to his Mediatorial Kingdom so that now as Mediator he not only reigns in his human Nature but in right of the passion of his human Nature his Mediatorial Kingdom is the purchase of his Blood by which he both obtained the new Covenant for us and Regal Power to execute it upon us When therefore he hath executed it to the full as we are sure he will do at the day of Judgment this Regal Power of his which he purchased with his Blood will cease as having fully accomplish'd that for which it was given and intended And now he being to Reign no longer in right of the sufferings of his human Nature his human Nature will be subject to the Father in a more different manner than it was before Before it was subject to him as Authorized in consideration of its passion to reign and govern under him but then having delivered up its Reign and Government it will be subject to him in a more private capacity as the Presidents of the Roman Empire were subject to Caesar while they governed under him but when they rendered back their Character they became his Subjects in a more private station Not that the humanity of Christ shall be any way depressed or degraded by his delivering up his Mediatorial Kingdom but as an Embassador after he is discharged of the burthen of his Embassie doth still retain the honour and dignity of it so the Human Nature of Christ after he hath surrendered up its Mediatorial Dominion shall still remain as highly exalted in Honour Dignity and Beatitude as ever and Angels and Saints shall for ever render to it the same religious respect and veneration as they did before he surrendered it for it shall still remain Hypostatically united to his Godhead and so God shall for ever reign in it tho it shall not for ever reign with God so that it being still the Temple of the Deity and all the glorious atchievements it made during its Humiliation and Mediatorial Reign reflecting still the same honour and praise and glory upon it it will to eternity be as great and glorious throughout all the Heavenly World as ever it was in the full splendor of its Kingdom so that in this respect what the ancient Fathers added to the Nicene Creed is most true his Kingdom shall have no end because without possessing it he shall for ever enjoy the Glory and Honour and Beatitude of it 5. And lastly That the Son being thus subjected to the Father all Power and Dominion shall from thenceforth be immediately exercised by the Deity that is to say by God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost for so ver 18. Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that did put all things under him that God may be all in all Where the variation of the Person is very observable for it is not said that the Son shall be subject to him that did put all things under him i. e. the Father that he may be all in all but that God may be all in all that is the Triune Godhead subsisting in three Persons the Father Son and Holy Ghost for had he meant the Father only he ought according to the common rules of speech to have said he or the Father of whom he had been before speaking instead of God nor can it be reasonably supposed that after the resignation of the Mediatorial Kingdom the Father only shall act and reign and the Son and Holy Ghost sit still for ever and do nothing but the meaning is that this Mediatorial Kingdom ceasing in which the Son as Man as well as God now reigns there shall from thenceforth be no other Kingdom or Dominion exercised in that Celestial State but what is essential to the Godhead in which the Son and Holy Ghost subsisting together with the Father shall for ever reign together with him for this I take to be the meaning of that phrase that God may be all in all that is that he may rule and govern all things immediately by himself that his immediate Will may reign alone in all and be the proximate guide of all that blessed world that there may be no mediate or Mediatorial Governour between him and us to exact our obedience and convey to us his favours and rewards but that we may render all our duty immediately to him and derive all our happiness immediately from him so that as now Christ the Theantropos or God-man is all in all Col. 3.11 because the Father doth all things and governs all things by him having given him all power in heaven and earth so when this Oeconomy ceases God alone or the Triune Godhead shall be all in all because he shall do all things and govern all things by himself immediately Thus when the Son of Man is subjected to him that did put all things under him that one divine Essence whence all things did proceed and in which the Father Son and Holy Ghost subsist shall from thenceforth resume all Rule and Dominion to it self and only the Son of God together with the Father and the Holy Ghost shall reign But yet in this purely divine Government there is no doubt but those divine persons will still continue to act in subordination to each other according to that natural subordination in which they are placed by their personal properties For the Godhead being communicated from the Father to the Son the Father in the order of nature must necessarily be Prior to the Son and the same Godhead being communicated to the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son both Father and Son must also in order of nature be Prior to
the Holy Ghost So that between these Sacred Three there is an internal necessary subordination that can never be altered or inverted and therefore there is no doubt but that as they will always be subordinate so they will always act subordinately The Father as the first the Begetter and the Fountain of Divinity will be always first and supreme in the divine Monarchy the Son as begotten by him will still reign in subordination to him and the Holy Ghost as proceeding from both will continue to reign in subordination to both Thus to everlasting Ages only the Trinity in Unity shall reign and by its own immediate Will and Influence rule and bless all that Heavenly World over which it spreads its Almighty Wings and so it shall be all in all SECT XII Of the Reason and Wisdom of this Method of Gods Governing sinful Men by his own Eternal Son in our Natures THough we are not able either by our natural Reason or Revelation to fathom the depth of the Divine Wisdom or to trace out all the reasons of its Methods and Conduct yet upon diligent inquiry we can plainly discern the Tracts of an admirable Wisdom in all the stated Methods of Providence and though we cannot say that this or that is the main or only reason why God doth so or so for infinite wisdom may have infinitely greater and infinitely more reasons of its actions than our short-sighted Reason can at present discover yet by comparing one action of his with another and diligently observing the drift and tendency of them all how they concur to one common end and subserve each other to promote and accomplish it we cannot avoid discovering reason enough in them to convince and satisfie us that they all proceed from a most wise and intelligent Agent and this more especially in the admirable Oeconomy of the Mediation viz. the eternal Son of God's assuming our Nature and therein becoming our Prophet Priest and King for what â—easons there are why he should assume our nature therein to be our Prophet and our Priest hath been shewn before And now we shall proceed so far as our short Inquiries will reach to shew what admirable reason there is why he should be our King also to rule and govern us in the same assumed nature wherein he is our Prophet and our Priest of which according to the best â—ight that Revelation affords us there are these five Reasons assignable First That he might govern us in a way more accommodated to this degenerate state of our Natures Secondly That he might the more effectually cure and prevent the spreading contagion of Idolatry Thirdly That he might the more powerfully incourage our obedience Fourthly That he might oblige us to himself with a stronger tie of Gratitude and Ingenuity Fifthly That he might give us the more ample assurance of our future Reward I. God governs us by his own eternal Son in our natures the better to accommodate his Government to this our degenerate state which renders us extremely unfit to be governed immediately by God. It is true whilst man continued in his Primitive Innocence and Perfection he was in a condition fit to converse with God face to face and to live under his immediate Dominion for then his Sense being under the conduct of his Reason and all his brutal affections intirely subjected to the government and directions of his superior faculties he was as much ruled and influenced by the objects of his Reason as he is now by those of his Sense and was as powerfully moved and affected by what he only knew and believed as he is now by what he sees and feels so that then God that great invisible Spirit who is removed from all the perceptions of bodily sense and is only perceivable by our Reason and Faith did as powerfully impress mans hopes and fears and all the other principles of action in him as he could have done had he appeared as amiable and dreadful to the mans sight and feeling as he then did to his faith and reason In this state and condition therefore man was duly qualified to be governed immediately by God to receive his impressions and to be moved and acted by the over-ruling influence of his immense perfections But when once he had degenerated from this pure and blessed State of his nature and had thrown off the Government of his reason and subjected himself to the tyrannick sway of his brutal appetites he thereby unqualified himself to live under Gods immediate Dominion For now he being governed by his sensual appetites and they by the sensual Objects that surround him scarce any thing else can strike upon his hopes and fears but what is carnal and sensual or if any thing else doth to be sure some carnal object immediately interposes and breaks the stroke and renders it faint and ineffectual so that now God who is solely the object of our faith and reason can scarce be admitted to speak with our hopes and fears by which we are made to be governed or if he be his soft still voice is immediately drowned in the perpetual clamour which these sensitive goods and evils raise about us Wherefore having thus unqualified our selves by our Apostacy from the primitive state of our nature to live under the immediate Wing and Government of God and he being resolved in tender commiseration to us not to abandon us for ever did in his infinite wisdom project a new Method of governing us more accommodated to this our degenerate state viz. by uniting himself to sensible matter and therein addressing to our bodily senses in audible voices visible appearances and finally in our own form and nature which of all other sensible things we are most apt to be affected with to love and honour and reverence and obey For so immediately after his Fall God appeared to Adam probably in a glorious human form and spake to him in an audible voice and afterwards he did the same to the Patriarchs and to the whole Nation of the Jews from Mount Sinai among whom he also dwelt in a visible glory by which means he acquired to himself the same advantage of governing those sensual men that sensible objects had which by striking on their bodily sense did more powerfully insinuate themselves into their Wills and Affections But all these sensible appearances of God were only as so many preludia to his assuming our nature into personal union with his Godhead and therein exhibiting himself familiarly to the bodily senses of mankind which tho he now ceases to do as being exalted far above our sight on the right hand of God the Father there to reign till the consummation of all things yet seeing we believe he is there visible in himself cloathed in a most glorious human form we can by imagination supply the want of our sight of him and reach him by our inward sense tho we cannot come at him by our outward and whereas were he a mere
Essentials of Christian Worship 307 c. Thirdly In all the Essentials of Christian Regiment and Discipline 309. SECT X. Concerning the Ministers of the Kingdom of Christ. Which are of a fourfold Rank and Order First The supreme Minister of it is the Holy Ghost p. 315. Secondly next to him are the whole world of Angels both good and bad and as for the good they are subjected to Christ by the Order and appointment of God the Father ibid. That the good Angels were not subject to him as Mediator till his ascension into Heaven but had their distinct regencies over the several Gentile Nations 316 c. But upon Christs ascension these their distinct regencies were all dissolved and they subjected to Christs Mediatorial Scepter 320 c. And as for the bad Angels they were subjected to him by just and lawful Conquest 322. That this Conquest he obtained while he was upon Earth but especially in his last agony 323 c. Seven particular instances of the Ministry of good Angels under Christ first they declare upon occasion his mind and will to his Church and People 331 c. Secondly they guard and defend his subjects against outward dangers 333 c. Thirdly they support and comfort them upon difficult undertakings and under great and pressing calamities 334 c. Fourthly they protect them against the rage and fury of evil spirits 336 c. Fifthly they further and assist them in their religious Offices 340 c. Sixthly they conduct their separated spirits to the Mansions of Glory 342 c. Seventhly they are hereafter to attend and minister to him at the general Iudgment 345 c. The Ministry of evil Angels to Christ in four particulars First they try and exercise the vertues of his subjects 347 c. Secondly they chasten and correct their faults and miscarriages 351 c. Thirdly they harden and confirm incorrigible sinners 354 c. Fourthly they execute the vengeance of Christ on them in another world 357 c. The third sort of the Ministers of Christs Kingdom are the Kings and Governors of the world 361 c. by their subjection to Christ they are not deprived of any natural Right of their Sovereignty 363 c. But in the first place have the same commanding Power over all indifferent things and that in Ecclesiastical Causes as well as Civil that they had under the Law of Nature 364 c. And secondly are as unaccountable and irresistible as they were before 365 c. What thâ—se Ministries are which Kings are obliged to render our Saviour shewn in general from Isa. 49.23.476 c. Particularly first they are to protect and defend his Church in the profession and exercise of the true Religion 377.378 secondly they are to fence and cultivate its peace and good order 378 c. they are to chasten and correct the irregular 379 c. they are to provide for the decency of its worship and for the convenient maintenance of its Officers and Ministers 381 c. The fourth sort of Ministers of Christs Kingdom are the spiritual or Ecclesiastical Governors 383. That Christ hath erected a spiritual Government in his Church 384 c. That this Government is Episcopal proved from four Arguments first from the institution of our Saviour 388 c. secondly from the practice of the Apostles upon it 393 c. thirdly from the Vniversal Conformity of the Primitive Church to this Apostolick practice 404. fourthly from our Saviours declared allowance and approbation of both 421 c. Of the Ministers of this spiritual Government which are either such as are common to the Bishops together with the inferiour Officers of the Church as first to teach the Gospel 427 c. secondly to administer the Evangelical Sacraments 429 c. thirdly to offer up the publick Prayers and intercessions of Christian Assemblies 431 c. Or such as are peculiar to the Bishops as first to make Laws for the peace and good order of the Church 433. secondly to ordain to Ecclesiastical Offices 436. thirdly to exercise that spiritual jurisdiction which Christ hath established in his Church 439. fourthly to confirm such us have been Baptized and instructed in Christianity 446 c. SECT XI Of Christs Regal Acts in his Kingdom Which are of three sorts First such as he hath performed once for all of which there are four first his giving Laws to his Kingdom 449 c. That what Christ taught as a Prophet had the force of Law ibid. His Law spiritual 450. His Laws reduced under two heads first his Law of perfection 452 c. secondly his Law of sincerity 455 c. The second of those Regal Acts which he hath performed once for all is his mission of the Holy Spirit 457. A third is his erecting an external Polity and Government 458 c. Another sort of Christs Regal acts are such as he hath always performed and doth always continue to perform of which there are four first his pardoning penitent Offenders the nature of which is explained 461 c. the Scripture attributes it both to Christ and God the Father 462. that both of them have an appropriate part in it 463. The part of God the Father is first to make a general Grant of Pardon 464 c. secondly to make it in consideration of Christs death and sacrifice 466 thirdly to limit it to believing and penitent sinners ibid. c. The part which Christ performs in it is to make an actual and particular application of this general Grant of his Father to particular sinners upon their faith and repentance 474 c. The second of these Regal Acts of Christ is his punishing obstinate Offenders 476. A third is his protecting and defending his People and Kingdom in this world 479 c. The fourth is his rewarding his faithful subjects in the life to come 483 c. The third last sort of Christs Regal Acts are those which are yet to be performed by him of which there are three first he is yet farther to extend and enlarge his Kingdom by a more universal conquest of his Enemies 485 c. secondly he is yet to destroy Death the last Enemy by giving a general Resurrection 492 c. this proved from his own Resurrection ibid. The Objections against this argument and the Doctrine of the Resurrection answered 494 c. The manner of the Resurrection described at large from 1 Cor. 15.42.501 First this mortal body is to be the seed or material principle of our resurrection 502. secondly this seed must die and be corrupted before it is to be raised and quickened 503. thirdly this dead seed is to be raised and quickened by the Power of God 505. fourthly it is to be raised and quickned into the proper form and kind of a human body 508. fifthly this human body is to be very much changed and altered 510. the change that will be made in the bodies of good men is
fourfold first from base and humble into glorious bodies 511. secondly from earthly and fleshly into spiritual and Heavenly 513. thirdly from weak and passive into active and powerful 514. fourthly from corruptible and mortal into incorruptible and immortal 517. They will differ in degrees of Glory proportionably as they differ in degrees of perfection 518. Of the woful change which the bodies of the wicked will undergo 521. The third and last of these regal Acts of Christ is his judging the World where first the thing is proved that he shall judg the world 523. Secondly an account is given of the signs and fore-runners of his coming to judgment 524. Thirdly the manner and circumstances of his coming 526. as first the place from whence he is to come ibid. 527. secondly the State wherein he is to come 528. thirdly the Carriage on which he is to come 530. fourthly the train and equipage with which he is to come 533. fifthly the place to which he is to come 536. Fourthly the process of this judgment 538. And first of the judgment of the righteous wherein is implied first their citation or summons 539. secondly their personal appearance 540. thirdly their trial 54â— fourthly their sentence 543. fifthly their assumption into the clouds of heaven 545. The Iudgment of the wicked implies also first their citation 547. secondly their personal appearance 548. thirdly their trial 549. fourthly their sentence 551. fifthly their execution 552. SECT XII Concerning Christs surrendring his Kingdom Christ hath a twofold Kingdom viz. His Essential Kingdom which is co-eternal with him and can never be surrendred and his Mediatorial Kingdom which is founded upon a solemn compact and agreement with the Father and this is the Kingdom which shall be surrendred p. 556 c. At the conclusion of the day of Iudgment the whole Mediation will cease the end of it being fully accomplished 557. An account of the cessation of the Mediatorial Kingdom from 1 Cor. 15.24 25 26 27 28 558. the whole passage resolved into five propositions ibid. First that the Kingdom there spoken of was committed to him by God the Father 559. secondly that he is to possess this Kingdom so long and no longer as till all things are actually subdued unto him 560. thirdly that during his possession of this Kingdom he is in a state of subjection to the Father 561. fourthly that when he hath delivered it up to the Father he will be otherwise subject to him than he is now 562. fifthly that he being thus subjected to the Father all Power and Dominion shall be thenceforth immediately exercised by the Deity 565. SECT XIII Of the Reason and Wisdom of this Method of Gods governing sinful men by his own Eternal Son in our Nature Five reasons of this Method assigned First that he might govern us in a way more accommodate to this degenerate state of our nature 567 c. secondly that he might the more effectually cure and prevent the spreading contagion of Idolatry 573 c. thirdly that thereby he might give us the more powerful encouragement to Obedience 582. fourthly that he might the more powerfully excite our Gratitude and Ingenuity 585. fifthly that he might thereby give us the more ample assurance of our future Reward 588. SECT XIV That Jesus is this Mediator of whom we have been treating Three ways by which God hath testified that Iesus is the true Mediator First by Prophesie secondly by Voice from Heaven thirdly by Miracles 591. The last of these only insisted on as being that to which our Saviour most commonly appeals 592. This together with the goodness of his Doctrine a most certain evidence of his being the Mediator ibid. The Miracle of his Resurrection was that which both our Saviour and his Apostles most insisted on 594. The reality of this attestation capable of being proved only by credible Testimony 596. The Testimony of our Saviours Resurrection accompanied with all the most credible circumstances which are six 597. First they who testified it were most certainly informed whether it were true or no 598. secondly there was a concurrence of several Witnesses to the truth of the Fact 600. thirdly there was no visible reason to suspect their honesty and integrity 603. fourthly there was no apparent motive to induce them to testifie falsly 609. fifthly they gave the greatest security for the truth of what they testified 612. sixthly they gave certain signs and tokens that what they testified was true 614. What a most convincing argument this of Miracles and particularly of Christs miraculous Resurrection was of the truth of his being the Mediator shewn in four particulars First that it was the most proper and convenient Evidence 622. secondly that it was the most certain and infallible Evidence 625. thirdly that it was the plainest and most popular Evidence 629. fourthly that it was the shortest and most compendious Evidence 631. OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE PART II. VOL. II. CHAP. VII Of the necessity of acknowledging Jesus Christ to be the one and only Mediator between God and Man in order to our Leading a Truly Christian Life HITHERTO we have treated of the common Principles of Religion in General but as for this last it is the great Principle of Christian Religion strictly so called as it is distinguished from the Religion of Nature and as such is properly the Religion of the Mediator as containing only the Doctrines which concern the Mediator and the Duties which result from those Doctrines and owe their Obligations to them both which being taken away all the remaining Religion is purely Natural and Moral So that this Principle we are now treating of contains in it all that Religion which is strictly Christian without believing of which and practising upon it we cannot be truly said to lead a Christian Life how well soever we may live For there is no doubt but upon the Motives and Principles of natural Religion a man to whom Christianity was never sufficiently proposed may upon due consideration and a hearty endeavour reclaim himself to a very pious and vertuous life as it is apparent many of the Heathen Philosophers did but no man can be pious or vertuous in the Christian sence who is not so upon the Christian Obligations for the Principles from and by which we act are the very life and soul of our Religion and therefore as it is the Rational Soul that specifies the Man a Rational Animal so it is our Christian Principles that specifie our Religion Christian Religion Wherefore though the Piety and Vertue of an Heathen may be materially the same with that of a Christian yet it is impossible it should be formally Christian unless it be animated and acted with the belief of Christianity So that if we leave out this and practise only upon the above-named Principles we are at best but wise and honest Heathens and there is nothing in all our Religion but the simple Dictates of mere natural reason 'T is
do any way fall short of it instead of being our kind and merciful Advocate our Mediator will become our implacable Judge and doom us to a place of dismal torment where we shall live with everlasting horrour and despair so that now we can no longer persevere in our impenitence without trampling at the same time on the highest encouragements and charging headlong through the most amazing danger IV. That as he acts for and in the behalf of God and Men so he partakes of the natures of both For that this high and important Office might be the more effectually executed and performed the eternal Father thought meet to place it in the hands of his own eternal Son the Son of his natural Generation to whom he communicated from all eternity his own Divine Essence and Nature and whom in due time he appointed to assume the Humane Nature into a personal union with his Divinity that so being God-man in one person he might be the better fitted and accomplished to Mediate between God and Men. For in Mediating Authoritatively for God with us he was to perform the Office of a divine King to rule and Govern us as God's Vicegerent and either reduce us under his Authority or chastise us for our Rebellion against him which is a Sphere so vast and so sublime as needs no less than some divine Intelligence to inform and actuate it For to wield the Divine Scepter and Government is a Province that requires a Divine Knowledge and Power for the souls and hearts of men are the principal Seat and Subject of the divine Government and therefore it is very requisite that he who is intrusted with the administration of it should have a through and perfect inspection of all our most secret Thoughts and Intentions and Purposes and Resolutions otherwise how is it possible he should take cognizance of them so as to command and over-rule and reward and punish them But to know the hearts of men is in Scripture always appropriated to the divine Omniscience so 1 Kings 8 3â— Thou even thou only knowest the hearts of the Children of men and if only God's all-searching Eye can penetrate into the hearts of men who but a God can Rule and Govern them And accordingly our Saviour upon whose shoulders this inward and spiritual Government rests challenges to himself this divine Prerogative which is so necessary a qualification for it Rev. 2.23 And all the Churches shall know saith he that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts and will give to every one of you according to his works Nor is it less requisite to qualifie him for this spiritual Empire that he should be Almighty than that he should be Omniscient for to enable him to rule the hearts and souls of men it is necessary that he should have the Command and Disposal of all those outward Events and Accidents in which they are any way concerned since it is by these in a great measure that their hearts are swayed their affections formed their intentions and resolutions squared and regulated and in a word their good and evil actions rewarded and punished in this World and to wield and manage moderate and dispose such infinite numbers of Events as concern such infinite numbers of Men so vastly distant from one another in place condition and temper requires a power that can do whatsoever it pleases both in Heaven and Earth which the Psalmist appropriates to the divine Power as its peculiar Prerogative Psal. 135.6 7. and if it be only a divine power that can manage and dispose all the affairs of all men what can be more requisite than that he who rules and governs them should communicate of the divine Omnipotence And accordingly our Saviour upon whom this Government is devolved assures his Disciples that all power was communicated to him both in Heaven and Earth Matt. 28.18 which being the Prerogative of the divine Power seems impossible to have been communicated to any but a divine Person And therefore the Prophet Isaiah speaking of the Government of Christ tells us that his name should be called Wonderful Counsellour the mighty God Isa. 9.6 where by Counsellour and mighty God he seems to design his infinite Knowledge and Power whereby he should be qualified for this his divine Government for so Mighty God doth always in the Scripture-phrase signifie Almighty God so in Deut. 7.21 Psal. 50.1 Ier. 32.18 Hab. 1.12 and elsewhere By all which it is evident that to Mediate Authoritatively for God with men is a Province so sublime as that it requires no less than divine perfections in the Person that undertakes and manages it and consequently that it is requisite he should be God. Nor is it less requisite to render his Government more awful and Majestick For though the condition of the Person alters not the nature of the Authority he is vested with yet in the estimation of men the same Authority is more or less venerable according as the quality and condition of â—he Persons cloathed with it is more or less considerable Since therefore the quality of the Person doth always cast a Cloud or Lustre on the Office it was very requisite that he who was Authorized to Mediate for God with men which is the highest Office under God the Father should be a Person of the highest Rank and Dignity next to God the Father himself and consequently that he should be God the Son and hence the Author to the Hebrews Chap. 1. to render his Authority moâ—e awful takes a great deal of pains to imblazon the dignity of his Person in which he gives him such Stiles and Characters as cannot without extreme force be applied to any but a Person divine he stiles him The brightness of his Father's Glory and the express Image of his Person the Founder of the Earth and the Maker of the Heavens and the Vpholder of all things by the word of his power Vers. 3.10 he tells us that he was set far above the Angels and that the Father had ordered all his Angels to worship him declaring him to be God in these terms Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever and then he concludes all with this application Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard of him Chap. 2. v. 1. which shews that in the Apostle's sense to Mediate for God is a station so sublime that it was very fit it should be supplied as it was with a Person of the highest Dignity that so his Person might reflect a Majesty on his Office and render it more awful and venerable in the World. And as to accomplish him for this high Office of Mediating for God with Men it was most fit he should be God so it was no less requisite he should be Man. For Man being naturally a sensitive as well as a rational Creature in this degenerate state of his nature wherein his sensitive part is predominant there are
20.28 not that the Divine Essence can suffer or bleed but being united into one Person with the Humane Nature the Properties of this Nature and also the Actions and Passions thence proceeding may be truly attributed to it and therefore since in the Person of Christ God was united to Man whatsoever his Humanity suffered may be truly called the suffering of God and being so it was a suffering every way equivalent to the Eternal damnation of the whole world of sinners Lastly As he was to appear as our Advocate at the right hand of God it was very fit he should be Man that so as the Apostle discourses having an High Priest that was in all points tempted like as we are as having been placed in our Nature and Circumstances he might be the more affectionately touched with the feeling of our infirmities Heb. 4.15 i. e. that so our nature being a part of himself and that himself having experienced its weakness and infirmity he might be the more nearly concerned for it and be touched with a more tender compassion towards it consequently solicite its cause and interest at the right hand of God with greater zeal and importunity For so the same Author reasons Heb. 3.17 18. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the People for in that himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted And that he should be God as well as Man is no less requisite to create in us the greater confidence of the success of his Advocation For what Reason or Argument could be great enough to satisfie our guilty and therefore anxious minds that ever a meer man who had nothing beyond our selves to recommend him to God but only his Innocence and Vertue should be able to obtain such a prevailing interest in Heaven as not only to reconcile the Almighty Father of all things to a world of sinful men against whom he was so justly and so highly incensed but also to obtain of him to imbrace them with infinite Love and crown them with eternal Favours which is such a stupendous success as we could scarce have modestly hoped for from the most importunate intercession not only of the best man that ever was upon earth but of the highest Angel in Heaven For unless we could reasonably suppose God to be more pleased with one innocent man or Angel than he is displeased with a world of guilty sinners which is hardly supposable we could have no just ground to hope that the cries of the ones intercessions should be more prevalent with him than the cries of the others guilts But when we consider that he who hath undertaken our cause is the Son of God the Son of his natural Generation that from all Eternity was begotten of his Essence God of God Light of Light very God of very God what may we not expect from the Prayers of one so near and dear to the Eternal Father that is fit either for him to ask or for the Eternal Father to bestow For this we may be confident of that he can never be so highly displeased with us as he is pleased with his own Son who is the stamp of his very Essence and express Character of his Person and that therefore his pleasure in him will be far more prevalent than all his displeasure against us and while it is so we have all the security in the world that he will succeed in his Advocation and prevail in our behalf Thus that Christ should be God-man was in it self highly expedient to qualifie him for all the Parts and Offices of his Mediation and accordingly the holy Scripture expresly declares him to be so For first That he is God is as plainly asserted as any Proposition in the Bible For thus not to instance in the Old Testament where he is frequently stiled Iehovah the incommunicable name of God and the Mighty or Almighty God and Immanuel that is God with us In the New Testament he is not only called God Acts 20.28 where the Pastors are exhorted to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud which can be applied to none but Christ and Iohn 20.28 where Thomas calls him my Lord and my God which Confession of his our Saviour himself approves Verse 29. but moreover he is called the true God 1 John 5.20 And we are in him that is true even in his Son Iesus Christ he is the true God and eternal life and God over all blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and accordingly the Father himself is brought in thus bespeaking him Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Heb. 1.8 where his design is to shew the excellency of Christ above the Angels for saith he in Verse 7. Of the Angels he saith who maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire but unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God c. which stile O God here must necessarily import something greater than was ever attributed to Angels and consequently something greater than a Nominal or Titular Deity which our Adversaries in this Article allow was frequently given to the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament If therefore that Angel of the Lord were a meer created Angel as they affirm he had as much attributed to him as our Saviour unless we suppose this stile O God to import real and essential Deity and not meerly nominal So also Iohn 1.1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. For the clearing of which noble Text which our Adversaries with a world of Art have indeavoured to perplex and intangle it is to be considered that this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word was a term of Art by which in that very Age when this Gospel was written and long before and after it both the Iewish and Heathen Writers were wont to express and signifie a divine Person by whom the Ancient Jews understood the Messias who is that very Person the Apostle here treats of Since therefore by this Phrase the Word both Jews and Gentiles when S. Iohn wrote this Gospel understood a divine Person and since by this divine Person the Jews understood the Messias there is no reason to imagine that S. Iohn here meant it in any other signification since in so doing he could not but foresee he should impose upon the World and take an effectual course to make us believe he meant what he never intended For he is so far from explaining this Phrase into any different sence from that of the Jewish and Gentile Writers that he all along explains himself in the very same Now it is hardly to be imagined by any one whose mind is not deeply tinctured with Heretical Pravity but that had the Apostle
doth as much signifie his being really God as his being in the form of men doth his being really man But for further satisfaction concerning these two last cited Texts I refer the Reader to that most learned and incomparable Treatise Pearson's Exposition of the Creed fol. 121 and 127. where the Cavils of the Socinians are all shamefully baffled with clear and convincing reasons Thus as it is highly requisite in it self that the Mediator should partake of the Natures of both the Parties between whom he interposes so we are sufficiently assured that he doth by Scripture Testimony So that now in his Mediation for God with us we have all the reason in the world to dread and reverence his Authority and also to resign up our selves to its conduct with a free and chearful mind For being God we are sure that he hath an all-seeing Eye that inspects our hearts and pries into the inmost thoughts and purposes of our Souls and an Almighty Arm that can stretch forth it self to the remotest distance and reach us even to the bottomless Pit and being thus exposed to the inspection of an all-seeing Eye and the vengeance of an Almighty Arm how dare we harbour any thought or purpose any desire or affection with which that Eye is offended or that Arm provoked But then being Man as well as God his Authority comes armed to us with equal Sweetness and Majesty and is every whit as apt to affect our love and ingenuity as our dread and reverence For how can we refuse to obey him when he commands us in our own nature a nature which is most intimate and familiar to us and which we are most inured to love and to obey and above all a nature wherein he bled and died for us and chearfully exposed himself to sorrow and shame and torment that we might live and be happy for ever And so on the other hand in his Mediation for us with God we have all the reason in the World stedfastly to relie upon his meritorious Sacrifice and powerful Intercession for as he was man he was not only capacitated to suffer for us but he actually suffered in our nature that very nature wherein we had justly deserved to suffer for ever So that what he suffered for us came as near to our suffering for our selves and consequently did as much satisfie the ends of divine Justice in exacting punishment of Offenders as it was possible for any substituted or vicarious punishment to do For though our persons escape our nature hath been punished in him But then being God as well as Man what he suffered for us was not only instead of what we ought to have suffered but equivalent to it So that our ransom from eternal punishment being paid with the bloud of one of our own kind hypostatically united to God we did as much suffer in him as we could do without suffering in our own persons and what we suffered in him was every way equivalent to what we had deserved to suffer in our own persons So that now we have all possible assurance that the Divine Justice is so far satisfied by what Christ hath suffered for our sins that if we repent and forsake them we shall be freely discharged from all that infinite Debt of punishment which we have justly contracted by them And then again being Man we may be secure that he hath a most tender sympathy with the whole Mass of humane nature by what distances soever of time or place divided and dispers'd and consequently that having in himself experienced its weaknesses and temptations so far as was consistent with his innocence he must needs be a very concerned and zealous Advocate for us with the Almighty Father And then being God-man the Son of the Almighty Father's Essence as well as the Son of man we may be equally secure that he cannot fail being successful in his Advocation especially when he pleads for us as he doth in the right of his own meritorious Bloud by which he purchased our admission into the divine Grace and Favour So that considering all these things it is evident that there could have been no Mediator between God and us so every way fit and proper to govern us for God and intercede for us with God none in whom both God and we could have reposed that Trust and Confidence as a Theanthropos or God-man V. Another thing which the Scripture proposes to our belief concerning this Mediator is that as he partakes of the natures of both the Parties between whom he mediates so that he might transact personally with both he was sent down from Heaven to us and is returned again from us to Heaven For since he was appointed to Mediate between God and Men it was highly expedient that he should personally address to both Parties that so he might more closely and effectually solicite a mutual reconciliation between them and that being personally known to both they might both repose their trust in him with greater confidence and assurance He was well known to the Father in whose bosom he dwelt from all Eternity to be a Person every way fitted to be intrusted with his authority and the administration of his Government as communicating with him in the same divine Essence and consequently essential Dominion by reason of which no person in the World could be so much concerned for his Father's Authority as he was and consequently no Person could be so proper to be intrusted with it and therefore when upon the first breach between God and men there arose an occasion for a Mediator God could not but be infinitely satisfied that there was none so fit to act on his part or Mediate for him as his own Son. But then since he was neither known to us by person nor allied to us by nature as he was to his Father we could have no such reason as the Father had to place our trust and confidence in him and therefore though when he first undertook his Mediatorship between God and us he was not related to us by nature as he was to the Father yet it was upon an agreement between the Father and him that he should hereafter assume this relation to us and become the Son of Man as well as the Son of God that he was admitted to this Office. So that though from our Fall to his Incarnation he was not Man but only God yet all that time he Mediated as God-man between God and Men he Mediated for God as actually subsisting in the Divine Nature he Mediated for men as he was infallibly to subsist in the humane nature also He having therefore vertually and intentionally assumed our nature from his very first entrance on his Mediatorship did thereupon become equally related to both Parties but till he had actually assumed our natures and therein manifested himself unto us we could not have that knowledge of him nor of his relation to us that the Father had nor consequently that
reason to repose our trust and confidence in him and therefore that we might have the same reason to confide in him in his Mediation for us as God had in his Mediation for him God so ordered it not only that he should assume our nature which if he had so thought meet he might have done without either being seen of us or born among us but also that he should so assume it as to be visibly born of humane kind and manifested in it in the open view and sight of the World. For in the fulness of that time which was long before prefixed in the Eternal Council of God the Holy Ghost by an immediate invisible and miraculous operation on the pure and Immaculate Womb of a Virgin called Mary of the Lineage of David inabled her without any Congress of Man to conceive a Child of humane kind consisting of a rational Soul in a mortal body which the Eternal Word or natural Son of God who was before all Worlds immediately assumed into a personal Vnion with himself whereby he became God-man who before was only God and this without either commixing his two natures into one or converting either of them into the other but under their Personal Union preserving them still distinct and separate which God-man the blessed Virgin that conceived him actually brought forth after the natural time of Women and Nursed and Educated till he arrived to the Age of man at which time he began personally to treat with men in his Father's behalf and in order to the reducing them to their bounden duty and allegiance to the Throne of Heaven revealed his Mind and Will to them with his own mouth and pressed and inforced it upon them with the most powerful Motives that ever were urged to mankind and by his own miraculous Works and most holy Example abundantly demonstrated to them that what he revealed to be the Will of his Father was true and practicable Thus far in his own person he Mediated for his Father with Men as I shall shew more fully hereafter The consideration of which ought in all reason and conscience to render his Mediation more prevalent with us For when God the Father hath condescended so far as to send down his only Son from Heaven on an Embassie to us to propose to us terms of reconciliation who had so highly incensed and affronted him when God the Son hath condescended so far as to cloath himself in our nature that therein he might indear himself to us and thereby oblige us to listen more attentively to his gracious proposals what a stupendous height of obstinacy will it be in us to stop our Ears against him and reject those terms of Mercy he proposes to us by persisting in a wilful rebellion Had God sent but one of the lowest Angels in Heaven to us to promise pardon and eternal life to us upon condition we would but sincerely submit to his Will one would have thought a proposal so infinitely reasonable in it self and advantagious to us should have been imbraced by us with transports and raptures but to reject it now when he hath sent it to us by his own Eternal Son whom all his Angels adore and by his Son incarnate in our own natures is such a degree of obstinacy and ingratitude together as no Devil was ever guilty of Suppose that you beheld this most glorious Person coming down to you from the right hand of God to tender you a Pardon and a Crown upon condition you would submit to his Father's Will and denounce everlasting vengeance against you if you persist in your rebellion would you dare by refusing to submit to reject that Pardon and that Crown and defie that vengeance to his face One would think it were impossible but yet in effect you do the same thing who believe that that Jesus who preached this Gospel to the World 1600. years ago was the Son of God in Humane Nature and yet obstinately refuse to submit to its proposals Hence from this very Topick that God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his own Son Heb. 1.2 the Apostle himself makes this inference Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip Heb. 2.1 And now having finished his Personal Treaty or Mediation with us for God he lays the foundation of his everlasting Intercession for us with God before our own Eyes viz. in the Sacrifice of himself for the sins of the World. He might if he had pleased have suffered death for us in the invisible state and received those tortures from the malice of Devils which were inflicted on him by the malice of devilish men but that would not have given so great a satisfaction to our Faith. For for the Son of God to lay down his life for Sinners is such a stupendous instance of love as would have exceeded the belief of Mankind had it not been openly and visibly transacted and therefore he rather chose to resign up himself into the hands of the Iews his cruel Persecutors and by them to offer up his Life upon the Cross in the Publick view of the World. And now having given this sensible evidence to our Faith that he died for us to satisfie us farther that his death was accepted by his Father as a full atonement for our sins he rose again from the dead the third day after his Crucifixion which was a plain evidence that his Father was fully satisfied with what he had suffered for us because he exacted no more but by his Resurrection actually discharged him from any farther suffering for ever So that the Resurrection of Christ is not only an evidence of the truth of his Religion under which notion I shall discourse of it hereafter but also of the acceptation of his Sacrifice For so the Apostle intimates in Rom. 8.33 34. Who then shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again i. e. Who is there now that can presume to denounce eternal condemnation against any good Christian since Christ himself hath laid down his life for him yea rather since he is risen again from the dead and hath thereby given sufficient evidence that God hath accepted his death as our ransom from eternal condemnation And now having satisfied our Faith in these two great points that he died for our sins and that God hath accepted his death in lieu of that eternal punishment that was due for them all the farther satisfaction we can ask or need is that as he came down from the Father to Mediate personally with us for him so he should return back again to the Father to Mediate personally for us with him to exhibite and plead his meritorious Sacrifice in our behalf and in vertue thereof to solicite our pardon and acceptation with God.
proposed the divine light to their minds so he also illuminated their minds to discern and comprehend it he raised and exalted their intellectual faculties and as a vital form to the light of their reason did actuate and thereby enable it to comprehend his Revelations And hence Acts 19.6 we are told that the Disciples who upon St. Paul's laying his hands on them received the Holy Ghost spake with Tongues and Prophesied i. e. explained the deep Mysteries of the Gospel for so Prophesying in the New Testament doth most commonly signifie hence 1 Cor. 13.2 the Apostle makes Prophecy to consist in understanding divine Mysteries and Knowledge and in ver 9. We know in part saith he and we Prophesie in part so that the effect of their receiving the Holy Ghost you see was Prophecy that is a clear understanding of and ability to explain the Mysteries of Religion A plain evidence how effectually he taught them in that they no sooner became his Scholars but they were fit to be the Teachers of the World. For though it seems probable that he as well as our Saviour instructed them gradually in the knowledge of the Gospel since it was some time after this first descent that the Mystery of the calling of the Gentiles was revealed to them yet it is very apparent that he instructed them much faster than our Saviour had done and much fuller and that those impressions of divine truth which he made upon their understandings were much more vigorous and clear and therefore could not be so easily either forgotten or mistaken by them And accordingly our Saviour himself tells them that he had many things to say unto them but they could not bear them such was the narrowness of their capacity and the way of his teaching Howbeit saith he when the spirit of truth is come he shall lead you into all truth John 16.12 13. and teach you all things John 14.20 Thus the Holy Ghost fully instructed them what Doctrines they were to preach to the World and by his immediate inspirations enabled them to deliver down the truth to us the whole truth and nothing but the truth Thirdly The Holy Ghost enabled them to give the most convincing evidence of the Truth and Divinity of their Doctrines without which it was impossible they should ever have succeeded in their Ministry But the only certain evidence they could give that their Doctrine was divine was the testimony of Miracles For there is nothing which pretends to be divine can any otherwise evidence it self to be so but by something that is apparently divine and there being nothing apparently divine but what is plainly and evidently a miraculous effect of divine power it follows that Miracles only can attest the Divinity of any Doctrines Wherefore to enable the first Planters of the Gospel to convince the World that their Doctrine was divine it was highly requisite that they should be endowed with this divine power of working Miracles and accordingly so they were upon this miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost upon them For so Acts 2.43 upon this coming of the Holy Ghost on them we are told that many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles so also Acts 4.30 31. that upon their praying that God would stretch forth his hand to heal and that signs and wonders might be done by the name of Iesus God in answer to their Prayer filled them with the Holy Ghost that is enabled them by his Spirit to effect these signs and wonders they had prayed for It is true indeed they had in some measure this gift of the Holy Ghost before this miraculous Descent even while our Saviour was among them but that was very sparingly and only upon some particular occasions and for the effecting some particular Miracles but our Saviour promised them that upon his going to the Father to send the Comforter to them They who believed on him should not only do the Works which he did but greater works than those John 14.12 and accordingly when after his Ascension the Holy Ghost came upon them he continued with them and upon all occasions impowered them to do all kinds of Miracles for the confirmation of their Doctrine so that whereas before the greatest part of these miraculous signs of the divinity of the Christian Doctrine were performed by Christ himself in his own Person and by that means confined to the place of his Personal habitation which was too narrow a Theatre for many Spectators to behold them the Holy Ghost by working Miracles in his name of all sorts and upon all occasions in and by his Ministers who were presently to be dispersed over the face of the whole Earth did much more amply display his divine power and with greater speed spread the renown of it through the World and by constantly impowering so many persons in so many parts of the World to perform so many miraculous things in Christ's name did as it were carry him in open Triumph through the World and at once display his Majesty and Power over the face of the whole Earth For what Christ did in his own Person while he was on Earth that and much more the Holy Ghost did in the persons of all his Ministers and the Holy Ghost did that at the same time in a thousand parts of the World which Christ did only in one and by these miraculous effects which are therefore called the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit 1 Cor. 2.4 the Holy Ghost asserted to the World the truth and divinity of those Doctrines which the Ministers of Jesus taught For this gift of Miracles expired not with those Primitive Ministers but was continued down to their Successors for several Generations together until the Christian Doctrine was propagated through the World and then when it had done its work and accomplished its end it was withdrawn as being no longer necessary Fourthly and lastly The Holy Ghost conducted them by his own infallible advice through all the emergent difficulties of their Ministry For the work wherein they were ingaged was attended with difficulties that were utterly insuperable to Humane Wisdom and Power For first their work being such as required an invincible courage and firm integrity of mind a watchful prudence and spotless purity of manners it was highly needful especially at first a good beginning being of vast importance to all great undertakings that they should be infallibly directed what persons were fit to be ordained to it and which of those were mosâ— fit and proper for the several Countries and Provinces of the World and then through the whole course of their Ministry they were fain to contend with all the united Wit and Malice of the World and were very often sent to preach among strange Nations whose Tempers and Manners they understood not and still where-ever they came they had Spies upon them to watch their Designs and observe their actions and ever and anon they were accused and impleaded by subtil and
thenceforth to reside and make his constant abode and from whence and by whom he would for the future communicate himself to Mankind And accordingly the sign which God gave to Iohn Baptist by which he might know the Messias when he saw him was this Vpon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost i. e. who from himself or from his own fulness shall communicate the Holy Ghost to the World Ioh. 1.33 For so full was Jesus of the Holy Ghost that he not only prophesied himself and did miracles by it whensoever he pleased but he also communicated it to his own immediate Disciples and impowered them to communicate it to others and hence it is said that God gave not the Spirit by measure to him John 3.34 i. e. with limitations and restrictions to such particular times or ends and purposes but in that unlimited manner as that he could not only act by it himself whensoever or howsoever he pleased but also communicate it to others in what degree or measure soever he pleased For so Ioh. 20.22 it is said that he breathed upon his Disciples and bid them receive the Holy Ghost and Acts 8.17 we are told that upon their laying their hands upon others they also received the Holy Ghost And by this unlimited fulness of the Holy Ghost which our Saviour received at his Baptism he was perfectly accomplished for his Prophetick Office. For the Holy Ghost abode in him after that visible glory in which he descended disappeared even throughout the whole course of his Ministry and hence Luke 4.1 we are told that being full of the Holy Ghost he returned from Iordan and after he had finished his forty days Fast in the Wilderness he returned from thence in the power of the Spirit into Galilee ver 14. where in his own City of Nazareth he began to Prophesie declaring and manifesting that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him vers 18 to 23. and at Cana in Galilee he began to work Miracles and thereby to manifest forth his Glory Joh. 2.11 Thus by Prophesying and confirming his Prophecies by Miracles he exerted that fulness of the Holy Ghost which was communicated to him at his Baptism And now since before he came down to Prophesie to us he was from Eternity in the bosom of the Father and since when he came down he was clothed in humane nature and in that nature was inspired with such an unbounded fulness of the Holy Ghost as that he could not only Prophesie himself and confirm his Prophecy by Miracles when he pleased but also communicate these his Gifts to others in what measures and proportions he thought fit to enable them to Prophesie for him wheresoever he thought meet to send them what can we imagine farther necessary to compleat and accomplish him for the Prophetick Office I proceed therefore in the next place to shew how throughly and effectually he discharged this Office which will plainly appear by considering briefly what those things were which as a Prophet he performed all which are reducible to these six Heads First He made a full Declaration of his Father's Will to the World. Secondly He proved and confirmed what he had declared by Miracles Thirdly He gave a perfect Example of Obedience to what he had declared and proved to be his Father 's Will. Fourthly He sealed his declaration with his own Bloud Fifthly He instituted an Order of men to preach what he had declared to the World. Sixthly He sent his Holy Spirit when he left the World to recollect and explain to those men what he had declared and to enable them also to prove and assert it by Miracles I. He made a full Declaration of his Father's Will to the World viz. in those Sermons Parables and Discourses of his which we find recorded in the four Evangelists in which the whole Will of God concerning the Way and Method of our Salvation is fully and perfectly revealed For thus S. Paul declares to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus that he had kept back nothing that was profitable for them but had testified both to the Iews and Greeks repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ Acts 20.20 21. and ver 27. he tells them that he had not shunned to declare unto them all the Counsel of God. Now it is certain that this whole Counsel of God which he had preached was only that account of our Saviour's Discourses and Actions which S. Luke gives us in his Gospel who as Irenaeus tells us was a follower of S. Paul and did compile into one Book that History of our Saviour's Life and Doctrine which S. Paul had taught and delivered and if so then the whole Counsel of God must be contained in this Gospel and accordingly S. Luke tells his Theophilus in the beginning of his Gospel That forasmuch as many had set forth a declaration of those things that were surely believed among Christians it seemed good unto him also having had a perfect understanding of all things from the first to write them down in order that he might know the certainly of those things wherein he had been instructed From whence I infer that supposing that S. Luke performed what he promised his Gospel must contain a full declaration of the Christian Religion For first by promising to give an account of those things that were surely believed among Christians he engaged himself to give an entire account of Christianity unless we will suppose that there were some parts of Christianity which the Christians of that time did not surely believe Secondly In promising to give an account of those things of which he had perfect understanding from the first and in which his Theophilus had been instructed he also engaged himself to give a compleat account of the whole Religion unless we will suppose that there were some parts of this Religion which S. Luke did not perfectly understand and in which Theophilus had not been before instructed And the sâ—me may be said of the three other Evangelists viz. that their Gospels do severally contain all the necessary Articles of Christianity though the last of them seems to have been wrote upon a more particular design viz. more fully to explain than any oâ— the former Evangelists had done the Article of the Divinity and eternal generation of Jesus Christ the Son of God. And if the whole of Religion be contained in these Gospels which are only Histories of our Saviour's Preaching and Actions then it cannot be denied but that he made a full revelation of God's Will to the World. It is true there are sundry other divine Writings annexed to these Gospels which together with them compleat the New Testament viz. the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles but these pretend not to declare any new Religion to the world For as for the Acts of the Apostles it is only an Historical account of the Preparations
and there is no reason could be so sufficient to this end as a valuable Sacrifice to suffer in our stead and bear the punishment of our sin which reason carries with it such an awful severity as must needs dishearten any considering sinner from presuming upon impunity if he go on in his sin For next to exacting the punishment of the Offender himself the most dreadful severity he could have expressed was not to remit it upon any consideration but this that some other should undergo it in his stead and by how much greater and more valuable the person is who undergoes it for us so much greater and more formidable God's severity appears in remitting it to us Since therefore in consideration of our Pardon God would admit no meaner Sacrifice than the precious Bloud of his own Eternal Son he hath hereby expressed the utmost indignation against our sin that he could possibly do unless he had absolutely resolved never to pardon it at all So that now we have all the reason that Heaven or Earth can afford us to tremble at his severity even while we are within the Arms of his mercy For what man in his Wits would take encouragement to sin on from a mercy that cost the Bloud of the Son of God He that can presume upon such a reason of mercy hath courage enough to out-face the flames of Hell and if Hell it self had stood open before us and we had seen the damned Ghosts weltering in the flames of it it would not have given us such a loud and horrible warning of God's severity against our sin as this tremendous Sacrifice of the Son of God doth If then a mercy that is so secured from being made an encouragement to sin by the terrible reason and consideration upon which it is founded cannot deter us from sinning on there is no wise mercy that we are capable of and consequently no mercy that the great God can indulge with safety to his Authority For what mercy can be safe from our abuse and presumption if this be not that is thus guarded with thunder and attended with the utmost severity that mercy could possibly admit of Wherefore if after I have seen my Saviour in his Agony deprecating with fruitless cries that fearful Cup which I deserved if after I have beheld him hanging on the Cross covered with Wounds and Bloud and in the bitter Agony of his Soul heard him crying out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And in a word if after I have seen that God to whom he was infinitely dear and precious turn a deaf ear to his mournful cries and utterly refuse to abate him so much as one degree or circumstance of a most shameful and tormenting death in consideration of my Pardon If I say after such a horrible spectacle I have heart enough to sin on I am a couragious sinner indeed or rather a desperate one not to be affected or restrained by all the terrors of Hell. Thirdly This Sacrifice of Christ is also to be considered as a most obliging expression of the love of God and our Saviour to us For if God had so pleased he might have exacted our punishment at our own hands and made us smart for ever in our own Persons and this notwithstanding we had heartily repented For though to repent is the best thing a sinner can do yet it doth not alter the nature of the sin he repenteth of so as to render it less evil or less deserving of punishment nor indeed is Repentance a sufficient reason to move the all-wise Governour of the World to grant a publick Act of pardon and indulgence to sinners it being inconsistent with the safety of any Government Divine or Humane so far to encourage Offenders as to indemnifie them by a publick Declaration meerly upon condition of their future repentance and amendment For all men are naturally apt to presume that God will be better to them than his word and therefore had he declared that he would pardon them upon their repentance without any other reason this would have encouraged them to hope that he might pardon them though they repented not at all or at least though they repented but by halves Wherefore since our repentance is not a sufficient reason to oblige God to grant a publick Pardon to sinners and since this was the best reason we could offer in our own behalf to move him thereunto it hence necessarily follows that he might have justly exacted the punishment of our sin of us and made us smart for it for ever notwithstanding the best reason we could have offered him to the contrary But such was his goodness towards us as to admit another to suffer in our stead that so neither we might be ruined nor our sins be unpunished And then that the punishment of our sin might be a sufficient reparation to his injured Authority he admitted his own Son upon his voluntary offering himself to undergo it for us who by the dignity and innocence of his Person rendered that temporary Death he underwent for us equiâ—alent to that eternal Death which we had deserved Now what a Prodigy of love was this that the God of Heaven whom we had so infinitely offended should part with his own Son for us and freely consent that he should undergo our punishment Which while I seriously consider it puzzles my conceit and out-reaches my wonder so that though I have infinite reason to rejoyce in it yet while I am contemplating it I seem to be looking down from some stupendious Precipice whose height fills me with a sacred horrour and almost oversets my Reason But Oh! the amazing love of the Son of God towards us that he should put himself in our stead and interpose his own Breast as a living Shield between ours and his Father's Vengeance which considering the greatness of his Person and of our unworthiness is such a stupendious expression of Love as no Romance of Friendship ever thought of And what is the proper influence of all this love but to oblige us for ever to God and our Saviour in the bands of a reciprocal affection to melt down our stubbornness and enmity against them and draw us on to our duty with the Cords of an invincible indearment For is it possible my sins should be as dear to me as the Son of God was to his own Father and yet the Father left him out of love to me and shall not I leave them out of love to him And when the Son of God hath been so kind to me as to lay down his life for me can I be so ingrateful to him as to doat upon those sins which he hated more than all the shame and torment which he endured on their account those sins that were the cause of all his sufferings the Thorns that gored his Temples and the Nails that pierced his hands and feet Sure if we are not utterly lost to all that is modest and
bloud of Abel will like the Souls under the Altar raise a cry of vengeance on us as high as the Tribunal of God. Wherefore as we would not find this blessed Sacrifice which was designed for our City of refuge converted into an avenger of bloud let us diligently concur with it to our utmost â—ower in this nâ—cessary design of our reformation that so being washed white and clean in the bloud of it we may appear before God holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight And thus I have given an account of the first Act of Christ's Priesthood viz. his Sacrifice SECT V. Of Christ's Intercession or presenting his Sacrifice to God in Heaven by way of Advocation for us I NOW proceed to the second Act of our Saviour's Priesthood corresponding to that ancient Priesthood in which it was typified and prefigured viz. his presenting his Sacrifice to God in Heaven thereby to move God as our Advocate to be merciful and propitious to us In discoursing of which I shall endeavour First To explain the nature of that Advocation which he performs by presenting his sacrificed body in Heaven Secondly To shew the admirable tendency of this Method of God's communicating his graces and favours to us through the Intercession and Advocation of our Saviour to reduce and reform Mankind As for the First viz. the Nature of this our Saviour's Advocation for us in Heaven it may be thus defined It is a solemn address of our blessed Saviour to God the Father in our behalf wherein by presenting to him his own Sacrificed body and by continuing and perpetuating the presentation of it he doth effectually move and solicite him graciously to receive and accept our Prayer and to impower him to bestow on us all those graces and favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised to us For the better understanding of which Definition I shall distinctly explain the several parts of it which are these four First It is a solemn address of our blessed Saviour to God the Father in our behalf Secondly This Address is performed by the presenting his Sacrificed body to the Father in Heaven Thirdly It is continued and perpetuated by the perpetual Oblation or presenting of this his sacrificed body Fourthly In vertue of this perpetual Oblation he doth always successfully move and solicite God and this First To receive and graciously accept our sincere and hearty Prayers and Secondly To impower him to bestow on us all those graces and favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised to us I. This Advocation of Christ in Heaven is a solemn address to the Father in our behalf And this is implied in the very word Advocation for the proper business of an Advocate is to address in the behalf of his Client to the Party with whom he is concerned or to plead the Cause of his Client with some Person with whom he hath some difference or from whom he expects some favour Now S. Iohn tells us that we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous 1 John 2.1 which must therefore necessarily imply his addressing to the Father in our behalf in order to the composing that difference which sin hath made between him and us and to the obtaining for us his mercy and favour For in this sence the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we here render Advocate is generally used among all Authors vide Outram de Sacrif p. 360. And so also the word Intercession signifies to address for one person to another in order to the reconciling some matter of difference between them or to the obtaining from the one some favour for the other And therefore since Jesus Christ is said to intercede for us at the right hand of God Rom. 8.34 this Intercession also must necessarily imply his making application to God in our behalf For so the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render to intercede for signifies to advocate or plead the cause of another as on the contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth always signifie to accuse Rom. 11.2 1 Maccab. 8.32 and 1 Maccab. 10.61 and 1 Mac. 11.25 And consequently when our Saviour is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must necessarily denote his addressing himself to God as our Advocate to plead our cause and solicite our interest and accordingly Heb. 9.24 we are told that Christ is entered into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us which phrase cannot without infinite force be otherwise understood than of his appearing for us as our Advocate to God. By all which it appears that in this his intercession for us our Saviour addresses to God the Father from whose bountiful hands he procures and receives all those blessings and favours which he derives to us So that the Father is the Fountain whence all our blessings flow and the Son is the Channel that receives them thence and conveys them down to us For as he is Mediator the Son can bestow nothing on us in his own right independently from the Father whose Minister he is and by whose Commission and Authority he acts And since they are all his Father's goods which he bestows upon us he cannot justly bestow them without his leave and consent the obtaining of which is the great business of his Intercession whereby he continually moves and solicites the Father to grant to him those good things in our behalf which as the high Almoner of the Father's graces and favours he bestows upon us So that whatsoever he gives to us he receives of the Father and whatsoever he receives of the Father he procures by his intercession with and address to him in our behalf II. This address is performed by the presenting his sacrificed body to the Father in Heaven For thus as was shewed before the High Priest's address to God for the People consisted in presenting the bloud of the sacrifice to him in sprinkling it upon and before the Mercy-Seat which was the Throne of the divine Majesty For he made no vocal Prayer for them in the Holy of Holies and consequently he performed not his intercession by words but by actions and the principal action he performed there was sprinkling the bloud of the Sacrifice which action was a very significant Intercession importing this Sense O God I beseech thee accept this bloud which I offer thee for the lives of thy People which are forfeited to thee And accordingly our blessed Saviour after he had offered up himself a Sacrifice for our sins upon Earth ascends into Heaven the true Antitype of the Holy of Holies and there presents not his bloud but his sacrificed body to the Father that body which not long before bled and died on the Cross and which as it seems probable carried with it all the wounds it received in its Crucifixion for by the story of Thomas it is certain it retained them after its Resurrection And by thus presenting his
which he shed 1600. years ago he still intercedes for us with the same effect and success as when he first presented it to his Father in Heaven Upon which account there was no need that he should offer himself often as the High Priest entered into the holy place every year with bloud of others for then must he have often suffered since the foundation of the World but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself Heb. 9.25 26. So that Christ's one Sacrifice being of perpetual vertue and efficacy and being as such perpetually presented to the Father in heaven he therewithal makes a continued and uninterrupted Intercession for us and will continue to do so to the end of the World. Hence we are said to be sanctified through the offering of the body of Iesus once for all Heb. 10.10 And whereas every Priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away sin this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God vers 11 12. and this offering his one Sacrifice for sins in heaven being for ever it is a perpetually continued act of Intercession for us For so it is said that he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. 7.25 i. e. he ever lives in Heaven so as by his perpetual presence there to make perpetual Intercession for us And upon the account of the perpetuity of this his Priestly Act of Intercession he is said to have an unchangeable Priesthood not barely because he continues for ever for so he might have done and yet â—eased to have been a Priest but because he continues for ever exercising his Priesthood or presenting his Sacrifice Heb. 7.24 And hence also he is said to be a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedeck that is not only to be a Royal Priest as Melchisedeck was which as I shewed before was the proper Character of Melchisedeck's Priesthood but to be a Royal Priest for ever Heb. 7.17 For Melchisedeck was not only a Royal Priest but also a Type or Shadow of an eternal Royal Priest and that as he was without Father and without Mother without descent or Genealogy having neither beginning of days nor end of life but made like unto the Son of God abideth a Priest continually Heb. 7.3 where the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without descent or Genealogy explains what is meant by without Father and without Mother i. e. without any Father or Mother mentioned in the Genealogies of Moses so the Syriac version whose Father and Mother are neither of them recorded in the Genealogies in which he very much differed from the Aaronical Priests whose Fathers and Mothers names were constantly recorded in the Jewish Genealogies as appears from Esdr. 11.62 and so also Philo on the Decalogue tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the descent and Progeny of the Priests is kept with all manner of exactness So that there being no Genealogy at all of Melchisedeck in Scripture he is introduced into the History like a man dropt down from Heaven for so the Text goes on having neither beginning of days nor end of life i. e. in the History of Moses which contrary to its common usage when it makes mention of great men takes no notice at all of the time either of Melchisedeck's birth or death and herein he is made like unto the Son of God i. e. by the History of Moses which mentions him appearing and acting upon the Stage without either entrance or exit as if like the Son of God he had abode a Priest continually So that as Moses's History treats of Melchisedeck without taking any notice of his beginning or end as if he were a Royal Priest for ever so Christ in truth and reality is a Royal Priest for ever because by the perpetual Oblation and presenting his Sacrifice to the Father he perpetually exercises his Priesthood and makes a continued intercession for Mankind IV. This address being made by the continued Oblation or presenting of his sacrificed body to the Father is in the vertue thereof always effectual and successful For his Sacrifice as hath been shewn at large was the price of his purchace of those blessings he intercedes for the price which God by a solemn agreement with our Saviour had obliged himself to admit and accept For the only blessings he intercedes for are those which are specified in the New Covenant which New Covenant God granted to Mankind in consideration of the meritorious Death and Sacrifice of our Saviour and accordingly when he went to offer up himself a Sacrifice for us he tells us that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to what was determined or agreed on between his Father and himself Luke 22.22 And hence our Saviour tells us that his Father in consideration of what he was to suffer did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Covenant to him a Kingdom Luke 22.29 which Kingdom includes a Kingly power to bestow upon his faithful Subjects the Rewards of his Religion which are the blessings of the New Covenant and of this Covenant by which God obliged himself in consideration of Christ's Death to bestow this Kingly power upon him that of Heb. 10.7 seems to be intended then said I Lo I come in the Volume of the Book it is written of me to do thy will O God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render the Volume of the Book may perhaps be more truly translated the Instrument Indenture or Covenant that is between thee and me For so the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answers signifieth any sort of writing and particularly a Bill Deut. 24.1 according to which sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must here signifie the volume or folding of a Bill or which is all one an Indenture or Covenant When therefore he sâ—ith Lo I come in the Indenture or Covâ—nant which is between thee and me by which thou hasâ— bequeathed or covenanted to me a Kingdom or power to bestow such and such blessings on my faithful Subjects in this Covenant I say it is exprest or written that I should come to do thy will i. e. to offer up that body which thou hast prepared for me a Sacrifice for the sins of the World ver 5. And indeed how could it have been foretold of him as it is Isa. 53. that he should justifie many by bearing their iniquities and that he should see the travail of his soul i. e. for our Salvation and be satisfied had not the Father obliged himself by Contract and Covenant to justifie and save us in consideration of his Sacrifice And indeed this whole Prediction carries with it a Promise from the Father to Christ that upon the consideration of his Death and Sacrifice he should be effectually impowered to save and justifie us Since therefore the Sacrifice
of Chriâ—t was the great consideration upon which the Father granted to him the blessings of the New Covenant in our behalf and since it is by presenting that Sacrifice and in the vertue of it that he intercedes with the Father for those blessings we may confidently assure our selves he cannot fail of success because he intercedes with a righteous God of whom by presenting to him the consideration of his grant he hath acquired a right to obtain the blessings he intercedes for For now he intercedes for us with the price of our Redemption in his hands so that he doth not act precariously or as a meer Orator that begs and supplicates without any claim and so may be denied and rejected without any injustice but whatsoever he asks he asks in the right of his Sacrifice by accepting of which inestimable consideration the Father hath obliged himself to grant what he aks for So that now he cannot be denied those Favours which he craves in our behalf without manifest injustice because by mutual Contract between himself and his Father he hath purchased to himself a right to obtain them and hath bought and paid for them with his own bloud And how can we imagine that the most just and holy God can ever be so outragiously unjust to his own Son as to be deaf to his Intercessions while he intercedes in the right of that precious bloud which his Son freely paid and he as freely accepted in consideration of those blessings he intercedes for It being therefore evident by what hath been said that the Intercession of Christ is a most effectual and successful address to the Father to all the intents and purposes for which it is made it now remains only that we give an account to what intents and purposes it is that he makes this address to the Father First Therefore it is to move and solicite him graciously to receive and accept our sincere and hearty Prayers and Secondly To obtain of him Power and Authority to bestow on us all those Graces and Favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised us I. One intent or purpose of Christ's making this address to the Father is to move and solicite him graciously to receive and accept our sincere and hearty Prayers For thus the Incense which the Priests offered twice a day upon the Golden Altar and which the High-Priest offered once a year in the Holy of Holies was a Symbol or Emblem of the Prayers of the People which they mystically offered up to God with it and hence the Psalmist Let my prayers be set forth before thee as Incense Psalm 141.2 and S. Iohn calls the Odours that filled the Golden Vials the prayers of the Saints Rev. 5.8 and that the Prayers of the Saints were offered with the Incense upon the Golden Altar is evident from Rev. 8.3 And accordingly while the High-Priest was offering the Incense in the Holy of Holies the People in their Court offered up their silent and mental Prayers to God for so Ecclus. 50.15 18 19 21. we read that whiles Simon the High-Priest was offering the Incense to God all the People fell on their faces to the ground and besought the Lord most High in prayer till the Ministry of the Lord was done i. e. till the High-Priest had offered the Incense and S. Luke makes mention of the Peoples praying without in the time of Incense Luke 1.10 By all which it is evident that this fuming of the Incense by the Priests and High-Priest was nothing but a mystical Oblation of those Prayers to God which the People were pouring out while the Mystery was performing Since therefore the High-Priest was a Type of Christ and his entrance into the Holy of Holies a Type of Christ's entrance into Heaven his offering Incense there which was a mystical Oblation of the Prayers of the People must necessarily be a Type of Christ's offering and recommending our Prayers to his Father which he promised his Disciples he would perform when he came to Heaven John 16.26 27. In that day ye shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you which in our Saviour's way of expression which is when he mentions two things to pass by and seemingly deny the one that so he may the more illustrate and amplifie the other Vide John 12.4 Joh. 5.45 46 47. plainly implies that he would for the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me And therefore it is through him that we are said to have access unto the Father Eph. 2.18 and by him to have access to the divine grace Rom. 5.2 and in him to have boldness and access with confidence Eph. 3.12 and Rev. 8.3 he is represented as that Angel of the Covenant who at the Golden Altar before God doth offer up the prayers of the Saints incensed by the merit of his Sacrifice For it is the Sacrifice of Jesus that hallows and consecrates all our prayers and good works the best of which have so many sinful defects and imperfections cleaving to them as would render them abominable to the pure and holy God were they not purged and expiated by this great Propitiation And though Prayer be a duty we stand eternally obliged to by our continual dependence upon God yet in this degeneracy of our Nature there are so many sins do still accompany our Prayers as that were they not expiated by some very acceptable and meritorious satisfaction the cry of them would drown the cry of our Prayers and for ever hinder their access to the divine ear and aceptance So that it is only in the vertue of that Sacrifice with which our Saviour intercedes for us in Heaven that our Prayers have admittance thither it is his bloud alone that purifies our polluted Supplications and out-cries the guilt of those sins that go along with them For by presenting that Sacrifice to his Father with which he made satisfaction for our sins on the Cross he continually moves and solicites that those sinful defects which cleave to our Prayers may be pardoned and remitted upon which motion of his our Prayers are continually purged from the guilt of those defects and thereupon introduced into the divine acceptance as pure and innocent spotless and unblemished devotions And as by presenting his Sacrifice he purges the guilt of our Prayers so he enforces and seconds them For as hath been shewn before the very presenting his Sacrifice is a Symbolical Prayer for those very blessings which we pray for and not only so but a Prayer that is enforced with a just claim and doth plead the right of Purchace to all the blessings it sues for and so cannot justly be denied or rejected And when he thus prays with us and continually joyns the cry of his Bloud to the cry of our Prayers we may safely depend upon it that we shall prevail and find free access to the Throne of God's grace and acceptance And
hence we are said to have boldness to enter into the Holy of Holies that is to draw near by Prayer to God by the Bloud of Iesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh Heb. 10.19 20. And our Saviour himself assures us that whatsoever we shall ask in his name he will do it and again he repeats it If ye shall ask any thing in my name I will do it John 14.13 14. that is he will procure it for us by joyning his Intercessions with our Prayers for so ver 16. he explains himself I will pray the Father II. The other intent and purpose of his making this Address or Intercession for us to the Father is to obtain of him Power and Authority to bestow on us all those graces and favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised us It is not to move the Father to bestow on us the blessings of the New Covenant immediately with his own hand that our Saviour intercedes but to impower himself as Mediator between the Father and us to bestow them upon us according to the terms and conditions upon which they are proposed to us For though it is most certainly true that every good and perfect gift comes down from above even from the Father of Lights yet it is as certain that they come not down to us from the Father immediately but are all derived to us through the hands of the Son who by his continual Intercession obtains continual power and authority of the Father to derive and confer on us all those heavenly gifts So that as the High Priest when he had presented the bloud of the Sacrifice in the Holy of Holies was Authorized by God to bless the people vide 1 Chron. 23.13 even so our blessed Saviour by presenting his meritorious Sacrifice in Heaven and in the vertue thereof interceding for us with the Father is continually authorized by him effectually to bless us i. e. to confer on us the blessings of the New Covenant upon the terms and conditions that they are therein proposed For this power he obtains of God by his perpetual Intercession and hence he is said to be able to save all those to the utmost that come unto God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. 7.25 where his power or ability to save us to the utmost i. e. to confer on us all the blessings of the New Covenant is expresly attributed to his ever living to make intercession for us which is a plain Argument that the intent of his Intercession is to move God to authorize him to save us seeing that in answer to his Intercession he is continually impowered and authorized thereunto For it is to be considered that this power and authority and the exercise of it appertains to his Kingly Office which he first arrived to and still continues in by vertue of his Intercession and indeed herein consists the Royalty of his Priesthood in that by interceding for us as Priest in the vertue of his Sacrifice and continuing to do so he first obtained and still continues vested with Kingly Power and Authority to bestow on us those heavenly blessings he intercedes for and it is to this purpose that he intercedes not that the Father would bestow them on us immediately but that he would put and continue it in his power to bestow them as Mediator between the Father and us so that he acquired and holds his Royalty by his Priesthood and that Kingly Power by which he gives us the blessings of the New Covenant God gave and continues to him by way of answer and return to his Priestly Intercession And hence he is said upon his offering one sacrifice for sin for ever i. e. upon the perpetual Oblation of his Sacrifice in Heaven to have sate down on the right hand of God i. e. in the Throne of his Kingly Power and Authority Heb. 10.12 and accordingly Eph. 4.8 we are told that upon his ascending up on high i. e. to present his sacrificed body in heaven he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men which necessarily implies that he had received power and authority from his Father to give them and so Psal. 68.18 whence these words are quoted expresses it He received gifts for men i. e. upon the presenting his Sacrifice as Priest he received of the Father those Gifts for men which by his Kingly power he afterwards distributed among them So that what he gives by his Kingly power he receives by his Priestly and both the gifts which he gives and the authority by which he gives them are the fruits and returns of that perpetual Intercession which he makes by his Sacrifice And that by his Intercession our Saviour hath acquired this Royal power of giving us the blessings of the New Covenant he himself doth plainly enough intimate for thus of the Spirit which is one of those great blessings he tells his Disciples It is expedient for you that I go away i. e. to Heaven to intercede for you for if I go not away the Comforter will not come i. e. he will not come but upon my Intercession but if I depart I will send him unto you namely by that Royal Authority which upon my Intercession I shall receive from the Father Ioh. 16.7 And accordingly St. Peter tells the Jews that Christ being exalted by the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost i. e. upon his Intercession in Heaven he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear i. e. the miraculous vertues of the Holy Ghost Acts 2.33 And so for remission of sins he tells us that he hath the Keys of hell and death Rev. 1.18 i. e. power to bind or loose to pardon or condemn and lastly for eternal life he expresly tells the Church of Laodicea To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me on my Throne even as I have overcome and am sate down with my Father on his Rev. 3.21 By all which it is abundantly evident that Christ hath a Royal power delegated to him from the Father upon his intercession to grant and bestow all the blessings of the New Covenant upon those that comply with its terms and conditions For so all the graces and favours of God are in Scripture said to be derived in by or through Jesus Christ for so Eph. 1.3 God the Father is said to bless us with all spiritual blessings in or through Christ and Rom. 6.23 Eternal life is said to be the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord and we are said to be heirs of God or inheritors of his blessings through Christ Gal. 4.7 which plainly implies that though it is from God the Father originally that all our mercies are derived yet it is through God the Son immediately that they are all derived to us and that whatsoever God
is right as my servant Iob hath therefore take unto you seven Bullocks and seven Rams and go to my servant Iob and offer up for your selves a burnt Offering and my servant Iob shall pray for you for him will I accept lest I deal with you after your folly as if he should have said that you may see how ill I resent your severe and cruel usage of that good man know that if you offer to address to me immediately for your selves I will certainly throw your Prayers back upon your faces as therefore you hope to be restored to my favour go to that injured Friend of yours and beseech him to mediate for you and I will hear him though I will not hear you And after the same manner doth God manifest his high displeasure against our sins that he will not suffer us to approach him immediately to present our Petitions to him with our own hands but will have them all presented to him by a hand that is more acceptable to him than our own and not only so but by the greatest and most acceptable hand in the World even that of his own Eternal Son the Son of his Essence and delight in whom he is for ever well pleased For it is through him alone that we have access to the Father whom our sins have so horribly incensed against us that no Advocate in Heaven or Earth less great and less dear to him than his own Son can prevail with him to be reconciled to us upon our most unfeigned repentance or so much as to accept of our humble Supplications O good God! what a woful distance have my sins made between thee and me that notwithstanding the infinite goodness and benignity of thy nature I cannot be admitted to thee nor expect any favour at thy hands upon any less powerful interest or application than that of thine only begotten Son but O stupid creature that I am to make light of those sins that have so highly incensed thee against me that none in Heaven or Earth but only that dearly beloved Son can prevail with thee to cast a propitious eye on me or so much as to give me access to the footstool of the Throne of thy grace III. This way of God's communicating his favours to us through the intercession of Christ is also most apt to secure us from presuming upon God's mercy while we continue in our sins There is no one thing doth more universally obstruct the reformation of men than their confident presumption that God will be merciful to them notwithstanding they persist in their rebellions against him For all men have a natural notion of the infinite goodness and benevolence of the Divine Nature together with which all bad men have a natural desire to sin without disturbance when therefore their Conscience begins to clamour against their wickedness and to vex and persecute them for it the mercy of God is the usual Sanctuary they fly to Peace froward Conscience cry they God is a most gracious and merciful Being hard to be provoked and easie to be pacified fear not therefore his mercy is infinitely greater than my faults and I am sure so good a God as he is can never find in his heart to destroy his Creature and Off-spring for such Peccadillo's as these With such presumptions as these they commonly lull their Consciences asleep and so sin on securely in despite of all the threats and warnings of Heaven that Thunder about their ears Now to prevent such presumptions as these and dash them quite out of countenance there is no consideration in the world can be more effectual than this of God's communicating his mercies to us through the intercession of our Saviour For if notwithstanding the goodness of his nature he will not be propitious to us no not upon our repentace without being moved thereunto by the powerful intercession of his own Son how can we ever expect that he should be propitious to us whether we repent or no Is it likely he should be more indulgent to us for our own sake than he is for his Son's sake and our own together or that when all that his Son can obtain for us is to receive us into favour in case we will lay down our Arms that we by our own interest should prevail with him to receive us while we persist in our obstinacy and rebellion in short if our repentance which is the best thing we can render him be not sufficient to move him to pardon us without being seconded and enforced with the powerful Oratory of our Saviour's Intercession what should move him when we have neither repentance nor a Saviour to intercede for us For our Saviour will not intercede for us unless we repent and our repentance will not prevail for us unless he intercede what hope have we therefore while we continue impenitent when our repentance it self which is the best thing we can do to move God to be propitious to us is insufficient without Christ's intercession and when without our repentance Christ will not intercede for us and if the tears of a penitent suppliant will not prevail with him without an Intercessor what hope is there that the affronts of an impenitent rebel should But suppose we might reasonably presume upon the benignity of God's nature that he will be propitious to us notwithstanding our impenitence yet it is to be considered that now he hath placed the dispensation of his mercy in the hand of a Mediator who is not left to dispose of it arbitrarily as he shall think fit but is confined and limited to dispose of it only to penitent offenders For Christ's Trust can extend no farther than to dispence God's mercy to us upon the terms of that Covenant of which he is Mediator which Covenant proposes mercy to us only upon condition of our repentance So that now we can expect no mercy from God but what passes through the hands of Jesus our Mediator who cannot without violating his trust dispence the mercy of God to us except we repent and amend For now God cannot dispence his mercy to us immediately without displacing his Son from his Mediatorship and his Son cannot dispence his mercy to us unconditionally without transgressing the bounds and limits that are prescribed to him and therefore since God hath restrained himself to dispence his mercy only through his Son and restrained his Son to dispence it only to penitents for us to presume upon the mercy of God while we continue impenitent is the greatest nonsense in the world it is to suppose either that God will cancel the Oeconomy of his mercy for our sakes and resume the dispensation of it immediately into his own hands meerly to favour and encourage us in our Rebellion against him or that Christ will betray the trust which his Father hath reposed in him and dispence his mercy to us contrary to his Orders that is either that God the Father will depose his Son
for our sakes or that God the Son will be unfaithful to the Father for our sakes both which suppositions are equally absurd and blasphemous Whilst therefore God proceeds with us in this established method of granting his mercy to us only through his Son and confining his Son to dispence it to us only upon the conditions of the New Covenant to flatter our selves with hopes of mercy while we continue impenitent is to presume both against reason and possibility IV. This way of God's communicating his Favours to us through the mediation of Christ is also most apt in it self to encourage us to approach him with Chearfulness and freedom For it is a natural effect of guilt to suggest to mens minds dreadful and anxious thoughts of God and whilst we are under such thoughts of him how is it possible for us to approach him immediately and without any Friend or Advocate to introduce and speak for us with any chearfulness or freedom For with what confidence can I address to an incensed and offended God purely upon my own fund or interest when I am conscious of a thousand times more evil in me to provoke him against me than of good to recommend me to his favour Unless therefore I am secured of some powerful friend in Heaven that is infinitely more acceptable to God than I can modestly hope to be and that will agitate for me and solicite my cause with all his power and interest my sense of the innumerable provocations I have given him to turn his back upon me must either render me quite desperate of success at the Throne of his grace or cause me to approach it with unspeakable horrour and confusion So that my intercourse with God must either be wholly interrupted or rendred very difficult and uneasie to me because my slavish dread of him must either chase me from his Altars or drag we to them with violence and reluctancy And hence it is that under the sense of our guilt we naturally fly to the Intercessions of others whom we believe to have more interest with God than our selves because we cannot modestly promise our selves a free admittance and access to him upon our own account Which probably was the Reason of the first institution of Demon-worship among the Heathens whose minds being stung with the sense of their own guilts they were not able to approach God without fearful despondence and anxiety whereupon they began to cast about as it is natural for guilty minds to do how they might procure some other Beings that were in great favour with God to interpose with him in their behalf and having learned by an universal Tradition that there was a sort of middle Beings called Angels or Demons between the Sovereign God and Men they began to address to these and to bribe them with Sacrifices and sacred honours to intercede with God in their behalf And hence Apuleius de Daemon Soc. calls these Demons Mediae potestates per quas desideria nostra merita ad Deos commeant inter terricolas coelicolasque vectores hinc precum inde donorum qui ultro citroque portant hinc petitiones inde suppetias seu quidam utrumque interpretes salutigeri i. e. They are middle powers by whom our desires and merits are presented to the Gods they go between Heaven and Earth and carry from hence the Prayers of men and from thence the Gifts of God from Earth they go with Petitions and from Heaven they return with Supplies or they are the Interpreters of both Worlds that do continually carry and report the mutual salutations of both to each other By which it is evident that they thought it very necessary in order to God's accepting their addresses that they should be presented and recommended to him by some better Beings than themselves their guilty minds it seems suggesting to them that it would be high presumption for such great offenders as themselves to approach the divine Majesty without being introduced and Patronized by some more pure and holy Beings And I am very apt to think that the great cause of that Spirit of bondage which possessed the ancient Iews and rendred them so diffident and tremulous in all their approaches to God was their want of an explicite knowledge of the Mediator For what dismal and melancholy expostulations do we frequently meet with in their addresses to God such as Wilt thou be angry for ever Hast thou forgotten to be gracious Wilt thou remember thy loving kindness no more Which plainly shews that their guilt suggested to them such frightful apprehensions of God as did very much cramp their hope and confidence in him And hence the Apostle opposes this Spirit of bondage in them to that Christian Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father i. e. by which we approach God with great freedom and assurance and go to him as Children to a kind and merciful Father Rom. 8.15 Now if you would know from whence this Christian freedom and assurance proceeds the Author to the Hebrews will inform you Heb. 10.21 22. Having therefore an High-Priest over the houshold of God i. e. to mediate and intercede for us let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith and Heb. 4.14 15 16 the Apostle urges our having a compassionate High-Priest in Heaven to intercede for us as an argument to encourage us to come boldly to the Throne of grace And indeed what greater encouragement can we have to draw nigh unto God with an humble confidence than this consideration that the highest Favourite he hath in Heaven or Earth is our Advocate and that he is not only infinitely concerned for us as being akin to us by nature and having a compassionate sense of our infirmities that he doth not only imploy in our behalf all the favour and interest he hath with God as he is the Son of his Essence and the Object of his delight but that he ever intercedes for us in the right and vertue of that Meritorious Sacrifice with which he bought and purchased all those heavenly blessings he intercedes for So that now all we have to do is to return to God by an unfeigned repentance which if we do he stands engaged to undertake our cause and what may we not expect from the Patronage of so great and powerful a Mediator For how great soever our past sins are his interest in Heaven is far greater how loud and clamorous soever our past Provocations are his Bloud and Wounds are far louder and how importunately soever our past guilts may imprecate the divine Vengeance upon us his Intercessions do far more importunately and prevalently deprecate it So that now we cannot reasonably doubt of a free admission to God in any case whatsoever wherein our Saviour will make use of his interest for us with God and therefore since in all cases he doth continually imploy his interest for us but only in that of our impenitence every Penitent
Scripture his Ascension into Heaven there to intercede for us represented as a Triumphal progress to his Coronation wherein after the manner of Princes in that glorious Solemnity he scatters a Royal Largess among his Subjects Ephes. 4.8 It is true before his Ascension he tells his Disciples that all power was given him in Heaven and Earth Matth. 28.18 but this it is evident he spake by way of Prolepsis or Anticipation a very usual Scheme of speech in Scripture which is to express things of certain futurity as if they were actually existing according to which Scheme all power is given me imports no more than all power is shortly to be given me i. e. upon my Ascension into Heaven For so it is evident our Saviour must be understood in that parallel expression Iohn 5.22 The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son which words he spake long before his Death when it is evident that all judgment i. e. Vniversal Regal authority was not actually committed to him but there was only a certain futurity of it For so he himself tells us that his sitting down with his Father on his Throne or investiture with that Regal Authority which he now exercises was the reward and consequence of his overcoming or consummate victory on the Cross Rev. 3.21 By all which it is evident that it was upon his Ascension into Heaven and Oblation of his Sacrifice there by way of Intercession that Christ was installed in his Vniversal Mediatorial Kingdom It is true our Saviour had a particular Kingdom in this World viz. the Iewish Church not only before his Ascension but before his Incarnation as I shall shew hereafter but as for that Right of Dominion over the Gentile world too by which he became universal Lord and King he was not invested with it till his Ascension into Heaven And therefore he himself tells us that his Mission into this world was purely to the lost Sheep of the house of Israel Matth. 15.24 and accordingly in the pursuance of this his Mission when he sent forth his Ministers to preach his Gospel he orders them not to go into the way of the Gentiles nor to enter into the City of the Samaritans but to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Matth. 10.5 6. which implies that at that time he was not actually authorized to subdue and reduce the Gentiles under his dominion but that his Authority extended only to the Iewish Nation but when he had told his Disciples in that proleptical speech after his Resurrection that all power was given him in Heaven and Earth it immediately follows go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father c. as if he had said now my Commission and Authority is inlarged and I am made Vniversal Lord and King go ye therefore in pursuance of it and by your Ministry endeavour to reduce all Nations under my dominion And hence it was that the Mystery of the calling of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of Christ was not revealed till after his Ascension vid. Acts 11.18 because it was upon his Ascension that he received his Vniversal Kingly Authority over them and till then it was to no purpose to reveal it So that it was over the Gentile world peculiarly that he received Power and Dominion upon his Ascension into Heaven he was King of the Iews long before but upon his Ascension he was invested with a right of Dominion over the Gentiles too and thereupon became the Vniversal Lord and Monarch of the World under the most High God and Father of all things but this I shall have occasion farther to explain hereafter In the prosecution of this great Argument I shall endeavour these six things First To give an account of the Beginning and Progress of this Kingdom of Christ. Secondly To explain the Nature and Constitution of it Thirdly To shew who are the Ministers of it under Christ. Fourthly To assign and explain the Regal Acts which Christ hath and doth and will hereafter exercise in it Fifthly To give an account of the End and Conclusion of it Sixthly and lastly To shew the reason and wisdom of this method of God's governing sinful men by this his Mediatorial King Christ Iesus SECT VII Of the Rise and Progress of Christ's Kingdom AS for the first viz. the beginning and progress of Christ's Kingdom I shall endeavour to give an account of it in these following Propositions First That the Kingdom of Christ is founded upon the New Covenant Secondly That the new Covenant commenced immediately after the Fall and was afterwards particularly renewed to Abraham and his Posterity Thirdly That upon its first Commencement Christ was the Mediator of it and so he continued all along in that particular renewal that was made of it to the People of Israel Fourthly Therefore that as Mediator of this Covenant Christ was King of all that were admitted into it and particularly of Abraham and his Posterity or the People of Israel with whom it was renewed Fifthly That after his coming into the world he still retained his Title of King of Israel in particular till they finally rejected him and the Covenant in which his Kingdom is founded Sixthly That though the main body of that Nation rejected him yet there was a Remnant of it that received and acknowledged him as their rightful Lord and King. Seventhly That this Remnant still continued the same individual Kingdom of Christ with the former though very much reformed and improved Eighthly That to this individual Kingdom of Christ thus reformed and improved was superadded all those Gentiles that were afterwards converted to Christianity First That the Kingdom of Christ is founded in the New Covenant For it is by the New Covenant that he engages himself to us to be our gracious and merciful Lord and that we engage our selves to him to be his faithful and obedient Subjects and from these mutual Engagements results the relation of King and Subjects between him and us So that the Church or Kingdom of Christ consists of all those People Nations and Kindreds who have been admitted into this Covenant-relation to him wherein by a solemn Vow of Fealty and Allegiance they have indispensably obliged themselves to serve and obey him but of this I shall have occasion to discourse more largely hereafter Secondly Therefore this new Covenant commenced immediately afâ—er the Fall and was afterwards in a particular manner renewed to Abraham and his Posterity For the New Covenant was a Plank thrown forth to Mankind immediately after that woful Shipwreck that was made by the Fall. For no sooner had God denounced his deserved Doom on our lapsed Parents but to support them from sinking into utter desperation he subjoyns that gracious promise Gen. 3.15 The Seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpent's head where by the Seed of the woman not only Christian but the ancient Iewish Interpreters understand the
them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost where that Phrase in the Name plainly imports as it generally doth in other places of Scripture by the Authority So that by this Commission Christ's Ministers are authorized and constituted the legal Proxies of the holy Trinity in the stead of those blessed Persons to seal the New Covenant with the Baptismal sign to those whom they baptize and thereby legally to oblige the Father Son and Holy Ghost to perform the Promises of it to all those Baptized persons who perform the conditions of it For that the Baptismal sign is a legal ingagement upon God as well as us to perform the New Covenant is evident from Mark 16.16 He that believes and is baptized shall be saved where it is evident that Baptism as well as Faith doth confer a right to Salvation and therefore since Faith confers it only as it is the Condition of the Covenant Baptism must confer it as it is the Seal of the Covenant And accordingly S. Peter exhorts his Converts to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost from whence it is evident that Baptism as well as Repentance has a great influence on our remission of sins and our communication of the Holy Ghost Since therefore Faith and Repentance are the whole condition of the promise of remission and of the Holy Ghost it necessarily follows that Baptism doth not influence it as it is the Condition but as it is the Seal of the Promise And so also in Baptism we are said to wash away our sins i. e. the guilt of them Acts 22.16 because the sign of Baptism seals to us on God's part the Promise of Forgiveness By all which it is evident that Baptism is a federal Rite in which God and we do seal and ratifie to one another each others part of the New Covenant and it is this sealing that makes the Covenant obliging to both Parties and gives to each a legal Claim and Title to each others promise and engagement to God it gives a legal Title to all that duty which we promise and to us it gives a legal Title to all those blessings which God promises So that till such time as we are Baptized the New Covenant is not struck between God and us nor have we any right or title to any of the blessings promised in it And though we should perform all that duty which the Covenant requires yet this will not at all intitle us to the blessings it promises For he who engages to walk a Mile for me upon my promise to give him a thousand pounds hath upon his performance a just claim and title to the whole Sum whereas he that walks ten Miles for me without any such promise hath a right to no more than what in strict justice he deserves And therefore since what God promises in the New Covenant infinitely exceeds the merit of what he requires our performance of what he requires doth not at all oblige him to bestow the blessings of his promise on us unless we perform it upon a Covenant-engagement and therefore till this engagement is made and sealed in our Baptism we can have no promise to rely upon and though we should nevâ—r so heartily endeavour to repent we canâ—â—t claim the divine grace and assistance and though we should actually repent we can plead â—o title to remission of sins and though we should pâ—rsevere in well-doing to the end we cannot challenge eternal life And since our endeavours do not merit God's grace nor our repentance his Pardon nor our perseverance eternal life he is no more obliged to bestow these blessings on us by his Iustice than he is by his Promise So that in this state all we have to rely upon is the hope of an extraordinary mercy that God will do for us that which he never promised and bestow upon us that which he is not obliged to But when once we have struck Covenant with him in Baptism we have him fast obliged to us to perform his part of the Covenant whenever we perform ours and our being thus tied together as one party in one and the same Covenant by this federal Rite of Baptism is that which makes us one Catholick Church or Community For our admission into this New Covenant which is the Churches Charter is our admission into the Church it self and it is by being intituled to all the blessings that belong to Christians in common by vertue of the New Covenant that we become Members of the Christian Community And hence we are said to be Baptized into the body or Church of Christ 1 Cor. 12.13 because Baptism which is our admission into the Christian Covenant is only in other words our admission into the Christian Church which is nothing but the Body of Christian People joyned and confederated by the New Covenant Fourthly The Church or Kingdom of Christ is one universal Society of all Christian People incorporated by the New Covenant in Baptism under Iesus Christ its supreme head And it is this also that makes all Christian People one Body and Society because they are all united under one and the same supreme head and Governour For as several neighbouring Congregations are called in Scripture one Church as I shall shew hereafter because they were all under the Government of one and the same Bishop so all the Churches under all the Bishops in the World are in Scripture called one Church because they are all under one Governour even Iesus Christ the supreme Bishop of our souls And accordingly the Apostle tells us that as there is but one body i. e. one Church so there is but one Lord or supreme Governour of that Church Eph. 4.4 5. and in Col. 1.18 he tells us that Christ is the head of this body the Church and again Eph. 5.23 that the Husband is the head of the Wife even as Christ is the head of the Church For Christ being Mediator of the Covenant by which we are incorporated into a Religious Society it must be under him as our immediate head and Governour that we are incorporate by it because as he is Mediator of it for God his Office is to govern us for and under God according to the terms and conditions of it Fifthly The Church or Kingdom of Christ is one universal Society of all Christian People distributed into particular Churches which distribution is made for the convenience of divine Worship For the Catholick Church being a vast Body composed of infinite parts which are separated from each other by vast distances of place it is impossible for it to celebrate the Offices of Divine Worship in any one Assembly or Congregation At first indeed the whole Catholick Church was only a single Congregation but this in a little time encreased and multiplied so fast that they could no longer exercise the Publick Worship of God together in one place or Assembly
Where it is plain he places the Bishops in the same rank with the Apostles so also in Ep. 1. ad Heliodor speaking of the Bishops of his time they stand saith he in the place of S. Paul and hold the place of S. Peter and in Psal. 45.16 Now because the Apostles are gone from the World thou hast instead of those their Sons the Bishops and these are thy Fathers because thou art Governed by 'em and Ep. ad Nepot What Aaron and his Sons were that we know the Bishops and the Presbyters are And therefore as Aaron by Divine Right was superiour to his Sons the Priests so is the Bishop above his Presbyters all which are as plain contradictions to that famous passage of his understanding it as the Presbyterians do as one proposition can be to another and whether is a man more to be credited when he speaks without Bias or Partiality or when he speaks in his own cause and under the influence of his own Interest VI. It is further to be considered that the Decree of which S. Ierom here speaks by which the Government of the Church was translated from a Common Council of Presbyters to a single Bishop must according to his own words be Apostolick and consequently much earlier than the Presbyterians will allow it for it was made at that time when it was said among the People I am of Paul and I am of Apollos and I of Cephas and this as S. Paul tells us was said in his time and therefore this Decree must be made in his time and that S. Ierome did mean so we are elsewhere assured from his own words for so in his Book de Eccles. Script he tells us that immediately after the ascension of our Lord S. James was Ordained by the Apostles to be Bishop of Jerusalem Timothy by S. Paul Bishop of Ephesus Titus Bishop of Crete and Polycarp by S. John Bishop of Smyrna So that either he must here expresly contradict himself or else the Decree of which he speaks must have been made immediately after the Ascension of our Lord and consequently be a Decree Apostolick V. It is yet farther to be considered that if any such Decree of changing the Church Government from Presbyterial to Episcopal had been made by the Apostles it is strange we should not find the least mention of it in Scripture and if it had been made after the Apostles about the year 140. it is as strange we should have no mention of it in Ecclesiastick Antiquity for an universal Change of the Government of the Church from one kind to another is a matter of such vast moment that had the Apostles made a Decree concerning it they would doubtless have been very solicitous to publish it through all the Churches and to have transmitted down to Posterity some standing record of it which yet they were so far from doing that they have not given us the least intimation of it in all their Writings And had it been made afterwards about the year 140. to be sure all Primitive Antiquity would have rung of such a publick and important alteration but on the contrary you see both Clemens and Ignatius who lived before that period testifie that the Church was not Governed in their time by a Common Council of Presbyters but by Bishops Hegesyppus Irenaeus and Dionysius of Corinth who lived in that period are so far from taking notice of any such Decree of alteration that they testifie the Government of the Church by an uninterrupted Succession of Bishops even from the Apostles themselves and as for Irenaeus who gives us an account of the Succession of the Roman Bishops from S. Peter down to the time when he himself was at Rome it was as easie for him to know who they were that succeeded from S. Peter as it is for us to know who succeeded from Arch-Bishop Whitgift in the Chair of Canterbury he being no farther distant from the one than we are from the other and though through the Ambiguity or defect of the Records of some Churches this succession be not equally clear in all yet in the most eminent Churches such as Ierusalem Rome Antioch and Alexandria the successions are as clear as any thing in Ecclesiastical History and is it not much more reasonable to conclude what was the Government of those Churches that are not known from what we find was the Government of those that are than to question those Ecclesiastical Records that are preserved because of the uncertainty of those that are not for though we do not find in all Churches an exact Catalogue of all their Bishops yet we cannot produce any one instance in any one ancient Church of any other form of Government than the Episcopal and therefore we may as well question whether ever there was any such thing as an ancient Monarchy in the World because many of the Histories of the Monarchs are defective as to their Names and the Order of their Succession as whether there was ever any such thing as a Primitive Episcopacy in the Church because the Records of several Churches are defective as to the Names and Successions of their Bishops Since therefore this Story of S. Ieroms universal Decree is not only altogether unattested but also directly contradictory to the concurrent Testimony of all Antiquity how can we reasonably look upon it otherwise than as a mere figment of his own fancy especially considering VI. And lastly How odiously this conceit of his reflects upon the Wisdom of our Saviour and his Apostles for the Apostles devolving the Government of the Church upon Common Councils of Presbyters was as he himself tells us the occasion of sundry Schisms and Divisions for the removal of which the Church afterwards found it necessary to dissolve those Presbyteries and introduce Episcopacy in their Room and this S. Ierom approves as a very wise and prudent action for saith he the safety of the Church depends upon the Authority of the High-Priest or Bishop to whom if there were not given by all supreme Authority there would be as many Schisms in the Churches as there are Priests So that according to him had the Church continued under that Government which the Apostles left in it it must unavoidably have been torn in pieces with endless Schisms and Divisions and if so either the Apostles were very imprudent in not foreseeing this or very neglective in not preventing it so that had not the after-age taken care to supply the defect of their Conduct by erecting a wiser-form of Government than they left the Church had infallibly run to ruin This is the unavoidable consequence of S. Ieroms Hypothesis which therefore I can look upon no otherwise than as a mere device of his own brain snatched up in hast to defend his Order against the Insolence of those Factious Deacons that flew in the face of the Presbytery This therefore being removed which is the main and indeed the only considerable Objection against the
Ministries Common to the Bishops with the inferiour Clergy is the administration of the Evangelical Sacraments for it was to his Apostles and in them to their Successors that our Saviour gave the Commission of Baptizâ—ing all Nations in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and of doing this i. e. of consecrating and administring the holy Eucharist in remembrance of me but yet it is evident that this Ministry was not so confined to the Apostolick Order as that none but they were allowed to exercise it for even in the Apostles days Philip and Ananias who were no Apostles Baptized and S. Peter commanded the Brethren with him who were no Apostles neither to Baptize those Gentile Converts upon which the Holy Ghost descended Acts 10.48 and there is no doubt but when those three thousand Souls Acts 2. were all Baptized at one time there were a great many other Baptizers besides the Apostles and that passage of S. Paul 1 Cor. 1.13 14 15 16 17. where he tells us that he baptized none in the Church of Corinth though it were of his own planting except Crispus Gaius and the Houshold of Stephanus is a plain Argument that when the Apostles had converted men to the Christian Faith they generally ordered them to be baptized by the inferiour Ministers of the Church that attended them and then as for the Consecration of the holy Eucharist though when any of the Apostles were present it was doubtless ordinarily performed by them yet considering how fast Christianity encreased and how frequently Christians did then partake of this Sacrament it is not to be supposed that the Apostles could be present in all places where it was administred nor consequently that they could consecrate it in every particular Congregation For though it was a very early Custom for the Bishop to consecrate the Elements in one Congregation and then send them abroad to be administred in several others yet this was only upon special occasions but ordinarily they were consecrated in the same places where they were administred in all which places it was impossible either for the Apostles at first or after them for their Successors the Bishops to be present at the same time and therefore there can be no doubt but the Consecration as well as the Administration was ordinarily performed by the inferiour Presbyters in the absence of the Apostles and Bishops But it is most certain that none were ever allowed in the Primitive Church to consecrate the Eucharist but either a Bishop or a Presbyter And as for Baptism because it is in some degree more necessary than the Eucharist as being the sign of admission into the New Covenant by which we are first intitled to it not only Bishops and Presbyters but in their absence or by their allowance Deacons also were Authorized to administer it for so even in the Apostles days Philip the Deacon baptized at Samaria Acts 8.12 and afterwards not only Deacons but Lay-men too were allowed to administer it in case of necessity when neither a Deacon nor Presbyter nor Bishop could be procured that so none might be debarred of admission into the New Covenant that were disposed and qualified to receive it but the Churches allowing this to Lay-men only in cases of necessity is a plain Argument that none had a standing Authority to administer it but only persons in holy Orders For that authority which a present necessity creates is only present and ceases with the necessity that created it III. And lastly Another of the Ministries common to the Bishops with the inferiour Clergy is to offer up the Publick Prayers and intercessions of Christian Assemblies For to be sure none can be authorized to perform the publick Offices of the Church but only such as are set apart and ordained to be the publick Officers of it Now Prayer is one of the most solemn Offices of Christian Assemblies and therefore as in the Jewish Church none but the High Priest and Priests and Levites who were the only publick Ministers of Religion were authorized to offer up the publick Prayers of the Congregation vid. 2 Chron. 39.27 so in the Christian none but Bishops Priests and Deacons who alone are the publick Ministers of Christianity are authorized to offer up the publick addresses of Christian Assemblies it is their peculiar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to perform the publick Offices to the Lord Acts 13.2 for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Publick Service and is used to denote those publick services of which one was offering up the Common Prayers of the People which the Priests in their turns performed in the Temple Vid. Luk. 1.23 and hence it is that the Ministers of Christian Religion are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 15.16 because it is their proper business to officiate the publick services of the Christian Church and accordingly in Rev. 5.10 the four and twenty Elders that is the holy Bishops of the Church as appears by their having Crowns of Gold or Mitres on their heads in allusion to the High Priests Mitre Chap. 4. ver 4. are said to have every one of them Harps and golden Vials full of Odours which are the Prayers of Saints referring to the Incense which the Priests were wont to offer in the Sanctuary which Oblation was a mystical offering up the Prayers of the People vid. Luk. 1.10 which plainly intimates that as it was one part of the Office of those Iewish Priests to offer the Incense and therewithall the Prayers of the People so is it also of the Publick Ministers of Christianity to offer up the Prayers of Christian Assemblies And as in the Jewish Church not only the Priests but the Levites also Communicated with the High Priest in this Ministry of offering up the Prayers of the Congregation so in the Christian Church not only the Presbyters but the Deacons also always Communicated in it with their Bishop Having thus given an account of those Religious Ministries which are common to the Bishops with the inferiour Officers of the Church I proceed in the next place to shew what those Ministries are which are peculiar to the Bishops or Governours of the Church all which are reducible to four particulars 1. To make Laws for the peace and good order of the Church 2. To Ordain to Ecclesiastical Offices 3. To execute that spiritual Jurisdiction which Christ hath established in his Church 4. To confirm such as have been instructed in Christianity I. One peculiar Ministry of the Bishops and Governours of the Church is to make Laws and Canons for the security and preservation of the Churches peace and good order and this is implied in the very Essence of Government which necessarily supposes a Legislative power within it self to command and oblige the Subject to do or forbear such things as it shall judge conducive to the preservation or disturbance of their Common-weal without which power no Government can be enabled to obtain its end
Person and the Executors and Administrators of his Power and Dominion Whilst therefore they act within the compass of their Commission they act in his stead and as his Vicegerents and whatsoever they bind he binds and whatsoever they loose he looses their Commands are his their Decrees and Sentences are his and all their authoritative Acts carry with them the same force and obligagation as if they had been performed by him in his own person For it is he that wills and speaks and acts by them because they Will and Speak and Act by his Authority For so he himself declares to them Luke 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me i. e. because I speak by you and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me because my Authority is in you even as my Fathers is in me and therefore he who despises mine in you despises my Fathers in me whence mine in you is derived Your Authority is mine and mine is my Fathers and therefore he who rejects yours doth therein reject both my Fathers and mine And this authority is given them by Christ for the same end that his Authority was given him by the Father for he came into the World to seek and to save lost souls Luk. 19.10 He came not to judge the world but to save the world Joh. 12.47 And to call sinners to repentance Mar. 2.17 And upon the very same errand he sent all those whom he appointed to propagate and govern his Kingdom in his absence for he set them up as so many Lights to the benighted World to reduce Men from those dangerous paths in which they were wandering to eternal misery and shew them the way to everlasting happiness and all the power he devolved upon them was for edification and not for destruction 2 Cor. 13.10 and to them he hath committed the care and charge of Souls whose blood he will one day require at their hands if they miscarry through their neglect or default Heb. 13.17 and that he might the better secure these precious beings for whom he shed his blood from miscarrying for ever he placed this spiritual Polity in a subordination of Officers and made the inferior accountable for their charge to the superior Officers as well as both accountable to himself So that whereas had he placed it in co-ordinate hands there had been only one soul accountable to him for each particular Cure or Charge of Souls because then each single Pastor would have been supreme in his particular Cure and consequently no other Pastor or Pastors would have been accountable for not calling him to account now each particular Cure of Souls is under the charge and inspection of several orders and degrees of Pastors who in their several stations are all accountable for it to the Tribunal of Christ. For first the inferior Pastor who hath the immediate Charge of it and is obliged by his Office to teach and instruct it by good Example and Doctrine and to administer to it the holy Ordinances of Christianity stands accountable to Christ for every soul in it that miscarries through his neglect or omission next the Bishop stands accountable for not correcting the neglects and misdemeanours of the inferior Pastor and then the Metropolitan for not taking Cognizance of the default of the Bishop Thus in that excellent form of Government which Christ hath established in his Kingdom he hath made all possible provision for the safety and welfare of Souls for according to this Oeconomy he hath taken no less than a threefold security every one of which is as much as a Soul amounts to that every Soul within every Cure shall be plentifully supplied with the means of Salvation that so none of them might miscarry but such as are incorrigibly obstinate So that now if any Soul within the Dominions of our Saviour perish for want of the means of Salvation there are no less than three Souls one after another besides it self accountable to him for its ruin Having thus shewn what these Regal Acts are which Christ hath once for all performed in his Kingdom I proceed II. To declare what those Regal Acts are which he hath always performed and doth always continue to perform and these are recucible to four particulars First His pardoning penitent sinners Secondly His punishing obstinate Offenders Thirdly His protecting and defending his faithful Subjects in this life Fourthly his blessing and rewarding them in the life to come I. One of the Regal Acts which our Saviour always hath and always continues to perform is his pardoning and forgiving penitent sinners which being one of the Articles of our Creed I shall endeavour to give an account of it more at large the Apostle defines sin to be a transgression of the Law 1 Joh. 3.4 Now the Law obliges us under a certain stated Penalty to do and forbear what it commands and forbids whenever therefore we transgress the Law we are thereby obliged to undergo the Penalty it denounces and this is that which we call the guilt of sin viz. its obligation to punishment and it is this guilt which pardon and forgiveness relates to For to pardon is nothing else but only to release the sinner from the obligation he lies under to suffer the penalty of the Law. Now the penalty of the Law of God for every known and wilful sin is no less than everlasting perdition and therefore from this it is that we are released by that pardon and indemnity which the Gospel proposes So that the pardon or remission of sins whereof we are now treating consists in the loosing of sinful men from that obligation to eternal punishment whereunto they have rendered themselves liable by their wilful disobedience to the Law of God. Since therefore this pardon consists in the release of offenders from the penal Obligation of the Law it must be a Regal Act because the Obligation of the Law can be dispenced with by no other Authority but that which made it and therefore since to make the Obligation of the Law is an Act of Regal Authority to release or dispence with it must necessarily be so also and accordingly forgiveness of sin is in Scripture attributed to our Saviour as one of his Regal Rights Acts 5.51 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sin So that now it is by Christ immediately that our sins are pardoned and our Souls released from those Obligations to eternal punishment in which they have involved us for the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son Joh. 5.22 So that now it is by him immediately that the Father judgeth us i. e. absolves and condemns us for so Col. 3.13 the Apostle exhorts them to forbear and forgive one another even as Christ forgave them and Col. 2.13 Christ is said to have forgiven them all trespasses It is true forgiveness
his continual intercession in Heaven Royal Authority to dispense that Promise to us doth by vertue of that Authority actually pardon us upon our actual repentance So that as soon as ever we perform the condition of Gods grant of pardon our Saviour who knows the inmost thoughts of our hearts and perfectly discerns our sincerity immediately pronounces our sentence of pardon and by a particular application of that general grant to us absolves us from our obligation to eternal punishment and freely receives us into Grace and Favour For though the completion and publication of our pardon is reserved for the day of judgment when we shall be absolved from all punishment i. e. not only of eternal misery but also of corporal death and temporal sufferings in the publick view and audience of the World yet it is certain that every penitent Believer in Jesus is actually pardoned by him in Heaven as soon as ever he believes and repents that is he is in foro Christi and before the Tribunal of his Royal Judgment Absolved from the obligation to suffer eternal misery which he lay under during his state of impenitence and Christ in his own mind judgment and estimation hath Judicially thus pronounced concerning him By vertue of my Fathers grant to all penitent offenders and of that Royal Authority which he hath committed to me I freely release thee from all that vast debt of everlasting punishment which thou hast too justly incurr'd by sinning against him Thus as the Father forgives us vertually by that publick grant of mercy which for Christs sake he hath made to all penitent offenders so the Son forgives us actually by that Royal Authority which the Father hath given him to make a particular application of that his general grant to us upon our actual repentance and as it is by the Fathers grant that the Son pardons us so it is by the Sons application of it that the Father pardons us and therefore we are said in or by Christ to have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sin Col. 1.14 i. e. to be forgiven for the sake of his blood in consideration whereof God the Father hath given him power to forgive us for so he himself tells us that all power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 28.18 and there is no doubt but in all power the power of forgiving sins was included for so S. Peter tells us that through his Name i. e. by his Authority or judicial sentence Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 10.43 And thus you see what the first Regal act is which our Saviour hath always performed and will always continue to perform viz. forgiving of sins II. Another of his Regal acts of this kind is punishing obstinate offenders For as he mediates for his Father in ruling and governing us he must be the Minister of his Fathers providence and being so whatsoever divine punishments are inflicted upon offenders are to be look'd upon as the stroaks of his hand and the Ministries of his power for he hath the Keys of Death and Hell i. e. the power of punishing both here and hereafter Rev. 1.18 and accordingly he threatens the corrupt Churches of Asia that he would remove their Candlestick and that he would fight against them with the sword of his mouth that he would come upon them as a Thief and that he would spew them out of his mouth Rev. 2.5.3.16 and Chap. 3. Vers. 16. all which is a sufficient proof that the punishment of offenders both here and hereafter is committed to him as a branch of that Royal Authority with which he is invested by the Father in the execution of which Commission he many times Chastens bad men in this life in order to their reformation and amendment for as many as I love saith he i. e. wish well to I rebuke and chasten Heb. 3.19 and many times he persecutes them with exterminating judgments thereby hanging them up in Chains as it were as publick examples of his vengeance to warn and deter the World from treading in their impious footsteps For so he threatens Iezebel and her followers I gave her space to repent of her fornications and she repented not behold I will cast her into a bed i. e. into a Bed-rid and irrevocable condition and them that commit Adultery with her into great tribulation and I will kill her Children with death and all the Church shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and heart and I will give unto every one of you according to your works Rev. 2.21 22 23. And though for wise and gracious ends he oftentimes spares bad men in this life and sometimes shines upon them a continued day of prosperity without any cloud or interruption yet he always overtakes them with the fearful storms of his vengeance in the life to come For no sooner do their souls depart from their bodies but they are immediately consigned by his warrant into the hands of evil Angels those skilful spiteful and powerful executioners of his justice under whose savage Tyranny they indure all the tortures and Agonies that the wrath and power of Devils together with their own awakened consciences and furious and unsatisfied affections are able to inflict Of which see Part 1. Ch. 3. For that the souls of bad men are transmitted into a state of wretchedness and misery immediately upon their separation from their bodies is evident from the Parable of Dives and Lazarus wherein in the first place Dives immediately after his death is said to be in great torment in Hell and this while his body lay buried in the grave Luk 16.22 23. which is a plain argument that in all that interval between death and the resurrection of the body the souls of bad men abide in a state of torment for secondly this torment of Dives's soul in hell was then when his Brethren were living upon earth and under the teaching of Moses and the Prophets ver 27. and 28 29 30 31. which shews that our Saviour supposes it to be at that very time when he delivered this Parable and consequently he supposes all bad men who were then dead and whose condition he represents by that of Dives to be then in Hell and there suffering unspeakable Agonies and Torments and if so then it 's plain that when ever impenitent souls leave their bodies they are carried by Devils into some dismal abode and there kept under a perpetual discipline of torment and in this deplorable state they remain expecting that fearful day of accounts when their condition through their reunion to their bodies and that dread bodily Torment they must then be condemned to will be rendered yet far more intolerable III. Another of those Regal Acts which our Saviour hath always and always will continue to perform is his protecting and defending his Kingdom in this World. For thus he promises his faithful Church of Philadelphia Because thou hast kept the
all things under him and when all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him which did put all things under him that God may be all in all the whole sense and meaning of which passage I shall cast into these Propositions First That the Kingdom or Dominion here spoken of was committed to him by God the Father Secondly That he is to possess this Kingdom and Dominion so long and no longer as till all things are actually subdued to him Thirdly That during his possession of it he is subject to the Father Fourthly That after his delivering it up to the Father he will be otherwise subject to him than he is now Fifthly That he being thus subjected to the Father all Power and Dominion shall from thenceforth be immediately exercised by the Deity I. That the Kingdom or Dominion here spoken of was committed to him by God the Father and this is expresly affirmed vers 27. For he i. e. the Father hath put all things under his feet which words are a quotation of Psal. 8. ver 6. Thou madest him to have Dominion over the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet which words are to be understood literally of the first Adam but mystically of the second as is evident not only because 't is here applied to Christ by S. Paul but also by the Author to the Hebrews Heb. 2.7 8. where he expresly tells us that it was God the Father that crowned Christ with Glory and Honour and that did set him over the works of his hands and put all things in subjection under his feet and accordingly our Saviour himself declares that all Power in Heaven and Earth was given him i. e. by the Father and that it was the Father that committed all judgment to him and the Apostle expresly tells us that it was God that exalted him with his own right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour Acts 5.31 From all which it is evident that the Dominion which the Apostle here treats of is not the Essential Dominion of Christ which as he is God Essential is Co-eternal with him but that Mediatorial Dominion which was committed to him by the voluntary disposal of his Father and which once he had not and will hereafter cease to have II. That he is to possess this Kingdom or Dominion so long as and no longer than till all things are actually subdued unto him So vers 24. you see the time of his delivering up this Kingdom is then when he shall have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power i. e. till he shall have converted or destroyed all those Powers of the Earth that oppose themselves against him for so vers 25 26. For he must reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death which plainly implies that when he hath conquered all Enemies and destroyed Death which is the last Enemy by giving a glorious Resurrection to his faithful Subjects then and not till then his Mediatorial Reign is to conclude For so Psal. 110.1 to which the Apostle here refers the Psalmist brings in Iehovah the Father thus bespeaking Iehovah the Son The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand until I make thine Enemies thy footstool now to sit at the Right Hand of God when ever 't is applied to our Saviour doth in Scripture always denote his possessing and exercising this his Mediatorial Kingdom so that the meaning of the Psalmist is this the Father hath Commissioned his Son to continue the exercise of his Mediatorial Dominion till such time as either by the dint of his Almighty Vengeance he hath trampled all his Enemies under foot or by the power of his Grace reduced them voluntarily to prostrate themselves before him and indeed the end for which this Kingdom of our Saviour was erected was to subdue the Rebellious World to God and either to captivate men into a free submission to hâ—s Heavenly Will which is its first intention or if they will not yield to make them the Triumph of his everlasting vengeance which end at the day of Judgment will be fully accomplished for then the fate of all the rational World will be fixed and determined then the faithful Subjects will be crowned and the incorrigible Rebels condemned and executed and so one way or t'other all things will be subdued unto him So that from hence-forth the end and reason of this his Mediatorial Dominion will cease and when the end of it ceaseth he who never doth any thing in vain will immediately deliver it up into those hands from whence he received it For when he shall have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power i. e. conquered and subdued all that resisted and opposed him then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father III. That during his possession of this Kingdom he is subject to the Father So Ver. 27. But when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest that he i. e. the Father is excepted which did put all things under him As if he should say Do not mistake me for when I say all things are put under him my meaning is all things except God the Father for it was he that did put all things under him and it 's manifest that he who gave him this superiority over all things must himself be superior to him and indeed considering Christ as Mediatorial King he is no more than his Fathers Viceroy and doth only act by deputation from him and rule and Govern for him and hence the Father stiles him his King Psal. 2.6 Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Zion So that now he is subject to the Father in the capacity of a Vice-King to a supreme Sovereign and whatsoever he doth in this capacity he doth in his Fathers Name and by his Authority for he Mediates as for men with God in doing which he is our Advocate so for God with men in doing which he is our King. Gods part is to Govern us and our part is to sue to him for favour and protection and both these parts our Saviour acts as Mediator between God and us He acts our part for us in being Advocate and Gods part for him in being King. So that in that Rule and Government which he now exercises over us he is only the supreme Minister of his Fathers Power and Dominion and as the Father reigns by his Ministry so he reigns by the Fathers Authority But tho now while his Mediatorial Kingdom doth continue he is subject to the Father in the Admistration of it yet from this passage of S. Paul it is evident IV. That when he hath delivered it up to the Father he will be otherwise subject to him than he is now for so ver 28. and when all things shall be subdued unto him that
Spirit we could have no imagination of him because imaginations are nothing but the Images of sensible things we can now by the strength of our Imagination fetch him down from the Heavens when we please and set him before our minds in all that venerable Majesty wherein he sits at the right hand of his Father So that tho he be never present to our outward sense yet which is almost equivalent when ever we have occasion to converse with him we can make him present to our inward viz. our fancy and imagination into this spacious Gallery of the Pictures of sensible things our mind can walk when it pleases and there behold him in Effigie tho it cannot see him face to face and considering how much we are governed in this degenerate state of our nature by fancy and imagination as well as by sight and feeling it is doubtless a most advantageous circumstance of Gods Government of the World that he governs us by one whom we can fancy and imagine when we cannot see or feel him There are a great many men that never saw the King who yet are overawed by the imagination they have of his Majesty and greatness whereas were not the King a man but a pure invisible Spirit they could form no imagination of him the want of which would very much abate if not utterly extinguish their aw and reverence of his Person Considering therefore how much we are governed by our sense in this state of our Apostacy it was doubtless a wonderful wise contrivance of God who is a pure Spirit to assume to himself some sensible matter that therein by presenting himself to our outward or inward sense he might strike the deeper aw on us and thereby the more effectually rule and govern us But of all sensible matter none could be so proper to this purpose as a human form in which we are inured and accustomed to be governed and of which as was hinted before we have of all sensible things the greatest love and veneration during this our Degeneracy therefore by which we are so unqualified to be governed by God immediately God the Father hath most wisely contrived to govern us by God-man i. e. by his own eternal Son Hypostatically united to our natures But when once mankind is recovered out of this lapsed condition when our sense is perfectly subdued to our reason and all our faculties are reduced into their Primitive Order then we shall return under Gods immediate Dominion for then God-man shall deliver up the Kingdom and God shall be all in all II. God now governs us by his own eternal Son in our natures to cure and prevent the spreading contagion of Idolatry There is no one Vice to which our corrupt nature is more propense and of which it hath been more universally tardy than that of Idolatry for as for other Vices they have their peculiar Provinces and such a Vice is more predominant in such a Clime and Temperament of Air In one Nation Pride reigns in another Intemperance in another Treachery and in a fourth Malice and Revenge as for Idolatry it 's an universal Monarch to whose Empire all the World hath been enslaved and subjected and notwithstanding all the care which God hath taken to prevent it it hath spread like the Plague till it became the Epidemical Disease of human Nature Now to be sure such an universal effect must necessarily be owing to some universal cause and what other can that be than the universal degeneracy of human Nature from its primitive life of Reason into a life of Sense For while Man was under the Government of his Reason he was as much influenced by dry arguments as he is now by his Sense and the full reason he had to believe that there is an invisible divine Being presiding over all things did as vigorously excite him to adore and worship him as the sight of him could have done had he appeared to his bodily eyes in a Glory proportionable to the immense perfections of his Nature But when once his sense had usurped the Throne of his reason and enslaved him to its Empire the case was quite altered now Reason and Argument have very little influence on him unless it be back'd with some impressions on his sense and his predominant affections are those that are raised by the strokes of sensible objects upon the sensories of his Sight and Taste and Feeling which the divine substance and perfections can never touch they being purely spiritual by which means that communication and intercourse which was between God and man whilst man was governed by reason is mightily disturbed and interrupted tho it be not altogether stopt and intercepted for still our reason which was not extinguished by the degeneracy of our natures suggests to us that there is a God and inspires us with an awful sense of his divine perfections which still maintains in us Religious Inclinations and Affections whereby we are importuned and solicited to adore and worship but we being under the Government of Sense are thereby naturally inclined either to look upon God who is in himself a pure invisible Spirit under the notion of a sensible Being and as such to worship him for so anciently some adored the Sun for God others the universal material Nature others such particular parts of it and in this consists that gross Idolatry of worshiping false Gods or at least to blend our conceptions of him with corporeal Phantasms and then to express those Phantasms in outward visible Images by them to excite and direct our Worship to him for so in most Nations the supreme Numen was heretofore adored in Statues and Images of several shapes and figures copied from the several Images by which they represented him to themselves in their own vain and roving imaginations and herein consists that more refined Idolatry of worshiping the true God in a false manner Thus the general cause of all Idolatry is nothing but the general Apostacy of human nature from the life of reason to the life of sense by which we are naturally inclined either to transform God into a gross and sensible nature or at least to assist our selves in conceiving of and adoring and worshiping him by sensible and visible Objects To prevent which God hath been graciously pleased to assume some material substance and therein from time to time to exhibit to mens eyes a visible presence of himself which in Scripture is frequently called the Glory of the Lord and by the ancient Jews the Shechinah or habitation of God and consisted of a shining luminous matter which exhibited a glorious lustre of flame or light set off with thick and solemn clouds whence it is probable he is said to cover himself with light as with a garment Psal. 104.2 and in this glorious appearance he conducted Israel through the Red Sea and Wilderness came down upon Mount Sinai and was seen by Moses and the Elders of Israel and from thence removed into
hath given to the Soul agreeable to Iohn 6.33.35 such as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the House of the Father in which he dwells ib. de Migrat Abraham sutable to Iohn 14.10 but besides this I say they also attribute to him the very same Offices that the New Testament attributes to our Saviour for thus as the Scripture attributes unto Christ a Kingly Office under God the Father so they make this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine Word the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Governour of all things and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Viceroy of the great King Ib. de som de Agricul l. 2. where he also tells us that God who is King and Pastor of the World hath appointed the Word his first begotten Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to undertake the care of his Sacred Flock as his own Viceroy and Substitute and so also as the Scripture attributes to Christ the Office of an Intercessor between God and Man so also the same Author tells us which is highly worthy our observation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. but this excellent gift the Father of all things hath bestowed upon the Prince of Angels the most ancient Word that standing in the middle he might judge between the Creature and the Creator and he always supplicates the immortal God for Mortals and is the Embassador from the supreme King to his subjects and in this Gift he rejoyces as highly valuing himself upon it saying I stood in the middle between you and the Lord as being neither unbegotten as God nor yet begotten as you but am a middle between the extreams and a pledge for both for the Creature with the Creator that he shall not wholly Apostatize from him so as to prefer disorder before order and beauty for the Creator with the Creature to give him an assured hope that the most merciful God will never abandon his own Workmanship for I declare peace to the Creature from him who makes Wars to cease even God who is the King of peace In which words the same Mediatorial Office which the New Testament attributes to our Saviour is expresly attributed to this divine Logos And in the above-cited Book de Agricult he expresly teaches that this Logos or divine Word was that Angel whom God had promised to send before the Camp of Israel of which Angel Moses Gerund as he is quoted by Masius upon Ioshua Chap. 5. thus speaks Iste Angelus si rem ipsam dicam est Angelus redemptor de quo scriptum est Quoniam nomen meum in ipso est ille inquam Angelus qui ad Iacob dicebat Ego Deus Bethel ille de quo dictum est Et vocabat Mosem Deus de rubo Vocatur autem Angelus quia mundum gubernat scriptum est enim Eduxit nos Iehovah id est Dominus Deus ex Aegypto alibi Misit Angelum suum eduxit nos ex Aegypto Praeterea scriptum est Et Angelus faciei ejus salvos fecit ipsos De quo dictum est Facies mea praeibit efficiam ut quiescat denique ille Angelus est de quo vates Et subito veniet ad Templum suum Dominus quem vos quaeritis Angelus foederis quem cupitis That Angel to speak the truth is the Angel Redeemer of whom it is written Because my Name is in him this I say is that Angel who said to Iacob I am the God of Bethel he is also that Angel of whom it is said And God called to Moses out of the Bush for he is called the Angel because he governs the World wherefore it is written Iehovah i. e. the Lord God brought us out of Egypt and elsewhere he sent his Angel and brought us out of Egypt besides it is written And the Angel of his face saved them Of this Angel it is also said My Presence shall go before the Camp of Israel and shall cause it to rest Lastly This is the Angel of whom the Prophet speaks The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple the Angel of the Covenant whom ye desire By which last passage it is evident that by this Angel he meant the Messias to whom all the ancient Jews refer that Prophesie so that the divine Word according to Philo is the Angel that went before the Camp of Israel and that Angel according to Moses Gerundensis is no other than the Messias and that Philo himself by this Word understood the Messias is evident by his applying those words Ezek. 6.12 which the ancient Jews unanimously understood of the Messias to him in lib. quod deter potiorib insid soleat But to put all out of doubt the Targums use the Word of the Lord and the Messias promiscuously for so on those words Gen. 49.18 I have waited for thy salvation O Lord the Chaldee Paraphrase thus descants Our Father Iacob said I expect not the Salvation of Gideon the Son of Ioas which is a temporal Salvation nor the Salvation of Sampson the Son of Manoah which is a transitory Salvation but I expect the Redemption of Messias the Son of David who shall come and gather together the Sons of Israel his Redemption my Soul expects with which the Ierusalem Targum concurs almost word for word only with this difference that instead of those words But I expect the Redemption of Messias the Son of David it hath these words But expect the Redemption which thou hast promised to give us by thy Word that he should come to thy people Israel which is a plain evidence that by the Messias and this Word they meant the same thing so also on those words Even I am he and there is no God besides me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal Ionathans Targum runs thus When the Word of the Lord shall be manifested to redeem his People he i. e. the Word of the Lord shall say to all the people see now because I am he who was and is to come and there is no other God besides me I kill in my revenge and reviving do revive the People of the House of Israel I will heal them in the last days by which last days is evidently meant the days of the Messias who therefore must be the same with this Word of the Lord here spoken of Page 35. Line ult c For as they affirm of their word that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. always without time and alone eternal vid. Porphyry quoted by S. Cyril C. Iul. lib. 1. p. 32. that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most ancient Word of God Phil. de somn and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most ancient of all things that are 16. Leg. Allegor lib. 2. So S. Iohn affirms of his Word that he was in the beginning that is according to the pluinest and most obvious sense at least that he actually existed in the very beginning of the World and that
consequently he was before all time and the most ancient of all things Again as they affirm of their word that it is not separated from the first Good or Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. but of necessity is together with him being separatee from him only in personality Plot. En. 5. l. 1. c. 6. So S. Iohn affirms of his Word that it was with God from the beginning ver 2. that is in an inseparable union and conjunction for otherwise all other things were as much with God as he Again as they affirm of their Word that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the cause or artificer of the World for so all the Platonick Schools frequently stile him and so Plato himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. which World the Word which of all things is the most divine framed and set in order Epinom and Philo call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Instrument by whom God made the World Phil. lib. Chereb So S. Iohn affirms of his word that all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made ver 3. Again as they affirm of their word that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. if I may coin a word the Be-er and that this Be-er 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. is not a dead Be-er that is neither life nor mind but that mind and life and Be-er are the same thing Plotin Enn. 5. lib. 1. c. 2. So S. Iohn affirms of his word that in him was life ver 4. As they affirm that the life or being of their Word was knowledge or understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. neither is this Mind or Word in Potentia neither is it self one thing and its knowledge another but its knowledge is it self or its own being ibid. lib. 3. c. 5. So S. Iohn affirms of his Word that his life was the light of men i. e. that it consisted of knowledge which is the light of human minds ver 4. as they affirm that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Intelligible light proceeded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the word Phil. de Opif. mund and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that all light is from this word or wisdom Aristâ—b apud Euseb. praepar p. 324. So S. Iohn tells us of his Word that he was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ver 9. In short as they stile their word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Son of God Plot. Enn. 5. l. 8 c 5 And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Son or Child of God the full beautiful mind even the mind that is full of God as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the most ancient Son of the Father of the Universe Phil. lib. cui Tit. Deterius perfâ—ctiori semper infestum esse And also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the first born Son of God Ibid. lib. 1. de Agricuâ—t So S. Iohn stiles his Word the only begotten Son of the Father ver 14.18 Thus from first to last S. Iohn discourses of his Word and in the same Phrase and Language gives the same account of him as the Jewish and Gentile Divines did of theirs so that he must be supposed either to mean the same thing by him viz. a divine eternal Person or to design to make the World believe he meant so for he who speaks or writes must either equivocate and dissemble his meaning or mean according to the vulgar acceptation of the words and phrases he speaks or writes so that supposing S. Iohn doth here sincerely express his own meaning no man that understands the common use and acceptation of his phrases can reasonably understand them any otherwise than of a divine Person and whether this were not his meaning at least in all appearance I appeal to a very indifferent Judge viz. Amelius a Pagan Philosopher who very well understood the Language and Doctrine of the Gentile Schools concerning the divine Legos or Word so often mentioned in their Writings and who casting his eyes upon this discourse of S. Iohn doth with all confidence pronounce this to be the sense of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. this was that Word who according to Heraclitus existed from Eternity and made all things and whom by Iupiter the Barbarian places in the order and dignity of a Principal declaring him to have been with God and to be God and that all things were made by him and that in him all things that were had life and being Vid. Euseb Praep. Evan. 540. Page 51. Line 3. d For thus Porphyry as S. Cyril quotes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the divine essence extends it self to three persons whereof the highest God is the Good after him the second is the Maker of the World and the third is the Soul of the World for to this Soul the Divine Essence extends it self And of these three divine persons Plotinus hath treated at large whom he expresly calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three persons that are principles viz. the Good or the One the Mind and the Soul assuring us that these Doctrines concerning this divine Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that they were no new or of yeâ—terday but were anciently though obscurely taught and that what is now discoursed concerning them is only a farther explication of them but we have faithful Witnesses that these Doctrines were taught of old and particularly in the Writings of Plato himself before whom also Parmenides delivered them And indeed Plato very frequently mentions these three divine Persons particularly Phileb p. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. but Wisdom and Mind can never be or act without Soul wherefore in the Nature of God there is a Kingly Soul and a Kingly Mind And indeed so ancient is this Doctrine of three divine Persons subsisting in the Godhead that Proclus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tradition of the three Gods in Timae Plat. p. 93. for so they sometimes call these three Persons three Gods though as themselves elsewhere explain it they are only three subsistences in the same divine indivisible Essence And the same Proclus calls this Doctrine of the Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the divinely inspired or delivered Theology which teaches that this World was compleated by these three By these and sundry other testimonies that might be produced it is evident that the ancient Divines of the Gentiles acknowledged a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead the last of which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Soul for so thee Chaldee Oracle quoted by the above-named Proclus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. after the Paternal mind which in our Language is God the Son I Psyche or Soul dwell and this Psyche or as our Scriptures phrase it Holy
Ghost they stile 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most divine Psyche 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. whom we may truly say is God and not a Demon Plotin Enn. 3. l 5. c. 2. and the same Author tells us of this Psyche that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that it is the word of the Mind or Son as proceeding from him and the energy or active power by which he operates all which exactly accords with the Catholick Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost Page 51. Line 3. e For so the above cited Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. when God accompanied with his two highest powers viz. Empire and Goodness the middle being one he impressed threâ—â—hantasms on the sensitive or visive Soul viz. of Abraham each 〈◊〉 which exceed all measure for these his Powers are all immense but themselves measure all things De Sacrif Abel Cain Now that by these Powers he means the second and third Person in the Triune Godhead is apparent because he afterwards calls God and these his Powers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the three measures and tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that the supreme God is Superior to these Powers of his and is to be seen without them and appears in them which plainly shews that by these two Powers he means some things that were really distinct from that God whose Powers they were and therefore since before he had told us that they were both immense what else can he mean by them but those two divine Persons the Son and the Spirit of God To the same purpose he discourses lib. de Cherub where after he had given some uncertain guesses at the mystical sense of those Cherubs that guarded Paradise he thus concludes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. but I remember I have heard something more learned from my own Soul which being often seised with a divine Enthusiasm prophesies of things which it understands not which so far as I can remember I will here deliver By which solemn Preface he gives us notice that some very great mystery is to follow and then he goes on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. My soul said to me with that only true God there are two supreme and first powers viz. Goodness and Power and that by the first all things were made and by the second all things that are made are governed Since therefore as I have shewn before he frequently asserts that all things were made by the Son of God it is evident that by Goodness here he means the same Son and if so what else can he mean by Power but Psyche or the Holy Ghost And these three divine Persons he elsewhere stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Being the Ruling and the Benefick power l. 2. de Agric. Nâ—â—e Thus far this learned Jew whose Writings being originally in the Greek Language have been delivered down to us without any considerable alterations but it is not to be expected that those Writings of the ancient Jews which are written and preserved in their own Language should be so express in this Article of the Trinity as those of the Gentiles because for several Ages they were solely in the possession of the Modern Jews by whom this Article hath all along been obstinately rejected and therefore may reasonably be supposed to be castrated by them in all those places where they more openly countenanced the Christian veriâ—y against them but yet after all there are sundry passages remaining in them which do very much favour this Article thus Voisin in Prooem Pug. fig. quotes this passage from the Book Reschit Chocmah c. 3. Tres sunt Dii ut explicatur in Zohar his verbis Quis est sensus inquit R Iose horum verborum Deut. 4.7 Cui sunt Dii propinqui dicendum erat cui est Deus propinquus Sed est Deus superior est Deus timoris Isaac est Deus inferior ita dicuntur esse Dii propinqui i. e. there are three Gods as it is explained in the words of the Book Zohar R. Iose said what is the meaning of those words Deut. 4.7 to whom the Gods are near whereas it should have been said to whom Gods are near but there is the superiour God there is the God of the Fear of Isaac and there is the inferiour God and so they are said to be Gods that are near And Martin Raimund Pug. fid p. 396. quoâ—es a passage out of Misdrasch Tillim in which there is mention made trium proprietatum quibus creatus est mundus i. e. of three Proprieties or Persons by whom the World was made And to the same purpose Rittangelius in his Notes upon the Book Iezirah quotes two passages out of Imre Binah Tria sunt primaria primordialia capita coaeterna idque testatur splendor eorum numerationesque intellectuales in aeternam testantur Trinitatem Regis There are three prime and primordial Heads and Coeternal and this their own light testifies and the intellectual numerations do eternally testifie the Trinity of the King p. 3. 36. So also Ainsworth on the first of Genesis quotes another passage from R. Simeon Ben Iocai in Zâ—ar to the same purpose which is this Come and see the Mystery of the word Elohim there are three degrees and every degree by its self alone and yet notwithstanding they all are one and joyned together in one and are not divided one from another But to name no more Grotius makes mention of some ancient Câ—bâ—lists quoted in a Book called Additamenta ad Lexicon Hebraicum Schindleri who distinguish God in Tria Lumina quidem nonâ—ulli iisdem quibus Christiani nominibus Patris Filii sive Verbi Spiritus Sancti i. e. into three Lights which some of them call by the same names we Christians do viz. Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost and indeed as their most ancient Writings do frequently make mention of the Word under the notion of a divine Person as hath been shewed before so they do also the Ruach Hakkodesh or Holy Spirit to whom their most ancient Writers attribute all Prophesie or Revelation for so as I find them quoted by learned men in Pirche R. Eliezer c. 39. R. Phineas inquit requievit Spiritus Sanctus super Iosephum ab ipsius Iuventute usque ad diem obitus ejus i. e. the holy Spirit rested upon Ioseph from his youth till the day of his death And c. 33. R. Phineas ait postquam omnes illi interfecti fuerant viginti annis in Babel requievit Spiritus Sanctus super Ezekielem eduxit eum in convalle Dora ostendit ei multa ossa c. i. e. R. Phineas said after they were all slain the holy Spirit rested twenty years upon Ezekiel in Babylon and led him forth into the Valley of Dora and shewed him a great number of bones and indeed it was a Proverbial speech of the Jewish Masters as Maimonides tells us More Nev. Part. 2. c. 45. Majestas divina habitat super eum loquitur per Spiritum Sanctum i. e. the divine Majesty dwells upon such a one and he speaks by the Holy Ghost and that by this holy Spirit they anciently meant a real Person is evident for so Ionathans Paraphrase on Gen. 1.2 Spiritu misericordiarum qui est ab ante Dominum stante super faciem aquarum i. e. the Spirit of mercies who is from before the Lord standing upon the face of the Waters and Bereschit Rabba speaking of the Spirit that moved upon the face of the Water Gen. 1.2 expresly affirms Hic est Spiritus Regis Messiae this is the Spirit of Messias the King. So Ead. Hal. c. 12. Tempore Regis Messiae quando constabilitum erit regnum ejus omnis populus ad ipsum collectus recensebuntur singuli ex ore Spiritus Sancti In the time of Messias the King when his Kingdom shall be established every one shall be called over by the mouth of the Holy Ghost in which places there are things and actions expresly attributed to the Holy Ghost which are proper only to a Person and since by him they understoodâ— a Person they must necessarily suppose him a divine Person since by what follows it evidently appears that in their own Scriptures divine perfections were ascribed to him and by what hath been said that they believed three divine Persons in the Godhead and accordingly Eusebius tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. all the Hebrew Divines do acknowledge after the most High God and after his first-born Wisdom a third holy Power whom they call the Holy Ghost affirming him to be God by whom the Prophets were inspired Praep. Evang. p. 327. FINIS a Vide Note ad finem b Vide Note ad finem c Vide Note ad finem Vide Note d ad finem Vide Note e ad finem a Ezek. 39.28 29. Isa. 32.13 14 15. Isa. 59.20 21. compared with Rom. 11 26 27. b Isa. 66.8 Zach. 3.9 c Zach. 12.10 d Jer. 32 37 to 41. Ezek. 36.24 25. Chap. 37.21 22.25 Amos 9.14 15. Isa. 11.11 12. e Joel 3.1 2.9.14 Mich. 4.11 12. Isa. 24.21 22. Zeph. 3.8 Isa. 63.1.6 Isa. 34.1 Isa. 59.16 17. Zech. 14.13 Hag. 2.22 Zech. 12.2 3 4. f Isa. 66.16.18 19 20. Isa. 60.1.6 Jer. 14.33 Isa. 7.61 Ezek 38.16.21 22 23. Rom. 11.12 g Psal. 72.7 Isa. 66.12 and Chap. 23.4 Mich 4.3 Jer. 32.39 Zeph 3.8 9. Ezek. 19.21 22. Isa. 9.7 and Chap. 2.20 Hab. 2.14 h Rev. 13.7 i Dan. 7.21 22. k Rev. 17.16 17. l Isai 60.1 2 3 4 5. m Rev. 20.1 2 3 4 5 6. n Rev. 20.7 8 9 o Rev. 20.10 11 12 13 14 15.