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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63641	Antiquitates christianæ, or, The history of the life and death of the holy Jesus as also the lives acts and martyrdoms of his Apostles : in two parts.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Great exemplar of sanctity and holy life according to the christian institution.; Cave, William, 1637-1713. Antiquitates apostolicae, or, The lives , acts and martyrdoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour.; Cave, William, 1637-1713. Lives, acts and martydoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour.	1675 (1675)	Wing T287; ESTC R19304	1,245,097	752

served their present design and his own great intendment The Devil never fails to promote every evil purpose and except where God's restaining grace does intervene and interrupt the opportunity by interposition of different and cross accidents to serve other ends of Providence no man easily is fond of wickedness but he shall receive enough to ruine him Indeed Nero and Julian both witty men and powerfull desired to have been Magicians and could not and although possibly the Devil would have corresponded with them who yet were already his own in all degrees of security yet God permitted not that lest they might have understood new ways of doing despight to Martyrs and 〈◊〉 Christians And it concerns us not to tempt God or invite a forward enemy for as we are sure the Devil is ready to promote all vicious desires and bring them out to execution so we are not sure that God will not permit him and he that desires to be undone and cares not to be prevented by God's restraining grace shall finde his ruine in the folly of his own desires and become wretched by his own election Judas hearing of this Congregation of the Priests went and offered to betray his Lord and made a Covenant the Price of which was Thirty Pieces of Silver and he returned 11. It is not intimated in the History of the Life of Jesus that Judas had any Malice against the Person of Christ for when afterwards he saw the matter was to end in the death of his Lord he repented but a base and unworthy spirit of Covetousness possessed him and the reliques of 〈◊〉 for missing the Price of the Ointment which the holy Magdalen had poured upon his feet burnt in his bowels with a secret dark melancholick 〈◊〉 and made an eruption into an act which all ages of the world could never parallel They appointed him for hire thirty pieces and some say that every piece did in value equal ten ordinary current Deniers and so Judas was satisfied by receiving the worth of the three hundred pence at which he valued the Nard pistick But hereafter let no Christian be ashamed to be despised and undervalued for he will hardly meet so great a reproach as to have so disproportioned a price set upon his life as was upon the Holy Jesus S. Mary 〈◊〉 thought it not good enough to aneal his sacred feet Judas thought it a sufficient price for his head for Covetousness aims at base and low purchaces whilest holy Love is great and comprehensive as the bosome of Heaven and aims at nothing that is less than infinite The love of God is a holy fountain limpid and pure sweet and salutary lasting and eternal the love of Mony is a vertiginous pool sucking all into it to destroy it it is troubled and uneven giddy and unsafe serving no end but its own and that also in a restless and uneasie motion The love of God spends it self upon him to receive again the reflexions of grace and benediction the love of Money spends all its desires upon it sell to purchase nothing but unsatisfying instruments of exchange or supernumerary provisions and ends in dissatisfaction and emptiness of spirit and a bitter curse S. Mary Magdalen was defended by her Lord against calumny and rewarded with an honourable mention to all Ages of the Church besides the unction from above which she shortly after received to consign her to crowns and sceptres but Judas was described in the Scripture the Book of life with the black character of death he was disgraced to eternal Ages and presently after acted his own tragedy with a sad and ignoble death 12. Now all things being fitted our Blessed Lord sends two Disciples to prepare the Passeover that he might fulfill the Law of Moses and pass from thence to institutions Evangelical and then fulfill his Sufferings Christ gave them a sign to guide them to the house a man bearing a pitcher of water by which some that delight in mystical significations say was typified the Sacrament of Baptism meaning that although by occasion of the Paschal solemnity the holy Eucharist was first instituted yet it was afterwards to be applied to practice according to the sence of this accident only baptized persons were apt suscipients of the other more perfective Rite as the taking nutriment supposes persons born into the world and within the common conditions of humane nature But in the letter it was an instance of the Divine omniscience who could pronounce concerning accidents at distance as if they were present and yet also like the provision of the Colt to ride on it was an instance of Providence and security of all God's sons for their portion of temporals Jesus had not a Lamb of his own and possibly no money in the bags to buy one and yet Providence was his guide and the charity of a good man was his Proveditore and he found excellent conveniences in the entertainments of a hospitable good man as if he had dwelt in Ahab's Ivory-house and had had the riches of Solomon and the meat of his houshold The PRAYER O Holy King of Sion Eternal Jesus who with great Humility and infinite Love didst enter into the Holy City riding upon an Asse that thou mightest verisie the Predictions of the Prophets and give example of Meekness and of the gentle and paternal government which the eternal Father laid upon thy shoulders be pleased deares̄t Lord to enter into my Soul with triumph trampling over all thine enemies and give me grace to entertain thee with joy and adoration with abjection of my own desires with lopping off all my supersluous branches of a temporal condition and spending them in the offices of Charity and Religion and devesting my self of all my desires laying them at thy holy feet that I may bear the yoke and burthen of the Lord with alacrity with love and the wonders of a satisfied and triumphant spirit Lord enter in and take possession and thou to whose honour the very stones would give testimony make my stony heart an instrument of thy praises let me strew thy way with flowers of Vertue and the holy Rosary of Christian Graces and by thy aid and example let us also triumph over all our infirmities and hostilities and then lay our victories at thy feet and at last follow thee into thy heavenly Jerusalem with palms in our hands and joy in our hearts and eternal acclamations on our lips rejoycing in thee and singing Hallelujahs in a happy Eternity to thee O holy King of Sion eternal Jesus Amen 2. O Blessed and dear Lord who wert pleased to permit thy self to be sold to the assemblies of evil persons for a vile price by one of thy own servants for whom thou hadst done so great favours and hadst designed a crown and a throne to him and he turned himself into a sooty coal and entred into the portion of evil Angels teach us to value thee above all the joys of men to prize

For Faith being the gift of God and an illumination the Spirit of God will not give this light to them that prefer their darkness before it either the Will must open the windows or the light of Faith will not shine into the chamber of the Soul How can ye believe said our Blessed Saviour that receive honour one of another Ambition and Faith believing God and seeking of our selves are incompetent and totally incompossible And therefore Serapion Bishop of Thmuis spake like an Angel saith Socrates saying that the Mind which feedeth upon spiritual knowledge must throughly be cleansed The Irascible faculty must first be cured with brotherly Love and Charity and the Concupiscible must be suppressed with Continency and Mortification Then may the Understanding apprehend the mysteriousness of Christianity For since Christianity is a holy Doctrine if there be any remanent affections to a sin there is in the Soul a party disaffected to the entertainment of the Institution and we usually believe what we have a mind to Our Understandings if a crime be lodged in the Will being like icterical eyes transmitting the species to the Soul with prejudice disaffection and colours of their own framing If a Preacher should discourse that there ought to be a Parity amongst Christians and that their goods ought to be in common all men will apprehend that not Princes and rich persons but the poor and the servants would soonest become Disciples and believe the Doctrines because they are the only persons likely to get by them and it concerns the other not to believe him the Doctrine being destructive of their interests Just such a perswasion is every persevering love to a vicious habit it having possessed the Understanding with fair opinions of it and surprised the Will with Passion and desires whatsoever Doctrine is its enemy will with infinite difficulty be entertained And we know a great experience of it in the article of the Messias dying on the Cross which though infinitely true yet because to the Jews it was a scandal and to the Greeks 〈◊〉 it could not be believed they remaining in that indisposition that is unless the Will were first set right and they willing to believe any Truth though for it they must disclaim their interest Their Understanding was blind because the Heart was hardened and could not receive the impression of the greatest moral demonstration in the world 8. The Holy Jesus asked water of the Woman unsatisfying water but promised that himself to them that ask him would give waters of life and satisfaction infinite so distinguishing the pleasures and appetites of this world from the desires and complacencies spiritual Here we labour but receive no 〈◊〉 we sow many times and reap not or reap and do not gather in or gather in and do not 〈◊〉 or possess but do not enjoy or if we enjoy we are still 〈◊〉 it is with 〈◊〉 of spirit and circumstances of vexation A great heap of riches make 〈◊〉 our 〈◊〉 warm nor our meat more nutritive nor our beverage more 〈◊〉 and it seeds the eye but never fills it but like drink to an hydropick person increases the thirst and promotes the torment But the Grace of 〈◊〉 though but like a grain of 〈◊〉 dseed fills the furrows of the heart and as the capacity increases it self grows up in equal degrees and never suffers any emptiness or dissatisfaction but carries content and fulness all the way and the degrees of augmentation are not steps and near approaches to satisfaction but increasings of the capacity the 〈◊〉 is satished all the way and receives more not because it wanted any but that it can now hold more is more receptive of 〈◊〉 and in every minute of 〈◊〉 there is so excellent a condition of joy and high satisfaction that the very calamities the afflictions and persecutions of the world are turned into 〈◊〉 by the activity of the prevailing ingredient like a drop of water falling into a tun of wine it is ascribed into a new family losing its own nature by a conversion into the more noble For now that all passionate desires are dead and there is nothing remanent that is vexatious the peace the 〈◊〉 the quiet sleeps the evenness of spirit and contempt of things below remove the Soul from all neighbourhood of displeasure and place it at the foot of the throne whither when it is ascended it is possessed of Felicities eternal These were 〈◊〉 waters which were given to us to drink when with the rod of God the Rock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was smitten the Spirit of God moves for ever upon these waters and when the Angel of the Covenant hath stirred the pool who ever descends hither shall find health and peace joys spiritual and the satisfactions of Eternity The PRAYER O Holy Jesus Fountain of eternal life thou Spring of joy and spiritual satisfactions let the holy stream of bloud and water issuing from thy sacred side cool the thirst soften the hardness and refresh the barrenness of my desert Soul that I thirsting after thee as the wearied Hart after the cool stream may despise all the vainer complacencies of this world refuse all societies but such as are safe pious and charitable mortifie all 〈◊〉 appetites and may desire nothing but thee seek none but thee and rest in thee with intire 〈◊〉 of my own caitive inclinations that the desires of Nature may pass into desires of Grace and my thirst and my hunger may be spiritual and my hopes placed in thee and the expresses of my Charity upon thy relatives and all the parts of my life may speak thy love and obedience to thy Commandments that thou possessing my Soul and all its Faculties during my whole life I may possess thy glories in the fruition of a blessed Eternity by the light of thy Gospel here and the streams of thy Grace being guided to thee the fountain of life and glory there to be inebriated with the waters of Paradise with joy and love and contemplation adoring and admiring the beauties of the Lord for ever and ever Amen Considerations upon Christ's first Preaching and the Accidents happening about that time Jesus preaching to the people Mauh 4. 17. From that time Jesus began to preach saying Repent for the Kingodm of heaven is at hand V. 29. And he went about all Gallilee teaching preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness c. V. 25. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from D●●apolis and from Ierusalem etc. Christ sending forth his Apostles Mark 6. 7. And he called unto him y e twelve began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits And conunanded them that they should take nothing for their journey etc. V. 12 And they went out and preached that men should repent 1. WHen John was cast into Prison then began Jesus to preach not only because the Ministery of John

all the Province of his Cure with great zeal for the gaining of Souls to the belief and obedience of his holy Laws those are the Feet that should walk upon seas and hills of water as upon firm pavement at which the Lepers and diseased persons should stoop and gather health up which Mary Magdalen should wash with tears and wipe with her hair and anoint with costly Nard as expressions of love and adoration and there find absolution and remedy for her sins and which finally should be rent by the nails of the Cross and afterwards ascend above the Heavens making the earth to be his foot-stool From hence take patterns of imitation that our Piety be symbolical that our Affections be passionate and Eucharistical full of love and wonder and adoration that our feet tread in the same steps and that we transfer the Symbol into Mystery and the Mystery to Devotion praying the Holy Jesus to actuate the same mercies in us which were finished at his holy feet forgiving our sins healing our sicknesses and then place our selves irremoveably becoming his Disciples and strictly observing the rules of his holy Institution sitting at the feet of this our greatest Master 8. In the same manner a pious person may with the Blessed Virgin pass to the consideration of his holy Hands which were so often lifted up to God in Prayer whose touch was miraculous and medicinal cleansing Lepers restoring perishing limbs opening blind eyes raising dead persons to life those Hands which fed many thousands by two Miracles of multiplication that purged the Temple from prophaneness that in a sacramental manner bare his own Body and gave it to be the food and refreshment of elect Souls and after were cloven and rent upon the Cross till the Wounds became after the Resurrection so many transparencies and glorious Instruments of solemn spiritual and efficacious benediction Transmit this meditation into affections and practices lifting up pure hands in prayer that our Devotions be united to the merits of his glorious Intercession and putting our selves into his hands and holy providence let us beg those effects upon our Souls and spiritual Cures which his precious hands did operate upon their bodies transferring those Similitudes to our ghostly and personal advantages 9. We may also behold his holy Breast and consider that there lay that sacred Heart like the Dove within the Ark speaking peace to us being the regiment of love and sorrows the fountain of both the Sacraments running out in the two holy streams of Bloud and Water when the Rock was smitten when his holy Side was pierced and there with St. John let us lay our head and place our heart and thence draw a treasure of holy revelations and affections that we may rest in him onely and upon him lay our burthens filling every corner of our heart with thoughts of the most amiable and beloved JESUS 10. In like manner we may unite the Day of his Nativity with the day of his Passion and consider all the parts of his Body as it was instrumental in all the work of our Redemption and so imitate and in some proportion partake of that great variety of sweetnesses and amorous reflexes and gracious intercourses which passed between the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Child according to his present capacities and the clarity of that light which was communicated to her by Divine Infusion And all the Members of this Blessed Child his Eyes his Face his Head all the Organs of his Senses afford variety of entertainment and motion to our Affections according as they served in their several imployments and cooperations in the mysteries of our Restitution 11. But his Body was but his Soul' s upper garment and the considerations of this are as immaterial and spiritual as the Soul it self and more immediate to the mystery of the Nativity This Soul is of the same nature and substance with ours in this inferiour to the Angels that of it self it is incompleat and discursive in a lower order of ratiocination but in this superiour 1. That it is personally united to the Divinity full of the Holy Ghost over-running with Grace which was dispensed to it without measure And by the mediation of this Union as it self is exalted far above all orders of Intelligences so we also have contracted alliance with God teaching us not to unravel our excellencies by infamous deportments 2. Here also we may meditate that his Memory is indeterminable and unalterable ever remembring to do us good and to present our needs to God by the means of his holy intercession 3. That his Understanding is without ignorance knowing the secrets of our hearts full of mysterious secrets of his Father's Kingdom in which all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God are hidden 4. That his Will is impeccable entertained with an uninterrupted act of Love to God greater than all Angels and beatified spirits present to God in the midst of the transportations and ravishments of Paradise That this Will is full of Love to us of Humility in it self of Conformity to God wholly resign'd by acts of Adoration and Obedience It was moved by six Wings Zeal of the honour of God and Compunction for our sins Pity to our miseries and Hatred of our impieties Desires of satisfying the wrath of God and great Joy at the consideration of all the fruits of his Nativity the appeasing of his Father the redemption of his brethren And upon these wings he mounted up into the throne of Glory carrying our nature with him above the seats of Angels These second considerations present themselves to all that with Piety and Devotion behold the Holy Babe lying in the obscure and humble place of his Nativity The PRAYER HOly and Immortal Jesus I adore and worship thee with the lowest prostrations and humility of Soul and body and give thee all thanks for that great Love to us whereof thy Nativity hath made demonstration for that Humility of thine expressed in the poor and ignoble circumstances which thou didst voluntarily chuse in the manner of thy Birth And I present to thy holy Humanity inchased in the adorable Divinity my Body and Soul humbly desiring that as thou didst clothe thy self with a Humane body thou mayest invest me with the robes of Righteousness covering my sins inabling my weaknesses and sustaining my mortality till I shall finally in conformity to thy Beauties and Perfections be clothed with the stole of Glory Amen 2. VOuchsafe to come to me by a more intimate and spiritual approximation that so thou mayest lead me to thy Father for of my self I cannot move one step towards thee Take me by the hand place me in thy heart that there I may live and there I may die that as thou hast united our Nature to thy Eternal Being thou mightest also unite my Person to thine by the interiour adunations of Love and Obedience and Conformity Let thy Ears be open to my prayers thy merciful Eyes

It looked of a blew mould the bone of the nose laid bare the flesh of the neather lip quite fallen off his mouth full of worms and in his eye-pits two hungry Toads feasting upon the remanent portion of flesh and moisture and so he dwelt in his house of darkness And if every person tempted by an opportunity of Lust or intemperance would chuse such a room for his privacy that company for his witness that object to allay his appetite he would soon find his spirit more sober and his desires obedient I end this with the counsel of S. Bernard Let every man in the first address to his actions consider whether if he were now to die he might safely and prudently do such an act and whether he would not be infinitely troubled that death should surprise him in the present dispositions and then let him proceed accordingly For since our treasure is in earthen vessels which may be broken in pieces by the collision of ten thousand accidents it were not safe to treasure up wrath in them for if we do we shall certainly drink it in the day of recompence 37. Thirdly Before and in and 〈◊〉 all this the Blessed Jesus propounds Prayer as a remedy against Temptations Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation For besides that Prayer is the great instrument of obtaining victory by the grace of God as a fruit of our desires and of God's natural and essential goodness the very praying against a Temptation if it be hearty servent and devout is a denying of it and part of the victory for it is a 〈◊〉 the entertainment of it it is a positive rejection of the crime and every consent to it is a ceasing to pray and to desire remedy And we shall observe that whensoever we begin to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit our Prayers against it lessen as the consent increases there being nothing a more direct enemy to the Temptation than Prayer which as it is of it self a professed hostility against the crime so it is a calling in auxiliaries from above to make the victory more certain If Temptation sets upon thee do thou set upon God for he is as soon overcome as thou art as soon moved to good as thou art to evil he is as quickly invited to pity thee as thou to ask him provided thou dost not finally rest in the petition but pass into action and endeavour by all means humane and moral to quench the 〈◊〉 newly kindled in thy bowels before it come to devour the marrow of the bones For a strong Prayer and a lazy incurious unobservant walking are contradictions in the discourses of Religion 〈◊〉 tells us a story of a young man solicited by the spirit of Uncleanness who came to an old Religious person and begged his prayers It was in that Age when God used to answer Prayers of very holy persons by more clear and familiar significations of his pleasure than he knows now to be necessary But after many earnest prayers sent up to the throne of Grace and the young man not at all bettered upon consideration and enquiry of particulars he found the cause to be because the young man relied so upon the Prayers of the old Eremite that he did nothing at all to discountenance his Lust or contradict the Temptation But then he took another course enjoyned him Austerities and exercises of Devotion gave him rules of prudence and caution tied him to work and to stand upon his guard and then the Prayers returned in triumph and the young man trampled upon his Lust. And so shall I and you by God's grace if we pray earnestly and frequently if we watch carefully that we be not surprised if we be not idle in secret nor talkative in publick if we read Scriptures and consult with a spiritual Guide and make Religion to be our work that serving of God be the business of our life and our designs be to purchase Eternity then we shall walk safely or recover speedily and by doing advantages to 〈◊〉 secure a greatness of Religion and spirituality to our spirits and understanding But remember that when Israel fought against Amalek Moses's prayer and Moses's hand secured the victory his Prayer grew ineffectual when his Hands were slack to remonstrate to us that we must cooperate with the grace of God praying devoutly and watching carefully and observing prudently and labouring with diligence and assiduity The PRAYER ETernal God and most merciful Father I adore thy Wisdom Providence and admirable Dispensation of affairs in the spiritual Kingdom of our Lord Jesus that thou who art infinitely good dost permit so many sadnesses and dangers to discompose that order of things and spirits which thou didst create innocent and harmless and dost design to great and spiritual perfections that the emanation of good from evil by thy over-ruling power and excellencies may force glory to thee from our shame and honour to thy Wisdom by these contradictory accidents and events Lord have pity upon me in these sad disorders and with mercy know my infirmities Let me by suffering what thou pleasest cooperate to the glorification of thy Grace and magnifying thy Mercy but never let me consent to sin but with the power of thy Majesty and mightiness of thy prevailing Mercy rescue me from those 〈◊〉 of dangers and enemies which daily seck to 〈◊〉 that Innocence with which thou didst cloath my Soul in the New birth Behold O God how all the Spirits of Darkness endeavour the extinction of our hopes and the dispersion of all those Graces and the prevention of all those 〈◊〉 which the Holy Jesus hath purchased for every loving and obedient Soul Our very 〈◊〉 and drink are full of poison our Senses are snares our 〈◊〉 is various Temptatio our sins are inlets to more and our good actions made occasions of sins Lord deliver me from the Malice of the Devil from the Fallacies of the World from my own Folly that I be not devoured by the first nor cheated by the second nor betrayed by my self but let thy Grace which is sufficient for me be always present with me let thy Spirit 〈◊〉 me in the spiritual 〈◊〉 arming my Understanding and securing my Will and 〈◊〉 my Spirit with resolutions of Piety and incentives of Religion and deleteries of Sin that the dangers I am encompassed withall may become unto me an occasion of victory and trimph through the aids of the Holy Ghost and by the Cross of the Lord Jesus who hath for himself and all his servants triumphed over Sin and Hell and the Grave even all the powers of Darkness from which by the mercies of Jesus and the merits of his Passion now and ever deliver me and all thy 〈◊〉 people Amen DISCOURSE VI. Of Baptism Part I. 1. WHen the Holy Jesus was to begin his Prophetical Office and to lay the foundation of his Church on the Corner-stone he first temper'd the Cement

with Water and then with Bloud and afterwards built it up by the hands of the Spirit Himself enter'd at that door by which his Disciples for ever after were to follow him for therefore he went in at the door of Baptism that he might hallow the entrance which himself made to the House he was now building 2. As it was in the old so it is in the new Creation out of the waters God produced every living creature and when at first the Spirit moved upon the waters and gave life it was the type of what was designed in the Renovation Every thing that lives now is born of Water and the Spirit and Christ who is our Creator and Redeemer in the New birth opened the fountains and hallowed the stream Christ who is our Life went down into the waters of Baptism and we who descend thither find the effects of life it is living Water of which whose drinks needs not to drink of it again for it shall be in him a Well of water springing up to life eternal 3. But because every thing is resolved into the same principles from whence they are taken the old World which by the power of God came from the Waters by their own sin fell into the Waters again and were all drowned and only eight persons were saved by an Ark and the World renewed upon the stock and reserves of that mercy consigned the Sacrament of Baptism in another figure for then God gave his sign from Heaven that by water the World should never again perish but he meant that they should be saved by water for Baptism which is a figure like to this doth also now save us by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 4. After this the Jews report that the World took up the doctrine of Baptisms in remembrance that the iniquity of the old world was purged by water and they washed all that came to the service of the true God and by that Baptism bound them to the observation of the Precepts which God gave to Noah 5. But when God separated a Family for his own special service he gave them a Sacrament of Initiation but it was a Sacrament of bloud the Covenant of Circumcision and this was the fore-runner of Baptism but not a Type when that was abrogated this came into the place of it and that consigned the same Faith which this professes But it could not properly be a Type whose nature is by a likeness of matter or ceremony to represent the same Mystery Neither is a Ceremony as Baptism truly is properly capable of having a Type it self is but a Type of a greater mysteriousness And the nature of Types is in shadow to describe by dark lines a future substance so that although Circumcision might be a Type of the effects and graces bestowed in Baptism yet of the Baptism or Ablution it self it cannot be properly because of the unlikeness of the symbols and configurations and because they are both equally distant from substances which Types are to consign and represent The first Bishops of Jerusalem and all the Christian Jews for many years retained Circumcision together with Baptism and Christ himself who was circumcised was also baptized and therefore it is not so proper to call Circumcision a Type of Baptism it was rather a Seal and Sign of the same Covenant to Abraham and the Fathers and to all Israel as Baptism is to all Ages of the Christian Church 6. And because this Rite could not be administred to all persons and was not at all times after its institution God was pleased by a proper and specifick Type to consign this Rite of Baptism which he intended to all and that for ever and God when the family of his Church grew separate notorious numerous and distinct sent them into their own Countrey by a Baptism through which the whole Nation pass'd for all the Fathers were under the Cloud and all passed through the Sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea so by a double figure foretelling that as they were initiated to Moses's Law by the Cloud above and the Sea beneath so should all the persons of the Church men women and children be initiated unto Christ by the Spirit from above and the Water below for it was the design of the Apostle in that discourse to represent that the Fathers and we were equal as to the priviledges of the Covenant he proved that we do not exceed them and it ought therefore to be certain that they do not exceed us nor their children ours 7. But after this something was to remain which might not only consign the Covenant which God made with Abraham but be as a passage from the Fathers through the Synagogue to the Church from Abraham by Moses to Christ and that was Circumcision which was a Rite which God chose to be a mark to the posterity of Abraham to distinguish them from the Nations which were not within the Covenant of Grace and to be a Seal of the righteousness of Faith which God made to be the spirit and life of the Covenant 8. But because Circumcision although it was ministred to all the males yet it was not to the females although they and all the Nation were baptized and initiated into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea therefore the Children of Israel by imitation of the Patriarchs the posterity of Noah used also Ceremonial Baptisms to their Women and to their Proselytes and to all that were circumcised and the Jews deliver That Sarah and Rebecca when they were adopted into the family of the Church that is of Abraham and Isaac were baptized and so were all strangers that were married to the sons of Israel And that we may think this to be typical of Christian Baptism the Doctors of the Jews had a Tradition that when the Messias would come there should be so many Proselytes that they could not be circumcised but should be baptized The Tradition proved true but not for their reason But that this Rite of admitting into Mysteries and Institutions and Offices of Religion by Baptisms was used by the posterity of Noah or at least very early among the Jews besides the testimonies of their own Doctors I am the rather induced to believe because the Heathens had the same Rite in many places and in several Religions so they initiated disciples into the Secrets of Mithra and the Priests of 〈◊〉 were called 〈◊〉 because by Baptism they were admitted into the Religion and they thought Muther Incest Rapes and the worst of crimes were purged by dipping in the Sea or fresh Springs and a Proselyte is called in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Baptized person 9. But this Ceremony of Baptizing was so certain and usual among the Jews in their admitting Proselytes and adopting into Institutions that to baptize and to make Disciples are all one and when John the Baptist by an order from Heaven went to