the loving kindness or tender mercies of God to which they trusted more than to any of their services ONCE we may be sure that it was not that part of the Covenant which they had broken which was added because of transgressions or annexed as a Codicil unto the first Testament to keep them in awe and fear of sinning by its threatnings they being always prone to trespass upon the God of Israel But the Covenant which they intended was that which was confirmed before of God in Christ viz. with Abraham Isaac and Iacob their Progenitors till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made So that when David had brought the Ark and set it in the midst of a Tent which he had pitched for it they offerâ—d Burnt-sacrifices and Peace-offerings before God and then he delivered the hundred and fifth Psalm unto Asaph and his Brethren to be tuned by them unto praise in which there is this special passage O ye seed of Israel his servant ye children of Iacob his chosen ones Be ye mindful always of his Covenant the word which he commanded to a thousand Generations Which Covenant be made with Abraham and his Oath unto Isaac And confirmed the same unto Iacob for a Law and to Israel for an everlasting Covenant Unto all which the temporal promise of the Land of Canaan a Type of â—he eternal rest is join'd and knit Upon which fundamental Covenant it was that God proclaimed the name of the Lord at the second giving of the Law in this manner The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin This is the Covenant that they were to flee to in all their adversities so as still to renew their own which they had made with God by the mediation of Moses when the Law was given In such manner as we may read distinctly in the examples of Iosiah Ezra Nehemiah and whatever Reformers or Restorers there were besides All the Sacrifices of their Land were of no avail to appease or please God wiâ—hout this And this was to be done either in the Temple with their faces towards the Mercy-Seat or towards the Temple when they were at a distance from it This was the use of the Covenant of mercy as to all the people Let us see next what the faith of particular men might be and of what use or help this within the Veil It was the Object of Ionah's faith directly I said I am cast out of thy sight yet will I look again toward thy holy Temple When my soul fainted within me I remembred the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee into thine holy Temple Of all places saith Archbishop Abbot he pitcheth on the Temple where God had put his name and was more apparently conversant by his â—pecial Grace Which did make that House and City to be counted an holy Mansion the joy of the Earth the beauty of the World the Palace of the Great King the delight Paradise and Garden of the Highest There was the Ark of the Covenant the Tables of the Testimony that we may not take these latter alone to be the whole Covenant the Cherubims and the Mercy-Seat all being strange things of much excellency But the summity of all happiness was the residence of God's favour there .... Wherefore the Jews observed this evermore in the earnestness of their prayer in what land soever they were to turn them toward the Temple not tying superstitiously the power of God to that place but knowing that the same house was not erected in vain And witnessing withal their obedience unto the Lord and to men the constancy of their profession who held that place as the Seal of the Lord 's assured protection over them So when Daniel in Chaldaea would pray he set his Windows open toward Ierusalem to the hazard of his life Let us therefore next consider his example When Daniel knew by Books that the seventy years were expired he set his face toward the Temple though it was demolished because the blessing was that way still and a promise of its restitution and prayed saying O Lord the great and dreadful God keeping the Covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his Commandments .... To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses though we have rebelled against him O Lord according to all thy righteousness I beseech thee let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy City Ierusalem and cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord's sake Which if any one think to be not the same as if he had said For Christ's sake who was wont to dwell in the Sanctuary that lyeth now in ruines it might be fit to put him in mind of our Saviour's Question to the Pharisees saying What think ye of Christ whose Son is he They say unto him The Son of David He saith unto them How then doth David in spirit call him Lord saying The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine Enemies thy footstool And no man was able to answer him a word The Prophet said I beseech thee O Lord for the Lord's sake The Question is For what Lord's sake or what congruity in the sense For the words are not I beseech thee for thine own sake or for thy mercy-sake But for the Lord's sake Neither is it questioned but that the Lord Christ was revealed to the Prophets in a great measure nor yet that their Writings were so obscure as that others besides themselves understood nothing of the meaning of them for they were written as all Scripture for instruction which has been pointed at before There are indeed of opinion that hold That by the Types they were little the wiser but by the Prophets they knew to the very Day of Christ's coming not only that he was to be the Son of David but also the Son of God A Notion common unto all that expected the Messias in any manner But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak the rest in a word What is the Son of God but the loving kindness and mercy of the Father begotten in himself by eternal Generation to be made manifest in the flesh according to the time appointed by the Father In this loving kindness therefore and tender mercies of God with respect to him that was to come they put their trust even as we do in the same mercies through him that is come since and now for ever liveth to make intercession for us So that in their prayers there was nothing but the name of Christ concealed because it was not yet revealed to them the same Petitions the same Arguments and the like Confessions In all which if there were not a Syllable of Christ how could we use the fame Forms and Phrases still If
manner of the faith of the Saints of old is that which presents it self to our next thoughts about the Priestly Office of Christ within this inner Temple beyond the ministry of the Sons of Levi which was in the outer Sanctuary once a year excepted when it was permitted to the High Priest alone to enter in hither I hardly can forbear to deliver my own opinion expresly here although I know no other authority to fortifie it by besides the very Scriptures themselves or what an ingenuous man may accept for a reasonable inference upon them I take the Ark it self to have been a kind of Altar CHAP. XXVII The Kingdom given unto Christ for his Priesthood-sake who as of the order of Melchizedek had an inner house and Altar to which the house of Aaron owed reverence That it was not properly an Altar but bore some analogy and was needful for the people That the promises of God before the Law were virtually concealed in the Ark. A new Objection started IT was in contemplation of Christ's Priesthood that God the Father bestowed the Kingdom on him according to that of the Royal Psalmist The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool .... The Lord hath sworn and will not repent Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedek that is after the sâ—militude as the Apostle doth expound it of that King of righteousness which word doth indifferently signifie mercy in the use of the Old Testament Within this inward Temple therefore it was convenient that another kind of Altar should be reserved for another kind of Priest than Aaron was who had the Ruler of the people over him and many Laws lying on his Order from which Melchizedek was free For the Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in of a better hope did by which we draw nigh unto God ... which hope â—e have as an Anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast and which entreth into that within the Veil Whither the forerunner is for us entred even Iesus made an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek who was a Type of him as the Holy of Holies within the Veil was of Heaven having the Throne of God in the midst of it and a multitude of Cherubims besides it after Solomon had put the last hand to it And as our hope is now above all in the intercession of Christ in Heaven so was theirs of old within the Veil more than it was without as I am about to shew But because it doth not consist with the oneness of the Body of Christ that there should be more Temples or Altarâ— properly so called than one I shall first address my self to some accommodation Besides the Altar of Oblation there stood apart and nearer to the Veil the Golden Altar or Altar of Incense by God's appointment which served to set forth the intercession of the Angel of the Covenant who is represented to us in the Revelation as standing at the Altar having a golden Censer with much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints upon the golden Altar which was before the Throne the smoke whereof ascended up before God out of the Angels hand and then the Angel took his Censer and filled it with fire of the Altar and cast it to the Earth as a return of prayers and then the judgments of God began to work below Which Altar therefore stands not in opposition to the other nor this that I am about to speak of to either of them But now I will shew what analogy and what need or use there was of this token Quod prius praestantius was the great Rule that S t Paul went by in preferring Christ's Priesthood before Levi's in that it was according to the likeness of Melchizedek's unto whom Levi himself had paid Tythes in the Loins of his Father Abraham And in this he shews the excellency of the New Testament above the Old that it was four hundred and thirty years indeed the elder of the two This I say saith he that the Covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul that it should make the promise of no effect And that it might not do so God laid a Mercy-Seat over the Law and put all together behind the Veil where he kept the Archives of his first promise made to Abraham and to Isaac and to Iacob concerning Christ In reference whereunto he bad Moses tell the people from the very first beginning of his vocation The Lord God of your Fathers the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob hath sent me unto you This is my name for ever and this is my memorial unto all Generations This was his name within the Veil covered with the wings of Angels while the Lord of life was yet in the Loins of his Progenitors So that if any one be ready to object further against the knowledge of Christ of old that Moses put a veil of Types and Ceremonies over his face on purpose that the Children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished viz. the Ceremonial Law But their minds were blinded so that until this day the same Veil remaineth on them in the reading of the Old Testament we are as ready to meet them with another passage of the same Apostle Wherefore then serveth the Law Was it given to the prejudice of the Grace of Christ It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made and it was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator Is the Law then against the promises of God God forbid But before faith came we were kept under the Law shut up unto the faith which should after be revealed Now the strength of the Objection seems to bear against the multitude of the Children of Israel and not against any choice men amongst them who for all this Objection as they drew nearer might see the clearer into this mystery of Christ on coming But I shall endeavour to take things in such an order that that which remains of the former Objection may go off as well satisfied as can be with this that cometh last CHAP. XXVIII What resemblance the Ark bore unto an Altar and how the Altar of Burnt-Offering was sanctified by it That a Censer was only a necessary Vtensil belonging to the Holy of Holies to be used once a Year That the whole Temple was hallowed by the Còvenant and Mercy-seat shewed by Solomon's Dedication of it OF the whole Law how far it is a priviledge or a burthen a light or a veil that I may not too much anticipate the design that I have in hand there will be a proper place hereafter In the mean while whatsoever was defective
as the Prince and head of all mankind to be his residence and mansion which as it is described comprised many regions while his Children to be born had all the rest before them Whereas if there be any mystery at all to be observed in it it may seem to have been this That God would not leave Adam to abide in the wide world at large as his own master and Lord of all besides without any homage to be paid to himself his Maker and therefore that he would impale him without confinement within a certain glorious place wherein he would be worshipped in a more especial manner by him and his that were to constitute an holy Church in the state of innocency if he had held it Unto which intent God took Adam into a kind of implicit Covenant but not the same with that which some do take for the Covenant of Works with himself and to the ordinance of the Sabbath he annexed as a kind of Sacraments the Tree of knowledge for his caution and the Tree of Life for his comfort as a pledge of immortal felicity in case of his obedience But when Adam fell from this it gave occasion unto God to excommunicate and send him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the common ground from whence 〈◊〉 had been taken into that consecrated place Now although it be manifest by it self that our first Parents were created in perfection inasmuch as God blessed them as soon as he had done and said unto them be fruitful and multiply yet no Christian ever did presume to think that there was any offer of copulation between them in the Garden whether because they had no burning blood in them but were like to other tame creatures that retain their native innocence which have no desire but at certain seasons when men observe to joyn them Or whether it was so ordered according to the foreknowledge of God that no kind of inconvenience might ensue for if Adam had had but one Son born in innocency then all mankind could not have fallen together in Adam's person but the state of Men might have proved like to that of Angels whereof some left their first station while others held it Or if Eve had but conceived in her integrity that conception not having been shapen in iniquity could scarce have been said to have been born in sin or to have sinned in its Parents loins So that it might have been justly questioned how far such an issue might be lyable to or exempted from the consequents of sin in reference unto punishment for he saith Behold all souls are mine as the soul of the Father so also the soul of the Son is mine the soul that sinneth it shall die But as soon as they were fallen and yet in mercy respited from sudden death they began to long for posterity both to supply their own mortality and also to obtain the blessed seed that had been promised to them for their recovery In the next place therefore we have to contemplate the greatest beauties and the most accomplisht souls that ever were as coming immediately out of the hands of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or first Former of all mankind in them thrust forth to dig or till the ground that had been newly curs'd with barrenness But what shall they dig or cut withal He that made all living creatures made no tools Nay he hid the Iron within the earth so that without Iron it is not easie to come by it or if Adam find any in the stony mass above ground what should he do with it if the use of the forge was not known till Tubal-Cain was born above a hundred years after But it seems that Tubal was an improver rather than an inventer For the Text says only that he was the instructer of every Artiâ—icer as if there were Artificers before in brass and iron It makes no matter since we find that the Indians in America had Bows and Arrows and comely Tents having only ways to sharpen stones and fish-bones without the use of Iron before they learnt it hence And we will suppose our father Adam to have been much more handy and ingenious than those bruitish peoples and the better workman needs the feweâ— tools and helps for what could â—â—ve do who must be taken up for her part to make some thing or other of skins or wooll to be spun or wove or patcht for cloaths and clouâ—s against her lying-in Then she could have no other but her Husband instead of Midwife Nurse and Tender and before she could have any child to be officious to her what a deal must lie upon her hands And whereas she had this heavy sentence from the Lord I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception In sorrow shalt thou bring forth Children and thy desire shall be to thy Husband for more Judge what she might suffer by bearing and nursing Children in her time if she lived proportionably unto Adam nine hundred and thirty years and bare one year with another but three hundred of them To which misery this was also to be added she must needs bear the seed of the Serpent as well as her own and not know which was which till they should be grown when she should have more sorrow with one Cain than in bearing all the rest And thus we have surveyed some part of their outward punishment for sin CHAP. II. That our first Parents repented and believed That in token thereof they sacrificed and taught their Children so That Sacrifices were not of the light of Nature against Pelagius but of institution though not to be proved but by inference as the Lords Supper it self and Infant-Baptism and the Lords Day and single Marriages NOR can we doubt but that our first Parents seeing into what a state they had brought themselves did earnestly repent and embrace the promise of the blessed Seed and understand so much of the meaning of it as was for their use and comfort Neither could they live without fear thereafter of sinning again by the like disobedience For by occasion of their sin they came to see into the horrour of eternal death which remained as the utmost punishment thereof and which they could not understand so well before And this truth the Catholick Church hath ever held with so much zeal that it hath taxed Tatianus and the Encratitae of Heresie for holding to the contrary For say they if these were not saved of whom Christ was to be born Nihil quicquam eorum massae salvabitur Nothing of their mass can ever be saved And if they were to perish certainly the whole Church of God was once at a loss and failure which that it might not be God had no sooner excommunicated them out of his Temple of Paradise but he took them into the Church of Christ the State of Grace whereinto he called them by repentance and faith in his blessed
prayers into the nostrils of God at whose right hand the Mediator was even then also to do the same Offices for his Church and people that he doth now as it is described in the Revelation that he stood at the Altar having a golden Censer and there was given unto him much incense that he should offer it up with the prayers of all Saints upon the golden Altar which was before the Throne And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the Saints ascended up before God out of the Angels hand Say not therefore that the savour of Beasts being burnt could not be sweet of it self any more than that of the sinful prayers of men God smelleth not as men do but though under Moses's order other things were added unto Burnt-offerings that there might be no evil savour possibly in the Temple as to men yet all received another scent with a sweet perfume and odour as it passed through the ministration of the Angel the Mediator of either Testament before it came into the nostrils of his Father Secondly Lumine Prophetiae Whether it were by vision or any other way of Prophetical revelation Adam as a Prophet might have all this and more as no doubt he had from God for else how should the first Church of all have been informed or directed according unto God or godliness We may not therefore suppose Adam little the worse for his Fall as Socinus or as deprived of his natural endowments the Image of God but only of all the extraordinary improvements and comforts that he had before when he had ordinary communion with God So that it is still held in the Schools That Adam was absolutely the wisest of all mortal men not Solomon excepted whose wisdom was Government and that he did not after cease to know those Creatures which he had named in Paradise And as he was the first that received Grace so we may well think that he received it not in the least measure Wherefore since our Saviour doth assure us and yet it is not to be proved out of Moses that Abraham longed to see his day and that he saw it and was glad Most like it might be then when he was about to set his Knife to Isaac's throat and lo a Ram was provided ready for him to offer up instead of Isaac and the Angel from above staid his hand from such a sad issue of obedience and the Angel swore saying By my self have I sworn saith the Lord because thou hast done this thing In blessing I will bless thee And had not Abraham reason to be glad We may doubt no less of Adam at some one time or other when he received this Ordinance of Sacrifice to be continued in their Generations until Shiloh came 2. Then after this they must needs receive and obey this enlightning from above for if we think upon Adam's Case he must needs at first be thunder-struck with the terrible appearance of God calling him to judgment and passing sentence on him For if Moses said which is not to be proved in terminis out of his own Books neither I exceedingly fear and quâ—ke when he received the Law in the Mount how much more out first Parents when they hid themselves and made such weak and lamentable excuses being forced to appear for their transgression But what should they do at last Should they rest in despair and in dejection Or should they rather strive and endeavour to rise again Certainly to rise but if so must it not be by a right repentance And was that possible without hope Or such an hope without a ground of faith Or such a faith without a clear evidence to support it And if you say they might repent believe and pray and that that might be enough without Sacrifice I answer That there was never any faith without the Church never any Church without Ordinances whereby a right faith might be supplied and the Object of faith in some measure conveyed unto right Worshippers It is in vain to imagine that they should have some faith and no practice or any right practice without a certain faith before without which it is impossible to please God These therefore put together did constitute a true Church in the persons of Adam and Eve and the Head of the Church two or three till they bred more and a sure Religion unto them and theirs of the nature of which it is that if it be not imposed by another but excogitated only it is no Religion which signifies a bond or tye such an one as a man canâ—ot lay upon himself and if he do it bâ—nds not his God to accept it or reward it in the least or so much as to approve of it lest it be a thing incongruous or disagreeable unto himself We cannot therefore imagine any time at all betwixt the Fall and the introducing of some Religion by the benefit of which our first Parents might recover But the Soâ—inians must needs suppose it if the Offering of Sacrifices were indeed the first Religion which they deny not and yet that it hung in suspense till a certain space of excogitation they care not though it be till Cain and Abel were grown unto maturity In the mean while is not this true that they which live without a right Religion do live without God in the World and are in a kind of reprobate estate Which doleful apprehension about our first Parents I have shewed you before how much the Catholick Church abhorreth CHAP. X. The last shift of the Socinians discussed wherein is shewed That Sacrifices neither probably nor morally possibly could be invented by men so as to be approved by God And that they had been unnatural if they had not been ordained towards a mystery Socinus not so pious as Pelagius or Homer IN fine Whereas the Socinians do distinguish betwixt the Laws of Nature that were eternal and immutable and those which excogitating reason might ordain towards the setting up of some conspicuous and idoneous worship to be rendred unto God and affirm that Sacrifices had their original from the latter inasmuch as they were not contrary to the former granting that they were not necessarily implied in the former and say besides that what Abel Noah and Abraham might do in this kind might be indeed by some especial Divine way so that it was not common unto others but only proper to themselves or such excellent men as they they have given us the last hints of Argument to proceed and to conclude on somewhat in the close We have shewed before the vanity of their reasoning à possibili ad necessarium from a thing possible to the certainty of the thing or to the probability either For who ever thought that a thing not repugnant must needs be or be most likely at the least How many instances might be given to expose such a supposition to laughter But
the way which I propounded last was to detect their legerity by arguing à necessario ad impossibile from a thing necessary to a thing impossible I have shewed that Sacrifices were necessary to do away sin if they like not that yet they seem not to deny but that they were apt and fit enough to set forth some conspicuous worship and service unto God And if this sacrificing for either end was a Duty not revealed nor likely nor possible to be excogitated by any man then man was obliged to an impossibility by nature at least excogitating which is absurd Quia nemo tenetur ad impossibile Will they say that it was not necessary from the beginning to offer any Sacrifice at all but only to set up some way of worship and that another way might have been invented if this had not been fit enough They themselves are not able in this light of day so long after to shew what that other way might have been Will they say they deny not some direction but that it came in use divinâ quâdam ratione they know not how but by mens using of their right minds the government of God it may be over-ruling them This I have noted before was the shift of the old Pelagians who finding some Grace to be undeniable would have it all to be placed in the natural gifts of knowledge Free-will and moral Vertues together with the benefits of Gods Providence and Government but all this as I have also shewed before is not enough to constitute a Religion which must needs come from some Law imposed and revealed from God himself much less a Covenant betwixt God and man or a certain sign thereof as Sacrifice was viz. Of our first Parents thereby entring into the Covenant of Grace Gather my Saints together unto me he says Psal. 50.5 those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice Which was not the sign of the Covenant by Moses but only circumcisioâ— But from which of the first reasons however over-ruled should it proceed From Adam's He was at an utter loss and if he had gone about such a thing of his own head more apt to fall into the snare of the Tempter again than to hit it right towards God From Cain He was a Reprobate From Abel Noah and Abraham according to such respective enlightnings as they had Then so many good men so much variety of sacrificing which was all but uniform until the Law of Moses Let us therefore come to the last winding up of the botom 1. It was not probable 2. It was morally impossible that any man should invent sacrificing so as to please God thereby upon their own accounts 1. It was not probable that either Adam or Abel should invent the sacrificing of living Creatures since of Cain there remains no further Question as to his own person whatsoever his Descendents did because he brought only of the fruits of the ground as any acceptable service unto God For Adam and Eve for their parts they being due to death themselves from which they were but reprieved only in respect of temporal death it cannot well be imagined that one of the first thoughts that should enter into their minds should be to kill any of their lower Fellow Creatures as being aâ—raid in themselves to see what natural death might be much more a violent one in any other more especially wrought by their own hands which had brought all other things into bondage with themselves howsoever innocent And as for Abel he could have no less estranged apprehensions from the like slaughter For a righteous man regardeth the life of his Beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel even as the very Sacrifices of the Heathen And Abel besides was a Shepherd which sort of men are so tender of their Flocks that David encountred a Lyon and a Bear in their defence and our Saviour himself saith The Thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy but the good Shepherd giveth his life for the Sheep 2. So that it was morally impossible that such good men as these should ever devise such a way as this of their own heads or approve of it in their own conceits if they had not been informed of a mystery in the Case For it would have been a sin against the Creator to have slain his Creature for no mischief done nor yet for food if he had not required Sacrifice or the death of the innocent which he valued less instead of the nocent which he loved more What was his speech to Ionah Should not I spare Niniveh that great City wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern betwixt their right hands and their left and also much Cattel The Children and the Cattel being innocent alike and so far Objects of Divine compassion according to their different worths and natures We hear what they say That these did it to acknowledge the right and dominion of the Lord of life and death and that it was not unnatural because that God confirm'd it afterwards by Moses and Christ in fine abolish'd it which he never did any Law of Nature which is eternal and immutable But if they did this to acknowledge the right of the Lord of life and death only why did they take his right from him Was that the proper way to acknowledge it For if they slew the Creature in their own right before God had put it into their hands they wronged the Lord of life by bare killing much more by presenting of such a death as an acceptable token to him To the Lord of life a living Present is a fitter token than a dead for he delighteth not in the death of any of his Creatures he willeth not so much as the death of a Sinner but rather that he should turn and live But as the same is the Lord of death by his own free dispensation for again he saith Return ye Children of men so he will be avenged on them that take this out of his hand to hasten the end of any of his Creatures having once said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it saith the Lord. In a word if there had been no mystery in Sacrifices they had been as unâ—atural in themselves as Zipporah counted Circumcision or as we may account the severities of Moses and of Ioshuah and more especially of David who was a merciful man in his own nature who put the Ammonites under Saws and Harrows of Iron and hewed them with Axes and cast them into the Brick-kilns or made them pass through them not only those that resisted at Rablah but all the Children of Ammon A thing which even Turks and Tartars would at this day shrink from committing as contrary to the Laws both of Nature and of Nations So that God's confirming of Sacrifices afterwards doth only prove that they were his Ordinance before and
transmitted unto Abraham unless any small circumstances might be added to his worship after God had given certain Precepts unto Noah with a kind of Covenant by the token of the Rainbow CHAP. XIX Altars of Monument for mercies and deliverances Of Tokens for a Testimony or a Covenant betwixt God and man and man and man Of service for adoration vows and sacrifices Of the matter and form of them Of those which Abraham made at Sichem Mamre and Beersheba with his Grove there which was drawn into an ill example and the like afterwards forbidden WE read first of Altars of Monument and Testimony which were usually magnificent Secondly Of Altars for Burnt-Sacrifice Meat and Drink-Offerings and Peace-Offerings and the like and thirdly Of an Altar of incense in after-times all opposed to the Idolatry of the Heathen Of the two first which belong only unto this place we may consider the matter and the form For the matter they were simple of Earth or Stone and not of Brass as they after were in setled times as we may learn by the first Institutes that were delivered by Moses who according to God's direction digested many things into Law and Rule which were but only of good example before An Altar of Earth saith he shalt thou make unto me and shalt sacrifice thereon thy Burnt-offerings and thy Peace-offerings thy Sheep and thine Oxen In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee And if thou wilt make me an Altar of Stone thou shalt not build it of hewn Stone for if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it For the form therefore if it was for remembrance only as for thanksgiving and a glory they made it greater or it may be neater but yet so that it might be sit to be used as an Altar for service upon all occasions Let us see what examples we have of any of these since it may be questioned whether they did not more hurt than good as in process of time it happened unto Moses's Brazen Serpent for the Heathen finding them might either demolish them in revenge because the Israelites were commanded to abolish theirs or else prophane them by some new Dedication or Consecration to an Idol and so offer Sacrifices even unto Devils upon the same Altars or else they might become occasions of division among themselves which we are about to note hereafter It was in use from ancient times as from Seth's Pillars if there be any truth in that and from the Tower of Babel for men to raise some Structure or another in remembrance of their atchievements or fortunes And it seems that the true Worshippers delighted rather in erecting Altars than any other Fabricks But if they were not intended directly for the service of sacrificing why should they do so I find therefore as I hinted that before the Law Altars were erected for a threefold end First For Monuments of thankfulness for some mercy or deliverance Secondly For tokens of a Covenant or for a Testimony whether betwixt God and man or betwixt man and man Thirdly For ordinary resort to the whole acceptable service of God not only on their Sabbaths but on every Day of the Week and on all occasions All of these pious and allowed by God not only before the Law but till the Temple was built and upon some occasions even after that First We find of Abram that after God had appeared to him in the Land of Canaan and had assured him that that was the Land which he would give unto his Seed that he built an Altar upon the Plain of Moreh near unto the place of Sichem But that he forthwith removed thence unto a Mountain on the East of Bethel called so proleptically since Iacob was the first that named it so that is the House of God which for divers mercies and manifestations of God became a place famous to posterity and pitched his Tent and there he built an Altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord as if he had not done so at the Altar before but had only set it up as a Monument of thanksgiving unto God who had so graciously appeared to him near Sichem Which Notion is favoured the more by this circumstance that when Abram returned from Egypt he repaired unto the place betwixt Bethel and Hai where his Tent had been at the beginning and there called on the name of the Lord returning not to the Altar at Sichem at all by any thing that we can find Neither might it seem lawful or expedient for him to demolish any Altar of thanksgiving or any other that by erection he had consecrated and dedicated unto God for fear left the Heathen should prophane them who might be likelier to sleight them as having Altars enough of their own called by the names of one or other of their Idols As the true Worshippers did also call the Altars which they erected by some special name for a Memorial And when Abram removed from thence to the Plain of Mamre so called from Mamre the Occupant and Collegue of Abram he built another Altar as a place where he might likely spend some time of sojourning and there also he called on the name of the Lord that is instructed all his people offered up prayers thanksgivings sacrifices and such Oblations or Peace-offerings as God had so far directed him or any of the Patriarchs before But in fine when Abraham came into the Country of the Philistines where Isaac the Son of the Promise was born as God appointed it and was entred into a League with Abimelech by exchanging of Presents on either hand so that Abraham took himself to be setled for a time He planted a Grove in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord the everlasting God Which Grove it seems to me Abraham only made for shelter since he and his lived only in Tents against the heats and wets that his Altar and place of Worship might be the better defended But it came indeed to be drawn afterwards into ill example and to be expresly forbidden as the offering of Children unto Molech upon pretence of imitating the same Abraham's obedience in the Offering up of his Son Isaac Even so did the Well and Mount at which Iacob worshipped in his time prove a pretence to the Samaritans to oppose the Temple at Ierusalem But I will leave the Altars standing in this imperfect state till I turn this way again which I foresee will happen speedily CHAP. XX Abraham had many Tents and as a Prince had a Despotick Power over them that through all their Tents were born in his house That the Patriarchs occupied much Land and were no burthen but a profit to the Countries wherein they sojourned viz. Freely in the wasts where the Pasture was and by Purchase Covenant and Compromise when they pitched near to any
in the Book of the Law to do them that they had in those times been miserable if the Law which was delivered by thundring Angels had not been ordained in the hand of a Mediator which is the Point that 〈◊〉 closest to that which we are now about Who was this Mediator then And why must the Law be needs ordained in the hand of such an one The Mediator in a Type and true Vice-gerency was Moses beyond all doubt and the end why he was sitted to interpose at the giving of the Law was because the people was affrighted at the sound of the Trumpet and the voice of words and the Mount that burned with fire entreating that the word should not be spoken to them any more for they could not endure that which was commanded So Moses stood between the Lord and them at that time as a Type of Christ who breaketh the Majesty of the Father delivering us from the terrour of his Justice and Power But in effect and virtue it was the good will of him that dwâ—lt in the Bush that was the true Mediator then though not after the same manner as he is of the New Covenant the same that appeared in the Cloud upon the Mercy-Seat and upon the Tabernacle to guide them and protect them from the heats that cleft the Rocks when they were thirsty and gave them Manna when they hungred that delivered them from the fiery Serpents and by the same Moses's intercession holp them to prevail against Amalek Nor did he leave his Office neither as soon as he had brought them into the Land of promise But his Mediation in whatsoever we may discover it was profitable to them to the end For after their first restipulation with God by the hand of Moses who returned this Answer from them unto him that sent him All that the Lord hath spoken we will do it pleased God to cause this Covenant of Works to be shut up in a Chest called the Ark of the Covenant or Testimony betwixt God and them but to be covered with a Mercy Sâ—at and then placed according unto his direction which in Solomon's Temple was in the Oracle of the most holy place and the reason of his prayer why God should hearken to the supplications of his people in any Case or without any Offerings whensoever they shoud but look toward that holy place and pray By which we know where the Throne of the Mediator was under the Old Testament If they transgressed the Covenant enclosed was a Testimony against them but there was a Mercy-seat above it as though God would oblige himself to his Covenant of mercy though they should break their Covenant of obedience to him And this was a gracious Argument to him not to cast them off upon every provocation but rather to chastise them gently and to restore them to his former favour by virtue of his elder Covenant of Promise made unto Abraham Isaac and Iacob their Progenitors So that when their hearts were not right with him neither were they stedfast in his Covenant he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not yea many a time turned he his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath O ye Seed of Abraham his Servant ye Children of Iacob his chosen He hath remembered his Covenant for ever which he made with Abraham and his Oath unto Isaac And confirmed the same unto Iacob for a Law and to Israel for an everlasting Covenant He remembred his holy promise and Abraham his Servant And though God suffered at last the Assyrians to destroy this Ark together with his Temple so that the second Temple wanted this inestimable pledge of Grace yet when the people humbled themselves with Nehemiah and other of their Reformers and renewed their Covenant with God by their repentance they were accepted without the Ark so as to stand upon their good behaviour more than ever like a Fort dismantled or a City that is disfranchized of its former priviledges But the time was short then after the Lord had said so long before Lo I come in the Volume of thy Book it is written of me to do thy will O God In fine as they had the same Head so they had the same Spirit that we have now which may serve for a Close to all the Arguments That I may not seem to skrew or wire-draw any Text of Scripture S t Peter is express Of which Salvation faith he the Prophets have enquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the Grace that should come unto you Searching what and what manner of time the Spirit of CHRIST which was in them did signifie when it testified before-hand the sufferings of CHRIST and the glory that should follow Which things the Angels desired to look into as having been appointed ministring Spirits before and since united also to this Church of Christ. And if we look upon the operations of the Spirit and see how it wrought before and since we shall find the same breathings of the Saints of both Testaments in their Confessions Prayers and Arguments save only that what we ask for Christ's sake by virtue of his death his resurrection and his intercession for us they asked by the mercies of God not at large as Heathen-men but as annexed to his Promises and his Covenant and his faithfulness therein with respect unto him that was to come whatsoever Notions they had of him Which we shall take account of in the last place by answering two or three more Objections to attain the clearer light in this particular trusting that the Reader will think it as worthy of his perusal as I of my digesting In the mean while we leave the Saints of the Old Testament as endued with the samehope love and patience as these of the New and have thereupon inferred according to the connexion of the Graces of the Spirit that they must needs have the like faith And for their outward Worship all the people were sprinkled with the bloud of Mediation often shed as ours are by the bloud of Christ once shed for all unto the Worlds end CHAP. XXV Second Objection propounded How that little which they knew could answer unto that justifying faith which we have now First The things that they believed considered and shewed That they amounted to as much as our Creed less than which may be a ground of justifying faith Secondly For the manner of their faith it was explicit The distinction of explicit and implicit weighed How much faith in them Fiducial faith THE first Objection was That a few choice persons only had any special notion of the Messiah to come The next is That of those very choice persons so little was known as could not be a sufficient ground of such a faith as we account to be a justifying or a saving faith in Christ since of the Prophets to some one was
But if there had not been choice enough of kin of either side at hand better an Alien of any other Countrey than of Canaan which he knew to be the very Land that God had promised to his Father and Forefathers for an everlasting possession not without the destruction of the inhabitants as the very Seed of the Serpent and Coar of enmity Thou shalt not therefore take a Wife of the Daughters of Canaan had Isaac said unto his Father Iacob For must such a mixture be Or such a Seed proceed from the Bowels of a Canaanitish Woman as shall be proper to destroy the Canaanites Was not this then as just an exception against Iudah now as it had been against Esau before and for the sake of which his own Mother could not love him but procured his disherison For Esau when he was forty years old married two Hittites before Ishmael's Daughter which were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekkah and she said I am weary of my life because of the Daughters of Heth. Now if any one ask here Why what choice had he or the other Brothers Whither should they go Whom did the other Brothers marry Did not Ioseph for his part marry the Priest of On 's Daughter an Egyptian for whose sake it may seem that he left the Egyptian Priests demesns intire when he cunningly bought all the rest of Egypt for his bread into bondage unto Pharaoh Or who ever blamed Abraham for his taking of Hagar or Keturah for his Concubines Or Iacob himself for taking Bilhah into his bosom who proved not honest to him or Zilpah and had been bred amongst the Idols of Laban which Rachel stole whether for love or hatred is a Question Although it hath been taken for an opinion that the Hebrews took their Wives only ex Ingenuis out of free-born women and their Concubines ex Ancillis out of Handmaids yet M r Selden proves that these did not differ in the quality of Wives but only in the inequality of conditions forasmuch as Keturah in Genesis is called Abraham's Wife and in the Chronicles his Concubine which some do therefore improbably think to be the same with Hagar re-assumed We may observe that Hagar had been seasoned with the same Religion before Abraham took her by being bred in his house insomuch that she prayed in her distress and had an Angel to comfort her But she was repudiated for her rebellion against her Mistress and her Son sent away with gifts which followed because it is said that unto the Sons of the Concubines both of them which Abraham had he gave gifts and sent them away from Isaac his Son while he yet lived And by Keturah whose true Religion we have no ground to question he had some Issue which retained their profession in the time of Moses who married a Wife out of Iethro's house descended from Midian a Son of Abraham by this Keturah Among some or other of these therefore the Sons of Iacob might have found Wives as well as Moses who is not blamed for it Or else among the Women that Rebekkah Rachel and Leah had brought with them if they were more than two or the Daughters born of them in the space of a hundred and fifty years or as they might give their Sisters to their choicer Servants so they might take their Daughters and so contain themselves within themselves which might be the reason of their leviration which God did after establish by a Law or Brothers marrying of a Brother's Widow in case he dyed before he had any Issue by her Indeed it is not mentioned whence the other Sons had their Wives only Iudah seemeth to be blamed As for Ioseph's taking the Priest of On 's Daughter 1. Pharaoh gave her 2. God himself who was able to sanctifie her unto him as it is like he did by the towardly Children which she bare him which pleased Iacob when he blessed them 3. If Ioseph spared the Priests Lands it is an Argument that he feared Sacriledge as many of the Heathen after did with the like regard unto the Iewish Priests And this is delivered by Iosephus as a Law among the Iews Let no man speak evil of those Gods which other Countries and Cities suppose to be Gods Let no man spoil any strange Temple nor take that which is dedicated unto any God And as for Iacob's taking of Bilhah and Zilpah the same may be said as of Abraham taking of Hagar and Keturah They came from Padan-aram with him and abode with their Mistresses after he had purged his house from Idols Labans and all if any did remain which it may seem that Rachel stole away to please her Husband Iacob when time should serve to discover it not fearing her Fathers displeasure rather than out of any love to them because she may be understood to have been of the forwardest when Iacob purged his house to bring all the strange Gods and ear-rings unto him As also because she had the blessing of the two more pious Sons CHAP. XLI Pursuing the same Argument and opening the Law of Leviration by which Pharez was restored Other marked persons not blot to the Genealogy of Christ. BUT the failing of Iudah concerning Tamar if it were not greater might yet seem more unlucky of the two and more prejudicial in the consequence unto the house of Israel than the other inasmuch as two misbegotten Children came thereby to be reckoned to the ruling Tribe of Israel and not only to have equal part with others but to have inheritance from Iudah all alike with Shelah Doth God abhor incest and adultery and yet suffer the choicest Blessings of all to descend to their Issue Or how is it that David and Christ should come to descend from this Pharez rather than from Shelah Now about the first failing of Iudah we may say That if Iacob had had the power of the blessing in his own hands as he had not it was not exception enough against him to put him by nor in the streights wherein they were can one be sure that there were no more strange Wives within the Tents of Iacob but only Shuah's Daughter However God was pleased to take the punishment of Iudah's fault home unto himself and he brought it home to Iudah for whatever Shelah was he gave him but three Sons in all two of which he permitted to be such wicked Canaanites as were not to be born withal so that the Lord himself slew them and in the stead thereof made him father other two which he least intended But on second thoughts neither was the latter fault so great as the first nor the consequence so bad as you imagine See what an Acquaintance had Iudah gotten by wandring away from the Tents of Israel and searching out for some good house or other wherein to solace and caress himself He turned in to a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah And he