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
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
the Prophets faith he and choicest of them did not all know all alike but some more some less how much more might the simpler sort without any detriment unto their salvation be ignorant of the time and manner while they held fast the things promised with a certain faith and hope Yet I cannot but wonder how the Fathers and Schoolmen could all beat about so much as they have done in this suit and not withal bethink themselves that this faith of the Believers of Israel at least was not wholly towards a Mediator to come but was also in him as having him with them in every time even as they had ever since they had the name of Israel For I have shewed how he wrestled with Israel in particular and was with them all in the Red Sea and the Desart To proceed therefore a little further and you shall know what manner of explicit and siducial faith they had and how far it was implicit or veiled take which term you like the better and how agreeable unto that Faith which we conceive to be saving now CHAP. XXVI That the Israelites were not saved by a blind obedience or any mere implicit faith only but by a fiducial trust in the mercies of God as they were exhibited in the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy-seat erected over it That the Cherubims erected at either end represented the same Church of one piece of either Testament looking towards Christ who really dwelt by his Divine presence betwixt them and so shewed himself their King and Prophet The Argument of the next Chapter propounded WE are never nearer to a bright Morning than when we pass through an early foggy Mist. When we are told that the Israelites for their parts might be saved by a mere obedience without any explicit Faith at all in Christ tanquam per opera operata as they speak abusively to the very terms or else by the faith of their Forefathers as if it could be imputed unto them to justification as Christ's righteousness is to us Or in fine by believing that God who could do wonders would redeem them and all Mankind one way or other in the general they knew not how we are left in a maze But when we come to this result viz. That as the Patriarchs before the Law worshipped God in Christ at many Altars so after the giving of the Law the Children of Israel worshipped him in his holy Tabernacle at one only Altar as having Christ there in the midst of them sitting on the Mercy-Seat as his Throne and dwelling betwixt the Cherubims who was the Keeper of their Covenant and that their trust in the mercies of God shadowed there by the wings of the Cherubims according to all his promises was their â—iducial faith in God through Christ Iesus I say when we come to this result methinks we have found a certain Clue to bring us out of all perplexity and to shew us that the Saints of the Old Testament had at least enough to stay their Stomachs till the Word it self should be made flesh and come to dwell among them in a larger place In this posture we therefore find the Mediator of both Testaments as exercising all his Offices under the first for protection direction and doing away of sin in such an extraordinary way as all the other expedients of the Ceremonial Law could not come near The Ark it self contained the Law of the ten words which when the people had accepted saying All that the Lord hath spoken we will do it became a Covenant of Works to that people and to no other though a Rule and Obligation unto all Mankind that should come to know it And when God had commanded that this should be laid up before him in the Ark and placed in the Holy of Holies the Ark came to be called the Ark of the Covenant or of Testimony However he that gave the Law knowing their proneness to â—â—ansgress was graciously pleased to command that it should be covered with the Mercy-Seat remembring his elder Covenant of Grace made with Abraham Isâ—aâ— and Iacob in whom not only one people but all the nations of the earth should be blessed And for Supporters to the Mercy-Seat as a Royal Throne he caused two Cherubims of Gold beaten out of one Piece to be set at either end of it which spreading out their wings on high covered the Mercy-Seat therewith and having their faces one towards another looked both towards the Mercy-Seat Now in that the Cherubims were both of one Piece looking both towards this Mercy-Seat which was also made of pure Gold that we might know the worth of mercy they served aptly to set forth the posture of the Saints of both Testaments which in their faces look towards one another and both towards Christ and in the spreading of their wings they reach the two sides of the World while they touch in the middle and so do sweetly join to one another as D r Lightfoot speaks But betwixt these was the strength and glory of Israel the most pregnant and proper resemblance of our Saviour in whom God dwelleth among men Nor was it a mere resemblance but it was truly so For Hezekiah in his distress prayed before the Lord and said O Lord God of Israel which dwellest between the Cherubims bow down thine ear and hear open thine eyes and see and save us that all the Earth may know that thou art the Lord God even thou alone This Ark the Priests were therefore ordered to carry forth to Battel while the Tabernacle stood and it was the Palladium of Israel they were either victorious or invincible while they had it with them for the King of Glory went along with it And Who was that King of Glory The Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in battel The Lord of Hosts is the King of Glory So that when the Philistines had once taken this Ark though they could not hold it long the Wife of Phinehas fell in travail and dyed having first named her Son Ichabod because said she the glory is departed from Israel since the Ark of God is taken In fine when it pleased God to deliver them up to the Assyrians for their incorrigible Idolatry which was not a breach of the Covenant in part but in the whole he suffered this Ark Mercy-Seat and all to be burned with the Temple To this the same Ark was their Oracle and gave name to the whole Room the Holy of Holies to be called the Oracle For there I will meet with thee said God and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat from between the two Cherubims which are upon the Ark of the testimony of all things which I will give in commandment unto the Children of Israel And thus it was of frequent use so long as the first Temple did continue But that which is most to the purpose to understand the Object and the
left them at an ingenuous liberty according to their own good will or love he only saith As oft as ye do this do it in remembrance of me not so much as directing them how oft to do it In the like manner S t Paul I have received of the Lord whether by tradition or report or example of the Apostles at Ierusalem and the Churches of their first planting or by special revelation that which I also delivered unto you setting forth no more but only Christ's own example Will they therefore wholely deny any institution by way of implicit precept or raise example in some one case or two as high as a precept and in many more of great importance study to dwindle it to nothing As for Baptism indeed our Lord speaks positively and expresly as if they might inferr that this ordinance of initiation were only instituted and not the other which they account worthily of greater excellency Go teach all Nations baptizing them c. but say the Anabaptists baptize only such as ye have taught before and not Infants which could not understand you contrary to the universal practice of the Church succeeding in the next age from the Apostles as deriving from the first Shall we therefore stand strictly to the institution as some account institution and deny Baptism unto Infants No say others that is utterly unreasonable Yet some of these will scarce acknowledge that those express words God rested on the sâ—venth day and therefore blessed the seventh day and sancâ—ified it did amount to any institution as to Adam in Paradise or his Children afterwards affirming that the Patriarchs did not keep it because they do not read that they did as if God were obliged to be as punctual in his Commands and Records as men if he would be obeyed but that it was of Moses first not considering or not weighing what S t Paul says that the Law of Moses was added only because of transgressions and therefore because in â—gypt it is like this Observation had been neglected God would have the transgression of this his original Institution to become Capital for the future Nor yet that Moses brought in no new Institutions at all but of Rites and Circumstances relating to the Iewish Church and Commonwealth alone And although the Sabbath be not of the Law of nature yet I doubt not but it obliged all Nations from Adam as the penalty did the Iews alone by virtue of the Law of Moses The same men that they may preserve the greater veneration to the Customs of the Church though Christ arose on the first day of the Week the seventh being the first day to Adam also who was created on the sixth and sent the Holy Ghost on the same and the Disciples met on the same to break Bread in no common way and that S t Paul saith expresly Concerning the collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia so do ye Vpon the first day of the Week let every one contribute as God hath prospered him do notwithstanding hold that the Lords Day is but of even rank with other Holy days that the Church observes as if it were of Ecclesiastical Tradition only and not of Institution whereas it may be shewn when other Feasts began successively and demonstrated that the Lords Day began from Easter and Whitsunday fifty days after and so continued without any interruption hitherto as hath happened unto all the rest But if all this amount not to an institution in vain do they object against the Anabaptists that which they may so readily retort For may not they say Why do not you hold the Lords Day to be jure Divino Is it not for the same reason that we hold Infant-Baptism to be nothing so The like might be said of single Marriage That it was instituted or ordained in Paradise as an implicite positive Law dispensed with for a time by the Law-giver unto the Patriarchs and Divorces indulged to the Israelites till Christ came for the hardness of their hearts But when he says From the beginning it was not so without more words he revives the Primitive Institution So that where the Scripture speaks but little there is much to be understood for if all should be written at large the world it self could not contain the Books that should be written It remains therefore that we think otherwise of Institutions than some men do And for all these two Institutions in Paradise viz. of the Sabbath and of single Marriage that we do not presently imagine that though Adam had not eaten of the forbidden Fruit he might have fallen some other way but rather that he was under a Sacramental Guard before he made a breach upon Gods injuction CHAPTER III. The subtilty of the modern Socinians An abstract of their chief Tenents and the main design to which they are all â—ccommodated noted A ground-work laid against them in order to prove That Sacrifices were offered by revelation and not according to any possible invention of man BUT to resume our Argument about the original of Sacrifices the modern Pelagians learning how to ward the Passes that pressed home upon their Founder espied this to be one That if Sacrifices had been of the light of Nature it would have been written there indelebly as with a Sun-beam at the same time that Adam received the Image of God or if there be any difference if it were of the Law of Nature mens consciences could not chuse but bear witness to it their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another according to the performance or omission of their Sacrifices and this as much before the Fall as after whereupon they bethought themselves of such a subterfuge as this viz. That Sacrifices were offered unto God of mâ—ns own accord not accordâ—â—g to the Laws of Nature properly so called which are eternal immutable confirmed and far from being abolished by Christ himself but according to such institutes thereof as natural reason might excogitate as apt and sit for the conspicuous worship of God v. gr To offer the best of the Flock like an Herriot unto God in acknowledgment of his dominion and power and bounty but more especially as the Lord of life and death in token of homage as other Offerings in token of thanksgiving for their encrease Which is the most favourable opinion of such as do but socinianize and so double-refine upon him who thought he had refined Pelagius before Neque mirum inquiunt se quae primi illi homines Deo sacra faciebant ea igne absumenda curarent uâ—pote quod faciendum erat ne quod Deo sacratum fuit ad usus prophanos transferretur quod aliter accidere potuisset For they say it was no wonder but most natural that the Ancients should consume by fire that which they had dedicated unto God lest any remainders
Argument as to admit of any composition with them I grant to them likewise that Bezaleel was enabled and over-ruled so as they say to workmanship only but I say That neither he nor any other did ever begin or continue any true way of worship without a previous revelation in an extraordinary manner from God It cannot be denied in the first place but That if illumination may be a medium betwixt an imperative Law and the use of reason that then there may be what we call an indicative Law betwixt these extremes amounting in effect unto some express of positive Command Let us therefore begin with this and shew first That there was such a thing secondly That it amounted to as high a Law to the First Adam to sacrifice as this word did after the Second Adam had spoken it As oft as you do this do it in remembrance of me First The first appeareth viz. That there was illumination before Sacrifice these two ways 1. In that Cain's Sacriâ—ice was not forbidden when it did not please God for the manner of the Offering for the Text saith that after God had respect to the Offering of Abel and not of Cain so that his countenance fell God was so far from excusing his obedience that he rather put him in mind to amend it than to refrain If thou do well saith he shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lyeth at the door and Cain knew what that was by his Father Adam's punishment for sin but if thou do well unto thee shall be Abel's desire and thou shalt rule over him Judge you therefore whether Cain or Abel first invented sacrificing If it had been wicked Cain would God have spoken so indifferently to him If it had been righteous Abel the younger Brother whom Cain hated would not Cain have disdained to take example from him But unto such straits are these reduced who because they do not read that Adam sacrificed would take it for granted that he did not at all and so that Adam lived without any Form of Religion it may be a hundred years or more till his Sons invented one Let us hear one of their Quotations to prove it from a Jewish Rabbin which they take to be pat unto their purpose Cain and Abel saith he were very wise men whereas the Scripture noteth the wickedness and folly of the first and the righteous simplicity only of the latter and it came to pass when they came to the end of their labours they either of them offered a Present unto God out of their encrease as viz. Cain when his Fruits were ripe and Abel when his Ewes had yeaned once or twice a year and the reason of such Oblations as it seemeth to me saith the Rabbin was this Because they knew that all things were created and governed by God as the true cause of all But Abrabenel thinks that Adam also sacrificed as well as his Sons both forgetting that God did afterwards require daily Sacrifices and that not only as Presents but as matter of atonement and expiation for sin as he had expresly told their Forefathers The life of the flesh in the bloud and I have given it to you upon the Altar to make an atonement for your souls for it is the bloud that maketh an atonement for the soul. However the modern Rabbins would blanch the matter to make their own way more plausible unto the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gentiles or out of hatred to Christianity because we say and prove That their bloud-shedding of old was a Type of the bloud of our Christ to be shed once for all in the latter days But indeed the Sentiments of such Reprobate Jews are most agreeable to Socinus's Disciples who hold That Christ was no Sacrifice nor made any atonement for sin nor was absolutely decreed to be crucified at all notwithstanding that express place Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you but foreseen only or if decreed at all conditionally that if men did sin then Christ should be given to be slain For why To make one sin more than was before but not one less CHAP. V. The 2. way laid down to shew an indicative Command viz. Abel's Offering by a twofold Faith First Of the Object viz. his Duty to sacrifice which faith he had in common with Cain Secondly Of the promise which was siducial wherein his Sacrifice excelled as being offered with bloud which Cain's was not and with respect to Christ. The Socinian varnish washed off The second Head proved viz. That Sacrifices were by a certain Law ab origine because a certain penalty accrued to the omission of them before the Law of Moses 2. BUT for that which we are to alledge as the second way whereby it may appear That there was some indicative or implicite precept involved in some gracious revelation from Christ himself as the eternal Word of God previous unto these ' Sacrifices the Adversaries have been made sensible and are well aware of it I mean the Sacrifice of Abel more accepted than his Brothers Which having been said by S t Paul or the Author to the Hebrews to have been offered unto God by faith as a more excellent Sacrifice than Cain's by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh we may clearly conclude That he sacrificed in a right obedience to some gracious intimation of the good pleasure of God which was instead of an imperative Command if there were none though we conceive there might be though it be not mentioned before On that therefore we will not insist because it is not to be proved but on the intimation or indicative Command we will proceed and answer their dilutions Let it be observed that Socinus doth not call in Question the Authority of this Epistle whatsoever the Arrians did whose Heresie he absorbs together with the Pelagian since he quotes it to prove as I noted before that the knowledge of God is not by Nature but by Faith for without faith saith the Author it is impossible to please God For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him And he also saith that by faith Abel offered unto God Is not this argumentum ad hominem if after this he affirm as his Followers do that Sacrifices were of humane excogitation only For cannot God be known but by faith And can Abel offer by faith and yet according unto humane excogitation only reasoning in it self what was fittest to be done and so doing which in Socinus's sense is taken to be an exclusion of faith and directly contrary to it And if Abel had offered without faith the Apostle testifies that he could not have pleased God but in that he did please him with a witness he shews
happened after the promise renewed the third time in these words Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art Northward and Southward and Eastward and Westward For all the Land that thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy Seed for ever And I will make thy Seed as the dust of the earth which cannot be numbred In which promise the temporal blessing is only pointed at and that Land in particular more amply than before Some considerable time seems to have passed between e're God appeared unto Abram again with these comfortable words Fear not Abram I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward Abram is sensible that these words relate to the three former promises yet doubting lest he should be mistaken in the meaning of them he makes bold to complain unto God That for all his former promises he remained Childless still and no other Heir but Eliezer his Steward a Stranger of Damascus though born in his house appeared likely to inherit all his Substance Which moved God to compassionate his Case and to condescend to him in a fourth promise that he should have an Heir out of his own Loins And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness Yet after that presuming farther to ask a sign though God vouchsafed to condescend to his request yet he caused an horror of great darkness to fall upon him in his sleep in or after which he gave him to know that his posterity should serve unto the fourth Generation till the iniquity of the Amorites was full However when this heavy agony was over God was pleased to amplisie his temporal promise in extending the bounds of it from the River of Egypt unto the great River Euphrates In the mean time Sarai thinking these promises to be made to her Husband only and not unto her self finding how the Case stood with her gave her Egyptian Handmaid Hagar to him desiring at least to have some little part in the Land promised by her own Maid which She was not like to have by another This was the tenth year after the promise at the least but as soon as She conceived Sarai was iealous of her and by hard usage wrought her flight and so gave birth unto a great mystery or two before the Son of the Concubine could be produced What made Abram so continent hitherto and so constant to his barren Wife Sarai Did he think it unlawful to take a Concubine And if so why did he now He might have had it seems a nearer Heir than Eliezer before this and if he had gone this way for Concubines were accounted as Wives only different in their Rank and divers of their Sons did inherit among the Sons of Israel whereas Bastards only were excluded as in the Case of Iephthah It may be Abram understood about Concubinacy what our Saviour taught expresly that God having made Man Male and Female one and one from the beginning it was not so yet that it might have been permitted unto him as well as his Progenitors for the supply of Issue if it had not been to grieve his beloved Wife and Sister-in-Law Sarai But now She puts Hagar to him as if it were on purpose to restrain his choice of any other What shall He do Is He glad of the occasion for the further satisfying of his flesh Or doth he do it the better to please his Wife even as Adam pleased Eve and fell by it Or in sine is not he himself also touched with a little spice of unbelief in his obtemperance unto Sarai as well as she In my opinion howsoever some Expositors do seek to blanch it the faithful Abram was at this time imposed on by his Wife Sarai and not excusable of some infirmity in the Case Though he stedfastly believed the promise yet hitherto it had not been revealed to him that it should be by Sarai By whom should he therefore try but by her whom Sarai herself had recommended to him It happened therefore as a punishment unto Sarai's diffidence that her Handmaid Hagar having conceived and thereupon imagining that she and hers should go away with all at last began to despise her and to Abram himself that he should have such a Lout as Ishmael by a foul Egyptian Of whom yet as a Son by Nature he was so fond that when God renewed the promise the fifth time of the blessed Seed thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael enough to let him know that Ishmael was not the Seed intended yet he could not forbear to intercede for him after this manner O that Ishmael might live before thee As if Abram could e'en have been contented that Ishmael might have been the man But it may not fare better with Abram than with his Forefathers Adam and Noah before him for as Adam had Cain for his First-born and Noah one or other of the Aliens so must Abram too the election of Grace having seldome been observed to have followed primogeniture while all other priviledges were annexed to it And as Cain and Cham were born to persecute the true Church before it was yet in being or but yet in its under growth like the red Dragon in the Revelation that stood before the Woman that was ready to be delivered for to devour her Child as soon as it was born so it was to fare with Ishmael who first scoffed at the Feast of Isaac's weaning and was after planted in his own Issue upon the skirts of the Land of Canaan among the Canaanites to be ready to join as far as any of them with the enemies of the Race of Isaac So that God would have out of the same Loins of Abram both the Curse and the Blessing to have their appointed course according to his own purpose without respect unto the favour that he bore to Abram In fine the Apostle himself warns us of a further mystery Why Ishmael should come between the promise and the fulfilling of it and why he was to be born before Isaac the Heir of the promise Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law Do ye not hear the Law For it is written That Abraham had two Sons the one by a Bond-maid the other by a Free woman But he who was of the Bond-woman was born after the flesh but he of the Free-woman was by promise Which things are an allegory for these are the two Covenants the one from the mount Sinai which gendreth unto bondage which is Agar for this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth unto Ierusalem which now is and is in bondage with her Children But Ierusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all c. So that the further mystery beyond this that Israel should first suffer under Egyptian bondage before they should be free was this That the Law which engendreth unto bondage must needs come first
unto them somewhat to prepare them for a change Let these sayings sink down into your ears for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men they understood not this saying but it was hid from them that they perceived it not and they feared to ask him of that saying And again when Iesus began to shew unto his Disciples how he must suffer and be killed and rise again the third day Peter took him up and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee for Peter meant to fight for him But Iesus turned and said unto Peter Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of men Such a check had never trusty Peter or any of the Disciples before But after his resurrection he began from Moses and all the Prophets and expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself 2. As for the malice of Satan and his Instruments He himself could have no greater stratagem so far as he could discern the tokens of Christ's coming more than mortal men than to blind their eyes before-hand that they might not know the day of their visitation but that they might be defeated and disappointed of all their perverted carnal expectations and so become offended in him to the death In sine that by the murder of the Son of God he might bring many souls to Hell and the ancient people and Church of God to final ruine and destruction as shortly after happened And who knows but Satan might understand the Prophecies of these things and so set himself to work as the readier instrument to bring them all about as he desired But for his Under-Instruments they chiefly were the Scribes and Pharisees whose corruptions our Saviour therefore bends himself to discover and reprove on all occasions And if you ask me what could they do I answer they had in a long tract of time before put such carnal glosses on the Scripture out of their designs sometimes against their own Princes sometimes against the Romans but always to get both gain and authority among the people of the Iews that sitting in the Chair of Moses as Expounders of the Law and of the Prophets they utterly perverted the true sense and meaning thereof and that especially about the Messias who was generally expected almost throughout the whole Roman Empire and beyond it when he came And when he was come who should be enquired of but the Pharisees whether he was indeed the Christ or no And they generally denied him for the Character of his Person agreed not with their ancient Glosses or their present ends or interests And here I cannot omit what different Notions learned men have of the Iewish Rabbins especially of such whose Writings remain as accounted written before our Lord was born or shortly after Cunaeus saith That their authority was always great among ingenuous and prudent men as oft as any Question doth arise about their Countrey-Rites and Ceremonies And another speaks thus Let all blind and bold Expositors know that if they expound not many Phrases and things in the New Testament out of the old Records of Jewish Writings or Customs they shall but fansie and not expound the Text as may be confirmed saith Scaliger sexcentis Argumentis by very many Arguments And what account M r Hugh Broughton M r Selden and D r Lightfoot have made of these it may be because they could have no better appeareth by their elaborate Collections from them On the other hand Chemnitius whom M r Vines esteemeth as the learnedst of all the Lutherans hath entred abundant caution with us about these Writings of the Iews The Disputation saith he about unwritten Traditions whether to be joined or opposed to the Scriptures is no new thing but it is the very panoplia of Iewish perfidy against the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God in the Scripture That the purity of the sound Doctrine of the Word was corrupted amongst them in the time of Christ the Evangelical History doth manifestly shew and that it sprang partly from Oral Traditions and partly from other holy Books so esteemed which they received with the like veneration as the other is likewise to be gathered from their teaching for Doctrine the Commandments of men Which have ever used to be written And if Andradius against whom the Author writeth cannot bear the indignity that their Traditions should be compared with the Pharisees which were but false and feigned whereas theirs are derived by a continual succession from the Apostles themselves the Iews saith he will be as ready to pretend as much from Moses and the Prophets by a like succession And if the Talmud had not first been written I should rather have thought that the Rabbins had learned from the Pontificians than these from them Ita aâ—tem Commentum suum concinnant Talmudici They feign that at Mount Sinai Moses received fâ—om God not only what he wrote Verum etiam mysticam arcanam Expositionem Legis but also a certain mystical and secret Exposition of the Law which he neither wrote nor would have written but to be delivered by word of mouth from one to another and so to be transmitted to Posterity And they say further that both of â—hese are the Word of God and to be received with the like veneration ...... And that after these had been long transmitted from the Priests and Prophets whose succession they name they were thought fit at last to be compiled in the Talmud ..... Unto whose Expositors the poor Iews are in such bondage that they must believe against their own sense and reason whatsoever their Rabbins do impose upon them And why the Iews are so zealous of this Talmud may be learned from the circumstance of time when it was compiled for when the Iews saw many of their Nation converted to Christianity by the evidence of the Scripture the Rabbins about the year of Christ 150. began to write the Talmud comprizing their Traditions Finding the success whereof they after infinitely encreâ—sed the number of them so that few Jews were after that converted to Christianity So that in the opinion of Cheminitius all the errours and perverseness of the ancient Pharisees are couched in the Talmud which is one of the most ancient Iewish Books we have The Talmud it self has been replenished and corrupted more than it was at first All that is in it howsoever has given Rules and Bounds to all the Rabbins that have written since from whence it follows that we can hardly tell wherein to believe or trust the most applauded of them They contradict the Scriptures often in relating of their own Customes and one another no less and if any man thinks to illustrate one part of a Text by some of their suggestions he may be as apt