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A36270
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A sermon preached before His Majesty on Good-Friday at Whitehall, March 24, 1664/5 by J. Dolben ...
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Dolben, John, 1625-1686.
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1665
(1665)
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Wing D1831; ESTC R5322
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28,655
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60
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that Innocence may dwell more safely in the Arms of Power and Strength be no longer a Terrour but a Support and Guard to impotent Weakness while every Christian is a Protector a Tutelar Angel and God to his Brother You may now be sure Christs Kingdome is not of this World which is in every instance so contrary to it I wish the same unlikeness were not too observable among his professed Subjects who allow but follow not his Rule and Pilate had reason enough to rest secure that Jesus though he asserted himself to be King could on these terms be no dangerous Rival or Competitor with Tiberius such a Kingdome might bless and prosper Caesars Government could not impeach his Power or diminish his Greatness It must now seem very strange after Christ hath so expresly renounced all claim to Temporal Authority convinced the Jews and Romans that his Kingdome is not of this World if any Christians can be so bold as under him and in his Name to assume the Government of the World It must be matter of deepest astonishment to those who believe our Saviour spake truly when he told his Apostles The Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant greater then his Lord that any Person as Vicar to Jesus of Nazareth who refused to arbitrate between contending Brethren had himself no house where to lay his head and admitted men into the condition of his Subjects upon the terms of forsaking all worldly interests should pretend to dispose of Crowns and Scepters averr that by Him Kings reign that He can pull down one and set up another and do it too when their weakness or misfortune gives him opportunity Pilate would have been very jealous of such a Spiritual Prince though the Jews perhaps would have liked him well for he looks more like a Lieutenant of their Messiah then a Deputy and Apostle of our Christ who treads on the necks of Caesars and without a figure makes his enemies lick the Dust Had the Apostles themselves own'd such a Commission Christianity had never taken root in the World Had St. Peter declared that all Power in Heaven and Earth was given to him by God he had been crucified with his heels upwards not by the choice of his own Humility but for a sutable punishment of his inverting the Doctrine of Christ and turning the Gospel and the World it self up-side-down Had Heathen Princes been alarm'd at first with this pretence told that while They and their People remained Infidels a Christian Bishop might give away their Countrey to any one that should convert them by the Sword the old Greek pretence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if they embraced the Faith and yet happened to err in any point of it they should be deposable at his pleasure that by professing Christianity they should acknowledge to hold their Power and Dignity at the beck and good liking of their Pastor from whom as the greater Luminary they must derive all their saint influences and borrowed light he alone having right to institute earthly Powers to judge all and be judged of none and therefore must in all things be obeyed even of Princes at the peril of their souls Do you think the Roman Emperors or the Monarchs of the East would have been brought in to Christ's fold by these harsh invitations this rough voice of the Shepherd Would such a Doctrine have placed the Cross on the Crowns of Kings made them Nursing Fathers to the Church I doubt it would rather have exasperated their fury sharpened their persecutions and made cruelty it self seem just and necessary a provident endeavour to destroy Christianity in its first conception as a Viper which was like to tear out the bowels of its Mother I know I am not wise enough to interpret the Revelation nor am I bold enough to affix hard names without certain grounds But we have some who frankly enough call the Pope Antichrist sounding out that name with all the force of their lungs which is great and yet if it be not ill manners to make comparison between so high pretenders themselves deserve that Title as well as he and upon the same Reason For who-ever advanceth in Christendome an Interest so directly contrary to that of Christ is an Anti or Counter-Christ You know who they are which talk so much of advancing Christs Scepter and the Rod of his Power but you know likewise by wofull experience that all this is onely that it might become a Rod in their hands to eat up all other Rods and be the greater Serpent when it hath done so Beside there is among us a Pestilent Devilish Sect which we call the Fifth Monarchy but should call it the Sixth or Seventh for the Papacy and Presbytery come both in before it These expect just such a Temporal fleshly Kingdome as the Jews talk of urge all the same Texts interpret them out of their Books and would bring in the Dominion they aspire to like them with Bloud Confusion and Ruine make Christ reign among Thieves and Murderers And as the former Temporalists would place Christ on his Throne that themselves may sit on his right hand and on his left so these cry up King Jesus onely for a stale and property to serve their design of binding the hands and eating the flesh of other Kings that the sheep may tear and devoure the VVolves But most certainly were he now once more upon earth in the same lowly guise as before Preaching the same spiritual Doctrines advancing the same heavenly Kingdome they would persecute and crucifie him again as the Jews did for defeating their Carnal hopes and Designes I have been the longer in clearing and asserting the spirituality of Christs Kingdome because in effect it concludes the whole Question and therefore I may make you amends by shortning the other remaining part of my discourse For seeing Christ had no interest or authority in earthly things Seeing his Empire and Dominion was not to consist in Temporal Power and Greatness but in the establishing such a Rule in the hearts of his subjects as might make them fit to reign with him in another world 'T will be no wonder if he suffered unkindness in a strange enemies Countrey was advanced by Death and the steps of his Cross to be crowned with glory and honor to sit on the Throne of God in the full enjoyment and administration of his Kingdome in Heaven the reward and purchase of his sufferings Had I time I might easily shew the great fitness and infinite wisdom of this Method but by Gods goodness and the Kings favour I may have another opportunity for that My present undertaking obligeth me no further then to evidence the design of God expressed by Types and Prophecies that Christ should thus suffer and so enter into his glory My other Part. FIrst for Types And concerning them I will freely yield all that can be demanded That they
are illustrations rather then Proofs fit to open mens apprehensions to refresh and strengthen their memories and confirme the Faith of Believers But not able to convince and enforce the assent of a pertinacious Gain-sayer who admits no part of our assertion Yet with Jews the great Masters of Allegories who acknowledge unless when their hatred to Christ compells them to renounce all ingenuity a great part of the Mosaical dispensation to have been symbolical and doubt not but that God did declare his mind by Real as well as verbal Prophecies foreshew future events by Persons Offices Rites and actions as well as foretell them by Words these things must be of great weight and consideration For which Reason the Primitive Fathers though they use other Topiques against Heathen disputers and in the main controversie with the Jews insist as the Apostles did before them upon the irrefragable arguments of Christs miracles and resurrection yet they refell their little exceptions against the circumstances of his outward condition both in life and death by instances of these prefigurations recorded in the Old Testament indulging sometimes to zeal and fancy successfully and artificially enough considering whom they dealt with but more freely then will become me in this Philosophical age The use I mean to make of such adumbrations I hope shall not be blamed by the most rigorous Demonstrators For I pretend to assume no more then that those Persons who in the substance of their Character were apparently Types of Messiah may be understood in all the most conspicuous Tracts and lineaments of that character the remarkable accidents of their lives and famous Circumstances of their Conditions to represent him too That those Offices Actions and Rites which must be observed to have many things in them very notable of which no other account can rationally be given then a meaning to adumbrate somewhat more noble in fulness of time to be revealed may not be thought now that the substance appeareth to answer and own its shadows The Antitype applyeth and interpreteth its foregoing Types inconveniently referr'd by me to that Purpose If the most illustrious Heroes under the Law attain'd not their dignity and exaltation approved not not their Vertue and Zeal for God but by passing a sharp trial and discipline of afflictions it canbe thought unreasonable that Christ also should be consummated by an answerable method of sufferings if it diminish not the excellency of Patriarchs and Prophets that they were hardly treated by men very unlike them were no argument of Gods disfavour that he seem'd to sleep neglecting and leaving them unregarded in those pressures and difficulties but rather a comfortable presumption that he had better things in store for them reserv'd to their proper season whereby he meant abundantly to make good with advantage all his gracious Promises why should we prescribe God other Laws in a Parallel Case Shorten his arme and shrink up the nerves of his power suspect his goodness and circumscribe his wisdome by our narrow conceits which before we allowed to operate by its own rule judging Christ to be forsaken by his Father because he is exposed to endure the contradiction of sinners and rather appointed to triumph over then be delivered from the petulant injuries of unreasonable and wicked men Whereas it is much more rational that seeing a series of correspondent effects and Productions we should acknowledg the same hand-working in all the same Providence pursuing one uniform design perfecting and accomplishing in the Person of Messiah what it began to form and shape out by degrees in those models and ruder Draughts literally those Types which were exhibited from time to time under the Law To name some few by way of instance Recollect I pray you that ABRAHAM when God promised him the inheritance of Canaan and a Descendent from his loins in whom all Nations should be blessed was as it were in the same breath commanded to get out of his Countrey to forsake his Kindred and his Fathers house to conflict with difficulties and dangers in his wandring life and not permitted otherwise then as a journying fleeting stranger and Pilgrim to take a view and taste of the Promised Land and at last dies expecting with a very distant hope the accomplishment of that Promise which he obtained not And then you will not wonder if Christ in whom this and all other Promises of God are Yea and Amen performed the principal sublimest part of it made all Nations blessed by being himself a stranger among his Brethren an alien unto his mothers children who gave him a courser reception then Abraham met at Egypt or in Gerar. ISAAC the first pledge of this promised blessing was derided and grieved by Ishmael as soon as he was capable of feeling such injuries in which respect he is brought by St. Paul as an example of the Spirit persecuted by the Flesh and did prefigure the scorns and contumelies which Christ suffered from his Brethren Then devoted and given up to Death by his Father lies a destined Sacrifice upon the Altar and when the Knife is at his throat redeemed by substitution of a Ram to shew that the offering of the Blessed Seed was yet to be suspended and Beasts for a time accepted as a Pledge of that expiation which he should one day make Thus did Isaac in whose loins Christ then was represent and personate before-hand the entire Mystery of his Passion and which is not unworthy of note in the very Place where afterwards it was to be acted How punctually did JOSEPH being sold for a bond-slave suffering a Martyrdom for Vertue and then rising from his Chains and the stench of a loathsome Dungeon to be a Saviour to Egypt and to Jacobs Family set forth the Persecutions Innocence Exaltation of Christ and the Salvation which by all these he wrought out for the whole Israel of God Was Messiah to be like unto MOSES Then 't is most fit by an early persecution as soon as he was born being cast out to one Danger and Death for the avoiding another by the unkindness and treachery of those whom he came to save the threats and hard dealings from Pharaoh and the long and manifold grievings of his meek soul by his perverse Countrey-men whom he had brought out of slavery He should leave behind him a Copy and Pattern which Christ must transcribe and be equal to Moses in every part of his laborious troublesome life as well as transcend him in Wisdom Power and the incomparable Deliverance and Salvation whereof the atchievements of Moses were but a weak imperfect shadow Does Ezekiel four or five times call Christ DAVID prophesying that he shall be an Eternal Prince over Gods People feed and guide them in the ways of his Judgments and Statutes Then beside that this description of Christs Government inferrs the spiritual ends and purposes of his Dominion we are assured by God himself that DAVID was