3. 13. 15. He 's called the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Cor. 15. 21. Since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead God's justice would be satisfied in the same nature that had sinned 16. God's son made of a woman Gal. 4. 4. 17 Man 1 Tim. 2. 5. The man Christ Jesus 18. The son of David Mat. 1. 1. Mar. 12. 35. How say the Scribes that Christ is the son of David In that the Scribes and Pharisees knew and acknowledged according to the Scripture that Christ should be the son of David that is should be born and descend of the stock and posterity of David according to the flesh Hence we may easily gather the truth of Christ's humane nature that he was ordained of God to be true man as well as God in one and the same person for else he could not be the son of David Now that he must be the son of David even the Scribes and the Pharisees knew and acknowledged as we see here and this was a truth which they had learned out of the Scriptures and not only they but even the common sort of Jews in our Saviour's time John 7. 42. some of the common people spake thus Hath not the scripture said that Christ cometh of the seed of David and the Messiah was then commonly called the son Rom. 1. 3. of David so then Christ being of the seed of David after the flesh he must needs be true man as well as God for which cause he was incarnate in the due time appointed of God that is to say he being the son of God from everlasting did in time become man taking our nature upon him together with the infirmities of our nature sin only excepted John 1. 14. Now thus you see that the 18 denominations that are given to Christ in the blessed Scriptures do abundantly demonstrate the certainty of Christ's humane nature But Thirdly Christ took the whole humane nature he was truly and compleatly man consisting of flesh and spirit body and soul yea that he assumed the entire humane nature with whatever is proper to it Christ took to himself the whole humane nature in both the essential parts of man soul and body the two essential and constitutive parts of man are soul and body where these two are there 's the true man now Christ had both and therefore he was true man First Christ had a true humane and reasonable soul the reasonable soul is the highest and noblest part of man this is that which principally makes the man and hath the greatest influence into his being and essence if therefore Jesus Christ had only a humane body without a humane soul he had wanted that part which is most essential to man and so he could not have been looked upon as true and perfect man O Sirs Christ redeemed and saved nothing but what he assumed the redemption and salvation reach no farther than the assumption our soul then would have been never the better for Christ had he not taken that as well as our body Hence said Augustine Aug de civ Dei lib. 10. c. 27. p. 586 Therefore he took the whole man without sin that he might heal the whole of which man consists of the plague of sin And Fulgentius to the same purpose As Fulgent ad Thrasymund lib. 1. p. 251. the Devil smote by deceiving the whole man so God saves by assuming the whole man If he will save the whole man from sin he will assume the whole man without sin saith Nazianzen The Scriptures do clearly evidence that Christ had a real humane soul Mat. 26. 38. My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death every word is emphatical my soul his sorrows pierced his soul Psal 22. 16. and sorrowful round about even to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is heavy round about Look as the soul was the first Agent in transgression so it is here the first Patient in affliction to death that is this sorrow will never be finished or intermitted but by death My soul is exceeding sorrowful then Christ had a true humane soul neither was his Deity to him for a soul as of old men of corrupt minds have fancied for then our bodies only had been redeemed by him and not our souls if he had not suffered in soul as well as in body The sufferings of his body were but the body of his sufferings the soul of his sufferings were the sufferings of his soul which was now beset with sorrows and heavy as heart could hold John 12. 27. Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say The Greek word signifies a vehement commotion and perturbation as Herod's mind was troubled when he Mat. 2. 3. heard that a new King was born or as the Disciples were Mat. 14. 26. troubled when they thought they saw a spirit walking on the sea and cryed out for fear or as Zachary was troubled Luk. 1. 12. at the sudden sight of the Angel The rise and cause of Christ's soul-trouble was this the Godhead hiding it self from the humanitie's sense and the father letting out not only an apprehension of his sufferings to come but a present taste of the horrour of his wrath due to man for sin he is amazed overwhelmed and perplexed with it in his humanity and no wonder since he had the sins of all the Elect laid upon him by imputation to suffer for And so this wrath is not let out against his person but against their sins which were laid on him Now though Christ was here troubled or jumbled and puzzled as the word imports yet we are not to conceive that there was any sin in this exercise of his for he was like clean water in a clean vessel which being never so often stirred and shaken yet still keeps clean and clear neither are we to think it strange that the son of God should be put to such perplexities in this trouble as not to know what to say for considering him as man encompassed with our sinless infirmities and that this heavy weight of wrath did light upon him on a sudden it is no wonder that it did confound all his thoughts as man O Sirs look that as sin hath infected both the souls and bodies of the Elect and chiefly their souls where it hath its chief seat so Christ to expiate this sin did suffer unspeakable sorrows and trouble in his soul as well as torture in his body for my soul is troubled saith he Though some sufferings of the body be very exquisite and painful and Christ's in particular were such yet sad trouble of mind is far more grievous than any bodily distress as Christ also found who silently bare all his outward troubles but yet could not but cry out of his inward trouble Now is my soul troubled Isa 53. 10. Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin when Christ suffered for us our sins were laid upon
was heavy unto death beset with terrors as the word implies when he drank that bitter cup that cup of bitterness that cup mingled with curses which made him sweat drops of blood which if men or Angels had but sip'd of 't would have made them reel stagger and tumble into Hell The Soul of Christ was over-cast with a Cloud of Gods displeasure The Greek Church speaking of the sufferings of Christ calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown sufferings Ah Christians who can speak out this sorrow The spirit of a man will sustain Pâ—ov 18. 11. his infirmity but a wounded spirit who can bear Christs Soul is sorrowful but give me that word again his Soul is exceeding sorrowful but if that word be yet too low then I must tell you That his Soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death not only extensively such as must continue for the space of seventeen or eighteen hours even until death it self should finish it but also intensively such and so great as that which is used to be at the very point of death and such as were able to bring death it self had not Christ been reserved to a greater and heavier punishment of this sorrow is that especially spoken Behold Lament 1. 12. and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger Many a sad and sorrowful Soul hath no question been in the world but the like sorrow to this was never since the Creation the very terms or phrases used by the Evangelists speaks no less He was sorrowful and heavy saith one amazed and very heavy saith another in an Agony saith a third in a Soul-trouble saith a fourth Certainly the bodily torments of the Cross were much inferior to the Agony of his Soul the pain of the body is the body of pain Oh but the very soul of sorrow is the Souls sorrow and the very soul of pain is the Souls pain Secondly That which Christ assumed or took of our nature he assumed to this end to suffer in it and by suffering to save and redeem it But he took the whole nature of man both body and soul ergo He suffered in both first the assumption is evident and needs no proof that Christ took upon him both our soul and body the Apostle assures us where he saith That in all things it became Heb. 2. 17. him to be like unto us therefore he had both body and soul as we have Secondly Concerning the proposition viz. That what Christ took of our nature He took it by suffering in it properly and immediatly to Redeem us Now this is evident by that blessed word where the Apostle saith Christ took part with them that he might destroy vers 14 15. through death him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Hence I reason thus that wherein Christ delivered us he took part with us in but he delivered us from fear of death Ergo he did therein communicate with us Now marke This fear was the proper and immediate passion of the Soul namely the fear of death and God's anger And the Text giveth this sense Because the fear of this death kept them in bondage but the sear only of the bodily death doth not bring us into such bondage witness that Song of Zachery That we being delivered from the hands of our Enemies Luke 1. 74. should serve him without fear this then is a spiritual fear from the which Christ did deliver us Ergo He did communicate with us in this fear for the Apostle saith Heb. 2. 18. In that wherein he suffered and was tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted Certainly that fear which fell on Christ was a real fear and it was in his Soul and did not arise from the meer contemplation of bodily torments only for the very Martyrs in the encountering with them have feared little Assuredly there was some great matter that lay upon the very Soul of Christ which made him so heavy and sorrowsul and so afraid and in such an Agony But if you please take this second Argument in another form of words thus What Christ took of ours that He in suffering offered up for us for His assuming of our Nature was for this end to suffer for us in our Nature but he took our Nature in Body and in Soul and he delivered our souls as well as our bodys and the sins of our souls did need his Sacrifice as well as the sins of our bodys and our souls were Crucified with Christ as well as our bodys Mens mea in Christo Crucisixa est saith Ambrose Surely if our whole man was lost then our whole man did need the benefit and help of a whole Saviour and if Christ had assumed only our flesh our body then our souls adjudged adjudged to punishment had remained under transgression without hope of pardon Several sayings of the Ancients doth further strengthen this Argument take a tast of some Si totus homo periit totus benesiâ—io salvateris indiguit c. If the whole man perished August â—ont Feliâ—i n. c. 13. the whole man needed a Saviour Christ therefore took the whole man body and soul if he had taken only flesh the soul should remain addict to punishment of the first transgression without hope of pardon By the same reason Christ must also suffer properly in soul because not by taking our soul but by satisfying in his soul our soul is delivered Suscepit animum meam Suscepit corpus meum Ambrose Ambrose He took all our passions or affections to sanctifie them Damaâ—cene Hâ—b 5. 9. all in himself but Christ was Sanctified and Consecrated by his death and so doth he consecrate us For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Heb. 10. 14. Ergo By his offering of our soul and suffering in our soul hath he consecrated our soul and affections Suscepit affectum meum ut emanduret He took my affection to amend it c. Now he hath amended it in that he consecrated it by his offering Heb. 10. 14. Iâ—llud pro nobis suscepit quod in nobis amplius pâ—riclitabatur He hath taken that for us which was most in danger for us c. that is our soul as he expoundeth it de incarnat c. 7. But Christ hath not otherwise delivered us from the danger but by entring into the danger for us this danger of the soul is the fear and feeling of Gods wrath Thirdly Christ bore our sorrows Isa 53. 4. Now what sorrows should we bear but the sorrows due unto us for our sins and surely these were not corporal only but spiritual also and those did Christ bear in his soul The same Prophet saith ver 10. He shall make his soul
an offering for sin Ergo Christ offered his Soul as well as his Body Again Our Saviour himself saith My Soul is Math. 26. 38. very heavy unto death Certainly it was not the bodily death which Christ seared for then he should have been weaker than many Martyrs yea than many of the Romans who made no more of dying than of dining therefore Christs Soul was verily and properly stricken with heaviness and not with the beholding of bodily torments only as some dream But Fourthly That whereby Adam and we ever since do most properly commit sin by the same hath Christ the second Adam made satisfaction properly for our sin but Adam did and we all do properly commit sin in our souls our bodies being but the instruments Ergo Christ by and in his soul hath properly made satisfaction First The truth of the proposition is confirmed by the Apostle As by one mans disobediâ—nce we are made Sinners so by the Rom. 5 19. obedience of one many shall be made Righteous Christ then satisfied for us by the same wherein Adam disobeyed Nâ—w Adams soul was in the transgression as well as his body and accordingly was Christs very soul in his sufferings and satisfaction and Christ obeyed that is in his soul for obedience belongeth to the soul as one observeth upon those words of the Apostle Phil. 2. 8. He became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Who Agatho Epist ad Constantin upon Phil. 2. 8. doth not understand saith the same Author that obedience doth belong to the humane will That there is a kind of dying in the soul when it is pierced with grief besides the death of the soul either by sin or damnation is not disagreeing to the Scripture Simâ—on saith to Mary A sword shall pierce through thy soul Luk. 2 35. Look as then the body dyeth being pierced with a sword so the soul may be said to dye or languish when it is pierced with grief what else is Crucifying but dying Now the soul is said to be Crucified as is evident by that passage of the Apostle I am Crucified to the World when as yet his body was alive So Ambrose doubts not to say Gal. 6. 14. Mens mea in Christo Crucifixa est My soul was Crucified Ambâ—ose lib. 5. â—â— Luc. in Christ that is Christ in His Soul was Crucified which he calleth our soul because he did assume our soul and body or else where he saith Mea est voluntas quam suam dixit Ambrâ—se lib. 2. de sid c. 3. c. It is my will which he calleth his it is my heaviness which he took with my affections yet was it properly and personally Christs Soul and Will but ours by community of nature Secondly For the Assumption 1. Howsoever it be admitted that the body is the instrument of the soul both in sinning and suffering yet the conclusion is this That because sin is committed in the soul principally and properly therefore the satisfaction must be made in the soul principally and properly If this conclusion be granted we have that we would for the bodily pains affecting the soul are not the proper passions of the soul neither is the soul said to suffer properly when the body suffereth but by way of compassion and consent 2. We grant that in the proper and immediate sufferings of the soul the body also is affected As when Christ was in his Agony in the Garden his whole body was therewith stirred and mâ—â—â— and that it did sweat drops of blood But it is one thing when the grief beginneth immediatly in the soul and so affecteth the body and when the pain is first infliâ—ted upon the body and so worketh upon the soul there the soul suffereth properly and principally of which sufferings we speak here neither properly nor principally which is not the thing in question 3. It is not the reasonable soul that is affected with the body for it is a ground in Philosophy that the soul suffereth not but only the sensitive part But the grief that we speak of that is satisfactory for sin must be in the very reasonable soul where sin took the beginning and so Ambrose saith upon those words of Christ Ambrose de Incarnat cap. 7. My Soul is heavy to death Ad rationabilis assumptionem animae c. naturae humanae refertur affectum It is referred to the assumption of the reasonable soul and humane affection Pride Ambition Infidelity began in Adams soul and had their determination there in the committing of those sins the body had no part indeed with the ear they heard the suggestion of Satan but it was no sin till in their minds they had consented unto it Wherefore seeing the first sin committed was properly and wholly in the soul for the same the soul must properly and wholly satisfie Because sin took beginning from Adams soul the satisfaction also must begin in Christs Soul as Ambrose saith Inciplo in Christo vincere unde in Adam victus sum Ambrose lib 4. in Luc. I begin there to win in Christ where in Adam I was overcome Then it followeth that the sufferings of Christs soul took beginning there and were not derived by simpathy from the stripes and pain of the body We infer then that therefore Christs Soul had proper and immediate sufferings besides those which proceeded from simpathy with his body and all Christs sufferings were satisfactory Ergo Christ did satisfie for our sins properly and immediatly in his soul But if you please take this fourth Argument in another form of words thus The punishment which was pronounced against the first Adam our first Surety and in him against us that same did Christ the second Adam our next and best Surety bear for us or else it must still lye upon us to suffer it But the punishment threatned and denounced against Adam for transgression was not only corporal respecting our bodyes but spiritual also respecting our souls There was a spiritual malediction due unto our souls as well as a corporal c. Look as God put a Sanction on the Law and Covenant of works made with all of us in Adam that he and his should be liable to death both of body and soul which Covenant being broken by sin all Sinners became obnoxious to the death both of body and soul so it was necessary that the Redeemed should be delivered from the death of both by the Redeemers tasting of death in both kinds as much as should be sufficient for their Redemption O Sirs as sin infected the whole Man soul and body and the Curse following on sin left no part nor power of the mans soul free so Justice required that the Redeemer coming in the room of the persons Redeemed should feel the force of the Curse both in body and soul But Fifthly He shall see of the travel of his soul Isa 53. Here the soul is taken properly and the travel of Christs
soul is his sufferings for it follows And he shall bear their Iniquities But Sixthly Christ gave himself for his peoples sins Gal. 1. 9. 6. Ephe. 5. 25. 1 Tim. 2. 6. Who gave himself for our sins Tit. 2. 14. Who gave himself for us that he might Redeem us from all Iniquities c. but the body only is not himself ergo The Apostle saith Phil. 2. 7. Christus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exinanivit Christ did empty or evacuate himself or as Tertullian expounds it Exhausit Teâ—tâ—llian Conâ—ra Marcian lib. 5. He drew out himself or was exhaust which agrees with the Prophesis of Daniel chap. 9. 26. Mâ—ssias shall have nothing being brought to nothing by his death without life strength esteem honour c. Hence we conclude that if Christ were exhaust upon the Cross if nothing was left him that he suffered in body and soul that there was no part within or without free from the Cross but all was emptied and poured out for our Redemption Again We read That Christ through the eternal Spirit Heb. 9. 14 offered himself to God Whatsoever was in Christ did either offer or was offered His eternal Spirit only did offer ergo His whole humane Nature both Body and Soul was offered Thus Origen witnesseth in these words Origen â—om 9 in Levit. Vide quo modo verus pontifex Jesus Christus adsumptâ— batillocarnis humanae c. See how our true Priest Jesus Christ taking the censor of his humane flesh putting to the fire of the Altar that is His magnificent Soul wherewith he was born in the flesh and adding Incense that is an immaculate Spirit stood in the middest between the living and the dead Thus you see that he makes Christs soul a part in the Sacrifice Seventhly and lastly Christs love unto man in suffering for him was in the highest degree and greatest measure that could be as the Lord saith What could I have done any more for my Vineyard that I have not done unto it But if Christ had given his Body only and not his Soul for us he had not done for us all he could and so his love should have been greatly empaired and diminished ergo He gave his Soul also together with his Body to be the full price of our Redemption and certainly the travail and labour of Christs Soul was most acceptable unto God Isa 53. 12. Therefore I will give him a Portion with Isa 35. 12. the great because he hath poured out his Soul unto death c. and bare the sins of many Doubtless the sufferings of Christ in his Soul together with his Body doth most fully and amply commend and set forth Gods great love to poor Sinners Before I close up this particular take a few Testimonies of the Fathers which do witness with us for the sufferings of Christ both in Soul and Body Christ hath taken off us that which he should offer as Ambrose de Incarnat c. 6. proper for us to Redeem us and whatsoever Christ took off us he offered ergo He offered Body and Soul for he took both Another upon these words My Soul is heavy saith Anima Concil Hispalens 2. c. 13. passionibus obnoxia divinitas libra His Soul was subject to passions his Divinity was free c. If nothing were free but his Divine Nature than his Soul was subject to the proper and immediate passions thereof Perspicuum est sicut corpus flagellatum ita animam verè Hierom in 35. cap. Isa doluisse c. It is evident that as his body was whipped so his Soul was verily and truly grieved lest some part of Christs sufferings should be true some part false ergo Christs Soul as properly and truly suffered as his Body the Soul had her proper grief as the Body had whipping the whipping then of the body was not the proper grief of the soul Whole Christ gave himself and whole Christ offered himself ergo He offered his soul not only to suffer by way of compassion with his body as it may be Fulgenâ—ius ad Thâ—aâ—maud lib. 3. answered but he offered it as a Sacrifice and suffered all passions whatsoever incident to the soul The same Author expounds himself further thus Because this God took whole man therefore he shewed in truth in himself the passions of whole man and having a reasonable soul what infirmities soever of the soul without sin he took and bare If Christ then did take and bare all the passions of the soul without sin then the proper and immediate grief and anguish thereof and not the compassion only with the body To these let me add the consent of the reformed Churches French Confes Christ did suffer Harm p. 59. Sect. 6. both in body and soul and was made like unto us in all things Sin only excepted Thomas granteth that Christ Secundum genus passus est 3. Par. qu 46. Artic. 5. omnem passionem humanam in general suffered all humane sufferings as in his soul heaviness fear c. Now the Testimonies of the Fathers and the consent of the reformed Churches affirming the same that Christ was Crucified in his soul and that he gave his soul a price of Redemption for our souls Who can then doubt of this but that Christ verily properly immediately suffered in his soul in all the proper passions thereof as he endured pains and torments in his flesh and if you please this may go for an eighth argument to prove that Christ suffered in his soul Secondly That the sufferings of Christ in his soul were very high and great and wonderful both as to the punishment of loss and as to the punishment of sense all which I shall make evident in these four particulars First That Jesus Christ did suffer dereliction of God really that he was indeed deserted †Forsaken 1. By denying of protection 2. By withdrawing of solace Non solvit unionem sed subtraxit visionâ—m Leo. The Union was not desolved but the beams the influence was restrained forsaken of God is most evident Math. 27. 46. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me But to prevent mistakes in this high point seriously consider 1. That I do not mean that there was nay such desertion of Christ by God as did desolve the union of the Natures in the person of Christ For Christ in all his sufferings still remained God and Man Nor 2. Do I mean an absolute desertion in respect of the presence of God For God was still present with Christ in all his sufferings and the God-head did support his Humanity in and under his sufferings but that which I mean is this That as to the sensible and comforting manifestations of Gods presence thus he was for a time left and forsaken of God God for a time had taken-away all sensible consolation and fâ—lt joy from Christs humane soul that so divine justice might in his sufferings be the more fully satisfied In this
to prove this expression is very weighty because all the wrath that was due for all the sins of the Elect all whose sins were laid on Christ Isa 53. 6. was greater than the wrath which belonged to any one sinner though damned for his personal sinning and besides this if you do seriously consider those sufferings of Christ in his Agony in the Garden you may by them conjecture what hellish torments Christ did suffer for us In that Agony of his he was afraid and amazed and fell Math. 14. 33. vers 34. flat on the ground He began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy and saith unto them My soul is exceeding sorowful unto death and his sweat was as it were great Luk 22. 44. drops of blood falling down to the ground He did sweat clotted blood to such abundance that it streamed through his apparel and did wet the ground which dreadful Agony of Christ how it could arise from any other cause than the sense of the wrath of God parallel to that in Hell I know not Orthodox Divines do generally take Christs sufferings in his soul and the detaining his body in the grave put in as the close and last part of Christs sufferings as the true meaning of that expression He descended into Hell not only because these pains which Christ suffered both in body and soul were due to us in full measure but also because that which Christ in point of torment and vexation suffered was in some respect of the same kind with the torment of the damned For the clearing of this consider that in the punishment of the damned there are these three things 1 The perverse disposition of the mind of the damned in their sufferings 2. The duration and perpetuity of their punishment And 3. The punishment it self tormenting soul and body Of these three the first two could have no place in Christ Not the first Because Heb. 9. 14. Heb. 10. 5 6 7 8. Act. 2. 24. 1 Pet. 2. 24. 1 Cor. 6. ult he willingly offered himself a Sacrifice for our sins and upon agreement paid the Ransom fully Not the second Because he could no longer be held under sorrows and sufferings than he had satisfied Divine Justice and paid the price that he was to lay down And his infinit excellency and glory made his short sufferings to be of infinit worth and equivalent to our everlasting sufferings The third then only remaineth which was the real and sensible torments of his soul and body which he did really feel and experience when he was upon the Cross O Sirs What need you question Christs undergoing of Hellish pains when all the pains torments curse and wrath which was due to the Elect did fall on Christ and lye on Christ till Divine Justice was fully satisfied Though Christ did not suffer eternal death for sinners yet he suffered that which was equivalent and therefore the justice of God is by his death wholly appeased It is good seriously to ponder upon these Scriptures Psal 18. 5. The sorrows of Hell did compass me about Psal 88. 3. My soul is filled with evil and my life draweth near to Hell Psal 86. 13. Thou hast delivered my Soul from the nethermost Hell In these places the Prophet speaks in the person of Christ and the Papists themselves do confess that the Hebrew word Sheol that is here used is taken for Hell properly and not for the Grave therefore these places do strongly conclude for the hellish sorrows or sufferings of Christ So Act. 2. 27. Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell If Christs soul be not left or forsaken in Hell yet it follows it was in Hell not that Christ did feel the sorrows of Hell after death but that he did feel the very sorrows of Hell in his soul while he lived Certainly the whole punishment of body and soul which was due unto us Christ our Redeemer was in general to suffer and satisfie for in his own person but the torments and terrors of Hell and the vehement sense of Gods wrath are that punishment which did belong to the soul ergo Christ did suffer the torments and terrors of Hell By the whole punishment you are to understand the whole kind or substance of the punishment not all the circumstances and the very same manner the whole punishment then is the whole kind of punishment that is in body and soul which Christ ought to have suffered though not in the same manner and circumstance 1. neither for the place of Hell Locally Nor 2. For the time Eternally Nor 3. For the manner Sinfully When we say Christ was to suffer our whole punishment all such punishments as cannot be suffered without sin as desperation final reprobation are manifestly excepted Christ did bear all our punishment though not as we should have borne it that is 1. Sinfully 2. Eternally 3. Hellishly But he did so bear all our punishment as to finish all upon the Cross and in such sort as Gods justice 2 Col 14. 15. was satisfied his Person not disgraced nor his Holiness defiled and yet mans Salvation fully perfected We Hâ—b 9. 4 cap. 10. 15. constantly affirm that Christ did suffer the pains of Hell in his Soul with these three restrictions 1. That there be neither indignity offered to his Royal Person 2. Nor injury to his Holy Nature 3. Nor impossibility to his glorious work All such pains of Hell then as Christ might have suffered 1. His Person not dishonoured 2. His Nature with sin not defiled 3. His work of our Redemption not hindered we do stedfastly believe were sustained by our Blessed Saviour Consider a few things First Consider the adjuncts of Hell which are these four 1. The place which is Infernal 2. The time which is Perpetual 3. The darkness which is unspeakable 4. The Ministers and Torments the Spirits and Devils which are irreconcileable Now these adjuncts of Hell Christ is freed from for the dignity of his person it was not fit that the Son of God the Heir of Heaven should be shut up in Hell or that he should for ever be tormented who is never from Gods presence sequestred or that the light of the world should be closed up in darkness or that he who bindeth the evil Spirits should be bound by them c. Secondly Consider the effects or rather the defects of Hell which are chiefly these two First The deprivation of all vertue grace holiness Secondly The real possession of all Vice Impiety Blasphemy c. Now the necessity of the work of Christ doth exempt him from these effects for if he had been either void of grace or possessed with vice he could not have been the Redeemer of poor lost souls for the want of Vertue he could not have Redeemed others for the presence of sin he should have been Redeemed himself and from fretting Indignation and fearful Desperation the piety and sanctity of his Nature doth preserve him who
divine greatness stamp'd upon the works of providence but what are the works of Providence to the work of Redemption what are all providential works to Christ's coming from heaven to his being incarnate to his doings sufferings and dying and all this to ransom poor souls from the curse hell wrath and eternal death souls are dear and costly things and of great price in the sight of God Amongst the Romans those their proper goods and estates which men had gotten in the wars with hazard of their lives were called Peculium Castrense of a Field-purchase Oh how much more may the precious and immortal souls of men be called Christ's Peculium Castrense his purchase gotten not only by the jeopardy of his life but with the loss of his life and blood Ye know saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 1. 18. 19. that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition but with the precious blood of the son of God as of a lamb without a spot Christ that only went to the price of souls hath told us that one soul is more worth than Mat. 16. 26. all the world Christ left his father's bosom and all the glory of heaven for the good of souls he assumed the nature of man for the happiness of the soul of man he trod the Wine-press of his father's wrath for souls he wept for souls he swet for souls he prayed for souls he payed for souls and he bled out his heart-blood for the redemption of souls The soul is the breath of God the beauty of man the wonder of Angels and the envy of Devils 't is of an Angelical nature 't is a heavenly spark a celestial plant and of a divine off-spring 't is capable of the knowledg of God of union with God of communion with John 14. 8. Psal 17. 15. God and of an eternal fruition of God there is nothing that can suit the soul below God there is nothing that can satisfie the soul without God the soul is so high and so noble a piece that it scorns all the world what are all the riches of the East or West Indies what are Rocks of Diamonds or Mountains of Gold or the price of Cleopatra's draught to the price that Christ laid down for souls 't is only the blood of him that is God-man that is an equivolent price for the Redemption of souls Silver and Gold hath redeemed many thousands out of Turkish bondage but all the Silver and Gold in the world could never redeem one poor soul from Hellish bondage from hellish torments Souls are a dear commodity he that bought them found them so and yet at how cheap a rate do some sinners sell their immortal souls Callenuceus tells us of a noble man of Naples that was wont prophanely to say that he had two-souls in his body one for God and another for whosoever would buy it but if he hath one soul in Hell I believe he will never find another for Heaven A person of quality who is still alive told me a few years since that in discourse with one of his servants This pious Gentleman was with me in May 1673. at my house he asked him what he thought would become of his soul if he lived and died in his ignorance and enmity against God c. he most prophanely and atheistically answered that when he died he would hang his soul on a hedg and say run God run Devil and he that can run fastest let him Discipul at de tâ—mp Serâ— 132. take my soul I have read of a most blasphemous wretch that on a time being with his companions in a common Inn carrowsing and making merry asked them if they thought a man had a soul or no whereunto when they replyed that the souls of men are immortal and that some of them after death lived in hell and others in heaven For so the writings of the Prophets and Apostles instructed them he answered and swore that he thought it nothing so but rather that there was no soul in man to survive the body but that Heaven and Hell were mere fables and inventions of Priests to get gain and for himself he was ready to sell his soul to any that would buy it then one of his companions took up a cup of wine and said sell me thy soul for this cup of wine which he receiving We laugh at little children to see them part with rich Jewels for silly trifles and yet daily experience tells us that multitudes are so childish as to part with such rich and precious Jewels as their immortal souls for a lust or for base and unworthy trifles of whom it may be truly said as Augustus Caesar said in another case they are like a man that fishes with a golden hook the gain can never recompence the loss that may be sustained bad him take his soul and drank up the wine Now Satan himself being there in man's shape bought it again of the other at the same price and by and by bad him give him his soul the whole company affirming it was meet he should have it since he had bought it not perceiving the Devil but presently he laying hold of this soul-seller carried him into the Air before them all to the great astonishment and amazement of the beholders and from that day to this he was never heard of but hath now found by experience that men have souls and that Hell is no Fable Ah for what a thing of nought do many thousands sell their souls to Satan every day how many thousands are there who swear curse lye cheat deceive c. for a little gain every day I have read that there was a time when the Romans did wear Jewels on their shooes Oh that in these days men did not worse Oh that they did not trample under feet that matchless Jewel their precious and immortal souls Oh sirs there is nothing below heaven so precious and noble as your souls and therefore do not play the Courtiers with your poor souls now the Courtier does all things late he rises late and dines late and sups late and goes to bed late and repents late Christ made himself an offering for sin that souls might not be undone by sin the Lord died that slaves might live the son dies that servants might live the natural son dies that adopted sons may live the only begotten son dies that bastards might live yea the judg dies that Malefactors may live Ah friends as there was never sorrow like Christ's so there was never love like Christ's love and of all his love none to that of soul-love Christ who is God-man did take upon him thy nature and bare thy sins and suffered death and encountered the Cross and was made a sacrifice and a curse and all to bring about thy Redemption and therefore thou maist safely conclude that the work of Redemption is a great work But
and if so then what would become of us what would become of our salvation then our faith would be in vain and our hope would be in vain and our hearing preaching praying and receiving would all be in vain yea then all our Religion would vanish into a mâ—re fancy also when a man's conscience is awakened to see his sin and misery and he shall find guilt to lay like a load upon his soul and when he shall see that divine justice is to be satisfied and divine wrath to be pacified and the curse to be born and the Law to be fulfilled and his nature to be renewed his heart to be changed and his sins to be pardoned or â—lsâ— his soul can never be saved how can such a person venture his soul his all upon one that is but a mâ—re crcature certainly a mere man is no Rock no City of refuge and no sure foundation for a man to build his faith and hope upon woe to that man that ever he was born that has no Jesus but a Socinian's Jesus to rest upon oh 't is sad trusting to one who is man but not God flesh but not spirit as you love the eternal safety of your precious souls and would be happy for ever as you would escape Hell and get to Heaven lean on none rest on none but that Jesus who is God-man who is very God and very man Apollinaris held that Christ took not the whole nature of man but a humane body only without a soul and that the Godhead was instead of a soul to the Manhood Also Eutyches who confounded the two natures of Christ and their properties c. Also Apelles and the Manichees who denied the true humane body and held him to have an aerial or imaginary body Though the popular sort deified Alexander the great yet having Plutarch in vita got a clap with an Arrow he said ye stile me Jupiter's son as if immortal sed hoc vulnus clamat esse hominem this blood that issues from the wound proves me in the issue a man this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the blood of man not of God and smelling the stench of his own flesh he asked his flatterers if the God's yielded such a scent so may it be said of Jesus Christ our Saviour though Myriads of Angels and Saints acclaim he is a God ergo immortal and a crew of Hereticks disclaim him to be man as the Marcionites averred that he had a phantastical body and Apelles who conceived that he had a sydereal substance yet the streams of blood following the arrow of death that struck him makes it good that he was perfect man of a reasonable soul and humane flesh subsisting And as this truth looks sowerly upon the above mentioned persons so it looks sowerly upon the Papists who by their Doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body in the Sacrament do overthrow one of the properties of his humane nature which is to be but in one place present at once This truth also looks sowerly upon the Lutherans or Ubiquitaries who teach that Christ's humane nature is in all places by vertue of the personal union c. I wonder that of all the old Errours swept down into this latter Age as into a sink of time this of the Socinians and Arrians should be held forth among the rest O sirs beware of their Doctrines shun their meetings and persons that come to you with the denial of the Divinity of Christ in their mouths this was John's Doctrine and Practise Irenaeus saith that after he was returned from his banishment and came to Ephesus he came to bathe himself and in the bath he found Cerinthus that said Christ had no being till he received it from the Virgin Mary upon the sight of whom John skipped out of the Bath and called his companions from thence saying let us go from this place lest the Bath should fall down upon us because Cerinthus is in it that is so great an enemy to God ye see his Doctrine see his words too 2 John 10 11. If any come to you having not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds What that Doctrine was if you cast your eye upon the Scripture you shall find it to be the Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ shew no love where you owe nothing but hatred I hate every Psal 119. 113. false way saith David And I shall look upon Auxentius as upon a Devil so long as he is an Arrian said Hilarius We must shew no countenance nor give no encouragement to such as deny either â—ne divinity or humanity of Christ I have been the longer upon the Divinity and humanity of Christ 1. Because the times we live in require it 2. That poor weak staggering Christians may be strengthned established and setled in the truth as it is in Jesus 3. That I may give in my testimony and witness against all those who are poysoned and corrupted with Socinian and Arrian Principles which destroy the souls of men 4. That those in whose hands this book may fall may be the better furnished to make head against men of corrupt minds who by slight of hand and cunning craftiness lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. Sixthly As he that did feel and suffer the very torments of Hell though not after a hellish manner was God-man so the punishments that Christ did sustain for us must be referred only to the substance and not unto the circumstances of punishment The punishment which Christ endured if it be considered in its substance kind or nature so 't was the same with what the sinner himself should have undergone Now the punishment due to the sinner was death the curse of the Law c. now this Christ underwent for he was made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. but if you consider the punishment which Christ endur'd with respect to certain circumstances adjuncts and accidents as the eternity of it desperation going along with it c. then I say it was not the same but equivalent Whether the work of man's redemption could have been wrought without the sufferings and humiliation of Christ is not determinable by men but that it was the most admirable way which wisdom justice and mercy could require cannot be denied And the reason is because though the enduring of the punishments as to the substance of them could and did agree with him as a surety yet the circumstances of those punishments could not have befallen him unless he had been a sinner and therefore every inordination in suffering was far from Christ and a perpetual duration of suffering could not befall him for the first of these had been contrary to the holiness and dignity of his person and the other had made void the end of his suretiship and Mediatorship which was so to suffer as yet to conquer and
off from the land of the living his life was taken from off the earth 3. As Acts 9. 33. Heb. 9. 14. 2 Pet. 3. 13 this Goat was not killed so Christ through the eternal Spirit offered up himself whereby he was made alive after death Though Christ Jesus died for our sins acording to his his Humanity yet death could not detain him nor overcome him nor keep him prisoner but by vertue of his impassible Deity he rises again and triumphs over Hos 13. 14. death and the grave and over principalities and powers Col. 2. 13. 4. As this Goat went into an inhabitable place so Christ went into heaven whither I go ye cannot come Christ Joh. 13. 33. speaks this not to exclude his Disciples out of heaven Vers 36. but only to shew that their entrance was put off for a time Saints must not expect to go to heaven and rest with Christ till they have fought the good fight of faith 2 Tim. â— 7 8. Heb. 12. 1. 1 Cor. 9 24. Act. 13. 30. finished their course run their race and served their generation Christ's own children by all their studies prayers tears and endeavours cannot get to heaven unless Joh. 14. 1 2 3. Christ come and fetches them thither Christ's own servants cannot get to heaven presently nor of themselves no more than the Jews could do Now if you please to cast your eye upon the Lord Jesus you will find and exact correspondency between the Type and the Antitype the one fully answering to the other Did they carry substitution in them that eminently was in Christ he indeed substituted himself in the sinners room he took our guilt upon him and put himself in our place and died in our stead he died that we might not die Whatever we should have undergone that he underwent in his body and soul he did bear as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the punishments and torments that were due to us Christ's suffering dying satisfying in our stead is the great Article of a Christian's Faith and the main prop and foundation of the believers hope It is bottomed as an eternal and unmovable truth upon the sure Basis of the blessed Word Substitution in the case of the old sacrifices is not so evidently held forth in the Law but substitution with respect to Christ and his sacrifice is more evidently set forth in the Gospel Ponder seriously upon these Texts Rom. 5. 6. For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly vers 8. But God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Herein God lays naked to us the tenderest bowels of his fatherly This shews us the greatness of mans sin and of Christs love of Satans malice and of Gods Justice and it shews us the madness and blindness of the Popish Religion which tellâ— us that some â—â—â— are so light â—enial as that the sprinkling of holy water and ashes will pâ—rge them away compassions as in an Anatomy There was an absolute necessity of Christ's dying for sinners for 1. God's Justice had decreed it 2. His Word had foretold it 3. The Sacrifices in the Law had prefigured it 4. The foulness of mans sin had dâ—served it 5. The Redemption of man called for it 6. The glory of God was greatly exalted by it So 1 Pet. 3. 18. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust To see Christ the just suffer in the stead of the unjust is the wonderment of Angels and the torment of Devils 1 Pet. 4. 1. Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh c. that is in the humane nature for the expâ—ation and taking away of our sins 1 Pet. 2. 21. Because Christ also suffered for us Joh. 10. 11. I lay down my life for the sheep this good Shepherd lays down life for life his own dear life for the life of his sheep Joh. 11. 50. Nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation perish not that is rather than the whole nation should perish Caiaphas took it for granted that either Christ or their Nation must perish and as he foolishly thought that of two evils he designed the least to be chosen that is that Christ should rather perish than their Nation but God so guided his tongue that he unwittingly by the powerful instinct of the Spirit prophesied of the fruit of Christ's death for the reconciliation and salvation of the elect of God Heb. 2. 9. That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or for every creature who all these be the Context sheweth 1. Sons that must be led unto glory ver 10. 2. Christ's Brethren ver 11. 3. Such children as are given by God unto Christ ver 13. In all which Scriptures the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used which most commonly notes substitution the doing or suffering of something by one in the stead and place of others and so 't is all along here to be taken But there is another preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that proves the thing I am upon undeniably Matth. 20. 28. Even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto Matth. 20. 28. but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a Redemptory price a valuable rate for it was the Blood of God wherewith the Church was purchased 1 Tim. 2. 6. Who gave Acts 20. 28. himself a ransom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all the Greek word signifies a counterprice such as we could never have paid but must have remained everlasting prisoners to the wrath and justice of God O sirs Christ did not barely deliver poor captive souls but he delivered them in the way of a ransom which ransom he paid down upon the nail when their ransom was ten thousand talents Matth. 18. 24. and they had not one farthing to lay down Christ stand up in their room and pays the whole ransom Every one knows that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in composition signifies but two things â—ither opposition and contrariety or substitution and â—â—â—autation So that the matter will thus issue 1 Joh. 2. 18. Rom. 1â— 17. Matth. 5. 38. That eiâ—her we must carry it thus That Christ gave himself a ransom against sinners than which nothing can be more absurd and false or else thus That he gave himself a ransom in the room and stead of sinners which is as true as truth it self Certainly no head can invent no heart can conceive nor no tongue can express more clear plain pregnant and apposit words and phrases for the setting forth of Christ's substitution than is to be found in that golden Chapter of Isai 53. In this Chapter as in a holy Armory we
by the morning-dew There is nothing puts a more serious frame into a man's spirit than to know the worth and preciousness of time Time saith one were a good commodity in hell Bernard Blessed Hoâ—p was spare of diet sparer of words sparest of time And Bradford counted that hour lost where in he did not some good by his tongue pen or purse A Heathen could say he lived no day without a line that is he did something remarkable every day Maâ—k Cato was wont to say that there were three things which he abhored 1. To commit secrets to a woman 2. To go by water when he might go by land 3. To spend one day idle Plutarâ—h and the traffick of it most gainful where for one day a man would give ten thousand worlds if he had them One called his friends thieves because they stole time from him and certainly there are no worse thieves than those that rob us of our praying seasons our hearing seasons our mourning seasons c. There was an eminent Minister who would often say that he could eat the flesh off his arm in indignation against himself for his lost hours It was good counsel that an ancient Christian that is now triumphing in glory gave to another who is still alive be either like Christ or Mary The first was always doing good the latter was still a receiving good this is the way to be strong in grace and to be soon ripe for glory Certainly time is infinitely precious in regard of what depends upon it What more necessary than repentance yet that depends upon time Rev. 2. 21. I gave her space to repent of her fornications What more desirable than the favour of God This depends upon time and is therefore called the acceptable time Isa 49. 8. What more excellent than salvation this likewise depends upon time 2 Cor. 6. 4. Now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation Pythagoras saith that time is anima coeli the soul of heaven But to draw to a close what can there be of more worth and weight and moment than Eternity it is the Heaven of Heaven and the very Hell of Hell without which neither would Heaven be so desirable nor Hell so formidable Now this depends upon time Time is the Prologue to Eternity the great weight of Eternity hangs upon the small wire of Time Whether our time here be longer or shorter upon the spending of this depends either the bliss or the bane of body and soul to all Eternity This is our seed-time Eternity is the harvest whatsoever seed we sow whether of sin or grace it cometh up in Eternity whatsoever a man soweth Gal. 6. 7 8. 2. Cor. 9. 6. the same shall he reap This is our market time in which if we be wise Merchants we may make a happy exchange of earth for heaven of a Valley of tears for a Paradise of delights This is our working time I must work the works of him that sent me the night cometh Joh. 9. 4. when no man can work according as the work is we do now such will be our wages in Eternity Though time it self lasts â—ot yet whatsoever is everlasting dependeth upon it and therefore should be carefully improved to the best advantage for our souls and for the making sure of such things as will go with us beyond the grave Shall your Lady live to be an honour to God to be wise 1 Pet. 3. 3 4 5. 1 Tim. 2. 9 10. Eph. 6. 4. Prov. 31. 1 2 3 Gal. 4. 19. 1 Tim. 1. 5 6. Isa 44. 3 4. cap. 59. 21. Psal 112. 1 2. Eph. 1. 3. for Eternity to be a pattern of piety humiliy modesty c. to others to be a joyful mother of many children and to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Shall you both live to see Christ formed up in your Off-spring and to see their souls flourish in grace and holiness and God bestowing himself as a portion upon them Shall you all round be blessed with all spiriual blessings in Heavenly places in Christ and shall you all round be crowned with the highest glory happiness and blessedness in the world to come Shall you all live in the sense of divine love and diâ— in the sense of divine favour Now to the everlasting arms of divine protection and to the constant influences of free rich Gal. 5. 22 23. and sovereign Grace and Mercy he commends you all who is Sir Your much obliged friend and soul's servant Tho. Brooks TO THE READER Christian Reader SOme preachers in our days are like Heraclitus who was called the dark Doctor because he affected dark Heraclitus was a Philosopher of Ephesus he was surnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Obseurus because he affected dark speeches Joh 38. 2. speeches so they affect sublime noions obscure expressions uncouth phrases making plain truths difficult and easie truths hard c. They darken counsel by words without knowledg Men of abstracted conceits and wise speculations are but wise fools like the Lark that soareth up on high peering and peering but at last falleth into the net of the Fowler Such persons commonly are as censorious as they are curious and do Christ and his Church but very very little service in this world The Heathenish Priests had their Mythologies and strange canting expressions of their imaginary unaccessable Deities to amaze and amuze their blind superstitious followers and thereby to hold up their Popish and apish Idolatries in greater Veneration the prudent reader can tell how to make application If thou affectest high strains of wit or larded pompous and high-flown expressions or eloquent trappings or fine new notions or such things that thou mayest rather wonder at than understand I shall not encourage thee to the perusal of this Treatise But First If thou wouldest be furnished with soveraign Antidotes 1. 2 Pet. 3. 16. 1 John 4. 1 2 3. 2 Epâ—st John 7 8. 9 10. 11. against the most dangerous errours that are rampant in these days then seriously peruse this Treatise Secondly if thou wouldest be established strengthened setled and confirmed in the grand points of the Gospel then 2. 1 Pet. 5. 10. seriously peruse this Treatise But 3. Thirdly If thou wouldest know what that faith is 3. John 1. 12. cap. 3. 16. John 5. 24. that gives thee an interest in Christ and in all that fundamental good that comes by Christ then seriously peruse this Treatise But Fourthly If thou wouldest have thy judgment rightly informed 4. 1 Cor. 2. 6 7. Psal 119. 18. in some great truths about which several men of note have been mistaken then seriously peruse this Treatise But Fifthly If thou wouldest know what safe and excellent 5. 2 Cor. 5. 10. Heb. 9. 27. Pleas to make to those ten Scriptures that refer to the general Judgment and to thy particular day of Judgment then seriously peruse this Treatise But Sixthly
If thou wouldest have thy heart brought and kept 6. Psal 34. 18. Isa 57. 15. 2 Chron. 34. 27. in an humble broken bleeding melting tender frame then seriously peruse this Treatise But Seventhly If thou wouldest always come to the Lord's table with such a frame of spirit as Christ may take a delight to meet thee to own thee to bless thee to bid thee welcom Mat. 26. â—6 27 28 Luk. 22. 19 20. 1 Cor. 11. 23. to the 30. and to seal up his love and thy pardon to thee then seriously peruse this Treatise especially that part of it where the dreadful and amazing sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ both in body and soul are at large set forth But Eightly If thou wouldest have a clear sight of the length 8. Eph. 3. 18. Isal 146. 8. and breadth and depth and height of the love of Christ then seriously peruse this Treatise But Ninthly If thou wouldest have thy love to Christ tryed 9. Cant. 1. 7. cap. 8. 5 6 7. raised acted inflamed discovered and augmented c. then seriously peruse this Treatise But Tenthly If thou art a strong man in Christ Jesus and 10. 2 Tim. 2. 1. Hâ—b 5. 14. 1 â—oâ— 2. 6 7. 1 Joh. 2. 14. wouldest have thy head and heart exercised in the great things of God and in the deep things of God and in the mysterious things of God then seriously peruse this Treatise But Eleventhly If thou art but a weak Christian a babe a 11. 1. Cor. 3. 1. Heb. 5. 13. 1 Pet. 2. 2. 1 John 2. 1 12 13. little child a shrub a dwarf in grace holiness and communion with God and in thy spiritual attainments enjoyments and experiences then seriously peruse this Treatise especially the first part of it But Twelfthly If thou wouldest know whether thou art an indulger 12. Job 20. 11 12 13 14. Mica 6. 6 7. Rom. 13. ult James 4. 3. of sin and if thou wouldest be stocked with singular remedies against thy special sins then seriously peruse the former part of this Treatise But Thirteenthly If thou wouldest be rooted grounded 13. 1 Pet. 5. 10. Isa 53. Heb. 10. 10 12 14 Gal. 4. 4 5. Rom. 8. 3 4. 2 Cor. 5. 21. strengthened and settled in those two grand points of the Gospel viz. The active and passive obedience of Christ and be daily refreshed with those pleasant streams with those waters of life that flow from thence then seriously peruse this Treatise But Fourteenthly If thou wouldest be throughly acquainted 14. Isa 53. cap. 63. 2. 1 Pet. 2. 21 22 23 24. John 10. 11 15. 17 16. with the sufferings of Christ in his body and soul with their greatness and grievousness c. And if thou wouldest understand the mighty advantages we have by his sufferings then seriously peruse this Treatise But Fifteenthly If thou wouldest be able strongly to prove against the Socinians and the high Atheists of the day and such as make so great a noise about a light within them that there is a Hell a place of torment provided and prepared Mat. 25. 41. Psal 9 17. Prov. 5. 5. for all wicked and ungodly persons then seriously peruse this Treatise But Sixteenthly If thou wouldest in a Scripture-glass see the torments of hell and know how to avoid them and what divine improvements to make of them and be resolved in several questions concerning hell and hellish torments then seriously peruse this Treatise But Seventeenthly If thou wouldest be able strenuously to 17. 1 John 1. 2 14. 1 Tim. 2. 5. maintain and defend Christ's Eternal Deity and Manhood against all corrupt Teachers and Gain-sayers then seriously peruse this Treatise But Eighteenthly If thou wouldest be rooted and grounded in 18. Jer. 23. 6. Isa 45. 24. cap. 61. 10. 1 Cor. 1. 30. that great Doctrine of the Imputed Righteousness of Christ and be warmed refreshed cheared comforted and delighted with those choice and singular consolations that flow from thence then seriously peruse this Treatise But Nineteenthly If thou wouldest be set at liberty from many 19. Psal 42. 5 11. Psal 55. 5. 2 Cor. 7. 5. fears and doubts and disputes that often arise in thy soul about thy internal and eternal estate then seriously peruse this Treatise But Twentiethly If thou wouldest have all grace to flourish 20. Psal 92. 12 13 14. Rom. 15. 13. Act. 13. 36. 2 Cor. 12. 9 10. Rev. 12. 1. 2 Cor. 2. 14. and abound in thy soul if thou wouldest be eminently serviceable in thy Generation if thou wouldest be ripe for sufferings for death for heaven if thou wouldest be Temptation-proof if thou wouldest be weaned from this world and triumph in Christ Jesus when the world triumphs over thee then seriously peruse this Treatise Reader if thou wouldest make any earnings of thy reading this Treatise then thou must 1. Read and believe what Act. 18. 8. cap. 24. 14. Psal 1. 2. Psal 119. 5 18. Act. 17. 11. Psal 119. 9. John 13. 17. Psal 119. 105 106. thou readest 2. Thou must read and meditate on what thou readest 3. Thou must read and pray over what thou readest 4. Thou must read and try what thou readest by the touchstone of the word 5. Thou must read and apply what thou readest that plaister will never heal that is not applyed c. 6. Thou must read and make conscience of living up to what thou readest and of living out what thou readest this is the way to honour thy God to gain profit by this Treatise to credit Religion to stop foul mouths to strengthen weak hands to better a bad head to mend a bad heart to rectifie a disorderly life and to make sure work for thy soul for heaven for eternity Reader In a fountain sealed and treasures hid there is little profit or comfort no fountain to that which flows for common good no treasures to those that lie open for publick service If thou gettest any good by reading this Treatise give God alone the glory and remember the Authour when thou art in the Mount with God his prayers for thee are that thou mayest be a knowing Christian a sincere Christian a growing Christian a rooted Christian a resolute Christian an untainted Christian an exemplary Christian an humble Christian and then he knows thou wilt be a saved Christian in the day of Christ so he rests who is Thy Cordial Friend and Souls Servant Tho. Brooks The Interest of Reason in Religion together with the Import and Usage of Scripture Metaphors and the Nature of the Union between Christ and Believers modestly discoursed All occasioned by some late Writings particularly a Book of Mr. Sherlock's entituled Knowledg of God by Robert Ferguson Serious and Weighty QUESTIONS CLEARLY And Satisfactorily Answered The first Question or Case is this 1. Quest WHat are the special Remedies Means or Helps against cherishing or keeping up of any special or peculiar sin either in heart or
A gracious Soul looks upon sin with as evil and as envious an eye as Saul look'd on David when the evil spirit was upon him O! saith Saul that I was but once well rid of this David and O saith a gracious Soul that I was but once well rid of this proud heart this hard heart this unbelieving heart this unclean heart this earthly heart this froward heart of mine Tenthly Every Godly man complains of his known sins and mourns over his known sins and would be fain rid of his known sins as might be made evident out of many scores of â—cripture 7 Job 21. 51. Psal 14. Hos 2. Eleventhly Every gracious Soul sets himself mostly resolutely valiantly and habitually against his special sins his constitution sins his most prevalent sins Psal 18. 23. I was also upright before him and I kept my self from mine Iniquity Certainly that which is the special sin of a Godly man is his special burden it is not delighted in but lamented there is no sin which costs him so much sorrow as that to which either the temper of his body or the occasions of his life leads him That sin which he finds his heart most set upon he sets his heart his whole soul most against The Scripture gives much evidence that David though a man after Gods own heart was very apt to fall into the sin of Lying he used many unlawful shifts we read of his often faultring in that kind when he was in straits and hard put to it 1 Sam. 21. 2. 8. 1 Sam. 27. 8 10 c. but it is as clear in Scripture that his heart was set against lying and that it was the grief and daily burden of his Soul Certainly that sin is a mans greatest burden and grief which he prays most to be delivered from O! how earnestly did David pray to be delivered from the sin of lying Psal 119. 29. Keep me from the way of lying And as he prayed earnestly against lying so he as earnestly detested it ver 163. I hate and abhor Lying Though Lying was Davids special sin yet he hated and abhorred it as he did Hell it self And he tells us how he was affected or afflicted rather with that sin whatsoever it was which was his Iniquity Psal 31. 10 my life is spent with grief and my years with sighings my strength faileth and my bones are consumed or Moth-eaten as the Hebrew has it here are deep expressions of a troubled Spirit and why all this Mark he gives you the reason of it in the same verse because of mine Iniquity as if he had said there is a base corruption which so haunts and doggs me that my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing He found it seems his heart running out to some sin or other which yet was so far from being a beloved sin a bosom sin a darling sin that it was the breaking of his heart and the consumption of his bones So Psal 38. 18. I will declare mine Iniquity I will be sorry for my sin There is no sin that a gracious heart is more perfectly set against than against his special sin for by this sin God first has been most dishonored and secondly Christ most crucified and thirdly the Spirit most grieved and fourthly Conscience most wounded and fifthly Satan most advantaged and sixthly Mercies most imbittered and seaventhly Duties most hindred and eighthly Fears and doubts most raised and increased and ninethly Afflictions most multiplied and tenthly Death made most formidable and terrible and therefore he breaks out against this sin with the greatest detestation and abhorrency Ephraims special sin was Idolatry Hos 4. 17. he thought the choicest gold and silver in the world hardly good enough to frame his Idols of But when it was the day of the Lords gracious power upon Ephraim than he thought no place bad enough to cast his choicest Idols into as you may see by comparing of these Scriptures together Hos 14. 8. Isa 2. 20. and chap. 30. 22. True grace will make a man stand stoutly and stedfastly on Gods side and work the heart to take part with him against a mans special sins though they be as right hands or right eyes True grace will lay hands upon a mans special sins and cry out to Heaven Lord Crucifie them Crucifie them down with them down with them even to the ground Lord do justice do speedy justice do signal justice do exemplary justice upon these special sins of mine Lord how down root and branch let the very stumps of this Dagon be broken all in pieces Lord curse this wild â—ig-tree that never more fruit may grow thereon But Twelfthly There is no time wherein a gracious Soul cannot sincerely say with the Apostle in that Hâ—b 13. 18. Pray for us for we trust we have a good Conscience in all things willingly to live honestly gracious hearts affect that which they cannot effect So Acts 24. 16. And herein do I exercise my self to have always a Conscience voyd of offence towards God and towards men in all cases in all places by all means and at all times a sincere Christian labours to have a good Conscience void of offence towards God and towards men Prov. 16. 17. The high-way of the upright is to depart from evil that is it is the ordinary usual constant course of an upright man to depart from evil An honest Traveller may step out of the Kings high-way into a House a Wood a Close but his work his business is to go on in the Kings high-way so the business the work of an upright man is to depart from evil 'T is possible for an upright man to step into a sinful path or to touch upon sinful facts but his main way his principal work and business is to depart from Iniquity as a Bee may light upon a Thistle but her work is to be gathering at flowers or as a Sheep may slip into the dirt but its work is to be grazing upon the Mountains or in the Meadows but Thirteenthly and lastly Jesus Christ is the real Christians only Beloved he is the Saints only darling 2 Can. 3. As the Apple-tree among the Trees of the Wood so is my Beloved among the Sons ver 8. The vâ—yce of my Beloved behold he cometh leaping upon the Mountains and skiping upon the hills ver 9. My Beloved is like a Roe or a young Hart ver 10. My Beloved spake and said unto me Rise up my Love my fair one and come away ver 17. Turn my Beloved and be thou like a Roe or a young Hart upon the Mountains of Bether Can. 4. 16. Let my Beloved come into his Garden and eat his pleasant fruits Seven times Christ is called the Beloved of his Spouse in the fifth of Canticles and twice in the sixth Chapter and four times in the seaventh Chapter and once in the eighth Chapter In this Book of Solomons Song Christ is called the Churches Beloved just twenty
sins were not pardoned until you do repent then we should be left to an uncertainty whiles our sins be pardoned or when they will be pardoned for it may be long ere we repent as you see in David who lay long under the guilt of Murther and Adultery before he repented and you know Solomon lay long under many high sins before he repented c. and it may be more long ere we do or can know that we do truly repent of our sins But Ninethly If all sins were not forgiven at once then justification is not perfect at once but is more and more increased and perfected as more and more sins are pardoned which cannot consist with the true doctrine of justification Certainly as to the state of justification there is a full and perfect remission of all sins considered under the differences of time past present and to come as in the state of Condemnation there is not any one sin pardoned so in the estate of Justification there is not any one sin but is pardoned for the state of Justification is opposite to all Condemnation and Curse and Wrath. But Tenthly All agree that as to Gods eternal decree or purpose of forgiveness all the sins of his people are forgiven God did not intend to forgive some of their sins and not the rest but an universal and full and compleat forgiveness was fixedly purposed and resolved on by God Forgiveness of sins is a gracious act or work of God for Christ sake discharging and absolving believing and repenting persons from the guilt and punishment of all their sins so that God is no longer displeased with them nor will he ever remember them any more nor call them to an account for them nor condemn them for their sins but will look on them and deal with them as if they had never sinned never offended him Thirdly Consider that at the very moment of a Believers dissolution all his sins are perfectly and fully forgiven all their sins are so fully and finally forgiven them that at the very moment of their souls going out from the body there is not one sin of omission or commission nor any aggravation or least circumstance left standing in the book of Gods remembrance and this is the true reason why there shall not be the least mention made of their sins in their tryal at Christs Tribunal because they were all pardoned fully and finally at the hour of their death all debts were then discharged all scores were then crossed so that in the great day when the Books shall be opened and perused there shall not one sin be found but all blotted out and all reckonings made even in the blood of Christ Indeed if God should pardon some sins and not others he would at the same time be a friend and an enemy and we should be at once both happy and miserable which are manifest contradictions besides God doth nothing in vain But it would be in vain for God to pardon some sins but not all for as one leak in a Ship unstopped will sink the Ship and as one sore or one disease not healed nor cured will kill the body so one sin unpardoned will destroy the soul Fourthly God looks not upon those as Sinners whose sins are pardoned Luk. 7. 37. And behold a Woman in the City which was a sinner A notorious sinner a branded sinner mark it is not said behold a Woman which is a sinner but behold a Woman which was a sinner to note that sinners converted and pardoned are no longer reputed sinners Behold a Woman which was a sinner look as a man when he is cleansed from filth is as if he had never been defiled so when a Sinner is pardoned he is in Gods account as if he had never sinned Hence those phrases in Cant. 4. 7. Thou art all fair my love and there is no spot in thee Col. 2. 10. And ye are compleat in him who is the head of all principality and power as though he had said Because in himself he hath the Well-head of Glory and Majesty the which becometh ours in that he is also the head of his Church Col. 1. 21. And you that were somtime alienated and Enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled ver 22. In the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight that is by his Righteousness imputed and imparted Ephe. 5. 27. That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish The word present is taken from the custom of solemnizing a Marriage first the Spouse was woed and then set before her Husband adorned with his Jewels as Rebecca was with Isaacs Rev. 14. 5. And in their mouth was found no guile for they are without fault before the Throne of God 1. They are without fault by imputation 2. By inchoation Hence Job is said to be a perfect man Job 1. And David to be a man after Gods own heart Act. 13. 22. The forgiven party is now looked upon and received with that love and favour as if he had never offended God and as if God had never been offended by him Hos 14. 1 2 4. Isa 54. 7 8 9 10. Jer. 31. 33 34 36 37. Luk. 15. 19 20 21 22 23. Here the sins of the Prodigal are pardoned and his Father receives him with such expressions of love and familiarity as if he had never sinned against him his Father never so much as objects any one of all his high sinnings against him Hence it is that you read of such sweet kind tender loving comfortable expressions of God towards those whose sins he had pardoned Jer. 31. 16. Refrain thy voyce from weeping and thine eyes from tears verse 20. Is Ephraim my dear Son is he a pleasant Child Math. 9. 2. Son be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee The Schools say that the remission of sins is not only oblativa mali but collativa boni a remotion of guilt but a collation of good Look as he that is legally acquitted of Theft or Murder is no more reputed a Thief or Murdeter so here Isa 50. 20. In those days and in that time saith the Lord the Iniquity of Israel shall be sought for and there shall be none and the sins of Judah and they shall not be found for I will pardon them whom I reserve Pardoned sin is in Gods account no sin and the pardoned sinner in Gods account is no sinner as the pardoned debtor is no debtor Where God hath pardoned a man there he never looks upon that man as a siner but as a just man Pardon of sin is an utter abolition of it as it doth reflect upon the person making him guilty and obliging him actually to condemnation in this respect the pardoned man is as free as if he had never sinned Therefore the Believer
Fifthly To say peremptorily he suffered what is it but to say that he principally suffered that he excessively suffered To say he suffered What is it but to say he was the cheif sufferer the arch sufferer and that not only in respect of the manner of his sufferings that he suffered absolutely so as never did any but also in respect of the measure of his sufferings that he suffered excessively beyond what ever any did And thus we may well understand and take those words He suffered That lamentation of the Prophet Lam. 1. 12. is very applicable to Christ Behold and see if there be any sorrows like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fiorce anger Now is it not enough for the Apostle to say that Christ hath suffered but will you yet ask what But pray Friends be satisfied and rather of the two ask what not for what sufferings can you think of that Christ did not suffer Christ suffered in his Birth and he suffered in his Life and he suffered in his Death he suffered in his Body for he was diversly tormented he suffered in his Soul for his Soul was heavy unto death he suffered in his Estate they parted his Rayment and he had not where to rest his head he suffered in his good Name for he was counted a Samaritan a Devillish Sorcerer a Wine-bibber an Enemy to Caesar c. He suffered from Heaven when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me He suffered from the Earth when being hungry the Fig-tree proved fruitless to him He suffered from Hell Satan assaulting and encountering of him with his most black and horrid temptations He began his life meanly and basely and was sharply persecuted He continued his life poorly and distressedly and was cruelly hated He ended his life wofully and miserably and was most grievously tormented with Whips Thorns Nails and above all with the terrors of his Fathers wrath and horrors of hellish agonies Ego sum qui peccavi I am the man that have sinned but these Sheep what have they done said David when he saw the Angel destroying his people 2 Sam. 24. 17. And the same speech may every one of us take up for our selves and apply to Christ and say I have sinned I have done wickedly but this Sheep what hath he done yea much more cause have we than David had to take up this complaint For First David saw them dye whom he knew to be Sinners but we see him dye who we knew knew no sin 2 Cor. 5. 21. But Secondly David saw them dye a quick speedy death we see him dye with lingering torments He was a dying from six to nine Math. 27. 45 46. Now in this three hours darkness he was set upon by all the powers of darkness with utmost might and malice but he foyled and spoiled them all and made an open shew of them as the Roman Conquerors used to do triumphing over them on his Cross as on his Chariot of State Col. 2. 15. attended by his vanquished Enemies with their hands bound behind them Ephe. 4. 8. But Thirdly David saw them dye who by their own confession was worth ten thousand of them we see him dye for us whose worth admitteth no comparison But Fourthly David saw the Lord of glory destroying mortal men and we see mortal men destroying the Lord of glory 1 Cor. 2. 8. O how much more cause have we then to say as David I have sinned I have done wickedly but this Innocent Lamb the Lord Jesus what hath he done what hath he deserved that he should be thus greatly tormented Tully though a great Orator yet when he comes to speak of the death of the Cross he wants words to express it Quid dicam in crucem tollere What shall I say of this death saith he But Thirdly As the sufferings of Christ were very great so the punishments which Christ did suffer for our sins these were in their kinds and parts and degrees and proportion all those punishments which were due unto us by reason of our sins which we our selves should otherwise have suffered Whatsoever we should have suffered as Sinners all that did Christ suffer as our Surety and Mediator always excepting those punishments which could not be endured without a pollution and guilt of sinâ— The chasrisement of our peace was upon him Isa 53. 5. And including the punishments common to the nature of man not the personal arising out of imperfection and defect and distemper Now the punishments due to us for sin were corporal and spiritual And again they were the punishments of loss and of sense and all these did Christ suffer for us which I shall evidence by an induction of particulars First That Christ suffered corporal punishments is most clear in Scripture You read of the Injuries to his Person of the Crown of Throns on his Head of the smiting of his Cheeks of spitting on his Face of the scourging of his Body of the Cross on his Back of the Vinegar in his Mouth of the Nails in his Hands and Feet of the Spear in his Side and of his crucifying and dying on the Cross 1 Pet. 2. 24. Who himself in his own body on the Tree bare our sins 1 Cor. 15. 3. Christ dyed for our sins according to the Scriptures Rev. 1. 5. And washed us from our sins in his own Blood Col. 1. 14. In whom we have Redemption through his Blood even the forgiveness of sins Math. 26. 28. For this is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins Christ suffered derision in every one of his Offices First In his Kingly Office They put a Scepter in his Hand a Crown on his Head and bowed their Knees saying Hail King of the Jews Matth. 27. 29. Secondly In his Priestly Office They put upon him a gorgeous white Robe such as the Priests wore Luk. 23. 11. Thirdly In his Prophetical Office When they had blindfolded him Prophesie say they who it is that smiteth thee Luk. 22. 64. Sometimes they said Thou art a Samaritan and hast a Devil Joh. 8. 48. And sometimes they said He is beside himself why hear ye him Mark 3. 21. And as Christ suffered in every one of his Offices so he suffered in every member of his Body in his Hearing by their reproaches and crying Crucifie him Crucifie him In his sight by their Scoffings and scornful gestures In his Smell in his being in that noysome place Gâ—lgotha Math. 27. 33. In his Tast by his tasting of Vinegar mingled with Gall which they gave him to drink Math. 27. 33. In his Feeling by the Thorns on his Head blows on his Cheeks spittle on his Face the Spear in his side and the Nails in his Hands he suffered in all parts and members of his body from head to foot His Head which deserved a better Crown than the best in
esteemed the most shameful the most dishonourable and infamous of all kinds of death and was usually therefore the punishment of those that had by some notorious wickedness provoked God to pour out his wrath upon the whol Land and so were hanged up to appease his wrath as we may see in the hanging of those Princes that were guilty of committing Numb 25. 4. Whordom with the Daughters of Moab and in the hanging of those Sons of Saul in the days of David when 2 Sam. 21. 6. there was a Famine in the Land because of Sauls perfidious oppressing of the Gibeonites nor was it without cause that this kind of death was both by the Israelites and other Nations esteemed the most shameful and accursed because the very manner of the death did intimate that such men as were thus Executed were such execrable and accursed wretches that they did defile the Earth with treading on it and would pollute the Earth if they should dye upon it and therefore were so trussed up in the Ayre as not fit to live amongst men and that others might look upon them as men made spectacles of Gods Indignation and Curse because of the wickedness they had committed which was not done in other kinds of death And hence it was that the Lord God would have his Son the Lord Christ to suffer this kind of death that even hence it might be the more evident that in his death he bare the Curse due to our sins according to that of the Apostle Christ hath Redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree The Gal. 3. 13. Chaldee translateth For because he sinned before the Lord he is hanged The Tree whereon a man was hanged the Stone wherewith he was stoned the Sword wherewith he was beheaded and the Napkin wherewith he was strangled they were all Buried that there might be no evil memorial of such a one to say This was the Tree Sword Stone Napkin wherewith such a one was Executed This kind of death was so execrable that Constantine made a Law that no Christian should dye upon the Cross he abolished this kind of death out oâ— his Empire When this kind of death was in use among the Jews it was chiefly inflicted upon Slaves that either falsly accused or treacherously conspired their Masters death But on whomsoever it was inflicted this death in all Ages among the Jews hath been branded with a special kind of ignominy and so much the Apostle signifies when he saith He abased himself to the death even to the Phil. 2. 2. death of the Cross I know Moses's Law speaks nothing in particular of Crucifying yet he doth include the same under the general of hanging on a Tree and some conceive that Moses in speaking of that Curse sore-saw what manner of death the Lord Jesus should die and let thus much sussice concerning Christs sufferings on the Cross or concerning his corporal sufferingâ— I shall now in the second place speak concerning Christs spiritual sufferings his sufferings in his Soul which were exceeding high and great Now here I shall endeavour to do two things First To prove that Christ suffered in his Soul and so much the rather because that the Papists say and write That Christ did not truly and properly and immediatly suffer in his Soul but only by way of simpathy and compassion with his body to the Mystical body and that his bare bodily sufferings were sufficient for mans Redemption 2. That the sufferings of Christ in his Soul were exceeding high and great for the first that Christ suffered in his Soul I shall thus demonstrate First Express Scriptures do evidence this Isa â—3 When thou shalt make his Soul an offering for sin he shall see his Seed c. Joh. 12. 27. Now is my Soul troubled and what shall I say Father save me from this hour but for this cause came I unto this hour Math. 26. 37. 38. He began to be sorrowful and very heavy These were but the beginings of sorrow he began c. Sorrow is a thing that drinks up our spirits and he was heavy as seeling an heavy load upon him v. 38. My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death Christ was as full of sorrow as his heart could hold every word is Emphatical My Soul his Psal 6â— 1. 2. sorrow pierced his Heaven-born Soul As the Soul was the first Agent in transgression so it is here the first Patient in affliction The sufferings of his body were but Christs Soul was beleagured or compassed round round with sorrow as that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sounds 26 Math. 28 the body of his sufferings the soul of his sufferings were the sufferings of his Soul which was nòw beset with sorrows and heavy as heart could hold Christ was sorrowsul his Soul was sorrowful his Soul was exceeding sorrowsul his Soul was exceeding sorrowful unto death Christs Soul was in such extremity of sorrow that it made him cry out Father if it be possible let this Cup pass and this was with strong cryings and tears To cry and to cry Heb. 5. 7. with a loud voyce argues great extremity of sufferings Mark 14. 33. Mark saith And he began to be amazod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to be very heavy or we may more fully express it thus according to the original He begun to be gastred with wondersul astonishment and to be satiated filled brim full with heaviness a very sad condition All the sins of the Elect like a huge Army meeting upon Christ made a dreadful on-set on his Soul Luk. 22. 43 44. 'T is said He was in an Agony That 's a conflict in which a poor Creature wrestles with deadly pangs with all his might mustring up all his faculties and force to grapple with them and with-stand them Thus did Christ struggle with the Indignation of the Lord praying once and again with more intense fervency O that this Cup may pass away if it be possible let this Cup pass away while yet an Luk 22 42 43. Angel strengthened his outward man from utter sinking in the conslict Now if this weight that Christ did bare had been laid on the shoulders of all the Angels in Heaven it would have sunk them down to the lowest Hell it would have crackt the Axel-tree of Heaven and Earth It made His blood startle out of his body in congealed cloddered heaps The heat of Gods fiery Indignation made his blood to boil up till it ran over yea Divine wrath affrighted it out of its wonted Channel The Creation of Geâ— 1. the world cost him but a word he spake and the world was made but the Redemption of Souls cost him bloody sweats and Soul-distraction What conflicts what struglings with the wrath of God the powers of darkness what weights what burdens what wrath did he undergoe when his Soul
desertion Christ is not to be looked upon simply as he is in his own person the Son of the Father in whom he is always well pleased but as he standeth in the room of Sinners Surety and Cautioner Math. 3. 17. Mark 1. 11. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Christ spake these words that thereby he might draw the Jews to a serious consideration and a nim adversion of his death and passion which he underwent not for his own but for our sins Pet. Gal. lib. 8. c. 18. pag 343. paying their debt in which respect it concerned Christ to be dealt with as one standing in our stead as one guilty and paying the debt of being forsaken of God which we were bound to suffer fully and for ever if he had not interposed for us There is between Christ and God 1. An eternal Union natural of the person 2. Of the God-head and Man-hood 3. Of Grace and Protection In this last sense he means forsaken according to his feeling Hence he said Not my Father my Father but my God my God which words are not words of complaining but words expressing his grief and sorrow Our Lord Christ was forsaken not only of all Creature comforts but that which was worse than all of his Fathers favour to his present apprehension left forlorne and destitute for a time that we might be received for ever Christ was for a time left and forsaken of God as David who in this particular was a type of Christs suffering cryed out Psal 22. 1. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me why art thou so far from my help He was indeed really forsaken of God God did indeed leave him in respect of his sense and seeling So was Christ truly and really forsaken of God and not in colour or shew as some affirm Athanasius speaking of Gods forsaking of Christ saith All things were done naturally and in truth not in opinion or shew Though God did still R liâ—quâ—t Deâ—s dum nâ—n pâ—â—â— â—aâ—h Tâ—â—uâ—â—n continue a God to David yet in Davids apprehension and feeling he was forsaken of God Though God was still a God to Christ yet as to his feeling he was left of God to wrestle with God and to bear the wrath of God due unto us Look as Christ was scourged that we Ambrose might not be scourged so Christ was forsaken that we might not be forsaken Christ was forsaken for a time that we might not be forsaken for ever Fevardentius absolutely denies that Christ did truly complain upon the Cross that he was forsaken of God Fevarden pag â—73 Con 〈…〉 and therefore he thus objecteth and reasoneth If Christ were truly forsaken of God it would follow that the Hypostatical Union was dissolved and that Christ was personally separated from God for otherwise he could not be forsaken To what he objects we thus reply first If Christ had been totally and eternally forsaken the personal union must have been dissolved but upon this temporal and partial rejection or dereliction there followeth not a personal dissolution or general dereliction But secondly As the Body of Christ being without life was still Hypostatically united to the God-head so was the soul of Christ though for a time without feeling of his favour the dereliction of the one doth no more dissolve the Hypostatical Union than the death of the other If life went from the body and yet the Deity was not separated in the personal consecration but only suspended in operation So the feeling of Gods favour which is the life of the soul might be intermitted in Christ and yet the Divine Union not dissolved Thirdly Augustine doth well shew how this may be August lib de 〈◊〉 divin when he saith Passio Christi dulcis fuit divinitatis somnus That the passion of Christ was the sweet sleep of his Divinity like as then in sleep the soul is not departed though the operation thereof be deferred so in Christs sleep upon the Cross the God-head was not separated though the working power thereof were for a time sequestred Look as the Elect Members of Christ may be forsaken though not totally or finally but ex parte in part and for a time and yet their Election remain firm still the same may be the case of our head that he was ex parte de relictus only in part forsaken and for a time always beloved for his own Innocency but for us and in our person as our pledg and Surety deserted There are two kinds of dereliction or forsaking one is for a time and in part so the Elect may be and so Christ was forsaken upon the Cross another which is total final and general and so neither Christ nor his Members never was nor never shall be forsaken Christ in the deepest anguish of his soul is upheld and sustained by his Faith My God my God whereby he sheweth his singular confidence and trust in God notwithstanding the present sense of his wrath But how can Christ be forsaken of God himself being God Quest for the Father Son and Holy-Ghost are all three but one and the same God Yea How can he be forsaken of God seeing he is the Son of God and if the Lord leave not his Children which hope and trust in him how can he forsake Christ his only begotten Son who depended upon him and his mighty power First By God here we are to understand God the Father Answ 1 the first person of the blessed Trinity according to the vulgar and common rule when God is compared with the Son or Holy-Ghost then the Father is meant by this title God not that the Father is more God than the Son for in dignity all the Three Persons are equal but they are distinguished in order only and thus the Father is the first Person the Son the Second and the Holy-Ghost the Third Secondly Our Saviours complaint that he was forsaken Answ 2 must be understood in regard of his humane Nature and not of his God-head although the God-head and Man-hood were never severed from the first time of his Incarnation but the God-head of Christ and so the God-head of the Father did not shew forth his power in his Man-hood but did as it were lye a sleep for a time that the Man-hood might suffer Thirdly Christ was not indeed utterly forsaken of Answ 3 God in regard of his humane Nature but only as it were forsaken that is Although there were some few minutes and moments in which he received no sensible consolations from the Deity yet that he was not utterly forsaken is most clear from this place where he flees unto the Lord as unto his God My God my God as also from his Resurrection the third day Fourthly Divines say that there are six kinds of dereliction Answ 4 or forsakings 1. By dis-union of person and 2. By loss of grace and 3. By diminution and weaknings of grace and 4. By want of assurance
being without sin could neither by Indignation displease his Father nor by Desperation destroy himself So that if you consider either the adjuncts of Hell or the effects then I say we do remove all them as far off from the holy soul of Christ as Heaven is from Hell or the East from the West or darkness from light c. Thirdly Consider the punishment it self Now concerning this we say That our blessed Saviour as in himself he bare all the sins of the Elect. So he also suffered the whole punishment of body and soul in general that was due unto us for the same which we should have endured if he had not satisfied for it and so consequently we affirm that he felt the anguish of soul and horror of Gods wrath and so in soul entred into the torments of Hell for us sustained them and vanquished them One spaking in honour of Christs passion saith Cum iram Dei Calvin in Math. 2â— 39. sibi propositum videret When he saw the wrath of God set before him presenting himself before Gods tribunal loaden with the sins of the whole world it was necessary for him to fear the deep bottomless pit of death Again Calvin in Math. 27. 46. saith the same Author Cum species Christo objecla est c. Such an object being offered to Christs view as though God being set against him he were appointed to destruction he was with horror affrighted which was able an hundred times to have swallowed up all mortal Creatures but he by the wonderful power of his spirit escaped with Victory What dishonour was it to our Saviour Christ saith another to suffer that which was necessary for Fulk in Act 2. Sect. 11. our Redemption namely that torment of Hell which we had deserved and which the Justice of God required that he should endure for our Redemption Or rather what is more to the honour of Christ then that he vouchsafed to descend into Hell for us and to abide that bitter pain which we had deserved to suffer Eternally and what may rather be called Hell then the anguish of soul which he suffered when he being yet God complained that he was forsaken of God O Sirs this we need not fear to confess that Christ bearing our sins in himself upon the Cross did feel himself during that combat as rejected and forsaken of God and accursed for us and the flames of his Fathers wrath burning within him so that to the honour of Christs Passion we confess that our blessed Redeemer refused no part of our punishment but endured the very pains of Hell so far as they tended not neither to the derogation of his Person deprivation of his Nature destruction of his Office c. Here it may be query'd whether the Lord Jesus Christ underwent the idem the very self-same punishment that we should have undergone or only the tantundem that which did amount and was equivalent thereunto To which I Answer That in different respects both may be affirmed The punishment which Christ indur'd if it be considered in its substance kind or nature so 't was the same with that the Sinner himself should have undergone but if it be considered with respect to certain circumstances adjuncts or accidents which attend that punishment as inflicted upon the Sinner so 't was but equivalent and not the same The punishment due to the Sinner was death the curse of the Law upon the breach of the first Covenant now this Christ underwent For Gal. 3. 13. he was made a Curse for us The adjuncts attending this death were the Eternity of it Desperation going along with it c. These Christ was freed from the dignity of his Person supplying the former the sanctity of his Person securing him against the latter therefore in reference unto these and to some other things already mentioned it was but the tantundem not the idem but suppose there had been nothing of sameness nothing beyond equivalency in what Christ suffered yet that was enough for it was not required that Christ should suffer every kind of Curse which is the effect of sin but in the general accursed death Look as in his fulfilling of the Law for us it was not necessary that he should perform every holy duty that the Law requireth for he could not perform that obedience which Magistrates or Married persons are bound to do It s enough that there was a fulfilling of it in the general for us So here it was not necessary that Jesus Christ should undergo in every respect the same punishment which the offender himself was lyable unto but if he shall undergoe so much as may satisfie the Laws threatnings and vindicate the Law-giver in his Truth Justice and Righteous government that was enough Now that was unquestionably done by Christ But some may object and say How could Christ suffer Obj. 1 the pains of the second death without dis-union of the Godhead from the Man-hood for the God-head could not dye Or what interest had Christs God-head in his humane sufferings to make them both so short and so precious and satisfactory to Divine justice for the sins of so many Sinners especially when we consider that God cannot suffer I Answer It followeth not that because Christ is United Answ 1 into one Person with God that therefore he did not suffer the pains of Hell for by the same reason he should not have suffered in his body for the Union of his Person could have preserved him from sufferings in the one as well as in the other and neither God Angels nor Men compelled him to undertake this difficult and bloody work but his own free and unspeakable love to Man-kind as himself declares Joh. 10. 17. Therefore my Father Isa 53. 12. Psal 40. 7 8. Heb. 10. 9 10. loves me because I lay down my life ver 18. No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self If Christ had been constrained to suffer then both men and Angels might fear and tremble but as one saith well Voluntas Bernard sponte morientis placuit Deo The willingness of him that dyed pleased God who offered himself to be the Redeemer of fallen man But secondly I Answer from 1 Joh. 3. 16. Hereby Answ 2 perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us The person dying was God else his person could have done us no good The Person suffering must be God as well as man but the God-head suffered not As if you shoot off a Cannon in the bright ayr the ayr suffers but the light of it suffers not Actions and passions belong to persons Nothing less then that person who is God-Man could bear the brunt of the day satisfie Divine justice pacifie Divine wrath bring in an everlasting Righteousness and make us happy for ever But Thirdly I answer thus Albeit the passion of the humane Nature could not so far reach the God-head of Christ that it
should in a physical sense suffer which indeed is impossible yet these sufferings did so affect the Person that it may truly be said that God suffered and by his blood bought his people to himself for albeit the Act. 20. 28. 1 Pet. 1. 18 19 20. 1 Cor. 6. 20. cap. 7. 23. proper and formal subject of physical sufferings be only the humane Nature yet the principal subject of sufferings both in a physical and moral sense is Christs Person God and Man from the dignity whereof the worth and excellency of all sorts of sufferings the merit and the satisfactory sufficiency of the price did flow O Sirs you must seriously consider that though Christ as God in his God-head could not suffer in a physical sense yet in a moral sense he might suffer and did suffer For he being in the form of God thought it not robbery Phil. 2. 6 7 8. to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a Man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross O! who can sum up the contradictions the railings the revilings the contempts the despisings and calumnies that Christ met with from Sinners yea from the worst of Sinners But how could so low a debasing of the Son of man or of the humane nature assumed by Christ consist with the Object 2 Majesty of the Person of the Son of God We must distinguish those things in Christ which are Answ proper to either of the two Natures from those things which are ascribed to his Person in respect of either of the Natures or both the Natures for infirmity physical suffering or mortality are proper to the humane Nature The glory of power and grace and mercy and super-excellent Majesty and such like are proper to the Diety but the sufferings of the humane Nature are so far from diminishing the glory of the divine Nature that they do manifest the same and make it appear more clearly and gloriously for by how much the humane Nature was weakned depressed and despised for our sins for our sakes by so much the more the love of Christ God and Man in one person toward man and his mercy and power and grace to man do shine in the eyes of all that judiciously do look upon him Object How could Christ indure Hell-fire without Obj. 3 grievous sins as blasphemy and despair c. I Answer That we may walk safely and without offence Answ these things must be premised First That the sorrows and sufferings of Hell be no otherwise attributed to Christ than as they may stand with the dignity and worthiness of his Person the holiness of his Nature and the performance of the office and work of our Redemption First then for the soul of Christ to suffer in the local place of Hell to remain in the darkness thereof and to be tormented with the material flames there and eternally to be damned was not for the dignity of his Person to whom for his excellency and worthiness both the place manner and time of those torments were dispensed with Secondly Final Rejection and Desperation Blasphemy and the worm of Conscience agreeth not with the holiness of his Nature Who was a Lamb without a spot and therefore we do not we dare not ascribe them to him Heb. 9. 14. 1 Pet. 1. 19. But Thirdly Destruction of body and soul which is the second death could not fall upon Christ for this were to have destroyed the work of our Redemption if he had been subject to destruction But Fourthly and lastly Blasphemy and Despair are no parts of the pains of the damned but the consequents and follow the sense of Gods wrath in a sinful Creature that is overcome by it But Christ had no sin of his own neither was he overcome of wrath and therefore he always Rev. 16. 9. 11. held fast his integrity and innocency Despair is an unavoidable Companion attending the pains of the second death as all Reprobates do experience Desperation is an utter hopelesness of any good and a certain expectation and waiting on the worst that can befall and this is the lot and portion of the damned in Hell The wretched sinner in Hell seeing the sentence passed against him Gods purpose fulfilled never to be reversed the gates of Hell made fast upon him and a great Gulf fixt Luk. 16. 26. betwixt Hell and Heaven which renders his escape impossible He now gives up all and reckons on nothing but uttermost misery Now mark this despair is not an essential part of the second death but only a consequent or at the most an effect occasioned by the sinners view of his irremediless woful condition but this neither did nor could possibly befall the Lord Jesus He was able by the power of his God-head both to suffer and to satisfie and to overcome therefore he expected a good issue and Psal 16. 9 10. Act. 2. 26 27 28 31. knew that the end should be happy and that he should not be ashamed Isa 5. 6 7. c. Though a very shallow stream would easily drown a little Child there being no hope of escape for it unless one or another should step in seasonably to prevent it Yet a man that is grown up may groundedly hope to escape out of a far more deep and dangerous place because by reason of his stature strength and skill he could wade or swim out Surely the wrath of the Almighty manifested in Hell is like the vast Ocean or some broad deep River and therefore when the sinful Sons and Daughters of Adam which are Rom. 5. 6. without strength are hurl'd into the mid'st of it they must needs lye down in their confusion as altogether hopeless of deliverance or escaping but this despair could not seize upon Jesus Christ because although his Father took Isa 63. 1 2 3. him cast him into the Sea of his wrath so that all the billows of it went over him yet being the mighty God with whom nothing is impossible he was very able to pass through that Sea of wrath and sorrow which would have drowned all the world and come safe to shore Object But when did Christ suffer Hellish Torments Obj. 4 they are inflicted after death not usually before it but Christs soul went strait after death into Paradise how else could he say to the penitent Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Now to this Objection I shall give these following Answers First That Christs soul after his Passion upon the Cross did not really and locally descend into the place of the damned may be thus made evident First All the Evangelists and so Luke among the rest 1. Luk. 1. 3. intending to make an exact Narrative of the life and death of Christ hath set down at large his Passion Death
Burial Resurrection and Ascension and besides they make rehearsal of very small circumstances therefore we may safely conclude that they would never have omitted Christs local descent into the place of the damned if there had been any such things besides the great end why they penned this History was That we might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that thus believing Jâ—h 20. 31. we might have life everlasting Now there could not have been a greater matter for the confirmation of our Faith than this that Jesus the Son of Mary who went down to the place of the damned returned thence to live in all happiness and blessedness for ever But Secondly If Christ did go into the place of the damned then he went either in soul or in body or in his Godhead not in his God-head for that could not descend because it is every where and his body was in the grave and as for his soul it went not to Hell but immediatly after his death it went to Paradise that is the third Heaven a place of joy and happiness This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise which words of Christ must be understood Luk. 23. 43. of his Man-hood or Soul and not of his Godhead for they are an answer to a demand and therefore unto it they must be sutable The Thief makes his request Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom vers 42. to which Christ Answers Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise I shall saith Christ this day enter into Paradise and there shalt thou be with me Now there is no entrance but in regard of his Soul or Man-hood for the God-head which is at all times in all Psal 139 7 13. Jer 23. 23 24. places cannot be properly said to entertain into a place But Thirdly When Christ saith To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise He doth intimate as some observe a resemblance which is between the first and second Adam The first Adam quickly sinned against God and was as Gen. 3. quickly cast out of Paradise by God Christ the second Adam having made a perfect and compleat satisfaction Heb 9. 26 28 cap. 10. 14. to the justice of God and the Law of God for mans sin must immediately enter into Paradise Now to say that Christ in Soul descended locally into Hell is to abolish this Analogy between the first and second Adam But Secondly 'T is not impossible that the pains of the second death should be suffered in this life time and place are but circumstances the main substance of the second death is the bearing of Gods fierce wrath and indignation Divine favour shining upon a man in Hell would turn Hell into a Heaven all sober seeing serious Christians will grant that the true though not the full joys of Heaven may be felt and experienced in this life 1 Pet. 1. 8. Whom having not seen ye love in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory or glorious either because this their rejoycing was a tast of their future glory or because it made them glorious in the eyes of men the original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is glorified already a piece of Gods Kingdom and Heavens happiness afore-hand Ah how many precious Saints both living and dying have cryed out O the joy the joy the inexpressible joy that I find in my Soul Ephe. 2 6. He hath made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus What is this else but even while we live by Faith to possess the very joys of Heaven on this side Heaven Now look as the true joys of Heaven may be felt on this side Heaven so the true though not the full pains of Hell may be felt on this side Hell and doubtless Cain Judas Julian Spira and others have found it so That Father hit the mark who Gen. 4. 13. said Judicis in mente tua sedet ibi Deus ad est accusator conscientia tortor timor The Judges Tribunal seat is in Augustin in Psal 57. thy soul God sitteth there as Judge thy Conscience is the Accuser and fear is the tormentor Now if there be in the soul a Judg an Accuser and a Tormentor then certainly there is a true tast of the torments of Hell on this side Hell Thirdly The place Hell is no part of the payment the laying down of the price makes the satisfaction this is all that is spoken and threatned to Adam Thou shalt dye Gen. 2. 1â— Peter saith the Devils are cast down to Hell and kept in chains of darkness 2 Pet. 2. 4 And Paul calls the Devil the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr. Ephe. 2. 2. The Ayr then is the Devils Hell well then seeing this ayr is the Devils present Hell we may safely conclude that Hell may be in this present world and therefore it is neither impossible nor improbable that the Cross was Christs Hell the death and this may be suffered here The wicked go to Hell as their Prison because they can never pay their debts otherwise the debt may as well be paid in the Market as the Goal Now Christ did discharge all his peoples debts in the days of his flesh when he offered up strong crys and tears Heb. 5 7. and not after death Look as a King entring into Prison to loose the Prisoners Chains and to pay their debts is said to have been in Prison so our Lord Jesus Christ by his souls sufferings which is the Hell he entred into hath released us of our pains and chains and paid our debts and in this sense he may be said to have entred into Hell though he never actually entred into the local place of the damned which is properly called Hell for in that place there is neither vertue nor goodness holiness nor happiness and therefore the holiness of Christs person would never suffer him to descend into such a place in the local place of Heaven and Hell It is not possible for any neither to be at once nor yet at sundry times successively for there is no passing from Heaven to Hell or from Hell to Heaven Luk. 16. 26. The place of suffering is but a circumstance in the business Hell the place of the damned is no part of the debt therefore neither is suffering there locally any part of the payment of it no more than a Prison is any part of an earthly debt or of the payment of it The Surety may satisfie the Creditor in the place appointed for payment or in the open Court which being done the Debtor and Surety both are acquitted that they need not go to Prison if either of them go to Prison it is because they do not or cannot pay the debt for all that Justice requires is to satisfie the debt to the which the Prison is meerly extrinsical Even so the Justice of God
thing can enter And mark those words of the Apostle Whore-mongers and Adulterers God will judge If men will not judge them God himself will and give them a portion of misery answerable to their transgression Though the Magistrate be negliligent in punishing them yet God will judg them Somtimes he judges them in this life by pouring forth of his wrath upon their Bodys Souls Consciences Names and Estates but if he don't thus judge them in this life yet he will be sure to judge them in the life to come which Bishop Latimer well understood when he presented to Henry the Eighth for a New-years-gift a New-Testament Act. and Mon. 1594. with a Napkin having this Posie about it Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge yea he has already adjudged them to the Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death Rev. 21. 8. ver Nothing saith one hath so much enriched Hell as beautiful faâ—es The Germans have a Proverb That the pavement of Hell is made of the skulls of shaved Priests and the glorious 〈◊〉 of Gallants their meaning is that these sorts of persons being most given up to fleshly Lusts and pleasures they shall be sure to have the lowest place in Hell †T is a Carachrestical Metaphor they are sure to bring her thither as a man hath that in possession on which with much delight he takes fast hold Rev. 2. 22. The Harlots feet go down to death and her steps take hold on Hellâ— Wantonness brings men to Hell Whoremongers shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone Revel 21. 8. For Fornication and Vncleanness the Wrath of God cometh on the Children of disobedience Col. 3. 5 6. The Adulterer her self goes thither is it not fit that her Companions in sin should be her Companions in misery I will cast her into a bed and them that commit Adultery with her into great tribulation She hastens with Sails and Oars to Hell and draws her Lovers with her all her courses tend towards Hell Strumpets are the foundations and upholders of Hell they are the Devils best Customers O the thousands of men and women that are sent to Hell for Wantonness Hell would be very thin and empty were it not for these other sins are toilsome and troublesome but Wantonness is pleasant and sends men and women merrily to Hell I have read a story that one asking the Devil which were the greatest sins he answered Covetousness and Lust the other asking again whether Perjury and Blasphemy were not greater sins the Devil replyed that in the Schooles of Divinity they were the greater sins but for the increase of his Revenews the Beda in Prov. c. 30. other were the greater Beda therefore stileth Lust Filiamdiaboli the Daughter of the Devil which bringeth forth many Children to him O that all Wantons would take that Counsel of Bernard Ardor gehennae extinguat Bern. Serm. 23. ad soror in te ardorem luxuriae major ardor minorem superet let the fire of Hell extinguish the fire of Lust in thee let the greater burning overcome the lesser ponder upon that Prov. 9. 18. But he knoweth not that the dead are there and that her Guests are in the depths of Hell To wit those that 1 Tim. 5. 6. are spiritually dead and that are in the high way to be cut off either by filthy diseases or by the rage of the jealous Husband or by the Sword of the Magistrate or by some quarrels arising amongst those that are Rivals in the Harlots love and are as sure to be damn'd as if they were in Hell already A Metaphor from a Dungeon He knoweth not that the dead are there and that her guests are in the depths of Hell Aben Ezra will have the original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibi Aben Ezra in hunc vers there to be referred to Hell the meaning of the whole verse to be more plainly thus he knoweth not that her guests being dead are in the depth of Hell But the Hebrew word here used and translated dead is Rephaim which word Rephaim properly signifies Gyants and to that sense is always rendred by the seventy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The meaning of this place seems to be no other but that the strange Woman will bring them who are her Guests to Hell to keep the Apostate Gyants company Those mighty men of renown of the old world whose wickedness Gen. 6. 4. 5. was so great in the Earth that it repented and grieved God that he had made man and to take Vengeance on whom he brought the general Deluge upon the Earth and destroyed both Man and Beast from the face thereof These Gyants are called in Hebrew Nephilim such as being fallen from God fell upon men and by force and violence made others fall before them even as the Beasts of the Field do fall before the roaring Lyons These great oppressors were first drown'd and then damn'd and sent to that accursed place which was appointed for them Now to that place and condition in which they are the Harlot will bring all her wanton Lovers Take one Scripture more Prov. 15. 11. Hell and destruction are before the Destruction is put as aâ— adjunct or Epithite of Hell Lord how much more then the hearts of the Children of men Some think the latter is exegetical of the former some by Sheol understand the Grave by Abaddon Hell There is nothing so deep or secret that can be hid from the eyes of God He knows the souls in Hell and the bodys in the Grave and much more mens thoughts here in this place Prov. 15. 11. The Jews take the word Abaddon which we render destruction for Gehenna that is Elliptically for Beth-Abaddon the house of destruction Though we know not where Hell is nor what is done there though we know not what is become of those that are destroyed nor what they suffer yet God doth and if the secrets of Hell and Devils are known to him then much more the secrets of the hearts of the Children of men The Devil who is the great Executioner of the wrath of God is exprest by this word as Hell is called destruction in the abstract so the Devil is called a destroyer in the concrete And they had a King over them which is the Angel of the bottomless pit or Hell whose name in Rev. 9. 11. the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon both the one and the other the Hebrew and the Greek signifie the same thing a destroyer The Devil who is the Jaylor of Hell is called a destroyer as Hell it self is called destruction O Sirs Hell is destruction they that are once there are lost yea lost for ever The reason why Hell is called destruction is because they that are cast to Hell are undone to all Eternity Rev. 14. 11. If Hell said one were
to be endured a thousand years me-thinks I could bear it but for ever that amazeth me Bellarmin out of Barocius tells us of a learned man De arte bene moâ—iendi who after his death appeared to his Friend complaining that he was adjudged to Hell-torments which saith he were they to last but a thousand thousand years I should think it tollerable but alass they are eternal The fire in Hell is like that stone in Arcadia I have read of which being once kindled could not be quenched There is no Estate on Earth so miserable but a man may be delivered out of it but out of Hell there is no deliverance It is not the prayer no not of a Gregory though never so great what ever they fable that can rescue any that is once become Hells Prisoner I might add other Scriptures out of the old Testament but let these suffice That there is such a place as Hell is prepared for the torment of the bodys souls of wicked impenitent Siners is most clear evident in the New Testament as well as in the Old Amongst the many that might be produced take these for a tast Mat. 5. 22. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his Brother without a cause rashly vainly and unreasonably shall be in danger of the Judgment whosoever shall say to his Brother Raca shall be in danger of the Councel but whosoever shall say thou Fool shall be in danger of Hell-fire Gr to or in the Gehenna of fire In this Scripture our Lord Jesus doth allude to the custom of punishing Offenders used among the Jews now there were three degrees of punishments that were used among the Jews First In every Town where there were a hundred and twenty Inhabitants there was a little Councel of three which judged smaller matters for which whipping or some pecuniary mulct was imposed Secondly There was a Councel consisting of three and twenty seven of these were Judges fourteen Assessors Josephus who were mostly of the Levites and to these were added two supernumeraries which made the twenty-three which the Hebrews generally say was the number that made up this second Councel Now this Councel sate in the Gates of the City and did judge of civil matters having also power of life and death Thirdly There was the great Synedrion or High-Court of Judicatory which consisted of seventy and two six chosen of every Tribe Now this Councel sate in the Court of the Temple and had all matters of greatest moment brought before them as Heresie Idolatry Apostacy Beza Somtimes they convented before them the High-Priest and somtimes false Prophets yea somtimes a whole Tribe as my Reverend Author thinks Now look as there is a gradation of sin so there is a gradation of punishment pointed at in this Scripture for the opening of which consider you have here three degrees of secret murder or of inward heart-murder And 1. The first is Rash anger Now this brings a man in danger of the Judgment By the judgment he means not the judgment of the three who judged of mony-matters but by judgment he means the Counsel of the three and twenty men Now they are called the Judgment because they judged of Murthers and inflicted death c. Now he that shall rashly vainly causelesly unseasonably be angry with his Brother he shall be liable to the punishments that are to be inflicted by the Judges Look what punishments they in the Sanhedrim inflicted upon actual and apparent Murderers the same were they liable to and did deserve at the hands of God who were guilty of this secret kind of Murther viz. Rash Anger From the different degrees of punishments among the Jews Christ would shew the degrees of punishment in another world according to the greatness of mens sins as if he should say Look as among you Jews there are different offences some are judged in your little Counsel of three and others are judged in your Counsel of three and twenty and others in your great Sanhedrim So in the high Court of Heaven some sins as Rash Anger are less punished and others are more sorely punished as when your Rash Anger shall break forth into railings c. In these words Whosoever is angry with his Brother without a cause shall be in danger of Judgment You may see that Christ gives as much to Rash Anger as the Jews did to Murther as if he should have said You Pharisees exceed all measure and bounds in your anger and with a malicious heart you rail upon the most innocent persons upon me and my Disciples but I would have you take heed of Rash Anger for you shall have greater torments in Hell for your Rash anger than those that Murderers suffer by your Counsel of three and twenty But these words he shall be in danger of Judgment do contain the reward and punishment of unlawful anger as if our Saviour had said Rash Anger shall not escape just punishment but shall be arraigned and summoned before Gods Tribunal at the dreadful day of Judgment when the angry man shall not be able to answer one word of a thousand The second kind of secret Murder is to say to our Brother 2. Whether the word Raca be Hebrew or some say as Syriack as others say or Chaldee it matters not for all agree in this that it is a word that notes scorn and contempt c. Lapide Vide Weemes on the judicial Law of Moses and Dr. Field of the Church Michael Maronita Raca that is say some O vain man others say it signifies a brainless Fellow and the learned Tremellius saith it signifies one void of judgment reason and brains Some will have this word Raca come of the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Racos Cloth as though one should call a man a base patch or piece of cloath or beggarly Raca signifies an idle head a light brain for so Rik in the Hebrew to which the Syriack word Racha agreeth both in sound and sense signifieth light or vain Racha is a Syriack word and signifies say some these three things 1. Empty as empty of wealth or poor or as some empty of brains or wit or as others a light head or cock-brain wide and empty of wisdom or understanding 2. It signifies spittle or spit upon to signifie that they esteemed one another no better than the spittle they spat out of their mouths 3. It signifies contemned vile despised abject and in this signification one in his Proeme of the Syriack Grammer thinks it to be taken The Ethiopian expounds Racha thus He that shall say to his Brother be poor by contempt and of torne Garments shall be guilty of the Counsel such a one saith our Saviour Shall be in danger of the Counsel that is contract as great guilt unto himself and is subject to as severe a judgment in the Court of Heaven as any capital crime that is censured in the Sanhedrim or
High-Court of the Jews But The third kind of secret Murder is an open reviling and reproaching of a Brother in these words But whosoever shall say thou Fool shall be in danger of Hell-fire Thou Fool this is a word of greater disgrace than the former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies unsavory or without rellish a Fool here is by a metaphor called insipid Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sote which we call Sot shall be in danger of Hell-fire or to be cast into Gehenna Gehenna comes from the Hebrew word Gettinnom that is the Valley of Hinnom lying near the City of Jerusalem in which Valley in former times the Itolatrous Josh 15. 8. Jews caused their Children to be burned alive between the glowing arms of the brazen Image of Moloch imitating vide 2. King 23 10. Jer. 7. 31. Jer. 32. 35. Jer. 19. 4 5 6. the Abominations of the Heathen And hence the Scripture often makes use of that word to signifie the place of eternal punishment where the damned must abide under the wrath of God for ever There were four kinds of punishments exercised among the Jews First Stranglings 2. The Sword 3. Stoning 4. The Fire Now this last they always judged the worst as Beza affirms upon this very place In these words Shall be in danger of Hell-fire Christ alludes to the great Sanhedrim and the highest degree of punishment that was inflicted by them namely to be burned in the Valley of Hinnom which by a known Metaphor is transferred to Hell it self and the inexpressible torments thereof For as those poor wretches being inclosed in a brazen Idol-heat with fire were miserably tormented in this Valley of Hinnom So the wicked being cast into Hell the Prison of the damn'd shall be eternally tormented in unquenchable fire This Valley of Hinnom by reason of the pollution of it with slaughter blood and stencth of Carkasses did become so execrable that Hell it self did afterwards inherit the same Name and was called Gehenna of this very place And that 1. In respect of the hollowness and depth thereof being a low and deep Valley 2. This Valley of Hinnom was a place of misery in regard of those many slaughters that were committed in it through their barbarous Idolatry So Hell is a place of misery and infelicity wherein there is nothing but sorrow 3. Thirdly By the bitter and lamentable crys of poor Infants in this Valley is shadowed out the crys and lamentable torments of the damned in Hell 4. In this Valley of Hinnom was another fire which was kept continually burning for the consuming of dead Carkasses and filth and the garbidge that came out of the City Now our Saviour by the fire of Gehenna in this Mat. 5. 22. hath reference principally to this fire signifying hereby the perpetuity and everlastingness of Hellish pains To this last judgment of the Sanhedrim viz. Burning Doth Christ appropriate that kind of Murder which is by open reviling of a Brother that he might notifie the heynousness of this sin marke in this Scripture Judgment Councel and Hell fire do but signifie three degrees of the same punishment c. See also Matth. 5. 29 30. And if thy right Eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy Members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell And if thy right hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy Members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell-fire Julian taking these commands literally mockt at Christian Religion as foolish cruel and vain because they require men to maim their members He mockt at Christians because no man did it and he mockt at Christ because no man obeyed him but this Apostate might have seen from the scope that these words were not to be taken literally but figuratively Some of the Antients by the right hand and the right eye do understand Relations Friends or any other dear enjoyments which draws the heart from God Others of them by the right eye and the right hand do understand such darling sins that are as dear to men as their right eyes and right hands That this Hell here spoken of is not meant of the Grave into which the body shall be laid is most evident because those Christians who do pull out their right eyes and cut off their right hands that is mortifie those special sins which are as dear and near to them as the very members of their bodies shall be secured and delivered from this Hell whereas none shall be exempted from the Grave though they are the choycest persons on Earth for grace and holiness Death like the Duke of Parma's Sword knows no difference twixt Robes and Raggs twixt Prince and Peasant All flesh is grass The Isa 40. 6. flesh of Princes Nobles Counsellors Generals c. is grass as well as the flesh of the meanest Beggar that walks the Streets The mortal Sythe saith one is master Hâ—rat l. 1. Oct. 28. of the Royal Scepter it mows down the Lillies of the Crown as well as the Grass of the Field Never was there Oratour so Eloquent nor Monarch so Potent that could either Dâ—aths Motto is Nulli cedo perswade or withstand the stroak of death when it came It is one of Solomons sacred Aphorisms The Rich and the Poor meet together somtimes in the same Bed somtimes Prov. 22. 2. at the same Board and somtimes in the same Grave Death is the common Inne of all Man-kind There is no defence against the stroak of death nor no discharge in that Hâ—b 9. 27. Eccles 8. 8. War Death is that only King against whom there is no rising up If your Houses be fired by good help they Prov. 30. 31. may be quenched if the Sea break out by art and industry it may be repaired If Princes Invade by power and policy they may be repulsed If Devils from Hell shall tempt by assistance from Heaven they may be resisted But Death comes into Royal Pallaces and into the meanest Cottages and there is not a man to be found that can make resistance against this King of terrors and terrour of Kings Deaths Motto is Nemini parco I spare none Thus you see that by Hell in Math. 5. 29 30. You may not you cannot understand the Grave and therefore by it you must understand the place of the damned But if you please you may cast your eye upon another Scripture viz. Math. 10. 28. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell The word rather is not a comparative but an adversative We should not fear man at all when he stands in competition with God So Victorian the Pro-Consul of Carthage being sollicited to Arrianism
by the Embassadours of King Hunnerick answered thus Being assured of God and my Lord Christ I tell you what Victor Uticens l. 3. Wandâ—l perfecat you may tell the King Let him burn me let him drive me to the Beasts let him torment me with all kind of torments I shall never consent to be an Arrian and though the Tyrant afterwards did torture him with very great tortures yet he could never work him over to Arianism The best remedy against the slavish fear of Tyrants is to set that great God up as the object of our fear who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell Mark He doth not say to destroy soul and body simply or absolutely so that they should be no more for that many that love their Lusts and prize the World above a Saviour would be contented withal rather than to run the hazard of a fierce hot persecution but to punish them eternally in Hell where the Worm never dyeth nor the Fire never goeth out Now by Hell in this Math. 10. 28. The Grave cannot be meant because the soul is not destroyed Eccles 12 7. Phil. 1. 3. with the body in the Grave as they both shall be if the person be wicked after the Morning of the Resurrection in Hell From the immortality of the soul we may infer the Eternity of mans future condition the soul being immortal it must be immortally happy or immortally miserable It was Luthers complaint of old We Luther Tim. 4. 33. 4. more fear the Pope with his Purgatory than God with his Hell and we trust more in the Absolution of the Pope from Purgatory than in the true Absolution of God from Hell and is it not so with many this day who bears their heads high in the Land and who look and long for nothing more than to see Room flourishing in the mid'st of us Take one Scripture more viz. 1 Pet. 3. 19 20. By which also he went and Preached unto the Spirits in Prison Spirits that is the Souls departed not Men but Spirits to keep an Analogy to the 18th ver Christ suffered being made dead in the flesh and made alive by the Spirit in which Spirit he had gon and Preached to them that are now Spirits in Prison because they disobeyed when the time was when the Patience of God once waited in the days of Noah Broughton in his Epistle to the Nobility of England August lib. 1. de civ dei cap. 17. which somtimes were disobedient When once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah That is Christ by his Spirit in the Ministry of Noah did Preach to the men of the Old World who are now in Hell In Noahs time they were on Earth but in Peters time they were in Hell Mark Christ did not Preach by his Spirit in his Ministry or any other way to Spirits who were in Prison or in Hell while he Preached to them There are no Sermons in Hell nor any Salvation there The loving kindness of God is abundantly declared on Earth but it shall never be declared in Hell Look as there is nothing felt in Hell but destruction so there is nothing found in Hell of the offers of Salvation One offer of Christ in Hell would turn Hell into a Heaven One of the Ancients hath reported the opinion of some in his time who thought that thou there be destruction in Hell yet not eternal destruction but that Sinners should be punished some a lesser others a longer time and that at last all shall be freed And yet saith he Origen was more merciful in this point than these men for he held that the Devil himself should be saved at last Of this opinion I shall say no more in this place then this one thing which he there said These men will be found to erre by so much the more fouly and against the right words of God so much the more perversly by how much they seem to themselves to judge more mercifully for indeed the justice of God in punishing of Sinners is as much above Isa 55. 7 8 9. the reach of mans thoughts as his mercies in pardoning them are O let not such who have neglected the great Heb. 2. 3. Salvation when they were on Earth ever expect to have an offer of Salvation made to them when they are in Hell consult these Scriptures Math. 25. 30. Math. 13. 41 42. Rev. 9. 2. 〈◊〉 Rev. 14. 19 20. Rev. 20. 1 2 3 7. I must make hast and therefore may not stand upon the opening of these Scriptures having said enough already to prove both out of the Old and New Testament that there is a Hell a place of torment provided and prepared for all wicked and ungodly men But The third Argument to prove that there is a Hell is this The beams of natural light in some of the Heathens have made such impressions on the heart of natural Conscience that several of them have had confused notions of a Hell as well as of a Judgment to come Though the poor blind Heathens were ignorant of Christ and the Gospel and the great work of Redemption c. yet by the light of Nature and reasonings from thence they did attain to the understanding of a Deity who was both just and good as also that the soul was immortal and that both rewards and punishments were prepared for the souls of men after this life according as they were found either vertuous or vicious Profound Bradwardine and Bradw de causa dei l. 1. c 1. c. several others have produced many proofs concerning their apprehensions of this truth What made the Heathen Emperour Adrian when he lay a dying cry out O animula vagula blandula c. O my little wretched wandring soul whether art thou now hasting c. Oh what will become of me live I cannot dye I dare not but some discoveries of Hell of wrath to come Look as these poor Heathens did feign such a place as the Elizean Fields where the Vertuous should spend an Eternity in pleasures so also they did feign a place called Tartarum or Hell where the Vicious should be Eternally tormented Tertullian and after him Chrysostom affirmeth that Poets and Phylosophers and all sorts of men speaking of a future retribution have said that many are punisht in Hell Plato is very plain that whoever are not expiated but prophane shall go into Hell to be tormented for their wickednesses with the greatest most bitter and terrible punishments for ever in that Prison in Hell And Jupiter speaking to the other Gods concerning the Grecians and Trojans saith If any shall so hardy be To aid each part in spight of me Him will I tumble down to Hell In that Infernal place to dwell So Horace speaking concerning Joves Thunder-bolts saith Quo bruta tellus vaga slumina Quo styx invisi horrida Taenari scdes c. With which Earth Seas the Stygian
Lake And Hell with all her furies quake And Trismegistus affirms concerning the souls going out of the body defiled that 't is tost too and fro with eternal punishments nor was Virgil ignorant thereof when he said Dent ocyus omnes Quas mervere patisic stat sententia poenas They all shall pack Sentence once past to their deserved rack The horror of which place he acknowledgeth he could not express Non mihi si centum linguae sint oraque centum Omnia paenarum percurrere nomina possum No heart of man can think no tongue can tell The direful pains ordain'd and felt in Hell It was the common opinion among the poor Heathen that the wicked were held in chains by Pluto so they called Alcoran Mahom c. 14. p. 160. and c. 20 p. 198. the Prince of Devils in chains which cannot be loosed To conclude the very Turks speak of the House of Perdition and affirm that they who have turned the grace of God into impiety shall abide eternally in the fire of Hell and there be eternally tormented I might have spent much more time upon this head but that I don't Judge it expedient considering the persons for whose sakes and satisfaction I have sent this piece into the world But Fourthly The secret checks gripes stings and the amazing horrors and terrors of Conscience that do sometimes Suae quemque ex agitant fuâ—iae Every man is tormented with his own fury that is his Conscience saith the Philosopher Dan. 5. 5 6. astonish affright and even distract Sinful wretches do clearly and abundantly evidence that there is a Hell that there is a place of Torments prepared and appointed for ungodly Sinners Doubtless it was not meerly the dissolution of Nature but the sad consequent that so startled and terrified Belshazzar when he saw the hand-writing on the wall Guilty Man when Conscience is awakned fears an after-reckoning when he shall be paid the wages of his crying sins proportionable to his demerits Wolsius tells you of one John Hufmeister that fell Sick Wolf lect Memor Tom. 2. c. in his Inn as he was Travelling towards Auspurg in Germany and grew to that horror that they were fain to bind him in his Bed with Chains where he cryed out That he was for ever cast off from before the Face of God and should perish for ever he having greatly wounded his Conscience by Sin c. James Abyes who suffered Martyrdom for Christs sake and the Gospels as he was going along to Execution he gave all his Money and his Cloaths away to one and another to his Shirt upon which one of the Sheriffs Attendants scoffingly said That he was a mand man and a Heretick But as soon as the good man was Executed this Wretch was struck Mad and threw away his Cloaths and cryed out That James Abyes was a good man and gone to Heaven but he was a wicked man and was damn'd and thus he continued crying out until his death Dionysius was so troubled with fear and horrour of Conscience Cicero that not daring to trust his best Friends with a Razor he used to sindge his Beard with burning coals Bossus having slain his Father and being afterwards Plut. de sera vindict Banquetting with several Nobles arose from the Table and beat down a Swallows Nest which was in the Chimney saying They Lyed to say that he slew his Father for his guilty Conscience made him think that the Swallows when they chattered proclaimed his Parricide to the world Theodoricus the King having slain Boetius and Symmachus Sigonius de occid Imper. and being afterwards at Dinner began to change Countenance his guilty Conscience so blinding his eyes that he thought the head of a Fish which stood before him to have been the head of his Cozen Symmachus who bit his lip at him and threatned him the horrour whereof did so amaze him that he presently dyed Nero that Monster of Nature having once slain his Mother had never-more any peace within but was astonished with Horrours Fears Visions and Clamours which his guilty Conscience set before him and suggested unto him Imo latens in praedio familiares suspectos habuit Xiphil in Nerone c. vocem humanam horruit ad 〈…〉 latratum galli cantumi rami exvento motum terrâ—batur loqui non ausus ne audiretur He suspected his nearest and dearest Friends and Favourites he trembled at the barking of a Puppy and the crowing of a Cock yea the wagging of a Leaf and neither durst speak unto others nor could endure others to speak to him when he was retired into a private House lest the noise should be heard by some who lay in wait for his life Now were there not a Hell were there not a place of torment where God will certainly inflict unspeakable miseries and intollerable torments upon wicked and ungodly men Why should their Consciences thus amaze torture and torment them Yea the very Heathen had so much light in their natural Consciences as made such a discovery of that place of darkness that some of them have been terrified with their own inventions concerning it and distracted with the very sense of those very torments which their own persons have described As Pigmalion doted on his own picture so were they amazed with their own Comments The very flashes of Hell-fire which Sinners do daily experience in their own Consciences in this world may be an argument sufficient to satisfie them that there is a Hell a place of torment provided for them in another world Fifthly Those matchless easeless and endless torments that God will certainly inflict upon the bodys and souls of all wicked and ungodly men after the Resurrection does sufficiently evidence that there is a Hell that there is a place of torment provided prepared and fitted by God Wherein he will pour forth all the Vials of his Wrath upon wicked and ungodly men Isa 30. 33. For Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared he hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of Brimstone doth kindle it This place that was so famous for Judgment and Vengeance is used to express the torments of Hell the place of the damned Tophet was a place in the Valley of Hinnom it was the place where the Angel of the Lord destroyed the Host of Sennacherib Isa 30. 31 33. King of Assyria and this was the place where the Idolatrous Jews were slain and massacred by the Babylonian Armies when their City was taken and their Carkasses Jer. 7. 31 32 33. and chap. 19. 4 5 6. left for want of room for Burial for meat to the Fowls of Heaven and Beasts of the Field according to the word of the Lord by the Prophet Jeremy And this was the place where the Children of Israel committed that abominable Idolatry in making their Children pass through the fire to
Moloch that is burnt them to the Devil 2 King 23. 10. 2 Chron. 33. 6. for an eternal destruction whereof King Josiah polluted it and made it a place execrable ordaining it to be the 2 King 33. 8. place whither dead Carkasses Garbage and other unclean things should be cast out For consuming whereof to prevent annoyance a continual fire was there burning Now this place being so many ways execrable for what had been done therein especially having been as it were the gate to eternal destruction by so remarkable judgments and Vengeance of God there executed for sin it came to be translated to signifie the place of the damned as the most accursed execrable and abominable place of all places The Spirit of God in Scripture by Metaphors of all sorts of things that are dreadful unto sense sets forth the condition of the Damned and the torments that he has reserved for them in the life to come Hells punishments do infinitely exceed all other punishments no pain so extream as that of the damned Look as there are no joys to the joys of Heaven so there are no pains Psal 116. 3. to the pains of Hell All the Cruelties in the World cannot possibly make up any horror comparable to the horrors of Hell The Brick-kilms of Aegypt the Furnace of Babel are but as the glowing sparkle or as the blaze of a brush-Faggot to this tormenting Tophet that has been prepared of old to punish the bodys and souls of Sinners with hanging zacking burning scourging stoning sawing a sunder fleaing of the skin c. are not to be named in the day wherein the tortures of Hell are spoken of If all the pains sorrows miseries and calamities that have been inflicted upon all the Sons of men since Adam fell in Paradise should meet together and center in one man they would not so much as amount to one of the least of the pains of Hell Who can sum up the diversity of torments that are in Hell in Hell there is 1. Darkness Jude 13. Psal 116. 3. 2 Pet. 2. 4. Jude 6. Psal 116. 3. Mark 9. 44. Rev. 20. 15. Math. 13. 41 42. Math. 25. 41. Math. 24. 51. cap. 25. 30. Math. 13 42 53. Who would give saith Bernard to my eyes a Fountain of teaâ—s that by my weeping here I may prevent weeping and gnashing of teeth hereafter Some devout Personages have caused this Scripture to be writ in letters of gold upon their Chimney pieces B of Betty in France in his Draught of Eternity Hell is a dark Region 2. In Hell there are Sorrows 3. In Hell there are Bonds and Chains 4. In Hell there is pains and pangs 5. In Hell there is the Worm that never dyes 6. In Hell there is a Lake of fire 7. In Hell there is a Furnace of Fire 8. In Hell there is the Devil and his Angels And O how dreadful must it be to be shut up for ever with those roaring Lyons 9. In Hell there is weeping and gnashing of teeth Certainly did men believe the torments of Hell that weeping for extremity of heat and that gnashing of teeth that 's there for extremity of cold they would never offer to fetch Profits or Pleasures out of those flames 10. In Hell there is unquenchable fire Math. 3. 12. He will burn the Chaff with unquenchable fire in Hell there is everlasting burnings Isa 33. 14. The Sinners in Zion are afraid fearfulness hath surprized the Hypocrites who among us shall dwell with Gen. 4. 17. Amos 6. 7. Job 21. 12. Dan. 5. 2â— Amos 6. 4. the devouring fire who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings Wicked men who are now the only jolly Fellows of the time shall one day go from burning to burning from burning in Sin to burning in Hell from burning in flames of Lusts to burning in flames of Torment except there be found true Repentance on their sides and pardoning grace on Gods O Sirs In this devouring fire in these everlasting burnings Cain shall find no Citys to build nor his Posterity shall have no Instruments of Musick to invent there none shall take up the Timbrel or Harp or rejoyce at the sound of the Organ There Belshazar cannot drink Wines in bowls nor eat the Lambs out of the Flock nor the Calves out of the midst of the Stall In everlasting burnings there will be no merry Company to pass time away nor no Dice nor Cards to pass care away nor no Cellers of Wine wherein to drown the Sinners grief By fire in the Scriptures last cited is meant as I conceive all the positive part of the torments of Hell and because they are not only upon the soul but also upon the body as in Heaven there shall be all bodily perfection so there shall be also in Hell all bodily miseries Whatsoever may make a man perfectly miserable shall be in Hell therefore the wrath of God and all the positive effects of this wrath is here meant by fire I have read of Pope Clement the Fifth that when a Nephew of his whom he had loved sensually and sinfully died he sent his Chaplain to a Necromancer to learn Jâ—c Reu. Hist Pontif Rom. 199. how it fared with him in the other world the Conjurer shew'd him the Chaplain lying in a fiery bed in Hell which when it was told the Pope he never joyed more after it but within a short time after dyed also Out of this fiery bed there is no deliverance when a Sinner is in Hell shall another Christ be found to dye for him or will the same Christ be Crucified again Oh no O Sirs the torments of Hell will be exceeding great and terrible such as will make the stoutest Sinners to quake and tremble If the hand-writing upon the Wall Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin made Belshazars countenance Dan. 5 5 6. 25. to change his thoughts to be troubled and his joynts to be loosed and his knees to be dashed one against another O how terrible will the torments of Hell be to the damned the torments of Hell will be universal torments all torments meet together in that place of torment Hell is the center of all punishments of all sorrows of all pains of all wrath and of all vengeance c. One of the Ancients saith that the least punishment in Hell is more grievous than if a Child-bearing woman should continue Bernard in the most violent pangs and throws a thousand years together without the least ease or intermission An Ancient Writer mentioned by Discipulus de tempore Tytius his Vulture though seeding on his Liver is but a Fleâ—-biting to thâ— gnawing Worm that is is Hell â—xion his wheel is a place of rest if compared with those billows of wrath and that wheel of Justice which is in Hell brought over the ungodly The lash of Danaeus his Daughters 〈◊〉 but aâ—port compared to the torture of the damned in Hell goeth much further affirming that if
sufferings of Hell are eternal Certainly Infernal fire is neither tolerable nor terminable Impenitent Sinners in There is no Christian which doth doth not believe the fire of Hell to be everlasting Dr. Jackson on the Creed l. 11. c. 3. Hell shall have end without end death without death night without day mourning without mirth sorrow without solace and bondage without liberty the damned shall live as long in Hell as God Himself shall live in Heaven their imprisonment in that land of darkness in that bottomless pit is not an imprisonment during the Kings pleasure but an imprisonment during the everlasting displeasure of the King of Kings Suppose say some that the whole world were turned to a Mountain of Sand and that a little Wren should come every thousand year and carry away from that heap one grain of Sand what an infinite number of years not to be numbred by all finite beings would be spent and expired before this supposed Mountain could be fetcht away Now if a man should lye in everlasting burnings so long a time and then have an end of his Woe it would administer some ease refreshment and comfort to him but when that immortal Bird shall have carryed away this supposed Mountain a thousand times over and over alass alass sinful man shall be as far from the end of his anguish and torment as ever he was he shall be no neerer a coming out of Hell then he was the very first moment that he entred into Hell If the fire of Hell were terminable it might be tolerable but being endless it must needs be easeless Bellar de arte moâ—iendi l. 2. c. 3. and remediless we may well say of it as one doth O killing Life O immortal death Suppose say others that a man were to endure the torments of Hell as many years and no more as there be Sands on the Sea-shore drops of water in the Sea Stars in Heaven Leavs on Trees Piles of Grass on the ground Hairs on his head yea upon the heads of all the Sons of Adam that ever were or are or shall be in the world from the beginning of it to the end of it yet he would comfort himself with this poor thought Well there will come a day when my misery and torment shall certainly have an end But wo and alass this word Never Never Never will fill the hearts of the Damned with the greatest horror and terror wrath and rage amazement and astonishment Suppose say others that the torments of Hell were to end after a little Bird should have emptyed the Sea and only carry out her bill full once in a thousand years Suppose say others that the whole world from the lowest Earth to the highest Heavens were filled with grains of Sand and once in a thousand years an Angel should fetch away one grain and so continue till the whole heap were spent Suppose say others if one of the Damned in Hell should weep after this manner viz. That he should only let fall one tear in a thousand years and these should be kept together till such time as they should equal the drops of water in the Sea how many millions of Ages would pass before they could make up one River much more a whole and when that were done should he weep again after the same manner till he had filled a second a third and a fourth Sea if then there should be an end of their miseries there would be some hope some comfort that they would end at last but that they shall Never Never Never end This is that which sinks them under the most tormenting terrors and horrors You know that the extremity and eternity of Hellish torments is set forth by the Worm that never dyes and it is observable that Christ at the close of his Sermon makes a threefold repetition of this Worm Mark 9. 44. where their Worm dyeth not and again ver 48. where their Worm dyeth not and their fire goeth not out Certainly those punishments are beyond all conception and expression which our Lord Jesus doth so often inculcate within so small a pace Now if there be such a diversity extremity and eternity of Hellish pains and torments which the great God will certainly inflict upon the bodys and souls of all impenitent persons after the day of Judgment then there must certainly be some Hell some place of torment wherein the wrath of God shall be executed upon wicked and ungodly men But Sixthly The greatest part of wicked and ungodly men escape unpunished in this world the greatest number of men do spend their days in Pride ease pleasures and delights in Lust and Luxury in Voluptuousness Psal 73 3. to the 13. ver Job 21. 12. Amos 5. 6. and Wantonness They take the Timbrel and Harp and rejoyce at the sound of the Organ They chant to the sound of the Vial and invent themselves Instruments of Musick They drink Wine in bowls They lye upon beds of vers 3 Ivory and stretch themselves upon their Couches and eat the Lambs out of the Flock and the Calves out of the midst of the Stall and therefore there will be a time when these shall be punished in another world God doth not punish all here that he may make way Rom 2. 4 5. 2 Pet. 3 9. 15. vers for the displaying of his mercy and goodness his patience and forbearance Nor doth he forbear all here that he may manifest his Justice and Righteousness lest the World should turn Atheist and deny his Providence He spares that he may punish and he punisheth that he may spare God smites some Sinners in the very acting of their sins as he did Korah Dathan and Abiâ—am Num. 16. and others not till they have fill'd up the measure of their sins as you see in the men of the old World Gen. 6. 5 6 7. But the greatest number of sinners God reserves for the Math. 7. 13 great day of his Wrath. There is a sure punishment though not always a present punishment for every Sinner Eccles 8 12 13. Those wicked persons which God suffers to go uncorrected here He reserves to be punished for ever hereafter 2 Thes 1 7 8 9 10. Sinners know your Doom you must either smart for your sins in this world or in the world to come That Ancient hit the mark that said Many sins are punished in this World that the providence of God might be more Augustin Epist 54. apparent and many yea most reserved to be punished in the World to come that we might know that there is yet Judgment behind Sir James Hambleton having been Murdered by the Mr. Knox in his History of Scotland Scotish Kings means he appeared to the King in a Vision with a naked Sword drawn and strikes off both his arms with these words Take this before thou receivest a final payment for all thy impieties and within twenty-four hours two of the Kings Sons
dyed If the Glutton in that Historical parable being in Hell only in part to wit in Luk 16. 22 23 24. soul yet cryed out That he was horribly tormented in that flame what think we shall that torment be when body and soul come to be united for torture It being just with God that as they have been like Simcon and Levi Brethren Gen 49. 5. in Iniquity and have sinned together desperately and impenitently so they should suffer together joyntly eternally The Hebrew Doctors have a pretty Parable to this purpose A man planted an Orchard and going from home was careful to leave such Watch-men as both might keep it from Strangers and not deceive him themselves therefore he appointed one blind but strong of his Limbs and the other seeing but a Cripple these two in their Masters absence conspired together and the Blind took the Lame on his Shoulders and so gathered the fruit their Master returning and finding out this subtlety punished them both together So shall it be with those two sinful Yoke-fellows the soul and the body in the great day They have sinned together and they 2 Cor. 5. 10 11. shall suffer at last together But now in this world the greatest number of Transgressors do commonly escape all sorts of punishments and therefore we may safely conclude that there is another World wherein the Righteous God will revenge upon the bodies and souls of Sinners the high dishonours that have been done to his Name by them But Seventhly In all things natural and supernatural there is an opposition and contrariety There is good and there is evil there is light and darkness joy and sorrow Now as there are two several ways so there are two distinct ends Heaven a place of admirable and inexpressible happiness whether the good Angels convoy the souls of the Saints who have by a holy conversation Luk. 16. 22. glorified God and adorned their Profession And Hell a place of horror and confusion whither the evil Angels do hurry the souls of wicked incorrigible and impenitent wretches when they are once separated from their bodies The Rich man also dyed and was buryed and in ver 22 23. Hell he lifted up his eyes being in torments and these shall go away into everlasting punishment and the Righteous into life Eternal In these words we have described the different Estate of the Wicked and the Righteous Math. 25. 46. after Judgment They shall go away into everlasting punishment but these into life eternal After the sentence is past the Wicked go into everlasting punishment and the Righteous into life eternal Everlasting punishment the end thereof is not known its duration is undetermind Hell is a bottomless pit and therefore shall never be fathomed It is an unquenchable fire and therefore the smoak of their torments doth ascend for ever and Rev. 14. 11. ever Hell is a Prison from whence is no freedom because there is no Ransom to be paid no price will be accepted for one in that Estate And as there is no end of the punishments of Hell into which the wicked must enter so there is no end of the joys of Heaven into which the Saints must enter In thy presence is fulness of joy and at thy right Psal 16. 11. hand there are pleasures for evermore Here is as much said as can be said for quality there is in Heaven joy and pleasures for quantity a fulness a torrent for constancy it is at Gods right hand and for perpetuity it is for evermore The joys of Heaven are without measure mixture or end Thus you see that there are two distinct ends two distinct places to which the wicked and the righteous go And indeed if this were not so then Nero would be as good a man as Paul and Esau as happy a man as Jacob and Cain as blessed a man as Abel Then as Believers say If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of 1 Cor. 15 19. all men most miserable Because none out of Hell ever suffered more if so much as the Saints have done So might the wicked say If in this life only we were miserable Job 21. we were then of all men most happy But 8thly and lastly You know that all the Princes of the World for their greater Grandure and State as they have their Royal Palaces for themselves their Nobles and Attendants so they have their Goals Prisons and dark Dungeons for Rogues and Robbers for Malefactors and Traytors And shall not He who is the King of Kings Rev. 19. 16. Rev. 1 5. Dan. 2. 21. and Lord of Lords He who is the Prince of the Kings of the Earth He who removeth Kings and setteth up Kings shall not He have his Royal Palace a glorious Heaven where He and all his Noble Attendants Angels and Saints shall live for ever Shall not the great King have his Royal and Magnificent Court in that upper World as poor petty Princes have theirs in this lower Ephe. 2. 3. John 14. 1 2 3 4. Luk. 12. 32. Neh. 9. 6 1 King 8. 27. Heb 8. 1. Rev. 3. 21. world Surely he shall as you may see by comparing the Scriptures in the Margent together And shall not the same great King have his Hell his Prison his Dungeon to secure and punish impenitent Sinners in surely yes and doubtless the least glimpse of this Hell of this place of torment would strike the proudest and the stoutest Sinners dead with horror O Sirs they that have seen the flames and heard the roarings of Aetna the flushing of Vosuvius the thundering and burning flakes evaporating from those Marine Rocks have not yet seen no not so much as the very glimmering of Hell A painted fire is a better shadow of these than these can be of Hell-torments and the miseries of the Damned therein Now these 8 Arguments are sufficient to demonstrate that there is a Hell a place of torment to which the wicked shall be sent at last Now certainly Socinians Atheists and all others that are men of corrupt minds and that believe that there is no Hell but what they carry about with them in their own Consciences these are worse than those poor Indians that hold that there are thirteen Hells According Purchass his Pilgrimage 5 Vel. p 491. to the differing demerits of mens sins yea they are worse than Devils for they believe and tremble Jam. 2. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Greek word signifies to Roar as the Sea from thence saith Eustatius it is translated to the hideous clashing of Armour in the battel The original word seemeth to imply an extream fear which causeth not only tremblings but also a roaring shriking out Maâ—k 6. 49. Act. 16. 29. Their hearts ake and quake within them they quiver and shake as men do when their teeth chatter in their heads in extream cold weather The Devils acknowledg four Articles of our Faith Math.
8. 29. And behold they cryed out saying what have we do do with thee Jesus thou Son of God Art thou come hither to torment us before the time 1. They acknowledge God 2. Christ 3. The day of Judgment 4. That they shall be tormented then They who Piscat scorn the day of Judgment are worse than Devils and they who deny the Deity of Christ are worse than Devils The Devils are as it were for a time respited and reprived in respect of full torment and they are suffered as free Prisoners to flutter in the Aair and to course about the Earth till the great day of the Lord which they 2 Pet. 3. tremble to think on and which they that mock at or make light of are worse than Devils The Devils knew that torments were prepared for them and a time when these torments should be fully and fatally inflicted on them and loath they were to suffer before that time Ah Sirs shall not men tremble to deny what the Devils are forced to confess Shall I now make a few short inferences from what has been said and so conclude this head First then O labour to set up God as the great object of your fear this grand Lesson Christ commands us to take out Fear not them which kill the body but art not able Math. 10. 28. to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell yea I say unto you fear him Luk. 12 5. Christ doubles the precept that it might stick with more life and power upon us As one fire so one fear drives out another both the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense may be the objects of a filial fear the fear of a Son of a Saint of a Soul that is Espoused and Married 2 Cor. 11. 2. Hâ—s 2. 19 20. to Christ The fear of God and the fear of Sin will drive out the fear of death and the fear of Hell O Sirs will you not fear that God that hath the Keys of Hell and Death in his own hand that can spake you into Hell at pleasure that can by a word of command bring you to Rev. 1. 18 dwell with a devouring fire yea to dwell with everlasting burnings Ah Friends will you fear a burning Feaver and will you not fear a burning in Hell Will you fear when the House you live in is on fire and when the Bed you lye on Isa 33. 14. is on fire though it may be quenched and will you not fear that fire that is unquenchable when men run through the Streets and cry Fire Fire Fire How do your hearts quake and tremble in you and will you not fear the fire of Hell will you not fear everlasting fire Sir Francis Math. 3. 12. Math. 25. 41. Bacon in his History of Henry the Seventh relates how it was a by-word of the Lord Cordes who was a prophane Popish Atheistical French Lord that he could be content to lye seven years in Hell so he might win Callice from the English but had this Popish Lord lyen but seven minutes under unsupportable torments he would quickly have repented of his mad bargain It was good Counsel that one of the Ancients gave Descendamus in infernum viventes ne descendamus morientes Let us go into Hell while we are alive by a serious meditation and holy consideration that we may not go into it Bernard when we be dead by real miseries God can kill and more than that He can cast into Hell here is both temporal and eternal destruction both Rods and Scorpians He can kill the body and then damn both body soul and cast them into Hell and therefore it becomes every one to set up God as the great object of their fear Yea I say unto you fear him yea I say unto you fear him This redoubling of the speech adds a greater enforcement to the admonition 'T is like the last stroke of the hammer that rivets and drives up all to the head Thus David uses this ingemination Thou even Thou art to be Psal 76. 7. feared and who may stand in thy sight when thou art Angry thou canst look them to Death yea to Hell And 't is worth the observing that this ingemination and reinforcement here annexed is to the affirmitive clause not to the negative Our Saviour saith not Yea I say unto you fear not them but he places the reduplication upon the affirmative precept I say unto you fear him O Sirs temporal judgments are but the smoak of his Anger but in Hell there are the flames of his Anger that fire burns fiercely and there is no quenching of it Excuse me saith the Father thou breakest bonds and imprisonments O Emperour but God's threatnings are much more terrible He threatens Hell-torments and everlasting damnation and certainly where there is the greatest danger there 't is fit that there should be the greatest dread But Secondly Then flee from the Wrath to come 2. Math. 3. 7. Though destruction by the Romans is not here excluded yet the principal thing that he means by Wrath to come iâ— Hell-fire Math. 23. 33. Oh Sirs that you would seriously and frequently dwell upon these short hints 1. Wrath to come is the greatest Wrath 't is the greatest Evil that can befal a Soul Who knows the power of thy Wrath Psal 19. 11. Wrath to come is such Wrath as no man can either avoyd or abide and yet such is most mens stupidity that they will not believe it till they feel it As God is a great God so his Wrath is a great Wrath. I may allude to that which Zebah and Nahum 1. 16. Judg. 8. 21. Zalmunua said to Gideon As the man is so is his strength So may I say as the Lord is so is his Wrath. The wrath of an earthly King is compared to the roaring of Prov. 19. 12. a Lyon Heb. of a young Lyon which being in his prime roars most terribly he roars with such a force that he amazes the Creatures whom he hunts so as that they have no power to fly from him Now if the Wrath of a King be so terrible Oh how dreadful must the Wrath of the King of Kings then be The greater the Rev. 17. 14. evil is the more cause we have to flee from it Now Wrath to come is the greatest evil and therefore the more it concerns us to flee from it But Secondly Wrath to come is Treasured up Wrath. Sinners are still a Treasuring up Wrath against the day of Wrath in Treasuring there is 1. Laying in Rom. 2. 5. 2. Lying hid 3. Bringing out again as there is occasion Whilst wicked men are following their own Lusts they think that they are still adding to their own happiness but alas they do but add Wrath to Wrath they do but heap up Judgment upon Judgment punishment upon punishment Look as men are daily
other death I answer first because this was reckoned the most shameful and dishonourable of all deaths and was usually therefore the punishment of those that had by some notorious wickedness provoked God to pour out his wrath upon the whole land and so were hanged up to appease his wrath as you may see in the hanging of those Princes that were guilty of committing whoredome with the Daughters of Moab And in the hanging of Saul's seven Num. 25. 4. sons in the days of David when there was a Famine 2 Sam. 21. 6. 7. 8 2. in the land because of Saul's perfidious oppressing of the Gibeonites And in Joshuah's hanging of the five Kings of the Amorites But secondly and mainly it was Josh 16. 26. with respect to the Death Christ was to die God would have his Son the Lord Jesus to suffer this kind of death that hence it might be the more evident that in his death he bare the curse due to our sins according to that of the Apostle Gala. 3. 13. Christ was certainly made that curse which he redeemed us from otherwise the Apostle does not reason either soundly or fairly when he tells us we are redeemed from the curse because Christ was made a curse for us he remitteth that curse to us which he received in himself That Father hit the Bela in 3. ad Galat mark who saith Christus supplicium nostrum sine reatu suscepit ut solveret reatum finiret supplicium Christ hath taken our punishment without guilt to loose the guilt and end the punishment We were subject to the curse because we had transgressed the Law Christ was not subject because he had fulfilled it Eam ergo execrationem Oecumenius in 3. ad Galat. suscepit cui obnoxius non erat quum suspensus suit in ligno ut execrationem solveret quae adversùs nos erat He therefore took that curse to the which he was not subject when he hanged upon the tree to loose the curse which was against us Such a curse or execration was Christ made for us as was that from which he redeemed us and that curse from which he redeemed us was no other than the curse of the Law and that curse of the Law included all the punishment which sinners were to bear or suffer for transgression of the Law of which his hanging on the Cross was a sign and symbol and this curse was Christ made for us that is he did bear and suffer it to redeem us from it Christ was verily made a curse for us and did bear both in his body and soul that curse which by reason of the transgression of the Law was due to us And therefore I may well conclude this head with that saying of Hierome Injuria Domini nostra Hierom. in 3. ad Galat. Gloria The Lords injury is our Glory The more we ascribe to Christs suffering the less remaineth of ours the more painfully that he suffered the more fully are we redeemed the greater his sorrow was the greater our solace his dissolution is our consolation his Cross our Comfort his annoy our endless joy his distress in soul our release his calamity our comfort his misery our mercy his adversity our felicity his Hell our Heaven Christ is not only accursed but a curse and this expression is used both for more significancy and usefulness to note out the truth and realness of the thing and also to shew the order and way he took for bringing us back unto that blessedness which we had lost The Law was our righteousness in our innocent condition and so it was our blessedness but James 1. 24. the first Adam falling away from God by his first transgression plunged himself into all unrighteousness and so inwrapped himself in the curse Now Christ the second Adam that he may restore the lost man into an estate of blessedness he becomes that for them which the Law is unto them namely a curse beginning where the Law ends and so going backward to satisfie the demands Rom. 10. 4. of the Law to the uttermost he becomes first a curse for them and then their righteousness and so their blessedness Now Christs becoming a curse for us stands in this that whereas we are all accursed by the sentence of the Law because of sin he now comes in our room and stands under the stroke of that curse which of right belongs to us So that it lies not now any longer on the backs of poor sinners but on him for Heb. 7. 22. them and in their stead therefore he is called a Surety The Surety stands in the room of a Debtor Malefactor or him that is any way obnoxious to the Law such is Adam and all his posterity We are by the doom of the Law evil doâ—rs Transgressors and upon that score we stand indebted to the Justice of God and lie under the stroke of his wrath Now the Lord Jesus seeing us in this condition he steps in and stands between us and the blow yea he takes this wrath and curse off from us unto himself he stands not only or meerly after the manner of a Surety among men in the case of debt For here the Surety indeed enters bond with the principal for the payment of the debt but yet he expects that the debtor should not put him to it but that he should discharge the debt himself he only stands as a good security No Christ Jesus doth not expect that we should pay the debt our selves but he takes it wholly to himself As a Surety for a Murtherer or Traitor or some other notorious Malefactor that hath broken prison and is run away he lies by it body for body state for state and undergoes whatsoever the Malefactor is chargeable withal for satisfying the Law Even so the Lord Jesus Christ stands Surety for us runnagate Malefactors making himself liable to all that curse which belongs to us that he might both answer the Law fully and bring us back again to God As the first Adam stood in the room of all mankind fallen so Christ the second Adam stands in the room of all mankind which is to be restored he sustains the person of all those which do spiritually descend from him and unto whom he bears the relation of a Head Eph. 1. 22. 23. Christ did actually undergo and suffer the wrath of God and the fearful effects thereof in the punishments threatned in the Law As he became a debtor and was so accounted even so he became payment thereof he was made a sacrifice for sin and bare to the â—ull all that ever Divine Justice did or could require even the uttermost extent of the curse of the Law of God he must thus undergo the curse because he had taken upon him our sin The Justice of the most High God reveiled in the Law looks upon the Lord Jesus as a sinner because he hath undertaken for us and seiseth upon him
third branch to this distinction and maketh it more plain by saying That all things that were made are either visible or invisible or mixt visible as the Stars and Fouls and Clouds of Heaven the Fish in the Sea and Beasts upon the Earth Invisible things as the Angels they also were made Then there is a third sort of creatures which are of a mixt nature partly visible in regard of their bodies and partly invisible in regard of their souls and those are Men Eph. 2. 9. who created all things by Jesus Christ Heb. 1. 2. He hath in these last days spoken to us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds This may seem somewhat difficult because he speaketh of worlds whereas we acknowledg but one but this seeming difficulty you may easily get over if you please but to consider the persons to whom he writes which were Hebrews whose custom it was to stile God Rabboni Dominus mundorum the Lord of the worlds They were wont to speak of three worlds The lower world the higher world and the middle world The lower world containeth the Elements Earth and Water and Air and Fire The higher world that containeth the Heaven of the blessed And the middle world that containeth the starry Heaven They now being acquainted with this language and the Apostle writing to them he saith that God by Christ made the worlds those worlds which they were wont to speak so frequently of And whereas one scruple might arise from that expression in the Ephesians God created all things By Jesus Christ and this to the Hebrews By whom he made the worlds As if Christ were only an instrument in the Creation and not the principal efficient Therefore another place in this chapter will clear it which speaketh of Christ as the principal Efficient of all things Heb. 1. compare the 8th and 10th verses together To the son he saith thy throne O God is for ever and ever then Christ is God then And thou Lord vers 10. hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of thy hands Namely thine that is the Son which he spake of before Christ is the principal Efficient of the Creation and in this sence it is said by him were all things made not as by an instrument but as by the chief Efficient 6. The preservation and sustentation of all things Colos 1. 17. by him all things consist They would soon fall asunder had not Christ undertaken to uphold the shattered condition thereof by the word of his power All creatures that are made are preserved by him in being life and motion Heb. 1. 3. He upholdeth all things by the word of his power Both in respect of being excellencies and operations sin had hurled confusion over the world which would have fallen about Adam's ears had not Christ undertaken the shattered condition thereof to uphold it He keeps the world together saith one as the hoops do the barrel Christ bears up all things continuing to the several creatures their being ordering and governing them and this he doth by the word of his power by this word he made the world He spake and it was done And by this word he governeth the world by his own mighty word the word of his power both these are divine actions and being ascribed unto Christ evidence him to be no less than God Now from what has been said we may thus argue He to whom those actions are ascribed which are proper to the most high God he is the most high God but such actions or works are ascribed to Christ ergo he is the most high God But Sixthly Christ's eternal Deity may be demonstrated from that divine honour and worship that is due to him and by Angels and Saints given unto him The Apostle sheweth Gal. 4. 8. That religious worship ought to be performed to none but to him that is God by nature and that they are ignorant of the true God who religiously worship them that are no Gods by nature and therefore This is a clear full evidence that Jesus Christ is and must be more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mere mâ—n or yet a divine man as Doctor Lusâ—ing â—n stiles him in Heb. 7. 22. vers if Christ were not God by nature and consubstantial with the father we ought not to perform religious worship to him Divine worship is due to the second person of this coessential Trinity to Jesus Christ our Lord and God There is but one immediate formal proper adequate and fundamental reason of divine worship or adorability as the schools speak and that is the soveraign supreme singular majesty independent and infinite excellency of the eternal Godhead for by divine worship we do acknowledge and declare the infinite majesty truth wisdom goodness and glory of our blessed God we do not esteem any thing worthy of divine honour and worship which hath but a finite and created glory because divine honour is proper and peculiar to the only true God who will not give his glory to any other who is not God God alone is the adequate object of divine faith hope love and worship because these graces are all exercised and this worship performed in acknowledgment of his infinite perfection and independent excellency and therefore no such worship can be due to any creature or thing below God There is not one kind of divine honour due to the father and another to the son nor one degree of honour due to the father and another to the son for there can be no degrees imaginable in one and the same excellency which is single because infinite and what is infinite doth excel and transcend all degrees and bounds And if there be no degrees in the ground and adequate reason of divine worship there can be no reason or ground of a difference of degrees in the worship it self The father and the son are one one in power excellency nature Jâ—hn 10. 30. one God and therefore to be honoured with the same worship That all men should honour the son even as John 5. 23. they honour the father every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ who is man is God also and therefore equal Pâ—il 2. 6 11 12. to his father and it can be no robbery no derogation to the father's honour for us to give equal honour to him and his coequal son who subsists in the form of God in the nature of God Thus you see the divine nature the infinite excellency of Jesus Christ is an undeniable ground of this coequal honour and therefore the worship due to Christ as God the same God with his father is the very same worship both for kind and degree which is due to the father But for the further and clearer opening of this consider First that all inward worship is due to Christ as 1. Believing on him Faith is a worship which belongs only to God
Isa 53. 7. 1 Pet. 2. 24. him vers 5. 6. as by the Law of sacrificing of old the sinner was to lay his hands upon the head of the beast Levit. 8. 14. 18. 22. v. confessing his sins and then the beast was slain and offered for expiation thus having the man's sins as it were taken and put upon it and hereby the sinner is made righteous The sinner could never be pardoned nor the guilt of sin removed but by Christ's making his soul an offering for sin what did Christ in special recommend to God when he was breathing out his last gasp but his soul Luk. 23. 46. When Jesus had cried out with a loud voice he said father into thy hands I commend my spirit and having said thus he gave up the Ghost that is to thy safe custody and blessed tuition I commend my soul as a special treasure or Jewel most charily and tenderly to be preserved and kept Luke 2. 52. He increased in wisdom and stature here 's stature for his body and wisdom for his soul his growth in that speaks the truth of the former and his growth in this the truth of the latter his body properly could not grow in wisdom nor his soul in stature therefore he must have both There are two essential parts which make up one of his natures his Manhood viz. soul and body but both of these two of old have been denyed Marcion divests Christ of a body and Apollinaris of a soul and the Arrians held that Christ had no soul but that the Deity was to him instead of a soul and supplyed the office thereof that what the soul is to us and doth in our bodies all that the divine nature was to Christ and did in his body and are there not some among us that make a great noise about a light in them that dash upon the same rock but the choice Scriptures last cited may serve sufficiently to confute all such brain-sick men But Secondly as Christ had a true humane and reasonable soul so Christ had a perfect entire compleat body and every thing which is proper to a body for instance 1. he had blood Heb. 2. 14. He also took part of the same that is of flesh and blood Christ had in him the blood of a man shedding of blood there must be for without it Heb. 9. 22. there is no remission of sin the blood of bruit creatures Heb. 10. 4 5 10. v. could not wash away the blots of reasonable creatures wherefore Christ took our nature that he might have our blood to shed for our sins There is an Emphasis put upon Christ as man in the great business of man's salvation The Man Christ Jesus the remedy carrying in it a suitable 1 Tim. 2. 5. ness to the Malady the sufferings of a man to expiate the sin of man 2. He had bones as well as flesh Luk. 24. 39. A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have 3. Christ had in him the bowels of a man Phil. 2. 8. which bowels he fully expressed when he was on earth Mat. 12. 18 19 20. nay he retaineth those bowels now he is in heaven in glory he hath a fellow feeling of his people's miseries Acts 9. 4. Saul Saul why persecutest thou me see Mat. 25. 35. to the end of that chapter though Christ in his glorified state be freed from that state of frailty passibility Mortality yet he still retains his wonted pity 4. He had in him the familiarity of a man how familiarly did Christ converse with all sorts of persons in this world all the Evangelists do sufficiently testifie Man is a sociable and familiar creature Christ became man Heb. 2. 17. that he might be a merciful High Priest Not that his becoming man made him more merciful as though the mercies of a man were more than the mercies of God but because by this means mercy is conveyed more suitably and familiarly to man But Fourthly and lastly our Lord Jesus Christ took our infirmities upon him when Christ was in this world he submitted to the common accidents adjuncts infirmities miseries calamities which are incident to humane nature For the opening of this remember there are three sorts of infirmities 1. There are sinful infirmities Jam. 5. 7. Psal 77. 10. the best of men are but men at the best witness Abraham's unbelief David's security Job's cursing Gen. 20. 2. Psal 30. 6. 7. Job 3. Jen. 4. Jonas his passion Thomas his unbelief Peter's lying c. Now these infirmities Jesus Christ took not upon him for though he was made like unto us in all things yet without sin Heb. 4. 15. 2. There are personal infirmities which from some particular causes befall this or that person as Leprosie blindness dumbness Palsie Dropsie Epilepsie Stone Gout Sickness Christ was never sick sickness arises from the unfit or unequal temperature of the humours or from intemperance of labour study c. but none of these were in Christ he had no sin and therefore no sickness Christ took not the passions or infirmities which were proper to this or that man 3. There are natural infirmities which belong to all Mankind since the fall as hunger thirst wearisomness sorrowfulness sweating bleeding wounds death burial now these natural infirmities that are common to the whole nature these Jesus Christ took upon him as all the Evangelists do abundantly testifie our dear Lord Jesus he lay so many weeks and months in the Virgin 's womb he received nourishment and growth in the ordinary way he was brought forth and bred up just as common infants are he had his life sustained by common food as ours is he was poor afflicted reproached persecuted tempted deserted falsely accused c. he lived an afflicted life and died an accursed death his whole life from the cradle to the cross was made up of nothing but sorrows and sufferings and thus you see that Jesus Christ did put himself under those infirmities which properly belong to the common nature of man though he did not take upon him the particular infirmities of individuums Now what do all these things speak out but the certainty and reality of Christ's Manhood Que. But why must Christ partake of both natures was it absolutely necessary that he should so do An. Yea it was absolutely necessary that Christ should partake of both natures and that both in respect of God and in respect of us First in respect of us and that First because man had sinned and therefore man must 1. 1 Cor. 15. 21. be punished by man came death therefore by man must come the resurrection of the dead man was the offender therefore man must be the satisfier man had been the sinner and therefore man must be the sufferer it is but justice to punish sin in that nature in which it had been committed by man we fell from God and by man we must be brought back to God by the first
Adam we were ruined by the second Adam we must be repaired The Rom. 5. 12. humane nature was to be redeemed therefore it was necessary that the humane nature should be assumed The Law was given to man and the Law was broken by man and therefore it was necessary that the Law should be fulfilled by man But Secondly that by this means the justice of God might be satisfied in the same nature which had sinned which was the nature of man Angels could not satisfie divine justice because they had no bodies to suffer the brutish sensible creatures could not satisfie the justice of God because they had no souls to suffer the sensible creatures could not satisfie divine justice because they had no sense to suffer therefore man having body soul and sense must do it for he had sinned in all and he could suffer in all Secondly there are reasons both in respect of God and in respect of our selves why Jesus Christ should be God and God-man also and they are these five First that he might be a meet Mediator between God and man Christ's office as Mediator was to deal with God for man and to deal for God with man Now that he might be sit for both these transactions for both parts of this office he must partake of both natures That he might effectually deal with God for man he must be God If a man sin against the Lord who shall entreat for him saith Eli to his sons 1 Sam. 2. 25. And that he might deal for God with man he must be man He must be God that he may be fit to transact treat and negotiate with God and he must be man that he may be fit to transact treat and negotiate with man when God spake unto Israel at Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law the people were not able to abide that voice or presence and therefore they desired an Internuncius a man like themselves who might be as a Mediator to go betwixt God and them Exod. 20. 18 19. Now upon his very ground Exod. 20. 18. besides many others that might be mentioned it was very requisite that Jesus Christ should be both God and man Heb. 12. 18. that he might be a meet Mediator to deal betwixt God and man Jesus Christ was the fittest person either in that upper or in this lower world to mediate between God and us There was none fit to umpeire the business between God and man but he that was God-man Job hit the nail when he said Neither is there any days-man betwixt Job 9. 33. us that might lay his hand upon us both There was a double use of the days-man and his laying his hand upon them 1. To keep the dissening parties asunder lest they should fall out and strike one another 2. To keep them together and compose all differences that they might not depart from each other the Application is easie man is not fit to mediate because man is the person offending Angels are not fit to mediate for they cannot satisfie divine Justice nor pacifie divine wrath nor procure our pardon nor make our peace nor bring in an everlasting righteousness upon us God the father was not fit for this work for he was the person offended and he was as much too high to deal with man as man was too low to deal with God The holy Ghost was not fit for this work for 't is his work to apply this Mediation and to clear up the believers interest in this Mediation So then there is no other person fit for this office but Jesus Christ who was a middle person 'twixt both that he might deal with both Christ could never have been fit to be the Mediator in respect of his office if he had not first been a middle person in respect of his natures for saith the Apostle Gal. 3. 20. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one but God is one A mediator is not a mediator of one that is of one party but is always of two differing parties to unite them not of one that is 1. Not of one person because mediation implies more persons than one it necessarily supposes different parties betwixt whom he doth mediate Christ to speak after the manner of men lays his hand upon God the father and saith O blessed father wilt thou be at peace with these poor sinners wil◠thou pardon them and wilt thou lift up the light of thy countenance upon them if thou wilt then I will undertake to satisfie thy justice and to pacifie thy wrath and to fulfil thy royal Law and to make good all the wrong they have done against thee And then he layeth his hand upon the poor sinner and saith sinner art thou willing to be changed and renewed art thou willing to come under the bond of the covenant art thou willing to give up thy heart and life to the guidance and government of the spirit then be not discouraged for thou shalt certainly be justified and saved 2. Not of one nature the Mediator must necessarily have more natures than one he must have the divine and humane nature united in his single person or else he could never suffer what he was to suffer nor never satisfie what he was to satisfie nor never bring poor sinners into a state of reconciliation 2 Cor 5. 19 20. with God and 't is farther observable that the Text last cited saith God is one viz. as he is essentially considered and therefore as so he cannot be the Mediator but Christ as personally considered he is not of one that is not of one nature for he is God and man too and therefore he is the only person that is fitted and qualified to be the Mediator and 't is observable that when Christ is spoken of as Mediator his Manhood is brought in that nature being so necessary to that office 1 Tim. 2. 5. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus Jesus Christ was God and man as man he ought to satisfie but could not as God he could satisfie but ought not but consider him as God and man and so he both could satisfie and ought to satisfie and accordingly he did satisfie according to what was prophecied of him Dan. 9. 24. He did make reconciliation for iniquity and brought in everlasting righteousness He did not begin to do something and then faint and leave his work imperfect but he finished it and that to the glory of his father John 17. 4. I have glorified thee on the earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do And 't is good to observe the singularity and oneness of the person mediating not many not a few not two but one Mediator between God and man there was none with him in his difficult work of Mediatorship but he carried it on alone though there are many Mediators among men yet there is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
one only Mediator betwixt Isa 63. 3. I confess the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is given to Moses in that Gal. 3. 19. but Moses was but a typical Mediator and you never find that Moses is called a Mediator in a way of redemption or satisfaction or paying a Ransom for so dear Jesus is the only Mediator so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 us used in that 1 Tim. 2. 5. Heb. 8. 6 7. 8. Heb. 9. 14 15. Heb. 12. 22 23 24. God and men and 't is as high folly and madness to make more Mediators than one as 't is to make more Gods than one There is one God and one mediator betwixt God and men for look as one husband satisfies the wife as one father satisfies the child as one Lord satisfies the servant and on sun satisfies the world so one Mediator is enough to satisfie all the world that desire a Mediator or that have an interest in a Mediator The true sence and import of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediator is a middle person or one that interposes betwixt two parties at variance to make peace betwixt them Though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediator be rendred variously sometimes an Umpiere or Arbitrator sometimes a messenger betwixt two persons sometimes an interpretor imparting the mind of one to another sometimes a reconciler or peace-maker yet this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth most properly signifie a Mediator or a midler because Jesus Christ is both a middle person and a middle officer betwixt God and man to reconcile and reunite God and man This of all others is the most proper and genuine signification of this name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ is the middle that is the second person in the Trinity betwixt the Father and the Holy Ghost He is the only middle person betwixt God and man being in one person God-man and his being a middle person fits and capacitates him to stand in the midst between God and us And as he is the middle person so he is the middle officer intervening or interposing or coming between God and man by office satisfying God's justice to the full for man's sins by his sufferings and death and maintaining our constant peace in heaven by his meritorious intercession Hence as one observes Jesus Christ is Gerhard a true Mediator is still found in medio in the middle He was born as some think from Wisd 18. 14. about the middle of the night he suffered in the middle of the world that is at Jerusalem seated in the middle of the Heb. 11. 12. earth he was crucified in the midst between the two John 19. 18. thieves he died in the air on the cross in the midst between heaven and earth he stood after his Resurrection John 20. 19. in the midst of his Disciples and he has promised that where two or three are gathered together in his name he Mat. 18. 20. will be in the midst of them and he walks in the midst Rev. 2. 1. of the seven golden candle-sticks that is the Churches And he as the heart in the midst of the body distributes Ephe. 4. 15 16. spirits and vertue to all the parts of his mystical body Thus Jesus Christ is the Mediator betwixt God and man middle in person and middle in office And thus you have seen at large what a meet Mediator Jesus Christ is considered in both his natures considered as God-man But Secondly If Jesus Christ be not God then there is no spiritual nor eternal good to be expected or enjoyed If Christ be not God our preaching is in vain and your hearing is in vain and your praying is in vain and your believing is in vain and your hope of pardon and forgivness by Jesus Christ is in vain for none can forgive sins but a God Mark 2. 7. John 3. 16. John 10. 28. 2 Tim. 4. 8. James 1. 12. 1 Pet. 5. 4. v. Rev. 3. 21. Rev. 2. 11. Christ hath promised that believers shall never perish he hath promised them eternal life and that he will raise them up at the last day he has promised a Crown of Righteousness he has promised a Crown of Life he has promised a Crown of glory he has promised that conquering Christians shall sit down with him in his throne as he is set down with his father in his throne He has promised that they shall not be hurt of the second death And a thousand other good things Jesus Christ has promised but if Jesus Christ be not God how shall these promises be made good If a man that hath never a foot of Land in England nor yet worth one groat in all the world shall make his will and bequeath to thee such and such houses and Lands and Lordships in such a County or such a County and shall by Will give thee so much in Plate and so much in Jewels and so much in ready money whereas he is not upon any account worth one penny in all the world certainly such Legacies will never make a man the richer nor the happier None of those great and precious promises which are hinted at above will signifie any thing if Christ be not God for they can neither refresh us nor chear us in this world nor make us happy in that other world If Christ be not God how can he purchase our pardon procure our peace pacifie divine wrath and satisfie infinite justice A man may satisfie the justice of man but who but a God can satisfie the justice of God will God accept of thousands of Micah 6. 7. Rams or ten thousands of Rivers of Oyl or the first-born of thy body for the sin of thy soul Oh? No he will not he cannot that Scripture is worthy to be written in letters of Gold Acts 20. 28. Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the flock over the which the holy Ghost hath made you over-seers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood This must needs relate to Christ and Christ is here called God and Christ's blood is called the blood of God and without a peradventure Christ could never have gone through with the purchase of the Church if the blood he shed had not been the blood of God This blood is called God's own blood because the son of God being and remaining true God assumed humane flesh and blood in unity of person by this phrase that which appertaineth to the humanity of Christ is attributed to his Divinity because of the union of the two natures in one person and communion of properties The Church is to Christ a bloody Spouse an Acheldama or field of blood for the could not be redeemed with silver and gold but with 1 Pet. 1. 18 19. the blood of God so it is called by a communication of properties to set forth the incomparable value and vertue thereof But Thirdly if
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he assumed apprehended caught laid hold on the seed of Abraham as the Angel did on Lot as Christ Gen. 19. 16. did on Peter or as men do upon a thing they are glad Mat. 14. 31. they have got and are loath to lâ—t go again Oh sirs it is a main ground and pillar of our comfort and confidence that Jesus Christ took our flesh for if he had not took our flesh upon him we could never have been saved by him Christ took not a part but the whole nature of man that is a true humane soul and body together with all the essential properties and faculties of both that in man's nature he might die and suffer the wrath of God and whole curse due to our sins which otherwise Heb. 2. 14. being God only he could never have done and that he might satisfie divine justice for sin in the same nature that had sinned and indeed it was most meet and fit that the Mediator who was to reconcile God and man should partake in the natures of both parties to be reconciled Oh what matchless love was this that made our dear Lord Jesus to lay by for a time all that glory that he John 17. 5. had with the father before the world was and to assume our nature and to be found in fashion as a man to see Phil. 2. 8. the great God in the form of a servant or hanging upon the Cross how wonderful and astonishing was it to all that believed him to be God-man God manifested in 1 Tim. 3. 16. 1 Pet. 1. 11. our flesh is an amazing mystery a mystery fit for the speculation of Angels that the eternal God should become 1 Tim. 2. 5. the man Christ Jesus that a most glorious Creator should Dan. 7. 9 13 22. Mat. 2. 11. become a poor creature that the Ancient of days should become an Infant of days that the most high should stoop so low as to dwell in a body of flesh is a glorious mystery that transcends all humane understanding It would have seemed a high blasphemy for us to have thought of such a thing or to have desired such a thing or to have spoken of such a thing if God in his everlasting Gospel had not reveiled such a thing to us Among the Romish Priests Friars Jesuits they count it a great demonstration of love an high honour that is done to any of their orders when any Noble man or great Prince who is weary of the world and the world weary of him comes among them and takes any of their habits upon him and lives and dies in their habits Oh what a demonstration of Christ's love is it and what a mighty honour hath Jesus Christ put upon mankind in that he took our nature upon him in that he lived in our nature and died in our nature and rose in our nature and ascended in our nature and now sits at his fathers right hand in Acts 1. 10 11. our nature Though Jacob's love to Rachel and Jonathan's love to David and David's love to Absolom and the primitive Christians love to one another was strong very strong yet Christ's love in taking our humane nature upon him does infinitely transcend all their loves I think Bern. sup cant ser 20. saith one speaking of Christ he cannot despise me who is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh â— for if he neglect me as a Brother yet he will love me as a husband that 's my comfort Oh my Saviour saith one didst thou Hierom. die for love of me a love more dolorous than death but to me a death more lovely than love it self I cannot live love and be longer from thee I read in Josephus that when J. s Bel. Jud. l. 1. c. 8. Herod Antipater was accused to Julius Caesar as no good friend of his he made no other Apology but stripping himself stark naked shewed Caesar his wounds and said let me hold my tongue these wounds will speak for me how I have loved Caesar ah my friends Christ's wounds in our nature speak out the admirable love of Jesus Christ to us and Oh how should this love of his draw out our love to Christ inflame our love to that Jesus who is God-man blessed for ever Mr. Welch a Suffolk-minister weeping at table being asked the reason said it was because he could love Christ no more ah what reason have we to weep and weep again and again that we can love that Jesus no more who hath shewed such unparalelled love to us in assuming of the humane nature Et ipsam animam odio haberem si non diligeret meum Jesum I must hate my very soul if it should not love my Jesus saith Bernard ah what cause have we given to hate our selves because we love that dear Jesus no more who is very God and very man But Thirdly Is Jesus Christ God-man is he very God and 3. consult hese Scriptures Isa 61. 1. Dan. 9. 24. 1 John 3. 8. Luk. 1. 74. 75. Tit. 2. 14. 1 Pet. 1. 4. very man then we may very safely and roundly assert that the work of Redemption was a very great work the Redemption of souls is a mighty work a costly work to redeem poor souls from sin from wrath from the power of Satan from the curse from hell from the condemnation was a mighty work wherefore was Christ born wherefore did he live sweat groan bleed die rise ascend was it not to bring deliverance to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound was it not to make an end of sin to finish transgression and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to destroy the works of the Devil and to abolish death and to bring life and immortality to light and to redeem us from all iniquity and to purifie us to himself and to make us a peculiar peple zealous of good works Certainly the work of Redemption was no ordinary or common thing God-man must engage in it or poor fallen man is undone for ever The greater the person is that is engaged in any work the greater is that work the great Monarchs of the world do not use to engage their sons in poor low mean and petty services but in such services as are high and honourable noble and weighty and will you imagine that ever the great and glorious God John 1. 18. 8. Pro. 22. 33 would have sent his son his own son his only begotten son his bosom son his son in whom his soul delighted before the foundations of the earth was laid to redeem poor sinners souls if this had not been a great work a high work and a most glorious work in his eye The Creation of the world did but cost God a word of his mouth Let there be light and there was light but the Redemption Gen. 1. 3. of souls cost him his dearest son there is a
Fourthly is Jesus Christ God-man is he very God and very man then let this encourage poor sinners to come to Christ to close with Christ to accept of Christ to match into Christ and to enter with a marriage union and communion with Christ The great work of Gospel Ministers is like that of Eliezer Abraham's servant Gen. 24. to seek a match for our master's son now our way to win you to him is not only to tell you what he has but what he is now he is God-man in one person he is man that you may not be afraid of him and he is God Heb. 7. 25. Rev. 1. 5. cap. 17. 14. Heb. 1. 3. Psal 45. 1. Cant. 5. 10. 16. that he may be able to save you to the uttermost he is the Prince of the Kings of the Earth he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings he is the heir of all things he is fairer than the Children of men he is the chiefest of ten thousand he is altogether lovely there is every thing in Jesus who is God-man to encourage you to come to him If you look upon his names if you look upon his natures if you look upon his offices if you look upon his dignities if you look upon his personal excellencies if you look upon his mighty conquests if you look upon his Royal attendance all these things call aloud upon you to come to Christ to close with Christ if you look upon the great things that he has done for sinners and the hard things that he has suffered for sinners and the glorious things that he has prepared and laid up for sinners how can you but readily accept of him and sweetly embrace him Though thou hast no loveliness nor comliness Ezek. 16. 4. 5. Isa 55. 1 2. no beauty nor glory though thou hast not one penny in thy purse nor a rag to hang on thy back yet if thou art but really and heartily willing to be divorced from all thy sinful lovers and accept of Christ for thy Sovereign Lord he is willing that the match should be made up Hoses 3. 3. Rev. 22. 17. between thee and him Now shall Christ wooe you himself shall he declare his willingness to take you with nothing shall he engage himself to protect you to maintain you and at last as a dowry to bestow heaven upon you and will you refuse him will you turn your backs upon him Oh sirs what could Christ have done that he has not done to do you good and to make you happy for ever Loe he has laid aside his glorious Robes and he has put on your Rags he has cloathed himself with your flesh he came off from his Royal Throne he humbled himself to the death of the Cross and has brought Life Immortality and Glory to your very doors and will you yet stand out against him Oh how shall such escape who neglect so great salvation who say this man Hel. 2. 3. Luk. 19. 14. shall not rule over us who tread under foot the son of God! Oh what wrath what great wrath what pure Heb. 10. 28. John 3. ult wrath what infinite wrath what everlasting wrath is reserved for such persons doubtless Turks Jews and Pagans will have a cooler and a lighter Hell than the despisers John 5. 40. Mat. 23. 13 14. and rejecters of Christ the great damnation is for those that might have Christ but would not and no wonder for the sin of rejecting Christ is not chargeable upon the Devils Ah sinners sinners that you would labour to understand more and dwell more upon the preheminent excellencies of Christ for till the soul can discern a better a greater excellency in Christ than in any other thing it will never yield to match with Christ Oh labour every day more and more to take the heigth and depth and breadth of the excellency of Christ He is the chiefest and the choicest of all both in that upper and in this lower world The Godhead dwells bodily in him he is full of grace he is the heir of glory the holy one of God the brightness of his father's Image the fountain of life the well of salvation and the wonder of heaven Oh when will you so understand the superlative excellency of Christ as to fall in love with him as to cry out with the Martyr O none but Christ O none to Christ It is your wisdom it is your duty it is your safety it is your glory it is your salvation it is your all to accept of Christ to close with Christ and to bestow your selves your souls your all on Christ if you embrace him you are made for ever but if you reject him you perish for ever Bernard calls Christ Sponsus sanguinum the Bridegroom of Bloods because he espoused his Church to himself upon the bed of his Cross his head begirt with a pillow of Thorns his body drench'd in a bath of his own blood to turn your backs upon this Bridegroom of Bloods will certainly cost you the blood of your souls and therefore look to it But Fifthly Is Jesus Christ God-man is he very God and 5. Colos 1. 18. Phil. 2. 6 7 8 9. 10. John 5. 23. This Text looks sowerly on Jews Turks Papists Socinians and others very man O then honour him above all Oh let him have the preeminence exalt him as high as God the father hath exalted him 't is the absolute will of the father that all should honour his son even as they honour himself for he having the same nature and essence with the father the father will have him have the same honour which he himself hath which whosoever denies to him reflects dishonour upon the father who will not bear any thing derogatory to the glory of his son certainly there is due to Christ as he is God-man the highest respect reverence and veneration which Angels and men can possibly give unto him Oh look upon the Lord Jesus as God and according to that honour that is due to him as God so must you honour him The Apostle speaks of some who when they knew God they did not glorifie Râ—m 1. 21. him as God so several pretend to give some glory to Christ but they do not glorifie him as God Oh sirs this is that which you must come up to viz. to honour Christ in such a manner as may be suitable to his natures and as he is the infinite blessed and eternal God and ah what honour can be high enough for such a person Christ's honour was very dear to him who said Lord use Bernard me for thy shield to keep off those wounds of dishonour which else would fall on thee Luther in an Epistle to Spalatinus saith they call me a Devil but be it so so long as Christ is magnified I am well apayed The inanimate creatures are so compliant with his pleasure that they will thwart their own nature to serve his
licence yet the great King of Heaven and Earth counts it his glory to give us free access at all times in all places and upon all occasions by the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is one mediator between God and us even the man Christ Jesus Christ was made true man that in our nature he might reconcile us to God and give us access to God which he could never have done had he not been very God and very man without the humane nature of Christ we could never have had access to God or fellowship with God being by nature enemies to God Rom. 5. 10. Eph. 2. 1. 12 13 14. and estranged from God and dead in trespasses and sins 'T is only by the mediation of Christ incarnate that we come to be reconciled to God to have access to him and 1 John 1. 1 2 3. acceptance with him in Christ's humane nature God and we meet together and have fellowship together It could never stand with the unspotted holiness and justice of God who is a consuming fire to honour us with one Heb. 12. 29. cast of his countenance or one hours communion with himself were it not upon the account of the man Christ Jesus the least serious thought of God out of Christ will breed nothing in the soul but horrour and amazement which made Luther say Nolo Deum absolutum let me have nothing to do with an absolute God Believers have free and blessed access to God but still 't is upon the credit of the man Christ Jesus Let us come boldly to the throne Heb. 4. 15. 16. of Grace saith the Apostle speaking of Christ that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need the Apostles phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which signifies liberty of speech and boldness of face as when a man with a bold and undaunted spirit utters his mind before the great ones of the world without blushing without weakness of heart without shaking of his voice without imperfection and faltring in speech when neither Majesty nor Authority can take off his courage so as to stop his mouth and make him afraid to speak with such heroick and undaunted spirits would the Apostle have us to come to the Throne of Grace and all upon the credit of Christ our High Priest who is God-man But Ninthly Is Jesus Christ God-man is he very God and 9. Ezek. 35. 10 11 12 13. Isa 37. 23 24. very man then you may be very confident of his sympathizing with you in all your afflictions then this may serve as a foundation to support you under all your troubles and as a Cordial to comfort you under all your afflictions in that Christ partaking of the same nature and having had experience of the infirmities of it he is the more able and willing to help and succour us Heb. 2. 17. wherefore As the Brazen Serpent was like the fiery serpent but had no sting in all things it behoveth him to be like his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people so Heb. 4. 15. If one come to visit a man that is sick of a grievous disease who hath himself been formerly troubled with the same disease he will sympathize more and shew more compassion than twenty others who have not felt the like so here from Christ's sufferings in his humane nature we may safely gather that he will shew himself a merciful high Priest to us in our sufferings and one that will be ready to help and succour us in all our afflictions and miseries which we suffer in this life in as much as himself had experience of suffering the like in our nature for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted and this should be a staff to support us and a cordial to comfort us in all our sorrows and miseries It is between Christ and his Church as it is between two lute strings that are tuned one to another no sooner is one struck If weperish Christ persheth with us Luâ—her but the other trembles Isa 63. 9. In all their afflictions he was afflicted These words may be read interrogatively thus was he in all their afflictions afflicted Christ took to heart the afflictions of his Church he was himself grieved for them and with them The Lord the better to allure and draw his people to himself speaks after the manner of men attributing to himself all the affection love and fatherly compassion that can possibly be in them to men in misery Christ did so sympathize with his people in all their afflictions and sufferings as if he himself had felt the weight the smart the pain of them all he was in all things made like unto his brethren not only in nature but also in infirmities and sufferings and by all manner of temptations that thereby he might be able experimentally to succour them that are tempted he Zech. 2. 8. Ishon of Ish It is here called Bath the daughter of the eye because it is as dear to a man as his only daughter Act. 9. 4. Mat. 25. 35 36. that toucheth them toucheth not only his eye but the apple of his eye which is the tenderest piece of the tenderest part to express the inexpressible tenderness of Christ's compassion towards them let persecutors take heed how they meddle with God's eyes for he will retaliate eye for eye Exod. 21. 24. he is wise in heart and mighty in strength and sinners shall one day pay dear for touching the apple of his eye Christ counts himself persecuted when his Church is persecuted Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And he looks upon himself as hungry thirsty naked and in prison when his members are so so greatly does he sympathize with them hence the afflictions of Christians are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the remainders of the afflictions of Christ such as Christ by his fellow-feeling suffereth in his members and as they by correspondency are to fill up as exercises and tryals of their faith and patience Christ gave many evidences of his sympathy or fellow-feeling of our infirmities when he was on earth as he groaned in his spirit John 11. 33. and was troubled when he saw those that wept for Lazarus vers 35. Luk. 19. 41. he wept also as he did over Jerusalem also It is often observed in the Gospel that Christ was moved with compassion and that he frequently put forth acts of pity mercy and succour to those that were in any distress either in body or soul Christ retaineth this sympathy and fellow-feeling with us now he is in Heaven and doth so far commiserate our distresses as may stand with a glorified condition Jesus Christ grieves for the afflictions of his people the angel of the Lord answered and Zach. 1. 12. said
against God Under the Law if an Oxe gored a man that he died the Exod. 21. 28. Oxe was to be killed Sin hath gored and pierced our dear Lord Jesus O let it die for it O avenge your selves upon it as Sampson did avenge himself upon the Philistines for Judg. 16. 28. his two eyes Pâ—lutarch reports of Marcus Cato that he never declared his opinion in any matter in the Senate but he would close it with this passage Methinks still Carthage should be destroyed so a Christian should never cast his eye upon the Cross of Christ the sufferings of Christ nor upon his sins but his heart should say Methinks pride should be destroyed and unbelief should be destroyed and hypocrisie should be destroyed and earthly-mindedness should be destroyed and self-love should be destroyed and vain glory should be destroyed c. The Jews would not have the pieces of silver which Judas cast down in the Temple put in the Treasury because Maâ— 27. 5 6. they were the price of blood Oh lodg not any one sin in the Treasury of your hearts for they are all the price of blood But Fourthly let the sufferings of our Lord Jesus raise in all our hearts a high estimation of Christ O let us prize a suffering Christ above all our duties and above all our Mat. 10. 37. Luk. 14. 26. graces and above all our privileges and above all our outward contentments and above all our spiritual enjoyments a suffering Christ is a commodity of greater value than all the riches of the Indies yea than all the wealth of the whole world he is better than Rubies saith Prov. 8. 11. Solomon and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to him he is that Pearl of price which the wise Merchant purchased with all that ever he had no Mat. 13. 46 man can buy such Gold too dear Joseph a type of the Lord Jesus then a precious Jewel of the world was far more precious had the Ishmaelitish Merchants known so Gen. 27. 37. much than all the Balms and Myrrhs that they transported and so is a suffering Christ as all will grant that really know him and that have experienced the sweet of union and communion with him Christ went through heaven and hell life and death sorrow and suffering misery and cruelty and all to bring us to glory and shall we not prize him When in a storm the Nobles of Xerxes were to lighten the ship to preserve their King's life they did their obeysance and leaped into the Sea but our Lord Jesus Christ to preserve our lives Col. 1. 18. our souls he leaps into a Sea of wrath Oh how should this work us to set up Christ above all what a deal ado has there been in the world about Alexander the great and Constantine the great and Pompey the great because of their civil power and authority but what was all their greatness and grandure to that greatness and grandure that God the father put upon our Lord Jesus Christ when Mat 28. 1â— Heb. 1. 13. Eph. 1. 20. he gave all power in heaven and in earth unto him and set him down at his own right hand Oh sirs will you value men according to their titles and will you not highly value our Lord Jesus Christ who has the most magnificent titles given him he is called King of Kings Rev. 17. 14. cap. 19. 16. and Lord of Lords It is observed by learned Drusins that those Titles were usually giâ—â—n to the great Kings of Persia than which there was none assumed more to themselves than they did yet the holy Ghost attributes these great Titles to Christ to let us know that as God hath exalted Christ above all earthly powers so we should magnifie him and exalt him accordingly Paul casting his eye upon a suffering Christ tells us that he esteems of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. 8. all things as nothing in comparison of Christ All things is the greatest account that can be casâ— up for it includeth all prizes all summs it taketh in heaven it taketh in the vast and huge Globe and Circle of the capacious world and all excellencies within its bosom all things includes all Nations All Angels all Gold all Jewels all Honours all delights and every thing else besides and yet the Apostle looks upon all these things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 micae quae canibus vide à Lapide vide Bezam the original word notes the filth that comes out of the entrails of beasts or off all cast to dogs but as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dung dog's dung as some interpret the word or dogs meat course and contemptible in comparison of dear Jesus Galeacius that noble Italian Marquess was of the same mind and mettal with Paul for when he was strongly tempted and solicited with great summs of money and preferments to return to the Romish Church he gave this heroick answer Cursed be he that prefers all the wealth of the world to one days communion with Christ What if a man had large demains stately buildings and ten thousand rivers of Oyl what if all the mountains of the world were Pearl the mighty Rocks Rubies and the whole Globe a shining Chrysolite yet all this were not to be named in the same day wherein there is mention made of a suffering Christ Look as one Ocean hath more waters than all the rivers in the world and as one Sun hath more light than all the Luminaries in heaven so one suffering Christ is more all to a poor soul than if it had the all of the whole world a thousand times over and over Oh sirs if you cast but your eye upon a suffering Christ a crucified Jesus there you shall find righteousness in him to cover all your sins and plenty enough in him to supply all your wants and grace enough in him to subdue all your lusts and wisdom enouâ—h in him to resolve all your doubts and power enough in him to vanquish all your enemies and vertue enough in him to heal all your diseases Heb. 7. 25. I have read of a Roman servant who knowing his master was sought for by officers to be put to death he put himself into his master's cloaths that he might be taken for him and so he was and was putâ— to death for him whereupon his master in memory of his thankfulness to him and honour of him erected a brazen Statue but what a statue of Gold should we set up in our hearts to the eternal honour exaltation of that Jesus who not in our cloaths but in our very nature hath laid down his life for us and fulness enough in him both to satisfie you and save you and that to the utmost All the good things that can be reckoned up here below have only a finite and limited benignity some can cloath but cannot feed others can
Of Oneness Of Christ's Oneness with the Father pag. 233 234. 235 P Of the Papists The ridiculous and superstitious devices of the Papists detected c. pag. 311 312 313 Of Pardon of sin That all the sins of believers are pardoned at once and actually unto them is proved by ten Arguments pag. 73 to 76 All a believer's sins are fully and finally pardoned at the hour of his death pag. 76 77 God looks not upon those as sinners whose sins are pardoned pag. 77 78 79 Pardon takes off our obligation to suffer eternal punishment pag. 79 80 Of Peace of Conscience The imputed righteousness of Christ is the only true basis bottom and ground for true peace and quiet of conscience pag. 348 349 350 351 352 353 Of the several Pleas that every sincere Christian may form up as to the ten Scriptures in the Old and New Testament that refer either to the General Judgment or to the particular Judgment that will pass upon every Christian immediately after death The first Plea pag. 72 73 The second Plea pag. 88. 89 The third Plea pag. 94 95 96 97 The fourth Plea pag. 288 289 313 314 315 The fifth Plea pag. 338 339 The sixth Plea pag. 373 The seventh Plea pag. 378 379 Of prizing Christ The Sufferings of Christ should raise up our hearts to a very high prizing of Christ pag. 300 301 302 303 Q Q. What that faith is that gives a man an interest in Christ c pag. 54. to 59 Q. Whether in the General Judgment or in that Particular Judgment that will pass upon all the Saints after death whether their infirmities or enormities their weaknesses or wickednesses shall be brought into the Judgment of discussion and discovery or no that they shall not is proved at large pag. 59 to 73 R Reasons Several weighty Reasons why Christ did partake of both Natures pag. 249 to 260 Of the Work of Redemption That the work of Redemption was a very great work pag. 263 264 265 266 267 Revelations the 19. 8. opened and applied pag. 334 335 336 Of the Righteousness of Christ Of the excellency and glory of Christ's Righteousness pag. 315 to 339 Nine strong Consolations that flow from the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness pag. 339 to 365 Of Running to Christ Vnder all our fears doubts conflicts we should still run to Christ pag. 308 309 310 311 S Of Satisfaction That God doth stand upon satisfaction and will not forgive one sin without it is made evident by five Arguments pag. 320 to 324 Of Sincerity When a man's heart is sincere with God pag. 1 2 3 Of Sin many weighty things about it Four ways to know when sin is indulged pag. 3 4 Thirteen Arguments to prove that no Godly man does or can indulge himself in any course or way or trade of Sin pag. 4 to 14 Ten Arguments to shew the folly vanity and falshood of that opinion that is received and commonly avowed by Ministers and Christians viz. That every Godly person hath his beloved sin his bosom sin pag. 14 to 24 First All wicked men have their beloved sins their darling sins c. pag. 24 25 Secondly The Elect before their conversion have had their beloved sins c. pag. 25 Thirdly after conversion the hearts of the Elect are most set against those sins which were once their beloved sins c. pag. 25 Fourthly After conversion a sincere Christian endeavours to be most eminent in that particular grace which is most contrary to that sin which was once his beloved sin c. pag. 25 26 Fifthly Though no Godly man hath any beloved sin yet every Godly man hath one sin or other to which they are more prone than to others pag. 26 27 28 29 Eight remedies against keeping up of any special sin either in heart or life against the Lord or against the light and convictian of a man 's own conscience pag. 29 to 42 Five and twenty Arguments against keeping up of any special sin in heart or life against the Lord or against the light of a man 's own conscience pag. 42 to 50 Of the sufferings of Christ See pag. 97 to 105 The true reasons why the Sufferings of Christ though short yet have a sufficient power and vertue in them to satisfie God's justice pag. 272 273 274 Of the Sufferings of Christ in his body The Sufferings of Christ in his body largely opened pag. 105 to 121 Of the Sufferings of Christ in his Soul The Sufferings of Christ in his soul largely opened pag. 121 to 131 The Sufferings of Christ in his soul were very high and great and wonderful pag. 131 to 137 That Jesus Christ did feel and suffer the very Torments of Hell though not after an Hellish manner pag. 137 to 153 Christ's Sufferings for us should mightily endear Jesus Christ to us pag. 153 154 155 The punishments that Christ did suffer for us must be referred only to the substance and not to the circumstances of punishment pag. 284 285 286 The meritorious cause of Christ's Sufferings were the sins of his people pag. 286 287 288 Seven Inferences from the consideration of the great sufferings of Christ pag. 289 to 315 Of the Suretyship of Christ All the sins of believers were laid upon Christ their Surety pag. 80 81 82 83 84 85 Q. Whether God were not unjust to give Jesus Christ to be our Surety answered pag. 85 86 87 88 The Suretyship of Christ considered at large pag. 374 to 379 T Of Triumphing in Christ Jesus The Imputation of Christ's Righteousness affords us the highest reason to rejoyce and triumph in Christ Jesus pag. 354 355 356 357 358 Of a True penitential turning from all sin A True penitential turning from all sin lies in six particulars pag. 17 18 19 Five and twenty Arguments to work us to turn from all sin pag. 42 to 50 Of Types The Scape-goat was a most lively Type of Christ pag. 368 369 V Of Universal Obedience Five and twenty Arguments for Vniversal Obedience pag. 42 to 50 An objection against universal obedience answered pag. 50 51 Vniversal obedience consists in nine things pag. 51 to 55 Of our Unrighteousness Christ's mediatory righteousness takes away all our Vnrighteousness pag. 342 343 W Of Willingness Christ's sufferings should work in us the greatest willingness to suffer for Christ pag. 303 to 308 Of the works of God The same Works which are peculiar to God are ascribed to Christ in the blessed Scriptures pag. 225 226 227 Of Worship Divine honour and Worship is due to Christ and by Angels and Saints is given unto him pag. 227 228 229 First All inward Worship is due to Christ pag. 229 230 Secondly All outward Worship is due to Christ pag. 230 to 232 When Jesus Christ was declared to the world God did command even the most glorious Angels to worship him as his natural and coessential Son pag. 232 233 ERRATA PAge 5. line 1. read all p. 6. l. 22. r. I. p. 22. l. 13. r. our p. 34. l. 14. heat r. heart p. 8. l. 4. him r. them p. 80. l. 31. lai r. laid p. 89. l. 16. r. so p. 111. l. 26. r. A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 112. l. 7. opinion r. opening p. 112. l. 20. nature r. water p. 112. l. 28. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 125. l. 19. r. animam p. 174. m. r. Bernard p. 181. l. 23. r. to p. 188. m. r. summam paenae p. 197. l. 22. love r. lose p. 202. l. 1. reviled r. revealed p. 193. l. 36. the r. their p. 212. l. 18. r. not p. 133. m. r. Relinquit m. r. confut p. 137. l. 7. and r. the. p. 138. m. Rom. r. Act. p. 141. l. 8. Torments r. Tormentors p. 147. l. 11. Isa 5. r. Isa 50. p. 157. m. r. magnum p. 232. l. 30. any r. and. p. 234. l. 19. r. that l. 34. not r. nor p. 238. l. 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 263. l. 30. given r. even p. 267. l. 21. into r. with with r. into p. 283. l. 14. their r. her blot out my wife and children p. 296. l. 4. deared r. dearest p. 311. l. 15. r. he did p. 321. l. 29. r. Secondly p. 336. m. hat r. that p. 354. l. 38. blot cut it in the fourth leaf of the Epistle Dedicatory l. 2. the r. this There are sundry other mistakes in pointings changes and transpositions of letters misfiguring of pages c. besides Some are omitted because they do not much disturb the sence others because they will not easily escape thy notice Share the faults between the Author's absence and the Printers negligence and then correct before thou readest