THe words present unto us S ^t Peters charging the Jews with our Sa­viours death: You may therefore observe in them,

First, The Patient or Person put [Page 2] to death, together with his quality implied in this word (Him) by its relation to the precedent verse, Je­sus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did by him.

Secondly, The Agents or Con­trivers of his death; and these of two sorts,

1. The supernaturall Agent, God, together with his manner of operation, a thing of providence in these words, Being delivered by the determinate counsell and fore­knowledge of God.

2. The inferiour Agents the Jews, together with their manner of operation, A thing of malice in these words, Ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.

So now, if you will consider, the Patient as God and man, but u­nited; the Agents God and Man, but separated; they and their ope­rations so disposed, that one ans­wers [Page 3] the other: for God there, man here; for delivering there, ta­king and crucifying and slaying here: And for determinate coun­sell and fore-knowledge there, wic­ked hands here.

I begin with the Patient, and his quality imply'd, Jesus of Naze­reth, &c.

1. The Patient and his quality. The guilt of the world was now such, that for its originall and pro­priety as it came from us, and was ours, none but a man ought to make satisfaction: and for its ob­ject and bound, as it was immense against the immense, none but a God could: because the nature in which this infinite offence was, was of it self finite, and so bore no pro­portion to that immensity of Maje­sty which it injured. He therefore that was to make the satisfaction, had a necessity laid upon him to be both God and Man. As man only, [Page 4] his sufferings were unprofitable; for he that hath need of a Media­tor himself, how could he perform the office of one to himself and o­thers? As God only, his sufferings were impossible; for he that hath nothing to suffer in, how can he suffer? Both natures therfore met, or rather the God of nature took our nature into himself, that he might both suffer by the flesh he assumed, and give a price to these sufferings by the Divinity which assumed it. And of this that he was both God and man, his life and death suffici­ently convinced the Jews: For they were both such, as if he, that was himself the truth, had came to bear witnesse of it. That he was God, appeared by his miracles: he was Man, by his sufferings, Opera­tus, ut fortis; passus ut infirmus: August. de Pass. Serm. 1. They saw the power of the Son of God combined and twisted with the in­firmities [Page 5] of the Son of man: One part priviledged and guarded by miracles, the other unsheltred and liable to injuries: He changed the course of nature by his actions, and confessed the weaknesse of it in his passion. To have done so, and suf­fered so, the Apostle thinks here demonstration enough to leave the Jews inexcusable of this slaughter. As for doing of miracles his pow­er was such, that when he said, Come forth, the grave could no lon­ger hold her dead; Death it self grew impotent, and never suffered him to call twice. When he said, receive thy sight, or be ye opened, immediatly the veil flew from the eyes, and the barres fell from the ears; with the word the blinde saw the man that wrought the cure, and with the word the de [...] heard the tongue that made him hear; I do not say, that all miracles prove the authour a God, for I [Page 6] know some are reserved for the de­monstration of Antichrist, that man of sinne. But the miracles of our Saviour were all of that stamp, that if we consider either the actions themselves, or his manner of do­ing them, they must needs shew a personall presence of the Deity, and a grace beyond that of Ado­ption, A grace of union with the father. For the miracles them­selves, they were such deeds as were both deeds and signs; won­ders, in which the wonder was the least; wonders, that clouded the marvell with the mystery; won­ders, that shewed more then was conceived, and hid more then they shewed. He knew what they said, and what they said not, and an­swered them when as yet they had but made the question in their hearts. To go further, His works were such, devils obeyed him, not out of will that they desired to do [Page 7] so, But out of Impotence that they could not do otherwise: they tried to resist, and found themselves un­able; legions of them doubted him, and legions when they had doubt­ed him confessed him, and did the office of Apostles without Apo­stles mindes. But if you will not beleeve but the same works may be done by a limited power, yet certainly they cannot the same way: His manner of doing them must evidence him the Son of God however. Those who work with depandance, and in anothers pow­er, use to invoke some higher then themselves, and adjure by a name mightier then their own: But Christ as one himself sufficing to himself, made his own name, the conveyance of his power, and tbought it no robbery to be equall with God. We reade often in the Gospel, that Virtue went out of him, Mar. 5. 30 Luk. 6. 19. So that he received not anothers [Page 8] power, but used his own: An Ar­gument of his Divinity, so forcible, that he himself who did the works, appealed from himself to his works, John 10. 38. Etiamsi mihi non creditis▪ operibus credite, though ye beleeve not me, beleeve the works. But to shew his Divinity only by miracles, was not enough. Sic debuit per miracula Deitatem o­stendere, Leo Serm. de pass. ut crederetur veritas huma­nitatis ipsius: he was to shew his Divinity so, as that his humanity might be beleeved too. And this he did by many, but chiefly by that greatest miracle of all, his shewing that he who did these mi­racles could die, and that so great power of God could come wrapt up in so much infirmity of the flesh. You may now think, that one who laboured thus by doctrine and mi­racles to bring the Nation of the Jews to salvation; who, not con­tent with ordinary and each daies [Page 9] innocence, lived at that rate of per­fection, that he reckoned lesse good among ill, and thought no­thing enough where there is room for more. One that brought in Re­ligion as the best policy of King­domes; and that preached high virtues, but practised higher, still conquering the hardnesse of his precept, by the seconding it with a more hard example.

You may certainly, I say, think that the Jews would have demand­ed this man of miracles, this man himself a miracle greater then those he did, for their King to go in and out before them. But Qui vident, videre nolunt, though he was ap­proved among them by miracles, and they themselves also knew it, they accused him of Treason, and the common cry ran, We have no King but Caesar. Let me a [...]k you (O ye perversest of Nations) Did Angels appear at the birth of Cae­sar? [Page 10] Was Glory to God on high, on Earth peace, good will towards men, sung by them when he came into the world? Was Caesar the glory of Israel, and a Horn of salvation to his people? But (alas) not to take him into the throne was not so great an ignominy: To preferre a Robber, a Murderer before him, this was the Dregs of Scorn: A­way with this man, and release un­to us Barrabas. And again, Not Luk. 23. 18, 21. him but Barabas. What spirit of contempt is here? It runs not thus, Away with Jesus, and not Jesus; But away with this man, and not him: They account him so vile, that (as their superstition was not to name the thing they held exe­crable) they endeavoured to abo­lish his memory before his person. But what Barabbas? O yee seeing who see not! One that fed your multitudes? Not one that robbed them of that which should have fed [Page 11] them. What Barabbas? One that cured your blinde, or healed your halt and lame? no, one whose vi­olences maimed them, and by the frequency of his injury occasional­ly encreast the number perhaps of those miracles that Jesus wrought. Did he use or deserve the whip? Did Barrabas purge the Temple of theeves, or make it their Denne? Did he cast out Devils, or do Acts by the instigation of the Prince of them? A wicked generation they were to ask a signe, but more wic­ked Matt. 12. 39. not to beleeve when they had so many given them. Nor are they so quietly and civilly impious as not to beleeve; that they go on to despight the Authour of Miracles, by tempting him to do one upon himself. If thou art the Son of God, come down from the Crosse: Why the very condition forbids the in­ference; He therefore will not come down because he is the Son [Page 12] of God, and came to obey his Father, by whom he was deliver­ed, which cals me from the Pati­ent to the superiour Agent, God, with his manner of Operation, A thing of Providence, Delivering by determinate counsell and fore-know­ledge, the second thing to be spo­ken of, ‘Him, being delivered by the determi­nate counsell and fore-knowledge of God.’

Secondly, Superiour Agent and his operation.

Had not God from the begin­ning decreed the passion of his Son Jesus, our redemption had been a thing of rashnesse, altogether un­worthy either the performance or acceptance of a Deity; And chance being more eminent then care and love in the salvation of mankinde, the death of our Saviour had been a ryot rather then a sacrifice. As the devils craft projected and brought [Page 13] about our slavery by the labours and anxiety of malice; So the wisedom of God was to exclude fortune from the businesse of our redemption, by the counsell and contrivance of love. By the sub­tlety of the Destroyer, the sting of sin entring into one wounded the world; and the infection of the person spread it self in equall wide­nesse with the nature. By the wise­dome then of the preserver, the righteousnesse of one was to justi­fie the world, and the merits of that person to extend themselves to the utmost skirts of nature too. The Passion therefore of one Christ, was purposely projected, so nume­rous, that not a single lamb was of­fered but the herd of the world, that mankinde rather then one man suffered, and so the Kingdom of that Prince of darknesse was dis­solved; Dissolved indeed occasio­nally by that which raised it, sin. [Page 14] Death destroyed death, and iniqui­ty loosed the bands of iniquity, and the works of that malicious one overthrew themselves. And to this stratagem was there not requi­red the fore-knowledge, and coun­sell, and determination of the Deity?

The Schools have found out 3. waies by which the father is said to have delivered his Son.

1. Praeordinando ejus passionem ex Aquin. p. 3. q. 47. Ar. 3 suâ voluntate; by preordaining his passion from his eternall will, and this is that [...], Phil. 2. 8. that determinate counsell and fore­knowledge of God in the Text. And according to this they say, his thirst upon the Crosse was not of nature but decree, preordained from everlasting, not casuall or e­mergent for the time.

2. Inspirando ei voluntatem pati­endi, by inspiring him with a wil­lingnesse to suffer, and hence it is [Page 15] that the Apostle saith he became [...], obedient to the death, even the death of the Crosse. And this his thirst when he was stretch't upon it, was not to full­fill any desire but that of our re­demption.

3. Non protegendo eum a passione, by not protecting him from his sufferings, but wholly exposing him to the bitternesse of them: In­somuch that he who was one with the father, complain'd of the fa­thers dereliction, and that [...] in the Text, the being given and delivered up into wicked hands.

But was not the Sons love the lesse in that his father thus gave him up?

It had been so indeed▪ had he not given up himsell too, [...] not himself as 'twere been of counsell against himself, and conspired to his own delivery: His fathers will was so much his, as that I may say, [Page 16] his father onely did not forsake him, but he himself also in a man­ner forsook himself, for his wil­lingnesse to die was such, that his Isa. 53. 11 Passion which Isaiah cals his Brui­sing and the Travell of his Soul; he himself cals but a Baptism, [...] Luke 12. 30. [...]. He came to his death as to a holy dipping or washing, something that would consecrate him; and to all his suf­ferings as to so many Ceremonies of honour. There are indeed pas­sages in Scripture that seem to ex­presse a drawing back of our Savi­our, and a kinde of reluctance of that great Sacrifice: But if we more warily consider them, they shew only a large and handsome fear of the danger, not any close or disho­nourable desire to avoid the en­counter. In Saint Mathew 'tis said [...], he began to be sorrowfull and heavy; words Mat. 26. 37. that expresse a greatness and weight [Page 17] of the danger, with a just appre­hension of it; Not any dejection of spirit, but a solemn grief, and sad oppression of it, such as is emi­nent in afflicted fortitude. In Saint Mark it is said [...], he Ch. 14. v. 33. began to be sore amazed, a word that intimates astonishment, and stand­ing agast at the danger, not through any failing of courage, but through a serious manage of it; he had a generous horrour of the cup that was to be drunk of, a noble and al­lowable amazement, as when na­tures affection flies back from the face and presence of the evill, but reason corrects it, and thrusts on to the heat and businesse, and trade or the danger. These his few de­liveries of himself, this from their intended stoning, and that from their plotted precipitation of him, were not so much declinings of sufferings, as reservations of him­self to this kinde of suffering: And [Page 18] this very expiring in this at last, not John 19. 30. of necessity but choice, for 'tis said then He bowed the head and gave up the ghost; not bowing because he had given it up already, but bowing because he now would: None of the most innocent Saints that had sleep most at command, so slumbred when he would, as Christ dyed when he would: He expected that hour which could not compell him when it came, and he resigned his life not to the law of humane nature (which So­cinus unadvisedly affirms) but to that deliberate and definite consti­tution of eternal order: so that His fathers fore-knowledge and coun­sell asserted his death from casual­ty: His own obedience in laying his life down, exempted it from ne­cessity; His expectation of suffer­ing freed it from immaturity: And his manner of suffering, not how nor when they would? but how [Page 19] and when himself would, vindi­cated it from the conquest of ma­lice. And thus he was that most absolute sacrifice, fore-known, de­creed, obedient, fitted, and him­self his own Priest: We see hence God foresaw, and from Eternity decreed the passion of his Son, as being the authour of all good: But the sins of those that were the Ex­ecutors of it, he foresaw only with­out decreeing, as being the Au­thour of no evill: which will some­what appear in our consideration

• of
  • The Inferiour Agents, the Jews.
  • Their manner of Operation, a thing of malice, taking and by wicked hands crucifying and slaying.
  • The last thing to be spoken of, Him being delivered, &c.

And if delivered by the deter­minate counsell of God, how could he not be taken? or how ta­ken by wicked hands? what the [Page 20] Almighty foresees, is it not because he foresees? And what is because he foresees, is it not good? These Questions (I must confesse) are certainties in things naturall, but vain doubts only in morall. For that necessity of unavoidable be­ing from the fore-sight of God, bindes not in morality, because man is a free and master-creature: A Lord of himself and others, and comes not out with a yoke upon his neck, as the rest of the universe, his Servants do.

The things of nature God fore­sees as the object of his know­ledge, and the effects of i [...] too: but the actions of men he foresees, not as the effects but the objects only. Or if you will thus. The fore­knowledge of God causeth things not simply to be, but to be as he foreknows them. He then making the Agent contingent, foresees his actions contingent, and so is a cause [Page 21] that they are not necessary. We may not then say, because by the fore-knowledge and counsell of God Christ took flesh, that what was fore-known might be done, that God by that fore-knowledge and counsell caused it to be done; or because God knew that the Jews would apprehend our Savi­our, that he arm'd them to appre­hend him. The will to die, and the slaying of him that would die, were too much enemies to come from the same inspiration. Each Leo Serm. 16. on Pass. action is stampt good or bad, from the intent and root from which it springs: God delivered Jesus out of Love, the Jews took him and slew him out of Envy. There the integrity of the designe made his death a sacrifice; Here the blemish made it a murder: thence came a Savour of life unto life, hence of death unto death. But whence there that chain of order? Whence [Page 22] such aeconomy and method in their sinne? Why, though God be the Authour of no sinne, he is yet the orderer of all: who squar'd not the sinnes of his enemies to the sufferings of his Son; but the suf­ferings of his Son to the sinnes of his enemies? And so extracting good of bad, when bad was, used this malice of the Jews; and as a Physician who is not the Authour of that poyson which he imploys, made a restorative of those who had made themselves a Genera­tion of vipers. And this is that Serm. 11. on Pass. which Leo saith, While they were intent to serve themselves, by wic­kednesse they ministred to one whom they thought not of: God according to Saint Augustines ob­servation, fullfilling his own good purposes, by the purposes of men that are not good. But I consider, that God hath trusted us with his Commandements, and not with [Page 23] the order of the Universe, and that our own endeavouvs are therefore to be lookt a ter by us, and the un­searchablenesse of his charge to be left to himself. 'Twas not then out of obedience (which cannot be but with knowledge of the rule, which was here secret) but out of malice that the Jews took our Saviour; and Saint Peter here justly chargeth that whole Nation with it, they being all guilty (as Calvin states it) either by action, or consent, or silence in the cause of that righ­teous one. There were Gentiles ('tis true) in the plot as well as Jews, but the Gentiles did not know him, the Jews did: The Gentiles had no Law nor Scri­pture: The Jews pretended to know and search both: The Jews were inexcusable because they knew what they did; the Gentiles were so farre excusable that Christ himself seem'd to pray for them [Page 24] as for a people not knowing what themselves did. The imputation therefore of the Death is the Jews by excellence: And our Saviours sufferings were in this the grea­ter, that they were from such a peo­ple.

For if we consider the whole Nation, what were they? The slaves of the Romans then, and the refuse of the world ever; A people (as at this day) hating all, and hated of all: A Nation that God chose (as himself intimates) not for any worth or bravery of spirit, but that he might glorifie himself in the vile things of the earth, and shew his strength in weaknesse: no comfort then to our Saviour from the Authour of his passion, nor the fall any way ennobled by the hand from whence it came: He had that ut­most of misfortune in death, not to finde an honourable enemy, Their [Page 25] behaviour then was viler then their persons. The Religious and heavy malice of the Priests and Elders, the solemn and severe impiety of the Scribes and Pharisees, seriously advising that no tumult may di­sturb the feast. You may think this was from the very chair of Religion: The Court indeed pre­tended devotion, but served a most impious design. This fear of tumult in the solemnity (as is observed by one of the Fathers) was not that the people might not sin, but that they might not save him: They feared not Prophanation, but a res­cue. These were wicked intentions I am sure, what must the hands then be that executed them? why stand a while, and observe, and then conclude.

Jesus taken (if he may be said taken who came into their hands) is hurried from place to place, post­ed from Judge to Judge, put over [Page 26] from torment to torment, from the Garden to Annas, from Annas to Caiphas, from Caiphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, from Herod to Pilate again; Cruelty walking the circle, and impiety (if ever) now treading the ring. His apprehend­ing joyn'd to his Agony, his accu­sation to his apprehending, and his condemnation to that: Then his condemnation received by irrision, irrision by stripes, stripes by crow­ning with thorns. ('Tis not to be told with the same continuation that he suffered it) Then carrying his Crosse, extension, nayling, lift­ing up, and after all this businesse, and tumult of motion, his rest only upon the Crosse. A rest indeed, such as wity cruelty, when it imploys and tasks invention to serve it, would at last give: A rest, by which torment ceased not but was continued; A rest that detain'd the soul only to make it part with more [Page 27] torture; the strugling Spirit esca­ping by parcels, as water out of a narrow mouth'd vessell, the man dying not once, but long. And were not these wicked hands? But there is yet something behinde to make even the Crosse more infamous, more a Crosse; They crucified him (as it is generally observed) In medio terrae, in the very center and navell of the earth; In medio populi, in the middle channell of flouds of peo­ple; In medio malefactorum, between theeves, as the more thief; In an in­famous place, on high, without gar­ments, in the force of day, that no­thing could be hidden: Lastly, at the Feast of their Passeover, those Nundinae Religiosae, those publique Wakes of Religion, and generall Mart of Sacrificing, were not these, if any, wicked hands? wicked in­deed to the utmost if you consider only the Action; But if the inten­tion, the book of Infamy wants a [Page 28] name to brand them. For they did this to despight the Lord of life, and to grieve his Spirit who was to seal them to the day of redemption.

And now after these hands, Is this he that is more beautifull then all the Sonnes of men? This that goodly person that whosoever loo­ked on, blest the Womb that bare him, and the paps that gave him suck? This that face that the An­gels cannot look on, and yet will not look off? yes, I adde to this, their malice hath augmented that beauty. Quae dabo magis ex horrido Seneca. speciosa, Miseries consecrate worthy countenances, and make that which entire was our pleasure, broken be­come our worship. Perdiderunt tot mala, they lost all their injuries: That their spunge swel'd with gall and vinegar, did (as that froward Pain­ters spunge) perfect that work they thought to spoil. For when he had drunk, He said, Consummatum est It [Page 29] is finisht: and so by a largenesse of charity freely breathing out his saving spirit into the world, revived the nations dead in trespasses. Here me thinks I see the Crosse set up as the bound and pillar of the Law; and hear God himself saying, Hi­therto shalt thou come and no fur­ther, and here shall thy killing let­ter it self die.

Thus was it his determinate counsell, that the Old Testament should be swallowed up in the New, that all those Ceremonies of sacrifice should be buried in that immaculate sacrifice that he him­self delivered, and that the Sepul­chre of Moses so long hid from the world, should be found at last in our Saviour Christ. Thus did the Sun of Righteousnesse set with more grace and sweetnesse, then ei­ther he did rise or run his course with, and enlightning his thorns in so many pointed Rayes, of that his [Page 30] greatest work, His death made glo­ries and circles of lustre for all the rest of his actions: Thus when the Jews by divine fore-knowledge had brought the Deity to that despica­blenesse, that they occasioned those miracles, That He should be im­pleaded and condemned who is Judge of all; He laden with cur­ses, that scatters blessings as Sunne-beams over the face of the world; That health it self languisht, and the very impassible suffered. God (who is wont to take his rise where men stop) was pleased to strike miracles out of these, greater then these. For behold, An Off-spring of Mercy, issuing out of the womb of Cruelty; A bundle of new mira­cles as farre beyond the former, as they are opposite to them; A con­demnation that absolves us; A curse that blesseth us; A sicknesse that recovers us; and a death it self that quickens us; So much was [Page 31] his love stronger then death, who Heb. 5. 8, 9. though He were a Son, yet learn'd he obedience by the things he suf­fered; and being made perfect he became the Authour of eternall sal­vation to all them that obey him.

Among which number, O Lord, write our names, for his sake who this day suffered to blot out that hand-writing that was against us.

Amen.