૧ and inanimate creatures; he placed them in a garden of pleasure, wherein were two sacramental trees, one called, the tree of life, and the other, the tree of knowledge of good and evil : and (besides the law of nature) he tried him only with this positive prohibition, that he should not eat of the tree of knowledge: whereupon the devil, a who before this was fallen from his first state of innocency and felicity, took occasion to persuade the woman that God's threatening was not true; that he meant not as he spoke; that he knew man was capable of greater knowledge, but envied him that happiness; and that the eating of that fruit was not the way to death as God had threatened, but to knowledge and exaltation: whereupon the woman seeing the beauty of the fruit, and desiring knowledge, believed the devil, and did eat of that which God forbade. The sin being so heinous for a new-made, rational creature, to believe that God was false and bad, a liar and envious, which is indeed the nature of the devil, and to depart from his love and obedience for so small a matter, God did, in justice, presently sentence the offenders to punishment: yet would not so lose his new-made creature, nor cast off mankind, by the full execution of his deserved punishment; but he resolved to commit the recovery and conduct of mankind to a Redeemer, who should better perform the work of salvation than the first man, Adam, had done the work of adhesion and obedience. This Saviour is the Eternal Wisdom and Word of God, who was in due time to assume the nature of man, and in the meantime to stay the stroke of justice, and to be the invisible Lawgiver and Guide of souls, communicating such measures of mercy, light, and spirit, for their recovery, as he saw fit. (Of whom, more anon.) So that, henceforward, God did no longer govern man as a spotless, innocent creature, by the mere law of entire nature; but as a lapsed, guilty, depraved creature, who must be pardoned, reconciled, and renewed, and have laws and means made suitable to his corrupted and miserable state. Hereupon, God published the promise of a Saviour, to be sent in due time: who should ¶ Cæsarius (Dialog. 3. Q. 122) thinketh that Adam was forty days in paradise, and that, therefore, Lent is kept, to show our hungering after paradise. But that is a singular fancy. And afterwards he changed it, upon some old men's tradition, to a longer time. (Gen. ii. and iii.) Transtulit Deos hominem in Paradisum, et undique occasiones suggerens ut cresceret, et perfectus redderetur, et declaratus tandem Deus, in astra ascenderet. Mediam etenim conditionem obtinuit homo; nec totus mortalis, nec totus immortalis existens ; verum utriusque extitit particeps.-Theoph. Antio. ad Antol. 1. 1. p. 129. confound the devil that had accused God of falsehood, and of envying the good of man, and had by lying murdered mankind; and should overcome all his deceits and power, and rescue God's injured honour, and the souls of sinners, and bring them safe to the everlasting blessedness which they were made for. Thus God, as man's Redeemer, and not only as his Creator, governeth him. He taught Adam first to worship him now by sacrifice, both in acknowledgment of the Creator, and to teach him to believe in and expect the Redeemer, who, in his assumed humanity, was to become a sacrifice for sin. This worship by sacrifice Adam taught his two sons, Cain and Abel, who were the early instances, types, and beginnings of the two sorts of persons which thenceforward would be in the world; viz., the holy seed of Christ, and the wicked seed of Satan. Cain, the elder (as corruption now is before regeneration) offering the fruits of his land only to his Creator; and Abel, the younger, sacrificing the firstlings of his flock of sheep to his Redeemer, with a purified mind. God rejected the offering of Cain, and accepted the sacrifice of Abel: whereupon Cain, in imitation of the devil, envied his brother, and in envy slew him, to foretell the world what the corrupted nature of man would prove, and how malignant it would be against the sanctified, and what the holy seed that are accepted of God must look for in this world, for the hope of an everlasting blessedness with God. After this, God's patience waited on mankind, not executing the threatened death upon their bodies till they had each lived seven, eight, or nine hundred years: which mercy was abused to their greater sin, the length of their lives occasioning their excessive sensuality, worldliness, and contempt of God and life eternal, so that the number of the holy seed was at last so small, and the wickedness of mankind so great, that God resolved to drown the world. Only righteous Noah and his family (eight persons) he saved in an ark, which he directed him to make for the preservation of himself, and the species of aerial and terrestrial animals. After which flood, the earth was peopled in time from Noah, to whom God gave precepts of piety and justice, which by tradition came down to his posterity through the world." But still the greater part did corrupt their ways, and followed Satan, and the holy seed was the smaller part: of whom Abraham, being exemplary in holiness and righteous s Gen. v. n Gen. viii. ix. x. and xi. t * Gen. vi. and vii. ness, with his son, Isaac, and his grandson, Jacob, God did, in special approbation of their righteousness, renew his gracious covenant with them, and enlarge it with the addition of many temporal blessings, and special privileges to their posterity after them; promising that they should possess the land of Canaan, and be to him a peculiar people above all the people of the earth. The children of Jacob, being afterwards by a famine removed into Egypt, there multiplied to a great people. The king of Egypt, therefore, oppressed them, and used them as slaves, to make his brick, by cruel impositions: till at last God raised them up Moses for a deliverer, to whom God committed his message to the king, and to whom he gave power to work miracles for their deliverance, and whom he made their captain to lead them out of Egypt towards the promised land. Ten times did Moses, with Aaron, his brother, go to Pharaoh, the king, in vain, though each time they wrought public miracles to convince him, till at last, when God had in a night destroyed all the first born in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh did unwillingly let the seed of Jacob, or Israel, go; but, repenting quickly, he pursued after them with his host, and overtook them just at the Red Sea, where God wrought a miracle, opening the sea, which the Israelites passed through on dry ground: but the king, with his host, who were hardened to pursue them, were all drowned by the return of the waters, when the Israelites were over. Then Moses led them on in the wilderness, towards the promised land; but the great difficulties of the wilderness tempted them to murmuring against him that had brought them thither, and to unbelief against God, as if he could not have provided for them. This provoked God to kill many thousands of them by plagues and serpents, and to delay them forty years in that wilderness, before he gave them the land of promise: so that only two which came out of Egypt, Caleb and Joshua, did live to enter it. But to confute their unbelief, God wrought many miracles for them in this wilderness; he caused the rocks to give them water; he fed them with manna from above: their shoes and clothes did not wear in forty years. In this wilderness Moses received from God a law, by which they were to be governed. In Mount Sinai, in flames of fire, with terrible thunder, God appeared so far to Moses, as to speak to him, and instruct him in all that he would have him to do: he gave him the chief part of his law in two tables of stone, containing ten * Gen. xii. to the end of the Book. a commandments, engraven thereon by God himself, or by angelical ministration: the rest he instructed him in by word of voice. Moses was made their captain, and Aaron their high priest, and all the forms of God's worship settled, with abundance of laws for sacrifices and ceremonies, to typify the sacrifice and reign of Christ. When Moses and Aaron were dead in the wilderness, God chose Joshua, Moses' servant, to be their captain, who led them into Canaan, and miraculously conquered all the inhabitants, and settled Israel in possession of the land. There they long remained under the government of a chieftain, called a judge, successively chosen by God himself,” till at last they mutinied against that form of government, and desired a king like other nations. Whereupon, God gave them a bad king in displeasure; but next him he choose David, a king of great and exemplary holiness, in whom God delighted, and made his kingdom hereditary. To David he gave a son of extraordinary wisdom, who by God's appointment built the famous temple at Jerusalem; yet did this Solomon, by the temptation of his wives, to gratify them, set up idolatry also in the land. Which so provoked God, that he resolved to rend ten tribes of the twelve out of his son's hand; which accordingly was done, and they revolted and chose a king of their own, and only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin adhered to the posterity of Solomon. The wise sentences of Solomon, and the psalms of David, are here inserted in the Bible. The reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel are afterwards described; the wickedness and idolatry of most of their successive kings and people; till God, being so much provoked by them, gave them up into captivity. Here is also inserted many books of the prophecies of those prophets which God sent from time to time, to call them from their sins, and warn them of his foretold judgments: and, lastly, here is contained some of the history of their state in captivity, and the return of the Jews by the favour of Cyrus; where in a tributary state they remained in expectation of the promised Messiah or Christ. Thus far is the history of the Old Testament. The Jews, being too sensible of their captivities and tributes, and too desirous of temporal greatness and dominion, expected that the Messiah should restore their kingdom to its y Exod. and Numb. Ezra and Nehem. 2 Josh. and Judg. b 1 King. 2 King, and 1 Chr, and 2 Chr. ancient splendour, and should subdue the gentile nations to them and to this sense they expounded all those passages their prophets, which were spoken and meant of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, as the Saviour of souls, which prejudiced them against the Messiah when he came; so that, though they looked and longed for his coming, yet, when he came, they knew him not to be the Christ, but hated him, and persecuted him, as the prophets had foretold: the fulness of time being come, in which God would send the promised Redeemer, the Eternal Wisdom and Word of God, the Second in the Trinity, assumed a human soul and body, and was conceived in the womb of a virgin, by the Holy Spirit of God, without man's concurrence. His birth was celebrated by prophecies, and apparitions, and applause of angels, and other wonders. A star appearing over the place, led some astronomers out of the east, to worship him in the cradle, which Herod, the king, being informed of, and that they called him the King of the Jews, he caused all the infants in that country to be killed, that he might not escape; but, by the warning of an angel, Jesus was carried into Egypt, where he remained till the death of Herod. At twelve years old he disputed with the doctors in the temple at this time rose a prophet, called John, who told them, that the kingdom of the Messiah was at hand, and called the people to repentance, that they might be prepared for him, and baptised all that professed repentance into the present expectation of the Saviour.d About the thirtieth year of his age, Jesus resolved to enter upon the solemn performance of his undertaken work; and, first, he went to John to be baptised by him, the captains being to wear the same colours with the soldiers. When John had baptised him, he declared him to be the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world; and when he was baptised, and prayed, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended, in a bodily shape, like a dove, upon him; and a voice came from heaven, which said, "Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased." The first thing that Jesus did, after his baptism, was, when he had fasted forty days and nights, to expose himself to the utmost of Satan's temptations, who, thereupon, did divers ways assault him; but Jesus perfectly overcame the tempter, who had overcome the first man, Adam;e thenceforth, he preached the glad tidings of d Matt. i. ii. &c. Luke ì. ii. &c. Vid. Procli Homiliam de Nativ. Christi. interpret. Peltano. * Matt. iv. and Luke iv. |