19. Col. i. 23. Jesus work by one St Paul to the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed? How did he pass from Jerusalem round about through Phoenice, Syria, and Arabia, through Asia, Rom. xv. 18, Achaia, and Macedonia, even to Illyricum, fully preaching the Gospel of Christ? How far did others pass beside St Paul, that he should speak even of his time, that the Gospel was preached to every creature under heaven? Many were the nations, innumerable the people, which received the faith in the apostles' days: and in not many years after, notwithstanding millions were cut off in their bloody persecutions, yet did their numbers equalize half the Roman empire': and little above two ages after the death of the last apostle, the emperors of the world gave in their names to Christ, and submitted their sceptres to his laws, that the Gentiles might come to his light, and kings to the brightness of his rising; that kings Isai. xlix. 23. might become the nursing fathers, and queens the nursing mothers, of the Church. Isai. lx. 3. From hence it came to pass, that, according to all the pre- 91 dictions of the prophets, the one God of Israel, the Maker of heaven and earth, was acknowledged through the world for the only true God: that the Law given to Israel was taken for the true Law of God, but as given to that people, and so to cease when they ceased to be a people; except the moral 1 'Visa est mihi res digna consultatione, maxime propter periclitantium numerum. Multi enim omnis ætatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque sexus etiam, vocantur in periculum et vocabuntur. Neque enim civitates tantum, sed vicos etiam atque agros, superstitionis istius contagio pervagata est.' Plin. Epist. ad Trajanum, 1. x. ep. 97. 'Tanta hominum multitudo, pars pæne major civitatis cujusque, in silentio et modestia agimus.' Tertull. ad Scapul. c. 2. Si enim et hostes exertos, non tantum vindices occultos agere vellemus, deesset nobis vis numerorum et copiarum? Plures nimirum Mauri et Marcomanni, ipsique Parthi, vel quantæcunque unius tamen loci et suorum finium gentes, quam totius orbis. Hesterni sumus, et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes, insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa, tribus, decurias, palatium, senatum, forum.' Id Apolog. c. 37. Potuimus et inermes, nec rebelles, sed tantummodo discordes, solius divortii invidia adversus vos dimicasse. Si enim tanta vis hominum in aliquem orbis remoti sinum abrupissemus a vobis, suffudisset utique dominationem vestram tot qualiumcumque civium amissio, immo etiam et ipsa destitutione punisset: proculdubio expavissetis ad solitudinem vestram, ad silentium rerum, et stuporem quendam quasi mortui orbis; quæsissetis quibus imperaretis.' Id. ibid. And Irenæus, who wrote before Tertullian, and is mentioned by him, speaks of the Christians in his time living in the Court of Rome: 'Quid autem et hi qui in regali aula sunt fideles? nonne ex eis, quæ Cæsaris sunt, habent utensilia, et his, qui non habent, unusquisque eorum secundum virtutem suam præstat?' [Iv. 30. 1. p. 267.] part thereof, which, as an universal rule common to all people, is still acknowledged for the Law of God, given unto all, and obliging every man: that all the oracles of the heathen gods, in all places where Christianity was received, did presently cease, and all the idols or the gods themselves were rejected and condemned as spurious. For the Lord of Hosts had spoken concerning those times expressly, It shall come to Zech. xii. 2. pass in that day, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. Now being this general reception of the Gospel was so anciently, so frequently foretold, being the same was so clearly and universally performed; even this might seem sufficient to persuade that Jesus is Christ. But lest any should not yet be fully satisfied, we shall farther shew, that it is impossible Jesus should have been so received for the true Messias, had he not been so; or that his doctrine, which teacheth him to be the Christ, should be admitted by all nations for divine had it not been such. For whether we look upon the nature of the doctrine taught, the condition of the teachers of it, or the manner in which it was taught, it can no way seem probable, that it should have had any such success, without the immediate working of the hand of God, acknowledging Jesus for his Son, the doctrine for his own, and the fulfilling by the hands of the apostles what he had foretold by the prophets. 2 As for the nature of the doctrine, it was no way likely to have any such success. For, first, it absolutely condemned all other religions, settled and corroborated by a constant succession of many ages, under which many nations and kingdoms, and especially at that time the Roman, had signally flourished. Secondly, it contained precepts far more ungrateful and troublesome to flesh and blood, and contrariant to the general inclination of mankind; as the abnegation of ourselves, the mortifying of the flesh, the love of our enemies, and the bearing of the cross. Thirdly, it enforced those precepts seemingly unreasonable, by such promises as were as seemingly incredible and unperceivable. For they were not of the good things of this world, or such as afford any complacency to our sense; but of such as cannot be obtained till after this life, and necessarily presuppose that which then seemed as absolutely impossible, the resurrection. Fourthly, it delivered certain predictions which were to be fulfilled in the persons of such as should embrace it, which seemed sufficient to have kept most part of the world from listening to it, as dangers, losses, afflictions, 2 Tim. iii. 12. tribulations; and, in sum, all that would live godly in Christ Jesus should suffer persecution. If we look upon the teachers of this doctrine, there appeared nothing in them which could promise any such success. The first revealer and promulger bred in the house of a carpenter, brought up at the feet of no professor, despised by the high-priest, the Scribes and Pharisees, and all the learned in the religion of his nation; in the time of his preaching apprehended, bound, buffeted, spit upon, condemned, crucified; betrayed in his life by one disciple, denied by another; at his death distrusted by all. What advantage can we perceive toward the propagation of the Gospel in this author of it, 1 Cor. i. 23. Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness? What in those which followed him, sent by him, and thence called apostles, men by birth obscure, by 92 education illiterate, by profession low and inglorious? How can we conceive that all the schools and universities of the world should give way to them, and the kingdoms and empires should at last come in to them, except their doctrine were indeed divine, except that Jesus, whom they testified to be the Christ, were truly so? 1 Cor. ii. 4. If we consider the manner in which they delivered this doctrine to the world, it will add no advantage to their persons, or advance the probability of success. For in their delivery they used no such rhetorical expressions, or ornaments of eloquence, to allure or entice the world; they affected no such subtilty of wit, or strength of argumentation, as thereby to persuade and convince men; they made use of no force or violence to compel, no corporal menaces to affright mankind unto a compliance. But in a plain simplicity of words they nakedly delivered what they had seen and heard, preaching, not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit. It is not then rationally imaginable, that so many nations should forsake their own religions, so many ages professed, and brand them all as damnable, only that they might embrace such precepts as were most unacceptable to their natural inclinations, and that upon such promises as seemed not probable to their reason, nor could have any influence on their sense, and notwithstanding those predictions which did assure them, upon the receiving of that doctrine, to be exposed to all kind of misery: that they should do this upon the authority of him who for the same was condemned and crucified, and by the persuasion of them who were both illiterate and obscure that they should be enticed with words without eloquence, convinced without the least subtilty, constrained without any force. I say, it is no way imaginable how this should come to pass, had not the doctrine of the Gospel, which did thus prevail, been certainly divine; had not the light of the Word, which thus dispelled the clouds of all former religions, come from heaven; had not that Jesus, the author and finisher of our Heb. xii. 2. faith, been the true Messias. To conclude this discourse. He who was in the world at the time when the Messias was to come, and no other at that time or since pretended; he who was born of the same family, in the same place, after the same manner, which the prophets foretold of the birth of the Messias; he which taught all those truths, wrought all those miracles, suffered all those indignities, received all that glory, which the Messias was to teach, do, suffer, and receive; he whose doctrine was received in all nations, according to the character of the Messias he was certainly the true Messias. But we have already sufficiently shewed that all these things are exactly fulfilled in Jesus, and in him alone. We must therefore acknowledge and profess, that this Jesus is the promised Messias, that is, the Christ. Having thus manifested the truth of this proposition, Jesus is the Christ, and shewed the interpretation of the word Christ to be anointed: we find it yet necessary, for the explication of this Article1 to inquire what was the end or immediate effect of his unction, and how or in what manner he was anointed to that end. For the first, as the Messias was foretold, so was he typified: nor were the actions prescribed under the Law less 1 'In Christi enim nomine subauditur qui unxit, et ipse qui unctus est, et ipsa unctio in qua unctus est.' Iren. predictive than the words of the prophets. Nay' whosoever were then anointed, were therefore so, because he was to be anointed. Now it is evident, that among the Jews they were wont to anoint those which were appointed as kings over 1 Sam. xv. 1. them: so Samuel said unto Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel. When Saul was 12. 3 1 Sam. xvi. rejected, and David produced before Samuel, the Lord said Arise, anoint him; for this is he. And some may have con- 93 tented themselves with this that the Messias was to be a king. But not only the kings, but beside and long before them, the high-priests were also anointed; insomuch as the anointed, in their common language, signified their highpriest. And because these two were most constantly anointed, therefore divers have thought it sufficient to assert, that the Messias was to be a king and a priest. But being not only 1 Οἱ βασιλεῖς πάντες καὶ οἱ χριστοὶ ἀπὸ τούτου μετέσχον καὶ βασιλείς κατ λeîolai Kai XpioTol. Just. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. § 86. p. 313. 2 Christus a chrismate dicitur: quia sicut antiqui reges a sacerdotibus oleo sacro perfundebantur, sic Dominus noster Jesus Christus Spiritus Sancti infusione repletus est.' Author Serm. 131. de Temp. [Inter Augustini Op. Serm. 242. § 3. Vol. v. App. p. 398 A.] 8 Sicut nunc Romanis indumentum purpuræ insigne est regiæ dignitatis assumptæ: sic illis unctio sacri unguenti nomen ac potestatem regiam conferebat.' Lactan. Div. Inst. 1. iv. c. 7. 4 For though at the first the sons of Aaron were anointed as well as Aaron, as appears, Exod. xl. 15. 'Thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may administer to me in the priest's office:' yet they were not after anointed, but the successors of Aaron only: for, saith the text, 'Their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations." and, therefore, after this first anointing they shall need no more, only the successors in the highpriesthood shall reiterate the unction: from whence the priest that is anointed afterwards signified the high-priest, as Lev. iv. 3. n'wan nɔn LXX. ò ápχιερεὺς ὁ κεχρισμένος, by way of explication; whereas, verse the 5th and the 16th of the same chapter, and vi. 22. they render it by a bare translation, ὁ ἱερεὺς ὁ χριστός: which by the vulgar Latin is translated, Sacerdos qui jure patri succederet, because no other but the son, which succeeded the father in the office of the high-priest, was afterwards anointed: as the Arabic, Et similiter sacerdos successor de filiis suis. For in the anointing of Aaron and his נמשחו כל הבאים אחריהם להיות,sons כהנים ולזה לא הוצרכו למשוח אחר זה כי 1 x Levi Ben Gerson, 1 Kings i. 34. 5 As Lactantius: 'Erat Judæis ante præceptum, ut sacrum conficerent unguentum, quo perungi possent ii, qui vocabantur ad sacerdotium vel ad regnum.' Div. Inst. 1. iv. c. 7. And St Augustine: 'Prioribus Veteris Testamenti temporibus ad duas solas personas pertinebat [unctio].' Enarr. 2. Psal. xxvi. § 2. [Vol. iv. p. 119 B.] 'Christus vel Pontificale vel Regium nomen est. Nam prius et Pontifices unguento chrismatis consecrabantur et Reges.' Ruff. in Symb. § 6. [p. 62.] |