First, The horrible wickedness of the Jews in crucifying him will do it. The rottenness of the root shows it self in the branches; the malignity of Original sin appears in actual ones, especially in those which are of a deeper stain than others are. It was the aggravation of Solomons sin, that his heart was turned from the Lord, who had appeared to him twice, 1 King. 11.9. The more eminently God appears to us, the more aggravated are our actual sins against him; and the more aggravated those are, the more vile and venomous doth the inward root of them appear to be. When God appears to us in Reason, which is a beam from him more precious than a world, it speaks desperate corruption in men, that the brutal part should usurp and rule over it; that ⟨p. 229⟩the vile sensual lusts should tread down that Divine spark, and, as it were, annihilate it, that nothing of God might have place in the heart. When God further appeared in the Law and the Prophets, to raise up a purer knowledge of himself than was to be found in Reason, as it lay in the dust and rubbish of the fall, it argues a greater pravity and malignity in men, that they should murder his Prophets, and trample his Sacred Laws, the images of his holy Will, under their impure feet; this was in effect, as much as in them lay, to explode God out of his own world, and practically to say, that he should not reign there. When God yet more eminently appeared, when he sent his own Son, very God of God, to be manifest in the flesh; whose glory broke forth most illustriously in excellent Doctrines and Miracles; whose whole life among men was nothing but innocency, purity, mercy, meekness, goodness, humility, love, zeal, heavenliness, holiness, obedience, and all manner of virtue, in spotless perfection; one might have thought that men would have reverenced the Son; that the indwelling-corruption, however it had rioted under other manifestations, would here have made a pause, and stood as one astonied and over-awed at so stupendous an appearance, infinitely transcending all other: For what is the little spark of Reason, to the brightness of Gods glory? Or the Law in the letter, to incarnate Sanctity and Holiness? Or what are all the Prophets to him who came out of the Fathers bosom, and brought down supernatural Mysteries into the world?
First, The horrible wickedness of the Jews in crucifying him will do it. The rottenness of the root shews it self in the branches; the malignity of Original sin appears in actual ones, especially in those which are of a deeper stain than others are. It was the aggravation of Solomons sin, that his heart was turned from the Lord, who had appeared to him twice, 1 King. 11.9. The more eminently God appears to us, the more aggravated are our actual sins against him; and the more aggravated those are, the more vile and venemous doth the inward root of them appear to be. When God appears to us in Reason, which is a beam from him more precious than a world, it speaks desperate corruption in men, that the brutal part should usurp and rule over it; that ⟨p. 229⟩the vile sensual lusts should tread down that Divine spark, and, as it were, annihilate it, that nothing of God might have place in the heart. When God further appeared in the Law and the Prophets, to raise up a purer knowledg of himself than was to be found in Reason, as it lay in the dust and rubbish of the fall, it argues a greater pravity and malignity in men, that they should murder his Prophets, and trample his Sacred Laws, the images of his holy Will, under their impure feet; this was in effect, as much as in them lay, to explode God out of his own world, and practically to say, that he should not reign there. When God yet more eminently appeared, when he sent his own Son, very God of God, to be manifest in the flesh; whose glory broke forth most illustriously in excellent Doctrines and Miracles; whose whole life among men was nothing but innocency, purity, mercy, meekness, goodness, humility, love, zeal, heavenliness, holiness, obedience, and all manner of virtue, in spotless perfection; one might have thought that men would have reverenced the Son; that the indwelling-corruption, however it had rioted under other manifestations, would here have made a pause, and stood as one astonied and over-awed at so stupendious an appearance, infinitely transcending all other: For what is the little spark of Reason, to the brightness of Gods glory? Or the Law in the letter, to incarnate Sanctity and Holiness? Or what are all the Prophets to him who came out of the Fathers bosom, and brought down supernatural Mysteries into the world?
