Ghost abode in him after that visible glory, in which he descended, disappeared, even throughout the whole course of his ministry; and hence, Luke iv. 1. we are told, that, being full of the Holy Ghost, he returned from Jordan; and after he had finished his forty days' fast in the wilderness, he returned from thence in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, ver. 14. where, in his own city of Nazareth, he began to prophesy, declaring and manifesting that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, ver. 18-23. And at Cana in Galilee he began to work miracles, and thereby to manifest forth his glory, John ii. 11. Thus by prophesying, and confirming his prophecies by miracles, he exerted that fulness of the Holy Ghost which was communicated to him at his baptism. And now, since before he came down to prophesy to us he was from eternity in the bosom of the Father; and since when he came down he was clothed in human nature, and in that nature was inspired with such an unbounded fulness of the Holy Ghost, as that he could not only prophesy himself, and confirm his prophecies by miracles when he pleased, but also communicate these his gifts to others in what measures and proportions he thought fit, to enable them to prophesy for him wherever he thought meet to send them, what can we imagine farther necessary to complete and accomplish him for the prophetic office?

I proceed therefore in the next place to shew how throughly and effectually he discharged this office; which will plainly appear by considering briefly what those things were, which, as a prophet, he performed: all which are reducible to these six heads.

First, He made a full declaration of his Father's

will to the world.

Secondly, He proved and confirmed what he had declared by miracles.

Thirdly, He gave a perfect example of obedience to what he had declared and proved to be his Father's will.

Fourthly, He sealed his declaration with his own blood.

Fifthly, He instituted an order of men to preach what he had declared to the world.

Sixthly, He sent his holy Spirit, when he left the world, to recollect and explain to those men what he had declared, and to enable them also to prove and assert it by miracles.

I. He made a full declaration of his Father's will to the world, viz. in those sermons, parables, and discourses of his, which we find recorded in the four evangelists, in which the whole will of God concerning the way and method of our salvation is fully and perfectly revealed. For thus St. Paul declares to the elders of the church of Ephesus, that he had kept back nothing that was profitable for them, but had testified both to the Jews and Greeks repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, Acts xx. 20, 21. and verse 27. he tells them, that he had not shunned to declare unto them all the counsel of God. Now it is certain that this whole counsel of God, which he had preached, was only that account of our Saviour's discourses and actions which St. Luke gives us in his Gospel, who, as Irenæus tells us, was a follower of St. Paul, and did compile into one book that history of our Saviour's life and doctrine which St. Paul had taught and

delivered: and if so, then the whole counsel of God must be contained in this Gospel. And accordingly St. Luke tells his Theophilus in the beginning of his Gospel, That forasmuch as many had set forth a declaration of these things that were surely believed among Christians; it seemed good unto him also, having had a perfect understanding of all things from the first, to write them down in order, that he might know the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed. From whence I infer, that, supposing that St. Luke performed what he promised, his Gospel must contain a full declaration of the Christian religion. For, first, by promising to give an account of those things that were surely believed among Christians, he engaged himself to give an entire account of Christianity; unless we will suppose that there were some parts of Christianity which the Christians of that time did not surely believe. Secondly, in promising to give an account of those things of which he had perfect understanding from the first, and in which his Theophilus had been instructed, he also engaged himself to give a complete account of the whole religion, unless we will suppose that there were some parts of this religion which St. Luke did not perfectly understand, and in which Theophilus had not been before instructed. And the same may be said of the three other evangelists, viz. that their Gospels do severally contain all the necessary articles of Christianity; though the last of them seems to have been written upon a more particular design, viz. more fully to explain, than any of the former evangelists had done, the article of the divinity and eternal generation of Jesus Christ the Son of God. And if the whole of religion be contained

in these Gospels, which are only histories of our Saviour's preaching and actions, then it cannot be denied but that he made a full revelation of God's will to the world. It is true there are sundry other divine writings annexed to these Gospels, which, together with them, complete the New Testament, viz. the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles; but these pretend not to declare any new religion to the world. For as for the Acts of the Apostles, it is only an historical account of the preparations of Christ's ministers, for the preaching that gospel to the world which he had taught them, and of the way and method of their procedure in it, in despite of all those oppositions they met with. And as for the Epistles, they are partly comments and enlargements on our Saviour's actions and discourses, and partly decisions of such controversies as arose among them, according to the analogy of that faith which our Saviour had before declared and revealed; but in all these writings, there is no one article of faith but what was before declared and defined in the sermons and discourses of our Saviour. And then as for the primitive writers, who lived in or near the apostolical age, and upon that account had much greater advantage of understanding the truths of Christianity than we who live at this remote distance, they are at best but genuine commentators on that doctrine which our Saviour first taught, and his apostles afterwards more fully explained to the world; but as for declaring any new doctrines, or defining new articles of faith, that is an upstart invasion of Christ's prophetic office, which they never so much as pretended to. So that the prophecy of our Saviour is the fountain from whence all Christian truth is derived, as

containing in it a complete and entire sum of God's will and counsel concerning the salvation of mankind.

II. As he taught the whole will of God, so he proved that what he taught was the will of God, by sundry miraculous operations, which are the great evidences by which God always demonstrated the truth of his divine revelations, and which of all others are the most popular, easy, and convincing proofs that can be given of them. For as for the prophets themselves, they might be very well assured that their enthusiasms were divine, by the vehement impressions they made on their minds, which were such as did as fully satisfy them that they were from God, as the strokes of the sunbeams on our eyes do us, that it is day at noon: but no other man could be satisfied that what they spoke was by divine inspiration, without either being divinely inspired himself, or confirmed by them in the belief of it by some miraculous sign of the divine power; which latter was the way by which the prophets of old did ordinarily confirm their doctrines, when they delivered any thing new to the world. And accordingly, though our Saviour had all along sufficiently confirmed his doctrines to the Jews by the authorities of the Old Testament, yet this confirmation of his miracles he more particularly insists on and appeals to: thus John x. 25. The works, saith he, that I do in my Father's name, they testify of me: and again, ver. 37, 38. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works. And herein he places the inexcusable sin of their unbelief, that they persisted in it, notwithstanding he had done among