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A38017
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An enquiry into four remarkable texts of the New Testament which contain some difficulty in them, with a probable resolution of them by John Edwards ...
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Edwards, John, 1637-1716.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing E208; ESTC R17328
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127,221
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286
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Nov. 18. 91. Imprimatur Gabr. Quadring Procan Io. Beaumont Io. Mountagu Io. Spencer AN ENQUIRY INTO Four Remarkable TEXTS OF THE New Testament Which contain Some DIFFICULTY in them WITH A Probable Resolution Of them By Iohn Edwards B. D. sometime Fellow of S t Iohns College in Cambridge 1 Cor. 13. 9. We know in part and we prophesie in part CAMBRIDGE Printed by I. Hayes Printer to the University for W. Graves Bookseller there 1692. The TEXTS Enquired into and Resolved are S. Matth. II. 23. He shall be called a Nazarene 1 Corinth XI 14. Doth not even Nature it self teach you that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him 1 Corinth XV. 29. Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all Why are they then baptized for the dead 1 S. Peter III. 19 20. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison who sometime were disobedient c. THE PREFACE THat there are Obscurities and Difficulties in Holy Writ is acknowledged by all persons that are conversant in this Sacred Volume And truly if we consider things aright we shall find that this is not unworthy either of God or of his Holy Word Not of God himself who endited the Sacred Scriptures for he hath most Wisely ordered that there should be some things Obscure and Mysterious in them to create a becoming Reverence and to let us know that these Writings are not penned after an ordinary manner These Clouds and Darkness are suitable to the Majesty of Heaven they are proper to beget in us Humility and Mean Thoughts of our selves to convince us of the Shallowness of our intellects to shew us how Short-sighted we are to give check to our Presumption to quash our towring Conceits of our knowledge to supersede our Vain Boasting to repel our Vaunting Pride and Insolence They are serviceable also to rebuke our Sloth and Negligence to provoke our Care and Study and to excite our utmost Diligence Thus it hath pleased God to exercise the Understandings of men and to make trial of their Industry by these Difficult passages which occurre in Scripture If all places were easy this Book would be liable to Contempt and there would be no room left for our Diligent Search and Enquiry But now at every reading of it we still find something to employ our understandings â—â—resh and to improve 〈◊〉 most iâ—quisitive faculties Here our minds may be perpetually busied here is enough to entertain our greatest leisure and most earnest study Here are many Mysteries to be unfolded many Depths to be fathomed many Abstrusities both in the things and in the words that convey the notice of them to our minds to be discovered so that to the Greatest Student and most Ambitious Enquirer that will happen which the Son of Sirach saith in another case When a man hath done then he beginneth Here are not only Foords and Shallows which we may easily wade through but here are unpassable Depths and Abysses It hath seemed good to the Wise Governor of the world that there should be in the Holy Scripture Some things hard to be unâ—derstood as S t Peter particularly pronounceth of S Pauls Epistles that â—ereby the Excellency of these Sacred Writings might appear that by this means it might be seen of what Vniversal use they are far those places which are plain and clear are fitted to ordinary capacities and those other portions which are deep and intricate are the proper entertainment of the Learned and thus the Whole Book is calculated for the general benefit of all S t Chrysostom â—ath summ'd it up thus very briefly All passages in Scripture are not plain and perspicuous lest we should be Lazy nor are all obscure lest we should Despond This Excellent Tempering of the Sacred Writ is a high commendation of it and is no other then the Wise Contrivance of Heavâ—n And as this Obscurity of some parts of Scripture is not unworthy of God himself so neither is it any disparagement to his Sacred Word For we must know that this Difficulty happens from the very nature of the things themselves which are here recorded It cannot be otherwise but that some portions of Scripture must be dark and obscure and consequently must labour under Different and Contrary Expositions because they were written so long ago and contain in them so many Old Customs and Usages so many Relations concerning Different People so many and various Idioms of Tongues such divâ—rsity of Antient Expressions Laws and Manners of all Nations in the world It is unreasonable to expect that we should exactly understand all these It is not to be wondred at that these occasion Doâ—bts Difficulties Mistakes And it is certain that the being ignorant of some of these is no blemish either to the Sacred Writings or to the persons who read and study theâ— Suppose I do not know what the house of Asuppim is 1 Chron. 26. 15. or what kind of trees the Almug or Algum-trees are 1 Kings 10. 12. 1 Chron. 20. 8. or who are meant by the Gammadim Ezek. 27. 11. What though I am not so well skill'd in the Iewish Modes and Fashions as to tell what kind of Womens-Ornament the houses of the soul are in Isai. 3. 20. or what particular Idols or Pagan Deities Gad and Meni are Isai. 65. 11. or which of the Heathen Gods is meant by Chiun or Remphan Amos 5. 26. Acts 7. 43. Some of the Learnedest Expositors and Criticks have confessed their ignorance as to these plaâ—es of Scripture particularly upon the last of them our Profound Antiquary hath these despairing words For my part I perceive my blindness to be such that I can see nothing at all and to the same purpose this Admirable Person speaks concerning several other passages in Scripture as of Nishroc Nergal and other Idols mentioned there the origine and meaning of which Names are hid from us Many other Reasons might be alledged of the real or seeming Difficulty of some places namely the Sublimity of the Matter the Ambiguity and Different Significations of the Words the Inadvertency of Expositors and sometimes their unskilfulness and oftentimes their Willful Designing to pervert the words in order to the maintaining some opinions or practises which they adhere to But no man of a sedate mind and reason can think that the Scriptures themselves are disparaged by these Difficulties and Mistakes for they are not arguments of the Scriptures Imperfection but of Man's Besides these Obscurities which are accompanied with the various ways of rendring some Expressions and determining the Sense are no proof of the Imperfection of this Holy Book because in matters of Faith and Manners which are the Main things we are concerned in and for which the Bible was chiefly writ these Writings are plain and intelligible All Necessary and Fundamental Points of Religion are set down here in such expressions as are suitable to the
sense the Article which is here inserted should be left out and it should have been barely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Learned Hammond sets it down in his Annotations being Conscious as it were that it should be so 4. Let us pass to another Reading of the words and it shall be still of Those who take Baptizing here in the Sacramentalsense and hold that the baptized for the dead were those persons who had That Sacrament administred to them when they were close upon the confines of death and just expiring their last This Exposition is abetted by Calvin The baptized for the dead saith he are they who are baptized when they are Dying when they are given over and look'd upon as dead And so the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as the Latin pro as when they say habere pro derelieto Other Learned Writers also take This to be the sense of the Apostle's words but it came first from Epiphanius in his Book against Hereticks who acquaints us that when it so chanced that the Catachumeni or New Comers to Christianity were overtaken with some Mortal distemper and there was an utter Despair of their Living till they could be brought to the Sacred Font they used to be baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they lay in their Beds and from that usage of theirs the Clinici or Bed-ridden took their Name For you must know that it was usuall with those that were converted to Christianity to defer their Baptism Perhaps say some at first it proceeded from fear and cowardize which made them unwilling to hazard themselves by the open profession of their Religion and so they put off their admission into the Church as long as they could but when they were arrested by Grievous Sickness and confined to their Beds they passionately begged to be baptized before they left the world This was one sort of Clinicks But there was a second sert who deferred their Baptism on other accounts These were no New Converts but such as had imbraced Christianity a considerable time yet they purposely deferred their Baptism on one pretended ground or other Thus Constantine the Great was not baptized till the sixty fifth year of his age which was the one and thirtieth year of his Empire and he declared himself as Eusebius testifies that he delay'd his Baptism because he intended to be Baptized in the River Iordan the place which was so famous for the fiâ—st Baptizing and where our Saviour himself was baptized â—ut he was hindred from going thither though I see no Cause of that hindrance in so many years and being Aged he fell sick and was Baptized in the City of Nicomedia where he then was by Eusebius Bishop either at that time or formerly of that place and he died in the very same year he was Baptized I know this is Contradicted and it is said he was not baptized in the East but in the West not by a Greek Bishop but a Roman one This was Miltiades say some others stiffly maintain that it was Sylvester and this they have fâ—om one of the Roman Bishops who wrote Sylvesters Life and asserts that He baptized Constantine telling us withall that this Emperour among other Admirable Ornaments and Utensils kept in his Palace the Font wherein he was baptized and desâ—ribes the Make and Costliness of it It seems it is since translated or thought to be translated to Rome and there is kept as a Choice Memoâ—ial And as for the Occasion of Constantine's being Baptized they tell us it was This he being guilty of his son Crispus's bloud and other unnatural murders was struck by God with Leprosie which Affected him so much that he applied himself to the Bishop and shew'd himself Sorrowful for the fact and to give an evidence of his Repentance he desired to receive Baptism Then by the â—ishops Prayers and this Holy Laver he was cured of his Noisome Distemper This was in the eighteenth year of his reign A. D. 324. and is mentioned by Zosimus and Baronius Yet Cedrenus and others say he was baptized at Rome by this Sylvester some years before viz. in the seventh year of his reign But Eusebius the famous Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine who writ the Life of Constantine saith not a word of all this but tells us that he was baptized not at Rome but at Nicomedia and that many years after the Nicene Council in the close of his life the last year of his reign five years after Sylvester was dead by Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia and this is testified and confirmed by S t Ierom S t Ambrose Socrates Sozomen Theodoret and others and seems to be the True Account of the Emperours Baptism To hasten then out of this Digression this Example of Constantine's deferring his Baptism was follow'd by several other succeeding Emperours Thus his son Constantius was baptized at the point of Death Theodosius the Great falling sick was thereupon baptized and Recovered upon it but he had deferr'd his Baptism longer if his sickness had not hastned it The next Theodosius was not baptized till he was very old Ecclesiastical History acquaints us also that the Emperour Valentiniâ—n put off his Baptism that he might receive that Sacrament from S t Ambrose but he was prevented by death We read the same of some of the most Eminent Fathers of the Church S t Ierom and S t Ambrose were not baptized till they were thirty years of age although their Parents were Christians Augustin was a Manichean till he was one and thirty years old and then and not before he was baptized by the foresaid S t Ambrose the famous Bishop of Milan Thus it was also in the Greek Church some of the most Eminent persons besides the Emperours before spoken of deferr'd their Baptism till they came to some ripeness of years Thus Chrysostom though born of and bred up under a Christian Mother and Gregory Nazianzen born of Christian Parents were not baptized till they arrived to be Men. Nectarius Archbishop of Constantinople entered into Episcopal Orders before he was baptized Now there are Different yea Contrary Reasons alledged for this practise some did purposely put off their Baptism till death approached that they might be the more at liberty to indulge their follies and vices for when one of the Catechumeni Committed a fault they used to excuse his failing by alledging This in his favour that he was not yet Baptized They did it also that they might not sin after the celebrating the Sacrament of Baptisme for S Cyprian tells us they had This fond and groundless notion that there was no Pardon for those that relapsed into sin after Baptisme This arose from the mistaking of That place Heb. 6. 4 5. which the Novatians very warmly insisted upon and would by no means Absolve those that lapsed after Baptism But the Orthodox Fathers were of another mind and sharply reproved