exactly twenty four was in all probability derived from some Jewish Precedent If we might trust the Rabbins this was the number of the Elders in ordinary Cities answerably whereunto the Great Sanhedrim at Jerusalem consisting of three such as those had seventy two And then this would very aptly fit the Christian Presbyteries which were ordinarily multiplyed by them according to the number of Cities But because Josephus who knew better than any of these Rabbins owns but seven and because those City Presbyters seem to have been rather for the Civil Government than the Ecclesiastical of those Cities therefore as it will be more agreeable to the Interest of our Cause so I believe it will be also to that of Truth to derive it rather from an Ecclesiastical Council of the High Priest And this might very probably be twenty four exactly one out of each of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into which the Body of the Jewish Priesthood was divided As for the Rabbins they are all too late to give us any certain Information of matters of Fact in that Age and I cannot foresee any better Testimonies of that Age why this might not have been the precise number Nor will it the less fit our Hypothesis concerning the Christian Presbyteries if it be remembred what I have proved that Christian Episcopacy is only a multiplication of the Jewish High Priesthood Whence it will also follow that the Christian Presbyteries ought to be understood as answerable to that Sanhedrim which immediately related to the High Priest himself Clemens Alexandrinus conceives the number of twenty four to be the number of the Apostles doubled to shew the interest that the Gentiles as well as the Jews were henceforth to have in the Apostles Thus the Christian Presbyteries were mystically represented in the Vision of S. John As for the Deacons they are also represented as formerly by the same Vision by the seven Lamps which were the seven Spirits of God Chap. IV. 5 and his seven Eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth Chap. V. 6 According to the Exposition which follows from what has been already proved THUS I have shewn that the Office Sect. 8 of Episcopacy was actually understood as a Mystical Institution Nor yet have I descended so low as the pretended Areopagite or the Times of Constantine What I have insisted on has been partly from the Apostles themselves partly from the freshest memory of them So that there can be no pretending that tho indeed they understood it so yet they might have been mistaken in so understanding it I have prevented this Answer by insisting only on such things as by the Principles of Christianity are not obnoxious to it I have shewn that these Notions prevailed in the Apostles Times nay among the Apostles themselves S. John for Example I have shewn that in all probability they were thought of by them who either gave or first assumed the name of Bishops And let our Brethren consider how it is possible to charge them with a mistake of this kind without involving the Apostles themselves I have shewn that nearer the Apostles Times they were more received than afterwards that proceeding on that way of Reasoning which must have been their only Guide and that a very secure one in all matters for which they had not an express Revelation that Reasoning on the Apostles Authority that Reasoning on those very Principles on account of which most of them had received their very Christianity and which are indeed fundamentally supposed to most of the Reasonings of the New Testament they could hardly avoid these things as just and certain Consequences by a clear and evident Deduction And if after all we cannot yet be secure that this was the meaning designed by God himself it will be hard to shew how we can be secure even of the Scriptures themselves or of any Revealed Religion or even of any matter of Fact whatsoever that is to be deduced at a distance Sect. 9 AND now the same Reasoning is applicable also here which was made use of concerning the Eucharist as a Mystical Sacrifice That as this Gospel Priesthood comes nearer the Original Priesthood of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and nearer even the first visible Priesthood of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Incarnate by so much the more it must derive of the influence of the Invisible Priesthood Whence it will follow that if Union with the Legal Priesthood was an Ordinary Means of procuring an Union with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Disunion from that was like also to disunite from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently from the Father then much more these same Consequences must likewise follow from the like Union or Disunion from the Christian Episcopacy The Consequence will hold both as to the greater Certainty of the Inference it self and as to the greater moment of the things so inferred The Inference must be more certain because indeed all the force of this Reasoning as applyed to the Case of the Jewish Priesthood was in the Principles of those persons intirely due to its being a Type of our Christian Episcopacy and therefore it must hold more certainly concerning our Episcopacy it self as the Certainty of all Premises is still greater than that of the Inferences deduced from them It will also hold as to the greater moment of the things inferred For our Covenant being established on better Promises and more Explicite Revelations of the Rewards and Punishments of a future State it will follow that the Rewards of Obedience and the Punishments of Disobedience to our Bishops and the benefits of Union and the Mischiefs of Disunion with them must be greater than those relating to the Jewish High Priesthood and that particularly in regard of the Soul that being the chief design of Mysteries and our future Interests being those on which our Evangelical Covenant is principally grounded and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being that which principally concerned our Saviour as he was to be the Messias the Prince And accordingly this greater Moment is expresly owned in the Reasoning of the New Testament especially by S. Paul in his Epistle to the Ebrews as he has already been observed NOR will it now be difficult to Sect. 10 understand the reason of those severe Expressions in Tertullian concerning Censures passed by the Bishops upon Criminals He tells the Heathens that the Christians themselves were certain De Dei Conspectu and that it was Summum futuri Judicii Prejudicium if any one should so offend as to be excluded from their Prayers and Assemblies and all Holy Commerce They might well be certain of it upon the Hypothesis now described if the Ecclesiastical Judicatories were Representatives of that Coelestial Judicatory by which all must be judged at the last day if God himself or the Son to whom the Father has committed all Judgment was represented
Right of Proselytism incorporating into the Jewish Nation that gave the Samaritans that occasion of prevaricating according as their Interest lay As they were Proselytes of Justice so they might challenge all the Privileges of the Jewish Nation for theirs Now among the Privileges boasted of by the Jews the Apostle himself reckons this for one that theirs were the Patriarchs And therefore they might challenge as good a Title in the Patriarchs as the adopted among the Romans had to the Stemms and Images of the Families into which they were adopted which yet whilst the memory of their National Proselytism was fresh hindered them not from knowing that their natural Extraction was different from that to which they were intitled by their Proselytism And accordingly when they renounced their Proselytism as they must have done in course whenever they relapsed into Idolatry they must as naturally have resumed their old Extraction as he must among the Romans who had lost his interest in the Family into which he had been adopted INDEED this Challenge of the Sect. 6 Patriarchs for theirs seems to have been so ordinary for all who pretended to the name of Jews as that even the Christians even those who were of Gentile Extraction and had never been circumcised pretend to it on account of their mystical Israelitism So in the Reasonings of S. Paul Abraham is the Father of all those who are like him in his Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised Nay the Seed of his Faith are more properly his than the Seed of his Flesh. These in the mystical Reasonings of those times are compared only to Israel who was his Seed only by the Bond-woman but those are they who answer Isaac the Seed of the Free-Woman who alone was the Heir of the Promises The like Challenges of the Patriarchs for their own Ancestors are frequent among the first Christians who in all likelyhood had never been Jews by Extraction So S. Clemens whose very name implies his being a Roman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Barnabas Ergo hi de Testamento sunt quos dicit FILIOS ABRAHAE de omnibus gentibus S. Justin a Samaritan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where he accordingly proves it professedly as he had promised before not only concerning Abraham but the other Patriarchs And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irenaeus In regnum coelorum introducit Abraham semen ejus quod est Ecclesia Which considerations may serve to make it not seem strange if the later Samaritans who lived more remote from the memory and practice and privileges of Proselytism mistake the Legal Challenges of the Patriarchs for their Ancestors in their Predecessors for Arguments of their natural Extraction However the Laws and Privileges of Legal Proselytism being allowed for such as has been shewn this alone will suffice for my design to shew that their natural Extraction being otherwise could not have been the inducement that could have moved Christ and his Apostles to exclude the Samaritans as often as they had occasion to speak of the Privileged Israel Sect. 7 NOR Secondly is it probable that they were thus excluded from the Holy Seed on account of their Idolatry It is true indeed that when they first took up the Jewish Religion they still retained their Idolatrous Customs Each Nation of them still retained their own Gods the Babylonians Succoth Benoth the Cuthaeans Nergal and the Men of Hamath Ashima the Avites Nibhaz and Tartak and the Sepharvites burnt their Children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech the Gods of the Sepharvites They made unto themselves as Jeroboam had done of the lowest of them Priests of the high places which sacrificed for them in the Houses of the high places 2 King XVII 29 30 31 32. that is in short They feared the Lord and served their own Gods and their graven Images after the manner of the Nations Verse 33.41 It is also true that not only they but their Children and their Children's Children continued to do so to the time of the Writer of the Book of Kings which is supposed to be Esdras Verse 41. that is to the time of Artaxerxes either Longimanus or Mucmon that is to the Birth of Jaddus whose Brother Manasseh first ingaged them in their Ecclesiastical Schism But this could not be taken for a Proselytism of Justice nor do we find that as yet themselves did ever so much as pretend to the Privilege of Native Jews The first time that for certain they did so was in the time of Alexander the Great But it was a little before that time that they had now built a Temple in imitation of that of Jerusalem and an Altar and had gotten a High Priest of the Posterity of Aaron From this time forward it is probable they utterly gave over their Idolatrous Customs when they were ingaged in an emulation with the Jews at Jerusalem It had been an unanswerable Objection against them by the Principles of Judaism if they had continued it And it is not improbable that Sanballat took this way of justifying the cause of his son-in-Son-in-Law Manasses who was excluded from his Succession at Jerusalem only on account of his marriage with his Daughter who was a Heathen that by Proselyting his whole Satrapia of the Samaritans and among them his own Daughter he made that Marriage lawful by an After-Act which had been unlawful before Sect. 8 FROM that time there is no evidence that ever they practised it more The Samaritans themselves in their address to Antiochus Epiphanes make themselves Sidonians and desire that their Temple which had hitherto no Title of any God that is to be sure of no Heathen God might from that time have the Title of Jupiter Hellenicus Why should they not insist on their true Original from the Assyrian Dominions why should they not rather desire the Title of their Babylonian Idols when Gentilism was the thing principally designed by Antiochus if after an hundred and sixty years discontinuance they had not forgot their Idolatries together with the memory of their true Extraction Their very Idols would have disproved their pretending to be of one Nation much more their pretence to be Sidonians And how was it possible that in so short a time they could have forgotten their own Idols if the memory of any the least Idolatrous Worship had not been for that space perfectly discontinued If they had been ashamed of it and so been willing to have suppressed the memory of it tho considering the time there be no reason to think that they would have been ashamed of it yet it is not probable the Jews would not have upbraided them with it in that famous Dispute between them before Ptolemaeus Philometor where they had agreed that they who were overcome should have their Adversaries put to death Where the Terms of the Dispute were that they were to manage it from the Law of Moses Could they have laid
any charge of Idolatry against the Samaritans it is no way probable that they would ever have admitted them to the Dispute concerning the Succession of their Priesthood Had the Samaritans themselves been conscious to themselves of the guilt of such a charge it is no way probable that they themselves would have submitted their Cause to a decision from the Law This was their Case before their Conquest by Hircanus But from that time forward it is no way probable that they would have been permitted in the practice of any Idolatrous Worship by the Jews their Masters if themselves had been otherwise inclined to it as we have no reason to believe they were So that even on this account we have reason to believe all memory of their Idolatrous Worship would have been extinguished before the times of our Saviour and therefore could have been no cause of his excluding them from the number of the true Israelites What their modern Adversaries the Rabbins charge them with their Baptizing in the Name of a Pigeon is so extremely groundless as that even Mr. Selden himself who is otherwise far from being too incredulous of that kind of Authors does yet take this for no better than a downright slander The same he grants concerning another charge of their worshiping an Asina undoubtedly for Asima the old Idol tho it is also very well known that the Jews themselves were slandered by the Heathens for worshiping their Law-giver Moses in the shape of an Ass and another Criticism fathered by them on the Samaritan Pentateuch which he and others who have seen Copies from the Samaritans themselves can prove false by ocular Demonstration Nothing therefore of this kind is probable to have been the true reason why our Saviour disowned them for true Israelites Should one put the most favourable Construction that can be on these Charges and suppose them to have been Mistakes that the worship of the Pigeon in memory of Semiramis which they had found ascribed to the Assyrians was by them particularly laid to the Cuthaeans whom they knew to have been an Assyrian Colony and that their former Charges whilst they were Gentiles had been also laid to them after their Proselytism to the Jewish Law these had been Mistakes likely enough to have been taken up by them who were so unkillful in ancient History and Chronology as the Rabbins are known to be by them who have skill enough to judge concerning them Sect. 9 THE forementioned Woman of Samaria in her Dispute with our Saviour himself upon this Argument plainly states the Controversie as it was disputed at that time otherwise Thus it was understood then Our Fathers worshiped in this Mountain and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship Observe that first by Worship is meant the Confinement of Worship that is that her Fathers so worshiped in Mount Gerizim as to condemn the worshiping at Jerusalem and the Jews so worshiped at Jerusalem as to condemn the worshiping at Mount Gerizim This was the only thing that made any difference between them for if either of them had so worshiped at their own place as not to condemn the worship of others in the other there could have been no occasion of breach between them Observe secondly that this must therefore have been understood not of the Moral but the Ceremonial Part of Worship For their Synagogue-Worship the Jews were so far from confining it to Jerusalem or condemning it in Samaria as that they allowed it in all their Gentile Dispersions where notwithstanding they did not count the Countries themselves Holy as they did all Judaea including Samaria under it And hence it appears thirdly whom she meant by those whom she calls our Fathers She did not mean the Fathers common to them with the Jews as she did before where she reckoned Jacob among them but plainly those Fathers who so worshiped in Samaria as that they differed therein from those who worshiped at Jerusalem such Fathers who differed from the Jews as much as their Posterity of that present Age. Those were plainly they who had sacrificed in the Samaritan Temple and owned the Samaritan Priesthood This worship she could truly say had been performed by their Fathers who lived before their Temple and Altar had been ruined by Hyrcanus But she could not pretend it to have been performed by any in her own Age who since that time had no Temple nor Altar to sacrifice on distinct from that in Jerusalem Otherwise as they continued their SCHISM so it is no way probable but that even they continued their Moral Worship distinct from the Jews And therefore plainly this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein they differed from the Jews was no other than their Worship of Sacrificing and that the same way understood and the same way justified as it was practised and justified by those Samaritans who lived before the destruction of their Temple by Hyrcanus This same practice of Sacrificing in the Temple at Mount Gerizim was that by which the Samaritans of that Age defended themselves nothing of Idolatry or of their false pretences to Jewish Extraction And this and this alone must have been the thing condemned in them by our Saviour when he gave his judgment against them in this same Dispute THAT we may therefore understand Sect. 10 what it was that was condemned by our Saviour we must have recourse to the History of those times wherein that was practised which now was only disputed and defended And the first occasion of that whole Difference was briefly this Manasses the Brother of Jaddus the High Priest of the Jews had married Nicaso a Daughter of Sanballat a Cuthaean by Extraction who had been made Satrapa of Samaria his own Country by Darius Codomanus Upon this the Elders of the Jews in whose hands the Government was at that time Josephus himself confesses it to have been Aristocratical then oblige him to a choice either of quitting his Wife or his Priesthood Immediately he flies to his Father-in-Law full of Complaints of what he had suffered from his own Countrymen for his affection to his Daughter and acquaints him that he had indeed a great affection for her yet not so great but that he preferred that greatest Honor of his Family and Country before her Sanballat assures him that he should be so far from losing any Honors of his Family for his Daughter as that instead of his Priesthood which as younger Brother to Jaddus was only of the ordinary sort he would make him High Priest he would build him a Temple on Mount Gerizim one of the highest Mountains of Samaria no doubt to rival Mount Moriah on which the Temple of Jerusalem was built For as their publick Worship was generally in High Places and Mountains so the height of the place tended to advance the Dignity of the Worship exercised in it In allusion whereunto is that expression of the Prophet that the Mountain