before the Sanhedrim The difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees about him The Jews conspiracy against his life discovered His being sent unto Caesarea 1. IT was not long after the tumult at Ephesus when S. Paul having called the Church together and constituted Timothy Bishop of that place took his leave and departed by 〈◊〉 for Macedonia And at this time it was that as he himself tells us he preached the Gospel round about unto Illyricum since called Sclavonia some parts of Macedonia bordering on that Province From Macedonia he returned back unto Greece where he abode three months and met with Titus lately come with great contributions 〈◊〉 the Church at Corinth By whose example he stirr'd up the liberality of the Macedonians who very freely and somewhat beyond their ability contributed to the poor Christians at Jerusalem From Titus he had an account of the present state of the Church at Corinth and by him at his return together with S. Luke he sent his second Epistle to them Wherein he endeavours to set right what his former Epistle had not yet effected to vindicate his Apostleship from that contempt and scorn and himself from those slanders and aspersions which the seducers who had found themselves lasht by his first Epistle had cast upon him together with some other particular cases relating to them Much about the same time he writ his first Epistle to Timothy whom he had left at Ephesus wherein at large he counsels him how to carry himself in the discharge of that great place and authority in the Church which he had committed to him instructs him in the particular qualifications of those whom he should make choice of to be Bishops and Ministers in the Church How to order the Deaconesses and to instruct Servants warning him withall of that pestilent generation of hereticks and seducers that would arise in the Church During his three months stay in Greece he went to Corinth whence he wrote his famous Epistle to the Romans which he sent by Phoebe a Deaconess of the Church of Cenchrea nigh Corinth wherein his main design is fully to state and determine the great controversie between the Jews and Gentiles about the obligation of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Jewish Law and those main and material Doctrines of Christianity which did depend upon it such as of Christian liberty the use of indifferent things c. And which is the main end of all Religion instructs them in and presses them to the duties of an holy and good life such as the Christian Doctrine does naturally tend to oblige men to 2. S. PAUL being now resolved for Syria to convey the contributions to the Brethren at Jerusalem was a while diverted from that resolution by a design he was told of which the Jews had to kill and rob him by the way Whereupon he went back into Macedonia and so came to Philippi and thence went to Troas where having staid a week on the Lords-day the Church met together to receive the holy Sacrament Here S. Paul preached to them and continued his discourse till midnight the longer probably being the next day to depart from them The length of his discourse and the time of the night had caused some of his Auditors to be overtaken with sleep and drowsiness among whom a young man called 〈◊〉 being fast asleep fell down from the third story and was taken up dead but whom S. Paul presently restored to life and health How indefatigable was the industry of our Apostle how close did he tread in his Masters steps who went about doing good He compassed Sea and Land preached and wrought miracles whereever he came In every place like a wise Master-builder he either laid a foundation or raised the superstructure He was instant in season and out of season and spared not his pains either night or day that he might do good to the Souls of men The night being thus spent in holy exercises S. Paul in the morning took his leave and went on foot to 〈◊〉 a Sea-port Town whither he had sent his company by Sea Thence they set sail to 〈◊〉 from thence to Samos and having staid some little time at Trogyllium the next day came to Myletus not so much as putting in at Ephesus because the Apostle was resolved if possible to be at Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost 3. AT Myletus he sent to Ephesus to summon the Bishops and Governours of the Church who being come he put them in mind with what uprightness and integrity with what affection and humility with how great trouble and danger with how much faithfulness to their Souls he had been conversant among them and had preached the Gospel to them ever since his first coming into those parts That he had not failed to acquaint them both publickly and privately with whatever might be useful and profitable to them urging both upon Jews and Gentiles repentance and reformation of life and an hearty entertainment of the Faith of Christ That now he was resolved to go to Jerusalem where he did not know what particular sufferings would befall him more than this That it had been foretold him in every place by those who were indued with the Prophetical gifts of the Holy Ghost that afflictions and imprisonment would attend him there But that he was not troubled at this no nor unwilling to lay down his life so he might but successfully preach the Gospel and faithfully serve his Lord in that place and station wherein he had set him That he knew that henceforth they should see his face no more but that this was his encouragement and satisfaction that they themselves could bear him witness that he had not by concealing from them any parts of the Christian Doctrine betray'd their Souls That as for themselves whom God had made Bishops and Pastors of his Church they should be careful to feed guide and direct those Christians under their inspection and be infinitely tender of the good of Souls for whose redemption Christ laid down his own life That all the care they could use was no more than necessary it being certain that after his departure Heretical Teachers would break in among them and endanger the ruine of mens Souls nay that even among themselves there would some arise who by subtil and crasty methods by corrupt and pernicious Doctrines would gain Proselytes to their party and thereby make Rents and Schisms in the Church That therefore they should watch remembring with what tears and sorrow he had 〈◊〉 three years together warned them of these things That now he recommended them to the Divine care and goodness and to the rules and instructions of the Gospel which if adhered to would certainly dispose and perfect them for that state of happiness which God had prepared for good men in Heaven In short that he had all a long dealt faithfully and uprightly with them they might know from hence that in all his preaching he had
not the Christians nay some even of the Gentile Priests Governors of the popular Games and Sports earnestly disswaded him from it well knowing that the People were resolved if they could meet with him to throw him to the wild Beasts that were kept there for the disport and pleasure of the People And this doubtless he means when elsewhere he tells us that he fought with Beasts at Ephesus probably intending what the People designed though he did not actually suffer though the brutish rage the savage and inhumane manners of this People did sufficiently deserve that the censure and character should be fixed upon themselves 8. GREAT was the confusion of the Multitude the major-part not knowing the reason of the Concourse In which distraction Alexander a Jewish Convert being thrust forward by the Jewes to be questioned and examined about this matter he would accordingly have made his Apologie to the People intending no doubt to clear himself by casting the whole blame upon S. Paul This being very probably that Alexander the Copper-smith of whom our Apostle elsewhere complains that he did him much evil and greatly withstood his 〈◊〉 and whom he delivered over unto Satan for his Apostasie for blaspheming Christ and reproaching Christianity But the Multitude perceiving him to be a Jew and thereby suspecting him to be one of S. Paul's Associates began to raise an out-cry for near two Hours together wherein nothing could be heard but Great is Diana of the Ephesians The noise being a little over the Recorder a discreet and prudent Man came out and calmly told them That it was sufficiently known to all the World what a mighty honour and veneration the City of Ephesus had for the great Goddess Diana and the famous Image which fell from Heaven that therefore there needed not this stir to vindicate and assert it That they had seized Persons who were not guilty either of Sacriledge or Blasphemy towards their Goddess that if Demetrius and his Company had any just charge against them the Courts were sitting and they might prefer their Indictment or if the Controversie were about any other matter it might be referred to such a proper Judicature as the Law appoints for the determination of such cases That therefore they should do well to be quiet having done more already than they could answer if called in question as 't is like they would there being no cause sufficient to justifie that days riotous Assembly With which prudent discourse he appeased and dismissed the Multitude 9. IT was about this time that S. Paul heard of some disturbance in the Church at Corinth hatched and fomented by a pack of false heretical Teachers crept in among them who indeavoured to draw them into Parties and Factions by perswading one Party to be for Peter another for Paul a third for Apollos as if the main of Religion consisted in being of this or that Denomination or in a warm active zeal to decry and oppose whoever is not of our narrow Sect. 'T is a very weak and slender claim when a Man holds his Religion by no better a title than that he has joyned himself to this Man's Church or that Man's Congregation and is zealously earnest to maintain and promote it to be childishly and passionately clamorous for one Man's mode and way of administration or for some particular humour or opinion as if Religion lay in nice and curious disputes or in separating from our Brethren and not rather in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost By this means Schisms and Factions broke into the Corinthian Church whereby many wild and extravagant Opinions and some of them such as undermined the fundamental Articles of Christianity were planted and had taken root there As the envious Man never fishes more successfully than in troubled Waters To cure these Distempers S. Paul who had received an Account of all this by Letters which Apollos and some others had brought to him from the Church of Corinth writes his first Epistle to them Wherein he smartly reproves them for their Schisms and Parties conjures them to peace and unity corrects those gross corruptions that were introduced among them and particularly resolves those many cases and controversies wherein they had requested his advice and counsel Shortly after Apollos designing to go for Crete by him and Zenas S. Paul sends his Epistle to Titus whom he had made Bishop of that Island and had left there for the propagating of the Gospel Herein he fully instructs him in the execution of his Office how to carry himself and what directions he should give to others to all particular ranks and relations of men especially those who were to be advanced to places of Office and Authority in the Church 10. A LITTLE before S. Paul's departure from Ephesus we may not improbably suppose that Apollonius Tyaneus the famous Philosopher and Magician of the Heathen World a Man remarkable for the strictness of his manners and his sober and regular course of life but especially for the great Miracles said to have been done by him whom therefore the Heathens generally set up as the great Corrival of our Saviour though some of his own party and particularly Euphratus the Philosopher who lived with him at the same time at Rome accused him for doing his strange feats by Magick came to Ephesus The enemy of Mankind probably designing to obstruct the propagation of Christianity by setting up one who by the Arts of Magick might at least in the Vogue and estimation of the People equal or eclipse the Miracles of S. Paul Certain it is if we compare times and actions set down by the Writer of his Life we shall find that he came hither about the beginning of Nero's Reign and he particularly sets down the strange things that were done by him especially his clearing the City of a grievous Plague for which the People of Ephesus had him in such veneration that they erected a Statue to him as to a particular Deity and did divine honour to it But whether this was before S. Paul's going thence I will not take upon me to determine though it seems most probable to have been done afterwards SECT V. S. Paul's Acts from his departure from Ephesus till his Arraignment before Foelix S. Paul's journey into Macedonia His preaching as far as Illyricum and return into Greece His second 〈◊〉 to the Corinthians and what the design of it His first Epistle to Timothy His Epistle to the Romans whence written and with what design S. Paul's preaching at Troas and raising Eutychus His summoning the Asian Bishops to Myletus and pathetical discourse to them His stay at Caesarea with Philip the Deacon The Churches passionate disswading him from going to Jerusalem His coming to Jerusalem and compliance with the indifferent Rites of the Mosaick Law and why The tumults raised against him by the Jews and his rescue by the Roman Captain His asserting his Roman freedom His carriage
not being able to bear the aspersions which some unjustly cast upon him though God signally and miraculously vindicated his innocency he left his Church and retired into desarts and solitudes In his absence was chosen XXXII Dius who sat 8. years After him XXXIII Germanio 4. XXXIV Gordius 5. In his time Narcissus as one from the dead returned from his solitudes and was importuned by the people again to take the government of the Church upon him being highly revercuced by them both for his strict and Philosophical course of life and the signal vengeance which God took of his accusers And in this second administration he continued 10. years suffering martyrdom when he was near 120. years old To relieve the infirmities of his great Age they took in to be his Colleague XXXV Alexander formerly Bishop in Cappadocia who at that time had out of devotion taken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem the choice being extraordinarily designed by a particular revelation from Heaven He was an eminent Confessor and after having sat 15. years died in prison under the Decian persecution By him Origen was ordained Presbyter He was a great Patron of Learning as well as Religion a studious preserver of the Records of the Church He erected a Library at Jerusalem which he especially furnished with the Writings and Epistles of Ecclesiastical persons And out of this treasury it was that Eusebius borrowed a great part of his materials for the composing of his History XXXVI Mazabanes 9. years XXXVII Hymenaeus 23. XXXVIII Zabdas 10. XXXIX Hermon 9. he was as Eusebius tells us the last Bishop of this See before that fatal persecution that rag'd even in his time XL. Macarius ordain'd Ann. Christ. CCCXV. He was present in the great Nicene Council He sat says Nicephorus of Constantinople 20. years but S. Hierom allows him a much longer time BYZANTIUM afterwards called CONSTANTINOPLE THAT this Church was first founded by S. Andrew we have shewed in his Life The succession of its Bishops was as followeth I. S. Andrew the Apostle He was crucified at Patrae in 〈◊〉 II. Stachys whom S. Paul calls his beloved Stachys ordained Bishop by S. Andrew he sat 16. 〈◊〉 III. Onesimus 14. IV. Polycarpus 17. V. Plutarchus 16. VI. Sedecio 9. VII Diogenes 15. Of the last three no mention is made in Nicephorus of Constantinople but they are delivered by Nicephorus Callistus lib. 8. c. 6. p. 540. VIII Eleutherius 7. IX Felix 5. X. Polycarpus 17. XI Athenodorus 4. he erected a Church called Elea afterwards much beautified and enlarged by Constantine the Great XII Euzoius 16. though Nicephorus Callistus allow but 6. XIII Laurentius 11. years and 6. months XIV Alypius 13. XV. Pertinax a man of Consular dignity he built another Church near the Sea-side which he called Peace He sat 19. years which Nicephorus Callistus reduces to 9. XVI Olympianus 11. XVII Marcus 13. XVIII Cyriacus or Cyrillianus 16. XIX Constantinus 7. In the first year of his Bishoprick he built a Church in the North part of the City which he dedicated to the honour of Euphemia the Martyr who had suffered in that place In this Oratory he spent the remainder of his life quitting his Episcopal Chair to XX. Titus who sat 35. years and 6. months though Nicephorus Callistus makes it 37. years After him came XXI Dometius brother as they tell us to the Emperor Probus he was Bishop 21. years 6. months XXII Probus succeeded his Father Dometius and sat 12. years As after him XXIII Metrophanes his brother who governed that Church 10. years And in his time it was that Constantine translated the Imperial Court hither enlarged and adorned it called it after his own name and made it the seat of the Empire XXIV Alexander succeeded a man of great piety and integrity zealous and constant in maintaining the truth against the blasphemies of Arrius He sat 23. years ALEXANDRIA THE foundations of this Church were laid and a great part of its superstructure rais'd by S. Mark who though 〈◊〉 strictly and properly an Apostle yet being an Apostle at large and immediately commissionated by S. Peter it justly obtained the honour of an Apostolical Church Its Bishops and Governours are thus recorded I. S. Mark the Evangelist of whose travels and martyrdom we have spoken in his Life Nicephorus of Constantinople makes him to sit two years II. Anianus charactered by Eusebius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man beloved of God and admirable in all things He ruled in that Throne 22. years III. Avilius 12 or as Eusebius 13. IV. 〈◊〉 succeeded about the first year of Trajan he sat 10. years according to Eusebius 11. V. Primus 12. VI. 〈◊〉 or Justinus 10. VII Eumenes 10 or as Eusebius 13. S. Hierom in his translation calls him Hymenaeus VIII Marcus or Marcianus 13 or as Eusebius 10. IX Celadion 10 but in Eusebius his computation 14. X. Agrippinus 14 according to Eusebius 12. XI Julianus 15 though Eusebius allows but 10. XII Demetrius 21 but Eusebius more truly makes him to have governed that Church no less than 43. years He was a man of great zeal and piety and underwent many troubles in the persecution at Alexandria He was at first a great friend to Origen but afterwards became his enemy laying some irregularities to his charge partly out of emulation at the great reputation which Origen had gained in the world partly in that Origen had suffered 〈◊〉 to be ordained Presbyter by two other Bishops Alexander Bishop of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Caesarea XIII Heraclas a man of a Philosophical genius and way of life He was educated under the institution of Origen and by him taken to be his Assistant in the School of the Catechumens the whole government whereof he afterwards resigned to him and upon the death of Demetrius he was advanced to the government of that Church the care whereof he took for 16. years though Nicephorus of Constantinople by a mistake I suppose for his predecessor makes it 43. XIV 〈◊〉 17. He was one of the most eminent Bishops of his time He was one of Origen's Scholars then preferr'd first Master of the Catechetical School at Alexandria and afterwards Bishop of that See In the persecution under Decius he was banished first to Taposiris a little Town between Alexandria and Canopus then to Cephro and other places in the Desarts of Libya But a large account of his own and others sufferings with many other transactions of those times we have out of his own Letters yet extant in Eusebius He died in the Twelfth year of the Emperor Gallienus XV. Maximus of a Presbyter he was made Bishop of Alexandria he sat in that Chair 18. years according to Eusebius his computation though Nicephorus of Constantinople assign but 8. XVI Theonas 17 or according to S. Hierom's Version of Eusebius 19. To him succeeded XVII Petrus 12. He began his office three years before the last persecution A man of infinite strictness and accuracy and of indefatigable
Antiquitates Christianae OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS AS ALSO THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF HIS APOSTLES IN TWO PARTS The First Part containing the Life of CHRIST Written by JER TAYLOR late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor The Second containing the Lives of the APOSTLES with an Enumeration and some Brief Remarks upon their first Successors in the Five Great APOSTOLICAL CHURCHES By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY By whom also is added an APPARATUS or Discourse Introductory to the whole Work concerning the Three Great Dispensations of the Church Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical Orig. câ—ntr Cels. lib. 1. dâ— Prâ—â—â—â— p. 1 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner M DC LXXV THE ANNUNTIATION Ave gratiâ plena Dominus tecum Benedicta tu inter mulieres Hail thou full of grace y e Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women Luke 1. 28. Will Fathorne sculp ANTIQUITATES CHRISTIANAE OR The Life and Death of the Holy JESUS AS ALSO The Lives Acts and Martyrdoms of his Apostles London Printed for R Royston at the Angell in Amen Corner 1675. TO THE Right Honourable and Right Reverend Father in God NATHANAEL Lord BISHOP of DURHAM And Clerk of the Closet to His MAJESTY MY LORD NOTHING but a great experience of Your Lordships Candor could warrant the laying what concernment I have in these Papers at Your Lordships feet Not but that the subject is in it self Great and Venemble and a considerable part of it built upon that Authority that needs no Patronage to defend it But to prefix Your Lordships Name to a subject so thinly and meanly manag'd may perhaps deserve a bigger Apologie than I can make I have only brought some few scattered handfuls of Primitive Story contenting my self to Glean where I could not Reap And I am well assur'd that Your Lordships wisdom and love to Truth would neither allow me to make my Materials nor to trade in Legends and Fabulous reports And yet alas how little solid Foundation is left to Build upon in these matters So fatally mischievous was the carelessness of those who ought to have been the Guardians of Books and Learning in their several Ages in suffering the Records of the Ancient Church to perish Vnfaithful Trustees to look no better after such Divine and inestimable Treasures committed to them Not to mention those infinite Devastations that in all Ages have been made by Wars and Flames which certainly have prov'd the most severe and merciless Plagues and Enemies to Books By such unhappy accidents as these we have been robb'd of the Treasures of the wiser and better Ages of the World and especially the Records of the first times of Christianity whereof scarce any footsteps do remain So that in this Enquiry I have been forc'd to traverse remote and desert paths ways that afford little fruit to the weary Passenger but the consideration that it was Primitive and Apostolical sweetned my journey and rendred it pleasant and delightful Our inbred thirst after knowledge naturally obliges us to pursue the notices of former times which are recommended to us with this peculiar advantage that the Stream must needs be purer and clearer the nearer it comes to the Fountain for the Ancients as Plato speaks were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better than we and dwelt nearer to the Gods And though'tis true the 〈◊〉 of those times is very obscure and dark and truth oft covered over with heaps of idle and improbable Traditions yet may it be worth our labour to seek for a few Jewels though under a whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heap of Rubbish Is not the Gleaning of the Ancients say the Jews better than the Vintage of later times The very fragments of Antiquity are Venerable and at once instruct our minds and gratifie our curiosity Besides I was somewhat the more inclinable to retire again into these studies that I might get as far as I could from the crowd and the noise of a quarrelsome and contentious Age. MY LORD We live in times wherein Religion is almost wholly disputed into talk and clamour men wrangle eternally about useless and insignificant Notions and which have no tendency to make a man either wiser or better And in these quarrels the Laws of Charity are violated and men persecute one another with hard names and characters of reproach and after all consecrate their fierceness with the honourable title of Zeal for Truth And what is yet a much sorer evil the Peace and Order of an excellent Church incomparably the best that ever was since the first Ages of the Gospel is broken down her holy Offices derided her solemn Assemblies deserted her Laws and Constitutions slighted the Guides and Ministers of Religion despised and reduc'd to their Primitive Character The Scum and Off-scouring of the World How much these evils have contributed to the 〈◊〉 and Impiety of the present Age I shall not take upon me to determine Sure I am the thing it self is too sadly visible men are not content to be modest and retired Atheists and with the Fool to say only in their hearts there is no God but 〈◊〉 appears with an open forehead and disputes its place in every company and without any regard to the Voice of Nature the Dictates of Conscience and the common sence of Mankind men peremptorily determine against a Supreme Being account it a pleasant divertisement to Droll upon Religion and a piece of Wit to plead for Atheism To avoid the 〈◊〉 and troublesome importunity of such uncomfortable Reflections I find no better way than to retire into those Primitive and better times those first and purest Ages of the Gospel when men really were what they pretended to be when a solid Piety and Devotion a strict Temperance and Sobriety a Catholick and unbounded Charity an exemplary Honesty and Integrity a great reverence for every thing that was Divine and Sacred rendred Christianity Venerable to the World and led not only the Rude and the Barbarous but the Learned and Politer part of Mankind in triumph after it But My Lord I must remember that the Minutes of great Men are Sacred and not to be invaded by every tedious impertinent address I have done when I have begg'd leave to acquaint Your Lordship that had it not been more through other mens fault than my own these Papers had many Months since waited upon You in the number of those Publick Congratulations which gave You joy of that great Place which You worthily sustain in the Church Which that You may long and prosperously enjoy happily adorn and successfully discharge to the honour of God the benefit of the Church and the endearing Your Lordships Memory to Posterity is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships faithfully devoted Servant WILLIAM CAVE TO THE READER THE design of the
state of Innocence for Man being created under such excellent circumstances as he was in Paradise could not but know that he owed to God all possible gratitude and subjection obedience he owed him as his Supreme Lord and Master gratitude as his great Patron and Benefactor and was therefore obliged to pay to him some Eucharistical Sacrifices as a testimony of his grateful acknowledgment that he had both his being and preservation from him But when sin had changed the scene and Man-kind was sunk under a state of guilt he was then to seek for a way how to pacifie God's anger and this was done by bloody and expiatory sacrifices which God accepted in the sinners stead And as to these it seems reasonable to suppose that they should be founded upon a positive Institution because pardon of sin being a matter of pure grace and favour whatever was a means to signifie and convey that must be appointed by God himself first revealed to Adam and by him communicated to his Children The Deity propitiated by these atonements was wont to testifie his acceptance of them by some external and visible sign Thus Cain sensibly perceived that God had respect to Abel's sacrifice and not to his though what this sign was it is not easie to determine Most probably it was fire from Heaven coming down upon the Oblation and consuming it For so it frequently was in the Sacrifices of the Mosaic dispensation and so we find it was in that famous Sacrifice of Abraham a Lamp of Fire passed between the parts of the Sacrifice Thus when 't is said God had respect to Abel and to his offering Theodotion renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he burnt it and to this custome the Psalmist alludes in that Petition Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reduce thy burnt-offering into ashes 8. WHERE it was that this Publick Worship was performed is next to be enquired into That they had fixed and determinate Places for the discharge of their religious Duties those especially that were done in common is greatly probable Nature and the reason of things would put them upon it And this most think is intended in that phrase where it is said of Cain and Abel that they brought their oblations that is as Aben-Ezra and others expound it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the place set apart for divine worship And this probably was the reason why Cain though vexed to the heart to see his Brother preferred before him did not presently set upon him the solemnity and religion of the Place and the sensible appearances of the Divine Majesty having struck an awe into him but deferred his murdrous intentions till they came into the Field and there fell upon him For their Sacrifices they had Altars whereon they offered them contemporary no doubt with Sacrifices themselves though we read not of them till after the Flood when Noah built an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt-offerings upon it So Abraham immediately after his being called to the worship of the true God in Sichem built an Altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him and removing thence to a Mountain Eastward he built another Altar and called on the Name of the Lord as indeed he did almost in every place where he came Thus also when he dwelt at Beer-sheba in the Plains of Mamre he planted a Grove there and called on the Name of the Lord the everlasting God This no doubt was the common Chappel or Oratory whither Abraham and his numerous Family and probably those whom he gained to be Proselytes to his Religion were wont to retire for their publick adorations as a Place infinitely advantageous for such Religious purposes And indeed the Ancient devotion of the World much delighted in Groves in Woods and Mountains partly for the conveniency of such Places as better composing the thoughts for divine contemplations and resounding their joynt-praises of God to the best advantage partly because the silence and retiredness of the Place was apt to beget a kind of sacred dread and horrour in the mind of the Worshipper Hence we find in Ophrah where Gideon's Father dwelt an Altar to Baal and a Grove that was by it and how common the superstitions and idolatries of the Heathen-world were in Groves and High-places no Man can be ignorant that is never so little conversant either in prophane or sacred stories For this reason that they were so much abused to idolatry God commanded the Israelites to destroy their Altars break down their Images and cut down their Groves and that they should not plant a Grove of any Trees near unto the Altar of the Lord lest he should seem to countenance what was so universally prostituted to false worship and idolatry But to return to Abraham He planted a Grove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tree which the Ancients generally make to have been a large spreading Oake and some foundation there is for it in the sacred Text for the place where Abraham planted it is called the Plain of Mamre or as in the Hebrew he dwelt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Oakes of Mamre and so the Syriac renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The House of the Oake The name whereof Josephus tells us was Ogyges and it is not a conjecture to be despised that Noah might probably inhabit in this place and either give the name to it or at least derive his from it Ogyges being the Name by which he is usually described in forreign Writers This very Oake S. Hierom assures us and Eusebius intimates as much was yet standing till the time of Constantine and worshipped with great superstition And Sozomen tells us more particularly that there was a famous Mart held there every Summer and a Feast celebrated by a general confluence of the neighbouring Countries and Persons of all Religions both Christians Jews and Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one doing honour to this Place according to the different Principles of their Religion but that Constantin being offended that the Place should be prophan'd with the superstitions of the Jews and the idolatry of the Gentiles wrote with some severity to Macarius the Bishop of Jerusalem and the Bishops of Palestin that they should destroy the Altars and Images and deface all Monuments of Idolatry and restore the Place to its ancient Sanctity Which was accordingly done and a Church 〈◊〉 in the Place where God was purely and sincerely worshipped From this Oake the ordinary place of Abraham's worship and devotion the Religion of the Gentiles doubtless derived its Oakes and Groves and particularly the Druids the great and almost only Masters and Directors of all Learning and Religion among the Ancient Brittains hence borrowed their Original who are so notoriously known to have lived wholly under Oakes and Groves and there to have delivered their Doctrines and Precepts and to have
Ecclesiastical stories do frequently mention S. Lewis King of France wore Sack-cloth every day unless sickness hindred and S. Zenobius as long as he was a Bishop And when Severus Sulpitius sent a Sack-cloth to S. Panlinus Bishop of Nola he returned to him a letter of thanks and discoursed piously concerning the use of corporal Austerities And that I need not instance it was so general that this was by way of appropriation called the Garment of the Church because of the frequent use of such instruments of exteriour 〈◊〉 and so it was in other instances S. James neither are flesh nor drank wine S. Matthew lived upon acorns seeds and herbs and amongst the elder Christians some rolled themselves naked in snows some upon thorns some on burning coals some chewed bitter pills and masticated gumms and sipped frequently of horrid potions and wore iron upon their skin and bolts upon their legs and in witty torments excelled the cruelty of many of their persecutors whose rage determined quickly in death and had certainly less of torment than the tedious afflictions and rude penances of Simeon surnamed Stylites But as all great examples have excellencies above the ordinary Devotions of good people so have they some danger and much consideration 17. First therefore I consider that these Bodily and voluntary self 〈◊〉 can only be of use in carnal and natural Temptations of no use in spiritual for ascetick diet hard lodging and severe disciplines cannot be directly operative upon the spirit but only by mediation of the Body by abating its extravagancies by subtracting its maintenance by lessening its temptations these may help to preserve the Soul chaste or temperate because the scene of these sins lies in the Body and thence they have their maintenance and from thence also may receive their abatements But in actions which are less material such as Pride and Envy and Blasphemy and Impenitence and all the kinds and degrees of Malice external Mortifications do so little cooperate to their cure that oftentimes they are their greatest 〈◊〉 and incentives and are like Cordials given to cure a cold fit of an Ague they do their work but bring a hot fit in its place and besides that great Mortifiers have been soonest assaulted by the spirit of Pride we find that great Fasters are naturally angry and cholerick S. Hierom found it in himself and 〈◊〉 felt some of the effects of it And therefore this last part of corporal Mortification and the chusing such Afflictions by a voluntary imposition is at no hand to be applied in all cases but in cases of Lust only and Intemperance or natural Impatience or such crimes which dwell in the Senses and then it also would be considered whether or no rudeness to the Body applied for the obtaining Patience be not a direct temptation to Impatience a provoking the spirit and a running into that whither we pray that God would not suffer us to be led Possibly such Austerities if applied with great caution and wise circumstances may be an exercise of Patience when the Grace is by other means acquired and he that finds them so may use them if he dares trust himself but as they are dangerous before the Grace is obtained so when it is they are not necessary And still it may be enquired in the case of temptations to Lust whether any such Austerities which can consist with health will do the work So long as the Body is in health it will do its offices of nature if it is not in health it cannot do all offices of Grace nor many of our Calling And therefore although they may do some advantages to persons tempted with the lowest sins yet they will not do it all nor do it alone nor are they safe to all dispositions and where they are useful to these smaller and lower purposes yet we must be careful to observe that the Mortification of the spirit to the greatest and most perfect purposes is to be set upon by means spiritual and of immediate efficacy for they are the lowest operations of the Soul which are moved and produced by actions corporal the Soul may from those become lustful or chast chearful or sad timorous or confident but yet even in these the Soul receives but some dispositions thence and more forward inclinations but nothing from the Body can be operative in the begetting or increase of Charity or the Love of God or Devotion or in mortifying spiritual and 〈◊〉 Vices and therefore those greater perfections and heights of the Soul such as are designed in this highest degree of 〈◊〉 are not apt to be enkindled by corporal Austerities And Nigrinus in Lucian finds sault with those Philosophers who thought Vertue was to be purchased by cutting the skin with whips binding the nerves razing the 〈◊〉 with iron but he taught that 〈◊〉 is to be placed in the Mind by actions internal and immaterial and that from thence remedies are to be derived against perturbations and actions criminal And this is determined by the Apostle in fairest intimation Mortifie therefore your carthly members and he instances in carnal crimes fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which are things may be something abated by corporal Mortifications and that these are by distinct manner to be helped from other more spiritual Vices he adds But now therefore put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication and lying To both these sorts of sins Mortification being the general remedy particular applications are to be made and it must be only spiritual or also corporal in proportion to the nature of the sins he seems to distinguish the remedy by separation of the nature of the crimes and possibly also by the differing words of 〈◊〉 applied to carnal sins and put 〈◊〉 to crimes spiritual 18. Secondly But in the lesser degrees of Mortification in order to subduing of all Passions of the Sensitive appetite and the consequent and symbolical sins bodily Austerities are of good use if well understood and prudently undertaken To which purpose I also consider No acts of corporal Austerity or external Religion are of themselves to be esteemed holy or acceptable to God are no-where precisely commanded no instruments of union with Christ no immediate parts of Divine worship and therefore to suffer corporal Austerities with thoughts determining upon the external action or imaginations of Sanctity inherent in the action is against the purity the spirituality and simplicity of the Gospel And this is the meaning of S. Paul It is a good thing that the heart be established with Grace not with meats which have not profited them which have walked in them and The kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink but in righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost and Bodily exercise profiteth little but Godliness is profitable unto all things Now if external Mortifications are not for themselves then they
sayings of the Apostle of putting on Christ in Baptism putting on the new man c. for these only signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the design on God's part and the endeavour and duty on Man's we are then consigned to our Duty and to our Reward we undertake one and have a title to the other And though men of ripeness and Reason enter instantly into their portion of Work and have present use of the assistances and something of their Reward in hand yet we cannot conclude that those that cannot do it 〈◊〉 are not baptized rightly because they are not in capacity to put on the New man in Righteousness that is in an actual holy life for they may put on the New man in Baptism just as they are risen with Christ which because it may be done by Faith before it is done in real event and it may be done by Sacrament and design before it be done by a proper Faith so also may our putting on the New man be it is done sacramentally and that part which is wholly the work of God does only antedate the work of man which is to succeed in its due time and is after the 〈◊〉 of preventing grace But this is by the bye In order to the present Article Baptism is by 〈◊〉 called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a participation of the Lord's Resurrection 25. Fifthly and lastly By Baptism we are saved that is we are brought from death to life 〈◊〉 and that is the first Resurrection and we are brought from death to life hereafter by virtue of the Covenant of the state of Grace into which in Baptism we enter and are preserved from the second Death and receive a glorious and an eternal life He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved said our Blessed Saviour and According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renowing of the Holy Ghost 26. After these great Blessings so plainly testified in Scripture and the Doctrine of the Primitive Church which are regularly consigned and bestowed in Baptism I shall less need to descend to temporal Blessings or rare contingencies or miraculous events or probable notices of things less certain Of this nature are those Stories recorded in the Writings of the Church that Constantine was cured of a Leprosie in Baptism Theodosius recovered of his disease being baptized by the Bishop of Thessalonica and a paralytick Jew was cured as soon as he became a Christian and was baptized by Atticus of CP and Bishop Arnulph baptizing a Leper also cured him said Vincentius Bellovacensis It is more considerable which is generally and piously believed by very many eminent persons in the Church that at our Baptism God assigns an Angel-Guardian for then the Catechumen being made a Servant and a Brother to the Lord of Angels is sure not to want the aids of them who pitch their tents round about them that fear the Lord and that this guard and ministery is then appointed when themselves are admitted into the inheritance of the Promises and their title to Salvation is hugely agreeable to the words of S. Paul Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of Salvation where it appears that the title to the inheritance is the title to this ministery and therefore must begin and end together But I insist not on this though it seems to me hugely probable All these Blessings put into one Syllabus have given to Baptism many honourable appellatives in Scripture and other Divine Writers calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacramentum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 salutis A New birth a Regeneration a Renovation a Chariot carrying us to God the great Circumcision a Circumcision made without hands the Key of the Kingdom the Paranymph of the Kingdom the Earnest of our inheritance the Answer of a good Conscience the Robe of light the Sacrament of a new life and of eternal Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is celestial water springing from the sides of the Rock upon which the Church was built when the Rock was smitten with the Rod of God 27. It remains now that we enquire what concerns our Duty and in what persons or in what dispositions Baptism produces all these glorious effects for the Sacraments of the Church work in the virtue of Christ but yet only upon such as are servants of Christ and hinder not the work of the Spirit of Grace For the water of the Font and the Spirit of the Sacrament are indeed to wash away our Sins and to purifie our Souls but not unless we have a mind to be purified The Sacrament works pardon for them that hate their sin and procures Grace for them that love it They that are guilty of sins must repent of them and renounce them and they must make a profession of the Faith of Christ and give or be given up to the obedience of Christ and then they are rightly disposed He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved saith Christ and S. Peter call'd out to the whole assembly Repent and be baptized every one of you Concerning this Justin Martyr gives the same account of the Faith and practice of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Whosoever are perswaded and believe those things to be true which are delivered and spoken by us and undertake to live accordingly they are commanded to fast and pray and to ask of God remission for their former sins we also praying together with them and fasting Then they are brought to us where water is and are regenerated in the same manner of Regeneration by which we our selves are regenerated For in Baptism S. Peter observes there are two parts the Body and the Spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the putting away the 〈◊〉 of the flesh that is the material washing and this is Baptism no otherwise than a dead corps is a man the other is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the answer of a good conscience towards God that is the conversion of the Soul to God that 's the effective disposition in which Baptism does save us And in the same sence are those sayings of the Primitive Doctors to be understood Anima non lavatione sed 〈◊〉 sancitur The Soul is not healed by washing viz. alone but by the answer the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Peter the correspondent of our part of the Covenant sor that 's the perfect 〈◊〉 of this unusual expression And the effect is attributed to this and denied to the other when they are distinguished So Justin Martyr affirms The only Baptism that can heal us is Kepentance and the knowledge of God For what need is there of that Baptism that can only 〈◊〉 the flesh and the body Be washed in your flesh from wrath and 〈◊〉 from envy and hatred and behold the body is pure And Clemens Alexandrinus upon that Proverbial saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
distinction And as in Princes Courts the reverence to Princes is quickened and encreased by an outward state and glory so also it is in the service of God although the Understandings of men are no more satisfied by a pompous magnificence than by a cheap plainness yet the Eye is and the Fancy and the Affections and the Senses that is many of our Faculties are more pleased with Religion when Religion by such instruments and conveyances pleases them And it was noted by Sozomen concerning Valens the Arrian Emperor that when he came to Caesarea in Cappadocia he praised S. Basil their Bishop and upon more easie terms revoked his Banishment because he was a grave person and did his holy Offices with reverent and decent addresses and kept his Church-assemblies with much ornament and solemnity 14. But when I consider that saying of S. Gregory that the Church is Heaven within the Tabernacle Heaven dwelling among the sons of men and remember that God hath studded all the Firmament and paved it with stars because he loves to have his House beauteous and highly representative of his glory I see no reason we should not do as Apollinaris says God does In earth do the works of Heaven For he is the God of beauties and perfections and every excellency in the Creature is a portion of influence from the Divinity and therefore is the best instrument of conveying honour to him who made them for no other end but for his own honour as the last resort of all other ends for which they were created 15. But the best manner to reverence the Sanctuary is by the continuation of such actions which gave it the first title of Holiness Holiness becometh thine House for ever said David Sancta sanc̄tis Holy persons and holy rites in holy places that as it had the first relation of Sanctity by the consecration of a holy and reverend Minister and President of Religion so it may be perpetuated in holy Offices and receive the daily consecration by the assistance of sanctified and religious persons Foris canes dogs and criminal persons are unfit for Churches the best ornament and beauty of a Church is a holy Priest and a sanctified people For since Angels dwell in Churches and God hath made his Name to dwell there too if there also be a holy people that there be Saints as well as Angels it is a holy fellowship and a blessed communion But to see a Devil there would scare the most confident and bold fancy and disturb the good meeting and such is every wicked and graceless person Have I not chosen twelve of you and one of you is a Devil An evil Soul is an evil spirit and such are no good ornaments for Temples and it is a shame that a goodly Christian Church should be like an Egyptian Temple without goodly buildings within a Dog or a Cat for the Deity they adore It is worse if in our addresses to Holy Places and Offices we bear our Lusts under our garments For Dogs and Cats are of God's making but our Lusts are not but are God's enemies and therefore besides the Unholiness it is an affront to God to bring them along and it defiles the place in a great degree 16. For there is a defiling of a Temple by insinuation of impurities and another by direct and positive profanation and a third by express Sacriledge This defiles a Temple to the ground Every small sin is an unwelcome guest and is a spot in those Feasts of Charity which entertain us often in God's Houses but there are some and all great crimes are such which desecrate the place unhallow the ground as to our particulars stop the ascent of our Prayers obstruct the current of God's blessing turn Religion into bitterness and Devotion into gall such as are marked in Scripture with a distinguishing character as enemies to the peculiar dispositions of Religion And such are Unchastity which defiles the Temples of our Bodies Covetousness which sets up an Idol in stead of God and Unmercifulness which is a direct enemy to the Mercies of God and the fair return of our Prayers He that shews not the mercies of Alms of Forgiveness and Comfort is forbid to hope for comfort relief or forgiveness from the hands of God A pure Mind is the best manner of worship and the impurity of a crime is the greatest contradiction to the honour and religion of Holy Places And therefore let us imitate the Precedent of the most religious of Kings a I will wash my hands in innocency O Lord and so will I go to thine Altar always remembring those decretory and final words of b S. Paul He that defiles a Temple him will God destroy The PRAYER O Eternal God who dwellest not in Temples made with hands the Heaven of Heavens is not able to contain thee and yet thou art pleased to manifest thy presence amongst the sons of men by special issues of thy favour and benediction make my Body and Soul to be a Temple pure and holy apt for the entertainments of the Holy Jesus and for the habitation of the Holy Spirit Lord be pleased with thy rod of paternal discipline to cast out all impure Lusts all worldly affections all covetous desires from this thy Temple that it may be a place of Prayer and Meditation of holy appetites and chaste thoughts of pure intentions and zealous desires of pleasing thee that I may become also a Sacrifice as well as a Temple eaten up with the zeal of thy glory and consumed with the fire of love that not one thought may be entertained by me but such as may be like perfume breathing from the Altar of Incense and not a word may pass from me but may have the accent of Heaven upon it and sound pleasantly in thy ears O dearest God fill every Faculty of my Soul with impresses dispositions capacities and aptnesses of Religion and do thou hallow my Soul that I may be possest with zeal and religious affections loving thee above all things in the world worshipping thee with the humblest adorations and frequent addresses continually feeding upon the apprehensions of thy divine sweetness and consideration of thy infinite excellencies and observations of thy righteous Commandments and the feast of a holy Conscience as an antepast of Eternity and consignation to the joys of Heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT XII Of JESVS's departure into Galilee his manner of Life Miracles and Preaching his calling of Disciples and what happened until the Second Passeover Jesus and the Woman of Samaria Joh. 4. 5 6. 7. He cometh to a City of Samaria called Sychar now Iacob's well was there There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water Iesus saith etc. For his disciples were gone into the city to buy meat V. 27. His disciples came marvelled y t he talked with the woman yet no man said what seekest thou or why talkest thou with her
proportionable reception of his and hath also commanded us to ask pardon all days of our life even in our daily offices and to beg it in the measure and rule of our own Charity and Forgiveness to our Brother And therefore God in his infinite wisdom foreseeing our frequent relapses and considering our infinite infirmities appointed in his Church an ordinary ministery of Pardon designing the Minister to pray for sinners and promising to accept him in that his advocation or that he would open or shut Heaven respectively to his act on earth that is he would hear his prayers and verifie his ministery to whom he hath committed the word of Reconciliation This became a duty to Christian Ministers Spiritual persons that they should restore a person overtaken in a fault that is reduce him to the condition he begins to lose that they should pray over sick persons who are also commanded to confess their sins and God hath promised that the sins they have committed shall be forgiven them Thus S. Paul absolved the incestuous excommunicate Corinthian in the person of Christ he forgave him And this also is the confidence S. John taught the Christian Church upon the stock of the excellent mercy of God and propitiation of Jesus If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all 〈◊〉 Which discourse he directs to them who were Christians already initiated into the Institution of Jesus And the Epistles which the Spirit sent to the Seven Asian Churches and were particularly addressed to the Bishops the Angels of those Churches are exhortations some to Perseverance some to Repentance that they may return from whence they are fallen And the case is so with us that it is impossible we should be actually and perpetually free from sin in the long succession of a busie and impotent and a tempted conversation And without these reserves of the Divine grace and after-emanations from the Mercy-seat no man could be saved and the death of Christ would become inconsiderable to most of his greatest purposes for none should have received advantages but newly-baptized persons whose Albs of Baptism served them also for a winding-sheet And therefore our Baptism although it does consign the work of God presently to the baptized person in great certain and intire effect in order to the remission of what is past in case the Catechumen be rightly disposed or hinders not yet it hath also influence upon the following periods of our life and hath admitted us into a lasting state of Pardon to be renewed and actually applied by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and all other Ministeries Evangelical and so long as our Repentance is timely active and affective 18. But now although it is infinitely certain that the gates of Mercy stand open to sinners after Baptism yet it is with some variety and greater difficulty He that renounces Christianity and becomes Apostate from his Religion not by a seeming abjuration under a storm but by a voluntary and hearty dereliction he seems to have quitted all that Grace which he had received when he was illuminated and to have lost the benefits of his Redemption and former expiation And I conceive this is the full meaning of those words of S. Paul which are of highest difficulty and latent sense For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned c. if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance The reason is there subjoyned and more clearly explicated a little after For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more sacrifice for sins For he hath counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace The meaning is divers according to the degrees of apostasie or relapse They who fall away after they were once enlightned in Baptism and felt all those blessed effects of the sanctification and the emanations of the Spirit if it be into a contradictory state of sin and mancipation and obstinate purposes to serve Christ's enemies then there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of Judgment but if the backsliding be but the interruption of the first Sanctity by a single act or an unconformed unresolved unmalicious habit then also it is impossible to renew them unto Repentance viz. as formerly that is they can never be reconciled as before integrally fully and at once during this life For that Redemption and expiation was by Baptism into Christ's death and there are no more deaths of Christ nor any more such sacramental consignations of the benefit of it there is no more sacrifice for sins but the Redemption is one as the Sacrifice is one in whose virtue the Redemption does operate And therefore the Novatians who were zealous men denied to the first sort of persons the peace of the Church and remitted them to the Divine Judgment The Church her self was sometimes almost as zealous against the second sort of persons lapsed into capital crimes granting to them Repentance but once by such disciplines consigning this truth That every recession from the state of Grace in which by Baptism we were established and consigned is a farther step from the possibilities of Heaven and so near a ruine that the Church thought them persons fit to be transmitted to a Judicature immediately Divine as supposing either her power to be too little or the others malice too great or else the danger too violent or the scandal insupportable For concerning such persons who once were pious holy and forgiven for so is every man and woman worthily and aptly baptized and afterwards fell into dissolution of manners extinguishing the Holy Ghost doing despite to the Spirit of Grace crucisying again the Lord of Life that is returning to such a condition from which they were once recovered and could not otherwise be so but by the death of our dearest Lord I say concerning such persons the Scripture speaks very suspiciously and to the sense and signification of an infinite danger For if the speaking a word against the Holy Ghost be not to be pardoned here nor hereafter what can we imagine to be the end of such an impiety which crucifies the Lord of Life and puts him to an open shame which quenches the Spirit doing despite to the Spirit of Grace Certainly that is worse than speaking against him And such is every person who falls into wilful Apostasie from the Faith or does that violence to Holiness which the other does to Faith that is extinguishes the sparks of Illumination quenches the Spirit and is habitually and obstinately criminal in any kind For the same thing that 〈◊〉 was in the first period of the world and Idolatry in the second the same is Apostasie in the last it is a state wholly contradictory to all our religious relation to God according to the
we must know that oftentimes universal effects are attributed to partial causes because by the analogy of Scripture we are taught that all the body of holy actions and ministeries are to unite in production of the event and that without that adunation one thing alone cannot operate but because no one alone does the work but by an united power therefore indefinitely the effect is ascribed sometimes to one sometimes to another meaning that one as much as the other that is all together are to work the Pardon and the Grace But the doctrine of Preparation to Death we are clearest taught in the Parable of the ten Virgins Those who were wise stood waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom their Lamps burning only when the Lord was at hand at the notice of his coming published they trimmed their Lamps and they so disposed went forth and met him and entred with him into his interiour and eternal joys They whose Lamps did not stand ready before-hand expecting the uncertain hour were shut forth and bound in darkness Watch therefore so our Lord applies and expounds the Parable for ye know not the day nor the hour of the coming of the Son of man Whenever the arrest of Death seises us unless before that notice we had Oil in our Vessels that is Grace in our hearts habitual Grace for nothing else can reside or dwell there an act cannot inhabit or be in a Vessel it is too late to make preparation But they who have it may and must prepare that is they must stir the fire trim the vessel make it more actual in its exercise and productions full of ornament advantages and degrees And that is all we know from Scripture concerning Preparation 2. And indeed since all our life we are dying and this minute in which I now write death divides with me and hath got the surer part and more certain possession it is but reasonable that we should always be doing the Offices of Preparation If to day we were not dying and passing on to our grave then we might with more safety defer our work till the morrow But as fewel in a furnace in every degree of its heat and reception of the flame is converting into fire and ashes and the disposing it to the last mutation is the same work with the last instance of its change so is the age of every day a beginning of death and the night composing us to sleep bids us go to our lesser rest because that night which is the end of the preceding day is but a lesser death and whereas now we have died so many days the last day of our life is but the dying so many more and when that last day of dying will come we know not There is nothing then added but the circumstance of Sickness which also happens many times before only men are pleased to call that Death which is the end of dying when we cease to die any more and therefore to put off our Preparation till that which we call Death is to put off the work of all our life till the time comes in which it is to cease and determine 3. But to accelerate our early endeavour besides what hath been formerly considered upon the proper grounds of Repentance I here re-inforce the consideration of Death in such circumstances which are apt to engage us upon an early industry 1. I consider that no man is sure that he shall not die suddenly and therefore if Heaven be worth securing it were fit that we should reckon every day the Vespers of death and therefore that according to the usual rites of Religion it be begun and spent with religious offices And let us consider that those many persons who are remarked in history to have died suddenly either were happy by an early Piety or miserable by a sudden death And if uncertainty of condition be an abatement of felicity and spoils the good we possess no man can be happy but he that hath lived well that is who hath secured his condition by an habitual and living Piety For since God hath not told us we shall not die suddenly is it not certain he intended we should prepare for sudden death as well as against death cloathed in any other circumstances Fabius surnamed Pictor was choaked with a Hair in a mess of Milk Anacreon with a Raisin Cardinal Colonna with Figs crusted with Ice Adrian the fourth with a Flie Drusius Pompeius with a Pear Domitius Afer Quintilian's Tutor with a full Cup Casimire the Second King of Polonia with a Little draught of Wine Amurath with a Full goblet Tarquinius Priscus with a Fish-bone For as soon as a man is born that which in nature only remains to him is to die and if we differ in the way or time of our abode or the manner of our Exit yet we are even at last and since it is not determined by a natural cause which way we shall go or at what age a wise Man will suppose himself always upon his Death-bed and such supposition is like making of his Will he is not the nearer Death for doing it but he is the readier for it when it comes 4. Saint Jerome said well He deserves not the name of a Christian who will live in that state of life in which he will not die And indeed it is a great venture to be in an evil state of life because every minute of it hath a danger and therefore a succession of actions in every one of which he may as well perish as escape is a boldness that hath no mixture of wisdome or probable venture How many persons have died in the midst of an act of sport or at a merry meeting Grimoaldus a Lombard King died with shooting of a Pidgeon Thales the Milesian in the Theatre Lucia the sister of Aurelius the Emperor playing with her little son was wounded in her breast with a Needle and died Benno Bishop of Adelburg with great ceremony and joy consecrating S. Michael's Church was crouded to death by the People so was the Duke of Saxony at the Inauguration of Albert I. The great Lawyer Baldus playing with a little Dog was bitten upon the lip instantly grew mad and perished Charles the Eighth of France seeing certain Gentlemen playing at Tenniscourt swooned and recovered not Henry II. was killed running at Tilt Ludovicus Borgia with riding the great Horse and the old Syracusan Archimedes was slain by a rude Souldier as he was making Diagrams in the sand which was his greatest pleasure How many Men have died laughing or in the ecstasies of a great joy Philippides the Comedian and Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily died with joy at the news of a victory Diagoras of Rhodes and Chilo the Philosopher expired in the embraces of their sons crowned with an Olympick Lawrel Polycrita Naxia being saluted the Saviouress of her Countrey Marcus Juventius when the Senate decreed
to God and even holy purposes are good actions of the Spirit and Principles of Religion and though alone they cannot do the work of Grace or change the state when they are ineffectual that is when either we will not bring them into act or that God will not let us yet to a Man already in the state of Grace they are the additions of something good and are like blowing of coals which although it can put no life into a dead coal yet it makes a live coal shine brighter and burn clearer and adds to it some accidental degrees of heat 23. Having thus disposed himself to the peace of God let him make peace with all those in whom he knows or suspects any minutes of anger or malice or displeasure towards him submitting himself to them with humility whom he unworthily hath displeased asking pardon of them who say they are displeased and offering pardon to them that have displeased him and then let him crave the peace of Holy Church For it is all this while to be supposed that he hath used the assistence and prayers the counsel and the advices of a spiritual man and that to this purpose he hath opened to him the state of his whole life and made him to understand what emendations of his faults he hath made what acts of Repentance he hath done how lived after his fall and reparation and that he hath submitted all that he did or undid to the discerning of a holy man whose office it is to guide his Soul in this agony and last offices All men cannot have the blessing of a wise and learned Minister and some die where they can have none at all yet it were a safer course to do as much of this as we can and to a competent person if we can if we cannot then to the best we have according as we judge it to be of spiritual advantage to us for in this conjuncture of accidents it concerns us to be sure if we may and not to be deceived where we can avoid it because we shall never return to life to do this work again And if after this entercourse with a Spiritual guide we be reconciled by the solemn prayer of the Church the prayer of Absolution it will be of great advantage to us we depart with our Father's blessing we die in the actual Communion of the Church we hear the sentence of God applied after the manner of men and the promise of Pardon made circumstantiate material present and operative upon our spirits and have our portion of the promise which is recorded by S. James that if the Elders of the Church pray over a sick person fervently and effectually add solemnly his sins shall be forgiven him that is supposing him to be in a capacity to receive it because such prayers of such a man are very prevalent 24. All this is in a spiritual sense washing the hands in innocency and then let him go to the altar let him not for any excuse less than impossibility omit to receive the holy Sacrament which the Father 's assembled in the great Nicene Council have taught all the Christian world to call the most necessary provisions for our last journey which is the memory of that Death by which we hope for life which is the seed of Immortality and Resurrection of our bodies which unites our spirit to Christ which is a great defensative against the hostilities of the Devil which is the most solemn Prayer of the Church united and made acceptable by the Sacrifice of Christ which is then represented and exhibited to God which is the great instrument of spiritual increase and the growth of Grace which is duty and reward food and Physick health and pleasure deletery and cordial prayer and thanksgiving an union of mysteries the marriage of the Soul and the perfection of all the Rites of Christianity dying with the holy Sacrament in us is a going to God with Christ in our arms and interposing him between us and his angry sentence But then we must be sure that we have done all the duty without which we cannot communicate worthily For else Satan comes in the place of Christ and it is a horrour not less than infinite to appear before God's Tribunal possessed in our Souls with the spirit of darkness True it is that by many Laws of the Church the Bishop and the Minister are bound to give the holy Eucharist to every person who in the article or apparent danger of death desires it provided that he hath submitted himself to the imposition and counsels of the Bishop or Guide of his Soul that in case he recovers he may be brought to the peace of God and his Church by such steps and degrees of Repentance by which other publick sinners are reconciled But to this gentleness of Discipline and easiness of Administration those excellent persons who made the Canons thought themselves compelled by the rigour of the 〈◊〉 and because they admitted not lapsed persons to the peace of the Church upon any terms though never so great so publick or so penal a Repentance therefore these not onely remitted them to the exercise and station of Penitents but also to the Communion But the Fathers of the Council of Eliberis denied this favour to persons who after Baptism were Idolaters either intending this as a great argument to affright persons from so great a crime or else believing that it was unpardonable after Baptism a contradiction to that state which we entred into by Baptism and the Covenant Evangelical However I desire all learned persons to observe it and the less learned also to make use of it that those more ancient Councils of the Church which commanded the holy Communion to be given to dying persons meant only such which according to the custome of the Church were under the conditions of Repentance that is such to whom punishment and Discipline of divers years were injoyned and if it happened they died in the intervall before the expiration of their time of reconciliation then they admitted them to the Communion Which describes to us the doctrine of those Ages when Religion was purer and Discipline more severe and holy life secured by rules of excellent Government that those only were fit to come to that Feast who before their last sickness had finished the Repentance of many years or at least had undertaken it I cannot say it was so always and in all Churches for as the Disciples grew slack or mens perswasions had variety so they were more ready to grant Repentance as well as Absolution to dying persons but it was otherwise in the best times and with severer Prelates And certainly it were great charity to deny the Communion to persons who have lived viciously till their death provided it be by competent authority and done sincerely prudently and without temporal interest to other persons who have lived good lives or repented of their bad
Thomas P. 137. The Life of S. James the Less P. 143. The Life of S. Simon the Zealot P. 149. The Life of S. Jude P. 153. The Life of S. Matthias P. 157. The Life of S. Mark the Evangelist P. 161. The Life of S. Luke the Evangelist P. 167. Diptycha Apostolica Or an Enumeration of the Apostles and their Successors for the first three hundred years in the five great Churches said to have been founded by them pag. 171. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex AEd. Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. THE INTRODUCTION Christs faithfulness in appointing Officers in his Church The dignity of the Apostles above the rest The importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The nature of the Apostolick Office considered Respect had in founding it to the custom among the Jews Their Apostoli who The number of the Apostles limited Why twelve the several conjectures of the Ancients Their immediate election Their work wherein it consisted The Universality of their Commission Apostolical Churches what How soon the Apostles propagated Christianity through the World An argument for the Divinity of the Christian Religion inferr'd thence The power conveyed to the Apostles equally given to all Peter's superiority over the rest disprov'd both from Scripture and Antiquity The Apostles how qualified for their Mission Immediately taught the Doctrine they delivered Infallibly secur'd from Error in delivering it Their constant and familiar converse with their Master Furnished with a power of working Miracles The great evidence of it to prove a Divine Doctrine Miraculous powers conferr'd upon the Apostles particularly considered Prophecy what and when it ceas'd The gift of discerning Spirits The gift of Tongues The gift of Interpretation The unreasonable practice of the Church of Rome in keeping the Scripture and Divine Worship in an Unknown Tongue The gift of Healing Greatly advantageous to Christianity How long it lasted Power of Immediately inflicting corporal punishments and the great benefit of it in those times The Apostles enabled to confer miraculous powers upon others The Duration of the Apostolical Office What in it extraordinary what ordinary Bishops in what sence styled Apostles I. JESUS CHRIST the great Apostle and High Priest of our Profession being appointed by God to be the Supreme Ruler and Governour of his Church was like Moses faithful in all his house but with this honourable advantage that Moses was faithful as a Servant Christ as a Son over his own house which he erected established and governed with all possible care and diligence Nor could he give a greater instance either of his fidelity towards God or his love and kindness to the Souls of men than that after he had purchas'd a Family to himself and could now no longer upon earth manage its interests in his own person he would not return back to Heaven till he had constituted several Orders of Officers in his Church who might superintend and conduct its affairs and according to the various circumstances of its state administer to the needs and exigencies of his Family Accordingly therefore he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The first and prime Class of Officers is that of Apostles God hath set some in the Church first Apostles then secondarily Prophets c. First Apostles as far in office as honour before the rest their election more immediate their commission more large and comprehensive the powers and priviledges where with they were furnished greater and more honourable Prophecy the gift of Miracles and expelling Daemons the order of Pastors and Teachers were all spiritual powers and ensigns of great authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Chrysostom but the Apostolick eminency is far greater than all these which therefore he calls a spiritual Consulship an Apostle having as great preheminence above all other officers in the Church as the Consul had above all other Magistrates in Rome These Apostles were a few select persons whom our Lord chose out of the rest to devolve part of the Government upon their shoulders and to depute for the first planting and setling Christianity in the World He chose twelve whom he named Apostles of whose Lives and Acts being to give an Historical account in the following work it may not possibly be unuseful to premise some general remarks concerning them not respecting this or that particular person but of a general relation to the whole wherein we shall especially take notice of the importance of the word the nature of the imployment the fitness and qualification of the persons and the duration and continuance of the Office II. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sent is among ancient Writers applied either to things actions or persons To things thus those Dimissory letters that were granted to such who appeal'd from an Inferiour to a Superiour Judicature were in the language of the Roman Laws usually called Apostoli thus a Packet-boat was styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because sent up and down for advice and dispatch of business thus though in somewhat a different sence the lesson taken out of the Epistles is in the Ancient Greek Liturgies called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because usually taken out of the Apostles Writings Sometimes it is applied to actions and so imports no more than mission or the very act of sending thus the setting out a Fleet or a Naval expedition was wont to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Suidas tells us that as the persons designed for the care and management of the Fleet were called ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the very sending sorth of the Ships themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly what principally falls under our present consideration it is applied to persons and so imports no more than a messenger a person sent upon some special errand for the discharge of some peculiar affair in his name that sent him Thus Epaphroditus is called the Apostle or Messenger of the Philippians when sent by them to S. Paul at Rome thus Titus and his companions are styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messengers of the Churches So our Lord he that is sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Apostle or Messenger is not greater than him that sent him This then being the common notion of the word our Lord fixes it to a particular use applying it to those select persons whom he had made choice of to act by that peculiar authority and commission which he had deriv'd upon them Twelve whom he also named Apostles that is Commissioners those who were to be Embassadors for Christ to be sent up and down the World
prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost they laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost Which when the Magician beheld he offered the Apostles money to enable him that on whom soever he laid his hands he might derive these miraculous powers upon them XIV Having seen how sitly furnished the Apostles were for the execution of their Office let us in the last place enquire into its duration and continuance And here it must be considered that in the Apostolical Office there was something extraordinary and something ordinary What was 〈◊〉 was their immediate Commission derived from the mouth of Christ himself their unlimited charge to preach the Gospel up and down the World without being tied to any particular places the supernatural and miraculous powers conferr'd upon them as Apostles their infallible guidance in delivering the doctrines of the Gospel and these all expired and determined with their persons The standing and perpetual part of it was to teach and instruct the people in the duties and principles of Religion to administer the Sacraments to constitute Guides and 〈◊〉 and to exercise the discipline and government of the Church and in these they are succeeded by the ordinary Rulers and Ecclesiastick Guides who were to superintend and discharge the affairs and offices of the Church to the end of the World Whence it is that Bishops and Governours came to be styled Apostles as being their successors in ordinary for so they frequently are in the writings of the Church Thus Timothy who was Bishop of Ephesus is called an Apostle Clemens of Rome Clemens the Apostle S. Mark Bishop of Alexandria by 〈◊〉 styled both an Apostle and Evangelist Ignatius a Bishop and Apostle A title that continued in after Ages especially given to those that were the first planters or restorers of Christianity in any Country In the Coptick Kalendar published by Mr. Selden the VII th day of the month Baschnes answering to our Second of May is dedicated to the memory of S. Athanasius the Apostle Acacius and Paulus in their Letter to Epiphanius style him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new Apostle and Preacher and Sidonius Apollinaris writing to Lupus Bishop of Troyes in France speaks of the honour due to his eminent Apostleship An observation which it were easie enough to confirm by abundant instances were it either doubtful in it self or necessary to my purpose but being neither I forbear Joan. Euchait Metropolitae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 70. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE LIFE OF S. PETER S. PETER He was crucified at Rome with his head downwards and Buried in the Vatican there S. Hierom. after he had planted a Christian Church first at Antioch and afterwards at Rome S. Peter's Martyrdom Ioh. 21. 18. 19. Verily verily I say unto thee when thou wast young thou girdedst thy self walkedst whither thou wouldst but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands another shall gird thee carry thee whither thou wouldst not This spake he signifying by what death he should glorify God SECT I. Of S. Peter from his Birth till his First coming to Christ. Bethsaida S. Peter's Birth-place Its dignity of old and fate at this day The time of his Birth enquired into Some Errors noted concerning it His names Cephas the imposing of it notes no Superiority over the rest of the Apostles The custom of Popes assuming a new Name at their Election to the Papacy whence His kindred and relations whether He or Andrew the elder Brother His Trade and way of life what before his coming to Christ. The Sea of Galilee and the conveniency of it The meanness and obscurity of his Trade The remarkable appearances of the Divine Providence in propagating Christianity in the World by mean and unlikely Instruments THE Land of Palestine was at and before the coming of our Blessed Saviour distinguished into three several Provinces Judaea Samaria and Galilee This last was divided into the Upper and the Lower In the Upper called also Galilee of the Gentiles within the division anciently belonging to the Tribe of Nephthali stood Bethsaida formerly an obscure and inconsiderable Village till lately reedified and enlarged by Philip the Tetrarch by him advanced to the place and title of a City replenished with inhabitants and fortified with power and strength and in honour of Julia the daughter of Augustus Caesar by him styled Julias Situate it was upon the banks of the Sea of Galilee and had a Wilderness on the other side thence called the Desart of Bethsaida whither our Saviour used often to retire the privacies and solitudes of the place advantageously ministring to Divine contemplations But Bethsaida was not so remarkable for this adjoyning Wilderness as it self was memorable for a worse sort of Barrenness Ingratitude and Unprofitableness under the influences of Christ's Sermons and Miracles thence severely upbraided by him and threatned with one of his deepest woes Woe unto thee Chorazin woe unto thee Bethsaida c. A woe that it seems stuck close to it for whatever it was at this time one who surveyed it in the last Age tells us that it was shrunk again into a very mean and small Village consisting only of a few cottages of Moores and wild Arabs and later travellers have since assured us that even these are dwindled away into one poor cottage at this day So fatally does sin undermine the greatest the goodliest places so certainly does God's Word take place and not one lot a either of his promises or threatnings fall to the ground Next to the honour that was done it by our Saviour's presence who living most in these parts frequently resorted hither it had nothing greater to recommend it to the notice of posterity than that besides some other of the Apostles it was the Birth-place of S. Peter a person how inconsiderable soever in his private fortunes yet of great note and eminency as one of the prime Embassadors of the Son of God to whom both Sacred and Ecclesiastical stories give though not a superiority a precedency in the Colledge of Apostles 2. THE particular time of his Birth cannot be recovered no probable footsteps or intimations being left of it in the general we may conclude him at least Ten years elder than his Master his married condition and setled course of life at his first coming to Christ and that authority and respect which the gravity of his person procured him amongst the rest of the Apostles can speak him no less but for any thing more particular and positive in this matter I see no reason to affirm Indeed might we trust the account
falshood and the other with rudeness and incivility and that the whole was but a compact of forgery and deceit while the Princes of the Church did thus fall out among themselves And so sensible were some of this in the first Ages of Christianity that rather than such a dishonour and disgrace as they accounted it should be reflected upon Peter they tell us of two several Cephas's one the Apostle the other one of the seventy Disciples and that it was the last of those that was guilty of this prevarication and whom S. Paul so vigorously resisted and reproved at Antioch But for this plausible and well-meant Evasion the Champions of the Romish Church conn them no great thanks at this day Nay S. Hierom long since fully confuted it in his Notes upon this place SECT IX Of S. Peter's Acts from the End of the Sacred Story till his Martyrdom Peter's story prosecuted out of Ecclesiastical Writers His planting of a Church and an Episcopal Sea at Antioch when said to be His first Journey to Rome and the 〈◊〉 it brought to the Roman Empire His preaching in other places and return to Rome His encounter with Simon Magus The impostures of the Magician His familiarity with the Emperours and the great honours said to be done to him Of his Statue and Inscription at Rome Peter's victory over him by raising one from the Dead Simon attempting to fly is by Peter's Prayers hindred falls down and dies Nero's displeasure against Peter whence His being cast into Prison His flight thence and being brought back by Christ appearing to him Crucified with his head downwards and why The place of his Martyrdom and Burial The original and greatness of S. Peter's Church in Rome His Episcopal Chair pretended to be still kept there HITHER TO in drawing of the Life of this great Apostle we have had an infallible Guide to conduct and lead us But the sacred story breaking off here forces us to look abroad and to pick up what Memoires the Ancients have left us in this matter which we shall for the main digest according to the order wherein Baronius and other Ecclesiastick Writers have disposed the series of S. Peter's Life Reserving what is justly questionable to a more particular examination afterward And that we may present the account more intire and perfect we must step back a little in point of time that so we may go forward with greater advantage We are to know therefore that during the time of peace and calmness which the Church enjoyed after Saul's Persecution when S. Peter went down to visit the Churches he is said to have gone to Antioch where great Numbers of Jews inhabited and there to have planted the Christian faith That he founded a Church here 〈◊〉 expresly tells us and by others it is said that he himself was the first Bishop of this See Sure I am that S. Chrysostom reckons it one of the greatest honours of that City that S. Peter staid so long there and that the Bishops of it succeeded him in that See The care and precedency of this Church he had between Six and Seven Years Not that he staid there all that time but that having ordered and disposed things to the best advantage he returned to other affairs and exigencies of the Church confirming the new Plantations bringing in Cornelius and his Family and in him the first fruits of the Gentiles conversion to the faith of Christ. After which he returned unto Jerusalem where he was imprisoned by Herod and miraculously delivered by an Angel sent from Heaven 2. WHAT became of Peter after his deliverance out of Prison is not certainly known probably he might preach in some parts a little further distant from Judaea as we are told he did at 〈◊〉 and in the Countries thereabouts though I confess the evidence to me is not convincing After this he resolved upon a Journey to Rome where most agree he arrived about the Second Year of the Emperor Claudius Orosius tells us that coming to Rome he brought prosperity along with him to that City For besides several other extraordinary advantages which at that time hapned to it this was not the least observable that Camillus Scribonianus Governor of Dalmatia soliciting the Army to rebell against the Emperor the Eagles their Military Standard remained so fast in the Ground that no power nor strength was able to pluck them up With which unusual accident the minds of the Souldiers were surprized and startled and turning their Swords against the Author of the sedition continued firm and loyal in their obedience Whereby a dangerous Rebellion was prevented likely enough otherwise to have broken out This he ascribes to S. Peter's coming to Rome and the first Plantation of the Christian faith in that City Heaven beginning more particularly to smile upon that place at his first coming thither 'T is not to be doubted but that at his first arrival he disposed himself amongst the Jews his Country-men who ever since the time of Augustus had dwelt in the Region beyond Tybur But when afterwards he began to preach to the Gentiles he was forced to change his Lodging and was taken in by one Pudens a Senator lately converted to the Faith Here he closely plyed his main office and imployment to establish Christianity in that place Here we are told he met with Philo the Jew lately come on his second Embassy unto Rome in the behalf of his Countrymen at Alexandria and to have contracted an intimate friendship and acquaintance with him And now it was says Baronius that Peter being mindful of the Churches which he had founded in Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Bithynia and Asia the less wrote his first Epistle to them which he probably infers hence that S. Mark being yet with him at the time of the date of this Epistle it must be written at least some time this Year for that now it was that S. Mark was sent to preach and propagate the Faith in Egypt Next to the planting Religion at Rome he took care to propagate it in the Western parts And to that end if we may believe one of those that pretend to be his Successors he sent abroad Disciples into several Provinces That so their sound might go into all the Earth and their words into the ends of the World 3. IT hapned that after S. Peter had been several Years at Rome Claudius the Emperor taking advantage of some seditions and tumults raised by the Jews by a publick Edict banished them out of Rome In the Number of whom S. Peter they say departed thence and returned back to Jerusalem where he was present at that great Apostolical Synod of which before After this we are left under great uncertainties how he disposed of himself for many Years Confident we may be that he was not idle but spent his time sometimes in preaching in the Eastern parts sometimes in other parts of the World as
S. Jude speaking of the Scoffers who should come in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts cites this as that which had been before spoken by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ wherein he plainly quotes the words of this Second Epistle of Peter affirming That there should come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts And that this does agree to Peter will further appear by this that he tells us of these Scoffers that should come in the last days that is before the destruction of Jerusalem as that phrase is often used in the New Testament that they should say Where is the promise of his coming Which clearly respects their making light of those threatnings of our Lord whereby he had foretold that he would shortly come in Judgment for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation This he now puts them in mind of as what probably he had before told them of 〈◊〉 vocc when he was amongst them For so we find he did elsewhere Lactantius assuring us That amongst many strange and wonderful things which Peter and Paul preached at Rome and lest upon Record this was one That within a short time God would send a Prince who should destroy the Jews and lay their Cities level with the ground straitly besiege them destroy them with Famine so that they should feed upon one another That their Wives and Daughters should be ravished and their Childrens brains dasht out before their faces that all things should be laid waste by Fire and Sword and themselves perpetually banished from their own Countrey and this for their insolent and merciless usage of the innocent and dear Son of God All which as he observes came to pass soon after their death when 〈◊〉 came upon the Jews and extinguished both their Name and Nation And what Peter here foretold at Rome we need not question but he had done before to those Jews to whom he wrote this Epistle Wherein he especially antidotes them against those corrupt and poisonous principles wherewith many and especially the followers of Simon Magus began to insect the Church of Christ. And this but a little time before his death as appears from that passage in it where he tells them That he knew he must shortly put off his earthly Tabernacle 7. BESIDES these Divine Epistles there were other supposititious writings which in the first Ages were fathered upon S. Peter Such was the Book called his Acts mentioned by Origen Eusebius and others but rejected by them Such was his Gospel which probably at first was nothing else but the Gospel written by S. Mark dictated to him as is generally thought by S. Peter and therefore as S. 〈◊〉 tells us said to be his Though in the next Age there appeared a Book under that Title mentioned by Serapion Bishop of Antioch and by him at 〈◊〉 suffered to be read in the Church but afterwards upon a more careful perusal of it he rejected it as Apocryphal as it was by others after him Another was the Book stiled His Preaching mentioned and quoted both by Clemens Alexandrinus and by Origen but not acknowledged by them to be Genuine Nay expresly said to have been forged by Hereticks by an ancient Author contemporary with S. Cyprian The next was his Apocalypse or Revelation rejected as Sozomen tells us by the 〈◊〉 as Spurious but yet read in some Churches in Palestine in his time The last was the Book called His Judgment which probably was the same with that called Hermes or Pastor a Book of good use and esteem in the first times of Christianity and which as Eusebius tells us was not only frequently cited by the Ancients but also publickly read in Churches 8. WE shall conclude this Section by considering Peter with respect to his several Relations That he was married is unquestionable the Sacred History mentioning his Wives Mother his Wife might we believe Metaphrastes being the Daughter of Aristobulus Brother to Barnabas the Apostle And though S. Hierom would perswade us that he left her behind him together with his Nets when he forsook all to follow Christ yet we know that Father too well to be over-confident upon his word in a case of Marriage or Single life wherein he is not over-scrupulous sometimes to strain a point to make his opinion more fair and plausible The best is we have an infallible Authority which plainly intimates the contrary the testimony of S. Paul who tells us of Cephas that he led about a Wife a Sister along with him who for the most part mutually cohabited lived together for ought that can be proved to the contrary Clemens Alexandrinus gives us this account though he tells us not the time or place That Peter seeing his Wife going towards Martyrdom exceedingly rejoyced that she was called to so great an honour and that she was now returning home encouraging and earnestly exhorting her and calling her by her Name bad her to be mindful of our Lord. Such says he was the Wedlock of that blessed couple and the perfect disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them By her he is said to have had a Daughter called Petronilla Metaphrastes adds a Son how truly I know not This only is certain that S. Clemens of Alexandria reckons Peter for one of the Apostles that was Married and had Children And surely he who was so good a man and so good an Apostle was as good in the relation both of an Husband and a Father SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome Peter's being at Rome granted in general The account of it given by Baronius and the Writers of that Church rejected and disproved No foundation for it in the History of the Apostolick Acts. No mention of it in S. Paul's Epistle to the Romans No news of his being there at S. Paul's coming to Rome nor intimation of any such thing in the several Epistles which S. Paul wrote from thence S. Peter's first being at Rome inconsistent with the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem And with an Ancient Tradition that the Apostles were commanded to stay Twelve years in Judaea after Christ's death Apassage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the 〈◊〉 of the Romish Church in their Accounts Peter's being XXV years Bishop of Rome no solid foundation for it in Antiquity The Planting and Governing that Church equally attributed to Peter and Paul S. Peter when probably came to Rome Different dates of his Martyrdom assigned by the Ancients A probable account given of it 1. THOUGH it be not my purpose to swim against the Stream and Current of Antiquity in denying S. Peter to have been at Rome an Assertion easilier perplexed and intangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there
hence that 〈◊〉 places Peter's coming to Rome in the Second Year of Claudius and his Martyrdom in the Fourteenth of Nero between which there is the just space of five and twenty years Whence those that came after concluded that he sate Bishop there all that time It cannot be denied but that in S. Hierom's Translation it is expresly said that he continued five and twenty years Bishop of that City But then it is as evident that this was his own addition who probably set things down as the report went in his time no such thing being to be found in the Greek Copy of Eusebius Nor indeed does he ever there or else-where positively affirm S. Peter to have been Bishop of Rome but only that he preached the Gospel there And expresly affirms that he and S. Paul being dead Linus was the first Bishop of Rome To which I may add that when the Ancients speak of the Bishops of Rome and the first Originals of that Church they equally attribute the founding and the Episcopacy and Government of it to Peter and Paul making the one as much concerned in it as the other Thus Epiphanius reckoning up the Bishops of that See places Peter and Paul in the front as the first Bishops of Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peter and Paul Apostles became the first Bishops of Rome then Linus c. And again a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the succession of the Bishops of Rome was in this manner Peter and Paul Linus Cletus c. And Egesippus speaking of their coming to Rome equally says of them that they were Doctores Christianorum sublimes operibus clari magisterio the Instructors of the Christians admirable for miracles and renowned for their authority However granting not only that he was there but that he was Bishop and that for five and twenty years together yet what would this make for the unlimited Soveraignty and Universality of that Church unless a better evidence than Feed my sheep could be produced for its uncontroulable Supremacy and Dominion over the whole Christian World 7. THE summe is this granting what none that has any reverence for Antiquity will deny that S. Peter was at Rome he probably came thither some few Years before his death joyned with and assisted S. Paul in Preaching of the Gospel and then both sealed the Testimony of it with their Bloud The date of his Death is differently assigned by the Ancients Eusebius places it Ann. LXIX in the Fourteenth of Nero Epiphanius in the Twelfth That which seems to me most probable is that it was in the Tenth or the Year LXV which I thus compute Nero's burning of Rome is placed by Tacitus under the Consulship of C. Lecanius and M. Licinius about the Month of July that is Ann. Chr. LXIV This act procured him the infinite hatred and clamours of the People which having in vain endeavoured several ways to remove and pacifie he at last resolved upon this project to derive the Odium upon the Christians whom therefore both to appease the Gods and please the People he condemned as guilty of the fact and caused to be executed with all manner of acute and exquisite Tortures This Persecution we may suppose began about the end of that or the beginning of the following Year And under this Persecution I doubt not it was that S. Peter suffered and changed Earth for Heaven The End of S. Peter's Life THE LIFE OF S. PAUL S. PAUL He was beheaded by the command of Nero the Roman Emperour Place this to the Epistle for the Conversion of S. Paul St. Paul's Conversion Act. 9. 3. 4. And as he journied he came near to Damascus suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven he fell to the earth heard a voice saying unto him Saul Saul c. Ver. 7 And the men which journied with him stood speechless hearing a voice but seeing no man SECT I. Of S. PAUL from his Birth till his Conversion S. Paul why placed next Peter Tarsus the place of his Birth an University and a Roman Corporation His Parents of the old stock of Israel descended of the Tribe of Benjamin Jacob's Prophecy applied to him by the Ancients His Names Saul whence Paul when assumed and why His Education in the Schools of Tarsus and in the Trade of Tent-making The Custom of the Jews in bringing up their Youth to Manual Trades His study of the Law under the Tutorage of Gamaliel This Gamaliel who Why said to have been a Christian. Sitting at the feet of their Masters the posture of learners His joyning himself to the Sect of the Pharisees An Enquiry into the Temper and Manners of that Sect. The fiery Zeal and Activity of his Temper His being engaged in Stephen's Martyrdom His violent persecution of the Church His journey to Damascus His Conversion by the way and the manner of it His blindness His rapture into the third Heaven when probably His sight restored His being Baptized and preaching Christ. THOUGH S. Paul was none of the Twelve Apostles yet had he the honour of being an Apostle extraordinary and to be immediately called in a way peculiar to himself He justly deserves a place next S. Peter for as in their lives they were pleasant and lovely so in their death they were not divided especially if it be true that they both suffered not only for the same cause but at the same time as well as place S. Paul was born at Tarsus the Metropolis of Cilicia a City infinitely rich and populous and what contributed more to the fame and honour of it an Academy furnished with Schools of Learning where the Scholars so closely plied their Studies that as Strabo informs us they excelled in all Arts of polite Learning and Philosophy those of other places yea even of Alexandria and Athens it self and that even Rome was beholden to it for many of its best Professors It was a Roman Municipium or free Corporation invested with many Franchises and Priviledges by Julius Caesar and Augustus who granted to the Inhabitants of it the honours and immunities of Citizens of Rome In which respect S. Paul owned and asserted it as the priviledge of his Birth-right that he was a Roman and thereby free from being bound or beaten True it is that S. Hierom followed herein by one who himself travelled in these parts makes him born at Gischalis a well fortified Town in Judaea which being besieged and taken by the Roman Army his Parents fled away with him and dwelt at Tarsus But besides that this contradicts S. Paul who expresly affirms that he was born at Tarsus there needs no more to confute this opinion than that S. Hierom elsewhere slights it as a fabulous report 2. HIS Parents were Jews and that of the Ancient stock not entering in by the Gate of proselytism but originally descended from that Nation which surely he means when he says
exceedingly troubled publickly rebuked him for it and that as the case required with great sharpness and severity It was not long after that S. Paul and 〈◊〉 resolved upon visiting the Churches which they had lately planted among the Gentiles To which end Barnabas determined to take his cousin Mark along with them This Paul would by no means agree to he having deserted them in their former journey A little spark which yet kindled a great feud and dissention between these two good men and arose to that height that in some discontent they parted from each other So natural is it for the best of men sometimes to indulge an unwarrantable passion and so far to espouse the interest of a private and particular humour as rather to hazard the great Law of Charity and violate the bands of friendship than to recede from it The effect was Barnabas taking his Nephew went for Cyprus his native Country S. Paul made choice of Silas and the success of his undertaking being first recommended to the Divine care and goodness they set forwards on their journey 2. THEIR first passage was into Syria and Cilicia confirming the Churches as they went along And to that end 〈◊〉 with them Copies of the Synodical Decrees lately ordained in the Council at Jerusalem Hence we may suppose it was that he set 〈◊〉 for Crete where he preached and propagated Christianity and constituted Titus to be the first Bishop and Pastor of that Island whom he left there to settle and dispose those affairs which the shortness of his own stay in those parts would not suffer him to do Hence he returned back unto Cilicia and came to Lystra where he found Timothy whose Father was a Greek his Mother a Jewish convert by whom he had been brought up under all the advantages of a pious and religious education and especially an incomparable skill and dexterity in the holy Scriptures S. Paul designing him for the companion of his travels and a special instrument in the Ministery of the Gospel and knowing that his being uncircumcised would be a mighty prejudice in the opinion and estimation of the Jews caused him to be circumcised being willing in lawful and indifferent matters such was Circumcision now become to accommodate himself to mens humors and apprehensions for the saving of their Souls 3. FROM hence with his company he passed through Phrygia and the Country of Galatia where he was entertained by them with as mighty a kindness and veneration as if he had been an Angel immediately sent from Heaven And being by Revelation forbidden to go into Asia by a second Vision he was commanded to direct his journey for Macedonia And here it was that S. Luke joyned himself to his company and became ever after his inseparable companion Sailing from Troas they arrived at the Island Samothracia and thence to 〈◊〉 from whence they went to Philippi the chief City of that part of Macedonia and a Roman Colony where he staid some considerable time to plant the Christian Faith and where his Ministery had more particular success on Lydia a Purple-seller born at 〈◊〉 baptized together with her whole Family and with her the Apostle sojourned during his residence in that place A little without this City there was a Proseucha 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Syriac renders it an Oratory or house of Prayer whereto the Apostle and his company used frequently to retire for the exercise of their Religion and for preaching the Gospel to 〈◊〉 that resorted thither The Jews had 〈◊〉 sorts of places for their publick worship The Temple at Jerusalem which was like the Cathedral or Mother-Church where all Sacrifices and Oblations were 〈◊〉 and where all Males were bound three times a-year personally to pay their devotions Their Synagogues many whereof they had almost in every place not unlike our Parochial Churches where the Scriptures were read and expounded and the people taught their duty Moses of old time hath in every City them that preach him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day And then they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo sometimes calls them or 〈◊〉 which were like Chappels of Ease to the Temple and the 〈◊〉 whither the people were wont to come solemnly to offer up their Prayers to Heaven They were built as 〈◊〉 informs us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the City in the open Air and uncovered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being large spacious places after the manner of Fora or Market-places and these they called 〈◊〉 And that the Jews and Samaritans had such places of Devotion he proves from this very place at Philippi where S. Paul preached For they had them not in Judaea only but even at Rome it self where Tiberius as Philo tells 〈◊〉 the Emperor suffered the Jews to inhabit the Transtiberin Region and undisturbedly to 〈◊〉 according to the Rites of their Institutions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 to have their Proseucha's and to meet in them especially upon their holy Sabbaths that they might be familiarly instructed in the Laws and Religion of their Country Such they had also in other places especially where they had not or were not suffered to have Synagogues for their publick worship But to return 4. AS they were going to this Oratory they were often followed by a Pythonesse a Maid-servant acted by a spirit of Divination who openly cried out That these men were the servants of the most high God who came to shew the way of Salvation to the World So easily can Heaven extort a Testimony from the mouth of Hell But S. Paul to shew how little he needed Satan to be his witness commanded the Daemon to come out which immediately left her The evil Spirit thus thrown out of possession presently raised a storm against the Apostles for the Masters of the Damsel who used by her Diabolical arts to raise great advantages to themselves being sensible that now their gainful Trade was spoil'd resolved to be revenged on them that had spoiled it Accordingly they laid hold upon them and drag'd them before the Seat of Judicature insinuating to the Governours that these men were Jews and sought to introduce different customs and ways of worship contrary to the Laws of the Roman Empire The Magistrates and People were soon agreed the one to give Sentence the other to set upon the Execution In fine they were stript beaten and then commanded to be thrown into Prison and the Jaylor charged to keep them with all possible care and strictness Who to make sure of his charge thrust them into the Inner-Dungeon and made their feet fast in the Stocks But a good man can turn a Prison into a Chappel and make a den of Thieves to be an house of Prayer Our feet cannot be bound so fast to the Earth but that still our hearts may mount up to Heaven At midnight the Apostles were over-heard by their fellow-prisoners praying and singing
had no crafty or covetous designs upon any man's Estate or Riches having as themselves could witness industriously laboured with his own hands and by his own work maintained both himself and his company Herein leaving them an example what pains they ought to take to support the weak and relieve the poor rather than to be themselves chargeable unto others according to that incomparable saying of our Saviour which surely S. Paul had received from some of those that had conversed with him in the days of his flesh It is more blessed to give than to receive This Concio ad Clerum or 〈◊〉 Sermon being ended the Apostle kneeled down and concluded all with Prayer Which done they all melted into tears and with the greatest expressions of sorrow attended him to the Ship though that which made the deepest impression upon their minds was that he had told them That they should 〈◊〉 his face no more 4. DEPARTING from Myletus they arrived at Coos thence came to Rhodes thence to Patara thence to Tyre where meeting with some Christians he was advised by those among them who had the gift of Prophecy that he should not go up to Jerusalem with them he staid a week and then going all together to the shore he kneeled down and prayed with them and having mutually embraced one another he went on board and came to 〈◊〉 where only saluting the Brethren they came next day unto Caesarea Here they lodged in the house of Philip the Evangelist one of the seven Deacons that were at first set apart by the Apostles who had four Virgin-daughters all endued with the gift of prophecy During their stay in this place Agabus a Christian Prophet came down hither from Judaea who taking Paul's girdle bound with it his own hands and feet telling them that by this external Symbol the Holy Ghost did signifie and declare that S. Paul should be thus serv'd by the Jews at 〈◊〉 and be by them delivered over into the hands of the Gentiles Whereupon they all passionately besought him that he would divert his course to some other place The Apostle ask'd them what they meant by these compassionate disswasives to add more affliction to his sorrow that he was willing and resolved not only to be imprisoned but if need were to die at Jerusalem for the sake of Christ and his Religion Finding his resolution fixed and immoveable they importuned him no further but left the event to the Divine will and pleasure All things being in readiness they set forwards on their journey and being come to Jerusalem were kindly and joyfully entertained by the Christians there 5. THE next day after their arrival S. Paul and his company went to the house of S. James the Apostle where the rest of the Bishops and Governours of the Church were met together after mutual salutations he gave them a particular account with what success God had blessed him in propagating Christianity among the Gentiles for which they all heartily blessed God but withall told him that he was now come to a place where there were many thousands of Jewish converts who all retained a mighty zeal and veneration for the Law of Moses and who had been informed of him that he taught the Jews whom he had converted in every place to renounce Circumcision and the Ceremonies of the Law That as soon as the multitude heard of his arrival they would come together to see how he behaved himself in this matter and therefore to prevent so much disturbance it was advisable that there being four men there at that time who were to accomplish a Vow probably not the 〈◊〉 vow but some other which they had made for deliverance from sickness or some other eminent danger and distress for so Josephus tells us they were wont to do in such cases and before they came to offer the accustomed Sacrifices to abstain for some time from Wine and to shave their heads he would joyn himself to them perform the usual Rites and Ceremonies with them and provide such Sacrifices for them as the Law required in that case and that in discharge of their Vow they might shave their heads Whereby it would appear that the reports which were spread concerning him were false and groundless and that he himself did still observe the Rites and Orders of the Mosaical Institution That as for the Gentile converts they required no such observances at their hands nor expected any thing more from them in these indifferent matters than what had been before determined by the Apostolical Synod in that place S. Paul who in such things was willing to become all things to all men that he might gain the more consented to the counsel which they gave him and taking the persons along with him to the Temple told the 〈◊〉 that the time of a Vow which they had made being now run out and having purified themselves as the nature of the case required they were come to make their offerings according to the Law 6. THE seven days wherein those Sacrifices were to be offered being now almost 〈◊〉 some Jews that were come from 〈◊〉 where probably they had opposed S. Paul now finding him in the Temple began to raise a tumult and uproar and laying hold of him called out to the rest of the Jews for their assistance Telling them that this was the fellow that every where vented Doctrines 〈◊〉 to the prerogative of the Jewish Nation destructive to the Institutions of the Law and to the purity of that place which he had prophaned by bringing in uncircumcised Greeks into it Positively concluding that because they had seen Trophimus a Gentile convert of Ephesus with him in the City therefore he had brought him also into the Temple So apt is malice to make any premises from whence it may infer its own conclusion Hereupon the whole City was presently in an uproar and seising upon him they dragged him out of the Temple the doors being presently shut against him Nor had they failed there to have put a period to all his troubles had not 〈◊〉 Lysias Commander of the Roman Garrison in the Tower of Antonia come in with some Souldiers to his rescue and deliverance and supposing him to be a more than an ordinary Malefactor commanded a double chain to be put upon him though as yet altogether ignorant either who he or what his crime was and wherein he could receive little satisfaction from the clamorous multitude who called for nothing but his death following the cry with such crouds and numbers that the Souldiers were forced to take him into their arms to secure him from the present rage and violence of the people As they were going up into the Castle S. Paul asked the Governour whether he might have the liberty to speak to him who finding him to speak Greek enquired of him whether he was not that Egyptian which a few Years before had raised a Sedition in 〈◊〉 and headed a party of
account of his travails and transactions in these parts He tells us that he first came to 〈◊〉 where being entertained by a Jew he went into the Synagogue discoursed to them concerning Christ and from the prophecies of the Old Testament proved him to be the Messiah and the Saviour of the World Having here converted and baptized many ordered their publick Meeting and ordained them Priests he went next to 〈◊〉 a maritime City upon the 〈◊〉 Sea whence after many other places he came to Nice where he staid two Years Preaching and working Miracles with great success thence to Nicomedia and so to 〈◊〉 whence sailing through the Propontis he came by the Euxin Sea to Heraclea and from thence to Amastris in all which places he met with great difficulties and discouragements but overcame all with an invincible patience and resolution He next came to Sinope a City scituate upon the same Sea a place famous both for the birth and burial of the great King Mithridates here as my Author reports from the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he met with his Brother Peter with whom he staid a considerable time at this place as a Monument whereof he tells us that the Chairs made of white stone wherein they were wont to sit while they taught the People were still extant and commonly shewed in his time The Inhabitants of this City were most Jews who partly through zeal for their Religion partly through the barbarousness of their manners were quickly exasperated against the Apostle and contriving together attempted to burn the House wherein he sojourned however they treated him with all the instances of savage cruelty throwing him to the ground stamping upon him with their 〈◊〉 pulling and dragging him from place to place some beating him with Clubs others pelting him with stones and some the better to satisfie their revenge biting off his Flesh with their Teeth till apprehending they had fully dispatched him they cast him out of the City But he miraculously recovered and publickly returned into the City whereby and by some other Miracles which he wrought amongst them he reduced many to a better mind converting them to the Faith Departing hence he went again to Amynsus and then to Trapezus thence to 〈◊〉 and to Samosata the birth-place of the witty but impious Lucian where having baffled the acute and wise Philosophers he purposed to return to Jerusalem Whence after some time he betook himself to his former Provinces travailing to the Country of the Abasgi where at Sebastople 〈◊〉 upon the Eastern shore of the Euxin Sea between the 〈◊〉 of the Rivers Phasis and Apsarus he successfully Preached the Gospel to the Inhabitants of that City Hence he removed into the Country of the Zecchi and the Bosphorani part of the 〈◊〉 Scythia or Sarmatia but finding the Inhabitants very barbarous and intractable he staid not long among them only at Cherson or Chersonesus a great and populous City within the Bosphorus he continued some time instructing and confirming them in the Faith Hence taking Ship he sailed cross the Sea to 〈◊〉 to encourage and confirm the Churches which he had lately planted in those parts and here he ordained Philologus formerly one of S. Paul's Disciples Bishop of that City 4. HENCE he came to Byzantium since called Constantinople where he instructed them in the knowledge of the Christian Religion founded a Church for Divine worship and ordained Stachys whom S. Paul calls his beloved Stachys first Bishop of that place Baronius indeed is unwilling to believe this desirous to engross the honour of it to S. Peter whom he will have to have been the first Planter of Christianity in these parts But besides that Baronius his authority is very slight and insignificant in this case as we have before noted in S. Peter's life this matter is expresly asserted not only by Nicephorus Callistus but by another Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople and who therefore may be presumed 〈◊〉 in his Predecessors in that See Banished out of the City by him who at that time usurped the Government he fled to 〈◊〉 a place near at hand where he preached the Gospel for two Years together with good success converting great Numbers to the Faith After this he travelled over Thrace Macedonia Thessaly Achaia Nazianzen adds Epyrus in all which places for many Years he preached and propagated Christianity and confirmed the Doctrine that he taught with great signs and miracles at last he came to Patrae a City of Achaia where he gave his last and great testimony to it I mean laid down his own Life to ratifie and ensure it in describing whose Martyrdom we shall for the main follow the account that is given us in the Acts of his Passion pretended to have been written by the Presbyters and Deacons of Achaia present at his Martyrdom which though I dare not with some assert to be the genuine work of those persons yet can it not be denied to be of considerable antiquity being mentioned by Philastrius who flourished Ann. 380. and were no doubt written long before his time The summ of it is this 5. AEGEAS Proconsul of Achaia came at this time to Patrae where observing that multitudes were fallen off from Paganism and had embraced Christianity he endeavoured by all arts both of favour and cruelty to reduce the people to their old Idolatries To him the Apostle resolutely makes his address calmly puts him in mind that he being but a judge of men should own and revere him who was the supreme and impartial Judge of all that he should give him that Divine honour that was due to him and leave off the impieties of his false Heathen-worship The Proconsul derided him as an Innovator in Religion a propagator of that superstition whose Author the Jews had infamously put to death upon a Cross. Hereat the Apostle took occasion to discourse to him of the infinite love and kindness of our Lord who came into the World to purchase the Salvation of mankind and for that end did not disdain to die upon the Cross. To whom the Proconsul answered that he might perswade them so that would believe him for his part if he did not comply with him in doing sacrifice to the Gods he would cause him to suffer upon that Cross which he had so much extolled and magnified S. Andrew replied That he did sacrifice every day to God the only true and omnipotent Being not with fumes and bloudy offerings but in the sacrifice of the immaculate Lamb of God The issue was the Apostle was committed to prison whereat the people were so enraged that it had broken out into a mutiny had not the Apostle restrained them perswading them to imitate the mildness and patience of our meek humble Saviour and not to hinder him from that crown of Martyrdom that now waited for him 6. THE next day he was again brought before the Proconsul who perswaded him that he would not foolishly
Patmos and returned into Asia his ancient charge but chiefly fixed his Seat at 〈◊〉 the care and presidency whereof Timothy their Bishop having been lately martyr'd by the People for perswading them against their Heathen-Feasts and Sports especially one called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein was a mixture of debauchery and idolatry he took upon him and by the assistance of seven Bishops governed that large spacious Diocese Nicephorus adds that he not only managed the affairs of the Church ordered and disposed the Clergy but erected Churches which surely must be meant of Oratories and little places for their solemn conventions building Churches in the modern notion not being consistent with the poverty and persecution of Christians in those early times Here at the request of the Bishops of Asia he wrote his Gospel they are Authors of no credit and value that make it written during his confinement in the Isle of Patmos with very solemn preparation whereof more when we come to consider the Writings which he left behind him 7. HE lived till the time of Trajan about the beginning of whose Reign he departed this Life very Aged about the Ninety-eighth or Ninety-ninth Year of his Life as is generally thought Chrysostome is very positive that he was an Hundred Years old when he wrote his Gospel and that he liv'd full Twenty Years after The same is affirmed by Dorotheus that he lived CXX Years which to me seems altogether improbable seeing by this account he must be Fifty Years of Age when called to be an Apostle a thing directly contrary to the whole consent and testimony of Antiquity which makes him very young at the time of his calling to the Apostolick Office He died says the Arabian in the expectation of his blessedness by which he means his quiet and peaceable departure in opposition to a violent and bloody death Indeed Theophylact and others before him conceive him to have died a Martyr upon no other ground than what our Saviour told him and his Brother that they should drink of the Cup and be baptized with the Baptism wherewith he was baptized which Chrysostom strictly understands of Martyrdom and a bloudy death It was indeed literally verified in his brother James and for him though as S. Hierom observes he was not put to death yet may he be truly stiled a Martyr his being put into a vessel of boiling Oil his many years banishment and other sufferings in the cause of Christ justly challenging that honourable title though he did not actually lay down his life for the testimony of the Gospel it being not want of good will either in him or his enemies but the Divine Providence immediately over-ruling the powers of nature that kept the malice of his enemies from its full execution 8. OTHERS on the contrary are so far from admitting him to die a Martyr that they question nay peremptorily deny that he ever died at all The first Assertor and that but obliquely that I find of this opinion was Hippolytus Bishop of Porto and Scholar to Clemens of Alexandria who ranks him in the same capacity with Enoch and Elias for speaking of the twofold coming of Christ he tells us that his first coming in the flesh had John the Baptist for its forerunner and his second to Judgment shall have Enoch Elias and S. John Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch is more express he tells us there are three persons answerable to the three dispensations of the word yet in the body Enoch Elias and S. John Enoch before the Law Elias under the Law and S. John under the Gospel concerning which last that he never died he confirms both from Scripture and Tradition and quotes S. Cyrill I suppose he means him of Alexandria as of the same opinion The whole foundation upon which this Error is built was that discourse that passed between our Lord and Peter concerning this Apostle For Christ having told Peter what was to be his own fate Peter enquires what should become of S. John knowing him to be the Disciple whom Jesus loved Our Lord rebukes his curiosity by asking him what that concerned him If I will that he 〈◊〉 till I come what is that to thee This the Apostles misunderstood and a report presently went out amongst them That that Disciple should not die Though S. John who himself records the passage inserts a caution That Jesus did not say he should not die but only what if I will that he tarry till I come Which doubtless our Lord meant of his coming so often mentioned in the New Testament in Judgment upon the Jews at the 〈◊〉 overthrow of Jerusalem which S. John out-lived many years and which our Lord particularly intended when elsewhere he told them Verily I say unto you there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom 9. FROM the same Original sprang the report that he only lay sleeping in his Grave The story was currant in S. Augustines days from whom we receive this account though possibly the Reader will smile at the conceit He tells us 't was commonly reported and believed that S. John was not dead but that he rested like a man asleep in his Grave at Ephesus as plainly appeared from the dust sensibly boiling and bubling up which they accounted to be nothing else but the continual motion of his breath This report S. Augustine seems inclinable to believe having received it as he tells us from very credible hands He further adds out of some Apocryphal writings what was generally known and reported that when S. John then in health had caused his Grave to be dug and prepared he laid himself down in it as in a Bed and as they thought only fell asleep Nicephorus relates the story more at large from whom if it may be any pleasure to entertain the Reader with these things we shall give this account S. John foreseeing his translation into Heaven took the Presbyters and Ministers of the Church of Ephesus and several of the Faithful along with him out of the City carried them unto a Cemetery near at hand whither he himself was wont to retire to prayer and very earnestly recommended the state of the Churches to God in prayer Which being done he commanded a Grave to be immediately dug and having instructed them in the more recondite mysteries of Theologie the most excellent precepts of a good life concerning Faith Hope and especially Charity confirmed them in the 〈◊〉 of Religion commended them to the care and blessing of our Saviour and solemnly taking his leave of them he signed himself with the sign of the Cross and before them all went down into the Grave strictly charging them to put on the Grave-stone and to make it fast and the next day to come and open it and take a view of it They did so and having opened the Sepulchre found nothing
Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia all planted or at least cultivated by him the doctrine in it suitable to the Apostolick spirit and temper evidently bearing witness in this case That which seems to have given ground to doubt concerning both its Author and authority was its being long before it was usually joyned with the other Books of the holy Canon for containing in it some passages directly levell'd at Rome the Seat of the Roman Empire others which might be thought to symbolize with some Jewish dreams and 〈◊〉 it might possibly seem fit to the prudence of those Times for a while to suppress it Nor is the conjecture of a learned Man to be despised who thinks that it might be intrusted in the keeping of John the Presbyter Scholar to our Apostle whence probably the report might arise that he who was only the Keeper was the Author of it 15. HIS Gospel succeeds written say some in Patmos and published at Ephesus but as Irenaeus and others more truly written by him after his return to Ephesus composed at the earnest intreaty and sollicitation of the Asian Bishops and Embassadors from several Churches in order whereunto he first caused them to proclaim a general Fast to seek the blessing of Heaven on so great and solemn an undertaking which being done he set about it And if we may believe the report of Gregory Bishop of Tours he tells us that upon a Hill near Ephesus there was a Proseucha or uncovered Oratory whither our Apostle used often to retire for Prayer and Contemplation and where he obtained of God that it might not Rain in that Place till he had finished his Gospel Nay he adds that even in his time no shower or storm ever came upon it Two causes especially contributed to the writing of it the one that he might obviate the early heresies of those times especially of Ebion Cerinthus and the rest of that crew who began openly to deny Christ's Divinity and that he had any existence before his Incarnation the reason why our Evangelist is so express and copious in that subject The other was that he might supply those passages of the Evangelical History which the rest of the Sacred Writers had omitted Collecting therefore the other three Evangelists he first set to his Seal ratifying the truth of them with his approbation and consent and then added his own Gospel to the rest principally insisting upon the Acts of Christ from the first commencing of his Ministery to the Death of John the Baptist wherein the others are most defective giving 〈◊〉 any account of the first Year of our Saviour's Ministry which therefore he made up in very large and particular Narrations He largely records as Nazianzen observes our Saviour's discourses but takes little notice of his Miracles probably because so fully and particularly related by the rest The subject of his writing is very sublime and mysterious mainly designing to prove Christ's Divinity eternal pre-existence creating of the World c. Upon which account Theodoret stiles his Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Theology which humane understandings can never fully penetrate and find out Thence generally by the Ancients he is resembled to an Eagle soaring aloft within the Clouds whither the weak eye of Man was unable to follow him hence peculiarly honoured with the title of The Divine as if due to none but him at least to him in a more eminent and extraordinary manner Nay the very Gentile-Philosophers themselves could not but admire his Writings Witness Amelius the famous Platonist and Regent of Porphyries School at Alexandria who quoting a passage out of the beginning of S. John's Gospel sware by Jupiter that this Barbarian so the proud Greeks counted and called all that differed from them had hit upon the right notion when he affirmed that the Word that made all things was in the beginning and in place of prime dignity and authority with God and was that God that created all things in whom every thing that was made had according to its nature its life and being that he was incarnate and clothed with a body wherein he manifested the glory and magnificence of his nature that after his death he returned to the repossession of Divinity and became the same God which he was before his assuming a body and taking the humane nature and flesh upon him I have no more to observe but that his Gospel was afterwards translated into Hebrew and kept by the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among their secret Archives and Records in their Treasury at Tiberias where a Copy of it was found by one Joseph a Jew afterwards converted and whom 〈◊〉 the Great advanced to the honour of a Count of the Empire who breaking open the Treasury though he missed of mony found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Books beyond all Treasure S. Matthew and S. John's Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in Hebrew the reading whereof greatly contributed towards his Conversion 16. BESIDES these our Apostle wrote three Epistles the first whereof is Catholick calculated for all times and places containing most excellent rules for the conduct of the Christian life pressing to 〈◊〉 and purity of manners and not to rest in a naked and empty profession of Religion not to be led away with the crafty insinuations of Seducers antidoting Men against the poyson of the Gnostick-principles and practices to whom it is not to be doubted but that the Apostle had a more particular respect in this Epistle According to his wonted modesty he conceals his name it being of more concernment with 〈◊〉 Men what it is that is said than who it is that says it And this Epistle Eusebius tells us was universally received and never questioned by any anciently as appears 〈◊〉 S. Augustin inscribed to the Parthians though for what reason I am yet to learn unless as we hinted before it was because he himself had heretofore Preached in those Parts of the World The other two Epistles are but short and directed to particular Persons the one a Lady of honourable Quality the other the charitable and hospitable Gaius so kind a friend so courteous an entertainer of all indigent Christians These Epistles indeed were not of old admitted into the Canon nor are owned by the Church in Syria at this Day ascribed by many to the younger John Disciple to our Apostle But there is no just cause to question who was their Father seeing both the Doctrine phrase and design of them do sufficiently challenge our Apostle for their Author These are all the Books wherein it pleased the Holy Spirit to make use of S. John for its Pen man and Secretary in the composure whereof though his stile and character be not florid and elegant yet is it grave and simple short and perspicuous Dionysius of Alexandria tells us that in his Gospel and first Epistle his phrase is more neat and
and pious and who crowned all the rest with the laying down his life for the testimony of that Gospel which he had both Preached and Published to the World The End of S. Luke's Life DIPTYCHA APOSTOLICA OR A Brief Enumeration and Account of the APOSTLES and their SUCCESSORS FOR THE First Three Hundred Years in the Five great Churches said to have been Founded by them thence called by the Ancients APOSTOLICAL CHURCHES VIZ. Antioch Rome Jerusalem Byzantium or Constantinople and Alexandria ANTIOCH THIS I place first partly because 't is generally acknowledged even by the Romish Writers that a Church was founded here by S. Peter some considerable time before that at Rome partly because here it was that the Venerable name of Christians did first commence In which respect the Fathers in the Council at Constantinople under Nectarius in their Synodicon to them at Rome stile the Church of Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The most Ancient and truly Apostolical and S. Chrysostom The head of the whole World The Succession of its Bishops till the time of Constantine which shall be the Boundary of this Catalogue was as followeth I. S. Peter the Apostole who governed this Church at least 7. years Nicephorus of Constantinople says Eleven II. Euodius who sat 23. years In his time the Disciples were first called Christians at Antioch III. Ignatius After near 40. years Presidency over this Church he was carried out of Syria to Rome and there thrown to wild Beasts in the Theatre Ann. Chr. 110. Trajan 11. IV. Heron he was Bishop 20. years To him succeeded V. Cornelius who kept the place 13. years dying Ann. Chr. 142. VI. Eros 26 or as Eusebius 24. years VII Theophilus 13. a man of great Parts and Learning many of his Works were extant in Eusebius his time and some of them we still have at this day VIII Maximinus 13. he dying the next that was chosen was IX Serapio 25. many of his Works are mentioned by Eusebius and S. Hierom. To him succeeded X. Asclepiades a man of great worth and eminency and invincible constancy in the time of persecution he continued in this See 9. years XI Philetus 8. XII Zebinus or Zebennus he sat 6. years XIII Babylas 13. after many conflicts and sufferings for the Faith he received the crown of Martyrdom under Decius and commanded his Chains to be buried with him XIV Fabius or as the Patriarch Nicephorus calls him Flavius possessed tho Chair 9. years He was a little inclining towards Novatianism XV. Demetrianus he sat Bishop says Nicephorus 4 says Eusebius 8. years XVI Paulus Samosatenus sat in the chair 8. years when for his Unepiscopal manners and practices his unsound Dogmata and principles and especially his mean and unworthy opinions concerning our Saviour he was condemned and deposed by a Synod at Antioch whose Synodical determination is at large extant in 〈◊〉 XVII Domnus succeeded in the place of the deposed He was son to Demetrian Paulus his predecessor in that See constituted and ordained to the place by the Fathers of that Synod who farther give him this honourable character that he was a man indued with all Episcopal vertues and ornaments Eusebius makes him to have sitten 6 Nicephorus but 2. years XVIII Timaeus he sat in the chair 10. years XIX Cyrillus who presided over that Church in the account of Nicephorus 15 of Eusebius 24. years XX. Tyrannus he sat 13. years in his time began the tenth Persecution under Dioclesian which rag'd with great severity XXI Vitalis 6. XXII Philogonius 5. succeeded by XXIII Paulinus or as Nicephorus calls him Paulus who after five years was deposed and driven out by the prevalency of the Arrian faction XXIV Eustathius formerly Bishop of Beroea a learned man and of great note and eminency in the Council of Nice the first general Council summoned by the Great Constantine after he had restored peace and prosperity to the Church ROME THE foundation of this Church is with just probabilities of reason by many of the Fathers equally attributed to Peter and Paul the one as Apostle of the Circumcision preaching to the Jews while the other probably as the Apostle of the Uncircumcision preached to the Gentiles Its Bishops succeeded in this order I. S. Peter and S. Paul who both suffered Martyrdom under Nero. II. Linus the son of Herculaneus a Tuscan he is mentioned by S. Paul he sat between 11. and 12. years III. Cletus or Anacletus or Anencletus supposed by many to be the same person though others who reckon 〈◊〉 a Greek born at Athens make them distinct whom yet we have left out not being mentioned by 〈◊〉 a Roman the son of AEmilianus sat 9 though others say but 2. years IV. Clemens a Roman born in Mount Caelius the son of Faustinus near a kin say some to the Emperor He was condemned to dig in the Marble-Quarries near the Euxin Sea and by the command of Trajan with an Anchor about his neck thrown into the Sea He was Bishop of Rome 9. years and 4. months V. Euarestus by birth a Greek but his Father a Jew of Bethlehem He is said to have been crowned with Martyrdom the last year of Trajan in the ninth of his Bishoprick or as others the thirteenth VI. Alexander a Roman though young in years was grave in his manners and conversation He sat 10. years and 7. months and died a Martyr VII Xystus or Sixtus a Roman he was Martyred in the tenth year of his Bishoprick and buried in the Vatican VIII Telesphorus a Greek succeeded Just in the Martyr flourished in his time He died a Martyr having sat 11. years and 3. months 10. years 8. months say others and lies buried near S. Peter in the Vatican IX Hyginus the son of an Athenian Philosopher was advanced to the Chair under Antoninus Pius He sat 4. years Eusebius says 8. X. Pius an Italian born at Aquilcia he died having been Bishop 11. years and 4. months according to Eusebius 15. years XI Anicetus born in Syria He is said after 9 or as others 11. years to have suffered Martydom and was buried in the Via Appia in the Cemetery of Callistus In his time Polycarp came to Rome XII 〈◊〉 or as Nicephorus calls him Soterichus was a Campanian the son of Concordius There was an intercourse of Letters between him and Dionysius Bishop of Corinth He died after he had sat 9. years or as Eusebius reckons 7. XIII Eleutherius born at Nicopolis in Greece To him Lucius King of Britain sent a Letter and an Embassy He sat 15. years died Ann. Chr. 186. and lies buried in the Vatican XIV Victor an African the son of Felix a man of a furious and intemperate spirit as appeared in his passionate proceedings in the controversie about the observation of Easter He was Bishop 10. years Onuphrius assigns him 12. years and one month XV. Zephyrinus a Roman succeeded and possessed the chair 8 but as others 18. years 20. says
Onuphrius A pious and learned man but a little warping towards the Errors of Montanus XVI Callistus or Calixtus the son of Dòmitius a Roman a prudent and modest man He suffered much in the persecution under Alexander Severus under whom he became a Martyr being thrown into a Well by the procurement of Ulpian the great Lawyer but severe enemy of Christians He sat 6. years or 5. as others and one month and though he made a Cemetery called after his own name yet was he buried in that of Calepodius in the Appian way XVII Urbanus the son of Pontianus a Roman after 4 or as some 6. years he suffered martyrdom for the Faith Eusebius has 5 S. Hierom in his translation 9. He was buried in Pretextatus his Cemetery in the Appian way XVIII Pontianus the son of Calphurnius a Roman for his bold reproving the Roman Idolatry he was banished into the Island Sardinia where he died he was Bishop about 3. or 4 or as Eusebius 5. years XIX Anteros a Greek the son of Romulus He died by that he had kept his place one month though others without reason make him to have lived in it many years and was buried in the Cemetery of Callistus XX. Fabianus a Roman he was unexpectedly chosen Bishop while several others being in competition a Pigeon suddenly descended and sat upon his head the great emblem of the Holy Spirit He died a martyr after 14. years buried in the same place with his predecessor XXI Cornelius a Roman he opposed and condemned Novatian frequent Letters passed between him and Cyprian After somewhat more than two years he was first cruelly whipp'd and then beheaded buried in a Vault within the Grange of Lucina near the Appian way XXII Lucius a Roman sat 2 or as others 3. years He suffered martyrdom by the command of Valerian and was buried in Callistus his Cemetery XXIII Stephanus a Roman the son of Julius Great contests were between him and Cyprian about rebaptizing those who had been baptized by Hereticks He was beheaded after he had sat about 2. or 3. years though others say 7 and buried with his predecessor XXIV Xystus a Greek formerly a Philosopher of Athens After 1 or as other compute 2. years and 10. months he suffered martyrdom Eusebius reckons it 8. years XXV Dionysius of a Monk 〈◊〉 Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the judgment of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria a truly learned and admirable person The time of his Presidency is uncertainly assign'd 6 9 10 11. Eusebius extends it to 12. years XXVI Felix a Roman In his time arose the Manichaean Heresie He suffered about the fourth or fifth year of his Episcopacy and lies buried in the Aurelian way in a Cemetery of his own two miles from Rome XXVII Eutychianus a Tuscan a man exceedingly careful of the burial of martyrs after one years space was himself crowned with martyrdom Eusebius allows him but 8. months Onuphrius 8. years and 6. months XXVIII Caius or as Eusebius calls him Gaianus a Dalmatian kinsman to the Emperor Dioclesian and in the persecution under him became a martyr He sat 11. years some say longer 〈◊〉 15. years He was beheaded and buried in Callistus his Cemetery XXIX Marcellinus a Roman Through fear of torment he did sacrifice to the gods but recovering himself died a martyr after he had sat 8 or 9. years He was beheaded and buried in the Cemetery of Priscilla in the Salarian way To him succeeded XXX Marcellus a Roman he was condemned by Maxentius the Tyrant to keep Beasts in a stable which yet he performed with his prayers and exercises of devotion He died after 5. years and 6. months and was buried in the Cemetery of Priscilla XXXI Eusebius a Greek the son of a Physician He suffered much under the Tyranny of Maxentius He sat 6. years say some 4. say others though Eusebius allows him but 7. months Onuphrius 1. year and 7. months he was buried in the Appian way near Callistus his Cemetery XXXII Miltiades an African He might be a Confessor under Maxentius but could not be a martyr under Maximinus as some report him He sat 3. or 4 though others assign him but 2. years and was buried in the Cemetery of Callistus XXXIII Silvester a Roman He was elected into the place Ann. Chr. CCCXIV fetch'd from the mountain Soracte whither he had fled for fear of persecution He was highly in favour with Constantine the Great He sat 23 Nicephorus says 28. years JERUSALEM THE Church of Jerusalem may in some sence be said to have been founded by our Lord himself as it was for some time cultivated and improved by the Ministery of the whole Colledge of Apostles The Bishops of it were as followeth I. S. James the Less the Brother of our Lord by him say some immediately constituted Bishop but as others more probably by the Apostles He was thrown off the Temple and knock'd on the head with a Fullers club II. Symeon the son of Cleopas brother to Joseph our Lord 's reputed Father He sat in this chair 23. years and suffered martyrdom in the reign of Trajan in the one hundred and twentieth year of his Age. III. Justus succeeded in his room and sat 6. years IV. Zachaeus or as Nicephorus the Patriarch calls him Zacharias 4. V. Tobias to him after 4. years succeeded VI. Benjamin who sat 2. years VII John who continued the same space VIII Matthias or Matthaeus 2. years IX Philippus one year next came X. Seneca who sat 4. years XI Justus 4. XII Levi or Lebes 2. XIII Ephrem or Ephres or as Epiphanius stiles him Vaphres 2. XIV Joseph 2. XV. Judas 2. Most of these Bishops we may observe to have sat but a short time following one another with a very quick succession Which doubtless was in a great measure owing to the turbulent and unquiet humour of the Jewish Nation frequently rebelling against the Roman powers whereby they provoked them to fall heavy upon them and cut off all that came in their way making no distinction between Jews and Christians as indeed they were all Jews though differing in the Rites of their Religion For hitherto the Bishops of Jerusalem had successively been of the Circumcision the Church there having been intirely made up of Jewish converts But Jerusalem being now utterly laid waste and the Jews dispersed into all other Countries the Gentiles were admitted not only into the body of that Church but even into the Episcopal chair The first whereof was XVI Marcus who sat 8. years XVII Cassianus 8. XVIII Publius 5. XIX Maximus 4. XX. Julianus 2. XXI Caianus 3. XXII Symmachus 2. XXIII Caius 3. XXIV Julianus 4. XXV Elias 2. I find not this Bishop mentioned by Eusebius but he is recorded by Nicephorus of Constantinople XXVI Capito 4. XXVII Maximus 4. XXVIII Antoninus 5. XXIX Valens 3. XXX Dulichianus 2. XXXI Narcissus 4. He was a man of eminent piety famous for the great miracles which he wrought but
industry for the good of the Church He suffered in the ninth year of the persecution with the loss of his head gaining the crown of Martyrdom After whose death came in the prosperous and happy days of the Church Constantine the Great turning the black and dismal scene of things into a state of calmness and serenity XVIII Achillas 9 though Nicephorus of Constantinople allows him but one year By him Arius upon his submission was ordained Presbyter XIX Alexander 23 under him Arius began more openly to broach his Heresie at Alexandria who was thereupon excommunicated and thrust out by Alexander and shortly after condemn'd by the Fathers of the Council of Nice ERRATA 〈◊〉 Pag. 15. line 17. read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 22. l. 6. for silent r. 〈◊〉 p. 31. l. 24. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 47. l. 51. for were r. 〈◊〉 Lives of the Apostles Introduct p. 7. l. 20. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Book p. 2. l. 27. r. 〈◊〉 p. 9. l. 12. dele 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 11. l. 17. for lawful r. careful p. 32. l. 45. r. 〈◊〉 p. 33. l. 15. for of r. 〈◊〉 p. 36. marg over against l. 32. r. 〈◊〉 p. 43. l. 54. r. Man p. 84. l. 17. after the add 〈◊〉 p. 87. l. 33. for This add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 109. l. 52. after he add had Some other literal mistakes the Reader I hope will amend In the 〈◊〉 words these two letters Daleth and Resh are not sufficiently distinguished FINIS A Brief Catalogue of Books newly Printed and Reprinted for R. Royston Bookseller to his Most Sacred Majesty THE Works of the Reverend and Learned Henry Hammond D. D. containing a Collection of Discourses chiefly Practical with many Additions and Corrections from the Author' s own hand together with the Life of the Author enlarged by the Reverend Dr. Fell Dean of Christ-Church in Oxford In large Folio A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the Books of the New Testament Briefly explaining all the difficult Places thereof The Fourth Edition corrected By H. Hammond D. D. In Folio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or a Collection of Polemical Discourses addressed against the enemies of the Church of England both Papists and Fanaticks in large Folio by Jer. Taylor Chaplain in Ordinary to K. Charles the First of Blessed Memory and late Lord Bishop of Down and Conner The Second Part of the Practical Christian consisting of Meditations and Psalms illustrated with Notes or Paraphrased relating to the Hours of Prayer the ordinary Actions of Day and Night and several Dispositions of Men. By R. Sherlock D. D. Rector of Winwick An Answer to a Book Entituled A Rational Compendious way to Convince without dispute all persons whatsoever dissenting from the true Religion by J. K. By Gilbert Burnet In Octavo new The Royal Martyr and the Dutiful Subject in two Sermons By Gilbert Burnet New The Christian Sacrifice a Treatise shewing the Necessity End and Manner of Receiving the Holy Communion c. The Devout Christian instructed how to Pray and give Thanks to or a Book of Devotions for Families c. Both written by the Reverend S. Patrick D. D. in 12. A Serious aud Compassionate Enquiry into the Causes of the present Neglect and Contempt of the Protestant Religion and Church of England c. Considerations concerning Comprehension Toleration and the Renouncing the Covenant In Octavo new Animadversions upon a Book Entituled Fanaticism Fanatically imputed to the Catholick Church by Dr. Stillingfleet and the Imputation Refuted and Retorted by S. C. The Second Edition By a Person of Honour In Octavo Reflections upon the Devotions of the Roman Church With the Prayers Hymns and Lessons themselves taken out of their Authentick Authors In Three Parts In Octavo Go in Peace Containing some brief Directions for young Ministers in their Visitation of the Sick Useful for the People in their state both of Health and Sickness In 12. New Conformity according to Canon Justified and the new way of Moderation Reproved A Sermon Preached at Exon in the Cathedral of S. Peter at the Visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God Anthony by Divine permission Lord Bishop of Exon. By William Gould In Quarto New A Visitation Sermon preached in the Cathedral at Exon. By John Prince Minister of the Gospel at S. Martins Exon. A Sermon preached at the Oxfordshire-Feast Novemb. 25. 1674. In the Church of S. Michael's Cornhill London By John Woolley M. A. In 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 16. Tom. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. de 〈◊〉 pag. 350. 〈◊〉 XXVII in Genes Tom. 2. p. 285. Heb. 1. 1 2. * Talm. Trast Sanbedr cap. Halce alibi vid. Menass Ben Isr. dâ— Resurrect lib. 3. c. 3. Concil Quast xxx in Genes Rom. 2. 14 15. Gen. 4. 6 7. Gem. Babyl Tâ— Sanhedr cap. 7. fol. 56. Maimond Tr. Me lak cap. 9. al â—â— passim ap Judaeos vid. Selâ—en de Jur. N. G. l. 1. c. 10. de Synedr Vol. 1. c. 2. p. 8. Job 31. 26 27 28. Job 1. 6. Job 31. 29 Job 31. 9 10 11. Vers. 5. 7. Chap. 24. 2 3 4 seq Chap. 31. 11-28 Gen. 9. 3 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr de 〈◊〉 lib. 1. Sect. 47. p. 39. 〈◊〉 V. 5 6. 〈◊〉 17. 11. Gen 17. 9 10 11. * Talm. Tract Jeban 〈◊〉 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mor. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. 〈◊〉 49. p. 506. Gen. 6. 2 3. Gen. 18. 19. Gen. 18. 2. Exod 4. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 XVIII in 〈◊〉 p. 173. Tom. 2. Gen. 15. 17. Psalm 20. 3. 〈◊〉 P. 〈◊〉 in Gen. 4. Gen. 8. 20. Gen. 12. 7 8. 〈◊〉 chap. 13. 4. 18. Gen. 21. 33. Judg 6. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 13. Deut. 16. 21. 〈◊〉 13. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LXX Ita 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aliter 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 18. 1. * Antiquit. Jd. l. 1. c. 11. p. 19. * 〈◊〉 loc 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 Arboch ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Hist. Ec. l. lit 2. c. 4. p. 447. Gen. 4. 30 〈◊〉 Gen. 2. 3. 〈◊〉 19. 22. Exod. 24. 5. Gen. 49. 3. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fol. 71. col 1. ap Selden de success ad leg Ebr. c. 5. p. 45. Heb. 12. 16. Gen. 3. 21. Levit. 7. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homil. XVIII in 〈◊〉 p. 174. Heb. 11. 4. Gen. 4. 4 5. Antiquit. Jud. 〈◊〉 1. 〈◊〉 3. 〈◊〉 8. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Smeg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 8. p. 226. seqq Gen. 4. 26. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Sect. 1. ‖ Vid. ap 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cit p. 230. * Dionys. Voss. not in 〈◊〉 p. 4. 〈◊〉 de Hist. Patr. 〈◊〉 6. p. 223. ‖ R. Eliez Maas Beres 〈◊〉 22. ibid. Gen. 6. 2. * Elmacin ap 〈◊〉 p. 233. Id. 〈◊〉 p. 234. * Elmac. Patric apud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supr p. 235. Gen. 5. 〈◊〉 Heb. 11. 5 6. Gen. 5. 29. Gen. 6. 9. Antiqu. Jud. lib. 1. 〈◊〉 4. p. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syria p. 882. 〈◊〉 2. Genes 11. 〈◊〉 7. 11. 5. 32. 10. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p.