the two first years after S. Paul's coming to Rome he wrote Epistles to several Churches to the Colossians Ephesians Philippians and one to Philemon in none whereof there is the least mention of S. Peter or from whence the least probability can be derived that he had been there In that to the Colossians he tells them that of the Jews at Rome he had had no other fellow-workers unto the Kingdom of God which had been a comfort unto him save only Aristarchus Marcus and Jesus who was called Justus which evidently excludes S. Peter And in that to Timothy which Baronius confesses to have been written a little before his Martyrdom though probably it was written the same time with the rest above mentioned he tells him That at his first answer at Rome no man stood with him but that all men forsook him Which we can hardly believe S. Peter would have done had he then been there He further tells him That only Luke was with him that Crescens was gone to this place Titus to that and Tychicus left at another Strange that if Peter was at this time gone from Rome S. Paul should take no notice of it as well as the rest Was he so inconsiderable a person as not to be worth the remembring or his errand of so small importance as not to deserve a place in S. Paul's account as well as that of Crescens to Galatia or of Titus to Dalmatia Surely the true reason was that S. Peter as yet had not been at Rome and so there could be no foundation for it 4. IT were no hard matter further to demonstrate the inconsistency of that Account which Bellarmine and Baronius give us of Peter's being at Rome from the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem For if S. Paul went up to that Council Fourteen years after his own Conversion as he plainly intimates and that he himself was converted Ann. XXXV somewhat less than two years after the death of Christ then it plainly appears that this Council was holden Ann. XLVIII in the sixth year of Claudius if not somewhat sooner for S. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not necessarily imply that Fourteen years were completely past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying circa as well as post but that it was near about that time This being granted and if it be not it is easie to make it good then three things amongst others will follow from it First That whereas according to Bellarmine and Baronius S. Peter after his first coming to Rome which they place Ann. XLIV and the second of Claudius was seven years before he returned thence to the Council at Jerusalem they are strangely out in their story there being but three or at most four years between his going thither and the celebration of that Council Secondly That when they tell us that S. Peter's leaving Rome to come to the Council was upon the occasion of the decree of Claudius banishing all Jews out of the City this can no ways be For Orosius does not only affirm but prove it from Josephus that Claudius his Decree was published in the Ninth Year of his Reign or Ann. Chr. LI Three Years at least after the Celebration of the Council Thirdly That when Baronius tells us that the Reason why Peter went to Rome after the breaking up of the Synod was because Claudius was now dead he not daring to go before for fear of the Decree this can be no reason at all the Council being ended at least Three Years before that Decree took place so that he might safely have gone thither without the least danger from it It might further be shewed if it were necessary that the account which even they themselves give us is not very consistent with it self So fatally does a bad cause draw Men whether they will or no into Errors and Mistakes 5. THE truth is the learned Men of that Church are not well agreed among themselves to give in their verdict in this case And indeed how should they when the thing it self affords no solid foundation for it Onuphrius a man of great learning and industry in all matters of antiquity and who as the writer of Baronius his Life informs us designed before Baronius to write the History of the Church goes a way by himself in assigning the time of S. Peter's founding his See both at Antioch and Rome For finding by the account of the Sacred story that Peter did not leave Judaea for the Ten first Years after our Lord's Ascension and consequently could not in that time erect his See at Antioch he affirms that he went first to Rome whence returning to the Council at Jerusalem he thence went to Antioch where he remained Seven Years till the Death of Claudius and having spent almost the whole Reign of Nero in several parts of Europe returned in the last of Nero's Reign to Rome and there died An opinion for which he is sufficiently chastised by Baronius and others of that Party And here I cannot but remark the ingenuity for the learning sufficiently commends it self of Monsieur Valois who freely confesses the mistake of Baronius Petavius c. in making Peter go to Rome Ann. XLIV the Second Year of Claudius when as it is plain says he from the History of the Acts that Peter went not out of Judaea and Syria till the Death of Herod Claudii Ann. IV Two whole years after Consonant to which as he observes is what Apollonius a Writer of the Second Century reports from a Tradition current in his time that the Apostles did not depart a sunder till the Twelfth Year after Christ's Ascension our Lord himself having so commanded them In confirmation whereof let me add a passage that I meet with in Clemens of Alexandria where from S. Peter he records this Speech of our Saviour to his Apostles spoken probably either a little before his Death or after his Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any Israelite shall repent and believe in God through my Name his sins shall be forgiven him after twelve years Go ye into the World lest any should say we have not heard This passage as ordinarily pointed in all Editions that I have seen is scarce capable of any tolerable sence for what 's the meaning of a penitent Israelite's being pardoned after twelve years It is therefore probable yea certain with me that the stop ought to be after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned to the following clause and then the sence will run clear and smooth If any Jew shall repent and believe the Gospel he shall be pardoned but after twelve years go ye into all the World that none may pretend that they have not heard the sound of the Gospel The Apostles were first to Preach the Gospel to the Jews for some considerable time Twelve Years after Christ's Ascension in and about Judaea and then to betake
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 Tyancus 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 pary 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 it seems most probable to have been done afterwards SECT V. S. Paul's Acts from his departure from Ephesus till his Arraignment before Felix S. Paul 's journey into Macedonia His preaching as far as Illyricum and return into Greece His second Epistle 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 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 Troas 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 from 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 mid-night 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 drowziness among whom a young man called Eutychus 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 where-ever 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 Assos a Sea-port Town whither he had sent his company by Sea Thence they set sail to Mytilene 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
had taken root amongst them 5. IT is not improbable but that about this or rather some considerable time before S. Paul wrote his second Epistle to Timothy I know Eusebius and the Ancients and most Moderns after them will have it written a little before his Martyrdom induced thereunto by that passage in it that he was then ready to be offered and that the time of his departure was at hand But surely it 's most reasonable to think that it was written at his first being at Rome and that at his first coming thither presently after his Trial before Nero. Accordingly the passage before mentioned may import no more than that he was in imminent danger of his life and had received the sentence of death in himself not hoping to escape out of the paws of Nero But that God had delivered him out of the mouth of the Lion i. e. the great danger he was in at his coming thither Which exactly agrees to his case at his first being at Rome but cannot be reconciled with his last coming thither together with many more circumstances in this Epistle which render it next door to certain In it he appoints Timothy shortly to come to him who accordingly came whose name is joyned together with his in the front of several Epistles to the Philippians Colossians and to Philemon The only thing that can be levelled against this is that in this Epistle to Timothy he tells him that he had sent Tychicus to Ephesus by whom 't is plain that the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians were dispatched and that therefore this to Timothy must be written after them But I see no inconvenience to affirm that Tychicus might come to Rome presently after Paul's arrival there be by him immediately sent back to Ephesus upon some emergent affair of that Church and after his return to Rome be sent with those two Epistles The design of the Epistle was to excite the holy man to a mighty zeal and diligence care and fidelity in his office and to antidote the People against those poisonous principles that in those parts especially began to debauch the minds of men 6. AS for the Epistle to the Hebrews 't is very uncertain when or whence and for some Ages doubted by whom 't was written Eusebius tells us 't was not received by many because rejected by the Church of Rome as none of Paul's genuine Epistles Origen affirms the style and phrase of it to be more fine and elegant and to contain in it a richer vein of purer Greek than is usually found in Paul's Epistles as every one that is able to judge of a style must needs confess That the sentences indeed are grave and weighty and such as breath the Spirit and Majesty of an Apostle That therefore 't was his judgment that the matter contained in it had been dictated by some Apostle but that it had been put into phrase form and order by some other person that did attend upon him That if any Church owned it for Paul's they were not to be condemned it not being without reason by the Ancients ascribed to him though God only knew who was the true Author of it He further tells us that report had handed it down to his time that it had been composed partly by Clemens of Rome partly by Luke the Evangelist Tertullian adds that it was writ by Barnabas What seems most likely in such variety of opinions is that S. Paul originally wrote it in Hebrew it being to be sent to the Jews his Country-men and by some other person probably S. Luke or Clemens Romanus translated into Greek Especially since both Eusebius and S. Hierom observed of old such a great affinity both in style and sence between this and Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians as thence positively to conclude him to be the Translator of it 'T was written as we may conjecture a little after he was restored to his liberty and probably while he was yet in some parts of Italy whence he dates his salutations The main design of it is to magnifie Christ and the Religion of the Gospel above Moses and the Jewish Oeconomy and Ministration that by this means he might the better establish and confirm the Convert Jews in the firm belief and profession of Christianity notwithstanding those sufferings and persecutions that came upon them endeavouring throughout to arm and fortifie them against Apostasie from that noble and excellent Religion wherein they had so happily engaged themselves And great need there was for the Apostle severely to urge them to it heavy persecutions both from Jews and Gentiles pressing in upon them on every side besides those trains of specious and plausible insinuations that were laid to reduce them to their Ancient Institutions Hence the Apostle calls Apostasie the sin which did so easily beset them to which there were such frequent temptations and into which they were so prone to be betrayed in those suffering times And the more to deter them from it he once and again sets before them the dreadful state and condition of Apostates those who having been once enlightned and baptized into the Christian Faith tasted the promises of the Gospel and been made partakers of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost those powers which in the world to come or this new state of things were to be conferred upon the Church if after all this these men fall away and renounce Christianity it 's very hard and even impossible to renew them again unto repentance For by this means they trod under foot and crucified the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame prophaned the bloud of the Covenant and did despite to the Spirit of Grace So that to sin thus wilfully after they had received the knowledge of the truth there could remain for them no more sacrifice for sins nothing but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which should devour these adversaries And a fearful thing it was in such circumstances to fall into the hands of the living God who had particularly said of this sort of sinners that if any man drew back his soul should have no pleasure in him Hence it is that every where in this Epistle he mixes exhortations to this purpose that they would give earnest heed to the things which they had heard lest at any time they should let them slip that they would hold fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end and beware lest by an evil heart of unbelief they departed from the living God that they would labour to enter into his rest lest any man fall after the example of unbelief that leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ they would go on to perfection shewing diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end not being slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises that they would
Revelation is almost intirely made up of Prophecies concerning the future state and condition of the Church Sometimes by this spirit of prophecy God declared things that were of present concernment to the exigences of the Church as when he signified to them that they should set apart Paul and Barnabas for the conversion of the Gentiles and many times immediately designed particular persons to be Pastors and Governours of the Church Thus we read of the gift that was given to Timothy by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery that is his Ordination to which he was particularly pointed out by some prophetick designation But the main use of this prophetick gift in those times was to explain some of the more difficult and particular parts of the Christian doctrine especially to expound and apply the ancient Prophecies concerning the Messiah and his Kingdom in their publick Assemblies whence the gift of prophecy is explained by understanding all mysteries and all knowledge that is the most dark and difficult places of Scripture the types and figures the ceremonies and prophecies of the Old Testament And thus we are commonly to understand those words Prophets and prophesying that so familiarly occur in the New Testament Having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us whether prophecy let us prophesie according to the proportion of faith that is expound Scripture according to the generally-received principles of Faith and Life So the Apostle elsewhere prescribing Rules for the decent and orderly managing of Divine worship in their publick Assemblies let the Prophets says he speak two or three that is at the same Assembly and let the other judge and if while any is thus expounding another has a Divine afflatus whereby he is more particularly enabled to explain some difficult and emergent passage let the first hold his peace for ye may all all that have this gift prophesie one by one that so thus orderly proceeding all may learn and all may be comforted Nor can the first pretend that this interruption is an unseasonable check to his revelation seeing he may command himself for though among the Gentiles the prophetick and ecstatick impulse did so violently press upon the inspired Person that he could not govern himself yet in the Church of God the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets may be so ruled and restrained by them as to make way for others This order of Christian Prophets considered as a distinct Ministery by it self is constantly placed next to the Apostolical Office and is frequently by S. Paul preferred before any other spiritual Gifts then bestowed upon the Church When this spirit of Prophecy ceased in the Christian Church we cannot certainly finde It continued some competent time beyond the Apostolick Age. Justin Martyr expresly tells Trypho the Jew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gifts of Prophecy are even yet extant among us an argument as he there tells him that those things which had of old been the great Priviledges of their Church were now translated into the Christian Church And Eusebius speaking of a Revelation made to one Alcibiades who lived about the time of Irenaeus adds that the Divine Grace had not withdrawn its Presence from the Church but that they still had the Holy Ghost as their Counsellor to direct them XI Secondly They had the gift of discerning spirits whereby they were enabled to discover the truth or falshood of mens pretences whether their gifts were real or counterfeit and their persons truly inspired or not For many men acted only by diabolical impulses might entitle themselves to Divine inspirations and others might be imposed upon by their delusions and mistake their dreams and fancies for the Spirits dictates and revelations or might so subtilly and artificially counterfeit revelations that they might with most pass for currant especially in those times when these supernatural gifts were so common and ordinary and our Lord himself had frequently told them that false Prophets would arise and that many would confidently plead for themselves before him that they had prophesied in his name That therefore the Church might not be imposed upon God was pleased to endue the Apostles and it may be some others with an immediate faculty of discerning the Caffe from the Wheat true from false Prophets nay to know when the true Prophets delivered the revelations of the Spirit and when they expressed only their own conceptions This was a mighty priviledge but yet seems to me to have extended farther to judge of the sincerity or hypocrisie of mens hearts in the profession of Religion that so bad men being discovered suitable censures and punishments might be passed upon them and others cautioned to avoid them Thus Peter at first sight discovered Ananias and Saphira and the rotten hypocrisie of their intentions before there was any external evidence in the case and told Simon Magus though baptized before upon his embracing Christianity that his heart was not right in the sight of God for I perceive says he that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity Thirdly the Apostles had the gift of Tongues furnished with variety of utterance able to speak on a sudden several Languages which they had never learnt as occasion was administred and the exigences of persons and Nations with whom they conversed did require For the Apostles being principally designed to convert the World and to plant Christianity in all Countries and Nations it was absolutely necessary that they should be able readily to express their minds in the Languages of those Countries to which they addressed themselves seeing otherwise it would have been a work of time and difficulty and not consistent with the term of the Apostles lives had they been first to learn the different Languages of those Nations before they could have preached the Gospel to them Hence this gift was diffused upon the Apostles in larger measures and proportions than upon other men I speak with Tongues more than you all says S. Paul that is than all the gifted persons in the Church of Corinth Our Lord had told the Apostles before his departure from them that they should be endued with power from on high which upon the day of Pentecost was particularly made good in this instance when in a moment they were enabled to speak almost all the Languages of the then known World and this as a specimen and first-fruits of the rest of those miraculous powers that were conferr'd upon them XII A fourth gift was that of Interpretation or unfolding to others what had been delivered in an unknown tongue For the Christian Assemblies in those days were frequently made up of men of different Nations and who could not understand what the Apostles or others had spoken to the Congregation this God supplied by this gift of interpretation enabling some to interpret what others did not understand and to speak it to
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 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 A passage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the Writers 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 entangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there being evidence enough to every impartial and considering man to spoil that smooth and plausible Scheme of Times which Baronius and the Writers of that Church have drawn with so much care and diligence And in order to this we shall first enquire whether that Account which Bellarmine and Baronius give us of Peter's being at Rome be tolerably reconcileable with the History of the Apostles Acts recorded by S. Luke which will be best done by briefly presenting S. Peter's Acts in their just Series and order of Time and then seeing what countenance and foundation their Account can receive from hence 2. AFTER our Lord's Ascension we find Peter for the first year at least staying with the rest of the Apostles at Jerusalem In the next year he was sent together with S. John by the command of the Apostles to Samaria to preach the Gospel to that City and the parts about it About three years after S. Paul meets him at Jerusalem with whom he staid some time In the two following years he visited the late planted Churches preached at Lydda and Joppa where having tarried many days he thence removed to Caesarea where he preached to and baptized Cornelius and his Family Whence after some time he returned to Jerusalem where he probably staid till cast into prison by Herod and delivered by the Angel After which we hear no more of him till three or four years after we find him in the Council at Jerusalem After which he had the contest with S. Paul at Antioch And thence forward the Sacred Story is altogether silent in this matter So that in all this time we find not the least footstep of any intimation that he went to Rome This Baronius well foresaw and therefore once and again inserts this caution that S. Luke did not design to record all the Apostles Acts and that he has omitted many things which were done by Peter Which surely no man ever intended to deny But then that he should omit a matter of such vast moment and importance to the whole Christian World that not one syllable should be said of a Church planted by Peter at Rome a Church that was to be Paramount the seat of all Spiritual Power and Infallibility and to which all other Churches were to vail and do homage nay that he should not so much as mention that ever he was there and yet all this said to be done within the time he designed to write of is by no means reasonable to suppose Especially considering that S. Luke records many of his journeys and travels and his preaching at several places of far less consequence and concernment Nor let this be thought the worse of because a negative Argument since it carries so much rational evidence along with it that any man who is not plainly byassed by Interest will be satisfied with it 3. BUT let us proceed a little further to enquire whether we can meet any probable footsteps afterwards About the year Fifty three towards the end of Claudius his Reign S. Paul is thought to have writ his Epistle to the Church at Rome wherein he spends the greatest part of one Chapter in saluting particular persons that were there amongst whom it might reasonably have been expected that S. Peter should have had the first place And supposing with Baronius that Peter at this time might be absent from the City preaching the Gospel in some parts in the West yet we are not sure that S. Paul knew of this and if he did it is strange that in so large an Epistle wherein he had occasion enough there should be neither direct nor indirect mention of him or of any Church there founded by him Nay S. Paul himself intimates what an earnest desire he had to come thither that he might impart unto them some spiritual gifts to the end they might be established in the Faith for which there could have been no such apparent cause had Peter been there so lately and so long before him Well S. Paul himself not many years after is sent to Rome Ann. Chr. LVI or as Eusebius LVII though Baronius makes it two years after about the second year of Nero when he comes thither does he go to sojourn with Peter as 't is likely he would had he been there No but dwelt by himself in his own hired house No sooner was he come but he called the chief of the Jews together acquainted them with the cause and end of his coming explains the doctrine of Christianity which when they rejected he tells them That henceforth the Salvation of God was sent unto the Gentiles who would hear it to whom he would now address himself Which seems to intimate that however some few of the Gentiles might have been brought over yet that no such harvest had been made before his coming as might reasonably have been expected from S. Peter's having been so many years amongst them Within
which they discovered not far off But falling into a place where two Seas met the fore-part of the Ship ran a-ground while the hinder-part was beaten in pieces with the violence of the Waves Awakened with the danger they were in the Souldiers cried out to kill the Prisoners to prevent their escape which the Captain desirous to save S. Paul and probably in confidence of what he had told them refused to do commanding that every one should shift for himself the issue was that part by swimming part on planks part on pieces of the broken Ship they all to the number of two hundred threescore and sixteen the whole number in the Ship got safe to shore 8. THE Island upon which they were cast was Melita now Malta situate in the Libyan Sea between Syracuse and Africk Here they found civility among Barbarians and the plain acknowledgments of a Divine justice written among the naked and untutored notions of Mens minds The People treated them with great humanity entertaining them with all necessary accommodations but while S. Paul was throwing sticks upon the Fire a Viper dislodged by the heat came out of the Wood and fastned on his Hand This the People no sooner espyed but presently concluded that surely he was some notorious Murderer whom though the Divine vengeance had suffered to escape the Hue-and-Cry of the Sea yet had it only reserved him for a more publick and solemn execution But when they saw him shake it off into the Fire and not presently swell and drop down they changed their opinions and concluded him to be some God So easily are light and credulous minds transported from one extreme to another Not far off lived Publius a Man of great Estate and Authority and as we may probably guess from an Inscription found there and set down by Grotius wherein the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is reckoned amongst the Roman Offices Governor of the Island by him they were courteously entertained three Days at his own charge and his Father lying at that time sick of a Feaver and a Dysentery S. Paul went in and having prayed and laid his hands upon him healed him as he did also many of the Inhabitants who by this Miracle were encouraged to bring their diseased to him whereby great honours were heaped upon him and both he and his company furnished with provisions necessary for the rest of their Voyage Nay Publius himself is said by some to have been hereby converted to the Faith and by S. Paul to have been constituted Bishop of the Island and that this was he that succeeded S. Denys the Areopagite in the See of Athens and was afterwards crowned with Martyrdom 9. AFTER three Months stay in this Island they went a-board the Castor and Pollux a Ship of Alexandria bound for Italy At Syracuse they put in and staid three Days thence failed to Rhegium and so to Puteoli where they landed and finding some Christians there staid a Week with them and then set forward in their Journey to Rome The Christians at Rome having heard of their arrival several of them came part of the way to meet them some as far as the Three Taverns a place thirty three Miles from Rome others as far as Appii Forum fifty one Miles distant thence Great was their mutual salutation and the encouragement which the Apostle received by it glad no doubt to see that Christians found so much liberty at Rome By them he was conducted in a kind of triumph into the City where when they were arrived the rest of the Prisoners were delivered over to the Captain of the Guard and by him disposed in the common Gaol while S. Paul probably at Julius his request and recommendation was permitted to stay in a private House only with a Souldier to secure and guard him SECT VII S. Paul's Acts from his coming to Rome till his Martyrdom S. Paul 's summoning the chief of the Jews at Rome and his discourse to them Their refractoriness and infidelity His first hearing before Nero. The success of his Preaching Poppaea Sabina Nero 's Concubine one of his Converts Tacitus his character of her Onesimus converted by S. Paul at Rome and sent back with an Epistle to Philemon his Master The great obligation which Christianity lays upon Servants to diligence and fidelity in their duty The rigorous and arbitrary power of Masters over Servants by the Roman Laws This mitigated by the Laws of the Gospel S. Paul 's Epistle to the Philippians upon what occasion sent His Epistle to the Ephesians and another to the Colossians His second Epistle to Timothy written probably at his first being at Rome The Epistle to the Hebrews by whom written and in what Language The aim and design of it S. Paul 's Preaching the Gospel in the West and in what parts of it His return to Rome when His imprisonment under Nero and why His being beheaded Milk instead of blood said to flow from his body Different Accounts of the time of his suffering His burial where and the great Church erected to his memory 1. THE first thing S. Paul did after he came to Rome was to summon the Heads of the Jewish Consistory there whom he acquainted with the cause and manner of his coming that though he had been guilty of no violation of the Law of their Religion yet had he been delivered by the Jews into the hands of the Roman Governours who would have acquitted him once and again as innocent of any capital offence but by the perversness of the Jews he was forced not with an intention to charge his own Nation already sufficiently odious to the Romans but only to vindicate and clear himself to make his Appeal to Caesar that being come he had sent for them to let them know that it was for his constant asserting the Resurrection the hope of all true Israelites that he was bound with that Chain which they saw upon him The Jews replied that they had received no advice concerning him nor had any of the Nation that came from Judaea brought any Charge against him only for the Religion which he had espoused they desired to be a little better informed about it it being every where decried both by Jew and Gentile Accordingly upon a day appointed he discoursed to them from morning to night concerning the Religion and Doctrine of the Holy Jesus proving from the promises and predictions of the Old Testament that he was the true Messiah His discourse succeeded not with all alike some being convinced others persisted in their infidelity And as they were departing in some discontent at each other the Apostle told them it was now too plain God had accomplished upon them the Prophetical curse of being left to their own wilful hardness and impenitency to be blind at noon-day and to run themselves against all means and methods into irrecoverable ruine That since the case was thus with them they must expect that henceforth he should turn
that if any vented Epistles under his name the cheat might be discovered by the Apostles own hand not being to them and this brings me to the last consideration that shall conclude this Chapter 11. THAT there were some even in the most early Ages of Christianity who took upon them for what ends I stand not now to enquire to write Books and publish them under the name of some Apostle is notoriously known to any though but never so little conversant in Church-Antiquities Herein S. Paul had his part and share several supposititious Writings being fathered and thrust upon him We find a Gospel ascribed by some of the Ancients to him which surely arose from no other cause than that in some of his Epistles he makes mention of my Gospel Which as S. Hierom observes can be meant of no other than the Gospel of S. Luke his constant Attendant and from whom he chiefly derived his intelligence If he wrote another Epistle to the Corinthians precedent to those two extant at this Day as he seems to imply in a passage in his first Epistle I have wrote unto you in an Epistle not to keep company c. a passage not conveniently appliable to any part either in that or the other Epistle nay a Verse or two after the first Epistle is directly opposed to it all that can be said in the case is that it long since perished the Divine providence not seeing it necessary to be preserved for the service of the Church Frequent mention there is also of an Epistle of his to the Laodiceans grounded upon a mistaken passage in the Epistle to the Colossians but besides that the Apostle does not there speak of an Epistle written to the Laodiceans but of one from them Tertullian tells us that by the Epistle to the Laodiceans is meant that to the Ephesians and that Marcion the Heretick was the first that changed the title and therefore in his enumeration of S. Paul's Epistles he omits that to the Ephesians for no other reason doubtless but that according to Marcion's opinion he had reckoned it up under the title of that to the Laodiceans Which yet is more clear if we consider that Epiphanius citing a place quoted by Marcion out of the Epistle to the Laodiceans it is in the very same words found in that to the Ephesians at this Day However such an Epistle is still extant forged no doubt before S. Hierom's time who tells us that it was read by some but yet exploded and rejected by all Besides these there was his Revelation call'd also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or his Ascension grounded on his ecstasie or rapture into Heaven first forged by the Cainian Hereticks and in great use and estimation among the Gnosticks Sozomen tells us that this Apocalypse was owned by none of the Ancients though much commended by some Monks in his time and he further adds that in the time of the Emperor Theodosius it was said to have been found in an under-ground Chest of Marble in S. Paul's house at Tarsus and that by a particular revelation A story which upon enquiry he found to be as false as the Book it self was forged and spurious The Acts of S. Paul are mentioned both by Origen and Eusebius but not as Writings of approved and unquestionable credit and authority The Epistles that are said to have passed between S. Paul and Seneca how early soever they started in the Church yet the falshood and fabulousness of them is now too notoriously known to need any further account or description of them SECT IX The principal Controversies that exercised the Church in his time Simon Magus the Father of Hereticks The wretched principles and practices of him and his followers Their asserting Angel-worship and how countermin'd by S. Paul Their holding it lawful to sacrifice to Idols and abjure the Faith in times of persecution discovered and opposed by S. Paul Their maintaining an universal licence to sin Their manners and opinions herein described by S. Paul in his Epistles The great controversie of those times about the obligation of the Law of Moses upon the Gentile Converts The Original of it whence The mighty veneration which the Jews had for the Law of Moses The true state of the Controversie what The Determination made in it by the Apostolick Synod at Jerusalem Meats offered to Idols what Abstinence from Bloud why enjoyned of old Things strangled why forbidden Fornication commonly practised and accounted lawful among the Gentiles The hire of the Harlot what How dedicated to their Deities among the Heathens The main passages in S. Paul 's Epistles concerning Justification and Salvation shewed to have respect to this Controversie What meant by Law and what by Faith in S. Paul 's Epistles The Persons whom he has to deal with in this Controversie who The Jew 's strange doting upon Circumcision The way and manner of the Apostles Reasoning in this Controversie considered His chief Arguments shewed immediately to respect the case of the Jewish and Gentile Converts No other controversie in those times which his discourses could refer to Two Consectaries from this Discourse I. That works of Evangelical Obedience are not opposed to Faith in Justification What meant by works of Evangelical Obedience This method of Justification excludes boasting and entirely gives the glory to God II. That the doctrines of S. Paul and S. James about Justification are fairly consistent with each other These two Apostles shewed to pursue the same design S. James his excellent Reasonings to that purpose 1. THOUGH our Lord and his Apostles delivered the Christian Religion especially as to the main and essential parts of it in words as plain as words could express it yet were there men of perverse and corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the Faith who from different causes some ignorantly or wilfully mistaking the doctrines of Christianity others to serve ill purposes and designs began to introduce errors and unsound opinions into the Church and to debauch the minds of men from the simplicity of the Gospel hereby disquieting the thoughts and alienating the affections of men and disturbing the peace and order of the Church The first Ring-leader of this Heretical crue was Simon Magus who not being able to attain his ends of the Apostles by getting a power to confer miraculous gifts whereby he designed to greaten and enrich himself resolved to be revenged of them scattering the most poisonous tares among the good wheat that they had sown bringing in the most pernicious principles and as the natural consequent of that patronizing the most debauched villainous practices and this under a pretence of still being Christians To enumerate the several Dogmata and damnable Heresies first broached by Simon and then vented and propagated by his disciples and followers who though passing under different Titles yet all centred at last in the name of Gnosticks a term which we shall sometimes use for
thereupon made them understand 't was Judas whom he designed by the Traitor This favour our Apostle endeavoured in some measure to answer by returns of particular kindness and constancy to our Saviour staying with him when the rest deserted him Indeed upon our Lord's first apprehension he fled after the other Apostles it not being without some probabilities of reason that the Ancients conceive him to have been that young man that followed after Christ having a linnen cloath cast about his naked body whom when the Officers laid hold upon he left the linnen cloath and fled naked from them This in all likelihood was that garment that he had cast about him at Supper for they had peculiar Vestments for that purpose and being extremely affected with the Treason and our Lord 's approaching Passion had forgot to put on his other garments but followed him into the Garden in the same habit wherewith he arose from the Table it being then night and so less liable to be taken notice of either by himself or others But though he fled at present to avoid that sudden violence that was offered to him yet he soon recovered himself and returned back to seek his Master confidently entred into the High-Priests Hall and followed our Lord through the several passages of his Trial and at last waited upon him and for any thing we know was the only Apostle that did so at his Execution owning him as well as being own'd by him in the midst of arms and guards and in the thickest crowds of his most inveterate enemies Here it was that our Lord by his last Will and Testament made upon the Cross appointed him Guardian of his own Mother the Blessed Virgin When he saw his Mother and the Disciple standing by whom he loved he said unto his Mother Woman behold thy Son see here is one that shall supply my place and be to thee instead of a Son to love and honour thee to provide and take care for thee and to the Disciple he said Behold thy Mother Her whom thou shalt henceforth deal with treat and observe with that duty and honourable regard which the relation of an indulgent Mother challenges from a pious and obedient Son whereupon he took her into his own House her Husband Joseph being some time since dead and made her a principal part of his charge and care And certainly the Holy Jesus could not have given a more honourable testimony of his particular respect and kindness to S. John than to commit his own Mother whom of all earthly Relations he held most dear and valuable to his trust and care and to substitute him to supply that duty which he himself paid her while he was here below 3. AT the first news of our Lord's return from the dead he accompanied with Peter presently hasted to the Sepulchre Indeed there seems to have been a mutual intimacy between these two Apostles more than the rest 'T was to Peter that S. John gave the notice of Christ's appearing when he came to them at the Sea of Tiberias in the habit of a stranger and it was for John that Peter was so solicitously inquisitive to know what should become of him After Christ's Ascension we find these two going up to the Temple at the Hour of Prayer and miraculously healing the poor impotent Cripple both Preaching to the People and both apprehended together by the Priests and Sadducees and thrown into Prison and the next Day brought forth to plead their cause before the Sanhedrim These were the two chosen by the Apostles to send down to Samaria to settle and confirm the Plantations which Philip had made in those Parts where they confounded and baffled Simon the Magician and set him in an hopeful way to repentance To these S. Paul addressed himself as those that seemed to be Pillars among the rest who accordingly gave him the right hand of fellowship and confirmed his mission to the Gentiles 4. IN the division of Provinces which the Apostles made among themselves Asia fell to his share though he did not presently enter upon his charge otherwise we must needs have heard of him in the account which S. Luke gives of Paul's several Journies into and residence in those parts Probable therefore it is that he dwelt still in his own House at Jerusalem at least till the death of the Blessed Virgin and this is plainly asserted by Nicephorus from the account of those Historians that were before him whose death says Eusebius hapned Ann. Chr. XLVIII about Fifteen Years after our Lord's Ascension Some time probably Years after her death he took his Journey into Asia and industriously applied himself to the propagating Christianity Preaching where the Gospel had not yet taken place and confirming it where it was already planted Many Churches of note and eminency were of his foundation Smyrna Pergamus Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia Laodicea and others but his chief place of residence was at Ephesus where S. Paul had many Years before settled a Church and constituted Timothy Bishop of it Nor can we suppose that he confined his Ministry meerly to Asia Minor but that he Preached in other Parts of the East probably in Parthia his first Epistle being anciently intitled to them and the Jesuits in the relation of their success in those Parts assure us that the Bassorae a People of India constantly affirm from a Tradition received from their Ancestors that S. John Planted the Christian Faith there 5. HAVING spent many Years in this employment he was at length accused to Domitian who had begun a Persecution against the Christians as an eminent assertor of Atheism and impiety and a publick subverter of the Religion of the Empire By his command the Proconsul of Asia sent him bound to Rome where his treatment was what might be expected from so bloudy and barbarous a Prince he was cast into a Cauldron of boyling Oyl or rather Oyl set on Fire But that Divine Providence that secured the three Hebrew Captives in the flames of a burning Furnace brought this holy Man safe out of this one would have thought unavoidable destruction An instance of so signal preservation as had been enough to perswade a considering Man that there must be a Divinity in that Religion that had such mighty and solemn attestations But Miracles themselves will not convince him that 's fallen under an hard heart and an injudicious mind The cruel Emperor was not satisfied with this but presently orders him to be banished and transported into an Island This was accounted a kind of capital punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Pachymer speaking of this very instance where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not to be understood as extending to life but loss of priviledge Therefore this punishment in the Roman Laws is called Capitis diminutio and it was the second sort of it because the Person thus banished was disfranchised and the City thereby lost an head
Chapter of his Gospel at least part of it was as Hierom informs us wanting in all ancient Greek Copies rejected upon pretence of some disagreement with the other Gospels though as he there shews they are fairly consistent with each other His great impartiality in his Relations appears from hence that he is so far from concealing the shameful lapse and denial of Peter his dear Tutor and Master that he sets it down with some particular circumstances and aggravations which the other Evangelists take no notice of Some dispute has been made in what Language it was written whether in Greek or Latin That which seems to give most countenance to the Latin Original is the note that we find at the end of the Syriack Version of this Gospel where it is said that Mark preached and declared his Holy Gospel at Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Roman or the Latin Tongue An evidence that with me would almost carry the force of a demonstration were I assured that this note is of equal value and authority with that Ancient Version generally supposed to come very few Centuries short of the Apostolick Age. But we know how usual it is for such additions to be made by some later hand And what credit is to be given to the subscriptions at the end of S. Paul's Epistles we have shewed elsewhere Besides that it is not here said that he wrote but that he Preached his Gospel at Rome in that Language The Advocates of the Romish Church plead that it 's very congruous and suitable that it should at first be consigned to Writing in that Language being principally designed for the use of the Christians at Rome An objection that will easily vanish when we consider that as the Convert Jews there understood very little Latin so there were very few Romans that understood not Greek it being as appears from the Writers of that Age the gentile and fashionable Language of those Times Nor can any good reason be assigned why it should be more inconvenient for S. Mark to write his Gospel in Greek for the use of the Romans than that S. Paul should in the same Language write his Epistle to that Church The Original Greek Copy written with S. Mark 's own hand is said to be extant at Venice at this Day Written they tell us by him at Aquileia and thence after many Hundreds of Years translated to Venice where it is still preserved though the Letters so worn out with length of time that they are not capable of being read A story which as I cannot absolutely disprove so am I not very forward to believe and that for more reasons than I think worth while to insist on in this place The End of S. Mark 's Life THE LIFE OF S. LUKE the Evangelist S. LUKE 2. COR. 8.8.19 The Brother whose praise is in the Gospel through out all the Churches And not that onely but who was also chosen of the Churches to travell with us St. Luke his Martyrdom Col. 4.14 Luke the beloved Physician The brother whose Praise is in the Gospel 2 Cor. 4.11 We are delivered unto death for Jesus sake Bearing in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus Antioch S. Luke 's birth-place The fame and dignity of it His learned and liberal education His study of Physick His skill in Painting S. Luke none of the Seventy Converted where and by whom His constant attendance upon S. Paul In what parts he principally exercised his Ministry The place and manner of his Death The translation of his Body to Constantinople His Writings Theophilus who His Gospel where written and upon what occasion How fitted for it The Acts of the Apostles written at Rome and when Why principally containing the Acts of S. Paul This Book why publickly read just after Easter in the Primitive Church S. Luke 's polite and exact stile and way of writing above the rest 1. SAINT Luke was born at Antioch the Metropolis of Syria a City celebrated for its extraordinary blessings and eminences the pleasantness of its situation the fertility of its soil the riches of its Traffick the wisdom of its Senate the learning of its Professors the civility and politeness of its Inhabitants by the Pens of some of the greatest Orators of their times And yet above all these renowned for this one peculiar honour that here it was that the Disciples were first called Christians It was an University replenished with Schools of learning wherein were Professors of all Arts and Sciences So that being born in the very lap of the Muses he could not well miss of an ingenuous and liberal education his natural parts meeting with the advantages of great improvements Nay we are told that he studied not only at Antioch but in all the Schools both of Greece and Egypt whereby he became accomplished in all parts of Learning and humane Sciences Being thus furnished out with skill in all the preparatory Institutions of Philosophy he more particularly applied himself to the study of Physick for which the Grecian Academies were most famous though they that hence infer the quality of his Birth and Fortunes forget to consider that this noble Art was in those times generally managed by persons of no better rank than servants Upon which account a Learned man conceives S. Luke though a Syrian by birth to have been a servant at Rome where he sometimes practised Physick and whence being manumitted he returned into his own Country and probably continued his profession all his life it being so fairly consistent with and in many cases so subservient to the Ministry of the Gospel and the care of Souls Besides his abilities in Physick he is said to have been very skilful in Painting and there are no less than three or four several pieces still in being pretended to have been drawn with his own hand a tradition which Gretser the Jesuit sets himself with a great deal of pains and to very little purpose to defend though his Authors either in respect of credit or antiquity deserve very little esteem and value Of more authority with me would be an ancient Inscription found in a Vault near the Church of S. Mary in via lata at Rome supposed to have been the place where S. Paul dwelt wherein mention is made of a Picture of the B. Virgin UNA EX VII AB LUCA DEPICTIS being one of the seven painted by S. Luke 2. HE was a Jewish Proselyte Antioch abounding with men of that Nation who had here their Synagogues and Schools of Education so that we need not with Theophylact send him to Jerusalem to be instructed in the study of the Law As for that opinion of Epiphanius and others that he was one of the Seventy Disciples one of those that deserted our Lord for the unwelcome discourse he made to them but recalled afterwards by S. Paul I behold it as a story of the same coin and
important and concerning an Article so vital and essential to the constitution of that Church As when he argues Peter's superiority from the meer changing of his name for what 's this to supremacy besides that it was not done to him alone the same being done to James and John from his being first reckoned up in the Catalogue of Apostles his walking with Christ upon the water his paying tribute for his Master and himself his being commanded to let down the Net and Christ's teaching in Peter's ship and this ship must denote the Church and Peter's being owner of it entitle him to be supreme Ruler and Governour of the Church so Bellarmine in terms as plain as he could well express it from Christ's first washing Peter's feet though the story recorded by the Evangelist says no such thing and his foretelling only his death all which and many more prerogatives of S. Peter to the number of no less than XXVIII are summoned in to give in evidence in this cause and many of these two drawn out of Apocryphal and supposititious Authors and not only uncertain but absurd and fabulous and yet upon such arguments as these do they found his paramount authority A plain evidence of a desperate and sinking cause when such twigs must be laid hold on to support and keep it above water Had they suffered Peter to be content with a primacy of Order which his age and gravity seemed to challenge for him no wise and peaceable man would have denied it as being a thing ordinarily practised among equals and necessary to the well governing a society but when nothing but a primacy of Power will serve the turn as if the rest of the Apostles had been inferiour to him this may by no means be granted as being expresly contrary to the positive determination of our Saviour when the Apostles were contending about this very thing which of them should be accounted the greatest he thus quickly decides the case The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them But ye shall not be so but whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your Servant Than which nothing could have been more peremptorily spoken to rebuke this naughty spirit of preheminence Nor do we ever find S. Peter himself laying claim to any such power or the Apostles giving him the least shadow of it In the whole course of his affairs there are no intimations of this matter in his Epistle he styles himself but their fellow-Presbyter and expresly forbids the Governours of the Church to Lord it over God's heritage When dispatched by the rest of the Apostles upon a message to Samaria he never disputes their authority to do it when accused by them for going in unto the Gentiles does he stand upon his prerogative no but submissively apologizes for himself nay when smartly reprov'd by S. Paul at Antioch when if ever his credit lay at stake do we find him excepting against it as an affront to his supremacy and a sawcy controlling his superiour surely the quite contrary he quietly submitted to the reproof as one that was sensible how justly he had deserved it Nor can it be supposed but that S. Paul would have carried it towards him with a greater reverence had any such peculiar soveraignty been then known to the World How confidently does S. Paul assert himself to be no whit inferiour to the chiefest Apostles not to Peter himself the Gospel of the uncircumcision being committed to him as that of the circumcision was to Peter Is Peter oft named first among the Apostles elsewhere others sometimes James sometimes Paul and Apollos are placed before him Did Christ honour him with some singular commendations an honourable elogium conveys no super-eminent power and soveraignty Was he dear to Christ we know another that was the beloved Disciple So little warrant is there to exalt one above the rest where Christ made all alike If from Scripture we descend to the ancient Writers of the Church we shall find that though the Fathers bestow very great and honourable Titles upon Peter yet they give the same or what are equivalent to others of the Apostles Hesychius stiles S. James the Great the Brother of our Lord the Commander of the new Jerusalem the Prince of Priests the Exarch or chief of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the top or crown amongst the heads the great light amongst the Lamps the most illustrious and resplendent amongst the stars 't was Peter that preach'd but 't was James that made the determination c. Of S. Andrew he gives this encomium that he was the sacerdotal Trumpet the first born of the Apostolick Quire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prime and firm Pillar of the Church Peter before Peter the foundation of the foundation the first fruits of the beginning Peter and John are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equally honourable by S. Cyril with his whole Synod of Alexandria S. John says Chrysostom was Christ's beloved the Pillar of all the Churches in the World who had the Keys of Heaven drank of his Lord's cup was wash'd with his Baptism and with confidence lay in his bosome And of S. Paul he tells us that he was the most excellent of all men the Teacher of the World the Bridegroom of Christ the Planter of the Church the wise Master-builder greater than the Apostles and much more to the same purpose Elsewhere he says that the care of the whole World was committed to him that nothing could be more noble or illustrious yea that his Miracles considered he was more excellent than Kings themselves And a little after he calls him the tongue of the Earth the light of the Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of the faith the pillar and ground of truth And in a discourse on purpose wherein he compares Peter and Paul together he makes them of equal esteem and vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What greater than Peter What equal to Paul a Blessed pair 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who had the Souls of the whole World committed to their charge But instances of this nature were endless and infinite If the Fathers at any time style Peter Prince of the Apostles they mean no more by it than the best and purest Latine writers mean by princeps the first or chief person of the number more considerable than the rest either for his age or zeal Thus Eusebius tells us Peter was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prolocutor of all the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the greatness and generosity of his mind that is in Chrysostome's language he was the mouth and chief of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because eager and forward at every turn and ready to answer those questions which were put to others In
being more usual in those times than for persons excommunicate and cut off from the body of the Church to be presently arrested by Satan as the common Serjeant and Executioner and by him either actually possessed or tormented in their bodies by some diseases which he brought upon them And indeed this severe discipline was no more than necessary in those times when Christianity was wholly destitute of any civil or coercive power to beget and keep up a due reverence and regard to the sentence and determinations of the Church and to secure the Laws of Religion and the holy censures from being sleighted by every bold and contumacious offender And this effect we find it had after the dreadful instance of Ananias and Saphira Great fear came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things To what has been said concerning these Apostolical gifts let me further observe That they had not only these gifts residing in themselves but a power to bestow them upon others so that by imposition of hands or upon hearing and embracing the Apostle's doctrine and being baptized into the Christian Faith they could confer these miraculous powers upon persons thus qualified to receive them whereby they were in a moment enabled to speak divers Languages to Prophesie to Interpret and do other miracles to the admiration and astonishment of all that heard and saw them A priviledge peculiar to the Apostles for we do not find that any inferiour Order of gifted persons were intrusted with it And therefore as Chrysostom well observes though Philip the Deacon wrought great miracles at Samaria to the conversion of many yea to the conviction of Simon Magus himself yet the Holy Ghost fell upon none of them only they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus till Peter and John came down to them who having 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 fitly 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 extraordinary 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 Officers 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 Eusebius 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 VIIth 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 St. PETER He was crucified at Rome with his head down-wards 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 most 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 on 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 stiled 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
they were the seed of Abraham the People whom God had peculiarly chosen for himself above all other Nations of the World and therefore with a lofty scorn proudly rejected the Gentiles as Dogs and Reprobates utterly refusing to shew them any office of common kindness and converse We find the Heathens frequently charging them with this rudeness and inhumanity Juvenal accuses them that they would not shew a Traveller the right way nor give him a draught of Water if he were not of their Religion Tacitus tells us that they had adversus omnes alios hostile odium a bitter hatred of all other People Haman represented them to Ahasuerus as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A people that would never kindly mix and correspond with any other as different in their Manners as in their Laws and Religion from other Nations The friends of Antiochus as the Historian reports charged them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they alone of all others were the most unsociable people under Heaven that they held no converse or correspondence with any other but accounted them as their mortal enemies that they would not eat or drink with men of another Nation no nor so much as wish well to them their Ancestors having leavened them with an hatred of all mankind This was their humour and that the Gentiles herein did not wrong them is sufficiently evident from their ordinary practice and is openly avowed by their own Writings Nay at their first coming over to Christianity though one great design of it was to soften the manners of men and to oblige them to a more extensive and universal charity yet could they hardly quit this common prejudice quarrelling with Peter for no other reason but that he had eaten and drunken with the Gentiles insomuch that he was forced to Apologize for himself and to justifie his actions as immediately done by Divine warrant and authority And then no sooner had he given them a naked and impartial account of the whole transaction from first to last but they presently turned their displeasure against him into thanks to God that he had granted to the Gentiles also Repentance unto life 5. IT was now about the end of Caligula's Reign when Peter having finished his visitation of the new planted Churches was returned unto Jerusalem Not long after Herod Agrippa Grand-child to Herod the great having attained the Kingdom the better to ingratiate himself with the People had lately put S. James to death And finding that this gratified the Vulgar resolved to send Peter the same way after him In order whereunto he apprehended him cast him into Prison and set strong guards to watch him the Church in the mean time being very instant and importunate with Heaven for his life and safety The Night before his intended execution God purposely sent an Angel from Heaven who coming to the Prison found him fast asleep between two of his Keepers So soft and secure a Pillow is a good Conscience even in the confines of Death and the greatest danger The Angel raised him up knock'd off his Chains bad him gird on his Garments and follow him He did so and having passed the first and second Watch and entred through the Iron-Gate into the City which opened to them of its own accord after having passed through one Street more the Angel departed from him By this time Peter came to himself and perceived that it was no Vision but a reality that had hapned to him Whereupon he came to Mary's house where the Church were met together at Prayer for him Knocking at the Door the Maid who came to let him in perceiving 't was his voice ran back to tell them that Peter was at the Door Which they at first looked upon as nothing but the effect of fright or fancy but she still affirming it they concluded that it was his Angel or some peculiar messenger sent from him The Door being open they were strangely amazed at the sight of him but he briefly told them the manner of his deliverance and charging them to acquaint the Brethren with it presently withdrew into another place 'T is easie to imagine what a bustle and a stir there was the next Morning among the Keepers of the Prison with whom Herod was so much displeased that he commanded them to be put to Death 6. SOME time after this it hapned that a controversie arising between the Jewish and the Gentile Converts about the observation of the Mosaick Law the minds of men were exceedingly disquieted and disturbed with it the Jews zealously contending for Circumcision and the observance of the Ceremonial Law to be joyn'd with the belief profession of the Gospel as equally necessary to Salvation To compose this difference the best expedient that could be thought on was to call a General Council of the Apostles and Brethren to meet together at Jerusalem which was done accordingly and the case throughly scanned and canvassed At last Peter stood up and acquainted the Synod that God having made choice of him among all the Apostles to be the first that preached the Gospel to the Gentiles God who was best able to judge of the hearts of men had born witness to them that they were accepted of him by giving them his Holy Spirit as well as he had done to the Jews having put no difference between the one and the other That therefore it was a tempting and a provoking God to put a Yoke upon the necks of the Disciples which neither they themselves nor their Fathers were able to bear there being ground enough to believe that the Gentiles as well as the Jews should be saved by the grace of the Gospel After some other of the Apostles had declared their judgments in the case it was unanimously decreed that except the temporary observance of some few particular things equally convenient both for Jew and Gentile no other burden should be imposed upon them And so the decrees of the Council being drawn up into a Synodical Epistle were sent abroad to the several Churches for allaying the heats and controversies that had been raised about this matter 7. PETER a while after the celebration of this Council left Jerusalem and came down to Antioch where using the liberty which the Gospel had given him he familiarly ate and conversed with the Gentile Converts accounting them now that the partition-wall was broken down no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God This he had been taught by the Vision of the sheet let down from Heaven this had been lately decreed and he himself had promoted and subscribed it in the Synod at Jerusalem this he had before practised towards Cornelius and his Family and justified the action to the satisfaction of his accusers and this he had here freely and innocently done at Antioch till some of the Jewish Brethren coming thither for fear of
least sign of motion Peter standing at a good distance from the Bed silently made his address to Heaven and then before them all commanded the young Gentleman in the Name of the Lord Jesus to arise who immediately did so spoke walked and ate and was by Peter restored to his Mother The People who saw this suddenly changed their opinions and fell upon the Magician with an intent to stone him But Peter begged his life and told them that it would be a sufficient punishment to him to live and see that in despite of all his power and malice the Kingdom of Christ should increase and flourish The Magician was inwardly tormented with this defeat and vext to see the triumph of the Apostle and therefore mustering up all his powers summoned the People told them that he was offended at the Galileans whose Protector and Guardian he had been and therefore set them a Day when he promised that they should see him fly-up into Heaven At the time appointed he went up to the Mount of the Capitol and throwing himself from the top of the Rock began his flight A sight which the People entertained with great wonder and veneration affirming that this must be the power of God and not of man Peter standing in the Croud prayed to our Lord that the People might be undeceived and that the vanity of the Impostor might be discovered in such a way that he himself might be sensible of it Immediately the Wings which he had made himself began to fail him and he fell to the ground miserably bruised and wounded with the fall Whence being carried into a neighbouring Village he soon after dyed This is the story for the particular circumstances whereof the Reader must rely upon the credit of my Author the thing in general being sufficiently acknowledged by most ancient Writers This contest of Peter's with Simon Magus is placed by Eusebius under the Reign of Claudius but by the generality both of ancient and later Authors it is referred to the Reign of Nero. 5. SUCH was the end of this miserable and unhappy Man Which no sooner came to the ears of the Emperor to whom by wicked artifices he had indeared himself but it became an occasion of hastning Peter's ruine The Emperor probably had before been displeased with Peter not only upon the acount of the general disagreement and inconformity of his Religion but because he had so strictly pressed temperance and chastity and reclaimed so many Women in Rome from a dissolute and vicious life thereby crossing that wanton and lascivious temper to which that Prince was so immoderate a slave and vassal And being now by his means robbed of his dear favourite and companion he resolved upon revenge commanded Peter as also S. Paul who was at this time at Rome to be apprehended and cast into the Mamertine Prison where they spent their time in the exercises of Religion and especially in Preaching to the Prisoners and those who resorted to them And here we may suppose it was if not a little before that Peter wrote his second Epistle to the dispersed Jews wherein he endeavours to confirm them in the belief and practice of Christianity and to fortifie them against those poysonous and pernicious principles and practices which even then began to break in upon the Christian Church 6. NERO returning from Achaia and entring Rome with a great deal of pomp and triumph resolved now the Apostles should fall as a Victim and Sacrifice to his cruelty and revenge While the fatal stroke was daily expected the Christians in Rome did by daily prayers and importunities solicite S. Peter to make an escape and to reserve himself to the uses and services of the Church This at first he rejected as what would ill reflect upon his courage and constancy and argue him to be afraid of those sufferings for Christ to which he himself had so often perswaded others but the prayers and the tears of the People overcame him and made him yield Accordingly the next Night having prayed with and taken his farewell of the Brethren he got over the Prison-wall and coming to the City-gate he is there said to have met with our Lord who was just entring into the City Peter asked him Lord whither art thou going from whom he presently received this answer I am come to Rome to be crucified a second time By which answer Peter apprehended himself to be reproved and that our Lord meant it of his death that he was to be crucified in his Servant Whereupon he went back to the Prison and delivered himself into the hands of his Keepers shewing himself most ready and chearful to acquiesce in the will of God And we are told that in the stone whereon our Lord stood while he talked with Peter he left the impression of his Feet which stone has been ever since preserved as a very sacred Relique and after several translations was at length fixed in the Church of S. Sebastian the Martyr where it is kept and visited with great expressions of reverence and devotion at this day Before his suffering he was no question scourged according to the manner of the Romans who were wont first to whip those Malefactors who were adjudged to the most severe and capital punishments Having saluted his Brethren and especially having taken his last farewell of S. Paul he was brought out of the Prison and led to the top of the Vatican Mount near to Tybur the place designed for his Execution The death he was adjudged to was crucifixion as of all others accounted the most shameful so the most severe and terrible But he intreated the favour of the Officers that he might not be crucified in the ordinary way but might suffer with his Head downwards and his Feet up to Heaven affirming that he was unworthy to suffer in the same posture wherein his Lord had suffered before him Happy man as Chrysostom glosses to be set in the readiest posture of travelling from Earth to Heaven His Body being taken from the Cross is said to have been imbalmed by Marcellinus the Presbyter after the Jewish manner and was then buried in the Vatican near the Triumphal way Over his Grave a small Church was soon after erected which being destroyed by Heliogabalus his Body was removed to the Cemetery in the Appian way two Miles from Rome where it remained till the time of Pope Cornelius who re-conveyed it to the Vatican where it rested somewhat obscurely until the Reign of Constantine who out of the mighty reverence which he had for the Christian Religion caused many Churches to be built at Rome but especially rebuilt and enlarged the Vatican to the honour of S. Peter In the doing whereof Himself is said to have been the first that began to dig the Foundation and to have carried thence twelve Baskets of Rubbish with his own hands in honour as it should seem of the twelve Apostles He infinitely
of Souldiers and an armed multitude and 't was love to his Master drew him into that imprudent advice that he should seek to save himself and avoid those sufferings that were coming upon him that made him promise and engage so deep to suffer and die with him Great was his forwardness in owning Christ to be the Messiah and Son of God which drew from our Lord that honourable Encomium Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah But greater his courage and constancy in confessing Christ before his most inveterate enemies especially after he had recovered himself of his fall With how much plainness did he tell the Jews at every turn to their very faces that they were the Murderers and Crucifiers of the Lord of Glory Nay with what an undaunted courage with what an Heroick greatness of mind did he tell that very Sanhedrim that had sentenced and condemned him that they were guilty of his murder and that they could never be saved any other way than by this very Jesus whom they had crucified and put to death 4. LASTLY let us reflect upon him as an Apostle as a Pastor and Guide of Souls And so we find him faithful and diligent in his office with an infinite zeal endeavouring to instruct the ignorant reduce the erroneous to strengthen the weak and confirm the strong to reclaim the vicious and turn Souls to righteousness We find him taking all opportunities of preaching to the people converting many thousands at once How many voyages and travels did he undergo with how unconquerable a patience did he endure all conflicts and trials and surmount all difficulties and oppositions that he might plant and propagate the Christian Faith Not thinking much to lay down his own life to promote and further it Nor did he only do his duty himself but as one of the prime Superintendents of the Church and as one that was sensible of the value and the worth of Souls he was careful to put others in mind of theirs earnestly pressing and perswading the Pastors and Governours of it To feed the flock of God To take upon them the Rule and Inspection of it freely and willingly not out of a sinister end merely of gaining advantages to themselves but out of a sincere design of doing good to Souls that they would treat them mildly and gently and be themselves examples of Piety and Religion to them as the best way to make their Ministery successful and effectual And because he could not be always present to teach and warn men he ceaâ—â—d not by Letters to stir up their minds to the remembrance and practice of what they had been taught A course he tells them which he was resolved to hold as long as he lived as thinking it meet while he was in this Tabernacle to stir them up by putting them in mind of these things that so they might be able after his decease to have them always in remembrance And this may lead us to the consideration of those Writings which he left behind him for the benefit of the Church 5. NOW the Writings that entitle themselves to this Apostle were either genuine or supposititious The genuine Writings are his two Epistles which make up part of the Sacred Canon For the first of them no certain account can be had when it was written Though Baronius and most Writers commonly assign it to the year of Christ Forty Four But this cannot be Peter not being at Rome from whence it is supposed to have been written at that time as we shall see anon He wrote it to the Jewish Converts dispersed through Pontus Galatia and the Countries thereabouts chiefly upon the occasion of that persecution which had been raised at Jerusalem And accordingly the main design of it is to confirm and comfort them under their present sufferings and persecutions and to direct and instruct them how to carry themselves in the several states and relations both of the Civil and the Christian life For the place whence it was written 't is expresly dated from Babylon But what or where this Babylon is is not so easie to determine Some think it was Babylon in Egypt and probably Alexandria and that there Peter preached the Gospel Others will have it to have been Babylon the Ancient Metropolis of Assyria and where great numbers of Jews dwelt ever since the times of their Captivities But we need not send Peter on so long an Errand if we embrace the Notion of a Learned man who by Babylon will figuratively understand Jerusalem no longer now the holy City but a kind of spiritual Babylon in which the Church of God did at this time groan under great servitude and captivity And this Notion of the Word he endeavours to make good by calling in to his assistance two of the Ancient Fathers who so understand that of the Prophet We have healed Babylon but she was not healed Where the Prophet say they by Babylon means Jerusalem as differing nothing from the wickedness of the Nations nor conforming it self to the Law of God But generally the Writers of the Romish Church and the more moderate of the Reformed party acquiescing herein in the Judgment of Antiquity by Babylon understand Rome And so 't is plain S. John calls it in his Revelation either from its conformity in power and greatness to that ancient City or from that great Idolatry which at this time reign'd in Rome And so we may suppose S. Peter to have written it from Rome not long after his coming thither though the precise time be not exactly known 6. AS for the Second Epistle it was not accounted ol old of equal value and authority with the First and therefore for some Ages not taken into the Sacred Canon as is expresly affirmed by Eusebius and many of the Ancients before him The Ancient Syriack Church did not receive it and accordingly it is not to be found in their ancient Copies of the New Testament Yea those of that Church at this day do not own it as Canonical but only read it privately as we do the Apocryphal Books The greatest exception that I can find against it was the difference of its style from the other Epistle and therefore it was presumed that they were not both written by the same hand But S. Hierom who tells us the objection does elsewhere himself return the answer That the difference in the style and manner of writing might very well arise from hence that S. Peter according to his different circumstances and the necessity of affairs was forced to use several Amanuenses and Interpreters sometimes S. Mark and after his departure some other person which might justly occasion a difference in the style and character of these Epistles Not to say that the same person may vastly alter and vary his style according to the times when or the persons to whom or the subjects about which he writes or the temper and disposition he is in at
the time of writing or the care that is used in doing it Who sees not the vast difference of Jeremie's writing in his Prophecy and in his Book of Lamentations between S. John's in his Gospel his Epistles and Apocalypse How oft does S. Paul alter his style in several of his Epistles in some more lofty and elegant in others more rough and harsh Besides hundreds of instances that might be given both in Ecclesiastical and Foreign Writers too obvious to need insisting on in this place The learned Grotius will have this Epistle to have been written by Symeon S. James his immediate Successor in the Bishoprick of Jerusalem and that the word Peter was inserted into the Title by another hand But as a Judicious person of our own observes these were but his Posthume Annotations published by others and no doubt never intended as the deliberate result of that great man's Judgment especially since he himself tacitly acknowledges that all Copies extant at this day read the Title and Inscription as it is in our Books And indeed there is a concurrence of circumstances to prove S. Peter to be the Author of it It bears his name in the Front and Title yea somewhat more expresly than the former which has only one this both his Names There 's a passage in it that cannot well relate to any but him When he tells us that he was present with Christ in the holy Mount When he received from God the Father honour and glory Where he heard the voice which came from Heaven from the excellent glory This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased This evidently refers to Christs Transfiguration where none were present but Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee neither of which were ever thought of to be the Author of this Epistle Besides that there is an admirable consent and agreement in many passages between these two Epistles as it were easie to show in particular instances Add to this that 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 Vivâ voce when he was amongst them For so we find he did elsewhere Lactantiusassuring us That amongst many strange and wonderful things which Peter and Paul preached at Rome and left 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 Country 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 Vespasian 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 infect 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. Hierom 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 first 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 Ancients 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 Wifes 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 and 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
Baptism and the Apostle laying his hands upon them they immediately received the Holy Ghost in the gift of Tongues Prophecy and other miraculous powers conferred upon them 4. AFTER this he entred into the Jewish Synagogues where for the first three months he contended and disputed with the Jews endeavouring with great earnestness and resolution to convince them of the truth of those things that concerned the Christian Religion But when instead of success he met with nothing but refractoriness and infidelity he left the Synagogue and taking those with him whom he had converted instructed them and others that resorted to him in the School of one Tyrannus a place where Scholars were wont to be educated and instructed In this manner he continued for two years together In which time the Jews and Proselytes of the whole Proconsular Asia had opportunity of having the Gospel preached to them And because Miracles are the clearest evidence of a Divine commission and the most immediate Credentials of Heaven those which do nearliest affect our senses and consequently have the strongest influence upon our minds therefore God was pleased to ratifie the doctrine which S. Paul delivered by great and miraculous operations and those of somewhat a more peculiar and extraordinary nature Insomuch that he did not only heal those that came to him but if Napkins or Handkerchiefs were but touched by him and applied unto the sick their diseases immediately vanished and the Daemons and evil Spirits departed out of those that were possessed by them 5. EPHESUS above all other places in the World was noted of old for the study of Magick and all secret and hidden Arts whence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so often spoken of by the Ancients which were certain obscure and mystical Spells and Charms by which they endeavoured to heal Diseases and drive away evil Spirits and do things beyond the reach and apprehensions of common people Besides other professors of this black Art there were at this time at Ephesus certain Jews who dealt in the arts of Exorcism and Incantation a craft and mystery which Josephus affirms to have been derived from Solomon who he tells us did not only find it out but composed forms of Exorcism and Inchantment whereby to cure diseases and expel Daemons so as they should never return again and adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That this Art was still in force among the Jews Instances whereof he tells us he himself had seen having beheld one Eâ—â—azar a Jew in the presence of Vespasian his Sons and the great Officers of his Army curing Daemoniacks by holding a ring to their nose under whose Seal was hid the root of a certain Plant prescribed by Solomon at the scent whereof the Daemon presently took leave and was gone the Patient falling to the ground while the Exorcist by mentioning Solomon and reciting some Charms made by him stood over him and charged the evil Spirit never to return And to let them see that he was really gone he commanded the Daemon as he went out to overturn a cup full of water which he had caused to be set in the room before them In the number of these Conjurers now at Ephesus there were the seven Sons of Sceva one of the chief heads of the Families of the Priests who seeing what great things were done by calling over Daemoniacks the name of Christ attempted themselves to do the like Conjuring the evil Spirit in the name of that Jesus whom Paul preached to depart But the stubborn Daemon would not obey the warrant telling them he knew who Jesus and Paul were but did not understand what authority they had to use his name And not content with this forced the Daemoniack violently to fall upon them to tear their clothes and wound their bodies scarce suffering them to escape with the safety of their lives An accident that begot great terror in the minds of men and became the occasion of converting many to the Faith who came to the Apostle and confessed the former course and manner of their lives Several also who had traded in curious Arts and the mysterious methods of Spells and Charms freely brought their Books of Magick Rites whose price had they been to be sold according to the rates which men who dealt in those cursed mysteries put upon them would have amounted to the value of above One thousand Five hundred pounds and openly burnt them before the people themselves adjudging them to those flames to which they were condemned by the Laws of the Empire For so we find the Roman Laws prohibiting any to keep Books of Magick Arts and that where any such were found their Goods should be forfeited the Books publickly burned the persons banished and if of a meaner rank beheaded These Books the penitent converts did of their own accord sacrifice to the fire not tempted to spare them either by their former love to them or the present price and value of them With so mighty an efficacy did the Gospel prevail over the minds of men 6. ABOUT this time it was that the Apostle writ his Epistle to the Galatians For he had heard that since his departure corrupt opinions had got in amongst them about the necessary observation of the legal Rites and that several Impostors were crept into that Church who knew no better way to undermine the Doctrine he had planted there than by vilifying his person slighting him as an Apostle only at the second hand not to be compared with Peter James and John who had familiarly conversed with Christ in the days of his flesh and been immediately deputed by him In this Epistle therefore he reproves them with some necessary smartness and severity that they had been so soon led out of that right way wherein he had set them and had so easily suffered themselves to be imposed upon by the crafty artifices of seducers He vindicates the honour of his Apostolate and the immediate receiving his Commission from Christ wherein he shews that he came not behind the very best of those Apostles He largely refutes those Judaical opinions that had tainted and infected them and in the conclusion instructs them in the rules and duties of an holy life While the Apostle thus staid at Ephesus he resolved with himself to pass through Macedonia and Achaia thence to Jerusalem and so to Rome But for the present altered his resolution and continued still at Ephesus 7. DURING his stay in this place an accident happened that involved him in great trouble and danger Ephesus above all the Cities of the East was renowned for the famous Temple of Diana one of the stateliest Temples of the World It was as Pliny tells us the very wonder of magnificence built at the common charges of all Asia properly so called 220 Years elsewhere he says 400 in building which we are to understand of its successive rebuildings and reparations being often wasted and destroyed It was 425 Foot
command Indeed he seemed to have been furnished out on purpose to be the Doctor of the Gentiles to contend with and confute the grave and the wise the acute and the subtil the sage and the learned of the Heathen World and to wound them as Julian's word was with arrows drawn out of their own Quiver Though we do not find that in his disputes with the Gentiles he made much use of Learning and Philosophy it being more agreeable to the designs of the Gospel to confound the wisdom and learning of the World by the plain doctrine of the Gross 3. THESE were great accomplishments and yet but a shadow to that Divine temper of mind that was in him which discovered it self through the whole course and method of his life He was humble to the lowest step of abasure and condescension none ever thinking better of others or more meanly of himself And though when he had to deal with envious and malicious adversaries who by vilifying his person sought to obstruct his Ministry he knew how to magnifie his office and to let them know that the was no whit inferiour to the very chiefest Apostles yet out of this case he constantly declared to all the World that he looked upon himself as an Abortive and an untimely Birth as the least of the Apostles not meet to be called an Apostle and as if this were not enough he makes a word on purpose to express his humility stiling himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 less than the least of all Saints yea the very chief of sinners How freely and that at every turn does he confess what he was before his conversion a Blasphemer a Persecutor and Injurious both to God and Men Though honoured with peculiar Acts of the highest grace and favour taken up to an immediate converse with God in Heaven yet did not this swell him with a supercilious loftiness over the rest of his brethren Intrusted he was with great power and authority in the Church but never affected dominion over men's Faith nor any other place than to be an helper of their joy nor ever made use of his power but to the edification not destruction of any How studiously did he decline all honours and commendations that were heaped upon him When some in the church of Corinth cried him up beyond all measures and under the patronage of his name began to set up for a party he severely rebuked them told them that it was Christ not he that was crucified for them that they had not been baptized into his name which he was so far from that he did not remember that he had baptized above three or four of them and was heartily glad he had baptized no more left a foundation might have been laid for that suspicion that this Paul whom they so much extolled was no more than a minister of Christ whom our Lord had appointed to plant and build up his Church 4. GREAT was his temperance and sobriety so far from going beyond the bounds of regularity that he abridged himself of the conveniences of lawful and necessary accommodations frequent his hungrings and thirstings not constrained only but voluntary it 's probably thought that he very rarely drank any Wine certain that by abstinence and mortification he kept under and subdued his body reducing the extravagancy of the sensual appetites to a perfect subjection to the laws of Reason By this means he easily got above the World and its charms and frowns had his mind continually conversant in Heaven his thoughts were fixed there his desires always ascending thither what he taught others he practised himself his conversation was in Heaven and his desires were to depart and to be with Christ this World did neither arrest his affections nor disturb his fears he was not taken with its applause nor frighted with its threatnings he studied not to please men nor valued the censures and judgments which they passed upon him he was not greedy of a great estate or titles of honour or rich presents from men not seeking theirs but them food and raiment was his bill of fare and more than this he never cared for accounting that the less he was clogged with these things the lighter he should march to Heaven especially travelling through a World over-run with troubles and persecutions Upon this account it 's probable he kept himself always within a single life though there want not some of the Ancients who expresly reckon him in the number of the married Apostles as Clemens Alexandrinus Ignatius and some others 'T is true that passage is not to be found in the genuine Epistle of Ignatius but yet is extant in all those that are owned and published by the Church of Rome though they have not been wanting to banish it out of the World having expunged S. Paul's name out of some ancient Manuscripts as the learned Bishop Usher has to their shame sufficiently discovered to the World But for the main of the question we can readily grant it the Scripture seeming most to favour it that though he asserted his power and liberty to marry as well as the rest yet that he lived always a single life 5. HIS kindness and charity was truly admirable he had a compassionate tenderness for the poor and a quick sense of the wants of others To what Church soever he came it was one of his first cares to make provision for the poor and to stir up the bounty of the rich and the wealthy nay himself worked often with his own hands not only to maintain himself but to help and relieve them But infinitely greater was his charity to the Souls of men fearing no dangers refusing no labours going through good and evil report that he might gain men over to the knowledge of the truth reduce them out of the crooked paths of vice and idolatry and set them in the right way to eternal life Nay so insatiable his thirst after the good of Souls that he affirms that rather than his Country-men the Jews should miscarry by not believing and entertaining the Gospel he could be content nay wished that himself might be accursed from Christ for their sake i. e. that he might be anathematized and cut off from the Church of Christ and not only lose the honour of the Apostolate but be reckoned in the number of the abject and execrable persons such as those are who are separated from the communion of the Church An instance of so large and passionate a charity that lest it might not find room in mens belief he ushered it in with this solemn appeal and attestation that he said the truth in Christ and lied not his conscience bearing him witness in the Holy Ghost And as he was infinitely solicitous to gain men over to the best Religion in the World so was he not less careful to keep them from being seduced from it ready to suspect every thing that might corrupt their minds from the simplicity
only preach and plant Christianity in all places whither he came but what he could not personally do he supplied by writing XIV Epistles he left upon record by which he was not only instrumental in propagating Christian Religion at first but has been useful to the World ever since in all Ages of the Church We have all along in the History of his Life taken particular notice of them in their due place and order We shall here only make some general observations and remarks upon them and that as to the stile and way wherein they are written their Order and the Subscriptions that are added to them For the Apostle's stile and manner of writing it is plain and simple and though not set off with the elaborate artifices and affected additionals of humane eloquence yet grave and majestical and that by the confession of his very enemies his Letters say they are weighty and powerful Nor are there wanting in them some strains of Rhetorick which sufficiently testifie his ability that way had he made it any part of his study and design Indeed S. Hierom is sometimes too rude and bold in his censures of S. Paul's stile and character He tells us that being an Hebrew of the Hebrews and admirably skill'd in the Language of his Nation he was greatly defective in the Greek Tongue though a late great Critick is of another mind affirming him to have been as well or better skill'd in Greek than in Hebrew or in Syriack wherein he could not sufficiently express his conceptions in a way becoming the majesty of his sence and the matter he delivered nor transmit the elegancy of his Native Tongue into another Language that hence he became obscure and intricate in his expressions guilty many times of solecisms and scarce tolerable syntax and that therefore 't was not his humility but the truth of the thing that made him say that he came not with the excellency of speech but in the power of God A censure from any other than S. Hierom that would have been justly wondred at but we know the liberty that he takes to censure any though the reverence due to so great an Apostle might one would think have challenged a more modest censure at his hands However elsewhere he cries him up as a great Master of composition that as oft as he heard him he seemed to hear not words but thunder that in all his citations he made use of the most prudent artifices using simple words and which seemed to carry nothing but plainness along with them but which way soever a Man turned breathed force and thunder He seems entangled in his cause but catches all that comes near him turns his back as if intending to fly when 't is only that he may overcome 9. SAINT Peter long since observed that in Paul's Epistles there were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some things hard to be understood which surely is not altogether owing to the profoundness of his sence and the mysteriousness of the subject that he treats of but in some degree to his manner of expression his frequent Hebraisms common to him with all the Holy Writers of the New Testament his peculiar forms and ways of speech his often inserting Jewish Opinions and yet but tacitly touching them his using some words in a new and uncommon sence but above all his frequent and abrupt transitions suddenly starting aside from one thing to another whereby his Reader is left at a loss not knowing which way to follow him not a little contributing to the perplex'd obscurity of his discourses Irenaeus took notice of old that S. Paul makes frequent use of these Hyperbata by reason of the swiftness of his arguings and the great fervour and impetus that was in him leaving many times the designed frame and texture of his discourse not bringing in what should have immediately connected the sence and order till some distance after which indeed to Men of a more nice and delicate temper and who will not give themselves leave patiently to trace out his reasonings must needs create some obscurity Origen and S. Hierom sometimes observe that besides this he uses many of his Native phrases of the Cilician dialect which being in a great measure foreign and exotick to the ordinary Greek introduces a kind of strangeness into his discourse and renders it less intelligible Epiphanius tells us that by these methods he acted like a skilful Archer hitting the mark before his adversaries were aware of it by words misplaced making the frame of his discourse seem obscure and entangled while in it self it was not only most true but elaborate and not difficult to be understood that to careless and trifling Readers it might sometimes seem dissonant and incoherent but to them that are diligent and will take their reason along with them it would appear full of truth and to be disposed with great care and order 10. AS for the order of these Epistles we have already given a particular account of the times when and the places whence they were written That which is here considerable is the Order according to which they are disposed in the sacred Ganon Certain it is that they are not plac'd according to the just order of time wherein they were written the two Epistles to the Thessalonians being on all hands agreed to have been first written though set almost last in order Most probable therefore it is that they were plac'd according to the dignity of those to whom they were sent the reason why those to whole Churches have the precedency of those to particular persons and among those to Churches that to the Romans had the first place and rank assigned to it because of the majesty of the Imperial City and the eminency and honourable respect which that Church derived thence and whether the same reason do not hold in others though I will not positively assert yet I think none will over-confidently deny The last enquiry concerns the subscriptions added to the end of these Epistles which were they authentick would determine some doubts concerning the time and place of their writing But alas they are of no just value and authority not the same in all Copies different in the Syriack and Arabick Versions nay wholly wanting in some ancient Greek Copies of the New Testament and were doubtless at first added at best upon probable conjectures When at any time they truly represent the place whence or the Person by whom the Epistle was sent 't is not that they are to be relied upon in it but because the thing is either intimated or expressed in the body of the Epistle I shall add no more but this observation that S. Paul was wont to subscribe every Epistle with his own hand which is my token in every Epistle so I write Which was done says one of the Ancients to prevent impostures that his Epistles might not be interpolated and corrupted and
Patmos It was of old not only rejected by Hereticks but controverted by many of the Fathers themselves Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria has a very large discourse concerning it he tells us that many plainly disowned this Book not only for the matter but the Author of it as being neither Apostle no nor any Holy or Ecclesiastical Person that Cerinthus prefixed John's name to it to give the more plausible title to his Dream of Christ's Reign upon Earth and that sensual and carnal state that should attend it that for his part he durst not reject it looking upon it as containing wise and admirable mysteries though he could not fathom and comprehend them that he did not measure them by his own line nor condemn but rather admire what he could not understand that he owned the Author to have been an holy and divinely-inspired Person but could not believe it to be S. John the Apostle and Evangelist neither stile matter nor method agreeing with his other Writings that in this he frequently names himself which he never does in any other that there were several Johns at that time and two buried at Ephesus the Apostle and another one of the Disciples that dwelt in Asia but which the Author of this Book he leaves uncertain But though doubted of by some it was entertained by the far greater part of the Ancients as the genuine work of our S. John Nor could the setting down his Name be any reasonable exception for whatever he might do in his other Writings especially his Gospel where it was less necessary Historical matters depending not so much upon his authority yet it was otherwise in Prophetick Revelations where the Person of the Revealer adds great weight and moment the reason why some of the Prophets under the Old Testament did so frequently set down their own Names The diversity of the stile is of no considerable value in this case it being no wonder if in arguments so vastly different the same Person did not always observe the same tenor and way of writing whereof there want not instances in some others of the Apostolick Order The truth is all circumstances concur to intitle our Apostle to be the Author of it his name frequently expressed its being written in the Island of Patmos a circumstance not competible to any but S. John his stiling himself their Brother and Companion in Tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ his writing particular 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 figments 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 entrusted 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 solicitation of the Asian Bishops and Ambassadors 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 scarce 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 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 Constantine the Great advanced to the honour of a Count of the Empire who breaking open the Treasury though he missed of money found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Books beyond all Treasure S. Matthew and 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 holiness 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 wise 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 by 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 elegant there being an accuracy in the contexture both of words and matter that runs through all the reasonings of his discourses but that in the Apocalypse the stile is nothing so pure and clear being frequently mixed with more barbarous and improper phrases Indeed his Greek generally abounds with Syriasms his discourses many times abrupt set off with frequent antitheses connected with copulatives passages often repeated things at first more obscurely propounded and which he is forced to enlighten with subsequent explications words peculiar to himself and phrases used in an uncommon sence All which concur to render his way of Writing less grateful possibly to the Masters of eloquence and an elaborate curiosity S. Hierom observes that in citing places out of the Old Testament he more immediately translates from the Hebrew Original studying to render things word for word for being an Hebrew of the Hebrews admirably skill'd in the Language of his Countrey it probably made him less exact in his Greek composures wherein he had very little advantage besides what was immediately communicated from above But whatever was wanting in the politeness of his stile was abundantly made up in the zeal of his temper and the excellency and sublimity of his matter he truly answered his Name Boanerges spake and writ like a Son of Thunder Whence it is that his Writings but especially his Gospel have such great and honourable things spoken of them by the Ancients The Evangelical writings says S. Basil transcend the other parts of the Holy Volumes in other parts God speaks to us by Servants the Prophets but in the Gospels our Lord himself speaks to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but among all the Evangelical Preachers none like S. John the Son of Thunder for the sublimeness of his speech and the heighth of his discourses beyond any Man's capacity duly to reach and comprehend S. John as a true Son of Thunder says Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a certain greatness of speech peculiar to himself does as it were out of the Clouds and the dark recesses of wisdome acquaint us with Divine Doctrines concerning the Son of God To which let me add what S. Cyril of Alexandria among other things says concerning him that whoever looks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the sublimity of his incomprehensible notions the acumen and sharpness of his reason and the quick inferences of his discourses constantly succeeding and following upon one another must needs confess that his Gospel perfectly exceeds all admiration The End of S. John 's Life THE LIFE OF S. PHILIP St Philip After he had converted all Scythia he was at Hierapolis a City of Asia first crucified and then stoned to death Baron May. 10. St. Philip's Martyrdom Act. 5.30 Whom ye slew hanged on a tree Matth. 10.24 25. The disciple is not above his master nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. Galilee generally despised by the Jews and why The honour which our Lord put upon it S. Andrew 's birth-place His being first called to be a Disciple and the manner of it An account of his ready obedience to Christ 's call What the Evangelists relate concerning him considered The discourse between our Lord and him concerning the knowledge of the Father His preaching the Gospel in the Upper Asia and the happy effects of his Ministry His coming to Hierapolis in Phrygia and successful confutation of their Idolatries The rage and fury of the Magistrates against him His Martyrdom Crucifixion and Burial His married condition The confounding him with Philip the Deacon The Gospel forged by the Gnosticks under his Name 1. OF all parts of Palestine Galilee seems to have passed under the greatest character of ignominy and reproach The Country it self because bordering upon the Idolatrous uncircumcised Nations called Galilee of the Gentiles the people generally beheld as more rude and boisterous more unpolished and barbarous than the rest not remarkable either for Civility or Religion The Galileans received him having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the Feast for they also went up unto the Feast as if it had been a wonder and a matter of very strange remark to see so much devotion in them as to attend the solemnity of the Passeover Indeed both Jew and Gentile conspired in this that they thought they could not fix a greater title of reproach upon our Saviour and his followers than
Jacob and that S. Jude was of this society and because of his eminency among them retained the title of Labius or as it was corruptly pronounced Lebbaeus I confess I should have thought the conjecture of a Learned man very probable that he might have derived this name from the place of his nativity as being born at Lebba a Town which he tells us Pliny speaks of in the Province of Galilee not far from Carmel but that it is not Lebba but Jebba in all copies of Pliny that I have seen But let the Reader please himself in which conjecture he likes best 2. FOR his Descent and Parentage he was of our Lord's kindred Nicephorus truly making him the son of Joseph and brother to James Bishop of Jerusalem that there was a Jude one of the number is very evident Are not his brethren James and Joses and Simon and Judas which makes me the more to wonder at Scaliger who so confidently denies that any of the Evangelists ever mention a Jude the brother of our Lord. S. Hierom seems often to confound him with Simon the Zealot whose title he ascribes to him though second thoughts set him right as indeed common advertency could do no less so plain is the account which the Evangelists give of this matter When called to the Discipleship we find not as not meeting with him till we find him enumerated in the Catalogue of Apostles nor is any thing particularly recorded of him afterwards more than one question that he propounded to our Saviour who having told them what great things he and his Father would do and what particular manifestations after his Resurrection he would make of himself to his sincere disciples and followers S. Jude whose thoughts as well as the rest were taken up with the expectations of a temporal Kindom of the Messiah not knowing how this could consist with the publick solemnity of that glorious state they looked for asked him what was the reason that he would manifest himself to them and not to the World Our Lord replied that the World was not capable of these Divine manifestations as being a stranger and an enemy to what should fit them for fellowship with Heaven that they were only good men persons of a Divine temper of mind and religious observers of his Laws and Will whom God would honour with these familiar converses and admit to such particular acts of grace and favour 3. EUSEBIUS relates that soon after our Lord's Ascension S. Thomas dispatched Thaddaeus the Apostle to Abgarus Governour of Edessa where he healed diseases wrought miracles expounded the doctrines of Christianity and converted Abgarus and his people to the Faith For all which pains when the Toparch offered him vast gifts and presents he refused them with a noble scorn telling him they had little reason to receive from others what they had freely relinquished and left themselves A large account of this whole affair is extant in Eusebius translated by him out of Syriack from the Records of the City of Edessa This Thaddaeus S. Hierom expresly makes to be our S. Jude though his bare authority is not in this case sufficient evidence especially since Eusebius makes him no more than one of the seventy Disciples which he would scarce have done had he been one of the Twelve He calls him indeed an Apostle but that may imply no more than according to the large acception of the word that he was a Disciple a Companion and an Assistent to them as we know the Seventy eminently were Nor is any thing more common in ancient Ecclesiastick Writers than for the first planters and propagaters of Christian Religion in any Country to be honoured with the name and title of Apostles But however this be at his first setting out to preach the Gospel he went up and down Judaea and Galilee then through Samaria into Idumea and to the Cities of Arabia and the neighbour Countries and after to Syria and Mesopotamia Nicephorus adds that he came at last to Edessa where Abgarus was Governour and where the other Thaddaeus one of the Seventy had been before him Here he perfected what the other had begun and having by his Sermons and Miracles established the Religion of our Saviour died a peaceable and a quiet death though Dorotheus makes him slain at Berytus and honourably buried there By the almost general consent of the Writers of the Latin Church he is said to have travelled into Persia where after great success in his Apostolical Ministry for many years he was at last for his free and open reproving the superstitious rites and usages of the Magi cruelly put to death 4. THAT he was one of the married Apostles sufficiently appears from his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Grandsons mentioned by Eusebius of whom Hegesippus gives this account Domitian the Emperor whose enormous wickednesses had awakened in him the quickest jealousies and made him suspect every one that might look like a corrival in the Empire had heard that there were some of the line of David and Christ's kindred that did yet remain Two Grandchildren of S. Jude the Brother of our Lord were brought before him Having confessed that they were of the Race and posterity of David he asked what possessions and estate they had they told him that they had but a very few acres of land out of the improvement whereof they both paid him Tribute and maintained themselves with their own hard labour as by the hardness and callousness of their hands which they then shewed him did appear He then enquired of them concerning Christ and the state of his Kingdom what kind of Empire it was and when and where it would commence To which they replied That his Kingdom was not of this World nor of the Seigniories and Dominions of it but Heavenly and Angelical and would finally take place in the end of the World when coming with great glory he would judge the quick and the dead and award all men recompences according to their works The issue was that looking upon the meanness and simplicity of the men as below his jealousies and fears he dismissed them without any severity used against them who being now beheld not only as kinsmen but as Martyrs of our Lord were honoured by all preferred to places of authority and government in the Church and lived till the times of Trajan 5. S. Jude left only one Epistle of Catholick and universal concernment inscribed at large to all Christians It was some time before it met with general reception in the Church or was taken notice of The Author indeed stiles not himself an Apostle but no more does S. James S. John nor sometimes S. Paul himself And why should he fare the worse for his humility only for calling himself the servant of Christ when he might have added not only Apostle but the Brother of our Lord The best is he has added what was equivalent Jude
the Brother of James a character that can belong to none but our Apostle beside that the Title of the Epistle which is of great Antiquity runs thus The general Epistle of Jude the Apostle One great argument as S. Hierom informs us against the authority of this Epistle of old was its quoting a passage out of an Apocryphal Book of Enoch This Book called the Apocalypse of Enoch was very early extant in the Church frequently mentioned and passages cited out of it by Irenaeus Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origen and others some of whom accounted it little less than Canonical But what if our Apostle had it not out of this Apocryphal Book but from some prophecy currant from age to age handed to him by common tradition or immediately revealed to him by the Spirit of God But suppose it taken out of that Book going under Enoch's name this makes nothing against the authority of the Epistle every thing I hope is not presently false that 's contained in an Apocryphal and Uncanonical writing nor does the taking a single testimony out of it any more infer the Apostles approbation of all the rest than S. Paul's quoting a good sentence or two out of Menander Arâ—tus and Epimenides imply that he approved all the rest of the writings of those Heathen Poets And indeed nothing could be more fit and proper than this way if we consider that the Apostle in this Epistle chiefly argues against the Gnosticks who mainly traded in such Traditionary and Apocryphal writings and probably in this very Book of Enoch The same account may be given of that other passage in this Epistle concerning the contention between Michael the Archangel and the Devil about the burial of Moses his Body no where extant in the holy Records supposed to have been taken out of a Jewish writing called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Dismission of Moses mentioned by some of the Greek Fathers under the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Ascension of Moses in which this passage was upon record Nor is it any more a wonder that S. Jude should do this than that S. Paul should put down Jannes and Jambres for the two Magicians of Pharaoh that opposed Moses which he must either derive from Tradition or fetch out of some Uncanonical Author of those times there being no mention of their names in Moses his relation of that matter But be these passages whence they will 't is enough to us that the Spirit of God has made them Authentick and consecrated them part of the holy Canon 6. BEING thus satisfied in the Canonicalness of this Epistle none but S. Jude could be the Author of it for who but he was the Brother of S. James a character by which he is described in the Evangelical story more than once Grotius indeed will needs have it written by a younger Jude the fifteenth Bishop of Jerusalem in the reign of Adrian and because he saw that that passage the Brother of James stood full in his way he concludes without any shadow of reason that it was added by some Transcriber But is not this to make too bold with Sacred things is not this to indulge too great a liberty this once allowed 't will soon open a door to the wildest and most extravagant conjectures and no man shall know where to find sure-footing for his Faith But the Reader may remember what we have elsewhere observed concerning the Posthume Annotations of that learned man Not to say that there are many things in this Epistle that evidently refer to the time of this Apostle and imply it to have been written upon the same occasion and about the same time with the second Epistle of Peter between which and this there is a very great affinity both in words and matter nay there want not some that endeavour to prove this Epistle to have been written no less than twenty seven years before that of Peter and that hence it was that Peter borrowed those passages that are so near a-kin to those in this Epistle The design of the Epistle is to preserve Christians from the infection of Gnosticism the loose and debauched principles vented by Simon Magus and his followers whose wretched doctrines and practices he briefly and elegantly represents perswading Christians heartily to contend for the Faith that had been delivered to them and to avoid these pernicious Seducers as pests and fire-brands not to communicate with them in their sins lest they perished with them in that terrible vengeance that was ready to overtake them The End of S. Jude 's Life THE LIFE OF S. MATTHIAS S. MATHIAS He preached the Gospell in Ethiopia suffered Martyrdome and was buried there S. Hierom. St. Matthias his Martyrdom Hebr. 11.37 They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were tempted were slain with the sword S. Matthias one of the Seventy Judas Iscariot whence A bad Minister nulls not the ends of his Ministration His worldly and covetous temper His monstrous ingratitude His betraying his Master and the agravations of the sin The distraction and horror of his mind The miserable state of an evil and guilty Conscience His violent death The election of a new Apostle The Candidates who The Lot cast upon Matthias His preaching the Gospel and in what parts of the World His Martyrdom when where and how His Body whither translated The Gospel and Traditions vented under his name 1. SAINT Matthias not being an Apostle of the first Election immediately called and chosen by our Saviour particular remarks concerning him are not to be expected in the History of the Gospel He was one of our Lord's Disciples and probably one of the Seventy that had attended on him the whole time of his publick Ministry and after his death was elected into the Apostleship upon this occasion Judas Iscariot so called probably from the place of his nativity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of Kerioth a City anciently situate in the Tribe of Judah had been one of the Twelve immediately called by Christ to be one of his intimate Disciples equally impowered and commissioned with the rest to Preach and work Miracles was numbred with them and had obtained part of their Ministry And yet all this while was a man of vile and corrupt designs branded with no meaner a character than Thief and Murderer To let us see that there may be bad servants in Christ's own family and that the wickedness of a Minister does not evacuate his Commission nor render his Office useless and ineffectual The unworthiness of the instrument hinders not the ends of the ministration Seeing the efficacy of an ordinance depends not upon the quality of the person but the Divine institution and the blessing which God has entailed upon it Judas preached Christ no doubt with zeal and servency and for any thing we know with as much success as the rest of the Apostles and yet he was a bad man a man acted by