by tearing off ten of its Skirts But to return As I have been forc'd to prove that before our Saviour the Scepter was not departed and therefore this Prophecy of Jacob is not applicable to any before him So I shall now shew it is not applicable to any since by demonstrating the Scepter to have departed at that time by such Effects of its departure as are acknowledged for such by the Jew himself and pointed to as such by his own Scriptures and invelop that Nation in a Darkness that may be felt and far exceeds the blackest Darkness which befel that State in its greatest Eclipses The Sanctuary half Shekel paid to the Capitol It is Doctor Lightfoot's Observation out of Xiphilinus apud Dionem in the Place fore-cited that in acknowledgment of their Subjection to the Emperour the Jews were enjoyn'd by Vespasian to pay to the Capitol that Didrachma or Half-shekel that they usually paid to the Temple for their Lives A ransom for their souls unto the Lord Exodus 30. 12 13. The mony of the soul's estimation of every one that passeth the account 2 Reg. 12. 4. for I take both these places to speak of one and the same Shekel though Master Weems makes them two calling this latter Argentum transeuntis that is the Half-shekel which they paid to the Lord when they were numbred by head making a distinction where there is no difference for in that Text which he quotes for the first Ex. 30. 12. there is mention made that that was to be payed when they were numbred three times in two verses When thou takest the sum of the Children of Israel after their number then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord when thou numbrest them ver 12. and ver 13. this they shall give every one that passeth among them that are numbred Xiphilinus indeed does not expresly say it was that Half-shekel that was paid to the Temple that Vespasian appointed every Jew to pay to the Capitol but Josephus speaks home Bel. Judaic 7. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Emperour Vespasian laid this Tribute upon the Jews wheresoever they lived that they should pay to the Capitol that Didrachma which thitherto they had paid to the Temple 1. That this was the Half-shekel which they paid to the Lord for their Lives as his Tribute is manifest from both those fore-quoted Texts for Moses Exod. 30. orders the high Priest to imploy it in the service of the Tabernacle and Jehoash appoints the Priests to repair the Temple with it 2. Reg. 12. as also from another passage in Josephus Antiqu. Judaic 14. 12. where he calls it sacred mony because every Jew yearly paid it for his Life to God and sent it to the Temple from all parts of the World where they were dispersed from whose numerousness he saith it came to pass that Crassus found such vast summs in the Treasury of the Temple when he plunder'd it and that Mithridates surprized eight hundred Talents at Cons which the Jews of the lesser Asia had deposited there during those Wars not daring to send them to Jerusalem lest they might be snap'd up in the passage 2. And that this Shekel was never by any Conqueror before Vespasian required as Tribute is manifest from Josephus affirming that till then it had been used to be paid to the Temple from Pompeius reputing it so sacred as he durst not lay hands on it when he enter'd into the Temple from men's imputing Crassus his overthrow to God's avenging himself upon him for robbing the sacred Treasury where these Half-shekels were deposited that it was paid to the Temple in Caligula's Reign is manifest from that place of Josephus Ant. 18. 12 16. where he writes that the Jews of the Province of Babylon made choice of Neerda because of the strength and inaccessibleness of that place for their sacred Treasury where they deposited the sacred Didrachma till at certain Seasons they could send it to Jerusalem which they used to do with a Convoy of many thousands both for the greatness of the charge and danger of being robb'd by the way by the Parthians But this is most clearly evinc'd from the sacred Gospels informing us that the Tribute-money St. Mat. 22. 18. 19. St. Mar. 12. imposed upon the Jews by the precedent Emperours had Caesar's Image and Superscription upon it and was a Roman Coin hence stiled both in St. Matthew and St. Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Latine name and the Tribute it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 census in all printed Copies and Manuscripts that I have seen or heard of save that old Greek and Latine M S. which Beza sent to the University of Cambridge where it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pole-mony a word coin'd at the fingers end of the Scribe for the Tribute laid upon them by Augustus or Pompey and taken off by Agrippa was not paid by the head but by the house as Josephus expresly affirmeth Josoph Jud. Ant. 19. 5. Remisso ei tributo quod soliti erant in singulas aedes solvere 2. And upon this very account our Saviour determin'd it to be Caesar's due in which determination he proceeded according to their own Concessions as Lightfoot observes Harmony Sect. 77. quoting the Jerusalem Talmud bringing in David and Abigail talking thus Abigail said What evil have I or my Children done David answereth Thy Husband vilified the Kingdom of David She saith Art thou a King then He saith to her Did not Samuel anoint me King She saith to him The Coin of our Lord Saul is yet current And again in Sanhedr A King whose Coin is current in those Countreys the men of the Countrey do thereby evidence that they acknowledge him for their Lord but if his Coin be not current he is a Robber And that with as much advantage as could be desired in order to his convincing them that the Tribute of that Denarium was due to Caesar but the Tribute of the Didrachma due to God that bearing Caesar's Picture with this Inscription say Antiquaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caesar August such a year after the taking of Judea Hammond ann c. in Mat. 22. But this if it were the Kings or common Shekel being stamped on one side with a Tower standing betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Inscription with that which was written beneath amounting to this Motto Jerusalem the holy City the rundle being fill'd with this David King and his Son Solomon King or if it were the Sanctuary-shekel having on one side the Pot of Mannah or Aaron's Censer with this Inscription The Shekel of Israel on the Reverse side Aaron's Rod budding with this Motto in the Rundle Jerusalem the Holy City that is Jerusalem the Royal City of the great King Goodwin antiq lib. 6. cap. 10. Beza on Mat. 17. 24. makes the same Description of that Shekel which was given
in the case of our Jesus His not complying with them in this great maxime of State his not induring this humane test his not condescending to their terms of renouncing Judaea's and undertaking the patronage of the people and City of Rome Pilat's writing him in his Letter to Caesar as he had writ him in the Inscription over the Cross Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews was that very thing which would not down with the Senate that which made the Evangelical Doctrine too strait a glove for their gouty hand had it not been for this they would have drawn it on And had they drawn it on Tiberius would have worn Christs colours and not only have prohibited the persecution but have commanded the profession of the Christian Religion the Senate's sticking at his Canonization being that secular concern which stifled the light of his Conscience he choosing rather to save his Crown than his Soul The fear of suffering shipwrack of a good Conscience upon the shelf of this temptation together with the custom of exhibiting an oath to the Emperour at his ingress to the exercise of that dignity not to over-top the Senate in those privileges the ancient Laws had establisht them in and also the College of the Pontiffs installing him in the great Pontificality and committing to him the chief ordering of the affairs concerning the Ethnick Ceremonies a thing that Gratian said and thereupon refused the pontifical Stole was unlawful for a Christian and 't is a wonder how the former Christian Emperours could wear that Stole without galling their shoulders vid. Mord. vol. 2. pag. 746. These circumstances I say were the Lion in the thorow-Christians way to the Imperial Crown and made the Inauguration in that dignity incompetent to a Christian indeed as not being tenable or attainable in that juncture but upon those terms which were in effect and interpretatively an abrenunciation of Christ. From all which may be inferr'd for a conclusion of this Argument the invincibleness of the Empire to the obedience of Christ by an arm of flesh and the ridiculousness of attempting to batter down this strong hold wherewith the Empire had immur'd it self against the fiercest assaults the illuminated consciences of their own Emperours could make without the greatest assurance of the Divine aid Had Aegypt been the head of the worlds Empire that Wind-mill head turning its sailes about to every new wind to the imbracing of every new and strange Deity or Greece which both Divine and Secular Histories describe to be in love with novelties It would have been a business of no great difficulty to have reduc'd it to the belief of a well-coucht new Fable But to prevail with it to renounce its old and imbrace a strange God when Rome was become its Metropolis hic labor hoc opus est To poak out Leviathan from under that shelf of prejudice against a strange God by the Apostolical rod into the Net of the Gospel to draw him to that shore he had such an antipathy against by that slender silken twine wherewith the Apostles fisht for men to intice him with the bait of a foreign Deity cloathed in so mean and outwardly despicable flesh can be imputed to nothing less than the cooperation of that power with those mean instruments that 's able to subdue all things to it self and bring to nought things that are by things that are not The making of that stone which the Gentile as well as Jewish builders of all others rejected the head stone of the corner higher than the highest in the Capitol was the Lords doings a work not to have been attempted without extream madness but in the confidence of his Almighty assistance CHAP. V. A prospect of the Holy Age the Age wherein the Gospel was first publisht in respect of its skill in Theology § 1. Natural Theology then in its highest acmen by the improvement of the Pythagorick Platonick and Sacratical Philosophy Within that Century lived Varro his Encomium Scaevola and Caesar great Divines Cicero and Cratippus well seen in Natural Theology Seneca the Miracle of Humane Divines Thrasea under Nero a Martyr for Moral Divinity § 2. Prophetical Theology exploded by Pagan Philosophers Divination by Dreams and Oracles censur'd by Cicero Apollo ' s Oracles ambiguous at last silenc'd Phoebus Philippizing Chaldean prognosticators vain Praenestine Lots and Auguries decided Divination by Prodigies taunted This a barr to credulity towards the Gospel § 3. Historical Divinity decried in the Schools when the History of the blessed Jesus was first published as reporting things unworthy of God The Apostles could never have hoped to induce the disputers of this world to a belief of as unlikely stories had they had no more than an arm of flesh to trust to The conclusion of the whole matter God's Tabernacle set in the Sun shining out in its greatest lustre of humane Sciences § 4. The Civick Religion both with the Vulgar and Politicians in high respect in our Saviours Age proved from the Philosophers salvo's by consequence and directly from several examples The world was injoying her self Pigmalion like in the warm imbraces of her-own-made sacred animals § 1. ALthough the World by this four-double shield of knowledge in Arts Physical Poetical Demoniacal and Political was thus well guarded against the surprizals of Impostures yet had it wanted the eye of Theology a cunning Stalker might possibly have catcht it on its blind side Had the Sun of Metaphysical knowledge been cold set upon it the Apostles might have presumed in the darkness of that night to have dazeled its eyes with the splendor of the Gospel and to have struck it with their fish-spear or have drawn their net over it while it lay astonish'd with the strangeness of that sight As we see Salmons caught with the flame of a broom-fagot and Larks with a low-bell In order therefore to our clearing the Apostles from the charge of designing to put a cheat upon the world it will be expedient to take a view of the posture it then stood in in point of Religion which though miserably depraved with the inventions of its own foolish and judicially darkned heart through its letting slip in that vast tract of time what was once deliver'd to it by the Sons of Noah and in lieu of the old tradition taking up and filling its hand with vain imaginations yet whether it were through that Ages improving of Natural Principles or retrieving of Supernatural either by a more familiar converse with that Nation to whom God had concredited the custody of his Oracles or by means of the divulging of the Septuagint or by Gods blessing upon their faithfulness in a little never did any Age before it since the first General Apostasie stand better defended against Impostors in Religion than this did The Three Sects that only deserve the name of Divine the Pythagorick Socratical and Platonick being about our Saviours time grown to that improvement as more substantial Divinity
the reading wherein was fulfilled that Prophecy Give the Book to him and he shall say I am unlearned and cannot read it A thing no more strange than that many among us that can read Latine exactly in the usual Roman Letter when they are put to read their Neck-verse in an old Print would lose the benefit of the Clergy did they not beforehand con their lesson yet to the end the book might not continually be lock'd up from vulgar knowledge under a strange Character It pleased God when the affairs of that People were come to that settlement as to allow time for that work to stir up the great Council by the appointment and with the conduct of Ezra to transcribe the Bible into those Characters that were then and are now vulgarly known From whence arose that dangerous opinion of some unheedful both Jews and Christians that Ezra restored the Old Testament by a spirit of Prophecy after it had been quite lost and no where to be found Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 25. Cont. haer upon the same Stone stumbled Clemens Alexandrinus speaking of Ezra Per quem divinitus inspiratorum eloquiorum facta est recensio renovatio pascha salutare celebratum Strom. lib. 1. pag. 107. I call this a dangerous Opinion truly it deserves a worse Epithite as that which wholly gives up the strength of Israel into the Enemies hand and absolutely deprives us of the benefit of pleading in evidence to the supernaturalness of those Revelations the wonders that Moses wrought And that the vulgar Jews after the Captivity spake Hebrew is manifest from the Testimony of Josephus in his Antiq. Judaic lib. 11. 5. where he hath this story that Nehemiah as he was walking before Susa the Metropolis of Persia overheard certain Strangers as they were travelling towards the City discoursing among themselves in Hebrew and drawing towards them he asked from whence they came they answered him from Judaea and inform'd him in what bad state the Jewish Affairs were which bad News was the occasion of his looking so heavily as the King took notice of it Yea that the Vulgar understood it at their Conquest by Titus is manifest from Josephus's speaking to them in the name of Caesar in Hebrew that not only the Captain of the Rebels but the vulgar might understand him Bel. Jud. 7. 4 Itaque Josephus ne soli Joanni haec intimarentur sed pluribus constitit ubi exaudiri possit mandata Caesaris Hebraico Sermone disseruit 2 The Greek into which the Hebrew Text was translated was the common Tongue of most of those Nations into which the Jews were dispersed and to all of them the badge of their subjection to the Grecian Empire and the then common Key as Latin was afterwards and is now in the Western part of the World to all Provinces to unlock their minds to one another in natural commerce so that without the knowledg of that they must have interdicted themselves of Fire and Water That the Jews by that time the Law was translated had upon this account gained the knowledg of the Greek appears from the so commonness of that Language amongst them for a while after as it is stiled by their own Rabbies their vulgar Tongue in the Babilon Gomara in Megilla fol. 9. Col. 2. They say there are four Languages brave for the World to use the Vulgar the Syrian the Roman and the Hebrew and some add the Asserian and that by vulgar they here mean the Greek is clear from Midras Tillius fol. 25. Col. 4. where speaking of this passage the Greek is named in room of the Vulgar and from their interpreting that Prophecy of Noah Japhet shall dwell in the Tents of Sem. by they shall speak the Language of Japhet that is the Greecian in the Land of Judea read Dr. Lightfoot Harmon anno Christi 62. Nero. 8. pag. 141. To bring this so much disputed Point among those whom too much or too little Learning makes mad to the capacity even of Idiots the Belgick Churches in England express to the life the state of the Jewish in the dispersion as to their perfect understanding their own and our Tongue what Dutch is to them Hebrew was yea is to the Jews and what Greek was to the Jews inhabiting the Siro-Grecian Empire that is English to the Dutch with us And I think it were an easie thing out of one Congregation of them to single out more than Aristaeus reports Eleazar to have cull'd out of one whole Tribe able without Hesitancy Variance or Mistake to turn their Belgick Bible into English and in as short a time as that Translation was compleated in viz. 72. Days without administring occasion of Wonder to a man less seen in the nature of things than the excellent Scaliger how that place Exodus 24. 9. Of the chosen of Israel none did disagree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could be applyed to the Translators for indeed it must have been through God's laying a judicial hand upon them had they varied one from another in translating out of and into those Lingua's they had at their Fingers ends § 4. Scaliger's Third Exception Against the common story of the Seventy is that it stands not with reason that Ptolemy should have been so ready in propounding that Scripture form of Execration If any man shall add or take from this Book let him be accursed Answer What improbability can this be burden'd with seeing as Aristaeus there saith this Form of cursing was common to Greeks and Romans as well as Jews and if it had not yet Ptolemy might have learnt it out of Scripture for he did not pronounce this Curse till he had heard the Law read to him out of the Greek Translation by Demetrius and had expressed how exceedingly he admired the Wisdom of the Lawgiver and enquired of Demetrius how it came to pass that neither any Historian nor Poet had made mention of so admirable a Law and received from him this satisfactory Answer that this Law was so divine and worthy of such Veneration as none of them durst meddle with it and if any had been so venturous as to lay unwashen hands upon it they were sure not to escape the revenging hand of Heaven for Theopompus the Poet being minded to insert some passages out of this Law into his Poems was struck with madness for thirty days that is till in some lucid Intervals suspecting what was the cause of that divine displeasure against him he retracted his purpose by repentance and cryed Peccavi in his humble addresses to God for approaching that holy place with his shooes on And Theodectes intending to transplant some Slips out of that inclosed Garden into his Tragick Scenes was afflicted in his eye till he had acknowledged his Errour and begged the restoring of his sight Can it then seem strange that Ptolemy's ears being filled with such like discourse his mouth should be filled with that Execration against them that should add Prophane
enacting of a Law that whatever Jew should thence-forward touch upon their Coast should presently be put to Death This made Trajan jealous of the Jews of Mesopotamia lest they should joyn Forces with their Brethren as they of Aegypt had done in defence of their home-spun King for the Prevention of which he sent Lucius Quincius to banish them the Province These things saith Eusehius Eccles. hist. 4. 2. were recorded by Heathen Historiographers then living Now what but the Importance of the Case as that wherein the Emperial Crown lay at Stake could have made Trajan thus jealous being a Prince naturally averse to that Passion of which he gave sufficient Proof in his Carriage to Sura who though he was vehemently accused to him of Treason yet inviting the Emperour to Supper he not only came but came without Guard and committed his Throat to Sura's Barber Dionis Nerva Trajan § 4. In the eighteenth Year of his Successor Adrian the Eastern Prophecy ripens the Jews into another Rebellion under the Conduct of another Changling Messiah Barchochebas that Son of the Star as his Name imports who gave out himself to be that Star of Jacob who was come from Heaven as a Light to shine comfortably upon the Jews and conduct them out of the Roman Bondage It is not unworthy of Observation that this Antichrist was as virulent an Enemy to the Christians as Romans and that upon the same Quarrel viz. their affirming that the Oriental Prophecy had already received its Accomplishment For in that general Point they agreed against the Jew to the utter vacating of Barchochebas his Claim though they vastly dissented in their applying of it the one to our Jesus the other to the Roman Emperour Spartian Adrian The occasion of this Rebellion saith Spartianus was Adrian's prohibiting them Circumcision fearing be like that Nation would never suffer the Romans quietly to enjoy the Possession of the Universal Monarchy as long as the Seal of the Covenant of the Messiah remained with them as long as they were permitted to bear that mark in their Flesh which was instituted as a Sign that the King of Nations was to come from Abraham's Loins For why else should he forbid it to them and not other Nations but because other Nations used it only as a Religious Mundifying Rite but the Jews over and beside that as a Political Badg to distinguish them from all others as that Nation which God had singled out to this peculiar Privilege that he who was to reduce the whole World to his Obedience was to come out of that Stock Oriundus esset ex Judaea From hope of which that he might force them to an absolute Despondency he erected a Temple to Jupiter affronting the Ruines of that which had been the Temple of the God of Abraham upbraiding them with the Imbecillity of that God whereon they depended as not able to preserve his own Sacrifices from becoming a Prey to the Roman Eagle This Insurrection saith Dion caused a Concussion in the whole World indeed as the contending Parties stated the Case the whole World was concern'd in it the Question being whether Barchochab or the Roman Emperour was the Person specified in the Eastern Tradition which Question though it was in the Effect and Issue of that War determin'd against the Jew who was not only routed in that Fight but had five Hundred of his most eminent strong Holds dismantled nine Hundred eighty and five of his most Populous and Famous Towns sack'd and burn'd down to the Ground and fifty Thousand of men of Arms slain and a very great Multitude consum'd with Famine Fire and raging Maladies insomuch as almost all Judea was turn'd into a Forrest a Desolation answerable to the Presages of it Solomon's Sepulchre fell flat to the Ground without hands Wolves and Hyenas were heard howling up and down their Cities c. Yet for all this Adrian thought not himself sufficiently secured against his Fears of a new King arising in Judea that might dispossess him of his Empire till he had buried the Memorial of their Metropolis in its own Ruines and out of them built a new City hard by the place where that had stood calling it after his own name Aelia and wiped the whole Land of its Natives as a Man wipeth a Dish making it capital for any of them so much as to look back upon their Native Soyl no not afar off from the Tops of Hills as if he had been jealous that their Eye might glance and inject the Spawn of Rebellion into that King-teeming Soil except it were pitch'd with the foot of Strangers Nerva was the only Emperour from Julius to Trajan whom Pagan History paints not looking asquint on Judea the reason of that may be either the shortness of his Reign wherein he had scarce room to look about him and learn the Concerns of the Empire or the Fearless Habit of his Soul and his Contempt of the most formidable Pretensions having that Confidence in his own Integrity as to assume Virginius Rufus to be his Colleague in the Consulship whom the Roman Legions had proclaimed Emperour to cause Crassus Calphurnius with the rest of his Fellow-Conspirators to sit down by him on the Stage and put Swords into their Hands bidding them try whether they were sharp enough signifying saith my Author he had not much cared if they had slain him upon the Place And as to offer his naked Throat to the drawn Sword of Aelianus Casperius accused to him of Treason Dion Cos. Nerva How be it there is one Passage in his Story may confirm us in this Opinion that it was a Maxim of Roman Policy to keep a Jealous Eye over Judea to wit Dion's reporting his prohibiting any of the Jewish Sect to be medled with as the chief ground of Fronto's Speech that it was of evil Consequence to the Commonwealth to have him to Reign under whom nothing is indulged to any but of far worse to live under him under whom all men were winked at in which Sarcasm Fronto reckons his Connivance at the Jews as an unpolitick Act and the Effect of his Natural Oscitancy aggravated with dull Old Age. The Consul is the Eye of the Republick his Eye we see is upon Judea though the Emperour's be not We have seen the Emperours for almost two Hundred Years handing down to their Successors this Principle of State Every Motion in Judea is narrowly to be observed for from thence the East does with the highest Confidence expect the arising of one that shall Lord it over all States during which Time the Gospel was dayly brought under Examination before the Roman Tribunals where the Church asserts the Synagogue denies Jesus of Nazareth to be that King Is it possible then that in discussing that Question and those Contingencies in Judea which the Church alleadged in Proof of her Assertion Interest of State should not sollicit the Agents of the Empire to the Exercise of so much more Diligence in
lost two Sons but lost them by the hands of Ophella's Souldiers In which passage my Author seems to compare Agathocles his Immolation of Ophella to his own lusts with the Carthaginians Oblation of their Children to Saturn that the meritorious cause of his ruine this of their deliverance Hence Philo immolandos exhibuisse filios vel pro incolumitate patriae velut averterent bella siccitates inundationes pestilentias de Abrahamo 243. the Gentiles sacrificed children for the common safety for the averting of War Plague drought c. Hyginus Poetic Astronom tit Hydra reports that the Plague raging at Phlagusa near Troy Demiphon enquired of the Oracle what course he should take to pacifie the incensed Deity Apollo commands they should every year sacria Virgin of noble Parentage Petronius Arbiter amongst the most trite and obvious things in Classick Authors reckons responsa in pestellentiam data ut virgines tres aut plures immolentur Satyric pag. 1. Responds given for the removal of the Pestilence that two or three or more Virgins should be sacrificed If we review those Instances of humane Victimes that have already been quoted we shall find they were applyed to as their sacred Anker when all other ways of supplications were found inavailable and their distress such as required immediate redress and would admit of no delay Thus when the Priests of Baal found their God to lend a deaf ear to their Prayers they invoke him with the voice of their own Blood When the Grecians in their expedition to Troy at Aulis cannot by their Hecatombs of bestial Victims obtain the favour of their angry Goddess they immolate Iphigenia and when in their return home at the Taurick Chersonesus they cannot by any other means attone Achilles's Ghost or engage a fair wind homeward they with joynt consent sacrifice Polixena When the Marcomanni invaded the Empire an Christi 271. Fulvius Sabinus made a motion in the Senate by the Emperour's Order that the Sybil's Books might be consulted and such Sacrifices offered as they appointed for so great an Exigent to the which he instigates them in these words Serò nimis P. C. de reipublicae salute consulimus serò ad fatalia jussa respicimus more languentium qui ad summos medicos nisi in summa desperatione non mittunt we consult too late oh ye conscript Fathers about the safety of the Commonwealth we look too late to the fatal Commands after the manner of languishing persons who send not for the best Physicians but in greatest Extremity Now what these fatalia jussa were appears from the Emp. Aurelian's letter to the Senate Miror vos patres sancti tamdiu de aperiendis Sibyllinis dubitasse libris quasi in Christianorum Ecclesia non in templo deorum omnium tractaretis Agite igitur ceremoniisque solennibus juvate principem Necessitate publica laborantem inspiciantur libri quae facienda fuerint celebrentur quemlibet sumptum cujuslibet gentis Captivos quaelibet animalia regia non abnuo sed libens offero Vopiscus in Aureliano pag. 100 102. I wonder holy Fathers that you should thus long dwell upon the question whether the Sibylline Oracles are to be consulted or no as if you handled this question in a Church of Christians and not in the Temple of all the Gods Go to therefore and with solemn Ceremonies aid Prince labouring under the publick necessity Let the books be looked into and whatsoever they appoint to be done be it to sacrifice Cattel Captives or whomsoever it shall be observed § 5. But we need no better evidence that men fled to humane Blood in those extremities out of which they found no exit any other way than what the sacred Scriptures afford where it is recorded that the King of Moab being besieged in Kirharraseth seeing that he could neither hold out against the assaults nor with his select band make his way through the Forces of his Enemies and being resolv'd not to yield till he had tryed the last means of invoking and engaging the divine aid took his eldest Son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him up for a Burnt-offering upon the wall 2. Reg. 3. 26. And when the King of Moab saw that the battel was too sore for him he took with him seven hundred men to break through even to the King of Edom but they could not Then he took his eldest Son c. And there was great indignation against Israel and they departed from him and returned to their own Land I shall not here dispute whether Junius Tremelius their first or second thoughts are soundest It will be sufficient for my turn to prove their second not overwise except in St. Paul's sence being part of them grounded upon their correcting the Text as themselves translate it the Text Accepit filium suum primogenitum The Margin Corrigendum Ejus id est Regis Edomoeorum Such is their conceipt that the King of Moab sacrificed the King of Edom's Son for the framing of which they turn Suum which clearly carries it to the King of Moab into Ejus to which they make the King of Edom the antecedent whose Son they would make us believe the King of Moab took Prisoner in that fruitless sally he made to break through the King of Edom's Forces a thing in its self 't is true possible though very improbable that he who could not break through to the King of Edom's Forces sor the safety of his life by flight should be able to carry off such a Prisoner who doubtless was near his father's Standard in his retreat to the City through the Forces of the Kings of Judah and Israel which lay betwixt the City and the King of Edom as that expression does more then imply to break through even unto the King of Edom strange that he should venture back again through two Armies with the incumbrance of a Prisoner rather than through one for his own safety However the Argument à posse ad esse can be of no validity here where the consequence is as manifestly impossible as it is for God to lye for the Text saith the King of Moab took suum primogenitum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septuagint he took his own first begotten son his own first begotten son in which relative there can be no ambiguity though the Ejus which they foist into the Margin and the his which stands in our English Text may in Grammar refer indifferently to either the King of Edom or of Moab and therefore I am more scandalized with these learned men's turning of suum into ejus than I am with the Collecters of the Contents of our English Bibles for applying that relative to the King of Edom Eng. contents of 2 Reg. 3. the King of Moab sacrificing the King of Edom ' s son To return to Junius and Tremelius their opinion touching this subject expressed in their notes on Amos 1. 16. filium Edomaei captivum in holacaustum absolutissimè
the most daring enemies of our Jesus and the Nation to which they are peculiarly calculated being dispersed and ceasing to be a Nation Nay after themselves have in effect renounc'd the Religion of Moses and betaken themselves to the Religion of the Patriarchs which yet is unpracticable among them in the point of Sacrifices so that they worship God in a way which neither their Fathers nor their Fathers-fathers knew A way taken up by themselves since the demolishing of their Temple and dispersion of their Nation wherein they add and take from their own Law contrary to the Divine Sanction In vain do they urge those Texts that seem in the Letter to import the perpetuity and irrevocableness of Moses Law such as Deut. 29. 29. Things revealed belong to us and our children for ever Lev. 23. 14. First fruits a statute for ever and the passover a statute for ever Ex. 12. 17. For if they will allow David to speak in Moses his Language when he applies ever to the Temple Psal. 132. 13. This is my rest for ever and allow their own eyes to interpret David's ever now they see the place of his residence for ever demolished the Chain wherein they think themselves still bound to Moses will fall off of its own accord can the ever of Oblations possibly be stretched beyond the ever of that Sanctuary to which they are limitted As vain is the exception against the cogency of this Argument from the Instance of the first Temples laying waste during the Babylonish Captivity during which time though the Law as to the practise of it was in some points suspended yet it was not abolished For 1. The Law had a shrewd shake and was loosen'd in its sinews by the ruine of the first Temple Gods withdrawing then the Ark of his Presence and Covenant from them was a sign he would quickly grow weary of sitting on Mount Sion now that his foot-stool was removed his not vouchsafing to give them Fire from Heaven for their Sacrifices in the second as he had done in the Tabernacle and first Temple and yet accepting their Offerings made by strange fire so directly contrary to the Law was an Argument that he stood not so much upon Levitical punctilios as he did at first when he punish'd Nadab and Abihu with suddain death for offering with strange fire If the Jews will avouch their own story upon Dan. 6. 4. Ut invenirent occasionem Danieli ex latere regis where interpreting latus regis to be the Queen or the King's Concubines they tell us that Daniel was an Eunuch they must be forc'd to a confession that God stood not much upon the Ceremonial Law when he preferr'd an Eunuch who by that Law was not to come into the Congregation into that intimate Communion with himself as to reveal to him more of his Counsel than he did to any Prophet beside Moses Jerom. in locum I urge these Instances as Arguments ad hominem they being the Jews concessions though in themselves not true as I shew elsewhere It is from their own Premisses I infer this Conclusion That God weaned them by degrees from Moses antiquating one Ceremony after another till at last Christ cancell'd the whole Hand-writing of Ordinances breach upon breach was made in that wall of partition till Christ took it wholly away and rac'd it to the ground 2. God promised to return that Captivity to restore to them their own Land and to repair the ruines of the first Temple but this Captivity will never be return'd the second Temple will never be repair'd but both Nation and Place are to be perpetual Desolations Of this I make proof elsewhere and therefore here shall propound this only Argument to evince the truth of it viz. That during the desolations of the first the Spirit of Prophecy was not with-held from them God raised them up Prophets in Babylon he then set them up Way-marks guides to their Cities again he whistled to his Flock scatter'd in that gloomy and dark day of their wandring to prevent their total dispersion and to keep them within the hearing of Cyrus his Proclamation But since the desolating of the second Temple they have had no Voice no Vision none to answer how long no Prophets have risen up among them but false ones as themselves acknowledg such as Ben Cozba of whom their Taba in Taanith per 4. halac 6. and Maymon in Taanith per. 5. quoted by Dr. Lightfoot Vespacian 1. Sect. 1. thus write It was on the 9. day of the Month Ab that the great City Bitter was taken where were thousands and ten thousands of Israel who had a great King over them whom all Israel even their greatest wise men thought to have been Messias And before him and Jerusalem's fall according to our Saviour's Prediction the many false Christs of whom Josephus in the History of that Age gives many instances § 3. As the Ceremonial Law fell with its own weight was disannull'd by its own Vote and cancel'd by vertue of its own Ordinances So that Old Testament-law which cannot be shaken 1. Is confirm'd and establish'd in the Gospel upon better Principles and more powerful Motives 2. And improved by our Royal Lawgiver in many branches of it that budded not under that Testament 3. And in the whole of it to the utmost heroick degree of Christned Morality 1. That an humane Soul cloathed with Mortality is capable of 2. Or can be drawn to by the most powerful Attractives of the Spirit of Grace 3. Most plentifully poured forth upon all that sincerely embrace the Gospel Of all which points I shall speak distinctly not only because they demonstrate that Christ came not to destroy but to perfect and fill up the Law but do also present Christ and the Gospel to us in a quite other form than the faithless Solifidian draws them in whose Models of Christianity look as if they were designed to shame Religion 1. The Salvifick Grace teaches us in the Gospel to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts to live godly righteously and soberly with more masculine and strenuous Motives than were propounded under the Law The Argument then was I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage but that which was but implyed in that is in the Gospel clearly expressed and obedience prest from our deliverance from the bondage of Satan the vassalage of our own Lusts the chambers of eternal Death The motive expressed there was That thy days may be long in the land a land slowing with milk and honey here the darkness of Type that was upon the face of that earth is dissipated the waters that overwhelm'd it are divided from it and the dry Land made to appear that Land that is very far off far above all visible Heavens The Childrens Rattles and Nats being laid aside the Gospel openly hangs out Prizes becoming men of full age to run for in that Race
for a light to the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth Isa. 49. 6. and when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And Rom. 4. 16. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many nations Paralel or answerable to him whom he believed even God who quickneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were who against hope believed in hope that he should become the Father of many Nations answerable to him that is as God is not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles so should Abraham be the Father both of Jewish and Gentile-believers the believing of which as to the Gentiles was as noble a degree of Faith as that whereby Abraham believed the Promise that in Isaac his Seed should be blessed when he was about to sacrifice him this being no more against hope than that God would raise up a seed to him of Gentiles dead in Sins And to the second they answered that the Jew need not trouble his head with contriving how or where God would find Subjects if he were rejected for the Gentiles were flocking in apace to the Standard of Messias and ere long the Fulness of them would be come in and so all Israel be saved that is Dr. Ham. annot in Rom. 11. 12. 25. they should every where act the Call of the Gospel come in in such numbers as they would in every City and eminent Town afford matter enough for the constituting of Evangelical Churches or visible Assemblies of Christians there by which means the Jews will at length be provoked to believe and so all the true Children of Abraham Jews and Heathens both but particularly the Remnant of the Jews shall repent and believe in Christ. And for them that will not be gain'd by these Methods God may cast them off upon gainful Terms having in lieu of them a great multitude of Subjects which no man could number of all Nations and Kindreds and People and Tongues Rev. 7. 9. Christ foretells that upon the Builder's rejecting the precious Stone and its becoming a Corner-stone the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to another Nation Mat. 21. 42. 43. And according to this Prophecy of Christ and Application of Jacob's Prophecy which Christ and his Apostles made to the time of Jerusalem's final Desolation God did then remove his Scepter from Judah that ceasing then to be God's Kingdom and the Kingdoms of the World becoming the Kingdoms of God and of his Christ within a few Centuries afterwards when Christs Royal Law came to be established and protected by the Imperial Sanction and the Edict of Princes become Christian. In whose Territories in the mean time God had his imperial Cities his Cities on Hills that could not be hid Christian Churches so visible and conspicuous as spake him to be King of all the Earth in the same sence that he had been King of Judea that is in respect of his Kingdom of Grace of his golden Scepter Briefly there was such a gathering of the Gentiles to Shilo before that rejected King's coming to destroy miserably those bloody Rebels and to root out their Place and Nation as he need not be to seek for Subjects when he cast off Judah and chose the Gentiles any more than when he refused the Tabernacle of Joseph and chose the Tribe of Judah Psal. 78. 67. 68. for the Gospel had then been preach'd to and brought forth fruit in all the World God manifested in the Flesh had been preach'd to the Gentiles and believedon in the World as hath been formerly shewed § 4. But then this being laid for a Ground that the Scepter 's departure imports properly and firstly the Removal of the Thearchy from the Jews and translating it to the Gentiles and the time of its departure being thus stated to have been in such a Juncture as wherein God might and did break up his Court in Judea without impeachment of his Truth or Honour which he could not do before It will be obvious enough that that Prophecy consequentially to this implies as the effect of it a gradual withdrawing of their outward Polities Liberties and Privileges thereon depending as the Sun being set the light of it departs by degrees till it wholly disappear Of which though we can make no Demonstration while it is in Motion it takes such minute and insensible steps much less from thence convince an obstinate and captious Adversary that the Sun is set if it be not seen at its going down till the Light of it be impair'd to a degree beyond what the most gloomy Sky the thickest Mist or the most dismal Eclipse can reduce it to yet when its Light is dwindled into such a degree of privation 't is a palpable evidence that the Sun its Fountain is departed our Horizon As therefore I have been forc'd to prove that the Scepter notwithstanding any loss of Light it did or could sustain before the Gentiles flock'd in to our Saviour's Standard was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 departed there having been from David to Christ no greater diminutions of its Light then had been from Jacob to David and therefore the Jew upon the same reason that he will not look downwards in Judah's Line for Shilo as low as our Jesus must look upwards for him beyond David for if those castings down of the Crown to the ground which it sustain'd by the Apostacy of the ten Tribes the Babylonish Captivity the Persecution of Antiochus the Dictatorship of the Macabees or what else occurs in the History of that Interval speak the departure of the Scepter much more must it be departed in the interval before David in the Egyptian Bondage or under the Judges of which time their own Scriptures affirm that there was then no King in Israel Nor till our Saviour's time which is my Herculean Argument was there any such concourse of a new People to Israel's God as could have justified him from the imputation of making a losing Bargain should he have cast off his far more numerous old and have adopted that new People Though I confess that great access of Proselytes in Solomon's Reign said to be an hundred three and fifty thousand by Dr. Lightfoot in his Parergon of the fall of Jerusalem cap. 12. might occasion the Jew to think it was the Gentiles gathering to Shilo and boaded the departure of the Scepter in the falling away of the ten Tribes and doubtless those Gentile Converts together with the Levites and those that feared God adhering to the house of Judah being so numerous as in the worst of times there were seven thousand of them fill'd up the rent that was made in Judah's Royal Robe
parts of any Beast Theophilact was happy in such a second who by reason of his great Reading quick Apprehension and solid Judgment might with less ostentation have said to Theophilact than the Philosopher to his Schollar Do thou invent Opinions and I will make them probable for doubtless such hath he made this and that being the highest Epithete which the modest Doctor fastens upon it I hope it will not be imputed as immodesty in me to take the liberty of shewing my dissent from a person of so deservedly admired worth and well deserving of the Church both as to the Opinion it self and the Reason he brings why he will no further insist upon it than to make it probable because the Christian Religion is no way concern'd in the miraculousness of this Cure if such it were it being afforded the Jews before Christs coming and continued to them at this time of their resisting and opposing Christ. For as it is of apparent use to the Christian Cause and to the Conviction of the Jews to mind them of the Tokens of Gods favour they enjoy'd till the guilt of that innocent Lamb's Blood cancel'd their Charter infaelicissimum infortunii genus est fuisse faelicem the brighter the Sun shone at its going down upon them the more certain indication it gave of its setting So this Exposition of the Text by Theophilact beside the force it offers to the Words offers violence to common Sence of which I could give several instances but will content my self with that reply which Dr. Hammond gives to that Objection which he conceives the chief to wit That 't is unconceivable how the healing Virtue of that Pool had it arose naturally from the fresh warm blood of the Entrails of the Sacrifices that were washed there could be limited to one to him that first stepped in after the troubling of the Waters for that reason of this which the Doctor assigns arising from the circumstance of the place containing these Medicinal Waters which might be of no larger capacity than to hold one at once as that is the only circumstance that can be imagined to avoid the force of the Objection so that Hypothesis implies a plain Contradiction to all other circumstances of the case as themselves state it for what needed an Officer go down into so narrow a hole when he might have stood at the top and have poakt up the grosser matter from the bottom with a Pole Nay what room could there be for him to bestir himself or to use a Colt-staff in the bottom to stir up the congeal'd blood in so narrow a compass or with what water must that water be washt wherein so many hundreds of Entrals were wash'd for doubtless if it was contain'd in so narrow a compass it stood in as much need of washing as the Entrails themselves and the immersing fresh Entrails therein after an hundred or according to their account many thousands had been wash'd therein would have been the defiling of them rather than their cleansing Besides had this curing of only one been but once or at the most three times a year and that by a natural Virtue infused into the water the stirring of the Sedements from the bottom it was wholly in the Officers power to admit whom he pleased to step in and then those multitudes of impotent folk that lay there waiting for the stirring of the water and some of them so long as the man whom Christ cured must have been more crazie in their mind than bodies if they could not collect it was in vain there to expect good if they could not make the Officer their Friend Lastly what need of a Temple-Officer's going down to stir the water when those whose impotencie lay in their eyes or any where but in their feet might themselves have done all that he could do to wit with their Feet or Hands or Crutches stir up the congealed Blood and make it mix with the Water and really 't is hard to conceive that among a great multitude of poor Cripples their should not be some who when they saw their time would not strain courtesie with good manners and make no more scruple of stepping in before the Angel than the Mayors Horse did of drinking before Queen Elizabeths Had he been no more than a Temple-Officer and not as the King's Manuscript reads it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Angel of the Lord whose stirring of the Pool put a supernatural Virtue into it which by divine dispensation was so bounded as to the Effects thereof as it should but cure one at a time and that time not to be foreseen as their stated Festivals were but purely at the divine Arbitriment and therefore to be waited for by those that came thither for cure of which he that first stept in failed not to partake while the five Books of Moses the Books of Gods Covenant with their Fathers as so many Porches encompassed that Nation St. Aug. de verbis Dom. Serm. 42. But that Covenant of Peace removed from them this Pool though still to be seen hath no more Virtue in it now nor ever had since the Holie Ghost hath chosen the Christian Font-water to sit upon St Jerom. de locis Haebraicis than the Castalion or Colophon Wells I could instance in more Privileges which the Second Temple was endowed with beyond the First which as if they had been entail'd upon it fell with it But it would be an infinite labour to recount all the Particulars of that Inventory of Divine Benefits Arguments of Gods special favour to that people which they died seis'd of at the expiration of their State and demolishing of their City and Temple Gods withdrawing of which from them is as full an evidence of their Rejection as his vouchsafing them to them was formerly of his bearing them more upon his heart than all the Nations of the Universe besides Alas how many days hath that wretched Nation continued without a King and without a Prince without a Sacrifice and without an Idol without an Ephod and without a Teraphim without God or any token of his presence save that whereby he watcheth over them for evil under all which heavy stroaks they are as insensible as Solomon's Fool that slept upon the Mast So that to crown his Judgements God hath taken from them that tenderness of Heart which their Forefathers had in the Babylonish Captivity who were jealous of themselves that God had hardned their hearts from his fear to their greater Ruine but these though that of their own Prophets Isa. 6. be palpably fulfill'd upon them and all the Curses written in Gods Book laying with all their weight upon their loynes yet none of them say What have I done Wherefore is all this evil brought upon us CHAP. V. The Jews rejected Messias to be called the God of the whole Earth and all other Gods eternally to be rejected § 1. The God of Israel every where worship'd where Christian Religion
mixt with mercy God in his every days anger is strong and patient strong in sparing spends but part of the Arrows in the Quiver of the Menacy Propheticus mos est Summam consternationem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 describere petitâ translatione ab iis quae efficient consternationem in adventu Christi quo veniet ad judicandum mundum But the burthen of Prophesie where it shall fall last will fall with all its weight when it is to have its accomplishment it will have its full accomplishment Ezech. 37. 12. The Prophet understands the Metaphorical Resurrection of Israel from that forlorn estate but he alludes to the Resurrection that shall be at the last day and from his alluding to that Tertullian concludes that that Text will have a fuller accomplishment then Hoc ipso quòd recidivatus Judaici status de recorporatione readunatione ossium figuratur id quoque eventurum ossibus probatur non enim posset de ossibus figurâ componi si non id ipsum ossibus eventurum esset de vacuo similitudo non competit de nullo parabola non convenit Tert. de resurrectione cap. 30. St. Jerom on Ezek. 37. nunquam poneretur similitudo resurrectionis ad restitutionem Israelitici populi significandam si non staret ipsa resurrectio The Prophets would not borrow words from the last judgment from that notion and conception which the world by tradition had thereof to describe particular judgments if those words were not to be fulfilled at that last judgement Tertullian affirms that divine Promises are of the like nature fully accomplishable at the last day quum igitur ultimorum temporum statum Scripturae notent totam Christianae spei frugem in exodio seculi collocent apparet aut tunc adimpleri totum quòdcunque nobis à deo repromittitur c. Tertul. de resur cap. 25. Franc. Junius notes the corrupt reading of exordio for exodio seculi Seeing therefore the Scriptures denote the state of the last times and place the harvest of Christian hope at the latter end of the world it is manifest that then shall be fulfill'd whatsoever God hath promis'd otherwise And therefore we do but adulterate Prophecies touching the last day in receding from the Literal sence in allaying the briskness of that Cup of Fury with the sober Nymph the water of figurative Expositions any farther than to tame the killingness of the Letter its manifest either Iniquity or Impossibility of which the Literal Exposition of these words which I give are out of danger for 't is possible enough that at the Resurrection of the unjust when all the Infidels and excommunicate persons shall stand up out of the dust together they will cover the breadth of the Earth the Wings of that Army of Aliens from the Covenant of Grace will reach North and South and their Files be as deep as from East to West though they stand at no greater distance one from another than an Army in Battalia It has been doubted by some how so great a multitude could make their appearance together before the Judge and therefore they have thought the judgment of the Heathen would take up a thousand years while God called them one after another but my Hypothesis salves that doubt without the help of such a subterfuge However the raising of such doubts is an argument that in common sence there will be people enough to fill the whole face of the Earth saving that part of it that shall be railed in about the holy Mount And that 's an Argument that the far greatest part of that Army must rise out of the Earth for from whence else can so many be gathered as shall cover the whole superficies of the Earth Caelum non habet unde cadat and so many living together in a mortal state would put the world into such a crowd as might well excuse the Americans for seeking to enlarge their quarters As for that other expression as the sands on the Sea shore for multitude he that thinks it an Hyperbole may think it so still for me and without prejudice to my Position for as it is manifest that so many men as there are grains of sand upon the shore would not have room to stand upon the Earth and therefore according to the caution I have given we must fly to the Figurative sence here the Literal being manifestly impossible so all that I need affirm is this that this Gogick and Magogick Army shall for multitude come as near the Sand on the Sea-shore as an Army can do that is pitched on the Earth § 4. Secondly When Satan marcheth in the head of this Army the Saints must be locally imbodyed for it encompasseth the holy City and the Camp of the Saints assembled and in procinctu into which posture how they could be drawn but by the summons of the last Trumpet is not conceivable except we fancy that some lesser City and Assembly than the general of the Saints shall be besieged by this General Army of Infidels As the Learned Dr. Hammond applies it to the Turks taking of Constantinople whereas there is no mention in the Text of taking but only of encompassing the holy City in the act and attempt whereof they are said to be destroyed by Fire coming down from God out of Heaven And though the Ottoman Family the off-spring of the Lydians who are called the People of Gog from Gyges their first King or Scythians stiled by Josephus Magogaei might be a Type of St. John's Gogs and Magogs encompassing the Camp of the Saints in their besieging Constantinople yet as they did not in all points Typifie this Gogick Army so they did not in any one point Typifie it fully not in multitude for instance for though the Ottoman Armies be very numerous yet they are not comparable to the old Scythian Armies under Tomyris nor the Lydian under Gyges much less to that Muster of this Army which St John brings in and therefore in that respect cannot so much as be an Antitype of Ezekiels old Gog much less the very Gog of St. John For Prophecies acquire strength in their motions towards a perfect accomplishment Vespasian's sacking of Jerusalem and captivating of the Jews came higher up to the terms of the old Menacy than that which was inflicted by Nebuchadnezzar and the Judgment of the last day will out-doc Vespasian's Desolation and make up whatever that wanted of fulfilling every tittle of that Prophecy which described those Judgements in Terms borrowed from the horror and greatness of this § 5. Thirdly It is the common Tenet of the Schools that Ignis ultimae conflagrationis that Fire that shall refine and purge the Sublunary World shall go before Christ when he comes to his Judgment-seat and by purging its dregs from the old make a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein his white Throne shall be erected Quòd per ignem conflagrationis ultimae futura sit elementorum purgatio probatur