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
a divine Person yet they retain'd still their old Heathenish Religion and these are the Christians of which Adrian writes that they worship'd Serapis and that their Bishops for all they said they were Christians were yet devoted to Serapis and that there was none of that Sect be he a Ruler of the Jewish Synagogue a Samaritan or a Christian Presbyter who was not a Conjurer a Wizzard and an Anoynter Insomuch as when the Patriarch came into Aegypt some solicited him to adore Serapis some Christ. Though Adrian of all others had least reason to condem these mungrel Christians for he himself notwithstanding his adhering to the Gentile Religion had that honourable esteem of Christ as he had a mind to build a Temple to him and canonize him for a God Lampridti Alexand. Severus 2. What if Josephus had been a Pharisee could he not lay the corruption of that Sect down when he went to write truly if he keep promise with his Reader he every where faithfully performs the office of an Historian in recording Occurrences as they fell out without favour and affection and I think never Pen that was not guided by infallible Inspiration went more evenly or directly to the point of Truth than he did or let fall less Passion A suspicion of this Nature could not have entred into the head of any man to whom Josephus is not a perfect stranger 3. Had the Pharisees enmity against no Sect but the Christian do not we find them in opposition to the Sadducees who denyed the Resurrection and said there were neither Angels nor Spirits and consequently no Miracles nor Prophesies siding and going along with St. Paul as far as Josepus doth in this Text for what is there in these words that are excepted against as not becoming the mouth of a Pharisee or inclining any further to the approbation of Christianity than their opposition to Saducism might bend a Pharisee to without prejudice to his own Sect. 1. Not in that If it be lawful to call him a man for first that may be taken in as bad a sence as those paradoxical wits put upon the immediat following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who interpret them as a defamation of the blessed Jesus which joyn'd together if the Context did not reclaim and Christian ears abhor the sound may by a sinister interpretation be made to speak Josephus to have had this opinion of our Saviour that he was not a Man but some Changeling or Fairy-elf who shewed apish Tricks play'd strange Pranks mimi histriones quoque dicti sunt paradoxi Vos Etymol If therefore the Christians had had a mind to periwigg Josephus to make him look more favourably upon Christ they would never have put upon him such a border as this out of which he looks more a squint upon him than he did without it Had Josephus in opprobry called Christ a doer of paradoxical actions it would have been neither Piety nor Policy in Christ's friends to have added by way of Preface I cannot tell whether I should call him a man the worst sence which the first clause is capable of alone being better than the best bad sence that can be put upon it in conjunction with such a Preface If it cast a bad aspect upon Christ alone it will cast a worse in such company 2. Take them both as Josephus delivers them with the right-hand as speaking in consort with the whole series of his Discourse the commendation of our Saviour and what is gain'd by taking in or lost by leaving out these words if we may call him a man that deserves the raising of so much dust does not Christ's doing miraculous Works his rising from the dead according to the Prophecies that went of him speak him to have been more than an ordinary Man either the Messias or that Prophet or Elias which is all that Josephus intends or can be deem'd to intend in those words which import no more but his being of an Opinion equivolent to that Pagan Opinion of Christ mention'd by St. Austin de consensu Evang. 1. 7. tom 4. pag. 162. honorandum enim tanquam sapientissimum virum putant non colendum tanquam Deum They thought he was to be honoured as a most wise man but not to be worship'd as a God for he was so far from thinking Christ to be God as in the question about Messiah he preferr'd Vespasian before him de Bel. Jud. 7. 12. an Argument that he did not apprehend the Messias himself to be God only he perceiv'd by the great Works Christ did that he was more than a common Man and by the Analogy which those Works bare to Prophecie that he was one of those extraordinary persons to whom those Prophecies had relation Either the Christ or Elias or that Prophet or one of the Prophets as some of the Jews conjectured our Saviour to be who were far enough from believing in him as Christ the Son of the living God Mat. 16. 6. 2. Nor in that that is Christ whereby it was not in Josephus his thought to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth for the Christ but only to distinguish him by that appellation from others his Coetanians who were called Jesus as the Son of Ananus who for seven years together before the ruin of the City denounced wo against it Bel. Jud. 7. 12. Jesus the son of Damneus whom Albinus made high Priest in room of Ananus the younger the murderer of St. James our Lords Brother which James Josephus in the same Chapter calls the Brother of Jesus Christ to distinguish him from that other Jesus Jud. antiquit 20. 7. there mentioned as also from Jesus the Captain of those Cut-throats whom the Imperialists of Sephorim hired to surprise Josephus vita Josephi and Jesus the son of Saphias that fire-flinger who incens'd the Galileans against Josephus Ibid. Jesus the son of Tobias that Captain of Robbers who near Tiberias surprised five of Valerian's Soldiers Bel. Jud. 3. 16. Jesus the son of Thebath to whom Titus gave quarter at the taking of the upper part of the City Jerusalem Bel. Jud. 7. 15. and Jesus the son of Gamaliel who succeeded that other Jesus already named in the high Priesthood antiq Jud. 20. 7. So that besides our Jesus there were six who in that Age bare that name and two of them mention'd in the same Chapter where he is named Jesus Christ Ant. Jud. 20. 7. Briefly so ambiguous was the name Jesus in that Age as the Jewish Exorcists that they might not leave the unclean spirits which they adjured in the name of Jesus in doubt who that Jesus was annex to it in their form of Conjuration this discriminating Circumstance whom Paul preacheth without which they might have pleaded they neither knew Jesus nor Paul there being Jesusses many and Pauls many but no Paul that preach'd Jesus saving the Apostle nor any Jesus whom Paul preach'd but Jesus Christ and therefore the Spirits are forc'd to confess Jesus
to give a Form of Law to their Action as being that Person without whose previous Juridical Sentence Pilat would not have proceeded against our Saviour so it perfectly reconciles the Evangelists without putting us upon the miserable shift of crowding Pilat and Caiaphas or Caiaphas and Annas into one joynt habitation 4. Notwithstanding that Annas though deposed was adhered to by the Faction as the Lord 's High Priest in conformity to which Notion St. Luke calls him High Priest as Moses in compliance with vulgar apprehension stiles the Moon one of the great Lights though she be the least of those God hath set in the Firmament Yet Caiaphas at the beginning of John's Ministry and at the Passion of our Saviour was indeed the lawful High Priest as being put into that Office by the Minister of God the Roman power ordain'd of God over the Jews To this Josephus gives his suffrage Ant. l. 18. c. 3. and 6. Valerius Gratus took the High Priesthood from Annas and gave it to Ismael a while after he bereaves Ismael of it and bestows it on Eleazar but deposeth Eleazar after he had enjoy'd that honour a year and sets up Joseph sirnamed Caiaphas in which Office he left him when he went out of his own and of which Caiaphas held possession till Vitellius Governour of Syria turn'd him out and put in Jonathan at what time he received order from Tiberius to conclude a peace with Artabanus so near the Death of Tiberius as Pilat whom Vitellius turn'd out of Office and sent at the same time to Rome to answer for his Male-administrations found him dead when he arrived there Josephus indeed does not write Caiaphas the Son-in-Law of Annas it not being his wont to set down any Relations but that of Father and Son in his Catalogue of High Priests but he writes Annas old enough to have been his Father-in-Law in his mentioning Eleazar the Son of Annas to have been High Priest before Caiaphas So that hitherto the Chronology of St. Luke keeps time perfectly with the forreign and secular Account Instance 3. Lysanias That Lysanias was then Tetrarch of Abilene appears from the story of Josephus Ant. 15. 13. thus translated by the judicious Dr. Heylin in his Palestine This tract made up the greatest part of the Kingdom of Calchis possessed by Ptolomy the son of Menneus in the beginning of Herod's Rise who dying left it to Lysanias his Eldest Son murder'd about seven years after by M. Antony at the instigation of Cleopatra But M. Antony and Cleopatra having left the Stage Lysanias the Son of the murder'd Prince enters upon his Fathers Estate by the permission of Augustus during whose time Zenodorus Lord of the Town and Territory of Paneas farming the demesnes of Lysanias and paying a very great Rent for them not only permitted the Trachonites to play the Robbers and to infest the Merchants of Damascus but himself received part of the Booty with them Augustus upon complaint hereof commits the whole Country of Trachonitis Batanea Gaulonitis and Auramitis to Herod lately created King of Jewry that he might quell the Robbers and bring the Country into order leaving unto Lysanias nothing but the City Abila of which he was the natural Lord whereof and of the adjoyning Territory he was afterwards created Tetrarch by the name of the Tetrarch of Abilene which he enjoyed till about the latter end of the Reign of Tiberius for his Tetrarchate was not disposed of till Caligula gave it to Herod Agrippa Josep Antiq. 18. 19. 13. From Lysanias the City of his Residence and from whence his Tetrarchate was called Abilene was stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to distinguish it from the Phoenician Abala Scal. in notis Eusebeanis Chron. ex Ptolomeo § 7. There is one passage in Josephus which hath found the greatest wits works enough to reconcile it to sacred Chronology and gives a better ground for Vossius his distinction of Tiberius his Reign with Augustus and alone than I elsewhere meet with as seeming to force upon us either the rejecting of Josephus his Authority or the concluding that St. Luke calculates Tiberius his years from Tiberius his Colleagueship with Augustus The place of Josephus Antiq. 18. 8. is this At this time dyed Philip the Brother of Herod in the twentieth year of Tiberius his Empire after he had justly and prudently managed his Tetrarchate thirty seven years The Knot this If Herod had been dead thirty seven years in the twentieth of Tiberius and our Saviour but thirty years of age in Tiberius his fifteenth Christ's thirty seventh falls in Tiberius his twenty second and by that acount he must be born two years after Herod's death at which Philip his Son enter'd upon his Tetrarchate If in solution hereof it be said that Josephus reckons the years of Tiberius from the beginning of his Reign alone but St. Luke from the beginning of his Colleagueship with Augustus that will make Christ's thirty seventh fall in Tiberius his twentieth and give room to date his Birth about half a year before Herod's death for if Christ was thirty years of age in Tiberius his fifteenth from his Colleagueship with Augustus he must be thirty two and almost an half at Tiberius his fifteenth from his Reign alone and by consequence thirty seven at the twentieth of Tiberius alone five added to Christ's thirty two making him thirty seven and five added to Tiberius his fifteenth making his Empire twenty years old But then we contract a worse snarle and must be forc'd to date our Saviours Baptism before Pilat's Presidencie which so palpably contradicts St. Luke giving this as one of the Characters of the time of Christ's Baptism that it was when Pontius Pilat was president of Judaea as we break the Evangelist's head in thus plaistering Josephus's And yet we need not with Scaliger here wholly reject the Authority of Josephus but rather salve it by supposing that the Number twenty in Josephus is falsified by the inadvertency of the Transcribers and should be twenty two at least as Scaliger himself writes it out of Josephus twice in less than two lines if the Printer have not serv'd him as the Scribe serv'd Josephus Canon Isag. 309. which I suppose he hath because otherwise Scaliger's Argument is not cogent for the twenty second of Tiberius concurrs with our Saviours thirty seventh even according to St. Luke's account who reckons Christ thirty full at the beginning of Tiberius his fifteenth as Scaliger himself with strenuous Reasons asserts de emend lib. 6. de natali Domini ad Canon Isag. l. 3. pag. 306. and is manifest from the Text it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he beginning to be of the age of thirty years which no man in common speech can be said to do till he be thirty compleat the difference of which phrase from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was beginning the thirtieth of his years is so manifest as every School-boy understands it besides the incongruousness
in his Treatise upon St. Matthew chap. 35. affirms and St. Jerom upon Eusebius his Chronicle notes giving this Testimony of that miraculous defection In the fourth year of the 202 Olympiad in the Reign of Tiberius this Olympiad concurrs with the 18 of Tiberius Gualter's Chronolog Bullenger in Daniel happened the greatest and most famous Eclipse of the Sun that ever was the day being at the sixth hour turn'd into night so as the Stars appeared which Eclipse was accompanied with such an Earthquake as many Houses of Nice in Bithynia fell to the ground Of which Earthquake Phlegon out of the History of Apollonius the Grammarian gives this further account that by it were overthrown many and the most famous Cities of Asia which Tiberius afterwards repaired in memorial whereof were stampt those Silver-pieces that had on one side the Image of Tiberius on the other of Asia with this Motto Civitatibus Asiae restitutis one of which Scaliger saw in the custody of William Gorlaeus Scal. in Euseb Chron And Pliny this description Maximus terrae memoriâ mortalium extitit motus Tiberii principatu 12 urbibus Asiae unâ nocte prostratis There was in the Reign of Tiberius the greatest Earth-quake that has faln out in the memory of man whereby in one night 12 Cities of Asia were ruin'd Tacitus this Twelve of the Famous Cities of Asia fell that year by an Earthquake of which many men were swallowed up by which the highest Mountains were levelled the lowest Vallies elevated lib. 2. where he mentions most of the Cities that underwent this sad accident And Seneca this hint upon occasion of that which afterward happen'd in Campania Asia duodecim urbes simul perdidit Asia lost twelve Cities at once by Earth-quake Natur. quest lib. 6. cap. 1. Whether Tacitus have stated this Earth-quake so long before the Passion of our Lord as he seems to do at the first and overlie sight and whether he has then stated it right and might not be mistaken in that as he is frequently in his Chronology or how the stating it so early stands with his interweaving it with the story of Artabanus which fell out so near the latter end of Tiberius I shall leave to the Sceptick to discuss and am content to shake out of the lap of my discourse these Testimonies concerning this Earthquake when he shall have disproved my Opinion that this was it which happen'd at that time when the veile of the Temple rent and the Rocks trembled vide Scal. de emend l. 6. pag. 564. § 2. Of this same miraculous darkness wrote Thallus the Chronographer whose Testimony the most Learned and Ancient Christian Antiquary Affricanus cites in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thallus calls that Darkness which overshadowed the Sun at Christs Crucifixion an Eclipse but without all reason as I conceive for it happen'd at the full of the Moon when she was so far from being perpendicular under the Sun as she was in opposition to him in so much as the Moon her self suffered an Eclipse that day at Sun-setting as Scaliger hath demonstrated by Astronomical Calculation de emendat 6. Of which also as well as of this twofold Heathen Testimony S. Tertullian takes notice in his Apology for the Christian Religion Eodem momento dies medium orbem signante sole subducta est deliquium utique putaverunt qui id quoque super Christo praedicatum non sciverunt At the minute of time when our Lord suffered the Sun in the mid Heaven day with-drew it self so as they that never knew how it had been prophesied of Christ that while that Shepherd was smitten it should be neither day nor night but betwixt both a Nucthemeron of God's own creating thought that diminution of light to have been an Eclipse § 3. The Roman Archives and publick Records Into which was entred and ingross'd amongst other strange accidents this also of darkness in the Reign of Tiberius where this wonder was to be read in Tertullian's time as himself testifieth in his Apology eum mundi casum relatum in Archivis vestris habetis Sane egregium tam celebris diei monumentum Scalig. de emend 6. An excellent monument of so famous a day as that was whereon the darkness was so great and universal as to be thought worthy of an intrado into the publick Records amongst the portentous Contingencies of that Age. But Pilate's Letter to Tiberius concerning our Saviours Crucifixion with what past thereupon at Rome preserv'd till Tertullian's days in the same Records is a more remarkable piece of Roman Antiquity for that Apocryphal Gospel as in point of Time it got the start of the Canonical so it contains the sum thereof viz. That the blessed Jesus through the envy of the Elders of the Jews for the fame he got by his miraculous healing of Diseases stilling the wind and seas raising the dead c. was deliver'd to Pilate to be Crucified that though his Sepulcher by Pilate's order upon the motion of the Elders was watch'd yet his Sepulcher was found empty the third day after which he convers'd upon Earth forty days and then ascended into Heaven Ea omnia super Christo Pilatus Tiberio nunciavit Ter. ap cont gent. 21. upon which information given to Tiberius by Pilate and other Roman Officers that lived in Judaea the place where Jesus exerted those indications of his Divinity the Emperour made a motion in the Senate that Jesus should be Canonized for a God which though upon a Maxime of State the Senate refused to grant yet Caesar persisting in an honourable esteem of Christ prohibited the Jews to persecute Christians upon severe penalties to be inflicted upon those that did disturb them by the Roman Deputies in Judaea and elsewhere where the Jews inhabited for the proof of all which he appeals to the Roman Chronicles Tertul. apol cont gentes 5. upon which Francis Zephirus thus paraphraseth So famous and so many were the Miracles of Christ reported to Tiberius out of Judaea as though the Secular Historians whether out of envy to the Christian name or adulation to the Emperours whose Gests they would be thought alone to admire had not mention'd them yet a great part of them might have been read in the Writings of those who were enemies to the Christian name as long as the Books of Fasts the Acts of the Senate and the Commentaries of the Emperours were extant § 4. The Edâ—ssen Chronicles shared with the Roman in the honour of being the Repository of the Evangelicall Stories concerning the mighty works of the blessed Jesus Out of whose Annals extant in the Syrian Tongue in his dayes Eusebius Eccles. hist. lib. 1. cap. 13. translates word for word this Story The fame of Christs Miracles drew infinite numbers of persons to apply themselves to him for cure of their Maladies among whom Abgarus the King of Edessa Tacitus mentions this King of Edessa annal 12. pag. 157. though he miswrite him Abbaras as Scaliger observes
man upon Earth that sinneth not and whoever saith he hath no sin he sins in saying so So that the old Serpent when he shall be let loose again will find wicked instruments of his malice against the Church his own evil Seed among the Wheat where-ever that is sown and therefore the Millenaries in confining him to the lower Hemisphere to gather his Army in by which he is to assault the Holy City not only contradict their own Texts which assigns him the four corners the four Quarters of the Earth the whole breadth of the earth the whole compass of the Globe from East West North and South which I could bear with them in knowing that the Prophets have a peculiar language by themselves in their Proverbials and Hyperbolics but the whole current of sacred Scriptures commented upon by the uninterrupted series of Providence in all ages § 5. Second Nay that at the approaching of the general Judgement when that War of Gog and Magog shall commence The Churches most eminent Seat and the most glorious entertainment of the Gospel will be in those Chambers of the South in that new discover'd World to which it is hasting apace from our Hemisphere The far greatest part thereof all the West of Asia the East West and South of Affrica and the sometimes most flourishing and best peopled parts of Europe being already over-run with Mahometan Barbarousness and the remaining parts of it by our great provocations and impieties against God and by our dissentions and discord among our selves hasting to open a way for the Turk to enter the City of God through the breaches we dayly make and widen in the Walls of Sion We sin and he wins we contend and he conquers we presume that because we are the Temple of the Lord the City of God we are inconquerable and in the mean while he takes our Forts and batters our Walls about our ears our ears which we stop and will not hear the voyce of the Charmer charm he never so wisely and therefore I fear I should but spill my Ink in bestowing it in recording the Turks dayly encroachment upon the Christian Pale his making Conquests by inches over the Western as he did by Ells over the Eastern Church or in describing those Marks of future bane those Prints of divine displeasure and certain forerunners of Gods rejection of a people as deeply imprest upon the Western as they were upon the Eastern and Southern Patriarchates when God deliver'd those Churches into his and their enemies hands If we go to his place at Shilo where once he put his Name enquire for what wickedness he made his Glory depart from Jerusalem Ephesus Antioch Alexandria Constantinople we shall find the very same provocations reigning in these parts of Europe the same infatuation of Counsels the same strong delusions the same debaucheries and abominations and our selves as ripe for excision looking as white for harvest as they did when the Mahometans Sickle reaped those goodly Fields Suppose ye that they were greater sinners I tell you nay but except we repent we shall all likewise perish But I look too long upon the dark side of that cloudy Pillar that has been passing from the East the place where the Gospel first set out towards the West and as it moves deprives the Church of her Head attire Christian Princes of those her dry Nurses and Guardians yet not of her wet Nurses or the inward Glory of her Garments for she shall reign still with Christ even upon this Earth in those remnants of her seed dispersed over the face of it The Sun of a Christian Magistracy shall not be seen where this Night hath or shall encroach upon the Church but her eyes shall see her Teachers still and her ears hear This is the good old way walk in it and find rest the Stars will appear behind the Cloud as they did in the Primitive Church before Princes became her Nurses and as they do now within the Turks Dominions where Princes have ceas'd to be her Nurses And when Mercy triumphing over Judgement shall have left us such a Nail such a stump of the Tree of Life in our Hemisphere The Covenant that God has made with the Christian World being like that he hath made with day and night of which he saith if those ordinances shall depart from me then shall the whole seed of Israel be cast off the Covenant he made with the Ordinances he gave to the Carnal Seed were but Temporary and therefore that seed was wholly cast off but the Covenant he made with the Spiritual Seed is an everlasting Covenant and therefore that Seed of Gentile Believers shall never be wholly cast off The new Israelites in shew and profession only when this Sun of persecution for the Gospel ariseth when the Temptations of the World shall be laid before them when none shall live under the benign influence of their Mahometan Rulers but those that wheel about with them to the embracing of that Brutish Religion shall forsake Christ and embrace the present World But the Israelites indeed in Faith and Practice shall never be prevail'd with to renounce Christ but that poor and peeled People shall bear up his Name in all Nations upon whom it hath been called to the end and consummation of the World When I say the infiniteness of the divine compassion shall be so bounded and streightned by the circumjacent Guilt of our multiplyed and crying sins and by the innate veracity of divine Menacies as all it can obtain for us against the pleas of both is no more then this when our golden Dreams of glorious days end in this God will provide Kings and Queens to be Nursing Fathers c. to the American Churches who shall dandle them upon their knees and that perhaps for as many ages as we have been dandled I say perhaps because I would not pry into Gods secret Purposes nor limit the holy One in that point wherein I cannot observe him to walk by any Rule but that of his own good pleasure whereby both to Persons and Nations he lengthens or shortens their day of Grace so as the Sun hath been set near a 1000. years ago upon most of Asia and yet shines upon us in the West of Europe upon whom it rose before it did upon them I mean the cherishing Light of a Christian Magistracy for we had our Lucius before they had their Constantine However this is certain that how long or short soever God hath in his eternal Counsel determin'd that space that they shall have their time of Grace as well as we and we shall have no more than our time and therefore as the night shall grow upon us that had day before them the day shall grow upon them and when the Sun is farthest from our Horizon it will be highest in theirs § 6. And this affords us another Argument against those who limit the Millenium to a precise number of years and yet