unlesse he kept still a Jewish heart within him which certainly he did if Balthasar Bambach saith truly of him t Praecipua mysteria reticuit nibil arcani revelavit He concealed the chief mysteries and revealed nothing of their secrets Seventhly that many Hebrew Radixes do signifie not onely things wonderfully disparat and incompatible the one with the other as Sheol signifieth the grave in some places and hell in other places which caused some to deny Christs descent in his humane soul into hell but even things clean contrary This instance as the former shall be in a word generally known Job 2.9 his wife saith unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Curse God others render it Blesse God None hitherto hath infallibly expounded it Yet my Laick can swallow camels strain at gnats that is buildeth upon the Translation made by the Ministers though the ground hath been slippery and full of ice but will forsooth be judge of the meaning when he understandeth not the words as if one unskilfull in the Dutch language should say when he heard a German speak I know his meaning by his gaping or by the sound of his words or by the gargarism of his throat-speech Though the Apostle saith 1. Thessal 5.21 Prove all things hold fast that which is good yet he speaketh of the spirits of private men or misperswasions of the false Apostles who presumed very much and knew very little These are to be tried But concerning the decrees of the Church the same Apostle doth not say Prove them examine them trie them judge them but Acts 16.4 Paul and other Ministers as they went through the cities delivered them the decrees for to keep or observe that were ordained of the Apostles and Elders which were at Jerusalem And so or by this means of keeping or observation were the Churches established in the faith c. verse 5. But saith the frantick Libertine I am a man spirituall But he that is spirituall judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man 1. Corinth 2.15 I answer S. Paul speaketh of the Apostles who had the Spirit of God vers 12. and spake in words which the holy Ghost taught vers 13. and who might well neglect the judgement of men 1. Corinth 3.3 Prove thou thy Apostleship by such undeniable miracles and testimonies as they did and thou shalt judge and not be judged But that every idiot should claim the priviledge of an Apostle is lewd divinity or rather insufferable pride The Angel in the Church of Thyatira is censured Revel 2.20 because he suffered that woman Jezebel which called her self a Prophetesse to teach and seduce Gods servants If the profoundest Divines on earth unexperienced in worldly courses should teach the skilfullest tradesmen their trades or manufactures and meddle in their crafts as they call them would they not expose themselves to laughter and mocking is not the proverb of the world too true The greatest Clerks are not the wisest men if you take them from their books Are there more depths in trades then in the Word of God Or shall tradesmen and women judge of the depths of Divinity and the learned Divines in their own profession be not beleeved but laught at controlled and censured by the private spirit of unlearned people Are not the spirits of the Prophets subject to the Prophets Very learned men scarce trust to themselves A Physician that is very sick seeks counsel of an other who is whole and dares not trust his own judgement and shall a soul sick of sinne sick of errour sick of scruples be its own helper shall it understand without a guide be cleansed of its leprosie without a Priest Hierome in his Preface to the Cōmentary upon the epistle to the Eph. thus From my youth I never ceased to reade or to ask of learned men what I knew not I never was mine own Master or taught my self and of late I journeyed purposely to Alexandria unto Didymus that he might satisfie me in all the doubts which I had found in the Scripture Now adayes many a one is wiser then his Teachers not by supernall illumination but by infernall presumption And if they have gotten by rote the letter of Scripture and can readily cite tmemata tmematia the chapter and the verse though they have little more judgement then Cardinall Ascanius his parret which would prate the Creed all over they vilifie the opinions of the most learned and their private spirit of seduction will beare them out u Lib. 11. cap. 9. Ruffinus saith thus of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen They were both noblemen both students at Athens both colleagues for thirteen yeares together all profane learning removed studied on the holy Scriptures followed the sense not taken from their own presumption but from the writings and authority of the ancients which ancients it appeared took the rule of right understanding the Scripture from Apostolick succession S. Basil himself saith of himself and others in his Epistle to the Church of Antioch As for us we do not take our faith upon trust from other later men x 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor dare we deliver to others the conceits of our own brains lest mens devices should be thought to be articles of Religion but what we have been taught of the holy Fathers that we declare to those that ask of us How often doth the divine S. Augustine confirm his interpretations by the authority of Cyprian Ambrose and other preceding Fathers How often doth he confesse his own ignorance though he was the most accōplished that ever writ since the dayes of the Apostles It was a wise observation of Scaliger That some words and passages in Plato y Plus sapiunt authore are wiser then their authour and many excellent conceits are collected from Homer and Aristotle which they never dreamed of But in the Word of God it is contrary The Spirit was and is infinite that did dictate it the finite capacity of man cannot comprehend it whatsoever good interpretation we finde may well be thought to be the meaning of the Spirit and yet the Spirit may and doth mean many things which the wit of any man could never disclose And the true literal sense is the hardest to finde I confesse I have dwelt too long on this point but it is to vindicate the authority of our Church from the singular fancies of private unskilfull unlearned and censorious men and women and to shew the madnes of those base people-pleasers or publicolae who make or esteem tradesmen and youth and ill-nurtured unlettered idiots yea though their places be eminent the competent judges of controversies whilest they flee from the chairs of the Universities and from the representative Church of our kingdome viz. the most learned Bishops and Convocation-house unto whom they ought to have recourse and in whose judgement they are by way of obedience without opposition to set up their rest For as for private
prayed for and practised by any scrupulous Christian before he make himself a formall partie of opposition or contradiction The third requisite followeth That this holy and humbled man conferre with more learned men and specially with his Pastour If his Pastour give him not sufficient satisfaction let him conferre with other Divines Yea if he be a Pastour himself yet let him take heed of singularitie the daughter of pride and let him not lightly or sleightly esteem of their judgements who more abound in knowledge or to whom a direction of souls is by God himself more especially committed who are in matters above his capacitie his proper judges and he is in such things to subject himself unto them I doubt not but if his superiours should mislead him in things surmounting his knowledge and capacitie his humble conformable obedience and desires are better accepted of God then another man who without knowledge or any true ground stumbleth on a truth grows talkative and presumptuous though he be ready to die for that truth Above all things let him not apply himself to such men alone as he knoweth to be addicted to his own way nor come with prejudice to heare the contrary part but since he will not rest in other mens determinations he who will be an upright judge ought indifferently to heare both causes pleaded and after all good and necessary procedure unto true judicature to judge with right judgement This is a rock upon which many split themselves who pretend to seek out the truth but go onely to such as they know before-hand do run with a byas to their humour and will animate them in their singularitie and thereby in stead of instruction are flattered in their folly and soothed in their erroneous conceits b Qui statuit aliquid parte inauditâ alterâ Aequum licèt statuerit haud aequus fuit He that determineth any thing before he hath heard both parties though he give just judgement he is not a just judge And again I say c Ignorantia in Judice aequipatatur dolo Ignorance in a judge is as bad as injustice When this godly man is humbled when this humble man hath conferred with his own Pastour and other learned men and Ministers and impartially heard both sides and still rests unsatisfied from others and his conscience still settled that he hath the truth I wish him not blindely to give over himself to others but keeping the staffe of direction and the exercise of his judgement of discretion for things within his verge or reach and following the wayes of his own conscience in the fourth place I would counsel him to remove into other parts So Elijah fled from Jezebel yet poured out his complaints to God 1. King 19.3 10 14. So our Saviour when the Jews would have stoned him hid himself John 8.59 And he directed his Apostles to flee from one citie to another Matth. 10.23 S. Paul through a window was let down in a basket by a wall and escaped 2. Cor. 11.33 and God himself hid Baruch and Jeremy Jer. 36.26 Thus many both learned and unlearned did in Queen Maries dayes and God hath given a great blessing oft-times to this course So S. Cyprian fled at the first and then during his voluntarie exile wrote diverse excelelnt matters and yet afterwards died a glorious Martyr In the fifth place if the good Christian will not or cannot flee I would now commend unto him silence and mourning as the Prophet Jeremy did which S. Hierom Ockam and Doctour Field prescribe as the onely means Let him worship God in private as Daniel did three times a day and prayed Daniel 6.10 for God will regard the prayer of the destitute c. This shall be written for the generation to come as it is Psal 102 17 18. which Psalme is a prayer for the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and poureth out his complaint before the Lord for this is the very superscription of that Psalme The Prophets dayes consumed like smoke and his bones burnt as an hearth vers 3. His heart was smitten and withered vers 4. and by reason of the voice of his groaning his bones did cleave to his skin vers 5. He was a pelican of the wildernesse and like an owl of the desert vers 6. like a sparrow alone upon the house top vers 7. whiles his enemies reproached him and were mad against him and sworn against him he ate ashes like bread and mingled his drink with weeping ver 8 9. The Lamentations of Jeremy would fit his mouth and the dolefull complaints in divers Psalmes would well accord with them But above all he should call to minde That there was no sorrow like Christs sorrow That he alone trod out the wine-presse of Gods wrath That he was reviled spit upon buffetted whipped crucified that despiteous piercing rent his very dead body Let him solace his soul with spirituall comforts and make melody to God in his heart losing himself in speculation of Christs infinite merit and applying to his own soul all heavenly joy Let him withdraw himself from being seen in publick let him embrace privacy and retirednesse living if it were possble under Jonas his gourd or in vaults whose darknesse and blacknesse he expelleth by internall illumination and spirituall irradiation The Baptist and our blessed Saviour himself betook themselves to deserts and mountains for their solitary devotions when errour and unrighteousnesse sat in the chair of Moses Thus the persecuted holy ones of the Primitive Church served God at the buriall of their dead by nightly songs saith d Orat. 2. in Julian Nazianzen residing sometimes in cryptis in caves and grots under ground in dens among the rocks But suppose he be drawn forth and cannot lie hid suppose the Magistrate summon him to his tribunall and examine him very strictly how then ought this man to behave himself First I would have him to abhorre all mentall reservations If he use ambiguity of word phrase or sentence which was the guise of the mysterious enigmaticall oracles if by an Aposiopesis Irony or any Rhetoricall figure allowed in art practised among men and conceiveable by an intelligent auditour he excuse qualifie and keep secret his own actions or other mens counsels I will not wholly blame him e Nemo tenetur prodâ—re seipsum quisque tenetur defendere seipsum No man is bound to bewray himself every one is tied to defend himself A traitour may without sinne plead Not guilty that is not proved guilty at your barre where f Vausquisque praesupponitur esse bonus donec probetur essè malus Every one is presupposed to be good till he is proved to be bad I am not guilty so farre as I am bound to accuse my self And this is the allowed generall acceptation of that usance Within the veil of ambiguous words there lieth a secret second homogeneall good sense perhaps hid from some simple ones yet discernable by quick piercing
Terebinthus The Turpentine tree Vnder which saith Adrichomius Abraham ministred to the Angels which continued till the time of Hierom yea saith Saligniacus e Ostenditur adhuc hodie ilex illa ante ostium tabernaculi Abrahae The holm is yet to be seen before the entrance of the Tabernacle of Abraham The old being dried an other sprung out of its root Now this Saligniacus lived but a while since Besides the Quercus Mambre The oak of Mambre was so renowned that Adrichomius in his map of the Tribe of Judah hath the resemblance and picture of an oak there growing And Constantine appointed a fair Church to be built at the oak of Mambre saith Eusebius in vita Constantini 3.5 S. Hierom de locis Hebraicis thus f Quercus Abraham quae Mambre usque ad Constantii Regis imperium monstrabatur Mausolcum ejus in praesentiari◠cernitur Cúmque à nobis jam ibidem Ecclesia aedificata sit à cunctis in circuitu gentibus Terebinthus superstitiosè colitur or as others better reade it Terebinthi locus colitur eò quòd Abraham sub ea Angelos hospitio susceperit The oak of Abraham called also the oak of Mambre continued to the Empire of Constantine and its monument is yet seen And since we have built a Church in that place all nations do reverence the place of the Turpentine tree because under that did Abraham entertain Angels The third may well be Spelunca Adam the cave where Adam mourned Fourthly the very plot of ground where Abel was slain which is shewed to this day Fifthly the monument of Caleb Sixthly the field of Damascus where the red earth lieth of which they report Adam was formed which earth is tough and may be wrought like wax and lieth close by Hebron all the other things also being in the circuit neare that place Seventhly the Montana Hebron Josh 11.21 and the Vallis Hebron Genes 37.14 and the Convallis Mambre as the Vulgat hath it significantly Gen. 14.13 Convallis Mambre quae est in Hebron The dale of Mambre surrounded with hills which is in Hebron Genes 13.18 The unparallelled eminencies of which hills and dales for profit and pleasure the two main load-stones of the worlds desires you may discern by what Mr George Sands saith if he do not poetize or hyperbolize in the third book of the relation of his journey pag. 150. We passed this day saith he through the most pregnant and pleasant valley that ever eye beheld on the right hand a ridge of high hills whereon stands Hebron oh how delicately situated on the left hand the Mediterranean sea bordered with continuall hills beset with varietie of fruits the champion between about twentie miles over full of flowry hills ascending leisurely and not much surmounting their ranker valleys with groves of Olives and other fruits dispersedly adorned Eighthly and lastly there were other things of singular note Abrahams Church-yard the field of Machpela consecrated from heathenish profanation to holier uses and the cave which was the place of his sepulchre From some foure of these most reverend monuments or the like being but a little distant from Hebron might the place be called Kariath-arbee Civitas quatuor rerum The citie of foure things 5. Again if that citie of Hebron were quadrata as many cities then were and now are and with us Bristol amongst the rest built of old by Brennus as I have read in a manuscript of Edward the fourth his time and renowned Rome as some say varying from Livie which was first founded on the foure hills Palatine Capitoline Esquiline Aventine though afterward Servius Tullus enlarged it on the other three hills Coelian Viminal and Quirinal and answerable to which Romulus left as they say but foure gates Carmentalis Romana Pandana Janualis though afterward there were many more gates belonging to that citie You may finde this in a map of Rosinus Antiq. Roman lib. 1. cap. 13. describing the citie of Rome as it was built by Romulus and afterwards made more great and capacious by the Kings And Livie himself saith That when Romulus divided the tribes or wards of the citie into foure parts he did it answerable to the quarters and hills of the citie It being I say probable that the citie of Hebron was quadrata it might be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Kiriath-arbee of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 RABA quadravit from whence cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 RABUA or RABUANG quadratum quadrum cujus latera quatuor longitudine latitudine sunt aequalia Whose foure sides are equall in length and latitude As Exod. 27.1 Altare erit quadratum The Altar shall be foure-square from whence also cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ARBA quatuor So from the foure-square building of the citie it may be called Kiriath-arbee as old Jerusalem which was built foure-square on the foure hills mount Sion mount Moria mount Acra and mount Bezetha saith the Translatour of the travels of the holy Patriarchs As the new Jerusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quadrangularis sita est vel In quadro posita est Lieth foure-square Apoc. 21.16 So that Kiriath-arbee Civitas quatuor may be expounded Civitas quadrilatera quadrimembris quadricollis A citie of foure sides foure parts foure hills for even so Rome is called Septicollis The citie of seven hills And Douza of late and ancienter Nicetas call Constantinople also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vrbem septicollem The citie of seven hills And indeed the same Translatour in his Itinerarium totius Sacrae Scripturae pag. 85. thus reporteth Others there are that say the citie Hebron being divided into foure parts was therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ARBA signifieth a quaternion from the root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 RABA Foure-square 6. But grant we further that Kiriath-arbee doth here signifie the citie of foure men yet it followeth not it was so called because Adam Abraham Isaac and Jacob were these foure men For Heth the sonne of that cursed Canaan whose posteritie the Hittites inhabited in it first built the citie saith he ibid. in his Itinerar and Heth might be one of these foure men Secondly it is said Gen. 35.27 Jacob came unto Mambre unto the citie of Arbee which is Hebron Whence we may conclude that the citie had three other names of three other distinct men viz. of Mambre who was Abrahams friend and confederate Genes 14.13 of Arbee a great giant as I proved before of Hebron one of Calebs sonnes so called 1. Chron. 2.42 But how in Jacobs time or perhaps in Moses time who wrote the book of Genesis it might be called Hebron of Calebs unborn sonne is difficult to conceive unlesse by propheticall anticipation Howsoever Adrichomius saith word for word out of Hierom g Hebron ab uno filiorum caleb sortita est vocabulum Hebron was so called from one of the sonnes of Caleb I should rather think Caleb himself well known to Moses might be the fourth man of
THE SAINTS ENTRED INTO THE HOLY CITIE we must take THE HOLY CITIE to be Jerusalem b Ad distinctionem omnium civitatum quae tunc idolis serviebant to distinguish that citie from other cities all which did then give themselves to idolatrie applying it to the materiall Jerusalem which saith he from the time of Vespasian and Titus was no more called THE HOLY CITIE Moreover Paula and Eustochium or rather Hierom in their names ad Marcellam Tom. 1. fol. 59. citing the place of Many Saints c. adde remarkably c Nec statim Hiercsolyma coelestis sicut plerique ridiculè interpretantur in hoc loco intelligitur cùm signum nullum essè potuerit apud homines si corpora Sanctorum in coelesti Jerusalem visa sunt You must not presently understand the celestiall Jerusalem as most have ridiculously interpreted this place when it could be no signe nor token among men on earth if the bodies of the Saints were seen in the heavenly Jerusalem May I annex to this That if the whole land of Jurie be to this day called The holy Land nor will have other estimate of divers Nations in some regards till the worlds end then certainly the Metropoliticall citie thereof the famous and eminent Jerusalem might in those dayes be dignified with the title of The holy citie for many just regardable causes Again when it is said Act. 6.13 This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place they that said so were not in the Temple but in their Councel-house in the citie and the words have a true reference to the citie as well as to the Temple yea more because the Temple was within the citie and not è contrá Now their Councel-house was distant a good way from any part of the Temple and was built close by one wall of the citie and was called GASITH in Hebrew wherein seventie Senatours or ordinarie Judges called SANHEDRIM determined weighty causes and here they examined the Apostles Acts 4.7 and S. Stephen Act. 6.13 and 7.1 The citie which before was called Solyma was by Melchizedech named Hierosolyma that is The holy Solyma saith Josephus de bello Judaico 7.18 Let Josephus justifie upon what grounds he mongrelleth the name for neither did Melchizedech speak Greek nor doth the Hebrew incline to that sense yet is even that hotch-potch better to be digested then the impious and sottish fable of other Jews That Melchizedech having named the citie Salem and Abraham having called the mount Moriah in or about Jerusalem JEHOVA JIREH The Lord will see or provide Genes 22.14 God himself being unwilling to suffer a debate between the holy Melchizedech and Abraham the father of the faithfull umpired the businesse and of both their attributes or appellations compounded one word or name and calleth it thereafter Hierusalem Perhaps S. Hierom can hardly prove what he saith in his epistle to Dardanus de Terra promissionis Tom. 3.24 that the citie was first called Jebus and thencefrom Jerusalem rather then Jebusalem Euphoniae gratiâ that it might have a fair sound and good pronunication For there is mention of Jerusalem Judg. 1.8 yea before that Josh 10.3 long before David expelled the Jebusites and in the dayes of Melchizedech it was called Salem for Melchizedech was King of Salem Hebr. 7.1 Now that the Jebusites inhabited Jerusalem before the time of Melchizedech or that he should be King of the Jebusites inhabiting that place or that he should expell the Jebusites there commorant before him or how they repossessed it till Davids time or indeed that the name was given as S. Hierom opineth are matters onely of conjecture as not being backt with proofs sufficient Lastly if we be led with reason as I said before What should be the end of these Saints ascending to heaven Christ had no need of bodily service and we may not think that they were to bear witnesse in heaven of Christs resurrection for the triumphant Saints need no such proof or witnesses their beatificall vision and fruition exempteth them from doubting The living had more need to know by these Many the resurrection of Christ but by them the living knew nothing at all so farre as can be proved if this going into the holy citie be to be interpreted of the supernall Jerusalem But that the words are to be expounded of Jerusalem below the passage immediately following demonstrateth They went into the holy citie and appeared unto many Certainly if they had gone into heaven they must have appeared unto all there for as d Coelum est singulis â—otum omnibus unum No corner of heaven is hid from any so there all things present are seen face to face their matutine knowledge infinitely surpasseth our vespertine all and every one see all and every one present 3. Yet even from these very words They appeared unto many Maldonat gathereth that they did not appeare commonly or indifferently or generally to all from whence he inferreth If they arose to die again they would have appeared not to many as the Evangelist said they did but vulgò omnibus promiscuously to all I answer They appeared to all viz. All that met them saw them and saw them as men and as other men but not as newly raised men for so onely they appeared to Many as Christ himself did appeare Testibus praeordinatis à Deo Vnto witnesses chosen before of God Act. 10.41 so did they to such onely as God had appointed To evince this distinction let it be considered whether every one who saw Lazarus after his resurrection saw him as a raised man or as an ordinary man But if Lazarus might appeare commonly to all men and yet appeare unto Many onely as a man raised lately from the dead these Saints also might be seen and were seen of all that passed by and looked on them apparuerunt vulgò omnibus they appeared ordinarily to all and yet they might be seen not by all but onely appeare to Many as persons raised of purpose for holy ends And this opinion I hold to be more probable then that of Franciscus Lucas Brugensis on the place That onely unto some the raised did aliquando apparere aliquando disparere sicut Jesus Sometime appeare to some and sometimes vanish as our Saviour did I answer he had said somewhat if the resurrection had been of the same nature with Jesus his resurrection And as I dislike him not if by disparere he meaneth that they did not alwayes converse with the same men but changed company so if by it he understandeth a sudden vanishing from the sight of men and implyeth that the Many raised had a power to be visible and invisible at their pleasure till he bring proof to evince it he shall give me leave to parallell it to the fiction of Gyges and his ring whose broad beazil or insealing part if he turned to the palm of his hand he was forthwith invisible yet himself saw all