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A48433
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An handfull of gleanings out of the Book of Exodus probable solution of some of the mainest scruples, and explanation of the hardest places of that Booke ... / by John Lightfoot ...
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Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.
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1643
(1643)
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Wing L2055; ESTC R21590
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43,133
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64
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to Moses in six hundred and thirteene precepts David in the fifteenth Psalme bringeth them all within the compasse of eleven 1. To walke uprightly 2. To worke righteousnesse 3. To speake truth in the heart 4. Not to slander 5. Not to wrong a Neighbour 6. Not to entertaine or raise an ill report 7. To viâ—iâ—â—e a reprobate 8. To honour them that feare the Lord 9. That alterâ—th not his oath 10. Not to lend to usury 11. Not to take bribes against the innocent The Propbet Isaiah brings these to six in Chap. 33. 15. 1. To walke justly 2. To speake righteously 3. To refuse gaine of oppression 4. To shake hands from taking bribes 5. To stop the eares from hearing of blood 5. To shut the eyes from seeing of evill Micab reduceth all to three Chap. 6. 8. 1. To doe justly 2. To love mercy 3. To walke humbly with God Isaiah againe to two Chap. 56. 1. 1. Keepe judgement 2. Do justice Amâ—s to one Chap. 5. 4. Seeke me Habakkuk also brings all to one Chap. 2. 4. The just by his Faith shall live Thus the Jewes witnesse against themselves while they conclude that Faith is the summe of the Law and yet they stand altogether upon workes A testimony from Jewes exceedingly râ—markable SECT. XXVII Articles of a beleeving Iewes Creed collected out of Moses Law 1. I Beleeve that salvation is by Faith not by Workes When the Talmudick Jewes make such a confession as is mentioned instantly before wherein they reduce all the tenor and marrow of the Law under this one doctrine of living by Faith Hab. 2. 4. The just by his Faith shall live it is no wonder if the more ancient and more holy Jewes under the Law looked for salvation not by their owne merits and workes but onely by Faith This fundamentall point of Religion they might readily learne by these two things 1. From the impossibility of their keeping the Law which their consciences could not but convince them of by their disabilitiâ— to heare it and by their daily carriage 2. In that they saw the holiest of their men and the holiest of their services to receive sanctitie not from themselves but from another So they saw that the Priest who was or should bee at least the holiest man amongst them was sanctified by his garments and that the sacrifices were sanctified by the Altar From these premises they could not but conclude that no man nor his best service could be accepted as holy in it selfe but must be sanctified by another 2. I beleeve that there is no salvation without reconciliation with God and no reconciliation without satisfaction The first part of this Article is so plaine that nature might teach it and so might it the latter also and laying hereto Moses his lex talionis eye for eye tooth for tooth it made it doubtlesse 3. I beleeve that satisfaction shall once be made This they might see by their daily sacrifice aiming at a time when there should full satisfaction be made which these poore things could not doe No lesse did their Iubilee yeare intimate when men in debt and bondage were quitted The very time of the yeare when the Iubilee yeare began calling all Israel to thinke of a Jubilee from sinne and Satans bondage into which mankind fell at the same time of the yeare 4. I beleeve that satisfaction for sinne shall be made by a man This is answerable to reason that as a man sinned so a man should satisfie but Moses Law about redemption of land by a kinsman taught Israel to expect that one that should be akin in the flesh to mankind should redeeme for him morgaged heaven {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Hebrew is both a kinsman and a Redeemer 5. I beleeve that he shall be more then a man This they learned from the common service about the Tabernacle wherein the high Priest a man as fully hallowed and sanctified as man could be for his outward function yet did he offer and offer againe for the people and himselfe and yet they were uncleane still This read a Lecture to every ones apprehension that a meere man could not doe the deed of satisfaction but he must be more 6. I beleeve the redeemer must also be God as well as man The disabilitie of beasts to make satisfaction they saw by their dying in sacrifice one after another and yet mans conscience cleansed never the better The unabilitie of man we saw before The next then that is likely to doe this worke are Angels But them Israel saw in the Tabernacle curtaines spectators onely and not actors in the time and worke of reconciliation From hence they might gather that it must be God dwelling with man in one person as the cloud the glory of God never parted from the Arke 7. I beleeve that mans Redeemer shall die to make satisfaction This they saw from their continued bloody sacrifices and from the covenants made and all things purged by blood This the heedlesse man-slayer might take heed of and see that as by the death of the high Priest he was restored to liberty so should mankind be by the death of the highest Priest to the glorious libertie of the sonnes of God Their delivery from Egypt by the death of a Lambe taught them no lesse 8. I beleeve that he shall not die for his owne sinnes but for mans Every sacrifice read this lecture when the most harmelesse of beasts and birds were offered 9. I beleeve that he shall overcome death This Israel saw by necessary conclusion that if Christ should fall under death he did no more then men had done before His resurrection they saw in Aarons Rod Manna Scapegoate Sparrow c. 10. I beleeve to be saved by laying hold upon his merits Laying their right hand upon the head of every beast that they brought to be offered up taught them that their sinnes were to be imputed to another and the laying hold on the hornes of the Altar being sanctuary or refuge from vengeance taught them that anothers merits were to bee imputed to them yet that all offenders were not saved by the Altar Exod. 21. 12. 1 King 2. 29. the fault not being in the Altar but in the offender it is easie to see what that signified unto them Thus farâ—e each holy Israelite was a Christian in this point of doctrine by earnest study finding these points under the vaile of Moses The ignorant were taught this by the learned every Sabbath day having the Scriptures read and expounded unto them From these groundworkes of Moses and the Prophets Commentaries thereupon concerning the Messias came the schooles of the Jewes to be so well versed in that point that their Scholars doe mention his very name Jesus the time of his birth in Tisri the space of his preaching three yeeres and a halfe the yeare of his death they yeare of Jubile and divers such particulars to be found in their Authors though they knew
times of captivitie that he would make knowne things to come by that gift of Prophecy And he was heard in what he prayed for and his supplication tooke effect in the most propheticke and powerfull Spirit of Daniel The Jewes had an old maxime that after the death of Zacharie Malachi and those last Prophets the Spirit of God departed from Israel and went up So that from thence forward prediction of future things and working of miracles were rarities among them To this aimed the answer of those holy ones Acts 19. 2. We have not so much as heard whether there be any holy Ghost Not 〈◊〉 they doubted of such a person in the Trinitie but that whereas they had learned in their Schooles that the holy Ghost departed away after the death of Malachi they had never yet heard whether he was restored againe in his gifts of Prophecie and Miracles till now or no SECT. VII The two first Miracles Exod. 4. 1. THe turning of Moses rod into a Serpent did utterly disclaime any power of the Devill in these wonders which he was to worke which power onely the Magicians wrought by For as a Serpent was the fittest Embleme of the Devill as Gen. 3. and Revel. 12. 9. So was it a signe that Moses did not these Miracles by the power of the Devill but had a power over and beyond him when he can thus deale with the Serpent at his pleasure as to make his rod a Serpent and the Serpent a rod as hee seeth good Yet is it worth the observing that he is commanded to take it by the taile vers. 9. for to meddle with the Serpents head belonged not to Moses but to Christ that spake to him out of the bush as Gen. 3. 15. His rod at Sinai is said to be turned into Nabash a common and ordinary Snake or Serpent but when hee casts it downe before Pharaâ—h it becommeth Tannin Chap. 7. 10. a Serpent of the greatest dimensions belike a Crocodile which beast the Egyptians adored and to whose jawes they had exposed the poore Hebrew Infants in the River 2. His leprous hand disclaimed also any power of Moses his owne in these wonders which he wrought for it was not possible that so great things should bee done by that impure and uncleane hand but by a greater 3. Both of these Miracles which were the first that were done by any Prophet in the world did more specially referre to the Miracles of that great Prophet that should come into the world by whose power these Miracles were done by Moses at this time For as it belonged to him onely to cast out the power of the Devill out of the soule and to heale the soule of the leprosie of sin so was it reserved for him first to cast out the Devill out of the body and to heale the leprosie of the body For though the Prophets from Moses to Christ had the gift of doing Miracles and performed wonders many of them in an high degree yet could never any of them or any other cast out a Devill or heale a Leper till the great Prophet came Elisha indeed directed Naaman how he should be healed but he neither touched him nor came out to him at all that he might shew that it was not his power but such cures were reserved for Christ to come SECT. VIII Moses in danger of death because of distrust Exod. 4. 24. THE fault of Moses that brought him into this danger was not the uncircumcision of his Sonne as it is commonly held for that had beene dispensable withall in him as it was with thousands afterwards of the Israelites in the Wildernesse but his fault was grievous diffidence and distrust For this is that that makes him so much so off and so earnestly to decline so glorious and honourable a message as the Lord would send him on and this was that that brought him into this danger of death when he was even going on this message Observe therefore his evasions and how they sound exceeding hollow and empty of beliefe First Who am I that I should goe to Pharaoh cap. 3. 11. This the Lord answereth I will bee with thee and this my appearing to thee may bee an undoubted token to thâ—e that I have sent thee vers. 12. Secondly But who shall I say hath sent me for forty yeares agoe they refused me saying Who made thee a Prince and a Ruler over us cap. 4. 1. This scruple the Lord removeth by giving him the power of miracles Thirdly But I am not eloquent neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to me for though I may worke miracles upon others yet is not this wrought upon my selfe that I speake any whit better then I did before This receiveth this answer I will be with thy mouth vers. 10. 11. 12. Fourthly But I pray thee send by that hand that thou wilt send or stretch out vers. 13. for thou saydest to me I will stretch out mine hand and smite Aegypt c. Chap. 3. 20. Now therefore I pray thee stretch out this hand of thine for the hand of man is not able to performe it At this the Lords anger was kindled against him and that deservedly For in this he denyed the mystery of the redemption which was to be wrought by a man the God-head going alâ—ng with him Now it is time for Moses to set for Aegypt when he seeth God angry at his excusing he doth so but he taketh his diffidence along with him in that he taketh his wife and children with him One would thinke that had beene a speciall piece of charity but it being looked into will prove a speciall piece of distrust For when God appeareth to him at the very first he giveth him assurance of the peoples delivery and that they should come in their journeyes to that very place When thou hast brought the people forth out of Aegypt ye shall serve God upon this mountaine Chap. 3. 12. Now if Moses had believed certainely this promise and that undoubtedly he and the people should come thither he would never have taken wife and children with him to trouble them and himselfe in so long a journey and in so earnest a businesse but would have left them still with Jethro till he and Israel should march up to them But this he feared that this his journey would be to no effect that Israel would accept of none therfore should obtaine no delivery that this message would produce nothing unlesse danger to himselfe and that while he spake of delivering others he might incurre bondage himselfe so that if he left wife and children behind him it was odds he should never see them againe And therefore to make sure worke he will take them with him and for this his distrust the Lord meets him and seekes to kill him Nor was this distrust and diffidence little or small in him but if the circumstances be considered it will appeare to be very great and his want of faith exceeding