had seen the figure and pattern of a glorious Tabernacle so now in this second forty days fast he desireth to have a sight of the glory of God On the thirtieth day of the month A◠he goeth up again with the two Tables and beginneth another forty days fast and seeth the Lord and heareth him proclaim himself by most glorious attributes and receiveth some commands from him On the tenth day of the month Tisri he cometh down with the glad tydings that all is well betwixt God and Israel with the renewed Tables in his hand and with commission to set about making the Tabernacle CHAP. XXXV XXXVI XXXVII XXXVIII XXXIX XL. World 2515 Moses 82 Redemption from Egypt 2 AND so do Israel fall about that work which by the first day of the month Abib the first month of the next year is finished and it begun to be erected when it is set up the cloud of glory filleth it and God taketh up his seat upon the Ark in figure of his dwelling amongst men in Christ. The Book of LEVITICUS OUT of the Tabernacle newly erected God giveth ordinances for it and first concerning Sacrifice to represent Christs death as the Tabernacle it self did represent his body The whole time of the story of Leviticus is but one moneth namely the first month of the second year of their deliverance and not altogether so much neither for the very first beginning of the month was taken up in the erecting of the Tabernacle of which the story is in Exod. 40. CHAP. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII RUles given for all manner of sacrifices This is the first Oracle given from off the Mercy-seat There is the letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first word of the Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 written less then all his fellows and it seemeth by such a writing to hint and intimate that though this were a glorious Oracle yet was it small in comparison of what was to come when God would speak to his people by his own Son whom the Ark Mercy-seat and Oracle did represent CHAP. VIII IX THE seven days of the consecration of Aaron and his sons follow after the time of the setting up of the Tabernacle and were not coincident or concurrent with that time as the Jews very generally but very groundlesly do apprehend as Seder Olam Tanchum ex R. Joseph Baal Turim Ab Ezra R. Sol and others For 1. this command for their consecration is given out of the Tabernacle now erected as well as the rules for sacrifice were And 2. they abide the seven days in the Tabernacle Chap. 8. 33. and the very first day of the seven the congregation were gathered to the door vers 3 4. which undeniably shew that it was finished and set up when these seven days of consecration began CHAP. X. THE death of Nadab and Abihu was on the very first day that the service of the Altar began namely on that eighth day after the seven of the consecration when Aaron and his sons offered sacrifices for themselves and the people This appeareth plainly by comparing the third and fifteenth Verses of the ninth Chapter with the sixteenth Verse of this tenth Chapter and thus the service of the Sanctuary by an accident began with Death and Judgment NUMBERS IX to Ver. 15. AFter the end of the tenth Chapter of Leviticus in the proper order of story are the first fourteen Verses of the ninth Chapter of Numbers to be taken in which treat concerning the Passover For the Tabernacle being reared on the very first day of the second year of their coming out of Egypt namely on the first day of Nisan these orders and rules concerning Sacrifices and the Priests consecration were given and the eight days of Priests consecration and Sacrifices were accomplished before the fourteenth day of that month came when the Passover was to be kept by an old command given the last year in Egypt and by a second command now given in the wilderness so that this order and method is clear Now the reason why this story of this second Passover is not only not laid in its proper place in this Book of Leviticus but also out of its proper place in the Book of Numbers for the Book beginneth its story with the beginning of the second month but this story of the Passover belongeth to the first month The reason I say of this dislocation is because Moses his chief aim in that place is to shew and relate the new dispensation or command for a Passover in the second month which was a matter of very great moment For the translation of that feast a month beyond its proper time did the rather inforce the significancy of things future then of things past as rather recording the death of Christ to come then their delivery from Egypt when it hit not on that very night This story therefore of the Passover transferred to the second month upon some occasions being the matter that Moses chiefly aimed at and respected in that relation and history he hath set it in his proper place for so is that where it lies in the Book of Numbers and intending and aiming at the mention of that he hath also brought in the mention of the right Passover or that of the first month as it was necessary he should to shew the occasion of the other LEVITICUS XI XII XIII XIV XV. AFter the rules for things clean and fit for sacrifice the Lord cometh to give rules for things clean and fit to eat and clean and fit to touch for this was the tripartite distinction of clean or unclean in the Law Every thing that was unclean to touch was unclean to eat but every thing that was unclean to eat was not unclean to touch every thing that was unclean to eat was unclean to sacrifice but every thing that was unclean to sacrifice was not unclean to eat for many things might be eaten which might not be sacrificed and many things might be touched which might not be eaten And under the Law about clean and unclean there is exceeding much of the doctrine of sin and renovation touched considerable in very many particulars 1. By the Law of Moses nothing was unclean to be touched while it was alive but only man A man in Leprosie unclean to be touched Lev. 13. and a woman in her separation Lev. 12. but Dogs Swine Worms c. not unclean to be touched till they be dead Lev. 11. 31. 2. By the Law of Moses uncleanness had several degrees and Leprosie was the greatest There was uncleanness for a day as by touching a dead beast for a week as by touching a dead man for a month as a woman after Child-birth and for a year or more as Leprosie 3. Every Priest had equal priviledge and calling to judge of the Leprosie as well as the the high Priest 4. The Priests that were judges of Leprosie could not be tainted
is called both Ahashuerus and Artaxerxes Ezra 4. vers 6 7. for Artaxerxes was a common name of the Kings of Persia as Pharaoh was of the Kings of Egypt DANIEL X XI XII DANIEL mourning for the hindrance of the Temple seeth Christ as John did in Patmos And hath a Revelation of the condition of his own people under their powerful Enemies till the madness of Antiochus Epiphanes was over He should violate the Sanctuary and cause Religion and Moses Law to lie in the dirt for a time two Times and half a time or three years and an half or one thousand two hundred and ninety days But he that waiteth and liveth to see five and forty days more or till those one thousand two hundred and ninety days be made up one thousand three hundred and thirty five days he should see an end of Antiochus Artaxerxes Ahashuerus World 3474 Artax Ahashuerus 1 The building of the Temple lieth forgot and forlorn by the command of Artaxerxes Ahashuerosh the present King of Persia Hereupon divers of the Jews that had gone up to Jerusalem in the first of Cyrus return back again in this Kings reign to their old residence in Babylonia or in Persia again Artax Ahashuerus 2 The building of the Temple lieth still quite forlorn ESTHER I. World 3476 Artax Ahashuerus 3 ARTAXERXES who was also called Ahashuerosh after his great Grandfather of the Median blood Dan. 9. 1. is a greater Potentate and Prince by seven Provinces then Cyrus and Darius were compare vers 1. with Dan. 6. 1. To shew and to see his own glory and pomp he maketh a Feast half a year together to his Nobles and seven days more to all Susan and when all this glory of his great command hath been shewed he cannot command his own wife c. ESTHER II. Artax Ahashuerus 4 THREE whole years and above is Ahashuerus without a Queen Artax Ahashuerus 5 his servants and officers in several Countries are making inquiry after Artax Ahashuerus 6 who may be fit for a Queen for him World 3480 Artax Ahashuerus 7 Esther taken into the Kings Palace in the seventh year of his reign in the tenth month vers 16. a Daughter of Benjamin born for the good of her people Mordecai had been captived with Jechoniah above seventy years ago and had been at Jerusalem when the Captivity was sent back to their own Country again and there had helped forward their settlement and prosperity as long as the work of the Temple would go forward but when not he returns to Persia and there doth his people good in that Court when he could no longer do it in their own City Artax Ahashuerus 8 Bigthan and Teresh two of the Kings Porters hanged for Treason The matter discovered by Mordecai and revealed to the King ESTHER III. Artax Ahashuerus 9 HAMAN promoted by the King to the highest honour in the Artax Ahashuerus 10 Kingdom obtaineth not one bowing or cringe from Artax Ahashuerus 11 Mordecai Mordecai disdaineth to homage or to shew reverence to an Amalekite for so Haman was of the Seed of Agag whom Samuel hewed to pieces in Gilgal World 3485 Artax Ahashuerus 12 Haman would buy all the Jews in the Persian Monarchy for ten thousand Talents of silver but they are given him for nothing He goes not about the destruction of them but first useth direction by Magical Lots what day fittest to speed of his request and the Devil allots him the thirteenth of the first month and what month fittest for the execution and the Devils Lot telleth him the month Adar On the thirteenth day of the first month Letters are dispatched through all the Provinces of the Monarchy for the destruction of the Jews at such a time ESTHER IV V. ALL the Provinces perplexed at the tidings the Jews in Shushan keep a Fast of three days and three nights long this time is measured exactly as the three days and three nights of our Saviours death for on the third day Esther puts on the Kingdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and obtains the Kings favour ESTHER VI VII HAMAN prepares a Gallows for himself and bespeaks Honours for Mordecai his Wife and friends knew the curse upon Amaleck because of the Jews and read his fall ESTHER VIII IX ON the twenty third day of the month Sivan Mordecai and Esther obtain Letters to revoke Hamans bloody purpose and that the Jews should stand in their own defence against their enemies which they do at the time appointed for their destruction and slay 75810 men The feast of Purim instituted ESTHER X. Artax Ahashuerus 13 AFTER this great and wonderful deliverance and prosperity of the Artax Ahashuerus 14 Jews Artaxerxes or Ahashuerosh layeth a Tax upon the whole Empire but in what year of his reign is uncertain and how long he reigned after this is not easily determinable For the Scripture is utterly silent to express the number of the years of his reign or any of the Kings of of Persia that come after him in clear expressions Of this King it saith no more at all of the next it mentioneth his second year Ezra 4. 24. his fourth year Zech. 7. 1. his sixth year Ezra 6. 15. his seventh Ezra 27. 8. his twentieth Neh. 1. 1. his thirty second Neh. 13. 6. but how long he reigned further there is no account at all neither By collection from other places and passages it may be concluded and upon very good ground that this King Artaxerxes Ahashuerosh reigned but fourteen years in all the ground is this Because Zechariah in the second year of Darius doth then but reckon the time of some captivity seventy years The Angel of the Lord answered and said O Lord of Hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the Cities of Judah against which thou hast had indignation these seventy years Zech. 1. 12. And in Chap. 4. there are some people sent from Babel to Jerusalem and they have this quaere among the rest of the business they came about to speak to the Priests which were in the house of the Lord of Hosts and to ask Should I weep in the fifth month as I have done these seventy years Compare ver 3. 5. Now from the beginning of the seventy years or the fourth of Jehoiakim to the second of Darius were many years above seventy namely the three years of Cyrus all the years of Ahashuerosh which were twelve mentioned in Scripture before his taxing the Empire and two of Darius himself eighty seven in all by this account from the time that the seventy years captivity beginneth to be counted therefore these seventy years mentioned in Zechary must be counted from some other date or else there will be exceeding much hardness and impropriety in the speech Now this date is from the destruction of Jerusalem and firing of the Temple in the nineteenth year of Nebuchad-nezzar to Darius his second namely fifty one years of the seventy of Babell three of Cyrus
Christ from beyond Jordan into Judea again He staies two days after he had received the message in the same place where the messenger found him and in the story of this Section he is set forward And being now upon his last journey to Jerusalem he foretelleth to his Disciples what should become of him there They followed him with fear and amazement before foreseeing that he went upon his own danger and yet when he had spoken the thing out to them at the full they understood him not SECTION LXVIII MATTH Chap. XX. from Ver. 20. to Ver. 29. MARK Chap. X. from Ver. 35. to Ver. 46. The request of Zebedees sons They are told of their Martyrdom THe order is plain of it self and yet the connexion is somewhat strange for in the last words before Christ had foretold of his death yet the Sons of Zebedee here desire to sit on his right hand and left in his Kingdom Galatius resolves it thus Discipuli in errore aliquando fuerunt credentes Christum illico post resurrectionem terreni regni sceptro potiturum unde quidam eorum super caeteros primatum ambientes c. The Disciples sometimes were mistaken conceiving that Christ presently after his resurrection should obtain the scepter of an earthly Kingdom whereupon some of them ambitious of priority above the rest desired to sit on his right hand and left c. lib. 4. cap. 1. It is true indeed that the Jewish Nation and the Disciples with them erred in judging about Messias his Kingdom Act. 1. but they erred as far also about Messias his Resurrection till experience had informed them better Therefore it cannot well be imagined that the Wife and Sons of Zebedee thought of Christs Resurrection in this their request but conceived of his temporal Kingdom according to the notions of the rest of the Nation about it What therefore our Saviour had spoken instantly before of his being scourged crucified killed and Rising again they understood in some figurative sense or other but the Evangelists plainly tell us they understood it not in the sense that he spake it It may be his naming these two The sons of thunder gave them some blind incouragement to such a request Christ foretels his own death and their suffering Martyrdom under the title of Baptism in which sense the Apostle also useth the word 1 Cor. 15. 29. The Jewish baptizings or dippings in their purifications was a very sharp piece of Religion when in frost and snow and wind and weather they must over head and ears in cold water from which the phrase was used to signifie death and the bitterest sufferings The Jerusalem Gemarists do tell us that the Women of Galilee grew barren by reason of the cold in their purifyings R. Aha in the name of Tanchum bar R. Chaia saith In the days of R. Joshua ben Levi they sought to abolish this dipping because of the women of Galilee which were made barren by reason of the cold R. Joshua ben Levi saith Do ye seek to abolish a thing that fenceth Israel from transgression c. Beracoth fol. 6. col 3. SECTION LXIX LUKE Chap. XVIII Ver. 35. to the end MATTH Chap. XX. from Ver. 29. to the end MARK Chap. X. from Ver. 46. to the end Blind healed CHRIST in his journey from beyond Jordan to Bethany for the raising of Lazarus passeth through Jericho and he healeth one blind man as he entreth into Jericho of which Luke speaketh and another as he goeth out of which the other two Matthew indeed speaketh of two healed as he came out of Jericho comprehending it may be the story of him that was healed on the other side of the Town and this together in one story for briefness sake Or if there were two healed on this side of the Town Mark only mentions one because he rather aimeth at shewing of the manner or kind of the miracle then at the number as we have observed the like before at Sect. 39. SECTION LXX LUKE Chap. XIX from the beginning to Ver. 29. Zaccheus a Publican converted THe order lies plain in ver 1. Christ was passed through Jericho before he met with Zaccheus c. Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai hath made the name Zaccai or Zaccheus renowned in Jewish writings his Father Zaccai might very well be now alive and for any difference of the times might well enough be the Zaccheus before us but that some other circumstances do contradict it Whosoever this man was it is observable that though his name Zaccheus speak him a Jew yet Christ reputes him not a Child of Abraham till he believe ver 19. Ver. 11. They thought that the Kingdom of Heaven should immediately appear Observe this this they had learned from Dan. 9. where the time is so punctually determined that they that looked for the consolation of Israel could not but observe it and they that observed could not but see it now accomplished SECTION LXXI JOHN Chap. XI from Ver. 17. to the end of the Chapter Lazarus raised Caiaphas Prophecieth NOw is Christ come up to Bethany Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by Talm. Bab. Pasachin fol. 53. facie 1. where they speak of the figs of Bethhene and the dates of Tubni be the same with this Bethany we shall not dispute here Both a Town and some space of ground about it was called by this name Bethany As he had staied in the place where he was when he heard of Lazarus sickness purposely that he might die before he came to him that God might be the more glorified by his raising ver 15. so did he make sure to stay long enough after he was dead before he came that the glory might be the more He had been four days dead ver 39. Compare with this these sayings of the Jews Maym. in Gerushin per. ult If one look upon a dead man within three days after his death he may know him but after three days his visage is changed Jerus in Moed Katon fol. 82. col 2. Three days the Soul flies about the body as if thinking to return to it but after it sees the visage of the countenance changed it leaves it and gets it gone Upon the miracle wrought the Jews seek to kill Jesus and Lazarus both whereupon Jesus goeth to a City called Ephraim ver 54. Talm. Bab. in Menachoth fol. 85. fac 1. Juchne and Mamre Jannes and Jambres said to Moses Dost thou bring straw to Ephraim Gloss. Ibi. Juchne and Mamre were the chief Sorcerers of Egypt they when Moses began to do miracles thought he had done them by magick they said Dost thou bring straw to Ephraim Ephraim was a place that exceedingly aboundeth with corn and darest thou bring Corn thither meaning Dost thou bring Sorceries into Egypt that abounds so with Sorceries Aruch in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephraim was a City in the Land of Israel where there was abundance of Corn. Where is the chiefest provision for Offerings The chiefest
this stay of Paul at Ephesus He fought with beasts there after the manner of men 1 Cor. 15. 32. which seemeth to be understood of a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fighting with wild beasts in the Theater as was the barbarous and bestial custom of the Romans and those times For 1. Observe in the hubbub of Demetrius Pauls companions are haled presently into the Theater ver 29. as if there the people had that that would take a course with them 2. Observe that the Asiarchae or Theater-Officers are Pauls friends as having knowledge and acquaintance of him and with him before 3. Demetrius his uproar which was the greatest danger that Luke hath mentioned of him was not till after he had written his Epistle to Corinth in which he speaks of fighting with beasts and therefore that could not be meant 4. The phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem clearly to distinguish it from any combate in a borrowed sense 5. The trouble that befel him in Asia by which he was pressed above measure and even despaired of life 2 Cor. 1. 8 9. cannot be understood so well of the tumult of Demetrius for we read not of any hand laid upon Paul in it as of some other danger nearer dearth In the latter year of these two above written which was part of Pauls last year at Ephesus on the 13th day of October of that year Claudius the Emperor dieth and Nero succeedeth him a wretch whose memory is not worth looking after unless it be for detestation yet must we in our further progress of viewing the actions of Paul and ranking his Epistles be beholden to the Chronical observation of his years Paul himself saith to the Elders of Ephosus By the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one Acts 20. 31. And yet Luke in this Chapter specifieth only two years and a quarter ver 8. 10. The comparing of which two sums together doth help us to measure the time of his abode there mentioned from ver 20. and forward Namely that he spent three months in disputing in the Jews Synagogue and two years in the School of Tyrannus and three quarters of a year after in going up and down Asia The expiration of his three years was about Pentecost in the first year of Nero. CHRIST LV NERO. I ACTS CHAP. XIX Vers. 21 22. After these things were ended Paul purposed in spirit when he had passed thorow Macedonia and Achaia to go to Ierusalem saying When I have been there I must also see Rome 22. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministred to him Timotheus and Erastus but he himself staid in Asia for a season PAuls thoughts of going to Rome do argue the death of Claudius who had banished all the Jews from thence Acts 18. 2. and that by the coming in of Nero a new Emperor that Decree was extinct and freedom of access to Rome opened to them again For it can be little conceived that Paul should think of going thither when he could neither find any of his Nation there nor he himself come thither without certain hazzard of his life as the case would have been if Claudius and his Decree were yet alive It is therefore agreeable to all reason that the death of Claudius and the succession of Nero was now divulged and Paul thereupon knowing that it was now lawful again for a Jew to go to Rome intendeth to take a farewel journy and visit to Macedonia Achaiah and Jerusalem and then to go and preach there Claudius died the 13th day of October as was said before and Nero instantly succeeded him A Prince of so much clemency and mansuetude in the beginning of his reign that Titus the Emperour afterward used to say that the best Princes exceeded not the first five years of Nero in goodness And Seneca if he flatter not the Prince or his own tutorage of him gives him this among many other Encomiums of him Lib. de Clementia which he dedicates to him Potes hoc Caesar praedicare audacter omnium quae in fidem tutelamque tuam venerunt nihil per te neque vi neque clam reipublicae ereptum Rarissimam laudem nulli adhuc principum concessam concupisti innocentiam Nemo unus homo uni homini tam charus unquam fuit quam tu populo Romano magnum longumque ejus bonum It must be some space of time before Claudius death could come to be reported at Ephesus it is like the new year after the Roman account might be stept in Whensoever it was that Paul heard the news and that a door of access to Rome was opened for the Jews again he sets down his determination to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost and then to set for Macedon and back to Jerusalem and then to Rome Upon this resolution he sendeth Timothy and Erastus into Macedon before him appointeth them to call at Corinth in the way and intends himself to stay at Ephesus till they should come thither again to him 1 Cor. 16. 10 11. Between Vers. 22. and Vers. 23. of this XIX CHAP. of the ACTS falleth in the time of Pauls writing THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS He being now at Ephesus and having set down the time of his removing thence namely at Pentecost coming 1 Cor. 16. 8. He had now been at Ephesus well towards three years and had met with many difficulties yet had so prevailed by the power of the Gospel that not only all along hitherto many people were continually converted but even now alate many conjurers and such as used magical Arts devoted themselves to the Gospel and their books to the fire and became the renewed monuments of the power and prevalency of the divine truth This was that great and effectual door opened to him of which he speaketh 1 Cor. 16. 9. and which occasioned his stay at Ephesus still when he had sent Timothy and Erastus into Macedonia Acts 19. 21. In the time of which stay there Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus come from Corinth 1 Cor. 16. 17. with Letters from the Church to Paul 1 Cor. 7. 1. and he upon their return returns his answer in this Epistle sent by Titus and another 2 Cor. 12. 18. Some Postscripts have named Timothy for the the bearer antedating his journy to Corinth which was not in his going to Macedon but in his return back and when this Epistle had already given them notice of his coming that way 1 Cor. 16. 10. Apollos when Paul wrote this Epistle was with him at Ephesus and was desired by Paul to have gone along with the brethren to Corinth but he would not 1 Cor. 16. 11. it may be because he would not countenance a faction there by his presence which was begun under his name The Church was exceedingly broken into divisions which produced very doleful effects among them These several enormities raged in that Church though so lately and so nobly planted and all originally derived
〈◊〉 Zephaniah the second Priest Targum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zephaniah the Sagan of the Priests Caiaphas therefore was the High-Priest and Annas the Sagan or Ruler of the Temple who for his independent dignity is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or High-Priest as well as Caiaphas and seems therefore to be named first because he was the others Father-in-law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 h h h h h h Chetub fol. 88. 2. fol. 105. 1. There was a dissention between Hanan and the Sons of the chief Priests c. It was in a judicial cause about a Wife requiring her dower c. Where the scruple is who should these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Chief Priests be Whether the Fathers and heads of the Courses or the High-Priest only and the Sagan It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i i i i i i Cap. 1. of the same Treatise hal 5. a Counsel of Priests which we have already spoken to at Matth. XXVI 3. Now the question is whether by the Sons of the chief Priests be meant the Sons of the Fathers of Courses or the Fathers of Courses themselves or the Sons of the High-Priest and the Sagan where the High-Priest in that Court was like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince in the Sanhedrin and the Sagan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father of the Sanhedrin k k k k k k Pesikta fol. 11. 4. Moses was made a Sagan to Aaron He put on his Garments and took them off viz. on the day of his Consecration And as he was his Sagan in life so he was in death too VERS V. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every valley shall be filled THE Jews have a Tradition that some such thing was done by the cloud that led Israel in the Wilderness Instead of many instances take the Targumist upon Cant. II. 6. There was a cloud went before them three days journey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to take down the hills and raise the valleyes It slew all fiery Serpents in the Wilderness and all Scorpions and found out for them a fit place to lodge in What the meaning of the Prophet in this passage was Christians well enough understand the Jews apply it to levelling and making the ways plain for Israel's return out of Captivity for this was the main thing they expected from the Messiah viz. to bring back the Captivity of Israel l l l l l l Beresh rabb fol. 110. 3. R. Chanan saith Israel shall have no need of the Doctrine of Messiah the King in time to come for it is said to him shall the Gentiles seek Isai. XI 10. but not Israel If so why then is Messiah to come and what is he to doe when he doth come He shall gather together the Captivity of Israel c. VERS VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of these stones to raise up Children unto Abraham WE do not say the Baptist played with the sound of those two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Banaia and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abanaia He does certainly with great scorn deride the vain confidence and glorying of that Nation amongst whom nothing was more ready and usual in their mouths than to boast that they were the Children of Abraham when he tells them that they were such Children of Abraham that God could raise as good as they from those very stones VERS XI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that hath two Coats let him impart to him that hath none IT would be no sense to say he that hath two Coats let him give to him that hath not two but to him that hath none For it was esteemed for Religion by some to weare but one single Coat or Garment Of which more elsewhere VERS XIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exact no more than that which is appointed you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 m m m m m m Sanhedr fol. 25. 2. When the Rabbins saw that the Publicans exacted too much they rejected them as not being fit to give their testimony in any case Where the Gloss hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too much that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 More than that which is appointed them And the Father of R. Zeirah is commended in the same place that he gently and honestly executed that trust He discharged the Office of a Publican for thirteen years when the Prince of the City came and this Publican saw the Rabbins he was wont to say to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Go my people enter thou into thy Chambers Isai. XXVI The Gloss is Lest the Prince of the City should see you and taking notice what numbers you are should encrease his tax yearly VERS XIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither accuse any falsly LEVIT XIX 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither lye one to another Job XXXV 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The oppressed See Psal. LXXII 4. CXIX 122. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. n n n n n n Dion Cass. lib. 58. a little from the beginning The manner of sycophants is first to load a person with reproaches and whisper some secret that the other hearing it may by telling something like it become obnoxious himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With your wages A word used also by the Rabbins o o o o o o Midr. Schir fol. 5. 3. The King distributeh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wages to his Legions p p p p p p Sanhedr fol. 18. 2. The King is not admitted to the intercalation of the year 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the Opsonia That is lest he should favour himself in laying out the years with respect to the Souldiers pay VERS XXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Like a Dove IF you will believe the Jews there sate a golden Dove upon the top of Solomon's Scepter q q q q q q Bemidb. rabh fol. 250. 1. As Solomon sate in his throne his Scepter was hung up behind him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the top of which there was a Dove and a golden crown in the mouth of it VERS XXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being as was supposed the Son of Ioseph A Parable r r r r r r Schemoth rabba fol. 160. 4. There was a certain Orphaness brought by a certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epitropus or Foster-father an honest good man At length he would place her in Marriage A scribe is called to write a bill of her dower Saith he to the girl what is thy name N. saith she What the name of thy Father She held her peace To whom her Foster-father why dost thou not speak Because saith she I know no other Father but thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that educateh the child is called a Father not he that begets it Note that Joseph having been taught by the Angel and well satisfied in
he art thou so sad He saith unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am sad for the speeches of those who say I will do this or that e're long though they know not how quickly they may be called away by death That man with whom thou hast been feasting and that boâ—sted amongst you with this wine I will grow old in the joy of my Son behold the time draws nigh that within thirty days he must be snatcht away He saith unto him do thou let me know my time To whom he answered over thee and such as thou art we have no power for God being delighted with good works prolongeth your lives VERS XXIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither Store-house nor Barn I Am mistaken if the Jerusalem Writers would not render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Store-house where they laid up their fruits and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Barn where they laid up their grain It is commonly rendred the floor but there it is meant the Barn floor Our Saviour takes an instance from God feeding the Ravens m m m m m m Vide Job XXXVIII 41. Ps. CXLVII 9. It is R. Solomon's remark Our Rabbins observe that the Raven is cruel toward its young but God pitieth them and provides them flees that breed out of their own dung Now the reason they give why the old ones are so unmerciful to their own young is in Chetabboth n n n n n n Fol. 49. 2. where the Gloss thus explains the mind of the Gemarists speaking of the young ones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both white and black when they grow black the old ones begin to love their young but while they are all white they loath them In that very place there occurs this passage not unworthy our transcribing There was a certain man brought before Rabh Judah because he refused to provoide for his Children saith he to those that brought him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dragon brings forth and lays her young in the Town to be nourisht up When he was brought to Rabh Chasda he saith unto them compel him to the door of the Synagogue and there let him stand and say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Raven seeks her young ones but this Man doth not seek or own his Children But doth the Raven seek her young ones behold it is written God feedeth the Ravens which cry unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This hath no difficulty in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is said of them while they are white that God feeds them but that is said of them when they are become black that the Raven owneth her young But the Gloss hath it thus It seems as if he with his own voice should cry out against himself and say the Raven owneth her young But there are those that expound it as if the minister of the Synagogue should set him forth and proclaim upon him the Raven acknowledgeth her young but this man rejects his own Children Tell it to the Church Matth. XVIII 17. VERS XXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The nations of the world c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is a very common form of speech amongst the Jews by which they express the Gentiles or all other nations beside themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have a peculiar propriety in Sacred Writ which they have not in prophane Authors so far that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath relation only to the Jewish ages and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the nations that are not Jewish Hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. XXIV 3. is meant the end of the Jewish age or world And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. I. 2. is before the Jewish world began and hence it is that the world very often in the New Testament is to be understood only of the Gentile world VERS XXXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He will come forth and serve them o o o o o o Gloss. in Bathra fol. 57. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that serves at the table goes about while the guests sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to denote the same thing here unless it may referr to some such thing as this viz. that the Master will pass by his dignity and condescend to minister to his own Servants VERS XXXVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the second watch and in the third IN the very dead watches of all at least if there be not a solecism in speech At the first watch they went to bed and the fourth watch the time of getting up again came on so that the second and the third watch was the very dead time of sleep VERS XLVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shall be beaten with many stripes THere was a stated number of stripes and that was forty beyond which no Malefactor Condemned by the Judges to that punishment ought to receive Whence that passage p p p p p p Cholin fol. 82. 1. seems a little strange He that kills an Heifer and afterward two of that Heifers Calves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him be beaten with fourscore stripes How so fourscorce when they ought not to exceed above forty q q q q q q Deut. XXV 3 They might not exceed that number for one single crime but if the crime was doubled they might double the punishment And it may be a question whether they did not double their accusations upon St. Paul when they multiplied their stripes he himself telling us that five times he had received forty stripes save one r r r r r r 2 Cor. XI 2â— But did every one that was adjudged by the Court to stripes did they always receive that number exactly of thirty nine no doubt the number was more or less according to the nature of the crime Which seems to be hinted in s s s s s s Fol. 24. 2. Pesachin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that eateth the Potitha some creeping thing of the Sea let him be beaten with four stripes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that eateth a Pismire let him be beaten with five 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that eateth an Hornet let him have six If this be the sense of the words then here may arise a question with what kind of scourge they were beaten if with that scourge of three cords that was used when they gave nine and thirty stripes repeating their strokes by a scourge of three cords thirteen times how then could they inflict four or five stripes with such a scourge as that was But as to the number of stripes which the master might inflict upon his slave that was not stated but left to the pleasure of the master according to the nature of the crime which seems hinted at in these words of our Saviour and in the following rule amongst the Jews some kind of measure still being attended to t
Pet. II. Their sins will not let them linger and slumber but continually cry in the ears of God for judgment The injuries they do to Law Gospel and Blood of Christ will not let them linger nor slumber but these are continually crying to God to avenge their cause And will not God avenge his cause What need I speak of his Soveraignty challenging that he dispose of all mens eternal being as he brought them into being here What should I speak of his Justice challenging that every one be rewarded according to his work And indeed what need I to insist much to prove that God is Judge of all and that he will bring all to judgment to any that call themselves Christians and have the Bible in their hand And so I have done with the first double Proposition in the Text viz. That God is Judge and Judge of all And now briefly to speak to the second duplicity viz. He stands before the door and before the door of all I know the Apostles expression means in general the Judge is near but if it should come to particularizing of this or the other or any person would he not say the same And will not any say the same that will acknowledge a Judge or Judgment Who can say who dares say the Judge stands not before my door I am sure a good man dares not say so for he accounts his God and Judge near unto him Thou compassest my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my ways Psal. CXXXIX 3. And if any wretched man dare say so let him take heed that he finds not his Judge a great deal nearer than he supposes nay the nearer for his putting him so far off The Scripture speaks of two kinds of people but indeed are but one and they seem to look two several ways whereas indeed they look but one and the same way viz. those that put the evil day far from them and those that desire the evil days coming You have mention of them both near together in one and the same Prophet Of the former Amos VI. 3. Wo to you that put the evil day far away And of the latter Amos V. 18. Wo to you that desire the day of the Lord. How they put away the evil day in their own foolish fancy and conceit is no hard thing to understand I wish that too common experience had not acquainted us with that too much and too many a time But how do such wicked wretches desire the day of the Lord The Prophet Esay tells you of some Chap. V. 19. That say let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it and let the counsil of the holy one of Israel draw near and come that we may know it And all this in scorn as making a puff at the Word of the Lord that tells of an evil day and a day of the Lord to come Here is talk of the Word of the Lord I pray you let us see it and telling of the Lords coming where is it Let him come that we may know it Directly these mockers 2 Pet. III. 2. That say in scorn where is the promise of his coming Now is the Judge ever the farther off for these mens putting him and his judgment far away Nay is he not the nearer In that place of Esay the wretches that spake so in scorn are said to draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with cart-ropes And if they draw these do they not draw judgment on too Judgment is the nearest when the sinner is securest and when men cry peace peace then sudden destruction cometh upon them 1 Thes. V. But First At whose door doth not the Judge stand harkening and taking notice of mens behaviour Rev. III. 20. Behold I stand at the door and knock He knocks that if it may be he may be admitted but if he be not he stands not in vain but takes notice of what passes in the house that he may take account of it in his due time Jer. VIII 6. I hearkned and heard but they spake not aright no man repented him of his wickedness saying what have I done Mal. III. 16. The Lord hearkened and heard and a book of remembrance was written before him The Judge writes what passes and in time will have a reckoning about it And so may the counsil of the Apostle here be very well construed Grudge not brethren one against another grumble not repine not one against another for the Judge is at the door and he takes notice of every thing that passeth and you must account for it It were an excellent lesson for every Christian to get the hundred and nine and thirtieth Psalm not only by heart but in his heart and to be convinced and have a feeling of what is there spoken concerning Gods nearness to every man in what place and posture soever he is I need no more proof for that we are speaking of than only that Psalm I would every heart would make the Use of the doctrine there taught and make Application by his practise Secondly Who can say otherwise then that the Judge is at the door and may break in any moment by death and judgment And this needs no other proof than only to remember the uncertainty of death and judgment Isaac was of this belief when he said I know not the day of my death Gen. XXVII 2. whereas he lived many a fair year after And remarkable is that of the Apostle that when he is speaking of the Judgment to come he states it as if it were to come even in his time whereas so many hundred of years above a thousand are passed since his time We shall not all die but we shall all be changed 1 Cor. XV. And 1 Thes. IV. The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout And then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with him into the clouds Why Blessed Apostle dost thou think the resurrection and general judgment shall come while thou art alive Do it or do it not I have learned always to think that the Judge always stands before the door And I would teach all generations and ages to believe the same that the Judge standeth c. And Thirdly who can keep him out when he is pleased to break in Elisha could shut the door against the Kings messenger that was sent to take away his life can any man do it against the great Judge when he comes to do it Are any doors judgment proof when the Lord will batter against them Rather list up your heads O ye gates and be lift up O ye everlasting doors that the King of glory may come in Prepare to meet thy God O Israel that when he comes thou mayest comfortably entertain him It may seem a very hard passage that of the Apostle 2 Pet. III. 12. Looking for and hasting to the day of God when the heavens being on fire shall
To gather Spiritual strength for that which it may be hath been scattered in our wordly employment Secondly There is a commemorative end of the Sabbath to remember Gods creating the world Which Adam might very well nay must have been employed about though he had never fallen When he had been all the week upon his employment dressing the Garden and keeping it then on the Sabbath to set himself to meditate upon Gods creating of the world and to study his power and wisdom and goodness shewed in that glorious workmanship and to spend the day in prayers to him Observe the work of that day to us and the same it should have been to him in Psal. XCII which is intituled a Psalm for the Sabbath day It tells you what the work of the day is vers 1. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name O most High And upon what reason ver 4. For thou hast made me glad through thy works I will triumph in the works of thy hands This is a Sabbath days work after our sixs days work to make it our employment to think of Gods to meditate of his wondrous works of Creation and Preservation and there will come in the thoughts of our Creator and Preserver and may mind us of our engagement to praise him to whet our thankfulness and faith with these thoughts 1. When we have laboured all the week to think of our Creator that hath sustained us fed cloathed brought us hitherto And here is a right Sabbath employment to let our thoughts stream from our wordly employment to God and to the remembrance of him in whom we live and move and have our being 2. To trust God with our support though we labour not on the Sabbath but spend it wholly to him and not to our selves He that created all things and that hath fed and preserved us hitherto can support us without our working on his day nay and will do it for do his work and undoubtedly thou shalt not want thy wages What a lecture did God read in his raining of Manna that on the Sabbath day he rained none thereby to shew his own owning of his Sabbath and checking and chiding those that for greediness and distrust would go out and think to gather some on that day And when he provided them Manna on the sixth day for the Sabbath also what a lecture did he read that he that observes the Sabbath and does Gods Will ceasing from his own labour and doing his shall never be unprovided for Thirdly There is an Evangelical end of the Sabbath referring to Christ and that in Adams Sabbath as well as ours Let us begin with his I have shewed that on the sixth day Adam sinned and Christ was promised So that the last work of God in the days of Creation was the setting up Christ and restoring fallen man by him And here God rested viz. He had brought in his Son in whom his Soul delighted and made him heir of all things and thus he rested in Christ finished his work in Christ rested refreshed delighted himself in Christ. Now the next day when the Sabbath came in what had Adam to do in it but to remember the Creation to remember his new creating when he was broke all to pieces and spoiled To remember his Creator and Redeemer It is said Gen. III. 21. Unto Adam and his wife did the Lork God make coats of skins and cloathed them The Lord and Lady of all the world clad in Leather Which our silks and sattens now would scorn to think of but from so mean a garb comes all our gallantry though now we scorn it But whence came those Skins Most probably they were the skins of beasts that were sacrificed For That sacrifice was from the beginning may be observed from that that Christ is called The Lamb slain from the beginning of the world and that not only in prediction or that it was determined and foretold by God that he should be slain but in figure that sacrifice was offered from the beginning of the world which did presignifie his killing and offering up And this further appears from the sacrifices of Cain and Abel which rite and piece of Religion they had learned of their Father Adam Here then was work for Adam on the Sabbath to sacrifice in memory of Christ to be offered up for redemption and to praise God for creating the world but especially for vouchsafing Christ whereby a better world and Estate is created And would not Adam when he had a family preach to his family of these things upon the Sabbath day My Children learn to know and remember the Creator the blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit who in six days made Heaven and Earth and on the sixth day made me and your Mother both of us in his own image perfectly holy and righteous and endued with power of perfect obedience and to resist all temptations But that day we were deceived by the Devil and fell and undid our selves and our posterity and came into a state of death and damnation But God suffered us to lye so but a few hours but promised his own Son to take our flesh and to dye to deliver us from death and damnation and taught us this duty of sacrifice in comemoration of Christs death and appoynted this day to commemorate these things and to be employed in such service and meditations Oh! my Children learn to know your Creator to believe in Christ your Redeemer and to observe his Sabbath Such employment as this had Adam with his family on the Sabbath day that it was even a Christian Sabbath to him as ours is to us and the very same work is ours and was his on the Sabbath day but only that he also sacrificed Fourthly There is a Typical end of the Sabbath to signify Eternal Rest. Heb. IV. 3. For we which have belived do enter into rest As he said I have sworn in my wrath if they shall enter into my Rest although the works were finished from the foundation of the world Where the Apostle signifies that the Sabbath hinted another rest to wit Gods Eternal Rest different from that rest when God ceased from the works of Creation The Sabbath typifies the end viz. Eternal Rest and the means viz. to rest in Christ. One end was to Adam in innocency both to us This is a lecture that may be read in the Sabbath in something that is visible to see something invisible as in the water to see the Sun This is a way to rest and resembles that great and last Rest as pleasant walks lead at length to the stately House at the end of them This is a fit thought for the Sabbath-day morning Now I rest from the world how shall I rest from it eternally Now I deal with God invisibly but one day visibly They who love Eternal Rest will certainly love the Sabbath To all these ends God
2 3. The great Angel is Christ the old Serpent is the Devil there Christ binds and imprisoneth him and that with the great chain of the Gospel Observe the passage He shut him up in the bottomless pit What In Hell for ever That he should never go abroad again Yea you have him loose again vers 7. and he hath been always going about as in 1 Pet. V. but he tyes him up that he should not deceive the Nations vers 3. and when he is loosed again vers 8. it is his being loose to deceive the Nations Observe by the way the phrase He shuts him up that is restrains him from deceiving and seducing people It is Hell and Prison to the Devil not to be doing mischief So the Psalmist speaks of the wicked children of the Devil They sleep not rest not if they do not evil It is a torment to them if they may not be sinning Well how doth Christ bind Satan that he do not deceive By sending the Gospel to undeceive them So that this is the Victory of Christ against the Devil The very telling of his Death and Merits is that that overcomes the Devil the very Word of his Death and Resurrection is that that overthrows the Devil and his power So is 1 Cor. VI. 3. to be taken Know ye not that we shall judge Angels Now needed Christs soul to go to Hell to tell the Devil these tidings and to triumph there He felt the building of his Kingdom fall about his ears every moment He needed no such message to go and tell him he had conquered him This is the Triumph of Christ over the Devil by the virtue and power of his death and not by any Vocal or actual Declaration of it by his Soul now separate from his Body IV. As to Christs Soul triumphing over the damned needed there any such thing Or could his Soul do any such thing Think you Christs Soul doth or could rejoyce in the damnation of the damned There is joy in Heaven when a sinner is saved Is there joy too when he is damned That tender expression of God As I live I delight not in the death of a sinner doth it give us any room to think that he can rejovce in their damnation That tender Soul of Christ that but six or eight days before wept for the destruction of Jerusalem with O! that thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace Can we think that that Soul could go to Hell to triumph and insult over poor damned Souls He had cause to triumph and rejoyce over the conquered Devils but had he the like cause or heart to triumph over damned Souls What was the reason of his triumphing over the Devils Because he had subdued themselves only He mastered them while alive in casting them out and commanding them at his pleasure He cast them into Hell by his Divine Power as soon as they had sinned but his triumph over them by his Death and Resurrection was for his peoples sake We cannot say Christ hath any pleasure in the damnation of the very Devils but he had pleasure in the Conquest of Devils because he had delivered his people from them Ah! most Divine Soul of Christ so infinitely full of charity that gave it self a Sacrifice for sin that men might not be damned can that rejoyce and insult over poor Souls damnation Look but upon Christs tenderness and earnestness for Souls here that they come not to damnation and then guess how little delight he taketh in it when they are damned Let us apply these two passages to this Ezek. XVIII 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye And vers 31. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth In the Hebrew it is in the strictest propriety In the death of him that is dead I have not pleasure that he dye and no pleasure in his death when he is dead What is there more plain in Scripture and in all Gods actings than this That God would not have men damned if they would embrace Salvation What speak these expressions 1 Tim. II. 4. Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth 2 Pet. III. 9. Not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance Certainly whatsoever else this is plain enough that God had rather men should be saved than damned How is this written in Scripture as in letters of gold that he that runs may read it How was it written in letters of Christs own blood that was shed that men might not be damned but that whosoever believeth might have eternal life And how is this written in Gods patience beseechings in his affording means of Salvation I need not to instance in particulars Well men will not be saved but choose death before life Doth Christ delight rejoyce to damn them when they must come to it Think ye he pronounceth Go ye cursed with as much delight as Come ye blessed That he insults triumphs over poor damned wretches in their damnation Read his heart in such passages as these Gen. VI. 6. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the Earth and it grieved him at his heart What Because he had made them No but because he having made them must now destroy them Lam. III. 33. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men So he doth not damn willingly nor destroy the children of men And once for all Esa. XLII 14. I have long time holden my peace I have been still and refrained my self now will I cry like a travailing woman I will destroy and devour at once I will cry and destroy but it is grievous to God as pangs of a travailing woman Thus much as hath been spoken may shew how unlikely and indeed how unchristian a thing it is to conceive that Christs Soul went purposely into Hell to triumph and insult over the miserable and damned And so you see that this Article cannot mean his Souls descending into the place of torment to triumph over the Devils and damned so that we must yet look for another sense of it III. A third interpretation then is this That it means the Torments he suffered in Soul III. upon his Cross. Some word it That he suffered the extream wrath of God some the very torments of Hell some that he was for the time in the state of the damned I reluct to speak these things but this Gloss some make upon this Article and while they go about to magnifie the Love of Christ in suffering such things for men they so much abase and vilifie his Person in making it lyable to such a condition The sense of the Article we must refuse unless we should speak and think of Christ that which doth not befit him The dearly beloved of the Soul of God to lye under the heaviest wrath of God The Lord of Heaven and Earth to
find he hath here taken little notice of the first and I think most genuine interpretation and started a new one Because of the Angels that is saith he because of the messengers or deputies of espousals the Women were permitted the liberty either of unvailing their faces to shew their comliness and beauty or of vailing them to shew their modesty Which interpretation as it shews his notable conjectural faculty so it seems to me remote and improbable For first It is hard to find any instance in the Scripture where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any addition signifies an office and not an order of beings which we call Angels nor in the Rabbines themselves as he acknowledgeth do we find the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying those deputies unless they have been before mentioned together Secondly The Apostle speaks not only of Women to be married but of Women in general married or unmarried whereas the reason by this interpretation of the Womens having power on their Heads would reach only the unmarried But this only occasionally and to fill up a Page In the late ill and unjust Times he was not for nothing taken from his Country employment and put into the Mastership of Katherine-Hall in Cambridge By those who out of interest did oftimes respect and draw in Persons of some Account and Reputation for Learning Here he continued till the happy Return of our Sovereign to the rightful possession of his Crown and Kingdom when he soon ranged himself in the Church of England in which his Innocency and Learning were so far taken notice of by his Superiours and especially the late most Reverend and Generous Archbishop and the Lord Keeper Bridgman two impartial countenancers of honest Men and Scholars that as I have been informed they always used him with kindness respect and liberality And indeed his Dedicatory Epistles before his Latine Commentaries on St. Mark and St. John are sufficient witnesses both of his Benefactors and his gratitude By their care and bounty it was that what he had before his Majesties Restauration was continued to him and moreover a Prebendary of Ely bestowed upon him In those Stations he followed his Studies and constantly and honestly discharged his duty till his Death which hapned in December in the year 1675. And thus much of the Author Much more without doubt might be said to his Advantage by those who had more acquaintance with him or knew him better I have done what right I could to his Worth and Memory It remains only in the last place that we say something concerning this Edition of these several pieces of the Author and so conclude this somewhat long Preface All his Writings being in very good esteem here among us and in greater beyond Sea where I have been more than once enquired of about them and his English ones being grown scarce some Booksellers were desirous to reprint these in English and put them altogether in one fair Volume In order to which they requested me to Dispose Revise Correct and put some Preface before them which I have now done I have ordered them according to their more natural use not according to the time of publishing them by the Author and therefore I have put in the first place The general Harmonies of the Old and New Testaments then the particular Books as the Harmony of the four Evangelists his Observations on Genesis and Exodus his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles and in the rear his two Tracts of the Temple Service and Miscellanies which contain many Observations applicable and useful to the interpretation of the Scriptures The latter of which was written by him when very young and when that Learning was not so much cultivated nor dispersed by others Works and therefore no wonder if there be in it many things now more ordinary and well known I have Corrected hundreds of Errors both in the Texts and History and in the Chronology and Figures In the first notwithstanding I left some small Matters as being uncertain whether they were the Printers faults or the Authors own way of Writing which was sometimes a little out of the common road My principal care was in the Hebrew Talmudical and Rabbinical quotations which were generally misprinted This I thought more worth the pains because the many Citations and Translations of these Authors are a very considerable help for young beginners to understand them otherwise tedious and difficult enough They are many and very useful examples so that many good notions may be gotten at the same time with the Language In the Chronology were a great number of faults likewise to be mended Those which were more manifest and plain I did alter but some which to me seemed mistakes yet uncertain whether it was the Authors opinion I have left to the observation and correction of others if they see cause And indeed it would have been endless to have examined all the little accuracies as the Interregnums the concurrent reigns of several Kings especially the last and first years when they were compleat and in order succeeding one another when they were in part coincident and concurrent so that the last year of one should be the first of another There is one thing generally altered for the best Whereas in the former Edition the numbers of several Epocha's answering one another were set any how as the Printer could hit it now they are put one over against another in the same line except here and there where the Printers have neglected my directions in the Copy of which I shall presently advise by an instance or two There is also a place or two where I know not how to reconcile the numbers as in pag. 99 100. For Jotham's first year and Uzziah's last and the 3252 d year of the World should be concurrent according to the Author himself unless he gives a double sense to the word reign of Jotham namely one more improper as Deputy to his Father Uzziah struck with Leprosie in his last year and the other more proper by himself alone the year after his Fathers death which is a way of Solution he sometimes useth How far it is to be allowed I am not here to say I am not to set down my own but my Authors sense be it what it will or what others can make of it And in general once for all I hope no man will think me oblig'd to applaud or approve every notion or remark of these Treatises It is not my business to make an Author but to give him made not to tell what the Author should say but what he hath said every one may take or leave as he pleaseth For he seems I confess too seriously to make and imitate Cabbalistical and Rabbinical observations such as that of the Talmudists and Baal Hatturim But sometimes perhaps the importance of the matter of the observation more than the certainty or probability of
prophaned but when a scandalous person comes c. Our Respondent denyed the Major The other in proving it construed To tread under foot as much as To neglect or slight Which received this answer That neither the word in the Hebrew in the Old Testament nor in the Greek in the New siguifieth in that sense And that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies not prophaning but a higher maliciousness than ordinary slighting Again they used that Text for suspension from the Sacrament in 2. Thes. III. 6. That ye withdraw your selves from every Brother that walketh disorderly Where our Doctor desired to know how this private proof would come up to a positive proposition For the proposition is of suspending another from the Sacrament and this of suspending our selves from company with another To which Dr. B. gave this answer That though the terms be different in the Proposition and Text yet the sense is the same Against which our Champion argued thus That in Matth. I. 19. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Put her away Erasmus and Brucioli the Italian render it He would depart from her This he conceived did much change that sense and spake not of any divorse at all from Joseph but makes him Passive Mr. P. answered again That the Apostle giving so strict a charge makes the Passive an Active He replied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law speaks in the Language of Man that the Reader or Hearer may best understand Now if the Apostle had mainly intended Actively I conceive saith he he would have spoke Actively Yet this Text being put to the Vote was carried in the Affirmative nemine contradicente but Dr. Lightfoot I perceive I must beg the Readers pardon for so large a relation of the canvasing of one single point But the use and pleasure of it may countervail its tediousness Whereby may be observed the manner of proceeding in that Assembly which it may be may be a curiosity at least not unacceptable to some ingenious persons and particularly the courage honesty quickness learning and intimate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures that appeared in the worthy Man of whom we are speaking Let us not be weary to hear his thoughts and discourse upon the other Sacrament of Baptism as we have heard him upon that of the Lords Supper Our Doctor did allow of private Baptism in some cases This was opposed by some who would have Baptism celebrated in publick only Here the Doctor insisted upon these things I. That in 1 Cor. I. I baptized the House of Stephanas was in Ecclesia constituta and the phrase importeth that it was not in a Synagogue II. Whereas some had asserted that Circumcision was publick he proved that it was generally private 1. Otherwise in great Towns every day sometimes would have been as a Sabbath for every day would some Child come to be eight days old 2. Moses his Wife and Judah at Chezib circumcised Children distant from any Congregation III. All the Nation was baptized when they were to come out of Egypt but this could not be in the Congregation IV. The Jews Pandect tells us That a Proselyte was to be baptized at home as a Servant by his Master but if either Servant or Master refuse then should he be brought before the Congregation Then was there a Learned discourse between our Author and another well skilled in Hebrew Learning concerning the import of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The one in a large discourse making it to mean dipping over head and cars Which Dr. Lightfoot largely also proved to imply no more but Sprinkling And finally made a challenge to them all to produce any one place in all the Old Testament where Baptizare when it is used De Sacris and in a Transient action is not used of Sprinkling And so assured he was of this That he declared he held Dipping unlawful and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a piece of Wilworship Concerning Keeping the Sabbath the first Proposition was That the Sabbath is to be remembred before it come c. That Phrase Before it come Our Doctor spake against as putting a Gloss upon the Commemoration of the fourth Commandment never heard of before But howsoever it was carried in terminis But he succeeded better in his dislike of the third Proposition which was That there be no feasting on the Sabbath he instancing in Christs feasting Luke XIV and in his feasting at least Dining with all his Disciples in Peters House Matth. VIII Whereupon it was thus proposed That the Diet on the Sabbath day be so ordered that no servants or others be unnecessarily kept from the publick Service The Assembly discoursing concerning Marriage whether it should be denyed to be a part of Gods Worship or whether it were to be held out as a mere civil thing Mr. G. alledged Eccles. VIII 2. I counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandment and that in regard of the Oath of God to shew obedience to Magistrates to be a mere Civil thing and yet it lays a tie of Obedience from God Dr. Lightfoot denyed that Gloss of the place and said That the Oath there is not an Oath taken by the Subject to David but the Oath made by God to Davids House When the Assembly had expounded the meaning of that Article He descended into Hell to be that he continued under the power of death he impleaded that sense as too short and not reaching to the meaning of the Greek phrase For saith he 1. There is not so much difference between He was dead till he rose again and He continued under the power of death till he rose again as to make two distinct Articles of the Creed 2. The Greek phrase is a phrase used among the Heathen originally and therefore from them best to be understood 3. That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among them signifies properly and constantly in relation to the Souls departed For this he cited Homer Diphilus and other Heathens which prove this undeniably 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports locomotion and there is a plain difference between Descending and Continuing in 5. It is without doubt that this Article came into the Creed upon emergent occasion because it was inserted after so many scores of years absence out Now the detention of Christ under death was not such an emergency as to cause an Article of so obscure a nature for expression of that which was so well known But it seems rather to have come in upon the Heresie of Apolinarius who denied Christ to have had a true humane Soul These things he pleaded at large and at last prevailed to have this clause In the state of the dead added to the explication but could not strain it to any expression of his Soul Of this Article he hath a just and learned Discourse in the second Volume of his Works That Proposition Christs whole Obedience is imputed to us the Assembly proved from that place among others Rom. V. 9 17 18 19. Against this
them to be humbled some for their fathers guilt some for their own and some for both and to acknowledge that their being alive till now and their liberty to enter into the Land was a free and a great mercy for their own and their fathers faults might justly have caused it to have been otherwise with them 2. They had imitated their fathers rebellion to the utmost in their murmuring at Kadesh at their last coming up thither and in the matter of Baal Peor and therefore he might very well personate them by their fathers when their fathers faults were so legible and easie to be seen in them 4. He reckoneth not their second journy to Kadesh by name but slips by it Chap. 2. 1 4. Nor mentions their long wanderings for seven and thirty years together between Kadesh and Kadesh but only under this expression We compassed mount Seir many days Chap. 2. 1. because in that rehearsal he mainly insisteth but upon these two heads Gods decree against them that had first murmured at Kadesh and how that was made good upon them and Gods promise of bringing their children into the land and how that was made good upon them therefore when he hath largely related both the decree and the promise he hastens to shew the accomplishment of both 5. In rehearsing the Ten Commandments he proposeth a reason of the Sabbaths ordaining differing from that in Exodus there it was because God rested on the seventh day here it is because of their delivery out of Egypt and so here it respecteth the Jewish Sabbath more properly there the Sabbath in its pure morality and perpetuity And here is a figure of what is now come to pass in our Sabbath celebrated in memorial of Redemption as well as of Creation In the fifth Commandment in this his rehearsal there is an addition or two more then there is in it in Exod. 20. and the letter Teth is brought in twice which in the twentieth of Exodus was only wanting of all the letters 6. In Chap. 10. ver 6. 7 8. there is a strange and remarkable transposition and a matter that affordeth a double scruple 1. In that after the mention of the golden Calf in Chap. 9. and of the renewing of the Tables Chap. 10. which occurred in the first year after their coming out of Egypt he bringeth in their departing from Beeroth to Mosera where Aaron died which was in the fortieth year after now the reason of this is because he would shew Gods reconciliation to Aaron and his reconciliation to the people to Aaron in that though he had deserved death suddenly with the rest of the people that died for the sin of the golden Calf yet the Lord had mercy on him and spared him and he died not till forty years after and to the people because that for all that transgression yet the Lord brought them through that wilderness to a land of rivers of waters But 2. there is yet a greater doubt lies in these words then this for in Numb 33. the peoples march is set down to be from Moseroth to Bene Jahaan ver 31. and here it is said to be from Beeroth of Bene Jaahan to Moseroth there it is said Aaron died at mount Hor but here it is said He died at Moseroth now there were World 2553 Moses 120 Redemption from Egypt 40 seven several incampings between Moseroth and mount Hor Numb 33. 31 32 c. Now the answer to this must arise from this consideration that in those stations mentioned Numb 33. From Moseroth to Bene Jaahan to Horhagidgad c. they were marching towards Kadesh before their fortieth year and so they went from Moseroth to Bene Jaahan But in these stations Deut. 10. 6. they are marching from Kadish in their fortieth year by some of that way that they came thither and so they must now go from Bene Jaahan to Moseroth And 2. how Moseroth and mount Hor Gudgodah and Horhagidgad were but the * * * As Horeb and Sinai were though they be counted two several incampings of Israel Exod. 17. 1 6. and 19. 1. compared same place and Country and how though Israel were now going back from Kadish yet hit in the very same journies that they went in when they were coming thither as to Gudgodah or Horhagidgad to Jotbathah or Jotbath requires a discourse Geographical by it self which is the next thing that was promised in the Preface to the first part of the Harmony of the Evangelists and with some part of that work by Gods permission and his good hand upon the Work-man shall come forth 7. It cannot pass the Eye of him that readeth the Text in the Original but he must observe it how in Chap. 29. ver 29. the Holy Ghost hath pointed one clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To us and to our Children belong the revealed things after an extraordinary and unparalleld manner to give warning against curiosity in prying into Gods secrets and that we should content our selves with his revealed will 8. Moses in blessing of the Tribes Chap. 33. nameth them not according to their seniority but in another order Reuben is set first though he had lost the birth-right to shew his repentance and that he died not * * * So the Chaldee renders ver 6. Let Reuben live and not die the second death the second death Simeon is omitted because of his cruelty to Sichem and Joseph and therefore he the fittest to be left out when there were twelve Tribes beside Judah is placed before Levi for the Kingdoms dignity above the Priest-hood Christ being promised a King of that Tribe Benjamin is set before Joseph for the dignity of Jerusalem above Samaria c. 9. The last Chapter of the Book was written by some other then Moses for it relateth his death and how he was buried by the Lord that is by Michael Jude 9. or Christ who was to bury Moses Ceremonies The Book of JOSHUA THIS Book containeth a history of the seventeen years of the rule of Joshua which though they be not expresly named by this sum in clear words yet are they to be collected to be so many from that gross sum of four hundred and eighty years from the delivery out of Egypt to the laying of the foundation of solomons Temple mentioned 1 Kings 6. 1. for the Scripture hath parcelled out that sum into these particulars forty years of the people in the wilderness two hundred ninety and nine years of the Judges forty years of Eli forty of Samuel and Saul forty of David and four of Solomon to the Temples founding in all four hundred sixty three and therefore the seventeen years that must make up the sum four hundred and eighty must needs be concluded to have been the time of the rule of Joshua CHAP. I. World 2554 Ioshua 1 JOSHUA of Joseph succeedeth Moses the seventh from Ephraim 1 Chron. 7. 25. and in him first appeared Josephs birth-right 1 Chron. 5. 1. and
Sanctuary Eli 18 with a Sacrifice and a Song The year of his birth is not determinable Eli 19 Eli 20 no not so much as whether it were in the Judgeship of Eli though it be undoubted Eli 21 that it was in his Priest-hood Eli's sons commit theft and adultery in Eli 22 the very Sanctuary they ravin from the men that came to sacrifice and they Eli 23 ravish the women that * * * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chap. 2. 22. Women that had some office and attendance at the Tabernacle As Num. 4. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to do the Sanctuary service Anna was such a woman Luke 2. 37. waited on the Sanctuary and so they cause the Ordinances Eli 24 of the Lord to be abhorred Under such example is Samuel educated Eli 25 Eli 26 yet falleth not under that taint A Prophet sharply reproveth Eli for not reproving Eli 27 his sons This Prophet the Jews held to be Elkanah himself and say Eli 28 that he was one of the eight and forty Prophets that prophesied to Israel In Chap. Eli 29 2. Vers. 11. it is said that Elkanah returned to Ramoth to his own house and yet Eli 30 verse 20. it is said that Eli blessed Elkanah which is to be understood that Eli 31 he had done so from Samuels first dedication and so did as oft as he came to Eli 32 Shiloh Samuel himself becomes a Prophet first against Elies house and then Eli 33 afterward to all Israel Chap. 3. 1. Impiety had exceedingly banished Prophesie Eli 34 Eli 35 in these times amongst them but now the Lord begins to restore it for prediction Eli 36 of ruine and then for direction of reformation Urim and Thummim Eli 37 were ere long to be lost from the Priests with the loss of the Ark Eli 38 and God pours the Spirit of Prophesie upon a Levite to supply that Eli 39 want CHAP. IV. World 2909 Eli 40 THE Ark first touched and taken with the hands of uncircumcised ones The two sons of Eli come to fatal ends at this last service of the Ark as the two sons of Aaron Nadab and Abihu did at the first Eli himself dieth the very death of an unredeemed Ass Exod. 13. 13. Shiloh laid waste Jer. 7. 14. and the birthright lost from Joseph and Ephraim Psal. 78. 60. c. The Tabernacle had been at Shiloh 340 years and somewhat more The Idol of Dan hath now out-lived it Judg. 18. 31. Ah poor Israel World 2910 Eli 1 Here begin the forty years of Samuel and Saul mentioned Act. 13. 20 21. He gave them Judges after a manner four hundred and fifty years that is the years of the oppressors also reckoned in the Judges 299. the oppressors 111. and Eli 40. until Samuel the Prophet And afterward they desired a King and God gave them Saul by the space of forty years that is to the expiration of forty years from Elies death the last of the Judges CHAP. V. VI. THE Ark is all the spring and summer of this year in the land of the Philistims For its sake the Lord smiteth Dagon the god of their Corn and destroyeth the harvest of their Corn as it grew on the ground with an army of Mice He striketh the people with Emerods in their hinder parts Psal. 78. 66. and bringeth a shameful soreness on them in a contrary part and in a contrary nature to the honourable soreness of Circumcision They restore the Ark again with strange presents with abundance of golden Mice Et cum quinque anis vel podicibus aureis quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two Kine knew their owner as Esa. 1. 3. Hophni and Phineas knew him not The Bethshemites though Priests yet slain by the Lord for too much boldness with the Ark. CHAP. VII Vers. 1. And the first half of the second Samuel 2 THE Ark setled in Kirjath-jearim the City of the woods to this the Samuel 3 Psalmist speaketh Psal. 132. 6. We heard of it at Ephratah or at Shiloh Samuel 4 in Ephraim we found it in the fields of the wood or at Kirjath-jearim there an Samuel 5 Eleazar looketh to it when both the line of Eleazar and Ithamar are out of Samuel 6 that service And it came to pass while the Ark abode in Kirjath-jearim the time Samuel 7 Samuel 8 was long for it was twenty years This is not to be understood for the whole Samuel 9 time that it was there for it was above six and forty years there before David Samuel 10 fetched it up 2 Sam. 6. namely thirty nine years of Samuel and Saul and Samuel 11 seven David born in the tenth year of Samuel years of Davids reign in Hebron but it is to be thus understood and construed Samuel 12 that the Ark was twenty years in Kirjath-jearim before the people of Israel Samuel 13 minded it or looked after it but they followed and adhered to their former Samuel 14 Idolatries and corruptions and therefore it is said by Samuel afterward vers 3. Samuel 15 Samuel 16 If you do return unto the Lord put away the strange gods Ashteroth from among Samuel 17 you c. Their Idolatry and prophaneness was so deep rooted having been so Samuel 18 long and so customary with them that neither the loss of the Ark nor the Samuel 19 slaughter of Israel had wrought upon them but that twenty years together Samuel 20 they are lost to the Ark though the Ark were not then lost to them CHAP. VII Vers. 2. The latter half of it * * * The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be translated not And but Then they lamented Then all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord and so to the end of the 7 Chapter and Chapter 8. all World 2930 Samuel 21 A Spirit of repentance and conversion cometh generally upon all the people a matter and a time as remarkable as almost any we read of in Scripture one only parallel to it and that is in Acts 2. and 3. at the great conversion there There were to that time these sums of years four hundred ninety years from hence to the beginning of the Captivity seventy years of the Captivity and four hundred ninety years from the end of the Captivity thither The seventy of the Captivity are the midst of years Hab. 3. 2. And Samuel according to this chain is the first of the Prophets Acts 4. 24. Samuel 22 Israel is baptized from their Idols Samuel though no Priest yet by special They drew water and poured it before the Lord Chap. 7. 6 To be understood of their washing themselves from their idols as Gen. 35. 2. Exod. 19. 14. Samuel 23 warrant sacrificeth by Prayer destroyeth the Philistims with thunder Chap. 2. Samuel 24 20. Psal. 99. 6. they were subdued in that very place where they had subdued Samuel 25 Israel and taken the Ark one and twenty years before Samuel rideth in circuit Samuel 26 and judgeth Israel Judah recovereth
if they scape that Army Why eat this year what groweth of it self and what may be found up and down on the Trees and the ground But what must they do the next year Which was a year of release and rest as every seventh year was and they might not till the ground Why Providebit Deus God will also then provide for them of what grows of it self again and then the third year sow and reap and return to your old peace and prosperity ESAY XXXVIII 2 KING XX. to ver 12. 2 CHRON. XXXII ver 24. HEZEKIAHS sickness of the Plague seemeth to have been in the very time while the Assyrian Army lay about Jerusalem for though the destruction of that Army by the Angel be related before the Story of his sickness yet that his sickness was while that Army was alive may be conjectured upon these two collections First It is past all doubt that his sickness was this very same year that the Assyrian Army was destroyed by the Angel for if he reigned nine and twenty years as 2 King 18. 2. and that stroke of the Angel upon that Army was in his fourteenth year as vers 13. of that Chapter and he lived fifteen years after his sickness as 2 King 20. 6. then it makes that matter past controverting Secondly The Lord in his sickness doth not only promise him recovery from his disease but also that he will deliver him and that City out of the hand of the King of Assyria which shews there was then danger to him and Jerusalem from that King And this may be conceived one cause that made Hezekiah to weep so bitterly when the message of death was denounced unto him because he was to leave Jerusalem and Judea under the pressure and danger of the Assyrian Tyrant and must not see the delivery of it Therefore though the whole story of Sennacherib be laid together as was fit yet can I not but in my thoughts insert this story of Hezekiahs sickness before the destruction of his Army as no doubt it came to pass before Sennacheribs death and yet is that storyed before it for the concluding of his History all at once To Hezekiah alone is it given to know the term of his life and the Sun in the Firmament knoweth not his going down that Hezekiah may know his 2 KING XX. from vers 12. to vers 20. ESAY XXXIX all 2 CHRON. XXXII vers 25 26. MErodach or Berodach-Baladan the King of Babel visiteth Hezekiah by his Embassadors to congratulate his recovery and to inquire after the miracle of the Sun turning back The Lord left Hezekiah to try what was in his heart and it shewed folly The Lord foretels by the Prophet the captivity into Babel which City and Kingdom is now small and under the power of the Assyrian before it rise to be the golden head For observe in 2 Chron. 33. 11. that Babel is in the hand of the King of Assyria The Captains of the host of the King of Assyria carried Manasseth unto Babel It might very well be that Eser-haddon who succeeded Sennacherib in the Assyrian Monarchy took offence at Merodach-Baladan for his intimacy and familiarity with Hezekiah and thereupon set upon Babel and took it out of his hands Babel had been tributary to the Crown of Assyria hitherto the Assyrian having built it for some of his servants that traded upon Euphrates in Ships and made it a fair City but now Eser-haddon subdued it and defaced it Esay 23. 13. 2 CHRON. XXXII from vers 27. to end 2 KINGS XX. vers 20 21. Division 267 Hezekiah 15 HEZEKIAH liveth these fifteen years in safety and prosperity Division 268 Hezekiah 16 having humbled himself before the Lord for his pride to the Embassadors Division 269 Hezekiah 17 of Babel The degrees of the Suns reversing and the fifteen Division 270 Hezekiah 18 years of Hezekiahs life prolonging may call to our minds the fifteen Division 271 Hezekiah 19 Psalms of degrees viz. from Psalm 120 and forward There were Hezekiahs Division 272 Hezekiah 20 songs that were sung to the stringed instruments in the House of Division 273 Hezekiah 21 the Lord Esay 38. 21. whether these were picked out by him for that Division 274 Hezekiah 22 purpose be it left to censure The Jews hold they were called Psalms Division 275 Hezekiah 23 of degrees because they were sung upon the fifteen stairs that rose into Division 276 Hezekiah 24 the Courts of the Temple Who so in reading those Psalms shall have Division 277 Hezekiah 25 his thoughts upon the danger of Jerusalem by Sennacherib and her delivery and the sickness of Hezekiah and his recovery shall find that they fit those occasions in many places very well But I assert nothing but leave it to examination Division 278 Hezekiah 26 1 CHRON. IV. from vers 34. to the end Division 279 Hezekiah 27 IN the time of Hezekiah some of the Simeonites subdue the Meunims Division 280 Hezekiah 28 and the Amalekites It is most likely it was not in the former fourteen years of Hezekiah when the Assyrian Army was all abroad and none durst peep out but in his last fifteen years when that Army was destroyed and gone World 3310 Division 281 Hezekiah 29 Hezekiah dieth ESAY XXIII ESAY XL XLI c. to the end of the Book THE prophesying of Esay is concluded by the Title of his Book in the times of Hezekiah though the Hebrews of old have held that he lived and died in the days of Manasseh and was sawn asunder by him The Epistle to the Hebrews may seem to speak to that Heb. 11. 37. therefore according to the Chronology of the title of the Book in the first verse of it these Chapters that are set after the Story of Hezekiahs fourteenth year or after the Story of the destruction of the Assyrians and Hezekiahs recovery are all to be allotted to the fifteen years of his prolonged life since there is no direction to lay all of them or any of them in any time else c. The three and twentieth Chapter also falleth under the same time even towards the latter end of Hezekiahs reign when the King of Assyria had now taken Babel This is apparent by ver 13. spoken of a little before for there the Lord threatneth Tyrus by the example of Babel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that City had been founded by the Assyrian * * * For Ships and for men of the Desert thereupon Babel is called The desert of the Sea Esay 21. 1. for his Ships and Ship-men to traffick upon Euphrates as Tyrus was built on the Sea for the like purpose but now the Assyrian had brought that to ruine and so should the case of Tyrus be by the Babilonians Nebuchad-nezzar destroyed Tyrus Ezek. 29. 18. Now the reason why this Chapter that fell so late in Hezekiahs time is yet laid in that place where it is is this because the Prophesies against those Countries
per. 2. By which it is apparent that they accounted all of their own Religion and them only to come under the title Neighbour to which opinion how our Saviour speaketh you may observe in Luke 10. 29 30 c. So that in the Iewish Church there were those that went under the notion of Brethren that is Israelites who were all of one blood and those that went under the name of Neighbours and those were they that came in from other Nations to their Religion They shall no more teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother Jer. 31. 34 c. Now under the Gospel where there is no distinction of Tribes and kinreds the word Brother is ordinarily used to signisie in the same latitude that Neighbour had done namely all that come into the profession of the Gospel and it is so taken also as that had been in contradistinction to a Heathen Any man that is called a Brother 1 Cor. 5. 11. If thy brother offend thee c. Let him be as a Heathen Matth. 18. 15 17. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our English rendereth Is in danger of translates the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are as ordinarily used among the Iewish Writers as any words whatsoever as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Guilty of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Guilty of cutting off c. Every page almost in either Talmud will give you examples of this nature 3. Gehenna It is well known that this expression is taken from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The valley of Hinnom of which and of the silthiness and abominableness of which place there is so much spoken in Scripture There was the horrid Idol Molech to which they burnt their children in the fire And thither as D. Kimchi saith was cast out all the filth and unburied carcases and there was a continual fire to burn the filth and the bones In Psal. 27. From hence the Iews borrowed the word and used it in their ordinary language to betoken Hell And the Text from which they especially translated the construction seemeth to have been the last verse of the Prophesie of Isaiah which by some of them is glossed thus And they shall go forth out of Jerusalem into the valley of Hinnom and there they shall see the carcases of those that rebelled against me c. Vid. Kimch Ab. Ezr. in loc It were endless to shew the frequency of the word in their Writers let these few examples suffice Chald. Paraph. in Isa. 26. 15. Lord thou wilt drive all the wicked to Gehinnom And on Isa. 33. 14. The wicked shall be judged and delivered to Gehinnom the everlasting burning And on ver 17. Thou shalt see those that go down to the Land of Gehinnom R. Sol. on Isa. 24. 22. They shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit and shall be shut up in prison 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They that guilty of Gehinnom into Gehinnom Targ. in Ruth 2. 12. Be thou delivered from the Judgment of Gehinnom Midras Mishle fol. 69. Do you think to be delivered from the Judgment of Gehinnom Baal Tur. in Gen. 1. 1. Because of the Law they are delivered from the Judgement of Gehennah c. See the phrase Matth. 23. 33. And now we have done with words let us come to sentences and consider the offences that are prohibited which are easily acknowledged to be gradual or one above another About the first viz. Causeless anger there needeth no explanation the words and matter are plain enough The second is Whosoever shall say to his brother Racha A nick-name or scornful title usual which they disdainfully put one upon another and very commonly and therefore our Saviour hath specified in this word the rather because it was of so common use among them and they made no bones at it Take these few examples A certain man sought to betake himself to repentance and restitution His wife said to him Rekah if thou make restitution even thy girdle about thee is not thine own c. Tanchum fol. 5 Rabbi Jochanan was teaching concerning the building of Jerusalem with Saphires and Diamonds c. One of his scholars laughed him to scorn But afterward being convinced of the truth of the thing he saith to him Rabbi Do thou expound for it is fit for thee to expound as thou saidest so have I seen it He saith to him Rekah Hadst thou not seen thou wouldest not have believed c. Midras Tillin fol. 38. col 4. To what is the thing like To a King of flesh and blood who took to wife a Kings daughter he saith to her Wait and fill me a cup but she would not whereupon he was angry and put her away She went and was married to a sordid fellow and he saith to her Wait and fill me a cup She said unto him Rekah I am a Kings daughter c. Idem in Psal. 137. A Gentile saith to an Israelite I have a dainty dish for thee to eat of He saith What is it He answers Swines flesh He saith to him Rekah even what you kill of clean beasts is forbidden us much more this Tanch fol. 18. col 4. The third offence is to say to a brother Thou fool which how to distinguish from Racha which signifies an empty fellow were some difficulty but that Solomon is a good Dictionary here for us who takes the term continually for a wicked wretch and reprobate and in opposition to spiritual wisdom So that in the first clause is condemned causeless anger in the second scornful taunting and reproaching of a brother and in the last calling him a reprobate and wicked or uncharitably censuring his spiritual and eternal estate And this last doth more especially hit the Scribes and Pharisees who arrogated to themselves only to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wisemen but of all others had this scornful and uncharitable opinion This people that knoweth not the Law is cursed Joh. 7. 49. And now for the penalties denounced upon these offences let us look upon them taking notice of these two traditions of the Iews which our Saviour seemeth to face and to contradict 1. That they accounted the command Thou shalt not kill to aim only at actual murder So in their collecting of the six hundred and thirteen precepts out of the Law they understand that command to mean but this That one should not kill an Israelite Vid. trip Targ. ibid. Sepher Chinnuch ibid. Maym. in Rotseah per. 1. And accordingly they allotted this only violation of it to judgement Against this wild gloss and practise he speaketh in the first clause Ye have heard it said Thou shalt not kill and he that killeth or committeth actual murder is liable to judgment and ye extend the violation of that command no further but I say to you that causeless anger against thy brother is a violation of that Command and even that maketh a man liable to
from the time of Onias who built there a great Temple and an Altar and all the men of Egypt went thither c. And there was a great Congregation there double to the number of those that came out of Egypt Fol. 14. Of this Temple built by Onias in Egypt Josephus maketh mention Antiq. lib. 13. cap. 6. And the Talmud in Menachoth cap. 13. So that Christ being sent into Egypt was sent among his own Nation who had filled that Country The time that he was in Egypt was not above three or four months so soon the Lord smote Herod for his butchery of the Innocent Children and murtherous intent against the Lord of Life Joseph and Mary being called out of Egypt after Herods death intend for Judaea again thinking to go to Bethlehem but the fear of Archelaus and the warning of an Angel directs them into Galilee They knew not but that Christ was to be educated in Bethlehem as he was to be born there therefore they kept him there till he was two years old and durst not take him thence till fear and the warrant of an Angel dismisseth them into Egypt And when they come again from thence they can think of no other place but Bethlehem again till the like fear and warrant send them into Galilee There is none of the Evangelists that recordeth any thing concerning Christ CHRIST III from the time of his return out of Egypt till he come to be twelve years CHRIST IV old which was for the space of these years For the better understanding CHRIST V of which times let us take up some few passages in Josephus CHRIST VI Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 10. Herod saith he reigned 34 years from the time that CHRIST VII Antigonus was taken away and 37 years from the time that he was first declared CHRIST VIII King by the Romans CHRIST IX And again in the same Book cap. 15. In the tenth year of the reign of Archelaus CHRIST X the People not enduring his cruelty and tyranny they accused Archelaus to CHRIST XI Caesar and he banished him to Vienna And a little after Cyrenius was sent by Caesar to tax Syria and to confiscate Archelaus his Goods And lib. 18. cap. 1. Coponius was also sent with Cyrenius to be Governour of Judea And ibid. cap. 5. Coponius returning to Rome Marcus Ambibuchus becometh his Successor in that Government And after him succeeded Annius Rufus in whose time died Caesar Augustus the second Emperor of the Romans Now when Augustus died Christ was fourteen years old as appeareth from this that he was 29 years old compleat and beginning to be thirty in the fifteenth year of Tiberius the Emperor next succeeding Luke 3. 1 2. Reckon then these times that Josephus hath mentioned between the death of Herod and the death of Augustus namely the ten years of Archelaus and after them the Government of Coponius and after him Ambibuchus and after him Rufus and it will necessarily follow that when Herod slew Bethlehem Children Christ being then two years old it was the very last year of his Reign SECTION VIII LUKE Chap. II. from Ver. 40. to the end of the Chapter World 3939 Rome 765 Augustus 42 CHRIST XII Archelaus 10 CHRIST at twelve years old sheweth his Wisdom among the Doctors At the same Age had Solomon shewed his Wisdom in deciding the Controversie between the two Harlots Ignat. Martyr in Epist. ad Magnos IT is very easie to see the subsequence of this Section to that preceeding since there is nothing recorded by any of the Evangelists concerning Christ from his infancy till he began to be thirty years old but only this Story of his shewing his Wisdom at twelve years old among the Doctors of some of the three Sanhedrins that sate at the Temple for there sate one of 23 Judges in the East Gate of the Mountain of the House called the Gate Shushan Another of 23 in the Gate of Nicanor or the East Gate of the Court of Israel And the great Sanhedrin of 71 Judges that sate in the Room Gazith not far from the Altar Though Herod had slain the Sanhedrin as is related by Josephus and divers others yet was not that Court nor the judiciary thereof utterly extinguisht but revived again and continued till many years after the destruction of the City His Story about this matter is briefly thus given by the Babylon Talmud in Bava Bathra fol. 3. facie 2. Herod was a servant of the Asmonean Family he set his Eyes upon a Girl of it One day the man heard a voice from Heaven Bath Kol which said Any servant that rebelleth this year shall prosper He riseth up and slayeth all his Masters but left that Girl c. And whereas it is said Thou shalt set a King over thee from among thy brethren which as the gloss there tells us their Rabbies understood of the chiefest of thy brethren he rose up and slew all the great ones only he left Baba ben Bota to take counsel of him The gloss upon this again tells us That he slew not utterly all the great ones for he left Hillel and the Sons of Betirah remaining and Josephus relateth also that he spared Shammai to which Abraham Zaccuth addeth that Menahem and 80 gallant Men of the chief of the Nation were gone over to his service and to attend upon him So that these of themselves and by ordination of others did soon repair that breach that his Sword had made in the Sanhedrin he not resisting its erection again when he had now taken away the Men of his displeasure Hillel was President and sat so forty years and died by the Jews computation applied to the Christian account much about this twelfth year of Christ. For they say that he lived an hundred and twenty years the last forty of which he spent in the Presidency of the Sanhedrin entring upon that dignity an hundred years before the destruction of the City Menahem was at first Vicepresident with him but upon his going away to Herods service Shammai came in his room and now two as eminent and learned men sat in those two Chairs as ever had done since the first birth of traditions Hillel himself was so deserving a man that whereas in the vacancy of the Presidentship by the death of Shemaiah and Abtalion R. Judah and R. Jeshua the Sons of Betirah might have taken the Chairs they preferred Hillel as the worthier person Talm. Jerus in Pessachin fol. 33. col 1. He bred many eminent Scholars to the number of fourscore the most renowned of which by name were Jonathan ben Uzziel the Chaldee Paraphrast and Rabban Jocanan ben Zaccai both probably alive at this year of Christ and a good while after The latter was undoubtedly so for he lived to see the destruction of the City and Temple and sat President in the Sanhedrin at Jabneh afterwards And till that time also lived the Sons of Betirah mentioned before Shammai was little inferior to Hillel
a singular raging against the Gospel the devil bestirring himself in them now he knew their time was so short THE EPISTLE OF JUDE As the second Epistle of Peter and this of Jude are very near akin in style matter and subject so it is fairly conjecturable in them that they were not far removed in time speaking both of wicked ones and wickedness at the same height and ripeness They are one to another as the Prophesie of Obadiah and Jerem. 49. 14 c. speaking the same thing using the same manner of arguing and oftentimes almost the same words It may be Jude stands up in his brother James his charge among the Circumcision of Judea and directs his Epistle to all those that were sanctified and preserved in those Apostatizing times as his brother had done to all the twelve Tribes in general In citing the story of Michael the Archangel contending with the devil about the body of Moses ver 9. he doth but the same that Paul doth in naming Jannes and Jambres namely alledge a story which was current and owned among the Nation though there were no such thing in Scripture and so he argueth with them from their own Authors and concessions It is harsh to strain Zech. 3. 1 2. to speak such a story when neither the name Michael is mentioned nor any thing like the body of Moses or akin to it But among the Talmudicks there seems to be something like the relicks of such a matter viz. of Michael and the Angel of death disputing or discoursing about fetching away the soul of Moses His alledging the Prophesie of Enoch is an arguing of the very like nature as citing and referring to some known and common tradition that they had among them to this purpose The Book Sepher Jesher an Hebrew Writer speaketh of Enoch after such a tenour And in both these he useth their own testimonies against themselves as if he should thus have spoken at large These men speak evil of dignities whereas they have and own a story for current that even Michael the Archangel did not speak evil of the devil when he was striving with him about the body of Moses c. And whereas they shew and own a Prophesie of Enoch of God coming in Judgment c. why these are the very men to whom such a matter is to be applied c. It is no strange thing in the New Testament for Christ and the Apostles to deal and argue with the Jews upon their own concessions THE THREE EPISTLES OF JOHN Among all the Apostolick Epistles there is none about whose time of writing we are so far to seek as we are about these And it is neither satisfactory to remove their place nor is it satisfactory to take their time according to their place or to conceive them to be written after the Epistles of Peter because they are placed after them Any conjecture that is to be had of them may best be taken from the third Epistle Gaius to whom that Epistle is directed by that encomiastick character that John giveth of him seemeth to be Gaius the Corinthian the host of the whole Church Rom. 16. 23. for since he is commended for entertainment and charity both to the Church and strangers particularly to those who had preached among the Gentiles taking nothing of them we know not where to find any other Gaius to whom to affix this character but only this and we have no reason to look after any other And upon this probability we may observe these other I. That that third Epistle was written when those that preached to the Gentiles and took nothing of them were still abroad upon that imployment for he urgeth him to bring them forward on their journey ver 6. Now under that expression of taking nothing of the Gentiles we can understand none but Paul and Barnabas and those that were of their several companies for the Scripture hath named none other And if it refer to Paul and his company for we find not that Barnabas had any thing to do with Gaius then we must conclude that it was written a good while before this time that we are upon unless we will suppose Paul after his freedom from imprisonment at Rome was got travelling and preaching in those parts again But I should rather suppose that John sent this third Epistle to Gaius to Corinth by Timothy from Ephesus who was setting away thence for Rome upon Pauls sending for him to come to him thither 2 Tim. 4. 9 11 21. In which journey as we have shewed before he was to call at Corinth and to take Mark along with him who was there And of them may Johns advice to Gaius be well understood Whom if thou bring forward on their journey thou shalt do well For for his sake they went out taking nothing of the Gentiles Mark with Barnabas and Timothy with Paul II. Before John wrote this Epistle to Gaius he had written another Epistle to some Church it may be that of Corinth of which Gaius was I wrote saith he unto the Church but Diotrephes who loveth to have the preeminence receiveth us not This must needs be understood of The first Epistle of John unless we will conceive unwarrantably that I may say no worse that any of Johns writings are lost III. Upon and with the forementioned supposal that John sent his Epistle to Gaius by Timothy from Ephesus we cannot but also suppose that John spent some time in the Asian Churches to which afterward from Patmos he writes his Epistles And if any one be not satisfied with that interpretation that was given before about the Epistle from Laodicea Colos. 4. 16. let him rather understand it of The first Epistle of John as written by him from Laodicea then think it was an Epistle written by Paul from Laodicea and that that Epistle is lost In both his later Epistles he intimateth his hopes and purpose shortly to come to them from which we may construe that his intention was to travel from Asia the less where he now was and from whence he wrote all his three Epistles westward into Greece and in this journey you have him got into Patmos Rev. 1. from whence he writes back to Asia again In all his Epistles he exhorteth to love and constancy in the truth a lesson most needful in those divided and Apostatizing times He giveth notice of many Antichrists now abroad and these he sheweth to have been such as had once professed the truth but were apostatized from it They went out from us but they were not of us c. And this Apostacy he calleth The sin unto death To such he adviseth they should not so much as say God speed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their vulgar language Jerus Taamith fol. 64. col 2. The Rabbins saw a holy man of Caphar Immi and went to him and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God speed But he answered them nothing Id. in Sheviith fol. 35. 2.
some machination against himself he had now shut up in prison and intended him presently for the execution but that his sickness whereof he died seizing on him gave some more space to the imprisoned and some hopes and possibilities of escaping His disease was all these mixed together an inward burning and exulceration an insatiable greediness and devouring the Chollick the Gout and Dropsie his loins and secrets crawling with lice and a stink about him not to be indured These wringings and tortures of his body meeting with the peevishness of old age for he was now seventy and with the natural cruelty which always had been in him made him murderously minded above all measure insomuch that he put to death divers that had taken down a golden Eagle which he had set up about the Temple And when he grew near to his end and saw himself ready to die he slew his Son Antipater and caused great multitudes of the Nobility and People to be closed up in a sure place giving command to slay them as soon as he was dead for by that means he said he should have the Jews truly and really to sorrow at his death Vid. Joseph Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 8 9 10. and de Bel. lib. 1. cap. 21. Vers. 20. For they are dead that sought the young childs life The like saying is to Moses Exod. 4. 19. where the word they may be understood of Pharaoh and his servants which jointly sought his life for the Egyptians sake whom he had slain and were now all dead and worn out in the fourty years of his being in Midian But here it is true indeed that the seeking of the childs life may well be applied to Herods Servants as well as himself but that all they died with him or about the time of his death who in flattery or favour or obedience to him had promoted the slaughter at Bethlehem and had sought the childs life I know not upon what ground it should be conceived I should therefore by the they in this place understand Herod and his Son Antipater jointly together For if it be well considered how mischievous this Antipater was against his own Brethren and how he wrought their ruine and misery for fear they should get betwixt him and the throne yea how he sought the destruction of his own Father because he thought he kept him out of the Throne too long it may very well be believed that he would bloodily stir against this new King of the Jews that the wisemen spake of for fear of interception of the Crown as well as his Father He died but five days before his fathers death as it was touched before out of Josephus and thus God brought this bloodliness of the Father and the Son and the rest of their cruelties to an end and upon their own heads at once and in a manner together and thus may the words of the Angel be very fairly understood Take the child and return to the Land of Israel for Herod and Antipater are dead that sought his life Ver. 22. Archelaus did reign in Iudea in the room of his Father Herod Herod had first named Antipater for his Successor in the Throne of Judea but upon detection of his conspiracy against him he altered his mind and his will and nominated Antipas and changing his mind yet again he named Archelaus and he succeeded him a man not likely to prosper in a Throne that was so bebloodied His conclusion was that in the tenth year of his reign he was accused by the Nobles of Judea and Samaria to Augustus banished to Vienna and his estate confiscate Jos. Ant. lib. 17. cap. 15. Ver. 23. He shall be called a Nazarene From Isa. 11. 1. where the Messias is called by the title Nezer which indifferently signifieth A branch and the City Nazaret one and the same word denoting Christ and the place where he should be born SECTION VIII S. LUKE CHAP. II. Christ sheweth his wisdom at twelve years old Ver. 40. AND a a a a a a Compare Exod. 2. 10. 1 Sam. 2. 26. Jud. 16. 24. the Child grew and waxed strong in spirit filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him 41. Now his Parents went to Ierusalem b b b b b b Exod. 23. 15. 17. every year at the Feast of the Passover 42. And when he was twelve years old they went up to Ierusalem after the custom of the Feast 43. And when they had fulfilled the days as they returned the Child Iesus tarried behind in Ierusalem and Ioseph and his mother knew not of it 44. But they supposing him to have been in the company went a days journey and they sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance 45. And when they found him not they turned back again to Ierusalem seeking him 46. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the Temple sitting in the middest of the Doctors both hearing them and asking them questions 47. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers 48. And when they saw him they were amazed and his mother said unto him Son why hast thou thus dealt with us Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing 49. And he said unto them How is it that ye sought me Wist ye not that I must * * * * * * Or In my Fathers house be about my Fathers business 50. And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them 51. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart 52. And Iesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men Reason of the Order THE Order of this Section dependeth so clearly upon the proper Order of that preceding that that being made good to lie where it doth as in the proper place the subsequence of this to it can nothing at all be doubted of For whereas all the Evangelists have unanimously passed over in silence all those years of Christs minority which intervened or passed between his return out of Egypt and this passage of his at twelve years old there is nothing possible to be found in the Gospels that can come between to interpose this order and connexion The carriage and demeanour of our Saviour in the time between is only briefly comprised in the first verse of this portion And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him Harmony and Explanation Ver. 40. And the child grew c. TWO years Old he was when he went into Egypt and there he aboad in his Exile a very small time it may be some two or three months about such a space as Moses had been hid in Egypt in his Fathers house from the fury of Pharaoh When he returned to Nazareth his Mothers City being now about two years and a quarter old he
miracle of his birth his adoration by the Wisemen his wisdom at 12 years old the voice from heaven and his saftety among wild beasts at this time shew that impossible But concluding the thing it self to be so he argueth from it to perswade Christ to act as the Son of God and to do things miraculously And the If in his speech is not so much of doubting as of assurance as the If in those words of Lamech If Cain shall be avenged seventy fold and he forceth it as the consequence upon a thing undoubted Seeing thou art the Son of God as the voice from heaven did proclaim thee it is very agreable to thy so being that thou shouldst exert thy divine power and command these stones into bread for the satisfying thy hunger And so in the other temptation that carryeth the same front Seing thou art the Son of God it is very fit thou shouldest act according thereunto and not go down the stairs as men do but cast thy self headlong and shew thy power In both which temptations though a close perswasive to distrust Gods provision for him in the wilderness to rely too much upon second causes and to presume without warrant upon a promise be included yet Satans main bent and aim is to move him to act according to the dictate and direction of the Devil And as he had perswaded Eve from the commandement of God to follow his advice so would he fain do Christ from that work and injuction which God had laid upon him for the Ministery and for mans redemption to do things tending nothing at all to that purpose but rather to vain-glory and self-exalting and the Devil had had enough if he could have moved the Redeemer to have acted any thing upon his instigation Ignatius Martyr Hilary and others of old and Beza Chemnitius some others of late suppose that Satan knew not yet the mystery of the incarnation no more than the Disciples did till after the resurrection but that he proposeth this if thou be the Son of God as doubting of the truth of the thing and seeking to be resolved in it nay that by the phrase the Son of God is to be understood and was so in Satans apprehension only a very holy and an extraordinary qualified man as whereas the Centurion calls Christ the Son of God Mat. 27. 4. Luke expresseth it only a righteous man Luke 23. 47. Answer 1. It is most true indeed that the mystery of the Incarnation is a mystery most high and deep and which created understandings cannot fadome and that the Disciples were exceedingly ignorant of it till more than flesh and blood revealed it to them but yet for all this the Angels good and bad might know the truth of the thing though they could not reach the mystery of it and the Disciples have some light of it before though they had the more perfect understanding of it after the resurrection as see Mat. 16. 16. The Devil was not ignorant of the Angels proclaiming him Christ the Lord or Jehovah Luke 1. 16 17. 2. 11. of an Angels and Gods proclaiming him The Son of God Luke 1. 35. 3. 22. Of the Prophets calling him Jehovah Jer. 23. 6. And the mighty God and Father of Eternity Esay 9. 6. and an hundred such expressions as these which could not but put him past all questoning who it was with whom he dealt 2. It is true indeed that the Church and people of God are called his Sons but it will be hard to find this applyed to any one particular person or single man in all the Scripture That in 2 Sam. 7. 14. Psalm 89. 28 27. is readily known to be spoken of Christ and that in Luke 3. 38. we have explained before 3. It is likewise true that whereas the Centurion in Matthew is brought in saying This was the Son of God Luke hath brought him saying This was a righteous or just man but must it therefore follow that he took him not for the Son of God but that he called him so only because he was a holy man In very many of the Evangelists various expressions we are not always to take the one to mean the other but we must take them both in their proper sense to make up the full sense as will fall to be observed in divers places And so is it to be done here The Centurion and his company upon the sight of the wonders that attend our Saviours death concluded that not only he was a most holy man but some rose higher and sure say they He was the Son of God Compare and examine the places Now the daring impudence of the Devil thus to assault and assail him whom he knew to be the Son of God will be the less wondrous and strange if we consider joyntly with his pride desperate wickedness and malice the ground that he might think he had to undertake such an attempt as this to go about to foil him who his own heart told him was the Son of God And that was from those words of God in the garden to him when upon the denunciation upon him that the seed of the woman should break his head yet God tells him withall That he should bruise his heel Hence did his impudence take its rise to do and dare what he did and dared at this time and the having this very passage in ones eye and consideration upon the reading of this story of the temptation will help exceedingly to clear inlighten and explain it For whereas two main scruples may arise about this temptation besides this that we have in hand of the Devils daring to assault Christ thus namely how chance it was now and not before and why it is said by Luke after these temptations that the Devil departed from him for a season the consideration of this thing doth give so much satisfaction to both these doubts For 1. it is indeed some matter of wonder that Christ should live to thirty years and the Devil never attempt to tempt him of long a time but should now come to assail him when he had a testimony from heaven that he was the Son of God and when he had the fulness of the Spirit in him above measure which were greater disadvantages to Satan than ever but the reason was because that now Christ was offered to the Duell in an apparent manner which he never had been before to try that mastery with the Devil about breaking and brusing head and heel and the Devil having an assurance that he should bruise his heel undertakes the combate and dares be thus impudent And 2. when he saw that he could not prevail with him this way to bruise him namely by temptation he departs from him for a season till he can find an opportunity for another way to do it namely by open and actual persecution Sect. Command that these stones be made bread To change the form of a Creature is the greatest miracle as
here to Moses the first Prophet of the Church of Israel it also descended to a succession of Prophets in that Congregation from time to time But with this excellent gift it was also given Moses himself to know and so likewise them that did succeed that they had this double power not from themselves but from another Moses his stammering tongue taught himself and them so much for Prophesie and his leprous hand taught so much for Miracles This succession of Prophets began from Samuel and ended in the death of Christ Acts 3. 24. Not that there were not Prophets betwixt Moses and Samuel but because they were not expressed by name as also because vision in that space of time was exceeding rare 1 Sam. 3. 1. Now from the beginning of the rule of Samuel to the beginning of the captivity in Babel were four hundred and ninety years and from the end of that captivity to the end of Christs life upon earth were four hundred and ninety years more The seventy years of captivity between which were the seventh part of either of these two Numbers that lay on either side are called by Habbakkuk The midst of years namely from the beginning of Prophesie in Samuel to the sealing of Prophesie in the death of Christ. Revive thy work in the midst of the years in the midst of the years make known Then was it justly to be feared that the spirit of Prophesie would quite have ceased from Israel when they were captived among the Heathen This made the Prophet to pray so earnestly that God would preserve alive or revive his work of Miracles in the midst of years and in those times of captivity that he would make known things to come by that gift of Prophesie And he was heard in what he prayed for and his supplication took effect in the most prophetick and powerful Spirit of Daniel The Jews had an old Maxim That after the death of Zachary Malachy 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 Act. 19. 2. We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost Not that they doubted of such a person in the Trinity but that whereas they had learned in their Schools that the Holy Ghost departed away after the death of Malachy they had never yet heard whether he was restored again in his gifts of Prophesie and Miracles till now or no. SECTION VII The two first miracles Exod. 4. 1. THE turning of Moses rod into a Serpent did utterly disclaim any power of the Devil in these wonders which he was to work which power only the Magicians wrought by For as a Serpent was the fittest Embleme of the Devil as Gen. 3. and Revel 12. 9. 80 was it a sign that Moses did not these Miracles by the power of the Devil but had a power over and beyond him when he can thus deal with the Serpent at his pleasure as to make his rod a Serpent and the Serpent a rod as he seeth good Yet it is worth the observing that he is commanded to take it by the tail 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 Nahash a common and ordinary Snake or Serpent but when he casts it down before Pharaoh it becometh Tannin Chap. 7. 10. a Serpent of the greatest dimensions be like a Crocodile which beast the Egyptians adored and to whose jaws they had exposed the poor Hebrew Infants in the River 2. His Leprous hand disclaimed also any power of Moses his own in these wonders which he wrought for it was not possible that so great things should be done by that impure and unclean 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 refer 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 only to cast out the power of the Devil out of the soul and to heal the soul of the leprosie of sin so was it reserved for him first to cast out the Devil out of the body and to heal 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 Devil or heal 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 SECTION 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 Son as it is commonly held for that had been dispensable withal in him as it was with thousands afterwards of the Israelites in the Wilderness but his fault was grievous diffidence and distrust For this is that that makes him so much so oft 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 belief First Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh Chap. 3. 11. This the Lord answereth I will be with thee and this my appearing to thee may be an undoubted token to thee that I have sent thee vers 12. Secondly But who shall I say hath sent me For forty years ago they refused me saying Who made thee a Prince and a Ruler over us Chap. 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 work miracles upon others yet is not this wrought upon my self that I speak any whit better than 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 saidst to me I will stretch out mine hand and smite Egypt c. Chap. 3. 20. Now therefore I pray thee stretch out this hand of thine for the hand of man is not able to perform it At this the Lords anger was kindled against him and that deservedly For in this he denied the mystery of the Redemption which was to be wrought by a man the God-head going along with him Now it
9. I believe that he shall overcome death This Israel saw by necessary conclusion that if Christ should fall under death he did no more than men had done before His Resurrection they saw in Aarons Rod Manna Scapegoate Sparrow c. 10. I believe 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 sins were to be imputed to another and the laying hold on the horns of the Altar being sanctuary or refuge from vengeance taught them that anothers merits were to be 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 far each holy Israelite was a Christian in this point of doctrine by earnest study finding these points under the vail of Moses The ignorant were taught this by the learned every Sabbath day having the Scriptures read and expounded unto them From these ground works of Moses and the Prophets Commentaries thereupon concerning the Messias came the schools of the Jews to be so well versed in that point that their Scholars do mention his very name Jesus the time of his birth in Tisri the space of his preaching three years and an half the year of his death the year of Jubile and divers such particulars to be found in their Authors though they knew him not when he came amongst them SECTION XXVIII The Covenant made with Israel They not sworn by it to the ten Commandments Exod. 24. WHEN Israel cannot indure to hear the ten Commandments given it was ready to conclude that they could much less keep them Therefore God giveth Moses privately fifty seven precepts besides namely Ceremonial and Judicial to all which the people are the next morning after the giving of the ten Commandments sworn and entred into Covenant and these made them a Ceremonial and singular people About which these things are observable 1. That they entred into Covenant to a written Law Chap. 24. 4. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord c. Against traditions 2. That here was a book written forty days before the writing of the two Tables Against them that hold that the first letters that were seen in the world were the writing of God in those Tables And we have seen before also two pieces of writing before this of Moses viz. the eighty eighth and eighty ninth Psalms And of equal Antiquity with them or not much less was the penning of the book of Job most probably written by Eliâ—u one of the Speakers in it as may be conjectured from Chap. 32. 15 16 17. and some other probability 3. That this first Covenant was made with water and blood and figurative language For the twelve pillars that represented the people are called the people Exod. 24. 4. 8. As the words in the second Covenant this my Body are to be understood in such another sense 4. That the ten Commandments were not written in the book of that Covenant but only those 57. precepts mentioned before For 1. The Lord giveth the other precepts because the people could not receive the ten for could they have received and observed those as they ought they must never have had any parcel of a Law more as if Adam had kept the Moral Law he had never needed to have heard of the promise and so if we could but receive the same Law as we should we had never needed the Gospel Now it is most unlike that since God gave them those other commands because they could not receive the ten that he would mingle the ten and them together in the Covenant 2. It is not imaginable that God would ever cause a people to swear to the performance of a Law which they could not indure so much as to hear 3. The ten Commandments needed not to be read by Moses to the people seeing they had all heard them from the mouth of the Lord but the day before 4. Had they been written and laid up in this book what necessity had there been of their writing and laying up in the Tables of stone 5. Had Moses read the ten Commandments in the beginning of his book why should he repeat some of them again at the latter end as Exod. 23. 12. Let such ruminate upon this which hold and maintain that the Sabbath as it standeth in the fourth Commandment is only the Jewish Sabbath and consequently Ceremonial And let those good men that have stood for the day of the Lord against the other consider whether they have not lost ground in granting that the fourth Commandment instituted the Jewish Sabbath For First The Jews were not sworn to the Decalogue at all and so not the Sabbath as it standeth there but only to the fifty seven precepts written in Moses his book and to the Sabbath as it was there Exod. 23. 12. Secondly The end of the Ceremonial Sabbath of the Jews was in remembrance of their delivery out of Aegypt Deut. 5. 15. but the moral Sabbath of the two Tables is in commemoration of Gods resting from the works of Creation Exod. 20. 10 11. SECTION XXIX The punishment of Israel for the golden Galf. Exod. 32. ISRAEL cannot be so long without Moses as Moses can be without meat The fire still burneth on the top of mount Sinai out of which they had so lately received the Law and yet so suddainly do they break the greatest Commandment of that Law to extreamity of Aegyptian Jewels they make an Aegyptian Idol because thinking Moses had been lost they intended to return for Aegypt Griveous was the sin for which they must look for grievous punishment which lighted upon them in divers kinds First the Cloud of Glory their Divine conductor departeth from the Camp which was now become prophane and unclean Secondly the Tables Moses breaketh before their face as shewing them most unworthy of the Covenant Thirdly the Building of the Tabernacle the evidence that God would dwell among them is adjourned and put off for now they had made themselves unworthy Fourthly for this sin God gave them to worship all the host of Heaven Acts 7. 42. Fiftly Moses bruised the Calf to Powder and straweth it upon the waters and maketh the People drink Here spiritual fornication cometh under the same tryal that carnal did Numb 5. 24. These that were guilty of this Idolatry the water thus drunk made their belly to swell and to give a visible sign and token of their guilt then setteth Moses the Levites to slay every one whose bellies they found thus swelled which thing they did with that zeal and sincerity that they spared neither Father nor Brother of their own if they found him guilty In this slaughter there fell about three thousand these were ring-leaders and chief agents in this abomination and therefore made thus exemplary
his friends to a most miserable and intolerable imprisonment and being solicited and earnestly sued unto that he might be speedily executed and put out of his misery he flatly denyed it saying That he was not grown friends with him yet Such was the penance that he put poor Gallus to a life far worse than a present death for he ought him more spite and torture than a suddain execution The miserable man being imprisoned and straitly looked to not so much for fear of his escape by flight as of his escape by death was denyed the sight and conference of any one whosoever but him only that brought him his pitiful dyet which served only to prolong his wretched life and not to comfort it and he was forced to take it for he must by no means be suffered to dy Thus lived if it may be called a life a man that had been of the honourablest rank and office in the City lingring and wishing for death or rather dying for three years together and now at last he findeth the means to famish himself and to finish his miserable bondage with as miserable an end to the sore displeasure of the Emperour for that he had escaped him and not come to publick execution Such an end also chose Nerva one of his near friends and familiars but not like the other because of miseries past or present but because of fear and foresight of such to come His way that he took to dispatch himself of his life was by total abstinence and refusal of food which when Tiberius perceived was his intent he sits down by him desires to know his reason and begs with all earnestness of him that he would desist from such a design For what scandal saith he will it be to me to have one of my nearest friends to end his own life and no cause given why he should so die But Nerva satisfied him not either in answer or in act but persisted in his pining of himself and so dyed § 6. The miserable ends of Agrippina and Drusus To such like ends came also Agrippina and Drusus the Wife and Son of Germanicus and Mother and Brother of Caius the next Emperour that should succeed These two the Daughter in law and Grandchild of Tiberius himself had about four years ago been brought into question by his unkind and inhuman accusation and into hold and custody until this time It was the common opinion that the cursed instigation of Sejanus whom the Emperour had raised purposely for the ruine of Germanicus his house had set such an accusation on foot and made the man to be so cruel towards his own family but when the two accursed ones had miserably survived the wicked Sejanus and yet nothing was remitted of their prosecution then opinion learned to lay the fault where it deserved even on the cruelty and spite of Tiberius himself Drusus is adjudged by him to die by famine and miserable and woeful wretch that he was he sustaineth his life for nine days together by eating the flocks out of his bed being brought to that lamentable and unheard of dyet through extremity of hunger Here at last was an end of Drusus his misery but so was there not of Tiberius his cruelty towards him for he denyed the dead body burial in a fitting place he reviled and disgraced the memory of him with hideous and feigned scandals and criminations and shamed not to publish in the open Senate what words had passed from the pining man against Tiberius himself when in agony through hunger he craved meat and was denyed it Oh what a sight and hearing was this to the eyes and ears of the Roman people to behold him that was a child of their darling and delight Germanicus to be thus barbarously and inhumanely brought to his end and to hear his own Grandfather confess the action and and not dissemble it Agrippina the woeful Mother might dolefully conjecture what would become of her self by this fatal and terrible end of the poor Prince her Son And it was not long but she tasted of the very same cup both of the same kind of death and of the same kind of disgracing after For being pined after the same manner that it might be coloured that she did it of her self a death very unfitting the greatest Princess then alive she was afterward slandered by Tiberius for adultery with Gallus that died so lately and that she caused her own death for grief of his She and her Son were denyed burial befitting their degree but hid in some obscure place where no one knew which was no little distast and discontentment to the people The Tyrant thought it a special cause of boasting and extolling his own goodness that she had not been strangled nor dyed the death of common base offenders And since it was her fortune to die on the very same day that Sejanus had done two years before viz. Octob. 17. it must be recorded as of special observation and great thanks given for the matter and an annual sacrifice instituted to Jupiter on that day Caius her Son and Brother to poor Drusus took all this very well or at least seemed so to do partly glad to be shut of any one that was likely to have any colour or likelyhood of corrivality with him in his future reign and partly being brought up in such a School of dissimulation and grown so perfect a Scholar there that he wanted little of Tiberius This year he married Claudia the daughter of M. Silanus a man that would have advised him to good if he would have hearkned but afterward he matched with a mate and stock more fitting his evil nature Ennia the Wife of Macro but for advantage resigned by her Husband Macro to the adulterating of Caius and then to his marriage § 7. Other Massacres The death of Agrippina drew on Plancina's a Woman that never accorded with her in any thing but in Tiberius his displeasure and in a fatal and miserable end This Plancina in the universal mourning of the state for the loss of Germanicus rejoyced at it and made that her sport which was the common sorrow of all the State How poor Agrippina relished this being deprived of so rare a Husband can hardly be thought of without joyning with her in her just and mournfull indignation Tiberius having a spleen at the woman for some other respect had now a fair colour to hide his revenge under to call her to account and that with some applause But here his revenge is got into a strait for if he should put her to death it may be it would be some content to Agrippina and therefore not to pleasure her so much he will not pleasure the other so much neither as with present death but keepeth her in lingring custody till Agrippina be gone and then must she follow but her resoluteness preventeth the Executioner and to escape anothers she dieth by her own hand Let us make up the heap
life and fortunes and all lay in the hand of Tiberius and when he findeth him inclinable to use him kindly there is no losing that favour for want of paying such a sum Of Antonia the mother of Germanieus and the old friend and favourer of Bernice the mother of Agrippa he borroweth the money and getting out of the Emperors debt he getteth into his favour again Insomuch that he commendeth him to the converse acquaintance and attendance of Caius his Grandchild that was to succeed him §. 3. His Imprisonment Happy might now Agrippa think himself if he can but hold so For he hath obtained the inward friendship of Caius and with it retained the outward favour of Tiberius Antonia and Claudius a future Emperor and all favour him but he becomes an enemy to himself Whether it were in love or flattery to Caius or to himself and his own hopes he casteth himself into a present danger upon a future expectation For Caius and he being very intimate and private together whether more affectionately or undiscreetly he himself best felt he brake out into this dangerous wish That Tiberius might soon die and Gaius as soon come to rule in his stead These words were heard by Eutychus his servant and a while concealed but when Agrippa prosecuted him for stealing some of his cloaths which he had stoln indeed he then brake forth and revealed all for fleeing for his theft and caught and brought before Piso the Sheriff of the City and demanded the reason of his flight he answered that he had a great secret to impart to Caesar which concerned his life Piso therefore sent him bound to Tiberius who also kept him bound and unexamined a certain season Now began Agrippa to hasten and spur on his own misery and vexation Whether having forgotten the words that he had spoken or not remembring the presence of his servant at the speech or not suspecting that his tale to Caesar would be against himself or which was likeliest thinking to make his cause the better by his confidence he solliciteth his old friend Antonia to urge the Emperor for a tryal of his servant Tiberius declineth it though he suspected the matter not so much belike for Agrippa's sake as for Caius sake whom the familiarity that was betwixt them made him suspect to be accessary if any thing should prove otherwise than well But being still importuned by Antonia at last when he had uttered these words Let the gods witness O Antonia that what I shall do I do not of my own mind but by thy solicitation He commanded Eutychus to be brought forth who being examined confessed readily that such words were spoken by Agrippa to Caius himself being present adding others no less dangerous that were spoken about young Tiberius The Emperor as readily believed the matter and presently called out to Macro to bind him Macro not understanding that he meant Agrippa prepared to bind Eutychus more strictly for examination but Tiberius having walked about the place and coming to Agrippa it is this man saith he that I commanded to be bound And when Macro asked him again who Why saith he Agrippa Then did Agrippa begin to find how he had forwarded his own mishap but it was too late And then did he begin to pray him now whom he lately prayed against but that was too late also For Tiberius was not half so averse to have tried his servant as he is now to forgive the Master and he cannot be much blamed for he had wished his mischief and procured his own Well Agrippa is tied in bands and led away to prison as he was in his purple robes a garment very incompatible with chains unless of Gold Being exceeding thirsty with heat and sorrow as he went towards the prison he spied one Thaumastus a servant of Caius carrying a Tankard of water and he desired some to drink which when the servant freely and readily gave him If ever saith he I escape and get out of these bonds I will not fail to obtain thy freedom who hast not refused to minister to me in my misery and chains as well as thou didst in my prosperity and pomp And this his promise he afterward performed §. 4. The death of Thrasyllus the Mathematician This man Thrasyllus had indeared himself to Tiberius by his skill in Astrology long ago even while he lived in Rhodes before the death of Augustus but with the imminent hazard and peril of his own life For Tiberius being very much given to those Chaldean and curious arts and having got leasure and retiredness in Rhodes for the learning and practise of them he partly called and partly had offered to him those that professed to be skilful in that trade and mystery His way to try their skill was desperate and terrible but such an one as best befitted such as would take upon them to foresee things to come and it was this when he consulted of any business saith Tacitus he used the top of his house and the privacy of one only servant a man utterly unlearned and of a strong bulk of body when he had a mind to try any mans skill this Lubber was to go before him over craggy steep and dangerous Rocks that hung over the Sea and over which his house stood and as they returned again if there were any suspition that the Prognosticator had given an answer fraudulent or lying he flung him into the Sea lest he should reveal the secret that he had been questioned upon Thraysillus at his first coming being brought to this dangerous trial and having presaged Tiberius should be Emperor and having foretold other things to come he was asked by him whether he could calculate his own nativity which when he went about to do and had set a figure upon the sight and study upon it he was first in a muse and then in a fear and the more he viewed it the more he feared and at last cryed out that some strange and suddain danger was near and ready to seize upon him Then Tiberius imbracing him commended his skill secured him against the danger and retained him ever after for his intimate familiar This year as Dion doth place it befel this great Wizzards death and as it proved a forerunner of the Emperors With whom he did more good with one lie near his latter end than he had done with all his Astrological truths if he ever told any all his life long For assuring him by his skill that he should yet live ten years longer though in his heart he thought no such thing he caused him to be slack and remiss in putting divers men to death whose end he had hastned had he known the haste of his own and so they escaped §. 5. War betwixt Aretas and Herod There had been a long grudge betwixt Aretas the King of Arabia Petraea and Herod the Tetrarch and a field had been fought between them before this For Herod having put away his wife
her husbands promotion may not unfitly be yoaked the mother of Sex Papinius that made her own lust her sons overthrow Whether this were the Papinius that was the last years Consul or his son or some other of the same name and family it is no great matter worth inquiring but whosoever he was infortunate he was in his mother for she caused his end as she had given him his beginning She being lately divorced from her husband betook herself unto her son whom with flattery and loosness she brought to perpetrate such a thing that he could find no remedy for it when it was done but his own death The consequent argueth that the fault was incest for when he had cast himself from an high place and so ended his life his mother being accused for the occasion was banished the City for ten years till the danger of the slipperiness of her other sons youth was past and over PART II. The JEWISH Story §. 1. Preparations of war against Aretas THE terrible and bitter message of the Emperor to Vitellius against King Aretas must be obeyed though more of necessity than of any zeal of Vitellius in Herods quarrel He therefore raising what forces he accounted fitting for his own safety in the Emperors favour and for his safety with the enemy marcheth toward the seat of the war intending to lead his Army through Judea But he was diverted from this intention by the humble supplication of the Jews to the contrary who took on how contrary it was to their ancient Laws and customs to have any Images and pictures brought into their Country whereof there was great store in the Romans Arms and Banners The gentleness of the General was easily overtreated and commanding his Army another way he himself with Herod and his friends went up to Jerusalem where he offered sacrifice and removed Jonathan from the High-priesthood and placed Theophilus his brother in his stead This was saith Josephus at a feast of the Jews but he named not which and Vitellius having stayed there three days on the fourth receiveth letters concerning Tiberius his death I leave it to be weighed by the Reader whether this festival were the Passover or Pentecost For on the one hand since Tiberius died about the middle of March as the Roman Historians do generally agree it is scarce possible that the Governor of Syria and the Nations of the East should be unacquainted with it till Pentecost which was eight or nine weeks after For all the Empire must as soon as possible be sworn unto the new Prince as Vitellius upon the tidings did swear Judea and so long a time might have bred some unconvenience And yet on the contrary it is very strange that the intelligence of his death should be so quick as to get from Rome to Jerusalem between the middle of March and the middle of the Passover week Vitellius upon the tidings recalleth his Army again and disposeth and billeteth them in the several places where they had wintered for he knew not whether Caius would be of the same mind with Tiberius about the matter of Aretas and Herod you may guess how this news was brooked by the Arabian King and yet was it no other than what he looked for if he believed what he himself spake For hearing of the preparations of Vitellius against him and consulting with Wizards and Augury This Army saith he shall not come into Arabia for some of the Commanders shall die Either he that commandeth the war or he that undertaketh it or he for whom it is undertaken meaning either Tiberius Vitellius or Herod §. 2. An Omen to Agrippa in chains Such another wizardly presage of the Emperors death had Agrippa at Rome as Josephus also relateth who relateth the former For as he stood bound before the Palace leaning dejectedly upon a tree among many others that were prisoners with him an Owl came and sate in that tree to which he leaned which a Germane seeing being one of those that stood there bound he asked who he was that was in the purple and leaned there and understanding who he was he told him of his inlargement promotion to honour and prosperity and that when he should see that bird again he should die within five days after And thus will the credulity of superstition have the very birds to foretel Tiberius his end from the Phenix to the Owl The Roman Story again §. 1. Tiberius near his end TWice only did Tiberius proffer to return to the City after his departure from it but returned never The later time was not very long before his end For being come within the sight of the City upon the Appian rode this prodigy as he took it affrighted him back He had a tame Serpent which coming to feed as he used to do with his own hand he found him eaten up by Pismires upon which ominous accident being advised not to trust himself among the multitude he suddenly retired back to Campany and at Astura he fell sick From thence he removed to Circeii and thence to Misenum carrying out his infirmity so well that he abated not a whit of his former sports banquets and voluptuousness whether for dissimulation or for habitual intemperance or upon Thrasyllus his prediction let who will determine He used to mock at Physick and to scoff at those that being thirty years of age yet would ask other mens counsel what was good or hurtful for their own bodies §. 2. His choise of a successor But weakness at the last gave him warning of his end and put him in mind to think of his successor and when he did so perplexity met with such a thought For whom should he choose The son of Drusus was too young the son of Germanicus was too well beloved and Claudius was too soft should he choose the first or the last it might help to disgrace his judgment should he choose the middle he might chance to disgrace his own memory among the people and for him to look elsewhere was to disgrace the family of the Caesars Thus did he pretend a great deal of care and seriousness for the good of the Commonwealth whereas his main aim and respect was at his own credit and families honour Well something he must pretend to give countenance and credit to his care of the common good In fine his great deliberation concluded in this easie issue namely in a prayer to the Gods to design his successor and in an auspicium of his own hatching that he should be his successor that should come first in to him upon the next morning which proved to be Caius It shewed no great reality nor earnestness for the common good in him at all when so small a thing as this must sway his judgment and such a trifle be the casting voice in a matter of so great a moment His affection was more to young Tiberius his nephew but his policy reflected more upon Caius he had rather Tiberius
Agrippa having laid hold upon him deferred his execution till after the Passover e e e Sanctius in Act. 12. either because he would not defile that holy feast with effusion of humane blood or because he would afflict Peter the more and give the Jews the greater content by his long restraint and strait imprisonment or rather because he feared a tumult if he should have slain him in that concourse of people as was there at Passover time Thus lay he guarded with four quaternions or as the Syriack hath it with sixteen Souldiers which as it seemeth watched him by course for the four watches of the night two close by him and two at the gate Besides these two and two successive jaylors he was bound with two chains and if f f f Sanct. ubi supra ex Chrysost some say true his two keepers were tied for the more sureness in the same chains with him Happy men were they sure that had so great interest in these happy chains which if you dare believe g g g Augusti 8. c. 18 19 20. Surius had the virtue to work Miracles to diffuse Grace to procure Holiness to heal Diseases to affright the Devil and to defend Christians They were preserved saith he by some of Herods servants that believed and in process of time laid up for a sacred relique at Constantinople and there either he or they lie That very night that preceded Peters intended execution he being fast asleep between his keepers is waked loosed and delivered by an Angel h h h Anna ad ann Baronius maketh a great matter of it that the whole Church prayed for Peter whilst he was in prison and since the like is not related to have been done by them for any other he will needs from hence infer his primacy the whole flock praying for her universal Pastor whereas the reasons of this expression are apparent to be only these two First To shew that the Church was praying for him whilst he was sleeping for after he had taken a part of his first sleep this night he cometh to the house of John Mark and they are there still out of their beds and at prayer Secondly Because the fruit of their prayers were shewed in his delivery There is no doubt but constant prayers were made for James by the whole Church whilst he was in prison as well as for Peter but so much is not expressed because the story could not answer that relation with relation of his delivery And Atheism and profaneness would have been ready to have scoffed that the whole Church should have prayed in vain The Angel and Peter thus loosed pass two watches and then come to the iron gate there are some that hold these watches to be two prisons and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be taken as it were passively for places where men are kept and that Peter was in a Gaol within these two as in the worst basest and surest place and that all were closed with a gate of Iron But i i i Vid. Baron others hold these watches to be guards of men and that the prison was without the City between or within the two outmost walls but in these things it is not material to insist for determination The latter is far the more probable both in regard of the signification of the Greek word and that Josephus mentioneth three walls about Jerusalem and divers towers in every wall as also in regard of the greater heightning of the miracle in that Peter escapeth not only his own sixteen mens watch at the prison door but also two watches more at the two walls gates and the second which was the Iron gate gave them free passage of its own accord Peter being cleared of the danger and left of the Angel betaketh himself to the house of Mary the mother of John Mark where when Rhoda upon his knocking and speech averred constantly it was Peter the whole company there assembled conclude that it was his Angel Here is some ambiguity about their thus concluding k k k Chrysost. in loc hom 27. Some understand it of his tutelar Angel and from hence would strongly plead the opinion that every man hath his proper and allotted Angel to attend him But first we sometimes read of one Angel attending many men Secondly Sometimes of many Angels attending one man But thirdly If the matter may be agitated by reason if a singular Angel be destined to the attendance of every singular man what doth that Angel do till his man be born especially what did all the Angels but Adams and Eves and a few more for many hundreds of years till the world was full l l l Vid. Salmâ—ron en locum Others therefore understand it of a messenger which the Disciples supposed Peter had sent to them upon some errand But this opinion is easily confuted by Rhoda's owning of Peters voice m m m Arâ—tius in loc There is yet a third opinion as much unwarrantable as either of these That the Disciples concluded that an Angel by this knocking and voice came to give them notice of Peters death to be near at hand and that therefore they call him his Angel and that it was sometimes so used that one Saint should know of anothers death by such revelations The Jews indeed in their writings make frequent mention of Samael the Angel of death but they call him so for inflicting it and not for foretelling it And we have some examples indeed in the Ecclesiastical history of one man knowing of anothers death by such revelations and apparitions as these but because those stories are very dubitable in themselves and that the Scripture is utterly without any such precedent this interpretation is but utterly groundless and unwarrantable The most proper and most easie meaning therefore of those words of the Disciples It is his Angel seemeth to be that they took it for some Angel that had assumed Peters shape or stood at the gate in his resemblance Vers. 17. He departed and went to another place The place whither he went is not to be known because not revealed by Scripture As for his going to Rome which is the gloss that Papists set upon this place it is a thing senseless and ridiculous as was touched before and might be shewed at large were it worth the labour I should as soon nominate Antioch for the place whither he went at this time as any other place at a far distance For I cannot imagine any time when he and Paul should meet at Antioch and Paul reprove him Gal. 2. 11. so likely as this time for it is most probable that Peter being put to flee for his life would get out of the territories of Herod for his safety now there was no place more likely for his safety than in Antioch where not only the distance of place might preserve him but the new born Church would seek to secure
his seed to Molech or useth Sorcery or profaneth the Sabbath or eateth holy things in his uncleanness or that cometh into the Sanctuary he being unclean or that eateth fat or blood or what is left of the sacrifice or any sacrificed thing not offered in season or that killeth or offereth up a sacrifice out of the Court or that eateth leaven at the Passover or that eateth ought on the day of Expiation or doth any work on it or that makes oil or incense like the holy or that anoints with holy oil that delayeth the Passover or Circumcision for which there are affirmative precepts All these if done wilfully are liable to cutting off and if done ignorantly then to the fixed sin-offering and if it be unknown whether he did it or no then to a suspensive trespass-offering but only he that defiles the Sanctuary and its holy things for he is bound to an ascending or descending offering Now that we may the better understand what Death by the hand of Heaven and Cutting off mean we are first to take notice that neither of them was any penalty inflicted by the hand or sentence of man but both of them do import a liableness to the wrath and vengeance of the Lord in their several kinds And the Jews do ever account Cutting off to be the higher and more eminent degree of Divine vengeance As to spare more evidences of this which might be given copiously this passage of Maymonides is sufficient and it is remarkable when he saith f f f Maym. in Biath Mikdash per. 4. Is it possible for a Priest that serveth in his uncleanness to stay so little in the Court 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As that he should be guilty of death by the hand of Heaven only and not guilty of cutting off He had had those words but a little before which were cited even now An unclean person that serveth in the Sanctuary profaneth his Service and is guilty of death by the hand of Heaven although he stay not there and then he comes on and is it possible saith he that he should stay so little as to be guilty only of death by the hand of Heaven and not to be guilty of cutting off Apparently shewing that cutting off was the deeper degree and die of guilt and vengeance by the hand of God and Divine indignation By Death by the hand of Heaven in their sense therefore is to be apprehended some such a sodain avengeful stroke as the Lord shewed upon Nadab and Abihu or Ananias and Saphira to take them away And this may the better be collected by two passages usual in the Rabbins about this matter First In that they give up the offence of the Priests drinking wine before they went to serve which is held to have been the offence of Nadab and Abihu g g g â—â—â— per. 1. to death by the hand of Heaven which argues that they mean such a kind of stroke as they two had And secondly In that wheresoever the Law enjoyneth Aaron and his sons and the people about the affairs of the Sanctuary they shall or they shall not do thus or thus lest they die they interpret this of death by the hand of Heaven But what to understand by Cutting off is not so readily agreed among them h h h Kimchi in Esay â—8 Kimchi alledgeth it as the opinion of their Doctors That Dying before fifty years old is death by cutting off Compare Joh. 8. 57. i i i R. Sol. in Gâ—â— 17. Rabbi Solomon saith It is to die childless and to die before his time Baal Aruch giveth this distinction between Cutting off and Death by the hand of Heaven that k k k Arâ—â—h in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cutting off is of himself and of his children but Death by the hand of Heaven is of himself but not of his children But mean it which of these you will or all these together or which may have good probability to conceive a liableness to cutting off from the life of the world to come both this and Death by the Hand of Heaven were held by that Nation with whom the phrases were so much in use to mean not any censure or punishment inflicted by man but an impending vengeance of God and a continual danger and possibility when indignation should seize upon him that was faln under these gilts Anathema Maran Atha one under a curse whensoever the Lord shall come to inflict it as Joh. 3. 18 36. SECT III. Penalties inflicted upon unclean persons found in the Temple Whipping and the Rebels beating IT was not a small awe that this might work in the hearts of the people towards their restraining from going into the Sanctuary in their uncleanness to have this impressed and inculcated upon them as it was continually that such a venture did hazard them both body and soul and brought them ipso facto into Gods dreadful displeasure and into undoubted danger of accrewing judgment But did they let the offender thus alone that had offended as if he was fallen under the guilt of death by the Hand of Heaven or under the guilt of cutting off that they had no more to do with him but leave him to the justice of God and to judgment when it should fall upon him Many a wretch would make sleight of this matter and because sentence upon his evil work was not executed speedily his heart would be fully set in him to do so again as Eccles. 8. 11. Therefore they let not the Delinquent so escape but as he had fallen under the wrath of God so they also brought him under a penalty by the hand of man And this penalty was twofold either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whipping by the appointment of the Judges or mawling and beating by the people 1. There was the penalty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whipping or scourging upon the censure of the Judges according to the Law Deut. 25. 2. Where he was to receive forty stripes but their Tradition brought it to forty save one 2 Cor. 11. 24. And the reason of this was because they would make a hedge to the Law and whereas that commands that they should not give to a Delinquent that was whipt above forty stripes lest their brother should seem vile unto them they abated one of forty to make sure to keep within compass The measure and manner of their whipping is largely described in the Treatise Maccoth thus in their own words a a a Maccoth per. 3. How many stripes do they give him saith the Mishueh there Why forty lacking one As it is said by a certain number forty stripes that is a number near to forty Rabbi Judah saith he is beaten with full forty and where hath he the odd one above thirty nine Between his shoulders They allot him not stripes but so as they might be triplicated They allot him to receive forty he hath had some of them
three reason First when they cannot carry their minds Aug. de Trin. lib. 1. cap. 1. further than their senses and so think God hath a Body as they have that is coloured c. Secondly when they measure God by themselves and so make him passionate like man For men not able to conceive what God is what his Nature what his Power c. fall into such opinions that they frame Gods of themselves and as is their own humane nature so they attribute to God the like for his will actions and intentions saith Arnobius Arnob. con lib. Thirdly when they mount above Nature and Sense and yet not right feigning that God begat himself c. Hence came the multitude and diversity of Deities among the Heathen minting thousands of Gods to find the right and yet they could not Hence their many names and many fames made by them that it seems thought it as lawful to make Gods as it was for God to make them At first they worshipped these their Deities without any representation only by their Names Caelites Inferi Heroes Sumani Sangui and thousands others the naming of which is more like conjuring than otherwise Nature it self taught men there was something they must acknowledge for supream superintendent of all things This light of Nature led them to worship something but it could not bring them to worship aright Hence some adored bruit Beasts some Trees some Stars some Men some Devils Some by Images some without some in Temples some without Thus was Gideons fleece the Heathen piece of the World all dry set in the darkness of the shadow of death But in Jury was God known and his Name great in Israel By his name Jehovah he exprest himself when he brought them from Egypt and his glory he pitched among them They knew him by his Names and Titles of Elohim Adonai El Shaddai Elion and his great Name Jehovah as the Jews do call it There the Scriptures of the Law and Prophets did teach them yet they thus nearly acquainted with the true God forsook him so that wrath came upon Israel The Rabbinical Jews beside Scripture words have divers Phrases to express God by in their Writings As frequently they call him Hakkadhosh baruch hu the holy blessed he in short with four letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sometime they use El jithbarech the Lord who is or be blessed Sometimes Shamaiim Heaven by a Metonymy because there he dwelleth The like Phrase is in the Gospel Father I have sinned against Heaven Luke 15. 18. The like Phrase is frequent in England The Heavens keep you Shekinah they use for a Title of God but more especially for the Holy Ghost So saith Elias levita in Tishbi Our Rabbins of happy memory call the Holy Ghost Shekinah gnal shem shehu shaken gnal hannebhiim because he dwells upon the Prophets Accordingly saith our Nicene Creed I believe in the Holy Ghost who spake by the Prophets Shem a name or the name they use for a name of God and Makom a place they place for the same because he comprehendeth all things and nothing comprehendeth him Gebhurah Strength is in the same use They are nice in the utterance of the name Jehovah but use divers Periphrases for it Shem shel arbang the name of four letters Shem hammejuhhad the proper name and others One in Eusebius hath eloquently expressed it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seven sounding Letters ring the praise of me Th' Immortal God th' Almighty Deity The Father of all that cannot weary be I am th' Eternal Viol of all things Whereby the melody so sweetly rings Of Heavens Musick which so sweetly sings What these seven Letters are that do thus express God is easie to guess that they be the Letters of the name Jehovah which indeed consisteth but of four Letters but the Vowels must make up the number Of the exposition of this name Jehovah thus saith Rabbi Salomon upon these words I appeared to them by the name of God Omnipotent but by my name Jehovah I am not known to them Exod. 6. 3. He saith unto him saith the Rabbin I am Jehovah faithful in rendring a good reward to those that walk before me and I have not sent thee for nothing but for the establishing of my words which I spake to their fathers And in this sense we find the word Jehovah expounded in sundry places I am Jehovah faithful in avenging when he speaks of punishing as and if thou profane the name of thy God I am Jehovah And so when he speaketh of the performing of the Commandments as And you shall keep my Commandments and do them I am Jehovah faithful to give to you a good reward thus far the Rabbin The Alchymistical Cabalists or Cabalistical Alchymists have extracted the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or number whether you will out of the word Jehovah after a strange manner This is their way to do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which great Mystery is in English thus Ten times ten is an hundred five times five is twenty five behold 125. Six times six is thirty six behold 161 and five times five is twenty five behold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 186. Thus runneth their senseless multiplication multiplying numberless follies in their foolish numbers making conjectures like Sybils leaves that when they come to blast of trial prove but wind Irenaeus hath such a mystical stir about the name Jesu which I must needs confess I can make nothing at all of yet will I set down his words that the Reader may skan what I cannot Nomen Jesu saith he secundum propriam Hebraeorum linguam c. The name Jesu according to the proper speech of the Hebrews consisteth of two letters and an half as the skilful amongst them say Signifying the Lord which containeth Heaven and Earth For Jesu according to the old Hebrew signifieth Heaven and the Earth is called Sura usser Thus that Father in his second Book against Hereticks Cap. 41. on which words I can critick only wit hdeep silence Only for his two letters and half I take his meaning to be according to the Jews writing of the name Jesu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who deny him the last letter of his name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they deny him for a Saviour So the Dutch Jew Elias Levita saith in express words The Christians say that their Messias was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the commandment of the Angel Gabriel because he should save all the world from Gehinnom but because the Jews do not confess that he is a Saviour therefore they will not call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jeshuang but they leave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last letter out and call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesu After this kind of writing as Irenaeus saith the word consisteth of two letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and half a letter that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may be so called because it
that she was a witch I have therefore cited these passages not only that it may be shewn that there were women Pharisees and so that the name is not taken from interpreting or expounding but that it may be observed also what kind of women for the most part embrace Phariseism namely Widows and Maids under the vail of Sanctity and Devotion hiding and practising all manner of wickedness And so much we gain of the history of the Pharisees while we are tracing the etymology of the word II. That the Pharisees therefore were so called from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying Separation is more commonly asserted and more truly and the thing it self as well as the word speaks it so that by a word more known to us you might rightly call the Pharisees Separatists but in what sense has need of more narrow enquiry The differences of the Jewish people are to be disposed here into divers ranks and first we will begin with the Women 1. It were an infinite task to search particularly how their Canons indulged shall I say or prescribed the Woman a freedom from very many rites in which a great part of the Jewish religion was placed How numberless are the times that that occurs in the Talmudic Pandect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d d d d d d Berac cap. 3 hal 3. Women servants and children are not bound to these things e e e e e e Hieros Kiddush fol. 61. 3. Women servants and children are not bound to recite their Phylacteries nor to wear them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Passovers of Women are at their own Will And not to dwell upon things that are obvious let this one serve instead of many f f f f f f Bab. Sotah fol. 21. 2. A certain Matron asked R. Eleazar Why when Aaron sinned in making the Golden Calf the people are punished with a threefold death He answered Let not a Woman be learned beyond her distaff Hirâ—anus his son said unto him Because no answer is given her in one word out of the Law She will withdraw from us three hundred tenth Cori yearly To whom he replied Let them rather go and be burnt than the words of the Law be delivered to Women From hence it appears that the Women that embraced Pharisaism did it of their own free will and vow not by command which the Men Pharisees also did 2. Pass we from the Women to the Men and first to the lowest degrees of Men in the distinction relating to Religion namely to them whom they ordinarily called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Illiterate and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The people of the Earth or the Plebeians Of them thus the Gemara in Sotah newly cited g g g g g g Fol. 22. 1. One reads the Scriptures and recites the Mishna and yet he waits not upon the Scholars of the Wise-men what of him R. Eleazar saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is one of the people of the earth R. Samuel bar Nachmani saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold this is an illiterate man R. Jannai saith behold this is a Cuthean R. Achabar Jacob saith behold This is a Magician And a little after Who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the people of the Earth R. Meir saith He that recites not his Phylacteries morning and evening with his prayers But the Wise men say He whosoever he be that lays not up his Phylacteries Ben Azzai saith He who hath not a fringe on his garment R. Jochanan ben Joseph saith He that instructs not his sons in the doctrine of the Law Others say He who although he read the Scriptures and repeats the Traditions yet attends not on the Scholars of the Wise men this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the people of the Earth or the Plebeian Does he read the Scriptures and not repeat the Tradition Behold this man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Illiterate The Gloss upon the place speaks thus The people of the Earth are they of whom there is suspicion of Tenths and cleanness that is lest they tithe not rightly nor take care aright concerning cleansings And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the illiterate person is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more vile or inferior than the people of the Earth Compare that John VII 49. The people that knoweth not the Law is cursed The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Collegians or Associates and Scholars of the Wise men were opposed to these Vulgar persons Under the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scholars of the Wise men are comprehended all that were learned and studious under the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religious as well learned as unlearned There were some of the learned whom they commonly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Collegians of the Rabbins who as yet were Candidates and not preferred to the publick office of teaching or judging The thing may be illustrated by one Example 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 h h h h h h Hieros Sanhedr fol. 18. 3. Do the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Collegians enter in to appoint the New Moon R. Hoshaia said When I was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Collegian R. Samuel ben R. Isaac led me in to the appointment of the New Moon but I knew not whether I were of the number or no. And a little after Do the Collegians or Fellows go in to intercalate the year Let us learn this from the example of Rabban Gamaliel who said Let the seven Seniors meet me in the Chamber But eight entred Who came in hither saith he without leave I answered Samuel the little In this sense the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Collegue differs nothing from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Scholar of a Wise man in that both signifie a Student and a Learned man But the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Collegue hath a wider sense denoting all such who have more professedly devoted themselves to Religion and have professed a more devout Life and Rule than the common people whether they were learned or unlearned whether of the Sect of the Pharisees or of the Sadduces or some other Hence you have mention of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i i i i i i Bab. Berac fol. 44. 2. a religious Samaritan and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k k k k k k Ioma fol. 8. 2. a religious Baker And the phrase seems to be drawn from Psal. CXIX 63. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am a companion of all those that fear thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They take upon them the habit of Religion See the Babylonian Talmud in l l l l l l Fol. 7. 1. Avodah Zarah in the Gloss. That distinction also is worthy of consideration of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 m m m m m m Hieros Bava Bâ—thra fol. 17. 1 The greater and the less Religious Yet the word seems sometimes to be appropriated to the Pharisees as being
carries with it a very proper sense if you interpret it To according to its most usual signification Moses to the hardness of your hearts added this that he permitted divorces something that favours of punishment in it self however you esteem it for a priviledge II. But you may interpret it more clearly and aptly of the Inhumanity of husbands towards their wives but this is to be understood also under restriction fo r Moses permitted not divorces because simply and generally men were severe and unkind towards their wives for then why should he restrain divorces to the cause of Adultery but because from their fierceness and cruelty towards their wives they might take hold of and seek occasions from that Law which punished Adultery with death to prosecute their wives with all manner of severity to oppress them to kill them Let us search into the Divine Laws in case of Adultery a little more largely 1. There was a Law made upon the suspicion of Adultery that the wife should undergo a trial by the bitter waters Numb 5. but it is disputed by the Jewish Schools rightly and upon good ground whether the husband was bound in this case by duty to prosecute his wife to extremity or whether it were lawful for him to connive at and pardon her if he would And there are some who say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he was bound by duty and there are others who say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it was left to his pleasure c c c c c c See Hierof Sotah as before 2. There was a Law of death made in case of the discovery of Adultery Deut. XXII 21 22 23. If a man shall be found lying with a married woman both shall die c. not that this Law was not in force unless they were taken in the very act but the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be found is opposed to suspicion and means the same as if it were said When it shall be found that a man hath lain c. 3. A Law of Divorce also was given in case of Adultery discovered Deut. XXIV for in that case only and when it is discovered it plainly appears from our Saviours Gloss and from the concession of some Rabbins also that Divorces took place For say they in the place last cited Does a man find something foul in his wife he cannot put her away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he hath not found foul nakedness in her that is Adultery But now how does the Law of death and that of Divorce consist together It is answered They do not so consist together that both retain their force but the former was partly taken off by the latter and partly not The Divine Wisdom knew that inhumane husbands would use that law of death unto all manner of cruelty towards their wives for how ready was it for a wicked and unkind husband to lay snares even for his innocent wife if he were weary of her to oppress her under that law of death And if she were taken under guilt how cruelly and insolently would he triumph over her poor woman both to the disgrace of wedlock and to the scandal of Religion Therefore the most prudent and withal merciful Law-giver made provision that the woman if she were guilty might not go without her punishment and if she were not guilty might go without danger and that the wicked husband that was impatient of wedlock might not satiate his cruelty That vvhich is said by one does not please me That there was no place for divorce where Matrimony was broke off by capital punishment for there vvas place for Divorce for that end that there might not be place for capital punishment That Law indeed of death held the Adulterer in a snare and exacted capital punishment upon him and so the Law made sufficient provision for terrour but it consulted more gently for the woman the weaker vessel lest the cruelty of her husband might unmercifully triumph over her Therefore in the suspicion of Adultery and the thing not discovered the husband might if he would try his wife by the bitter waters or if he would he might connive at her In case of the discovery of Adultery the husband might put away his wife but he scarce might put her to death because the Law of Divorce was given for that very end that provision might be made for the woman against the hard heartedness of her husband Let this story serve for a Conclusion d d d d d d Bab. Berac fol. 19. 1. Shemaiah and Abtalion compelled Carchemith a Libertine woman-servant to drink the Bitter waters The husband of this woman could not put her away by the Law of Moses because she was not found guilty of discovered Adultery He might put her away by the Traditional Law which permitted Divorces without the case of Adultery he might not if he had pleased have brought her to trial by the bitter waters but it argued the hardness of his heart towards his wife or burning jealousie that he brought her I do not remember that I have any where in the Jewish Pandect read any example of a wife punished with death for Adultery e e e e e e Hierof Sanhedr fol. â—4 2. There is mention of the daughter of a certain Priest committing fornication in her fathers house that was burnt alive but she was not married VERS XII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eunuchs from their mothers womb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eunuchs which were made Eunuchs of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Talmudists VERS XIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then were little children brought unto him NOT for the healing of some disease for if this had been the end propounded why did the Disciples keep them back above all others or chide any for their access Nor can we believe that they were the children of unbelieving Jews when it is scarcely probable that they despising the Doctrine and person of Christ would desire his blessing Some therefore of those that believe brought their Infants to Christ that he might take particular notice of them and admit them into his Discipleship and mark them for his by his blessing Perhaps the Disciples thought this an excess of officious Religion or that they would be too troublesome to their Master and hence they opposed them but Christ countenanceth the thing and favours again that Doctrine which he had laid down Chap. XVIII namely That the Infants of believers were as much Disciples and partakers of the Kingdom of Heaven as their Parents VERS XVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Thou shalt not kill c. IT is worthy marking how again and again in the New Testament when mention is made of the whole Law only the second Table is exemplified as in this place so also Rom. XIII 8 9. and Jam. 11. 8. 11 c. Charity towards our neighbour is the top of Religion and a most
z Berac sol 5 4 The righteous even in death are said to live and the wicked even in life are said to be dead But how is it proved that the wicked even in life are said to be dead From that place where it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have no delight in the death of the dead Is he already dead that is here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dead And whence is it proved that the righteous even in death are said to live From that passage And he said to him this is the land concerning which I sware to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He saith to him Go and tell the Fathers whatsoever I promised to you I have performed to your children The opinion of the Babylonians is the same a a a a a a Berac sol 18. 1 The living know that they shall dye They are righteous who in their death are said to live as it is said And Benaiah the son of Jehojada the son of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— living man c. And a little after The dead knew nothing They are the wicked who even in their life are called Dead as it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thou dead wicked Prince of Israel The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is commonly rendred Profane in this place they render it also in a sense very usual namely for one wounded or dead b b b b b b Ibid. col 2. There are further divers stories alledged by which they prove that the dead so far live that they understand many things which are done here and that some have spoke after death c. CHAP. XXIII VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. In Moses seat c. THIS is to be understood rather of the Legislative seat or chair than of the merely Doctrinal and Christ here asserts the authority of the Magistrate and perswadeth to obey him in lawful things Concerning the Chairs of the Sanhedrin there is mention made in Bab. Succah c c c c c c Fol. â—1 2. There were at Alexandria seventy one golden chairs according to the number of the seventy one Elders of the great Council Concerning the authority of Moses and his Vicegerent in the Council there is also mention in Sanhedrim d d d d d d Chap. 1. hal 6 The great Council consisted of seventy one Elders But whence was this number derived From that place where it is said Chuse me out seventy men of the Elders of Israel And Moses was President over them Behold seventy one What is here observed by Galatinus from the signification of the Aorist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sat iâ— too light and aery He saith They sat saith he and not They sit that he might plainly demonstrate that their power was then ceased e e e e e e Chap. 6. Book 4. But if we would be so curious to gather any thing from this Aorist we might very well transfer it to this sense rather The Scribes and Pharises the worst of men have long usurped Moses seat nevertheless we ought to obey them because by the dispensation of the Divine Providence they bear the chief Magistracy Concerning their authority thus Maimonides f f f f f f In Mamrim cap. 1. The great Council of Jerusalem was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 g g g g g g See 1 Tim. III. 15. The Pillar and Ground The ground of the traditional Law and the pillar of Doctrine whence proceeded statutes and judgments for all Israel And concerning them the Law asserts this very thing saying h h h h h h Deut. XVII 11. According to the Sentence of the Law which they shall teach thee Whosoever therefore believes Moses our Master and his Law is bound to relie upon them for the things of the Law Christ teacheth that they were not to be esteemed as Oracles but as Magistrates VERS IV. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heavy burdens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Talmudick Language Hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A heavy Prohibition i i i i i i Jerus Roshbashanaâ— fol. 56. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k k k k k k Maim in Mamr chap. 1. Let him follow him that imposeth heavy things There are reckoned up four and twenty things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the weighty things of the School of Hillel and the light things of that of Shammai l l l l l l Jerus Jom Tobh fol. 60. 2. Sotah f. 19. 2 R. Joshua saith m m m m m m Ibid. chap. 3 hal 4. A foolish religious man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A crafty wicked man a shee-Pharisee and the voluntary dashing of the Pharisees destroy the world It is disputed by the Gemarists who is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crafty wicked man and it is answer'd by some He that prescribes light things to himself and heavy to others VERS V. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They make broad their Phylacteries THESE four places of the Law Exod. XIII ver 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Exod. XIII ver 11 12 13 14 15 16. Deut. VI. ver 5 6 7 8 9. Deut. XI ver 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21. Being writ upon two Parchment-Labels which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tephillin were carried about with them constantly with great devotion being fastned to their forehead and their left arm To the forehead in that place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n n n n n n Bab. Taanith fol. 16. 1. in the Gloss. where the pulse of an Infants brain is This of the forehead was most conspicuous and made broad hence came that Let no body pass by the Synagogue while prayers are saying there But if he hath Rhylacteries upon his head he may pass by because they show that he is studious of the Law o o o o o o Maimon on Tephilla Chap. 8. It is not lawful to walk through burying places with Phylacteries on ones head and the book of the Law hanging at ones arm * * * * * * Bab. Berac fol. 18. 1. They are called in Greek Phylacteries that is Observatories because they were to put them in mind of the Law and perhaps they were also called Preservatories because they were supposed to have some vertue in them to drive away Devils It is necessary that the Phylacteries should be repeated at home anights 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to drive away Devils p p p p p p Jerus Berac fol. 2. 4. Pisk in Berac Chap. 1. art 6. Rabben Asher ibid. Chap. 1. Col. 1. Concerning the curious writing of the Phylacteries see Maimon on Tephillin q q q q q q Chap. 1. 2. Concerning their strings marked with certain small letters See
that he saith he knew not that day and hour of the destruction of Jerusalem yea it excellently agrees with his Office and Deputation who being the Fathers Servant Messenger and Minister followed the orders of the Father and obeyed him in all things The Son knoweth not that is It is not revealed to him from the Father to reveal to the Church Revel I. 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him We omit enquiring concerning the Knowledge of Christ being now raised from death whether and how far it exceeded his knowledg while yet he conversed on earth It is without doubt that being now raised from the dead he merited all kind of Revelation See Revel V. 9. And they sung a new song saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for thou wast slain c. and that he conversing on earth before his death acted with the vigor of the Holy Spirit and of that unspeakable holiness which flowed from the Union of the Humane Nature with the Divine the Divine Nature in the mean time suspending its infinite activity of Omnipotence So that Christ might work miracles and know things to come in the same manner as the Prophets also did namely by the Holy Ghost but in a larger measure and might overcome the Devil not so much by the Omnipotence of the Divine Nature as by the infinite holiness of his Person and of his obedience So that if you either look upon him as the Minister and Servant of God or if you look upon the constitution as I may so call it and condition of his Person These words of his Of that day and hour knoweth not the Son also carry nothing of incongruity along with them yea do excellently speak out his substitution as a Servant and the constitution of his Person as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-man The reason why the Divine Wisdom would have the time of the destruction of Jerusalem so concealed is well known to it self but by men since the time of it was unsearchable the reason certainly is not easie to be searched We may conjecture that the time was hid partly lest the Godly might be terrified with the sound of it as 2 Thes. II. 2. partly that the Ungodly and those that would be secure might be taken in the snares of their own security as Mat. XXIV 38. But let secret things belong to God CHAP. XIV VERS III. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of Spikenard WHAT if I should render it Nardinum Balaninum Nardin of Balanus Nardin a a a a a a Pliny lib. 13. cap. 1. consists of Omphacium Balaninum Bulrush Nard Amomum Myrrhe Balsame c. And again b b b b b b Idem lib. 12. cap. 21. Myrobalanum is common to the Troglodytes and to Thebais and to that part of Arabia which divides Judea from Egypt a growing oyntment as appears by the very name whereby also is shewn that it is the maste of a tree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as all know among the Greeks is Glans Maste or an Acorn so also is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pistaca among the Talmudists There are prescribed by the Talmudists c c c c c c Bab. Gittin fol. 69. 1. various remedies for various diseases among others this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For a Pluriâ—ie or as others will have it A certain disease of the head Take to the quantity of the Maste of Aâ—moniac The Gloss is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the maste of Cedar The Aruch saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the grain of a fruit which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glans The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nard is Hebrew from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nerd and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Syriac from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pistaca So that the Oyntment might be called Unguentum Balaninum Balanine oyntment in the composition of which Nard and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maste or Myrobalane were the chief ingredients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Poured it upon his head In Talmâ—dic Language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d d d d d d Bab. Chetubh fol. 17. 2. What are the Testimonies that the woman married is a Virgin If she goes forth to be married 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a veil let down over her eyes yet with her head not veiled The scattering of nâ—ts is also a testimony These are in Judea but what are in Babylon Rabh saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If oyntment be â—pon the head of the Rabbins The Gloss is the women poured oyntment upon the heads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Scholars and anoynted them Rabh Papa said to Abai 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Does that Doctor speak of the aromatic oyntment used in bridg-chambers The Gloss is Are the Rabbins such to be anoynted with such Oyntments He answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Orphan that is O thou unacquainted with the Customs Did not thy â—other pour out oyntment for you at thy wedding upon the heads of the Rabins Thus a certain Rabâ—in got a wife for his son in the house of Rabbah bar Ulla and they said to him Rabbah bar ulla also got a wife in the house of a certain Rabbin for his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he poured out oyntment upon the heads of the Rabbins From the Tradition produced it may be asked whether it were customary in Judea to wet the heads of the Rabbins with oyntments in the marriages of Virgins as it was in Babylon Or whether it were so customary otherwise to anoynt their heads as that such an anoynting at weddings were not so memorable a matter as it was in Babylon Certainly in both places however they anoynted mens heads for healths sake it was accounted unfitting for Rabbins to smell of aromatical oyntments e e e e e e Hieros Berac fol. 11. 2. It is undecent say the Jerusalem Talmudists for a Scholar of the Wise men to smell of spices And you have the judgment of the Babylonians in this very place when it is enquired among them and that as it were with a certain kind of disatisfaction whether Rabbins be such as that they should be anoynted with aromatical oyntments as the more nice sort are wont to be anoynted From this opinion every where received among them you may more aptly understand why the other Disciples as well as Judas did bear the lavish of the oyntment with some indignation He out of wicked covetousness but they partly as not willing that so precious a thing should be lost and partly as not liking so nice a custom should be used towards their Master from which the Masters of the Jews themselves were so averse And our Saviour taking off the envy of what was done applies this anoynting to his burial both in his intention and in the intention of the woman that it might not seem to be done out
wonderful Messes rich Feasts c. he will give them himself to eat Bread beyond all other Provisions whatever food from Heaven and such as bringeth Salvation As to this whole passage of eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood of Christ it will be necessary to premise that of Mark IV. 11 12. I speak by Parables and all these things are done in Parables that seeing they might see and not perceive c. Vers. 34. Without a Parable spake he not unto them and when they were alone he expounded these things unto them And what can we suppose in this place but Parable wholly I. There was nothing more common in the Schools of the Jews than the phrases of eating and drinking in a metaphorical sense And surely it would found very harsh if not to be understood here metaphorically but litterally What to drink Blood a thing so severely interdicted the Jews once and again What to eat mans flesh a thing abhorrent to humane nature but above all abhorrent to the Jews to whom it was not lawful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to eat a member of a living Beast nor touch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the member of a dead man t t t t t t Midras Coheleth fol. 88. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every eating and drinking of which we find mention in the Book of Ecclesiastes is to be understood of the Law and good works i. e. by way of Parable and Metaphor By the Capernaite's leave therefore and the Romanist's too we will understand the eating and drinking in this place figuratively and parabolically II. Bread is very frequently used in the Jewish Writers for Doctrine So that when Christ talks of eating his flesh he might perhaps hint to them that he would feed his followers not only with his Doctrines but with himself too u u u u u u Chagigah fol. 14. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The whole stay of Bread Isai. III. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are the masters of Doctrine as it is written come eat of my Bread Prov. IX 5. x x x x x x Gloss. in Succah fol. 52. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Feed him with Bread that is make him take pains in the warfare of the Law as it is written come eat of my Bread Moses sed you with Doctrine and Manna but I feed you with Doctrine and my Flesh. III. There is mention even amongst the Talmudists themselves of eating the Messiah y Sanhedr fol. 98. 2. Rabh saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Israel shall eat the years of Messiah The Gloss is The plenty and satiety that shall be in the days of the Messiah shall belong to the Israelites Rabb Joseph saith True indeed but who shall eat thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall Chillek and Billek two Judges in Sodom eat of it We must except against that of R. Hillel who saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Messiah is not likely to come to Israel for they have already devoured him in the days of Hezekiah Those words of Hillel are repeated fol. 99. 1. Behold here is mention of eating the Messiah and none quarrel the phraseology They excepted against Hillel indeed that he should say that the Messiah was so eaten in the days of Hezekiah that he was not like to appear again in Israel but they made no scruple of the scheme and manner of speech at all For they plainly enough understood what was meant by eating the Messiah that is that in the days of Hezekiah they so much partook of the Messiah they received him so greedily embraced him so gladly and in a manner devoured him that they must look for him no more in the ages to come Gloss upon the place Messiah will come no more to Israel for Hezekiah was the Messiah IV. But the expression seems very harsh when he speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood He tells us therefore that these things must be taken in a spiritual sense Do these things offend you What and if you shall see the Son of man ascending up where he was before That is when you shall have seen me ascending into Heaven you will then find how impossible a thing it is to eat my flesh and drink my blood bodily for how can you eat the flesh of one that is in Heaven You may know therefore that I mean eating me spiritually For the words that I speak to you they are spirit and they are life V. But what sense did they take it in that did understand it Not in a Sacramental sense surely unless they were then instructed in the Death and Passion of our Saviour for the Sacrament hath a relation to his death but this sufficiently appears elsewhere that they knew or expected nothing of that Much less did they take it in a Jewish sense For the Jewish conceipts were about the mighty advantages that should accrue to them from the Messiah and those meerly earthly and sensual But to partake of the Messiah truly is to partake of himself his pure nature his righteousness his spirit and to live and grow and receive nourishment from that participation of him Things which the Jewish Schools heard little of did not believe did not think but things which our Blessed Saviour expresseth lively and comprehensively enough by that of eating his flesh and drinking his blood CHAP. VII VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Iews Feast of Tabernacles Tisri LET us draw down this Month from its beginning to this Feast of Tabernacles I. The first day of the Month Tisri was the beginning of the year for stating the years the intermissions of the seventh year and the Jubilees a a a a a a Rosh hashanah fol. 2. 1. Upon this day was the blowing of Trumphets Levit. XXIII 24. and persons were sent out to give notice of the beginning of the year On this day began the year of the world 3960. in the middle of which year Christ was Crucified II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The second day observed also as holy by the Jews that were in Babylon that they might be sure not to miss the beginning of the year III. A Fast for the murder of Gedaliah for so they expound those words Zechar. VIII 19. The Fast of the seventh month b b b b b b Vid. Rasi Kimch in loc Maimon in Taanith cap. 7. IV. This day was the High-Priest in the apartment called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which he then betook himself from his own House that he might inure himself by exercise to the rites of the day of attonement approaching and be ready and fitted for the service of that day c c c c c c Joma cap. 1. hal 1. Seven days before the day of expiation they sequestered the Chief Priest from his own House and shut him up into the apartment called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 substituting to him another Priest lest accidentally there should some
water hath never seen any rejoycing at all This offering of water they say was a Tradition given at Mount Sinai a a a a a a Rambam in loc and that the Prophet Jonah was inspired by the Holy Ghost upon this offering of water b. If you ask what foundation this usage hath Rambam will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— Gloss in lot there are some kind of remote hints of it in the Law however those that will not believe the Traditional Law will not believe this article about the sacrifice of water I. They bring for it the authority of the Prophet Isaiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of drawing for it is written Ye shall draw waters with joy c. Isa. XII 3. b b b b b b Succah fol. 50. 2. This rejoycing which we have describ'd before they call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rejoycing of the Law or for the Law for by waters they often understand the Law Isa. LV. 1. and several other places and from thence the rejoycing for these waters II. But they add moreover that this drawing and offering of water signifies the pouring out of the Holy Spirit c c c c c c â—…h rabba fol. 70. 1. Why do they call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of drawing because thence they draw the Holy Spirit Gloss in Succah ubi supr In the Jerusalem Talmud it is expounded that they draw there the Holy Spirit for a divine breathing is upon the man through joy Another Gloss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Flute also sounded for encrease of the joy Drawing of water therefore took its rise from the words of Isaiah they rejoyc'd over the waters as a symbol and figure of the Law and they lookt for the Holy Spirit upon this joy of theirs III. But still they add further d d d d d d â—oh Hashaâ—â—h fol. 16. Why doth the Law command saying offer ye water on the feast of Tabernacles The Holy Blessed God saith offer ye waters before me on the Feast of Tabernacles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the rains of the year may be blest to you For they had an opinion that God decreed and determin'd on the rains that should fall the following year at that Feast Hence that in the place before mention'd e e e e e e â— Taanith fol. 2. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Feast of Tabernacles it is determin'd concerning the waters And now let us reflect upon this passage of our Saviour Whosoever believeth in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water They agree with what he had said before to the Samaritan woman Chap. IV. 14. and both expressions upon the occasion of drawing of water The Jews acknowledg that the latter Redeemer is to procure water for them as their former Redeemer Moses had done f f f f f f Midras Coheleth fol. 85. But as to the true meaning of this they are very blind and ignorant and might be better taught by the Messiah here if they had any mind to learn I. Our Saviour calls them to a belief in him from their own boast and glorying in the Law and therefore I rather think those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Scripture hath said should relate to the foregoing clause Whosoever believeth in me as the Scripture hath spoken about believing in Isa. XXVIII 16. I lay in Sion for a foundation a try'd stone He that believeth c. Habak II. 4. The just shall live by faith And the Jews themselves confess g g g g g g Maccoth fol. 24. 1. that six hundred and thirteen precepts of the Law may all be reduc'd to this The just shall live by faith And to that of Amos v. 6. Seek the Lord and ye shall live II. Let these words then of our Saviour be set in opposition to this rite and usage in the Feast of Tabernacles of which we have been speaking Have you such wonderful rejoycing at drawing a little water from Siloam He that believes in me whole rivers of living waters shall flow out of his own belly Do you think the waters mention'd in the Prophets do signifie the Law they do indeed denote the Holy Spirit which the Messiah will dispense to those that believe in him and do you expect the Holy Spirit from the Law or from your rejoycing in the Law the Holy Spirit is of faith and not of the Law Gal. III. 2. VERS XXXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this Holy Ghost was not yet THESE words have relation to that most receiv'd opinion of the Jews about the departure of the Holy Spirit after the death of Zachary and Malachi to this also must that passage be interpreted when those of Ephesus say Act. XIX 2. We have not yet heard whether there were a Holy Ghost or no. That is we have indeed heard of the Holy Ghosts departure after the death of our last Prophets but of his return and redonation of him we have not yet heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Lord revive thy work in the midst of the years in midst of the years make known Hab. III. 2. He calls the seventy years of Captivity the midst of the years For on the one hand it had been seven times seventy years from the birth of Samuel the first of the Prophets to the Captivity Act. III. 24. and on the other hand it was seven times seventy years from the end of the Captivity to the death of Christ. The prayer is that the gift of Prophesie might not be lost but preserv'd whiles the people should live exil'd in an heathen Country And according to the twofold virtue of Prophesie the one of working miracles the other of foretelling things to come he uses a twofold phrase revive thy work and make known Nor indeed was that gift lost in the Captivity but was very illustrious in Daniel Ezekiel c. it return'd with those that came back from the Captivity and was continu'd for one generation but then the whole Canon of the Old Testament being perfected and made up it departed not returning till the dawn of the Gospel at what time it appear'd in inspiring the Blessed Virgin John Baptist and his Parents c. and yet the Holy Ghost was not yet come that is not answerably to that large and signal promise of it in Joel II. 28. VERS XLIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This people c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the people of the earth in common phrase oppos'd to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the disciples of the wise men whom they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy people h h h h h h Setah fol. 39. 1. but the former they call the accursed VERS LII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Art thou also of Galilee IT seems to be spoken scoffingly Art thou of those Galileans that believe in this Galilean CHAP. VIII EXPOSITORS
office there At the due time the Sacrifices appointed for the Chagigah were slain those parts of them that pertain'd to the Altar or to the Priest were given to them the rest of the beast was shar'd amongst the owners that had offer'd it and from thence proceeded their Feastings together and their great mirth and rejoycings according to the manner of that Festival This was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 14. The preparation of the Passover and that was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Passover to which the Elders of the Council reserving themselves would by no means enter into the Judgment-hall Chap. XVIII 28. II. That day drawing toward night those that were deputed by the Sanhedrin to reap the sheaf of the first-fruits went out f f f f f f Menacoth fol. 65. 1. Those that were deputed by the Sanhedrin to reap went forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the evening of the Feast-day the first day of the Feast and bound their corn in sheafs pretty near the ground that the reaping might be the easier All the neighbouring Towns about gather'd together that it might be done with the greater pomp When it grew duskish he that was about to reap said The Sun is set and they answer'd Well The Sun is set and they answer'd Well With this Sickle Well With this Sickle Well In this Basket Well In this Basket Well And if it happen'd to be on the Sabbath-day he said On this Sabbath and they answer'd Well On this Sabbath Well I will reap and they said reap I will reap reap And so as he said these things thrice over they answer'd thrice to every one of them Well well well And all this upon the account of the Baithusians who said the sheaf of the first-fruits ought not to be reaped on the close of the Feast-day About that hour of the day wherein our Saviour was buried they went forth to this reaping and when the Sabbath was now come they began the work for the Sabbath it self did not hinder this work g g g g g g Ibid. fol. 63. 2. R. Ananias the Sagan of the Priests saith on the Sabbath-day they reap'd the sheaf only to the measure of one Seah with one Sickle in one Basket but upon a common day they reapt three Seahs with three Sickles in three Baskets But the wise men say The Sabbath-days and other days as to this matter are alike III. This night they were to lodg in Jerusalem or in Booths about so near the City that they might not exceed the bounds of a Sabbath-days journey In the morning again they met very early in the Court as the day before the Sacrifices are brought for the peoples appearing before the Lord the sheaf of first-fruits is offer'd in its turn the rites and usages of which offering are described in the place above quoted So that upon this high day there happen'd to be three great Solemnities in one viz. the Sabbath the sheaf-offering and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the appearing of the people in the Court before the Lord according to the command Exod. XXIII 17. VERS XXXIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With a Spear pierced his side THE Arab. Vers. of the Erpenian Edition adds the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he pierced his right side afraid as it should seem lest the miracle should not be great enough if the blood and water should have been suppos'd to have issued from his left-side because of the water that is said to be contain'd in the Pericardium which being pierced it is conceived blood and water could not but upon natural reasons flow out of it But this issue of blood and water had something of mystery in it beyond nature if nothing preternatural had been in it I hardly imagin the Evangelist would have used that threefold asseveration concerning the truth of the thing as we see he doth And he that saw it bare record c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There came out blood and water It is commonly said that the two Sacraments of the New Testament Water and Blood flow'd out of this wound but I would rather say that the Antitype of the Old Testament might be here seen I. The Apostle teacheth us that the ratification of the old Covenant was by Blood and Water Heb. IX 19. Moses took the blood of calves and of goats with water c. I confess indeed that Moses makes no mention of water Exod. XXIV but the Apostle writing to the Hebrews does not write without such authority as they could not tell how to gainsay And if my memory do not fail me I think I have read some where among some of the Jewish Authors but the place its self is unhappily slipt from me that when there was some pause to be made betwixt the slaying of the Sacrifice and the sprinkling of the blood upon the Altar such a kind of pause as Moses made when he read to the people the articles of their Covenant they mingled water with the blood lest it should congeal and coagulate However the authority is sufficient that the Apostle tells us that the first Testament was dedicated by Blood and Water The Antitype of which is clearly exhibited in this ratification of the New Testament and hence is it that the Evangelist by so vehement asseverations confirms the truth of this passage because it so plainly answers the Type and gives such assurance of the fulfilling of it II. I must not by any means let pass that in Shemoth rabba h h h h h h Fol. 122. 1 He smote the rock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the waters gushed out Psal. LXXVIII 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies nothing else but blood as it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the woman that hath an issue of blood upon her Levit. XV. 20. Moses therefore smote the rock twice and first it gusht out blood then water The rock was Christ 1 Cor. X. 4. Compare these two together Moses smote the rock and blood and water saith the Jew flow'd out thence The Souldier pierced our Saviour's side with a Spear and water and blood saith the Evangelist flow'd thence St. John concludes this asseveration of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye might believe It is not without moment what is commonly said viz. that by this flowing out of water and blood it is evident his Pericardium was pierced and so there was an undoubted assurance given of his death but I hardly believe the Evangelist in this clause had any direct eye toward it would he be so vehement in asserting he that saw bare record and he knoweth that he saith true that ye may believe that Jesus was indeed dead surely there was no need of such mighty asseverations for that questionless therefore he would intimate something else viz. that you may believe that this is the true blood of the New Covenant which so
And when we speak of him as acting the chief and principal parts we do not believe the rest of the Apostles idle we know they were endowed with equal authority an equal gift of Miracles equal number of Tongues equal wisdom and an equal power of Preaching the Gospel but that he for the reasons above mention'd had shewn his zeal industry and activity in some ways and measures very extraordinary VERS XVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst THE Vulgar and Erasmus have it Suspensus crepuit medius Being hang'd he crackt asunder in the midst So the Italian Translation Appicato crepo pelmezzo rendring St. Matthew rather than St. Luke and I question indeed whether they do rightly take the mind of St. Matthew while they so strictly confine the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to being hang'd I have produced my conjecture concerning this business at Mat. XXVII viz. that the Devil immediately after Judas had cast back his money into the Temple caught him up into the air strangled him threw him headlong and dasht him in pieces upon the ground For I. It is questionable enough whether the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do necessarily and singly denote he hanged himself and not as well he was hanged or choaked And indeed whether the word always suppose the Halter how the learned Hiensius hath defended the negative we may consult him upon this place and upon Mat. XXVII II. If Judas hanged himself as is commonly believ'd and commonly so painted how could it be said of him that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he fell headlong Grant that upon the breaking of the Halter he might fall upon the ground yet what matter is it whether he fell on his face or that he fell backward But if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Grammarians would have it it may be headlong as well as upon the face that is as upon the face is opposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to supine or backward III. Histories tell us of persons strangled by the Devil That is a known passage in Tob. III. 8. Asmodeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the Heb. of P. Fagius strangled Sarahs seven husbands c. and it may be the less wonder if the Devil being corporally seated in this wretch should at last strangle him IV. There are also Histories of the Devil snatching up some into the air and carrying them away with him Now of all mortals no wretch did ever more deserve so direful a fate than this Traytor not did any other death become the most impious of all mankind than the dreadfullest the Devil to whom he was intirely given up could inflict as what might be of most horrour to himself and terrour to others V. The words immediately following That this was known to all the dwellers at Jerusalem ver 19. argue it was a thing of no common and ordinary event and must be something more than hanging himself which was an accident not so very unusual in that Nation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And all his bowels gushed out w w w w w w Cholin fol. 56. 8. A certain Syrian saw a man who fell from the roof of his house upon the ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his belly burst and his bowels gusht out The Syrian brought the Son of him that had thus fallen and slew him before him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but at length it seem'd so The Gloss telleth us he did not strike or hurt the boy but made as if he would have killed him because he being loth to meddle with the mans bowels himself for fear lest he should any way displace them he seem'd as if he had kill'd the boy that so the father upon the sight of it groaning and fetching strong and deep sighs might draw in his bowels into their proper place again The Devil had dwelt in this wretch for three days or thereabout from the time that he had enter'd him upon his receiving the Sop Joh. XIII and now by an horrid eruption tearing out his bowels he goes out again VERS XIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aceldama 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A field of blood so call'd both as it had been purchas'd with the price of blood and as it had been water'd with the blood of this Traytor for hither I presume the Devil had thrown him headlong and upon this event it was that the Priests were mov'd to purchase this very field and so in a twofold sense it might be said of this Traytor that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he purchased a field both as it was bought with his money and seal'd with his blood If Aceldama was in that quarter of the City that it is now shewn in to strangers that is between the East and the South as Borchard tells us then it was in the valley of Hinnom or thereabout VERS XXV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he might go to his own place BAlaam x x x x x x Baal turim in Numb XXIV 25. went to his own place that is into Hell It is not said of the friends of Job that they each of them came from his own house or his own City or his own Country but from his own place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is from a place cut out for them in Hell y y y y y y Midra◠Cohtleth fol. 100. 4. The Gloss is from his own place that is from Hell appointed for Idolaters z z z z z z Maimon in Covel umazzi cap. 8. Whosoever betrays an Israelite into the hands of the Gentiles hath no part in the world to come If so then where must he have his place that betray'd the very Messiah of Israel VERS XXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ioseph called Barsabas I. AMongst the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jose and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joseph are one and the same name a a a a a a Bava kama fol. 83. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Jose saith in Babylon the Syrian tongue c. which being recited in Sotah b b b b b b Fol. 49. 2. is thus exprest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Joseph said In Babylon c. So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Jose in Hieros Jom tobh c c c c c c Fol. 61. 3. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Joseph in Bab. Berac d d d d d d Fol. 19. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jose ben Johanan in Avoth e e e e e e Cap. 1. hal 4. is Joseph ben Johanan in Maimonides Preface to Misnah And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Mat. XXVII 56. and Mark VI. 3. is render'd in the Vulgar Joseph See Beza upon the place now before us II. I would therefore suspect that this Joseph who is call'd Barsabas might be Joses the Son of Alpheus the brother of James the less who as James also was
this was in Sichem you will say what became then of the Sichemites faith which Christ himself had already planted amongst them Joh. IV. It may be answered though in so very obscure a thing I would not be positive that it was some years since the time when Christ had conversed in that City and when as he had done nothing that was miraculous there Simon by his Magicks might obtain the easier reception amongst them But however grant it was Sebaste or any other City of Samaria that was the scene of this story yet who did this Simon give out himself to be when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he himself was some great one And what sort of persons did the Samaritans account him when they said of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this man is the great power of God I. Did they take him for the Messiah It is commonly presumed that Simon was a Samaritan by birth but should Messiah spring out of the Samaritans It is no impertinent question whether the Samaritans when they looked for the Messiah Joh. IV. 25. yet could expect he should be one of the Samaritan stock when they admitted of no Article of Faith that had not its foundation in the Books of Moses Could they not gather this from thence that the Messiah should come of the Tribe of Judah A Samaritan perhaps will deny this and elude that passage in Gen. XLIX 10. by some such way as this It is true the Scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a Lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come but then this does not argue that Shiloh must derive his Original from the Tribe of Judah only that some Dominion should continue in Judah till Shiloh should appear Where by the way it is worth our observing that the Samaritan Text and Interpreter in that place instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the Jod and instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from between his feet that Text reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from between his banners and the Interpreter hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from between his Ranks or Companies That figment concerning Messiah ben Joseph or Messiah ben Ephraim for he goes by both those names whether it was first invented by the Jews or by the Samaritans is not easily determined The Jewish Writers make very frequent mention of him but the thing it self makes so much for the Samaritans that one might believe it was first hatcht amongst themselves only that the story tells us that Messiah was at length slain which the Samaritans would hardly ever have invented concerning him And the Jews perhaps might be the Authors of it that so they might the better evade those passages that speak of the death of the true Messiah II. However it was impiety enough in Simon if he gave out himself for a Prophet when he knew so well what himself was and if you expound his giving out himself to be some great one no higher than this yet does it argue arrogance enough in the knave I would not depress the sense of those words concerning John Baptist Luke I. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall be great in the sight of the Lord but if we take it in the highest degree he shall be a Prophet before the Lord Christ it carries both an excellent truth along with it and also a most plain agreeableness with the office of John And when Stephen expresseth Moses to have been a Prophet in these terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was mighty in words and deeds perhaps it bears the same sense with what the Samaritans said and conceited concerning this Simon that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great power of God VERS XIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then Simon himself believed also THAT is He believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Messiah and so was made capable of Baptism as in vers 37. and was indeed baptized in the Name of Jesus vers 16. And now O Simon what thinkest thou of thy self if hitherto thou hadst exhibited thy self as the Messiah Darest thou after this pretend to be the Son of God That which is commonly told of him and which Epiphanius reports without alledging any others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the Samaritans he gave out himself to be the Father to the Jews to be the Son betrays not only the blasphemy but the madness of the man that amongst the Jews he should pretend himself to be the Son of God when they would acknowledge no Son of God at all VERS XVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. They sent unto them Peter and Iohn c. c c c c c c Hâ—res 21. EPIPHANIUS here very apositely tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Philip being but a Deacon had not the power of imposition of hands so as by that to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost It was the Apostles peculiar Province and Prerogative by laying on of their Hands to communicate the Holy Ghost that is in his extraordinary gifts of Tongues and Prophesie for as to the Spirit of Sanctification they never dispensed that Peter and John besides the eminent station they held amongst the Apostles were also to be the Apostles of the Circumcision in forreign Countries James the brother of John was now alive who with those two made up that noble Triumvirate that had a more intimate familiarity with Christ. And one would believe he ought also to have been sent along with them but that they were sufficient and that this was only as a prologue to their future charge and office of dealing with the Circumcision in forreign Countries They lay their hands upon some whom the Holy Ghost had pointed out to be ordained Ministers And by so doing they did communicate the gifts of Tongues and Prophesie so very visible and conspicuously that it is said that Simon saw how through the laying on of the Apostles hands the Holy Ghost was given Amongst the Jews persons were ordained Elders by three men But here this duumvirate was abundantly more valuable when they could not only promote to the Ministry but further confer upon those that were so promoted a fitness and ability for the performance of their office VERS XIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Give me also this power c. HOW infinitely mistaken is this wretch if he think that the gifts of the Holy Ghost could be bought and procured by Silver or Gold and how much more mistaken still if he think that the power of conferring these gifts to others could be thus attained The Apostles had a power of imparting these gifts but even they had not a power of enabling another to impart them Paul by laying hands on Timothy could endow him with the gifts of Tongues and Prophesie but he could not so endow him that he should be capable of conveighing those gifts to another This was purely Apostolical to dispense these gifts and when
they died this power and privilege died with them It is easie apprehending what this wily wretch had in his thoughts and design viz. an affectation both of lucre and vain-glory Otherwise it might have been abundantly enough for him to have requested give me also the gift of Tongues and Prophesie as ye have given to these VERS XXIV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pray ye to the Lord for me IF he begged this in earnest and from his heart it is a wonder he should afterward break out into so much blasphemy and wickedness that Church-history reports concerning him if that say true d d d d d d Irenae lib. 1. cap. 20. And when he did still more and more disbelieve God and set himself more greedily in an opposition against the Apostles c. e e e e e e Euseb. lib. 2. cap. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Simon the great adversary of the great and Holy Apostles c. For him to beseech the Apostles earnestly to pray for him and yet from thenceforth to oppose them to the utmost of his power This certainly is the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity We have if we believe the story St. Peter and this Simon meeting with one another again at Rome where the Apostle by his prayers tumbles this Magician headlong to the ground while he was flying in the Air and so Simon Magus breaths his last If it had been taken notice of that if Philostratus may be believed it is probable St. Peter and Apollonius Tyanaeus were at one and the same time together in Babylon doubtless there would have been some such tale as this framed about St. Peters triumphing over him also That in Justin Martyr concerning a statue erected at Rome to Simon Magus with this inscription Simoni Sancto Deo To Simon the Holy God is shewn by learned Men to have been so called by mistake when it was rather a Statue erected Simoni Sango Deo I fear there is some such mistake concerning St. Peters chair erected in Rome as there was concerning the Statue of Simon erected at Rome VERS XXVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To Gaza which is desert WHO is it speaks this clause which is desert the Angel or the Historian Strabo indeed tells us f f f f f f Lib. 16. that Gaza antiently was a noble City destroyed by Alexander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and continues desert But why is this added in this place and by whom is it so I would suppose it is added by the Angel and that for this reason because there was another Gaza not very far from that place where Philip now was viz. in the Tribe of Ephraim 1 Chron. VII 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sichem with the Towns thereof to Gaza with the Towns thereof this was the dwelling of the children of Ephraim Here is Gaza of Ephraim but Philip must go to Gaza of the Philistins VERS XXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of great Authority under Candace Queen of the Aethiopians IN a French Treatise lately publisht that bears the Title of Histoire de la haut Ethiopie pag. 15. all the Ethiopian Kings are named and reckoned up and Candace not mentioned But at the end there is this animadversion upon it Dans cette Chronologie iâ— n'est point parle ny de la Râ—ine Candace ny de l' Imperatrice Helene c. In this Chronology there is no mention of the Queen Candace nor of the Empress Helen The Abyssins no more than the Jews use not to name the women in their Genealogies a thing very common with all the Eastern Nations However that there was a certain Candace Queen of the Ethiopians nay that there were several Queens of that name is so very plain both from Pliny and Strabo that it would be an impertinent thing to seek for this Candace of ours any where else The head of the Kingdom saith Strabo was Meröe a City of the same name with the Island it self Now the Country Meröe was made an Island by the river Nile Westward and the river Astabora Eastward g g g g g g Ptol. tab 4â— Africa If our Eunuch here came indeed from Meröe then may we call to mind that passage in Zeph. III. 10. From beyond the rivers of Aethiopia my suppliants c. But from what part soever of Candace's Empire he might come and what way soever he went that might be true of him and a very long journy he must needs take before he could arrive at Jerusalem But the Ethiopick Version cuts the journy much shorter when it makes him travailing to the City Gaza So rendring that passage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not who had the charge of all her treasure but who was over all Gaza I am apt to imagine this devotionist might come to Jerusalem upon the same errand that had brought the Jews from all Countries Acts II. viz. led hether by the Prophesie of Daniel which had foretold the appearance of the Messias about this time And one would wonder that whiles he was at Jerusalem he should have heard nothing concerning Jesus Or perhaps what he heard of him was the occasion of his studying at this time that passage in Isaiah's Prophesie Where now were the Apostles and the rest of that holy College and company that so great a person and one of such devotion should be let go untaught and unsatisfied concerning the Lord Jesus Is it possible that he could be ignorant of the talk of his Death and Resurrection abiding in the City although as yet he might not believe it But his instruction and conversion is reserved to a more peculiar miracle that should render it the more famous and better known VERS XXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was led as a sheep to the slaughter THE Text in Isaiah is indeed exprest here according to the Greek Version but whether the Eunuch used that Version or no is no unjust question As also whether he were a Jew or a Proselyte whether a Proselyte made or a meer Gentile whether an Eunuch in the strict or in the larger sense Which things are not to be enquired into because we can no where be resolved about them The perversness of the Jews is more obvious who to elude these express and plain things about the sufferings of the Messiah do divert the whole sense of this Chapter to another thing It goes current amongst them that the afflicted people of Israel are the subject of this Prophesie although there are those that would apply part of it to Jeremy others part of it to R. Judah the holy nay some there are that will allow some part of it to the Messias himself in the mean time providing that they admit not of his death it would be very tedious to set down particularly their triflings and elusions in this matter I rather enquire who it is that the Greek Interpreters apply this passage to Whether they plainly
Fathers of the Sanhedrin and Rulers of the people and so in reviling him he transgressed that precept Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people as well as if he had reviled the High Priest II. It is very little to the credit of the Apostle to think that when he said God shall smite thee thou whited wall c. That he uttered it rashly and unadvisedly or carried away in an heat of passion and indignation or that he did not know whom he thus threatned or what degree and office he held But he spoke it soberly and as became an Apostle by the Authority and guidance of the Holy Ghost Nor did he nor had he any need to retract those words or make apology for his rashness but they are of the very same tenor with the rest that he uttered III. If this Ananias was that Sagan of the Priests that perished in the destruction of Jerusalem as hath been already said I would conceive his death was foretold prophetically by the Apostle rather than that he rashly poured out words that he afterwards retracted Let me therefore paraphrase upon the words before us I know it is not lawful to speak evil of the Ruler of the people nor would I have said these things to him which I have if I had owned such an one but I did not own him so for he is not worthy the name of an High Priest IV. The President of the Sanhedrin at this time was Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel his Father Gamaliel having been dead about two or three years before Paul knew Simeon and Simeon very well knew him having been fellow Disciples and both sate together at the feet of Gamaliel nor indeed could he be ignorant of any of the Rulers of the people if they were of any age because he had been so long educated and conversed in Jerusalem So that it is very improbable he should not know either Ananias the High Priest if he were now present or Ananias the Sagan or indeed any of the Fathers of the Sanhedrin if they had any years upon their backs Indeed not a few years had passed since he had left Jerusalem But seeing formerly he had spent so many years there and had been of that Degree and Order that he was an Officer of the Sanhedrin and had a Patent from them he could not have so slippery and treacherous a memory but that upon his return he could readily know and distinguish their faces and persons And whereas it is said in the Verse immediately following That Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees c. If it should be asked whence he came to distinguish so well concerning their persons it may be answered That if he had no other ways to know them he might understand that by his former knowledge of them He had known them from the time that he himself had been a Pharisee and conversed among them See Chap. XXII 5. V. Forasmuch therefore as he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wist not I do not see how it can argue so much an ignorance of his person with whom he might have had some former transactions in obtaining that accursed commission against the followers of Christ but that it must relate to his affection rather than his understanding So that the sense is I knew not that there was any High Priest at all or I do not acknowledge this person for such an one It was safer to inveigh against the person than the office But if he had said concerning the very office I do not know that there is any High Priest at all I question not but he had uttered his mind being well assured that that High Priesthood was now antiquated by the death of our great High Priest Jesus For let us lay down this Problem Although the Apostle as to other things had owned the service of the Temple for he was purified in it Yet as to the High Priesthood he did not own the peculiar ministry of that doth it not carry truth with it seeing God by an irrefragrable token viz. the rending of the Veil of the Temple from the top to the bottom had shewn the end and abolishing of that office But suppose the words of the Apostle relate to the person and not the office and that they were spoken in reference to the man himself I do not own him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 High Priest that he is not worthy of that title Perhaps St. Paul knew of old how wicked a person he had been or from his present injustice or rash severity had reason enough to make such a reply To know instead of to own and acknowledge is not unusual in Scripture stile that is a sad and dreadful instance enough I know you not depart from me ye workers of iniquity And in the Jewish Writings when R. Judah being angry with Bar Kaphrah only said to him I know thee not he went away as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one rebuked and took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rebuke to himself The story is this z z z z z z Moed Katon sol 16. 1. When bar Kaphrah came to visit him he said unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Bar Kaphrah I never knew thee He understood what he meant Therefore he took the rebuke unto himself for the space of thirty days VERS VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sadducees say there is no Resurrection WHAT therefore is the Religion of a Sadducee He Prays he Fasts he offers Sacrifice he observes the Law and yet doth not expect a Resurrection or life Eternal To what end is this Religion It is that he may obtain Temporal good things observing only the promise of them made in the Law and he seeks for nothing beyond the meer letter That the Sadducees took their denomination from one Sadoc a Disciple of Antigonus Socheus is commonly received and that not without reason In the mean time it may not be amiss to enquire whether Sadoc did himself deny the resurrection and whether he rejected all the Books of the Holy Scripture excepting the five Books of Moses which the Sadducees in some measure did I. The Jewish writers do relate his story with so much variety that as some represent him we might think he denies the resurrection and future rewards but as others that he did not For so say some a a a a a a Yuchasin fol. 15. 2. Sadoc and Baithus were the heads of the Hereticks for they erred concerning the words of their Master c. b b b b b b Ramban in Avoth cap. 1. Sadoc and Baithus hearing this passage from their Master be ye not as Servants that serve their Master for hire and reward sake c. they said among themselves our Master teaches us that there is neither reward nor punishment c. Therefore they departed from the rule and forsook the Law c. Others say otherwise c c c c c c
〈◊〉 Of the Destroyer THE Jews call evil Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Destroyers and good Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministring But I enquire whether the Apostle speaks to this sense in this place For where can we find the people destroyed and slain by an evil Angel They perished indeed by the Pestilence and by the plague for Baal-Peor concerning which the Apostle spake before but here he distinguisheth the destroying of them by the Destroyer from that kind of death Therefore the Apostle seems to me to allude to the notion very usual among the Jews concerning the Angel of death the great destroyer called by them Samael concerning whom among very many things which are related let us produce this only f f f f f f Bava Mezia fol. 36. 1. A Question is propounded of a Cow delivered to a Keeper hired with a price carefully and faithfully to keep her She strayes in a Fen and there dyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the common manner that is by no violent death it is demanded how far the Keeper is guilty And it is determined that if she had perished being devoured by Wolves or drove away by thieves and slain then the Keeper were guilty by reason of negligence But this they say was the work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Angel of death For they say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the Angel of death had suffered her she had lived in a Thiefs house And the Gloss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Angel of death â—ight kill her even in the house of him who hired the Keeper You see how they ascribe it to the Angel of death when any violent known and ordinary cause and evident kind of death doth not appear So the Apostle in this place mentioneth the known and evident ways of death serpents pestilence ver 8 9. and now he speaks of the common kind of death and not of some evident plague whereby the whole multitude of those that murmured perished Num. XIV within forty years He saith they perished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that great Destroyer the Angel of Death VERS XI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. On whom the ends of the World c. HE saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ends of the Ages not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ends of the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Age in the Scripture very ordinarily is the Jewish age In which sense Circumcision the Passover and other Mosaic rites are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For an age So the Disciples Mat. XXIV 3. enquire of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the end of the age and he answereth concerning the destruction of Jerusalem In the same sense should I render the words of the Apostle Tit. I. 2. To the hope of eternal life which God hath promised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the times of the Jewish ages that is God promised eternal life before the Mosaic Oeconomy that life therfore is not to be expected by the works of the Law of Moses Thus therefore the Apostle speaks in this place These things which were translated in the beginning of the Jewish ages are written for an example to you upon whom the ends of those ages are come And the beginning is like to the end and the end to the beginning Both was forty years both consisted of temptation and unbelief and both ending in the destruction of unbelievers that in the destruction of those that perished in the wilderness this is the destruction of those that believed not in the destruction of the City and Nation VERS XVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cup of Blessing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cup of Blessing So was that Cup in the Passover called over which thanks were given after meat and in which our Saviour instituted the Cup of the Eucharist of which we have spoken largely at Mat. XXVI 27. When therefore the Apostle marks out the Cup of the Lords Supper with the same name as the Jews did their Cup he hath recourse to the first institution of it and implies that giving of thanks was continued over it by Christians although new under another notion Thus his reasoning proceeds as we in the eating of bread and drinking of the Eucharistical Cup communicate of the body and blood of Christ so in eating things offered to Idols men communicate of and with an Idol You communicate of the blood of Christ therefore fly from Idolatry I speak to wise men do you judge of the argument For the very participation of the Eucharist seals you up against Idolatry and things offered to Idols 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we all partake of one bread The manner of reasoning We all are one body because we partake of one bread recals that to mind which among the Jews was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mixing or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion The manner and sense of which learn out of Maimonides g g g g g g In 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 1. By the words of the Scribes saith he it is forbid neighbours to go on the Sabbath day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a place appropriated to one where there is a division into divers habitations unless all the neighbours one the Sabbath Eve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enter into communion Therefore Solomon for they make him the author of this Tradition and Custom appoynted that each place be appropriated to one man there where there is a division into divers Habitations and each of the Inhabitans receive there a place proper to himself and some place also is left there common to all so that all have an equal right in it as a Court belonging to many houses which is reckoned a place by right common to all And every place which each hath proper to himself is reckoned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proper place And it is forbid that a man carry any thing from a place proper to himself into the place common to all that is on the Sabbath but let every one use the place appropriate to himself alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until all enter into communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But how is that Communion made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They associate together in one food which they prepare on the Eve of the Sabbath as though they would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We all associate together and we have all one food nor does any of us separate a propriety from our neighbour but as we all have an equal right in this place which is left common to us so we have all an equal right in the place which every one takes to himself for his own And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The consorting together which those that dwel among themselves in the same Court make is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Communions of Courts And that consorting together which they make
use of this Sacrament might shew that they renounced their Judaism and professed the Faith and Oeconomy of the Gospel III. Our Communion therefore in this Sacrament is not so much Spiritual as External and declarative of our common and joynt profession of the Christian Faith We are far from denying that the Saints have a Spiritual Communion with God and among themselves in the use of the Eucharist yea we assert there is a most close Communion between true believers and God But what is that Spiritual Communion of Saints among themselves Mutual love one heart prayers for one another c. But they may exercise the same Communion and do exercise it when they meet together to any other part of Divine Worship They may and do act the same thing when they are distant from one another Therefore their Communion in this Sacrament which is distinctly called the Communion of the Eucharist is that they meet together and by this outward sign openly and with joynt minds profess that they are united in one sacred knot and bond of Christian Religion renouncing all other Religions IV. When therefore we approach to the Eucharist in any Church we do not only communicate with that congregation with which we associate at that time but with the whole Catholic Church in the profession of the true Evangelic Religion VERS XXVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye do shew the Lords death IT is known what the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Passover Supper was namely a Declaration of the great works of God in the deliverance of the people out of Egypt The same as it seems would these Judaizing Corinthians retain in the Lords Supper as if the Eucharist were instituted and superadded only for that commemoration The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does very well answer to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Declaration and while the Apostle admonisheth them that the death of Christ is that which is to be declared it may be gathered that they erred in this very thing and looked some other way VERS XXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unworthily THE Apostle explains himself vers 29. Where we also will speak of this verse VERS XXVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let a man examine himself c. HE had said before verse 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they which are approved may be made manifest And in the same sense he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let a man approve himself in this place not so much Let him try or examine himself as Let him approve himself that is Let him shew himself approved by the Christian Faith and Doctrine So Chap. XVI 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whomsoever ye shall approve We meet with the word in the same sense very often VERS XXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not discerning the Lords body THIS is to be meant of the proper act of the understanding viz. Of the true judgment concerning the nature and signification of the Sacrament If it were said indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not discerning the Lord it might be rendred in the same sense as He knew not the Lord that is he loves him not he fears him not he worships him not But when it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not discerning the body it plainly speaks of the act of the understanding He does not rightly distinguish of the body of the Lord. And this was a grievous error of these Judaizing Corinthians who would see nothing of the body of Christ in the Eucharist or of his death their eyes being too intent upon the commemoration of the Passover They retained the old Leaven of Judaism in this new Passover of the Eucharist And this was their partaking of the Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unworthily as assigning it a scope and end much too unworthy much too mean Ther are alas among Christians some who come to this Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unworthily but whether this unworthily of the Corinthians be fitly applied to them I much doubt How mean soever I am let me speak this freely with the leave of good and pious men that I fear that this discourse of the Apostle which especially chastized Judaizers be too severely applyed to Christians that Judaize not at all at least that it be not by very many Interpreters applied to the proper and intended scope of it Of these Corinthians receiving the Eucharist unworthily in the sense of which we spake the Apostle speaks two dreadful things I. That they became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Guilty of the body and blood of the Lord vers 27. With this I compare that of the Apostle Heb. X. 29. He hath trampled under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant by which he the Son of God was sanctified a common thing And Heb. VI. 6. They crucify again to themselves the Son of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and put him to an open shame Of whom is the discourse Not of all Christians that walked not exactly according to the Gospel rule although they indeed esteem and treat Christ too ignominously but of those that relapse and Apostatize from the Gospel to Judaism whether these Corinthians too much inclined and are admonished seasonably to take care of the same guilt for when any professing the Gospel so declined to Judaism that he put the blood of Christ in subordination to the Passover and acknowledged nothing more in it than was acknowledged in the blood of a Lamb and other Sacrifices namely that they were a mere commemoration and nothing else oh how did he vilify that blood of the eternal Covenant He is guilty of the blood of the Lord who assents to the shedding of his blood and gives his vote to his death as inflicted for a mere shaddow and nothing else which they did II. That they ate and drank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgment to themselves But what that judgment is is declared vers 30. Many are sick c. It is too sharp when some turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Damnation when the Apostle saith most evidently vers 32. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When we are judged we are chastened that we should not be condemned Thus as in the beginning of the Mosaical Dispensation God vindicated the honour of the Sabbath by the death of him that gathered sticks and the honour of the worship in the Tabernacle by the death of Nadab and Abihu and the honour of his Name by the stoning of the Blasphemer so he set up like monuments of his vengeance in the beginning of the Gospel Dispensation in the dreadful destruction of Ananias and Sapphira for the wrong and reproach offered to the Holy Ghost in the delivery of some into the hands of Satan for contempt of and enmity against the Gospel in this judgment for the abuse of the Eucharist in the destruction of some by the Plague for Nicolaitism Revel II. 23 c. VERS XXXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Sea of horror and confusion and sink and be drowned And so much be spoken or rather so little of much that might be spoken concerning the first thing that lay before us to be spoken to viz. Conviction of Conscience A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise Time July 16. 1665. JOHN XIV 2. In my Fathers house are many mansions c. THE words are the words of our Saviour and much mistaken if I am not much mistaken by many as to the time when they were spoken and by many as to their sence which they intend The first verse of the thirteenth Chapter and the last verse of this state the time of their speaking and the consideration of the case of the persons to whom they were spoken must state their meaning Very many conceive that the story of the foregoing Chapter was at the Passover-supper that it was at the Passover-supper when Christ washt his Disciples feet gave Judas the â—op and foretold Peter of his denial whereas the very first words in that Chapter do plainly tell it was before the Feast of the Passover came and the nine and twentieth verse of it tells us that when our Saviour said to Judas what thou doest do quick the Disciples thought he meant Buy those things that we have need of against the Feast which was not yet come Matthew and Mark resolve us both of the time and place namely that it was not at the Passover but two days before and that it was not at Jerusalem but at Bethany two miles off Matth. XXVI 2. 6. Mark XIV 1. 3. Two days therefore before the Passover at Bethany at a common supper Christs head is anointed he washeth the Disciples feet Judas receives the sop and the Devil with it goes in the night to Jerusalem and ploâ—â— for the betraying of his Master against the Passover come And after his departure Christ speaks of his own departure from them and tells Peter The Cock shall not crow till thou have denied me thrice That very passage hath bred that mistake about the time as if it were on the Passover night and that no Cock should crow till Peter had so denied him Whereas it is apparent that he denied him but once before the Cock crew Mark XIV 68. and forward and that he denied him twice after the Cock had once crowed But our Saviours meaning is that he should deny him thrice in the time of Cock crowing This matter is the more material for consideration because of that assertion of some That Judas received the sop at the Passover-supper but that he stayed not till the administration of the Lords Supper but went out whereas indeed he had received the sop two nights before the Passover-supper came At the same place at Bethany though not exactly at the same time with the story before Christ utters his discourse of this Chapter and you see how he concludes his discourse at the last verse of the Chapter Arise let us go hence that is from Bethany to Jerusalem on the Pass-over day He begins his discourse of this Chapter with Let not your hearts be troubled c. and presently comes on with the words of the Text In my Fathers house are many mansions About the juncture of which words there is some scruple Some apply them thus though I go alone yet there is room for you also where I go Others thus That whereas he had said to Peter Chap. XIII 36. Thou canst not follow me now but thou shalt follow me afterwards he saith now to the rest let not your hearts be troubled there are many mansions in my Fathers house There is room for you as well as for Peter Some understand many mansions so for much room some for divers degrees of glory But we shall the better discover the bent of his words if we observe the three stays that he gives to their troubled minds in the three first verses We must take notice withal of the three things that might especially trouble their minds The three stays are Believe in me In my Fathers house I will come to take you And of the discomfiture that troubled their minds I. The first and not the least was that he had told them that he was going from them and that could not but go very near their hearts so loving so divine a Master to be taken away from their heads They had forsaken all to follow him and he now to forsake them that they can follow him no more they no more to enjoy the sweet delight of his company the saving and favoury flavor of his discourses and rare example of his life and converse Of all this they were very sensible but most of all that he should be taken from them in such a manner As the Children of the Prophets said to Elisha Knowest thou that thy Master this day will be taken from thine head Disciples know ye that your Master will presently be taken from you Yes we know it he hath told us so But do you apprehend that he is to be taken from you by such a shameful cruel horrid death That he was to be taken away from them at all how might it justly trouble their hearts but overwhelm their hearts if they knew the manner how Against this sadness he chears them with all the arguments and comforts that we meet with in the Text and Context ye will not see me any more yet believe in me I go from you but I go to prepare a place for you Though I leave you yet I do not forsake you for I will come and take you to my self But besides this There was a two fold trouble and discomforture might lie upon their hearts by looking upon themselves with reflexion upon two common and received opinions and tenets of the Nation in which they themselves had been trained up even from their infancy till they met with their Master And the first was that if a Jew forsook his Judaism he should have no part in the World to come A sowre sauce that no doubt the unbelieving Jews would lay in the dish of the Disciples and all other of the Nation that were turned Christians Oh! ye have forsaken your Religion and what will become of you The Apostles discourse seems directly to face such a reproach in I Thes. IV. 13 14. I would not have you ignorant brethren concerning them that sleep that ye sorrow not as others that have no hope What were they Sadducees that denied any Resurrection And did they account them that were dead to be dissolved into nothing and quite lost and gone Or acknowledging the Resurrection did they think their fellow Christians that were dead were gone to perdition and were in a damned estate Or was not this old Jewish Maxim rather cast in their teeth for the first foundation of this Thessalonian Church was of Jews You and your Sect have turned your back upon your Judaism and forsaken your Religion and where are they that are dead and what
tyranny in the one and the Jews malice and mischievousness in the other and upon the full view the Roman and the Jew conspiring together and becoming guilty of this horridest fact that ever was committed under the Sun the murthering of the Lord of life and glory Let us begin first with Pilate who stands first in mention in the Text as he stands representative of Rome whose authority he carried and whose Tyranny in this case he exercised Methinks there is hardly a more remarkable passage in the whole book of the Revelations then that Chap. XIII 2. The Dragon gave his power and seat and great authority unto the Beast Which in plain English is this The Devil gave his power and seat and great authority to Rome For that by the Dragon is meant the Devil there is none but grant and that by the Beast is meant Rome even Romanists themselves do not deny When you read that passage in S. Luke IV. 5 6. that the Devil shewed our Saviour all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them do you not presently conceive that he shewed him Rome her Empire and Glory For then where was the pomp and glory of the World but within that City and Empire And when you read that he said unto him All this power will I give thee and the glory of them do you not presently conceive that he offered to make him Caesar or Lord of that vast Empire if he would fall down and worship him And how pat do these words of his for that is delivered to me and to whomsoever I will I give them agree with these in the Revelations The Dragon gave his power and seat and great authority unto the beast It neither is nor indeed could be said so of the other Monarchies or Empires that had gone before It is not said the Dragon gave his power to the Babylonian Empire nor to the Persian nor Grecian nor Syrogrecian nor indeed could it be so truly and pertinently said so concerning them as concerning Rome For the Dragon had a business for Rome to do which the other neither did nor could do for him which was to put the Lord of life to death The old Serpent knew from of old that he was to bruise the heel of the seed of the woman that he was to compass the death of Messias and it was reserved to Rome and her power and tyranny to be the instrument of such an action and the Dragon gave his power seat and authority to that City for that purpose that it might do his business in murthering Christ and his members after him Pilate who carried with him the authority and commission of that City confessed him innocent and yet condemned him pleaded for him that he was not guilty and yet crucified him and that mainly upon the account of Rome and for her sake because forsooth there must be no King but Caesar or who was set up or kinged by Caesar. In Revel XI 8. where mention is made of slaying the two witnesses it is said their dead carcasses shall lie in the streets of that great City which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified The last clause where also our Lord was crucified may seem to direct your eyes to Jerusalem but the title The great City which Chap. XVII ult is defined The great City which ruleth over the Kings of the Earth calls them back again to look at Rome as our Lords crucifier by whom that work must be done or not done at all for to such a tenour do the Jews tell Pilate in the Text when they say It is not lawful for us Before ever I should turn Romanist I must be satisfied in this scruple and question How comes the Jew and Jerusalem so cursed a Place and Nation for the murther of our Lord and the Romanist and Rome so blessed as to be the holy mother Church of all the World when that City and Nation had as deep and bloody a hand in the murther of the Saviour of the World as the other if not deeper I remember the story of one of the Grand Seigniors that when he had received a foul and base foil before a poor and contemptible Town Scodra if I mistake not the name for very rancour and vexation and that he might be whetting on himself continually to revenge he commanded him that waited nearest on him to be minding him continually with these words Remember Scodra May I be so bold as to hint such a memorandum to you against Rome As oft as you read or rehearse or hear rehearsed that article in our Creed He suffered under Pontius Pilate Remember Rome and that under that it was our Saviour suffered and the article minds you of so much and if it were not intended for such a memorandum had it not been enough to have said He suffered without any mention of Pontius Pilate at all Let us reason with the Romanist a little after the manner of his own Logick He argues thus Peter was at Rome and sat Bishop there and suffered martyrdom and died there Ergo Rome is the mother Church and head of all Churches We argue in like manner Pilate was at Jerusalem sat Judge there condemned and crucified the Lord of life there and that by the Power and Authority of Rome Ergo let Rome look to it how she clears her self of that fact and guiltiness And so I have done with the first party in mention in the Text Pilate and he invested with the Roman authority The other party are the Jews more peculiarly the Sanhedrin invested also wiâ—â— the Jewish power and Representatives of the whole Nation How busie and active the Jews were in this bloody business needs no illustration of mine the Sacred pens of the Evangelists have done that abundantly Only I might speak to this circumstance and not impertinent question whether the Jews did not indeed think him to be the Messias and yet murthered him Pilate condemned him though he knew him innocent and did not they murther him though they knew him to be the very Christ Methinks that passage in the Parable of the husbandmen in the Vineyard speaks very fairly for the Affirmative Matth. XXI 38. When the husband men saw the Son they said this is the heir come let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance They knew him to be the heir and yet they kill him nay they kill him because they know him to be the heir and that by killing him they shall get the inheritance It is said indeed they knew him not Act. XIII 27. which if you interpret that they knew not the dignity of his person and that he was God as well as man the Jews will not be perswaded of the Godhead of Messias to this day that does not deny but that they might take him for the Messias howsoever But I shall not dispute this case If they took him for Messias they thought he was not
conclusion For thine is the Kingdom c. which is to be used in publick prayers and in another place it is not viz. when it serves for a private And this is the reason why the Doxology is added in St. Matthew and omitted in St. Luke VI. The preface of this prayer is the very Phrase used by the Jews when they prayed to God or spoke of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Father which art in Heaven The Phrase is of as large use as the Duty is of extent Though all have not the Spirit of Adoption yet all have cause to call God our Father by vertue of their creation Deut. XXXII 6. Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee hath he not made thee and established thee We may call him likewise our Father as he is our Lawgiver and great Teacher And now think how the Apostles that knew these things spoke and thought of this First Could they think it otherwise than a Form of prayer verbatim to be used when none were given by the Doctors but Forms and when it was thus given twice Secondly Could they think it otherwise than to be used publickly and privately when in one place it concludes with a Doxology and in the other without it Thirdly Could they think it otherways than to be subjoyned to our prayers when Christ gives it in such concurrency to these known customs and tenets of the Jews and annexes no exception against the answerable use of it So have we ground to think of it and repute it a Form a sum of all Prayer to be used verbatim in Churches in closets to be used single especially subjoyned and all the more warrantable because Christ saith When ye Pray say Our Father A SERMON PREACHED AT S. MARIES Cambridge April 9. 1658. 1 PET. V. 13. The Church which is at Babylon elected together with you saluteth you THE places to which this Apostle writeth are plain in the beginning of this Epistle and the place from whence plain here in the latter end And yet upon that may a just question be moved and upon this a question is moved though not so justly He writeth to the dispersed Jews in Pontus Galatia Capadocia Asia and Bithynia but you may justly question why to them more than other and why to no other He dates his Epistle from Babylon in the Text but some do too scrupulously question what Babylon is here meant A Romish pulpit would soon resolve both if we would take his resolution That will tell you that S. Peter went to Rome and that Babylon in the Text so meaneth and that he preached to those places in his way and so now writes to them It would be a hard task to prove either that Peter was ever at Rome or if that granted that he made these places in his journey If I would insist upon the reason why he writes to these places that he was never at the same reason might more warrantably be given that may be given of S. Pauls writing to Colosse whose faces he never saw as may be guessed from Chap. II. 1. viz. because Horrid heresies and Apostacy were exceeâ—ingly grown in those Churches And what Babylon is here meant we shall observe in the progress of our discourse In the words of the Text are four things contained I. Peter was at Babylon when he wrote this Epistle II. There was a Church there III. The title that he gives that Church it was elect together with those also to whom he writes IV. This Church salutes the others The Historical discourse of these things is first requisite before we come to the Practical I. Peter was at Babylon when he wrote this Epistle For though he say not directly I from Babylon salute you but the Church which is at Babylon c. yet it is so plain that he was then with that Church that none ever scrupled it Time hath been when the place of Peters residence and death was more an Article of Faith than to determine the place of the residence and death of any other mentioned in Scripture But by craft and deceit it was at last brought to be the greatest Article of Faith in all Religion For though you believe all the Scripture yet if you believe not that Peter was at Rome you know who will tell you you had as good believe nothing Let not your thoughts prejudge me to your impatience as if I were setting in to tyre you with dispute whether Peter were at Rome or no I will confine my self to the Text and that only because this Text is brought as a proof that Peter was there I shall therefore First speak something to the rise and original of that opinion And secondly examine whether Babylon in the Text mean so or no In all the Scripture you cannot find Peter nearer Rome than in the Town Joppa and our Protestant Writers have made it as plain as the Sun at noon day that he was never there Therefore it is a stupendious thing to think how this conceit hath invaded the World and got so high a seat in the hearts of men and among the Articles of Religion To trace backward toward the spring head of it I suppose this is undeniable that many a good man was of this opinion before it became an opinion of advantage especially of that advantage which hath been made of it these many hundred years None almost of the Fathers that lived and wrote before the Papacy arose and that monster of an Universal Bishop appeared but he held so but he wrote so For t is far more probable that these passages in them to this purpose were their own or most of them than that they were foisted into them all and into all places where they are met withal in them I cannot but in my thoughts compare these good men to Absaloms guests in 2 Sam. XV. 11. that went along with him in their simplicity and they knew not any thing so these took up this mistake in their simplicity knowing not any thing of the ill use that would afterwards be made of it But how should these good and learned Men come into that belief viz. of a thing that in it self had no ground For satisfaction to which let us consider two things I. In general to observe the proper causes of the rise of falshoods in Ecclesiastical Story And II. to apply this particular case to them The falsities and fictions in Ecclesiastical Story which are not few nor small have proceeded especially from four Originals one or more or all First From ignorance or misconstruction when men have framed stories from phrases or passages of Scripture which they have misconstrued or not understood We see by experience in common intercourse how many lying relations are raised upon words of men mistaken and not rightly understood so it is too obvious in Ecclesiastical Story when men have not understood what such a phrase passage or relation in Scripture meant they have been ready to
most dearly beloved Truth thus to be abused and spurned against His most divine Truth sealed with the blood of his dear Son thus to be persecuted afflicted tormented The name of Rome in Rev. XVII is Mystery Babylon And that indeed not only because it is Babylon in a Mystery but that it is a great Mystery that God permits such a Babylon so cruel bloody inhumane a persecutor of his Truth so continual a disturber and vexation and firebrand to the World Such a Deceiver Seducer and Destroyer of Souls We may take up that Jerem. XII 1. Righteous art thou O Lord if I plead with thee yet may we plead with thee concerning thy judgments why doth the way of the wicked prosper And why is it so well with those that work iniquity Why is it so successful with Popery Heresie Error and Ignorance That that is aloft and prevaileth domineers and tyrannizes while Truth is troden down and the poor Gospel trampled under foot I might speak at large how God permits things to go thus upon very Divine reasons As First For the trial of his own people that profess his Truth how they will stick to his Truth under opposition how they will cleave to a poor persecuted despised Gospel how they will own a Truth that brings in no Mony no Worldly profit nor Honour nor Preferment but Loss of all things to gain Eternity The Gospel is the fan of Christ whereby he purgeth his floor and separates wheat and chaff asunder Secondly He permits wicked men to resist â—is Truth that they may make up the measure of their iniquities They think they avenge themselves of the Truth whereas God avengeth himself on them in giving them up to so reprobate a mind To refuse the Truth is bad enough to disobey the Truth this is worse to deny it and apostatize from it this is bad of bads but resisting and persecuting it this is worst of all Some count this the sin against the Holy Ghost In these men it might be for they had seen his miracles But however it was a sin unto death in them Thirdly God permits this because he knows Truth at last will conquer As God turned Christ loose to combate Satan and withdrew his Divine acting because he knew Christ would at last come off a conqueror As it was said of Gad Gad a troop shall overcome him but he shall overcome at the last XLIX Gen. 17. So it is with Truth it may be opposed oppressed trodden under yet it will overcome at last Truth is a heavy stone whosoever falls upon it will be broken but whomsoever it falls upon it will grind him to powder If Truth triumph not in the conversion of men it will triumph in their condemnation When there were persecuting Emperors how doth Truth triumph over them And so the time of Rome is coming when the Truth and Gospel which she hath so bitterly resisted and persecuted shall triumph and clap their hands at her confusion and ruine when Babylon shall sink as a milstone in the midst of the Sea and rise no more And all those divine Truths in the Gospel that she hath opposed resisted persecuted shall everlastingly rise up in judgment against her and load her with torments and condemnation So let Babylon come in remembrance before the Lord and he plead the cause of his Truth Gospel People Interest and reward her as she hath done to all these and as she would have done to poor England on the fifth of November And let all the people say Amen A SERMON PREACHED AT S. MARIES Cambridge Novemb. V. MDCLXXIV ACT. XIII 9 10. Then Saul who also is called Paul filled with the Holy Ghost set his Eyes on him And said O full of all subtilty and all mischief thou child of the Devil thou enemy of all righteousness wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord A Dreadful and dismal character to be given to a man by an Apostle and an Apostle now filled with the Holy Ghost to give it Take out but that little great clause Thou child of the Devil and there needs not much more to the picturing of the Devil himself in his proper colours and full proportion Full of all subtilty full of all mischief enemy of all righteousness and the uncessant perverter of the right ways of the Lord. How little needs there more to the limning out the Prince of darkness himself in his blackest complexion What is it for these titles to be given to any man But our Apostle could very well discern between a Brother and a Sorcerer between a true Christian and a false Prophet between a Professor of the Gospel and a professed perverter of the ways of the Lord. The Text tells us he set his Eyes upon him and sees him through he discovers what he is to the very bottom and accordingly is warranted by the Holy Ghost with whom he is filled to give him these brands O thou full of all subtilty and of all mischief thou child of the Devil and enemy of all righteousness The two Parties in mention were as different and contrary as light and darkness as Hell and Heaven the one an Apostle the other a Sorcerer the one a most near servant of God the other as near a servant of the Devil the one full of the Holy Ghost the other full of all subtilty and mischief and all the agreement that was between them if that be any was that either of them had a double name for Saul he was also called Paul and Bar Jesus he was also called Elymas The reason of the Apostles double name I should look no further for than to his double relation as he was a Jew born and as he was a freeborn Roman His Hebrew name Saul relates to his Hebrew original and his Roman name Paul to his Roman privilege And whereas he had been called by his Jewish name Saul all along the story hitherto while he had been conversing among the Jewish Nation he being now appointed Apostle of the Gentiles and now set out upon that employment he is called by his Gentile name all along hence forward Paul and Saul no more But the resolution about the Conjurers double name is not so easie and we shall not find Esau in this matter so smooth as Jacob. First As concerning his name Bar Jesus I believe it was almost as far from the signification of that Blessed Name that we adore as he himself was from adoring him and I believe it was a very great way from the letters of that Blessed Name In the Arabick translation indeed that we have in our Polyglot Bible it is written with the very same letters But in the translation in that Language published by Erpâ—â—â—us it is written otherwise and better I doubt not and yet I question whether with the letters proper for it or no I should devine his name Jesus from the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ain inchoante which signifies
You have mention of her armies Dan. IX ult but with this brand upon them that they are called The abominable army that maketh desolate there styled by their Vulgar Latine as in Matth. XXIV the abomination of desolation But thirdly That which tops up all is that she is called Babylon in this Book of the Revelations and described there as she is For that by Babylon is meant Rome the Romanists themselves will readily grant you if you will grant them the distinction of Rome Pagan and Christian Imperial and Pontifical And the last verse of Chap. XVII puts the matter out of all doubt where it says that the Woman the scarlet Whore which thou sawest is the great City which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth Upon which every one that is acquainted with the Rome-history must needs conclude that no City can there be understood like the City Rome Now it is a very improper inquest to look for the new Jerusalem in a place that must perish for ever to look for the holy City among the abominable armies and to look for Sion the City of God in Babylon that Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth Secondly Whereas old Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation incurred so great a curse and guilt for the murther of the Lord of life as we all know it did it requireth very cogent arguments to prove that Rome that had a hand as deep in that murther should obtain so great a blessing and happiness on the contrary as to be the only Church in the World and the Mother of all Churches There is no Christian but knoweth how deep a hand Jerusalem had in that horrid fact and he knoweth but little that knoweth not that Pontius Pilate was Deputy for Rome there and how deeply also he was ingaged in it as her Deputy And so much be spoken concerning the very Place and how unlikely it is to find the new Jerusalem there How improper it is to imagine that that should be the City of God of which God himself in his Word speaks not one good Word but evil to imagine that he should choose that of all Cities for his dearest spouse that of all Cities had the deepest hand in the murther of his dear Son II. Concerning their Church and Religion If these men that pretend to lead men to the new Jerusalem and lead them to Rome would but speak out and plain and tell them that they will lead them to the old Jerusalem and so lead them to Rome they speak something likely For what is the Church and Religion of Rome but in a manner that of old Jerusalem translated out of Judaick into Roman and transplanted out of Palestina into Italy And there is hardly an easier or a clearer way to discover that she is not the new Jerusalem then by comparing her with the old as God doth most clearly discover the Jerusalem then being Ezek. XXIII by comparing her with Samaria and Sodom divers hours would scarce serve to observe the parallel in all particulars and punctually to compare the Transcript with the Original I shall only and briefly hint two things to you to that purpose And First Let me begin with that distinction that the Jews have in their writings once and again of the Mosaick Law and the Judaick Law or the Law of Moses and the Law of the Jews And they will tell you such and such things are transgressions of the Mosaick Law and such and such are transgressions of the Judaick Law And as they themselves do make the distinction so they themselves did cause the distinction What they mean by the Mosaick Law we all understand and by their Judaick Law they mean their Traditional Law which they call the Law unwritten While they kept to the Law of Moses for a rule of faith and life as they did under the first Temple they did well in point of Doctrine and no heresie and heterodoxy tainted them but when they received and drank in Traditions as they did under the second Temple they drank in their own bane and poison There is in Scripture frequent mention of the last days and the last times by which is meant most commonly the last days of old Jerusalem and of the Jewish oeconomy when they were now drawing toward their dissolution But from what date or time to begin her last days may be some question If you date them from the time she first received and entertained her traditions you do but fit the calculation to the nature of the thing calculated For then did she fall into the consumption and disease that brought her to her grave then did she catch that infection and plague that never left her but grew upon her till it made her breath her last in a fatal end Traditions spoiled her Religion and brought her to worship God in vain teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men Matth. XV. 9. Traditions spoiled her manners and trained her up in a vain conversation received by tradition from the Fathers 1 Pet. I. 18. In a word Traditions as they made the Law so they made the Gospel of no effect and the doctrine of Christ the death of Christ the belief in Christ to be but needless business and things to no purpose Nay Traditions leavened them to hate the Gospel to murther Christ and to persecute his Disciples For by the principles of their Traditions they could do no less than all these Now surely Jerusalem that is above is above this infection and the new holy City certainly brought no such infection from Heaven nor was tainted with this contagion which was the death of the old as a Priest in Israel could hardly be infected with Leprosie But you may see the tokens upon the Church of Rome very thick traditions upon traditions some of so like stamp to those of old Jerusalem that you can hardly know them asunder but all of the like effect and consequence that they make the Gospel of none effect as those did the Law and causing men to worship God in vain while they are taught for Doctrines the commandments of men How great a part of their Religion is nothing else but the commandments of men and other Traditions and how great a part of their Church is built upon nothing else The very chief corner stone in all their fabrick is of no better substance and solidity viz. that S. Peter was Bishop there and there was martyred when the Scripture and reason gives a far fairer probability that he was Apostle to the circumcision in Babylonia and there ended his days Secondly You would hardly think that there was a worse brood in the old Jerusalem than those that we have spoken of the men so infected with the Plague and with a Frenzy with it of traditions And yet I can name you a worse and that was those that had forsaken their Judaism and entertained and embraced the Gospel but at last apostatized from it and revolted to their old
finished there shall be the general resurrection And accordingly they construe the words before us to this sence The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years were finished And then lived An opinion as like the opinion of the Jews as one egg is like another They think Christ shall reign among them on earth a thousand years pompous reign So do these They think that at the beginning of his reign the holy Prophets and Patriarchs shall be raised from death and reign with him So these They think that at the end of his thousand years reign there shall be the general resurrection and world of Eternity so do these So that the Millenary doth Judaize and he knows it not he is fallen into the Jews opinion and is not aware of it This book of Revelations is exceeding full of expressions that allude to the Jewish customs and opinions I say again is exceeding full but it were ridiculous to think that such passages are to be construed in the same literal sense that the Jews took them in Only those common and well known things as being familiar to the Nation are used to signifie or illustrate some spiritual sence or matter Expressions are used in this place that are agreeable in sound to the opinion of the Jews but not agreeable in sence but signifying something else They conceit a personal pompous reign of Christ on earth a thousand years in all earthly state and gallantry These words speak of a reign of Christ a thousand years but they mean his reign and ruling by his Word and Spirit and of his subduing and bringing the Nations into subjection and obedience but by the Ministry of the Gospel They speak of those that had been martyred reigning with him but the meaning only is to intimate that the children of his kingdom must suffer persecution and that they shall lose nothing by their persecution but as the Apostle speaks If they suffer with him they shall also reign with him Let us read the verse before I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God And which had not worshiped the beast neither his image neither had received his his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished And did they live then That is not imaginable the time of reviving being then past and over For at the end of the thousand years Satan is let loose again brings in Popery and Mahumetism and the World grows as Heathenish as it had been before Satans binding and imprisoning So that they had lost the opportunity of reviving which was in the thousand years The word Until signifies doubly either concluding or else excluding you may see my meaning by these examples The Master in the Parable gives Talents to his servants and bids them Occupy till I come Here the word until concludes that he would come again This iniquity shall not be purged from you till you dye Es. XXII 14. Here the word till excludes them from ever having their iniquity purged The word until in the text is of this latter construction and means that they let slip and embraced not the opportunity of reviving all the thousand years when was the time of reviving and so they lived not again at all And if we well observe the Histories both of the Heathen and of the Church we shall find that all along this time that the Gospel was dispersing through the World there were multitudes of Heathens that would not forsake their Heathenism and multitudes in the Church in a little time fell to superstition and worshiping of Images and so even turned to Heathenism also Therefore God suffers Satan to be let loose again to go about in the world again with his delusions he brings in Popery in the West and Mahumetism in the East and so the whole World is returned to blindness and darkness again because when the light shone they would none of the light They would not embrace the offer of reviving when the time and opportunity of reviving was therefore they lived not again till those thousand years were finished and then the time of living again was over So that in the words before us we observe three things I. That the raising of the Gentiles from the Death of Sin is called the first Resurrection II. That in that time of raising some lost the opportunity and would not be raised III. That they losing the opportunity of rising and living missed always of rising and living I. As to the first thing named That the raising of the Gentiles from the death of sin is called the first Resurrection It gives us occasion to consider how a mans getting out of the state of sin into the state of grace is a Resurrection or a rising from the dead And with all to compare this first and last resurrection together and to see what connexion there is between them I. To Sadduces and Atheists that deny the resurrection at the last day because they can see no reason for it I should propose this question Whether there hath not been a raising of dead souls from the death of sin Abraham once an Idolater was not his soul dead then Yet afterwards he was the great Father of the faithful Was there not then a Resurrection of that dead soul Manasseh the King an Idolater a Conjurer a Sacrificer of his Sons to Molech was not this man dead in trespasses and sins and yet this man afterwards was a Penitent a Convert a Promoter of piety and the true worship of God Was not here a Resurrection of a dead Soul Is God less able to raise a dead body out of the grave than to raise a dead soul out of its sins Nay is not this as great a work of God as that will be Christ that can make such vile souls that they may be like unto his most glorious soul cannot he make these vile bodies that may be like his most glorious body according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself II. But let us look upon this first resurrection a little and blessed and holy is he that hath part in it over such an one shall the second death have no power In some things it is not parallel or like to the second resurrection in more it is First The Second Resurrection shall be of all bodies this First is not of all souls And if we come to seek for the reason of the difference where shall we find it Cannot the same power that shall raise all bodies also raise all souls The reason of the difference lies not in the difference of that power Were it not as much for the glory of God to raise all souls as to raise all bodies The reason of the difference lyes not there neither For God chooseth freely the
and the first temptation presented to him Now all the power and army of Hell is let loose all the machinations of the bottomless pit put in practise against the second Adam but all to no purpose he stands like a rock unmoved in his righteousness and obedience and by such a death destroys him that had the power over death the Devil II. As the Dâ—â—â—l must be conquered so God must be satisfied And as Christs obedience did the one work so it did the other Obedience was the debt of Adam and mankind and by disobedience they had forfeited their Bonds Then comes this great Undertaker and will satisfie the debt with full interest yea and measure heaped and running over Does not the Apostle speak thus much Rom. V. from vers 12. forward particularly at vers 19. By the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Nor was this all that mans debt must be paid but Gods honour lay at stake too and that must be vindicated God had created man his noblest creature that he might glorifie and honour his Creator by his obedience Satan brings him to disobey his Creator and to obey him How might Satan here triumph and the honour of God lie in the dust I have mastered the chief Creation of God might Satan boast and made him that carried the badge and livery of his image now to carry mine I have frustrated the end and honour of the Creator and now all is mine own How sad a time were those three hours or thereabouts that passed betwixt the Fall of Adam and the promise of Christ Adam in darkness and not the least glimpse of promise or comfort Satan triumphing and poor manking and Gods honour trampled underfoot But then the Sun of righteousness arose in the promise that the seed of the woman should break the head of the Serpent And shall this uncircumcised Philistin thus deâ—ie the honour and armies of the living God saith Christ shall Satan thus carry the day against man and against God I will pay obedience that shall fully satisfie to the vindication of Gods honour to confound Satan and to the payment of mans debt to his reinstating and recovery And that was it that he paid consummatively in his Obedience to the death and in it and to the shedding of his blood Of which to speak in the full dimensions of the height depth length bredth of it what tongue can suffice what time can serve T is a Theme the glorified Saints deservedly sing of to all Eternity I shall speak in little of that which can never be extolled enough these two things only I. That he died merely out of obedience The Apostle tells us in Phil. II. 8. He became obedient to the death the death of the Cross. And what can ye name that brought him thither but Obedience Christs dead body imagine lies before you Call together a whole College of Phisitians to diffect it and to tell you what it was of which he died And their Verdict will be Of nothing but Love to man and Obedience to God For Principles of death he had none in his nature And the reason of his death lay not in any mortality of his body as it does in ourâ— but in the willingness of his mind Nor was his death his wages of sin as it is ours Rom. VI. ult but it was his choise and delight Luke XII 50. I have a baptism to be baptised withal and how am I straitned till it be accomplished Ask the first Adam why he sinned when he had no principles of sin in him and the true answer must be Because he would sin And so ask the second Adam why he died when he had no principles of death in him his answer must be to the like tenor He would lay down his life because he would be obedient to the death He came purposely into the World that he might dye Behold I tell you a mystery Christ came purposely into the World that he might dye and so never did Man but himself never will man do but himself True that every Man that comes into the World must dye but never Man came purposely that he might dye but only He. And he saith no less than that he did so Joh. XII 27. Father save me from this hour but for this cause came I to this hour And John XVIII 37. For this cause came I into this World to bear witness to the Truth Even to bear witness to the Truth to Death and Martyrdom II. Now add to all this the dignity of his Person who performed this Obedience that he was God as well as Man That as he offered himself according to his Manhood so he offered himself by the Eternal Spirit or as he was God as this Apostle saith Chap. IX 14. And now his obedience his holiness that he shewed in his death is infinite And what need we say more So that lay all the disobedience of all men in the World on an heap as the dead frogs in Egypt were laid on heaps that they made the land to stink again yet here is an Obedience that out-vies them all For though they be infinite in number as to mans numbring yet lay them all together they are finite upon this account because committed by creatures finite But here is an Obedience a holiness paid down by him that is infinite And now Satan where is thy Triumph Thou broughtest the first Adam to fail of perfect Obedience that he should have paid his Creator and here the second Adam hath paid him for it infinite Obedience And what hast thou now gained Therefore to take account from whence comes that infinite Virtue of Christs blood and death that the Scripture so much and so deservedly extols and magnifies Because as the Evangelist â—aith Out of his side came water and blood so out of his wounds came obedience and blood holiness and blood righteousness and blood and that obedience holiness righteousness infinite because he that paid it down and performed it was infinite And now judge whether it may not very properly be said That Christ was sanctified by his own blood As Aaron was sanctified for his Priesthood by his Unction and Garments Christ was consecrated fitted capacitated by his infinite obedience and righteousness which he shewed to the death and in it to be an High Priest able to save to the uttermost all those that come to him For first as in reference to himself it is said by this Apostle that he was raised from the dead by the blood of the Covenant Chap. XIII 20. And it was not possible but he should be raised for when he had performed such obedience and righteousness as in it was infinite in its validity subdued Satan in its alsufficiency satisfied the justice of God it was impossible that he should be held of death which is the wages of sin and disobedience And as he was thus raised by
Spirit had glossed upon the words of the whole Sanhedrin in vers 47 48. What do we For this man doth many miracles If we let him thus alone all men will believe on him and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and Nation If they grant he did so many miracles why were they afraid that men should believe on him Why did they not believe on him themselves And afraid the Romans should destroy their City and Nation if he were believed in Whereas their destruction was because they did not believe in him Truly Caiaphas said but truly of them though he aimed it at another sense Ye know nothing neither do ye consider No nor thou O Caiaphas neither For had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of life had they considered they had not brought that guilt upon themselves and the City that they did But in what sense he makes them so senseless is somewhat obscure Ye know not neither consider that it is expedient for us that one man should dye for the people and that the whole Nation perish not That they knew as well as himself that any States-man any reasonable man might know well enough that it was better to put to death a ring-leader of mischief as they took Christ to be than that a whole Nation perish That old Maxim in Politicks and reason Pereat unus potius quam unitas would easily be observed by less States-men than they And the one that they would have to dye they all agreed in but herein Caiaphas resolution seems to have out-vied theirs namely that whereas they were afraid to take Christ off for fear of the multitude he blusters through that doubt and scruple and would have it resolved that he must dye and be taken away So that in those words of his you may observe him speaking as a Caiaphas and as a Prophet As a wretched Caiaphas counselling the Sanhedrin not to fear or boggle at the business but resolve on it for it is expedient he should dye And as a Prophet or one inspired signifying that it was necessary Christ should dye for the preservation of that Nation that it should not perish namely those that believed in him and so for the preserving of all in other Nations that should also believe The former he spake and meant with all his heart to stir up the Bench to destroy Christ for all the danger of the multitude But this later he spake indeed but meant it not neither understood what he spake and therefore the Text tells us This he spake not of himself but being High Priest c. There had not been a High Priest a Prophet among the Nation for above four hundred years before and must Caiaphas now become a Prophet Nay the Jews tell us and they tell us truly that there had not been any Prophet at all in the Nation of so long a time and it is wonder God should now inspire such a wretch as Caiaphas They tell us that upon the death of Haggai Zechariah and Malachi those last Prophets the spirit of Prophesie left Israel departed and was no more In which they spoke just as Caiaphas does here very truly and very maliciously very maliciously because they would exclude the Apostles and Disciples of Christ from having the Prophetick spirit but withal very truly as to the space between the death of those last Prophets and the appearing of Christ and his Apostles There was not a man endued with the spirit of Prophesie in all that space of time nay not a man that did pretend to the spirit of Prophesie in all that time It is observable that about the coming of Christ many arose pretending themselves to be Christ or to be Prophets but ye find not that any from the death of Malachi had done so before And the reason was because the Prophet Daniel had so exactly pointed out the time of Christs coming that the Nation knew the time and expected it and when it came such Deluders then start up with such pretences because they knew there would be then a brave change of times But till that came they lay still convinced that the Spirit was departed and should not be restored till Messias coming What I speak there is clear proof for in the New Testament That they knew when Messias should appear is plain by these words Luke XIX 11. He added and spake a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem and because they thought the Kingdom of God should immediately appear And by that concourse of all the Nation out of all Nations to Jerusalem Act. II. 5. being instructed by Daniel in his ninth Chapter of the compleat time of Messias sealing Vision and Prophesie and bringing in everlasting righteousness which he had pointed out to the very hour And that they were convinced of the departure of the Holy Ghost not to be restored till the coming of Messias appears plainly by the answer of those Jews at Ephesus Act. XIX 2. Paul said unto them have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed And they said unto him We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost Not that they doubted at all of the being of the Holy Ghost but that they had learned with the whole Nation that the Holy Ghost was departed upon the death of those Prophets and they had never yet heard that he was restored The Jews say again that from that time there was no Urim and Thummim with the High Priest under the second Temple And there is confirmation for it in Nehem. VII 65. And the Tirshatha said unto them that they should not eat of the most holy things till there stood up a Priest with Urim and Thummim And the reason of its ceasing was because Prophesie was ceased For the Oracle by Urim as I once shewed you was given by the Priest being inspired and prophesying Now after all the long ceasing of Phrophesying in the Nation and of Prophesying among the Priest-hood for a Caiaphas to stand up a Prophesier seems something strange and what shall we say to it The Rhemists will resolve you the scruple with a wet finger if you will but believe them Will you give me leave to give you their Gloss upon the place Marvel not say they that Christ preserveth his truth in the Church as well by the unworthy as the worthy Prelates thereof the gift of the Holy Ghost following their order and office as we see here in Caiaphas and not their merits and person And they conclude How may we then be assured that Christ will not leave Peters seat though the persons that â—ecupy the same were as ill as the blasphemous and malicious mouths of Hereticks do affirm The assertion false and the inference ridiculous The assertion that Caiaphas prophesied by virtue of the order of his Priesthood being most false For none of that order had prophesied of four hundred years before And the Inference ridiculous And it
sad thing it is to be separate from Christ as a thing accursed and to consider with our selves how the case may be with us as to this particular Now he that knows what Christ is needs no more proof to shew what it is to be I. separate from him If in him alone be life Joh. I. 4. to be separate from him can be nothing else but death And if there be no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. VIII 1. there can be nothing but condemnation to him that is not in him It is the saying of our Apostle 2 Cor. XII 2. I knew a man in Christ taken up into the third Heaven What by the rule of contraries can become of him that is out of Christ I would we could but seriously lay these three things to heart which are the particulars of the matter before us First How sad a thing it is for Christ to have nothing to do with a man but to disclaim him Secondly How sadder if sadder needs be is it for Christ to be ashamed of a man and disdain to own him And Thirdly Yet sadder if possible for Christ to curse a man or at least to look upon him as a thing accursed Are not all these included in the Apostles expression here And is not any of these the saddest thing that can possibly befal a man It may be you will say Hell fire is worse than these the Worm that never dyes Eternal wrath and vengeance are worse than these But doth not this separation from Christ include all these And can any other come of it but Fire and Wrath and Vengeance How then is the case with thee as to this particular Oh! I doubt not but I am II. Gods I hope Christ owns propriety and interest in me But upon what ground dost thou think that God owns thee What reason hast thou to think that Christ acknowledges thee for a sheep of his against the claim of the Wolf and the roaring Lion I have heard of a man that laid claim unto a very great Estate upon no other ground in the world but because he dreamed one night that that Estate was his Mens confidence about their spiritual welfare most commonly proceeds from no other ground but merely because they dream so like them who in reference to outward welfare 1 Thes. V. dreamt of Peace Peace when sudden destruction was just entring in at the door It makes me remember that saying of Jude vers 8. These filthy Dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignites And why does he call them Dreamers rather than any other title Because all their confidence in what they did came but from a fancy and dream and had no better foundation and though they did this evil yet they dream they shall speed well enough God lays claim to no man but because he seeth that in him that pleaseth him He calls none his that is offensive to him The wit of man cannot invent a reason why God should own a man that goes on in his wickedness and lay claim to him for his own that is continually offending him Plead Election plead the infiniteness of Gods mercy plead the freeness of his Grace plead what you can you can never give real satisfaction to your own heart that God claims any interest in you or owns you for his own till you walk so as to please him For what does an ungodly and wicked man differ from a separate thing from Christ and one that he hath no claim to and nothing to do withal The Scripture tells us That God hates the proud abhors the covetous scorns the scorners frowns upon the ungodly and despiseth evil doers And this fruitful Meditation I have gathered from the mention that is here made of being accursed or separated from Christ. Now from the consideration of the person that could be willing to undergo this separation and of the reason why viz. the saving of the souls of the Jews his Brethren I may gather as fruitful a Doctrine And that is this That the souls of other men should be dear to us as well as our own And that it is cause of grief to see any soul perish That the souls of these men were dearer to the Apostle than his own in that he could be content that his should perish so that theirs might not is a thing of rare Example and whether we are to write after such a copy is a question yet to be discussed But that the souls of others should be dear unto us is so plain in this copy that he that runs may read it It is not for kindreds sake barely that he is so affectionate to them though he call them Brethren and Kinsmen but it is their souls that he looks after that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus and not perish It were needless to shew how earnestly he laboured to save as many souls as possible and if it were possible that no soul should perish His pains and Preaching his actions and Epistles breathed such affection every where and to all persons But this you will say belonged to his Function as he was an Apostle and Minister But doth this belong to every private person to be so tender to the souls of all I am loath this Question should be asked it is so like Cains question Am I my Brothers keeper Have I any thing to do with another mans soul that I should trouble my self about it But how shall we interpret that great Command Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self But first Who is my Neighbour Our Saviour Answers it with a Parable Let me Answer it with another question nay Who is not thy Neighbour In that Parable of the Man that fell among Thieves and the good Samaritan relieving him our Saviour shews that even one of another Nation even one of an Enemy Nation is to be accounted a Neighbour For so were the Samaritans to the Jews and yet the Samaritan that pitied was Neighbour in our Saviours construction to him that fell among Thieves The Greek and Latine word that is used to signifie a Neighbour signifies properly one that is near to one but it means nearness of relation and affection rather than nearness of place Nearness of relation that is as all are made of one blood and nearness of affection that should be as all are of one shape and image Every one is our Neighbour of what Land or Nation state or condition soever because every one is related to us by these respects Well every one is our Neighbour and we are to love our Neighbour that is every one as our selves to hate none to malice none to be enemy to none but to love every one And what especially to love in him That that is the chief and most regardable and most precious in him and that is his Soul To have an affection a regard a kindness for every mans Soul and to
understanding immortal substance that is not extinguished by sin nor cannot be by any thing And so when God forbids Murther he doth it with this argument That he that kills a Man destroys one that carries the image of God And yet then the likeness of God in Man Holiness and Righteousness was utterly gone but the image of God in these essential constitutives in soul were still remaining in him Upon that saying of God Whoso sheddeth Mans blood by Man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he Man if any Man question Is this meant of every Man in the world Can any doubt it Unless the Murther of some Men were allowed though of others forbidden Upon the very same argument we may urge the love of every man to every man because in the Image of God he created him And if thou canst find any man without the Image of God in his Soul then hate him and spare not But then it will further be Objected Then by this Argument I should love the Devil for he was created in the Image of Cod that is He is a spiritual intellectual immortal substance as well as any mans Soul I Answer He is so indeed but these two things make now the vast difference First He is in a sinful estate utterly irrecoverable And so we cannot say of any soul in the world The Apostle saith of the Angels that fell That God cast them down into Hell upon their Fall 2 Pet. II. They are damned already irrecoverably but you cannot say of any soul in the World absolutely that it cannot be saved Whether all Souls in the World be salvabiles in a savable condition we shall not dispute nor whence their salvability comes if it be so But certainly you and I nor no Man in the world can say of any Man that he cannot be saved True we may truly and justly say that if he continue and dye in such and such sins and wicked courses he cannot be saved But of his soul considered in its bare essence we cannot say so Nay we must pray for his Salvation This then is that that beautifies a Soul and makes it lovely and upon which we are to love every Man because he hath a soul capable of enjoying God and Salvation Shall I hate any Mans soul It may be united to God Hate any Mans body It may be a Temple of the Holy Ghost any Mans Person He may be an Inheritor of Eternal Glory Scorn not poor Joseph for all his rags and imprisonment he may come to sit upon a Throne Despise not poor Lazarus for all his Sores and Tatters he may be carried by Angels into Abraham ' s bosom Secondly Christ dyed for Souls he dyed not for Devils And this is no small demonstration of the Excellency and preciousness of a Soul viz. That the Son of God himself would dye for it It is therefore the Apostles Argument once and again Offend not him for whom Christ dyed Destroy not him for whom Christ dyed Rom. XIV 1 Cor. VIII Darest thou hate him for whom Christ dyed Darest thou wrong him for whom the Son of God would shed his blood A SERMON PREACHED upon GENESIS III. 20. And Adam called his Wives name Eve because she was the Mother of all living ADAMS story is all wonder Dust so raised to become so brave a Creature that Bravery so soon lost so soon repaired and so hughly repaired to a better condition That he is sensible of in the Text therefore he calls his Wives name Eve because Mother to all living He had named her quoad sexum as to her sex Chap. II. 23. Now he gives her another name of distinction Then she was called Woman because she was taken out of Man Now Eve because all living were to come out of her Adam shewed Wisdom in naming the Beasts here he shews that and more viz. Faith and sense of his better Estate She was rather the Mother of Death having done that that brought death into the world but he sensible of a better life to come in by her calls her Eve Life as the word signifies Lay this to that in Joh. I. 4. In him was life speaking of Christ and the life was the light of men Eve was the Mother of all living viz. of Christ and all that live by him So that hence I make this Observation That Adam and Eve believed and obtained life For the proof of this let us view their story I. God saith I will put enmity between thee and the Woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel vers 15. Satan had accompanied with them till this Promise came He keeps to them to chear them he perswaded them to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord. But now she sets him at defyance She sees her error The Serpent saith she deceived me grows at enmity with him having now a surer comfort promised to rely upon II. God clothed them with skins vers 21. Which is an evidence that they sacrificed For they had no need of slaying Beasts for any other purpose Flesh they might not eat They were slain for sacrifice and their skins served for clothing Thus Body and Soul were provided for And in these Sacrifices they looked after Christ and saw him in figure The first death in the world was Christs dying in figure Noah knew clean and unclean Beasts and sacrificed This undoubtedly he had learned from the beginning III. Observe that Luk. I. 70. As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets which have been since the world began Hinting that from the very beginning of the world there were Prophets of the Messias Thus Adam was a Prophet of Christ and prophesied of him in the name of Eve signifying life And Eve prophesied of him in the name of Cain Gen. IV. 1. She conceived and bare Cain and said I have gotten a man from the Lord Or I have begotten a man the Lord as the words may be rendred And in the name Seth Gen. IV. 25. She bare a Son and called his name Seth For God saith she hath appointed me another seed IV. The promise of the Messiah was not given to a Castaway It was given to Abraham and David and others that were righteous men V. Religion began to be planted by Adam Cain and Abel brought Sacrifice to God Which shews that Religion had been planted before VI. Christ prevailed against the Serpent from the beginning and had a seed The Church began with Adam Else what confusion would there have been in the world VII The Sabbath was given from the beginning and Adam kept it VIII All Gods dealings with him were to forward Faith in him Such were his Cursing the ground his expelling him out of Eden his enjoyning him Sacrifice and the Sabbath IX Adam is ranked with holy ones Gen. V. These things laid together may be sufficient to prove that Adam and Eve believed
called Gods as Alexander Caligula Sejanus It is said of Antichrist 2 Thess. II. 4. That he opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God Are not thousands as proud in heart as the Devil himself as much as they can be and delight in it 2. In hatred and cruelty One would not believe that Man could be so cruel to Man but that we have the experience of it and this truth in the Text tells us the reason of it because they are of the Wicked one Men are more cruel than Beasts Beasts have been tamed but Man cannot Jam. III. 7. Every kind of Beasts and of Birds and of Serpents and things in the Sea is tamed and hath been tamed by mankind But only mankind it self is untameable Such an Example was He that wished That all Rome had but one head that he might cut it off at once Nay he in the story of China went further who actually slew six hundred thousand innocent persons 3. Do not some hate the ways of God as the Devil doth I hate Michaiah saith Ahab There were some that spake evil of the Christians only because they ran not into the same excess of riot with themselves 4. And so we may say of Lying There are Children of falshood among us To conclude all with some Uses from this Discourse I. The consideration of this may draw tears to think of the corruption of our nature so far degenerate from its excellency and end II. It may make us moum to consider what we carry within us if God leave us III. Not to think so little of Pride Envy Lying as most do For these sins are the nearest resemblances of the Devil IV. How great a work is Renovation For men to be made partakers of the Devine Nature 2 Pet. I. 4. who had so much before pertaken of the Devils V. We had need to pray that God would keep us from such mischief A SERMON PREACHED upon GENESIS IV. 15. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain Lest any finding him should kill him WE have seen Cain's sin here we see his strange reward Cain slew his Brother God will not have Cain slain How is this agreeable to that Chap. IX 6. Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed How strange this Providence Abel might have done good if he had lived Cain not yet behold this contrary Providence Abel dyes and Cain lives What would Cain wish more than this to live and be secure What would some give for such a Patent If he live What Murthers more may he commit What a discouragement may he be to Righteousness How may the eye of humane reason stand amazed at this providence We may take up that of Jeremiah Chap. XII 1. Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper And the words of Habbakkuk Chap. I. 3 4. Why dost thou shew me iniquity and cause me to behold grievance For spoiling and violence are before me and there are that raise up strife and contention Therefore the Law is slacked and judgment doth never go forth for the wicked doth compass about the righteousness therefore wrong judgment proceedeth And Shall not the Judg of all the world do right Yet what Righteousness seems in this We may satisfie our selves concerning this by these considerations I. Abel was happier dying than Cain living Balaam was a parallel of Cain justfying this Numb XXIII 10. Let me dye the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his II. The Righteousness of Gods providences is not to be judged of only according to outward appearance Gods judgments are a great deep and the footsteps of them are not known III. The greatest seeming earthly prosperity may be the greatest punishment In the words we observe this That God reserved Cain to long life But how he managed it is scrupulous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he set a mark upon him Rab. Solomon saith it was a letter in his forehead Some say it was a Horn some a trembling that all might know him for a fratricide for a wretch that murthered his Brother But this one would think rather was the way to get him killed For how could all that met him know Gods mind by this mark whatever it was namely That God would not have him killed Therefore Aben Ezra understands it that God gave him a sign till he believed it viz. That God would preserve his life And so it may best be construed That God set him a sign lest c. In the fourteenth Verse Cain says Behold thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall I be hid and I shall be a fugitive and a Vagabond in the earth and it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me It is questioned here whether Cain begs death or declines it If he begs it God denies him if he declines it he hath his desire with a Curse Hence we gather this Doctrine That Gods letting men go on uninterrupted in their sins is the greatest punishment they can have here Doubtless Cain was loaden with punishment Suppose a Council were called what to do with Cain You would say Cut him off Gods wisdom and justice saith Let him live Long life and prosperity in it self a blessing but here a prison a curse a poison that kills with delight Consider Cain's temper and then consider him banished from the Church and from the memorials of his duty that Gods constant service would give him turned loose to his lusts and the councils of his own heart the longer he lives in this condition t is not the better but the worse for him See vers 24. Cain was avenged sevenfold It was a sore judgment when God said My Spirit shall not always strive with Man Gen. VI. 3. I will trouble them no more Hos. IV. 14. I will not punish your Daughters when they commit Whoredom It is a great question Whether is worse to be cut off in sin or to be not interrupted in it A hard choise as David's was when he said I am in a great strait For the clearing of this observe these two things I. That sometimes the long-suffering of God to the wicked is not the goodness of God to them See 1 Pet. III. 20. Which sometime were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the Ark was a preparing wherein few that is eight souls were saved by water Compared with Gen. VI. 3. My spirit shall not always strive with Man God spared the Canaanites that their measure might be full Fulfil ye the measure of your Fathers saith Christ to the Jews Matth. XXIII 32. And Psal LXXIII 4. There are no bands in their death but their
conquer Hell then If he did what was it with What did his Soul there to conquer Hell How he conquered Hell and Death by dying and rising we can tell but how his Soul conquered with bare going thither who can tell you Or did he augment the torments of the Devils and damned That needed not nor indeed could it be done as I shall shew afterwards What then did Christs Soul there in its Triumph unless as He Veni vidi vici I came I saw I overcame it conquered Hell by looking into it Natura nihil facit frustra Nature does nothing in vain much less the God of nature And Christ in his life time never did spoke thought any thing in vain And it is unhansom to think that his Soul after death should go out of the bosom of his Father into Hell to do no body can imagine what For who can tell what it did in Triumphing there II. Was not Christ under his Humiliation till his Resurrection Was he not under it whilst he lay in the grave He himself accounts it so Psal. XVI 10. Thou wilt not suffer my Soul being in the state of separation my Body to see corruption to be trampled on by death to be triumphed over by Satan that yet had it there If you imagine his Soul triumphing or vapouring in Hell for I cannot imagine what it should do there unless to vapour how might Satan vapour again Thou Soul of Jesus dost thou come to triumph here Of what I pray thee Have I not cause to triumph over thee Have I not procured his death Banished thee out of his body and got it into the grave And dost thou come to triumph here Let us first see whether he can get out from among the dead before we talk of his triumph over him that had the power of death So that if we should yield to so needless a point as Christs going to triumph in Hell yet certainly it would be but very unseasonable to have gone thither when he had not yet conquered but his body was still under death and as yet under the conquest of Satan This had been to triumph before Victory as Benhadads vapour was to Ahab when he received that answer Let not him that girdeth on his sword boast himself as he that putteth it off The beginning of Christs Kingdom was his Resurrection for then had he conquered death and him that had the power of death the Devil And so the Scripture generally states it I need cite no proof but two of his own speeches Matth. XXVI 29. I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the Vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Fathers Kingdom that is after my Resurrection when I have conquered the Enemies of God and set up his Kingdom And Matth. XXVIII 18. And Jesus came and spake unto them saying All power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth And this was after his Resurrection But is it not improper to dream of a Triumph before a Conquest That Christ should Triumph as King before he had put on his Kingdom As Esth. V. 3. On the third day she put on the Kingdom For so it is in the Hebrew The days before she had been under fasting mourning humiliation and that was not a time of Royalty and Triumph So on the third day Christ rose and put on his Kingdom the days before he had been under death had abased himself a very unfit and unseasonable time for his Soul to go and triumph III. As concerning Christs triumphing over Devils His Victory over Satan was of another kind of nature than to go amongst them to shew terribly or speak terribly for what else can we imagine his Soul did in that Triumph in Hell It is said Heb. II. 14. That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil Destroy him How We may say of him as he of the Traitor Vivit etiam in Senatum venit He lives yea he comes into the Council-house So Is the Devil destroyed He is alive walketh rageth ruleth He walked about the Earth before Christs death Job I. So hath he done ever since 1 Pet. V. 8. Your adversary the Devil as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour He was a murtherer from the beginning to Christs death Joh. VIII 44. So hath he been ever since he goes about seeking to devour and he doth devour He wrought in the children of disobedience before and he now worketh Eph. II. 2. And how hath Christ conquered destroyed him You must look for the Conquest and Triumph of Christ over him not so much in destroying his Person as destroying his Works 1 Joh. III. 8. For this purpose the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil I might here speak of many things I shall only mention two or three particulars wherein the Victory of Christ over the Devil by his death doth consist 1. By his death he hath conquered the very clamors of Satan paying a ransom for all his people Rom. VIII 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect Satan is ready to say I lay a charge and claim to them for they have been disobedient But Christ hath paid a satisfaction for all their disobedience Satan thou art cast in thy suit the debt is paid How is the Devil confounded at the loss of such a prize as he expected And how does the Death and Merits of Christ here Triumph Now Goliah David defies thee touch one in the Camp of Israel if you can or dare they are all redeemed and ransomed thou hast nothing to do with them And the ransomed of the Lord shall go to Sion with everlasting joy Rejoyce O Heathens for the false accuser is cast out Here is a glorious Triumph by the righteousness and holiness of Christ delivering all his people 2. By his death he brake the partition wall and brings in the Heathen Oh! how did Satan hold them in slavery Pharaoh let my people go No. I know not the Lord nor will I let them go But thou shalt be brought to it and by the death of a Paschal Lamb they shall go whether thou wilt or no. Two thousand years had they been in his slavery sure thought he this shall be for ever But by the death of poor despised Jesus at Jerusalem the prison doors are open and all these captives are gone free Rejoyce ye prisoners of hope as they are called Zech. IX 11 12. I cannot but think of the case of Paul and Silas Act. XVI in an inner prison their feet in the stocks the doors fast and a strong guard and there comes one shake and all fly open and all the prisoners are loosed Jaylor what sayest thou now Thou mayst even draw thy sword and end thy self all thy prisoners are gone 3. Nay yet further Jaylor thou must to prison thy self Ponder on those words Rev. XX. 1
Souls to be disposed of according to its sinfulness or goodness But why should God thus dispose as to the taking men out of this World Why not the wicked Soul and Body to Hell and no more ado And why not the holy Soul and Body to Heaven I might say That Simeon and Levi that have been brethren in Evil might be scattered in Jacob that they conspire evil no more That Soul and Body that have been compartners in â—inning might be severed from conjoyning to sin any more But what need we say more than that God hath thus sentenced upon sin that the Body that was created immortal should dye and see corruption and that Soul and Body that were in the nearest conjunction in this World should be disunited and the bonds of life dissolved and Soul and Body parted into two several Regions Oh! how bitter is this parting how dreadful the very thought of it to most in the World Why Christ did as really undergo this separation in his death as any other whatsoever Observable is the expiring of Christ upon his cross both in regard of the thing it self and of the manner of it Comparing the Evangelists together we shall see it the better S. John seems to make It is finished his last words Joh. XIX 30. S. Luke Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke XXIII 46. And add but the construction that the Centurion makes upon his crying out Mark XV. 39. Truly this was the Son of God They all say in our English He gave up the Ghost Which two of them viz. Mark and Luke express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He breathed out his Spirit according as other dying persons do But Matthew and John have expressions very feeling Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He let go his Spirit or his Soul And John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He delivered it up Christ could not dye nay I may say he would not dye till all things were fulfilled that were written concerning his death Therefore when he had hung above three hours and knowing it was written They gave me Vinegar c. he said I thirst He tastes and finds it Vinegar and says It is finished now all is accomplished so he bows his Head and composeth himself to dye and cries Father into thy hands c. And having so said He let go his Soul and Delivered it up into the hands of God Remember that Joh. X. 17 18. and you see the sense of these expressions I lay down my life that I may take it again No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again He had life in his own hand and the Jews could not take it from him but he let it go himself and delivered it up When the Centurion saw that he thus cried out and gave up the Ghost he said Surely this man was the Son of God Doubtless this man hath the Disposal of his own life So strong a cry is not the cry of one that is spent and dying through weakness and faintting but it argues life strong and vigorous to be still in him and therefore he dies not of weakness but gives up his life at his own pleasure Shall we pass this great passage of our Saviour without a meditation Mortal men and women if your Lives and Souls were so at your own disposal could you so readily so willingly part with them and give them up to God They are not and time is a coming when we must part with them whether we will or no. Our Saviour hath taught us what to do against they be called for to get them in readiness to be comfortably willing to part with them and give them up into his hands I remember that passage of a good man dying Egredere anima quid times c. Go Soul depart why art thou affraid Thou hast served a good Master be not affraid to go to him It will be a hard pull to have the Soul and Body parted We had need to be getting the Soul loosned that when God calls it may not be unwilling and hang on and stick and be loth to go It was a hard perplexity with him that cried out Animula vagula blandula c. Ah! poor Soul thou must go and whither art thou to go To leave all thy worldly pleasures and delights and must away thou knowest not whither The hard and dreary parting is when the Soul is chained to the World as well as to the Body when it sticks to these things as well as to the Body and must be torn from all these too He that is dead to the World how easie how comfortable is it for that man to dye When he dies he hath nothing else to do but to resign his Soul to him that gave it So that though the manner of Christs parting Soul and Body were extraordinary yet his Soul and Body were as really parted at his death as other mens are III. His Soul thus parted from his Body went to Hades into another World to the place whither holy Souls go after death which himself expresseth in those words to the good Thief To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise What does a Soul instantly after its departure Some say Walks the regions of Air and sees the secrets of nature there But Souls go not into another World to study but to receive rewards And I may say of any Soul departed as Christ of Peter Joh. XXI 18. When thou wast young thou girdest thy self and walkest whither thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not So when the Soul was in the Body it went whither it would moved the Body whither it thought good did what it pleased was at its own pleasure but now being departed another hath girded it and if it be an evil Soul he carries it whither it would not if even the best Soul he hath fixed it that it is not at its own liberty as it was before The other World is the fixing of Souls in their place and condition that they flit no more change no more that as the Soul then is not in a mutable condition as it is here so not in a self-moving condition as here Observe that Eccles. XII 7. Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it A good Soul returns to God and a bad Soul too returns to God that gave it both return to God How Now they come intirely into Gods hands to be disposed of according to what was done by them in the flesh and he instantly disposeth them into Heaven or Hell That is the very day of retribution See Luke XVI 22 23. And it came to pass that the Begger died and was carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosom The rich man also died and was
to have been among the Jews illustrated by examples p. 806 807. They translated the Old Testament so as to favour the Manners Traditions Ordinances and State of the Jewish Nation p. 806 807. It s not an accurate pure Version even the Jews being Judges p. 807 808. Objections answered p. 808 809. Whence not the Greek Version but the Hebrew Text was read in the Synagogues of the Helenists p. 808. By what Authors and Councils it might probably be that the Greek Version came forth which obtains under the Name of the Seventy performed with more craft than Conscience why therefore did the Apostles and Evangelists use it 809 to 811 Sheaf first Fruit Sheaf where and how reaped p. 38 52. When to be offered p. 184. The manner of reaping it 618 619 Sheep Gate or Probatica was not near the Temple contrary to the Jewish opinion 507 Shekel of what parts and value it was p. 343 1204. The reason of the Gift of half a Shekel as used in the Temple p. 1204 1205. Why the half Shekel was to be paid at the age of twenty years and not before 1206 Shepherd Christ a great Shepherd described 573 574 Shezor a Town in upper Galilee Page 77 Shibin not far from Zippor 76 Shoos and Sandals not the same against Beza and Erasmus 178 Shops or Tabernae where things were sold for the Temple where situate 512 Shosbenuth or Shosbenim what 527 Sichem why called Sycbar 506 Signs are for a fit generation p. 191. Meer Signs or Miracles were never wrought by our Saviour p. 1104 Signs of the Heaven and Air and of the coming of the Messiah what p. 203. Signs of Christs coming what from the Doctrine of the Jews 240 241 Siloam a sweet and large Fountain where situate and which way it empâ—led it self p. 25 26 508 509. Silâ—am taken for part of Jerusalem 441 Simon Magus who he gave out himself to be and what the Samaritans accounted him 676 677 Sin is not to be remitted after death p. 190. How a Man may know whether it be pardoned to him p. 1071 1072. Deadly Sin what it is p. 1093 1094 c. Sin is the more desperately deadly by how much it is the more desperately wilful p. 1098. Sin of the Devil what it was p. 1098. Sin against the Holy Ghost why more grievous than that against the Son p. 1130. Believers punished for Sin against the opinion of the Antinominians p. 1226. God stints the time of Mens rising from the Death of Sin which slipped is not to be retrieved p. 1238 1239. Sin unto death and Sin against the Holy Ghost how distinguished p. 1253. Sin of the Devils wretched being beyond pardon p. 1305. God's letting Men go on uninterrupted in their Sin is the greatest punishment they can have here p. 1310 1311. What to think of Saints dying with some Sin unrepented of 1343 1344 Sindon was a Cloak made with Linnin and hung with Fringes 354 355 Singing of Psalms was one part of Prophesie p. 785. See Psalms Singular and Disciple what They are Terms sometimes confounded and sometimes distinguished 433 Sinners there is nothing more desirable to God Christ and Angels than the repentance of a Sinner p. 1269. What it is that moves God Christ and Angels to desire this 1270 Sins of wicked Men are set down in Scripture that we may avoid them 1306 Sion was the upper City on the North part of Jerusalem p. 22 23 24. After the return from Babilon it was constantly called the upper Town 23 Sippor or Zippor a City encompassed with a Land flowing with Milk and Hony noted for warlike affairs an University many Synagogues and many famous Doctors 74 75 Sirbon a Lake like that of Sodon 9 Sitting after the days of Rabban Gamaliel was the posture of Learning 396 Sitting at Table what the manner among the Jews 595 596 Slaughter or Cruelty prodigious in the East Indies 1295 Sleep put for Death used hundreds of times among the Talmudists 174 Smelling judging by Smelling supposed by the Jews to be one qualification of the Messiah for want of which Ben-Cozibah was destroyed by the Jews 543 Socoh in Jos. 25. 35. what 51 Socinianism and Quakarism are great Heresies 1280 1281 Solomons Porch what and where 511 512 1034 Son what the Son is bound to do for the Father 200 Son of Abraham by Faith and Nature what 467 Son of David a common term in the New Testament and Talmudick Writings for the true Messias 96 97 Son of God the Messiah acknowledged to be the Son of God by the Jews though not by Nature but by Adoptlon p. 269 270. He is put for the Messias frequently p. 351. Son of God and Messiah or Christ are convertible terms against the Jews Page 385 548 549 Son the word Son is to be added to every Race in Christ's Genealogy 400 Son of Man why this term is attributed to Christ. p. 204. The Son coming in Glory and in the Clouds signifie only Christs taking vengeance on the Jewish Nation 265 Sons of the envious Woman what 52 Sonship or Adoption as referring to God how understood by the Jews 521 533 Sorceresses Women of Israel were generally Sorceresses 244 Sorrows of the Messiah what 351 Soul the Soul is imprisoned and restrained in its actings whilst it is in the Body p. 1092. How the Soul contemplates God p. 1116. Soul put for Life and Person p. 1204 1205. Soul of Man not the Body bears the Image and Resemblance of God and how p. 1284 1285. Whether the Souls of Men are alike p. 1285. The Soul of Lazarus was in Heaven those four days he was dead p. 1352. Where was the Soul of Christ when separate from the body p. 1344. His Soul was like the Souls of other Men in its infusion existence and acting in the Body 1352 Souls of the Jews disposed of by the Jewish Schools under a threefold phrase or state p. 455. The Transmigration or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also the Pre-existence of Souls what p. 569. How to judge of the true quality and worth of Souls p. 1212 1213. Spectra or Apparitions of the Souls of Men believed by the Jews p. 483 1283. Souls of other Men should be dear to us as well as our own p. 1297 1298 1299. Souls of Men in a better state than Devils and whether all Souls be in a savable condition p. 1302. The Pre-existence of Souls some hold it p. 1352. Whether all Souls are equal p. 1353. What doth a Soul instantly after it hath left the Body p. 1354. The Soul doth neither sleep nor dye when out of the Body p. 1355. Souls in the other World are fixed in their place and condition 1355 South Country used for Judea 13 Spain and France what places the Jews understood for them 368 Speaking among the Jews used to be with all possible shortness especially where the thing was plain p. 668. Speaking with Tongues what is meant by it 1157 Spectra or the Apparitions
now over them and neither would they now themselves nor would they suffer others as far as they could hinder to submit unto them 3. The unbelieving Jews were generally sworn enemies and prosecutors of those that believed And 4. which we have observed before multitudes of those that had believed and imbraced the Gospell fell away and became either seduced or the greatest seducers and brought in horrid heresies and pollutitions So that in these various and malignant distempers of men there had been continual confusions tumults firings murderings and plunderings among them for many years and they had been the unquietest and most tumultuous Nation that had been under Heaven and they had often provoked the Roman power against themselves yet till this year had they never so visibly and professedly taken up Arms and open War against that power The first spark kindled in Caesarea upon the sea about an inchroachment that a Gentile there made upon the way that went to the Jews Synagogue and from thence it grew into a flame so fast through the whole Country Florus the Governour helping it on that by the sixteenth of May his Souldiers by his Commission have plundred Jerusalem slain 3600. persons and even Berenice sister to King Agrippa escaped very narrowly with her life The Jews and Romans have divers skirmishes Massada Castle taken and the Roman Garison put to the sword The Temple and several parts of the Cities made Garisons for several parties and suffer much by fire and battery Twenty thousand Jewsslain in Caesarea on a Sabbath whereupon all the Nation rise about to avenge this slaughter and in Syria Phaenicea Samaria Peraea and all round about destroy Towns Cities and persons all before them Cestius the Governour of Syria rises with his forces and destroys the Jews again and their Towns all before him and on the thirtieth of October enters Jerusalem and fires a good part of the City Yet do the Jews give him a brush upon his march away and cut off above 4000 of his men with which success they are so fleshed that they resolve to fight it out and accordingly platform themselves into the model and posture of a long War and the Country is only full of Fire Sword War and destruction The abomination of desolation had now begun to stand in the holy place Matth. 24. 15. when the Temple is made a Garrison and filled with slaughter Antonia the Castle of the Temple besieged taken and the Roman Garrison put to the sword The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tabernae or part of the buildings at the East wall of the mountain of the House the place where the Sanhedrin had once sitten fired and burnt down Jerus in Peah fol. 16. col 3. And in a word the Temple from this time forwards never but a Garrison and full of slaughter and confusion till it be raked up in ashes Now it was time for those that were in Judea who believed Christs prediction to get into the Mountains and to shift for themselves for now begins the tribulation beyond parallel such as was not since the beginning of the world nor ever must again Matth. 24. 21. It is commonly asserted that the Christians fled to Pella a City beyond Jordan Euseb Eccles. Hist. lib. 3. cap. 5. which how to reconcile with Josephus who saith Pella was one of the Cities that the Jews destroyed in avengement of the slaughter of the 20000 in Caesarea De Bell. lib. 2. cap. 33. let the Learned find About these times therefore we may well conceive to have been the writing of THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER And that the rather from what he speaks in Chap. 1. ver 14. I know that I must shortly put off this tabernacle as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me In which words his thoughts reflect upon what Christ had spoken to John and him about their ends John 21. where he not only gave intimation to Peter that he should be Martyred ver 18. but that he should be so before his coming in Judgment against Jerusalem which John must live to see but he must not ver 22. He therefore in Babylon understanding how affairs went in Judea and with the Jewish Nation all thereabout and reading therein from the words of his Master Matth. 24. that the desolation was drawing on apace concludes that his time was not long and therefore improves the time he hath remaining the best he can not only in teaching those amongst whom he was but by writing this Epistle instructeth those that were remote and at distance from him in which he doth more especially give them caution against false teachers and characters the terrour of the judgment coming and exhorts to vigilancy and holiness The first character that he gives of the false teachers is that they bring in damnable Heresies denying the Lord that bought them Chap. 2. 1. which he speaketh from Deut. 32. from whence also he useth other expressions ver 6. Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee not meaning that these wretches were redeemed by Christ yet became such wretches as some would interpret it but by buying is meant his buying out of Egypt this people for a peculiar people which these wretches boasted and stood upon yet by their introducing and practising the prophane principles they did of fornication and communicating with Idols they denied the true God which bought that people for his peculiar He calls them spots ver 13. from Deut. 32. 5. and parallels them with the old world Sodom Balaam nay the very fallen Angels He sets forth the destruction of that cursed Nation and their City in those terms that Christ had done Matt. 24. and that the Scripture doth elsewhere Deut. 32. 22 23. 24. Jer. 4. 23. namely as the destruction of the whole world The heavens passing away the elements melting and the earth burnt up c. And accordingly he speaks of a new heaven and a new earth from Isa. 65. 17. a new state of the Church under the Gospel among the Gentiles when this old world of the Jews state should be dissolved He citeth Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews and giveth an honourable testimony to that and to the rest of his Epistles but acknowledgeth that in some places they are hard to be understood and were misconstrued by some unlearned and unstable ones to their own ruine yet neither doth he nor Paul who was yet alive and well knew of this wresting of his Epistles clear or amend those difficulties but let them alone as they were for the holy Ghost hath so penned Scripture as to set men to study And here is the last that we hear in Scripture of this great Apostle Peter His Martyrdom he apprehends to be near and it was to be before Jerusalem was destroyed which was not now full four years to come We may well conceive him to have been put to death by the Jews in Babylonia where he now was a madness having come upon that Nation in all parts and
and sincerely understood them of the sufferings and death of the Messiah Let those answer for them who would have them inspired by the Holy Ghost If they were thus inspired they could not but attain the true sense and scope of the Scripture as well as the Grammatical signification of the words and could not but discern here that the Prophet treats of an afflicted suffering dying buried Messias c. And if so how strange a thing is it that the whole Nation should be carried away with so cursed perverse and obstinate a denial of the Messiah's death What For Seventy two Doctors and Guids of the people and those divinely inspired too so plainly to foresee the sufferings and death of the Messiah foretold in this Chapter and yet not to take care to disperse this Doctrine amongst the people nor deliver and hand it down to posterity But if they did do it how came so horrid an aversness to this Doctrine to seize the whole Nation If they did not what execrable Pastors of the people were they to conceal so noble and so necessary an Article of their Faith and not impart it In like manner do the Jews commonly apply that famed Prophesie of Christ Isa. IX 6. to King Hezekiah I doubt also the Greek Interpreters lean that way that clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will restore health or soundness to him gives a suspition of it VERS XXXIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In his humiliation his judgment was taken from him THE Hebrew Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was taken from prison and from judgment which the Seventy read thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If you render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same sense with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. XXI 7. Doeg for devotion saith Kimchi was detained before the Lord then is shewn so much the greater wrong done to Christ. He was snatcht from the place of his devotion and from his work and he was snatched from the place of judgment that he could neither be safe in that nor have just judgment in the other Any one knows what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies namely Being detained upon a Religious account and what affinity the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shut up may have with it every one may also see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who shall declare his generation That is who shall declare the wickedness of that age or generation wherein he lived and by whom he suffered such things This and such like passages are very usual amongst the Jews h h h h h h Midr. Schiâ— fol. 17. 3. In the generation in which the Son of David shall come the Synagogue shall be a common stews Galilee shall be destroyed and Gablan shall be laid wast the wisdom of the Scribes shall putrifie good and merciful men shall fail yea and truth it self shall fail and the faces of that generation shall be as the faces of dogs R. Levi saith The Son of David shall not come but in a generation wherein mens faces shall be impudent and which will deserve to be cut off R. Jannai saith When thou seest the generation after the slandering and blaspheming generation then expect the feet of King Messias that is his coming While I read the Chaldee Paraphrast in Isa. LIII methinks I see a forehead not unlike the faces before mentioned for he wrests the Prophets words with that impudence and perversness from their own proper sense that it is a wonder if his own Conscience while he was writing it did not check and admonish him VERS XL. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Philip was found at Azotus IF this was done at Gaza or near it it was from thence to Azotus about two hundred and seventy furlongs or thirty four miles or thereabout * * * * * * Diod. Sicul. lib. 19. And Azotus was as it seems two miles from Jamnia according to the computation of Antoninus his Itinerarium From Gaza to Askalon sixteen miles from Askalon to Jamnia twenty We have the mention of one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rabba Philippi as it should seem in the Jerusalem Talmud i i i i i i Megill fol. 70 2. CHAP. IX VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He desired letters of him the High Priest to Damascus THESE letters were written from the whole Sanhedrin k k k k k k Vid. Acts XXII 5. the head of which was Gamaliel Paul's Master yet they are attributed to the High-Priest he being of a more worthy degree and order than the President of the Council that in Acts XXIII 4. hath a peculiar Emphasis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's High-Priest and hints to us the opinion that Nation had of the High-Priest namely that he was God's Officer whereas the President of the Council was only an officer of the People and chosen by men The charge of the High-Priest was to take care about holy things the charge of the President was to take care about the Traditions for he was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the keeper and repository of Traditions But the words we are upon do occasion a more knotty and difficult question viz. whether the decrees of the Sanhedrin were of authority amongst the Jews in Countries abroad As to Damascus there is the less scruple because Syria in very many things was lookt upon to be of the same rank and condition with the land of Israel But what shall we think of more remote Countries For instance Egypt or Babylon where the greatest number of Jews above all other Countries in the World did reside I. There was no Sanhedrin of Seventy men either in Egypt or Babylon or indeed any where else but that at Jerusalem There were very famous Academies in Babylon viz. that of Nehardea that of Sorah and that of Pombeditha But a Sanhedrin no where There was a very famous Cathedral Church at Alexandria wherein were seventy pompous stalls but it was but a Church not a Sanhedrin l l l l l l Hieros Succah â—c 55. 1. II. In what veneration the Jerusalem Sanhedrin was held every where amongst all sorts of Jews may be collected from this that the rule and determination concerning intercalating the year concerning the beginning of the year and the appointed time of the feasts c. came from it as also that was esteemed the keeper and repository of the oral Law III. The judgment of life and death in the matter of Heresie and heterodoxy belonged only to the Jerusalem Sanhedrin and it is some such thing that is now before us The Christians were to be sent from the Synagogues bound to Jerusalem that if they would not deny their faith they might be condemned to dye The Synagogues by their three men might scourge them but they could not pass sentence of death And these goodly men conceived there was no other way to extirpate Christianity but by the death of Christians
IV. Whether therefore these were mandatory letters or only exhortatory which St. Paul desired the Fathers of the Sanhedrin knew the Synagogues were heated with so great an indignation against Christianity that they would most readily undertake what was desired Where by the way we may make this observation That the power of Life and Death was not yet taken out of the hands of the Sanhedrin I have elsewhere given you a copy of a Letter from the Sanhedrin to those of Babylon and also to those of Alexandria m m m m m m Vid. Hor. Heb. â—d Matth. II. 14 VERS V. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks IN Syriac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is well known that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to kick from Deut. XXII 15. and 1 Sam. II. 29. nor is it less known what this word kicking in these places means n n n n n n Hieros Schab fol. 11. 1. R. Bibai sat and taught R. Isaac ben Cahna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kickt against him VERS VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hearing a voice c. BUT it is said Chap. XXII 9. They heard not the voice of him that spake unto me They heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Voice or Sound but they did not hear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the words So we find the Jewish writers distinguishing o o o o o o Bemidb. rab fol. 163 â— There I will speak with thee The word shall be with thee but not with them all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perhaps they did not hear the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but they heard the voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But seeing no man But did Paul himself see him See vers 17. Jesus that appeared to thee in the way and vers 27. He saw the Lord in the way 1 Cor. IX 1. Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord And Chap. XV. 8. He was seen of me also c. but did he see his person or his glory only I would say he saw both and so had obtained a more illustrious Vision of him than any of the rest having seen him since he was glorified which they did not But whether he saw with his bodily eyes or as Isaiah Cap. VI. 1. by Vision only let those dispute it that think fit Concerning Damascus the scene of this history we may call to mind that of Zechar. IX 1. The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach and Damascus the rest thereof c. where the Targum Damascus shall be converted so that it shall be of the land of the house of his Majesty Kimchi hath it Damascus shall be his rest that is the habitation of his glory and of his prophet c. which things whither they have any relation to this place let the Reader judge Only I must not let it pass unobserved that Paul the Converter of the Gentiles was called to his Apostleship and saw Christ in a Country and almost in a City of the Gentiles St. Paul himself tells us that this voice which came from Heaven spake to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Hebrew tongue Chap. XXVI 14. which our Historian doth not mention nor indeed those passages vers 16. 17 18. which S. Paul there relates VERS XII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Putting his hand on him that he may receive his sight ANANIAS himself adds vers 17. that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost Could Ananias therefore confer the Holy Ghost This seemed the peculiar prerogative of the Apostles could therefore a private Disciple do this to an Apostle By the imposition of his hands could he impart the gift of Tongues and Prophesie Will not this degrade our Apostle even below the ordinary Ministers who received these gifts by the imposition of the Apostles hands and shall he that is an Apostle take his Commission from the hands of one that is not so himself It was not ordinary for an Apostle to be baptised by one that was not an Apostle and it would be strange if such an one should add over and above greater things to an Apostle It may be no needless question who it was that baptized the rest of the Apostles when Jesus himself baptized not Joh. IV. 2. who therefore baptized those that did baptize Let the Romanists say who baptized Peter I would say John the Baptist did But do you think Peter was rebaptized If so by whom when Jesus himself did not baptize CHAP. XII VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He killed Iames with the sword THIS kind of death is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 killing p p p p p p Sanhedr fol. 49. 2. Four kinds of death are delivered into the hands of the Sanhedrin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 burning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 killing with the sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strangling q q q q q q Ibid. fol. 52. 2. The precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning those that are to be killed is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they beheaded him with the sword as the Roman Kingdom does R. Judah saith This is a vile disgrace to him But they lay his head upon a block and chop it off with an Ax. Others reply there can be no death more disgraceful than that You will say Herod Agrippa imitated the Roman customs as having no small relation to Rome But beheading by the sword was a death used amongst the Jews them selves and they particularly fell under that sentence that drew away the people to the worship of other Gods r r r r r r Ibid. fol. 111. 2. If they be but a few that seduce the people to strange worship they are stoned and their goods are not confiscated but if their numbers be great they dye by the sword and their goods are confiscated St. James indeed was but a single person but Herod knew that there was Peter also and several others who according to his judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drew away the people to an irreligious worship and deals with James as he intended to do with the rest So he falls and his goods are confiscated And so that begins to be accomplished which our Saviour had formerly told the sons of Zebedee ye shall drink of my cup c. s s s s s s Hieros Sanhedr fol. 29. 4. The Rabbins say Killing by the sword is an heavier punishment than strangling VERS VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His chains from his hands I Am mistaken if the Jerusalem Talmudists do not express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chiromanicae hand-manacles t t t t t t Ibid. fol. 28. 3 It is written The Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people but they harkned not Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the Captains of that host
strength is firm But vers 19. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors So God tells Pharaoh I have preserved thee alive that I might make my power known in thee II. Sometimes Gods forbearance to cut off the wicked is for their punishment not only when he strikes them with horror as he did Lamech but when they prosper Let Ephraim alone was Ephraim's punishment The Uses of this Discourse might be these 1. To Examine while we live and prosper whether it be for our punishment 2. To be jealous of an untroubled condition 3. This may teach with more patience and chearfulness to bear the Cross. For as Gods suffering men to succeed and prosper is sometimes a judgment a token of his displeasure so afflictions and troubles may be signs of his care and good will 4. Not to envy the prosperity of the wicked 5. To labour so to live as to be able to give a comfortable account of long life and age A SERMON PREACHED upon EXODUS XX. 5. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me THE first Commandment with threatning as Paul saith the first of the second Table was the first with promise Ephes. VI. And the threatning is most properly affixed to the Command against Idolatry Because God hath a special enmity and quarrel against Idolatry as one of the greatest derogations to his honour that can be in the World Observe in the Prophets the great complaint against the people is for Idolatry and unrighteousness The former the great injury done to God the later to Men the former the height of Impiety the later of Uncharitableness When man is bound to love his neighbour as himself to shew him mercy to be helpful to him and useful to him in all ways of charity how high an iniquity is it to defraud undermine oppress and deal injuriously with him And when bound to worship God alone as the great dreadful and glorious Creator of Heaven and Earth and all things in them how abominable a wickedness is it to give this honour to a piece of wood a stock or stone of our own framing How God detests this he hath uttered abundantly in Scripture partly by proclaiming Idols to be abominable to him Deut. VII 25. and XXVII 15. And by giving them names of the greatest abomination Vanities 1 King XVI 26. Jer. XIV 22. Lyes Esa. XLIV 20. Jer. X. 14. And so is that to be understood Rev. XXII 15. Without are Dogs and Sorcerers and Whoremongers and Murtherers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye Jonah putteth both the names together Jonah II. 8. They that observe lying vanities Nay the very name of abomination it self is given them 1 King XI 7. Nay the very name of Devils is given them Deut. XXXII 17. 1 Cor. X. 20. And as thus in his word he hath shewed his detestation against Idols and Idolatry so hath he also in his providence by those fearful judgments that he hath shewed against them that have been Idolatrous Witness Jeroboam and his house Ahab and his rooted out and devoured by this deadly canker themselves and their posterity undone according to the threatning here Visiting the sins of the Fathers upon the children It were a wonder and thing of amazement that the Church of Rome should ever be so zealous for Images were it not that there is something more behind the curtains than is seen They distinguish betwixt an Image and an Idol and say They worship not the Image but before it only for a memorandum But to omit the vanity of such a distinction which hath been abundantly confuted by our Divines where is their care of that rule of the Apostle To avoid all appearance of evil Certainly if there be not the appearance of Idolatry in worshipping before an Image what call you the appearance of Idolatry The Heathen persecutors of old thought their turn served if they could bring Christians to cast a little incense into the fire before an Idol Here the Christians might have pleaded it was not in worship to Idols but to please their Masters but they saw in it so much appearance of Idolatry that they gave up their lives rather than to consent to such an appearance of evil But that that is behind the curtains with the Papists is covetousness and gain of mony And if it were not that I make no question but they would be fâ—r cooler in pleading for their Images than they are It is upon very good reason that the Apostle calls Covetousness Idolatry for it is not only making mony our God but it is the very Father and Mother of Idolatry This is it that hath made these men so bold with adoring of Images so bold as to take away this Commandment against Idolatry out of the Ten though a Command so needful so dreadful and that hath so terrible a threatning with it For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God A Command that one might wonder at but that you can never enough wonder at the wickedness of mens hearts First One would wonder that ever such a Command should need Thou shalt not worship a stock or stone nor make that thy God which thine own hands have made Reason and light of nature and common sense one would think should so cry this down to men that have their wits about them that there might not any such Command from God be needful You may see how the Spirit of God does stand as it were wondring at the sottishness of those that make and worship Idols in Esa. Chap. XL. and three or four Chapters forward And did you see a Heathen or do you see a Papist worshipping and bowing down to the stock of a tree as he calls it there whether have you more cause to mourn to see God so dishonoured or to think what a stock and stupid thing sinful man is become to pray to or trust in a piece of wood or stone Secondly One might wonder that such a Law given should be so broken A Law so easie to keep and in so sensless a thing to break it Of all sins what easier to avoid than falling down to the stock of a tree And yet how were men infatuated with it as the Heathen and Israel were continually Who would have thought that Israel having seen the wonders in Egypt and the glory of God at Sinai should ever especially so suddenly have worshipped a golden Calf and said These are thy Gods O Israel which brought thee up out of the Land of Egypt What monstruous madness and senslesness is there in this Idolatry That 1. Whereas God made man for man to think that he can make a God 2. Man that can see and hear and speak and stir to think that his help should lye in that that can neither see nor hear nor speak nor