the first Chap. 1. 17. That in the Gospel is revealed the Righteousness of God justifying as in the Law was revealed his righteousness or justice condemning and that from faith of immediate innixion upon God as was Adams before his fall and as was that which the Jews owned in God to faith in the righteousness of another namely Christ. This way of justification he proveth first by shewing how far all men both by nature and action are from possibility of being justified of or by themselves which he cleareth by the horrid sinfulness of the Heathen Chap. 1. a large proof of which might be read at Rome at that very instant and little less sinfulness of the Jews though they had the Law Chap. 2. 3. and therefore concludeth Chap. 3. 30. that God justifieth the circumcision by faith and not by works as they stood upon it and the uncircumcision through faith for all their works that had been so abominable and that seemed so contrary to justification In Chap. 4. he taketh up the example of Abraham whom the Jews reputed most highly justified by his works for they had this saying of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abraham performed all the Law every whit but he proveth that he found nothing by his own works but by believing he found all In Chap. 5. he proves the imputation of Christs righteousness for Justification by the parallel of the imputation of Adams sin for condemnation Not at all intending to assert that as many as were condemned by Adam were freed from that condemnation by the death of Christ but purposely and only to prove the one imputation by the other It was a strange doctrine in the ears of a Jew to hear of being justified by the righteousness of another therefore he proves it by the like mens being condemned for and by the unrighteousness of another Two close couched passages clear what he aimeth at The first is in ver 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Wherefore as by one man sin entred into the World c. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As properly requireth a So to follow it as you may observe it doth in ver 15. 18 19. but here there is no such thing expressed therefore it is so to be understood and the Apostles words to be construed to this sense Wherefore it is or the case is here as it was in Adam as by one man sin entred into the World c. there imputation so here The second is ver 18. in the Original verbatim thus As by the transgression of one upon all men to condemnation so by the righteousness of one upon all men to justification of life What upon all men Our Translation hath added some words to clear the sense but the shortness of the Apostles style doth better clear his intent namely to intimate imputation as speaking to this purpose As by the transgression of one there was that that redounded to all to condemnation so by the righteousness of one there is that that redoundeth to all to justification of life And to clear that he meaneth not that all that were condemned by Adams Fall were redeemed by Christ he at once sheweth the descent of Original sin and the descent of it for all the death and righteousness of Christ Quae tamen profuerunt antequam fuerunt Ver. 13. For till the Law sin was in the World but sin is not imputed where there is no Law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses By what Law was sin sin and did death reign when the Law was not yet given Namely by that Law that was given to Adam and he brake the guilt of which violation descends to all Having to the end of the fifth Chapter stated and proved Justification by faith in Chap 6 7 8. he speaks of the state of persons justified which though they be not without sin yet their state compared with Adams even whilst he was sinless it is far better then his He invested in a created finite changeable humane righteousness they in the righteousness of God uncreate infinite unchangeable He having the principles of his holiness and righteousness in his own nature they theirs conveyed from Christ He having neither Christ nor the Spirit but left to himself and his natural purity they having both See Chap. 8. 1 2 9 10 c. At the nineteenth verse of Chap. 8. he begins upon the second mystery that he hath to treat upon the calling of the Gentiles whom he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The whole Creation or Every Creature by which title they also are called Mark 16. 15. Colos. 1. 23. and he shews how they were subject to vanity of Idolatry and the delusions of the devil but must in time be delivered from this bondage for which deliverance they now groaned and not they only but they of the Jews also which had received the first-fruits of the Spirit longed for their coming in waiting for the adoption that is the redemption of their whole body for the Church of the Jews was but the child-like body and accordingly their Ordinances were according to child-like age of the Church but the stature of the fulness of Christs mystical Body was in the bringing in of the Gentiles Being to handle this great point of the Calling of the Gentiles and Rejection of the jews he begins at the bottom at the great doctrine of Predestination which he handles from ver 29. of Chap. 8. to Chap. 9. 24. and then he falls upon the other That Israel stumbled at Messias and fell seeking indeed after righteousness but not his but their own and that they are cast away but not all A remnant to be saved that belonged to the Election of Grace As it was in the time when the World was Heathen some of them that belonged to the Election came in and were proselyted to the worship of the true God so some of these while all the rest of their Nation lie in unbelief And in this unbelief must they lie till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in and then all Gods Israel is compleated The most that he salutes in the last Chapter appear to have been of the Jewish Nation and the most of them though now at Rome yet some time to have been of Pauls company and acquaintance in some other place The expulsion of the Jews out of Rome by Claudius Decree might very well bring many of them into his converse as well as it did Priscilla and Aquila whom he names first among them Epenetus was one of his own converts of Achaia Mary had bestowed much labour on him yet he hitherto had never been near Rome He that would dispute the point of the first planter of the Gospel at Rome might do well to make the first muster of his thoughts here And whereas the Apostle speaks of the faith of the Roman Church as spoken of throughout the World Chap. 1. ver 8. it is very questionable whether he
there is sin unto death than that there should be any sin that is not unto death as our Apostle saith there is in the words immediately going before these that I have chosen In these that I have chosen you see there are two clauses and out of either of them arise two Questions Out of the former I. What sin it is the Apostle means And II. Why he titles it by such a name A sin unto death Out of the latter I. Why he forbideth to pray for it And II. Why he forbideth not to pray for it I mean why he speaketh not out in down right terms I say that he should not pray for it but says only I say not that he should The Rhemists Popish Expositors upon the place will answer you even all these questions with a breath if you will but take their words and little more than their bare word must you expect for the proof and confirmation of what they tell you 1. They will tell you that the sin our Apostle means is any sin whatsoever that any one lives in unrepentant all his time 2. They will tell you that it is titled A sin unto death because he lives in it till his death and so dies in it 3. They will tell you that the Apostle by not praying for him means not praying for him when he is dead but he that sins not a sin unto death that is that lives not in his sin till he die but repents of it before for him you must pray after his death For that the place is most properly or only meant of praying for the departed say they this convinced that neither the Church nor any man is debarred here from praying for any sinner while living nor for remission of any sin in this life And so they go on When I read these mens Annotations on this Scripture they often mind me of Benhadads servants with ropes about their necks catching at any word that fell from the King of Israels mouth that might be for any advantage to their forlorn and lost cause and condition These mens Popish cause hath had the rope about its neck now a long time and been in a lost and forlorn case and I cannot tell whether I should laugh or frown to see what pitiful shift and shameful scrambling they make for it by catching at any word or syllable in the Scripture or Fathers and wresting and twisting and twining it to any seeming or colourable advantage to their condemned cause to save it from execution Certainly they are at a very hard pinch for proof of praying for the dead when they make such a scraping in this portion of Scripture to rake it out thence whereas the words are as far from meaning the living praying for the dead as the dead praying for the living And at the very same game they be in their notes upon our Saviours words concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost that it shall never be forgiven in this World nor in the World to come Matth. XII 32. Their note is that some sins may be remitted in the next life and consequently this proves Purgatory As the poor frantick distracted wretch at Athens that fed and pleased himself with this fancy that every ship that came into the Port was his ship that all the goods that came into the Town were his goods whilst he himself in the mean time was miserably poor naked and ready to famish so these men think every verse in Scripture brings in something to their stock every saying of the Fathers something to their bank whilst in the mean while their pitiful cause walks starven and poor and blind and naked and stands in need of all things The sin against the Holy Ghost indeed is distinct and something different from this sin unto death that our Apostle speaketh of yet since there is such a particular sin against the Holy Ghost that is so deadly why should not these men think that sin in the Text that carries so deadly a name is a particular sin likewise It is true indeed that a sin in which a man continues unrepenting until his death and in which he dies may very justly be called A sin to death that is a sin until his death and it will prove A sin to death eternal but that the Apostle means here a particular sin and that he estimates it not by its length but by its weight not by how long the party continues in it but by how grievous the sin is in it self will appear as we go along partly by discovery of the reason of the title he puts upon it and partly by discovery of the very sin it self that is here intended But before we begin with the discovery of the reason of the title let us a little look first into the meaning of those words of our Saviour Joh. XX. 22. He breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted to them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained Do not the Apostles here receive a new power or priviledge or guift which Christ had not imparted to them before Else why such an action as he had never used toward them before so breathing on them The common acceptation of these words whose soever sins ye remit or retain are remitted or retained is to make them to mean the same thing with what ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. But besides that the expressions are of a vast difference why if Christ had given them the very same power in those words that he doth in these why should he repeat it especially why should he use such a solemn and unusual rite toward them to breath upon them He had given them power of miracles and healing and casting out Devils before without breathing upon them He had given them power of binding and loosing that is of establishing or abolishing the rites and Laws of Moses for so the Phrase in the common acceptation of the Nation did only signifie and this he did without breathing upon them Therefore certainly in this his new action and these his new words as I may call them he gives them some new power and that in two kinds 1. In his breathing upon them and bidding them receive the Holy Ghost he gives the Holy Ghost to give again or he gives them power by the imposition of their hands to bestow the Holy Ghost as the sacred Story tells you the Apostle did and none but the Apostles could do And 2. In his words whose soever sins ye remit or retain he gives them a punitive or executive double power viz. To strike desperate or incorrigible and horrid transgressors with some corporal punishment or stroke or else to give them up to Satan to be tortured and scourged in body and vexed and disquieted in mind Where had Peter his warrant to strike Ananias and Sapphira with death but from these words And Paul
to strike Elymas with blindness and to deliver Hymenaeus and Alexander unto Satan but from that Apostolick power which Christ granted to the Apostles in these words Well might not these sins very well be called sins unto death that were overtaken with such deadly and dreadful penalties Was not that sin a sin unto death that was to be retained as retaining is set in di rectopposition to remitting Thus may we bring the subjectum quaestionis into a farnarrower compass than the Rhemists bring it who do bewray their ignorance one way that they may serve their own turn another their ignorance of the proper original of the Phrase sin unto death that they may serve their turn about praying for the dead The greatest difficulties of the Scripture lie in the Language for unlock the Language and Phrases and the difficulty is gone And therefore they that take upon them to preach by the spirit and to expound the Scripture by the spirit let them either unlock to me the Hebrew Phrases in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New that are difficult and obscure or else they do nothing Now to attain to the meaning of such dark and doubtful Phrases the way is not so proper to put on them a sense of our own as to consider what sense they might take them in to whom and among whom the things were spoken and written in their common Speech If it were well considered how the Jewish Nation understood binding and loosing in their Schools and in their common Speech we should never need to mint such senses of our own to put upon the Phrase it would so be done to our hands Such an obscure Phrase is that of our Saviours about the sin against the Holy Ghost that it shall never be forgiven neither in this life nor c. And the collection that the Rhemists make upon it may seem very Logical for in that he saith that sin shall not be forgiven in the World to come doth it not argue that some other sins are then forgiven But this is their own sense and Logick it is not our Saviours Now how should we know our Saviours sense By considering how they would understand it to whom the words were spoken in their common acceptation and Language viz. they would soon understand it to be a direct facing and confuting of their foolish opinion concerning forgiveness of blasphemy against God which was that repentance and the day of expiation expiated a third part of the sin corporal punishment inflicted by the Magistrate expiated another third part but death did quite wipe it clean out for say they it is written This sin shall not be purged from you till you die which argues that it was purged by death No saith our Saviour neither in this life either by repentance nor day of expiation nor corporal punishment nor pardon in the life to come by the purging and wiping out of death Such an obscure Phrase is this before us A sin unto deâ—th and it seems a fair sense which the Rhemists have put upon it of their own viz. that it should mean A sin a man liâ—es in till he die But this is their own sense it is not the Apostles Now how should we know the Apostles sense By considering how they understood this Phrase in their common Language to whom he wrote And how was that Take it up by this Observation That in the Jewish Schools and Nation and Language this was a most frequent and ordinary saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a man do such or such a thing as should not be done ignorantly he is to bring a sin offering and that attones for him But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he do it wilfully he is bound over to cutting off And in this they speak but the words of the Law in Numb XV. 27 28. If any soul sin through ignorance he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering And the Priest shall make an attonement for him that sinneth ignorantly But the soul that doth ought presumptuously whether he be born in the Land or a Stranger the same hath reproached the Lord That soul shall be cut off from among his people Now what is meant by cutting off If you ask some they will put a sense of their own upon the Phrase and tell you it means a cutting off or separating a person from the Congregation and publick Assemblies by Excommunication But ask the Jews to and among whom the thing was spoken what it means in their common speech and acceptation and they will tell you cutting off means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death by the hand of Heaven Death or destruction by the hand of God Interpreting the matter to this purpose that if a person sinned wilfully and presumptuously there was no sin offering allowed in that case but the party so offending fell immediately under liableness to divine vengance to be destroied or cut off by the hand of Heaven And this interpretation of the Phrase of cutting off the Apostle Paul doth justifie in that passage Heb. X. 26. If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a certain fearful looking for of judgment c. That Text of Moses lots out the family of the Achan that we are speaking of the sin unto death and this Text of the Apostle takes him by the poll and tells what sin it is It tells you what sin it is viz. Sinning wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth It limits to you why it is called a sin unto death because there is no other way upon the committing of it but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation And it gives you some intimation why no praying for it because no sacrifice for it Before we come to speak upon the words we have some cause to muse and mourn over them As it is said Origen wept over that passage of the Psalmist that after his Apostasie stung him in Psal. L. 16 17. But unto the wicked God said what hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and casteth my words behind thee If there be no sacrifice for sin but a fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation when we have sinned wilfully after we have once received the knowledge of the truth Men and brethren what shall we do Take the truth in the sense that may help most to favour us for the Gospel as it means there indeed And take sinning wilfully for as exclusive a term as you can to shut and exclude us out of the guilt here intended yet who can say but he hath sinned wilfully since he received the knowledge of the Gospel over and over If I should take Jeremiahs course in his fifth Chapter and vers 4. and forward sending first to the poor or inferior rank and ask
sin unto death viz. that brought to an immediate liableness to cutting off by divine vengeance Now this was a sin of presumption and despising the Word of God as Moses explains what that presumptuous sinning is in a high degree which as the Apostle tells in the same Chapter that it was a treading under foot the Son of God c. Therefore it is no wonder if with Paul there be no Sacrifice for it and with this Apostle no praying for it But why does not this our Apostle speak out and say I say he should not pray for it but says only I do not say that he should Let me lay to this expression that passage of our Saviour Matth. XVIII 17. If he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican By which our Saviour doth not excommunicate such a one out of the Church for he saith not let him be to the Church but thee as a Heathen But he dischargeth and acquitteth the party injured from those duties and offices which he ought otherwise to him as a brother Our Apostles expression is much like to the same tenor He takes care of the Consciences of the people of God as well as he sheweth the two conditions of the sinner he speaketh of There were some that might be in a strait what to do in this case They were commanded by their Lord and Master to pray for their enemies these enemies of theirs were become so like their Father the Devil that it might pose their Consciences whetheâ— they should pray for them or no. Therefore this divine Apostle useth a happy temper that he will lay no charge on them that are so pinched to pray for them nor indeed forbid those to pray for them that are more inlarged for undoubtedly the indifferent expression of the Apostle as I may call it seems plainly to carry with it such a consideration Ye see here in the Text a deadly wounded wretch like Amasa II Sam. XX. wallowing in his own blood if you call in Moses and Paul to give their Coroners verdict concerning the manner and cause of his death from those Texts of theirs that we have cited they will tell you that he is felo de se that he destroied himself and they will tell you that it was by wilful sinning after the knowledge of the truth wilful sinning against the Word of God That sin is the more desperately deadly by how much it is the more desperately wilful Hos. V. 11. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment because he willingly walked after the Commandment One would think it should be because he did not willingly walk after the Commandment but by Commandment is meant the idolatrous Commandment of Jeroboam the Statutes of Omri and Ephraim was broken in pieces because he walked after them and broke the more because he walked after them willingly If the motions of sin which are by the Law do work in them to bring forth fruit unto death as the Apostle says Rom. VII 5. much more the motions of sin which are clean against the Law I must confess I do not understand the irritating or provoking power of the Law which some collect from this place for to me it is without doubt that the meaning of the Apostle is The motions of sin that were by the Law mistaken not efficiently for such was the Judgment of the Jews concerning the Law viz. That it did restrain only the outward action but regarded not the internal motion and so the Apostle seems to give some hint of his own mistake a while of the Law about the point of lust Now if the fruit of those motions of sin which are by the mistake of the Law be so deadly how must the actings of sin which are against the known Law wilfully committed be much more deadly Among the grains shall I call them or the talent weights that are cast into the scales to make sin weigh exceeding sinful this adds not the least aggravation if it do not indeed the greatest that it was done knowingly and wilfully And therefore in that cousen german sin to this we are speaking of for to me they are clearly distinct the sin against the Holy Ghost the grievousness of it in comparison of sinning against the Son lies not in regard of the persons sinned against as if the Holy Ghost were a nobler person than the Son but in regard of the manner of sinning the Son they knew not in so much humility and so blasphemed him out of ignorance but they saw the apparent evidence of the Holy Ghost in the miracles they saw and yet blasphemed him wilfully This dies the sins of wicked men of so deep a dye above the sins of the Saints of God because those sin with whole propensity of mind these of infirmity and against their wills And I cannot but remember the determination of St. Austin in a point of this nature About chaste Christian matrons and virgins that were ravished by the enemy when he broke into the City he determines well that they were not defiled though they were defiled their minds pure though the body polluted and he concludes Duo fuerunt ast unus adulterium commisit there were two in the action but one of them in the adultery And that here one sinned wilfully the other had no mind to the sin at all This then if there were nothing else doth sufficiently aggravate the grievousness of wilful sinning that it carries the very image and superscription of the sin of the Devil it is as it were flesh and bone of his bone and sin of his sin very Devil of very Devil Does any ask me what was that sin of the Devil It has been conceived by many that it was such a Pride as made him aspire to be equal with God or above him to set his Throne even with God or to unthrone him and to this purpose have those words been applied Esa. XIV 12 13. How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer son of the morning c. For thou hast said in thine heart I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God c. I will be like the most High Which words indeed mean only the arrogance and haughtiness of the proud King of Babylon Does any one then ask me what was the sin of the Devil I should answer desperate malicing the honour and happiness of man in which God had placed him and desperate despising and scorning of that charge and command that God had laid upon Angels concerning man that they should attend him and keep him in all his ways And both these desperately wilful for he could sin at no lower rate for he could not sin of ignorance being an Angel and an Angel could have no tempter to sin but himself I shall not go about to define or circumscribe exactly the bounds wherin to conclude wilful sinning I shall not confine this evil spirit with any circle
him from death and was heard in that he feared It lies upon glorified Saints in one part of it viz. Thanksgiving It is so a Duty for the unholiest that though they sin in their prayers yet they sin worse if they pray not Your prayers are not sin as to the Act but because of other things External adoration is absolutely required to be given to God by all his creatures and if that be not yielded they doubtless sin This the wicked man when he prays gives to God They mistake foul that say Pray not till the Spirit move you Truth saith Pray because Duty requires you and in doing your duty wait for the Spirit 3. It is a Duty that makes out and sanctifies all our duties As 1 Tim. IV. 5. Every creature of God is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer So is every religious duty that we perform What is our hearing reading meditation if we pray not that God would sanctifie it and make it beneficial to holy ends and purposes to us 4. We had need to pray in reference to our Duty lest God turn us out of all and own us not for Tenants because we pay not our Rent You read in XXX Exod. 12. c. That every Israelite was to give half a shekel for the Redemption of his Soul the rich was not to give more nor the poor less This Christ himself paid Matth. XVII 24. c. Prayer is that half shekel to us The rich can give no more and the poor hath this to give viz. To make our humble acknowledgments to God for our lives and our comforts This is the greatest owning of our homage and none is so poor as to be without it The words that signifie Prayer speak this viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judging our selves and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Depending upon grace We hold all upon grace The acknowledgment of this is the payment of our Homage to our Creator Would you comfortably enjoy your Houses Lands Studies Comforts pay your Rent Pray Pray Pray See what becomes of them that pay not this Homage Jerem. X. 25. Pour out thy sury upon the Heathen that know thee not and upon the Families that call not on thy Name Secondly We had need pray because of our wants This is the only way for our supply II. This is the bucket to draw our Water Ask and you shall have Call upon me in the time of trouble and I will deliver thee Yea though God know our wants we must pray for the supply of them That is a strange motive to prayer in Matth. VI. 8. Your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask them What need then is there to tell them If he will give he will give whether we ask or ask not Yes pray for what ye stand in need of though ye are sure of the grant of those things Daniel prayed for the restoration of the Captivity which he knew certain David for the pardon of his sin which he knew God would pardon And that for these reasons First God will have his Homage T is reason Elias should have his cake first that provides meal for the maintenance of the whole family 1 Kings XVII 13. Secondly We pray not to shew God our wants as if he were ignorant of them but to shew that we are sensible of them and to signifie that we know he only is able to supply them Saints are called poor because they know their wants and know they live on Gods Alms. See Rev. III. 17 18. Because thou sayest I am rich and encreased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked I counsil thee to buy of me gold tryed in the fire that thou mayest be rich c. God would that this Church of Laodicca should know her wants and buy by prayer the supply of them Thirdly I may add We had need to pray because of our advantage and benefit yea though we receive not particularly what we pray for Though as Psal. XXII 2. We cry in the day time and God heareth not and in the night season we take no rest Though God seem as in Psal. LXXXVIII 14. to cast off our Soul and hide his face from us yet we had need to pray still because we still want and if we never receive particularly what we pray for yet these benefits we shall reap by our prayers 1. We keep up and refresh our communion with God Constant prayer hath this advantage that it suffereth not God to forget us Lord why hast thou forgotten me saith David Prayer permits not God to forget no more than a Mother can forget a crying child He that prays is Gods Remembrancer and gives him no rest 2. The more we pray the better God will know our faces at the day of judgment I know you not shall Christ say to some why They never looked towards him Psal. XIV 2 3. The Lord looked down from Heaven to see if there were any that did understand and seek God They are all gone aside c. And I. Esay 4. There t is said of wicked men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they are estranged backward or turned backward To these methinks the great Judge will say another day Ye were always strangers to me such as turned their backs upon me I could never see your face and therefore verily I know you not But on the contrary he that now confesses Christ and makes himself known to him by prayers and humble addresses he will know and confess him at the day of Judgment 3. The more we pray the more the heart is in Heaven and with God So that Prayer it self is a blessed benefit Phil. III. 20. Our Conversation is in Heaven This of all other Conversations is the heavenly Conversation As Christ when he prayed was transfigured Luke IX 29. So in prayer the Christians heart is changed the soul is winged and mounts up till it gets hold of God as Jacob had him in his arms when he prayed 4. Time will come that all our prayers and tears shall meet us God puts our tears in his Bottle God reserves our prayers not one of them is left and we shall in time receive the fruit of them In 1 Kings VIII 59. There Solomon prays Let these my words wherewith I have made supplication before the Lord be nigh unto the Lord our God day and night that he maintain the cause of his Servant c. Prayers are nigh unto God And thus I have finished the first Observation viz. That we had need to pray I come to the second II. That we had need to be taught to pray There is no doing spiritual work but according to the Patern in the Mount God prescribed Forms As at the offering of the first-fruits of the Land of Canaan XXVI Deut. 3 4. c. Thou shalt go unto the Priest that shall be in those days and
him What could be said to the comfort of such a bleeding soul Should a soul wounded with these words of the Apostle cry out as that Prophet in another case My bowels my bowels I am pained at the very heart my liver is cut through as with a javelin to hear that there is no sacrifice for sin that sinneth wilfully after receiving the Knowledge of the Truth and I have sinned so of and so wilfully against that Knowledge and Truth as I have done What plaister What lenitive could be applied to allay the aking smart and torture of so sad a cut As our Saviour of the smarting and cutting days of affliction before the ruine of Jerusalem Except those days should be shortned no flesh should be saved So if there were no allay to the foreness of such a stroke and case what flesh could but perish But there is some allay and that is this That the Apostle speaks not of that common willing or wilful sinning to which who is not incident at one time or other in one degree or other But of a willing wilful total apostatizing and revolting from the Truth and Gospel once professed and received If you observe in the Epistles of the Apostles and in the story of the New Testament you will find that the very topping up of the wickedness of the Jewish Nation and of their perdition was this that as the unbelieving part of the Nation continued enemies to Christ and his Gospel so those that had believed did by infinite numbers and drovâ—s revolt and apostatize from what they had belived and became if possible worse enemies than the others and drew as many of the believing Gentiles as they could into the same Apostasie and condemnation with themselves I might evidence this by instances heaps upon heaps And hardly any one of the Apostolick Epistles but it is so plain in it that he that runs may read it I shall only give you three passages instead of scores that might be given First Weigh that 1 Joh. II. 18. Little children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist should come even now there are many Antichrists And who were they vers 17. They went out from us but were not of us Once Professors and following the Apostles now revolting and fallen from them once Disciples and now Apostates and Antichrists Secondly Who can pass that of the Apostle without serious observing 2 Tim. I. 15. This thou knowest that all they which are in Asia are turned away from me A sad Apostasie Ah poor Paul all turned away from thee Where now hast thou any friend Nay rather Ah poor souls ah unhappy souls that turned away from S. Paul and the blessed Gospel that he brought with him Thirdly And that for all How sadly does our Saviour foretel this in the Parable of the Devil cast out of the possessed but comes again with seven other spirits worse than himself and repossesses And observe the cadence at Matth. XII 45. Even so shall it be also with this wicked generation The Application is easie Of such Apostasie it is the Apostle speaks at vers 26. where he calls it wilful sinning after receiving the knowledge of the Truth And of such an Apostate he speaks in this verse when he saith He hath trod underfoot the Son of God and counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing Many think that the Apostle speaks here of the sin against the Holy Ghost I am sure he speaks of that sin unto death of which the Apostle John hath mention 1 Joh. V. 16. Not but that the sin against the Holy Ghost is a sin unto death but the sin unto death may be distinguisht from the sin against the Holy Ghost in this respect that the Scribes and Pharisees whom our Saviour layeth under the guilt of sinning against the Holy Ghost never received the knowledge of the Truth and acknowledgment of the Gospel But this wretch that sins this sin unto death had received that knowledge but was apostatized and revolted from it Their Apostasie or falling back from the Truth was into a two fold gulf Some fell to horrible Libertinism to abuse the liberty of the Gospel to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit fornication Of which you have intimation in several places of the Epistles and particularly in Revel II. 15. But the most general Apostatizing was from the true liberty of the Gospel to the slavery of Judaism again to seek justification by the works of the Law Against this you find the Apostle speaking copiously almost in all the Epistles and particularly S. Paul the pen-man of this Epistle For I make no doubt at all to ascribe it to him sets himself purposely to stay the Hebrews to whom he writes from staggering and falling in such Apostasie And you may observe how in the whole current of his discourse he bends himself to shew that those Mosaick ceremonies and services by which they thought and looked to be justified and saved were but shaddows that did but signifie greater things to come but shaddows that were but for a time and were to fade away The same subject that he is upon at this portion of Scripture he is handling in Chap. VI. 4 5 6. Where we may have an exposition of some words or passages in our Text. Receiving the knowledge of the Truth he calls there Being inlightned tasting of the heavenly gift of the good Word of God of the powers of the World to come Sinning wilfully here is falling away there with him and the fate and punishment of such a wretch here is no sacrifice for sin there in few words it is impossible to renew them again to repentance His wickedness in this verse is threefold and his judgment in the verses before threefold also I. He hath trodden under foot the Son of God For as the Apostasie generally was from the grace of the Gospel to seek to be justified by their own works then what need of Christ at all What value is he of to such wretches any more than the mire under their feet As S. Paul Act. XIV was first accounted a God then presently stoned So these wretches used Christ not much unlike First They professed him embraced him looked to be justified and saved by him presently they looked to be justified by the works of the Law and cast away Christ and scornfully trample upon him as a thing altogether useless II. He accounted the blood of the Covenant a thing unholy or a thing common as the Greek word most strictly signifies Not so holy not so valuable as the blood of Goats and Calves For that blood was shed for something but this wretch makes Christs blood shed for nothing And indeed what was his blood shed for if men can justifie and save themselves III. He hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace Or hath reproached despised the Spirit of grace and the grace of the Spirit he is now
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
they would argue from this reason God finished creating in Principio in the beginning therefore he creates not a Soul now I answer He finished creating genere specierum the kinds of all species but not Species generum the Species of all kinds When he brought Frogs and Lice on Egypt it was a creation of the things but the kind was created from the beginning The same must be said of Souls Let Christs Soul be the instance Was the Soul of the Messias created at the beginning If so what did it all the while till it was united to the Body Where was it What did it Was Christs Soul ever not acting for the good of his people As soon as ever it was put into the Body it began the work of Redemption viz. Christ there sanctifying our Nature by the Union of the humane nature to the Divine His Soul is now in Heaven in the work of mediation for his people It is hard to think that his Soul should be almost four thousand years in being and doing nothing for mens Salvation And we cannot call Christ Christ till he be compleated in our nature Soul and Body So that Christs Soul as ours was infused by immediate Creation in the Body which Body was prepared in the womb for the receiving of it So that though he was not like to us in regard of his begetting in the womb yet he was like in the Union of his Soul to his Body there For II. Christ had a Soul like ours in all things sin excepted It is a question Whether all Souls are equal There is some colour for it Psal. XXXIII 15. Hesashioneth their hearts alike And thence some argue the equality of Souls But I answer 1. That place may be taken thus That God alike is the Creator of all Souls rich and poor wise and foolish 2. It is undoubted all Souls are alike in regard of the ' Essentials of Souls they are all intellectual Spiritual immortal and in regard of their Essential faculties Whether they are alike as to the use and excellency of those faculties I shall not dispute Doubtless Christs Soul was the most excellent and yet like ours in all things that simply relate to the Essence of Souls or the humane nature I need not speak of the Essentials of a Soul he had the Infirmities of a humane Soul viz. those that in themselves are sinless I might so apply that Matth. VIII 17. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses He was subject to grief in Soul Matth. XXVI 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Soul is exceeding sorrowful To fear Heb. V. 7. In that he feared Joh. XI 33. He groned in spirit and was troubled These are natural infirmities or affections to humane Souls Adam might have had these in innocency if occasion offered The Apostle makes comfortable use of this likeness of Christs Soul to ours Heb. IV. 15. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin And so may a Christian in sadness fear hunger persecution he may refuge to a High Priest that himself was sensible what these things were Non ignara mali c. Oh! what access hath God given to sinners Not only to one in their own nature but that partook of the very infirmities of nature Except sin Name but one that he had not A poor man dying assaulted with Satan fearing pains How comfortably may he refuge to Christ who by experience knew all these III. He was like other Souls in the manner of his departure out of the body and going to another World And this I shall speak to in three Particulars I. Although the reason of Christs death was different from the reason of the death of all other men yet the nature and definition of Christs death agrees withal Though the conception and birth of Christ was different from all others yet the nature of his death was not different the manner of dying indeed differed That in Heb. IX penult reacht Christ as well as others it was appointed for him to dye though upon a far different reason from what other men dye It is worth observing that Christs death was published and pronounced of before the death of Adam was denounced against him In Gen. III. 15. the death of Christ is mentioned in vers 19. the Death of Adam Which speaks that Christ died not of the Plague of mortality of which Adam and all his posterity dye but that his death was upon another kind of account Though Christ the second Adam was incomparably above the first in his innocence in regard of the Perfection of his nature and Person yet in regard of the certainty of Death as I may say he was beneath him For the excellency of his nature so far beyond him that whereas Adam was without sin Christ was without possibility of sinning But for certainty of dying so far otherwise that whereas Adam might not have dyed Christ could not but dye Socinians say Adam was created mortal because he was in a possibility to dye and because he died whereas indeed actually he was created immortal not as yet having any seeds or principles of mortality in his nature sin not being yet come there Christ was so much more without principles of mortality in him as that whereas Adam was sinless He could not sin and yet as I may say he had the principles of dying in him but not so much in his body as mind not in any failing of nature but in the holy bent of his own Will Death was not to him the wages of sin as it is to others nor to end sinning as it is to others but from clear contrary principles viz. Love to Man and Obedience to God The Death of Adam and of all other Men proceeded from disobedience the Death of Christ only from obedience The Death of Adam because he loved not himself nor his seed the death of Christ because he loved his people more than himself So that as to the reason of the death of Christ Jordan was driven back the stream ran a clean contrary way to the reason why other men dye and yet as to the nature and definition of his dying it agreed with the nature of the dying of other men For II. Define death What is it It is the separation of Soul from Body Mortal thou must once find this definition to be most true The Soul that that inliveneth the Body that gives it freshness of colour warmth life and motion when the Soul is departed all these are gone and the Body dead Here is the difference twixt death and a swoon or trance God shewed in Enoch and Elias what he would have done if man had continued innocent viz. Have translated Body and Soul to glory But when sin came in death came in and Soul and Body must be parted the Body to corruption the Soul into the World of
reading of Isa. 7. 8. viz. that in the Hebrew it should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. six and five not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sixty and five though this last agree with all the versions too and consequently that it was to be six and five or eleven years not sixty and five to the time when Ephraim should be no people to the taking of Samaria and captivating the ten Tribes I say this assertion of his is to be rejected however otherwise that place is to be interpreted because it is inconsistent with Chronology as well as for other reasons For this Prophesie must be in the third year of Ahaz at the furthest because it was in the time of Pekah King of Israel when he invaded Jerusalem with Resin King of Syria Ahaz began to reign in the seventeenth year of Pekah's twenty years reign 2 Kings XVI 1. and therefore could be contemporary with him but three years at most But now from Ahaz's third year to the taking of Samaria which was the ninth of Hosea King of Israel was eighteen years not eleven as Grotius would have it Even to the beginning of the siege it was fifteen years For Hosea began to reign in the twelfth of Ahaz 2 Kings XVII 1. there is nine years and Samaria was taken in the ninth of Hosea there is nine more The reason of Grotius's mistake we read in the 2 Kings XV. 30 viz. that Hosea siew Pekah and reigned in his stead This he takes to have been immediately after Pekah's death which is not necessary And it appears from the other computation that there was an Interregnum in the Throne of Israel seven years or at least that Hosea was not accounted to reign as our Author hath observed The reason of which he probably conjectures to have been that Shalmanezer the Assyrian King had conquered him and his Kingdom and kept them for about seven years afterwards he permitted him to govern as his Tributary or Hosea by force rescued himself from that subjection Our Author in pag. 104. makes the same observation serviceable for the methodizing and explaining Isa. 1. 9. and XIV 28. Once more the most probable reading of that known place Exod. XII in the Samaritan Text and Alexandrine Copy of the Septuagint is determined by Chronology A number of other places there are both in the Prophesies and Epistles especially beholding to the knowledge of the time both of their writing and matter for their meaning As on the other hand oftimes the matter is a Character of the time The proof of the completion of Prophesies by Chronology is a matter of great importance to assure us that there hath been such a thing as Revelation in the World by one of the greatest Miracles the prediction of contingent futurities As that of the habitation and servitude of Abraham and his posterity in Canaan and Aegypt four hundred years a round and even number for an uneven and more particular a thing so usual in the Scriptures that the Rabbins have made a rule of it in the interpretation of them And the number four hundred and thirty recorded Exod. XII is an argument of no design in the Writer or Compiler of the Pentateuch to make the Prophesie and its Completion exactly agree but that he set down as he receiv'd by writing tradition or Inspiration Remarkable also are indeed the Prophesies of the pollution of Jeroboam's Altar about three hundred and fifty years after the prediction by Josiah offering up the Priests of Baal and burning mens bones upon it 1 King XIII 2 23. That of Daniel's seventy weeks or four hundred and ninety years from the going out of the Decree to the coming of the Messiah That of the 70 years Babylonian Captivity The express naming of King Cyrus who should shew favour to the Jews in giving them liberty to rebuild their Temple and City That of the Destruction of the Temple before the end of one generation predicted by our Saviour The time of prediction and completion of these things that the one is before the other and how long is to be taught and proved by Chronology But these things are here only to be set down as known examples it requires leisure and some diligence to examine them Finally Chronology sixes things in our memories and makes it more easie and pleasant to apprehend and remember them The next is Chorography or the knowledge of places This also is extremely helpful to our understanding imagination and memory Generally we cannot well conceive nor remember any intellectual objects such as are the qualities tempers and dispositions of mens minds without some sensible circumstances nor sensible objects such as bodily actions and speech without the circumstance of place And we may observe in our reading when we desire to understand and retain what we read if we find not such circumstances related we fancy them and make them to our selves This also prevents errors in the interpretation of the Scriptures and is often necessary to it especially in the Prophets where frequently the names of notable places as Cities Mountains or Rivers are set to denote whole Countries their Inhabitants and Qualities as Isa. II. and every where What is so common needs no others instance Concerning Copies and Translations they are of great use 1 To evidence and confirm the Integrity of any Copy of the Original Text though there be great difference between these and all are not of the like weight and Authority Generally speaking just to mention my conjecture I reckon the Samaritan Text and Version in the first place after the Hebrew next the Paraphrase of Onkelos on the Pentateuch then the Syriack Version in the English Polyglots then the Vulgar Latin then the present Septuagint then the Arabick Version then the Aethiopick then the other Chaldee and Persian paraphrases Thus for Example that the old original reading of the place before cited Isa. 7. 8. was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius affirms but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in all our Hebrew Copies is very probably argued from the agreement of all our Translations In Deut. X. 6. The Hebrew and Samaritan Texts are contrary one to the other besides there is a whole sentence in the Hebrew which is not in the Samaritan According to the Hebrew it is And the children of Israel took their journy from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Moserah there Aaron died and there he was buried c. But in the Samaritan it is and the children of Israel went from Moserah and pitched their tent among the sons of Jaakan And then all the encampments of the children of Israel being interposed and reckoned up as Numb XXXIII it follows then died Aaron c. But all the other Versions exactly agreeing with the Hebrew Copy are a very good argument for its reading and that it may be reconciled with the History Numb XXXIII 31 38. in some such manner as is done by our Author pag. 38.
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
came For if Baasha began to reign in the third year of Asa and reigned but four and twenty years as 1 King 15. 33. asserteth then was Baasha dead nine full years before the six and thirtieth year of Asa came and therefore he could not then possibly come up against Judah for he was rotten in his grave But it is thus to be understood that in the six and thirtieth year of Asaes Kingdom that is of the Kingdom of Judah since the revolt of the ten tribes Baasha came up against that Kingdom and warred against it the Kingdom that God would not have to be fought against Now as Jeroboam had made the division which had now continued six and thirty years viz. 17 of Rehoboam 3 of Abijah and 16 of Asa so doth Baasha go about now to confirm that division for he setteth on to build and Garrison Ramah that he might stop all entercourse betwixt Israel and Judah and therefore the Holy Ghost reckoneth the time of this act of Baasha by a computation from the first division And he calls it the Kingdom of Asa the rather also because he had lately confirmed and established it to himself as far as it was possible for him to do namely by a Reformation and a Covenant But now doth Asa exceeding ill for he relieth upon an arm of flesh the King of Syria he hireth him with dedicate things which himself had dedicated but a year or two before he bringeth a forraign enemy in to the Land of Israel and imprisoned the Prophet that reproved him for it Here is the first Captivity of any Israelites and Dan the place of the golden Calf falleth under the sword Because Asa leaned upon the King of Syria therefore was the King of Syria escaped out of his hand 2 Chron. 16. 7. for the Syrian was in league with Baasha and had Asa let him alone he had sided with Baasha and Asa if he had relied on God had conquered Israel and the Syrian both but now he had lost that victory over Syria by seeking thereunto for help 2 CHRON. XVI ver 1. to ver 7. World 3065 Asa. 16 Baasha 14 Division 35 BENHADAD son of Tabrimmon Asa. 17 Baasha 15 Division 36 now King of Syria Baasha cometh up against Judah and beginneth to build and to fortifie Ramah which was a frontier upon the very skirt of Ephraim towards Benjamin and Judah 2 CHRON. XVI vers 7. to vers 11. Asa 18 Baasha 16 Division 37 ASA upon this reliance upon Asa 19 Baasha 17 Division 38 Syria declineth excee-dingly Asa 20 Baasha 18 Division 39 from his former goodness Asa 21 Baasha 19 Division 40 for he grows not only harsh to Asa 22 Baasha 20 Division 41 the Prophet Hanani that reproved Asa 23 Baasha 21 Division 42 him but he also began to Asa 24 Baasha 22 Division 43 use harshness and to tyrannize Asa 25 Baasha 23 Division 44 over his Subjects and for this his alteration he is in continual Baasha 24 wars and troubles World 3074 Asa 26 Elah 1 Division 45 Asa seeth an end of his great Enemy World 3075 Asa 27 Elah 2 Omri 1 Division 46 Baasha and the ruine of that family as he had seen the ruine of the family of Jeroboam 1 KINGS XVI vers 1. to vers 23. Asa 18 Baasha 16 Division 37 AS Hanani the Seer reproved Asa 19 Baasha 17 Division 38 Asa for his reliance Asa 20 Baasha 18 Division 39 upon Syria so Jehu the son of Asa 21 Baasha 19 Division 40 Hanani reproveth Baasha for his Asa 22 Baasha 20 Division 41 Idolatry and threatneth destruction Asa 23 Baasha 21 Division 42 to him and to his family Asa 24 Baasha 22 Division 43 and the same fate is denounced Asa 25 Baasha 23 Division 44 to his house that had befallen the Baasha 24 house of Jeroboam World 3074 Asa 26 Elah 1 Division 45 ELAH reigneth in the of Asa 1 King 16. 8. World 3075 Asa 27 Elah 2 Omri 1 Division 46 OMRI reigneth having slaign Zimri who had slain Elah This is a year of great turbulency in the State of Israel Elah a drunkard of Ephraim is slain by Zimri and Baasha's house is utterly destroyed with him Zimri reigneth at Tirzah but Omri is made King in the Camp at Gibbethon In that very place had Baasha gotten the Kingdom by the slaughter of Nadah five and twenty years ago 1 King 15. 27. a siege being there then as it is now Omri besiegeth Zimri in Tirzah and Zimri destroyeth himself and the Kings Pallace together Then there is another competition and war betwixt Omri and Tibni which continueth till the thirty first year of Asa 1 King 16. 23. And then Tibni is overthrown and Omri becometh sole and intire King Howbeit in the account that the Scripture giveth of Omri's raign saying That he raigned twelve years The beginning of these years is to be taken from the death of Zimri which was in the seven and twentieth of Asa 1 King 16. 15. Therefore whereas it is said in vers 23. That in the one and thirtieth year of Asa King of Judah began Omri to raign over Israel twelve years it is to be understood that his whole raign from the death of Zimri was twelve years which expired in the eight and thirtieth of Asa ver 29. but that the first year of his sole and single Government was Asa's thirty first 2 CHRON. XVI ver 11 12 13 14. World 3076 Asa 28 Omri 2 Division 47 ASA seeth now a third change Asa 29 Omri 3 Division 48 in the Kingdom of Israel Asa 30 Omri 4 Division 49 first the family of Jeroboam then Asa 31 Omri 5 Division 50 of Baasha now of Omri Thus Asa 32 Omri 6 Division 51 speedily doth Idolatry root Families Asa 33 Omri 7 Division 52 out and thus little stability Asa 34 Omri 8 Division 53 is there with those that forsake Asa 35 Omri 9 Division 54 God Athaliah a spawn of Asa 36 Omri 10 Division 55 this last family setteth hard in Asa 37 Omri 11 Division 56 time to bring in the like ruine and confusion into the royal stock Omri 12 of Judah that is now in Israel when she goeth about to destroy the Kings Seed Ahab 1 ASA falleth diseased of Ahab 2 the Gout and seeketh too much to Asa 38 the Physitians 2 Chron. 16. 12. World 3086 Asa 39 Division 57 His name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a Physitian World 3087 Ahab 3 Division 58 in the Chaldee Tongue Asa 40 Division 59 Asa still diseased in his feet 1 KING XXII Vers. 41 42 43. World 3089 Asa 41 Ahab 1 Ahab 4 Division 60 JEHOSHAPHAT reigneth upon his fathers death in the fourth year of Ahab 2 Ahab 5 Division 61 Ahab 2 King 22. 41 42 c. and walketh uprightly before the Lord and prospereth 1 KINGS XVI vers 23. to the end World 3076 Asa 28 Omri 2 Division 47 FROM this second of Omri Asa 29 Omri 3 Division 48 42 years are reckoned to
the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant for this thing for so should the words be rendred as craving pardon for Idolatry past and not begging leave to be Idolatrous for the time to come Gehazies covetousness brings upon him Naamans Leprosie the Text hath divinely omitted a letter in one word that it might the more brand him with a blot for this his villany I will run after Naaman saith he and will take of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a blot instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 somewhat ver 20. The third year Elisha maketh Iron to swim preventeth the Syrians ambushments and striketh those with blindness that were sent to catch him and bringeth them into the middest of Samaria and there feasteth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chap. 6. 23. So the bands of Syria came no more as yet into the land of Israel for so the very next verse teacheth that it should be translated for it relateth that after this Benhadad gathered all his Host and besieged Samaria So is the like passage to be rendred 2 King 24. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the King of Aegypt came no more as yet or at that time out of his Land for in Jer. 37. 5. The King of Aegypt is a foot with his Army and abroad again The fourth year Jehoshaphat dieth Edom rebelleth and shaketh off Judahs yoke which David had laid upon them Till Jorams time there was no King in Edom of absolute power and rule but a Deputy under the Kings of Judah was King 1 King 22. 47. but now Edom revolteth from under the hand of Judah and made a King over themselves 2 King 8. 20. Then Libnah revolteth also Joram goeth against them and by night smiteth their Squadrons which were pitched about him to give him battel the next morning The fifth year Samaria is besieged by Benhadad and the famine becomes so great in the City that women eat their own Children as Deut. 28. 53. 56. and men women and children eat Doves dung All the fault is laid upon Elisha and he must be beheaded but he foretelleth a suddain and wonderful delivery and a strange and miraculous plenty which accordingly came to pass An unbelieving Prince is trod to death The sixth year Philistims and Arabians oppress Joram King of Judah and captive his wives and children leaving him only one son behind Here he is met with for the murder of his own Brethren The seventh year Joram is fallen into the sad disease of his bowels 2 Chron. 21. 19. And it came to pass after the end of two years his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness for he shewed no bowels to his brethren This year the famine endeth at Harvest and at that Harvest the Shunamites child dieth and is recovered by Elisha his death and reviving is related instantly after the Story of his birth though when he died he was able to follow the reapers because his Story might be related together and not long after his Mother goeth to the King to beg and petition to be setled in her estate again and there she finds leprous Gehazi with him The first verse of Chapter 8. should chronically be translated as of the time past Now Elisha had spoken to the woman c. ver 2. And the woman had risen and done after the saying of the man of God c. This year Elisha is at Damaseus Benhadad sick Hazael stifles him with a wet cloth and reigns in his stead 2 CHRON. XXII to ver 10. 2 KING VIII 25. to the end World 3117 Iehoram 8 Iehoram 12 Division 88 AHAZIAH the son of Joram reigneth and dieth this year by the sword of Jehu 2 King 8. 26. In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab King of Israel did Ahaziah the son of Jehoram King of Judah begin to reign Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign and he reigned one year in Jerusalem and his mothers name was Athaliah the daughter of Omri King of Israel And 2 King 9. 29. In the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab began Ahaziah to raign over Judah 2 Chron. 22. 2. Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign c. Here the Reader seeth two plain and visible differences the one about the age of Ahaziah and the other about the time when he began to reign The same Book of Kings saith he began to raign in the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab and he began to raign in the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab Now the reconciling of this difference is easie when it is observed that Joram the son of Ahab reigned one whole year in the life time of his father and eleven years afterward And so one Text calleth his last year his twelfth that is of his whole raign and another Text calleth it his eleventh that is of his sole reign after his fathers death But the other difference is both the more visible and the more difficult for the Book of Kings saith Ahaziah was but two and twenty years old when he began to raign and the Book of Chronicles saith he was two and forty and so this latter reckoning maketh him two years older then his father for his father began to raign when he was two and thirty years old and and reigned eight years and so died being forty 2 King 8. 17. Now for the reconciling of this scruple the Original helpeth us which in our translation is not visible The Original meaneth thus Ahaziah was the son of the two and forty years namely of the house of Omri of whose seed he was by the mothers side and he walked in the ways of that house and came to ruine at the same time with it This the Text directed us to look after when it calleth his mother the daughter of Omri which was indeed the daughter of Ahab Now these forty two years are easily reckoned by any that will count back in the Chronicle to the second of Omri Such another reckoning there is about Jechoniah or Jehojachin 2 King 24. 8. Jehojachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign But 2 Chron. 36. 9. Jehojachin was the son of the eight years That is his beginning of reign fell in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar and of Judahs first captivity as shall be shewed there World 3117 Iehoram 8 Iehoram 12 Division 88 JORAM King of Israel fighteth at Ramoth Gilead is wounded comes to be healed of his wounds at Jezreel and is there slain by Jehu Ahaziah had been with Joram at Ramoth and is slain with Joram at Jezreel 2 CHRON. XXII vers 10 11 12. and 2 KING XI ver 1 2 3. World 3118 Athaliah 1 Iehu 1 Division 89 ATHALIAH destroyeth Athaliah 2 Iehu 2 Division 90 the rest of the Seed Royal Athaliah 3 Iehu 3 Division 91 that were left besides the forty Athaliah 4 Iehu 4 Division 92 two slain by Jehu she her Athaliah 5
Jehoahaz 6 Division 122 he forgetteth God and forsaketh Ioash 29 Jehoahaz 7 Division 123 his Temple and he and Ioash 30 Jehoahaz 8 Division 124 Judah betake themselves to Ioash 31 Jehoahaz 9 Division 125 open Idolatry for which wrath Ioash 32 Jehoahaz 10 Division 126 cometh upon them And to Ioash 33 Jehoahaz 11 Division 127 make their measure full they slay Zachariah a Priest and Prophet between the Temple and the Altar Ioash 34 Jehoahaz 12 Division 128 Zachariah stoned in the Temple Ioash 35 Ioash 36 Ioash 37 Jehoahaz 13 Jehoahaz 14 Jehoahaz 15 Division 129 Division 130 Division 131 Hazael invadeth Judah World 3163 Ioash 38 Amaziah 1 Jehoahaz 16 Iehoash 1 Division 132 Amaziah reigneth twenty Ioash 39 Amaziah 2 Jehoahaz 17 Iehoash 2 Division 133 nine years 2 King 14. 1 2. World 3163 Ioash 40 Amaziah 3 Iehoash 3 Iehoash 4 Division 134 Joash sâ—ain by his servants Here it is apparent that Amaziah reigned three years before his fathers death and the reason was because of his fathers sore diseasedness which made him unable to manage the Kingdom 2 Chron. 24. 25. Jehoash also reigned three years before his fathers death for he grew valiant and victorious against the Syrians and thereupon he is made Viceroy in his fathers life time 2 KING XIII all World 3146 Ioash 23 Jehoahaz 1 Division 117 JEHOAHAZ the son of Ioash 24 Jehoahaz 2 Division 118 Jehu reigned 17 years and Ioash 25 Jehoahaz 3 Division 119 doth wickedly following Jeroboams Ioash 26 Jehoahaz 4 Division 120 Calves Hazael oppresseth Ioash 27 Jehoahaz 5 Division 121 Israel and continueth that Ioash 28 Jehoahaz 6 Division 122 misery that he had begun in the Ioash 29 Jehoahaz 7 Division 123 time of Jehu He had invaded Ioash 30 Jehoahaz 8 Division 124 and destroyed Israel beyond Ioash 31 Jehoahaz 9 Division 125 Jordan And threshed Gilead with Ioash 32 Jehoahaz 10 Division 126 threshing instruments of iron as Ioash 33 Jehoahaz 11 Division 127 Amos 1. 3. and now he cometh on this side Jordan and falleth upon Israel there and taketh Gath of the Philistims and setteth Ioash 34 Jehoahaz 12 Division 128 himself against Jerusalem Ioash 35 Jehoahaz 13 Division 129 He is hired by King Joash with the Ioash 36 Jehoahaz 14 Division 130 dedicate things of the Temple Ioash 37 Jehoahaz 15 Division 131 to depart but yet he doth Joash no small mischief World 3163 Ioash 38 Amaziah 1 Jehoahaz 16 Iehoash 1 Division 132 Jehoash reigneth 16 years Ioash 39 Amaziah 2 Jehoahaz 17 Iehoash 2 Division 133 2 King 13. 10. and proveth a World 3163 Ioash 40 Amaziah 3 Iehoash 3 Division 134 deliverer and Saviour against Iehoash 4 Syria for this is he that is spoken of in 2 King 13. 5. 2 KING XIV from ver 3. to ver 19. 2 CHRON. XXV to ver 27. Amaziah 4 Iehoash 5 Division 135 AMAZIAH slayeth the Amaziah 5 Iehoash 6 Division 136 murderers of his father Amaziah 6 Iehoash 7 Division 137 hireth 100000 of Israel against Amaziah 7 Iehoash 8 Division 138 Edom they dismissed plunder Amaziah 8 Iehoash 9 Division 139 Judah and slay 3000 men Amaziah 9 Iehoash 10 Division 140 2 Chron. 25. 13. Amaziah conquereth Amaziah 10 Iehoash 11 Division 141 Edom but is overcome Amaziah 11 Iehoash 12 Division 142 by their Idols He is miserably Amaziah 12 Iehoash 13 Division 143 beaten by Jehoash King of Israel Amaziah 13 Iehoash 14 Division 144 and Jerusalem plundered and a Amaziah 14 Iehoash 15 Division 145 great deal of the wall of it Amaziah 15 Iehoash 16 Division 146 broken down namely on that side of the City that looked towards Samaria World 3176 Amaziah 16 Ierob 1 Ierob 2 Division 147 AMAZIAH liveth fifteen Amaziah 17 Ierob 3 Division 148 years current after Jehoash Amaziah 18 Ierob 4 Division 149 his death 2 Chron. 25. 25. Amaziah 19 Ierob 5 Division 150 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amaziah 20 Ierob 6 Division 151 2 Chron. 25. 27. And from the Amaziah 21 Ierob 7 Division 152 time that he departed from the Amaziah 22 Ierob 8 Division 153 Lord the hearts of his Subjects Amaziah 23 Ierob 9 Division 154 departed from him and they Amaziah 24 Ierob 10 Division 155 began to conspire against him Amaziah 25 Ierob 11 Division 156 and the conspiracy grew so Amaziah 26 Ierob 12 Division 157 strong that they forced him at last to flee from Jerusalem to Lachish for his safety this was but a little before his death for it seemeth Amaziah 4 Iehoash 5 Division 135 IN the time of Jehoash his Amaziah 5 Iehoash 6 Division 136 reign Elisha dieth and his Amaziah 6 Iehoash 7 Division 137 dead bones raise a dead man Amaziah 7 Iehoash 8 Division 138 Hazael the King of Syria dieth Amaziah 8 Iehoash 9 Division 139 also in the time of Jehoash Amaziah 9 Iehoash 10 Division 140 and Benhadad his Son reigneth Amaziah 10 Iehoash 11 Division 141 in his stead Him Jehoash beateth Amaziah 11 Iehoash 12 Division 142 three times and restoreth Amaziah 12 Iehoash 13 Division 143 Cities to Israel which he had Amaziah 13 Iehoash 14 Division 144 taken from them in the time of Amaziah 14 Iehoash 15 Division 145 Jehoachaz when he had sorely Amaziah 15 Iehoash 16 Division 146 conquered both without and within Jordan 2 KING XIV ver 23 24 25 26 27. World 3176 Amaziah 16 Ierob 1 Ierob 2 Division 147 JEROBOAM reigneth Amaziah 17 Ierob 3 Division 148 41 years and walketh Amaziah 18 Ierob 4 Division 149 in the Idolatry of Jeroboam Amaziah 19 Ierob 5 Division 150 in the first yet is he victorious Amaziah 20 Ierob 6 Division 151 exceedingly and prosecutes Amaziah 21 Ierob 7 Division 152 his father Joash his Amaziah 22 Ierob 8 Division 153 wars and victories with very Amaziah 23 Ierob 9 Division 154 good success For the Lord Amaziah 24 Ierob 10 Division 155 pittied Israel and would not Amaziah 25 Ierob 11 Division 156 yet destroy them Jeroboam Amaziah 26 Ierob 12 Division 157 restoreth all the land of the two Tribes and half Tribe beyond Jordan which Hazael had taken in the time of 2 KING XIV ver 19 20. 2 Chron. 25. 27 28. Amaziah 27 Ierob 13 Division 158 by the Text that they sent Amaziah 28 Ierob 14 Division 159 presently after him thither to â—lay World 3189 Amaziah 29 Ierob 15 Division 160 him Amaziah is slain at Lachish Amaziah 1 Ierob 16 Division 161 At his death his son and heir Amaziah 2 Ierob 17 Division 162 apparent Uzziah or Azariah is Amaziah 3 Ierob 18 Division 163 but four years old for he is Amaziah 4 Ierob 19 Division 164 but sixteen in Jeroboams twenty Amaziah 5 Ierob 20 Division 165 seventh 2 King 15. 1 2. Amaziah 6 Amaziah 7 Ierob 21 Division 166 therefore the throne is empty Amaziah 8 Ierob 22 Division 167 eleven years and the rule is Amaziah 9 Ierob 23 Division 168 managed by some as
8 invaded by Pull King of Assyria Division 217 Menahem 9 now is Syria fading and Assyria Division 218 rising but he hireth Pull with 1000 Talents of silver to be on his side and to strengthen him in his Kingdom This sum he raiseth again by Tak of 60000 rich men at fifty shekels a man World 3248 Uzz. 48 Menahem 10 Menahem dieth Ephraim by Division 219 him is brought in a reliance and resting upon Assyria which they continue into their own undoing Hosea taxeth them for this again and again Hos. 5. 13. 7. 11. 8. 9. and foretelleth that therefore the Assyrian shall be their King Hos. 11. 5. and that they shall eat unclean things in the Land of Assyria Hos. 9. 3. UZZIAHS victories and Division 220 World 3249 Uzz. 49 magnificence in time Pekahiah 1 Division 221 World 3250 Uzz. 50 make him proud Pekahiah 2 Division 222 Uzz. 51 Pekah 1 Division 223 2 KINGS XV. Vers. 23 24 25 26 27. THIS year Israels Throne Division 220 World 3249 Uzz. 49 Pekahiah 1 is empty Pekahiah reigneth Division 221 World 3250 Uzz. 50 Pekahiah 2 two years and is slain by Division 222 Pekah the son of Remaliah Uzz. 51 Pekah 1 Pekah the Son of Remaliah Division 223 reigneth twenty years 2 CHRON. XXVI from vers 16. to the end of the Chapter And 2 KING XV. vers 5 6 7. World 3252 Uzz. 52 UZZIAH is this year struck with Leprosie and this year dieth The Holy Ghost hath given a close intimation that Uzziah's Leprosie befell him in the last year of his reign and not before 2 King 15. 50. where it is said that Hosea slew Pekah in the twentieth year of Jotham upon which arise these two scruples 1. How Jothams twentieth year can be spoken of when he reigned but sixteen 2 King 15. 33. this shall be looked after when we come thither And 2. how can Pekahs twentieth year be called the twentieth of Jotham when Pekah began to raign a year before him and so Pekahs twentieth is but Jothams nineteenth Answ. Why here is the hint that the Holy Ghost giveth of the time of Uzziahs being struck Leprous namely in the last year of his raign for here by this very expression is shewed that Jotham reigned in the last year of his fathers life and the Text plainly expresseth the occasion because the Lord smote the King with Leprosie so that he was a Leper unto the day of his death and Jotham the Kings son was over the House judging the people of the Land ESAY VI. IN the year that King Uzziah died Esay seeth the glory of Christ in the Temple John 12. 41. filling the Temple with smoak in sign of the burning of it and Angels called Seraphim that is Burning ones because of the firing of the Temple which was there foretold do proclaim the Trinity to be Holy Holy Holy yet had the Jews so unholily behaved themselves toward it that they are deemed to blindness and obduration till they be utterly destroyed 2 CHRON. XXVII all 2 KING XV. from ver 32. to the end World 3253 Iotham 1 Pekah 2 Division 224 JOTHAM reigneth and Iotham 2 Pekah 3 Division 225 doth uprightly and prospereth Iotham 3 Pekah 4 Division 226 buildeth the Gate between Iotham 4 Pekah 5 Division 227 the Kings house and the Iotham 5 Pekah 6 Division 228 Temple and buildeth many Iotham 6 Pekah 7 Division 229 forts in the Country subdueth Iotham 7 Pekah 8 Division 230 Ammon as his father had done Iotham 8 Pekah 9 Division 231 bringeth them under a great Iotham 9 Pekah 10 Division 232 Tribute and executeth some Iotham 10 Pekah 11 Division 233 more of Amos his Prophesie Iotham 11 Pekah 12 Division 234 against them He was Son to Iotham 12 Pekah 13 Division 235 JERUSASH the daughter Iotham 13 Pekah 14 Division 236 of Zadok the High Priest This Iotham 14 Pekah 15 Division 237 it may be made Uzziah the Iotham 15 Pekah 16 Division 238 more forward to assail the Priests Office because he had married the High Priests daughter but Jotham though so much of the Priests Seed yet did not attempt the like 2 KING XV. vers 28. 29. 1 CHRON. V. all World 3253 Iotham 1 Pekah 2 Division 224 PEKAH seemeth to have Iotham 2 Pekah 3 Division 225 been a Gileadite and Pekahiah Iotham 3 Pekah 4 Division 226 a Gadite Pekah with fifty Iotham 4 Pekah 5 Division 227 Gileadites slayeth him in the Iotham 5 Pekah 6 Division 228 Palace at Samaria and reigneth Iotham 6 Pekah 7 Division 229 wickedly after him He proveth Iotham 7 Pekah 8 Division 230 a very sore scourge to Judah Iotham 8 Pekah 9 Division 231 before he dieth In these Iotham 9 Pekah 10 Division 232 times even in the days of Jotham Iotham 10 Pekah 11 Division 233 there was an account taken Iotham 11 Pekah 12 Division 234 of the families of Reuben Iotham 12 Pekah 13 Division 235 Gad and half Manasseh the Iotham 13 Pekah 14 Division 236 inhabitants beyond Jordan Iotham 14 Pekah 15 Division 237 1 Chron. 5. 17. and so had Iotham 15 Pekah 16 Division 238 there been in the days of Jeroboam the second then at their restoring by Jeroboam out of the hands of Hamath and Syria and now at their arming against the Assyrian under whose hand they fall in the time of Pekah and are never again restored to Israel MICAH I. II. IN the reign of Jotham beginneth Micah to Prophesie and mourneth sadly for the ten Tribes Captivity which now drew near and for the misery of Jerusalem which was not far off He was a Prophet in the days of Jotham Ahaz and Hezechiah and it is more proper to conceive that the subject and matter of his whole Book was the tenor of his prophesying in every one of their times then it is easie to tell what Chapters of his Book were delivered in every one of those Kings time The conclusion of the third Chapter is allotted to the times of Hezekiah Jer. 26. 18. and there may the whole Chapter be laid and all the rest that follow it and there shall we take them in Micah was a Prophet of Mareshah in the Tribe of Judah bordering upon the Philistims Josh. 15. 44. 2 Chron. 14. 19. He beginneth his Prophesie with the very same words that Michaiah had concluded his to Ahab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 King 22. 28. in a strange Syntax and construction Hearken ye people all of them his Prophesie is in some places very obscure and very terrible and in some very plain and comfortable He speaketh glorious things of Christ and his Kingdom and nameth the Town where he should be born and useth the very words of Esay who was now alive to express the conflux to the Kingdom of Christ under the Gospel and his power in it and the peace that should be under it 2 KING XVI ver 1 2 3 4. 2 CHRON. XXVIII ver 1 2 3 4. World 3268 Iotham 16 Ahaz 1 Pekah
Commanders stifled Division 332 Manasseh 51 and reigned in his stead 2 King 8. 15. and doth Israel much mischief Division 333 Manasseh 52 2 Kings 10. 32. Benhadad his son succeeded him 2 King 13. 24. and Division 334 Manasseh 53 after him reigned Rezin the last King of Syria captived by the Assyrian Division 335 Manasseh 54 and Damaseus with him and so is there an end of the Syrian power World 3365 Division 336 Manasseh 55 Manasseh dieth Ammon reigneth two years and is at last slain by his own servants but his death avenged on those servants by the people of the Land Whilest the Kingdom of Syria was in its power the Assyrian Kingdom World 3366 Division 337 Ammon 1 was obscure and therefore very improperly made by some the first of the World 3367 Division 338 Ammon 2 four Monarchies No King of it mentioned in Scripture till Pull in the time of Menahem King of Israel Famous in Heathen Stories is Sardanapalus the last King of that Kingdom whilest it was obscure and with whom it fell Before his time it was that Jonah went to Niniveh and prophesied against it some thirty or forty years before its fall In new hands that City and Kingdom began to be great and victorious The first of the Kings of the new race was Pull so potent that he pull'd a thousand Talents by way of tribute from the King of Israel 2 King 15. 19. After him came Tiglath-Pileser into the Assyrian Throne and conquered Syria and added it to Assyria 2 Kings 16. 9 10. Next after him reigned Shalmanezer who captivated the ten Tribes 2 King 17. 3 c. and after him Sennacherib the blasphemous called also Sargon as it is probable Esay 20. 1. Esar-haddon succeeded Sennacherib and he is the last Assyrian King mentioned if Asnapper were not one on that Throne different from him Then did Babylon swallow up Niniveh and Nebuchad-nezzar subdued it and brought it under the subjection of Babylon whereas Babel had been lately under the subjection of it 2 KING XXII vers 1. and 2 CHRON. XXXIV vers 1. to vers 8. World 3368 Division 339 Iosiah 1 JOSIAH reigned 31 years being but eight years old when he Division 340 Iosiah 2 began to reign The youngest King that ever sate upon the Throne Division 341 Iosiah 3 of Judah as young again as Uzziah 2 King 15. 2. and yet was Uzziah Division 342 Iosiah 4 long off the Throne for his minority God hath much to do by Josiah Division 343 Iosiah 5 and therefore he sets him on the Throne and shews his piety Division 344 Iosiah 6 to the world betime The Lord had spoken of him about 340 years ago 1 King 13. 2. World 3374 Division 345 Iosiah 7 JEHOIAKIM born this year Compare 2 Chron. 34. 1. and 36. 5. World 3375 Division 346 Iosiah 8 JOSIAH setteth himself to seek God in the eighth year of his reign World 3376 Division 347 Iosiah 9 JEHOAHAZ born see 2 Chron. 36. 2. He is called Johanan and Division 348 Iosiah 10 Shallum 1 Chron. 3. 15. Jer. 22. 11. and said to be the first born of Josiah Division 349 Iosiah 11 because he reigneth first and the fourth Son because he was last born World 3379 Division 350 Iosiah 12 Josiah purgeth Judah and Jerusalem from Idols c. JEREMY World 3380 Division 351 Iosiah 13 JEREMY beginneth to Prophesie in the thirteenth of Josiah and by Prophesying to help forward the reformation begun which went on exceeding slowly not through any negligence of Josiah himself whose heart was very upright with the Lord but through the slackness and remisness of the Princes and people and through the rootedness of Idolatry in them And hence it is that Jeremy prophesieth so terrible things and so certain destruction in the very time of reformation Josiah in the twelfth year of his reign had begun to destroy Idolatry and yet how much filth of it was remaining in his eighteenth year is almost incredible 2 King 23. Jeremy a young Priest and Prophet for the young King was Moses like a Prophet to Israel forty years viz. 18 of Josiah 11 of Jehoiakim and 11 of Zedekiah and as Moses was so long with the people a Teacher in the Wilderness till they entred into their own Land so was Jeremy so long in their own Land a Teacher before they went into the wilderness of the Heathen The Holy Ghost setteth a special mark upon these forty years of his Prophesying Ezek. 4. 6. where when the Lord summeth up the years that were betwixt the falling away of the ten Tribes and the burning of the Temple three hundred and ninety in all and counteth them by the Prophets lying so many days upon his left side he bids him to lye forty days upon his right side and bear the iniquity of the House of Judah forty days a day for a year Not to signifie that it was forty years above three hundred and ninety betwixt the revolting of the ten Tribes and the captivity of Judah for it was but three hundred and ninety exactly in all but because he would set and mark out Judahs singular iniquity by a singular mark for that they had forty years so pregnant instructions and admonitions by so eminent a Prophet yet were impenitent to their own destruction The Prophesies of Jeremy are either utterly undated and so not easily if at all to be referred to their proper time or those that are dated are almost generally dislocated and not easie to give the reason of their dislocation The first Chapter at vers 2. and the third Chapter at vers 6. do only bear the date of Josiahs reign and no more mention of any other Prophesie delivered in his time expresly made and yet there is no doubt that very much of the beginning of his Prophesie was in his time JEREMY I. THIS Chapter dateth it self by the thirteenth year of Josiah and that was the time and this was the subject of the Prophets first Ministery for here is laid down the general head upon which his whole Prophesie doth chiefly run A rod and evil to come upon Jerusalem from the North. God sheweth him a plain dried withered rod to signifie the rod and stroke that God was about to bring upon the people and when he asked Jeremy what he saw he not only saith he saw a rod but he can readily name the wood of which it was made though it was withered and dry and no ready token on it to discern of what wood it was I see saith he Makal shaked a rod of Almond thou hast well seen saith God for Ani shokedh I hasten my word to perform it The Lord descanteth upon the word Shakedh in the Prophets answer And since Jeremy had spoken so fully as to tell that he not only saw a rod but a rod of Shakedh or of Almond the Lord answers as fully that he is not only about to bring a rod upon the Land but also Shakedh he doth hasten to
The meaning of the whole let us take up in parts There are two main things here intended First To shew the ruine of the Kingdom of Satan and secondly The nature of the Kingdom of Christ. The Scripture speaks much of Christs Kingdom and his conquering Satan and his Saints reigning with him that common place is briefly handled here That Kingdom was to be especially among the Gentiles they called in unto the Gospel Now among the Gentiles had been Satans Kingdom most setled and potent but here Christ binds him and casts him into the bottomless pit that he should deceive no more as a great cheater and seducer cast into prison and this done by the coming in of the Gospel among them Then as for Christs Kingdom I saw Thrones saith John and they sate upon them c. ver 4. here is Christ and his inthroned and reigning But how do they reign with him Here John faceth the foolish opinion of the Jews of their reigning with the Messias in an earthly pomp and shews that the matter is of a far different tenour that they that suffer with him shall reign with him they that stick to him witness for him dye for him these shall sit inthroned with him And he nameth beheading only of all kinds of deaths as being the most common used both by Jews and Romans alike as we have observed before at Acts 12. out of Sanhedr per. 7. halac 3. And the first witness for Christ John the Baptist died this death He saith that such live and reign with Christ the thousand years not as if they were all raised from the dead at the beginning of the 1000 years and so reign all together with him those years out as is the conceit of some as absolute Judaism as any is for matter of Opinion but that this must be expected to be the garb of Christs Kingdom all along suffering and standing out against sin and the mark of the Beast and the like whereas they held it to be a thousand years of earthly bravery and pompousness But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished This is the first resurrection Not that they lived again when the thousand years were finished but it means that they lived not in this time which was the time of living when Satan was bound and truth and life came into the world The Gentiles before the Gospel came among them were dead in Scripture phrase very copiously Ephes. 2. 1 2. 4. 18. c. but that revived them Joh. 5. 25. This is the first resurrection in and to Christs Kingdom the second is spoken of at the twelfth verse of this Chapter that we are upon Paul useth the same expression to signifie the same thing namely a raising from darkness and sin by the power of the Gospel Rom. 11. 15. Now when this quickning came among the Gentiles Satan going down and Christs Kingdom advanced and the Gospel bringing in life and light as Joh. 1. 4. those that did not come and stick close to Christ and bear witness to him but closed with the mark of the Beast sin and sinful men these were dead still and lived not again till the thousand years were finished that is while they lasted though that were a time of receiving life Blessed therefore and holy are they that have part in this first resurrection for on them the second death hath no power ver 6. The second death is a phrase used by the Jews Onkelos renders Deut. 33. 6. thus Let Reuben live and not die the second death And Jonathan Isa. 65. 6. thus Behold it is written before me I will not grant them long life but I will pay them vengeance for their sins and deliver their carcases to the second death And ver 15. The Lord will slay them with the second death Observe in the Prophet that these verses speak of the ruine and rejection of the Jews now a cursed people and given up to the second death and in Chapter 66. vers 29 30 31. is told how the Lord would send and gather the Gentiles to be his people and would make them his Priests and Levites And then see how fitly this verse answers those In stead of these cursed people these are blessed and holy and might not see the second death and Christ makes them Priests to himself and his Father In this passage of John scorn is put again upon the Jews wild interpretâ—â—â—â—n of the resurrection in Ezekiel They take it litterally think some dead were really raised out of their graves came into the Land of Israel begat children and died a second time Nay they stick not to tell who these men were and who were their children Talm. Babyl in Sanhedr ubi supra After the thousand years are expired Satan is let loose again and falls to his old trade of the deceiving the Nations again ver 8. Zohar fol. 72. col 286. hath this saying It is a tradition that in the day when judgment is upon the world and the holy blessed God sits upon the Throne of judgment then it is found that Satan that deceives high and low he is found destroying the world and taking away souls When the Papacy began then Heathenism came over the world again and Satan as loose and deceiving as ever then Idolatry blindness deluding oracularities and miracles as fresh and plenteous as before from the rising of the Gospel among the Gentiles these had been beating down and Satan fettered and imprisoned deeper and deeper every day and though his agent Rome bestird it self hard to hold up his Kingdom by the horrid persecutions it raised yet still the Gospel prevailed and laid all flat But when the Papacy came then he was loose again and his cheatings prevailed and the world became again no better then Heathen And if you should take the thousand years fixedly and literally and begin to count either from the beginning of the Gospel in the preaching of John or of Peter to Cornelius the first inlet to the Gentiles or of Paul and Barnabas their being sent among them the expiring of them will be in the very depth of Popery especially begin them from the fall of Jerusalem where the date of the Gentiles more peculiarly begins and they will end upon the times of Pope Hildebrand when if the Devil were not let loose when was he He calls the enemies of the Church especially Antichrist Gog and Magog the title of the Syrogrecian Monarchy the great persecutor Ezek. 38. 39. Pliny mentions a place in Caelosyria that retained the name Magog lib. 5. cap. 23. So that John from old stories and copies of great troubles transcribeth new using known terms from Scripture and from the Jews language and notions that he might the better be understood So that this Chapter containeth a brief of all the times from the rising of the Gospel among the Gentiles to the end of the world under these two sums first the beating
reign in the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab 2 King 8. 25. and in the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab 2 Kings 9. 29. Answer The resolution of this doubt will be easie to him that hath such a Chronical Table as we have spoken of before his eyes For there will he see that Jehoram reigned one year before his Father Ahabs death For in the twentieth year of Ahab which was the seventeenth of Jehoshaphat did Ahaziah the son of Ahab begin to reign 1 King 22. 51. being made Viceroy when his Father went to Ramoth Gilead He reigning but that year Jehoram his son was Viceroy or began to rule in his stead the next year namely in Ahabs one and twentieth Ahab in his two and twentieth died and so Jehoram became absolute and intire King and reigned so eleven years so that his reign hath a double reckoning he reigned as Viceroy twelve years but as intire King but eleven 7. Amaziah began to reign in the second year of Joash King of Israel 2 King 14. 1. this was the eight and thirtieth year of his father Joash King of Judah three years current before his death And the reason was because his father had cast himself into so much misery and mischief through his Apostasie and murder of Zacharias 2 King 12. 17 18. 2 Chron. 24. 23 24 25. that he was become unfit and unable to manage the Kingdom 8. Uzziah or Azariah the son of this Amaziah being but sixteen years of age in the seven and twentieth year of the reign of Jeroboam the second 2 King 15. 1 2. it appeareth that he was but four years old at his fathers death Therefore was the Throne empty for eleven years and the rule managed by some as Protectors in the Kings minority 9. There is also an interregnum or vacancy of twenty two years in the Kingdom of Israel between Jeroboam the second and Zachariah whereof what the reason should be is not easie to determine whether through wars from abroad which Jeroboam might have provoked against his house by the conquest of Hamath and Damascus 2 King 14. 28. or through war at home as appeareth by the end of Zachariah 2 King 15. 10. or through what else it was it is uncertain but most sure it was that the Throne was so long without a King since Jeroboam beginning to reign in the fifteenth year of Amaziah and reigning forty one years 1 King 14. 23. died in the fifteenth of Uzziah and Zechariah began not to Reign till the eight and thirtieth 2 Kings 15. 8. 10. Hoshea is said to slay Pekah in the twentieth year of Jotham the Son of Uzziah 2 King 15. 30. whereas Jotham reigned but sixteen years in all 2 King 15. 33. But the reason of this accounting is because of the wickedness of Ahaz in whose reign this occurrence was and the Holy Ghost chuseth rather to reckon by holy Jotham in the dust then by wicked Ahaz alive For in the slaughter of Pekah the Lord avenged upon Pekah the blood-shed and misery he had caused in Judah for he had slain of the men thereof 120000 in one day 2 Chron. 28. 6. Now Ahaz had caused this wrath upon the people in withdrawing them from the ways of the Lord therefore when the Lord avengeth this injury of his people upon Pekah the time of it is computed from Jotham who was holy and upright and not from Ahaz who had caused the mischief 11. There is a scruple of no small difficulty about the reckoning of this twentieth year of Jotham if it once be spied out And that is this If Pekah began to reign in the two and fiftieth or last year of Uzziah and reigned twenty years as 2 King 15. 27. and if Jotham began to reign in the second year of Pekah 2 King 15. 33. then certainly the twentieth year of Pekah the year when Hoshea slew him was but the nineteenth year of Jotham and not the twentieth Answer In this very difficulty hath the Text fixed the time of Uzziahs becoming Leprous which else-where is not determined and it sheweth that it was in the last year of his reign when he assayed to offer incense in the Temple and was struck with the Leprosie a disease with which the Priests who were to be the Judges of it could not be touched nor infected and his son Jotham was over the house judging the land 2 King 15. 5. till the day of his death Now that last year of Uzziah is counted for the first of Jotham in this reckoning that we have in hand and although he began to reign as absolute and sole King in the second year of the Reign of Pekah yet began he to reign as Viceroy in the diseasedness of his father the year before 12. It is said Hoshea the son of Elab began to reign in the twelfth year of Ahaz 2 King 17. 1. whereas he had slain Pekah in the fourth of Ahaz or the twentieth of Jotham which sheweth that he obtained not the Crown immediately upon Pekahs death but was seven or eight years before he could settle it quietly upon his head It is like that Ahaz in this time did disquiet Israel when his potent enemy Pekah was dead in revenge of that slaughter that he had made in Judah and that he kept Hoshea out of the Throne and for this is called the King of Israel 2 Chron. 28. 19. as well as for walking in the ways of those Kings 13. It is said that Hezekiah began to reign in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elab 2 King 18. 1. Now Hoshea beginning in the twelfth of Ahaz 2 King 17. 1. it is apparent that Hezekiah began in the fourteenth and so reigned two or three years with his father Ahaz who reigned sixteen years 2 King 16. 2. The reason of this was because of the wickedness of Ahaz and because of the miseries and intanglements that his wickedness had brought him into as a Chron. 28. 16 17 18 and Chap. 29. 7 8 9. And this sheweth the zeal of Hezekiah in the work of Reformation the more in that he assayed and perfected it so much in the very time of his wicked Father 14. But yet there ariseth another doubt in the computation of the times of Hezekiah parallel with the times of Hoshea For whereas he began to reign in the third year of Hoshea as is clear before then the seventh year of Hoshea should be counted his fifth year and yet it is called but his fourth 2 King 18 9. Answer The beginning of Hezekiahs reign is of a double date He began indeed to be Viceroy and to bear the rule in the third of Hoshea which was the 14th year of his father Ahaz but the time of that year was but short that he was in the royalty and he did but little or nothing of note that year but the next year which was the fifteenth of Ahaz and the fourth of Hoshea on the very first day of
from above but from the Temple as Isa. 66. 6. And this can hardly be denied to have been one of their Bath Kol voices And if we will believe the Jewish Authors in every place where they give examples of this their Bath Kol it will appear rather to be such a voice as came to Samuel which was so far from a perpendicular descending voice that he could not distinguish whether it were the call of Eli. Secondly Because whereas the Jews repute their Bath Kol both the last and the lowest kind of divine Revelation among them this kind of a voice from Heaven was both most ancient as Gen. 21. 17. 22. 11. and also most honourable Exod. 20. 22. Deut. 4. 33 36. §. From Heaven The opinion that these words were spoken by an Angel deputed by God for that purpose which some do hold is not only improper but also dangerous improper because it crosseth a plain and facile Text and dangerous because it bringeth a created Angel into a kind of equality and compartnership with the sacred Trinity For First Why should there be any surmise of such an Angel uttering these words unless it might be thought that God could not utter them himself Secondly As Paul saith To which of the Angels said God at any time Thou art my Son So may it be said much more which of the Angels ever durst or might call Christ his Son Thirdly Peter speaking of the Parallel or like voice to this which was uttered at our Saviours transfiguration he saith it came from the excellent glory which doubtless sheweth more than from an Angel 2 Pet. 1. 17. Matth. 3. Ver. 17. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased In Mark and Luke it is Thou art my beloved Son c. whereas Matthew expresseth it This is which though it shew some difference yet is it not material nor doth the difference breed so much difficulty as it doth satisfaction to the Reader and fulness to the story For the two Evangelists first named relate it as spoken to Christ for the sealing of his person and in answer to his prayer but the other expresseth it only as spoken of Christ and not to him but pointing him out to the notice of John Now this whole speech is taken from 2 Sam. 7. 14. Psal. 89. 26 27. and Isa. 42. 1. and when it is uttered again from Heaven at our Saviours transfiguration this addition Hear him is put to it Matth. 17. 5. Luke 9. 35. sealing him then for the great Prophet of his Church whom all must hear Deut. 18. 15. as it sealeth him now for the high Priest of his Church being now to enter into his Ministry Luke 3. ver 23. And Iesus himself began to be about thirty years of age Agreeable to this age of Christ when he began his Ministery was the age of the Priests when they entred their Office Numb 4. 3. the age of Joseph when he came to promotion Gen. 41. 46. and the age of David when he began to Reign 2 Sam. 5. 4. Now how this is to be understood is some controversie Some there are that take it thus that Jesus was now fully and perfectly thirty Others thus that he now began or drew on to be full thirty and so preaching three years and six months that he died at thirty three years old and an half But this interpretation the phrase used by the Evangelist and the common and ordinary manner of the Scriptures reckoning of the ages of men and of other things doth sufficiently contradict For First In that Luke saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was baptized beginning to be as it were thirty the word beginning to be denieth his being thirty compleat and the word as it were denieth his drawing upon thirty compleat likewise For if he were full thirty then he began not to be so and if he were drawing on to full thirty then was he not drawing to as it were thirty but to thirty indeed By the phrase therefore is to be understood that he was now nine and twenty years of age compleat and just now entring upon his thirtieth and this the Evangelist hinteth so clearly that it needeth not much confirmation For that he was in his thirty current and not compleated is plain by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were thirty that is thirty years old after a certain reckoning and that he was but now entring upon this his thirty current is as plain by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he began but to be so To which also secondly may be added the common and current use of Scripture in reckoning of ages either of men or beasts to account the year which they are now passing for a year of their age be it never so newly or lately begun Examples of this it is needless to give the thing is so usual and obvious to every eye So that now to take up the times of the world and of our Saviour according to this computation they result to this First That since he was born in the year of the World 3928. stilo veteri but newly begun he was baptized in the year of the World 3957. but newly begun by the same stile likewise Secondly That since he was born in Tisri he was also baptized in Tisri Thirdly That since his last residence in Bethlehem to his first appearing publickly in the work of the Gospel were full seven and twenty years all which time he had lived either in Nazareth the Town of his Mother or in Capernaum the Town of his supposed Father and so his birth in Bethlehem is utterly grown out of the thoughts and observation of the people Fourthly That he hath now three years and a half to labour in the Gospel from his Baptism to his crucifying Rabbi Janna said Three years and a half the glory of God stood upon Mount Olivet and preached saying Seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near Midr. Tillin Fifthly That he lived but two and thirty years and an half and that his thirtieth year was the first year of his preaching and not the last year of his private life Compare the date of Davids reign in Hierusalem 1 Chron. 29. 27. The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years Seven years reigned he in Hebron and thirty three years reigned he in Heirusalem Exactly Seven years and six months reigned he in Hebron 2 Sam. 5. 5. and then thirty and two years and six moneths reigned he in Hierusalem Sixthly That if Hierusalem were destroyed exactly forty years after our Saviours death as it is apparent it was both in Christian and Heathen Stories then that destruction of it befel just in the four thousand year of the world and so as the Temple of Solomon had been finished Anno mundi exactly 3000 so in Anno mundi exactly 4000. both the City and the Temple that then was was destroyed never to be repaired or rebuilt
Claudius and desires him to command Mnester to do what she would have him which Claudius did not knowing what he commanded And then did Mnester adulterate the Empress so freely from fear of Claudius that he thought it had been the Emperors express mind he should so do And by divers other men did Messalina practise the very same project And to that impudency did she grow in her whoredom with this Mnester that when the Senate had commanded that all the brass coin that bare Caius his Image should be melted and this in detestation of Caius she caused pictures of Mnester to be made of it PART III. The JEWISH Story §. 1. Agrippa his actions at Jerusalem after his return from Rome AGRIPPA returned the last year to Jerusalem where as we observed and saw before he performed much ceremoniousness and changed the Highpriest slew James and imprisoned Peter Besides these things he remitted a tribute to the men of Jerusalem for their kindness in entertaining of him he obtained the letters of Petronius to the men of Dor for the removal of Caesars statue which some seditious men had set up in their Synagogue He removed Cantharas from the Highpriest again and placed Matthias in his stead He imprisoned Silas the Master of his Horse for his free discourse concerning his service done to him in the time of his calamity and poverty but on his birth day festival he inlarged him again where he continuing still in the same freedom of speech he imprisoned him again He began to fortifie Jerusalem and to make it exceeding strong but Marsus the present Governour of Syria in steed of Petronius got letters from Claudius to stop his work as suspitious towards innovation He was exceedingty observant of his Countries Laws and much care and cost he bestowed on sacrifices yet was he challenged by one * * * It may be this story aimeth something at Simon Peter Simon that took on him to be a teacher for an unholy man and one unfit to come into the Temple which Simon he sent for to Caesarea where he questioned with him about the words and disswaded him without punishment but with a reward He built sumptuous things in Berytus as a Theater Amphitheater Baths Porches and such like magnificences and set 700 and 700 condemned men to fight together for pastime and so destroyed them From thence he went to Tiberias of Galilee whither divers Kings came to him to visit And so did Marsus also the Governor of Syria but he seeing so many Kings together with him for they were five he suspected the matter as tending to innovation and therefore he commanded them home Herod after this went down to Caesarea and there he made sports and shows in honour of Caesar and on the second day being most gorgeously apparelled and the Sun shining very bright upon his bright cloathing his flatterers saluted him for a god and cried out to him Be merciful unto us hitherto have we feared thee as a man but henceforward we will acknowledge thee to be of a nature more excellent than mortal frailty can attain unto The wretched King reproved not this abominable flattery but did digest it And not long after he espied his Owl which the German had foretold to be the Omen of his death And suddainly he was seized with miserable gripings in his belly which came upon him with vehement extremity whereupon turning himself towards his friends Lo saith he he whom ye esteem for a God is doomed to die and destiny shall evidently confute you in those flattering and false speeches which you lately used concerning me For I who have been adored by you as one immortal am now under the hands of death And so his griefs and torments increasing his death drew on a pace whereupon he was removed into the Palace and all the people put on sackcloth and lay on the ground praying for him which he beholding could not refrain from tears And so after five days he gave up the Ghost being now 54 years old and having raigned seven years four years in the time of Caius and three under Claudius He left a son behind him of seventeen years old named also Agrippa and three daughters Bernice Mariamme and Drusilla Before his death was published his brother Herod the Prince of Chalcis and Chelchias the Kings Lieutenant caused Silas to be put to death FINIS THE TEMPLE SERVICE As it stood in the Days of Our SAVIOUR Described out of the SCRIPTURES And the Eminentest Antiquities of the JEWS By JOHN LIGHTFOOT D. D. LONDON Printed by W. R. for Robert Scott Thomas Basset John Wright and Richard Chiswell MDCLXXXII THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. OF the different holiness of the several parts of the Temple Pag. 897 Sect. 1. How the unclean were kept from the Temple 899 Sect. 2. Penalties doomed upon unclean persons found in the Temple Death by the hand of Heaven and cutting off ib. Sect. 3. Penalties inflicted upon unclean persons found in the Temple Whipping and the Rebels beating 901 CHAP. II. Of the several ranks of Priests and several officers of the Temple 903 CHAP. III. Of the High-priest-hood 904 CHAP. IV. Of the succession of the High-priests Sect. 1. To the building of the Temple 907 Sect. 2. The High-priests from the building of the Temple to the captivity ibid. Sect. 3. The High-priests under the second Temple 908 CHAP. V. The Sagan Katholikin Immarcalin and Gizbarin Sect. 1. SAGAN 911 Sect. 2. KATHOLIKIN 912 Sect. 3. IMMARCALIN 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 913 Sect. 4. GIZBARIN 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 914 CHAP. VI. Of the four and twenty Courses of the Priests 915 CHAP. VII Of the Levites Sect. 1. Of the Porters and guards of the Temple 918 Sect. 2. Of the Singers and Temple musick 919 Sect. 3. Of the Stationary men or Israelites of the Station 924 CHAP. VIII Concerning their Sacrifices and Offerings 926 Sect. 1. Burnt offerings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. Sect. 2. Sin offerings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 929 Sect. 3. Trespass offerings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 933 Sect. 4. Peace offerings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 936 Sect. 5. Meat offerings and drink offerings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 938 CHAP. IX The manner and managing of the dayly service 941 Sect. 1. The manner of their casting lots for every mans several imployment 942 Sect. 2. The clensing and dressing of the burnt offering Altar ibid. Sect. 3. The Killing of the morning Sacrifice dressing the Lamps and Incense Altar 943 Sect. 4. Their publick prayers thy Phylacteries 944 Sect. 5. The burning of incense and the rest of their prayers 945 Sect. 6. The rest of their prayers 946 CHAP. X. The manner of their worshipping at the Temple 947 CHAP. XI Of the appearance of the people at the three festivals 950 CHAP. XII Of the manner of the celebration of the Passover 951 Sect. 1. Their searching out for leaven 953 Sect. 2. The passages of the forenoon of the
of his Knowledge as in the Sacrifices fire and salt were ever joyned 5. The fifth days work was of fishes to play in the Seas and the souls to flie toward Heaven So the fifth step in a new creature is to live and rejoyce in a Sea of troubles and to flie by prayer and contemplation to Heaven 6. On the sixth day God makes man and all these things performed man is a new creature To reckon them altogether then as S. Peter does his golden chain of vertues 2 Pet. 1. Add to your light of Knowledge the firmament of Faith to your Faith Seas of repentant Tears to your Tears the fruitful Trees of good Works to your good Works the hot Sunshine of Zeal to your Zeal the winged souls of Prayer and Contemplation Et ecce omnia facta sunt nova Behold you are become a new Creature As the Bible begins so it ends with a new Creation of a new Heaven and a new Earth and a new Paradise and a new Tree of Life Apoc. 21. unto all which O thou whom my soul loveth say come CHAP. XLVII Of the fall of Adam THE fall of Adam was the death of himself the death of us and the death of Cypriano di valter Christ. At his fall were three offenders three offences and persons offended Three offenders Satan Adam Eve three offences Ignorance weakness and malice three persons offended Father Son and Holy Ghost Eve sinned of Ignorance and so sinned against the Son the God of knowledge and she was forgiven and so S. Paul sinned and was forgiven 1 Tim. 1. 13. Adam sinned of weakness and so sinned against the Father the God of power and he was pardoned and so S. Peter sinned and he was pardoned Matth. 26. But Satan sinned of set malice and so sinned against the Holy Ghost the God of love and he was not forgiven For he that speaketh against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven Mark 3. 29. And in Gods censuring of these three Gen. 3. He questioneth Adam and Evah before he sentenceth because he had mercy for them nay more he promiseth Christ before he inflict punishment but for the Serpent he never questioned because he would shew him no mercy God left Adam to his own free-will and suffered him to fall quia sciebat se c. because he knew how to turn that fall of his to his salvation When Lazarus died Christ was not there that the raising of Lazarus by Christ might be the more glorious So when Adam fell as I may say so God would not be there for he left Adam to his own free-will that the repairing of Adam through Christ might be the more glorious Hereupon one sings O foelix lapsus Unhappy was the fall of Adam since by his fall we all fell but yet happy was that unhappy fall since it must be recured by Christ. Joseph suffered his brother Simeon to go into prison for a while that at last he might bring him out with greater comfort So God suffered Adam to go into Satans Newgate for a while that at last he might bring him out with greater comfort The day thou eatest hereof thou shalt dye there is the prison And the man took and eat there Adam goes into prison The seed of the woman shall break the head of the Serpent there Joseph delivers Simeon out of prison God brings man out of Hell through Christ. Whereupon a Doctor in admiration questions utrum mirabilius homines justos creare an injustos justificare whether is more admirable that God created man righteous or that he justified man when he had made himself unrighteous Whether was more miraculous for God to make man of nothing or to repair him from worse than nothing Wonderful he was in both in his first and his second creation for Justificatio est secunda hominis creatio mans Justification is his new creation CHAP. XLVIII Ophitae Evia SOme Hereticks in Epiphanius think themselves beholden to the Devil for his pains that he took to overthrow Adam for they used to worship a Serpent because say they he brought knowledge into the world Clemens Alexandrinus doth partly think this conceit was got among the Heathens who at their Feasts of Bacchus used to carry a Serpent as it were in procession and to cry Evia Evia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And Evia saith Clemens if it be asperated Hevia it signifies in the Hebrew Tongue a female Serpent Where the good man calls the Chaldec Tongue the Hebrew For in the Hebrew I do not find such a word for a Serpent But all the Chaldee translations of the Bible in the third of Genesis and diverse other places do use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hivia for a Serpent which I take to be the word he means CHAP. XLIX Of the Greek Translation of the fifth of Genesis HOW the Septuagint does add hundreds of years to mens ages before and after the Flood few Scholars but they know This bred the difference of computation of the times while some followed the Hebrew some the Greek Hence came two notorious doubts About Methuselah living after the Flood who died a month or two before And of Sem his death before Abrahams birth who lived as long after Abraham came to Canaan as Abraham was old when he came thither viz. seventy five years And so might well be Melchizedek The Greeks had a great deal of stir where to put Methushelah all the Flood-time for fear of drowning At last some laid him on the top of Noahs Ark and there he was all that watry year The Jews lay Og the Giant there also as the Chaldee Paraphrast upon the fourteenth of Genesis ridiculously observeth Whose words for your fuller sport I will not spare to set down The thirteenth verse be renders thus in Chaldee And Og came who was left of those that died in the Flood for he rode upon the Ark and was as a covering upon it and was nourished with Noahs victuals but he was not preserved for his own sake or merit but that the inhabitants of the world might see the power of the Lord and say Did not the Gyants in old time rebel against the Lord of the world and he destroyed them from the earth yet assoon as these Kings make war behold Og is with them Og saith with himself I will go and shew Abraham Lots case that he is taken prisoner that so he may come to rescue him and may himself fall into their hands He goes and comes to him about the Passover day and finds him making unleavened cakes then he told Abraham the Hebrew c. Thus far the Chaldee of whose conceits here and in one thousand of places more and so of his Nation the Jews I know not whether to say Risum or fletum teneatis amici But to return to my purpose The Greek The Chaldee Paraphrase of Jonathan does also mistake in the age of Mathuselah but I think it only false Printing
3936 762 39 9 Q. Sulpit. Camarin and C. Poppaeus Sabinus 3937 763 40 10 Pub. Corn. Dolabella and C. Iunius Silanus 3938 764 41 11 M. Aemil. Lepid. and T. Statilius Taurus 3939 765 42 12 Germanicus Caes. and C. Fonteius Capito 3940 766 43 13 L. Munatius Plancus and C. Silius Caecina 3941 767 44 14 Sext. Pomp. Sexti F. and Sext. Apuleius Sexti F. Augustus Cesar died the XIXth day of August on which day he had formerly entred upon the first Consulship b b b b b b Dion Cass. lib. 56. He lived LXXV years X months and XXVI days He bore the Empire alone from the Victory at Actium XLIV years wanting only XIII days c c c c c c Eutrop. lib. 7. Tiberius held the Empire in great slothfulness with grievous cruelty wicked covetousness and filthy lust Year of the World Of the City built Of Tiberius Of Christ Consuls 3942 768 1 15 Drusus Caes. and C. Norbanus Flaccus 3943 769 2 16 C. Statil Sisenna Taurus and Scribonius Libo 3944 770 3 17 C. Caecil Rufus and L. Pomponianus Flaccus 3945 771 4 18 Tiber. Caes. Aug. III. and Germanicus Caes. II. 3946 772 5 19 M. Iulius Silanus and L. Norban Flac. vel Balbus 3947 773 6 20 M. Valerius Messala and M. Aurel. Cotta 3948 774 7 21 Tiber. Caes. Aug. IV. and Drusus Caes. II. 3949 775 8 22 D. Haterius Agrippa and C. Sulpitius Galba 3950 776 9 23 C. Asinius Pollio and C. Antistius Veter 3951 777 10 24 Sext. Cornel. Cethegus and Visellius Varro 3952 778 11 25 M. Asinius Agrippa and Cossus Cornel. Lentulus 3953 779 12 26 Cn. Lentulus Getulicus and C. Calvisius Sabinus 3954 780 13 27 M. Licinius Crassus and P. L. Calphurnius Piso. 3955 781 14 28 Appius Iul. Silanus and P. Silvius Nerva 3956 782 15 29 C. Rubellius Geminus and C. Fusius Geminus In the early spring of this year came John baptizing In the month Tisri Christ is baptized when he had now accomplished the nine and twentieth year of his age and had now newly entred upon his thirtieth The thirtieth of Christ is to be reckoned with the sixteenth of Tiberius Of Augustus now entring upon his one and thirtieth year wherein Christ was born Dion Cassius hath moreover these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Having now compleated thrice ten years being compelled indeed to it he continued his Government and entred upon a fourth ten of years being now more easie and slothful by reason of age In this very year was the Taxation under Cyrenius of which Luke speaks Chap. II. So that if it be asked when the fifth Monarchy of the Romans arose after the dissolution of those four mentioned by Daniel An easie answer may be fetched from S. Luke who relates that in that very year wherein Christ was born Augustus laid a Tax upon the whole World III. Christ was born in the thirty fift year of the reign of Herod which we gather from the observation of these things 1. d d d d d d Ioseph Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 10. Herod reigned from that time he was first declared King by the Romans seven and thirty years 2. Between the death of Herod and the death of Augustus there was this space of time 1. e e e e e e Ios. Antiq. lib. 1â— cap 15. The ten years current of the reign of Archelaus 2. f f f f f f Id. ibid. lib. Coponius succeeds him banished into Vienna in the Presidentship of Judea 3. Marcus Ambibuchus succeeds Coponius 4. g g g g g g Id. iold cap. 3 Annius Rufus succeeds Ambibuchus during whose Presidentship Augustus dies 18. cap. 1. Since therefore only fourteen years passed from the nativity of Christ to the death of Augustus out of which sum when you shall have reckoned the ten years current of Archelaus and the times of the three Presidents we must reckon that Christ was not born but in the last years of Herod Thus we conjecture In his thirty fift Christ was born In his thirty seventh now newly begun the Wise men came presently after this was the slaying of the infants and after a few months the death of Herod IV. Christ was born about the twenty seventh year of the Presidentship of Hillel in the Sanhedrin The rise of the family of Hillel took its beginning at the decease of the Asmonean family Herod indeed succeeded in the Kingly government a family sprung from Babylon and as was believed of the stock of David For h h h h h h Hieros Taanith fol. 68. 1. a book of genealogy was found at Jerusalem which we mentioned before in which it was written that Hillel was sprung from the stock of David by his wife Abital Now Hillel went up out of Babylon to Jerusalem to enquire of the Wise men concerning some things when now after the death of Shemaia and Abtalion the two sons of Betira held the chief seats And when he who had resorted thither to learn something had taught them some things of the Passover rites which they had forgot they put him into the chair You have the full story of it in the i i i i i i Pisachâ—n fol. 33. 1. Jerusalem Talmud We mention it Chap. XXVI 1. Now Hillel went up to Jerusalem and took the Chair an hundred years before the destruction of the City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k k k k k k Bab. Schabb. fol 15. 1. Hillel and his son Simeon and his son Gamaliel and his son Simeon bare the Government for an hundred years before the laying waste of the Temple Of those hundred years if you take away two and thirty and an half of the life of Christ and forty years as it is commonly computed coming between the death of Christ and the destruction of the City there remain the twenty seven years of Hillel before the birth of our Saviour Hillel held the government forty years So that his death happened about the twelfth or thirteenth year of Christ His son also held it after him and his grandsons in a long succession even to R. Judah the Holy The splendor and pomp of this family of Hillel had so obscured the rest of the families of Davids stock that perhaps they believed or expected the less that the Messias should spring from any of them Yea one in the Babylonian Gemara was almost perswaded that Rabbi Judah the Holy of the Hillelian family was the Messias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l l l l l l Sanhedr fol. 98. 2. Rabh said If Messiah be among the living our Holy Rabbi is such if among the dead Daniel was he V. Christ was born in the month Tisri somewhat answering to our September This we conclude omitting other things by computing backwards from his death For if he died in his two and thirtieth year and an half at the feast of the Passover in the month Nisan you must necessarily lay the time of
there The first given by the Jews according to their custom the second by the Souldiers in abuse and mockery But if you will grant a third Cup then all difficulty vanisheth indeed Let the first be Wine mingled with Myrrhe the second Vinegar mingled with Gall the third meer Vinegar Which the Souldiers gave to Malefactors if they had desired drink being that which they drank themselves Hence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vessel filled with Vinegar was always in readiness that the Souldiers might drink when they had a mind and persons also upon the Cross if they stood in need of it VERS XLII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord remember me CHrist is now upon the Cross as old Joseph was in the Prison between two Malefactors There one of them was delivered the other hanged Here one obtains salvation the other perisheth The Faith of this Thief is admirable kept even pace with that of the Apostles if in some circumstances it did not go beyond it The Apostles acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah and so doth he with this addition which I question whether they did so clearly own and know or no viz. that Christ should reign and have his Kingdom after his death He seems to have a sounder judgment concerning Christ's Kingdom than the Apostles themselves as may be gathered from their question Acts I. 6. It pleased God in this last Article of time to glorifie the riches of his grace in a singular and extraordinary manner both in the conversion of a sinner and the forgiveness of his sins I say in such an Article of time which the world had never before seen nor ever was like to see again viz. in the very instant wherein the Messiah was finishing his redemption It was not unknown to either of the Thieves that Jesus was therefore condemn'd to dye because he had professed himself the Christ Hence that of the Impenitent Malefactor If thou art Christ save thy self and us And if the Penitent Thief did for a while joyn with the other in his petulant reproaches which seems intimated to us Matth. XXVII 44. yet was his heart toucht at length and perhaps upon his observation of that miraculous darkness which at that time had covered the world VERS XLIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To day thou shalt be with me in Paradise I. LET us here first consider the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Paradise In common Jewish speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Garden of Eden In what sense we may collect from these following passages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f f f f f f Chagigah fol 14. 2. The Rabbins have a Tradition There are four that went into Paradise namely Ben Azzai Ben Zumah Acher and R. Akibah R. Akibah saith unto them when you come to the stones of pure Marble do not ye say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Waters Waters i. e. Alas these Waters will hinder us from going forward for it is written he that telleth lyes shall not dwell in my presence Now it would be a lye to call white Marble Water Ben Azzai 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lookt with some curiosity about him and he dyed Of him the Scripture speaks Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his Saints Ben Zumah looked with some curiosity about him and he was disturbed in his intellectuals Of him the Scripture speaketh Hast thou found Honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it Aruch reciting these words saith It is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Paradise under the signification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Garden of Eden which is reserved for the just This place is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Heavens where the souls of the just are gathered together And the Talmudick Gloss hath it much to the same sense These four by God's procurement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 went up into the firmament Whiles we are reading these passages that story may easily occur to mind of St. Paul's being caught up into Paradise 2 Cor. XII and perhaps the Legend before us is but the ape of that story In the story it is observable that Paradise and the third Heaven are one and the same thing in the Legend Paradise and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the highest Heavens For so the Doctors Comment upon the word in Psal. LXVIII 5. g g g g g g Midras Tillin fol. 11. 3. There are seven Classes or Degrees of just persons who see the face of God sit in the house of God Ascend up unto the hill of God c. and to every Class or Degree there is allotted their proper dwelling place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Paradise There are also seven abiding places in Hell Those that dwell in Paradise they shine like the shining 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Firmament like the Sun like the Moon like the Firmament like the Stars like Lightning like the Lilies like burning Lamps h h h h h h Ibid. II. Our Saviour therefore telling the Penitent Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise he speaks in the common dialect and to the capacity of the Thief viz. that he should be in Heaven with Christ and with all just persons that have left this world Nor indeed would I fetch the explication of that Article of our Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He descended into Hell from any passage in the Scripture sooner than this here adding this that we must of necessity have recourse to the Greek Tongue for the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they generally use to denote the state of the dead as well the blessed as the miserable Those who would expound that passage in 1 Pet. III. 19. of his going down from the Cross into Hell to preach to the Spirits in Prison there do very little regard the scope of the Apostle and are absolute strangers to his meaning in it For 1. In that he shuts up the generation before the flood in an infernal prison he falls in with the received opinion of that Nation which was that that generation had no part in the world to come And that they were condemned to boiling waters in Hell 2. He compares the present Generation of the Jews with that Generation before the flood That Christ did of old preach even to that Generation and so he hath done to this That that Generation perished through its disobedience and so will this He runs much upon the same parallel in his second Epistle Chap. III. 6. c. We must observe that the Apostle makes his transition from the Crucifixion and Resurrection of our Saviour directly to the Generation before the flood passing over all those Generations that came between on purpose that he might make the comparison betwixt that and the Age he lived in VERS LIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wrapped it in Linnen MAR Zutrah saith that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
doubt IT is not ill rendred How long dost thou suspend our mind although not an exact Translation according to the letter But what kind of doubt and suspension of mind was this Was it that they hoped this Jesus was the Messiah or that they rather feared he was so It seems they rather feared than hoped it For whereas they looked for a Messias that should prove a mighty Conquerour should deliver the people from the Heathen yoke and should crown himself with all earthly glory and saw Jesus infinite degrees below such pomp yet by his miracles giving such fair specimens of the Messias they could not but hang in great suspence whether such a Messiah were to be wished for or no. VERS XXXI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the Iews took up stones again THE Blasphemer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by judicial process of the Sanhedrin was to be stoned which process they would imitate here without judgment l l l l l l Sanhedr cap. 7. hal 1. These are the criminals that must be stoned He that lieth with his own Mother or with the Wife of his Father He that Blasphemes or commits Idolatry Now however the Rabbins differed in the definition of Blasphemy or a Blasphemer yet this all of them agreed in as unquestionable Blasphemy that which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denies the foundation This they firmly believed Jesus did and none could perswade them to the contrary when he affirmed I and my Father are one A miserable besotted Nation who above all persons or things wished and looked for the Messiah and yet was perfectly ignorant what kind of a Messiah he should be VERS XXXV 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If he called them Gods c. THE Jews interpret those words of the Psalmist I have said ye are Gods to a most ridiculous sense m m m m m m Avodah Zarah fol. 5. 1. unless our Fathers had sinned we had never come into the world as it is written I have said ye are Gods and the Children of the most high But ye have corrupted your doings therefore ye shall dye like men And a little after Israel had not received the Law only that the Angel of death might not rule over them as it is said I have said ye are Gods but ye have corrupted your doings therefore ye shall dye like men The sense is if those who stood before Mount Sinai had not sinned in the matter of the Golden Calf they had not begot Children nor had been subject to death but had been like the Angels So the Gloss. If our Fathers had not sinned by the Golden Calf we had never come into the world for they would have been like the Angels and had never begot Children The Psalmist indeed speaks of the Magistracy to whom the word of God hath arrived by an express dispensation and diploma ordaining and deputing them to the Government as the whole web and contexture of the Psalm doth abundantly shew But if we apply the words as if they were spoken by our Saviour according to the common Interpretation received amongst them they fitly argue thus If he said they were Angels or Gods to whom the Law and word of God came on Mount Sinai as you conceive is it any Blasphemy in me then whom God in a peculiar manner hath sanctified and sent into the world that I might declare his word and will if I say that I am the Son of God VERS XL. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where Iohn at first Baptized THAT is Bethabarah For the Evangelist speaks according to his own History Which to the judicious Reader needs no proof CHAP. XI VERS I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lazarus SO in the Jerusalem Talmud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Lazar for R. Eleazar For in the Hierusalem dialect it is not unusual in some words that begin with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aleph to cut off that letter As. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What saith the Master for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bar Ba for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bar abba 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be R. Bon for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be R. Abon So very frequently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lazar for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eleazar a a a a a a Taanith fol. 68. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Lazar Ben R. Jose b b b b b b Chagigah fol. 78 4. 80. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Lazar Ben Jacob. c c c c c c Kiddushin fol. 60. 2. R. Lazar the Disciple of R. Chajia Rubba Who also are sometimes called by their name not abbreviated d d d d d d Sotah f. 23. R. Eleazar ben Jacob. * * * * * * Ibid. f. 20. 2. R. Eleazar ben Jose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Martha This name of Martha is very frequent in the Talmudick Authors e e e e e e Hieros Schab fol. 3. 4. Isaac bar Samuel bar Martha f f f f f f Bab. Javamoth f. 120. 1. Abba bar Martha the same with Abba bar Minjomi g g g g g g Ibid. cap. 6. hal 4. Joshua ben Gamla married 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Martha the Daughter of Baithus She was a very rich Widow h h h h h h Juchas fol. 57. 2. She is called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mary the Daughter of Baithus with this story of her i i i i i i Eâ—hah rabbâ—bathi fol. 67. 2. Mary the Daughter of Baithus whom Joshua ben Gamla married he being preferred by the King to the High Priestood She had a mind upon a certain day of expiation to see how her Husband performed his office So they laid Tapestry all along from the door of her own House to the Temple that her foot might not touch the ground R. Eleazar ben R. Zadok saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So let me see the consolation of Israel as I saw her bound to the tails of Arabian Horses by the hair of her head and forced to run from Jerusalem to Lydda I could not but repeat that Versicle the tender and delicate Woman in thee c. Deuter. XXVIII 56. k k k k k k Succah fol. 52. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Martha the Daughter of Baisuth whether Baisuth and Baithus were convertible or whether it was a mistake of the Transcriber let him that thinks fit make the enquiry whose Son was a mighty strong man among the Priests VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was Mary which anointed c. THAT is Which had anointed the Lord formerly For I. It is fit the Aorist should have its full force Whoever will not grant this let him give a reason why Bethany which was Lazarus his Town should not be called by his name but said the Town of Mary and her Sister Martha Was it not because those names had been
He preserves indeed man and beast as the Psalmist tells us and so he is preserved as beasts are preserved But he owns not God in his preservation no more than they A man that rightly owns his dependence upon God commits himself to God by prayer beseeching him to take him to his care and charge Thus the Saints of God have ever put themselves under his wings I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be feared and so shall I be saved from mine enemies This was Davids way to be in safety and preservation continually And it is according to Gods direction Psal. L. 15. Call upon me in the time of trouble and I will deliver thee So Jacob commits himself to Gods protection when he is going for Syria by prayer and a vow Gen. XXVIII 20. If God will be with me and keep me in the way that I go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on c. And such another copy you have of Jabez 1 Chron. IV. 9. And Jabez called upon the Lord God of Israel saying O that thou wouldst bless me indeed and inlarg my coast and that thine hand might be with me and that thou wouldst keep me from evil that it may not grieve me And God granted him that which he requested This is the way to engage God to our preservation when we thus cast our selves upon him and implore his care of us II. They that own their dependence upon God for preservation and protection put thâ—mselves under his protection in the way of his protection Do you think that Gods mâ—rciful protâ—â—â—â—on dwells every where and that a man may promise himself to meet with it every where in an Idol Temple a Whorehouse leud company He that walks in a wicked course of life can he expect Gods merciful providence will meet with him here The Apostle tells us how to put our selves under Gods protection 1 Pet. IV. 19. to commit the keeping of our souls to him in well doing And David long before Psal. XXXVII 3. Do good and verily thou shalt be fâ—d Keep in his ways and he will keep thee be doing his work and he will take care of thee But canst thou expect his protection and care when thou art in the ways of the Devil and doing the work of the Devil A Christian should alway be doing of that as that he may lawfully and warrantably beg Gods blessing upon him while he is doing it Joyn prayer and well doing together and thou art sure to speed well III. He that owns his dependence upon God aims that his preservation be to the service of him that preserves him As he owns that he lives upon God so he aims to live to him This use of Gods preserving providence Jacob aimed at Gen. XXVIII 21. If God will be with me and keep me in this way c. so that I come again to my Fathers house in peace then shall the Lord be my God And David Psal. CXVI 8 9. For thou hast delivered my soul from death mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living And it pinched Job that he should any way have failed of it Job VII 20. I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O! thou preserver of men Hast thou preserved me and do I sin against thee contrary to the end I should have aimed at under thy preservation Reason and the very light of nature may argue to such a purpose that in all equity and justice he that is maintained by God should be serviceable to God We look for service of our servants and beasts and all the reason in the World God should have it from Men. IV. He that owns his dependence upon God observes Gods constant preserving providence and counts nothing in preserving providence small No sin is to be accounted little because it is against a great God and no good providence is little because it is exercised towards sinful men A true owner of his dependence upon God looks upon Gods preserving mercy towards him through this double multiplying glass his own brittleness and his own unworthiness that God should preserve a thing so brittle and so ill deserving And thus I have considered the end of this offering viz. To be an acknowledgment to God of their dependence on him for their lives and to implore his care and good providence towards them for their preservation Now in the second place we come to consider II. The quantity of this sum Half a shekel What But half a shekel for the best man in Israel Why The price of a servant was thirty whole shekels and is the rate of the best freeman in Israel but at a poor half shekel Exod. XXI 32. If an Ox push a man servant or maid servant that they die the owner of the Ox must give to their Master thirty shekels of silver for the price or value of his servant he had lost And so our Saviour was sold at the price of a servant viz. thirty pieces of silver a poor price to value him at and you may think it not a rich price to value the best man of Israel but at half a shekel when the poorest servant was valued at thirty whole ones Do you not observe the difference That was the price of a Servant twixt man and man this the rate of men twixt Man and God A servant might well be worth thirty shekels to his Master as being able to be profitable to him But what can poor sinful man be profitable to God Even an Ox or an Asse may be of a good handsom price twixt man and man because they may be profitable to man but what can man be profitable to God It is Eliphaz question Job XXII 2. Can a man be profitable to God as a wise man may be profitable to himself You find oft in Scripture mention of the Children of Belial the word signifies Unprofitable but it means an Idol a God that cannot profit and whom it is no profit to serve Our God is not such he is not an unprofitable Master it is profit to serve him but when we have done all we can we have cause to say We are unprofitable If we should be valued by God according as we can be profitable to God as we value our cattel according as they are profitable to us at what rate should he set us At a grain of dust and a dram of ashes at a puff of vapour and a blast of wind at the rate of a moth and the price of a worm at the value of nothing and lighter than vanity this is the proper weight we carry upon the ballance if we be weighed as we are indeed in our selves Therefore never complain that God rates men so low as but half a shekel wonder rather that he rates or values them so high nay that he sets any value upon them at all For Lord what is man that thou
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
shews they are hard set when they must make Caiaphas a copy after whom to write the Infallibility of their Papal chair But they gazed so much upon the chair when they wrote this Note that they clean looked off the Book and Text they had before them For had they looked well upon that that would have given them a more proper reason of his prophesying and indeed the proper reason of it namely not so much because he was High Priest as because he was High Priest that year This he spake not of himself but being High Priest that year High Priest that year Why He had been High Priest several years before So Luke tells us Chap. III. that he was High Priest when Christ was baptized three years and an half ago and Josephus tells us as much and more and of his being High Priest after this year also And therefore why that circumstance added He was High Priest that year To speak the proper reason of his prophesying First I might say That was the year nay even the hour of the last gasp of the High Priesthood It prophesied and instantly breathed out its last There is much dispute upon those words of Paul Act. XXIII 5. which our English renders I wist not Brethren that he was the High Priest If I should render it I knew not that there is an High Priest I am sure it hath warrant enough of the Original Greek and warrant enough of the truth of the thing it self Did not the High Priesthood dye and cease and was no more when the great High Priest of Souls died and by death made expiation for his people If you will allow the other Priesthood and the employment of it to live still after the death of Christ and his sacrifice offered by the eternal Spirit till the fall of Jerusalem and dissolution of the Temple yet can you find nothing that the High Priest had then to do that it should survive any longer after Christ was sacrificed The other Priesthood had something to do besides what was most plainly typical in it and referred to the death of Christ as sacrificing and sprinkling of blood did For they had to offer the first fruits of the people for their Thankfulness to purifie women after child-birth to present the first born to the Lord c. But the distinctive work of the High Priest in diversity from the other Priesthood was on the day of Expiation to go within the Vail into the most holy place with blood and make an Attonement Which when Christ had done through the Vail of his flesh through his own blood as the Apostle tells us Heb. X. 20. what had the High Priesthood to do any more To this peculiarly related that which occurred at the death of the great High Priest Matth. XXVII 15. The vail of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom Which when you come narrowly to examine you will find to be the vail that hung between the holy and most holy place Which the Jews in their writings call by a Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This was the vail that the High Priest turned aside as we do hangings at a door to go into the room And he went into the most holy place only once a year But now it is rent in pieces no such distinction or separation thenceforward to be had and no such work of the High Priest to be done any more So that if we take these words of Paul to the sense I mentioned viz. I knew not Brethren that there is now any High Priest or any High Priesthood at all that Function is long ago laid in the dust it was spoken like a Paul boldly and as one that very well understood and could well distinguish twixt substance and shadow and how long those Ordinances of that Oeconomy were to last and when to decay And if accordingly we take that circumstance in the Text He prophesied as being High Priest that year in the sense I mentioned namely that last year of the being and life of the High Priesthood it gives a story not much unlike that of the son of King Crâ—sus Who when he had been dumb from the birth and never spake word at last seeing in a battel an enemy ready to run his Father through he forced his Tongue so as that he broke the string of silence and cryed out O man do not kill Croesus So the High Priesthood having been dumb from Prophesying for above four hundred years together and never spoken one Prophetick word when now the King is ready to be slain its Tongue is loosed in Caiaphas and prophesieth of the Redemption of all the Israel of God and presently expireth But Secondly That year was the great year of pouring down the Spirit of Prophesie and Revelation as in Act. II. the great year of sealing Vision and Prophesie as in Dan. IX And then it is the less wonder if this dog get some crumbs that fell from that plentiful table of the children and some droppings from that abundant dew that fell upon the Fleece of Gedeon Something like the case of Eldad and Medad but they were better men Numb XI 26. that in that great pouring out of the Spirit there had their share though they were not in the company of those that were assembled at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation And thus was the case with Caiaphas as it was with Balaam that wretch inspired till then by the Devil but then by God Who went purposely to curse Israel but God so overpowered and turned the stream that he could not but bless them So this wretch inspired with malice from the Devil to plot and compass the death of Christ is now also inspired by the Spirit of Prophesie to foretel his death and to proclaim it Redemption to his people A very strange passage that while he was sinning against the Holy Ghost he prophesied by the Holy Ghost and that in those very words that he spake against Christ to destroy him he should prophesie of Christs death and Redemption to magnifie it So can the Spirit of God overpower the Hearts and Tongues and actions of Men to serve the design of his own glory And this is that that I shall speak to I might observe obiter how great diversity there is twixt the Spirit of Prophesie and Revelation and the Spirit of grace and holiness The same Spirit indeed is the Author of both but there is so much diversity in the thing wrought that a Balaam a Caiaphas have the Spirit of Prophesie who are as far from having the Spirit of Sanctification as the East is from the West Hell from Heaven A mistake hath taken the Spirits of too many to account this good Language and Divinity I am a believer converted sanctified therefore I have the Spirit of Revelation and I can preach and expound Scripture by that Spirit little considering the vast diversity of the gift of Prophesie
himself to be a jealous God visiting the sins of Idolaters II. A second passage is that about the battel at Gibeah Judg. XX. concerning which let us first take up the words of Deborah Chap. V. 8. For though the history of that war is set many Chapters after the story of Deborah yet was it a great while before her as might be shewed by many evidences if I would stand upon it They chose new gods saith she then was war in the gates Was there a sheild or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel No sooner Idolatry but vengeance no sooner new gods but war in the gates and war with a witness that destroyed forty thousand of Israel and above twenty thousand of Benjamin She speaks but of forty thousand that perished as if no sheild or spear had been among them all whereas in all there fell sixty five thousand But she hints the sad slaughter of Israel which was sent by God and encouraged by him to go against Benjamin and yet when they went to battel they fell forty thousand Strange to be sent by God and yet miscarry to be encouraged by God and yet fall Oh they had chosen new gods and thence this miscarriage The Tribe of Dan had set up Idolatry and all Israel quiet and stir not against it and so become partakers of it But when a Whore hath some unhansom and hard usage at Gibeah then all Israel is suddenly up in arms to revenge her quarrel Zeal for a Whore to revenge her quarrel against Gibeah but not zeal for the Lord to revenge his quarrel against Idolatry And therefore God takes the cause into his own hand and shews himself a jealous God against Idolatry and caused forty thousand to fall in battel though he had sent and encouraged them to it III. A third passage let be that which yet comes more near the Text nay seems not only to come up to it but to go beyond it and that is Exod. XXXII 34. where after the sin of the golden Calf and the Levites slaying three thousand men yet God still hath some anger in store for that sin and saith Nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them When The Jews say That in every scourge and judgment that came upon them there was a remembrance and a lash for the golden Calf And S. Stephen speaks no less or more in Act. VII 41 42. They made a Calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the Idol c. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of Heaven c. This speaks God a jealous God against Idolatry and seems to speak that he visits the sins of the Fathers upon the children beyond the third and fourth generation succeeding To which thing we shall speak in course in handling of the words To which now we are come II. Then visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children c. All the question and scruple about the thing is Quo jure Where is Gods justice in this to visit the sins of him that sinned upon him that sinneth not sins of the fathers upon the children who probably were never witting or assenting to the Fathers sin It is Gods strict commandment to men Deut. XXIV 16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers but every man shall be put to death for his own sin And doth not he go contrary to that rule himself when he visits the sins of the fathers upon the children And it is his proclaiming again Ezek. XVIII 4. Behold all souls are mine as the soul of the father so also the soul of the son is mine the soul that sinneth it shall dye And doth he not warp from that assertion when children are punished for the sins of their Fathers That God should impute the sin of Adam to all his posterity hath been cavilled at in antient times by some Hereticks and in these later some are not well satisfied about the matter and cannot or will not see how God is just in it Visiting sins unto the third and fourth generation sounds something harsh this far more visiting the sin of the first Father upon all generations Shall he condemn millions of millions for the fault they never committed charge upon them the crime they never consented to I shall not stay my discourse upon this The answer is ready in Adam was all mankind in his Covenant was enwrapped all humane nature and the violation of that Covenant was the sin and guilt of whole humane nature But we shall speak to other kind of examples that come nearer to the sense of the words before us And these are of two sorts viz. in reference to the body or outward condition or to the soul or inward First Was not that hard measure as you may think that when Corah Dathan and Abiram the Parents only had sinned that not only they should go down quick into the pit but their houses also and all that appertained to them Numb XVI 32. The like that when Achan only was in the transgression that his sons and daughters and his very cattel should be put to death as well as he Josh. VII 24. Secondly Seems it not hard measure that when that generation at the building of Babel had only sinned against God in that design for setting up Idolatry that not only they should be given up to Idolatry and blindness but the Heathen their posterity to scores of generations The like that when that generation only had sinned in murthering Christ not only they should bear the guilt of his blood but their posterity through so many ages For the unfolding of Gods dealings in these things particularly let me first move this general consideration What care Parents had need to take that they sin not so as to leave sin and guilt and a curse upon their children and posterity Among their cares to leave them well as the word in the world goes i. e. rich to be sure to take this care that while they leave them well they leave them not ill Sin not for thy childrens sake that they smart not for thy faults when thou art gone I mention two sins particularly that may draw misery and entail a curse upon the posterity cursing their children and unconscionably scraping a cursed estate together to leave to their children Now to assert the Justice of God in this case of visiting the iniquity of the fathers c. either for these sins or others whereas it seems a wrong to the children Consider these things I. It is most just with God to punish wicked men in their dearest delights that judgment may come home to them to the quick to take away the delight of their Eyes and Heart that punishment may make them smart in the tenderest part And when Parents are so fond of that part of themselves their children that they will venture soul and body
it did begin So though the Passover be appointed to be in that first month that began the new year and be called an Everlasting Ordinance Exod. XII 16. Yet upon occasion the Lord ordained it to be kept in the second month Numb IX To this we may add Gods changing the very end and memorial of the Sabbath to Israel themselves Changing said I or rather adding a new memorial which it had not before In Exod. XX. the memorial is to remember Gods creating and resting in Deut. V. where the Ten Commandments are repeated it is in memorial of their redemption out of Egypt Not unclothed of its first end and memorial but clothed upon So if Adam had continued innocent he must have kept the Sabbath and then it had been to him but the memorial of Gods creating and resting But when Christ and redemption by him was set up and come in before the Sabbath came in then it was clothed with another memorial viz. the remembrance of the redemption II. Christ had power and authority to change the Sabbath Mark II. 28. The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath He had power over all Divine Ordinances Hebr. III. 5 6. Now Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant c. But Christ as a Son over his own house He is not a Servant in the house but a Son to dispose of the affairs of the house as he sees good He is greater than the Temple and so may order the affairs of the Temple as he saw good If a Jew question why he laid by the Ceremonies of Moses The answer is ready because he was greater than Moses Lord of the house in which Moses was but a Servant Nay it was he that appointed Moses those Ceremonies and he might unappoint them at his pleasure That is observable Act. VII 38. This is that Moses that was in the Church in the wilderness with the Angel which spake to him at Mount Sinai and with our Fathers who received the lively Oracles to give us With the Angel who was that It was Christ the great Angel of the Covenant as he is called Mal. III. 1. The Angel of Gods presence as he is called Esai LXIII 9. Then who spake with Moses at Mount Sinai It was Christ. Who gave him the Lively Oracles Laws Testimonies Statutes It was Christ. And then might Christ that gave them dispose of them as seemed him good So that if a Jew question why Christ changed Circumcision into Baptism the Paschal Lamb into Bread and Wine the Jewish Sabbath into the Christian Sabbath The answer is ready he was Lord of them and might dispose of them Het set up Circumcision the Passover the Jewish Sabbath and might take them down and alter them as he pleased III. Ye read once and again in Scripture of Gods creating a new world Esai LXV 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth 2 Pet. III. 13. We according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth Rev. XXI 1. And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth Now when was this done The Apostle tells us when viz. in his own time 2 Cor. V. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new Creature The meaning of it is Gods creating a new Estate of things under the Gospel a new Church the Jews cast off and the Gentiles taken in new ordinances in his Church Ceremonious worship taken down and Spiritual set up new Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper instead of the Circumcision and Passover a new Command of love to one another a new Covenant a new and living way into the most holy a new Creature and in a word all things become new Then certainly a new Sabbath was fit for a new Creation Lay these two places together Gen. I. 1. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth and Esai LXV 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth In fulness of time God created new Heavens and a new Earth and as the first Creation had the old Sabbath so was it not fit the new Creation should have a new Sabbath As our Saviour speaks Mat. IX 17. New cloth must not be put into an old garment nor new wine into old bottles but new wine must be put into new vessels and both are preserved So in this case a new manner of worship new Ordinances new Sacraments to be committed to the old Sabbath This is improper but a new Sabbath must be for these as well as they themselves are new How pied would Christianity have looked if it had worn a Coat all new in other respects but had had on the shirt or piecing of the old Sabbath And how unfit was it to have tyed Christians to the observation of the old Sabbath of the Jews IV. The Resurrection of Christ was the day of his birth and beginning of his Kingdom Observe the quotation Acts XIII 33. The promise which was made unto the Fathers God hath fulfilled to us their Children in that he hath raised up Jesus as it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee When was the day wherein Christ was begotten In the day that God raised him from the dead That is strange for as he was God was he not begotten from Eternity and as he was man was he not conceived by the Holy Ghost and born three and thirty years and an half before his Resurrection Yes both most true and yet that true too that he was begotten from the day of his Resurrection And the Apostle tells you how to understand it viz. He was the first begotten and first born from the dead begotten that day to the Gentiles and all the world from thenceforward a Saviour to them and by his Resurrection as the Apostle saith Rom. I. 4. Declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead So likewise his Resurrection was the beginning of his Reign and Kingdom Consider upon that Mat. 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 when I am risen from the dead And see Mat. XXVIII 18. Now I begin to reign All power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth For now he had conquered all his Enemies Devil Death and Hell Now was not the first day of the week the day on which Christ rose fitter to be made the Sabbath to commemorate his Birth-day from the dead and his entrance into his Kingdom than the last day of the week the old Sabbath on which day he lay in the grave and under death Kings and Potentates use to celebrate their Birth-day and the day of entrance into their Kingdom and this King of Kings was it not fit that such a memorial should be of his Birth-day and entrance into his Dominion And compare the Creation and Christs Resurrection whether of
them Have you not sinned wilfully since you receiv'd the knowledge of the Gospel in your private deportment Or go to the great ones or to them in power dignity and estate and ask them have you not sinned wilfully since you receiv'd the knowledge of the truth in your publick imployment I cannot say what every one or any one may answer but I am sure the fairest way and upon the justest reason for every one to answer were as t is Job VII 20. I have sinned what shall I do to thee O preserver of men I have sinned wilfully what shall I do to thee O thou giver of the Gospel The word the Apostle useth here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the best and nearest propriety signifies willingly and so it shreds a lapful of gourds the more into the pot of pottage to make it the more bitter For though some conscience may contend to secure it self against the accusation of sinning wilfully yet who can say but he hath sinned willingly since he received the knowledge of the Gospel and that many a time over The allay shall I say or the smartness of this word is best to be judged by the contrary word which the Greek Interpreters used in the case of Moses we have alledged What he speaks of sinning ignorantly they render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sinning unwillingly and so they oppose unwilling sinning and pâ—esumptuous sinning one against the other And answerably the Apostle using the word but doth most directly oppose unwilling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that doth most directly oppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sheweth plainly that he takes it in the same direct opposition namely to signifie sinning wilfully or presumptuously But what is this particular sin that he doth intend What is that sinning wilfully with him that with our Apostle is a sin unto death Guess it by the story of those times which shews it plain enough that I may not spend more time than is needful about the discovery of it Our Saviour in the end of his parable of the unclean spirit cast out of a man and walking in dry places and because he could find no rest there returning to the place whence he came out with seven other spirits worse than himself and dwelling there hath this sad cadence Even so shall it be also to this wicked generation Matth. XII 45. Ah! unhappy generation the Devil cast out and returning again absent a while himself but returning with seven other Devils worse than himself how great how sad an apostasie doth this intimate in the Jewish Nation from the Gospel which had cast out the unclean spirit for a while from among them Such an Apostasie very deadly and general from the Gospel after they had received the knowledge of it and so evidently recorded in the Apostles Epistles that I need not to recite it and so copiously that I should but tire you with citing places Take but these two or three Gal. I. 6. The Apostle intimates that they were removed and soon removed from him that called them into the grace of Christ. II Tim. I. 15. All Asia which once had been all for Paul were now departed from him II Pet. II. 22. It was happened to some according to the Proverb The Dog is returned to his vomit Such instances are numerous But this was not all The cast out Devil did not only return but seven worse Devils returned with him They did not only Apostatise from the Gospel they had professed but became bitter enemies and persecutors of the Gospel from which they Apostatized This cursed root of gall and wormwood did sprout forth into Hell as cursed branches fruits of Sodom direct revolting to their old Judaism or downright falling into Nicolaitisme the one gainsaying liberty of the Gospel the other turning it into Libertinism The one an enemy to the Gospel because of its Spiritualness the other because of its Holiness The Jewish Nation were so doting upon their Ceremonies and formal manner of Religion and Worship that as you find all along the story of those times in the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles the unbelieving Jews cried down the Gospel and were bitter enemies to it because it cried down their Ceremonies And many and many of those that had believed Apostatized from it upon the same dotage and became as bitter nay if possible more bitter enemies against them than the other The Nicolaitans stumbled at another block interpreting the liberty of the Gospel and they fell into all loosness and uncleanness to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit Fornication and they became as horrid enemies to the Gospel as the other because it taught and perswaded a better course These things lie so clear in Scripture to be observed that I should do but a needless work to insist on them Thus whereas that was a happy wonder of Paul Gal. I. 23. That he now preached the Gospel which he once destroied the contrary is an unhappy monster with these men they now destroy the Gospel which they once professed and it is not unlikely what some of them preached Instances of this are little less copious than the other I shall offer you but two the one foretelling that such a thing should be and the other telling that such a thing was come to pass Act. XX. 29 30. This I know that after my departure shall grievous Wolves enter in among you spoiling the flock Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things c. To which this ecchoes I Joh. II. 18. Little children it is the last time And as ye have heard that Antichrist should come even so now are their many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time They went out from us c. They went out from us There is their Apostasie from the Gospel They are Antichrists there is their enmity against it And by the way learn from the Apostle there how to construe the last times which Phrase occurs so frequently viz. for the last times of the Jewish State and City And I must crave leave to understand that passage concerning the man of sin in II Thes. II. of these very persons and of those very times I read the Romish Antichrist in the Revelations in great Letters but truly I can read none but the Jewish Antichrist in this place This then more peculiarly is the sin our Apostle meaneth here and the Apostle Paul in that place of the Epistle to the Hebrews that I cited as might be shewed out of that and this Epistle if it were needful but I suppose that is not much needful since the thing speaks it self and it is so plain that there could not be a more deadly sin and there was not a more horrid sin in those times than such horrid Apostasie and such horrid enmity Every presumptuous sin in the Text was cited in Moses was a sin unto death in the sense that the Jewish Nation understood a