away and it hath made some beleeve that this was the last Epistle that ever he wrote but when we compare his own words again in ver 17 18. and Philip. 1 25. and Philem. ver 22. it maketh it past controversie that he speaketh not of his sudden Martyrdom but that he is to be understood in some other sense But what is that Baroniuâ— giveth this glâ—sse The words of Paul concerning his speedy death seem not possibâ—y otherwise to be understood then that God had revealed to him that he should sâ—ffer death under Nero. For that time might very well seem near which was to be fulfilled under the same Prince I but Nero for his age might have reigned 50 oâ—â—0 years after the Apostles writiâ—g of this Epistle and so the last words of this glosse are but a very poor salving And indeed the resolution of the difficulty lieth open and conspicuous in the text it self Paul looked upon Timothy as the prime and choice man that was to succeed him in the work of the Gospel when he himself should be dead and gone as being a young man not only of singular qualifications for that work but of whom there had been speciall Prophesies and predictions to such a purpose 1 Tim. 1.18 as was observed before He exhorts him therefore in this place to improve all his pains and parts to the utmost to do the work of an Evangelist and to make proof of his Ministry to the full for that he himself could not last long being now grown old and worn with travell and besides all this in bonds at present and so in continuall danger therefore must Timothy be sitting himself daily to take his work up when he was gone With Timothy he desires that Mark may come along with him to Rome whom we observed to be at Corinth at Pauls last coming thither and one clause in this Epistle seemeth also to speak to that matter Chap. 4.20 Erasius abode at Corinth but Trophimus I left at Miletum sick Erasius abode at Corinth Why that Timothy kâ—ew without any information for he was with Paul all along that journey when Erasius went to Corinth and staid there And Trophimus I left at Miletum sâ—ck Why Timothy could not but know that too without Pauls telling him so from Rome Miletum and Ephesus were so very near together nay it is more then prâ—babâ—e that Timothy was left at Miletum too when Trophimus was left there But when was he leâ—t Not when Paul went towards Ierusalem and sent for the Elders of Ephesus to Miletum Acts 20. for Trophimus went and was with him at Ierusalem Acts 21.19 But it was when Paul returned from Ierusalem in bonds to Rome â—s hath been said though it be not particularly mentioned that he touched there Some would have the word Miletum to be read Melita among whom is Beza who is ever one of the forwardest to tax the Text for corrupt when he caâ—not clear it Potius conâ—icio legâ—ndum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he quod vocabulum facile suit in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 depravare Luke saith plainly that at Pauls coming away from Iudea in his voyage to Rome it was their resolution to sail by the coasts of Asia Acts 27 2. which had been a farre fairer ground to have concluded upon that Paul was at Miletum in that voyage since that was a part of those Asian coasts then to change Miletum into Melita upon no ground at all And certainly the very scope of the Apostle in that passage will not admit of that change for he is not telling Timothy of Erastus his abode at Corinth or of Trophimus his sick stay at Miletum as things unknown to him but as things very well known yet mentioned to him as making to the Apostles present purpose He had sent for Timothy and Mark to come away to him to Rome and to forward them to that journey he doth these two things 1. He sheweth how all his company was scattered from him ver 9 10. and therefore he had need of them in that destitution 2. He telleth how supply might be made in their places though they came away for though Mark should come from Corinth yet Erastus might be a supply for Erastus abode there And Timothy come away from Ephesus yet Trophimus is there ready to supply his place for Trophimus I left at Miletum sick By Tychicus who was the bearer of this Epistle to Timothy Chap. 4.12 Paul also sendeth THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS for it is apparent that he was in bonds when he sent that Epistle Chap. 3.1 and that he sent it by Tychichus Chap. 6.21 That ye may know mine affairs and how I do Tychicus a beloved brother and faithfull Minister in the Lord shall make known to you all things whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose In this Epistle he addresseth himself more especially to the convert Gentiles of the Ephesian Church to establish and settle them in the truth against that warping and wavering that was now too common and he setteth himself to unfold the mystery of the Gospel in its full luster and discovery in a more speciall manner and that especially in the two first Chapters as he himself professeth in the third By revelation God made known unto me the mystery as I wrote afore in few words whereby when ye reade ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ ver 3 4. He speaketh much of the mystery of the Gentiles calling and calleth the Jews and Gentiles knit in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Sonne of God A perfect man and the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ Chap. 4.13 In Chap. 5.26 27. speaking of Christs washing the Church that he might present it to himself without spot or wrinkle c. he seemeth to allude to the Jews exceeding great curiousnesse in their washings for purification Maym. in Mikvaoth per. 1. There must be nothing to interpose between the person that is washed and the water for if there be any thing interposing betwixt him and the water as if any clay or dough stick to his flesh he is unclean as he was and his washing profits him nothing And a little after If there be upon the flesh of a man or upon a vessel any of those things that may interpose as dough pitch or the like though it be no more then a grain of mustardseed and he take it to thought his washing profits him nothing Whâ—t he saith in ver 29. So ought men to love their wives even as their own bodies is agreed 〈◊〉 even by the Jews doctrine Our Doctors teach He that loves his wife as his own body and he that honours her more then his own body and he that maketh his sons to walk in a right way c. of such a one the Scripture saith Thou shalt know that peace shall be in thy tabernacle c. Alphes in Gittin per. ult CHRIST LX NERO.
ver 57. Thou art not yet fifty years old mean Thou art not yet come within the compasse of old age no not to the first skirts of it for fifty years was the beginning of superannuation to the Levites at the Temple Numb 4. and the Jews had a common opinion that whosoever died before fifty or at least fifty two died untimely and as it were by cutting off SECTION LX. LUKE Ch. X. from Ver. 17. to the end of the Chapter And Chap. XI and XII and XIII to Ver. 17. THe observing of the beginning and end of this Section will cleer the subsequence of this to the preceding and the order of all the stories comprehended in it It begins with the seventy Disciples returning from the imployment upon which their Master had sent them Now that they returned to him at Ierusalem whither he was gone to the Feast of Tabernacles appears by this that after they are come up to him he is in Bethany in the house of Mary and Martha Luk. 10.38 39. The Section ends with this relation And he went through the Cities and villages teaching and journeying towards Ierusalem Luk. 13.22 So that in Chap. 10.17 he is at Ierusalem having come thither to the Feast of Tabernacles And in Chap. 13.22 He hath been abroad and is now travelling up to Ierusalem again to the Feast of Dedication Therefore this whole Section is the story of his actions from the one Feast to the other Chap. X. Upon the Disciples relating that the Devils were subject to them in his Name he answers I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightening Which referreth partly to his death shortly to be by which Satan was overthrown and partly if Heaven mean the Church of the Iews and the state of Religion there as it means not seldome to the power of the Gospel this very year and forward among them casting him out With these words of Christ and the consideration of the time they refer to we may fitly compare severall places which give and receive light mutually with it As Matth. 12.45 where Satan cast out of this nation returns again 1 Cor. 6.3 Rev. 12.9 Rev. 20.1 2 c. Unto a Lawyer Christ defineth who is a Neighbour by the Parable of the wounded man and the good Samaritan vastly differing from the doctrine of the Pharisees in that case Take these two or three assertions of their own Schools for some illustration of this Parable 1. They accounted none under the terme Brother but an Israelite by blood and none under the terme Neighbour but those that were come in to their Religion Aruch in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By using the word Neighbour are excluded all the Heathen Maym. in Retseah per. 2. An Israelite that slayeth a stranger sojourning among them is not to be put to death by the Sanhedrin for it because it is said If a man come presumptuously upon his Neighbour By which it is apparent they accounted not such a one a Neighbour 2. They have this bloody and desperate tenet Hereticks that is Israelites that follow Idolatry or such as commit provoking transgressions as to eat a carcasse or to wear linsey-woolsey for provocation this is an Heretick And Epicureans which are such Israelites as deny the Law and Prophets it is commanded that a man kill them if he have power in his hand to kill them and he may boldly kill them with the sword but if he cannot he shall subtilly come about them till he can compasse their death As if he see one of them fallen into a well and there was a ladder in the well before let him take it up and say I must needs use it to fetch my sonne from the top of the house and then I will bring it thee again But Heathens betwixt whom and us there is not warre as also the feeders of small cattell of Israel and such like we may not compasse their death but it is forbidden to deliver them if they be in danger of death Observe this As if one see one of them fall into the Sea he shall not fetch him up for it is said Thou shalt not stand up against the blood of thy Neighbour But such a one is not thy Neighbour 3. Of all other people of the world they abhorred Samaritans as appeareth by Ioh. 4.9 8.43 and by exceeding many expressions to that purpose in their own writings and therefore our Saviour urging for cleer and free charity in this Parable exemplifieth in a Samaritan the unlikeliest man in the world to do any charitable office for a Jew and he a neighbour though so remoâ—e in blood religion and converse Christ is at Bethany ver 30. in the house of Mary and Martha Martha was an usuall womans name in the nation Ioshua the sonne of Gamla married Martha the daughter of Baithus Iuchas fol. 57. Abba the sonne of Martha Id. fol. 72. and Aruch in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isaac bar Shemuel bar Martha Jerus in Shab fol. 3. col 4 c. And now let the Reader cast his eye back from hence and calculate when or how it was that Christ came so acquainted with this family and he will finde no time or occasion so likely as when the woman-sinner washed his feet Luk. 7. which we proved there was Mary the sister of Lazarus who was also called Magdalen Chap. XI ver 2. The Lords prayer rehearsed Christ had taught it almost a year and a half ago in his Sermon in the mount and now being desired to teach them to pray he gives the same again They that deny this for a form of prayer to be used either know not or consider not what kind of prayers the eminent men among the Jews taught them Iohn had taught his to pray after the same manner and use of the nation and Christ being desired to teach his Disciples as Iohn had taught his rehearseth this form which he had given before They that again deny this Prayer is to be used by any but reall Saints because as they say none but such can call God Our father either know not or consider not how usuall this compellation was among the nation in their devotions and Christ speaketh constantly according to the common and most usuall language of the country At ver 14. and forward there is a story of casting out a Devil so like that in Sect. 35. the Jews cavill and our Saviours words about it are the very same and yet the current of the history evinceth them for two severall stories for as the Jews alwayes carried the same malicious construction of his miracles so doth he justly alwayes return them the same answer as hath been observed already At ver 27. there is a link that chains the time and stories As he spake these things and another at ver 29. if compared with ver 16. and again at ver 37. where his denouncing wo against the Pharisees although it be much the same for sense with that
of Zechary under the name of Ieremy doth but alleadge a Text out of the volume of the Prophets under his name that stood first in that volume And such a manner of speech is that of Christ Luke 24.44 All things must be fulfilled which are written of me in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalmes in which he follows the generall division that we have mentioned only he calleth the whole third part or Hagiographa by the title the Psalmes because the Book of Psalmes stood first of all the Books of that part In that saying Matth. 16.14 Others say Ieremy or one of the Prophets there is the same reason why Ieremy alone is named by name viz. because his name stood first in the volume of the Prophets and so came first in their way when they were speaking of the Prophets CHRISTS Arraignment before Pilate The chief Priests and Elders bring Iesus to Pilate but would not go into his house the house of a Heathen lest they should be defiled but that they might eat the Passeover Ioh. 18.28 Why They had eaten the Passeover over night at the same time that Jesus ate his and well they had spent the night after it But this day that was now come in was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their day of presenting themselves in the Temple and offering their sacrifices and peace offerings of which they were to keep a solemn feasting and this Iohn cals the Passeover In which sense Passeover bullocks are spoken of Deut. 16.2 2 Chron. 30.24 35.8 9. The School of Shammai saith their appearing was with two pieces of silver and their chagigah with a Meah of silver But the School of Hillel saith their appearing was with a Meah of silver and their chagigah with two pieces of silver Their burnt offerings at this solemnity were taken from among common cattell but their peace offerings from their tithes He that keepeth not the chagigah on the first day of the feast must keep it all the feast c. Chagigah per. 1. Pilate conceives him brought to him as a common malefactor and therefore he bids them take him back and Judge him by their own Bench and Law and in these words he meant really and according as the truth was that it was in their power to judge and execute him and needed not to trouble him with him And when they answer We may not put any man to death Joh. 18.31 They speak truly also and as the thing was indeed but the words of Pilate and theirs were not ad idem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a tradition that fourty years before the Temple was destroied capital Iudgements were taken away from them Jerus in Sanhedr fol. 18 col 1. But how Not by the Romans for they permitted them the use of their Religion Laws Magistracy capitall and penall executions and judgements in almost all cases as freely as ever they had and that both in their Sanhedrins within the Land and in their Synagogues without as far as the power of the Synagogues could reach at any time as might be proved abundantly if it were to be insisted on here The words then of these men to Pilate are true indeed That they could put no man to death but this was not as if the Romans had deprived the Sanhedrin of its power but because theeves murderers and malefactors of their own Nation were grown so numerous strong and heady that they had overpowred the Sanhedrins power that it could not it durst not execute capitall penalties upon offenders as it should have done And this their own Writings witnesse Juchasin fol. 21. The Sanhedrin flitted fourty years before the destruction of the Temple namely from that time that the Temple doors opened of their own accord and Rabban Iochanan ben Zaccai rebuked them and said O Temple Temple Zechary of old prophecied of thee saying Open thy doors O Lebanon that the fire may enter c. And also because that murderers increased and they were unwilling to judge Capitall matters they flitted from place to place even to Iabneh c. which also is asserted in Shabb. fol. 51. Avodah Zarah fol. 8. When they perceive that Pilate no more received the impression of their accusation of him as a malefactor like others they then accuse him of Treason as forbidding to pay Tribute to Cesar and as saying that he himself was a King and this they thought would do the businesse Pilate hereupon takes him in into his Judgement Hall for hitherto the Jews conference and his had been at his gate and questions him upon this point and Iesus plainly confesseth that he was a King but his Kingdom not of this world and therefore he needed not from him to fear any prejudice to the Romane power and so well satisfies Pilate that he brings him out to the gate again where the Jews stood and professeth that he found no fault in him at all Then the Jews lay in fresh accusations against him to which he answereth not a word Brought before Herod Pilate by a word that dropt from them understanding that he was of Galilee Herods Jurisdiction sent him to Herod who was now at Ierusalem partly because he would be content to have shut his hands of him and partly because he would court Herod towards the reconciling of old heart-burnings between them And now Iesus sees the monster that had murthered his forerunner Herod was glad to see him and had desired it a long time and now hoped to have got some miracles from him but he got not so much as one word though he questioned him much and the Jews who had followed him thither did vehemently accuse him The old Fox had sought and threatned his death before Luke 13.31 32. and yet now hath him in his hands and lets him go only abused and mocked and gorgeously arraied and so sends him back to Pilate that so he might court him again more then for any content he had that he should escape his hands See Acts 4.27 Before Pilate again Pilate at his gate again talks with the Jews and motions the release of the Prisoner and whether him or Barabbas and leaves it to their thoughts and goeth to his Judgement seat again By this time is his Lady stirring and understanding what business was in hand she sends to him about her dream He goes to the gate again inquires what is their vote about the Prisoners release they are all for Barabbas He puts it to the vote again and they are the same still he urgeth a third time and pleadeth the innocency of Iesus but they still urge for his crucifying Then cals he for water and washeth his hands but instantly imbrues them in his blood By this time it was the third hour of the day or about nine a clock the time of the beginning of the morning Sacrifice Hence Mark begins to count Mark 15.25 namely from the time that Pilate delivered him up He is whipped by Pilate led into the
the Blood and Family of the Caesars And now that mystery of State was discovered That an Emperour could be made though not of that Blood and elsewhere then at Rome and the misery of the State accrewed by that discovery when the longest sword did make the Emperour and the trying which was the longest undid the Empire The souldiery in Spain proclaimed Galba to succeed him against whom riseth up Otho and cuts him off when he was now reigning but in his seventh moneth having only brought the Royalty into his family and himself to misery and ruine by it When he was slain a common souldier cut off his head and putting his finger into his mouth for he was bald and therefore he could not bear it by the hair he carried it to Otho who gave it to the scum and black guard of the Camp and they fixing it upon a pole carried it up and down in derision CHRIST LXIX OTHO 1 OTHO was scarce set in the Throne when Vitellius riseth up against him and the determination of this competition was not so speedy and unsensible as was that betwixt Galba and Otho For Otho slew Galba without any noise and when himself had but three and twenty associates at his first conspiring against him But the present quarrell shook a good part of the Empire with sidings and preparations and came to a pitcht battell before it came to an end Otho's men lost the field and when tidings of his defeat came to him he resolved to strive no longer but to render up his Empire and life together and so slew himself He reigned if it may be called a reign but 95 daies VITELLIVS VITELLIUS is now Lord of all who indeed is not Master of himself A man of that untemperance and luxury that few equalled him and divers that did follow him and his course died of surfets Divers men and Cities were undone by his riotous excesses and the souldiers became effeminate by his example In the time of his reign which ended before this year was out there were divers prodigies A Comet Two Suns at the same time one in the East another in the West The Moon twice eclipsed unnaturally In the Capitol the footsteps seen of many and great Daemones coming down from thence And Iupiters Temple opened of its own accord with horrid noise And let this be reckoned for a prodigy too Maricus a man of an ordinary extraction among the Boii raised a considerable number of men and proclaimed himself a God He was soon overthrown and thrown to the wilde beasts whom when they rent not in pieces it heightened the peoples opinion in thoughts that he was a God indeed but Vitellius found another way to put him to death and so his Godship was spoiled There were divers petty mutinies of the Armies and destroying of Towns in Italy and other parts before Vespasian stird but when he stood up there were concussions that made all the Empire to shake as it had hardly ever done before He was then in the East about the Warres of the Jews as we have touched instantly before And there the Armies in Egypt Iudaea and Syria swear fealty to him in the moneth of Iuly And in a short time all the Provinces even to Achaia did the like The Legions in Maesia Illyricum Pannonia fall to him and letters are sent into Britain and Spain to move them to the like and they prevail with them Vitellius this while follows his riotous courses and marches towards Rome with 60000 men in Arms but in no discipline and a rabble of Ruffians that were of his roaring humour exceeding that number And these numbers were made numberlesse by the conflux of all sorts of people out of the City to meet him Corn was trod down the souldiers quarrelled the people was abused wounded and slain and they had the face of a Warre among themselves In such a confused march they come into the City and there take up their quarters but in all looseness luxury and security At last Vespasians party breaks into Italy and gives them a through Alarm in a short time they come to a battell at Cremona where that poor Town is ruined and left as a monument of those combustions and another memoriall not to be omitted A sonne on the one party killed his father on the other and perceived and deplored what he had done as soon as he had done it And thus these tumults grew on to that height that in fine they fight it out in Rome it self fire the Capitol plunder the City slay Vitellius subdue his party and Vespasian becomes conquerour and Emperour Think here of Matth. 24.7 CHRIST LXX VESPASIAN I VESPASIAN all this while was in Egypt at Alexandria he receives tydings of his parties successe and thither is such conflux of Friends Ambassadors and Allies to congratulate and homage him that that City though the second in the Empire was little enough to intertain the company gathered thither Vitellius his fall was in December the later end of the last year and Vespasian did wait in the beginning of this but till he could settle affairs there where he was and till he might have good weather at sea and then he sets for Italy and Titus his son parting with him at Alexandria sets for Iudea to make some end of those Warres And here we cannot but take in two passages for Chronology sake which help well to measure the time that we are just now upon The one is this of Dion Cassius in the life of Vespasian From the death of Nero to the reign of Vespasian there intercurred but one year and two and twenty daies And I write this least any should misreckon giving the whole time to every one that reigned For they did not succeed one another but one reigned in the time of another So that their years are not to be counted by their succeeding one another but according to the exact course of the time it self The other is out of Iosephus who once and again tels that the fall of Ierusalem was in the second year of Vespasian De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 47 c. And yet in recording the story and times of the sacking of it he doth plainly place it in that year that the Roman Annals write Vespasians first as it will be obvious to observe to any that peruseth them and him His computation therefore must be cast by his own counters for he accounteth the beginning of his reign from the time that the Armies in the East proclaimed him and swore fealty to him which was in Iuly and in September twelvemoneth after Ierusalem was taken at which time Vespasian was entred indeed upon a second year from the time of his proclaiming and according to this calculation it is that Iosephus reckoneth whereas Vitellius was alive and fought it out many moneths after Vespasian was proclaimed therefore the Roman Fasti do very properly begin his first year from the beginning of Ianuary this year that
of them or only to be pondering how to lay all in their right current I have not only gone the way before him but have shewed his way all along with variety of observations as not obvious for such would have but added one tediousness to another so I hope not unprofitable nor without his delight I have not set my self to Comment but in a traâ—sient way to hint the clearing of some of the most conspicuous difficulties and that partly from the Text it self and partly from Talmudicall collections Of which later I have alleadged very many and the most of them I hope not impertinently but for usefull illustration For though it is true indeed that there are no greater enemies to Christ nor greater deniers of the Doctrine of the Gospel then the Hebrew Writers yet as Cerah's Censers and the spoils of David's enemies were dedicated to the Sanctuary service so may the Records to be met with in these men be of most excellent use and improvement to the explication of a world of passages in the New Testament Nay multitudes of passages not possibly to be explained but from these Records For since the scene of the most actings in it was among the Jews the speeches of Christ and his Apostles were to the Jews and they Jews by birth and education that wrote the Gospels and Epistles it is no wonder if it speak the Jews Dialect throughout and glanceth at their Traditions Opinions and Customs at every step What Author in the world but he is best to be understood from the Writers and Dialect of his own Nation What one Roman Writer can a man understandingly reade unless he be well acquainted with their History Customs Propriety of phrases and common speech So doth the New Testament loquitur cum vulgo Though it be penned in Greek it speaks in the phrase of the Jewish Nation among whom it was penned all along and there are multitudes of expressions in it which are not to be found but there and in the Jews Writings in all the vvorld They are very much deceived that think the New Testament so very easie to be understood because of the familiar doctrine it containeth Faith and Repentance It is true indeed it is plainer as to the matter it handleth then the Old because it is an unfolding of the Old but for the attaining of the understanding of the expressions that it useth in these explications you must go two steps further then you do about the Old namely to observe vvhere and how it useth the Septuagints Greek as it doth very commonly and when it useth the Jews Idiome or reference thereunto which indeed it doth continually A Student well versed in their Language and Writings would finde it no great difficulty to translate the New Testament into Talmudick language almost from verse to verse so close doth it speak all along to their common speech The allegations that I have produced of this nature in this present Tract I have done but cursorily as not writing a Comment but a running Survey of the Times Order and History of the whole New Testament So that it may be many of them may not speak to every Reader that full intent for which they are produced and which would I have spent time to have been their Interpreter but I was willing to avoid prolixity I could have made them to have spoken plainly What I might have done in this kinde I shall shew but by one instance which let not the Reader think tedious here since I have avoided tediousness in this kinde all along hereafter and this is by a Comment in the way we have been speaking of but upon one verse and that is the 22d verse of the 5th Chapter of Matthew which I have picked out the rather to make an exercitation upon because it is generally held by all Expositors that in it there is a plain reference to something in the Jewish Customs which is the thing we have been mentioning Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of Iudgement c. The sense which is ordinarily given of this verse in the construction of many Expositors is made to referre unto the three sorts of Judicatories among the Jews the lowest consisting of three Judges the middle of twenty three and the supream of seventy one With which allusion and explication I cannot close upon these three Reasons 1. Because the lowest Judicatory to which they apply the word The Iudgement had nothing to do in capitall matters and so the conclusion of the verse before cannot be understood in this verse The murderer shall be in danger of being judged by the Iudicatory of three for they judged no such thing and answerably the first clause in this verse where the same word The Iudgement is reserved cannot have the same application 2. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used only in the second clause and it will be hard to give a reason why the middle Sanhedrin should only be so called as that interpretation makes it to be when all the three and most eminently the highest did bear that name 3. To apply Gehenna ignis to penalty inflicted by the highest Sanhedrins as divers do doth cause so hard straining as may be observed in the severall allusions that are framed of it that it is very farre from an easily digested and current sense I deny not indeed that Christ in the verse alluded to something of the Jews practises in some point of Judicature but unto what I shall defer to conjecture till its course come in the method in which it seemeth most genuine to take the unfolding of the verse up and that is 1. To consider of three words in it which also are to be met in other places and so carry a more generall concernment with them then to be confined unto this verse and those are Brother and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Gehenna 2. To consider of the three degrees of offences that are spoken of namely causeless anger saying Raka and calling Thou fool And 3. to consider of the three penalties denounced upon these offences viz. Iudgement The Councill and Hell fire 1. The word Brother which doth so constantly wrap up all professors of the Name of Christ in the signification of it in the New Testament may not unfitly be looked upon by reflexion upon the sense of the word Neighbour in the Old Testament as that was commonly interpreted and understood by the Jews By using the word Neighbour saith Rabbi Nathan he excludeth all the Heathen Aruch in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And let this passage of Maymony be well weighed It is all one saith he to slay an Israelite and to slay a Canaanite servant he that doth either must be put to death for it An Israelite that slayeth a stranger sojourner is not put to death by the Sanhedrin for it because it is said If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour Exod. 21.14 and it is
needless to say he is not to be put to death for a Heathen And it is all one for a man to kill another mans servant or to kill his own servant for he must die for either because a servant hath taken upon him the Commandments and is added to the possession of the Lord. In Rotseahh c. per. 2. By which it is apparent that they accounted all of their own Religion and them only to come under the title Neighbour to which opinion how our Saviour speaketh you may observe in Luke 10.29 30. c. So that in the Jewish Church there were those that went under the notion of Brethren that is Israelites who were all of one blood and those that went under the name of Neighbours and those were they that came in from other Nations to their Religion They shall no more teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother Jer. 31.34 c. Now under the Gospel where there is no distinction of Tribes and kinreds the word Brother is ordinarily used to signifie in the same latitude that Neighbour had done namely all that come into the profession of the Gospel and it is so taken also as that had been in contradistinction to a Heathen Any man that is called a Brother 1 Cor. 5.11 If thy brother offend thee c. Let him be as a Heathen Mat. 18.15 17. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our English rendereth Is in danger of translates the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are as ordinarily used among the Jewish Writers as any words whatsoever as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Guilty of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Guilty of cutting off c. Every page almost in either Talmud will give you examples of this nature 3. Gehenna It is well known that this expression is taken from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The valley of Hinnom of which and of the filthiness and abominableness of which place there is so much spoken in Scripture There was the horrid Idol Molech to which they burnt their children in the fire And thither as D. Kimchi saith was cast out all the filth and unburied carcases and there was a continuall fire to burn the filth and the bones In Psal. 27. From hence the Jews borrowed the word and used it in their ordinary language to betoken Hell And the Text from which they especially translated the construction seemeth to have been the last verse of the Prophesie of Isaiah which by some of them is glossed thus And they shall go forth out of Ierusalem into the valley of Hinnom and there they shall see the carcases of those that rebelled against me c. Vid. Kimch Ab. Ezr. in loc It were endlesse to shew the frequency of the word in their Writers let these few examples suffice Chald. Paraph. in Isa. 26.15 Lord thou wilt drive all the wicked to Gehinnom And on Isa. 33.14 The wicked shall be judged and delivered to Gehinnom the everlasting burning And on ver 17. Thou shalt see those that go down to the Land of Gehinnom R. Sol. on Isa. 24.22 They shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit and shall be shut up in prison 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They that guilty of Geâ—innom into Gehinnom Targ. in Ruth 1.12 Be thou delivered from the Iudgement of Gehinnom Midras Mishle fol. 69. Do you think to be delivered from the Iudgement of Gehinnom Baal Tur. in Gen. 1.1 Because of the Law they are delivered from the Iudgement of Gehennah c. See the phrase Matth. 23.33 And now we have done with words let us come to sentences and consider the offences that are prohibited which are easily acknowledged to be graduall or one above another About the first viz. Causelesse anger there needeth no explanation the words and matter are plain enough The second is Whosoever shall say to his brother Racha A nickname or scornfull title usuall which they disdainfully put one upon another and very commonly and therefore our Saviour hath specified in this word the rather because it was of so common use among them and they made no bones at it Take these few examples A certain man sought to betake himself to repentance and restitution His wife said to him Rekah if thou make restitution even thy girdle about thee is not thine own c. Tanchum fol. 5. Rabbi Iochanan was teaching concerning the building of Ierusalem with Saphires and Diamonds c. One of his scholars laughed him to scorn But afterward being convinced of the truth of the thing he saith to him Rabbi Do thou expound for it is fit for thee to expound as thou saidest so have I seen it He saith to him Rekah Hadst thou not seen thou wouldest not have beleeved c. Midras Tillin fol. 38. col 4. To what is the thing like To a King of flesh and blood who took to wife a Kings daughter he saith to her Wait and fill me a cup but she would not whereupon he was angry and put her away She went and was married to a sordid fellow and he saith to her Wait and fill me a cup She said unto him Rekah I am a Kings daughter c. Idem in Psal. 137. A Gentile saith to an Israelite I have a dainty dish for thee to eat of He saith What is it He answers Swines flesh He saith to him Rekah even what you kill of clean beasts is forbidden us much more this Tanch fol. 18. col 4. The third offence is to say to a brother Thou fool which how to distinguish from Racha which signifies an empty fellow were some difficulty but that Solomon is a good Dictionary here for us who takes the term continually for a wicked wretch and reprobate and in opposition to spirituall wisdom So that in the first clause is condemned causelesse anger in the second scornfull taunting and reproaching of a brother and in the last calling him a reprobate and wicked or uncharitably censuring his spirituall and eternall estate And this last doth more especially hit the Scribes and Pharisees who arrogated to themselves only to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wisemen but of all others had this scornfull and uncharitable opinion This people that knoweth not the Law is cursed Ioh. 7.49 And now for the penalties denounced upon these offences let us look upon them taking notice of these two traditions of the Jews which our Saviour seemeth to face and to contradict 1. That they accounted the command Thou shalt not kill to aim only at actuall murder So in their collecting of the 613 precepts out of the Law they understand that command to mean but this That one should not kill an Israelite Vid. trip Targ. ibid. Sepher Chinnuch ibid. Maym. in Rotseah per. 1. And accordingly they allotted this only violation of it to judgement Against this wilde glosse and practise he speaketh in the first clause Ye have heard it said Thou shalt not kill
Amen Min Ne was full of Israelites double the number of those that came out of Egypt c. But they were all slain by Alexander But after this it was re-peopled again from the time of Onias who built there a great Temple and an Altar and all the men of Egypt went thither c. And there was a great Congregation there double to the number of those that came out of Egypt Fol. 14. Of this Temple built by Onias in Egypt Iosephus maketh mention Antiq. lib. 13. cap. 6. And the Talmud in Menacheth cap. 13. So that Christ being sent into Egypt was sent among his own Nation who had filled that Countrey The time that he was in Egypt was not above three or four moneths so soon the Lord smote Herod for his butchery of the innocent children and murtherous intent against the Lord of Life Ioseph and Mary being called out of Egypt after Herods death intend for Iudaea again thinking to go to Bethlehem but the fear of Archelaus and the warning of an Angel directs them into Galilee They knew not but that Christ was to be educated in Bethlehem as he was to be born there therefore they kept him there till he was two years old and durst not take him thence till fear and the warrant of an Angel dismisseth them into Egypt And when they come again from thence they can think of no other place but Bethlehem again till the like fear and warrant send them into Galilee CHRIST III. IV. V. VI. VII VIII IX X. XI There is none of the Evangelists that recordeth any thing concerning Christ from the time of his return out of Egypt till he come to be twelve years old which was for the space of these years For the better understanding of which times let us take up some few passages in Iosephus Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 10. Herod saith he reigned 34 years from the time that Antigonus was taken away and 37 years from the time that he was first declâ—red King by the Romans And again in the same Book cap. 15. In the tenth year of the reign of Archelaus the people not enduring his cruelty and tyranny they accused Archelaus to Caesar and he banished him to Vienna And a little after Cyrenius was sent by Caesar to tax Syria and to confiscate Archelaus his goods And lib. 18. cap. 1. Coponius was also sent with Cyrenius to be governour of Judea And ibid. cap. 5. Coponius returning to Rome Marcus Ambibuchus becometh his Successor in that government And after him succeeded Annius Rufus in whose time died Caesar Augustus the second Emperour of the Romans Now when Augustus died Christ was fourteen years old as appeareth from this that he was 29. years old compleat and beginning to be thirty in the fifteenth year of Tiberius the Emperour next succeeding Luke 3.1 2. Reckon then these times that Iosephus hath mentioned between the death of Herod and the death of Augustus namely the ten years of Archelaus and after them the government of Coponius and after him Ambibuchus and after him Rufus and it will necessarily follow that when Herod slew Bethlehem children Christ being then two years old it was the very last year of his reign SECTION VIII LUKE Chap. II. from Ver. 40. to the end of the Chapter CHRIST at twelve years old sheweth his wisedom among the Doctors At the same age had Solomon shewed his wisedom in deciding the controversie between the two harlots Ionic Martyr in Epist. ad Mignos World 3939 Rome 765 Augustus 42 CHRIST XII Archelaus 10 IT is very easie to see the subsequence of this Section to that preceding Since there is nothing recorded by any of the Evangelists concerning Christ from his infancy till he began to be thirty years old but only this Story of his shewing his wisedom at twelve years old among the Doctors of some of the three Sanhedrins that sate at the Temple for there sate one of 23. Judges in the East-gate of the Mountain of the house called the gate Shushan Another of 23. in the gate of Nicanor or the East-gate of the Court of Israel And the great Sanhedrin of 71. Judges that sate in the Room Gazith not farre from the Altar Though Herod had slain the Sanhedrin as is related by Iosephus and divers others yet was not that Court nor the judiciary thereof utterly extinguisht but revived again and continued till many years after the destruction of the City His Story about this matter is briefly thus given by the Babylon Talmud in Bava Bathra fol. 3. facic 2. Herod was a servant of the Armenian Family He set his eyes upon a girl of it One day the man heard a voice from Heaven Bath Kol which said Any servant that rebelleth this year shall prosper He riseth up and slayeth all his Musters but left that girl c. And whereas it is said Thou shalt set a King over thee from among thy brethren which as the glosse there tells us their Rabbies understood of the chiefest of thy brethren he rose up and slew all the great ones only he left Baba ben Bora to take counsell of him The glosse upon this again tells us That he slew not utterly all the great ones for he left Hillel and the sons of Betirah remaining and Iosephus relateth also that he spared Shammai to which Abraham Zaccuth addeth that Menahim and 80 gallant men of the chief of the Nation were gone over to his service and to attend upon him So that these of themselves and by ordination of others did soon repair that breach that his sword had made in the Sanhedrin he not resisting its erection again when he had now taken away the men of his displeasure Hillel was president and sate so fourty years and died by the Jews computation applied to the Christian account much about this twelfth year of Christ. For they say that he lived an hundred and twenty years the last fourty of which he spent in the Presidency of the Sanhedrin entring upon that dignity an hundred years before the destruction of the City Menahem was at first Vicepresident with him but upon his going away to Herods service Shammai came in his room and now two as eminent and Learned men sate in those two chairs as ever had done since the first birth of traditions Hillel himself was so deserving a man that whereas in the vacancy of the Presidentship by the death of Shemaiah and Abtalion R. Iudah and R. Ieshua the sons of Betirah might have taken the chairs they preferred Hillel as the worthier person Talm. Ierus in Pissachin fol. 33. col 1. He bred many eminent scholers to the number of fourscore the most renowned of which by name were Ionathan ben Vzziel the Chaldee Paraphrast and Rabban Iocanan ben Zaccai both probably alive at this year of Christ and a good while after The latter was undoubtedly so for he lived to see the destruction of the City and Temple and sate President in the
Sanhedrin at Iabneh afterwards And till that time also lived the sons of Betirah mentioned before Shammai was little inferiour to Hillel in learning or in breeding learned men and their equall learning and schools bred differences between them in point of learning and determination about some things in their traditions The two Masters controverting about a few Articles but their Schollers about very many and their differences very high This contention of the Schollers grew so very high even in the Masters time that it is recorded that the Schollers of Shammai affronted and bandied against Hillel himself in the Temple court Ierus in Iom Tobh fol. 61. col 3. And the quarrellings of these Schools were so bitter that as the same Talmud relateth it came to effusion of blood and murdering one another Shabb. fol. 3. col 3. These are some of the Traditions that were made or setled in the Chamber of Hananiah the son of Ezekia the son of Baron The persons were numbred and the Schollers of Shammai were more then the Schollers of Hillel That day was a grievous day to Israel as was the day of the making of the golden Calfe The Schollers of Shammai stood below and slew the Schollers of Hillel Nor did these animosities cease but they were ever crossing and jarring till at the last the Schools of Hillel carried it by the determination of a divine voice from Heaven as was pretended for to such fictions they glad to betake themselves Till the divine voice Bath Kol came forth it was lawfull for any one to practise according the weighty or light things of the School of Shammai or according to the weighty or light things of the School of Hillel There came forth a divine voice at Jabneh and said The words of the one and of the other are the words of the living God but the certain determination of the thing is according to the School of Hillel And whosever transgresseth against the words of the School of Hillel deserveth death Ibid. in Beracoth fol. 3. col 2. At these times then that we are upon their School-Learning was come to the very height Hillel and Shammai having promoted it to a pitch incomparably transcendent above what it had been before and accordingly now began the Titles of Rabban and Rabbi Rabban Simeon the Son of Hillel being the first President of the Sanhedrin that bare a Title for till these times their great and Learned men had been called only by their bare proper names So that now in a double seasonablenesse doth Christ the divine wisdome of God appear and set in among them at twelve years old beginning and all the time of his Ministry after going on to shew them wisdome fully and his own Word and Doctrine the divine oracles of wisdome In a double seasonablenesse I say when their Learning was now come to the height and when their Traditions had to the utmost made the word of God of no effect This twelfth year of Christ was the last year of the reign of Archelaus the Sonne of Herod of whom is mention Matth. 2.22 He is accused to Augustus for male-administration and thereupon banished by him to Vienna as was mentioned before And Coponius comes Governour of Iudaea in his stead CHRIST XII XIV AUGUSTUS Caesar dieth this fourteenth year of Christ on the nineteenth day of August duobus Sextis Pompeio Apuleio Coss. Suet. in Augusto cap. 10. He was 75 years 10 moneths and 26 dayes old having been Monarch since his victory at Actium 44 years wanting 13 dayes Dion Cass. lib. 56. TIBERIUS Caesar reigneth in his stead CHRIST XV. XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX. XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII All this space of Christs life from his twelfth year of age to his twenty ninth is passed over by all the Evangelists in silence because they were not so much to treat of his private life and imployment as of his publike Ministry And here they follow the same course that the Angel Gabriel had done in his foretelling of the time of his appearing Dan. 9.24 25 c. where speaking of the years that should passe from his own time unto Messiah the Prince he beginneth the story of Messiah from the time of his Ministry only or from the latter half of the last seaven years there mentioned the time when he should confirm the Covenant with the many c. These years he spent with his Parents at Nazaret Luk. 2.51 following his Fathers trade of Carpentry Matth. 13.55 with Mark 6.3 And these two things were they especially that did so mainly cloud him from the eyes of the Jews that they could not own him for the Messias namely because he was of so poor condition and education and they looked for the Messias in a pompous garb and because his first appearing in his Ministry was not from Nazaret his birth at Bethlehem so many years ago either having been out at all taken notice of when it was or if it were by this time worn out of notice and remembrance SECTION IX LUKE Chap. III. from the beginning to Ver. 18. MATTH Chap. III. from the beginning to Ver. 13. MARK Chap. I. from the beginning to Ver. 9. The Gospel began in JOHNS Ministry and Baptisme CHRIST XXIX THe order of this Section is confirmed by all the three Mark hath made this the beginning of his Gospel because the preceding occurrences of Christs birth and Minoitry were committed by the holy Ghost who held his pen to the pens of others He calls the Ministry and Baptisme of Iohn the beginning of the Gospel and that deservedly both in regard of Iohns preaching and proclaiming Christs appearing to be so neer as also in regard of the great change that his Ministry introduced both in doctrine and practise He preaching and administring the baptisme of repentance for the remission of sins whereas baptisme till that time had been used and taken up as an obligation to the performance of the Law And he baptizing Jews into another religion then their own whereas till then baptizing had been used to admit Heathens into the religion of the Jews Here is the standard of time that the holy Ghost hath set up in the new Testament unto which as unto the fullnesse of timâ— he hath drawn up a chronicall chain from the Creation and from which as from a standing mark we are to measure all the times of the new Testament if we would fix them to a certain date There are two main stories that Luke layeth down in his third Chapter the one is Iohns baptizing and the other is Christ baptized by him and he hath dated the former in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cesar and how to date the latter we are taught and helped by these collections 1. He intimateth to us that Christ when he was baptised by Iohn was but entring on his thirteeâ—th year as the wonders that he hath used do plainly evidence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was beginning to be
compared with Nehem. 3. and at first called Solomons Pool but now Bethesda or the place of mercy from its beneficiall virtue It was supplied with water from the fountain Sileam which represented Davids and Christs Kingdom Isa. 8 6. The five porches about it and the man when healed carrying his bed out of one of them calls to minde the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mevuoâ—h or Entries that are so much spoken of in the treatise Erubhin the carrying of any thing out of which into the street on the Sabbath day was to carry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of a private place into a publick and was prohibited He is hereupon convented before the Sanhedrin and there he doth most openly confesse and prove himself to be the Messias And he asserteth that all Power and Judgment is put into his hand and that he hath the same authority for the dispensing of the affairs of the new Testament that the Father had for the old And this he doth so plainly that he leaveth their unbelief henceforward without excuse The Jews speak of divers ominous things that occurred fourty years before the destruction of the City As It is a tradition that fourty years before the Sanctuary was destroyed the western Lamp went out and the scarlet list kept its rednesse and the Lords lot came up on the left hand And they locked up the Temple doors at even yet when they rose in the morning they found them open Jerus in Joma fol. 43. col 3. And Sanhedr fol. 18. col 1. Fourty years before the Temple was destroyed power of judgeng in capitall matters was taken away from Israel Now there are some that reckon but thirty eight years between the death of Christ and the destruction of the City and if that be so then these ominous presages occurred this year that we are upon It being just fourty years by that account from this Passeover at which Christ healeth the diseased man at Bethesda to the time of Titus his pitching his Camp and siege about Ierusalem which was at a Passeover But of this let the Reader judge SECTION XXV LUKE Chap. VI. from the beginning to Ver. 12. MARK Chap. II. from Ver. 23 to the end and Chap. III. from the beginning to Ver. 7. MARK Chap. XII from the beginning to Ver. 15. The Disciples plucking ears of Corn. A withered hand healed on the Sabbath THe words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Luke hath used ver 1. being rightly understood will help to cleer the order of this Section and to confirm the order of the preceding The Law enjoyned that the next morrow after the eating of the Passeover should be kept holy like a Sabbath Exod. 12.16 and accordingly it is called a Sabbath Lev. 23.7 11. And there the Law also enjoyns that the next day after that Sabbaticall day they shall offer the sheaf of first-fruits to the Lord and from that day they should count seaven Sabbaths to Pentecost which was their solemn festivall and thanksgiving for that half harvest viz. Barley harvest which they had then inned Lev. 23.15 16 17. That day therefore that they offered their first Barley sheaf and from which they were to count the seaven Sabbaths or weeks forward being the second day in the Passeover week the Sabbaths that followed did carry a memoriall of that day in their name till the seaven were run out as the first was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first second-day Sabbath The next 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second second-day Sabbath the next 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the third second-day Sabbath and so the rest all the seaven through Now let it be observed 1. That no Corn no not ears of Corn might be eaten till the first-fruits sheaf was offered and waved before the Lord Lev. 23.14 2. That it was waved the second day of the Passeover week 3. That this was the first Sabbath after that second day when the Disciples pluckt the ears of Corn and it will plainly evince that we must look for a Passeover before this story and so it will shew the warranty and justnesse of taking in the fifth of Iohn next before it But the order of Matthew may breed some scruple and that the rather because that though he hath placed this story after divers occurrences that are yet to come yet he hath prefaced it with this circumstance At that time Now this expression doth not alwayes center stories in the same point of time but sometimes it hath made a transition betwixt two stories whose times were at a good distance asunder as Gen. 38.1 Deut. 10.8 and so likewise the phrase In these dayes Mat. 3.1 The latter story about healing the man with the withered hand is so unanimously ordered by all the three after the other that there is no doubt of the method of it It was a speciall part of religion which the Jews used on the Sabbath to eat good meat and better then they did on the week dayes yea they thought themselves bound to eat three meals on that day as was said before and for this they alledge Isa. 58.13 Nid Kimch ibid. Tamh fol. 1. Talm. Maym. in Shab c. compare Phil. 3.19 Observe how farre the Disciples are from such an observance and from such provision when a few ears of Barley for that was the Corn plucked must make a dinner The plucking of ears of Corn on the Sabbath was forbidden by their Canons verbatim Talm. in Shab par 7. Maymon Shab par 7 8. He that reapeth Corn on the Sabbath to the quantity of a fig is guilty And plucking Corn is as reaping And whosoever plucketh up any thing from it growing is guilty under the notion of reaping Christ before his healing the withered hand is questioned by them Is it lawfull to heal on the Sabbath day Their decretals allowed it in some cases Tanch fol. 9. col 2. our Doctors teach the danger of life dispenseth with the Sabbath And so doth Circumcision and the healing of that But this is rule saith Rabbi Akibah that that which may be done on the eve of the Sabbath dispenseth not with the Sabbath Talm. in Shabb. par 19. Such was this case Compare Luk. 13.14 They accounted that this might have been done any other day SECTION XXVI MARK Chap. III. from Ver. 7 to Ver. 13. MATTH Chap XII from Ver. 15 to Ver. 22. Great multitudes follow Christ who healeth all that come to him THe connexion that both these Evangelists have at this story doth abundantly assert the order The Pharisees took counsell to destroy him but when Iesus knew it he departed c. The Herodians joyn with them in their plotting which seem to have been these learned and great men of the Nation who had gone into the service of Herod the Great and now of his sonne mentioned before SECTION XXVII LUKE Chap. VI. from Ver. 12 to Ver. 20. MARK Chap. III. from Ver. 13. to the middle of Ver. 19. MATTH Chap.
Ver. 35 36 37 38. Another perambulation of Galilee MATTHEW himself joyns this portion to the stories in Sect. 42. and the last words of Mark in the Section preceding he went round about the villages teaching are concurrent with the first words in this and so do assert the connexion CHRIST at his former rejection at Nazaret begins to go abroad preaching through their Synagogues as in Sect. 18. and so he doth now and so great multitudes resort unto him that he now resolveth upon sending forth his Disciples to Preach abroad also SECTION XLV MATTH Chap. X. all the Chap. And V. 1. of Chap. IX MARK Chap. VI. V. 7 8 9 10 11. LUKE Chap. IX Ver. 1 2 3 4 5 6. The twelve Apostles sent out to preach THe order in Matthew and Mark shews and cleers it self The twelve had been ordained for Apostles a great while since and all that while had been with Christ as probationers to see his works and to learn his Doctrine and since their pointing out to be Apostles it is observable how much Christ hath applied himself to Doctrine that they might learn the Gospel of the Kingdom and be stored with what to preach when he should send them forth Hitherto they had been learners and as for the gifts of the Spirit they as yet differed nothing from the rest that followed him but now he gives them power of healing and casting out devils and now is the power of miracles restored So that they cured diseases by the Spirit but they preached not by the Spirit but taught that only which they had learned from the mouth of Christ. He sendeth them out by two and two and so it is like the twelve spies divided themselves when they went to search the Land It may be the Apostles went in these couples that Matthew had reckoned them in What Christ forbiddeth them to take with them for their journey was 1. to inure them to depend upon his protection and not upon their own carefulnesse And 2. He hereby intimates that they should finde such good entertainment in their Ministry that they should finde safety and maintenance wheresoever they came Therefore when in Luke 22.6 Now take purse and scrip c. he thereby would not signifie that his care of them was any whit abated of what it was now but that they should meet with worse times and worse entertainment then they had had now Whereas in Matthew and Luke they are forbidden to take staves in Mark it is said they should take nothing for their journey save a staff only not staves for weapons or for their defence but a staff for their resting on for their ease in the journey as Gen. 32.10 They are confined to preach to Israel only though many Gentiles dwelt intermixedly with them in their Cities because the Lord would own the peculiarity of the Nation in the first preaching of the Gospel as he had done all along in the Oeconomy of the Law when they had forfeited their priviledge of being a peculiar people by crucifying him that sent the Gospel amongst them then is the Apostles commission inlarged to go to the Gentiles Matth. 28. SECTION XLVI MARK Chap. VI. from Ver. 14. to Ver. 30. MATTH Chap. XIV from the begin to Ver. 13. LUKE Chap. IX Ver. 7 8 9. JOHN beheaded His Disciples come in to Christ. MARK and Luke do justifie the order for both of them have laid this story next to the story of Christs sending forth his Disciples Matthew when he saith At that time he useth the word in its latitude as it is often used in Scripture not precisely or determinately for the very day or season when a thing was done but in the current of time then in being And yet in this expression he seemeth also to have respect to the story that he had related next before though that were some reasonable space of time before this For there he had told that Christ coming into his own Country was sleighted and undervalued and they were offended in him yet Herod was amazed at the wonders that he heard of him Here are two times regardable in this Section namely the time of Iohn Baptists death and the time of Herods hearing of the fame of Iesus And the juncture of the stories is very close As the Disciples were preaching up and down according to Christs mission Herod beheaded the Baptist and by their preaching in the name of Iesus the fame of Iesus cometh to Herods hearing and the Disciples again hearing of the murder of Iohn get in to their master So that the story of Iohns death is related here in the proper place and time when it did occurre And from one passage of Iohn the Evangelist in the next following Section there is the ground of a fair conjecture of the time of his beheading For we shall see in the beginning of the next Section that all the â—our do speak of Christ departing privately into a desert place Matthew particularly gives the reason namely because he had newly heard by Iohns Disciples of the death of their Master Now Iohn the Evangelist in giving that story of Christs retiring hath inserted this passage And the Iews Passeover was nigh whereby we may conclude that the Baptists death was a little before the time of the Passeover And from hence we may take up the whole space of his Ministry and imprisonment He began to Preach and Baptize in the year of Christ 29 at the spring of that year or about Easter Half a year after Iesus is baptized by him about the Feast of Tabernacles Till after the Feast of Tabernacles come twelve moneth viz. in the Year of Christ 30 he is still abroad baptizing in Bethabara and Aenon About October in that Year he is imprisoned and so lieth in restraint till almost Easter twelve moneth which was in the Year of Christ 32. And so his story is of three years space the better half of which he preached at liberty and the other half he lay in prison Herod upon the hearing of the fame of Iesus is struck with horrour of conscience upon thought of the murder of Iohn and if the leaven of Herod was Sadduceism his horrour makes him deny his Sadducaicall principles and to think that Iohn was Risen from the dead SECTION XLVII MATTH Chap. XIV from Ver. 13. to the end of the Chapter JOHN Chap. VI. from beginning of Chap. to Ver. 22. MARK Chap. VI. from V. 30. to the end of the Chap. LUKE IX from V. 10. to V. 18. Five thousand fed miraculously Christ walketh on the Sea ALl the four speak the same story of Christs miraculous feeding many thousands in a Desert Mark and Matthew do plainly link this story to the preceding as is conspicuous to the eye of whosoever shall view in them the last verse of the foregoing Section and the first of this Iohns Disciples with the tidings of their Masters death and Iesus Disciples from their Preaching abroad came
the looking into it but the wise men bound it Id. in Jam. tobh fol. 60. col 1. R. Iochanan went from Tsipporis to Tiberias he saith Why brought ye to me this Elder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For what I loose he bindeth and what I binde he looseth Maym. in Hhamets umatsah per. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Scribes have bound leaven that is they have prohibited it Tanchum fol. 1. col 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They have upon necessity loosed salvation on the Sabbath that is they have permitted it or taught that it was lawfull Thousands of instances of this nature might be produced by all which it is clear that the Jews use of the phrase was of their Doctors or learned mens teaching what was lawfull and permitted and what unlawfull and prohibited Hence is that definition of such mens office and work in Tosaphta ad Iebamoth per. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A wise man that Iudgeth Iudgement maketh unclean and maketh clean bindeth and looseth that is teacheth what is clean and unclean what is permitted and prohibited And Maymony in Sanhedr per. 4. giving the relation of their ordaining of Elders and to what severall imployments they were ordained saith thus A wise man that is fit to teach all the Law the Consistory had power to ordain him To Iudge but not to teach Bound and loose or power to teach Bound and loose but not to judge in pecuniary matters or power to both these but not to judge in matters of mulct c. So that the Ordination of one to that Function which was more properly Ministeriall or to teach the people their duty as what was lawfull what not what they were to do and what not to do was to such a purpose or in such a tenour as this Take thou power to binde and loose or to teach what is bound and loose for they use both the expressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By this vulgar and onely sense of this phrase in the nation the meaning of Christ using it thus to his Disciples is easily understood namely that he first doth instate them in a Ministeriall capacity to teach what bound and loose what to be done and what not and this as Ministers and thus all Ministers successively to the end of the world But as they were Apostles of that singular and unparalleled order as the like never in the Church again he gives them power to binde and loose in a degree above all Ministers that were to follow namely that whereas some part of Moses Law was now to stand in practise and some to be laid aside some things under the Law prohibited were now to be permitted and some things then permitted to be now prohibited he promiseth the Apostles such assistance of his Spirit and giveth them such power that what they allowed to stand in practise should stand and what to fall should fall what they bound in earth should be bound in heaven c. SECTION LIII MATTH Chap. XVII from the beginning to Ver. 24. MARK Chap. IX from Ver. 2. to Ver. 33. LUKE IX from V. 28. to Ver. 46. CHRIST transfigured A devil cast out of a childe MATTHEW and Mark link this story to the preceding with this link After six daies c. which Luke hath uttered About an eight daies after which is but the same in sense Six daies compleat came between the day that Christ had spoken the words before and the day of his Transfiguration So that the day of his Transfiguration was the eight day from the day when Christ said There are some standing here that shall not taste of death till they have seen the Kingdom of God come with power This story oâ— Christs Transfiguâ—acion relateth to that prediction concerning the great Prophet Deut. 18.18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee c. And it shall come to passe that whosoever will not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him A Prophet that is a succession of Prophets till the great Prophet should come who should seal Vision and Prophesie Christ had been sealed for the great Priest at his Baptisme when entring into his Ministry at the same age that the Priests entered into their Office he is attested from heaven This is my wellbeloved Son in whom I am well pleased He is sealed for the great Prophet here by the like attestation from heaven with the same words This is my wellbeloved Son in whom I am well pleased but withall it is added Hear him answerable to those words Whosoever will not hearken c. Deut. 18.19 Moses the first Prophet had all his Oracles out of a Cloud and the Cloud of Glory that lead Israel in the Wildernesse departed at his death think of that when you see a cloud here overshadowing and a Divine Oracle given out of it at the sealing of the Prophet greater then he Moses was the first Prophet of the Jews and Elias the first Prophet of the Gentiles and they both now appear to attend their Master Christ and the three Disciples were in this mount of his Transfiguration all night for Luke saith It came to passe the next day when they were come down c. ver 37. Compare Christ transfigured and his face shining with the shining of Moses his face and so compare that first Prophet and this great Prophet again together The Disciples that had authority and power given them over all devils Luke 9.1 are not able here to cast one out and their Master sheweth a double reason why namely because of their unbelief and because that kinde went not out but by Fasting and Prayer Now that their unbelief should be any more then it had been before for they had cast out devils before this Matth. 6.13 it might seem strange but that here were some concurrents towards that more then they had met with before now and that we may observe especially in these two things 1. There were divers diseases which in their own nature were but naturall diseases which yet the Jews did commonly repute as seizure and possessing by the devil especially those that distempered the minde or did in more speciall manner convulse the body and according to this common language and conception of the Nation the language of the Gospel doth speak exceeding frequently Examples of this kinde of Dialect among the Jews we might produce divers as that in Maym. in Gerushin per. 2. A man which is troubled with an evil spirit and saith when the sicknesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 begins upon him Write a bill of Divorcement to my wife he saith as good as nothing because he is not compos sui And so likewise a drunken man when he comes neer the drunkennesse of Lot c. He calls this evil spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a sicknesse and by it he means Lunacy or Distractednesse that had
as not being against him but for him Whether he did these Miracles in the Name of Messias or of Iesus we will not question the originall of this power to him we may resolve much into the same principle from whence Caiaphas prophesied Ioh. 11.51 This he spake not of himself but being Highpriest that year he prophecied There is an emphasis in That year For now was the fulnesse of time the year of expectation and accomplishment of Vision and Prophesie and the time of the powring out of the Spirit as never before and if in that full meal of this provision that Christ had made for his own some crums fell besides the table that others gathered up or were partakers of it doth the more magnifie the diffusion and doth so much the more point out and give notice to observe the time For Christ did so little leave himself without witnesse and did give so clear evidence that this was the great and signall time spoken of by the Prophets in all generations that Miracles wrought not only by himself and his Disciples but even by the Jews own children as Matth. 12.27 give abundant testimony to it Matthews text in this Section runs parallel with the other to ver 10. and so farre the Reader may take them up together then goeth he on with Christs speech and the story alone The number of a hundred divided into ninety nine and one ver 12. is according to the usuall and ordinary manner of the Jews speech with whom this very division is very common Talm. in Peah per. 4. halac 1. 2. When a man is dividing nuts among the poor though ninety nine call on him to divide them and one call on him to scatter them to him they must hearken With grapes and dates it is not so though ninety nine call on him to scatter them and one to divide them to him they must hearken c. Jerus in Shab fol. 14. col 3. Rabh and R. Chaiish Rabbah both of them said If ninety nine dye by an evil eye and one by the hand of heaven R. Chaninah and Samuel both of them said If ninety nine die by cold and one by the hand of heaven c. The rules that Christ giveth about dealing with an offending brother were very well known in the Nation and such as were practised at least prescribed in their own Discipline 1. Admonition privately betwixt the party offended and the party offending Of such Maymony speaks in his Treatise Deah per. 6. 2. Admonition two witnesses being present Jerus in Joma fol. 45. col 3. He that sinneth against his fellow it is necessary that he say unto him I have offended against thee If he receive him well If not he must bring two men and appease him before them c. Only Christ raiseth his lesson to a higher charity namely for the offended party to try the amendment of the offending So the jealous husband admonisht his wife before two Setah per. 1. and the Sanhedrin by two Scholars of the wife admonished an Israelitish City that fell to Idolatry before they made warre upon it Maym. in Avedah Zarah per. 4. 3. If he will not hear them tell the Church They used the open proclaiming of an incorrigible person in the Synagogue A woman that is rebellious against her husband that she may vex him and saies Behold I will thus vex him because he did so and so to me they send to her from the Iudicatory or Bench and say to her Know thou that if thou persist in thy rebelliousnesse though thy Ioynture be a hundred pound thou hast forfeited it and afterward they make Proclamation concerning her in the Synagogues and in the Schooles every day for four Sabbaths together saying Such a woman rebels against her husband c. Maymony in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per. 14. And likewise Ibid. cap. 12. If a man will not provide for his children they rebuke him and shame him and are urgent with him and if yet he will not they proclaim him in the Synagogue saying Such a one is cruell and will not nourish his children c. Here was telling the Church by open Proclamation SECTION LVI JOHN Chap. VII from Ver. 2. to Ver. 10. The Feast of Tabernacles CHRIST XXXIII MATTHEW and MARK both relate that when Iesus had ended these sayings which are contained in the preceding Section he departed from Galilee and came into the coasts of Iudea beyond Iordan Matth. 19.1 Mark 10.1 which is not to be understood as if he departed thither presently but they say no more of his actions till his departure thither and so passe over almost half a years story in silence which Luke and Iohn do make up These bring Iesus out of Galilee beyond Iordan and presently back to Ierusalem to his passion but these as we shall see bring him twice to Ierusalem before his last coming up namely this to the feast of Tabernacles and another to the Feast of Dedication The Brethren that is the kinsmen of Iesus urge him to go up to the feast of Tabernacles that his Disciples in Iudea might see his works ver 3. remember here Ioh. 3.22 4.1 His brethren themselves beleeved not on him ver 5. and that the rather because they thought his privacy that he desired to keep in was not answerable to the port and state of the Messias therefore they desire that he would appear in the power of his miracles in Iudea the center of the Nation that if he were the Messias he might carry it out there as they expected the Messias should do SECTION LVII LUKE Chap. IX from Ver. 51. to the end of the Chapter JOHN Chap. VII Ver. 10. CHRIST going toward the Feast of Tabernacles THat this journey of Christ toward Ierusalem that Luke speaketh of in this Section is the same with this in Iohn namely his going up to the Feast of Tabernacles is plain by this that Luke mentioneth two journeys of his to Ierusalem more namely in Chap. 13.22 which was to the Feast of Dedication and Chap. 17.11 which was to the Passeover and his Passion The words of Luke then When the time was come that he should be received up he stedfastly set his face to go to Hierusalem mean that now being come within half a year of the time of his death he resolved to be more constant at Ierusalem then he had been having avoided the place and country once and again because the Jews sought to kill him The stories of severall men in this Section that take upon them to follow Christ but they had something else to do first have been spoken to before at Sect. 38. SECTION LVIII LUKE Chap. X. from the beginning to Ver. 17. The seventy Disciples sent forth AS to the order of this story First It is to be observed that Luke saith It was after these things mentioned in the former Section that is after Christ was set out from Galilee towards the feast of Tabernacles
are told of their Martyrdom THe order is plain of it self and yet the connexion is somewhat strange for in the last words before Christ had foretold of his death yet the sons of Zebedee here desire to sit on his right hand and left in his Kingdom Galatius resolves it thus Discipuli in errore aliquando fuerunt credentes Christum illicò post resurrectionem terreni regni sceptro potiturum unde quidam eorum super caeteros primatum ambientes c. The Disciples sometimes were mistaken conceiving that Christ presently after his resurrection should obtain the scepter of an earthly Kingdom whereupon some of them ambitious of priority above the rest desired to sit on his right hand and left c. lib. 4. cap. 1. It is true indeed that the Jewish Nation and the Disciples with them erred in judging about Messias his Kingdom Act. 1. but they erred as farre also about Messias his resurrection till experience had informed them better Therefore it cannot well be imagined that the wife and sons of Zebedee thought of Christs resurrection in this their request but conceived of his temporall Kingdom according to the notions of the rest of the Nation about it What therefore our Saviour had spoken instantly before of his being scourged crucified killed and Rising again they understood in some figurative sense or other but the Evangelists plainly tell us they understood it not in the sense that he spake it It may be his naming these two The sons of thunder gave them some blinde incouragement to such a request Christ foretels his own death and their suffering Martyrdom under the title of Baptism in which sense the Apostle also useth the word 1 Cor. 15.29 The Jewish baptizings or dippings in their purifications was a very sharp piece of Religion when in frost and snow and wind and weather they must over head ears in cold water from which the phrase was used to signifie death and the bitterest sufferings The Ierusalem Gomarists do tell us that the women of Galilee grew barren by reason of the cold in their purifyings R. Aba in the name of Tanchum bar R. Chaia saith In the daies of R. Ioshua ben Levi they sought to abolish this dipping because of the women of Galilee which were made barren by reason of the cold R. Ioshua ben Levi saith Do ye seek to abolish a thing that fenceth Israel from transgression c. Beracoth fol. 6. col 3. SECTION LXIX LUKE Chap. XVIII from Ver. 35. to the end MATTH Chap. XX. from Ver. 29. to the end MARK Chap. X. from Ver. 46. to the end Blinde healed CHRIST in his journey from beyond Iordan to Bethany for the raising of Lazarùs passeth through Iericho and he healeth one blinde man as he entreth into Iericho of which Luke speaketh and another as he goeth out of which the other two Matthew indeed speaketh of two healed as he came out of Iericho comprehending it may be the story of him that was healed on the other side of the Town and this together in one story for briefnesse sake Or if there were two healed on this side the Town Mark only mentions one because he rather aimeth at shewing of the manner or kinde of the miracle then at the number as we have observed the like before at Sect. 39. SECTION LXX LUKE Chap. XIX from the beginning to Ver. 29. Zaccheus a Publican converted THe order lies plain in ver 1. Christ was passed through Iericho before he met with Zaccheus c. Rabban Iochanan ben Zaccai hath made the name Zaccai or Zaccheus renowned in Jewish Writings His father Zaccai might very well be now alive and for any difference of the times might well enough be the Zaccheus before us but that some other circumstances do contradict it Whosoever this man was it is observable that though his name Zaccheus speak him a Jew yet Christ reputes him not a child of Abraham till he beleeve ver 19. Ver. 11. They thought that the Kingdom of heaven should immediatly appear Observe this this they had learned from Dan. 9. where the time is so punctually determined that they that looked for the consolation of Israel could not but observe it and they that observed could not but see it now accomplished SECTION LXXI JOHN Chap. XI from Ver. 17. to the end of the Chapter Lazarus raised Caiaphas Prophecieth NOw is Christ come up to Bethany Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by Talm. Bab. Pesachin fol. 53. facie 1. where they speak of the figs of Bethhene and the dates of Tubni be the same with this Bethany we shall not dispute here Both a Town and some space of ground about it was called by this name Bethany As he had staied in the place where he was when heard of Lazarus sicknesse purposely that he might die before he came to him that God might be the more glorified by his raising ver 15. so did he make sure to stay long enough after he was dead before he came that the glory might be the more He had been four daies dead ver 39. Compare with this these sayings of the Jews Maym. in Gerushin per. ult If one look upon a dead man within three daies after his death he may know him but after three daies his visage is changed Jerus in Moed Katon fol. 82. col 2. Three daies the soul flies about the body as if thinking to return to it but after it sees the visage of the countenance changed it leaves it and gets it gone Upon the miracle wrought the Jews seek to kill Iesus and Lazarus both whereupon Iesus goeth to a City called Ephraim ver 54. Talm. Bab. in Menachath fol. 85. fac 1. Iuchnâ— and Mamrâ— Iannes and Iambres said to Moses Dost thou bring straw to Ephraim Gloss. Ibi Iuchâ—e and Mamre were the chief Sorcerers of Egypt they when Moses began to do miracles thought he had done them by magick they said Dost thou bring straw to Ephraim Ephraim was a place that exceedingly aboundeth with corn and darest thou bring corn thither meaning Doest thou bring Sorceries into Egypt that abounds so with Sorceries Aruâ—h in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephraim was a City in the â—â—nd of Israel where there was abundance of corn Where is the chiefest provision for Offeringâ— The chiefest for fine slower are Micmash and Zanoah and next to them Ephraim in the Vale. JOHN Chap. XII from begin to Ver. 12. A Supper at Bethany Iesus his feet anointed THe connexion of this story to the preceding Chapter is plainly made by the Evangelist himself Compare ver 55. of Chap. 11. and ver 1. of this Though there were a Proclamation out against Jesus for his life Chap. 11.57 yet cometh he for Ierusalem and Lazarus at Bethany is not afraid to entertain him He may well venture his life for him who had received it from him It was their Sabbath day at night when he had this Supper a time that they used to have
holy Ghost for these men were full of the holy Ghost before Stephen an eminent man among them is quarrelled by certain of the Libertines and the Hellenists Synagogue Libertini 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are exceeding frequently spoken of in the Jews Writings And the Alexandrian Synagogue one of the Hellenists is mentioned in Jerus in Megillah fol. 73. col 4. and Juchas fol. 26. who tell that R. Eliezer bar Zadoc took the Synagogue of the Alexandrians that was at Ierusalem and imployed it to his own use When they are notable to overpower him by argument and disputation they take a ready way to do it by false accusation and conventing him before the Sanhedrin where being accused of vilifying Moses and speaking of the destruction of that place he is vindicated even miraculously before he pleadeth his own cause by his face shining like the face of Moses and bearing an Angelicall aspect and Majesty for indeed he spake but what was spoken by the Angel Gabriel Dan. 9.26 27. In his Apology he speaketh to the heads of his accusation but somewhat abstrusely yet so as to them to whom he spake to be well understood his discourse being according to their own Rhetorick and Logick To what was laid to his charge for vilifying Moses and saying his customs should be changed he rehearseth in brief the whole history of Moses and shews he was Orthodox to him but yet he driveth all to this that as the times before Moses were still moving and growing on to settlement in Moses so when Moses himself had setled all he had to do yet he pointed them to a Prophet yet to come to whom they should hearken as the ultimate Oracle which was this Iesus that he preached to them And whereas he was accused for speaking of the destruction of the Temple he first shews that fixednesse to this or that place is not so much to be stood upon as appears by the flitting condition of the Patriachs whose flittings he giveth the story of at large and by the moving condition of the Tabernacle before the Temple was built And when the Temple was built it was not because God would confine himself to one place for the most High dwelleth not in Temples made with hands ver 48. c. He inserteth two or three sharp and true accusations of them whereas theirs of him had been but false and causelesse As that their fathers had persecuted those that foretold of Christ as they did him for now preaching him and they followed their fathers steps nay went further for they had murdered Christ whereas their fathers had but murdered his Prophets And whereas they were so punctuall about the Ceremonious rites given by Moses they neglected the morall Law which was given by the disposition of Angels This cuts them to the heart that they passe a rancourous and furious sentence of death upon him but he hath a sight of the high bench of heaven God and Christ at his right hand their judge and his A most fit prospect for the first Martyr They cast him out of the City and stone him for blasphemy For these were to be stoned He that went in to his mother or to his fathers wife or to his daughter in Law or to a male or to a beast and he that blasphemed or that committed Idolatry c. And the place of stoning was out from the place of Iudgement nay out of the City as the Gomarists resolve it because it is said Bring him that cursed out of the Camp And A crier went before him that was to die proclaiming his fault Sanhedr per. 6. 7. When he was come within four cubits of the place of stoning they stript him naked only covered his nakednesse before Ibid. And being come to the very place first the witnesses laid their hands upon him Maym. in Avodah Zarah per. 2. and then stripping off their coats that they might be more expedite for their present work first one of them dasheth his loins violently against a stone that lay for that purpose if that killed him not then the other dasheth a great stone upon his heart as he lay on his back and if that dispatched him not then all the people fell upon him with stones Talm. ubi sup Steven in the midst of all this their fury and his own anguish gets on his knees and prayes for them and having so done he fell asleep The Jews do ordinarily use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie Dying which properly signifies sleeping especially when they speak of a fair and comfortable death which word Luke translates here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All that were stoned were also hanged up upon a tree Talm. ubi supr Whether Steven were so used is uncertain but it is evident that he had a fair buriall and not the buriall of a malefactour ACTS CHAP. VIII CHRIST XXXIV A Great persecution followeth the death of Steven in which Saul was a chief agent scholar of Gamaliel President of the Sanhedrin and it may be the busier for that In Talm. Bab. Sanhedr fol. 43. col 1. they say Iesu had five Disciples Mathai Nakai Netser Boni and Thodah and they are urging reasons there why they should all be put to death c. All the hundred and twenty Ministers mentioned Chap. 1.15 are scattered abroad only the twelve stay at Ierusalem as in the furnace to comfort and cherish the Church there in so sad a time and they preach all along as they go and so Satan breaks his own head by his own design for by persecution by which he had contrived to smother the Gospel it spreads the more The first plantation of it mentioned is in Samaria and that according to Christs own direction and foretelling Act. 1.8 Ye shall be witnesses to me both in Ierusalem and in all Iudea and in Samaria c. He had forbidden them before Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any City of the Samaritans do not enter Matth. 10.5 but now that partition wall that had been between is to be broken down Of all Nations and people under heaven the Samaritans were the most odious to the Jews and a main reason was because they were Jews Apostates For though the first peopling of that place after the Captivity of the ten Tribes was by Heathens 2 King 17. yet upon the building of the Temple on mount Gerizim such multitudes of Jews continually flocked thither that generally Samaritanism was but a mongrell Iudaism They called Iacob their father expected Messias had their Temple Priesthood Service Penteteuch c. And to spare more take but this one passage in Talm. Jerus Pesachin fol. 27.2 The Cuthaeans all the time that they celebrate their unleavened bread feast with Israel they are to be beleeved concerning their putting away of leaven If they do not keep their unleavened bread feast with Israel they are not to be beleeved concerning their putting away of leaven Rabban Gamaliel saith All the
he heard of Peters trouble and danger that he had been in at Ierusalem and desired to see him for that he had some speciall interest and familiarity with Peter may be collected from 1 Pet 5.14 and in that Peter was so well acquainted at his mothers house Act. 12.12 c. Or whether in regard of this his relation to Peter the Minister of the Circumcision he made it nice to go among the Gentiles into the thickest of which he saw they were coming every day more then other For at Paphos where they had last been was a Temple of Venus and at Perga where they now are was a Temple of Diana Strab. lib. 14. Pomp. Mela. lib. 1. cap. 14. Or whatsoever the matter was his departure was so unwarrantable that it made a breach betwixt him and Paul for the present nay it occasioned a breach betwixt Paul and Barnabas afterward And so we leave him in his journey to Ierusalem whither when he came he staied there till Paul and Barnabas came thither again ACTS CHAP. XII from Ver. 20. to Ver. 24. CHRIST XLIV CLAVDIVS IV HERODS death was in the beginning of this year the fourth of Claudius or neer unto it according as Iosephus helpeth us to compute who testifieth that the third year of his reign was compleated a little before his death Vid. Antiq. lib. 19. cap. 7. He left behinde him a sonne of seventeen years old in regard of whose minority and thereby unfitnesse to reign Claudius sent Cuspius Fadus to Govern his Kingdom His daughters were Berenice sixteen years old married to Herod King of Chalcis her fathers brother And Mariam ten years old and Drusilla six who afterward married Felix ACTS CHAP. XIII from Ver. 14. to the end of the Chapter And CHAP. XIV CHRIST XLV XLVI XLVII XLVIII XLIX CLAVDIVS V. VI. VII VIII IX AT the fifteenth Chapter we have some fastnesse of the time viz. in what year the Council at Ierusalem as it is commonly called did occurre which certainty we have not of the times of the occurrences henceforward thitherto so that since we cannot determinately point any passage to its proper year we must cast them in grosse under this grosse summe of years and distribute them to their proper seasons by the best conjecture we can From Perga in Pamphilia Paul and Barnabas come to Antioch in Pisidia and on the Sabbath day going into the Synagogue are invited by the Rulers of the Synagogue after the reading of the Law and Prophets to speak a word of exhortation to the people But how could the Rulers know that they were men fit to teach It may be answered By former converse with them in the City and it is very like that the Rulers themselves had drunk in some affection to the Gospel by converse with them which made them so ready to urge them to preach For it is not imaginable that this was the first time that they had seen them nor that they came to Town that very day but that they had had some converse before Paul preacheth and the Synagogue broke up and the Jews gone out the Gentiles desired that the same words might be preached to them in the week between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely on the second and fifth daies of the week following which were Synagogue daies on which they met in the Synagogues as on the Sabbath day And which daies their traditions said were appointed for that purpose by Ezra Talm. in Bava Kamah per. 7. R. Sol. and Nissim in Chetubboth per. 1. in Alphes Their preaching on those daies had so wrought that on the next Sabbath almost all the City was gathered together to hear the word and many of the Gentiles receive it but the Jews stirred up some female unbelieving proselytes against them and some of the chief of the City so that they drave them out of those coasts and they shaking off the dust of their feet against them go to Iconium This Ceremony injoyned them by their Master Matth. 10.14 was not so much for any great businesse put in the thing it self as that even from a tenet of their own they might shew how they were to be reputed of It was their own Maxime That the dust of a Heathen Country or City did defile or make a person unclean Tosaphta ad Kelim per. 1. hath this saying In three things Syria was like unto any Heathen Land The dust of it made a person unclean as the dust of any other Heathen Country did c. So that their shaking off the dust of their feet against them was to shew that they reputed them and their City as Heathenish ACTS CHAP. XIV AT Iconium they continue long and with good effect but at last they are in danger of stoning and thereupon they slip away to Lystra and Derbe Cities of Lycaonia and to the region that lieth round about That region Strabo describeth lib. 12. where among other particulars he tels that Derbe lay coasting upon Isauria and in his time was under the dominion of Amyntas At Lystra or Derbe Paul converteth Lois and Eunice and Timothy and as some will tell you here or at Iconium he converteth Tecla For healing a Creeple they are first accounted Gods but presently by perswasion of some Jews Paul is stoned but being reputed dead recovereth miraculously From thence they go to Derbe and return to Lystra Iconium and Antioch and ordain Elders in those Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 24. is unproperly rendred here Per suffragia creantes Presbyteros for so they could not do there not being a man in all these Churches fit to be chosen a Minister or qualified with abilities for that Function unlesse the Apostles by Imposition of hands bestow the holy Ghost upon them which might inable them For the Churches being but newly planted and the people but lately converted it would be hard to finde any among them so thoroughly completed in the knowledge of the Gospel as to be a Minister but by the Apostles hands they receive the Holy Ghost and so are inabled It is true indeed the Greek word in the first sense denoteth suffrages but that is not the only sense And so doth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the proper sense signifie laying on of hands yet there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordination that was without it Maym. in Sanhedr 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How is ordination to be for perpetuity Not that they lay their hands on the head of the Elder but call him Rabbi and say Behold thou art ordained c. ACTS CHAP. XV. CHRIST L CLAVDIVS X WE are now come up to the Council at Hierusalem The occasion of which was the busie stirring of some who would have brought the yoke of Mosaick observances upon the neck of the converted Gentiles Multitudes of the Jews that beleeved yet were zealous of the Law Act. 21.20 and it was hard to get them off from those Rites in which they had been ever
Thither ere long cometh Apollos an excellent Scripture-man but one that knew only the baptism of Iohn but they instruct him better Not that these Tent-makers turned Preachers but that having had so much converse with Paul they were able in private conference to inform him better then yet he knew from what they had learned from Paul ACTS CHAP. XIX from Ver. 1 to Ver. 19. OThers at Ephesus there were that were no further gone in Christianity neither then the knowledge of the Baptisme of Iohn Paul asks them Have ye received the holy Ghost they answer We have not yet so much as heard whether the holy Ghost be In which words they refer to a common and a true tenet of the Nation which was that after the death of Ezra Haggai Zachary and Malachy the holy Ghost departed from Israel and went up Iuchas fol. 15. and they professe they had never yet heard of his restoring And it is very probable that they had never heard of Iesus whom when Paul had preached to them they imbrace and the text saith they were then baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus Not that they were rebaptized but that now coming to the knowledge of the proper end of Iohns baptisme namely to beleeve in Iesus as ver 4. they own their baptisme to such an end and construction For 1. What need had they to be rebaptized when in that first baptisme they had had taken they had come in to the profession of the Gospel and of Christ as farre as the doctrine that had brought them in could teach them It was the change of their profession from Iudaisme to Evangelisme that required their being baptized and not the degrees of their growth in the knowledge of the Gospel into the profession of which they had been baptized already How many baptismes must the Apostles have undergone if every signall degree of their coming on to the perfect knowledge of the mystery of Christ might have required nay might have admitted a new baptizing 2. If these men were rebaptized then must the same be concluded of all that had received the baptisme of Iohn when they came to the knowledge of Iesus which as it is incredible because there is not the least tittle of mention of such a thing so is it unimaginable in the case of those of the Apostles that were baptized by Iohn for who should baptize them again in the name of Iesus since Iesus himself baptized none Ioh. 4.3 3. These men had taken on them the baptisme of repentance and the profession of Christ in the baptisme of Iohn that they had received therefore unlesse we will suppose a baptisme of faith different from the baptisme of repentance and a baptisme in the name of Iesus different from the baptisme in the name of Christ it will be hard to finde a reason why these men should undergo a new baptizing And if it should be granted which is against reason to grant that these men were really rebaptized yet were not this a warrantable ground for rebaptization now in regard of these main differences betwixt the case then and now 1. That great controversie then on foot about Whether Iesus were the true Messias or no which caused their rebaptization if they were rebaptized 2. The visible conferring of the holy Ghost upon them upon their baptisme if they were rebaptized as being a main induction of such a thing if such a thing were that the name of Iesus might be so apparently glorified upon their being baptized in the name of Iesus which indeed was equally glorified when they received those gifts upon their acknowledging of Iesus and owning their baptisme that they had of old been baptized with as a badge of that acknowledgment though not baptized again ACTS CHAP. XIX from Ver. 9. to Ver. 21. CHRIST LIII LIV. CLAVDIVS XIII XIV THe Apostle hath a long time to stay at Ephesus in which he first begins for the space of a quarter of a year to dispute in the Synagogue and then when divers were hardened and beleeved not he separated the Disciples and disputed daily in the School of Tyrannus Hitherto what converts there were to the Gospel they resorted still to the publick service in the Synagogue where Paul reasoned daily for the truth of the Gospel but finding dangerous opposition he gets away the Disciples from thence and in the School of one Tyrannus they are a particular Congregation In these great Towns where there were many Jews both in Iudea and elswhere they had a Synagogue and a Divinity-School This Divinity-School they called Beth Midrash and thither they used to go every Sabbath day after they had been at the Synagogue whereupon they had this for a common proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the Synagogue to the Divinity-School In the Synagogue they had prayers and reading of the Law and plain Sermons of Doctrine exhortation and comfort In the Divinity-School were discussed and taught dogmaticall and controversall points concerning the difficulties of the Law and other high matters And hence it be those different titles and administrations of Pastor and Teacher Ephes. 4.11 and He that teacheth and he that exhorteth Rom. 12.7 8. took their pattern if Pastor mean one of the Ministerial function In the time of this stay of Paul at Ephesus He fought with beasts there after the manner of men 1 Cor. 15.32 which seemeth to be understood of a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fighting with wild beasts in the Theater as was the barbarous and bestiall custom of the Râ—mans and those times For 1. Observe in the hubbub of Demetrius Pauls companions are haled presently into the Theater ver 29. as if there the people had that that would take a course with them 2. Observe that the Asiarchae or Theater-Officers are Pauls friends as having knowledge and acquaintance of him and with him before 3. Demetrius his uproar which was the greatest danger that Luke hath mentioned of him was not till after he had written his Epistle to Corinth in which he speaks of fighting with beasts and therefore that could not be meant 4. The phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem cleerly to distinguish it from any combate in a borrowed sense 5. The trouble that befell him in Asia by which he was pressed above measure and even despaired of life 2 Cor. 1.8 9. cannot be understood so well of the tumult of Demetrius for we read not of any hand laid upon Paul in it as of some other danger neerer dearth In the latter year of these two above written which was part of Pauls last year at Ephesus on the 13th day of October of that year Claudius the Emperour dieth and Nero succeedeth him a wretch whose memory is not worth looking after unlesse it be for detetestation yet must we in our further progresse of viewing the actions of Paul and ranking his Epistles be beholden to the Chronicall observation of his years Paul himself saith to the Elders of
Ephesus By the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one Acts 20.31 And yet Luke in this Chapter specifieth only two years and a quarter ver 8.10 The comparing of which two summes together doth help us to measure the time of his abode there mentioned from ver 20. and forward Namely that he spent three moneths in disputing in the Jews Synagogue and two years in the School of Tyrannus and three quarters of a year after in going up and down Asia The expiration of his three years was about Pentecost in the first year of Nero. CHRIST LV NERO. I ACTS CHAP. XIX Ver. 21 22. After these things were ended Paul purposed in spirit when he had passed thorow Macedonia and Achaia to go to Ierusalem saying When I have been there I must also see Rome 22. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministred to him Timotheus and Erastus but he himself staid in Asia for a season PAuls thoughts of going to Rome do argue the death of Claudius who had banished all the Jews from thence Acts 18.2 and that by the coming in of Nero a new Emperour that Decree was extinct and freedom of access to Rome opened to them again For it can be little conceived that Paul should think of going thither when he could neither finde any of his nation there nor he himself come thither without certain hazzard of his life as the case would have been if Claudius and his Decree were yet alive It is therefore agreeable to all reason that the death of Claudius and the succession of Nero was now divulged and Paul thereupon knowing that it was now lawfull again for a Jew to go to Rome intendeth to take a farewell journey and visit to Macedonia Achaiah and Ierusalem and then to go and preach there Claudius died the 13th day of October as was said before and Nero instantly succeeded him A Prince of so much clemency and mansuetude in the beginning of his reign that Titus the Emperour afterward used to say that the best Princes exceeded not the first five years of Nero in goodnesse And Seneca if he flatter not the Prince or his own tutorage of him gives him this among many other Encomiums of him Lib. de Clementia which he dedicates to him Potes hoc Caesar praedicare audacter omnium quae in fidem tutelámque tuam venerunt nihil per te neque vi neque clam reipublicae ereptum Rarissimam laudem nulli adhuc principum concessam concupisti innocentiam Nemo unus homo uni homini tam charus unquam fuit quam tu populo Romano magnum longumque ejus bonum It must be some space of time before Claudius death could come to be reported at Ephesus it is like the new year after the Romane account might be stept in Whensoever it was that Paul heard the news and that a door of access to Rome was opened for the Jews again he sets down his determination to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost and then to set for Macedon and back to Ierusalem and then to Rome Upon this resolution he sendeth Timothy and Erastus into Macedon before him appointeth them to call at Corinth in the way and intends himself to stay at Ephesus till they should come thither again to him 1 Cor. 16.10 11. Between Ver. 22. and Ver. 23. of this XIX CHAP. of the ACTS falleth in the time of Pauls writing THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS He being now at Ephesus and having set down the time of his removing thence namely at Pentecost coming 1 Cor. 16.8 He had now been at Ephesus well towards three years and had met with many difficulties yet had so prevailed by the power of the Gospel that not only all along hitherto many people were continually converted but even now alate many conjurers and such as used magicall arts devoted themselves to the Gospel and their books to the fire and became the renewed monuments of the power and prevalency of the divine truth This was that great and effectuall door opened to him of which he speaketh 1 Cor. 16.9 and which occasioned his stay at Ephesus still when he had sent Timothy and Erastus into Macedonia Acts 19.21 In the time of which stay there Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus come from Corinth 1 Cor. 16.17 with Letters from the Church to Paul 1 Cor. 7.1 and he upon their return returns his answer in this Epistle sent by Titus and another 2 Cor. 12.18 Some Postscripts have named Timothy for the bearer antedating his journey to Corinth which was not in his going to Mecedon but in his return back and when this Epistle had already given them notice of his coming that way 1 Cor. 16.10 Apollos when Paul wrote this Epistle was with him at Ephesus and was desired by Paul to have gone along with the brethren to Corinth but he would not 1 Cor. 16.11 it may be because he would not countenance a faction there by his presence which was begun under his name The Church was exceedingly broken into divisions which produced very dolefull effects among them These severall enormities raged in that Church though so lately and so nobly planted and all originally derived from this first mischief of faction and schisme 1. A member of the Church had married his fathers wife yea as it seemeth 2 Cor. 7.12 his father yet living which crime by their own Law and Canons deserved death For he that went in to his fathers wife was doubly liable to be stoned both because she was his fathers wife and because she was another mans wife whether he lay with her in his fathers life time or after his death Talm. in Sanhed per. 7. Maym in Issure biah per 1. 2. And yet they in the height of the contestings they had among themselves did not only not take away such a wreth from among them nor mourn for the miscarriage but he had got a party that bolstered him up and abetted him and so while they should have mourned they were puffed up His own party in triumph that they could bear him out against the adverse and the other in rejoycing that in the contrary faction there was befallen such a scandall Or both as taking this Libertinism as a new liberty of the Gospel The Apostle adviseth his giving up to Satan by a power of miracles which was then in being So likewise did he give up Hymeneus and Alexander 1 Tim. 1.20 The derivation of this power we conceived at Act 5. in the case of Ananias and Saphira to be from that passage of Christ to the Disciples Ioh. 20.22 He breathed on them and said whose sinnes ye retain they are retained c. and so were the Apostles indued with a miraculous power of a contrary effect or operation They could heal diseases and bestow the holy Ghost and they could inflict death or diseases and give up to Satan Now though it may be questioned whether any in the Church of
grounded their opinion is hard to finde nay it is hard to finde among many of them any that goeth about to shew any groundwork for it at all It would therefore save a great deal of labour to take their consent without any more ado and it might carry good credit with it to go along with so generall a tenet upon the word of so many Learned men yet that we may not go altogether led blindfold by others let these things towards the proof of it be taken into consideration And first let us draw a Chronicle of Nero's time NERO. I. II. III. IV. Poppaea becomes Nero's Paramour V. Nero slaies his mother Agrippina VI. VII VIII Poppaea becomes Nero's Wife Pallas dieth IX X. Albinus is Governour of Iudaea XI Florus cometh in Governour instead of Albinus XII The first beginning of the Warres of the Jews XIII XIV Although these things affixed to the severall Years of Nero may seem very Heterogeneall to the thing we have in hand yet we shall finde them of good use when we have first cleared their truth and certainty 1. That Poppaea became Nero's Minion in his 4th Year is apparent by Tacitus Annal. lib. 13. Sect. 12. where he placeth the beginning of their adulterous acquaintance A.V.C. 811. under the Consulship of Nero III. and Valerius Masella 2. That Nero slew his mother Agrippina in his fifth Year the same Tacitus also asserteth lib. 14. Sect. 1. placing that fact A.V.C. 812. under the Consulship of C. Vipsanius and Fonteius Capito 3. The marrying of Poppaea to Nero as his Wife he placeth in his eighth Year Annal. lib. 14. Sect. 9. viz. A. V. C. 815. under the Consulship of P. Marius and L. Asinius and in the same Year he placeth the death of Pallas 4. The beginning of the Warres of the Jews in Nero's 12th and the entrance of Gessius Florus into the Government the Year before is confirmed under this testimony of Iosephus Antiq. lib. 20. cap. ult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Out of which how Baronius can bring the beginning of Florus his Government to be in the tenth of Nero as he doth I understand not for if the twelfth Year of Nero were Florus his second then the eleventh was his first And now let us take in some things more which we must apply to these times mentioned to help us in the inquest we are about 1. Iosephus saith that when Portius Festus came into Felix room in the Government of Iudea the chief of the Iews of Caesarea went to Rome to accuse Felix and he had been certainly punished for his unjust dealing with the Iews had not Nero been very favourable to him at the intreaty of his brother Pallas who was then very much in Caesars esteem Antiq. lib. 20 cap. 7. 2. The same Iosephus also speaking of the Government of Festus in Iudea he first mentioneth how he found the Country infested with rebels and robbers whom he overthrew then he relateth how King Agrippa built his Palace so at Hierusalem as that it overtopt the Temple Courts which the Jews disliking built a counterwall to hinder the prospect that it should not view their service and actions in the Temple At this Agrippa and Festus took distast and Festus commanded that the wall should be pulled down but the Jews desired they might send Agents to Rome about this matter which they did And when Nero heard the case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He did not only pardon the thing done but he also consented to suffer the building so to stand vouchsafing this at the intreaty of his wife Poppaea for she was devout c. Antiq. lib. 20. cap. 8. Observe the last words At the intreaty of his wife Poppaea 3. The same Iosephus again relateth a journey of his own to Rome in these words When I was six and twenty years old I went to Rome upon this occasion When Felix was Governour of Iudea he sent certain Priests my neer acquaintance and very good men for a small cause to Rome to appear before Caesar. For whose deliverance I desiring to finde some means went to Rome and there by the means of a certain Iew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I came to be known to Poppaea Caesars Wife Baronius doth revile Iosephus here as if he had forgot his own age Videas in his saith he quae suae aetatis sunt suo ipsius testimonio convinci annorum sex turpiter errantâ—m And wherein Quia affirmat se agentem suum supra vigesimum sextum sub Faelice Iudaeae praeside Romam venisse But Iosephus saith no such word He saith indeed that he went to Rome to labour the deliverance of some men that Felix had sent thither in the time of his Government but that Felix was in his Government when he went thither he saith not at all And now to take up what we have to observe upon these things that have been spoken 1. It is true indeed as Tacitus witnesseth that Pallas the brother of Felix who had been Claudius his great favourite and so Nero's also in Claudius time did wane and decrease somewhat in his favour in a very short time after his entrance into his reign but he was not utterly laid flat and out at all till after Poppaea came into favour and amorousnesse who forwarded the death of Agrippina and the bringing down of those that were of her party as Pallas was Therefore the power of Pallas with the Emperour seemeth to be expired in Nero's fifth year in which Agrippina was slain And by this account we cannot extend Felix his escape for his brother Pallas his sake beyond Nero's fourth Year For considering Poppaeas prevalency with the Emperour when once she became his Paramour and considering her detestation of Agrippina and her faction of which Pallas was the chief we cannot cast Felix his discharge for Pallas his sake beyond Nero's fourth 2. Paul lay two years prisoner at Caesarea under Felix Act. 24.27 After two years Portiâ—s Festus câ—me into Felix room Many are the conjectures about these two years Baronius saith it was Expleto biennio Neronis Magister Historiae Scholasticae saith it was Biennium ab accusatione Felicis a Iudaeis A Lapide cares not to think that Biennium hoc inchoandum a praefectura Felicis in Iudea nam ante illud praefuerat Trachonitidi Batanaeae Gandanitidi c. But it is most proper to hold that these two years mean the time of Pauls being a prisoner under Felix from the time of his apprehension under Lysias the chief Captain till Felix his going out of his Government and so it is held by Beda Beza Salmeron Onuphrius and others And this is so proper and sutable to the intent and discourse of Luke that it needeth no illustration or proof of it and it is most agreeable to the Scriptures manner of accounting in all other places These two things then being thus concluded on it will follow that Pauls apprehension was in Nero's second and Felix went
he suffered death too by having his veins cut and so bleeding to death which was the end of his Uncle Seneca also The Warres of the Jews are now drawing on apace for they began the next year and the horrid Civil Warres of the Romans are not farre off So that here we may properly take notice of that prediction ready now to take place Matth. 24.7 8 9. Nation shall rise against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom c. All these are the beginnings of sorrows Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and then shall they kill you which Luke hath expressed But before all these shall thâ—y lay their hands upon you and persecute you Luk. 21.12 which seemeth to carry some difference as if the one Evangelist shewed that the persecution of the Disciples to death should be before these troubles and the other as if they should not be till these troubles were begun But they may be well reconciled by observing that in the words that Christ is there speaking in both Evangelists there is the intertexture of two stories namely what miseries should befall the Jewish Nation before their ruine and what miseries should befall the Disciples in the middest of those miseries and so the word Then in Matthew and Before in Luke are but as a transition from the one history to the other and yet they are not unsignificant neither as to the pointing out of the time the one speaking the beginning of that persecution foretold and the other the continuance A fitter period of time whence to begin the punctuall taking place of that prediction we can hardly point out then this very year that we are upon a center between two criticall years the year before beginning the persecution of Christians at Rome and the year following beginning the Warres of the Jews in Iudaea Although therefore we cannot positively assert the very time of the writing of THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER yet observing the Chronicall hint of some passages in it this year may as fairly lay claim thereunto as any other year that can be asserted For to omit that clause Chap. 4.7 The end of all things is at hand referring to the desolating of the Jewish Commonwealth and Nation the mention of the fiery triall ver 12. and the time now come when Iudgement must begin at the house of God ver 17. is but as a comment and accomplishment of that prediction before alledged Then sâ—all they deliver up to be afflicted c. It is true indeed that the Church had never wanted persecution since the Gospel arose and some for its sake had suffered death as Steven and some at that time the two Iameses and some at the time of both their deaths but in the Countries out of Iudaea where the stroke of their Sanhedrin could not reach so well nor light so heavy there was tumultuousnesse indeed enough and beating and bitternesse against it but rare effusion of blood till the cursed example set last year by the Tyrant at Rome and now forward in the confusions of the Jewish Nation when a madnesse was come upon them among themselves and a desperate fury against all that would not be as they were And that noc only in Iudea the seat of the Warre but even through the whole world as farre as they durst and were able to stirre Those words of Dion are very remarkable when speaking of the siege of Ierusalem by Titus he saith That the Iews that were in forraign Countries not onely within the Roman Empire but also without did send help to their brethren in Iudaea lib. 66. When Cyrus gave leave to the Jews after the 70 years captivity to return to their own Country multitudes of them found themselves so pleasingly seated and by continuance of time rooted in Babylonia that they would not remove theâ—r habitation but fixed there There in time they grew to so great a Nation and distinct a people that they had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Prince of the Captivity or their own blood over them and three famous Universities Nehardea Pombeditha and Soria which yielded very many eminent Scholars in the Judaick Language In the division of the imployment of the three Ministers of the Circumcision Peter Iames and Peter's lot sell here and from Babylon it self the very Center of those parts he sends this Epistle He directs it to the dispersed Jews in Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia in which parts the Apostacy from the faith had been exceeding prevalent and accordingly the trouble of those that stuck to the faith the most bitter And in his inscribing it to the Elect he seemeth to have his eye upon those words of his Master about this Apostasie Mat. 24.24 They shall deceive if it were possible the very Elect. Among the many divine lessons that he reades to them he teaches them and us who is the Rock upon which the Church is built Chap. 2.4 c. and how accordingly to understand super hanc Petram Mat. 16. He exhorts them with all earnestnesse to yield obedience to superiour powers Chap. 2.13 14. and that the rather because of that spirit of the Zelotae that walking among the Nation in all parts urged them not to submit to any Heathen power He magnifieth Baptism as a badge and pledge of preservation of those that had received it and stuck to it from that vengeance that was coming upon that wicked Nation Chap. 3.21 It is something a strange recoyling that he makes leaping back from mention of the death of Christ ver 18. over all the story of the Old Testament and lighteth on the generation that was swept away by the flood and sheweth how Christs spirit preached unto them Why had not the same spirit preached in all the times between Why are not those times named then as well as these Because the Apostle doth purposely intend to compare that old world then destroyed with the destruction of the Jewish Nation shortly coming and to shew that as Noah and his family were then saved by water ver 20. so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that had received Baptism were the Antitype to that and Baptism was a pledge and means of their deliverance now they sticking closely to it And this very thing Iohn Baptist taught in that question Who hath forewarned you to flee from the wrath to come Therefore when he cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An asking of a good Conscience towards or after God he makes not this its definition as if none but those so qualified were to be baptized but he characters its difference from Circumcision which put away the filth of the flesh in one sense and Legall and Pharisaicall washings which did it in another His whole comparison runnes to this tenour The old world was disobedient to the spirit of Christ preaching in the mouth of Noah and therefore they perished The Jews whose state the Scripture also calleth an old world were disobedient to Christ preaching by his
we touched before The Babylon Talmud in Sanhedrin in the Chapter Helek doth shew their full opinion about the daies of Messias and amongst other things they say thus as Aruch speaks their words in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a tradition of the house of Elijah that the righteous ones that the blessed God shall raise from the dead they shall no more return to their dust but those thousand years that the holy blessed God is to renew the world he will give them wings as Eagles and they shall flee upon the waters The place in the Talmud is in Sanhedrin fol. 92. where the text indeed hath not the word thousand but the marginall glosse hath it and shews how to understand the thousand years And Aruch speaks it as a thing of undeniable knowledge and intertainment And so speaks R. Eliezâ—r in Midras Tillin fol. 4. col 2. The daies of the Messias are a thousand years As Iohn all along this Book doth intimate new stories by remembring old ones and useth not only the Old Testament phrase to expresse them by but much allusion to customs language and opinions of the Jews that he might speak as it were closer to them and nearer their apprehensions so doth he here and forward This later end of his Book remembers the later end of the Book of Ezekiel There is a resurrection Ezek. 37. Gog and Magog Ezek. 38. 39. and a new Ierusalem Ezek. 40. and forward So here a resurrection ver 5. Gog and Magog ver 8. and a new Ierusalem Chap. 21. 22. There a resurrection not of bodies out of the grave but of Israel out of a low captived condition in Babel There a Gog and Magog the Syrogrecian persecutors Antiochus and his house and then the description of the new Ierusalem which as to the place and situation was a promise of their restoring to their own Land and to have Ierusalem built again as it was indeed in the daies of Ezra and Nehemiah but by the glory and â—â—rgenesse of it as it is described more in compasse then all the Land of Canaan they were taught to look further namely at the heavenly or spiritual Ierusalem the Church through all the world Now the Jews according to their allegoricall vein applied these things to the daies of Christ thus that first there should be a resurrection caused by Messias of righteous ones then he to conquer Gog and Magog and then there must come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The brave world to come that they dreamed of Beside what they speak to this tenour in the Talmudick Treatise last cited there is this passage in Ierus Megillah fol. 73. col 1. They are applying particular parts of the great Hallel to particular times what the great Hallel was we shewed a little before And that part say they I love the Lord because he hath heard me refers to the daies of Messias that part Tye the sacrifice with cords to the daies of Gog and Magog And that Thou art my God and I will praise thee refers to the world to come Our Divine Apocalyptick follows Ezekiel with an Allegory too and in some of his expressions alludes to some of theirs not as approving them but as speaking the plainer to them by them Here is a resurrection too but not of bodies neither for not a word of mention of them but of souls The souls of those that were beheaded for the witnesse of Iesus lived and reigned ver 4. and yet this is called The first resurrection ver 5. 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 bottomlesse 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 Iohn and they sate upon them c. ver 4. here is Christ and his inthroned and reigning But how do they reign with him Here Iohn 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 farre different tenour that they that suffer with him shall reign with him they that stick to him witnesse for him dye for him these shall sit inthroned with him And he nameth beheading only of all kindes 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 witnesse for Christ Iohn 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 sinne and the mark of the Beast and the like whereas they held it to be a thousand years of earthly bravery and pompousnesse But the rest of the dead lived not again untill 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 Ioh 5.25 This is the first resurrection in and to Christs Kingdom the second is spoken of at the 12th verse of this Chapter that we are upon Paul useth the same expression to signifie the same thing namely a raising from darknesse 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 Ioh. 1.4 those that did not come and stick close to Christ and bear witnesse to him but closed with the mark of the Beast sin and sinfull 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