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A31408 Antiquitates apoitolicæ, or, The history of the lives, acts and martyrdoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour and the two evangelists SS. Mark and Lvke to which is added an introductory discourse concerning the three great dispensations of the church, patriarchal, Mosiacal and evangelical : being a continuation of Antiquitates christianæ or the life and death of the holy Jesus / by William Cave ... Cave, William, 1637-1713.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Dissuasive from popery. 1676 (1676) Wing C1587; ESTC R12963 411,541 341

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almost in the very same terms and words If thine offending Brother prove obstinate tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And elsewhere when ready to leave the World he tells them As my Father hath sent me even so send I you whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained By all which it is evident that our Lord did not here give any personal prerogative to S. Peter as Universal Pastor and Head of the Christian Church much less to those who were to be his Successors in the See of Rome But that as he made this Confession in the name of the rest of the Apostles so what was here promised unto him was equally intended unto all Nor did the more considering and judicious part of the Fathers however giving a mighty reverence to S. Peter ever understand it in any other sence Sure I am that Origen tells us that every true Christian that makes this confession with the same Spirit and Integrity which S. Peter did shall have the same blessing and commendation from Christ conferr'd upon him 4. THE Holy Jesus knowing the time of his Passion to draw on began to prepare the minds of his Apostles against that fatal Hour telling them what hard and bitter things he should suffer at Jerusalem what affronts and indignities he must undergo and be at last put to death with all the arts of torture and disgrace by the Decree of the Jewish Sanhedrim Peter whom our Lord had infinitely encouraged and endeared to him by the great things which he had lately said concerning him so that his spirits were now afloat and his passions ready to over-run the banks not able to endure a thought that so much evil should befall his Master broke out into an over-confident and unseasonable interruption of him He took him and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee Besides his great kindness and affection to his Master the minds of the Apostles were not yet throughly purged from the hopes and expectations of a glorious reign of the Messiah so that Peter could not but look upon these sufferings as unbecoming and inconsistent with the state and dignity of the Son of God And therefore thought good to advise his Lord to take care of himself and while there was time to prevent and avoid them This our Lord who valued the redemption of Mankind infinitely before his own ease and safety resented at so high a rate that he returned upon him with this tart and stinging reproof Get thee behind me Satan The very same treatment which he once gave to the Devil himself when he made that insolent proposal to him To fall down and worship him though in Satan it was the result of pure malice and hatred in Peter only an error of love and great regard However our Lord could not but look upon it as mischievous and diabolical counsel prompted and promoted by the great Adversary of Mankind A way therefore says Christ with thy hellish and pernicious counsel Thou art an offence unto me in seeking to oppose and undermine that great design for which I purposely came down from Heaven In this thou savourest not the things of God but those that be of men in suggesting to me those little shifts and arts of safety and self-preservation which humane prudence and the love of mens own selves are wont to dictate to them By which though we may learn Peter's mighty kindness to our Saviour yet that herein he did not take his measures right A plain evidence that his infallibility had not yet taken place 5. ABOUT a week after this our Saviour being to receive a Type and Specimen of his future glorification took with him his three more intimate Apostles Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and went up into a very high Mountain which the Ancients generally conceive to have been Mount Thabor a round and very high Mountain situate in the Plains of Galilee And now was even literally fulfilled what the Psalmist had spoken Tabor and Hermon shall rejoyce in thy Name for what greater joy and triumph than to be peculiarly chosen to be the holy Mount whereon our Lord in so eminent a manner received from God the Father honour and glory and made such magnificent displays of his Divine power and Majesty For while they were here earnestly imployed in Prayer as seldom did our Lord enter upon any eminent action but he first made his address to Heaven he was suddenly transformed into another manner of appearance such a lustre and radiancy darted from his face that the Sun it self shines not brighter at Noon-day such beams of light reflected from his garments as out-did the light it self that was round about them so exceeding pure and white that the Snow might blush to compare with it nor could the Fullers art purifie any thing into half that whiteness an evident and sensible representation of the glory of that state wherein the just shall walk in white and shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father During this Heavenly scene there appeared Moses and Elias who as the Jews say shall come together clothed with all the brightness and majesty of a glorified state familiarly conversing with him and discoursing of the death and sufferings which he was shortly to undergo and his departure into Heaven Behold here together the three greatest persons that ever were the Ministers of Heaven Moses under God the Instituter and promulgator of the Law Elias the great reformer of it when under its deepest degeneracy and corruption and the blessed Jesus the Son of God who came to take away what was weak and imperfect and to introduce a more manly and rational institution and to communicate the last Revelation which God would make of his mind to the World Peter and the two Apostles that were with him were in the mean time fallen asleep heavy through want of natural rest it being probably night when this was done or else over powred with these extraordinary appearances which the frailty and weakness of their present stare could not bear were fallen into a Trance But now awaking were strangely surprised to behold our Lord surrounded with so much glory and those two great persons conversing with him knowing who they were probably by some particular marks and signatures that were upon them or else by immediate revelation or from the discourse which passed betwixt Christ and them or possibly from some communication which they themselves might have with them While these Heavenly guests were about to depart Peter in a great rapture and ecstasie of mind addressed himself to our
a moment restored her to perfect health and ability to return to the business of her Family all cures being equally easie to Omnipotence SECT III. Of S. Peter from his Election to the Apostolate till the Confession which he made of Christ. The Election of the Apostles and our Lord 's solemn preparation for it The powers and Commission given to them Why Twelve chosen Peter the first in order not power The Apostles when and by whom Baptized The Tradition of Euodius of Peter ' s being immediately Baptized by Christ rejected and its authorities proved insufficient Three of the Apostles more intimately conversant with our Saviour Peter ' s being with Christ at the raising Jairus his Daughter His walking with Christ upon the Sea The creatures at God's command act contrary to their natural Inclinations The weakness of Peter ' s Faith Christ ' s power in commanding down the storm an evidence of his Divinity Many Disciples desert our Saviour's preaching Peter ' s profession of constancy in the name of the rest of the Apostles 1. OUR Lord being now to elect some peculiar persons as his immediate Vicegerents upon Earth to whose care and trust he might commit the building up of his Church and the planting that Religion in the World for which he himself came down from Heaven In order to it he privately over-night withdrew himself into a solitary Mountain commonly called the Mount of Christ from his frequent repairing thither though some of the Ancients will have it to be Mount Tabor there to make his solemn address to Heaven for a prosperous success on so great a work Herein leaving an excellent copy and precedent to the Governours of his Church how to proceed in setting apart persons to so weighty and difficult an employment Upon this Mountain we may conceive there was an Oratory or place of prayer probably intimated by S. Luke's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for such Profeucha's or houses of Prayer usually uncovered and standing in the fields the Jews had in several places wherein our Lord continued all night not in one continued and intire act of devotion but probably by intervals and repeated returns of duty 2. EARLY the next morning his Disciples came to him out of whom he made choice of Twelve to be his Apostles that they might be the constant attendants upon his person to hear his Discourses and be Eye-witnesses of his Miracles to be always conversant with him while he was upon Earth and afterwards to be sent abroad up and down the World to carry on that work which he himself had begun whom therefore he invested with the power of working Miracles which was more completely conferr'd upon them after his Ascension into Heaven Passing by the several fancies and conjectures of the Ancients why our Saviour pitch'd upon the just number of Twelve whereof before it may deserve to be considered whether our Lord being now to appoint the Supreme Officers and Governours of his Church which the Apostle styles the Commonwealth of Israel might not herein have a more peculiar allusion to the twelve Patriarchs as founders of their several Tribes or to the constant Heads and Rulers of those twelve Tribes of which the body of the Jewish Nation did consist Especially since he himself seems elsewhere to give countenance to it when he tells the Apostles that when the Son of man shall fit on the Throne of his Glory that is be gone back to Heaven and have taken full possession of his Evangelical Kingdom which principally commenc'd from his Resurrection that then they also should sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel that is they should have great powers and authorities in the Church such as the power of the Keys and other Rights of Spiritual Judicature and Sovereignty answerable in some proportion to the power and dignity which the Heads and Rulers of the twelve Tribes of Israel did enjoy 3. IN the enumeration of these twelve Apostles all the Evangelists constantly place S. Peter in the front and S. Matthew expresly tells us that he was the first that is he was the first that was called to be an Apostle his Age also and the gravity of his person more particularly qualifying him for a Primacy of Order amongst the rest of the Apostles as that without which no society of men can be managed or maintained Less than this as none will deny him so more than this neither Scripture nor Primitive antiquity do allow him And now it was that our Lord actually conferr'd that name upon him which before he had promised him Simon he surnamed Peter It may here be enquired when and by whom the Apostles were baptized That they were is unquestionable being themselves appointed to confer it upon others but when or how the Scripture is altogether silent Nicephorus from no worse an Author as he pretends than Euodius S. Peter's immediate successor in the See of Antioch tells us That of all the Apostles Christ baptized none but Peter with his own hands that Peter baptized Andrew and the two sons of Zebedee and they the rest of the Apostles This if so would greatly make for the honour of S. Peter But alas his authority is not only suspicious but supposititious in a manner deserted by S. Peter's best friends and the strongest champions of his cause Baronius himself however sometimes willing to make use of him elsewhere confessing that this Epistle of Euodius is altogether unknown to any of the Ancients As for the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus which to the same purpose he quotes out of Sophronius though not Sophronius but Johannes Moschus as is notoriously known be the Author of that Book besides that it is delivered upon an uncertain report pretended to have been alledged in a discourse between one Dionysius Bishop of Ascalon and his Clergy out of a Book of Clemens not now extant his Authors are much alike that is of no great value and authority 4. AMONGST these Apostles our Lord chose a Triumvirate Peter and the two sons of Zebedee to be his more intimate companions whom he admitted more familiarly than the rest unto all the more secret passages and transactions of his Life The first instance of which was on this occasion Jairus a Ruler of the Synagogue had a daughter desperately sick whose disease having baffled all the arts of Physick was only curable by the immediate agency of the God of Nature He therefore in all humility addresses himself to our Saviour which he had no sooner done but servants came post to tell him that it was in vain to trouble our Lord for that his daughter was dead Christ bids him not despond if his Faith held out there was no danger And suffering none to follow him but Peter James and John goes along with him to the house where he was derided by the sorrowful friends and neighbours for telling them that she was not perfectly dead
Creation and not see in every place evident footsteps of an infinite wisdom power and goodness Who can look up unto the Heavens and not there discern an Almighty wisdom beautifully garnishing those upper Regions distinguishing the circuits and perpetuating the motions of the Heavenly lights placing the Sun in the middle of the Heavens that he might equally dispense and communicate his light and heat to all parts of the World and not burn the Earth with the too near approach of his scorching beams by which means the Creatures are refreshed and cheared the Earth impregnated with fruits and flowers by the benign influence of a vital heat and the vicissitudes and seasons of the year regularly distinguished by their constant and orderly revolutions Whence are the great Orbs of Heaven kept in continual motion always going in the same tract but because there 's a Superiour power that keeps these great wheels a going Who is it that poises the balancings of the Clouds that divides a water-course for the overflowing of waters and a way for the lightning of the Thunder Who can bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion Or who can bring forth Mazaroth in his season or guide Arcturus with his sons Do these come by chance or by the secret appointment of infinite wisdom Who can consider the admirable thinness and purity of the Air its immediate subserviency to the great ends of the Creation it s being the treasury of vital breath to all living Creatures without which the next moment must put a period to our days and not reflect upon that Divine wisdom that contrived it If we come down upon the Earth there we discover a Divine providence supporting it with the pillars of an invisible power stretching the North over the empty space and hanging the Earth upon nothing filling it with great variety of admirable and useful Creatures and maintaining them all according to their kinds at his own cost and charges 'T is he that clothes the Grass with a delightful verdure that crowns the Year with his loving kindness and makes the Valleys stand thick with corn that causes the Grass to grow for the Cattel and Herb for the service of Man that he may bring forth food out of the Earth and Wine that maketh glad the heart of man and Oil to make his face to shine and Bread which strengtheneth man's heart that beautifies the Lilies that neither toil nor spin and that with a glory that out shines Solomon in all his pomp and grandeur From Land let us ship our observations to Sea and there we may descry the wise effects of infinite understanding A wide Ocean fitly disposed for the mutual commerce and correspondence of one part of mankind with another filled with great and admirable Fishes and enriched with the treasures of the deep What but an Almighty arm can shut in the Sea with doors bind it by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass and tye up its wild raging waves with no stronger cordage than ropes of Sand Who but he commands the storm and stills the tempest and brings the Mariner when at his wits-end in the midst of the greatest dangers to his desired Haven They that go down to the Sea in ships and do business in great waters these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep So impossible is it for a man to stand in any part of the Creation wherein he may not discern evidences enough of an infinitely wise gracious and Omnipotent Being Thus much I thought good to add to illustrate the Apostles argument whence he strongly infers that 't is very reasonable that we should worship and adore this great Creator and Benefactor and not transfer the honours due to him alone upon men of frail and sinful passions and much less upon dumb Idols unable either to make or to help themselves An argument which though very plain and plausible and adapted to the meanest understandings yet was all little enough to restrain the people from offering Sacrifice to them But how soon was the wind turned into another corner The old spirit of the Jews did still haunt and pursue them Who coming from Antioch and Iconium exasperated and stirred up the multitude And they who just before accounted them as Gods used them now worse not only than ordinary men but slaves For in a mighty rage they fall upon S. Paul stone him as they thought dead and then drag him out of the City Whither the Christians of that place coming probably to interr him he suddenly revived and rose up amongst them and the next day went thence to Derbe 7. HERE they preached the Gospel and then returned to Lystra Iconium and Antioch of Pisidia confirming the Christians of those places in the belief and profession of Christianity earnestly perswading them to persevere and not be discouraged with those troubles and persecutions which they must expect would attend the profession of the Gospel And that all this might succeed the better with fasting and prayer they ordained Governours and Pastors in every Church and having recommended them to the grace of God departed from them From hence they passed through Pisidia and thence came to Pamphilia and having preached to the people at Perga they went down to Attalia And thus having at this time finished the whole circuit of their Ministery they returned back to Antioch in Syria the place whence they had first set out Here they acquainted the Church with the various transactions and successes of their travels and how great a door had hereby been opened to the conversion of the Gentile World 8. WHILE S. Paul staid at Antioch there arose that famous controversie about the observation of the Mosaick Rites set on foot and brought in by some Jewish Converts that came down thither whereby great disturbances and distractions were made in the minds of the people For the composing whereof the Church of Antioch resolved to send Paul and Barnabas to consult with the Apostles and Church at Jerusalem In their way thither they declared to the Brethren as they went along what success they had had in the conversion of the Gentiles Being come to Jerusalem they first addressed themselves to Peter James and John the pillars and principal persons in that place By whom they were kindly entertained and admitted to the right hand of fellowship And perceiving by the account which S. Paul gave them that the Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to him as that of the circumcision was to Peter they ratified it by compact and agreement that Peter should preach to the Jews and Paul unto the Gentiles Hereupon a Council was summoned wherein Peter having declared his sence of things Paul and Barnabas acquainted them what great things God by their Ministery had done among the Gentiles A plain evidence that though uncircumcised they were accepted by God as well as the Jews with all their legal Rites and Priviledges The issue