13.55 are said to be James and Joses and Simon and Judas besides Sisters there also mentioned See Hegesippus apud Eusebi m l. 3. c. 10 26. and these are thought to be the sons of Alpheus supposed brother to S. Joseph and elsewhere called Cleophas and of Mary his wife See Matt. 10.3 compared with Matt. 27 56. called Mary Mother of James Mat. 27.56 Mark 16.1 and called Mary of Cleophas i. e as some suppose wife of Cleophas Jo. 19.25 and called there Sister to the Blessed Virgin i. e a near Kinswoman Unless we will suppose her to be wife of Alpheus brother to S. Joseph and Father of our Lords brethren and daughter to Cleophas a person distinct from Alpheus and Brother to Joachim the Blessed Virgins Father or to her Mother Anna. But if Cleophas be supposed Brother to S. Joseph then Alpheus may be brother to the Blessed Virgins Father or Mother and thus our Lords brethren will be his nearer Kindred Salome also wife to Zebedee is supposed a daughter of Alpheus and so her sons James and John our Lords Kinsmen I say these brethren of our Lord seem to have removed their habitation to Capernaum For they made not only this journey with him thither but here we find them again Mat. 12.47 compare 13.1 and Mark 3.20 21 31. comp 2.1 13. and 3.1 7. where the Synagogue is that in Capernaum And it seems their so solicitous looking after our Lord Mat. 12.46 was for his taking some refection the importunity and pressing of the multitude disturbing the due times of his repast Mark 3.20 and excluding his nearest friends from him and his zeal also of instructing the people and bringing them into the Kingdom of Heaven whom he campassionately beheld Matt. 9.36 as Sheep having no Shepherd which zeal some of his unbelieving Kindred thought mingled with some excess Mark 3.21 making him neglect his sustenance and the care of his Body Here it was also Jo. 7.3 as appears by the context that his Brethren perhaps having also some little touch of ambition spake to him that he would go and shew himself rather in Judea some of them having as yet some distrust of his Messiasship and high pretences when they saw him keep so much in Galilee though this necessary for prolonging his life till the time was come of his being offered up and far from Jerusalem and the Highest Court of the Nation there as also from the Court of Herod It is most probable also that these his Brethren attended on him in most of his peragrations and excursions through the other Cities and Towns of Galilee and elsewhere they and our Lords Mother are mentioned Act. 1.14 among the attendants of our Lord at his Ascencion and if they had not bin part of his ordinary Train and Auditors he would not have called two of them Viz. James and Jude to have bin of the number of the twelve And it appears that our Lord had many as it were constant followers of him besides the twelve by those 70 that besides the 12 were sent abroad by him by two and two to preach the Gospel Luk. 10.1 and by what S. Peter saith Act. 1.21 § 178 As for his Holy Mother also we cannot think but that she preferred the hearing of his Sermons the beholding of his wonderful works and the consolation of his ordinary Conversation beyond all other things of this world but by which also she became a great fellow-sufferer in all the affronts and reproaches given him in the most of his life time as well as at his death For we find many other women also as well as men that were his usual followers and every where provided necessaries for him and his Apostles As also afterward some of the Apostles in their Peregrinations had the attendance of women for providing them necessaries see 1 Cor. 9.5 And such of these as were rich ministred to him also of their substance Many women were there by the Cross Mat. 27 55 56. saith S. Matthew which followed Jesus from Galilee ministring unto him Among which saith he was Mary Magdalen Mary the mother of James and Joses our Lords Brethren and so she the wife of Alpheus And the Mother of Zebedees children Salome The same is said by S. Luke 23.55 24.10 he adding there Joanna the wife of Herods Steward And chap. 8.1 2 3. the same Evangelist saith that as our Lord went throughout every City and Village preaching c. the twelve were with him and certain women Mary called Magdalen Joanna Susanna and many others which ministred to him of their substance And we find Salome's request to our Lord for her two Sons was not made at Capernaum but some where upon the way in his last journey to Jerusalem wherein she with many other women waited on him as hath bin said See Mat. 20.20 comp 17. 29. So that I may say our Lord had an Holy Court of pious men and women following and attending on him in most of his travels Among these therefore was our Lords Blessed Mother and she most diligent in the same offices and contributing also the little she had to the common charges or supposing she had nothing was by the other more wealthy supplyed with necessaries as our Lord was Yet I say not this of a perpetual but of a frequent attendance whilst they sometimes also were absent and ordered other necessary affairs but then the residence of our Blessed Lady seems to be not at Nazareth but at Capernaum whither our Lord made frequent returns from his journeys about the Country As for the Nazaren's words Mat. 13.56 His Sisters are they not all with us This may be said only of his Sisters exclusively to his Mother or Brethren or may be understood of their ordinary former abode there § 179 Our Lords staying at Capernaum was not long the great solemn Paschal feast of the Jews now approaching He is commonly said to have received Baptism from John January the sixth after which having spent six weeks in the wilderness and some time afterward with the Baptist in collecting some Disciples and then making some little stay at Cana with his kindred and the Paschal Feast being celebrated at the full Moon it March accordingly our Lords abode in this City was not above a fortnight or three weeks In which time is no mention of any publick Predication of his the entrance upon which perhaps was intended to be rather at Jerusalem and in his Fathers house there mean while employed in more private Discourses and instructions of his Disciples and others Though his Miracle done at Cana having so many witnesses must needs be much talked of there and the Dignity of his person and the Baptist's Testimony of him by his Disciples communicated to many others and the same thereof also gone before him to Jerusalem At the great Feast of the Pasch he went up thither accompanied with his Disciples as for the observance of the Feast so there solemnly
more endeared and enamoured the Lord with her Vertues § 13 And secondly which may seem to make her yet somewhat lower and to take off somewhat from the Lustre of her dearest Jewel a Virginal purity and integrity we find her by the over-ruling of Gods providence and the negociation and importunity of her friends and parents already espoused and made sure to an husband made sure to a righteous and holy man indeed but one also of a low fortune and a poor Trade whereby her condition as it was for the present but mean so neither was it now for the future advancible by a rich or noble marriage so to make more credible to her the Angels news of her high advancement Luk. 1.28 And by Gods forecasting providence was it thus ordered That before she was with child she should have a titular husband First so to sheild the wisdom of God and the honour of the Virgin from the calumnies of men For better for her to be thought abroad in this our Saviours supernatural conception and birth not a pure Virgin then an Harlot and better the Son of God to be thought the son of a Carpenter then illegitimate and spurious Yet which titular Father was to be taken away out of sight before the Son of Gods publication to Israel As may be collected from Jo. 2.2 3 12 where no mention of him Secondly so to provide a foster-Father for the new-born Infant and one that might do the offices of a husband and Master of a family to the Virgin when now made a Mother As likewise thirdly to hide our Saviours divine Original from those who were unworthy to know it who reputed him Josephs son until the accomplishment of his sufferings and the better to conceal him till his manifestation under a mean roofe Meanwhile much humiliation was here both of the most pure and chastly-devoted Virgin to be thought a wife and of her divine Son which she would take to heart more then her own crosses to be esteem'd a Carpenters which was not spared to be often laid in his dish Nor could the perplexed Mother when she was present and heard this from the unbelieving and malicious Jews prudently or safely declare the contrary § 14 Now after the Angel had thus told her in General of her happiness and her low conceit of her self stood amazed at his words he further opens his message to her saying that God would make her the Mother of a king whom she should call by the name of Jesus and that he should be a King eternal over Gods Israel sitting upon the Throne of her Forefather David unchanged any more for ever But here again she instead of feeding her thoughts upon hers or her sons Greatness fixed them rather upon her honesty and the just Guard of her resolved Virginity and modestly enquired how she not knowing a man could have a child for it seems that the Angels speech represented so much to her that Virgin as she was she should also be a Mother whereupon the Angel further instructs her in the manner thereof that she should conceive this child not by man but by God Himself by the Holy Ghost supervening upon her and the power of the Highest overshadowing her and therefore that her Son should be called his and then the more to confirm his speech and her faith familiarly added that her Cousin Elizabeth tho not a Virgin yet of a long time formerly noted for barren and then also much overaged for children was now six Months gone of such a supernatural conception And now tho many questions the Virgin might further have asked still concerning this miracle of miracles for who can sound the depth of so great a mystery and we see how weak and incredulous in comparison of her the Holy Priest Zachary was for a birth of much less marveil and therefore the Virgins undisputing and ready faith is much taken notice of by the Holy Ghost in the mouth of Elizabeth with a beata annexed to it beata quae crediderit Luk 1.45 and tho many scruples she might have made also concerning what the just Joseph would think and what the world would say Yet here her great prudence stopped all further curiosity and the suggestions of such low fears and she meekly acquiesced in Gods good pleasure answering the Angels High Ecce Mater Domini with her Low ecce Ancilla Domini Fiat mihi secundum Verbum tuum This her ready faith and modest consent and submissive resignation of her self into the hands of God making and compleating this divine espousal instantly upon which followed the Conception of Jesus and this Mother became one whom all Generations should call Blessed Blessed and honoured above all the Creatures of God as they have done unto this day § 15 Soon after this the overjoyed Virgin having heard from the Angel that strange story concerning her Cousin Elizabeth called her Cousin Because tho we find her stiled Luk. 1.5 a daughter of Aaron and is supposed to have an Aaronite for her Father Yet her Mother is said to have bin one of the race of David and Sister to the Mother of the Blessed Virgin As it had bin of a long time usual for the Tribes to intermarry especially that of Levi dispersed in Israel and for such women as had no inheritance So Jehoiada the High Priest married King Ahaziah's sister 2 Chron. 22. And David Sauls daughter a Benjamite I say the Blessed Virgin having heard this strange and joyful news of her Cousin Elizabeth and having this as it were given her for a sign of the truth of these things which should happen to her self being now acted by the Holy Ghost to do extraordinary matters and filled with a courage unusual to a Maid undertook all on the suddain and before any cohabitation with her espoused husband Joseph as appears in Matt. 1.18 a very long journy to a place far remote from her own habitation and Friends some 70 or 80 miles thro some part of it an hilly and difficult way quite Cross Palestine Luk. 1.39 to give her Cousin Elizabeth a visit To confer with her about spiritual affairs to congratulate with her for the great favours God had done unto her and to joine with her in his praises But chiefly such a remote journey at this time presently upon her Conception of our Lord seems to be undertaken and so long a stay also there by the special Divine Providence that there might be no cohabitation nor matrimonial correspondence or commerce with Joseph her Husband therefore the Angels visit seems also to have bin presently after the Espousals till she was first apparently with child which commerce Her great wisdom purposely declined that nothing might be seen that might resemble any carnal or conjugal satisfaction She departing saith the Text not without some Mortification to herself cum festinatione Luk. 1.39 And therefore after so long a stay abroad till she began now to be apparently with child to
in such a case to rend their vest before with both their hands from the neck to the middle and said there was now no more need of witnesses who well knew how little they besteaded him that he had sufficiently condemned himself The rest also of his Assessors charged him with blasphemy themselves in this blaspheming and that for this he merited death and so delivered him into the custody of the High Priests Officers till the morning which now approached it being now after Cock-crow and raised the Court. See Luk. 22.26 Mat. 27.1 Or if some of our Lords Judges may be thought to have sate in consultation the rest of that night yet our Lord was removed from before them and remitted to the Officers custody till a fuller Assembly of the next morning should determine their further proceedings § 38 Our Lord thus left in the Officers hands let us now return and see what becomes of his poor Disciples It was said that after the Sword drawn and Malchus his Eare cut off and our Lord apprehended and bound all of them fled but St. Peter and another Disciple by the advantage of the darkness of the night followed the Troop at some distance which other Disciple seems to be S. John because he relates the matter so punctually and conceals the name as he useth when speaking of himself As for that Disciple's being known to the High Priest I conceive he might be so without the High Priest himself but onely some of his Family having familiar acquaintance with him or without the High Preist's knowing any thing of his Discipleship to Jesus or also with his conniveance at it our Lords Disciples having as yet given the High Preist not the least offence and this also makes it the more probable that Zebedee his father seems to have bin according to his condition a wealthy man as may be gathered from his wifes perhaps after her husbands decease being one that accompanied Mary Magdalen and the wife of Herodes Steward wealthy persons also whom God had provided for this purpose in ministring to our Lord's necessities in his travels out of their substance as also after his death in providing costly spices for embalming him See Mat. 27.55.56 compare Luk. 8.2.3 And this also might be some reason of her confident request Mat. 20.20 of having her two sons more highly preferred in our Lords Kingdom and lastly of our Lords recommending his mother to John as for other reasons so because he was better able to provide for her and perhaps as having also an house in Jerusalem Jo. 19.27 but be this as it will § 39 Those two Disciples followed our Lord to the High Priest's gate And the other Disciple pressed also into the Pallace with our Lord and the Guard Jo. 18.25 but Peter perhaps more timorous for the Exploit he had done in the Garden stayeth without till his companion speaking to a woman the Portress brought him in which made her presume him a Galilean Peter thus entred presumed not to go up into the Court where the Council sate on the trial of our Lord as probably the other Disciple did but stayed below amongst the servants and officers at the fire in the Hall or Court of the Pallace Mat. 26.69 Mark 14.66 warming himself and expecting what would be the end Mat. 26.58 When the Maid-servant the Portress remembring who brought in Peter and probably the discourse of the company then being of our Lords apprehension and Followers said unto Peter before them all Art not Thou also one of this mans Disciples Jo. 18.17 Peter much amated hereat denyed it and said he was none of his Disciples he knew no such man nor understood what she said and after taking an opportunity withdrew himself from them into the Porch perhaps intending to have gone clear away but the gate being shut he thought it not best to discover his fears but return again into the Hall and former company where doubtless he heard talk of the severe proceedings against our Lord in the Court Meanwhile he being absent in the Porch the Cock crew and gave him a fair warning of his fault but his troubled thoughts took no notice of it There he had not staied long but another Maid said of him to the standers-by that he was one of the company that was with Jesus But he denyed with an oath Mat. 26.72 the second time that he knew him Near upon an hour after this some others of the company again began to compass and question him saying That surely he was one of them for his speech also bewrayed him for a Galilean And which was the worst of all one of the High Priest's servants a kinsman of his whose ear Peter had cut off pressed him yet closer saying did not I see thee in the Garden with him Here having cause to fear his assaulting the High Priests servant and making resistance to Authority might also come into Examination still in more distraction he began saith St. Matthew execrari jurare that he knew not the man and presently the Cock crew again And upon it our Lord by this time after the Court was risen being brought down by the Officers into the Hall looked back and gave a glance upon Peter § 40 Upon which our Lord's words also came into his remembrance that before the Cock crew twice he would thrice deny him And as fast as he could getting out of the Pallace with the crowd after the Assembly dissolved he now had liberty to ease his wounded mind and so fell a weeping bitterly both for his great fault though not of betraying as Judas yet of denying and foreswearing such a Master and for his great presumption in so rashly promising what he saw when left to himself and Jesus taken from him he was not able to perform Now also came fresh into his mind on the other side the great love and affection his Lord had shewed to him and the rest in his fare-well-Sermon to them and Prayer for them in his telling them of the present danger and requesting them to watch and pray when also carelesly neglecting him in his terrible Agony they fell fast a sleep again in his freely meeting the Troops and delivering up himself to procure their dismission lest some ill should happen to them his own rash venturing into the Court where few bring away the innocency they carried thither and the state and over-awing of great persons and the flattery of them by Inferiors corrupts mens manners his being daunted who before so stoutly drew his Sword against an Army with the questioning not of a Court or the Magistrate but only by a silly maid-servant his not only denying his Lord but fixing it too with curses and oaths his taking no warning nor thinking of our Lord's admonition when as it were on purpose being gone apart he so distinctly heard the first Cock-crow nor when the last had not his dear Master turned himself about and cast an Eye upon him But then
Sanctuary to make an atonement for the world and was carried thither by himself the Priest as well as the Sacrifice none else worthy or sufficient for either of these There they brought him to a rocky Hill on the North-West side of the City where it seems Executions were usually made by the Hebrew name of it Golgotha signifying a skull perhaps from some bones of the Malefactors lying scattered upon it where the rock affordeth little conveniency for covering them Here in the soft stone of the rock were digged several holes wherein to put the crosses Three such are there seen at this day about Eighteen inches deep saith Eugen. Roger. La Terre Saincte lib. 1. cap. 14. and nine the Diameter and the distance one from another near two yards and between two of these a rent or cleft in the rock from the one side of the Hill to the other which hill runs length-way Northward about a Palme breath but the profundity of it he saith not discoverable And on this same Hill probably it was that Abraham was appointed by God to offer up his only Son Isaac Gen. 22.2 For it was to be upon a certain Hill that God would shew him in terra Moriae or visionis as the land thereabouts was called of which Hills that of Calvary was one God having placed his own people and his true worship in the middle of the Nations round about Ezec. 5.5 and again Jerusalem in the middle of this § 95 Arrived now at the place of his suffering it is said to have bin the custome of the Jews from the precept given them Prov. 31.6 but so was it also of the Romans from a natural compassion to tender to persons condemned before the undergoing their torments some comforting and strengthening drink and that ordinarily mingled with some aromatical ingredients that had a stupifying quality and one of these to be Myrrhe To observe the custome therefore and as it were to prepare and strengthen our Lord for the great sufferings that were to follow who was almost spent by those endured already and who but now fainted under his Cross they brought him some of this compounded wine but their malice first mingled it with gall changing this cup which common pity provided for the consolation and refreshment of poor condemned persons into a Nauseating and bitternes not to be endured A circumstance of their barbarous treatment of him not neglected to be taken notice by the Psalmist in the description of his sufferings Dederunt in escam meam fel c. Psal 68.21 for it was given to him whatever was deserved by us of whom the Prophet Jer. 8.14 Potum dedit nobis aquam fellis peccavimus enim Domino Our Lord though he well knew their inhuman composition of this cup yet to avoid the shewing any offence or passion tasted it and consolated himself in calling to mind the prophecy of it but here left to his liberty would not drink it though no doubt he then laboured with very great thirst if we consider all his former usage the time of the year the climat the crowd about him no sustenance since that which he said should be his last cup at the Paschal Supper at which time doubtless a cup of cold water would have bin a great refreshment to him but none offered it to him He would not drink it as no way serving for that end for which he needed it the quenching of thirst but rather the contrary and again as not admitting any artificial means of accelerating his death or stupifying his senses if such a vertue this drink had for he knew how great our debt in this kind to his offended Father was and desiring to pay it to the uttermost would accept nothing that might any way lighten or mitigate it § 96 After this they hasting to his Execution the Centurion with the rest of the Cohort standing by as a Guard four of the meanest of the Soldiers to whom this base imployment might be a little beneficial stript our Lord of all his clothes whatever which fell to their share onely putting a small cloth over those parts which for decency were to be covered and leaving him his Crown of Thornes the points of which we may imagine as so many weapons sticking in the wounds and never drawn out whilst he lived after thrust into them caused a perpetual torture from the time of his mock-coronation till his giving up the Ghost Thus made naked and the wounds which he had received but an hour or two before exposed to the cold air and made raw again by their pulling away his clothes that sticking to them served him for a plaister they spread him upon the wood of the Cross and racking his arms to their utmost extent with great spikes of Iron driven through the palmes of his hands fastned them to the cross-piece thereof and so also his feet stretched out and put one upon the other with one spike driven through them fastned them to the long beam of the Cross whilst our Lord without reluctancy permitted them facere etiam in se quaecunque voluerunt Mat. 17.12 yielding his body and stretching out his Limbs so as they required cum pateretur non comminabatur sed tradebat judicanti se injuste 1 Pet. 2.23 saith S. Peter and meanwhile amidst those sharp pains he must needs feel in those most nervous and sensible parts afflicted himself for their sins and compassionating their condition as he did before in the way that of the Daughters of Jerusalem he prayed for them to his Heavenly Father and pleaded to him their ignorance of what a person he was Prayed for them not only for those Soldiers who so cruelly tortured him but for all whosoever Jew or Gentile that had their hands in his death saying aloud those words which might have melted down such stony-hearts Father forgive them for they know not what they do Which admirable Pattern of this meek Lamb of God who had no gall in him being set to all his Followers in whatever their sufferings the Prophet Esay in his prophetick History of him chap. 53.12 le ts not pass unmentioned where he saith Ideo dispertiam ei plurimos fortium dividet spolia pro eo quod tradidit in mortem animam suam cum sceleratis reputatus est peccata multorum even of those scelerati tulit pro Transgressoribus rogavit Whose prayer also was heard by his Father not only for the more simple but even for the most culpably ignorant so they were penitent a great company of the Priests also afterward becoming obedient to the Faith Act. 6. And among others St. Paul a great Persecutor of our Lord in his Members saith he obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1.13 Quia nesciens fecit And S. Peter Act. 3. invites the People and their Rulers to repentance for this fact upon this account for that if they had known who he was they would never have done it And a great