But notwithstanding this fair and plausible testimony he tells them that they were not all of this mind that there was a Satan amongst them one that was moved by the spirit and impulse and that acted according to the rules and interest of the Devil intimating Judas who should betray him So hard is it to meet with a body of so just and pure a constitution wherein some rotten member or distempered part is not to be found SECT IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passover Our Saviour's Journy with his Apostles to Caesarea The Opinions of the People concerning Him Peter ' s eminent Confession of Christ and our Lord 's great commendation of it Thou art Peter and upon this Rock c. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven how given The advantage the Church of Rome makes of these passages This confession made by Peter in the name of the rest and by others before him No personal priviledge intended to S. Peter the same things elsewhere promised to the other Apostles Our Lord's discourse concerning his Passion Peter ' s unseasonable Zeal in disswading him from it and our Lord 's severe rebuking him Christ's Transfiguration and the glory of it Peter how affected with it Peter ' s paying Tribute for Christ and himself This Tribute what Our Saviour's discourse upon it Offending brethren how oft to be forgiven The young man commanded to sell all What compensation made to the followers of Christ. Our Lord 's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem Preparation made to keep the Passover 1. IT was some time since our Saviour had kept his third Passover at Jerusalem when he directed his Journy towards Caesarea Philippi where by the way having like a careful Master of his Family first prayed with his Apostles he began to ask them having been more than two Years publickly conversant amongst them what the world thought concerning him They answered that the Opinions of Men about him were various and different that some took him for John the Baptist lately risen from the dead between whose Doctrine Discipline and way of life in the main there was so great a Correspondence That others thought he was Elias probably judging so from the gravity of his Person freedom of his Preaching the fame and reputation of his Miracles especially since the Scriptures assured them he was not dead but taken up into Heaven and had so expresly foretold that he should return back again That others look'd upon him as the Prophet Jeremiah alive again of whose return the Jews had great expectations in so much that some of them thought the Soul of Jeremias was re-inspired into Zacharias Or if not thus at least that he was one of the more eminent of the ancient Prophets or that the Souls of some of these Persons had been breathed into him The Doctrine of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transmigration of Souls first broached and propagated by Pythagoras being at this time current amongst the Jews and owned by the Pharisees as one of their prime Notions and Principles 2. THIS Account not sufficing our Lord comes closer and nearer to them tells them It was no wonder if the common People were divided into these wild thoughts concerning him but since they had been always with him had been hearers of his Sermons and Spectators of his Miracles he enquired what they themselves thought of him Peter ever forward to return an Answer and therefore by the Fathers frequently stiled The Mouth of the Apostles told him in the name of the rest That he was the Messiah The Son of the living God promised of old in the Law and the Prophets heartily desired and looked for by all good men anointed and set apart by God to be the King Priest and Prophet of his People To this excellent and comprehensive confession of Peter's Our Lord returns this great Eulogie and Commendation Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven That is this Faith which thou hast now confessed is not humane contrived by Man's wit or built upon his testimony but upon those Notions and Principles which I was sent by God to reveal to the World and those mighty and solemn attestations which he has given from Heaven to the truth both of my Person and my Doctrine And because thou hast so freely made this Confession therefore I also say unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it That is that as thy Name signifies a Stone or Rock such shalt thou thy self be firm solid and immoveable in building of the Church which shall be so orderly erected by thy care and diligence and so firmly founded upon that faith which thou hast now confessed that all the assaults and attempts which the powers of Hell can make against it shall not be able to overturn it Moreover I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven That is thou shalt have that spiritual authority and power within the Church whereby as with Keys thou shalt be able to shut and lock out obstinate and impenitent sinners and upon their repentance to unlock the door and take them in again And what thou shalt thus regularly do shall be own'd in the Court above and ratified by God in Heaven 3. UPON these several passages the Champions of the Church of Rome mainly build the unlimited Supremacy and Infallibility of the Bishops of that See with how much truth and how little reason it is not my present purpose to discuss It may suffice here to remark that though this place does very much tend to exalt the honour of S. Peter yet is there nothing herein personal and peculiar to him alone as distinct from and preferred above the rest of the Apostles Does he here make confession of Christ's being the Son of God Yet besides that herein he spake but the sence of all the rest this was no more than what others had said as well as he yea before he was so much as call'd to be a Disciple Thus Nathanael at his first coming to Christ expresly told him Rabbi thou art the Son of God Thou art the King of Israel Does our Lord here stile him a Rock All the Apostles are elsewhere equally called Foundations yea said to be the Twelve Foundations upon which the Wall of the new Jerusalem that is the Evangelical Church is erected and sometimes others of them besides Peter are called Pillars as they have relation to the Church already built Does Christ here promise the Keys to Peter that is Power of Governing and of exercising Church-censures and of absolving penitent sinners The very same is elsewhere promised to all the Apostles and
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
Philo tells Caius the Emperor suffered the Jews to inhabit the Transtiberin Region and undisturbedly to live according to the Rites of their Institutions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also to have their Proseucha's and to meet in them especially upon their holy Sabbaths that they might be familiarly instructed in the Laws and Religion of their Countrey Such they had also in other places especially where they had not or were not suffered to have Synagogues for their publick worship But to return 4. AS they were going to this Oratory they were often followed by a Pythonesse a Maid-servant acted by a spirit of Divination who openly cried out That these men were the servants of the most high God who came to shew the way of Salvation to the World So easily can Heaven extort a Testimony from the mouth of Hell But S. Paul to shew how little he needed Satan to be his witness commanded the Daemon to come out which immediately left her The evil Spirit thus thrown out of possession presently raised a storm against the Apostles for the Masters of the Damsel who used by her Diabolical arts to raise great advantages to themselves being sensible that now their gainful Trade was spoil'd resolved to be revenged on them that had spoiled it Accordingly they laid hold upon them and drag'd them before the Seat of Judicature insinuating to the Governours that these men were Jews and sought to introduce different customs and ways of worship contrary to the Laws of the Roman Empire The Magistrates and People were soon agreed the one to give Sentence the other to set upon the Execution In fine they were stript beaten and then commanded to be thrown into Prison and the Jaylor charged to keep them with all possible care and strictness Who to make sure of his charge thrust them into the Inner-Dungeon and made their feet fast in the Stocks But a good man can turn a Prison into a Chappel and make a den of Thieves to be an house of Prayer Our feet cannot be bound so fast to the Earth but that still our hearts may mount up to Heaven At midnight the Apostles were over-heard by their fellow-prisoners praying and singing Hymns to God But after the still voice came the Tempest An Earthquake suddenly shook the foundations of the Prison the Doors flew open and their Chains fell off The Jaylor awaking with this amazing accident concluded with himself that the Prisoners were fled and to prevent the Sentence of publick Justice was going to lay violent hands upon himself which S. Paul espying called out to him to hold his hand and told him they were all there Who thereupon came in to them with a greater Earthquake in his own Conscience and falling down before them asked them What he should do to be saved They told him there was no other way of Salvation for him or his than an hearty and sincere embracing of the Faith of Christ. What a happy change does Christianity make in the minds of men How plain does it smooth the roughest tempers and instill the sweetest principles of civility and good nature He who but a little before had tyrannized over the Apostles with the most merciless and cruel usage began now to treat them with all the arts of kindness and charity bringing them out of the Dungeon and washing their stripes and wounds and being more fully instructed in the principles of Christianity was together with his whole Family immediately baptized by them Early in the morning the Magistrates sent Officers privately to release them Which the Apostles refused telling them That they were not only innocent persons but Romans that they had been illegally condemned and beaten that therefore their delivery should be as publick as the injury and an open vindication of their innocency and that they themselves that had sent them thither should fetch them thence for the Roman Government was very tender of the lives and liberties of its own subjects those especially that were free Denizens of Rome every injury offered to a Roman being look'd upon as an affront against the Majesty of the whole People of Rome Such a one might not be beaten but to be scourged or bound without being first legally heard and tried was not only against the Roman but the Laws of all Nations and the more publick any injury was the greater was its aggravation and the Laws required a more strict and solemn reparation S. Paul who was a Roman and very well understood the Laws and priviledges of Rome insisted upon this to the great startling and affrighting of the Magistrates who sensible of their error came to the Prison and intreated them to depart Whereupon going to Lydia's house and having saluted and encouraged the Brethren they departed from that place 5. LEAVING Philippi they came next to Thessalonica the Metropolis of Macedonia where Paul according to his custom presently went to the Jewish Synagogue for three Sabbath days reasoning and disputing with them proving from the predictions of the Old Testament that the Messiah was to suffer and to rise again and that the blessed Jesus was this Messiah Great numbers especially of religious Proselytes were converted by his preaching while like the Sun that melts wax but hardens clay it wrought a quite contrary effect in the unbelieving Jews who presently set themselves to blow up the City into a tumult and an uproar and missing S. Paul who had withdrawn himself they fell foul upon Jason in whose house he lodged representing to the Magistrates that they were enemies to Caesar and sought to undermine the peace and prosperity of the Roman Empire At night Paul and Silas were conducted by the Brethren to Beraea Where going to the Synagogue they found the People of a more noble and generous a more pliable and ingenuous temper ready to entertain the Christian Doctrine but yet not willing to take it merely upon the Apostles word till they had first compared his preaching with what the Scriptures say of the Messiah and his Doctrine And the success was answerable in those great numbers that came over to them But the Jewish malice pursued them still for hearing at Thessalonica what entertainment they had found in this place they presently came down to exasperate and stir up the People To avoid which S. Paul leaving Silas and Timothy behind him thought good to withdraw himself from that place 6. FROM Beroea he went to Athens one of the most renowned Cities in the World excelling all others says an Ancient Historian in Antiquity Humanity and Learning Indeed it was the great seat of Arts and Learning and as Cicero will have it the Fountain whence Civility Learning Religion Arts and Laws were derived into all other Nations So universally flocked to by all that had but the least kindness for the Muses or good Manners that he who had not seen Athens was accounted a Block he who having seen it was not in love with
Nephew Lot a just man but vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked for dwelling in the midst of an impure and debauched generation In seeing and hearing he vexed his righteous Soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds This endeared him to Heaven who took a particular care of him and sent an Angel on purpose to conduct him and his family out of Sodom before he let loose that fatal vengeance that overturned it 18. Abraham being dead Isaac stood up in his stead the son of his Parents old age and the fruit of an extraordinary promise Being delivered from being a sacrifice he frequented say the Jews the School of Sem wherein he was educated in the knowledge of Divine things till his marriage with Rebeccah But however that was he was a good man we read of his going out to meditate or pray in the field at even-tide and elsewhere we find him publickly sacrificing and calling upon God In all his distresses God still appeared to him animated him against his fears and encouraged him to go on in the steps of his Father renewing the same promises to him which he had made to Abraham Nay so visible and remarkable was the interest which he had in Heaven that Abimelech King of the Philistines and his Courtiers thought it their wisest course to confederate with him for this very reason because they saw certainly that the Lord was with him and that he was the blessed of the Lord. Religion is the truest interest and the wisest portion 't is the surest protection and the safest refuge When a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Isaac dying in the CLXXX year of his life the Patriarchate devolved upon his son Jacob by vertue of the primogeniture which he had purchased of his brother Esau and which had been confirmed to him by the grant and blessing of his Father though subtilly procured by the artifice and policy of his Mother who also told him that God Almighty would bless and multiply him and his seed after him and that the blessing of Abraham should come upon them He intirely devoted himself to the fear and service of God kept up his Worship and vindicated it from the incroachments of Idolatry he erected Altars at every turn and zealously purged his house from those Teraphim or Idols which Rachel had brought along with her out of Laban's house either to prevent her Father's enquiring at them which way Jacob had made his escape or to take away from him the instruments of his Idolatry or possibly that she might have wherewith to propitiate and pacifie her Father in case he should pursue and overtake them as Josephus thinks though surely then she would have produced them when she saw her Father so zealous to retrieve them He had frequent Visions and Divine condescensions God appearing to him and ratifying the Covenant that he had made with Abraham and changing his name from Jacob to Israel as a memorial of the mighty prevalency which he had with Heaven In his later time he removed his family into Egypt where God had prepared his way by the preferment of his son Joseph to be Vice-Roy and Lord of that vast and fertile Country advanced to that place of state and grandeur by many strange and unsearchable methods of the Divine Providence By his two Wives the Daughters of his Uncle Laban and his two Handmaids he had twelve Sons who afterwards became founders of the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish Nation to whom upon his deathbed he bequeathed his blessings consigning their several portions and the particular fates of every Tribe among whom that of Judah is most remarkable to whom it was foretold that the Messiah should arise out of that Tribe that the Regal Power and Political Soveraignty should be annexed to it and remain in it till the Messiah came at whose coming the Scepter should depart and the Law-giver from between his knees And thus all their own Paraphrasts both Onkelos Jonathan and he of Jerusalem do expound it that there should not want Kings or Rulers of the house of Judah nor Scribes to teach the Law of that race 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until the time that Messiah the King shall come whose the Kingdom is And so it accordingly came to pass for at the time of Christ's Birth Herod who was a stranger had usurped the Throne debased the authority of their great Sanhedrim murdered their Senators devested them of all Judiciary power and kept them so low that they had not power left to put a man to death And unto him shall the gathering of the people be A prophecy exactly accomplished when in the first Ages of Christianity the Nations of the World flocked to the standard of Christ at the publication of the Gospel Jacob died CXLVII years old and was buried in Canaan in the Sepulchre of his Fathers After whose decease his posterity for some hundreds of years were afflicted under the Egyptian yoke Till God remembring the Covenant he had made with their Fathers powerfully rescued them from the Iron Furnace and conducted them through the wilderness into the Land of Promise where he framed and ordered their Commonwealth appointed Laws for the government of their Church and setled them under a more fixed and certain dispensation 19. HITHERTO we have surveyed the state of the Church in the constant succession of the Patriarchal Line But if we step a little further into the History of those times we shall find that there were some extraordinary persons without the Pale of that holy Tribe renowned for the worship of God and the profession of Religion among whom two are most considerable Melchisedeck and Job Melchisedeck was King of Salem in the land of Canaan and Priest of the most high God The short account which the Scripture gives of him hath left room for various fancies and conjectures The opinion that has most generally obtained is that Melchisedeck was Sem one of the sons of Noah who was of a great Age and lived above LXX years after Abraham's coming into Canaan and might therefore well enough meet him in his triumphant return from his conquest over the Kings of the Plain But notwithstanding the universal authority which this opinion assumes to it self it appears not to me with any tolerable probability partly because Canaan where Melchisedeck lived was none of those Countries which were allotted to Sem and to his posterity and unlikely it is that he should be Prince in a foreign Country partly because those things which the Scripture reports concerning Melchisedeck do no ways agree to Sem as that he was without Father and Mother without genealogie c. whenas Moses does most exactly describe and record Sem and his Family both as to his Ancestors and as to his posterity That therefore which seems most probable in the case is that he was one of the Reguli or petty Kings
they themselves would herein appear to oppose the counsels and designs of Heaven With this prudent and rational advice they were satisfied and having commanded the Apostles to be scourged and charged them no more to preach this doctrine restored them to their liberty Who notwithstanding this charge and threatning returned home in a kind of triumph that they were accounted worthy to suffer in so good a cause and to undergo shame and reproach for the sake of so good a Master Nor could all the hard usage they met with from men discourage them in their duty to God or make them less zealous and diligent both publickly and privately to preach Christ in every place SECT VIII Of S. Peter's Acts from the Dispersion of the Church at Jerusalem till his contest with S. Paul at Antioch The great care of the Divine Providence over the Church Peter dispatched by the Apostles to confirm the Church newly planted at Samaria His baffling and silencing Simon Magus there His going to Lydda and curing Aeneas His raising Dorcas at Joppa The Vision of all sorts of Creatures presented to him to prepare him for the conversion of the Gentiles His going to Cornelius and declaring God's readiness to receive the Gentiles into the Church The Baptizing Cornelius and his Family Peter censured by the Jews for conversing with the Gentiles The mighty prejudices of the Jews against the Gentiles noted out of Heathen Writers Peter cast into prison by Herod Agrippa miraculously delivered by an Angel His discourse in the Synod at Jerusalem that the Gentiles might be received without being put under the obligation of the Law of Moses His unworthy compliance with the Jews at Antioch in opposition to the Gentiles Severely checked and resisted by S. Paul The ill use Porphyry makes of this difference The conceit of some that it was not Peter the Apostle but one of the Seventy 1. THE Church had been hitherto tossed with gentle storms but now a more violent tempest overtook it by which began in the Proto-Martyr Stephen and was more vigorously carried on afterwards occasion whereof the Disciples were dispersed And God who always brings good out of evil hereby provided that the Gospel should not be confin'd only to Jerusalem Hitherto the Church had been crowded up within the City-walls and the Religion had crept up and down in private corners but the professors of it being now dispersed abroad by the malice and cruelty of their enemies carried Christianity along with them and propagated it into the neighbour-Countries accomplishing hereby an ancient prophecy That out of Sion should go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Thus God over-rules the malice of men and makes intended poison to become food or physick That Divine Providence that governs the World more particularly superintends the affairs and interests of his Church so that no weapon form'd against Israel shall prosper curses shall be turned into blessings and that become an eminent means to enlarge and propagate the Gospel which they designed as the only way to suppress and stifle it Amongst those that were scattered Philip the Deacon was driven down unto Samaria where he preached the Gospel and confirmed his preaching by many miraculous cures and dispossessing Devils In this City there was one Simon who by Magick Arts and Diabolical Sorceries sought to advance himself into a great fame and reputation with the People insomuch that they generally beheld him as the great power of God for so the Ancients tell us he used to style himself giving out himself to be the first and chiefest Deity the Father who is God over all that is that he was that which in every Nation was accounted the supreme Deity This man hearing the Sermons and beholding the Miracles that were done by Philip gave up himself amongst the number of believers and was baptized with them The Apostles who yet remained at Jerusalem having heard of the great success of Philip's ministery at Samaria thought good to send some of their number to his assistance And accordingly deputed Peter and John who came thither Where having prayed for and laid their hands upon these new converts they presently received the Holy Ghost Simon the Magician observing that by laying on of the Apostle's hands miraculous gifts were conferred upon men offered them a considerable summ of money to invest him with this power that on whom he laid his hands they might receive the Holy Ghost Peter perceiving his rotten and insincere intentions rejected his impious motion with scorn and detestation Thy money perish with thee He told him that his heart was naught and hypocritical that he could have no share nor portion in so great a priviledge that it more concerned him to repent of so great a wickedness and sincerely seek to God that so the thought of his heart might be forgiven him for that he perceived that he had a very vicious and corrupt temper and constitution of mind and was as yet bound up under a very wretched and miserable state displeasing to God and dangerous to himself The Conscience of the man was a little startled with this and he prayed the Apostles to intercede with Heaven that God would pardon his sin and that none of these things might fall upon him But how little cure this wrought upon him we shall find elsewhere when we shall again meet with him afterwards The Apostles having thus confirmed the Church at Samaria and preached up and down in the Villages thereabouts returned back to Jerusalem to joyn their counsel and assistance to the rest of the Apostles 2. THE storm though violent being at length blown over the Church enjoyed a time of great calmness and serenity during which Peter went out to visit the Churches lately planted in those parts by those Disciples who had been dispersed by the persecution at Jerusalem Coming down to Lydda the first thing he did was to work a cure upon one Aeneas who being crippl'd with the Palsie had layn bed-rid for eight years together Peter coming to him bad him in the name of Christ to arise and the man was immediately restored to perfect health A miracle that was not confined only to his person for being known abroad generally brought over the Inhabitants of that place The fame of this miracle having flown to Joppa a Sea-port Town some six miles thence the Christians there presently sent for Peter upon this occasion Tabitha whose Greek name was Dorcas a woman venerable for her piety and diffusive charity was newly dead to the great lamentation of all good men and much more to the loss of the poor that had been relieved by her Peter coming to the house found her dressed up for her Funeral solemnity and compassed about with the sorrowful Widows who shewed the Coats and Garments wherewith she had clothed them the badges of her charitable liberality Peter shutting all out kneeled down and prayed and then turning him to