Roman Governour of Syria for a punishment of this Fact caused two thousand more of them to be crucified And Archelaus going to Rome there to solicit an establishment of his Kingship from the Emperour tho the Jews there also supplicated against him for the liberty of their Nation at least to be freed from any particular King and to be subjected only to the Roman President of Syria and also the more to promote their sute displayed before the Emperour and his Court the divine hand being in it all the tyrannical and luxurious life of Herod his Father yet their designs were totally frustrated And so were Archelaus his too For Augustus saith Josephus Antiq. l. 17. c. 17. Archelaum quidem Regem non pronunciavit Dimidiae vero Judeae regionis quae Herodi tributa reddebat Toparcham constituit Spondens et Regiam quoque dignitatem si laboribus favoribus circa semetipsum meritus appareret But the issue concerning him was that after about nine years continuance in this Dignity upon a new complaint of the Jews for his crimes he was deposed and banished and his Estate confiscated by Augustus and the like was the fate of his Brother Herod the Tetrarch of Galilee And the Jews still became more immediatly subject to the Roman Yoke § 99 It is also observed by some for the perfect fulfilling of the prophecy of Esay chap 7.14 15 16. which is expressly applyed to the Blessed Virgin Mary and our Lord Mat. 1.23 That as there before Esaiah's child the type of our Lord Esai 8.18 and born of a Prophetess and Holy-woman Esai 8.4 5 representing our Blessed Lady was two years old so as to discern food grateful from ungrateful or so as plainly to speak my Father and my Mother the two Kings of Samaria and Damascus that were enemies to Gods Church were to be taken away by the Executioner of the Divine Justice the King of Assyria so before our Lord came to the same age Herod who was King of Samaria as well as Judea and Oboda the King of Damascus some few months before Herod see Josephus Antiq. l. 16. c. 10. were removed by death and their Kingdomes also by Augustus the King then also of Assyria taken away so as that their posterity did not succeed in the same Title or extent of Power The Mystical signification of all which is that the former Kingdom of Satan should now be destroyed and he cast out upon the coming and Birth of our Lord. At this very time also One Judas in Galilee under pretence of recovering liberty gathered forces and pillaged the Country against whom Varus the Roman Prefect of Syria sent part of his Army thither besieged and took Sephoris and subdued the Rebels See Antiq. l 17. c. 15. Josephus also mentions many others every where raising tumults in the absence of Archelaus during all which frights and the sword travelling through the coasts of Judea to revenge their contempt of the new-born Messiah the Blessed Virgin with our Lord and S. Joseph enjoyed in Egypt a peaceful security § 100 Herod in being thus taken away who was the last King of the Nation of the Jews for Archelaus as is said was not admitted to the same Dignity nor had the same extent of Dominion being made by Augustus Toparcha or chief Governour of Judea not Galilee all tumults there quieted and Joseph and Maries country now under anothers command the news thereof was brought by the Angel to Joseph that he should return into the land of Israel with this Child that was the true King thereof for that they were dead now that sought his life And this return of our Lord we find lively prefigured in Moses Exod. 4.19 a Deliverer also of Gods people and a Type of our Lord who when Pharaoh as here Herod a little before this deliverance had taken order for all the Male-children of the the Israelites to be put to death miraculously escaped and who afterward for his safety had fled to Midian from whence God commanded him to return unto his people for that they were now dead that sought his life Where also we may observe the way by which God usually delivers and provides for his Servants when in any strait Viz. not on a suddain and in hast and by main strength and force when as indeed all things are alwaies universally subject to his power but tacitly and without any disturbance of the course of other human affairs and as it were attending an opportunity by a secret but effectual flection and winding of these not so easily discernable by men in all things to serve his designs § 101 Joseph also retaining some dread of Archelaus one who had already shed much blood in quelling an Insurrection of the Jews was also admonished by the Angel Matt. 2.22 not to return again to Bethleem tho perhaps he might have had some thoughts thereof as imagining it Gods pleasure that this child should be educated in that honourable City of David where he was born and which was so near to the Royal City of Jerusalem but rather to his own City Nazareth where also the strange occurrences in our Lord's birth were utterly unknown And indeed this obscure and rude place in the out-skirts of the Nation was preordained by the Divine wisdom for the place of our Lords Education as necessary for the accomplishing of his sufferings and the redemption of the world by his Death that the grosly-unbelieving Jews and obstinate Pharises notwithstanding all the wisdom and mighty works that appeared in him might be the more blinded and our Lord less suspected for what he was For so still sometimes by good men it was argued against him Num ex Nazareth potest aliquid boni esse Jo. 1.46 and Jo. 7.52 Scrutare vide said the High Priest and Pharisees to Nicodemus quia à Galilea Propheta non surget § 102 Yet S. Matthew Mat. 2.23 observes First that the Prophets also have given some prenotice of this his Habitation and Title chap. 2.23 that he should be called a Nazareen perhaps alluding to Esai 11.1 calling him Nazar Flos surculus or Germen de radice Isai exurgens with which agrees Zech. 3.8 6.12 Behold the Lord whose name is the Branch Whence also Nazareth is supposed to take its Name the territory there being observed to abound exceedingly with variety of odoriferous Plants and Flowers to this day Of which thus Eugen. Rogerus in his Description of the Holy-Land who lived at Nazareth for some time in an house of his Order there This City is well called a Flower for I might aver saith he that having run through many Realms and viewed many Provinces as well of Asia as Africk and Europe I never saw any comparable to this of Nazareth for the great number of fair and pleasant Odoriferous Flowers and Plants which grow there through all the seasons of the year For from the Month of December even to April all the little Hills Fields
those words chap. 31.15 Thus saith the Lord which shews also nothing done in this business without his certain providence in it A voice was heard in Ramah a chief Town or the Tribe of Benjamin Rachels progeny lamentation and bitter weeping Rachel who dyed and was buried near Bethleem weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children because they were not Viz. being carried away from her into captivity which was the first fulfilling of this prophecy of Jeremy and which was a type of this other the more principal accomplishment of it here But there the Lord presently comforts her saying vers 16 17. Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine eies from tears for there is hope in thine end saith the Lord that thy children shall come again to their own border and from the land of the Enemy and vers 9. I am a Father to Israel and Ephraim is my first-born And afterward in the same chapter vers 22. is a promise made to them of the Messias § 91 And so happens it exactly here also in the more principal fulfilling thereof This rough beginning of the slaughter of the Infants at our Lords birth being a type of his that was to follow and presignifying what should be done first in the slaughter in the appointed time of our Lord himself a person more innocent than these Infants and Gods first-born and again in the slaughter of many innocent Martyrs in the first beginning and infancy of Christian Religion by the tyranny of the Roman Herods our Mother the Church as Rachel disconsolately weeping over them But this slaughter as the other captivity ended in joy and the children came again and all these designs were frustrated as Herod's was and religion still survived their wrath and persecutions And as Rachels Son born at Bethleem was first called a Benoni but afterwards a Benjamin so also was this type perfectly fulfilled in our Lords being made a Benjamin and sitting at his Fathers right hand at last after thus his being at first a Benoni and these Infants also that suffered for him were for this advanced by the Divine bounty to the eternal rewards of Martyrdome § 92 Yet in this innocency of the children there seems to be some effect of the Divine Justice upon the parents who must needs have highly incurred his displeasure in the great inhumanity they had shewed to a poor stranger one of their own kindred ready to lye down in shutting her out of their doors which tho they had bin never so full of guests should rather have bin done to some other of them than to such an helpless object of their charity Which fault was yet more aggravated in suffering her and her new-born Child for so long a time after also Luk. 2.17 to lodg amongst the beasts if our Blessed Lady sojourned in the Stable till her purification when the Text also saith that the Shepheards had given them some notice of the Dignity of the Child and his Mother § 93 The cruelty of this Infanticide was so much noised every where abroad as it soon came to the ears of Augustus Qui cum audisset saith Macrobius Saturnal lib. 1. inter pueros quos in Syria Herodes Rex Judaeorum intra bimatum jussit interfici filium quoque ejus occisum some saying that he had then also caused to be slain a Son of his own lately born of a wife of his that was of the Tribe of Judah ait Melius est Herodis Porcum esse quam filium Herod being a Proselite of the Jewish Religion and this prohibiting the killing of Swine or eating their flesh as held a most unclean beast But Augustus herein might perhaps also reflect both on the former slaughter of two sons of his Aristobulus and Alexander on suspition of a conspiracy against him and on the leave he had lately procured from the same Emperor for the killing another of his sons Antipater whom afterward he caused to be put to death on the same account § 94 Whilst this bloody Tragedy was acting in Judea S. Joseph with his holy charge safely arrived in Egypt Where his sojourning found the more consolation and friends by reason of the Multitude of the Jewish Nation that at this time inhabited there as also in Cyrene and the parts beyond it For this Nation according to Gods promise multiplying exceedingly were in all times much dispersed abroad for which see Acts 2.8 being placed also by the Divine Providence as it were in the midst of Nations and at the end of the Mediterranean Sea from whence all the Western Countries received their first Colonies and inhabitants by reason of the first peopling of the world made in the East Every where also where the Jews planted themselves they had Synagogues and in these publickly read to them the Books of Moses and the Prophets by which also were begotten amongst other Nations many Proselites to the Jewes Religion and such was the Queen of Ethiopia's Eunuch And this also prepared the way for the easier spreading afterward of the Gospel for where ever almost the Apostles came they found Jews and so began first their preaching in their Synagogues and with the expounding to them of the prophets read to them on the Sabbaths And these forraign Jews were also the better preserved in the true knowledg and worship of God by the repair of those at least of better quality among them at the great festivals to Jerusalem and to the Temple there see Act. 2.5 9. c. But in Egypt in the parts thereof nearest Palestine wherein called the land of Goshen the Israelites also inhabited after Jacob descended thither the Jews at this time more abounded by reason of a Temple built there by â—nias a son of the High Priest who with many other Jews fled thither from the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes to which Temple the King of Egypt gave all furtherance the more to strengthen himself by the attraction of many Jews against the same Tyrant Where also Onias erected an Altar mis-applying the prophecy Esay 19.19 c. to his own times And this Temple was then standing when our Lord came thither being not destroyed till Vespasian's time and by his command a year after the demolishing of that at Jerusalem and after it had stood above two hundred years § 95 Here then some little habitation was taken by S. Joseph among his Compatriots in some Town near the Confines of Judea some say Heliopolis with his trade supplying necessaries uncertain how short or how long this his banishment might be and depending on the Angels new order for his return Where also the sojourning among strangers afforded more time to this Holy Family for their Devotions unto the Holy Child and to God his Father Nor could they want also the exercise of those afflictions which the rage and jealousies of the Devil in such an early march of our Lord into his chiefest territory and fortification were any way permitted to raise to
miraculously fed the Multitudes Mat. 15.29 and which was more convenient for the assembling of his Converts of which see what is said before § 251. P. 1. And such a place our Lord seems to have chosen for the greater Eminency Solitude and Privacy thereof free from Buildings High-waies or Passengers he purposing no general manifestation of himself to the Jews or to the World but only to some chosen Witnesses that some contradiction might add the more virtue to the Christian Faith Here then were assembled with many others the eleven Apostles with the Mother of our Lord and doubtless the other Galilean women who carried the first message both from the Angel and afterwards from our Lord himself to the Apostles of his meeting them in this place To whom our Lord first shewed himself at some distance from them upon which they presently fell down and adored him Mat. 28.17 but some of them saith the Evangelist unless he intimates here the doubt not that was then but had bin formerly viz. not of the Eleven but of the company had some doubt whether it was he i. e. at the first yet which by his nearer approach and discourse with them was presently after removed Our Lord then approaching told them that the time of his Exinanition being now finished all Power the exercise of which was suspended before see Mat. 11.27 Jo. 3.35 was given to him by his Father in Heaven and in Earth and upon this he renewed his charge unto his Apostles that they should go forth in his name and by his authority and proclaim him Lord of all and deliver his Laws and Commandements taught to them not only to the Jews but all other Nations that they should baptize Believers in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost declaring to them that such as believed and were baptized should be saved but the unbelieving damned then further promising them That he though corporally departing yet in his Grace and Holy Spirit would remain with and assist them and their Successors to the end of the world that he also gave them Authority over all the Power of the Enemy of mankind and in his name to do all sorts of wonderful works repeating here again what he had formerly said to them in his first Apparition at Jerusalem which see before Sect. 127. P. 11. Lastly commanding them to bid an Adieu to their country and return to Jerusalem in which place they were first to begin their work Where they should also after a few daies re-enjoy his presence and take their last leave of him his so often-foretold Ascension into Heaven to his Celestial Father being now at hand and necessary as for his own Glory so for the further promoting with him the business of their's and the world's salvation § 141 After this publick manifestation of our Lords Resurrection made not only to the Apostles but to the general Body of his former Converts and Believers most dwelling in Galilee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.7 afterward our Lord appeared singly to St. James i. e. our Lord's Brother shortly after made Bishop of Jerusalem perhaps out of a singular honour to him or also for negotiating something with him relating to his office whose constant residence was to be at Jerusalem and who was a Person of special Eminency among the Apostles as appears Gal. 1.19 2.9 and Acts 15.13 19. But the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used by the Apostle perhaps may not signify afterward in that Text as denoting a Posteriority of time to the appearance in Galilee But only besides as it is used by him 1 Cor. 12.28 and the apparition to James be rather in some part of the day of his Resurrection see St. Jerome de viris Illust in Jacobo between whom as being a Domestick in the same family and our Lord passed a more intimate familiarity and from his appearance to James we may also much more presume of his frequent particular apparitions to the Blessed Virgin his Mother though none mentioned § 142 Forty daies was the time predesigned of our Lord's stay upon Earth for the manifestation of his Resurrection and for the preparing of his Apostles for their future employment of propagating the Gospel and advancing the Kingdom of Christ in mens hearts over all the world A number frequently observed in Scripture for the accomplishing of any great work made up of six the number of the daies God spent in creating the world seven times multiplied as the number of 7. is a number of perfection and rest after the finishing such a work answering to the 7th day the Sabbath only in 42. the last two are usually cut off to make it a round number So Gen. 7.4 in the flood the rain descended for forty daies and after the abating of it Noah stayed forty daies and opened the window of the Ark Gen. 8.6 For thrice forty years God had patience with the old world before he destroyed it with the flood Ten times forty years the children of Israel were to sojourn in Egypt Forty two Generations were to pass between the coming of the Messias and the promise made to Abraham thereof of which forty two generations two sevens were to run out before the Kingdom of David and two sevens again in this Kingdom before the captivity and two sevens till the coming of Christ See Mat. 1.17 Acts 7.23 Moses when forty years old visited his Brethren and would have undertaken their protection and ibid. vers 30. after forty years more was sent by God to them for this purpose Again forty daies he stayed in the Mount for receiving the Law and for this time was continued his fast as also that of Elias and of our Lord. During forty daies were the persons deputed to view the land of Canaan Numb 13.25 and during forty years were the children of Israel appointed to do penance and bear their Iniquity for the Evil account given of it and murmuring concerning it Numb 14.33 34. Forty daies were allowed to the Ninevites for a time of Repentance before their City was to be destroyed Forty daies after the womans bearing of a Male child and twice forty daies after a Female were to be accomplished before their coming into or presenting their Son in the Sanctuary In the Judges we find whether rest or troubles given to the land of Israel ordinarily for the space of forty years The Prophet Ezekiel Ezek. 4.5 6. is appointed to do penance by lying on his side for forty daies for so many years of God's patient suffering the iniquities of Judah and for so many years again God forbare the wickedness of the Jewish Nation after their crucifying our Lord and persecuting Christianity until the destruction of Jerusalem And forty two Months i. e seven sixes of Months is the time prescribed for the duration of Antichrist and the last great affliction of Gods Church This to shew that all Gods works are pondered before hand and contrived in