in the paths of Piety and Vertue In the Infancy of the World he taught men by the Dictates of Nature and the common Notices of Good and Evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls them the most Ancient Law by lively Oracles and great Examples of Piety He set forth the Holy Patriarchs as Chrysostom observes as Tutors to the rest of Mankind who by their Religious lives might train up others to the practice of Vertue and as Physicians be able to cure the minds of those who were infected and overrun with Vice Afterwards says he having sufficiently testified his care of their welfare and happiness by many instances of a wise and benign Providence towards them both in the land of Canaan and in Egypt he gave them Prophets and by them wrought Signs and Wonders together with innumerable other expressions of his bounty At last finding that none of these Methods did succeed not Patriarchs not Prophets not Miracles not daily Warnings and Chastisements brought upon the World he gave the last and highest instance of his love and goodness to Mankind he sent his only begotten Son out of his own bosom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Physician both of Soul and Body who taking upon him the form of a Servant and being born of a Virgin conversed in the World and bore our sorrows and infirmities that by rescuing Humane Nature from under the weight and burden of Sin he might exalt it to Eternal Life A brief account of these things is the main intent of the following Discourse wherein the Reader will easily see that I considered not what might but what was fit to be said with respect to the end I designed it for It was drawn up under some more disadvantageous circumstances than a matter of this nature did require which were it worth the while to represent to the Reader might possibly plead for a softer Censure However such as it is it is submitted to the Readers Ingenuity and Candor W. C. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex Aed Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. AN APPARATUS OR DISCOURSE INTRODUCTORY TO THE Whole WORK concerning the Three Great Dispensations OF THE CHURCH PATRIARCHAL MOSAICAL and EVANGELICAL SECT I. Of the PATRIARCHAL Dispensation The Tradition of Elias The three great Periods of the Church The Patriarchal Age. The Laws then in force natural or positive Natural Laws what evinced from the testimony of natural conscience The Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah Their respect to the Law of Nature Positive Laws under that dispensation Eating Bloud why prohibited The mystery and signification of it Circumcision when commanded and why The Laws concerning Religion Their publick Worship what Sacrifices in what sence natural and how far instituted The manner of God's testifying his acceptance What the place of their publick Worship Altars and Groves whence Abraham's Oak its long continuance and destruction by Constantine The Original of the Druids The times of their religious Assemblies In process of time Genes 4. what meant by it The Seventh Day whether kept from the beginning The Ministers of Religion who The Priesthood of the first-born In what cases exercised by younger Sons The state of Religion successively under the several Patriarchs The condition of it in Adam 's Family The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel and their different success whence Seth his great Learning and Piety The face of the Church in the time of Enosh What meant by Then began Men to call upon the Name of the Lord. No Idolatry before the Floud The Sons of God who The great corruption of Religion in the time of Jared Enoch 's Piety and walking with God His translation what The incomparable sanctity of Noah and his strictness in an evil Age. The character of the men of that time His preservation from the Deluge God's Covenant with him Sem or Japhet whether the Elder Brother The confusion of Languages when and why Abraham 's Idolatry and conversion His eminency for Religion noted in the several instances of it God's Covenant with him concerning the Messiah The Piety of Isaac and Jacob. Jacob 's blessing the twelve Tribes and foretelling the Messiah Patriarchs extraordinary under this dispensation Melchisedeck who wherein a type of Christ. Job his Name Country Kindred Quality Religion Sufferings when he lived A reflection upon the religion of the old World and its agreement with Christianity GOD who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son For having created Man for the noblest purposes to love serve and enjoy his Maker he was careful in all Ages by various Revelations of his Will to acquaint him with the notices of his duty and to shew him what was good and what the Lord did require of him till all other Methods proving weak and ineffectual for the recovery and the happiness of humane nature God was pleased to crown all the former dispensations with the Revelation of his Son There is among the Jews an ancient Tradition of the House of Elias that the World should last Six Thousand Years which they thus compute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two Thousand Years empty little being recorded of those first Ages of the World Two Thousand Years the Law and Two Thousand the Days of the Messiah A Tradition which if it minister to no other purposes does yet afford us a very convenient division of the several Ages and Periods of the Church which may be considered under a three-fold Oeconomy the Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical dispensation A short view of the two former will give us great advantage to survey the later that new and better dispensation which God has made to the World 2. THE Patriarchal Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call it the days of emptiness commenced from the beginning of the World and lasted till the delivery of the Law upon Mount Sinai And under this state the Laws which God gave for the exercise of Religion and the Government of his Church were either Natural or Positive Natural Laws are those innate Notions and Principles whether speculative or practical with which every Man is born into the World those common sentiments of Vertue and Religion those Principia justi decori Principles of fit and right that naturally are upon the minds of Men and are obvious to their reason at first sight commanding what is just and honest and forbidding what is evil and uncomely and that not only in the general that what is good is to be embraced and what is evil to be avoided but in the particular instances of duty according to their conformity or repugnancy to natural light being conversant about those things that do not derive their value and authority from any arbitrary constitutions but from the moral and intrinsick nature of the things themselves These Laws as being the results and dictates of right reason are especially as
old they might not pray down Fire from Heaven to consume these barbarous and inhospitable People So apt are Men for every trifle to call upon Heaven to Minister to the extravagances of their own impotent and unreasonable passions But our Lord rebukes their zeal tells them they quite mistook the case that this was not the frame and temper of his Disciples and Followers the nature and design of that Evangelical dispensation that he was come to set on foot in the World which was a more pure and perfect a more mild and gentle Institution than what was under the Old Testament in the times of Moses and Elias the Son of Man being come not to destroy mens lives but to save them 6. THE Holy Jesus not long after set forwards in his Journy to Jerusalem in order to his crucifixion and the better to prepare the minds of his Apostles for his death and departure from them he told them what he was to suffer and yet that after all he should rise again They whose minds were yet big with expectations of a temporal power and monarchy understood not well the meaning of his discourses to them However S. James and his Brother supposing the Resurrection that he spoke of would be the time when his Power and Greatness would commence prompted their Mother Salome to put up a Petition for them She presuming probably on her relation to Christ and knowing that our Saviour had promised his Apostles that when he was come into his Kingdom they should sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel and that he had already honoured her two Sons with an intimate familiarity after leave modestly asked for her address begg'd of him that when he took possession of his Kingdom her two Sons James and John might have the principal places of honour and dignity next his own Person the one sitting on his right hand and the other on his left as the Heads of Judah and Joseph had the first places among the Rulers of the Tribes in the Jewish Nation Our Lord directing his discourse to the two Apostles at whose suggestion he knew their Mother had made this address told them they quite mistook the nature of his Kingdom which consisted not in external grandeur and soveraignty but in an inward life and power wherein the highest place would be to take the greatest pains and to undergo the heaviest troubles and sufferings that they should do well to consider whether they were able to endure what he was to undergo to drink of that bitter Cup which he was to drink of and to go through that Baptism wherein he was shortly to be baptized in his own bloud Our Apostles were not yet cured of their ambitious humour but either not understanding the force of our Saviour's reasonings or too confidently presuming upon their own strength answered that they could do all this But he the goodness of whose nature ever made him put the best and most candid interpretation upon mens words and actions yea even those of his greatest enemies did not take the advantage of their hasty and inconsiderate reply to treat them with sharp and quick reproofs but mildly owning their forwardness to suffer told them that as for sufferings they should indeed suffer as well as he and so we accordingly find they did S. James after all dying a violent death S. John enduring great miseries and torments and might we believe Chrysostom and Theophylact Martyrdom it self though others nearer to those times assure us he died a natural death but for any peculiar honour or dignity he would not by an absolute and peremptory favour of his own dispose it any otherwise than according to those rules and instructions which he had received of his Father The rest of the Apostles were offended with this ambitious request of the Sons of Zebedee but our Lord to calm their passions discoursed to them of the nature of the Evangelick state that it was not here as in the Kingdoms and seigniories of this World where the great ones receive homage and fealty from those that are under them but that in his service humility was the way to honour that who ever took most pains and did most good would be the greatest Person pre-eminence being here to be measured by industry and diligence and a ready condescension to the meanest offices that might be subservient to the Souls of Men and that this was no more than what he sufficiently taught them by his own Example being come into the World not to be served himself with any pompous circumstances of state and splendor but to serve others and to lay down his life for the redemption of Mankind With which discourse the storm blew over and their exorbitant passions began on all hands to be allayed and pacified 7. WHAT became of S. James after our Saviour's Ascension we have no certain account either from Sacred or Ecclesiastick stories Sophronius tells us that he preached to the dispersed Jews which surely he means of that dispersion that was made of the Jewish Converts after the death of Stephen The Spanish writers generally contend that having preached the Gospel up and down Judaea and Samaria after the death of Stephen he came to these Western parts and particularly into Spain some add Britain and Ireland where he planted Christianity and appointed some select Disciples to perfect what he had begun and then returned back to Jerusalem Of this there are no footsteps in any Ancient Writers earlier than the middle Ages of the Church when 't is mentioned by Isidore the Breviary of Toledo an Arabick Book of Anastasius Patriarch of Antioch concerning the Passions of the Martyrs and some others after them Nay Baronius himself though endeavouring to render the account as smooth and plausible as he could and to remove what objections lay against it yet after all confesses he did it only to shew that the thing was not impossible nor to be accounted such a monstrous and extravagant Fable as some men made it to be as indeed elsewhere he plainly and peremptorily both denies and disproves it He could not but see that the shortness of this Apostle's Life the Apostles continuing all in one entire body at Jerusalem even after the dispersing of the other Christians probably not going out of the bounds of Judaea for many years after our Lord's Ascension could not comport with so tedious and difficult a voyage and the time which he must necessarily spend in those parts And therefore 't is safest to confine his ministry to Judaea and the parts thereabouts and to seek for him at Jerusalem where we are sure to find him 8. HEROD Agrippa son of Aristobulus and Grandchild of Herod the Great under whom Christ was born had been in great favour with the late Emperor Caligula but much more with his successor Claudius who confirmed his predecessors grant with the addition of Judaea Samaria and
whereof there were many in the land of Canaan but a pious and devout man and a worshipper of the true God as there were many others in those days among the Idolatrous Nations he being extraordinarily raised up by God from among the Canaanites and brought in without mention of Parents original or end without any Predecessor or Successor in his office that he might be a fitter type of the Royal and Eternal Priesthood of Christ. And for any more particular account concerning his person it were folly and rashness over-curiously to enquire after what God seems industriously to have concealed from us The great character under which the Scripture takes notice of him is his relation to our blessed Saviour who is more than once said to be a Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the order in the same way and manner that Melchisedeck was or as the Apostle explains himself after the similitude of Melchisedeck Our Lord was such a Priest as Melchisedeck was there being a nearer similitude and conformity between them than ever was between any other Priests whatsoever A subject which S. Paul largely and particularly treats of Passing by the minuter instances of the parallel taken from the name of his person Melchisedeck that is King of righteousness and his title to his Kingdom King of Salem that is of Peace we shall observe three things especially wherein he was a type of Christ. First in the peculiar qualification of his person something being recorded of him uncommon to the rest of men and that is that he was without Father without Mother and without descent Not that Melchisedeck like Adam was immediately created or in an instant dropt down from Heaven but that he hath no kindred recorded in the story which brings him in without any mention of Father or Mother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom glosses we know not what Father or Mother he had He was says S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without genealogie without having any pedigree extant upon record whence the ancient Syriack Version truly expresses the sence of the whole passage thus Whos 's neither Father nor Mother are written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the generations that is the genealogies of the ancient Patriarchs And thus he eminently typified Christ of whom this is really true He is without Father in respect of his humane nature begotten only of a pure Virgin without Mother in respect of his Divinity being begotten of his Father before all Worlds by an eternal and ineffable generation Secondly Melchisedeck typified our Saviour in the duration and continuance of his office for so 't is said of him that he was without descent having neither beginning of days nor end of life but made like unto the Son of God abideth a Priest continually By which we are not to understand that Melchisedeck never died for being a man he was subject to the same common Law of mortality with other men But the meaning is that as he is said to be without Father and Mother because the Scripture speaking of him makes no mention of his Parents his Genealogy and descent So he is said to abide a Priest for ever without any beginning of days or end of life because we have no account of any that either preceeded or succeeded him in his office no mention of the time either when he took it up or laid it down And herein how lively and eminent a type of Christ the true Melchisedeck who as to his Divine nature was without beginning of days from Eternal Ages and who either in the execution or vertue of his office abides for ever There is no abolition no translation of his office no expectation of any to arise that shall succeed him in it He was made a Priest not after the Law of a carnal Commandment a transient and mutable dispensation but after the power of an endless life Thirdly Melchisedeck was a type of Christ in his excellency above all other Priests S. Paul's great design is to evince the preheminence and precedency of Melchisedeck above all the Priests of the Mosaick ministration yea above Abraham himself the Founder and Father of the Jewish Nation from whom they reckoned it so great an honour to derive themselves And this the Apostle proves by a double instance First that Abraham in whose loins the Levitical Priests then were paid tithes to Melchisedeck when he gave him the tenth of all his spoils as due to God and his Ministers thereby confessing himself and his posterity inferiour to him Now consider how great this man was unto whom even the Patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils Secondly that Melchisedeck conferred upon Abraham a solemn benediction it being a standing part of the Priests office to bless the people And this was an undeniable argument of his superiority He whose descent is not counted from them the legal Priests received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that had the promises And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better Whereby it evidently appears that Melchisedeck was greater than Abraham and consequently than all the Levitical Priests that descended from him Now herein he admirably prefigured and shadowed out our blessed Saviour a person peculiarly chosen out by God sent into the World upon a nobler and a more important errand owned by more solemn and mighty attestations from Heaven than ever was any other person his office incomparably beyond that of the legal Oeconomy his person greater his undertaking weightier his design more sublime and excellent his oblation more valuable and meritorious his prayers more prevalent and successful his office more durable and lasting than ever any whose business it was to intercede and mediate between God and man 20. THE other extraordinary person under this Oeconomy is Job concerning whom two things are to be enquired into Who he was and when he lived For the first we find him described by his Name his Country his Kindred his Quality his Religion and his Sufferings though in many of them we are left under great uncertainties and to the satisfaction only of probable conjectures For his name among many conjectures two are especially considerable though founded upon very different reasons one that it is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying one that grieves or groans mystically pre saging those grievous miseries and sufferings that afterwards came upon him the other more probably from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to love or to desire noting him the desire and delight of his Parents earnestly prayed for and affectionately embraced with the tenderest endearments His Country was the land of Uz though where that was is almost as much disputed as about the source of Nilus Some will have it Armenia others Palestine or the land of Canaan and some of the Jewish Masters assure us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his School or place of institution was at Tiberias and nothing more commonly shewed to Travellers than Job's
herein he literally made good the character of Elias who is described as an hairy man girt with a Leathern girdle about his Loins His Diet suitable to his Garb his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Locusts accounted by all Nations among the meanest and vilest sorts of food wild honey such as the natural artifice and labour of the Bees had stored up in caverns and hollow Trees without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up Indeed his abstinence was so great and his food so unlike other Mens that the Evangelist says of him that he came neither eating nor drinking as if he had eaten nothing or at least what was worth nothing But Meat commends us not to God it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of Heaven The place of his abode was not in Kings houses in stately and delicate Palaces but where he was born and bred the Wilderness of Judaea he was in the Desarts until the time of his shewing unto Israel Divine grace is not confined to particular places it is not the holy City or the Temple at Mount Sion makes us nearer unto Heaven God can when he please consecrate a Desart into a Church make us gather Grapes among Thorns and Religion become fruitful in a barren Wilderness 4. PREPARED by so singular an Education and furnished with an immediate Commission from God he entred upon the actual administration of his Office In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr calls him the Herald to Proclaim the first approach of the Holy Jesus his whole Ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him For this is he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias saying The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight He told the Jews that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand and his Kingdom ready to appear that the Son of God was come down from Heaven a Person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest Offices that he came to introduce a new and better state of things to enlighten the World with the clearest Revelations of the Divine will and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaick Dispensation and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows and to open a Fountain of grace and fulness to Mankind to remove that state of guilt into which humane nature was so deeply sunk and as the Lamb of God by the expiatory Sacrifice of himself to take away the sin of the World not like the continual Burnt-offering the Lamb offered Morning and Evening only for the sins of the House of Israel but for Jew and Gentile Barbarian and Scythian bond and free he told them that God had a long time born with the sins of Men and would now bring things to a quicker issue and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the Gospel that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external priviledges the Fatherhood of Abraham and their being God's select and peculiar People that God would raise up to himself another Generation a Posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles who should walk in his steps in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience and that if all this did not move them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance the Axe was laid to the root of the Tree to extirpate their Church and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable Fire His free and resolute preaching together with the great severity of his life procured him a vast Auditory and numerous Proselytes for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and the Region round about Jordan Persons of all ranks and orders of all Sects and Opinions Pharisees and Sadducees Souldiers and Publicans whose Vices he impartially censured and condemned and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations Those whom he gained over to be Proselytes to his Doctrine he entred into this new Institution of life by Baptism and hence he derived his Title of the Baptist a solemn and usual way of initiating Proselytes no less than Circumcision and of great antiquity in the Jewish Church In all times says Maimonides if any Gentile would enter into Covenant remain under the wings of the Schechina or Divine Majesty and take upon him the yoke of the Law he is bound to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering and if a Woman Baptism and an Oblation because it is said As ye are so shall the stranger be as ye your selves entred into Covenant by Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering so ought the Proselyte also in all Ages to enter in Though this last he confesses is to be omitted during their present state of desolation and to be made when their Temple shall be rebuilt This Rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the Law So Maimonides By three things says he the Israelites entred into Covenant he means the National Covenant at Mount Sinai by Circumcision Baptism and an Oblation Baptism being used some little time before the Law which he proves from that place Sanctifie the People to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes This the Rabbins unanimously expound concerning Baptism and expresly affirm that where-ever we read of the Washing of Clothes there an obligation to Baptism is intended Thus they entred into the first Covenant upon the frequent violations whereof God having promised to make a new and solemn Covenant with them in the times of the Messiah they expected a second Baptism as that which should be the Rite of their Initiation into it And this probably is the reason why the Apostle writing to the Hebrews speaks of the Doctrine of Baptisms in the plural number as one of the primary and elementary Principles of the faith wherein the Catechumens were to be instructed meaning that besides the Baptism whereby they had been initiated into the Mosaick Covenant there was another by which they were to enter into this new Oeconomy that was come upon the World Hence the Sanhedrim to whom the cognizance of such cases did peculiarly appertain when told of John's Baptism never expressed any wonder at it as a new upstart Ceremony it being a thing daily practised in their Church nor found fault with the thing it self which they supposed would be a federal Rite under the
to suffer and Peter again renewed his resolute and undaunted promise of suffering and dying with him yea out of an excessive confidence told him That though all the rest should forsake and deny him yet would not he deny him How far will zeal and an indiscreet affection transport even a good man into vanity and presumption Peter questions others but never doubts himself So natural is self-love so apt are we to take the fairest measures of our selves Nay though our Lord had but a little before once and again reproved this vain humour yet does he still not only persist but grow up in it So hardly are we brought to espy our own faults or to be so throughly convinced of them as to correct and reform them This confidence of his inspired all the rest with a mighty courage all the Apostles likewise assuring him of their constant and unshaken adhering to him Our Lord returning the same answer to Peter which he had done before From hence they went down into the Village of Gethsemane where leaving the rest of the Apostles he accompanied with none but Peter James and John retired into a neighbouring Garden whither Eusebius tells us Christians even in his time were wont to come solemnly to offer up their Prayers to Heaven and where as the Arabian Geographer informs us a fair and stately Church was built to the honour of the Virgin Mary to enter upon the Ante-scene of the fatal Tragedy that was now approaching it bearing a very fit proportion as some of the Fathers have observed that as the first Adam fell and ruin'd mankind in a Garden so a Garden should be the place where the second Adam should begin his Passion in order to the Redemption of the World Gardens which to us are places of repose and pleasure and scenes of divertisement and delight were to our Lord a school of Temptation a Theatre of great horrors and sufferings and the first approaches of the hour of darkness 4. HERE it was that the Blessed Jesus laboured under the bitterest Agony that could fall upon humane Nature which the holy Story describes by words sufficiently expressive of the highest grief and sorrow he was afraid sorrowful and very heavy yea his Soul was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceeding sorrowful and that even unto death he was sore amazed and very heavy he was troubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Soul was shaken with a vehement commotion yea he was in an Agony a word by which the Greeks are wont to represent the greatest conflicts and anxieties The effect of all which was that he prayed more earnestly offering up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears as the Apostle expounds it and sweat as it were great drops of bloud falling to the ground What this bloudy sweat was and how far natural or extraordinary I am not now concerned to enquire Certain it is it was a plain evidence of the most intense grief and sadness for if an extreme fear or trouble will many times cast us into a cold sweat how great must be the commotion and conflict of our Saviour's mind which could force open the pores of his body lock'd up by the coldness of the night and make not drops of sweat but great drops or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies clods of bloud to issue from them While our Lord was thus contending with these Ante-Passions the three Apostles whom he had left at some distance from him being tired out with watching and disposed by the silence of the Night were fallen fast asleep Our Lord who had made three several addresses unto Heaven that if it might consist with his Father's will this bitter Cup might pass from him expressing herein the harmless and innocent desires of humane Nature which always studies its own preservation between each of them came to visit the Apostles and calling to Peter asked him Whether they could not watch with him one hour advising them to watch and pray that they enter'd not into temptation adding this Argument That the spirit indeed was willing but that the flesh was weak and that therefore there was the more need that they should stand upon their guard Observe here the incomparable sweetness the generous candor of our blessed Saviour to pass so charitable a censure upon an action from whence malice and ill-nature might have drawn monsters and prodigies and have represented it black as the shades of darkness The request which our Lord made to these Apostles was infinitely reasonable to watch with him in this bitter Agony their company at least being some refreshment to one under such sad fatal circumstances and this but for a little time one hour it would soon be over and then they might freely consult their own ease and safety 'T was their dear Lord and Master whom they now were to attend upon ready to lay down his life for them sweating already under the first skirmishes of his sufferings and expecting every moment when all the powers of darkness would fall upon him But all these considerations were drown'd in a profound security the men were fast asleep and though often awakened and told of it regarded it not as if nothing but ease and softness had been then to be dream'd of An action that look'd like the most prodigious ingratitude and the highest unconcernedness for their Lord and Master and which one would have thought had argued a very great coldness and indifferency of affection towards him But he would not set it upon the Tenters nor stretch it to what it might easily have been drawn to he imputes it not to their unthankfulness or want of affection nor to their carelesness of what became of him but merely to their infirmity and the weakness of their bodily temper himself making the excuse when they could make none for themselves the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Hereby teaching us to put the most candid and favourable construction upon those actions of others which are capable of various interpretations and rather with the Bee to suck honey than with the Spider to draw poison from them His last Prayer being ended he came to them and told them with a gentle rebuke That now they might sleep on if they pleased that the hour was at hand that he should be betrayed and delivered into the hands of men 5. WHILE he was thus discoursing to them a Band of Souldiers sent from the High-Priests with the Traitor Judas to conduct and direct them rush'd into the Garden and seized upon him which when the Apostles saw they asked him whether they should attempt his rescue Peter whose ungovernable zeal put him upon all dangerous undertakings without staying for an answer drew his Sword and espying one more busie than the rest in laying hold upon our Saviour which was Malchus who though carrying Kingship in his name was but Servant to the High-Priest struck at him with an intention to dispatch him
he was a Pharisee and the Son of a Pharisee and that the main thing he was questioned for was his belief of a future Resurrection This quickly divided the Council the Pharisees being zealous Patrons of that Article and the Sadducees as stifly denying that there is either Angel that is of a spiritual and immortal nature really subsisting of it self for otherwise they cannot be supposed to have utterly denied all sorts of Angels seeing they own'd the Pentateuch wherein there is frequent mention of them or Spirit or that humane Souls do exist in a separate state and consequently that there is no Resurrection Presently the Doctors of the Law who were Pharisees stood up to acquit him affirming he had done nothing amiss that it was possible he had received some intimation from Heaven by an Angel or the revelation of the H. Spirit and if so then in opposing his Doctrine they might fight against God himself 9. GREAT were the dissentions in the Council about this matter in so much that the Governour fearing S. Paul would be torn in pieces commanded the Souldiers to take him from the Bar and return him back into the Castle That night to comfort him after all his frights and fears God was pleased to appear to him in a vision encouraging him to constancy and resolution assuring him that as he had born witness to his cause at Jerusalem so in despite of all his enemies he should live to bear his testimony even at Rome it self The next Morning the Jews who could as well cease to be as to be mischievous and malicious finding that these dilatory proceedings were not like to do the work resolved upon a quicker dispatch To which end above Forty of them entred into a wicked confederacy which they ratified by Oath and Execration never to eat or drink till they had killed him and having acquitted the Sanhedrim with their design they entreated them to importune the Governour that he might again the next day be brought down before them under pretence of a more strict trial of his case and that they themselves would lye in ambush by the way and not fail to dispatch him But that Divine providence that peculiarly superintends the safety of good men disappoints the devices of the crafty The design was discovered to S. Paul by a Nephew of his and by him imparted to the Governour who immediately commanded two Parties of Foot and Horse to be ready by Nine of the Clock that Night and provision to be made for S. Paul's carriage to Foelix the Roman Governour of that Province To whom also he wrote signifying whom he had sent how the Jews had used him and that his enemies also should appear before him to manage the charge and accusation Accordingly he was by Night conducted to Antipatris and afterwards to Caesarea where the Letters being delivered to Foelix the Apostle was presented to him and finding that he belonged to the Province of Citicia he told him that as soon as his Accusers were arrived he should have an hearing commanding him in the mean time to be secured in the place called Herod's Hall SECT VI. Of S. Paul from his first Trial before Foelix till his coming to Rome S. Paul impleaded before Foelix by Tertullus the Jewish Advocate His charge of Sedition Heresie and Prophanation of the Temple S. Paul 's reply to the several parts of the charge His second Hearing before Foelix and Drusilla His smart and impartial Reasonings Foelix his great injustice and oppression His Luxury and Intemperance Bribery and Covetousness S. Paul 's Arraignment before Festus Foelix his Successor at Caesarea His Appeal to Caesar. The nature and manner of those Appeals He is again brought before Festus and Agrippa His vindication of himself and the goodness of his cause His being acquitted by his Judges of any Capital crime His Voyage to Rome The trouble and danger of it Their Shipwrack and being cast upon the Island Melita Their courteous entertainment by the Barbarians and their different censure of S. Paul The civil usage of the Governour and his Conversion to Christianity S. Paul met and conducted by Christians to Rome 1. NOT many days after down comes Ananias the High-Priest with some others of the Sanhedrim to Caesarea accompanied with Tertullus their Advocate who in a short but neat speech set off with all the flattering and insinuative arts of Eloquence began to implead our Apostle charging him with Sedition Heresie and the Prophanation of the Temple That they would have saved him the trouble of this Hearing by judging him according to their own Law had not Lysias the Commander violently taken him from them and sent both him and them down thither To all which the Jews that were with him gave in their Vote and Testimony S. Paul having leave from Foelix to defend himself and having told him how much he was satisfied that he was to plead before one who for so many years had been Governour of that Nation distinctly answered to the several parts of the Charge 2. AND first for Sedition he point-blank denied it affirming that they found him behaving himself quietly and peaceably in the Temple not so much as disputing there nor stirring up the people either in the Synagogues or any other place of the City And though this was plausibly pretended by them yet were they never able to make it good As for the charge of Heresie that he was a ring-leader of the Sect of the Nazarenes he ingenuously acknowledged that after the way which they counted Heresie so he worshipped God the same way in substance wherein all the Patriarchs of the Jewish Nation had worshipped God before him taking nothing into his Creed but what the Authentick writings of the Jews themselves did own and justifie That he firmly believed what the better of themselves were ready to grant another Life and a future Resurrection In he hope and expectation whereof he was careful to live unblameable and conscientiously to do his duty both to God and men As for the third part of the Charge his Prophaning of the Temple he shews how little foundation there was for it that the design of his coming to Jerusalem was to bring charitable contributions to his distressed Brethren that he was indeed in the Temple but not as some Asiatick Jews falsely suggested either with tumult or with multitude but only purifying himself according to the rites and customs of the Mosaick Law And that if any would affirm the contrary they should come now into open Court and make it good Nay that he appealed to those of the Sanhedrim that were there present whether he had not been acquitted by their own great Council at Jerusalem where nothing of moment had been laid to his charge except by them of the Sadducean party who quarrelled with him only for asserting the Doctrine of the Resurrection Foelix having thus heard both parties argue refused to make any final determination in the case till
that of Galilean Can any good thing come out of Nazareth a City in this Province said Nathanael concerning Christ. Search and look say the Pharisees for out of Galilee ariseth no Prophet as if nothing but briars and thorns could grow in that soil But there needs no more to confute this ill-natured opinion than that our Lord not only made choice of it as the seat of his ordinary residence and retreat but that hence he chose those excellent persons whom he made his Apostles the great instruments to convert the World Some of these we have already given an account of and more are yet behind 2. OF this number was S. Philip born at Bethsaida a Town near the Sea of Tiberias the City of Andrew and Peter Of his Parents and way of life the History of the Gospel takes no notice though probably he was a Fisherman the Trade general of that place He had the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the honour of being first called to the Discipleship which thus came to pass Our Lord soon after his return from the wilderness having met with Andrew and his brother Peter after some short discourse parted from them And the very next day as he was passing through Galilee he found Philip whom he presently commanded to follow him the constant form which he used in making choice of his Disciples and those that did inseparably attend upon him So that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or prerogative of being first called evidently belongs to Philip he being the first-fruits of our Lord's Disciples For though Andrew and Peter were the first that came to and conversed with Christ yet did they immediately return to their Trade again and were not called to the Discipleship till above a whole year after when John was cast into prison Clemens Alexandrinus tells us that it was Philip to whom our Lord said when he would have excused himself at present that he must go bury his Father Let the dead bury their dead but follow thou me But besides that he gives no account whence he derived this intelligence it is plainly inconsistent with the time of our Apostle's call who was called to be a Disciple a long time before that speech and passage of our Saviour It may seem justly strange that Philip should at first sight so readily comply with our Lord's command and turn himself over into his service having not yet seen any miracle that might evince his Messiah-ship and Divine Commission nor probably so much as heard any tidings of his appearance and especially being a Galilean and so of a more rustick and unyielding temper But it cannot be doubted but that he was admirably versed in the writings of Moses and the Prophets Metaphrastes assures us though how he came to know it otherwise than by conjecture I cannot imagine that from his childhood he had excellent education that he frequently read over Moses his Books and considered the Prophecies that related to our Saviour And was no question awakened with the general expectations that were then on foot among the Jews the date of the Prophetick Scriptures concerning the time of Christ's coming being now run out that the Messiah would immediately appear Add to this that the Divine grace did more immediately accompany the command of Christ to incline and dispose him to believe that this person was that very Messiah that was to come 3. NO sooner had Religion taken possession of his mind but like an active principle it began to ferment and diffuse it self Away he goes and finds Nathanael a person of note and eminency acquaints him with the tidings of the new-found Messiah and conducts him to him So forward is a good man to draw and direct others in the same way to happiness with himself After his call to the Apostleship much is not recorded of him in the Holy story 'T was to him that our Saviour propounded the question What they should do for so much bread in the wilderness as would feed so vast a multitude to which he answered That so much was not easily to be had not considering that to feed two or twenty thousand are equally easie to Almighty Power when pleased to exert it self 'T was to him that the Gentile Proselytes that came up to the Passeover addressed themselves when desirous to see our Saviour a person of whom they had heard so loud a fame 'T was with him that our Lord had that discourse concerning himself a little before the last Paschal Supper The holy and compassionate Jesus had been fortifying their minds with fit considerations against his departure from them had told them that he was going to prepare room for them in the Mansions of the Blessed that he himself was the way the truth and the life and that no man could come to the Father but by him and that knowing him they both knew and had seen the Father Philip not duly understanding the force of our Saviour's reasonings begged of him that he would shew them the Father and then this would abundantly convince and satisfie them We can hardly suppose he should have such gross conceptions of the Deity as to imagine the Father vested with a corporeal and visible nature but Christ having told them that they had seen him and he knowing that God of old was wont frequently to appear in a visible shape he only desired that he would manifest himself to them by some such appearance Our Lord gently reproved his ignorance that after so long attendance upon his instructions he should not know that he was the Image of his Father the express characters of his infinite wisdom power and goodness appearing in him that he said and did nothing but by his Father's appointment which if they did not believe his miracles were a sufficient evidence That therefore such demands were unnecessary and impertinent and that it argued great weakness after more than three years education under his discipline and Institution to be so unskilful in those matters God expects improvement according to mens opportunities to be old and ignorant in the School of Christ deserves both reproach and punishment 't is the character of very bad persons that they are ever learning but never come to the knowledge of the truth 4. IN the distribution of the several Regions of the World made by the Apostles though no mention be made by Origen or Eusebius what part fell to our Apostle yet we are told by others that the Upper Asia was his Province the reason doubtless why he is said by many to have preached and planted Christianity in Scythia where he applied himself with an indefatigable diligence and industry to recover men out of the snare of the Devil to the embracing and acknowledgment of the truth By the constancy of his preaching and the efficacy of his Miracles he gained numerous Converts whom he baptized into the Christian Faith at once curing both Souls and Bodies their