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
in their story as well as we do of Melchisedeck others again refer him to the time of the Law given at Mount Sinai and the Israelites travels in the Wilderness others to the times of the Judges after the settlement of the Israelites in the Land of Promise nay some to the reign of David and Solomon and I know not whether the Reader will not smile at the fancy of the Turkish Chronologists who make Job Major-domo to Solomon as they make Alexander the Great the General of his Army Others go further and place him among those that were carried away in the Babylonish Captivity yea in the time of Ahasuerus and make his fair Daughters to be of the number of those beautiful young Virgins that were sought-for for the King Follies that need no confutation 'T is certain that he was elder than Moses his Kindred and Family his way of sacrificing the Idolatry rise in his time evidently placing him before that Age besides that there are not the least foot-steps in all his Book of any of the great things done for the Israelites deliverance which we can hardly suppose should have been omitted being examples so fresh in memory and so apposite to the design of that Book Most probable therefore it is that he lived about the time of the Israelitish Captivity in Egypt though whether as some Jews will have it born that very Year that Jacob came down into Egypt and dying that Year that they went out of Egypt I dare not peremptorily affirm And this no question is the reason why we find nothing concerning him in the Writings of Moses the History of those Times being crowded up into a very little room little being recorded even of the Israelites themselves for near Two Hundred Years more than in general that they were heavily oppressed under the Egyptian Yoke More concerning this great and good Man and the things relating to him if the Reader desire to know he may among others consult the elaborate exercitations of the younger Spanhemius in his Historia Jobi where the largest curiosity may find enough to satisfie it 22. AND now for a Conclusion to this Oeconomy if we reflect a little upon the state of things under this period of the World we shall find that the Religion of those early Ages was plain and simple unforced and natural and highly agreeable to the common dictates and notions of Mens minds They were not educated under any foreign Institutions nor conducted by a Body of numerous Laws and written Constitutions but were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo says of them tutor'd and instructed by the dictates of their own minds and the Principles of that Law that was written in their hearts following the order of Nature and right Reason as the safest and most ancient Rule By which means as one of the Ancients observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they maintained a free and uninterrupted course of Religion conducting their lives according to the rules of Nature so that having purged their minds from lust and passion and attained to the true knowledge of God they had no need of external and written Laws Their Creed was short and perspicuous their notions of God great and venerable their devotion and piety real and substantial their worship grave and serious and such as became the grandeur and majesty of the Divine being their Rites and Ceremonies few and proper their obedience prompt and sincere and indeed the whole conduct of their conversation discovering it self in the most essential and important duties of the humane life According to this standard it was that our blessed Saviour mainly designed to reform Religion in his most excellent Institutions to retrieve the piety and purity the innocency and simplicity of those first and more uncorrupted Ages of the World to improve the Laws of Nature and to reduce Mankind from ritual observances to natural and moral duties as the most vital and essential parts of Religion and was therefore pleased to charge Christianity with no more than two positive Institutions Baptism and the Lord's Supper that Men might learn that the main of Religion lies not in such things as these Hence Eusebius undertakes at large to prove the faith and manners of the Holy Patriarchs who lived before the times of Moses and the belief and practice of Christians to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Which he does not only assert and make good in general but deduce from particular instances the examples of Enoch Noah Abraham Melchisedeck Job c. whom he expresly proves to have believed and lived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 altogether after the manner of Christians Nay that they had the name also as well as the thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he shews from that place which he proves to be meant of Abraham Isaac and Jacob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Touch not my Christians mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm And in short that as they had the same common Religion so they had the common blessing and reward SECT II. Of the MOSAICAL Dispensation Moses the Minister of this Oeconomy His miraculous preservation His learned and noble education The Divine temper of his mind His conducting the Israelites out of Egypt Their arrival at Mount Sinai The Law given and how Moral Laws the Decalogue whether a perfect Compendium of the Moral Law The Ceremonial Laws what Reduced to their proper Heads Such as concerned the matter of their Worship Sacrifices and the several kinds of them Circumcision The Passover and its typical relation The place of Publick Worship The Tabernacle and Temple and the several parts of them and their typical aspects considered Their stated times and feasts weekly monthly annual The Sabbatical Year The Year of Jubilee Laws concerning the Persons ministring Priests Levites the High-Priest how a type of Christ. The Design of the Ceremonial Law and its abolition The Judicial Laws what The Mosaick Law how divided by the Jews into affirmative and negative Precepts and why The several ways of Divine revelation Urim and Thummim what and the manner of its giving Answers Bath-Col Whether any such way of revelation among the Jews Revelation by Dreams By Visions The Revelation of the Holy Spirit what Moses his way of Prophecy wherein exceeding the rest The pacate way of the spirit of prophecy This spirit when it ceased in the Jewish Church The state of the Church under this Dispensation briefly noted From the giving of the Law till Samuel From Samuel till Solomon It s condition under the succeeding Kings till the Captivity From thence till the coming of Christ. The state of the Jewish Church in the time of Christ more particularly considered The prophanations of the Temple The Corruption of their Worship The abuse of the Priesthood The Depravation of the Law by false glosses Their Oral and unwritten Law It s original and succession according to the mind of the Jews Their unreasonable and
a mere pretender to Divine revelation but that he really had an immediate commission from Heaven God was pleased to furnish him with extraordinary Credentials and to seal his Commission with a power of working Miracles beyond all the Arts of Magick and those tricks for which the Egyptian Sorcerers were so famous in the World But Pharaoh unwilling to part with such useful Vassals and having oppressed them beyond possibility of reconcilement would not hearken to the proposal but sometimes downright rejected it otherwhiles sought by subtil and plausible pretences to evade and shift it off till by many astonishing Miracles and severe Judgments God extorted at length a grant from him Under the conduct of Moses they set forwards after at least two hundred years servitude under the Egyptian yoke and though Pharaoh sensible of his error with a great Army pursued them either to cut them off or bring them back God made way for them through the midst of the Sea the waters becoming like a wall of Brass on each side of them till being all passed to the other shore those invisible cords which had hitherto tied up that liquid Element bursting in sunder the waters returned and overwhelmed their enemies that pursued them Thus God by the same stroke can protect his friends and punish his enemies Nor did the Divine Providence here take its leave of them but became their constant guard and defence in all their journeys waiting upon them through their several stations in the wilderness the most memorable whereof was that at Mount Sinai in Arabia The place where God delivered them the pattern in the Mount according to which the form both of their Church and State was to be framed and modelled In order hereunto Moses is called up into the Mount where by Fasting and Prayer he conversed with Heaven and received the body of their Laws Three days the people were by a pious and devout care to sanctifie and prepare themselves for the promulgation of the Law they might not come near their Wives were commanded to wash their clothes as an embleme and representation of that cleansing of the heart and that inward purity of mind wherewith they were to entertain the Divine will On the third day in the morning God descended from Heaven with great appearances of Majesty and terror with thunders and lightnings with black clouds and tempests with shouts and the loud noise of a trumpet which trumpet say the Jews was made of the horn of that Ram that was offered in the room of Isaac with fire and smoke on the top of the Mount ascending up like the smoke of a Furnace the Mountain it self greatly quaking the people trembling nay so terrible was the sight that Moses who had so frequently so familiarly conversed with God said I exceedingly fear and quake All which pompous trains of terror and magnificence God made use of at this time to excite the more solemn attention to his Laws and to beget a greater reverence and veneration for them in the minds of the people and to let them see how able he was to call them to account and by the severest penalties to vindicate the violation of his Law 4. THE Code and Digest of those Laws which God now gave to the Jews as the terms of that National Covenant that he made with them consisted of three sorts of Precepts Moral Ecclesiastical and Political which the Jews will have intimated by those three words that so frequently occur in the writings of Moses Laws Statutes and Judgments By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laws they understand the Moral Law the notices of good and evil naturally implanted in mens minds By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Statutes Ceremonial Precepts instituted by God with peculiar reference to his Church By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Judgments Political Laws concerning Justice and Equity the order of humane society and the prudent and peaceable managery of the Commonwealth The Moral Laws inserted into this Code are those contained in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the ten words that were written upon two Tables of Stone These were nothing else but a summary Comprehension of the great Laws of Nature engraven at first upon the minds of all men in the World the most material part whereof was now consigned to writing and incorporated into the body of the Jewish Law I know the Decalogue is generally taken to be a complete System of all natural Laws But whoever impartially considers the matter will find that there are many instances of duty so far from being commanded in it that they are not reducible to any part of it unless hook'd in by subtilties of wit and drawn thither by forc'd and unnatural inferences What provision except in one case or two do any of those Commandments make against neglects of duty Where do they oblige us to do good to others to love assist relieve our enemies Gratitude and thankfulness to benefactors is one of the prime and essential Laws of Nature and yet no where that I know of unless we will have it implied in the Preface to the Law commanded or intimated in the Decalogue With many other cases which 'tis naturally evident are our duty whereof no footsteps are to be seen in this Compendium unless hunted out by nice and sagacious reasonings and made out by a long train of consequences never originally intended in the Commandment and which not one in a thousand are capable of deducing from it It is probable therefore that God reduc'd only so many of the Laws of Nature into writing as were proper to the present state and capacities of that people to whom they were given super-adding some and explaining others by the Preaching and Ministery of the Prophets who in their several Ages endeavoured to bring men out of the Shades and Thickets into clear light and Noon-day by clearing up mens obligations to those natural and essential duties in the practice whereof humane nature was to be advanced unto its just accomplishment and perfection Hence it was that our Lord who came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil and perfect it has explained the obligations of the natural Law more fully and clearly more plainly and intelligibly rendred our duty more fixed and certain and extended many instances of obedience to higher measures to a greater exactness and perfection than ever they were understood to have before Thus he commands a free and universal charity not only that we love our friends and relations but that we love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us He hath forbidden malice and revenge with more plainness and smartness obliged us not only to live according to the measures of sobriety but extended it to self-denial and taking up the Cross and laying down our lives whenever the honour of God and the interest of Religion calls for
plainly confessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and Ascension which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our present state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing perfect 'T was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it were uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the influences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit I 'le enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to exceed in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this case is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods ratified by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he laid down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when our Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so 't were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His
Proselytes and endeavouring to satisfie the Jews who had sent to him curiously to enquire concerning this new Messiah that appeared among them Upon the great testimony which the Baptist gave him and his pointing to our Lord then passing by him two of John's disciples who were then with him presently followed after Christ one of which was Simon 's brother It was towards Evening when they came and therefore probably they stayed with him all night during which Andrew had opportunity to inform himself and to satisfie his most scrupulous enquiries Early the next morning if not that very evening he hastned to acquaint his brother Simon with these glad tidings 'T is not enough to be good and happy alone Religion is a communicative principle that like the circles in the water delights to multiply it self and to diffuse its influences round about it and especially upon those whom nature has placed nearest to us He tells him they had found the long look'd for Messiah him whom Moses and the Prophets had so signally foretold and whom all the devout and pious of that Nation had so long expected 3. SIMON one of those who look'd for the Kingdom of God and waited for redemption in Israel ravished with this joyful news and impatient of delay presently follows his brother to the place whither he was no sooner come but our Lord to give him an evidence of his Divinity salutes him at first sight by name tells him what and who he was both as to his name and kindred what title should be given him that he should be calld Cephas or Peter a name which he afterwards actually conferr'd upon him What passed further between them and whether these two brothers henceforward personally attended our Saviour's motions in the number of his Disciples the Sacred Story leaves us in the dark It seems probable that they stayd with him for some time till they were instructed in the first rudiments of his doctrine and by his leave departed home For it 's reasonable to suppose that our Lord being unwilling at this time especially to awaken the jealousies of the State by a numerous retinue might dismiss his Disciples for some time and Peter and Andrew amongst the rest who hereupon returned home to the exercise of their calling where he found them afterwards 4. IT was now somewhat more than a year since our Lord having entred upon the publick stage of action constantly went about doing good healing the sick and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom residing usually at Capernaum and the parts about it where by the constancy of his preaching and the reputation of his miracles his fame spread about all those Countries by means whereof multitudes of people from all parts flock'd to him greedily desirous to become his Auditors And what wonder if the parch'd and barren Earth thirsted for the showers of Heaven It hapned that our Lord retiring out of the City to enjoy the privacies of contemplation upon the banks of the Sea of Galilee it was not long before the multitude found him out to avoid the crowd and press whereof he step'd into a Ship or Fisher-Boat that lay near to the shore which belonged to Peter who together with his companions after a tedious and unsuccessful night were gone a-shore to wash and dry their Nets He who might have commanded was yet pleased to intreat Peter who by this time was returned into his Ship to put a little from the shore Here being sate he taught the people who stood along upon the shore to hear him Sermon ended he resolv'd to seal up his doctrine with a miracle that the people might be the more effectually convinced that he was a Teacher come from God To this purpose he had Simon lanch out further and cast his Net into the Sea Simon tells him they had dont already that they had been fishing all the last night but in vain and if they could not succeed then the most proper season for that employment there was less hope to speed now it being probably about Noon But because where God commands it is not for any to argue but obey at our Lord's instance he let down the Net which immediately inclosed so great a multitude of Fishes that the Net began to break and they were forced to call to their partners who were in a Ship hard by them to come in to their assistance A draught so great that it loaded both their Boats and that so full that it endangered their sinking before they could get safe to shore An instance wherein our Saviour gave an ocular demonstration that as Messiah God had put all things under his feet not only Fowls of the Air but the Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Seas 5. AMAZ'D they were all at this miraculous draught of Fishes whereupon Simon in an ecstasie of admiration and a mixture of humility and fear threw himself at the feet of Christ and pray'd him to depart from him as a vile and a sinful person So evident were the appearances of Divinity in this miracle that he was over-powred and dazled with its brightness and lustre and reflecting upon himself could not but think himself unworthy the presence of so great a person so immediately sent from God and considering his own state Conscience being hereby more sensibly awakened was afraid that the Divine vengeance might pursue and overtake him But our Lord to abate the edge of his fears assures him that this miracle was not done to amaze and terrifie him but to strengthen and confirm his Faith that now he had nobler work and employment for him instead of catching Fish he should by perswading men to the obedience of the Gospel catch the Souls of men And accordingly commanded him and his brother to follow him the same command which presently after he gave to the two Sons of Zebedee The word was no sooner spoken and they landed but disposing their concerns in the hands of friends as we may presume prudent and reasonable men would they immediately left all and followed him and from this time Peter and the rest became his constant and inseparable Disciples living under the rules of his Discipline and Institutions 6. FROM hence they returned to Capernaum where our Lord entring into Simon 's house the place in all likelihood where he was wont to lodge during his residence in that City found his mother-in-Mother-in-law visited with a violent Fever No priviledges afford an exemption from the ordinary Laws of humane Nature Christ under her roof did not protect this Woman from the assaults and invasions of a Fever Lord behold he whom thou lovest is sick as they said concerning Lazarus Here a fresh opportunity offered it self to Christ of exerting his Divine Power No sooner was he told of it but he came to her bed-side rebuked the Paroxysms commanded the Fever to be gone and taking her by the hand to lift her up in
from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Job twice speaks of in one Chapter the judged iniquity which the Jews expound and we truly render an iniquity to be punished by the Judges The seventh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the member of any live-creature that is as God expresses it in the Precept to Noah they might not eat the bloud or the flesh with the life thereof Whether these Precepts were by any solemn and external promulgation particularly delivered to the Ante-deluvian Patriarchs as the Jews seem to contend I will not say for my part I cannot but look upon them the last only excepted as a considerable part of Nature's Statute-law as comprizing the greater strokes and lineaments of those natural dictates that are imprinted upon the souls of Men. For what more comely and reasonable and more agreeable to the first notions of our minds than that we should worship and adore God alone as the Author of our beings and the Fountain of our happiness and not derive the lustre of his incommunicable perfections upon any Creature that we should entertain great and honourable thoughts of God and such as become the Grandeur and Majesty of his being that we should abstain from doing any wrong or injury to another from invading his right violating his priviledges and much more from making any attempt upon his life the dearest blessing in this World that we should be just and fair in our transactions and do to all men as we would they should do to us that we should live chastely and temperately and not by wild and extravagant lusts and sensualities offend against the natural modesty of our minds that Order and Government should be maintained in the World Justice advanced and every Man secured in his just possessions And so suitable did these Laws seem to the reason and understandings of Men that the Jews though the most zealous People under Heaven of their Legal Institutions received those Gentiles who observed them as Proselytes into their Church though they did not oblige themselves to Circumcision and the rest of the Mosaick Rites Nay in the first Age of Christianity when the great controversie arose between the Jewish and Gentile-Converts about the obligation of the Law of Moses as necessary to salvation the observation only of these Precepts at least a great part of them was imposed upon the Gentile-Converts as the best expedient to end the difference by the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem 4. BUT though the Law of Nature was the common Law by which God then principally governed the World yet was not he wanting by Methods extraordinary to supply as occasion was the exigencies and necessities of his Church communicating his mind to them by Dreams and Visions and other ways of Revelation which we shall more particularly remark when we come to the Mosaical Oeconomy Hence arose those positive Laws which we meet with in this period of the Church some whereof are more expresly recorded others more obscurely intimated Among those that are more plain and obvious two are especially considerable the prohibition for not eating bloud and the Precept of Circumcision the one given to Noah the other to Abraham The prohibition concerning bloud is thus recorded every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you but flesh with the life thereof which is the bloud thereof shall you not eat The bloud is the vehiculum to carry the spirits as the Veins are the chanels to convey the bloud now the animal spirits give vital heat and activity to every part and being let out the bloud presently cools and the Creature dies Not flesh with the bloud which is the life thereof that is not flesh while it is alive while the bloud and the spirits are yet in it The mystery and signification whereof was no other than this that God would not have Men train'd up to arts of cruelty or whatever did but carry the colour and aspect of a merciless and a savage temper lest severity towards Beasts should degenerate into fierceness towards Men. It 's good to defend the out-guards and to stop the remotest ways that lead towards sin especially considering the violent propensions of humane nature to passion and revenge Men commence bloudy and inhumane by degrees and little approaches in time render a thing in it self abhorrent not only familiar but delightful The Romans who at first entertained the People in the Amphitheatre only with wild Beasts killing one another came afterwards wantonly to sport away the Lives of the Gladiators yea to cast Persons to be devoured by Bears and Lions for no other end than the divertisement and pleasure of the People He who can please himself in tearing and eating the Parts of a living Creature may in short time make no scruple to do violence to the Life of Man Besides eating bloud naturally begets a savage temper makes the spirits rank and fiery and apt to be easily inflamed and blown up into choler and fierceness And that hereby God did design to bar out ferity and to secure mercy and gentleness is evident from what follows after and surely your bloud of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it and at the hand of Man at the hand of every Man's brother will I require the life of man whoso sheddeth Man's bloud by Man shall his bloud be shed The life of a Beast might not be wantonly sacrificed to Mens humours therefore not Man 's the life of Man being so sacred and dear to God that if kill'd by a Beast the Beast it self was to die for it if by man that man's life was to go for retaliation by man shall his bloud be shed where by man we must necessarily understand the ordinary Judge and Magistrate or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call it the lower Judicature with respect to that Divine and Superiour Court the immediate judgment of God himself By which means God admirably provided for the safety and security of Man's life and for the order and welfare of humane society and it was no more than necessary the remembrance of the violence and oppression of the Nephilim or Giants before the Floud being yet fresh in memory and there was no doubt but such mighty Hunters men of robust bodies of barbarous and inhumane tempers would afterwards arise This Law against eating bloud was afterwards renewed under the Mosaick Institution but with this peculiar signification for the life of the flesh is in the bloud and I have given it to you upon the Altar to make an atonement for your souls for it is the bloud that maketh an atonement for the soul that is the bloud might not be eaten not only for the former reason but because God had designed it for particular purposes to be the great Instrument of Expiation and an eminent type of the Bloud of the Son of God who was to die as the great expiatory Sacrifice for
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
in it from all servile labours and to attend the Duties and Offices of Religion a type of that rest that remains for the People of God Their monthly Festivals were the New-moons wherein they were to blow the Trumpets over their Sacrifices and Oblations and to observe them with great expressions of joy and triumph in a thankful resentment of the blessings which all that Month had been conferred upon them Their Annual Solemnities were either ordinary or extraordinary Ordinary were those that returned every Year whereof the first was the Passover to be celebrated upon the Fourteenth day of the first Month as a Memorial of their great deliverance out of Egypt The second Pentecost called also the Feast of Weeks because just seven Weeks or fifty days after the Passover Instituted it was partly in memory of the promulgation of the Law published at Mount Sinai fifty days after their celebration of the Passover in Egypt partly as a thanksgiving for the in-gathering of their Harvest which usually was fully brought in about this time The third was the Feast of Tabernacles kept upon the Fifteenth day of the Seventh Month for the space of Seven days together at which time they dwelt in Booths made of green Boughs as a memento of that time when they sojourn'd in Tents and Tabernacles in the Wilderness and a sensible demonstration of the transitory duration of the present life that the Earthly house of our Tabernacle must be dissolved and that therefore we should secure a building of God an house not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens These were the three great solemnities wherein all the Males were obliged to appear at Jerusalem and to present themselves and their offerings in testimony of their homage and devotion unto God Besides which they had some of lesser moment such as their Feast of Trumpets and that of Expiation The Annual Festivals extraordinary were those that recurr'd but once in the periodical return of several years such was the Sabbatical year wherein the Land was to lye fallow and to rest from ploughing and sowing and all manner of cultivation and this was to be every seventh year typifying the Eternal Sabbatism in Heaven where good men shall rest from their labours and their works shall follow them But the great Sabbatical year of all was that of Jubilee which returned at the end of seven ordinary Sabbatick years that is every fiftieth year the approach whereof was proclaimed by the sound of Trumpets in it servants were released all debts discharged and mortgaged Estates reverted to their proper heirs And how evidently did this shadow out the state of the Gospel and our Lord 's being sent to preach good tidings to the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to preach liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord that they might lift up their heads because their redemption drew nigh 8. LASTLY They had Laws concerning the persons by whom their publick worship was administred and here there was appointed an High-Priest who had his proper offices and rules of duty his peculiar attire and consecration ordinary Priests whose business was to instruct the people to Pray and offer sacrifice to bless the Congregation and judge in cases of Leprosie and such like at their Ordination they were to be chosen before all the people to be sprinkled with the water of Expiation their Hair shaved and their Bodies washed afterwards anointed and sacrifices to be offered for them and then they might enter upon their Priestly ministrations Next to these were the Levites who were to assist the Priests in preparing the Sacrifices to bear the Tabernacle while it lasted and lay up its Vessels and Utensils to purifie and cleanse the Vessels and Instruments to guard the Courts and Chambers of the Temple to watch weekly in the Temple by their turns to sing and celebrate the praises of God with Hymns and Musical Instruments and to joyn with the Priests in judging and determining Ceremonial causes they were not to be taken into the full discharge of their Function till the thirtieth nor to be kept at it beyond the fiftieth year of their age God mercifully thinking it fit to give them then a Writ of Ease whose strength might be presumed sufficiently impaired by truckling for so many years under such toilsom and laborious ministrations Though the Levitical Priests were types of Christ yet it was the High-Priest who did eminently typifie him and that in the unity and singularity of his office for though many Orders and Courses of inferior Priests and Ministers yet was there but one High-Priest There is one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus in the qualifications necessary to his election as to place he was to be taken out of the Tribe of Levi as to his person which was to be every ways perfect and comely and the manner of his Consecration in his singular capacity that he alone might enter into the holy of holies which he did once every year upon the great day of Expiation with a mighty pomp and train of Ceremonies killing Sacrifices burning Incense sprinkling the bloud of the Sacrifice before and upon the Mercy-seat going within the veil and making an attonement within the holy place All which immediately referred to Christ who by the sacrifice of himself and through the veil of his own flesh entred not into the holy place made with hands but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us All which might be represented more at large but that I intend not a discourse about these matters 9. BESIDES the Laws which we have hitherto enumerated there were several other particular Commands Ritual Constitutions about Meats and Drinks and other parts of humane life Such was the difference they were to make between the Creatures some to be clean and others unclean such were several sorts of pollution and uncleanness which were not in their own nature sins but Ceremonial defilements of this kind were several provisions about Apparel Diet and the ordering Family-affairs all evidently of a Ceremonial aspect but too long to be insisted on in this place The main design of this Ceremonial Law was to point out to us the Evangelical state The Law had only a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things themselves the body was Christ and therefore though the Law came by Moses yet grace and truth the truth of all those types and figures came by Christ. It was time for Moses to resign the Chair when once this great Prophet was come into the World Ceremonies could no longer be of use when once the substance was at hand well may the Stars disappear at the rising of the Sun the Messiah being cut off should cause the Sacrifice and the Oblation to cease At the time of Christ's death the veil of the Temple from top to
initiating proselytes by Baptism Baptism in use in the Jewish Church It s Original whence His resolution and impartiality His Martyrdom The character given him by Josephus and the Jews The Evangelical Dispensation wherein it exceeds that of Moses It s perspicuity and perfection It s agreeableness to humane nature The Evangelical promises better than those of the Law and in what respects The aids of the Spirit plentifully afforded under the Gospel The admirable confirmation of this Oeconomy The great extent and latitude of it Judaism not capable of being communicated to all mankind The comprehensiveness of the Gospel The Duration of the Evangelical Covenant The Mosaical Statutes in what sence said to be for ever The Typical and transient nature of that State The great happiness of Christians under the Oeconomy of the Gospel 1. GOD having from the very infancy of the World promised the Messiah as the great Redeemer of Mankind was accordingly pleased in all Ages to make gradual discoveries and manifestations of him the revelations concerning him in every Dispensation of the Church still shining with a bigger and more particular light the nearer this Sun of Righteousness was to his rising The first Gospel and glad tidings of him commenced with the fall of Adam God out of infinite tenderness and commiseration promising to send a person who should triumphantly vindicate and rescue mankind from the power and tyranny of their Enemies and that he should do this by taking the humane nature upon him and being born of the seed of the Woman No further account is given of him till the times of Abraham to whom it was revealed that he should proceed out of his loins and arise out of the Jewish Nation though both Jew and Gentile should be made happy by him To his Grandchild Jacob God made known out of what Tribe of that Nation he should rise the Tribe of Judah and what would be the time of his appearing viz. the departure of the Scepter from Judah the abrogation of the Civil and Legislative power of that Tribe and People accomplished in Herod the Idumaean set over them by the Roman power And this is all we find concerning him under that Oeconomy Under the Legal Dispensation we find Moses foretelling one main errand of his coming which was to be the great Prophet of the Church to whom all were to hearken as an extraordinary person sent from God to acquaint the World with the Counsels and the Laws of Heaven The next news we hear of him is from David who was told that he should spring out of his house and family and who frequently speaks of his sufferings and the particular manner of his death by piercing his hands and his feet of his powerful Resurrection that God would not leave his Soul in Hell nor suffer his holy one to see corruption of his triumphant Ascension into Heaven and glorious session at God's right hand From the Prophet Isaiah we have an account of the extraordinary and miraculous manner of his Birth that he should be born of a Virgin and his name be Immanuel of his incomparable furniture of gifts and graces for the execution of his office of the entertainment he was to meet with in the World and of the nature and design of those sufferings which he was to undergo The place of his Birth was foretold by Micah which was to be Bethlehem-Ephratah the least of the Cities of Judah but honoured above all the rest with the nativity of a Prince who was to be Ruler in Israel whose goings forth had been from everlasting Lastly the Prophet Daniel fixes the particular period of his coming expresly affirming That the Messiah should appear in the World and be cut off as a Victim and Expiation for the sins of the people at the expiration of LXX prophetical weeks or CCCCXC years which accordingly punctually came to pass 2. FOR the date of the prophetick Scriptures concerning the time of the Messiah's coming being now run out In the fulness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law This being the truth of which God spake by the mouth of all his holy Prophets which have been since the World began But because it was not fit that so great a Person should come into the World without an eminent Harbinger to introduce and usher in his Arrival God had promised that he would send his Messenger who should prepare his way before him even Elijah the Prophet whom he would send before the coming of that great day of the Lord who should turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children c. This was particularly accomplished in John the Baptist who came in the power and spirit of Elias He was the Morning star to the Son of Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Cyril says of him the great and eminent Fore-runner a Person remarkable upon several accounts First for the extraordinary circumstances of his Nativity his Birth foretold by an Angel sent on purpose to deliver this joyful Message a sign God intended him for great undertakings this being never done but where God designed the Person for some uncommon services his Parents aged and though both righteous before God yet hitherto Childless Heaven does not dispence all its bounty to the same Person Children though great and desirable blessings are yet often denied to those for whom God has otherwise very dear regards Elizabeth was barren and they were both well stricken in years But is any thing too hard for the Lord said God to Abraham in the same case God has the Key of the Womb in his own keeping it is one of the Divine Prerogatives that he makes the barren Woman to keep house and to be a joyful Mother of Children A Son is promised and mighty things said of him a promise which old Zachary had scarce faith enough to digest and therefore had the assurance of it sealed to him by a miraculous dumbness imposed upon him till it was made good the same Miracle at once confirming his faith and punishing his infidelity Accordingly his Mother conceived with Child and as if he would do part of his errand before he was born he leaped in her Womb at her salutation of the Virgin Mary then newly conceived with Child of our Blessed Saviour a piece of homage paid by one to one yet unborn 3. THESE presages were not vain and fallible but produced a Person no less memorable for the admirable strictness and austerity of his life For having escaped Herod's butcherly and merciless Executioners the Divine providence being a shelter and a cover to him and been educated among the rudenesses and solitudes of the Wilderness his manners and way of life were very agreeable to his Education His Garments borrowed from no other Wardrobe than the backs of his Neighbour-creatures the skins of Beasts Camels hair and a Leathern girdle and
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
of our dependance upon God in the publick Solemnities of his praise and worship For the Law and the Gospel did not differ in this that the one commanded publick worship the other not but that under the one publick worship was fixed to one only place under the other it is free to any where the providence of God has placed us it being part of the duty bound upon us by natural and unalterable obligations that we should publickly meet together for the solemn Celebration of the Divine honour and service 13. NOR is the Oeconomy of the Gospel less extensive in time than place the Old Testament was only a temporary dispensation that of the Gospel is to last to the end of the World the Law was to continue only for a little time the Gospel is an Everlasting Covenant the one to be quickly antiquated and abolished the other never to be done away by any other to succeed it The Jews indeed stickle hard for the perpetual and immutable obligation of the Law of Moses and frequently urge us with those places where the Covenant of Circumcision is called an Everlasting Covenant and God said to chuse the Temple at Jerusalem to place his name there for ever to give the Land of Canaan to Abraham and his seed for an everlasting possession thus the Law of the Passeover is called an Ordinance for ever the command of the First-fruits a statute for ever and the like in other places which seem to intimate a perpetual and unalterable Dispensation But the answer is short and plain that this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever though when 't is applied to God it always denotes Eternity yet when 't is attributed to other things it implies no more than a periodical duration limited according to the will of the Lawgiver or the nature of the thing thus the Hebrew Servant was to serve his Master for ever that is but for seven years till the next year of Jubilee He shall walk before mine anointed for ever says God concerning Samuel that i◠be a Priest all his days Thus when the Ritual services of the Mosaick Law are called Statutes for ever the meaning is that they should continue a long time obligatory until the time of the Messiah in whose days the Sacrifice and Oblation was to cease and those carnal Ceremonies to give way to the more spiritual services of the Gospel Indeed the very typical nature of that Dispensation evidently argued it to be but for a time the shadow being to cease that the substance might take place and though many of them continued some considerable time after Christ's death yet they lost their positive and obligatory power and were used only as things indifferent in compliance with the inveterate prejudices of new Converts lately brought over from Judaism and who could not quickly lay aside that great veneration which they had for the Rites of the Mosaick Institution Though even in this respect it was not long before all Jewish Ceremonies were thrown off and Moses quite turn'd out of doors Whereas the Evangelical state is to run parallel with the age and duration of the World 't is the Everlasting Covenant the Everlasting Gospel the last Dispensation that God will make to the World God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son in which respect the Gospel in opposition to the Law is stiled a Kingdom that cannot be moved The Apostle in the foregoing Verses speaking concerning the Mosaical state Whose voice says he then shook the Earth but now he hath promised saying Yet once more I shake not the Earth only but also the Heaven a phrase peculiar to the Scripture to note the introducing a new scene and state of things and this word Yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made that those things which cannot be shaken may remain that is that the state of the Gospel may endure for ever Hence Christ is said to have an unchangeable Priesthood to be a Priest for ever to be consecrated for evermore From all which it appears how incomparably happy we Christians are under the Gospel above what the Jews were in the time of the Law God having placed us under the best of Dispensations freed us from those many nice and troublesome observances to which they were tied put us under the clearest discoveries and revelations and given us the most noble rational and masculine Religion a Religion the most perfective of our natures and the most conducive to our happiness while their Covenant at best was faulty and after all could not make him that did the service perfect in things pertaining to the Conscience Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see for I tell you that many Prophets and Kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them The End of the APPARATUS Antiquitates Apostolicae OR THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES OF OUR SAVIOUR To which are added The Lives of the two EVANGELISTS SS MARK and LVKE AS ALSO A brief Enumeration and Account of the Apostles and their Successors for the first Three Hundred Years in the Five great Apostolical Churches By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. Praefat. in Epist. ad Philem. pag. 1733. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner MDCLXXVI TO THE READER IT will not I suppose seem improbable to the Reader when I tell him with how much reluctancy and unwillingness I set upon this undertaking Besides the disadvantage of having this piece annexed to the Elaborate Book of that excellent Prelate so great a Master both of Learning and Language I was intimately conscious to my own unfitness for such a Work at any time much more when clogg'd with many habitual Infirmities and Distempers I considered the difficulty of the thing it self perhaps not capable of being well managed by a much better Pen than mine few of the Ancient Monuments of the Church being extant and little of this nature in those few that are Indeed I could not but think it reasonable that all possible honour should be done to those that first Preached the Gospel of peace and brought glad tidings of good things that it was fit men should be taught how much they were obliged to those excellent Persons who were willing at so dear a rate to plant Christianity in the World who they were and what was that Piety and that Patience that Charity and that Zeal which made them to be reverenc'd while they liv'd and their Memories ever since to be
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
product of a weak frighted fancy But Peter and John presently hastned towards the Garden John being the younger and nimbler out-ran his Companion and came first thither where he only looked but entred not in either out of fear in himself or a great Reverence to our Saviour Peter though behind in space was before in zeal and being elder and more considerate came and resolutely entred in where they found nothing but the Linnen Clothes lying together in one place and the Napkin that was about his Head wrapped together in another which being disposed with so much care and order shewed what was falsly suggested by the Jews that our Saviour's Body was not taken away by Thieves who are wont more to consult their escape than how to leave things orderly disposed behind them 2. THE same Day about Noon we may suppose it was that our Lord himself appeared alone to Peter being assured of the thing though not so precisely of the time That he did so S. Paul expresly tells us and so did the Apostles the two Disciples that came from Emmaus The Lord is risen and hath appeared unto Simon which probably intimates that it was before his appearing to those two Disciples And indeed we cannot but think that our Lord would hasten the manifestation of himself to him as compassionating his case being overwhelmed with sorrow for the late shameful denial of his Master and was therefore willing in the first place to honour him with his presence at once to confirm him in the Article of his Resurrection and to let him see that he was restored to the place which before he had in his grace and favour S. Paul mentioning his several appearances after his Resurrection seems to make this the first of them That he was seen of Cephas Not that it was simply the first for he first appeared to the Women But as Chrysostom observes it was the first that was made to men He was first seen by him who most desired to see him He also adds several probable conjectures why our Lord first discovered himself to Peter As that it required a more than ordinary firmness and resolution of mind to be able to bear such a sight For they who beheld him after others had seen him and had heard their frequent Testimonies and Reports had had their Faith greatly prepared and encouraged to entertain it But he who was to be honoured with the first appearance had need of a bigger and more undaunted Faith left he should be over-born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such a strange and unwonted sight That Peter was the first that had made a signal confession of his Master and therefore it was fit and reasonable that he should first see him alive after his Resurrection That Peter had lately denied his Lord the grief whereof lay hard upon him that therefore our Saviour was willing to administer some consolation to him and as soon as might be to let him see that he had not cast him off like the kind Samaritan he made haste to help him and to pour Oil into his wounded Conscience 3. SOME time after this the Apostles began to resolve upon their journey into Galilee as he himself had commanded them If it be enquired why they went no sooner seeing this was the first message and intimation they had received from him S. Ambrose his resolution seems very rational that our Lord indeed had commanded them to go thither but that their fears for some time kept them at home not being as yet fully satisfied in the truth of his Resurrection till our Lord by often appearing to them had confirmed their minds and put the case beyond all dispute They went as we may suppose in several Companies lest going all in one Body they should awaken the power and malice of their enemies and alarm the care and vigilancy of the state which by reason of the Noise that our Saviour's Trial and Execution had made up and down the City and Country was yet full of jealousies and fears We find Peter Thomas Nathanael and the two Sons of Zebedee and two more of the Disciples arrived at some Town about the Sea of Tiberias Where the Providence of God guiding the Instance of their employment Peter accompanied with the rest returns to his old Trade of Fishing They laboured all Night but caught nothing Early in the Morning a grave Person probably in the habit of a Traveller presents himself upon the shore And calling to them asked them whether they had any meat When they told him No He advised them to cast the Net on the right side of the Ship that so the Miracle might not seem to be the effect of chance and they should not fail to speed They did so and the Net presently inclosed so great a draught that they were scarce able to drag it a shore S. John amazed with the strangeness of the matter told Peter that surely this must be the Lord whom the Winds and the Sea and all the Inhabitants of that watry Region were so ready to obey Peter's zeal presently took fire notwithstanding the coldness of the Season and impatient of the least moments being kept from the company of his dear Lord and Master without any consideration of the danger to which he exposed himself he girt his Fishers Coat about him and throwing himself into the Sea swam to shore not being able to stay till the Ship could arrive which came presently after Landing they found a Fire ready made and Fish laid upon it either immediately created by his Divine power or which came to the shore of its own accord and offered it self to his hand Which notwithstanding he commands them to bring of the Fish which they had lately caught and prepare it for their Dinner He himself dining with them both that he might give them an instance of mutual love and fellowship and also assure them of the truth of his humane nature since his return from the dead 4. DINNER being ended our Lord more particularly addressed himself to Peter urging him to the utmost diligence in his care of Souls and because he knew that nothing but a mighty love to himself could carry him through the troubles and hazards of so dangerous and difficult an employment an employment attended with all the impediments which either the perversness of men or the malice and subtilty of the Devil could cast in the way to hinder it therefore he first enquired of him whether he loved him more than the rest of the Apostles herein mildly reproving his former over-confident resolution that though all the rest should deny him yet would not he deny him Peter modestly replyed not censuring others much less preferring himself before them that our Lord knew the integrity of his affection towards him This Question he puts three several times to Peter who as often returned the same Answer It being but just and reasonable that he who by a
Patmos It was of old not only rejected by Hereticks but controverted by many of the Fathers themselves Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria has a very large discourse concerning it he tells us that many plainly disowned this Book not only for the matter but the Author of it as being neither Apostle no nor any Holy or Ecclesiastical Person that Cerinthus prefixed John's name to it to give the more plausible title to his Dream of Christ's Reign upon Earth and that sensual and carnal state that should attend it that for his part he durst not reject it looking upon it as containing wise and admirable mysteries though he could not fathom and comprehend them that he did not measure them by his own line nor condemn but rather admire what he could not understand that he owned the Author to have been an holy and divinely-inspired Person but could not believe it to be S. John the Apostle and Evangelist neither stile matter nor method agreeing with his other Writings that in this he frequently names himself which he never does in any other that there were several Johns at that time and two buried at Ephesus the Apostle and another one of the Disciples that dwelt in Asia but which the Author of this Book he leaves uncertain But though doubted of by some it was entertained by the far greater part of the Ancients as the genuine work of our S. John Nor could the setting down his Name be any reasonable exception for whatever he might do in his other Writings especially his Gospel where it was less necessary Historical matters depending not so much upon his authority yet it was otherwise in Prophetick Revelations where the Person of the Revealer adds great weight and moment the reason why some of the Prophets under the Old Testament did so frequently set down their own Names The diversity of the stile is of no considerable value in this case it being no wonder if in arguments so vastly different the same Person did not always observe the same tenor and way of writing whereof there want not instances in some others of the Apostolick Order The truth is all circumstances concur to intitle our Apostle to be the Author of it his name frequently expressed its being written in the Island of Patmos a circumstance not competible to any but S. John his stiling himself their Brother and Companion in Tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ his writing particular Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia all planted or at least cultivated by him the doctrine in it suitable to the Apostolick spirit and temper evidently bearing witness in this case That which seems to have given ground to doubt concerning both its Author and authority was its being long before it was usually joyned with the other Books of the holy Canon for containing in it some passages directly levell'd at Rome the Seat of the Roman Empire others which might be thought to symbolize with some Jewish dreams and figments it might possibly seem fit to the prudence of those Times for a while to suppress it Nor is the conjecture of a learned Man to be despised who thinks that it might be entrusted in the keeping of John the Presbyter Scholar to our Apostle whence probably the report might arise that he who was only the Keeper was the Author of it 15. HIS Gospel succeeds written say some in Patmos and published at Ephesus but as Irenaeus and others more truly written by him after his return to Ephesus composed at the earnest intreaty and solicitation of the Asian Bishops and Ambassadors from several Churches in order whereunto he first caused them to proclaim a general Fast to seek the blessing of Heaven on so great and solemn an undertaking which being done he set about it And if we may believe the report of Gregory Bishop of Tours he tells us that upon a Hill near Ephesus there was a Proseucha or uncovered Oratory whither our Apostle used often to retire for Prayer and Contemplation and where he obtained of God that it might not Rain in that Place till he had finished his Gospel Nay he adds that even in his time no shower or storm ever came upon it Two causes especially contributed to the writing of it the one that he might obviate the early heresies of those times especially of Ebion Cerinthus and the rest of that crew who began openly to deny Christ's Divinity and that he had any existence before his Incarnation the reason why our Evangelist is so express and copious in that subject The other was that he might supply those passages of the Evangelical History which the rest of the Sacred Writers had omitted Collecting therefore the other three Evangelists he first set to his Seal ratifying the truth of them with his approbation and consent and then added his own Gospel to the rest principally insisting upon the Acts of Christ from the first commencing of his Ministery to the Death of John the Baptist wherein the others are most defective giving scarce any account of the first Year of our Saviour's Ministry which therefore he made up in very large and particular Narrations He largely records as Nazianzen observes our Saviour's discourses but takes little notice of his Miracles probably because so fully and particularly related by the rest The subject of his writing is very sublime and mysterious mainly designing to prove Christ's Divinity eternal pre-existence creating of the World c. Upon which account Theodoret stiles his Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Theology which humane understandings can never fully penetrate and find out Thence generally by the Ancients he is resembled to an Eagle soaring aloft within the Clouds whither the weak eye of Man was unable to follow him hence peculiarly honoured with the Title of The Divine as if due to none but him at least to him in a more eminent and extraordinary manner Nay the very Gentile-Philosophers themselves could not but admire his Writings Witness Amelius the famous Platonist and Regent of Porphyries School at Alexandria who quoting a passage out of the beginning of John's Gospel sware by Jupiter that this Barbarian so the proud Greeks counted and called all that differed from them had hit upon the right notion when he affirmed that the Word that made all things was in the beginning and in place of prime dignity and authority with God and was that God that created all things in whom every thing that was made had according to its nature its life and being that he was incarnate and clothed with a body wherein he manifested the glory and magnificence of his nature that after his death he returned to the repossession of Divinity and became the same God which he was before his assuming a body and taking the humane nature and flesh upon him I have no more to observe but that his Gospel was afterwards translated into Hebrew and kept by