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A63641 Antiquitates christianæ, or, The history of the life and death of the holy Jesus as also the lives acts and martyrdoms of his Apostles : in two parts. Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Great exemplar of sanctity and holy life according to the christian institution.; Cave, William, 1637-1713. Antiquitates apostolicae, or, The lives , acts and martyrdoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour.; Cave, William, 1637-1713. Lives, acts and martydoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour. 1675 (1675) Wing T287; ESTC R19304 1,245,097 752

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The Samaritans coming to Jesus V. 28. The woman left her water pot went her way into the city saith to the men Come see a man which told me all things that ever I did is not this the Christ Then they went out of the city came unto him V. 39. Many of the Samaritans beleived on him for the saying of the woman when they were come to him many more believed because of his own word 1. WHen Jesus understood that John was cast into prison and that the Pharisees were envious at him for the great multitudes of people that resorted to his Baptism which he ministred not in his own person but by the deputation of his Disciples they finishing the ministration which himself began who as Euodins Bishop of Antioch reports baptized the Blessed Virgin his Mother ther and Peter only and Peter baptized Andrew James and John and they others he left Judaea and came into Galilee and in his passage he must touch Sychar a City of Samaria where in the heat of the day and the weariness of his journey he sate himself down upon the margent of Jacob's Well whither when his Disciples were gone to buy meat a Samaritan woman cometh to draw water of whom Jesus asked some to cool his thirst and refresh his weariness 2. Little knew the woman the excellency of the person that asked so small a charity neither had she been taught that a cup of cold water given to a Disciple should be rewarded and much rather such a present to the Lord himself But she prosecuted the spite of her Nation and the interest and quarrel of the Schism and in stead of washing Jesus's feet and giving him drink demanded why he being a Jew should ask water of a Samaritan for the Jews have no intercourse with the Samaritans 3. The ground of the quarrel was this In the sixth year of Hezekiah Salmanasar King of Assyria sacked Samaria transported the Israelites to Assyria and planted an Assyrian Colony in the Town and Country who by Divine vengeance were destroyed by Lions which no power of man could restrain or lessen The King thought the cause was their not serving the God of Israel according to the Rites of Moses and therefore sent a Jewish captive Priest to instruct the remanent inhabitants in the Jewish Religion who so learned and practised it that they still retained the Superstition of the Gentile rites till Manasses the Brother of Jaddi the high Priest at Jerusalem married the daughter of Sanballat who was the Governour under King Darius Manasses being reproved for marrying a stranger the daughter of an uncircumcised Gentile and admonished to dismiss her flies to Samaria perswades his Father-in-law to build a Temple in Mount Gerizim introduces the Rites of daily Sacrifice and makes himself high Priest and began to pretend to be the true successor of Aaron and commences a Schism in the time of Alexander the Great From whence the Question of Religion grew so high that it begat disassections anger animosities quarrels bloudshed and murthers not only in Palestine but where ever a Jew and Samaritan had the ill fortune to meet Such being the nature of men that they think it the greatest injury in the world when other men are not of their minds and that they please God most when they are most furiously zealous and no zeal better to be expressed than by hating all those whom they are pleased to think God hates This Schism was prosecuted with the greatest spite that ever any was because both the people were much given to Superstition and this was helped forward by the constitution of their Religion consisting much in externals and Ceremonials and which they cared not much to hallow and make moral by the intertexture of spiritual senses and Charity And therefore the Jews called the Samaritans accursed the Samaritans at the Paschal solemnity would at midnight when the Jews Temple was open scatter dead mens bones to profane and desecrate the place and both would fight and eternally dispute the Question sometimes referring it to Arbitrators and then the conquered party would decline the Arbitration after sentence which they did at Alexandria before Ptolemaeus Philometor when Andronicus had by a rare and exquisite Oration procured sentence against Theodosius and Sabbaeus the Samaritan Advocates The sentence was given for Jerusalem and the Schism increased and lasted till the time of our Saviour's conference with this woman 4. And it was so implanted and woven in with every understanding that when the woman perceived Jesus to be a Prophet she undertook this Question with him Our Fathers worshipped in this mountain and ye say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship Jesus knew the Schism was great enough already and was not willing to make the rent wider and though he gave testimony to the truth by saying Salvation is of the Jews and we know what we worship ye do not yet because the subject of this Question was shortly to be taken away Jesus takes occasion to preach the Gospel to hasten an expedient and by way of anticipation to reconcile the disagreeing interests and settle a revelation to be verified for ever Neither here nor there by way of confinement not in one Countrey more than another but where-ever any man shall call upon God in spirit and truth there he shall be heard 5. But all this while the Holy Jesus was athirst and therefore hastens at least to discourse of water though as yet he got none He tells her of living water of eternal satisfactions of never thirsting again of her own personal condition of matrimonial relation and professes himself to be the Messias And then was interrupted by the coming of his Disciples who wondred to see him alone talking with a woman besides his custom and usual reservation But the Woman full of joy and wonder left her water-pot and ran to the City to publish the Messias and immediately all the City came out to see and many believed on him upon the testimony of the Woman and more when they heard his own discourses They invited him to the Town and received him with hospitable civilities for two days after which he departed to his own Galilee 6. Jesus therefore came into the Countrey where he was received with respect and fair entertainment because of the Miracles which the Galileans saw done by him at the Feast and being at Cana where he wrought the first Miracle a Noble personage a little King say some a Palatine says S. Hierome a Kingly person certainly came to Jesus with much reverence and desire that he would be pleased to come to his house and cure his Son now ready to die which he seconds with much importunity fearing left his Son be dead before he get thither Jesus who did not do his Miracles by natural operations cured the child at distance and dismissed the Prince telling him his Son lived which by
the injurious if I be not Judge my self is also within the moderation of an unblameable defence unless some accidents or circumstances vary the case but forgiving injuries is a separating the malice from the wrong the transient act from the permanent effect and it is certain the act which is passed cannot be rescinded the effect may and if it cannot it does no way alleviate the evil of the accident that I draw him that caused it into as great a misery since every evil happening in the world is the proper object of pity which is in some sense afflictive and therefore unless we become unnatural and without bowels it is most unreasonable that we should encrease our own afflictions by introducing a new misery and making a new object of pity All the ends of humane Felicity are secured without Revenge for without it we are permitted to restore our selves and therefore it is against natural Reason to do an evil that no way cooperates towards the proper and perfective End of humane nature And he is a miserable person whose good is the evil of his neighbour and he that revenges in many cases does worse than he that did the injury in all cases as bad For if the first injury was an injustice to serve an end of an advantage and real benefit then my revenge which is abstracted and of a consideration separate and distinct from the reparation is worse for I do him evil without doing my self any real good which he did not for he received advantage by it But if the first injury was matter of mere malice without advantage yet it is no worse than Revenge for that is just so and there is as much phantastick pleasure in doing a spight as in doing revenge They are both but like the pleasures of eating coals and toads and vipers And certain it is if a man upon his private stock could be permitted to revenge the evil would be immortal And it is rarely well discoursed by Tyndarus in Euripides If the angry Wife shall kill her Husband the Son shall revenge his Father's death and kill his Mother and then the Brother shall kill his Mother's murtherer and he also will meet with an avenger for killing his Brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What end shall there be to such inhumane and sad accidents If in this there be injustice it is against natural Reason and If it be evil and disorders the felicity and security of Society it is also against natural Reason But if it be just it is a strange Justice that is made up of so many inhumanities 41. And now if any man pretends specially to Reason to the ordinate desires and perfections of Nature and the sober discourses of Philosophy here is in Christianity and no-where else enough to satisfie and inform his Reason to perfect his Nature and to reduce to act all the Propositions of an intelligent and wise spirit And the Holy Ghost is promised and given in our Religion to be an eternal band to keep our Reason from returning to the darknesses of the old creation and to promote the ends of our natural and proper Felicity For it is not a vain thing that S. Paul reckons helps and governments and healings to be fruits of the Spirit For since the two greatest Blessings of the world personal and political consist that in Health this in Government and the ends of humane Felicity are served in nothing greater for the present interval than in these two Christ did not only enjoyn rare prescriptions of Health such as are Fasting Temperance Chastity and Sobriety and all the great endearments of Government and unless they be sacredly observed man is infinitely miserable but also hath given his Spirit that is extraordinary aids to the promoting these two and facilitating the work of Nature that as S. Paul says at the end of a discourse to this very purpose the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us 42. I shall add nothing but this single consideration God said to the children of Israel Ye are a royal Priesthood a Kingdom of Priests Which was therefore true because God reigned by the Priests and the Priests lips did then preserve knowledge and the people were to receive the Law from their mouths for God having by Laws of his own established Religion and the Republick did govern by the rule of the Law and the ministery of the Priests The Priests said Thus saith the LORD and the people obeyed And these very words are spoken to the Christian Church Ye are a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light That is God reigns over all Christendom just as he did over the Jews He hath now so given to them and restored respectively all those reasonable Laws which are in order to all good ends personal oeconomical and political that if men will suffer Christian Religion to do its last intention if men will live according to it there needs no other coercion of Laws or power of the Sword The Laws of God revealed by Christ are sufficient to make all societies of men happy and over all good men God reigns by his Ministers by the preaching of the Word And this was most evident in the three first Ages of the Church in which all Christian Societies were for all their proper entercourses perfectly guided not by the authority and compulsion but by the Sermons of their Spiritual Guides insomuch that S. Paul sharply reprehends the Corinthians that Brother goeth to law with Brother and that before the unbelievers as if he had said Ye will not suffer Christ to be your Judge and his Law to be your Rule which indeed was a great fault among them not only because they had so excellent a Law so clearly described or where they might doubt they had infallible Interpreters so reasonable and profitable so evidently concurring to their mutual felicity but also because God did design Jesus to be their King to reign over them by spiritual regiment as himself did over the Jews till they chose a King And when the Emperors became Christian the case was no otherwise altered but that the Princes themselves submitting to Christ's yoke were as all other Christians are for their proportion to be governed by the Royal Priesthood that is by the Word preached by Apostolical persons the political Interest remaining as before save that by being submitted to the Laws of Christ it received this advantage that all Justice was turned to be Religion and became necessary and bound upon the Conscience by Divinity And when it happens that a Kingdom is converted to Christianity the Common-wealth is made a Church and Gentile Priests are Christian Bishops and the Subjects of the Kingdom are Servants of Christ the Religion of the Nation is turned Christian and the Law of the Nation made a part
Man if they pass through an even and an indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course they are little and within command but if they pass upon an end or aim of difficulty or ambition they duplicate and grow to a 〈◊〉 and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of Innocence but the Temptation of busie designs is too great even for the best of dispositions 7. But these Temptations are crasse and material and soon discernible it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial For he hath Apples to cousen Children and Gold for Men the Kingdoms of the World for the Ambition of Princes and the Vanities of the World for the Intemperate he hath Discourses and fair-spoken Principles to abuse the pretenders to Reason and he hath common Prejudices for the more vulgar understandings Amongst these I chuse to consider such as are by way of Principle or Proposition 8. The first great Principle of Temptation I shall note is a general mistake which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of Infirmity calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined though by carelesness and evil customs they are heightned to a habit by the name of Sins of infirmity to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend If when they have committed a crime their Conscience checks them and they are troubled and during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire resolve against it and commit it readily at the next opportunity then they cry out against the weakness of their Nature and think as long as this body of death is about them it must be thus and that this condition may stand with the state of Grace And then the Sins shall return periodically like the revolutions of a Quartan Ague well and ill for ever till Death surprizes the mistaker This is a Patron of sins and makes the Temptation prevalent by an authentick instrument and they pretend the words of S. Paul For the good that I would that I do not but the evil that I would not that I do For there is a law in my members 〈◊〉 against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin And thus the 〈◊〉 of Sin is mistaken for a state of Grace and the imperfections of the Law are miscalled the affections and necessities of Nature that they might seem to be incurable and the persons apt for an excuse therefore because for Nature there is no absolute cure But that these words of S. Paul may not become a 〈◊〉 of death and instruments of a temptation to us it is observable that the Apostle by a siction of person as is usual with him speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but under the 〈◊〉 obscurities insufficiencies and imperfections of the Law which indeed he there contends to have been a Rule good and holy apt to remonstrate our misery because by its prohibitions and limits given to natural desires it made actions before indifferent now to be sins it added many curses to the breakers of it and by an 〈◊〉 of contrariety it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful but it was a Covenant in which our Nature was restrained but not helped it was provoked but not sweetly assisted our Understandings were instructed but our Wills not sanctified and there were no suppletories of Repentance every greater sin was like the fall of an Angel irreparable by any mystery or express recorded or enjoyned Now of a man under this Govenant he describes the condition to be such that he understands his Duty but by the infirmities of Nature he is certain to fall and by the helps of the Law not strengthened against it nor restored after it and therefore he calls himself under that notion a miserable man sold under sin not doing according to the rules of the Law or the dictates of his Reason but by the unaltered misery of his Nature certain to prevaricate But the person described here is not S. Paul is not any justified person not so much as a Christian but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of Grace as will manifestly appear if we observe the antithesis from S. Paul's own characters For the Man here named is such as in whom sin wrought all concupiscence in whom sin lived and slew him so that he was dead in trespasses and sins and although he did delight in the Law after his inwardman that is his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions which afterwards he calls serving the Law of God with his mind that is in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit yet he could act nothing for the law in his members did inslave him and brought him into captivity to the law of sin so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts he was a slave to sin and dead in trespasses But the state of a regenerate person is such as to have 〈◊〉 the flesh with the affections and lusts in whom sin did not reign not only in the mind but even also not in the mortal body over whom sin had no dominion in whom the old man was crucified and the body of sin was destroyed and sin not at all served And to make the antithesis yet clearer in the very beginning of the next Chapter the Apostle saith that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death under which law he complained immediately before he was sold and killed to shew the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments No man in the state of Grace can say The evil that I would not that I do if by evil he means any evil that is habitual or in its own nature deadly 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation though but in a single act it is a condition of Carnality not of spiritual life and those are not the infirmities of Nature but the weaknesses of Grace that make us sin so frequently which the Apostle truly affirms to the same purpose The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot or that ye do not do the things that ye would This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh and weakness of the spirit For he adds But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law saying plainly that the state of such a combate and disability of doing good is a state of a man under the Law or in the flesh which he accounts all one but every man that is sanctified