the seventh from the Creation or not the Scripture is silent for where it is called in the Commandement the seventh day that is in respect of the six days of labour and not otherwise and therefore whensoever it is so called those six days of labour are mentioned with it The seventh day therefore is the seventh after six days of labour nor can any more be inferred from it The example of the Creation is brought for the quotum one day of seven as I have shewed and not for the designation of any certain day for that seventh Neverthelesse it might fall out so by disposition of Divine Providence that the Jews designed seventh day was both the seventh in order from the Creation and also the day of their deliverance out of Egypt But the Scripture no where tels us it was so howsoever most men take it for granted and therefore it may as well be not so Certain I am the Jews kept not that day for a Sabbath till the raining of Manna For that which should have been their Sabbath the week before had they then kept the day which afterward they kept was the fifteenth day of the second month on which day we reade in the 16. of Exodus that they marched a wearisome march and came at night into the wildernesse of Sin where they murmured for their poor entertainment and wished they had died in Egypt that night the Lord sent them Quails the next morning it rained Manna which was the sixteenth day and so six days together the seventh which was the two and twentieth it rained none and that day they were commanded to keep for their Sabbath now if the two and twentieth day of the month were the Sabbath the fifteenth should have been if that day had been kept before but the Text tels us expresly they marcht that day and which is strange the day of the month is never named unlesse it be once for any station but this where the Sabbath was ordained otherwise it could not have been known that that day was ordained for a day of rest which before was none And why might not their day of holy rest be altered as well as the beginning of the year was for a memoriall of their comming out of Egypt I can see no reason why it might not nor finde any testimony to assure me it was not And thus much of the Jews Sabbath how and wherein it was a sign whereby they professed themselves the servants of Iehovah and no other God Now I come to the second thing I propounded to shew how far and in what manner the like observation binds us Christians I say therefore that the Christian as well as the Iew after six days spent in his own works is to sanctifie the seventh that he may professe himself thereby a servant of God the Creatour of Heaven and Earth as well as the Jew For the quotum therefore the Jew and Christian agree but in designation of the day they differ For the Christian chooseth for his Holy day that which with the Jews was the first day of the week and cals it Dominicum that he might thereby professe himself a servant of that God who on the morning of that day vanquished Satan the Spirituall Pharaoh and redeemed us from our Spirituall thraldome by raising Iesus Christ our Lord from the dead begetting us in stead of an earthly Canaan to an inheritance incorruptible in the Heavens In a word the Christian by the day he hallows professes himself a Christian that is as S. Paul speaks To beleeve on him that raised up Iesus from the dead so that the Jew and Christian both though they fall not upon the same day yet make their designation of their day upon the like ground the Jews the memoriall day of their deliverance from the temporall Egypt and temporall Pharaoh the Christians the memoriall of their deliverance from the spirituall Egypt and spirituall Pharaoh But might not will you say the Christian as well have observed the Jewish for his seventh day as the day he doth I answer No he might not For in so doing he should seem not to acknowledge his Redemption to be already performed but still expected For the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the Ministery of Moses was intended for a type and pledge of the spirituall deliverance which was to come by Christ their Canaan also to which they marched being a type of that heavenly inheritance which the redeemed by Christ do look for Since therefore the shadow is now made void by the comming of the substance the relation is changed and God is no longer to be worshipped and beleeved in as a God foreshewing and assuring by types but as a God who hath performed the substance of what he promised And this is that which S. Paul means Colossians 2. 16 17. where he saith Let no man judge you henceforth in respect of a Feast day New Moon or Sabbath days which were a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ. 1. CO◠〈◊〉 5. Every woman praying or prophecying with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head I Have chosen this of the woman rather then that of the man going before it for the Theme of my Discourse First because I conceive the fault at the reformation whereof the Apostle here almeth in the Church of Corinth was the womens only not the mens That which the Apostle speaks of a man praying or prophecying being by way of supposition and for illustration of the unseemlinesse of that guise which the women used Secondly because the condition of the sex in the words read makes something for the better understanding of that which is spoken of both as we shall see presently What I intend to speak upon this Text shall consist of these two parts First of an enquiry what is here meant by prophecying a thing attributed to women and therefore undoubtedly some such thing as they were capable of Secondly what was this fault for matter and manner of the women of the Church of Corinth which the Apostle here reproveth To begin with the first and which I am like to dwell longest upon Some take prophecying here in the stricter sense to be foretelling of things to come as that which in those Primitive times both men and women did by the powring out of the Holy Ghost upon them according to that of the Prophet Ioel applied by S. Peter to the sending of the Holy Ghost at the first promulgation of the Gospel I will powre out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophecy and your young men shall see visions And that such Prophetesses as these were those four Daughters of Philip the Euangelist whereof we read Acts 21. 9. Others take prophecying here in a more large notion for the gift of interpreting and opening Divine mysteries contained in holy Scripture for the instruction and edification of the hearers especially as it was then inspired and
founded in an inflammation of flegme returns every day an Ague which comes from choler every other day from melancholy every third day Now if a body may be kept so long unburied it is supposed it may be kept so long uncorrupted namely where a corruption is not begun before death as in some diseases but longer it will not continue When therefore it is so often inculcated in the New Testament that our Saviour should rise again the third day the Holy Ghost in so speaking respects not so much the number of dayes as the fulfilling of Scripture that Messiahs body should not see corruption but should rise before the time wherin dead bodies begin to corrupt and indeed our Saviour rose again within forty hours after he gave up the Ghost and was not two full dayes in the grave Therefore if there be any other Scripture which implies Messiah should rise before his body should see corruption that Scripture whatsoever it be shews he should rise again within three daies EXODUS 4. 25. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the fore-skin of her son and cast it at his feet and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sponsus sanguinum tu mihi es THEN that is when she saw the Angel of the Lord ready to kill Moses her husband in the Inne because his son was not circumcised she took a sharp stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is she took a knife which according to the custome then was made of stone sharped This we may learn out of Ioshuah 5. 2. where the Lord sayes to Ioshuah Make thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sharp knives say we ad verbum cultros petrarum and circumcise again the children of Israel The Chaldee Paraphrast hath Make thee novaculas acutas the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus far all is clear but for the rest we are to seek First on whom the fault lay and what was the reason of this omission of circumcision Then who and what is meant when it is said she cast or made the foreskin to touch his feet and above all what is meant by sponsus sanguinum Zipporah is commonly reputed to have been a perverse and froward woman and Moses the meekest man on earth to have had that mishap in his choice which many a good man hath The reason because she not onely hindred her childe from being circumcised out of some nicety and aversation thereof as a cruell ceremony but also when she saw there was no remedy but she must do it to save her husbands life yet she did it with an upbraiding indignation telling him that he was a bloody husband who must have such a thing done unto his poor childe But I see no ground either for the one or the other For that the circumcision of the childe was not deferred out of any aversation of hers of that ceremony may be gathered First because she was a Midianitesse and so a daughter of Abraham by Ketu rah and therefore well enough acquainted and inured to that Rite which not onely her Nation the Midianites but all the Nations descended of Abraham observed as may be seen in the Ismaelites or Saracens who learned not this ceremony first from Maâ—…met but retained it as an ancient custome of their Nation Secondly she had suffered already her elder son Gershom to be circumcised wherefore then should we think she was averse from the circumcision of this For that this childe for whom Moses was now in danger was Fleezer his youngest son it cannot be denied for as much as it is evident that Moses at this time was the Father of two sons which by reason as may seem of this disturbance he sent back with his wife unto her Father Iethro as we may reade in the eighteenth Chapter of this Book By which it may be gathered that the cause of this omission of circumcision was not any aversenesse in Zipporah from that rite but rather because they were in their journey when the childe was born and so having no convenient time or place to rest in till the wound might be healed and thinking it might endanger the infants life to be tossed up and down whilst the wound was green in so long and tedious a voyage they resolved to deferre the circumcision And that Zipporah was delivered of this childe when they had begun this journey for Egypt may be gathered by this because Moses before Gods sending him hath but one childe mentioned namely Gershom For what reason can be given why if Eleezer had been then born he should not have been mentioned also But howsoever this case of travell afterward excused the Israelites in the Wildernesse for deferring the circumcision of their children then yet could it not excuse Moses here in regard it was necessitas accersita he being not forced to take his wife and children with him especially his wife being in that case but might have sent her and them back presently to her Father as upon this admonition he did Nor was it indeed fit when God sent him upon such a businesse to carry such an incumbrance with him Thus have we freed Zipporah from the first charge of being the cause of this omission out of any aversenesse to the Divine Ordinance Now I come to shew likewise that the words she spake at the time of circumcision Sponsus sanguinum to mihi es were no words of upbraiding indignation to her husband as is supposed but have a far other meaning For I beleeve not she spake these words to Moses but to her Childe whom she circumcised as the Formula then used in circumcision namely that as the fore-skin fell down at her childes feet not Moses or the Angels feet she pronounced the Verb 〈◊〉 solennia Tu mihi sponsus sanguinum My reasons are First because a Husband is not wont to be called sponsus after the wedding solemnity is past nor can there any such example be shewn in Scripture Ergo it is not like that Zipporah after she was the mother of two children should say to her Husband Sponsus sanguinum tu mihi es Secondly because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word here translated Sponsus properly signifies Gener a son in Law and Sponsus onely by way of equivalence or coincidence because to be made son in Law to the Parents is by being the daughters Sponsus My meaning is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word used signifies not the relation of the Bridegroom to his Bride but his relation to his Brides Parents by taking their daughter to wife And therefore in the whole Scripture we shall never finde it relatively used or with an affix but onely in respect to the wives Father or Mother And of the same condition is the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we often by equivalence translate a Bride but properly signifies Nurus wherefore we shall never finde the Bridegroom call the Bride his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor the Bride the Bridegroom her
suggested in extraordinary manner by the Holy Spirit as Prophecy was given of old according to that of S. Peter Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost So because many in the beginning of the Gospel were guided by a like instinct in the interpretation and application of Scripture they were said to Prophecy Thus the Apostle useth it in the fourteenth Chapter of this Epistle where he discourses of spirituall Gifts and before all prefers this of Prophecy because he that prophecieth saith he speaketh unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort But neither of these kinds of Prophecy sute with the person in my Text which is a woman For it is certain the Apostle speaks here of prophecying in the Church or Congregation but in the Church a woman might not speak no not so much as ask a question for her better instruction much lesse teach and instruct others This the Apostle teacheth us in this very Epistle Chapter the fourteenth even there where he discourseth so largely of those kinds of Prophecy Let your women saith he keep silence in the Churches For it is not permitted unto them to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to be subject And if they will learn let them ask their husbands at home Again in the first of Timothy the second and the eleventh Let the women learn in silence with all subjection 12. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence Note here that to speak in a Church Assembly by way of teaching or instructing others is an act of superiority which therefore a woman might not do because her sex was to be in subjection and so to appear before God in that Garb and Posture which consisted therewith that is they might not speak to instruct men in the Church but to God she might To avoid this difficulty some would have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text to be taken passively namely to hear or be present at Prophecy which is an acception without example either in Scripture or any where else It is true the Congregation is said to pray when the Priest only speaks but that they should be said to preach who are present only at the hearing of a Sermon is a Trope without example For the reason is not alike In prayer the Priest is the mouth of the Congregation and does what he does in their names and they assent to it by saying A men But he that preaches or prophecies is not the mouth of the Church to speak ought in their names that so they might be said to speak too but he is the mouth of God speaking to them It is not likely therefore that those who only hear another speaking or prophecying to them should be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no more as I said then that all they should be said to preach who were at the hearing of a Sermon What shall we do then Is there any other acception of the word prophecying left us which may fit our turn Yes there is a fourth acception which if it can be made good will sute our Text better I think then any of the former to wit that prophecying here should be taken for praising God in Hymnes and Psalms For so it is fitly coupled with praying Praying and praising being the parts of the Christian Liturgy Besides our Apostle also in the fourteenth Chapter of this Epistle joyns them both together I will pray saith he with the spirit and will pray with understanding also I will sing with the spirit and I will sing that is prophecy with understanding also For because Prophets of old did three things First foretell things to come Secondly notifie the will of God unto the people And thirdly uttered themselves in musicall wise and as I may so speak in a poeticall strain and composure Hence it comes to passe that to prophecy in Scripture signifies the doing of any of these three things and amongst the rest to praise God in verse or musicall composure This to be so as I say I shall prove unto you out of two places of Scripture and first out of the first of Chronicles ch 25. where the word Prophecy is three severall times thus used I will alledge the words of the Text at large because I cannot well abbreviate them These they are v. 1. Moreover David and the Captains of the Host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph and of Heman and of Ieduthun who should prophecy with Harps with Psalteries and with Cymbals and the number of the men of Office according to their service was 2. Of the sons of Asaph Zaccur and Ioseph and Nathaniah and Asarelah the sons of Asaph under the hands of Asaph which prophecied according to the order of the King 3. Of Ieduthun the sons of Ieduthun Gedaliah and Zeri and Ieshaiah Hashabiah and Mattithiah and Schimei six under the hands of their Father Ieduthun who prophecied with a Harp to give thanks and to praise the Lord. Lo here to prophecy and to give thanks or confesse and to praise the Lord with spirituall songs made all one Nor needs such a notion seem strange when as even among the Latins the word vates signifieth both him that foretels things to come and a Poet for that the Gentile Oracles were given likewise in verse And S. Paul to Titus cals the Cretian Poet Epimenides a Prophet as one saith he of their own Prophets said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Arabians whose language comes the nearest both in words and notions to the Hebrew call a chief Poet of theirs Princeps omnium Poetarum saith â—rpenius quos unquam vidit mundus Muttenabbi that is Prophetizans or Propheta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now then if Asaph Ieduthun and Heman prophecied when they praised God in such Psalms as are entituled unto their severall Quires as we find them in the Psalm-Book for know that all the Psalms entituled to the sons of Korah belonged to the Quire of Heman who descended from Korah why may not we when we sing the same Psalms be said to prophecy likewise namely as he that useth a prayer composed by another prayeth and that according to the spirit of him that composed it So he that praiseth God with these spirituall and propheticall composures may be said to prophecy according to that spirit which speaketh in them And that Almighty God is well pleased with such service as this may appear by that one story of King Iehoshaphat in the second of Chronicles who when he marched forth against that great confederate Army of the children of Ammon Moab and Mount Seir the Text there tels us that having consulted with his people He appointed singers unto the Lord that should praise the Beauty of holinesse as they went out before the Army and to say Praise the Lord for his mercy endureth
obedient unto their Masters and to please them well in all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not purloining but shewing all good fidelity The Vulgar in both places useth Fraudare defrauding In a word the true signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is surripere suffurari aut clam subducta in commodum nostrum convertere whence Beza turns it by Intervertere Intervertit ex pretio and in Titus Intervertentes In the same sense it is used by the Septuagint in two severall places both pointing at the sin of Sacriledge One is in Achans story Iosh. 7. 1. where what we reade Achan took of the accursed thing the Septuagint renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he purloined the accursed thing that is the thing that was consecrated to God as all the silver and gold was ch 6. ver 19. for which cause when God relates to Ioshua Israels sin as the reason of their flying before their enemies he makes a distinction between Achans Sacriledge and his theft and dissembling ver 11. of the 7. Chap. saying For they have even taken of the accursed thing and have also stollen and dissembled also and they have put it even among their own stuffe The other is in 2 Mac. 4. 32. Menelaus his Sacriledge who stole the sacred Vessels is expressed by it Menelaus saith the Author supposing he had got a convenient time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stole certain vessels of gold out of the Temple and gave some to Andronicus and some he sold into Tyrus and the Cities round about The second expression of Ananias his Sacriledge is by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deceiving or lying to the Holy Ghost or as it is repeated immediately after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lying unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is fallo frustro mentior To deceive cozen lie as also the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which peculiarly signifies Sacrilegious transgression as Lev. 5. 15. and in the story of Achan is in all those places as elsewhere rendred in Targum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lie and the substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lie and in Oaths and promises Non servo frango not to keep or to break them So Ananias his sin was a lying unto or breaking of promise with God for having vowed or promised unto him in his heart the whole price of the field he brought him but part thereof Both expressions point out the same fact which in regard of the matter was stealing or purloining in regard of the Vow and Consecration a breach of promise or lying unto God So that when Peter says in the third verse Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost and to purloin of the price of the land The latter is the explication of the former and is as if it had been said Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost in purloining the price of the land But what will some man say means this speciall expression of the Deity in the Person of the Holy Ghost why is Ananias said to have lied to the Holy Ghost rather then to have lied unto God only For lying unto God would bear the sense I speak of should not then lying unto the Holy Ghost seem to have something else or something more in it I answer Ananias his lie or breach of promise is applied thus in speciall to the Holy Ghost in respect of the prerogative of that Person as to stir and sanctifie so to take notice of the motions of the heart forasmuch therefore as Ananias his Vow and Promise which he broke was not such as men could witnesse or take notice of but such as his own heart or conscience only was privy to hence it is said to have been done under the privity of the Holy Ghost and he in the breach thereof to have lied unto him because that which none but the inward man knoweth of and is yet but in the purpose of the heart is under his privity There is a plain place Rom. 9. to this purpose I say the truth in Christ saith the Apostle I lie not my conscience also bearing me witnesse in the Holy Ghost that is the Holy Ghost who is privy to my conscience bearing me witnesse or my conscience which the Holy Ghost is privy to Some other places of Scripture I could name which may receive light from this notion but I am loth to meddle with them But for their interpretation who expound this lying unto the Holy Ghost of Ananias his hypocrisie I cannot well see how it can stand For Ananias dissembled not with the Holy Ghost but with men the Holy Ghost knew his heart well enough And the hypocrite properly lies unto men who guesse only by the outside and not unto God who knows the heart Others expound lying unto the Holy Ghost as if it were lying to try whether the Holy Ghost in the Apostles could discover him or not But this is an harsh and forc'd sense As for that in the 9. verse whereon it is grounded viz. How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord The word Tempt or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is mistaken the notion thereof in Scripture being otherwhile to provoke God by some presumptuous fact to anger as it were to try whether he will punish or not to dare God There is an evident place for this sense Numb 14. 22. Those men saith the Lord which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wildernesse and have tempted mee now these ten times and have not hearkened to my voice 23. Surely they shall not see the land which I sware to their Fathers neither shall any of them that provoked me see it And thus much of the bare description of Ananias his sin Come we now to the aggravation thereof While it remained was it not thine and after it was sold was it not in thy power That is before it was sold was it not thine and being sold was not the money paid thee was not the price in thine hand Thou hast therefore no excuse for what thou hast done For there were two cases which might have excused Ananias for bringing but part of the price If either he had not been Dominus in solidum the full Proprietary of what was sold or had not received the whole price it was sold for For as for the first it is a rule in Law Quoties Dominium transfertur ad aâ—ium tale transfertur quale apud eum fuit qui tradit A man can sell no more then is his So that if Ananias had been owner but in part he had power to dispose but in part Secondly though he were Dominus in solidum the full Proprietary of the field and so had right enough to sell it yet had not the whole price been received and in his power and possession he might still have been excused for bringing but part thereof But Ananias could