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 Blood of the Son of God who was to dye as the great expiatory Sacrifice for the World Nay it was re-established by the Apostles in the infancy of Christianity and observed by the Primitive Christians for several Ages as we have elsewhere observed 5. THE other Precept was concerning Circumcision given to Abraham at the time of God's entring into Covenant with him God said unto Abraham Thou shalt keep my Covenant c. This is my Covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy Seed after thee every Man-child among you shall be circumcised and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your fore-skin and it shall be a token of the Covenant betwixt me and you God had now made a Covenant with Abraham to take his Posterity for his peculiar People and that out of them should arise the promised Messiah and as all foederal compacts have some solemn and external rites of ratification so God was pleased to add Circumcision as the sign and seal of this Covenant partly as it had a peculiar fitness in it to denote the promised Seed partly that it might be a discriminating badge of Abraham's Children that part whom God had especially chosen out of the rest of Mankind from all other People On Abraham's part it was a sufficient argument of his hearty compliance with the terms of this Covenant that he would so chearfully submit to so unpleasing and 〈◊〉 a sign as was imposed upon him For Circumcision could not but be both painful and dangerous in one of his Years as it was afterwards to be to all new-born Infants whence 〈◊〉 complained of Moses commanding her to circumcise her Son that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an husband of bloods a cruel and inhumane Husband And this the Jewes tell us was the reason why circumcision was omitted during their Fourty Years Journy in the Wilderness it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason of the trouble and inconvenience of the way God mercifully dispensing with the want of it 〈◊〉 it should hinder their travelling the soarness and weakness of the circumcised Person not comporting with hard and continual Journies It was to be administred the eighth day not sooner the tenderness of the Infant not well till then complying with it besides that the Mother of a Male-child was reckoned legally impure till the seventh Day not later probably because the longer it was deferred the more unwilling would Parents be to put their Children to pain of which they would every Day become more sensible not to say the satisfaction it would be to them to see their Children solemnly entred into Covenant Circumcision was afterwards incorporated into the Body of the Jewish Law and entertained with a mighty Veneration as their great and standing Priviledge relied on as the main Basis and Foundation of their 〈◊〉 and hopes of acceptance with Heaven and accounted in a manner equivalent to all the other Rites of the Mosaic Law 6. BUT besides these two we find other positive Precepts which though not so clearly expressed are yet sufficiently intimated to us Thus there seems to have been a Law that none of the Holy Line none of the Posterity of Seth should marry with Infidels or those corrupt and idolatrous Nations which God had rejected as appears in that it 's charged as a great part of the sin of the old World that the Sons of God matched with the Daughters of Men as also from the great care which Abraham took that his Son Isaac should not take a Wife of the Daughters of the Canaanites among whom he dwelt There was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jus Levirationis whereby the next Brother to him who died without Issue was obliged to marry the Widow of the deceased and to raise up seed unto his Brother the contempt whereof cost Onan his Life together with many more particular Laws which the story of those Times might suggest to us But what is of most use and importance to us is to observe what Laws God gave for the administration of his Worship which will be best known by considering what worship generally prevailed in those early Times wherein we shall especially remarque the nature of their publick Worship the Places where the Times when and the Persons by whom it was administred 7. IT cannot be doubted but that the Holy Patriarchs of those days were careful to instruct their Children and all that were under their charge their Families being then very vast and numerous in the Duties of Religion to explain and improve the natural Laws written upon their minds and acquaint them with those Divine Traditions and positive Revelations which they themselves had received from God this being part of that great character which God gave of Abraham I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment To this they joyned Prayer and Invocation than which no duty is more natural and necessary more natural because it fitly expresses that great reverence and veneration which we have for the Divine Majesty and that propensity that is in Mankind to make known their wants none more necessary because our whole dependance being upon the continuance and constant returns of the Divine power and goodness 't is most reasonable that we should make our Daily addresses to him in whom we live move and have our being Nor were they wanting in returns of praise and solemn celebrations of the goodness of Heaven both by entertaining high and venerable thoughts of God and by actions suitable to those honourable sentiments which they had of him In these acts of worship they were careful to use gestures of the greatest reverence and submission which commonly was prostration Abraham bowed himself towards the ground and when God sent the Israelites the happy news of their deliverance out of Egypt they bowed their Heads and worshipped A posture which hath ever been the usual mode of adoration in those Eastern Countries unto this day But the greatest instance of the Publick Worship of those times was Sacrifices a very early piece of Devotion in all probability taking its rise from Adam's fall They were either Eucharistical expressions of thankfulness for blessings received or expiatory offered for the remission of sin Whether these Sacrifices were first taken up at Mens arbitrary pleasure or positively instituted and commanded by God might admit of a very large enquiry But to me the case seems plainly this that as to Eucharistical 〈◊〉 such as first-fruits and the like oblations Mens own reason might suggest and perswade them that it was fit to present them as the most natural significations of a thankful mind And thus far there might be Sacrifices in the
S. Jude speaking of the Scoffers who should come in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts cites this as that which had been before spoken by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ wherein he plainly quotes the words of this Second Epistle of Peter affirming That there should come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts And that this does agree to Peter will further appear by this that he tells us of these Scoffers that should come in the last days that is before the destruction of Jerusalem as that phrase is often used in the New Testament that they should say Where is the promise of his coming Which clearly respects their making light of those threatnings of our Lord whereby he had foretold that he would shortly come in Judgment for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation This he now puts them in mind of as what probably he had before told them of 〈◊〉 vocc when he was amongst them For so we find he did elsewhere Lactantius assuring us That amongst many strange and wonderful things which Peter and Paul preached at Rome and lest upon Record this was one That within a short time God would send a Prince who should destroy the Jews and lay their Cities level with the ground straitly besiege them destroy them with Famine so that they should feed upon one another That their Wives and Daughters should be ravished and their Childrens brains dasht out before their faces that all things should be laid waste by Fire and Sword and themselves perpetually banished from their own Countrey and this for their insolent and merciless usage of the innocent and dear Son of God All which as he observes came to pass soon after their death when 〈◊〉 came upon the Jews and extinguished both their Name and Nation And what Peter here foretold at Rome we need not question but he had done before to those Jews to whom he wrote this Epistle Wherein he especially antidotes them against those corrupt and poisonous principles wherewith many and especially the followers of Simon Magus began to insect the Church of Christ. And this but a little time before his death as appears from that passage in it where he tells them That he knew he must shortly put off his earthly Tabernacle 7. BESIDES these Divine Epistles there were other supposititious writings which in the first Ages were fathered upon S. Peter Such was the Book called his Acts mentioned by Origen Eusebius and others but rejected by them Such was his Gospel which probably at first was nothing else but the Gospel written by S. Mark dictated to him as is generally thought by S. Peter and therefore as S. 〈◊〉 tells us said to be his Though in the next Age there appeared a Book under that Title mentioned by Serapion Bishop of Antioch and by him at 〈◊〉 suffered to be read in the Church but afterwards upon a more careful perusal of it he rejected it as Apocryphal as it was by others after him Another was the Book stiled His Preaching mentioned and quoted both by Clemens Alexandrinus and by Origen but not acknowledged by them to be Genuine Nay expresly said to have been forged by Hereticks by an ancient Author contemporary with S. Cyprian The next was his Apocalypse or Revelation rejected as Sozomen tells us by the 〈◊〉 as Spurious but yet read in some Churches in Palestine in his time The last was the Book called His Judgment which probably was the same with that called Hermes or Pastor a Book of good use and esteem in the first times of Christianity and which as Eusebius tells us was not only frequently cited by the Ancients but also publickly read in Churches 8. WE shall conclude this Section by considering Peter with respect to his several Relations That he was married is unquestionable the Sacred History mentioning his Wives Mother his Wife might we believe Metaphrastes being the Daughter of Aristobulus Brother to Barnabas the Apostle And though S. Hierom would perswade us that he left her behind him together with his Nets when he forsook all to follow Christ yet we know that Father too well to be over-confident upon his word in a case of Marriage or Single life wherein he is not over-scrupulous sometimes to strain a point to make his opinion more fair and plausible The best is we have an infallible Authority which plainly intimates the contrary the testimony of S. Paul who tells us of Cephas that he led about a Wife a Sister along with him who for the most part mutually cohabited lived together for ought that can be proved to the contrary Clemens Alexandrinus gives us this account though he tells us not the time or place That Peter seeing his Wife going towards Martyrdom exceedingly rejoyced that she was called to so great an honour and that she was now returning home encouraging and earnestly exhorting her and calling her by her Name bad her to be mindful of our Lord. Such says he was the Wedlock of that blessed couple and the perfect disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them By her he is said to have had a Daughter called Petronilla Metaphrastes adds a Son how truly I know not This only is certain that S. Clemens of Alexandria reckons Peter for one of the Apostles that was Married and had Children And surely he who was so good a man and so good an Apostle was as good in the relation both of an Husband and a Father SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome Peter's being at Rome granted in general The account of it given by Baronius and the Writers of that Church rejected and disproved No foundation for it in the History of the Apostolick Acts. No mention of it in S. Paul's Epistle to the Romans No news of his being there at S. Paul's coming to Rome nor intimation of any such thing in the several Epistles which S. Paul wrote from thence S. Peter's first being at Rome inconsistent with the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem And with an Ancient Tradition that the Apostles were commanded to stay Twelve years in Judaea after Christ's death Apassage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the 〈◊〉 of the Romish Church in their Accounts Peter's being XXV years Bishop of Rome no solid foundation for it in Antiquity The Planting and Governing that Church equally attributed to Peter and Paul S. Peter when probably came to Rome Different dates of his Martyrdom assigned by the Ancients A probable account given of it 1. THOUGH it be not my purpose to swim against the Stream and Current of Antiquity in denying S. Peter to have been at Rome an Assertion easilier perplexed and intangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there
in the 〈◊〉 year of his Age and was buried in the Sepulchre which himself had purchased of the sons of Heth. Contemporary with Abraham was his Nephew Lot a just man but vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked for dwelling in the midst of an impure and debauched generation In seeing and hearing he vexed his righteous Soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds This endeared him to Heaven who took a particular care of him and sent an Angel on purpose to conduct him and his family out of Sodom before he let loose that fatal vengeance that overturned it 18. Abraham being dead Isaac stood up in his stead the son of his Parents old age and the fruit of an extraordinary promise Being delivered from being a sacrifice he frequented say the Jews the School of Sem wherein he was educated in the knowledge of Divine things till his marriage with Rebeccah But however that was he was a good man we read of his going out to meditate or pray in the field at even-tide and elsewhere we find him publickly sacrificing and calling upon God In all his distresses God still appeared to him animated him against his fears and encouraged him to go on in the steps of his Father renewing the same promises to him which he had made to Abraham Nay so visible and remarkable was the interest which he had in Heaven that Abimelech King of the Philistines and his Courtiers thought it their wisest course to confederate with him for this very reason because they saw certainly that the Lord was with him and that he was the blessed of the Lord. Religion is the truest interest and the wisest portion 't is the surest protection and the safest refuge When a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Isaac dying in the CLXXX year of his life the Patriarchate devolved upon his son Jacob by vertue of the primogeniture which he had purchased of his brother Esau and which had been confirmed to him by the grant and blessing of his Father though subtilly procured by the artifice and policy of his Mother who also told him that God Almighty would bless and multiply him and his seed after him and that the blessing of Abraham should come upon them He intirely devoted himself to the fear and service of God kept up his Worship and vindicated it from the incroachments of Idolatry he erected Altars at every turn and zealously purged his house from those Teraphim or Idols which Rachel had brought along with her out of Laban's house either to prevent her Father's enquiring at them which way Jacob had made his escape or to take away from him the instruments of his Idolatry or possibly that she might have wherewith to propitiate and 〈◊〉 her Father in case he should pursue and overtake them as Josephus thinks though surely then she would have produced them when she saw her Father so zealous to retrieve them He had frequent Visions and Divine condescensions God appearing to him and ratifying the Covenant that he had made with Abraham and changing his name from Jacob to Israel as a memorial of the mighty prevalency which he had with Heaven In his later time he removed his family into Egypt where God had prepared his way by the 〈◊〉 of his son Joseph to be Vice-Roy and Lord of that vast and fertile Country advanced to that place of state and grandeur by many strange and unsearchable methods of the Divine Providence By his two Wives the Daughters of his Uncle Laban and his two Handmaids he had twelve Sons who afterwards became founders of the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish Nation to whom upon his death-bed he bequeathed his blessings consigning their several portions and the particular fates of every Tribe among whom that of 〈◊〉 is most remarkable to whom it was foretold that the 〈◊〉 should arise out of that Tribe that the Regal Power Political Soveraignty should be annexed to it and remain in it till the 〈◊〉 came at whose coming the Scepter should depart and the Law-giver from between his knees And thus all their own Paraphrasts both Onkelos Jonathan and he of Jerusalem do expound it that there should not want Kings or Rulers of the house of Judah nor Scribes to teach the Law of that race 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until the time that 〈◊〉 the King shall come whose the Kingdom is And so it accordingly came to pass for at the time of Christ's Birth Herod who was a stranger had usurped the Throne debased the Authority of their great Sanhedrim murdered their Senators devested them of all Judiciary power and kept them so low that they had not power 〈◊〉 to put a man to death And unto him shall the gathering of the people be A prophecy exactly accomplished when in the first Ages of Christianity the Nations of the World 〈◊〉 to the standard of Christ at the publication of the Gospel Jacob died CXLVII years old and was buried in Canaan in the Sepulchre of his Fathers After whose decease his posterity for some hundreds of years were afflicted under the Egyptian yoke Till God remembring the Covenant he had made with their Fathers powerfully rescued them from the Iron Furnace and conducted them through the wilderness into the Land of Promise where he framed and ordered their Commonwealth appointed Laws for the government of their Church and setled them under a more fixed and certain dispensation 19. HITHERTO we have surveyed the state of the Church in the constant succession of the Patriarchal Line But if we step a little further into the History of those times we shall find that there were some extraordinary persons without the Pale of that holy Tribe renowned for the worship of God and the profession of Religion among whom two are most considerable Melchisedeck and Job Melchisedeck was King of Salem in the land of Canaan and Priest of the most high God The short account which the Scripture gives of him hath left room for various fancies and conjectures The opinion that has most generally obtained is that Melchisedeck was Sem one of the sons of Noah who was of a great Age and lived above LXX years after Abraham's coming into Canaan and might therefore well enough meet him in his triumphant return from his conquest over the Kings of the Plain But notwithstanding the universal authority which this opinion assumes to it self it appears not to me with any tolerable probability partly because Canaan where Melchisedeck lived was none of those Countries which were allotted to Sem and to his posterity and unlikely it is that he should be Prince in a foreign Country partly because those things which the Scripture reports concerning Melchisedeck do no ways agree to Sem as that he was without Father and Mother without genealogie c. whenas Moses does most exactly describe and record Sem and his Family both as to his Ancestors
intended them not for Nourishment I am sure it less intended them for Pride and wantonness they are needless Excrescences and Vices of Nature unless imployed in Nature's work and proper intendment And if it be a matter of consideration of what bloud Children are derived we may also consider that the derivation continues after the birth and therefore abating the sensuality the Nurse is as much the Mother as she that brought it forth and so much the more as there is a longer communication of constituent nourishment for so are the first emanations in this than in the other So that here is first the Instinct or prime intendment of Nature 10. Secondly And that this Instinct may also become humane and reasonable we see it by experience in many places that Foster-Children are dearer to the Nurse than to the Mother as receiving and ministring respectively perpetual prettinesses of love and fondness and trouble and need and invitations and all the instruments of indearment besides a vicinity of dispositions and relative tempers by the communication of bloud and spirits from the Nurse to the Suckling which makes use the more natural and nature more accustomed And therefore the affections which these exposed or derelict Children bear to their Mothers have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion and that little of love which is abated from the Foster-parents upon publick report that they are not natural that little is transferred to Mothers upon the same opinion and no more Hence come those unnatural aversions those unrelenting dispositions those carelesnesses and incurious deportments towards their Children which are such ill-sown seeds from whence may arise up a bitterness of disposition and mutual provocation The affection which Children bear to their Nurses was highly remarked in the instance of Scipio Asiaticus who rejected the importunity of his Brother Africanus in behalf of the ten Captains who were condemned for offering violence to the Vestals but pardoned them at the request of his Foster-sister and being asked why he did more for his Nurse's Daughter than for his own Mother's Son gave this answer I esteem her rather to be my Mother that brought me up than her that bare me and forsook me And I have read the observation That many Tyrants have killed their Mothers but never any did violence to his Nurse as if they were desirous to suck the bloud of their Mother raw which she refused to give to them digested into milk And the Bastard-Brother of the Gracchi returning from his Victories in Asia to Rome presented his Mother with a Jewel of Silver and his Nurse with a Girdle of Gold upon the same account Sometimes Children are exchanged and artificial Bastardies introduced into a Family and the right Heir supplanted It happened so to Artabanus King of Epirus his Child was changed at nurse and the Son of a mean Knight succeeded in the Kingdom The event of which was this The Nurse too late discovered the Treason a bloudy War was commenced both the Pretenders slain in Battel and the Kingdom it self was usurped by Alexander the Brother to Olympias the wife of Philip the Macedonian At the best though there happen no such extravagant and rare accidents yet it is not likely a Stranger should love the Child better than the Mother and if the Mother's care could suffer it to be exposed a Stranger 's care may suffer it to be neglected For how shall an Hireling endure the inconveniences the tediousnesses and unhandsomnesses of a Nursery when she whose natural affection might have made it pleasant out of wantonness or softness hath declined the burthen But the sad accidents which by too frequent observation are daily seen happening to Nurse-children give great probation that this intendment of Nature designing Mothers to be the Nurses that their affection might secure and increase their care and the care best provide for their Babes is most reasonable and proportionable to the discourses of Humanity 11. But as this instinct was made reasonable so in this also the reason is in order to grace and spiritual effects and therefore is among those things which God hath separated from the common Instincts of Nature and made properly to be Laws by the mixtures of Justice and Charity For it is part of that Education which Mothers as a duty owe to their children that they do in all circumstances and with all their powers which God to that purpose gave them promote their capacities and improve their faculties Now in this also as the temper of the Body is considerable in order to the inclinations of the Soul so is the Nurse in order to the temper of the Body and a Lamb sucking a Goat or a Kid sucking an Ewe change their fleece and hair respectively say Naturalists For if the Soul of Man were put into the body of a Mole it could not see nor speak because it is not fitted with an Instrument apt and organical to the faculty and when the Soul hath its proper Instruments its musick is pleasant or harsh according to the sweetness or the unevenness of the string it touches for David himself could not have charmed Saul's melancholick spirit with the strings of his Bow or the wood of his Spear And just so are the actions or dispositions of the Soul angry or pleasant lustful or cold querulous or passionate according as the Body is disposed by the various intermixtures of natural qualities And as the carelesness of Nurses hath sometimes returned Children to their Parents crooked consumptive half starved and unclean from the impurities of Nature so their society and their nourishment together have disposed them to peevishness to lust to drunkenness to pride to low and base demeanours to stubbornness And as a man would have been unwilling to have had a Child by Harpaste Seneca's wife's Fool so he would in all reason be as unwilling to have had her to be the Nurse for very often Mothers by the birth do not transmit their imperfections yet it seldome happens but the Nurse does Which is the more considerable because Nurses are commonly persons of no great rank certainly lower than the Mother and by consequence liker to return their Children with the lower and more servile conditions and commonly those vainer people teach them to be peevish and proud to lie or at least seldom give them any first principles contrariant to the Nurse's vice And therefore it concerns the Parents care in order to a vertuous life of the Child to secure its first seasonings because whatever it sucks in first it swallows and believes infinitely and practises easily and continues longest And this is more proper for a Mother's care while the Nurse thinks that giving the Child suck and keeping its body clean is all her duty But the Mother cannot think her self so easily discharged And this consideration is material in all cases be the choice of the Nurse never so prudent and curious and
and the sons of Israel never murmured when God bad them borrow jewels and ear-rings and spoil the Egyptians But because God restrained these desires our duties are the harder because they are fetters to our Liberty and contradictions to those natural inclinations which also are made more active by evil custom and unhandsome educations From which Premisses we shall observe in order to practice That sin creeps upon us in our education so tacitely and undiscernibly that we mistake the cause of it and yet so prevalently and effectually that we judge it to be our very nature and charge it upon Adam to lessen the imputation upon us or to increase the licence or the confidence when every one of us is the Adam the man of sin and the parent of our own impurities For it is notorious that our own iniquities do so discompose our naturals and evil customs and examples do so incourage impiety and the Law of God enjoyns such Vertues which do violence to Nature that our proclivity to sin is occasioned by the accident and is caused by our selves what-ever mischief Adam did to us we do more to our selves We are taught to be revengeful in our Cradles and are taught to strike our Neighbour as a means to still our frowardness and to satisfie our wranglings Our Nurses teach us to know the greatness of our Birth or the riches of our Inheritance or they learn us to be proud or to be impatient before they learn us to know God or to say our Prayers And then because the use of Reason comes at no definite time but insensibly and divisibly we are permitted such acts with impunity too long deferring to repute them to be sins till the habit is grown strong natural and masculine and because from the infancy it began in inolinations and tender overtures and slighter actions Adam is laid in the fault and Original sin did all and this clearly we therefore confess that our faults may seem the less and the misery be pretended natural that it may be thought to be irremediable and therefore we not engaged to endeavour a cure so that the confession of our original sin is no imitation of Christ's Humility in suffering Circumcision but too often an act of Pride Carelesness Ignorance and Security 8. At the Circumcision his Parents imposed the Holy Name told to the Virgin by the Angel his Name was called JESUS a Name above every name For in old times God was known by names of Power of Nature of Majesty But his name of Mercy was reserved till now when God did purpose to pour out the whole treasure of his Mercy by the mediation and ministry of his Holy Son And because God gave to the Holy Babe the name in which the treasures of Mercy were deposited and exalted this name above all names we are taught that the purpose of his Counsel was to exalt and magnifie his Mercy above all his other works he being delighted with this excellent demonstration of it in the Mission and Manifestation and Crucifixion of his Son he hath changed the ineffable Name into a name utterable by man and desirable by all the world the Majesty is all arrayed in robes of Mercy the Tetragrammation or adorable Mystery of the Patriarchs is made fit for pronunciation and expression when it becometh the name of the Lord 's CHRIST And if JEHOVAH be full of majesty and terrour the name JESUS is full of sweetness and mercy It is GOD clothed with circumstances of facility and opportunities of approximation The great and highest name of GOD could not be pronounced truly till it came to be sinished with a Guttural that made up the name given by this Angel to the Holy Child nor God received or entertained by men till he was made humane and sensible by the adoption of a sensitive nature like Vowels pronunciable by the intertexture of a Consonant Thus was his Person made tangible and his Name utterable and his Mercy brought home to our necessities and the Mystery made explicate at the Circumcision of this Holy Babe 9. But now God's mercy was at full Sea now was the time when God made no reserves to the effusion of his mercy For to the Patriarchs and persons of eminent Sanctity and imployment in the elder Ages of the World God according to the degrees of his manifestation or present purpose would give them one letter of this ineffable Name For the reward that Abraham had in the change of his name was that he had the honour done him to have one of the letters of Jehovah put into it and so had Joshua when he was a type of Christ and the Prince of the Israelitish Armies and when God took away one of these letters it was a curse But now he communicated all the whole Name to this Holy Child and put a letter more to it to signifie that he was the glory of God the express image of his Father's person God Eternal and then manifested to the World in his Humanity that all the intelligent world who expected Beatitude and had treasured all their hopes in the ineffable Name of GOD might find them all with ample returns in this Name of JESUS which God hath exalted above every name even above that by which God in the Old Testament did represent the greatest awfulness of his Majesty This miraculous Name is above all the powers of Magical Inchantments the nightly rites of Sorcerers the Secrets of Memphis the Drugs of Thessaly the silent and mysterious Murmurs of the wise Chaldees and the Spells of Zoroastres This is the Name at which the Devils did tremble and pay their inforced and involuntary adorations by confessing the Divinity and quitting their possessions and usurped habitations If our prayers be made in this Name God opens the windows of Heaven and rains down benediction at the mention of this Name the blessed Apostles and Hermione the daughter of St. Philip and Philotheus the son of Theophila and St. Hilarion and St. Paul the Eremite and innumerable other Lights who followed hard after the Sun of Righteousness wrought great and prodigious Miracles Signs and wonders and healings were done by the Name of the Holy Child JESUS This is the Name which we should ingrave in our hearts and write upon our fore-heads and pronounce with our most harmonious accents and rest our faith upon and place our hopes in and love with the overflowings of charity and joy and adoration And as the revelation of this Name satisfied the hopes of all the World so it must determine our worshippings and the addresses of our exteriour and interiour Religion it being that Name whereby God and God's mercies are made presential to us and proportionate objects of our Religion and affections The PRAYER MOst Holy and ever-Blessed Jesu who art infinite in Essence glorious in Mercy mysterious in thy Communications affable and presential in the descents of thy Humanity I
on the waters The Lord did so and Peter throwing himself upon the confidence of his Master's power and providence came out of the ship and his fear began to weigh him down and he cried saying Lord save me Jesus took him by the hand reproved the timorousness of his Faith and went with him into the ship where when they had worshipped him and admired the Divinity of his Power and Person they presently came into the land of Genesareth the ship arriving at the Port immediately and all that were sick or possessed with unclean spirits were brought to him and as many as touched the border of his garment were made whole 3. By this time they whom Jesus had left on the other side of the Lake had come as far as Capernaum to seek him wondring that he was there before them but upon the occasion of their so diligent inquisition Jesus observes to them That it was not the Divinity of the Miracle that provoked their zeal but the satisfaction they had in the loaves a carnal complacency in their meal and upon that intimation speaks of celestial bread the divine nutriment of souls and then discourses of the mysterious and symbolical manducation of Christ himself affirming that he himself was the bread of life that came down from Heaven that he would give his Disciples his flesh to eat and his bloud to drink and all this should be for the life of the World to nourish unto life eternal so that without it a happy eternity could not be obtained Upon this discourse divers of his Disciples amongst whom S. Mark the Evangelist is said to be one though he was afterwards recalled by Simon Peter for sook him being scandalized by their literal and carnal understanding of those words of Jesus which he intended in a spiritual sence For the words that he spake were not profitable in the sence of flesh and bloud but they are spirit and they are life himself being the Expounder who best knew his own meaning 4. When Jesus saw this great defection of his Disciples from him he turned him to the twelve Apostles and asked if they also would go away Simon Peter answered Lord whither shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life And we believe and are sure thou art that CHRIST the Son of the living God Although this publick confession was made by Peter in the name and confidence of the other Apostles yet Jesus told them that even amongst the twelve there was one Devil meaning Judas Iscariot who afterwards betrayed him This he told them Prophetically that they might perceive the sad accidents which afterwards happened did not invade and surprize him in the disadvantages of ignorance or improvision but came by his own knowledge and providence 5. Then came to him the Pharisees and some Scribes which came from Jerusalem and Galilee for Jesus would not go to Judaea because the Jews laid wait to kill him and quarrelled with him about certain impertinent unnecessary Rites derived to them not by Divine sanction but ordinances of man such as were washing their hands oft when they eat baptizing cups and platters and washing tables and beds which ceremonies the Apostles of Jesus did not observe but attended diligently to the simplicity and spiritual Holiness of their Master's Doctrine But in return to their vain demands Jesus gave them a sharp reproof for prosecuting these and many other traditions to the discountenance of Divine Precepts and in particular they taught men to give to the Corban and refused to supply the necessity of their parents thinking it to be Religion though they neglected Piety and Charity And again he thunders out woes and sadnesses against their impieties for being curious of minutes and punctual in rites and ceremonials but most negligent and incurious of Judgment and the love of God for their Pride for their Hypocrisie for their imposing burthens upon others which themselves helped not to support for taking away the key of knowledge from the people obstructing the passages to Heaven for approving the acts of their Fathers in persecuting the Prophets But for the Question it self concerning Washings Jesus taught the people that no outward impurity did stain the Soul in the sight of God but all pollution is from within from the corruption of the heart and impure thoughts unchast desires and unholy purposes and that Charity is the best purifier in the world 6. And thence Jesus departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon and entred into a house that he might not be known The diligence of a Mother's love and sorrow and necessity found him out in his retirement for a Syrophoenician woman came and be sought him that he would cast the Devil out of her daughter But Jesus discoursed to her by way of discomfort and rejection of her for her Nation 's sake But the seeming denial did but enkindle her desires and made her importunity more bold and undeniable she begged but some crums that fell from the childrens table but one instance of favour to her daughter which he poured forth without measure upon the sons and daughters of Israel Jesus was pleased with her zeal and discretion and pitied her daughter's infelicity and dismissed her with saying The Devil was gone out of her Daughter 7. But Jesus stayed not long here but returning to the Sea of Galilee through the midst of 〈◊〉 they brought unto him a man deaf and dumb whom Jesus cured by touching his tongue and putting his fingers in his ears which caused the people to give a large testimony in approbation of all his actions And they followed him unto a mountain bringing to him multitudes of diseased people and he healed them all But because the people had followed him three days and had nothing to eat Jesus in pity to their need resolved to 〈◊〉 them once more at the charge of a Miracle therefore taking seven 〈◊〉 and a few small fishes he blessed them and satisfied four thousand men besides women and children And there remained seven baskets full of broken bread and fish From whence Jesus departed by ship to the coasts of Mageddon and Dalmanutha whither the Pharisees and Sadduces came seeking of him a sign But Jesus rejected their impertinent and captious demand knowing they did it to ill purposes and with disaffection reproving them that they discerned the face of the sky and the prognosticks of fair or foul weather but not the signs of the times of the Son of man However since they had neglected so great demonstrations of Miracles gracious Discourses holy Laws and Prophecies they must expect no other sign but the 〈◊〉 of the Prophet Jonas meaning the Resurrection of his Body after three days burial and so he dismissed the impertinent inquisitors 8. And passing again over the Lake as his Disciples were solicitous because they had forgot to take bread he gave them caution to beware of the leven of the Pharisees and Sadduces and the leven of Herod meaning the
Saul's seven sons were hanged for breaking the League of Gibeon and Ahab's sin was punished in his posterity he escaping and the evil was brought upon his house in his son's days In all these cases the evil descended upon persons in near relation to the sinner and was a punishment to him and a misery to these and were either chastisements also of their own sins or if they were not they served other ends of Providence and led the afflicted innocent to a condition of recompence accidentally procured by that infliction But if for such relation's sake and oeconomical and political conjunction as between Prince and People the evil may be transmitted from one to another much rather is it just when by contract a competent and conjunct person undertakes to quit his relative Thus when the Hand steals the Back is whipt and an evil Eye is punished with a hungry Belly Treason causes the whole Family to be miserable and a Sacrilegious Grandfather hath sent a Locust to devour the increase of the Nephews 8. But in our case it is a voluntary contract and therefore no Injustice all parties are voluntary God is the supreme Lord and his actions are the measure of Justice we who had deserved the punishment had great reason to desire a Redeemer and yet Christ who was to pay the ransome was more desirous of it than we were for we asked it not before it was promised and undertaken But thus we see that Sureties pay the obligation of the principal Debtor and the Pledges of Contracts have been by the best and wisest Nations slain when the Articles have been broken The Thessalians slew 250 Pledges the Romans 300 of the Volsci and threw the Tarentines from the Tarpeian rock And that it may appear Christ was a person in all sences competent to do this for us himself testifies that he had power over his own life to take it up or lay it down And therefore as there can be nothing against the most exact justice and reason of Laws and punishments so it magnifies the Divine Mercy who removes the punishment from us who of necessity must have sunk under it and yet makes us to adore his Severity who would not forgive us without punishing his Son for us to consign unto us his perfect hatred against Sin to conserve the sacredness of his Laws and to imprint upon us great characters of fear and love The famous Locrian Zaleucus made a Law that all Adulterers should lose both their eyes his son was first unhappily surprised in the crime and his Father to keep a temper between the piety and soft spirit of a Parent and the justice and severity of a Judge put out one of his own eyes and one of his Sons So God did with us he made some abatement that is as to the person with whom he was angry but inflicted his anger upon our Redeemer whom he essentially loved to secure the dignity of his Sanctions and the sacredness of Obedience so marrying Justice and Mercy by the intervening of a commutation Thus David escaped by the death of his Son God chusing that penalty for the expiation and Cimon offered himself to prison to purchase the liberty of his Father Miltiades It was a filial duty in Cimon and yet the Law was satisfied And both these concurred in our great Redeemer For God who was the sole Arbitrator so disposed it and the eternal Son of God submitted to this way of expiating our crimes and became an argument of faith and belief of the great Article of Remission of sins and other its appendent causes and effects and adjuncts it being wrought by a visible and notorious Passion It was made an encouragement of Hope for he that spared not his own Son to reconcile us will with him give all things else to us so reconciled and a great endearment of our Duty and Love as it was a demonstration of his And in all the changes and traverses of our life he is made to us a great example of all excellent actions and all patient sufferings 9. In the midst of two Thieves three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain agony and dishonour all of them so eminent and vast that he who could not but hope whose Soul was enchased with Divinity and dwelt in the bosom of God and in the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity yet had a cloud of misery so thick and black drawn before him that he complained as if God had forsaken him but this was the pillar of cloud which conducted Israel into Canaan And as God behind the Cloud supported the Holy Jesus and stood ready to receive him into the union of his Glories so his Soul in that great desertion had internal comforts proceeding from consideration of all those excellent persons which should be adopted into the fellowship of his Sufferings which should imitate his Graces which should communicate his Glories And we follow this Cloud to our Country having Christ for our Guide and though he trode the way leaning upon the Cross which like the staffe of Egypt pierced his hands yet it is to us a comfort and support pleasant to our spirits as the sweetest Canes strong as the pillars of the earth and made apt for our use by having been born and made smooth by the hands of our Elder Brother 10. In the midst of all his torments Jesus only made one Prayer of sorrow to represent his sad condition to his Father but no accent of murmur no syllable of anger against his enemies In stead of that he sent up a holy charitable and effective Prayer for their forgiveness and by that Prayer obtained of God that within 55 days 8000 of his enemies were converted So potent is the prayer of Charity that it prevails above the malice of men turning the arts of Satan into the designs of God and when malice occasions the Prayer the Prayer becomes an antidote to malice And by this instance our Blessed Lord consigned that Duty to us which in his Sermons he had preached That we should forgive our enemies and pray for them and by so doing our selves are freed from the stings of anger and the storms of a revengeful spirit and we oftentimes procure servants to God friends to our selves and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven 11. Of the two Thieves that were crucified together with our Lord the one blasphemed the other had at that time the greatest Piety in the world except that of the Blessed Virgin and particularly had such a Faith that all the Ages of the Church could never shew the like For when he saw Christ in the same condemnation with himself crucisied by the Romans accused and scorned by the Jews forsaken by his own Apostles a dying distressed Man doing at that time no Miracles to attest his Divinity or Innocence yet then he confesses him to be a Lord and a King and his Saviour He confessed his own
and that that Cross stained with his bloud had been left as a memorial of these matters An interpretation that was afterwards confirmed by another grave and learned Bramin who expounded the Inscription to the very same effect The judicious Reader will measure his belief of these things by the credit of the Reporters and the rational probability of the things themselves which for my part as I cannot certainly affirm to be true so I will not utterly conclude them to be false 6. FROM these first plantations of Christianity in the Eastern India's by our Apostle there is said to have been a continued series and succession of Christians hence called S. Thomas-Christians in those parts unto this day The Portugals at their first arrival here found them in great numbers in several places no less as some tell us than fifteen or sixteen thousand Families They are very poor and their Churches generally mean and sordid wherein they had no Images of Saints nor any representations but that of the Cross they are governed in Spirituals by an High-Priest whom some make an Armenian Patriarch of the Sect of Nestorius but in truth is no other than the Patriarch of Muzal the remainder as is probable of the ancient 〈◊〉 and by some though erroneously stiled Babylon residing Northward in the Mountains who together with twelve Cardinals two Patriarchs and several Bishops disposes of all affairs referring to Religion and to him all the Christians of the East yield subjection They promiscuously admit all to the Holy Communion which they receive under both kinds of Bread and Wine though instead of Wine which their Country affords not making use of the juice of Raisons steep'd one night in water and then pressed forth Children unless in case of sickness are not baptized till the fortieth day At the death of Friends their kindred and relations keep an eight days feast in memory of the departed Every Lord's-day they have their publick Assemblies for prayer and preaching their devotions being managed with great reverence and solemnity Their Bible at least the New Testament is in the Syriack Language to the study whereof the Preachers earnestly exhort the people They observe the times of Advent and Lent the Festivals of our Lord and many of the Saints those especially that relate to S. Thomas the Dominica in Albis or Sunday after Easter in memory of the famous confession which S. Thomas on that day made of Christ after he had been sensibly cured of his unbelief another on the first of July celebrated not only by Christians but by Moors and Pagans the people who come to his Sepulchre on Pilgrimage carrying away a little of the red Earth of the place where he was interred which they keep as an inestimable treasure and 〈◊〉 it sovereign against diseases They have a kind of Monasteries of the Religious who live in great abstinence and chastity Their Priests are shaven in fashion of a Cross have leave to marry once but denied a second time No marriages to be dissolved but by death These rites and customs they solemnly pretend to have derived from the very time of S. Thomas and with the greatest care and diligence do observe them at this day The End of S. Thomas's Life THE LIFE OF S. JAMES the Less S. IAMES Minor This Apostle being a Kinsman of our Lord and having Sale first Bishop of Hierusalem was cast down from the top of the Temple and after killed with a Fuâ—â—ers club Baron â—â—â— 1 o The Martyrdom of St. James y e lesse Mauh 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets stonest them which are sent unto thee S. James the Less proved to be the same with him that was Bishop of Jerusalem His Kindred and Relations The Son of Joseph by a former Wife The Brethren of our Lord who His Country what Our Lord's appearance to him after his Resurrection Invested in the See of Jerusalem by whom and why His authority in the Synod at Jerusalem His great diligence and fidelity in his Ministry The conspiracy of his Enemies to take away his Life His Discourse with the Scribes and Pharisees about the Messiah His Martyrdom and the manner of it His Burial where His Death resented by the Jews His strictness in Religion His Priesthood whence His singular delight in Prayer and efficacy in it His great love and charity to Men. His admirable Humility His Temperance according to the rules of the Nazarite Order The Love and respect of the People towards him His Death an inlet to the destruction of the Jewish Nation His Epistle when written What the design and purpose of it The Proto-evangelium ascribed to him 1. BEFORE we can enter upon the Life of this Apostle some difficulty must be cleared relating to his Person Doubted it has been by some whether this was the same with that S. James that was Bishop of Jerusalem three of this Name being presented to us S. James the Great this S. James the Less both Apostles and a third sirnamed the Just distinct say they from the former and Bishop of Jerusalem But this however pretending to some little countenance from antiquity is a very great mistake and built upon a sandy bottom For besides that the Scripture mentions no more than two of this Name and both Apostles nothing can be plainer than that that S. James the Apostle whom S. Paul calls our Lord's Brother and reckons with Peter and John one of the Pillars of the Church was the same that presided among the Apostles no doubt by vertue of his place it being his Episcopal Chair and determined in the Synod at Jerusalem Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus or 〈◊〉 out of him mention any more than two S. James put to death by Herod and S. James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem whom they expresly affirm to be the same with him whom S. Paul calls the Brother of our Lord. Once indeed 〈◊〉 makes our S. James one of the Seventy though elsewere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria he numbers him with the Chief of the Apostles and expresly distinguishes him from the Seventy Disciples Nay S. Hierom though when representing the Opinion of others he stiles him the Thirteenth Apostle yet elsewhere when speaking his own sence sufficiently proves that there were but two James the Son of 〈◊〉 and the other the Son of Alphaeus the one sirnamed the Greater the other the Less Besides that the main support of the other Opinion is built upon the authority of Clemens his Recognitions a Book in doubtful cases of no esteem and value 2. This doubt being removed we proceed to the History of his Life He was the Son as we may probably conjecture of Joseph afterwards Husband to the Blessed Virgin and his first Wife whom S. Hierom from Tradition stiles Escha Hippolytus Bishop of Porto calls Salome and further adds that she was the Daughter of Aggi Brother to Zacharias Father
to John the Baptist. Hence reputed our Lord's Brother in the same sence that he was reputed the Son of Joseph Indeed we find several spoken of in the History of the Gospel who were Christ's Brethren but in what sence was controverted of old S. Hierom Chrysostom and some others will have them so called because the Sons of Mary Cousin-german or according to the custome of the Hebrew Language Sister to the Virgin Mary But Eusebius Epiphanius and the far greater part of the Ancients from whom especially in matters of fact we are not rashly to depart make them the Children of Joseph by a former Wife And this seems most genuine and natural the Evangelists seeming very express and accurate in the account which they give of them Is not this the Carpenter's Son Is not his Mother called Mary and his Brethren James and Joses and Simon and Jude and his Sisters whose Names says the foresaid Hippolytus were Esther and Thamar are they not all with us whence then hath this man these things By which it is plain that the Jews understood these Persons not to be Christ's Kinsmen only but his Brothers the same Carpenter's Sons having the same relation to him that Christ himself had though indeed they had more Christ being but his reputed they his natural Sons Upon this account the Blessed Virgin is sometimes called the Mother of James and Joses for so amongst the Women that attended at our Lord's Crucifixion we find three eminently taken notice of Mary Magdalen Mary the Mother of James and Joses and the Mother of Zebedees Children Where by Mary the Mother of James and Joses no other can be meant than the Virgin Mary it not being reasonable to suppose that the Evangelists should omit the Blessed Virgin who was certainly there and therefore S. John reckoning up the same Persons expresly stiles her the Mother of Jesus And though it is true she was but S. James his Mother-in-law yet the Evangelists might chuse so to stile her because commonly so called after Joseph's death and probably as Gregory of Nyssa thinks known by that Name all along chusing that Title that the Son of God whom as a Virgin she had brought forth might be better concealed and less exposed to the malice of the envious Jews nor is it any more wonder that she should be esteemed and called the Mother of James than that Joseph should be stiled and accounted the Father of Jesus To which add that Josephus eminently skilful in matters of Genealogy and descent expresly says that our S. James was the Brother of Jesus Christ. One thing there is that may seem to lye against it that he is called the Son of Alphaeus But this may probably mean no more than either that Joseph was so called by another Name it being frequent yea almost constant among the Jews for the same Person to have two Names Quis unquam prohibuerit duobus vel tribus nominibus hominem 〈◊〉 vocari as S. Augustin speaks in a parallel case or as a learned Man conjectures it may relate to his being a Disciple of some particular Sect or Synagogue among the Jews called Alphaeans from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting a Family or Society of devout and learned Men of somewhat more eminency than the rest there being as he tells us many such at this time among the Jews and in this probably S. James had entred himself the great reputation of his Piety and strictness his Wisdom Parts and Learning rendring the conjecture above the censure of being trifling and contemptible 3. OF the place of his Birth the Sacred story makes no mention The Jewes in their Talmud for doubtless they intend the same Person stile him more than once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of the Town of Sechania though where that was I am not able to conjecture What was his particular way and course of life before his being called to the Discipleship and Apostolate we find no intimations of in the History of the Gospel nor any distinct account concerning him during our Saviour's life After the Resurrection he was honoured with a particular Appearance of our Lord to him which though silently passed over by the Evangelists is recorded by S. Paul next to the manifesting himself to the Five Hundred Brethren at once he was seen of James which is by all understood of our Apostle S. Hierom out of the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarens wherein many passages are set down omitted by the Evangelical Historians gives us a fuller relation of it viz. that S. James had solemnly sworn that from the time that he had drank of the Cup at the Institution of the Supper he would eat Bread no more till he saw the Lord risen from the dead Our Lord therefore being returned from the Grave came and appeared to him commanded Bread to be set before him which he took blessed and brake and gave to S. James saying Eat thy Bread my Brother for the Son of Man is truly risen from among them that sleep After Christ's Ascension though I will not venture to determine the precise time he was chosen Bishop of Jerusalem preferred before all the rest for his near relation unto Christ for this we find to have been the reason why they chose Symeon to be his immediate Successor in that See because he was after him our Lord's next Kinsman A consideration that made Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee though they had been peculiarly honoured by our Saviour not to contend for this high and honourable Place but freely chuse James the Just to be Bishop of it This dignity is by some of the Ancients said to have been conferred on him by Christ himself constituting him Bishop at the time of his appearing to him But it 's safest with others to understand it of its being done by the Apostles or possibly by some particular intimation concerning it which our Lord might leave behind him 4. TO him we find S. Paul making his Address after his Conversion by whom he was honoured with the right hand of fellowship to him Peter sent the news of his miraculous deliverance out of Prison Go shew these things unto James and to the Brethren that is to the whole Church and especially S. James the Bishop and Pastor of it But he was principally active in the Synod at Jerusalem in the great controversie about the Mosaick Rites for the case being opened by Peter and further debated by Paul and Barnabas at last stood up S. James to pass the final and decretory sentence that the Gentile-Converts were not to be troubled with the bondage of the Jewish Yoke only that for a present accommodation some few indifferent Rites should be observed ushering in the expedient with this positive conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thus judge or decide the matter this is my sentence and determination