which was only added as a seal of the Covenant between God and him and a testimony of that acceptance with God which he had obtained before And this way of God's dealing with Abraham and in him with all his spiritual children the legal Institution could not make void it being impossible that that dispensation which came so long after should disannul the Covenant which God had made with Abraham and his spiritual seed CCCCXXX Years before Upon this account as the Apostle observes the Scripture sets forth Abraham as the great type and pattern of Justification as the Father of all them that believe though they be not Circumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also and the father of Circumcision to them who are not of the Circumcision only but also walk in the steps of that Faith of our Father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised They therefore that are of Faith the same are the children of Abraham And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through Faith preached before the Gospel this Evangelical way of justifying unto Abraham saying In thee shall all Nations be blessed So then they which be of Faith who believe and obey as Abraham did shall be blessed pardoned and saved with faithful Abraham It might further be demonstrated that this has ever been God's method of dealing with Mankind our Apostle in the eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews proving all along by particular instances that it was by such a Faith as this without any relation to the Law of Moses that good men were justified and accepted with God in all Ages of the World 12. THIRDLY He argues against this Jewish way of Justification from the deficiency and imperfection of the Mosaick Oeconomy not able to justifie and save sinners Deficient as not able to assist those that were under it with sufficient aids to perform what it required of them This the Law could not do for that it was weak through the flesh till God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to enable us that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit And indeed could the Law have given life verily righteousness should have been by the Law But alas the Scripture having concluded all Mankind Jew and Gentile under sin and consequently incapable of being justified upon terms of perfect and intire obedience there is now no other way but this That the promise by the Faith of Christ be given to all them that believe i. e. this Evangelical method of justifying sincere believers Besides the Jewish Oeconomy was deficient in pardoning sin and procuring the grace and favour of God it could only awaken the knowledge of sin not remove the guilt of it It was not possible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin all the sacrifices of the Mosaick Law were no further available for the pardon of sin than merely as they were founded in and had respect to that great sacrifice and expiation which was to be made for the sins of Mankind by the death of the Son of God The Priests though they daily ministred and oftentimes offered the same sacrifices yet could they never take away sins No that was reserved for a better and a higher sacrifice even that of our Lord himself who after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God having completed that which the repeated sacrifices of the Law could never effect So that all Men being under guilt and no justification where there was no remission the Jewish Oeconomy being in it self unable to pardon was incapable to justifie This S. Paul elsewhere declared in an open Assembly before Jews and Gentiles Be it known unto you men and brethren that through this man Christ Jesus is preached unto you forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses 13. FOURTHLY He proves that Justification by the Mosaick Law could not stand with the death of Christ the necessity of whose death and sufferings it did plainly evacuate and take away For if righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain If the Mosaical performances be still necessary to our Justification then certainly it was to very little purpose and altogether unbecoming the wisdom and goodness of God to send his own Son into the World to do so much for us and to suffer such exquisite pains and tortures Nay he tells them that while they persisted in this fond obstinate opinion all that Christ had done and suffered could be of no advantage to them Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not again intangled in the yoke of bondage the bondage and servitude of the Mosaick rites Behold I Paul solemnly say unto you That if you be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing For I testifie again to every man that is Circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace The sum of which argument is That whoever lay the stress of their Justification upon Circumcision and the observances of the Law do thereby declare themselves to be under an obligation of perfect obedience to all that the Law requires of them and accordingly supersede the vertue and efficacy of Christ's death and disclaim all right and title to the grace and favour of the Gospel For since Christ's death is abundantly sufficient to attain its ends whoever takes in another plainly renounces that and rests upon that of his own chusing By these ways of reasoning 't is evident what the Apostle drives at in all his discourses about this matter More might have been observed had I not thought that these are sufficient to render his design especially to the unprejudiced and impartial obvious and plain enough 14. LASTLY That Paul's discourses about Justification and Salvation do immediately refer to the controversie between the Orthodox and Judaizing Christians appears hence that there was no other controversie then on foot but concerning the way of Justification whether it was by the observation of the Law of Moses or only of the Gospel and the Law of Christ. For we must needs suppose that the Apostle wrote with a primary respect to the present state of things and so as they whom he had to deal with might and could not but understand him Which yet would have been impossible for them to have done had he intended them for the controversies which have since been bandied with so much zeal and fierceness and to give countenance to those many nice and subtil propositions those curious and elaborate schemes which some Men in these later Ages have drawn of these matters 15. FROM the whole
and exhibited that spiritual impurity from which men were to abstain The Moral Laws founded in the natural notions of mens minds concerning good and evil directly urged men to duty and prohibited their prevarications These three made up the intire Code and Pandects of the Jewish Statutes all which our Apostle comprehends under the general notion of the Law and not the moral Law singly and separately considered in which sence it never appears that the Jews expected justification and salvation by it nay rather that they looked for it meerly from the observance of the ritual and ceremonial Law so that the moral Law is no further considered by him in this question than as it made up a part of the Mosaical constitution of that National and Political Covenant which God made with the Jews at Mount Sinai Hence the Apostle all along in his discourses constantly opposes the Law and the Gospel and the observation of the one to the belief and practice of the other which surely he would not have done had he simply intended the moral Law it being more expresly incorporated into the Gospel than ever it was into the Law of Moses And that the Apostle does thus oppose the Law and Gospel might be made evident from the continued series of his discourses but a few places shall suffice By what Law says the Apostle is boasting excluded by the Law of works i. e. by the Mosaic Law in whose peculiar priviledges and prerogatives the Jews did strangely flatter and pride themselves Nay but by the Law of Faith i. e. by the Gospel or the Evangelical way of God's dealing with us And elsewhere giving an account of this very controversie between the Jewish and Gentile Converts he first opposes their Persons Jews by nature and sinners of the Gentiles and then infers that a man is not justified by the works of the Law by those legal observances whereby the Jewes expected to be justified but by the faith of Christ by a hearty belief of and compliance with that way which Christ has introduced for by the works of the Law by legal obedience no flesh neither Jew nor Gentile shall now be justified Fain would I learn whether you received the spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith that is whether you became partakers of the miraculous powers of the Holy Ghost while you continued under the legal dispensation or since you embraced the Gospel and the faith of Christ and speaking afterwards of the state of the Jews before the revelation of the Gospel says he before faith came we were kept under the Law i. e. before the Gospel came we were kept under the Discipline of the legal Oeconomy shut up unto the faith reserved for the discovery of the Evangelical dispensation which should afterwards in its due time be revealed to the World This in the following Chapter he discourses more at large Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law i. e. Ye Jews that so fondly dote upon the legal state Do ye not hear the Law i. e. Understand what your own Law does so clearly intimate and then goes on to unriddle what was wrapt up in the famous Allegory of Abraham's two Sons by his two Wives The one Ishmael born of Hagar the Bond-woman who denoted the Jewish Covenant made at Mount Sinai which according to the representation of her condition was a servile state The other Isaac born of Sarah the Free-woman was the Son of the promise denoting Jerusalem that is above and is free the mother of us all i. e. The state and covenant of the Gospel whereby all Christians as the spiritual children of Abraham are set free from the bondage of the Mosaic dispensation By all which it is evident that by Law and the works of the Law in this controversie the Apostle understands the Law of Moses and that obedience which the legal dispensation required at their hands 8. WE are secondly to enquire what the Apostle means by Faith and he commonly uses it two ways 1. More generally for the Gospel or that Evangelical way of justification and salvation which Christ has brought in in opposition to Circumcision and the observation of those Rites by which the Jews expected to be justified and this is plain from the preceding opposition where Faith as denoting the Gospel is frequently opposed to the Law of Moses 2. Faith is taken more particularly for a practical belief or such an assent to the Evangelical revelation as produces a sincere obedience to the Laws of it and indeed as concerned in this matter is usually taken not for this or that single virtue but for the intire condition of the New Covenant as comprehending all that duty that it requires of us than which nothing can be more plain and evident In Christ Jesus i. e. under the Gospel neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision 't is all one to Justification whether a Man be circumcised or no What then but Faith which worketh by love which afterwards he explains thus In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature a renewed and divine temper of mind and a new course and state of life And lest all this should not be thought plain enough he elsewhere tells us that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping the Commandments of God From which places there needs no skill to infer that that Faith whereby we are justified contains in it a new disposition and state both of heart and life and an observation of the Laws of Christ in which respect the Apostle does in the very same Verse expound believing by obeying of the Gospel Such he assures us was that very Faith by which Abraham was justified who against all probabilities of reason believed in God's promise he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong c. that is he so firmly believed what God had promised that he gave him the glory of his truth and faithfulness his infinite power and ability to do all things And how did he that by acting suitably in a way of intire resignation and sincere obedience to the divine will and pleasure so the Apostle elsewhere more expresly by Faith he obeyed and went out not knowing whither he went This Faith he tells us was imputed to Abraham for righteousness that is God by vertue of the New Covenant made in Christ was graciously pleased to look upon this obedience though in it self imperfect as that for which he accounted him and would deal with him as a just and a righteous Man And upon this account we find Abraham's faith opposed to a perfect and unsinning obedience for thus the Apostle tells us that Abraham was justified by faith in opposition to his being justified by such an absolute and compleat obedience as might have enabled him to challenge the reward by
from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Job twice speaks of in one Chapter the judged iniquity which the Jews expound and we truly render an iniquity to be punished by the Judges The seventh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the member of any live-creature that is as God expresses it in the Precept to Noah they might not eat the bloud or the flesh with the life thereof Whether these Precepts were by any solemn and external promulgation particularly delivered to the Ante-deluvian Patriarchs as the Jews seem to contend I will not say for my part I cannot but look upon them the last only excepted as a considerable part of Nature's Statute-law as comprizing the greater strokes and lineaments of those natural dictates that are imprinted upon the souls of Men. For what more comely and reasonable and more agreeable to the first notions of our minds than that we should worship and adore God alone as the Author of our beings and the Fountain of our happiness and not derive the lustre of his incommunicable perfections upon any Creature that we should entertain great and honourable thoughts of God and such as become the Grandeur and Majesty of his being that we should abstain from doing any wrong or injury to another from invading his right violating his priviledges and much more from making any attempt upon his life the dearest blessing in this World that we should be just and fair in our transactions and do to all men as we would they should do to us that we should live chastely and temperately and not by wild and extravagant lusts and sensualities offend against the natural modesty of our minds that Order and Government should be maintained in the World Justice advanced and every Man secured in his just possessions And so suitable did these Laws seem to the reason and understandings of Men that the Jews though the most zealous People under Heaven of their Legal Institutions received those Gentiles who observed them as Proselytes into their Church though they did not oblige themselves to Circumcision and the rest of the Mosaick Rites Nay in the first Age of Christianity when the great controversie arose between the Jewish and Gentile-Converts about the obligation of the Law of Moses as necessary to salvation the observation only of these Precepts at least a great part of them was imposed upon the Gentile-Converts as the best expedient to end the difference by the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem 4. BUT though the Law of Nature was the common Law by which God then principally governed the World yet was not he wanting by Methods extraordinary to supply as occasion was the exigencies and necessities of his Church communicating his mind to them by Dreams and Visions and other ways of Revelation which we shall more particularly remark when we come to the Mosaical Oeconomy Hence arose those positive Laws which we meet with in this period of the Church some whereof are more expresly recorded others more obscurely intimated Among those that are more plain and obvious two are especially considerable the prohibition for not eating bloud and the Precept of Circumcision the one given to Noah the other to Abraham The prohibition concerning bloud is thus recorded every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you but flesh with the life thereof which is the bloud thereof shall you not eat The bloud is the vehiculum to carry the spirits as the Veins are the chanels to convey the bloud now the animal spirits give vital heat and activity to every part and being let out the bloud presently cools and the Creature dies Not flesh with the bloud which is the life thereof that is not flesh while it is alive while the bloud and the spirits are yet in it The mystery and signification whereof was no other than this that God would not have Men train'd up to arts of cruelty or whatever did but carry the colour and aspect of a merciless and a savage temper lest severity towards Beasts should degenerate into fierceness towards Men. It 's good to defend the out-guards and to stop the remotest ways that lead towards sin especially considering the violent propensions of humane nature to passion and revenge Men commence bloudy and inhumane by degrees and little approaches in time render a thing in it self abhorrent not only familiar but delightful The Romans who at first entertained the People in the Amphitheatre only with wild Beasts killing one another came afterwards wantonly to sport away the Lives of the Gladiators yea to cast Persons to be devoured by Bears and Lions for no other end than the divertisement and pleasure of the People He who can please himself in tearing and eating the Parts of a living Creature may in short time make no scruple to do violence to the Life of Man Besides eating bloud naturally begets a savage temper makes the spirits rank and fiery and apt to be easily inflamed and blown up into choler and fierceness And that hereby God did design to bar out ferity and to secure mercy and gentleness is evident from what follows after and surely your bloud of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it and at the hand of Man at the hand of every Man's brother will I require the life of man whoso sheddeth Man's bloud by Man shall his bloud be shed The life of a Beast might not be wantonly sacrificed to Mens humours therefore not Man 's the life of Man being so sacred and dear to God that if kill'd by a Beast the Beast it self was to die for it if by man that man's life was to go for retaliation by man shall his bloud be shed where by man we must necessarily understand the ordinary Judge and Magistrate or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call it the lower Judicature with respect to that Divine and Superiour Court the immediate judgment of God himself By which means God admirably provided for the safety and security of Man's life and for the order and welfare of humane society and it was no more than necessary the remembrance of the violence and oppression of the Nephilim or Giants before the Floud being yet fresh in memory and there was no doubt but such mighty Hunters men of robust bodies of barbarous and inhumane tempers would afterwards arise This Law against eating bloud was afterwards renewed under the Mosaick Institution but with this peculiar signification for the life of the flesh is in the bloud and I have given it to you upon the Altar to make an atonement for your souls for it is the bloud that maketh an atonement for the soul that is the bloud might not be eaten not only for the former reason but because God had designed it for particular purposes to be the great Instrument of Expiation and an eminent type of the Bloud of the Son of God who was to die as the great expiatory Sacrifice for
in their story as well as we do of Melchisedeck others again refer him to the time of the Law given at Mount Sinai and the Israelites travels in the Wilderness others to the times of the Judges after the settlement of the Israelites in the Land of Promise nay some to the reign of David and Solomon and I know not whether the Reader will not smile at the fancy of the Turkish Chronologists who make Job Major-domo to Solomon as they make Alexander the Great the General of his Army Others go further and place him among those that were carried away in the Babylonish Captivity yea in the time of Ahasuerus and make his fair Daughters to be of the number of those beautiful young Virgins that were sought-for for the King Follies that need no confutation 'T is certain that he was elder than Moses his Kindred and Family his way of sacrificing the Idolatry rise in his time evidently placing him before that Age besides that there are not the least foot-steps in all his Book of any of the great things done for the Israelites deliverance which we can hardly suppose should have been omitted being examples so fresh in memory and so apposite to the design of that Book Most probable therefore it is that he lived about the time of the Israelitish Captivity in Egypt though whether as some Jews will have it born that very Year that Jacob came down into Egypt and dying that Year that they went out of Egypt I dare not peremptorily affirm And this no question is the reason why we find nothing concerning him in the Writings of Moses the History of those Times being crowded up into a very little room little being recorded even of the Israelites themselves for near Two Hundred Years more than in general that they were heavily oppressed under the Egyptian Yoke More concerning this great and good Man and the things relating to him if the Reader desire to know he may among others consult the elaborate exercitations of the younger Spanhemius in his Historia Jobi where the largest curiosity may find enough to satisfie it 22. AND now for a Conclusion to this Oeconomy if we reflect a little upon the state of things under this period of the World we shall find that the Religion of those early Ages was plain and simple unforced and natural and highly agreeable to the common dictates and notions of Mens minds They were not educated under any foreign Institutions nor conducted by a Body of numerous Laws and written Constitutions but were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo says of them tutor'd and instructed by the dictates of their own minds and the Principles of that Law that was written in their hearts following the order of Nature and right Reason as the safest and most ancient Rule By which means as one of the Ancients observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they maintained a free and uninterrupted course of Religion conducting their lives according to the rules of Nature so that having purged their minds from lust and passion and attained to the true knowledge of God they had no need of external and written Laws Their Creed was short and perspicuous their notions of God great and venerable their devotion and piety real and substantial their worship grave and serious and such as became the grandeur and majesty of the Divine being their Rites and Ceremonies few and proper their obedience prompt and sincere and indeed the whole conduct of their conversation discovering it self in the most essential and important duties of the humane life According to this standard it was that our blessed Saviour mainly designed to reform Religion in his most excellent Institutions to retrieve the piety and purity the innocency and simplicity of those first and more uncorrupted Ages of the World to improve the Laws of Nature and to reduce Mankind from ritual observances to natural and moral duties as the most vital and essential parts of Religion and was therefore pleased to charge Christianity with no more than two positive Institutions Baptism and the Lord's Supper that Men might learn that the main of Religion lies not in such things as these Hence Eusebius undertakes at large to prove the faith and manners of the Holy Patriarchs who lived before the times of Moses and the belief and practice of Christians to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Which he does not only assert and make good in general but deduce from particular instances the examples of Enoch Noah Abraham Melchisedeck Job c. whom he expresly proves to have believed and lived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 altogether after the manner of Christians Nay that they had the name also as well as the thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he shews from that place which he proves to be meant of Abraham Isaac and Jacob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Touch not my Christians mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm And in short that as they had the same common Religion so they had the common blessing and reward SECT II. Of the MOSAICAL Dispensation Moses the Minister of this Oeconomy His miraculous preservation His learned and noble education The Divine temper of his mind His conducting the Israelites out of Egypt Their arrival at Mount Sinai The Law given and how Moral Laws the Decalogue whether a perfect Compendium of the Moral Law The Ceremonial Laws what Reduced to their proper Heads Such as concerned the matter of their Worship Sacrifices and the several kinds of them Circumcision The Passover and its typical relation The place of Publick Worship The Tabernacle and Temple and the several parts of them and their typical aspects considered Their stated times and feasts weekly monthly annual The Sabbatical Year The Year of Jubilee Laws concerning the Persons ministring Priests Levites the High-Priest how a type of Christ. The Design of the Ceremonial Law and its abolition The Judicial Laws what The Mosaick Law how divided by the Jews into affirmative and negative Precepts and why The several ways of Divine revelation Urim and Thummim what and the manner of its giving Answers Bath-Col Whether any such way of revelation among the Jews Revelation by Dreams By Visions The Revelation of the Holy Spirit what Moses his way of Prophecy wherein exceeding the rest The pacate way of the spirit of prophecy This spirit when it ceased in the Jewish Church The state of the Church under this Dispensation briefly noted From the giving of the Law till Samuel From Samuel till Solomon It s condition under the succeeding Kings till the Captivity From thence till the coming of Christ. The state of the Jewish Church in the time of Christ more particularly considered The prophanations of the Temple The Corruption of their Worship The abuse of the Priesthood The Depravation of the Law by false glosses Their Oral and unwritten Law It s original and succession according to the mind of the Jews Their unreasonable and
the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the World who was taken from among men a Lamb without blemish and without spot holy harmless and separate from sinners The Door-posts of the House were to be sprinkled with the bloud of the Lamb to signifie our security from the Divine vengeance by the bloud of sprinkling The Lamb was to be roasted and eaten whole typifying the great sufferings of our blessed Saviour who was to pass through the fire of Divine wrath and to be wholly embrac'd and entertain'd by us in all his Offices as King Priest and Prophet None but those that were clean and circumcised might eat of it to shew that only true believers holy and good men can be partakers of Christ and the merits of his Death It was to be eaten standing with their Loins girt and their staff in their hand to put them in mind what haste they made out of the house of bondage and to intimate to us what present diligence we should use to get from under the empire and tyranny of sin and Satan under the conduct and assistance of the Captain of our Salvation The eating of it was to be mixed with bitter herbs partly as a memorial of that bitter servitude which they underwent in the Land of Egypt partly as a type of that repentance and bearing of the cross duties difficult and unpleasant which all true Christians must undergo Lastly it was to be eaten with unleavened Bread all manner of leaven being at that time to be banished out of their Houses with the most critical diligence and curiosity to represent what infinite care we should take to cleanse and purifie our hearts to purge out the old leaven that we may be a new lump and that since Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us therefore we should keep the Feast the Festival commemoration of his Death not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth 6. THE Places of their Publick Worship were either the Tabernacle made in the Wilderness or the Temple built by Solomon between which in the main there was no other difference than that the Tabernacle was an ambulatory Temple as the Temple was a standing Tabernacle together with all the rich costly Furniture that was in them The parts of it were three the Holiest of all whither none entred but the High-Priest and that but once a Year this was a type of Heaven the holy place whither the Priests entred every Day to perform their Sacred Ministrations and the outward Court whither the People came to offer up their Prayers and Sacrifices In the Sanctum Sanctorum or Holiest of all there was the Golden Censer typifying the Merits and Intercession of Christ the Ark of the Covenant as a representation of him who is the Mediator of the Covenant between God and man the Golden Pot of Manna a type of our Lord the true Manna the Bread that came down from Heaven the Rod of Aaron that budded signifying the Branch of the Root of Jesse that though our Saviour's Family should be reduced to a state of so much meanness and obscurity as to appear but like the trunk or stump of a Tree yet there should come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch grow out of his roots which should stand for an Ensign of the People and in him should the Gentiles trust And within the Ark were the two Tables of the Covenant to denote him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and who is the end and perfection of the Law Over it were the Cherubims of glory shadowing the Mercy-seat who looking towards each other and both to the Mercy-seat denoted the two Testaments or Dispensations of the Church which admirably agree and both direct to Christ the Mediator of the Covenant The Propitiatory or Mercy-seat was the Golden covering to the Ark where God veiling his Majesty was wont to manifest his Presence to give Answers and shew Himself reconciled to the People herein eminently prefiguring our Blessed Saviour who interposes between us and the Divine Majesty whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his bloud for the remission of sins so that now we may come boldly to the Throne of Grace and find mercy to help us Within the Sanctuary or the Holy Place was the Golden Candlestick with Seven-Branches representing Christ who is the Light of the World and who enlightens every one that comes into the World and before whose Throne there are said to be seven Lamps of Fire which are the seven spirits of God The Table compassed about with a Border and a Crown of Gold denoting the Ministry and the Shew-bread set upon it shadowing out Christ the Bread of Life who by the Ministry of the Gospel is offered to the World here also was the Golden Altar of Incense whereon they burnt the sweet Perfumes Morning and Evening to signifie to us that our Lord is the true Altar by whom all our Prayers and Services are rendred the odour of a sweet smell acceptable unto God to this the Psalmist refers Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my hands as the Evening Sacrifice The third part of the Tabernacle as also of the Temple was the Court of Israel wherein stood the Brazen Altar upon which the Holy Fire was continually preserved by which the Sacrifices were consumed one of the Five great Prerogatives that were wanting in the second Temple Here was the Brazen Laver with its Basis made of the brazen Looking-glasses of the Women that assembled at the Door of the Tabernacle wherein the Priests washed their Hands and their Feet when going into the Sanctuary and both they and the People when about to offer Sacrifice to teach us to purifie our hearts and to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit especially when we approach to offer up our services to Heaven hereunto David alludes I will wash mine hands in innocency so will I compass thine Altar O Lord. Solomon in building the Temple made an addition of a fourth Court the Court of the Gentiles whereinto the unclean Jews and Gentiles might enter and in this was the Corban or Treasury and it is sometimes in the New Testament called the Temple To these Laws concerning the Place of Worship we may reduce those that relate to the holy Vessels and Utensils of the Tabernacle and the Temple Candlesticks Snuffers Dishes c. which also had their proper mysteries and significations 7. THE stated times and seasons of their worship are next to be considered and they were either Daily Weekly Monthly or Yearly Their Daily worship was at the time of the Morning and the Evening Sacrifice their Weekly solemnity was the Sabbath which was to be kept with all imaginable care and strictness they being commanded to rest
dispensation of the Messiah but only quarrelled with him for taking upon him to administer it when yet he denied himself to be one of the prime Ministers of this new state They said unto him Why baptizest thou then if thou be not that Christ nor Elias neither that Prophet Either of which had he owned himself they had not questioned his right to enter Proselytes by this way of Baptism It is called the Baptism of Repentance this being the main qualification that he required of those who took it upon them as the fittest means to dispose them to receive the Doctrine and Discipline of the Messiah and to intitle them to that pardon of sin which the Gospel brought along with it whence he is said to baptize in the Wilderness and to preach the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And the success was answerable infinite Multitudes flocking to it and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins Nor is it the least part of his happiness that he had the honour to baptize his Saviour which though modestly declined our Lord put upon him and was accompanied with the most signal and miraculous attestations which Heaven could bestow upon it 5. AFTER his Preparatory Preachings in the Wilderness he was called to Court by Herod at least he was his frequent Auditor was much delighted with his plain and impartial Sermons and had a mighty reverence for him the gravity of his Person the strictness of his Manners the freedom of his Preaching commanding an awe and veneration from his Conscience and making him willing in many things to reform But the bluntness of the holy Man came nearer and touched the King in the tenderest part smartly reproving his adultery and incestuous embraces for that Prince kept Herodias his Brother Philip's Wife And now all corrupt interests were awakened to conspire his ruine Extravagant Lusts love not to be controll'd and check'd Herodias resents the affront cannot brook disturbance in the pleasures of her Bed or the open challenging of her honour and therefore by all the arts of Feminine subtilty meditates revenge The issue was the Baptist is cast into Prison as the praeludium to a sadder fate For among other pleasures and scenes of mirth performed upon the King's Birth-day Herod being infinitely pleased with the Dancing of a young Lady Daughter of this Herodias promised to give her Her request and solemnly ratified his promise with an Oath She prompted by her Mother asks the Head of John the Baptist which the King partly out of a pretended reverence to his Oath partly out of a desire not to be interrupted in his unlawful pleasures presently granted and it was as quickly accomplished Thus died the Holy man a man strict in his conversation beyond the ordinary measures of an Anchoret bold and resolute faithful and impartial in his Office indued with the power and spirit of Elias a burning and a shining light under whose light the Jews rejoyced to sit exceedingly taken with his temper and principles He was the happy Messenger of the Evangelical tidings and in that respect more than a Prophet a greater not arising among them that were born of Women In short he was a Man loved of his Friends revered and honoured by his Enemies Josephus gives this character of him that he was a good man and pressed the Jews to the study of vertue to the practice of piety towards God and justice and righteousness towards men and to joyn themselves to his Baptism which he told them would then become effectual and acceptable to God when they did not only cleanse the body but purifie the mind by goodness and vertue And though he gives somewhat a different account of Herod's condemning him to die from what is assigned in the Sacred History yet he confesses that the Jews universally looked upon the putting him to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod's Army and an evident effect of the Divine vengeance and displeasure The Jews in their Writings make honourable mention of his being put to death by Herod because reproving him for the company of his Brother Philip's Wife stiling him Rabbi Johanan the High-Priest and reckoning him one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the wise men of Israel Where he is called High-Priest probably with respect to his being the Son of Zachariah Head or Chief of one of the XXIV Families or courses of the Priests who are many times called Chief or High-Priests in Scripture 6. THE Evangelical state being thus proclaimed and ushered in by the Preaching and Ministry of the Baptist our Lord himself appeared next more fully to publish and confirm it concerning whose Birth Life Death and Resurrection the Doctrine he delivered the Persons he deputed to Preach and convey it to the World and its success by the Ministry of the Apostles large and particular accounts are given in the following work That which may be proper and material to observe in this place is what the Scripture so frequently takes notice of the excellency of this above the preceding dispensations especially that brought in by Moses so much magnified in the Old Testament and so passionately admired and adhered to by the Jews at this day Jesus is the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls it of a better Covenant And better it is in several regards besides the infinite difference between the Persons who were imployed to introduce and settle them Moses and our Lord. The preheminence eminently appears in many instances whereof we shall remark the most considerable And first the Mosaick dispensation was almost wholly made up of types and shadows the Evangelical has brought in the truth and substance The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Their Ordinances were but shadows of good things to come sensible representations of what was to follow after the Body is Christ the perfection and accomplishment of their whole ritual Ministration Their Ceremonies were Figures of those things that are true the Land of Canaan typified Heaven Moses and Joshua were types of the Blessed Jesus and the Israelites after the flesh of the true Israel which is after the Spirit and all their Expiatory Sacrifices did but represent that Great Sacrifice whereby Christ offered up himself and by his own bloud purged away the sins of mankind indeed the most minute and inconsiderable circumstances of the Legal Oeconomy were intended as little lights that might gradually usher in the state of the Gospel A curious Artist that designs a famous and excellent piece is not wont to complete and finish it all at once but first with his Pencil draws some rude lines and rough draughts before he puts his last hand to it By such a method the wise God seems to have delivered the first draughts and Images of those things by Moses to the Church the substance and perfection whereof he designed should be brought in by Christ. And how
plainly confessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and Ascension which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our present state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing perfect 'T was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it were uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the influences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit I 'le enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to exceed in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this case is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods ratified by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he laid down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when our Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so 't were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His
to any that would abuse it to confirm and countenance delusions and impostures Nicodemus his reasoning was very plain and convictive when he concludes that Christ must needs be a Teacher come from God for that no man could do those Miracles that he did except God were with him The force of which argument lies here that nothing but a Divine power can work Miracles and that Almighty God cannot be supposed miraculously to assist any but those whom he himself sends upon his own errand The stupid and barbarous Lycaonians when they beheld the Man who had been a Cripple from his Mothers womb cured by S. Paul in an instant only with the speaking of a word saw that there was something in it more than humane and therefore concluded that the Gods were come down to them in the likeness of Men. Upon this account S. Paul reckons Miracles among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the signs and evidences of an Apostle whom therefore Chrysostom brings in elegantly pleading for himself that though he could not shew as the signs of his Priesthood and Ministry long Robes and gaudy Vestments with Bells sounding at their borders as the Aaronical Priests did of old though he had no golden Crowns or holy Mitres yet could he produce what was infinitely more venerable and regardable than all these unquestionable Signs and Miracles He came not with Altars and Oblations with a number of strange and symbolick Rites but what was greater raised the dead cast out Devils cured the blind healed the lame making the Gentiles obedient by word and deed thorough many signs and wonders wrought by the power of the spirit of God These were the things that clearly shewed that their mission and ministry was not from men nor taken up of their own heads but that they acted herein by a Divine warrant and authority That therefore it might plainly appear to the World that they did not falsify in what they said or deliver any more than God had given them in commission he enabled them to do strange and miraculous operations bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost This was a power put into the first draught of their commission when confined only to the Cities of Israel As ye go preach saying The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out Devils freely you have received freely give but more fully confirmed upon them when our Lord went to Heaven then he told them that these signs should follow them that believe that in his Name they should cast out Devils and speak with new tongues that they should take up serpents and if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt them that they should lay hands on the sick and they should recover And the event was accordingly for they went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following When Paul and Barnabas came up to the Council at Jerusalem this was one of the first things they gave an account of all the multitude keeping silence while they declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them Thus the very shadow of Peter as he passed by cured the sick thus God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them So that besides the innate characters of Divinity which the Christian religion brought along with it containing nothing but what was highly reasonable and very becoming God to reveal it had the highest external evidence that any Religion was capable of the attestation of great and unquestionable Miracles done not once or twice not privately and in corners not before a few simple and credulous persons but frequently and at every turn publickly and in places of the most solemn concourse before the wisest and most judicious enquirers and this power of miracles continued not only during the Apostles time but for some Ages after X. But because besides Miracles in general the Scripture takes particular notice of many gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost conferred upon the Apostles and first Preachers of the Gospel it may not be amiss to consider some of the chiefest and most material of them as we find them enumerated by the Apostle only premising this observation that though these gifts were distinctly distributed to persons of an inferiour order so that one had this and another that yet were they probably all conferr'd upon the Apostles and doubtless in larger proportions than upon the rest First we take notice of the gift of Prophecy a clear evidence of divine inspiration and an extraordinary mission the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy It had been for many Ages the signal and honourable priviledge of the Jewish Church and that the Christian Oeconomy might challenge as sacred regards from men and that it might appear that God had not withdrawn his Spirit from his Church in this new state of things it was revived under the dispensation of the Gospel according to that famous Prophecy of Joel exactly accomplished as Peter told the Jews upon the day of Pentecost when the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were so plentifully shed upon the Apostles and Primitive Christians This is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel It shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie and your young Men shall see Visions and your old Men shall dream Dreams and on my servants and on my Hand-maidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesie It lay in general in revealing and making known to others the mind of God but discovered it self in particular instances partly in foretelling things to come and what should certainly happen in after-times a thing set beyond the reach of any finite understanding for though such effects as depend upon natural agents or moral and political causes may be foreseen by studious and considering persons yet the knowledge of futurities things purely contingent that meerly depend upon mens choice and their mutable and uncertain wills can only fall under his view who at once beholds things past present and to come Now this was conferred upon the Apostles and some of the first Christians as appears from many instances in the History of the Apostolick Acts and we find the Apostles writings frequently interspersed with prophetical predictions concerning the great apostasie from the faith the universal corruption and degeneracy of manners the rise of particular heresies the coming of Antichrist and several another things which the spirit said expresly should come to pass in the latter times besides that S. John's whole Book of
them in their own native Language S. Paul largely discourses the necessity of this gift in order to the instructing and edifying of the Church seeing without it their meetings could be no better than the Assembly at Babel after the confusion of Languages where one man must needs be a Barbarian to another and all the praying and preaching of the Minister of the Assembly be to many altogether fruitless and unprofitable and no better than a speaking into the Air. What 's the speaking though with the tongue of Angels to them that do not understand it How can the Idiot and unlearned say Amen who understands not the language of him that giveth thanks The duty may be done with admirable quaintness and accuracy but what 's he the better from whom 't is lock'd up in an unknown tongue A consideration that made the Apostle solemnly profess that he had rather speak five words in the Church with his understanding that by his voice he may teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue Therefore if any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be but by two or at most by three and let one interpret what the rest have spoken but if there be no interpreter none present able to do this let him keep silence in the Church and speak to himself and to God A man that impartially reads this discourse of the Apostle may wonder how the Church of Rome in defiance of it can so openly practise so confidently defend their Bible and Divine Services in an unknown tongue so flatly repugnant to the dictates of common reason the usage of the first Christian Church and these plain Apostolical commands But this is not the only instance wherein that Church has departed both from Scripture Reason and the practice of the first and purest Ages of Christianity Indeed there is some cause why they are so zealous to keep both Scripture and their Divine Worship in a strange Language lest by reading the one the People should become wise enough to discover the gross errors and corruptions of the other Fifthly The Apostles had the gift of Healing of curing Diseases without the arts of Physick the most inveterate distempers being equally removable by an Almighty power and vanishing at their speaking of a word This begot an extraordinary veneration for them and their Religion among the common sort of men who as they are strongliest moved with sensible effects so are most taken with those miracles that are beneficial to the life of man Hence the infinite Cures done in every place God mercifully providing that the Body should partake with the Soul in the advantages of the Gospel the cure of the one ushering in many times the conversion of the other This gift was very common in those early days bestowed not upon the Apostles only but the ordinary Governours of the Church who were wont to lay their hands upon the sick and sometimes to anoint them with Oil a symbolick rite in use among the Jews to denote the grace of God and to pray over and for them in the name of the Lord Jesus whereby upon a hearty confession and forsaking of their sins both health and pardon were at once bestowed upon them How long this gift with its appendant ceremony of Unction lasted in the Church is not easie to determine that it was in use in Tertullian's time we learn from the instance he gives us of Proculus a Christian who cured the Emperor Severus by anointing him with Oil for which the Emperor had him in great honour and kept him with him at Court all his life it afterwards vanishing by degrees as all other miraculous powers as Christianity gain'd firm footing in the World As for Extreme Unction so generally maintained and practised in the Church of Rome nay and by them made a Sacrament I doubt it will receive very little countenance from this Primitive usage Indeed could they as easily restore sick men to health as they can anoint them with Oil I think no body would contradict them but till they can pretend to the one I think it unreasonable they should use the other The best is though founding it upon this Apostolical practice they have turn'd it to a quite contrary purpose instead of recovering men to life and health to dispose and fit them for dying when all hopes of life are taken from them XIII Sixthly The Apostles were invested with a power of immediately inflicting corporal punishments upon great and notorious sinners and this probably is that which he means by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operations of powers or working miracles which surely cannot be meant of miracles in general being reckoned up amongst the particular gifts of the Holy Ghost nor is there any other to which it can with equal probability refer A power to inflict diseases upon the body as when S. Paul struck Elymas the Sorcerer with blindness and sometimes extending to the loss of life it self as in the sad instance of Ananias and Saphira This was the Virga Apostolica the Rod mentioned by S. Paul which the Apostles held and shak'd over scandalous and insolent offenders and sometimes laid upon them What will ye shall I come to you with a rod or in love and the spirit of meekness Where observe says Chrysostom how the Apostle tempers his discourse the love and meekness and his desire to know argued care and kindness but the rod spake dread and terror a Rod of severity and punishment and which sometimes mortally chastised the offender Elsewhere he frequently gives intimations of this power when he has to deal with stubborn and incorrigible persons Having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled for though I should boast something more of our authority which the Lord hath given us for edification and not for your destruction I should not be ashamed that I may not seem as if I would terrifie you by letters And he again puts them in mind of it at the close of his Epistle I told you before and foretell you as if I were present the second time and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned and to all others that if I come again I will not spare But he hop'd these smart warnings would supersede all further severity against them Therefore I write these things being absent lest being present I should use sharpness according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification and not to destruction Of this nature was the delivering over persons unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh the chastising the body by some present pain or sickness that the spirit might be saved by being brought to a seasonable repentance Thus he dealt with Hymeneus and Alexander who had made shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience he delivered them unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme Nothing
he was a Pharisee and the Son of a Pharisee and that the main thing he was questioned for was his belief of a future Resurrection This quickly divided the Council the Pharisees being zealous Patrons of that Article and the Sadducees as stifly denying that there is either Angel that is of a spiritual and immortal nature really subsisting of it self for otherwise they cannot be supposed to have utterly denied all sorts of Angels seeing they own'd the Pentateuch wherein there is frequent mention of them or Spirit or that humane Souls do exist in a separate state and consequently that there is no Resurrection Presently the Doctors of the Law who were Pharisees stood up to acquit him affirming he had done nothing amiss that it was possible he had received some intimation from Heaven by an Angel or the revelation of the H. Spirit and if so then in opposing his Doctrine they might fight against God himself 9. GREAT were the dissentions in the Council about this matter in so much that the Governour fearing S. Paul would be torn in pieces commanded the Souldiers to take him from the Bar and return him back into the Castle That night to comfort him after all his frights and fears God was pleased to appear to him in a vision encouraging him to constancy and resolution assuring him that as he had born witness to his cause at Jerusalem so in despite of all his enemies he should live to bear his testimony even at Rome it self The next Morning the Jews who could as well cease to be as to be mischievous and malicious finding that these dilatory proceedings were not like to do the work resolved upon a quicker dispatch To which end above Forty of them entred into a wicked confederacy which they ratified by Oath and Execration never to eat or drink till they had killed him and having acquitted the Sanhedrim with their design they entreated them to importune the Governour that he might again the next day be brought down before them under pretence of a more strict trial of his case and that they themselves would lye in ambush by the way and not fail to dispatch him But that Divine providence that peculiarly superintends the safety of good men disappoints the devices of the crafty The design was discovered to S. Paul by a Nephew of his and by him imparted to the Governour who immediately commanded two Parties of Foot and Horse to be ready by Nine of the Clock that Night and provision to be made for S. Paul's carriage to Foelix the Roman Governour of that Province To whom also he wrote signifying whom he had sent how the Jews had used him and that his enemies also should appear before him to manage the charge and accusation Accordingly he was by Night conducted to Antipatris and afterwards to Caesarea where the Letters being delivered to Foelix the Apostle was presented to him and finding that he belonged to the Province of Citicia he told him that as soon as his Accusers were arrived he should have an hearing commanding him in the mean time to be secured in the place called Herod's Hall SECT VI. Of S. Paul from his first Trial before Foelix till his coming to Rome S. Paul impleaded before Foelix by Tertullus the Jewish Advocate His charge of Sedition Heresie and Prophanation of the Temple S. Paul 's reply to the several parts of the charge His second Hearing before Foelix and Drusilla His smart and impartial Reasonings Foelix his great injustice and oppression His Luxury and Intemperance Bribery and Covetousness S. Paul 's Arraignment before Festus Foelix his Successor at Caesarea His Appeal to Caesar. The nature and manner of those Appeals He is again brought before Festus and Agrippa His vindication of himself and the goodness of his cause His being acquitted by his Judges of any Capital crime His Voyage to Rome The trouble and danger of it Their Shipwrack and being cast upon the Island Melita Their courteous entertainment by the Barbarians and their different censure of S. Paul The civil usage of the Governour and his Conversion to Christianity S. Paul met and conducted by Christians to Rome 1. NOT many days after down comes Ananias the High-Priest with some others of the Sanhedrim to Caesarea accompanied with Tertullus their Advocate who in a short but neat speech set off with all the flattering and insinuative arts of Eloquence began to implead our Apostle charging him with Sedition Heresie and the Prophanation of the Temple That they would have saved him the trouble of this Hearing by judging him according to their own Law had not Lysias the Commander violently taken him from them and sent both him and them down thither To all which the Jews that were with him gave in their Vote and Testimony S. Paul having leave from Foelix to defend himself and having told him how much he was satisfied that he was to plead before one who for so many years had been Governour of that Nation distinctly answered to the several parts of the Charge 2. AND first for Sedition he point-blank denied it affirming that they found him behaving himself quietly and peaceably in the Temple not so much as disputing there nor stirring up the people either in the Synagogues or any other place of the City And though this was plausibly pretended by them yet were they never able to make it good As for the charge of Heresie that he was a ring-leader of the Sect of the Nazarenes he ingenuously acknowledged that after the way which they counted Heresie so he worshipped God the same way in substance wherein all the Patriarchs of the Jewish Nation had worshipped God before him taking nothing into his Creed but what the Authentick writings of the Jews themselves did own and justifie That he firmly believed what the better of themselves were ready to grant another Life and a future Resurrection In he hope and expectation whereof he was careful to live unblameable and conscientiously to do his duty both to God and men As for the third part of the Charge his Prophaning of the Temple he shews how little foundation there was for it that the design of his coming to Jerusalem was to bring charitable contributions to his distressed Brethren that he was indeed in the Temple but not as some Asiatick Jews falsely suggested either with tumult or with multitude but only purifying himself according to the rites and customs of the Mosaick Law And that if any would affirm the contrary they should come now into open Court and make it good Nay that he appealed to those of the Sanhedrim that were there present whether he had not been acquitted by their own great Council at Jerusalem where nothing of moment had been laid to his charge except by them of the Sadducean party who quarrelled with him only for asserting the Doctrine of the Resurrection Foelix having thus heard both parties argue refused to make any final determination in the case till
curing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Souls of Men infected and over-run with difficult and disperate distempers created by pleasures and extravagant appetites and a long train of other lusts and passions Josephus reporting of them that they accurately study the Writings of the Ancients excerping thence whatever is conducive either to Soul or Body and that for the curing of Diseases they diligently enquired into the Vertues of Roots and Stones that were most proper to drive away Distempers An Account no ways agreeing with the Christians of those times who miraculously cured Diseases without the Arts of Physick or any other Preparations than calling the Name of Christ over the afflicted Person Doubtless that which led Eusebius into the mistake was the conformity that he observed between the Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in and before his time who entred upon a more strict and severe course of life and these Therapeutae described by Philo an ordinary fancy being able to draw a fair parallel between them and so it was but removing them some Ages higher and imagining them to have been converted and founded by S. Mark and the work was done Indeed it is not to be doubted but that Persons educated under these excellent rules and methods of life were more than ordinarily prepared for the reception of Christianity between which and their Principles and Rules of Life there was so great an affinity and agreement which must needs render our Evangelists success great in those Parts and open the way for men to come flocking over to the Faith 4. S. MARK did not confine his Preaching to Alexandria and the Oriental Parts of Egypt but removed Westward to the parts of Libya going through the Countries of Marmarica Pentapolis and others thereabouts where though the People were both barbarous in their manners and idolatrous in their worship yet by his Preaching and Miracles he made way for the entertainment of the Gospel and left them not till he had not only gained them to but confirmed them in the profession of it Returning to Alexandria he preached freely and ordered and disposed the affairs of the Church and wisely provided for succession by constituting Governours and Pastors of it But the restless enemy of the Souls of Men would not long suffer him to be quiet It was the time of Easter at what time the great Solemnities of Serapis hapned to be celebrated when the minds of the People being excited to a passionate vindication of the honour of their Idol broke in upon S. Mark then engaged in the solemn celebration of Divine worship and binding his Feet with Cords dragged him through the streets and the most craggy places to the Bucelus a Precipice near the Sea and for that Night thrust him into Prison where his Soul was by a Divine Vision erected and encouraged under the ruines of his shattered Body Early the next Morning the Tragedy began again dragging him about in the same manner till his Flesh being raked off and his Bloud run out his spirits failed and he expired But their malice died not with him Metaphrastes adds that they burnt his Body whose Bones and Ashes the Christians there decently entombed near the place where he was wont to Preach His Body at least the remains of it were afterwards with great pomp removed from Alexandria to Venice where they are religiously honoured and he adopted as the Tutelar Saint and Patron of that State and one of the richest and stateliest Churches erected to his Memory that the World can boast of at this Day He suffered in the Month Pharmuthi on the XXV of April though the certain Year of his Martyrdom is not precisely determined by the Ancients Kirstenius out of the Arabick Memoires of his Life says it was in the Fourteenth of the last Year of Claudius S. Hierom places it in the Eighth of Nero. But extravagantly wide is Dorotheus his computation who makes him to suffer in the time of Trajan with as much truth as Nicephorus on the other hand affirms him to have come into Egyyt in the Reign of Tiberius If in so great variety of Opinions I may interpose my conjecture I should reckon him to have suffered about the end of Nero's Reign For supposing him to have come with S. Peter to Rome about the Fifth or Sixth Year of Nero he might thence be dispatched to Alexandria and spend the residue of his Life and of that Emperor's Reign in planting Christianity in those parts of the World Sure I am that Irenaeus reports S. Mark to have out-lived Peter and Paul and that after their decease he composed his Gospel out of those things which he had heard Peter preach But whatever becomes of that it is evident that Irenaeus supposed whose supposition certainly was not founded upon meer fancy and conjecture that S. Mark for some considerable time survived the Martyrdom of those two great Apostles A passage that so troubled Christophorson one of those who in these later Ages first translated Eusebius into Latin because crossing the accounts of their Writers in this matter that he chose rather to expunge the word decease and substitute another of a quite different sence expresly contrary to the faith of all ancient Copies and to the most ancient Version of Irenaeus it self But to return S. Mark as to his Person was of a middle size and stature his Nose long his Eye-brows turning back his Eyes graceful and amiable his Head bald his Beard prolix and gray his Gate quick the constitution of his Body strong and healthful 5. HIS Gospel the only Book he left behind him was as before we observed written at the intreaty of the Converts at Rome who not content to have heard Peter preach pressed S. Mark his Disciple that he would commit to Writing an Historical account of what he had delivered to them which he performed with no less faithfulness than brevity all which S. Peter perused ratified with his Authority and commanded to be publickly read in their Religious Assemblies And though as we noted but now Irenaeus seems to intimate that it was written after Peter's death yet all that can be inferred hence will be what in it self is a matter of no great moment and importance that the Ancients were not agreed in assigning the exact time when the several Gospels were published to the World It was frequently stiled S. Peter's Gospel not so much because dictated by him to S. Mark as because he principally composed it out of that account which S. Peter usually delivered in his Discourses to the People Which probably is the reason of what Chrysostom observes that in his stile and manner of expression he delights to imitate S. Peter representing much in a few words Though he commonly reduces the story of our Saviour's Acts into a narrower compass than S. Matthew yet want there not passages which he relates more largely than he The last