lost the power of Judging Malefactors p. 1111 1112 c. They had a high conceit of their own Nation p. 1112. They were highly severe and strict about little inconsiderable Customs but very remiss about things of great Moment and Necessity p. 1113 1114. They were rejected by God not only for putting our Saviour to death but before also for their cursed Traditions and crying wickedness p. 1114. The calling in of the Jews expected by some is not probable and why p. 1123. The Jews were dispersed before our Saviours time p. 1144. They were cast off to a reprobate sense before the destruction of Jerusalem p. 1145. They crucified the Lord of Life out of the very Principles of their Traditional Religion p. 1177. The Jews and the Jewish Religion were very corrupt under the second Temple p. 1199 1200. The Church of the Jews was only a child under age till Christ came 1334 Jezabelites impudently oppose the Decrees of the Apostles 695 696 Ignorance and Error the common cause of them is because Men will not know and embrace the Truth 1286 1287 Image of God in Adam what p. 1153. Image of God upon Man not lost by sin though the likeness of God be 1302 Images in the Church of Rome are Idols 1312 1314 Imposition of Hands in ordination a fundamental Point as well as the Doctrin of Faith and Repentance proved from Hebrews 6. 2. 1040 Imputation of the sins or good Deeds of Parents to the Children supposed by the Jews not to be in the days of the Messias p. 569. Imputation of Parents sins to Posterity is real and rational 1316 1317 Incense the way of burning it with the manner of the Priests and Levites getting ready in order thereunto 380 381 Indifferent Things and such as were not sinful of themselves although of humane invention and used in the Jewish worship did not cause our Saviour to leave that communion nor to forsake the way of Worship but he joyned therein rather than he would give offence 1037 1038 1039 c. Infant Baptism argued for 273 274 Infants in the womb supposed by the Jews to be in a capacity to commit some sin 569 570 Institution divine defiled by corruption but not extinguished Page 165 Intercallated Month or Year what 185 226 Interpretation of the Holy Text the judgment of the Jews concerning a just Interpretation 784 Interpreters in the Synagogues stood by the Readers of the Law and Prophets to turn the words of the Hebrew Text into the Language understood by the people at the same time Commenting or Preaching upon the words p. 132 134 707. Interpreters of the Law part of their work what 803 Invention humane less dangerous to be brought into Divine Worship under the Jewish Law than under the Gospel and why 1038 Invisible Things are the greatest things of our concernment 1284 Jod of it s not passing away or eternal duration 137 138 John Baptist in all probability was no Eremite 387 388 John the most punctual of all the four Evangelists especially in giving an account of the Festivals that intercurred between Christ's entrance into his publick Ministry and the time of his death p. 1033. John the beloved Disciple was him to whom the Revelation was delivered 1196 Jordan the waters thereof were opened twelve miles when Israel passed through p. 46. The Country beyond it what p. 363. Little Jordan was from the spring of Jordan to the Lake Samochonitis but from that Lake being much a larger stream it was Jordan the greater p. 62 63 64 298. Jordan had over it two bridges at least besides other passages 492 Jordan-transmarine its division 363 Jose and Joseph are one and the same Name 640 Joshua where buried 373 374 Jot of it s not passing away or eternal duration 137 138 Journey Sabbath days Journey the length of it was two hundred cubits or one mile 485 486 Joy wicked in a strange instance in the Gunpouder Traytors 1184 Joy in Heaven over a sinner that is converted what 1267 Isaiah the Prophet say the Jews was cut in two by Manasses the King 593 Iscariot a Name given to Judas the Traytor whether given before or after his death If after his death it emphatically shews his miserable end p. 176. As a Betrayer he was to have no part in the World to come his going to his place intends his going to Hell 176 177 Iturea its situation 365 366 Juda for Jehuda and why 97 Judaism the twofold sense of the Word p. 1051. The Jews held this Maxim That if a Jew forsook his Judaism he should have no part in the World to come p. 1087. Judaism and Nicolaitism were two Errors on each hand the Gospel into which some Primitive Christians did fall 1097 Judas was present at the Eucharist p. 261. He was carried by the Devil into the Air there strangled and then cast down to the Earth and there burst assunder 264 639 Judea a sight and division of it p. 9. It was priviledged above other Parts of the Land of Israel p. 10. A description of the Coast of it p. 10. The Mountainous Country of Judea what p. 11. The South Country of it what p. 13. The North Coast of it 19 Judges what Benches of them there were among the Jews 755 Judgment Judgment to him that is angry what p. 141 142. Judgment might be unrighteous when the Judging was righteous 1106 Judgment the Day of Judgment put for Christ's coming with vengeance to Judge the Jewish Nation six differing ways of expressing it p. 346. The Last Judgment proved p. 1101 1102 1103 The objections of the Sadducces and Atheists answered p. 1101 c. Noah's Flood was a prognostication and an assurance of the Last Judgment p. 1104. The destruction of Jerusalem is set forth in Scripture terms seeming to mean the Last Judgment p. 1104. The several and providential assurances that God hath given of the Last Judgment p. 1103 1104 1109. The prosperity of wicked Men is an argument of the Last Judgment p. 1105. Assizes are an assurance and a fit representation of the Last Judgment p. 1104 1117 1119. Conscience is an assurance given by God of the Last Judgment p. 1104 1119. The manner of giving the Law is an assurance of the Last Judgment Page 1119 Judgments Capital always began on the Defendants side among the Jews and not on the Accusers p. 609. Judgments were distinguished into Pecuniary and Capital among the Jews 754 Julian the Apostate part of his character or part of what he was and did 1238 Julias There were two Cities of this Name one built by Herod the other by Philip the later was before called Bethsaida where situate 83 Just a just person or the just two sorts of them p. 448. How distinguished from the Penitent p. 449. Just Men distinguished by the Jews into two sorts and to which of them they gave the preference 1266 Justification is a great Mystery in several respects p. 1051 1052. What it is
Heathens that is lost p p p p p p Nedarin cap. 3. hal 4. It is lawful for Publicans to swear that is an Oblation which is not that you are of the Kings retinue when you are not c. that is Publicans may deceive and that by Oath VERS XVIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth c. THESE words depend upon the former he had been speaking concerning being loosed from the office of a brother in a particular case now he speaks of the Authority and Power of the Apostles of loosing and binding any thing whatsoever seemed them good being guided in all things by the Holy Ghost We have explained the sense of this Phrase at Chap. XVI and he gives the same Authority in respect of this to all the Apostles here as he did to Peter there who were all to be partakers of the same Spirit and of the same Gifts This power was built upon that noble and most self-sufficient Foundation Joh. XVI 13. The Spirit of Truth shall lead you into all Truth There lies an Emphasis in those words Into all truth I deny that any one any where at any time was led or to be led into all Truth from the Ascension of Christ unto the worlds end beside the Apostles Every holy man certainly is led into all truth necessary to him for salvation but the Apostles were led into all truth necessary both for themselves and the whole Church because they were to deliver a rule of Faith and Manners to the whole Church throughout all Ages Hence whatsoever they should confirm in the Law was to be confirmed whatsoever they should abolish was to abolished since they were endowed as to all things with a Spirit of Infalibillity guiding them by the hand into all truth VERS XIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That if two of you shall agree upon earth c. AND these words do closely agree with those that went before There the speech was concerning the Apostles determination in all things respecting men Here concerning their Grace and Power of obtaining things from God I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two of you Hence Peter and John act joyntly together among the Jews Acts II. III. c. and they act joyntly among the Samaritans Acts VIII 14. and Paul and Barnabas among the Gentiles Acts XIII 2. This bond being broke by Barnabas the spirit is doubled as it were upon Paul II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Agree together That is to obtain something from God which appears also from the following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Touching any thing that they shall ask suppose concerning conferring the Spirit by the imposition of hands of doing this or that Miracle c. VERS XX. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For where two or three are gathered together in my name there I am in the midst of them THE like do the Rabbins speak of two or three sitting in Judgment that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The divine presence is in the midst of them VERS XXI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shall I forgive him until seven times THIS Question of Peter respects the words of our Saviour Ver. 15. How far shall I forgive my brother before I proceed to the Extremity What Seven times he thought that he had measured out by these words a large Charity being in a manner double to that which was prescribed by the Schools q He that is wronged ◠Maimon in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 5. say they is forbidden to be difficult to pardon for that is not the manner of the seed of Israel But when the offender implores him once and again and it appears he repents of his deed let him pardon him and whosoever is most ready to pardon is most praise worthy It is well but there lies a snake under it r r r r r r Bab. Jomah fol. 86. ◠For say they they pardon a man once that sins against another Secondly they pardon him Thirdly they pardon him Fourthly they do not pardon him c. CHAP. XIX VERS I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He came unto the coasts of Iudea beyond Iordan IF it were barely said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Coasts of Judea beyond Jordan by the Coasts of Judea one might understand the bounds of the Jews beyond Jordan Nor does such a construction want its parallel in Josephus for Hyrcanus saith he built a fortification the name of which was Tyre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Between Arabia and Judea beyond Jordan not far from Essebonitis a a a a a a Antiq. lib. 12. chap. 5. But see Mark here Chap. X. 1 relating the same storie with this our Evangelist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He came saith he into the coasts of Judea taking a journey from Galilee along the Country beyond Jordan VERS III. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause OF the causes ridiculous shall I call them or wicked for which they put away their wives we have spoke at Chap. V. ver 31. We will produce only one example here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Rabh went to Darsis whither as the Gloss saith he often went he made a public proclamation What woman will have me for a day Rabh Nachman when he went to Sacnezib made a public proclamation What woman will have me for a day The Gloss is Is there any woman who will be my wife while ◠tarry in this place The Question here propounded by the Pharisees was disputed in the Schools and they divided into parties concerning it as we have noted before For the School of Shammai permitted not divorces but only in the case of Adultery the School of Hillel otherwise b b b b b b See Hierof Sotah fol. 16. 2. VERS VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Because Moses for the hardness of your hearts suffered c. INterpreters ordinarily understand this of the unkindness of men towards their wives and that not illy but at first sight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hardness of heart for the most part in Scripture denotes rather obduration against God than against men Examples occur every where Nor does this sense want its fitness in this place not to exclude the other but to be joyned with it here I. That God delivered that rebellious people for the hardness of their hearts to spiritual fornication that is to Idolatry sufficiently appears out of sacred Story and particularly from these words of the first Martyr Stephen Acts VII 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. God turne d and gave them up to worship the host of heaven c. And they seem not less given up to carnal fornication if you observe the horrid records of their Adulteries in the holy Scripture and their not less horrid allowances of divorces and polygamies in the books of the Talmudists so that the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
be Converted the Spirit of Grace reveals these to him in feeling and experience And further Revelation as to the understanding of Scripture there is not the least ground-work in Scripture whereupon to expect it III. When God had committed the New Testament to writing he had revealed all that he would reveal to men on Earth of his will and way of Salvation The words in Joh. XVI 13. are appropriate to the Apostles None ever were or will be whom God led into all Truth save the Apostles He leads indeed every Saint he hath into all Truth needful for him but the Apostles into all Truth needful both for themselves and the whole Church Because God by them was to give the rule of Faith and Manners to all the Church Now when all the Truth that God would reveal was revealed and compact in the New Testament as all Light in the body of the Sun must we still look for further Revelation to explain this Revealing It was foretold that the Light that God would exhibit under the Gospel should be as the Light of the Sun sevenfold and must we look for another Sun of Revelation to give Light to this Sun The New Testament revealed the Old and must we look for Revelations to reveal the New And so we may look in infinitum IV. The main difficulty of the New Testament requires study to unfold it rather than Revelation The Old Testament needed further Revelation to unfold it and further was promised And accordingly the New Testament was a further Revelation that did unfold it For the great difficulty of the Old Testament was in the Sence the Language every Child could understand for it was their Mother-tongue But when they could understand what the words meant they could not understand what the Sence meant nor was it possible to find it out in abundance of places without further Revelation But the main difficulty of the New Testament is in the Languages unlock that clearly and the Sence ariseth easie The Old Testaments difficulty was in the Kernel the New in the Shell For besides that Greek the Original is not the Native Tongue now of any part of the World there is such intermixture of Septuagint Greek Hebrew Idioms Talmudichal Phrases and Allusions to the Jews Opinions and Customs that the greatest difficulty is to explain the Language that done the Sence is plain Now certainly it is more likely to obtain understanding of Languages by Study than to attain it by Revelation unless any one will yet expect that miraculous gift of Tongues which I suppose there is none will make himself so ridiculous as to say they expect But this only by the way In the Text as there are two Verses so are there two distinct things observable In the former a Festival mentioned in the latter Christs presence there intimated and either of them illustrated by three circumstances I. The Festival 1. By its Name It was the Feast of Dedication 2. By the Place It was at Jerusalem 3. By the Time It was Winter II. Christs presence there 1. By the place where he was In the Temple 2. The particular place in the Temple Solomons porch 3. His posture there He was walking He was at the Feast at Jerusalem though it were Winter and he walked in the Temple belike to get him heat because it was Winter The Feast of Dedication as the Authors before mentioned do inform us was instituted upon this occasion Antiochus Epiphanes one of the Kings of Syria one of the Horns of the fourth Monarchy Dan. VII 24. having the Nation of the Jews under his Power and Tyranny raised against them and their Religion a very sad Persecution He forbad them to Circumcise their Children he restrained the exercise of their Religion burnt the Books of the Law set up idolatry defiled the Temple set up an Idolatrous Altar upon the very Altar of the Lord in the Court of the Temple And all this for a Time two Times and half a Time as Daniel styles it Dan. VII 25. or three years and an half The Jews had never felt such misery of that nature before and Daniel in his twelfth Chapter foretelling of that a long time before it came saith That it should be such a time of trouble as had never been since they were a Nation At last Judas Maccabaeus prevails against his Power and Tyranny shakes off that Yoak restores the People and Religion destroies his Idolatry purges the Temple pulls down his Idol-Altar that he had erected there yea also the Altar of the Lord which it had stood upon and defiled reareth up a new Altar and on the 25th day of the month Cisleu which was the ninth month or their November dedicates the Altar and sets the Publick Service of the Temple afoot again And thereupon he and the generation ordained that day and seven days forward for the Feast of Dedication to be kept annually throughout all succeeding Generations as may be read at large in 1 Macc. IV. and in the Authors beside that I named I might Observe from hence How joyful a thing it is and how joyful and perpetual a Memorial it ought to carry when decayed Religion is restored to a Nation Oh! that England might see that day and come to such a Feast of Dedication But I desire to fix upon the latter Verse of the Text and to observe Christs presence at that Feast which is the more remarkable and strange because there were three things that might not only have warranted his absence thence but even perswaded and urged it according to the three circumstances we observed in the former verse the Feast it self the Time and the Place I. The Time It was Winter An ill time to travail and Jerusalem was a very long journey from Capernaum the place of Christs habitation And the Evangelist seems to have added this circumstance the rather that we might look upon his presence there as the more remarkable II. It is said that Christ was at this Feast at Jerusalem whereas he might have kept it in his own Town For although indeed the three Festivals that God had appointed by Moses Passover Pentecost and of Tabernacles required mens personal appearance at Jerusalem yet the two Feastâ— that were ordained afterwards Purim and Dedication as the Jews Records tell us might be kept at their own homes III. And that which was the main thing indeed this Feast was not ordained either by the immediate appointment of God as those three were to Moses nor was there then any Prophet in those times that by Divine Warrant could authorize its institution but it was only of a Civil and Ecclesiastical Sanction appointed by the Higher Powers in that Generation As our fift of November is indeed of Religious observation and yet but only of Humane Institution These reasons might have kept Christ from going up to Jerusalem at this Feast and yet you see that he is there From whence I Observe and on which I shall
Challah fol. 58. col 3. R. Jesi in the name of R. Shabeai and R. Cajashin the name of Simeon Ben Lachish say thus A man should walk four miles to the washing of his hands It is a tradition that washing before meat is arbitrary but after meat it is duty Only that at his washing before he saies over some prayer but after not R. Jacob bar R. Isaac hereupon retorted Dost thou say he washeth and saith over a prayer and yet dost thou say that washing is arbritrary It is said he should go four miles to the washing of his hands and yet dost thou say it is arbitrary How they prized this and other traditions of the Elders above the word of God and so by and for them made that of no weight may be read too numerously in them in such like blasphemous passages as these The words of the Scribes are more lovely then the words of the Law and more weighty then the words of the Prophets And He that saith there are no Phylacteries and in so saying transgresseth against the words of the Law he is not guilty but he that saith there is five Phylacteries and in so saying addeth to the words of the Scribes he is guilty Jerus Beracoth fol. 3. col 2. The written Law is narrow but the traditional is longer then the earth and broader then the sea Tanchum fol. 4. col 4. Our Saviour damning these cursed Traditions doth instance only in that unnatural tenet of theirs that extinguisheth all filial assistance to needy Parents as if a son said to his father or mother It is Corban c. Their Canons set down the duty of a son to his father as to give him meat and drink if he stood in need and to cloath him to wash his hands feet and face and if he need to lead him in and out Tosapht in Kiddushin per 1. And yet with this superinduced Tradition they destroyed all such duty About the word Corban in the sense in which it is used here the Talmudick Treatises Nedarim and Nazir and the Tosaphtoth upon them are good explications where it is often used His resolving the case about meats not defiling the man overthrew a great part of Pharisaism for this washing before meat was meerly out of their Traditions and it was a great part of their sanctimony Moses indeed had forbidden divers things as unclean to be touched and by the touching of which the person was legally defiled but that with this reference that he was unclean as to Gods service or to the Congregation but this pretended uncleanness of theirs for which they appointed washing before meat had respect simply neither to the one nor the other Christ to a Heathen woman that begged the dispossessing of her daughter calls the Heathens Dogs and she readily understands his meaning as that being a common title that the Jews put upon them Midr. Till fol. 6. col 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Nations of the world are compared to Dogs No sign given to the Pharisees when they demand one but the sign of Jonah the Prophet whereby Christ doth not only intimate his own burial and resurrection but he chiefly intendeth to hint the calling of the Gentiles after his resurrection as the Ninivites were after Jonahs which was a thing the Jews could not endure to hear of SECTION LI. MARK Chap. VIII Ver. 22 23 24 25 26. A blind man restored to sight at Bethsaida MARKS authority warrants the connexion here especially it being considered that in the preceding Section Christ and his Disciples are crossing over the Sea and here they are arrived at Bethsaida A journey by sea thither they had when Jesus fed the the five thousand in Sect 47. and now being come up to that place where that miracle was wrought it was a strange construction the Disciples made of the words of their master Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees when they thought he blamed them for not bringing bread the very place where they were might have confuted their misprision Christ openeth the eyes of a blind man but will not do it in Bethsaida but leads the man out of the Town nor will he suffer him to go into the Town when he is cured nor to tell it there He had a good while ago as hath been said denounced wo against Bethsaida Matth. 11. 21. and for her perverseness he will no more strive with her for her good He had gathered out of her those that belonged to himself SECTION LII MATTH Chap. XVI from Ver. 13 to the end of the Chapter MARK Chap. VIII from Ver. 27. to the end of the Chapter And Chap. IX Ver. 1. LUKE Chap. IX frrom Ver. 18. to V. 28. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heavengiven to Peter c MATTHEW and Mark establish the order Upon Peters confession that Jesus was The Christ the Son of the living God 1. He promiseth to build his Church upon the Rock of that Truth and the Rock confessed in it from Isa. 28. 16. Psal. 118. 22 c. 2. He promiseth the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter only of all the Apostles meaning thereby that he should be the man that should first unlock the door of faith and of the Gospel unto the Gentiles which was accomplished in Act. 10. And 3. he giveth him power of binding and loosing and this power the other Disciples had common with him Matth. 18. 18. Binding and loosing in the language and stile most familiarly known to the Jewish Nation and it can little be doubted that Christ speaketh according to common and most familiar sense of the language did refer more properly to things then to persons Therefore he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in Matth. 18. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To bind and to loose in their vulgar speech meant to prohibit and to permit or to teach what is prohibited or permitted what lawful what unlawful as may appear by these instances a few produced whereas thousands might be alledged out of their writings Talm. in Pesachim per. 4. halac 5. Our wise men say that in Judah they did work on the Passover eve till noon but in Galilee not at all And as for the night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The School of Schammai bound it that is forbad to work on it or taught that it was unlawful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the School of Hillel loosed it till sun rising or taught that it was lawful to work till sun-rise Jerus in Shabb. fol. 6. col 1. They are speaking about washing in the Bathes of Tiberias on the Sabbath and they determine how far this was lawful in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They bound washing to them but they loosed sweating meaning they taught that it was lawful to go into the Bath to sweat but not to bathe for pleasure Ibid. fol. 4. col 1. They
not possibly speak any thing in those Tongues though interpreted that could edifie the people any more then if he spake it in his mother Tongue But if he spake and understood and uttered the Original language of Scripture that if interpreted would edifie and he could not speak in his mother Tongue unless taken from thence what he might speak thence Peter returning to Jerusalem is taken to task by some of the Circumcision for going in to the Gentiles and eating with them a thing of unspeakable detestation to the Jews Hence those allusions Let him be to thee as a Heathen Matth. 18. With such a one no not to eat 1 Cor. 5. We find not any such quarrel at Peter and John for going down to Samaria though the Samaritans were as odious to the Jewish Nation as people could be but they were neither uncircumcised nor Idolaters both which especially the latter bred their detestation of the Heathen CHRIST XLI ACTS CHAP. XI from Vers. 19. to the end of the Chapter AS Caesarea the seat of the Roman Governour of Judea first seeth the door of faith opened to the Gentiles so Antioch the seat of the Roman Governour of Syria first heareth the name Christian. These of the hundred and twenty Ministers mentioned Acts 1. 15. that had fled upon the persecution raised against Steven went preaching up and down first as far as the bounds of Judea extended then some of them stepped out as far as into Phaenice Cyprus and Syria but all this while dealing with the Jews only At last some of them at Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spake to the Hellenists ver 20. Here the word Hellenists is of doubtful interpretation only this is doubtless in it that it means not Jews as the word doth Acts 6. 1. for it is set in opposition to them ver 19. Doth it mean Proselytes then That it cannot neither for they were reputed as Jews to all purposes Means it Heathens Yes that is undoubted it doth both by the scope of the story here and by the quarrel urging these believers at Antioch to be Circumcised Chap. 15. But why then should they be called Hellenistae rather then Hellenes Some conceive because they were become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Proselyte sojournours meaning that they had forsaken their Idolatry as Cornelius had done his though he were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Proselyte circumcised But what if these were native Syrians by pedegree and language could they then for that be called Hellenists or Greeks The word therefore must mean that they were such as were Syrogrecians Antioch it self indeed having been once the head of the Syrogrecian Empire Hellenes or purely Greeks they could not be called though it will not be denied they spake that Language because they were not only no inhabitants of that Country but not altogether of that blood but such as were of a mixture of Syrian and Greek the progeny of the old plantations and infranchisments of the Syrogrecian Monarchy Whatsoever their title Hellenists includeth they being undoubtedly Heathens it sheweth that these Ministers preached to them understood of the liberty given to preach to the Gentiles and the passage betwixt Peter and Cornelius or they durst not have been bold to have gone beyond the partition wall without their warrant And the readiness of the Church at Jerusalem to send Barnabas to them shews that they also were satisfied in this matter and so this evidenceth that this story was after that about Cornelius Their sending Barnabas and his fetching Saul to the same work with him giveth some confirmation of that which was touched before namely that it is very probable that Barnabas knew of his own being designed for a Minister to the uncircumcision and of Pauls being joyned with him in that work a great while before they were sent away from Antioch upon it They now spend a whole year in the Church there and there the Name Christian is first taken up and that in a Gentile Church Antioch of old had been called Hamath but now it bare the name of one that had been as bloody a persecutor of the Church and truth as the Church of Israel had ever seen Antiochus The very name of the place may raise a meditation ACTS CHAP. XII XIII HERE we meet with some scruple in Chronology and about the precedency of the story in these two Chapters for though the actions in Chap. 12. be laid first and that very properly that the story of Peter may be taken up together and concluded before the story of Paul come in which is to be followed to the end of the Book yet there may be just question whether the sending of Paul and Barnabas from Antiotch to preach among the Gentiles which is handled in the beginning of Chap. 13. were not before some if not all those things related in Chap. 12. And the question ariseth from these two scruples 1. Because it is doubtful in what year of Claudius the famine was that is spoken of Chap. 12. 28. And 2. because it is obscure how long Paul and Barnabas staid at Antioch after their return from Jerusalem Chap. 12. 25. before they were sent away among the Gentiles But about this we need not much to trouble our selves since as to the understanding of the stories themselves there can be little illustration taken from their time save only as to this that the publick Fast in the Church of Antioch may seem to have some relation to some of the said stories mentioned before as coincident with them or near to them namely either the famine through the world Chap. 11. 28. or the persecution in the Church Chap. 12. We shall not therefore offer to dislocate the order of the stories from that wherein they lie the Holy Ghost by the intertexture of them rather teaching us that some of them were contemporary then any way incouraging us to invert their order Only these things cannot pass unmentioned toward the stating of their time and place partly of coincidency and partly of their succeeding one the other and which may help us better to understand both 1. That whereas Dion the Roman Historian lib. 60. hath placed a sore famine at least at Rome in the time of Claudius in his second year Josephus carries it Antiq. lib. 12. cap. 2. as if the bitternes of it at Jerusalem were in his fourth which Euseb. in Chron. determines positively both may be true for for famines to last several years together is no strange thing in History Divine or Humane nor in experience in our own age 2. That Herod Agrippa's murdering of James and imprisoning of Peter could not be before the third year of Claudius for Josephus a witness impartial enough in this case informs us that Claudius in his second Consulship which was indeed the second year of his reign made an Edict in behalf of the Jews and sent it through the world and after that sent Agrippa away into his own Kingdom Now
should be so various and roving conjectures about the time and place of the writing of this Epistle where there is so plain a demonstration thereof in the Epistle it self if studiously compared with these times and voyages of Paul that are before us The Arabick dateth it from Athens supposing it belike at the time of his perambulation of Greece of which there is mention in ver 3. of this Chapter the Syriack from Laodicea some Greek copies add from Laodicea Pacatiana which mistake belike grew because there is mention of an Epistle from Laodicea Colos. 4. 16. of which we shall speak and shew the mistake when we come to the time of that Epistle The Rhemists suppose this Epistle to Timothy was written at Pauls first imprisonment in Rome when he was dismissed and set at liberty but how erroniously will appear when we come to observe the time of the second Epistle Paul had bestowed much pains and a long time with the Church of Ephesus being present with it and he takes much care of it now he is gone thence partly because of the eminency of the place and partly because of the sickleness of some who were ready to warp from the sound truth and doctrine received to heresie and foolish opinions For the keeping down of these therefore that they should not overgrow the Church he leaveth Timothy there when himself departeth choosing him for that imployment above all other his followers because as was said before some prophetick predictions had sealed him for a singular and extraordinary instrument in the Gospel 1 Tim. 2. 14. He had two works to do in that City first to prevent rising Errors and Heterodoxies and secondly to direct and order the Orthodox aright in Worship and discipline not as any Diocesan Bishop for he staied but a while there and what he did he did but by the Apostles direction but as one that Paul had found sound bold blameless painfull and faithful Among the Jewish Churches that received the Gospel there grew in time a very epidemical and dangerous Apostacy either totally from the Doctrine of the Gospel or partially from the purity of it as we have frequent occasion to observe upon several passages that we meet withal as we go along and this backsliding from the Doctrine and Profession of Christ once received was the topping up of the iniquity of that Nation and was a forerunner and a hastner of their destruction and casting off The first principles whereby their false teachers did prison them towards this recidivation were puzzling them with idle fables intricate genealogies and especially nice curiosities and needless obligations of the Law Their fables that were likeliest to serve their turn for this purpose as near as one may guess upon view of the whole heap in their Talmudic◠Records may be supposed to have been those strange legends that they related of the wondrous sanctity devotion and facts of some of their Pharisaical and legal righteous ones and the wondrous gallantry and golden daies that they conceited in a carnal construction of the times of Messias Their endless genealogies which the Apostle speaketh of Tit. 3. 9. and mentioneth together with these fables 1 Tim. 1. 4. were not any of the genealogies of Scripture holy and divine but their long and intricate pedigrees that they stood upon to prove themselves Jews Levites Priests and the like thereby to interest themselves in claim to all those brave things that they perswaded themselves belonged to a Jew as a Jew upon that very account And to these we may add the long genealogy and pedigree of their traditions which they derived by a long line of succession through the hands of I know not how many Doctors of which the Talmudick Treatise Avoth is as a Herald And if we will construe the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Juchasin Genealogies in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aserah Juchasin Ten linages that they speak of that came out of Babel at the return of the captivity I am sure we may find endless questions wherewithal they puzzeled mens minds about them as Vid. Talm. in Kiddushin per. 4. Alphes ibid c. And as for their making their baits of the Law for the catching and withdrawing of simple souls either totally from the acknowledging or at least from the simplicety of the Gospel it is very obvious in the Epistles of Paul and the other Epistles how they wrought and how they prevailed the witchery of old customs and long use and the gawdiness of a Ceremonious Religion helping them to speed in their designs and forwarding their deceivings Such canker began to break out in the Church of Ephesus whose creeping and infecting it is the first and great work of Timothy to prevent and to fill the ears of his hearers with sound doctrine and admonitions which might keep such deceit and infection out And answerably it must be his care to settle the Church in such a salubrious constitution of Worship Ministry and Government as that it should not be ready to sway and incline to such dangerous seductions Hereupon doth the Apostle lay a divine Directory before him concerning their manner of praying choosing and ordaining of Ministers approving Deacons admitting widows and regulating the people that nothing could be wanting to the healthfull temper of that Church if they receive and imbrace these applications In the most of which prescriptions he useth exceeding much of their Synagogue language that he may be the better understood and reflecteth upon divers of their own Laws and customs that what he prescribeth may imprint upon them with the more conviction He calleth the Minister Episcopus from the common and known title The Chazan or Overseer in the Synagogue Aruch in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He prescribeth rules and qualifications for his choice in most things suitable to their own cautions in choosing of an Elder Maym. in Sanhedr per. 4. He speaketh of Elders ruling only and Elders ruling and labouring in the Word and Doctrine meaning in this distinction that same that he had spoken of in Chap. 3. Bishops and Deacons Both these in the common language then best known were called Elders and both owned as Rulers Yea the very title that they usually termed Deacons by Parnasin was the common word that was used to signifie a Ruler The Jerusalem Talmud in Peah fol. 21. 1. speaking of the three Parnasin or Deacons that were inevery Synagogue hath these two passages which may be some illustration to two passagesin this Epistle They appoint not less then three Pernasin in the Congregation for if matters of money were judged by three matters of life much more require three to manage them Observe that the Deacons Office was accounted as an Office that concerned life namely in taking care for the subsistance of the poor According to this may that in Chap. 3. 12. be understood For they that have used the Office of a Deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree A good
degree towards being intrusted with souls when they have been faithful in discharge of their trust concerning the life of the body The other passage is this R. Haggai whensoever he appointed Parnasin Deacons he urged the Law upon the People saying All rule that is given is given from the Law c. And here you may likewise observe that Deaconship is called Rule We observe before that it were not so monstrous as it might seem if by Elders that ruled only we should understand a Civil Magistracy or Bench in every Congregation as there was in every Synagogue but since the Apostle nameth only Bishops and Deacons his interpretation here is best taken from and within himself and to understand the Elders that ruled only of the Deacons which were called both Elders and Rulers as well as the Ministers and in the Jews Synagogues were professed Scholars The Talmudick place now cited tells us that R. Eliezer one of their greatest Rabbing was a Parnas or Deacon in a Synagogue The Episcopi or Ministers are titled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that laboured in the Word and Doctrine which most properly is to be understood distinctly thus which laboured in the Word and which laboured in teaching and the former to denote their laboriousness in study to inable them to teach and the latter their laboriousness in teaching 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but the common phrase of the Jews turned into Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See the Syriack here by which they mean a great student in the Law Among multitudes of instances that might be alledged I shall produce but this one out of Jeruslin Maasar sheni fol. 56. col 2. R. Jonah paid his Tithes to R. Acha bar Ulla not because he was a Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but because he laboured in the Law that is was a great student and an able teacher They that suppose that the tithes under the Law were paid only at the temple and to maintain the Priests in the ceremonious worship there and upon this conceit look upon them only as Levitical are far deceived for as some were indeed paid at the Temple upon such an account so others and that the Greatest part were paid to the Priests and Levites in their 48 Universities Josh. 21. to maintain them whilst they were studying there to inable them for the Ministry and to teach the people for which they were designed Deut. 33. 10. Mal. 2. 7. and when they were dispersed through the Land into the several Synagogues to be Ministers in them tithes were also paid for their maintenance there He speaketh of provision to be made for poor Widdows even much according to the Jews own rules that they went by in their Synagogues which herein were good The Talmudick Treatise Jevamoth speaketh of this matter at large and see Maym in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per. 18. 20. The Widdows he allows to be taken in to be maintained of the publick stock he would have not to be Widdows by divorce nor Widdows young but of 60 years of age and of grave and holy qualifications Not that these were to vow the vow of continency as see what a miserable ado the Rhemists make upon the place but that they must bee such as were likely to bring no more charge then themselves upon the Church nor bring any shame or reproach by the lightness of their lives to it and might be serviceable in their places to attend upon strangers to wash their feet c. But as for younger Widows their age and those times were dangerous when the Nicolaitan doctrine without which taught communicating with things of Idolatry and Fornication and mixing and marriage indifferently with heathen meeting with the heat of youth within might make such to wax wanton against Christ and deny the faith and marry with heathens or at least to bring charge upon the Church if they continued in it He injoyns prayers to be made for all sorts of men whereas the Jewish custom was to curse the Heathen and to pray for none but themselves and their own Nation He cals the Church the pillar and ground of truth Chap. 3. 15. the very title by which the great Sanhedrin was ordinarily stiled Vid. Maym. in Mamrin per. 1. the observing of which may be of good use for the explanation of it here After some stay in Macedonia and preaching up and down in those parts Paul turns back again and goes for Greece Act. 20. 2. and by the way visiteth Creet and there leaveth Titus Tit. 1. 5. thinking that he should presently after a little stay in Greece have set towards Jerusalem and that Titus should have staied there till further time For if what hath been spoken lately concerning Titus be considered how Paul sent him with his first Epistle to the Corinthians and that after their parting at Ephesus upon that occasion they never met till Titus cometh up to him when he was come from Ephesus to Macedonia 2 Cor. 7. 5 6. it will readily resolve that in that first journey to Macedonia he left him not in Cree◠for Titus and he were not yet met again since their parting at Ephesus And that he left him not there at his second coming up to Macedonia namely after his travelling in Greece and when he was prevented of his intended journey into Syria Act. 20. 2 3. it is apparent also by this that instantly upon his returning from Greece and from his prevented journey he sendeth for Titus to come to him upon warning Tit. 3. 12. which two particulars joyntly observed do make it plain that he left Titus in Creet when he came back from Macedonia in his journey into Greece and when he intended after his perambulation of Greece to have gone for Syria but the lying in wait of some Jews for his life turned him again to Macedonia In his return thither or upon his coming there he writeth THE EPISTLE TO TITUS It is not much material to controvert whether he sent this Epistle in the way as he went towards Macedonia or when he was come up into Macedonia it is enough to know that it was in the scantling of time either in his journey thither or instantly upon his coming there The postscript hath dated it from Nicopolis because of his words in Chap. 3. 12. Come unto me to Nicopolis for there I have determined to winter from which words as the affixer of the postscript hath gathered some ground to date it thence so others have gathered better ground to hold that it was not dated thence because he saith not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There I have determined to winter as if he were not yet come thither Who first planted the Gospel in Creete may be an endless inquiry certain it is that some Cretans were present at the first pouring forth of the Holy Ghost in the gift of tongues Acts 2. 8. but whether they imbraced the Gospel and returned with
Trophimus I left at Miletum sick By Tychicus who was the bearer of this Epistle to Timothy Chap. 4. 12. Paul also sendeth THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS for it is apparent that he was in bonds when he sent that Epistle Chap. 3. 1. and that he sent it by Tychicus Chap. 6. 21. That ye may know mine affairs and how I do Tychicus a beloved brother and faithful Minister in the Lord shall make known to you all things whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose In this Epistle he addresseth himself more especially to the convert Gentiles of the Ephesian Church to establish and settle them in the truth against that warping and wavering that was now too common and he setteth himself to unfold the mystery of the Gospel in its full luster and discovery in a more special manner and that especially in the two first Chapters as he himself professeth in the third By revelation God made known unto me the mystery as I wrote afore in few words whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ ver 3 4. He speaketh much of the mystery of the Gentiles calling and calleth the Jews and Gentiles knit in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Sone of God A perfect man and the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ Chap. 4. 13. In Chap. 5. 26 27. speaking of Christs washing the Church that he might present it to himself without spot or wrinckle c. he seemeth to allude to the Jews exceeding great curiousness in their washings for purification Maym. in Mikvaoth per. 1. There must be nothing to interpose between the person that is washed and the water for if there be any thing interposing betwixt him and the water as if any clay or dough stick to his flesh he is unclean as he was and his washing profits him nothing And a little after If there be upon the flesh of a man or upon a vessel any of those things that may interpose as dough pitch or the like though it be no more then a grain of musterdseed and he take it to thought his washing profits him nothing What he saith in ver 29. So ought Men to love their Wives even as their own bodies is agreed to even by the Jews doctrine Our Doctors teach He that loves his Wife as his own body and he that honours her more than his own body and he that maketh his Sons to walk in a right way c. of such a one the Scripture saith Thou shalt know that peace shall be in thy Tabernacle c. Alphes in Gittin per. ult CHRIST LX NERO. VI WE are now come to the second year of Pauls imprisonment in which he had the changeable and different occurrences of loving visits and salutes from some Churches abroad and cross dealing from some ill-willed at home some sadness of heart by the sickness of Epaphroditus near unto death but comfort and reviving again by his recovery The Church of Philippi had sent him to visit Paul in their name and to bring him some tokens of their love for his support and maintenance in his imprisonment and the good man fell sick in Rome very like to die upon his recovery and return home again Paul sendeth by him THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS written in his name and in the name of Timothy who according to his appointment was now come to him He sheweth in this Epistle that as there were some which preached the Gospel of sincerity so were there other that preached of envy and contention and so added affliction to his bonds He was yet in bonds but in some good hopes of deliverance as he sheweth in Chap. 2. 24. for he saith he hoped ere long to send Timothy to them and himself to come with him but we shall observe ere long that when Paul hath got his liberty Timothy is got into prison and so his journey for the present stopt He saluteth no Church in the platform of Bishops and Deacons but only this not but that there were Bishops and Deacons in other Churches as well as here but it may be he doth it here the rather because of the Contribution that the Bishops and Deacon had gathered for him and sent to him or because he would shew the platform of Office and Order in this Church of Philippi which was purely Gentile agreeable to that of the believing Jews Churches He giveth warning to beware of the heretical and unbelieving Jews whom he cals dogs and the concision and now the name they used to give to the Gentiles Dogs is light upon themselves The very Talmudists speak as evil of that generation in which Messias should come as the Scripture doth 2 Tim. 3. 1 c. and among other things they say thus When the Son of David cometh the Synagogues shall become stews Galilee shall be destroyed Gablah shall be desolate the Samaritan Version of the Pentateuch doth constantly render Seir Gabla and the men of the border of Israel shall go from City to City and the wisdom of the Scribes shall be abominated and Religious persons shall be scorned And the faces of that generation shall be as dogs Talm. bab in Sanhedr fol. 97. He calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The concision The word signifies such superstitious and vain and impious cuttings in the flesh as Heathens used as 2 King 18. 28 c. No more doth he make of their Circumcision the Greek word is used by the LXX Levit. 21. 5. He speaketh of one in Philippi whom he calleth his true yokefellow alluding it may be either to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which the Jews did ordinarily express great professors of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most ordinary phrase in the Jerusalem Talmud Or the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yokes or couples whereby they expressed the President and Vicepresident of the Sanhedrin those famous couples Shemaiah and Abtalion Hillel and Shammai c. Of whom it is that he speaketh is undeterminable Barnabas or Silas might best bare the title Whosoever it was it seemeth it was some worthy person who was at this time in that Church whom he intreats to compose some differences that were then afoot and to be helpful in some occasions and cases that he knew needful It is not to be doubted but Epaphroditus had acquainted him particularly with the state of the Church and he applies his exhortations accordingly As the Church of Philippi had sent Epaphroditus to visit him so did the Church of Colossi send Epaphras one of their Ministers to do the like Colos. 1. 7 8. whereupon by Tychicus who had been the last year at Ephesus to fetch Timothy and returned with him to Rome Col. 4. 7. and by Onesimus a Colossian Col. 4. 9. Paul and Timothy send THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS The naming of Mark now with him Chap. 4. 10. doth state the time of writing this Epistle
former Chapter was contained the intimation of the desolation of Jerusalem and in the beginning of this the ceasing of Prophesie under the similitude of the four winds restrained from blowing upon the Earth Compare Cant. 4. 16. Ezek. 37. 9. only a remnant of Israel are sealed unto salvation and not to perish by that restraint and with them innumerable Gentiles Ezekiel helpeth here to confirm the explication that we have given of the Chapter before for he hath the very like passage upon the first destruction of the City Ezek. 9. 10. 11. Compare the marking in the foreheads here with Exod. 28. 38. Dan not mentioned among the Tribes in this place Idolatry first began in that Tribe Judg. 18. 1 King 12. REVEL CHAP. VIII THE opening of the seventh Seal lands us upon a new scene as a new world began when Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews cast off The six Seals in the two former Chapters have shewed their ruine and the appearing of the Church of the Gentiles and now the seven Trumpets under the seventh Seal give us a prospect in general of the times thence forward to the end of all things I say in general for from the beginning of the twelfth Chapter and forward to the end of the nineteenth they are handled more particularly Silence in Heaven for a while and seven Angels with seven Trumpets may call our thoughts to Joshua 6. 4 10. and intimate that the Prophetick story is now entred upon a new Canaan or a new stage of the Church as that business at Jericho was at Israels first entring on the old Or it may very properly be looked upon as referring and alluding to the carriage of things at the Temple since this Book doth represent things so much according to the scheme and scene of the Temple all along And in this very place there is mention of the Altar and Incense and Trumpets which were all Temple appurtenances It was therefore the custom at the Temple that when the Priest went in to the Holy place the people drew downward from the Porch of the Temple and there was a silence whilest he was there yea though the people were then praying incomparably beyond what there was at other times of the service for the Priests were blowing with Trumpets or the Levites singing The allusion then here is plain When the sacrifice was laid on the Altar a Priest took coals from the Altar went in to the Holy place and offered incense upon the Golden Altar that stood before the vail that was before the Ark and this being done the Trumpets sounded over the sacrifice Here then is first intimation of Christs being offered upon the Altar then his going into the Holy place as Mediator for his people and then the Trumpets sounding and declaring his disposals in the world His taking fire off the Altar and casting it upon the Earth ver 5. is a thing not used at the Temple but spoken from Ezek. 10. 2. which betokeneth the sending of judgment which the Trumpets speak out These seven Trumpets and the seven Vials in Chap. 16. in many things run very parallel how far they Synchronize will be best considered when we come there The first Trumpet sounding brings hail and fire and blood upon the Earth and destroys grass and trees a third part of them Fire and hail was the plague of Egypt Exod. 9. 23. but fire and blood with hail is a new plague By these seemeth to be intimated what plagues should be brought upon the world by fire sword dreadful tempest unnatural seasons and the like The second Trumpet sounds and a great burning mountain is cast into the Sea and the third part of it becomes blood The Sea in the Prophetick language doth signifie multitudes of people as Jerem. 51. 36. 42. And Babylon that was Monarch was a burning mountain in the same Chapter ver 35. So that the Imperial power seemeth to be the mountain here which made bloody and mischievous work not only by the persecution of Christians but even among their own people As Nero at present Vitellius instantly after Domitian Commodus and indeed generally all of them either bloodily destroy their own people or at least for their covetousness ambition revenge or humour bring disquietness oppression misery Wars and Blood upon all the World in one place or other The third Trumpet brings the Star Wormwood upon the Rivers and Fountains of waters which seemeth to denote the grievous Heresies that should be in the Church which should corrupt and imbitter the pure springs of the Scripture and fountains of Truth A Star in the language of this Book is a Church-man Chap. 1. 20. Ben Cochab was such a Wormwood Star among the Jews called most properly Ben cozba the lier And the phrase A Star falling from Heaven alludes to Isa. 14. 12. How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer c. The fourth Trumpet shews the darkning of the Sun and Moon and Stars for a third part By which seems to be understood the wane and decay both in the glory of the Church by superstition and of the Empire by its divisions within and enemies from without and this before the rising of the Papacy which appears under the next Trumpet and these things were great advantages to its rising The darkning of the heavenly luminaries in the Prophets language signifieth the eclipsing of the glory and prosperity of a Kingdom or People Isa. 13. 9 10. Joel 2. 10. How it was with the Church and Empire in these respects before that time that the Papacy appeared he is a stranger to History both Ecclesiastical and Civil that remembreth not upon this very hint The three Trumpets coming are the Trumpets of Wo wo wo though these things past were very woful but those much more that are to come REVEL CHAP. IX A Description of the Papacy under the fifth Trumpet Another Star falling from Heaven and that a notable one indeed the He that hath the Key of the bottomless pit committed to him A vast difference from the Keys given Peter The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven The setting of these in their just distance and opposition will illustrate the matter before us When the world is to come out of darkness and Heathenism to the knowledge of the Gospel Christ gives Peter the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to open the door and let light come in among them for he first preached to the Gentiles Act. 10. 15. 7. The World under the Papacy returns as it were to Heathenism again and not undeservedly for its contempt of the Gospel and unproficiency under it which is very fitly described by Hell opened by the Keys of the bottomless pit and darkness coming and clouding all The Claviger or Turnkey is The child of perdition Abaddon and Apollyon a destroyer and one that is surely and sorely to be destroyed Chittim Italy or Rome afflicting and perishing for ever Num. 24. 24. Antichrist of the second edition
and not like Enoch and Elias as is plain by the Text for that speaketh of shutting up heaven turning water into blood and plaguing the earth which had been the actings of Elias and Moses and none but they and no mention of Enochs ever doing such a thing at all We have therefore from that place as little warrant to look for Elias his bodily coming before the end of the world as we have for the bodily coming of Moses 3. The proper meaning of that Prophesie concerning the two Witnesses is to set forth the state of the Church towards the end of the world when the Jews shall be called and knit together into one Church with the Gentiles shewing that God will raise up a powerful Ministery among either people which the Holy Ghost characters by Moses the first Minister and Prophet of the Jews and Elias the first Minister and Prophet of the Gentiles These two people and this double Ministery are as two olive trees and two candlesticks standing before the Lord of the whole earth This Ministery shall be opposed by Antichrist and almost destroyed and brought to nothing And as Antichrist hath caused a general defection and apostasie already in the world having even slain Religion and the preaching of the Truth till in the age last past they revived again So shall he cause a defection and falling away for a season in the Church of the Jews after their calling so that Religion and the truth shall be in a manner extinguisht among them that Antichrist may make the measure of his iniquity full And as Rome in her heathenish power did first destroy the old Jerusalem and then persecute the new so must she do in her Antichristian power and mischievousness first undo the Christian Church consisting of Heathens only as it hath done already in the dark time of Popery over all the world and then undo the Church consisting of Gentiles and Jews united together but God shall revive it and then the true Religion and the Ministery of the Truth shall live again by the power and Spirit of God put into them That this is the aim of that prophecy in the eleventh of the Revelation might be shewed if it were seasonable by many arguments and consequently that the expectation of Enoch and Elias to come bodily and to fight with Antichrist c. hath not the least colour or ground from thence at all but this is not a place to dispute that Text. §. Art thou that Prophet There is some question whether to read it in the force of the Article or no there are some that do read it so and some that do not The Syriack and the Vulgar Latine take no notice of the Article at all but read it as if it were without Art thou a Prophet And so doth the margin of our English Bible But others with our English Text do interpret the words as speaking of some peculiar Prophet which was neither Christ nor Elias but some other pointed at and intended by that prediction Deut. 18. 15. Vid. Cyril and Chrysost. c. It is hard to guess at the mind of these Jews that speak these words we have in hand for both the Greek expression in this Text and the Jews exposition of that in Deuteronomy do so indifferently carry it either to a Prophet in general or to some singular Prophet in particular that it may be an equilibrious case whether to take it the one way or the other I rather take it the former and cannot but apprehend that their questioning of the Baptist in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indefinitely meant art thou a Prophet Not this or that Prophet but art thou a Prophet at all For prophesie had been long decayed amongst them and when they saw one appear now of so prophetical a character as the Baptist was and when he had resolved them he was neither Christ nor Elias their properest question then was art thou then any other Prophet come after so long a time as there have been no Prophets among us And he answers No that is not in their sense not a Prophet of the same Ministery with those in the Old Testament but of another nature or not one of those Prophets of the Old Testament revived as Matth. 16. 14. but a Minister foretold of by one of those Prophets as Esay 40. 3. The reason that I refuse the strict interpretation of this question Art thou that Prophet as if they spake of some particular man is partly because the article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not always to be construed in such a strictness as pointing out a particular thing or person but is very commonly nay most commonly of a more large and general signification But chiefly because I find not in the Jewish Writers any particular Prophet mentioned whom they expected to come as they did Christ and Elias and for ought I find they do not interpret that place in Deut. 18. 15. of any such a particular person but of the succession of Prophets in generall It is true indeed that Aben Ezra understands it of Joshua and Rab. Sol. on Jer. 1. understands it of Jeremy but this was of Joshua and Jeremy in their times but of any such singular person that they expected in the last times I find no mention unless the Priest of righteousness spoken of a little before or Messias ben Joseph should be reduced under this notion and name of That Prophet Ver. 25. Why baptizest thou then It is observable that they never question what he meant by his baptism but what he meant to baptize they inquire not concerning the thing but concerning his person and authority And in all the time of his course and ministery we never find that they made the least scruple what his Baptism was or what it meant but only they look on him and wonder and question what he hath to do to baptize And the reason of this was because the rite and custom of baptizing had been in common and ordinary practice and use among that Nation many hundreds of years before John ever appeared among them And as this common and known custom of Baptism used among them continually and ordinarily so long before and then made them that they never wonder nor question nor make strange of Johns baptizing as to the thing it self so the consideration of this very thing may give us much light and satisfaction in that controversie that is now afoot among us concerning the baptizing or not baptizing of Infants It is urged by those that deny Infants baptism that there is neither command for it nor example of it in the Scripture as there was for Infants circumcision Now this consideration giveth one ready answer if there were no other to be given If baptism and baptizing of Infants had been as strange and unseen and unheard of a thing in the world till John Baptist came as circumcision was till God appointed it to Abraham there is no
Beza in this place and indeed in hundreds of other places for he doth rather suspect the truth and purity of this Text than believe the story that so many Priests should believe And yet it seemeth among all his Greek Copies there was not one that read otherwise Truly it is a daring that deserves castigation in him that when he either understandeth not the perfect meaning of a place or findeth difficulty in it or hath fancied a sense contrary to it that he should throw dirt into the face of the Scripture and deny the purity of the Greek text before he will ungive any thing of his own groundless opinion Honorable is the memory of that man in the Church of God and his name as a sweet perfume among us but I would this his boldness which he took to himself continually had not given so great occasion to Jews and Papists to bark against the purity of the Text and the truth of the Gospel as it hath done Vers. 9. The Synagouge of the Libertines That is of Jews that were freeborn as Paul Act. 22. 28. viz. the sons of those Jews that had obtained the Roman freedom He that from a slave or servant obtained manumission and liberty was called libertus and his child born to him in this freedom was libertinus Vers. 15. His face as the face of an Angel Stephen is accused by the students of this Libertine Colledge of blasphemy against Moses and the Temple for preaching of the destruction of his ceremonies and of that place whereas he spake but what Moses and an Angel had foretold before Deut. 28. and 32. Dan. 9. and accordingly his face hath the splendor of an Angel and shineth like the face of Moses Acts VII Vers. 2. Men Brethren THAT is Brethren for the word men is added only by an Hebrew Elegancy and custom as Gen. 13. 8. we are Men Brethren which our English hath well rendred we are Brethren so vers 26. of this Chapter §. When he was in Mesopotamia For Chaldea was also reckoned to Mesopotamia and so Pliny accounteth it Lib. 6. Nat. Hist. cap. 26. Babylon Chaldaicarum gentium caput diu summam claritatem obtinuit in toto orbe propter quam reliqua pars Mesopotamiae Assyriaeque Babylonia appellata est And afterwards Sunt etiamnum in Mesopotamia Hipparenum Chaldaeorum hoc sicut Babylon And presently after Orchein quoque tertia Chaldaeorum doctrina in eodem situ locantur Vers. 3. And said unto him Get thee out of thy Country Divers expositors have intricated themselves into a perplexitie they cannot well tell how to get out of by supposing these words and the words of Moses Gen. 12. 1. to be the same and to speak of the same time and thing whereas they are visibly and vastly distant and different and they mean two several calls of God to Abraham the one in Chaldea the other in Charran In Chaldea God appears to him and bids him Get thee out of thy Country and from thy kindred but maketh no mention of leaving his fathers house for that he took along with him Gen. 11. 31. The Holy Ghost indeed hath ascribed the conduct of this journy to Terah as if he had received the call and had been the chief mover in the business but it is only to shew his conversion and forsaking of his native Country and Idolatry and his readiness to go with Abram when God calleth Abram but that the call was to Abram it is not only asserted by Stephen here and Joshuah Chap 24. 2. but also confessed by some of the Jews themselves as Aben Ezra on Gen. 12. 1. The Lord commanded Abram whilst he was yet in Ur of the Chaldees that he should leave his Country But when God calls him from Haran or Charran he then bids him depart from his fathers house as well as he had done from his country and kindred before for now he left his brother Nahor and all his fathers house behind him Had this been observed there could never so many sâ—ruples have risen about Terahs age at Abrahams birth nor about Abrahams journey as there have done nor would there be such ambiguity about translating the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 12. 1. as there hath been The story in Genesis runs current and in a continuation and may be illustrated in this Paraphrase God in Ur of the Chaldees appeared to Abraham and said unto him Get thee out of thy Country and from thy kindred but take thy fathers house with thee and go to a land which I shall shew thee And when Abram told Terah of this command Terah condescended and consented And Terah took Abram and Lot and Sarai and they Terah and Abram went with them from Ur to Haran and dwelt there And Terah died in Haran And then God saith to Abram Get thee out of thy Country and from thy kindred and from thy fathers house also now and go into Canaan c. And to take away all cavils that might be made against the matter in this respect in that both Ur and Haran are called Abrams country and kindred Stephen hath laid them both in Mesopotamia as is noted before Vers. 5. Not so much as to set his foot on As Deut. 2. 5. Abram was forced to buy a place of burial though all the land was given him by promise Vers. 6. And intreat them evil four hundred years There is a double sum of years mentioned concerning the seed of Abraham namely four hundred and four hundred and thirty Gen. 15. 13. Exod. 12. 40. The four hundred and thirty was from Abrams receiving of the promise to the delivery out of Egypt And the four hundred was from the fifth year of Isaac to that delivery Then did Ismael mock and then began affliction to Abrahams seed and from thence they were in affliction and sojourning in a strange land Canaan and Egypt four hundred years See the LXX at Exod. 12. 40. Vers. 7. And serve me in this place This clause is here alledged by Steven as if it had been spoken to Abraham whereas it was spoken to Moses four hundred years after but the holy Ghost useth to speak short in known stories as Matth. 1. 12. 1 Chron. 1. 36. Mark 1. 2 3. c. Vers. 14. Threescore and fifteen souls Whereas Moses saith that all the souls of the family of Jacob that went down into Egypt were but threescore and ten Gen. 46. 27. Exod. 1. 5. Deut. 10. 22. Stephen inlargeth the number and saith threescore and fifteen and herein he followeth the Septuâ—gint who in the two first cited places have that sum and they make up the account in Gen. 46. by fetching the names of five children of Joseph out of the book of Chronicles which Moses mentioned not and which indeed were not born at their going into Egypt but after and these are Machir Giliad Shutelah Tahen and Eden and the reason of this their reckoning I have shewed elswhere viz. In Harm
And hence the sons of Proselytes in following generations were circumcised indeed but not baptized They were circumcised that they might take upon themselves the obligation of the Law but they needed not baptism because they were already Israelites From these things it is plain that there was some difference as to the end between the Mosaical washings of unclean persons and the baptism of Proselytes and some between the Baptism of Proselytes and John's baptism Not as though they concurred not in some parallel end but because other ends were added over and above to this or that or some ends were withdrawn II. The Baptism of Proselytes was the bringing over of Gentiles into the Jewish Religion The Baptism of John was the bringing over of Jews into another Religion And hence t is the more to be wondered at that the people so readily flockt to him when he introduced a Baptism so different from the known Proselytical baptism The reason of which is to be fetcht from hence that at the coming of the Messias they thought not without cause that the state of things was plainly to be changed and that from the Oracles of the Prophets who with one mouth described the times of the Messias for a new World Hence was that received opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God at that time would renew the World for a thousand years See the Aruch in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and after in Chap. 24. 3. And that also that they used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world to come by a form of speech very common among them for the times of the Messias which we observe more largely elsewhere III. The baptism of Proselytes was an obligation to perform the Law that of John was an obligation to repentance for although Proselytical baptism admitted of some ends and Circumcisiou of others yet a Traditional and erroneous Doctrine at that time had joyned this to both that the Proselyte covenanted in both and oblig'd himself to perform the Law to which that of the Apostle relates Gal. V. 3. I testifie again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law But the baptism of John was a baptism of repentance Mark I. 4. which being undertaken they who were baptized professed to renounce their own legal righteousness and on the contrary acknowledged themselves to be obliged to repentance and faith in the Messias to come How much the Pharisaical doctrine of Justification differed from the Evangelical so much the obligation undertaken in the baptism of Proselytes differed from the obligation undertaken in the baptism of John Which obligation also holds amongst Christians to the end of the World IV. That the baptism of John was by plunging the body after the same manner as the washing of unclean persons and the baptism of Proselytes was seems to appear from those things which are related of him namely that he baptized in Jordan that he baptized in Enon because there was much water there and that Christ being baptized came up out of the water to which that seems to be parallel Act. VIII 38. Philip and the Eunuch went down into the water c. Some complain that this rite is not retained in the Christian Church as though it something derogated from the truth of baptism or as though it were to be called an innovation when the sprinkling of water is used instead of plunging This is no place to dispute of these things Let us return these three things only for a present answer 1. That the notion of washing in John's baptism differs from ours in that he baptized none who were not brought over from one Religion and that an irreligious one too into another and that a true one But there is no place for this among us who are born Christians the condition therefore being varied the rite is not only lawfully but deservedly varied also Our baptism argues defilement indeed and uncleanness and demonstrates this doctrinally that we being polluted have need of washing but this is to be understood of our natural and sinful stain to be washed away by the blood of Christ and the grace of God with which stain indeed they were defiled who were baptized by John But to denote this washing by a Sacramental sign the sprinkling of water is as sufficient as the dipping into water when in truth this argues washing and purification as well as that But those who were baptized by John were blemished with another stain and that an outward one and after a manner visible that is a polluted religion namely Judaism or Heathenism from which if according to the custom of the Nation they past by a deeper and severer washing they neither underwent it without reason nor with any reason may it be laid upon us whose condition is different from theirs 2. Since Dipping was a rite used only in the Jewish Nation and proper to it it were something hard if all Nations should be subjected under it but especially when it is neither necessarily to be esteemed of the essence of baptism and is moreover so harsh and dangerous that in regard of these things it scarcely gave place to Circumcision We read that some leavened with Judaism to the highest degree yet wish't that Dipping in Purification might be taken away because it was accompanied with so much severity b b b b b b Hieros Beracoth fol. 6. 3. In the days of R. Joshua ben Levi some endeavoured to abolish this dipping for the sake of the women of Galilee because by reason of the cold they became barren R. Joshua ben Levi said unto them do ye go about to take away that which hedges in Israel from transgression Surely it is hard to lay this yoke upon the neck of all Nations which seemed too rough to the Jews themselves and not to be born by them men too much given to such kind of severer rites And if it be demanded of them who went about to take away that dipping Would you have no purification at all by water It is probable that they would have allowed of the sprinkling of water which is less harsh and not less agreeable to the thing it self 3. The following ages with good reason and by Divine Prescript administred a Baptism differing in a greater matter from the Baptism of John and therefore it was less to differ in a less matter The application of water was necessarily of the essence of Baptism but the application of it in this or that manner speaks but a circumstance The adding also of the word was of the nature of a Sacrament but the changing of the word into this or that form would you not call this a circumstance also And yet we read the form of Baptism so changed that you may observe it to have been threefold in the history of the New Testament Secondly In reference to the form of John's Baptism which thing we have propounded
that particularly by very impious vows they would be making We have a little hint of it Mat. XV. 5. and more in the Treatise Nedarim See also Mat. V. 43. Thou shalt hate thine enemy This rule obtain'd in the Jewish Schools And upon that precept Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self let us see the mighty charitable Gloss in Chetubb c c c c c c Fol. 8. 2. Thou shalt love thy neighhour as thy self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is decree him to an easie death namely when he is adjudg'd by the Sanhedrin to die When you consider the frequent repetition of this precept Love one another consider also that passage Mat. X. 34. I came not to send peace but a sword and then having reflected on those horrid seditions and mutual slaughters wherewith the Jewish Nation raging within its self in most bloody discords and intestine broils was even by its self wasted and overwhelmed you will more clearly see the necessity and reasonableness of this command of loving one another as also the great truth of that expression By this they shall know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another VERS XV. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But I have call'd you friends because all things c. Thus is it said of Abraham the friend of God Gen. XVIII 19. VERS XVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye have not chosen me FOR it was a custom amongst the Jews that the Disciple should chuse to himself his own Master d d d d d d Avoth cap. 1. hal 6. Joshuah ben Perachiah said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chuse to thy self a master and get a Colleague VERS XXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They had not had sin So also ver 24. in both places the passage is to be understood of that peculiar sin of rejecting the Messiah If I had not spoken to them and done those things that made it demonstrably evident that I was the Messiah they had not had sin that is they had not been guilty of this sin of rejecting me But when I have done such things amongst them it is but too plain that they do what they do in meer hatred to me and to my Father Our Saviour explains what sin he here meaneth in Chap. XVI 9. CHAP. XVI VERS II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall put you out of the Synagogues THIS I presume must be understood of a casting out from the whole Congregation of Israel because I know the Jews always proceeded in that manner against the Samaritans and certainly the Disciples of Jesus were full as hateful to them as the Samaritans could be Nay they often call the Christians by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cuthites as well as those Those that were cast out of the Church they despoil'd of all their goods according to Ezra X. 8. which they also did to those that were Shammatiz'd e e e e e e Moed-katon fol. 81. 2. whence it may be a question whether Shammaetizing did not cast out of the whole Congregation and again whether one cast out of the whole Congregation might be ever readmitted We may take notice of what is said in Avodah Zarah f f f f f f Fol. 7. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No one that relapseth may be receiv'd again for ever The Gloss tells us that the passage concerns the Plebeians or Laicks who having taken upon themselves any religious rule of life go back again from that profession they do not admit them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into that order and society again Whether therefore those that fell off from the Gospel returning to their Judaism again were ever admitted into the Jewish Church after they had voluntarily forsaken it might be an enquiry but these things only by the by There was in truth a twofold Epocha of the persecution of the Apostolical Church namely both before that Apostacy of which we have such frequent mention and also after it Our Saviour had foretold the Apostacy in that tremendous Parable about the unclean spirit cast out and returning again with seven worse So shall it be also saith he with this wicked generation Mat. XII 45. The footsteps of this we may discern almost in every Epistle of the Apostles It is worthy observation that of 2 Thes. II. 3. This day of the Lord shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed The day of the Lord here spoken of was that wherein Christ should come and reveal himself in that remarkable vengeance against Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation of which kind of expression we shall say more on Chap. XXI 22. The Apostacy or falling away and revelation of the man of sin was to precede that day which might be easily made out by a History of those times if I were to do the business either of an Historian or a Chronologer When therefore the severe and cruel persecution was first rais'd by the unbelieving Jews before this falling away of Christians it must needs be greatly encreas'd afterward by them and the Apostates together Which distinction we may easily observe out of this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Will think that he doth God service So the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Zealots of whom we have mention in Sanhedr g g g g g g Fol. 81. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Zealots kill him Gloss. These are those good men who are endued with zeal in the cause of God Such who with their own hands immediately slew the transgressor not staying for the judgment of the Sanhedrin So in the place before quoted The Priest that ministers at the Altar in his uncleanness they do not bring before the Sanhedrin but they bring him out into the Court and there brain him with the pieces of wood provided to maintain the fire upon the Altar What infinite mischiefs and effusion of blood such pretexts of zeal toward God might occasion it is easie to imagin and very direful instances have already witnessed to the world Hence was it that they so often went about to have ston'd our Saviour Hence those forty and more that had conspir'd against St. Paul And those Zealots whose butcherly cruelties are so infamous in the Jewish story took the occasion of their horrid madness first from this liberty From such kind of Villains as these the Disciples of Christ could have little safeguard indeed they were greatly endanger'd upon a threefold account I. From the stroke of Excommunication by which they were spoiled of their goods and estates Heb. X. 34. II. From the sentence of the Sanhedrin dooming them either to be scourg'd or slain III. From these Assasins for by this name a name too well known in Europe we will call them We pronounce Assasine and Assasination Gul. Tyrius calls them Assysins whom it may be worth the while to consult about the original of that name
other wise than according to the rule of the wise men There 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wise man and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are opposed So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Private Priests are opposed to Priests of a worthier order and which we have observed before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Private men are opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judges In 1 Sam. XVIII 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a poor and contemptible man in the Targumist is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a poor and private Hidiot man According to this acception of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Jews the Apostle seems in this place to distinguish the members of the Church from the Ministers private persons from public So in those various companies celebrating the Paschal Service there was one that blessed recited distributed and was as it were the public Minister for that time and occasion and all the rest were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or private persons So also in the Synagogues the Angel of the Church performed the public Ministry and the rest were as private men These were indeed persons among them who were not in truth private men but Judges and Magistrates and learned men but as to that present action 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you must not understand of sitting in lower seats but of their present capacity they supply the place or sustain the condition of private persons as to the present action as men contradistinct from the public Minister 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed occurs for a common or unlearned man vers 23. Which yet hinders not at all but that in this place it may be taken in the sense mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. How shall he say Amen c. It was the part of one to pray or give thanks of all to answer Amen l l l l l l Beracoth cap. 8. hal 8. They answer Amen after an Israelite blessing not after a Cuthite c. But m m m m m m Hieros Berac fol. 12. 3. They answered not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Orphan Amen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor the snatched Amen c. The Orphan Amen was when Amen was said and he that spake weighed not or knew not why or to what he so answered To the same sense is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n n n n n n Bab. Avod Zaâ—ah fol. 24. 2. An Orphan Psalm that is a Psalm to which neither the name of the Author is inscribed nor the occasion of the composure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Talmudists is sometimes a Fool or Unlearned Let it be so if you please in this phrase Such is the Amen concerning which the Apostle in this place when any one answers Amen foolishly to a thing not understood VERS XXI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is written in the Law IN the Law that is in the Scripture In opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The words of the Scribes For that distinction was very usual in the Schools 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This we learn out of the Law and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this from the words of the Scribes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 o o o o o o Tosapht in Jevamoth cap. 1. The words of the Law that is of the Scripture have no need of confirmation But the words of the Scribes have need of confirmation The p p p p p p Bab. Sanhedr fol. 91. 2. former Prophets and the latter and the Hagiographa are each styled by the name of the Law so that there is no need of further illustration Whence is the Resurrection of the dead proved out of the Law From those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jos. VIII 30. It is not said Then he built in the preterperfect Tense but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall build in the future Tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hence the Resurrection of the dead is proved out of the Law Whence is the Resurrection of the dead proved out of the Law From thence that it is said Blessed are they that dwell in thine house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall always praise thee Psal. LXXXIV 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not said they do praise thee but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall praise thee Hence the Resurrection of the dead is proved out of the Law Whence is the Resurrection of the dead proved out of the Law From thence that it is said Thy Watchmen shall lift up their voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall sing with their voice together Es. LII 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not said They sing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall sing Hence the Resurrection of the dead is proved out of the Law Behold the former Prophets called by the name of the Law among which is the book of Josua and the latter Prophets among which is the Book of Esaiah and the Hagiographa among which is the Book of Psalms VERS XXVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every one of you hath a Psalm THAT is when ye come together into one place one is for having the time and worship spent chiefly in singing Psalms another in preaching c. One prefers singing of Psalms another a Tongue another preaching c. VERS XXVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By two or at most by Three THE Apostle permits the use of an unknown Tongue as you see and I ask again of what Tongue Let that be observed which he saith vers 22. Tongues are for a sign not to them who believe but to them who believe not And unless you prove there were in the Church such as believed not which it implies I would scarcely believe he permitted the use of unknown Tongues under any such notion especially when he had said immediately before Let all things be done to edification But suppose that which we suppose of the Hebrew Language and the thing will suite well This our most holy Apostle saith of himself Chap. IX 20. To the Jews I became a Jew that I might gain the Jews which seems here to be done by him but neither here nor any where else unless for edification and that he might gain them They would not be weaned from the old custom of the Synagogue as to the use of the Hebrew Tongue in their worship and for the present he indulges them their fancy and this not vainly since by the use of that Tongue the hearers might be edified a faithful interpreter standing by which in other Languages could not be done any thing more than if all were uttered in the Corinthian Language If any speak in a tongue let it be by two c. Let one read the Scripture in the Hebrew Language let another pray let a third preach For according to these kinds of divine worship you will best divide the persons that all may not do the same thing VERS XXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the Prophets
there were no age but there would be some persons Oracular as Moses If any limit then where is it fixed I say at the fall of Jerusalem And I will prove it by what they bring to prove Prophesie for these days Act. II. 17. And it shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and their sons and their daughters shall Prophesie c. By the last days they would understand it of the World I of Jerusalem So in divers places besides That it is so to be understood in the place S. Peters application makes out Who applies this place of the Old Testament unto himself and the Christians at that time upon occasion of their speaking strange Languages What absurdity would there also be in his applying this place The old Oeconomy is as the old World the Evangelical is the new Heaven and the new Earth So that the last days of the old World are the last days of the old Oeconomy Hence the destruction of Jerusalem is spoke of as the destruction of the old World and Christs coming is said to be in the last days So that if we take not the pouring out of the Spirit in the last days in that sence we swerve from the sence of the phrase in Scripture And hence it appears that Spirit to be in those last days and that it was affixed to them from propriety of phrase To this we might add the manner of imparting the Spirit in those times It was either by effusion upon many together Act. II. X. or by imposition of hands upon some single ones Now who dares think that ever was since the fall of Jerusalem such manner of giving or ever will be And these are the only ways of imparting the Spirit that are spoke of since Christ ascended To all we might add that at the fall of Jerusalem all Scripture was written and Gods full will revealed so that there was no further need of Prophesie and Revelation Therefore those places they cite are misapplied both as to the time and also as to the proper sence of them So that here is a discovery of the third delusion that Prophesie still continues whereas it was to cease at the fall of Jerusalem and there is no promise whereupon any hath reason to expect it in these times IV. The standing Ministry is the ordinary Method that God hath used for the instruction of his Church It has ever been Gods way since he first wrote words to teach his Church by a studious learned Ministry who were to explain the Scripture by study not by the Spirit Mistake not this Ministry consisted not of Prophets they were occasional and of necessity but of Priests and Levites We are sent to them Hag. II. 11. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts ask now the Priests concerning the Law Mal. II. 7. For the Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts We have mention made of the sons of the Prophets in the Old Testament these were not inspired but understanding was instilled into them by Elias and they sat at his feet such were those of Issachar So the Disciples sat at the feet of Christ. The true Apostles indeed were inspired because there was a necessity of it But when the New Testament was written there was no further need of inspiration And then the Church was sufficiently instructed by ordinary Ministers therefore was Timothy left at Ephesus Titus in Creet Thefore was the Imposition of Hands Hebrews VI. 2. I conclude all with that suitable advise of St. John I Chap. IV. 1. Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the World A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE Staffordshire-Natives At St. Michaels Cornhil LONDON Novemb. 26. 1663. ROM V. Vers. 1. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God THIS Text may seem very unsuitable to this occasion but certainly to no occasion no company no season can it be unsuitable can it be unseasonable to speak hear meditate of the infinite mercy of God in justifying men and of the unexpressible happiness of man in having peace with God But I have chosen this Subject to treat upon in a methodical succession to what I have discoursed upon heretofore being called to this Employment At my first being upon this task before you from those words in X. Joh. 22 23. which speaks of Christs being at Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication I shewed you at large how our Saviour held Communion with the Church of the Jews and thereupon I spake of such unity against Schism At my second from those words Jud. vers 12. These are spots in your Feasts of Charity I shewed that the spots spoken of were false Teachers that went abroad pretending to the Spirit and so deceiving and thereupon I spake of taking heed of such delusions against Heresie and Error And now what can I more orderly and methodically speak upon after speaking of keeping Peace with the Church and keeping Peace with the Truth than of having Peace with God Yes you will say To have taken in first having peace one with another True that might not have been immethodical But you speak that in my stead this Loving Friendly Brotherly meeting discourses that for me and makes a visible Sermon of your peace one with another And I have made that as it were a Text whereupon to raise an occasional meditation to the tenor of that which the Text that I have read speaks And let me raise it thus If it be so good and pleasant and happy a thing to see brethren thus live together in unity thus to meet together to walk together to Feast together in Love Unity and Peace Sursum corda lift up your hearts and from this lustre you see of the Sun shining in this water below look up to the light that is in the body of the Sun it self and meditate how excellent how pleasant how happy a thing it is to have peace with God to walk in peace with God in his own ways to converse in peace with God in his own House to Feast in peace with God at his own Table and at night to lie down and sleep in peace with with God in his own Bosom This is the last Epistle the Apostle wrote before his apprehension and imprisonment He wrote it from Corinth where he touched in his journy to Jerusalem his last journy thither He wrote it in the second year of Nero immediately after Easter when Claudius who had hindred the Mystery of iniquity from its working in its full scope by his discountenancing the Jewish Nation had now been taken away above a year and an half ago And now that mystery did find it self loose and acted in its full activity those of that Nation that had not embraced the Gospel persecuting it with all
Church of God That Jerusalem for that fact should be a curse a hissing and an everlasting desolation and that Rome that was as guilty every whit should be a blessing a renown and the prime Church of all Churches Let a Papist solidly unriddle me this and he says something And to speak to what he pleads we may first answer with that common saying Ubi lex II. non distinguit c. what the Word of God doth not distinguish we are not to make any distinction about but of any differences of qualities twixt Rome Heathen and Papal the Word of God doth not distinguish unless it shew the Papal to be the worse of the two In this Chapter indeed it distinguishes of the change of state and government from Imperial to Pontifical but for mischievousness and abomination there is no such distinction Rome Heathen in the beginning of the Chapter is a Beast like a Leopard with feet like a Bear and a mouth like a Lion And Rome Papal at vers 11. a beast like a Lamb but it speaks like a Dragon and exerciseth all the power of the former Beast and is not behind it a whit in wickedness and cruelty A Lamb in shew but a Dragon a Devil in speech and the very former beast in demeanor the former beast had the mouth of a Lion this of a Dragon the former bad this worse And look but at several places that speak of this City and you find they speak of it without any such distinction of quality but that Rome all along is her self i. e. stark naught till her latter end and till she perish The first time you meet with any hint of Rome in Scripture is Numb XXIV 24. And I. ships shall come from the coast of Chittim and shall afflict Asshur and shall afflict Eber and he also shall perish for ever Where by Chittim that Rome and Italy are meant it is the consent both of Jews and Christians both of Protestants and Papists and the very intent and story of the passage doth so enforce it to be taken And the words shew how Ships and Souldiers from Rome should afflict and conquer Assyria who had been once the great afflicter and that they should afflict and conquer Heber or the Hebrews the afflicted people yea afflict Christ the chief child of Heber for Rome as I said put him to death All which History sheweth to be most true And he also that is Chittim Rome or Italy shall perish for ever The word also parallels her perdition with Amaleck of which there is mention vers 20. Amaleck was the first of the Nations that is he was the first of the Nations that fought against Israel Exod. XVII and that Nation shall perish for ever So Chittim or Rome is the last of the Nations that shall afflict Heber and the Israel of God and he also shall perish for ever Now do you find any such distinction here as that Rome Papal should be holy blessed and the most excellent Church in the World when the conclusion the period of Chittim is that he shall perish for ever And the last time that there is discourse in Scripture of Rome it makes this distinction II. indeed of the state and government of it that Rome Heathen is the Beast and Papal is the false Prophet but it leaves both under the same condemnation and perishing for ever Revel XIX 20. And the Beast was taken and the false Prophet And both these were taken and cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone Antichrist in Scripture is charactered under the character of Apostasie or falling away III. from the Truth 2 Thes. II. 3 4. There must be a falling away first and then the Man of sin shall be revealed And Rev. IX 1. I saw a star fall from Heaven unto the Earth and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit And he opened the bottomless pit and there arose a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace and the Sun and the Air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit And there came out of the smoke Locusts upon the Earth c. He that lets Hell loose and opens the bottomless pit and le ts out smoke that darkneth all the World and le ts out Locusts that devour all before them He is a Star a Churchman an Angel a Minister of the Church as Chap. I. 20. The seven Stars are the Angels of the seven Churches but a Star fallen from Heaven a Minister apostatized and revolted from the Truth or else he would not rightly resemble his father the Devil who abode not in the truth but fell from it and became an enemy Now let any one judge whether Rome Heathen or Papal be this apostatized wretch and whether of them hath departed from the truth Rome Heathen never embraced the truth and so could never fall from it Rome Papal hath done it with a witness And lastly That much mistaken place in Revel XX. speaks to this very tenour we are IV. upon First The old Dragon which is the Devil and Satan is bound by Christ a thousand years that he should no more deceive the Nations vers 3. The old Serpent had deceived the Nations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heathen for above two thousand years with Idolatry false miracles false oracles and with all blindness of superstition Now Christ sending the Gospel by his Apostles and Ministers among the Heathen or Gentiles bound the Devil and imprisoned him curbed his power and delusion that he should not deceive the World in manner as he had done but the World now becomes Christian and Heathenism is done away and this is there called the first Resurrection viz. the Resurrection of the dead Heathen as Ephes. II. 1. You hath he quickned who were dead in trespasses and sins And Joh. V. 25. The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Well thus the Devil is bound a thousand years during which time the Gospel runs through the World and prevails and makes it Christian. At vers 7. the Devil is let loose again and by Popery he makes the World as blind deluded heathenish as it had been in the worst times under Heathenism And it were no hard thing out of History to shew that Rome Papal did equal nay exceed Rome Heathen in all blindness wickedness cruelty uncleanness and in all manner of abomination But an hour a day a week would not serve the turn to describe that full Parallel The Text gives a full summary of all though in few words when it tells us that the Dragon the Devil gave his power seat and authority to Rome and it hath and doth and will act in that spirit while it is Rome and can any thing but mischief be expected from such a spirit This days memorial is evidence enough instead of more A Plot and Design of
condemnation The ceremonial Law was given by Moses a ministration of types and shadows but truth came by Jesus Christ substantiating and resolving all III. Look into the Gospel it self It is the greatest and most Divine truth that can be given And as the Devil when he brought in the Heathen Religion brought in the greatest lie that could be imposed upon men So when God brought in the Gospel he brought in the greatest Truth that could be received by men And should I exceed my bounds if I said The greatest Truth that could be revealed by God For what could God reveal to mortal men more than he hath done in it himself his Son his Spirit his Grace his Salvation More than what is revealed in the Gospel shall never be revealed to men on this side Heaven And is not Heaven it self revealed very plainly in it And yet there are men in the Text and men in the World that make it their work to resist this Truth This light to lighten Gentiles they would put out This glory of the people Israel they would corrupt and this great and Divine Oracle of God they would silence and stop its mouth Very fitly resembled in the Emblem where the candle being lighted and set up the Devil the Turk the Pope and a company of Hereticks and Persecutors set with all their earnestness and indeavour to blow it out More than an Emblem of such an indeavour was the great plot and design of this day from the stroke of which we are here met to render our acknowledgment and thanksgiving An indeavour to have blown up and blown out the Truth of God and the purity and power of the Gospel out of this nation for ever In the words before us you plainly see two things an Act and the Agents resisting of the Truth and the men that resisted it But do you not also observe one out of sight or behind the vail viz. the providence of God looking on and permitting such a thing to be done A mystery of iniquity in the cursed acting of the persons and a mystery of providence and dispensing in suffering them so to act I. Concerning the persons and their acting The Truth might take up the complaint and expostulation of David It was not an open enemy that did me this evil for then I should have born it neither was it an open adversary that magnified himself against me for then peradventure I might have hid my self from him but it was thou my companion and familiar which took counsel with me together and we walked to the House of God as friends He that eateth at my table hath lift up his heel against me These men and the Truth or Gospel had been old acquaintance they had conversed and been familiar together they had taken counsel together and gone to Church too as friends but now they become her enemies because she is Truth They had approved the Gospel been initiated into it profest it and it may be some of them had preached it but now they become its enemy because she is Truth They had once received the knowledge of the Truth but now they wilfully sin against it Heb. X. 26. They had once known the way of Righteousness but now were utterly turned away from it 2 Pet. II. 21. They had once run well as Gal. III. but now they run clear counter to what they had done and seek to destroy the Gospel which they had once professed and resist the Truth with as much nay more fervency and earnestness than ever they owned it It was Pauls honour and comfort that He now preached the Gospel which he once destroyed Gal. I. 22. but it was these wretches dread and condemnation that they destroyed the Gospel which they once preached That general Apostasie or revolting from Truth that was then in the Church brought forth twins of a clear contrary complexion as different as Jacob and Esau if I may use Jacobs name with such persons when both of them are of the manners and conditions of Esau and you could hardly tell which of them was the worse For some Apostatized to pure Judaisme some to meer or worse than Heathenism some to dote upon the rites of Moses and to look to be justified by the works of the Law and to betake themselves to a Pharisaical austerity hoping thereby to be justified Others revolted to all loosness of life and Atheism abusing the liberty of the Gospel to libertinism and turning the grace of God into wantonness and accounting all things lawful that might content the flesh and please a carnal mind Now the Apostles give intimation of both these and sadly complain and invey against them I need not to particularize he that runs may read it more especially in the Epistle to the Galatians concerning the former and in 2 Pet. II. and Jude concerning the latter I might speak how these wretches did resist the Gospel or what instruments or machinations they used for the opposing of it As 1. Venting damnable Heresies and Doctrines of Devils as our two Apostles tell us 1 Tim. III. 1. 2 Pet. II. 2. Using the trade of Jannes and Jambres conjuration and sorcery and lying miracles as our Law had foretold Matth. XXIV 24. That they should shew signs and wonders to deceive the very elect if it were possible And the Apostle tells it was so as our Saviour had foretold 2 Thes. II. 9. That the coming of this mystery of iniquity was according to the working of Satan in all power and signs and lying wonders 3. They used the trade that the Roman Emperors afterward used of bitter sharp and cruel persecution Of which you have several memorials in the Epistles ravening Wolves breaking into the Church in sheeps clothing and making sad havock of the flock all before them This was the judgment that begun at the house of God 1 Pet. IV. 17. The hour of temptation that came upon all the Earth Rev. III. 10. I might by the way observe How far a man may fall from the true profession of the Gospel viz. so far as to become the worst of men and the Gospels most bitter enemy And that the bitterest enemies of the Gospel have ever been some that have pretended to the Gospel Persecution never did that mischief in the Church that Heresie hath done And the sorest wounds that the Gospel ever received were like his in Zach. in the house of her friends but this I shall not insist on You see Jannes and Jambres have here met with their match but is there any match to be found for these men that have matched them Yes look at Rome and you find them there As many Protestants and Papists by the last days do indeed understand the last days of the World So many Protestant Divines do attribute all the characters of those wretched men to the Papacy And indeed they are so like that it is no wonder if they be not clearly discerned asunder Though the Papacy would
be taken for a Jacob yet she must give leave to standers by to take her for Esau when her hands and neck and other parts be as rough as his Set her and this mystery of iniquity we have been speaking of together and can you know them asunder Though I am not perswaded the Apostle speaks of Rome in 2 Thes. II. but of these first Apostate Christians yet comes not Rome an inch behind what is charactered there I. Both of them Apostatized from the truth she as well as those in the Text before us It s very true Rome had once been a famous Church whose Faith was renowned through the whole World as the Apostle intimates once and again in his Epistle thither But as the Historian Quaeres Samnium You may seek for Samnium where Samnium was and not find it so may you seek for such a Church there where once such a Church was and be far enough from finding it Corruptio optimi The corruption of that best Church that then was is become the worst corruption And if you would find either truth or a right Church there you do but look for the living among the dead They brag of their incorruption and that their Doctrine and Worship hath descended pure all along and that that Church hath not been tainted from its first foundation by Peter and Paul So the Jews of old cried The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord when they had made it a den of thieves You can hardly perswade me but some taint was got into that Church in the time of Peter I do not say for I am assured he never was there but even before Paul came there and while he was there and sure he must be of a large faith that can believe she hath kept pure so many hundred years together above a thousand When I read that Rom. XVI 17. I beseech you brethren mark those that cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine ye have learned and avoid them For they serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly I cannot but strongly suspect that there were some such wretched ones as these we have been speaking of then tampering in the Church of Rome and it was well if she received no taint from them hardly any Church in the World but did And when I read that Philip I. 16. Some preach Christ of envy and contention not purely thinking to add affliction to my bonds I cannot but suspect that that was in Rome it self where the Apostle then lay prisoner And that then the quarrel I am of Paul I am of Cephas or Peter was set afoot in the Church of Rome as it was in the Church of Corinth How ever I believe that that Star that fell from Heaven to whom was given the key of the bottomless Pit and he opened the Pit and let out horrid smoke and so horrid Locust Rev. IX beginning is most truly understood by our Protestant Divines of the Bishop of Rome or the Papacy For a Star in the Revelation-language is a Doctor or Minister of the Church and falling from Heaven is falling from the Truth and the true Church II. As the Apostasie of the men in the Text and in the Apostles description in this Chapter and elsewhere was into the two contraries strictness in outward ceremony and looseness of life and conversation he that knows not the like in the Papacy is little acquainted with their story As great strictness injoyned in the one and as great loosness permitted in the other in that Church as that the Jews themselves were not more strict in the one nor the Heathens themselves more loose in the other Like Solomons Temple windows if it were fit to compare so noble a thing with so base narrow without and broad within strict in outward formality loose in inward conversation III. As these in the Text resist the Truth so that the Papacy doth none that is a child or disciple of the Truth but he knows with grief and can they of the Papacy but know it themselves How many witnesses of this matter have been in every corner of the World especiall in those where the truth or purity of the Gospel hath appeared Were you to name the greatest contrariety to the truth of the Gospel that you could name could you name any thing so directly contrary as Popery The smoke out of the bottomless pit that is as contrary to the purity of the light as what can be most contrary I should but do what is done again and again in large and numerous volumes if I should go about to prove and evidence this to you viz. That the Papacy is the great resister of the Truth and Gospel and the great contrariety to the purity of the Gospel There are two things that speak it out though all Protestants hold their peace And those are 1. Their corruption of the Scriptures and the Fathers As the messengers for Micaiah would have corrupted him to speak as the false Prophets did so do these by the Scriptures and Fathers to make them speak according to their own mind Their Index expurgatorius shews that they are void of all shame in this point as well as void of all conscience And crueller then the Gileadites that slew so many for saying Sibboleth these make those say Sibboleth whether they will or no that they may destroy the Truth that they once spoke out 2. The bitter and bloody persecution that the Church of Rome hath ever used against the true profession of the Gospel is a testimony written in blood how incomparable a resister of the Truth the Papacy is And had Christ been at Rome any time for those many and many years he had tasted of their kindness that way It is compounded of such principles that the Truth and it cannot live together but it cannot but seek to destroy the Truth The very temper of the Devil himself who not only strives to destroy the Gospel but cannot do it with all his endeavour Aut tu illum aut ille vi He must either destroy it or it will destroy him What resistance the Papacy practiseth against the Truth by persecution I suppose it needless to speak of unto any that hath heard of the bloody days of Queen Mary the Massacre in France and the Powder Treason in England that you need go no further for instance And blessed be the Lord for that we have these testimonies only to our ears and have not seen Popish resistance of the Truth by persecution with our eyes The Lord grant that England never see it Thus have we briefly taken some view of the mystery of iniquity hinted in the Text and verse whence it is taken Men of corrupt minds reprobated concerning the faith resisting the truth as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses Now how large a discourse might we take up of the mysterious dispensation of God in permitting his most sacred Truth to be so affronted and resisted His
Pag. 366 Abila Lysaniae so called because it had been a City in the Tetrarchy of Lysanias was in Câ—lo-Syria and had Longit. 68. 40. Lat. 33. 40. according to Ptolomy v. II. p. 367 Abilene was a Province in Syria and so called from the City of Abila This word soundeth so near to the word Havilab Gen. 10. 7. that it may well be supposed to have descended from it and the name of the place from that son of Chush that with his Brethren plant â— in Arabia or thereabout v. I. p. 452 453 Abel-bethmaachah a Town in the Upper Galilee not far from Dan or Caesarea v. I. p. 623. v. II. p. 367 Abel-meholah in Manasseh on this side Jordan 1 King 4. 12. ten miles from Bethshan where dwelt Elisha the Prophet Hieron v. II. p. 367 Abel-shittim where the Israelites pitch'd their Tents immediately before and not as is in the English after they pass'd the River Jordan This place Josephus calls Abila and saith is in Peraea threescore Furlongs or seven Miles and half from Jordan and say the Jews from Beth-Jeshimoth twelve Miles v. II. p. 46 367. Acharabon a Rock in the Upper Galilee Josephus v. II. p. 57 Achor Valley so called from Achan who is also called Achar 1 Chron. 27. because he troubled Israel Josh. 7. The Maps of Canaan do most of them lay this Valley and Sichem at a great distance but if it be observed it s not improbable that the Valley runs betwixt Gerizim and Ebal Josephus speaks of the Great Valley of Samaria Vol. I. Pag. 596 Achzib vid. Chezib Acrabatena Acrabatta A Mountainous Region North of Samaria and say the Jews a days journy from Jerusalem v. II. p. 16 50 52 320. Adam a City in Peraea over against Jericho a little removed from Jordan was the Center where the Waters of Jordan parted and the Station of the Ark Psal. 88. 60. It was twelve Miles say the Jews from Zaretan vid. Zaretan v. I. p. 40. v. II. p. 82. Adiabene the same with Habor 2 Kings 17. 6. say the Talmudists a Country of noted fame in Assyria and so called from the River Adiab v. II. p. 800 801 Adida There were several places of that name as Adida in the Valley Adida in the Mountain under which lay the Plains of Judea Adida in Galilee before the Great Plain perhaps the same with Adida in Sephel Adida not far from Jordan as we have it in Josephus v. II. p. 326 327 Ador. A City of Idumea Joseph v. II. p. 4. Adullam Cave whither David betook himself when he escaped from Gath and where he composed the 142 Psalm it was in the Tribe of Judah Hieron v. II. p. 57 Aenon Vide Enon Ai Hai In the Tribe of Benjamin on the East of Bethel Gen. 12. 8. Josh. 8 9 c. and not far from Bethaven v. II. p. 20 Aiath within the jurisdiction of Juda and in the Tribe Benjamin lying betwixt Samaria and Jerusalem Isa. 10. v. I. p. 104 Aila Elath in the utmost Borders of Palestine joyned to the South Desert and the Red Sea whence Men Sail out of Egypt into India and thence into Egypt where was the Roman Legion called Decima saith St. Hieron and was under the disposition of the Duke of Palestine saith the Notitia but it should rather seem that it was Elath in the South of Juda the other being far distant where there was a Duke of Arabia in which Elath at the Red Sea was as well as of Palestine v. II p. 320 Alexandria or Amon-Min-Na a City in Egypt at the Canobick Mouth of the River Nilus where was in after-ages a vast number of the Jews where they had many Synagogues with a Cathedral in which were seventy Stalls as they report and afterward a Temple built by Onias It s probable that Joseph and Mary came hither with our Saviour v. I. p. 205. v. II. p. 111 681 Alsadamus A Hill under which lived the Trachonite-Arabians Joseph v. II. p. 364 Amalek near the Wilderness of Zin 'twixt Edom and Egypt v. I. p. 27 63. Amanah Vid. Hor and Kirmion Ammaus Vid. Chamath Ammon A Country East of Jordan the chief City of which was Rabbah v. I. p. 62 63. Amorites Mountain Deut. 1. 19 20. took its beginning from Kadesh-Barnea the Southern Border of the Land of Israel and ran forward into Judea beyond Hebron the name only changed into The Hill-Country of Judea So much mistaken are Adricomius and others that bring it almost from the Red Sea v. II. p. 11 12 Ampeloessa A City near to Libanus and a Decapolitan Plin. v. I. p. 314 Anthedon A Town betwixt Rhinocorura and Gaza Plin. v. II. p. 10 Anti-Libanus Vid. Libanus Antioch There are two Cities of that name the one in Pisidia a Province of the Lesser Asia otherwise called Caesarea the other in Syria once the Head of the Syro-Graecian Empire afterward the Seat of the Roman Governor There the Disciples of Christ were first call'd Christians Of old it was called Hamath but afterward Antioch from Antiochus as bloody a Persecutor of the Church and Truth as ever Israel had Vol. I. Pag. 286. v. II. p. 688 Antipatris Act. 23. 31. is called by some Capharsalama by Josephus Capharzaba but when rebuilt by Herod was named Antipatris in memory of his Father Antipater It was situated in the best Plain of his Kingdom rich in Springs and Woods and was from Joppa 150 Furlongs that is eighteen miles in the way from Jerusasalem to the West part of Galilee and far from the place that is usually assigned to it in the Maps which is in the middle of Samaria The Jews oppose Antipatris and Gebath that is East and West as the Sacred Writings do Dan and Beersheba North and South Ptolomy makes it to be Long. 66. 20. Lat. 32. 0. v. I. p. 55 56. v. II. p. 372 Apamia There were say the Jews two Apamia's one the Upper and another the Lower In one were Jews of pure Blood in the other not And between them was the space of 4000 Paces Apamia saith Pliny was in Coelo-Syria and had the River Marsyas running betwixt It was otherwise called Sepham and was the utmost Coast of the Land of Israel North and North-East v. II. p. 328 496 505 800 Apamia Sea Is said by the Jews to be one of the seven Seas that compass the Land of Israel and which the Talmudists say is the Sea of Chamats making Chamats and Apamia convertible but that is a mistake Vid. Chamats v. II. p. 5 63 328 Apheck There are three Cities of that name in Scripture one in the Tribe of Aser Josh. 19. 30. the other in Juda 1 Sam. 4. 1 c. the third in Syria 1 Kings 20. 30. the Wall of which last fell upon the Syrians and killed 27000. v. I. p. 83 Appii Forum A place in Italy about 50 miles from Rome and in the way thence to Rhegium v. I. p. 322 Ar A City in Moab situated upon the