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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B10083	Tracts theological. I. Asceticks, or, the heroick piety and vertue of the ancient Christian anchorets and coenobites. II. The life of St. Antony out of the Greek of Sr. Athanasius. III. The antiquity and tradition of mystical divinity among the Gentiles. IV. Of the guidance of the spirit of God, upon a discourse of Sir Matthew Hale's concerning it. V. An invitation to the Quakers, to rectifie some errors, which through the scandals given they have fallen into.	Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Asceticks, or, the heroick piety and virtue of the ancient Christian anchorets and coenobites.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Life of St. Antony.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Antiquity, tradition, and succession of mystical divinity among the Gentiles.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Enthusiasmus divinus: the guidance of the spirit of God.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Apology for, and an invitation to, the people call'd Quakers, to rectifie some errors, which through the scandals given they have fallen into.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5444E; Wing S5444E; ESTC R184630	221,170	486

Leaders were the Sons of the Prophets who dwelt in Fields and Deserts or Solitary Places and made themselves Tabernacles or Cells by the River of Jordan Of this Company were also the Sons of Racab c. Ep. 13. ad Paulin. p. 34. and elsewhere The Sons of the Prophets whom we read to have been Monks in the Old Testament did build themselves Cottages or Cells near the River of Jordan and leaving the Crowds of the Cities lived on Barley-Cakes and Field-Herbs Ep. 4. ad Rusticum pa. 11. And if some of them lived in Cities that doth no more invalidate what St. Hierom saith than Monasteries being brought into Cities by St. Basil is an Argument against their being Monks who have dwelt in such ever since Such Cavils do only prove the Partiality and Disingenuity of the Authours and signifie no more to any Person of Judgment and Candour since they cannot deny but are forced to confess That the Prophets Samuel Elias and Elisha did institute Colledges in which many Disciples did live together So then they lived a Coenobitick Life and What was their Food and Rayment Was it costly and delicious or poor and mean and What was their Imployment Can we imagin it to have been other than Studying the Scriptures after Moses his time and the large Book of Nature the Works of God of Creation of Providence Prayers Psalms and Divine Contemplation and Works and Labours about what was necessary for them and no more And if we consider the admirable Graces of the Ancient Christian Monks it will be an hard matter for an honest Man to find any difference between the Christian Monks and the Jewish Prophets more than in Name And for the Antiquity of these Is it any Argument that there were none before if we do not read of any before How and by whom did they inquire of the Lord Was Israel only without Prophets Was Balaam the first in his Nation or any other or Were there Prophets who did not ordinarily live Prophetick Lives or if they did What was the Difference But such Prophane Spirits as have too long contemned and insulted upon the most Heroick Professors of Christianity and abused the People with their Sophistry must answer for their Presumption Rashness Temporizing and incouraging of Sacriledge before God though the Degeneracy of the Modern Monks had provoked his Judgments upon them and among Men their Names will be little regarded hereafter But all are not alike and therefore I will here add a Note of Peter Martyr's concerning this Matter upon 2 King We will moreover observe saith he that the Disciples of the Prophets did live together with their Preceptors For so they say The Place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us It seems to have been a kind of Monastick Life but free without Vows or Superstitions But Vows we find approved by God in the Nazarites and practised by St. Paul and others and that they were not in use among these is more than any one can prove but he goes on They exercised themselves in Divine Scriptures and Hymns and also in Holy Prayers They were often sent to edifie the People and to confirm Holy Men who lived amongst Idolaters in sound and true Religion They seem moreover to have exercised some Arts working with their Hands to get a Maintenance for themselves c. And so much for this At the same time with Elisha lived Jonadab the Son of Rechab 2 King 10.15 who instituted another Order of Religious Persons called after his Father's Name RECHABITES These were not of any of the Tribes of Israel but Kenites descended of Jethro Moses his Father-in-Law v. 1 Chron. 2.55 Jud. 1.16 who was Priest of Midian Exod. 2.16 3.1 18.1 and one who worshipped the true God for he blessed God when he heard the Relation of what he had done for the Israelites Exod. 18.10 and in the usual Form in such Cases just as Melchizedeck did long before upon the Victory of Abraham Gen. 14.20 but they are reckoned among them of the Tribe of Juda 1 Chron. 2.55 because they came up with them out of the Wilderness Jud. 1.16 and for that reason and because they dwelt in Tents are thought to be call'd the Tents of Juda Zech. 12.7 But they are call'd the Families of the Scribes 1 Chron. 2.55 And therefore both from their Descent and from their Quality of Scribes and from their Institution and from the very Form of God's Promise to them we may reasonably conclude them to have been a Religious Order And indeed that alone is sufficient to demonstrate it was some special Service to God they were imploy'd in for it is expressed in the same terms which are used concerning the Tribe of Levi when the Lord separated them to his special Service viz. to stand before the Lord Deut. 10.8 v. 2 Chron. 29.11 Ezek. 44.11 15. And though we have little more Account of them than only in Jer. 35. yet there have we a plain Account of these Three great things concerning them 1. The Institution of their Progenitor 2. Their Religious Observance for Three Hundred Years past And 3. the Approbation of both by Almighty God The Institution may be thought very severe and the more because without any special manifest Reason and by consequence their so punctual Observance rather Superstitious than Reasonable and yet both are greatly approved by God Whence it is very plain that such Institutions and the strict Observance of them are lawful and well-pleasing to God and therefore that it is great Presumption and Inconsiderateness to censure them as Superstition But the Evidence of Truth hath extorted this Confession from an Adversary and as Sinister an Interpreter of these things as he could well tell how to be viz. That their Father gave them these Precepts for this very purpose that thereby he might set them free from the Cares and the Pleasures of the World that so they might with the more leisure imploy themselves in the Study of the Scriptures and of Divine Matters Which was the very Business of the Christian Monks And if they continued in Being at the Destruction of Jerusalem as is believed as well it may if we believe the Promise of God to them and that Simeon who succeeded James Bishop there was one of them there is no doubt but many of them received the Christian Faith and retained the Institutions of their Progenitor there being nothing inconsistent between them Some of the Jews understand that of Zechar. 12.7 The Lord shall save the Tents of Juda first of this People because they lived in Tents came up with that Tribe out of the Wilderness and are reckoned among them 1 Chron. 2.55 and that the Lord shall save them first because to them the Messiah shall first be discovered And whether the Therapeuts of whom Philo writes and the first Converts by St. Mark about Alexandria might not be of those People may be considered It is true we have no mention

of them in the Gospel nor have we of the ESSEANS who yet are known to have been a Religious Sect among the Jews of great Antiquity though not once mentioned in all the Scriptures a People who lived a Religious Abstracted Life But of them I shall say no more in this place because I intend the full Relations both of Josephus and of Philo concerning them hereafter Nor shall I here say any thing of the THERAPEUTS another Religious Society of the Jews as Philo saith not only for that reason because I intend Philo's Relation of them hereafter but because I conceive this no proper place for it For I am well satisfied that they were some of those who were first converted to Christianity probably of the Jews and possibly of the Esseans notwithstanding all the Cavils which some disingenious and prejudiced Persons have in these last Ages strained their Wits to raise against it though they might retain some Sentiments and Practices peculiar to themselves for some time as did they at Jerusalem as may be understood from Act. 15.1 5. Gal. 2.4 12. c. For it is certain they were never heard of before that time nor any such since but Christians who from that time inhabited the same places and from thence after the Persecution ceased were the Ascetick Communities propagated to Palestin and those parts first and afterward into Europe The Precursor to our Saviour St. JOHN BAPTIST according to the Prediction of the Angel Luk. 1.15 was filled with the Holy Ghost even from his Mother's Womb and drank neither Wine nor strong Drink had his Rayment of Camels Hair and a Leathern Girdle about his Loins and his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Mat. 3.4 and was in the Desert till the day of his Shewing unto Israel Luk. 1.80 but in the Fifteenth Year of the Reign of Tiberius Coesar Annas and Cajaphas being the High Priests the Word of God came unto him in the Wilderness Luk. 3.1 2. and being sent of God Joh. 1.6 he preached and baptized in the Wilderness Mat. 3.1 Mar. 1.3 and the People from Jerusalem and all Judea went out to him and were baptized of him Mat. 3.5 6. This was a Life not only of Retirement and Abstraction from the World such as was also that of the Coenobites who lived in Religious Communities but plainly an Eremetick or Hermetick Life And this being by one fill'd with the Holy Ghost from his Mother's Womb and therefore by one raised up by Him who had raised up the Nazarites before with good cause do the ancient Christian Writers repute Him a Prince of the Monks and Hermites raised up among the Christians and so good cause that they who oppose it may seem to oppose not only the Sentiments and Opinions of Men but out of Prejudice and misguided Zeal the very Acts of God very disingeniously and inconsiderately to serve a Party And for our SAVIOVR Himself though we have no particular Account of his Life till about the Thirtieth Year of his Age yet we cannot question but he did practice Himself what he did recommend to others and that it was a Life of the Highest Perfection The only particular of his Life before that is left upon Record is That when he was Twelve Years Old he tarried behind at Jerusalem at the Feast of the Passover and Joseph and his Mother knew not of it and after Three Days was found in the Temple sitting in the midst of the Doctors both hearing them and asking them Questions and that all who heard him were astonished at his Understanding and Answers and when his Mother asked him why he had thus dealt with them and told him that they had sought him sorrowing he reply'd How is it that ye sought me Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's Business and that he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them At his Baptism we see how careful he was to fulfill all Righteousness Afterwards he declared to the Jews That he sought not his own Will but the Will of the Father who sent him and to his Disciples That it was his Food to do the Will of him who sent him and to finish his Work Joh. 5.30 4.34 That he lived a Life of Poverty from his Birth is very plain in the Evangelical History and that by his own choice certainly no ingenuous Person will deny and therefore of voluntary Poverty And that he lived also a Life of Chastity is not to be questioned Much less that it was a Life of Abstraction Recollection and continual Adherence to and Communion with the Father And all this being put together and well considered what was it other than a most perfect Ascetick Life the Great Exemplar so generously and heroickly Exemplified by those many and numerous Choires of Holy Christian Nazarites of whom the World especially this Lazy Tepid Unprofitable Sensual Generation which despiseth the Memory and reproacheth the Common Name heretofore with them and others venerable is not worthy And this Life which he lived Himself he did recommend to others as by his own Illustrious Example so also by his Doctrin though he injoyned it to none especially in that high degree For Chastity and Celebacie he doth not barely approve it but speaks of it as a special Gift of God Mat. 19.11 which all cannot receive save they to whom it is given And when he had said There be Eunuchs who have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heavens sake he adds He that is able to receive it let him receive it in both speaking of something more excellent than ordinary and besides in these Words There be Eunuchs who have made themselves Eunuchs c. he plainly affirms that it was a thing in Use and Practice at that time as it had been long before which he so approved and recommended to all who could receive it And concerning voluntary Poverty to the Young Man who desired to know what he should do that he might have Eternal Life and had kept the Commandments from his Youth up he replyed one thing thou lackest if thou wilt be Perfect go and sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the Poor and thou shalt have Treasure in Heaven and come take up the Cross and follow me Mat. 19.21 Mar. 10.21 Luk. 18.22 And Forsaking all he maketh an indispensible requisite to the being his Disciple Whosoever he be of you who forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my Disciple Luk. 14.33 As to Religious Obedience and voluntary Subjection to the Order and Determination of another well experienced in the Ways of God for an Exercise of an intire Subjection of the Creature to the Creator What else is it but a very proper and useful Mean and Expedient for the acquiring the Habit and a continual Exercise of that great Doctrin of our Saviour of Self-denyal and taking up the Cross Mat. 16.24 Mar. 8.34 warranted and approved by God in the Recabites and by

are manifest After the President seems to have made a sufficient Discourse so as that his Applications successfully hit what he aim'd at and the Attention of the Auditours perceive his meaning they all give an Humm thereby signifying that they are pleased and choose for the future to put his Advice in Execution After this he rises up and sings an Hymn in Praise of God which is either of his own or some ancient Poets composure for their Poets have left them Measures and Songs of all sorts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Trimetres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Introits or Processional 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laudatory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacrifical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Altar-Songs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stationary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Choiral with Stanza's of various Measures some of which are us'd with their Faces turn'd from and others with their Faces turn'd towards the Altar After whom the others according to their Orders in a very decent manner do also sing the rest hearing with deep Silence except when the last Lines or the short after-Hymns are to be sung for then they all sing out both Men and Women When every Precentor has finish'd his Hymn the Juniors bring in the Table as was just above-mentioned upon which they have all their Holy Loaf of Bread leavened with Salt and Hyssop mingled together They have Hyssop in the Hall-Loaf out of Reverence to their Holy Table in the Church-Porch for on this Table they have Loaves and Salt without Sauces the Loaves unleaven'd and the Salt unmix'd For 't was fitting that the simplest and purest things should be allotted to the Principal part of the Sacra as the Reward of the Ministration and that others should imitate the same and abstain from those Loaves that their betters may have them as their Prerogative After Supper they keep a Holy Vigil all Night They keep the Vigil thus They all rise together and in the middle of the Hall make two Choirs one of Men and the other of Women each choosing their Eminentest person for Musick for a Precentor and then they sing some Hymns made in the Praise of God with variety of Measures and Stanza's sometimes singing all together and sometimes alternately with peculiar Gestures and dancing about as those who are struck with a Divine Fury Sometimes they sing Processional sometimes Stational Hymns altering their Postures with respect to the Altar as they see occasion Then when each of them has been separately and by themselves entertain'd just as though they had been drinking some Divine Wine they both mingle together and make one Choir in imitation of the Choir at the Red-Sea upon the account of the Miracles wrought there which exceeded the Thought and Hope of the Israelites and made them all in one Company exult as though they were beside themselves and sing Eucharistical Hymns to God their Deliverer the Prophet Moses being the Mens Precentor and Miram the Prophetess Precentress to the Women The Choir of the Therapeuts and Therapeutesses is just like it singing with different Notes for the treeble Voice of the Women mingled with the Base of the Men makes a lovely and truly Musical Harmony Their Thoughts are truly fine their Words are fine and their Choiristers are comely in short the Thoughts the Expressions and Choiristers are all pious and devout After they have continu'd their Holy Transport till the Morning they do 〈◊〉 feel their Heads disorder'd or their Eyes heavy but they are more wakeful than they came and as soon as they see the Sun rise with their Eyes and their whole Body towards the East and their Hands lifted up towards Heaven they pray for Lightsomness of Mind and Truth and Rational Quick-sightedness After these Prayers every one of them retreat to their own Oratories to cultivate and traffick in their usual Philosophy Since therefore the Therapeuts have embrac'd the Theory of Nature and liv'd together with one Soul and were Citizens both of Heaven and Earth and were truly commended and conformed to the Father and Maker of all things by Vertue which procur'd them that Friendship which is the truest Honour do thou by applying thy Mind to a Prosecution of Vertue which is better than all Prosperity reach the Top and Perfection of Felicity The Judgment and Observations of Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea in his Eccl. Hist l. 2. c. 16. and other Ancient Writers concerning Philo's Book of the Therapeuts and that they were Christians MARK the Evangelift going into Egypt is reported to have been the first Publisher there of the Gospel he had written and to have settled Churches in the very City of Alexandria And furthermore that so great a Multitude both of Men and Women who there embraced the Faith of Christ professed from the very beginning so severe and so Philosophical a Course of Live that Philo vouchsafed in his Writings to relate their Converse their Assemblies their Eating and Drinking together and their whole manner of Living It is reported that this Philo in the times of Claudius came to be familiarly acquainted with Peter at Rome who then Preached the Word of God there neither is this unlikely For that Work of his of which we speak being by him elaborated a long time after does manifestly contain all the Ecclesiastical Rules which are to this present observed among us And seeing he describes evidently the Lives of the Ascetae amongst us he does make it sufficiently perspicuous that he did not only see but also very much approve of and admire the Apostolical Men of his time who being as it is probable originally Jews upon that account did then observe in a great measure the Judaical Rites and Customs First of all therefore in that Book which he intituled Of Contemplative Life or Of Suppliants having professed that he would insert nothing disagreeable to Truth or of his own Head into that Account which he was about to give he says That the Men were called Therapeutae and the Women that were conversant among them Therapeutriae And he adjoyns the reason of that Appellation either because like Physicians they healed the Minds of those that resorted to them curing them of their vitious Affections or because they worshipped the Deity with a pure and sincere Service and Adoration Further whether Philo himself gave them this Name devising an Appellation agreeable to the Manners and Dispositions of Men or whether they were really so called from the beginning the Name of Christians not being every where spread and diffused it is not necessary positively to affirm or contend about it But he attests that in the first place they part with their Goods saying That as soon as they betake themselves to this course of Philosophizing they put over their Wealth and Possessions to their Relations Then casting away all Care of Wordly matters they leave the Cities and make their Abode in Gardens and solitary Places well knowing the Conversing with Men of a different and disagreeing