there any reason to suppose that there was not an even hand of Providence over them for good in one respect as well as another and at one time as well as another Can we think that God who promised Iacob Gen. 46.3 to go down with him into Egypt and surely to bring him thence again would leave him one minute whilst he was there unless we think the God of Israel to be some times like booted Baal whom the Prophet Elijah wittily upbraids to be taking of a journey I therefore conclude that as they were extraordinarily supported under their afflictions from Pharaoh so likewise that they were guarded from those three Calamities Famine War and Pestilence and that it may be truly said of these as it is of the Plague of Hail Exod. 9.26 Only in the Land of Goshen where the Children of Israel were was there no hail Seeing then that these People were thus cherished under the wings of Gods special Providence and protection from those sweeping Calamities which the same God inflicts upon other particular Nations and that frequently not only as the Punisher of sin but as the great Governour of the World and for the good of the whole in order to keep the Race of Mankind within such Bounds that the Creatures may suffice for food and clothing which they could not do if those three great Correctives were wholly intermitted but for one Century I say what wonder is it that they who were thus cherished by God as a Father and Sponsor and under his immediate protection unless that protection it self be a wonder should be so very fruitful in respect of adult numbers though they were not prodigiously fruitful above the Egyptians and other people in respect of the number of Infants born who had both Wives and Concubines as well as they For as other Nations so particularly the Egyptians are frequently subject to very considerable abatements in their numbers by those three calamities before mentioned especially the Pestilence in that sultry Climate where the River Nile every Iune which is a hot time of Year also leaves abundance of mud upon the surface of that flat Country at his return into his old Channel which must needs send forth noysom smells and vapours into the Air from whence arise Plagues and other Epidemical Diseases especially where people live at ease and luxury and crowded together in Cities whereas the Israelites manner of life they being Shepherds whose business lyes abroad in the fresh open Air might be a means from God of the preservation and that which Pharaoh intended for their ruine in all probability was a means to secure them from Epidemical Pestilential Diseases For it is a great truth that the Plague it self is no Plague to clean and pure Constitutions and seises those only whose Bodies by feeding plentifully and living at some ease contract vicious humours which the infectious Air sets into a high fermentation which it could not do if those humours were not there they being the only Fuel of that fatal combustion and certainly all the Colledg of Physicians though Galen and Hippocrates and Aesculapius himself were joined with them could not prescribe a more Sovereign remedy against the encrease of humors than Pharaoh did to these poor Drudges viz. the Leeks and the Onions the Garlick and Cucumbers of Egypt and if they would mend their Commons with Bread they must get it not with the sweat of their Brows only but of every joint and limb so that they were as clean as Horses for a Race and might bid defiance to all infection But when once they remove out of Egypt and from making Bricks without Straw and had little to do but only to stalk easie marches in the Wilderness and sometimes to lye at Anchor and to surfeit upon Quails and Manna till it run out at their Nostrils Numb 11.20 Then while the luscious Flesh was between their teeth Numb 11.33 they are smitten with a very great Plague and at the 14 th Chapter those who went to search the Land of Canaan dye of a second Plague and at the 17 th Chapter there fourteen thousand and seven hundred dye of a third Plague and Chap. 25. there twenty four thousand dye of a fourth Plague they being now both naturally sitted by their luxury and morally qualified by their sins for this Judgment But we hear not a syllable of any one Plague amonst this great people during their bondage in Egypt who were therefore great and numerous because guarded from this and the like Judgments For should God have exposed them to those devouring Judgments of Famine War and Pestilence that had been but the way to have unravelled the means of performing his own promise like one who travels in a Circle and having trac'd the whole Circumference arrives at length and not advances but to the same Point from whence he first set forth I can never think that the Egyptians whose wisdom is celebrated even in Divine Writ Acts 7.22 as an Ornament and excellent Qualification in Moses himself whom God chose out of all the Tribes to be his own Lieutenant or Deputy in governing the Israelites were such ill Politicians or that they whom the annual Overflow of their great River taught to be the great Masters of Practical Geometry even to Greece it self which it is impossible to perform without good skill in Arithmetick should be such ill Arithmeticians as not to be able to do that which I do now viz. sit down and compute the number that would arise from seventy men by their Wives and Concubines though every man had been as fruitful as Gideon who had threescore and ten Sons and then judge whether these Strangers might not in time become dangerous to the State and with a less auspicious inundation than that of Nile overflow the whole Country and like the Frogs enter even into their Kings Chambers Now the reason why this fagacious people did not foresee this vast encrease of the Israelites must proceed from hence That they saw no such prodigious fertility in them to make them encrease faster than themselves and they being many thousands for one Israelite Nature they thought would still hold the proportion the same They could not but foresee by former experience mortalities and plagues those Correctives of the excels of humane generations whereby God seems to say to the overflowing Ocean of Mankind Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther But then they look'd upon this Judgment in the same Notion that David does Psal. 91.5 As an Arrow that flyeth by day And for that reason they thought they saw it with their eyes falling promiscuously on the Israelites as well as on themselves not dreaming of that Pestilence Psal. 91.6 which walketh also in darkness and beside the track of all humane conjectures raging in the Cities of Egypt according to its usual Periods in that hot Country but making a skip or pass-over at Israel and forbearing to curtail his promised numbers in their
whom the Serpent was to be sped at last In the mean while there are two further Points to be discreetly traversed 1. That Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years and it is likely Eve somewhat near the matter whether more or less and begat other Sons not mentioned and Daughters whereof the name of never an one is at all recorded 2. That some penitent issue is not obscurely shewn to have issued from Cain himself For all the Sons of Adam not named we may take it for granted that they either abode in their Fathers Tents taking their Sisters to Wives who were next to be taken or went off with Cain to help him build and replenish his City being nevertheless of the Seed of the Woman or of the true Church so long as they retained the Worship the Rites the Rules and the Moral Laws that they carried off from their Fathers house And others of them cleaved unto Seth and holp to make up his Family because the Earth must needs be replenished and Children go off to further distance And thus we may conceive that the true Church was far from failing betwixt the death of Abel and the birth of Seth howsoever the necessity of livelyhood or civil accommodation might divide the Members of it But as Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years before he had Seth so Seth live a hundred and five years more before he had Enos In which long tract of time and encrease of Generations when men began to multiply on the face of the Earth and that Daughters were born unto them so that the Sons of God saw the Daughters of men that they were fair and took them Wives of all they liked then the true Worshippers were â—ain to gather unto one House or Tribe And how they might attain to any consistency there I refer you to the Letter of a learned Gentleman in the Postscript All that remains to be said here is this That when the House of Seth came to degenerate too God brought a Deluge on the World as it is commonly accounted 1656 years after the Creation CHAP. XII Why God preserved Cham and Japhet in the Ark as well as Sem. That though they followed the way of the old World yet they were encreased in dominion which was not the blessing promised more than Sem Nay that he himself was greater in temporal accessions by other Sons than by Eber. NOW one might think since God Almighty was so much offended with the sins of the old World as to say It repented him that he had made man on the Earth and it grieved him at his heart that he would have taken such caution about the next succession that no generation like to that of Cain's should have survived the Deluge Yet as he preserved some of all kinds even of noxious Creatures in the Ark so he dealt by the intire Family of Noah He would not prejudge the Cases of Iaphet and Cham who were under the same protection discipline and common blessings with Sem till they came to be severed in their habitations and progenies Among the Sons of Noah saith Sir Walter Raleigh there were found strong effects of the former poyson For as the Children of Sem did inherit the Vertues of Seth Enoch and Noah so the Sons of Cham did possess the vices of Cain and of those wicked Giants of the first Age. As for Iaphet we read no hurt of him but it is rather recorded to his commendation that he joined with his Brother Shem to make some amends for the villany of Ham. who had exposed his Fathers nakedness However it is not obscurely implyed that Iaphet was either fallen or about to fall off to degenerate worship because this is added to his blessing for that act of silial Grace and Duty That God would at last enlarge or perswade Iaphet to dwell in the Tents of Sem who though chosen by God is for the most part concluded to have been the younger Brother Which Prophetick Promise to Iaphet as the like Curse to Ham were not to be accomplished in either of their persons but in their posterities some Ages after Wherefore for all the love and great savour that God shewed unto Noah he would not hinder the accursed race of enmity from spreading out of his Loins also to be two ways branched for the greater afflictions of Sem's choicest Descendents until the time appointed For as the Sons of Noah descended from Mount Ararat where the Ark rested whether it was Caucasus or Taurus Ham and his Sons seized on all that they were able to occupy from the parts of Mesopotamia to the ends of Africk which was the Road that a part of them took Of his Son Cush descended Nimrod the Founder of the ensuing Babylonian Greatness as also Ashur who gave the Name of Assyria that built Niniveh And of his Son Canaan descended the Sidonians Hittites Iebusites Ammonites Girgasites Hivites Arkites and other reprobate Hoards or Nations Of his Son Mizraim descended also Pathrusim the Father of the Philistines and Casluhim the original of some of the Bordering Arabians And such of his Race as aimed further Southwards peopled all Egypt and Ethiopia to the Lands end so far as their number or encrease could seize on Lands without resistance So that out of Ham proceeded the Princes and people which held the great Kingdoms as they grew of Babylon Syria and Egypt for many Descents together towards the future oppression of the Sons of Sem the blessings of Shem and Iaphet as my Authour hath it taking less effect until the time appointed So that the first great Lords of the Earth were of this accursed Race that they might thresh in the Theshingfloors of Israel and bring their Fans in their hands whensoever the House of God was to be purged by the affliction of his people And to shew besides that God accounteth not as men do of Worldly Greatness he letteth it go to chuse unto the Heathen who thereupon do idolize the Fortunes of their Princes and set them up for Gods The first of which this Ham is counted to have been by the Name of Iupiter Hammon and the places where he was adored most do countenance that opinion And who was ever set up for an Idol but the worst of men From Iaphet also and his seven Sons the Medes Seythes Thracians Macedonians Grecians and the most part of Lesser Asia were replenished together with the Isles of the Gentiles by which name the ends of the habitable World were only known unto the Hebrews From whence came Alexander first and his Captains and after them the Romans to subdue and to waste Eber. Which events seem to have been more clearly revealed unto Balaam than unto any of the better Prophets even in the infancy of this people while they travelled in the Desart towards this Land of Promise And Ships shall come saith he from the Coasts of Chittim and shall
afflict Ashur and shall afflict Eber and he also shall perish for ever Nor did no other but the holy Line run through Sem himself For from his Son Elam the Elamites or Persians did derive their name from Arphaxad the chaldeans sprung and some say from his Son Ashur and not Nimrod's the Assyrians as from his Son Aram the Aramites or Syrians and from his Son Lud the Lydians what people soever they were became known according to the names of their Progenitors CHAP. XIII The knowledge of God dispersed in other Families besides Sem's but corruption in his also occasioned the Call of Abram Why Lot came with him and why he was driven into Egypt and brought back so soon Piety in Canaan while Sem lived there Nor was the whole election at first restrained to the House of Abraham NOW as Adam taught his Children as he himself had been taught by God how to sacrifice and keep the Sabbath with certain Rites of Worship and Laws of life so Noah also taught his Children all alike the same true Worship that had been delivered from Adam who dyed not much above an hundred years before the birth of Noah since he lived nine hundred and thirty years and Noah was born in An. Mundi 1056. together with the true meaning of the Covenant after the Flood betokened by a Rainbow And because Noah lived three hundred and fifty years more and the dispersion happened not in his life the knowledge of God must needs be far and wide dispersed in the Tents of Cham and Iaphet as well as in those of Sem before the Rout at Babel and they that went off in that confusion of languages could not chuse however but carry off some rudiments or other of their first breeding But when true Religion came to be corrupted in Sem's Family too as well as in the rest in the eighth Generation about five hundred and two years after the Deluge in the person of Terah who became an Idolater as the Scriptures do expresly testifie however Bishop Montague comes to have a better opinion of him Then it pleased God to call forth his elect Vessel Abram from his Fathers house to go into a Land that he would shew him where his Seed should in time to come be planted alone by themselves in the middle of the Earth and become a peculiar people unto God And Abram brought his Brother Haran's Son Lot with him by God's permission because he was a righteous man and yet neither he nor his were to be comprized in the same Covenant with Abraham and his Seed Iosephus says That Abram brought him along with him with intent to make him his Heir because as yet he had no Issue But the same Providence that brought them forth together within a while did sever them that Moab and Ammon that should hate the Seed of Abraham as much as Lot and Abram loved one another might arise out of Lot's incest and be ready planted in the Land of Canaan to be Thorns in the sides of Israel As for Abram himself God had no sooner shewed him the Land of promise but he forced him and Lot from thence by famine into Egypt to try whether he would not stagger after such a promise seeing such a defeat immediately upon it as also to make him a Type of the Seed promised who was to be driven into Egypt as soon as he was born as also to begin the sufferings of Christ in his Body the Church For it was from this time to be accounted that the four hundred years should be accomplished in him and his Seed of which he had received this threatning after such a promise of Grace for some shew of lesser faith than he had exprest before Know of a surety that thy Seed shall be a Stranger in a Land that is not theirs as Egypt and the parts about for in Egypt it self they remained but two hundred and ten years and shall serve them four hundred years But while Abram sojourned here he found more piety than he expected as he after did in the same Case at Gerar of the Philistines However Pharaoh's mistaken kindness unto Sarah occasioned the dismission of Abram and Lot with all their substance into Canaan as it is thought the very next year where their substance being greatly encreased they were fain to part their Companies also being great Abram was put to shew his power in falling upon four victorious Kings for the rescue of his Nephew Lot who had been taken captive by them for it is said that Abram was very rich in Cattel in Silver and in Gold And for his great Retinue when he treated with the Sons of Heth for a Burying-place for Sarah they said unto him Hear us my Lord thou art a mighty Prince amongst us in the choice of our Sepulchres bury thou thy dead As if there had been yet some civility among these Hitties of the Race of Cham somewhat of kin to piety But when Abram returned with victory over the Kings which he had pursued then Melchizedeck King of Salem came forth to meet him and he brought forth bread and wine because he was the Priest of the most high God And he blessed him and said Blessed be Abram of the most high God Possessor of Heaven and Earth And Abram gave him tythes of all his spoils as the Apostle doth expound it Heb. 7.4 So that here we are pointed to observe another Church without the House of Abram which hath an High Priest whereas Abram himself had no greater Title than that of a Prophet nor any greater Right to handle Divine Mysteries than any other Father of a Family which derived Priesthood down from Adam so that Abram paid Tythes unto him Not to enter into the whole Dispute about Melchisedeck Saint Paul preferring ancient things before the latter sets the Covenant of Grace before the Law four hundred and thirty years and thereby proves the excellency of it above the latter And to shew that our Lord Christ was of a Royal Priesthood far above the Tribe of Levi he proveth that Levi himself paid both tithes and homage to him by Abraham in his Antitype Melchisedeck while Levi was in the loins of his Progenitor Abraham as Priest of the most high God and King of righteousness and King of peace by augmentation of his titles King and Priest from ancient times agreeing in the same person till God appropriated the Tribe of Levi for the better preservation of purity after many of the Heads of Families were found so prone unto degeneracy whatever proper name he might have besides The generality agree that he was a mortal man immortal only as a Type of Christ and some think as à Lapide quotes the Authors that he was one of the Roytelets of Canaan who by God's Providence was preserved to be both a faithful man and a good King amongst them
happened after the promise renewed the third time in these words Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art Northward and Southward and Eastward and Westward For all the Land that thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy Seed for ever And I will make thy Seed as the dust of the earth which cannot be numbred In which promise the temporal blessing is only pointed at and that Land in particular more amply than before Some considerable time seems to have passed between e're God appeared unto Abram again with these comfortable words Fear not Abram I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward Abram is sensible that these words relate to the three former promises yet doubting lest he should be mistaken in the meaning of them he makes bold to complain unto God That for all his former promises he remained Childless still and no other Heir but Eliezer his Steward a Stranger of Damascus though born in his house appeared likely to inherit all his Substance Which moved God to compassionate his Case and to condescend to him in a fourth promise that he should have an Heir out of his own Loins And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness Yet after that presuming farther to ask a sign though God vouchsafed to condescend to his request yet he caused an horror of great darkness to fall upon him in his sleep in or after which he gave him to know that his posterity should serve unto the fourth Generation till the iniquity of the Amorites was full However when this heavy agony was over God was pleased to amplisie his temporal promise in extending the bounds of it from the River of Egypt unto the great River Euphrates In the mean time Sarai thinking these promises to be made to her Husband only and not unto her self finding how the Case stood with her gave her Egyptian Handmaid Hagar to him desiring at least to have some little part in the Land promised by her own Maid which She was not like to have by another This was the tenth year after the promise at the least but as soon as She conceived Sarai was iealous of her and by hard usage wrought her flight and so gave birth unto a great mystery or two before the Son of the Concubine could be produced What made Abram so continent hitherto and so constant to his barren Wife Sarai Did he think it unlawful to take a Concubine And if so why did he now He might have had it seems a nearer Heir than Eliezer before this and if he had gone this way for Concubines were accounted as Wives only different in their Rank and divers of their Sons did inherit among the Sons of Israel whereas Bastards only were excluded as in the Case of Iephthah It may be Abram understood about Concubinacy what our Saviour taught expresly that God having made Man Male and Female one and one from the beginning it was not so yet that it might have been permitted unto him as well as his Progenitors for the supply of Issue if it had not been to grieve his beloved Wife and Sister-in-Law Sarai But now She puts Hagar to him as if it were on purpose to restrain his choice of any other What shall He do Is He glad of the occasion for the further satisfying of his flesh Or doth he do it the better to please his Wife even as Adam pleased Eve and fell by it Or in sine is not he himself also touched with a little spice of unbelief in his obtemperance unto Sarai as well as she In my opinion howsoever some Expositors do seek to blanch it the faithful Abram was at this time imposed on by his Wife Sarai and not excusable of some infirmity in the Case Though he stedfastly believed the promise yet hitherto it had not been revealed to him that it should be by Sarai By whom should he therefore try but by her whom Sarai herself had recommended to him It happened therefore as a punishment unto Sarai's diffidence that her Handmaid Hagar having conceived and thereupon imagining that she and hers should go away with all at last began to despise her and to Abram himself that he should have such a Lout as Ishmael by a foul Egyptian Of whom yet as a Son by Nature he was so fond that when God renewed the promise the fifth time of the blessed Seed thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael enough to let him know that Ishmael was not the Seed intended yet he could not forbear to intercede for him after this manner O that Ishmael might live before thee As if Abram could e'en have been contented that Ishmael might have been the man But it may not fare better with Abram than with his Forefathers Adam and Noah before him for as Adam had Cain for his First-born and Noah one or other of the Aliens so must Abram too the election of Grace having seldome been observed to have followed primogeniture while all other priviledges were annexed to it And as Cain and Cham were born to persecute the true Church before it was yet in being or but yet in its under growth like the red Dragon in the Revelation that stood before the Woman that was ready to be delivered for to devour her Child as soon as it was born so it was to fare with Ishmael who first scoffed at the Feast of Isaac's weaning and was after planted in his own Issue upon the skirts of the Land of Canaan among the Canaanites to be ready to join as far as any of them with the enemies of the Race of Isaac So that God would have out of the same Loins of Abram both the Curse and the Blessing to have their appointed course according to his own purpose without respect unto the favour that he bore to Abram In fine the Apostle himself warns us of a further mystery Why Ishmael should come between the promise and the fulfilling of it and why he was to be born before Isaac the Heir of the promise Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law Do ye not hear the Law For it is written That Abraham had two Sons the one by a Bond-maid the other by a Free woman But he who was of the Bond-woman was born after the flesh but he of the Free-woman was by promise Which things are an allegory for these are the two Covenants the one from the mount Sinai which gendreth unto bondage which is Agar for this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth unto Ierusalem which now is and is in bondage with her Children But Ierusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all c. So that the further mystery beyond this that Israel should first suffer under Egyptian bondage before they should be free was this That the Law which engendreth unto bondage must needs come first
they were not according to the Spirit of Christ how could we be sanctified or comforted by the Scriptures of the Old Testament A thing that hath been little weighed by the Antinomians when they spake so contemptibly of an Old Testament-Spirit as if it were all legal and of bondage only in blindness and darkness Alas they knew as well as we that faith and repentance whether with or without Sacrifices or other outward services was the only way to please God Neither had they any Sacrifices but if it were a Sin-Offering the Offerer was bound to put his hand upon the head of the Burnt-Offering Which was accounted amongst them to have been a Rite of transmission as it were of the man's sin unto the Sacrifice that was to dye for him which was a Figure of the transferring or our sins on Christ. And in laying of his hands on the Bullock's head he confessed his sin after this manner I have sinned I have done perversely I have rebelled and done thus or thus but I return by repentance before thee and let this be my atonement And once a year they had a scape-goat let loose with all their sins into the Wilderness to teach them that God delighted not in the bloud of Beasts and that there was another mean to do away their sins besides the slaying of the dumb Creature For if had been otherwise what should David have done when he was convicted by the Prophet of his two great sins of murder and adultery All the Beasts of the Forest and the Cattel upon a thousand Hills which were all God's own had not been enough to sacrifice for the expiation of such sins as those Wherefore he saith Thou desirest not Sacrifice else would I give it Thou delightest not in Burnt-Offering How then The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit Have mercy upon me O God according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions ..... Wash me and I shall be whiter than Snow Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit Nor was this a mystery known only unto choicer men For one of the Scribes approving of our Lord's Answer when he had told him which were the two great Commandments replyed Well Master thou hast said the truth for to love God with all the heart and soul and to love his Neighbour as himself is more than all whole Burnt-Offerings and Sacrifices And if that passage of Isaiah be well considered it will shew us what kind of piety it was that did impregnate the Spirits of the people of God from Moses unto Christ I will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord according to the great goodness towards the house of Israel which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses for he said Surely they are my people so he was their Saviour In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them In his love and in his pity he redeemed them and he bare them and carried them all the days of old Wherein the church standeth clear off from any merits of her Progenitors or of Moses Aaron and the Prophets relying only on her Saviour the Angel of the presence of the God of Israel They believed therefore in Christ as we do only by the name of the tender mercies of God both for pardon and for every Grace beside CHAP. XXX Christ cloathed in his Word and promises the adequate Object of saving faith which he was to them as well as unto us No naked Christ without these No plerophory without them So much of any promise as the Ancients laid hold of so much of Christ they received in an implicit manner There is somewhat implicit in faith even in these days too NOW if Faith be to be defined per modum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some Divines have followed Calvin over strictly in such a Notion from which they are much come off of late to be a certain full perswasion of particular Election in Christ I must confess I know not how to accommodate such a faith to the times of the Old Testament or to find that they had then an agreeable faith unto such as are of that perswasion Or if the Object of Faith be precisely and abstrusely set to be the very person of Christ a naked Christ divested almost of his Word and Ordinances I shall not be able to make out any thing that way neither But as the Lutherans speak about their Consubstantiation that Christus vestitus Christ clothed in the Elements is there received by the worthy Communicant so I doubt not but I may safely say that Christus vestitus verbo suo Christ clothed with his own Word ever was and is the adequate Object of the Faith of all Ages wherein he was and is received to salvation and to all other ends and purposes whatsoever More especially according to the measure of promises as they have been revealed and made from time to time I think I have gone somewhat near to prove to indifferent men that many of the Saints of the Old Testament had a greater insight into the main scope of the very promise about the person and merits of Christ than diversmen might have thought before and that they had the right use of their faith unto justification as we have now The only Point wherein it may seem that some may stick is whether in the multitude it was not a confused faith and not distinct enough to be what ours must be To this therefore it is to be considered That saving faith relyeth not on any one promise whatsoever abstractedly by it self nor yet that all the promises which are certainly to be believed are of use to all men so that all together are of no more consequence unto us than unto them Next it is to be remembred what S t Paul tells us that all the promises of God in Christ are Yea and in him Amen So that how much or how little soever the Saints of the Old Testament embraced of the promises they embraced of Christ as implicitly contained in them which wrought in them the like obedience hope and perseverance as in us so as to carry them beyond carnal things to the things heavenly and spiritual Which S t Paul again elaborately proves to us in the eleventh to the Hebrews and that they looked more towards that Seed wherein all the Nations should be blessed and another Country and City which hath foundations whose Builder and Maker is God than towards the Land of Canâ—an And all the Worthies which he reckons up he says obtained a good report through faith having not received â—he special
Whether they were but seventy Males in all to wave the Question whether they were so many for some are of opinion that some of Iacob's Sons Sons are reckoned by anticipation and might for all that be born in Egypt after they were planted in the Land of Goshen Let us hear what may be said on either side And first that they were but seventy precisely or thereabouts as S t Stephen reckoneth For First It is safe to keep to the Letter of the Scripture in Historical Passages especially and not to wire-draw it or extend it more than needs for fear of wresting or of worser consequences that may be drawn from more remote constructions than from the very words Now of Iacob and his Sons it is expresly said First That Iacob sent his ten Sons and no more into Egypt to buy Corn by which it may seem that he had no such number to spare as hath been suggested Or that his Sons were but as the rest by the errand that they went on Secondly When Ioseph returned their monies it was to every man in the mouth of his Sack and being searched upon their second return when they had Benjamin with them the search began from the eldest to the youngest and could proceed no further because it seems they were no more Thirdly Their dealing was for little since so few Asses could carry what they came for and their Sacks not so full but that they could contain Provender besides proving nothing else but that these being laden the poor Ass-Riders must go on foot home Fourthly By Iacob's mean Present and Iudah's fear of losing the Asses when they were taken it seems they were but poor and so when Ioseph returned an answerable Present with Waggons to his Father to bring him into Egypt Fifthly Besides that there maybe no doubt of the number it is carefully recorded how many came with Iacob and were there before viz. seventy souls And so Iosephus Jewish Antiquary doth account and no more Sixthly In fine it would be a strange extravagancy to put so many Supernumeraries of we know not what Aliens unto this account which must needs reckon them to Israel and the Seed of Abraham and so to the only Church of God or else give some other clear account what became of them at the last Secondly Notwithstanding which Objections we must hold That Israel descended into Egypt with more than seventy person by these two Arguments which will be proved by answering the Objections only 1. Because he descended with all his houshold 2. Because he neither could nor ought to part with his circumcised Servants and their Wives and Children CHAP. XXXIV Certain Corollary Rules preliminary to the answering of the first Objection That Jacob sent his Sons to Joseph as a foreign Prince for a favour but not unaccompanied considering 1. Their concern 2. What weight of money they might take with them in so many Bundles if only to lade ten Asses 3. What the length and hazard of the way The four next Objections briefly answered TO the first good Rule these others may be joined as succedaneous Corollaries First That the sense of the Scripture is its own authority more than the Critical position of the words warranted by several Quotations in the New Testament out of the Old Secondly That necessary consequence is all one with the Text it self neither was a good Inference ever sleighted Thirdly That in such Historical Passages of Scriptures as do veil or are invelop'd with a mystery we are in a manner directed to a further indagation by S t Paul where he tells us what else we should have hardly found that one of Abraham's Sons by a Bond-maid and another by a free Woman did by an Allegory exhibit to us the difference of state betwixt Mount Sinai and the New Ierusalem or betwixt the Law and Grace Bondage and Liberty Fourthly That by comparing Passages one Scripture doth best expound another After which Preliminaries I address my self to answer the first Objection thus First It is still to be remembered that it is above two hundred and ten years since Abram armed three hundred and eighteen trained Servants born in his own house to pursue the Kings that had taken Lot Prisoner And if seventy Persons only in two hundred and ten years or thereabouts might become such an incredible number as the possibility hath been demonstrated what may we think of three hundred and eighteen more in the same Family Partakers of the like Blessings so far as their encrease was the encrease of Abraham's wealth and strenght But not to be entangled with too many difficulties to think modesty Iacob could scarce have less than a thousand souls within his Tents Secondly But why then did he send his ten Sons only with their ten Asses to buy Corn for them all Could they bring enough Or did they only bring for Iacob's own Tent and leave the rest to live on Roots or Nuts and Almonds with which it seems by the Present that the Land abounded You must remember Ioseph's Dreams that their sheaves should do obeysance to his sheaf and the Sun and the Moon and the eleven Stars also and then you must consider his present state and the condition of all the Nations thereabouts Ioseph was advanced to be chief Minister of State under Pharaoh and according to his own advice he was appointed to take up the fifth part of the Land of Egypt for seven years together of plenty against seven other to ensue of certain famine according to the interpretation of Pharaoh's Dream And when the famine came in all parts Iacob heard that there was Corn in Egypt for Ioseph had gathered Corn as the sand of the Sea very much until he left numbring for it was without number but not to be had save only from the hands of Pharaoh or his chief Minister and therefore you may know he sent his ten Sons and not his Servants to do their obeysance for Corn But not without Attendance as we may easily collect from divers circumstances as 1. From the Concern that they had 2. From the money that they carried with them 3. From the hazard of the Journey and the length thereof As for their Concern they had every man his own Family and did not always eat in Iacob's presence Nor could they live on Nuts or Almonds any more than the Egyptians on their Fruits who were forced to sell their Lands and their Persons too to Pharaoh that they might have Bread For their money every of the ten carried a Bundle in his Bag Think you that a Bundle of Silver as money went then was but enough to buy one Asses burthen Weigh the Bundle and the burthen and consider For their Journey it could be little less than two hundred miles directly from Hebron unto Caire If they brought but each man an Ass-Load what might they spend by the
respect to the house of Jacob wherein all were chosen whereas in the house of Abraham and Isaac there was but one received as Heir of the promise Reasons to be given for their rejection and so might have been in Jacob's house too whose errours are recorded NOW concerning the Unity of the Church this hath been taken for a general Rule That the Church is as large as the Election and the Election so determined within its Bounds or spaces that extra Ecclesiaâ—â— non est salus without the Church there is no salvation Which occasioning a distinction betwixt the Church visible and invisible it hath made the wide World the Subject of some mens charity as much as any Church visible the rather because some men think there may be an inward Call by the Spirit where there in so outward Call of the Church visible And so for Election Whereas S t Paul gives us ground for two distinctions uncontroulable viz. 1. Of a general Election both of Jew and Gentile unto the state of Grace by believing of the Gospel answering to the Election of the Jews alone from the times of the Law unto special Covenant and priviledge 2. Of a certain Election of persons not so large as the other unto eternal life according to the foreknowledge of God This hath occasioned the Schoolmen and the modern Polemical Divines by scanning of the terms and sisting what might be drawn from them to come in with a distinction between like a kind of superfoâ—tation of particular Election absolute or conditional for of the general Election of some people more than others unto special means they dare not question over boldly or enter farther into this Secret of Providence than Travellers dare into that Stove of S t Germans in Italy the mouth wherof I have been in only some presume to say that there are sufficient means granted unto all which modern distinction of the Popish Schoolmen and our Common-place-men hath raised much stir and heats both in the Roman and Reformed Churches For if theâ—e be an absolute positive Election of a â—ew the Question is not so much Whether it be without respect of persons as without respect of sin If there be a particular Election of persons conditionally only then Whether Election hangeth in suspense or being from eternity proceedeth according to God's foreknowledge vel saltem per scientiam mediam with a respect to his own Decree according to works foreseen of merits condign or congruous as the Schoolmen speak or according to faith or Evangelical obedience at the least foreseen and foreknown which pleaseth some of ours well enough though they have much difficulty and difference in the explaining of their meanings In the mean while perhaps there cannot be much more proved from S t Paul than that Election beareth no respect to the Works of the Law by which neither Jew nor Gentile can be justified but that both must be brought to cry Grace Grace unto the Gospel But the Bounds of my Discourse confine themselves naturally within the general Election of Grace whereby it pleased God to chuse some particular persons to be the Body Constitutive of his Church to the exclusion of â—â—hers that might seem to have stood as fair as they If it be asked Why Abel was accepted and Cain not it is ready to be answered That Abel offered a better Sacrifice and that from a better mind wherein God himself is our Warrant for he said unto him Why art thou wroth and why is thy countonance fallen If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou doest not well sin lyeth at the door If it be asked again Why was Sem chosen rather than Ham and Iaphet A reason may be given against Ham but there is no manifest reason against Iaphet but the Oeconomy or Providence of God secundum beneplacitum Whoever presseth further may engage himself beyond recovery unless he do content himself in this that there was a time to be when it pleased God that the fulness of the Gentiles should come in So a reason may be given against Ishmael He was not only the Son of the Bondwoman that misbehaved her self towards her Mistress but a malicious Scorner of the true Heir the Son of the Free-woman and a Wild-man but of the Sons of Keturah what have we to say more than of Iaphet save only that of Midian one of them came Iethro and the Kenites friends and partakers of the house of Israel What wonder though Esau was permitted to seek his Fortunes in Mount Seir he having matched with the Daughters of Heth and Ishmael to the grief of his Parents and so without their liking and being otherwise prophane not only as a common Hunt but as an Hunter like to Nimrod so far as God permitted But what have we to say at last that all the Sons of Iacob his Concubines and all should be taken in and never an one rejected Did ever Ishmael or Esau play such pranks as some of these Reuben the eldest went in to Bilhah the Concubine which Rachel and not his Mother Leah had given unto Iacob and lay with her and defiled his Fathers bed Simeon and Levi fell upon the Shechemites not only cruelly but perfidiously after they had made them Proselytes Iudah the next preferred above all went down from his Brethren who had little converse beyond their commerce with the people of the Land and turned in to a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah And Iudah saw there a Daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shuah and he took her and went in unto her And she bare him Er Onan and Shelah Er married Tamar and was wicked following his Mothers kind and the Lord slew him and Onan after him And then Iudah dissembled about giving the third Son Shelah unto Tamar lest he should perish too So Iudah himself fell into Tamars Gin and was disgraced by her at the present but got more honour from her incestuous Issue at the last than from his own marriage with the Canaanite For the Sons of the Concubines Dan Naphtali Gad and Asher Ioseph was wont to bring their ill report unto his Father for which they envied him And for Issachar and Zebulun they were also in the Conspiracy against the life of Ioseph Only Reuben's pity was commended though he was agreed with the rest to conceal it with fraud from Iacob in that he would have saved Ioseph altogether which might be a reason why Ioseph bound Simeon the second when he let Reuben the first go free and Iudah so far as that he would rather fell him for a Slave than slay him Thus the Scripture concealeth not their vices Only Ioseph the Son of Rachel is extolled and his Brother Benjamin blameless CHAP. XL. The Sons of Jacob compared in their vertues and vices The latter aggravated and excused Why Pharez born of incest should be so great in Judah and inherit the promise at