Religion in the Christian part of it by locking the Scriptures up in strange Tongue from the inspection of the Vulgar when she imposed her Antichristian Innovations And Mahomet though he ground his impious Superstition upon Moses and Christ as he pretends yet he decried them both when he introduc'd his Alcoran But our Jesus professeth that he came not to destroy but to fulfil to fill up the Law and the Prophets that he would not dash one tittle out of them till all was fulfilled and yet he communicated the knowledge of them to the World some hundreds of years before he instituted his Royal Law and requires the Worlds Vote for the passing of that Law upon no other terms than its Conformity to what Moses and the Prophets had writ The greatest advantage imaginable for the detection of false Play and such as he would never have given the World had he intended to have put tricks upon it How does Celsus in the Person of a Jew busie himself to find Lines and Features in our Saviour's Face not answering the Old Testament draught of the Messiah Here he hath too much of God there too much of Man here he 's to White there too Ruddy How does the Jew himself labour to make himself believe he sees those Forms in him that bear no proportion to the Prophetical Description of the Messiah one while the Place of his Birth is too manifest another while too obscure c. had these men of an evil Eye discovered the least disproportion betwixt the Model and that Temple it self wherein the Godhead dwells bodily in what triumph would they have set their conquering Banners upon it Would Christ have yielded them the opportunity of skulking behind Moses's Ark of marching covertly under his Tabernacle and of making so near approaches to the Rock of Ages as from thence to spy out where the Fortifications were lowest and weakest had he not known his weakness to have been stronger than the strength of of men and himself to have been such an exact Copy of Moses as the most maliciously prying Eye could not find the least real Disproportion betwixt Jesus of Nazareth and that Picture of him which the Septuagint had delivered to the World so long before his appearance CHAP. VII The World over-run with Barbarous Ignorance when the Impieties of Turk Pope and Pagans imposed themselves upon its Credulity § 1. Platinas his Censure of the sixth Century Pope Sabinian an Enemy to Learning monstrous Presages Phocas in Baronius his stile the Red Dragon gave the Title of Universal Bishop to Boniface the third § 2. As Darkness increased the Pope incroacheth till at last he set his foot upon the Necks of Princes The Eyes of those Centuries the Lights of the Church as they will be called were Darkness Formosus Stephen Romanus Theodore the second John the tenth and nine Popes succeeding him in less than nine Years Benedict the fourth Leo the fifth all Heads of the Roman Church like that Head in the Carvers Shop brainless These in the ninth Century § 3. The Popes of the tenth Century Baronius stiles Abomination in the holy Place Gerebrand reckons from the Hermaphrodite Pope John or Joan above fifty in two hundred Years who were little better than Incarnate Devils amongst whose Predecessors was John the thirteenth a Stallion Benet the ninth in time succeeds a Monster made up of a Boar below and an Ass above § 4. The Popes of the eleventh Century light their Candle at the Devil's Match Silvester compounded with the Devil for the Papacy Onuphrius his Evasion obviated Benet rides the Devil in Purgatory He was a wonderous great Scholar that bad learn'd his Grammar § 5. Paganism crept in in the dark before Commerce Heathens care to conceal their God-Births Minerva turns the tatling Crow out and takes the Bird of Night the Owl into her service the Eleusine Mysteries Mercury ' s hand upon his mouth Alexander must not reveal Aegyptian Mysteries nor Petronius his Ruffians the Secrets of Priapus As Traffick increased the World gives over teeming with new Gods Alexander Plato Caesar Aristaeus were born out of time to be made Gods As the Theology of those obscure times came to be inquired into by several Nations comparing Notes it grew out of Credit Euemerus his Sacred History Annons Birds § 1. THese Arguments for the fidelity of the Apostles drawn from the State of that Age wherein they made their report will recieve that Accession of Strength as will make them impregnable by comparing it with those Ages wherein all false Religions have been hatched No Religious Impostors having hitherto dared to peep out but in Barbarous Times To begin with those are next to us both in time and place those Antichristian Twins of the Mahometan and Papal Impiety chose the midnight of Cimmerian Darkness to be born in an Age as infamous for Ignorance as that of the Apostles was famous for Knowledg The Pope by the Decree of Phocas obtained the Universal Supremacy over Bishops Anno. 606. Mahomet put forth his Alchoran Anno. 622. Urbanity was in its highest Exaltation when the Cedar of the Gospel was planted in its lowest depression when these Tares were sowen that an Age elevated above the Ela of common Humanity this sunk down below the Gamut of the most brutish Bestiality He that would make an equal partition of that Verse in the Psalms betwixt them must assign the first part for the Motto of that Man being in Honour the last clause for the motto of this is become like a Beast that perisheth For whether it hapned through the innate inconstancy of humane Affairs in whose still-running Wheel those Spokes which were then uppermost were now become lowermost nothing persisting in one Stay but either flowing till it comes to its Spring Tide or ebbing till it falls to its neep either waxing towards a full or waining towards a change Or whether the just hand of Heaven withdrew natural from them who made no better improvement of supernatural Light Or upon whatever inscrutable reasons of incomprehensible Wisdom it came to pass such was the Genius of the World when Hell drew out those her two Nipples Turk and Pope those Soveraigns of Eastern and Western Babel of the second Edition Herbert's Church Militant when that Janus-Anti-Christ set back to back and entred the Lists against Christ the one antiquating the other adulterating the Gospel by the Introduction of their new Religions as there was none then visibly appearing but the Ass to umpire the Contest betwixt Christ and them to determine who sung best these Birds of Prey or that warbling Nightingale that Bird of Paradise The Worlds Ears were never grown to a more Ass-like length than when those Silvans and barbarous Pans contended before it for preheminency above our truly Divine Apollo That such was the face of the World then when Papal Innovations and Mahometan Blasphemies commended themselves to her will best appear by taking an impartial Survey of
huic gradui superaedificavit alterum ut qui jam audierat non ampliorem vindictam quà m qua quisque laesus esset redderet placatâ mente totum se donare gauderet quod etiam in illis veteribus libris Propheta praedicavit dicens Domine mi si feci istud si reddidi retribuentibus mihi mala olim Propheta dicit de bujusmodi uno patiente injurias levissime tolerante Dabit percutienti se maxillam ex quo intelligitur mensuram vindicandi rectè carnalibus constitutam omnimodam injuriae remissionem non tantùm in novo Testamento esse proeceptam sed longè antè inveteri pronunciatam The first degree of Lenity enjoyn'd them was that they should not through smart of the injury they had received exceed the measure of the offence in taking vengeance for thus he who had first learn'd not to exceed might learn in time wholly to remit the offence Upon this reason our Saviour to that lower degree added an higher that he who had already been taught that he must not take revenge beyond the demerit of the injury might have joy in himself if he could with a pacate mind forgive the whole which even in the Old Testament the Prophet commends saying Oh Lord if I have done this thing if I have rewarded evil to them that are mine enemies And another Prophet speak thus of one who suffer'd such like injuries and bare them patiently He gave his cheek to him that smote him From whence we learn that Moses did well in setting bounds of revenge to carnal men and that the free and total remission of injuries was not only justly commanded in the Gospel but before that commended in the Law And for that other of hating their Enemies that is the seven Nations whose sins being ripe God had sentenc'd the extirpation of them and made the Jews Executioners of that Sentence and to have their Cloaths and Possessions for their pains it was necessary in order thereunto that they should not pity but hate them and that right sore as God's Enemies so that neither he that took that Limb from another which himself had been deprived of by him nor he that took away the Life of any of the seven Nations was responsible for it before their Judicatories no more than Hangmen are among us for chopping off Hands or Heads of condemned persons who yet if they hate those of whom they are the Executioners as their own and not as the Republicks Enemies and have an Eye more to the Wages than the executing of Justice may be guilty before God of horrid Murder And if the Ghostly Father in his admonition to the condemned should in a Parenthesis advise the Executioner to take heed of contracting the guilt of blood upon his Soul by a male-administration of his Office who would accuse him of accusing the Law No more ought Christ to be thought either to oppose or accuse Moses in these his reformations tending not towards the abolition of common Justice but towards the cautioning and regulating of private Persons aggrieved in seeking redress of Injuries or of publick Persons appointed as the Ministers of God to take vengeance upon them that do evil that neither of them should be over-rigid in seeking redress in every petty and inconsiderable Case and when the importance of the Injury done either to private Persons or the publick Law forces them to it in invocating aid of the Law to aim not at their own revenge but God's Glory and the preserving of common Equity Ista praecepta magis ad praeparationem cordis quae intùs est pertinere quà m ad opus quod in aperto fit ut teneatur in secreto anima patientiâ in manifesto autem id fiat quod eis videtur prodesse posse quibus bene-velle debemus Augustin Marcellino epist. 5. These Precepts of Christ do rather appertain to the heart than the outward man that the Soul may possess it self with patience within and the Christian do that openly which he thinks will be most profitable to those to whom we are bound to do good Thus I have heard some say that our Laws touching Usury confess it unlawful by the Law of God and damnable in his Court yet seeing that most men had so little of the fear of God before their eyes as notwithstanding God's excluding Usurers out of his holy-hill they would be dabling with the accursed thing that they might set bounds to men's avarice make it extortion to take more consideration than the Law allows that by this limitation the covetous whom God abhors that are resolved to run the hazard of their own damnation may bring it upon themselves with as little detriment to others as may be and that the Christian indeed that dares take God's bond and suretiship for the poor borrower may lend gratis without any other consideration than that hundred-fold Reward which he hath promised Though I hope better things of the Usurer yet this tenure of our Law may serve to illustrate Moses 4. By their giving an account of Christ's discharging Moses his Law from those false Glosses and Doctrines which his Expositors had fastned upon it expressed in St. Matthew by this form of preface 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it hath been said without either the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye have heard or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to them of old prefix'd before Christ's discourse touching Divorce thereby signifying that the matter there recited called by the Pharisees a command of Moses Mat. 19. 7. was neither given by Moses in the Law or by any other after him to that ancient People as a Precept but was a bare permission in the case of turpitude Deut. 24. 1. given them for the hardness of their heart Where yet all that Moses commands is only this That he that doth put away his wife in that case which he permits for the prevention of a worse evil but allows not much less commands should do it in due form of Law Now the Pharisees having put this sence upon Moses as if he had in the case of uncleanness commanded and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for any slight Cause made it lawful to put away ones Wife Christ vindicates Moses from this Gloss and that out of his own Writings where he gives an account of the first Institution of Marriage of Adam's Aphorism when God brought Eve to him This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and of Moses his Inference from thence Therefore ought a man to cleave to his wife Can there be a better Argument of a well tun'd Mind than to set Christ's prohibition in as perfect a concord to Moses his toleration of Divorce as that second part of his Song bears to his Descant upon the Epithalamium which Adam sang in Paradise and with so much dexterity to remove out of the consort that Discord which the Pharisees had made by their putting of Moses out of tune with himself § 4. No less
his Protomartyr to prove Christ's Doctrine opposite to that of Moses by suborning Witnesses to alledge many things in the New looking a squint upon the Old Testament these two upon examination prove better friends and agree better with one another than the Witnesses do among themselves whose allegations destroy one another while they are combining to prove the Gospel destructive to the Law and in conclusion after they have left no stone unturn'd they are not able to make good one Instance of any such Doctrine And thus while the Jew cannot while he dares not deny the doing of the Works the Delivery of the Doctrine they were so manifest but is forc'd if he will not let the Gospel wholly alone to enter this Plea he runs himself upon the inconveniency of being manifestly baffled and nonsuted in open Court Insomuch as for all his boasting when he put on that Armour he dares not trust to it in the pitch'd Field has not the heart to mutter one word before Pilate of Christ's casting out Devils by Beelzebub though could he have made such a charge but probable it would have administred to him a more plausible occasion of putting Christ to death both in respect of the Law of Moses and Caesar than that which he was at last pinch forc'd to take up viz. he said he was king of the Jews A Plea which of all other the Jew would not have stood upon had not Malice over-clouded his Intellect and prompted him to snatch up in a rage that weapon to offend Christ with which otherwise he could not but forethink the Gospel would take up in defence of the Truth of its History and Delivery of that Doctrine which is the very Soul of our Religion He said he was king of the Jews that is King Messias the great Prophet that was to come into the VVorld This is proved to the Christians hand in open Court Christ is called to make a good Confession of it before Pontius Pilate Pilate causes this Indictment to be writ in Capital Letters in Hebrew Greek and Latin for all to read over his Cross as the Crime of which he was accused and for which he suffered Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews 1. This is enough to evince the Truth of the Gospel as to Matter of Fact and Delivery of Doctrine that the Church hath not feigned this story that Christ really gave out himself to be that Person that the Gospel reports him to be for in saying he was King of the Jews in the common sence of that Age and in the Notion of King Messiah Christ said he was born of the Virgin of the Lineage of David born in Bethlehem fled into Aegypt educated in Nazareth convers'd in Galilee made the lame to leap as an Hart made the Eyes of the blind to see out of obscurity was anointed of God to be that great Prophet whom all are to hear that Seed of the woman that was to break the Serpents head the Desire of all Nations that unknown God whom the Gentiles ignorantly worship'd that Judean King who was to subdue all Kings Scepters to his 2. Can it be imagin'd that one who pretended to this Title would come with his Thumbs in his Mouth and not demonstrate his Right to it by doing such stupendious VVorks as could not be effected but by Divine Power seeing all pretenders to the Messiaship both before and after him made show of working Miracles in confirmation of their Pretensions and not exercise that Office he affirmed he came into the VVorld to manage by giving out his Royal Law by publishing his heavenly Doctrine 3. VVhat VVorks what Doctrine was ever father'd upon Christ so well becoming that Title so like to sting the carnal and blinded Jews to grate upon the proud and envious Pharisee to offend that Generation that opposed him as that whereof the Gospel giveth us an account By what other VVorks but those could Pilate be so far conscientiâ Christianus as Tertullian stiles him convinc'd in judgement that Jesus was indeed what the Jews accused him to say he was the King of the Jews as he could not by their solicitations be perswaded to alter the first Inscription VVhat Doctrine but that could upon trial have been found so holy and blameless as Christ's most malicious and cunning enemies could not suggest one tittle of it to a Judge partial enough on their side that he could find any fault in St. Paul therefore had reason to call that a good Confession which Christ made before Pontius Pilat and to urge it upon Timothy's Conscience in that charge he gives him to observe the Canon of Doctrine and Life propounded in that Epistle as being that Doctrine of Christ which he confirm'd by working of Miracles before the people and by confessing himself before Pilat's Tribunal to be King of the Jews And so much more infatuated did the Jews appear in procuring by the Plea they enter'd against him the publication of this Title in the ears of Jews Romans and Grecians which as it comprehends the Sum of the Christian Faith so it is the Touchstone of all VVorks and Doctrines father'd upon Christ and clearly evinceth the Truth of Evangelical History if we compare what it delivers with what the Prophets foretel the King of the Jews was to say and do § 2. These were their studied and unanimous Pleas against Christ they had some Extempore ones and as it were the Opinions of private Doctors I will but glance at these VVhen the Resurrection is preach'd the Pharisee Applaudes the Sadducee derides when Christ preacheth the paying of Tribute the Herodians approve the Pharisees oppose VVhat means this snarling of the Dogs but that such bones were thrown amongst them Some alledge that no man knows whence the Messias comes and therefore concludes that Jesus was not he they knowing that he came out of Nazareth and having converse with his Mother his Brethren and Sisters Others affirm that the Christ was to come out of Bethlehem and that therefore the Son of Mary was not he being of so obscure an Extract such a Terrae filius as no man knew whence he came Besides the manifest Contradiction whereby those Adversaries to Christ trip up one anothers heels here are the manifest Prints of Christ's twofold Generation one as God eternal of his Father which none can declare another temporal of the Substance of his Virgin-Mother And of two material Passages in the History of Christ pointed at by the Prophets and infallibly conducting us to the places where we are to look for the Messias to wit at Bethlehem as to his so obscure Birth as it was hardly taken notice of and at Nazareth as the place of his Education and constant residence of his fleshly Relations But these are but slight Inconveniencies which the Jew drew upon himself by chusing rather to betake himself to these kind of Exceptions than to oppose the Truth of the Narrative in comparison of those mortal
Numa did but gave the faculty and means of seeing the true Religion to those that were already polisht and deceiv'd with Urbanity it self Let me add with Religion it self and that Religion abetted by the greatest Champions that ever appear'd in its defence What would Christ's squadron of Fishers have been in the hands of such Goliahs had they not been the Army of the living God § 4. The world in respect of its sentiments touching Religion was immured within another wall a fourth defence against surprisal when the Gospel made an on-set upon it enough to have sunk the assaylants spirits into a despondency of obtaining the victory had not that brazen wall of their being not couscious to themselves of having any base design upon it been their Royal Mount and the Lord of Hosts their Leader nothing less than this could have animated them to attempt to impose a new which the Learned party were so much prejudic'd against as has already been shewed and wrest the old Civick Religion out of its hands at that time when the vulgar through the sly insinuations of the Politicians had as great if not hotter zeal for it than ever As is apparent from the most illuminated Philosophers providing salvo's for the securing the grandeur of the Civick Devotions and the then establisht Religion against the side-blows themselves seem'd to give it in their commending of Natural and decrying Fabulous Theology though they quitted their hands of this indeed impossible undertaking so awkly joyn'd the Asses head of these salvo's to the Lions body of their preceding discourse so unhandsomly and thereby made the parts so incongruous discoherent inconsequent nay contradictory to one another as they could not have devised how to have more openly signified to the diligent Reader that they set these pack-sadles upon the backs of their generous Palfreys not for the ease or satisfaction of their own but to gratifie the deluded consciences of the rabble who by this means might ride a cock-horse without galling in that most tender part which they miscall Conscience which their sharp-backt reasoning of fabulous Divinity into contempt would otherwise have gall'd and to make their own peace with the State for paring its Religion too near the quick These were the weights St. Austin observ'd to hang at the lines end and pull the soaring Varro down again when he was upon the wing and flying aloft in pursuite of the Poets Fables with as opprobrious language as ever came out of that grave mans mouth Vide Aug. de Civit. lib. 6. cap. 4. 5. 2. Hic certè ubi potuit ubi ausus est ubi impunitum putavit sine caligine ullius ambiguitatis expressit Quid existimare debemus nisi hominem acerrimum ac peritissimum oppressum fuisse suae Civitatis consuetudine a clegibus Here indeed where he might where he durst where he thought his liberty of speech not punishable he declares his mind without the darkness of the least ambiguity And when we hear him plead for that in our Temples which he had condemn'd in our Poets what can we deem but that this sharp-sighted and most skilful Divine was opprest with the custome and laws of the City This was it which clipt the tongue of Cicero when he was hotly declaiming against Divinations and made him eat his words and seemingly to cross out all he had writ with such dashes of his pen as these de Divinat lib. 2. 217. Quam ego Reipublicae causa communisque religionis colendam censeo As vain as it is it ought to be retain'd for the sake of the Republick and Vulgar Religion Again retinetur autem ad opinionem vulgi ad magnas utilitates Reipublicae de Divin 2. 235. Though in this Antiquity err'd yet this errour is to be retain'd to keep up in the vulgar an opinion of Religion and for the benefits that thence accrew to the Common-wealth And therefore P. Claudius and L. Junius for sailing contrary to the Omens exhibited are worthy of the punishment they underwent for they ought to have observed the Rules of our Religion and not with that contumacy have sleighted the manner of the Countrey Tamen postea Reipublicae causa retentam c. Id. 237. To conclude these Quotations with what he concludes his Treatise of Divination Nec verò id enim diligenter intelligi volo Superstitione tollendâ religio tollitur nam et Majorum instituta tueri sacris ceremoniisque retinendis sapientis est Neither is Religion destroy'd in rooting out Superstition I would have you mark that diligently for it is the part of a wise man to maintain the institutions of our fore-fathers in retaining sacred Rites and Ceremonies Did ever words coming out of one mans mouth at one breath blow hot and cold as these do Oracles Auguries inspection of Entrails observation of Birds mindings of Prodigies c. are vain superstitious things and Superstition must be rooted up but as vain as they be they are the institution of our Fore-fathers Rites and Ceremonies appointed by our Religion and therefore a wise man must not reject them This made Porphyry fetch so many doubles before he squatted down on his seat before he came to a full point in that discourse of his touching Sacrifices one while affirming that all bloody Sacrifices are the food of evil Spirits and to be abstained from by wise Men. Porph. de Sacrif l. 1. 315. vir igitur prudens atque temperans cavebit ejusmodi sacrificiis uti And yet with the same breath making it necessary for Cities to make evil Spirits propitious to them by such sacrifices hereby tying them as it were by the teeth not only from doing them mischief but to do them good Civitatibus fortè necessarium hos daemones conciliare Id pag. 316. Of which kind of Daemons he had in the precedent page past this doom that they never do good Absurdissima opinio vel à bonis mala vel à malis bona contingere posse p. 312. firmiter credendum neque bonum unquam laedere neque prodesse malum daemonem non enim caloris est ut inquit Plato frige-facere pag. 314. It is a most absurd opinion that either bad can come from good Spirits or good from bad we must therefore firmly believe that a good spirit never hurts that an evil spirit never profits any man for it is impossible that heat should make cold saith Plato And that their malicious and libidinous natures are not tamed or allayed but fed and made more fierce by such oblations His pinguescere solet vivit namque vaporibus fumigationibus nidore sanguinis carnium vires assumit pag. 315 And yet at last granting a liberty nay imposing a necessity upon his wise man to do as the vulgar do that is with bloody sacrifices to cokes impure Spirits and this by the authority of Theophrastus and consent of Pagan Divines and example of Philosophers and to mitigate their malignity by Sacrifices Prayers
to this holy Book or take from it to add to the Prophane Surely no if we take in one thing more out of Josephus preceding this fact of Ptolemy viz. that Demetrius summoning all the Jews of Alexandria read to them the Translation in the presence of the Translators and yet the whole Assembly approved it with one voice making suit to the King that he would with his Royal Sanction ratifie the unalterableness of it could he have devised a form of Sanction more Royal and Obliging than this Scaliger's Fourth Objection If Eleazar and the Jerusalem Sanhedrim had approved this Translation why did the Hebraizing Jews so hate it as to keep an Annual Fast and day of afflicting their Souls in remembrance of it why did they say there was three days of darkness when the Law was translated and apply to this time and action that of Solomon Eccl. 3. There is a time to rent Thus proceeds that learned Man to Catechise his Readers If a Puny whose ambition it is to sit at the feet of that great Oracle may have leave to solve these queries I would thus unty these knots with which he snarles this story The great Council appointed the Seventy to translate the Bible to gratifie Ptolemy but never intended that Translation should be used in Synagogues Neither does Josephus Antiq. 12. 2. assert any thing of that tendency but that the whole Assembly of the Jews of Aegypt with their Magistrates and Elders passed their joynt Vote that it should be allowed to be read in their publick Assemblies Now it was this Vote which the Hebrews abominated it was not to the Translation it self but what past towards the ratifying of it for this use in those three days of darkness wherein it was read to the Jews of Aegypt and obtained this approbation to which they applyed that Sentence of the Royal Preacher There is a time to rent the Aegyptian Jews giving hereby to their Brethren of Judaea the like scandal to that which the Latines gave the Greeks by inserting de filioque into the common Creed without common consent and laying a Foundation for that Schism which about an hundred Years after this was perfected by Onias who with the consent of Ptolemy Philometor Jos. Antiq. 13. 6. in pretence of fulfilling that Prophesie Isaiah 19. 18. There shall five Cities in Aegypt speak the Language of Canaan and one of them shall be the City of the Sun erected at Heliopolis a Temple after the similitude of that at Jerusalem and a Church of Jews there whereof he became High Priest distinct from that in Judaea whereof Alcimus was his Priest by the name of Helenists or Grecians as Scaliger observes and Doctor Hammond demonstrates from Act. 11. 20. where they that upon St. Steven's Martyrdom travell'd to Antioch are said To preach the Lord Jesus to the Greeks that is to the Grecizing Jews for it is said of the same men in the preceding verse that in that their Perambulation they preached to the Jews only A plain proof that the compellation of Greeks was not imposed upon them from their living in Greece but their holding of that Church which used the Greek Translation of the Seventy § 5. Scaliger's Fifth Objection His objecting the Story of some Neoterick Jews touching their razing out the Golden Letters of the Name Jehovah in that Copy which was presented to Alexander the Great and writing them with Ink as an Argument that Josephus is lead by Aristaeus beside the way of Truth when he saith that the Copy of the Law which Eleazar sent to Ptolemy was writ in Golden Letters had never been raised by him upon so Sandy a Foundation neither had such Rabbinical Fables obtained that High Place among his Golden Lines as he here assigns them had he call'd to mind either what St. Origen writes in answer to Celsus In Cels. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Writings of Modern Jews are mere Fables and Trifles Or what sometimes dropp'd from his own Pen. de em temp l. 6. Manifesta est Judaeorum inscitia multa quae ad eorum Sacra Historiam pertinent nos melius tenemus quam ipsi The Ignorance of the Jews is most manifest we are better acquainted with their Religious Customs and the Histories of their Affairs than the Jews themselves are Josephus his single word hath more weight with me than hundreds of Modern Rabbies Scaliger's Sixth Objection The last Stone which Scaliger turns is Ptolemy himself under this indeed he finds those Worms of Parricides committed upon his Brethren those Moths of Incest committed with his Sister as fret his Surname Philadelphus till they change it from its natural Gloss and make it look as imposed upon him abusively but not Aristaeus his Credit For first these Immoralities hinder not but that he might be ambitious to have his famous Library grac'd with Books so much commended not only by publick fame and inkling of the Nations speaking in the language of that Prophecy Deut. 4. 6. What Nation is there so great that hath statutes and Judgments so righteous as this Law but by the suggestions of Demetrius that the Jewish Scriptures contein'd a most wise sincere and divinely-inspired Law and that Hecataeus Abderita assigned that as the reason why neither any Poet nor Historian made mention thereof because 't is sacred and not to be taken into a prophane mouth How must this set an edge upon his curiosity and incite him after the obtaining a sight and coming within view of those Books which at a distance cast so alluring a smell into his quick-scented nostrils Ptolemy was in Tertullian's Judgment Omni literaturâ sagacissimus Apol. cap. 18. Secondly had we learnt to extend the line of Christian Charity but half as far as it will reach we should pass a milder sentence than that of Scaliger and Weenobus upon him whom God anointed to be his Servant to bring his Law from Jewish Captivity and conceive him to have been almost if not altogether a Proselyte for upon the assurance that Aristaeus gave him that so far as he could find by most diligent enquiry the best and highest God the Maker of the World whom he worship'd under the name of Jupiter was worshipped among the Jews after a more excellent rite and form of Divine Service than among any other people upon earth that that God who gave to him his Kingdom had given to them their Law he presently ordered the Manumission of all the Jews in his Dominion at his own vast charge in redeeming above 120000 out of the hands of those they were Vassals to And upon Demetrius his suggesting to him that the Jewish Scriptures contein'd a most wise sincere and divine Law he ordered Embassadors to be sent to Eleazar the High Priest with Letters after this Tenure After I had obtained the Principality I set at liberty above an hundred thousand Jews c. thinking that this would be an acceptable thank-offering to God for that providence
return and bring them into a worse Bondage to the Ceremonial Law than they were in before that their last Estate that of Judaick Christians should be worse than their first of Judaism It were easie to multiply Instances and to point to those Passages in St. Mark who wrote his Gospel to the Grecizing or Alexandrian Jews whose Bishop he was from St. Peter's Mouth that make clearly for St. Paul and against St. Peter but for Brevities sake I wave that and come to shew that on the other Hand St. Luke who was St. Paul's Amanuensis in that Gospel of his writing but St. Paul's inditing challenging therefore a Propriety in it and calling it his Gospel Rom. 2. 16. does no more favour St. Paul's than St. Peter's Cause presenting St. Peter as the Mouth of the whole Colledg of Apostles in confessing Christ to be the Son of God the King of the Jews and receiving from Christ upon that Confession the Privilege of being the first-laid Stone in the new Jerusalem upon which Christ would build his Church And in his History of the Acts of the Apostles demonstrating how Christ made good that Promise to him For though all the Twelve were so many Pearly Foundation-Stones upon whose Persons and Preaching the Gospel-Church was built and though all of them were Doors in the City of God and had the Keys given them to open the Door of Faith to the Jew and Gentile Yet St. Luke gives the Preheminence to St. Peter in order of Time reporting him with his Brother Andrew to have had the first explicit call to Christianity and after that to the Apostolical Office and and so his Person to have been laid as the first Stone in the House of God and in the Foundation of the Apostles and informing us how his Key of Doctrine after Christ's Assension and assuming of his Kingdom did at Jerusalem on the Day of Penticost and some while after at the House of Cornelius first open the Door of Faith both to Jews and Gentiles how his Sermons were the first Pearly Foundation-Stone upon which the Catholick Church of Jew and Gentile was built Nay St. Luke relates those Passages with such Circumstances as are of greatest Tendency towards the heaping of Honour upon St. Peter's Person presenting him not only as the Stone upon which those individual Converts were laid but in their Persons as their Representatives the whole Church of believing Jews gathered from every Nation under Heaven to his Sermon on the Day of Pentecost and of Gentiles represented by Cornelius a Roman a Name in the Idiom of that Age equipollent to a Citizen of the World God the King of the Jews his peculiar Heritage and Caesar the Emperour of the Romans sharing the World betwixt them The Poet came nearer the Truth in the Evangelical Sence of all the World then he was aware of in his Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet If any of our own Furiosi fasten his Canine Teeth upon this Interpretation of the Rock and Keys and cast up his Snout in the Air as if he smelt Popery in 't he may know if he have not confin'd himself to the Circle of Modern Systems or be not too proud to learn of his Betters that I yield St. Peter no more than the greatest Champions of the Christian of Old and of the Reformed Religion of late have granted him and yet upon such clear Scripture-Grounds as speak it to be no more than his just Due they that think the Papal Church and Cause advantaged by this Concession may do well to joyn Heads with the Jesuits to whom they are already joyn'd by the Tail and try if with his Ram they can batter down the Walls of our Jerusalem about the ears of them who through God's Grace have hitherto defended her upon this Ground and amongst them by Name that Bl. Martyr Arch-Bishop Laud against Fisher pag. 237. c. For my own part I shall rather be of none than of that Religion which stands in need either of a Lye or the Dissimulation of Truth to support it But to return to St. Luke who though St. Paul's Scribe makes the most honourable mention of St. Peter of any of the Evangelists reciting his being with Christ at his Transfiguration a Privilege which St. Peter himself glories in 2 Pet. 1. 18. Christs praying for him that his Faith should not fail and Injunction to him when himself was converted to strengthen his Brethren Reporting the History of his Denial of his Master more favourably than any of the rest therein omitting the Aggravations of his denying Christ the second time with an Oath the third time with cursing and swearing both which are recorded by St. Matthew's Pen describing St. Peter every way as well instructed as St. Paul in the State of the Controversie betwixt them touching God's accounting the Gentiles holy as well as the Jews touching God's antiquating the Law that put difference of clean and unclean upon Meats and his freeing both Jew and Gentile from the insupportable Yoke of Legal Ceremonies In all which St. Luke reports St. Peter to have been so well instructed as the Synod grounded its Decree touching those things upon the Evidence which St. Peter gave Act. 15. And lastly introducing St. Paul doing the same thing in Effect which he rehuked St. Peter for shaving his Head purifying himself circumcising of Timothy c. and that upon the same Ground that St. Peter pleaded That he might not offend those weak believing Jews who were as yet zealous of the Law and had not learn'd that Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free A thing which not only scandalized the Pagan Madaurenses and opened the Blasphemous Mouth of Porphyry to accuse St. Paul of Procacity and Partiality but put St. Origen and Chrisostome to their Wits End to answer his Calumnies And occasion'd those sharp bickerings betwixt St. Austin and Jerome as have been a Bone of Contention among the School-men to this Day and like to be till the Last Day Vide August tom 2. Epist. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 17 18 19. This is such an Argument of Impartiality in the Evangelists as hath no Peer Alexander laid his Finger upon his Scar while Apelles was drawing his Picture Aelian Var Histor. 2. 23. would not give Nicodorus the Mantinean his full Praise because he was affraid thereby to honour the Memory of Diogoras a reputed Atheist who help'd Nicodorus to frame his excellent Laws and Virgil because the Nolanes would not permit him to draw their River over his Grounds expung'd the Name of this City out of his Verses placing instead of that Ora A. Gelii noct attic 7. 20. Talem dives erat Capua vicina Veseno Ora jugo When before that it was Nola jugo Compare the History of the Guelfs and Gibellines the Papal and Imperial Parties the Roman and the Carthaginian Writers the Netherlands and the King of Spain's Favourites Or to come nearer home the London
Conscience to the relief of Bustris and as some say Thyrses from those just charges of barbarous Inhumanity the World had loaded them with and to the affronting of innocent Socrates and vindicating his unequal Judges But with what success appears from Isocrates his tart Reflections upon those Orations from the excuse that Demetrius Phalereus makes for him that he writ those Orations only in Jeast to give the World a Specimen of the fertility of his Wit upon so steril Subjects and from Virgil's stiling Bustris illaudatus unprais'd for all he knew that both Polycrates and Isocrates had writ Orations whose Theme was the praise of Busiris And from Isocrates that the Argument is not good nor such as an honest discourse can be made upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isocr Bus. laud. Peruse Christ's Sermon in the Mount and examine whether the Doctrine he therein delivers be not that which the World has declared it self to have a Transcript of by its blessing those that he blesseth by its cursing those that he curseth by its groping after those Vertues he commends by its boggling at those Debaucheries he condemns What has raised the Heroes in all Ages to an Esteem for Vertue but Humility Mercifulness Purity Peaceableness aspiring to the top of Vertues Stairs by a patient bearing of Evil and doing Good What has ever been accounted the heroick degree of Vertue but that Mark Christ sets those that would be perfect Which of the Moralists in their condescentions to humane weakness stated the minimum quod sit of vertue more favourably and more to the incouragement of the smallest sparks then our Saviour has who will not have the smoaking flax quenched with the injection of the least fear of his non-acceptance of a Cup of cold water A Point wherein Plato so fail'd as Athenaeus passeth this Censure on him Plato made Laws not for men really existing but of his own feigning so that when all is done he hath men to seek who are capable of power to perform the Rules he lays down he ought to have writ things practicable ic non optandis viris haec scribere sed iis qui haec ipsa amplecti possunt Dipnosoph l. 11. cap. 21. What has intail'd an indefeasible infamy upon Mens Memories but such like Enormities as the Gospel decries What but Luxury Effeminateness Cruelty Unrighteousness Fornication Wickedness Covetousness Maliciousness Envy Murder Debate Malignity c. have made the Names odious of that wallowing Hog Sardanapalus a perfect Scholar of Metrodorus that sordid Epicurean who blamed his Brother Timocrates for making the least doubt of this Doctrine That all things belonging to a happy Life were to be measured by the Belly Cotta in Cicer. de nat deor l. 1. that devouring God-belly-gulph Heliogabalus that shame of the Country in whose Lap he was litter'd to use Valerius his words Gemellus who entertain'd the Consul and Tribunes with naked She-servitors That helluo of his large fortunes Clodius who by breakfasting with dissolved Pearls brought his Estate to that low ebb as he had not a drie Crust to sup with in the Afternoon of his life but what he begg'dat more provident mens doors Of Xerxes who so far effeminated his Subjects by his own example and his propounding of Rewards to the inventors of new pleasures as their hands and inventions failed him in securing to him the possession of his Imperial Crown Of Sylla who transmitted his own shame to all succeeding Ages by causing his cruelty in murdering 470 proscribed Persons to be entred in the publick Rolls Of Marius Nero Phalaris and all that have been handed down to posterity as the Monsters of the Age they lived in Our Cade and Kett and Straw our Rosamond Shore have not their infamy yet derived down to so many Generations but should the World continue yet as many as it hath done it would be born down the Stream of Time to the very last of them and had they lived in a Pagan Age and Climate they would have given the same sence of these Opprobries of our Nation and Religion that that Christian Age did wherein they lived The sacred Compilers then of the Gospel were men of no vulgar Conceptions that could frame a Religion so every way fitting the common conceptions of Mankind and sute their Last to every Foot not swoln with Pride or Prejudice so that the Voice of God that they publish'd is the Voice of the People and finds a party for it in every human Soul not degenerate Pagans and Mahometans being so far Christian as they have any thing in them praise worthy among whom there is nothing cried up for Vertue but what glitters like and has some kind of resemblance to Gospelvertue § 2. The Poets Jove was not vulgarly reputed a God The only valuable Exception against this Argument is the Instance of the Pagan Idols who being the worst of men were yet prefer'd in the opinion of the World to the honour of Gods which gave occasion to that Sarcasm of Euripedes That Jupiter Neptune and Saturn and the rest of the Gods deserv'd to be banish'd Heaven as being guilty of those Debaucheries would render men unworthy to tread upon Earth and to Menippus in Lucian to declaim against their Rapes Incests c. and to Terence to flout the great Jove for giving encouragement to Chaerea to perpetrate that Rape upon his Mistress in imitation of Jove's upon Danae In answer to which and to clear the World from the imputation of deifying the most debauch'd Persons that ever lived by which Act it would have confounded all Principles of Morality let it be considered That the Poets Jove had not so much as among the silly Rable the repute of a Deity for had they indeed esteemed that Letcher a God his Example would have had influence enough upon it to have turn'd the whole World into a Brothel-house in spite of all Laws to the contrary For as St. Austin observes Magis intuentur quid Jupiter fecerit quà m quid docuerit Plato vel censuerit Cato de civit 2. 7. They that took those Poetical Monsters for Deities must needs have been more swayed with their example than with Plato's precepts or Cato's practice Now there being so few that pleaded the authority of Jove's Example to patronize their own Crimes and they that had the face to do it being universally badged with the imputation of impiety for making that Plea is evidence enough that he was not cordially worshipp'd under that form which the Poets presented him in What needed those adulterous covetous ambitious Suiters in Persius have whisper'd into his Ears their impious Prayers if they had not reputed him worse than that most corrupt Judge Statius Albius who as bad as he was had any man begg'd his favour in such like Cases would with expressions of amazing horrour have rejected the motion Might they not have avowed and justified their impure and unjust Requests as much as nay rather than those that
Doctrines For the Gentile was grafted in not only upon the cutting off of the Jews but upon the raising up of those Foundation-truths which not only among the Jews but the many Generations of the Heathens had been buried under the rubbish of humane Vanities built upon them This interpretation induc'd the Apostolical Synod to reestablish the Precepts of Noah as an Expedient to gain upon the Gentiles The Platonicks conceived all knowledg to be nothing else but reminiscentia an awakening of the mind to see innate Notions The Notions of the Gospel were not innate yet so imprest by Tradition upon all mens minds as the embracing of it is call'd a man's coming to himself Psal. 22. 27. All the ends of the world shall remember themselves and turn to the Lord. And therefore true Philosophy is so far from being a Prejudice against as it is an Introduction to a Preparation for the Gospel When the Philosophers saith Isidore Pelusiota saw in that grain of Mustard-seed all that Truth Vertually laying which they had been seeking for how many of them bidding adiew to their own Opinions betook themselves to the shady Branches of the Tree of life and there found rest how many Pythagoreans formerly the Masters of pride and disdain became the Scholars of our meek Jesus How many Platonicks letting fall their Crests proudly lifted up through an opinion that they excell'd all men in the Art of Discourse sat down at Christ's feet under the shade of the Mustard-tree How many Aristotelians how many Stoicks scorning that Wisdom whereof they had made greatest boast thought themselves happy if they could be enter'd among those Disciples of Christ who observe his word Isidor Pelusiota lib. 4. ep 76. Our Religion is nothing else but the last and best Edition of that which was either writ on mens Hearts or promulg'd in Paradise to the old and by Noah to the new World who is therefore stil'd the Treacher of Righteousness which being Pentheus like pull'd Limb from Limb by the several Sects each party getting some relicks and scraps of it the Apostles gather'd up its scatter'd Limbs and fram'd them into a perfect and compleat Body of Divinity again clothing its Bones with the Flesh 〈…〉 lling its Veins with the Blood not of slaughter'd Beasts but of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World and presented it to the World wherein there was no Nation so barbarous but if they came near and felt it they might find something in it of which they might say This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone whatever I retain either of right Reason or solid Religion is comprehended in this This is that express Image of the Father of which I had the rough-draught All the Wisdom I have retain'd or learn'd I meet with in this foolishness of Preaching of this the Apostle was so confident as to the Jew he became a Jew to the Gentile a gentile 1 Cor. 9. 20 22. not by a sycophantick and temporizing compliance with the least of their Errours but by taking advantage of the truths they held as Mediums by which he argued them into an assent to the Gospel dealing with every man at his own suresby-weapon and upon his own sound Principles He did not flatter them as Clisophus did King Philip who when the King's Eye was wounded bound up his and when the King had received a hurt on the shin that made him halt halted with him as if he had been lame and never saw the King make sower faces but he look'd as if he were eating the same sharp sawce Nor conform to them as the Arabians did to their King who if he were lame of any Limb they mutilate that Limb of their Bodies Or the Dionisiocolaces to that Tyrant who because he was purblind groped about for the Dishes that were set before them till he had got his hand into his Athen. dipnosoph 6. 6. But St. Paul conform'd to Jew and Gentile in their seeing Eye and soundest Limbs Pleading with the Jew from old Testament-texts With the Gentile from the Law of Nature and the common Traditional Religion that in the Jews mouth and heart before the giving of the Law by Moses that Word whose sound went into all the World by oral preaching the seed of the Christian faith Rom. 10. With the Philosopher from his most sublime Verities Such as the several Sects with whom the Apostle had to do could not deny without contradicting those Notions they were most assured of the truth of and yet were not able to defend against the assaults which their other erronious Opinions made upon them upon any other but Gospel-grounds the only Sanctuary and City of Refuge for all divine Truth in seperation from which like a Beam cut off from the Sun a Stream from the Fountain a Branch from the Tree a Limb from the Body it cannot subsist This Tent-maker so contriv'd his Tabernacle wherein he plac'd the Sun of Righteousness his Gospel wherein he exhibited Christ give me lieve to lisp and stutter now with those I am opposing who speak of the Gospel as the device of men for I shall hereafter demonstrate it to be the Contrivement of God as it excludes all bad Airs takes in all the Light that was before scatter'd among several Sects So as Christ keeps open house in it for all comers the way-faring man though a fool may turn in hither and find lodging where his Soul may be at rest a Table furnish'd with plain Cates suting his Countrey-palate The wise man may here be entertain'd in as much state as heart can wish In the Muse's Chamber in Apollo's Dining-room his vast Soul cannot have that room to expatiate her self in as in Solomon's Curtains in Sarah's Tent nor find that satisfaction in Plato's Academy in Zeno's Porch in Aristotle's Walk as in our King's Galleries in the Prophets Schools in Christ's upper Chamber nor meet with that abstruce Learning in the Egyptian Hierogliphicks as in the embroidered hangings of Christ's Presence-chamber Now how men of crazy Intellects could frame so excellent a Model of Wisdom so perfect a Mirrour of all Metaphisical Science truly so called we may sooner strain our Brains out of joynt by stretching our mind to imagine then imagine with the least shew of probability To which labour in vain I leave the Sceptick while I lead the Christian Reader to the Law and Prophets and shew him what Ammoniâ—s St. Origen's Master of old urged the Philosophers with Euseh Eccl. 6. 13. viz. That the Gospel is calculated exactly to the Meridian of the old Testament in whose Types Precepts and Predictions there is not one imaginary Line but hath its paralel in that CHAP. VIII The Gospel calculated to the Meridian of the Old Testament § 1. In its Types § 2. Its Ceremonials fall at Christs feet with their own weight The Nest of Ceremonies pull'd down That Law not practicable § 3. Moses his Morals improved by Christ by better Motives
of Holiness that 's set before us This they that would might have received as their encouragement then they that took the pains to crack the Nut found this Kernel of heavenly within the Shell of those earthly inducements In Christ's Manger there 's clean Provender fann'd and winnowed to our hand in the Crib of Moses the Corn was in the Chaff yet so as they that had their senses exercised to discern did seperate the Corn from the Chaff Now the framing of Gospel-motives so as they clash not with but are superordinated to yea extracted out of those of the Law as their spirits speaks the Compilers to have been men of well composed Minds To take at that hint which Moses gave of God's intending some better thing than Canaan in his informing us that the whole earth whereof Canaan was a part was accursed for Man's sake and Canaan not only actually under the effects of that Curse for it bore Briers and Thistles but the most cursed part of the whole Earthly Globe then when the promise of it was made to Abraham as being contaminated with the abominations of its Inhabitants more than any other Countrey Or at those hints which the Patriarchs gave of their looking beyond an earthly Canaan in that promise in their confessing themselves to be pilgrims and strangers even when they were setled in Canaan I am a sojourner as all my fathers were Psal. 39. In their not taking those many opportunities which were offer'd them of returning thither after the end of the Famine during the whole time of Joseph's Presidency or of those Kings who knew Joseph but chusing rather to stay in Goshen than to go back into Canaan where for all its fertillity they had been famish'd if Egypt had not releiv'd them enough singly to have convinc'd them that some better thing was involv'd in the Promise To take I say at such hints and thence to conclude so irrefragably as they do that the Patriarchs saw by faith a Land beyond that even an heavenly Their presenting the Church in such a posture as Christ's left hand is under her head while his right hand doth embrace her as St. Jerom from the Fathers expounds that place Can. 2. 6. in his comment upon Zachary cap. 4. So as the two Olive-trees Law on left Gospel on right hand pour Oyl into the golden Candlestick the Church argues the Apostle's discoursive faculty to have been very sound 2. Which may be further evidenc'd by their giving such an account of Christ's improvement of Moses his Morals in some Branches that were virtually in the Bole or Root though they did not actually put forth till they fell under the vegitating influence of the Sun of Righteousness as neither speaks Moses unfaithful in his omitting of them nor Christ austere in his requiring some things that under Moses were dispensed with Christus praecepta supplendo conservavit auxit Tertul. Cont. March l. 4. Christ in supplying the defects of the Law did as well preserve it as enlarge it As in the cases of Polygamy divorce retaliation deportment toward enemies c. By their imputing Moses his giving of dispensations to the hardness of that peoples heart for whose benefit and whose temper his Laws were framed who were tolerated in less to prevent their breaking out into greater sins Mat. 19. 8. And his not imposing some and those the most spiritual and heroick Duties to the Childishness of the Synagogue being under age till the Fulness of Time Gal 4. 1. The Christian Age is thence stiled by St. Chrisostom tom 3. pag. 93 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the age ripe for greater commands Both which being removed by Christ hardness of heart by the plentiful pourings out of his Spirit and childishness by making us men in knowledg through his most manifest revelation of spiritual and Eternal life As also that heavy Yoke of carnal Ordinances sutable to the Necks of that carnal People who minded not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eternal and natural rules of Justice and Piety Just. Martyr 〈◊〉 and therefore imposed upon them as we send Children to School to keep them employed To impose some checks and stops in their course of carnality to find them work as Justin Martyr tells Tryphon the Jew and out of the way of those harms they are otherwise prone to run into From which divine Impositions they took occasion of becoming more childish relying for acceptance with God more upon those bodily Exercises than substantial Holiness These Incumbrances I say being taken away by Christ it cannot be counted an act of Austerity that he should evacuate all dispensations to sin and having eased us of the burden of carnal Commandments grievous to an ingenious and generous spirit such as the Gospel infuseth should lay so much more weight upon us of noble work congenial to every humane and delightful to every evangelized Soul Christ being come our brangling and babling work was less wherefore we had also a greater Task as having greater assistance given us Theophilact in Rom. 6. 14. for I interpret his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wrestling of Boys in the Fencing-school and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the exercises of men and experienc'd Practitioners as is manifest from the opposition they are set in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. in 1 Cor. 9. 21. Having a Law more sublime than the old Law viz. the Law of Christ. 3. By their presenting Moses in some of them as prescribing Laws Politick for the outward Man not Spiritual to the Conscience and therefore dispensing with them in curia soli non coeli before Man's not God's Tribunal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isid. Pel. Epist. 134. lib. 4. The Old Testament made Laws for the Hand the new for the Heart that regulated the Action this the Thought An hint of which St. Matthew gives as that divine Critick Dr. Hamond observes in his prefacing those passages in Christ's Sermon on that Mount where he publish'd his royal Law which concern retaliation and loving of friends and hating enemies with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye have heard but leaving out the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by or to them of old thereby signifying those Doctrines to have been Doctrines of Moses his Law but not of the Decalogue not moral Precepts wherein Conscience was concern'd but belonging to Policy and the humane Court wherein Moses intending to prevent the first injury as the learned Isidore observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of suffering the like Isidor Pelusiot lib 4. epist. 209. tit in illud oculum pro oculo the offended person was allowed to implead the offender and to have a Tooth for a Tooth an Eye for an Eye August contr Adamant Man cap. 5. saith Constitutus est eis primus lenitatis gradus ut injuriae acceptae mensuram nullo modo dolor vindicantis superaret Sic enim domare aliquando posset injuriam qui eam primò non superare didiscisset Unde dominus
for a light to the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth Isa. 49. 6. and when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And Rom. 4. 16. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many nations Paralel or answerable to him whom he believed even God who quickneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were who against hope believed in hope that he should become the Father of many Nations answerable to him that is as God is not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles so should Abraham be the Father both of Jewish and Gentile-believers the believing of which as to the Gentiles was as noble a degree of Faith as that whereby Abraham believed the Promise that in Isaac his Seed should be blessed when he was about to sacrifice him this being no more against hope than that God would raise up a seed to him of Gentiles dead in Sins And to the second they answered that the Jew need not trouble his head with contriving how or where God would find Subjects if he were rejected for the Gentiles were flocking in apace to the Standard of Messias and ere long the Fulness of them would be come in and so all Israel be saved that is Dr. Ham. annot in Rom. 11. 12. 25. they should every where act the Call of the Gospel come in in such numbers as they would in every City and eminent Town afford matter enough for the constituting of Evangelical Churches or visible Assemblies of Christians there by which means the Jews will at length be provoked to believe and so all the true Children of Abraham Jews and Heathens both but particularly the Remnant of the Jews shall repent and believe in Christ. And for them that will not be gain'd by these Methods God may cast them off upon gainful Terms having in lieu of them a great multitude of Subjects which no man could number of all Nations and Kindreds and People and Tongues Rev. 7. 9. Christ foretells that upon the Builder's rejecting the precious Stone and its becoming a Corner-stone the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to another Nation Mat. 21. 42. 43. And according to this Prophecy of Christ and Application of Jacob's Prophecy which Christ and his Apostles made to the time of Jerusalem's final Desolation God did then remove his Scepter from Judah that ceasing then to be God's Kingdom and the Kingdoms of the World becoming the Kingdoms of God and of his Christ within a few Centuries afterwards when Christs Royal Law came to be established and protected by the Imperial Sanction and the Edict of Princes become Christian. In whose Territories in the mean time God had his imperial Cities his Cities on Hills that could not be hid Christian Churches so visible and conspicuous as spake him to be King of all the Earth in the same sence that he had been King of Judea that is in respect of his Kingdom of Grace of his golden Scepter Briefly there was such a gathering of the Gentiles to Shilo before that rejected King's coming to destroy miserably those bloody Rebels and to root out their Place and Nation as he need not be to seek for Subjects when he cast off Judah and chose the Gentiles any more than when he refused the Tabernacle of Joseph and chose the Tribe of Judah Psal. 78. 67. 68. for the Gospel had then been preach'd to and brought forth fruit in all the World God manifested in the Flesh had been preach'd to the Gentiles and believedon in the World as hath been formerly shewed § 4. But then this being laid for a Ground that the Scepter 's departure imports properly and firstly the Removal of the Thearchy from the Jews and translating it to the Gentiles and the time of its departure being thus stated to have been in such a Juncture as wherein God might and did break up his Court in Judea without impeachment of his Truth or Honour which he could not do before It will be obvious enough that that Prophecy consequentially to this implies as the effect of it a gradual withdrawing of their outward Polities Liberties and Privileges thereon depending as the Sun being set the light of it departs by degrees till it wholly disappear Of which though we can make no Demonstration while it is in Motion it takes such minute and insensible steps much less from thence convince an obstinate and captious Adversary that the Sun is set if it be not seen at its going down till the Light of it be impair'd to a degree beyond what the most gloomy Sky the thickest Mist or the most dismal Eclipse can reduce it to yet when its Light is dwindled into such a degree of privation 't is a palpable evidence that the Sun its Fountain is departed our Horizon As therefore I have been forc'd to prove that the Scepter notwithstanding any loss of Light it did or could sustain before the Gentiles flock'd in to our Saviour's Standard was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 departed there having been from David to Christ no greater diminutions of its Light then had been from Jacob to David and therefore the Jew upon the same reason that he will not look downwards in Judah's Line for Shilo as low as our Jesus must look upwards for him beyond David for if those castings down of the Crown to the ground which it sustain'd by the Apostacy of the ten Tribes the Babylonish Captivity the Persecution of Antiochus the Dictatorship of the Macabees or what else occurs in the History of that Interval speak the departure of the Scepter much more must it be departed in the interval before David in the Egyptian Bondage or under the Judges of which time their own Scriptures affirm that there was then no King in Israel Nor till our Saviour's time which is my Herculean Argument was there any such concourse of a new People to Israel's God as could have justified him from the imputation of making a losing Bargain should he have cast off his far more numerous old and have adopted that new People Though I confess that great access of Proselytes in Solomon's Reign said to be an hundred three and fifty thousand by Dr. Lightfoot in his Parergon of the fall of Jerusalem cap. 12. might occasion the Jew to think it was the Gentiles gathering to Shilo and boaded the departure of the Scepter in the falling away of the ten Tribes and doubtless those Gentile Converts together with the Levites and those that feared God adhering to the house of Judah being so numerous as in the worst of times there were seven thousand of them fill'd up the rent that was made in Judah's Royal Robe
their sacred Conventions and to collect Oblations and Moneys for their Sacrifices and lays before them the Decree of Sex Caesar who when he was Consul though he interdicted all other Fraternities yet he allowed the Jews to hold Religious Meetings and to gather Collections in order to the maintenance of their Religious Services and his own Example who permitted the Jews to live after the custom of their Forefathers and their own Laws Josephus Ibidem Dolobella after Caesar's Murder writes to the Ephesians and all the Asians that it was his pleasure as it had been of all the Emperours his Predecessors that the Jews should be permitted to use the Customs of their Fathers to meet for holy Exercises as their Law commanded and to confer their accustomed Oblations towards maintaining their Temple and the Services thereof Joseph antiq 14. 17. and to spare other instances Titus aggravated the Rebellion of the Jewish Priests whom he charges to have been the Incendiaries of the War from the favours which the Romans had shewed the Jews ever since their Conquest amongst which hereckons this for one of the chief That they had always been allowed to receive the Tribute which by their Law was due to God and to collect free gifts for the use of the Temple Quódque maximum est Tributum capere Dei nomine ac donaria colligere permissimus Joseph Bel. Jud. l. 7. c. 13. There is no convincing of him that shuts his eyes against this Light 3. The Jews therefore till Vespasian were not commanded to pay the Didrachma to any but their own Collectors for the use of the Temple which he ordering to be paid to the Capitol made a greater Incroachment upon their sacred Privileges than any former Conquerour had done even to the utter subversion of their holy State making as much as in him lay the God of Judah a Tributary King to the Gods of Rome Not that he himself was conquer'd by those Gods as Vespasian blasphemously implyed by transferring his Tribute to them in the Conquest of his people the Jews August de consensu evang l. 1. 14. Non quòd ipse sit victus in Hebraeo populo suo qui Regnum ejus Romanis expugnandum delendúmque permisit whose Kingdom he permitted the Romans to carry away by force For though the Conquerours at the present triumph'd over him and made their Idols set their seet upon the subjugated Neck of this sleeping Lyon yet it was not long ere he rouzed up himself and having taken his Kingdom from that Prophetick Nation because then he was come who was promised by it he by Christ subdued to his name that Roman Empire by which that Nation had been subdued and converted it by the Force and Devotion of the Christian Faith to the Overthrow of Idols an admirable thing saith St. Austin de consensu evangel lib. 1. cap. 14. That he whom the conquered had so offended as he would no longer reign over them and the Conquerours would not then receive for their King is now worship'd of all Nations and manifested to be that very God of Israel of whom so long before was prophesied Isa. 54. 5. The redeemer the holy one of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called Now was fulfilled the Prophecy of Moses Deut. 28. 64. The Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth unto the other and there thou shalt serve other Gods which neither thou nor thy fathers have known even wood and stone Let the Jew shew if he can in what other Dispersion but this under Vespasian they served Gods of Wood and Stone In the Babylonish Captivity they had that constantly in their mouth The Gods that made not heaven shall utterly perish from under this heaven Jer. 10. 11. and were so far from falling down before their Idols as they chose rather to be cast into the Lion's Den into a fiery Furnace Or in what sence during this last and fatal Dispersion they have been induc'd to serve Gentile-Gods of Wood and Stone but in their being forc'd to pay that homage of Soul-tribute to the Capitoline Gods which was the holy one of Israel his due while he stood in that relation to them which being ceased they as Slaves become tributary not only to a foreign State for that had been their frequent portion without impeachment of God's peculiar Sovereignty over them even then when he ruled over them in fury that being a gracious Dispensation to bring them back into the Bond of the Covenant they that formerly led them captive and tyrannized over them were but as their Shepherd's Dogs to fetch them in again when they strayed away and would not be reclaim'd by their Shepherd's Whistling to them in the Ministry of their Prophets but forreign God's Master Mede's Paraphrase upon the Text last quoted doth in part express my sence that is they should serve them not religiously but politically inasmuch as they were to become Slaves to idolatrous Nations it being his Conceipt that God 's are here put for Nations serving strange Gods But saving the honour I bear to the memory of that worthy Person then whom few of Christ's Oxen have labour'd more strenuously on Christ's Floor in not treading out his Master's Corn the Encomium which St. Austin gives St. Jerom. I humbly conceive Titus with the point of his Spear hath writ in the Dust of Jerusalem so clear a Comment upon this Text as we need not fly to the refuge of a Trope for its Exposition when we see that People become Servants not only to the idolatrous Romans but the Idols of Rome whom they serve not Religiously but politically being forc'd their Conscience the Seat of all Religious Worship reclaiming to do that Homage to them while they pay the Tribute of their Soul to the Capitol which was the God of Israel's due but now as inacceptable to him as the Tythe of the Whore's hire was of old of which Philo Judaeus lib. 2. de Monarchia hath this Observation It was not with the Money that God found fault but the person that offer'd it was together with her hire abominable how vile therefore must she be in Gods sight whose Money he accounts prophane and adulterate may not we as rationally conclude that God expressed his abominating the Jewish Nation by his refusing to accept the price of their Souls and his assigning them to pay it and thereby to accknowledg Fealty to strange Gods and such Gods so it follows in Moses Prophecy as neither they nor their Fathers knew which could be no other than the Roman for the Gods of Egypt Syria Chaldaea c. whither they had been formerly carryed captive their Fathers knew too well and had often gone a Whoring after them But these Gods whom Vespasian made them serve and become Tributary to their Fathers scarce ever heard of and themselves never acknowledged till now that God set the wicked over them and plac'd Satan at
dispencing of it as to several other heads of it While Celsus will needs make the Royal Law useless and needless as to the most part of it There is nothing saith he in the Christian Discipline new or worthy of commendation but is common to it and the Philosophers who before Christ have taught that there is to be expected Rewards of Virtue and Mulcts for Sin in the other World Orig. contr Cel. 1. 4. Christ tell us saith he we ought not to worship Gods made with hands that the Father is to be worship'd in Spirit Why we Philosophers account not Images of the Gods to be Deities we know that the Workmanship of wicked Artificers and villanous men as many times they are that grave these Images cannot be Gods we have learn'd of Heraclitus that they who adore liveless Statues do as simply as they that talk to Walls of the Persians that the Deity is not comprehended within any Structure made with hands and of Zeno Citiensis in his Book of the Common-wealth that he need not build Chappels that prepares the Temple of his own Soul for the entertainment of God Those very Laws which the Madaurencian Philosophers blamed as destructive to humane Societies Celsus mentions with Commendation as far more ancient than Christ. They have also saith he these Laws Thou must not repel injuries If any man smite thee on thy cheek turn the other to him this is an old Dictate long since utter'd by Socrates when he was disputing with Crito and mention'd by Plato in his Timaeus Orig. contr Cel. 7. 17. upon the same account he mentions the commendations which Christ gives to Humility Purity of Heart Pacateness of Spirit c. as better expressed by Plato in his Books of Laws advising him that would be happy to pursue Righteousness with an humble pure and pacate Mind Id lib. 5. cal 8. And the Caution that Christ gives against Covetousness Celsus in the same place affirmeth to have been derived from Plato whose saying that it is impossible for any man to be very rich and very good he parallels to that of Christ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven The mortiferousness of these Waters is to be cured by casting in that cruze of Salt which I have already exhibited and brought to hand in the second Book where I shewed that whatsoever points of abstruse knowledge occurr in the Schools they are beholding to the Temple for and are but Beams of that Light which Christ or his Spirit in the Prophets communicated to the World the last of which Prophets Writings are near as old as the first of Gentile Philosophers It were endless to enumerate the ecchoes of Christs Law which those Rocks that oppose it so articulately reverberate as a steadily listning Ear may take in the beginning middle and end of every Evangelical Precept from those mock-sounds in Heathen Authors I shall not therefore enlarge this Section with more Instances but conclude it with this Observation That the Adversaries in making reply to our urging them with the excellencie of Christs Law would not have taken that course as puts them upon such self-contradictory Salvoes if they durst for very shame the contrary was so palpable have denied them to be Christs Briefly we find in the Pagan Writers what they took to be Christ's Law and that which they opposed as such is the very same with that that the Gospel presents as such not one Egg is more like another than that Bracelet of Pearls which our Saviour fitted to the necks of his Disciples is to that which these impure Swine trample under their feet CHAP. IV. Every Article of the Apostles Creed to be found as asserted by the Church in those Writings which opposed Christian Religion § 1. Maker of Heaven and Earth § 2. His only Son § 3. Conceived by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary § 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilat c. § 5. Rose again the third day § 6. Ascended into Heaven thence c. § 7. The holy Ghost § 8. Holy Catholick Church c. § 1. 3. THe sum of the Christian Faith taught by Christ and his Apostles is intirely and in every branch of it recorded as such in the Authors that disputed against it For order and brevities sake I shall here instance in the several Articles of it comprised in that most admirable Compendium of it the Apostles Creed which as it has been taken for such by all Christians so it has been opposed as such by all Adversaries Article 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth That this Article as it is now profest by the Church and laid down in the New Testament was from the beginning held forth as a point of that Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles Preach'd and therefore not wrongfather'd upon them is manifest from those quotations out of Pagan Authors who affronted it upon that very account and only Reason because it was Christ's Doctrine Celsus from the practice of the Ophiani Hereticks who worship'd the Serpent as bestowing upon our first Parents the knowledge of good and evil a gift which God envied them as they blasphemously speak objects that Christians contrary to that faith which they profess worship another God than the Creator of all things to wit the Serpent Or. Con. Cels. 5. 16. As Celsus doth here confess that that Doctrine which our Bible exhibites touching Gods prohibiting Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and the Serpents prevailing with Adam to eat of that Tree and the opening of Adam's eyes thereupon to discern good and evil and the Serpents infinuating to Adam that God envied him that knowledge c. was the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles so his charging upon the Church that impious Practice of these Heriticks misgrounded upon the Churches Faith and which the Church exprest her abhorrencie of was no more equal dealing than that which the Romanists measure out to the British and other Protestant Churches when they lay to her charge the practices of such as are at as great a distance from Communion with her as with them You Christians saith Celsus profess you believe in and worship God the Creator of this Universe but since Plato saith it is hard to find out and know that God and impossible to communicate the knowledge of him to another is it like that you of all other men should attain to the knowledge of this God being fast bound in chains of ignorance so as you cannot see what is pure Idem 7. 14. Compare what the Christians teach with what the Philosophers guess concerning God and the controversie which of us have attained to a more perfect knowledge of God will easily be determined That God created man after his own Image was the Doctrine of Christ and the Primitive Church appears from Celsus his arguing that if the Christans
we know and Paul we know Would our supercilious Criticks have had Josephus in this Chapter to have left out that discriminating compellation for fear of being accounted a Christian that had been to make work indeed for the Criticks and an administration of Goats-wool enough for them to have spun an endless thread of contention who that Jesus should be But this excellent Author was better skill'd in the Laws of History than to leave his Reader in that ambiguity by telling a story of an individuum vagum of one Jesus without making that name so common to many proper to that person of whom he writes by the addition of Christ as that which distinguished him from all other Jesuses and whereby he was famously known and exprest by even in Heathen Writers of that Age wherein Josephus finish'd his Antiquity to wit the thirteenth year of Domitian as himself dates it Antiq. 20. 9. at which time Suetonius writing of our Jesus calls him Christus Judios impulsore Christo tumultuantes he banish'd the Jews Rome for their turbulencie on occasion of Christ Sueton. Claudius 25. And Tacitus annal l. 15. Vulgus Christianos appellabat auctor nominis ejus Christus qui Tiberio imperitante per Procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat they were commonly called Christians the Author of this name was Christ who in the Reign of Tiberius was crucified by Pontius Pilate Have the Christians been tampering with Suetonius and Tacitus or did they embrace him as the Christ seeing they call him Christ The strength therefore of this Testimony of our Religion does not lye in those Locks so as to put any well-willer thereof upon thinking to advantage its cause by fastning these clauses to Josephus his Text but they stood originally in it as necessary parts of his History without which it had been lame and unintelligible For how will his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stand with the leaving out of this is Christ were the Christians nam'd of Jesus or of Christ And 't is far more probable that Ruffinus of whose and other Latin Translations Gelenius Epist. nuncupat complains that he found in them not only many Text's depraved but in many places not only whole lines but pages over-slip'd might for brevities sake in his quotation of Josephus leave out the first and Cedrenus in his leave out the second than that either of them should be wanting in our Author St. Jerom's credebatur is rather his addition to Josephus his this was the Christ than that an addition to him by any Fautour of our Religion and that Vossius his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in the the last but last but one Chapter of the last Book of his Antiquities if I mistake not is better in the translation of Gelenius applyed to James than Jesus fratrem Jesu Christi Jacobum nomine the Brother of Jesus Christ called James rather than the Brother of Jesus called Christ. § 4. If we please our selves in this humour of razing out of the most Authentick Authors whatsoever our fanatick Genius disgusts or takes the least though never so unreasonable exception against we shall shortly turn all Antiquity into razed Tables we shall leave its venerable head perfectly bald if as our different Fancies move us one pluck out the black and another the gray hairs We will therefore notwithstanding those Moths and Book-worms attempts to deface this Text by their corrosions and nibling at the edges of it read it as it stands and hath ever stood in Josephus presenting us with a Table of the chief things contain'd in the Evangelical story of Christ. 1. As to the Date of Christs publick Appearance and being taken notice of the Evangelists state the dawning of it in the Baptists Ministry in a manner immediately preceding Christ's Baptism In the fifteenth year of the Reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being Governour of Judaea and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip Tetrareh of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene Annas and Caiaphas being the high Priests with whom the History of Josephus will appear to synchronize in every Circumstance if we first remove such rubs as are laid in our way by some too critical Scholiasts As to that In the fifteenth year of Tiberius The learned Vossius that he may reconcile those Fathers to Scripture who affirm'd that Christ suffer'd in the fifteenth of Tiberius distinguisheth the years of Tiberius his Reign alone and with his Father and conceives that St. Luke followed the Provincial Account reckoning Tiberius his Reign from the time that Augustus made him his colleague almost three years before his death and the Fathers the Roman Account of his reigning alone But first as this great Critick missed the mind of the Fathers who never dream'd of such a distinction but grounded their opinions barely upon their misinterpretation of Isaiah 61. 2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord deeming that that Text limited Christ's Ministry to a precise year They are of age let them speak for themselves by the mouth of Clemens Alexandrinus stromat 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ was but to preach one year for the Prophet speaking of him saith The Lord hath sent me to preach an acceptable year And therefore he does but wash the Aethiopian while he seeks to salve the matter So secondly the Scheme which he himself draws upon this ground runs foul upon his Author Josephus while he assigns the beginning of Gratus his Presidency over Judaea to the third year of Tiberius his Reign alone which Josephus fastens to the beginning of his Reign and mentions immediately after his coming to the Crown And thirdly manifestly contradicts St. Luke For while he placeth the beginning of Gratus his Goverment anno Tiberii 3. Christi 21. seeing that Gratus continued that his Goverment cleven years he is forc'd to place the beginning of Pilates Regencie in the fourteenth year of Tiberius his Reign alone and of Christ's thirty second that is two years at least after Christ's Baptism upon his hypothesis when as the Evangelical Text saith expresly that at the beginning of John's Baptism Pontius Pilate was Governour of Judaea in the fifteenth year of Tiberius current the fifteenth of his Reign alone not his twelfth for Annius Rufus was President of Judaea when Augustus dyed and his successor Valerius Gratus continued President eleven years who if he began as Vossius thinketh in Tiberius his third alone Tiberius his twelfth alone must be expired long before Pilate enter'd upon the Government Vossii Chron. Saer pag. 231. Anno Christi 16 Tiberius aequum ac Augustus imperium habere incipit 19 Augustus moritur incipit Tiberius regnare solus 21 Gratus fit Judaeae Procurator Pag. 232. 30 Christus baptizatur 32 Grato succedit Pontius Pilatus 33 Christus crucisigitur This learned man therefore must not only prove that Tiberius was Emperour three years with Augustus but that Pilate was two
to give a Form of Law to their Action as being that Person without whose previous Juridical Sentence Pilat would not have proceeded against our Saviour so it perfectly reconciles the Evangelists without putting us upon the miserable shift of crowding Pilat and Caiaphas or Caiaphas and Annas into one joynt habitation 4. Notwithstanding that Annas though deposed was adhered to by the Faction as the Lord 's High Priest in conformity to which Notion St. Luke calls him High Priest as Moses in compliance with vulgar apprehension stiles the Moon one of the great Lights though she be the least of those God hath set in the Firmament Yet Caiaphas at the beginning of John's Ministry and at the Passion of our Saviour was indeed the lawful High Priest as being put into that Office by the Minister of God the Roman power ordain'd of God over the Jews To this Josephus gives his suffrage Ant. l. 18. c. 3. and 6. Valerius Gratus took the High Priesthood from Annas and gave it to Ismael a while after he bereaves Ismael of it and bestows it on Eleazar but deposeth Eleazar after he had enjoy'd that honour a year and sets up Joseph sirnamed Caiaphas in which Office he left him when he went out of his own and of which Caiaphas held possession till Vitellius Governour of Syria turn'd him out and put in Jonathan at what time he received order from Tiberius to conclude a peace with Artabanus so near the Death of Tiberius as Pilat whom Vitellius turn'd out of Office and sent at the same time to Rome to answer for his Male-administrations found him dead when he arrived there Josephus indeed does not write Caiaphas the son-in-Son-in-Law of Annas it not being his wont to set down any Relations but that of Father and Son in his Catalogue of High Priests but he writes Annas old enough to have been his Father-in-Law in his mentioning Eleazar the Son of Annas to have been High Priest before Caiaphas So that hitherto the Chronology of St. Luke keeps time perfectly with the forreign and secular Account Instance 3. Lysanias That Lysanias was then Tetrarch of Abilene appears from the story of Josephus Ant. 15. 13. thus translated by the judicious Dr. Heylin in his Palestine This tract made up the greatest part of the Kingdom of Calchis possessed by Ptolomy the son of Menneus in the beginning of Herod's Rise who dying left it to Lysanias his Eldest Son murder'd about seven years after by M. Antony at the instigation of Cleopatra But M. Antony and Cleopatra having left the Stage Lysanias the Son of the murder'd Prince enters upon his Fathers Estate by the permission of Augustus during whose time Zenodorus Lord of the Town and Territory of Paneas farming the demesnes of Lysanias and paying a very great Rent for them not only permitted the Trachonites to play the Robbers and to infest the Merchants of Damascus but himself received part of the Booty with them Augustus upon complaint hereof commits the whole Country of Trachonitis Batanea Gaulonitis and Auramitis to Herod lately created King of Jewry that he might quell the Robbers and bring the Country into order leaving unto Lysanias nothing but the City Abila of which he was the natural Lord whereof and of the adjoyning Territory he was afterwards created Tetrarch by the name of the Tetrarch of Abilene which he enjoyed till about the latter end of the Reign of Tiberius for his Tetrarchate was not disposed of till Caligula gave it to Herod Agrippa Josep Antiq. 18. 19. 13. From Lysanias the City of his Residence and from whence his Tetrarchate was called Abilene was stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to distinguish it from the Phoenician Abala Scal. in notis Eusebeanis Chron. ex Ptolomeo § 7. There is one passage in Josephus which hath found the greatest wits works enough to reconcile it to sacred Chronology and gives a better ground for Vossius his distinction of Tiberius his Reign with Augustus and alone than I elsewhere meet with as seeming to force upon us either the rejecting of Josephus his Authority or the concluding that St. Luke calculates Tiberius his years from Tiberius his Colleagueship with Augustus The place of Josephus Antiq. 18. 8. is this At this time dyed Philip the Brother of Herod in the twentieth year of Tiberius his Empire after he had justly and prudently managed his Tetrarchate thirty seven years The Knot this If Herod had been dead thirty seven years in the twentieth of Tiberius and our Saviour but thirty years of age in Tiberius his fifteenth Christ's thirty seventh falls in Tiberius his twenty second and by that acount he must be born two years after Herod's death at which Philip his Son enter'd upon his Tetrarchate If in solution hereof it be said that Josephus reckons the years of Tiberius from the beginning of his Reign alone but St. Luke from the beginning of his Colleagueship with Augustus that will make Christ's thirty seventh fall in Tiberius his twentieth and give room to date his Birth about half a year before Herod's death for if Christ was thirty years of age in Tiberius his fifteenth from his Colleagueship with Augustus he must be thirty two and almost an half at Tiberius his fifteenth from his Reign alone and by consequence thirty seven at the twentieth of Tiberius alone five added to Christ's thirty two making him thirty seven and five added to Tiberius his fifteenth making his Empire twenty years old But then we contract a worse snarle and must be forc'd to date our Saviours Baptism before Pilat's Presidencie which so palpably contradicts St. Luke giving this as one of the Characters of the time of Christ's Baptism that it was when Pontius Pilat was president of Judaea as we break the Evangelist's head in thus plaistering Josephus's And yet we need not with Scaliger here wholly reject the Authority of Josephus but rather salve it by supposing that the Number twenty in Josephus is falsified by the inadvertency of the Transcribers and should be twenty two at least as Scaliger himself writes it out of Josephus twice in less than two lines if the Printer have not serv'd him as the Scribe serv'd Josephus Canon Isag. 309. which I suppose he hath because otherwise Scaliger's Argument is not cogent for the twenty second of Tiberius concurrs with our Saviours thirty seventh even according to St. Luke's account who reckons Christ thirty full at the beginning of Tiberius his fifteenth as Scaliger himself with strenuous Reasons asserts de emend lib. 6. de natali Domini ad Canon Isag. l. 3. pag. 306. and is manifest from the Text it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he beginning to be of the age of thirty years which no man in common speech can be said to do till he be thirty compleat the difference of which phrase from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was beginning the thirtieth of his years is so manifest as every School-boy understands it besides the incongruousness
for ever A fire of Eternal Vengeance such as that whereby God destroyed Sodom and her Sisters So as she may with as much reason expect that the Lake of Sodom shall become firm Land again and grow into a pleasant Plain like the Garden of Eden and the Captivity of those Cities be return'd from that Sulphury Abyss that captivates them as she can look for the returning of that her Captivity as another of their Prophets forewarned them Ezek. 16. 55. To these Prophecies Josephus relates when John the Captain of the Rebel-Jews had answered Josephus whom Titus employed as his Interpreter to perswade them to yield That Jerusalem was Gods City and therefore invincible I confess replied Josephus I deserve to be severely punish'd for attempting to perswade you to avoid your Destiny and to preserve men condemned by the Sentence of God For who knows not the writings of the ancient Prophets and their Responds hanging over the Head of this most miserable City Bel. Jud. 7. 4. The Modern Jews who have lain under the burthen of those Prophecies so many hundred years cannot for shame deny that Application of them which one of their own Priests made at the first Commencement of their Effects even before their irresistible force had batter'd their City and Temple about their ears and scatter'd their whole Nation as chaff upon the face of the Earth However they cannot deny that these are the Responds of their own Prophets and I dare refer it to the judgement and determination of the blindest Atheists own eyes to conclude upon what people those Menacies are faln whose destiny it is to be the butts of those well aimed Arrows of Vengeance And then let either Jew or Atheist say if they can what that Sin can be upon the account of which the God of Sion should so loath Sion as his heart should wholly depart from her that Sin of Judah written with a pen of Iron with the point of a Diamond that it might remain in the guilt of it before God for ever compare Jer. 17. 1. with Job 19. 24. that sin of theirs which out-cries all the beastly and barbarous Idolatries of their Fathers the filthiness of the Sodomites that sin which in the days of the Messias as their own Talmudists quoted by the Learned Dr. Lightfoot in harmo on Epistle to Philippians gather from their own Scriptures shall make the Synagogues become Stews the Wisdom of the Scribes to be abominated and the religious persons among them to be scorn'd and the faces of that Generation to be as Dogs that Sin which shall speak that Generation to be men of Canine Impudency Ass-like Contumacy and Savage Cruelty as the Talmudists describe the State of the Jews in the days of the Messias in another place quoted by Grotius verit Christian. rel annot pag. 336. Of Canine Impudence they make ostentation of the nakedness of their very nakedness once their glory now their shame once Circumcision a Seal of the Covenant now only Concision a gash in the flesh Ass-like contumacy All the Judgments of God upon them cannot cudgell them into one sober Reflection upon what their Fathers did in Crucifying the Lord of Glory though they have so many years been braid with a Pestel in a Mortar the Husk of their Stupidity is not departed from them and Savage cruelty this they practise as often as they have occasion or dare shew it witness their barbarous dismembring of the Cyprians in the Reign of Adrian and those other instances I have alledged elsewhere To which add their filling all Asia with fire and Slaughter putting both Christians and Ismaelites to the Sword under their Prophet Buba anno Christi 1237. Scal. can Isag. l. 2. p. 15. Hagag the Viceroy of Irah and â—abylon under Caliph Abdimelech an Christi 714. in the 20 years of his Government slew 120000 men besides those that died in Prison of Men 50000. of Women 3000. Scaliger dynastia Chalipharum in Bagded That sin which shall turn the House of Divine Instruction into a Den of Dragons that is as R. Jud. expounds it A Brothel-house at what time the Son of David should come that Sin which shall never be blotted out but cause them to be blotted out of the Book of the living then when the Gentiles sing unto the Lord A new Song which will please him better than an Ox that hath Horns and Hoofs better than the best Legal Sacrifices which Aben Ezra Pf. 69. 29. applies to the Times of Christ Let the Jew I say name if he can what that Sin can be but what the Prophets impute it to to wit the Guilt of that Blood which the Fathers invoked upon themselves and Children They are written in the Earth where the Ostrich layes her Eggs where the foot of every Beast that passeth by may crush them because they have forsaken the Lord the hope of Israel Jer. 17. 13. Not God the possession of Israel while Israel was his possession but the Lord the hope of Israel the promised Lord which Israel hoped for To which promise the twelve Tribes incessantly serving God day and night did hope to come Acts 26. 7. It was their hating the innocent Jesus without a Cause their becoming his enemies wrongfully their heart breaking Reproaches the Gall they gave him for meat the vinegar they gave him in his thirst for drink that exasperated their God's heart against them It was for this that David in the Spirit of Prophecie devoted that Nation to that Ruine we now see brought upon them to that Vengeance we see God pouring out upon them in making their Table their Snare and their Wellfare their Trap in turning the Law of Moses and the Covenant of Peculiarities into an occasion of their perverse denial of Christ of their further Obcaecation and Obduration It is for their persecuting him whom God smote when he laid upon him the iniquities of us all that that man after Gods heart poured out these imprecations against them Pour out thine indignation upon them and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them ever bow down their backs that is let them fall and never rise let them never see that Redemption from Captivity which they look for as the Syriack expounds it Let them not come into thy righteousness that is deal with them in fury not in Judgment let them be strangers to that mitigation of the severity of justice that 's tender'd in the Gospel let them have judgment without mercy as the Arabick glosseth Vicars his Decupla on Psal. 69. As to any other sin The Jew came out of the fire of the Babylonish Captivity so refin'd as he hath been ever since his Fathers better not a dram of the Golden Calf would ever since down with him he hath never since relisht the Cakes bak'd for the Queen of Heaven nor lusted after the Onyons Garlick or Flesh-pots of Aegypt nor endured upon his body the figures of the Letters of his Idol as King
hasts to the City to buy an Altar orders his men to dig a place where he might erect it they digging twenty foot deep find there an old Altar with this Inscription To Dis and Proserpina The Father returning from the City sacrificeth upon that Altar to those Infernal Deities and three nights together answering the number of his late sick but now recovered Children makes Funeral Banquets to the Gods with Songs and Dances With what strange obscenities those Games were celebrated is more obvious than that it needs be related It is sufficient to evince the Diabolicalness of those seeming Miracles and therefore only seeming that they manifestly tended towards the erecting of the Worship of infernal Fiends to the robbing the one Supreme God of that honour that 's his peculiar due and to the introducing of most barbarous Immoralities into the VVorld And therefore being Seals set to a Law directly thwarting that Law of God writ on the hearts of all men if they had more exactly counterfeited the Scal of Heaven than they did may easily be deprehended to be nothing else but feigned Miracles § 3. This should have at least awaken'd the VVorld to a more scrupulous inspection and prying into them and to have weighed them with those Selâ—s which were set to the contrary Doctrine In comparison with which they would have been found if not lighter than vanity yet at least wanting many grains weight of real Miracles that is productions by the God of Nature above the power of Nature and beside its ordinary Course I insert this last clause into the description of a Miracle to distinguish it from the Effects of ordinary Providence which though they proceed from infinite Power yet are not Miracles but issue from the natural order of Conversion Mutation and Mutability of Bodies The water saith St. Austin de Trinit lib. 3. is poured ordinarily upon the earth but when at the Prayer of Elias after so long a serenity when there was no appearance of a cloud it was made to fall this was the immediate effusion of Divine Power God ordinarily makes the voyce of his Thunder to be heard and sends out the Lightning from the bright Cloud but when on Mount Sinai after an unusual manner those thundering voyces were sent forth which did not make a confused din but articulately sounded forth the VVill of God this was miraculous who draws moisture by the root of the Vine to the Clusters and by degrees ripens the Grapes but God who giveth the increase while Man Plants and VVaters But when at our Lord's beck VVater was turn'd into VVine by an unusual celerity he must be a fool with a witness who denies that to be a witness of a divine Power in him who commanded and it was done Earth is the common Matter for the bringing forth and nourishing of all Plants and of all Bodies of Animals and who produceth these things from the Earth but he that said to the earth bring forth But when of a suddain he turn'd the same Matter out of Moses his Rod into a Serpent and back again out of that Serpent into a Rod immediately and in an instant he wrought a Miracle the things indeed were changable but this change of them was unusual Who but God cloaths the Shrubbs with Leaves and Blossoms But when the Rod of Aaron blossom'd the divinity did after a sort discourse with doubting Humanity Who is he that giveth life to every living thing that 's born but he that gave life to that Serpent of Aaron for an hour Who restored to Bodies when they were dead their Souls but he that animates flesh in the Mothers Womb which is born to die of the same common Matter which subsists in the Elements God produceth in time or ex tempore a Ram or a Dove who are of the same fleshy vigour at their coming in and going out of the World whether they were made in an instant or by degrees they are not of different constitutions only that which was produced ex tempore appeared after an unusual manner but when those Creatures are brought forth by a kind of continued Flux of sliding and remaining things passing out of secret into open light and out of light into obscurity in the usual road they are called natural which same Creatures when they are thrust in upon us for our admonition by an unusual mutability are called Wonders 2. And yet it is not every unusual Conflux of those primordial seminal Causes towards the production of a thing into being that makes a Miracle for as St. Austin observes upon the story of the Aegyptian Magicians Ex. 7. de Trin. 3. cap. 8. there are certain seminal Causes hid in corporeal things through all the Elements of the World which Daemons may pick out more easily than the cunningest Gold-finer can single parings of Gold out of heaps of Sand into one Mass and make up into strange Effects and of them produce new Species of things in a trice Omnis spiritus ales est momento ubique sunt volocitas divinitus creditus quia substantia ignoratur Terapol 22. But it is farther requisite as I have exprest in the first Clause of the Description that it be a production beside the Order of whole created Nature such as cannot be educ'd out of the active Powers implanted in the Elements nor their natural passive Powers whereby they are made receptible of any form by natural Motion Aquinas sum 1. quest 115. 2. Praeter virtutes activas naturales potentias passivas quae ordinantur ad hujusmodi virtutes activas But out of a bare obediential Possibility or Non-resistency of the Creature whereby it throws it self at Gods feet and becomes pliable in the hand of Omnipotencie to embrace any shape he is pleas'd to mould it into by an act of Power equivalent to that of creating and educing forms out of the first Abyss of inform Matter Alensis sum 2. quest 42. art 5. memb 5. ad opera miraculosa possibilitas tantùm secundùm obedientiam creaturae de quo Deus potest facere quod vult est possibilitas passiva Briefly and plainly proper Miracles exceed Nature in a threefold degree 1. As to the Substance of the Fact such are the Glorification of the Body the Retrogradation of the Sun c. 2. As to the Subject wherein it is wrought such are the restoring Life to the Dead giving Sight to the blind c. Nature can cause Life but not in a dead Body can give Sight but not to one that 's blind for there cannot be a natural recess from a total Privation to an Habit. 3. As to the Manner and Order of working such is the restoring of Lame the healing of Sick the multiplying of Bread Oyl c in an unusual course on a suddain without applying natural Causes c. To the first of these Degrees the Pagan VVorld never so much as pretended To the second none ever attain'd who pretended to act in