Military was grown out of knowledg Annal. 12. 157. This Peace and its Daughter Plenty gave him both Opportunity and Ability to perfect those magnificent Works of the Aqueduct begun by Caligula the draining of the Ficine Lake and building the Ostian Haven Works so stupendious as neither Augustus nor Tiberius durst attempt them hence that Encomium Nero gave him in his Funeral Speech that during his Reign nothing sad befel the Empire from Foreigners past with the general Vote Tacit. ann 13. Nihil regente eo reipublicae triste ab externis accidisse pronis animis ad auditum Search we the Annals of Nero Anno Christi 57. and in the first and best part of his Reign we hear no noise of War In his first indeed the Parthians make a flourishing of their Ensigns and a brandishing of their Swords against Armenia But first this was out of the Confines of the Empire for Armenia was not reduc'd into the form of a Province till Trajan's Reign Heylin Geograph 799. And secondly the Parthian was perswaded to fold up his Colours and put up his Sword before they had been rowled and bathed in Blood Tacit annal 13. 179. Datisque obsidibus solitam prioribus reverentiam in R. Populum continuare chusing rather to give Sureties for their future good Behaviour towards the State and her Confederates than try the Roman Mettle In his next Year there was Pax foris Peace every where abroad no Brawls but what Nero procured by his Night-walks among the Stews no Blood-shed in any but those obscene Quarrels Tacitus ibid pag. 184. Pax foris faeda domi lascivia qua Nero lupanaria veste servili in dissimulationem sui frequentavit comitantibus qui vulnera obviis inferrent adeo ut ipse quoque acciperet ictus His third was so barren of Action had so little wind stirring as Tacitus complains his storifying Vein is becalm'd his Pen can find no Pasturage in that Years Occurrences except he should instead of Annals write Diurnals and go about to commend the Foundations Beams and Bulk of that Amphitheater which the Emperour erected in Campo Martio or in a Tragick Strain record the Wounds of Fencers and Slaughters of wild Beasts there received and perpetrated that being the only Martial Camp for that Years Wars which that inquisitive Historian can give us Intelligence of Id. Ib. pa. 186. Nerone secundò L. Pisone Coss. pauca memoria digna evenere nisi cui libeat laudandis fundamentis tabulis quîs molem Amphitheatri apud campum Martium extruxerat volumina implere In this long Vacation the Roman Prowess had contracted so much Rust as Corbulo in his Expedition against the Parthians making a new attempt upon Armenia in Nero's fourth found the laziness of the Roman Soldiery a greater prejudice to him than either the boysterous Strength or perfidious wiliness of the Enemy Id. ibid. pa. 187. Sed Corbuloni plus molis erat adversus ignaviam militis quam contra perfidiam hostium quippe Syria transmotae legiones pace longa segnes munia militum aegerrimè tolerabant The Legions of Syria a Door-neighbour to if not comprehending Judaea and the great Road that the Apostles of the Circumcision travell'd had so far unlearnt War that they could not bear the hardships nor perform the office of Soldiers Nay Satis constitit fuisse in eo exercitâ—â— Veteranos qui non stationem non vigilias iniissent vallum fossamque quasi nova mira viserent Tacit. an 13. 187. of a certain saith Tacitus there were many Veteran Soldiers that had never stood Centinel that wondered at the sight of Trenches and Rampires as new and strange things that came to the Muster in quirpo without Head-peices Breast-plates c. neat and trim Carpet-knights as having spent their lives in Garrisons and City-delicacies as having never perform'd service in the Field In so much as Corbulo durst not emplòy them but is forced to send as far as Germany and Spain to levy men for that Armenian War who notwithstanding that through the Midwifery of their Native horrid Clime they were born hardy Soldiers yet their Nurture and Education in the soft and warm bosom of that pacifick Age had so far temper'd the natural Steeliness of their Mettal as it turn'd Edge so much effeminated their innate sturdiness as they were not able to sustain the sharpness of that War but ran away so fast from their Colours as the General with all the Art he can use and the utmost severity of Martial Law can scarce prevent the mouldring away of his Army Tacit. an 13. quia duritiam caeli militiaeque abnuebant deserebantque remedium severitatis quaesitum est qui signa reliquerat statim capitis paenas luebat c. Corbulo saith Dion restored Military Discipline which had been slighted and neglected Ziphil e Dione Nero pa. 518 Nam Corbulo restituta re militari quae antea dispersa neglecta erat Is it possible to conceive a fuller accomplishment of that Prophecy Is. 2. 4. that when the Word went out of Sion the Law from Jerusalem there should be such aboundance of Peace as the World should unlearn War can we expect a more perfect Transcript of that Prediction than is here drawn by the Pens of those Authentick Historians where can we better fix the Epocha of its taking effect than in this Age wherein the most Warlike Nations were grown so incredibly inexpert at War as they are here described when for sixty Years together Nation did not rise up against Nation In the last half of which from the fifteenth of Tiberius when the preaching of the Gospel began in the Baptist's Ministry unto Nero's fourth that Prophetical half hour reckoning Minutes for Years wherein its preaching was fully known in all the World there was an universal silence in the Heaven of the Roman Empire no noise of War no clashing of hostile Armour heard within its Precincts I here only allude to that passage Revel 8. 1. there was silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour I undertake not its Exposition Saving some dry blows in Judaea where had been the Vision of Peace nor in its Borders saving Armenia Olive plants growing round about it save on that Coast whither Noah's Dove brought the Olive Branch If the Septuagint mistake not in translating Arrarat Armenia Isa. 37. 38. 2 King 19. 37. A remarkable Providence that God should prepare a place of rest for the reception of the Ark and Tabernacle of his own pitching every where but where the Arks of Noah and Moses had rested and a fair intimation to the Proselytes of the Gate that rested on Noah's seven Precepts and the Proselytes of the Covenant who trusted in Moses that that which they had taken up with was not their true rest § 4. It being thus evident out of the undoubted Histories of those times that beside that thirty Years space of Peace through the whole Empire from the birth of our Saviour unto the
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
greatest incapacity of mutual Commerce when every Nation retaining some rough draught of the promised Seed growing so numerons as it was not possible men should be kept in order without Laws and no Laws likely to awe them so much as those that claim'd an heavenly Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Nations did cry up their own Laws as of a divine Original Aelian Var. hist. 14. 34. the Serpent put it into the heads of the Founders of Commonwealths to suborn their familiars and favorites to cry themselves up as the promised Seed as Gods born of Womans seed The Multitude partly out of Ambition to be accounted the Favorites of Heaven partly out of State Policy to keep their Posterities in awe with the Notion of a Deity partly through the Legerdemain of cunning Impostors readily either imbrac'd or seem'd to imbrace those Fables Thus every Nation while none of any other Language had dealings with them or could observe their shuffling agreed among themselves to take him for a Virgin-born Theanthropos who seemed most worthy of that honour by his publick spiritedness and success in doing Common Good And by this means the World had the unhappy opportunity of inventing what fictions the Inhabitants of every corner of it pleased without fear or indeed possibility of being detected and of licking them into that shape by that time their nearest Neighbours could come to the knowledge of them as might render their Stories plausible to that rude Embrio of Mankind From which Consideration Josephus Antiq. 1. 1. commends Moses's his Ingenuity in that when he had the start and advantage of all Writers in the opportunity of feigning both in respect of the Date of his Writings and their Subject impunè and without fear of detection none of the Pagan Writers daring to refer either the Pedigrees of their Gods or the Institution of Laws or the History of Humane Affairs to so old a Date as he pitcheth upon by above three thousand years yet he carrieth on his History without the least mixture of Forgeries abuseth not the World by improving the opportunity of being as fabulous as the vainest Poets the Secundine of whose fabulous God-incarnations wherein they were secretly formed was the advantage which the ignorance of the World and its wanting light to discover the fraudulency of their Traditions administred to them That this is the true state of this Case appears First from the industrious Care which their Inventors and Nurses took to conceal the Conceptions of those monstrous Issues of their brain well exprest by Clemens Alexandrinus interpreting Midas his fostering Silenus his concealing his own ears c. to devote his care to keep secret what Silenus imparted to him concerning his Foster-child Bacchus Protreptic 3. pag. And more fully by a more authentick Author as to this case Macrobius in his Saturnalibus 1. 7. where Praetextatus tells Evangelius who I conceive in that Conference personates the Christian requesting him to declare the Original of the Saturnalia Saturnalium originem il'am mihi in medium proferre fas est non quae ad arcanam Divinitatis naturam refertur sed quae aut fabulis admixta disseritur aut à physicis in vulgus aperitur Nam occultas manantes ex meri veri fonte rationes nè in ipsis quidem sacris enarrari permittitur sed si quis illas assequitur continere inter conscientiam tectas jubetur I may reveal that Original of the Saturnalia which is either fabulous or physical not that which relates to the secret nature of Divinity for the secret reasons which flow from the fountain of pure Truth may not be declared no not in the administration of the sacred Rites themselves but whoso knows them is bound to conceal them in his own conscience Numa the parent of the Roman Religion buried under ground the Books wherein he had laid down the Circumstances of his Traditions and by what means he came to the knowledge of them and of their acceptableness to the Gods Five hundred years after their interring these Writings obtain a resurrection being turned up before the Plough of Terentius say Cassus Hemina and Pliny lib. 13. cap. 13. of Paetilius say Livy and Valerius The finder conveighs them to the Pretor he communicates them to the Senate the Senate upon this ground that the divulging of them would not make for Credit of that Religion they communicated the grounds of takes order that the like temptation to Athâ—ism should never come in the way of never be laid before their successors and therefore adjudgeth them to the flames So fearful were they of having Numa's secret Congresses with his Aegeria come to the knowledge of the Vulgar of having the Sheets shown which bare the tokens of their Bed-converse while he begat on her that Nymph the issue of his Religious Rites lest upon that inspection she might be found no Virgin but a Succuba of which Numa himself was so not only jealous but conscious as though he durst not burn for fear the Goddess should turn a Vixon as St. Austin noteth yet he thought it fit to bury those sheets thinking length of time would take out the stains or hoping they would never come out of their grave Austin de civit 7. 34. The Athenian Goddess banish'd from her Service the tattling Crow proclaiming her self thereby to be a Deity that loved not to be brought to light liked not to have all that said of her Mysteries which that tell-truth Bird would prate and upon that account prefers the Owle the Bird of night before her Servius upon Virgil conceives Virgil from the Custom at her Rites to have borrowed his procul hinc profani and so fearful was that Goddess of being discovered as she would be conjured to do anything with that form of charming Esse I will reveal thy mysteries and sadly complains against Numerius the Philosopher the first that did divulge them that he had spoiled the repute of her Chastity The Eleusine Mysteries grew into a Proverb for their Secretness that being the only thing in them that had any form of Religion and therefore accounted so sacred as Wine was interdicted those solemnities for fear Truth should go out if that Tongue-loosing Liquor went in It was the Egyptians care to keep the Original of their Deities as obscure as the head of their Nilus of which they gave a digital Demonstration in their painting their Mercury with his hand laid upon his mouth thereby teaching his Priests to seal up their lips Plut. de Iside A Lesson they had got so by heart as it is reported for one of the most renowned Conquests which Alexander made that he extorted from one of them by the rack of the fear of inevitable death the confession of this secret That their reputed Gods were nothing else but Men famous in and useful to their Generations A Mystery which he intreates Alexander might not be divulged but that after he had communicated the secret to Olympia
in a moment in the same moment that they shall be raised so that there will be no more prius posterius betwixt us than is in a moment neither can they whom that day finds alive rise at all But first in respect of them that are out of Christ as the antients generally and the best modern Expositors gloss upon these Texts Musculus Non soli resurgent qui sunt Christi resurgent omnes sed ii primi sic 1 Thes. 4. mortui in Christo resurgent primum post illas surgent reliqui Not only they that are Christs but all shall rise but they that are in Christ shall rise first and afterwards the rest as the Apostle saith St. Athanasius conceives St. Paul to give to them that are Christs both priority of time as to their Resurrection and change and of place as to their trial and receiving of sentence Oportet namque ut aliquod habeant privilegium justi vel resurgendo nam ut in aera obvià m Christo procedant rapiendi ita primi à mortuis excitantur quemadmodum contra peccatores in terra locis inferioribus hisce judicem ut damnati operiuntur Ex Christoferi translatione in 1 ep ad Corin c. 15. It is meet that the righteous should have the priviledge of rising before Infidels for as they are snatcht up into the Air to meet Christ so they also shall be first raised from the dead whereas on the contrary infidels as being damn'd already shall wait for the judge upon earth and these inferior places 5. That the Saints though they rise before the Infidels yet shall not be judged till the Devil and his Worshippers be cast into Hell is the assertion of Tertullian de Resurrectione carnis cap. 25. Hîc ordo temporum sternitur Diabolo in abyssum interim relegato primae resurrectionis praerogativa de soliis ordinetur dehinc igni data universalis Resurrectionis censuta de libris judicetur The order of time is here laid down The Devil in the mean while being sent back again into the bottomless pit the Prerogative of the first Resurrection that is their being gathered in the air to the place of Judgment shall be put into order and after that they are assembled the Fire of the last Conflagration having changed the world the sentence shall pass out of the books upon them that rose first that is the Saints by calling From these premisses it necessarily follows That all the time that Satan hath allotted him after his loosing to go out again and tempt the World to Gentilism to deceive the Nations after his old wont is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that small season that intervenes betwixt the general Resurrection of the Saints and the Condemnation of Infidels that short space wherein the Saints shall all in a body be waiting at the place of Judgment whither the Angels shall gather them for the appearance of Christ. Against which Hypothesis I cannot imagine what now can be excepted but that it seems to suppose that Infidels after their Resurrection shall be in a capacity to demerit contrary to the common and in my judgment the true Opinion that they will be then as they were since their dissolution in termino But there is no ground of such a suspicion in this case as I state it for I do not make their following Satan with their rebellious Arms a contraction of new guilt because it proceeds from that height of judicial obcecation that divine Justice inflicts upon them as their punishment but an occasion of Gods justifying himself in their condemnation as that which speaks them to have lived and died impenitent for all their willfull rebellions I do not affirm that God inflicts more punishment upon them because of this than what they had deserved before but only takes the opportunity of these Rebels being in Arms to proceed against them and to destroy them altogether as enemies I cannot express my mind in more significant terms than those of Aquinas Sum. 3. q. 90. art 7. Civcs judicabuntur ut cives in quos sine discussione meritorum sententia mortis non feretur sed infideles condemnabuntur ut hostes qui consueverunt apud homines absque meritorum audientia estimari Citizens shall be judged as Citizens against whom the sentence of death may not be pronounced without the discussion of their desert of it but Infidels shall be condemned as open enemies who use among men to be doom'd without hearing That God may not keep his Citizens in suspence and demurr the trial of their cause longer than need he will not appear in his Glory till his Rebels be all in arms that so finding them at his coming in the Field set in Battalia against his Subjects he may cut them off at once § 7. I have but one Argument more against the Chyliasts limitting the Saints Reign with Christ on Earth to a precise thousand of years to try the patience as well as Judgment of my Reader withal to wit the impertinency of the Authorities which they alledge for their Opinion Of which I shall give but two Instances because I would not quite tire my self or Reader 1. They alledge the Authority of the Jewish Doctors whereas the Millenium they speak of is the Septimum Millenarium as Carpenter observes in Plato's Alcinous pag. 322. at the beginning whereof they think God will judge all men and as Mr. Meed proves by several quotations volume 2. pag. 667. Now the seventh day thousand of years is confest by all to last to all Eternity as being the holy Sabbath wherein the Saints shall rest from their six days labour And for any day of a thousand years long before that the antient Jews are wholly strangers so they reckon the three Ages before that by two thousand of years apiece two thousand before the Law two thousand under the Law and two thousand under the Messiah before the eternal Sabbath in which compute they intend not that any of those Ages shall be of so many precise years continuance if they do they have foully mist it in the two already past neither do they mention any innovation of the World after the giving of the Law but the Age of the Messiah that is to begin with their fifth Millenium from the Creation and the Sabbath of eternal rest the seventh Millenium So that if they at any time call the day of the Messias a thousand years they mean by that number about two thousand of precise years that is an indefinite Number 2. How groundless then must be their building their Doctrine of a precise thousand upon those Texts which the Jews first and they from them alledge for first if they be sueh Texts as the Jews do ground their Millenium upon they cannot import a precise Millenium that being more than the Jews conclude from them and perhaps St. John might take up the Jewish use of that term thinking none would be so
Prodicus Chius Euemerus and his Interpreter Ennius Prodicus Chius Ea quae prodessent hominum vitae Deorum in numero habita esse dixit fortes claros potentes viros tradit post mortem pervenisse ad Deos. 2. Now the first Jupiter for instance being succeeded by so many of his name but not Vertues as in process of time the Joves amounted to 300 as Tertullian out of Varro counts them Romanus Cynicus Varro tricentos Joves sive Jupitores dicend introduxit apol 14. and at last the true History of him growing as much out of the Memory of men as the History of the Creation was when he was first made a God this latter brood was brought over his shoulders to share with him as he had done with the only true God in the honour of being esteemed Deities each Nation contending that their own was the ancient Jupiter ascribed to their own all that was commendable in others of that name and fastned upon foreigners the Vices of their own Jupiters So that it was the Vertue of the first Jupiter that advanced all his Name-sakes to divine honour And when the Crimes of the younger Jupiters were by the Poets fastned on him this was so far from adding to his credit as with those that believ'd the Poetical Stories it lost him the repute of being a God and with those that believ'd him to be a God the Poets lost the repute of being faithful Historians upon that very account because they presented the Gods in the form of beastly immanities and affirmed the God-born to have perpetrated more vile Enormities than ever were acted by the off-spring of most wicked men not only charging them with Thefts and Adulteries but with the devouring of their own Children gelding their Parents Incest with their Mothers and many other fedities as Isocrates Busirid laudat observes calling Poetical Theology Blasphemy and affirming the Divine Vengeance to have pursued most of them for those impious Fictions many of them becoming Vagabonds and Beggars others being struck blind others being exil'd lived in perpetual fewd with their own Kindred and Orpheus the chief Author of such like Fables being mangled alive and torn in pieces Wherefore saith he if we be wise let 's not follow their dotages nor endure since we make Laws that one man should not slander another that this lawless liberty be given of babbling what comes at Tongues end concerning the Gods but let us think that both Thief and Recetter the Reporter and Believer of such Stories are grievous offenders For my own part saith he 't is an Article of my Creed that not only the Gods but the God-born are not only exempted from all Vice but have all Vertues so naturally implanted in them as they become Leaders and Masters to us Men in all honest and praise-worthy endeavours Hence Pausanias cautions his Reader not to believe what the Athenian Temples represent concerning the Gods as grounded on Poetical Fables On the other side where the Poets fictions were imbraced and applauded the Gods that they presented were exploded while they muster the Gods saith Tertullian Apol. cont gentes into two adverse parties standing the one for Troy the other for Greece while they present Venus wounded by a mortal hand while she 's fetching off Aeneas from Diomed's pursuit while they bring in Mars pin'd almost to death by undergoing a three-months penance in those Chains Vulcan had caught him in with Venus while they sing how Jupiter was secured by the help of a Monster from being taken with his Curtizans in the like snares while they chaunt his lamenting Sarpedon's mishap his dalliances with Juno while through the connivence of Princes they take liberty to feign Apollo a Herdsman under Admetus Neptune a Mason to Laomedon and defrauded of his wages Aesculapius to have been struck with Jove's Thunder-bolt for taking too large Fees for a Cure sure it was not of the French Disease that amorous God would have thought half a Kingdom a Fee small enough for that while the Mimick personates Anubis playing the Adulterer Diana making love to the Swain Eudimion and lash'd soundly for her offences the Sun lamenting Phaeton's Fall Cybel the Mother of the reputed Gods puling at the feet of a disdainful Shepherd the Boy Paris umpiring the Contest for the golden Apple betwixt three Goddesses While I say the Poets publish in their ears while the Mimicks present to their Eyes the obscenities of their Deities the vulgar conclude them no Gods and instead of making them the Objects of Devotion and Religious Fear esteem them Objects of Scorn and Derision Dispicite utrùm Mimos an Deos vestros in jocis strophis rideatis Do you when you hear joques and quirks put upon your Gods laugh at the Jeaster's wit or at the folly of your Gods Durst ye make a sport of Phaebus his tears and laugh while he 's presented weeping if you really believ'd the Mimick Phoebus to be a God Had they esteemed the Mimick Gods Gods indeed they would have reverenc'd their presence more than Cato's before whom the Romans were ashamed in their celebrating the Floralia to call forth the Mimicks to act their parts confessing as Valerius Max. observes lib. 2. cap. 10. that they had more respect to that one Man whom Vertue had made venerable than to all the Spectators yea than all those Gods who were there personated § 4. The different respect which Stage-players had amongst Romans and Grecians The design of Mythologists Hence Plato in his 2. and 10. Books of his Commonwealth would have that kind of Poetry that sings the flagitiousness of the Gods expelled out of every well-constituted Republick as tending to the effeminating of mens Minds and corrupting of Manners And the ancient Romans to prevent that evil Opinion of the Gods which they foresaw people would readily take up from such Premises forbad the use of Stage-plays in their Laws of the Twelve Tables a Law in force 500 years after Rome built And when in the Consulship of Sulpitius and Licinius the Pontiff by direction of Sibyls Books instituted them to asswage the then raging Pestilence to secure the Vulgar from the dint of that Temptation to Atheism that was laid before them in those scenical Prostitutions they were admonish'd of the baseness of those fellows by a Decree prohibiting Stage-players to be free of the City In Aug. de civit dei 2. 13. as L. Vives affirms out of Livy A Decree which speaks that Generation of men to have been in the Opinion of the Senate Persons of most debauch'd manners and profligated honesty seeing that privilege of the City was granted to many thousands of flagitious men and therefore not to be credited by the People in what they prated or presented either concerning God or Man To this Constitution alludes Cicero Roscium ità peritum dixit ut solus esset dignus qui in scenam deberet intrare ità virum bonum ut solus esset dignus qui eò
brought them out of Egypt which Covenant they brake and promising to erect a new Priest-hood not after the order of Aaron but Melchisedech From both which common places the Apostle argues strenuously Heb. 8. and 7. when he saith the new he maketh void the old where the Priesthood is changed there must of necessity be a change of the Law The Old Testament points out him that is to be a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech as to come of the Tribe not of Levi but Judah which Topick the Apostle pursues and applies to the blessed Jesus who according to the Prophecies that went before of him sprang of the Root of Jesse came from the loins of David and was the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah of which Tribe none by the Law were to be made Priests but of the Tribe of Levi and that therefore the Levitical Law was prescribed against in the Prediction of Jacob and in the preheminence of this Melchisedokian Preist before the Aaronical hinted by Melchisedech's Blessing and receiving Tithes of Abraham while Levi was yet in his Loyns almost four hundred years before that Law which assigned Levi to the Priest-hood And lest this Law which assigned Levi to that Office might be interpreted as vacating Melchisedech's the Apostle observes that long after Aaron had been made a Priest and that without an Oath that Kingly High Priest after the order of Melchisedek was made a Priest by Oath Hebr. 7. 17. 18. In the Old Testament Malac. 1. 11. God expresseth his dislike of Levitical Sacrifices and Ordinances in comparison of another Sacrifice and Service that was to be exhibited A point acknowledged by the Jewish Rabbies who upon these Texts have these reflections Psal. 69. Laudabo nomen dei placebit deo super vitulum novellum cornua producentem ungulas This is the new worship that shall be given to God in diebus Christi saith Aben Ezra A worship will please God better than the Oxe which Adam sacrificed Qui perfectus erat de terra creatus a perfect Oxe answerable to one three years old the day he was created having hoofs and horns saith R. Solom Than that three years old Oxe of the Peace-offering or so large as he can push with his horns or so great and comely as he makes men contend about him saith R. David all center here that the most choice Legal Sacrifices are not comparable to that spiritual Worship which should be introduc'd in the days of the Messias Without relation to which legal observances were not good nor such as by which they should live Ezeck 20. 25. God protesting he never spake to their Fathers touching Sacrifices and Oblations abstracted from that end of the Law Jerem. 7. 22. and chiding them for treading his Courts for making many and fervent Prayers for offering Incense for bringing their Oblations and burnt Offerings without having an eye to the spiritual part of worship and to Christ the Life and Spirit of all acceptable Worship Isa. 1. Of which imperfection and faultiness of the first Covenant the Apostle takes notice as that which made way for the second Heb. 8. 7. In the Old Testament God promiseth that under the Kingdom of Messias he would take Priests and Levites out of all Nations Isa. 66. 21. that strangers should be Israel's Pastors Plough-men and Labourers in the Vine-yard Isa. 61. 5. What must then become of the Law prohibiting any but the sons of Aaron to approach the Priest's Office to minister in the Sanctuary Levi must lose his Plough when Messias makes Gentiles put their hands to his and therefore there is much more of ingenuity and correspondency to their own Prophets than in modern Jews in that story of the Jerusalem Gomarists told by R. Judab of a certain Jew who being at Plough and hearing an Arabian telling him that Messiah was born presently loosed his Oxen and sold his Plough and Gears Lightfoot Harm pag. 9. Lastly for to instance in all the Topicks of this tendency would put me upon transcribing the greatest part of the Prophets and the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Old Testament we are told That Jerusalem it self the Temple the place elected by God for Legal Worship should become a perpetual desolation within a few years after the coming of Christ That Rook's Nest as they had made it should be pulled down Dan. 9. 26. and then sure the whole brood of those callow and imperfect Rudiments annex'd to it laid in it must fall to the ground That a time would come when the true Jove would shake that his lap wherein his grand Seer the Eagle-eyed Moses had laid the Eggs of his Ceremonial Laws Haggai 2. 6. I will shake not the earth only but the heavens that is as St. Paul Heb. 12. 27. expounds that Text not only the Vanity of the Gentiles but the Jewish Religion though of Divine Institution so far as it is to be shak'd Or which comes all to one The heaven that is the heavenly Sanctuary the Temple God's Court the place of his Residence where he dwelt between the Cherubims That Sion would be ploughed up Micah 3. 12. Sion shall be ploughed as a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the Lord's house as the high places of the Forrest This the Chaldees alledg in behalf of Jeremy Jer. 26. 10. and the Rabbies observe the accomplishment of it then when Turnus Rufus ploughed up the place of the Temple Dr. Lightfoot Vespacian 2. paragr 1. and what must become then of the whole Crop of the Temple-Ceremonies which had been there sowen and of the Eggs there deposited That Jerusalem the dish wherein Levitical services were to be served up should be turned up-side-down and wiped as a man wipes a Dish 2. King 21. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It shall be turned upside down upon the face thereof What can that portend but the spilling of the Cates So that to a considerate Spectatour it cannot but be matter of highest admiration to see that blinded Nation groping for the door when the house is fallen flat to the ground and like a company of dispersed Ants whose hill is digged up carrying their Eggs in their mouths above this sixteen hundred years not knowing where to lay them but expecting still their old Ant-hill should grow up again out of the dust wherein it has lain all that while not considering that by this time their Eggs must needs be grown addle Alas what a spirit of slumber hath divine Vengeance powred upon them seeing they still persist in denying that Holy and Just One after Moses hath so peremptorily and palpably denyed them after God hath pull'd them from him and hedged up their way to his Law by an absolute impossibility of observing it The Temple wherein the greatest and most eminent part of that Law was only performable being by his irresistible hand demolish'd and kept from being again erected in spight of all the attempts of
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
and first of his thirty first However this will make no difference here for be it first or last it comes all to one as to the vindicating of this commonly-received Truth that St. Luke dates Christ's Birth and Baptism on the same day But for the Reasons pre-alledged I adhere to Scaliger And therefore if you demand where St. Luke testifies this I answer where he saith that Jesus when he was baptized was thirty years of age that is on that day which terminated his thirtieth and gave beginning to his thirty first Secondly and if St. Luke had not thus punctually delineated the Time of Christ's Age when he exhibited himself to the Baptist as a Candidate for Ordination Yet the same thing might be collected from that Law under which the Law-giver put himself that he might fulfill all righteousness prohibiting the Priests to officiate till they were thirty and commanding them then to enter upon the exercise of their sacred Function Numb 4. They shall serve from thirty years old and upwards By virtue of this Law Christ would have been a Transgressor had he intruded himself into the sacred Ministry before his thirtieth year was compleated and therefore till then he doth not shew himself to Israel no not to his own Parents for his Mother was uninstructed in the knowledge of her Son not to his Fore-runner for the Baptist though he knew Christ was in the croud yet who was he he knew not till he saw the Spirit descending upon him but kept at home and was subject to and under the Nurture of Father and Mother So wide is that Gloss from the sence of that Text where we have account of Christ's being amongst the Doctors which stiles it Christ's disputing with them which was nothing else but his exhibiting himself at twelve years as an Israelitish Catechumen to ask the Law the Tearms of the Covenant which he enter'd when he receiv'd Circumcision and to receive their Answers to what he propounded or to answer their Questions not as their Doctor but Scholar and upon his examen and their approbation of him who sate in Moses Chair personally to enter into that Covenant which his Sureties had enter'd into in his name at his Circumcision The Work of his Father which he had there to do was to be a Scholar not a Teacher And on the other hand he would not have been an exact fulfiller of that Law if he had delaid the tender of himself to Ordination beyond the time fixt by the Law and not applyed himself to the Baptist at whose laying hands upon him he knew he was to receive the Holy Ghost and be visibly separated to that Work which his Father had fore-ordained him to assoon as ever he was legally capable of it in respect of Age upon this account Christ urged the Baptist in these words suffer it now for thus it behoves us to fulfill all righteousness Christ had no need to be baptized with John's Baptism the Baptism of Repentance for remission of sins neither did he receive that Baptism but John's Baptizing of him was of another kind than his Baptizing of other persons to wit and external Rite in the administration whereof Christ was to be visibly set apart and called by God to his Office of Preaching See Dr. Hamond's Annot. the Law therefore the Righteousness whereof Christ fulfill'd in being baptized by John was that which prohibited Prophets to run till they were sent of God But this was not all the Righteousness which Christ fulfill'd now but also of that other Branch of the Law commanding them whom God had separated to the service of the Sanctuary to enter upon that Function as soon as they were thirty years of Age and therefore our Saviour inserts this note of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suffer it now now that the impediment of Age is removed I must not defer my entrance upon the work of Teaching Nay if there had not been such a Law Christ's Love to us would have been a Law to himself He who when the time was come that he should be offer'd was straightned till his Baptism of blood was accomplish'd that went into the Garden to meet the Traytor would sure not be well at ease when the time was come assigned by the Law of his Father that he should be inaugurated in the Office of the great Prophet till he was baptized with that Baptism of Water by John and of the Holy Ghost by his Father by which he was to be consecrate to that Office Would this tender Shepherd of Souls for his love and for his pitty let a day pass after the removal of the impediment of Under-age before he put himself into a capacity of seeking and saving the lost Sheep of Israel How have they learned Christ either as to his Obedience to his Father or his Compassion to his Brethren who scruple the belief of this point which the Primitive Church Universally embraced upon so good and solid Reasons as who so questions the force of them must present the blessed Jesus to their own minds as a person that cared not what the Father said not what we ail'd § 3. Propos. 3. This being concluded on and laid for a Ground that Christ's Birth and Baptism fell on the same day of the year I proceed with this Light before me by the help of those Chronological Observations I have or shall irrefragably make good to find out the Day of Christ's Nativity The Mother of John Baptist was going in her sixth month at the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin and Conception of Christ St. Luke 1. 36. And loe thy cousin Elizabeth hath conceived a son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this is her sixth month saith the Angel Gabriel when he was sent to Mary the blessed Mother of our Lord in the sixth month that is of Elizabeth's Conception vers 26. about these days of Zacharie's returning home from fulfilling his Office in the Temple in the Course of Abias that is the eighth in order of those twenty four into which David divided the Priests 1 Chron. 24. 10. the eighth Lot fell to Abijah Elizabeth conceived and hid her self five months and in the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to a City of Galilee named Nazareth unto a Virgin espoused to an husband whose name was Joseph and the name of the virgin was Mary Certainly if it had not been of use to us to know the Time of our Saviour's Conception the Holy Ghost would not have given this Character of it twice in ten Verses Nor a Rule to find it out in his specifying the Course of Abias falling out immediately before the Baptist's Conception if that Rule had not been both sure and applicable to this Question He would never have beaten the Air with those Chronological Descriptions of it had it been vain for us to know the time or impossible for us to find it out so manifestly false is that Fanatick Conceit which the Novelist
things should be done at Rome and Herod provide for his journey and travel it and come to Jerusalem and there perform all those things touching the settlement of his own Affairs which Josephus reports he did and proceed to the condemning of James and all this before Easter for then it was that he apprehended St. Peter Acts 12. 3. unless he hasted as if it had been for a wager that he that can believe St. Peter to have been imprisoned in Claudius his second year of Consulship and Reign must exceedingly straiten the time of these occurrences to make way for his belief It was therefore at the Passeover in the third of Claudius that St. Peter was apprehended and Herod missing of his prey betakes himself to his Progress wherein he stays at Berytum during the pompous Dedication and impious handselling of the Amphytheatre he had there built At the Galilean Tiberias while he caresseth the five Kings of Comagena Emosine Armenia the Less Pontus and Chalcis From thence he removes his Court to Cesarea whence he departs not till he departs the world having at his coming thither fulfill'd the third year of his reign since Claudius began his pag. 19. and therefore the tenth of the Calends of February on which Claudius began to reign was then past when Herod arrived at Caesarea and not so much of Herods fourth years reign remaining as unto Easter following before his decease for that would have made so considerable an addition of months and dayes to the years of Herod as Josephus would not have omitted the mention of them neither would Herod have cast his progress so as not to have been return'd to Jerusalem had he lived before the passeover he being a man so punctual in observing the Law It was therefore in the beginning of both Claudius and of Herods reign under him the fourth year that Herod came to this wretched end Jos. ant 20. 1. puts this beyond all doubt for there he tells how that Claudius after the death of Herod sent Fadus to look after the affairs of Judaea after whose coming thither and demanding the high Priests stole and Crown to be deliver'd into his custody the Jews sent an Embassie to Rome to deprecate that impeachment of their privileges this request Caesar grants and writes to Fadus to suffer the Jews to enjoy that and other favours granted them by the Romans and these Letters of Claudius bear date the fourth of the Kalends of July in the fourth year of his Reign four or five moneths is little enough for all these transactions and journeyings betwixt Rome and Judaea Let us now see how well this accords with that Character which St. Luke sets upon these occurrences The time of the Famine Dion l 60 p. 410. Placeth the beginning of it indeed in the second year of Claudius but hints the continuance of it some years after for Claudius is reported by him to have made that preparation for the importing of Corn at all seasons of the year in his building that Haven from the attempting whereof the Workmen discouraged him with the greatness of the charge as the Horse must have starved while the Grass grew if that year the famine had dilated it self so far as the City could not be reliev'd out of the circumjacent Countries the way by Sea being blockt up while the Haven was a building In his third year the Dearth of necessaries bred that disturbance among the Commons as the Emperour was fain for their Pacification to go into Campus Martius and himself set the price of Commodities But what progress soever the famine might make in other parts it reached Judaea in the fourth year of Claudius Rufus and Pompeius Sylvanus Consuls and Fadus Governour of Judaea as Josephus dates it l. 20. 1. at the same time that Helena Queen of Adiabenum being turned Jew went to Jerusalem in an happy time for the poor distressed Inhabitants whom she seeing to be opprest with a grievous famine and multitudes of them to dye of hunger sent some to Alexandria for Corn others to Cyprus for dryed Figs wherewith she relieved the almost famish'd people l. 20. c. 2. 3. So that upon supposition of Dions faithfulness in the account he gives of the time when this Famine began at Rome and his reconcileableness with Josephus who placeth the heat of it at Jerusalem two years after viz. the fourth of Claudius Josephus his date agrees exactly with St. Luke's the Sacred Historian assigning Herod's Death to that time when the Messengers of the Church of Antioch were carrying the Contributions of that Church to Jerusalem for their relief in that grievous Famine which fell as Josephus saith in the fourth year of Claudius at the same time when Queen Helen succour'd the Circumcision and King Herod expired Upon which Hypothesis I rather proceed with Dr. Lightfoot than upon that of Scaliger that Dion speaks of one Famine and Josephus of another because 't is usual for Famines to be of as long continuance as we make that to have been and chiefly because the sacred Text seems to look that way if we either leave out the full point after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Dr. Hammond according to its limited sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There will be a great Famine over all this Nation even that which is now and hath been some while at Rome For we may with more reason and correspondencie to the Context supply the want of a word to follow the latter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by repeating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than by adding in the reigns or the days The Question is but whether we should add a word signifying time or place for the later Agabus in fixing the Article betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to point to the ground on which he stood while he prophecied and to say On this whole Land there will be a grievous Famine and to be expounded by Josephus thus describing that Famine antiq 20. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was a grievous Famine all over Judaea and therefore it is most congruous to repeat that word in the next Clause and to read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even that that hath been this last year and yet is in Italy the Native Country of Claudius Caesar. But if this be rejected as a Singularity this other Translation is not guilty of that fault viz. This Famine that is begun under Claudius Caesar will within a while spread over this whole Nation and this exactly agrees to Christs Prophecy of the same thing St. Mat. 24. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There shall be Famines in divers places that is successively from place to place this Meager Plague that now infects Italy will shortly remove into Iudaea and sutes the Course was taken by the Church of Antioch in sending Contribution thence and from the neighbouring Provinces where the Famine was not at least not then into Judaea
Argument of the extremity wherewith Mithridates was opprest that he spared not so much as the Plowing Oxen but slew them to make Thongs of their Hides and strings for his warlike Engines of their entrails Appian Alex. de bellis Mithridat p. 229. But more plainly in Justin's Compendium of Trogus Pomp. l. 36. cap. in risum Minimus inter fratres Joseph fuit cujus excellens ingenium veriti fratres clam interceptum mercatoribus peregrinis vendiderunt à quibus deportatus in Aegyptum cùm Magicas artes ibi solerti ingenio percepisset brevi ipsi Regi percharus fuit Nam prodigiorum sagacissimus erat somniorum primus intelligentiam condidit nihilque divini juris humanique ei incognitum videbatur Adeò ut etiam sterilitatem agrorum ante multos annos providerit periissetque omnis Aegyptus fame nisi monitus ejus edicto Rex servari multos per annos fruges jussisset Tantaque experimenta ejus fuerunt ut non ab homine sed a Deo responsa dari viderentur Joseph was the youngest Brother whose excellent wit his brethren being jealous of intercepted him privily and sold him to forreign Merchants who carried him into Aegypt where having through his industrious wit learn'd the Magick Art in a short time he grew greatly in favour with the King for he was quick in finding out the meaning of Prodigies and the first that taught the interpretation of Dreams and seem'd to understand whatsoever appertain'd to the Divine or Humane Law So as he foresaw a Famine many years before it fell out and all Egypt had perish'd through Famine if the King admonish'd by Joseph had not commanded provision to be laid up for many years Yea such experiments did he give of his Wisdom as his Responds seemed to proceed not from man but God For this it was that he obtain'd while he lived the honour of being proclaimed by the Kings Command Abrech that is tender Father or as St. Jerom in his Hebraick Questions and the Vulgar Latine Translate it The Saviour of the World Gen. 41. 43. preferring that before that of Aquila which Aben Ezra favours and our English follows bow the knee And after his Death was worship'd by the Israelites in the Wilderness under the form of the Golden Calf they putting more confidence in him for relieving their wants in that barren Land than in their Fathers God who so often had spread a Table for them in the Wilderness Him also did Jeroboam worship at Dan and Bethel as the God of Plenty and for the honour of his Tribe Jeroboam being of the Tribe of Ephraim the Son of Joseph Of which beside the suffrage of some Rabbies mention'd by Vossius de origin idololat these Observations may be a Confirmation 1. The Image of the Aegyptian Ox sacred to Osiris had a bushel set upon its head saith Ruffinus Eccles. Hist. l. 2. cap. 23. to denote Josephs measuring out of Corn this reason is alledged by Suidas in Serapis why some conceiv'd that Idol to represent Joseph 2. Moses in his blessing that Tribe Deut. 33. 17. saith The firstling of a Bullock is the Beauty of his countenance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 manifestly expressing the Embleme which the Egyptians erected in his memory not that he approved their abusing of it by Religious Worship but only commends Joseph whom God had blest with that Wisdom as procured him that Testimony of civil respect for it was no more at first than a piece of Heraldry This Coat of Arms Moses calls the Firstling of a Bullock because of the greenness of Joseph's years when he was set over the Land of Aegypt being then but 30 years old exceeding young for the Gravity of his Counsel and deportment and therefore his Emblem was a Calf or Firstling 3. Though the bewilder'd Israelites erected but one Image yet their acclamation before it was These are thy Gods oh Israel which have brought thee out of the Land of Egypt Exod. 32. 8. VVhy Gods but to denote that Idol to have been of the Epicene Gender and to have represented both Apis and Osiris the Ox of Memphis and Heliopolis which saith Plutarch de Iside Osyride the Aegyptian Priests affirmed to be all one and that Isis was the Soul of Osyris And why Thy Gods which brought thee up out of the land of Aegypt but to exclude the Inderites Egyptian Gods whose Interest it was to keep them in Aegyptian Bondage and to imply it was some deified Israelite towit Joseph who at his Death had prophesied their Return and whose Reliques they brought with them out of Egypt to whom they imputed their deliverance and conduct § 6. The History of Moses is more plainly comprehended in the Fables of a third Osiris or Liber whom the Poets describe in the Indian or Arabick expedition of Bacchus for that this Osiris and Liber and Dionysius are all one Nonnus testifieth in his Dionysiacωn lib. 4. and that the ancient Greeks accounted all the Tract beyond the Mediterranean India is manifest from that of Ovid De arte amandi lib. 1. Andromedam Perseus nigris portarat ab Indis Perseus brought away Andromeda from the black Indians now Andromeda was brought away from Joppa a City of Phoenicia saith Pliny l. 5. cap. 13 31. and chap. 9. cap. 5. Belluae cui dicebatur exposita fuisse Andromeda ossa Romae apportata ex oppido Judaeae Joppe ostendit inter reliqua miracula in Aedilitate sua M. Scaurus M. Scaurus when he was Edile did amongst other rarities make show of the bones of that Sea-monster to which Andromeda was reported to have been expos'd having caused them to be brought from Joppa a City of Judaea Having premis'd these Tropological Notes let us compare the Stories The sacred History saith that Moses was exposed in an Ark upon the Water watched by his Sister and found by Pharaoh's Daughter The Prophane tells us of Liber's Mother and Nurses being with him at the Bank of Nile Orpheus in hymmis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With thy Goddess-mother the venerable Isis wearing black with thy Maidennurses at the Egyptian River At Brasiae in Laconia they had an old Tradition that Bacchus as soon as he was born was put into an Ark and committed to the Water which after-ages to give repute to that City corrupted with the addition that the Ark was driven by Tides to their coast and Bacchus educated with them whence their City called formerly Oreatae took the name of Brasiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from a Verb signifying to be cast up with the tide Pausanias Laconici In certain Verses of Orpheus the Caldean Liber is stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Water-born and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which misseth Moses his Name but one Vowel It is true indeed he is elsewhere stiled unutterable Queen but that proceeded from the Grecians mistake expess'd by Alexander Polyhistor that the Jews receiv'd their Laws from a Woman named Mosω they
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
Works of Christ and their Magi will be discust in its proper place I am now only to shew what inconvenience the Learned Gentile was put upon while he is forc'd upon making this Exception as not having the face to deny the Matters of Fact 1. By the Evidence of Christ's great Works he is convinc'd that Christ was a good an holy Man for none but such were privileged with a Power of doing such Works as he did By the same Evidence he must confess that Christ is God for he profest himself to be one with and equal to the Father and a good man will not lye 2. Again if Christ were an holy Man and by his Holiness had attain'd the Magick Art he would have communicated the Principles of that Art to others for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good man is a common good communicative of his profitable knowledge The Pagan here was driven to this Reply That Christ did write Books of the Magick Art and dedicated and delivered them to St. Peter and Paul They could not saith St. Austin have pitch'd upon a more ridiculous answer the falshood thereof laying open to the youngest Catechumen who can tell these gray-beards that Christ was ascended into Heaven before St. Paul became his Disciple But they had seen the Memories of those two Apostles celebrated together and had heard them spoken of as the prime Apostles the one of the Circumcision the other of the Incircumcision and therefore they joyn'd them in this Fable as the likeliest persons by whose hands Christ might diffuse the Principles of the Magick Art through the World of Jew and Gentile Or they might take up this Conceipt from the Helcesaitae of whom Eusebius thus writeth St. Origen in Psal. 80. mention'd a kind of Hereticks called Helcesaitae who gave out that they had a Book which fell down from Heaven which who so heard and believed the doctrine thereof should receive an otherwise Remission of sins than that which Christ dispensed This should be a Book of Magick by that Title in Justinian's Codex de maleficis mathematicis o◠Incantationes quibus utebantur where amongst others that Heresie of the Helcesaitae is condemned Euseb. hist. lib. 6. cap. 31. § 5. But the mischief of mischiefs that the Jew has brought upon his own and his fellows Causes in his not being able to resist the Truth of the Evangelical History is this That hereby he has afforded the Christians of this last Age an even ground to play with them upon at all other Weapons in all the remaining Controversies touching that Subject 1. It being confest that the Doctrine of the Gospel was deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles and witnessed to by such wonderful Works as are therein reported for the determining of this Question whether those Works are truly and properly Miracles and sufficient indications that the perpetrators of them were commission'd by God as his Embassadors to treat with man we of this Age are every way as well instructed as they that were or as we our selves could have been had we been Eye-witnesses of them whether Pompey or Caesar had the better Cause it being supposed that Antiquity has given us the true state of it may as well and perhaps more impartially be resolved by Modern Civilians than by Cato or Cicero though there may be more danger of mistake in resolving this Case than ours for the precise Rules that Lawyers are in that case to proceed by are not the universal Maximes of Right but as they are confin'd limited and manacled by the then Laws of the Roman State where that might have been just or unjust two thousand years ago that would be the quite contrary now in respect of those mutations have in the interim befaln their Politicks But in our Case we are to walk by standing and fixed Principles in Nature of eternal Verity nothing can be a Miracle or not a Miracle now that would not have been so three thousand years ago State-maximes are not like the Laws of Medes and Persians unalterable but the Covenant which God hath made with Day and Night the Ordinances of Sun Moon and Stars cannot be broken but by the immedate hand of him that made them Jer. 32. 26. 33. 20. And therefore we who live now are better abilitated to judge when the interposition of that hand suspends the operation of those Ordinances than they who lived before us saving the advantage they had of us by means of the first Traditional Learning communicated either by God to Adam or by Adam to the Patriarchs or acquired by those long-livers before the Flood the length of whose Age allowed them so large a time to conn those Lessons which the hand of creating Omnipotencie had writ in the Volume of the Universe and deliver'd by their survivour Noah to the Generations after the Flood the benefit whereof the Devil did not so much envy to humane kind as he did the Tradition of Religion and therefore that was better preserv'd than this Though our own be but a Pigmey-experience yet it stands upon the Giants Shoulders of the experience of former Ages by means of which upper ground we daily make new Discoveries and take out new Lessons out of the Book of Nature facile est inventis addere To say nothing of the Modern helps we have Of Scripture-physicks by which many of the old Philosophers mistakes are discover'd and we lighted to a clearer discovery of Nature than Nature could make of her self Of Accademies where we enjoy all imaginable expedients of Arts towards the perfecting our Minds in the knowledge of Natures Laws and Learning to judge when those Laws are either suspended or improved beside or beyond their own Line the benefit of which opportunity would yet be improved if we would subordinate Philosophy to Divinity in point of Authority and Use of Authority in preferring the Light of the Sun to the blaze of that Candle of the Lord within us of Use in studying natural Ethicks and Physicks to the end we may know where Nature ends as to both and where Grace and the God of Nature begins to out-do those ordinary Powers that are planted either in the great World or its Epitome 2. The Truth of the Gospel-Narrative yielded If upon due examination but any one of those mighty Works therein reported to have been done do undoubtedly appear to be a Miracle we may we must without the least haesitancie rest assured of the Infallibility of the Evangelical Doctrine For Gods Faithfulness and abhorrencie of Falshood will no more consist with his setting one Seal to a Lye than a thousand The Magicians vying with Moses in some of those Wonders he wrought before Pharaoh did not prejudice his Divine Commission seeing Moses did some things in confirmation thereof which they could not imitate but confess'd to be the Finger of God 3. Any one Action of Christ proved irrefragably a Miracle will seal to the Truth of the whole Body of Gospel-doctrine
Jerusalem who in their Letter to their Brethren in Aegypt 2 Mac. 1. 18. give them an account at large how by the appointment of Jeremy the sacred Fire was hid by some Religious Priests in a Pit and by Nehemiah's Order search being made for it by the posterity of those Priests they found thick Water or Naphthar therein which being laid upon the Sacrifices kindled as soon as the Sun-beams beat thereon and consumed the sacrifices the Memorial whereof they pray the Jews of Aegypt that they would as they of Iudaea had done celebrate Contrary to the plain inference of Nehemiah's Nehem. 10 34. putting it among the Articles of that Covenant he made all the Jews seal to That they would make provision for the perpetual keeping of the Fire upon the Altar according to the appointment of the Law Levit. 9. 24. 10. 1. 3. Which pious act of his he concludes his Book with and presents it to God as a Sacrifice of a sweet odour Nehem. 13. ult And for the Wood-offering at times appointed and for the first-fruits remember me O my God for good All which from the beginning to the end would have been no better than the taking of Gods Name in vain had that Fire which consumed the first acceptable Sacrifice which they offered after their Return been no more then ordinary Fire for then they might without any offence to God have kindled it anew every time they sacrificed Contrary to what follows from Gods accepting those Sacrifices which by Nehemiah's order were offered which upon that consideration God discriminates from those were offered before the Temple was built professing they were unclean because they touched the unclean that is had strange Fire put to them Hag. 2. 12. That no burnt Sacrifice was acceptable to God but what was consumed by holy Fire was a Maxim so universally receiv'd in the Church as Moses expresseth Gods fire coming down upon Abels and not upon Cain's Sacrifice by God 's having respect to Abels and not Cain's and therefore Theodosion Translates that Text Gen. 4. 4 Inflammavit Deus in Abel ejus sacrificium at in Cain ejus sacrificium non inflammavit Deus God sent Fire down upon Abels Sacrifice c. For no other way can be conceiv'd how Cain could know Gods acceptance of his Brother's and rejection of his own but this visible Sign as St. Jerom observes in locum Hence our English Translators parallel Gen. 4. 4. with Lev. 9. 24. 1 Reg. 18. 38. 2 Chron. 7. 1. where 't is said the fire came down from the Lord upon the Sacrifice at the Dedication of the Altar at Elijah's Prayer and at the Dedication of the Temple So that the Sons of Aarons offering with strange fire Lev. 10. 1. seems to be imputed to their being at that time stark Drunk vers 9. 10. which occasion'd that prohibition to the Priests from drinking Wine when they went into the Sanctuary If therefore they had not holy Fire to Sanctifie the Altar the Altar could not Sanctifie the Sacrifice but both remain'd prophane as they had been before the affirming of which is manifestly contrary to those many and plain Promises that in the Second Temple Their Sacrifices should come up with acceptance upon Gods Altar And lastly contrary to as good Authority as Secular Records afford that the Memorial of that holy Fire was Celebrated as long as the Temple stood in the yearly Festival called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the 22d day of Abib say Johasin and the Modern Jewish Calendar but in truth on the 14. of Lous as Josephus calculates So well seen are the modern Jews in their own Antiquities and yet their blind conjectures are by some short-reason'd Theologues embrac'd as Oracles de Bel Jud. 2. 17 When that Festival came which they call Xulophoria on which day the custome was for every one to bring in Wood for the Temple that the Fire on the Altar might never want fuel for they never let it go out but kept it perpetually burning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rebels would not permit the adverse party to celebrate that Religious Service and on the day following to wit the 15. of Lous they assaulted the Castle of Antonia This was in the latter end of Nero's 11 year as Scaliger observes to whom for further satisfaction I refer the Reader de emend temp l. 7. an in Comp. Jud. p. c. 49. § 3. No less vain will the Caballistical Assertion touching the absence of Urim and Thummim under the Second Temple appear to him that has but dipp'd his lips fonte Caballino in the Pegasean Spring of mere Humane Learning and by gargling his Palate with that Water has so far rectified it as 't is able to discern of Tastes and to distinguish betwixt the insipid Flegme of frothie and the savoury juice of substantial Authors among which last the often-quoted and never sufficiently praised Josephus gives as full an evidence against the Caballists as can be desired in his Jud. ant 3. 9. where speaking of the two Sardonichs upon the High Priests Shoulders how that that upon the right shoulder as often as the Priest was to Sacrifice sent forth such a sparkling light beyond his own Nature as they that were at a great distance might see it certainly saith he deserves admiration with all men except those that seek by their contempt of Religion to gain a repute of being wise but that is much more admirable which I am now about to say to wit that God was wont to pronounce victory by twelve precious stones which the High Priest wore upon his Breast-plate For before the Army march'd such a Brightness shone from them as gave light to all the people that God was present and would be an aid to them that invocated him Wherefore the Greeks so many of them as do not abhorr our Religion having had such certain experiments of this Miracle as could not be gainsaid call'd the Breast-plate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Oracle But both the Sardonix on the high Priest shoulder and the Gemms on his Breast-plate have ceased to send forth their brightness two hundred years ago God being displeased with our Nation for their contempt and violation of his Law of which I shall speak elsewhere Thus far Josephus whom I make conscience of following rather than the whole College of conjecturing Caballists while he plays the part of an Historian and therefore collect from this Text that the Urim and Thummim continued under the Second Temple almost 300 years and to within little more than one hundred of our Saviours Birth for Josephus wrote his Jewish Antiquities in the latter end of the Reign of Domitian Though I may without impeachment to his credit suspend my assent to his Conclusions when he acts the Divine as he doth in assigning the reason of the Dimness of these precious Stones to be that Nations contempt of Gods Law which I think may better be ascribed to what he did
that office should in point of honour be equall to the chief Military and urbane Magistrates among whom Macrobius to have the precedency Isaac Pontan in notis ad Macrobium pag. 1. ex Scaligero Optatus a Pagan had the Military Government of Constantinople committed to his charge under Theodosius and his Son Arcadius Socrates hist. eccl 7. 16. with as much impunity was Gentilism practised in the Metropolis of the Western Empire under his Brother Honorius at the beginning of whose Reign when the Gothes under Alaricus took Rome there were very many Heathens not only in the City but Senate by whose order it was determined that the Pagan Worship should be restored and celebrated in those Temples which had by Theodosius been converted to the use of the Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sozomen 9. 7. for I see no necessity of collecting from this passage that any other Temples were then standing but what were transferr'd to a Christian use to which that passage of Orosius l. 7. cap. 38. adds strength where he writes that Attalus the Governour then of the City and a Pagan for he was Christned by a Gothish Bishop after he was joyn'd with Alaricus sending for the Thuscian Magi who promised by Thunder and Lightning to drive away the Barbarians enter'd presently into consultation with the Senate about restoring to their Idol-Gods their Sacred Places and celebrating their Rites So I render his continuò de repetendis sacris celebrandis tractatur Sacris comprehending Places as well as Ceremonies and repetendis implying the recovering of sacred things out of the hands of those who then had the possession of them and therefore not applicable to the Gentile Sacrifices which the Christians never touched but their Temples which were converted from the service of Idols to that of the true God as that Magnificent one of Serapis of Alexandria was at the same time and by the same Decree of Theodosius So numerous were the Pagans then in Rome as Dr. Hammond thinks and not but upon good grounds that it is Pagan Rome is threatned in that Prophecy Rev. 17. 14. and according to that Prophecy punished by Alariâ—us the Christian Party being some departed with Honorius their Emperour some with Innocentius their Bishop unto Vienna Come out of her my people Rev. 18. 4. as Lot out of Sodom saith Orosius l. 7. c. 39. and the rest overpowered by the Gentile Faction animated by the hopes they had of Attalus that he would professedly favour and set up Gentilism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and restore the Anâ—â—ent Temples and Feasts and Sacrifices Sozom. l. 9. § 4. Hitherto then we see the Dragon the old Serpent the Devil still abroad and at work even in the Imperial City at his old Trade of seducing the Nations to Gentilism and which is more prevailing with them to endeavour the restauration of the Pagan Religion after it was prohibited by penal law by Theodosius for Eugenius and Arbogestes with a mighty Army attempted to restore Ethnicism which Theodosius had utterly abolisht saith Mr. Meed vol. 2. Book 3. chap. 10. after whose subduing of those two Tyrants Ethnicism never made head more in the Roman Empire saith the same learned Author Indeed the whole current of History makes it evident that Ethnicism never after that appeared in the field against Christianity yet we find it after that conspiring in the Senate to subdue the Faith by the help of the Gothish Arms invited thither by the Heathens and therefore so dreaded by the Christian Party as multitudes of them upon the irruption of the Barbarians either conceal'd or dissembled their Religion to save themselves from the rage of the enemy till contrary to their expectation they perceiv'd that God had turn'd the sword of the Goths against the Pagans St. Jerom. ep 6. ad prin ep 8. and that Alaricus had given order to his Soldiers they should neither touch persons nor goods which they found in the Christian Temples And we find it after that practised in private Chappels tilâ— Honorius made it capital for any to worship Idols either in publick or private Quis enim nostrum quis vestrum non laâ—dat Leges ab Imperatoribus datas adversus sacrificia Idolorum at certè longè ibi paena severior constituta est illius quippe impietatis capitale supplicium est saith St. Austin to the Patron of the Donatists epist. 48. which of ours which of yours do not commend those Imperial Laws against the Sacrifices of the Pagans though the pain inflicted by those Laws be far more severe than that which the Law inflicts upon the Novatians for those make it death for any to commit those Gentile Abominations At which period of time if I would be positive I would fix the beginning of the thousand years which we have in this long discourse been pricking to its seat For it is most natural to interpret the Chain wherein Satan was bound to have been those Imperial Laws and the Key of the bottomless Pit that Supream Authority and power of Life or Death invested by Gods Ordinance in them that bear the Sword and actually exerted in those Laws by opening the mouth of the Pit and making it gape upon such as should persist in those impious and inhumane Idolatries by the Ghastly look of that terriblest of terribles the Pagan was frighted from that Diabolical Worship and by that fear of his shut up Satan and deprived him of power any longer to deceive Insomuch as immediately after the promulgation of those Laws though all did not embrace Christianity yet the whole Empire renounc'd Politheism all strife thereabout being supprest and so eradicated even out of the most talkâ—ive Schools of the Grecians as if any Sect of Error then rose up against the Church and the Faith it durst not step upon the Stage to contend with the Christian but cover'd with the Christian name so that the Platonicks themselves â—â—d it not been for some plausible Placits they could adhere to without fear of incurring the penalties of the Imperial laws must of necessity have generally submitted their pious necks to the yoak of the only invincible King Christ and have acknowledged that Word of God made Flesh who spake and that was believed which the boldest of them were afraid to reveal to the world August dios ep 56. But I dare not be peremptory in determining the precise Moment All that I assert in this is That if the Thousand years of Satan's binding â—e begun at all the beginning of them cannot be dated lower than the promulgation of those Imperial Edicts neither do any place them lower who are of opinion that the Millenium is not yet to begin From whence I inferr this irrefragable Conclusion If the Millenium be precisely the term of 1000 years Satan at the utmost was let loose in the year of Grace 1400 that then the Christian World has outlived Grace 270 years according to the least compute of that Hypothesis And
if we begin the account higher up with those that date its Commencement either at Christs Birth as the Annotator upon King Edwards Bible that he may make the Millenium expire at the rising of the Papacy or at the Passion of our Saviour with St. Austin when indeed he was virtually bound up and by sentence of law cast out of his old possession Mille anni tempus est à passione Christi in quo non permittitur diabolo facere quicquid vult Aug. tom 9. pag. 364. or at the Fall of Jerusalem with the learn'd Dr. Lightfoot or at Constantine's embracing Christian Religion with Dr. Hammoâ—d or at the Conquest of Theodosius over Arbogestes That they may make it comport with the several incroachments which Mahomet hath made upon Christendom there will remain from that sum of a thousand years so great a space of time as will by no means comport with that short space 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which S. John limits the time betwixt the completion of the Millenium and the end of the World There having already been run out and God only knows how many more hundreds of years may yet be to come according to the largest and middle accounts 600. according to the least account almost 300. years since Satans loosing The least of which parcells he that can account a little space in comparison of 1000. years may by that kind of Arithmetick turn every word in the Bible into Cyphers and make their significations of no value but what his own preoccupations vouchsafe to put upon them And therefore as those of our Divines who date the binding of Satan so early as the Fall of Jerusalem should do well to consider how the Sceptick will be answered when he can shew Satan at liberty so many Centuries after that and deceiving the Empire and its Metropolis so far as to perswade it to retain its old Gentilism and to create new Gods such as Antinous and their deified Emperours So those of them who fix the Date thertof 3 or 4 Centuries lower though they obviate that Objection for since then the Empire has not been prevail'd with to worship any of its old Pagan Deities and rightly date the binding up the old Serpent and spoiling him of power to impose upon the Empire after his old guise And leave a far less number of years remaining from his supposed loosing Again then they that date his binding so early yet they should have considered that the least number that any of them leave is more in common sense then a little space and to have look'd twice about them before they had granted the Millenaries their sence of a thousand years and receeded from the common Opinion of both Schools and Fathers that that number does not signifie any certain or determinat space of time in this Prophecy but indefinitely that whole time intervening betwixt Satans binding and the end of the World except that little inconsiderable moment wherein he shall again be suffer'd to go loose Aquinas parallels this Text with Ps. 105. 8. He â—ath remembered his convenant for ever the word which he commanded for a 1000 Generations that is saith he for all Generations or as the Text expounds it self for ever Summ. p. 3. quest 77. art 1. Non significat aliquem certum numerum sed designat totum tempus quod nunc agitur in quo Sancti cum Christo regnant Therefore exprest by a thousand because that is the most perfect number as Aquinas there shews and as they think who derive the Latine Mille from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plenitudo est â—nim millenarius numerus quaedam plenitudo Vossius Etymologie not to the third or fourth but to all Generations as R. Obad expounds at once that Text and those words in the second Commandment well exprest by St. Austin by a comparison drawn from the ages of men the last age saith he which begins with the coming of Christ unto the end of the World is not computed by any certain number of years as old age which is our last age hath not a determinate time according to the measure of our other ages but doth it self alone sometimes take up as much time as all the rest and because Comparisons only illustrate but are no Probations he gives this reason of it ut occultus sit judicii dies quem utiliter dominus latere oporterâ— demonstravit de Genefi contrà Manicâ— l. 1. c. 24. That the knowledge of the day of Judgement might for our benefit be concealed from us CHAP. VII The Millenium yet to come is a Dream of Waking Men. § 1. The Millenaries shifting of Aera's Apes of Mahometans and Papists Alsâ—ed's Boreal Empire § 2. Mr. Meeds Principles overthrow the Faith and Placits of the Ancients Christ will come not to convert but destroy the Jews Satans binding Synchronyzeth with the downfall not of Mahometanism but Gentilism § 3. America though anciently inhabited yet unknown to the ancient Church and therefore implicitly only comprehended in her Faith Hope and Charity § 4 The Millenaries impioâ—s and uncharitable conceptions touching the Gogick-war Their Triumphant Church-Millitant § 5. Christ will find more Faith in America than in this upper Hemisphere § 6. Satan's Chain shortned in the lower not lengthened in this upper Hemisphere § 1. THe Opinion of the Millenaries that the Thousand years are not yet begun not incumbred with this inconvenience which presseth them that would have them past which perhaps is the reason why some able men abett that Opinion and flie to it as a sacred Anchor to secure the credit of this Prophesie And in very deed there can no other Salve be applied to the Hypothesis of a precise determinate number of years Upon which account I am forc'd to quit that Hypothesis as being put to this hard choice that I must either by adhering to it conclude that Period of time is finisht so long ago as will not comport with that short intervall which St. John interposeth betwixt the accomplishment thereof and the consummation of all things or that those Thousand years are not yet begun or else by quitting of it vindicate my judgment into the Christian liberty of holding that that is good rejecting what is manifestly false even in the Opinion of the far most ablest and antientest Divines by fixing â—pon these Conclusions 1. That the Millenium is not yet concluded though more than a thousand years be run out since its Commencement 2. That that binding of Satan that Chain of restraint under which he shall be held at least to the dawning of the day of Judgement hath been laid upon him ever since the Imperial Law made Gentilism capital 3. And that the expectation of a Seculum of a 1000. years yet to come wherein Satan shall be any otherwise bound from deceiving the Nations than he hath been this 1300 years or wherein the Saints shall any otherwise reign upon the Earth with Christ than they