in the paths of Piety and Vertue In the Infancy of the World he taught men by the Dictates of Nature and the common Notices of Good and Evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls them the most Ancient Law by lively Oracles and great Examples of Piety He set forth the Holy Patriarchs as Chrysostom observes as Tutors to the rest of Mankind who by their Religious lives might train up others to the practice of Vertue and as Physicians be able to cure the minds of those who were infected and overrun with Vice Afterwards says he having sufficiently testified his care of their welfare and happiness by many instances of a wise and benign Providence towards them both in the land of Canaan and in Egypt he gave them Prophets and by them wrought Signs and Wonders together with innumerable other expressions of his bounty At last finding that none of these Methods did succeed not Patriarchs not Prophets not Miracles not daily Warnings and Chastisements brought upon the World he gave the last and highest instance of his love and goodness to Mankind he sent his only begotten Son out of his own bosom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Physician both of Soul and Body who taking upon him the form of a Servant and being born of a Virgin conversed in the World and bore our sorrows and infirmities that by rescuing Humane Nature from under the weight and burden of Sin he might exalt it to Eternal Life A brief account of these things is the main intent of the following Discourse wherein the Reader will easily see that I considered not what might but what was fit to be said with respect to the end I designed it for It was drawn up under some more disadvantageous circumstances than a matter of this nature did require which were it worth the while to represent to the Reader might possibly plead for a softer Censure However such as it is it is submitted to the Readers Ingenuity and Candor W. C. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex Aed Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. AN APPARATUS OR DISCOURSE INTRODUCTORY TO THE Whole WORK concerning the Three Great Dispensations OF THE CHURCH PATRIARCHAL MOSAICAL and EVANGELICAL SECT I. Of the PATRIARCHAL Dispensation The Tradition of Elias The three great Periods of the Church The Patriarchal Age. The Laws then in force natural or positive Natural Laws what evinced from the testimony of natural conscience The Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah Their respect to the Law of Nature Positive Laws under that dispensation Eating Bloud why prohibited The mystery and signification of it Circumcision when commanded and why The Laws concerning Religion Their publick Worship what Sacrifices in what sence natural and how far instituted The manner of God's testifying his acceptance What the place of their publick Worship Altars and Groves whence Abraham's Oak its long continuance and destruction by Constantine The Original of the Druids The times of their religious Assemblies In process of time Genes 4. what meant by it The Seventh Day whether kept from the beginning The Ministers of Religion who The Priesthood of the first-born In what cases exercised by younger Sons The state of Religion successively under the several Patriarchs The condition of it in Adam 's Family The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel and their different success whence Seth his great Learning and Piety The face of the Church in the time of Enosh What meant by Then began Men to call upon the Name of the Lord. No Idolatry before the Floud The Sons of God who The great corruption of Religion in the time of Jared Enoch 's Piety and walking with God His translation what The incomparable sanctity of Noah and his strictness in an evil Age. The character of the men of that time His preservation from the Deluge God's Covenant with him Sem or Japhet whether the Elder Brother The confusion of Languages when and why Abraham 's Idolatry and conversion His eminency for Religion noted in the several instances of it God's Covenant with him concerning the Messiah The Piety of Isaac and Jacob. Jacob 's blessing the twelve Tribes and foretelling the Messiah Patriarchs extraordinary under this dispensation Melchisedeck who wherein a type of Christ. Job his Name Country Kindred Quality Religion Sufferings when he lived A reflection upon the religion of the old World and its agreement with Christianity GOD who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son For having created Man for the noblest purposes to love serve and enjoy his Maker he was careful in all Ages by various Revelations of his Will to acquaint him with the notices of his duty and to shew him what was good and what the Lord did require of him till all other Methods proving weak and ineffectual for the recovery and the happiness of humane nature God was pleased to crown all the former dispensations with the Revelation of his Son There is among the Jews an ancient Tradition of the House of Elias that the World should last Six Thousand Years which they thus compute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two Thousand Years empty little being recorded of those first Ages of the World Two Thousand Years the Law and Two Thousand the Days of the Messiah A Tradition which if it minister to no other purposes does yet afford us a very convenient division of the several Ages and Periods of the Church which may be considered under a three-fold Oeconomy the Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical dispensation A short view of the two former will give us great advantage to survey the later that new and better dispensation which God has made to the World 2. THE Patriarchal Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call it the days of emptiness commenced from the beginning of the World and lasted till the delivery of the Law upon Mount Sinai And under this state the Laws which God gave for the exercise of Religion and the Government of his Church were either Natural or Positive Natural Laws are those innate Notions and Principles whether speculative or practical with which every Man is born into the World those common sentiments of Vertue and Religion those Principia justi decori Principles of fit and right that naturally are upon the minds of Men and are obvious to their reason at first sight commanding what is just and honest and forbidding what is evil and uncomely and that not only in the general that what is good is to be embraced and what is evil to be avoided but in the particular instances of duty according to their conformity or repugnancy to natural light being conversant about those things that do not derive their value and authority from any arbitrary constitutions but from the moral and intrinsick nature of the things themselves These Laws as being the results and dictates of right reason are especially as
too far distant to make use of the ordinary Priesthood did themselves take the office upon them and exercise it over all those that were under them and sprung from them though the main honour and dignity was reserved for the Priesthood of the first-born Thus Abraham though but a second Son yet when become the head of a great Family and removed into another Country became a Priest and that not only during the life of his Father but of Sem himself the grand surviving Patriarch of that time I observe no more concerning this than that this right of the first-born was a prime honour and priviledge and therefore the reason say the Jews why Jacob was so greatly desirous of the birth-right was because in those days the Priesthood was entail'd upon it And for this chiefly no doubt it was that Esau is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a prophane person for selling his birth-right for a mess of Pottage because thereby he made so light of the sacred honour of the Priesthood the Venerable office of ministring before God 11. HAVING thus seen what were the Laws what the Worship of those times it remains briefly to consider what was the face of the Church and the state of Religion under the several Patriarchs of this Oeconomy Not to meddle with the story either of the Creation or Apostasie of Adam no sooner was he fallen from that innocent and happy state wherein God had placed him but Conscience began to stir and he was sensible that God was angry and saw it necessary to propitiate the offended Deity by Prayer and Invocation by Sorrow and Repentance and probably by offering Sacrifice a conjecture that hath at least some countenance from those Coats of Skins wherewith God clothed our first Parents which seem likely to have been the Skins of Beasts slain for Sacrifice for that they were not killed for food is evident because flesh was not the ordinary diet if it was at all of those first Ages of the World And God might purposely make choice of this sort of covering to put our first Parents in mind of their great degeneracy how deep they were sunk into the animal life and by gratifying brutish and sensual appetites at so dear a rate how like they were become to the Beasts that perish And if this were so it possibly might give birth to that Law of Moses that every Priest that offered any man's burnt-offering should have to himself the skin of the burnt-offering which he had offered But however this was 't is certain that Adam was careful to instruct his Children in the knowledge of Divine things and to maintain Religion and the worship of God in his Family For we find Cain and Abel bringing their oblations and that at a certain time though they had a different success I omit the Traditions of the East that the cause of the difference between Cain and Abel was about a Wife and that they sought to decide the case by Sacrifice and that when Abel's sacrifice was accepted Cain out of envy and indignation fell upon his brother struck his head with a stone and slew him The present they brought was according to their different ways and institutions of life Cain as an Husbandman brought of the fruit of the ground Abel as a Shepherd brought of the firstlings of his Flock and of the fat thereof But the one was accepted and the other rejected The cause whereof certainly was not that the one was little and inconsiderable the other large and noble the one only a dry oblation the other a burnt-offering or that Cain had entertained a conceived prejudice against his Brother the true cause lay in the different temper and disposition of their minds Abel had great and honourable thoughts of God and therefore brought of the best that he had Cain mean and unworthy apprehensions and accordingly took what came first to hand Abel came with a grateful sense of the goodness of Heaven with a mind piously and heartily devoted to the Divine Majesty and an humble reliance upon the Divine acceptance Cain brought his oblation indeed but looked no further was not careful to offer up himself a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God as being the most reasonable service too confidently bearing up himself as we may suppose upon the prerogative of his primogeniture By which means Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gifts For he had respect unto Abel and to his offering But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect And if in that fire by which God testified his respect by consuming one oblation and not the other there was as the Jews say seen the face of a Lion it doubtless prefigured the late promised Messiah The Lion of the Tribe of Judah our great expiatory sacrifice of whom all other sacrifices were but types and shadows and in whom all our oblations are rendred grateful unto God The odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing unto God 12. ABEL being taken away by his envious and enraged Brother God was pleased to repair the loss by giving his Parents another Son whom they called Seth and he accordingly proved a very Vertuous and Religious man He was if we may believe the Ancients a great Scholar the first inventor of Letters and Writing an accurate Astronomer and taught his Children the knowledge of the Stars who having heard from their Grandfather Adam that the World was to be twice destroyed once by Fire and again by Water if the story be true which Josephus without any great warrant reports wrote their Experiments and the principles of their Art upon two Pillars one of Brick the other of Stone that if the one perished the other might remain and convey their notions to posterity one of which Pillars Josephus adds was said to be standing in Syria in his time But that which rendred Seth most renowned was his piety and devotion a good man he was one who asserted and propagated Religion and the true worship of God as he had received it from his Father Adam notwithstanding the declensions and degeneracy and possibly oppositions of his Brother Cain and his party The Eastern Writers both Jews and Arabians confidently assure us that Seth and his retinue withdrew from Cain who dwelt in the Valley where he had killed his brother Abel into a very high mountain on the top whereof their Father Adam was buried so high if we could believe them that they could hear the Angels singing Anthems and did daily joyn in with that Heavenly Quire Here they wholly devoted themselves to the daily worship of God and obtained a mighty name and veneration for the holiness and purity of their lives When Seth came to lie upon his death-bed he summoned his Children their Wives and Families together blessed them and as his last
as a little to ruffle their imagination yet never so as to discompose their reason or hinder them from a clear perception of the notices conveyed upon their minds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Epiphanius the Prophet had his Oracles dictated by the Holy Spirit which he delivered strenuously and with the most firm and unshaken consistency of his rational powers and afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Prophets were often in a bodily ecstasie but never in an ecstasie of mind their understandings never being rendred useless and unserviceable to them Indeed it was absolutely necessary that the Prophet should have a full satisfaction of mind concerning the truth and Divinity of his message for how else should they perswade others that the thing was from God if they were not first sufficiently assured themselves and therefore even in those methods that were most liable to doubts and questions such as communications by dreams we cannot think but that the same Spirit that moved and impressed the thing upon them did also by some secret and inward operations settle their minds in the firmest belief and perswasion of what was revealed and suggested to them All these ways of immediate revelation ceased some hundreds of years before the final period of the Jewish Church A thing confessed not only by Christians but by Jews themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was no Prophet in the second Temple indeed they universally acknowledge that there were five things wanting in the second Temple built after their return from the Babylonish Captivity which had been in that of Solomon viz. the Ark of the Covenant the fire from Heaven that lay upon the Altar the Schekinah or presence of the Divine Majesty the Urim and Thummim and the spirit of Prophecy which ceased as they tell us about the second year of Darius to be sure at the death of Malachy the last of that order after whom there arose no Prophet in Israel whom therefore the Jews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the seal of the Prophets Indeed it is no wonder that Prophecy should cease at that time if we consider that one of the prime ends of it did then cease which was to be a seal and an assurance of the Divine inspiration of the holy Volumes now the Canon of the Old Testament being consigned and completed by Ezra with the assistance of Malachy and some of the last Prophets God did not think good any longer to continue this Divine and Miraculous gift among them But especially if we consider the great degeneracy into which that Church was falling their horrid and crying sins having made God resolve to reject them the departure of the Prophetick spirit shewed that God had written them a bill of divorce and would utterly cast them off that by this means they might be awakened to a more lively expectation of that new state of things which the Messiah was coming to establish in the World wherein the Prophetick spirit should revive and be again restored to the Church which accordingly came to pass as we shall elsewhere observe 16. THE third thing propounded was to consider the state of Religion and the Church under the successive periods of this Oeconomy And here we shall only make some general remarks a particular survey of those matters not consisting with the design of this discourse Ecclesiastical Constitutions being made in the Wilderness and the place for publick worship fram'd and erected no sooner did they come into the promised Land but the Tabernacle was set down at Gilgal where if the Jewish Chronology say true it continued fourteen years till they had subdued and divided the Land Then fixed at Shiloh and the Priests and Levites had Cities and Territories assigned to them where it is not to be doubted but there were Synagogues or places equivalent for prayer and the ordinary solemnities of Religion and Courts for the decision of Ecclesiastical causes Prosperity and a plentiful Country had greatly contributed to the depravation of mens manners and the corruption of Religion till the times of Samuel the great Reformer of that Church who erected Colledges and instituted Schools of the Prophets reduced the Societies of the Levites to their Primitive order and purity forced the Priests to do their duty diligently to minister in the affairs of God's worship and carefully to teach and instruct the people A piece of reformation no more than necessary For the word of the Lord was precious in those days there was no open vision CCCLXIX years say the Jews the Tabernacle abode at Shiloh from whence it was translated to Nob a City in the Tribe of Benjamin probably about the time that the Ark was taken thence after thirteen years to Gibeon where it remained fifty years and lastly by Solomon to Jerusalem The Ark being taken out to carry along with them for their more prosperous success in their War against the Philistines was ever after exposed to an ambulatory and unsetled course For being taken captive by the Philistines it was by them kept prisoner seven months thence removed to Bethshemesh and thence to Kiriath-jearim where it remained in the house of Abinadab twenty years thence solemnly fetched by David and after three months rest by the way in the house of Obed-Edom brought triumphantly to Jerusalem and placed under the covert of a Tent which he had purposely erected for it David being setled in the Throne like a pious Prince took especial care of the affairs of Religion he fixed the High-Priest and his second augmented the courses of the Priests from eight to four and twenty appointed the Levites and Singers and their several turns and times of waiting assigned them their proper duties and ministeries setled the Nethinim or Porters the posterity of the Gibeonites made Treasurers of the revenues belonging to holy uses and of the vast summs contributed towards the building of a Temple as a more solemn and stately place for Divine worship which he was fully resolved to have erected but that God commanded it to be reserved for the peaceable and prosperous Reign of Solomon who succeeding in his Father's Throne accomplished it building so stately and magnificent a Temple that it became one of the greatest wonders of the World Under his son Rehoboam hapned the fatal division of the Kingdom when ten parts of twelve were rent off at once and brought under the Empire of Jeroboam who knew no better way to secure his new-gotten Soveraignty than to take off the people from hankering after the Temple and the worship at Jerusalem and therefore out of a cursed policy erected two Golden Calves at Dan and Bethel perswading the people there to pay their publick adorations appointing Chaplains like himself Priests of the lowest of the people and from this time Religion began visibly to ebbe and decline in that Kingdom and Idolatry to get ground amongst them 17. THE two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin were loyal both to God and their Prince
continuing obedient to their lawful Sovereign and firmly adhering to the worship of the Temple though even here too impiety in some places maintained its ground having taken root in the Reign of Solomon who through his over-great partiality and fondness to his Wives had been betrayed to give too much countenance to Idolatry The extirpation hereof was the design and attempt of all the pious and good Princes of Judah Jehosaphat set himself in good earnest to recover Religion and the state of the Church to its ancient purity and lustre he abolished the Groves and high places and appointed itinerant Priests and Levites to go from City to City to expound the Law and instruct the people in the knowledge of their duty nay he himself held a royal Visitation Going quite through the Land and bringing back the people to the Lord God of their Fathers But under the succeeding Kings Religion again lost its ground and had been quite extinct during the tyranny and usurpation of Athaliah but that good Jehoiada the High-Priest kept it alive by his admirable zeal and industry While he lived his Pupil Joas who owed both his Crown and his life to him promoted the design and purged the Temple though after his Tutors death he apostatized to prophaneness and idolatry Nor indeed was the reformation effectually advanced till the time of Hezekiah who no sooner ascended the Throne but he summoned the Priests and Levites exhorted them to begin at home and first to reform themselves then to cleanse and repair the Temple he resetled the Priests and Levites in their proper places and offices and caused them to offer all sorts of Sacrifices and the Passeover to be universally celebrated with great strictness and solemnity he destroyed the Monuments of Idolatry took away the Altars in Jerusalem and having given commission the people did the like in all parts of the Kingdom breaking the Images cutting down the Groves throwing down the Altars and high places until they had utterly destroyed them all But neither greatness nor piety can exempt any from the common Laws of mortality Hezekiah dies and his son Manasseh succeeds a wicked Prince under whose influence impiety like a land-floud broke in upon Religion and laid all waste before it But his Grandchild Josiah made some amends he gave signal instances of an early piety for in the eighth year of his Reign while he was yet young he began to seek after the God of David his Father and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem he defaced whatever had been abused and prostituted to Idolatry and Superstition throughout the whole Kingdom repaired God's house and ordered its worship according to the prescript of the Mosaick Law a copy whereof they had found in the ruines of the Temple solemnly engaged himself and his people to be true to Religion and the worship of God and caused so great and solemn a Passeover to be held that there was no Passeover like to it kept in Israel from the days of Samuel And more he had done had not an immature death cut him off in the midst both of his days and his pious designs and projects Not many years after God being highly provoked by the prodigious impieties of that Nation delivered it up to the Army of the King of Babylon who demolished the City harassed the Land and carried the people captive unto Babylon And no wonder the Divine patience could hold no longer when all the chief of the Priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the Heathen and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem Seventy years they remained under this captivity during which time the Prophet Daniel gave lively and particular accounts of the Messiah that he should come into the World to introduce a Law of everlasting righteousness to die as a sacrifice and expiation for the sins of the people and to put a period to the Levitical sacrifices and oblations And whereas other prophecies had only in general defined the time of the Messiah's coming he particularly determines the period that all this should be at the end of LXX weeks that is at the expiration of CCCCXC years which exactly fell in with the time of our Saviour's appearing in the World The seventy years captivity being run out by the favour of the King of Babylon they were set free and by him permitted and assisted to repair Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple which was accordingly done under the government of Nehemiah and the succeeding Rulers and the Temple finished by Zorobabel and things brought into some tolerable state of order and decency and so continued till the Reign of Antiochus Epiphanes King of Syria by whom the Temple was prophaned and violated and the Jewish Church miserably afflicted and distressed he thrust out Onias the High-Priest and put in his brother Jason a man lost both to Religion and good manners and who by a vast summ of money had purchased the Priest-hood of Antiochus At this time Matthias a Priest and the head of the Asmonaean Family stood up for his Country after whom came Judas Macchabaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus truly characters him a man of a generous temper and a valiant mind ready to do or suffer any thing to assert the Liberties and Religion of his Country followed both in his zeal and prosperous success by his two Brothers Jonathan and Simon successively High-Priests and Commanders after him Next him came John surnamed Hyrcanus then Aristobulus Alexander Hyrcanus Aristobulus junior Alexander Antigonus in whose time Herod the Great having by the favour of Antony obtained of the Roman Senate the Sovereignty over the Jewish Nation and being willing that the Priesthood should intirely depend upon his arbitrary disposure abrogated the succession of the Asmonaean Family and put in one Ananel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus calls him an obscure Priest of the line of those who had been Priests in Babylon To him succeeded Aristobulus to him Jesus the son of Phabes to him Simon who being deposed next came Matthias deposed also by Herod next him Joazar who underwent the same fate from Archelaus then Jesus the son of Sie after whom Joazar was again restored to the Chair and under his Pontificate though before his first deposition Christ was born things every day growing worse among them till about seventy years after the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost and brought the Romans who finally took away their place and Nation 18. BEFORE we go off from this part of our discourse it may not be amiss to take a more particular view of the state of the Jewish Church as it stood at the time of our Saviour's appearing in the World as what may reflect some considerable light upon the History of CHRIST and his Apostles And if we cast our eyes upon it at this time How was the Gold become dim
honourably celebrated through the World infinitely beyond the glories of Alexander and the triumphs of a Pompey or a Caesar. But then how this should be done out of those few imperfect Memoires that have escaped the general shipwrack of Church-Antiquities and much more by so rude and unskilful a hand as mine appear'd I confess a very difficult task and next door to impossible These with some other considerations made me a long time obstinately resolve against it till being overcome by importunity I yielded to do it as I was able and as the nature of the thing would bear THAT which I primarily designed to my self was to draw down the History of the New Testament especially from our Lord's death to enquire into the first Originals and Plantations of the Christian Church by the Ministry of the Apostles the success of their Doctrine the power and conviction of their Miracles their infinite Labours and hardships and the dreadful Sufferings which they underwent to consider in what instances of Piety and Virtue they ministred to our imitation and served the purposes of Religion and an Holy Life Indeed the accounts that are left us of these things are very short and inconsiderable sufficient possibly to excite the appetite not to allay the hunger of an importunate Enquirer into these matters A consideration that might give us just occasion to lament the irreparable loss of those Primitive Records which the injury of time hath deprived us of the substance being gone and little left us but the shell and carcass Had we the Writings of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis and Scholar says Irenaeus to S. John wherein as himself tells us he set down what he had learnt from those who had familiarly conversed with the Apostles the sayings and discourses of Andrew and Peter of Philip and Thomas c. Had we the Ancient Commentaries of Hegesippus Clemens Alexandrinus his Institutions Africanus his Chronography and some others the Reader might expect more intire and particular relations But alas these are long since perish'd and little besides the names of them transmitted to us Nor should we have had most of that little that is left us had not the commendable care and industry of Eusebius preserv'd it to us And if he complain'd in his time when those Writings were extant that towards the composing of his History he had only some few particular accounts here and there left by the Ancients of their times what cause have we to complain when even those little portions have been ravish'd from us So that he that would build a work of this nature must look upon himself as condemn'd to a kind of Egyptian Task to make Brick without Straw at least to pick it up where he can find it though after all it amounts to a very slender parcel Which as it greatly hinders the beauty and completeness of the structure so does it exceedingly multiply the labour and difficulty For by this means I have been forc'd to gather up those little fragments of Antiquity that lie dispers'd in the Writings of the Ancients thrown some into this corner and others into that which I have at length put together like the pieces of a broken Statue that it might have at least some kind of resemblance of the person whom it designs to represent HAD I thought good to have traded in idle and frivolous Authors Abdias Babylonius the Passions of Peter and Paul Joachim Perionius Peter de Natalibus and such like I might have presented the Reader with a larger not a better account But besides the averseness of my nature to falshoods and trifles especially in matters wherein the honour of the Christian Religion is concern'd I knew the World to be wiser at this time of day than to be imposed upon by Pious frauds and cheated with Ecclesiastical Romances and Legendary Reports For this reason I have more fully and particularly insisted upon the Lives of the two first Apostles so great a part of them being secur'd by an unquestionable Authority and have presented the larger portions of the Sacred History many times to very minute circumstances of action And I presume the wise and judicious Reader will not blame me for chusing rather to enlarge upon a story which I knew to be infallibly true than to treat him with those which there was cause enough to conclude to be certainly false THE Reader will easily discern that the Authors I make use of are not all of the same rank and size Some of them are Divinely inspir'd whose Authority is Sacred and their reports rendred not only credible but unquestionable by that infallible and unerring Spirit that presided over them Others such of whose faith and testimony especially in matters of fact there is no just cause to doubt I mean the genuine Writings of the Ancient Fathers or those which though unduly assign'd to this or that particular Father are yet generally allowed to be Ancient and their credit not to be despis'd because their proper Parent is not certainly known Next these come the Writers of the middle and later Ages of the Church who though below the former in point of credit have yet some particular advantages that recommend them to us Such I account Symeon Metaphrastes Nicephorus Callistus the Menaea and Menologies of the Greek Church c. wherein though we meet with many vain and improbable stories yet may we also rationally expect some real and substantial accounts of things especially seeing they had the advantage of many Ancient and Ecclesiastick Writings extant in their times which to us are utterly lost Though even these too I have never called in but in the want of more Ancient and Authentick Writers As for others if any passages occur either in themselves of doubtful and suspected credit or borrowed from spurious and uncertain Authors they are always introduced or dismissed with some kind of censure or remark that the most easie and credulous Reader may know what to trust to and not fear being secretly surpriz'd into a belief of doubtful and fabulous reports And now after all I am sufficiently sensible how lank and thin this Account is nor can the Reader be less satisfied with it than I am my self and I have only this piece of justice and charity to beg of him that he would suspend his censure till he has taken a little pains to enquire into the state of the Times and Things I Write of And then however he may challenge my prudence in undertaking it he will not I hope see reason to charge me with want of care and faithfulness in the pursuance of it THE CONTENTS THE Introduction The Life of S. Peter SECT I. Of S. Peter from his Birth till his first coming to Christ. Page 1. SECT II. Of S. Peter from his first coming to Christ till his being call'd to be a Disciple 7. SECT III. Of S. Peter from his Election to the Apostolate till the confession which he made of Christ. 10. SECT
shall afterwards possibly more particularly remark Thirdly these Apostles were immediately called and sent by Christ himself elected out of the body of his Disciples and followers and receiv'd their Commission from his own mouth Indeed Matthias was not one of the first election being taken in upon Judas his Apostasie after our Lord's Ascension into Heaven But besides that he had been one of the seventy Disciples called and sent out by our Saviour that extraordinary declaration of the Divine will and pleasure that appeared in determining his election was in a manner equivalent to the first election As for S. Paul he was not one of the Twelve taken in as a supernumerary Apostle but yet an Apostle as well as they and that not of men neither by man but by Jesus Christ as he pleads his own cause against the insinuations of those Impostors who traduced him as an Apostle only at the second hand whereas he was immediately call'd by Christ as well as they and in a more extraordinary manner they were called by him while he was yet in his state of meanness and humiliation he when Christ was now advanced upon the Throne and appeared to him encircled with those glorious emanations of brightness and majesty which he was not able to endure V. Fourthly The main work and imployment of these Apostles was to preach the Gospel to establish Christianity and to govern the Church that was to be founded as Christ's immediate Deputies and Vicegerents they were to instruct men in the doctrines of the Gospel to disciple the World and to baptize and initiate men into the Faith of Christ to constitute and ordain Guides and Ministers of Religion persons peculiarly set a-part for holy ministrations to censure and punish obstinate and contumacious offenders to compose and over-rule disorders and divisions to command or countermand as occasion was being vested with an extraordinary authority and power of disposing things for the edification of the Church This Office the Apostles never exercised in its full extent and latitude during Christ's residence upon Earth for though upon their election he sent them forth to Preach and to Baptize yet this was only a narrow and temporary imployment and they quickly returned to their private stations the main power being still executed and administred by Christ himself the complete exercise whereof was not actually devolved upon them till he was ready to leave the World for then it was that he told them as my father hath sent me even so send I you receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained Whereby he conferr'd in some proportion the same authority upon them which he himself had derived from his Father Fifthly This Commission given to the Apostles was unlimited and universal not only in respect of power as enabling them to discharge all acts of Religion relating either to Ministry or Government but in respect of place not confining them to this or that particular Province but leaving them the whole World as their Diocese to Preach in they being destinati Nationibus Magistri in Tertullian's phrase designed to be the Masters and Instructors of all Nations so runs their Commission Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every creature that is to all men the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Evangelist answering to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amongst the Jews to all creatures whereby they used to denote all men in general but especially the Gentiles in opposition to the Jews Indeed while our Saviour lived the Apostolical ministry extended no further than Judaea but he being gone to Heaven the partition-wall was broken down and their way was open into all places and Countries And herein how admirably did the Christian Oeconomy transcend the Jewish dispensation The preaching of the Prophets like the light that comes in at the window was confin'd only to the house of Israel while the doctrine of the Gospel preached by the Apostles was like the light of the Sun in the Firmament that diffused its beams and propagated its heat and influence into all quarters of the World their sound going out into all the Earth and their words unto the ends of the World It 's true for the more prudent and orderly management of things they are generally said by the Ancients to have divided the World into so many quarters and portions to which they were severally to betake themselves Peter to Pontus Galatia Cappadocia c. S. John to Asia S. Andrew to Scythia c. But they did not strictly tye themselves to those particular Provinces that were assigned to them but as occasion was made excursions into other parts though for the main they had a more peculiar inspection over those parts that were allotted to them usually residing at some principal City of the Province as S. John at Ephesus S. Philip at Hierapolis c. whence they might have a more convenient prospect of affairs round about them and hence it was that these places more peculiarly got the title of Apostolical Churches because first planted or eminently watered and cultivated by some Apostle Matrices Originales Fidei as Tertullian calls them Mother-Churches and the Originals of the Faith because here the Christian doctrine was first sown and hence planted and propagated to the Countries round about Ecclesias apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt à quibus traducem fidei semina doctrinae caeterae exinde Ecclesiae mutuatae sunt as his own words are VI. In pursuance of this general Commission we find the Apostles not long after our Lord's Ascension traversing almost all parts of the then known World S. Andrew in Scythia and those Northern Countries S. Thomas and Bartholomew in India S. Simon and S. Mark in Afric Egypt and the parts of Libya and Mauritania S. Paul and probably Peter and some others in the farthest Regions of the West And all this done in the space of less than forty years viz. before the destruction of the Jewish State by Titus and the Roman Army For so our Lord had expresly foretold that the Gospel of the Kingdom should be preached in all the World for a witness unto all Nations before the end came that is the end of the Jewish State which the Apostles a little before had called the end of the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shutting up or consummation of the Age the putting a final period to that present State and dispensation that the Jews were under And indeed strange it is to consider that in so few years these Evangelical Messengers should over-run all Countries with what an incredible swiftness did the Christian Faith like lightning pierce from East to West and diffuse it self over all quarters of the World and that not only unassisted by any secular advantages but in defiance of the most fierce and potent opposition
to places of Office and Authority in the Church 10. A LITTLE before S. Paul's departure from Ephesus we may not improbably suppose that Apollonius Tyancus the famous Philosopher and Magician of the Heathen World a Man remarkable for the strictness of his manners and his sober and regular course of life but especially for the great Miracles said to have been done by him whom therefore the Heathens generally set up as the great Corrival of our Saviour though some of his own pary and particularly Euphratus the Philosopher who lived with him at the same time at Rome accused him for doing his strange feats by Magick came to Ephesus The enemy of Mankind probably designing to obstruct the propagation of Christianity by setting up one who by the Arts of Magick might at least in the Vogue and estimation of the People equal or eclipse the Miracles of S. Paul Certain it is if we compare times and actions set down by the Writer of his Life we shall find that he came hither about the beginning of Nero's Reign and he particularly sets down the strange things that were done by him especially his clearing the City of a grievous Plague for which the People of Ephesus had him in such veneration that they erected a Statue to him as to a particular Deity and did divine honour to it But whether this was before S. Paul's going thence I will not take upon me to determine it seems most probable to have been done afterwards SECT V. S. Paul's Acts from his departure from Ephesus till his Arraignment before Felix S. Paul 's journey into Macedonia His preaching as far as Illyricum and return into Greece His second Epistle to the Corinthians and what the design of it His first Epistle to Timothy His Epistle to the Romans whence written and with what design S. Paul ' s preaching at Troas and raising Eutychus His summoning the Asian Bishops to Myletus and pathetical discourse to them His stay at Caesarea with Philip the Deacon The Churches passionate disswading him from going to Jerusalem His coming to Jerusalem and compliance with the indifferent Rites of the Mosaick Law and why The tumults raised against him by the Jews and his rescue by the Roman Captain His asserting his Roman freedom His carriage before the Sanhedrim The difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees about him The Jews conspiracy against his life discovered His being sent unto Caesarea 1. IT was not long after the tumult at Ephesus when S. Paul having called the Church together and constituted Timothy Bishop of that place took his leave and departed by Troas for Macedonia And at this time it was that as he himself tells us he preached the Gospel round about unto Illyricum since called Sclavonia some parts of Macedonia bordering on that Province From Macedonia he returned back unto Greece where he abode three months and met with Titus lately come with great contributions from the Church at Corinth By whose example he stirr'd up the liberality of the Macedonians who very freely and somewhat beyond their ability contributed to the poor Christians at Jerusalem From Titus he had an account of the present state of the Church at Corinth and by him at his return together with S. Luke he sent his second Epistle to them Wherein he endeavours to set right what his former Epistle had not yet effected to vindicate his Apostleship from that contempt and scorn and himself from those slanders and aspersions which the seducers who had found themselves lasht by his first Epistle had cast upon him together with some other particular cases relating to them Much about the same time he writ his first Epistle to Timothy whom he had left at Ephesus wherein at large he counsels him how to carry himself in the discharge of that great place and authority in the Church which he had committed to him instructs him in the particular qualifications of those whom he should make choice of to be Bishops and Ministers in the Church How to order the Deaconesses and to instruct Servants warning him withall of that pestilent generation of hereticks and seducers that would arise in the Church During his three months stay in Greece he went to Corinth whence he wrote his famous Epistle to the Romans which he sent by Phoebe a Deaconess of the Church of Cenchrea nigh Corinth wherein his main design is fully to state and determine the great controversie between the Jews and Gentiles about the obligation of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Jewish Law and those main and material Doctrines of Christianity which did depend upon it such as of Christian liberty the use of indifferent things c. And which is the main end of all Religion instructs them in and presses them to the duties of an holy and good life such as the Christian Doctrine does naturally tend to oblige men to 2. S. PAUL being now resolved for Syria to convey the contributions to the Brethren at Jerusalem was a while diverted from that resolution by a design he was told of which the Jews had to kill and rob him by the way Whereupon he went back into Macedonia and so came to Philippi and thence went to Troas where having staid a week on the Lords-day the Church met together to receive the holy Sacrament Here S. Paul preached to them and continued his discourse till mid-night the longer probably being the next day to depart from them The length of his discourse and the time of the night had caused some of his Auditors to be overtaken with sleep and drowziness among whom a young man called Eutychus being fast asleep fell down from the third story and was taken up dead but whom S. Paul presently restored to life and health How indefatigable was the industry of our Apostle how close did he tread in his Masters steps who went about doing good He compassed Sea and Land preached and wrought miracles where-ever he came In every place like a wise Master-builder he either laid a foundation or raised the superstructure He was instant in season and out of season and spared not his pains either night or day that he might do good to the Souls of men The night being thus spent in holy exercises S. Paul in the morning took his leave and went on foot to Assos a Sea-port Town whither he had sent his company by Sea Thence they set sail to Mytilene from thence to Samos and having staid some little time at Trogyllium the next day came to Myletus not so much as putting in at Ephesus because the Apostle was resolved if possible to be at Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost 3. AT Myletus he sent to Ephesus to summon the Bishops and Governours of the Church who being come he put them in mind with what uprightness and integrity with what affection and humility with how great trouble and danger with how much faithfulness to their Souls he had been conversant among them
so for though he was the first of the Disciples that came to Christ yet was he not called till afterwards After some converse with him Andrew goes to acquaint his Brother Simon and both together came to Christ. Long they stayed not with him but returned to their own home and to the exercise of their calling wherein they were employed when somewhat more than a Year after our Lord passing through Galilee found them fishing upon the Sea of Tiberias where he fully satisfied them of the Greatness and Divinity of his Person by the convictive evidence of that miraculous draught of Fishes which they took at his command And now he told them he had other work for them to do that they should no longer deal in Fish but with Men whom they should catch with the efficacy and influence of that Doctrine that he was come to deliver to the World commanding them to follow him as his immediate Disciples and Attendants who accordingly left all and followed him Shortly after S. Andrew together with the rest was called to the Office and Honour of the Apostolate made choice of to be one of those that were to be Christ's immediate Vicegerents for planting and propagating the Christian Church Little else is particularly recorded of him in the Sacred story being comprehended in the general account of the rest of the Apostles 3. AFTER our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and that the Holy Ghost had in its miraculous powers been plentifully shed upon the Apostles to fit them for the great errand they were to go upon to root out prophaneness and idolatry and to subdue the World to the Doctrine of the Gospel it is generally affirmed by the Ancients that the Apostles agreed among themselves by lot say some probably not without the special guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost what parts of the World they should severally take In this division S. Andrew had Scythia and the Neighbouring Conntries primarily allotted him for his Province First then he travelled through Cappadocia Galatia and Bithynia and instructed them in the Faith of Christ passing all along the Euxine Sea formerly called Axenus from the barbarous and inhospitable temper of the People thereabouts who were wont to sacrifice strangers and of their skulls to make Cups to drink in at their Feasts and Banquets and so into the solitudes of Scythia An ancient Author though whence deriving his intelligence I know not gives us a more particular account of his travels and transactions in these parts He tells us that he first came to Amynsus where being entertained by a Jew he went into the Synagogue discoursed to them concerning Christ and from the prophecies of the Old Testament proved him to be the Messiah and the Saviour of the World Having here converted and baptized many ordered their publick Meeting and ordained them Priests he went next to Trapezus a maritime City upon the Euxine Sea whence after many other places he came to Nice where he staid two Years Preaching and working Miracles with great success thence to Nicomedia and so to Chalcedon whence sailing through the Propontis he came by the Euxine Sea to Heraclea and from thence to Amastris in all which places he met with great difficulties and discouragements but overcame all with an invincible patience and resolution He next came to Sinope a City situate upon the same Sea a place famous both for the birth and burial of the great King Mithridates here as my Author reports from the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he met with his Brother Peter with whom he staid a considerable time at this place as a Monument whereof he tells us that the Chairs made of white stone wherein they were wont to sit while they taught the People were still extant and commonly the wed in his time The Inhabitants of this City were most Jews who partly through zeal for their Religion partly through the barbarousness of their manners were quickly exasperated against the Apostle and contriving together attempted to burn the House wherein he sojourned however they treated him with all the instances of savage cruelty throwing him to the ground stamping upon him with their Feet pulling and dragging him from place to place some beating him with Clubs others pelting him with stones and some the better to satisfie their revenge biting off his Flesh with their Teeth till apprehending they had fully dispatched him they cast him out of the City But he miraculously recovered and publickly returned into the City whereby and by some other Miracles which he wrought amongst them he reduced many to a better mind converting them to the Faith Departing hence he went again to Amynsus and then to Trapezus thence to Neocaesarea and to Samosata the birth-place of the witty but impious Lucian where having baffled the acute and wise Philosophers he purposed to return to Jerusalem Whence after some time he betook himself to his former Provinces travelling to the Country of the Abasgi where at Sebastople situate upon the Eastern shore of the Euxine Sea between the influx of the Rivers Phasis and Apsarus he successfully Preached the Gospel to the Inhabitants of that City Hence he removed into the Country of the Zecchi and the Bosphorani part of the Asiatick Scythia or Sarmatia but finding the Inhabitants very barbarous and intractable he staid not long among them only at Cherson or Chersonesus a great and populous City within the Bosphorus he continued some time instructing and confirming them in the Faith Hence taking Ship he sailed cross the Sea to Sinope to encourage and confirm the Churches which he had lately planted in those parts and here he ordained Philologus formerly one of S. Paul's Disciples Bishop of that City 4. HENCE he came to Byzantium since called Constantinople where he instructed them in the knowledge of the Christian Religion founded a Church for Divine worship and ordained Stachys whom S. Paul calls his beloved Stachys first Bishop of that place Baronius indeed is unwilling to believe this desirous to engross the honour of it to S. Peter whom he will have to have been the first Planter of Christianity in these parts But besides that Baronius his authority is very slight and insignificant in this case as we have before noted in S. Peter's Life this matter is expresly asserted not only by Nicephorus Callistus but by another Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople and who therefore may be presumed knowing in his Predecessors in that See Banished out of the City by him who at that time usurped the Government he fled to Argyropolis a place near at hand where he preached the Gospel for two Years together with good success converting great Numbers to the Faith After this he travelled over Thrace Macedonia Thessaly Achaia Nazianzen adds Epyrus in all which places for many Years he preached and propagated Christianity and confirmed the Doctrine that he taught with great signs and miracles at last he came to
Coenantibus eis accepit Iesus panem et benedixit at fregit deditque discipulis suis et ait accipite et comedite hoc â—… And as they did eate Iesus tooke the bread and when he had blessed he broke it and gaue it to the Disciples and sayd eate this is my body Matth. 26. Place this before the 〈◊〉 Page Antiquitates Apostolicae OR THE HISTORY OF THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES OF OUR SAVIOUR And the Two EVANGELISTS SS MARK and LVKE To which is added An Introductory Discourse concerning the Three great Dispensations of the Church Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical Being a Continuation of ANTIQUITATES CHRISTIANAE OR The Life and Death of the Holy JESVS By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY Orig. contr Gelf lib. 1. in Prooem p. 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner MDCLXXVI TO THE Right Honourable and Right Reverend Father in God NATHANAEL Lord BISHOP of DURHAM And Clerk of the Closet to His MAJESTY MY LORD NOTHING but a great experience of Your Lordships Candor could warrant the laying what concernment I have in these Papers at Your Lordships feet Not but that the subject is in it self Great and Venerable and a considerable part of it built upon that Authority that needs no Patronage to defend it But to prefix Your Lordships Name to a subject so thinly and meanly manag'd may perhaps deserve a bigger Apologie than I can make I have only brought some few scattered handfuls of Primitive Story contenting my self to Glean where I could not Reap And I am well assur'd that Your Lordships wisdom and love to Truth would neither allow me to make my Materials nor to trade in Legends and Fabulous reports And yet alas how little solid Foundation is left to Build upon in these matters So fatally mischievous was the carelesness of those who ought to have been the Guardians of Books and Learning in their several Ages in suffering the Records of the Ancient Church to perish Vnfaithful Trustees to look no better after such Divine and inestimable Treasures committed to them Not to mention those infinite Devastations that in all Ages have been made by Wars and Flames which certainly have prov'd the most severe and merciless Plagues and Enemies to Books By such unhappy accidents as these we have been robb'd of the Treasures of the wiser and better Ages of the World and especially the Records of the first times of Christianity whereof scarce any footsteps do remain So that in this Enquiry I have been forc'd to traverse remote and desert paths ways that afford little fruit to the weary Passenger but the consideration that it was Primitive and Apostolical sweetned my journey and rendred it pleasant and delightful Our inbred thirst after knowledge naturally obliges us to pursue the notices of former times which are recommended to us with this peculiar advantage that the Stream must needs be purer and clearer the nearer it comes to the Fountain for the Ancients as Plato speaks were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better than we and dwelt nearer to the Gods And though 't is true the state of those times is very obscure and dark and truth oft covered over with heaps of idle and improbable Traditions yet may it be worth our labour to seek for a few Jewels though under a whole heap of Rubbish Is not the Gleaning of the Ancients say the Jews better than the Vintage of later times The very fragments of Antiquity are Venerable and at once instruct our minds and gratifie our curiosity Besides I was somewhat the more inclinable to retire again into these studies that I might get as far as I could from the crowd and the noise of a quarrelsome and contentious Age. MY LORD We live in times wherein Religion is almost wholly disputed into talk and clamour men wrangle eternally about useless and insignificant Notions and which have no tendency to make a man either wiser or better And in these quarrels the Laws of Charity are violated and men persecute one another with hard names and characters of reproach and after all consecrate their fierceness with the honourable title of Zeal for Truth And what is yet a much sorer evil the Peace and Order of an excellent Church incomparably the best that ever was since the first Ages of the Gospel is broken down her holy Offices derided her solemn Assemblies deserted her Laws and Constitutions slighted the Guides and Ministers of Religion despised and reduc'd to their Primitive Character The Scum and Off-scouring of the World How much these evils have contributed to the Atheism and Impiety of the present Age I shall not take upon me to determine Sure I am the thing it self is too sadly visible men are not content to be modest and retired Atheists and with the Fool to say only in their hearts there is no God but Impiety appears with an open forehead and disputes its place in every company and without any regard to the Voice of Nature the Dictates of Conscience and the common sence of Mankind men peremptorily determine against a Supreme Being account it a pleasant divertisement to Droll upon Religion and a piece of Wit to plead for Atheism To avoid the Press and troublesome importunity of such uncomfortable Reflections I find no better way than to retire into those Primitive and better times those first and purest Ages of the Gospel when men really were what they pretended to be when a solid Piety and Devotion a strict Temperance and Sobriety a Catholick and unbounded Charity an exemplary Honesty and Integrity a great reverence for every thing that was Divine and Sacred rendred Christianity Venerable to the World and led not only the Rude and the Barbarous but the Learned and Politer part of Mankind in triumph after it But My Lord I must remember that the Minutes of great Men are Sacred and not to be invaded by every tedious impertinent address I have done when I have begg'd leave to acquaint Your Lordship that had it not been more through other mens fault than my own these Papers had many Months since waited upon You in the number of those Publick Congratulations which gave You joy of that great Place which You worthily sustain in the Church Which that You may long and prosperously enjoy happily adorn and successfully discharge to the honour of God the benefit of the Church and the endearing Your Lordships Memory to Posterity is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships faithfully devoted Servant WILLIAM CAVE TO THE READER THE design of the following APPARATUS is only to present the Reader with a short Scheme of the state of things in the preceding periods of the Church to let him see by what degrees and measures the Evangelical state was introduc'd and what Methods God in all Ages made use of to conduct Mankind
Patron and Benefactor and was therefore obliged to pay to him some Eucharistical Sacrifices as a testimony of his grateful acknowledgment that he had both his being and preservation from him But when sin had changed the scene and Mankind was sunk under a state of guilt he was then to seek for a way how to pacifie God's anger and this was done by bloudy and expiatory sacrifices which God accepted in the sinners stead And as to these it seems reasonable to suppose that they should be founded upon a positive Institution because pardon of sin being a matter of pure grace and favour whatever was a means to signifie and convey that must be appointed by God himself first revealed to Adam and by him communicated to his Children The Deity propitiated by these atonements was wont to testifie his acceptance of them by some external and visible sign Thus Cain sensibly perceived that God had respect to Abel's sacrifice and not to his though what this sign was it is not easie to determine Most probably it was fire from Heaven coming down upon the Oblation and consuming it For so it frequently was in the Sacrifices of the Mosaick dispensation and so we find it was in that famous Sacrifice of Abraham a Lamp of Fire passed between the parts of the Sacrifice Thus when 't is said God had respect to Abel and to his offering Theodotion renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he burnt it and to this custom the Psalmist alludes in that Petition Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let thy burnt-offering be reduced into ashes 8. WHERE it was that this Publick Worship was performed is next to be enquired into That they had fixed and determinate Places for the discharge of their religious Duties those especially that were done in common is greatly probable Nature and the reason of things would put them upon it And this most think is intended in that phrase where it is said of Cain and Abel that they brought their oblations that is as Aben-Ezra and others expound it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the place set apart for divine worship And this probably was the reason why Cain though vexed to the heart to see his Brother preferred before him did not presently set upon him the solemnity and religion of the Place and the sensible appearances of the Divine Majesty having struck an awe into him but deferred his murderous intentions till they came into the Field and there fell upon him For their Sacrifices they had Altars whereon they offered them contemporary no doubt with Sacrifices themselves though we read not of them till after the Floud when Noah built an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt-offerings upon it So Abraham immediately after his being called to the worship of the true God in Sichem built an Altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him and removing thence to a Mountain Eastward he built another Altar and called on the Name of the Lord as indeed he did almost in every place where he came Thus also when he dwelt at Beersheba in the Plains of Mamre he planted a Grove there and called on the Name of the Lord the everlasting God This no doubt was the common Chappel or Oratory whither Abraham and his numerous Family and probably those whom he gained to be Proselytes to his Religion were wont to retire for their publick adorations as a Place infinitely advantageous for such Religious purposes And indeed the Ancient devotion of the World much delighted in Groves in Woods and Mountains partly for the conveniency of such Places as better composing the thoughts for divine contemplations and resounding their joynt-praises of God to the best advantage partly because the silence and retiredness of the Place was apt to beget a kind of sacred dread and horror in the mind of the Worshipper Hence we find in Ophrah where Gideon's Father dwelt an Altar to Baal and a Grove that was by it and how common the superstitions and idolatries of the Heathen-world were in Groves and High-places no Man can be ignorant that is never so little conversant either in prophane or sacred stories For this reason that they were so much abused to idolatry God commanded the Israelites to destroy their Altars break down their Images and cut down their Groves and that they should not plant a Grove of any Trees near unto the Altar of the Lord lest he should seem to countenance what was so universally prostituted to false worship and idolatry But to return to Abraham He planted a Grove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tree which the Ancients generally make to have been a large spreading Oak and some foundation there is for it in the sacred Text for the place where Abraham planted it is called the Plain of Mamre or as in the Hebrew he dwelt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Oaks of Mamre and so the Syriack renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The House of the Oak The name whereof Josephus tells us was Ogyges and it is not a conjecture to be despised that Noah might probably inhabit in this place and either give the name to it or at least derive his from it Ogyges being the Name by which he is usually described in foreign Writers This very Oak S. Hierom assures us and Eusebius intimates as much was yet standing till the time of Constantine and worshipped with great superstition And Sozomen tells us more particularly that there was a famous Mart held there every Summer and a Feast celebrated by a general confluence of the neighbouring Countries and persons of all Religions both Christians Jews and Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one doing honour to this Place according to the different Principles of their Religion but that Constantine being offended that the Place should be prophan'd with the superstitions of the Jews and the idolatry of the Gentiles wrote with some severity to Macarius the Bishop of Jerusalem and the Bishops of Palestine that they should destroy the Altars and Images and deface all Monuments of Idolatry and restore the Place to its ancient Sanctity Which was accordingly done and a Church erected in the Place where God was purely and sincerely worshipped From this Oak the ordinary place of Abraham's worship and devotion the Religion of the Gentiles doubtless derived its Oaks and Groves and particularly the Druids the great and almost only Masters and Directors of all Learning and Religion among the Ancient Britains hence borrowed their Original who are so notoriously known to have lived wholly under Oaks and in Groves and there to have delivered their Doctrines and Precepts and to have exercised their Religious and mysterious Rites that hence they fetched their denomination either from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Ancients generally thought or more probably from the old Cetlic word Deru both signifying an Oak and which
the Welch the Descendants of the Ancient Britains still call Derw at this day But of this enough 9. FROM the place where we proceed to the times when they usually paid their Devotions And seeing Order is necessary in all undertakings and much more in the actions of Religion we cannot think that Mankind was left at a roving uncertainty in a matter of so great importance but that they had their stated and solemn times of Worship especially when we find among all Nations even the most rude and unpolished Heathens times peculiarly set apart for the honour of their gods and the publick solemnities of Religion And so no question it was in the more early Ages of the World they had fix'd and appropriate Seasons when they met together to do homage unto God and to offer up their joynt-acknowledgments to Heaven Thus we read of Cain that he brought his oblation in process of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the end of days at one of those fixed and periodical returns when they used to meet in the Religious Assemblies the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting not simply an end but a determinate and an appointed end I know many with great zeal and eagerness contend that the Sabbath or Seventh Day from the Creation was set apart and universally observed as the time of Publick Worship and that from the beginning of the World But alas the foundation upon which this opinion is built is very weak and sandy having nothing to rely on but one place where it is said that God resting on the Seventh Day from all his Works blessed the Seventh Day and sanctified it Which words are reasonably thought to have been set down by Moses by way of Prolepsis as it was in his time if they relate at all to the Sabbath and are not rather to be understood of God's blessing and sanctifying the Seventh Day as having then completed all his Works in the creating of Man and in whom as in the crown and glory of the Creation he would sanctifie himself For that it should be meant of a Weekly Sabbath hath as little countenance from this Text as it hath from the practice of those times there being no footsteps or shadow of any such Sabbath kept through all the Patriarchal periods of the Church till the times of Moses which besides the evidence of the story is universally owned by the Ancient Jews and very many of the Fathers do expresly assert it 10. THE last circumstance concerns the Persons by whom the Publick Worship was administred Impossible it is that any Society should be regularly managed where there are not some peculiar Persons to superintend direct and govern the affairs of it And God who in all other things is a God of Order is much more so in matters of Religion and therefore no doubt from the beginning appointed those whose care and business it should be to discharge the publick parts of Piety and Devotion in the name of the rest Now the Priesthood in those times was vested in the Heads of Tribes and in the first-born of every Family To the Patriarch or Head of every Tribe it belonged to bless the Family to offer Sacrifice to interceed for them by Prayer and to minister in other solemn acts of Religion And this Office hereditarily descended to the first-born who had power to discharge it during the life of his Father for it was not necessary that he who was Priest by vertue of his primogeniture should be also the eldest of the House Jacob who succeeded in his Brother 's right offered Sacrifices in the life of his Father Isaac and Abraham was a Priest though Sem the Head of the Family and ten degrees removed from him in a direct line was then alive yea survived Abraham as some learned men think near Forty Years Every first-born had three great Prerogatives a double portion of the Paternal inheritance a Lordship and Principality over his Brethren and a right to the Priesthood to instruct them in the knowledge of Divine things and to manage the common Offices of Religion So that in those times there was a particular Priesthood in every Family the administration whereof was usually appropriate to the first-born Thus Noah Abraham and Isaac offered Sacrifices and Job who lived about that time or not long after both for his Children and his Friends Thus Esau was a Priest by his primogeniture and that goodly Raiment of her son Esau which Rebeccah put upon Jacob when he went in to his Father is by many not improbably understood of the Sacerdotal Vestments wherein as first-born he was wont to execute his Office Of these Priests we are to understand that Place Let the Priests which come near to the Lord sanctifie themselves This could not be meant of the Levitical Priests the Aaronical Order not being yet instituted and therefore must be understood of the Priesthood of the first-born and so Jarchi's gloss expounds it Thus when Moses had built an Altar at the foot of the Mountain he sent young men of the children of Israel which offered burnt-offerings and sacrificed peace-offerings unto the Lord. Where for young men the Chaldee Paraphrase and the Hierusalem Targum have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first-born of the children of Israel so has that of Jonathan who expresly adds this reason for unto that very Hour the worship remained among the first-born the Tabernacle of the Covenant not being yet made nor the Aaronical Priesthood set up So when Jacob bequeathed his blessing to Reuben Reuben thou art my first-born my might and the beginning of my strength the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power the same Jewish Paraphrasts tell us that there were three things in this blessing conveyed and confirmed to Reuben the Birth-right the Kingdom and the Priesthood but that for his enormous and unnatural sin they were transferred to others the primogeniture to Joseph the Kingdom to Judah and the Priesthood to Levi. But though the Sacerdotal function ordinarily belonged to the first-born yet was it not so wholly invested in them but that it might in some cases be exercised by younger Brothers especially when passing into other Families and themselves becoming Heads of Tribes and Families Abraham we know was not a first-born and it 's highly probable that Sem himself was not Noah's eldest Son Moses was a Priest yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call him the Priest of Priests and yet was but Amram's second Son and Aaron's younger Brother So that the case in short seemed to lie thus The Patriarch or surviving Head of every Tribe was a kind of High-Priest over all the Families that were descended from him the first-born in every Family was the ordinary Priest who might officiate in his Father's stead and who after his decease succeeded in his room the younger Brethren when leaving their Father's house and themselves becoming heads of Families and their seats removed
Mountain burning like fire when they came upon them which whether the Reader will have faith enough to believe I know not Jared being near his death advised his Children to be wise by the folly of their Brethren and to have nothing to do with that prophane generation His son Enoch followed in his steps a man of admirable strictness and piety and peculiarly exemplary for his innocent and holy conversation it being particularly noted of him that he walked with God He set the Divine Majesty before him as the guide and pattern the spectator and rewarder of his actions in all his ways endeavoured to approve himself to his All-seeing eye by doing nothing but what was grateful and acceptable to him he was the great instance of vertue and goodness in an evil Age and by the even tenor and constancy of a holy and a religious life shewed his firm belief and expectation of a future state and his hearty dependence upon the Divine goodness for the rewards of a better life And God who is never behind-hand with his servants crowned his extraordinary obedience with an uncommon reward By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God And what that faith was is plain by what follows after a belief of God's Being and his Bounty Without faith it is impossible to please him For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him What this translation was and whither it was made whether into that Terrestrial Paradise out of which Adam was expelled and banished and whereunto Enoch had desired of God he might be translated as some fancy or whether placed among the Stars as others or carried into the highest Heavens as others will have it were nice and useless speculations 'T is certain he was taken out of these mutable Regions and set beyond the reach of those miseries and misfortunes to which a present state of sin and mortality does betray us translated probably both Soul and Body that he might be a type and specimen of a future Resurrection and a sensible demonstration to the World that there is a reward for the righteous and another state after this wherein good Men shall be happy for ever I pass by the fancy of the Jews as vain and frivolous that though Enoch was a good Man yet was he very mutable and inconstant and apt to be led aside and that this was the reason why God translated him so soon lest he should have been debauched by the charms and allurements of a wicked World He was an eminent Prophet and a fragment of his Prophecy is yet extant in S. Jude's Epistle by which it appears that wickedness was then grown rampant and the manners of men very corrupt and vicious and that he as plainly told them of their faults and that Divine vengeance that would certainly overtake them Of Methuselah his Son nothing considerable is upon Record but his great Age living full DCCCCLXIX Years the longest proportion which any of the Patriarchs arrived to and died in that very Year wherein the Floud came upon the World 15. FROM his Son Lamech concerning whom we find nothing memorable we proceed to his Grandchild Noah by the very imposition of whose Name his Parents presaged that he would be a refreshment and comfort to the World and highly instrumental to remove that curse which God by an Universal Deluge was bringing upon the Earth He called his Name Noah saying This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed he was one in whom his Parents did acquiesce and rest satisfied that he would be eminently useful and serviceable to the World Indeed he proved a person of incomparable sanctity and integrity a Preacher of righteousness to others and who as carefully practised it himself He was a just man and perfect in his generation and he walked with God He did not warp and decline with the humour of the Age he lived in but maintained his station and kept his Line He was upright in his Generation 'T is no thanks to be religious when it is the humour and fashion of the Times the great trial is when we live in the midst of a corrupt generation It is the crown of vertue to be good when there are all manner of temptations to the contrary when the greatest part of Men go the other way when vertue and honesty are laughed and drolled on and censured as an over-wise and affected singularity when lust and debauchery are accounted the modes of Gallantry and pride and oppression suffered to ride in prosperous triumphs without controll Thus it was with Noah he contended with the Vices of the Age and dared to own God and Religion when almost all Mankind besides himself had rejected and thrown them off For in his time wickedness openly appeared with a brazen Forehead and violence had covered the face of the Earth the promiscuous mixtures of the Children of Seth and Cain had produced Giants and mighty Men men strong to do evil and who had as much will as power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus describes them a race of men insolent and ungovernable scornful and injurious and who bearing up themselves in the confidence of their own strength despised all justice and equity and made every thing truckle under their extravagant lusts and appetites The very same character does Lucian give of the Men of this Age speaking of the times of Deucalion their Noah and the Floud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Men exceedingly scornful and contumelious and guilty of the most unrighteous and enormous actions violating all Oaths and Covenants throwing off kindness and hospitality and rejecting all addresses and supplications made to them For which cause great miseries overtook them for Heaven and Earth Seas and Rivers conspired together to pour out mighty Flouds upon the World which swept all away but Deucalion only who for his prudence and piety was left to repair Mankind And so he goes on with the relation consonant to the accounts of the Sacred story This infection had spread it self over all parts and was become so general and Epidemical that all Flesh had corrupted their ways and scarce any besides Noah lest to keep up the face of a Church and the profession of Religion Things being come to this pass quickly alarm'd the Divine Justice and made the World ripe for vengeance the patience of God was now tired out and he resolved to make Mankind feel the just effects of his incensed severity But yet in the midst of judgment he remembers mercy he tells them that though he would not suffer his patience to be eternally prostituted to the wanton humours of wicked men
desist from their vain and ambitious design as not being able to understand and converse with one another To Peleg succeeded his son Rehu to Rehu Serug to him Nachor to Nachor Terah who dwelt in Ur of the Chaldaeans where conversing with those Idolatrous Nations he laps'd himself into the most gross Idolatry So apt are men to follow a multitude to do evil so fatally mischievous is ill company and a bad example But the best way to avoid the plague is to remove out of the house of infection Away goes Terah to Haran where by repentance he is said to have recovered himself out of the snare of the Devil 17. ABRAHAM the second son of Terah succeeds in the Patriarchal Line In his minority he was educated in the Idolatries of his Father's house who they say was a maker of Statues and Images And the Jews tell us many pleasant stories of Abraham's going into the shop in the absence of his Father his breaking the Images and jeering those that came to buy or worship them of his Father's carrying him to Nimrod to be punished his witty answers and miraculous escapes But God who had designed him for higher and nobler purposes called him at length out of his Father's house fully discovered himself to him and by many solemn promises and federal compacts peculiarly engaged him to himself He was a man intirely devoted to the honour of God and had consecrated all his services to the interests of Religion scarce any duty either towards God or men for which he is not eminent upon record Towards God how great was his zeal and care to promote his worship erecting Altars almost in every place whereon he publickly offered his prayers and sacrifice His love to God wholly swallowed up the love and regard that he had to his dearest interests witness his intire resignation of himself his chearful renouncing all the concernments of his Estate and Family and especially his readiness to sacrifice his only son the son of his old age and which is above all the son of the promise when God by way of trial required it of him How vigorous and triumphant was his faith especially in the great promise of a son which he firmly embraced against all humane probabilities to the contrary Against hope he believed in hope and being strong in faith gave glory to God How hearty was his dependence upon the Divine Providence when called to leave his Father's house and to go into a strange Country how chearfully did he obey and go out though he knew not whither he went How unconquerable was his patience how even the composure of his mind in all conditions in fifteen several journeys that he undertook and ten difficult temptations which he underwent he never betrayed the least murmuring or hard thought of God Towards others he shewed the greatest tenderness and respect the most meek and unpassionate temper a mind inflamed with a desire of peace and concord Admirable his justice and equity in all his dealings his great hospitality and bounty towards strangers and for that end say the Jews he got him an house near the entring into Haran that he might entertain strangers as they went in or came out of the City at his own table as indeed he seems to have had that most excellent and Divine temper of mind an universal love and charity towards all men But his greatest charity appeared in the care that he took of the Souls of men Maimonides tells us that he kept a publick School of institution whither he gathered men together and instructed them in that truth which he himself had embraced and he gives us an account by what methods of reasoning and information he used to convince and perswade them But whatever he did towards others we are sure he did it towards those that were under his own charge He had a numerous family and a vast retinue and he was as careful to inform them in the knowledge of the true God and to instruct them in all the duties of Religion 'T is the character which God himself gave of him I know Abraham that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment And so he did his house being a School of piety wherein Religion was both taught and practised many reclaimed from the errors and idolatries of the times and all his domesticks and dependants solemnly dedicated to God by Circumcision Therefore when 't is said that he brought with him all the Souls which they had gotten in Haran the Paraphrase of Onkelos renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Souls which they had subjected to the Law in Haran Jonathans Targum and much at the same rate that of Jerusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Souls which they had made proselytes in Haran or as Solomon Jarchi expresses it a little more after the Hebrew mode the Souls which they had gathered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the wings of the Divine Majesty and he further adds that Abraham proselyted the men and Sarah the women So when elsewhere we read of his trained servants some of the Jewish Masters expound it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that were initiated and trained up in the knowledge of the Law Such being the temper of this holy man God was pleased frequently to converse with him and to impart his mind to him acquainting him with the secret counsels and purposes of his Providence whence he is stiled the friend of God But that which shewed him to be most dear to Heaven was the Covenant which God solemnly made with him wherein binding Abraham and his seed to a sincere and universal obedience he obliged himself to become their God to be his shield and his exceeding great reward to take his posterity for his peculiar people to encrease their number and to inlarge their power to settle them in a rich and a pleasant Country a type of that Heavenly and better Country that is above and which was the crown of all that in his seed all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed that is the promised Messiah should proceed out of his loins who should be a common blessing to mankind in whom both Jew and Gentile should be justified and saved and he by that means become spiritually the Father of many Nations This Covenant was ratified and ensured on God's part by a solemn oath For when God made promise to Abraham because he could swear by no greater he sware by himself saying Surely blessing I will bless thee and multiplying I will multiply thee On Abraham's part it was sealed with the Sacrament of Circumcision which God instituted as a peculiar federal rite to distinguish Abraham's posterity from all other people Abraham died in the CLXXV year of his Age and was buried in the Sepulchre which himself had purchased of the sons of Heth. Contemporary with Abraham was his
Nephew Lot a just man but vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked for dwelling in the midst of an impure and debauched generation In seeing and hearing he vexed his righteous Soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds This endeared him to Heaven who took a particular care of him and sent an Angel on purpose to conduct him and his family out of Sodom before he let loose that fatal vengeance that overturned it 18. Abraham being dead Isaac stood up in his stead the son of his Parents old age and the fruit of an extraordinary promise Being delivered from being a sacrifice he frequented say the Jews the School of Sem wherein he was educated in the knowledge of Divine things till his marriage with Rebeccah But however that was he was a good man we read of his going out to meditate or pray in the field at even-tide and elsewhere we find him publickly sacrificing and calling upon God In all his distresses God still appeared to him animated him against his fears and encouraged him to go on in the steps of his Father renewing the same promises to him which he had made to Abraham Nay so visible and remarkable was the interest which he had in Heaven that Abimelech King of the Philistines and his Courtiers thought it their wisest course to confederate with him for this very reason because they saw certainly that the Lord was with him and that he was the blessed of the Lord. Religion is the truest interest and the wisest portion 't is the surest protection and the safest refuge When a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Isaac dying in the CLXXX year of his life the Patriarchate devolved upon his son Jacob by vertue of the primogeniture which he had purchased of his brother Esau and which had been confirmed to him by the grant and blessing of his Father though subtilly procured by the artifice and policy of his Mother who also told him that God Almighty would bless and multiply him and his seed after him and that the blessing of Abraham should come upon them He intirely devoted himself to the fear and service of God kept up his Worship and vindicated it from the incroachments of Idolatry he erected Altars at every turn and zealously purged his house from those Teraphim or Idols which Rachel had brought along with her out of Laban's house either to prevent her Father's enquiring at them which way Jacob had made his escape or to take away from him the instruments of his Idolatry or possibly that she might have wherewith to propitiate and pacifie her Father in case he should pursue and overtake them as Josephus thinks though surely then she would have produced them when she saw her Father so zealous to retrieve them He had frequent Visions and Divine condescensions God appearing to him and ratifying the Covenant that he had made with Abraham and changing his name from Jacob to Israel as a memorial of the mighty prevalency which he had with Heaven In his later time he removed his family into Egypt where God had prepared his way by the preferment of his son Joseph to be Vice-Roy and Lord of that vast and fertile Country advanced to that place of state and grandeur by many strange and unsearchable methods of the Divine Providence By his two Wives the Daughters of his Uncle Laban and his two Handmaids he had twelve Sons who afterwards became founders of the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish Nation to whom upon his deathbed he bequeathed his blessings consigning their several portions and the particular fates of every Tribe among whom that of Judah is most remarkable to whom it was foretold that the Messiah should arise out of that Tribe that the Regal Power and Political Soveraignty should be annexed to it and remain in it till the Messiah came at whose coming the Scepter should depart and the Law-giver from between his knees And thus all their own Paraphrasts both Onkelos Jonathan and he of Jerusalem do expound it that there should not want Kings or Rulers of the house of Judah nor Scribes to teach the Law of that race 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until the time that Messiah the King shall come whose the Kingdom is And so it accordingly came to pass for at the time of Christ's Birth Herod who was a stranger had usurped the Throne debased the authority of their great Sanhedrim murdered their Senators devested them of all Judiciary power and kept them so low that they had not power left to put a man to death And unto him shall the gathering of the people be A prophecy exactly accomplished when in the first Ages of Christianity the Nations of the World flocked to the standard of Christ at the publication of the Gospel Jacob died CXLVII years old and was buried in Canaan in the Sepulchre of his Fathers After whose decease his posterity for some hundreds of years were afflicted under the Egyptian yoke Till God remembring the Covenant he had made with their Fathers powerfully rescued them from the Iron Furnace and conducted them through the wilderness into the Land of Promise where he framed and ordered their Commonwealth appointed Laws for the government of their Church and setled them under a more fixed and certain dispensation 19. HITHERTO we have surveyed the state of the Church in the constant succession of the Patriarchal Line But if we step a little further into the History of those times we shall find that there were some extraordinary persons without the Pale of that holy Tribe renowned for the worship of God and the profession of Religion among whom two are most considerable Melchisedeck and Job Melchisedeck was King of Salem in the land of Canaan and Priest of the most high God The short account which the Scripture gives of him hath left room for various fancies and conjectures The opinion that has most generally obtained is that Melchisedeck was Sem one of the sons of Noah who was of a great Age and lived above LXX years after Abraham's coming into Canaan and might therefore well enough meet him in his triumphant return from his conquest over the Kings of the Plain But notwithstanding the universal authority which this opinion assumes to it self it appears not to me with any tolerable probability partly because Canaan where Melchisedeck lived was none of those Countries which were allotted to Sem and to his posterity and unlikely it is that he should be Prince in a foreign Country partly because those things which the Scripture reports concerning Melchisedeck do no ways agree to Sem as that he was without Father and Mother without genealogie c. whenas Moses does most exactly describe and record Sem and his Family both as to his Ancestors and as to his posterity That therefore which seems most probable in the case is that he was one of the Reguli or petty Kings
Well in the way between Ramah and Jerusalem others place it in Syria near Damascus so called from Uz the supposed Founder of that City others a little more Northward at Apamea now called Hama where his house is said to be shewed at this day Most make it to be part of Idumaea near mount Seir or else Arabia the Desart probably it was in the confines of both this part of Arabia being nearest to the Sabaeans and Chaldaeans who invaded him and most applicable to his dwelling among the Sons of the East to the situation of his friends who came to visit him and best corresponding with those frequent Arabisms discernable both in the Language and Discourses of Job and his Friends not to say that this Country produced persons exceedingly addicted to Learning and Contemplation and the studies of natural Philosophy whence the wise men who came out of the East to worship Christ are thought by many to have been Arabians For his kindred and his friends we find four taken notice of who came to visit him in his distress Eliphaz the Temanite the son probably of Teman and grandchild of Esau by his eldest son Eliphaz the Country deriving its name Teman from his Father and was situate in Idumaea in the borders of the Desart Arabia Bildad the Shuhite a descendant in all likelihood of Shuah one of the sons of Abraham by his wife Keturah whose seat was in this part of Arabia Zophar the Naamathite a Country lying near those parts And Elihu the Buzite of the off-spring of Buz the son of Nahor and so nearly related to Job himself He was the son of Barachel of the kindred of Ram who was the head of the Family and his habitation was in the parts of Arabia the Desart near Euphrates or at least in the Southern part of Mesopotamia bordering upon it As for Job himself he is made by some a Canaanite of the posterity of Cham by others to descend from Sem by his son Amram whose eldest sons name was Uz by most from Esau the Father of the Idumaean Nations but most probably either from Abraham's brother whose sons were Huz Buz Chesed c. or from Abraham himself by some of the sons which he had by his wife Keturah whereby an account is most probably given how Job came to be imbued with those seeds of Piety and true Religion for which he was so eminently remarkable as deriving them from those Religious principles and instructions which Abraham and Nahor had bequeathed to their posterity His quality and the circumstances of his External state were very considerable a man rich and honourable His substance was seven thousand Sheep and three thousand Camels and five hundred yoke of Oxen and five hundred she-Asses and a very great houshold so that he was the greatest of all the men of the East himself largely describes the great honour and prosperity of his fortunes that he washed his steps in Butter and the rock poured out rivers of Oil when he went out to the gate through the City and prepared his seat in the street the young men saw him and hid themselves the aged arose and stood up the Princes refrained talking and laid their hand on their mouth c. He delivered the poor that cried and the fatherless and him that had none to help him the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him c. He brake the jaws of the wicked and pluckt the spoil out of their teeth c. Indeed so great his state and dignity that it has led many into a perswasion that he was King of Idumaea a powerful and mighty Prince a fancy that has received no small encouragement from the common but groundless confounding of Job with Jobah King of Edom of the race of Esau. For the story gives no intimation of any such royal dignity to which Job was advanced but always speaks of him as a private person though exceeding wealthy and prosperous and thereby probably of extraordinary power and estimation in his Country Nay that he might not want fit Companions in his Regal capacity three of his friends are made Kings as well as he the LXX Translators themselves stiling Eliphaz King of the Temanites Bildad of the Suchites and Zophar King of the Minaeans though with as little probably less reason than the former 21. BUT whatever his condition was we are sure he was no less eminent for Piety and Religion he was a man perfect and upright one that feared God and eschewed evil Though living among the Idolatrous Gentiles he kept up the true and sincere worship of God daily offered up Sacrifices and Prayers to Heaven piously instructed his Children and Family lived in an intire dependence upon the Divine Providence in all his discourses expressed the highest and most honourable sentiments and thoughts of God and such as best became the Majesty of an Infinite Being in all transactions he was just and righteous compassionate and charitable modest and humble indeed by the character of God himself who knew him best There was none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright man fearing God and eschewing evil his mind was submissive and compliant his patience generous and unshaken great even to a Proverb You have heard of the Patience of Job And enough he had to try it to the utmost if we consider what sufferings he underwent those evils which are wont but singly to seise upon other men all centred and met in him Plundered in his Estate by the Sabaean and Chaldaean Free-booters whose standing livelihood were spoils and robberies and not an Oxe or Asse left of all the Herd not a Sheep or a Lamb either for Food or Sacrifice Undone in his Posterity his Seven Sons and Three Daughters being all slain at once by the fall of one House blasted in his credit and good name and that by his nearest friends who traduced and challenged him for a dissembler and an hypocrite Ruined in his health being smitten with sore boils from the crown of the Head to the sole of the Foot till his Body became a very Hospital of Diseases tormented in his mind with sad and uncomfortable reflections The arrows of the Almighty being shot within him the poison whereof drank up his spirit the terrors of God setting themselves in array against him All which were aggravated and set home by Satan the grand Engineer of all those torments and all this continuing for at least Twelve Months say the Jews probably for a much longer time and yet endured with great courage and fortitude of mind till God put a period to this tedious Trial and crowned his sufferings with an ample restitution We have seen who this excellent Person was we are next to enquire when he lived And here we meet with almost an infinite variety of Opinions some making him contemporary with Abraham others with Jacob which had he been we should doubtless have found some mention of him
herein he literally made good the character of Elias who is described as an hairy man girt with a Leathern girdle about his Loins His Diet suitable to his Garb his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Locusts accounted by all Nations among the meanest and vilest sorts of food wild honey such as the natural artifice and labour of the Bees had stored up in caverns and hollow Trees without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up Indeed his abstinence was so great and his food so unlike other Mens that the Evangelist says of him that he came neither eating nor drinking as if he had eaten nothing or at least what was worth nothing But Meat commends us not to God it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of Heaven The place of his abode was not in Kings houses in stately and delicate Palaces but where he was born and bred the Wilderness of Judaea he was in the Desarts until the time of his shewing unto Israel Divine grace is not confined to particular places it is not the holy City or the Temple at Mount Sion makes us nearer unto Heaven God can when he please consecrate a Desart into a Church make us gather Grapes among Thorns and Religion become fruitful in a barren Wilderness 4. PREPARED by so singular an Education and furnished with an immediate Commission from God he entred upon the actual administration of his Office In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr calls him the Herald to Proclaim the first approach of the Holy Jesus his whole Ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him For this is he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias saying The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight He told the Jews that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand and his Kingdom ready to appear that the Son of God was come down from Heaven a Person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest Offices that he came to introduce a new and better state of things to enlighten the World with the clearest Revelations of the Divine will and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaick Dispensation and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows and to open a Fountain of grace and fulness to Mankind to remove that state of guilt into which humane nature was so deeply sunk and as the Lamb of God by the expiatory Sacrifice of himself to take away the sin of the World not like the continual Burnt-offering the Lamb offered Morning and Evening only for the sins of the House of Israel but for Jew and Gentile Barbarian and Scythian bond and free he told them that God had a long time born with the sins of Men and would now bring things to a quicker issue and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the Gospel that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external priviledges the Fatherhood of Abraham and their being God's select and peculiar People that God would raise up to himself another Generation a Posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles who should walk in his steps in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience and that if all this did not move them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance the Axe was laid to the root of the Tree to extirpate their Church and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable Fire His free and resolute preaching together with the great severity of his life procured him a vast Auditory and numerous Proselytes for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and the Region round about Jordan Persons of all ranks and orders of all Sects and Opinions Pharisees and Sadducees Souldiers and Publicans whose Vices he impartially censured and condemned and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations Those whom he gained over to be Proselytes to his Doctrine he entred into this new Institution of life by Baptism and hence he derived his Title of the Baptist a solemn and usual way of initiating Proselytes no less than Circumcision and of great antiquity in the Jewish Church In all times says Maimonides if any Gentile would enter into Covenant remain under the wings of the Schechina or Divine Majesty and take upon him the yoke of the Law he is bound to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering and if a Woman Baptism and an Oblation because it is said As ye are so shall the stranger be as ye your selves entred into Covenant by Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering so ought the Proselyte also in all Ages to enter in Though this last he confesses is to be omitted during their present state of desolation and to be made when their Temple shall be rebuilt This Rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the Law So Maimonides By three things says he the Israelites entred into Covenant he means the National Covenant at Mount Sinai by Circumcision Baptism and an Oblation Baptism being used some little time before the Law which he proves from that place Sanctifie the People to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes This the Rabbins unanimously expound concerning Baptism and expresly affirm that where-ever we read of the Washing of Clothes there an obligation to Baptism is intended Thus they entred into the first Covenant upon the frequent violations whereof God having promised to make a new and solemn Covenant with them in the times of the Messiah they expected a second Baptism as that which should be the Rite of their Initiation into it And this probably is the reason why the Apostle writing to the Hebrews speaks of the Doctrine of Baptisms in the plural number as one of the primary and elementary Principles of the faith wherein the Catechumens were to be instructed meaning that besides the Baptism whereby they had been initiated into the Mosaick Covenant there was another by which they were to enter into this new Oeconomy that was come upon the World Hence the Sanhedrim to whom the cognizance of such cases did peculiarly appertain when told of John's Baptism never expressed any wonder at it as a new upstart Ceremony it being a thing daily practised in their Church nor found fault with the thing it self which they supposed would be a federal Rite under the
admirably did God herein condescend to the temper and humour of that people for being of a more rough and childish disposition apt to be taken with gaudy and sensible objects by the external and pompous institutions of the Ceremonial Dispensation he prepared them for better things as children are brought on by things accommodate to their weak capacities The Church was then an heir under age and was to be trained up in such a way as agreed best with its Infant-temper till it came to be of a more ripe manly age able to digest Evangelical mysteries and then the cover and the veil was taken off and things made to appear in their own form and shape 7. HENCE in the next place appears our happiness above them that we are redeemed from those many severe and burdensom impositions wherewith they were clogg'd and are now obliged only to a more easie and reasonable service That the Law was a very grievous and servile Dispensation is evident to any that considers how much it consisted of carnal ordinances costly duties chargeable sacrifices and innumerable little Rites and Ceremonies Under that state they were bound to undergo yea even new-born Infants the bloudy and painful Ceremony of Circumcision to abstain from many sorts of food useful and pleasant to man's life to keep multitudes of solemn and stated times new Moons and Ceremonial Sabbaths to take long and tedious journeys to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices at the Temple to observe daily washings and purifications to use infinite care and caution in every place for if by chance they did but touch an unclean thing besides their present confinement it put them to the expences of a sacrifice with hundreds more troublesom and costly observances required of them A cruel bondage heavy burdens and grievous to be born under the weight whereof good men did then groan and earnestly breath after the time of reformation the very Apostles complained that it was a yoke upon their necks which neither their Fathers nor they were able to bear But this yoke is taken off from our shoulders and the way open into the liberties of the children of God The Law bore a heavy hand over them as children in their minority we are got from under the rod and lash of its tutorage and Pedagogie and are no more subject to the severity of its commands to the exact punctilio's and numerousness of its impositions Our Lord has removed that low and troublesome Religion and has brought in a more manly and rational way of worship more suitable to the perfections of God and more accommodate to the reason and understandings of men A Religion incomparably the wisest and the best that ever took place in the World God did not settle the Religion of the Jews and their way of worship because good and excellent in it self but for its suitableness to the temper of that people Happy we whom the Gospel has freed from those intolerable observances to which they were obliged and has taught us to serve God in a better way more easie and acceptable more humane and natural and in which we are helped forwards by greater aids of Divine assistence than were afforded under that Dispensation All which conspire to render our way smooth and plain Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easie and my burden is light 8. THIRDLY the Dispensation of the Gospel is founded upon more noble and excellent promises A better Covenant established upon better promises And better promises they are both for the nature and clearness of their revelation They are of a more sublime and excellent nature as being promises of spiritual and eternal things such as immediately concern the perfection and happiness of mankind grace peace pardon and eternal life The Law strictly considered as a particular Covenant with the Jews at Mount Sinai had no other promises but of temporal blessings plenty and prosperity and the happiness of this life This was all that appeared above-ground and that was expresly held forth in that transaction whatever might otherwise by due inferences and proportions of reason be deduced from it Now this was a great defect in that Dispensation it being by this means considering the nature and disposition of that people and the use they would make of it apt to intangle and debase the minds of men and to arrest their thoughts and desires in the pursuit of more sublime and better things I do not say but that under the Old Testament there were promises of spiritual things and of eternal happiness as appears from David's Psalms and some passages in the Books of the Prophets But then these though they were under the Law yet they were not of the Law that is did not properly belong to it as a legal Covenant God in every age of the Jewish Church raising up some extraordinary persons who preached notions to the people above the common standard of that Dispensation and who spoke things more plainly by how much nearer they approached the times of the Messiah But under the Christian Oeconomy the promises are evidently more pure and spiritual not a temporal Canaan external prosperity or pardon of ceremonial uncleanness but remission of sins reconciliation with God and everlasting life are proposed and offered to us Not but that in some measure temporal blessings are promised to us as well as them only with this difference to them earthly blessings were pledges of spiritual to us spiritual blessings are ensurances of temporal so far as the Divine wisdom sees fit for us Nor are they better in themselves than they are clearly discovered and revealed to us Whatever spiritual blessings were proposed under the former state were obscure and dark and very few of the people understood them But to us the veil is taken off and we behold the glory of the Lord with open face especially the things that relate to another World for this is the promise that he hath promised us even Eternal Life Hence our Lord is said to have brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel Which he may be justly said to have done inasmuch as he has given the greatest certainty and the clearest account of that state He hath given us the greatest assurance and certainty of the thing that there is such a state The happiness of the other World was a notion not so firmly agreed upon either amongst Jews or Gentiles Among the Jews it was peremptorily denied by the Sadducees a considerable Sect in that Church which we can hardly suppose they would have done had it been clearly propounded in the Law of Moses And among the Heathens the most sober and considering persons did at some times at least doubt of it witness that confession of Socrates himself the wisest and best man that ever was in the Heathen World who when he came to plead his cause before his Judges and had bravely discoursed of the happy state of good men in the other Life
enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the universal extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideon's Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jews themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it 's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jews or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all Nations and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their words unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined only to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or the first-fruits of the Ground but an honest heart and a pious life and a grateful acknowledgment
IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passeover 14. SECT V. Of S. Peter from the last Passeover till the Death of Christ. 20. SECT VI. Of S. Peter from Christ's Resurrection till his Ascension 25. SECT VII S. Peter's Acts from our Lord's Ascension till the dispersion of the Church 29. SECT VIII Of S. Peter's Acts from the dispersion of the Church at Jerusalem till his contest with S. Paul at Antioch 37. SECT IX Of S. Peter's Acts from the End of the Sacred story till his Martyrdom 43. SECT X. The Character of his Person and Temper and an account of his Writings 49. SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome 54. The Life of S. Paul SECT I. Of S. Paul from his Birth till his Conversion Page 61. SECT II. Of S. Paul from his Conversion till the Council at Jerusalem 67. SECT III. Of S. Paul from the time of the Synod at Jerusalem till his departure from Athens 73. SECT IV. Of S. Paul's Acts at Corinth and Ephesus 82. SECT V. S. Paul's Acts from his departure from Ephesus till his Arraignment before Felix 88. SECT VI. Of S. Paul from his first Trial before Felix till his coming to Rome 95. SECT VII S. Paul's Acts from his coming to Rome till his Martyrdom 101. SECT VIII The description of his Person and Temper together with an account of his Writings 108. SECT IX The principal Controversies that exercised the Church in his time 116. The Life of S. Andrew Page 131. The Life of S. James the Great 139. The Life of S. John 149. The Life of S. Philip. 163. The Life of S. Bartholomew 169. The Life of S. Matthew Page 175. The Life of S. Thomas Page 183. The Life of S. James the Less 189. The Life of S. Simon the Zealot 197. The Life of S. Jude 201. The Life of S. Matthias 207. The Life of S. Mark the Evangelist 213. The Life of S. Luke the Evangelist 221. Diptycha Apostolica Or an Enumeration of the Apostles and their Successors for the first three hundred years in the five great Churches said to have been founded by them pag. 227. The goodly CEDAR of Apostolick Catholick EPISCOPACY compared with the moderne Shoots Slips of divided NOVELTIES in the Church before the Introduction of the Apostles Lives Place 〈◊〉 Figure at Page ◠THE INTRODUCTION Christs faithfulness in appointing Officers in his Church The dignity of the Apostles above the rest The importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The nature of the Apostolick Office considered Respect had in founding it to the custom among the Jews Their Apostoli who The number of the Apostles limited Why twelve the several conjectures of the Ancients Their immediate election Their work wherein it consisted The Universality of their Commission Apostolical Churches what How soon the Apostles propagated Christianity through the World An argument for the Divinity of the Christian Religion inferr'd thence The power conveyed to the Apostles equally given to all Peter 's superiority over the rest disprov'd both from Scripture and Antiquity The Apostles how qualified for their Mission Immediately taught the Doctrine they delivered Infallibly secur'd from Error in delivering it Their constant and familiar converse with their Master Furnished with a power of working Miracles The great evidence of it to prove a Divine Doctrine Miraculous powers conferr'd upon the Apostles particularly considered Prophecy what and when it ceas'd The gift of discerning Spirits The gift of Tongues The gift of Interpretation The unreasonable practice of the Church of Rome in keeping the Scripture and Divine Worship in an Unknown Tongue The gift of Healing Greatly advantageous to Christianity How long it lasted Power of Immediately inflicting corporal punishments and the great benefit of it in those times The Apostles enabled to confer miraculous powers upon others The Duration of the Apostolical Office What in it extraordinary what ordinary Bishops in what sence styled Apostles 1. JESUS CHRIST the great Apostle and High-Priest of our Profession being appointed by God to be the Supreme Ruler and Governor of his Church was like Moses faithful in all his house but with this honourable advantage that Moses was faithful as a servant Christ as a Son over his own house which he erected established and governed with all possible care and diligence Nor could he give a greater instance either of his fidelity towards God or his love and kindness to the Souls of men than that after he had purchas'd a Family to himself and could now no longer upon earth manage its interests in his own person he would not return back to Heaven till he had constituted several Orders of Officers in his Church who might superintend and conduct its affairs and according to the various circumstances of its state administer to the needs and exigencies of his Family Accordingly therefore he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The first and prime Class of Officers is that of Apostles God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets c. First Apostles as far in office as honour before the rest their election more immediate their commission more large and comprehensive the powers and priviledges wherewith they were furnished greater and more honourable Prophecy the gift of Miracles and expelling Daemons the order of Pastors and Teachers were all spiritual powers and ensigns of great authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Chrysostom but the Apostolick eminency is far greater than all these which therefore he calls a spiritual Consulship an Apostle having as great preheminence above all other officers in the Church as the Consul had above all other Magistrates in Rome These Apostles were a few select persons whom our Lord chose out of the rest to devolve part of the Government upon their shoulders and to depute for the first planting and setling Christianity in the World He chose twelve whom he named Apostles of whose Lives and Acts being to give an Historical account in the following work it may not possibly be unuseful to premise some general remarks concerning them not respecting this or that particular person but of a general relation to the whole wherein we shall especially take notice of the importance of the word the nature of the imployment the fitness and qualification of the persons and the duration and continuance of the Office II. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sent is among ancient Writers applied either to things actions or persons To things thus those Dimissory letters that were granted to such who appeal'd from an Inferiour to a Superiour
which every where set it self against it 'T is true the impostures of Muhammed in a very little time gained a great part of the East But besides that this was not comparable to the universal spreading of Christianity his doctrine was calculated on purpose to gratifie mens lusts and especially to comply with the loose and wanton manners of the East and which is above all had the sword to hew out its way before it and we know how ready even without force in all changes and revolutions of the World the conquered have been to follow the Religion of the Conquerors Whereas the Apostles had no visible advantages nay had all the enraged powers of the World to contend against them And yet in despite of all went on in triumph and quickly made their way into those places where for so many Ages no other conquest ever came those parts of Britain as Tertullian observes which were unconquerable and unapproachable by the power of the Roman Armies submitting their necks to the yoke of Christ. A mighty evidence as he there argues of Christ's Divinity and that he was the true Messiah And indeed no reasonable account can be given of the strange and successful progress of the Christian Religion in those first Ages of it but that it was the birth of Heaven and had a Divine and Invisible power going along with it to succeed and prosper it S. Chrysostom discourses this argument at large some of whose elegant reasonings I shall here transcribe He tells the Gentile with whom he was disputing that he would not prove Christ's Deity by a demonstration from Heaven by his Creation of the World his great and stupendious miracles his raising the dead curing the blind expelling Devils nor from the mighty promises of a future state and the resurrection of the dead which an Infidel might easily not only question but deny but from what was sufficiently evident and obvious to the meanest Idiot his planting and propagating Christianity in the World For it is not says he in the power of a meer man in so short a time to encircle the World to compass Sea and Land and in matters of so great importance to rescue mankind from the slavery of absurd and unreasonable customs and the powerful tyranny of evil habits and these not Romans only but Persians and the most barbarous Nations of the World A reformation which he wrought not by force and the power of the sword nor by pouring into the world numerous Legions and Armies but by a few inconsiderable men no more at first than Eleven a company of obscure and mean simple and illiterate poor and helpless naked and unarmed persons who had scarce a shooe to tread on or a coat to cover them And yet by these he perswaded so great a part of mankind to be able freely to reason not only of things of the present but of a future state to renounce the Laws of their Country and throw off those ancient and inveterate customs which had taken root for so many Ages and planted others in their room and reduced men from those easie ways whereinto they were hurried into the more rugged and difficult paths of vertue All which he did while he had to contend with opposite powers and when he himself had undergone the most ignominious death even the death of the Cross. Afterwards he addresses himself to the Jew and discourses with him much after the same rate Consider says he and bethink thy self what it is in so short a time to fill the whole World with so many famous Churches to convert so many Nations to the Faith to prevail with Men to forsake the Religion of their Country to root up their rites and customs to shake off the Empire of lust and pleasure and the Laws of vice like dust to abolish and abominate their Temples and their Altars their Idols and their Sacrifices their profane and impious Festivals as dirt and dung and instead hereof to set up Christian Altars in all places among the Romans Persians Scythians Moors and Indians and not there only but in the Countries beyond this World of ours For even the British Islands that lie beyond the Ocean and those that are in it have felt the power of the Christian Faith Churches and Altars being erected there to the service of Christ. A matter truly great and admirable and which would clearly have demonstrated a Divine and Supereminent Power although there had been no opposition in the case but that all things had run on calmly and smoothly to think that in so few years the Christian Faith should be able to reclaim the whole World from its vicious customs and to win them over to other manners more laborious and difficult repugnant both to their native inclinations and to the Laws and Principles of their education and such as oblig'd them to a more strict and accurate course of life and these persons not one or two not twenty or an hundred but in a manner all Mankind and this brought about by no better instruments than a few rude and unlearned private and unknown tradesmen who had neither estate nor reputation learning nor eloquence kindred nor Country to recommend them to the World a few Fishermen and Tent-makers and whom distinguished by their Language as well as their Religion the rest of the World scorn'd as barbarous And yet these were the men by whom our Lord built up his Church and extended it from one end of the World unto the other Other considerations there are with which the Father does urge and illustrate this argument which I forbear to insist on in this place VII Sixthly The power and authority convey'd by this Commission to the Apostles was equally conferr'd upon all of them They were all chosen at the same time all equally impowred to Preach and Baptize all equally intrusted with the power of binding and loosing all invested with the same mission and all equally furnished with the same gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost Indeed the Advocates of the Church of Rome do with a mighty zeal and fierceness contend for S. Peter's being Head and Prince of the Apostles advanced by Christ to a supremacy and prerogative not only above but over the rest of the Apostles and not without reason the fortunes of that Church being concerned in the supremacy of S. Peter No wonder therefore they ransack all corners press and force in whatever may but seem to give countenance to it Witness those thin and miserable shifts which Bellarmine calls arguments to prove and make it good so utterly devoid of all rational conviction so unable to justifie themselves to sober and considering men that a Man would think they had been contrived for no other purpose than to cheat fools and make wise men laugh And the truth is nothing with me more shakes the reputation of the wisdom of that learned man than his making use of such weak and trifling arguments in so
being more usual in those times than for persons excommunicate and cut off from the body of the Church to be presently arrested by Satan as the common Serjeant and Executioner and by him either actually possessed or tormented in their bodies by some diseases which he brought upon them And indeed this severe discipline was no more than necessary in those times when Christianity was wholly destitute of any civil or coercive power to beget and keep up a due reverence and regard to the sentence and determinations of the Church and to secure the Laws of Religion and the holy censures from being sleighted by every bold and contumacious offender And this effect we find it had after the dreadful instance of Ananias and Saphira Great fear came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things To what has been said concerning these Apostolical gifts let me further observe That they had not only these gifts residing in themselves but a power to bestow them upon others so that by imposition of hands or upon hearing and embracing the Apostle's doctrine and being baptized into the Christian Faith they could confer these miraculous powers upon persons thus qualified to receive them whereby they were in a moment enabled to speak divers Languages to Prophesie to Interpret and do other miracles to the admiration and astonishment of all that heard and saw them A priviledge peculiar to the Apostles for we do not find that any inferiour Order of gifted persons were intrusted with it And therefore as Chrysostom well observes though Philip the Deacon wrought great miracles at Samaria to the conversion of many yea to the conviction of Simon Magus himself yet the Holy Ghost fell upon none of them only they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus till Peter and John came down to them who having prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost they laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost Which when the Magician beheld he offered the Apostles money to enable him that on whom soever he laid his hands he might derive these miraculous powers upon them XIV Having seen how fitly furnished the Apostles were for the execution of their Office let us in the last place enquire into its duration and continuance And here it must be considered that in the Apostolical Office there was something extraordinary and something ordinary What was extraordinary was their immediate Commission derived from the mouth of Christ himself their unlimited charge to preach the Gospel up and down the World without being tied to any particular places the supernatural and miraculous powers conferr'd upon them as Apostles their infallible guidance in delivering the doctrines of the Gospel and these all expired and determined with their persons The standing and perpetual part of it was to teach and instruct the People in the duties and principles of Religion to administer the Sacraments to constitute Guides and Officers and to exercise the discipline and government of the Church and in these they are succeeded by the ordinary Rulers and Ecclesiastick Guides who were to superintend and discharge the affairs and offices of the Church to the end of the World Whence it is that Bishops and Governours came to be styled Apostles as being their successors in ordinary for so they frequently are in the writings of the Church Thus Timothy who was Bishop of Ephesus is called an Apostle Clemens of Rome Clemens the Apostle S. Mark Bishop of Alexandria by Eusebius styled both an Apostle and Evangelist Ignatius a Bishop and Apostle A title that continued in after Ages especially given to those that were the first planters or restorers of Christianity in any Country In the Coptick Kalendar published by Mr. Selden the VIIth day of the month Baschnes answering to our Second of May is dedicated to the memory of S. Athanasius the Apostle Acacius and Paulus in their Letter to Epiphanius style him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new Apostle and Preacher and Sidonius Apollinaris writing to Lupus Bishop of Troyes in France speaks of the honour due to his eminent Apostleship An observation which it were easie enough to confirm by abundant instances were it either doubtful in it self or necessary to my purpose but being neither I forbear Joan. Euchait Metropolitae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 70. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE LIFE OF S. PETER St. PETER He was crucified at Rome with his head down-wards and Buried in the Vatican there S. Hierom. after he had planted a Christian Church first at Antioch and afterwards at Rome S. Peter 's Martyrdom Ioh. 21.18.19 Verily verily I say unto thee when thou most young thou girdedst thy self walkedst whither thou wouldst but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands another shall gird thee carry thee whither thou wouldst not This spake he signifying by what death he should glorify God SECT I. Of S. Peter from his Birth till his First coming to Christ. Bethsaida S. Peter 's Birth-place Its dignity of old and fate at this day The time of his Birth enquired into Some Errors noted concerning it His names Cephas the imposing of it notes on Superiority over the rest of the Apostles The custom of Popes assuming a new Name at their Election to the Papacy whence His kindred and relations whether He or Andrew the elder Brother His Trade and way of life what before his coming to Christ. The Sea of Galilee and the conveniency of it The meanness and obscurity of his Trade The remarkable appearances of the Divine Providence in propagating Christianity in the World by mean and unlikely Instruments THE Land of Palestine was at and before the coming of our Blessed Saviour distinguished into three several Provinces Judaea Samaria and Galilee This last was divided into the Upper and the Lower In the Upper called also Galilee of the Gentiles within the division anciently belonging to the Tribe of Nephthali stood Bethsaida formerly an obscure and inconsiderable Village till lately reedified and enlarged by Philip the Tetrarch by him advanced to the place and title of a City replenished with inhabitants and fortified with power and strength and in honour of Julia the daughter of Augustus Caesar by him stiled Julias Situate it was upon the banks of the Sea of Galilee and had a Wilderness on the other side thence called the Desart of Bethsaida whither our Saviour used often to retire the privacies and solitudes of the place advantageously ministring to Divine contemplations But Bethsaida was not so remarkable for this adjoyning Wilderness as it self was memorable for a worse sort of
a moment restored her to perfect health and ability to return to the business of her Family all cures being equally easie to Omnipotence SECT III. Of S. Peter from his Election to the Apostolate till the Confession which he made of Christ. The Election of the Apostles and our Lord 's solemn preparation for it The powers and Commission given to them Why Twelve chosen Peter the first in order not power The Apostles when and by whom Baptized The Tradition of Euodius of Peter ' s being immediately Baptized by Christ rejected and its authorities proved insufficient Three of the Apostles more intimately conversant with our Saviour Peter ' s being with Christ at the raising Jairus his Daughter His walking with Christ upon the Sea The creatures at God's command act contrary to their natural Inclinations The weakness of Peter ' s Faith Christ ' s power in commanding down the storm an evidence of his Divinity Many Disciples desert our Saviour's preaching Peter ' s profession of constancy in the name of the rest of the Apostles 1. OUR Lord being now to elect some peculiar persons as his immediate Vicegerents upon Earth to whose care and trust he might commit the building up of his Church and the planting that Religion in the World for which he himself came down from Heaven In order to it he privately over-night withdrew himself into a solitary Mountain commonly called the Mount of Christ from his frequent repairing thither though some of the Ancients will have it to be Mount Tabor there to make his solemn address to Heaven for a prosperous success on so great a work Herein leaving an excellent copy and precedent to the Governours of his Church how to proceed in setting apart persons to so weighty and difficult an employment Upon this Mountain we may conceive there was an Oratory or place of prayer probably intimated by S. Luke's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for such Profeucha's or houses of Prayer usually uncovered and standing in the fields the Jews had in several places wherein our Lord continued all night not in one continued and intire act of devotion but probably by intervals and repeated returns of duty 2. EARLY the next morning his Disciples came to him out of whom he made choice of Twelve to be his Apostles that they might be the constant attendants upon his person to hear his Discourses and be Eye-witnesses of his Miracles to be always conversant with him while he was upon Earth and afterwards to be sent abroad up and down the World to carry on that work which he himself had begun whom therefore he invested with the power of working Miracles which was more completely conferr'd upon them after his Ascension into Heaven Passing by the several fancies and conjectures of the Ancients why our Saviour pitch'd upon the just number of Twelve whereof before it may deserve to be considered whether our Lord being now to appoint the Supreme Officers and Governours of his Church which the Apostle styles the Commonwealth of Israel might not herein have a more peculiar allusion to the twelve Patriarchs as founders of their several Tribes or to the constant Heads and Rulers of those twelve Tribes of which the body of the Jewish Nation did consist Especially since he himself seems elsewhere to give countenance to it when he tells the Apostles that when the Son of man shall fit on the Throne of his Glory that is be gone back to Heaven and have taken full possession of his Evangelical Kingdom which principally commenc'd from his Resurrection that then they also should sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel that is they should have great powers and authorities in the Church such as the power of the Keys and other Rights of Spiritual Judicature and Sovereignty answerable in some proportion to the power and dignity which the Heads and Rulers of the twelve Tribes of Israel did enjoy 3. IN the enumeration of these twelve Apostles all the Evangelists constantly place S. Peter in the front and S. Matthew expresly tells us that he was the first that is he was the first that was called to be an Apostle his Age also and the gravity of his person more particularly qualifying him for a Primacy of Order amongst the rest of the Apostles as that without which no society of men can be managed or maintained Less than this as none will deny him so more than this neither Scripture nor Primitive antiquity do allow him And now it was that our Lord actually conferr'd that name upon him which before he had promised him Simon he surnamed Peter It may here be enquired when and by whom the Apostles were baptized That they were is unquestionable being themselves appointed to confer it upon others but when or how the Scripture is altogether silent Nicephorus from no worse an Author as he pretends than Euodius S. Peter's immediate successor in the See of Antioch tells us That of all the Apostles Christ baptized none but Peter with his own hands that Peter baptized Andrew and the two sons of Zebedee and they the rest of the Apostles This if so would greatly make for the honour of S. Peter But alas his authority is not only suspicious but supposititious in a manner deserted by S. Peter's best friends and the strongest champions of his cause Baronius himself however sometimes willing to make use of him elsewhere confessing that this Epistle of Euodius is altogether unknown to any of the Ancients As for the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus which to the same purpose he quotes out of Sophronius though not Sophronius but Johannes Moschus as is notoriously known be the Author of that Book besides that it is delivered upon an uncertain report pretended to have been alledged in a discourse between one Dionysius Bishop of Ascalon and his Clergy out of a Book of Clemens not now extant his Authors are much alike that is of no great value and authority 4. AMONGST these Apostles our Lord chose a Triumvirate Peter and the two sons of Zebedee to be his more intimate companions whom he admitted more familiarly than the rest unto all the more secret passages and transactions of his Life The first instance of which was on this occasion Jairus a Ruler of the Synagogue had a daughter desperately sick whose disease having baffled all the arts of Physick was only curable by the immediate agency of the God of Nature He therefore in all humility addresses himself to our Saviour which he had no sooner done but servants came post to tell him that it was in vain to trouble our Lord for that his daughter was dead Christ bids him not despond if his Faith held out there was no danger And suffering none to follow him but Peter James and John goes along with him to the house where he was derided by the sorrowful friends and neighbours for telling them that she was not perfectly dead
they themselves would herein appear to oppose the counsels and designs of Heaven With this prudent and rational advice they were satisfied and having commanded the Apostles to be scourged and charged them no more to preach this doctrine restored them to their liberty Who notwithstanding this charge and threatning returned home in a kind of triumph that they were accounted worthy to suffer in so good a cause and to undergo shame and reproach for the sake of so good a Master Nor could all the hard usage they met with from men discourage them in their duty to God or make them less zealous and diligent both publickly and privately to preach Christ in every place SECT VIII Of S. Peter's Acts from the Dispersion of the Church at Jerusalem till his contest with S. Paul at Antioch The great care of the Divine Providence over the Church Peter dispatched by the Apostles to confirm the Church newly planted at Samaria His baffling and silencing Simon Magus there His going to Lydda and curing Aeneas His raising Dorcas at Joppa The Vision of all sorts of Creatures presented to him to prepare him for the conversion of the Gentiles His going to Cornelius and declaring God's readiness to receive the Gentiles into the Church The Baptizing Cornelius and his Family Peter censured by the Jews for conversing with the Gentiles The mighty prejudices of the Jews against the Gentiles noted out of Heathen Writers Peter cast into prison by Herod Agrippa miraculously delivered by an Angel His discourse in the Synod at Jerusalem that the Gentiles might be received without being put under the obligation of the Law of Moses His unworthy compliance with the Jews at Antioch in opposition to the Gentiles Severely checked and resisted by S. Paul The ill use Porphyry makes of this difference The conceit of some that it was not Peter the Apostle but one of the Seventy 1. THE Church had been hitherto tossed with gentle storms but now a more violent tempest overtook it by which began in the Proto-Martyr Stephen and was more vigorously carried on afterwards occasion whereof the Disciples were dispersed And God who always brings good out of evil hereby provided that the Gospel should not be confin'd only to Jerusalem Hitherto the Church had been crowded up within the City-walls and the Religion had crept up and down in private corners but the professors of it being now dispersed abroad by the malice and cruelty of their enemies carried Christianity along with them and propagated it into the neighbour-Countries accomplishing hereby an ancient prophecy That out of Sion should go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Thus God over-rules the malice of men and makes intended poison to become food or physick That Divine Providence that governs the World more particularly superintends the affairs and interests of his Church so that no weapon form'd against Israel shall prosper curses shall be turned into blessings and that become an eminent means to enlarge and propagate the Gospel which they designed as the only way to suppress and stifle it Amongst those that were scattered Philip the Deacon was driven down unto Samaria where he preached the Gospel and confirmed his preaching by many miraculous cures and dispossessing Devils In this City there was one Simon who by Magick Arts and Diabolical Sorceries sought to advance himself into a great fame and reputation with the People insomuch that they generally beheld him as the great power of God for so the Ancients tell us he used to style himself giving out himself to be the first and chiefest Deity the Father who is God over all that is that he was that which in every Nation was accounted the supreme Deity This man hearing the Sermons and beholding the Miracles that were done by Philip gave up himself amongst the number of believers and was baptized with them The Apostles who yet remained at Jerusalem having heard of the great success of Philip's ministery at Samaria thought good to send some of their number to his assistance And accordingly deputed Peter and John who came thither Where having prayed for and laid their hands upon these new converts they presently received the Holy Ghost Simon the Magician observing that by laying on of the Apostle's hands miraculous gifts were conferred upon men offered them a considerable summ of money to invest him with this power that on whom he laid his hands they might receive the Holy Ghost Peter perceiving his rotten and insincere intentions rejected his impious motion with scorn and detestation Thy money perish with thee He told him that his heart was naught and hypocritical that he could have no share nor portion in so great a priviledge that it more concerned him to repent of so great a wickedness and sincerely seek to God that so the thought of his heart might be forgiven him for that he perceived that he had a very vicious and corrupt temper and constitution of mind and was as yet bound up under a very wretched and miserable state displeasing to God and dangerous to himself The Conscience of the man was a little startled with this and he prayed the Apostles to intercede with Heaven that God would pardon his sin and that none of these things might fall upon him But how little cure this wrought upon him we shall find elsewhere when we shall again meet with him afterwards The Apostles having thus confirmed the Church at Samaria and preached up and down in the Villages thereabouts returned back to Jerusalem to joyn their counsel and assistance to the rest of the Apostles 2. THE storm though violent being at length blown over the Church enjoyed a time of great calmness and serenity during which Peter went out to visit the Churches lately planted in those parts by those Disciples who had been dispersed by the persecution at Jerusalem Coming down to Lydda the first thing he did was to work a cure upon one Aeneas who being crippl'd with the Palsie had layn bed-rid for eight years together Peter coming to him bad him in the name of Christ to arise and the man was immediately restored to perfect health A miracle that was not confined only to his person for being known abroad generally brought over the Inhabitants of that place The fame of this miracle having flown to Joppa a Sea-port Town some six miles thence the Christians there presently sent for Peter upon this occasion Tabitha whose Greek name was Dorcas a woman venerable for her piety and diffusive charity was newly dead to the great lamentation of all good men and much more to the loss of the poor that had been relieved by her Peter coming to the house found her dressed up for her Funeral solemnity and compassed about with the sorrowful Widows who shewed the Coats and Garments wherewith she had clothed them the badges of her charitable liberality Peter shutting all out kneeled down and prayed and then turning him to
time of Augustus had dwelt in the Region beyond Tybur But when afterwards he began to preach to the Gentiles he was forced to change his Lodging and was taken in by one Pudens a Senator lately converted to the Faith Here he closely plyed his main office and employment to establish Christianity in that place Here we are told he met with Philo the Jew lately come on his second Embassy unto Rome in the behalf of his Countrymen at Alexandria and to have contracted an intimate friendship and acquaintance with him And now it was says Baronius that Peter being mindful of the Churches which he had founded in Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Bithynia and Asia the less wrote his first Epistle to them which he probably infers hence that Saint Mark being yet with him at the time of the date of this Epistle it must be written at least some time this Year for that now it was that S. Mark was sent to preach and propagate the Faith in Egypt Next to the planting Religion at Rome he took care to propagate it in the Western parts And to that end if we may believe one of those that pretend to be his Successors he sent abroad Disciples into several Provinces That so their sound might go into all the Earth and their words into the ends of the World 3. IT hapned that after S. Peter had been several Years at Rome Claudius the Emperor taking advantage of some seditions and tumults raised by the Jews by a publick Edict banished them out of Rome In the Number of whom S. Peter they say departed thence and returned back to Jerusalem where he was present at that great Apostolical Synod of which before After this we are left under great uncertainties how he disposed of himself for many Years Confident we may be that he was not idle but spent his time sometimes in preaching in the Eastern parts sometimes in other parts of the World as in Africk Sicily Italy and other places And here it may not be amiss to insert a claim in behalf of our own Country Eusebius telling us as Metaphrastes reports it that Peter was not only in these Western parts but particularly that he was a long time in Britain where he converted many Nations to the Faith But we had better be without the honour of Saint Peter's company than build the story upon so sandy a foundation Metaphrastes his Authority being of so little value in this case that it is slighted by the more learned and moderate Writers of the Church of Rome But where-ever it was that Saint Peter employed his time towards the latter part of Nero's Reign he returned to Rome where he found the minds of People strangely bewitched and hardned against the embracing of the Christian Religion by the subtilties and Magick arts of Simon Magus whom as we have before related he had formerly baffled at Samaria This Simon was born at Gitton a Village of Samaria bred up in the Arts of Sorcery and Divination and by the help of the Diabolical powers performed many strange feats of wonder and activity Insomuch that People generally looked upon him as some great Deity come down from Heaven But being discovered and confounded by Peter at Samaria he left the East and fled to Rome Where by Witchcraft and Sorceries he insinuated himself into the favour of the People and at last became very acceptable to the Emperours themselves insomuch that no honour and veneration was too great for him Justin Martyr assures us that he was honoured as a Deity that a Statue was erected to him in the Insula Tyberina between two Bridges with this Inscription SIMONI DEO SANCTO To Simon the holy God that the Samaritans generally and very many of other Nations did own and worship him as the chief principal Deity I know the credit of this Inscription is shrewdly shaken by some later Antiquaries who tell us that the good Father being a Greek might easily mistake in a Latin Inscription or be imposed upon by others and that the true Inscription was SEMONI SANGO DEO FIDIO c. such an Inscription being in the last Age dug up in the Tyberine Island and there preserved to this day It is not impossible but this might be the foundation of the story But sure I am that it is not only reported by the Martyr who was himself a Samaritan and lived but in the next Age but by others almost of the same time Irenaeus Tertullian and by others after them It further deserves to be considered that J. Martyr was a person of great learning and gravity inquisitive about matters of this nature at this time at Rome where he was capable fully to satisfie himself in the truth of things that he presented this Apology to the Emperor and the Senate of Rome to whom he would be careful what he said and who as they knew whether it was true or no so if false could not but ill resent to be so boldly imposed upon by so notorious a fable But be it as it will he was highly in favour both with the People and their Emperors especially Nero who was the Great Patron of Magicians and all who maintained secret ways of commerce with the infernal powers With him S. Peter thought fit in the first place to encounter and to undeceive the People by discovering the impostures and delusions of that wretched man 4. THAT he did so is generally affirmed by the Ancient Fathers who tell us of some particular Instances wherein he baffled and confounded him But because the matter is more intirely drawn up by Hegesippus the younger an Author contemporary with S. Ambrose if not which is most probable S. Ambrose himself we shall from him represent the summary of the story There was at this time at Rome an eminent young Gentleman and a Kinsman of the Emperors lately dead The fame which Peter had for raising persons to life perswaded his friends that he might be called Others also prevailing that Simon the Magician might be sent for Simon glad of the occasion to magnifie himself before the People propounded to Peter that if he raised the Gentleman unto life then Peter who had so injuriously provoked the great power of God as he stiled himself should lose his life But if Peter prevailed he himself would submit to the same fate and sentence Peter accepted the termes and Simon began his Charmes and Inchantments Whereat the dead Gentleman seemed to move his hand The People that stood by presently cryed out that he was alive and that he talked with Simon and began to fall foul upon Peter for daring to oppose himself against so great a power The Apostle entreated their patience told them that all this was but a phantasm and appearance that if Simon was but taken from the Bed-side all this pageantry would quickly vanish Who being accordingly removed the Body remained without the
Jewish Sanhedrim and President of it at that very time when our Blessed Saviour was brought before it He lived to a great Age and was buried by Onkelos the Proselyte Author of the Chaldee Paraphrase one who infinitely loved and honoured him at his own vast expence and charge He it was that made that wise and excellent speech in the Sanhedrim in favour of the Apostles and their Religion Nay he himself is said though I know not why to have been a Christian and his sitting amongst the Senators to have been conniv'd at by the Apostles that he might be the better friend to their affairs Chrysippus Presbyter of the Church of Jerusalem adds that he was brothers son to Nicodemus together with whom he and his son Abib were baptized by Peter and John This account he derives from Lucian a Presbyter also of that Church under John Patriarch of Jerusalem who in an Epistle of his still extant tells us that he had this together with some other things communicated to him in a Vision by Gamaliel himself Which if true no better evidence could be desired in this matter At the feet of this Gamaliel S. Paul tells us he was brought up alluding to the custom of the Jewish Masters who were wont to sit while their Disciples and Scholars stood at their feet Which honorary custom continued till the death of this Gamaliel and was then left off Their own Talmud telling us That since old Rabban Gamaliel died the honour of the Law was perished Purity and Pharisaism were destroyed which the Gloss thus explains That whilest he lived men were sound and studied the Law standing but he being dead weakness crept into the World and they were forced to sit 6. UNDER the Tuition of this great Master S. Paul was Educated in the knowledge of the Law wherein he made such quick and vast improvements that he soon out-stript his fellow-Disciples Amongst the various Sects at that time in the Jewish Church he was especially Educated in the Principles and Institutions of the Pharisees Of which Sect was both his Father and his Master whereof he became a most earnest and zealous professor This being as himself tells us the strictest Sect of their Religion For the understanding whereof it may not be amiss a little to enquire into the Temper and Manners of this Sect. Josephus though himself a Pharisee gives this character of them That they were a crafty and subtil generation of men and so perverse even to Princes themselves that they would not fear many times openly to affront and oppose them And so far had they insinuated themselves into the affections and estimations of the populacy that their good or ill word was enough to make or blast any one with the People who would implicitly believe them let their report be never so false or malicious And therefore Alexander Jannaeus when he lay a dying wisely advised his Queen by all means to comply with them and to seem to Govern by their counsel and direction affirming that this had been the greatest cause of his fatal miscarriage and that which had derived the odium of the Nation upon him that he had offended this sort of men Certain it is that they were infinitely proud and insolent surly and ill-natured that they hated all mankind but themselves and censured whoever would not be of their way as a Villain and a Reprobate greatly zealous to gather Proselytes to their party not to make them more religious but more fierce and cruel more carping and censorious more heady and high-minded in short twofold more the children of the Devil than they were before All Religion and kindness was confined within the bounds of their own party and the first principles wherewith they inspired their new converts were That none but they were the godly party and that all other persons were slaves and sons of the Earth and therefore especially endeavoured to inspire them with a mighty zeal and fierceness against all that differed from them so that if any one did but speak a good word of our Saviour he should be presently excommunicated and cast out persecuted and devoted to the death To this end they were wont not only to separate but discriminate themselves from the herd and community by some peculiar notes and badges of distinction such as their long Robes broad Phylacteries and their large Fringes and Borders of their Garments whereby they made themselves known from the rest of men These dogged and ill-natured principles together with their seditious unnatural unjust unmerciful and uncharitable behaviour which otherwise would have made them stink above-ground in the nostrils of men they sought to palliate and varnish over with a more than ordinary pretence and profession of Religion but were especially active and diligent in what cost them little the outward instances of Religion such duties especially as did more immediately refer to God as frequent fasting and praying which they did very often and very long with demure and mortified looks in a whining and an affected tone and this almost in every corner of the streets and indeed so contrived the scheme of their Religion that what they did might appear above-ground where they might be seen of men to the best advantage 7. THOUGH this seems to have been the general temper and disposition of the party yet doubtless there were some amongst them of better and honester principles than the rest In which number we have just reason to reckon our Apostle who yet was deeply leavened with the active and fiery genius of the Sect not able to brook any opposite party in Religion especially if late and novel Insomuch that when the Jews were resolved to do execution upon Stephen he stood by and kept the cloaths of them that did it Whether he was any further engaged in the death of this innocent and good man we do not find However this was enough loudly to proclaim his approbation and consent And therefore elsewhere we find him indicting himself for this fact and pleading guilty When the blood of thy Martyr Stephen was shed I also was standing by and consenting unto his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him God chiefly inspects the heart and if the vote be passed there writes the man guilty though he stir no farther 'T is easie to murder another by a silent wish or a passionate desire In all moral actions God values the will for the deed and reckons the man a companion in the sin who though possibly he may never actually joyn in it does yet inwardly applaud and like it The storm thus begun encreased a pace and a violent persecution began to arise which miserably afflicted and dispersed the Christians at Jerusalem In which our Apostle was a prime Agent and Minister raging about in all parts with a mad and ungovernable zeal searching out the Saints beating them in the Synagogues compelling many to blaspheme imprisoning others
of the debate was That the Gentiles were not under the obligation of the Law of Moses and that therefore some persons of their own should be joyned with Paul and Barnabas to carry the Canons and decrees of the Council down to Antioch for their fuller satisfaction in this matter But of this affair we shall give the Reader a more distinct and particular account in another place SECT III. Of S. Paul from the time of the Synod at Jerusalem till his departure from Athens S. Paul ' s carrying the Apostolick Decree to Antioch His contest with Peter The dissention between him and Barnabas His Travels to confirm the new-planted Churches The conversion of Lydia at Philippi The Jewish Proseuchae what the frequency of them in all places The dispossessing of a Pythonesse S. Paul ' s imprisonment and ill usage at Philippi The great provision made by the Roman Laws for the security of its Subjects His preaching at Thessalonica and Beroea His going to Athens The same of that place His doctrine opposed by the Stoicks and Epicureans and why The great Idolatry and Superstition of that City The Altar to the Unknown God This Unknown God who The Superstition of the Jews in concealing the name of God This imitated by the Gentiles Their general Forms of Invocating their Deities noted The particular occasion of these Altars at Athens whence S. Paul ' s discourse to the Philosophers in the Areopagus concerning the Divine Being and Providence The different entertainment of his Doctrine Dionysius the Areopagite who His Learning Conversion and being made Bishop of Athens The difference between him and S. Denys of Paris The Books published under his name SAINT Paul and his Companions having received the Decretal Epistle returned back to Antioch where they had not been long before Peter came thither to them And according to the Decree of the Council freely and inoffensively conversed with the Gentiles Till some of the Jews coming down thither from Jerusalem he withdrew his converse as if it were a thing unwarrantable and unlawful By which means the minds of many were dissatisfied and their Consciences very much ensnared Whereat S. Paul being exceedingly troubled publickly rebuked him for it and that as the case required with great sharpness and severity It was not long after that S. Paul and Barnabas resolved upon visiting the Churches which they had lately planted among the Gentiles To which end Barnabas determined to take his cousin Mark along with them This Paul would by no means agree to he having deserted them in their former journey A little spark which yet kindled a great feud and dissention between these two good men and arose to that height that in some discontent they parted from each other So natural is it for the best of men sometimes to indulge an unwarrantable passion and so far to espouse the interest of a private and particular humour as rather to hazard the great Law of Charity and violate the bands of friendship than to recede from it The effect was Barnabas taking his Nephew went for Cyprus his native Country S. Paul made choice of Silas and the success of his undertaking being first recommended to the Divine care and goodness they set forwards on their journey 2. THEIR first passage was into Syria and Cilicia confirming the Churches as they went along And to that end they left with them Copies of the Synodical Decrees lately ordained in the Council at Jerusalem Hence we may suppose it was that he set sail for Crete where he preached and propagated Christianity and constituted Titus to be the first Bishop and Pastor of that Island whom he left there to settle and dispose those affairs which the shortness of his own stay in those parts would not suffer him to do Hence he returned back unto Cilicia and came to Lystra where he found Timothy whose Father was a Greek his Mother a Jewish convert by whom he had been brought up under all the advantages of a pious and religious education and especially an incomparable skill and dexterity in the holy Scriptures S. Paul designed him for the companion of his travels and a special instrument in the Ministery of the Gospel and knowing that his being uncircumcised would be a mighty prejudice in the opinion and estimation of the Jews caused him to be circumcised being willing in lawful and indifferent matters such was Circumcision now become to accommodate himself to mens humors and apprehensions for the saving of their Souls 3. FROM hence with his company he passed through Phrygia and the Country of Galatia where he was entertained by them with as mighty a kindness and veneration as if he had been an Angel immediately sent from Heaven And being by Revelation forbidden to go into Asia by a second Vision he was commanded to direct his journey for Macedonia And here it was that S. Luke joyned himself to his company and became ever after his inseparable companion Sailing from Troas they arrived at the Island Samothracia and thence to Neapolis from whence they went to Philippi the chief City of that part of Macedonia and a Roman Colony where he staid some considerable time to plant the Christian Faith and where his Ministery had more particular success on Lydia a Purple-seller born at Thyatira baptized together with her whole Family and with her the Apostle sojourned during his residence in that place A little without this City there was a Proseucha 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Syriack renders it an Oratory or house of Prayer whereto the Apostle and his company used frequently to retire for the exercise of their Religion and for preaching the Gospel to those that resorted thither The Jews had three sorts of places for their publick worship The Temple at Jerusalem which was like the Cathedral or Mother-Church where all Sacrifices and Oblations were offered and where all Males were bound three times a year personally to pay their devotions Their Synagogues many whereof they had almost in every place not unlike our Parochial Churches where the Scriptures were read and expounded and the people taught their duty Moses of old time hath in every City them that preach him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day And then they had their Proseuchae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo sometimes calls them or Oratories which were like Chappels of Ease to the Temple and the Synagogues whither the people were wont to come solemnly to offer up their Prayers to Heaven They were built as Epiphanius informs us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the City in the open Air and uncovered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being large spacious places after the manner of Fora or Market-places and these they called Proseucha's And that the Jews and Samaritans had such places of Devotion he proves from this very place at Philippi where S. Paul preached For they had them not in Judaea only but even at Rome it self where Tiberius as
Philo tells Caius the Emperor suffered the Jews to inhabit the Transtiberin Region and undisturbedly to live according to the Rites of their Institutions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also to have their Proseucha's and to meet in them especially upon their holy Sabbaths that they might be familiarly instructed in the Laws and Religion of their Countrey Such they had also in other places especially where they had not or were not suffered to have Synagogues for their publick worship But to return 4. AS they were going to this Oratory they were often followed by a Pythonesse a Maid-servant acted by a spirit of Divination who openly cried out That these men were the servants of the most high God who came to shew the way of Salvation to the World So easily can Heaven extort a Testimony from the mouth of Hell But S. Paul to shew how little he needed Satan to be his witness commanded the Daemon to come out which immediately left her The evil Spirit thus thrown out of possession presently raised a storm against the Apostles for the Masters of the Damsel who used by her Diabolical arts to raise great advantages to themselves being sensible that now their gainful Trade was spoil'd resolved to be revenged on them that had spoiled it Accordingly they laid hold upon them and drag'd them before the Seat of Judicature insinuating to the Governours that these men were Jews and sought to introduce different customs and ways of worship contrary to the Laws of the Roman Empire The Magistrates and People were soon agreed the one to give Sentence the other to set upon the Execution In fine they were stript beaten and then commanded to be thrown into Prison and the Jaylor charged to keep them with all possible care and strictness Who to make sure of his charge thrust them into the Inner-Dungeon and made their feet fast in the Stocks But a good man can turn a Prison into a Chappel and make a den of Thieves to be an house of Prayer Our feet cannot be bound so fast to the Earth but that still our hearts may mount up to Heaven At midnight the Apostles were over-heard by their fellow-prisoners praying and singing Hymns to God But after the still voice came the Tempest An Earthquake suddenly shook the foundations of the Prison the Doors flew open and their Chains fell off The Jaylor awaking with this amazing accident concluded with himself that the Prisoners were fled and to prevent the Sentence of publick Justice was going to lay violent hands upon himself which S. Paul espying called out to him to hold his hand and told him they were all there Who thereupon came in to them with a greater Earthquake in his own Conscience and falling down before them asked them What he should do to be saved They told him there was no other way of Salvation for him or his than an hearty and sincere embracing of the Faith of Christ. What a happy change does Christianity make in the minds of men How plain does it smooth the roughest tempers and instill the sweetest principles of civility and good nature He who but a little before had tyrannized over the Apostles with the most merciless and cruel usage began now to treat them with all the arts of kindness and charity bringing them out of the Dungeon and washing their stripes and wounds and being more fully instructed in the principles of Christianity was together with his whole Family immediately baptized by them Early in the morning the Magistrates sent Officers privately to release them Which the Apostles refused telling them That they were not only innocent persons but Romans that they had been illegally condemned and beaten that therefore their delivery should be as publick as the injury and an open vindication of their innocency and that they themselves that had sent them thither should fetch them thence for the Roman Government was very tender of the lives and liberties of its own subjects those especially that were free Denizens of Rome every injury offered to a Roman being look'd upon as an affront against the Majesty of the whole People of Rome Such a one might not be beaten but to be scourged or bound without being first legally heard and tried was not only against the Roman but the Laws of all Nations and the more publick any injury was the greater was its aggravation and the Laws required a more strict and solemn reparation S. Paul who was a Roman and very well understood the Laws and priviledges of Rome insisted upon this to the great startling and affrighting of the Magistrates who sensible of their error came to the Prison and intreated them to depart Whereupon going to Lydia's house and having saluted and encouraged the Brethren they departed from that place 5. LEAVING Philippi they came next to Thessalonica the Metropolis of Macedonia where Paul according to his custom presently went to the Jewish Synagogue for three Sabbath days reasoning and disputing with them proving from the predictions of the Old Testament that the Messiah was to suffer and to rise again and that the blessed Jesus was this Messiah Great numbers especially of religious Proselytes were converted by his preaching while like the Sun that melts wax but hardens clay it wrought a quite contrary effect in the unbelieving Jews who presently set themselves to blow up the City into a tumult and an uproar and missing S. Paul who had withdrawn himself they fell foul upon Jason in whose house he lodged representing to the Magistrates that they were enemies to Caesar and sought to undermine the peace and prosperity of the Roman Empire At night Paul and Silas were conducted by the Brethren to Beraea Where going to the Synagogue they found the People of a more noble and generous a more pliable and ingenuous temper ready to entertain the Christian Doctrine but yet not willing to take it merely upon the Apostles word till they had first compared his preaching with what the Scriptures say of the Messiah and his Doctrine And the success was answerable in those great numbers that came over to them But the Jewish malice pursued them still for hearing at Thessalonica what entertainment they had found in this place they presently came down to exasperate and stir up the People To avoid which S. Paul leaving Silas and Timothy behind him thought good to withdraw himself from that place 6. FROM Beroea he went to Athens one of the most renowned Cities in the World excelling all others says an Ancient Historian in Antiquity Humanity and Learning Indeed it was the great seat of Arts and Learning and as Cicero will have it the Fountain whence Civility Learning Religion Arts and Laws were derived into all other Nations So universally flocked to by all that had but the least kindness for the Muses or good Manners that he who had not seen Athens was accounted a Block he who having seen it was not in love with
it a dull stupid Asse and he who after he had seen it could be willing to leave it fit for nothing but to be a Pack-Horse Here among the several Sects of Philosophers he had more particular contests with the Stoicks and Epicureans who beyond all the rest seemed enemies to Christianity The Epicureans because they found their pleasant and jovial humour and their loose and exorbitant course of life so much checked and controlled by the strict and severe precepts of Christ and that Christianity so plainly and positively asserted a Divine providence that governs the World and that will adjudge to men suitable rewards and punishments in another World The Stoicks on the other hand though pretending to principles of great and uncommon rigour and severity and such as had nearest affinity to the doctrines of the Christian Religion yet found themselves aggrieved with it That meek and humble temper of mind that modesty and self-denial which the Gospel so earnestly recommends to us and so strictly requires of us being so directly contrary to the immoderate pride and ambition of that Sect who beyond all proportions of reason were not ashamed to make their wise man equal to and in some things to exceed God himself 7. WHILE S. Paul staid at Athens in expectation of Silas and Timothy to come to him he went up and down to take a more curious view and survey of the City which he found miserably overgrown with Superstition and Idolatry As indeed Athens was noted by all their own Writers for far greater numbers of Deities and Idols than all Greece besides They were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Strabo notes Not more fond of strangers and novelties in other things than forward to comply with novelties in Religion ready to entertain any foreign Deities and Rites of worship no Divinity that was elsewhere adored coming amiss to them Whence Athens is by one of their own Orators stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Summ and Center of Piety and Religion And he there aggravates the impiety of Epicurus in speaking unworthily and irreverently of the Gods from the place where he did it at Athens a place so pious so devoted to them Indeed herein justly commendable that they could not brook the least dishonourable reflexion upon any Deity and therefore Apollonius Tyanaeus tells Timasion that the safest way was to speak well of all the Gods and especially at Athens where Altars were dedicated even to Unknown Gods And so S. Paul here found it for among the several Shrines and places of Worship and Devotion he took more particular notice of one Altar inscrib'd To the Unknown God The intire Inscription whereof the Apostle quotes only part of the last words is thought to have been this TO the Gods of Asia Europe and Africa to the strange and UNKNOWN GOD. Saint Hierom represents it in the same manner onely makes it Gods in the plural number which because says he Saint Paul needed not he only cited it in the singular Which surely he affirms without any just ground and warrant though it cannot be denied but that Heathen Writers make frequent mention of the Altars of Unknown Gods that were at Athens as there want not others who speak of some erected there to an unknown God This Notion the Athenians might probably borrow from the Hebrews who had the Name of God in great secrecy and veneration This being one of the Titles given him by the Prophet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a hidden God or a God that hides himself Sure I am that Justin Martyr tells us that one of the principal names given to God by some of the Heathens was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one altogether hidden Hence the Egyptians probably derived their great God Ammon or more truly Amun which signifies occult or hidden Accordingly in this passage of S. Paul the Syriac Interpreter renders it the Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the hidden God The Jews were infinitely superstitious in concealing the Name of God not thinking it lawful ordinarily to pronounce it This made the Gentiles strangers at best both to the Language and Religion of the Jews at a great loss by what Name to call him only stiling him in general an uncertain unspeakable invisible Deity whence Caligula in his ranting Oration to the Jews told them that wretches as they were though they refused to own him whom all others had confessed to be a Deity yet they could worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their own nameless God And hence the Gentiles derived their custom of keeping secret the name of their Gods Thus Plutarch tells us of the Tutelar Deity of Rome that it was not lawful to name it or so much as to enquire what Sex it was of whether God or Goddess and that for once revealing it Valerius Soranus though Tribune of the People came to an untimely end and was crucified the vilest and most dishonourable kind of death Whereof among other reasons he assigns this that by concealing the Author of their publick safety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not he only but all the other Gods might have due honour and worship paid to them Hence in their publick adorations after the Invocation of particular Deities they were wont to add some more general and comprehensive form as when Cicero had been making his address to most of their particular Gods he concludes with a Caeteros item Deos Deasque omnes imploro atque obtestor Usually the form was DII DEAEQUE OMNES. The reason whereof was this that not being assured many times what that peculiar Deity was that was proper to their purpose or what numbers of Gods there were in the World they would not affront or offend any by seeming to neglect and pass them by And this Chrysostome thinks to have been particularly designed in the erection of this Athenian Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were afraid left there might be some other Deity besides those whom they particularly worshipped as yet unknown to them though honoured and adored elsewhere and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the more security they dedicated an Altar to the unknown God As for the particular occasion of erecting these Altars at Athens omitting that of Pans appearing to Philippides mentioned by Oecumenius the most probable seems to be this When a great Plague raged at Athens and several means had been attempted for the removal of it they were advised by Epimenides the Philosopher to build an Altar and dedicate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the proper and peculiar Deity to whom it did appertain be he what he would A course which proving successful no doubt gave occasion to them by way of gratitude to erect more shrines to this unknown God And accordingly Laertius who lived long after Paul's time tells us that there were such nameless Altars he means such as were not inscribed to any particular Deity in
raised by Demetrius and his party S. Paul ' s first Epistle to the Corinthians upon what occasion written His Epistle to Titus Apollonius Tyanaeus whether at Ephesus at the same time with S. Paul His Miracles pretended to be done in that City 1. AFTER his departure from Athens he went to Corinth the Metropolis of Greece and the residence of the Proconsul of Achaia where he found Aquila and Priscilla lately come from Italy banished out of Rome by the Decree of Claudius And they being of the same trade and profession wherein he had been educated in his youth he wrought together with them lest he should be unnecessarily burdensom unto any which for the same reason he did in some other places Hither after some time Silas and Timothy came to him In the Synagogue he frequently disputed with the Jewes and Proselytes reasoning and proving that Jesus was the true Messiah They according to the nature of the men made head and opposed him and what they could not conquer by argument and force of reason they endeavoured to carry by noise and clamour mixed with blasphemies and revilings the last refuges of an impotent and baffled cause Whereat to testifie his resentment he shook his Garments and told them since he saw them resolved to pull down vengeance and destruction upon their own heads he for his part was guiltless and innocent and would henceforth address himself unto the Gentiles Accordingly he left them and went into the house of Justus a religious Proselyte where by his preaching and the many miracles which he wrought he converted great Numbers to the Faith Amongst which were Crispus the Chief Ruler of the Synagogue Gaius and Stephanus who together with their Families embraced the Doctrine of the Gospel and were baptized into the Christian Faith But the constant returns of malice and ingratitude are enough to tire the largest charity and cool the most generous resolution therefore that the Apostle might not be discouraged by the restless attempts and machinations of his enemies our Lord appeared to him in a Vision told him that notwithstanding the bad success he had hitherto met with there was a great Harvest to be gathered in that place that he should not be afraid of his enemies but go on to preach confidently and securely for that he himself would stand by him and preserve him 2. ABOUT this time as is most probable he wrote his first Epistle to the Thessalonians Silas and Timothy being lately returned from thence and having done the message for which he had sent them thither The main design of the Epistle is to confirm them in the belief of the Christian Religion and that they would persevere in it notwithstanding all the afflictions and persecutions which he had told them would ensue upon their profession of the Gospel and to instruct them in the main duties of a Christian and Religious life While the Apostle was thus employed the malice of the Jewes was no less at work against him and universally combining together they brought him before Gallio the Proconsul of the Province elder Brother to the famous Seneca Before him they accused the Apostle as an Innovator in Religion that sought to introduce a new way of worship contrary to what was established by the Jewish Law and permitted by the Roman Powers The Apostle was ready to have pleaded his own cause but the Proconsul told them that had it been a matter of right or wrong that had fall'n under the cognizance of the Civil Judicature it had been very fit and reasonable that he should have heard and determined the case but since the controversie was only concerning the punctilio's and niceties of their Religion it was very improper for him to be a Judge in such matters And when they still clamoured about it he threw out their Indictment and commanded his Officers to drive them out of Court Whereupon some of the Towns-men seized upon Sosthenes one of the Rulers of the Jewish Consistory a man active and busie in this Insurrection and beat him even before the Court of Judicature the Proconsul not at all concerning himself about it A year and an half Saint Paul continued in this place and before his departure thence wrote his second Epistle to the Thessalonians to supply the want of his coming to them which in his former he had resolved on and for which in a manner he had engaged his promise In this therefore he endeavours again to confirm their minds in the truth of the Gospel and that they would not be shaken with those troubles which the wicked unbelieving Jewes would not cease to create them a lost and undone race of men and whom the Divine vengeance was ready finally to overtake And because some passages in his former Letter relating to this destruction had been mis-understood as if this day of the Lord were just then at hand he rectifies those mistakes and shews what must precede our Lord's coming unto Judgment 3. S. PAUL having thus fully planted and cultivated the Church at Corinth resolved now for Syria And taking along with him Aquila and Priscilla at Cenchrea the Port and Harbour of Corinth Aquila for of him it is certainly to be understood shaved his head in performance of a Nazarite-Vow he had formerly made the time whereof was now run out In his passage into Syria he came to Ephesus where he preached a while in the Synagogue of the Jewes And though desired to stay with them yet having resolved to be at Jerusalem at the Passeover probably that he might have the fitter opportunity to meet his friends and preach the Gospel to those vast numbers that usually flock'd to that great solemnity he promised that in his return he would come again to them Sailing thence he landed at Caesarea and thence went up to Jerusalem where having visited the Church and kept the Feast he went down to Antioch Here having staid some time he traversed the Countries of Galatia and Phrygia confirming as he went the new-converted Christians and so came to Ephesus where finding certain Christian Disciples he enquired of them whether since their conversion they had received the miraculous gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost They told him that the Doctrine which they had received had nothing in it of that nature nor had they ever heard that any such extraordinary Spirit had of late been bestowed upon the Church Hereupon he further enquired unto what they had been baptized the Christian Baptism being administred in the name of the Holy Ghost They answered they had received no more than John's Baptism which though it obliged men to repentance yet did it explicitly speak nothing of the Holy Ghost or its gifts and powers To this the Apostle replied That though John's Baptism did openly oblige to nothing but Repentance yet that it did implicitly acknowledge the whole Doctrine concerning Christ and the Holy Ghost Whereto they assenting were solemnly initiated by Christian
long 220 broad supported by 127 Pillars 60 Foot high for its antiquity it was in some degree before the times of Bacchus equal to the Reign of the Amazons by whom it is generally said to have been first built as the Ephesian Ambassadors told Tiberius till by degrees it grew up into that greatness and splendor that it was generally reckoned one of the seven wonders of the World But that which gave the greatest fame and reputation to it was an Image of Diana kept there made of no very costly materials but which the crafty Priests perswaded the People was beyond all humane artifice or contrivement and that it was immediately formed by Jupiter and dropt down from Heaven having first killed or banished the Artists that made it as Suidas informs us that the cheat might not be discovered by which means they drew not Ephesus only but the whole World into a mighty veneration of it Besides there were within this Temple multitudes of Silver Cabinets or Chappelets little Shrines made in fashion of the Temple wherein was placed the Image of Diana For the making of these holy shrines great numbers of Silver-smiths were employed and maintained among whom one Demetrius was a Leading-man who foreseeing that if the Christian Religion still got ground their gainful Trade would soon come to nothing presently called together the Men of his Profession especially those whom he himself set on work told them that now their welfare and livelihood were concerned and that the fortunes of their Wives and Children lay at stake that it was plain that this Paul had perverted City and Country and perswaded the People that the Images which they made and worshipped were no real Gods by which means their Trade was not only like to fall to the ground but also the honour and magnificence of the great Goddess Diana whom not Asia only but the whole World did worship and adore Enraged with this discourse they cried out with one voice that Great was Diana of the Ephesians The whole City was presently in an uproar and seizing upon two of S. Paul's Companions hurried them into the Theatre probably with a design to have cast them to the wild Beasts S. Paul hearing of their danger would have ventured himself among them had not the Christians nay some even of the Gentile Priests Governours of the popular Games and Sports earnestly disswaded him from it well knowing that the People were resolved if they could meet with him to throw him to the wild Beasts that were kept there for the disport and pleasure of the People And this doubtless he means when elsewhere he tells us that he fought with Beasts at Ephesus probably intending what the People designed though he did not actually suffer though the brutish rage the savage and inhumane manners of this People did sufficiently deserve that the censure and character should be fixed upon themselves 8. GREAT was the confusion of the Multitude the major-part not knowing the reason of the Concourse In which distraction Alexander a Jewish Convert being thrust forward by the Jews to be questioned and examined about this matter he would accordingly have made his Apologie to the People intending no doubt to clear himself by casting the whole blame upon S. Paul This being very probably that Alexander the Copper-smith of whom our Apostle elsewhere complains That he did him much evil and greatly withstood his words and whom he delivered over unto Satan for his Apostasie for blaspheming Christ and reproaching Christianity But the Multitude perceiving him to be a Jew and thereby suspecting him to be one of S. Paul's Associates began to raise an out-cry for near two Hours together wherein nothing could be heard but Great is Diana of the Ephesians The noise being a little over the Recorder a discreet and prudent Man came out and calmly told them That it was sufficiently known to all the World what a mighty honour and veneration the City of Ephesus had for the great Goddess Diana and the famous Image which fell from Heaven that therefore there needed not this stir to vindicate and assert it That they had seized Persons who were not guilty either of Sacriledge or Blasphemy towards their Goddess that if Demetrius and his Company had any just charge against them the Courts were sitting and they might prefer their Indictment or if the Controversie were about any other matter it might be referred to such a proper Judicature as the Law appoints for the determination of such cases That therefore they should do well to be quiet having done more already than they could answer if called in question as 't is like they would there being no cause sufficient to justifie that days riotous Assembly With which prudent discourse he appeased and dismissed the Multitude 9. IT was about this time that S. Paul heard of some disturbance in the Church at Corinth hatched and fomented by a pack of false heretical Teachers crept in among them who endeavoured to draw them into Parties and Factions by perswading one Party to be for Peter another for Paul a third for Apollos as if the main of Religion consisted in being of this or that Denomination or in a warm active zeal to decry and oppose whoever is not of our narrow Sect. 'T is a very weak and slender claim when a Man holds his Religion by no better a title than that he has joyned himself to this Man's Church or that Man's Congregation and is zealously earnest to maintain and promote it to be childishly and passionately clamorous for one Man's mode and way of administration or for some particular humour or opinion as if Religion lay in nice and curious disputes or in separating from our Brethren and not rather in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost By this means Schisms and Factions broke into the Corinthian Church whereby many wild and extravagant Opinions and some of them such as undermined the fundamental Articles of Christianity were planted and had taken root there As the envious Man never fishes more successfully than in troubled Waters To cure these Distempers S. Paul who had received an Account of all this by Letters which Apollos and some others had brought to him from the Church of Corinth writes his first Epistle to them Wherein he smartly reproves them for their Schisms and Parties conjures them to peace and unity corrects those gross corruptions that were introduced among them and particularly resolves those many cases and controversies wherein they had requested his advice and counsel Shortly after Apollos designing to go for Crete by him and Zenas S. Paul sends his Epistle to Titus whom he had made Bishop of that Island and had left there for the propagating of the Gospel Herein he fully instructs him in the execution of his Office how to carry himself and what directions he should give to others to all particular ranks and relations of men especially those who were to be advanced
conveniency though it took not place till after S. Paul's time were as endless as 't is alien to my purpose I shall only take notice of a few of more signal remark and such as S. Paul in his Epistles does eminently reflect upon 2. AMONGST the opinions and principles of Simon and his followers this was one That God did not create the World that it was made by Angels that Divine honours were due to them and they to be adored as subordinate mediators between God and us This our Apostle saw growing up apace and struck betimes at the root in that early caution he gave to the Colossians to let no man beguile them in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puft up by his fleshly mind and not holding the-head i. e. hereby disclaiming Christ the head of the Church But notwithstanding this warning this error still continued and spread it self in those parts for several Ages till expresly condemned by the Laodicean Council Nay Theodoret tells us that in his time there were still Oratories erected to the Archangel Michael in those places wherein they were wont to meet and pray to Angels Another Gnostick principle was that men might freely and indifferently eat what had been offered in sacrifice to Idols yea sacrifice to the Idol it self it being lawful confidently to abjure the Faith in time of persecution The first part whereof S. Paul does largely and frequently discuss up and down his Epistles the latter wherein the sting and poison was more immediately couched was craftily adapted to those times of suffering and greedily swallowed by many hereby drawn into Apostasie Against this our Apostle antidotes the Christians especially the Jewish Converts among whom the Gnosticks had mixed themselves that they would not suffer themselves to be drawn aside by an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God That notwithstanding sufferings and persecutions they would hold fast the profession of the Faith without wavering not forsaking the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is the Gnostick Hereticks remembring how severely God has threatned Apostates that if any man draw back his Soul shall have no pleasure in him and what a fearful thing it is thus to fall into the hands of the living God 3. BUT besides this Simon and his followers made the gate yet wider maintaining an universal licence to sin that men were free to do whatever they had a mind to that to press the observance of good works was a bondage inconsistent with the liberty of the Gospel that so men did but believe in him and his dear Helen they had no reason to regard Law or Prophets but might do what they pleased they should be saved by his grace and not according to good works Irenaeus adds what a man would easily have inferred had he never been told it that they lived in all lust and filthiness as indeed whoever will take the pains to peruse the account that is given of them will find that they wallowed in the most horrible and unheard of bestialities These persons S. Paul does as particularly describe as if he had named them having once and again with tears warned the Philippians of them that they were enemies of the Cross of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things And elsewhere to the same effect that they would mark them that caused divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which they had learned and avoid them for they that were such served not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly by good words and fair speeches deceiving the hearts of the simple This I doubt not he had in his eye when he gave those Caveats to the Ephesians that fornication and all uncleanness and inordinate desires should not be once named amongst them as became Saints nor filthiness nor unclean talking being assured by the Christian doctrine that no whoremonger nor unclean person c. could be saved that therefore they should let no man deceive them with vain words these being the very things for which the wrath of God came upon the children of disobedience and accordingly it concerned them not to be partakers with them Plainly intimating that this impure Gnostick-crue whose doctrines and practices he does here no less truly than lively represent had begun by crafty and insinuative arts to screw it self into the Church of Ephesus cheating the people with subtil and flattering insinuations probably perswading them that these things were but indifferent and a part of that Christian liberty wherein the Gospel had instated them By these and such like principles and practices many whereof might be reckoned up they corrupted the Faith of Christians distracted the peace of the Church stained and defiled the honour and purity of the best Religion in the World 4. BUT the greatest and most famous Controversie that of all others in those times exercised the Christian Church was concerning the obligation that Christians were under to observe the Law of Moses as necessary to their Justification and Salvation Which because a matter of so much importance and which takes up so great a part of S. Paul's Epistles and the clearing whereof will reflect a great light upon them we shall consider more at large In order whereunto three things especially are to be enquired after the true state of the Controversie what the Apostles determined in this matter and what respect the most material passages in S. Paul's Epistles about Justification and Salvation bear to this Controversie First we shall enquire into the true state and nature of the Controversie and for this we are to know that when Christianity was published to the World it mainly prevailed among the Jews they being generally the first Converts to the Faith But having been brought up in a mighty reverence and veneration for the Mosaick Institutions and looking upon that Oeconomy as immediately contrived by God himself delivered by Angels settled by their great Master Moses received with the most solemn and sensible appearances of Divine power and majesty ratified by miracles and entertained by all their forefathers as the peculiar prerogative of that Nation for so many Ages and Generations they could not easily be brought off from it or behold the Gospel but with an evil eye as an enemy that came to supplant and undermine this ancient and excellent Institution Nay those of them that were prevailed upon by the convictive power and evidence of the Gospel to embrace the Christian Religion yet could not get over the prejudice of education but must still continue their observance of those legal rites and customs wherein they had been brought up And not content with this they began magisterially to impose them upon others even all the Gentile Converts as that without which they could never be accepted by
that he tarry till I come Which doubtless our Lord meant of his coming so often mentioned in the New Testament in Judgment upon the Jews at the final overthrow of Jerusalem which S. John out-lived many years and which our Lord particularly intended when elsewhere he told them Verily I say unto you there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom 9. FROM the same Original sprang the report that he only lay sleeping in his Grave The story was currant in S. Augustines days from whom we receive this account though possibly the Reader will smile at the conceit He tells us 't was commonly reported and believed that S. John was not dead but that he rested like a Man asleep in his Grave at Ephesus as plainly appeared from the Dust sensibly boiling and bubling up which they accounted to be nothing else but the continual motion of his breath This report S. Augustine seems inclinable to believe having received it as he tells us from very credible hands He further adds out of some Apocryphal Writings what was generally known and reported that when S. John then in health had caused his Grave to be dug and prepared he laid himself down in it as in a Bed and as they thought only fell asleep Nicephorus relates the story more at large from whom if it may be any pleasure to entertain the Reader with these things we shall give this account S. John foreseeing his Translation into Heaven took the Presbyters and Ministers of the Church of Ephesus and several of the Faithful along with him out of the City carried them unto a Cemetery near at hand whither he himself was wont to retire to Prayer and very earnestly recommended the state of the Churches to God in Prayer Which being done he commanded a Grave to be immediately dug and having instructed them in the more recondite mysteries of Theologie the most excellent Precepts of a good Life concerning Faith Hope and especially Charity confirmed them in the practice of Religion commended them to the care and blessing of our Saviour and solemnly taking his leave of them he signed himself with the sign of the Cross and before them all went down into the Grave strictly charging them to put on the Grave-stone and to make it fast and the next day to come and open it and take a view of it They did so and having opened the Sepulchre found nothing there but the Grave-clothes which he had left behind him To all which let me add while my hand is in these things what Ephrem relates that from this Grave wherein he rested so short a time a kind of Sacred Oil or Unguent was wont to be gathered Gregory of Tours says 't was Manna which even in his time like flour was cast up from the Sepulchre and was carried up and down the World for the curing of diseases This report of our Apostles being yet alive some men made use of to wild and phantastick purposes Beza tells us of an Impostor in his time whom Postellus who vainly boasted that he had the Soul of Adam was wont to call his Brother who publickly professed himself to be our S. John and was afterwards burnt at Tholose in France Nor was this any more than what was done in the more early Ages of Christianity For Sulpitius Severus giving us an account of a young Spaniard that first professed himself to be Elias and then Christ himself adds That there was one at the same time in the East who gave out himself to be S. John So fast will Error like circles in the water multiply it self and one mistaken place of Scripture give countenance to an hundred stories that shall be built upon it I have no more to add but what we meet with in the Arabick writer of his life though it little agrees with the preceding passages who reports that there were none present at his burial but his disciple Phogsir probably Proghor or Prochorus one of the seven Deacons and generally said to have been John's companion and assistent whom he strictly charged never to discover his Sepulchre to any it may be for the same reason for which it is thought God concealed the Body of Moses to prevent the Idolatrous worshipping of his Reliques And accordingly the Turks who conceit him to be buried in the confines of Lydia pay great honour and veneration to his Tomb. 10. S. JOHN seems always to have led a single life and so the Ancients tell us nay S. Ambrose positively affirms that all the Apostles were married except S. John and S. Paul There want not indeed some and especially the middle Writers of the Church who will have our Apostle to have been married and that it was his marriage which our Lord was at in Cana of Galilee invited thither upon the account of his consanguinity and alliance But that being convinced by the Miracle of the Water turned into Wine he immediately quitted his conjugal relation and became one of our Lord's Disciples But this as Baronius himself confesses is trifling and the issue of fabulous invention a thing wholly unknown to the Fathers and best Writers of the Church and which not only has no just authority to support it but arguments enough to beat it down As for his natural temper he seems as we have observed in his Brother's Life to have been of a more eager and resolute disposition easily apt to be inflamed and provoked which his reduced Age brought to a more staid and a calmer temper He was polished by no study or arts of Learning but what was wanting in that was abundantly made up in the excellent temper and constitution of his mind and that furniture of Divine graces which he was adorned withall His humility was admirable studiously concealing his own worth and honour in all his Epistles as Eusebius long since observed he never puts down the honourable Titles of Apostle or Evangelist but only stiles himself and that too but sometimes Presbyter or Elder alluding probably to his Age as much as Office in his Gospel when he speaks of the Disciple whom Jesus loved he constantly conceals his own name leaving the Reader to conjecture who was meant Love and Charity he practised himself and affectionately pressed upon others our Lord 's great love to him seems to have inspired his Soul with a bigger and more generous charity than the rest 'T is the great vein that runs through his Writings and especially his Epistles where he urges it as the great and peculiar Law of Christianity and without which all other pretenses to Christian Religion are vain and frivolous useless and insignificant And this was his constant practice to his dying day When Age and Weakness grew upon him at Ephesus that he was no longer able to Preach to them he used at every publick Meeting to be led to the
Souls of Error and Idolatry their Bodies of infirmities and distempers healing diseases dispossessing Daemons settling Churches and appointing them Guides and Ministers of Religion 5. HAVING for many years successfully managed his Apostolical Office in all those parts he came in the last periods of his life to Hierapolis in Phrygia a City rich and populous but answering its name in its Idolatrous Devotions Amongst the many vain and trifling Deities to whom they payed religious adoration was a Serpent or Dragon in memory no doubt of that infamous Act of Jupiter who in the shape of a Dragon insinuated himself into the embraces of Proserpina his own Daughter begot of Ceres and whom these Phrygians chiefly worshipped as Clemens Alexandrinus tells us so little reason had Baronius to say that they worshipped no such God of a more prodigious bigness than the rest which they worshipped with great and solemn veneration S. Philip was troubled to see the people so wretchedly enslaved to error and therefore continually solicited Heaven till by prayer and calling upon the name of Christ he had procured the death or at least vanishing of this famed and beloved Serpent Which done he told them how unbecoming it was to give Divine honours to such odious creatures that God alone was to be worshipped as the great Parent of the World who had made man at first after his own glorious Image and when fallen from that innocent and happy state had sent his own Son into the World to redeem him who died and rose from the dead and shall come again at the last day to raise men out of their Graves and to sentence and reward them according to their works The success was that the people were ashamed of their fond Idolatry and many broke loose from their chains of darkness and ran over to Christianity Whereupon the great enemy of mankind betook himself to his old methods cruelty and persecution The Magistrates of the City seize the Apostle and having put him into prison caused him to be severely whipp'd and scourg'd This preparatory cruelty passed he was led to execution and being bound was hanged up by the neck against a pillar though others tell us that he was crucified We are further told that at his execution the Earth began suddenly to quake and the ground whereon the people stood to sink under them which when they apprehended and bewailed as an evident act of Divine vengeance pursuing them for their sins it as suddenly stopt and went no further The Apostle being dead his body was taken down by S. Bartholomew his fellow-sufferer though not finally executed and Mariamne S. Philip's Sister who is said to have been the constant companion of his travels and decently buried after which having confirmed the people in the Faith of Christ they departed from them 6. THAT S. Philip was married is generally affirmed by the Ancients Clemens of Alexandria reckons him one of the married Apostles and that he had Daughters whom he disposed in marriage Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus tell us that Philip one of the Twelve Apostles died at Hierapolis with two of his Daughters who persevered in their Virginity and that he had a third which died at Ephesus The truth is the not careful distinguishing between Philip the Deacon who lived at Caesarea and of whose four Virgin-daughters we read in the History of the Apostles Acts and our Apostle has bred some confusion among the Ancients in this matter But the account concerning them is greatly different for as they differed in their Persons and Offices the one a Deacon the other an Apostle so also in the number of their Children four Daughters being ascribed to the one while three only are attributed to the other He was one of the Apostles who left no Sacred writings behind him the greater part of the Apostles as Eusebius observes having little leisure to write Books being employed in ministeries more immediately useful and subservient to the happiness of mankind Though Epiphanius tells us that the Gnosticks were wont to produce a Gospel forged under S. Philip's name which they abused to the patronage of their horrible principles and more brutish practices The End of S. Philip 's Life THE LIFE OF S. BARTHOLOMEW S BARTHOLOMEW He was flea'd aliue by the command of a Barbarous King Place this to the Collect for St. Bartholomews day St. Bartholomew's Martyrdom Rom. 8.36 37. For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter But in all these things we are more then Conquerours The-silence concerning this Apostle in the History of the Gospel That he is the same with Nathanael proved by many probable arguments His title of Bar-Tholmai whence The School of the Tholmaeans An objection against his being Nathanael answered His descent and way of life His first coming to Christ and converse with him In what parts of the World he planted the Christian Faith His preaching in India and leaving S. Matthew 's Gospel there His return to Hierapolis and deliverance there from Crucifixion His removal to Albanopolis in Armenia and suffering Martyrdom there for the Faith of Christ. His being first flead alive and then crucified The fabulous Gospel attributed to him 1. THAT S. Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles the Evangelical History is most express and clear though it seems to take no further notice of him than the bare mention of his name Which doubtless gave the first occasion to many both anciently and of later time not without reason to suppose that he lies concealed under some other name and that this can be no other than Nathanael one of the first Disciples that came to Christ. Accordingly we may observe that as S. John never mentions Bartholomew in the number of the Apostles so the other Evangelists never take notice of Nathanael probably because the same person under two several names And as in John Philip and Nathanael are joyned together in their coming to Christ so in the rest of the Evangelists Philip and Bartholomew are constantly put together without the least variation for no other reason I conceive than because as they were joyntly called to the Discipleship so they are joyntly referred in the Apostolick Catalogue as afterwards we find them joynt companions in the writings of the Church But that which renders the thing most specious and probable is that we find Nathanael particularly reckoned up with the other Apostles to whom our Lord appeared at the Sea of Tiberias after his Resurrection where there were together Simon Peter and Thomas and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee and the two sons of Zebedee and two other of his Disciples who probably were Andrew and Philip. That by Disciples is here meant Apostles is evident partly from the names of those that are reckoned up partly because it is said that this was the third time that Jesus appeared to his Disciples it being plain that the
of our dependance upon God in the publick Solemnities of his praise and worship For the Law and the Gospel did not differ in this that the one commanded publick worship the other not but that under the one publick worship was fixed to one only place under the other it is free to any where the providence of God has placed us it being part of the duty bound upon us by natural and unalterable obligations that we should publickly meet together for the solemn Celebration of the Divine honour and service 13. NOR is the Oeconomy of the Gospel less extensive in time than place the Old Testament was only a temporary dispensation that of the Gospel is to last to the end of the World the Law was to continue only for a little time the Gospel is an Everlasting Covenant the one to be quickly antiquated and abolished the other never to be done away by any other to succeed it The Jews indeed stickle hard for the perpetual and immutable obligation of the Law of Moses and frequently urge us with those places where the Covenant of Circumcision is called an Everlasting Covenant and God said to chuse the Temple at Jerusalem to place his name there for ever to give the Land of Canaan to Abraham and his seed for an everlasting possession thus the Law of the Passeover is called an Ordinance for ever the command of the First-fruits a statute for ever and the like in other places which seem to intimate a perpetual and unalterable Dispensation But the answer is short and plain that this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever though when 't is applied to God it always denotes Eternity yet when 't is attributed to other things it implies no more than a periodical duration limited according to the will of the Lawgiver or the nature of the thing thus the Hebrew Servant was to serve his Master for ever that is but for seven years till the next year of Jubilee He shall walk before mine anointed for ever says God concerning Samuel that i◠be a Priest all his days Thus when the Ritual services of the Mosaick Law are called Statutes for ever the meaning is that they should continue a long time obligatory until the time of the Messiah in whose days the Sacrifice and Oblation was to cease and those carnal Ceremonies to give way to the more spiritual services of the Gospel Indeed the very typical nature of that Dispensation evidently argued it to be but for a time the shadow being to cease that the substance might take place and though many of them continued some considerable time after Christ's death yet they lost their positive and obligatory power and were used only as things indifferent in compliance with the inveterate prejudices of new Converts lately brought over from Judaism and who could not quickly lay aside that great veneration which they had for the Rites of the Mosaick Institution Though even in this respect it was not long before all Jewish Ceremonies were thrown off and Moses quite turn'd out of doors Whereas the Evangelical state is to run parallel with the age and duration of the World 't is the Everlasting Covenant the Everlasting Gospel the last Dispensation that God will make to the World God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son in which respect the Gospel in opposition to the Law is stiled a Kingdom that cannot be moved The Apostle in the foregoing Verses speaking concerning the Mosaical state Whose voice says he then shook the Earth but now he hath promised saying Yet once more I shake not the Earth only but also the Heaven a phrase peculiar to the Scripture to note the introducing a new scene and state of things and this word Yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made that those things which cannot be shaken may remain that is that the state of the Gospel may endure for ever Hence Christ is said to have an unchangeable Priesthood to be a Priest for ever to be consecrated for evermore From all which it appears how incomparably happy we Christians are under the Gospel above what the Jews were in the time of the Law God having placed us under the best of Dispensations freed us from those many nice and troublesome observances to which they were tied put us under the clearest discoveries and revelations and given us the most noble rational and masculine Religion a Religion the most perfective of our natures and the most conducive to our happiness while their Covenant at best was faulty and after all could not make him that did the service perfect in things pertaining to the Conscience Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see for I tell you that many Prophets and Kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them The End of the APPARATUS Antiquitates Apostolicae OR THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES OF OUR SAVIOUR To which are added The Lives of the two EVANGELISTS SS MARK and LVKE AS ALSO A brief Enumeration and Account of the Apostles and their Successors for the first Three Hundred Years in the Five great Apostolical Churches By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. Praefat. in Epist. ad Philem. pag. 1733. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner MDCLXXVI TO THE READER IT will not I suppose seem improbable to the Reader when I tell him with how much reluctancy and unwillingness I set upon this undertaking Besides the disadvantage of having this piece annexed to the Elaborate Book of that excellent Prelate so great a Master both of Learning and Language I was intimately conscious to my own unfitness for such a Work at any time much more when clogg'd with many habitual Infirmities and Distempers I considered the difficulty of the thing it self perhaps not capable of being well managed by a much better Pen than mine few of the Ancient Monuments of the Church being extant and little of this nature in those few that are Indeed I could not but think it reasonable that all possible honour should be done to those that first Preached the Gospel of peace and brought glad tidings of good things that it was fit men should be taught how much they were obliged to those excellent Persons who were willing at so dear a rate to plant Christianity in the World who they were and what was that Piety and that Patience that Charity and that Zeal which made them to be reverenc'd while they liv'd and their Memories ever since to be