plainly confessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and Ascension which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our present state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing perfect 'T was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it were uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the influences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit I 'le enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to exceed in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this case is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods ratified by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he laid down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when our Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so 't were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His
short as he had no Prerogative above the rest besides his being the Chair-man and President of the Assembly so was it granted to him upon no other considerations than those of his age zeal and gravity for which he was more eminent than the rest VIII We proceed next to enquire into the fitness and qualification of the Persons commissionated for this employment and we shall finde them admirably qualified to discharge it if we consider this following account First They immediately received the Doctrine of the Gospel from the mouth of Christ himself he intended them for Legati à latere his peculiar Embassadors to the World and therefore furnished them with instructions from his own mouth and in order hereunto he train'd them up for some years under his own Discipline and institution he made them to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven when to others it was not given treated them with the affection of a Father and the freedom and familiarity of a friend Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you They heard all his Sermons were privy both to his publick and private discourses what he preach'd abroad he expounded to them at home he gradually instructed them in the knowledge of Divine things and imparted to them the notions and mysteries of the Gospel not all at once but as they were able to bear them By which means they were sufficiently capable of giving a satisfactory account of that doctrine to others which had been so immediately so frequently communicated to themselves Secondly They were infallibly secured from error in delivering the Doctrines and Principles of Christianity for though they were not absolutely priviledg'd from failures and miscarriages in their lives these being of more personal and private consideration yet were they infallible in their Doctrine this being a matter whereupon the salvation and eternal interests of men did depend And for this end they had the spirit of truth promised to them who should guide them into all truth Under the conduct of this unerring Guide they all steer'd the same course taught and spake the same things though at different times and in distant places and for what was consign'd to writing all Scripture was given by inspiration of God and the holy men spake not but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Hence that exact and admirable harmony that is in all their writings and relations as being all equally dictated by the same spirit of truth Thirdly They had been eye-witnesses of all the material passages of our Saviour's life continually conversant with him from the commencing of his publick ministery till his ascension into Heaven they had survey'd all his actions seen all his miracles observ'd the whole method of his conversation and some of them attended him in his most private solitudes and retirements And this could not but be a very rational satisfaction to the minds of men when the publishers of the Gospel solemnly declared to the World that they reported nothing concerning our Saviour but what they had seen with their own eyes and of the truth whereof they were as competent Judges as the acutest Philosopher in the World Nor could there be any just reason to suspect that they impos'd upon men in what they delivered for besides their naked plainness and simplicity in all other passages of their lives they chearfully submitted to the most exquisite hardships tortures and sufferings meerly to attest the truth of what they published to the World Next to the evidence of our own senses no testimony is more valid and forcible than his who relates what himself has seen Upon this account our Lord told his Apostles that they should be witnesses to him both in Judaea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the Earth And so necessary a qualification of an Apostle was this thought to be that it was almost the only condition propounded in the choice of a new Apostle after the fall of Judas Wherefore says Peter of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning from the Baptism of John unto the same day that he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection Accordingly we find the Apostles constantly making use of this argument as the most rational evidence to convince those whom they had to deal with We are witnesses of all things which Jesus did both in the Land of the Jews and in Jerusalem whom they slew and hanged on a tree Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto witnesses chosen before of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he that is ordained of God to be Judge of the quick and dead Thus S. John after the same way of arguing appeals to sensible demonstration That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have look'd upon and our hands have handled of the word of life For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew unto you that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us This to name no more S. Peter thought a sufficient vindication of the Apostolical doctrine from the suspicion of forgery and imposture We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye-witnesses of his majesty God had frequently given testimony to the divinity of our blessed Saviour by visible manifestations and appearances from Heaven and particularly by an audible voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Now this Voice which came from Heaven says he we heard when we were with him in the holy Mount IX Fourthly The Apostles were invested with a power of working Miracles as the readiest means to procure their Religion a firm belief and entertainment in the minds of Men. For Miracles are the great confirmation of the truth of any doctrine and the most rational evidence of a divine commission For seeing God only can create and controll the Laws of nature produce something out of nothing and call things that are not as if they were give eyes to them that were born blind raise the dead c. things plainly beyond all possible powers of nature no man that believes the wisedom and goodness of an infinite being can suppose that this God of truth should affix his seal to a lye or communicate this power
Revelation is almost intirely made up of Prophecies concerning the future state and condition of the Church Sometimes by this spirit of prophecy God declared things that were of present concernment to the exigences of the Church as when he signified to them that they should set apart Paul and Barnabas for the conversion of the Gentiles and many times immediately designed particular persons to be Pastors and Governours of the Church Thus we read of the gift that was given to Timothy by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery that is his Ordination to which he was particularly pointed out by some prophetick designation But the main use of this prophetick gift in those times was to explain some of the more difficult and particular parts of the Christian doctrine especially to expound and apply the ancient Prophecies concerning the Messiah and his Kingdom in their publick Assemblies whence the gift of prophecy is explained by understanding all mysteries and all knowledge that is the most dark and difficult places of Scripture the types and figures the ceremonies and prophecies of the Old Testament And thus we are commonly to understand those words Prophets and prophesying that so familiarly occur in the New Testament Having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us whether prophecy let us prophesie according to the proportion of faith that is expound Scripture according to the generally-received principles of Faith and Life So the Apostle elsewhere prescribing Rules for the decent and orderly managing of Divine worship in their publick Assemblies let the Prophets says he speak two or three that is at the same Assembly and let the other judge and if while any is thus expounding another has a Divine afflatus whereby he is more particularly enabled to explain some difficult and emergent passage let the first hold his peace for ye may all all that have this gift prophesie one by one that so thus orderly proceeding all may learn and all may be comforted Nor can the first pretend that this interruption is an unseasonable check to his revelation seeing he may command himself for though among the Gentiles the prophetick and ecstatick impulse did so violently press upon the inspired Person that he could not govern himself yet in the Church of God the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets may be so ruled and restrained by them as to make way for others This order of Christian Prophets considered as a distinct Ministery by it self is constantly placed next to the Apostolical Office and is frequently by S. Paul preferred before any other spiritual Gifts then bestowed upon the Church When this spirit of Prophecy ceased in the Christian Church we cannot certainly finde It continued some competent time beyond the Apostolick Age. Justin Martyr expresly tells Trypho the Jew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gifts of Prophecy are even yet extant among us an argument as he there tells him that those things which had of old been the great Priviledges of their Church were now translated into the Christian Church And Eusebius speaking of a Revelation made to one Alcibiades who lived about the time of Irenaeus adds that the Divine Grace had not withdrawn its Presence from the Church but that they still had the Holy Ghost as their Counsellor to direct them XI Secondly They had the gift of discerning spirits whereby they were enabled to discover the truth or falshood of mens pretences whether their gifts were real or counterfeit and their persons truly inspired or not For many men acted only by diabolical impulses might entitle themselves to Divine inspirations and others might be imposed upon by their delusions and mistake their dreams and fancies for the Spirits dictates and revelations or might so subtilly and artificially counterfeit revelations that they might with most pass for currant especially in those times when these supernatural gifts were so common and ordinary and our Lord himself had frequently told them that false Prophets would arise and that many would confidently plead for themselves before him that they had prophesied in his name That therefore the Church might not be imposed upon God was pleased to endue the Apostles and it may be some others with an immediate faculty of discerning the Caffe from the Wheat true from false Prophets nay to know when the true Prophets delivered the revelations of the Spirit and when they expressed only their own conceptions This was a mighty priviledge but yet seems to me to have extended farther to judge of the sincerity or hypocrisie of mens hearts in the profession of Religion that so bad men being discovered suitable censures and punishments might be passed upon them and others cautioned to avoid them Thus Peter at first sight discovered Ananias and Saphira and the rotten hypocrisie of their intentions before there was any external evidence in the case and told Simon Magus though baptized before upon his embracing Christianity that his heart was not right in the sight of God for I perceive says he that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity Thirdly the Apostles had the gift of Tongues furnished with variety of utterance able to speak on a sudden several Languages which they had never learnt as occasion was administred and the exigences of persons and Nations with whom they conversed did require For the Apostles being principally designed to convert the World and to plant Christianity in all Countries and Nations it was absolutely necessary that they should be able readily to express their minds in the Languages of those Countries to which they addressed themselves seeing otherwise it would have been a work of time and difficulty and not consistent with the term of the Apostles lives had they been first to learn the different Languages of those Nations before they could have preached the Gospel to them Hence this gift was diffused upon the Apostles in larger measures and proportions than upon other men I speak with Tongues more than you all says S. Paul that is than all the gifted persons in the Church of Corinth Our Lord had told the Apostles before his departure from them that they should be endued with power from on high which upon the day of Pentecost was particularly made good in this instance when in a moment they were enabled to speak almost all the Languages of the then known World and this as a specimen and first-fruits of the rest of those miraculous powers that were conferr'd upon them XII A fourth gift was that of Interpretation or unfolding to others what had been delivered in an unknown tongue For the Christian Assemblies in those days were frequently made up of men of different Nations and who could not understand what the Apostles or others had spoken to the Congregation this God supplied by this gift of interpretation enabling some to interpret what others did not understand and to speak it to
in their story as well as we do of Melchisedeck others again refer him to the time of the Law given at Mount Sinai and the Israelites travels in the Wilderness others to the times of the Judges after the settlement of the Israelites in the Land of Promise nay some to the reign of David and Solomon and I know not whether the Reader will not smile at the fancy of the Turkish Chronologists who make Job Major-domo to Solomon as they make Alexander the Great the General of his Army Others go further and place him among those that were carried away in the Babylonish Captivity yea in the time of Ahasuerus and make his fair Daughters to be of the number of those beautiful young Virgins that were sought-for for the King Follies that need no confutation 'T is certain that he was elder than Moses his Kindred and Family his way of sacrificing the Idolatry rise in his time evidently placing him before that Age besides that there are not the least foot-steps in all his Book of any of the great things done for the Israelites deliverance which we can hardly suppose should have been omitted being examples so fresh in memory and so apposite to the design of that Book Most probable therefore it is that he lived about the time of the Israelitish Captivity in Egypt though whether as some Jews will have it born that very Year that Jacob came down into Egypt and dying that Year that they went out of Egypt I dare not peremptorily affirm And this no question is the reason why we find nothing concerning him in the Writings of Moses the History of those Times being crowded up into a very little room little being recorded even of the Israelites themselves for near Two Hundred Years more than in general that they were heavily oppressed under the Egyptian Yoke More concerning this great and good Man and the things relating to him if the Reader desire to know he may among others consult the elaborate exercitations of the younger Spanhemius in his Historia Jobi where the largest curiosity may find enough to satisfie it 22. AND now for a Conclusion to this Oeconomy if we reflect a little upon the state of things under this period of the World we shall find that the Religion of those early Ages was plain and simple unforced and natural and highly agreeable to the common dictates and notions of Mens minds They were not educated under any foreign Institutions nor conducted by a Body of numerous Laws and written Constitutions but were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo says of them tutor'd and instructed by the dictates of their own minds and the Principles of that Law that was written in their hearts following the order of Nature and right Reason as the safest and most ancient Rule By which means as one of the Ancients observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they maintained a free and uninterrupted course of Religion conducting their lives according to the rules of Nature so that having purged their minds from lust and passion and attained to the true knowledge of God they had no need of external and written Laws Their Creed was short and perspicuous their notions of God great and venerable their devotion and piety real and substantial their worship grave and serious and such as became the grandeur and majesty of the Divine being their Rites and Ceremonies few and proper their obedience prompt and sincere and indeed the whole conduct of their conversation discovering it self in the most essential and important duties of the humane life According to this standard it was that our blessed Saviour mainly designed to reform Religion in his most excellent Institutions to retrieve the piety and purity the innocency and simplicity of those first and more uncorrupted Ages of the World to improve the Laws of Nature and to reduce Mankind from ritual observances to natural and moral duties as the most vital and essential parts of Religion and was therefore pleased to charge Christianity with no more than two positive Institutions Baptism and the Lord's Supper that Men might learn that the main of Religion lies not in such things as these Hence Eusebius undertakes at large to prove the faith and manners of the Holy Patriarchs who lived before the times of Moses and the belief and practice of Christians to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Which he does not only assert and make good in general but deduce from particular instances the examples of Enoch Noah Abraham Melchisedeck Job c. whom he expresly proves to have believed and lived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 altogether after the manner of Christians Nay that they had the name also as well as the thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he shews from that place which he proves to be meant of Abraham Isaac and Jacob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Touch not my Christians mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm And in short that as they had the same common Religion so they had the common blessing and reward SECT II. Of the MOSAICAL Dispensation Moses the Minister of this Oeconomy His miraculous preservation His learned and noble education The Divine temper of his mind His conducting the Israelites out of Egypt Their arrival at Mount Sinai The Law given and how Moral Laws the Decalogue whether a perfect Compendium of the Moral Law The Ceremonial Laws what Reduced to their proper Heads Such as concerned the matter of their Worship Sacrifices and the several kinds of them Circumcision The Passover and its typical relation The place of Publick Worship The Tabernacle and Temple and the several parts of them and their typical aspects considered Their stated times and feasts weekly monthly annual The Sabbatical Year The Year of Jubilee Laws concerning the Persons ministring Priests Levites the High-Priest how a type of Christ. The Design of the Ceremonial Law and its abolition The Judicial Laws what The Mosaick Law how divided by the Jews into affirmative and negative Precepts and why The several ways of Divine revelation Urim and Thummim what and the manner of its giving Answers Bath-Col Whether any such way of revelation among the Jews Revelation by Dreams By Visions The Revelation of the Holy Spirit what Moses his way of Prophecy wherein exceeding the rest The pacate way of the spirit of prophecy This spirit when it ceased in the Jewish Church The state of the Church under this Dispensation briefly noted From the giving of the Law till Samuel From Samuel till Solomon It s condition under the succeeding Kings till the Captivity From thence till the coming of Christ. The state of the Jewish Church in the time of Christ more particularly considered The prophanations of the Temple The Corruption of their Worship The abuse of the Priesthood The Depravation of the Law by false glosses Their Oral and unwritten Law It s original and succession according to the mind of the Jews Their unreasonable and
the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the World who was taken from among men a Lamb without blemish and without spot holy harmless and separate from sinners The Door-posts of the House were to be sprinkled with the bloud of the Lamb to signifie our security from the Divine vengeance by the bloud of sprinkling The Lamb was to be roasted and eaten whole typifying the great sufferings of our blessed Saviour who was to pass through the fire of Divine wrath and to be wholly embrac'd and entertain'd by us in all his Offices as King Priest and Prophet None but those that were clean and circumcised might eat of it to shew that only true believers holy and good men can be partakers of Christ and the merits of his Death It was to be eaten standing with their Loins girt and their staff in their hand to put them in mind what haste they made out of the house of bondage and to intimate to us what present diligence we should use to get from under the empire and tyranny of sin and Satan under the conduct and assistance of the Captain of our Salvation The eating of it was to be mixed with bitter herbs partly as a memorial of that bitter servitude which they underwent in the Land of Egypt partly as a type of that repentance and bearing of the cross duties difficult and unpleasant which all true Christians must undergo Lastly it was to be eaten with unleavened Bread all manner of leaven being at that time to be banished out of their Houses with the most critical diligence and curiosity to represent what infinite care we should take to cleanse and purifie our hearts to purge out the old leaven that we may be a new lump and that since Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us therefore we should keep the Feast the Festival commemoration of his Death not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth 6. THE Places of their Publick Worship were either the Tabernacle made in the Wilderness or the Temple built by Solomon between which in the main there was no other difference than that the Tabernacle was an ambulatory Temple as the Temple was a standing Tabernacle together with all the rich costly Furniture that was in them The parts of it were three the Holiest of all whither none entred but the High-Priest and that but once a Year this was a type of Heaven the holy place whither the Priests entred every Day to perform their Sacred Ministrations and the outward Court whither the People came to offer up their Prayers and Sacrifices In the Sanctum Sanctorum or Holiest of all there was the Golden Censer typifying the Merits and Intercession of Christ the Ark of the Covenant as a representation of him who is the Mediator of the Covenant between God and man the Golden Pot of Manna a type of our Lord the true Manna the Bread that came down from Heaven the Rod of Aaron that budded signifying the Branch of the Root of Jesse that though our Saviour's Family should be reduced to a state of so much meanness and obscurity as to appear but like the trunk or stump of a Tree yet there should come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch grow out of his roots which should stand for an Ensign of the People and in him should the Gentiles trust And within the Ark were the two Tables of the Covenant to denote him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and who is the end and perfection of the Law Over it were the Cherubims of glory shadowing the Mercy-seat who looking towards each other and both to the Mercy-seat denoted the two Testaments or Dispensations of the Church which admirably agree and both direct to Christ the Mediator of the Covenant The Propitiatory or Mercy-seat was the Golden covering to the Ark where God veiling his Majesty was wont to manifest his Presence to give Answers and shew Himself reconciled to the People herein eminently prefiguring our Blessed Saviour who interposes between us and the Divine Majesty whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his bloud for the remission of sins so that now we may come boldly to the Throne of Grace and find mercy to help us Within the Sanctuary or the Holy Place was the Golden Candlestick with Seven-Branches representing Christ who is the Light of the World and who enlightens every one that comes into the World and before whose Throne there are said to be seven Lamps of Fire which are the seven spirits of God The Table compassed about with a Border and a Crown of Gold denoting the Ministry and the Shew-bread set upon it shadowing out Christ the Bread of Life who by the Ministry of the Gospel is offered to the World here also was the Golden Altar of Incense whereon they burnt the sweet Perfumes Morning and Evening to signifie to us that our Lord is the true Altar by whom all our Prayers and Services are rendred the odour of a sweet smell acceptable unto God to this the Psalmist refers Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my hands as the Evening Sacrifice The third part of the Tabernacle as also of the Temple was the Court of Israel wherein stood the Brazen Altar upon which the Holy Fire was continually preserved by which the Sacrifices were consumed one of the Five great Prerogatives that were wanting in the second Temple Here was the Brazen Laver with its Basis made of the brazen Looking-glasses of the Women that assembled at the Door of the Tabernacle wherein the Priests washed their Hands and their Feet when going into the Sanctuary and both they and the People when about to offer Sacrifice to teach us to purifie our hearts and to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit especially when we approach to offer up our services to Heaven hereunto David alludes I will wash mine hands in innocency so will I compass thine Altar O Lord. Solomon in building the Temple made an addition of a fourth Court the Court of the Gentiles whereinto the unclean Jews and Gentiles might enter and in this was the Corban or Treasury and it is sometimes in the New Testament called the Temple To these Laws concerning the Place of Worship we may reduce those that relate to the holy Vessels and Utensils of the Tabernacle and the Temple Candlesticks Snuffers Dishes c. which also had their proper mysteries and significations 7. THE stated times and seasons of their worship are next to be considered and they were either Daily Weekly Monthly or Yearly Their Daily worship was at the time of the Morning and the Evening Sacrifice their Weekly solemnity was the Sabbath which was to be kept with all imaginable care and strictness they being commanded to rest
the Priest is commanded to ask counsel after the Judgment of Urim before the Lord. What this Urim and Thummim was and what the manner of receiving answers by it is difficult if not impossible to tell there being scarce any one difficulty that I know of in the Bible that hath more exercised the thoughts either of Jewish or Christian Writers Whether it was some addition to the High-Priests breast-plate made by the hand of some curious Artist or whether only those two words engraven upon it or the great name Jehovah carved and put within the foldings of the breast-plate or whether the twelve stones resplendent with light and completed to perfection with the Tribes names therein or whether some other mysterious piece of artifice immediately framed by the hand of Heaven and given to Moses when he delivered him the two Tables of the Law is vain and endless to enquire because impossible to determine Nor is the manner of its giving answers less uncertain Whether at such times the fresh and orient lustre of the stones signified the answer in the Affirmative while their dull and dead colour spake the Negative or whether it was by some extraordinary protuberancy and thrusting forth of the letters engraven upon the stones from the conjunction whereof the Divine Oracle was gathered or whether probably it might be that when the High-Priest enquired of God with this breast-plate upon him God did either by a lively voice or by immediate suggestions to his mind give him a distinct and perspicuous answer illuminating his mind with the Urim or the light of the knowledge of his will in those cases and satisfying his doubts and scruples with the Thummim of a perfect and complete determination of those difficulties that were propounded to him thereby enabling him to give a satisfactory and infallible answer in all the particulars that lay before him And this several of the Jews seem to intend when they make this way of revelation one of the degrees of the Holy Ghost and say that no sooner did the High-Priest put on the Pectoral and had the case propounded to him but that he was immediately clothed with the Holy Spirit But it 's to little purpose to hunt after that where fancy and conjecture must decide the case Indeed among the various conjectures about this matter none appears with greater probability than the opinion of those who conceive the Urim and Thummim to have been a couple of Teraphim or little Images probably formed in humane shape put within the hollow foldings of the Pontifical breast-plate from whence God by the ministery of an Angel vocally answered those interrogatories which the High-Priest made Nothing being more common even in the early Ages of the World than such Teraphim in those Eastern Countries usually placed in their Temples and whence the Daemon was wont oracularly to determine the cases brought before him And as God permitted the Jews the use of Sacrifices which had been notoriously abused to Superstition and Idolatry in the Heathen World so he might indulge them these Teraphim though now converted to a sacred use that so he might by degrees wean them from the Rites of the Gentile World to which they had so fond an inclination And this probably was the reason why when Moses is so particular in describing the other parts of the Sacerdotal Ornaments nothing at all is said of this because a thing of common use among the Nations with whom they had conversed and notoriously known among themselves And such we may suppose the Prophet intended when he threatned the Jews that they should abide without a Sacrifice without an Image or Altar without an Ephod and without a Teraphim A notion very happily improved by an ingenious Pen whose acute conjectures and elaborate dissertations about this matter justly deserve commendation even from those who differ from it It seems to have been a kind of political Oracle and to be consulted only in great and weighty cases as the Election of Supreme Magistrates making War c. and only by Persons of the highest rank none being permitted say the Jews to enquire of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless in a case wherein the King or the Sanhedrim or the whole Congregation was concerned 12. A SECOND way of Divine Revelation was by an audible voice accompanied many times with Thunder descending as it were from Heaven and directing them in any emergency of affairs This the Jewish Writers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the daughter or Eccho of a Voice which they confess to have been the lowest kind of revelation and to have been in use only in the times of the second Temple when all other ways of Prophecy were ceased But notwithstanding their common and confident assertions whether ever there was any such standing way of revelation as this is justly questionable nay it is peremptorily denied by one incomparably versed in the Talmudick Writings who adds that if there was any such thing at any time it was done by Magick Arts and diabolical delusions partly because it is only delivered by Jewish Writers whose faith and honesty is too well known to the World to be trusted in stories that make so much for the honour of their Nation not to mention their extravagant propension to lies and fabulous reports partly because by their own confession God had withdrawn all his standing Oracles and ordinary ways of Revelation their notorious impieties having caused Heaven to retire and therefore much less would it correspond with them by such immediate converses partly because this seemed to be a way more accommodate to the Evangelical dispensation at the appearance of the Son of God in the World A voice from Heaven is the most immediate testimony and therefore fittest to do honour to him who came down from Heaven and was sure to meet with an obdurate and incredulous Generation and to give evidence to that Doctrine that he published to the World Thus by a Bath-Col or a Voice from Heaven God bare witness to our Saviour at his Baptism and a second time at his Transfiguration and again at the Passover at Jerusalem when there came a Voice from Heaven which the People took for Thunder or the Communication of an Angel and most of S. John's intelligences from above recorded in his Book of Revelation are ushered in with an I heard a Voice from Heaven 13. BUT the most frequent and standing method of Divine communications was that whereby God was wont to transact with the Prophets and in extraordinary cases with other Men which was either by Dreams Visions or immediate Inspirations The way by Dreams was when the Person being overtaken with a deep sleep and all the exteriour senses locked up God presented the Species and Images of things to their understandings and that in such a manner that they might be able to apprehend the will of God which they presently did upon their awaking out of sleep These Divine
Dreams the Jews distinguish into two sorts Monitory such as were sent only by way of instruction and admonition to give Men notice of what they were to do or warning of what they should avoid such were the Dreams of Pharaoh Abimelech Laban c. or else they were Prophetical when God by such a powerful energy acted upon the mind and imagination of the Prophet as carried the strength and force of a Divine evidence along with it This was sometimes done by a clear and distinct impression of the thing upon the mind without any dark or enigmatical representation of it such as God made to Samuel when he first revealed himself to him in the Temple sometimes by apparition yet so as the Man though a-sleep was able to discern an Angel conversing with him By Visions God usually communicated himself two ways First when something really appeared to the sight thus Moses beheld the Bush burning and stood there while God conversed with him Manoah and his Wife saw the Angel while he took his leave and in a flaming Pyramid went up to Heaven the three Angels appeared to Abraham a little before the fatal ruine of Sodom all which apparitions were unquestionably true and real the Angel assuming an humane shape that he might the freelier converse with and deliver his message to those to whom he was sent Secondly by powerful impressions upon the imagination usually done while the Prophet was awake and had the free and uninterrupted exercise of his reason though the Vision oft over-powered and cast him into a trance that the Soul being more retired from sensible objects might the closer intend those Divine notices that were represented to it Thus all the Prophets had the Idea's of those things that they were to deliver to the People the more strongly impressed upon their fancies and this commonly when they were in the greatest solitude and privacy and their powers most called in that the Prophetical influx might have the greater force upon them In some such way S. Paul was caught up into the third Heaven probably not so much by any real separation of his Soul from his Body or local translation of his Spirit thither as by a profound abstraction of it from his corporeal Senses God during the time of the trance entertaining it with an internal and admirable scene of the glory and happiness of that state as truly and effectually as if his Soul had been really conveyed thither 14. THIRDLY God was wont to communicate his mind by immediate Inspirations whereby he immediately transacted with the understandings of Men without any relation to their fancy or their senses It was the most pacate and serene way of Prophecy God imparting his mind to the Prophet not by Dreams or Visions but while they were awake their powers active and their minds calm and undisturbed This the Jews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Spirit or that kind of Revelation that was directly conveyed into the mind by the most efficacious irradiation and inspiration of the Holy Spirit God by these Divine illapses enabling the Prophet clearly and immediately to apprehend the things delivered to him And in this way the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or holy Writings were dictated and conveyed to the World in which respect the Apostle says that all Scripture is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 given by divine inspiration The highest pitch of this Prophetical revelation was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gradus Mosaicus or that way of Prophecy that God used towards Moses of whom it is particularly said that the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a Man speaketh unto his friend and elsewhere it is evidently distinguished from all inferiour ways of Prophecy If there be a Prophet among you I the Lord will make my self known unto him in a Vision and will speak unto him in a Dream my Servant Moses is not so with him I will speak mouth to mouth even apparently and not in dark speeches and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold Clearly implying a mighty preheminence in God's way of revelation to Moses above that of other Prophets which the Jewish Writers make to have lyen in four things First that in all God's communications to Moses he immediately spake to his understanding without any impressions upon fancy any visible appearances any Dreams or Visions of the Night Secondly that Moses had prophecies conveyed to him without any fears or consternations whereas the other Prophets were astonished and weakned at the sight of God Thirdly that Moses had no previous dispositions or preparations to make him capable of the Divine revelation but could directly go to God and consult him as a man speaketh with his friend other Prophets being forced many times by some preparatory arts to invite the Prophetick spirit to come upon them Fourthly that Moses had a freedom and liberty of spirit to prophesie at all times and could when he pleased have recourse to the Sacred Oracle But as to this the Scripture intimates no such thing the spirit of Prophecy retiring from him at some times as well as from the rest of the Prophets And indeed the Prophetick spirit did not reside in the holy men by way of habit but occasionally as God saw fitting to pour it out upon them it was not in them as light is in the Sun but as light in the Air and consequently depended upon the immediate irradiations of the Spirit of God 15. THESE Divine Communications were so conveyed to the minds of the Prophets and inspired persons that they always knew them to be Divine revelations so mighty and perspicuous was the evidence that came along with them that there could be no doubt but they were the birth of Heaven It 's true when the Prophetick spirit at any time seised upon wicked men they understood not its effect upon them nor were in the least improved and bettered by it the revelation passed through them as a sound through a Trunk or water through a Leaden-pipe without any particular and distinct apprehension of the thing or useful impression made upon their minds as is evident besides others in the case of Caiaphas and Balaam of which last the Jews say expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he prophesied according to the will of God but understood not what he prophesied But it was otherwise with the true Prophets they always knew who 't was that acted them and what was the meaning of that intelligence that was communicated to them In the Gentile world when the Daemon entred into the inspired person he was usually carried out to the furious transports of rage and madness But in the Prophets of God although the impulse might sometimes be very strong and violent whence the Prophet Jeremy complains Mine heart within me is broken all my bones shake I am like a drunken man like a man whom wine hath overcome because of the Lord and because of the words of his holiness so
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
enemies In these and such like instances they had notoriously abused and evacuated the Law and in a manner rendred it of no effect And therefore when our Lord as the great Prophet sent from God came into the World the first thing he did after the entrance upon his publick Ministry was to cleanse and purifie the Law and to remove that rubbish which the Jewish Doctors had cast upon it He rescued it out of the hands of their poisonous and pernicious expositions restored it to its just authority and to its own primitive sence and meaning he taught them that the Law did not only bind the external act but prescribe to the most inward motions of the mind and that whoever transgresses here is no less obnoxious to the Divine Justice and the penalties of the Law than he that is guilty of the most gross and palpable violations of it he shewed them how infinitely more pure and strict the command was than these Impostors had represented it and plainly told them that if ever they expected to be happy they must look upon the Law with an other-guise eye and follow it after another rate than their blind and deceitful Guides did For I say unto you Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you can in no case enter into the Kingdom of God 20. THE other way by which they corrupted and dishonoured the Law and weakned the power and reputation of it was by preferring before it their Oral and unwritten Law For besides the Law consigned to Writing they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Law delivered by word of mouth whose pedigree they thus deduce They tell us that when Moses waited upon God Forty Days in the Mount he gave him a double Law one in Writing the other Traditionary containing the sence and explication of the former being come down into his Tent he repeated it first to Aaron then to Ithamar and Eleazar his Sons then to the Seventy Elders and lastly to all the People the same Persons being all this while present Aaron who had now heard it four times recited Moses being gone out again repeated it before them after his departure out of the Tent his two Sons who by this had heard it as oft as their Father made another repetition of it by which means the Seventy Elders came to hear it four times and then they also repeated it to the Congregation who had now also heard it repeated four times together once from Moses then from Aaron then from his Sons and lastly from the Seventy Elders after which the Congregation broke up and every one went home and taught it his Neighbour This Oral Law Moses upon his Death-bed repeated to Joshua he delivered it to the Elders they to the Prophets the Prophets to the men of the great Synagogue the last of whom was Symeon the Just who delivered it to Antigonus Sochaeus and he to his Successors the wise Men whose business it was to recite it and so it was handed through several Generations the names of the Persons who delivered it in the several Ages from its first rise under Moses till above an Hundred Years after Christ being particularly enumerated by Maimonides At last it came to R. Jehuda commonly stiled by the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our holy Master the Son of Rabban Symeon who flourished a little before the time of the Emperor Antoninus who considering the unsetled and tottering condition of his own Nation and how apt these traditionary Precepts would be to be forgotten or mistaken by the weakness of Mens memories or the perversness of their wits or the dispersion of the Jews in other Countries collected all these Laws and Expositions and committed them to Writing stiling his Book Mishnaioth or the Repetition This was afterwards illustrated and explained by the Rabbines dwelling about Babylon with infinite cases and controversies concerning their Law whose resolutions were at last compiled into another Volume which they called Gemara or Doctrine and both together constitute the intire Body of the Babylonish Talmud the one being the Text the other the Comment The folly and vanity of this account though it be sufficiently evident to need no confutation with any wise and discerning Man yet have the Jews in all Ages made great advantage of it magnifying and extolling it above the written Law with Titles and Elogies that hyperbolize into blasphemy They tell us that this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of the Law for whose sake it was that God entred into Covenant with the Israelites that without this the whole Law would lye in the dark yea be mere obscurity and darkness it self as being contrary and repugnant to it self and defective in things necessary to be known that it is joy to the heart and health to the bones that the words of it are more lovely and desirable than the words of the Law and a greater sin to violate the one than the other that it 's little or no commendation for a Man to read the Bible but to study the Mishna is that for which a Man shall receive the reward of the other World and that no Man can have a peaceable and quiet conscience who leaves the study of the Talmud to go to that of the Bible that the Bible is like Water the Mishna like Wine the Talmud like spiced Wine that all the words of the Rabbins are the very words of the living God from which a Man might not depart though they should tell him his right hand were his left and his left his right nay they blush not nor tremble to assert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that to study in the holy Bible is nothing else but to lose our time I will mention but one bold and blasphemous sentence more that we may see how far these desperate wretches are given over to a spirit of impiety and infatuation they tell us that he that dissents from his Rabbin or Teacher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissents from the Divine Majesty but he that believes the words of the wise men believes God himself 21. STRANGE that Men should so far offer violence to their reason so far conquer and subdue their conscience as to be able to talk at this wild and prodigious rate and stranger it would seem but that we know a Generation of Men great Patrons of Tradition too in another Church who mainly endeavour to debase and suppress the Scriptures and value their unwritten Traditions at little less rate than this But I let them pass This is no novel and up-start humour of the Jews they were notoriously guilty of it in our Saviour's days whom we find frequently charging them with their superstitious observances of many little rites and usages derived from the Traditions of the Elders wherein they placed the main of Religion and for which they had a far more sacred regard than for the plain and positive commands of God Such
dispensation of the Messiah but only quarrelled with him for taking upon him to administer it when yet he denied himself to be one of the prime Ministers of this new state They said unto him Why baptizest thou then if thou be not that Christ nor Elias neither that Prophet Either of which had he owned himself they had not questioned his right to enter Proselytes by this way of Baptism It is called the Baptism of Repentance this being the main qualification that he required of those who took it upon them as the fittest means to dispose them to receive the Doctrine and Discipline of the Messiah and to intitle them to that pardon of sin which the Gospel brought along with it whence he is said to baptize in the Wilderness and to preach the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And the success was answerable infinite Multitudes flocking to it and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins Nor is it the least part of his happiness that he had the honour to baptize his Saviour which though modestly declined our Lord put upon him and was accompanied with the most signal and miraculous attestations which Heaven could bestow upon it 5. AFTER his Preparatory Preachings in the Wilderness he was called to Court by Herod at least he was his frequent Auditor was much delighted with his plain and impartial Sermons and had a mighty reverence for him the gravity of his Person the strictness of his Manners the freedom of his Preaching commanding an awe and veneration from his Conscience and making him willing in many things to reform But the bluntness of the holy Man came nearer and touched the King in the tenderest part smartly reproving his adultery and incestuous embraces for that Prince kept Herodias his Brother Philip's Wife And now all corrupt interests were awakened to conspire his ruine Extravagant Lusts love not to be controll'd and check'd Herodias resents the affront cannot brook disturbance in the pleasures of her Bed or the open challenging of her honour and therefore by all the arts of Feminine subtilty meditates revenge The issue was the Baptist is cast into Prison as the praeludium to a sadder fate For among other pleasures and scenes of mirth performed upon the King's Birth-day Herod being infinitely pleased with the Dancing of a young Lady Daughter of this Herodias promised to give her Her request and solemnly ratified his promise with an Oath She prompted by her Mother asks the Head of John the Baptist which the King partly out of a pretended reverence to his Oath partly out of a desire not to be interrupted in his unlawful pleasures presently granted and it was as quickly accomplished Thus died the Holy man a man strict in his conversation beyond the ordinary measures of an Anchoret bold and resolute faithful and impartial in his Office indued with the power and spirit of Elias a burning and a shining light under whose light the Jews rejoyced to sit exceedingly taken with his temper and principles He was the happy Messenger of the Evangelical tidings and in that respect more than a Prophet a greater not arising among them that were born of Women In short he was a Man loved of his Friends revered and honoured by his Enemies Josephus gives this character of him that he was a good man and pressed the Jews to the study of vertue to the practice of piety towards God and justice and righteousness towards men and to joyn themselves to his Baptism which he told them would then become effectual and acceptable to God when they did not only cleanse the body but purifie the mind by goodness and vertue And though he gives somewhat a different account of Herod's condemning him to die from what is assigned in the Sacred History yet he confesses that the Jews universally looked upon the putting him to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod's Army and an evident effect of the Divine vengeance and displeasure The Jews in their Writings make honourable mention of his being put to death by Herod because reproving him for the company of his Brother Philip's Wife stiling him Rabbi Johanan the High-Priest and reckoning him one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the wise men of Israel Where he is called High-Priest probably with respect to his being the Son of Zachariah Head or Chief of one of the XXIV Families or courses of the Priests who are many times called Chief or High-Priests in Scripture 6. THE Evangelical state being thus proclaimed and ushered in by the Preaching and Ministry of the Baptist our Lord himself appeared next more fully to publish and confirm it concerning whose Birth Life Death and Resurrection the Doctrine he delivered the Persons he deputed to Preach and convey it to the World and its success by the Ministry of the Apostles large and particular accounts are given in the following work That which may be proper and material to observe in this place is what the Scripture so frequently takes notice of the excellency of this above the preceding dispensations especially that brought in by Moses so much magnified in the Old Testament and so passionately admired and adhered to by the Jews at this day Jesus is the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls it of a better Covenant And better it is in several regards besides the infinite difference between the Persons who were imployed to introduce and settle them Moses and our Lord. The preheminence eminently appears in many instances whereof we shall remark the most considerable And first the Mosaick dispensation was almost wholly made up of types and shadows the Evangelical has brought in the truth and substance The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Their Ordinances were but shadows of good things to come sensible representations of what was to follow after the Body is Christ the perfection and accomplishment of their whole ritual Ministration Their Ceremonies were Figures of those things that are true the Land of Canaan typified Heaven Moses and Joshua were types of the Blessed Jesus and the Israelites after the flesh of the true Israel which is after the Spirit and all their Expiatory Sacrifices did but represent that Great Sacrifice whereby Christ offered up himself and by his own bloud purged away the sins of mankind indeed the most minute and inconsiderable circumstances of the Legal Oeconomy were intended as little lights that might gradually usher in the state of the Gospel A curious Artist that designs a famous and excellent piece is not wont to complete and finish it all at once but first with his Pencil draws some rude lines and rough draughts before he puts his last hand to it By such a method the wise God seems to have delivered the first draughts and Images of those things by Moses to the Church the substance and perfection whereof he designed should be brought in by Christ. And how
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
to any that would abuse it to confirm and countenance delusions and impostures Nicodemus his reasoning was very plain and convictive when he concludes that Christ must needs be a Teacher come from God for that no man could do those Miracles that he did except God were with him The force of which argument lies here that nothing but a Divine power can work Miracles and that Almighty God cannot be supposed miraculously to assist any but those whom he himself sends upon his own errand The stupid and barbarous Lycaonians when they beheld the Man who had been a Cripple from his Mothers womb cured by S. Paul in an instant only with the speaking of a word saw that there was something in it more than humane and therefore concluded that the Gods were come down to them in the likeness of Men. Upon this account S. Paul reckons Miracles among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the signs and evidences of an Apostle whom therefore Chrysostom brings in elegantly pleading for himself that though he could not shew as the signs of his Priesthood and Ministry long Robes and gaudy Vestments with Bells sounding at their borders as the Aaronical Priests did of old though he had no golden Crowns or holy Mitres yet could he produce what was infinitely more venerable and regardable than all these unquestionable Signs and Miracles He came not with Altars and Oblations with a number of strange and symbolick Rites but what was greater raised the dead cast out Devils cured the blind healed the lame making the Gentiles obedient by word and deed thorough many signs and wonders wrought by the power of the spirit of God These were the things that clearly shewed that their mission and ministry was not from men nor taken up of their own heads but that they acted herein by a Divine warrant and authority That therefore it might plainly appear to the World that they did not falsify in what they said or deliver any more than God had given them in commission he enabled them to do strange and miraculous operations bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost This was a power put into the first draught of their commission when confined only to the Cities of Israel As ye go preach saying The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out Devils freely you have received freely give but more fully confirmed upon them when our Lord went to Heaven then he told them that these signs should follow them that believe that in his Name they should cast out Devils and speak with new tongues that they should take up serpents and if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt them that they should lay hands on the sick and they should recover And the event was accordingly for they went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following When Paul and Barnabas came up to the Council at Jerusalem this was one of the first things they gave an account of all the multitude keeping silence while they declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them Thus the very shadow of Peter as he passed by cured the sick thus God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them So that besides the innate characters of Divinity which the Christian religion brought along with it containing nothing but what was highly reasonable and very becoming God to reveal it had the highest external evidence that any Religion was capable of the attestation of great and unquestionable Miracles done not once or twice not privately and in corners not before a few simple and credulous persons but frequently and at every turn publickly and in places of the most solemn concourse before the wisest and most judicious enquirers and this power of miracles continued not only during the Apostles time but for some Ages after X. But because besides Miracles in general the Scripture takes particular notice of many gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost conferred upon the Apostles and first Preachers of the Gospel it may not be amiss to consider some of the chiefest and most material of them as we find them enumerated by the Apostle only premising this observation that though these gifts were distinctly distributed to persons of an inferiour order so that one had this and another that yet were they probably all conferr'd upon the Apostles and doubtless in larger proportions than upon the rest First we take notice of the gift of Prophecy a clear evidence of divine inspiration and an extraordinary mission the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy It had been for many Ages the signal and honourable priviledge of the Jewish Church and that the Christian Oeconomy might challenge as sacred regards from men and that it might appear that God had not withdrawn his Spirit from his Church in this new state of things it was revived under the dispensation of the Gospel according to that famous Prophecy of Joel exactly accomplished as Peter told the Jews upon the day of Pentecost when the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were so plentifully shed upon the Apostles and Primitive Christians This is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel It shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie and your young Men shall see Visions and your old Men shall dream Dreams and on my servants and on my Hand-maidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesie It lay in general in revealing and making known to others the mind of God but discovered it self in particular instances partly in foretelling things to come and what should certainly happen in after-times a thing set beyond the reach of any finite understanding for though such effects as depend upon natural agents or moral and political causes may be foreseen by studious and considering persons yet the knowledge of futurities things purely contingent that meerly depend upon mens choice and their mutable and uncertain wills can only fall under his view who at once beholds things past present and to come Now this was conferred upon the Apostles and some of the first Christians as appears from many instances in the History of the Apostolick Acts and we find the Apostles writings frequently interspersed with prophetical predictions concerning the great apostasie from the faith the universal corruption and degeneracy of manners the rise of particular heresies the coming of Antichrist and several another things which the spirit said expresly should come to pass in the latter times besides that S. John's whole Book of
threefold denial had given so much cause to question should now by a threefold confession give more than ordinary assurance of his sincere affection to his Master Peter was a little troubled at this frequent questioning of his love and therefore more expresly appeals to our Lord's omnisciency that He who knew all things must needs know that he loved him To each of these confessions our Lord added this signal trial of his affection then Feed my sheep that is faithfully instruct and teach them carefully rule and guide them perswade not compel them feed not fleece nor kill them And so 't is plain S. Peter himself understood it by the charge which he gives to the Guides and Rulers of the Church that they should feed the Flock of God taking the over-sight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind Neither as being Lords over God's heritage but as examples to the flock But that by feeding Christ's Sheep and Lambs here commended to S. Peter should be meant an universal and uncontrollable Monarchy and Dominion over the whole Christian Church and that over the Apostles themselves and their Successors in ordinary and this power and supremacy solely invested in S. Peter and those who were to succeed him in the See of Rome is so wild an inference and such a melting down words to run into any shape as could never with any face have been offered or been possible to have been imposed upon the belief of mankind if men had not first subdued their reason to their interest and captivated both to an implicite faith and a blind obedience For granting that our Lord here addressed his speech only unto Peter yet the very same power in equivalent terms is elsewhere indifferently granted to all the Apostles and in some measure to the ordinary Pastors and Governours of the Church As when our Lord told them That all power was given him in Heaven and in Earth by vertue whereof they should go teach and baptize all Nations and preach the Gospel to every Creature That they should feed God's flock Rule well inspect and watch over those over whom they had the Authority and the Rule Words of as large and more express signification than those which were here spoken to S. Peter 5. OUR Lord having thus engaged Peter to a chearful compliance with the dangers that might attend the discharge and execution of his Office now particularly intimates to him what that fate was that should attend him telling him that though when he was young he girt himself lived at his own pleasure and went whither he pleased yet when he was old he should stretch forth his hands and another should gird and bind him and lead him whither he had no mind to go intimating as the Evangelist tells us by what death he should glorifie God that is by Crucifixion the Martyrdom which he afterward underwent And then rising up commanded him to follow him by this bodily attendance mystically implying his conformity to the death of Christ that he should follow him in dying for the truth and testimony of the Gospel It was not long after that our Lord appeared to them to take his last farewell of them when leading them out unto Bethany a little Village upon the Mount of Olives he briefly told them That they were the persons whom he had chosen to be the witnesses both of his Death and Resurrection a testimony which they should bear to him in all parts of the World In order to which he would after his Ascension pour out his Spirit upon them in larger measures than they had hitherto received that they might be the better fortified to grapple with that violent rage and fury wherewith both Men and Devils would endeavour to oppose them and that in the mean time they should return to Jerusalem and stay till these miraculous powers were from on high conferred upon them His discourse being ended laying his hands upon them he gave them his solemn blessing which done he was immediately taken from them and being attended with a glorious guard and train of Angels was received up into Heaven Antiquity tells us that in the place where he last trod upon the rock the impression of his feet did remain which could never afterwards be fill'd up or impaired over which Helena Mother of the Great Constantine afterwards built a little Chappel called the Chappel of the Ascension in the floor whereof upon a whitish kind of stone modern Travellers tell us that the impression of his Foot is shewed at this day but 't is that of his right foot only the other being taken away by the Turks and as 't is said kept in the Temple at Jerusalem Our Lord being thus taken from them the Apostles were filled with a greater sense of his glory and majesty than while he was wont familiarly to converse with them and having performed their solemn adorations to him returned back to Jerusalem waiting for the promise of the Holy Ghost which was shortly after conferred upon them They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy They who lately were overwhelmed with sorrow at the very mention of their Lord's departure from them entertained it now with joy and triumph being fully satisfied of his glorious advancement at God's right hand and of that particular care and providence which they were sure he would exercise towards them in pursuance of those great trusts he had committed to them SECT VII S. Peter's Acts from our Lord's Ascension till the Dispersion of the Church The Apostles return to Jerusalem The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-room where they assembled what Peter declares the necessity of a new Apostles being chosen in the room of Judas The promise of the Holy Ghost made good upon the day of Pentecost The Spirit descended in the likeness of fiery cloven tongues and why The greatness of the Miracle Peter's vindication of the Apostles from the slanders of the Jews and proving Christ to be the promised Messiah Great numbers converted by his Sermon His going up to the Temple What their stated hours of Prayer His curing the impotent Gripple there and discourse to the Jews upon it What numbers converted by him Peter and John seised and cast into Prison Brought before the Sanhedrim and their resolute carriage there Their refusing to obey when commanded not to preach Christ. The great security the Christian Religion provides for subjection to Magistrates in all lawful instances of Obedience The severity used by Peter towards Ananias and Saphirak The great Miracles wrought by him Again cast into Prison and delivered by an Angel Their appearing before the Sanhedrim and deliverance by the prudent counsels of Gamaliel 1. THE Holy Jesus being gone to Heaven the Apostles began to act according to the Power and Commission he had left with them In order whereunto the first thing they did after his Ascension was to fill up the
vacancy in their Colledge lately made by the unhappy fall and Apostasie of Judas To which end no sooner were they returned to Jerusalem but they went 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into an upper-room Where this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was whether in the house of S. John or of John-Mark's Mother or in some of the out-rooms belonging to the Temple for the Temple had over the Cloisters several Chambers for the service of the Priests and Levites and as Repositories where the consecrated Vessels and Utensils of the Temple were laid up though it be not probable that the Jews and especially the Priests would suffer the Apostles and their company to be so near the Temple I stand not to enquire 'T is certain that the Jews usually had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 private Oratories in the upper parts of their houses called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the more private exercises of their devotions Thus Daniel had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his upper-Chamber 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LXX render it whither he was wont to retire to pray to his God and Benjamin the Jew tells us that in his time Ann. Chr. 1172. the Jews at Babylon were wont to pray both in their Synagogues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in that ancient upper-room of Daniel which the Prophet himself built Such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-Chamber was that wherein S. Paul preached at Troas and such probably this where the Apostles were now met together and in all likelihood the same where our Lord had lately kept the Passeover where the Apostles and the Church were assembled on the day of Pentecost and which was then the usual place of their Religious Assemblies as we have elsewhere observed more at large Here the Church being met to the number of about CXX Peter as President of the Assembly put them in mind that Judas one of our Lord's Apostles being betrayed by his own covetous and insatiable mind had lately fallen from the honour of his place and ministery that this was no more than what the Prophet had long since foretold should come to pass and that the rule and over-sight in the Church which had been committed unto him should be devolved upon another that therefore it was highly necessary that one should be substituted in his room and especially such a one as had been familiarly conversant with our Saviour from first to last that so he might be a competent witness both of his doctrine and miracles his life and death but especially of his Resurrection from the dead For seeing no evidence is so valid and satisfactory as the testimony of an eye-witness the Apostles all along mainly insisted upon this that they delivered no other things concerning our Saviour to the World than what they themselves had seen and heard And seeing his rising from the Dead was a principle likely to meet with a great deal of opposition and which would hardliest gain belief and entertainment with the minds of men therefore they principally urg'd this at every turn that they were eye-witnesses of his Resurrection that they had seen felt eaten and familiarly conversed with him after his return from the Grave That therefore such an Apostle might be chosen two Candidates were proposed Joseph called Barsabas and Matthias And having prayed that the Divine Providence would immediately guide and direct the choice they cast lots and the lot fell upon Matthias who was accordingly admitted into the number of the twelve Apostles 2. FIFTY days since the last Passeover being now run out made way for the Feast of Pentecost At what time the great promise of the Holy Ghost was fully made good unto them The Christian Assembly being met together for the publick services of their Worship on a sudden a sound like that of a mighty wind rush'd in upon them representing the powerful efficacy of that Divine Spirit that was now to be communicated to them After which there appeared little flames of fire which in the fashion of Cloven Tongues not only descended but sate upon each of them probably to note their perpetual enjoyment of this gift upon all occasions that when necessary they should never be without it not like the Prophetick gifts of old which were conferred but sparingly and only at some particular times and seasons As the seventy Elders prophesied and ceased not but it was only at such times as the Spirit came down and rested upon them Hereupon they were all immediately filled with the Holy Ghost which enabled them in an instant to speak several Languages which they had never learn'd and probably never heard of together with other miraculous gifts and powers Thus as the confounding of Languages became a curse to the old World separating men from all mutual offices of kindness and commerce rendring one part of Mankind Barbarians to another so here the multiplying several Languages became a blessing being intended as the means to bring men of all Nations into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God into the fellowship of that Religion that would banish discords cement differences and unite mens hearts in the bond of peace The report of so sudden and strange an action presently spread it self into all corners of the City and there being at that time at Jerusalem multitudes of Jewish Proselytes Devout men out of every Nation under Heaven Parthians Medes Elamites or Persians the dwellers in Mesopotamia and Judaea Cappadocia Pontus and Asia minor from Phrygia and Pamphylia from Egypt and the parts of Libya and Cyrene from Rome from Crete from Arabia Jews and Proselytes probably drawn thither by the general report and expectation which had spread it self over all the Eastern parts and in a manner over all places of the Roman Empire of the Jewish Messiah that about this time should be born at Jerusalem they no sooner heard of it but universally flocked to this Christian Assembly where they were amazed to hear these Galileans speaking to them in their own native Languages so various so vastly different from one another And it could not but exceedingly encrease the wonder to reflect upon the meanness and inconsiderableness of the persons neither assisted by natural parts nor polished by education nor improved by use and custom which three things Philosophers require to render a man accurate and extraordinary in any art or discipline 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Plutarch Natural disposition without institution is blind instruction without a genius and disposition is defective and exercise without both is lame and imperfect Whereas these Disciples had not one of these to set them off their parts were mean below the rate of the common people the Galileans being generally accounted the rudest and most stupid of the whole Jewish Nation their education had been no higher than to catch Fish and to mend Nets nor had they been used to plead causes or to deliver themselves
they were the seed of Abraham the People whom God had peculiarly chosen for himself above all other Nations of the World and therefore with a lofty scorn proudly rejected the Gentiles as Dogs and Reprobates utterly refusing to shew them any office of common kindness and converse We find the Heathens frequently charging them with this rudeness and inhumanity Juvenal accuses them that they would not shew a Traveller the right way nor give him a draught of Water if he were not of their Religion Tacitus tells us that they had adversus omnes alios hostile odium a bitter hatred of all other People Haman represented them to Ahasuerus as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A people that would never kindly mix and correspond with any other as different in their Manners as in their Laws and Religion from other Nations The friends of Antiochus as the Historian reports charged them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they alone of all others were the most unsociable people under Heaven that they held no converse or correspondence with any other but accounted them as their mortal enemies that they would not eat or drink with men of another Nation no nor so much as wish well to them their Ancestors having leavened them with an hatred of all mankind This was their humour and that the Gentiles herein did not wrong them is sufficiently evident from their ordinary practice and is openly avowed by their own Writings Nay at their first coming over to Christianity though one great design of it was to soften the manners of men and to oblige them to a more extensive and universal charity yet could they hardly quit this common prejudice quarrelling with Peter for no other reason but that he had eaten and drunken with the Gentiles insomuch that he was forced to Apologize for himself and to justifie his actions as immediately done by Divine warrant and authority And then no sooner had he given them a naked and impartial account of the whole transaction from first to last but they presently turned their displeasure against him into thanks to God that he had granted to the Gentiles also Repentance unto life 5. IT was now about the end of Caligula's Reign when Peter having finished his visitation of the new planted Churches was returned unto Jerusalem Not long after Herod Agrippa Grand-child to Herod the great having attained the Kingdom the better to ingratiate himself with the People had lately put S. James to death And finding that this gratified the Vulgar resolved to send Peter the same way after him In order whereunto he apprehended him cast him into Prison and set strong guards to watch him the Church in the mean time being very instant and importunate with Heaven for his life and safety The Night before his intended execution God purposely sent an Angel from Heaven who coming to the Prison found him fast asleep between two of his Keepers So soft and secure a Pillow is a good Conscience even in the confines of Death and the greatest danger The Angel raised him up knock'd off his Chains bad him gird on his Garments and follow him He did so and having passed the first and second Watch and entred through the Iron-Gate into the City which opened to them of its own accord after having passed through one Street more the Angel departed from him By this time Peter came to himself and perceived that it was no Vision but a reality that had hapned to him Whereupon he came to Mary's house where the Church were met together at Prayer for him Knocking at the Door the Maid who came to let him in perceiving 't was his voice ran back to tell them that Peter was at the Door Which they at first looked upon as nothing but the effect of fright or fancy but she still affirming it they concluded that it was his Angel or some peculiar messenger sent from him The Door being open they were strangely amazed at the sight of him but he briefly told them the manner of his deliverance and charging them to acquaint the Brethren with it presently withdrew into another place 'T is easie to imagine what a bustle and a stir there was the next Morning among the Keepers of the Prison with whom Herod was so much displeased that he commanded them to be put to Death 6. SOME time after this it hapned that a controversie arising between the Jewish and the Gentile Converts about the observation of the Mosaick Law the minds of men were exceedingly disquieted and disturbed with it the Jews zealously contending for Circumcision and the observance of the Ceremonial Law to be joyn'd with the belief profession of the Gospel as equally necessary to Salvation To compose this difference the best expedient that could be thought on was to call a General Council of the Apostles and Brethren to meet together at Jerusalem which was done accordingly and the case throughly scanned and canvassed At last Peter stood up and acquainted the Synod that God having made choice of him among all the Apostles to be the first that preached the Gospel to the Gentiles God who was best able to judge of the hearts of men had born witness to them that they were accepted of him by giving them his Holy Spirit as well as he had done to the Jews having put no difference between the one and the other That therefore it was a tempting and a provoking God to put a Yoke upon the necks of the Disciples which neither they themselves nor their Fathers were able to bear there being ground enough to believe that the Gentiles as well as the Jews should be saved by the grace of the Gospel After some other of the Apostles had declared their judgments in the case it was unanimously decreed that except the temporary observance of some few particular things equally convenient both for Jew and Gentile no other burden should be imposed upon them And so the decrees of the Council being drawn up into a Synodical Epistle were sent abroad to the several Churches for allaying the heats and controversies that had been raised about this matter 7. PETER a while after the celebration of this Council left Jerusalem and came down to Antioch where using the liberty which the Gospel had given him he familiarly ate and conversed with the Gentile Converts accounting them now that the partition-wall was broken down no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God This he had been taught by the Vision of the sheet let down from Heaven this had been lately decreed and he himself had promoted and subscribed it in the Synod at Jerusalem this he had before practised towards Cornelius and his Family and justified the action to the satisfaction of his accusers and this he had here freely and innocently done at Antioch till some of the Jewish Brethren coming thither for fear of
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
had taken root amongst them 5. IT is not improbable but that about this or rather some considerable time before S. Paul wrote his second Epistle to Timothy I know Eusebius and the Ancients and most Moderns after them will have it written a little before his Martyrdom induced thereunto by that passage in it that he was then ready to be offered and that the time of his departure was at hand But surely it 's most reasonable to think that it was written at his first being at Rome and that at his first coming thither presently after his Trial before Nero. Accordingly the passage before mentioned may import no more than that he was in imminent danger of his life and had received the sentence of death in himself not hoping to escape out of the paws of Nero But that God had delivered him out of the mouth of the Lion i. e. the great danger he was in at his coming thither Which exactly agrees to his case at his first being at Rome but cannot be reconciled with his last coming thither together with many more circumstances in this Epistle which render it next door to certain In it he appoints Timothy shortly to come to him who accordingly came whose name is joyned together with his in the front of several Epistles to the Philippians Colossians and to Philemon The only thing that can be levelled against this is that in this Epistle to Timothy he tells him that he had sent Tychicus to Ephesus by whom 't is plain that the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians were dispatched and that therefore this to Timothy must be written after them But I see no inconvenience to affirm that Tychicus might come to Rome presently after Paul's arrival there be by him immediately sent back to Ephesus upon some emergent affair of that Church and after his return to Rome be sent with those two Epistles The design of the Epistle was to excite the holy man to a mighty zeal and diligence care and fidelity in his office and to antidote the People against those poisonous principles that in those parts especially began to debauch the minds of men 6. AS for the Epistle to the Hebrews 't is very uncertain when or whence and for some Ages doubted by whom 't was written Eusebius tells us 't was not received by many because rejected by the Church of Rome as none of Paul's genuine Epistles Origen affirms the style and phrase of it to be more fine and elegant and to contain in it a richer vein of purer Greek than is usually found in Paul's Epistles as every one that is able to judge of a style must needs confess That the sentences indeed are grave and weighty and such as breath the Spirit and Majesty of an Apostle That therefore 't was his judgment that the matter contained in it had been dictated by some Apostle but that it had been put into phrase form and order by some other person that did attend upon him That if any Church owned it for Paul's they were not to be condemned it not being without reason by the Ancients ascribed to him though God only knew who was the true Author of it He further tells us that report had handed it down to his time that it had been composed partly by Clemens of Rome partly by Luke the Evangelist Tertullian adds that it was writ by Barnabas What seems most likely in such variety of opinions is that S. Paul originally wrote it in Hebrew it being to be sent to the Jews his Country-men and by some other person probably S. Luke or Clemens Romanus translated into Greek Especially since both Eusebius and S. Hierom observed of old such a great affinity both in style and sence between this and Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians as thence positively to conclude him to be the Translator of it 'T was written as we may conjecture a little after he was restored to his liberty and probably while he was yet in some parts of Italy whence he dates his salutations The main design of it is to magnifie Christ and the Religion of the Gospel above Moses and the Jewish Oeconomy and Ministration that by this means he might the better establish and confirm the Convert Jews in the firm belief and profession of Christianity notwithstanding those sufferings and persecutions that came upon them endeavouring throughout to arm and fortifie them against Apostasie from that noble and excellent Religion wherein they had so happily engaged themselves And great need there was for the Apostle severely to urge them to it heavy persecutions both from Jews and Gentiles pressing in upon them on every side besides those trains of specious and plausible insinuations that were laid to reduce them to their Ancient Institutions Hence the Apostle calls Apostasie the sin which did so easily beset them to which there were such frequent temptations and into which they were so prone to be betrayed in those suffering times And the more to deter them from it he once and again sets before them the dreadful state and condition of Apostates those who having been once enlightned and baptized into the Christian Faith tasted the promises of the Gospel and been made partakers of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost those powers which in the world to come or this new state of things were to be conferred upon the Church if after all this these men fall away and renounce Christianity it 's very hard and even impossible to renew them again unto repentance For by this means they trod under foot and crucified the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame prophaned the bloud of the Covenant and did despite to the Spirit of Grace So that to sin thus wilfully after they had received the knowledge of the truth there could remain for them no more sacrifice for sins nothing but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which should devour these adversaries And a fearful thing it was in such circumstances to fall into the hands of the living God who had particularly said of this sort of sinners that if any man drew back his soul should have no pleasure in him Hence it is that every where in this Epistle he mixes exhortations to this purpose that they would give earnest heed to the things which they had heard lest at any time they should let them slip that they would hold fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end and beware lest by an evil heart of unbelief they departed from the living God that they would labour to enter into his rest lest any man fall after the example of unbelief that leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ they would go on to perfection shewing diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end not being slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises that they would
the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among their secret Archives and Records in their Treasury at Tiberias where a Copy of it was found by one Joseph a Jew afterwards converted and whom Constantine the Great advanced to the honour of a Count of the Empire who breaking open the Treasury though he missed of money found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Books beyond all Treasure S. Matthew and John's Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in Hebrew the reading whereof greatly contributed towards his Conversion 16. BESIDES these our Apostle wrote three Epistles the first whereof is Catholick calculated for all times and places containing most excellent rules for the conduct of the Christian life pressing to holiness and purity of manners and not to rest in a naked and empty profession of Religion not to be led away with the crafty insinuations of Seducers antidoting Men against the poyson of the Gnostick-principles and practices to whom it is not to be doubted but that the Apostle had a more particular respect in this Epistle According to his wonted modesty he conceals his name it being of more concernment with wise Men what it is that is said than who it is that says it And this Epistle Eusebius tells us was universally received and never questioned by any anciently as appears by S. Augustin inscribed to the Parthians though for what reason I am yet to learn unless as we hinted before it was because he himself had heretofore Preached in those Parts of the World The other two Epistles are but short and directed to particular Persons the one a Lady of honourable Quality the other the charitable and hospitable Gaius so kind a friend so courteous an entertainer of all indigent Christians These Epistles indeed were not of old admitted into the Canon nor are owned by the Church in Syria at this Day ascribed by many to the younger John Disciple to our Apostle But there is no just cause to question who was their Father seeing both the Doctrine phrase and design of them do sufficiently challenge our Apostle for their Author These are all the Books wherein it pleased the Holy Spirit to make use of S. John for its Pen-man and Secretary in the composure whereof though his stile and character be not florid and elegant yet is it grave and simple short and perspicuous Dionysius of Alexandria tells us that in his Gospel and first Epistle his phrase is more neat and elegant there being an accuracy in the contexture both of words and matter that runs through all the reasonings of his discourses but that in the Apocalypse the stile is nothing so pure and clear being frequently mixed with more barbarous and improper phrases Indeed his Greek generally abounds with Syriasms his discourses many times abrupt set off with frequent antitheses connected with copulatives passages often repeated things at first more obscurely propounded and which he is forced to enlighten with subsequent explications words peculiar to himself and phrases used in an uncommon sence All which concur to render his way of Writing less grateful possibly to the Masters of eloquence and an elaborate curiosity S. Hierom observes that in citing places out of the Old Testament he more immediately translates from the Hebrew Original studying to render things word for word for being an Hebrew of the Hebrews admirably skill'd in the Language of his Countrey it probably made him less exact in his Greek composures wherein he had very little advantage besides what was immediately communicated from above But whatever was wanting in the politeness of his stile was abundantly made up in the zeal of his temper and the excellency and sublimity of his matter he truly answered his Name Boanerges spake and writ like a Son of Thunder Whence it is that his Writings but especially his Gospel have such great and honourable things spoken of them by the Ancients The Evangelical writings says S. Basil transcend the other parts of the Holy Volumes in other parts God speaks to us by Servants the Prophets but in the Gospels our Lord himself speaks to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but among all the Evangelical Preachers none like S. John the Son of Thunder for the sublimeness of his speech and the heighth of his discourses beyond any Man's capacity duly to reach and comprehend S. John as a true Son of Thunder says Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a certain greatness of speech peculiar to himself does as it were out of the Clouds and the dark recesses of wisdome acquaint us with Divine Doctrines concerning the Son of God To which let me add what S. Cyril of Alexandria among other things says concerning him that whoever looks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the sublimity of his incomprehensible notions the acumen and sharpness of his reason and the quick inferences of his discourses constantly succeeding and following upon one another must needs confess that his Gospel perfectly exceeds all admiration The End of S. John 's Life THE LIFE OF S. PHILIP St Philip After he had converted all Scythia he was at Hierapolis a City of Asia first crucified and then stoned to death Baron May. 10. St. Philip's Martyrdom Act. 5.30 Whom ye slew hanged on a tree Matth. 10.24 25. The disciple is not above his master nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. Galilee generally despised by the Jews and why The honour which our Lord put upon it S. Andrew 's birth-place His being first called to be a Disciple and the manner of it An account of his ready obedience to Christ 's call What the Evangelists relate concerning him considered The discourse between our Lord and him concerning the knowledge of the Father His preaching the Gospel in the Upper Asia and the happy effects of his Ministry His coming to Hierapolis in Phrygia and successful confutation of their Idolatries The rage and fury of the Magistrates against him His Martyrdom Crucifixion and Burial His married condition The confounding him with Philip the Deacon The Gospel forged by the Gnosticks under his Name 1. OF all parts of Palestine Galilee seems to have passed under the greatest character of ignominy and reproach The Country it self because bordering upon the Idolatrous uncircumcised Nations called Galilee of the Gentiles the people generally beheld as more rude and boisterous more unpolished and barbarous than the rest not remarkable either for Civility or Religion The Galileans received him having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the Feast for they also went up unto the Feast as if it had been a wonder and a matter of very strange remark to see so much devotion in them as to attend the solemnity of the Passeover Indeed both Jew and Gentile conspired in this that they thought they could not fix a greater title of reproach upon our Saviour and his followers than
III. Cletus or Anacletus or Anencletus supposed by many to be the same person though others who reckon Anacletus a Greek born at Athens make them distinct whom yet we have left out not being mentioned by Eusebius a Roman the son of Aemilianus sat 9 though others say but 2. years IV. Clemens a Roman born in Mount Caelius the son of Faustinus near akin say some to the Emperor He was condemned to dig in the Marble-Quarries near the Euxin Sea and by the command of Trajan with an Anchor about his Neck thrown into the Sea He was Bishop of Rome 9. years and 4. months V. Euarestus by birth a Greek but his Father a Jew of Bethlehem He is said to have been crowned with Martyrdom the last year of Trajan in the ninth of his Bishoprick or as others the thirteenth VI. Alexander a Roman though young in years was grave in his manners and conversation He sat 10. years and 7. months and died a Martyr VII Xystus or Sixtus a Roman he was Martyred in the tenth year of his Bishoprick and buried in the Vatican VIII Telesphorus a Greek succeeded Justin the Martyr flourished in his time He died a Martyr having sat 11. Years and 3. months 10. years 8. months say others and lies buried near S. Peter in the Vatican IX Hyginus the son of an Athenian Philosopher was advanced to the Chair under Antoninus Pius He sat 4. years Eusebius says 8. X. Pius an Italian born at Aquileia he died having been Bishop 11. years and 4. months according to Eusebius 15. years XI Anicetus born in Syria He is said after 9 or as others 11. years to have suffered Martyrdom and was buried in the Via Appia in the Cemetery of Callistus In his time Polycarp came to Rome XII Soter or as Nicephorus calls him Soterichus was a Campanian the son of Concordius There was an intercourse of Letters between him and Dionysius Bishop of Corinth He died after he had sat 9. years or as Eusebius reckons 7. XIII Eleutherius born at Nicopolis in Greece To him Lucius King of Britain sent a Letter and an Embassy He sat 15. years died Ann. Chr. 186. and lies buried in the Vatican XIV Victor an African the son of Felix a man of a furious and intemperate spirit as appeared in his passionate proceedings in the controversie about the observation of Easter He was Bishop 10. years Onuphrius assigns him 12. years and one month XV. Zephyrinus a Roman succeeded and possessed the chair 8 but as others 18. years 20. says Onuphrius A pious and learned man but a little warping towards the Errors of Montanus XVI Callistus or Calixtus the son of Domitius a Roman a prudent and modest man He suffered much in the Persecution under Alexander Severus under whom he became a Martyr being thrown into a Well by the procurement of Ulpian the great Lawyer but severe enemy of Christians He sat 6. years or 5. as others and one moneth and though he made a Cemetery called after his own name yet was he buried in that of Calepodius in the Appian way XVII Urbanus the son of Pontianus a Roman after 4 or as some 6. years he suffered Martyrdom for the Faith Eusebius has 5 S. Hierom in his translation 9. He was buried in Pretextatus his Cemetery in the Appian way XVIII Pontianus the son of Calphurnius a Roman for his bold reproving the Roman Idolatry he was banished into the Island Sardinia where he died he was Bishop about 3 or 4 or as Eusebius 5. years XIX Anteros a Greek the son of Romulus He died by that he had kept his place one month though others without reason make him to have lived in it many years and was buried in the Cemetery of Callistus XX. Fabianus a Roman he was unexpectedly chosen Bishop while several others being in competition a Pigeon suddenly descended and sat upon his head the great emblem of the Holy Spirit He died a Martyr after 14. years buried in the same place with his predecessor XXI Cornelius a Roman he opposed and condemned Novatian frequent Letters passed between him and Cyprian After somewhat more than two years he was first cruelly whipp'd and then beheaded buried in a Vault within the Grange of Lucina near the Appian way XXII Lueius a Roman sat 2 or as others 3. years He suffered martyrdom by the command of Valerian and was buried in Callistus his Cemetery XXIII Stephanus a Roman the son of Julius Great contests were between him and Cyprian about rebaptizing those who had been baptized by Hereticks He was beheaded after he had sat about 2. or 3. years though others say 7 and buried with his predecessor XXIV Xystus a Greek formerly a Philosopher of Athens After 1 or as others compute 2. years and 10. moneths he suffered Martyrdom Eusebius reckons it 8. years XXV Dionysius of a Monk made Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the judgment of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria a truly learned and admirable person The time of his Presidency is uncertainly assign'd 6 9 10 11. Eusebius extends it to 12. years XXVI Felix a Roman In his time arose the Manichaean Heresie He suffered about the fourth or fifth year of his Episcopacy and lies buried in the Aurelian way in a Cemetery of his own two miles from Rome XXVII Eutychianus a Tuscan a man exceedingly careful of the burial of martyrs after one years space was himself crowned with martyrdom Eusebius allows him but 8. months Onuphrius 8. years and 6. months XXVIII Caius or as Eusebius calls him Gaianus a Dalmatian kinsman to the Emperor Dioclesian and in the Persecution under him became a martyr He sat 11. years some say longer Eusebius 15. years He was beheaded and buried in Callistus his Cemetery XXIX Marcellinus a Roman Through fear of torment he did sacrifice to the gods but recovering himself died a martyr after he had sat 8 or 9. years He was beheaded and buried in the Cemetery of Priscilla in the Salarian way To him succeeded XXX Marcellus a Roman he was condemned by Maxentius the Tyrant to keep Beasts in a Stable which yet he performed with his prayers and exercises of devotion He died after five Years and six months and was buried in the Cemetery of Priscilla XXXI Eusebius a Greek the son of a Physician He suffered much under the Tyranny of Maxentius He sat 6. years say some 4. say others though Eusebius allows him but 7. months Onuphrius 1. year and 7. months he was buried in the Appian way near Callistus his Cemetery XXXII Miltiades an African He might be a Confessor under Maxentius but could not be a martyr under Maximinus as some report him He sat 3. or 4 though others assign him but 2. years and was buried in the Cemetery of Callistus XXXIII Silvester a Roman He was elected into the place Ann. Chr. CCCXIV fetch'd from the mountain Soracte whither he had fled for fear of Persecution He was highly in favour with Constantine