^mZM\. THE WHOLE WORKS OF THE REV. JOHN LIGHTFOOT, D. D. MASTER OF CATHARINE HALL, EDITED BY THE REV. JOHN ROGERS PITMAN, A. M. Alternate Morning Preacher at Belgrave and Berkeley Chapels ; and alternate Evening Preacher at the Foundling and Magdalen Hospitals, VOLUME III. \ CONTAINING THE HARMONY, CHRONICLE, AND ORDER, OF THE NEW TESTAMENT; WITH A PARERGON, CONCERNING THE FALL OF JERUSALEM: ALSO, FOUR LATIN TRACTS; 1. DE CCENA CHRISTI ULTIMA ; 3. DE SPIRITU PROPHETIjE ; 5. AN JOHAKN^ES EVANGELISTA SIT *. DE ACADEMIA JAFNENSI. APOCALYPSEOS AUCTOR ; LONDON: PRINTED BY J. F. DOVE, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE : SOLD BT RIVINGTONS, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE; HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY ; BAYNES AND SON, PATERNOSTER ROW; PRIESTLEY, HIGH HOLBORN ; LLOYD AND SON, HARLEY STREET; J. BOOTH, DUKE STREET, PORTLAND PLACE; R. BAYNES, IVY LANE: J. PARKER, OXFORD ; AND DEIGHTON AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE. MDCCCXXII. HARMONY, CHRONICLE, AND ORDER, or THE NEW TESTAMENT; WITH KpARERGON, CONCERNING THE FALL OF JERUSALEM: ^LSO, FOtTR LATIN TRACTS; 1. DE CCENA CHRISTI ULTIMA; 2. AN JOHANNES EVANGELISTA SIT APOCALYPSEOS AUCTOR; 3. DE SPIRITU PROPHETIiE; 4. DE ACADEMIA JAFNENSI. BY THE REV. JOHN LIGHTFOOT, D.D. MASTER OF CATHARINE HALL, CAMBRIDGE. EDITED BY THE REV. JOHN ROGERS PITMAN, A. M. Alternate Morning PreacJier at Belgrave and Berkeley Chapels; and alternate Evening Preacher at the Foundling and Magdalen Hospitals^ LONDON: PRINTED BY J. F. DOVE, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE ; SOLD BY RIVINGTONS, ST. PAUL'S CHCRGHYARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE ; HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY; BAYNES AND SON, PATERNOSTER ROW; PRIESTLEY, HIGH HOLBORN; LLOYD AND SON, HARLEY STREET; J. BOOTH, DUKE STREET, PORTLAND PLACE; R. BAYNES, IVY LANE; J. PARKER, OXFORD; AND DEIGHTON AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE. MDCCCXXII. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. Harmony, Chronicle, and Order, of the New Testament 1 Dedication to Oliver Cromwell 3 Epistle Dedicatory, to his Highness's Honourable Council 4 Address to the Reader ....... 6 Harmony and Order of the Four Evangelists . .17 Harmony and Order of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epis tles, and the Revelation 179 Parergon concerning the Fall of Jerusalem, and the condition of the Jews in that land after .... 373 Index to the Harmony of the New Testament . . . 413 Index to the Parergon concerning the Fall of Jerusalem . 423 De CcEna Christi ultima 425 An Johannes Evangelista sit auctor Apocalypseos . . 431 De Spiritu Prophetise 433 De Academia Jafneusi ....... 445 This volume contains twenty-seven pages of original matter, not contained in the folio edition of Dr. Bright and Strype. — See pp. iii, iv, V, and 425 — 448. A general index of Books and Chapters has been adapted to the ' Harmony of the New Testament.' — See pp. ccccxiii — ccccxxiii. TO THE BINDER. When the complete Edition of Lightfoot's Works is bound, this leaf must be cancelled. THE HARMONY, CHRONICLE, AND ORDER, OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE TEXT OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS METHODIZED : THE STORY OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES ANALYZED: THE ORDER OF THE EPISTLES MANIFESTED: THE TIMES OF THE REVELATION OBSERVED. ALL ILLUSTRATED, WITH Uatietfi of ©60erbation«i UPON THE CHIEFEST DIFFICULTIES, TEXTUAL AND TALMUDICAL, FOR CLEARING OF THEIR SENSE AND LANGUAGE. WITH AN ADDITIONAL DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE FALL OF JERUSALEM, AND THE CONDITION OF THE JEWS IN THAT LAND AFTERWARD. VOL. III. •SERENISSIMO O LI V E RO REIPUB. ANGL. SCOT. ET HIBERN. &c. DOMINO PROTECTORI, J. L. DEVOTISSIMITS CLIENS MUNUSCULUM HOC LITERARIUM IN SE QUIDEM NIHILUM, AT SUMMI OFFICII, OMNIMODjEQUE OBSERVANTIjE SINCERUM PIGNUS AC INDICIUM, HUMILLIME MERITOQUE DICAT DEDICATQUE ' Omilied bj Dr. Bright. b2 *EPISTLE DEDICATORY. TO HIS HIGHNESS'S HONOURABLE COUNCIL. It is not presumption, that hath induced me to this address, but sense of duty, and of that obligation that lies upon me. For, besides that homage, -which I o-we, in common 'with the whole nation,' to His Highness (-whom the Lord hath placed over us, and raised up a healer and deliverer in the needful time), a peculiar and redoubled bond of fealty obligeth me, as living in a Rectory, that belongeth to his patron age and donation. Which tenancy and dependance as I cannot but own, in all submissiveness, thank fulness, and duty ; so, in acknowledgment thereof, and of my hearty loyalty to His Highness, I have assumed the humble boldness to present this poor tribute and oblation to him, having no better thing to offer. His clemency and goodness will not de spise the offering of a willing mind, though it be but mean, especially one of this nature : I dare not call the subject that I have handled ' mean,' because it is the sum ofthe New Testament; but the failings and the meanness of the handling of it, as it is the more * Omitted bj Dr. Bright. EPISTLE DEDICATORY. V excusable, because aiming at so worthy a subject, (and who is sufficient for these things ?) so may I hope that it will find the more easy pardon, and some acceptance, for the subject's sake. With this most humble address to His Highness, I was desirous to leave an humble memorial, also, with your Honours, who stand so near him, not only of profession of that service and observance, that with all the nation I owe to your Lordships, but also of special thankfulness and acknowledgment of goodness and favour received from your honourable table, in a matter of mine own particular concern ment. I can add no more, but my prayers to the Father of mercies, for his gracious protection of His Highness and your Honours, and that he will guide you in all your counsels and in all your ways. Devoted, to your Honours, In all service, J. L. TO THE READER. I SHALL not trouble the reader with any long discourse, to show, how the Scripture abounds with transposition of stories ; how the Holy Ghost doth, eminently, hereby show the majesty of his style and divine wisdom ; how this is equal ly used in both Testaments ; what need the student of Scrip ture hath carefully to observe those dislocations ; and what profit he may reap, by reducing them to their proper time and order. I shall only, in brief, give account of what I have done in the ensuing treatise, which refers to that way of study of the New Testament. Some years ago, I published " The Harmony, Chronicle, and Order, ofthe Old Testament;" observing what transpo sitions may be observed there, the reason of their dislocating, and where, in chronical account, is their proper time and place ; and, accordingly, manifesting the genuine order of the books, chapters, stories, and prophecies, through the whole book. The New Testament, being written and com posed after the very same manner of texture, requireth the like observation ; and, having made the assay upon the one, I could not but do the like by the other. I have, therefore, first observed the proper time and order of the texts of the evangelists, — and how all the four may be reduced into the current of one story, and thereby evidences taken out of them themselves. I could willingly have published the text itself, in that order; for so I have transcribed it, from end to end, and so I ofiered it to the press, but found its passage difficult: so that I have been forced to give directions for the so read ing of it, only .by naming chapters and verses. It would have been both more easy and more pleasant to the reader, had the text of the Four been laid before him in several columns • but his examining and ordering it in his own Bible, by the intimations given, will cost more labour indeed, but will bet ter confirm memory and understanding. ' The Acts of the Apostles,' do not much scruple the reader with dislocations ; but the taking up ofthe times of the TO THE READER. vii stories, is not of little difiiculty, and yet, in some particulars, of some necessity. The&e are observed where most material, according to what light and evidence may be had for them, either in the text itself there, or elsewhere. Especially, I have endeavoured to observe the times of the writing of 'The Epistles,' both those that fall-in in those times that, the story of ' The -Acts ofthe Apostles' handleth, — and those that were written afterward. For the fixing of some, there is so plain ground from the text, that the time is determined certainly : for others, we are put to probability and conjecture ; yet such ground to build conjecture on, that, I hope, there hath not been much roving from the mark. I must stand at the reader's censure. I was unwilling to have meddled with ' The Revelation,' — ^partly, because I have no mind to be bold in things of that nature (I see too much daring with that book already); and partly, because I could not go along with the common stating of the times and matters there. Yet being necessitated by the nature of the task, that I had undertaken, I could not but deal with the times and order of things spoken of in that book: and that could not be done neither, without some speaking to the things themselves : which I have conjectured at (re ferring all to better judgments) by the best propriety ofthe language and dialect used, I could observe, — where literally, and where allusively, to be understood. Now, because it would have been but a tedious task for the reader, only to study upon the mere dislocations, and the ordering of them, or only to be pondering how to lay all in their right current, — I have not only gone the way before him, but have strewed his way all along with variety of ob servations ; as not obvious (for such would have but added one tediousness to another), so I hope not unprofitable, nor without his delight. I have not set myself to comment ; but, in a transient way, to hint the clearing of some of the most conspicuous diflScul- ties, — and that, partly, from the text itself, — and, partly, from Talmudical collections : of which latter I have alleged very many ; and the most of them, I hope, not impertinently, but for useful illustration. For though it is true, indeed, that there are no greater enemies to Christ, nor greater deniers of the doctrine of the gospel, than the Hebrew writers ; yet, as Korah's censers, and the spoils of David's enemies, were de- viii TO THE READER. dicated to the sanctuary-service, — so may the records, to be met with in these men, be of most excellent use and improve ment to the explication of a world of passages in the New Testament. Nay, multitudes of passages are not possibly to be explained, but from these records. For, since the scene of the most actings in it, was among the Jews, — the speeches of Christ and his apostles were to the Jews, — and they Jews, by birth and education, that wrote the Gospels and Epistles; it is no wonder if it speak tbe Jews' dialect throughout ; and glanceth at their traditions, opinions, and customs, at every step. What author in the world, but he is best to be under stood from the writers and dialect of his own nation? What one Roman writer can a man understandingly read, unless he be well acquainted with their history, customs, propriety of phrases, and common speech ? So doth the New Testament ; 'loquitur cumvulgo :' thoughitbepennedinGreek,itspeaksin the phrase ofthe Jewish nation, among whom it was penned, all along; and there are multitudes of expressions in it, which are not to be found but there, and in the Jews' writings, in all the world. They are very much deceived, that think the New Testament so very easy to be understood, because of the familiar doctrine it containeth, — faith and repentance. It is true, indeed, it is plainer as to the matter it handleth, than the Old, because it is an unfolding of the Old : — but for the attaining of the understanding of the expressions that it useth in these explications, you must go two steps farther than you do about the Old ; — namely, to observe where, and hovv, it useth the Septuagint's Greek, as it doth very com monly ; — and when it useth the Jews' idiom, or reference thereunto, which indeed it doth continually. A student, well versed in their language and writings, would find it no great difficulty to translate the New Testament into Talmudic lan guage, almost from verse to verse, so close doth it speak all along to their common speech. The allegations that I have produced of this nature, in this present tract, I have done but cursorily, as not writing a comment, but a running sur vey ofthe times, order, and history, ofthe whole New Testa ment : so that, it may be, many of them may not speak to every reader that full intent, for which they are produced, arid which, would I have spent my time to have been their in terpreter (but I was willing to avoid prolixity), I could have made them to have spoken plainly. TO THE READER. ix What I might have done in this kind, I shall show but by one instance (which let not the reader think tedious here, siiice I have avoided tediousness, in this kind, all alono- hereafter) ; and tliis is by a comment, in the way we have been speaking of, but upon one verse, and thkt is the twen ty-second verse of the fifth chapter of Matthew ; which I have picked out the rather, to make an exercitation upon, because it is generally held by all expositors, that in it there is a plain reference to something in the Jewish customs, which is the thing we have been mentioning. " Whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause, shall be in danger ofthe judgment," 8cc. The sense which is ordinarily given of this verse, in the construction of many expositors, is made to refer unto the three sorts of judicatories among the Jews: the lowest, con sisting of thrfee judges, — the middle, of twenty-three, — and the supreme, of seventy-one. With which allusion and ex plication I cannot close, upon these three reasons : — 1. Be cause the lowest judicatory, to which they apply the word, ' the judgment,' had nothing to do in capital matters : and so the conclusion of the verse before cannot be understood in this verse, ' The murderer shall be in danger of being judged by the judicatory of three;' for they judged no such thing : and, answerably, the first clause in this verse, where the same word, 'the judgment,' is reserved, cannot have tbe same application. 2. The word SwlSptov is used only in the second clause ; and it will be hard to give a reason, why the middle Sanhedrim should only be so called (as that in terpretation makes it to be), when all the three, and most eminently the highest, did bear that name. 3. To apply ' Gehenna ignis,' to penalty inflicted by the highest Sanhe drim, as divers do, doth cause so hard straining (as may be observed in the several allusions that are framed of it), that it is very far from an easily-digested and current sense. I deny not, indeed, that Christ, in the verse, alluded to some thing of the Jews' practices, in some point of judicature ; but unto what, I shall defer to conjecture, till its course come, in the method, in which it seemeth most genuine to take the unfolding ofthe verse up : and that is, — 1. To consider of three words in it; which also are to be raet in other places, and so carry a more general concernment with them, thanto X TO THE READER. be confined unto this verse ; — and those are, ' brother,' and "Evoxoe, and Gehenna. 2. To consider ofthe three degrees of oflPences that are spoken of, — namely, ' causeless anger,' saying ' Raca,' and calling, ' Thou fool.' And, 3. To consi der ofthe three penalties denounced upon these offences, — - viz. 'judgment,' 'the council,' and 'hell-fire.' 1. The word ' brother,' — which doth so constantly wrap up all professors of the name of Christ, in the signification ofit, in the NewTestament, — maynot unfitly be looked upon, by reflection upon the sense of the word ' neighbour,' in the Old Testament, as that was commonly interpreted and understood by the Jews : " By using the word ' neighbour' (saith Rabbi Nathan), he excludeth all the heathen''." And let this passage of Maimonides be well weighed : " It is all one (saith he) to slay an Israelite, and to slay a Canaanite servant: he that doth either, must be put to death for it. An Israelite that slayeth a stranger-sojourner, is not put to death by the Sanhedrim for it, because it is said, — If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour''; and it is needless to say, he is not to be put to death for a heathen. And, it is all one for a man to kill another man's servant, or to kill his O'wn servant; for he must die for either; because a servant hath taken upon him the commandments, and is added to the pos session of the Lord""." By which it is apparent, that they accounted all of their own religion, and them only, to come under the title ' neighbour :' to which opinion how our Saviour speaketh, you may observe in Luke, x. 29, 30, &c. So that in the Jewish church there were those, that went under the notion of ' brethren,' — that is, ' Israelites,' — who were all of one blood : and those that went under the name of ' neigh bours ;' and those were they, that came in from other nations to their religion : " They shall no more teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother**." Now, under the gospel, where there is no distinction of tribes and kindreds, the word ' brother' is ordinarily used to signify in the same latitude that ' neighbour' had done ; namely, ' all that come into the profession of the gospel;' and it is so taken also, as that had been, in contradistinction to 'a heathen:' "Any man that is called a brother":" — " If thy brother offend thee, &c. let him be as a heathen''." "Aruoh. in n*"ia p. >> Exod. xjti. 14. "=In Retseah,&c. cap. 2. •^ Jer. xxxi. 34, &c. "= 1 Cor. v. 11. 'Matt, xviii. 15. 17. TO THE READi;n. x, 2. "Evoxoc, which our English rendereth, ' is in danger of,' translates the words l'»n and 3»ino, which are as ordi narily used among the Jewish writers, as any words whatso ever: as, nn'a n''n ' guilty of death ;' mD n»>n • guilty of cut ting ofi",' &.C. Every page, almost in either Talmud, will give you examples of this nature. 3. Gehenna: — It is well known, that this expression is taken from Dlin N'J ' The valley of Hinnom;' of which, and ofthe filthiness and abominableness of which place, there is so much spoken in Scripture. There was the horrid idol Molech, to which they burnt their children in the fire : " And thither was cast out all the filth and unburied carcasses ; and there was a continual fire to burn the filth and the boness." From hence the Jews borrowed the word, and used it, in their ordinary language, to betoken ' hell :' and the text, from which they especially translated the construction, seemeth to have been the last verse of the prophecy of Isaiah, which by some of them is glossed thus; " And they shall go forth out of Jerusalem, into the valley of Hinnom, and there they shall see the carcasses of those, that rebelled against me''," &c. It were endless to show the frequency of the word in their writers: let these few examples suffice: — " Lord, thou wilt drive all the wicked to Gehinnom'." " The wicked shall be judged and delivered to Gehinnom, the everlasting burningj." " Thou shalt see those that go down to the land of Gehin nom''." " They shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, 0"inD D13rU^ DlJru ivo)(oi SIQ yhvvav, elg jisvvav. They that are guilty of Gehinnom, into Gehinnom'." " Be thou delivered from the judgment of Gehinnom"." " Do you think to be deli vered from the judgment of Gehinnom"?" " Because ofthe law, they are delivered from the judgment of Gehenna"," &c. See the phrase. Matt, xxiii. 33. And now we have done with words, let us come to sen tences ; and consider the offences that are prohibited, which are easily acknowledged to be gradual, or one above another. About the first, — viz. ' causeless anger,' — there needeth no explanation; the words and matter are plain enough. The second is, " Whosoever shall say to his brother, S As D. Kimcbi saith, in Psal. xxvii. ^ Vid. Kimch. et Ab. Ezr. in loc. ' Chald. Paraph, oo Isa. xxvi. 15. i Ibid, on Isa. xxxiii. 14. '' Ibid, on ver. 17. ' R. Sol. on Isa. xxiv. 22. ™ Targ. in Rath, ii. 12. " Midras Mishle, fol. 69. ° Baal Tor. in Gen. i. 1. >iii TO THE HEADER. Raca :" — A nickname, or scornful title, which they dis- dainfully put one upon another, and very commonly : and, therefore, our Saviour hath specified in this word, the rather, because it was of so common use among them, and they made no bones at it. Take these few examples: — " A certain man sought to betake himself to repentance (and restitution) ; his wife said to him, ' Recah,' if thou make restitution, even thy girdle about thee is not thine ownP," &c. " Rabbi Jo- chanan was teaching concerning the building of Jerusalem with sapphires and diamonds, &c. : one of his scholars laugh ed him to scorn ; but, afterward, being convinced of the truth ofthe thing, he saith to him. Rabbi, do thou expound, for it is fit for thee to expound ; as thou saidst, so have I seen it : he saith to him, ' Recah,' hadst thou not seen, thou wouldest not have believed"'," &c. " To what is the thing like .'' To a king of flesh and blood, who took to wife a king's daughter. He saith to her, Wait, and fill me a cup, but she would not: whereupon he was angry and put her away. She went and was married to a sordid fellow: and he saith to her. Wait, and fill me a cup : she said unto him, ' Recah,' I am a king's daugh- ter"-," 8cc. " A Gentile saith to an Israelite, I have a dainty dish, for thee to eat of: he saith. What is it ? he answers. Swine's flesh : he saith to him, ' Recah,' even what you kill of clean beasts, is forbidden us, much more this'." The third offence, is, to say to a brother, " Thou fool :" which how to distinguish from ' Raca,' which signifies ' an empty fellow,' were some difficulty ; but that Solomon is a good dictionary here for us, who takes the term continu ally for a wicked wretch and reprobate, and in opposition to spiritual wisdom. — So that, in the first clause, is condemned ' causeless anger ;' in the second, ' scornful taunting and re proaching of a brother ;' and in the last, ' calling him a re probate and wicked,' or uncharitably censuring his spiritual and eternal estate. And this last doth more especially hit the scribes and Pharisees, who arrogated to themselves only to be called ' wise men';' but, of all others, had this scornful and uncharitable opinion, " This people, that knoweth not the law, is cursed"." And now for the penalties denounced upon these offences, let us look upon them; taking notice of these two traditions v Tanchoin, fol. 5. 1 Midras Tillim, fol. 38. col. 4. ¦' Idem, in Psal. cxxxvii. « Tanob. fol. 18. col. 4. < D>a;n " Jobn, vii. 49. TO THE READIiin. ^iii of the Jews, which our Saviour seemeth to face and to con tradict : — 1. That they accounted the command, ' Thou shalt not kill,' to aim only at actual murder. So in their collecting of the six hundred and thirteen precepts out of the law, they understand that command to mean but this, — That one should not kill an Israelite^: and, accordingly, they allotted this only violation of it to judgment. Against this wild gloss and practice, he speaketh in the first clause: — " Ye have heard it said, ' Thou shalt not kill ;' and he that killeth or committeth actual murder, is liable to judgment; and ye ex tend the violation of that command no farther : but I say to you. That causeless anger against thy brother, is a violation of that command, and even that maketh a man liable to judgment." 2. They allotted only that murder, to be judged by the council, or Sanhedrim, that was committed by a man ' in pro pria persona.' Let them speak their own sense : " A mur derer is he, that kills his neighbour with a stone, or with iron; or that thrusts him into water or fire, of which it is not possible to get out again ; if the man die, he is guilty-'; but if he thrust him into fire or water, of which it is possible to get out again, — though he die, yet he is quit. He sets on him a dog or a serpent, he is quit. He intended to kill a stranger, and kills an Israelite ; to kill a little one, and kills one of sta ture ; to hit him on the loins, and such a blow on the loins could not kill him, but it misses the loins and hits him on the heart, and kills him, — he is quit. He intended to hit him on the heart, and such a blow on the heart was enough to kill him, but it lights on the loins, and such a blow on the loins as was not enough to kill him, yet he dies, — he is quit. He in tended to strike one of stature, and the blow was not enough to have killed one of stature, but it lights on a little one, and there was enough in the blow to have killed a little one, and he dies, — yet he is quit. He intended to hit a little on^ ; and there was enough in the blow to kill a little one, but it lights on one of stature, and there was not enough in the blow to kill one of stature, yet he dies, — he is quit. R. Simeon saith, Though he intended to kill one, and kills another, he is quit%" &c. ' vid. trip. Targ. ibid. Sepher Chinnuch, ibid. Maim^in Retseah, cap. 1. " a"n, 'imx°^- ^ Talm. in Sanhedr. cap. 9. XIV TO THE READER. " Any one that kills his neighbour with his hand,— as, if he strike him with a sword, or with a stone that kills him, or strangles him till he die, or burns him in the fire, seemg that he kills him any how in his own person, — lo, such a one must be put to death by the Sanhedrim. But he that hires another to kill his neighbour, or that sends his servants, and they kill him ;— or that violently thrusts him before a lion, or the like, and the beast kills him :— any one of these is a shedder of blood, and the guilt of shedding of blood is upon him ; and he is liable to death by the hand of heaven, but he is not to be put to death by the Sanhedrim. And whence is the proof that it must be thus ? Because it is said, ' He that sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed:' this is he that slays a man himself, and not by the hand of another. — ' Your blood of your lives will I require :' this is he' that slays himself. — ' At the hand of every beast will I require it :' this is he that delivers up his neighbour before a beast to be rent in pieces. — ' At the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man :' this is he that hires others to kill his neighbour. — In this interpretation, ' requiring' is spoken of all the three ; behold, their judgment is delivered over to heaven (or God). And all these manslayers, and the like, who are not liable to death by the Sanhedrim ; if the king of Israel will slay them by the judgment ofthe kingdom and the law of nations, he mayy," &c. You may observe, in these wretched traditions, a twofold killing, and a twofold judgment : a man's killing another in his own person, and with his own hand ; and such a one liable to the judgment ofthe Sanhedrim, to be put to death by them as a murderer. And, 2. A man that killed another by proxy ; not with his own hand, but hiring another to kill him, or turning a beast or serpent upon him to kill him. This man not to be judged and executed by the Sanhedrim, but re/erred and reserved only to the judgment of God. So that from hence we see plainly, in what sense the word ' judgment' is used in the latter end of the preceding verse, and the first clause of this, — namely, not for the judgment of any of the Sanhedrims, as it is commonly understood, but for the judgment of God. In the former verse, Christ •speaks their sense, — and in the first clause of this, his own, y Maim, ubi sapr. cap. 2. TO THE READER. xv in application to it : " Ye have heard it said. That any man that kills, is liable to the judgment of God ; but I say to you. That he that is but angry with his brother without a cause, is liable to the judgment of God. You have heard it said. That he only that commits murder with his own hand, is to be judged by the council, or Sanhedrim, as a murderer ; but I say to you. That he that but calls his brother ' Raca,' as common a word as ye make it, and a thing of nothing, — he is liable to be judged by the Sanhedrim." Lastly ; He that saith to his brother, ' Thou fool,' 'wicked one,' or ' cast-away,' shall be in danger of hell-fire. "Evo^oc th ykvvav irvpoe- There are two observable things in the words : — The first, is the change of case from what was before : there it was said, rg Kpitni, ti^ avvtipie^ ; but here, sic yUvvav. And hereupon Petitus^ professeth, that ' he can not wonder enough, that expositors should not observe this variation:' and what he himself maketh ofthe observation of it, I shall not insist upon, but refer the reader to his own words. Surely, he little minds the' Greek text, that sees not this in it ; and there needs not any far-fetched exposition to satisfy about it ; it is but an emphatical raising of the sense, to make it the more feeling, and to speak home. He that saith to his brother, ' Raca,' — shall be in danger of the coun cil ; but he that says, ' Thou fool,' he shall be in danger of a penalty even to hell-fire. And thus our Saviour doth equal the sin and penalty in a very just parallel: — unjust anger, with God's just anger and judgment: public reproach, with public correction by the council : and censuring for a child of hell, to the fire of hell. 2. It is not said, jle irvp yeivric, ' To the fire of hell ;' but, dg yMvvav irvpoQ, ' To a hell of fire :' — in which expression, he doth still set the emphasis higher : and, besides the reference to the Valley of Hinnom, he seemeth to refer to that penalty used by the Sanhedrim, of burning: the most bitter death that they used to put men unto ; the manner of which was thus : — They set the niale- factor in a dunghill up to the knees ; and they put a towel about his neck, and one pulled one way, and another another, till, by thus strangling him, they forced him to open his mouth. Then did they pour scalding lead into his mouth, which went down into his belly, and so burnt his bowels*"- Now, having spoken, in the clause before, of being judged by » Varise Leotiones, lib. 1. cap. 1. i" Talm. in Sanhedr. cap. 7. svi TO THE READER. the Sanhedrim, whose terriblest penalty was this burning, he doth, in this clause, raise the penalty higher ; namely, of burning, but in hell : — not a little scalding lead, but even with a Hell of Fire, &c. The greatest part of the New Testament might be ob served to speak in such reference to something or other commonly known, or used, or spoken, among the Jews ; and even the difficultest passages in it, might be brought to far more facility than they be, if these references were well observed. There are divers places, where commentators, not able to clear the sense for want of this, have been bold to say the text is corrupt, and to frame a text of their own heads; whereas the matter, skilfully handled in this way, might have been made plain : as we have given experiment in this kind in some, as we have gone along ; and divers others might have been instanced ; but our work was not now to write a comment. August 28, 1654. THE HARMONY, CHRONICLE, AND ORDER, OF ^ THE NEW TESTAMENT. Viz. THE HARMONY AND ORDER OF TUE FOUR EVANGELISTS. VOL. IU. THE HARMONY THE NEW TESTAMENT. SECTION L LUKE, chap. I, ver. 1—4. Luke's Preface : his Warrant to write his Gospel. In compiling the four Evangelists into one continued cur rent and story, this preface, that Luke prefixeth to his Gos pel, may, very fitly, be set before them all, as a general proem to the whole. If he wrote his Gospel, near about that time, when he wrote his ' Acts of the Apostles,' — it was not, till Paul had now worn out his two years' imprisonment in Rome, or there about^ ; which was twenty-seven years after Christ's ascen sion : — by which time the gospel had been carried by the apostles, who were ' eye-witnesses' of Christ's actions, — and by the disciples, who were ' ministers of the word,' — through the most parts ofthe world. From these men's sermons and relations, many undertook to write gospels, partly for their own use, and partly for the benefit of others : which thing though they did lawfully and with a good intent, yet because they did it not by inspiration, nor by divine warrant ; albeit what they had written, were according to truth, yet was the authority of their writings but human, and not to be admitted into the divine ca non. But Luke had his intelligence and instructions ' from above*".' » Acts, xxviii. 30. •> "AvmSsv, ver. 3. C 2 20 HARMONY OF [John,i,&c. YEAR OF THE WORLD 3927. SECTION II. JOHN, chap. I, from the beginning to ver. 15. Christ's Divinity showed: and the Fitness of kirn, the Word, to be incarnate. After the preface, this portion doth justly challenge to be ranked first : for it not only treateth of Christ's divinity, which is first to be looked after in his story ; but it also showeth, how proper it was for him, the second person in the Trinity, to be incarnate, rather than either of the other per sons : — 1. He being ' the Word,' by whom the world was created, and therefore fittest by whom it should be redeem ed. 2. 'The Word,' in whom the promise of life was given*^, and so most fit by whom life should be brought. 3. The sub stance of that word of promise, that shone as a light through out all the Old Testament, in the darkness of the types, figures, prophecies, and mysteries, there ; and the darkness of those obscure dispensations comprehended it not, but that it gave light and shone in that obscurity : and they could not comprehend it, it being a light to break out in a far greater lustre, than they afforded. SECTION III. LUKE, chap. I, from ver. 5 to ver. 57. The Birth of John the Baptist, and the Birth of our Saviour, foretold by the Angel Gabriel. The method and order of this section will not need much proof or clearing. The preceding'' gave an intimation of Christ's forerunner; and this begins to tell his story to the full. Herod the Great, by descent an Edomite, and placed by the Romans king of Judea', among 3927 A. M. divers other passages, in his uneven 753 Year of Rome, and rugged reign, had slain the San- 30 Augustus. hedrim'': and, to plaster the business 34 Herod. again,bythe counsel of BavaBenBota, repaired the temple, and made it in- » Ver. 4. A John i. 6. . Compare Gen. xxvii. 40. ' Joseph. Ant. I. 14. c. 17. Luke,!.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part T. 21 YEAR OF THE WORLD 3927. comparably more sumptuous than it was before^. He began this work in the eighteenth year of his reign, and it cost him eight years to finish it*" : so that this new fabric was but eight or nine years old at this year that we are upon. In this temple, Zacharias, a priest ofthe course of Abia, was offering incense in the holy place, as was used daily ; and hath tidings brought him of a son, that should be fore runner to the Messias. Although Zacharias be said to have been ' of the course of Abia,' yet can it hardly be thought, that he was of his seed and posterity : for we find mention' but of four of the courses, that returned out of Babylon ; and Abia was none of them. But the whole number of those priests, that did return of those four courses, being about four thousand two hundred and ninety, were cast by lot into twenty-four courses, according to the primitive institution ; and Zacharias was of the eighth, as Abia's course had been before the captivity, and which yet bare his name ; as the other did their names, who had denominated the courses from their first original. Of this ordering of the courses after the captivity, both TalmudsJ speak largely. Whether Zacharias were ofthe seed of Abia or no, — itis apparent, by his serving in Abia's course, that he was' not high-priest, but one of the ordinary priests, that served by course as their turn came, and that had their particular em ployment in the service by lot. The manner of their lottery for this purpose, is mentioned at large, in Tamid, cap. 3 ; and in Joma, cap. 2. The angel Gabriel, who, about four hundred and fifty-six years ago, had given account to Daniel of the time of Mes siah's sufferings, doth now, when that time is drawing near, first bring tidings of his forerunner's birth, and then of his own. The Jerusalem Gemara'' relates a story very parallel to this of Zacharias, — both of his seeing an angel in the temple, and of his stay there longer than was used at offering incense : " Simeon the Just (say they) served Israel in the high- priesthood forty years : and on the last year, he saith unto them,. This year I must die. They say to him, How.knowest E Jnchas. fol. 19. ¦• Jos. Ani. lib. 15. v. 14. ' Ezra, ii. 36—39, .j In the treatise Taanilh,, cap. 4. l' In Joma, fol. 42. ool. 3', 22 HARMONY OF [Luke, i. YEAR OF THE WORLD 3927. thou that? He answered. Every year, hitherto, when I went into the most holy place [on the day of expiation], one, like an old man, clothed in white, and veiled in white, went in with me, and came out with me. Now this year he went in with me, but came not out with me." And instantly after ; " The high-priest might not stay praying in the most holy place long, lest he should put the people into a fear. One once stayed long, and they were about to go in after him. Some say, it was Simeon the Just. They said to him. Why didst thou stay so long ? He answered, I was praying for the sanctuary of your God, that it should not be destroyed. They say to him. Though thou didst so, yet shouldest not thou have stayed so long." If this relation carry any truth with it, it might be looked upon as the expiring of vision (as prophecy had also ceased not long before that time): for Simeon the Just is said to be' " of the remnant of the men of Ezra's great synagogue :" and upon the death of Zechariah and Malachi, who were of that synagogue, the spirit of prophecy departed : and here vision and prophecy is dawning again. Zacharias, for not believing the words of the angel, is struck W~\n ' deaf and dumb :' and doth fore-signify the si lencing of the Levitical priesthood ere long to be. In the Jews' canons, tt^in is one of the five sorts of persons, that they commonly exclude from all employments and matters of honour, trust, or import ; and it means, " one that can neither hear nor speak""." His wife Elisabeth, conceiving with child, retires, as a recluse, for five months' space, that she might keep herself from all defilement ; she carrying, as choice, a Nazarite in her womb, as she did". Five months were not the whole time of her retiring ; for that, that urged her to keep close so long, had the same tie upon her all the time she went with child: but five months only are named, by way of introduction to the story and occurrence in the sixth month, mentioned instantly after. In the sixth month, the same angel appeareth to the vir gin Mary, and telleth her of the birth of the Messias, to be I n'jian riDJSn >MX "I-wo Aboth R. Nathan, cap. 4. ¦" ima ih^ vnw xb ¦a>S<» Jems, in chagigah. fol. 75, col. 4. « Ver. 15. Matt, i.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 23 YEAR OF THE WORLD 3927. of ber: which she believing, though by the course of nature so impossible, she presently goeth to her cousin Elisabeth, into the hill-country of Judea, to Hebron" ; not only to visit her, and to rejoice with her, nor only to see the proof of those things, that the angel had told of her, — but, very pro bably, acted by the Holy Ghost, that she might conceive the Messias in Hebron, where so many choice and eminent types of him, and references to him, had been in ancient time. These tidings come to the Virgin at the very latter end of the year that we are upon, or the beginning of the next ; and her journey to Hebron is in the middle of winter. SECTION IV. MATT. chap. I ; all the chapter. Christ's Genealogy by the Line of Solomon, and by his supposed Father, Joseph. His Mother in Danger to be divorced upon false Suspicion of Adultery. Whether it were, that Mary conceived witb child fit the instant of the angel's telling her of her conception, as hath been held most generally, — or at the instant that she came to her cousin Elisabeth, in Hebron,-T-by the time that she had stayed with her three months, she might easily be discovered to be with child, as Tamar was after the same space of time. Gen, xxxviii. 24 ; whose case and danger of death in that story, compare with the Virgin's case and daur ger of divorce in this. The Talmudic decretals do allot three months for such a discovery : "Every woman (say they) that is divorced or become a widow, behold, she maynot be married, nor espoused, till she have stayed ninety days, that it may be known, whether she be with child or no ; and that there may be distinguishing betwixt the seed of the first husband, and the seed of the second. Likewise, a stranger and his wife, which are proselytes, they keep them asunder ninety days, that there may be a discerning between the seed sown in holiness," [that is, when they are come into the true •> See Josh. xxi. 11. 24 HARMONY OF [Luke, i. YEAR OF THE WORLD 3927. religion out of heathenism ; compare 1 Cor. vii. 14,J " and the seed not sown in holiness''." This space of time considered, in the present story, it showeth how fitly the last verse of the preceding section, viz. Luke i. 66, and the eighteenth verse of this, do join to gether. The genealogy interposed, doth not interrupt, but illustrate, the story intended. And it is not only properly, but even necessarily, set in the front of the evangelical his tory, that satisfaction might be given by it, in that main point concerning Christ, which the Scriptures do so often inculcate, and which the Jews would first of all look after, — namely, to prove Jesus of Nazareth, however so meanly born, yet to be ' the son of David.' There were two remarkable maxims among the Jewish nation : — 1. That there was to be no king of Israel, but of the house of David, and line of So lomon " ; and, consequently, they looked for king Messias from that line. 2. That the family of the mother is not called a family^ Hereupon hath Matthew most pertinently brought this pedigree through the house of Solomon, and ended itin Joseph, a male, — whom the Jews looked upon as the father of Jesus. The last verse of this chapter, as it referreth to the de meanour of Joseph and Mary in their mutual society till the birth of Christ, lieth properly, in the harmonizing of the evangelists, in the place where it doth : but as it referreth to the birth of Christ, it is coincident with Luke ii. 7. The reader in his thoughts will place it, as he seeth cause, in these several relations. SECTION V. LUKE, chap. I, from ver. 57 to the end. John Baptist bom. When Mary's three months' stay with her cousin Elisa beth was expired, it is easily guessed, that, if Elisabeth by that time were not delivered of her child, yet she was very near it : and that consideration doth clear the subsequence of this section to the preceding. \ Tajm. in Jebammolh, cap. 4, et in Chetubotb. cap. 5. Maim, in Gerushin. cap. 11. • Talm. ,n Sanhedr. cap. 10. f Jnchasin. fol. .55. LuK€,ii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part I. 25 YEAR OF THE WORLD 3928. John Baptist born in Hebron, the place of the residence of Abraham, and of the first royalty of David. Here circum cision was first ordained ; and here is he born, that was to bring in baptism instead of circumcision. The priests at the temple, as they looked for break of day, used oft to say, " The face of all the sky is bright, even unto Hebron^." Com pare the dawning of the gospel, now rising there, in the birth of the Baptist : and compare the words of ' Zacharias, a priest,' ver. 78. The time of the Baptist's birth will be found, — by setting that clock from our Saviour's, — to have been in the spring, much about the time of the Passover ; about which time of the year, Isaac was born. SECTION VI. LUKE, chap. II, from ver. 1 to ver. 40. Christ born. Luke maketh the coherence clear, when he interposeth nothing betwixt the birth of the Baptist 3928 A. M. and the birth of Christ : and, indeed, there 754 Rome. is nothing to be found in any of the evan- 31 Augustus, gelists, that can interpose. 35 Herod. The four monarchies, — which, Daniel had told, should be, and should expire, be fore the coming of Christ, — have now run their course ; and a fifth is risen, far more potent, and fully as cruel, as all the four put together ; and, therefore, it is pictured with the badges of all the four ; Rev. xiii. 2, compared with Dan. vii. 4, 5^ &c. A decree of Augustus, given out at Rome, becomes an occasion of accomplishing a decree ofthe Lord's, — namely, of the birth of the Messias at Beth-lehem. He is born under a Roman taxation ; and now that prophecy of Chittim or Italy afflicting Heber'', beginneth livelily to take place. The time of his birth was in the month Tisri, — which an swereth to part of our September, — and about the feast of tabernacles ; as may be concluded upon by observing, that s Talm. in Joma. cap. 3, et in Tamid. cap. 3. ^ Numb. xxiv. 24. 26 HARMONY OF [Matt. n. YEAR OF CHRIST 2. he lived just ' two-and-thirty years old and a half,' and died at Easter. That month was remarkable for very many things : In it, the world was created,— the tabernacle begun,— and the temple consecrated: and, as the Jerusalem Gema- rists' well observe, 'In it were the fathers [before the flood] born.' His birth was in the night, and attended with the song of a whole choir of angels [as Heb. i. 6 ; and compare Job xxxviii. 7], and with a glorious light about Beth-lehem shep herds, to whom this great Shepherd is first revealed. At eight days old, he is circumcised, and made a member of the church of Israel. At forty days old, he is presented in the temple, in the east gate of the court of Israel, called ' the gate of Nicanor ;' and Mary's poverty is showed by her offer ing (corapare ver. 24, with Lev. xii. 6. 8): yet her child is owned as ' the consolation and expectation of Israel.' The first year of his age and infancy Christ spent at Beth-lehem : for whereas the. Lord by the prophet-" had ap pointed his birth there, his parents had no warrant for his education in any place but there, till the Lord should give them an express for it; which he did by an angeP- There fore, how the words of Luke, in chap, ii, ver. 39, are to be understood, we shall obser-ve upon the next section. SECTION VII. MATT. chap. II ; all the chapter. Christ, — homaged by the wise Men, persecuted by Herod, — flies into Egypt. The order of this section and story is cleared by ver. 7 and ver. 16 ; by which it appeareth, that Christ 2 Christ, was two years old, when the wise men came to him. For Herod had inquired diligently of them the time, when the star appeared; and, according to the time that they had told him, he slew the male children • from two years old and under.'—' From two years old,'— because they had told him, it was so long since the star ap peared ; and ' under two years old,' — because he would make sure work, as to that scruple that mightarise; namely, ' In Rosh Hashanah, fol. 56. col. 4. J Micah, v. 2. k Matt. ii. 22. Matt, ii.,] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 27 YEAR OF CHRIST 2. whether the star were a forerunner, or a concomitant, of the birth of that King of the Jews, that they spake of. Now, that the star appeared at the instant of his birth, cannot but be concluded upon this consideration, if there were no more; — that, otherwise, it left the wise men so un certain of the time, when he should be born, as that they could not tell, whether he were born or no,^ — no, not when they were come to Jerusalem. The appearance of the star, therefore, was on the night, when he was born : and they having told Herod how long it was since it appeared, he accordingly slayeth all the chil dren of two years old; for so old, according to their infor mation, did he account the child to be, for whom he sought ; and yet withal, he slew all the children under that age, that he might be sure to hit and not fail of his design. This considered, it showeth, that Christ was in his second year at the wise men's coming ; and, withal, it proveth the order of this section to be proper, and that this story is to be laid after the story of Mary's purification, and not before,^— a^ many have laid it. It may be objected, indeed, that Luke, having giveft the story of his presenting in the temple, concludeth, " when they had performed all things accordiijig to the law, they re- tutned into Galilee." Now, if they returned into Galilee when Christ was forty days old, how was he found at Beth lehem at two years old ? Atiswer ; Luke is to be understood, in that passage, according to the current of his own story. He had nothing to say about this matter of the wise men, nor of Christ's journey into Egypt. [because Matthew had handled that to the full before] : and the next thing that he hath to relate, is his coming out of Galilee to Jerusalem, to one ofthe festivals. Having nothing, therefore, to insert be tween his presenting in the tenaple at forty days old, and his coming again to the temple at twelve years old, he maketh this brief transition between, — ' when they had performed all things according to the law, they returned into Gali lee ;' — that he , might therehy bring Christ to Galilee, from whence he came, when he shQwetJ. his wisdom at twelve years old. Mwyot, in Scripture, is always taken in the worst sense. 28 HARMONY OF [Matt. ir. YEAR OF CHRIST 2. for * men practising magical and unlawful arts :' and if it be to be understood so in this place, it magnifieth the power and grace of Christ the more, when men, that had been of such a profession, become the first professors of Christ, of any among the Gentiles. They, seeing a new and uncouth star in the heavens [it may be, the light that shone about Beth lehem shepherds, seemed to them, at distance, a new strange star hanging over Judea], are informed by God, two years after, what it signified; and are wrought upon by his Spirit to come and homage Christ, whom it pointed out. Herod, at the report of the King of the Jews born, and that with the attendance of such a glorious star, looks upon him as the Messiah, yet endeavours to murder him. He is sent, by the direction of an angel, with his mother into Egypt, where there was at this time an infinite number of the Jewish nation. " At Alexandria'' there was a great cathedral, double cloistered, and sometime there were there double the num ber of Israel, that came out of Egypt; and there were seventy- one golden chairs, according to the seventy-one elders of the great Sanhedrim ; and there was a pulpit of wood in the middle, where the minister ofthe congregation stood," &c. — The Babylon-Talmud saith, Alexander the Great slew these multitudes ; but the Jerusalem saith, Trajanus did. And the author of Juchasin' will show you a truth in both : for, " in the days of Simeon the Just (saith he), Alexan dria, which was Amon Min No", was full of Israelites, double the number of those that came out of Egypt, &c. But they were all slain by Alexander. But after this it was re- peopled again from the time of Onias, who built there a great temple, and an altar ; and all the men of Egypt went thither, &c. And there was a great congregation there, double to the number of those that came out of Egypt." Of this tem ple, built by Onias in Egypt, Josephus" maketh mention ; and the Talmud, in Menachoth"- So that Christ, being sent into Egypt, was sent among his own nation, who had filled that country. The time that he was in Egypt, was not above three or four months ; so soon the Lord smote Herod for his butchery I' Snccah cap. 5. 1 Fol. 14. m .. Q„^ ^j ^mon, Min et No, ap- pellatnr : Leusden. « Antiq. lib. 3. cap. 6. « Cap. 13. Matt, ii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 29 YEAR OF CHRIST 3 — 11. of the innocent children, and murderous intent against the Lord of life. Joseph and Mary, being called out of Egypt after Herod's death, intend for Judea again, thinking to go to Beth-lehem ; but the fear of Archelaus, and the warning of an angel, directs them into Galilee. They knew not, but that Christ was to be educated in Beth-lehem, as he was to be born there ; therefore, they kept him there, till he was two years old ; and durst not take him thence, till fear and the warrant of an angel dismisseth them into Egypt. And, when they come again from thence, they can think of no other place but Beth-lehem again, till the like fear and warrant send them into Galilee. There is none of the evangelists, that recordeth any thing concerning Christ, from the time of his return 3 — 11 Clirist. out of Egypt, till he come to be twelve years old, which was for the space of these years ; for the better understanding of which times, let us take up some few passages in Josephus. " Herod (saith he^) reigned thirty-four years, from the time that Antigonus was taken away; and thirty-seven years from the time, that he was first declared king by the Romans." And again*! ; " In the tenth year of the reign of Arche laus, the people not enduring his cruelty and tyranny, they accused Archelaus to Csesar, and he banished him to Vienna : and a little after, Cyrenius was sent by Caesar, to tax Syria, and to confiscate Archelaus's goods." And""; " Coponius was also sent with Cyrenius to be go vernor of Judea." And'; " Coponius returning to Rome, Marcus Ambibu- chus becometh his successor in that govemment. And after him, succeeded Annius Rufus, in whose time died Caesar Au gustus, the second emperor of the Romans." Now, when Augustus died, Christ was fourteen years old; as appeareth from this, — that he was twenty-nine years old complete, and beginning to be thirty, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, the emperor next succeeding*. Reckon, then, these times, that Josephus hath raentioned between the death of P Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 10. 1 In the same book, cap. 15. '' Lib. 18. cap. 1. • Ibid. cap. 5. ' Lake, iii. 1, ?. 30 HARMONY OF [Luke, n YEAR OF CHRIST 12. Herod, and the death of Augustus,— namely, the ten years of Archelaus, and after them the government of Coponius, and after him Ambibuchus, and after him Rufus ;— and it will ne cessarily follow, that, when Herod slew Beth -lehem-children, Christ being then two years old, it was the very last year of his reign. SECTION VIII. LUKE, chap. II, from ver. 40 to the end ofthe chapter. Chnst, at twelve Years old, showeth his Wisdom among the Doc tors : at the same Age, had Solomon showed his Wisdom in de ciding the Controversy between the two Harlots^. It is very easy to see the subsequence of this section to that preceding : since there is nothing re- 3939 A. M. corded by any of the evangelists concern- 765 Rome. ing Christ, from his infancy, till he began 42 Augustus, to be thirty years old, but only this story 12 Christ. of his showing his wisdom, at twelve years 10 Archelaus. old, among the doctors of some of the three Sanhedrims, that sat at the temple ; — for there sat one of twenty-three judges, in the east gate of the mountain of the house, called the gate Shushan; another, of twenty-three, in the gate of Nicanor, or the east gate of the court of Israel ; and the great Sanhedrim, of se venty-one judges, that sat in the room Gazith, not far from the altar. Though Herod had slain the Sanhedrim, as is related by Josephus and divers others, yet was not that court, nor the judiciary thereof, utterly extinguished, but revived again, and continued till many years after the destruction ofthe city. His story about this matter is briefly thus given by the Babylon Talmud'' : — " Herod was a servant ofthe Asmonean family ; he set his eyes upon a girl of it. One day, the man heard a voice from heaven"', which said. Any servant that re- belleth this year, shall prosper. He riseth up, and slayeth all his masters : but left that girl, &c. And whereas it is said, Thoa shalt set a king over thee from among thy breth- " Ignal. Martjr in Epiit. ad Magnes. '' In Bava Bathra, fol, 3. f. 2. " Bath Kol. Luke, 11.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 31 YEAR OF CHRIST 12. ren [which, as the gloss there tells us, their rabbies under stood, • of the chiefest of thy brethren'], he rose up and slew all the great ones, only he left Baba Ben Bota, to take coun sel of him." The gloss upon this again tells us, " That he slew not utterly all the great ones, for he left Hillel and the sons of Betirah remaining :" and Josephus relateth also, that he spared Shammai : to which Abraham Zaccuth addeth, that Menahem and eighty gallant men of the chief of the nation, were gone over to his service, and to attend upon him. So that these of themselves, and by ordination" of others, did Boon repair that breach, that his sword had made in the San hedrim ; he not resisting its erection again, when he had now taken away the men of his displeasure. Hillel was president, and sat so forty years ; and died [by the Jews' computation applied to the Christian account] much about this twelfth year of Christ. For they say, that ' he lived a hundred and twenty years ; the last forty of which he spent in the presidency of the Sanhedrim, entering upon that dignity a hundred years before the destruction ofthe city.' Menahem was, at first, vice-president with him; but, upon his going away to Herod's service, Shammai came in his room : and now two as eminent and learned men sat in those two chairs, as ever had done since the first birth of traditions. Hillel himself was so deserving a man, that, whereas in the vacancy of the presidentship, by the death of Shemaiah and Abtalion, R, Judah and R. Jeshua, the sons of Betirah, might have taken the chairs, they preferred Hil lel, as the worthier person^. He bred many eminent scholars, to the number of fourscore ; the most renowned of which by name were, Jonathan Ben Uzziel, the Chaldee paraphrast, — and Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai : both probably alive at this year of Christ, and a good while after. Tbe latter was un doubtedly so ; for he lived to see the destruction of the city and temple, and sat president in the Sanhedrim at Jabneh^ afterward. And till that time, also, lived the sons of Betirah, mentioned before. Shammai was little inferior to Hillel in learning, or in * " Aliiqae denao consUtUti :" Leusden. V Talm. Jertis.in Pesach. fol. 33. col. 1. » " JafniB (Joppa):'' Leusd. 32 HARMONY OF [Luke, ir YEAR OF CHRIST 12. breeding learned men : and their equal learning and schools bred differences between them in point of learning, and de termination about some things in their traditions : the two masters controverting about a few articles, but their scholars about very many, and their differences very high. This contention of the scholars grew so very high even in the masters' time, that it is recorded, that the scholars of Shammai affronted and banded against Hillel himself, in the temple-court^. And the quarrellings of these schools were so bitter, that, as the Jerusalem Talmud relateth% it came to effusion of blood and murdering one another; — " These are some of the traditions, that .were made, or settled, in the chamber of Hananiah, the son of Hezekiah, the son of Garon. The persons were numbered, and the scholars of Shammai were more than the scholars of Hillel. That day was a grievous day to Israel, as was the day ofthe making ofthe golden calf. The scholars of Shammai stood below, and slew the scholars of Hillel." Nor did these animosities cease, but they were ever crossing and jarring, till, at the last, the schools of Hillel carried it, by the determination of a divine voice from heaven, as was pretended : for to such fictions they were glad to betake themselves. " Till the divine voice"' came forth, it was lawful for any one to practise according to the weighty or light things of the school of Shammai, or according to the weighty or light things of the school of Hillel. There came forth a divine voice at Jabneh, and said. The words of the one and of the other are the words of the living God ; but the certain deter mination of the thing is according to the school of Hillel. And whosoever transgresseth against the words ofthe school of Hillel, deserveth death'=." At these times, then, that we are upon, their school- learning was come to the very height, Hillel and Shammai having promoted it to a pitch incomparably transcendent above what it had been before : and, accordingly, now began the titles of Rabban, and Rabbi ; Rabban Simeon, the son of Hillel, being the first president of the Sanhedrim that bare a title ; for, till these times, their great and learned men had » Jerns. in Jom. Tobh. fol. 61. col. 3. • Shabb. fol. 3. col. 3. "Bath Kol. Mbid. in Beracoth,fol. 3. col. 2. Luke, ii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 33 YEAR OF CHRIST 13 — 28. been called only by their bare proper names. So that now, in a double seasonableness, doth Christ, the divine wisdom of God, appear and set in among them, at twelve years old beginning, and all the time of his ministry after, going on to show them their wisdom, folly, — and his own word and doc trine, the divine oracles of wisdom. In a double seasonable ness, I say, — when their learning was now come to the height, and when their traditions had, to the utmost, made the word of God of no effect. This twelfth year of Christ was the last year of the reign of Archelaus, the son of Herod, of whom is mention. Matt. ii. 22. He is accused to Augustus for mal-administration, and thereupon banished by him to Vienna, as was mentioned before : and Coponius comes governor of Judea in his stead. Augustus Caesar dieth this fourteenth year of Christ, on the nineteenth day of August"^ : he was seventy-five 13,14 Christ, years, ten months, and twenty-six days old; having been monarch, since his victory at Ac- tium, forty-four years, wanting thirteen days'. Tiberius Cassar reigneth in his stead. All this space of Christ's life, from his twelfth year of age, to his twenty-ninth, is passed over by all 15 — 28 Christ, the evangelists in silence, because they were not so much to treat of his private life and employment, as of his public ministry. And here they fol low the same course, that the angel Gabriel had done, in his foretelling of the rime of his appearing, Dan. ix. 24, 25 ; where, speaking of the years that should pass, from his own time unto ' Messiah, the Prince,' — he beginneth the story of Messiah, from the rime of his ministry only, or from the latter half of the last geven years there menrioned, the time when he should confirm the covenant with the many, &c. These years he spent with his parents at Nazareth^, fol lowing his father's trade of carpentry^. And these two things were they especially, that did so mainly cloud him from the eyes of the Jews, that they could not own him for the Mes sias, — namely,!, because he was of so poor condition and edu- d " Duobus Sextis, Pompeio et Apuleio, Coss." Aog. Octav. cap. 100. Sueton. ed. B. Crnsii. vol. 1. p. 370. ^ . ' Dion. Cass. Ub. 56. ' Lnke, ii. 51. l Matt. xiii. 55, with Mark, vi. 3. VOL. III. D .34 HARMONY OF [Luke, in, &c YEAR OF CHRIST 29. cation ; and they looked for the Messias in a pompous garb ; and, 2. because his first appearing in his ministry was out from Nazareth : his birth at Beth-lehem, so many years ago, either having been not at all taken notice of when it was ; or, if it were, by this time worn out of notice and remembrance. SECTION IX. LUKE, chap. Ill, from the beginning to ver. 18. MATT. chap. Ill, from the beginning to ver. 13. MARK, chap. I, from tlie beginning to ver. 9. The Gospel began in John's Ministry and Baptism. The order of this section is confirmed by all the three. Mark hath made this the beginning of his Gospel ; 29 Christ, because the preceding occurrences, of Christ's birth and minority, were committed by the Holy Ghost, who held his pen, to the pens of others. He calls the ministry and baptism of John, ' the beginning of the gospel ;' and that deservedly, both in regard of John's preach ing and proclaiming Christ's appearing to be so near ; as also in regard of the great change that his ministry introduced, both in doctrine and practice : he preaching and adminis tering the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins ; whereas baptism, till that time, had been used and taken up as an obligation to the performance of the law : and he bap tizing Jews into another religion than their own ; whereas, till then, baptizing had been used, to admit heathens into the religion of the Jews. Here is the standard of time that the Holy Ghost hath set up in the New Testament ; unto which, as unto the ful ness of time, he hath drawn up a chronicle-chain from the creation : and from which, as from a standing mark, we are to measure all the times of the New Testament, if we would fix them to a certain date. There are two main stories that Luke layeth down in his third chapter ; the one is, John's baptizing, — and the other is, Christ baptized by him : and he hath dated the former in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cajsar;— andhow to date the latter we are taught and helped by these collecrions : — 1. He inti- mateth to us, that Christ, when he was baptized by John, was Luke, hi, &c,] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 35 YEAR OF CHRIST 29. but entering on his thirtieth year, as the words that he hath used, do plainly evidence : 'ApxafiEvog wv oitrd, ' He was begin ning to be about thirty years of age,' or ' after a manner;' and in such a way of reckoning, as the Scripture ordinarily useth, accounting the very first day of a year, as that year. CDV n:WD :iwn TMW^ nnx : ' One day of the year is reputed that year^.' 2. John baptized half a year before Jesus came to be baptized of him ; for he was half a year younger than John, Luke, i. 26. And as Christ was baptized and entered his ministry, just when he was beginning to en ter upon his thirtieth year, — so John had begun his mi nistry at the same age, and both according to the law. Num. iv. 3. Christ was baptized in September, at what time of the year he had been born : for the phrase of Luke, men tioned before, doth plainly confirm, that his baptism was close to that time of the year, that had been the time of his birth. 4. For the synchronizing, therefore, of the year of Christ with the year of Tiberius, we must lay Tiberius's fif teenth collateral in annal, accounting with Christ's nine- and-twentieth ; whether you reckon Tiberius's year from the very time of the year that he began to reign, which was the 20th of August [and then in September, when Christ was baptized, his sixteenth year was begun, and Christ's thirtieth] ; or whether you reckon according to the common accounting of the Roman Fasti, from January to January ; and then, though Christ indeed spent three months of his thirtieth year in Tiberius's fifteenth, so accounted, yet he spent three times three months ofit in his sixteenth. The fifteenth year of Tiberius, then, and the nine-and- twentieth of our Saviour, was the great year ofthe beginning of the gospel, in the preaching and baptizing of John, who b^an this work about Passover-time, or in the month Abib, otherwise called Nisan : the time of the year that Abraham had received the promise, Isaac was born, Israel was, re deemed out of Egypt, and the tabernacle was erected in the wilderness. The Jews speak more than they are aware of, when they say, that " As in Nisan there had been redemp tion, so in Nisan there should be redemption*"." The gospel began, and Christ died, in that month. B Tal. Bab. Rosh hashanah, fol. 2. •> Tal. Bab. nbi sapr. fol. 11. d2 36 HARMONY OF [Luke, hi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 29. Now, whereas it may seem strange, that, upon John's be ginning to baprize, he introducing so strange a practice and doctrine among them, yet the people should flock to him in so great multitudes, as the evangelists show they did, and receive his baptism with so much readiness : besides that general satisfaction that may be given to this, from the con sideration of God's special hand and work, providing enter tainment for his gospel, now setting forth,— these four things also may be pertinently observed : — 1. This was the time that the nation expected, that the Messiah should appear* : Gabriel's seventy, in Dan. ix, had so plainly and exactly pointed to this very time, that not only the pious and the studious among the nation, could not but observe it ; but it had even raised an expectation through a great part of the world, of some great potency to arise among the Jewish nation about these times, which should subdue and be ruler of all the world. " •* An old and a constant opinion had grown through the whole east, that some, coming out of the east, should be master of all." Nay, so evident was the time and truth in Daniel, that the Jerusalem Gemarists, that could be well content to deny that Messias was already come, as the rest of their nation do, yet they cannot but confess it "^ in this story : — " Our doctors say. The name of King Messias is David. R. Joshua Ben Levi saith. His name is The Branch'. R. Judah, the son of R. Ibhu, saith. His name is Menahem [the Comforter]. And this helps to prove that which R. Judah saith ; namely, this example of a certain Jew : who as he was ploughing, his ox lowed : a certain Arabian passing by, and observing his ox low, said, O Jew, O Jew, loose thine oxen, and lay by this plough ; for, behold, your sanctuary is destroyed, — The ox lowed a second time. He saith to him again, O Jew, O Jew, yoke thine oxen, and tie on thy plough ; for, behold. King Messias is born. He saith to him. What is his name? The other answered, Menahem [the Comforter]. And what is his Father's name ? He answered, Hezekiah [the strong • See Lake, xix. 11. j " Percrebnerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in falls, ut eo tempore Jndzea profecti rernm potirentar." Saeton. in Vesp. cap. 4. ed. B. Cms. vol. 1. p. 277. k Btracoth, fol. 1. eol. 1, i Zech. iii. 8. Luke, ui, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 37 YEAR OF CHRIST 29. God]. He saith to him. Whence is he f He answered. From the royal palace of Beth-lehem- Judah. He went and sold his oxen, and sold his plough and gears, and went about from city to city selling swaddling-clothes for babes. When he came to that city, all the women bought of him ; but the mother of Menahem bought not. He heard the voice ofthe women saying, O mother of Menahem, thou mother of Me nahem, bring some things, sold here, to thy child. She an swered. Now I pray, that all Israel's enemies may be hanged; for on the day that he was born, the house of the sanctuary was destroyed. He saith to her. We hope, as it is destroyed at his feet, so it will be built at his feet. She saith to him, I have no money. And why, saith he, doth he suffer for that i If thou have no money now, I will come again after two days and receive it. — After the days, he came to the city, and saith to her. How does the child ? She answered him. Since the time that thou sawest me, there came winds and storms, and took him out of my hands." A clear con fession of Christ's being already come, and of the poverty of his mother. 2. They expected a great change of things, when Mes sias should come : that promise in the prophet, of ' new hea vens and a new earth' to be created, raised this expecta tion. Hence have they this saying" ; " The holy blessed God will renew the world for a thousand years"." John speaks their own language, when he speaks of ' reigning with Christ a thousand years" ;' which is no more to be un derstood of the time yet to come, than Messias is yet to be expected as not come. Hereupon, they call the days of the Messias?, "a new creation;" as 2 Cor. v. 17. R. Houna speaketh of three ages, and the last that he mentioneth, is ' the age of the Messias"!:' " And when that comes (saith he), the holy blessed God saith. Now it lies upon me to create a new creation." They likewise call that time, " the world to come';" because ofthe change of things that they expected then, as if a new world were created. " In the world to come I will send my messenger speedily, and he "¦ IDblj? riN unnb r\^"pn l-tV nvi> ^ibN " Arnch in tpy • Rev. XX. 4. r nv ^^ n-ia '^ n^m bk in Kiddushin, cap. 1. " In Mekerah, cap. 2. 44 HARMONY OF [John, u. year of CHRIST 30. SECTION XIII. JOHN, chap. II ; all the chapter. Water turned into Wine. Christ's first passover after his baptism. The words " the third day," in ver. 1, mean either the third day from Christ's coming into Galilee"'; or the third day from his conference with Nathanael ; or the third day from the disciples' first following him: they give demonstration enough of the series, and connexion of this chapter to the former. It was about the middle of our November, when Christ came out ofthe wilderness to John at Bethabara ; and then there were about four months to the Passover ; which time he spent in going up and down Gahlee, and at last comes to his own home, at Capernaum. Those two passages being laid together, — " The day following, Jesus would go forth into Galilee"';" and, " After this he went down to Capernaum, and continued there not many days, and the Jews' Passover was at hand"," — do make it evident, that Jesus had now a perambulation of Galilee, which took up a good space of time. So that this first miracle, of turning water into wine, was about the middle of our November, or little farther. The Jews' marriages were fixed to certain days ofthe week : " For a virgin was to be married on the fourth day of the week, and a widow on the fifths," — the reason why, is not per tinent to produce here. — Now, if this marriage at Cana were of a virgin, and on the fourth day of the week, or our Wed nesday, — then Christ's first showing himself to John and his disciples at Jordan, was on the -first day of the week, after ward the Christian sabbath. These marriage-feasts they held to be commanded; and, thereupon, they have this maxim ; " It is not fit for the scho lars ofthe Wise to eat at feasts, but only at the feasts com manded, as those of espousals and of marriagesV At the Passover, it is half a year since Christ was bap tized ; and, thenceforward, he hath three years to live, which ¦ John, i. 43. " JoKi.^. >^ John, ii. 12. y Talm. in Chetub. cap. 1. ^ Maim, in Deah, cap. 5. *^ John, ii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 45 year of CHRIST 30. John leckoneth by three Passovers more, — viz. John, v. 1 ; and vi. 4 ; and xviii. 28. In this first half-year, he had gone through his forty days' temptation, had gathered some disci ples, and had perambulated Galilee. At Jerusalem, at the Passover, in the face of all the peo ple, he acted in the evidence of the ' Great Prophet,' and purgeth his own temple', — doth many miracles, — knoweth the false hearts of many, — and trusteth not himself with them. "He found in the temple those, that sold oxen and sheep''." For some illustration to this passage, take a story in the Jeru salem Talmud'^ : — " One day, Baba Ben Bota came into the temple-court, and found it solitary, or destitute [that is, not having any beasts there for sacrifice]. He saith. Desolate be their houses, who have desolated the house of our God. What did he ? He sent and fetched in three thousand sheep ofthe sheep of Kedar ; and searched them, whether they were without blemish, and brought them into the mountain ofthe house [or the utmost court, the place where Christ found sheep and oxen at this time] ; and saith. My brethren, the house of Israel, whosoever will bring a burnt-offering, let him bring it; whosoever will bring a peace-oflfering, let him bring it." Among other things, that Jesus did for the purging of his temple, it is said, " He poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables," KoXXv/Siarwv e^ex^e to Ksp/xa ; and so again, Matt, xxi.i 12. — Maimonides'*, " It is an affirmative precept of the law, that every Israelite pay, ye arly, half a shekel ; yea, even the poor, that lives on alms, is bound to this, either begging so much money that he may give it, or selling his coat to get so much." " On' the first day ofthe month Adar, proclamation was made about this half-shekel, that they should get it ready. On the fifteenth day of that month, the collectors sat in every city for the receiving of it ; and as yet they forced none to pay. But, on the five-and-twentieth day, they began to sit in the temple" [this was some eighteen or nineteen days before the Passover], " and then they forced men to pay; and if any refused, they distrained. They sat with two chests » As Mal.iii. 1. 3. * John, ii. 14. " In Jom. tobh. fol. 61. col. 3. d Io Shekalim, cap. 1. ° Talm. in Shekalim, cap. 1, &e. 46 HARMONY OF [John, hi. YEAR OF CHRIST 30. before them; into the one of which they put the money ofthe present year,— and, into the other, the money, that .should have been paid the year before. Every one must have half a shekel to pay for himself. Therefore, when he brought a shekel to change for two half shekels, he was to pay some profit to the changer*"; and when a shekel was brought for two, there was a double profit to be paid for the change." SECTION XIV. JOHN, chap. Ill ; all the chapter. Nicodemus. The Disciples baptize in the Name of Jesus, Before our Saviour's departure from Jerusalem, Nico demus, one of the judges ofthe great Sanhedrim, cometh to him, and becometh his disciple : for we cannot so properly look for a member of that great council in any place as at Jerusalera. He had observed, in his miracles, the dawning of the days of Messias, or 'the kingdom of heaven;' but having but gross and erroneous apprehensions concerning the king dom of heaven, or of the state of those days [as was the gene ral mistake ofthe nation], he is rectified about that matter, and is taught the great doctrines of regeneration and be lieving in Christ. Christ, teaching regeneration by the Spirit and water, exalteth baptism, and closely calleth to Nicodemus to be baptized. The Talmudic records make mention of a Nicodemus in these times, who had to do about waters, to provide sufficient for the people to drink at the festivals. He is taught, against the great misprision of the nation, that Messias should be a redeemer of the Gentiles, as well as the Jews. The Jews, in their common language, did title the GentilesB, " The nations of the world." The earth they di vided intoi" " the land of Israel," and " out ofthe land ;" and the people they parted into* " Israel," and " the nations of the world." The New Testament, which follows their common language exceeding much, useth both these expressions very often, whereby to signify the ' Gentiles :' sometimes calling them "those that are without," and sometimes "the world." Nicodemus very readily understood the word in this common ' ^x^^- r^Ki r^x^ n^n ¦ , ^,, J ,„/,;^^^ „,^,^ John, hi.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 47 YEAR OF CHRIST 30. sense, when Christ says, " God so loved the ivorld, that he gave his Son." And he very well perceived, that Christ con tradicted, in these his words, their common and uncharitable error, which held, that the Messias should be a Redeemer only to Israel, and those Gentiles only, that should be proselyted to their Judaism ; but as for the rest of the heathen, he should confound and destroy them. Examples of this their proud uncharitableness, might be produced by multitudes : let these two or three suffice : — The Jerusalem Talmud^, speaking of the coming of Messias, saith, and produceth these words, Isa. xxi. 12; "'The morning cometh, and also the night;' it shall be the morning to Israel, but night to the nations of the world." " The threshing'' is come ; the straw they cast into the fire, the chaff into the wind, but preserve the wheat in the floor ; and every one that sees it, takes it and kisses it. So' the nations of the world say. The world was made for our sakes ; but Israel say to them. Is it not written. But the peo ple shall be as the burning of the lime-kiln, but Israel, in the time to come" [an expression whereby they commonly mean the times of the Messias], shall be left only ? as it is said, The Lord shall lead him alone, and there shall be with him no strange god." — Baal turim, on Num. xxiv. 8, on those words, 'He shall eat up the nations, his enemies, and shall break their bones,' — observeth the letter y in one of the words to have a special mark upon it, " signifying (saith he), that he should root out the seven nations" of the Canaanites, " and in time to come", the other sixty-three nations ;" that is, all the seven ty nations of the world. — ' No (saith our Saviour) ; God loved the world, or the Gentiles ; and God sent not his Son, Messias, to condemn the world, or the Gentiles ; but that the world through him should be saved.' After this transaction with Nicodemus, Jesus departeth from Jerusalem into Judea, and there he setteth his disciples to baptize in his name : that whereas John had only baptized in the name of Christ, and his baptized ones did not know who Christ was, now the disciples baptize in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, to evidence him to be the Christ, into whose name John had baptized. j In Taanith. fol. 64. col. 1. I" Midr. Till, on Psal. ii. 48 HARMONY OF I'Lvg.i, iii. YEAR OF CHRIST 30. John himself was baptizing still in ^non, in Galilee, having traversed Judea upon the coasts of Jordan, and Persea, or beyond Jordan; and now come thither, where presently his sun is to set. This chapter contains the story of half a year, and some what more,— namely, from the Passover [if the conference with Nicodemus were at that time] till after the feast of ta bernacles : at which time, it was a whole year since Christ was baptized, and a year and a half since John began to baptize. SECTION XV. LUKE, chap. Ill, ver. 18—20. John imprisoned. From the last verse ofthe preceding section, and forward. we hear no more of John in any of the four evangelists, till you find him in prison. Therefore, this portion in Luke, which giveth the story of his imprisonment, is very fitly and properly to be subjoined to what precedeth. Observe how aptly the first verse of this, and the last of that, do join toge ther. Luke, indeed, hath used an anticipation here, laying down the story of John's imprisonment, before the story of Christ's being baptized, — because he would show the effects of John's doctrine altogether. With Pharisees, Sadducees, publicans, soldiers, and the rest of the people, he found en tertainment of his doctrine, when he told them their faults, and taught them their duty ; but when he reproved Herod, he would not be so compliant, but imprisoned him. The time of his commitment may be guessed, by what time it was thatChrist slipped aside for his own safety, upon the hearing how the case went with John ; which will appear to be about the middle of our November ; and John had begun to preach and baptize at spring was twelvemonth before, about some eighteen or nineteen months ago. John, iv,&c.l THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Pakt I. 49 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XVI. JOHN, chap. IV; all the chapter. MATT. chap. lY, ver. 12. Christ, at Jacob's Well, converteth Samaritans: healeth a sick Person, 8^c. Christ was in Judea, when John was apprehended by Herod, in Galilee. His pretended quarrel vvas 31 Christ, the multitude of John's disciples, as dangerous for innovation : but the very true cause, indeed, was, his and Herodias's spleen, for John's plainness with them about their incest. The Pharisees at Jerusalem would soon hear, what was become of John, their eye-sore, and what He rod laid to his charge ; namely, the dangerousness of his ga thering so many disciples. Now our Saviour, understanding that they looked upon him, as one that had more disciples than John, and so was in equal danger from them upon that account, — he getteth out of Judea, out of their reach, and goeth to Galilee. But was not Galilee within their reach too? From ver. 35, may be computed the time of this journey into Galilee, — namely, when it was " now four months to har vest;" that is, to the Passover; for, from the second day inthe Passover-week, their harvest began" : and from this, there may be some reasonable conjecture concerning the time, when John was cast into prison. Christ was in Sychar-field about the latter end of our November, when it was now four months to the Passover; and he took that journey, as soon as he understood of John's imprisonmentP : he was now en tered upon his one-and-thirtieth year of age. When he cometh up into Galilee, he avoideth his own city, Nazareth'' ; because he knew, he should find no respect there, in regard of the mean education, that he had among them: but he goeth to Cana, where he had done his first mi racle ; and from thence, with a word of his mouth, he healeth one sick at Capernaum ; it was the son " of one ofthe king's party"'," — namely, of old Herod's, to whom divers of the emi nent and learned of the Jews had gone to be his servants, to the distaste of others, and probably in a reluctancy to their own principles, but overcome with court-interests'. " Lev. xxiii. 11, &c. P Matt. iv. 12. i John, i*'. 44. ' Bao-iXiioI Tiw'j. * Juchasin, fol. 19. VOL. HI. E 50 HARMONY OF [Luke, iv, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XVII. LUKE, chap. IV, from ver. 14 to ver. 31. MARK, chap. I, ver. 14. Christ, preachingin Natareth-Synagogue, isin Danger of his Life. Thus is Christ come up to Galilee again from Jerusalem, and out of Judea, where he had stayed a good space. The rea der may observe here, what a chasma [if I may so call it] there is in the story of Luke, who hath stepped from the story of Christ's temptation in the wilderness, to this his coming to Galilee; and hath laid nothing between, — whereas there was a whole year's history intercurrent : and so we ob served such another, chap. ii. 39. At his first coming up into Galilee in this voyage, he avoideth his own town Nazareth, because he knew a prophet hath no honour in his own country : but now, having gone up and down the country some space, and a renown being gone of him all over those parts, he cometh at last to see what entertainment he can find in his own town : there he is admitted, as a member of that synagogue, to be ' Maphtir,' or ' public reader' of the second lesson in the prophets for that day. But preaching upon what he had read, and hint ing the calling of the Gentiles, from the dealing of Elias and Elisha with some heathens ; and, withal, pinching close upon the wickedness of Nazareth, by that comparison, — he is in danger of his life; but delivers himself in some miraculous manner. He preacheth thus in the synagogue, in the authority and demonstration of a prophet; and, as he evidenced that autho rity elsewhere by his miracles, so doth he here in Nazareth, by reading of the lesson in the prophet, — which being to be read in the original Hebrew, which language was now lost among them, and only attained to by study, he showeth his prophetical spirit in this skill in the language, having had no education to such a purpose. The reader in the law and prophets both, had an interpreter, that rendered what was read out of the Hebrew text into the vulgar language, and the interpreter sometimes took liberty to paraphrase upon the text [as the Chaldee paraphrast had done, especially upon the prophets], and kept not always ' verbatim' to it. The Jerusa- Matt. IV, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 51 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. lem Gemarists' give an instance of such a thing; " Joseph, the Maonite, interpreted, in the synagogue in Tiberias, these words, ' Hear ye this, all ye people ;' Why do not ye labour in the law? have not I given the Sanhedrim to you for a gift? And ' hearken, O house of Israel;' Why do you not give the Sanhedrim the gift I appointed you at Sinai? And ' hearken, O house of the king, for the judgment is to you ;' I speak it to you, but the judgment is to the priests : I will come and sit with them in judgment, and end and destroy them out of this world." — So Christ, in reading the lesson out ofthe prophet, becomes his own interpreter and paraphrast both. SECTION XVIII. MATT. chap. IV, ver. 13—17. MARK, chap. I, ver. 14, 15. Christ, at Capernaum, in the Coasts ofZabulon and Nephthalim, S;c. Whereas Matthew, in the beginning of this section, tell eth that Christ left Nazareth, — Luke, in the end of the pre ceding, shows the reason why ; namely, because he was in hazard of his life there; and so the connexion is made plain. In the coasts of Zabulon and Nephthalim, captivity had first begun""; and there Christ first beginneth, more publicly and evidently, to preach the near approach ofthe kingdom of heaven, and redemption. Inthe first plantation ofthe land, after the captivity, Galilee escaped from being Samaritan, and was reserved for this happy privilege, of being the first scene of Christ's preaching the gospel. And as that country was inhabited by a good part ofthe ten tribes before their cap tivity,- — -so, upon their return out of Babel, in the ten tribes of Zerubbabeil and Ezra, it may well be held to have been planted with some ofthe ten tribes again. For, 1. Observe, in Ezra i, that there is a proclamation from Cyrus, that any ofthe blood of the Jews, wheresoever within his dbrninions, should have liberty to go up to Jerusalem, ver. 3 — 5. Now, un doubtedly, the ten tribes were then residing within his do minions ; and it is harsh to-conceive, that they had all so far utterly forgot God and their country, as none of them to de sire to goto theirown land again, wheh permitted, -2; There ' In Sanhedr. fol. 20. col. S. '2 Kings, xv. 29. E 2 52 HARMONY OF [Luke, v, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. is a ' summa totalis,' in Ezra ii, of forty-two thousand three hundred and threescore, ver. 64, that returned out of capti vity, upon that proclamation. And there is the number of several families reckoned, as making up that sura: whereas, if the total of these particulars be summed up, it reacheth not, by sixteen thousand, or thereabout, to that number of forty-two thousand three hundred and threescore. Where, then, must we find those sixteen thousand, since they arise not in the number ofthe families there named? The families, there named, are of Judah and Benjamin: and then, certainly, those sixteen thousand can hardly be imagined any other than of the ten tribes. And, 3. Whereas it is apparent, that the returned of Judah and Benjamin planted Judea, — whom can we imagine, but some of the ten tribes, to have planted Galilee ? And hence, their difference in language from the Jews of Judea, and in several customs : and hence the re ducing of some after the captivity, to the line of some ofthe ten tribes: as Hannah, to the tribe of Asher" : — ' Ben Cobi- sin, of the line of Ahab''.' And here is the first returning of the ten tribes to be sup posed ; and it carrieth fair probability, that the most of the twelve apostles, and many of the rest of the disciples, that were of Christ's most constant retinue, were of the progeny of some of the ten tribes returned. SECTION XIX. LUKE, chap. V, from the beginning to ver. 12. MATT. chap. IV, ver. 18—22. MARK, chap. I, ver. 16—20. Peter and Andrew, 8;c. called to be Fishers of Men. The method and series is confirmed by the transition of Matthew and Mark : but in the order of Luke, there is some difficulty:— 1. He relateth the calling of these disciples dif- ferentiy from the relation given by the other : for they say, Christ called Peter and Andrew, as he walked by the sea-side ; but he storieth their call, when Christ was with them in the ship : they say, he called James and John at some distance beyond Peter and Andrew ; but he carrieth it, as if he called » Luke, ii. 36. " Talm. Jerns. in Taanith, fol. 68. col. 1. Luke, v, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part I. .53 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. them all together. But this is not contrariety, but for the more illustration ; they all speak the same truth, but one helps to explain another. The story at full in them all, is thus : — As Jesus walked by the sea of Gennesaret, he saw two ships standing there ; the one whereof belonged to Peter and Andrew, and the other to James and John. All these men, being partners, had been fishing all night, but had caught nothing ; and were now stepped down out of their ships, to wash their nets. Christ, pressed with the multitude on the shore, entereth into Peter's ship, and thence teacheth the people. And thence putting off" a little into the main, he helpeth Peter to a miraculous draught of fishes ; which was so unwieldy, that he was glad to beckon up James and John from the shore, to come and help them. The draught of fishes was got up and boated ; and then James and John re turn to the shore again, and fall to mending their net, which was rent at the helping at so great a draught. Peter, seeing what was done, adoreth Christ; and he and Andrew, being yet at sea, are called by him for fishers of men ; and, bring ing their ship to shore, they leave all and follow him. Christ and they, coasting a little farther along the shore, came to James and John; and he calleth them. And thus lieth the story at the full. 2. A second scruple inthe order of Luke is this,— that he hath laid the two miracles of casting out a devil in Caper naum-synagogue, and the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, before the calling of these disciples ; which, apparently, by this evangelist, were after. But the reason hereof may be conceived to be, especially, this : — In chap, iv, ver. 30, 31, he had related, that Jesus, escaping from Nazareth, came down to Capernaum ; and being now in the mention of his being there, he recordeth these two miracles that he did there, — though not at that very time he hath brought them in, — having an eye, in that his relation, rather to the place than to the time. And so we shall observe elsewhere, that the very mention of a place doth sometimes occasion these holy penmen to produce stories out] of their proper time, to affix them to that their proper place. These disciples, hitherto, were only as private men, fol lowing Christ : and here is but the first time that they are 54 HARMONY OF [Luke,v, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. mentioned, to the ministerial function, to be ' fishers of men. How, then, did they baptize before"'? And the starting of this question, calleth to remembrance that saying of the apostle^, " Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Is baptism administrable by private raen, and is there any inconsistency betwixt baptizing and preaching ? Answer; As baptisra was in use among the Jews for admis sion of proselytes under the law, these two things were re quired to it,— 1. " He that was baptized, must be baptized before threes" 2. " The thing required aconsessusV or to be done by the allowing" of sorae eldership. " And because it required this [saith Maimonides, whose words the former are also], therefore, they baptized not on the sabbath, nor on the holy-days, nor in the night. A man that baptized him self, and proselyted himself, although it were before two witnesses ; or that came and said, I was proselyted in such a man's consessus, and they baptized me, — he is not permitted to come into the congregation, till he bring witness'^." The reason of this strictness was, because of their strict niceness about conversing or matching with a heathen, till they were sure he was fully Israelited. Christ and the apostles, in the adrainistration of baptism, followed or forsook their custora, as they saw cause. In the case alleged, be follows it ; he preacheth and calleth in dis ciples ; and they are baptized by these disciples, but Christ chief in the action: and therefore one text tells us, that he baptized ; though we are taught by another text, that he bap tized not. Now the disciples are not to be looked upon as private raen, since they were men of such privacy with the Messias ; and not only converted by him, but called to be with him, and intended by him to be solemnly conducted into the ministerial function, when he should see time. And, answerably, in that saying ofthe apostle, " I came not to baptize, but to preach," he setteth not an inconsistency between these two, which were joined by Christ in Paul's, and all ministers' commission'' ; but he speaketh according to this custom that we have mentioned, which the aposties » John, iii. 22, with Jolm, iv. 2. y 1 Cor. i. 17. z rny'^iy '331 -h^b rfi ' ri _n»3 •\'-nt n>n 13,Tn b .. Auctoritate senalus cnjusdam :'' Leusd. ¦: Maim, in Issure biah. cap. 13. d jyjatt. xxviii. 19, Mark,i,&c.] the NJ5W TESTAMENT.— Part L 55 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. followed, when disciples came in to be baptized, by multi tudes, — they themselves preaching and bringing in disciples to be baptized, and others baptizing them; and they not pri vate men neither, but fellow-labourers with them in the gos pel, and ministers of it. " Fishers of men :" — Maimonides speaks of ' fishers of the law"*.' SECTION XX. MARK, chap. I, from ver. 21 to ver. 40. LUKE, chap. IV, from ver. 31 to the end of the chapter. MATT. chap. VIII, ver. 14—17. A Devil cast out in Capernaum- Synagogue ; Peter's Wife's Mother and divers more healed. If the transition of Mark from the preceding story to this, be observed, it cleareth the order: for having declared there how Christ had called his disciples ; " And they," saith he, — that is, Christ and his new-called disciples, — " went into Capernaum," his own city. There, on the sabbath-day, he casteth out a devil, in the synagogue, who, by confessing Christ for the Messias, would have terrified the people with the dread of him, that they might not dare to entertain him. From the synagogue, they go to dinner to Peter's house, and there he raiseth his wife's mother-in-law from a fever : and after sun-set, when the sab bath was done, many more are brought to him, and are healed. They began their sabbath from sun-set, and at the same time of the day they ended it". And their manner of observing it, briefly, was thus : — for the consideration of such a thing may be of some use, in some places ofthe gospel as we go along, since there is so frequent mention there about their sabbath. The eve of the sabbath, or the day before, was called " the day of the preparation" for the sabbath'; and from the time of the evening sacrifice and forward, they began to fit themselves for the sabbath, and to cease from their works, — so as not to go to the barber, not to sit in judgment, 8cc. ^ min -a"! in Talm. Torah. cap. 7. « Talm. Hierosolm. in Sheviith. fol. 33. col. 1. ' Luke, xxiii. 54. 56 HARMONY OF [Mark, r, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. nay, not to eat thenceforward, till the sabbath came in : nay, thenceforward, they would not set things on working, which, being set a-work, v/ould complete their business of them selves, unless it would be completed before the sabbath came. As, " they would not put galls and copperas to steep to make ink, unless they would be steeped while it was yet day, before the evening of the sabbath was entered : nor put wool to dying, unless it would take colour, whilst it was yet day : nor put flax into the oven, unless it would be dried whilst it was yet day^," &c. They washed their face, and hands, and feet, in warm water, to make them neat against they met the sabbath ; and the ancient wise men used to gather their scholars together, and to say, " Come, let us go meet king sabbath*"." Towards sun-setting, when the sabbath was now ap proaching, they lighted up their sabbath-candle. " Men and women were bound to have a candle lighted up in their houses on the sabbath, though they were never so poor; nay, though they were forced to go a begging for oil for this purpose : and the lighting up of this candle was a part of making the sabbath a delight : and women were especially commanded to look to this business','' &,c. They accounted it a matter of special import and com mand, " To hallow the sabbath with some words;" because it is said, " Remember the sabbath-day to hallow it :" — and, accordingly, they used a twofold action to this purpose ; namely, a solemn form of words in the way of hallowing it at its coming in, and this they called ' KidushJ :' and another solemn form of words, in way of parting with it at its going forth ; and this they called Habdala''. The solemnity, accompanying the hallowing of it at its coming in, was thus :— They spread and furnished the table with provision, and had the sabbath-candle burning by ; and the master of the house took a cup of wine, and first re hearsed that portion of Scripture, in Gen. ii, ver. 1—3 ; and then blessed over the wine ; and then pronounced the' hal- lowmg blessing of the sabbath ; and so drank off" the wine. and the rest of the company drank after him, and so they E Talm. in Sab. cap. 1. h Maim, in Sab. rap. 36. / ibid ' "^"'P " n'7i3n Mark, i, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part I. 57 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. washed their hands and fell to eat. This helps to under stand those verses of Persius' : -At oum Herodis venere dies, unctaque fenestra Dispositae pinguem nebulam vomoere lucernse Portantes violas, rubramque amplexa catinum Cauda natat tbynni, tumet alba fidelia vino : Labra moves tacitns, reoutitaque Sabbata palles. They used to eat their meals on the sabbath, and thought they were bound to it in honour of the day : the first of which was this, that they ate at the very entrance of it over-night. Yea, the poor, that lived of alms, were to eat three meals that day : and those that were of ability, were to get choice provision, and always better, at the least not the same that they used on the week-days. The morning being come, and up, they went to morning prayer in the synagogue ; and when they had done there, they went home and ate their second meal : and when they had done that, they went to some Beth Midrash, or divinity lecture, and there spent the time till the afternoon was well come on ; and then went home and ate their third meal : and so continued eating and drinking, till the sabbath went out. At the going out of the sabbath, which was about sun- setting, — the master of the family again gave thanks over a cup of wine ; then over his candle, — for he set up a parting candle too ;: — and then over some spices, which they used for the refreshing or reviving of any person, that should faint for sorrow to part with the sabbath [this is the reason they give themselves] ; and then he pronounced the ' separation-bless ing"",' by way of separating between the sabbath that was now going out, and the working-day that was coming in. And so he and the company drank off a cup of wine, and fell to their victuals again. But to return again to our evangelists. The retrograde course of Luke's method at this place, appeareth more con spicuous than before. For, in the beginning of the fifth chapter, he giveth the relation ofthe disciples' calling; and in the latter end of the fourth, this story, of casting out the devil in Capernaum-synagogue, which was after their call- ' Sat. V. n n'jian 58 HARMONY OF [Matt. iv. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. ing. Which he hath so placed, the rather [besides what was said upon this matter before], because, in the last verse of that fourth chapter, he speaketh of Christ's preaching all about in their synagogues; and, therefore, beginneth the fifth chapter with the story ofthe calling ofthe disciples, that he might show, how Christ went attended with them in that pe rambulation. And, in the same manner, Matthew"" hath laid their call and that voyage close together for the very same in timation, — although other occurrences came between, which he hath laid a great way off": as, the story of Peter's wife's mother, which is brought in this section. He had said", " That Jesus went about all the synagogues of Galilee, teach ing in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness." He there fore beginneth first with his doctrine, and layeth down the sermon in the mount, and then beginneth to speak of his miracles, at chap, viii : and first giveth the story of healing a leper, which was the first miracle he wrought in that pe rambulation ; and then the healing of the centurion's servant, which was the first miracle he wrought after the sermon in the mount : and there, being come into^mention of one mira cle done in Capernaum, he also bringeth in another, — though not done at the same time, but before, — that he might de spatch the works done in that place together. And thus the scope of his raethod is plain. And here again we see an ex araple of what was said before, — namely, that the mention of a place doth oftentimes occasion these holy penmen, to speak of stories out of their proper time, because they would take up the whole story of that place all at once, or together. SECTION XXI. MATT. chap. IV, ver. 23—25. A third Perambulation of Galilee. The beginning of this section, and the conclusion ofthe precedmg, bemg laid together, the order appeareth plain and direct. Christ had perambulated Galilee twice before, since he was baprized, but either altogether without, or else with very »iv.22,i3. " Matt.iv.23. Mark, i, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 59 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. little, retinue, — but now attended with his disciples, and with great multitudes : and his fame is now spread throughout all Syria. Syria was exceeding numerously inhabited by Jews, and in divers things it is set in equal privilegial pace and equipage with the land of Canaan : insomuch, that " there is a controversy amongst our wise men (saith R. MenahemP), whether Syria, which was subdued by David, were of the land of Israel or no." " In three things (say they) Syria was equal with the land of Israel; and, in three things, it was equal with hea then countries : the dust defiles, as heathen countries' dust doth ; and he that brings a bill of divorce out of Syria, is as if he brought it out of a heathen land ; and he that sells his servant into Syria, is as he that sold him into a heathen country : — in three things it is equal to the land of Israel; for he that buys land in Syria, is as if he bought it in the suburbs of Jerusalem ; and it is liable to tithes, to the year of release; and, if he can go to it in cleanness, it is clean''." SECTION XXII. MARK, chap. I, from ver. 40 to the end ofthe chapter. LUKE, chap. V, ver. 12—16. MATT. chap. VIII, ver. 2—4. A Leper healed. Mark and Luke do assure the order ; the reason why Matthew hath placed this story as he hath done, hath been observed instantly before ; which some, not having taken notice of, have supposed the story in Matthew, and in the other two evangelists, not to have been the same; but con ceive they speak of two several lepers, healed at two several times : whereas the words of tbe leper, and the words and action of Christ, in all the three, do assert it plainly for one story :— and had the reason of Matthew's dislocation of it been observed, it would never have been apprehended other wise. Lepers in Israel might not come into the cities, till the priests had pronounced them clean, and so restored them again to the congregation : for the priests could not heal, P On Deut. xi. i Tosaphta in Kelim per. 1. 60 HARMONY OF [Mabk,ii,&c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. but only judge of, the malady; and whom they pronounced clean, were not healed wholly of the disease, but were en larged only from their separation. The leprosy continued still, though they were absolved from their uncleanness by the priest [a very pregnant emblem of original sin] : but the danger of infection was over, and so they were restored again to human society. If this leper had not yet been under the priest's absolution, — his faith, or his earnest desire of his recovery, or both, enforced him to break those bounds that were set him, and he straineth courtesy to come to Christ in a city'. If he were absolved by the priests already, from his uncleanness, — yet seeketh he to Christ to make him clean from his disease, which the priests could only pronounce him clean from : the priests could only pronounce him clean to the congregation ; Christ makes him clean to himself. SECTION XXIII. MARK, chap. II, from the beginning to ver. 15. LUKE, chap. V, from ver. 17 to ver. 29. MATT. chap. IX, from ver. 2 to ver. 10. Christ healeth a palsy Man : for giveth Sins : calleth Matthew. Mark and Luke do again confirm the order : but Mat thew's dislocation of the same story, doth breed some scru ple. For the clearing of which, let us first begin at the very conclusion of this section, and make good the order there in the end, and that will illustrate the propriety of it here in the beginning. We have parted the story of the calling of Levi, from the story of the feast that he made for Christ after his call, although all the evangelists, that handle his story, have laid them close together. The warrant upon which we have parted them, although they be so nearly joined in the text, is from these two things :— I. From un doubted evidence, by the current of the history, and the progress of the evangelists hitherto,— which makes it plain, that Levi's calling was at that time that we are now upon, or as it is laid in the end of this section, 2. From this evi dence,— that his feast was not of a good while after his call, in that Matthew saith, 'while he was speaking,'— namely, 'Luke, V. 12. Mark, II, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 61 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. about fasting, and putting new cloth into an old garment, &c. [which speech both the other evangelists place at Levi's feast, or presently upon it], Jairus came unto him'. Now it it is plain, by the process of the history of Mark and Luke, that very many things, and a good space of time, intercurred between the calling of Matthew, or Levi, and the coming of Jairus ; for Levi's call is in Mark ii. 14, and Luke v. 27 ; and the story of Jairus's coming, is not till Matt. v. 22, and Luke viii. 41. Now, in that these words that Christ was in speaking, when Jairus came to him. Matt. ix. 18, — were spoken at Levi's feast, Luke v. 29. 33 ; — it is apparent, that his feast was a good space of time after his call : and hence have we warrant for the putting of those stories in the harmonizing of the evangelists. The three, indeed, that speak of these stories, do handle them together, because they would despatch Levi's story at once : and Mark and Luke do mention what occurred at his feast ; but when they have done that, they return to the story and time, that pro perly followed, in order, after his calling. Here, therefore, is the reason of Matthew's so far dislo cating the story of the palsy man, that is before us, as he hath done ; — namely, because, in that ninth chapter, he pitcheth upon the time of Levi's feast : and from that time goes on forward with the story succeeding it. And so having pitched upon the time of his feast, he also brings in the story of his call ; because he would take up his whole story in one place, as the other evangelists have also done: and, with the story of his call, he hath likewise brought in the story of the palsy man, because it occurred at the same time. Matthew is not ashamed to proclaim the baseness of his own profession, before he was called, that that grace might be magnified, that had called him. He was a publican ; and, as it seemeth, at the custom-house of Capernaum, to gather custom and tribute of those that passed over the water, or that had to deal on that sea of Galilee. The Jerusalem Talmud hath this canon' ; " A Pharisee" [or one of the religion] " that turns publican, they turn him out of his order ; but ' See Matt. ix. 18. Mark, ii. 15. 18, 19. Lnke, v. 29. 33, &c. «_Demai,fol. 23.ool.i.im")3rro iniN vrm "sa niyMiy.ian 62 HARMONY OF [3ohh, v. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. doth heleave his pubhcanism ? They restore him to his order again :" so inconsistent did they repute this profession and rehgion. " Men, of whom it may be presumed that they are robbers, and of whom it may be presumed that all their wealth is gotten of rapine, because their trade is a trade of robbers, as publicans and thieves, it is unlawful to use their wealth""," &c. He becomes an apostle and a penman of the gospel. He wrote his Gospel first of all the four : and wrote it in Greek, though he wrote it more particularly for He brews ; for the Hebrew tongue was so lost, that it was not ordinarily to be understood ; and the Greek Bible was the readiest in the hands of the unlearned, to examine the quo tations from the Old Testament, that he, or any other ofthe divine penmen, should allege : the prophets had been, but very lately before Matthew's time, turned into the Chaldee tongue by Jonathan Ben Uzziel, and the law by Onkelos, a little after ; and the Jerusalem Talmud" tells of a Targum or trans lation of Job, which Gamaliel, Paul's master, had: and all this, because the original Hebrew was not commonly under stood. And in the reading of the law and prophets in the synagogues, they had interpreters that rendered it into the Syriac, as was said a little before, because they understood not the original : therefore, it were unreasonable, that Mat thew should write in Hebrew,— a language then, to the most, unknown. SECTION XXIV. JOHN, chap. V; all the chapter. Christ's second passover after his baptism. An infirm Man healed at Bethesda. For the justifying and clearing ofthe order in this place, these things are to be taken into consideration :— 1. That the first thing that the two evangelists, Mark and Luke, who are most exact for order, have placed after the calling of Levi, is, the disciples plucking the ears of corn. They have, indeed, interserted Levi's feast, and John's disciples question ing about fasting ; but that was more for the despatching of Levi's story altogether, than for the propriety of their subse- " **""'• '" ^^'¦^^^^- <=»?• 5. V Shabb. fol. 15. cfal. 3. John, v.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 63 year of CHRIST 31. quence each to other ; as hath been showed already. 2. In that the story ofthe disciples plucking the ears of corn, is joined by them next, we are to look for a Passover between ; for till the Passover was over, and the first-fruits' sheaf offered the second day after, it was not lawful to meddle with any corn, to use, or to eat it^'. 3. Christhad said", in the field of Sichem.that it was "then four months to harvest," that is, to the Passover, — at what time their barley-harvest began''. Now, casting up the time from that place and speech, taken up in the current ofthe story from thence hither, we cannot but conclude the four months to be now up, — and this to be the Passover, then thought upon in those words. And we may conceive, that the evangelist hath the rather omitted to call it by its proper name, or to speak it expressly, that this feast was the Passover, — because, in that speech, he had given fair intimation, how to understand the next ' feast of the Jews,' that he should speak of. He mentioneth, indeed, a Passover, in chap. vi. 4: but we shall find, by the progress ofthe story in the other evan gelists, that that was yet so far yet to come, that it cannot, in the least-wise, be supposed to be that, which was to come within four months after Christ's being in the field of Sichem. ' The feast of the Jews,' therefore, that he speaketh of in the first verse of this chapter, must needs be that Passover, re ferred to, John iv. 35 : and this, considered, doth clear the order. At this Passover, a man is healed at Bethesda, who had been diseased from seven years before Christ was born. This was a pool first laid up by Solomon, as raay be conjectured from Josephus, de Bell. lib. 5. cap. 13, compared with Neh. iii ; and, at first, called ' Solomon's pool ;' but now ' Bethesda,' or ' the place of mercy,' from its beneficial virtue. It was supplied with water from the fountain Siloam, which repre sented David's and Christ's kingdom^ The five porches about it, and the man, when healed, carrying his bed out of one of them, calls to mind the ' Entries%' that are so much spoken of in the treatise Erubin; the carrying of any thing out of which into the * Lev. xxiii. 14. " John, iv. 35. J Lev. xxiii. 11, &c. 2 Isa. viii., 6. » DINttD. 64 HARMONY OF [Luke,vi,&c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. street on the sabbath-day, was to carry" out of a private place into a public, and was prohibited. He is hereupon convented before the Sanhedrim, and there he doth most openly confess and prove himself to be the Messias : and he asserteth, that all power and judgment is put into his hand ; and that he hath the same authority for the dispensing of the affairs of the New Testament, that the Father had for the Old. And this he doth so plainly, that he leaveth their unbelief henceforward without excuse. The Jews speak of divers ominous things, that occurred forty years before the destruction of the city ; as, " It is a tradition, that, forty years before the sanctuary was destroyed, the western lamp went out, and the scarlet list kept its redness, and the Lord's lot came up on the left hand : and they locked up the temple-doors at even ; yet, when they rose in the morning, they found them open''." And ; " Forty years before the temple was destroyed, power of judging in capital matters was taken away from Israel''." Now, there are some that reckon but thirty-eight years between the death of Christ and the destruction of the city ; and, if that be so, then these ominous presages occurred this year that we are upon : it being just forty years, by that account, from this Passover, at which Christ healeth the diseased man at Be thesda, to the time of Titus's pitching his camp and siege about Jerusalem, which was at a Passover. But of this let the reader judge. SECTION XXV. LUKE, chap. VI, from the beginning to ver. 12. MARK, chap. II, from ver. 23 to the end ; and CHAP. Ill, from the beginning to ver. 7. MATT. chap. XII, from the beginning[to ver. 15. The Disciples plucking Ears of Corn : a withered Hand healed on the Sabbath. The words S^^/3arov S,vrep6^pu>rov, which Luke hath used ver. 1, being righUy understood, will help to clear the ' D«ai n-^^^b Tn« nw.D. c j^™,. ;„ j,^,_ f„i_ ^^_ ^^,_ . " banhedr. fol. 18. col. 1. Luke, iv.iStc.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 65 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. order of this section, and to confirm the order of the pre ceding. The law enjoined, that the next morrow after the eating ofthe passover, should be kept holy like a sabbath' ; and, ac cordingly, it is called a sabbath. Lev. xxiii. 7. 11. And there the law also enjoins, thatthe next day after that sabbatical day, they shall offer the sheaf of first-fruits to the Lord : and from that day they should count seven sabbaths to Pentecost, which was their solemn festival and thanksgiving for that half har vest, — viz. barley-harvest, — which they had theninned^. That day, therefore, that they offered their first barley-sheaf, and from which they were to count the seven sabbaths, or weeks, forward, being the ' second day in the Passover-week,' — the sabbaths that followed, did carry a memorial of that day in their name, till the seven were run out : as, the first was called Saj3j3aTov SsvripoTrpdiTov, ' the first second-day sab bath : the next, Sa/3j3arov SeutejooSevte/jov, ' the second se cond-day sabbath :' the next, Saj3j3arov SevreporptTov, ' the third second-day sabbath :' and so the rest of all the seven through. Now let it be observed, 1. That no corn, — no, not ears of corn, — might be eaten, till the first-fruits' sheaf was offered and waved before the Lord? : 2. That it was waved ' the second day of the Passover-week:' 3. That this was the first sabbath after that second day, when the disciples plucked the ears of corn ; — and it will plainly evince, that we must look for a Passover before this story ; and so it will show the warranty and justness of taking in the fifth of John next before it. But the order of Matthew may breed some scruple; and that the rather, — because, that, though he hath placed this story after divers occurrences that are yet to come, yet he hath prefaced it with this circumstance, " at that time." Now this expression doth not always centre stories in the same point of time ; but sometimes it hath made a transition betwixt two stories, whose times were at a good distance asunder: as. Gen. xxxviii. 1 ; Deut. x. 8: and so likewise the phrase, ' In these days,' Matt. iii. 1. The latter story, about healing the man with the withered ' Exod. xii. 16. ' Lev. xxiii. 15 — 17. I Lev. ixiii. 14. . VOL. VII. F 66 HARMONY OF [Mark, ni,&c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. hand, is so unanimously ordered by all the three, after the other, that there is no doubt of the method of it. It was a special part of religion, which the Jews used on the sabbath, to eat good meat; and better than they did on the week-days : yea, they thought themselves bound to eat three meals on that day [as was said before] ; and for this they allege, Isa. Iviii. 13'. Compare Phil. iii. 19. Observe how far the disciples are from such an obser vance, and from such provision, when a few ears of barley, — for that was the corn plucked, — must make a dinner. The plucking of ears of corn on the sabbath, was forbid den by their canons, verbatim. " He that reapeth corn on the sabbath, to the quantity of a fig, is guilty. And plucking corn is as reaping ; and whosoever plucketh up any thing from it growing, is guilty, under the notion of reapingj." Christ, before his healing the withered hand, is ques tioned by them ; " Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath-day ?" Their decretals allowed it in some cases : — " Our doctors teach. The danger of life dispenseth with the sabbath. And so doth circumcision and the healing of that''." But, " This is a rule, saith Rabbi Akibah, — that that which may be done on the eve of the sabbath, dispenseth not with the sabbath'." Such was this case""". They accounted, that this might have been done any other day. SECTION XXVI. MARK, chap. Ill, from ver. 7 to ver. 13. MATT. chap. XII, from ver. 15 to ver. 22. Great Multitudes follow Christ: who healeth all that come to him. The connexion, that both these evangelists have at this story, doth abundantly assert the order. The Pharisees took counsel to destroy him ; " but when Jesus knew it, he depart ed," &c. The Herodians join with them in their plotting ; which seem to have been these learned and great men of the nation, who had gone into the service of Herod the Great, and now of his son, mentioned before. ' Vid. Kimch. ibid, et Taooh. fol. 1. Talm. et Maim, in Sbab. &c j Talm. in Sbab. cap. 7. et Maimon. Shab. cai). 7 8 " Tanoh. fol. 9. col. 2. ' Talm. in Shab. cap. 19. m c„,„p,,^ Luke.xiii. 14. Luke, vi, Sec] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 67 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XXVII. LUKE, chap. VI, from ver. 12 to ver. 20. MARK, chap. Ill, from ver. 13 to the middle of ver. 10. MATT. chap. V, ver. 1. The twelve Apostles chosen, Luke and Mark do methodize and fix the time of the sermon in the mount ; which Matthew hath laid very early in his Gospel, because he would first treat of Christ's doc trine, and then of his miracles. In a mount near Capernaum, he ordaineth a ministry for the church of the gospel, and delivereth the doctrine of the gospel, as Moses at Sinai had done the like, for the law. The number of the present ministers appointed, whom he calleth ' apostles,' was twelve, agreeable to the twelve tribes of Israel : that, as they were the beginning of the church of the Jews, so are these of the Gentiles : and to both these numbers of twelve joined together, the number ofthe "four- and-twenty elders." the representative of the whole church, (Rev. iv and v, &c.) hath relation. Rev. xxi. 12. 14. The text allotteth these ends of their appointment : — 1. " That they might be with Christ," to see his glory"", and to be witnesses of all things that he did". 2. That he might send them forth to preach. 3. To heal diseases and cast out devils. Before they were completed in all their divine endow ments, they grew on by degrees ; — they were auditors a good while, and learning the doctrine of the gospel, that they were to preach, before they set upon that work: for, though Christ chose them now, yet it is well towards a twelvemonth, before he sends them abroad a preaching, as will appear in the process of the story. So that, besides the time, that they had spent before this their choosing, they also spent that in hearing and learning from the mouth of their Master, what they were to teach, when he should employ them : so that even the apostles themselves, at the' first setting forth into the ministry, did not preach by the Spirit, but what they had learned and gotten by hearing, study, conference, and medi tation. » John, i. 14. " Acts, a. 39. 41. Luke, xxiv. 48. f2 68 HARMONY OF [Ll'kk, vi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. As the Lord, under the law, and from the first founding of that church, did set apart a peculiar order and function of men for the service of the sanctuary, — so did he. under the gospel, a peculiar order and function for the ministry of the gospel ; and this no more to be usurped upon, than that. Now as, under the law, there were several sorts of men within that function, — as high-priests, chief priests, ordinary priests, and Levites, but all paled in with that peculiarity, that no other might meddle with their function ;^so likewise, at the first rising of the gospel, there were apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors, teachers, according to the necessity of those present times, but all hedged in with a distinctive mi nisterial calling, that none other might, nor may, break in upon. All the titles and names, that ministers are called by throughout the New Testament, are such as denote peculia rity and distinctiveness of order; as, "wise men and scribes'"." Now*!, the Jews knew not, nor ever had heard, of " wise men and scribes"," but the learned of their nation distinguished for others, by peculiarity of order and ordination : and if they understood not Christ in such a sense, — namely, men of a distinct order, — they understood these titles, ' wise men and scribes,' in a sense that they had never known nor heard of before. Ministers in the New Testament are called • elders,' ' bishops,' ' angels ofthe churches,' ' pastors,' 'teachers :' now all these were synagogue-terms, and every one of them de noted peculiarity of order, as might be showed abundantly from their synagogue-antiquities. The Jews knew no ' elders ' but men, by their order and function, distinguished from other men. A ' bishop ' translates the word ' chazan=;' ' an angel of the congregation ' translates the titie ' sheliach tsibbor' ;' a ' pastor' translates the word ' parnas" ;' and a ' teacher ' trans- 'lates the divinity reader"'.' Now these terms had never been known by any to signify otherways than men of a peculiar function and distinct order. P Malt, xxiii. 34. 1 "Nam apud Jnda^os DnsiB, O'mn i. e. Sapientes el ScribtE doctos.ab aliis se- gregatos, sen pecoharem hominum ordinem, ^e-joSs^V separatum, semper denotant ¦ Deque enim usp.am reper.re est, apad Hebrsos olim dictos Sapienteset Scrihas alio Matt, v, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 69 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XXVIII. MATT. chap. V, and VI, and VII. LUKE, chap. VI, from ver. 20 to the end of the chapter. The Sermon in the Mount. The proof ofthe order doth not need to be insisted upon ; Luke doth manifestly assert it. It had been foretold by the prophet, "All thy children shall be taught of God"':" which if applied to the Gentiles, they had been taught by the devil, his oracles and idols ; if applied to the Jews, they, indeed, had been taught by the Lord in his prophets, but these were but men like themselves ; but this prophecy foretells the preaching of Christ, who was God himself; he, teaching and conversing amongst them, — he then the great teacher of the world"*, — doth, from the mount near Capernaum, deliver his evangelical law, not for the abolishing of the law and pro phets, but for their clearing and fulfilling. He first beginneth with pronouncing blessings, as the most proper and comfortable tenor of the gospel : and here by he calls us to remember Gerizim and Ebal". For, though Israel be enjoined there to pronounce both blessings and curses upon those mountains, yet are the curses only speci fied by name and number : for the curse came by the law ; but He that was to bless, was to come : whichthing taketh place very comfortably and harmoniously here. Luke addeth, that he also denounced woes; as, 'Blessed be the poor:' • Blessed are ye that hunger now,' &c. ' But woe unto you that are rich :' ' Woe unto you that are full,' &,c. According to which form, the Jews^ conceive, the blessings and curses were pronounced by Israel from those two mountains men tioned. " How did Israel pronounce the blessings and the curses ? Six tribes went up to the top of mount Gerizim, and six to the top of mount Ebal : the priests, and the Levites, and the ark, stood below in the midst between ; they turned their. faces towards mount Gerizim, and began with bless ing ; Blessed is the man that maketh not any graven or mol ten image, an abomination to the Lord, 8cc. And both par ties answered and said. Amen. And then turned they their ^ Isa. liv. 13. " Isa. ii. 2, and li. 4. ^ Dent, xxvii. ' Talm. in Sotah.cap. 7. ct Tosaph ibi. cap, 8. 70 HARMONY OF [Matt, v, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. faces towards mount Ebal, and began with cursing ; Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abo mination to the Lord, &c. And both parties answered. Amen." — And so of the rest. 2. He proceedeth laying out of the latitude of the law, according to its full extent and intention ; and showeth the wretchedness of their traditional glosses, that had made the law of no eff'ect. They understood the law, ' Thou shalt not kill,' only of actual murder, and that committed by a man's own hand ; for, "if he hired another to kill him, or turned a wild beast upon him, which slew him, — this they accounted not murder for which to be questioned by the Sanhedrim," though it deserved the judgment of God ^ But Christ shows, that the command extends to the prohibiting of causeless anger ; and that that deserves the j udgment of God : that the uncharitable scornings of a brother, under their usual word • Raca,' deserved the judgment of the Sanhedrim; and espe cially the calling him 'Fool' [in Solomon's sense], or censuring rashly his spiritual estate, — deserved hell-fire. They con strued the command, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' — barely of the act of adultery, and that with another man's wife* But He tells, that it prohibits lustful thoughts and looks ; and that looking upon a woman to lust after her, is adultery in heart. " Rabban Simeon*" delighted to look upon fair women, that he might take occasion, by the sight of their beauty, to bless God :" — a fair excuse! The law'' had permitted divorces, only in case of forni cation ; but they had extended it to any cause, and to so loose an extent, that R. Ahiba "* said, " A man may put away his wife, if he see another woman, that pleaseth him better than she." The law had forbidden forswearing, or swearing falsely ; thereupon they had made bold to take liberty of vain swearing at pleasure, so that what they swore were not false'. These cursed constructions of theirs, by which they had made the law of no effect, he divinely damneth, and stateth the proper and true intent of the law in these cases. ' Talm. in Sanhedr. cap. 9. Maimon. in Retseah, cap. 2. -' Trip. targ. in raarg. ad Exod. xx, b Tal. Jerns. in Beracolh, fol. 1% col. S. ' Dent. XXIV. 1. i Giltin. cap. 9. " See Tal. ct Maim, in Sheviith. Luke, VII, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 71 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. 3. He prescribeth Christian duties ; and especially rules of piety, charity, and sincerity, and condemneth the hypo critical vain-glory ofthe Pharisees about these things. TThey used, when they gave alms in the synagogue, to have it openly proclaimed and published what they gave ; as if a trumpet had been sounded, for every one to take notice of their charity^ And they had an open proclaiming in the streets, for the calling of the poor to gather the corner of the field, that they had left them^. They loved to be seen pray ing in the streets ; especially in their phylactery-prayers, morning and evening, besides other occasional orisons'". They used to pray those prayers often, and often other pray ers, in the synagogue, apart and distinct from the prayers or service that the synagogue was then upon ; and so their particular devotion was the more subject to be observed". They used, on their fasting-days, to use such a carriage and demeanour in face and garb, that all might observe that it was fasting-day with them-". And, in all their devotions and demeanour, they hunted after the praise of men ; which he condemneth, and urgeth for sincerity and care to approve the heart to God. Throughout all this sermon, — this great oracle of divine truth doth not only show and hold out the sacred doctrines of faith, manners, duty, and eternal life; but he evidenceth, throughout, that he was thoroughly acquainted with all the learning, doctrines, and traditions, of those times. And to the explication of this divine sermon, is required quick and ready versedness in the Jews' records; for Christ hath an eye and reference to their language, doctrines, customs, tra ditions, and opinions, almost in every line. SECTION XXIX. LUKE, chap. VII, from the beginning to ver. IL MATT. chap. VIII, ver. 1 ; and then ver. 5, to ver. 14. A Centurion's Servant healed. Luke's transition, " W^^n he had ended all his sayings," doth prove the order. The four verses, that speak about the ' Jerns. in Demai, fol. 23. ool. 2. « Id. Peah cap. 4, &c. •¦ Id. Beracoth, cap. 1, 2. ' Ib. fol. 8. col. 3, &e. j Piske Tosaph. in Taanith, cap. 1, &e. 72 HARMONY OF [Luke, vii. year OF CHRIST 31. leper, in Matthew, were taken up before, and their order spoken to then. A proselyte captain, — that had so far affected the Jews' religion, that he had built a synagogue in Capernaum,— having seen and heard the works and words of Christ, be lieveth him for the Messias, and beggeth of him the healing of his servant. Which that Christ could do, he concludeth from a comparison of the power of his own word and com mand among his soldiers : for since they were ready to come, and go, or run, at his command, — much more, doth he conclude, was the word of Christ of power to command away the disease of his servant, if he pleased. Christ had often, in his sermon on the mount, asserted the authority of his own word, against and above the words of their traditionaries, and equalized it with that word, that gave the law. And here is a very high and seasonable confession of the authority of that word, made by this centurion, — and an evidence of the power of it, by the healing of his servant at distance. The man's faith is justly extolled, though he were a Gentile ; and the casting off the Jews is clearly foretold, which Christ had not so plainly spoken out hitherto. SECTION XXX. LUKE, chap. VII, ver. 11—17. The Widow's Son of Nain raised. As Christ, yesterday,recoveredayoungmanfromthe point of death, so doth he another, to-day, from death itself. The words EV r^ £?^c^ do confirm the order : " The day after," &c. Josephus' speaks ofthe village Nais, as being upon the edge of Samaria, in the way as the Galileans passed to Jeru salem. And it is not improbable, that Christ was going thi therward, at this time, to one ofthe festivals ; most like, to Pentecost. As he comes to Nain, he meets with a dead man carried"" out; for they might not bury within their cities; no, nor at the Levites' cities, within the compass of that ground without the city, that was allotted for its suburbs". [If Jerusalem wentpa- K Ver. 1 ) . 1 Antiq. lib. 20. cap. 5. ¦» i,^^ rm in Talmudic laoguage. ° Maim. ,n Shemitah voiobel, cap. 13. Luke, vu, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part I. 73 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. rallel with the Levites' cities in this, as it did in other things, Christ's sepulchre will not prove so near the city, as it hath been commonly reputed.] He raiseth this dead man openly, and in the sight of all the company there present, which was very great; and yet, when afterward he raiseth Jairus's daughter, he chargeth that those that had seen him do the miracle, which were but five persons, — should tell no man what was done" ; which prohibition was given rather in re gard of the place, where it was done, than in any other re spect ; it being in Capernaum, against which city he had de nounced a curse before. SECTION XXXI. LUKE, chap. VII, from ver. 18 to ver. 36. MATT. chap. XI, from ver. 2 to ver. 20. John's Message to Christ ; Christ's Testimony of John. The transition of Luke from the stories before, about the raising of the dead man, and healing the centurion's servant, " And the disciples of John showed him of all these things," doth confirm the order. John, from Machserus' Castle, where he lay prisoner, send eth two of his disciples to Christ, to inquire of him, " Whe ther he were he that should come ;" not that John was igno rant who he was, having had so many demonstrations of him as he had had, and having given so ample testimony of him as he had donei" ; nor that John's disciples were so wilfully ignorant of him, as not to be persuaded by their master that he was he; but his message to him seems to this purpose, — John and his disciples had heard ofthe great and many mi racles that Christhad done, healing the sick, and raising the dead, &c. and, it may be, they thought it strange, that Christ, amongst all his miraculous workings, would not work John's liberty out of thraldom, who lay a prisoner for him, and for the gospel he preached before him: and this, may be, was the bottom of their question, " Art thou he that shall come, or look we for another ?" as expecting somewhat more from the Messias, than they had yet obtained. They received a full answer to their question by the miracles they saw » Lnke, viii. 56. p John, i. 34. 36 ; and iii. 29, 30. 74 HARMONY OF [Matt. xi. year of CHRIST 31. wrought, which abundantiy proved that he was ' he that was to come.' But as to the expectation of his miraculous en largement of John, his answer was, that ' his work was to preach the gospel, and that it was a blessed thing not to take any offence at him, but to yield and submit to his wise dis pensations.' And, accordingly, when the messengers of John were returned, he giveth a glorious testimony concerning him to the people ; but yet showeth, how far one, truly and fully acquainted and stated in the kingdom of heaven, went beyond him in judging of it, who looked for temporal redemp tion by it. The method of Matthew is somewhat difficult here, but he seemeth purposely to have joined the mission of Christ's dis ciples and John's disciples together. I suppose Christ was at Jerusalem, when John's messengers came to him : and, if it were at the feast of Pentecost, John had then been seven or eight months in prison. SECTION XXXII. MATT. chap. XI, from ver. 20 to the end of the chapter. Chorazin and Bethsaida upbraided. Besides Matthew's continuing this portion to that that went before, the upbraiding of these cities is so answerable to the matter contained in the end of the former section, that it easily shows it to be spoken at the same time : see ver. 17 — 19, of this chapter. When Christ saith, that, if the things, done in these cities, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, and Sodom and Gomorrha, they would have repented, and would have remained till now, — he understandeth not saving grace and saving repentance in them; but such an external humiliation, as would have prer served them from ruin : as the case was with Nineveh, — they repented, and were delivered from the threatened destruction: their repentance was not to salvation of the persons, but to the preservation of their city: as Ahab's humbhng prevented the present judgment, and not his final condemnation. Luke, VII.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 75 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XXXIII. LUKE, chap. VII, from ver. 36 to the end ofthe cliapter. Mary Magdalen weepeth at Christ's Feet, and washeth them with Tears, Sfc. The continuation of this portion in Luke, to that in sec tion xxxi. will plead for its order : and the reader will easily observe, that the interposition of the preceding section in Matthew, is so far from interrupting the story, that it is ne cessarily to be taken in there, — and is an illustration of it. The actings ofthe two several parties in this section, the Pha risee that invited Christ to eat with him, — and tbe woman sinner, that comes and weeps at his feet for mercy, — may seem to have had some rise from, or some occasional reference to, the speech of Christ in the two sections next preceding. In the former he had said, " The Son of man came eating and drinking;" and this, possibly, might induce the Pharisee to his invitation : and in the latter he had said, " Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden ;" and that might invite the woman to her address. This woman was " Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who was also called Mary Magdalen ;" of whom there is mention in the very beginning of the next chapter. That she was Mary. the sister of Lazarus, John giveth us ground to assert, chap. xi. 2, as we shall show when we come there ; where we shall evidence, that these words, — " It was that Mary, which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair," — can properly be referred to no story but this before us : and that ' Mary, the sister of Lazarus, was called Mary Magdalen,' we shall prove in the next section. Christ, in the story in sect, xxxi, when John's disciples came to him> we supposed to be at Jerusalem ; and answerably it may be conceived, that this passage occurred at Bethany, where Simon the Pharisee may, not improbably, be held to be the same with Simon the leper. Matt. xxvi. 6 ; where this very woman again anointed him. 76 HARMONY OF [Luke, vm. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XXXIV. LUKE, chap. VIII, ver. 1—3. Certain Women that followed Christ. Luke again is the warrant for the order. In the former story he bad spoken of one woman, that had found healing and mercy with Christ ; and he speaks here of divers, and, among them, Mary Magdalen. Now, that she was Mary, the sister of Lazarus, let but these two arguments be weighed, not to insist upon more. The first is this :— If Mary Magda len were not Mary, the sister of Lazarus, — then Mary, the sister of Lazarus, gave no attendance at Christ's death, nor had any thing to do about his burial [or, at least, is not men tioned as an agent at either] ; which is a thing so incredible to conceive, that it needs not much discourse to set forth the incredibility of it. There is mention of Mary Magdalen, and Mary, the mother of James and Salome'', and Joanna"; but not a word of Mary, the sister of Lazarus. She had twice anointed Christ in the compass of that very week ; she had ever been as near and as zealous a woman-disciple as any that followed hira ; and her residence was at Bethany, hard by Jerusalem : and what is now become of her in these two great occasions of attending upon Christ's death and embalming ? Had she left Christ, and neglected her atten dance on him, at this time above all others ? or have the evangelists, whilst they mention the other that attended, left her out ? It is so unreasonable to believe either of these, that even necessity enforceth us to conclude, that, when they name Mary Magdalen, they mean Mary, the sister of Laza rus. — And, Secondly, Take this argument of Baronius ; which hath more weight in it, than, at first sight, it doth seem to have ; who goes about to prove this thing that we assert, and he shows how it also was the opinion of the fathers, and those in former times. His words are these' : " We say, upon the testimony of John, the evangelist, nay, of Christ himself,— that it plainly appears, that Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and Mary Magdalen, was but one and the same per son. For when, in Bethany, the same sister of Lazarus anointed the feet of Jesus, and Judas did thereupon take 1 Mark, xv. 40. ' Lake, xxiv. 10. . In his Annals ad Annom Christi, 32. Luke, viii.J THE N EW TESTAMENT—Part I. 77 year of CHRIST 31. offence, — Jesus himself, checking the boldness of the furious disciple, said, Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial. Now, that she that brought the ointment to the sepulchre for the anointing of the body of Jesus, was Mary Magdalen, is affirmed by Mark ; and that she with Mary, the mother of James and Salome, did that office. When, therefore, neither in him, nor in any other of the evan gelists, there is any mention of Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who was foretold by our Saviour that she should do that office, it may easily be known, that both these Maries were but one and the same." — At John xii. 7, we shall show, that that speech must be construed to such a sense, as he hath put on it, save only, that, following the vulgar Latin, he reads ' sine ut servet,' which, indeed, makes his sense the fuller; but, though not so read, yet will that sense be full enough. It is to be objected, indeed, that Mary was called Mag dalen, from the place Magdala, of which there is mention Matt. XV. 39, and in the Jerusalem Talmud', in this passage, " R. Jochanan in the name of R. Simeon Ben Jochai : he had two enclosures, one in Magdala, the other in Tiberias," &,c. And"" there is mention of one ' R. Juda of MagdalaV Now Magdala being in Galilee, as some seat it, — or over-against Galilee, beyond Jordan, as others ; — it was so very far dis tant from Bethany, that Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whose town was Bethany, could not possibly be called ' Magdalen,' from ' Magdala.' — To which we may first give Baronius's answer, who also mentioneth this objection ; That, though she were of Bethany by original, and the native seat of her father's house, yet might she also be of Magdala by marriage, or some occasional residence otherwise. And, in the second place, we may adduce what the Talmudics" speak of one ' Mary Magdalen,' or ' Megaddala,' — for the word" is of doubtful pointing, — whom they character for a notorious strumpet, in those times that Jesus of Nazareth lived : " Some man finds a fly in his cup, and takes her out, and will not drink ; and this was the temper of Papus, the son of Judah, who locked the door upon his wife, whensoever he went out." The glossaries, R. Solomon and Nissim, upon ' In Msazaroth, fol. 50. col. 3. " In Beracolh, fol. 13. dol. 1. » x-b-^m mv 'm " Alphes. in Gittin fol. 605. » t^Mi C>^0 78 HARMONY OF [Matt, xii, &c. year of CHRIST 31. this passage, comment thus : " Papus, the son of Judah, was husband to Mary Magdala^ ; and whensoever he went forth, he locked the door upon his wife, lest she should speak with any man, which was a usage unfitting; and hereupon there arose discord between them, and she played the whore against him." Now, they construe the latter word^ as signify ing one, that braided or plaited her hair, which E/xirXoKi? rptxwv Peter^ blames in women. The Babylonian Talmud" is speak ing of one, that enticed to idolatry, and how he was brought to the Sanhedrim, and stoned : " And thus (say they) they did to Ben Saida in Lydda, and hanged him on the Passover- eve. Ben Saida was the son of Pandira." [They call our Saviour blasphemously by this name, Ben Saida.] And a littie after ; " His mother was Saida. His mother was Mary Magdalen, Mary the platter of women's hair'=." And; " The angel of death said to his messenger. Go, fetch me'* Mary, the broiderer of women's hair; he went and fetched Mary Magdala, or Mary, the broiderer of hair for young men'." Now, whether the word n'jIJD be read Magdela or Magdila, a participle in Hiphil, which is most proper^, or Megaddela in Piel : either of them, in a Greek dress, especially the former, comes so near the sound of the word in hand, that we may very well construe Mary Magdalen, in this Talmudic con struction, for a woman of common infamy, and that hath this nickname of Magdila, from her lascivious dress and carriage. Observe Luke's expression, Mapia, 17 /caXoujulvrj MaySaXr)!/?), " Mary, which was called Magdalen :" — which manner of phrase is rarely used, when persons are named after their country. SECTION XXXV. MATT. chap. XII, from ver. 22 to ver. 46. MARK, chap. Ill, from the last clause of ver. 19, " And they went into a house ;" to ver. 31. A Devil cast out : Christ called Beelzebub : Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. The series and consequence of this section, will require some clearing. 1. The reader bere seeth, tbat Mark hath J n'jiM 0--\nb ' Kb-im » 1 Pet. iii. 3. » Venet. in Sanhedr. cap. 7. « Vid. etiam Sohab. fol. 104. " )i'^m lirv xblM D>10 " In Chagigah, fol. 4. ' And so warranted by Aruch in bi:! and Kelim, cap. 15. Matt. XII, Sec] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 79 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. not mentioned any thing, from the ordaining of the twelve apostles, unto this place : for the Holy Ghost, that held all their pens, did so dispose them, that sometimes one should speak the story, — sometimes, another, — and' sometimes, more, or all of them together. 'Now, though the first clause pf this section in Mark, " And they went into a house," be joined so close to the apostles' ordaining, as if that were the next thing done, — yet the current of the story, in the rest of the evangelists, doth show that it is not to be taken in, at that instant : and, indeed, the progress of the story, even in Mark himself, doth show, that this is the proper place ofit; as will appear to him, that shall precisely observe it. 2. Matthew hath laid this story of casting out a devil, &c. next after two stories, that occurred before the sermon in the mount, as hath appeared in its place : the reason of which may be supposed to be, because he would take up the ex ceptions of the scribes and Pharisees together. That this story in Matthew lieth in juncture to these next succeeding, 'will readily appear in them. 3. There is a story in Luke xi, so like this, that one would think it were the very same ; for there is mention of the same miracle, casting out a devil, and the same cavil of the Pharisees, and the same answer of Christ: and yet the progress of the history of Luke thither, and especially the coming off from that story, do persuade, that it was another story. For Luke chaineth such following passages to it, that cannot possibly be brought in concurrent with the current of these evangelists now before us. And we shall observe hereafter, that Christ, in his latter time, did repeat over again very many of those things, that he had spoken a good while before : as Moses's Deuteronomy was but a rehearsal of things, that had been acted and spoken in his former time. The same devilishness was in the scribes and Pharisees in all places ; and it was, accordingly, to be met withal by Christ in more places than one : they had taken up a consent to beat down the dignity and authority of his miracles, by asserting, that whatsoever he did, he did by the power of magic ; and this corrupt blood ran up in their veins every where,wheresoever he met them ; and, there fore, it is no wonder, if the same words be in their mouths here and there, when the same rotten principle was every 80 HARMONY OF [iMatt. xii.&c. year of CHRIST 31. where in their hearts. Observe, how scornfully they require a sign from heaven, when they had but newly seen a most heavenly sign. The word ' Beelzebul' was taken up for the more detesta tion, as importing, ' The god of a dunghill ;' and the sacri ficing to idols they called ' dunging to an idol.' R. Jose, Ben R. Ben saithe, " He that seeth them dunging to an idol, must say. He that sacrificeth to other gods, must be de stroyed." What Christ speaketh about the unpardonableness of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, is in direct facing of their tenet ; which held, that blasphemy was atoned for by death, though by nothing else. " He (say they) by whom the name of heaven is blasphemed, repentance hath no power to save him from punishment, nor the day of expiation to atone for him; or chastisements of the judges to acquit him. But repentance and the day of expiation atone for a third part, and chastisements a third part, and death a third part. And of such it is said. If this iniquity be purged till you die; behold, we learn that death acquitteth'"." The Jews defamed the miracles done by Christ, as done by magic ; as appeareth not only by this and other places inthe gospel; but even in the Babylonian Talmud', — " R. Eliezer said to the wise men. Did not Ben Saida" this is a blasphemous name they give to Jesus of Nazareth, as was said a little before] " bring enchantments out of Egypt in incisions in his flesh?" But when they saw they were not able to contradict and decry the credit of the great miracles that he did, and they saw that this would not serve their turn, to say he did them by the power of the devil ; the devil taught them to betake themselves to another shift clean contrary, — and that was, to say and maintain, that when Messias came, he should do no miracles at alP. ! mT "^^''^ l"''^'" °'^'"< ""¦' '^^^'"- Je^s- Beracoth, fol. 12. col. 2. m ™V .T'" °''^. ¦ *¦"'• ^^' ""'• 3- ' Shab. fol. 104. col. 2. J Which they assert ,n Sanhedr. cap. Halek. and Maim, in Melachim cap. ult. Matt. XII, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 81 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XXXVI. MATT. chap. XII, from ver. 46 to the end. MARK, chap. Ill, from ver. 31 to the end. LUKE, chap. VIII, ver. 19—21. Christ's Mother and Brethren seek him, 8fc. The order is cleared by the transition of Matthew, " While he yet talked," &c. Luke hath set the coming of Christ's mother and brethren, after the parable of the sower [whereas the other two evangelists have set it before, and that in its proper place] ; thereby intimating the end and prosecution of the errand they came upon, — which was, to take him up from preaching : with which intention and im portunity they follow him from place to place. Here is an evidence of the virgin Mary's sinfulness, as well as other women's, if going about to stop Christ's ministry were a sin, as certainly it was, — proceed that intention from what pre tence soever; " His friends went to lay hold on him, for they said e^ecttjj :¦"' signify that word what it will, whether ' he is beside himself,' or ' he is faint,' or ' he is in a rapture,' &c. their errand and intention was to take him off" from the course he was in : which he knew well enough ; and there fore he gives so smart an answer, " Who is my mother'?" &c. SECTION XXXVII. MATT. chap. XIII, from the beginning to ver. 54. MARK, chap. IV, from the beginning to ver. 35. LUKE, chap. VIII, from ver. 4 to ver. 19. The Parable ofthe Sower: and divers other Parables. Matthew's transition doth again clear the order here : " The same day went Jesus," &c ; the same day that his mo ther and brethren came to him ; as is apparent in the twelfth chapter. So that this consideration helpeth to methodize the order of Luke : for whereas the other two have set the coming of Christ's mother and brethren before his uttering of the parable of the sower, &c. he hath set it after ; and that without contrariety, though with diversity. For both the I' Mark, iii. 21. ' Compare Deut. xxxiii. 9. VOL. HI. G 82 HARMONY OF [Matt, xm, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. occurrences were on the same day : and he hath, by this or der, showed, how the mother and friends of Christ, having once found him, went along with him ; whether to prosecute the intention they came upon, or better convinced to attend him and his doctrine. Christ, speaking of parables, which he doth so exceeding much through the gospel, was according to the style and manner of that nation, which were exceedingly accustomed to this manner of rhetoric. The Talmuds are abundantly full of this kind of oratory, and so are generally all their an cient writers : and they commonly enter upon their parables with this preface, ' A parable : to what is the thing like""?' which style he also useth not seldom. And sometime they enter upon it more abruptly, with such an entrance as this ; " To aman""." or " To a king of flesh and blood," &c; mean ing, " It is like to a man, or like to a king," 8cc. I believe there are very many in the world, that have not been farther acquainted with the writings of the Jews, than what they have seen quoted by other writers, and yet are ready to cen sure them of lies and falsehoods [which, indeed, they are not free from], merely upon want of acquaintance with their style of parables and hyperboles. Very good use may be made of the Talmudic treatises, Peah, Demai, and Kilaim, which treat intentionally con cerning sowing and seeds, — for illustration of these parables. In Kilaim, they dispute of sowing " upon rocks, and upon stones"," and of mingling "wheat and tares," &,c. cap. 1. In PeahP, they speak of " a tree of mustard-seed," that one might climb into, like other trees, &c. And in divers other pas sages in these parables, some hght may be fetched from those tracts : seeing Christ, all along, speaketh of things usual, and most particularly usual, among that nation. " non lain nab bwa " wKb or ia -\'jab ". ram VB-n D>B-iB >33 by B'v'jD >33 bv p In Tal. Jerns. fol. 20. Mvrr. VIII, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part 1. 83 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XXXVIII. MATT. chap. VIII, ver. 18—22. MARK, chap. IV, ver. 35. LUKE, chap. IX, ver. 57—62. A Scribe will follow Christ, Sfc. The story of Christ's preparing to go over the water, is evidenced by Mark, to come in here in its proper place ; for he saith, " The same day at even," 8cc. Matthew's laying it where he hath done, may seem to be because of its near ness to Matthew's or Levi's feast, as will appear in the fol lowing current of the story : which feast he hath laid at Matthew's call, and so hath accordingly brought here divers stories together, though far distinct in time ; as some being near the time of his call, some near the time of his feast. But a greater scruple ariseth; namely. Whether this story in Matthew, of two that would follow Christ, and that in Luke ix. 57, Sec. of three that would do so, — be one and the same story, or two occurrences at several times ? It is well the matter is of no more chronological import ; for it is hard to resolve which way to take it. The words of the persons to Christ, and his answer to them, are so much the same, that it is hard to think two several stories should run so parallel in all circumstances : and yet Luke's laying it so far out of its place, might persuade, that it is not the same story. It would be raore tiresome than profitable to dispute the matter at large ; therefore, to make sure and quick work, both the stories may be taken in at both places. I should rather hold them to be two stories : in both of them where it is said, by those that should follow Christ, " Let me first go and bury my father," — it argues, not that their father was dead or very sick ; but that they thought themselves bound not to leave their father, whilst he was living. SECTION XXXIX. MATT. chap. VIII, from ver. 23 to the end ; and chap. IX, ver. 1 . MARK, chap. IV, from ver. 36 to the end ; and chap. V, from beginning to ver. 22. LUKE, chap. VIII, from ver. 32 to ver. 41. Christ calmeth the Sea : casteth out a Legion qf Devils, vi. YEAR OF CHRIS T 31. SECTION XLVIII. JOHN, chap. VI, frora ver. 22 to the end ofthe chapter. Jesus teacheth in Capernaum-Synagogue, concerning eating his Flesh, Sfc. The first words in the section, " The day following," assert the order. Divers of those, that had been fed by Christ miraculously in the desert of Bethsaida, remained upon that ground all night, expecting Jesus to corae again among them, who was departed away frora them, — but, as they saw, not with his disciples : therefore, they, the next morning, follow him to Capernaum, and there find him. It was synagogue-day there; namely, either the second or fifth day of the week; and, in the synagogue, Christ speaketh of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, which seemeth a doctrine so monstrous to many, that divers, that had followed him, do now depart from him. What would these people have ? They had been fed mi raculously yesterday ; and yet to-day they say to him, " What sign showest thou, that we may see and believe"? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert'," &-c. They looked for a continued miraculous feeding, as Moses fed Israel with manna in the wilderness : and to that the words of Christ refer'; " Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye ate ofthe loaves." It is said, " When they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, they said, ' Thisis, of a truth, the Prophet that should come into the world;' and they went about to make him king""." They thought they saw, in this miracle, the sign of the Messias they looked for, who should feed his people mi raculously, as Moses had done ; and, therefore, when they now require a sign to be still showed in that nature, Christ tells them, they must expect no other food to be provided for them by him, than his own flesh and blood : which sounds so coldly in some of their ears, that they will follow him no more. ' John, vi. 30. ' Jiibn, vi. 31 . ' John, ti. 2(i. " John, vi, 14, 15. JoHN,vii,&c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 95 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. SECTION XLIX. JOHN, chap. VII, ver. 1. " After these things, Jesus walked in Galilee : for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him." Between the time of this section and that preceding, we are to imagine the Passover to have passed, of which there is mention, John vi. 4. So that, after this passage in Capernaum-synagogue, Christ goeth up to the Passover at Jerusalem ; and there the Jews, — that is, the Sanhedrim, — sought to kill kim. At the Passover, the last year, they con- vented him before them, to answer for his violation of the sabbath, in healing the man at Bethesda"', and he plainly affirms and proves bimself to be the Messias ; and he comes off with safety, but after what manner is not expressed. But now, the increase of his disciples, the spreading of his fame and doctrine by the preaching of the twelve, and, it may be, the example of the murdering of the Baptist, had so stirred them up to seek his life, that he, perceiving it, gets away from Jerusalem into Galilee, and will not yet come into Judea again. SECTION L. MARK, chap. VII, all the chapter; and chap. VIII, from beginning to ver. 22. MATT. chap. XV, all the chapter ; and chap. XVI, from the beginning to ver. 13. Scribes and Pharisees' impious Traditions: the Woman of Ca naan's Daughter healed : a Man dumb and deaf healed. Four thousand fed miraculously. Pharisees require a Sign, 8;c. Leaven of Pharisees, Syc. These two evangelists join this portion to the end of sect, xlvii. Now, what we have laid between, in sect, xlviii and xlix, is of so plain subsequence and order, that no more needeth to be said of this or them. Certain scribes and Pharisees, that were sent purposely from Jerusalem [as may be conjectured, because the Sanhe drim there sought to destroy Jesus], seeking to entrap and '¦ John\, r. 96 ' HARMONY OF [Mark, vii, &c. year of CHRIST 31. oppose him, and to make a party against him, quarrel with his disciples for not washing before meat. Their preciseness about this matter may be seen in the Talmudic treatise Ja- daim, and in Maimonides, in his tract Mikvaoth; and, occur- sorily, almost in every place in the Jewish writers, where they have occasion to speak of their meals, and of their man ner of eating. 1. "Washing ofthe hands, or dipping of them, is ofthe in stitution of the scribes :" they are the words of Maimonides\ " Hillel and Shammai decreed about washing the hands: but R. Jose, the son of R. Ben, saith. The tradition about it had come to their hands, but they had forgot it. These, there fore, decreed but according to the mind of those that had gone before them"." 3. " The eating of their common meat in cleannessV' is very much spoken of in their writings, and most highly ex tolled : insomuch, that the gloss upon Chagigah, cap. 2, doth determine a man of rehgion by this, that " he eats his com mon meals in cleanness." And the Gemarists, in the place of the Jerusalem Talmud last cited, have this saying;— "Whosoever hath his dwelling in the land of Israel, and eats his coraraon meals in cleanness, and speaks the holy tongue, and says over his phylacteries morning and evening,— tbat man may be confident, that he shall obtain the life ofthe world to come." And again^ : " R. Jose, in the name of R. Shabeai, and R. Chajash, in the name of Simeon Ben Lachish, say thus,— "A man should walk four miles to the washing of his hands. It is a tradition, that washing before meat is arbitrary ; but after meat, it is duty. Only that, at his washing before, he says over sorae prayer, but after,not. R. Jacob, Bar R. Isaac here upon retorted. Dost thou say, he washeth and saith overa prayer ; and yet dost thou say, that washing is arbitrary? It IS said he should go four miles to the washing of his hands; and yet, dost thou say it is arbitrary ?" How they prized this and other traditions of the elders above the word of God, and so by, and for, them, made that of no weight,-may be read too numerously in them, in such- " In Mikvaolh.cap. 11. x t.,,™ t ..... ^ n.n.. ,b.n nV.^K . .nthafUVsn'oL- s".'" '^ ""'' '^ Mark, vii, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 97 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. hke blasphemous passages as these : " The words of the scribes are more lovely than the words of the law, and more weighty than the words of the prophets." And : " He that saith there are no phylacteries, and, in so saying, transgresseth against the words of the law, — he is not guilty : but he that saith there are five phylacteries, and, in so saying, addeth to the words of the scribes, — he is guilty\" " The written law is narrow ; but the traditional is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea*"." Our Saviour, damning these cursed traditions, doth in stance only in that unnatural tenet of theirs, that extin- guisheth all filial assistance to needy parents : as, if a son said to his father or mother, " It is Corban," &c. Their canons set down the duty of a son to his father ; as, " to give him meat and drink, if he stood in need, — and to clothe him, to wash his hands, feet, and face ; and, if he need, to lead him in and out''." And yet, with this superinduced tradi tion, they destroyed all such duty. About the word ' Cor ban,' in the sense in which it is used here, the Talmudic treatises, Nedarim and Nazar, and the Tosaphtoth upon them, are good explications ; where it is often used. His resolving the case about meats' not defiling the man, overthrew a great part of Pharisaism: for this washing before meat was merely out of their traditions; and it was a great part of their sanctimony. Moses, indeed, had for bidden divers things as unclean to be touched ; and by the touching of which the person was legally defiled ; but that with this reference, — that he was unclean as to God's ser vice, or to the congregation : but this pretended uncleanness of theirs, for which they appointed washing before meat, had respect simply neither to the one nor the other. Christ, to a heathen woman, that begged the dispossess ing of her daughter, calls the heathens ' Dogs :' and she readily understands his meaning, as that being a common title that the Jews put upon them''; ^bU!Oi CD^iy maiN OO^DD " The nations ofthe world are compared to dogs." No sign given to the Pharisees when they demand one, ^ Jerus. Beracolh, fol. 3. col. 2. ^ Tanchum, fol. 4. ool. 4. "= Tosapbt. in Kiddushin, cap. 1. ¦' Midr. Till. fol. 6. col. 3. VOL. III. H 98 HARMONY OF [Mark, vm, &e. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. but the sign of Jonah, the prophet : whereby Christ doth not only intimate his own burial and resurrection, but he chiefly intendeth to hint the calling of the Gentiles after his resurrection, as the Ninevites were after Jonah's ; which was a thing, the Jews could not endure to hear of. SECTION LI. MARK, chap. VIII, ver. 22—26. A blind Man restored to Sight at Bethsaida, Mark's authority warrants the connexion hete ; espe cially it being considered, that, in the preceding section, Christ and his disciples are crossing over the sea ; and here they are arrived at Bethsaida. A journey by sea thither they had, when Jesus fed the five thousand in sect, xlvii ; and now, being come up to that place where that miracle was wrought, it was a strange construction the disciples made of the words of their Master, " Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees," when they thought he blamed them for not bringing bread : the very place where they were, might have confuted their misprision. Christ openeth the eyes of a blind man, but will not do it in Bethsaida ; but leads the man out of the town ; nor will he suflFer him to go into the town, when he is cured, — nor to tell it there. He had, a good while ago', as hath been said, denounced woe against Bethsaida ; and, for her perverseness, he will no more strive with her for her good. He had gathered out of her those, that belonged to himself. SECTION LII. MATT. chap. XVI, from ver. 13 to the end of the chapter. MARK, chap. VIII, from ver. 27 to the end of the chapter; and chap. IX, ver. 1. LUKE, chap. IX, from ver. 18 to ver. 28. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven given to Peter, S^c. Matthew and Mark establish the order. Upon Peter's confession, that Jesus was "The Christ, the Son of the living God," 1. He promiseth to build his « Matt. xi. 21. Matt, xvi, fifc] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 99 YEAR OF CHRIST 31. church upon the rock of that truth, and the rock confessed in it^. 2. He promiseth " the keys of the kingdom of heaven" to Peter only, of all the apostles : meaning there- .by, that he should be the man, that should first unlock the door of faith, and of the gospel, unto the Gentiles ; which was accomplished in Acts x. And, 3. He giveth him power of " binding and loosing ;" and this power, the other dis ciples had common with him^. " Binding and loosing," in the language and style most familiarly known to the Jewish nation [and it can little be doubted, that Christ speaketh according to the common and •most familiar sense of the language], did refer more properly to things than to persons : therefore he saith, *0 lav Sricryg, and not ov : and in Matt, xviii. 18, "Oo-a av Sijarjre, not oaovg. The phrase, "To bind and to loose'"," in their vulgar speech, meant, to prohibit and to permit ; or, to teach what is prohibited or permitted, — what lawful, what unlawful : as may appear by these instances ; a few produced, whereas thousands might be alleged out of their writings. " ' Our wise men say, that, in Judah, they did work on the Passover-eve till noon, but in Galilee not at all : and as for the night, the school of Shammai bound it'' ;" that is, forbade to work on it ; or, taught that it was unlawful : " but the school of Hillel loosed it till sun-rising';" or, taught that it was lawful to work till sun-rise. They" are speaking about washing in the baths of Tibe rias on the sabbath: and they determine how far this was lawful, in these words ; " "" They bound washing to them, but they loosed sweating :" meaning, they taught that it was lawful to go into the bath to sweat, but not to bathe for pleasure. " They" send not letters by the hand of a Gentile on the eve of the sabbath, nor on the fifth day of the week. Nay, on the fourth day of the weekP, the school of Shammai bound if, but the school of Hillel loosed it." f From Isa. xxviii. 16. Psal. cxviii. 22, &o. E Matt, xviii. 18. ¦¦ Tnn'jl TIPn'j ' Talm. in Pesachim, cap. 4. hal. 5. '' TIDIK 't J-Tna bbr\ n>3l " Jerus. in Shabb. fol. 6. col. 1. "np'.i in"? iTirm n'^'ni inb iidki » Jerus. in Shabb. fol. 4. col. l. f riDi« "iOiiv rr? 1 ri-ni? bbn nui h2 100 HARMONY OF [Matt, xvi, ke. YEAR OF CHRIST 31. " Women"' may not look in a looking-glass, on the sab bath : but if it were fastened upon a walP, Rabbi loosed the looking into it ; but the wise men bound it." " ' R. Jochanan went from Tsipporis to Tiberias ; he saith. Why brought ye to me this elder""? for what I loose, he bindeth,— and what I bind, he looseth." " The scribes have bound leaven " ;" that is, they have prohibited it. "''They have, upon necessity, loosed salutation on the sabbath ;" that is, they have permitted it, or taught that it was lawful. Thousands of instances of this nature might be produced; by all which it is clear, that the Jews' use of the phrase was of their doctors or learned men's teaching, what was lawful and permitted, and what unlawful and prohibited. Hence is that definition of such men's office and work'' ; " A wise man, that judgeth judgment, maketh unclean and maketh clean, — bindeth and looseth :" that is, teacheth what is clean and unclean, what is permitted and prohibited. And Mai monides'', giving the relation of their ordaining of elders, and to what several employments they were ordained, saith thus; " A wise man, that is fit to teach all the law, the Consistory had power to ordain him, to judge, but not to teach^ bound and loose ; or power to teach bound and loose, but not a judge in pecuniary matters ; or power to both these, but not to judge in matters of mulct," 8cc. So that the ordination of one to that function which was more properly ministerial, or to teach the people their duty, — as, what was lawful, what not; what they were to do, and whatnot to do, — was to such a purpose, or in such a tenor, as this, " Take thou power to bind and loose, or to teach what is bound and loose ;" for they use both the expressions Tnn^l "iiDN^ and nnin^ "inm "iiD'Ka By this vulgar and only sense of this phrase in the nation, the meaning of Christ using it thus to his disciples, is easily ¦¦ Jeius. in Shabb fol 7. col. 4. . ,,^.bik D>tt3m TTO >2-, Jerns. in Jom tob. fol. 60. col. 1. „ ,^.^ «,„, ^^^ ..P^ ^,^, ,.,^ ^j,, » Maim m Hhamets Umatsah, cap. 4. ImiDX »-iaiD van 'In Tosaphta ad Jebammolh, cap. 4. TH'ni IDK in-DI Ka>10 nn nx )W D3n v In Sanhedr cap. 4. . - Domas Judicii potestatem habet promovendi m judicem scilicet, non in doctorem ligati et soluti :" Leusd. Matt, xvii, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 101 YEAR OF CHRIST 32. understood ; namely, that he first doth instate them in a ministerial capacity to teach, what bound and loose, what to be done and what not; and this as ministers; and thus all ministers, successively, to the end ofthe world. But, as they were apostles of that singular and unparalleled order, as the like never were in the church again, he gives them power " to bind and loose" in a degree above all ministers, that were to follow ; namely, that whereas some part of Moses's law was now to stand in practice, and some to be laid aside ; some things under the law prohibited, were now to be permitted ; and some things, then permitted, to be now prohibited, — he promiseth the apostles such assistance of his Spirit, and giveth them such power, that what they allowed to stand in practice, should stand, — and what to fall, should fall : " what they bound in earth, should be bound in heaven," 8cc. SECTION LIII. MATT. chap. XVII, from the beginning to ver. 24. MARK, chap. IX, from ver. 2 to ver. 33. LUKE, chap. IX, from ver. 28 to ver. 46. Christ transfigured: a Devil cast out of a Child. Matthew and Mark link this story to the preceding, with this link, " After six days," &c ; which Luke hath ut tered, " About an eight days after ;" which is but the same in sense. Six days complete came between the day, that Christ had spoken the words before, and the day of his transfiguration : so that the day of his transfiguration, was the eighth day from the day when Christ said, " There are some standing here, that shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power." This story of Christ's transfiguration, relateth to that pre diction concerning the great Prophet^ " I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee," &c. " And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." — * A prophet,' — that is, a succession of prophets, till ' the great Prophet' should come, who should seal vision and prophecy. Christ had been sealed for ' the great Priest' at his bap- i Deut. -xviii. 18. 102 HARMONY OF [Matt, xvii, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 32. tism, when, entering into his ministry at the same age, that the priests entered into their office, he is attested from heaven, " This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." He is sealed for ' the great Prophet' here, by the like attesta^- tion from heaven, with the same words, " This is my well- beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ;" but, withal, it is added, "Hear him,"— answerable to those words, "Whosoever will not hearken""," &c. Moses, the first prophet, had all his oracles out of a cloud : and a cloud of glory, that led Israel in the wilderness, de parted at his death : — think of that, when you see a cloiid here overshadowing, and a divine oracle given out of it, at the sealing of the Prophet greater than he. Moses was the first prophet of the Jews, — and Elias, the first prophet of the Gentiles, and they both now appear to attend their Master. Christ and the three disciples were in this mount of his transfiguration all night : for Luke, ix. 37, saith, " It came to pass the next day, when they were come down," &c. Compare Christ transfigured, and his face shining, with the shining of Moses's face, — and so compare that first prophet, and this great Prophet, again together. The disciples, that had authority and power given them over all devils'", are not able here to cast one out : and their Master showeth a double reason why, — namely, because of their unbelief, and because that kind went not out but by fast ing and prayer. Now, that their unbelief should be any more than it had been before [for they had cast out devils before this"^], it might seem strange, but that here were some con currents towards that, more than they had met with before now : and that we may observe, especially, in these two things : — 1. There Were divers diseases, which, in their own nature, were but natural diseases, which yet the Jews did, commonly, repute as seizure and possessing by the devil ; especially those that distempered the mind, or did in more special manner convulse the body : and, according to this common language and conception of the nation, the language of the gospel doth speak exceeding frequentiy. Examples of this kind of dialect among the Jews, we might produce divers: as that in Maimonides'' ; « A man, which is troubled with an » Deut. xviii. 19. l-Lufce.ix. 1. cMatt. vi. 13. li In Gerushin, cap. 2. Matt, xvii, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMEN^r.— Part I. ] 03 YEAR OF CHRIST 32. evil spirit, and saith, when the sickness ['^irt] begins upon him. Write a bill of divorcement to my wife, — he saith as good as nothing, because he is not ' compos sui :' and so likewise a drunken man, when he comes near the drunkenness of Lot," &c. He calls the evil spirit >b)n, or ' a sickness;' and by it he means lunacy, or distractedness, that had its 'lucidaintervalla.' So the Jews speak of a man " that is possessed by Cor- dicus':" which they interpret to be, "a spirit that seizeth on him, that drinketh too much wine out ofthe wine-press'." — And, to spare more ; because the story in hand is of a child, take but this example of an evil spirit, which, they conceived, did seize upon children : " Shibta^ (say they) is an evil spirit, that seizeth upon children by the neck, even upon the si news behind the neck, and drieth them up from their use and strength, till it kill him. And the time of it is from the child's being two months old, and the danger ofit is till the child be seven years old''." Which seemeth to mean nothing else but convulsion-fits, or shrinking of sinews, or some such like thing; a natural malady. Now, in this child, there were not only these fits of con vulsions, or the falling-sickness, and the like, but he was really possessed with the devil indeed; so that, though the disciples had healed several persons of maladies, which the Jews, in their language and conceptions, called possessings with evil spirits, and the evangelists speak their language, — yet this is a subject to work upon of a farther difficulty by far, the devil being bodily in this child indeed. 2. Granting [for we dare not deny] that they had cast out devils indeed before, — yet this case carried some extraordinary matter in it above other times. They were then preaching up and down, and their commission gave them power to cast out devils, to confirm their doctrine; but now they were not in that em ployment. They were also now set upon by the scribes and Pharisees, with a possessed person of an extraordinary ex ample, as being possessed from an infant, purposely that they might puzzle them ; and that in the fairer opportunity, when their Master, and three of the chief of their corapany, Peter, and James, and John, were absent. Therefore, if, by '^ Dlp^lllp imNW ' Talm. in Gittin. per. 7. Vid. R. Sol. audNissim ibi. s Kna'i:' ^ Aruch in uns'i:' 104 HARMONY OF [Matt. xvii. YEAR OF CHRIST 32. all these concurrents of disadvantage, their faith were some what shaken, it is to be the less wondered at, by how much the more the case was more strange and unusual to them, and they had not been put to such a trial before. SECTION LIV. MATT. chap. XVII, ver. 24-27. Christ payeth Money miraculously gotten. Mark's words in the beginning ofthe next section, laid to the first verse of this, will be evidence sufficient for the order of both. Christ is demanded the half-shekel, that every Israelite was bound, by the law, annually to pay for the redemption of his life'". The word AiSpaxMa speaks that. Now the proper time of collecting that, began a little before the Passover, as we have observed before, out of the treatise Shekalim. And though it were now almost half a year past the Passover, yet is this the first time that Jesus had been at his own house in Capernaum, since the time of gathering that money had come in. This half-shekel, that every Israelite paid yearly, went to the repair of the temple, and to the buying of things needful for the service there. Christ pays his church-duties : there fore here, though, as his own words argue, he, being the Son of the great King for whom that tribute was demanded, might have pleaded immunity, — for kings take tribute of strangers, not of their own children, — his paying it by a mi raculous compassing of it out of a fish's mouth, showeth at once his divine power, that could make all things serve his ends, and his great care to discharge his due payments, and to avoid offence ; and, withal, his poverty, — when he is put to a miracle for such a little sum of money ; for he would not work miracles, where there was not need. His paying for Peter witb hira, was because he was of the same town, and so was under the same demand of payment, and he knew that he was in the sarae want of money. The other disciples were to pay in the places of their several houses. When Je rusalem was destroyed by the Romans, Ai'gpaxjuov etox^'*! Tovf TO. rrdrpia ahrCov i^y\ inpiaTiWovTag rt^ KamriuXin} Au kut i" Exod, xxx. 13. Mark, IX, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. IQl YEAR OF CHRIST 32. eVo? airo(j>ipHv, " The Jews were commanded to pay this half-shekel yearly to Jupiter Capitolinus'." SECTION LV. MARK, chap. IX, from ver. 33 to the end of the chapter. MATT. chap. XVIII, all the chapter. LUKE, chap. IX, from ver. 46 to ver. 51. A Dispute who greatest: one casting out Devils, and yet 7iot following Christ: ' Die Ecclesise,' 8cc. The order needeth no demonstration : the seeming dif ference between Matthew and Mark, in the beginning ofthe section, needeth animadversion rather : Mark saith, their dispute who should be greatest, was as they went in the way towards Capernaum ; and, when Christ asked them, at Capernaum, what their discourse had been, they held their peace. But Matthew saith, " At the same time," — namely, while Christ was at Capernaum,— the disciples came to him, and asked him, " Who is the greatest," &c; in which rela tion he briefly coucheth the two stories, that Mark speaketh of, into one, — namely, their talking by the way who would be greatest, and this question coming before Christ. It may be, Christ's so lately taking Peter, and James, and John, into the mount, apart from the rest, gave occasion to this debate, which he deterraineth by setting a child in the midst, &c. They, that have held this child to have been Ignatius in his infancy, who was afterward the martyrJ, sure did not well observe his own words, if they be his own, in his epistle to the church of Smyrna, Mtra rrjv avaaraaiv ev o-OjOKi avTov olSa : " And I do not only know, that Christ is come in the flesh, by his being born and being crucified, but I saw him in the flesh after his resurrection :" for so the Latin renders it; " Vidi eum in carne." Or be it, " I knew him in the flesh after his resurrection," — it may seem very strange, that he, that was so very a child, as Christ to take him in his arms this year, almost at the feast of tabernacles, — and the next year, at Easter, which was but within half a > Xiphilin. apud Dion. lib. 66. Joseph, de Bell. lib. 7. cap. 27. i As see Niceph. lib. 2. o. 3. Baron, ad Annum Christi, 71. Marg. dc laBign. in Ignat. in Biblioth. Patr. torn, 1, 106 HARMONY OF [Mark, ix, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 32. year's space, to become so intelligent, as to take notice of his being risen. Upon Christ's speaking of receiving those that corae in his name, John propounds a dubious case, of one that they had met with, that went about, indeed, in his name, and in his name cast out devils ; and yet would not own himself his disciple, nor follow him : which raiseth to us a farther scruple, how this man came to this miraculous power? for that it was so, and not magical exorcising in the name of Jesus, as divers enemies of the gospel used afterward, may be gathered by Christ's answer, who calls it, doing a miracle in his narae ; and speaks of this man, as not being against him, but for him. Whether he did these miracles in the name of Messias, or of Jesus, we will not question : the ori ginal of this power to him, we may resolve much into the same principle from whence Caiaphas prophesied, John xi. 51; " This he spake not of himself; but being high-priest that year, he prophesied :" there is an emphasis in ' that year :' for now was the fulness of time, the year of expecta tion, and accoraplishment of vision and prophecy, and the time of the pouring out ofthe Spirit, as never before : and if, in that full meal of this provision that Christ had made for his own, some crumbs fell besides the table that others ga thered up, or were partakers of, it doth the more magnify the diffusion, and doth so much the more point out and give notice to observe the time. For Christ did so little leave himself without witness, and did give so clear evidence that this was the great and signal time spoken of by the pro phets in all generations, that miracles wrought, not only by himself and his disciples, but even by the Jews' own chil dren, as Matt. xii. 27, give abundant testimony to it. Matthew's text, in this section, runs parallel with the other to ver. 10, and so far the reader may take them up to gether ; then goeth he on with Christ's speech and the story alone. The number of a hundred, divided into ' ninety-nine and one,' ver. 12, is according to the usual and ordinary manner of the Jews' speech, with whom this very division is very common. " When a man is dividing nuts among the poor, though Mark, ix, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part I. 107 year OF CHRIST 32. ninety-nine call on him to divide them, and one call on him to scatter them, to him they must hearken. With grapes and dates it is not so ; though ninety-nine call on him to scatter them, and one to divide them, to him they must hearken''." &c. " Rab. and R. Chajash, both of them said. If ninety- nine die by an evil eye, and one by the hand of heaven. R. Chaninah, and Samuel, both of them said. If ninety- nine die by cold, and one by the hand of heaven'," &.c. The rules, that Christ giveth about dealing with an of fending brother, were very well known in the nation ; and such as were practised, at least prescribed, in their own dis cipline. I. Admonition privately, betwixt the party offended and the party offending. Of such, Maimonides speaks in his treatise, Deah, cap. 6. 2. Admonition, two witnesses being present. " He that sinneth against his fellow, it is necessary that he say unto him, I have off"ended against thee. If he receive him, well : if not, he must bring two men, and appease him before them""," &c. Only, Christ raiseth his lesson to a higher charity ; namely, for the offended party to try the amend ment of the offending. So the jealous husband admonished his wife before two"" ; and the Sanhedrim, by two scholars of the wise, admonished an Israelitish city that fell to idolatry, before they made war upon it". 3. ' If he will not hear thetn, tell the church.'— They used the open proclaiming of an incorrigible person in the syliagOgue. " A woman that is rebellious against her hus band, that she may vex him, and says, Behold, I will thus vex him, because he did so and so to me ; they send to her from the judicatory, or bench, and say to her, Know, thou, that if thou persist in thy rebelliousness, though thy jointure b6 a hundred pound, thou hast forfeited it ; and afterward they make proclamation concerning her in the synagogues, and in the schools, every day for four sabbaths together, I* Talm. in Peah, cap. 4.halac. 1, 2. ' Jerus. in Shab. fol. 14. col. 3. " Jerus. in Joma, fol. 45. col. 3. "Sotah, cap. 1. ° Maim, in Avodah Zarab, cap, 4. 108 HARMONY OF [John, vii. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. saying. Such a woman rebels against her husbandP," &c. " If a man will not provide for his children, they rebuke him, and shame him, and are urgent with hira ; and, if he yet will not, they proclaim him in the synagogue, saying, Such a one is cruel, and will not nourish his childrenS" &c. Here was ' telling the church,' by open proclamation. SECTION LVI. JOHN, chap. VII, from ver. 2 to ver. 10. The Feast of Tabernacles. Matthew"' and Mark' both relate, tbat, " when Jesus had ended these sayings," which are contained 33 Christ, in the preceding section, " he departed from Gahlee, and came into the coasts of Judea be yond Jordan ;" which is not to be understood as if he de parted thither presently ; but they say no more of his actions till his departure thither; and so pass over almost half a year's story in silence, which Luke and John do make up. These bring Jesus out of Galilee beyond Jordan, and pre sently back to Jerusalem, to his passion : but these, as we shall see, bring him twice to Jerusalem, before his last coming up ; namely, this to the feast of tabernacles, and an other to the feast of dedication. ' The brethren ;' that is, the kinsmen of Jesus, urge him to go up to the feast of tabernacles, that his disciples in Judea might see his works' : — reraember here"", his brethren themselves believed not on him"' ; and that the rather, be cause they thought his privacy, that he desired to keep in, was not answerable to the port and state of the Messias ; therefore, they desire that he would appear in the power of his miracles, in Judea, the centre ofthe nation; that, if he were the Messias, he might carry it out there, as they ex pected the Messias should do. P Maimonides in nWN cap. 14. q Ibid. cap. 12. ' Chap. xix. 1. sChap. i.. 1. t John, vii. 3. "John, iii. 22 ; and iv. 1. ^ Jobn, vii. 3. Luke, ix„&c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part I. 109 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION LVII. LUKE, chap. IX, from ver. 51 to the end of the chapter. JOHN, chap. VII, ver. 10. Christ going towards the Feast of Tabernacles. That this journey of Christ towards Jerusalem, that Luke speaketh of in this section, is the same with this in John, — namely, his going up to the feast of Tabernacles, — is plain by this, that Luke mentioneth two journeys of his to Jerusalem more; namely, in chap. xiii. 22, which was to the feast of dedication, — and chap. xvii. 11, which was to the Passover and his passion. The words of Luke, then, " When the time was come, that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem," mean, that now, being come within half a year of the time of his death, he resolved to be more con stant at Jerusalem than he had been ; having avoided the place and country, once and again, because tbe Jews sought to kill him. The stories of several men, in this section,.that take upon them to follow Christ, but they had something else to do first,— have been spoken to before, at sect, xxxviii. SECTION LVIII. LUKE, chap. X, from the beginning to ver. 17. The seventy Disciples sent forth. As to the order of the story, — First, It is to be observed, that Luke saith, it was ' after these things,' mentioned in the former section ; that is, after Christ was sent out from Ga lilee towards the feast of tabernacles. Secondly, That it is said"', that " Jesus went up to that feast, not openly, but as it were in secret ;" whereupon it may be concluded, that he had despatched the seventy disciples away, before he came there. He giveth them the same instructions that he had given the twelve, and the same power to heal the sick : only, whereas the twelve went at large to any of the cities of Israel, these Were togo to those places, where Christ himself ' John. vii. 10. 1 10 HARMONY OF [John, vii. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. should come, to make way for him, and to prepare the places for the receiving of him against he came : so that now, Christ disposeth for the full revealing of himself for the Messias, the seventy beforehand proclaiming him, and preaching in his narae, and he afterward eoraing and show ing hiraself to be he of whom they preached. The numbers twelve, and seventy, cannot but call to mind the twelve tribes, and the seventy elders, of Israel. The seventy were but a little while abroad ; — for thirty-five couples would soon despatch a great deal of work ; — and they return again to their Master, before he departs from Jerusalem". He again accuseth Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, which he had done before at sect, xxxii ; for having, at any time, occasion to speak of contempt of the gospel, they may justly be introduced as having the most tender of it, and yet despised it. SECTION LIX. JOHN, chap. VII, from ver. II to the end ofthe chapter. Christ at the Feast of Tabernacles. The pregnancy ofthe order here, speaks itself: inthe two preceding sections, Jesus was in the way up to the feast, and now he is come there. Now is the year ofthe world 3960, and the year of Christ 33, begun : both entering in this very month, in which the feast of tabernacles was ; — the great year of the world, the fulness of time, the year of redemption and pouring down of the Spirit. It was, indeed, the year of jubilee, however the Jews would jumble their account^— whether ignorantly, or wilfully, let them look to it. For count from the seventh year of the rule of Joshua, when the wars of Canaan ended,, and jubilees began, and you have one thousand four hundred years to this present year that we are upon, just eight-and- twenty jubilees : this year the last, that Israel must ever see. It is the confession of Zohary, that ' the divine glory should be freedom and redemption in a year of jubilee.' Compare the sending out ofthe seventy disciples near upon the very » Lake, .V. 17. 38. x As see Maimonides in Shemittah veiobel, cap. 10. y In Lev. xxv. John, vii i.j THE N EW TESTAMENT.— Part I. Ill YEAR OF CHRIST 33. instant, when this jubilee began, with the sounding of the trumpet for the proclaiming of the jubilee^; and there is a fair equity and an answerableness to that type, in that very thing. From this feast of tabernacles to the Passover, at which time Christ suffered, was that last half year, of the last half seven, mentioned Dan. ix ; which compare with the last half year of Israel's being in Egypt, in which time Moses did his miracles, and which ended also at the Passover. Among the many varieties of solemnity and festivity used at the feast of tabernacles, of which we have given account at large in another volume, there was the pouring out of water fetched out of the fountain Siloam, with the wine of the drink-offering, — and, at night, their most transportant joyfulness, expressed by their singing, dancing, and the like jocund gestures, for that pouring out of water : which, by some% is interpreted to signify ' the pouring out ofthe Holy Ghost.' The consideration of this illustrates ver. 37, 38; where it is said, that " on the last and great day of the feast, Jesus cried. If any thirst, &c. He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of water," &,c. Upon which words many beUeved him, because they had seen already so fair evidence of the gifts of the Spirit, in the powerful works of himself and his disciples : and yet the text saith here, ' The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yetglorified :'— a far greater gift of that being yet behind. The Sanhedrim would fain have been meddling with him, to have tried him for a false prophet, as may be gathered from their words, ver. 52 ; but his hour was not yet come. JOHN, chap. VIII. A Woman taken in Adultery, Sfc. It is said in the conclusion of the former chapter, that ' every one' ofthe Sanhedrim ' went home ;' and here, 'Jesus went into the mount of Olives :' which joins the story plain enough. Not that he lodged in mount Olivet, in the open fields; but that he went to Bethany, and lodged in the house of Lazarus : of which we shall find confirmation in the next section. » Lev. XXT. 9.- ' 1° Jerns. succab, fol. 53. col. 1. 1 1 2 HARMONY OF [John, viii. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. In the morning, he comes to the temple; and in the treasury, or the court of the women, he sitteth down, and teacheth the people. For it was the custom for the teachers ofthe people to sit when they taught, — and those, that were taught, to stand about them. As he thus sits teaching, the scribes and Pharisees bring a woman to him taken in the act of adultery. See. The Syriac wants this story : and Beza doubts it ; a man always ready to suspect the text, because of the strange ness of Christ's action, writing with his finger on the ground: " Mihi, ut ingenue loquar [saith he] vel ob hunc ipsum locum suspecta est hsec historia." Whereas it speaks the style of John throughout, and the demeanour of the scribes and Pharisees, and of Christ, most consonantly to their carriage all along the gospel. The snare, that they laid for him in this raatter, was various. That he should condemn the adulteress ; but where was the adulterer ? Why brought they not hira too ? If he condemned her, he seemed to as sume judicial power: if he condemned her not, he seemed a contemner ofthe law. But he, in his divine wisdom, used such a mean, as condemned their baseness, and confounded their machination against him. His writing with his finger upon the ground, may rather be construed from allusion to Num. V. 23 ; or from Jer. xvii. 13 ; or frora a passage in the Jerusalem Talmud, in Megillah, fol. 74. col. 2 ; or from several other illustrations,— than, for that action, roughly and rudely to deny the authenticness of the story. The censur ing and judging of this woraan, belonged to a judicial bench at the least of twenty-three judges; and it would have car ried a fair accusation against hira, had he gone about to judge in such a raatter. The woman was espoused, and not yet married, as see Deut. xxii. 24 ; for their judicials punished him, that lay with an espoused maid, with stoningO; but him, that lay with a married wife, with strantrlincr-^ Christ's words, at ver. 25, " I am even the s°ame, that I said to you from the beginning,"_refer to his open and manifest asserting himself for the Messiah a year and a half ago be- fore the Sanhedrim'^. ° b Sanhedr. cap. 7. hal. 4. = Ibid. cap. 11. hal. 1. djo,,„, ,. Luke, X.] THE NEW TESrAMENr,- Part L 113 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. Their words to him, ver. 57, " Thou art not yet fifty years old," mean, 'Thou art not yet come within the compass of old age, — no, not to the first skirts of it :' for fifty years was the beginning of superannuation to the Levites at the temple"; and the Jews had a common opinion, that whosoever died before fifty, or at least fifty-two, died untimely, and, as it were, by cutting off". SECTION LX. LUKE, chap. X, from ver. 17 to Ihe end of Ihe chapter ; And chap. XI, and XII, and XIII, to ver. 23. The observing ofthe beginning and end of this section, will clear the subsequence of this to the preceding, and the order of all the stories comprehended in it. It begins with the seventy disciples' returning from the employment, upon which their Master had sent tliem. Now, that they returned to him at Jerusalem, whither he was gone to the feast of ta bernacles, appears by this, — that after they are come up to him, he is in Bethany, in the house of Mary and Martha^ This section ends with this relation, — "And he went through the cities and villages, teaciiing and journeying to wards Jerusalem^;" so that in chap. x. 17, he is at Jerusalem, having come thitherto the feast of tabernacles ; and, in chap xiii. 22, he hath been abroad; and is now travelling up ta Jerusalem again, to the feast of dedication. Therefore, thi whole section is the story of his actions frora the one feast ta the other. Chap. X. — Upon the disciples' relating that the devils were subject to them in his name, he answers, ' 1 saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.' Which referreth partly to his death shortly to be, by which Satan was overthrown ; and partly [if 'heaven' mean the church of the Jews, and the state of religion there, as it means not seldom] to the power of the gospel, this very year and forward, araong them, casting him out. With these words of Christ, and the considera tion of the time they refer to, we may fitly corapare several places, which give and receive light mutually with it: as. Matt. xii. 45, where Satan, cast out of this nition, returns again ; 1 ^or. vi. 3, Rev. xii. 9, and Rev. xx. 1, 2, &c. » Nam. iv. ' Luke, x. 38, 39. s Lute, xiii. 2^. VOL. III. I 114 HARMONY OF [L«rb,s. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. Unto a lawyer, Christ defineth who is a ' neighbour,' by the parable of the wounded man and the good Samaritan, vastly differing from the doctrine of the Pharisees in that casa Take these two or three assertions of their own schoola^^for some illustration of this parable. 1. They accounted none under the term ' brother/ but an Israelite by blood; and none under the term ' neighbour,' but those that were come in to their religion. " By using the word ' neighbour,' are excluded all the heathen*"." " An Israelite, tbat slayeth a stranger sojourning among them, is not to be put to death by the Sanhedrim for it ; because it is said. If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour'." By which it is apparent, they accounted not such a one ' a neighbour.' 2. They have this bloody and desperate tenet : " Heretics, that is, Israelites that follow idolatry, or such as commit provoking transgressions, — as, to eat a carcass, or to wear linseywoolsey for provocation, — this is a heretic. And Epicureans, which are such Israelites as deny the law and prophets, it is commanded that a man kill them, if he have power in his hand to kill them ; and he may boldly kill them with the sword : but if he cannot, he shall subtly come about thera, till he can compass their death : as, if he see one of them fallen into a well, and there was a ladder in the well before, let him take it up, and say, — I must needs use it to fetch my son from the top of the house, and then I will bring it thee again. But heathens, betwixt whom and us there is no war, as also the feeders of small cattle in Israel. and such-like, we may not compass their death ; but it is forbidden to deliver them, if they be in danger of death:" [observe this ;] " as, if one see one of them fall into the sea, he shall not fetch him up ; for it is said. Thou shalt not stand up against the blood of thy neighbour. But such a one is not thy neighbour." 3. Of all other people in the world, they abhorred Sa maritans ; as appeareth by John iv. 9. and viii. 43-, and by exceeding many expressions to that purpose in their own writings : and. therefore, our Saviour, urging for clear and free charity in this parable, exemplifieth in a Samari- "" .i.rucb in voce nna p. ' Maim, in Retseah, cap. 2-. Luke, xi.J THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part I. 115 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. tan, the unlikeliest man in the world to do any charita ble office for a Jew : and he ' a neighbour,' though so re mote in blood, religion, and converse. Christ is at Bethany, ver. 30, in the house of Mary and Martha. Martha was a usual woman's name in the nation : " Joshua, the son of Gamla, married Martha, the daughter of Baithus'"." " Abba, the son of Martha'." " Isaac Bar She- muel. Bar Martha""." And now, let the reader cast his eye back from hence ; and calculate, when, or how, it was, that Christ came so acquainted with this family ; and he will find no time or occasion so likely, as when the woman-sin ner washed his feet, Luke vii ; which, we proved there, was Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who was also called Magdalen. Chap. XI, ver. 2. — The Lord's prayer rehearsed: Christ had taught it almost a year and a half ago, in his sermon in the mount ; and now, being desired to teach them to pray, he gives the same again. They that deny this for a form of prayer to be used, either know not, or considered not, what kind of prayers the eminent men among the Jews taught them : John had taught his to pray, after the same manner and use of the nation; and Christ, being desired to teach the disciples, as John had taught his, rehearsetb this form, which he had given before. They that again deny this prayer is to be used by any but real saints, because, as they say, none but such can call God ' Our Father ;' either know not, or consider not, how usual this compeUation was among the nation in their devotions; and Christ speaketh con stantly according to the common and most usual language ofthe country. At ver. 14, and forward, there is a story of casting out a devil, so like that in sect, xxxv ;— the Jews' cavil, and our Sa viour's words about it, are the very same : and yet, the cur rent of the history evinceth them for two several stories : for, as the Jews always carried the same malicious construction of his miracles,— so doth he justly always return them the same answer ; as hath been observed already. At ver. 27, there is a link that chains the time and sto ries, — ' As he spake these things :' and another at ver.. 29, if li Jnchas. fol. 57. ' I<3. fol. 72. and Aruch in N3N B Jerns. in Shab. fol. 3. col. 4, &c, I 2 110 HARMONY OF [J«HH, ix, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. compared with ver. 16 ; and again at ver. 37, where his de nouncing woe against the Pharisees, although it be much the same for sense with that in Matt, xxiii ; yet, that they were uttered at two several times, and upon two several occasions, will appear by that time, that we come to that chapter. In chap, xii, he rehearsetb many things that he had spoken before : the same doctrine being needful to be in culcated over and over, though to the same audience : much more, when new auditors were still coming in. Therefore, Christ, towards his latter end, did like Moses, making his Deuteronomium rehearse the doctrine, that he had taught before. Chap. XIII. — The first verse beareth this link of con nexion, and continuance of story, — there were present ' at that season,' &c. Pilate's bloody act in mingling some Gali leans' blood with their sacrifices, cannot be looked for so pro perly in any place, as at the temple. Josephus's story" is far from it. — " Siloam was in the midst ofthe city" ;" a place of great concourse, where the fall of the tower slew eio-h- teen men. SECTION LXI. JOHN, chap, IX, and chap. X ; all the chapters. A Man blind from his Birth healed. Christ the good Shepherd. The Feast of Dedication. That this healing of the blind man was at Jerusalem, appeareth by this,— that Christ sends him to the pool of Si loam to washP, which lay upon the western part of the city. For Christ was now come up to' the feast of dedicationi j' so that this clears the order and time. He cures blind eyes on the sabbath, by putting clay upon them made of his spittie,— a ready way, one would have thought, to have put seeing eyes out. " Fasting spittle is forbidden to be put so much as upon the eye on the sab baths" ^ ^ Maladies of children that were extraordinary, the Jews did very much ascribe to some sin of the parents : and the - In Antiq. lib. 18. cap. 5. o j„„,. ;„ Chagigah, fol. 76. col. 1. P John, ,x. 7. <. John, x. 22. r Maim, i^ Shabb. cap. SI. John, x] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 117 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. traditionaries used this conceit, as a means to awe men to the observance of their traditions. So they conceit of this manS — " Thou wast altogether born in sins." We alleged before, their fancy about Shibta, ' an evil spirit that seized upon children by the neck, and shrunk up their sinews.' And whence, say they, conies this ? And they give this answer : ' If the mother come from the house of office, and give the child suck presently,' &c. A fetch, merely to awe women to wash after such occasions, and to put the more repute upon their traditions about washings. The man, upon whom the miracle is wrought, taketh Jesus to be a prophet upon it, — but, as yet, doth not know him for Messias*. And when he saith to the Jews, " Will ye also be his disciples""," he speaketh it seriously, and from a good heart, urging them to own him for a prophet, as he did : and when he was vehement with them in this pious as serting, they cast him out of the synagogue. " For they had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was the Messias, he should be cast out of the synagogue^." A passage very well worth observing, both towards sorae dis covery of the nature of their excommunication, and for illustration of several matters in this divine history. Chap. X. — Christ, from Ezek. xxxiv, and Zech.xi, assert- ethhimself the great Shepherd, and condemneth the evil shep herds, that undid the flock ; especially the three, that his soul loathed'' : ' The Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.' He feeding his flock with two shepherd's staves, called ' Beauty' and ' Bands,' at the last breaketh them : his staff" ' Beauty,' dissolving the covenant of peculiarity, once made with Israel, by which they alone were his people ; but that peculiarity now gone, and the Gentiles taken in : and his staff ' Bands,' dissolving the brotherhood betwixt Israel and Judah, that now there is a difference betwixt a true Israelite and a Jew, and Israelites owning Christ; and they that own him not, are no more brethren. " It was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication*, un. der the second temple, when the Grecian kings decreed de crees against Israel, and abolished their law, and suffered • John, ix. 2. 34. ' John,ix. 17. « Ver. 27. ' Ver..22. " Zech. xi. 8. " John, ii. 22. UH HARMONY OF [John,x. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. them not to practise the law and commandments, and laid their hands upon their goods, and upon their daughters, and went into the temple and made breaches in it, and defiled the pure things, and Israel was in exceeding great straits be cause of them ; and they afflicted them with great affliction, until the Lord God of their fathers had pity on them, and delivered them out of their hand : and the Asmonean high- priests prevailed against them, and slew them, and delivered Israel out of their hands : and set up a king of the priests, and the kingdom returned to Israel more than two hundred years, even to the second destruction : and when Israel pre vailed against their enemies and slew them, it was the five- and-twentieth day of the month Chisleu : and they went into the temple, and found not of pure oil in the sanctuary, but only one bottle ; and there was not in it so much as to light above one day : yet, they lighted the lamps with it for eight days, until they had beaten their olives, and got pure oil. And because of this, the wise men, that were in that generation, ordained, that those eight days, beginning from the twenty-fifth of Chisleu, should be days of rejoicing and thanksgiving : and they light up candles on them in the evening, at the doors of their houses, every night of the eight, for the declaring and setting forth of that miracle : and those days are called The Dedication^," Sec. See 1 Mace. iv. 59. These eight days of Chisleu, fell about the middle of our December. And so, by this intimation, John hath kept the clock of time going, that we may tell, how the story goes. Since Christ's being at the feast of tabernacles hitherto, was about two months, and somewhat more. The three last verses of this tenth chapter, which men tion Christ's going beyond Jordan, speak the same thing with Matt. xix. 1, and Mark x. 1 ; and might, very properly, be set collateral with those texts : but, since it was some what longer after Christ's departure from Jerusalem, to his arrival beyond Jordan, these may be taken in here, and un derstood, as spoken of his setting forth fi-om Jerusalem, and showing whither he intended to go. s Maim, in Channcha, cap, 1, LuKE.xniO THE NEW TESTAMENT.- Part L 119 YEAR OF Christ 33. SECTION LXII. LlJKE, chap. XIII, vel". 83, to the end Ofthe chapter ; aftd Chiq). XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, to ver. 15. The order, bete, is s'otnewhat obScute, and that especially from these two things : — 1 . Because of the first verse of all the section. Which may seem to be linked to the time ofthe verse ¦preceding it in Luke. " He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying towards Jerusalera. "l^heft feaid bile to him," &c. 2. iBecaUse of that passage in fihap. xvii. 11 ; " And it cara6 to piass, as he went to Jeru salem, he "passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee ;" which might seem to be the same journey With that chap. xiii. ^2 ; ani that all the occurrences in these chapters were ih that journey. But for the proof and clearing of the order, to be as we have laid it, these things are to be observed : — 1. That this story, wherewithal this section beginneth, " One said to him. Lord, are few to be saved ?*' 8lc. was on the same day that he crieth out. " O Jerusalem. Jerusalem^" &c. Now. that this was, when Christ was no more to come up to Jeru salem, till his last eoraing up thither, is evident frora his Words", — " Ye shall ho more see me, till the tirae when ye shall say. Blessed is he, that cometh in the name of the Lord :*' sO, that this was after his coming up to the feast of dedication. And those words were spoken, whilst he was yet at Jerusalem, before he went away thence from the feaSt to go beyond Jordan. The word ' Then,' therefore, wherewith this section beginneth in our English translation, doth not enforce the tiecessary conjunction of the times ; for in the original, it is not tote, but SI. 2. Whereas it is said, in chap. xvii. ll, that * as he went to Jerusalem, he passed through Samaria and Galilee,' it is to be understood, his last jouriiey thither • aftd the manner of expression doth help to conArm our order, as We shall see there. Herod was now at Jerusalein, — as coinpare ver. 31 and 34; and, it may be, he, being ruler of Galilee, had helped forward the death of these Galileans, whom Pilate had slain as they were ' Luke, xiii. 3l. 34. » Ver. 35. 120 HARMONY OF [Luke, xiv-xvi. year of CHRIST 33. sacrificing: and an intimation of such-like danger from him is given Jesus : and this may be conceived one cause, that sets him out ofthe city, and to go beyond Jordan, which is recorded in the last verses of the preceding section, John x. 40 : and how the order of story is to be cast in the reader's thoughts, it is easy to see. Christ being at the feast of dedi cation at Jerusalem, one comes and asks him, ' Lord, are few to be saved'"?' And ' the same day',' some Pharisees tell him of danger from Herod. He answers, that ' it was true, indeed, that he was to die at Jerusalem; for a prophet could not be tried but by the great council there"' : but he had yet some time to walk and work miracles before ;' and so he goes away from Jerusalem. Chap. XIV. — He healeth tbe dropsy on the sabbath, and pleadeth the lawfulness of the action, from their own pity to their beasts, to pull thera out of a pit on the sabbath*". R. Abuhabh*^ hath a parable somewhat like that passage at ver. 8, and forward. " Three men (saith he) were bid den to a feast, — a prince, a wise raan, and an humble man. The prince sat highest, next him the wise man, and the humble man lowest. The king observed it; and asked the prince. Why sittest thou highest.' He said. Because I am a prince. — To the wise man. Why sittest thou next? He said. Because I am a wise man. — And to the humble man. Why sittest thou lowest? Because I ara humble. The king seated the humble man highest, and the wise man still in his place, and the prince lowest." Chap. XV. — By three eminent and feeling parables, is set forth God's readiness to receive sinners, &c ; in the last of which, is a clear intimation ofthe calling ofthe Gentiles. Chap. XVI. — The parable ofthe unjust steward, of the rich man and Lazarus, from Psalm xlix. ' Lazer' is used con stantiy in the Jerusalem Talmud for ' Eleazer.' The word signifies ' God help me,' or ' God is my help;' a fit name under which to personate a beggar.— ' Abraham's bosom' isa phrase used by the Jews. ' That day that Rabbi died, R. Ada Ben Ahava said. This day he sits in Abraham's bosom*.' » Lnke, xiii. 23. ¦= Ver. 31. ^ Talm. in Sanhedr. cap. U. = Of which, Maim, in Shabb. cap. 25. ' In praefat, ad Ner. 7, ' Juchasin, fol, 77, col, 4. LuKE,xvii, xvm.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 121 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. That the tongues of the damned in hell thirst for water, as ver. 24, is also their conception. The Jerusalem Talmud'" is relating a story of a good man and a bad man, that died : and the good man had no burial rites, ivn ii'b ^DJD'K i idd hdo^ binco DDn i a^nJ, " A scholar ofthe wise must look downward, when he stands praying." The Pharisee's fasting twice a week, may be ex plained from the Jerusalem Taanith, fol. 64. 3 ; and Maim. Taanith, cap. I. "¦InChagigah, fol.7'r.eoL4. 'Chap.xviii.il. J Maim, in Deah, cap. 7 122 HARMONY OF [MATT.xix,&e. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION LXIII. MATT. chap. XIX, from the beginning te ver. 13. MARK, chap. X, from the Ijeginning to ver. 13. Christ beyond Jordan. Conterning Divorce. Matthew saith, " When Jesus had finished these say ings, he departed frora Galilee, and carne into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan." Which sayings, that he speaketh of, were finished a long while ago, at section Iv; but because he setteth down nothing betwixt that tirae and this journey over Jordan, — therefore, he thus joineth their stories together. The tirae and actions that he hath omitted, we have seen how Luke and John have supplied. Were there any ' coasts of Judea beyond Jordan?' Either the conjunction ' And' is to be understood, " He came intft the coasts of Judea and beyond Jordan," as il is understood Psalm cxxxiii. 3, Acts vii. 16, 8cc; or by ' Fines Judsese trans Jordanem,' is meant ' Fines Judseorum,' because the Syrians also dwelt in the coasts beyond Jordan. Moses, at the very same instant of time, gave a law to put an adulterous wife to death'', and a law to divorce her': in the former, showing the desert ofthe fact; in the latter, per mitting to mitigate of the rigour of that law ; and, as our Saviour here interprets it, to prevent those cruel effects, that their hardness of heart might have produced, had there been no mitigation. They brag of that law of divorce, as if it favoured thera, as a peculiar privilege : " R. Chaijah Rab- bah said. Divorces are not granted to the nations of the world"";" meaning, not to the Gentiles, as they were to the Jews: whereas Truth here informs us, that it was permitted only because of the hardness of their hearts, and to avoid greater mischief. When permission of divorce was given, after a law to punish adultery with death, for a mitigation of It,— it requires most serious weighing, whether a law to pu nish adultery with death should be Indispensable now, after the law of divorce given and continued by our Saviout in case of fornieation. " Dent. xxii. 22. . Deul. ^xir. 1. . je^s. Kiddushin, fol. 58, 3, Matt. XIX. &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 12.3 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION LXIV. MATT. chap. XIX, from ver. 13 to the end of the chapter. MARK, chap. X, from ver. 13 to ver. 32. LUKE, chap. XVIII, from ver. 15 to ver. 31. Infants brought to Christ, A rich Man departs sorrowful. Matthew and Mark do evidence the order; and, as Luke hath helped out their briefness before, — so do they also again help us out about his order. Whose children were these, that were brought to Christ? Not unbelievers', doubtless; but the children of some that professed Christ. Why did they bring them ? Not to be' healed of any disease, doubtless ; for then, the disciples would not have been angry at their coming ; for. why at theirs, more than at all others, that had come for that end ? Their bringing, therefore, must needs be concluded to be in the name' of disciples, and that Christ would so receive them, and bless them : and so he doth, and asserteth them for disciples, and to whom ' the kingdom of heaven' be longed ; taking ' the kingdom of heaven,' in the common acceptation ofthe gospel. Observe, Mark x. 19, &c. that, mention being made by Christ of the commandments, as if he spake of the whole law, yet he instanceth only in the second table. And see the like again. Rom. xiii. 8, &c. James ii. 8 — 10, 8cc. The demeanour of men towards the second table, is a sure trial how they stand to the first. " It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." — An expression common in the nation. — " It may be, thou art of Pumbeditha, where they can bring an ele phant through the eye of a needle"." SECTION LXV. MATT. chap. XX, from the beginning to ver. 17, Labourers in the Vineyard, Sfc. The first word, ' For,' makes plain the order and con nexion, joining this speech to that before. The Jerusalem Talmnd" hath a parable somewhat like to " Talm. Biiva Mezia, fol. 33. f. 2. « In Beracoth, fol. b. 124 HARMONY OF [John.xi, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. this, but wildly applied to a far different purpose : " A king hired many workraen ; and there was one of thera hired for his work, for more than what was enough. What did the king ? He took him. and walked with him up and down. At the time of the evening, the workmen came to receive their wages, and he also gave him his full wages with thera. The workmen repined, and said. We have laboured all the day, and this man laboured but two hours ; and thou hast given him full wages with us. The king said to them, This man hath laboured more in two hours, than you have done all day. So R. Bon laboured raore in the law in twenty-nine years, than another in a hundred," &c. SECTION LXVI. JOHN, chap. XI, from the beginning to ver. 17. Tidings come to Christ of Lazarus's Sickness. At sect. Ixiii, Christ goeth beyond Jordan : the occasion of his coming back, was the message of Mary and Martha to hira, to desire his help to their sick brother. The story of this, therefore, is necessary to be related before the story of his eoraing thence ; which is the next thing, that the other three evangelists fall upon, after they have done with what is set down in the preceding sections. The words of the second verse, " It was that Mary, which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair," are raost generally construed as pointing to that story in the next chapter, John xii. 3 ; " Then took Mary an ounce of ointraent of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair ;" which seemeth very improper and unconsonant, upon these reasons: — 1. To what purpose should John use such an an ticipation ? It was neither material to the story that he was entering on, chap, xi,— to tell that Mary anointed Christ's feet a good while after he had raised her brother : nor was it any other than needless to bring in the mention of it here, since he was to give the full story of it in the next chapter. 2. The word 'AXdipaaa is of such a tense, as doth properly de note an action past ; and is so to be rendered, if it be ren dered in its just propriety— • It was Mary, whichhad anointed.' Lbke, xviii, &o.] PHE NEW TESTAMENT— Part L 125 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. 3. Whereas, no reason can be given, why John should anti cipate it here, if he meant it of an anointing that was yet to come, — a plain and satisfactory reason raay be given, why he speaks of it here, as referring to an anointing past; namely, because he would show what acquaintance and in terest Mary had with Christ, which did embolden her to send to him about her sick brother; for she had washed and anointed his feet heretofore. The words of John, therefore, point at an action past; and, indeed, they point at that story of the woman-sinner washing the feet of Christ with tears, and anointing them with ointment, and wiping them with her hairs'". It is true, indeed, that John, who useth these words that we are upon, had not spoken of any such anoint ing before, whereunto to refer you, in his own Gospel ; but the passage was so well and renownedly known and recorded by Luke before, that he relateth to it as to a thing of most famous notice and memorial. SECTION LXVII. LLTCE, chap. XVIII, ver. 31—34. MARK, chap. X, ver. 32—34. MATT. chap. XX, ver. 17-19, Christ foretelleth his Suffering. The message from Mary and Martha, about their sick brother, inviteth Christ from beyond Jordan, into Judea again. He stays two days, after he had received the mes sage, in the same place where the messenger found him ; and, in the story of this section, he is set forward. And being now upon his last journey to Jerusalem, he foretelleth to his disciples, what should become of hira there. They followed him with fear and amazement before, foreseeing that he went upon his own danger ; and yet, when he had spoken the thing out to them at the full, they understood him not. V Lake, vii. 126 HARMONY OF [Matt. xx,&c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION LXVIII. MATT. chap. XX, from ver. 20 to ver. 29. MARK, chap. X, frora ver. 35 to ver. 46. The Retpiest of Zebedee's Sons. They are told of their Martyrdom. The order is plain of itself; and yet the connexion is somewhat strange : for, in the last words before, Christ had foretold of his death ; yet, the sons of Zebedee here desire to sit on his right hand and left in his kingdom. Galatius' re solves it thus : " Discipuli in errore aliquando fuerunt, cre- dentes Christum illico,post resurrectionem, terreni regni scep tre potiturura : unde et quidam eorum, super cseteros prima- tum ambientes ;" &c. " The disciples sometimes were mis taken, conceiving that Christ, presently after his resurrec tion, should obtain the sceptre of an earthly kingdom ; whereupon, some of them, arabitious of priority above the rest, desired to sit on his right hand and left," &c. It is true, indeed, that the Jewish nation, and the disciples"' with them, erred in judging about Messias's kingdom ; but they erred as far also about Messias's resurrection, till expe rience had informed them better. Therefore, it cannot well be imagined, that the wife and sons of Zebedee thought of Christ's resurrection in this their request, but conceived of his temporal kingdom, according to the notions of the rest of the nation about it. What, therefore, our Saviour had spoken instantly before of his being scourged, cru cified, killed, and rising again, — they understood in some figurative sense or other ; but the evangelists plainly tell us, they understood it not in the sense that he spake it. It may be, his naming these two ' The sons of thunder,' gave them some blind encouragement to such a request. Christ fore tells his own death, and their suffering martyrdom, under the title of baptism ; in wbich sense the apostle also useth the word, I Cor. xv. 29. The Jewish baptizings, or dippings, in their purifications, was a very sharp piece of rehgion, — when, in frost and snow, and wind and weather, they must over head and ears in cold water ; from which the phrase was used 1 Lib. 4. cnp. ]. x Acls, i, LuKB,xviii, Stc] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 127 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. to signify death and the bitterest sufferings. The Jerusalem Gemarists do tell us, that the women of Galilee grew barren, by reason of the cold in their purifyings. " R. Aba, in the name of Tanchum, Bar R. Chaia. saith. In the days of R. Joshua Ben Levi, they sought to abolish this dipping, be cause of the women of Galilee, which were made barren by reason of the cold. R. Joshua Ben Levi saith. Do ye seek to abolish a thing thatfenceth Israel from transgression' ?"8tc. SECTION LXIX. LUKE, chap. XVIII, ver. 35 ta the end. MATl". chap. XX, from ver. 29 to the end. MARK, chap. X, from ver. 46 lo the end. Blind healed. Ckrist, in his journey from beyond Jordan to Bethany, for the raising of Lazarus, passeth through Jericho : and he healeth one blind man, as he entereth into Jericho, of which Luke speaketh, — ^and another, as he goeth out, of which the other two. Matthew,, indeed, speaketh of two, healed as he came out of Jericho ; comprehending, it may be, the story of him, that was healed on the other side of the town, and this together, in one story, — for briefness,' sake : or, if there were two healed on this side of the town. Mark only mentions one ; because, he rather aimeth at showing of the raanner or kind ofthe miracle, than at the number, as wehave observed the like before, at sect, xxxix. SECTION LXX. LUKE, chap. XIX, from the beginning to ver, 29, Zaceheus, a Publican, converted. The order hes plain in ver, 1. Christ was passed through Jericho, before he met with Zaceheus, &c. Rabban Jocha nan Ben Zaccai, hath made the name Zaccai, or Zaceheus, renowned in Jewish writings. His father, Zaccai, raight very well be now alive; and, for any difference of the times, might well enough be the Zaceheus before us, but that some other circumstances do contradict it. Whosoever this man " Beracolh, fol, 6, col, (i. 128 HARMONY OF [John, if year of CHRIST 33. was ,it is observable, that, though his name Zaceheus speak him a Jew, yet Christ reputes him not a child of Abraham, till he believe, ver. 19. Ver, 1 1 ; "They thought, that the kingdom of heaven should immediately appear." — Observe this: this they had learned from Dan, ix, where the time is so punctually deterrained, that they that looked for the consolation of Israel, could not but observe it; and they that observed, could not but see it now accomplished. SECTION LXXI. JOHN, chap. XI, from ver. 17 to the end ofthe chapter. Lazarus raised. Caiaphas prophesieth. Now is Christ come up to Bethany. Whether >3»nna, mentioned by the Babylonian Talmud', be the same with this Bethany, — we shall not dispute here: both a town, and some space of ground about it, was called by this name. Bethany, Ashe had stayed in the place, where he was, when he heard of Lazarus's sickness, purposely, that he might die before he came to him, that God might be the more glorified by his raising, ver, 15; — so did he make sure to stay long enough after he was dead, before he came, that the glory might be the more. "He had been four days dead"":" compare with this, these sayings of the Jews : — " If one look upon a dead man, within three days after his death, he may know him; but, after three days, his visage is changed'"'." " Three days the soul flies about the body, as if thinking to return to it: but after it sees the visage of the countenance changed, it leaves it and gets it gone"'." Upon the miracle wrought, the Jews seek to kill Jesus and Lazarus both : whereupon, Jesus goeth to a city called Ephraim". " Juchne and Mamre [Jannes and Jambres] said to Moses, Dost thou bring straw to Ephraim^?" "Juchne and Mamre were the chief sorcerers of Egypt : they, when Moses began to do rairacles, >%)ught he had done them by magic: they said. Dost thou bring straw to Ephraim? Ephraim was a place, that exceedingly aboundeth with corn; ' Pcsachin, fol. 53. f. 1 ; where they speak ¦ of the figs of Belhany, and the dales "fTubni. "JohD,«.39. ' Maim, in Geinjhiii cnp. nil. » Jerus. in Moed Katon, fol. 82. col. 2. John, X,. oi. V Talm. Bab. in Menachotb, fol. 85. f. i. John, XII.] THE NEW TESTAMEN'r.— Part I. 129 year of CHRIST 33. and darest thou bring corn thither?" meaning, 'Dost thou bring sorceries into Egypt, that abounds so with sorceries'"?' " Ephraim was a city in the land of Israel, where there was abundance of corn. Where is the chiefest provision for offerings? The chiefest for fine flour are Micmash and Zanoah, — and next to them, Ephraim in the vale"." JOHN, chap. XII, from beginning to ver. 12. A Supper at Bethany: Jesus's Feet anointed. The connexion of this story to the preceding chapter, is plainly made by the evangelist himself: compare ver. 55 of chap, xi, and ver. 1 of this. Though there were a proclamation out against Jesus for his life^ yet cometh he for Jerusalem ; and Lazarus, at Beth any, is not afraid to entertain him. He raay well venture his life for him, who had received it from him. It was their sabbath-day, at night, when he had this supper, a time that they used to have extraordinary cheer. Mary, who had anointed his feet before"", doth the like again. There is a groundless and a strange opinion of some, that the supper in Matt. xxvi. 6, 7, and Mark xiv. 3, was the same with the supper in John xii : — an imagination, that I cannot enough admire at, seeing there are so many things plainly to gainsay it : but the discussion of it shall be deferred, till we come to those chapters. Only one particular here may not be omitted without observation, and which will make some thing atpresent towards the confutation of that opinion, — and that is, our Saviour's answer in the vindication of Mary's act; "Let her alone; against the day of my burial hath she kept this:" or rather, " She hath kept it^." Not that he meaneth, that this anointing of his feet, was her anointing him against his burial ; but that she had kept some of this ointment yet, for that purpose hereafter. Judas repined at the expense of the ointment, that she used for the anointing of his feet ; and pleaded, that it had been better bestowed upon chari table uses for the poor : ' Why ? (saith Christ) she hath kept it yet and not spent all, that she may bestow it upon a chari table use, — the anointing of my body to its burial.' For, 1. » Gloss, ibi. » Ariich in >3nv i" John, xi. 57. <: Luke, vii. 38. ^ The words, in italics, are not translated in Leasden's edition, and do not seem necessary lo the sense. — Gi>. VOL, III. K 130 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxi, &c, year of CHRIST 33. Neither the text doth any whit assert, that she spent the whole pound that she brought ; nor, indeed, in reason, was so great a quantity needful. 2. It was not so proper to ap- ply it to his burial now, when, as he was to ride in triumph to Jerusalem to-morrow, as it was two days before the Pass over [when the other supper and anointing was], which was the very night, when Judas compacted for his betraying. 3. Then Christ saith, she poured it ' upon his body'' ;' which cannot be of the same sense, with pouring it upon his feet only. She, therefore, six days before the Passover, anointed his feet ; which was an ordinary use among the Jews to have their feet anointed : and the Talmudists"" give some rules about it : and this she doth in dear love and affection to him. But, two days before the Passover, she doth not so much anoint his head, as pour the ointment upon his head, that it might run all over his body ; and this she did towards his burial, not only in his construction, but in her own in tention : she being the first, we read of, that believed hi? death, as she was the first that saw him after his resurrection: Her faith and fact he foresaw ; and, therefore, saith now, at the anointing of his feet, that she ' yet kept it' for the anoint ing of his body ; wbich when she did, he extols the fact with this encomiura, — that wheresoever the gospel should be preached, that action of hers, the example of the first faith in his death, should be published in memorial of her. Thus did this Mary [who, as hath been showed, was Mary Magdalen] anoint Christ three several times ; — his feet, at her first con version, — and bis feet again at this time, six days before the Passover, — and his head and body, two days before the Pass over, — even that night, that Judas first went about to make his bargain for betraying him. SECTION LXXII. MATT. XXI, from the beginning to ver. 17. MARK, XI, from the begiuniug to the middle of ver. 11. LUKE, XIX, from ver. 29 to the end. JOHN, XII, from ver. 12 to ver. 20. Christ rideth upon an Ass into Jerusalem. John maketh the connexion plain, when he saith, "On the next day," 8cc ; and showeth, that, as Christ went up at '' Matt, xxtI, 12, e Talm, Jerus, Sanhedr, fol, 21, col, 1. Matt. XXI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 131 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. this time, in the evidence and accomplishment of that pro phecy, Zech. ix. 9, — so he also went up in the equity and answering of that type, of taking up the paschal lamb on the tenth daye ; for this was on that very day : and ' the Lamb of God' doth now go in. as giving up himself for the great Paschal. John telleth us, that he lay at Bethany the night before this ; and yet the other evangelists have related it, that " when he came to Bethphage and Bethany," he sent two of his dis ciples for the ass, &c. The Jews' chorography will here help us out : they tell us, 1. -|'j;n li'ljn nox O'zbH " Two thousand cubits was the suburbs of a city""." 2. nityn Dinn nox n'Bba " Two thousand cubits were the bounds of a sabbath"," or a sabbath-day.'s journey. 3. Bethphage was of this nature : it was not a town upon mount Olivet, as it hath been very generally supposed, and accordingly placed in the most maps; but it was some buildings, and that space of ground, that lay from Jerusa lem-wall, forward, towards mount Olivet, and up mount Olivet, to the extent of two thousand cubits from the wall, or thereabout; and hereupon, it was reputed, by the Jews, of the same qualification with Jerusalem, as a part of it, in divers respects. The Babylonian Talmud [Pesachin. fol. 63. fac. 2]; "He that slays a thanksgiving-sacrifice within, while the bread, belonging to it, is without the wall, — the bread is not holy." What means ' without the wall ?' R. Jochanan saith, ' With out the wall of Bethphage.' The gloss there saith, ' Beth phage was an outer place of Jerusalem.' And the same gloss useth the very same words again, upon the same tract [fol. 91. fac. 1]. And, again, in the same treatise [fol. 95. fac. 2], the Mishna saith thus, — " The two loaves and the showbread are allowable in the temple-court, and they are allowable in Bethphage." Nay, the gloss [in Sanhedr. fol. 14. fac. 1], saith, "Bethphage was a place, which was accounted as Jerusalem for all things." So that the place, so called, began from Jerusalem, and went onwards to and upon mount Olivet, for the space of a sabbath-day's journey, or therer § Exod. xii. 3. '' Maim, in Shabb. cap. 27. ' Talra. in Solah, cap. 5. k2 1,32 HARMONY OF [John, xu, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. about ; and then began the coast that was called Bethany. And hence it is, that LukeJ saith, that Christ, when he as cended into heaven, led forth his disciples as far as Bethany. which, elsewhere he showeth, was the space of "a sabbath- day's journey'' ;" which cannot be understood of the town Bethany, for that was fifteen furlongs, or very near two sab bath-days' journey from Jerusalem; — but that he led them over that space of ground, which was called Bethphage, to that part of Olivet, where it began to be called Bethany : and at that place it was, where Christ began his triumphant riding into the city at this time. It is observable, that he is entertained with the solemnity of the feast of tabernacles ; for carrying of palm-branches, and crying ' hosanna,' was never used but only at that feast, but now translated to this occasion ; which may help some what to the explaining of Zech. xiv. 16. Count from hence the days to the Passover, as the evan gelists have reckoned them, and you will find, that this was the first day ofthe week [the Lord's day afterward], andthis day seven-night he rose from the dead. In the midst of his triumph, he weepeth over the city; though he knew, that, within five days, she would be his death. SECTION LXXIII. JOHN, chap. XII, from ver. 20 to the end ofthe chapter. Greeks would see Jesus. A Voice from Heaven. The order is plain in the text of John, and needeth no illustration. Christ was thrice attested from heaven, according to his threefold office, — king, priest, and prophet. At his baptism, for the great High-priest, when he was anointed and entered into his ministry :— at his transfiguration, for the great Pro phet, to whom all must hear :— and now for the great King, when he had newly fulfilled this prophecy,—" Rejoice, 0 Sion, behold thy king coraeth," &,c. The ' Bath Kol,' or ' heavenly voice,' that the Jews com monly speak of, is, in the most, if not all the instances that they give of it, but a fiction of their own brain, to bring their doctors and their doctrines into credit. j Chap. xxiv. 50. k Acts, i. 12. Mark, XI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 133 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION LXXIV. MARK, chap. XI, from the middle of ver. 11 to ver, 27. MATT. chap. XXI, from ver. 17 to ver. 23. The fruitless Fig-tree cursed. The order is clear in Mark. ver. 11, 12. Christ, after his riding into Jerusalem, having spent all the day there, goeth, at even, to lodge at Bethany ; and. in the morning, going for Jerusalem again, and hungering, seeth a fig-tree, and, finding no figs on it, curseth it ; and yet the evangelist telleth, that ' the time of figs was not yet.' Why, then, should Christ look for figs, when he knew the time of the year was not yet for them ? Answ. He looked not for any figs, that, he thought, could be grown ripe and fit to eat that spring, it being now, at the farthest, but about our April ; but he looked for those that grew the last summer, and had hung on the trees all winter. It is true, indeed, that some trees had shot forth their fruit by Passover-time (for so Maimonides tells us'), but not to ripeness ; nor was the fig-tree any of them. For to those words of our Saviour"", " When the fig-tree putteth forth her leaves, ye know summer is nigh," — lay these of the Jerusalem Talmud"" ; " Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel saith. From the putting forth ofthe fig-tree leaf, to the green figs' appearing, are fifty days ; and from the first appearing of the fig, to the fall of the blossom, fifty days ; and from thence to the ripe figs, fifty days more :" — five months in all. There were several kinds of fig-trees, besides those fig- trees that were in their orchards and vineyards, in that land; as the Jews tell us in the treatises Demai and Sheviith, where they have special occasion to treat of that raatter. As, 1. yn'W which, they say, were ' figs ofthe wilderness.' 2. nDplf r~im which were baser figs, hkewise. 3. J—ilNDID fig-trees, that brought their fruit to ripeness but once in two. years. And, 4. niii' nm which, they say, grew in the fields, and bare white figs, a>iW wb^b from three years to three years. •The Gemarists dispute, " What ! Do they bear 1 In Kiddush Hliode.sh, cap. 4. "¦ Matt, xxiii. 32. n In Sheviilh, lol. 35. col. 4. 134 HARMONY OF [Mark, xi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. their fruit every year, or only once in three years ? They bear their fruit every year ; but it is not ripe till three years' end. How doth a man know its time [or what year it is with it] ? R. Jonah saith. By binding a list about it : it is a tra dition of Samuel, that he hung some pendants upon it." — The meaning of the matter is this : — There was a fig-tree growing in the fields of this nature, that the figs that it shot forth one summer, it was two summers more before they came to ripeness ; so that they hung upon the tree, unless hands or wind hindered, three summers and two winters be fore their maturity. Now, because the strange nature of this tree, different from others, caused that the seventh year, or year of release, could not so easily be remerabered and observed concerning it, as concerning other trees ; therefore, they tied some cords or lists about it ; or hung something upon it, that might give notice, and keep in remembrance, what year it was with it, and whether the fruit, if any, were of the first, second, or third year's growth. So, likewise, the fig-trees mentioned before, called rniND'^D, were two summers in ripening their fruit ; so that, of such a tree as one of these, Christ might well look for figs ofthe last year's growth ; old figs under new leaves, if so be the leaves were new. Yet could not this properiy be called Kaipog tniKtov [as there are that would change the reading of the original, and instead of ov yap ^v, ' for the time of figs was not yet,' would have it read (but I question whether with the consent of any one copy in the worid), o5 7Ap ^v, ' for where he was, was the time of figs'] : for that phrase, ' The time of figs,' meaneth the common time, that, generally, figs were ripe,— which was ordinary and commonly known, and which was not of well near five months after Passover-time. Christ cometh to the temple, and casteth out buyers and sellers, as he had done three years before : this was four days Bethan ^^^^''^^'- ^* ^^'-n' he goeth and lodgeth in In the morning, he cometh again to Jerusalem. This was three days before the Passover. As they came, the disciples observe the fig-tree withered ; whereupon he saith,*" Have taith m God ; for, venly, I say unto you. That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and cast into Mark, XI, &0.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 135 VEAR OF CHRIST 33. the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but believe that those things which he saith, shall come to pass, — ^he shall have whatsoever he saith." In which words, he neither war- ranteth nor encourageth any to look for a faith, that should remove mountains ; but, 1. He speaketh hyperbolically, for the magnifying of the power and excellency of faith*^. Hy perboles, with which the Scripture abounds, are not to be taken according to the letter ; but the thing intended is to be taken at the higher pitch. As, to instance but in one ex ample, and that about this very mountain that Christ pointed at, Zech. xiv. 4; which meaneth not, literally. Olivet's cleav ing, indeed, or removing, but great concussions to the peo ple, and open way made for the enemy. 2. Christ, in this expression, speaks the Jews' own language ; and, by the very phrase that they ordinarily used to raagnify their own abilities by, he raagnifieth faith. When they would speak of the high parts and qualities of their great ones, they Used to say, " He is a remover of mountains." The Babylonian Talmud; " Sinai, and the remover of mountains, whether of them sent first, 8cc. Now, R. Joseph was Sinai, and Rab- bah was the remover of mountains"." Why so named ? The gloss upon the place resolves us thus, — " They called R. Joseph, Sinai, because he was most expert in deep expli cations ; and they called R. Bar Nachman, ' a remover of mountains,' because he was most acutely learned,"&c. The same Talmud, also", saith thus, — " Rabba saith. Behold, I ara like Ben Azzai, in the streets of Tiberias." The gloss, thereupon, saith thus, — " Ben Azzai taught profoundly in the streets of Tiberias, and there was no man in his days, that was a remover of mountains like him :" — by " removing of mountains' meaning, how able men they were, and how they could overcome the greatest difficulties in divinity. Which common phrase Christ useth, to face"' that wretched boasting of theirs, of their own parts and worth, — and to set up faith in its proper dignity, as that that is only able for all things. " As Mark, ix. 23. P Beracoth, fol. 64. col. 1. q In Erubin, fol. 29. r " Perstringens :" Leusd. 1.36 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxr, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION LXXV. MATT. chap. XXI, from ver. 23 to the end of the chapter. MARK, chap. XI, frora ver. 27 to the end ; and chap. XII, from the beginning to ver. 13. LUKE, chap. XX, from the beginning to ver. 20. Christ, in the Temple, posing them about John's Baptism, The Parable ofthe Vineyard, &;c. The continuation ofthe order is apparent. Christ cometh again from Bethany into the temple ; and there being questioned, by what authority he did what he did, he stops their mouth by proposing a question again, — What they thought of John's authority, by which he made that great change in religion that he did, — and entraps them in such a dilemma, as they are not able to get out of. He proposeth the parable of the vineyard and husband men ; and by it showeth the privileges, and yet the perverse ness, of the Jewish nation, and their destruction, from Isa. V, &c^ SECTION LXXVI. MATT. chap. XXII, from the beginning of the chapter lover, 15. The Parable of the Wedding-Supper. The order is plain of itself. The parable setteth forth the Jews' despising of the means of grace, and evil usage of those, that were sent unto them, ver. 5, 6 : and, for this, their destruction, and ruin of their city, and the calling of the Gentiles, &c. SECTION LXXVII. MATT. chap. XXII, from ver. 15 to the end; and chap. XXIII, all the chapter. MARK, chap. XII, from ver. 13 to ver. 41. LUKE, chap. XX, from ver. 20 to tho end of the chapter. Tribute to Casar, The Resurrection asserted in the Law. The great Commandment. Christ how David's Son, Woe against the Scribes and Pharisees. The evangelists are so clear in their order, both here and a good way foi-ward, that there can be no scruphng in it. ' See R. Tanolmm, fol. .51. col. 4. MATT. XXI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 137 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. The question proposed, whether it were lawful to give tribute to Caesar, proceeded from that old maxim among them, upon mistake of Deut. xvii. 15 ; that " they ought not to be subject to any power or potentate, which was not of their own blood or religion :" the holding to which maxim, cost them the ruin of their city and nation. His answer, from the image of Csesar upon their coin, was according to their own concessions. The Jerusalem Talmud* doth personate David and Abigail talking thus : " Abigail said. What evil have I done, or my children, or my cattle ? David saith to her. Because thy husband vilified the king dom of David. She saith. Art thou a king, then? He saith to her. Did not Samuel anoint me king? She saith to him, C3»p ^IKlf pDl nt3'MD yny The coin of our lord Saul is yet current." — " A king that cuts down the trees of any owner, and makes a bridge of them, it is lawful to go over it, 8cc. How is this to be understood ? Of a king whose coin is current in these countries ; for the men of the country do thereby evidence, that they acknowledge him for their lord, and themselves his servants : but if his coin be not current, then he is a robber','' &c. The topic, from whence he argueth the resurrection, against the Sadducees, i s also acknowledged by the writers of that nation : " The holy blessed God doth not join his name to the saints while they are alive, but when they are dead : as it is said. To the saints which are in the earth, &c. But, behold, we find that he joins his name to Isaac [meaning, he calls himself the God of Isaac], while he was alive""," &c. "Whence is their proof, that the righteous are called ' living,' when they are dead"," &c. He poseth the Pharisees, in their very catechism : they used it as a common narae for the Messias, to call him ' the son of David ;' and yet, when they are put to it to observe, that David calls him ' Lord,' they are so far nonplust, that they have not only not what to answer, for the present, but this silenceth them from future disputes. Now, therefore, he falls upon them with their deserved character and doom ; and as, in Matt, v, he had pronounced beatitudes, — so here, ' In Sanhedr. fol. 20. col. 2. ' Maim, in Gezelah, cap. 5. " Tanchum, fol, 13. col. 3. "' Jerus. in Beracoth, fol. 5, col, 4. 138 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. in Matt, xxiii, he denounceth woes, and curseth these men, from Isa. Ixv. 15, &c. This chapter, as it is a speech to, and of, the scribes and Pharisees, — and treateth of their doctrines and demeanours; so, from their own pandects and authors, may it be explained from point to point ; those speaking out their doctrines and practices to the full. Their ' sitting in Moses's chair' (ver. 1), meaneth thera as magistrates, to whom Christ enjoineth all lawful obe dience""'. Their 'heavy burdens' (ver. 4), translates their noin min of which they speak so much, and so highly. Their 'Tephillin' are called ' phylacteries' (ver. 5); which meaneth. not only ' observatives,' because they were memorials of their duty and devotions [being four portions of the law. written in two parchments, and the one worn upon their forehead, and the other upon their left arm] ; but ' preservatives ;' as being reputed by them a fence against evil spirits : " A man hath need to say over his phylacteries every evening in his house, to fright away evil spirits""." " They loved to be called. Rabbi, Rabbi" (ver. 7): "R. Akibah said to R. Eliezer, Rabbi, Rabbis'." And yet they had this rule against it, — " Love the work ; but hate the Rabbiship^" " Call no one father" (ver. 9) ; — in that sense, as they owned their doctors by the title lanUN, relying upon the authority of human doctrines. Their permitting and practising to " swear by the tem ple" (ver. 16),— came into a common custom ; " Baba Ben Bota sware by the temple, and so did Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel ; and this was a custom in Israel""." Their " tithing mint, anise, and cummin" (ver. 23),— explained in the Talmudic treatises ' Demai :' " whited sepulchres" (ver. 27); Shekalim, cap. 1. hal. 1,— " In the month Adar they whited the sepulchres." And the reason is given by the Gemarists, that people hereby might have the better discovery of them, the better to avoid defilement " Vid. Sanhedr. cap. 1. hal. 6. x je,.„s. Beracolh, fol. 2. s Jerns. Moed Katon, fol. 81. I . . Maim. inTalm. Torah, cap. 3. ' Jnchas. fol. 50. col. 1. Matt.xxi,&c.] THE new testament,— Part I. 139 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. by them; which, well observed, sets on Christ's invective against these wretches the more''. " Their decking of sepulchres," in honour of those, that lay in them (ver, 29), — handled in the Jerusalem Talmud"". He concludeth his speech, with the intimation of what shame and guilt lay upon them for the blood of the forraer prophets slain by their fathers, filled up by their own wick edness, in persecuting those, that he did, or should, send to them. He calleth them ' serpents,' from Gen. iii. 15 ; and teacheth us to look upon them as ' the' seed of the serpent, in an eminent degree, if any degree of that nature may be called eminent. He dooms all the prophets' blood to be required of that generation ; because they, by their tran scendent abuse of those whom God sent, even of Messias himself, — did justify and exceed all the evil their fathers had done against the prophets : yea, all the blood shed before the blood of Zacharias, and his, though they held that to have been satisfied for by the destruction, slaughter, and captivity, by the Babylonians'^. He changeth the name of his father^ and concludes, with a sad denunciation of destruction; and that they should no more see him, till they should say, " Blessed be he. that cometh in the name of the Lord :" — wbich very words he had uttered, also, a great while before this*^; and tbe raultitude had said, ".Blessed be he, that cometh," &c. when he rode into Jerusalem upon an ass. But the same words, now uttered by him, are of some what doubtful interpretation ; whether they mean, their no more seeing of him till the night and time of the Passover [for at the paschal meal every company rehearsed this say ing, ' Blessed be he, that cometh,' 8cc. in their great Hallel, as°they called it] ; or that they should no more see him at all, because they had not learned to entertain him, as coming from Gods. t> Gemar. ntrinsq. Talm. in loc. et Jerus. in MaazarShen. fol. 55. 3. - In Moed Katon, fol. 80. col. 3, 4. '' Jerus. in Taanith, fol. 69. col. 2. ' And so doth Targ. in Lament, cap. ii. ver. 20. ' Luke, xm. 34, 35. s See John, ». 43. 140 HARMONY OF [Mark, xii, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION LXXVIII. MARK, chap. XII, ver. 41—44. LUKE, chap. XXI, ver. 1—4. The poor Widow's Mites. The Jews, before their prayers in the temple or their synagogues, used to give something by way of alms or offer ing, that charity and piety raight go together^. Now, in ' the courtof the women,' at the teraple [as we have observed else where, in the description of that place], there were several chests, which the Jews call ' Shopharoth,' into which the people put the money they offered, — some to buy one thing for the service of the temple, some another, &c. SECTION LXXIX. MATT. chap. XXIV ; all the chapter. MARK, chap. XIII ; all the chapter. LUKE, chap. XXI, from ver. .5 to the end of the chapter. And, after these, MATT. chap. XX"V", all the chapter. Christ foretelleth the Destruction of Jerusalem, — the Signs and Miseries preceding and accompanying it. The Talmud*" tells us, that there was a place upon mount Olivet, just in the face ofthe temple, where the priest slew and burnt the red cow into the ashes of purification ; — and, as he sprinkled the blood, he looked directly upon the tem ple-door. This was the last sermon, that Christ made upon mount Olivet ; and he raakes it as he sits upon that mount, just facing the temple". And that text, that he had taken in tears but two or three days ago, weeping over the city and foretelling the destruction of it*", he now preacheth upon at large, declaring the misery, and foreshowing the forerunners, of that destruction. The aim of his speech, or to what time and purpose it refers, may be discerned by the question of the disciples, to which it is an answer : "When shall these things, be?" viz. that one stone of the temple shall not be left upon another'. And so it relates plainly to the destruction of the temple and city. But Matthew hath added ; " And what e Maim. inMatlannth Anijim, cap. 6. '> Middoth, cap. 1, &c. Matt. xxiv. 3. k Luke, xix. 41. ' Mark, xiii. 4. Luke, xxi. 7. Matt, xxiv, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part I. 141 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" from whence it is conceived by some, that the speech doth aim at the end of the world, and Christ's last coming unto judgment. It is true, indeed, that the close of his speech in Matt, xxv, doth speak plainly of the last judg ment, — and that many of those terrible things, mentioned Matt. xxiv. may veiy well typify the terrors of the last day; but the prime and proper scope of the speech in that twenty- fourth chapter, is to set forth the destruction of Jerusalem, and the rejection and misery ofthe Jewish nation; as may be observed by these particulars : — 1. Because, in Matt. xxiv. 15, 16, he points directly to time and place, when and where these things shall be ; viz. when the temple shall be profaned, then these things come, &c. 2. Especially consider ver. 34 : " Verily I say unto you. This generation shall not pass, till all these things be ful filled." — ' This generation ;' not meaning ' Generatio Evan- gelica,' as some do harshly interpret it ; but, — as it means in Matt, xxiii. 36, Luke xi. 31, 32, and abundance of other places in the New Testament, — 'the generation then in being.' 3. The destruction of Jerusalem, is phrased in Scripture"" as the destruction of the whole world ; and Christ ' coming to her in judgment,' as his coming to the last judgment"". Therefore, those dreadful things, spoken of in ver. 29, 30, 31, are but borrowed expressions, to set forth the terrors of that judgment the more. Ver. 29 : " The sun shall be darkened," 8tc. shows the decay of all glory, excellency, and prosperity, in that nation, and the coming in of all sadness, misery, and confusion". Ver. 30 : " Then shall they see the sign of the Son of man," &c. not any visible appearance of Christ, or ofthe cross, in the clouds [as some have ima gined] ; but, whereas the Jews would not own Christ before for the Son of man, or for tbe Messias, then, by the vengeance that he should execute upon them, they and all the world should see an evident sign, that he was so. This, therefore, m Jer. iv. 23. Isa. Ixv. 17. " MaH. xvi. 28. John, xxi. 22. Malt. xix. 28. Rev. i. 7, &c. » As Isa. xiii. 10. Joel, ii. 10. 142 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. is called 'his coming,' and 'his coming in his kingdomP;' because this did first declare his power, glory, and victory, on that nation that had despised him. Ver. 31 : ^| He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet," &c. that is, his ministers with the trumpet of the gospel, to fetch in his elect from among the Gentiles, when the Jews were now destroyed and cast off. And the false Christs, and false prophets, that should arise, ver. 5. 24,— arose in that nation in those 'last days' ofit; as is abundantly evident, both in the New Testament, and in Josephus : and those "wars and rumours of wars, and nation rising against nation," &c. [ver. 6, 7], were accomplished, not only in the horrid civil wars among the Jews, but also in the great concussions in the Ro man empire, in the wars betwixt Otho and Vitellius, and be twixt Vitellius and Vespasian [of which the Roraan historians, especially Tacitus, are very large] ; the like to which, there had not been before, even to the sacking of Rome itself, and the burning ofthe Capitol. SECTION LXXX. MATT. chap. XXVI, from the beginning to ver. 14. MARK, chap. XIV, from tbe beginning to ver. 10. LUKE, chap. XXII, ver. 1,2. And, after these portions, read JOHN, chap. XIII, from the beginning to ver. 27. Christ's Head anointed at a Supper at Bethany, two Nights before the Passover : at the same Supper he washeth his Disciples' Feet : giveth Judas the Sop, and the Devil entereth into him. The proof of the proper order here will require some dispute, not so much in regard of any obscurity or diffi culty ofthe order itself, but in regard of needless and ground less difficulties, that are put upon it. There are two strange opinions, we meet with here : the one is, that holdeth, that this supper, mentioned by Matthew and Mark, was the same supper which is mentioned in John xii, which was " six days before the Passover :"— and the other is, that holdeth, that this supper, in John xiii, was the supper on the Passoverr night : so that, for the showing and asserting of the order as we have laid it, these three things are to be done :— p Malt. xvii. 28. Matt. XXVI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part L 143 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. First, It is to be proved, that the supper in John xii, and the supper in Matt, xxvi, and Mark xiv, were not one and the same supper ; but two suppers, at some days' distance. Secondly, That the supper, in John xiii, was not on the Passover-night, but before the Passover-night. And, Thirdly, That the supper in John xiii, was the same supper with that in Matt. xxvi. 6, and Mark xiv. 3, — two days before the Passover. First, That the supper in John xii, and the supper in Matt, xxvi, and Mark xiv, were two different suppers [to which something hath been said before], appears by these observations : — -1. The supper, in John xii, was in the house of Lazarus, — unless we will unwarrantably strain the con struction of the story ; but the supper, in Matt, xxvi, and Mark xiv, was in the house of ' Simon, the leper.' 2. At the supper in John xii. Christ's feet were anointed ; but his head was anointed at the supper in Matt, xxvi, and Mark xiv. 3. The supper in John xii, vvas six days before the Passover ; but the supper in Matt, xxvi, and Mark xiv, was but two days before : for observe Mark xiv. 1 ; " After two days, was the feast of the Passover :" and then, ver. 3 ; " And Jesus being af Bethany," &c. Here, they that hold the opinion that we are confuting, will not acknowledge the order of the evangelists direct, but say there is a disloca tion ; so that though ' two days' be raentioned before, yet the story following was six days before the Passover. But the method of Matthew and Mark hath been so direct hither, through the story of Christ's actions, since his last coming to Jerusalem,— that no reason possible can be given, why they should invert the order here. They had punctually men tioned his actions, five, four, three days before the Pass^ over ; and now they come to speak of two days before, and under that account bring in this supper ; and what sense or reason can there be to surmise, that it was six days before ? They had showed you Christ five days before the Passover, at Bethany'' ; and four days before the Passover, at Beth any"' ; and three days before the Passover, at Bethany' ; and then they come and speak of two days before the Passover ; 1 John, xii. 1. 12. Mark, xi. 1. 11. "' Mark, xi. 12. 15. 19. 20. ¦ Mark, xi. 20. 27. and xiii. 3. 144 HARMONY OF [Matt. xxvi,U YEAR OF CHRIST 33. and they speak also of Christ's being at Bethany ; and yet would the opinion under confutation apply the reckoning of the ' two days' only to point at the high-priest's assembhng: and Christ's being at Bethany, to be jumped backward over all the story before, even to beyond Matt, xxi, Mark xi :— an opinion, that, by its improbability, is confutation enough to itself. A second thing to be cleared is, that the supper, in John xiii, was not on the Passover-night, but before : which may be evidenced by these arguments instead of more: — 1. Be cause John saith expressly, ver. 1, that it was Hjoo tjjc ioprfig, "before the festival ofthe Passover;" for so the word soprif constantly signifies, not the meal of the paschal, as some would construe it here, but the whole festival. 2. The dis ciples, when Jesus said to Judas, " What thou doest, do quickly," thought he spake about buying something against the feast, ver. 29 ; by which it appears, that the feast was not yet come. Thirdly, Luke showeth, that the entering of Satan into Judas [which was at the supper, John xiii], was before the Passover-day came: for observe his order'; "Then entered Satan into Judas; and he went and communed with the chief priests," &c; and then"", "Then came the day of unleavened bread :" upon all which considerations, it is apparent, that this supper, in John xiii, at which Satan entered into Judas [whereupon, he went and compacted for his Master's betray ing], was not on the Passover-night, but some space before the Passover-day came. There is, indeed, a passage in John xiii, 38, which may seem to bring that supper to the Passover- night; which is, when Christ saith at the supper to Peter, " The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice ;" — which seemeth to carry it, as if this supper were on that very night, when Peter denied him. For answer to which, let it be observed,— 1. That Peter denied Christ but once before the cock crew ; Mark xiv. 68—70 : and it will teach us to expound the words of Christ. John xiii. 38, and Matt. xxvi. 34, not as meaning that he should deny him three times over, before any cock crew ; but that he should deny him thricej in the time of cock's-crowing, which time was a fourth part • Lnke, xxii. 3. .. Lnke, xxii. 7. Matt, xxvi, &c,] THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part I, 145 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. of the night"" : and that it meaneth in such a sense, is yet more apparent by Mark xiv. 30, where he utters it, " The cock shall not crow twice." 2. Let it be observed, that, in John xiii. 38, it is only said, ' The cock shall not crow ;' but, in Matt, xxvi, Mark xiv, when the speech refers to the very night when his denial was, it is said, ' This night,' before the cock crow ; and, ' This day, even this night,' before the cock. crow, &c. And so it is understood, that Christ useth that speech to Peter, twice over ; and in it, he doth twice refute his presuming upon his own strength, which Peter twice showed : — First, at the supper, in John xiii, which was two days before the Passover ; and there the emphasis of the speech lieth, especially, in the word ' thrice ;' as if he had said to him, " Art thou so confident of thy strength and standing for me ? I tell thee, the time will be, when thou shalt deny me thrice in the time of cock's-crowing." The second was at the Passover-supper ; and then Christ puts the emphasis upon the word, ' This night :' " Art thou so confi dent ? I tell thee, this night thou shalt deny me," &c. Thus having showed, that that supper, in John xiii, was not on the Passover-night, but before ; — a third thing is to show, that it was two days before the Passover, and the same with that supper, mentioned by Matthew and Mark, in Beth any. And for the proof of this, we need go no farther, than this observation : That both the evangelists, Matthew"' and Mark'", do begin the treason of Judas from that supper in Bethany ; for as soon as they have related the story of that supper, they presently tell, " Then one of the twelve, called Judas, went to the chief priests," &c. Now, it is apparent, that he began, the acting of his treason from the time of Satan's entering into him with the sop, — which was at that supper, John xiii ; and so it concludeth that to be the same supper with that in Matt. xxvi. 6. The texture of the story, then, lieth thus : — Six days be fore the Passover, Christ suppeth and lodgeth in Bethany : five days before the Passover, he rideth in triumph to Jeru salem ; and, at even, cometh and lodgeth in Bethany again : — four days before the Passover, he goeth to Jerusalem again ; and, at night, cometh to Bethany again to lodge. " Mark, xv. 33. " Chap. xxvi. 13; 14. " Chap. xiv. 9, 10. VOL. III. L 146 HARMONY OF [John, xin, &b. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. The third day before the Passover, he goeth again into the city; and, at even, cometh to Bethany again : and that night he suppeth in the house of Simon the leper, it being now two days to the Passover : as he sits at supper, ' Mary, the sister of Lazarus,' called also ' Mary Magdalen,' anoints his head, 8cc : and he, before the table was taken away, ariseth from the table, and washeth the disciples' feet ; and, after, sits down, and gives Judas the sop. SECTION LXXXI. JOHN, chap. XIII, ver. 27—30. MATT. chap. XXVI, ver. 14—16. MARK, chap. XIV, ver. 10, 11. LUKE, chap. XXII, ver. 3—6. Satan entereth into Judas: he compacts for the betraying of his Master. The continuation ofthe story, in John, cleareth the con nexion. "He dipped the sop, and gave it to Judas; and, after the sop, Satan entered into him." This was at a supper, in Bethany, two days before the Passover, as hath been showed : from thence, though it were night, Judas trudgeth to Jerusalem, acted entirely by Satan, and agreeth with the Sanhedrim, for his Master's betraying. They had met pur posely to contrive the apprehension and death of Christ ; but had resolved, that it must not be at the feast, for fear of tu mult ; but Judas, coming in. undertakes to deliver him up, though at the feast, yet quietly enough m the absence ofthe people : and they bargain to give him thirty pieces of silver; the price of a servant". So Maimonides^; "The price of servants, whether great or littie. whether male or female, is thirty selas of good silver; be he a servant worth a hundred pounds, or be he a servant but worth a penny." Now the same author^ rateth ' sela' at three hundred and eighty-four bariey-corns' weight, in silver. - Exod. xxi. 32. , In Niske Mammon, cap. U. . i„ sbekalim, cap. 1. John, XIII, &0.] THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part I, 147 YEAR OF CHRIST 33, SECTION LXXXII. JOHN, chap. XIII, from ver. 31 to the end, and chap. XIV, all the chapter. Christ's Speech to comfort his Disciples, 8fc. The first words, "Therefore, when he was gone out," con tinue the story. When Judas was gone out about his cursed work, and the hour was now come when Christ's passion was beginning [for we may justly take his being sold, for a part of his sufferings], he giveth his disciples divers lessons ; some of admonition, some of instruction, some of comfort. For the better judging of the time of this speech [besides the connexion which joins it to Judas's going forth, upon the devil's entering into him with the sop], these two things are observable : — 1. That the last words of the fourteenth chap ter, are, " Arise, let us go hence ;" by which it is plain, that the speech contained in this present section, and the speech in John xv, and xvi, and xvii, were spoken at two several times, and in two several places : that, at the Passover-sup per ; for John tells", that, when Jesus had finished that speech, he went over the brook Kidron : but this, before, and in an other place, because, upon the ending of it, it is plain Jesus removed to another place, by his saying, " Arise, let us go hence." 2. That Christ saith, " Yet a little time I ara vi/ith you," chap. xiii. 33 ; " Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more," chap, xiv. 19 ; " Hereafter I shall not talk much with you," ver. 30 ; which intimate sorae space of tirae yet to come, and not so sudden a parting, as the space was be twixt his rising from his last supper, and his apprehension. This speech, therefore, was spoken at Bethany, after Judas's going out : and the section contains the sum of Christ's discourse with his disciples, while he stayed there ; which was the night that Judas received the sop, arid the next day and night, arid till towards the evening ofthe day after : and the last words, "Arise, let us go hence," intimate his reraoval from Bethany to Jerusalem, on the Passover-day. Judas, either that night that he had received the sop, or the next day, layeth the plot, with the high-priests, for the delivering ap of his Master at the feast ; and, having so done, he refurn- • John, xviii. 1. L 2 140 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. eth to his Master, to Bethany, again. And the next day, which was the Passover-day, Christ sendeth Peter and John from thence, to prepare the passover for him ; and when he saw tirae, he calls, ' Arise, let us go hence ;' — and so he set teth for Jerusalem with the rest of the disciples, and Judas in the company. SECTION LXXXIII. MATT. chap. XXVI, from ver. 17 to 30. MARK, chap. XIV, from ver. 12 to 26. LUKE, chap. XXII, from ver. 7 to 24. Christ eateth the Passover: ordaineth the Lord's Supper, ifc. Peter and John, who were sent to prepare the passover, had this work to do : — They were to get a room fitting ; to that their Master directs thera by a sign : they were to get a lamb, and to bring him into the temple, and there to have him killed, and his blood sprinkled, under the name of a paschal, for thirteen persons. For no lamb could be eaten for a pas chal, whose blood was not sprinkled at the altar, and that nOD Dti'^ " in the name of a paschal," and 1'i:d^ " by count," for such a number of persons as had agreed to be at the eat ing of him"" ; — as Christ died but for a certain number. — Which shows [had not the evangelists done it otherwise], that Christ ate his passover on the same day that the Jews did theirs [which some, upon misunderstanding of John xviii. 28, have denied] ; nay, that it was not possible otherwise ; for how impossible was it to get the priests to kill a paschal for any. upon a wrong day? Having got the lamb thus slain at tbe temple, they were to bring bim home to the house, where he was to be eaten, to get hira roasted, and to get bread and wine ready, and what other provision was usual and requisite for that raeal. At even, Jesus cometh and sitteth down ' with the twelve :' and, as he ate, he gave intimation of the traitor, who was now at the table, and eating with him. Which might seem to make this story the same with that in John xiii. 21, 22; and so might argue, that this, and that, were but one and the sarae supper. But herein is an apparent difference in the •• Talm. in Pesachin, cap. 5. Matt. XXVI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 149 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. stories : — 1. At the supper, in John xiii, Christ giveth only a private signification of the traitor, by a token given secretly to John ; but here he points him out openly. 2. There he gives him a sop ; here he only speaks of dipping with him in the dish. Only there is some diversity in the evangelists, in relating this story : Matthew and Mark have laid this tax ation and discovery of the traitor before the administration of the Lord's supper, but Luke after. And there is the like variety in their relating the time of these words of Christ, " I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine," 8cc. for Luke hath brought them in, as spoken be fore the sacrament, — but the other two, after. In both which, first, the raain intent of the relation is to be looked after ; and then, may we better state the time. The intent, in the former, is to show Judas at the table, and at the table all the time both of the paschal and the Lord's supper, — those syrdbols of love and communion, — yet he such a wretch as to communicate in both, and yet a traitor. The two, Matthew and Mark, would show that he was at the table ; and so, the mention of that they bring in upon Christ's first sitting down and beginning to eat : and Luke makes the story full, and shows that he was at the table all the time, both at Passover and sacrament ; and the words of Christ upon the delivering ofthe cup, " But, behold the hand of him that betrays me," 2tc. cannot possibly be mitigated from such a construction. As to the latter, the meaning of Christ in the words, " I will no more drink of the fruit ofthe vine," &c. is, — that the king dom of God was now so near, that this was the last meat and drink, or the last raeal, that he was to have, before that came : by ' the kingdom of God,' meaning his resurrection and forward, when God, by him, had conquered death, Satan, and hell. And whereas he saith, ' Till I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God,' he did so, eating and drinking with them after his resurrection. This, therefore, being the aim df his speech, it was seasonable to say so, any time of fhe meal, " T?his is the last meal I must eat with you, till I be risen again from the dead :" and hereupon, the evangelists have left the time of his uttering of it at that indifferency, that they have done. And, indeed, these two passages had such reference one to another, that the one might bring on 150 HARMONY OF [Luke, xxii. VEAR OF CHRIST 33. the other ; and both of thera might very well be spoken by Christ twice. The observing of the direct order of Christ's actions at this meal, which the evangelists have related, will help to clear this matter. When he was set down with them, he first saith, "'I have desired to eat this passover with you, before I suffer,' for this is the last I must eat with you, before the kingdom of God be come." And thereupon, he taketh the first cup of wine, that was to be drunk at that raeal ; and drinks of it, and gives it them, and bids, " Divide it araong yourselves ; for I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine," &c. meaning, ' this is the last time I shall eat and drink with you,' &c. And this speech properly brought in the other, " One of you shall betray me :" as, paraphrased, speaking thus, — ' I shall no more eat with you ; for there is one now at the table with me, hath compassed my death.' Hereupon, they question, who it should be, 8tc. After this passage, they eat the pas chal lamb after its rite, — -and after it, he ordaineth the Lord's supper : bread to be ' his body' henceforward, in the same sense that the paschal lamb had been his body hitherto; and the cup to be ' the New Testament in his blood,' now, under the gospel, as the blood of bullocks had been the Old Testa ment in his blood"" : and after the administering of the cup, he tells them again, that that was the last that he must drink ; for the hand of him that betrayed him, was at the table. SECTION LXXXIV. LUKE, chap. XXII, from ver. 24 to ver. 39. A Contest among the Disciples about Priority. Luke himself is a clear warrant of the order: and withal, the joint consideration ofthe story before will help to con firm it. The question among themselves about the traitor, helpeth to draw on this other question about priority, — an unseasonable, and a very unreasonable quarrel : to which their Master giveth closely this twofold answer, besides pro posing his own example of humility :— 1. That let not them stand upon priority, for he would equally honour then? in ' Exod. xxiv. John, xv,&o.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part L l5l YEAR OF CHRIST 33. ^" _- ^ ^ his kingdom, &c. 2. That this was not a tirae to stand upon such business as seeking to be preferred one before another ; for this was a time of sifting ; and a time when all the care, they could take for their safety, should be little enough : therefore, they had now something else to do, than to look after precedency. SECTION LXXXV. JOHN, chap. XV, XVL XVII. Christ's last Words to his Disciples, and a Prayer for them. John, in chap, xviii. 1, inforras us, that, when Jesus had spoken the words contained in these chapters, he went over the brook Cedron : by wbich it appeareth, that they were spoken at his last supper, instantly before he rose and went to the garden, where he was apprehended. At their Pass over-suppers, they used large discourses, seasonable and agreeable to the occasion: and, especially, in coramemorating what God had done for that people. Whatsoever Christ had spoken upon that subject, is not recorded, but this, — which was more needful for the disciples' present condition, most agreeable to the great occasion now at hand, and most bene ficial for the church in time to come. SECTION LXXXVI. MATT. chap. XXVI, from ver. 30 to the ond ; and chap. XXVII, all. MARK, chap. XIV, from ver. 26 to the end ; and chap. XV, all. LUKE, chap. XXII, from ver. 39 to the end ; and chap. XXIII, all. JOHN, chap. XVIII, and chap. XIX; all the chapters. Christ's Apprehension, Arraignment, Death, and Burial. There is no difficulty in the connexion ofthe beginning of this section to the preceding, but only this,- that the rest of the evangehsts make mention of Christ's singing of ' a hymn,' as the la»t thing he did, before his setting out for the mount of Olives ; but Jobn maketh his speech and prayer to be kst, and speaketh not of his singing a hymn at all. Which, indeed, is neither contrariety nor diversity of story, bffit only variety of relation for the holding out of the story more cO'fiitplete. The three former evangehsts have recorded, how Christ did celebrate the Passover, and ordain the sacra- 152 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. ment at the end of it; and, therefore, they properly speak of his singing a hymn; for that was ever an inseparable piece of service at the Passover-supper, and constantly used at the conclusion of that raeal. But John had made no mention of the Passover-supper or sacrament at all ; and, therefore, it was not only not needful, but also not proper, that he should mention the singing of any hymn at all: but he relateth the last speech and prayer of Christ, which the other had omitted. And whether this speech, recorded by him, — or the hymn, mentioned by thera, — were last done by Christ, is not much material to the order of the story. I suppose the speech was latter: the hymn that they sung, was Psalm cxv, cxvi, cxvii, and cxviii ; which was the latter part of ' the great Hallel,' as they called it, which was constantly sung at the Passover, and their other great solemnities ; and, with this latter part, was this soleranity concluded. His Prayer in the Garden. Christ, rising frora supper, goeth forth of the city over the brook Cedron to the raount of Olives [compare David's case and journey, 2 Sam. xv. 23]. Judas, when they rose from the table, slips away into the city ; and there hath his cut-throats, laid ready by the chief priests, for the cursed de sign that they had compacted about. As Christ goeth along, he telleth the eleven, that were with him, of their trouble that night by his apprehension, and their scattering from him : but he would be in Galilee before them, and there they should raeet again. And so he directeth them which way to betake themselves after the feast, and what to do when their Master should be taken from them by death. He fore telleth Peter again of his denial of hira that night : which Peter, now armed with a sword, cannot hear of, but pro miseth great matters. He cometh to Gethsemane, ' a place of oil-presses,' at the foot of Ohvet, into a garden. The Talmudists speak of the gardens here ; and tell how the gardeners used to fatten their grounds with the scouring of the sink, that carried the blood and filth of the temple-court into that valley. Leav ing eight disciples behind, he taketh Peter, and James, and John, with him, and imparteth to them the fears and sorrows'. Matt. XXVI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMEN'J'.— Part I. 15,3 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. that now seized upon him ; and leaving them, also, about a stone's cast behind, charges thera to watch and pray : he prays thrice for the reraoval of this cup, if possible, 8cc ; and, in an agony, he sweats drops like blood [reraeraber Adam's fall in a garden, and the first doom. ' In the sweat of thy brows,' &c]. Now was ' the power of darkness'' ; all the power of hell being let loose against Christ, as it was never against person upon earth before or since ; and that frora the pitching of this field of old% " Thou shalt bruise his heel." So that it was not so much for any pangs of hell that Christ felt within him, as for the assaults of hell, that he saw en larged against him, — that he was so full of sorrow and an guish. His desiring the removal ofthe cup, was ' purse hu- manitatis ;' but his submitting to the will of God, ' purse sanctitatis.' — As when a gangrened member is to be cut off, ' pura natura' relucts against it, but right reason yields to it. He prayed thrice ; and, after every time, came to his three disciples, and still found them sleeping. His Apprehension. He had scarce awakened them at the third time, when the traitor and his assassins are upon him, to apprehend him. At their first approach, — Judas, according to the sign given, that his fellow-villains might know Jesus frora the rest, steppeth to him, and kisseth him. And thereupon the rest draw up near him. Jesus steppeth forward to meet them, and asketh, " Whom seek ye ?" they say, " Jesus of Na zareth :" he saith, " I am he :" and thereupon they went backward, and fell to the ground. And his thus confound ing thera with a word, showed, that none could take his hfe from him, unless he laid it down of himself. While they he on the ground, and he hath thera thus under hira, he indents for the dismission of his disciples ; and having agreed for their safety and discharge, he yields himself. So up they got, and lay hold upon him: and Peter, to show some of his promised stoutness, cuts off Malchus's ear ; but Christ heals the wound. With this wretched crew, that apprehended him, there were some of their masters, that set thera on^ To all <> Luke, xxii. 53. <" Gen. iii. 15. < Lnke, xxii. 62. 154 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &b, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. together he telleth, that " it was plain, it was now their ' hour, and the power of darkness ;' for that they had him so oft among them in the temple, that they were never able to lay hands on him till now." Upon these words, the disci ples think it time to shift for themselves ; and one flees away naked. His Appearance before Annas. Besides the ill account that these men could give of this night's Passover [no sooner eaten, but their hands in blood] ; and besides the horrid offence they coramitted against the Lord and against his Christ, in this fact that they were upon, — they doubly transgressed against their own canons : naraely, in arraigning and condemning a person upon a holiday, for such a day was now come in ; and ar raigning and judging a person by night, — both which are directly forbidden by their laws. They first bring Christ to Annas; and why.? for he was neither chief magistrate, but Gamaliel ; nor the high-priest, but Caiaphas : he was, indeed, Sagan, and father-in-law to Caiaphas ; but by neither of these relations had he judicial power, as a single man. But as the chief priests had a spe cial hand in this business, and Annas was chief among them by his place and relation to Caiaphas, and so had had, no doubt, a singular stroke in contriving this business that was now transacting, — so, upon his apprehension, he is first brought thither, to show that they had the man sure, whom he so much desired to be secured, and to take his grave advice, what farther to do with him. He was brought bound to hira ; and, so bound, he sends him to Caiaphas. His Arraignment before the Sanhedrim. At Caiaphas's house was the Sanhedrim now assembled : whether we take this for his lodgings in the temple, or his house in the city, it is not much material. Peter follows thither; and by another disciple, that was acquainted there, he is helped into the hall, and sits with the servants by the fire. The chief-priest and elders were busy to find out wit nesses, that might accuse him ; and though many " false s Tal. in Jom. lobh. cap. 5. hal. 2. Matt. XXVI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 155 year OF CHRIST 33. witnesses'"" corae in, yet all will not do : for it was not pos sible to touch him of any offence. He all this while standing silent", Caiaphas abjures him to tell, whether he were the Christ or no ; he confesseth it ; and withal tells thera, that the time should come, tbat they should find the truth of this by experience, when he should show his power and ven geance in his judgment against them, and their city, "coming in clouds," &c. This confession and words they account blasphemy : and that they might have the surer impression of so construing them, " Caiaphas rent his garments," and by that action would, as it were, force them to agree with him that it was so, when his garments had paid so dear for the confirming of it. Their custom and reason of renting their clothes upon the hearing of blasphemy, is handled in Jerus. in Sanhedrim, fol. 25. col. 1, and 2 ; and in Mai monides, in Avodah Zarah, cap. 2; where those two canons being observed, " Every one that hears God's name blas phemed, is bound to rent his garments;" and, "The judges, hearing blasphemy, must stand upon their feet, and must rent their clothes, and may not sew them up again;" — it will cause us to observe something in it, that the high-priest only rent his clothes, and not the rest of the bench with him: which though they did not, yet they vote with him, that it was blasphemy, and therefore he was guilty of death : which, had it been executed, must have been by stoning''- And now they begin to spit on him, to buffet him, and abuse him. Peter's Denial. Here Peter first denies hira: for being challenged, as he sat by the fire, by the damsel-porter, for one of his company, he denies it, and shrinks away into the porch ; and then the first cock crew. Luke saith, that the maid cawe to him, as ' he sat by the fire :' Matthew and Mark, that he was now ' beneath in the palace,' and ' without in th© p9,laee;' meaning, beneath or without from, that place or room,, wheiie the bench sat. Betwixt this first denial and the i?eeond, there was but a little while' : in the space betweeriji '' Q-nm in Talmudic language. 'Isa.liii.7. k Sanhedr. cap, 7. hal. 4. ' Lnke. **"• 53- 1 56 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c. year of CHRIST 33. the high-priest is questioning Jesus of his disciples and doc trine ; and because he answers, " Ask thera, that have heard me," Sec. an officious officer smites hira, as if he had not answered with reverence enough. Peter, this while, was in the porch, where he was when the cock crew after his first denial : and there another maid sees him, and brings him to the corapany that stood by the fire, and challenges him for one of his disciples ; and now he denies with an oath. And about an hour after"" [which space of time the bench took up in examining Christ about his disciples and doctrine], a kins man of Malchus challengeth him; and tells the company, he saw hira with Jesus in the garden ; and he, pleading the contrary, is discovered to all the company to be a Galilean by his dialect, — but he denies with execrations : and presently the second cock crew : and Jesus looking back upon him, he remembers what he had done, and goes out and weeps bitterly. And so, presently after the second cock, the bench riseth, and leaveth Jesus in the hands of their officers, by whora he is taunted, stricken, and shamefully used. His being delivered up to the Roman Power. In the morning, the Sanhedrim met formally in their own council-chamber, and again question Jesus [brought there before them, and they resolved to put him to death], ' Whe ther he were the Messias or no ?' — he giveth the same an swer as before; that, 'though they would not believe him, if he told them he was, which was the truth, — yet the time was coming, when they should find it true.' — They question him again, " Art thou the Son of God ?" which he not deny ing, they judge him a blasphemer again and deserving to die, and so deliver him up to the secular power. It is ob servable in both these questionings of him upon this point, both in the night, and now in the morning, — how convertible terras " the Son of God," and " the Son of man," are made. In the night they question him, "Art thou the Son of God?" He answers, " Ye shall see the Son of man"," &c. And now, in the morning, again he saith, " Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power :" and they reply, " Art thou then the Son of God" ?" "" Luke, xxii. 59. " MaU. xxvi. 63, 64. » Luke, xxii. 69, 70. Matt. XXVI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 157 year ov CHRIST 33. Judas's Recantation and Ruin. JuDAs, unquiet in mind for what he had done in betray ing, attends the trials, and waits the issue : and when he now saw that he was condemned by the bench to be delivered up to the heathen power, he steps in, and offers his money again, and confesseth he had betrayed innocent blood; and this, probably, as Christ stood by. Having received a surly answer again from them, he flings down his money in the temple where they sat [Gazith or Hhanoth, it is not season able to question here], and, departing, is snatched by the devil, who was bodily in him,Mnto the air, and there stran gled, and flung down headlong to the earth, and all his bowels burst out. With the thirty pieces of silver, his wages of iniquity, the priests consult to buy the potter's field. And here a quotation of Matthew? hath troubled expositors so far, that divers have denied the purity of the text. His words are these, — " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, And they took the thirty pieces of silver," &c r whereas those words are not to be found in Jeremiah at all; but in Zechariah'' they are found. Now Matthew speaks, according to an ordinary manner of speaking, used among the Jews, and by thera would, easily and without cavil, be understood, though he cited a text of Zechariah, under the narae of Jeremy : for the illus tration of which matter, we must first produce a record of their own. The Babylon Talniud"^ is discoursing concerning the order, in which the books of the Old Testaraent were ordered and ranked of old. And, first, they show, that there was this general division of it, into CDOIDD n=i'N'D3 KiT'lIN 'the law,' ' the prophets,' and ' the hagiographa.' By the last meaning, the " Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Job, Ruth, Esther," &c. Then do they tell, that the books were particularly thus ranked: — the five Books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings: and then 'the prophets,' among whom Jeremiah was set first; and then Ezekiel ; and after him Isaiah; and then the twelve. But they object. Was not Isaiah long before Jeremiah and Ezekiel in time ? Why should he, then, be set after them in order ? And they V Chap, xxvii. 9. ¦! Chap. xi. 13. ' In Bava Bathra, fol. 14. f. 2. 158 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. give this answer, " The last Book of Kings ends with de struction, and Jeremiah is all destruction : Ezekiel begins with destruction and ends with corafort; and Isaiah is all comfort. Nnons'? Nnnmi x^aiinb N33-iin poao There fore, they joined destruction and destruction together, and comfort and comfort together." And thus, in their Bibles of old, Jeremiah came next after the Book of Kings, and stood first in the volume of the prophets. So that Matthew's alleging of a text of Zechariah, under the name of Jeremy, doth but allege a text out of the volume of the prophets, under his name that stood first in that volume: and such a manner of speech is that of Christy " All things must be fulfilled, which are written of me in the law, and the prophets, and the Psalms :" in which he follows the general division that we have mentioned, — only he calleth the ' whole third part,' or ' hagiographa,' by the title ' the Psalms,' because the Book of Psalms stood first of all the books of that part. In that saying. Matt. xvi. 14, " Others say Jeremias, or one of the prophets," there is the same reason, why Jeremiah alone is named by name, — viz. because his narae stood first in the volume of the prophets ; and so came first in theif way, when they were speaking ofthe prophets. Chiist's Arraignment before Pilate. The chief priests and elders bring Jesus to Pilate, but would not go into his house [the house of a heathen], " lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the pass- over'." Why ? They had eaten the passover over-night, at the same time that Jesus ate his : — and well they had spent the night after it. — But this day that was now come in, was nj'jm n"X-| " their day of presenting theraselves in the tem ple, and offering their sacrifices and peace-offerings," of which they were to keep a soleran feasting ; and this, John calls the Passover : in which sense Passover-bullocks are spoken of, Deut. xvi. 2 ; 2 Chron. xxx. 24 ; and xxxv. 8, 9. " The school of Shammai saith. Their appearing was with two pieces of silver, and their chagigah with a meah of sil^ ver : but the school of Hillel saith. Their appearirig was with a meah of silver, and their chagigah with two pieces of ' Jf^nke, xxiv. 44. t johfl, xviii. 28. Matt, xxvi, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 159 year of CHRIST 33. silver. Their burnt-offerings, at this solemnity, were taken from among common cattle ; but their peace-offerings from their tithes. He that keepeth not the chagigah on the first day of the feast, must keep it all the feast""," &c. Pilate conceives him brought to him as a common male factor ; and, therefore, he bids them take him back, and judge him by their own bench and law : and, in these words, he meant really, and according as the truth was, that it was in their power to judge and execute him, and needed not to trouble him with him. And when they answer, " We may not put any man to death"'," they speak truly also, and as the thing was indeed ; but the words of Pilate and theirs were not ' ad idem :' '3>i ^bo'i rrnn nn abiv njr m^ D'vaix mip >3n nWEJJ " It is a tradition, that, forty years before the temple was destroyed, capital judgments was taken away from them""." But how I Not by the Romans ; for they permit ted them the use of their rehgion, laws, magistracy, capital and penal executions and judgments, in almost all cases, as freely as ever they had ; and that both in their Sanhedrims, within the land, and in their synagogues, without, as far as the power of the synagogues could reach at any time : — as might be proved abundantly, if it were to be insisted on here. The words, then, of these men to Pilate, are true indeed, * That they could put no man to death ;' but this was not, as if the Romans had deprived the Sanhedrim of its power ; but, because thieves, raurderers, and raalefactors, of their own nation, were grown so nuraerous, strong, and heady, that they had overpowered the Sanhedrim's power ; that it could not. it durst not, execute capital penalties upon offenders, as it should have done. And this their own writings witness ; Juchasin, fol. 21 : "The Sanbedrira flitted forty years before the destruction of the temple ; namely, from that time that tbe temple-doors opened of their own accord, and Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai, rebuked them, and said, O temple, temple, Zechary, of old, prophesied of thee, saying. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may enter, &c. And also, because that murderers increased, and they were unwilling " Chagigah, cap. 1. ' John, xviii. 31. '* Jerns. in Sanhedr. fol. 18. 6o\. 1. 160 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c; YEAR OF CHRIST 33. to judge capital matters, they flitted from place ,to place, even to Jabneh," &c : which also is asserted in Shabb. fol. 51; Avodah Zarah, fol. 8. When they perceive, that Pilate no more received the irapression of their accusation of him as a malefactor, like others, — they then accuse him of treason, as forbidding to pay tribute to Csesar, and as saying, that he himself was a king; and this they thought would do the business. Pilate, here upon, takes him into his judgraent-hall [for hitherto the Jews' conference and his had been at his gate], and questions hira upon this point ; and Jesus plainly confesseth, that he was a king, but his kingdom not of this world ; — and, there fore, he needed not, frora him, to fear any prejudice from- the Roman power : — -and so well satisfies Pilate, that he brings him out to the gate again, where the Jews stood, and professeth. that he found no fault in him at all. Then the Jews lay in fresh accusations against him, to which he an swereth not a word. Brought before Herod. Pilate, by a word that dropped from them, understanding that he was of Galilee, Herod's jurisdiction, — sent him to Herod, who was now at Jerusalem : partly, because he would be content to have his hands shut of him ; and partly, be cause he would court Herod, towards the reconciling of old heart-burnings between them. And now Jesus sees the monster, that had murdered his forerunner. Herod was glad to see him, and had desired it a long time ; and now hoped to have got some miracles from him ; but he got not so much as one word, though he questioned him much ; and the Jews, who followed him thither, did vehemently accuse him. The old fox had sought and threatened his death before"; and yet now hath him in his hands, and lets him go,— only abused, and mocked, and gorgeously arrayed ;— and so sends him back to Pilate, that so he might court him again, more than for any content he had that he should escape his hands^. Before Pilate again. PiLATE,at hisgate, again talks with the Jews, and motions " Luke, xiii. 31, 32. y Set Acts, iv. 27. Matt, xxvi, &c.] THE NEW TESTxVMl'.N'r.— Part 1. KJl YEAR OF CHRIST 33. the release of the prisoner, and whether hira or Barabbas ; and leaves it to their thoughts, and goeth to his judgment- seat again. By this time is his lady stirring ; and, und&r- standing what business was in hand, she sends to him about her dream. He goes to the gate again, inquires what is their vote about the prisoner's release : — they are all for Barabbas. He puts it to the vote again, and they are the same still : — he urgeth a third time, and pleadeth the innocence of Jesus ; but they still urge for his crucifying. Then calls he for water, and washeth his hands, but instantly imbrues them in his blood. By this time it was " the third hour of the day ;" or, about nine o'clock, the tirae of the beginning of the raorning-sa- crifice. Hence, Mark'' begins to count ; naraely, from the time that Pilate delivered him up. He is whipped by Pilate ; led into the praatorium by the soldiers ; crowned with thorns [remember the earth's first curse, Gen. iii. 18] ; arrayed in scarlet, and a reed put into his hand for a sceptre ; and, in this garb, Pilate brings him forth to the gate to them again, and pubhsheth again, that he found no fault in him. They urge, that he ought to die, because he said, he was "the Son of God." This startles Pilate, and in he takes him again, and re-examines him ; but he would give him no answer, but only, " Thou couldest have no power over me, unless it was given thee from above," &c. Hereupon he goes out to the gate again, and urgeth for his release raore than ever. They answer, " Then he is no friend of Csesar ;" and this knocks the business dead. In, therefore, he goes again, and brings out Jesus, and sits down upon anothertribunalin pubhc; and Jesus standing before him in his scarlet robes and thorny crown, he tells the Jews, " Here is your king :"— " Our kiug ! (say they) away with him, crucify him."— "What! (saith he) shall I crucify your king .?"— They answer, " We have no king, but, Cajsar." Compare Zech. xi. 6; where their destruction is threatened to be by their king, Caesar ;— as it was, by Vespasian. ' Then he dehvers him up to be crucified ; and " it was the preparation ofthe Passover, and. about the sixth hour;" John, xix. 14. John seemeth the rather to have added this • Chap. XV. 25. VOL. III. *I 162 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. circumstance, not only to state the time, — which, indeed, was of weighty concernment, — but also to brand these Jews' impiety, and neglect of their religion, for the satisfying of their malice. This day was a very high day of their appear ance in temple, and their chagigah, as we touched before : and, in the morning, they durst not go into Pilate's palace, for fear of defiling, and lest they should be prevented of these great devotions ; and yet the day is thus far spent, and nothing done, but only they have purchased the shedding of so innocent blood. But John, in this passage, lays two visible scruples be fore us : Quest. 1. How is it possible to reconcile him and Mark together, when Mark"" saith, " It was the third hour, and they crucified him ;" whereas, he tells us, " It was the sixth hour, when Pilate delivered him up ?" Answ. 1. If we cast up in our thoughts, how many things were done this day, before his nailing to his cross, it cannot be imaginable, that they were all done before the ' third hour' of the day. The Sanhedrim meet, — sit in council, — exaraine the prisoner, and vote hira guilty ; — bring him to Pilate's palace, — there have manifold canvasses with Pilate, pro and contra, about him ; — bring him to Herod, where he is questioned about many things ; — his garments changed, and gorgeous robes put upon him, — and sent back to Pilate again. 'Then a fresh canvass, about him or Barabbas to be released, — and Pilate puts them to a three-times deliberation upon it: — then, overcome with their importunity, he washeth his hands,— scourgeth him,— and dehvers him up to them to be abused. The soldiers lead him into the hall,— make a crown of thorns, — divest and vest him anew, — and make sport with him at pleasure. Pilate again brings him forth,— and anew seeks and labours his release ;— brings him in again, and enters a new serious examination of him, hearing mention of his being ' the Son of God :'— goes out again, and labours all he can for his dehverance ;— but, being taxed, that then he could not be Caesar's friend, he goes to the bench, and formally passeth sentence upon him,— writes the titie of his cross,— the Jews, in the meanwhile, abusing him. Then he IS led forth out ofthe city, bearing his cross, and brought to * Chap. XV. 26. Matt. XXVI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part L 163 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. the place of execution, which was a good way off, — stripped, — hath wine, mingled with myrrh, given him to drink, which he refuseth, — is nailed to the cross, — his garments parted : and then Mark brings this in, " And it was the third hour, and they crucified him." — Now, this great multitude of various passages can hardly be conceived possible to have been gone through by the third hour of the day ; or, nine ofthe clock in the morning : — no, not though the Jews had bent them selves to despatch before that time, which was far from their thoughts. 2. Mark, therefore, in that calculation of the time, takes his date from the first time that Pilate gave him up to their abusings ; and his phrase may be taken of so comprehensive an intimation, as to speak both the time of his first giving up, ' at the third hour' of the day, and the time of his nailing to his cross, ' the third hour' from that. And, much after the same manner of account that our Sa viour's six hours' suffering, from Pilate's first giving him up, to his dying, are reckoned, so the four hundred and thirty years of sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt"", are computed ; namely, the one half before they carae into Egypt, and the other half after. Quest. 2. But it raay justly move a second ' qusere ;' " How Christ could be on his cross, and darkness begun, from the sixth hour," as the other evan gelists record it, — when John saith, that it was but ' aboilt the sixth hour,' when Pilate delivered him up ? Which words of John, as they raise the scruple, so they raay give the answer : for, it might very properly be said, and that ac cording to the usual speech ofthe nation, — that it was ' about the sixth hour,' when the sixth hour was but now beginning ; and, by the time that it was completed, all that might be despatched, that passed betwixt his sentencing and his being raised upon the cross. Crucified. Sentence of death was passed upon him, as he stood in his scarlet robes and thorny crown : and when the Jews have now their desire, they mock him, suddenly strip him, and put on his own clothes. Then taking him away to the place of execution, they lay his cross upon him : — such engines of •i Exod. xii. m2 164 HARMONY OF [Matt.xxvi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. death, doubtiess, lay always ready about the judgment-hall :— and so, as Isaac in the figure, he first bare the wood, that af terward must bear him^ The place of execution was without the city, nwno nwbwb yin as the Talmudists do determine, in Talm. Bab. Sanhedr. fol. 42. 2.— See how the apostle ap plies this to his suffering for the Gentiles, Heb. xiii. 12. By the time he was come out of the city-gates, they ob serve, that he is overburdened with his cross ; and thereupon, they force Simon, a Cyrenian, — some noted disciple behke,— to bear the end of it after him. They come to the place of execution, commonly called ' Golgotha,' not the place of graves, but ' the place of skulls :' where though, indeed, there were some burial ofthe executed, yet was it in such a manner, that the place deserved this name rather than the other : " For they buried not an exe cuted person in the grave of his fathers : but there were two places of burial for such : one for them, that were slain with the sword and strangled ; and the other for them, that were burnt and stoned : and when the flesh was wasted, the bones were gathered, and buried in the graves of their fathers" [Talm. ubi sup. fol. 46. 1]. The proper writing and pronun ciation of the word had been ' Golgolta ;' but use had now brought itto be uttered Golgotha; wbich very pronunciation the Samaritan version useth, in Num. i. They first strip him, and then offer him intoxicating wine ; which, when he tasted, he refused to drink. ^'pt^D jnn'^ NSVn inyi tyilDDW n^ \" b\D ona m)3.b bw onip inx " When any per son was brought forth to be put to death, they gave him to drink some frankincense in a cup of wine, that it might stu pify him : as it is said, ' Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts.' And there is a tradition, that the gentlewomen of Jerusalem afforded this of their good will," &c. [Tal. Bab. ibid. fol. 43. 1.] And let it not be impertinent to add that, which im mediately follows in the same page : " A crier went before him, that was to be executed, which proclaimed, N. the son of N. is going to execution, because he hath committed such a fact ; and N. and N. are witnesses against him ; if there be any that can clear him, let them speak." And instantiy " Gen. xxii. 6 9. Matt, xxvi, &c.] THE NEW TESrAMENT.— Part I. 165 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. after : " There is a tradition, that they hanged Jesus on the eve of the Passover ; and a crier went before him forty days, — Such a one goes to be put to death, because he hath be witched, deceived, and perverted Israel : if any one can say any thing for his clearing, let him come, and speak : but they found no clearing of him; therefore, they hanged him upon the eve of the Passover," &c. He is nailed to his cross, hands and feet ; and so the Jews'* themselves confess Abel, his figure, to have been wounded by Cain ; and Isaac, to have been bound on the altar". And with him are crucified two malefactors [compare Joseph be twixt two offenders']. Aijorat, in Josephus's construction, will help us to understand the sense of the word here. — Four soldiers part his garments, and cast lots for his coat ; and sit down to watch him. Over his head was his cause Written ; in the expression of which, the variety of the evangelists shows their style, and how where one speaks short, another enlargeth, and what need of taking all together to make up the full story. Mark hath it, ' The King of the Jews :' Luke, ' This is the King of the Jews :' Matthew, ' This is Jesus, the King of the Jews :' John, ' Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews :' where the main thing regarded is, that he was condemned for taking on him to be ' King of the Jews,' as they pretended ; which was also pretended to be treason against Csesar : and to this point all the evangelists speak alike, — and their variety is only in wording this for the reader's understanding : and he that spake shortest, spake enough to express the matter of his accusation ; and the rest, that speak larger, are but a com ment upon the same thing. The three tongues, in which this was written, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, are thus spoken of in Midras Tillim, fol. 25. col. 4 : " R. Jochanan saith. There are three tongues : the Latin tongue, for war ; the Greek tongue, for speech ; and the Hebrew, for prayer." All sorts of people had followed him to the execution : some openly wept for him and bewailed him, which was not a thing usual in such cases. In the Talmudic tract last cited, fol. 46. 2, there is this strange doctrine; ^IN I'^aNJiD l»n ub 3^3 nbn niWN \>i<^ yyi'tii " They bewailed not him, tiiat ¦> Tanoli. fol. 3. col. 4. ' Idem. fol. i2. col. 2. ' Gen. xl. 1 66 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxvi, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. went to be executed, but only mourned inwardly for him." And what think you was the reason ,'' The gloss tells you thus ; " They bewailed him not, because his disgrace might be his expiation :" — meaning, that whereas they accounted, that the more shame and punishment a condemned person suffered, the more these tended to his expiation, — they there fore would not openly bewail him ; for that would have been some honour to him, and so would have abated of his ex piation ; but none lamenting for him, it was the greater dis grace ; and the greater the disgrace, the better was his sin [as they thought] expiated and atoned for. This strange custom and opinion, doth set forth this public bewailing of Christ the more remarkably. Others, when he was now raised upon his cross, reviled him ; among whora were the chief priests, scribes, and elders : who had so little to do, or rather their raalice so much, as to attend the execution. They were, at first, in some hesitancy, whether he would not deliver himself by a miracle : but when they saw he did not, then they triumph and insult at no measure. Nay, the thieves, that were crucified with him, spared hira not ; for so Matthew and Mark tell us : but at last one of thera becoraes a convert, and receives assurance of being that day with him in paradise, [py ]X2 a phrase very usual with them.] Compare the case of Joseph's feUow- prisonerss, — the one desiring him to remember him, and escaping, — and the other not. It raay be, the darkness, now begun in an extraordinary and dreadful manner, was some means of working upon this thief, for his conviction that Jesus was the Messias : for in^ stantly upon his raising upon his cross, it was now ' the sixth hour,' or high noon complete ; and the darkness began, and continued till three o'clock afternoon : the very space of time of the day, that Adam lay in darkness without the promise, from the time of his fall, till God came and revealed Christ to him. By the cross stood the mother of Jesus, now a widow, and, as it seemeth, destitute of raaintenance; therefore, he commendeth her to the care and charge of his beloved dis ciple, John. ]>mv 'DDJD r-i'W'j r^Mbu " A widow was to be s Gen, xl. Matt, xxvi, &c,l THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part 1. 167 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. maintained out of the estate of her husband's heirs, until she received her dowry\" But the poverty of Joseph and Mary afforded neither heritage nor dower ; nor had they any chil dren but Jesus, who was now dying. If those that are called ' the brethren of Jesus,' were the sons of Joseph by another wife, as some have thought them, — they had been fittest to have been charged with the maintenance of the widow. About the ninth hour Jesus crieth out, ' Eli, Eli, lama sa- bachthani j" that is, " My God, my God, why hast thou left me f" ^ot forsaken him, as to the feeling of any spiritual de sertion ; but why left to such hands, and to such cruel usage ? Some said, hereupon, ' He called Elias :' but was this said in mockery ? or, indeed, did they think his words ' Eli, Eli,' meant ' Elias ?' Two things might make them really think so : the Unusualness of the word ' Eli,' or ' Elohi,' in their Syriac tongue, — the word ' Mari' being it, by which they com monly expressed the sense of that. And, 2. The common opinion and legends that they had of Elias's coming to com fort and resolve men in distress and perplexity ; of which their Talmuds give not a few examples. Complaining of thirst, he had vinegar given him ; which having tasted, and feeling the pangs of death come upon him, he saith, " It is finished ;" and giving up a great cry, and committing his spirit to God, he dieth, — at the time of the evening-sacrifice. At which instant, there was an earth quake, which rent the rocks : and the vail of the temple was then also rent in the middle. The priest, that offered incense that evening-sacrifice time, could bring an amazed testimony of this, when he came forth. The renting of the rocks light in such a place, as where were the graves of many saints hewn out, which now were opened ; — and showed the con quest over the grave ; — and at another earthquake, at which Christ's grave was opened on the morning of his resurrec tion, the mouldered bodies of these graves revived ; and, after his rising, they came out of the graves also, and came into " the holy city." Observe, that Matthew, xxvii. 53, calls Jeru salem ' The holy city,' when it hath now murdered Christ. How great a matter must it be, that must unchurch a nation ! k Maim, in nWN cap. 18. 168 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxviii, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. The centurion and the company present, at the sight of what strange things had occurred, return much affected, and full of thoughts about what was done. As the evening grew on, the Jews desire and obtain, that the legs of them might be broken ; so to hasten their end, that they might not hang on the cross all night. This despatched the penitent thief [howsoever it did the other] ; as we may conclude from the words of Christ, that told him of being that day in paradise : but, Christ being dead already, they brake no bone of him; but one with aspearpierceth him ; and out of his side cometh water and blood, distinct and discernible, the one from the other. At even, Joseph of Arimathea, Sarauel's town", a priest or a Levite, one of the KIDII^IS rowb ' council-chamber of the temple,' begs the body of Jesus ; which, otherwise, should have been buried in the common graves of malefactors, — and entombs it in his own tomb, Nicodemus joining with him : and the woraen, observing where he was laid, go and prepare spices for his farther erabalming, when the sabbath was over : all showing their love to him, — but. in this very action, showing their little expecting his resurrection. SECTION LXXXVII. MATT. chap. XXVIII, from the beginning to ver. 16. MARK, chap. XVI, from the beginning to ver. 12. LUKE, chap. XXIV, from the beginning to ver. 13. JOHN, chap. XX, from the beginning to ver. 19. Christ's Resurrection : his first appearing ; viz, to Mary Magdalen, As for the subsequence of this section to the preceding, there can be no scruple ; but it requires some heedfulness to lay the story in it, in its proper currency, because of some seeming diversities in the four, in their relating the story of it. The Lord of life was under death about thirty-six hours ; and so long was that day, wherein the sun stood still in the time of Joshua : as Kirachi saith^ it is the acknowledgment ofthe Jews. ' 1 Sam. i. 1. k On Josh. x. Matt. XXVIII, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 169 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. Christ himself calleth this space ' three days and three nights' ;' whereas it was but two nights and one whole day, and two sraall parts of two raore. And yet herein he speaketh warrantably, even by the known and allowed dialect of the nation. Both the Talmuds, in the treatise Shabbath, cap. 9, do dispute about the ' three days,' that Israel sepa rated from their wives before the giving ofthe law"" ; and, among other things, they have these passages : " R. Akibah made the day a n:iy, and the night a n3iy ; and so did R. Ismael. But this is a tradition, R. Eliezer Ben Azariah saith, 1^133 n3iy nspoi naiy nV^I dv. A day and a night make a 131]/, and a part of a nJiy is accounted as the whole." — Ob serve these last words to the purpose that we are upon : three natural days, by this rule, were three niJiy, and any part of any of these, was accounted as the whole ofit. The evangelists seem to differ somewhat in the mention ofthe time of the women's coming to the sepulchre. John saitk, ' Mary Magdalen came, while it was yet dark :' Mat thew, ' when it began to dawn :' whereas Mark saith, ' she and the other women came thither at sun-rising :' all which together speak the story to the full to this tenor : — That at the dawning, and while it was yet dark,-the women, as soon as they could see [at the least Mary Magdalen], set out to go to the sepulchre : and that was at the very instant of Christ's rising, when there was a great earthquake ; and an angel carae, and rolled away the stone. Mary Magdalen came from Bethany, from her brother Lazarus's house,— if she came from her own home ; and the other women were at their several lodgings ; and to get them all together [for they were to go about this work all together], would spend some time : so that though Mary were so eariy stirring, yet, be fore they were all got together to the sepulchre, it was sun- rising. These women little knew ofthe watch, that was set over the grave, and the sealing of the stone, which was done on the raorning of the sabbath ; for all their care is, how to get the stone rolled away. When they come there, they find that done already; and the watch was fled; and the angel, that had rolled it away, sitting on it on the right hand i.MaU. xii. 40. i" Exod. xix. 15. 170 HARMONY OF [Luke, xxiv, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. of the entering in ; and when they were entered in, they saw another angel, which both told thera of his being risen. And thus Matthew and Mark, that mention but one angel,^are to be reconciled to Luke, who speaketh of two. The women return, and tell the disciples what they had seen ; " but their words seera to them as idle tales :" yea, Mary herself yet believed not, that he was risen. It is worth studying upon the faith of the disciples : it was a saving faith in Christ ; and yet they believed not, that he should die, till he was dead ; nor believed that he should rise again, — no, not when he was now risen. Peter and John run to the sepulchre, and Mary Mag dalen follows them : they see the body gone, and the clothes lying there [and John proves the first that believes his re surrection], and they return home ; but Mary stays there weeping still : and, looking in, she sees two angels, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body had lain [like the two cherubims at either end of the ark] : and, looking behind her, she seeth Jesus, and thought it had been the gardener ; but presently knew him, and comes away to bring the disciples word. Here Matthew speaks short : for he mentioned but one journey ofthe women to the grave, and back ; and saith, that, as they came back, Jesus met them : whereas Mary had two journeys ; and it was she alone that met him, and that in her second return. As she returned, now, the watchmen are come into the city, and bribed to deny that he was risen ; and so the chief priests and elders give money, to hire the nation into unbehef SECTION LXXXVIII. ¦ f LUKE, chap. XXIV, from ver. 13 to ver. 36. MARK, chap. XVI, ver. 12, 13. His second appearing ; viz. to Peter and Alpheus, going to Emmaus. The same day, in the afternoon, two of them went to Emmaus, a town sixty furiongs, or seven miles and a half, from Jerusalem. Josephus placeth it at the very same dis tance, De Bello, lib. 7. cap. 27 ; calling it there ' Ammaus,' and relating how Vespasian, after the destruction of Jeru- Luke, xxiv, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part I. 171 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. salem, gave it for the habitation of some of the Roman sol diery left there. But. in Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 12, he calls it ' Emmaus,' and relates how it was fired by Varus, 8tc. It lay in the way towards some part of-Galilee ; and, it may be, these two men were now returning home thither, and in tended to lodge at Emmaus the first night: but now they stop their journey, and return thence, the same night, to Jeru salem. The two were Peter and Alpheus, the father of three apostles, who also was called Cleophas. See ver. 18. 34. — Qf this appearance to Peter, Paul speaks, 1 Cor. xv. 5. And that Alpheus and Cleophas were but one and the same person, may not only be conjectured from the nearness of the sound, and from their being written in Hebrew with the same letters, >tibn ; but it is made plain in John, xix. 25, where she is called ' Mary, the wife of Cleophas,' who, in the other evangehsts, is clearly evidenced to be ' Mary, the wife of Alpheus,' the mother of James and Joses", &c. SECTION LXXXIX. LUKE, chap. XXIV, frora ver. 36 to ver. 48. JOHN, chap. XX, from ver. 19 to ver. 26. MARK, chap. XVI, ver. 14. His third appearing ; viz. to the Eleven. The connexion is plain in John and Luke : for the former saith, " The same day, at evening, being the first day of the week." &c : and the other, that as they were speaking of his appearing to the two at Emmaus, he carae in among them. "The first day ofthe week" is an ordinary Judaic phrase, nau/n intt ; and so they reckon the days forward Oty D2w:i "The second day of the week:" r\^W^ >Ufbw "The third day ofthe week," &c. They that are now so very punctual to have the days so named, and no otherwise, mis take that for a phrase purely evangelical, which, indeed, is a phrase purely Judaical. As they sat at supper, Jesus cometh in among them ; shows them his hands and side ; eateth with them ; openeth the Scriptures, and their understandings; breatheth upon them, and saith, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," &c. "Whose " Matt, xxvii. 56. Mark, xv. 40. 172 HARMONY OF [John, xx. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. soever sins ye remit," &c. This was to interest them in a power and privilege, peculiar and distinct from any they had received yet, — and distinct from that they were to re ceive on Pentecost-day ; viz. this invested them in power of life and death, to inflict death, or corporal plagues, miracu lously, upon the enemies or disgracers of the gospel; or to spare them, as they should be directed by the Holy Ghost, which they here received. The death of Ananias and Sap phira, was a fruit of this power, as is observed at that story. Thomas was not present at this time, and yet.Mark saith, " He appeared unto the eleven, as they sat at meat :"— rand so Luke, xxiv. 33 ; " Peter and Cleophas found the eleven gathered together," &c. Nay, 1 Cor. xv. 5, "He was seen of the twelve :" the title of the whole chorus being used, though all were not present. SECTION XC. JOHN, chap. XX, from ver. 26 to the end. His fourth appearing : Thomas now present. John saith, this was "after eight days," which, reckoning the days current, was that day seven-night, or the first day of the week again : a second establishment of that day for the Christian sabbath. Thomas, upon seeing, believes ; but " blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." See 1 Pet. i. 8. " R. Simeon Ben Lachish saith, A proselyte is more lovely in the sight of God, than all that company that stood at mount Sinai. Why ? Because they, if they had not seen the thunder, and lightnings, and fire, and the mountains trembling, and the sound ofthe trumpet, they would not have received the law : but a proselyte, though he see none of these things, yet he coraes and gives up himself to God, and takes upon him the kingdom of heaven"." " Tanohnm.fol. 8. col. 1. John, XXI, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 173 VEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION XCI. JOHN, chap. XXI; all the chapter. MATT. chap. XXVIII, ver. 16: "Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee." A fifth appearing; to seven of tlie Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias, Sfc. Christ, before his death, had told them of his meeting with them in Galilee, after his resurrection : and when he was risen, he appoints them to a mountain there. They are now come up into the country ; and while they wait the time of his appointment, Peter, and six other of the apostles, go a fishing : not as their trade now,— for they never had been all of them fishers before ; but either for a present supply of pro vision for themselves, or for present employraent, till their Master should dispose of them. He had, at first, revealed himself to three of these seven [nay, four, if Andrew were here], by a miraculous draught of fishes ; and so he doth to them all now : and who can tell, whether they had not some thoughts of that, and some expectation of the like appearing now, which did the rather urge them to this work ? At sea, he helpeth them to a marvellous draught of one hundred and fifty-three great fishes [so many thousands were the proselytes, that wrought for the temple, only six hundred overP] ; and at land, he had provided thera a dinner against they came ashore, and dines with them. And ' this (saith John) was the third time that he showed himself to his disciples :' which asserts the order of this section ; and showeth that this was before his appearing to the whole number at the mountain, where he had appointed them : the two times that he had ap peared to them before this, this evangelist giveth account of before ; — namely, one time when Thomas was not present, — and another time, when he was. After dinner, he putteth Peter to a threefold confession, answerable to his threefold denial, and foretelleth his martyr dom; but telleth that John should live, "till he should come:" —meaning in that sense, as his ' coming' and ' coming in glory' is oft used in the gospel ; — namely, his ' coming to take vengeance ofthe unbeheving Jewish nation :' Peter should be martyred by them ; but John should live to see theni receive their deserts. p 2 Chron. ii. 17. 174 HARMONY OF [Matt, xxviii, 5cc. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. SECTION XCII. MATT. chap. XXVIII, from ver. 17 to the end. MARK, chap. XVI, ver. 15—18. LUKE, chap. XXIV, ver. 49. A sixth appearing ; at the Mountain in Galilee, to all the Eleven, and five hundred more. His appointing them into Galilee to such a mount [itis like to that mount near Capernaum, where he had chosen the apostles and made his sermon''], was not barely to appear to the eleven, — for that had he done before, and that could he have done at Jerusalem, — but it was an intended meeting, not only with the eleven, but with the whole multitude of his Galilean and other disciples ; and, therefore, he published this appointment so oft, before and after his resurrection : and we cannot so properly understand his being "seen of above five hundred brethren at once," of which the apostle speaketh', of any other time and place as of this : he had appointed the place ; and the concourse argueth, that he had appointed the time too ; or, at least, this concourse waited at the place, till his tirae should corae. And here may we conceive, that he kept the Lord's day, on the first day of the week, for the Christian sabbath, with this multitude of bis disciples ; re vealing himself clearly to them, and preaching to them ofthe things that concerned the kingdom of God. Particularly, he gives command and commission to "go and disciple all nations :" for whereas hitherto he had con fined to preach only to Israel, now must they preach to " every creature":" Trdtry Kriau [see Col. i. 23] : nvnin biD^ is the Jews' ordinary language; that is, 'to all men.' \Vj} nini!? ynilD nii'^DI " Solomon, in his Proverbs, makes known theory and practice to the creatures'." nm^n b)t t^npn nn mtWD " He causeth the Holy Ghost to dwell upon the creatures"." "Nim- rod made idols nv"inn nj/DDI and caused the creatures to err'." "The Lord requires that mn3 the creatures should pray before him™." In which, and a hundred other in stances that might be given, the word ' creatures,' signifieth "* Matt. V. r 1 Cor. xt. 6 » MaHt, xri. 15. ' Kafveiiaki in Prov. i. u Midr. Til. in Psal. 135. ' Tanch. fol. 8. 4. » Id. fol. 16. 4. Matt. XXVIII, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 175 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. only ' men :' and their charge and commission to preach the gospel to ' every creature,' means ' to all men,' — the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Warrant, then, and charge, is given for the fetching of them in [the great mystery*], who had lain subject to vanity of idolatry, and under the bondage of all manner of corrup tion, ever since their casting off at Babel, two thousand two hundred and three years ago. They had been taught of the devil, his oracles and delusions, &c; but now "they must all be taught of God"," by the preaching of the gospel. They had, in some few numbers in this space, been taught by Israel to know the Lord, and proselyted into their religion ; but now, such proselyting should not be needed ; for all must come to the knowledge of God'', the gospel carrying the knowledge of him, and it being carried through all nations. Those of them, that had come into the church of Israel and the true religion, had been inducted and sealed into it, by being bap tized". And so that proselyte sacrament, as I may so call it, must be carried and continued among all nations, as a badge of homage and subjection to Christ, to whom "all power is given in heaven and earth ;" and of the profession of the true God, " the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," against all false gods and false worship. Infants, bom of Christian parents, are to bear this badge, though, when they undertake it, they understand not what they do ; because none in Chris tian families should continue without the note of homage to Christ's sovereignty, and this distinctive mark against hea thenism, that worshippeth false gods ; as no male among Israel, after eight days old, must be without the badge of circumcision. ' Disciphng' was not of persons already taught ; but to that end, that they should be taught: and if the disciples un derstood this word in Christ's command after any other sense, it was different from the sense ofthe word, which the nation had ever used and only used ; for, in their schools, a person was made TD^n ' a scholar,' or • disciple,' when he gave in himself to such a master, to be taught and trained up by him : and in the discipling of proselytes to the Jews' religion, it was of the very like tenor. That sense, therefore, that " Eph. iii. 4. 6. =¦ Isa. liv. 13. > Heh, viii. 11. ^ Talm. in Jebam, cap. 4, &c. 176 HARMONY OF [Matt. xxviii,&c. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. many put upon these words, — viz. that none are to be baptized but those that are thoroughly taught, — is such a one, as the aposties and all the Jewish nation had never known or heard of before. That wretched and horrid opinion, that denieth the God head of Christ, and the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, httle observeth, or at least will not see, why the administration of baptism among the Gentiles must be in the name of "the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ;" whereas, among the Jews, it was only in the name of ' Jesus%'— namely, for this reason ; that as, by that among the Jews, Jesus was to be professed for the true Messias, against all other ; so, by this, among the Gentiles, who had worshipped false gods, — " the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," should be professed the only true God. And it would be but a wild, as well as an irreligious, para phrase, that that opinion would make of this passage, — " Go, preach the gospel to every creature ;" and baptize them in the name of the Son, a creature, — and the Holy Ghost, a creature. He promiseth the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost to them, that should believe [not to all, but to some, for the confirmation of the doctrine] ; and chargeth the disciples to return to Jerusalem, and there to stay, till he should pour down the Holy Ghost upon them, to enable thera for this ministry araong all nations, to which he had designed them. Mark and Luke do briefly add the story of his ascension, be cause they will despatch his whole story ; but that is re lated more amply, Acts i. A seventh appearing ; to James. After the appearing to above five hundred brethren at once, — which we'suppose, and not without ground, to have been that last mentioned, — the apostle"" relateth, that "he was seen of James, and then of all the apostles :" which doth plainly rank this appearance to Jaraes between that to the five hundred brethren on the mountain, in Galilee, and his coming to all the aposties, when they were come again to Jerusalera. Which James this was, Paul is silent of; as all the evangehsts are, of any such particular appearance. It is most like, he means James the Less, of whom he speaks oft ,*. » Acts, ii. 38. b 1 Cor. xv. 7. Matt. XXVIII, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part I. 177 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. elsewhere ; and so doth the story of the Acts of the Apostles, as one of the specialer note in the time of Paul's preaching among the Gentiles. We read oft, in the Gospels, of Peter, and James, and John, three disciples of singular eminency, in regard of the privacy that Christ vouchsafed to them at some special times, more than to the other apostles ; and in that he badged them with a peculiar mark of changing their names, and did not so by any ofthe others. But that James was the son of Zebedee : now, when he was martyred"", you find that James, the son of Alpheus, called James the Less, came to be ranked in the like dignity with Peter and John, and was minister of the circumcision, in special manner with them^ ; they, to the Jews scattered abroad, — and he, residen tiary in Judea^. If we question how he, of all the rest of the apostles, came in, to make up that triumvirate, when the other James was gone,' — we cannot tell where so pregnantly to give an answer as from hence ; in that Christ vouchsafed thus particularly to appear to him, — which was not only an argu ment, but might carry the virtue of a command, to bring him into that rank, office, and employment, when the other James had run his course. = Acts, xii. ll Gal. ii. 9. "= See Acts, xv. 13, and xxi. 18. Gal. ii. 13. VOL. III. the HARMONY, CHRONICLE, AND ORDER, OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Viz. THE CHRONICLE AND ORDER OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, THE EPISTLES, AND THE REVELATION. N 2 the HARMONY THE NEW TESTAMENT ACTS, chap. I. r ROM Galilee, where Christ had last appeared to his dis ciples, he remandeth them back to Jerusalem, 33 Christ, and there cometh again to them : where, among other conference, they question him, whether he would, " at that time, restore the kingdom to Israel ?" His summoning them again to that place, the metropolis, it may be, gave them occasion to move that question ; they, as yet, with the rest of the nation, conceiting the Messias a temporal deliverer ; and possibly not fully understanding what he meant by ' the promise of the Father.' His answer, " It is not for you to know the tiraes and seasons," intimates not, that ever there should be such a restoration ; but it smartly checketh their curiosity, as erroneous and needless ; and sets them to look off earthly longings, to mind the business they had to do, — viz. to preach him through the world. He lead eth them out as far on mount Olivet, as where it began to be called Bethany; and there, about the place where he had begun his triumphant riding upon an ass into Jerusalem, he now rides triumphantly into heaven in a cloud. The disciples, — having seen his ascension, and two angels that told them of his coming again, in hke manner as he went, — return to Jerusalem, and there go up into an upper room, and their number is summed up a hundred and twenty. n"^y ' An upper room' was ordinarily chosen by the learned of the Jews for their meeting-place, to discuss 182 HARMONY OF [AcTs.i, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. and determine matters of learning and religion. " These are the articles, that the schools of Shammai and Hillel dis cussed t~\'>bjf^ in the chamber, or upper room, of Chananiah Ben Hezekiah%" &c. m^n onK nO n"^y " The upper room of Beth Arum, in LyddaV &c. A hundred and twenty were not all the present profes sors in Jerusalem; but these, spoken of, were they, that were of Christ's constant retinue, and " companied with him all the time that he went in and out among thera'^ ;" and who, being constant witnesses of his actions, and auditors of his doctrine, were appointed by him for the ministry. These are they that the story meaneth all along in these passages : "They were all together"*." — "They went to their com pany"." — "Look ye out among yourselves^" — "They were all scattered abroad except the apostles^." — " They which were scattered abroad, preachedV' See The Jews say, " Ezra's great synagogue, was of a hundred and twenty men'." And their canons allow not the setting up of a Sanhedrim of three-and-twenty judges, in any city, but where there were a hundred and twenty men fit, some for one office and em ployment, some for another-'. The activity of Peter in the woik of the gospel, men tioned more along this story, than of any ofthe others, was not only enjoined, but also enlivened, by that saying of his Master, " When thou art converted, strengthen thy breth ren:"— and he, that had fallen so foul, as he had done, had need of all industry to evidence his recovery, and to get ground again. The phrase, in ver. 25, " Judas is gone to his own place," may properiy be compared with the opinion of the nation, about a traitor :— " He that betrayeth an Israelite, either body or goods, into the hands of the heathen, hath no portion in the world to come" :" and with the gloss of Baal Turim upon these words, in Num. xxiv. 25; " Balaam went to his own place ;"— " They mean (saith he), that he went to hell." » Shab. cap. 1. hal. 4. b jems. Pesachin, fol. 30. col. 2. Acts, I. 21. J Chap. II. 1. e Chap. iv. 23. f Chap. ti. 3, S Chap. VIII. » Chap. XI 19 i Aboth R. Nathan, cap. 4. Jnchasin, fol. 13. J Talra. in Sanhedr. cap. 1. and Maimonides in his treatise ofthe same name. cap. 1. ' Maim, in Chobel Umazeik, cap. 8. Acts, II.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 183 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. ACTS, chap. II. The expectation of the nation, grounded from Dan. ix, that the Messias should appear about this time', had brought multitudes of Jews out of all nations to see the issue : and Pentecost having brought up also all the country of Judea to celebrate that feast ; — in this double conflux of people, the Holy Ghost is given, and cometh down upon the hundred and twenty disciples, in the likeness of fiery tongues : at which very time of the year, and in fire, the law had been given, one thousand four hundred and forty-seven years ago. The Jerusalem Gemarists in Taanith", have a saying, " That as Jerusalem was destroyed by fire, so should it be rebuilt by fire." And in Jom Tob" and Chagigah" they say, that " David died at the feast of Pentecost." Both passages regardable at this place. As the confusion of tongues at Babel had caused the casting off of the Gentiles, by severing them from the parti cipation of the true religion [which was only professed and known in the Hebrew tongue], so was the gift of tongues to be a needful means, to bring them into rehgion again ; when every one may hear of the things of God in his own language. The disciples were doubly endowed by this gift, as to the matter of language ; for they were hereby enabled to speak to every nation in their own tongue : and not that only, — but they were enabled to understand the originals of Scripture, which they understood not before. Their birth and breed ing had not allowed them so much learning as to understand any Bible, that was then extant, either Hebrew or Greek ; but here is the first operation of this gift of the Spirit upon them, that they are first made able to understand the origi nals of Scripture, and then able to unlock them to any one in their own tongue. And here should they begin, that take on them to expound the Scriptures by the Spirit,— namely, to unlock the difficulties of the original languages [for therein the mainest difficulty ofthe Scripture lodgeth], according as was the method of the Spirit's operation in the aposties. Pentecost was a time of rejoicing; and at all such festi- Lnkej xtt. 11. -" Fol- ^5- =»'• 3- " *¦"'• ^^' '"''• ^• o Fol. 78. col. 1. 184 HARMONY OF [Acts,ii YEAR OF CHRIST 33. vities, the Jews had ever good store of wine stirring : so that these men conclude, that they had drunk too much, and spoke as raen distract : which Peter confutes, by telling them, it was "not yet the third 1 our ofthe day," or nine o'clock. For, upon their sabbaths and holidays, they used not to eat or drink, till their synagogue-service was doneP; — which was not of a good while after nine o'clock. His alleging of Joel, " In the last days I will pour out my Spirit," &c. teacheth us how to construe the phrase, " The last days," in exceeding many places both of the Old Testament and the New"! ; namely, for the last days of Jeru salem and the Jewish state. For, to take his words in any other sense [as some do for " the last days of the world"], is to make his allegation utterly impertinent and monstrous. Three thousand, converted, are baptized "in the name of the Lord JesusV which no whit disagreeth from the com mand, " Baptize in the name of the Father and of the SonV &c. For the form of baptism in those first days of the gos pel, of which the New Testament giveth the story, may be considered under a threefold condition : — 1. John the Bap tist baptized in the name of Messias, or Christ, that was then ready to come ; but that Jesus of Nazareth was he, he himself knew not, till he had run a good part of his course', as was observed before. 2. The disciples, baptizing the Jews, baptized them 'in the name of Jesus,' upon this rea son,— because the great point of controversy then in the nation about Messias was, ' whether Jesus of Nazareth were he or no.' All the nation acknowledged a Messias ; but the most of them abominated, that Jesus of Nazareth should be thought to be he: therefore those, that, by the preaching of the gospel, came to acknowledge him to be Messias, were baptized into his name, as the critical badge of their em bracing the true Messias. But, 3. Among the Gentiles, where that question was not afoot, they baptized ' in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and ofthe Holy Ghost ' And so that baptizing ' in the name of Jesus,' was, for a season, for the settimg of the evidence of his being Messias ; and = i T - « . ™.. . " ^^™- in Shab. cap. 30. 1 As, Isa. u. 2. 1 Tim. iv. 1. and 2 Tim. iii. i i Pet ;. r i r i ¦..<,«, r Acts ii U>0 bw inn " The Spirit of Messias" was in honourable mention and esteem in the nation, in their common speech ; though they would not l" Chap. ii. 43, and W. 35. 188 HARMONY OF [.Acts, v. YEAR OF CHRIST 33. know him, when he was revealed. Now the sin of this couple was, first, covetousness, — but, especially, presuming to play false, and yet thinking to go undiscovered of that Spirit, which wrought so powerfully in the apostles. That cursed opinion, that denies the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, runs parallel with this sin of Ananias and Sapphira to a hair. Peter's warrant for this execution we may read in that passage, " He breathed on them and said. Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins ye remit, they are remitted, — and whose sins ye retain, they are retained"^." How ? To forgive sins absolutely ? this belongs only to God. Was it to forgive them declaratively ? this seems too low a construction, and too restrained. It seemeth, therefore, the most proper mean ing of this donation, that he now endued them with power, to avenge what sins the Holy Ghost [now received] should direct them, to avenge with bodily plagues, giving up to Satan, or with death : and again, to remit such penalties, as they should be directed to remit, and they should be remit ted. The Holy Ghost, whom they had received then with so peculiar a power, Ananias and Sapphira do here plainly vilify, and affront directly ; therefore, an execution of such power upon them was as proper and direct. But be it whe ther it will, that Peter took his warrant originally from thence, or had it instantly by some immediate revelation, — as the judgment was fearful, so his executing of it was re markable ; showing, at once, his assurance of the pardon of his own lying against his Master, when he can, and dare, thus avenge a lie against the Holy Ghost : and also his just zeal and activity for the honour of his Master, whom he had denied. It is said, in ver. 12, " They were all in Solomon's porch," which was the east cloister ofthe mount ofthe temple; and in part of it did the Sanhedrim now sit, and the aposties not afraid to act so near them : but at last they are apprehended and imprisoned, but miraculously enlarged, and preaching in the teraple again : and, thereupon, convented before the coun cil. Gamaliel, Paul's raaster, was now president, and conti nued in this dignity till within eighteen years of the destruc tion of the city. He pleadeth here for the aposties, not out ' John, XX. 22, 23. AcTSiVnvii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 189 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. of any love to their persons or doctrine, for he lived and died a downright Pharisee : but partly, because be saw the Sad ducees at present the chief agents against them, — and chiefly, because the miracles they wrought, were so plain and con vincing, that he could move no less than what he did. And yet, for all the fairness of this man at this time, yet did he afterward ordain and publish that prayer called D'J'D r~l3"a " The prayer against heretics," meaning Christians ; framed. indeed, by Samuel Katon, but approved and authorized by this man, president of the Sanhedrim [then at Jabneh], and commanded to be used constantly in their synagogues ; in which they prayed against the gospel and the professors of it-^. ACTS, chap. VI, VII. The seven deacons [as they are commonly called] chosen by occasion of the ' Hellenists' raurrauring against the ' He brews,' about neglect of their widows. The ' Hebrews' were Jews, the inhabitants of Judea ; and the ' Hellenists' those Jews, that lived in other countries dispersedly araong the Greeks : not only in Greece, but almost in all other countries, which the conquests of Alexander, and the continuance of the Syro-Grecian monarchy after hira, had filled with Greeks, as all countries also were filled with Jews. In all the Jews' synagogues there were ^DnD ' Parnasin,' deacons, or such as had care of the poor, whose work it was to gather alms for them from the congregation, and to distri bute it to them, npnx p'?nV "j vr\>u; -na nns niyi npns toj m " There were two, that gathered alms for them ; and one more added, to distribute it to them^" " R. Chelbe, in the name of R. Ba Bar Zabda, saith. They appoint not less than -three Parnasin. For if judgment about pecuniary matters were judged by three, much more this matter, which con cerneth life, is to be managed by three'." That needful office is here translated into the Christian church : and the seven are chosen to this work, out of the number of the hundred and twenty, that are mentioned chap. i. 15 :— and that com pany only was the choosers of them, and not all the beUevers * Taanith, fol. 65. 3. Maim, in Tephil. cap. 2. " Maim, in Sanhedr, cap, 1. f Jerus. in Peah, fol. 21. col. 1. 190 HARMONY OF [Acts, vi, vii, YEAR OF CHRIST 33. in Jerusalem. The reason why the Hebrews neglected the widows of the Hellenists, may be supposed, either because they would stick to their old rule, mentioned once before, " that a widow was to be maintained by her husband's chil- drens" [corapare 1 Tim. v. 4] ; or, because the Hebrews of Judea had brought in more into the common stock for the poor, by sale of their goods and lands, than those that had come from foreign countries, had done, they not having goods and lands so ready to sell. All that had been brought in hi therto, had been put into the apostles' hands, and they had been burdened with the care and trouble of the disposal of it : but now they transfer that work and office to the seven, solemnly ordaining them, by imposition of hands, into it; and here, only the imposition of the apostles' hands confers not the Holy Ghost ; for these men were full of the Holy Ghost before. Stephen, an eminent man among them, is quarrelled by certain of the Libertines, and the Hellenists' synagogue. ' Li- bertini' £zi>'nni!i'0 are exceeding frequently spoken of in the Jews' writings. And the Alexandrian synagogue [one ofthe Hellenists'] is mentioned in Jerus. in Megillah'', and Juchas'. who tell, that " R. Eliezer Bar Zadok took the synagogue of the Alexandrians, that was at Jerusalem, and employed it to his own use." When they are not able to overpower him by argument and disputation, they take a ready way to do it, by false ac cusation, and conventing him before the Sanhedrim: where, being accused of vilifying Moses, and speaking of the de struction of that place, he is vindicated, even miraculously, before he pleadeth his own cause, by his face shining hke the face of Moses, and bearing an angelical aspect and majesty ; for, indeed, he spake but what was spoken by the angel Gabriel*. In his apology, he speaketh to the heads of his accusa tion, but soraewhat abstrusely ; yet so as to them to whom he spake, to be well understood,^ — his discourse being accord ing to their own rhetoric and logic : to what was laid to his charge, for vilifying Moses, and saying, his customs should e Talm. in Cbelob. cap. 2 Maim, in rvvrtt cap. 18. •¦ Fol. 74. col. 4. i Fol. 26. j Dan. ix. 26, 27. Acts, VI, VII.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Paih II. 191 YEAR OF CHRIST 33. be changed, — he rehearsetb, in brief, the whole history of Mo ses, and shows he was orthodox to him : but yet he driveth all to this, — that, as the times before Moses were still moving and growing on to settlement in Moses ; so, when Moses himself had settled all he had to do, yet he pointed them to a Prophet yet to come, to whom they should hearken as the ultimate oracle, which was this Jesus, that he preached to them. And whereas, he was accused for speaking of the destruction of the temple,— he first shows, that fixedness to this or that place, is not so much to be stood upon ; as ap pears by the flitting condition of the patriarchs [whose flit- tings he giveth the story of at large], and by the moving condition of the tabernacle, before the temple was built : and when the temple was built, it was not because God would confine himself to one place, for " the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands," ver. 48, &c. He inserteth two or three sharp and true accusations of them, whereas theirs of him had been but false and causeless. As, that their fathers had persecuted those that foretold of Christ, as they did him for now preaching him, and they fol lowed their fathers' steps : nay, went farther ; for they had murdered Christ, whereas their fathers had but murdered his piophets. And whereas they were so punctual, about the ce- lemonious rites given by Moses, they neglected the moral l^w, whiQh was given by the disposition of angels. This cuts tjiem to the heart, that they pass a rancorous and ferious sentence of death upon him : but be hath a sight ofthe high bench of heaven,— God, and Christ at his right hand, their judge and his: a most fit prospect for the first martyr. They cast him out of the city, and stone him for blas- pheiwy. Foe tliese were to be stoned:—" He that went in to bis mother, orto his father's wife, or to his daughter-in-law, or to a, male, ox to a beast: and he that blasphemed, or that committed idolatry, Stc And the place of stoning was out from. the place of judgment" [nay, out of theeity, as the Geinariats resolve it], " because it is said, Brmg hun that cursed, out of the cawp." And, " a cj?ier went before him that was to dje, proclaiming his fault''." k Sanhedr. cap. 6, 7. 192 HARMONY OF [Acts, vm, YEAR OF CHRIST 34. " When he was come within four cubits of the place of stoning, they stripped him naked : only covered his naked ness before'." And, being come to the very place, first the witnesses laid their hands upon hira""; and then, stripping off their coats, that they might be more expedite for their present work, first one of them dasheth his loins violently against a stone, that lay for that purpose : if that killed him not, then the other dasheth a great stone upon his heart, as he lay on his back: and, if that despatched him not, then all the people fell upon him with stones"- Stephen, in the midst of all this their fury, and his own anguish, gets on his knees and prays for them : and, having so done, ' he fell asleep.' The Jews do ordinarily use the word "JDT to signify ' dying,' which properly signifies ' sleeping,' especially when they speak of a fair and comfortable death : which word Luke translates here. — \>br\i ybpDm b'D " Ah that were stoned, were also hanged up upon a tree"." Whether Stephen were so used, is uncertain ; but it is evident, that he had a fair burial, and not the burial of a malefactor. ACTS, chap. VIII. A GREAT persecution foUoweth the death of Stephen: in which Saul was a chief agent, scholar of ' 34 Christ. Gamaliel, president of the Sanhedrim, and, it may be, the busier for that. In the Babylonian TalraudP, they say, ' Jesu had five disciples, Mathai, Nakai, Netser, Boni, and Thodah ;' and they are urging reasons there, why they should all be put to death, &c. All tbe hundred and twenty ministers, mentioned chap. i. 15, are scattered abroad [only the twelve stay at Jerusalem, as in the furnace, to comfort and cherish the church there in so sad a time] ; and they preach all along as they go :— and so Satan breaks his own head by his own design ; for by persecution, by which he had contrived to smother the gos pel, it spreads the more. The first plantation of it mentioned, is in Samaria, and that according to Christ's own direction and foretelling; iSanhedr. cap, 6, 7. m Maim, in Avodah Zarah, cap. 2. Talm. ubi sup. o ibi^. p Sanhedr. fol. 43. col. 1. Acts, vm.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.- l.urr II. 19.3 YEAR OF CHRIST 34. " Ye shall be witnesses to me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria''," &c. He had forbidden thera be fore, " Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans do not enter"^ ;" but now that partition-wall, that had been between, is to be broken down. Of all nations and people under heaven, the Samaritans were the raost odious to the Jews ; and a raain reason was. because they were Jews' apostates. For though the first peopling of that place, after the captivity of the ten tribes, was by heathens'; yet, upon the building of the temple on mount Gerizim, such multitudes of Jews continually flocked thither, that generally Samaritanisra was but a raongrel Judaism. They called Jacob their father, — expected Messias, — had their temple, priest hood, service, Pentateuch, 8cc. And, to spare more, take but this one passage in the Jerusalera Talmud ; " The Cuthgeans, all the tirae that they celebrate their unleavened bread-feast with Israel, they are to be believed concerning their putting away of leaven : if they do not keep their unleavened bread- feast with Israel, they are not to be believed concerning their putting away of leaven. Rabban Gamaliel saith. All the or dinances that the Cuthseans use, they are more punctual in them than Israel is'." It is an unhappy obscurity that the Hebrew writers have put upon the word ' Cuthseans :' for, though it most properly signify ' Samaritans,' yet have they so commonly given this narae to ' Christians,' as the most odious name they could invent to give them, — that, in the most places that you meet with it, you cannot tell, whether they mean the one or the other. In the place cited, it seemeth indeed most likely, that it means the Samaritans ; because it speaks of their keeping the feast of unleavened bread, and using the ordinances of Israel : unless it speak of those Jews, that had received the gospel and become Christians, and were fallen to their Judaism again, and joined that with their Christianity, which very many did,— as we shall have occasion to observe hereafter. Simon Magus taketh upon him to believe, and is bap tized : the naming of hira calls to mind the mention of one Simon, a magician, that Josephus speaks of"; who was a 1 Acts, i. 8. '' MaU. *. 5. '2 Kings, xvii. ' Pesachin, fol. 27. col. 2. " Antiq. lib. 20. cap. 5. VOL. III. O 194 HARMONY OF [Actj, viii. YEAR OF CHRIS T 34. means to entice Drusilla from her former husband, to go and marry Felix, the governor of Judea : this might very well be that man. And it minds of a passage in the Jerusalem Tal mud'': Ol OJ^ )inN K»'310'D '33 I cannot but render it, " The Simonians came to Rabbi, and said to him. We pray thee give us a man, to be our expositor, judge, minister, scribe, traditionary, and to do for us all we need." I know what HD3K"i KOlD'D is in the Babylonian Talmud^. But certainly K"310'D '33 raeans some people ; but whence so named, there is no disputing here. Philip baptized Samaria, and did great wondejs among them, but could not bestow the Holy Ghost upon them : that power belonged only to the apostles ; therefore, Peter and John are sent thither for that purpose. " They laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost :" not upon all ; for what needeth that ? or what reason was there for it ? The gifts of the Holy Ghost that were received, were these miraculous ones, — of tongues, prophecy, &c^. Now of these, there were but these two ends : — 1. For the confirma tion of the doctrine of the gospel, such miraculous gifts at tending it. And. 2. For instruction of others : — for tongues were given, indeed, for a sign ; 1 Cor. xiv. 22 : but not only for a sign, but for edification and instruction ; as the apostle also showeth at large in the same chapter. Now both these ends were attained, though they that received the Holy Ghost, were not all, but only a few and set number. Nay, the latter not conceivable of all ; for if all were enabled miraculously to be teachers, who were to be taught? The imposition, therefore, of the apostles' hands, mentioned here and else where, and those passages, " These signs shall foUow those that believe,- they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with tongues," Sees' : " Repent and be baptized, every one of you, and ye shall receive the gift ofthe Holy Ghost^ ;"— were not upon all that believed the gospel, and were baptized : but upon some certain number, whom they were directed, by the Holy Ghost, to lay their hands upon, as those men that God had appointed and determined for preachers and minister? to the people,— and who, by the imposition ofthe apostles' hands, 'In Jebammolh, fol. 13. col. 1. - i„ cholin, fol. 15. » Act., X. 46, and XIX. 6. r Mark, xvi. 17. , ^ Acts, ii. 38, &c. Acts, ix.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 195 YEAR OF CHRIST 34. receiving the Holy Ghost, were, by those gifts, enabled to understand the language and sense of Scripture, and to be instructers ofthe people, and to build them up. Candace's eunuch, having been at Jerusalem, to worship, — and returning back, is converted by Philip. — Of Candace, queen of Meroe, in .Ethiopia, see Strabo, lib. 17. — He met with him in the way, that led from Jerusalem to Gaza, tbe desert. Of this place, Strabo again, lib. 16, speaketh thus : "Then is the haven of the Gazseans; above which, some seven furlongs, is the city, once glorious, but ruined by Alexander, koi fiivovaa 'Epy\p.oq, and it remaineth desert." Diodorus Siculus calls it, Ta.t,a iraXaia, The old Gaza* ; for another was built at the haven, by the sea-side, called some times Maiuma'', — and afterward, Constantia, named so by Constantine, after the name of his sister : as saith Euse- bius'^; or, as Sozomen, of his son Constantius. Whether this eunuch were a Jew or a proselyte, is scarce worth inquiring ; his devotion is far more worth spending thoughts upon, which brought him so long a journey, and eraployed him so well in his travel, as in reading the Scrip ture. He is baptized in the name of Jesus, ver. 37 ; and, as it may well be conceived, takes ship at Gaza, and is the first, that we find, that carried the profession of Jesus into Afric. The mention of which, may justly call our thoughts to con sider of the temple built in Egypt, by Onias, and the vast numbers of Jews that were in that and the countries there abouts. And yet, how littie intimation there is, in the New Testament story, by whom, or how, the gospel was conveyed into those parts. Phihp is rapt by the Spirit from Gaza to Azotus, which were two hundred and seventy furlongs, or thirty-four miles, asunder, as Diodorus Siculus'' measures. ACTS, chap. IX, from the beginning to ver. 23. The conversion of Paul, a monument of niercy': a Pha risee, a persecutor, a murderer, — yet become a Christian, a preacher, an apostle. He consented to Stephen's death ; and, after that, he gets » Lib. 19. '' Sozom, Eccles, Hist, lib, 5, cap, 3. "= De Vit. Constant, lib. 4. cap. 28, ^ Ubi supra, « 1 Tim. i. 14, 16, o 2 196 HARMONY OF [Acts, ix, YEAR OF CHRIST 34. a commission from the chief priests, and makes desperate havoc in Jerusalem^. We find, all along this book, that the chief priests are not only the busiest men in persecuting of the gospel, but, in many places, it is related so, as if they were the only men, and had entire power in their own hands, as a peculiar court, to give commissions, to judge, condemn, and execute : as it hath been, and is, tbe opinion of some, that there was an ecclesiastical Sanhedrim distinct from the civil. It is true, indeed, that there was in the temple, a consis tory only of priests, which sat in the room called, 'Parhedrin,' and 'LiscathBouleute,"the chamber ofthe council:' but these sat not there, as magistrates over the people, but only as a consistory, to take care of the service and affairs of the tem ple, that nothing should be wanting, nor nothing slacked, that was required about it, or that conduced to the promoting ofthe service ofit; and their power extended not beyond that verge. Any other consessus, or consistory,of priests alone, than this, I believe cannot be showed in any records of that nation ; and this is far from tbe power and constitution of a Sanhedrim. The Talmuds, indeed, speaketh of a ' Beth Din,' or 'consistory ofthe priests,' "which required four hundred zuzims in dower, or jointure, for-a virgin :" which seemeth to assert this as a peculiar court, invested with distinct power from the other. But the Gemarists, especially the Babylo nian, do make it plain, that no such thing can be inferred from this action : for they tell us, that the priests determined this business of " four hundred zuzims' dower to their own daughters," only for the honour of their tribe and blood : so that this was not any act of judicial power binding others, but an act of consent among themselves, to keep up the credit of their function and families. But here is not time and place to discuss this point [a matter of no small controversy], farther than what may give illustration to the subject before us. Hovv to understand, therefore, this judicial activity ofthe chief priests throughout this book, the evangehst hath given us a rule berime in the story, chap. iv. 5: where he shows, that the whole Sanhedrim is to be understood,— of which, the f Acls, viii. 2, and xxii. 4, and xxvi. 10. r In Chetubotb, cap. 1. hal. 5. Aors, IX.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 197 YEAR OF CHRIST 34. priests were a great, if not the greatest, part ; and were, in this cause, the busiest men. In case of necessity, there might be a Sanhedrim, though never a priest or Levite was ofit, for so is their own canon, — namely, if fit men of either rank were not to be found ; but, in common carriage and experience, they were the greatest and most potent num ber, aK whose profession and function bespake studiousness, and pleaded honour. In all the New Testaraent, we meet but with these men by name, of all the Sanhedrim : Annas, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, Gamaliel, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea. And how many of these were not priests? Gamaliel, indeed, was of the tribe of Judah, and of the progeny of David, being grandchild of Hillel. But as for all the rest, some of them were undoubtedly ofthe priesthood, and the others more probably so too, than of any other tribe: of Annas and Caiaphas, there is no question. And if John'' be the eminentest John that was then among them, it means Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai, who was now vice-president of the council ; and he was a priest, as Juchasin tells us. And if Nicodemus be the same with the eminentest Nicodemus of those times, of whom Aboth R. Nathan', and the Babylonian TalmudJ, make mention [as we have no cause to think other wise], then was he, by their plain description, a priest like wise. And so was Joseph of Arimathea, if his style and title BouXsuTTjc be to be understood, according to the common speech ofthe nation ; as there can be no reason, why it should not be so understood. And as for Alexander, of whom is least evidence, it is not worth spending so much time upon as to discuss ; since these, already mentioned, may be witness enough. In all the busy stirring, therefore, of the priests, in this story of the Acts of Aposties,— as, chap. vii. 1, and xxiii. 2 ; and about this commission of Saul,— we are not to take them as a distinct and separate power from the Sanhedrim, but as a part of it ; and such as whose function and interest, as they thought, did, most of all the other, urge them to look to the prevention of this growing evil of the gospel, as they did, as heartily, as erroneously repute it : and, therefore, the story doth more especially pitch upon them, as the most stirring 'Acts, iv. 6. ' Cap. 6. j, In Chejabolh, fol.66. 198 HARMONY OF [Acts, ix, YEAR OF CHRIST 34. men. And so Paul, himself, doth help to interpret Luke's relation. For whereas, chap. ix. 1, 2, it is said, " Saul went to the high-priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus ;" he, who best could tell how this should be understood, ex plains it thus, chap. xxii. 5 ; — " Of the high-priest, and of all the estate ofthe elders, I received letters to the brethren," &c. The words ' of all the estate of the elders,' determine the point we have in hand ; and the other words, ' to the brethren,' call us to tbe consideration of another : and that is, how far the Sanhedrim's decrees and injunctions had power and comraand over the Jews in foreign lands. By producing the words of one of their acts, we shall better judge of this matter, and understand the words 'to the brethren,' both at once. In the Jerusalem Talmud'' they say thus ; " For the three countries, they intercalated the year for Judea, and beyond Jordan and Galilee. For two of them together they did it, — for one alone, they did it not. There is a story of Rabban Gamaliel and the elders, that they sat at the going up to the temple, and Jochanan the scribe sat before them : Rabban Gamaliel saith to him. Write nnb'V xom >33 H:mbU> n^nJ 'Apostolus Synedrii magni'], he is converted, and de signed for an apostle of Jesus Christ. He saw Christ, ver. 17, though he saw him not": for as Israel at Sinai saw the Lord, — not in any representation, but only his glory, — so" did he Christ in his glory, and a voice. And so they that travelled with him, heard the voice, ver. 7, in its terrible sound, but they heard it not" in its articulate utterance, so as to understand it ; the like to that in John, xh. 29. At three days' end he receiveth his sight, and baptism, and was filled with the Holy Ghost, ver. 17, 18. But how he received the last, is somewhat obscure : whether before his baptism or upon it, by immediate infusion, as they did, chap. X. 45 ; or by imposition of Ananias's hands ; which if he did, as it was extraordinary for any, besides an apostie, to confer the Holy Ghost,— so could not Ananias do, or think of doing, this, without an extraordinary warrant. Whether way it was, he is now so completely furnished with all accomplishments for his ministry, that " he confers not with flesh and blood," that is, not with any men,— nor "goes he up to Jerusalem," no, not to confer with the aposties? ; but hath the full know ledge of the gospel, and full assurance of his knowledge that it was right : And so he begins to preach in Damascus. 35, 36 Christ.— These two years Paul spendeth in Da mascus and Arabia, and Damascus again". m 1 Cor. ix. 1. n " Ita ipse Christum loquentem, i. e. Christi gloriam, vidit;'; Leusd, o Acts, xxii. 9. » Gal. i. 16, 17. 1 Gal. .. 17. 200 HARMONY OF [Acts, ix, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 37—40. ACTS, chap. IX, from ver. 23 to ver. 32. After three years from his conversion, he cometh to Jerusalem ; being driven from Damascus by a 37 Christ, machination ofthe Jews, who had wrought with the governor to apprehend him, — but he is let over the wall in a baskef. He goeth up to Jerusalem to see Peter"' ; but, at his first coming thither, the disciples are afraid of him, till Barnabas makes way for his entertainment^ : his going to see Peter is to confer with the minister of the circumcision, himself being appointed minister to the uneircumcised. And how Barnabas, who was to be his fellow, should come to be ac quainted with him before any ofthe rest, we can hardly find out any other way to resolve, than by conceiving he had some intimation from God of his own apostlesbip among the Gentiles, and Paul's with hira. He stayeth at Jerusalem but fifteen days, and seeth none ofthe apostles, but Peter and James the Less'. He preacheth boldly there, and disputes so vehemently with the Hellenists, that they go about to kill him" ; but why him, rather than Peter, James, Barnabas, and others, that were now at Jeru salem? We may answer, Because he himself was a Hel lenist, one once of their own college ; and the more zealous he was now against them, the more incensed were they against him, for an apostate, as they accounted him : and now he, . that, with them, had contrived the death of Stephen, is forced by thera to fly for his own hfe. ACTS, chap. IX, from ver. 32 to the end ; and chap. X, all; and chap. XI, to ver. 19. The stories succeeding to ver. 19 of chap, xi, as they are of a doubtful date, because neither the 38—40 Christ, historian here, nor any other part of Scrip ture, hath fixed the determinate time of their occurring,— so is not the limiting of them to their year or time so very needful : if only it be secured, that they foUow in time to those preceding, that we have spoken to ; and that " 2 Cor. xi. 32 33. r Cal, i, 18, ¦ Acts, ix, 27, ' Gal. 1. 18, 19. "Acts,ix,29, Acts, IX, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 201 YEAR OF CHRIST 40. we may be assured of their order, though we cannot be of their precise time. And this is easy to resolve upon, with out much debate. The last verse of the former section, in forms us of a peace and rest come to all the churches ; and the beginning of this, brings in Peter,— as in this calm, — passing through all quarters, preaching and confirming them. And that this could not be but after the times of the stories mentioned hitherto, appeareth by this ; — that thougb it is true, indeed, that Peter was abroad in Samaria upon the conversion of it, yet he was returned again to Jerusalem', and was there three years after, when Paul comes up thither. This, therefore, is a new voyage, in which he doth three great things : — healeth .Sneas of palsy, at Lydda ; raiseth Dorcas from the dead, at Joppa ; and openeth the door ofthe gospel to the Gentiles, in Ccesarea. .Eneas is a name that we find in the Jewish writers. H»VH 'Va bii)t2Uf ""1 ' R. Samuel, the son of R. iEneas,' is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud" : and ' Lod' or ' Lydda' they speak exceeding frequently of, and produce remarkable stories and memorials of it. And, indeed, tbe quarters of Peter's present walk, corapared with the Hebrews' records concerning these places, may well claim some observation. For when he is at Joppa, he is in the middle, as it were, of those places, which, in a littie tirae after this [nay, it may be, at this very time], were two of their greatest and emi nentest schools. At Jabneh", on the one hand of Joppa, did the great San hedrim sit long, both before the destruction of Jerusalem and after : for when it began to be unsettied, and to flit up and down forty years before the destruction of the city, its first removal from Jerusalera was hither : and here sat Ga- mahel, Paul's master, with his Sanhedrim, a good space of time; and, for aught can be said to the contrary, it might very well be there at this time, when Peter was at Joppa. Now, as the Jews called that place ' Jabneh,'— so the Gen tiles called it ' Jamnia ;' and how near it was to Joppa, you may guess from these words of Strabo^ : " This place" [speak ing of Joppa] "was so populous, that out ofthe neighbour ' Chap. Tili. 25. » Jebammolh, fol. 6. col. 2. "Or Jafna. » Lib. 16. 202 HARMONY OF [Acts, ix,&c, YEAR OF CHRIST 40. town, Jamnia, and other places thereabout, it was able to raise forty thousand men." At Lydda, on the other hand of Joppa, were most famous schools, and eminent men, as well as at Jabneh. AuSSo Ktijuj), jtoXewc to fiiyE^og ovk aTrpdiovtra' " It was a town, that wanted httle of the bigness of a city^." It lay west of Jerusalem, a day's journey off; as the Talmud seats it and measures, in Maazar Sheni^. It was in Judea : " And there upon four-and-twenty of the school of Rabbi came thither to intercalate the year ; but an evil eye came in upon them, and they died all at one time*." For they might not in tercalate the year but in Judea'' ; but upon this mischance, they removed that business into Galilee. Here it seems the Sanhedrim sat, also, sometimes ; or, at least, they had a great bench of their own, for there is mention of " stoning Ben Satda, at Lydda, on the eve of the Passover"^." To reckon the stories and eminent men belonging to this place, were endless, — at the least, it is needless here. But the mention and gender of Saron, which is also named with Lydda, Acts ix. 35, may plead excuse, if we allege one or two Talmudic passages for the clearing of it : — " From Bethoron to Emmaus was hilly, — from Emmaus to Lydda, plain, — and from Lydda to the sea, vale"*." " R. Jochanan and R. Eliezer went from Jabneh to Lydda, and met with R. Joshua in ]'y'pl Bekin*." " He that bringeth a bill of divorce from a heathen country, must be able to say. ' In my presence it was written, and sealed in my presence :' Rabban Gamaliel saith. Yea, he that brings one from Rekam and Chagra. R. Eleazer saith. Yea, he that brings one from Caphar Lodim to Lod'." Rabbi Nissim, upon the place, saith thus: " Caphar Lodim was out of the land, near to Lod, which was within the land ; and it was so called, because Lyddans were always found there." " They brought a chest full of bones from Caphar Tebi, and set it openly at the entering into Lod : Tudrus, the phy sician, came, and all the physicians with hims," &c. y Joseph. Antiq. lib. 20. cap. 5. ' Cap. 5. hal. 2. "Jerns. Sanhedr. fol. 18. col. 3. l> Maim, in Kiddush. Hodesh, cap. 1. ¦¦ Ibid. fol. 25. 4. d Jerus. in Sheviith, fol. 38. 4. « Idem, in Sotah, fol, 18, 4. ' Gittin, cap. 1. hal. 1. ? Jerus. in Beracoth, fol. 3. 1. Acts, x.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 203 YEAR OF CHRIST 40. Besides observing, that 'Tebi' is the name of a man, [Rabban Gamaliel's servant""], — as Tabitha is the name of a woman in the story before us ; tbe word ' Saron' being ofthe masculine gender, it plainly tells us, that it is not the name of a town, but of the plain or flat, where divers towns stood; and, among others, it may be these mentioned. ACTS, X, all the chapter; and XI, to ver. 19. Little inferior to these places for learned men, was ' Csesarea upon the sea,' and beyond them, for other eminen- cies. )'1D'p l'3i"i " The doctors of Csesarea" are of exceeding frequent, and exceeding renowned, mention in both Talmuds : and, by name, ' R.Heshaiah, the great ; R. Achavah, R. Zeira, R. Ada, R. Prigori, R. Ulla, R. Tachalipha, and several others.' It was anciently called, Hvpyog SrpaTiuvoc ' Straton's tower;' but sumptuously built and beautified by Herod the Great : in honour of Csesar, it was called ' Csesarea.' It was mixedly inhabited by Jews and Gentiles, and much of an equal number ; and, most commonly, well fraught with Ro man soldiers, because the governor's residence was ordi narily here. Of some of these bands was Cornelius a captain, — a man come to an admirable pitch of piety, and it is hard to imagine how he came by it : for that be was not so rauch as a prose lyte, is apparent, in that they at Jerusalem cavil at Peter for going to him, as to a heathen. And whether he wereat^in "IJ ' a sojourning stranger,' as they called some, is not much material ; since, by their own judgraent, -lai ^a'? 'U3 atwin "a " a sojourning stranger was a Gentile to all purposes'." Whencesoever he learned faith in Christ, his full knowledge of Christ he learned from Peter : he having a warrant, by vision, to send for Peter,— and he a warrant, by vision, to go to him. Here ' the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' committed to Peter so long agoJ, do their work : opening the door of faith first to the Gentiles, which never was shut since, nor ever will be, whilst there is a church to be upon the earth. Jonah at Joppa, and Simon Bar Jona there, both sent to the Gen tiles, compare together. "• Beracoth, cap. 2. hal. 7. ' Jerus. Jebammolh, fol. 8. col. 1. ' Matt, xvi. 204 HARMONY OF [Acts, x, year of CHRIST 40. Upon Peter's preaching, the Holy Ghost falls upon those Gentiles, that were present, to the amazement of those of the circumcision, that had come with Peter : for they had not only not seen the like before, but had been trained up, while in their Judaism, under a maxim of a clean contrary tenor ; which taught them, " That the Holy Ghost would dwell nei ther upon any heathen, nor upon any Jew in a heathen coun try." Csesarea was, as the Jews reputed, niDinnn 1'3 " be tween the borders :" that is, a place disputable, whether to account wdthin the land or without, — or, indeed, both". And so were, also, other places upon this western border of the land, the great sea-shore : as. Aeon, or Ptolemais', Ascalon""; and divers others ; but all things computed, no fitter place in the land could have been chosen for the beginning of this great work of bringing Jews and Gentiles together into one bound, than this : not only because this city was both Jew and Gentile, within the land and without, — but also, because here was the Roman court, tbe chief of the Gentiles : and the mentioning of Cornelius's being of the Italian band, hinteth such an observation. The Holy Ghost, at this its first bestowing upon the Gen tiles, is given in the like manner, as it was at its first bestow ing upon the Jewish nation",— namely, by immediate infusion; at all other times you find mention ofit, you find mention of imposition of hands used for it. But here it may be observed, withal, that whereas the fruit of this gift of the Holy Ghost was, that " they spake with tongues"," it confirmeth that which we spake at chap, ii ; viz. that the first fruit of this gift of tongues was, that they that had it, were enabled to speak and understand the originals of the Scripture : and here it appeareth raore plainly than there : and more plainly, still, in those twelve at Ephesus?, and those that spake with tongues in the church of Corinth''. For to what purpose was it for them to speak there with tongues, where they all understood the same language ? It was not to gibber and talk in strange language, that men might adraire but not un derstand ; but it was for edification of others,— yea, and for k Juchas. fol. 74. 1 Jerus. Challah, fol. 60. col 2. "• Idem, Sheviith, fol. .36. 3. n Acts, ii. o, Ver. 46. P Acts, xix. 6. 11 Cor. xiv. Acts, xi.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 205 YEAR OF CHRIST 41. edifying of himself that so spake^ " He that speaketh a tongue, edifieth himself:" how? What could he speak in any strange language to his own edification, which he raight not as much edify himself by, had he spoken it in his own native tongue ? But only that this is meant, his ability, by the gift of tongues, to understand and speak the original language of the Scripture, was both for his own edification and the edification of others. Suppose one in the church of Corinth could speak Persic, Arabic, Ethiopic, &c. and did chatter these languages among thera; he could not possibly speak any thing in those tongues [though interpreted] that could edify the people any more, than if he spake it in his mother-tongue : but if he spake, and understood, and uttered, the original language of Scripture, — that, if interpreted, would edify : and he could not speak in his mother-tongue, unless he took from thence, what he might speak. Peter, returning to Jerusalem, is taken to task by some of the circumcision, for going in to the Gentiles, and eating with them : a thing of unspeakable detestation to the Jews : hence those allusions : " Let him be to thee as a heathen' :" " With such a one, no, not to eat'." We find not any such quarrel at Peter and John for going down to Samaria, though the Samaritans were as odious to the Jewish nation as people could be ; but they were neither uneircumcised, nOr idola ters : both which, especially the latter, bred their detestation of the heathen. ACTS, chap. XI, from ver. 19 to the end ofthe chapter. As Csesarea, the seat of the Roraan governor of Judea, first seeth the door of faith opened to the Gen- 41 Christ, tiles, — so Antioch, the seat of the Roman go vernor of Syria, first heareth the name ' Chris tian.' Those ofthe hundred and twenty ministers", that had fled upon the persecution raised against Stephen, went preach ing up and down, first, as far as the bounds of Judea extend ed ; then some of them stepped out, as far as into Phcenice, Cyprus, and Syria ; but all this while dealing with the Jews only. At last, some of them at Antioch eXoXow Trpoe rove 'EXXrivitrrac " spake to the Hellenists," ver. 20. Here the ' 1 Cor. xiv. 4. ' Matt, xviii. ' 1 Cor. v. " Mentioned Acts, i. 15. 206 HARMONY OF [Acts, xi. YEAR OF CHRIST 41. word ' Hellenists' is of doubtful interpretation : only this is doubtless in it, that it means not Jews, as the word doth, Acts vi. 1 ; for it is set in opposition to them, ver. 19.— Doth it mean proselytes, then ? That it cannot, neither ; for they were reputed as Jews to all purposes. Means it hea thens ? Yes, that is undoubted it doth, both by the scope of the story here, and by the quarrel, urging these believers at Antioch to be circumcised'. But why, then, should they be called ' Hellenistse,' rather than ' Hellenes .¦" Some conceive, because they were become nt^in >1i ' proselyte sojourners;' meaning, that they had forsaken their idolatry : as Cornelius had done his, though he were not pm "iJ ' a proselyte cir cumcised.' — But. what ! if these were native Syrians, by pedi gree and language, — could they then for that be called ' Hel lenists' or ' Greeks ?' The word, therefore, must mean, that they were such as were Syro-Grecians ; Antioch itself, indeed, having been once the head of the Syro-Grecian empire : ' Hel lenes,' or ' purely Greeks,' they could not be called [though it will not be denied they spake that language] ; because they were not only no inhabitants of that country, but not altogether of that blood : but such as were of a mixture of Syrian and Greek ; the progeny of the old plantations and enfranchisements ofthe Syro-Grecian monarchy. Whatsoever their title ' Hellenists' includeth, — they being undoubtedly heathens, — it showeth, that these ministers who preached to them, understood of the liberty given to preach to the Gentiles, and the passage betwixt Peter and Cornelius"^, or they durst not have been bold to have gone beyond the partition-wall, without their warrant. And the readiness of the church at Jerusalem to send Barnabas to them, shows, that they also were satisfied in this matter :— and so this evidenceth, that this story was after that about Cornehus. Their sending Barnabas, and his fetching Saul to the same work witb him, giveth some confirmation of that, which was touched before ; namely, that it is very probable, that Barnabas knew of his own being designed for a minister to the uncircumcision, and of Paul's being joined with him in that work, a great while before they were sent away from An- " Chap. XV. " " Quicquid denotet vox ' Hellenistm,' fuere sine controversiiEthnici. Hinc con stat, ministns, qui ipsis praedicabant, licentiam, Ethnicis pradicandi faotam, inno- tuisse, et ea, quee inter Petrum et Cornelium fuerant transaota :" Leusd Acts, xii, xiii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 207 YEAR OF CHRIST 41. tioch upon it. — They now spend a whole year in the church there ; and there the name ' Christian' is first taken up, and that in a Gentile church. Antioch, of old, had been called • Hamath ;' but now it bare the name of one, that had been as bloody a persecutor ofthe church and truth, as the church of Israel had ever seen, — ' Antiochus.' The very name of the place may raise a meditation. ACTS, chap. XII, XIII. Here we meet with some scruple in chronology, and about the precedency of the story, in these two chapters. For though the actions in chap, xii, be laid first, and that very properly, — that the story of Peter may be taken up together, and concluded, before the story of Paul come in, which is to be followed to the end of the book, — yet, there may be just question, whether the sending of Paul and Barnabas from Antioch, to preach among the Gentiles, which is handled in the beginning of chap, xiii, were not before some, if not all, those things, related in chap. xii. And the question ariseth from these two scruples :— 1. Because it is doubtful, in what year of Claudius the famine was, that is spoken of, chap. xii. 28. And, 2. Because it is obscure, how long Paul and Bar nabas stayed at Antioch after their return from Jerusalem*, before they were sent away among the Gentiles. But about this we need not much to trouble ourselves ; since, as to the understanding of the stories themselves, there can be little illustration taken from their time : save only as to this, that the public fast in the church of Antioch, may seem to have some relation to some of the said stories mentioned before, as coincident with them, or near to them ; namely, either the famine through the worlds or the persecution in the church^. We shall not, therefore, offer to dislocate the order of the stories, from that wherein they lie ; the Holy Ghost, by the intertexture of them, rather teaching us, that some of them were contemporary, than any way encouraging us to invert their order. Only these things cannot pass unmentioned, towards the stating of their time and plaice, partly of coinci- dency, and partly of their succeeding one the other, and which may help us better to understand both. ^ Acts, xii. 25. " Chap, xi, 28. ^ Chap, xii. 208 HARMONY OF [Acts, xii.xm. YEAR OF CHRIST 41. 1. That, whereas Dion, the Roman historian% hath placed a sore famine [at least at Rome] in the time of Claudius, in his second year, — Josephus carries it% as if the bitterness of it, at Jerusalem, were in his fourth ; which Eusebius'' deter mines positively : both may be true ; for, for famines to last several years together, is no strange thing in history, divine or huraan, nor in experience in our own age. 2. That Herod Agrippa's murdering of James, and im prisoning of Peter, could not be before the third year of Claudius ; for Josephus, a witness impartial enough in this case, informs us, that Claudius, in his second consulship, — which was, indeed, the second year of his reign, — made an edict in behalf of the Jews, and sent it through the world, and, after that, sent Agrippa away into his own kingdom. Now, his consulship beginning the first of January, it was so next impossible that those things should be done at Rome, and Agrippa provide for his journey, and travel it, and come to Jerusalem, and murder James, and apprehend Peter, and all before the Passover (unless he hasted as it had been for a wager) ; that he, that can believe Peter to have been imprisoned in Claudius's second year of consulship and reign, must exceedingly straiten the time of these occur rences, to make room for his belief. 3. In the third year of Claudius, therefore, are those stories in chap, xii to be reputed ; only the last, about He rod's death, in the beginning of his fourth ; — for a Passover in his fourth, Herod lived not to see. 4. It may be observed, that Luke hath placed the going up of Paul and Barnabas, with the alms of the church of Antioch to the poor of Judea, before the murder of James'= ; but their return thence, not till after that, and Herod's death'' : not that, thereupon, we are necessarily. to think that they stayed there so long, as while all those things in chap. xii were acting; but that, by that relation, the story of Paul and Barnabas is begun again ; and we raay very well con ceive, for all that postscript of Luke after the story of James's martyrdom, Peter's imprisonment, and Agrippa's death, their return to Antioch, and going from thence ' Lib, 60. » Antiq. lib. 12. cap. 2. b In Chronic. '^ Acts, xi.30, ¦l Acts, xii. 25, Acts, xn,] THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part II. 209 YEAR OF CHRIST 43. among the Gentiles, chap, xiii. to have been at that time, while some ofthe things, in chap, xii, occurred. We will, therefore, take the chapters up in the order in which they lie, and only carry along with us, in our thoughts, a supposal, that sorae ofthe stories in either raio-ht concur in time. And, because we have found here some need to look after the years of the emperor, which we have not had before, and shall have much more, forward, espe cially when we come up to the times of Nero, — it may not be amiss to affix their years also, as they went along, concur rent with the years of our Saviour. 42 Christ. 2 Claudius. — The famine begun : the church of Antioch send relief into Judea. ACTS, chap. XII, from the beginning to ver. 20. James beheaded by Herod ; for so doth the Jews' pan dect help us to understand these words, " He 43 Christ. slew James with the sword." " They that 3 Claudius, were slain by the sword, were beheaded, which also was the custom of the kingdom' ;" that is, ofthe Romans. The ceremonious zeal of Agrippa, in the Jewish way, bending itself against the church, may be construed as a Jewish act, wicked, as upon the score of that nation's wick edness and guilt. The underling condition, in which they had lain all the time of Caius [he having no good affection to that people], being now got loose and aloft, knows no bounds ; and being somewhat countenanced by the edict of Claudius, they can not be content with their own iraraunities, unless they seek also the suppression of the Christian church ; though Clau dius's proclamation had this special clause and caveat, fir) rag tuv HWwv i^vHiv SfionSaijuoviae i^ov^eviZsiv, " that they should not go about to infringe the liberty of other men's religion." This unbounded encroaching of theirs, did, within a little time, cause the emperor, who had now made a decree for them, to make another against them. Peter, designed by the murderer for the like biitchery, " Talm. in Sanhedr. cap. 7. hal. 3. VOL. III. P •210 HARMONY OF [Acts.xui, year of CHRIST 43. escapes by miracle ; and the tyrant, before that time twelve month, comes to a miraculous, fearful end. ACTS, chap. XIII, from beginning to ver. 14. The divine historian, having hitherto followed the stoiy of the church and gospel, as both of them were dilated among the Jews, and therein pitched, more especially, upon the acts of Peter and John, the singular ministers of the cir cumcision, more peculiarly Peter's ; — he doth now turn his pen, to follow the planting and progress of the gospel among the Gentiles : — and here he insisteth, more especially, upon the story of Paul and Barnabas, the singular ministers of the uncircumcision, — more peculiarly Paul's. There were now, in the church of Antioch, five men, which were both ' prophets' and • teachers ;' or, which did not only instruct the people, and expound the Scriptures, but had also the prophetic spirit, and were partakers of re velations. For, though prophets and teachers were, indeed, of a distinct notion^, and their abilities to teach were, ac cordingly, of a distinct original, — namely, the former by reve lation, and tbe latter by study, — yet, koto rfiv ovaav iKKkriaiav [which phrase may not pass without observation], " accord ing to the state of the church then being," they not only had prophetic teachers, but there was a kind of necessity they should have such, till time and study had enabled others to be teachers ; which, as yet, they could not have attained unto, the gospel having been so lately brought among them. Among these five, the names of Barnabas and Saul are no strangers to the reader, but the other three are more un known. 1. " Simeon, who was called Niger." If the word ' Niger' were Latin, it might, then, fairly be conjectured, that this was Simon of Cyrene, the Moorish complexion of his coun try justly giving him the titie of Simeon ' the black;' but since the patronymic, Cyrenean, is applied only in the sin gular number to the next man, Lucius ; and since the word -|J3 was then used among the Jews, in several significationSj as may be seen in Aruch,— we shall rather conceive this man ' 1 Cor. xii. 28. Ephes. It. 11. AcTs.xiii.] THE NEW TES'f AMENT.- Part ir. 211 YEAR OF CHRIST 43. a Cypriot, from chap. xi. 20 ; and as Barnabas also was, chap. iv. 36 ; and his surname, ' Niger,' whatsoever it signi fied, used to distinguish him from Simon Peter, and Simon the Canaanite. 2. 'Lucius of Cyrene:' heldby some, and that not without some ground, to be Luke the evangelist ; which, it is like, hath been the reason, why antiquity hath so generally held Luke to be an Antiochian. True, in regard of this his first appearing there, under this name, Lucius, — though originally a Cyrenian, and educated, as it may be supposed, in the Cy renian college, or synagogue, in Jerusalem, chap. vi. 9, and there first receiving the gospel. In Rom. xvi. 21, Paul sa lutes the Roman church in the name of Lucius ; whereas, there was none then, in Paul's retinue, whose name sounded that way, but only Luke, as we shall observe there. 3. " Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch." Juchasin^ mentioneth one Menahem, who was once vice-president of the Sanhedrim, under Hillel, but de parted to the service of Herod the Great, with fourscore other eminent men with him. of whom we gave some touch be fore. It may be, this was his son, and was called ' Manaen,' or ' Menahem,' after the father : and, as the father was a great favourite of Herod the Great, the father,— so this was brought up at court, with Herod the tetrarch, the son. As these holy raen were at the public ministration with fasting and prayer, the Holy Ghost gives them advertiseraent of the separating of Paul and Barnabas, for the ministry among the Gentiles ; a mission, that might not be granted, but by sucb a divine warrant ; considering how the Gentiles had always lain behind a partition-wall to the Jews : for although Peter, in the case of Cornelius, had opened the door of the gospel to the heathen, yet was this a far greater breaking down of the partition-wall, when the gospel was to be brought into their own lands, and to their own doors. When God saith, " Separate them to the work, whereunto I have called them ;" it farther confirmeth, that it was, and had been, known before, that they should be ministers ofthe uncircumcision. The Romish glossaries would fain strain ' the mass out of t Fol. 19. p2 212 HARMONY OF [Acts, xm. YEAR OF CHRIST 43. the word AEiTovpyovvrtDv : and the Rhemists think they have done us a courtesy, that they have not translated it to that sense; whereas, besides that the word naturally signifieth any public ministration, — the Holy Ghost, by the use of it, seemeth to have a special aim ; namely, to intimate to us, that this. was a public fast, as well as another public ministration. Public fasts were not ordinary services, and they were not taken up, but upon extraordinary occasions ; and what the present occasion might be, had been a great deal better worth studying upon, than how to make the Greek word speak ' tbe mass,' which it never meant. How public fastings and days of humiliation were used. by the Jews, and upon what occasions, there is a special treatise in the Talmud upon that subject, called Taanith, — and the like in Maimonides, that beareth witness : and it was no whit unsuitable to the gospel, upon the like exigencies, to use the like kind of service and devotion : and the present famine, that was upon all countries, might very well minister occasion to this church at Antioch, at this present, for such a work ; for we cannot but suppose, that the famine was now in being. Whatsoever the occasion was, — the Lord, in the midst of their humiliation, pointeth out Paul and Barnabas, for an employment of his own, who were but a while ago returned from an employraent of the church's : and so the other three, — Simeon, Lucius, and Menaen, — understanding what the Lord raeant, and having used another solemn day in fasting in prayer, — lay their hands upon them, and set them apart by ordination : — according as the ordaining of elders among the Jews was by a triumvirate, or by three elders''. This is the second imposition of hands since the gospel began, which did not confer the Holy Ghost with it ; for these two were full of the Holy Ghost before : and this is the first ordination of elders since the gospel, that was used out of the land of Israel. Which rite the Jewish canons would confine only to that land'. Which circumstances well considered, with the employment that these two were to go about, and thisraannerof their sending forth,— no better rea son, I suppose, can be given of this present action, than that " Sanhedr. cap. 1. hal. 3. i Maim. Sanhedr. cap. 4. Acts, xiii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— P,iRT II. 213 YEAR OF CHRIST 43. the Lord hereby did set down a platform of ordaining oinis- ters in the church of the Gentiles to future times. Paul and Barnabas, thus designed by the Lord, and or dained and sent forth by this triumvirate, and guided by the Holy Ghost, first go to Seleucia : most likely, Seleucia of Pieria, of which Strabo saith, that " it is the first city of Syria from CiliciaJ ;" to which Pliny assenteth, when he mea- sureththe breadth of Syria, from Seleucia of Pieria to Zeugma upon Euphrates''. The reason of their going thither may be judged to be, that they might take ship for Cyprus, whither they intended ; for that this was a port, appeareth by what follows in Strabo, when he saith, " That from Seleucia to Soh, is about a thousand furlongs sail :" and so it is plain in Luke's text, when he saith, " They departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus :" where let us now follow them. Cyprus was a country so exceeding full of Jews, that it comes in for one in that strange story, that Dion Cassius relates in the life of Trajan. "The Jews (saith he) that dwelt about Cy rene, choosing one Andrew for their captain, slew the Greeks and Romans, and eat their flesh, and devoured their inwards, and besmeared themselves with their blood, and wore their skins. Many they sawed asunder, from the head downward ; others they cast to wild beasts : raany they made to slay one another: so that there were two hundred and twenty thousand destroyed, in this manner. There was the like slaughter made in Egypt and Cyprus, where there also pe rished two hundred and forty thousand. From whence it is, that a Jew may not since come into Cyprus : and if any, by storms at sea, be driven in thither, they are slain. But the Jews were subdued by others ; but especially by Lucius, whom Trajan sent thither."— This was the native country of Barnabas'. Although these two apostles were sent to the Gentiles. yet was it so far from excluding their preaching to the Jews, that they constantly began with them, first, in all places where they came. They begin at Salamis, the place next their landing, JGeogr. lib. 14. >¦ Nat. Hist. lib. 5. cap. 12. ' Acls, iv. 36. 214 HARMONY OF Acts, xiii. YEAR OF CHRIST 43. " and there they preached in the synagogues of the Jews," having John Mark for their minister. From thence they travelled, preaching up and down in the island, till they corae to Paphos, which was at the very farther part of it, towards the south-west angle. There they meet with a magical Jew called Bar-jesus, and commonly titled Elymas, which is the same in sense with Magus. Such Jewish deceivers as this went up and down the countries to oppose the gospel, and to show magical tricks and wonders, for the stronger confirming of their opposition. Such were the " vagabond Jews, exorcists'" ;" and of such our Saviour spake" ; and of some such we may give exaraples out of their own Talraudical writers. And here we may take notice of a threefold practice of opposition, that the Jews used in these times, and forward, against the gospel, and the spreading of it, besides open persecution unto blood. 1. Much about these times, was made the prayer that hath been mentioned, which was called D'3'D nDIl " The prayer against heretics ;" which became, by injunction, one of their daily prayers. Maimonides speaketh the matter and intent of it in his treatise Tephillah', in these words : " In the days of Rabban Gamaliel, heretics increased in Israel" [by ' heretics,' he meaneth those, that turned from Ju daism to Christianity] ; " and they troubled Israel, and per suaded them to turn from their religion. He, seeing this to be a matter of exceeding great consequence, more than any thing else, stood up, he and his Sanhedrim ; and appointed a prayer, in which there was a petition to God, to destroy those heretics : and this he set among the common prayers, and appointed it to be in every man's mouth ; and so their daily prayers became nineteen in number." So that they daily prayed against Christians and Christianity. 2. The Jews had their emissaries every where abroad, that, to the utmost in them, cried down the gospel, preached against it, went about to confute it, and blasphemed it, and Christ that gave it : of this there is testimony abundant in the New Testament, and in the Jews' own writings. And, 3. They were exceeding many of them skilled in magic, and, by that, did many strange things ; by such false "¦ ^•"¦o- '^i"' 13, " Matt, xxiv, 24. o Cap. 2. Acts, xii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 215 YEAR OF CHRIST 44. miracles, seeking to outface and vilify the divine miracles done by Christ and his apostles : and striving to confirm their own doctrines, which opposed the gospel, by backing them with such strange and wondrous actings. Juchasin speaks of Abba Chelchiah, and Chamin, and Chamina Ben Dusa, D'D'3n D'noi^O " men skilled in miraclesP :" and the Jerusalera Talmud speaks of their enchantings, and magical tricks'', — nay, even of their charming, " in the name of Jesu'." Paul miraculously strikes Elymas blind, and enlightens Sergius Paulus with the light of the gospel. This was at Paphos, where old superstition dreamed of the blind god, Cupid. Doting Elymas, grope for thy fellow. The first mi racle, wrought among the Gentiles, is striking a perverse Jew blind ; which thing may very well become an allegory. From Paphos, they go to Perga, in Pamphylia ; and there John departs from them, and returns to Jerusalem : but what was the occasion, is hard to conjecture. Whether it were, that he heard of Peter's trouble and danger, that he had been in at Jerusalem, and desired to see hira, — for that he had some special interest and familiarity with Peter, may be collected from 1 Pet. v. 13 ; and in that Peter was so well acquainted at his mother's house. Acts xii. 12, &c : — or whether in re gard of this his relation to Peter, the minister of the circum cision, he made it nice to go among the Gentiles, into the thickest of which he saw they were coming every day more than other. For at Paphos, where they had last been, was a temple of Venus,— and at Perga, where they now are, was a temple of Diana": — or, whatsoever the matter was, his depar ture was so unwarrantable, that it made a breach betwixt him and Paul for the present,— nay, it occasioned a breach be twixt Paul and Barnabas afterward. And so we leave him in his journey to Jerusalem ; whither when he came, he stayed there, till Paul and Barnabas came thither again. ACTS, chap. XII, from ver. 20 to ver. 24. Herod's death was in the beginning of this year, the fourth of Claudius, or near unto it, according 44 Christ. as Josephus helpeth us to compute ; who testi- P Fol 20 1 In Shabb. fol. 8. col. 2, 3. .Sanhedr. fol. 25. col. 4. ¦¦ Shabb, fol, 11. col. 4. • Strab. lib. 14. Pomp. Mela, lib. 1. cap. 14. 216 HARMONY OF [Acts, xm, xiv. YEAR OF CHRIST 45 — 49. 4 Claudius, fieth, that the third year of his reign was com pleted a little before his death'. He left be hind him a son of seventeen years old, in regard of whose minority, and thereby unfitness to reign, Claudius sent Cuspius Fadus to govern his kingdom. His daughters were Berenice, sixteen years old, raarried to Herod, king of Chal- cis, her father's brother; and Mariara, ten years old; and Drusilla six, who afterward married Felix. ACTS, chap. XIII, from ver. 14 to the end ofthe chapter ; and chap. XIV. At the fifteenth chapter, we have some fastness of the tirae, viz. in what year, the council at Je- 46 — 49 Christ. rusalera. as it is commonly cahed, did 5 — 9 Claudius, occur : which certainty we have not of the times of the occurrences hencefor-- ward thitherto. So that since we cannot determinately point any passage to its proper year, we must cast them in gross under this gross sum of years, and distribute thera to their proper seasons, by the best conjecture we can. From Perga, in Pamphylia, Paul and Barnabas come to Antioch, in Pisidia; and, on the sabbath-day, going into the synagogue, are invited by the rulers of the synagogue, after the reading of the law and prophets, to speak a word of exhortation to the people. But how could the rulers know, that they were men fit to teach ? It may be answered. By former converse with them in the city ; and it is very like, that the rulers themselves had drunk in some affection to the gospel by converse with them, which made them so ready to urge thera to preach. For it is not imaginable, that this was the first time that they had seen them, nor that they carae to town that very day ; but that they had had some converse before. Paul preacheth: and, the synagogue broke up and the Jews gone out, the Gentiles desired, that the same words might be preached to them in the week between, elg rh fiETaB ali^fiarov : namely, on the • second and fifth days of the week' following, which were synagogue-days, on which ' Vid. Antiq. lib. 19. cap. 7. Acts, XIV.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 217 YEAR OF CHRIST 45 49. they met in the synagogues as on the sabbath-day : and which days, their traditions said, were appointed for that purpose by Ezra". Their preaching on those days had so wrought, that, on the next sabbath, alraost all tbe city was gathered together to bear the word : and many of the Gen tiles receive it ; but the Jews stirred up some female unbe heving proselytes against them, and some of the cbief of the city, so that they drave them out of those coasts ; and they, shaking off the dust of their feet against them, go to Iconium. This ceremony, enjoined them by their Master', was not so much for any great business, put in the thing itself; as that, even from a tenet of their own, they might show how they were to be reputed of. It was their own maxim. That " the dust of a heathen country or city did defile, or make a per- , son unclean." Tosaphta. ad .Kelim, cap. I, hath this say ing; " In three things, Syria was like unto any heathen land : the dust of it made a person unclean, as the dust of any other heathen country did," &c. So that their shaking off the dust of their feet against thera, was to show, that they re puted them and their city as heathenish. ACTS, chap. XIV. At Iconium they continue long, and with good effect; but at last, they are in danger of stoning, and thereupon they slip away to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and "to the region that lieth round about." That region, Strabo describeth, lib. 12 ; where, among other particulars, he tells, that Derbe lay coasting upon Isauria; and, in his tirae, was under the dominion of Amyntas. At Lystra, or Derbe, Paul converteth Lois, arid Eunice, and Tiraothy ; and, as some win tell you, here, or at Iconium, he converteth Tecla. For healing a cripple, they are first accounted gods ; but pre sently, by persuasion of sorae Jews, Paul is stoned ; but, being reputed dead, recovereth miraculously. From thence they go to Derbe, and return to Lystra, Iconium, and An tioch, and ordain elders in those churches. XtipoTovfiaavTEg, ver. 24, is improperly rendered here, " Per suffragia creantes presbyteros :" for so they coiild not do ; there not being a "Talm. in Bava Kamina, cap. 7. R. Sol. and Nissim in Chetubotb, cap. 1. in Alphes. " Matt. x. 14. 218 HARMONY OF [Acts, xv. YEAR OF CHRIST 50. man, in all these churches, fit to be chosen a minister, or qualified with abihties for that function,— unless the apostles, by imposition of hands, bestow the Holy Ghost upon them, which might enable them. For the churches being but newly planted, and the people but lately converted, it would be hard to find any among them so thoroughly completed in the knowledge of the gospel as to be a minister : but by the apostles' hands they receive the Holy Ghost, and so are enabled. Itis true, indeed, the Greek word, in the first sense, denoteth suffrages, but that is not the only sense. And so doth the word ^DD, in the proper sense, signify ' laying on of hands,' — yet there was mD'DD ordination that was without it. nnn^ nD»DDn H>n l^O " How is ordination to be for per petuity ? Not that they lay their hands on the head of the elder ; but call him Rabbi, and say. Behold, thou art or dained''," &c. ACTS, chap. XV. We are now come up to the council at Jerusalem. The occasion of which was, the busy stirring of 50 Christ. some, who would have brought the yoke of 10 Claudius. Mosaic observances upon the neck of the con verted Gentiles. Multitudes of the Jews that believed, yet were zealous of the law" ; and it was hard to get them off from those rites, in which they had been ever trained up, and which had been, as it were, an inheritance to them from their fathers : this bred this disturbance at the present, and, in time, an apostasy from the gospel of ex ceeding many. Antiquity hath held, that Cerinthus was the chief stickler in this business ; but whosoever it was that kindled it, it was a spark enough to have fired all, had it not been timely prevented. Paul and Barnabas, who had chiefly to deal in the minis tration to the Gentiles, are sent from Antioch to Jerusalem, to consult the aposties about this matter. This is thesamejour- ney and occasion that is spoken of. Gal. ii. 1, 2 ; " Then four teen years after, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me. And I went up by revelation," &c. Not but that he was sent by the church, as Luke hath asserted " Maim, in Sanhedr. 4. » Acts, xxi. 20. Acts, XV.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 219 year of CHRIST 60. here, ver. 2 ; but that the church was directed, by revelation, to take this course for the settling ofthe question, — namely, to send up to the apostles at Jerusalem. And hence we may fix the time of this business, if it be resolved, from whence the beginning of these fourteen years is to be dated. — namely, whether he mean fourteen years after his first conversion, or fourteen after his former journey to Jerusalem, mentioned Gal. i. 18; which he took three years after his conversion. The latter is the more undoubted, upon these two observa tions: — 1. It were exceeding obscure, and is exceeding un agreeable to Scripture-accounting, to reckon the latter sum, of fourteen years, from the time of his conversion, and not from the number or time that went next before, — which was his being at Jerusalem three years after he was converted. 2. His scope in tbat his discourse is, not to show barely what journeys he took to Jerusalem after his conversion ; but to show how long he preached araong the Gentiles and abroad out of Judea tirae after tirae ; and yet, when he came to the aposties to Jerusalem, they found no fault with him, nor with the course he took in his ministry. ' After I was con verted I went not to Jerusalem to consult the apostles ; but went into Arabia, and back again to Damascus, and so preached up and down, one utteriy unknown by face to the aposties; yet when, after three years thus doing, I came up to Peter, the minister ofthe circumcision,— he was so far from contiarying tbe course that I had gone, that he gave me fifteen days' entertainment. And, after that time, I went through Syria and Cilicia, and abroad among the Gentiles ; yet, after fourteen years' employment in this kind, when I went up to Jerusalem again, I found fair respect with the aposties, and they gave me the right hand of fellowship.' This drift of the apostie being observed in that place, which cannot be denied, if his main purpose through the whole Epistie be observed,— it evidently stateth the time of this journey to Jerusalem to be seventeen years after his con version. When Paul and Barnabas came to Jerusalem, they ap phed themselves singularly^' to Peter, James, and John the ministers ofthe circumcision,— and imparted to them the doc- y Kkt' iSiav. 220 HARMONY OF [Acts,xv. year of CHRIST 50. trine, and manner of dealing, that they had used among the Gentiles^. And this they did, that they might clear them selves of all false rumours, that might be laid to their charge [as if they crossed the doctrine and mind of the apostles] ; and that they might have their judgment and concurrence along with them. With Paul there was Titus, who hitherto had been uneircumcised, all along in his attending and ac companying Paul : and even now at Jerusalem, though he were before the apostles of the circumcision, yet was he not forced to be circumcised there neither ; because there were some false brethren, who lay upon the catch to observe and scandal the liberty of the gospel, that the apostles used ; and they were unwilling to give way to them in any such condescension, lest they should have wronged the gospel. For though Paul allowed the circumcision of Timothy,— and though even these apostles persuaded Paul to use some of the Mosaic ceremonies% for avoiding offence to the wea,k, and for the more winning of those that were well satisfied ; — yet would they not yield an inch in any such thing to these catchpoles, that lay upon the lurch, to spy out some thing, if it might have been, whereby they might have dis graced the gospel. Well : the result of the apostles' conference is, that the three of the circumcision, neither detracted from what the two of the uncircumcision had done already, nor added any more things to be done by them hereafter : but they agree, that Paul and Barnabas should go to the heathen, and they theraselves to the circuracision : desiring only, that, though they went among the Gentiles, yet they would remember ihe poor of the circumcision ;— which they consented to, and all was well concluded betwixt them. But they that urged for the imposition of Moses's yoke, would not be so satisfied, but the matter must come to a public canvas ; and so the elders also met together with those apostles to consider of it. Peter would have none of Moses's burdens laid upon the Gentiles, because he himself had seen them to have been partakers of the Holy Ghost, in as free and full a measure, as they had been, that had been most Mosaical. Paul and 'Gal. il.2. 'Acts, xxi. 24. Acts, XV.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 221 YEAR OF CHRIST 50. Barnabas affirmed, that they had seen the like ; and, there fore, what needed the Gentiles to be troubled with these observances, seeing they were so eminent in gifts of the Spirit, as well as they of the circuracision ; and what could these add to them ? But Jaraes findeth out a temper betwixt those that would have all these yokes imposed, and those that would have none, — that so the Jews might have the less offence, and the Gentiles no burden neither : arid that was, that the Gentiles might be required to refrain frorii eating things offered to idols, and strangled, and blood, and forni cation. The three first were now become things indifferent. however strictly they had been imposed by the law before ; Christ having, by his death, done down the partition-wall, and laid these things aside as useless, when there was, to be no distinction of meats or nations any more : yet, because the Jews were so glued to these things, that the tearing of them away suddenly, would, in a manner, have fetched up skin and flesh and all,— therefore, the whole council, upon the motion of James, think it fit, that the Gentiles should thus far Judaize, till time and fuller acquaintance with the gospel might make both Jews and Gentiles to lay these now needless niceties aside. The Jews, about these things, had these canons, among many others: — " These things of idolatry are forbidden, and their pro hibition meaneth the prohibition of their use :— Wine and vinegar, used in idolatry, which at first was wine, &c. And flesh that was brought in for idolatry, is permitted to be used" [viz. before it was offered]; " but what is brought out, is pro- hibited\" " And botties and cans used in idolatry, and an Israel ite's wine put in them, are prohibited to be used." " A beast, offered to an idol, is forbidden for any use : yea, even his dung, bones, horns, hoofs, skin : yea, though there were only a hole cut in the beast to take out the heart, and that alone offered'=." Divers other things, used in idola try, are mentioned and prohibited. The observing of all which helpeth to clear thedisrinc- tion of the words used in the text,— namely, aXiffyvfi-ara rHiv k Avodah Zarah, cap. 2. "= Maimon. in Avodah Zarah, cap. 7. 222 HARMONY OF [\cts,xv. YEAR OF CHRIST 50. dSwXwv and ildwXo^vra, for these properly were not one and the same thing; for every okiayvjiaTCiv tlSwXwv wasnotEiSw- XoS'vTov ; but, ' e contra,' every alSwXo3'iiTov was aXiayrifia. For divers things were used at an idolatrous offering, which themselves were not offered, — as knives, dishes, and the like, which cannot be called tiSwXdS'vTa ; and yet, by these tra ditions, were profane and unclean, and prohibited to be used. About ' not eating of blood,' they expounded the prohi bition of the law in that point, unto this purpose ; " He that eats blood to the quantity of an olive, if presumptuously, he is to be cut off; and if ignorantly, he is to bring a sin-offer ing"*." By ' things strangled,' their canons understood any thing that died of itself, or that was not killed as it ought to be. " And he that eat, to the quantity of an olive, of the flesh of any cattle that died of itself, or of any beast, or any fowl, that died of itself, — was to be whipped ; as it is said. Ye shaU eat no carcass : and whatsoever was not slain as was fitting, is reputed as if dying of itself °." Therefore, they had their rules about killing any beast, that they were to eat; of which the Talraudic treatise Cholin discusseth at large. Now, as concerning ' fornication ;' — it is controverted, first, whether it mean bodily or spiritual : and, secondly, how it cometh to be ranked among things indifferent [as the other named were] ; itself being of no such indifferency, whether- soever is meant, the one or the other. The former, certainly, is not meant ; for the word aXiuyrifiaTa tiSwXwv reacheth that to the full, and more needed not to be spoken to that point: the latter, therefore, is meant: but why named here with things indifferent? Not because it was indifferent, as well as they: nor because it was so very offensive to the Jews, as were the other : for they made but little of fornication themselves, according to the common taking of the word ' fornication :' but ' fornication' here seemeth to translate their word nviX , that meaneth with them, ' marriages in degrees prohibited:' which the Gentiles made no matter about : and so the apo stles would bring the convert Gentiles under obedience of the law'. '' Talm. in Cherithuth, cap. 1. and 5. Maim, in Maacaloth Asnrotli, cap. 6. ^ Talm. in Zebachin, cap. 7. Maim, ubi supra, cap. 1. ^ Lev. xviii. Acts, xv.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 223 YEAR OF CHRIST 50. Before we part from this council, as it is commonly called, — we may thus far take notice of the nature of it, as to observe, that it was not a convention premeditated and solemnly summoned, but only occasional and emergent ; and that it was only of those apostles and elders, that were at Jerusalem at the instant, when the matter from Antioch was brought thither : and the other apostles, that were abroad, were not fetched in, — nor, indeed, needed any such thing: for the message from Antioch required not so much the number of voices, as the resolves of those apostles, that had espe cially to deal with the circumcision : and whom the Antio chian church doubted not to find ready at Jerusalem. The matter being determined, letters are despatched, with the decrees, unto the churches, by Paul and Barnabas, and Judas and Silas : they come to Antioch, and there abide a while : and at last go their several ways ; Judas to Jerusalem, — and Paul, Barnabas, and Silas, away among the Gentiles. It was the agreement between Paul and Barnabas, on the one party, — and Peter, James, and John, on the other, — that those two should go among the Gentiles, and these three among the circumcision^. James abode at Jerusalem, as the residentiary apostle of that country''; and there, at last, he suffered martyrdom. Peter and John went abroad among the Jews dispersed in foreign parts : so that, at last, you have Peter at Babylon, in the east, — and John at Patmos, in the west : — and by this we may guess, how they parted their employment between them. When Paul and Barnabas are to set forth, they disagree about Mark's going with them. Barnabas, being his uncle, would have had his company ; but Paul denied it, because of his departure from them before. Mark, it seemeth, was at Antioch at this time [and it may be a query, whether Peter were not there also'] : — and when the contest betwixt Paul and Barnabas was so sharp, that they part asunder, — Bar nabas taketh Mark, and Paul Silas, and go their several ways; and it is questionable, whether they ever saw one another's faces any more. Only Paul and Mark were recon ciled again, and came into very near society ; as we shall observe afterward. s Gal.ii, 9. h Gal,ii. 13. Acts, xxi. 18, ' Gal, ii,ll. 224 HARMONY OF [Acts, xvi. YEAR OF CHRIST 51. ACTS, chap. XVI. Paul and Silas, having travelled through Syria and Ci licia, come to Derbe and Lystra : there he 51 Christ. circumciseth Tiraothy, whom he intended to 1 1 Claudius, take along with hira, and to breed him for his successor in the rainistry after his death. Timothy was a young man of very choice education, parts, and hopes; and some reraarkable prophecies and predictions had been given concerning him, what an instrument he should prove in the gospel, — which made Paul to fix upon him, as one designed for hira frora heaven. They set forth and travel Phrygia and Galatia ; and, when they would have gone into Asia and Bithynia, the Spirit for bade thera, because the Lord would hasten thera into Mace donia unto a new work, and such a one as they had not meddled withal till now ; and that was, to preach to a Roman plantation, for so the text doth intimate that Phihppi was. ver. 12, and ver. 21 : and so saith PhnyJ. Paul had, indeed, been always in the Roman dominions ; but still among other nations, — as Jews, Greeks, Syrians, and the like ; but we read not, that he was in any city of Romans till here. And his going to preach to that people is so remarkable, that the text seemeth to have set two or three notable badges upon it. For that nation lieth under so many sad brands in Scrip ture, and lay under so great an abominating by the Jews, that the gospel's entering araong them, hath these three sin gular circumstances to advertise of it:— 1. That the Spirit diverted Paul from Asia and Bithynia, to hasten him thither. 2. That be was called thither by a special vision, the like invitation to which he had not in all his travels to any other place. 3. The penman doth not join bimself ih the story till this very time. For hitherto, having spoken in the third person, ' he' and ' they,'— as, ' He came to Derbe,' ver. 1. ' They went through the cities,' ver. 4, &c ;— he cometh now to join himself, and to use the word we and ms; " After he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering tbat the Lord had called ws;'! ver. 10. J Lib. 4. cap. 11. Acts, xvn.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 225 YEAR OF CHRIST 51. Yet was this city raixed also of abundance of Jews living among them, as that people was now dispersed and sowed in the most places of the empire, from Rome itself eastward, however it was on this side. — On the sabbath, by a river side, where the women, it seemed, used their bathings for pu rification, and where was a synagogue, they preach and con vert Lydia a proselytess; and she is instantly baptized, and her household, before she go home, for aught can be found otherwise in the text : from whence we may observe, what believing gave admission to baptism to whole households. In this Roman colony, it is observable, that the synagogue is called ' proseucha,' and tbat it is out of the towni Paul casteth out a spirit of divination, and is, thereupon, beaten and imprisoned, he and Silas ; but enlarged by an earthquake : and the jailor is converted ; and he and his family instantly baptized. After a little while, Paul and Silas, depart, having laid the foundation of a very erainent church, as it proved afterward : from which Paul, in his Epistle thither, acknowledgeth as raany tokens of love re ceived, as frora any church that he had planted: and to which he made as many visits afterward. When he de parteth, he had ordained no ministers there, for aught can be gathered frora the text ; and, it may be, he did not, till his return thither again ; which was the course he had used in other churches''- He speaketh of divers fellow-labourers, that he had there in the gospel, both raen and women' ; which cannot be understood of preaching, but that these being converted, they used their best endeavour, to persuade others to embrace the same religion, &c. ACTS, chap. XVII. Paul and Silas, or Silvanus, and Timothy, come to Thes- salonica, where they make many converts, but, withal, find very much opposition. In three weeks' space, or very little more, they convert some Jews, many proselytes, and not a few of the chief Gentiles, — women of the city : which num ber, considered with the shortness of the time in which, so many were brought in, and the bitterness they endured from k Acts, xiv. ?3. ' Phil. iv. 3. VOL. III. Q 226 HARMONY OF [Acts, xviii. YEAR OF CHRIST 51. the unbelieving, made their piety to be exceedingly renowned all abroad". Persecution driveth the apostles to Bersea, another town of Macedonia" : there they found persons better bred, and better learned, than that rabble, mentioned ver. 5, that they had met withal at Thessalonica. The Jews called their learned men \n^^ '33, ' filii nobilium :' it may be Luke's ehyt- vIcTTEpoi (ver. 11), translates that. — The rabble from Thessa lonica brings the persecution hither also, so that Paul is glad to depart to Athens ; but Silas and Timothy abide at Bersea still. At Athens, there was a synagogue of Jews and prose lytes (ver. 17) ; so that it is undoubted, the scholars of the university had heard from them the report of the true God: therefore, Paul is not so much cried out upon, for telhng them of the true God, in opposition to the false, as for preaching of Jesus crucified, risen, and glorified, which nei ther they, nor even the Jews' synagogue there, had ever heard of before : for this he is convented before their great court of Areopagus, where his discourse converts one of that bench, Dionysius. ACTS, chap. XVIII. From Athens, Paul cometh to Corinth. " Urbs olim clara opibus, post clade notior, nunc Romana colonia," saith Pomp. Mela". A little view of the city may not be useless. It stood in the isthmus, or that neck of land, that lay and gave passage betwixt Peloponnesus and Attica: upon which isthmus the sea pointing in, on either hand, made Corinth a famous and a wealthy mart-town, by two havens that it had at a reasonable distance from it on either side it, — the one Lechseum, at which they took shipping for Italy, and those western parts ; and the other Cenchrea, at which they took shipping for Asia: merchandise arriving at these ports, from those several parts of the world, was brought to Corinth, which lay much in the middle between them ; and so this city became the great exchange for those parts. It lay at the foot of a high promontory, called, Acro- corinthus, or the ' Pike of Corinth.' The compass of the city n 1 Thess. i. 6—8. n Plin. 1. 4. c. 10.. » Lib. 2. Cap. 3. Acts, xviii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.- Part II. 227 YEAR OF CHRIST 51. was some forty furlongs, or five miles about, being strongly walled. In it was a temple of Venus ; so ample a foundation, that it had above a thousand nuns [such nuns as Venus had] to attend upon it. The city was sacked by L. Mummius, the Roman general, as for some other offence that it had given to that state. — so, more especially, for some abuse showed to the Roman ambassadors there. But it was re paired again by the Romans, and made a colonyP. Paul, coming hither, findeth Priscilla and Aquila, lately come from Italy, because of Claudius's decree, which had expelled all the Jews from Rome. Qf this decree, Sueto nius speaketh, as he is generally understood'': " Judseos, im- pulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes, Roma expulit :" " Claudilis expelled the Jews out of Rome, who continually tumultuated because of Christ." — In some copies it is written ' Christo ;' but so generally interpreted by Christians in the sense mentioned, that we shall not at all dispute it. The same quarrel was got to Rome with the gospel, that did attend it in all parts of the world, where it came among the Jews, they still opposing it. and contesting against it. and so breeding tumultuousness. The apostle, here, in a strange place, and out of moneys, betaketh himself to work with his hfinds for his subsistence, as also he did iii other places upon the same exigent. His work was tp piake tents of skins, such as the soldiery used to lodge in, when they were in the field : hence the phrase, ' Esse sub pellibus.' This trade he learned before he set to his studies. It was the custom of the Jewish nation to set their children to some trade, — yea, though they were to be students. " What is commanded a father towards his son? To circumcise him, to redeem him, to teach him the kw, to t^each him a trade, and jtp take hini a wife. R. Judah saith. He that teacheth not his son a trade, does as if he taught him to he a thief. Rabban Gamaliel saith. He that hath a .tra,de in his hand, to what is he like ? He is like to a vine yard that is fenced^" So some of jjie great wise men of Israel had been cutters pf wood\ And not to instance in p Vid. Strabo, lib. 8. Plin. lib. 4. o»p. 4. 9 In Claudio, cap. 25. edit. Wolf. vol. 2. p. 48. ' Tosapbt. in Kiddushin, cap. 1. ' Maim, in Talm. Torah, c»p. 1. Q 2 228 HARMONY OF [1 Thess. YEAR OF CHRIST 51. any others, as might be done in divers ; " Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai, that was, at this instant, vice-president of the Sanhedrim, was a merchant four years, and then he fell to study the law'." Paul had power and warrant to challenge maintenance for preaching, as he intimateth raany times over in his Epistles ; but there was not yet any church at Corinth to raaintain him ; and when there was, he would take nothing of the Gentiles, for the greater honour and pro motion of the gospel". He frequenteth the synagogue every sabbath, and there reasoneth and persuadeth divers, both Jews and Greeks. " But when Silas and Timotheus were come from Mace donia, he was pressed in spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ ;" they having brought him tidings of the great proficiency and piety of Macedonian churches,— naraely, the Philippian and Thessalonian' : upon whose example he was the more earnest to bring the Jews of Co rinth on ; but they oppose and blaspheme : whereupon, he, and Silas, and Tiraothy, set to work to build up the Gentiles there. The converts in this place were, Crispus and Gains, and the household of Stephanas^ and Epenetus". He is called " the first-fruits of Achaia," and so is " the house hold of Stephanas^;" converted at his first coming thither. He now sets upon a new task, having the Lord's encourage ment by a vision by night; and so he stayeth at Corinth a year and a half. In the time of this his abode there, he writeth The first EPISTLE to the THESSALONIANS, which was the first Epistie that he wrote. The postscript, affixed to that Epistie, doth date it from Athens [as it seemeth] because of that passage in chap. hi. 1; "We thought It good to be left at Athens alone:" whereas, 1 There was a church in Achaia, when Paul wrote this Epistle^ : now there was none there, while Paul was at Athens ; for from thence he went to Achaia, and began to plant the church at Corinth. 2. Timothy and Silas were ' Juchasin, fol 21. u «„ < n . ^ V See Acts, xvii, 14. 1 Thess. i. 8. and iil'^ ' ""¦ '^'A ^fu &c « Rom. XVI. 5. y a Cor. xvi. 1 5. z cjiap. i". 7 1 Thess.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 229 YEAR OF CHRIST 51. joint writers with the apostle of this Epistle*. Now, if they were with him at Athens, whilst he abode there, which, it may be, they were, at least one of them'', — yet was not the Epistle then written : for it is questionable, whether Silas was there ; and Timothy went a messenger thither, and re turned again, before this was written''. The tirae of its writing, therefore, was, when Tiraothy and Silas with hira retumed from Macedonia, and came to Paul at Corinth* ; and Timo thy, who had been sent thither purposely, gives a corafort able account of their faith and constancy. So that this Epistle was written from Corinth, soraewhat within the be ginning of the first year of Paul's abode there. In it, araong other things, he characterizeth the condi tion of the unbelieving Jews= ; for the Thessalonian church, from its first planting, had been exceedingly molested with them. He saith, " The wrath is corae upon them to the utmost :" which whether it mean passively, that the wrath of God lay so heavy upon them,— or actively, that in their vexation and anger against the Gentiles, that was come upon them, that was foretold for a plague to themf,— it showeth, that that nation was now become unrecoverable : and so he looks upon it as the ' antichrist' in the next Epistie, as we shall observe there. Paul abiding still at Corinth, a tumult is raised against him, and he is brought before the tribunal of Gallio, the proconsul; who, refusing to judge in matters of that nature [because the Jews themselves bad power to judge such mat ters in their own synagogue], the people become their own carvers, and beat Sosthenes even before the tribunal. This Gahio was brother of Seneca, the famous court-philosopher, Nero's tutor : and of him, Seneca giveth this high encomium, in the preface to his fourth book of Natural Questions : " I used to tell thee" [saith he, to his friend Lucius], "that my brother Gallio, whom no man loves not a littie, if he can love no more, is not acquainted with other vices ; but this of flattery he hates. Thou hast tried him on all hands. Thou hast begun to praise his disposition,-he would go • Chap. i.l. " 1 Thess. iii. 1. " Chap. iii. 6. .. ^ Acts, xviii. 5. ^ eiThess.ii.15,16. f Deut. XXXU. 21. 230 HARMONY OF [2 Thess. YEAR OF CHRIST 51. away. Thou hast begun to praise his frugality,— he would presently cut thee off at the first words. Thou hast begun to admire his affability and unaffected sweetness, — for there is no mortal man so dear to any, as he to all; — and here also he withstood thy flatteries ; insomuch, that thou criedst out. That thou hadst found a man impregnable against those snares, that every one takes into his bosom." And agaiu, in Epist. 104, " Gallio (saith be), when he was in Achaia, and began to have a fever, he presently took ship, crying out. That it was not the disease of the body, but of the place." — To him he dedicates his treatise ' de Beata Vita.' See more of this Gallio, Tacit. Annal. 15. sect. 11. From Corinth, in the time of his present abode there [but whether before this tumult before Gallio, or after, is not rauch material], Paul writeth The SECOND EPISTLE to the THESSALONIANS, whilst he, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, were there together*, as they had been at the writing of the First. The exceeding much trouble and persecution that this church had suffered from the unbelieving Jews, from its first planting'', gave the apostle just occasion, whilst he was pre sent with them, to discourse with them, and to inform them, concerning the condition, and carriage, and end, of that nation : that they might be settled, and resolved to bear all whatsoever they should suffer from that accursed people and generation : and hetrehe taketh up the same discourse again for their farther establishment. Besides outward molestation, and -affliction of their bodies, there were false teachers, that troubled their minds, and especially with these two puzzles : — 1. To make them to doubt, what became of them tbat died in the faith and pro fession of Jesus : for whereas the apostle handles the matter of the resurrection in the former Epistle', I cannot suppose, that he doth it to tbem as to men ofthe Sadducee opinion, denying the resurrection,— or as to men, that had never heard ofthe resurrection before; for all the Jews, set the Sadducees aside, did assuredly believe it: but because that theopposers 1 2 Thess. i. 1. ^ Acts, xvii. 5, &c. 1 Thess. i. 6, and ii. 14. and 2 Thess. i, 4. ' Chap. iv. 14. 2THESS.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.- Part II. 231 YEAR OF CHRIST 51. ofthe gospel, had buzzed to them their lost condition after death, for their revolting frora the Jewish religion, and be coming apostates [as they reputed it] to the gospel. The tenth chapter of the treatise ' Sanhedrim,' that names certain sorts of people, that must not inherit the world to come, gives us good cause to suppose, that this was no small terror, that those envious opposers would perplex the minds of those withal, who had forsaken the Jewish religion, and betaken themselves to the profession of Christ. The Talmudic place, cited, speaketh thus : " All Israel hath a share in the world to come ; as it is said. Thy people shall all of them be righ teous : but these have no share in the world to come, — he that saith. The resurrection is not taught in the law ; and that the law is not from God; and Epicurus." Now, by 'Epicurus' they mean not ' luxurious ones,' as the word ' epicure' is commonly used by us ; but, as the Gemara explains it there, "nn nt^On " One that despiseth their doctors :" and else where they yoke it with D'noWD "apostates;" ;'^D1!:'D^ I'Dmp'DKni " apostates and epicuresJ :" and so they brought ah, that started from the vain doctrine of their traditionaries, under this titie, and under tbat terror of having no share in the world to come. 2. They went about to perplex the mind of these converts with urging, how near " the day of the Lord" was. The Scripture and the apostie had spoken ofthe day of the Lord's coming;" when he should come to take vengeance of the Jewish nation, for their wickedness and unbelief: and these would terrify this church with in culcating the nearness of it ; pretending, for this, partiy, reve lation,— and partiy, the words or writing of the apostie. The aim, in this terror, was to amaze the new believers, and to puzzle them about what to hold, and what to do, in that sad time, which, they pretended, was ready to fall upon their heads. The apostie resolves, that there was some good space of time to be before ; for there was first to be " a fail mg away," and " the man of sin" to be revealed. The phrase, " the man of sin and child of perdition," is plainly taken from that place, Isa. xi. 4 ; " With the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked one :" and the apostie j Rosh hashanah, cap. 1. 232 HARMONY OF [2Thess. YEAR OF CHRIST 51. makes it clear that he referreth to that place, by using the very words of the prophet, at ver. 8 : " Whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his raouth." The Jews put an emphasis upon that word in the prophet, ' the wicked one :' as it appeareth by the Chaldee paraphrast, who hath uttered it Nyti^l DlVoiN "He shall destroy the wicked Roman:" and so the apostle puts an emphasis upon it, and translates it " the man of sin :" and in that Christ is introduced in the prophet, as having a special quarrel and vengeance against him, he is called " the son of perdition," or he, that is so certainly and remarkably to be destroyed. It is true, this meaneth tbe Roman, — -as the Chaldee, and our protestant divines, by the warrant of John in the Revelation, do interpret it: but, in the first place and sense, it meaneth the Jewish nation, which proved antichrist, as well as Rome ever did, and as far as Rome ever did, and before Rome ever did, and as long and longer than Rome hath yet done. As Jews and Rome joined inthe murder of Christ, — so are they joined in this character of antichrist; but the Jews to be understood first : see ver. 7 ; " The mystery of iniquity was already working," when the apostie wrote this Epistie, which cannot possibly be understood but of the Jewish nation ; and so it is explained again and again''. The several characters, that the apostle gives of " the man of sin," agree raost thoroughly to that generation and nation ; and so the Scripture plainly applies them to it. 1. There was "a falling away" in that nation of multi tudes, that had embraced the gospel. See, Matt. xxiv. 12, Christ foretelling it ; and Paul from thence', by " the latter times," that he there speaks of; meaning, the last days of Jerusalem and the Jewish state, as the phrase is used in that sense abundantiy. Such apostasy may be observed hinted in the Epistie to the Galatians, to the Hebrews, Colossians, Rev. ii. 4, 2 Tira. i. 15; and, to spare raore, observe the conclusion of that parable, " So shall it be with this wicked generation""." The devil was once cast out of it by the gos pel, but returned by their apostasy. ' 1 John.ii. 18, and iv. 3. and 2 John, ver. 7, &c. 1 1 Tim. iv. 1. ¦" Malt. xii. 43 — 45. 2 Thess.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.- Part II. 233 YEAR OF CHRIST 61. 2. How this nation was the 6 AvriKelpEvog, ' the great opposer' of the gospel, needeth no instance to any, that hath read the New Testament. And he, that reads the Jewish records, shall find evidence enough of it; of which we have given some brief account, at Acts xiii. 3. 'YinpaipofXEyog etti Ttavra XEy6p,Evov Steov r] a^^aafia. " Which exalts himself against every thing that is called God, or worshipped :" were it ettI S'eov, " against God," it were most true, to the very letter ; their scribes, in the temple of God itself, sitting and setting up their traditions above the commands of God°. But how they exalted themselves against every thing called God, or the magistracy, and those that were set over thera, we may observe in such passages as these, — " They despise government"," &c. " They despise dominion, and speak evil of dignitiesP," &c. and in their own stories to endless exaraples. 4. As for the fourth mark, mentioned ver. 9, — namely, his " coming after the working of Satan," with all magical power and delusion, our Saviour had foretold it of that generation ; Matt. xxiv. 24, compared with ver. 34 of that chapter: and it is abundantly asserted by Scripture, by Josephus, and other of their own writers ; as we have given some examples before. Now, what the apostle meaneth, when he speaketh of one " that letted" [ver. 6, "And now ye know what withholdeth ;" and ver. 7, " He who now letteth, will let"], — is of some obscurity; we may, without offence, give this conjecture: As the term ' The day of the Lord,' is taken in Scripture, especiaUy in this double sense, for ' his day of judging the Jewish nation,' and for 'his day of judging all the worid;'— so are we to understand 'a falling away,' and 'a man of sin,' ofthe Jewish nation before the former; and ' a falling away' and ' antichrist,' betwixt the forraer and the latter. This last is readily concluded upon, to be the papacy ;— and ' he that letted,' to mean the imperial power : but what was he that letied in the former, that the antichrist among the Jews was not revealed sooner? I should divide this stake betwixt Claudius the emperor [who, by his decree against the Jews in Rome", gave a check, by the appearance of his » Matt. XV. 6. ' 2 Pe*. »¦ ^0- '' ^"^"^ "¦¦• ^- ' ''^°"' ^""' ^' 234 HARMONY OF [Acts, xix. YEAR OF CHRIST 51. displeasure, to all the Jews elsewhere, that they durst not tyrannize against the gospel, whilst he lived, as they had done], and Paul himself; who, by his incessant travailing in the gospel, and combatting by tbe truth every where against the Jews, did keep down very much their delusions and apostasy, whilst he was at liberty and abroad : but when he was once laid up, then all went to ruin ; as see Acts, xx. 29; 2Tim.i. 15, &c. Paul, when he departs from Corinth, leaves a church fairly planted there ; but how soon, and how miserably, it grew degenerate, we shall meet witb cause to observe, before it be long. He cometh to Ephesus ; and, striving to get up to one of the feasts at Jerusalem, he leaves Priscilla and Aquila there. Thither, ere long, cometh Apollos, an excel lent Scripture-man, but one that knew only the baptism of John ; but they instruct him better. Not that these tent- makers turned preachers ; but that, having had so much con verse with Paul, they were able, in private conference, to inform Apollos better than yet he knew, from what they had learned from Paul. ACTS, XIX, from ver. 1 to ver. 9. Others at Ephesus there were, that were no farther gone in Christianity neither, than the knowledge ofthe bap tism of Jobn : Paul asks tbera, " Have ye received the Holy Ghost ?" they answer, " We have not yet so much as heard, whether the Holy Ghost be." In which words, they refer to a common and a true tenet of the nation, which was. that ' after the death of Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Ghost departed frora Israel and went up"':' and they profess, they had never yet heard of his restoring. And it is very probable, that they had never heard of Jesus ; whom when Paul had preached to them, they embrace; and the text saith, " They were then baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." Not that they were rebaptized ; but that, now coming to the knowledge of the proper end of John's bap tism, — namely, to beheve in Jesus ; as ver. 4,— they own their baptism to such an end and construction. For, 1. What need had they to be rebaptized, when, in that first baptism ' Juchas. fol. l.s. Acts, xix] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 235 YEAR OF CHRIST 51. thfey had taken, they had come in to the profession of the gospel and of Christ, as far as the doctrine that had brought them in, could teach them ? It was the change of their pro fession from Judaism to Evangelism, that required their being baptized ; and not the degrees of their growth in the knowledge of the gospel, into the profession of which they had been baptized already. How many baptisms must the apostles have undergone, if every signal degree of their coming on lo the perfect knowledge of the mystery of Christ, might have required, — nay, might have admitted, — a new baptizing? 2. If these men were rebaptized, then must the same be concluded of all that had received the baptism of John, when they came to the knowledge of Jesus : which as it is incredible, because there is not the least tittle of mention of such a thing, — so is it unimaginable in the case of those of the apostles, that were baptized by John ; for who should baptize them again in the name of Jesus, since Jesus himself baptized none'? 3. These men had taken on them ' the baptism of repentance,' and the profession of Christ, in the baptism of John, that they had received : therefore, unless we will suppose a baptism of faith, differ ent from the baptism of repentance, — and a baptism in the name of Jesus, different from the baptism in the name of Christ, — it will be hard to find a reason, why these men should undergo a new baptizing. And if it should be granted [which is against reason to grant], that these men were really rebaptized, yet were not this a warrantable ground for rebaptization now, in regard of these raain differences, betWixt the case then and now: — 1. That great controversy then on foot, about, 'Whether Jesus were the true Messias or no,' which caused their re baptization, if they were rebaptized. 2. The visible confer ring of the Holy Ghost upon them, upon their baptism, if they were rebaptized : as being a main induction of such a thing, if such a thing were, that the name of Jesus might be so apparently glorified, upon their being baptized in the riame of Jesus : which, indeed, was equally glorified, when they re ceived those gifts upon their acknowledging of Jesus, and owning their baptism that they had of old been baptized ' John, iv. 3. 236 HARMONY OF [Acts, xix. YEAR OF CHRIST 53, 54. with, as a badge of that acknowledgment, though not bap tized again. ACTS, XIX, from ver. 9 to ver. 21. The apostie hath a long time to stay at Ephesus: in which he first begins, for the space of a 53, 54 Christ. quarter of a year, to dispute in the syna- 13, 14 Claudius, gogue : and then, when divers were hard ened and believed not, he separated the disciples, and disputed daily in the school of Tyrannus. Hitherto, what converts there were to the gospel, they resorted still to the public service in the synagogue, where Paul reasoned daily for the truth of the gospel : but finding dan gerous opposition, he gets away the disciples from thence ; and, in the school of one Tyrannus, they are a particular congregation. In these great towns, where there were many Jews, both in Judea and elsewhere, they had a synagogue and a divinity- school. This divinity-school they called ' Beth Midrash ;' and thither they used to go every sabbath-day, after they had been at the synagogue : whereupon, they had this for a common proverb, WT\0 D'il^ ti^npO n'^D : "From the sy nagogue to the divinity-school." In the synagogue, they had prayers and reading of the law, and plain sermons of doc trine, exhortation, and comfort : in the divinity-school, were discussed and taught dogmatical and controversial points concerning the difficulties of the law, and other high matters. And hence, it raay be, those different titles and administra tions of ' pastor' and ' teacher',' and " He that teacheth, and he that exhorteth"," took their pattern : if ' pastor' mean one of the ministerial function. In the time of this stay of Paul at Ephesus, "He fought with beasts there, after the manner of men' :" which seemeth to be understood, of a proper ^rjpio/xaxta, or 'fighting with wild beasts' in the theatre ; as was the barbarous and bestial custom ofthe Roraans of those times. For, 1. Observe, in the hubbub of Demetrius, Paul's companions are haled pre sently into the theatre, ver. 29 ; as'" if there the people had that, that would take a course with tbem. 2. Observe, that ' Eph. iv. 11. » Rom. xii. 7, 8. ''1 Cor. xv. 32. "" " Tanquam ad supplicii locum;*' Liiusd. Acts, XIX.] THE NEW TES'TAMENT.-Part II. 237 YEAR OF CHRIST 55. the ' AsiarchsB,' or ' theatre-officers,' are Paul's friends ; as having knowledge and acquaintance of him and with him before. 3. Demetrius's uproar, which was the greatest dan ger that Luke hath mentioned of him, was not, till after he had written his Epistle to Corinth ; in which he speaks of fighting with beasts ; and, therefore, that could not be meant. 4. The phrase, kut "AvOpwirov, doth seem clearly to distin guish it from any combat in a borrowed sense. 5. The trouble that befel him in Asia, by which he was pressed above measure, and even despaired of life'', cannot be under stood so well ofthe tumult of Deraetrius; for we read not of any hand laid upon Paul in it, as of some other danger nearer death. In the latter year of these two above-written, which was part of Paul's last year at Ephesus, on the thirteenth day of October of that year, Claudius, the emperor, dieth, and Nero succeedeth hira : a wretch, whose'memory is not worth look ing after, unless it be for detestation : yet must we, in our far ther progress of viewing the actions of Paul, and ranking his Epistles, be beholden to the chronical observation of his years. Paul himself saith to the elders of Ephesus, " By the space of three years" I ceased not to warn every one" ; and yet Luke, in this chapter, specifieth only two years and a quarter, ver. 8. 10. The comparing of which two sums to gether, doth help us to measure the time of his abode there, mentioned from ver. 20 and forward ; — namely, that he spent three months in disputing in the Jews' synagogue ; and two years in the school of Tyrannus ; and three quarters of a year after, in going up and down Asia. The expiration of his three years was about Penteccst, in the first year of Nero. ACTS, chap. XIX, ver. 21, 22. 21. "After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying. When Ihave been there, I must also see Rome. 22. " So he sent into Macedonia, two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus ; hut he himself stayed in Asia for a season." Paul's thoughts of going to Rome, do argue the death w 2 Cor. i. 8, 9. " Acts, xx.31. 236 HARMONY OF Acts, xix. year of ci-irist 55. 55 Christ, of Claudius, who had banished all the Jews from 1 Nero. thence^, and that, by the coming in of Nero, a new emperor, that decree was extinct, and free dom of access to Rome opened to them again : for it can be little conceived, that Paul should think of going thither, when he could neither find any of his nation there, nor he himself come thither without certain hazard of his life : as the case would have been, if Claudius and his decree were yet alive. It is, therefore, agreeable to all reason, that the death of Claudius, and the succession of Nero, was nov^ divulged; and Paul, thereupon, knowing that it \vas novy lawful again for a Jew to go to Rome, intendeth to take a farewell journey and visit to Macedonia, Achaia, and Jeru salem ; and then to go and preach there. Claudius died the thirteenth day of October, as was s^id before ; and Nero instantly succeeded him. A prince of so much clemency and mansuetude in the beginning of his reign, that Titus, the emperor, afterward used to say, that the best princes exceeded not the five first years of Nero, in good ness. And Seneca, if he flatter not the pripce or his own tutorage of him, gives him this among many other encomiums of him. Lib. de Clementia% which he dedicates to him: " Potes hoc, Csesar, prsedicare audacter, omnium, quse in fidem tutelamque tuam venerunt, nihil per te, neque yi, neque clam, reipubhcae ereptum. Rarissiraam laudem, et nuHi adhuc principum concessam, concupisti, innocen- tiam. Nemo unus homo uni homini tam charus unquam fuit, quam tu populo Romano, magnum longumque ejus bonum." It must be some space of time, before Claudius's death could corae to be reported at Ephesus : it is like, the new year, after the Roman account, might be stepped in. When soever it was that Paul heard the news, and that a door of ac cess to Rome was opened for the Jews again,— he sets down his determination to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost, and then to set for Macedon, and back to Jerusalem, and then to Rome. Upon this resolution, he sendeth Timothy and Erastus ipto Macedon, before him : appointeth them to call at Corinth in y Acts, xviii. 2. . I. 5. Rabtopf, vol, i, p, 435. 1 CoR.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 239 YEAR OF CHRIST 55. the way, and intends himself to stay at Ephesus, till they should come thither again to him*. Between ver. 22 and ver. 23 of this nineteenth chapter of the Acts, faileth in the time of Paul's writing The first EPISTLE to the CORINTHIANS ; he being now at Ephesus, and having set down the time of his removing thence, — naraely, at Pentecost coming''. He had now been at Ephesus well towards three years, and had met with many difficulties ; yet had so prevailed by the power ofthe gospel, that not only, all along hitherto, many people were continually converted, — but even now alate, many conjurers, and such as used magical arts, devoted themselves to the gospel, and their books to the fire, and became the renewed monuments of the power and prevalency of the di vine truth. This was that " great and effectual door" opened to him, of which he speaketh, 1 Cor. xvi. 9; and which oc casioned his stay at Ephesus still, when he had sent Tiraothy and Erastus into Macedonia"^. In the time of which stay there, Stephanas, and Fortunatus, and Achaicus, come frora Corinth'', with letters from tbe church to Paul' ; and he, upon their return, returns his answer in this Epistle, sent by Titus and another^ Some postscripts have named Timothy for the bearer, antedating his journey to Corinth, which was not in his going to Macedon, but in his return back, and when this Epistle had already given them notice of his coming that way^. Apollos, when Paul wrote this Epistie, was with him at Ephesus, and was desired by Paul to have gone along with the brethren to Corinth, but he would not'' ; it may be, be cause he would not countenance a faction there by his pre sence, which was begun under his name. The church was exceedingly broken into divisions, which produced very dole ful effects among them. These several enormities raged in that church, though so lately and so nobly planted ; and all originally derived from this first mischief of faction and schism. « 1 Cor. xvi. 10, 11. "1 Cor. xvi. 8. ^ Acts, xix. 21. 1 1 Cor. xvi. 17. = 1 Cer. vii. 1. / 2 Cor. xti. 18. s 1 Cor. xvi. 10. '' 1 Cor. xvi. 11. 240 HARMONY OF [1 Cor, YEAR OF CHRIST 56. 1 . A meraber ofthe church had married his father's wife,— yea, as it seemeth^, his father yet living : which crime, by their own law and canons, deserved death : " For he that went in to bis father's wife, was doubly liable to be stoned; both because she was his father's wife, and because she was another man's wife, whether he lay witb her in his father's lifetime, or after his death''." And yet they, in the height of the contestings they had among themselves, did not only not take away such a wretch from among them, nor mourn for the miscarriage, — but he had got a party that bolstered him up, and abetted him : and so, while they should have mourned, they were puffed up. His own party in triumph, that they could bear hira out against the adverse; — and the other in rejoicing, that, in the contrary faction, there was be fallen such a scandal: or both, as taking this libertinism as a new liberty ofthe gospel. The apostle adviseth his giving up to Satan, by a power of miracles which was then in being. So, likewise, did he give up Hymeneus and Alexander'. The derivation of this power we conceived, at Acts v [in the case of Ananias and Sapphira], to be frora that passage of Christ to the disciplesJ, " He breathed on them, and said. Whose sins ye retain, they are retained," &c : and so were the apo stles endued with a miraculous power of a contrary effector operation. They could heal diseases, and bestow the Holy Ghost; and they could inflict death or diseases, and give up to Satan. Now, though it may be questioned, whether any in the church of Corinth had this power, — yet, when "Paul's spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ," went along in the action, as chap. v. 4, there can be no doubt of the effect. 2. Their animosities were so great, that they not only in stigated them to coraraon suits at law, but to suits before the tribunals ofthe heathen ; wbich, as it was contrary to the peace and honour of the doctrine ofthe gospel, — so was it even con trary to their Judaic traditions : which required their sub jection and appeals, only to raen of their own blood, or of their own religion. The apostie, to rectify this misdemeanour, first calls them to remember, that " the saints should judge the worid;" and this he mentioneth as a thing known to them''; s 2 Cor. vii. 12. I" Talra. in Sanhed. cap. 7, and Maim, in Issure Biah, cap, 1, 2, > 1 Tim, I, 20. j John, xx. 22. k 1 Cor. vi. 2. 1 Cor.] the NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 241 YEAR OF CHRIST 55. and it was known to them from Dan. vii. 18. 27; " And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, shall be given to the people ofthe saints ofthe Most High." — How miserably this is misconstrued by too many of a fifth monarchy, when saints shall only rule, — is to be read in too many miseries, that have followed that opinion. The apo stle's meaning is no more but this ; " Do you not know, that there shall be a Christian magistracy ?" or, that Christians shall be rulers and judges in the world ? and, therefore, why should you be so fearful or careless to judge in your own matters? Observe in what sense he had taken the word • saints' in the former verse ; namely, for ' Christians' in the largest sense, as set in opposition to the heathen. And he speaks in the tenor of Daniel, from whence his words are taken, — that thougb the world and church had been ruled, and judged, and domineered over, by the four monarchies which were heathen ; yet, under the kingdom of Christ under the gospel, they should be ruled and judged by Christian kings, magistrates, and rulers. Secondly, He rainds thera, "Know ye not, thatwe shall judge angels?" [ver. 3.] Observe, that he says not as before, ' Know ye not that the saints shall judge angels,' but, we. By ' angels' it is uncontrovertedly granted that he meaneth ' evil angels,' the devils. Now 'the saints,' — that is, all Christians that professed the gospel, — were not to judge devils; but we, saith he. that is, the apostles and preachers of the gospel ; who, by the power of their mi nistry, ruined his oracles, idols, delusions, and worship, &c. Therefore, he argueth, since there is to be a gospel-magis tracy to rule and judge the world, and a gospel-ministry, that should judge and destroy the devils, they should not ac count themselves so utterly incapable of judging in things of their civil converse, as, upon every controversy, to go to the bench of the heathens, to the great dishonour of the gospel. And, withal, he adviseth them, "to set them to judge, who were less esteemed in the church," ver. 4. Not that he denieth subjection to the heathen magistrate, which now was over them, or encourageth them to the usurpation of his power ; but that he asserteth the profession of the gospel, capable of judging in such things ; and, by improving of that capacity, as far as fell within their line, he would have them provide VOL. III. R 242 HARMONY OF [1 Cor, YEAR OF CHRIST 55. for their own peace, and the gospel's credit. We observed before, that, though the Jews were under the Roman power, yet they permitted them to live in their own religion, and by their own laws to maintain their religion : and it maynot be irapertinent to take up and enlarge that matter a little here. As the Jews, under the Roraan subjection, had their great Sanhedrim, and their less, of three-and-twenty judges, as ap pears both in Scripture, and in their records, — so were not these bare names, or civil bodies without a soul ; but they were enlivened by their juridical, executive power, in, which they were instated of old. So that though they were at the disposal of the Roman power, and religion, and laws, and all went to wrack when the emperor was offended at them, as it was in the time of Caligula,- — ^yet, for the most part, from the time of the Romans' power first coming over them, to the time of their own last rebellion, which was their ruin, — the authority of their Sanhedrims and judicatories was preserved in a good measure entire; and they had administration of justice of their own magistracy, as they enjoyed their own religion. And this both within the land and without, — yea, even after Jerusalem was destroyed, as we shall show in its due place. And, as it was thus in the free actings of their San hedrims, — so also was it in the actings of their synagogues, both in matters of religion and of civil interest; for, in every synagogue, as there were rulers of the synagogue in refer ence to matters of religion and divine worship. — so were there rulers or magistrates in reference to civil affairs, which judged in such matters. Every synagogue had ' Beth din shel sheloshah,' a ' consistory' or ' judicatory,' or what you will (2all it, • of three rulers,' or magistrates, to whom belonged to judge between party and party in matters of money, stealth, damage, restitution, penalties, and divers other things, which are mentioned and handled in both Talmuds, in the treatise Sanhedrim' : who had not power, indeed, of capital punish ments, but Ihey had of corporal; namely, of scourging to forty stripes save one. Hence it is, that Christ foretells his disciples, " In the synagogues you shall be beaten'";" and hence had Paul his five scourgings". So that, in every syna gogue, there were elders, that ruled in civil affairs,— and " " 'Cap.-l. "'¦Mark, xiii. 9, " 2 Cor. xi. 24. 1 CoR.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part IT. 243 YEAR OF CHRIST 65. elders, that laboured in the word and doctrine. — And, all things well considered, it may not be so monstrous, as it seems to some, to say it might very well be so in those times in Christian congregations. For since, as it raight be showed, that Christ and his apostles, in platforming of the model of Christian churches in those times, did keep very close to the platform of the synagogues ; and since the Romans, in those times, made no difference betwixt Jews in Judaism, and Jews that were turned Christians, nor betwixt those religions; for as yet there was no persecution raised against Chris tianity; — why might not Christian congregations have and exercise that double function of ministry and magistracy in them, as well as the Jewish synagogues ? And if that much- controverted place, 1 Tim. v. 17, should be interpreted ac- - cording to such a sense, — it were neither irrational, nor im probable ; nor to interpret Paul speaking to such a tenor here. Only his appointing of roue £v ry iKkXrjffj^ 't^ov^Evrifxs- vovQ, ' the less esteemed in the church' to be appointed for that work, is of some scruple : what if it allude to t«^!i> n''3 JTIDID " a committee of private men ?" Of which, there is frequent mention among the Hebrew doctors". 3. It was the old Jewish garb, when they went to pray, to hide head and face, with a veil, to betoken their ashamed- ness and confusion efface, wherewithal they appeared before God : and hence is the conjunction of these two words so common in their writings b'^DDm tioynn " He veiled himself and prayed."— And this for a current rule, " The wise men and their scholars may not pray, unless they be veiledP." To which, let us add that of Suetonius'^ : " Lucius Vitellius had an excellent faculty in flattering : he first set afoot the wor shipping of Caius Csesar for a god : when returning out of Syria, he durst not go to him but with his head veiled ; and then, turning himself about, he fell prostrate." Again, it was the custom of the Jewish women, to go veiled, or their faces covered, whensoever they went into public: " A woman (saith Maimonides'') may not go into pubhc T'Tn n^'y yn) if she have not a veil on." And this the Talmudists call nn)n> m " The Jewish law :" and, » See Maimon. in mi^'X fol. 253. col. 1. v Maimon. in Tephillah, cap. 5. « C. S. ed. B. Crus. vol. 2. p. 244. - ' In nWN cap. 24. r2 244 HARMONY OF [1 Cor. YEAR OF CHRIST 55. nij?>:sf Jma " The garb of modesty." Chetubotb, cap. 7. and Alphes. ibid. Where they say, that those women transgress the Jewish law, that go forth unveiled, or that spin in the streets, or that talk with every man." Now, in this church of Corinth, the men retained the Jew ish custom, that they prayed veiled, or with their head and face covered: but the women transgressed their Jewish law; for they went unveiled and barefaced into the public con gregation ; — and their reason was, as it seemeth by the apo stle's discourse, because they, in regard of their beauty and comely feature, needed less to be ashamed before God in his worship than the men. The apostle reproves both; and argues, that if the man pray veiled, who is the image and glory of God, — then much more should the woman, who is but the glory ofthe man. But he cries down the man's pray ing veiled, as dishonouring his head; and exhorts, that "the woman have power on her head, because ofthe angels'." The word TI"! which, we observed instantly before out of Mai monides, signified ' a woman's veil,' doth also signify ' power' or ' dominion:' and, accordingly, the apostle speaketh, "Let the woraan have power on her head :" but what means he by, "because of the angels?" I should answer, "because of the devils :" for these he had called ' angels,' also, a few chap ters before ; viz. chap. vi. 3. And his words may be construed to this sense, — that • women should not expose their faces openly in the congregation, lest the devil make a bait of their beauty; and thereby entangle the eyes and hearts of the men, v.ho should be then better employed, than gazing and longing after beauty.' There are, that by ' angels' un derstood the ministers ; and interpret it, that ' women should be veiled, lest the ministers' eyes should be entangled by their faces :' which exposition if it be admitted, itmay speak forthe admission of that, also, which we give, — which provides for the eyes of the whole congregation, as well as ofthe ministers'. 4. In the same eleventh chapter, he also blameth their disorder, in receiving the sacrament ofthe Lord's supper, in the height of their heats and contestations : wherein, they did not only not discern the Lord's body, a symbol and tie of communion ; but they even transgressed that rule, now ' Cb p. xi. 10. 1 CoR.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 245 YEAR OF CHRIST 65. Christians, which those of them that were Jews, would not have done in their Judaism. It was then a canon, current and binding amongst them, " That none should eat and drink in their synagogues, and none should sleep" :" but now, as they ate and drank the bread and the cup in the sacrament, in their churches, and that warrantably, — so did they also presume, unwarrantably, to eat their own common suppers there ; and that only in defiance, one of another ; the rich to outface the poor, and one party another, with their good com mons ; some banqueting and feasting to the full, whilst others sat hungry by and looked on. [See how MeOveiv, ver. 21, signifies in the LXX, Gen. xhii. 34, Cant. v. 1.] Thus did they eat and drink judgraent to themselves in the sacra ment, whilst they would receive the symbol of communion ; and yet show such signs and evidences of disunion, at the very instant. And the Lord, accordingly, overtook some of them with evident judgraents, weakness, sickness, and death, avenging at once upon them, the indignity done to his sacra ment, and the indignity done to their brethren. Much like surfeiting Nabal's case and end. 6. And, as the people were thus irregular in this part of worship, in their pubhc assemblies, — so were their rainisters faulty in others ; namely, about the managing of spiritual gifts there. The pretence to the Spirit [where, indeed, it was not] hath always been the great usherer in of all error and delusion; and to this the very unbeheving Jews pre tended, and often backed their pretences with magical im postures : and of this the apostie speaks, 1 Cor. xii. 3 ; " No man, speaking by the Spirit of God," as these men took on them to do, " can call Jesus accursed," as they called him. And, on the other hand, some that had spiritual gifts, in. deed, failed in the using of them to the edification of the church,— but put them forth, soraetimes, for their own vain glory; and such was their miscarriage, which he taxeth chap. xiv. They tbat, from that chapter, would ground a preaching by the Spirit now, sure do littie observe, what they do to build upon an example which the apostie re- proveth ; and they infer from a place much mistaken. -Jerus, in Mesill, fol. 74. eol. 1. Maim, in Tephill. cap. 11 ; and Gloss, in Maim, in Shabb. 30. 246 HARMONY OF [I Cor. YEAR OF CHRIST 55. There were, indeed, the extraordinary gifts of tongues and prophecying in the church of Corinth : but who had tbem, and what had they in having them, and how used they them ? 1. It was not every, or, indeed, any private, member ofthe congregation, that had them, but the mimsters only; and, by tliese very gifts, and imposition of the apostles' hands, by which these gifts were conferred, they were in ducted into the ministry, and enabled to it. The learned reader will observe the difference, that, in ver. 16, is made betwixt him that spake with the tongues, and iStwrije, DVin a ' private man,' that sat by. 2. It was not to gabble with any tongue, that is called ' speaking with a tongue ;' for, to what edification possible could it be, for any minister, in Corinth, to speak Persic, Coptic, Gallic, or any other strange language, in that congregation, where all of them understood one and the same language ? But, it was to understand and speak the originals of Scripture, — as was touched before, — and to be able to unfold them, and so to prophesy or preach to the people. Observe these passages in the chapter : " He that speaketh with a strange tongue, edifieth himself," ver. 4; and, " I would you all spake with tongues." Now, how could a raan edify himself by speaking in some strange re mote language, when he might speak or understand the very same thing in his own mother-tongue ? And, what were they better, if they all so spake ; unless it were, that, there by, they were the fitter to look into all huraan learning? But he, or all of them, that were able to understand and speak the original language of Scripture, might, thereby, edify themselves, and therein speak, and understand, what they could not in their mother-tongue. 3. It appears, by the apostie's discourse, that these men used these gifts irregulariy, confusedly, and for their own vain-glory, which he rebukes and rectifies. 6. There were also in, or crept into, this church, those that were either downright Sadducees, in denying the resur rection,— or that, though with the Pharisees they acknow ledged it, yet denied it of those, that had forsaken their Ju daism ; and so would exclude all Christians from it. Upon this the fifteenth chapter discourseth so fully and divinely, that nothing can be more. ICOR.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part 11. 247 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. Those that this church sent to visit Paul at Ephesus. brought with them a letter from the church, in the which they desired to be resolved about some doubts. As, 1. About marriage, and a single life ; what they should do in that case, since their Judaic laws had always laid marriage upon them as a binding command. This they reckon the first command of the six hundred and thirteen'' : and this their canons did so strictly bind on as a duty, that they say, that " He that lives to such an age, and marries not, transgresseth a preceptive law'"'." In this case, the apostle saith, " Prseceptum non habeo ;" that he accounted it no such command ; but every one was left to his liberty, according as he could contain, or not contain. And, in his stating this case, how he speaks the language of his na tion, and how far he comes towards their opinions, or goes from them, the learned may observe, by coraparing the be ginning of this chapter with Maimonides, in his treatise C3'!y3; especially fol. 251, and 248, and 249. 2. About cohabitation of raan and wife, when the one party was a believer, or a Christian, and the other party an unbeliever, or a heathen. And here he concludes, that " the children," if either parent were a Christian, " were holy" [ver. 14] ; that is. Christians, and not to be reputed as heathen children. It is the very phrase, that his nation used about the children of proselytes, that were born after they were proselyted; they were said to be born ni:;npa ' in holiness ;' that is, ' within the religion,' not in hea thenism. 3. About eating things sacrificed to idols, and commu nicating in such things ; a dangerous stumbling-block of old, and particularly forbidden by the council at Jerusalera. Of this he speaketh at large ; and, from the nature of idol-sa crifices, and from the nature of the sacraments, he showeth how far they should be separate from such communion with idolatry. He speaketh of all Israel's being baptized unto Moses in the cloud and sea, and so separate from all Egyp tian and other idolatry and profaneness ; and our baptism speaks the like separation. The Jews say, " Moses was ' Vid. marif. ad trip!. Targ. ad Gen. i., " Maiin. in nTO^X cap. 1. 248 HARMONY OF [1 Cor. YEAR OF CHRIST 55. sanctified by the cloud";" and Paul speaks here the same of all Israel, chap. x. 2. 4. About ministers' maintenance under the gospel, chap, ix ; which he confirmeth ; and showeth, that Peter, and the rest of the aposties, and their wives and families. were so maintained ; chap. ix. 5, Sec. He concludes the Epistle with a sad execration upon " Whosoever loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ ; let such a one be anathema, Maran-atha^;" that is, ' let him be accursed,' or destroyed : ' Our Lord cometh.' In which. that he, in the first aim and intention, meaneth the unbe lieving Jews, may be observed upon these four considera tions : — 1. Because the Jews, of all men under heaven, were, and are, the greatest haters of Christ. Pagans, indeed, do not love the Lord Jesus, because they know hira not; but, again, because they know him not, they hate him not. The Turks love not Christ, as Christians love him; but, again, they hate not Christ, as the Jews hate him. The word • Jesus,' here, carries the emphasis, to level this execration at them: they pretended to love ' Messias,' or a ' Christ;' but openly profess hatred of Jesus. 2. Because the apostle here useth such dialect, as that he speaketh in the very Jews' language, in the words Maran-atha. He had spoken in Greek all along the Epistle, and Greek all along his Epis tles ; and that here alone he should use a Syriac phrase, and not translate it, it doth evidently show, that his speech re ferreth, raore especially, to the Jewish nation. So Jeremiah^ threatening and cursing the Chaldean idolatry, doth in the Chaldean language; one clause of which he useth not throughout his prophecy beside. 3. The Jews, of all men, did chiefiy, or only, call Jesus ' anathema ;' as, chap. xii. 3, and as they are not ashamed openly to confess in their Talmud; therefore, against them, of all men, first and chiefly, is this anathema aimed. 4. This is agreeable to what the Scripture speaks copiously in other places; as, " You shall leave your name for a curse to my chosen"," &c. " Lest I come and smite the land with a curse^" &c. The most pious and charitable apostle could wish himself to be " Jerus. in Joma, fol. 28. col. 2. y Chap. xvi. 22. » In chap. X. 11. • Isa. Ixv. 15. ""MaKiv. 6. 1 CoR.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 241) YEAR OF CHRIST 56. ' anathema' for that nation, on condition that they might be lieve, and be saved" : but, since they will not believe, and do refuse salvation, and hate the Saviour, he forgets consan guinity, for the love of Christ ; and, dooming and devoting all whomsoever, that loved not the Lord Jesus Christ, to destruction, he intends them, in the first place, who were his chief haters. The words, Maran-atha, are held by some to be of the form of the highest excommunication ; " Sic signatur," say they, " species extremi anathematis, ac si diceretur, Maledictus esto ad adventum et in adventu Domini :" and, withal, that ' Maran-atha' is the same in sense with ' Sham- matha ;' but this utterly without the warrant of any Jewish antiquity [whose language it is] at all. I believe it is im possible to show ' Maran-atha,' for a form of excommunica tion, or execration, in any of their writings ; nay, very hard, if not next impossible, to show the words ' Maran-atha' in their writings at all, in any sense. The phrase in the apostle refers, first, to Christ's coming in vengeance against Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, as the execration is first to be pitched upon them: ' Maran-atha,' ' Our Lord cometh.' Many and dreadful things are spoken of this his coming in the Scripture, of which we have spoken in several places, as we have come along. So that in this sentence, he doth both justly doom this unbelieving and wretched nation to their deserved curse ; and doth withal, in this phrase, intimate, that the doomed curse was near ap proaching, in the Lord's coming in vengeance against them. Now, though we construe the words in such an application to the Jews, it is not exclusively; but that their sense reacheth also to every one that loveth not the Lord Jesus of what nation soever, and the Lord will come in time to make him an anathema. There is some obscurity in a passage in chap. v. 9, both ofsense and history: " I wrote unto you in an epistle, not to company with fornicators :" 10, " Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this worid," &c. Where, first, we have to inquire, what it is that the apostie doth here forbid them ; and then, when it was that he wrote this epistie that he e Rom. ix. 3. 250 HARMONY OF [1 Cor. YEAR OF CHRIST 55. speaketh of. There are two things, that are here prohibited; one, when he wrote that which he speaketh of, — namely, that they should " not company with fornicators ;" and the other, now when he writes this Epistle, — viz. that they should " not eat with such :" the latter he had permitted till now, though he prohibited the former: — which let them well observe, that understand by ' eating' the ' receiving of the sacrament.' Besides what communion was among the Jews ' in sacris,' there was a twofold companying or communicating among them in civil things ; the one more common, the other more near and peculiar. Their more common was, eating toge ther at the same common table : for even such eating they accounted of, as of a communion, under a rule : and hence no eating with Gentiles, for any Jew'*, — nor with publicans and sinners, for any that were ofthe stricter sort of religions : therefore, Christ is cavilled at for it, so oft in the gospel. The other was that communion of associating, which they called c])r\lV and aiTjr ; the former of which comprehended their near joining in partnership, deputations, and the like, of the which the triple Talmudic tract Bava, and Maimo nides of Shittuphin and Shilluchin, do treat at large : — the latter comprehended their combining in joint interest and association, in the use of any common court or cloister, where raany dwelt together : of which the treatise Erubin is a large discourse, and obscure enough. Now, the apostle, in the former prohibition Mrj ^vvavaiiiyvvaStai, seems to for bid this nearer communion : that if any that is called ' a brother,' or a Christian, be a fornicator, &,c. they should not associate with him in any such conjunction as partnership, deputation, employment, cohabitation, or common interest, &c. But upon the hearing of this horrid fact and example of the incestuous person, he heightens his prohibition ; and now forbids, that they should not use so much as that com mon society witb them, as to eat with them at common ta bles : which was to set them at the utmost distance, even at the same that the Jews did the very heathens; for with them they might not eat. Now how to understand iypaifja vplv Iv ry emaToXy, is of some difficulty. Some conceive it means an epistle, which ^ Acts, xi. ,3. AcTB,iiX.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 251 YEAR OF CHRIST 55. was sent before this, and which was lost: — which is an ex position somewhat hard to digest. Certainly it is gentler and more warrantable, — yea, even by the rules of grammar, — to render typa\pa to such a sense as this. ' I wrote,' or ' had written,' or ' was writing,' in this Epistle, that you should not company with fornicators, &c: but now, hearing and weighing this high offence of the incestuous person, and the danger of such an example, I sharpen my style, — and now forbid, not only your near associating with such, but even the common fellowship of eating together at common tables ; which was as much as that which is spoken, " Let him be to thee as a heathen man'." ACTS, XIX, from ver. 23 to the end of the chapter. Paul had determined to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost, because of a great and effectual door that was opened to him ; and he was earnest to embrace that opportunity^ : but, be fore his determined time of departure thence came, — and, as it seemeth, not long before, — Demetrius, with the rest of the silversmiths, Taise a tumult against him, as the great im- pairer of their profit, by crying down the worship of Diana, and other idols. These men used to raake ' silver temples of Diana,' Naouc apyvpovg, or little models, as it seemeth, made after that temple-fashion : wbich they, that came to Ephesus to worship, bought, either to consecrate to the goddess, and to leave there in her temple, — or, rather, to take away with them home, in memorial of that goddess. Tully, in Verrem, speaks of ' Mdes Minervse posita in fano Apolli- nis.' And Dion Cassius, lib. 36, of N£a«c"Hpae /Bpax^e, &c. " A littie temple of Juno, set upon a table looking towards the east, did of itself turn towards the north." And, in lib. 40 ; 'O yap 'Aetoq wvoixatTfiivog [ecttj Se veoi? fiiKpbg koi ev avri^ «£r6e xjo^'^ot'C. Sec. " The eagle" [saith he, meaning the Roman ensign] " was a little temple, and in it was set a golden eagle : such a one pitched in every one of the Roman legions, and it never stirred out of the winter-quarters, till the whole camp did remove : this eagle, fixed on the top of a spear, one man carried : the lower end of the spear being sharp, that it might be stuck into tiie .ground." So that it « Matt, xviii. 17. ' 1 Cor. xvi. 9. 252 HARMONY OF [Acts, xix. YEAR OF CHRIST 55. seems, the Roman eagles were not flying colours like ours, but a golden eagle, medal-wise, enclosed in a little fabric like a temple. Of such a kind were these ' silver temples of Diana ;' namely, a little silver shrine, made after the fashion of the temple, and the goddess in it. This great temple was reputed one of the seven won drous fabrics of the world: it was hundreds of years in building, at the charge of all Asia, before it came to its last excellency and perfection. And, as hither had been the conflux of the cost of all Asia towards the building of it,— so, when it was built, hither was the conflux of all Asia's su perstition. And, as from hence it may be gathered, how great a work it was to plant the gospel in this centre of idolatry, — so doth Demetrius readily observe, how great a detriment is like to accrue to him and his fellows, by the gospel's destroying that idolatry, — as daily itdid. Hereupon, they raise a tumult against Paul; which is not only pro moted by the idolatrous heathen, but by the Jews also, though upon another score. In the hubbub, there is men tion of Alexander, " whom they drew out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And he beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence unto the people ; but when they knew he was a Jew, they would not hear him," ver. 33, 34. And Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothys, who was at Ephesus when he wrote to him, saith, " Alexan der the copper-smith did me much evil." I think, there is little question to be made, but that Alexander, mentioned in both places, is one and the same man : especially if we con sider, that he that Paul speaks of, was of Demetrius's pro fession, — a ' copper-smith.' Now, whereas Luke saith, the Jews put him forward, and he would fain have made a speech in his defence to the people,— it is easy to guess what the subject of this speech would have been: namely, that whereas the heathens every where looked upon the Jews as the great opposers and enemies of their idolatry ; and the Jews and Alexander were very apprehensive, that the eyes of the Ephesians were on that nation, as the enemy of their Diana, and so they feared the tumult might have fallen upon them,— they put forward Alexander to make their apology ; e Chap. iv. 11. Acts, XX.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 253 YEAR OF CHRIST 65. who, if he had had liberty to have spoken, would have laid the load upon Paul and his company, and have excused the Jews: but thus it pleased God to provide for the apostle's safety, that the tumultuous people would not hear what Alexander would have said : which would have laid all the blame on Paul. ACTS, chap. XX. Ver. 1. " And after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples, and embraced them, and departed for to go into Macedonia. 2. " And when he had gone over thoseparts, and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece ; 3. " And abode there three months : and when the Jews laid wait for him, as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through Macedonia." It was his resolution to have stayed at Ephesus till Pen tecost, had he had no disquieture or disturbance there'"- Now, though it be not certain, how long it was before the time that he bad fixed for his departure, that the tumult there did pack him away ; yet this is apparent, that when he came thence, he had the whole summer before him, and, in that summer, he travelled these journeys; — and thus was his progress.1. From Ephesus, he setteth for Macedonia [ver. 1, and 1 Cor. xvi. 5]; from whence, though he had been driven some five years ago by persecution', as be is now from Ephe sus,— yet had he received so many evidences of the Ma cedonians' faith towards God, and pledges of their tender ness and love towards himselfj, that he is not only resolved to venture himself again amongst them, but he holds himself engaged to revisit them, and to bestow his pains agam among them, for their farther proficiency in the gospel. At his departure from Ephesus, he leaveth Timothy there be hind him, though in a dangerous place and time; yet ne cessity, by reason of false teachers that were ready to break out, so requiring itf'- 2. By the way as he goes, he makes some stay at Troas : " 1 Cor. xvi. 8. i Acts, xvi. J Ph". '"¦ 15, 16. " 1 Tim.i. 3, 4. 254 HARMONY OF [1 Timothy. YEAR OF CHRIST 65. where, though he had fair success in his ministry, yet, not finding Titus, whom he expected to have met withal froH) Corinth, he makes not long stay there, but sets away ag-ain speedily for Macedonia'. 3. It was in his thoughts whilst he was at Ephesus, to have touched at Corinth, in this his journey, and to have made some stay there" ; but thus missing of Titus at Troas, and neither frora him, nor yet from any other, receiving in telligence, how his Epistle, that he had written thither, took with them, — he thought it best to go by, and not to call there at this time, because he doubted he should have a heavy and comfortless meeting with them". 4. Being come into Macedonia, he finds some troubles there : ' fightings without,' either from false brethren, or from open enemies ; and fears and unquietness within, lest all should continue at Corinth, as he had heard of it : but at last, Titus cometh, and refresheth hira with the desired and wel come tidings, that all was well there, and that his Epistle had had that happy issue and effect among them that he longed for". 6. Whilst he stayeth in Macedonia and those parts, he preacheth especially in those places, where he had been be fore, — namely, Thessalonica and Philippi. And now was the time also, that he dispersed the gospel as far as to Illyricum; of which he speaketh in Rom. xv. 19. 6. At this time, whilst he was eraployed in these Mace donian climates, he writeth, as may be concluded upon these observations. The FIRST EPISTLE to TIMOTHY. 1. It is apparent, from 1 Tim. i. 3, and iii. 15. that that Epistle was written after Paul's setting out from Ephesus for Macedonia, and yet when he was in some thoughts of return ing shortly for Ephesus again. 2. Now, it cannot be conceived to have been written, when he was going towards Macedonia; for then was he but newly parted from Timothy ; and it is not likely he would so write to him, when he was but newly come from him. I 2 Cor. ii. 12, 13. "> 2 Cor. i. 15, 16. " 2 Cor. ii. 1,2. o j; Cor. vii..S, 6. 1 Timothy.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 255 YEAR OF CHRIST 65. 3. Nor can it be conceived to be written, when he was coming back again from Macedonia into Greece : for then he was going to Ephesus in his own determination, and might have been his own messenger, and had needed no epistle sending at all. And besides, he intimates, in chap. iii. 16, that, it might be, he might stay a little longer before he came to him. Therefore, it cannot but be concluded, that this Epistle was written, whilst he was in Macedonia, or the parts thereabouts, at this time that we are upon. It is something strange, that there should be so various and roving conjectures about the time and place of the writing of this Epistle, where there is so plain a demonstra tion thereof, in the Epistle itself, if studiously compared with these times and voyages of Paul that are before us. The Arabic dateth it ' from Athens :' supposing it, belike, at the time of his perambulation of Greece, of which there is men tion, in ver. 3 of this chapter: the Syriac, 'from Laodicea :' some Greek copies add, from 'Laodicea Pacatiana:' which mistake, belike, grew, because there is mention of an epistle from Laodicea, Col. iv. 16; of which we shall speak, and show the mistake, when we come to the time of that Epistle. The Rhemists suppose, this Epistle to Timothy was written at Paul's first imprisonment in Rome, when he was dismissed and set at liberty ; but how erroneously, will appear, when we come to observe the time of the Second Epistle. Paul had bestowed much pains and a long time, with the church of Ephesus, being present with it : and he takes much care of it, now he is gone thence : partly, because ofthe emi nency of the place ; and partly, because of the fickleness of some, who were ready to warp from the sound truth and doc trine received, to heresy and foolish opinions. For the keeping down of these, therefore, that they should not over grow the church, he leaveth Timothy there, when himself departeth;' choosing him for that employment, above all other his followers, because [as was said before] some pro phetic predictions had sealed him for a singular and extraor dinary instrument in the gospel?. He had two works to do in that city : first, to prevent rising errors and heterodoxies ; and secondly, to direct and P 1 Tim. ii. 14. 256 HARMONY OF [1 Timothy. YEAR OF CHRIST 55. order the orthodox aright, in worship and discipline ; not as any diocesan bishop [for he stayed but a while there, and what he did, he did but by the apostle's direction], but as one that Paul had found sound, bold, blameless, painful, and faithful. Among the Jewish churches that received the gospel, there grew, in time, a very epidemical and dangerous apos tasy, either totally from the doctrine ofthe gospel, or partially from the purity ofit, as we have frequent occasion to observe upon several passages that we meet withal, as we go along : — and this backsliding, from the doctrine and profession of Christ, once received, was the topping up of the iniquity of that nation, and was a forerunner and a hastener of their de struction and casting off. The first principles, whereby their false teachers did prison them towards this recidivation, were, puzzling them with idle fables, intricate genealogies, and, especially, nice curiosities, and needless obligations of the law : their fables that were likeliest to serve their turn for this purpose [as near as one may guess upon view of the whole heap in their Talmudic records], may besupposed to have been those strange legends, that they related of the wondrous sanctity, devotion, and facts, of some of their Pharisaical and legal righteous ones, and the wondrous gallantry and golden days, that they con ceited in a carnal construction of the times of Messias. Their endless genealogies, which the apostie speaketh of. Tit. iii. 9, and mentioneth together with these fables, 1 Tim. i. 4,— were not any of the genealogies of Scripture, holy and divine, but their long and intricate pedigrees, that they stood upon, to prove themselves Jews, Levites, priests, and the hke; thereby to interest themselves in claim to all those brave things, that they persuaded themselves belonged to a Jew. as a Jew. upon that very account : and to these we may add the long genealogy and pedigree of their traditions, which they derived by a long line of succession through the hands ofi know not how many doctors; of which, tiie Talmudic trearise, Avoth, is as a herald. And if we will construe the word I'Dnv 'Juchasin,' 'Genealogies,' in the yom n-)m ' Aserah Juchasin,' 'Ten hneages,' that they speak of, that came out of Babel at the i*eturn of the captivity,—! am sure we 1 Timothy.] THE NEW TESTAAIENT.— P art II. 257 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. may find endless questions, wherewithal they puzzled men's minds about them''. And as for their making their baits of the law. for the catching and withdrawing of siraple souls, either totally from the acknowledging, or, at least, from the simplicity, of the gospel, — it is very obvious, in the Epistles of Paul, and the other Epistles, how they wrought, and how they prevailed : the witchery of old customs, and long use, and the gaudiness of a ceremonious religion, helping them to speed in their desio"ns, and forwarding their deceivings. .Such canker began to break out in the church of Ephesus : whose creeping and infecting, it is the first and great work of Timothy to prevent, and to fill the ears of his hearers with sound doctrine and admonitions, which raight keep such deceit and infection out. And, answerably, it must be his care to settle the church in such a salubrious constitution of worship, ministry, and governraent, as that it should not be ready to sway and incline to such dangerous seductions. Hereupon doth the apostle lay a divine directory before hira, concerning their manner of praying, choosing and ordaining of ministers, approving deacons, adraitting widovrs, and re gulating the people, — that nothing could be wanting to the healthful temper of that church, if they receive and erabrace these apphcations : in the most of which prescriptions, he useth exceeding much of their synagogue-language, that he maybe the better understood; and reflecteth upon divers of their own laws and customs, that what he prescribeth, may imprint upon them with tbe more conviction. He calleth the minister, ' episcopus,' from the common and known titie 'the chazan,' or ' overseer,' in the synagogue"" : he prescribeth rules and qualifications for his choice, in raost things suitable to their own cautions, in choosing of an elder': he speaketh of "elders ruhng only, and elders ruling and labouring in the word and doctrine :" meaning, in this distinction, that same that he had spoken of in chap, iii, 'bishops and deacons.'— Both these, in the common language, then best known, were called, 'elders,' and both owned as ' rulers.' Yea, the very titie, that they usually termed, ' deacons' [Parnasin], was the 1 Vid. Talm. in Kiddushin, per. 4. Alphes. ibid. cap. &o. ¦¦ Aruch in lin. ' Maim, in Sanhedr. cap. 4. VOL. III. S 258 HARMONY OF [1 Timothy, YEAR OF CHRIST 55. common word that was used to signify, ' a ruler,' The Je rusalem Talmud', speaking of the three ' Parnasin,' or ' dea cons,' that were in every synagogue, hath these two passages, which maybe some illustration to two passages in this Epis tle : — "They appoint not less than three Parnasin in the con gregation : for if matters of money were judged by three, matters of life much more require three to manage them," Observe, that the deacon's office was accounted as an ofiice that concerned life ; namely, in taking care for the subsist ence of the poor. According to this, may that in chap. iii. 12, be understood : " For they that have used the office of a deacon well, purchase to themselves a good degree :" a good degree towards being intrusted with souls, when they have been faithful in discharge of their trust concerning the life ofthe body. The other passage is this : "R. Haggai, when soever he appointed Parnasin [deacons], he urged the law upon the people, saying. All rule that is given, is given from the law," &c. And here you may likewise observe, that deaconship is called 'rule.' We observed before, that it were not so monstrous as it might seem, if by ' elders that ruled only,' we should under stand, a civil magistracy, or bench, in every congregation, as there was in every synagogue. But since the apostle nameth only 'bishops and deacons,' his interpretation here is best taken from and within himself; and to understand the 'elders that ruled only' of the deacons, which were called both 'el ders and rulers,' as well as the ministers ; and, in the Jews' synagogues, were professed scholars. The Talmudic place, now cited, tells us, thatR. Eliezer, one of their greatest rab bins, was a 'Parnas,' or 'deacon' in a synagogue. The • episcopi,' or ' ministers,' are titied, ol KOTTtwvrEc iv Xoyi^ Kal SiSaffKuXia, " that laboured in the word and doctrine :" which most properly is to be understood distinctly thus, "which la boured in the word, and which laboured in teaching:" and the former to denote their laboriousness in study, to enable them to teach,— and the latter, their laboriousness in teaching. KoTTiCvTEg EV Xo'ytt' is but the common phrase of the Jews turned into Greek, niim yb [see the Syriac here] ; by which they mean • a great student in the law.' ^mong multitudes of ' In Peah, fol. 21. 1. 1 Timothy.] THE NEW 'TESTAMEN'T.-Part II. 259 VEAR OF CHRIST 56. instances that might be alleged, I shall produce but this one out of the Jerusalem Talmud" : "R. Jonah paid his tithes to R. Acha Bar Ulla, not because he was a priest mm DltWD N^N tyb but because he laboured in the law ;" that is, was a great student, and an able teacher. They that suppose, that the tithes, under the law, were paid only at the temple, and to maintain the priests in the ceremonious worship there, and, upon this conceit, look upon them only as Levitical, — are far deceived : for, as some were, indeed, paid at the temple upon such an account, — so others, and that the greatest part, were paid to the priests and Levites, in their forty-eight uni versities'', to maintain them, whilst they were studying there, to enable them for the ministry, and to teach the people, for which they were designed" : and when they were dispersed through the land, into the several synagogues, to be ministers in them, tithes were also paid for their maintenance there. He speaketh of provision to be made for poor widows, even much according to the Jews' own rules, that they went by in their synagogues, which herein were good. The Talmudic treatise, Jebammoth, speaketh of this matter at large; and see Maimonides in niIl"N^ The widows he al lows to be taken in, to be maintained of the public stock, he would have not to be widows by divorce, nor widows young, but of sixty years of age, and of grave and holy qualifications : not that these were to vow the vow of con- tinency [as see what a miserable ado the Rhemists make upon the place] ; but that they must be such, as were likely to bring no more charge than themselves upon the church, nor bring any sharae or reproach by the lightness of their lives to it ; and raight be serviceable in their places, to at tend upon strangers, to wash their feet, &c. But as for younger widows, their age and those times were dangerous ; when the Nicolaitan doctrine without [which taught com municating with things of idolatry, and fornication, and mixing and marriage indifferently with heathen], meeting with the heat of youth within, might make such to wax wanton against Christ, and deny the faith, and marry with " In Maazar Sheni, fol, 56. col, 2. '' i""''" , "„"';., -Deut.xxxiinlO. Mai. ii. 7. y Cap. 18. 20. s2 260 HARMONY OF [Titus. YEAR OF CHRIST 55. heathens ; or, at least, to bring charge upon the church, if they continued in it. He enjoins prayers to be made for all sorts of men; whereas the Jewish custom was, to curse the heathen, and to pray for none but themselves and their own nation. He calls the church ' the pillar and ground of truth,' chap. iii. 15; — the very title, by which the great Sanhedrim was ordinarily styled'' ; the observing of which may be of good use for the explanation of it here. After some stay in Macedonia, and preaching up and down in those parts, Paul turns back again, and goes for Greece" ; and, by the way, visiteth Crete, and there leaveth Titus", — thinking that he should, presently after a little stay in Greece, have set towards Jerusalem; and that Titus should have stayed there till farther time. For if what hath been spoken lately concerning Titus, be considered, — how Paul sent him with his First Epistle to the Corinthians ; and that, after their parting at Ephesus upon that occasion, they never raet till Titus cometh up to him, when he was come from Ephesus to Macedonia", — it will readily resolve, that, in that first journey to Macedonia, he left him not in Crete ; for Titus and he were not yet met again since their parting at Ephesus. And that he left him not there at his second coming up to Macedonia [namely, after his travelling in Greece, and when he was prevented of his intended journey into Syria''], it is apparent also by this, — that instantly upon his retuming from Greece and from his prevented journey, he sendeth for Titus to come to him upon warning' : which two particulars, jointly observed, do make it plain, that he left Titus in Crete, when he came back from Macedonia, in his journey into Greece; and when he intended, after his perambulation of Greece, to have gone for Syria : — but the lying in wait of some Jews for his life, turned him again to Macedonia. In his return thither, or uponhis coming there, he writeth The EPISTtE to TITUS. It is not much material to controvert, whether he sent this Epistle in the way, as he went towards Macedonia; or ' Vid. Maim, in Mamrin, cap, 1. « Acts, xx. 2. b Tit. i. 5. ' 2 Cor. vii. 5, 6. d Acts, xx. 2, 3. = Tit. iii. 12. Titus.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 2()1 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. when he was come up into Macedonia : it is enough to know, that it was in the scantling of time, either in his journey thither, or instantly upon his coming there. The postscript hath dated it frora Nicopolis, because of his words in chap. iii. 12 ; " Come unto me to Nicopolis, for there I have determined to winter :" from which words, as the affixer of the postscript hath gathered some ground to date it thence,— so others have gathered better ground, to hold, that it was not dated thence ; because he saith not ivTavSra, ' here,' but Ike'l, ' there,' I have determined to win ter : as if he were not yet come thither. Who first planted the gospel in Crete, may be an endless inquiry : certain it is, that some Cretans were present at the first pouring forth of the Holy Ghost in the gift of tongues'; but whether they embraced the gospel, and returned with it into their own country, is an inquiry as endless. Whether Barnabas ever preached there, we raay question also ; but when we have done all, we can never resolve. It is more than probable, that Paul was there himself, from that ex pression, " I left thee in Crete ;" but his stay there, when he left Titus, could not be long, as is easily cleared from the time of his journeys lately mentioned. Whether he had been there some time before, or whether he had sent the gospel thither by some of his ministers, or however it came there,— there wanted soraething to the constituting of the church, which he leaveth Titus to ac- comphsh. And his work is just the same, that he left Timothy at Ephesus for; as is easily seen by laying to gether the two Episties,— viz. to stop the mouth of the he terodox, and to direct and advise the orthodox in doctrine and discipline, and to ordain elders and ministers in the churches. This matter of ordaining elders, hath made the postscripts of the Episties to these two men to entitie them bishops, the one of Ephesus, and the other of Crete :— who how little they stayed or settied in either of these places, he readeth but dimly, that seeth not. The apostle, in this Epistie, urgeth him to despatch the business that lay before him, that, upon notice from him, he f Acts, ii. 8. 262 HARMONY OF [2 Cor YEAR OF CHRIST 56. might be ready to come up to him to Nicopolis ; a city, that bare the name and badge of the victory, that Augustus ob tained against Antony^. Titus, according to his appointraent, came to him ; and, when winter began to draw over, and Paul began now to think of journeying, ere it were very long, — -he sends him upon an employment to another place ; which because it was, when winter was going off, we must place it in an other year. A new year being now entered, and Paul intending for Syria as soon as the spring was a little up, — 66 Christ, he sendeth Titus beforehand to Corinth, to 2 Nero. hasten their collections for the saints in Judea, that they might be ready, against Paul should come thither. And, with Titus, he sendeth two other breth ren ; and by them all, he sendeth The SECOND EPISTLE to the CORINTHIANS. The proof that it was written and sent at this time, and in this manner, is plain by these places and passages in it : " I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia : yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain ; lest haply they of Macedonia come with me^" &c. " Behold, the third time I am coming to you'." " This is the third time I ara coming to youJ." And, " But thanks be unto God, who put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you :" — "Being more forward of his own accord he went unto you :" — " And with hira we have sent the brother, whose praise is in the Gospel:" — " And we have sent with thera our brother, whom we have oftentimes proved diligent in many things\" &c. Who these two nameless persons should be, will require some inquiry. The latter I suppose was Erastus, both be cause his diligence had been approved before' ; and also be cause itis said, "Erastus abode at Corinth'";" yet he not named among Paul's retinue, when he set out for Asia", because he was gone to Corinth before. s Dion. Cass. p. 426, and 443. li 2 Cor. ix. 2—4. i Chap. xii. 14. J Chap. xiii. 1. it Chap. viii. 16—18. 22. i Acts, xix. 22, &c. '¦' 2Tim. ir. n Acts, x.x. 1. 2 Cor.] THE NEW TESTA iMENT.— Part It. 263 year of CHRIST 66. As for tbe other brother, " whose praise" is said to be " in tiie Gospel," tbat very phrase and expression hath caused many to conceive, that it was Luke ; and that the words mean, "Who is famous in all the churches for the Gospel he hath written :" whereas [besides that groundless strictness that is put upon the words, limiting them to the writing of a Gospel, which, according to that most usual manner of speech, are rather to be understood of his renown in preaching the gospel] it is apparent, by the words of Luke himself, that he went not either before Paul to Corinth, as this brother spoken of did, — nor did he go before Paul to Troas, as the rest that are named by him, did; — but he went in Paul's company : for observe his speech, " These tarried for us at Troas : and we sailed away from Philippi," &c. The words us and we do plainly associate the penman himself with Paul at his setting out, and show that he was none of those, that were sent before. Others, therefore, do guess, that this brother that went along with Titus, was Silas, because it is said, " Who also was chosen by the churches to travel with us," &c. Which very thing, which they use for an argument to prove it Silas, proves against it ; for Silas was not chosen ' by the churches' to go with Paul, any more than Timothy or Titus was ; but he was chosen by Paul alone, as they also were". That clause, then, " who was also chosen ofthe churches to travel with us," doth deal the matter betwixt Barnabas and Mark ; for none other can be named, to whom the words can be so properly applied, as to one of them ; and of the two, most properiy to Mark; and he, I doubt not, is the man, that is here intended : for, 1. The words, ' with us,' join Paul and Barnabas together in their travel; and the third man who was chosen to travel with them, was none but Mark : for, 2. He was chosen by the church, at Jerusalem, for that purpose^, and by the church at Antioch"; as these words, " he was chosen by the churches," do well explain those verses. 3. It is true, indeed, that Paul had taken dis taste at Mark, and so bitter, that Barnabas and he had part ed upon it' ; yet, in his Second Epistie toTimothy'.he desire « See Acts, XV. 40. " Acts, xii. 2S. , '' Acts, xiii. 5. ' Acls, XV. 39. ¦ Chap. iv. 264 HARMONY OF [3 Cor. year of CHRIST 56. " Timothy to bring Mark to him, for that he is profitable to him for the ministry;" by which it appears, that he was not only reconciled to him, but also that he had raade use of him, and found him useful. When it was that they knit into amity and employraent again, is not discoverable ; but that they had done so, the passage, newly alleged, doth make past denial ; and, if his employraent of Mark were not now, or before, he can no more employ him, before he himself become a prisoner. When we come to the time and order ofthe Second Epistle to Timothy, we shall have occasion to speak to this matter again, and shall find something there to help the confirmation of this assertion, — nay, to raise it higher than yet it hath spoken ; namely, that Mark was not only sent by Paul to Corinth, at this time, but also that he was at Corinth, when Paul sent for bim to come to him to Rome : and thus, if these words, " Whose praise is in the Gospel," were to be understood of one that had written a Gospel, — here is a subject to apply them to in that sense; for this Mark wrote a Gospel as well as Luke. The apostle, in his Second Epistle to Corinth, doth first excuse his not coming to them, according as he had pro mised in his First Epistle % clearing himself from all lightness in making, and all unfaithfulness in breaking, that promise, and pitching the main reason upon themselves and their pre sent condition; because he had not yet intelligence, when he went first into Macedonia, of any reformation amono- them of those enormities that he had reproved in his First Epistie, — therefore, he was unwilling to come to them in heaviness, and with a scourge. This his failing to come according to his promise, had opened the mouths of divers in his dis grace ; and false teachers took every occasion to vihfy him ; which he copiously satisfies, and vindicates himself, all along the Epistle. His exceeding zealous plainness with them, and deahng so home and thoroughly against their misdemeanours, as he did,-was one advantage,that false teachers and his ill-willers took to open their mouth against him, and to withdraw hearts from him ; and, withal and mainly, because he was so urgent against the works ofthe law as to justification, and ' 1 Cor. xvi. 5. 2 Cor.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 265 year of CHRIST 66. those rites, which the Jews, even the most that were con verted to the gospel, too much doted on. About the for mer, their taunt and scorn against him was, " His letters are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and speech contemptible'." A poor, conteraptible fellow, say they, to be so sharp and supercilious in his letters ; this is more than he durst speak if he were here ! 8cc. ' But let such know, says he, that what I ara by letters in absence, I will be by words, and in deed, in presence.' Concerning both this and the latter named, they passed Festus's censure upon him", " that he was beside himself." This he men tions and answers" ; " Whether we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead," &c. Since Christ died for all, — that is, for Jews and Gentiles both, — he could not but conclude that all were dead, the Jew as well as the Gentile ; therefore, he could not but so urgently call upon the Jew to look off his own righteousness, and the works of the law, and to look for justification, by faith in Christ. Another scandalous opinion and reproach they also took up of him, " That he walked after the flesh'^" [a strange slander of Paul] ; but this was but an appendix to that before : because he was not Pharisaically precise about their trivial rites of the law [which too many of them mixed with the gospel], but cried them down,— therefore, they cried him up for carnal. His answer to this is, that his ministry may witness the contrary for hira" ; the end of which, and the abundant effect of which, was to beat down such carnal affections and actions, as were such indeed. His expression of the weapons of his warfare being strong to pull down strongholds, expounds that^ " of Christ's smiting the cor ners of Moab, and destroying all the sons of Seth." Aud he gives this for a second answer,— that, if they would be but obedient, they should see how his apostolic power was ready to avenge disobedience. Since he hath such back friends, and open enemies in this church, it is no wonder, if he write so doubtingly of ' 2 Cor. X. 10. " Acts, xxvi. 2-1. '^ 2 Cor. v. 13. " Chap. X, 2, " Chap. x. 3—5. ' Num. xxiv. 17. 266 HARMONY OF [2 Cor. YEAR OF CHRIST 56. them, how he should find them ; and that he stayed no longer with them, when he came to them, as his stay was very littie. His forraer Epistle, as it is apparent by several passages in this, had wrought thera into a reasonable good temper ; but mischief, now, was crept on them again ; at least, there were some, that were tampering to bring it on. In regard, therefore, of that vilifying, that these false teachers, enemies of him and God, did set him at, and sought to make him odious and contemptible in the eyes ofthe church, — heisput to it to make his vindication, and that, as the matter re quired, with rauch largeness and earnestness. He, therefore, copiously discourseth, what Godhad done by him, — whathe had suffered for God, — and what he had done for the churches ; in any of which things, let any of these that reviled him, come near him if they could. In .relating the passages of his life, he mentioneth many things, of which there is no raention in his story in the Acts of the Apostles ; and, fre quently, in his discourse, he speaketh of his folly in boast ing ; as", ' Bear with rae a little in ray folly ;' and see ver. 16, 17 : because, indeed, man's boasting of hiraself is folly, and they would be ready to censure his so, — therefore, he styles his by that title, though it were not fohy in him, but a needful and a holy vindication of himself, and of his mi nistry. After he had sent away this Epistle by Titus, Erastus, and Mark, if our conjecture fail not, and had given notice to the Corinthians of his speedy coming to them, and warning to get their collections ready against he came, — he provideth for his journey into Syria, which he had intended so long; partiy to visit the churches in these parts, and partiy to bring up the collections that he had got for the poor of Judea ; which he had promised to the three ministers of the cir cumcision,— Peter, James, and John,— that he would be careful of". ' Chap. xi. 1. a Gal.ii.lO. Acts, xx.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 267 YEAR OF CHRIST 56. ACTS, chap. XX. Ver. 4. " And there accompanied him into Asia, Sopater of Be- rea ; and ofthe Thessalonians, Arislarchits and Secundus ; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus ; and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. 5. " These going before, tarried for us at Troas, 6. " And we sailed away from Philippi, after the days of un leavened bread." The story, as hath been said, hath brought us to another year, the beginning of which, — that is, from the 56 Christ, entrance of January, and forward, even till Easter, 2 Nero. — Paul spent in Macedonia, still wintering there, viz. in Nicopolis, Philippi, &c ; and, after Eas ter, he sets for Jerusalem'' ; therefore, we have superscribed it, the second of Nero, and of Christ the fifty-sixth. When we come to speak of the Epistle to the Romans, which Vi^e shall meet with in our way very shortly, we shall say something of the names of these men [for many of them will meet us there] ; only, we cannot meet Timotheus here, without some notice taken of him, and some query how he came here. The last year, Paul left him at Ephesus, when himself came thence ; and, being come thence into Macedo nia, he sends him an Epistle, with his earnest desire in it, that he would stay there still, upon that needful employment upon which he was left' : — how, then, is Timothy now got to him into Macedonia, so that he is with hira at his setting away from Philippi ? We have not, indeed, any intimation, that Paul sent for him away, as we have of his sending for Titus, whom he left in Crete, intendedly for a longer time ; but if is very probable, that Paul, designing to have sailed for Syria, came near to him ; and, there discovering the dan ger, that was laid in his way by the Jews, which might also have enfolded Timothy, — he brought him away back again with him, and so both returned into Macedonia ; and now winter is over, they are setting for Asia again. But when Paul, and this his company, are all going for Asia together, why should they not set out together ; but !> Acts, XX. 6. "= 1 Tim. i. 208 HARMONY OF [Acts, xx. year of CHRIST 56. these go before, and tarry at Troas, and Paul, and some other of his company, come after ? Nay, they were all to meet at Troas, as it appeareth, ver. 6 ; why might they not then have gone all together to Troas ? The reason of this was, because Paul himself was to go by Corinth ; and, not minding to stay there but very little, because he hastened to Jerusalem, he would not take his whole train thither, but sends them away the next way they could go to Troas, himself promising and resolving to be speedily with them there. He had promised a long time to the church of Corinth, to come unto them ; and he had newly sent word, in that Epistle, that he had lately sent, that now his coming would be speedy : " Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you'' ;" and, " This is the third time, I am coming to you'." Not that he had been there twice before ; for, since his first departing thence [when he had stayed there a long time together, at his first planting of the gospel in that place], there is neither men tion nor probability of his being there again ; but this was the third time ' that he was in coming,' having promised and intended a journey thither once before, but was prevented''. But now, he not only promiseth by the Epistle that he will come, but staketh the three brethren that he had sent thi ther, for witnesses and sureties of that promises; that, inthe mouth of those witnesses, his promise might be established and assured. Now the time is come, that he makes good his promise; and whilst the rest of his company go directly the next cut to Troas, he himself, and Luke, and whom else he thought good to retain with him, go about by Corinth. And now, to look a littie farther into the reason of their thus parting company, and of Paul's short stay at Corinth when he came there,— we may take into thoughts [besides how much he hastened to Jerusalem] the jealousy, that he had that he should not find all things at Corinth so comfort able to himself, and so creditable to them, before those that should come with him, as he desired. He hath many pas sages in the Second Epistie, that he wrote to them, that « 2 Cor. xii. 14. e Chap. xiii. 1. ' 2 Cor i 15—17 ^2Cor. \iii. 1,2. ¦ ¦ ¦ ' Romans.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 269 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. glance that way : for, though, as to the general, there was reformation wrought among them upon the receiving of his First Epistle, and, thereupon, he speaketh very excellent things of them. — yet were they not a few that thought basely of him'', and traduced him and his doctrine' ; and gave him cause to suspect, that his boasting of that church to the churches of Macedonia, might come off but indifferently, if the Macedonians should come with him to see how all things were there^. And, therefore, it was but the good policy of just fear, grief, and prudence, to send them by another way; and he had very just cause to stay but a while, when he came there. From Corinth, in his short stay there, he writeth The EPISTLE to the ROMANS; as hath been well supposed by some of the ancients, — is asserted by the postscript, — and may be concluded from these observations : — 1. That he saith, that he is now going to Jerusalem to bring to the saints that benevolence, that they, of Mace donia and Achaia, had collected for them''. The word ' Achaia' tells us, that he now was sure of the Corinthian contribution ; which he was not sure of, till he came there. 2. That he commendeth to the Roraans, ' Phoebe, a ser vant of the church of Cenchrea' ;' which Cenchrea, was a place belonging to Corinth, as was observed before, though at some few miles' distance. 3. That he calleth Erastus, ' chamberiain of the city" ;' of whom it is said, " Erastus abode at Corinth"." 4. That he calleth Gaius, ' his host, ' or the man with whom he lodged; ' and the" host ofthe whole church,' or in whose house strangers had their entertainment"; who was a CorinthianP. And hence it appeareth, that Gaius, of Derbe, who was one of those that were gone before to Troas, was one man,— and Gaius, of Corinth, was another. It is true, indeed, that the greetings of some men, were sent in this Epistie, which were not with Paul at this pre- t 2 Cor. X. 1, 2. * Chap, xi, and xii. l^J^'"'- '"'. % "Rom. XV. 26. s I Rom. xvi. 1. m Rom. xv i. 2.,. ¦" 2 Tim, iv, » Rom. xvi. 23. " 1 Cor. 1. 14. 270 HARMONY OF [Romans. year of CHRIST 66. sent in Corinth : as Timothy'si, who was gone to Troas : and Sosipater's, who was gone thither also [for he, I sup pose, is the same with Sopater of Berea''] : and this might seem to infringe the truth of this opinion, that holdeth that this Epistle was written from Corinth. But when it is con* sidered, how lately Paul and these men parted, and that it is past doubt that he would acquaint them, before their part ing, of his intentions to send to Rome, — it is no difficulty to conceive, how their salutations came inserted into that Epistle. There are, indeed, some, that confess that it was written from Corinth, but not at this time, but at another ; namely, in that time when Paul travelled Greece, of which journey there is mention. Acts xx ; in which time, among other places, they conceive he came to Corinth, and there wrote this Epistle. But, 1. It may very well be questioned, whether he were at Corinth, in these three months' travels, or no. For, whereas he had promised to call on them, as he went to Jerusalem' [which he intended, when he travelled those three months, but that he discovered that the Jews lay in wait for him], he excuseth himself for not coming according to that pro mise'. And if it were granted, that he was at Corinth at that time,— yet, 2. He could not write this Epistie at that time ; because, when he wrote it, he knew the contribution of the Corinthian church was then ready" ; which, when he travelled Greece, either indeed was not so, or at least he knew not that it was ; as appeareth copiously in his Second Epistle to that church. The apostie, in this most sublime Epistle, clears fully and divinely, the two great mysteries of the gospel, ' righteous ness by faith,' and ' the calling of the Gentiles.' And, in the handling of these, he handles the great points, original sin, election, and casting off ofthe Jews. He lays this po sition down concerning the first''': That " in the gospel is revealed the righteousness of God, justifying,"— as inthelaw was revealed his righteousness or justice ' conderaning ;'— and that "from faith,"— of immediate innixion upon God, as was Adam's before his fall; and, as was that, which the Jews 1 Rom. xvi. 20. ' Acls, x\. 4. ¦ 1 Cor. xvi. 7. t g (•„,. ; jg 17 « Rom. XV. 26. v r„,„ j ^^^ ' " ' Romans.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 271 year of CHRIST 66. owned in God,— " to faith," in the righteousness of another; namely, Christ. This way of justification he proveth, first, by showing how far all men, both by nature and action, are from possibility of being justified of, or by, theraselves; which he cleareth, by the horrid sinfulness of the heathen, chap, i [a large proof of which might be read at Rome, at that very instant] ; and little less sinfulness of the Jews, though they had the law, chap, ii and iii ; and therefore con cludeth, chap. iii. 30, that God justifieth the circumcision by faith [and not by works, as they stood upon it], and the un circumcision through faith [for all their works that had been so abominable, and that seemed so contrary to justification]. In chap, iv, he taketh up the example of Abraham, whom the Jews reputed most highly justified by his works ; for they had this saying of him, n^D minn HN a"p CZinnnN " Abra ham performed all the law, every whit :" but he proveth, that he found nothing by his own works, — but, by believing, he found all. In chap, v, he proves the imputation of Christ's righteousness for justification, by the parallel of the imputa tion of Adara's sin for condemnation : not at all intending to assert, that as many, as were condemned by Adam, were freed from that condemnation by the death of Christ ; but purposely and only to prove the one imputation by the other. It was a strange doctrine, in the ears of a Jew, to hear of being justified by the righteousness of another ; therefore, he proves it by the like, men's being condemned for, and by, the unrighteousness of another. Two close-couched pas sages clear what he aimeth at : the first is in ver. 12 ; Ato TOVTO, SxTTTEp, &,c. " Wficrefore, as by one man sin entered into the worid," &c. The word lixntEp, as, properly requireth a so to follow it, as you may observe it doth, in ver. 15. 18, 19; but here there is no such thing expressed ; therefore, it is so to be understood ; and the apostie's words to be con strued to this sense :— " Wherefore it is," or the case is here as it was in Adam, " as by one man sin entered into the world," &,c. there imputation, so here. The second is ver. 18, in the original ' verbatim' thus :— " As by the transgres sion of one, upon all men to condemnation,— so by the righ teousness of one, upon all men to justification of hfe." What ! upon all men ? Our translation hath added some words to 272 HARMONY OF [Romans. year of CHRIST 56. clear the sense, but the shortness of the apostie's style doth better clear his intent ; namely, to intimate imputation : as speaking to this purpose ;— " As, by the transgression of one, there was that, that redounded to all to condemnation, —so, by the righteousness of one, there is that, that re- doundeth to all to justification of life." And, to clear that he meaneth not, that all, that were condemned by Adam's fall, were redeemed by Christ,— he at once showeth the descent of original sin, and the descent of it for all the death and righteousness of Christ, " Quaj tamen profuerunt, antequam fuerunt." Ver. 13 : " For till the law, sin was in the world : but sin is not imputed, where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses." By what law was sin sin, and did death reign, when the law was not yet given ? namely, by that law that was given to Adam, and he brake ; the guilt of which violation descends to all. Having, to the end ofthe fifth chapter, stated and proved justification by faith, — in chap, vi, vii, and viii, he speaks ofthe state of persons justified ; which though they be not without sin, yet their state, compared with Adam's, even whilst he was sinless, it is far better than his : he, invested in a created, finite, changeable, human righteousness ; they.inthe righteousness of God, uncreate, infinite, unchangeable: he, having the principles of his holiness and righteousness in his own nature, — they, theirs conveyed from Christ : he, having neither Christ nor the Spirit, but left to himself and his na tural purity ; they, having both. See chap. viii. 1, 2. 9, 10, 8cc. At the nineteenth verse of chap, viii, he begins upon the second mystery that he hath to treat upon, — the calling of the Gentiles ; whom he calls Traaa Kriatg ' the whole crea tion,' or ' every creature :' by which title they also are called, Mark xvi. 16, Col. i. 23 : and he shows, how they were sub ject to vanity of idolatry, and the delusions ofthe devil; but must, in time, be delivered from this bondage, for which de liverance they now groaned : and not they only, but they of the Jews also, which had received the first-fruits of the Spi rit, longed for their coming in, waiting for the adoption, — that is, the rederaption of their whole body : for the church of the Jews was but the childlike body ; and, accordingly, Romans.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 273 year of cmusT 56. their ordinances were according to the childlike ao-e of the church : but the stature of the fulness of Christ's mystical body, was in the bringing in of the Gentiles. Being to handle this great point of the calling of the Gentiles, and rejection of the Jews, he begins at the bottom, at the great doctrine of predestination, which he handles from ver. 29 of chap. viii, to chap.ix. 24 j and then he falls upon the other; — that Israel stumbled at Messias and fell, seeking indeed after righteousness, but not his, but their own ; and that they are cast away, but not all ; a remnant to be saved, that belonged to the election of grace. As it was in the time when the world was heathen, some of them that belonged to the election, came in and were proselyted to the worship of the true God; so some of these, while all the rest of their nation lie in un behef And in this unbelief must they lie, till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in ; and then all God's Israel is completed. The most that he salutes in the last chapter, appear to have been of the Jewish nation, and the most of them, though now at Rome, yet sometime to have been of Paul's com pany and acquaintance in some other place. The expulsion of the Jews out of Rome, by Claudius's decree, might very well bring many of them into his converse ; as well as it did Priscilla and Aquila, whom he names first among them. Epenetus was one of his own converts of Achaia; Mary had bestowed much labour on him, yet he, hitherto, had never been near Rome. He that would dispute the point of the first planter of the gospel at Rome, raight do well to make the first muster of his thoughts here. And whereas the apostle speaks of the faith of the Roman church, as spoken of throughout the world''; — itis very questionable, whether he look to the times before the decree of Claudius, — or those since Claudius's death, when all the scattered were returned again, and many of those that had come out unbe heving Jews, had returned Christians thither; as I believe the case was of Aquila and Priscilla: and some, converted in other places, had now taken up their residence there, as Epenetus, Andronicus, and Junia, &c. Those whose salutations he sendeth thither, may be the »¦ Chap. i. ver. 8. VOL. III. T 274 HARMONY OF [Romans. YEAR OF CHRIST 56. better judged of, who they were, by observing who were of his retinue at this time, which are named. Acts xx. 4 ; as, 1. Timothy. 2. Lucius, who seemeth to be Luke, called now by a Latin name, in an Epistle to the Latins. He was with Paul at Corinth, at the sending away of the Epistie : for having mentioned the others that were gone to Troas, ' these,' saith he, stayed ' for us;' joining himself in Paul's company now going to Corinth. 3. Jason seemeth to be he, that is called ' Secundus,' Acts xx. 4 : the one his Hebrew name, and the other the same in Latin ; for Secundus is said to be a Thessalonian, and so was Jason''. 4. Sosipater here, in all probability, is he that is called Sopater of Berea there. 6. Tertius, that wrote out the Epistle, it raay be, was Silas : a Hebrician will see a fair likelihood of the one name in the other, it being written in Hebrew letters wbUf : and the Hebrew names to the Romans are rendered in the Roman idiom. 6. Gaius, the sarae in Greek with the ordinary Latin name Caius : it appears that he was a Corinthian^, and in that Paul here calls him, " Mine host, and the host ofthe whole church :" to the understanding of which, the observ ing of a custom of the Jews may give some illustration. Maimonides, in his treatise concerning the Sabbath, speak ing about that rite that they used of hallowing the sabbath with a set form of words at his coming in, hath this saying^: " This hallowing of the sabbath may not be used, but only inthe place where they eat: as, for example, he may not use the hallowing words in one house, and eat in another. Why then do they use the hallowing word in the synagogue ? be cause of travellers, that do eat and drink there." Where the gloss upon the place comments thus ; " It is evident, that they did not eat in their synagogues at all [as it is apparent in the eleventh chapter of Maimonides' treatise of Prayer], but in a house near the synagogue : and there they sat at the hearing of the hallowing of the sabbath," &c. It may be observed from hence, that strangers and travellers were en tertained in a place near the synagogue [compare Acts xviii. 7], which was a public Xenodochion, or receptacle of stran gers, at the charge ofthe congregation : which laudable cus tom, it is almost apparent, was transplanted into the Chris- * Aot», xvii. 7. y \ Cor. i. 14. ' Cap. 30, Romans.] THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part II, 275 YEAR OF CHRIST 56. tian churches in those times : as compare such passages as those, Heb. xiii. 2 ; Acts, xv. 4. And possibly those ' Aga- pse,' or ' feasts of charity,' spoken of in the Epistles of the apostles, are to be understood of these loving and charitable entertainments of strangers. " These are spots in your feasts of charity ; when they feast with you, feeding them selves without fear"." False teachers, — travelling abroad un discovered, and being entertained in these public recepta cles for strangers, and atthepublic charge,— would find there a fit opportunity for themselves to vent their errors and de ceptions. In this sense, may Gaius very properly be un derstood, ' the host ofthe whole church,' as being the officer, or chief overseer, employed by the Corinthian church for these entertainments : in which, also, it was alraost inevita ble, but some women should have their employment : ac cording to which custom, we may best understand such places as these ; " Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cen chrea, she hath been a succourer of many ;" — " Mary be stowed much labour on us ;" Rom. xvi. 1.6; and see 1 Tim. V. 9, 10, &c. He speaketh also of other women, of whom he giveth this testimony, that they ' laboured rauch in the Lord ;' as " Tryphena, and Tryphosa, and Persis'' ;" which may either be understood in the like sense : or, if not so, of their great pains some other way for the honour and promotion of the gospel, and benefit of the saints and theraselves : as, by visiting and relieving the poor and sick, taking pains in following the ministers of the gospel, and venturing them selves with them : hiding and cherishing thera in times of danger, and so venturing themselves for them : and so, he saith, " Priscilla and Aquila for his life laid down their own necks," &c. He salutes three of his own kinsmen, Andro nicus, and Junia, and Herodion : the two first were eonverted before him, and were of note among the apostles : either being of the number of the seventy disciples, or eminent converts, and close followers of Christ, or of the aposties in those first times. He calls them his " fellow-prisoners :" but if he had called them his prisoners, it had been easier to have told when and how. For they were in Christ, whdst he was a persecutor: but when they were imprisoned, with • Jude, ver. 12. *> Rora. xvi. 12. 276 HARMONY OF [Acts, xx, xxi; YEAR OF CHRIST 56. him, after his conversion, is hard to find out. Among all that he salutes so kindly, where is Peter? If he were now at Rome, how was he forgotten ? ACTS, chap. XX, ver. 6. " And we came to them to Troas in five days : where we abode seven days." And so to ver. 17 of chap. XXI. From Philippi, after Easter, he setteth away for Corinth; where he stayed so little, that he came to Troas within five days after the company was come thither, which had gone before : for so are the ' five days' to be understood :¦ not that Paul, in five days, went from Philippi to Corinth and Troas ; but that his company, which was set out with him, but set directly for Troas, had stayed but five days at Troas, before he came up to them. There he celebrates the Lord's day, and the Lord's sup per, and preacheth and discourseth all night [a thing not altogether strange in the Jewish customs ; " R. Mair was teaching profoundly all the night ofthe sabbath in the syna gogue of Chamath-^"]. So that Eutychus sleeps, and fahs, and is taken up dead, but recovered by miracle. The change and beginning and end of the Christian sabbath, may be observed here. When he goes now from thence, it is most hkely, it was the time when he left his cloak, books, and parchments, with Carpus'*. ' His cloak :' for he was now going among his own nation in Judea ; and there he was to wear his Jewish habit : and he left his Roman garb here, till he should come into those Roman quarters again. It may be, ' the parchments' were the originals of those Episties, that he had already writ ten : for that he sent transcripts, and reserved the original copies, raay be collected from these passages ; " I Tertius, who wrote out this Epistie';" "The salutation of me Paul with my own handV which was, " the token in every epistieS;" for all the Epistie beside was written with another hand. From Troas, by several journeys, he cometh to Miletum : ' Jerus. Sotah, fol. 16. 4. d g Tim, iv. 13. = Rom xvi 22 f 1 Cor, xvi. 21. Col. iv. 18. g 2 Thes. iii^Tf Acts, x.xi.J THE NEW 'TESTAMENT.— Paiu II. 277 YEAR OF CHRIST 56. and thither he sends for the elders of the church of Ephe sus, which city was near at hand. But who were these ? Not Timothy and Trophimus ; for they were in his company already, and had been with him in his journey hither : but these twelve men, upon whom he had laid his hands, and be stowed on them the Holy Ghost, and so fitted them for the ministry'' ; and whomsoever besides Timothy had ordained into the ministry, whilst he was there. Although the Ephesian, and the rest of the Asian churches, were but in an ill case at this time, in regard of false doctrines, and much apostasy that had corrupted and cankered them, — yet doth the apostle foresee, that the case will be worse and worse with them still, and that grievous wolves should yet break in upon them. And this he con cludeth, not only from the boldness that he was assured false teachers would use and assume to themselves, when he was gone, — but from those predictions of Christ, that had foretold what sad apostasy should occur, and what false teachers should arise, before the great day of Jerusalem came, which was now coming on apace. ACTS, chap. XXI, ver. 17. " And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly." : " That ye may know mine affairs and how I do, — Tychicus, a beloved brother, and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things; whom I have sent unto you for the sarae purpose." In this Epistle, be addresseth himself more especially to the convert Gentiles of the Ephesian church, to establish and settle them in the truth, against that warping and wa vering that was now too common : and he setteth himself » Acts, xxvii. 2. ' 2 Tira. iv. 9, 10. ' Chap. iv. 12.- » Ephes. iii. 1. b Ephes. vi. 21. Ephesians.] THE NEW TES'TAMENT.-Part II. 297 year OF CHRIST 60. to unfold the mystery of the gospel in its full lustre, and discovery in a more special manner, and that especially in the two first chapters, — as he himself professeth in the third'' : " By revelation God made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words ; whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ." He speaketh much of the mystery of the Gentiles' cahing, and calleth the Jews and Gentiles, knit in the unity ofthe faith, and of the knowledge ofthe Son of God, "A perfect man, and the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ''." In chap. v% speaking of Christ's washing the church, that he might present it to himself " without spot or wrinkle," &c. he seemeth to allude to the Jews' exceed ing great curiousness in their washings for purification. " There must be nothing to interpose between the person that is washed, and the water ; for if there be any thing in terposing betwixt him and thewater, — as,if anyclay or dough stick to his flesh,— he is unclean as he was, and his washing profits him nothing^" And a little after : " If there be upon the flesh of a man, or upon a vessel, any of those things that may interpose, as dough, pitch, or the like, though it be no more than a grain of mustard-seed, and he take it to thought, his washing profits him nothing." What he saith, in ver. 29, " So ought men to love their wives, even as their own bodies," is agreed to even by the Jews' doctrine. " Our doctors teach. He that loves his wife as his own body, and he that honours her more than his own body, and he that maketh his sons to walk in a right way, &c; of such a one the Scripture saith. Thou shalt know that peace shall be in thy tabernacle^," &c. We are now come to the second year of Paul's imprison ment: in which he had the changeable and 60 Christ, different occurrences, of loving-visits and sa- 6 Nero. lutes from some churches abroad, and cross dealing from some ill-willed at home: some sadness of heart, by the sickness of Epaphroditus near unto death, but comfort and reviving again by his recovery. The church of Philippi had sent him to visit Paul in their <: Ver. 3, 4. '' Chap. iv. 13. « Ver. 26, 27. ' Maim, in Mikvaoth, cap. 1. » AlpheS. in Gittin. cap. ult. 298 HARMONY OF [Philippians. year OF CHRIST 60. name, and to bring him some tokens of their love for his support and maintenance in his imprisonment ; and the good man fell sick in Rome very like to die : upon his recovery and return home again, Paul sendeth by him The EPISTLE to the PHILIPPIANS, written in his name, and in the name of Timothy, who, ac cording to his appointment, was now come to him. He showeth in this Epistle, that as there were some, which preached the gospel of sincerity, — so were there other, that preached of envy and contention, and so added aflliction to his bonds. He was yet in bonds, but in some good hopes of deliverance, as he showeth in chap. ii. 24; for he saith he hoped ere long to send Timothy to them, and himself to come with him : but we shall observe ere long, that when Paul hath got his liberty, Timothy is got into prison, and so his journey for the present stopped. He saluteth no church in the platform of bishops and deacons, but only this : not but that there were bishops and deacons in other churches as well as here ; but, it may be, he doth it here the rather, because of the contribution, that the bishops and deacons had gathered for him and sent to him ; or because he would show the platform of office and order in this church of Philippi, which was purely Gentile, • agreeable to that of the believing Jews' churches. He giveth warning to beware of the heretical and unbe lieving Jews, whom he calls ' dogs' and ' the concision :' and now the name they used to give to the Gentiles, • dogs,' is light upon themselves. The very Talmudists speak as evil of that generation, in which Messias should come, as the Scripture doth, 2 Tim. iii. 1, &c; and, among other things, they say thus : " When the son of David cometh, the synagogues shall become stews : Galilee shall be de stroyed : Gablan shall be desolate" [the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch doth constantly render Seir,Ga6/aA] ; "and the men of the border of Israel shall go from city to city, and the wisdom of the scribes shall be abominated, and religious persons shall be scorned : and the faces of that generation shall be as dogs"." He calls them Kararofiiiv, ^ Talm. Bab. in Sanhedr. fol. 97. Colossians.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 299 YEAR OF CHRIST 60. ' the concision :' the word signifies such superstitious, and vain, and impious cuttings in the flesh, as heathens used'. No more doth he make of their circumcision : the Greek word is used by the LXX, Lev. xxi. 5. He speaketh of one in Philippi, whom he calleth his ' true yokefellow :' alluding, it may be, either to the word 3"in, by which the Jews did ordinarily express great profes sors of religion : 10"i2"i N»>a")n a most ordinary phrase in the Jerusalem Talmud : or the word nuit * yokes' or * cou ples ;' whereby they expressed the president and vice-presi dent of the Sanhedrim, those famous couples, Shemaiah and Abtalion, Hillel and Shammai, &c. Of whom it is that he speaketh, is undeterminable ; Barnabas or Silas might best bear the title. Whosoever it was, it seemeth it was some worthy person, who was, at this time, in that church, whom he entreats to compose some differences, that were then afoot, — and to be helpful in some occasions and cases, that he knew needful. It is not to be doubted, but Epaphroditus had acquainted him particularly with the state of the church ; and he applies his exhortations accordingly. As the church of Philippi had sent Epaphroditus to visit him, — so did the church of Colossi send Epaphras, one of their ministers, to do the like) ; whereupon, by Tychicus, who had been the last year at Ephesus to fetch Timothy, and returned with him to Rome\ — and by Onesimus, a Colossian', Paul and Timothy send The EPISTLE to the COLOSSIANS. The naming of Mark now with him [chap. iv. 10] doth state the time of writing this Epistle, and fixeth it to this year ; or else it would be easier for Tychicus's travel, to have supposed, that he brought it the last year, when he came to Timothy to Ephesus,— and Colosse was not far off: but the observing of Mark's being now at Rome, puts the matter out of doubt. And whereas it might be thought more likely, that Epaphras, that came with the visit from. the church, should bring this return of Paul back again, it appeareth, by chap. iv. 12, that he stayed still with Paul, and was fellow-prisoner now with him". * As 2 Kings, xviii. 28, &o. J Col. i. 7, 8. " Col. iv. 7. ' Col.iv. 9. m PhiUm. ver. 23. 300 HARMONY OF [Colossians. year of CHRIST 60. The Colossians had never seen Paul's face, no more had the Laodiceans ; for no less can be gathered from his own words, chap. n. 1 ; yet had he been a means, by some of his agents, to plant these churches, or at least to afford them plentiful watering. The apostles had subordinate ministers under them, that they employed to this purpose. I know not how the word ' helps' [1 Cor. xii. 28], can be better understood. The Laodiceans had sent him an epistle [as the Corin thians had also done"]; and this is that epistle, that he speaketh of, chap. iv. 16; " See that ye read likewise the epistle firom Laodicea." Not that he had written any epis tle from thence, which is now lost, — as is conceived by some, — for he was never there ; but it meaneth that epistle, which the Laodiceans had sent to him : not that he would have it read, as of equal divine authority with his own, but as a good copy and example to the Colossians. If any be not satisfied with this construction, we shall offer another,' when we come to the Epistles of John, rather than conceive, that any Epistle of Paul is lost, that was once read in the churches. Among those whose salutations he sends, he nameth ' Demas :' who, the last year, was departed from him, and • embraced,' as he thought, ' the present world" :' but now is come in a good man again. "The sparks of grace, once kindled, can never be quenched, — yea, though not discernible to the eye of a Paul ; which, however raked up under the ashes by vehement temptation or corruption, — yet, covered with an everlasting decree of everlasting love, are unextin- guishable. The act of grace, it is true, may be in a swoon, and seem dead to the eyes of a Paul himself, whilst yet there is the habit in life : I mean, that gracious changedness, which by regeneration is wrought in the soul, the stony heart tumed into flesh, which though it may congeal into ice again, yet can never again congeal into the stone it was. ' Fides qua apprehendens,' its hand may slip ; but ' fides qua apprehensa,' his hand cannot slip, that hath laid hold upon it. " 1 Cor. vii. 1. . 2 Tim. iv. 10. Philemon.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. ,301 YEAR OF CHRIST 60. By these same bearers, Tychicus and Onesimus, by whom he sends the Epistle to the Colossians, he also sends The EPISTLE to PHILEMON. For he was a Colossian, as appeareth by this, that Paul calls Onesimus, bis servant, " one of the ColossiansP :" and Archippus, which was minister at Colossei, seemeth to have been Philemon's son; or, at least, to have sojourned in his house, Philem. ver. 2. In this Epistle, he sendeth saluta tions from the persons he did in the Epistle to the Colos sians ; Epaphras, Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas ; only, there is this difference about two of them, — that here, he calls Epaphras his ' fellow-prisoner,' which there he did not, —and there, Aristarchus his ' fellow-prisoner,' which here he doth not. This doing of the apostle needeth to breed no scruple ; but it may rather justly be inquired, how these men came prisoners. Aristarchus set out with Paul from Je rusalem, and he only is named of all his company"'; either because he was a prisoner then, as Paul was,— or because the rest with Paul were his attendants and ministers, constantly with him ; and, therefore, needed not to be named. Or, if Aristarchus were not committed to prison till now, the con sideration of Epaphras's case will include his. Epaphras came from Colosse but very lately' ; and how, and for what, is he now got into prison ? For answer to this, we may pro perly take in something out of the Roman story. Sueto nius, in the life of Nero', speaking of those times of his that carried some moderation, in which he was not broke out to his extreme wickedness ; and mentioning some things that he did and enacted, that looked somewhat like a reforma tion,— he saith thus : " Multa sub eo et animadversa severe, etcoercita, nee minus instituta: adhibitus sumptibus mo dus : pubhcae coense ad sportulas redactae : interdictum ne quid in popinis cocti, praeter legumina aut olera, veniret, cum antea nullum non opsonii genus proponeretur. Afilicti sup- phciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae." This last particular is it that we have to deal P Col. ir. 9. 1 Col. ir. 17. ' Acts, xxvii. 2. " Col. i.,7, 8. ' Cap. ,16. ed.B. Crus. p. 105. ,302 HARMONY OF [Philemon, year of CHRIST 60. with ; " The Christians were put to punishment, a sort of men of a new religion," &c. Tacitus, in the life of the same tyrant", telleth of a dread ful fire, that befel in Rome in the tenth year of his reign [of which we shall speak when we come there], which, com mon report buzzed and rumoured up and down, that he had kindled. " Abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quaesitis- simis poenis affecit, quos, per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christia nas appellabat : Nero, to stop that report, brought in, as guilty, those, who were called Christians, and tortured them with ex quisite torments. The author of that name was Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death by Pontius Pilate. Repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio, rursus erum^ pebat, non modo per Judaeam, originem ejus mali, sed per urbem etiam; quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda con- fluunt, celebranturque. Igitur primo correpti qui fateban- tur," &c. For the Englishing of this, the words " repressa in praesens" will breed some dispute ; as doubtful, wliether they mean, that the Christian religion was suppressed by Nero at that time, — when he inflicted those tortures upon them, pretending them guilty for firing the city, — which was in his tenth year, but it brake out again after, for all that suppression ; — or that they mean, that that religion had been suppressed in former time, but now, by that tenth year of Nero, was broken out again, and he falls upon it anew. The words you may wind to whether construction you will, con struing them either, " That dangerous superstition, sup pressed for the present, broke out again :" or, " That dan gerous superstition, having been suppressed for a time, was broke out again ;" or, " that had been suppressed till the present." Now, though there be this dubiousness in that phrase, yet the observation of these things may state it, that there was some such suppression of Christianity, before that open persecution, that broke out in his tenth year :— 1. Be cause Suetonius speaks of " his afflicting the Christians," as done in his way of reformation of religion ; and that, in his good times, when he was not grown a monster, and not by way of crimination of them, or for the salving of his own * Annal, xv, 44, Oherlin, Lend, ed, vol, 1, p, 675. Philemon.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 303 year of CHRIST 60. credit, as he did in his tenth year. 2. There is mention of Pomponia Graecina, tried for her life, about the beginning of Nero's reign, for matter of religion, as we mentioned before. 3. This imprisonment of Epaphras, and, it raay be, of Aris tarchus, at this time, and certainly of Timothy presently af ter, may also confirm it : for, what should these men be im prisoned for, but for religion ? It is very probable, there fore, that Nero had, by some act or edict, suppressed Chris tianity, not only at Rome, but also in Judea, as it seemeth by that clause in Tacitus, " Rursus erumpebat non modo per Judaeam," &c ; and, if so, that might be a forwarder of that defection, that was so general in the churches of the Jews, that had received the gospel ; they falling to Moses again, or joining the adhesion to the law, with the profession ofthe gospel ; for, thus hiding their Christianity, they might retain their hberty of their Christianity such as it was, the religion of the Jews not being at all suppressed by him. However, if there were such a suppression at Rome, as it is very like there was, Paul's deliverance from the lion's mouth was the more remarkable, since he was to answer, not only to his accusers about his profession, but before ajudge that was prejudiced against it so deeply. But since we have heard of no stirring at Rome, of all this time, to such a tune, nor any mention of any imprison ing but only of Paul, — how comes the matter to wax so hot now, since Nero's heat against any Christianity seemeth to have been some years, or, at least, a good while, ago ? Here we cannot but remember that passage in the Epistie to the Phihppians', so lately written : " Some preach Christ, even of envy and strife ; and some also, of good will : the one preach Christ, of contention, not sincerity, supposing to add affliction to my bonds." By which it may be con jectured, that some enemies of Paul's, and his company's, taking opportunity of Nero's declaration against Christian ity, did bustie and make ado in preaching the gospel, aim ing at nothing more than this,— that hereby the ringleaders in the gospel, Paul and his company [as, no doubt, they were noted so to be], might be the more narrowly looked after : and this might well be some occasion of the imprisonment of T Chap. i. 15, 16. 304 HARMONY OF [Philemon. YEAR OF CHRIST 61. Epaphras and Timothy, at this time, and of Aristarchus, if so be he were not a prisoner before. This year is Timothy a prisoner, and Paul himself at liberty ; for his two years' imprisonment expired 61 Christ, the latter end of the last year, or the beginning of 7 Nero. this. You have intimation of this, Heb. xiii . 23 ; where he saith, " Know ye, that our brother Ti mothy is set at liberty ; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you ;" for, I cannot interpret the word ' ATtoXeXviiivov, otherwise than in reference to restraint ; and then we may, out of this passage, observe that Timothy had been a pri soner, and that the Hebrews had known of his imprison ment; but now he was at liberty, and Paul too ready to come away with him, when he should come. He had writ ten to the Philippians''', that he hoped shortly to send Timo thy to them ; and to Philemon" to provide a lodging for him, for he hoped, ere Ijng, to come into those parts ; by which we may conclude, that, upon his enlargement, he intended not to have stayed long at Rome ; or, that Timothy, at the least, should not have been long from them ; but that his im prisonment, as it proved, hindered them both. Therefore, we may not cast his commitment beyond this year; but how long he lay under restraint, we cannot tell ; Only, we may conceive him at liberty the next ; for, in that year, we suppose the writing of ' the Epistle to the Hebrews,' which speaks of his enlargement. In our thoughts about Nero's suppressing Christianity, and these men's bonds thereabout, we may also look witb admiration at the wondrous workings of God : observe, that, even at these times, there was Christianity in Nero's house- holdy. This year, some occurrences befalling in this our own country of England, though they are besides the argument that we are upon, yet may they not unfitiy be taken into mention, for country's sake. Suetonius Paulinus was now general for the Romans here. He assails to take the Isle of Man ; " Incolis validam et receptaculum perfugarum," saith Tacitus'" : " Strong in the inhabitants, and a refuge for fugi- " Chap. ii. 19. ^ Ver. 22. y Philem. 4. 22. ^ Annal. xiv. 29. Philemon.] 'THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part II. 305 YEAR OF CHRIST 61. tives." He, bringing on his men near the shore, finds an army guarding, and ready to forbid bis landing. Araong the men, there were women, running up and down, " In modum Furiarum, quae veste ferali, crinibus dejectis, faces ppseferebant :" " Like furies, in a dreary garb, with their hair about their ears ; and they carried torches." The Roman sol diers, for a while, stood amazed at such a sight ; but at last, falling on, they enter and destroy them, and possess and gari'ison the island. " Excisique luci saevis supersti- tionibus sacri ; nam cruore captive adolere aras. et fibris ho minum consulere Deo fas habebant :" " And they cut down the groves, that were devoted to bloody superstition ; for they used to sacrifice captives at their altars, and to look into their inwards, by way of auguration. It isa remarkable and true saying of Pliny', concermng Italy or Rome, that it was a country, " Quae sparsa congre- garet imperia, ritusque molliret, et tot populorum discordes ferasque linguas sermonis commercio contraheret ad collo- quia, et humanitatem homini daret ;'' which, in short, is this, " that it civilized the world, and taught barbarous nations humanity." A strange assertion, if we consider the barba rous bloodiness and superstitions ofthe Romans themselves : — yet, if we look upon the thing itself, it is very true ; they be ing a people of learning, discipline, and education, and planting these wheresoever they got footing. And this was one means in the Lord's providence, — whose ways are past finding out, — to harrow the world's ruggedness, and to fit it the better for the sowing of the gospel. In what temper our land of Britain was, as to civility, before they came in, may be guessed by this garb of the Isle of Man, so near re lating to it, if we had no more evidence. While Suetonius was thus busied here, he hears of a re volt and rebellion in Britain, caused, partly, by the cruel exaction of Decimus Catus, the governor, who revived some impositions, that Claudius the emperor had remitted ; — partly, by the grinding usury and exactions of Seneca ; who, having put them, even unwilling, to take vast sums of money of his, on most unsufferable usury, he now called it and the use in, with all extremity and mercilessness : and partly, by " Nat. Hist. lih. 3. cap. 5. VOL, III. X 306 HARMONY OF [Philemon. YEAR OF CHRIST 62. an unhappy obsequiousness of Prasutagus,king of thelceni, or, at least, by an unhappy abusing of his obsequiousness : for he dying, and leaving Nero and his own two daughters his heirs by will; the Roman centurions, as in claim to Nero's legacy, ransack and catch all they can, and pull his kingdom all to pieces, and abuse bis wife and two daughters barbarously and inhumanly ; and spare not either his friends, kindred, or nobles. This stirs all to commotion, which is eagerly prosecuted by Bondicea% or Bunduica, the widow of the king deceased ; insomuch, that they destroy the colony at Camulodunum, the Roraan garrison and associates at London, and the like at Verulara : in all, to the number of seventy thousand persons. Suetonius at last comes in, and fights them, they being near upon two hundred and thirty thousand in arms, under Bunduica ; he routeth them, — slays about eighty thousand of them : Bunduica, for vexation, poisons herself: and the Roman destroys with fire and sword all the towns before him, that were of the adverse party, or adhered to it. Divers prodigies are mentioned by the histo rians, that relate these bloody occurrences as presages ofit: as. the sea bloody, — strange voices and bowlings heard, — sights seen in the Thames, of houses under water, — a colony overturned, &c. Paul, in the Epistle to the Colossians^ intimateth, that Mark, who was then with him at Rome, was 62 Christ, likely, ere long, to come to them into the east ; 8 Nero. and he willeth them to receive him as from him, though there had once been disagreement be twixt Mark and him. Whether Timothy's imprisonment de layed Mark's journey, may be some question: for Paul having sent for thera two to corae to him together", it is like he could ill part with the one, when the other was made useless to him by restraint : and so we have some cause to suppose, that, while Timothy was in prison, Mark remained with Paul. However, whensoever it was, that he went for the east,— we have this reason to think, that Paul wrote, and sent by him. » See OI.eilin's Tacitus, vol. i. p. 603. Lend. ed. last line of the first column. iJ Chap IV. 10. .; 2 Tim. iv. 11. Hebrews.] 'THE NF.W TES'TAMEN'T.— Part H. 307 YEAR OF CHRIST 62. The EPISTLE to the HEBREWS: And that he, having delivered it where Paul had appointed him, went away to Peter to Babylon in Chaldea; because Peter there mentioneth Mark now with him, 1 Pet. v. 13 ¦ and this Epistle, 2 Pet. iii. 15. It is observable, that these two great aposties, Peter and Paul, the several ministers of the circumcision and uncir cumcision, had their interchanged agents : Silvanus or Silas, Paul's minister, resident with Peter, and employed by him to carry his First Epistie"* ; and Mark, Peter's minister, resident with Paul', and, very probably, employed by hira to carry this ' Epistie to the Hebrews.' And thus, in the interchanged agencies of their ministers, — the parties, with whom they had to deal, might own the joint agreement of both the apostles. Although we dare not punctually assert either the bearer of this Epistle, or the exact time of its writing, — yet, that it was written and sent about these times that we are upon, may be observed by these two boundaries, that shut it up within some reasonable compass of the time hereabout: — First, ' A parte ante,' or that it could not be written much sooner than this, — may be concluded by this ; that Timothy had gone through his imprisonment, and was now enlarged before its writing^ ; and, secondly, ' A parte post,' or that it could not be written much after this time, may be observed from that passage^, " Ye have not yet resisted unto blood." For, presently after this, bloody times came on. That it was written by Paul, hath not only the concur rent consent of all copies and translations, but even this proof for it, — that none can be named " a prisoner\" and " in Italy'," and in so near converse with TimothyJ [as the author of this Epistle was], so likely as Paul. His not affixing his name to this, as he had done to his other Epistles, doth no more deny it to be his, than the First Epistie of John's, is denied to be John's, upon the same ac count : especially considering, that the name of ' the apostie of the uncircumcision,' would not sound so well before an ¦I 1 Pet V. 12 e2Tim.iv. 11. Col. iv. 10. ' Heb. xiii. 23. s Chap. xii. 4. i-chap. X.34. i Chap. xiii. 24. ) Chap. xiii. 23 x2 308 HARMONY OF [Hebrews. YEAR OF CHRIST 62. Epistle to the circumcised : and yet the more still, because he sent it by Mark [for so we cannot but suppose], who was a minister of ' the minister of the circumcision,' and who could easily inform them of the writer. Unto what part of the Jewish nation he sendeth the Epis tle, under the indorsement ' To the Hebrews,' and why that indorsement ' To the Hebrews,' rather than ' To the Jews,' — may be a useful and a needful query. It cannot be ima gined, but that he sendeth it to be delivered at a certain place within some reasonable compass ; because it was im possible for the bearer, whosoever he was, to deliver it to all the Jews' dispersion; and because, in chap. xiii. 23, he saith, that, when Timothy came, he would come with him, and see them. Therefore, the title ' The Hebrews' must determine the place, since there is nothing else to deter mine it. A double reason may be given, why he so styleth them, rather than Jews ; — naraely, either because the name 'Jew' was now beginning to become odious ; or rather, be cause he would point out the Jews, that dwelt in Judea, or the land of Israel. And this sense doth the Holy Ghost put upon the title " the Hebrews," Acts vi. 1; where it is said, " There was a murmuring of the Hellenists against the Hebrews :" by ' the Hellenists,' meaning the Jews, that dwelt in foreign countries among the Greeks ; and by ' the Hebrews,' those that dwelt in Judea. And so it is most proper to understand the inscription of this Epistle ; namely, that Paul directs and sends it to the believing Jews of Judea : a people, that had been much engaged to hira for his care of their poor, getting collections for thera all along his travels ; and Mark [whom we suppose the bearer of this Epistie] had come in to his attendance, and to the attendance of his uncle Barnabas, when they had been in Judea to bring alms unto those churches''. It is not to be doubted, indeed, that he intendeth the discourse and matter of this Epistie to the Jews throughout all their dispersion [and, therefore, Peter', Wj-iting to the Jews of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Asia, apphes it as written to thera] ; yet doth he indorse it, and send it chiefly to ' The Hebrews,' or tbe Jews of Judea, the prin- '' Acts, xi and xii, i 2 Pel, iii, i5. Hebrews.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 309 YEAR OF CHRIST 62. cipal seat of the circumcision, — as the properest centre whi ther to direct it, — and from whence it might best diffuse, in time, to the whole circumference of their dispersion. He hath to deal in it mainly with those things, that the Jewish writers commonly call ^*-|K3 nvi^n nipin " Ordinances affixed to the land ;" or such ceremonious part of their reli gion, as, while it stood, was confined to tbe land ; as temple, sacrifice, priesthood, &c. Therefore, it was most proper to direct his speech, in its first bent, to those that dwelt in the land, and were most near to those things, — and who, in those apostatizing times that then were, had the nearest occasion and temptation to draw tbem back from the purity of the gospel to those rites again. Unto that doubtfulness, that some have taken up about the original tongue of this Epistle, as thinking it very im proper that he should write in the Greek tongue to the He brews, especially to the Hebrews in Judea, — we need no better satisfaction than what the Hebrews themselves, yea. the Hebrews of Judea, raay give to us, — I raean, the Jerusalem Gemarists, — from several passages that they have about the Greek language. In Megillah'" they say thus ; " There is a tradition from Ben Kaphra, God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem : for they shall speak the language of Japhet in the tents of Shem." The Babylon Gemara, on the same treatise", resolves us, what tongue of Japhet is meant; for having spoken all along before, of the excellency and dignity of the Greek tongue, it concludes, Hn> DD' b]^ inVDV UW >bnny " The very beauty of Japhet shall be in the tents of Shem." Our men, first named, say farther thus : " Rabbi Jona than, qf Beth Gubrin, saith. There are four languages brave for the worid to use, and they are these ; the Vulgar, tbe Ro man, the Syrian, and the Hebrew,— and some also add, the Assyrian." Now the question is. What tongue he means by ' the Vulgar ?' Reason will name the Greek as soon as any ; and Midras Tillim makes it plain, that this is meant ; forP, speaking of this very passage [but alleging it in somewhat ,„ j.^1 f^ col. 2. " P"'- 9. col. 2. " Instead of the two last words of this Hebrew quotation, Leusden's edition reads W P Fol. 25. col. 4. 310 HARMONY OF [Heurews. YEAR OF CHRIST 62. different terms], he nameth the ' Greek,' which is not here named. Observe, then, that the Hebrews call the Greek ' the Vulgar tongue.' They proceedP ; " It is a tradition ; Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel saith. In books they permitted not that they should write, but only in Greek. They searched, and found, that the law cannot be interpreted completely, but only in the Greek. One once expounded to them, in the Syriac, out of the Greek. R. Jeremiah, in the name of R. Chaijah Ben Ba, saith, Aquila the proselyte interpreted the law, before R. Eliezer, and before R. Joshua. And they extolled him, and said. Thou art fairer than the children of men." And the same Talmudi hath this record : " Rabbi Levi went to Caesarea, and heard them J'DDOI^N yaw ynp rehears ing their phylacteries Hehenistice;" or, in the Greek tongue. A passage very well worth observing: for if, in Caesarea, were as learned schools, as any were in the nation ; and if their phylacteries [picked sentences out of the law] might, above all things, have challenged their rehearsal in the He brew tongue, as their own writers show, — yet they say them over in Greek,— Paul might very well write to the Hebrews m Judea, in the Greek tongue, when that tongue was in so common a use, even in a university of Judea itself. To these testimonies for the Greek tongue, might be added, that wbich is spoken in the treatise Shekalim' : " Upon the three treasure-chests of the temple were written, Aleph, Beth, Gimel. But Rabbi Ismael saith. It was written upon them in Greek,— Alpha, Beta, Gamraa." They that hold, that this Epistie, and the Gospel of Matthew, were written in Hebrew, should consider, how that tongue was now a stranger to all but scholars,— and, how God, in his provi dence, had dispersed and planted the Greek tongue through out all the worid, by the conquest of Alexander, and the Grecian monarchy ; and had brought the Old Testament into Greek, by the Septuagint. As this apostie, in all his Episties, useth exceeding much ofthe Jews' dialect, language, learning, allusion, and refer ence to their opimons, traditions, and customs,— so doth he more singulariy in this :-and he doth, moreover, in a more " Ihirt. col. 3. n In ,Solah, fol, 21, col. 2. . c.p. 3, hal. 2. Hebrews.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 311 YEAR OF CHRIST 62. peculiar manner, apply himself to their manner of argu mentation and discourse. For his intent is, if he can, to argue them into establishment against that grievous apos tasy, that was now afoot : so many revolting from tbe purity ofthe gospel, either to a total betaking theraselves to Moses again, — or, at least, mixing the ceremonious rites of the law, with the profession of the gospel. Comparing his style here, with the style of discourse and arguing in the Tal muds, Zohar and Rabboth, and such-like older writings of the Jews, — you might easily tell with whora he is dealing, though the Epistle were not inscribed in syllables, ' To the Hebrews :' and tbe very style of it may argue a scholar of Gamaliel, but now better taught, and better improving his learning, than that master could teach him. He first begins to prove the Messiah to be God, and Jesus to be he : about the former of which, the Jews mis took, — and about the latter, they blasphemed. In proving the former, he, among other places of Scripture, produceth that of Psal. cii. 25 ; " Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth," Sec. To which a Jew would be ready to answer, ' Aye. but this is to be understood of God the Father ;' and how could this objection be answered ? Answ. Even by their own confessions, upon which he argueth in this place. For they understood that in Gen. i. 2, " The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," of the Spirit of Christ ; and so do they interpret it -["pD ^t^ ^r\¦r\ n n>tt>Dn 'This is the Spirit of Messias :' as their mind is spoken in that point by Zohar, Bereshith Rabba, and divers others. If the Spirit of Christ, then, was the great agent in the crea tion, by their own grant,— they could not but grant this alle gation to be proper. He showeth Christ, therefore, greater than angels, as in other regards, so into whose hands was put " the world to come' :" and here the phrase is used in the Jews' dialect, for ' the kingdom of Messias',— as we mentioned before. He proveth him a greater lawgiver than Moses, a greater priest than Aaron, and a greater king and priest than Mel- chisedek : he showeth all the Levitical economy but a sha dow, and Christ the substance, and the old covenant to be • Heb. ii.5. 312 HARMONY OF [Hebrews. YEAR OF CHRIST 62. abolished, by the coming in of a better : by the old or first covenant, raeaning the ' covenant of peculiarity,' or the ad ministration of the covenant of grace so, as whereby Israel was made a peculiar and distinct people. This covenant of peculiarity they brake, as soon almost as they had ob tained it, by making the golden calf; and thereupon follows the breaking of the two tables in sign of it : for though the law, written in the two tables, was moral, and so concerned all the world, — yet their writing in tables of stone for Israel, and committing them to their keeping, referreth to their peculiarity. To his handling' of the fabric and utensils of the tabernacle, and contents of the ark, the Jerusalem Talmud" may be usefully applied, for illustration. He hint eth the apostasy now afoot, which was no sraall induction to him of the writing of this Epistle, and showeth the des perate danger of it". In which his touching of it, we may see, how far some had gone in the gospel, and yet so misera bly far fallen from it ; as that some of them had had the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, and yet now sinned WiUingly and wilfully against it. In describing their guilt, one of bis passages that he useth, is but harshly applied by some'' ; — " Hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of tbe covenant, wherewith he was sanc tified, an unholy thing," — when they say, that this horrid apostate wretch, that treads Christ under foot, was once sanctified by the blood of Christ : whereas the words mean, Christ's being sanctified by the blood of tbe covenant ; ac cording to the same sense that Christ is said, to be brought again from the dead, by the blood of the covenant,— in this same Epistie". And the apostie doth set forth the horrid impiety of accounting the blood of the covenant a common thing, by this,— because even the Son of God himself was sanctified by it, or set apart as Mediator. And so should I un derstand the words, " He hath trodden under foot that Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant, by which he the Son of God was sanctified, an unholy thing." He magnifieth faith, against those works, that they stood upon and sought to be justified by; and showeth, that this was, ' *^'','h 'k ¦ ¦.-»"'" Shekalim, fol. 49. col. 3, 4. and Sotah, fol. 22. col. 3. Hebr. VI. 4, .^, &c. and chap. x. 26, 27, &c. w chap, x, 29. " Hebr, xiii, 20, Hebrews,] THE NEW 'TESTAMENT,— Part II. 313 YEAR OF CHRIST 62. the all in all, with all the holy men both before the law and under it. When he gives them caution, " Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esauy," Sec, he doth not only speak according to the common tenet of tbe nation, that Esau was a fornicator, as see Targ. Jerus. in Gen. xxv; but he seemeth to have his eye upon the Nicolaitan doctrine that was now rife, that taught fornication : to which he seemeth also to refer, in those words% " Marriage is honour able," &c. And now, henceforward, you bave no raore story of this apostle : what became of him after the writing of this Epistle, it is impossible to find out by any light, that the Scripture holdeth out in this matter. The two last verses but one of this Epistle, trace bim as far forward as we can any way else see him, and that is but a little way neither : " Know ye, that our brother Tiraothy is set at liberty ; with whora, if he come shortly, I will see you." By which words these things may be conjectured : — 1. That, after his enlargement out of bonds, he left Rome, and preached in Italy. He mentioneth, in his Epistie to the Romans, xv. 24. his desire and intent to go preach in Spain ; but that was so long ago, that he had now found sorae just cause [so much time in tervening] to steer his course another way. For, 2. It ap pears, that, when he wrote this Epistie to the Hebrews, be intended very shortiy to set for Judea, — if so be he sent the Epistle to the Jews of Judea, as hath been showed most probable he did. So that, trace him in his intentions and hopes, and you find him purposing to go to Philippi" ; nay, yet farther, to Colosse" ; nay, yet farther, into Judea. It is like, that the apostasy and wavering, that he heard of in the eastern churches, showed bim raore need to hasten thither than to go westward. 3. He waited a littie to see, whether Timothy, now enlarged, would corae to him in that place of Italy, where be now was : which if he did, he in tended to bring him along with him : but whether they met and travelled together, or what farther became of either ot them,— we shall not go about to tiace, lest, seeking alter them, we lose ourselves. IT 1 .. ..? z rhan ¦xlii 4. a Phil. ii. 23, 'i4. y Heb. XII. 16. caap. xiii. * u Philem. ver. 22. 314 HARMONY OF [James. YEAR OF CHRIST 63. It hath been observed before, how probable it is, that Albinus came into the government of Judea in 63 Christ. Festus's room, in this ninth year of Nero.— And 9 Nero. if so, then was James the apostle, who was called James 'the Less,' martyred this year. Josephus gives the story of thi s"^: — "Caesar, understanding the death of Festus, sendeth Albinus governor into Judea. And the king [Agrippa] put Joseph from the high-priesthood, and conferred it upon Ananus, the son of Ananus. Now this Ananus junior was extreme bold and daring; and he was of the sect of the Sadducees, which, in judging, are most cruel of any of the Jews. Ananus, therefore, being such a one, and thinking he had got a fit opportunity, because Festus was dead, and Albinus was not yet come, — he gets together a council, and bringing before it James the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, and some others, as transgressors, he delivered them up to be stoned : but those in the city that were more moderate, and best skilled in the laws, took this ill, and sent to the king privately, beseeching hira to charge Ananus that be should do so no more. And some of thera met Albinus as he came from Alexandria, and showed him how it was not lawful for Ananus to call a council with out his consent. Whereupon, he writeth a threatening letter to Ananus. And king Agrippa, for this fact, put him from the high-priesthood, when he had held it but three months, — and placed Jesus, the son of Damneas, in his room." The epistle of JAMES. Although, therefore, the certain time of his writing this Epistle cannot be discovered, — yet, since be died in the year that we are upon, we may, not unproperly, look upon it as written not very long before his death. And that the rather, because, by an expression or two, he intiraates the vengeance of Jerusalera drawing very near'' : " The coming of the Lord draweth nigh;" and, "Behold, the Judge standeth before the door." He, being the apostle residentiary of the cir cumcision in Judea, could not but, of all others, be chiefly in the eyes of those, that maliced the gospel there, and •^ Anliti. lib. 20. cap. 8. l}^^b xinsy nt " A man that one charmeth, he putteth oil upon his head and charm- eth." And a little after is related, what they charmed for; as, " for an evil eye, serpents, scorpions," 8cc. And, in col. 4, is mentioned, how " one charmed over a sick person, in the name of Jesu Pandira." Now, this being a coraraon, wretch ed custom, to anoint some that were sick, and to use charm ing with the anointing,— this apostie, seeing anointing was an ordinary and good physic, and the good use of it not to be extinguished for that abuse,— directs them better; name ly, to get the elders, or ministers of the church, to come to the sick, and to add, to the medicinal anointing of him, their godly and fervent prayers for him, far more available and ' Talm. Jcru.s. in Beracoth, fol. 3. col. 1. j Id. in Maazar Sheni, fol. 53. col. 3. >' Talm. Bub. in Joma, fol. 77. 2. James.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 317 YEAR OF CHRIST 64. comfortable, than all charming and enchanting, as well as far raore warrantable and Christian. This year [C. Lecanius and M. Licinius being consuls] befel that sore fire in Rome [of which some touch 64 Christ, was given before] ; the sorest that ever had be- 10 Nero. fallen the city, and which made such desolation, " That, whereas the city was divided into four teen great wards" [they are the words of Tacitus], " only four of the fourteen stood sound ; for three were clean burnt down to the ground ; and as for the other seven, they were all tattered, and half consumed, and but a few rehes of houses remained." It was commonly thought and talked, that Nero himself had the chief hand in kindling and carrying on of this mis chief; instigated thereunto, either by his own inhuman and barbarous temper, which delighted in nothing more than in destroying ; or, by a tickling humour he had, to build the city anew, that it might bear his name. He, to stop the mouth of the clamour and to salve his credit, brought the Christians, that were in the city, to examination and execution, as if they had been the only, and the all, in the breeding of this mishap. "Igitur primo correpti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens, baud perinde in crimine incendii, quam odio humani generis, convicti sunt," &c. "Therefore, they were first laid hold on, that confessed theraselves Christians : and then, by their discovery, a vast multitude was convicted, not so much for real guilt of kindling that fire, as because of the general hate of men against tbera. And, raoreover, there were scorns added to their deaths, for they were cast, wrapped in beasts' skins, to be devoured of dogs ; or, they were crucified, or burnt, and served for lights by night, when the day was gone. Whereupon, they were pitied, see ing that they were thus destroyed, not for the pubhc benefit, but only for one raan's cruelty."— Thus Tacitus. Ann. xv. What havoc may we think this doleful persecution made ? As among other Christians at Rome, so particularly among those eminent ones, that Paul, in his Epistie' thither, saluteth by name,— of whom, many, no doubt, were alive till now, and now despatched. He himself, and Timothy, and Luke, with ' Rom. xvi. 318 HARMONS OF [Jame.s. YEAR OF CHRIST 64. other of his retinue, may well be supposed to have been got away, before this storm came, — because, in several places of his Epistles, written a good while ago, as we have observed,— he speaketh of his setting away with what speed possible and convenient. How escaped Peter, if he now sat bishop at Rome, as Rome asserteth ? Whether this persecution were circumscribed within the bounds of Rome or Italy, or whether it was carried by the command of the tyrant through all other countries"', we need not to be much solicitous to go about to decide : certainly, though it were not enforced by any edict or comraand, yet, such a copy would be taken for a warrant, especially by those, that, without either command or copy, had been for ward enough to do raischief to the professors of the gospel, already, — and had taken, nay. had made, any occasion to undo or destroy them. The Jews, at this mastery, were the busiest men of any ; and that "mystery of iniquity" was ever working, but could not strike their full stroke, because some thing hindered". If he that hindered, were Claudius, who, by his expulsion of the Jews out of Rome, showed a frown upon the whole nation, and suffered them not to rage, as they would have done, — he was taken away about ten years ago ; and they felt their chain rauch slackened at the coming in of Nero : who, in his best years, though he broke not out to destroy all before him, as he did afterward, — yet was he de structive enough to Christianity, as we have observed, — and loose and careless of the administration of affairs, and re garded not how things went, so that he might have his ease, luxury, and pleasure, which his tutors, Seneca and Biirrhus, made but unworthy advantage of. But now that he, him self, hath given so visible, bloody, and cursed, an example, — the Jews, that stood barking at their chain-end all this while, finding themselves so far let loose, as such an example might loose them, which was too far, — would fall on without mercy. They had been mischievous enough always against the professors of tbe gospel; but from henceforward, they exceeded, — and the more they grew towards their desolation, the more did the devil make thera bestir themselves, knowing the shortness of his time there. "> Vid.En.seb.Eccle.s.Hisl.lib.2.c.24. Ores. lib. 7, &c. " a Thess. ii. 6, 7. James,] THE NEW 'TESTAMENT,-Part II. 3)9 YEAR OF CHRIST 65. This tenth of Nero, there was a blazing star, horrid light nings and thunders, and divers monstrous births. Thisyear,— the eleventh of Nero, Silius Nervaand Atticus Vestinus being consuls, — very many eminent 65 Christ, and gallant men of Rome, were cut off by the 1 1 Nero. tyrant, as the last year he had cut off raany erai nent and worthy Christians. The Christians he destroyed, by a plot laid against thera by himself; the Ro mans, for a plot laid by them against hira. Tbe names of those that perished, now best known araong us, were Seneca, the philosopher, Nero's tutor, — and his nephew, the poet Lucan. Both of thera very renowned for their writings ; but both of thera very ignominious, for a several miscarriage. Seneca, for unparalleled covetousness, usury, and oppression, mentioned before ; and Lucan, for betraying his own mother. Let him bear Tacitus's brand : " Lucanus, Quinctianus, et Senecio diu abnuere. Post, promissa impunitate corrupti, quo tarditatem excusarent, Lucanus Atillam raatrem suara," [observe that] — " Quinctianus Glicium Galium, Senecio An- mumPollionem,amicoruraprascipuos,norainavere:" "Lucan, Quinctianus, and Senecio, were long before they would con fess any thing : but, at last, being corrupted by the promise of impunity, that they might make amends for their slowness, Lucan accused his mother, Atilla," &c. — Hereupon, Atilla was wracked one day ; and would confess nothing : and the next day, being carried to the wrack again, — for she was so disjointed that she could not go, — she made a shift, as she satin the cart, to strangle herself : choosing so to die, rather than either to endure the wrack again, or to impeach any : — an indelible blot to her son, Lucan, for ever. Nor did his base shift serve his turn, for he suffered death too, by having his veins cut, and so bleeding to death : which was the end of his uncle, Seneca, also. The wars ofthe Jews are now drawing on apace,— for they began the next year ; and the horrid civil wars of the Ro mans are not far off. So that here we may properiy take notice of that prediction" ready now to take place : " Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, 8cc. All these are the beginnings of sorrows. Then shall they " Matt. xxiv. 7— 9. 320 HARMONY OF [1 Peter. YEAR OF CHRIST 65. deliver you up to be afflicted, and then shall they kill you :" which LukeP hath expressed, " But, before all these, shah they lay their hands upon you, and persecute you:" which seemeth to carry some difference, — as if the one evangelist showed, that the'persecution ofthe disciples to death, should be before these troubles ; and the other, as if they should not be, till these troubles were begun : but they may be well reconciled by observing, that in the words, that Christ is there speaking, in both evangelists, there is the intertexture of two stories ; namely, what miseries should befal the Jew ish nation before their ruin, — and what miseries should befal the disciples in the midst of those miseries: and so the word then in Matthew, and before in Luke, are but as a transition from the one history to the other: and yet they are not insignificant neither, as to the pointing out of the time ; the one, speaking the beginning of that persecution foretold, — and the other, the continuance. A fitter period of time, whence to begin the punctual taking place of that prediction, we can hardly point out, than this very year that we are upon, a centre between two critical years : the year before, beginning the persecution of Christians at Rome, — and the year following, beginning of the wars of the Jews in Judea. Although, therefore, we cannot positively assert the very time ofthe writing of The FIRST EPISTLE of PETER: yet, observing the chronical hint of some passages in it, this year may as fairly lay claim thereunto, as any other year that can be asserted. For, to omit that clause^, " The end of all things is at hand" [referring to the desolating of the Jewish commonwealth and nation],— the mention of the " fiery triaP," and " the time now come when judgment must begin at the house of God%" is but as a comment and accomplishment of that prediction before alleged, " Then shall they dehver you up to be afflicted," &c. Itis true, indeed, that the church had never wanted persecution since the gos pel arose; and some, for its sake, had suffered death, as Ste phen; and some, at that time, the two Jameses; and some, at PChap. xxi. 12. iChap. iv. 7. 'Ver. la. » Ver. 17. 1 Peter.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. f]0] YEAR OF CHRIST 65. the time of both their deaths : but in the countries out of Judea, where the stroke of their Sanhedrim could not reach so well, nor light so heavy, there was tumultuousness indeed enough, and beating and bitterness against it, but rare eftu- sion of blood, till the cursed example set last vear by the tyrant at Rome, and now forward in the confusions of the Jewish nation; when a madness was come upon them araong themselves, and a desperate fury against all, that would not be as they were. And that not only in Judea, the seat of the war, — but even through the whole world, as far as they durst, and were able to stir. Those words of Dion' are very remarkable, when, speaking of the siege of Jerusalera by Ti tus, he saith, " That the Jews that were in foreign countries, not only within the Roman empire, but also without, did send help to their brethren in Judea." When Cyrus gave leave to the Jews, after the seventy years' captivity, to return to their ov/n country, raultitudes of them found theraselves so pleasingly seated, and, by con tinuance of time, rooted in Babylonia, that they would not remove their habitation, but fixed there. There, in time, they grew to so great a nation, and distinct a people, that they had sni^J iVn " A prince of the captivity" of their own blood over them, and three famous universities, Nehardea, Pombe- ditha, and Soria, which yielded very many eminent scholars in the Judaic learning. In the division of the employment of the three ministers ofthe circumcision, Peter, Jaraes, and John, — Peter's lot fell here; and from Babylon itself, the very centre of those parts, he sends this Epistle. He directs it to the dispersed Jews in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia ; in which parts the apostasy from the faith had been exceeding preva lent, and, accordingly, the trouble of those, that stuck to the faith, the most bitter. And in his inscribing it to ' the elect,' he seemeth to have his eye upon those words of his Master" about this apostasy; " They shall deceive, if it were possible, the very elect." Among the many divine lessons that he reads to them, he teaches' them and us, who is the Ro'ck upon which the church - is buih; and how, accordingly, to understand " super hanc « Lib. 66. " Matt. xxiv. 24. " Chap ii. 4, &c. VOL. III. Y 322 HARMONY OF [1 Peter, YEAR OF CHRIST 65. Petram'*." He exhorts thera with all earnestness to yield obedience to superior powers^; and that the rather, because Df that spirit ofthe Zelotse, that, walking araong the nation in all parts, urged them not to submit to any heathen power. He magnifieth baptism as a badge and pledge of preser vation of those, that had received it and stuck to it, from that vengeance that was coming upon that wicked nation^. It is something a strange recoiling that he makes, leaping back, from mention of the death of Christy over all the story of the Old Testament, and lighteth on the generation that was swept away by the flood : and showeth how Christ's Spirit preached unto thera. Why, had not the same Spirit preached in all the times between? Why, then, are not those times named as well as these.'' Because the apostle doth pur posely intend to corapare that old v/orld then destroyed, with the destruction of the Jewish nation shortly coming : and to show, that as Noah and his family were then saved by water", so, AvTiri/TTov rifjiag, they that had received baptism, were the antitype to that ; and baptisra was a pledge and raeans of their deliverance now, they sticking closely to it. And this very thing John Baptist taught in that question, " Who hath fore warned you to flee from the wrath to come .'" Therefore, when he calls SweiSjjo-ewc aya^rig hrEpdjrnfia ate 3'eov, " An asking of a good conscience towards or after God," he makes not this its definition, as if none but those so qualified were to be baptized ; but he characters its difference from circumci sion, which put away the filth of the flesh, in one sense, — and legal Pharisaical washings, which did it in another. His whole comparison runs to this tenor : — The old world was dis obedient to the Spirit of Christ preaching in the mouth of Noah, and therefore they perished. The Jews, whose state the Scripture also calleth ' an old world,' were disobedient to Christ, preaching by his Spirit in the mouth of his aposties, and even visibly and audibly in his own person ; therefore, they must needs perish. But Noah and his family, that heark- eneth after God [whilst others said to the Lord. " Depart from US'*"], were preserved by water: even " so doth baptism now preserve us, the antitype of that figure." For baptism » Matt. xvi. " 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14. J Chap. iii. 21. • V«r. 18. '¦ Ver. 20. b j^b, xxii. 16, 17. 1 Peter,] THE NEW TE.STAMENT.— Part !!. .32.'] YEAR OF CHRIST 05. was not barely a washing of the body from filth, as the common legal washings were ; but it was an owning and ask ing after God, conscientiously, out from a perverse and wick ed generation : and, therefore, not to be started or revolted from. This, then, being one end of baptism, and that end taught to them tbat assumed it; viz. to badge and mark of safety frora approaching vengeance, — it may very well raise an argument for infants' baptism ; whereas this text is com monly produced against it : for if these parents, that came in to be baptized, sought hereby to " flee frora the wrath to come," they would be careful to bring their children under the same badge of security. When he judgeth those, that perished in the waters of Noah to be now " in prison"," be knew he had the consent of his nation in it : for thus they say"*, — " The generation of the flood have no portion in tbe world to corae : neither shall they stand up in judgraent ; for it is said. My Spirit shall no more judge with man"." Peter teacheth us, that the Spirit, that strove with the old world, was the Spirit of Messias. He sends this Epistle by Sylvanus, Paul's old attendant, but now with Peter : he styles him, " A faithful brother to you, as I suppose :" not as doubting, but assured. He was to brino- this Epistle to the circumcision, who himself had been a minister ofthe uncircumcision : therefore, this attesta tion is the more needful and material, ojg XoytZofiai, " I re pute" him a faithful brother to you ofthe circumcision; and do you also so repute him. His naming of Mark with hira, calls our thoughts back to what hath been mentioned of Mark heretofore : his being with Paul at Rome, and his coming from him into the east. To suppose two Marks, one with Peter and another with Paul, is to breed confusion where there needeth not,— and to conceive that, for which the Scripture hath not only no ground, but is plain enough fo the contrary. It is easily seen, how John Mark came into famiharity both with Paul and Peter; and other Mark we can find none in the New Testament, unless of our own invention. His being in these latter times with Peter and Paul, may turn our thoughts to consider how his uncle Barnabas and he parted, since Paul ¦^ 1 Pet. ii. 19 ^ In Sanhedr. cap. 10. hal. 3. " Gen. vi. 3. y 2 324 HARMONY OF [1 Peter. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. and Barnabas parted about him. He it was, that wrote the Gospel, it may be, being with Peter,— as Luke did the hke, being with Paul. In his Gospel, he is most exact of aU the four in observing the proper time and series of the stories recorded. npotXEXafijiavE TJ7V apxvv 6 troXefiog doidEKar^) fiEV 'etei tov 'Nipwvog riyEfioviag, ' ApTEfiiuiov pnvog. " The 66 Christ, wars of the Jews began in the twelfth year of 12 Nero. the reign of Nero, in the month of May'." If we take a view of the nation, as it was at the present, and as it had been for thirty or forty years backward, — we shall find, that, besides the ordinary and common wickedness that was among them, they had these four additions of iniquity, monstrous and unparalleled, and in which they did, as it were, exceed themselves: — 1. In regard that the appearance of the Messias was expected to be about the time that Christ appeared, — very many, taking advantage of the time and of that expectation, took upon them, some to be Christ, — others, to be prophets at tending, and relating to his coming^. Upon which Josephus, and other writers of that nation, will give us a very full com mentary of experiences. 2. There were multitudes of the Zelotss, and of the sect of Judas, the Galilean, which would not yield any homage or subjection to be due to the Roman power, which was now over them : and neither would they now theraselves, nor would they suffer others, as far as they could hinder, to subrait unto them. 3. The unbelieving Jews were generally sworn enemies and prosecutors of those that believed. And, 4. Which we have observed before, multi tudes of those, that had believed and embraced the gospel, fell away, and became either seduced, or the greatest sedu cers, and brought in horrid heresies and pollutions. So that, in these various and malignant distempers of men, there had been continual confusions, tumults, firings, murderings, and plunderings, among thera for many years ; and they had been the unquietest, and most tumultuous nation that had been under heaven ; and they had often provoked the Roman power against themselves ; yet, till this year, had they never 'Joseph, de Bell. lib. 2. cap. 25. e Man. xxiv. 24. 1 Peter.] THE NEW 'TES'TAMENT.— Part II. 325 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. so visibly and professedly taken up arms and open war against that power. The first spark kindled in Caesarea upon the sea, about an encroachment, that a Gentile there made upon the way that went to the Jews' synagogue ; and from thence it grew into a flame so fast through the whole country,— Florus, the governor, helping it on, that, by the sixteenth of May, his soldiers, by his commission, have plundered Jerusalem, and slainthree thousand six hundred persons: and even Bernice, sister to king Agrippa, escaped very narrowly with her hfe. The Jews and Romans have divers skirmishes : Massada castle taken, and the Roman garrison put to the sword. The temple, and several parts of the city, made garrisons for se veral parties, and suffer rauch by fire and battery. Twenty thousand Jews slain in Caesarea upon a sabbath : whereupon, aU the nation rise about to avenge this slaughter ; and in Syria, Phoenicia, Samaria, Peraea, and all round about, de stroy towns, cities, and persons, all before them. Cestius, the governor of Syria, rises with his forces, and destroys the Jews again, and their towns, all before him ; and, on the thir tieth of October, enters Jerusalem, and fires a good part of the city. Yet do the Jews give him a brush upon his march away, and cut off above four thousand of bis men : with which success they are so fleshed, that they resolve to fight it out ; and, accordingly, platform themselves into the model and posture of a long war : and the country is only full of fire, sword, war, and destruction. " The abomination of desolatioiA" had now begun to stand in the holy place, when the temple is made a garrison, and fiUed with slaughter ; Antonia, the castle of the temple, besieged, taken, and the Roman garrison put to the sword. The r-|'3n " Tabernae," or part of the buildings at the east wall of the mountain of the house [the place where the San hedrim had once sitten], fired and burnt down' ; and, in a word, the temple, from this time forwards, never but a garri son, and full of slaughter and confusion, till it be raked up in ashes. Now it was time for those that were in Judea, whobe- h Matt. xxiv. 15. ' Jerus. in Peah, foi. 16. col. 3. 326 HARMONY OF [2 Peter. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. lieved Christ's prediction, " to get into the mountains," and to shift for themselves ; for now begins the tribulation beyond parallel, " such as was not since the beginning of the world, nor ever must againJ." It is commonly asserted'', that the Christians fled to Pella, a city beyond Jordan : which how to reconcile with Josephus, who saith' Pella was one of the cities that the Jews destroyed in avengement of the slaughter of the twenty thousand in Caesarea, let the learned find. About these times, therefore, we may well conceive to have been the writing of The second EPISTLE of PETER: And that the rather, from what he speaks in chap. i. 14 : " I know, that I must shortly put off this tabernacle, as our Lord Jesus Christ bath showed me." In which words, his thoughts reflect upon what Christ had spoken to John and bim about their ends" ; where he not only gave intimation to Peter that he should be martyred", but that he should be so, before his coming in judgment against Jerusalem, which John must live to see, but he must not". He, therefore, in Babylon, understanding how affairs went in Judea, and with the Jewish nation all thereabout, and reading therein, from the words of his Master?, that the desolation was drawing on apace, concludes, tbat his time was not long : and, therefore, improves the time he hath remaining, the best he can, not only in teaching those amongst whom he was ; but, by writ ing this Epistle, instructeth those, that were remote and at distance from hira ; in vvhich he doth more especially give them caution against false teachers ; and characters the ter ror of the judgment coming, and exhorts to vigilancy and holiness. The first character that he gives of the false teachers is,, that "they bring in damnable heresies, denying the Lord that bought them" ;" which he speaketh frora Deut. xxxn ; from whence also he useth other expressions : " Is not he thy fa ther that hath bought thee''?" not meaning, that these wretches were redeemed by Christ, yet became such wretches, j MaU. x\iv. 21. k Eoseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 3. cap. 5. 1 De Bell. lib. 2. cap. 33. m John, xxi. " Ver. 18. » Ver. 2','. r Matt. xxiv. i 2 Pet. ii. i. r De„t, ^xxii. 6. 2 Peter.] 'TH.E NEW 'TKSTATVIEN'T.- Part II. 327 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. as some would interpret it ; but by buying is meant his buy ing out of Egypt this people for a peculiar people : which these wretches boasted and stood upon ; yet, by their intro ducing and practising the profane principles they did, of fornication, and communicating with idols, — they denied the true God, which bought that people for his peculiar. He cahs them spots [ver. 13], from Deut. xxxii. 5 ; and parallels them with the old world, Sodom, Balaam, nay, the very fallen angels. He sets forth the destruction of that cursed nation, and their city, in those terms that Christ had done', and that the Scripture doth elsewhere'; namely, as the destruction of the whole world, " the heavens passing away, the elements melt ing, and the earth burnt up," 8cc. And, accordingly, he speaks of " anew heaven, and a new earth," from Isa. Ixv. 17 : a new state of the church under the gospel among the Gen tiles, when this old world of the Jews' state should be dis solved. He citeth Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, and giveth an honourable testimony to that, and to the r6st of his Epistles : but acknowledgeth, that, in some places^ they are hard to be understood, and were misconstrued by some unlearned and unstable ones, to their own ruin ; yet neither doth he nor Paul, who was yet alive and well knew of this wresting of his Epistles, clear or amend those difficulties, but let theni alone as they were : for the Holy Ghost hath so penned Scripture as to set men to study. And here is the last, that we hear in Scripture of this great apostle, Peter. His martyrdom he apprehends to be near ; and it was to be, before Jerusalem was destroyed ; which was not now full four years to come. We may well con ceive him to have been put to death by the Jews in Baby- Ionia, where he now was : a madness having come upon tbat nation in all parts ; and a singular raging against the gospel, the devil bestirring himself in them, now he knew their time was so short. ¦ Matt. xxiv. ' Deut. xxxii. 22—24. Jer. iv. 23. 32B HARMONY OF [Jude. YEAR OF CHRIST The epistle of JUDE. As the Second Epistle of Peter, and this of Jude, are very near akin, in style, matter, and subject, — so it is fairly conjec- turable in thera, that they were not far removed in time, speaking both of wicked ones and wickedness at the same height and ripeness. They are one to another as the pro phecy of Obadiah, and Jer. xlix. 14, &c ; speaking the same thing, using the same manner of arguing, and oftentimes almost the same words. It may be, Jude stands up in his brother James's charge among the circumcision of Judea, and directs his Epistle to all those, that were " sanctified and preserved" in those apostatizing tiraes, as his brother had done to all the twelve tribes in general. In citing the story of " Michael the archangel contend-: ing with the devil about the body of Moses"," he doth but the same that Paul doth in naraing Jannes and Jambres ; namely, allege a story, which was current and owned among the nation, though there were no such thing in Scripture; and so he argueth with them from their own authors and concessions. It is harsh to strain Zech. iii. 1, 2, to speak such a story ; when neither the name Michael is mentioned, nor any thing like the body of Moses, or akin to it. But, among the Talmudics, there seems to be something like the relics of sucb a raatter; viz. of Michael and the Angel of Death disputing or discoursing about fetching away the soul of Moses. His alleging the prophecy of Enoch, is an arguing of the very like nature ; as citing and referring to some known and common tradition, that they had araong thera, to this purpose. [The book ' Sepher Jesher,' a Hebrew writer, speaketh of Enoch after such a tenor.] And in both these he useth their own testiraonies against themselves : as if he should thus have spoken at large : " ' These men speak evil of dignities,' whereas they have and own a story for current, that even ' Michael the archangel' did not speak evil ofthe devil, when he was striving with him about the body of Moses, Stc. And whereas they show and own a prophecy of Enoch, of God coming in judgment, &c; why, these are " Jude, ver. 9. 1,2, 3 John.] THE NEW TESTAMEN'T.-Part II. 329 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. the very men, to whom such a matter is to be applied," &c. It is no strange thing, in the New Testament, for Christ and the apostles to deal and argue with the Jews upon their own concessions. The three EPISTLES of JOHN. Among all the apostolic Epistles, there is none about whose time of writing we are so far to seek, as we are about these. And it is neither satisfactory to remove their place, nor is it satisfactory to take their time, according to their place ; or to conceive them to be written after the Epistles of Peter, because they are placed after them. Any conjec ture that is to be had of them, may best be taken from the Third Epistie. Gaius, to whom that Epistle is directed, by that enco miastic character that John giveth of him, seemeth to be "Gaius, the Corinthian, the host of tbe whole church' ;" for since he is commended for entertainment and charity both to the church and strangers, particularly to those wbo had preached araong the Gentiles, taking nothing of them,— we know not where to find any other Gaius, to whom to affix this character, but only this ; and we have no reason to look after any other. And, upon this probability, we may ob serve these other : — I. That that Third Epistie was written, when those that preached to the Gentiles and took nothing of thera, were still abroad upon that employment ; for he urgeth him to bring them fomard on their journey-- Now, under that ex pression of " taking nothing of the Gentiles," we can un derstand none but Paul and Barnabas, and those, that were of their several companies; for the Scripture bath named none other. And if it refer to Paul and his company [for we find not that Barnabas bad any thing to do with Gams], then we must conclude, that it was written a good while before this time that we are upon: unless we will sup pose Paul, after his freedom from imprisonment at Rome was got travelling and preaching in those part^again_^ mt I should rather suppose, that John sent this Third Epistie to Gaius to Corinth, by Timothy from Ephesus, who was „ ¦ ffl, w 3 John, ver. 6. » R(im. XVI. 23. 330 HARMONY OF [1,2, 3 John. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. setting away thence for Rome, upon Paul's sgjding for him to come to him thither". In which journey, as we have showed before, he was to call at Corinth, and to take Mark along with him, who was there. And of them may John's advice to Gaius be well understood, " Whom if thou bring forward on their journey, thou shalt do well :" for, for his sake, they went out, taking nothing of the Gentiles ; Mark with Barnabas, and Timothy with Paul. II. Before John v>'rote thi.s Epistle to Gaius, he had written another Epistle, to some church, — it may be, that of Corinth, of which Gaius was. " I wrote (saith he) unto the church ; but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-emi nence, receiveth us not." This must needs be understood of the First Epistle of John ; unless we will conceive, un warrantably,— that I may say no worse, — that any of John's writings are lost. III. Upon and with the forementioned supposal, that John sent his Epistle to Gaius by Timothy from Ephesus, — we cannot but also suppose, that John spent some time in the Asian churches, to which afterward from Patmos he writes his Epistles. And if anyone be not satisfied with that interpretation that was given before^, about ' the epistie from Laodicea^' let him rather understand it of ' the First Epistle of John,' as written by him from Laodicea, than think it was an Epistie written by Paul from Laodicea, and that that Epistle is lost. In both his latter Epistles, he in timateth his hopes and purpose shortly to come to them : from which we may construe, that his intention was to travel frora Asia the Less, where he now was, and from whence he wrote all his three Episties westward info Greece ; and in this journey you have him got into Patmos% from whence he writes back to Asia apain. In all his Episties, he exhorteth to love, and constancy in tbe truth,— a lesson raost needful in those divided and apos tatizing tiraes. He giveth notice of many antichrists now abroad ; and these he showeth to have been such as had once professed the truth, but were apostatized from it : " They went out from us, but they were not of us," Sec— And this " " Tim. iv. 9. 11. 21. y p. 300 of this volnmo ' Col.iv. lb". . Re^r. i. Revelation.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 331 YEAR OF CHin.sT 66. apostasy he calleth ' the sin unto death.' To such he ad viseth they should not so much as say, 'God speed :' iti..x in their vulgar language. "The Rabbins saw a holy man of Caphar Immi, and went to him, and said, "it^'N 'God speed ;' but he answered them nothing\" " R. Chinna Bar Papa', and R. Samuel Bar Nachman, went by a man that was ploughing on the seventh year" [the year of release] : " R. Samuel saith to him, nt^'X ' God speed.' R. Chinna saith. Our master did not teach us thus : for it is forbidden to say ' God speed,' to one that is ploughing on the seventh year''." John styleth himself ' an elder,' and so doth Peter"^: not as laying aside their apostolical power, but as dealing with those, to whom they write, in a ministerial way : and by this very titie, that they assume to theraselves, they closely inti mate, that thenceforward the extraordinary function and gifts apostolic must not be expected, but the ministerial, in the ordinary way of elders or ministers, as the titie had been long and vulgarly known. And yet, when he speaks of Diotrephes and his abusiveness, he then threatens to show his apostolic power, and himself ' A son of thunder,' against him. The REVELATION of JOHN. As it will be easily admitted, to place this book last of all the New Testament, because it stands so in all Bibles, — so on the other hand it will be cavilled at, that I have brought in the writing of it so soon, as before the fall of Jerusalera ; since it hath been of old and commonly held, that it was penned in the reign of Domitian, far after these times that we are upon. But the reasons, by which I have been induced thereunto, will appear out of some passages in the book itself, as we go through it. As God revealed to ' Daniel, the man greatly beloved,' the state , of his people, and the monarchies that afflicted them, from his own time, till the coming of Christ ; so doth Christ to ' John, the beloved disciple,' the state of the church, and story in brief, of her chief afflicters, ftom thence to the end of the world. So that where Daniel ends, tbe ' Jems. Taanith, fol: 61. col. 2. '' Id. in Sheviith, fol. 35. 2. and 36. 1. ' 1 Pel.v. 1. 332 HARMONY OF [Rev. r-m. YEAR OF CHRIST 66, Revelation begins; and John hath nothing to do with any of the four monarchies that he speaketh of, but deals with a fifth, the Roman, — that rose, as it were, out of the ashes of those four, and swallowed them all up. The composure of the book is much like Daniel's in this, — ^that it repeats one story over and over again, in varied and enlarged expressions ; and exceeding like Ezekiel's, in me thod and things spoken. The style is very prophetical, as to the things spoken ; and very Hebraizing, as to the speak ing of them. Exceeding much of the old prophets' language," and matter adduced to intimate new stories : and exceeding much of the Jews' language, and allusion to their customs' and opinions, thereby to speak the things more familiarly to' be understood. And as Ezekiel wrote concerning the ruin of Jerusalem, when the ruining of it was now begun, — so, I suppose, doth John of the final destruction of it ; when the wars and miseries were now begun, which bred its destruc tions. REVELATION, I, II, III. The three first chapters refer to that present time, when John wrote : and they contain the story of his obtaining this Revelation, and of the condition of the seven churches of Asia at that time, — declared in the Epistles directed to them. John, travelling in the ministry of the gospel up and down from Asia, westward, cometh into the isle Patmos, in the Icarian sea"", an island about thirty miles' compass': and there, on the Lord's day, he hath these visions ; and an angel interprets to him all he saw. He seeth Christ, clothed like a priest, TroSvpy^ [see the. LXX in Exod. xxviii. 4], and girded over the paps, as the. priests used to be, with the curious girdle. His appearance, full of majesty and gloriousness, described in the terms of Daniel". Amongst other his divine tities. he is called, ' Alpha. and Omega,' terms ordinarily used by the Jews [only uttered' in their Hebrew tongue] to signify ' the beginning and the end, or the first and the last.' " Abraham and s'arah per- ' Vid. Strab. lib. 10. . Plln.lib. 4. cap. 12. ' Rev. i. 13. " Dan. vii. 9 ; and x. 5, 6. Rev. i-iii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 333 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. formed all the law, from Aleph to Tau"." " He that walks in integrity, is as if he performed all the law, from Aleph to Tau\" He directs epistles to be sent to ' the seven churches of Asia;' who are 'golden candlesticks,' though very full of corruptions [it is not a small thing that unchurches a church]; and inscribed to ' the angels of the churches.' This phrase translates ins n'biif ' Sheliach Tsibbor,' the titie ofthe minis ter in every synagogue, who took care for the public reading and expounding of the law and prophets : and these episties are sent, accordingly, to the ministers ofthe several churches, that they might be read openly in their congregations. There are seven several epistles, to the several churches, dictated iramediately and sent by Christ ; and another gene ral one from John, to them all, in which he shows the warrant and way of writing those seven. He terms the Holy Ghost, ' the seven spirits,' according to the Jews' common speech, who, from Isa. xi. 2, speak much of 'the seven spirits of Messias.' And, speaking of Christ's 'coming with clouds^, from Dan. vii. 13, and from the words of Christ himself", be at once teacheth that he takes at Daniel, and speaks of Christ's coming and reigning, when the four monarchies were destroyed ; and especially referreth to the first most visible evidence of his power and dominion, in coming to destroy his enemies, the Jewish nation, and. their city. And here is one reason that induceth me to suppose this book written, before that city was destroyed. Coming to read the present condition of these Asian churches, in the episties written to them, we may pertinentiy think of that saying ofPaul^, " This thou knowest, that all they that are in Asia, are turned from me :" a great apostasy : of which there is too much evidence in these churches, as also mention of some sad fruits of it, and means and instruments inducing to it. As, 1. Unbelieving Jews, which the Holy Ghost, all along, calls, 'a synagogue of Satan :' with these, the church of Smyrna was pestered,— and, more especially, Pergamus, where their mischievousness is styled, the very throne, or ' seat of Satan:' and where they. had murdered « Midr. Tillim, fol. 47. 2. " Marg. tripl. Targ. in Deat. xviii. 13. " Rev. i. 7. '- Matt, xxiv. .30. ^ 2 lim. i- 13- 334 HARMONY OF [Rev. iv, v. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. Antipas, a faithful martyr, already. 2. False apostles and seducers : some that pretended apostolic power and commis sion, and, it may be, coloured their pretences with magical wonders, that they might act more apostle-like. These the church of Ephesus was troubled with, but had discovered their delusions and found them liars. 3. Other seducers, that, it may be, came not in the demonstration of such devihsh power ; but answered that, by their horrid devilish doctrines, ' the doctrines of the Nicolaitans,' which taught to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication. In Thyatira, a woman-seducer cried up this doctrine, a whore and witch, a Jezebel : wherefore, she and her children, — that is, her dis ciples, — are threatened to be destroyed by the plague ; the vengeance upon the fornicators with Baal-Peor. REVELATION, IV, V. Now^ cometh a second vision. That before, was of 'things then being^;' but this, and forward, of ' things to come^.' "A door open in heaven, and the voice of a trumpet talking with John," out ofit. The scene of John's visions, said to be 'in heaven.' is according to the scheme of the temple and the divine glory there. And hence you have mention of the altar, candle sticks, sea of glass [the brazen laver made of the women's looking-glasses], the ark of the covenant, and the like. And as, at the opening ofthe temple-doors, a trumpet sounded, — so is the allusion here. The door in heaven opened, and a trumpet calls John to come in and see what was there. "And immediately he was in the spirit''-" Why, was he not in the spirit before"? and was be not in the spirit, in seeing the door in heaven opened ? &c. But we may observe a double degree in rapture ; as inspired raen may be considered under a double notion ; viz, those that were inspired with prophe cy, or to be prophets and to preach,— and those that were inspired to be penmen of divine writ, which was higher. John hath both inspirations or revelations to both ends, both in the vision before, and this : then he was in the spirit, and saw the vision ; and was in the spirit, and inspired to pen '• Chap. i. 19. a Chap. iv. 1. b Chap. IV. 2. c Chap. i. 10. Rev. VI.] THE NEW TES'TAMENT.— PartIL 335 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. what he saw, and what to be sent to tiie churches. And, in the first verse of this chapter, he is in the spirit, or bath a revelation; and, in ver. 2, he is in the spirit; and is inspired so as to take impression and remembrance of these things, to write them also. He seeth Christ enthroned in the raiddle of his church, in the sarae prophetic and visionary erablem that Ezekiel had seen"* ; and this is a commentary and fulfilling of that scene that Daniel speaketh of ^ In Ezekiel, the Lord, — when Jeru salem was now to be destroyed, and the glory of the Lord that used to be there, and the people were to flit into another land, — appeareth so enthroned, as sitting in judgment, and flitting away, by degrees, to another place : as, compare Ezek. iand x, well together. So Christ here; when the de struction of Jerusalem was now near at hand, and his glory and presence to remove from that nation, now given up to unbelief and obduration, to reside among the Gentiles, — he is seated upon his throne, as judge and king, with glorious at tendance, to judge that nation, for their sins and unbelief, and stating the affair of his church, whither his glory was now removing. The scheme is platformed, according to the model of Israel's carap : — 1. "The tabernacle was in the middle there ; so is the throne here. 2. There, the four squadrons of the camp of Levi next the tabernacle ; so bere the four living creatures. 3. Then the whole camp of Israel; so here, twenty-four elders, representatives of the whole church, built from twelve tribes, and twelve apostles. In the hand of him, that sat on the throne, was a book. sealed, which no creature could open. This justiy caUs us back to Dan. xii. ver. 4, where " words are shut up, and a book sealed unto the time of the end :" and now, that that is near drawing on, the book is here opened. REVELATION, VI. The opening of the six seals in this chapter, speaks the ruin and rejection of the Jewish nation, and the desolation of their city ; which is now very near at hand. The first seal, opened', shows Christ setting forth in battie- ^ Ezek. i, and x. ' Dan. vii. 9, 10. 22. ' Rev. vi. 2. 336 HARMONY OF [I'ev. vi. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. array and avengement against them, as Psal. xliv. 4, 5. And this the New Testament speaketh very much and very highly of; one while calling it, 'his coming in clouds ;' another while, his ' coming in his kingdom ;' and sometime, his ' coming in power and great glory,' and the like. Because his plaguing and destroying of the nation that crucified him, that so much opposed and wrought mischief against tbe gospel, was the first evidence, that be gave in sight of all tbe world, of his being Christ : for till then, he, and his gospel, had been in humility, as I may say, as to the eyes of men, — he perse cuted whilst he was on earth, and they persecuted after him; and no course taken with them, that so used both ; but now he awakes, shows hiraself, and makes himself known by the judgment that he executeth. The three next seals, opening, show the means by whieh he did destroy, — namely, those three sad plagues, that had been threatened so oft, and so sore, by the prophets, — ' sword, famine, and pestilence.' For, The second seal, opened, sends out one upon a red horse, to take peace frora the earth, and that raen should destroy one another ; he carried ' a great sword^.' The third seal, opening, speaks of famine, when corn for scarcity should be weighed, like spicery, in a pair of balances''. The fourth seal sends out one, on a pale horse, whose name was Death [the Chaldee very often expresseth tbe 'plague,' or 'pestilence,' by that word xniD: and so it is to be taken. Rev. ii. 23]; and hell, or hades, comes after him'. The opening of the fifth seal, reveals a main cause of the vengeance, — namely, the blood ofthe saints which bad been shed, crying, and which was to be required of that genera tion J. These souls are said to cry from under the altar, either in allusion to the blood of creatures sacrificed, poured at the foot of the altar, — or according to the Jews' tenet. That ' all just souls, departed, are under the throne of glory.' Answer to their cry is given, that the number of their breth ren, that were to be slain, was not yet fulfilled; arid they must rest till that should be ; and then avengement in their' behalf should come. This speaks suitable to that which we observed lately, that now times were begun of bitter perse- B Ver. 4. h ver. $, 6. ¦ Ver. 8. i Matt, xxiii. 35, 36. Rev. vii, vm.] THE NEW TESTA^IENT.— Part II. 337 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. cution, ' an hour of temptation'';' the Jews and devil raging, till the Lord should something cool that fury by the ruin of that people. The opening of the sixth seal [ver. 12, 13], shows the destruction itself, in those borrowed terms, that the Scrip ture useth to express it by ; namely, as if it were the de struction of the whole world': the sun darkened, the stars falling, the heaven departing, and the earth dissolved ; and that conclusion [ver. 16], " They shall say to the rocks. Fall on us," &c. doth not only warrant, but even enforce, us to understand and construe these things in the sense that we do ; for Christ applies these very words to the very same thing, Luke xxiii. 30. And here is another, and, to rae, a very satisfactory reason, — why to place the showing of these visions to John, and his writing of this book, before the de solation of Jerusalem. REVELATION, VII. In the end ofthe former chapter, was contained the inti mation of the desolation of Jerusalera; and, in the beginning of this, the ceasing of prophecy, under the similitude ofthe four winds restrained from blowing upon the earth"" ; only a remnant of Israel are sealed unto salvation, and not to perish by that restraint ; and, with them, innumerable Gentiles. Ezekiel helpeth here to confirm the exphcation, that we have given of the chapter before ; for he hath the very hke passage, upon the first destruction of the city, Ezek. ix, x, and xi. Compare the marking in the foreheads here, with Exod. xxviii. 38. Dan not mentioned among the tribes in this place : idolatry first began in tbat tribe". REVELATION, VIII. The opening of the seventh seal, lands us upon a new scene ; as a new world began, when Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jews cast off. The six seals, in the two former chapters, have showed their ruin, and the appearing of the church ofthe Gentiles ; and now the seven trumpets, under the seventh seal, give us a prospect, in general, of the tiraes k Rev. ii. 10, and iii. 10. ' Matt. xxiv. 29, 30. . n. Compare Cant. iv. 16. Ezek. xxxvii. 9. " Judg. xvin. 1 Kmgs, xu. VOL. III. 2 338 HARMONY OF [Rev. viii. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. thenceforward, to the end of all things. I say, in general; for, from the beginning ofthe twelfth chapter, and forward, to the end ofthe nineteenth.tbey are handled more particularly. " Silence in heaven for a while," and seven angels with seven trumpets, may call our thoughts to Josh. vi. 4. 10 ; and intimate, that the prophetic story is now entered upon a new Canaan, or a new stage of the church, as that business at Jericho was, at Israel's first entering on the old : or, it may very properly be looked upon as referring and alluding to the carriage of things at the temple, since this book doth represent things so much according to the scheme and scene of the temple all along. And, in this very place, there is mention of the altar, and incense, and trumpets, wbich were all temple-appurtenances. It was, therefore, the custom at the temple, that, when the priest went in to the holy place, the people drew downward frora the porch of the teraple ; and there was a silence whilst he was there [yea, though the people were then praying], incomparably beyond what there was at other times of the service, for the priests were blowing with trumpets, or the Levites singing. The allusion, then, here, is plain. When the sacrifice was laid on the altar, a priest took coals from the altar, went in to the holy place, and offered incense upon the golden altar, that stood before the vail, that was before the ark ; and, this being done, the trumpets sounded over the sacrifice. Here, then, is first intimation of Christ's being offered upon the altar ; then his going into the holy place as mediator for his people ; and then the trumpets sounding, and declaring his disposals in the world. His taking fire off the altar, and casting it upon the earth, ver. 5, is a thing not used at the temple, but spoken from Ezek. X. 2 ; which betokeneth the sending of judgment, which the trumpets speak out. The seven trumpets, and the seven vials, in chap, xvi, in many things run very parallel ; how far they synchronize, will be best considered, when we come there. The first trumpet sounding, brings hail, and fire, and blood, upon the earth, and destroys grass and trees, a third part of them. " Fire and hail" was the plague of Egypt" ; " Exod. ix. 23. Rev. VIII.] THE NEW TESTAMENT. -Par ill. 339 \EAR of CHRIST 66. but, " fire and blood, with hail," is anew plague. By these seemeth to be intimated, what plagues should be brought upon the world, by fire, sword, dreadful tempest, unnatural seasons, and the like. The second trumpet sounds, and a great burning moun tain is cast into the sea. and the third part of it becomes blood. The ' sea,' in the prophetic language, doth signify ' multitudes of people ;' as Jer. h. 36. 42 : and Babylon, that was monarch, was ' a burning mountain,' in the same chapter, ver. 35 : so that the imperial power seemeth to be the mountain bere, which made bloody and mischievous work, not only by the persecution of Christians, but even among their own people. As Nero at present, Vitellius in stantiy after, Domitian, Commodus, and, indeed, generally ah of them, either bloodily destroy their own people ; — or, at least, for their covetousness, ambition, revenge, or hu mour, bring disquietness, oppression, misery, wars, and blood, upon all the world, in one place or other. The third trumpet brings the star ' Wormwood,' upon the rivers and fountains of waters ; which seemeth to denote the grievous heresies, that should be in the church, which should corrupt and embitter the pure springs of the Scrip ture, and fountains of truth. ' A star,' in the language of this bookP, is a church-man [Ben Cochab was such a worm wood-star among the Jews, called, most properly, Ben Cozba, the liar] ; and the phrase, " A star faihng from heaven," alludes to Isaiah", " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer !" &c. The fourth trumpet shows the darkening of tbe sun, and moon, and stars, for a third part. By which seems to be understood, the wane and decay, both in the glory of the church, by superstition,— and ofthe empire, by its divisions within, and enemies from without; and this, before the rising of the Papacy, which appears under the next trumpet: and these things were great advantages to its rising. The dark ening of the heavenly luminaries, in the prophets ' lan guage, signifieth the echpsing of the glory and prosperity of a kingdom or people. How it was with the church and empire in these respects, before that time that tbe Papacy P Chap. i. 20. - Chap. xiv. 12. ' Isa. xUi. 9, 10. Joel, ii. 10. Z 2 340 HARMONY OF [Rev. ix. year of CHRIST 66. appeared, — he is a stranger to history, both ecclesiastical and civil, that remembereth not upon this very hint. The three trumpets coming, are the trumpets of " Woe, Woe, Woe." Though these things past, were very woful ; but those much more, that are to come. REVELATION, IX. A DESCRIPTION of the Papacy, under the fifth trumpet. Another star falling from heaven, and that a notable one, indeed ; the ' He,' that hath ' the key of the bottomless pit' comraitted to him. A vast difference from the keys given Peter, ' the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' The setting of these in their just distance and opposition, will illustrate the matter before us. When the world is to come, out of darkness and heathenism, to the knowledge ofthe gospel, — Christ gives Peter 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' to open the door, and let light come in among them; for he first preached to the Gentiles^ The world under the Papacy returns, as it were, to heathenism again [and not undeserved ly, for its contempt of the gospel, and unproficiency under it] ; which is very fitly described, by hell opened, by the keys ofthe bottomless pit, and darkness coming and cloud ing all. The claviger, or turnkey, is " tbe child of perdi tion, Abaddon and Apollyon," — a destroyer, and one that is surely and sorely to be destroyed. " Chittim" [Italy, or Rome] " afflicting and perishing for ever'." Antichrist, of the second edition, much augmented and enlarged ; the Jews the first, as we observed at the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, — and this the second antichrist, at his full stature. It is true, indeed, that heathen Rome is one part of bim ; but observe how little a part reputed in comparison of Papish Rome, ' the star fallen from heaven :' so that, though that did woful things, yet you see the ' first woe' is fixed here. The way of his bringing woe upon the earth, is, by filling the world with smoke, and darkness of ignorance, and human traditions and inventions ; and, out of this smoke, come his locusts, or his votary orders. The locusts described, » Aotb, X, and xv. 7. ' Nam. xxiv. 24. Rev. IX.] THE NEW TESTAIMEN'T.-PartH. 341 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. much hke those in Joel i, for their terror and destroying; only, their having the faces of men, speaks them men-cater pillars ; and their Nazarite-like hair, long as the hair of wo men, speaks them votaries, or such as take on them vowed religion. Their trading is not with grass, or the green things of the earth, as other locusts do, but with men ; and they are locusts in name, but scorpions in action, wounding with the sting of their tails [the teacher of lies is the tail"], but not killing ; leaving men, indeed, in a religion and a pro fession of Christ, but no better than a venomed and dying one. The time of their tormenting is five months, the time of locusts' ravening ordinarily, from the spring well shot forth, to harvest. This is the first Woe. These locusts' stings mind me of a story or two in the Roman history; which let me mention here, though I can not apply them hither. Dion, in his story of the life of Do mitian, saith thus ; " About that time, divers began to prick many whom they pleased, with poisoned needles, whereof many died, hardly feeling what was done to them. And this was practised, not only at Rome, but almost through all the world." And again, in the life of Commodus : " About that time, there was so great a mortality, that oft-times there died two thousand in Rome, in one day ; and many, not only in the city, but also through the whole Roman empire, were kiUed by mischievous men, — who, poisoning needles, pricked others with them ; as also it had been in Domitian's tirae ; and so innumerable people died by this raeans. But there was no greater plague than Commodus himself," &c. The sounding of the sixth trumpet begins another Woe. Four angels loosed, which were bound in Euphrates, — and come with a terrible army, and horses breathing fire, and smoke, and brimstone, and having stings in their tails, &c. The Turks and Mahometans, coming as a plague upon the eastern part of the worid, as the Papacy on the western. These hurt with their tails [false doctrine], as well as the other did in the former trumpet : but these have also heads " Isa. ix. 15 342 HARMONY OF [Rev. x. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. in their tails, which the other had not ; for these hold out another head and saviour, — Mahomet. REVELATION, X. A LITTLE book in the hand of Christ, speaketh the re storing of religion and truth, after all the darkness and con fusions mentioned before. The words in ver. 6, 7, do help to state the intent of this vision : " He sware by him that liveth for ever, that there should be delay of time no longer, but in the days of the seventh trumpet, the raystery of God should be fulfilled." ' Tbe raystery of God,' is his gathering in of his elect, more especially of the Gentiles"; and hitherto, there had been great hinderance by heathen Rome, by here sies. Papacy, Turcism ; but at last Christ swears, that there should be ' no more delay :' the word ^povog must be taken so here : and not unconsonant to the signification of the word, and very consonant to the context, and to the place from whence this verse is taken : that is, Dan. xii. 7 ; where the angel is brought in swearing, as here, that the trouble of Antiochus, and his persecution and hinderance, should be so long, and there should be no delay farther, but there should be a restoring. That place laid to this, and Antiochus looked upon as a figure of antichrist, the construction of this place is easy. Only the great angel would have the speech ofthe seven thunders, which refer to these times, to be con cealed. The prophecy in general intimates the restoring of the gospel in these latter times, which is handled in the next chapter, but very generally, and very briefly. John's eating ofthe little book", and the words to him, " Thou must prophesy again before many people and nations, and tongues and kings," — do not so much infer John's going abroad after this to preach to many nations himself, as it doth the pro gress of the truth that he preached, through nations and people, which had been suppressed so long : aiming at these times, when the gospel last broke out from under Popery. The passage is parallel to the last words in the book of Daniel ; " Go thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest, and stand in the lot, at the end of days." Not that Daniel ' Roia. xvi. 25, 26. Ephes. iii. 5, 6. " As Ezek. ii. 8. Rev. XI.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 343 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. should live till the end of those miseries by Antiochus ; but that his doctrine, and the truth, should stand up and be re stored in those times. The phrase is such another, as when Christ telleth his disciples, that ' they should sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel ;' which is not meant of their personal sitting to judge, but that their doctrine should judge and condemn that unbelieving nation. REVELATION, XI. The vision of this chapter, is in order to the accom plishing of the ' mystery of God,' which was spoken of chap. X. 7. As Ezekiel's measuring of a new temple, showed the restoring of religion, and of the Lord's people, and foretold of the new Jerusalem, and calling of the Gentiles ; — to the same purpose, is the measuring of the temple here. The church was under the mystical Babylon [chap, ix], as the Jews were under the eastern, when Ezekiel wrote those things : now, as that descriptiou of the measures of the temple, was a prediction and pledge of their coming forth, so this speaketh to the same tenor. John is commanded to leave out the court, which is without the temple, and not to measure it, " Because it was given to the Gentiles, and they should tread the holy city forty-and-two months." Not in a hostile way, but as the flock of the Lord tread his - courts, there worshipping hira ; as see the phrase, Isa. i. 12; Psal. cxxii. 2 : and the meaning seemeth to be this, — ' Mea sure not the court of the Gentiles ; for their multitudes that come to attend upon the Lord, shall be boundless and num berless.' The ' two-and-forty months,' and • a thousand two hun dred and sixty days",' and ' a time and times and half a tirae^,' are but borrowed phrases from Daniel : who^' so expresseth the three years and a half of Antiochus's persecution, and treading down religion ; and they mean times of trouble, and are used to express that, but not any fixed time. The Jews themselves have learned to make the same construction ofit, when they say, " Adrianus besieged Bitter three years and a half;" and this also [that comfort might stand up against ^ Ver. 3, and chap! xii. 6. v Chap xii. 14 ' Dan. vii. -^ and xii. 7.11. 1 Jerus. Taanith, fol. 68. col. 4. 344 HARMONY OF [Rev. xi. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. misery] was the time of our Saviour's ministry, when he re stored decayed and ruined religion, in so happy a manner''. And this the Jews also have observed in that saying we have mentioned before, " The divine glory shall stand upon mount Olivet three years and a half, and shall preach," &c. So that, according to this interpretation of the numbers, the things they are applied unto, are facile : ' The Gentiles shall tread the Lord's courts forty-two months ; and the two wit nesses shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth :' meaning, that the Gentiles shall wor ship God, and attend upon him in a gospel-ministry ; — and for that, allusion is made to the space of time that Christ adminis tered the gospel : but this ministering and attending, shall not be without persecution and trouble ; — and for intimation of that, allusion is made to the bitter times of Antiochus. ' Two witnesses,' is a phrase taken from the law : " In the mouth of two or of three witnesses, every word shall stand :" and it means, that all should bear witness to the truth in the times spoken of: — but more especially the mi nistry, which is charactered by the picture of ' Moses and Elias,' the two great reformers in their several times : the former, the first minister of the Jews, — the latter, of the Gen tiles. These are ' two olive-trees",' and ' two candlesticks'*;' gracious in themselves, and having light, and holding it out to others. They must finish and accomplish their work, that they had to do ; and then be overcome by antichrist, and slain. Their case is clearly paralleled with Christ, their Master's ; by comparing it with which, it is best understood. He preached three years and six months in trouble and sorrow ; so they in sackcloth : he, having finished his ministry, was slain ; so they : he revived and ascended ; so they likewise. — Now this that especially states the case, and the counting of the progress of proceedings intended here, is this : that as Christ laid the foundation of the gospel, and when he, hav ing finished his ministry, was slain, risen, and ascended, the gospel was not extinct with him, but increased more and more by the ministry that followed after ;— so seems this that alludes thereunto, to be understood : As, that the two wit- bDan. ix. 27. -^ See Zech. i v. .3. Rom. xi. 17. 24. ^ See Rev. i. 20. Rev. XI.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 345 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. nesses should mean the first ministry, and bearing witness to the truth at the first breaking of it out of Popery, which was followed with horrid persecutions, and multitudes of martyrdoms : but these first witnesses having so done their testimony, and vast numbers of them having sealed it with their blood, and being gone to heaven, — yet the gospel in creased and shook down a part of Rome, even at these first beginnings. " Their dead bodies must be cast in the streets of the great city, where our Lord was crucified." The term ' the great city' resolves, that Rome is meant, if there were no other evidence : which see explained, chap, xvii, xviii. And by her power and sentence, our Lord was crucified ; and for a quarrel of hers, being accused and condemned by Pilate as a traitor to the Roman power, for saying he was a king. This is the rather mentioned, now there is speech of Rome's last bloodiness against Christ's witnesses ; that it might be showed, that it persevered the same to his, that it had been to him, — and that to the last;— and that these witnesses drunk but of the same cup, that their Master had drunk be fore them. " She is called spirituaUy ['jii'a -pi as the Jews speak] Sodom and Egypt :" Sodom, for filthiness ; and Egypt, for idolatry and mercilessness. Never did place under heaven waUow in fleshly filthiness, and particulariy inthe sodomitic bestiahty, as Rome did about those times that John wrote : and how little it hath been mended under the Papacy, there are records plain enough that speak to her shame. He that reads Martial and Juvenal [to name no more], may stand and wonder, that men should become sucb beasts : and it had been better that those books had been for ever smothered m obscurity, than that they should have come to light,— were it not only for this, that they and others of the like stamp, do give that place her due character, and help us the better to understand her description. It is observable, what Paul saith- that because tbe heathen had brutish conceprions concerning God, abasing him, he gave them over to brutish abasing their own bodies by bestiahty,-or, mdeed by what was above bestial. And so he shows plainly, that Gods c Rom. i. 21—24. 346 HARMONY OF [Rev. xn. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. giving up men to such filthiness, especially sodomy, was a direct plague for their idolatrous conceptions of God, and their idolatry. And to this purpose, it may be observed, that, when the Holy Ghost bath given tbe story ofthe world's becoming heathenish at Babel, for and by idolatry'; he is not long before be brings in mention of this sin among the heathen, and fearful vengeance upon it?. Apply this matter to the case of Rome, and it may be of good information. ' The casting their dead bodies in the streets,' speaks the higher spite and detestation against them : and, in this par ticular, they are described different from their Master. And as they had prophesied three years and a half, — so they lay unburied three days and a half: till there was no apparent possibility of their recovery. But they revive and go to heaven : and a tenth part of the city falls by an earthquake, and seven thousand perish: but tbe rest of that part of the city that fell, who perished not, gave glory to God. Nine parts of the city left standing still : whose ruin is working still from henceforward, by tbe gospel that these witnesses had set on foot : which brings in the kingdoms to become tbe kingdoms of Christ, &c. REVELATION, XII. As Daniel"" giveth a general view of the times, from his own days, to the coming of Christ, in the mention ofthe four monarchies [in the four parts of Nebuchadnezzar's vi sionary image], which should run their date, and decay, and come to nothing, before his coming ; — and then' handles the very same thing again in another kind of scheme, and some thing plainer; — and thenJ doth explain at large, and more particularly, some of the most material things, that he had touched in those generals : so doth our Apocalyptic here, and forward. He hath hitherto given a general survey ofthe times from his own days to the end : and now he goes over some of the chief heads again with explanation. And, first, he begins with the birth of Christ, and the Christian church : and the machination of the devil to de stroy both. The church ofthe Jews bringeth forth her chief f Gen. xi. S Geu. xix. t Chap. ii. ' In chap. vii. } In chap, viii. x, xi, and xii. Rev. XII.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 347 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. child, and the devil seeketh to destroy him. He is pictured, 1. " A great red dragon." Old Pharaoh, who sought to devour new-born Israel, is much of the like character''. 2. " With seven heads :" so many had the persecuting mo narchies', — the lion one, the bear one, the leopard four, and the fourth beast one. 3. " And ten horns ;" parallel to the Syro-Grecian persecutors'". 4. " With his tail he drew and cast down the third part of the stars :" as the tyrant An tiochus had done". So that by these allusive descriptions and phrases of old stories fetched to express new, is showed the acting of the devil now, by his mischievous and tyrannical instruments, with as much bitterness and bloody-mindedness, as he had done in those. The woraan's fleeing into the wil derness, alludes to Israel's getting away into the wilderness from the dragon Pharaoh" ; and her nourishing there a thou sand two hundred and sixty days, speaks Christ's preservation of that church in the bitterest danger and days, like the days of Antiochus. This vision aims at tbe great opposition and oppression the church and gospel underwent frora the first rising of it, to the ruin of Jerusalem : and their preservation in all that extremity. The battle betwixt Michael and the dragon, is of the same aim and time witb the former ; but it speaks thus much farther, tbat the church is not only preserved, but the dra gon conquered and cast to the earth. ' Heaven' all along in this book is the ' church ;' the ' earth,' therefore, may be pro perly understood of the ' world ;' and here raore especially of that part of worldly ones, the unbelieving Jews ; and that the rather, because the Gentiles here are called ' the wilder ness,' as they be also in several other places in Scripture. The devil, therefore, is cast out ofthe church by the power of Mi chael, the Lord Christ, that he cannot nestle there; and he goes into the rest of the nation, that did not believe : much like the tenor of that parable. Matt. xii. 43—45. The wo- maii hath eagles' wings [alludiiig to Exod. xix. 4], and gets into the wilderness ;— the persecuted church and gospel gets amono- the Gentiles. The devil casts venom as a flood after the woman-church, and " the earth swallows it up :" the un- k Isa. xxvii. 1. Psal. Ixxiv. 13. &c. ' Dan. vii. '^ Dan. vii. 7, &c. n Dan. viii. 10. " Exod. xiv, &c. 348 HARMONY OF [Rev. xiii. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. believing Jews do, as it were, drink up all the poison of the devil ; and together with raging against the church, they grow enraged one against another, and against the Romans, till they become their own destroyers. And, indeed, though it were a most bitter time with the church, while she was among the combustions, that that nation had within itself, — yet their raging one against another the more it increased in their particular quarrels, the more it avenged her quarrel, and turned their edge from off her, upon themselves. The devil, seeing this, betakes himself to fight against the wo man's seed, the church of tbe Gentiles : and the treatise of that begins in the next chapter. REVELATION, XIII. When Rome hath slain Christ and destroyed Jerusalem, Satan gives up his power and throne to it; and that de servedly, as to one most like to be his chief and most able agent to act his fury. She is described here, a beast bear ing the shape of all the four bloody monarchiesP, in power and cruelty matching, nay, incomparably exceeding, them all. There is but little reason to take Rome for the fourth monarchy in Daniel ; and the so taking it, bringeth much disjointing and confusion, into the interpreting of that book and this, and into the stating of affairs and times spoken of in them. The Jews like such a gloss well, as whereby they do conclude, that the Messias is not yet come ; ' because the fourth raonarchy, the Roman, say they, is not yet utterly de stroyed.' And truly I see not, how they can conclude less, upon such a concession. For it is plain in Daniel, that the four kingdoms, there spoken of must come to nothing before the first appearing of Messias ; and that the Roman is not, is most plain, — since this book makes Rome, heathen and papal, but as one. The Holy Ghost, by Daniel, shows the four monarchies, the afflicters of the church of the Jews till Messias's first coming,— the Babylonian, tbe Mede-Persian, the Grecian, and the Syro-Grecian: and John now takes at him, and shows a fifth monarchy, the afflicter ofthe church of Jews and Gentiles till his second coming. Daniel, indeed, gives a hint P Dan. vii. Rev. xm.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Part II. 349 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. of the Roman, but he clearly distinguisheth him from the other four, when he calls him " the prince, that was to come'," beyond and after those four that he bad spoken of before. Him John describes here, as carrying the character of all those four. " A beast with ten horns ;" such a one had been the Syro-Grecian'^ : like a leopard, as the Grecian was^ : his feet as a bear's; such the Persian' : " his mouth like alion ;" such the Babylonian". This, therefore, could not be any of those, when it was all : and by this description of it by characters of them all, it shows the vast power and in comparable cruelty and oppression of it equalling them all ; nay, it infinitely went beyond them put all together, in extent of dominions, power, continuance, and cruelty, both to the church and to the world. Balaam, long before Rome was in being, doth set it out for the great afflicter" : ' Ships shall come ftom the coasts of Chittim, and shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber." That ' Chittim' means ' Italy,' or ' Rome,' is granted even by some Romanists themselves ; it is assert ed by the Jews, and confirmed by other places of Scripture, and even proved by tbe very sense and truth of that place. It afflicts both the afflicted and the afflicter, Eber and Asshur : and that hath been the garb of it since its first being. How may this be read in her own stories ? In her bloody con quests over all the world : in the tities of honour [but which speak oppression], Britannicus, Gerraanicus, Africanus, and the like. And to take up all in epitome, and that you may conjecture " ex ungue Leonem,' what whole Rome hath done in aU her time for slaughter, oppression, and destroying, take but the brief of one of her commanders, Pompey the Great; of whom Phny speaks to this purpose^ ; " He recovered Sicily: subdued Afric: subjected eight hundred and seventy- six towns about the Alps and coasts of Spain : routed and slew two million one hundred and eighty-three thousand men : sunk and took eight hundred and forty-six ships : took in one thousand five hundred and thirty-eight fortified places; and triumphed from his conquest of Asia, Pontus, Armenia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Cihcia, Syria, Judea, Albania, Iberia, Crete, and Basterna." What hath Rome q Dan. ix. 26. ' ^ Dan. vii. 7. » Ver 6; . . ' J^'-/" u v„, i V Nnm. xxiv. 24. ^ Nat. H.sl. lib. 7. cap. 26. 350 HARMONY OF [Key. xiv. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. done by all her agents in all her time ? And she is, this year, 1654, two thousand four hundred and eight years old. She is described here, " with seven heads and ten horns :" as the dragon, whose deputed she is, is pictured, chap. xu. 3 ; the horns crowned with power, — and the heads with blasphemies. One of his heads had been wounded to death, but his deadly wound was healed : this seemeth to mean her mo narchical or kingly power, which was extinguished with the Tarquins, but revived in the Caesars. And hereby is given intimation from whence to account the beginning of this fifth monarchy ; namely, from Rome's beginning again to be mo narchical : and we may well take a hint of this from Luke ii ; where, at the birth of Christ, all the world is taxed by Caesar Augustus. Not that monarchical government is therefore the worse, because thus abused by Rome heathen, no more than religion is the worse for being abused by Rome papal. Another beast ariseth, like this for power and cruelty, but far beyond him in cozenage and delusion. Heathen Rome dealt always openly, and in downright terms of bloodi ness, professedly setting itself to destroy religion : but papal Rome is " a mystery of iniquity :" it goes to work by deceiving, and carrying fair pretences : therefore it is saitl, that it spake as a dragon, but had horns like a lamb. It re vives the tyranny of Rome heathen and imperial, and none must thrive before it, that will not bear its badge : either some mark, or its name, or the number of its name : which number was the number of a man, and his number is six hundred and sixty-six. In Hebrew numerals,^' Sethur' [the name of a man in Num. xin. 13] comes just to this number: and which being interpreted signifies ' hidden,' or ' mystery :' the very inscription of Rome itself^ In Greek, AarEivoe fits it, which is the old name of the Roman. And, in genealo gical arithmetic, the number of Adonikam's faraily suits with it, Ezra ii.l3; — which man's name signifies, ' A Lord rising up.' REVELATION, XIV. The warring betwixt Michael and his angels, and the dragon and his angels, and the dragon's making war with the ' Chap. xvii. 5. Rev. xiv] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 351 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. seed of the woman^, receiveth illustration in the thirteenth chapter, and in the beginning of this. For in chap, xiii, he resigns his power and throne to the beast Rome, and makes him chief leader in his wars ; and his angels are men, that receive his mark. Here the Lamb upon mount Zion is Michael, and his angels and followers are marked with his Father's name in their foreheads, as chap. vii. And now, as in tbe eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh chap ters, tbe relation is concerning those things, that should be against the church, — from henceforth the prophecy is more especially of things, that make for the church, and against her enemies. As, 1. The preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles^. 2. Tbe proclaiming of the ruin ofthe mystical Ba bylon : proclairaed even from its first rising up a persecutor : as Isaiah did prophesy against the eastern, even before its tyrannical being. 3. The ministry ofthe word giving caution, against joining with the beast and his image, — and the danger and damnation that should follow upon joining with him, — and the torments described". Here the patience of the saints tiled''; and John, by a voice from heaven, commanded to write them " blessed that die in the Lord, from thenceforth'^ ;" at once showing the bitterness of the persecution caused by the beast, that even death should be desirable to deliver the saints from that trouble; and encouraging to stand out against the beast and his image even to the death. These bitter dealings against the church, ripen the sins of the world ready for cutting down : and, thereupon, Christ is described coming as against Egypf*, riding upon a cloud, and with a" sickle in his hand to reap the earth ; as Joel in. 13, betokening his vengeance against his enemies : so the earth is reaped, harvest, and vintage, and all. This is a general intimation of God's judgment and vengeance, which is more particularly handled in the pouring out ofthe vials'. It is observable, that the word for reaping of the earth comes out from the temple : yea, though Christ have the sickle in his band, yet an angel out of the temple calls to him to reap: and another angel' comes out ofthe temple with a sickle; and a third out ofthe temple calls to him to , Rev. xii. ' ^Rev.xiv.6 7. . Ver. 9-U. ^ Ver. 12. ¦: Ver. 13. 'sa. xix. 1. ' K«v. xvi. 352 HARMONY OF [Rev. xiv. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. reap. As this may be understood to doctrinal information, that the cries and urgencies of the church to Christ, stir him up to avenge them on their enemies'^, — so the expressions may be explained by allusive application. The putting in ofthe first sickle, to reap tbe first corn in Judea, was by the word and warrant of the priests and rulers sitting in the temple ; and they that were to reap, when they were come to the corn, put not in the sickle, till the word was given. Reap. The manner and managing of this business, — viz. the reaping ofthe first sheaf, — is recorded and related by the Talmud^ : " These three men, say they, that were appointed by the Sanhedrim to reap, went out into the valley of Cedron, with a great company following thera, on the first day of the Pass over-week, when now it grew towards evening, with three sickles and three baskets. One, when they came to the place, said to them. On this sabbath, on this sabbath, on this sabbath. In this basket, in this basket, in this basket. With this sickle, with this sickle, with this sickle. Reap : to whom the three answer. Well, well, well, I will reap. The other says. Reap then. Then they reap," &c. Thus phrases, taken from known customs, do speak the plainer. And so is the expression taken from coraraon speech and opinion, when it is said, in ver. 30, " The wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine press even to the horse-bridles. Here is treading a wine press of blood, as Christ treadeth in Edom'' : — Edom is the common name, by which the Hebrew writers call the Romans. — " The wine-press was without the city :" alluding to the wine and oil-presses, which were without Jerusalem at the foot of mount Olivet. — " Blood came up to the horse- bridles :" an hyperbole, by which they expressed great slaughter and effusion of blood. So the Jerusalem Talmud', describing the woful slaughter that Hadrian made of the Jews at the destruction of the city Bitter, saith DlDn ^pW IDQin ny cnn " The horses waded in blood up to the nostrils, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs." Of that space and extent doth R. Menahem'' reckon the large ness ofthe land of Israel. f Lnke, xviii. 7. e Menachoth, cap. 10. and in Tosaphta, ibid. t Isa. Ixiii. 1.3. ¦ In Taanith, fol. 69. col. 1. k On Gen. fol. 60. Rev. xv.] the NEW TES'TAMENT.-Part II. 353 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. REVELATION, XV. What was spoken in general, in tbe conclusion of the preceding chapter, concerning the treading of the wine-press of God's wrath, — is here more particularly prosecuted, in the story of the seven vials. At the beginning of which, John again calls us to reflect upon the scheme of the temple in heaven: which all along speaks according to the platform of the temple at Jerusalera. " Here is a sea of glass mingled with fire, and harpers harping by it, &.c. singing tbe song of Moses :" which, as it calls to mind Moses and the people's singing upon the Red Sea shore, upon their delivery from Egypt', — so doth it plainly allude to the music at the temple, by the laver, or sea ; and which, standing near the altar, was as " a sea of g-lass mingled with fire." Moses and Israel sing after the destruction of Egypt; for their deliverance was by her destruction : but those here, that have got victory over the beast, sing before he is de stroyed ; for they are delivered from him and prevail against him, though he stand in his strength, and his destruction be not yet come. The gospel grew ; and ' sanguis martyrum' was ' semen ecclesiae,' do Satan and antichrist what they can. After this song, " The teraple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened"'." All the whole building upon mount Moriah was called the temple, — the courts, and cloisters, and chambers, &c. But the very house itself, ' The holy, and holy of holies,' was, only and properiy, ' The temple of the tabernacle of testimony :' and the song mentioned before", is represented as being in the court, near the altar and laver ; but now the very house itself is opened : parallel to what is spoken, chap. xi. 19 ; " The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple, the ark of his covenant." The Lord, in pouring out vengeance upon antichrist, will manifest his judgments [as ver. 4], and open his counsels and covenant : for, while the enemy raged, and raved, and destroyed those that would not worship him,— and when even all the world, in a manner, did worship him,— the Lord's judgraents were hid, and his covenant with his people. VOL. III. Exod. XV. ¦» Rev. XV. 5. " Ver. ' 2 A 354 HARMONY OF [Rev. xvi. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. as it were, out of sight, or as if no such thing had been : but when this vengeance shall come, then all will be plain. The seven angels, that pour out the seven vials, are charactered in the garb of priests, coming out of the temple, in white linen, and girded over the breasts, as the priests were. One of the living creatures gives the vials into their hands : the very same sense and carriage with that, Ezek. x. 7- REVELATION, XVI. Were the stage, where the things of this book were to be acted, and the time of their acting, of as little compass as was that of the things of Daniel, — one might, with more probability, allot the several things, mentioned, to their se veral times, as the things in bim may be done. But, since the scene here is as large as all the world, where tbe gospel was to come, and the time as long as tirae shall be [one thousand six hundred years past already, and how rauch behind, none knoweth] ; to undertake to apply every thing in this book. to its particular tirae, place, and occasion, is to run a hazard ous undertaking. In some places, indeed, the things are so plain, that they speak theraselves ; but, in raany, so ob scure, that he that will venture to bring them to particular application, doth it more upon his own venture, than upon any good textual warrant : and, amongst those obscurities, these vials are not the least. Take thera in a general inter pretation [as I believe they are intended], and their meaning is easy to be understood ; but to come to allot tbem severally to this or that time, or place, is but to do that, that when you have done all you can, will come to no surer bottom to rest upon, than your own conceit and supposal. The matter of them is expressed, as to the most part, by allusion to the plagues of Egypt, — as biles, blood, darkness ; and so it clears the thing intended, — namely, in general to show how the mystical Egypt", after all her oppression and persecution of the Israel of God, should, at last, come to receive her just reward, as old Egypt had done : and that God would follow her with plagues, till he had destroyed " Rev. xi. 8. Rev. xvi] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 355 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. her. They are somewhat like the plagues of the seven trumpets ; some of wbich, as we observed, did, in general, speak the state of the world till the rising of antichrist : and these vials may be understood as the general description of his plagues and ruin. We observed, in chap, vi, and that upon good Scripture ground, — that the six seals did allbut speak one effect; namely, the destruction of the Jewish nation, but brought to pass by several judgments ; and the like interpretation raay be made here. The first vial brings a noisorae bile upon the worship pers of the beast : this was the sixth plague of Egypt, but here the first : for that plague in Egypt carae home to Jannes and Jambres, the magicians, that they could not stand before MosesP ; and that both this and all the rest might be showed to reach home, even to the veriest deceivers and ringleaders of mischief in antichristian Egypt, this is justly set in the first rank. The second and third, here, refer to the one plague of blood, in Egypt, and these exceed that : for there, all the rivers and ponds were, indeed, turned into blood, but the Egyptians digged for water, about the river, to drinki, and found it ; and it was not turned into blood. The question and answer of Aben Ezra is pertinent: — It is said, "There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt : and the magi cians did so with their enchantments. Now, how could the mao-icians turn water into blood, when there was no water left%ut all was blood?" and he answers, "Aaron only turned the waters, that were above ground, into blood ; not those, that were under ground:" but here, sea, and rivers, and fountains, and all, are become blood: still to show, how thoroughly the plagues should come horae. At these plagues, there is mention of ' the angel of the waters^;' which, since all the angels here are charactered in the garb of priests, as hath been said,— may also be under stood as alluding to that priest, whose office it was to have care of tbe waters, and to look that there should be water enough, and fitting, for the people to drink, that came up to the three festivals. Among the offices of the priests at the PExod.ix.ll. .Exod. vii. 24. r Rev. xvi. 5. 2 a2 350 HARMONY OF [Rev. xvi YEAR OF CHRIST 66. temple, this was one' : and Nicodemus, whom the Talmud speaks of, was of this office'. The fourth vial, poured into the sun, brings scorching heat : this seems to allude to Joshua's or Deborah's day, when the stars from heaven fought : the sun, standing stiH so long, did not only give light to Israel, but probably heat and faintness to the Canaanites; and Psal. cxxi. 6 seems to refer thither, — " The sun shall not smite thee by day." As, in the fourth, they are plagued by the sun, — so, in the fifth, by want of it. 'The seat of the beast darkened ; as Pharaoh's throne and kingdom was : and this darkness bring ing horror and pains ; as Egypt's did, through dreadful ap paritions in the dark. The drying up of Euphrates for the kings of the east, under the sixth vial, seems to speak much to the tenor ofthe sixth trumpet, the loosing of the four angels, which were bound at Euphrates. Those, we conceived the Turks, to plague Christendom ; these, we may conceive eneraies, to plague antichrist. The allusion, in the former, seems to be to the four kings from beyond Euphrates, that came to scourge Canaan" ; this, to the draining of Euphrates, for Cyrus and Darius to take Babylon. For having to treat here of a Babylon, as ver. 19, — the scene is best represented, as being laid at the old Babylon. Now, the historians, that mention the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, tell us, it was by draining the great stream of Euphrates, by cutting it into many little channels. The Egyptian plague of frogs is here translated into an other tenor, and that more dangerous ; three unclean spirits, like frogs, come out of the mouth of the dragon, beast, and false prophet : spirits of devils working miracles, &c. This is named betwixt the sixth and seventh vial [though the acting of the delusions, by miracles, were all the time of the beast and false prophet], because of the judgment now coming : for, though all deluders and deluded received their judgments in their several ages, yet, being here speaking of the last judgments of antichrist, they are all summed to gether. He is here called, "the false prophet," as being the great deluder of all. The fruit of all these delusions is to set • Maim, in Kele Mikda-sh, cap 7. ' Abolh, R.Naihan, cap. 6. " Gen. xiv. Rev. xvii.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 357 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. men to fight against God : whose end is set forth by allusion to the array of Jabin, king of Canaan^, broken at " the waters of Megiddo." The word 'Armageddon' signifies, 'a moun tain of men cut in pieces.' Here that solemn caution is in serted, "Behold, I corae as a thief: blessed is he, that watch- eth and keepeth his garraents." The priest, that walked the round ofthe temple-guards, by night, had torches borne before him : and if he found any asleep upon the guard, he burnt his clothes with the torches^. The seventh vial concludes the beast's destruction. The great city is said to be divided into three parts : either as Jerusalem was''^, — a third part to pestilence, a third part to the sword, and a third part to dispersion, and destruction in it : — or, because there is mention^ of an earthquake, this speaks its ruining in general. A tenth part of it fell before^; and now, the nine parts reraaining, fall in a tripartite ruin. REVELATION, XVII. Mystical Babylon, pictured with the colours ofthe old Babylon : Rome so called, as being the motheriof idolatry, as Babel was the beginning of heathenism, and the mother of persecution : Babylon destroyed Jerusalem ; so did Rome, and made havoc of the church continually. She is resembled to a woman decked with gold", &c. sit ting upon a seven -headed and ten-horned beast ; as Rev. xiii. 1 : "Which beast was, and is not, and yet is; it shall ascend out ofthe bottomless pit, and shall go to perdition." Rome, under the Papacy, was not the same Rome it had been,— and yet it was : not heathen and imperial Rome, as it had been before ; and yet, for all evil, idolatry, persecution, &c, the same Rome to all purposes. It is plainly described as sitting upon seven hills; upon which, there is hardly a Roraan poet or historian, but makes a clear comment. The seven heads denoted, also, seven kings or kinds of government, that had passed in that city :— " Five are fallen" ;" kings, consuls, tii- bunes, dictators, triumvirs : and one then was, when John wrote,— namely, emperors :-and one not yet come. Chris tian emperors,-which continued but a short space, before V Judg. V. 19. « Middoth, cap. 1. hal. 2. ^ R^'^xrii W" y As Zech. xiv. 4, .5. ^Rev.xi.l3. » As Isa. x.v. 4. Rev. xvn. 10. 358 HARMONY OF [Rev. xvm, &c. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. the beast carae, " which was and is not. He is the eighth, and is of the seven." They that hold Rome to be the fourth monarchy in Daniel, cannot but also hold in this place, that that monarchy is not yet extinct. The ten horns upon the beast, in Dan. vii. 24, are ten kings, arising and succeeding one another in the same kingdom : but here, at ver. 12, they are ten several kingdoms, all subject to the beasts, both im perial and papal ; but, at last, shall rise up against the mys tical whore, and destroy her. It is like, there must yet be conversion of some kingdoras from the Papacy, before it fall. REVELATION, XVIII, XIX, to ver. 11. An elegy and a triumph upon the fall of Babylon. The former chapter, xviii, alraost verbatim from Isa. xiii, xiv. xxi, and xxxiv. and Jer. li, and Ezek. xxvii. The latter also, chapter xix, the phrase taken from the Old Testament, almost every word. The triumphant song begins with Hallelujah, several times over. The word is first used at the latter end of Psal. civ ; where destruction of the wicked being first prayed for, " Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more," — he concludes with, " Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Hallelujah." The observation of the people's saying over ' the great Hallel' at the temple [or their great song of praise], doth illustrate this. The Hallel consisted of several Psalms, — viz. from the hundred and thirteenth to the end ofthe hun dred and eighteenth ; and at very raany passages in that song, as the priests said the verses of the Psalms, all the people still answered. Hallelujah. Only here is one thing of some difference frora their course there ; for here is. Amen, Hallelujah"; whereas, "It is a tradition, That they answered not Amen in the temple at all: what said they then? Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever<*." But the promises of God, "which are Yea and Amen," being now performed,— this is justly inserted ; as Christ, for the same cause, in this book, is called Amen'. The marriage of the Lamb is now come, and his wife is ready': the church now completed. ' Rev. xix. 4. A jems. in Beracoth, fol. 13. col. 3. ' Rev. iii. 14. < Rev. xix. 7. Rev. xix, &c.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 359 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. REVELATION, XIX, from ver. 11 to the end of the chapter. Here begins a new vision, as it appeareth by the first words, " And I saw heaven opened :" — and here, John begins upon his whole subject again, to sum up in brief what he had been upon before. Observe what is said, in ver. 19: " I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army:" — and observe withal, that there is the story of the destruction of the beast before, chap, xviii : and of the marriage, and marriage-supper of the Lamb before, chap. xix. 7 — 9 : therefore, the things, men tioned here, cannot be thought to occur after those : this, therefore, is a brief rehearsal of what be had spoken from the twelfth chapter hither, about the battle of Michael and his angels, with the dragon and his angels. REVELATION, XX. The preceding section spake what Christ did with the beast, and with those that carried his mark : he fought against them always, and, when he saw his time, destroyed them : here the Holy Ghost tells us, what he did with the devil, that set them on. You heard of Christ fighting with the dragons ; and the dragon, foiled and cast out, sets to prose cute the woman's seed ; but what course takes he for that ? He resigns his throne, and power, and authority, to the beast, Rome; and it must do, and it did his business for him, chap. xni. 3 ; and how thoroughly it did its master's work, is showed aU along from that place forward. But what becomes of the old dragon, the master of mischief? He sits by, as it were and looks on, whde his game is played, and hisses on his deputy, Rome,-first imperial, then papal. They, at the last, receive their due wages for their work; imperial and papal go to perdition. But what must becorae of the dra gon that set thera on? It would be very improper to tell so larsely of the fearful vengeance and destruction upon the agents, and to say nothing of the principal and chief mover. s Chap. xii. 360 HARMONY OF [Rev. xx- year of CHRIST 66. That, therefore, is done here, and this chapter takes at chap. xiii. 3 ; and tells you, what became of the old dragon after the resigning of his throne to the beast : namely, that he sat not at his own quiet, as if Michael had nothing to do with him, or let him alone, having so much to do with his instruments ; but that he curbed and destroyed both prin cipal and agent, and cast them both together into the bot tomless pit. The devil had two ways of undoing raen ; the church, by persecution, — the world, by delusion of oracles, idolatry, false rairacles, and the like. His raanaging of the former, by his deputies, the former chapters have related, and how they sped in his service : and this comes to tell, how he speeds about the other. The great angel Michael, the Lord Christ, who hath the key of the bottomless pit in his hand', chains him by the power of the gospel, " that he should no more deceive the nations for a thousand years." Weigh the phrase, "Not deceive the nations:" it is not "not per secute," but " not deceive ;" nor is it " ihe church ," but " the 7iations." His persecuting of the church bath been storied before: and here is told, how he is curbed for deceiving the nations ; and, indeed, when he deputed Rome, and let that loose for the forraer, he was chained up as for the latter. It is easily construed, how Satan " deceived the nations" by idols, which are called" a lie*;" by his oracles, in which was no light'', — and by magical miracles,, which were mere delu sion. Hence the world, for the time of heathenism, is said to be in his kingdora of darkness'. Now, the spreading of the gospel through the world ruined all these before it, and dissolved those cursed spells and charms of delusion, and did. as it were, chain up Satan, that he could no more "deceive the nations," "Edvr,, "the heathen," as he had done,— by these deceits : so that the words speak the end ing of Satan's power in heathenism, and the bringing in of the Gentiles to the knowledge of the truth, out of darkness and delusion. The date of this his chaining up was " a thousand years." Now the Jews counted the days of the Messias, 'a thousand • Chap, i. 18. j Isa. .\liv. 20. Rom. i. 25. k Isa, viii, 20. ' Acls, xxvi. 18. Col. i. 13, &c. Rev. XX.] THE NEW TES'TAMEN'T.— Part II. 3til YEAR OF CHRIST 66. years ;' as we touched before. The Babylon Talmud" doth show their full opinion about the days of Messias; and, amongst other thino-s, they say thus ; as Aruch speaks their words, in voce pns ; " It is a tradition of the house of Elijah, that the righteous ones, that the blessed God shall raise from the dead, they shall no more return to their dust ; but those thousand years that the holy blessed God is to renew the world, he will give them wings as eagles, and they shall flee upon the waters.'' The place in the Talmud is in San hedrim, fol, 92; where the text, indeed, hath not the word ' thousand ;' but the marginal gloss hath it, and shows how to understand " the thousand years." And Aruch speaks it as a thing of undeniable knowledge and entertainraent. And so speaks R. Eliezer" ; " The days of the Messias are a thousand years." As John, all along this book, doth intimate new stories by remembering old ones, and useth not only the Old Tes tament phrase to express them by, but much allusion to customs, language, and opinion, of the Jews, that he might speak, as it were, closer to them and nearer their apprehen sions,— so doth he bere and forward. This latter end of his book remembers the latter end of the Book of Ezekiel. There is ' a resurrection",' ' Gog and MagogP,' and ' a new Jerusalem'',' and forward : so here " a resurrection"^," " Gog and Magog'," and " a new Jerusalem'." There a resurrection, not of bodies out ofthe grave, but of Israel out of a low captived condition in Babel. There a Gog and Magog, the Syro-Grecian persecutors, Antiochus and his house : and then the description of tbe new Jeru salem, which, as to the place and situation, was a promise of their restoring to their own land, and to have Jerusalera built again,— as it was, indeed, in the days of Ezra and Ne- heraiah : but by the glory and largeness of it [as it is de scribed, more in compass than all the land of Canaan], they were taught to look farther,— naraely, at the heavenly or spiritual Jerusalem, tbe church through all the world. Now the Jews, according to their allegorical vein, applied M In Sanhedrim, in the chapter Helek. - In Midras Tillim, fol.i.col 2. " E/ek. xxxvii. p Ezek. xxxvm and XXXIX. i li/.ek. xl. ' Rev. XX. 5. » Ver. 8. ' Chap, xm a»d xxii. 362 HARMONY OF [Rev. xx. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. these things to the days of Christ, thus : — that first there should be a resurrection, caused by Messias, of righteous ones ; then he to conquer Gog and Magog; and then there must come ibn Tny ' The brave world to come,' that they dreamed of. Besides what they speak to this tenor in the Talmudic treatise last cited, there is this passage in the Je rusalem Megillah": they are applying particular parts of the great Hallel to particular times [what the great Hallel was, we showed a little before] : " And that part (say they), ' I love the Lord, because he hath heard me,' — refers to the days of Messias : that part, ' Tie the sacrifice with cords,' to the days of Gog and Magog : and that, ' Thou art my God, and I will praise thee,' refers to the world to come." Our divine Apocalyptic follows Ezekiel with an allegory too, and, in some of his expressions, alludes to some of theirs, — not as approving them, but as speaking the plainer to them by them. Here is a resurrection too ; but not of bodies neither, for not a word of mention of them, but of souls. " The souls of those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, lived and reigned" ;" and yet this is called, " The first resurrection"." The meaning of the whole let us take up in parts. There are two main things here intended : — First, 'To show the ruin of the kingdom of Satan ; and, secondly. The nature of the kingdom of Christ. The Scripture speaks much of Christ's kingdom, and his conquering Satan, and his saints reigning with him ; that common place is briefly handled here. That kingdom was to be especially among the Gen tiles, they called in unto the gospel. Now, among the Gen tiles had been Satan's kingdom raost settled and potent; but here Christ binds him, and ca^ts him into the bottom less pit, that he should deceive no more [as a great cheater and seducer cast into prison] ; and this done by the coming in of the gospel among them. Then, as for Christ's kingdom, " I saw thrones (saith John), and they sat upon them" ;" &c. Here is Christ and his enthroned and reigning. But how do they reign with him ? Here John faceth the foohsh « Fol. 73. col. 1, " Rev. xx. 4. " Ver. 5. i Ver. 4. Rev. XX.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.— Part II. 363 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. opinion of the Jews, of their reigning with the Messias in an earthly pomp ; and shows that the matter is of a far different tenor : that " they that suffer with him, shall reign with him ;" they that stick to him, witness for hira, die for him, — these shall sit enthroned with him. And he nameth ' be heading' only of all kinds of deaths ; as being the most common : used both by Jews and Romans alike, as we have observed before, at Acts xii, out of Sanhedrim, cap. 7. hal. 3. And the first witness for Christ, John the Baptist, died this death. He saith, that ' sucb live and reign with Christ the thousand years;' not as if they were all raised from the dead at the beginning of the thousand years, and so reign all together with him those years out, as is the con ceit of some [as absolute Judaism as any is, for raatter of opinion] ; but that this must be expected to be the garb of Christ's kingdom all along, suffering and standing out against sin, and the mark of the beast, and the like : whereas they held it to be a thousand years of earthly bravery and pompousness. " But the rest of the dead lived not again, until the thousand years were finished : this is the first resurrection." —Not that they lived again, when the thousand years were finished ; but it means, that they lived not in this time, which was the time of living, when Satan was bound, and truth and life came into the worid. The Gentiles, before the gospel came among them, were ' dead,' in Scripture-phrase, very copiously^ ; but that revived them^ ' This is the first resurrection,' in and to Christ's kingdom :— the second is spoken of at tbe twelfth verse of this chapter that we are upon. Paul^ useth the same expression to signify the sarae thing,— namely, a raising from darkness and sin by the power ofthe gospel. Now, when this quickening came among the Gentiles, Satan going down, and Christ's kingdom advanced and the gospel bringing in life and light^-those that did not come and stick close to Christ and bear witness to him, but closed with the mark of the beast, sin, and sinful men,- these were dead still ; and lived not again, till the thousand ,Ephes.ii.l.2;andiv.I8.&c. ij^'-'t » Rom. xi. 15. 364 HARMONY OF [Rev. xx. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. years were finished, — that is, while they lasted, though that were a time of receiving life. " Blessed, therefore, and holy are they, that have part in this first resurrection; for on them the second death hath no power''." The ' second death' is a phrase used by the Jews. Onkelos renders Deut. xxxiii. 6, thus ; " Let Reuben live, and not die the second death." — And Jonathan, Isa. Ixv. 6, thus; "Behold, it is written before me, I will not grant them long life, but I will pay thera vengeance for their sins, and deliver their carcasses to the second death." And, ver. 15, " The Lord will slay them with the second death." Observe, in the prophet, that these verses speak of the ruin and rejection of the Jews, now a cursed people, and given up to the second death : and, in chapter Ixvi'', is told how the Lord would send and gather the Gentiles to be his people, and would make them his priests and Levites : and then, see how fitly this verse answers those. Instead of these cursed people, these are blessed and holy, and might not see the second death ; and Christ makes thera priests to himself and his Father. In this passage of John, scorn is put again upon the Jews' wild interpretation of the resurrection in Ezekiel. They take it literally, and think some dead were really raissd out of their graves, came into the land of Israel, begat children, and died a second time : nay, they stick not to tell, who these men were, and who were their children^. After the thousand years are expired, Satan is let loose again, and falls to his old trade of the deceiving the na tions again, ver. 8. Zohar^ hath this saying: " It is a tradi tion, that, in the day, when judgment is upon the world, and the holy blessed God sits upon the throne of judgraent, then it is found that Satan that deceives high and low, he is found destroying the world, and taking away souls." When the Pa pacy began, then heathenism carae over the world again, and Satan as loose and deceiving as ever : then idolatry, blind ness, deluding oracularities and miracles as fresh and plen teous as before : from the rising of the gospel among the Gentiles these had been beaten down, and Satan fettered and « Rev. XX. 6. "I Ver. 19—22. c Talm. BabjI. in Sanhedr. ubi supra. ' Fol. 72. col. 286. Kev.xx.] THE new testament.— Part II. 365 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. imprisoned deeper and deeper every day : and though his agent^ Rome, bestirred itself hard to hold up bis kingdom, by the horrid persecutions it raised, yet still the gospel prevailed, and laid all flat. But when the Papacy came, then he was loose again; and his cheatings prevailed, and the world be came again no better than heathen. And if you should take the thousand years fixedly and literally, and begin to count either frora the beginning of tbe gospel in the preaching of John; or of Peter to Cornelius, the first inlet to the Gentiles; or of Paul and Barnabas their being sent among thera, — the expiring of them will be in tbe very depth of Popery : espe cially begin them frora the fall of Jerusalera, where the date of the Gentiles more peculiarly begins, and they will end upon the times of pope Hildebrand ; when if the devil were not let loose, when was he ? , He calls the enemies of the church, especially antichrist, ' Gog and Magog :' the title of the Syro-Grecian monarchy, the great persecutors. [Pliny'' mentions a place in Ccelosy- ria, that retained the name Magog.] So that John, from old stories and copies of great troubles, transcribeth new, using known terms from Scripture, and from the Jews' language and notions, that be raight the better be understood. So that this chapter containeth a brief of all the times from the rising of the gospel among the Gentiles, to the end of the world, under these two sums, — first, the beating down of idolatry and heathenism in the earth, till the world was be come Christian; and then the Papacy arising doth heathenize it again. The destruction of which is set down, ver. 9, by fire from heaven, in allusion to Sodom, or 2 Kings, i. 10. 12; and it is set close to the end of the world : the devil and the beast [imperial Rome], and the false prophet [papal Rome], are cast into fire and brimstone, ver. 10; where John speaks so, as to show his method, wbich we have spoken of. " The devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are :" he had given the story ofthe beast and false prophet, the devil's agents, and what became of them'; and now the story of the devil himself :— for it was not possible to handle these two stories but apart : and now s Ezek. xxxviii and xxxix.- '¦ Lib. 5. cap. 2.3. ' Ciiap. Ni-c. 20. .366 HARMONY OF [Rev. xxi. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. he brings the confusion of all the three together, and the con fusion of all with them that bare their mark, and whose names were not written in the book of life. REVELATION, XXI. ' The Jerusalem from above' described. The phrase is used by PaulJ ; and it is used often by the Jews : " Rabbi Aba saith. Light is nuby D^tflT 'Jerusalem which is above,' which the holy blessed God gives for a possession, where blessings are given, by bis hand, in a pure land : but to an irapure land, no blessings to be at all''." Compare Rev. xxi. 27, and xxii. 15. " Jerusalem is built as a city, that is compact together. R. Jochanan saith. The holy blessed God said, I will not go into Jerusalem that is above, until I have gone into Jerusalem that is below'," &c. Ezekiel's Jerusalem, as we observed, was of a double sig nification, — namely, as promising the rebuilding ofthe city after the captivity, and foretelling of the spiritual Jerusalem, the church under the gospel, and tbat most especially. At that, John taketh at here, and that is the Jerusalem that he describeth; and, from Isa. Ixv. 17, 18, joineth the creating new heavens and a new earth ; and so stateth the time of building this new Jerusalem, — namely, at the coming in of the gospel, when all things are made new" : a new people, new ordinances, new economy, and the old world of Israel dissolved. Though the description of this new city be placed last in the book, yet the building of it was contemporary with the first things mentioned in it, about the calling ofthe Gentiles. When God pitched his tabernacle amongst them, as he bad done in the midst of Israel", that tabernacle is pitched in the fourth and fifth chapters of this book : and now all tears wiped away, and no more sorrow, death, nor pain" ; which if taken literally, could refer to nothing but the happy estate in heaven, — of which, the glory of this Jerusa lem may, indeed, be a figure; but here, as the other things are, it is to be taken mystically, or spiritually, to mean the taking away the curse of the law, and the sting of death and sin, j Gal. iv. 2C. " Zohar, fo). 120. col. 4. ' jMidras Till, in Psal. cxxii. "'2Cor. V. 17. " Lev. xxvi. 11, 12. ¦> Rev. xxi. 4. Rev, xxi,] THE NEW TESTAMENT,— Part II, 367 YEAR OF CHRIST 66, &c : " No condemnation to be to those, that are in Christ Jesus." The passages in describing the city, are all in the pro phets' phrase, Ezekiel and Isaiah: as compare these, ' The bride, the Lamb's wife,' ver. 9 : " Sing, O barren" heathen, " that didst not bear," &c. " Thy Maker is thine husband ; thy Redeemer," &c. Isa. liv. 1. 5. Ver. 10: " He carried me away in the spirit, to a great and high mountain." Compare Ezek. xl. 2. " That great city, holy Jerusalem," &c. This refers to the great dimensions of Ezekiel's Jerusalem ; as also to the squareness, the three gates of a side, &c. The glory of it described from thence, and from IsaiahP. The wall of it, twelve thousand furlongs square, or fifteen hundred miles upon every quarter, east, west, north, and south, three thou sand miles about : and fifteen hundred miles high : — " Wall of salvation''." The foundations of the walls garnished with twelve pre cious stones'', as the stones in the ephod, or holy breast-plate : three upon every side, as these were three and three in a row. The first foundation-stone here is the jasper, the stone of Benjamin, for Paul's sake, the great agent about this build ing ofthe church ofthe Gentiles. The Jerusalem Talmud* saith expressly, that the jasper was Benjamin's stone; for it saith, " Benjamin's jasper was once lost," out of the ephod ; " and they said. Who is there that hath another as good as it f Some said, Damah, the son of Nethina, bath one," 8cc. " And I saw no temple therein," &c. ver. 22. Here this Jerusalem differs from Ezekiel's : that had a temple. — this, none : and it is observable there, that the platform ofthe tem ple is much ofthe measures and fashion, that the second tem ple was of; but the city, of a compass larger than all the land : which helpeth to clear what was said before of the double significancy of those things; they promised them an earthly temple, which was built by Zerubbabel; but foretold a hea venly Jerusalem, which is described here. P Chap. Iviii. 8. lx. 2, 3. liv. 11, 12, &c. 1 Isa. xxvi. 1, and lx. 14. -¦Seelsa. liv. 11. • Ib Peah, Ibl. 15. col. 3. 368 HARMONY OF [Rev, xxii] YEAR OF CHRIST 66. REVELATION, XXII. From Ezekiel, chap, xlvii, and from several passages of Scripture besides, John doth still raagnify the glory, happi ness, and holiness, of the new Jerusalera : lively waters of clear doctrine, teaching Christ, and life by hira flowing through it continually'. The tree of life lost to Adara, and paradise shut up against hira, to keep hira from it, here re stored. Then a curse,— here " there shall be curse no more,' ver. 3". ny n>r\' N^ Din " Anathema non erit amphus," &c. He concludeth, " These sayings are faithful and true;" so he had said before, at the raarriage of the Lamb' ; and again at his beginning ofthe story ofthe new Jerusalem""; referring to the several prophecies that had been of these things; and now all those sayings and prophecies were come home, in truth and faithfulness. He is commanded not to seal his book, as Daniel was" ; because the time of these thinss was instantly beginning ; and Christ's coming to reveal his glory in avengeraent upon the Jewish nation, and casting them off, and to take in the Gentiles in their stead, was now at the door, within three and a half, or thereabout, to come,— if we have conjectured the writing of this book to its proper year. There are two years raore of Nero, and one of confu sion in the Roman empire, in the wars of Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian; and, the next year after, Jerusalem falls. And thus, if this book of the Revelation were written last of the books of the New Testament, as, by the consent of all, it was,— then may we say, Now was the whole wiU of God revealed and committed to writing, and from henceforth must vision, and prophecy, and inspiration, cease for ever. These had been used and imparted all along, for the drawing up of the mind of God into writing,— as also the appearing of angels had been used, for the farther and farther still re vealing of his will ; and when the full revelation of that was corapleted, their appearing and revelations to men, must be no raore. So that this Revelation to John, was the topping up and finishing of all revelations. The Lord had proraised^ that " in the last days" of Jerusalera "he would pour down ' Ezek. xlvii. 1. 9. Cant. iv. 15. .. See Zech. xiv. 11. - Rev xix. 9. " Rev. XXI. :,. x jj^,, ^i;_ 4 ,. j^ .. ^^ Rev. XXII.] THE NEW TESTAMENT.—Part II. 369 YEAR OF CHRIST 66. of his Spirit upon all flesh ;" and Christ^ promised to his apostles, that he would lead them into all truth. To look for, therefore, the giving of those extraordinary gifts of tbe Spirit beyond the fall of Jerusalem, there is no warrant : and there is no need; since, when the inspired penmen had written all that the Holy Ghost directed to write, ' all truth' was written. It is not to be denied, indeed, that those, that had these extraordinary gifts before the fall of Jerusalem, if they lived after, had them after, for the promoting of these ends for which they were given ; but there is neither ground nor rea son, whereupon to believe, that they were restored to the next generation, or were, or are to be, imparted to any gene ration for ever. For as it was in Israel, at the first settling of their church,^so was it in this case, in the first settling of the gospel. The first fathers of the Sanhedrim in the wilderness, were endued with divine gifts, — such as we are speaking of^; but when that generation was expired, those that were to succeed in that function and employment, were such, as were qualified for it by education, study, and parts acquired. So was it with this first age of the gospel, and the ages succeeding. At the first dispersing of the gospel, it was absolutely needful, that the first planters should be furnished with such extraordinary gifts ; or else, it was not possible it should be planted. As this may appear by a plain instance :— Paul comes to a place, where the gospel had never come ; he stays a month or two, and begets a church ; and then he is to go his way, and to leave thera. Who now, in this church, is fit to be their minister ? they being all alike but very children in the gospel: but Paul is directed, by the Holy Ghost, to lay his hands upon such and such of them; and that bestows upon them the gift of tongues and prophesying ; and now they are able to be mimsters, and to teach the congregation. But, after that generation, when the gospel was settied in all the world, and committed to writing, and written to be read and studied,-then was study ofthe Scriptures the way to enable men to unfold the Scrip- tures, and fit them to be ministers to instruct others : and revelations and inspirations neither needful nor safe to be •¦ Num. xi. 2.5. VOL, III. y John, xvi. 12, Ij. 2 B 370 HARMONY OF [Rev. xxii. YEAR OF CHRIST 66. looked after, nor hopeful to be attained unto. And this was the reason, why Paul, coming but newly out of Ephesus and Crete, when he could have ordained and qualified ministers with abilities by the imposition of his hands, would not do it, — but left Timothy and Titus to ordain, though they could not bestow those gifts : because he knew the way, that the Lord had appointed ministers thenceforward to be enabled forthe ministry, not by extraordinary infusions ofthe Spirit, but by serious study of the Scriptures ; not by a miraculous, but by an ordinary ordination. And, accordingly, he gives Timothy himself counsel to study% though he were plenti fully endued with these extraordinary endowments''. And Paul himself had his books for study, or he had them to no purpose*^. And, indeed, it had been the way of God ; he hath in structed his people by a studious and learned ministry, ever since he gave a written word to instruct them in. 1. Who were the standing ministry of Israel, all the time from the giving of the law, to the captivity into Babel? not prophets, or those inspired men [for they were but occasional teachers, and there were often long spaces of time wherein no pro phet appeared], but the priests and Levites, that became learned in the law by study'^. And for this end, as hath been touched, they were disposed into forty-eight cities of their own, as so many universities, where they studied the law to gether, and from thence were sent out into the several syna gogues, to teach the people : and had the tithes paid them for their maintenance, whilst they studied in the univer sities, and for their preaching in the synagogues. And it may be observed, that even they that had the prophetic spirit, did not only study the Scriptures tbemselvesS but sent the people for instruction to the priests who were students, and the standing ministryf. 2. If you consider the tiraes under the second temple, then it was utterly impossible, that the people should be taught but by a studious and learned ministry : for the spirit of prophecy was departed, and the Scriptures were then in an unknown tongue, to all but stu- » 1 Tim. iv. 13. >' 1 Tim. iv. 14. ' 2 Tim. iv 13 De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 47, &c. 380 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. YEAR OF CHRIST 70. according to this calculation it is, that Josephus reckoneth : — whereas, Vitellius was alive, and fought it out raany months, after Vespasian was proclaimed : therefore, the Ro man Fasti do very properly begin his first year from the beginning of January, this year that we are upon. Titus, coming into Judea, and there gathering all his forces together, marcheth against Jerusalera, and pitcheth his siege against it, when now the Passover-festival had called all the people of the country in thither. For as the turbulencies and intestine commotions in the bowels of the empire, itself, the last year, had given the Jews some respite from the Roraan armies, — so had they given them some boldness and security, seeing Vespasian and his forces were now forced to turn their faces another way ; and they hoped they would hardly have turned towards them again. How much they were deceived, — Titus without, and famine and all miseries within, did soon show them. What were the passages in this siege, and what faraine, pestilence, civil slaughters, and various kinds of death, the besieged suffered in it, are so largely described by Josephus, that it were but a needless rehearsal to speak of thera. The end was, that the temple and city were raked up in ashes : eleven hundred thousand perished in the siege; almost a hundred thousand taken prisoners, and the nation ruined from what they had been. That this desolation is phrased in Scripture, as 'the desolating of the whole world' [as we have had occasion to observe divers times by several passages, that we have met withal, referring thereunto], it will appear no wonder, if we consider, tbat it was the destroying of the old peculiar cove nanted people ; of the Lord's own habitation, ordinances, and place chosen by hira above, nay, alone, of all the places of the world, to put his narae there : a people, once highest in his favour, now deepest in his displeasure ; once blessed with his greatest dignations, above any, nay, above all tbe people under heaven, — and now fallen under his heaviest in dignation : a people of bis curse, and who have left their narae for a curse to his chosen: and a new world [as it were] now created, a new people made the church, a new economy, and " old things past, and all things become new''." '¦ 2 Cor. V. 17. THE FALL OF JIIRUSALEM. .381 YEAR OF CHRIST 70. We are now upon a very remarkable and eminent period ; where should I write an ecclesiastical history, I should begin, as at the beginning of a new world : not but that the calling of the Gentiles had begun before ; for the gospel was now gone through all the world : and the Jews were also given up before, as to the generality of them, when the Holy Ghost calls them ' dogs,' and ' a synagogue of Satan :' but their state and economy was not till now rooted up, nor the divine ordinances, once planted among them, till now extinguished : and their casting off, sealed by the ruin of their city, disper sion of their nation, and their final obduration. SECTION I. The Desolation ofthe Temple and City. The temple was burnt down, as Josephus, a spectator, setteth the time, 'Yifxipq. SaKOTTj Awou /xijvoc, " On the tenth day of the month Lous :' which, he saith, was a fatal day to the temple, for it had been burnt down by the Babylonians, before, on tbat day'=. And yet his countrymen, that write in the Hebrew tongue, fix both these fatalities to the ninth day of that month, which they call the month Ab ; and they ac count that day fatal, for three other sad occurrences besides : " On the ninth day of the month Ab (say they), the decree came out against Israel, in the wilderness, that they should not enter into tbe land : on it was the destruction of the first temple, and on it was tbe destruction ofthe second: on it the great city. Bitter, was taken, where there were thousands and ten thousands of Israel, who had a great king over them" [BenCoziba], "whom all Israel, even their greatestwise raen, thought to have been Messias : but he fell into the hands of the heathen, and there was great affliction, as there was at the destruction of the sanctuary. And on that day, a day aUotted for vengeance, the wicked Turnus Rufus ploughed up the place ofthe temple, and the places about it, to accom plish what is said,— Sion shall become a ploughed fieW." It is strano-e, men of the same nation, and in a thing so signal, and ofwhich both parties were spectators, should be at such a difference : and yet, not a difference neither, if we «De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 27. d Talm. in Taanith, cap. 4. hal. ifi.Maim.in Taanith, cap. d. 382 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. YEAR OF CHRIST 70. take Josephus's report of the whole story, and the other Jews' construction of the time. He records, that the cloister-walks, commonly called, ' the porches of tbe temple,' were fired on the eighth day, and were burning on the ninth ; but that day, Titus called a council of war, and carried it by three voices, that the tem_ple should be spared : but a new bustling ofthe Jews caused it to be fired, though against his will, on the next day=. Now their calendar reckons, from the middle day of the three, that fire was at it, as from a centre : and they state the time thus : " It was the time of the evening, when fire was put to the temple ; and it bumt till the going down of the sun of the next day. And behold, what Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai saith : If I had not been in that genera tion, I should not have pitched it upon any other day, but the tenth, — because the most of the temple was burnt that day. And, in the Jerusalem Talmud, it is related, that Rabbi, and Joshua Ben Levi, fasted for it the ninth and tenth days, bothf." Such another discrepancy, about the time of the firing of the first temple, by Nebuchadnezzar, may be observed in 2 Kings xxv. 8, 9 ; where it is said, that " In the fifth month, on the seventh day ofthe month, came Nebuzar-adan, cap tain of the guard, and burnt the house of the Lord." And yet, in Jer. Iii. 12, it is said to have been, " In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month." Which the Gemarists, in the Babylonian Talmud, reconcile thus : " It cannot be said. On tbe seventh day, because it is said. On the tenth : nor can it be said, On the tenth day, because it is said. On the se venth. How is it then? On the seventh, the aliens came into the teraple, and eat there, and defiled it, the seventh, eighth, and ninth days, — and tbat day, towards night, they set it on fire : and it burnt all the tenth day ; — and this was the case also with the second teraple^." The ninth and tenth days of the month Ab, on which the temple was burtit down, was about the two and three-and- twentieth of our July : and the city was taken and sacked the eighth day of September following'' : that day being their sabbath-day'. ' Joseph, ubi supr. cap. 23 — 25. < Gloss, in Maim, in Taanith, cap. 5. c Taanith, fol. 29. '' Joseph, nbi snpr. cap. 47. ' Dion. fol. 748. THE Fall of Jerusalem. 383 YEAR OF CHRIST 70. After eleven hundred thousand destroyed and perished in the siege and sacking, and ninety-seven thousand taken prisoners, — Titus commanded city and temple to be rased to the ground ; only three of the highest towers left standing, Phasaelus, Hippicus, and Mariamne, and the western wall of the city : those, that they might remain as monuraents of the strength of the place, and, thereby, of the renown of the Roman conquest : and this, that it might be of some use to the Roman garrison that was left there, which was the tenth legion. Their chief captain was Terentius Rufus, a man of exceeding frequent mention in the Hebrew writers ; but his former name a littie shortened, yet a little added, which makes it long enough, for they constantly call him DiniD yiynn DIDII "Turnus Rufus, the wicked one." There are endless disputes betwixt him and R. Akibah mentioned, about the Jews' law and religion; and when he died, R. Aki bah married his widow, now become a proselytess. Amongst those that perished in the fate of the city, the names most famous were Jochanan, Simeon, and Eleazar, the three ringleaders of sedition, naraes faraous for faction. But the person of the best rank that perished, was Rabban Simeon, the president of the Sanhedrim, a man educated, with Paul, at the foot of Gamaliel, his father. The Sanhe drim had sitten at Jabneh a long while ; but the feast of the Passover had now brought them up to Jerusalem, and there he is cauo-ht. The Babylonian Talmud, in the place lately cited, relates, tbat he was once in danger, but one of the Roman commanders was a means of his delivery : but at last he was caught and slain; and, in the Jews' martyrology, he is set the first of JllD^D 'Jnn " The ten slain by the king dora :" raeaning, ten eminent ones, that were put to death by the Romans. All the ten are reckoned by Midras TillimJ : " He forgetteth not (saith he) the cry of the poor : that is, he forgetteth not the blood of Israel, to require it of the na tions : nor the blood of those righteous ones that were slain; viz. Rabban Simeon, the son of Gamaliel,— Rabbi Ismael, the son of Elisha,— R- Ishbab tbe scribe,— R. Hospith the intei-preter, R. Jose,— R. Judah Ben Baba,— R. Judah Han- nachtom, R. Simeon Ben Azzai,— R. Hananiah Ben Tera- j Upon Psal. ix, fol. 10. col. 3. 384 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. YEAR OF CHRIST 70. dion, — and R. Akibah." But the author of Tsemach David, reckoning up these, next after Rabban Simeon, nameth Ana nias the sagan, or the second priest, — and saith, that he was slain at the destruction ofthe city, when Rabban Siraeon was slain. Of this Ananias sagan there is raention in the Talmud text several times : we will take but one instance'' ; " There were thirteen worshippings or bowings in the temple ; but the house of Rabban Gamaliel, and the house of Ananias sagan, made fourteen." The ' sagan' was, as it were, vice-high- priest, the next to him in dignity and office, and is some times called ' the high-priest'.' And, it may be, this was the man, and bare tbat title", the enemy of Paul ; and whose cha racter and doom he reads, that he was a whited wall, and God would smite him : accomplished, when he perished in the fall of the city. We may not omit the calculation of the time, that the Jews make farther, ofthe temple's burning : " When tbe first temple was destroyed (say they), it was the evening on the ninth of Ab ; it was the going out of the year of release, and it was the going out of the sabbath : and so was it with the second temple"." Observe, by their confession, the teraple was burnt down upon the Lord's day, or on the Chris tian sabbath. Fire put to it upon their sabbath, and it burnt all ours : and so the city fell upon their sabbath, as was mentioned out of Dion even now. SECTION II. The Face and State of the Country after the City's Ruin. We will first begin at Jerusalem itself. It was laid so desolate, wc jurjSe ttwitote o'iKr\^r\vai ttiotiv av eti ¦trapaaxfiv To'ig irpoEX^ovai, " That travellers by could see no sign, that it had been ever inhabited :" they are the words of Josephus". The friars there, and the maps here with us, that point out places so punctually, as to tell you. Here was Pdate's palace, — here the high-priest's, — here the dolorous way, &c. raust receive more courtesy frora your belief, than they can give proof to their assertion. It appears, by the constant and copious testimony of the '' Shekalim, cap. 6. hal. 1. i Lnke, iii. 2. '" Acts, xxiii. 2. 4. » Tal. Bab. ubi supr. o De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 1. 'THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 30.'> Jews, that the city and temple were not only laid flat by fire, ruin, and demolishment, but that Turnus Rufus brought a plough over them, to make good that prophecy, — " Zion shall be ploughed as a field." — The ploughman would find but rugged work : they allot it, as observed before, to have been on the same day of the year ; and so a twelvemonth, at the least, must intercede. What the beauty ofthe place had been, needs no rhetoric to set it forth, nor what the populousness : the teraple, if there had been no other goodly structures, was enough to speak the one, — and the multitude of their synagogues, the other : their own records sura them up to four hundred and threescore. " R. Phinehas, in the name of R. Hoshaiah, saith, there were four hundred and sixty synagogues in Jeru salem ; and every one bad a bouse for the book of the law, for the public reading of that, and a house for the public teaching and explaining the traditions :" Jerus. Chetub. fol. 35. col. 3:— which, in Megillah, fol. 73. col. 4, and in R. Solomon, upon the first of Isaiah, are reckoned up to four hundred and fourscore. But now, not one relic left, of tem ple, synagogue, midrash, house, or any thing else but rub bish and desolation. Her people used this custom while she stood, that, " on all other days of the year, the unclean walked in theraiddle ofthe street, and the clean by the house- sides; and the unclean said unto them. Keep off: but on the days of the festivals, the clean walked in the raiddle of the street, and the unclean by the house-sides, and then the clean bid. Keep offP." But now, where is that corapany, that nice ness, hay, where are the streets ? Titus, himself, sometime after the desolation, coming that way, could not but bemoan the fall of so brave a city, and cursed the rebels, that had occasioned so fatal a destruction''. How the country near about was wasted with so long and terrible asiege, and, indeed, the whole country, with so dread ful a war, it is easier conceived than expressed. Josephus tells particulariy much of it, and this thing for one ;— that all the timber, twelve miles about the city, was cut down, and brought in to make forts and engines fo?- the siege^ We may take a view of the whole country, as to the sur face and situation of it, in this prospective of their own : P Jerus. Shekalim, fol. 51. col. 1. ' Joseph, de Bell. lih. 7. cap. 15, Lib, 6. cap. 40. VOL. III. 2 C 386 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. " The land (say they), that Israel possessed that came out of Babylon, was these three countries, — Judea, Galilee, and beyond Jordan ; and these were severally tripartite again : there was Galilee the upper, and Galilee the nether, and the vale. From Caphar Hananiah upward, all that bears not sycamores, is Galilee the upper ; and from Caphar Hananiah downward, all that doth bear sycamores, is Galilee the lower ; and the border of Tiberias is the vale. And in Judea, there is the mountainous, and the plain, and the vale. And the plain of Lydda, is as the plain of the south, — and the moun tainous thereof, as the mountain-royal : Frora Bethoron to the sea is one region\" The Jerusalem Gemarists do add thus ; " What is the vale in Galilee ? The vale of Gennesaret and the adjoining. What is the mountainous in Judea? This is the mountain-royal ; and the plain thereof, is the plain of the south, and the vale is from En-gedi to Jericho. And what is the mountainous beyond Jordan ? R. Simeon Ben Eleazar saith. The hills of ilacvar and Gedor; and the plain thereof, Heshbon and all her cities, Dibon, Bamoth Baal, and Beth Baal ]Meon. And the vale is Beth Haran, and Beth Nimrah'." It were endless to trace the footsteps of the war, par ticularly in all these places ; let Josephus be consulted for that. We may say in short, that hardly any considerable place escaped, but such as were peaceable, or such as were inaccessible. Of the latter sort, " the mountainous of Ju dah" was the chiefest place"; -j'jDn nn " The mountain- royal," as the Hebrew WTiters do commonly call it [a place incredibly populous, as they testify, Jerus. Taanith, fol. 69. col. 1]. Hither Christ" gives his disciples warning before hand to flee, when these evils should come : which warn ing we cannot judge but they took; and so planted here, as in a place of safety, by his warrant. Though, therefore, the country were extremely wasted, with so long and so furious a war, — yet, was it not utterly waste, nor the nation destroyed from being a people, though it were destroyed from being what it had been. Those places and persons that had quietly submitted to the Roman power, if they had escaped the fury of their own seditious ones, were permitted to live in quiet, yea, to enjoy their own reli- s Sheviith, cap, 9. hal. 2. ' Sheviith, fol. 38. col. 4. " Josh. xiv. li. Lake, i. 39. ' Matt. xxiv. 16. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 387 gion and laws; they, in the mean while, demeaning them selves as peaceable subjects, to that power that had brought them under. And for one acknowledgment of that subjec tion, they were enjoined to pay that didrachma, or half- shekel, that they usually paid to the temple for their lives, to Jupiter Capitolinus"". Their Sanhedrim continued in the same lustre and state, as it had done for many years before the city fell : and their synagogues in the same posture, and their religion in the same condition, save only those parts ofit, which were con fined to Jerusalem, which was now in the dust. And, gene rally, the places and people, that had escaped the war, if they would live quiet, did enjoy their quietness, — as well as men could do in a land in such a condition, as into which it was now brought. SECTION III. The Sanhedrim sitting at Jabneh : Rabban Jochanan, Ben Zaccai, President. Although Rabban Simeon, the president of the council, was caught in Jerusalem, as in a trap, and so lost his life, — yet Rabban Jochanan, Ben Zaccai, his vice-president, and who was also then in the city with hira, made a shift to es cape. He spake and acted for Caesar, as much and as long as he durst ; and when he saw he could no longer be in safety in the city, he caused his scholars, R. Joshua and R. Eleazar, to carry him forth upon a bier, as a dead corpse ; for a dead corpse might not rest in Jerusalem all night ; and so he escaped, and was brought to Caesar. Thus R. Nathan tells the story^. This Rabban Jochanan, forty years ago, when the temple-doors flew open of their own accord, foresaw its ruin in that presage ; and, accordingly, applied that saying ofthe prophet Zechariah, " Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars." Therefore, when he saw the enemy now so straitly besieging the city, and such fore runners of ruin apparent, it is no wonder, if he used all persuasion to the people to yield and to save their city, as the same author also tells us he did, and if he went and gave himself up to him, that, he knew, should be conqueror. Nor needed he any prophetic spirit to foresee these things ; w Siphil. apud Dionem, pag. 748. » Aboth, cap. 4. 2 c 2 388 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. but the very sickly condition and distemper of tbe nation might plainly enough tell him, that her death could not be far off. He, finding favour with Caesar, petitioned of hira, that the Sanbedrira might repair to its old place Jabneh, and there settle; and he obtained it. Jabneh was near unto Joppa, upon the sea-coast : there is raention of it, 2 Chron. xxvi. 6. Here had the Sanhedrim sitten, as we have raentioned, many years before the temple fell, a good part of Gamaliel's time, and all Rabban Simeon's, his son. He sat president here five years : and these are the men of note that sat with him ; — Rabban Gamaliel, son to Rabban Simeon, that was slain at the fall of the city : R. Zadok, one who had spent his body with extreme fasting, since the temple-doors had opened of their own accord, taking that for an omen of its ruin approaching : R. Eliezer, his son : R. Judah and R. Joshua, the sons of Betirah : R. Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus, the author of Pirke Eliezer : R. Joshuah : R. Eliezer Ben Erech : R. Ismael : R. Jose: R. Simeon Ben Nathaniel : R. Akibah : and divers others, who outlived Rabban Jochanan, the most of them a long time. They made many decretals in his time, especially about those things, that had had immediate reference to the temple^. SECTION IV. TheSanhedrim still at Jabneh ; Rabban Gamaliel President. When Rabban Jochanan died, Rabban Gamaliel suc ceeded him in the presidency, seven years. He is commonly called, by the Hebrew writers, m^n '?n'?DJ pi " Rabban Gamaliel of Jabueh." But for the right stating of his pre sidency there, two things are to be observed. The first is raentioned in the Babylonian Talraud^ where all the flittings of the Sanbedrira are reckoned in the Geraara, thus : " From the room Gazith it flitted to the Taberna" [in the mountain of the temple] ; " from the Taberna into Jerusalem, — from Jerusalem to Jabneh, — frora Jabneh to Osha, or Usha, — from Osha to Phepbaraam, — from Sbepharaam to Beth-shaaraim, — from Beth-shaaraim to Tsipporis, — and from Tsipporis to Tiberias." Now the marginal gloss teacheth us how to understand these removes : — " When the president was in y As see Rosh hashanah, cap, 4. Shekalim, cap, 1, &c. ' In Rosh hashanah, fol. 31. col 1, 2, THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 389 any of these places (saith it), the Sanhedrim was with hira ; and when be or his son went to another place, it went after him. It was at Jabneh in the days of Rabban Jo chanan ; at Usha in the days of Rabban Gamaliel ; but they returned from Usha to Jabneh again : but in the days of Rabban Simeon, his son, it went back again [to Usha]." So that the time that Rabban Gamaliel sat at Jabneh instantly upon Rabban Jochanan's death, was not long, but he went to Usha; and his time at Usha was not long neither, but to Jabneh again. And, as we are to observe thus about his time and place, so there is a second thing to be taken no tice of about hira, — and that is, the raixture of his presi dency. The Talmudists do speak oft nnry p -\^}}>bn 'i ^:L>W)r^ 13 " Of placing R. Eliezer, the son of Azariah, in the presi dency." Tsemach David speaks it out thus ; " R. Eliezer Ben Azariah was a priest, and was exceeding rich : he was made president in the roora of Rabban Garaaliel ; but after ward they were joined in the presidency together :" which is still obscure enough ; but the Jerusalera Gemarists give the full story' in these words : " A certain scholar came and asked R. Joshua, What is evening prayer ? He answered, A thing arbitrary. The same scholar came and asked Rabban Ga mahel, What is evening prayer ? And he said, A bounden duty. He saith to bim. But R. Joshua saith. It is a thing arbitrary. He saith to him. To-morrow, when I come into the congregation, stand forth and ask this question. So the scholar did ask Rabban Gamaliel, What is evening prayer ? He answered, A bounden duty. How then, saith the scholar, doth R. Joshua say. It is a thing arbitrary ? Rabban Gamaliel saith to R. Joshua, Art thou he that saith it is a thing arbi trary ? He answered. No. He says to him. Stand upon thy feet, tbat they may bear witness against thee. R. Joshua stood upon his feet, whilst Rabban sat and was expound ing, so that all the congregation repined at him [for making him to stand so]. And they said to R. Hospith the in terpreter. Dismiss the people; and they said to R. Zinnum the minister. Say, Begin; and they said all Begin, and stood upon their feet too. And they said to him [Rabban Ga maliel], Against whom hath not thy mischief passed con- • In Taanith, fol. 67. col. 4. 390 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. tinually ? They went presently, and made R. Eliezer Ben Azariah president, who was but sixteen years old, but very grave. R. Akibah sat by, and took it ill, and said, — It is not, because he is better studied in the law than I, that he is thus preferred ; but because he is nobler born than I. Happy is the man, who hath ancestors to privilege him : happy is the man that hath a nail to hang upon. And what was the nail that R. Eliezer Ben Azariah had ? He was the tenth from Ezra. How many benches of scholars were there sit ting there then ? R. Jacob Bar Susi saith. Fourscore, be sides the people that stood behind them. R. Josi Ben R. Bon saith. Three hundred. Rabban Gamaliel went pre sently to every one at his own home, and sought to pacify him," Sec. So that, by this, it appears, how, and why, Ga maliel was outed of his presidency ; namely, for his pride and passion, — of which we might show you other examples also ; but he was restored again to be partner in the dignity with R. Eliezer, whom they promoted now. There is exceeding much mention of this Gamaliel in the Talmuds, and he is a very busy man there : the reader there meets with him, as oft as with any one man who soever. He had a servant named Tobi, very oft spoken of, whose eye he struck out, and let him go free for it : when he died, he much bemoaned and commended him''. Whilst he sat at Jabneh, in his curiosity for the exquisite taking of the new moons, he had scored upon his wall several forms and appearances of it ; and those that came to bear witness, that they had seen the new moon, he brought thither, and asked, "How saw you it? In this forra, or this, or the other"," &c. SECTION V. The Sanhedrim still at Jabneh; R. Akibah President. The twelve years of Rabban Jochanan and Rabban Gamaliel, reached from the second year of Vespasian, when the Sanhedrim was first settled at Jabneh, to the second year of Domitian : there begins R. Akibah's presidency, and sat forty years, — namely, to thetime of the sacking ofthe town Bitter, or ' Beth-tar,' which the Jews generally fix fifty-two years after the fall of the temple, or, at most, fifty- k Beracoth, cap. 2. hal. 6. « Rosh hashanah, cap. 1. hal. 8. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 391 five : so that he sat all the time of Domitian and Trajan, to the fifth, or at most the eighth, year of Hadrian. His tirae was a troublesome time with the Jews. In Do mitian's days, " Judaicus fiscus praeter cateros acerbissime actus. Above all others, the Jews were plagued with taxes and confiscations :" Sueton. in Domit. cap. 12, where he adds, " I remember when I was a boy, I was present, when a man of ninety years old was searched, before a great company, whether he were circumcised or no." In Trajan's time was that horrid insurrection ofthe Jews, mentioned by Dion', about Cyrene ; where they murdered Romans and Greeks, to the number of two hundred and twenty thousand ; eat their flesh, devoured their entrails, and daubed themselves with their blood. And the like insurrec tion they raade in Egypt and Cyprus, and murdered to the number of two hundred and forty thousand. Tsemach David makes Ben Coziba a chief leader in this business : who, if he were, received his just reward in the time of Hadrian. He took on him to be Messias ; made himself a king ; stamped coin of his own : Nl'tlO p b'df yilDQ^ brought the Romans against him, who destroyed him and the city Bitter, and multitudes of thousands of Jews with hira. The Jews com monly write it -in'3, but in the Jerusalem Talmuds it is writ ten nnno " Beth-tar :" which properly signifies ' the house of spies.' And there a story is told, that makes it no bet ter, — ofthe great ones that had escaped at the ruin of Jeru salem, and dwelt here, and entrapped any man that they saw go towards Jerusalem. Eusebius'' calls it ' Betheka,' and saith it was not far from Jerusalem : which Baronius boldly translates ' Beth-lehem.' The Jews do character the doleful slaughter at this place, as the saddest stroke that ever they received, but tbe fall of Jerusalem. Rabbi Akibah himself perished in it, dotingly having becorae armour-bearer to Ben Coziba, as holding him to be the Messias. You may observe, what kind of a Messias they expect. Dion tells tbat, in this war, Severus, whom Hadrian had sent to quell them, took fifty of their strongest garrisons, and destroyed nine hundred fourscore and five fair towns. And, " he also destroyed all the ohve-trees in Judea*." How J ., ^o f Jerns. Maazar Sheni, fol. 52. col. 4. , Taanith, fol. 68. col. 4. ^ , , „„ 1 Hist. lib. 4. cap. 6. i Jerusal. Peah, fol. 20. col. 1. 392 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. they themselves record the slaughter at Beth-tar, may be seen in the Jerusalem TalmudJ, and the Babylonian''. Whence their first tumultuating took its rise, is of some obscurity ; only it may be resolved into God's just judgment upon tbem, to stir to their own ruin. Yet Spartianus, speak ing of their stirring in the time of Hadrian, saith, it was be cause they were forbidden circumcision : " Moverunt ea tem- pestate et Judaei bellum, quod vetabantur mutilare geni talia'.'' Trajan put a restraint upon Christianity, and perse cuted if". It may be, he did the like upon Judaism, and that raight move them to an insurrection. The horrid mas sacres that they committed in Cyrene, Egypt, and Cyprus, might be looked upon as a just judgment for his persecution of Christianity, — if raultitudes of Christians did not also pe rish in those slaughters, — if Ben Coziba were ringleader in them: for Justin Martyr" saith, that " Barchochebas brought Christians only to torture, unless they would deny Christ and blaspheme him." And Eusebius", "Chochebas, the ring leader of tbe Jews, put to death, with all exquisite torture, those Christians, that would not assist hira against the Ro mans." That is worth observing, which is spoken by the Jerusalem Talmud? : " There were many, that had retracted their foreskin in the days of Ben Coziba, were circumcised again :" which R. Nissim speaks out more at large ; " There were many circumcised ones, in the days of Ben Coziba, who had retracted their foreskin perforce, in the town of Bitter ; but the hand of Ben Coziba prevailed, and reigned over them two years and a half, and they were circumcised again in his days." Their " retracting their foreskin perforce," [in Al phes. in Jebami.] speaks much like to that, which was men tioned before out of Spartianus. In these times, also [of Trajan, I suppose], there was an edict against the Jews' ordination, upon pain of death to him that did ordain, and him that was ordained, and ruin of the place where any ordination should be"'. And from the time of these tumults forward, that began to take place, which is spoken in the Jerusalem Talmud' ; " That in the days of R. Simeon Ben Jochai [who was now alive], the judgingeven in pecuniary matters was taken away." i In Tnanilh, the place cited above, li In Gittin, fol. 57. 2. ' In vit. Hadrian. " Plin. Epist. lib. 10. ep. 97. " Apol. 2. o In Chron. P Jebam. fol. 9. col. 1. t Fol. 428. '¦ Talm. Bab. Avodah Zarah, fol. 8. 2. » Sanhedr. fol. 24. col. 2. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 393 In fol. 18. col. 1, this is said to have been " in the days of Simeon Ben Shetah :" but that is a mistake, which is cor rected in the place cited. Upon these wars and tumults, Hadrian forbids the Jews to go to Jerusalem, or so rauch as to look upon it from any hill where it might be seen'. Tryphon, the Jew, that hath the long dispute with Justin Martyr, fled from these wars" :— he might very well be R. Tarphon, a great associate with R. Akibah, and one much mentioned in the Talmuds. SECTION VI. The Sanhedrim at Usha and Shepharaam CDj/"iDli'1 HWM<. Rabban Simeon President. Thus did the just vengeance of God follow the nation : but far were they from being rooted out, and as far from laying to heart any plague, that light upon thera. Besides R. Akibah, we can hardly name you another of note, that perished in all those deadly combustions, though some of them were in the thickest of tbe danger ; but reserved, as it seemeth, as a farther plague for the seduction of their nation. Some of their expressions about the sad slaughter at Beth- tar, or Bitter, are to this purpose : The horses waded in blood up to the nostrils : there were slain four hundred thousand : and Hadrian walled a vineyard, of sixteen miles about, with dead bodies, a man's height. And there were found the brains of three hundred children upon one stone, and three chests full of tattered phylacteries, containing three bushels every chest. " Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel saith. There were five hundred schools, and to the least there belonged five hundred scholars ; and they said. If the enemy should come against us, we could prick out their eyes with our pens : but when it carae to it, they folded thera all up in their books and burnt them; and there was not one of thera left but onlv I." Not that he reckons himself in the number of the children, for he was now well in years ; but that none of all that great university was left but himself: and yet, besides the eminent men that we have naraed, there were R. Meir, a great speaker in the Talmud, but most coraraonly against the common vote : R. Siraeon Ben Jochai, and Eleazar his son, ' Enseb. Hist. lib. 4. cap. 6. " Justin. Dial, enm Tryph. 394 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. the first authors ofthe book Zohar : R. Nathan, the author of Aboth : R. Josi Galileus, and his son Eleazar : R. Jochanan Ben Nuri : Ben Nanas : R. Joshua Ben Korcha: R. Ehezer Ben Chasraa : and why should we reckon more, when Be reshith Rabba makes this ' summa totalis' on Gen. xxv, — That . ' R. Akibah had twenty-four thousand disciples ?' Of some decretals, made at Usha, you may read Jerus. in Rosh hashan. fol, 58. col. 3 ; Chetub. fol. 28. col. 3. In these times of Hadrian, which we are yet upon, Aquila the proselyte was in being, and in repute. In Jerus. Chagig. fol. 77. col. 1, he is introduced discoursing with Hadrian, about the universe being supported by a spirit. In Megil. fol. 71. col. 3, it is said, that " Aquila, the proselyte, inter preted the law before R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, and they highly commended him for it, and said, Thou art fairer than the children of men." By which it may be conjectured, what a translation this was, when these men so extolled it. The Jerusalem Gemarists do cite his version, Megil. fol. 73. col. 2, — Succah. fol. 53. col. 4, — Joma, fol. 41. col. 1, — and several other places. Rabban Simeon, now president, sat about thirty years, — namely, from about the sixth or eighth of Hadrian, to the fifteenth or sixteenth, or thereabout, of Antoninus Pius : the honour and power of that bench growing low, and in the wane, every day more than other. This Rabban Simeon you have a great spokesman in the Talmud : bis grandfather, of the sarae name, that died with Jerusalem, is seldom introduced speaking there : once you have him swearing by the temple". SECTION VII. The Sanhedrim at Beth-shaaraim, Tsipporis, and Tiberias ; R. Judah President. Upon thedeath of Rabban Simeon, — his son. Rabbi Judah, succeeded him : a man of note equal with, if not above, any named before him : he bare not the title of Rabban, as his ancestors had done for five generations before him, yet had he those appellations, that dignified him equal with it : he was called sometimes eminently ' Rabbi,' and no raore : sometimes, ' R. Judah the holy :' sometimes, ' our holy Rabbi :' sometimes, ' R. Judah the prince :' and oft, in the Jerusalem » Cherithuth, cap. 1, hal. 7. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 395 Talmud, ' R. Judan'''.' There are innumerable stories of hira : we shall only pick up those, that are most pertinent to our present subject. Juchasin" tells us, that he was with the seventy of the Sanhedrim in Beth-shaaraim, Tsipporis, and Tiberias ; and Tiberias was the tenth and last flitting that the Sanhedrim had. How long in Beth-shaaraim is uncertain, and little is mentioned of that place : but ' Tsipporis' niSS is famous : it w-as the greatest city of Galilee''; a place planted in a fruitful situation; for sixteen miles about it, saith the Jerusalem Talmud, was a land flowing with milk and honey^. Rabbi Judah sat here seventeen years ; and he applied that to himself, " Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, and Judah lived in Tsipporis seventeen years." There are two memorable stories of this place : That a butcher cozened the Jews here with carcasses and beasts torn, and made them eat them ; nay, he made them eat dogs' flesh^. And divers of Tsipporis were glad to wear patches on their faces to disfigure them, that they might not be known when inquisition was made after them''. The numerous passages about the doctors, and disputes, and scholastic actions, in this place, would be too tedious to mention, though with the briefest touch we could. From Tsipporis tbe Sanhedrim reraoved to Tiberias, upon the brink of the lake of Gennesaret. This was about eight or nine miles from Tsipporis". The Jews hold it to be the same witb Rakkath, in Josh. xix. 35'*: and that Hammath, there mentioned also, was a place that joined to it' : so called, from the hot-baths thered How long Rabbi sat here, is uncertain. Their records do make bim exceedingly in favour with Antoninus, the eraperor, but whether Pius or Philosophus, they name not : it is generally held to be Pius : whether- soever it was, there are abundance of discourses betwixt R. Judah and him dispersed in their writings : and they stick not to. tell you, that he became a proselyte ; and " when the proselytes of righteousness shall come, in the world to come, Antoninus shall come in the head of thems." Anto- " Vid. Jems. Sanhedr. fol, 30, col. 1, where it speaks of all his titles. X p„I. 2. J Joseph, de Bell. lib. 3. cap. 3. I Biccnrim, fol. 64. col. 2. " Jerns. Truraoth. fol. 45. col. 3. * Id. Jehamoth, fol. 15. col. 3 ; and Sotah, fol. 23. col. 3. c Id. Sanhedr. fol. 21. col. 1. ^ Megil. fol. 70. ooh 1. • Erubhin, fol. 23. col. 4. ' Bab. Megil. fol. 6. 1. » Jerus. Megil. fol. 74. col. 1. 396 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. ninus Philosophus or Marcus Aurelius was the likelier to converse with scholars : R. Judah outlived them both, and Commodus also. Two famous things, as that nation reputed it, did this man in his time. First, He gathered up, and compiled into one volume, all the traditional law that had run from hand to hand to his time [the Misna, tbat we have now in our hands], which is the Jews' great pandect, according to which they live : he saw their state wane daily more and more ; and though they had now many learned schools, yet their Cabala, or great stock of traditions, he thought raight fail and be lost, now the Sanbedrira failed ; therefore he thought to raake '"sure work, and committed it to writing, that it might be preserved to the nation, — and so he helped to rule them. And a second thing that he did, was, that " he took care that there should be N>3>':nai xnsD scribes and teachers of the traditions, in all the cities in the land of Israel :" Jerusalem Chagigah, fol. 76. col. 3. In the same tract'', it is reported of him, that, at six portions ofthe Scrip ture, when he came to read them, he wept. He compiled the Misna about the year of Christ 190, in the latter end of the reign of Comraodus : or, as sorae corapute, in the year of Christ 220, a hundred and fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem. SECTION VIII. The Schools and learned after the Death of Rabbi Judah. Besides the places where the Sanhedrim had sitten, which yet continued schools when it was removed, there were divers other places that were great schools, and copi ously furnished with learned men, both in Galilee and Judea: and hence that distinction, that the reader of the Jerusalem Talmud will meet with, of am p and VpJ p " a southern man and a Galilean';" that is, a scholar of the one, or ofthe other. Hence, there is mention of R. Jacob N'Dm " the southern manJ," and "the elders ofthe south'" ;" "R. Joshuah ofthe south'." Of all the places in Judea, next Jabneh and Bitter, Lydda was most eminent, where R. Akibah sat as president of a school, before he was of the Sanhedrim at Jabneh"" ; and this continued a school all along to these h Fol. 77. * Chagig. fol. 79. col. 3. J Erub. fol. 24. col. 2. ^ Ibid. col. 3. ' Challah, fol. bl . col. 2. m Rosh hashanah, cap. hal. 7. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 397 times of Rabbi Judah. In Galilee, there was Magdala, Hammath, and Caesarea, if you will reckon that in Galilee, besides others. R. Judah left two sons behind him, Rabban Gamaliel and Rabbi Simeon : Rabban Gamaliel was promoted in his father's lifetime : but after R. Judah was dead, Rab. Cha ninah sat chief, and that by R. Judah's appointraent ; and with hira, were R. Chaiia, R. Hoshaiah Rabba, R. Joshua Ben Levi, Kaphra, Bar Kaphra, Rabb, and Sarauel, which two last went away to the university in Babylonia. This generation is the first of the Gemarists, explaining the Misna, and producing the opinions of the ancients upon it. After R. Chaninah, who sat ten years, — R. Jochanan was president eighty years. He compiled the Jerusalem Talmud, as is generally held, in the year of Christ 230. or thereabout, — which was about the middle of the reign of Alexander Mammaeae ; yet there is that in the Tal mud itself, that would make you believe, that you meet with the name of the emperor Dioclesian there. 13 J«n^ «3bD D13'I3'^pn p'^JD " When king Docletinus" [to speak it according to the letters] " carae hither, R. Chaiia Bar Abba was seen getting upon a grave to see hira"." D"3D *32^ p'3?X DWX'tD'bp'l " Dicletianus afflicted the men of Paneas"," &c. In KilaimP and Cbetubothi, they say the land of Israel was encorapassed with seven seas, and the last of them they name, is N'DDXI ND' "the sea of Apamia." [The Samaritan version, on Num. xxxiv. 10, 11, renders Sepham, Apamia.] " Now this (they say) is the sea or lake Mahaz:" isttfj/l niim mipn DlJ^'D'^pll " Docletianus gathered the rivers, and made it."— And it might very well be, that Rabbi Jochanan, that compiled the Talmud, might live beyond the times of Diocletian : but in Trumoth^ this Dicletianus, they speak of, is plainly asserted to be in the days of Rabbi Judah Haccadosh, in this story : " The sons of Rabbi Judah Princeps, beat Diclot the swine-herd, who afterward was make a king. He comes to Paneas, and sends letters to the Rabbins, See ye be with me at the going forth ofthe sabbath, &c. When they come to him, he says to » u -„.i. fnl fi col 1. " Sheviith, fol. 38. col. 4. P Fol. ;^:ST- ' ^ Fol. 35. col. 2. 398 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. them. You despise the kingdom : They answer him, Diclot, the swine-herd, we despise ; but Diocletianus, the king, we despise not :" which is far from meaning Diocletian the emperor. If this were a place to dispute about the exact time of writing this Talmud, we might also take into exa mination the meaning of J13"11U 13*1 spoken of in Cha gigah', whether it mean Denarius Gordiani, or no ; but we shall not insist upon that here. After the compiling of this Talmud, there is little farther mention of the schools or scholars of Judea, or Galilee, the university in Babylonia from henceforward bearing all the renown : yet were they not utterly extinct ; and out of them, at last, ariseth the famous R. Hillel, grandchild of R. Judah, who stated the Jews' almanack into that posture, in which it stands at this day : and Jerome had for his help, in the He brew tongue, a learned man of Tiberias. SECTION IX. The Posture and Temper of the People. Having taken this brief account of their scholastic and magistratic history, as also of some general occurrences that befel the nation in these times, — let us a little observe the carriage and temper of the men, for the better discerning of the Lord's dispensing in reference to them, as a people of his curse, rejection, and abhorring. They themselves little thought it, but were yet as proud and self-confident of their being the only people of God as ever ; and, unless it were in their plague by Ben Coziba, — a stander-by would hardly think they lay under those curses, that had been so oft and so terribly denounced against thera : and it may yet appear the more strange, when we do consider the settled way of their religion, in which they walked with as much confidence and security as ever. The land full of synagogues,— these frequented every sabbath, and the second and fifth days of the week,— their paying tithes,— observing purifyings, clean and unclean meats and drinks, — and, in a word, all their rites, but what inseparably belonged to the teraple, in as settied a course as they had done before the temple fell. But in this very thing was their misery, and the vengeance upon them; and that which they accounted was their happiness, * Fol. 79. col. 4. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 399 and with which they sweetened their captivity and deso lation of their city, — was that very thing, that was their unhappiness and undoing. A double badge of reprobation they visibly carried, though themselves could not see it, — namely, their doting upon their wretched traditions, and their rancour and enmity against the gospel ; besides what other brands of a curse may be read upon them. He that reads their Talmuds, may observe this mark of perdition upon them in every page, — that the generations, after the destruction of Jerusalem, were more mad, if possi ble, after their foolish and wicked rites and traditions, that made faith and the word of God of no effect, than the gene rations before had been. A man, that reads there, may stand amazed, to see a people of a lost and languishing condition, yet building up, of those toys and trifles, an airy structure, as if they were building an everlasting kingdora. It speaks a palpable blindness upon thera, that they took so httle advertisement by the fall of their city, of the fall of their carnal and beggarly rites, that they set them up more zealously than ever before. Let any man observe, who they are that make the greatest noise in the Talmuds, and they will see this plain. This minds me of a fancy of the great women araong thera, a ridiculous way that they used for the remembrance and mourning for Jerusalem, — namely, by wearing a golden crown upon their heads, wrought in the fashion of a city, which they called nnr I'J? 'the golden city.' It is spoken of in Jerusalem', where they are disputing, whe ther the women might go forth with this ornament upon their heads on the sabbath ; and there they tell, that " R. Akibah made a golden city for his wife ; and when Rabban Gamaliel's saw it, she was envious at it." A pretty way of mourning by pride, and to carry Jerusalem in gold on their heads, when Jerusalem hes in ashes under their feet. Much like did they by their ceremonies and traditions ; when, at the ruin of the city, they should, by right, have been all buried in ashes with it, they enhanced them, and made them more high and gallant than ever before. It is needless to instance their derision and. detestation of Christ and Christianity, their blasphemy against his blessed name, their hatred and mischievousness against the profes- t Shabb. fol. 7. ool. 4. 400 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. sors ofit: their writings proclaim their impiety; and when many of the ancient fathers have been put to write against the Jews, it argues, they were busy and stirring as far as they might. They had continual opposings among them selves; yet they all agreed, like Simeon and Levi, "brethren in evil," to oppose, vilify, and blaspheme, the gospel. Hardly one of the grandees, that we have named, but he had ID n'njl'7D " his opposite," one or the other that stood out in contestation of opinion with him. Nay, they went some times to it by the ears ; as R. Eliezer and R. Josi are so struggling together, that they rent the book of the law be twixt them"; and, as we observed before, the Shammeans and Hillelians fought it to blood and death. Rabban Ga maliel, at Jabneh, deposed R. Akibah from his rectorship, at Lydda". And divers such bickerings, wbich still ended in a unanimous consent to oppose Christianity as much as possible. We spake, before, of the commonness of magic amongst them, one singular means whereby they kept their own in delusion, and whereby they affronted ours. The general expectation of the nation of Messias coming when he did, had this double and contrary effect : that it forwarded those that belonged to God, to believe and receive tbe gospel; and those that did not, it gave encouragement to some to take upon thera they were Christ, or some great prophet; and to others, it gave some persuasion to be deluded by them. These deceivers dealt, most of them, with magic ; and that cheat ended not when Jerusalem ended, though one would have thought, that had been a fair term of not farther ex pecting Messias ; but since the people were willing still to be deceived by sucb expectation, there rose up deluders still, that were willing to deceive tbem. Tbe Jerusalem Talmud will furnish us with variety of examples of this kind ; and I cite it the oftener, because it was made araong these raen we are speaking of, the Jews in Judea. To begin with dreamers, and interpreters of dreams, which was a degree of delusion with thera. In Maazar Sheni'', there is raention of Rabbi Josi Ben Chalpatha, of this trade and R. Ismael Ben Rabbi Josi, and R. Lazar, and R. Akibah and there are many dreams recorded, that they interpreted " Jerns. Shekalim, fol. 47. col. 1. » Rosh hashan. fol. 57, col. 1. " Fol. 45. eol. 2,3. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 40] and it seemeth, by a passage in the place, that they taught their scholars this trick, as a piece of their learning. And finding of R. Akibah in this catalogue, we cannot but think, how well Ben Coziba and he were raet ; for, if tbe one were a cheater in one kind, the other was a deceiver in another. If that of the apostie Jude, in his Epistie", " these filthy drearaers," should be construed in this literal sense, — it would find enough in those tiraes to raake it good. In Shabbath'', it speaks of an apparition to one of their religious men, that was studying the law. Ibid^ There is mention of several charmings ; as, reading some verses over a wound ; laying the book of the law, or phylacteries, upon a sick person ; charming against serpents and an evil eye, &c. And now we are speaking of an evil eye, or witchery, we may take in that, " Four-and-twenty of the school of Rabbi Judah, came to Lydda, to intercalate the year ; and an evil eye came in araong thera, and they all died'." In Sotah" ; A story related of R. Meir, and an enchantress, and he proving hard enough for her. In Sanbedrira", there are three stories of magical feats done by "3'D ' heretics,' — one at Tiberias, and two at Tsipporis ; but R. Joshua outvying one of them; and a fourth at Rome, and he making his part good there too. What may be meant by 'heretics,' must be divided betwixt Samaritans, and some wretches, that had forsaken their Judaism, and pro fessed Christianity, but were such as the apostle calls ' false apostles.' And, to conclude all, the many stories they have, of ' Bath kol,' or * a voice from heaven' [most coramonly coming for the magnifying of sorae of their doctors'*], are either forge ries ; or, if there were any such seeming voices, they were forged upon the anvil of magic. How can a nation but carry the visible mark of perdition, when vain traditions are their standing religion, and magic and enchantments a common practice ? To this kind of legerdemain, we may add another, not altogether indeed of so deep a die, yet that wliich came from the same father; and that was, the loud legends they invented of their great rabbins, thereby to awe the people to tiie X V... H V F„l 3 col 2. ^ Fol. 8. col. 2. 3, and fol. 14. col. 3. > Sanhe'-r.fo..l8.;I'3. " ^''}-\^'>\% d As see Sotah, fol. 24. col. 2. yOL. Ill, 2 D 402 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. reverence of their persons, memories, and doctrines : and of others, devoutly zealous in their doting religion, of whom they tell strange wonders for the magnifying of it. I shall name none, for shame : these are they, that do most disgrace their writings, and make them most ridiculous. A last thing to be named, that they did towards the en tailing folly, unbelief, and obduration, upon their nation to all posterity, is their engaging them to their canons and tra ditions, as they delivered them ; especially to the Misna, when Rabbi Judah had published it, — and to the two Tal muds, when they came forth, especially the Babylonian, which stands as a standard to all the nation for her rule and religion to this day : they being generally Pharisaical, and scarce a Karaite, that we hear of, amongst them. SECTION X. How far these Jews, in the first Generation of Christianity, might infect or infest it. We need not speak of their crossing the gospel, and per secuting and raischieving the professors ofit, when it lay in their power; that needs no clearing. A twofold infection, more especially, they diffused into the Christian church, which tainted raany, and, where it caught, proved pestilential enough, even that which was the least dangerous : and these were, that out of this sink rose the desperate heresies ofthe first ages of the gospel, and from these men came the allego rizing of the Scriptures, which was but one degree less pro fitable, if not less deadly, than their traditions. How damnable heresies arose from among them in the apostles' times, we have seen copiously, as we have come along through the Epistles, — some unbelieving Jews and some apostates diffusing poison so deadly and so affluent, that it undid multitudes by backsliding. The venom was of a contrary malignity ; yet both extremes met alike in this point, — that they proved most deadly. The unbelieving Jews, standing upon the strictness of the law, perverted divers to turn from the gospel, to the precise course of their Judaism, to seek justification by works : and the apostatizing, as far misjudging of the liberty ofthe gospel, introduced all man ner of licentiousness and heedlessness of their ways ; as, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to coramit fornication. These were the most notorious, as striking directly at the THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 403 root of justification by faith, and of holiness of liie :— but these were not all ; but other roots of gall and wormwood growing upon the same soil; as, denying ofthe resurrection altogether, as did the Sadducees, — or denying the resurrec tion of those, that started from Judaism, and worshipping of angels; and whatsoever else, the apostles speak of this gan grene in their Epistles, which though they grew and were at full ripeness before Jerusalem fell, yet did they fade but little, when she was down. As the first wretched stock of heretics that rose, Simon, Cerinthus, Meander, Ebion, Basilides, &c. appeared either in Judea; or, at least, there, where there were multitudes of Jews, as Basilides at Alexandria ; — so the most of those damnable opinions that they sowed, and which grew for a long while after, had some root or other in Judaism, or re ceived some cursed moisture from thence, to nourish them. By Judaism, I here understand, the body of the Jews' reli gions, though differing within itself, yet all contrary to Christianity. Look upon Palestine ; and you have it thus stocked in the times that we are upon : — 1. With Pharisees of seven sorts". 2. With Sadducees ; attheleast, of two sorts, if not raore. 3. With Samaritans. 4. With Essenes. Baithusaeans you may reckon with Sadducees or Samaritans, whether you will. Now the va riety, nay, contrariety of opinions, that was among this mix ture, would afford nourishment to any evil weed of doctrine, that could be sowed; these being as Manasseh against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, but all against the gospel. We have mention of the Baithusaeans going about to put a gull upon tbe Sanbedrira, about the great business of stating the beginning ofthe year*": the Sadduceeslaugh- ing the Pharisees to scorn, about washing the candlesticks of the temple^ : the Pharisees and Sadducees crossing one another in disputes''; and the Samaritans perpetually at en mity with the Jews in all stories. Now all these being alike enemies to Christianity, what mischief might not they, seve rally, do, in poisoning and seducing those, that were not sound in it? We find the names of some arch heretics men- e As they be reckoned np, Beracoth, fol. 13. col. 2. Solah, fol. 20. col. .*. f Rosh hashan. fol.. 57. col. 4. « Chagig. fol. 79. col. 4. ^ , !> Judaim, cap. 4. hal. 7. 2 D 2 404 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. tioned in the Talmuds, though we cannot say they were the same men; as, n'Dll Dositheus'; p»3N EbionJ ; DISOID Sym- machus'' ; and Papias, also, is a Talmud name, — of which name there was one so zealous of traditions'. We observed, at the Second Epistle to the Thessalo nians, that the Jews, — partly the unbelieving, and partly the apostatized, — were the first part of antichrist, " the mystery of iniquity," that was then working, when the apostle wrote : and now we may observe, how they continued bodied toge ther, as a corporation of iniquity, in Judea. till the times of Constantine the Great, where the succession of their schools is plainly to be read : as we have showed in little. And when they wanted there, then did they flourish in their three universities in Babylonia : and the succession of the schools and naraes of the learned men known there, not only till the signing of the Babylon Talmud, which was about the year of Christ 500 ; but even till the other part of " the mystery of iniquity," the papal antichrist, arose at Babylon in the west. And, as these two parts make one entire body of anti christ, — and as the latter took at the first to do the work that they had done, to deface the truth and oppose it, and that under the colour of religion, — -so did it, in great mea sure, take his pandect of errors from these his predecessors. Traditions, false miracles, legends, ceremonies, merit, pur gatory, implicit faith, and divers other things, are so derived from this source, as if left by legacy from the one to the other. A second taint we mentioned, that these primitive Jews set not only upon their own posterity, but too much also upon the church of Christ, was the turning ofthe Scriptures all into allegory : wbich, as it is well known, bow it was used by divers of tbe fathers, to their great loss of time, and little profiting ofthe church, — so it is easily to beknownfrom whence it comes, by any that reads Philo Judaeus, and the Jewish Derushim. The Talrauds, indeed, are, for tbe most part, upon disputes ; but sometimes, they bring in how such or such a doctor did ' darash' [mystically expound] such or such a place of Scripture : and then, you bave directly such stuff as this. Philo, in his discourse concerning the Thera- peutae, or Essenes, relateth, that they had used this mystical ¦ Orlah, cap. 2. hal. 5. j Jerus. Joma, fol. 4. col. 3. » Jebam. fol. 11. ool. 3. Chetub. fol. 25. col. 3, ' Euseb. Hist. lib. 3. cap. 39. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 405 kind of exposition of old. And how near the Christians of Judea, that fled from the ruin of Jerusalem, might be sup posed tiienceforward to be planted to the Esseni, we raight observe frora Pliny and Mela, who place the Esseni along the vale that coasted upon the dead sea [the old habitation ofthe Kenites] ; and frora considering, that the mountains, to which Christ warns those that were in Judea, to flee, were " the mountainous of Judea," as was touched. SECTION XI. That the Jews, for all their Spite to Christianity, could not impose upon us a corrupted Text. Here we cannot but clear them, as for matter of fact, of what some lay to their charge — [but they do it for their own ends], that they foisted a corrupt text of the Old Testa ment upon Christians, and so befooled them in the very foun dation of their religion. So did their ancestors by Ptolemy, king of Egypt ; and so, what these men would have done, if they could, it is easy to conjecture ; but they did not, they could not, so impose. 1. It was their great care and solicitousness, as to them selves and their own use, to preserve the text in all purity and uncorruptness ; and what our Saviour says, of " not one Iota, or one tittle, ofthe law" perishing, they were of the same mind, and endeavoured to maintain and assert that for true, with all industry. It were too long here to speak of the work of the Masorites, for this purpose ; who altered not, added not, invented not a tittle, but carefully took account of every thing as they found it, and so recorded it to poste rity, that nothing could be changed. We shall only bring in their own expositions, which will attest the truth of both those words that our Saviour hath, 'Iwra 'ev, koi fiia Ktpaia: 'iCiTa EV : it is little to be doubted, that Christ, speaking in their language, meaneth the letter ' Jod,' which is far the least of all their letters. And about this letter the Jeru salem Talmud hath this passage" : " The book of Misna Torah [Deuteronomy] came and prostrated itself before God, and said unto him, — O Lord everlasting, thou hast written thy law in me. A testament, that fails in part, fails in the whole. Behold, Solomon seeks to root Jod out of me [viz. " Sanhedr. fol. JO. eol. 3, 406 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. in D'tV: nai' ub He shall not multiply wives]. The holy blessed God saith to it, — Solomon, and a thousand sucb as he, shall fail, but a word of thee shall not fail. R. Houna. in the name of R. Acha, said,— The Jod, that the blessed God took from the name of our mother Sarah, was given half of it to Sarah, and half to Abraham. There is a tradition of R. Hoshaiah : Jod carae and prostrated itself before God, and said, — Lord everlasting, thou hast rooted me out from the name of a righteous woraan. The holy blessed God saith to it, — Heretofore, thou wast in the name of a woman, and in the end of it ; henceforward, thou shalt be in the name of a man. and in the beginning. This is that which is written, — Moses called the name of Hoshea, Jehoshua." — Mta Kspaia: ' one tittle :' it most properly means, those little Apiculi, that distinguish betwixt letters that are very like one to an other. You raay have the explanation of this in this pretty descant of Tanchuma" : — " It is written (saith he), l^^nn N^ 'li'lp D2? riK, You shall not profane my holy name. He that makes the nan, destroys the world : for he makes this sense. You shall not praise ray holy name. It is written IT bbT\T\ riDiyjn bn. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord : he that makes the nan, destroys the world : for he brings it to this sense. Let every thing that hath breath pro fane the Lord. It is written nina icnD', They lied to the Lord : he that maketh the n a D, destroys the world : for he maketh this sense. They lied like the Lord. It is written nin'D lyiip ]'X, There is none holy like the Lord : he that makes the Dan, destroys the world : for he maketh this sense. There is no hohness in the Lord. It is written nil' inN nin' i:nbN, The Lord our God is one Lord : he that makes the 1 a 1, destroys the world : for he bringeth the sense to this. The Lord our God is a strange God," &c. In Chagigah" they speak more of the letter Jod, and so doth Midras TiUim, in Psal. cxi V. In Deut. xxxii. 18, this littie letter is written less than itself, in the word ''*i:?ri, and yet preserved in that quantity, and not altered, and observed so by the Masorites. 2. Yet could they not, for all their care, but have some false copies go up and down amongst them, through heed lessness or error of transcribers. In ShabbathP they are dis puting, how many faults may be in a part of the Bible, and yet it lawful to read in. " The books of Hagiographa (say » Fol. 1. o Fol. 77 j„,_g p Fol. 15. col. 2. THE FALL OP JERUSALK.M. 407 they), if there be two or three faults in every leaf lipnD a Kllpl He may mend it, and read." The books of Hagio grapha, they read not in their synagogues, as they did°the law and the prophets ; therefore, this is to be understood of a man's private reading, and ofhis ownBible,— which if faulty, there were true copies, whereby he might mend it, and so read. Nay, in Taanith'', there is mention of a faulty copy, that was laid up in the public records : " They found three books in the court of the temple. The book >:ij;d, the book 'OlOyr, and the book N'l. In one they found written >r\bi< pyo Dip, and in two it was written Dip 'H^N niiyC : and they ap proved the two, and refused the one. In one they found written ^Nie" 'jn 'IDliDj;' nx nVi^^'l, and in two it was written baw 'n njrj ni< nb!i"f : they approved the two, and refused the other. In one they found written X'n J^iiTl, and in two it was written n. Christ, at Capernaum, iu the coasts of Zabu lon and Nephthalim, &c. ^'^ ccccxvi INDEX TO THE PAGE Chap, i, 16—20. Peter and Andrew, &c. called to be fishers of men 52 Chap, i, 21—40. A devil cast out in Capernaum-synagogue : Peter's wife's mother and divers more healed .... 55 Chap, i, 40, to the end. A leper healed 59 Chap, ii, 1 — 15. Christ healeth a palsy man : forgiveth sins : calleth Matthew 60 Chap, ii, 15 — 23. Levi's feast. Concerning fasting, &c. • 86 Chap, ii, 23, to the end ; and iii, 1 — 7. The disciples plucking ears of corn ; a withered hand healed on the sabbath • ¦ 64 Chap, iii, 7— J 3. Great multitudes follow Christ : who heal eth all that come to him 66 Chap, iii, 13, to the middle of ver. 19. The twelve apostles chosen 67 Chap, iii, from the last clause of ver. 19 to ver. 31. A devil cast out: Christ called Beelzebub: blasphemy against the Holy Ghost 78 Chap, iii, 31, to the end. Christ's mother and brethren seek him 81 Chap, iv, 1 — 35. The parable of the sower : and divers other parables ib. Chap. iv. 35. A scribe will follow Christ, &c. .... 83 Chap. iv. 36, to the end; and chap, v, 1 — 22. Christ calmeth the sea; casteth out a legion of devils, &c. • • • . ib. Chap, v, 22, to the end. A bloody issue healed : Jairus's daugh ter raised 86 Chap, vi, 1 — 6. Christ at Nazareth, and offence taken at him 89 Chap, vi, 7 — 11. The twelve apostles sent out to preach • 90 Chap, vi, 14 — ^30. John beheaded: his disciples come in to Christ 91 Chap, vi, 30. to the end. Five thousand fed miraculously: Christ walketh on the sea 93 Chap, vii, all; and chap, viii, 1 — 22. Scribes and Pharisees' impious traditions : the woman of Canaan's daughter healed : a man dumb and deaf healed. Four thousand fed mira culously. Pharisees require a sign, &c. Leaven of Phari sees, &c. 95 Chap, viii, 22 — 26. A blind man restored to sight at Beth. saida 98 Chap, viii, 27, to the end ; and chap, ix, 1. The keys ofthe kingdom of heaven given to Peter, &c. ib. Chap, ix, 2 — 33. Christ transfigured : a devil cast out of a child 101 Chap, ix, 33, to the end. A dispute who greatest : one castino- out devils, and yet not following Christ: ' Die Ecclesise,' &c. 105 HARMONY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ccccxvii PAGB Chap, x, 1 — 13. Christ beyond Jordan. Concerning divorce 122 Chap. X, 13—32. Infants brought to Christ. A rich man departs sorrowful 123 Chap. X, 32 — 34. Christ foretelleth his suffering . . . 125 Chap. X, 35 — 46. The request of Zebedee's sons. They are told of their martyrdom • • 126 Chap. X, 46, to the end. Blind healed ...... 127 Chap, xi, 1, to the middle of ver. 11. Christ rideth upon an ass into Jerusalem 130 Chap, xi, from middle of ver. 11 to ver. 27. The fruitless fig- tree cursed 133 Chap, xi, 27, to the end ; and chap, xii, 1 — 13. Christ in the temple, posing them about John's baptism. The parable of the vineyard, &c. 136 Chap, xii, 13 — 41. Tribute to Caesar. The resurrection asserted in the law. The great commandment. Christ how David's son. Woe against the scribes and Pharisees ib. Chap, xii, 41 — 44. The poor widow's mites 140 Chap, xiii, all, Christ foretelleth the destruction of Jeru salem, — the signs and miseries preceding and accompany. ing it lb. Chap, xiv, 1 — 10. Christ's head anointed at a supper at Beth any, two nights before the Passover : at the same supper he washeth his disciples' feet : giveth Judas the sop, and the devil entereth into him 142 Chap, xiv, 10, 11. Satan entereth into Judas: he compacts for the betraying ofhis Master 146 Chap, xiv, 12 — 26. Christ eateth the passover: ordaineth the Lord's supper, &c. 148 Chap. xiv, 26, to the end; and chap, xv, all. Christ's appre- hension, arraignment, death, and burial 151 Chap, xvi, 1—12. Christ's resurrection : his first appearing ; viz. to Mary Magdalen 168 Chap, xvi, 12, 13. His second appearing ; viz. to Peter and Alpheus, going to Emmaus • 170 Chap, xvi, 14. His third appearing ; viz. to the eleven • -171 Chap, xvi, 15—18. A sixth appearing ; at the mountain in Galilee, to all the eleven, and five hundred more • • -174 LUKE. Chap, i, 1—4. Luke's Preface : his warrant to write his Chap.T,% -57. The birth of John the Baptist, and the birth of our Saviour, foretold by the angel Gabriel . • • • 20 VOL. III. ^ ^ ccccxviii INDEX TO THE PAGE Chap, i, 57, to the end. John Baptist born 24 Chap, ii, 1—40. Christ born 25 Chap, ii, 40, to the end 30 Chap, iii, 1 — 18. The gospel began in John's ministry and baptism 34 Chap, iii, 18 — 20. John imprisoned 48 Chap, iii, 21, 22 39 Chap, iii, 23, to the end. Christ's genealogy by his mother's side 40 Chap, iv, 1 — 14. The seed of the woman and the serpent combating 41 Chap, iv, 14 — 31. Christ, preaching in Nazareth-synagogue, is in danger of his life 50 Chap, iv, 31, to the end. A devil cast out in Capernaum-sy nagogue ; Peter's wife's mother and divers more healed • 55 Chap. V, 1 — 12. Peter and Andrew, &c. called to be fishers of men 52 Chap. V, 12—16. A leper healed 59 Chap. V, 1 7 — 29. Christ healeth a palsy man : forgiveth sins : calleth Matthew 60 Chap. V, 29, to the end. Levi's feast. Concerning fasting, &c. 86 Chap, vi, 1 — 12. The disciples plucking ears of corn : a wi. thered hand healed on the sabbath » 64 Chap, vi, 12 — 20. The twelve apostles chosen • • • • 67 Chap, vi, 20, to the end. The sermon in the mount • ¦ 69 Chap, vii, 1 — 11. A centurion's servant healed • • • '71 Chap, vii, 11 — 17. The widow's son, of Nain, raised • • • 7"2 Chap. vii, 18 — 36. John's message to Christ; Christ's testi mony of John 73 Chap, vii, 36, to the end. Mary Magdalen weepeth at Christ's feet, and washeth them with tears, &c. 75 Chap, viii, 1 — 3. Certain women that followed Christ • • 76 Chap, viii, 4 — 19. The parable of the sower : and divers other parables 81 Chap, viii, 19 — 21. Christ's mother and brethren seek him, &c. ib. Chap, viii, 22— 41. Christ calmeth the sea: casteth out a legion of devils, &c. 83 Chap, viii, 41, to the end. A bloody issue healed : Jairus's daughter raised • • 86 Chap, ix, 1 — 6. The twelve apostles sent out to preach • 90 Chap, ix, 7 — 9. John beheaded: his disciples come in to Christ 91 Chap, ix, 10 — 18. Five thousand fed miraculously : Christ walketh on the sea 93 HARMONY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, cccoxix • PAGE Chap. IX, 18 — 28. The keys ofthe kingdom of heaven given to Peter, &c. . 98 Chap, ix, 28 — 46. Christ transfigured : a devil cast out of a child 101 Chap, ix, 46 — 51. A dispute who greatest : one casting out devils, and yet not following Christ: ' Die Ecclesia;,' &c. • 105 Chap, ix, 51, to the end. Christ going towards the feast of tabernacles 109 Chap, ix, 57 — 62. A scribe will follow Christ, &c. ... 83 Chap. X, 1 — 17. The seventy disciples sent forth • • • 109 Chap, x, 17, to the end ; and chap, xi, and xii, and xiii, to ver. 23 113 Chap, xiii, 23, to the end; and chap, xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, 1—15 119 Chap, xviii, 15 — 31. Infants brought to Christ. A rich man departs sorrowful 123 Chap, xviii, 31 — 34. Christ foretelleth his suffering • • 125 Chap, xviii, 35, to the end. Blind healed .... 127 Chap, xis, 1 — 29. Zaceheus, a publican, converted • ¦ ib. Chap, xix, 29, to the end. Christ rideth upon an ass into Jerusalem 130 Chap. XX, 1 — 20. Christ in the temple, posing them about John's baptism. The parable of the vineyard, &c. • • ¦ 136 Chap. XX, 20, to the end. Tribute to Caesar. The resurrec tion asserted in the law. The great commandment. Christ how David's son. Woe against tbe scribes and Pharisees ib. Chap, xxi, 1 — 4. The poor widow's mites 140 Chap, xxi, 5, to the end. Christ foretelleth the destruction of Jerusalem, — the signs and miseries preceding and accom panying it ib- Chap, xxii, 1, 2. Christ's head anointed at a supper at Beth. any, two nights before the Passover : at the same supper he washeth his disciples' feet : giveth Judas the sop, and the devil entereth into him 142 Chap, xxii, 3—6. Satan entereth into Judas : he compacts forthe betraying ofhis Master • • 146 Chap, xxii, 7 — 24. Christ eateth the Passover : ordaineth the Lord's supper, &c. '. * ^^^ Chap, xxii, from 24 — 39. A contest among the disciples about priority * * " ^^^ Chap, xxii, 39, to the end; and chap, xxiii, all. Christ's appre. hension, arraignment, death, and burial ¦ • • • • 151 Chap, xxiv, 1—1 3. Christ's resurrection : his first appearing ; viz. to Mary Magdalen 16^ 2 K 2 ccccxx INDEX TO THE PAGE Chap, xxiv, 13 — 36. His second appearing; viz. to Peter and Alpheus, going to Emmaus • • 170 Chap, xxiv, 36 — 49. His third appearing ; viz. to the eleven 171 Chap, xxiv, 49. A sixth appearing ; at the mountain in Ga lilee, to all the eleven, and five hundred more .... 174 JOHN. Chap, i, 1 — 15. Christ's divinity showed : and the fitness of him, the Word, to be incarnate 20 Chap, i, 15, to the end. Christ is pointed out by John, and followed by some disciples 42 Chap, ii, all. Water turned into wine 44 Chap, iii, all. Nicodemus. The disciples baptize in the name of Jesus 46 Chap, iv, all. Christ, at Jacob's well, converteth Samaritans : healeth a sick person, &c. 49 Chap. V, all. An infirm man healed at Bethesda .... 62 Chap, vi, 1 — 22. Five thousand fed miraculously : Christ walketh on the sea 93 Chap, vi, 22, to the end. Jesus teacheth in Capernaum. syna gogue, concerning eating his flesh, &c. 94 Chap, vii, 1 95 Chap, vii, 2 — 10. The feast of tabernacles 108 Chap, vii, 10. Christ going towards the feast of tabernacles 109 Chap, vii, 11, to the end. Christ at the feast of tabernacles 110 Chap, viii, all. A woman taken in adultery, &c. • . • •HI Chap, ix, and x, all. Aman blind from his birth healed. Christ the good Shepherd. The feast of dedication .... 116 Chap, xi, 1 — 17. Tidings coming to Christ of Lazarus's sick ness 124 Chap, xi, 17, to the end. Lazarus raised. Caiaphas prophe sieth 128 Chap, xii, 1 — 12. A supper at Bethany : Jesus's feet anointed 129 Chap, xii, 12 — 20. Christ rideth upon au ass into Jerusalem 130 Chap, xii, 20, to the end. Greeks would see Jesus. A voice from heaven 132 Chap, xiii, 1 — 27. Christ's head anointed at a supper at Bethany, two nights before the Passover : at the same sup per he washeth his disciples' feet : giveth Judas the sop, and the devil entereth into him 142 Chap, xiii, 27—30. Satan entereth into Judas : he compacts for the betraying of his Master 146 Chap, xiii, 31, to the end ; and chap, xiv, all. Christ's speech to comfort his disciples, &c. 147 HARMONY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. cocoxxi PAGE Chap. XV, xvi. xvii, all. Christ's last words to his disciples, and a prayer for them 151 Chap, xviii and xix, all. Christ's apprehension, arraignment, death, and burial ib. Chap. XX, 1 — 19. Christ's resurrection : his first appearing ; viz. to Mary Magdalen 168 Chap. XX, 19 — 26. His third appearing ; viz. to the eleven • 171 Chap. XX, 26, to the end. His fourth appearing : Thomas now present 172 Chap, xxi, all. A fifth appearing; to seven of the apostles at the sea of Tiberias, &c. 173 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Chap. i. 181 Chap. ii. 183 Chap, iii, iv. 186 Chap.v. 187 Chap, vi, vii. 189 Chap. viii. 192 Chap, ix, 1—23 195 Chap, ix, 23—32 . 200 Chap, ix, 32, to the end; and x, all; and xi, 1 — 19 . • • ib. Chap. X, all; and chap, xi, 1—19 203 Chap, xi, 19, to the end 205 Chap, xii, xiii. 207 Chap, xii, 1—20 209 Chap, xii, 20—24 215 Chap, xiii, 1—14 210 Chap, xiii, 14, to the end ; and chap. xiv. 216 Chap. xiv. 217 Chap. XV. 218 Chap. xvi. 224 .. 225 Chap. XVII. Chap, xviii. 226 Chap, xix, 1—9 234 Chap.xix,9-21 . 236 Chap, xix, 21, 22 f^ Chap, xix, 23, to the end ^*^ Chap. XX, 1—3 • ^g^ Chap. XX, 4—6 Chap. XX, 6, latter part; and chap. XXI, 1—17 ' ' ' ' '^il Chap, xxi, 17 • • • „„„ Chap, xxi, 17, to the end ". '. 285 Chap. xxii. ., Chap, xxiii, and xxiv, 1—27 ccccxxii INDEX TO THE HARMONY, &e. PAGE Chap, xxiv, 27 287 Chap, xxv, and xxvi. ib. Chap, xxvii. 288 Chap, xxviii, 1 — 30 289 Chap, xxviii, 30, 31 290 The Epistle to the Romans 269 The First Epistle to the Corinthians 239 The Second Epistle to the Corinthians 262 The Epistie to the Galatians 292 The Epistle to the Ephesians 296 The Epistle to the Philippians 298 The Epistle to the Colossians 299 The First Epistle to the Thessalonians .... 228 The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians . • . • 230 The First Epistle to Timothy 254 The Second Epistle to Timothy 294 The Epistle to Titus 260 The Epistle to Philemon 301 The Epistle to the Hebrews 307 The Epistle of James 314 The First Epistle of Peter 320 The Second Epistle of Peter 326 The Three Epistles of John 329 The Epistle of Jude 328 THE REVELATION OF JOHN. Chap, i, ii, iii. 332 Chap, iv, V. 331 Chap. vi. 335 Chap. vii. 337 Chap. viii. ib. Chap.ix. 340 Chap. x. 342 Chap. xi. 343 Chap. xii. 34g Chap. xiii. 343 Chap. xiv. 350 Chap. XV. 353 Chap. xvi. 354 Chap. xvii. 357 Chap, xviii. xix. to ver. 11 358 Chap, xix, 11, to the end 359 Chap. XX. ib. Chap. xxi. 3eg Chap. xxii. 368 INDEX PARERGON ON THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. PAGE Section i. The desolation of the temple and city • • • 381 Section ii. The face and state of the country after the city's ruin 384 Section iii. The Sanhedrim sitting at Jabneh. Rabban Jo. chanan Ben Zaccai president 387 Section iv. The Sanhedrim still at Jabneh. Rabban Gama liel president 388 Section v. The Sanhedrim still at Jabneh. R. Akibah pre sident 390 Section vi. The Sanhedrim at Usha and Shepharaam KttHM Dy")3t£'1 Rabban Simeon president 393 Section vii. The Sanhedrim at Beth-shaaraim, Tsipporis, and Tiberias. R. Judah president 394 Section viii. The schools and learned after the death of Rabbi Judah 396 Section ix. The posture and temper of the people • • • 398 Section x. How far these Jews, in the first generation of Christianity, might infeet or infest it 402 Section xi. That the Jews, for all their spite to Christianity, could not impose upon us a corrupted text .... 405 Section xii. Concerning the caHing of the Jews • • • - 408 DISSERTATIO", QUA VENTILATUR QU.ESTIO, AN CCENA, IN QUA JUDAS ACCEPIT OFFULAM, FUERIT CCENA PASCHALIS, EX TEXTU JOHAN. XIII. 27. 30. " Post sumtam offulam, ingressus est in ilium Satanas: Ille igitur, accepta offula, statim exivit." JNon'' solum omnibus innotescit, sed etiam creditur, bre- vem hanc historiam juxta seriem temporis hoc modo conci- piendam esse : Judas cum Servatore nostro, in ultimo ejus Paschate, accumbebat, et Ccenae Paschalis erat particeps : sed, ante institutionem Ccense Dominicse, Dominus ei por- rexerat offulam ; qua accepta, " Satanas in ilium ingressus est, et ipse exiit," ita ut illic non remanserit, usquedum Sa- cramentum Coense Dominicse institueretur, ac proinde illius non tantum non fuerit particeps, sed nee institutionem ejus oculis suis viderit. Verba auctorum. sic sentientium, citare supervacuum et infiniti laboris esset ; et citandis illis liceat supersedere, cum, quid velint, abund^ liqueat. Ccenam autem hanc, tin qua Judas offulam accepit, non fuisse Ccenam Pascbalem, sed ordinariam, Bethanise duabus ante id tempus noctibus habitam, — ex sequentibus argu- mentis liquido constat. I. Johannes Evangelista, cum historiam Ccenae hujus, in qua Judas buccellam accepit, narrare orditur, ait eara conti- gisse " Bethanise ante festum diemPaschse," comm. 1. Non possum non mirari, illos, qui volunt Judam ipsa nocte Pas- chiE offulam accepisse, non observasse hanc temporis de- signationem in initio ejusdem capitis, quo hsec historia nar- » See Lensden's edition of Lightfoot, fol. 3. p. 141. i> See Section Ixxx, p. 142 of this volume. 426 DISSERTATIO DE C(ENA rari incipit, A Johanne fuisse annotatam ; aut, si id obser- varunt, quo pacto horum verborum sensum, salvo conceptu suo, explicare queant? Sane designatio hujus circumstan- tiae, quse tempus spectat, non potest aliud, nisi Ccenam, quam imraediate subjungit, respicere. " Ante festum au tem diem Paschae, sciens Jesus venisse horam digrediendi ex hoc mundo," &c. Quid tunc .'' Quid faciebat eo tempore? " Ccena peracta, surgit Jesus, et lavat Discipulorum suorum pedes ;" dehincdenu6 considet, et " dat Judse offulam." In- dubium enim est, neminem hanc temporis circumstantiam, " ante diem festum Paschae," velle referre ad ' dilectionem suorum usque ad finem,' (quam incongruum id esset, nemo nonperspicit !) sed eam referendara esse adhistoriara etacta Christi, quae Ccenam immediate sequebantur : ita ut si meipsum rogera, ' Quando Christus ^ Ccena surrexit, et Dis cipulorum suorum pedes lavit,' — necessario mihi respon dendum erit, ' id factum ante diem festum Paschae.' Iterura, ' Quando, denu6 accumbens, Juds offulam dedit?' Respon- sum erit, ' id factum est eodem tempore, ante diem festum Paschae, non ipso die Paschae.' Sic enim intelligenda est ilia teraporis assignatio in initio hujus capitis, " Ante festum autem diem Paschae," ut quae historias, quas eodem terapore contigerunt et illic recensentur, respicit : neque mihi con stat, qui fieri possit, ut verba base in alium sensum trans- ferantur. Attamen forsan, qui suam tuentur opinionem, objicient per denominationem ' Paschae' hdc non strict^ intelligendum esse ' tempus agni Paschalis,' sed ' tempus subsequentis fes- tivitatis,' quod subinde nomine ' Paschae' venit. Sed his respondeo ; 1. Si verba " ante diem festura Paschae" signi- ficare debent ' post festum Paschae, aut saltem ' post tale fes tum Paschae,' quod ipsorum opinioni videtur favere, et non ' ante tale festura Paschae,' quod ipsis adversatur, — tunc quicquid lubet, ex Scriptura poterit extorqueri. 2. Verum quidem est, bovem ilium, qui coraedebatur die proximo se quent! ilium, quo agnus coraedebatur, etiam appellari ' Pa- scha,' Job. xviii. 28. Conf. Deut. xvi. 2. Interim in tota Scriptura nunquam mentio fit ' festi Paschae,' quin vespera decimi quarti diei, qua agnus Paschalis coraedebatur, in- cludi et subintelligi debeat ; quod S. Scriptura testimoniis probatum dare supervacaneum foret. Producant, qui con trarium censent, unum tantum exemplum, quo sua nititur CHRISTI ULTIMA. 427 sententia, sic videbuntur aliquod habere sueb sententiae ful- cimentum. 3. Quam inepta, horrida, quin et quam mon- strosa haec foret contradictio, et interpretatio verborum evan- gelistae, " Ante diem autem festum Paschae," — si ea signifi- cent, ' Postquam autem agnus Paschalis esset esus, ante quam mensa ccenae esset remota, id est, antequam proximo die bos Paschalis esset esus, lavit Jesus discipulorum suo rum pedes,' 8cc. Dicant nunc et pronuncient, qui huic sen tentiae favent, — an hoc sit Scripturam, juxta verborum pro- prium, genuinum, et clarum sensum, interpretari, vel non. IL Narrat evangelista, comm. 29, quosdam discipulorum (postquam Jesus Judae offulam dederat, addito mandate, " Quod facis, mox facito") putasse Jesum Judae dixisse, " Erae, quibus nobis ad festum opus est." Hoc certe dic tum fuit ante festum: secus quem sensum his verbis aflan- gent, qui aliter sentiunt? 1. Petrus enim et Johannes missi sunt ipso die Paschae, ut sibi de omnibus, quibus ad festum opus erat, providerent^. 2. Supponamus verba haec eo sen- su, quo volunt, esse accipienda, discipulos (post agni Pas chalis esum, aut post ccenam habitam nocte Paschali, quando Judas acceperat offulam, et Christus ipsi exeunti dixerat, " Quod vis facere, fac cito") putasse Christum Ju dae mandasse, ut "ea, quibus ad festura opus erat, emeret:" — quffiso, ' quod festum' hie indigitatur? Non iUud, quo agnus Paschahs edebatur; tempus enim edendi illius agni jam erat praeterlapsum, aut saltem jam erat serins, quam ut ne cessaria ad festum possent coemi : neque illud, quo bos Pa schalis coraedebatur, illo enim tempore quicquam ad festum illud celebrandum coemere iUicitum erat : nam, comm. 30, indicatur noctem fuisse, quando Judas exibat; quod si au tem nox hffic fuit ilia, qua celebrabatur Pascha, alia Scrip ture loca nobis indicant, Sabbatum jam sumsisse initiura suum: hoc enim nomine proximus dies appellatur'' ; adeo- que illicitum erat emere aut vendere. Praeterea cum Judaei ea nocte apprehenderint Christum, concilio suo congregato noctem transegerint, et die proximo eum crucifixerint, cert^ id omne eo die fieri nequiit :— quin et si Jesus violari Sab- bati accusari potuisset, discipulorum crimen tant6 fuisset conspectius; verum aliud docti erant Christi discipuli, quam ut ipso Sabbati die aut emerent aut venderent. III. Ex horum hominum suppositione, ' Satanas in Ju- > Luc. xxii. 8. 12, 13. »> Levit. xxiii. 11. 428 DISSERTATIO DE CCENA dam non est ingressus, nisi post esum agnum Pascbalem, aut non ante ipsam noctem Paschae.' Lucas autem dare satis indicat, Satanam jam ante id tempus in Judam fuisse in- gressum. Xam Luc. xxii. 3. narratur "Satanam in Judam introiisse," et, commate 4, eum " abiisse, et cum primariis sacerdotibus, &c. collocutum esse ;" ubi, coram. 5, subjun- gitur " eos cum ipso de danda pecunia fuisse pacto.?," et, 6, "ipsum spopondisse, et opportunitatera eum ipsis absque turba tradendi qusesivisse." Interim, comm. 7, notatur " advenisse diem azymorum." Quomodo autem hi, qui dictaa sententiae favent, possunt asserere Judam cum Christo in ccena Paschali accubuisse, offulam accepisse, et ante institu tionem sacramentiexiisse, cum, secundum Johannera, Satanas post sumtam offulam in Judam sit ingressus ? Judas autem pactum iniit abinde cum sacerdotibus de proditione magistri sui, et opportunitatera ipsum tradendi quassivit, antequam dies azymorum advenisset. Considerent, queeso, bi homines hunc textura Lucse, et videant, an ullo modo sua cum iUo sententia conciliari queat. IV. Consideretur modo harmonia quatuor evangelistarura, seu series hujus historise, prout cum prascedentibus cohaeret, in enarratione omnium evangelistarura, et indubi^ exinde liquebit, ccenam illam, in qua Judas offulam accepit, non fuisse ccenam Pascbalem, sed aliam, quse nocte alia jam fuerat habita. Repetamus historiara ab introitu Christi Hierosolymam. Sexto ante Pascha die Christus coenabat Bethaniae, et eo terapore " IMaria unxit pedes Jesu''." Erat autem tunc ves pera, finite Judseorum sabbato. Proximo die, solenniterpuUo asinse insidens, Hierosolymam introiif*. Quod factum est primo die bebdomadas, qui nobis dies Solis dicitur. Sub noctem Jesus regressus est Bethaniam^. Subsequente die, Jesus revertebatur Hierosolymam, ficui in via maledicebat^, et in templum ingressus, iterura eos, qui emebant et vendebant, expellebats. Hoc contigit secunda die hebdomads, qui nobis est dies Lunae. Sub vesperam ejus diei urbe exiit''. Proximo die rursus veniebat Hierosolymam'; ubi scribse et Pharissei ejus auctoritatem in dubium trahebanti ; quibus c Job. xii. 3. 'J Matt. xxi. 1—11. Marc, xi, 1—11. Lac. xix. 29 — 45- Joh.xii.l2. = MaU. xxi. 17. Marc.xi. 11. f Matt, xxi.l 8,19. Marc. xi. 12— 14. s Marc. xi. 15—18. •> Marc. xi. 19. > Marc. xi. 20. 27. Matt. xxi. 20. 23. ' Marc. xi. 27, 28. Matt, xxi, 23. Lac. xx. 1 , ^c. CHRISTI ULTIMA. 429 respondebat proposita qusestione de baptismo Johannis. Hoc tempore proponebat parabolam de vinea, 8cc. Matt, xxi. 28. usque ad finem capitis. Marc. xii. 1, &c. Hue pertinent quae k Christo prolata sunt, et vicesimo secundo et tertio capitibus Matthaei, — et apud Marc. xii. 13. usque ad finem, — et Luc. XX. k versu 20. ad versum quintura capitis xxi. usque, — le- guntur. Hie dies hebdomadae tertius, nunc dies Martis. erat. Sub noctem egressus. versus Bethaniam in raonte Oliva- rum adspiciebat teraplura. et proferebat quae continentur ca pitibus xxiv et xxv. Matthsei, — Marc. cap. xiii, — et Lucas ca pite .xxi. ^ versu 5. ad finera usque. Ea nocte coenabat Christus BethaniaB in domo Simonis leprosi''. Hsec autem ccena eadem ilia erat, cujus Johannes, capite decirao tertio, mentionem facit, in qua Judas offulam ^ Christo datam accipiebat. Nam ex collatione evangelistarura liquet, — 1. Judara cum prima riis sacerdotibus pactum fecisse de prodendo Jesu, cum non- dura advenisset festum azymorum panum'. 2. Eura de hoc nego tio nihil tractasse, antequam Satanas in ipsum esset ingressus". 3. Eum, cum Satanas tempore hujus ccenae in ipsum ingressus esset, exiisse ad ineundum cum sacerdotibus contractum, tunc cum Jesus in sedibus Simonis leprosi ccenabat": ac proinde series hujus historise non est concipienda, ut aliter sentientes necessario debent concipere, videlicet, Christum post ccenam Pascbalem surrexisse, et discipulorum suorum pedes lavisse; deinde rursus consedisse, et Judse intinctam offulara dedisse, qua accepta Satanas in ipsum ingressus esset, et ipse mox exiisset ante institutum sacramentura, et eo terapore, quo sacraraentum instituebatur, et ea, quaj Johannis xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, narrantur, pronunciabantur, et hymnus canebatur, — de prodendo Christo cum sacerdotibus coUocutus fuisset ; et accepta cohorte, quse Christum cape- ret, Jesum in confinio mentis Ohvarum invenisset. Quara enim improbabile, imo quam impossibile esset supponere hsec tam brevis temporis spatio transacta esse,— prsesertim cum textus nos doceat, isthaec omnia (modo excipias railitum assumptionem) ante diem Pascha; peracta fuisse. Sed totius hujus historise series concipienda est hoc modo :— Christus Bethanise in sedibus Simonis leprosi biduo ante Pascha ccenabat ; hie loci muher qusedam alabastrum unguenti gravis preth in caput accumbentis Jesu effundebat, ' -"• -t^mt '' '• ^Matt.'xr ir^JLif^ ^" "• "• 4.30 DISSERTATIO DE CGENA, &c. quod, aliquot de unguenti hujus perditione querentibus, Jesus probabat. Post ccenam Jesus, d mensa surgens, discipulo rum suorum pedes lavabat; ac denuo accumbens, priusquam mensa esset remota, Judae dabat offulam intinctam ; qua ac cepta, Satanas in ipsum ingrediebatur, et Judas k mensa sur gens exibat, et, utut esset nox, se conferebat Hierosolymam, quae duobus praeter propter milliaribus (Anglicis) inde dista- bat. Illic, condicto pretio, sacerdotibus se magistrum suum proditurum pollicebatur, quo facto ipsa ilia nocte, et die se- quenti, qui hebdomadae dies quartus, nunc Mercurii, erat, deliberabat, quo pacto posset, ad promovendura scelus suura, Bethaniam reverti, et festivitatis Paschalis cum Christo par ticeps esse. Veniebat igitur Bethaniara", et cura ipso accum bens agnum Pascbalem comedebaf; nee de mensa surgebat, priusquam Sacraraentum institutum, et panis et poculum dis- tributa essenf. Haec series et concatenatio est hujus historiae, quae, ex evangelistarura collatione rite instituta, ultro sese offert ; unde his et illis, quae jara recensita sunt, in unum collectis, summa hue redit. Videlicet, I. Ccena, in qua Judas accepit intinctam offulam, et mox exiit, fuit ante Pascha'' : — II. Et quidem eo tempore, quo ea, quibus ad celebran dum festum opus erat, commode emi potuissent^. III. Restabat aliquod temporis spatium, priusquam esset Pascha; cum diabolus in Judam ingressus est'. IV. Quse ante traditionem Christi dicta et acta sunt, ma- jus interstitium, quam quod inter tempos Paschse et ejus apprehensionem in horto intercessit, exigunt. Judicet nunc, si sic loqui fas est, ipsura praejudicium, an ullo modo verosimile aut rationi consentaneum videatur, Ju dam tempore, intermedio inter ccenam Pascbalem et sacra raentum ccenae Dominicse, offulam accepisse et exiisse. ° Marc. xiv. 17. P Matt xxvi. 20, 21. Marc. xiv. 18. Cap. iii. 2. = Act. iii. 24. <> Meglll. fol. 70. 4. SPIRITU PROPHETLE. 43,5 V. Defunctis ultirais istis prophetis, cessavit et propbe tia; et recessit, ut fatentur ipsi Judaei, a populo: et suc- cessit illi, si iis fides, Bath Kol. Nam sic illi ; " Quinque' hsec defuerunt in templo secundo, quse adfuerunt primo : Ignis (de calo); Area ; Urim et Thumraim ; Oleum unctio- nis ; et Spiritus Sanctus. Secundum quod scribitur, nslN m3DN1 in*' Scribitur ^3^^<, deficiente n litera" (nuraerum quinarium denotante) " ob quinque hsec, quse defuerunt sub templo secundo." Ignis ccelestis, Area, et Oleum unctionis, nunquam apparu- erunt sub templo secundo ; at de Urim et Thumraira potest quseri. Et de Spiritu Sancto sic iterura iidem Judsei : " A morte^ prophetarura posteriorum, Haggsei, Zacharise, et Ma- lachise, desiit ab Israele Spiritus Sanctus. Nibilominus usi sunt Bath Kol." Priorem partem traditionis nemo jure negaverit : at posteriori de Bath Kol non sequa fides. Sed istam rem hic non discutimus : sed de Urim et Thummim mox dicentur pauca. Continuatum igitur est donum propbetise, usque dum perfectus foret signatusque canon Veteris Testamenti, et exinde desiit, Ita ut nos opinamur de desitione donorum Spiritus Sancti, cura perfectus foret canon Testaraent! Novi. Hoc obiter de priori non possuraus non notare. Sententiara istam de LXX. interpretibus, eos scilicet divino afilatu doctos ductosque versionem suam conflasse, non solum non adeo tutse esse consequentise, sed et cum § ii. duplici pugnare Judseorum axiomate, viz. " Desiit Spiritus post mortem Malachise :" et, " Non habitat super quemvis extra terram Israeliticam." §11- Urim et Thummim. I. Quam variae sint sententise de oraculo per Urim, tsedio foret recitare. Contra istam de hteris in rationah, in sylla- bas et verba extuberantibus, quibus legi posset oraculum exhibitum, objiciunt ipsi Gemaristse, quod hterse Tsade et Teth'' non afferent inter hteras neraina tribuum corapin- gentes : quarum si usus foret in response exhibite, quomodo defectus iste suppleretur ? Atque objici etiam insuper potest, si iste modus foret edendi oraculi, quare cessavit oraculum per Urim sub templo secundo ? Nam affuit pecto- ^ Hieros. Taanitb, fol. 65. 1. ' Hagg. i. 8. g Hieros. Solab, fol. 24. 2. 1' Bab. Joma, fol. 73. 2. 2 f2 436 TRACTATUS DE rale cum margaritis, et nominibus tribuum, ita ut sub templo primo. II. Quaenam autem erat ejus rei ratio? 1. Legitima successione derivatus est summus pontificatus a patre ad filiura per aliquot generationes, eo modo que sub teraple prirao. " Suraraus^ pontifex ministrat in ecto vestimentis : et sacerdotes privati in quatuor : in tunica, feraoralibus, cidari, balteo. Summus sacerdos addit, pectorale, epbod, pallium, larainam. Et in his scitantur per Urim et Thum mim." 3. Aderant et gemmae in pecterali. Hinc historia de''^jaspide Benjaminis e pecterali deperdita. Cui sirailem habuit Dama Ben Nethinae : quorum pactum est de ista coemenda centum denariis, 8cc. 4. Aderant et eaedem causse Bcitandi, quae elim. Et quare tandem non investigatio per Urim, ut olim ? Resp. Fateor inter omnia, quse de hac re dicuntur, mihi maxim^ arridere ea, quse dicuntur a magistris loco ant^ cita to. Ajunt illi, v^:; miiy M>ydn wipr\ nnn -ann waw in'Dn b2 :in ybnw ]'X' " Ab isto sacerdote non scitandum erat ^er Urim'], qui non lequeretur per Spiritum Sanctum, et su per quem non habitaret divinus afflatus." Verissime qui dem, quantum ego judico. Nempe quod responsum a Deo foret sacerdoti de re aliqua sciscitanti, non visibili aliquo indicio, nee quidem audibili aliquo sone, sed divino afflatu. Atque hinc silentium oraculi per Urim et Thummim sub templo secundo, quia non erat pontifex afflatus. Nonaderat Urim, quia non aderat Spiritus Sanctus. Hue tendunt ista Neb. vii. 65 : " Usque dum exsurgat sacerdos cum Urim et Thummim." Josuam Josedechi afflatum Spiritu Sancto non negatur. At post eura, quemnam pontificem dixeris ita af- flatura? Quae comminiscuntur Talmudici™ de Simeone Juste, et Josephus" de Hyrcano, et sua fide solum nituntur, et non bene cum traditione quadrant, de cessatiene prophe tiae a morte Malachise. Inde erge iste scrupulus de quibus dam, qui puritatem sanguinis sui sacerdotalis non potuerunt manifestare, an illis de sacris comedere liceret, non erat solubilis, quia non aderat pontifex afflatus, qui a Deo respon sum de hac re reportaret. Erat pontifex, qui rationale, mar- garitas, et nomina tribuura in pectore gestaret, quique in teraple coram area se sistere petuit, ut de hac re qusereret : 1 Bab. Joma, fol. 71. 2. k Hieros. Peah, fol. 15. 3. ' Bab. Joma, fol. 73. 2. m Hieros. Joma, fol. 42. 3. ' Antiq. 1. 13. 0. 18. SPIRITU PROPHETIC. 437 et quare ei non responsum est per Urim? Nempe quod ille non donatus esset spiritu prophetico. Inde etiam illustra- tiir illud de Caiapha ; " Cum pontifex esset istius anni, prophetavif." Istius anni miraculosi, et in quo consignanda erant visio et propbetia. effundendusque Spiritus Sanctus modo et mensura inauditis. Eura tunc invadit spiritus pro phetiae pro tempore, quem afflatum non norant senserantque antecessores ejus pontifices, per plurima retro ssecula. §m. Origo Traditionum. Defunctis prophetis, et recedente jam a populo spiritu propbetise, novum oracularitatis genus excogitavit pater mendaciorura, grande scilicet istud mysterium traditionum. Nam gens prophetiae sueta, et divinis vatibus, non ben^ se habuit, oraculis istis orbata, et privata privilegiis. Fuerat, cum recurrere petuit ad hunc aut illura prophetam, vel de futuris qusesitura, vel de abstrusis. At jam evanuit genus istud doctorum ccelestium, et non ultra est in rerura natura. Hic opportunitatera nactus est figmenterum cuser, populum, decipi facilera, decipere ultro, et perfecta deceptione. Per ministres ergo sues suadet, traditam fuisse in mentem Sinai legem eralem, oracularem, divinissimam, quse a Mese ad ista usque ssecula a manu ad manura tradita, incorrupta per- manserit perveneritque, cum lege scripta sequalis dignitatis, auctoritatis, puritatis. Abserpsit hoc venenum natio, quae nesciit carere oracu- laritate, pleno gutture, — deceptione sua adeo cententa, ut jam videretur quidem non opus habere ulterius veris prophetis, nee Satanas ipse cert^ falsis. Nam quamvis magni isti tra ditionum patres spiritum prophetiae in iis tradendis sibi non adrogarent. eas tamen ipsas pro oraculis venditabant, recep- tis a mente Sinai. Atque hinc rainus mirum, qued in tota ista temporis intercapedine, a morte prophetarura ad adven- tura Christi, vix foret, qui se pro propheta venditaverit, cum patres traditionum oracula effarentur, atque infahibilitate quasi inflata magisterialiter pronuntiarent. Non mirer Chaldffium paraphrasten vocabulum K'O: pro phetam toties reddere per KIDD scribam ; cum ipsi scribae sequali auctoritate cum sanctissimis prophetis, cum ipso Mosc, sua traderent. Et mutue eum scabunt quoque sen- o Johan. xi. 51. 438 TRACTATUS DE bse, dum ejus interpretationem eadem etiam auctoritate ad- struunt, ut receptam ab ore p Haggsei, Zacharise, et Malachias, prophetarura. Hinc prima mali labes, ac pariter ultima, ruinse Judaicae Alpha et Omega, toxicon a prime isto, per omnia, ad hoc us que sseculum imbibitum, quo dementantur; ut traditiones divinis oraculis coaequent, im6 praeferant, et verbum Dei per eas inane reddant. Hinc prima pepuli istius rejectie, atque hinc pariter ejus obduratio in hunc usque diem. Summa hujus sectienis hsec est. Post discessum Spi ritus Sancti increbuit gradatim nox traditionum, quibus ut oraculis dum crederet gens fatua, et religione sua excidit, et favore Dei. " Populus hic labiis me honorat, cor autem eo rum lenge est a me ; frustra autem colunt me, docentes doctrinas, mandata hominum''." §IV. Prophetia rediviva. Ejus simia Magia. ExoEiENTE aurora evangehi, exerta est etiam lux pro- phetica,et rediit Spiritus Sanctus, radiis quam unquam antea illustrieribus. Nee mirura, cum eluceret ' Sol justitiae,' et in divino suo lumine et vigore prodiret, gentes cranes illu- minaturus. Non necesse est de denis Spiritus effusis sub temperibus apostelorum loqui, cum ea omnibus sint notse sacris paginis. Ea imitari nixus est pater deceptionum falsis suis miraculis et oraculis, per ''^EvSoxpityrovg, 'Avrtxpitrrovg, et ^EuSoTTpo- ^firag sues editis : de quibus prsedixerat veritatis oraculum, Dominus Jesus, et pest eum apostoli. Nam tot et tanta et talia docuerant traditionum patres de regno Christi terreno, pempose, et fastu terreno turgenti, de excussione tunc teraporis jugi Ethnici, et florenti statu Judseorum; ut, cum jam afforet tempus Messise a prophetis definitum, exsurgerent plurimi, nomen et titulura propheta rura, imo ipsius Messise, sibi vindicantes, populo gaudia premittentes, et ambientes libertatem gentis a jugo Roma norum, et promissa sua miraculis magicis diabolicisque ro- borantes. Exeraplis hujus rei innumeris scatent paginse sa- crae, et Talmudicae. Quae ipsissima res contra ipsos testimo nio esse possit, tunc exsurrecturum verum Messiara, quum 1' Bab. Megil. fol. 3. 1. q Mat. xv. 8, 9. SPIRITU PROPHETFE. 43J) Beatissimus noster Jesus appareret. Nam cum, a cessantu multis retro sajculis prophetia, non fuisset qui se sub titulo prophetae venditaverit, eccur tandem istosaeculo protruserunt se tot sub isto nomine, nisi qued inde opportunitatera se nactos esse sunt opinati, quod tunc teraporis expectabatur credebaturque adventus Messise ? Prodeunte erge evangelio, comitata est propbetia; in- crebuitque indies, donee tandem consignaretur canon Novi Testamenti: et exinde evanuit ut non necessaria, cum jam illuminasset splendor evangelicus universura terrarum erbem. § V. Excidium Hierosolymitanum, celeberrima Epocha apud Paginas Sacras. Cum de Spiritus Sancti decessu ab ecclesia Judaica quae- dam lecuti simus, et quemadmodum eam inundarunt tradi tiones putidse, — de desolatiene ejusinfanda, merits et fatali- ter sequente, aliquid insuper addere visum est. Deum habitationem urbemque suam, loca sibi dilectis- sima elim, tam dira et fatali demolitiene diruere, populum- que proprium, supra omnes raortales olim carum amatum- que, plagis supra mortalium omnium plagas feralibus et tre- mendis sic exscindere, — non mirum, si haec a paginis sacris coloribus depingantur atris adraodum et luctuosis. I. Inter quos praecipuus est, et qui eculos animumque maxim^ aflacit, cum describitur istud excidium ac si exci dium foret totius universi, et dissolutio cerapagis totius raa- chinse mundi in die extreme. Talia ccelestis oraterise schemata sunt ista : " Adspexi terram, et erat inil inn vacua et infermis ; et cceles, et non erat lux in eis. Vidi montes, et ecce movebantur, et omnes colles conturbati sunt. Intuitus sum, et non erat homo, et omne volatile coeli recessit^" Crederes totum mundum ad pristinum suum chaos et informitatem relabi; cum nihil •aliud hsec verba sibi velint, quara perditionem istius gentis solum et urbis, ut patet lucidissim^ in sequentibus. " Ad spexi, et ecce Carmelus desertus, et omnes urbes ejus de- structffi sunt a facie Domini," &c. Matt. xxiv. 29, 30 : " Sol obscurabitur, et luna non edet splendorem, et stellse cadent de coelo, et potestates ccelorum concutientur. Tunc apparebit signum Fihi Hominis in coelo," '¦ Hiercm. iv. 23. 440 TRACTATUS DE &c. Hsec, inquies, plan^ dissolutionem totius universi elo- quuntur, et extreraura judicium. At perpende ben^ inter alia vers. 34, et extra controversiam est, hsec diei solum de ex- cidio Hieroselymitano : " Amen, dice vobis, Nequaquam prseterierit haec generatio, usque dura hsec omnia fiant." Ejusdem styli et rheterices sunt ista, 2 Petr. iii. 10': " Cceli cum stridere prseteribunt, elementa vero sestuantia selventur, terraque et quse in ea sunt opera exurentur," &c. Quis haec absque omni dubio non intellexerit de conflagra- tione mundi in die judicii? At confer Deuter. xxxii. 22: " Ignis succensus est in furore meo, et ardebit usque ad in- ferni nevissima : devorabitque terrara cum germine suo, et mentium fundamenta cemburet." — Hagg. ii. 6 : " Adhuc unum modicum est, et ego commevebo ccelura, et terrara, et mare, et aridara." — Heb. xii. 26 : " Ego movebo non solum terram, sed et ccelum." Et observa per elementa intelligi Mosaica, Gal. iv. 9. Col. ii. 20 ; ut et de quibusnara tem peribus apostolus loquatur; et turn non dubitaveris eum non loqui, nisi de cenflagratione Hieroselymerum, subver- sione gentis, et annihilatiene cecenoraiae Mosaicse. Paria sunt ista Apoc. vi. 12, 13: "Sol factus est ut saccus cilicinus, et luna tota facta est ut sanguis ; et stellse coeli ceciderunt: et ccelura recessit, sicut liber convelutus," &c. Ubi si observaveris plagas antecedentes, quibus Deus, secundum frequentissimas cemminationes suas, gentem is tam perdidit; ' gladium' scilicet, vers. 4; ' famem,' vers. 5: et 'pestem,' vers. 8: contulerisque verba ista, "Et dixerunt montibus et petris, Cadite in nos," Sec. cura " Tunc dicere incipient raontibus, Cadite in nos, et collibus, Cooperite nos':" elucebit satis per phrasiologias istas intelhgi istius gentis et urbis treraendura judicium et excidium. II. Huic gemina est forma ista loquendi, qua dies tem- pusque vindictse istius, et excidii, vocatur ' Dies Domini,' et ' Adventus Christi in nubibus, et gloria,' ac si de extreme judicio foret sermo. Actor, ii. 20 : " Priusquam veniat dies Domini magnus et terribilis." Observetur, ut prophetiam istam Joehs ap- plicet Petrus ad ista tempora, et absque commentario vi debis, quid sibi velit per istum • diem Domini.' Eodem sensu sumendum est et illud 2 Thess. u. 2 : " Ac si dies Christi appropinquaret."— Nam loquitur apostolus ' Luc. xxiii. 30. SPIRITU PROPHETIC. 441 illic loci de apestasia grassatura ante excidium gentis, et antichriste Judaice vivis coloribus patefaciendo. Eodem pertinent haec et hujusmodi. Mat. xvi. 28 : " Sunt ex hic stantibus, qui non gustabunt mortem, donee videant Filium Hominis venientem in regno suo." — Et cap. xix. 28 : "Cum sederit Filius Hominis in throne glorias suae, sedebitis et vos in threnis," &c. Et cap. xxiv. 30 : " Tunc videbunt Filium Hominis venientem in nubibus," &c. Et Johan. xxi. 22 : " Si velim, ut raaneat, donee ego veniam, quid illud ad te ?" Idera volunt et ista Heb. x. 37 : " Adhuc enim modicum quantumcunque, et qui venturus est, veniet." — Jacob, v. 9 : "Ecce Judex stat prse foribus." — Apoc. i. 7 : " Ecce venit in nubibus." — Et cap. xxii. 20: " Ego certe venio cito." — Et plura istiusmodi, quse omnia ad adventum Christi in vindicta contra gentem Judaicam sunt intelligenda. III. Hisce phrasielegiis consena est ista, qua tempera, excidium istud antecedentia, vecantur D'a'H nnnbJ ' ultimi dies,' aut ' ultima tempera,' id est, ultimi dies aut tempera ceconomise et gentis Judaicse. Nam ille sensu intelligenda est ista forma lecutienis in plerisque sacrae paginae locis, ubicunque occurrit, si quidem non in omnibus. Ut Isai. ii. 2 ; Hos. iii. 5 ; et 1 Tim. iv. 1 ; 2 Tim. iii. 1 ; 2 Pet. iii. 3 ; Atque alibi infinities. Testem provece Sanctum Petrum, verba Joelis interpretantem, " In ultirais diebus effundam de Spiritu meo," &c. ' Hoc nunc adimpletur,' inquit Petrus ; et neutiquam referendum est ad dies ultimos mundi, sed ad dies ultimos Hierosolymse. Quaerisne etiam quinam ultimi isti dies, de quibus apostoli Paulus et Petrus 2 Tim. iii. 1 ; et 2 Petr. iii. 3 ? Respondet Sanctus Johannes [1 Johan. ii. 18]; "Multi antichristi jam sunt: unde sci mus quod ultimum tempus est."— Et vide 1 Pet. i. 20 : " Christus manifestatus est in temperibus hisce ultimis." Hue spectant etiam ista et istiusmodi: 1 Cor. x. 11 ; " In nos fines sseculorum devenerunt :" — 1 Pet. iv. 7 ; " Om nium finis imminet," 8tc. IV. Pari consenantia tempera, excidium Hierosolymi tanum subsequentia, vecantur ' nova creatio,' et ' novi cceli et nova terra.'— Isai. Ixv. 17; "Ecce creo novos cceles et novam terram." Quandonam illud? Perlege caput, et comperies Judaeos excises et rejectos; et exinde est nova ista creatio, mundi videlicet evangehci inter Gentiles. Vide et Isai. h. 16. 442 TRACTATUS DE Ejusdem sensus sunt ista 2 Petr. iii. 13 : " Nos vero, secundum premissienem ejus, expectamus novos cceles et novam terram :" i.e. ' Cenflagratura sunt ccelura et terra, ecclesise et Reip. Judaicae ; et elementa Mosaica igne absu- mentur: at nos, istis absuraptis, secundura premissienem istam per Isaiam, expectamus novum sseculum, et novam creatienem, status evangelic! inter Gentiles : in que ha- bitabit justificans justitia: cum per fidem justificabuntur illi, qu! elim tam longe erant a justitia.' Idem vult Apoc. xxi. 1 : " Vidi autem novum ccelum, et novam terram : pri mum enim ccelum et prima terra prseterierunt." Et illud Rora. viii. 19, 20, 8lc. de mundo Ethnice anhelante et sus- pirante ad partum novse creaturae. Hue pertinent ea, quse dicuntur de KSn D^iy ' mundo fu- turo,' cum ad tempora Messise referuntur. Nam erat ex cidium Hierosolyrase riXog TOV aioJvoe', "finis sascul! Judaic!' (vel D^iy istius, per quod duratura erant Mosaica, de quibus dicitur qued futura erant Dbiy^) et exinde exordium novi mundi et sseculi, regnante Christo inter Gentiles ; et univer sis gentibus sub sceptre evangelii sui sese suLmittentibus. Hic igitur obiter notemus, duriorem esse istam inter pretationem, quae 'in ultimis diebus' vag^ et generaliter red dit, 'in diebus evangel!!;' ex quo scilicet incepit praedi- catio ad finem usque mundi. Durior, inquam, est inter pretatio tempora ista, quse ' novi mundi,' aut ' novse crea tionis' titulo insigniuntur, vocare ' ultimos dies.' §VL Quonam Anno Vespasiatii excidium Urbis. Facile decipi potest lector a verbis Joseph! istis ; 'Ea- Xii) piv 'lipoaoXvfia eVei CEvripti^ rot) OvEawaaiavov riyEfioviag^; " Capta est Hieroselyma anno iraperi! Vespasian! secundo." Nam non periit Hieroselyma anno Vespasian! secundo, se cundum ceraputum, que anni ejus inscribuntur fastis con- sularibus ; sed secundo jam inchoate anno, ex que ab ex- ercitu declaratus fuerat iraperater. Et caut^ etiam de hoc anno legendus est Tacitus. Fronti libri ejus quarti Historiarum hsec inscribuntur : " Hsec gesta ille ipse anno, cujus pars postrema et consules habuit irap. Vespasianum II. et Titum F." — Et haec referuntur cap. ix. ad annum U. C. 823 ; " Interea Vespasianus iterum ac Titus consulatum absentes inierunt." — Quse ut planius intelligas, > Mall. xxiv. 3. " Ue Bell. I. 7. u. 47. SPIRITU PROPHETIAE. 443 retrosilias paulum per spatium anni et dimidii ad mortem Neronis. Nam turbida ista tempera, quse intercesserunt inter obitum Neronis et imperium Vespasiani, non solum totum erbem bellis et tumultibus inquietarunt, sed et ipsos fastos confusis nuraeris et nominibus. Unde caut^, et ut histericum decuit, Dion Cassius" : " A morte Neronis usque ad principatum Vespasiani annus intercessit, diesque viginti duo. "Eypa\pa Se roj^ro tov pi} Tivag aTrarjjS'jjvat, &c. Quod idcirco scribendum putavi, ne errere ducerentur ii, qui nu- merura temporis ad eos, qui principatum obtinuerunt, refer- rent. Non enim sibi successere invicem ; sed vive adhu et regnante altere, quisque eorum se tum imperatorem esse credidit, quura priraum in ipsum quasi prospectasset im perium. Itaque dies eorum non ex successione mutua nu- merandi sunt, sed accurata exactaque ratione temporis." Extinctus"^ igitur est Nero quarto Idus Junii, sub Coss. C. Silio Italico et Marco Valerie Trachale". " Non minus mirum ostentum cognovit nostra setas anno Neronis supre mo, pratis oleisque intercedente via publica in contrarias sedes transgressis, in agre Marrucino, praediis Vectii Mar- celli, res Neronis procurantis." Galba eum excipiens, secundura Dionem, regnavit men ses ix. dies xiii ; hoc est, ab eo tempore, quo priraum decla ratus est iraperater ab exercitu, vivente adhuc Nerene. At accuratius, secundum Suetoniura et Eutropium, periit mense iraperii sui septimo : ipso scilicet initio novi anni, mense Januarie. Et turbidus hic annus tria habuit censulum paria, et quatuor imperatores. Initium anni insignitum est Cess. Serg. Galba irap. II. et Tito Vinio Crispino : at statim ab initio anni perit Galba. Galba occise, atque Othene et Vitellio pro imperio con- flictantibus, substituuntur consules, Quinctius Atticus, et Cn. Caecilius Simplex. Regnavit Otho dies nonaginta ; et, devictus a Vitellio, propria manu se confodit, circa finem Aprilis. Et jam securura se de imperio arbitrator Vitellius, cum calendis Julii Vespasianus declaratur imperator a legionibus in .^gyp- to, et V. Julii in Judaea. Et jam cenquassatur bello civili totum imperium. Diri- pitur ipsa Roma ; et incendie perit Capitelium. At tan dem perit etiam Vitelhus, Decembr. iii. • Dion Cass. 1. 66. " Vid, Baron. An. Christ. l.\x. x pUn. i. g. c. 88. 444 TRACTATUS DE SPIRITU PROPHETIC. Suffecti illico sunt Coss. Vespasianus et Titus absentes. Et exacto iste mense, et calendis Januariis jam adventanti- bus, continuatur consulatus eorum in annura sequentera. Iste ergo annus Fastis inscribitur ' annus priraus Vespasiani.' Vere itaque dicitur quidera a Josephe, qued excisa est Hieresolyraa anno ejus secundo ; nempe ex quo declaratus est iraperater. Ast annus ejus erat primus post mortem Vi- tellii, et secundum computum fastorura. § VII. Compendium anni cladis Hierosolymitantz. Istius anni, istiusque cladis hoc accipe compendium. Orte" jam vere, Vespasianus et Titus Alexandria disce- dunt; ille Romara versus, hic ad bellura Judaicum. y April. 8. lux prodigiosa altare circumfulget nocte. ^ Obsessae ad festum paschatis HierosolymaB. Vacca vi- tulum enixa ad altare. Porta templi orientalis avTOfidrwg aperta. ° Mai. 7. primus murus capitur. ''Maj. 12. incipiunt Romani ;)^a>juara cenficere. ¦^Maj. 21. currus et phalanges apparent in aethere. "*Maj. 25. Rabban Simeon, prseses Synhedrii, et R. Ana nias, sagan sacerdetum, interficiuntur, si mode interfecti hoc anno. Ananiam istum ego eundem esse suspicor cum acerbo judice Pauli. Actor, xxii. - Jun. Festo Pentecestes auditur vex e temple, "Migremus hinc." *" Jul. 1. a prima urbis obsidione ad hunc diera, efferuntur ab una porta 115880 mertui. ^ Rabban Jochanan Ben Zac cai vivus effertur ac si mortuus, et sic aufugit ad Caesarera. '' Jul. 5. arx Antonia capitur. ' August. 9. conflagrat teraplum vesperi, etlO. absuraitur. j Septerabr. 8. urbs perit, ''die sabbati. Et referentibus Judaeis, a Turne, aut Tferentio Rufo, foditur tandem aratro. ¦^ Joseph, de Bell. 1. 4. v. 42. V Ibid. 1. 6. c. 31. z Ibid. 1. 5.u. U » Ibid. ^. 20. b Ibid. c. 30. c ibid. 1. 6. ^. 31. ¦1 Jnchas. fol. 57. « Ibid. 1. 6. c. 30. f Ibid. 1. 6. o. 37. E Avoth R. Nathan, c.4. t Jos. ubi aate,l. 6. 0.6. ' Ibid. „. 22, 23. j Ibid. c. 24. k Dion Cass. 1. 66. ACADEMIC* JAFNENSIS HISTORIA CHRONOLOGICE DISTRlBUTA. dTragmattum. [See pp. 388—391.] Excisis Hierosolyrais, a Tite victere irapetravit Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai, ut Jabneh Synhedrium iterura recipe- ret, retineretque. Quo ab ee cencesso, prsesedit illic primo ipse Jochanan ; et pest eum Rabban Gamaliel secundus, Si- meenis filius ; ac post eum R. Akibah. Claruitque hic locus prae omnibus Academise sedibus, excepta solum nevissima Tiberiade. Ita ut n310 D13'' " Vinea Jafnensis" in adagium abierit. D"ID3 nma; nnity D'ltt"1 vnti? " Qu6d censideant seriatim in- star vinese." Referturque*" " tercentenas scholarlum classes illic extitisse, vel ad minimum octoginta." Distabat Jabneh (de qua etiam mentio 2. Paralip. xxvi. 6.) ab Azote duabus Parsis, id est, ecto milliaribus : vecataque est tandem )'^3'K Ivolin'^. Quem titulum civitati Gath attribuunt nonnulli. Liceat hic aliquantum exspatiari in historiam Jafnensem, et syllabe brevi tempera Synhedrii illic stati corapaginare. Christi 70. Vespas. 1. — Flaramis perit teraplura ii/ulp^ Se- Korr) Aiiov finvog, " Die'^ decima mensis Augusti." Qued ta men scriptores Hebraici uno ore 3X3 nyttTlD^ ' Ad nonum mensis Ab' adscribunt, non ad decimum. Quem nodum sic solvit Gemara Babylonica : ''"None (inquiunt), cura jam ad- vesperasceret, flamraas teraple admoveret, quse per totum diem decimum exarserunt. Ecce etiam quid dicat Rabban Jochanan, Si ego non vixissem in isthoc ipso sseculo, non adjudicassem nisi ad diem decimum, in que maxiraa pars terapU est absorpta." Quse et adducit glossator in Maimo- nidem, hsec insuper addens : 8" Apud Talmud quoque Hiero solymitanum Rabbi N. et R. Joshua Ben Levi jejunarunt die- bus et decima et nena." • This tract is taken from Lensden's edition of Lightfoot, vol. 3. p. 87. a Jebamotb, cap. 8. et R. Sal. ibi. i> Hieros. Taanith. fol. 67. 4. c R. Benjamin, in Itinerario. * Joseph, de Bello lib. 6. 26. « Taanith. cap. 4. hal. 7. et Maimon. ibi. cap. 5. f Bab. in Taanith. fol. 29. 1 , g Gloss, in Maim, in Taanith. cap. 5. 446 ACADEMIJE JAFNENSIS HISTORIA. Excisa est urbs^ octavo Septembris'', die sabbati. Christill. Vespas. 2. Jochanan!. — Rabban Jochanan' Ben Zaccai. — Johannes, Actor, iv. 6. Synhedrium magnum cellecatur in Jabneh, Jimpetrante illud Rabban Jochanane a Tite. Turnus"' Rufus (Josephe', Terentius Rufus "Apx^^v Tr\g arpariag) areara urbis et templi fedit aratro. Periclitatur Rabban Gamaliel, filius Rabban Simeonis, in excidio urbis pereuntis. De qua re historiara babes mi- ram, si raodo veram, in locis™ ad marginera notatis. Rabban" Jochanan instituit cantum tubae in Jabneh in initio anni. Christi 72. Vespas. 3. Jochanan 2. — Consident et versan- tur cum Rabban Jochanane in Jabneh, I. Filii" Betirse, setate raaxira^ provecti; si modo iidem illi fuere, Pqui Hillelem in principatum praefecerunt, quod creditur. II. Rabbi Eliezer Ben Erech. De quo") alta encomia eduntur a Rabban Jochanane, et interpretantem eura audie- runt mystica de curru divine Ezechielis. III. Rabbi"' Eliezer filius Hyrcani ; auctor libri, qui inscri bitur 'Pirke Eliezer;' ubi eerura nomina invenias, qui cum ee cosetanei fuere, et qualis fuerit tunc temporis Judseorum theologia. Uxorem' is duxit Imma Shalom, filiam Rabban Simeonis, qui periit in excidio. Uxorique praedixit mortem discipuli cujusdam coram se doceutis : qued et evenit. IV. Rabbi Joshua Ben Hananiah, Levita* et preecentor olim in templo : dissentiens ut plurimum a R. Eliezer. V. R. Zadok, et R. Eliezer filius ejus. Iste R. Zadok nimiis jejuniis se cenfecit, ex eo tempore, que portae templi per se sunt apertse. Medicis Titi usus est, impetrante illud Rabban Jochanane. VI. Ben Bucri. Intreducitur ille cum Rabban Jocha nane collequens in Jabneh, loco ad marginera" allegato. VII. R. Ismael, R. Josi, R. Simeon Ben Nathaniel, pluri- B Joseph, de Bello, lib. 6. 42. >> Dion Cass. lib. 66. ' See Section iii, ofthe Parergon, p. 387 of this volume j Aboth E. Nathan, cap. 4. k Taanith. cap. 4. hal. 7 1 Joseph, de Bell. lib. 7. cap. 7. m Baj,, Taanith. fol. 29. 1. Jnchas fol 53 2 n Rosh Hashanah. cap. 4. hal. 1. ° Juchas. fol. 14. P Hieros. Pesachin. fol. 33. 1. q Hieros. Chagig. fol. 77.' i ' Pirke Eliezer, cap. 1, &c. » Hieros. Gittin. fol 43 3 ' Joohas. fol. 59. u Shekalim, cap. 1. hal. 4 ACADEMIjE JAFNENSIS HISTORIA. 447 mique alii, de quibus auctor Juchasin sparsim, et Tsemach David, aliique. Christi 73 — 5. Vespas. 4 — 6. Jochanan 3 — 5. — De tempore prsefecturae Rabban Jochananis centrovertitur. Sunt, qui'' dues tantum annos ei attribuant : suntque qui'^ quinque. Quibuscum et nos pedibus in sententiam imus. Liceat verba ejus jam merientis addere, prout recitatur historia a suis : " Cum'' jam languesceret Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai, accesserunt discipuli eum visitatum. Quos vi dens ille, incepit flere. Cui illi, ' 6 Candela Israelis, Co- lurana dextra, Mallee strenue, unde illae lacryraae?' Quibus ille, ' Si rae adducturi essent coram rege carnis et sanguinis, qui hodie hic est, et eras in sepulchre, si ille mihi irascere- tur, ira ejus non est sempiterna : si ille me in vincula con- jiciat, vincula ejus non sunt aeterna: si me occidat, occisio ista non est seterna: posseraque forsan aut verbis placare, aut mollire munere. At me adducturi sunt coram Rege regum. Domino Sancto Benedicto, qui vivit et permanet in saecula, atque in saecula sseculorura. Qui si mihi succenseat, ira ejus est aeterna; si rae vinciat, vinculura ejus est seternum; si me occidat, occisio ejus est aeterna. Queraque non possum vel verbis placare, vel mollire munere. Atque insuper sunt coram me du8e vise, altera ad paradisum, altera ad Gehennam : nescio ego qua via sint me ducturi. Nonne igitur flerera ?' " Ah miseramac languentera Pharissei in morte fiduciam! Christi 16. Vespas. 7. Gamaliel 1. — Rabban Gamaliel" de Jabneh. Quare ille ab interprete Tsemach David voce- tur ' Rabban Garaaliel Dibanah,' aperte profiteer me non at- tingere ; ipse loquatur. Hujus Rabban Gamalielis infinita mentio apud Talmu- dicos. Occidendus'' cum patre sue R. Simeone, interce dente R. Jochanane Ben Zaccai liberatus est. Qusesitus* etiam ad necem, cum Turnus Rufus aream templi aratro foderet, liberatus est more vix credendo. Christill. Vespas. %. Gamaliel 2 — In"* Jabneh sedens, pragmaticum admodum se exhibuit, et severum : ita ut R. Akibam, prsefectum tunc temporis scholae Lyddensis, prse- fectura sua amoveret. Christi 78. Vespas. 9. Gamaliel 3. — Amotus est ipse tan dem praefectura sua ; aut saltem effraenatse illius superbiae, se- ' Vid. Jnchas. fol. 20. 22. " Tsemach David. " Bab. Beracoth. fol. 28. 2. J See Section iv, p. 388 of this volume. 3 Jaohas. fol. 53. 2. » Bab. Taanith. fol. 29. 1. b Rosh Hashanah. cap. 1. hal. 7. 448 ACADEMIJi JAFNENSIS HISTORIA. veritati, ac TroXvirpaypotrvvig injecta sunt lora, — pre eo, aut supra eum, in Synhedrio collocate R. Eleazare Ben Azarlas. De qua re exstat historia ^ loco ad marginem notate. Obit Vespasianus, anno imperii sui decimo, VIII. ka- lend Julii, cum decem annos regnasset, 6 diebus minus". Christi 80. Titi 1 . Gamaliel 5. — Vespasiano defuncto, suc- cedit in imperio filius ejus Titus. Christi 81.. Titi 2. Gamaliel 6.— Obit Titus idib. Sep terabr. ; quera excepit frater ejus Domitianus. Christi 82. Domitian. 1. Gamaliel 7. — Conclaraatura est de Rabban Garaaliele : ut et de praefectura R. Eleazari Ben Azariae. Nara hinc porro adscribuntur anni R. Akibae. Ju- venis adraodura jara fuit Eleazar ben Azariae, at senilis valde gravitatis, '' imo et canorum, si referentibus fides : vixitque diu pest hsec tempora. At absorptus est temporum ejus cal culus inter terapera R. Akibse. Sub Garaaliele prodiit execranda ista orationis formula, quam DOD D3"il " Orationem centra Hsereticos" nuncupa- runt, a Sarauele Parvo inventa, at sancita a Gamaliele. Est ubi y^iM}} n3"i2 'Oratio in Sadducseos' vocatur, at sapit nimium in Christianos esse cenfectam. RABBI AKIBAH ^ Christi 83. Domitian. 2. Aldbah 1. — Computum tempo- rum hic sic colligimus. Constans^ est Judseorum sententia, periisse civitatem 'Bitter' (ut vulgo scribitur) anno post exci dium templi quinquagesimo secundo. Atque seque constans est sententia, sedisse R. Akibaras praefectura annos quadra- ginta, atque obiisse cum civitate Bitter. Hinc est qued duodecim tantum annos prsefectis praenominatis attribuimus, ut quadraginta suos habeat R. Akibah. De eo infinita men- tie apud Talmudicos. Nos hsec pauca excerperaus ; " R. Akibah, filius Jeseph proselyti justitiae, fuit maximus inter sapientes : fuit e posteris Siserse. Ministravit Nachumo Garazu annis viginti duobus''," 8cc. l> Hieros. Taanith. fol. 67. 4 c Dion. 4 Gloss, in Bab. Beracoth. fol. 1 2. 2. e See p. 390 of this vol. ' Juchas. fol. 35. 2. s Id. Ibid. i" Juchas. fol. 38 et 66. end of vol. III. Printed by J. F. Dove, St. John's Square.