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PSALM 8. 2.

THESE words are alleged by our Blessed Savior, Matth. 21. 16. and three more of the verses following this by S. Paul, to prove that Christ must reign till he had subdued all his enemies under his feet: As Heb. 2. 6. &c. fully; v. 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? 5. For thou hast made him little lower than the Angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. 6. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thine hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. Again, 1 Cor. 15. 24. Christ (saith he) shall deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death. 27. For he hath put all things under his feet. This is the quotation; for it follows presently, When he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him.

How principal a part of the Argument of this Psalm, what is in these two places cited by S. Paul contains, every man may see that reads and compares them. But how it should be consonant to the meaning of the Psalm, seems very difficult to apprehend. For he that reads the whole Psalm, would think it were nothing else but a description of Man's excellency, whom God had made next to the Angels in Dignity, and given him dominion over all things he had made. For so after those words, Thou hast put all things under his feet, it follows immediately, All sheep and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the Air, and the fishes of the Sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Sea. But what is the dominion over these to subduing of Enemies, which the Apostle cites it for? or how is that which is a description of mankind in general, a Prophecy of Christ in special?

Some therefore, as in other citations of the Old Testament, so here also, betake themselves to the covert of an Allusion; namely, That the Apostle only borrows the words of the Psalmist, to express his own, and not the Psalmist's meaning. But howsoever this may have place in some other allegations of the Old Testament, which are for Illustration or Exornation only; yet when the Testimony is brought for proof and Demonstration, as this is, it can in no wise be admitted. For how can that Testimony be of force to conclude anything, where not the Author's meaning is brought, but his words only made use of? Others therefore say, That whatsoever is spoken of the Dignity and Excellency of Man in general, is to be understood by way of eminency of Christ, the chief of the sons of men. This indeed is something, but not enough. For what is the Dignity of man in regard of his Dominion and Lordship over the creature, to conquering and subduing of Enemies? which is that the Apostle seeks to demonstrate thence.

Well, to hold you no longer in suspense, the Key of the interpretation of this Psalm, and the ground of S. Paul's accommodation of that passage [ Thou hast put all things under his feet ] to Christ's victory, is to be sought in the words I have now chosen; Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings, &c. which being first alleged by our Savior in the Gospel, in defense of that acclamation given unto him by his followers, Hosanna, (that is, Save now) to the Son of David; (which the Pharisees thought too high an attribute to be deferred to flesh and blood) this application thereof by Christ himself gave the Apostle good warrant to interpret the Psalm as he did, and to ground a Demonstration thereon.

I shall therefore divide my Discourse into two parts: First, I will show the meaning of the words as they stand in the Psalm; and secondly, make it appear that our Savior in the Gospel cites them according to that meaning.

The whole drift therefore of the Psalm is to praise and glorify God for the dignity wherewith he hath invested Man: What is man (saith he) that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little (or not much) lower than the Angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. This glory and honor is exemplified in two particulars: First, in that God hath ordained Man, even that weak and feeble creature, Man, to subdue and conquer his Enemies; which is that my Text expresses in the words before named, Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings thou hast ordained strength, because of thine Enemies, that thou mightest quell the Enemy and the Avenger. Secondly, in that he hath made man the Lord of all his Creatures; Thou hast made him (saith he) to have dominion over the works of thine hands: then follows, as it were the summing up of both, In a word, Thou hast put all things under his feet. For having ordained him both the Champion to conquer thine Enemies, and made him at his Creation the Lord and Ruler of the works of thine hands, Quid reliquum est? what honor couldst thou have given him which thou hast not? Lord, (therefore) what is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Where is to be observed, that the Corollary, Thou hast put all things under his feet, comes in before his time, namely, before the description of this exemplification of man's dominion over the creature was fully ended; as if the Prophet out of admiration, could hold no longer from telling us the sum of that Dignity wherewith man was invested. Thou hast made him (saith he) to have Dominion over the works of thine hands, and so, one way or other, Thou hast put all things under his feet. Then follows the other part of the Description, All Sheep and Oxen, over these thou hast made him have Dominion, the Beasts of the field, the Fowls of the Air, and the Fishes of the Sea: whereas in direct order it should have stood thus; Thou hast made him have Dominion over the works of thine hands, over all Sheep and Oxen, the Beasts of the Field, and Fowls of the Air, and Fishes of the Sea; and so in the upshot, Thou hast put all things under his feet.

For this last particular of man's Dignity, to have Dominion over the Creatures, it is so plainly and evidently intended in the Psalm, that I shall need speak no more of it: I return therefore to the former, to make it clear also, That God ordained man, not only to exercise Dominion over the visible creatures, but to be the Champion to conquer and subdue his Enemies: Which is the drift of the words I have chosen for my Text.

Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings (saith he) that is, of Mankind, who springs from so weak and poor a beginning as of Babes and Sucklings; namely, out of the mouths of Babes, not in sensu composito, but diviso, of such whose condition is to be Babes and Sucklings: Not that they should exercise this strength he speaks of, to quell the Enemy and the Avenger, while they were Babes; but that this power should be given to such whose condition was to be such. And this is marvelous enough, that God should advance so weak a creature, and of so despicable a beginning, to such a power, as to grapple with the Enemy and overcome him. But behold, there is yet something more admirable, namely, that this should not be done by the strength of his Arm, but by the breath and power of his Mouth; Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings thou hast ordained strength, because of thine Enemies, &c. What Enemies? Thine, saith the Psalmist, and such too as are Vltores, Avengers, the Enemies of both God and Mankind. And who are those but Satan and his Angels, those Principalities and Powers of the Air, those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and Rulers of the Darkness of this world, as S. Paul speaks? For when Mankind is the one party, what can the other be but some Power that is not of Mankind? Besides, who are the Enemies both of God and Mankind but these? and of mankind especially; I will put Enmity (saith God to the Serpent) between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: hence he is called Satan, the Adversary or Fiend, and the Enemy 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Behold I give you power, (saith our Savior to the seventy Disciples, Luke 10. 19.) to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the Enemy; Your Adversary the Devil (saith S. Peter. ) And this is he (as I conceive) who is here called the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Enemy and the Avenger; man's tormentor: which words being found again in the 44. Psalm v. 16. may, for ought I know, by warrant of this place, be taken for the same Enemy, and the usual distinction altered, and the place read thus, By reason of the Enemy and the Avenger, all this (to wit, the Calamity and confusion he spake of before) is come upon us; that is, by the malice of Satan. Now that such Enemies as these should be subducd by an Arm, yea, by a Mouth of flesh, is a thing which might justly make the Prophet cry out, Lord, what is man, &c.

Now that this which I have given is the true meaning of this place, may be gathered from S. Paul's inculcating the word Enemy, when (1 Cor. 15. 24. &c. ) he demonstrates out of this Psalm, that Christ, before the end, shall abolish 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all rule, and all authority, and power; For he must reign, saith he, till he hath put all Enemies under his feet: The last Enemy which shall be destroyed is Death: and then he alleges for his proof that Corollary in this Psalm, For he hath put all things under his feet. But in all this Psalm there is no mention of Enemies, or subduing them, but only in the Verse I have in hand; which unless it be thus expounded, S. Paul's allegation from hence will be too narrow to prove what he intendeth.

HAVING thus cleared the words I chose for my Theme, I shall not need spend much time to show you how directly and literally the purport of them was fulfilled in our Blessed Savior's Incarnation: You have, in part, heard such Scriptures already as do evince it. The sum is this: The Devil by sin brought mankind under thralldom, and became the Prince of this world, himself with his Angels being worshipped and served everywhere as God's; and the service and honor due to the great God, the Creator of heaven and earth, cast off and abandoned: and all this to receive at last, for reward, eternal woe and everlasting death. To vanquish and exterminate this Enemy, and redeem the world from this miserable thralldom, the Son of God took upon him, not the nature of Angels, (which might have been the Enemies matches) but the nature of weak and despicable Man, that grows from a babe and suckling. Who (saith Isaiah, in that famous Prophecy of Messiah) hath believed our report? and to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed? (namely, that works such powerful things by weak means:) For he shall grow [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] as a tender plant or sucker; (it is the very word here used in my Text for a sucking child, and translated by the Seventy 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) and as a root out of a dry ground, that is, a small and little one.

This is that whereof S. Paul discourses so divinely in the Epistle to the Hebrews: To which of the Angels said he at any time, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? For unto the Angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak: but unto him of whom it is said, What is man, that thou art mind • ul of him, &c? Again, We see Jesus, who was made little lower than the Angels, (that is, was made man, that's the meaning) for the suffering of death, crowned with Glory and Honor: what can be so plain as this? It is the Son of man by whom in part we are, and more fully shall be, delivered out of the hands of our enemies, that we might serve the true God without fear; as Zacharias says in his Benedictus. It is the Son of man that delivered us from the power of darkness, Col. 1. 13. The Son of man, that spoiled Principalities and Powers, and made a show of them openly, Col. 2. 15. It was no Angel that did all this, but the Son of man; even as was prophesied from the beginning, when the Devil first got his Dominion, that the Seed of the Woman should break the Serpent's head.

Nor is this all; For this Son of man enables also other Sons of men, his Disciples and Ministers, to do the like in his name. The seventy Disciples in the Gospel returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the Devils are subject to us through thy name: Yea, not these only, but as many as fight under his Banner against these Enemies have promise they shall at length quell and utterly subdue them; yea, at that great Day shall sit with their Lord and Master, to judge and condemn them. Do ye not know, saith S. Paul, that the Saints shall judge the world? know ye not that we shall judge Angels?

Lastly, This victory, as for the event, so for the manner of achieving it, is agreeable to our Prophecy: Forasmuch as Christ our General nor fights nor conquers by force of Arms, but by the power of his Word and Spirit, which is the power of his Mouth, according to my Text, Out of the mouth of Babes, &c. Hence, in the Apocalypse, Christ appears with a sword going out of his mouth: In the 2 Thess. 2. 8. it is said, He shall consume that wicked one (that is, Antichrist) with the Spirit of his mouth: Isaiah prophesies, Chap. 11. 4. that the Branch of Jesse should smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips should slay the wicked; that is, he does all nutu & verbo, by his word and command, as God made the world: By the word of the Lord were the Heavens made, and all the Hoast of them by the breath of his mouth • Psal. 33. 6. So doth Christ vanquish his enemies, and enable his Ministers to vanquish them, Verbo & Spiritu oris, by his Word and the Spirit of his mouth, according to that Hos. 6. 5. I have hewed them by my Prophets, and slain them by the words of my mouth.

I come now to the Second thing I propounded; namely, to show that our Savior in the Gospel, when he cited this place, alleged it for and according to this, and no other, meaning. The Evangelist relates it thus; When the chief Priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that Jesus did, and the children in the Temple crying, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? how they ascribe the power of salvation (which is God's peculiar) to thee who art a Son of man? Is that solemn acclamation of Save now, wherewith we are wont to glorify God, fit to be given to thee? Our Savior answers, Yes; For have ye not read, (saith he) Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings thou hast ordained strength? Consider what that means: You will wonder perhaps, that a thing so plain could be taken in a differing meaning; for it is commonly supposed to be alleged only to prove that children should glorify Christ, whilst the great ones of the world despised him. And there are two things which have occasioned this mistake, and drawn the sense awry. The first is, because the Seventy (according to which the Evangelist reads this place) instead of strength translate here 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 praise, Out of the mouth of Babes and Sucklings thou hast ordained praise. Secondly, because those that made this acclamation are said to have been 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Children, When they saw the wonderful things which Jesus did, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the Children crying in the Temple. To the first I answer, Our Savior alleged not the words of the Psalm in Greek, but in Hebrew; where it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 • Strength, which is the constant signification thereof through the whole Bible, and never Praise: nor do the Seventy themselves ever translate it otherwise, save, as it seems, in this place. But whatsoever the use of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 be otherwise, it must be here regulated by the Hebrew verity, according to which our Savior alleged it, and must signify not simply Praise, but Robur praedicandum, or Robur laude dignum, Robur celebrandum, Strength worthy to be celebrated or praised, or the like. To the second, That they are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Children who made this acclamation of Hosanna to our [unspec 1] Savior, I answer, Be it so; yet I am sure they were no Babes and Sucklings, but of reasonable years: How then would our Savior's quotation have in such a sense [unspec 2] been pertinent? Besides, Young children are not properly called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . [unspec 3] Again, the Pharisees found no fault with the speakers, but with the thing spoken, which they thought too much for a man; and therefore our Savior, when he alleged this Scripture, answered to that, and intended not to apologize for the speakers. Fourthly, In all reason, those who cried here Hosanna in the Temple, were [unspec 4] the same company that brought him crying Hosanna all the way thither: But these (saith S. Mark ) were of the multitude which followed him; as S. Luke, of the multitude of the Disciples; who also tells us, that the Pharisees, who were offended thereat, bad him rebuke his Disciples. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 therefore here signifies either Christ's Disciples, or the retinue which followed him, and brought him up thither as a King: Take which you will, you shall not fasten upon 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 any notion other than usual. I shall not need to tell you, that the Disciples of the Prophets are called the Sons of the Prophets, that is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or that Herod's Courtiers, Matth. 14. 2. are termed his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 He said 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , This is John the Baptist, &c.

ZACHARIAH 4. 10.

IT is hard to keep a mean; which as it appears in many things else, so in the Doctrine and Speculation of Angels, whereunto men were heretofore so much addicted, as they pursued it not only to vain and ungrounded Theories, but even to Idolatry and Superstition. There were in the Apostles times who intruded into things they had not seen: There were then who beguiled men with a voluntary humility in worshipping of Angels, Col. 2. 18. What after-times brought forth, I shall not need speak. That ancient and high-soaring (though counterfeit) Dionysius describes the Hierarchy of Angels as exactly as if he had dwelt amongst them, delivering unto us nine Orders of them out of nine words, found partly in the Old, partly in the New Testament; Seraphims, Cherubims, and Thrones; Powers, Hosts, and Dominions; Principalities, Arch-angels, and Angels; and tells us the several natures, distinctions, and properties of them all. Whereas it cannot be shewn out of Scripture, either that some of these names concur not, (as Angels not to be a common name to all the rest, especially to comprehend Arch-angels ) or that these are denominations of the natures of Angels, and not of their offices and charges only: yet have these nine Orders passed for current through so many Ages of the Church.

But we, who together with divers Superstitions have justly rejected also these vain and ungrounded curiosities, are fallen into the other extreme, having buried the Doctrine of Angels in silence, making little or no enquiry at all, what God in his Word hath revealed concerning them: which yet would make not a little for the understanding of Scripture, wherein are so many passages having reference to them, and therefore questionless something revealed concerning them.

I shall not therefore do amiss, if I choose for my Discourse at this time a particular of that kind which Dionysius in all his Speculations hath not a word of, and yet seems to have strong footing in Scripture: It is this.

The Jews have an ancient Tradition, that there are Seven principal Angels which minister before the Throne of God, and are therefore called Arch-angels; some of whose names we have in Scripture, as Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and in the second Book of Esdras mention is made of Ieremiel the Arch-angel. This Tradition we shall find recorded in the Book of Tobit (whose antiquity is before the Birth of our Savior:) For there the Angel who in the shape of Azariah had accompanied his son into Media, when he discovers himself, speaks in this manner, I am Raphael, one of the Seven Angels which stand and minister before the Holy Blessed One, (that is, God. ) The Greek hath 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. which present the Prayers of the Saints, and go in and out before the Glory of the Holy One. But neither S. Jerome, who translated it out of the Chaldee, nor the ancient Hebrew Copy set forth by Paulus Fagius, (and in likelihood translated out of the same Chaldee Original) hath any such matter, but read as I first quoted. And therefore it se • ms to be an addition, or liberty of the greek Translator, who thought their Ministry to consist in presenting the Prayers of the Saints, and so translated accordingly.

This Tradition is farther testified by Jonathan ben Vziel the Chaldee • Paraphrast, Gen. 11. 7. where the Lord's words, spoken in the plural number, 〈…〉 go down, and let us confound their language, are paraphrased in this 〈…〉 spake unto the Seven Angels which stand before him, Go to now let us go 〈…〉 Whether rightly or fitly in this place, it matters not: the Testimony is 〈◊〉 for the Jewish Tradition of Seven Arch-angels that stand before the Throne of God.

This Tradition Junius saith is Magical, and not a little triumphs therein, a • an undoubted Argument to evince the Book of Tobit not to be Canonical. But wh • t • oever the Book of Tobit be, I hope to show this Tradition to have firm ground and footing in Scripture, and not so rashly to be rejected.

The chief and most clear place is this I have now read, which gives us to understand that these Seven Angels were represented by that Candlestick of Seven Lemps which continually burned in the Temple, before the Veil, over against the Mercy-seat, which was the Throne of God. For in the beginning of the Chapter the Prophet being shown this Seven lamped Candlestick in a Vision, and two Olive-branches on each side ministering oil to the Lamps thereof; the Angel asketh him (ver. 5.) if he knew what these meant. The Prophet answers, No, my Lord. Then the Angel, discoursing a little by way of Preface, tells him what they were; These Seven, saith he, that is, the Seven Lamps, are the seven Eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth; that is, those Seven Vigils, or prime Ministers of his Providence, the Seven Arch-angels. As for the two Olive-trees on each-side, These are, saith he, the two anointed ones, which stand before the Lord of the whole earth, (v. 14.) that is, Zerubbabel and Iesua, the Prince and Priest of that time; which should be God's two Instruments on earth, whereby his Church (signified by the Candlestick) should be re-established, and his Temple built: and that not by force or strength, (as he saith in his Preface v. 6.) but by the Spirit of God working with them; as the Olivetrees here conveyed oil to the Candlestick, not after a natural and usual, but a supernatural and secret manner. This interpretation of the latter hath the suffrage of the best Expositors, both Jews and Christians; and so I shall need say no more of it, but betake myself to make good the first, concerning the words I chose for my Text, That those Seven Eyes of God, signified by the Seven Lamps, are Seven Angels.

That this is so, I prove out of two places of the Apocalypse derived from hence; where as well the Seven Lamps before the Throne, as the Lamb's Seven Eyes, are said to be the Seven Spirits of God: I saw (saith S. John Ch. 4. 5.) Seven Lamps before the Throne, which are the Seven Spirits of God. And again, Ch. 5. 6. I saw in the midst of the Throne, and of the four Beasts, (as we translate it) and of the four and twenty Elders, a Lamb, as if he had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the Seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. Here, first, we have Zechariah's very words, Seven eyes sent forth into all the earth: secondly, that these Seven eyes are the Seven Spirits of God: thirdly, that these Seven Spirits were represented by the Seven Lamps burning before the Throne. If this be not sufficient to make my interpretation of Zechariah's good, I know not what can be. For who can now but think that the Jews derived their Tradition of these Seven Angels from this place of Zacharias, and the Apocalypse from them both?

And that indeed the Jews supposed some such thing meant by the Seven Lamps in the Temple, appears by the report of Josephus, though depraved and fashioned unto the capacity of the Gentiles. For he tells us (both in his Antiquities, Lib. 3. cap. 7. and in his De Bello Iudaico, Lib. 6. cap. 6. Gr. 〈◊〉 . ) that the Seven Lamps signified the seven Planets, and the most holy place within the veil, ( Antiq. l. 3. cap. 5.) the Heaven of God or Heaven of Glory; and that therefore the Lamps stood slope-wise, as it were to express the obliquity of the Zodiac. Now it is true that the Jewish Astrologians, favoring of Gentilism, make these Seven Angels the Prefects of the Seven Planets; which they seem to have learned in part from the Greek Philosophy: which conceit, howsoever it be vain and groundless, yet may be as a Key to understand the meaning of this of Josephus. And one thing more; If the visible things of God may be learned, as S. Paul says, from the Creation of the world, why may not the Invisible and Intelligible World be learned from the Fabric of the Visible? the one (it may be) being the Pattern of the other. But to let this pass, and return again to the Apocalypse:

Where concerning the places alleged, there may be two things objected. First, That the Seven Spirits there mentioned are, and may be, expounded of the Holy Ghost, thus represented in respect of those seven-fold (that is, manifold) Graces he communicates unto the Church. I answer, that many indeed have so taken it: but, besides the unco • thness of expressing one Spirit by seven, there is a reason in the Text why they cannot be so taken; namely, because not only the Seven Lamps are said to be those Seven Spirits of God, but the Seven eyes and Seven Horns of the Lamb also to be the same. Now it will be very hard and harsh to make the Holy Ghost the Horns and Eyes of Christ, as he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, that is, as he is Man: Above Angels indeed the Man Jesus is exalted, and that too for the suffering of death, that is, as the Lamb; but not above the Holy Ghost. This made not only Drusius, but even Beza himself, in his Notes upon this place to affirm, it could not be meant of the Holy Ghost, but of Seven created Spirits.

A second scruple is, How (if they be created Spirits) John could pray for Grace and Peace from them: Grace be unto you, (saith he) and peace from him which is, which was, and is to come; and from the seven spirits which are before his Throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, &c. Would he pray for Grace and Peace from Angels? I answer, Why not? For first, He prays not to them; but unto God, unto whom such votes are tendered. Secondly, He prays for Grace and Peace from them, not as Authors, but as the Instruments of God in the dispensation thereof. Are they not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ministering Spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of Salvation? And, if it be no Idolatry to pray unto God to give Grace and Peace from the outward Ministry of his Word; no more is it to pray unto him for it from the invisible Ministry. For certainly it is lawful to pray unto God for a blessing from an Instrument, which he is wont to give us by an Instrument. Secondly, It may be said, it being a Salutation, that the words [ Grace and Peace ] need not be taken in that special and strict sense, but in the large and general, wherein Grace sounds favor at large, and Peace all manner of prosperity. In which sense no man will deny but the blessed Angels have an interest in the dispensation of the favors and blessings of God to his Church; and so God may be prayed to to give them, as he is wont, by their Ministry. Grace and Peace from him which is, which was, and is to come, as the Author and Giver; and from the Seven Spirits, as the Instruments; and from Jesus Christ, as the Mediator.

There is yet one place more in the Apocalypse to confirm this Tradition, Chap. 8. 2. I saw, saith S. John, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Seven Angels which stood before God. Is not this as plain as Tobit? Why should then the one be accounted Magical rather than the other?

I add moreover, that these Angels are those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Principes primarii or chief Princes, mentioned in the 10. of Daniel 13. Michael one of the chief Princes (saith the Angel there) came to help me: Now Michael, we know, is one of the Arch-angels; and why therefore may not these chief Princes be those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whereof S. Paul speaks in his adjuration to Timothy? I charge thee (saith he) before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Elect Angels; not the good Angels at large, but those Angeli eximii, the Seven Arch-angels which stand before the Throne of God.

And it may, not without reason, be conjectured, that those Seven chief Princes famed in the Persian Monarchy took their beginning from hence; namely, that Daniel (who in respect of his account for wisdom, and of his power under Darius the Mede, had a main stroke in the moulding and framing the Government of that State) caused the Persian Court to resemble that of Heaven, ordaining Seven chief Princes to stand before the King. Of which we find twice mention in Scripture: as in the Book of Esther, where they are recorded by name, and styled the seven Princes of Media and Persia, who saw the King's face, and sat first in the kingdom: and in the Commission granted to Ezra by Artaxerxes, Ezra 7. 14. they are called the King's seven Counselors; Forasmuch as thou art sent by the King, and his seven Counselors, &c. And, it may be, the Church of Jerusalem, when they chose Seven Deacons to minister unto their Bishop, had an eye the same way.

HITHERTO of the Number of these Arch-angels; now a word or two of their Office. And that is, First, to be the universal Inspectors of the whole world, and the Rulers and Princes of the whole Angelical host: which appears in that they are called Principes primarii, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 chief Princes, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Archangels (i.) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Chief of the Angels: their universal jurisdiction is meant by the words [ sent forth into the whole world, ] whereas the rest are limited to certain places. Secondly, to have the peculiar Charge and Guardianship of the Church and affairs thereof, whilst the rest of the world, with their Polities, Kingdoms and Governments, is committed to the care of subordinate Angels, who, according to their several charges, may seem to carry those names of Thrones, Principalities, Powers and Dominions. That the charge of the Church, quà talis, belongs thus peculiarly and immediately to the Seven Arch-angels, may appear by S. John 's saluting the Churches with a Benediction of Grace and Peace from their ministry; and the typing of them by the Seven Eyes and Horns of the Lamb, as Powers which the Father, since he exalted Him to be Head of his Church, hath annexed to his Jurisdiction. Hence it comes to pass, that we find these Angels peculiarly, both before and in the Gospel, to have been employed about the Church-affairs. In the Old Testament, the Angiel Gabriel (one of the Seven ) revealed to Daniel the time of the restauration of the Jewish State, and coming of Messiah: and the Angel Michael (one of the chief Princes) was his assistant, when he strengthened Darius the Mede who founded the Monarchy which should restore them, and is in special termed ( Dan. 12. 1.) the Prince that stood for Daniel 's people. In the Gospel, we find the same Angel Gabriel employed both to Zacharias and the Blessed Virgin with the Evangelical Tidings; and that Zacharias might take notice that he was one of the Seven, he says unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God. Likewise in the Churches combat with the Dragon, Apocal. 12. 7, &c. Michael and his Angels are said to be her Champions, and in her quarrel to have cast the Dragon and his Angels down to the Earth. And in this Prophecy of Zacharias it is said, that these Seven eyes of the Lord took care of one stone, which Zerubbabel laid for the foundation of the Temple; and therefore the work could not be disappointed, but should certainly at length be finished. So as by this time we may guess the meaning of that which Hanani the Seer told King Asa (2 Chron. 16. 9.) The Eyes of the Lord (that is, these Seven Eyes) run to and fro through the whole Earth, to show themselves strong in the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect towards him.

S. MARK 11. 17.

THEY are the words of our Blessed Savior, when he cast the Buyers and Sellers and Money-changers out of the Temple, and forbad to carry any vessels through it. Concerning which story it is worth observe ••• on, that our Savior whilst he was upon earth never exercised any Kingly or coactive Jurisdiction, but in vindicating his Father's House from profanation. And this he did two several times: Once at the first Passover, after he began his Prophesy, whereof you may read John 2. 14, &c. and now again at his last Passover, when he came to give his soul a sacrifice for sin. This is that which S. Mark relates in this place, as do also two other of the Evangelists, S. Matthew and S. Luke. The vindication of God's House from Prophanation (how little account soever we are wont to make thereof) was without Blessed Savior Alpha and Omega, the first and last of his care; ubi incipit, ibi desinit. The consideration of which, how momentous it is, I leave to yourselves to judge. Thus much by way of Preface.

NOW for understanding the words I have chosen, I will divide my Discourse into a Question and an Observation. The Question is, In what part of the Temple this Market was kept. A thing not commonly by Expositors inquired after, much less defined. The Observation is, That this fact of our Savior more particularly concerns us of the Gentiles than we take notice of.

[unspec I] For the first, [ In what part of the Temple this Market was kept; ] The Jews Religion and scrupulosity to keep their Temple from profanation was such as might seem to make this story incredible. Those who were so chary that no uncircumcised or unclean person should come therein, who trod the pavement thereof with so much religious observance and curiosity, who would not suffer (as Josephus relates) any other building, no not the Palace of Agrippa their King, to have any prospect into it, lest it should be polluted by a profane look; how unlikely is it they would endure it to be made a place of buying, selling, and bartering, yea a Market for sheep and oxen, as John 2. 14. it is expressly said to have been? Neither will it serve the turn to excuse it by saying, it was to furnish such as came thither with offerings: For the sheep and oxen, whilst they were yet to be bought to that purpose, were not sacred, but profane; and so not to come within the sacred limits. You see the difficulty.

But I answer, that this Market was kept in the Third or Gentiles Court, which was the outmost of the Temple. For the Temple in our Savior's time had Three Courts, each surrounding one another. First, the inmost or Priests Court, wherein stood the Temple and the Altar of burnt-offering: Into this none but the Priests and Levites came. Secondly, the middle or great Court, which surrounded that of the Priests: whereinto the Jews of all sorts and circumcised Proselytes came to worship. Without this was a third Court for the Gentiles, which surrounded the Israelites Court, as that did the Court of the Priests. The two first Courts they accounted sacred, calling them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 into which therefore none might enter but such as were circumcised and clean according to the Law. The third was without the sacred limits, and so accounted profane and common: which may be learned out of Josephus, who tells us of certain little pillars or columns, placed by the Lorica or Septum, which severed this Court from the rest, whereon was inscribed in Greek and Latin, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , In Atrium sanctum transire alienigenam non debere, That no stranger pass within the sacred limits; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith he, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for the second part of the Temple was called Holy; implying that the Outmost was not so.

Into this Court therefore, which had no legal sanctity and was without the 〈◊〉 limits, the Gentiles were admitted, and had their station, together with such 〈◊〉 Jews as were in their uncleanness; further they might not go. By Gentiles 〈…〉 mean such, which though uncircumcised, yet worshipped the God of Israel, and were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . For (as I have told you heretofore) the Jews had two sorts of Proselytes which worshipped their God and frequented his Temple. One of such as were circumcised, and took upon them the observation of the whole Law of Moses: These were accounted as Jews, bound to the same observances, and partakers of the same privileges with them; they worshipped together in the same Court, and differed nothing from Jews, but that they were not so born. But besides these, there was a second sort of Gentiles which embraced the worship of the God of Israel and the hope of the life to come, which were not circumcised, nor conformed to the Ordinances of the Mosaical Law; but were tied only to the observation of those commandments which the Jewish Doctors call The Precepts of the Sons of Noah. Of this Order was Cornelius and divers other mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, where they are known by the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Worshippers: and though they were true worshippers, yet were they still but Gentiles, and such as no Jew might converse with; as we see in the example of Cornelius. These were those that came no further than the Outmost Court, not accounted within the limits of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Sacred Septs; as themselves were accounted Vnclean, because Uncircumcised, and so no members of the Commonwealth of Israel.

In this Court therefore the Jews made no scruple of doing profane and secular acts, being in their opinion no better than a common place. Nay, it is very probable, that to show their despiciency of the poor Gentiles, (according to that in the Apocalypse, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , without are Dogs ) and to pride themselves in their prerogative and discretion from them, they affected to have such acts there done. And hence it came to pass that they permitted a Market of Oxen and Sheep, Doves and other bartery, to be kept there, for the use of the Temple and those who came thither to worship. And thus the poor Gentiles or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 were stabled amongst Oxen, Sheep, and stalls of Money-changers, and in that tumultuous place fain to offer up their devotions and prayers unto the most High God whom they had chosen.

But our Blessed Savior, who came to redeem not the Jews only, but the Gentiles also, and to make them a principal part of his sold, would not suffer them to be thus neglected; but in this act of his gave them a praeludium of his further favor intended toward them: and he that was to vindicate their Souls from death, and take away the partition-wall between them and the Jews, first vindicates their Oratory from profanation; alleging for his warrant this place of the Prophet Isaiah concerning the same Oratory, My House shall be called a House of Prayer 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . He did not say, My Father's House is holy; for the Jews would soon have replied, that the Gentiles Court was without the sacred limits: But, It is written, saith he, My House shall be called a House of Prayer for all the Nations; Ergo, The place of Prayer for all Nations is a part of my Father's House. If my Father's House, then holy, and not to be thus profaned. For whatsoever is his, is holy; Relative Holiness being nothing else but the peculiarity a thing hath to Godward. Of this if any man doubt, that Quotation by S. Luke concerning that which first openeth the womb, will put him out of doubt. For whenas the Law saith, Every male that openeth the womb is mine, (that is, the Lord's;) S. Luke utters it, chap. 2. v. 23. Every male that openeth the womb shall be called Holy unto the Lord: Ergo, To be the Lord 's and to be Holy, are Synonyma's.

Though therefore the Gentiles Court had no sanctity of legal distinction, yet had it the sanctity of peculiarity to Godward, and therefore not to be used as a common place. The Illation proceeds by way of Conversion; My House shall be called the House of Prayer to all Nations or People; Ergo, The House of Prayer for all Nations is my Father's House. And the Emphasis lies in the words [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] which our Translators were not so well advised of, when, following Beza too close, they render the words thus, My House shall be called of all Nations the House of Prayer; as if the Dative Case here [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] were not Acquisitive, but (as it is sometimes with passive verbs) instead of the Ablative of the Agent, for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Which sense is clean from the scope and purpose of the place whence it is taken; as he that compares them will easily see, and I shall make fully to appear in the next part of my Discourse, which I tendered by the name of an Observation.

To wit, That this fact of our Savior more particularly concerns us of the Gentiles than [unspec II] we take notice of. Namely, we are taught thereby what reverent esteem we ought to have of our Gentile Oratories and Churches; howsoever not endued with such legal sanctity, in every respect, as was the Temple of the Jews; yet Houses of Prayer as well as theirs. This Observation will be made good by a threefold Consideration: First, of the Story, as I have related it; secondly, from the Text here alleged for warrant thereof; and thirdly, from the circumstance of Time.

[unspec 1] For the Story, I have shown it was acted in the Gentiles Court, and not in that of the Jews; because it is not credible that was thus profaned. It cannot therefore be alleged, that this was a place of legal sanctity; for according to legal sanctity it was held by the Jews as common: only it was the place for the Gentiles to worship the God of Israel in; and seems to have been proper to the second Temple, the Gentiles in the first worshipping without at the Temple-door in the holy Mountain only.

[unspec 2] Secondly, The place alleged to avow the Fact speaks expressly of Gentile-worshippers; not in the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 only, but in the whole body of the context. Hear the Prophet speak, Isaiah chap. 56. ver. 6, 7. and then judge: The sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord to serve him, and to love the Name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my Covenant, (namely, that I alone shall be his God;) Even them will I bring to my holy Mountain, and make them joyful in my House of Prayer; their burnt-offerings and sacrifices accepted upon mine Altar. Then follow the words of my Text, For my House shall be called (that is, shall be; it is an Hebraism) a House of Prayer for all People.

What is this but a Description of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Gentile-worshippers? And this place alone makes good all that I have said before, viz. That this vindication was of the Gentiles Court: Otherwise the allegation of this Scripture had been impertinent; for the Gentiles (of whom the Prophet speaks) worshipped in no place but this. Hence also appears to what purpose our Evangelist expressed the words [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ,] namely, as that which shown wherein the force of the accommodation to this occasion lay; which the rest of the Evangelists omitted, as referring to the place of the Prophet whence it was taken; those who heard it being not ignorant of whom the Prophet spake.

[unspec 3] Thirdly, the circumstance of Time argues the same thing; if we consider that this was done but a few days before our Savior suffered, to wit, when he came to his last Passover. How unseasonable had it been to vindicate the violation of Legal and typical sanctity, which within so few days after he was utterly to abolish by his Cross; unless he had meant thereby to leave his Church a lasting lesson, what reverence and respect he would have accounted due to such places as this was which he vindicated?

S. JOHN 4. 23.

THEY are the words of our Blessed Savior to the Woman of Samaria, who perceiving him by his discourse to be a Prophet, desired to be resolved by him of that great controverted point between the Jews and Samaritans, Whether Mount Garizim, by Shechem, (where the Samaritans sacrificed) or Jerusalem, were the true place of worship. Our Savior tells her, that this Question was not now of much moment: For that the hour or time was near at hand, when they should neither worship the Father in Mount Garizim, nor at Jerusalem. But that there was a greater difference between the Jews and them than this of Place; namely, even about That which was worshipped: For ye (saith he) worship that ye know not; but we (Jews) worship that we know. Then follow the words premised, But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth.

It is an abused Text, being commonly alleged to prove that God now in the Gospel either requires not, or regards not External worship, but that of the Spirit only: and this to be a characteristical difference between the worship of the Old Testament and the New. If at any time we talk of external decency in rites and bodily expressions as sit to be used in the service of God, this is the usual Buckler to repel whatsoever may be said in that kind. It is true, indeed, that the worship of the Gospel is much more spiritual than that of the Law: But that the worship of the Gospel should be only spiritual and no external worship required therein, (as the Text according to some meus sense and allegation thereof would imply,) is repugnant not only to the practice and experience of the Christian Religion in all Ages, but also to the express Ordinances of the Gospel itself. For what are the Sacraments of the New Testament? are they not Rites wherein and wherewith God is served and worshipped? The consideration of the holy Eucharist alone will consute this Gloss: For is not the commemoration of the Sacrifice of Christ's death upon the Cross unto his Father, in the Symbols of Bread and Wine, an external worship? And yet with this Rite hath the Church in all Ages used to make her solemn address of Prayer and Supplication unto the Divine Majesty, as the Jews in the Old Testament did by Sacrifice. When I say, in all Ages, I include also that of the Apostles: For so much S. Luke testifieth of that first Christian society, Acts 2. 42. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , They continued in breaking of Bread, and in Prayers.

As for bodily expressions by gestures and postures, as standing, kneeling, bowing, and the like; our Blessed Savior himself lift up his sacred eyes to heaven when he prayed for Lazarus; fell on his face, when he prayed in his agony. S. Paul (as himself saith) bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: He and S. Peter, and the rest of the Believers, do the like more than once in the Acts of the Apostles. What was Imposition of hands but an external gesture in an act of invocation for conferring a blessing? and that perhaps sometimes without any vocal expression joined therewith. Besides, I cannot conceive any reason why, in this point of Evangelical worship, Gesture should be more scrupled at than Voice. Is not confessing, praising, praying, and glorifying God by Voice, an external and bodily worship, as well as that of Gesture? why should then the one derogate from the worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth, and not the other? To conclude, There was never any society of men in the world that worshipped the Father in such a manner as this interpretation would imply: and therefore cannot this be our Savior's meaning, but some other. Let us see if we can find out what it is.

There may be two senses given of these words; both of them agreeable to Reason and the analogy of Scripture: let us take our choice. The one is, That to worship God in Spirit and Truth, is to worship him not with Types and shadows of things to come, as in the Old Testament, but according to the verity of the things exhibited in Christ; according to that, The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Whence the Mystery of the Gospel is elsewhere by our Savior, in this Evangelist, termed Truth, as Chap. 17. ver. 17. and the Doctrine thereof, by S. Paul, the word of Truth: See Ephes. Chap. 1. ver. 13. Rom. 15. 8. The time therefore is now at hand, said our Savior, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father no longer with bloody Sacrifices, and the Rites and Ordinances depending thereon; but in and according to the verity of that which these Ordinances figured. For all these were Types of Christ, in whom, being now exhibited, the true worshippers shall henceforth worship the Father.

This sense hath good warrant from the state of the Question between the Jews and Samaritans, to which our Savior here makes answer: which was not about worship in general, but about the kind of worship in special, which was confessed by both sides to be tied to one certain place only; that is, of worship by Sacrifice and the appendages; in a word, of the Typical worship proper to the first Covenant, of which see a description Heb. 9. This Josephus expressly testifies, Lib. 12. Antiq. cap. 1. speaking of the Jews and Samaritans which dwelt together at Alexandria: They lived, saith he, in perpetual discord one with the other, whilst each labored to maintain their Country customs: those of Jerusalem affirming their Temple to be the sacred place whither sacrifices were to be sent; the Samaritans, on the other side, contending they ought to be sent to Mount Garizim. For otherwise, who knows not that both Jews and Samaritans had other places of worship besides either of these? namely their Proseucha's and Synagogues, wherein they worshipped God, not with internal only, but external worship; though not with Sacrifice, which might be offered but in one place only. And this also may seem to have been a Type of Christ as well as the rest, namely, that he was to be that one and only Mediator of the Church, in the Temple of whose sacred body we have access unto the Father, and in whom he accepts our service and devotions: according to that, Destroy this Temple, and I will rear it up again in three days: He spake, saith the Text, of the Temple of his Body. This sense divers of the Ancients hit upon. Eusebius Demon. Evang. Lib. 1. Cap. 6. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Not by Symbols and Types, but, as our Savior saith, in Spirit and Truth. Not that in the New Testament men should worship God without all external services: For the New Testament was to have external and visible services as well as the Old, but such as should imply the verity of the promises already exhibited, not be Types and shadows of them yet to come. We know the Holy Ghost is wont to call the figured Face of the Law the Letter, and the Verity thereby signified, the Spirit. As for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Spirit and Truth, both together, they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but once found in holy Writ; to wit, only in this place: and so, no light can be borrowed by comparing of the like expression any where else to expound them. Besides, nothing hinders but they may be here taken one for the exposition of the other; namely, that to worship the Father 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is the same with to worship him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

But howsoever this exposition be fair and plausible, yet, methinks, the reason which our Savior gives in the words following should argue another meaning. God (saith he) is a Spirit; therefore they that worship him, must worship in Spirit and Truth: But God was a Spirit from the beginning: If therefore for this reason he must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth, he was so to be worshipped in the Old Testament as well as in the New.

Let us therefore seek another meaning: For the finding whereof, let us take notice that the Samaritans, at whom our Savior here aimeth, were the offspring of those Nations which the King of Assyria placed in the Cities of Samaria, when he had carried away the Ten Tribes captive. These, as we may read in the second Book of the Kings, at their first coming thither worshipped not the God of Israel, but the gods of the Nations from whence they came: wherefore he sent Lions amongst them, which slew them. Which they apprehending, either from the information of some Israelite, or otherwise, to be because they knew not the worship of the God of the Country, they informed the King of Assyria thereof, desiring that some of the captiv'd Priests might be sent unto them, to teach them the manner and rites of his worship; which being accordingly done, they thenceforth (as the Text tells us) worshipped the Lord, yet feared their own God's too, and so did 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as S. Chrysostom speaks, mingle things not to be mingled.

In this medley they continued about three hundred years, till toward the end of the Persian Monarchy. At what time it chanced that Manasseh, brother to Iaddo the High Priest of the returned Jews, married the daughter of Sanballat then Governor of Samaria: for which being expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah, he fled to Sanballat his Father in Law; and after his example many other of the Jews of the best rank, having married strange wives likewise, and loath to forgo them, betook themselves thither also. Sanballat willingly entertains them, and makes his son-in-Law Manasseh their Priest. For whose greater reputation and state, when Alexander the Great subdued the Persian Monarchy, he obtained leave of him to build a Temple upon Mount Garizim, where his son-in-Law exercised the office of High Priest. This was exceedingly prejudicious to the Jews, and the occasion of a continual Schism, whilst those that were discontented or excommunicated at Jerusalem were wont to betake themselves thither: Yet by this means the Samaritans (having now one of the sons of Aaron to be their Chief Priest, and so many other of the Jews, both Priests and others, mingled amongst them) were brought at length to cast off all their false gods, and to worship the Lord the God of Israel only. Yet so, that howsoever they seemed to themselves to be true worshippers, and altogether free from Idolatry; nevertheless they retained a smack thereof, inasmuch as they worshipped the true God under a visible representation, to wit, of a Dove, and circumcised their Children in the name thereof, as the Jewish Tradition tells us; who therefore always branded their worship with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or spiritual Fornication: Just as their predecessors, the Ten Tribes, worshipped the same God of Israel under the similitude of a Cals.

This was the condition of the Samaritan Religion in our Savior's time: and if we weigh the matter well, we shall find his words here to the woman very pliable to be construed with reference thereunto. You ask, saith he, of the true place of worship, whether Mount Garizim, or Jerusalem: which is not now greatly material; forasmuch as the time is at hand when men shall worship the Father at neither. But there is a greater difference between you and us than of Place, though you take no notice of it; namely, even about the Object of worship itself: For ye worship what ye know not, but we (Jews) worship what we know. How is that? Thus; Ye worship indeed the Father, the God of Israel, as we do; but you worship him under a corporeal representation; wherein you show you know him not: But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth. In Spirit, that is, conceiving of him no otherwise than in Spirit; and in Truth, that is, not under any corporeal or visible shape: For God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not fancying him as a Body, but, as indeed he is, a Spirit. For those who worship him under a corporeal similitude, do beli • him: according as the Apostle speaks, Rom. 1. 23. of such as changed the glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible Man, Birds or Beasts; They changed, saith he, the truth of God into a lie, and served the creature, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , juxta Creatorem, as or with the Creator who is blessed forever, v. 25. Hence Idols in Scripture are termed Lies; as Amos 2. 4. Their Lies have caused them to err, after which their Fathers walked: The Vulgar hath, Seduxerunt eos Idola ipsorum, Their Idols have caused them to err. And Isaiah 28. 15. We have made Lies our refuge. And Ier. 16. 19, 20. The Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our Fathers have possessed (the Chaldee hath 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 have worshipped) a lie; vanity, wherein there is no profit. Shall a man make God's unto himself, and they are no God's?

This therefore I take to be the genuine meaning of this place, and not that which is commonly supposed against external worship; which I think this Demonstration will evince: To worship what they know, (as the Jews are said to do) and to worship in Spirit and Truth, are taken by our Savior for one and the same thing, (else the whole sense will be inconsequent:) But the Jews worshipped not God without Rites and Ceremonies, (who yet are supposed to worship him in Spirit and Truth:) Ergo, To worship God without Rites and Ceremonies, is not to worship him in Spirit and Truth, according to the meaning here intended.

S. LUKE 24. 45, 46.

OUR Blessed Savior, after he was risen from the dead, told his Disciples, not only that his Suffering of death and Rising again the third day was foretold in the Scriptures, but also pointed out those Scriptures unto them, and opened their understanding, that they might understand them; that is, he expounded or explained them unto them: Certain it is therefore, that somewhere in the Old Testament these things were foretold should befall Messiah. Yea S. Paul, 1 Cor. 15. 3, 4. will further assure us that they are; I delivered unto you, saith he, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures: And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures. Both of them therefore are somewhere foretold in the Scriptures; and it becomes not us to be so ignorant as commonly we are, which those Scriptures be which foretell them. It is a main point of our Faith, and that which the Jews most stumble at, because their Doctors had not observed any such thing foretold to Messiah. The more they were ignorant thereof, the more it concerns us to be confirmed therein. I thought good therefore to make this the Argument of my Discourse at this time, to inform both you and myself where these things are foretold, and, if I can, to point out those very Scriptures which our Savior here expounded to his Disciples.

Which that I may the better do, I will make the words fore-going my Text to be as the Pole-star in this my search: These are the things (saith our Savior) which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, That all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then follow the words I read, Then opened he their understanding, &c. These two events therefore, of Messiah's death and rising again the third day, were foretold in these Three parts of Scripture, In the Law of Moses or Pentateuch, in the Nebiim or Prophets, and in the Psalms; and in these Three we must search for them. And first for the First, That Messiah should suffer death.

[unspec 1] This was fore-signified in the Law or Pentateuch, First in the story of Abraham, where he was commanded to offer his son Isaac, the son wherein his seed should be called, and to whom the promise was entailed, That in it should all the Nations of the world be blessed. What was here acted else but the Mystery of Christ's Passion? to wit, That the promised seed should make all the Nations of the world blessed, by becoming a sacrifice for sin? which that it might be the more evident, the Place is also designed, the region of Mount Moriah; there Abraham was bid to offer his • on Isaac, even where Messiah, who was then in the loins of Isaac, was one day to be offered upon the Cross.

The Second prediction in the Law of Messiah's suffering death, was by the slaying of Beasts, for atonement of sin, in their Sacrifices; which were nothing else but shadows and representations of that Offering upon the Cross which Messiah was one day to make of himself for the sins of the world. Which Mystery of the end of those Legal sacrifices was shown in the former story of Abraham's offering Isaac: For when he had now brought his son to the place appointed, and had built an Altar, and was now ready to stay him, as he was commanded; the Angel of the Lord stayed his hand, and shown him a Ram caught in a thicket by the horns; which Ram Abraham took, and offered for a burnt-offering instead of his son; to signify, that the offering of the Blessed seed was yet to be suspended, and that God in the mean while would accept the offerings of Bulls and Rams, as a pledge of that expiation which the Blessed seed of Abraham in the loins of Isaac should one day make.

[unspec 2] And thus much for the Law. Now I come to the Prophets, wherein I find Three evident Prophecies, That Messiah should suffer death. The first is that famous one, the 53. of Isaiah, the whole Chapter through; I will not repeat it all, but some two or three passages thereof. Verse 5. He was wounded, saith the Prophet, for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. Ver. 7. He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a Sheep before her Shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Ver. 8. He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken. Now that this Prophecy was one of those by which the Apostles used to prove this Verity, appears by the stroy of the conversion of the Eunuch, Acts 8. unto whom Philip coming, whilst he was in his Chariot, reading this place of Scripture, and he thereupon asking Philip, of whom the Prophet spake these words; the Text tells us, that Philip began at the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.

The Second place in the Prophets which foretells That Christ should suffer, is that in the ninth of Daniel, who pointing out the time of Messiah's coming by Seventy weeks, limits his count, not at his Birth, but at his Suffering, as the most principal moment of his story. From the going out of the commandment, saith he, to restore and build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and sixty two weeks— And after sixty two weeks shall Messiah be cut off. What can be more plain than this?

A Third place in the Prophets is to be found Zacharias 12. 10. where, at the time when the Jews shall be converted, Christ is brought in speaking in this manner; I will pour out, saith he, upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. Hence it follows, that the Jews should have pierced Messiah before they received him to be their Redeemer. And that this place also was one of those applied by the Apostles to this purpose, appears by S. John 's twice alleging it: Once in his Gospel, when a Soldier with a Spear pierced our Savior's side; Then, saith he, was fulfilled that Scripture which saith, They shall look upon him whom they pierced: Again, in the beginning of his Revelation, Behold (saith he) he cometh in the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him.

Now for the Third division of Scripture, the Psalms, the chief, at least, and principal place there which I dare warrant is that of the 16. Psalm, v. 9, 10. quoted both [unspec 3] by S. Peter and S. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles: My • lesh shall rest in hope; For thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, neither suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. For David, as S. Peter and S. Paul say, was buried, and his body saw corruption; therefore it cannot be spoken of him, but of Messiah in the person of David, as a Type in whose loins Messiah was. Now then if Messiah's body were to be laid in the grave, it follows he was to die, and to be in the state of the dead.

AND thus I have done the First part of my task, and proved That Messiah was to suffer death, according to the Scriptures, namely, foretold in that Threefold division of Scripture mentioned here by our Savior, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Now I come to prove the other part, That it behooved him also to rise again the third day, according to the Scriptures.

And this was first foreshewn in the same story of Isaac, wherein his sacrifice or suffering [unspec 1] was acted • For from the time that God commanded Isaac to be offered for a burnt-offering, Isaac was a dead man; but the third day he was released from death. This the Text tells us expressly, that it was the third day when Abraham came to Mount Moriah, and had his son, as it were, restored to him again; which circumstance there was no need nor use at all to have noted, had it not been for some Mystery. For had there been nothing intended but the naked story, what did it concern us to know whether it were the third or the fifth day that Abraham came to Moriah, where he received his son from death? Now, that I have not misapplied this figure, S. Paul is my witness, who expressly makes this release of Isaac from slaughter a figure of the Resurrection: For thus he speaks of this whole story, Hebrews 11. 17, 18, 19. By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises, offered up his only-begotten Son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

The same was foreshowed by the Law of Sacrifices, which were to be eaten before the third day; some Sacrifices were to be eaten the same day they were offered, but those which were deferred longest, as the Peace-offerings, were to be eaten before the third day. The third day no sacrifice might be eaten, but was to be burnt: If it were eaten, it was not accepted for an atonement, but counted an abomination: namely, to show that the Sacrifice of Messiah, which these Sacrifices represented, was to be finished the third day by his rising from the dead • and therefore the Type thereof determined within that time, beyond which time it was not accepted for atonement of sin, because then it was no longer a Type of him.

Thus far the Law. As for the Prophets, I find no express Prediction in them for the [unspec 2] time of Christ's rising (For that of the case of the Prophet Jonah, I take to be rather an Allusion than a Prophecy:) only in general, That Christ should rise again, is implied both in that famous Prophecy of Isaiah the 53. and that of Zacharias 12. In the former, forasmuch as it is said, that after he had made his soul a sacrifice for sin, he should see his seed, and prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand: And again, that the Lord should divide him a portion with the great, and that he should divide the spoil with the strong, because he had poured out his soul unto death: Which argues that he should not only live again, but be victorious after he had died. In that of Zacharias it is said, the Jews should look upon, or see, him whom they had formerly pierced; and, that in that day he would pour upon them the spirit of grace and supplication: therefore he was to live again after they had pierced him.

I come to the Psalms, where not only his Rising again is prophesied of, but the Time [unspec 3] thereof determined; though at first sight it appears not so: namely, in that fore-alleged passage of the sixteenth Psalm, Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. All men shall rise again, but their bodies must first return to dust, and see corruption. But Messiah was to rise again before he saw corruption: If before, then the third day at farthest; for then the Body naturally begins to see corruption. This may be gathered by the story of Lazarus in the Gospel, where Jesus commanding the stone to be rolled from his Grave, Martha his sister answered, Lord, by this time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days. Also by that Rule given by the Masters of Physic, That those who die of the Apoplexy, suffocation of the Mother, or like sudden deaths, should not be buried till seventy two hours were past; because within that time they might revive; and Examples are given of those who have done so. They give also a reason of it in nature: Because, say they, in that time the Humors of the Body make their revolution; the Phlegm in one day or twenty four hours, the Choler in two days or forty eight hours, the Melancholy in three days, which is seventy two hours; and this to be the reason why an Ague founded in an inflammation of Phlegm returns every day, an Ague which comes from Choler every other day, an Ague from Melancholy every third day. Now if a Body may be kept so long unburied, it is supposed it may continue so long uncorrupted; (namely where a corruption is not begun before death, as in some diseases) but longer it will not continue. When therefore it is so often inculcated in the New Testament, that our Savior should rise again the third day; the Holy Ghost, in so speaking, respects not so much the number of days, as the fulfilling of Scripture, That Messiah's body should not see corruption, but should rise before the time wherein dead bodies begin to corrupt: and indeed our Savior rose again within forty hours after he gave up the Ghost, and was not two full days in the grave. Therefore, if there be any other Scripture which implies Messiah should rise before his Body should see corruption, that Scripture, whatsoever it be, shows he should rise again within three days.

EXODUS 4. 25.

THEN; that is, when she saw the Angel of the Lord ready to kill Moses her husband in the Inn, because his son was not circumcised; she took a sharp stone, ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) that is, she took a knife, which, according to the custom then, was made of stone sharped. This we may learn out of Joshua 5. 2. where the Lord says to Joshua, Make thee 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ( sharp knives, say we) according to the Hebrew, knives of stones, and circumcise again the children of Israel. The Chaldee Paraphrast hath, Make thee 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 sharp rasors: the Septuagint, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 stone-knives.

Thus far all is clear; but for the rest we are to seek: First, on whom the fault lay, and what was the reason of this omission of Circumcision: then, who and what is meant, when it is said, she cast, or made the fore-skin to touch his feet: and above all, what is meant by Sponsus sanguinum.

Zipporah is commonly reputed to have been a perverse and froward woman; and Moses, the meekest man on earth, to have had that mishap in his choice which many a good man hath. The reason, because she not only hindered her child from being circumcised, out of some nicety and aversation thereof, as a cruel Ceremony: but also, when she saw there was no remedy, but she must do it to save her husband's life, yet she did it with an upbraiding indignation, telling him, that he was a bloody husband, who must have such a thing done unto his poor child. But I see no ground either for the one, or the other.

For that the Circumcision of the child was not deferred out of any aversation of hers of that Ceremony, may be gathered, First, because she was a Midianitesse, and so a daughter of Abraham by Keturah, and therefore well enough acquainted with and inured to that Rite, which not only her Nation, the Midianites, but all the Nations descended of Abraham observed; as may be seen in the Ishmaelites or Saracens, who learned not this Ceremony first from Mahomet, but retained it as an ancient custom of their Nation. Secondly, She had suffered already her elder son Gershom to be circumcised; wherefore then should we think she was a verse from the circumcision of this? For that this child, for whom Moses was now in danger, was Eliezer his youngest son, it cannot be denied; forasmuch as it is evident that Moses at this time was the Father of two sons, which, by reason (as may seem) of this disturbance he sent back with his wife unto her Father Jethro, as we may read in the 18. Chapter of this Book. By which it may be gathered, that the cause of this omission of Circumcision was not any averseness in Zipporah from that Rite; but rather, because they were in their journey when the child was born; and so having no convenient time or place to rest in till the wound might be healed, and thinking it might endanger the infant's life, to be tossed up and down whilst the wound was green, in so long and tedious a voyage, they resolved to defer the circumcision. And that Zipporah was delivered of this child when they had begun this journey for Egypt, may be gathered by this, because Moses, before God's sending him, hath but one child mentioned, namely Gershom: For what reason can be given, why, if Eliezer had been then born, he should not have been mentioned also? But howsoever this case of travel afterward excused the Israelites in the Wilderness, for deferring the circumcision of their children then; yet could it not excuse Moses here, in regard it was necessitas accersita, he being not forced to take his wife and children with him, (especially his wife being in that case) but might have sent her and them back presently to her Father; as upon this admonition he did. Nor was it indeed fit, when God sent him upon such a business, to carry such an encumbrance with him.

Thus have we freed Zipporah from the first charge, of being the cause of this omission out of any averseness to the Divine Ordinance. Now I come to show likewise, that the words she spake at the time of circumcision, Sponsus sanguinum tu mihi es, were no words of upbraiding indignation to her husband, (as I supposed) but have a far other meaning.

For I believe not she spake these words to Moses, but to her Child whom she circumcised, as the Formula then used in Circumcision; namely, that as the fore-skin fell down at her Child's feet, (not Moses, or the Angel's feet) she pronounced the Verba solennia, the solemn formal words then in use, Tu mihi sponsus sanguinum.

My Reasons are, First, Because a Husband is not wont to be called Sponsus after the wedding solemnity is past; nor can there any such example be shewn in Scripture: Ergo, it is not like that Zipporah, after she was the mother of two children, should say to her Husband, Sponsus sanguinum tu mihi es.

Secondly, Because 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the word here translated Sponsus, properly signifies Gener, a Son-in-law, and Sponsus only by way of equivalence or coincidence, (because to be made Son-in-law to the Parents, is by being the daughter's Sponsus. ) My meaning is, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the word used, signifies not the relation of the Bridegroom to his Bride; but his relation to his Bride's Parents, by taking their daughter to wife. And therefore in the whole Scripture we shall never find it relatively used, or with an affix, but only in respect to the wives Father or Mother. And of the same condition is the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which we often by equivalence translate a Bride, but properly signifies Nurus, a daughter-in-law. Wherefore we shall never find the Bridegroom calls the Bride his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , nor the Bride the Bridegroom her 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or that they are called so by others; but only the Husband his Father and Mother-in-laws 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the Wife her Father and Mother-in-laws 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . In a word, there is no word in the Hebrew Tongue which signifies a Bridegroom and Bride, as they stand in relation each to other, but as to each others Parents only. Whence it is remarkable that in the Ganticles, when this relation comes to be expressed on the Bride's behalf, it is always done by addition of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, my Sister, as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Callah or Nurus my Sister, which we translate by equivalence, Soror mea Sponsa, my Sister, my Spouse. Now if this be true, I see not how Zipporah could call Moses here her 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by saying to him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 sanguinum tu mihi es: For she should have called him her Son-in-law, and not her Husband: Ergo, She spake the words to the Child, and not to Him.

Thirdly, For a farther probability hereof, the Jewish Rabbins tell us, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That it was the custom of women to call their child when he was circumcised, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (the word here turned Sponsus. ) So Ibn Ezra upon this place. Rabbi Levi, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in principio connubii vocatur, &c. In the beginning of marriage he is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that is promised or contracted to another: Thence is the word translated and borrowed to signify the beginning of other things; as when the Infant newly circumcised is called by the women 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for then the child begins first to be initiated in the service of God. The like hath Rabbi David Kimchi in his Lexicon, who conjectures withal, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 should have some signification of causing new joy, and thence to be used both at the day of Marriage, and day of Circumcision.

Fourthly, From this custom to call a child at his circumcision 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with the Arabians (who are of Abraham's posterity, and still use, and anciently used, this Rite) Chatan is to circumcise, Chiten Circumcision, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Machtun circumcised, as is ordinarily to be seen in their Translation of the New Testament. Whence comes this, but from the manner of calling a child 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 when he was circumcised? (Even as we, because a child in Baptism is made a Christian, use the word Christian for to Baptize, and Christened for Baptized. ) And Zipporah was an Arabiss, and the Arabian tongue of near affinity with the Hebrew.

Fifthly, This exposition is agreeable to the following words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , And he let him go, when she had said, Sponsus sanguinum, hoc est, circumcisionis; that is, The Angel let Moses go, as soon as those solennia verba, Sponsus sanguinum, were out of Zipporah's mouth. So the Vulgar rightly translates it; Et dimisit eum, postquam dixerat, Sponsus sanguinum, ob circumcisionem. For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is here (as elsewhere) for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , extunc, ab eo tempore, postquam, from the time, after that, not simply tunc, then, as we translate it. Namely, as the destroying Angel, Exod. 12. 23. when he saw the blood of the Paschal Lamb upon the lintels and sideposts of the Israelites doors, passed by them, and destroyed them not: So the Angel here, when he saw the blood of the Circumcision upon Moses his child, let Moses go, and slew him not. In these words, if you mark it, the Holy Ghost expounds what Zipporah meant by those words. Sponsus sanguinum, that is, Sponsus circumcisionis: Et dimisit eum postquam dixit, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Sponsus sanguinum, id est, circumcisionis. But if Sanguis here be Circumcision, and so Sponsus Sanguinum be Sponsus Circumcisionis, then are not these words spoken of or to Moses, but unto the Child.

HAVING thus proved what I took in hand, That these words were not spoken by Zipporah to Moses, but as solennia verba in that Case to her Child whom she circumcised; it remains, I should now tell you how they are so construed. I say therefore, Tu mihi sponsus sanguinum, in Zipporah's meaning, is as much as Sis mihi initiatus circumcisione, Be thou my Blood-son, or the like. It is well known how Tropically those words of relation of kindred, Father, Mother, Sister, Son, are used in the Hebrew Tongue; and Son, besides other notions, to be often the circumlocution of our vox concreta; as Filius percussionis, the Son of striking, is he that is stricken, or, worthy to be beaten; Filius foederis, the Son of the Covenant, is he that is in Covenant, or, to whom the Covenant belongs; Filius mortis, the Son of death, he that is condemned to die, or worthy of death; and the like. And why may not then 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Gener sanguinum, that is (as the Holy Ghost expounds it) circumcisionis, be as much as circumcisus, and Gener sanguinum tu mihi es (for so I told you 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifies) be as much as, I pronounce thee circumcised? As if the circumcised person, by being married to Circumcision, were made the Circumciser's Son-in-law, and Circumcision's Bridegroom; as Es, or Sis, mihi in generum, desponsatus circumcisioni, Now thou art, or Be thou, my Son-in-law, being espoused to Circumcision.

Or if Blood or Circumcision note the Instrument, the Formula may be thus explicated; That the person circumcised becomes God's Son-in-law, as being wedded and joined to his Church by the Blood of Circumcision, as with a Ring: and then the pronoun 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 mihi must not be taken relatively to Zipporah, as before, but efficienter only in this sense, Per me factus es gener Deo per sanguinem circumcisionis, By me thou art made God's Son-in-law by the blood of Circumcision; or Feci te generum Deo, I have made thee God's Son-in-law; or, (if you like better the notion of Sponsus) I have espoused thee to the Church of God, by this rite of Circumcision; or, Thou art, or, Be thou, espoused to the Church of God, &c. Thus, as you see, may the Formula be either way explicated to one and the same sense. But the first I like the best, because of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 mihi the relative to Zipporah, Tu mihi in generum es, desponsatus circumcisioni, Now thou art my Son-in-law, being espoused to Circumcision.

Now lastly, to free my Interpretation from novelty, the sense I have given of these words is that which both the Septuagint and the Chaldee Paraphrast directly aim at: the Paraphrast expounding it thus, In sanguine circumcisionis istius datus est sponsus, or gener, mihi; the Septuagint, as we now read, thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Stetit sanguis circumcisionis filii mei: where the Text is corrupted, and I believe the Septuagint translated not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Sit hic sanguis circumcisionis Filii mei; a Periphrastical, but evident sense, with the change of one letter only.

From the sense of this place thus proved, I will point at two Observations, and so conclude.

The First is, That it is lawful to use some fitting form of words in the exhibition of a Sacrament, though not expressly ordained by God at the institution thereof; as appears by this Form that Zipporah used, no doubt ex more, according to the custom then, whatsoever the Form were after that time.

The Second is, That the neglect of the Circumcision of a child then, and so consequently of Baptizing it now, makes not so much the Child as the Parents liable to the wrath of God: As here the Angel sought not to kill the Child, who was uncircumcised, but Moses the Father, who should have circumcised it. Both which Observations I mean to amplify no farther, but leave them to your exacter meditations; and so I conclude.

EZEKIEL 20. 20.

THIS Commandment, with the End thereof, the Lord bids Ezekiel tell the Elders of Israel, that he gave it to their Fathers in the Wilderness. And it is recorded in the Law; so that I might have taken it thence: But I rather chose to make these words in Ezekiel my Text, as expressed more plainly, and so a Comment to those in the Law. The place there is Exod. 31. 13. where this which my Text containeth is expressed thus, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, to acknowledge that I Jehovah am your sanctifier, that is, your God; as the expression in Ezekiel tells us: For to be the Sanctifier of a People, and to be their God, is all one: whence also the Lord is so often called in Scripture the Holy One of Israel, that is, their Sanctifier and their God.

That which I intend at this time to observe from these words is, the End why God commanded this Observation of the Sabbath to the Israelites; to wit, That thereby, as by a Symbolum or Sign, they might testify and profess what God they worshipped. Secondly, out of this ground to show How far, and in what manner, the like Observation binds us Christians, who are worshippers of the same God whom the Jews worshipped, though not under the same relation altogether wherein they worshipped him.

All Nations had something in their Ceremonies whereby they signified the God they worshipped. So in those of the Celestial God's, (as they termed them,) and those which were Deified Souls of men, were differing Rites, whereby the one was known from the other: Those God's which were made of men, having Funeral rites in their services, as Cogni • ances that they were Souls deceased; and each of them some imitation of some remarkable passage of the Legend of their lives, either of some action done by them, or some accident which befell them; as in the ceremonies of Osyris and Bacchus is obvious to any that reads them. And indeed it is a natural Decorum for servants and vassals, by some mark or cognizance to testify who is their Lord and Master. In the Revelation, the worshippers of the Beast receive his mark, and the worshippers of the Lamb carry his mark and his Father's in their Fore-heads. Hence came the first use of the Cross in Baptism, as the mark of Christ, the Deity to whom we are initiated; and the same afterwards used in all Benedictions, Prayers and Thanksgivings, in token they were done in the name and merits of Christ crucified: So that in the Primitive Church this Rite was no more but that wherewith we conclude all our Prayers and Thanksgivings, when we say, Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior; though afterward it came to be abused, as almost all other Rites of Christianity, to abominable Superstition.

To return therefore unto my Text. Agreeably to this Principle, and this Custom of all Religions, of all Nations, of all Vassals, the Lord Jehovah, Creator of Heaven and Earth, ordained to his people this Observation of the Sabbath-day, for a Sign and Cognisance that he should be their God, and no other. It is for a sign, saith he, between me and you, that I Jehovah am your God. And besides in the place I quoted before, the 31. of Exod. 16, 17. are these words; The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual Covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested: As if he had said, It is a Sign that the Creator of heaven and earth is your God.

But for the more distinct understanding of this signification, we must know that the Sabbath includes two respects of time: First, the quotum, one day of seven, or the Seventh day after six days labor; Secondly, the designation or pitching that Seventh upon the day we call Saturday. In both, the Sabbatical observation was a sign and profession that Jehovah, and no other, was the God of Israel: the first, according to his attribute of Creator, the second, of Deliverer of Israel out of Egypt. For by sanctifying the Seventh day, after they had labored six, they professed themselves vassals and worshippers of that only God who created the Heaven and the Earth, and having spent six days in that great work, rested the Seventh day; and therefore commanded them to observe this suitable distribution of their time, as a ba • ge and livery that their Religious service was appropriate to him alone. And this is that which the Fourth Commandment in the reason given from the Creation intendeth, and no more but this.

But seeing they might profess this acknowledgment as well by any other six days working, and a seventh's resting, as by those they pitched upon, there being still (what six days soever they had labored, and what seventh soever they had rested) the same conformity with their Creator; let us see the reason why they pitched upon t • ose six days wherein they labored, for laboring days, rather than any other; and why they chose that Seventh day, namely Saturday, to hallow and rest in, rather than any other.

And this was, that they might profess themselves servants of Jehovah their God in a relation and respect peculiar and proper to themselves; to wit, that they were the servants of that God which redeemed Israel out of the Land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage: and upon the morning-watch of that very day which they kept for their Sabbath, he overwhelmed Pharaoh and all his Host in the Red Sea, and saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. This I gather from the repetition of the Decalogue, Deut. 5. where that reason from the world's Creation (in the Decalogue given at Horeb ) being left out, Moses inserts this other of the Redemption of Israel out of Egypt instead thereof; namely, as the reason why those six days rather than any other six for work, and that Seventh day rather than any other seventh for rest, were pitched upon, as Israel observed them. Remember, saith he, V. 15. thou wert a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm: Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day: Namely, not for the quotum of one day of seven, ( • or of that another reason was given, the example of God in the Creation) but for the designation of the day.

But whether this day were in order the seventh from the Creation or not, the Scripture is silent; for where it is called in the Commandment the seventh day, that is in respect of the six days of labor, and not otherwise: and therefore, whensoever it is so called, those six days of labor are mentioned with it. The seventh day therefore is the seventh after the six days of labor, nor can anymore be inferred from it: the example of the Creation is brought for the quotum, one day of seven, as I have shown, and not for the designation of any certain day for that seventh. Nevertheless, it might fall out so, by disposition of Divine Providence, that the Jews designed Seventh day was both the seventh in order from the Creation, and also the day of their deliverance out of Egypt. But the Scripture nowhere tells us it was so, (howsoever most men take it for granted) and therefore it may as well be not so. Certain I am, the Jews kept not that day for a Sabbath till the raining of Manna: For that which should have been their Sabbath the week before, had they then kept the day which afterward they kept, was the fifteenth day of the second month; and which day we read, in the 16, of Exod. that they marched a wearisome march, and came at night into the wilderness of Sin, where they murmured for their poor entertainment, and wished they had died in Egypt: that night the Lord sent them Quails, the next morning it rained Manna, which was the sixteenth day, and so six days together; the seventh, which was the twenty second day, it rained none, and that day they were commanded to keep for their Sabbath. Now if the twenty second day of the month were the Sabbath, the fifteenth should have been, if that day had been kept before; but the Text tells us expressly, they marched that day: and, which is strange, the day of the month is never named, unless it be once, for any station but this where the Sabbath was ordained; otherwise it could not have been known that that day was ordained for a day of rest, which before was none. And why might not their day of holy rest be altered, as well as the beginning of the year was , for a memorial of their coming out of Egypt? I can see no reason why it might nor, not find any testimony to assure me it was not.

And thus much of the Jews Sabbath, How and wherein it was a Sign whereby they professed themselves the servants of Jehovah, and no other God.

Now I come to the Second thing I propounded, to show How far, and in what manner, [unspec II] the like observation binds us Christians.

I say therefore, that the Christian, as well as the Jew, after six days spent in his own works, is to sanctify the seventh, that he may profess himself thereby a servant of God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, as well as the Jew. For the quotum therefore, the Jew and Christian agree; but in designation of the day they differ. For the Christian chooseth for his Holy Day that which with the Jews was the First day of the week, and calls it Dominicam the Lord's Day, that he might thereby profess himself a servant of that God who on the morning of that day vanquished Satan, the Spiritual Pharaoh, and redeemed us from our Spiritual thralldom, by raising Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, begetting us, instead of an earthly Canaan, to an inheritance incorruptible in the Heavens. In a word, the Christian, by the day he hallows, professes himself a Christian, that is, as S. Paul speaks, To believe on him that raised up Jesus from the dead. So that the Jew and Christian both, though they fall not upon the same day, yet make their designation of their day upon the like ground: the Jews, the memorial-day of their deliverance from the temporal Egypt and temporal Pharaoh; the Christians, the memorial-day of their deliverance from the spiritual Egypt and spiritual Pharaoh.

But might not (will you say) the Christian as well have observed the Jewish for his seventh day, as the day he doth? I answer, No; he might not: For in so doing he should seem not to acknowledge his Redemption to be already performed, but still expected. For the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the Ministry of Moses was intended for a Type and pledge of the Spiritual deliverance which was to come by Christ: their Canaan also, to which they marched, being a Type of that Heavenly inheritance which the redeemed by Christ do look for. Since therefore the Shadow is now made void by the coming of the Substance, the Relation is changed, and God is no longer to be worshipped and believed in as a God fore-showing and assuring by Types, but as a God who hath performed the Substance of what he promised. And this is that which S. Paul means, Colossians 2. 16, 17. when he saith, Let no man judge you [henceforth] in respect of a Feast-day, New-moon, or Sabbath-days: Which were a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.

1 COR. 11. 5.

I HAVE chosen this of the woman, rather than that of the man going before it, for the Theme of my Discourse; First, Because I conceive the Fault, at the reformation whereof the Apostle here aimeth, in the Church of Corinth, was the women's only, not the men's. That which the Apostle speaks of a man praying or prophesying, being by way of supposition, and for illustration of the unseemliness of that guise which the women used. Secondly, Because the condition of the Sex in the words read, makes something for the better understanding of that which is spoken of both; as we shall see presently.

The Discourse I intend to make upon the Text shall consist of these two parts. First, of an Enquiry, What is here meant by Prophesying, a thing attributed to women, and therefore undoubtedly some such thing as they were capable of. Secondly, What was this Fault, for matter and manner, of the women of the Church of Corinth, which the Apostle here reproveth.

[unspec I] To begin with the First, and which I am like to dwell longest upon: Some take Prophesying here, in the stricter sense, to be foretelling of things to come, as that which in those Primitive times both men and women did, by the pouring out of the Holy Ghost upon them; according to that of the Prophet Joel, applied by S. Peter to the sending of the Holy Ghost at the first promulgation of the Gospel, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions. And that such Prophetesses as these were those four Daughters of Philip the Evangelist, whereof we read Acts 21. 9.

Others take Prophesying here in a more large notion, namely, for the gift of interpreting and opening Divine mysteries contained in Holy Scripture, for the instruction and edification of the Hearers; especially, as it was then inspired and suggested in extraordinary manner by the Holy Spirit, as Prophecy was given of old; according to that of S. Peter, Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So because many in the beginning of the Gospel were guided by a like instinct in the interpretation and application of Scripture, they were said to Prophesy. Thus the Apostle useth it in the fourteenth Chapter of this Epistle, where he discourses of spiritual Gifts, and before all prefers that of Prophecy; because he that Prophesieth (saith he) speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.

But neither of these kinds of Prophecy suits with the person in my Text, which is a woman. For it is certain the Apostle speaks here of Prophesying in the Church or Congregation; but in the Church a woman might not speak, no not so much as ask a question for her better instruction, much less teach and instruct others, and those men. This the Apostle teacheth us in this very Epistle, Chapter the fourteenth, even there where he discourseth so largely of those kinds of Prophecy. Let your women (saith he) keep silence in the Churches: For it is not permitted unto them to speak, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but to be subject. And if they will learn, let them ask their husbands at home. Again in 1 Tim. 2. 11, 12. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Note here, that to speak in a Church-Assembly, by way of teaching or instructing others, is an act of superiority, which therefore a woman might not do; because her sex was to be in subjection, and so to appear before God in garb and posture which consisted therewith; that is, she might not speak to instruct men in the Church, but to God she might.

To avoid this difficulty, some would have the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in my Text, to be taken passively, namely, for to hear or be present at Prophecy, which is an acception without example either in Scripture or anywhere else. It is true, the Congregation is said to pray, when the Priest only speaks; but that they should be said to preach, who are present only at the hearing of a Sermon, is a Trope without example. For the reason is not alike: In prayer the Priest is the mouth of the Congregation, and does what he does in their names, and they assent to it by saying Amen. But he that preaches or prophesies, is not the mouth of the Church, to speak ought in their names, that so they might be said to speak too; but he is the mouth of God speaking to them. It is not likely therefore that those who only hear another speaking or prophesying to them, should be said 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to prophesy; no more, as I said, than that all they should be said to preach, who were at the hearing of a Sermon.

What shall we do then? Is there any other acception of the word [ Prophesying ] left us, which may sit our turn? Yes, there is a Fourth acception, which, if it can be made good, will suit our Text better (I think) than any of the former; to wit, that Prophesying here should be taken for praising God in Hymns and Psalms: For so it is fitly coupled with praying; Praying and Praising being the parts of the Christian Liturgy. Besides, our Apostle also in the fourteenth Chapter of this Epistle joins them both together; I will pray (saith he) with the spirit, and will pray with understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing, that is, prophesy, with understanding also. For, because Prophets of old did Three things: first, foretell things to come; secondly, notify the will of God unto the People; and thirdly, utter themselves in Musical wise, and, as I may so speak, in a Poetical strain and composure: hence it comes to pass that to prophesy in Scripture signifies the doing of any of these Three things, and amongst the rest, to praise God in Verse or Musical composure.

This to be so as I say, I shall prove unto you out of two places of Scripture: and first out of the first of Chronicles, Chap. 25. where the word Prophesy is three several times thus used. I will allege the words of the Text at large, because I cannot well abbreviate them. Thus therefore it speaks; Vers. 1. Moreover, David and the Captains of the Host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with Harps, with Psalteries, and with Cymbals: and the number of the men of Office, according to their service, was, 2. Of the sons of Asaph; Zaccur, and Joseph, and Nethaniah, and Asarelah, the sons of Asaph, under the hands of Asaph, which prophesied according the order of the King. 3. Of Jeduthun; the sons of Jeduthun, Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Ieshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah (and Schimei) six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a Harp, to give thanks and to praise the Lord. Lo here, to prophesy, and to give thanks (or confess ) and to praise the Lord with spiritual songs, made all one. Nor needs such a Notion seem strange, when as even among the Latins the word Va • es signifieth both him that foretells things to come, and a Poet; for that the Gentiles Oracles were given likewise in Verse: And S. Paul to Titus calls the Cretian Poet, Epimenides, a Prophet; as one, saith he, of their own Prophets said,

And the Arabians (whose language comes the nearest both in words and notions to the Hebrew) call a chief Poet of theirs ( Princeps omnium Poetarum (saith Erpenius) quos unquam vidit mundus) Muttenabbi, that is, Prophetizans, or the Prophet 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

Now then if Asaph, Jeduthun and Heman prophesied, when they praised God in such Psalms as are entitled unto their several Quires, and as we find them in the Psalm-Book; (for know that all the Psalms entitled To the sons of Korah, belonged to the Choir of Heman who descended from Korah ) why may not we, when we sing the same Psalms, be said to prophesy likewise? namely, As he that useth a prayer composed by another, prayeth; and that according to the spirit of him that composed it: so he that praiseth God with these spiritual and prophetical composures, may be said to prophesy according to that spirit which speaketh in them.

And that Almighty God is well pleased with such Service as this, may appear by that one story of King Jehoshaphat, in the second of Chronicles, who when he marched forth against that great confederate Army of the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, the Text tells us, that having consulted with his people, he appointed Singers unto the Lord, that should praise the Beauty of holiness, as they went out before the Army; and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever; (that is, they should sing the one hundred and sixth Psalm, or one hundred and thirty sixth Psalm, which begin in this manner, and were both of them not unfit for such an occasion.) And when they began to sing and praise, (saith the Text) the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten.

A second place where such kind of Prophets and Prophesying as we speak of are mentioned, is that in the first of Samuel, in the story of Saul's election, where we read, that when he came to a certain place called The Hill of God, he met a company of Prophets coming down from the Highplace, (or Oratory there.) with a Psaltery, and a Tabret, and a Pipe, and a Harp before them; and they prophesied, and he with them.

Their Instruments argue what kind of Prophecy this was, namely, Praising of God with spiritual songs and melody: In what manner, is not so easy to define or specify; but with an extemporary rapture, I easily believe. And if we may conjecture by other examples, One of them should seem to have been the Praecentor, and to utter the Verse or Ditty; the rest to have answered 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the extremes or last words of the Verse: For after this manner we are told by Philo Judaeus, that the Esseni (who were of the Jewish Nation) were wont to sing their Hymns in their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or worshipping-places. And after the self-same manner, Eusebius tells us, did the Primitive Christians; having in all likelihood learnt it from the Jews whose manner it was. The same is witnessed by the Author Constitutionum Aposiolicarum, in his second Book and fifty seventh Chapter, where describing the manner of the Christian Service, after the reading of the Lessons of the Old Testament, (saith he) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Let another sing the Psalms of David, and the people succinere, or answer. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (i. e.) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the extremes of the verses. Some footsteps of which Custom remain still with us, (though perhaps in somewhat a different way,) when in those short Versicles of Liturgy, being Sentences taken out of the Psalms, the Priest says or sings the first half, and the People answer the latter, quasi, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . As for example, in that taken out of Psalm 51. 15. the Priest says, O Lord, open thou our lips; the People or Chorus answers, And our mouth shall show forth thy praise. But whatsoever the ancient manner of answering was, thus much we are sure of, That the Jews in their Divine Lauds were wont to praise God after this manner, in Antiphons or Responsories; as (to let pass other Testimonies, and the use of their Synagogues to this day derived from their Ancestors) we may learn by two special Arguments. One from the Seraphims singing, Isaiah 6. 3. where it is said that the Seraphims cried one unto another, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts, the whole Earth is full of his Glory. Note, They cried one unto another. Secondly, from the use of the Hebrew verb 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which in the proper and native signification thereof being to answer, is also used for to sing: as in Psalm 147. 7. where we translate, Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praise upon the Harp unto our God; in the Hebrew it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Answer unto the Lord in thanksgiving, sing praise upon the Harp unto our God. And Isaiah 27. 2. In that day sing ye unto her, a vineyard of red wine: in the Hebrew, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Answer ye unto her. And Numbers 21. 17. in Israel's song of the Well, Spring up, O Well, sing unto it: in the Hebrew it is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Answer unto it. And Moses speaking of those that were worshipping the golden Calf, Exodus 32. 18. It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, nor the voice of them that cry for being overcome; but the noise of them that sing do I hear: In the Hebrew, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the voice of them that answer one another. And so in other places. But to put all out of doubt, look Ezra 3. 11. where it is expressly said, The Levites, the sons of Asaph, sung together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, Because he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Hence was derived the manner of Praying and Praising God in the Christian Service, alternis, in a Musical way, and, as it were, by way of prophesying and versifying; even though we do but speak it only; as you know the Poet says,— Amant alterna Cam • en •• . Thus I have taken occasion somewhat to enlarge upon this particular; that we ourselves might the better understand the reason of what we do, and what precedents and whose example we follow therein. And thus much of Prophesying.

I COME now to the Second thing I propounded to speak of; namely, What was that Fault among the Corinthians which the Apostle here taxeth. For the right understanding whereof, I say two things. First, For the Offenders, that they were the women, and not the men: That which the Apostle speaketh concerning men, being by way of supposition only, and to illustrate his Argument against the uncomely guise of the women, à pari. This appears, because his Conclusion speaks of women only, and nothing at all of men. Secondly, For the quality of the Fault, it was this; That the women at the time of praying and prophesying were unveiled in the Church; notwithstanding it was then accounted an unseemly and immodest guise for women to appear open and bare-faced in public. How then, will you say, should it come to pass that Christian women should so much forget themselves, as to transgress this Decorum in God's House and Service, which they observed otherwhere? I answer, From a phantastical imitation of the manner of the She-Priests and Prophetesses of the Gentiles, when they served their Idols; as their Pythiae, Bacchae or Maenades, and the like; who used, when they uttered their Oracles, or celebrated rites and sacrifices to their God's, to put themselves into a wild and extatical guise, having their faces discovered, their hair disshevelled and hanging about their ears. This these Corinthian women (conceiting themselves when they prayed or prophesied in the Church, to be acting the parts of She-Priests, uttering Oracles like the Pythiae or Sibyllae, or celebrating sacrifice as the Maenades or Bacchae ) were so fond as to imitate (as that sex is prone to follow the fashion) and accordingly cast off their veils, and discovered their faces immodestly in the congregation, and thereby (as the Apostle speaks) dishonored their heads, that is, were unseemly accoutred and dressed on their head.

Which he proveth by three Arguments. Partly from Nature, which having given women their Hair for a covering, taught them to be covered, as a Sign of subjection; the manner of this covering being to be measured by the custom of the Nation. Partly by an Argument à pari, from men; for whom, even themselves being Judges, it would be an uncomely thing to wear a veil, that is, a woman's habit: so, by the like reason, was it as uncomely and absurd for a woman to be without a veil, that is, in the guise and dress of a man. And howsoever the Devils of the Gentiles sometimes took pleasure in uncomeliness and absurd garbs and gestures; yet the God whom they worshipped, and his holy Angels who were present at their devotions, loved a comely accommodation, agreeable to Nature and Custom, in such as worshipped him. For this cause therefore (saith he ) ought a woman to have a covering on her Head, because of the Angels. Lastly, he concludes it from the Example and Custom both of the Jewish and Christian Churches; neither of which had any such use, for their women to be unveiled in their sacred assemblies: If any man (saith he ) be contentious, (that is, will not be satisfied with these reasons) let him know that we (that is we of the Circumcision) have no such custom, nor the Churches of God. For so, with S. Ambrose, Anselm, and some of the Ancients, I take the meaning of the Apostle to be in those words.

Thus you have heard briefly, What was the Fault of these Corinthian Dames, which the Apostle here taxeth. From which we ourselves may learn thus much, That God requires a decent and comely accommodation in his House in the act of his worship and service: For if in their habit and dress, surely much more in their gestures and deportment, he loves nothing that is unseemly in the one or in the other: Which I doubt some of us, at least of the younger sort, are not so observant of in this place as we should; and therefore with those whom it concerns would amend it. And thus I conclude my Discourse.

TITUS 3. 5.

THESE words (as it is easy to conceive upon the first hearing) are spoken of Baptism; of which I intend not by this choice to make any full or accurate Tractation, but only to acquaint you (as I am wont) with my Thoughts concerning two Particulars therein, both of them mentioned in the words of my Text: One, from what propriety, analogy, or use of Water, the washing therewith was instituted for a Sign of new Birth, according as it is here called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the washing of regeneration: The other, What is the proper Counter-type, or thing which the Water figureth in this Sacrament.

I will begin with the last first, because the knowledge thereof must be supposed for the explication and more distinct understanding of the other. In every Sacrament, as ye well know, there is the outward Symbole or Sign, Res terrena; and the Signatum figured and represented thereby, Res coelestis. In this of Baptism, the Sign or Res terrena is Washing with water. The Question is, what is the Signatum, the invisible and celestial thing, which answers thereunto. In our Catechetical explications of this Mystery, it was wont to be affirmed to be the Blood of Christ; namely, That as Water washeth away the filth of the Body, so the Blood of Christ cleanseth us from the guilt and pollution of Sin. And there is no question but the Blood of Christ is the Fountain of all the grace and good communicated unto us, either in this or any other Sacrament or Mystery of the Gospel. But that this should be the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Counter-part or thing figured by the Water in Baptism, I believe not; Because the Scripture, which must be our guide and direction in this case, makes it another thing, to wit, the Spirit or Holy Ghost; this to be that whereby the Soul is cleansed and renewed within, as the Body with Water is without. So saith our Savior to Nicodemus, John 3. 5. Except a man he born of Water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. And the Apostle, in the words I have read, parallels the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, as Type and Counter-type: God (saith he) hath saved us (that is, brought us into the state of salvation,) by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost; where none, I trow, will deny that he speaks of Baptism. The same was represented by that Vision at our Savior's Baptism, of the Holy Ghost's descending upon him, as he came out of the water, in the similitude of a Dove: For I suppose that in that Baptism of his, the Mystery of all our Baptisms was visibly acted; and that God says to everyone truly baptized, as he said to him, (in a proportionable sense) Thou art my Son, in whom I am well pleased.

And how pliable the Analogy of Water is to typify the Spirit, well appears by the figuring of the Spirit thereby in other places of Scripture. As in that of Isaiah, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the day ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; where the latter expounds for former. Also by the discourse of our Savior with the Samaritan woman John 4. 14. Whosoever (saith he) drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a Well of water springing up to everlasting life. By that also, John 7. 37. where on the last day of the great Feast Jesus stood and said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink: He that believeth on me, as the Scripture saith, (that is, as the Scripture is wont to express it, for otherwise there is no such place of Scripture to be found in all the Bible,) out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this (saith the Evangelist V. 39.) he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.

Nor did the Fathers or ancient Church, as far as I can find, suppose any other Correlative to the Element in Baptism but this; of this they speak often, of the Blood of Christ they are altogether silent in their Explications of this Mystery. Many are the Allusions they seek out for the illustration thereof, and some perhaps forced; but this of the Water signifying, or having relation to, the Blood of Christ, never comes amongst them: which were impossible, if they had not supposed some other thing figured by the Water than it, which barred them from falling to that conceit.

The like silence is to be observed in our Liturgy, where the Holy Ghost is more than once paralleled with the Water of Baptism, washing and regeneration attributed thereunto; but no such notion of the Blood of Christ. And that the opinion thereof is novel, may be gathered, because some Lutheran Divines make it peculiar and proper to the followers of Calvin.

Whatsoever it be, it hath no foundation in Scripture: and we must not of our own heads assign significations to Sacramental types without some warrant thence. For whereas some conceive those two expressions of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or sprinkling of the blood of Christ, and of our being washed from our sins in (or by) his blood, do intimate some such matter; they are surely mistaken. For those expressions have reference not to the Water of Baptism in the New Testament, but to the rite and manner of sacrificing in the Old; where the Altar was wont to be sprinkled with the blood of the Sacrifices which are offered; and that which was unclean, purified with the same blood: whence is that elegant discourse of S. Paul (Heb. 9.) comparing the Sacrifices of the Law with that of Christ upon the Cross as much the better. And that whereas in the Law, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Almost all things were purified with blood, V. 22. so much more the blood of Christ, who offered himself without spot to God, cleanseth our consciences from dead works, V. 14. But that this washing, that is, cleansing by the blood of Christ, should have reference to Baptism; where is that to be found? I suppose they will not allege the water and blood which came out of our Savior's side, when they pierced him; for that is taken to signify the Two Sacraments ordained by Christ, that of Blood the Eucharist, of Water Baptism; and not both to be referred to Baptism. I add (because perhaps some means fancies are corrupted therewith,) that there was no such thing as sprinkling, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , used in Baptism in the Apostles times, nor many ages after them; and that therefore it is no way probable that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Sprinkling of the Blood of Christ, in S. Peter, should have any reference to the Laver of Baptism.

Let this then be our Conclusion; That the Blood of Christ concurs in the Mystery of Baptism by way of efficacy and merit, but not as the thing there figured; which the Scripture tells us not to be the Blood of Christ, but the Spirit.

AND so I come to my other Quaere, From what property or use of Water, the washing therewith is a Sacrament of our new Birth: for so it is here called the washing of regeneration; and our Savior says to Nicodemus, Except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. For in every Sacrament there is some analogy between what is outwardly done and what is thereby signified; therefore in this. But what should it be? It is a thing of some moment, and yet in the Tractates of this Mystery but little or seldom inquired after; and therefore deserves the more consideration. I answer, This analogy between the Washing with water and Regeneration lies in that custom of washing Infants from the pollutions of the womb when they are first born. For this is the first office done unto them when they come out of the womb, if they purpose to nourish and bring them up. As therefore in our natural birth the Body is washed with water from the pollutions wherewith it comes besmeared out of the matrix; so in our second birth from above, the Soul is purified by the Spirit from the guilt and pollution of sin, to begin a new life to Godward.

The analogy you see is apt and proper, if that be true of the custom, whereof there is no cause to make question. For the use at present, any man (I think) knows how to inform himself. For that of elder times, I can produce two pregnant and notable testimonies; one of the Jews and people of God, another of the Gentiles. The first you shall find in the sixteenth Chapter of Ezekiel, where God describes the poor and forlorn condition of Jerusalem when he first took her to himself, under the parable of an exposed Infant. As for thy nativity saith he in the day thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water, to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all; no eye pitied thee, none to do any of these things unto thee, to have compassion on thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. Here you may learn what was wont to be done unto Infants at their nativity, by that which was not done to Israel, till God himself took pity on her; cutting off the navel-string, washing, salting, swaddling. Upon this place S. Jerome takes notice (but scarce anybody else, for ought I can yet find) that our Savior, when speaking of Baptism he says [ Except a man be born of Water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God ] alludes to the custom here mentioned of washing Infants at their nativity.

The other Testimony (and that most pertinent to the application we make) I find in a story related by Plutarch in his Quaestiones Romanae, not far from the beginning, in this manner: Among the Greeks, if one that were living were reported to be dead, and funeral obsequies performed for him; if afterward he returned alive, he was of all men abominated as a profane and unlucky person; no man would come in his company, and (which was the highest degree of calamity) they excluded him from their Temples and the Sacrifices of their God's. It chanced that one Aristinus being fallen into such a disaster, and not knowing which way to expiate himself therefrom, sent to the Oracle at Delphi, to Apollo, beseeching him to show him the means whereby he might be freed and discharged thereof: Pythia gave him this answer,

Aristinus rightly apprehending what the Oracle meant, offered himself to women, as one newly brought forth, to be washed again with water. From which example it grew a custom among the Greeks, when the like misfortune befell any man, after this manner to expiate them. They called them Hysteropotmi, or Postliminio nati. How well doth this befit the Mystery of Baptism! where those who were dead to God through sin are, like Hysteropotmi, regenerate and born again by Water and the Holy Ghost.

These two passages discover sufficiently the analogy of the washing with water in Baptism to Regeneration or New birth; according as the Text I have chosen for the scope of my Discourse expresseth it: namely, That washing with water is a Sign of spiritual Infancy, forasmuch as Infants are wont to be washed when they come first into the world.

Hence the Jews, before John the Baptist came amongst them, were wont by this rite to initiate such as they made Proselytes, (to wit,) as becoming Infants again, and entering into a new life and being, which before they had not. That which here I have affirmed will be yet more evident, if we consider those other rites anciently added and used in the celebration of this Mystery, which had the self-same end we speak of, viz. to signify spiritual Infancy. I will name them, and so conclude. As That of giving the new-baptized milk and honey, ad Infantandum, as Tertullian speaks, ad infantiae significationem, so S. Jerome, because the like was used to Infants new-born; according to that in the 7. of Isaiah, of Immanuel's infancy, A Virgin shall conceive and bear a son: Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse evil and choose good. Secondly, That of salt, as is implied in that of Ezekiel, Thou wast not washed with water, nor salted with salt. Thirdly, That of putting on the white garment, to resemble swaddling. All these were anciently (especially the first) used in the Sacrament of our Spiritual birth, out of reference to that which was done to Infants at their Natural birth. Who then can doubt but the principal rite of washing with water (the only one ordained by our Blessed Savior) was chosen for the same reason, to be the element of our initiation; and that those who brought in the other, did so conceive of this, and from thence derived those imitations?

IOSHUA 24. 26.

THE Story whereupon these Words depend is this: Joshua a little before his death assembled all the Tribes of Israel at Shechem or Shechem, there to make a solemn Covenant between them and the Lord, To have him alone for their God, and to serve no other God's besides him: Which they having solemnly promised to do, saying, The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey; Joshua for a testimony and monument of this their stipulation, erects in the place a great Stone or Pillar under an Oak, which was by (or, as the Hebrew hath it, in) the Sanctuary of the Lord. Of this Oak, or rather collectively Quercetum or Oaken-hold, of Shechem, is twice mention made elsewhere in Scripture. For this was the place where Abram first sat down, and where the Lord appearing unto him, he erected his first Altar in the Land of Canaan, after he came out of Haran thither, as we read Gen. 12. 6. in these words, And Abram passed through the Land unto the place of Shechem, unto the Oak or Oak-grove of Morch, where the Lord appeared unto him, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this Land: and there he built an Altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And what place more fit for Abraham's posterity to renew a Covenant with their God, than that where their God first made his Covenant with Abraham their Father? Again, it was this place where, in the after-times of the Judges • one hundred and seventy years after the death of Joshua, the Shechemites made Abimelech, the base son of Ierubbaal or Gideon, King, as we read Judge. 9. 6. that all the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech King, by the Oak of the Pillar which was in Shechem. The words are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , even the Oak where Joshua (here in my Text) set up this great Stone for a witness to Israel. For the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 here, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the other two places, signify one and the same thing, to wit, either an Oak, Terebinth, or some other kind of Tree; as the Seventy perpetually render them.

Yea, that of Judges must of necessity so be rendered, by comparing it with this of my Text, to which it hath reference. Nevertheless our last Translation in the first of these places, Gen. 12. concerning Abram, chose rather (I know not wherefore) to follow S. Jerome, who follows not himself, and translates it a Plain, not an Oak, to wit, the Plain of Morch? by which Translation the identity of that place with the other two, where it is translated Oak, is obscured and made the less observable. If there be any difference between the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 it should rather be this, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 should signify a Tree, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a Grove, Holt or Wood of such Trees; as the Seventy in that place of the ninth of Judges have expressly rendered it, namely, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Quercetum, Oak-toft or Holt of Shechem. And so, I believe, it ought to be understood in the other places, that is, to be taken collectively; of which we shall hear more hereafter.

But this is no great matter of difficulty; that which follows is, namely, How this Oak, or Oaken-holt, of Shechem is said here in my Text to have been in (for the Hebrew is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) or by, the Sanctuary of the Lord. For how comes the Sanctuary of the Lord to be at Shechem, whenas the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Testimony were at Shiloh, there set up by Joshua himself, and so remained (as the Scripture elsewhere tells us) until the time of the Captivity of the Land? which without question was not till after Joshua was dead and buried, and is usually understood of that time when the Ark was taken captive by the Philistines. And yet is not only here a Sanctuary mentioned at Shechem, but in the beginning of the Chapter, the Elders and Officers of the Tribes are said, upon Joshua 's summons, to have presented themselves there before the Lord; which speech useth to imply as much.

If we say the Ark of God was taken out of its place at Shiloh, and brought to Shechem by the Levites, upon occasion of this general Assembly; yet the difficulty will not be removed. For first, How could the Ark alone give denomination to the place where it stood, to be called the Sanctuary of the Lord; Or secondly, If the Altar were there with it, how was the Law of God observed, which saith, Thou shalt n • t plant a Grove of any trees (or any tree) near unto the Altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee; Neither shalt thou set up a Pillar, which the Lord thy God hateth: whenas here are both, an Oak or Quercetum in the Sanctuary of God, and a Pillar or Statue erected under it? Thirdly, This Sanctuary, whatsoever it was, must be something which had a constant and fixed station, and was not temporary and mutable; and that, because the Oak, under which this Pillar was erected by Joshua, is here designed and pointed out by it as by a constant and standing mark: else to what purpose had it been to sign out the Oak by it, if it were such as would be here today and not tomorrow?

For these reasons it appears that this Sanctuary could not be the Tabernacle where the Ark and Altar for Israel were, but that it was something else: And what that should be, is to be inquired.

I answer, It was a Proseucha or praying-place, which the Israelites (at least those of Ephraim, in whose lot it was) after the Country was subdued unto them, had erected in that very place at Shechem where God first appeared to Abram, and where he built his first Altar after he was come into the Land of Canaan; the place where God said unto him, Unto thy seed will I give this Land.

For the understanding whereof, you must take notice, that the Jews besides their Tabernacle or Temple, which was the only place for Sacrifice, had (first or last) two sorts of Places for religious duties; the one callet Proseuchae, the other Synagogues. The difference between which was this: Proseucha was a plot of ground encompassed with a wall or some other like mound or inclosure, and open above; much like to our Courts: the use properly for Prayer, as the name Proseucha importeth: A Synagogue was aedificium tectum, a covered edifice, as our Houses and Churches are, where the Law and Prophets were read and expounded, and the people instructed in divine matters; according to that Acts 15. 21. Moses of old time hath in every City them that preach him, being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day. From whence also you may gather, that Synagogues were within the Cities, as Proseucha's were without; which was another difference between them, as you shall hear confirmed.

That Proseucha's were such places as I have described them to be, I prove out of a notable place of Epiphanius, a Jew bred and born in Palestine; who in his Tract against the Massalian Heretics, after he hath told us that the Massaliani built themselves 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. certain houses or large places, like the ancients places of market, which they called Proseuchae; he goes on thus, And that the Jews of old (as also the Samaritans) had certain places without the Cities for prayer, which they called Proseucha's, appears out of the acts of the Apostles, where Lydia a seller of purple is said to have met with the Apostle Paul, and to have heard him preaching in that place, of which the Scripture saith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , , it seemed to be a place of prayer, (of which I shall say more anon:) He goes on still, There is also at Shechem (saith he) which is now called Neapolis, above a mile without the City a Proseucha or place of prayer, like a Theatre, which was built in the open air, and without a roof, by the Samaritans, who affected to imitate the Jews in all things. Out of these words you may collect every part of my Description. First, That Proseuchae were out of the Cities in the fields. Secondly, that they were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , like the Ancients Fora or places of market, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , under the open air, and without roof, such as the Courts of the Temple also were, whither the people came to pray; so that they were as it were a kind of disjoined and remoter Courts unto the Temple, whither they turned themselves when they prayed in them. Thirdly, That they were ordained for places of Prayer. All these are in this passage of Epiphanius; and moreover, that such a one was in his time remaining at Shechem, the place my Text speaks of, there erected by the Samaritans, in that, as in all things else, imitators of the Jews. What better Testimony could be desired?

These Proseucha's of the Jews, both name and thing, were not unknown to the Poet Juvenal; when describing in his third Satire in what manner proud and insolent fellows in the City of Rome used, in their drunken humors, to abuse and quarrel with those they met in the streets in the night-time, whom they took to be of mean condition, he brings them in speaking thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Ede ubi consistas; in quâ te quaero Proseuchâ? Where dwell you? in what Proseucha should I seek or inquire for you? intimating that he was some poor fellow, either that dwelt in an house that could not keep out wind and weather, but was like a Jew's Proseucha, all open above; or he alludes to the banishment of the Jews out of Rome by Domitian, in his own time, and then fresh, as who had nowhere else to bestow themselves but in their Proseucha's out of the City; or who used to assemble in the Proseucha's. According to some of these senses is Juvenal to be understood.

For that the Jews had Proseucha's about the City of Rome, appears by Philo Judaeus in his Delegatione ad Caium, where commending the • lemency and moderation of Augustus Caesar, he saith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That he knew the Jews of Rome had their Proseucha's, and that they used to assemble in them, especially on the Sabbath-days; and yet never molested them, as Gaius did. The same Philo mentioneth Proseucha's elsewhere; though it be not to be dissembled, that he seems to comprehend Synagogues also properly so called under that name, as being better known to the Gentiles, who called both by that name. Josephus in his Life tells us of a Proseucha at Tiberias in Galilee, in these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , On the next day, which was the Sabbath-day, the whole people were gathered together in the Proseucha; which is (saith he) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a large edifice, fit to receive a great multitude. He afterward tells us of a public fast and supplication appointed to be had the Monday following in the Proseucha, whither himself and others assembled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. to perform their devotions.

In the New Testament the name of Synagogue is frequent, but that of Proseucha seldom; whence may be conjectured that both are comprehended under that name, as in Philo both are termed Proseuchae. Yet once or twice, as learned Interpreters think, we read of Proseucha's in the New Testament. As namely, Acts 16. 13. (which Epiphanius even now alleged to that purpose) where S. Luke tells us, that S. Paul being come to Philippi in Macedonia on the Sabbath-day, they went out of the City to a river side, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , where there was taken to be a Proseucha, or where was famed to be a Proseucha; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , will bear both. The Syriac hath, Quia ibi conspiciebatur Domus orationis; the Arabic, Locus orati • nis. For if 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 were taken here for Prayer itself, as if the sense were, where Prayer was used to be made, it should rather have been said, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Yet, if it were so taken, it would still argue no less than that there was here an appointed place for Prayer, and that out of the City; which is all one as to say, there was a Proseucha. So I take 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the 16. verse of the same Chapter, where it is said, It came to pass, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as we went to the Proseucha; especially since we read not in the Text that S. Paul went thither to pray, but to preach, where he deemed there was an assembly that day according to custom: And we sat down, (saith S. Luke) and spake unto the women which were come together there.

A second place where a Proseucha is mentioned in the New Testament, may be that Luke 6. 12. where it is said, that our Savior went out into a Mountain to pray, and continued all night, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Proseuchâ Dei, in an Oratory or Prayer-house of God; so Drusius thinks 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is here to be taken, for