Of Regeneration and Baptism

CHAP. I.

MAN was once in a state of happiness, chiefly for that he was born happy; That Bless'd condition was annexed to his Being, neither could he Be, but he must therewith be happy, as it were by nature and Patrimoniall inheritance. But, alas! this so happy estate lasted not long; 'twas extremely good, and such advancements have never used to approve themselves to the world by length and duration. Habitus corporis extreme bonus maxim periculosus, is a rule approved by the Physicians, Exactest health speaks worst danger of Change, and from the wisest of Politicians, the wittiest of Poets, — Summis{que} negatum Stare diu. This so happy estate therefore lasted not; and the unavoidable change, not but as in extremes it uses to be, from one extreme to another: Out of the Heathen so noted by the Christian long since, and here it took place to the full, From the pinnacle of a Temple to the bottom of a Pit, From the highest of perfection to the lowest of defection, From the top of all happiness this fall was to the worst and lowest of all kind of misery. Whereby was caught a woeful bruise: Poor Man! thou feelest and complainest of it to this very day, nor have some thousands of years worn off all grief and anguish from thy distempered either body or soul, And yet were not thy case wholly Miserable, if any way Amendable. But as a cracked Bel that admits of no reparation of fracture, it must be molten, or it remains good for nothing; Or as a Goldsmiths vessel, so bruised and battered by unlucky fall, that in vain is the Craftsmans assistance called in, no Art can repair and solder it to former use, but it must to the fire and furnace, to be wholly New-Made: So universally and irrecoverably was Man mischiefed and spoiled in all his powers to Good, and abilities against Evil, that there needs a total Reformation and Renovation, the frame so out of frame, that (no talk of amendment) the Whole must be taken in hand, and New-made, or else Man is lost and undone as to the state of two worlds. This is usually known in Christian Schools by the name of a Second Birth, or Regeneration, and hath here its necessity declared and demonstrated to a great Scholar, that yet it seems had not learned this point of necessary Learning: In the state of lapsed, decayed nature, no good is to be expected, and Verily I say unto thee, (says Christ to Nicodemus) unless a man be (so new formed and made as to be) Born Again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

The words our Savior's, (the best Teacher) and spoken as they were to a Great Name, not inferior to any of his time, Rabbi Ruler Nicodemus; Who being (as Gwalther on the place) a professing, eminent Pharisee, did, no doubt, much rely upon that Pharisaical-natural-performance, hoping thereby to earn out a good estate toward God; chiefly by the advantage of his Sect ( the straitest of his Nation) by his So being and Doing even to merit eternal life. Our Savior Catechises him better, (and that his scope, says the same Author) assuring him that in Him, or us, that is, in our corrupt natural nature (if I may so speak) dwelleth no good thing, ( flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor is Corruption prepared to enter into life:) A man must be transplanted into a better stock, before he can bring forth acceptable fruit to God, renewed, advanced, purified to higher and holier capacities and powers, yea, Metamorphosed, and exalted to another Heavenly nature by Grace, or else he is unfit to look him who is LIGHT in the face: And verily (says Christ) unless (to his natural Birth) he be again so Born, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

That is, in our first state of being we are all utterly lost, if a man remain but what his parents left him, He is verily the child of Death. David spake it to his Prophet only in a Parable, but it is really true of all the sons of Adam, They can make out themselves no better fortune, but they live only to Die, nor may their best endeavors help them so much as one step in the way to everlasting life. A Felon may get, but can never keep, what, under his guilt, the Law disables him to own, and he that is not rectus in curia, is deprived thereby of his otherwise due rights and privileges: Even so, saith Christ, Without me, ye can do nothing, Be ye whatsoever ye are, or would, the tree must be made good before the fruit, He that is born Man, must be exalted farther and higher, beyond common humanity, by heavenly birth, or else, be what he will, or do what he can, He is not, he acts not the Child of GOD. The sum is, Of our best works of decayed nature in old state, there is little or no hopes to Heaven, our very righteousness is sin, our piety guilt, our religion abomination, and Unless a man be reformed to the heighth of an accessory regeneration, and more then amended, new born Again, He cannot look to see the Kingdom of GOD, what, and who is invisible.

A strange and spiritual Doctrine to the gross conceit of a Carnal Pharisee: who measuring all things by lower human reason, and entertaining nothing but according to such praeconceived notions, is startled into little less then a frenzy of conceit; and so absurd as to vent those thoughts by words importing a second natural Birth, to make way whereto, he admits necessarily a praesupposition that he might and must reenter his Mothers womb, that he may be so born, All which (from so many improbabilities to be clambred over) might well draw forth their mention in form of a doubt, Whether? and this doubt question of the thing no less then the possibility, CAN these things be So? CAN a man be born again? Is it possible he Should enter Again into the bed of his former Creation, that he may thence be so new Born? ver. 4. Our Savior meekly instructs him, and not so much chiding, as gently leading him out of his Error, shows him both the Thing and the Manner, ver. 5. What, and how: That he must be so born, and that birth be of water and the Holy Ghost. For, That which is born of the flesh, is flesh (alone) ver. 6. That only is born of the Spirit, is Spirit: Marvel not therefore that I said unto thee, A man must be born Again, for Except a Man be so born, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

So that two things the words then naturally give just occasion to insist on. 1. Their subject, Regeneration (as a simple Theme) Unless a man be Again Born. 2. The consequent or effect of this precedent cause, supposed and implied in the denial of that consequent or effect upon the absence or exclusion of the cause, Except he be so born, He cannot see what is Heavenly. Begin with the former, (Regeneration) Except a man be born Again, &c.

And hereof, before I come to the main I aim at, two things more I crave leave to Preface by: One of the Word, another of the Thing. Of the Word, thus.

1. Whereas our authorized English Translation has here Verily, unless a man be born Again, with which word in the text is a marginal note of Reference, and the Referree gives choice, or From above, Though the former is usually taken, as best agreeing with the use most men make of it, yet the latter is the right and truer, as agreeing not only with the Original (to us) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (consideratly by the old Latin rendered, desuper ) but also with the scope and consequence of the place, (as well before as after) which make it May be thus, and renders it so indeed that it can very hardly be meant or translated any other way. For, Whereas the whole given is a set Dialogue between a great Critick in the Learning of his Nation, and our Savior, of Heavenly things (mark the subject) and He had begun by telling our Lord, that he verily thought He came down from God (above) else He could not do the things he had been seen perform, ver. 2. Our Lord answers by granting the thing, (How could he do otherwise?) But withal he affirms more, Raising the particular instance to a general case, My self? Nay, I say unto thee, No Man, Except he make derivation from thence, (or from above, from that God) can so much as see or know anything toward that Kingdom. That which is born of the flesh (here) is flesh, and can see only flesh or connatural fleshy things, That which is born of the spirit or from above, that only discerneth the things that came from whence, or belong thereto whereof it is: Marvel not therefore that I said unto thee A man must be born (or derive) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, from above, (for that is the word again) For, unl • sse he can truly pretend to such extraction, and find the root of his pedigree in Heaven, he cannot look back thither again, or see the Kingdom of God. When this had puzzled the thoughts of the grave unlearned Do • tor (I may well style him so, since Christ upbraids his ignorance) and his troubled mind▪ little less then phrenetically carnal, had admitted the raising of no less then a tempest of manifold doubts, What? Can these things be? Can a man be born, and when he is old? May he return a second time to the former womb, that he may be so born? No, says our Savior, this needs not; He needs but be born (where he is) of water and that sacred blast or insufflation ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) which all know to come from superior unknown regions, and that enough: Another of the same name, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and perhaps some nature common, bloweth where it listeth, here below, and men hear the sound thereof, but know (as little as of this) whence it cometh, or whither it goeth, Such is the extraction and designation of this Grace and its work; which wonder not that I require of invisible production, for unless a man do so derive, or be so born, (from whence, or to what he knows not, his hopes are little to or toward the Kingdom of God. The sum is, A man must be born again, that is, from above; from above, that is, from Heaven; from Heaven, that is, be inspired thence invisibly, Divinely, or else he cannot do the works that I (or any other good man) does, or (acceptably) look in any holy just performance to God above, that dwelleth beyond the thick clouds: Marvel not therefore that I spake in the Metaphor, requiring such supernal extraction, to be born from on high, for unless a man be so born, he cannot, &c. as before. This for the word, and setting together the (disturbed) frame of the Text, now as to the Thing.

2. Although the head of sacred Re-Generation be such a subject (or article) of Christian Faith, that many things are spoken (and written) of it (with confidence enough,) and particularly this Chapter (and very Text) made a ground for them, (and many other besides) as if the New Testament spake of nothing more plainly, intentionally, clearly, and fully, yet such is the mistake, and things so far from being indeed so, that, not only this place (so much confided in) has not the word Regeneration, (nor any of the same import, save by consequence and insinuation) Nor, having inquired with some diligence, could I find it else-where above once or twice in this whole Code, (very seldom completely in this notion.) Once, 'tis beyond exception, in Tit. 3.5. where Christian purification by water is styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Laver of Regeneration, and has annexed to it fitly, the Co-assistant operation of the holy Ghost; And that of S. Peter 1.— 1.23. Being born-again not of corruptible semination, but incorruptible, &c. may perhaps look that way: But for that which follows there in the next Chapter, As new-born Babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may prosper by it, and our Savior's promise, Ye that have followed me in the regeneration, and my text, These are so far from expressing a Regeneration, that the first and last have not the word, nor the middlemost, in any likely interpretation, the Thing, (as neither many other places, (the subjects of like abuse) wrested yet about to serve ends, and pressed to confess that they meant not, nor ever knew:) For, in 1 Pet. 2.2. the Apostle only fetches a comparison from young and tender infants ( Now-born, not New-born, as the Original word gives plain) whom he would have desire the food of their souls, with as much sincerity, and free from guile and hypocrisy, as those tender babes do their natural food, (Much to our Savior's Doctrine, Matth. 10.15. to receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, and as he calls that pattern of humility and simplicity, and sets it before his turbulent ambitious aspiring Disciples, Matth. 18.2. which S. Paul forgot not to take into his rule neither,) And that promise of our Savior, Mat. 19. is only of compensation his faithful followers shall have, (Disciples, or whosoever forsake anything for him,) in the Regeneration says the text, in seculo futuro, expounds it Junius, in Christ's temporal Kingdom yet to come (and after the first resurrection) on earth, expect the Millenarians, but in the Renovation or Restitution of all things, (mentioned, Acts 3.21.) say those that interpret most warily and probably; When the Creature now groaning under it, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God, In this Heaven and Earth ) (purified) there dwelling righteousness, and the Tabernacle of God placed with men, and he shall dwell with them and be their God, and they shall be his people, and so shall be wiped away all tears from their eyes: as Apocalypse 21.2, 3. For, Peter had said before, Master we have left all and followed thee, what shall we have therefore (hereafter) ver. 27.) Jesus answers, (as lifting up their eyes to the day of Judgment presently, and that future wonderful consideration of things and compensation) ye that have followed me! Verily I say unto you, ye that have followed me, (in this Generation, here) shall (hereafter, in that which is to come) receive abundant remuneration, For in the Regeneration (for so the words are to be set together and construed, not as commonly, ye that have followed me in the regeneration (in this world) shall receive Thus and Thus amends hereafter in the next life, But) ye that have so followed me with loss of all things here, shall in the Regeneration or Restitution of all things, in that world when all is passed away, and old things become new, receive large amends: And when the Son of man shall sit on his Throne (whom now ye forsake not in his lowness or poverty) then shall ye also (in that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or new mold of things) sit upon your several glorious thrones, and (as your number fits well) judge the twelve Tribes of your Nation of Israel. This was amends enough; likeliest to be promised, was here promised, and so (nor the other place) making anything for present regeneration or change of Soul by being born of God, (though the word I confess be exact for it;) which word (in which sense) is (I said) seldom found in Scripture, (perhaps not above twice or thrice) nor the thing (save by consequence and insinuation) much oftener; for certain, here's no Born Again (as before) in this place. Yet, because the text is commonly so interpreted and expounded, and emphatically and plainly in ours allowed so translated, which the governing original may bear too by the help of implication not the very remotest, I am content, rather by occasion of it, then grounding myself upon it, to continue my thoughts on this argument: (for, ground to raise anything upon I would have always firm, such as none can except against, nor will fail in time of trial:) And whereas here are two things, a Birth supernal, and the necessity of it, shall begin and end with the former, Except a man be born again, or from above.

CHAP. II.

AND this, you know, is a subject of common discourse, nor Pen, nor Pulpit have been sparing of their pains, and either way they have been more then very many things that have been exhibited to the world; the most good and pious, some also true, and not but some (in so great variety, very like) grounded on mistake and tending to Error; Declaring rather what the speaker or writer meant (in the name of good) to affix and lay with reverence to so holy a subject, then what Was, or the truth or state of things (all things considered) would bear. I, that my Discourse may fit in with itself and be entire all of a piece, shall first take leave (with due respect) to lay aside what hath been said hitherto by others, as things already profitably known; And secondly, that what I intend entirely mine, may be either true or very likely, shall lay the most upon the resolution of this (I think most pertinent, though hitherto quite neglected) Quaere, What was known of this argument of Regeneration, in our Savior's time? Whether anything? In what particulars it came forth? How tendered? How received, &c? With relation whereto no doubt our Savior spake as he did, to wit, according to the knowledge then on the Stage, or (as one would say, and as most men use) in the language of the times. For as he that would apprehend in a right notion himself, or deliver out fully to others who do not know what the Truth is, of any of the Mysteries of our Religion (as Baptism, Eucharist, Church, Sacrament. Excommunication, Absolution, &c.) It would behoove him farther then a bare and simple consideration of the import of those words at top, to dive deeper into the nature of the Things, the application, use and import of those words with us, and by study, observation, or otherwise, to acquaint himself what We mean, intend, or Do by them (things to be known only from us) without which a very jejune and empty Declaration is like to be furnished out of so great and weighty matters: Even so, He that would to the purpose speak home on this Mystical subject our Savior hath sanctified with the mention of his lips, as He meant, and must from him have been written down in the Scriptures, it would behoove farther then by the help of a Concordance and Lexicon, to know what the word might possibly hold forth in another place, or anywhere, to look and satisfy himself what it meant Here, what manner of Thing it was that was clothed out as it were in the habit of this expression, or what the people, or times, that age did apprehend of it, which was questionless That was meant by our Savior. A point and inquiry (no doubt) of manifold use, but withal of so unhappy neglect, that (as far as I can inform myself) it hath not at all come within the thoughts of any Writer on my Text by Commentation, Enarration, or otherwise, occasionally or purposely, in Tractate, Sermon, Common-place, or Howsoever, to bestow any considerable pains about, it yet seeming Alone that which must afford light to satisfaction. By like, it may not be the easier to begin first; Difficilia quae pulchra? Nay, we will invert, Pulchra quae difficilia, the acceptableness of the work may perhaps grow up under our hands with the painfulness of the labor, And if anything can be found, it may be as a new Discovery to let in more light (into this profound and obscure mystery) and such an Addition as may lay in somewhat more to the general stock of knowledge, heretofore laid together by other hands. On therefore, cum bono Deo; nor may the untroddennesse of the path repel or discourage a firm resolute purpose; God be guide, as truth our aim, and revelation of the hidden mysteries of Scripture, (not to be looked to or toward, but with trembling reverence) our scope and reward: Our Savior says, Except a man be born again, &c. and what was believed, known, used about it in those times in which he lived and said so?

CHAP. III.

I Answer, Many Things. The Thing, the Effects, the Rites, the Ends; in general, Regeneration was then an effect of Proselytism. (You must pardon the hardness of that word; obscure things always meet not with facile expressions, and so bring in new or strange words (I add or Things) is in this age, nor strange, nor new.) I resume therefore Regeneration was in our Savior's time a believed effect of Proselytisme, whereby the stranger that was by due rites initiated thither, was as it were mortified to his former estate dead to the world, revived to a new life, quickened to God, regenerate, renate and born again out of this, to a new state of happiness and life with Moses and among the holy children of Israel. From them as many as were, had their destiny praefigured in the old world, of whom, as many as missed the relief of Noah's Ark, scaped not the mischief of being drowned in the water, out of their Society or Church all were in state of Perdition; As many as were taken to sanctuary with them were termed Proselytes (of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to come over) They that did come were esteemed to be renewed, renate, Born Again plainly into a new world, capable of so much expression that it might afford some excuse to Nicodemus, that He thought, One must enter into his Mothers womb that he might be so born.

But it may behoove to be yet more distinct: (Generality uses to be the parent of much confusion) and to make delibation of Hebrew Antiquities, as much as will serve us with knowledge of the several sorts of Proselytes that were among them, the manner of making them, the ceremonies, rites, privileges, &c. the rather because they are to be looked upon as causes of this effect my Text speaketh of, and Those that were, by Them it was they were so Regenerate, born anew, or (which is all one) made Proselytes.

By an usual distinction then two sorts of them there were,

1. Proselytes of the Gate, or for habitation, and no more, (Proselyti domicilii) a lower sort, which were so far initiated that they might associate and converse with the Hebrews even in their own Territories, (but as strangers,) And these had not much done unto them: Only with some few ceremonies they were bound over to keep Noah's seven Commandments, (the reputed sum of the Law of Nature for Divinity and Morality, out of which Moses Ten Commandments were after drawn, or most of them) And a few other things, that they might not offend (their Masters) the Hebrews, among whom they were permitted to live, But the fruit of this initiation did not pretend to look to any great matter, far short of so great a change as might entitle to a Renovation, or Born again, and therefore I have accordingly soon done with it. But besides these of Habitation, qualified to live and converse with Israel, there was a second sort came up farther to a Copartnership or fraternity with them in their Religion, and the privileges thereof called.

2. Proselytes of the Law, or Proselytes of Righteousness, (Proselyti justitiae) which were as the Cives facti, the other as one compares, the Cives nati, of the Common-wealth of Israel; And these as they were initiated with more ceremony, so no doubt was made, those rites were in them effectual to higher purposes then the former, namely, to obliterate all they had before of corrupt Gentilism, and to render them like men dropt out of the clouds, wholly changed, Renewed, Regenerate, (as this morning born infant) naturalized Citizens of the community of Israel, and so estated in a participation thereby of their Law, Liberties, Privileges, Hopes, Religion, and all the happiness such an holy Communion could promise the true members thereof in this or the other world.

CHAP. IV.

THE Rites or Means (as 'twere Sacraments) in this Proselytizing or Regeneration were three: (understand, after the giving of the Law upon M. Sinai, where one of them, Baptism being first appointed, of necessity till then, sc. from Abraham to Moses, the two former that were must needs serve the turn, but on this side Sinai they were three) Circumcision, Baptism, and Oblation.

1. Circumcision they grounded upon the Letter of the Law, and no doubt firmly enough, Gen. 17.12. & Exod. 12.48. where He (the stranger) that would partake of of their Passover (as twere our Communion) must first be circumcised (as with us baptized) or else he was unfit and must not approach, as yet not censed among those of their Religion. And hereof is no doubt. But whereas for the requisitenesse or expediency of their second ceremony.

2. Baptism, they allege that a little after in the story of the people's washing of their garments before the receiving of the Law by order from their Governor Moses, as he from God, Exod. 19.10. and interpret it figuratively of washing their bodies, sc. by Baptism; And farther infer from hence a necessity (as well praeceptive as exemplariter ) of the like washing of all that shall come over to the Law, If the place be viewed, judgment will perhaps be soon given (as of many other wrested in, nay, turned quite round about to serve purposes) that it was found out rather to countenance the Rite after (for what reason soever) it was brought in and was desired to be kept, then affording any sound and substantial ground to introduce it at first, or take it up when they were at liberty. I speak by what appears in the Text or from it, as it is come to us: That of Guil. Paris. de Legibus, which he applies to women only, may seem fitly appliable to All in this case, ( cap. 3.) Intrant mulieres in pactum Abrahae per quaedam Baptismata & traditions quae in corpore leges non inveniuntur. They are censed with Moses people by rites not found in Moses Law. Howsoever, whether upon ground enough from the Law, as they pretended, or otherwise, certainly they used this ceremony, (you know what the word Baptism meaneth; and whether S. Paul had any allusion to such Baptism or reputed use thereof, in his 1 Cor. 10.2. of all the Fathers being baptized into Moses, and passing through the Sea like the molten Sea, or Baptisterium ) I say no more here, but it would be thought on) But they used, I say, this Ceremony howsoever, both to men and women, not sprinkling, but baptizing them all over, or washing them with a care exceeding diligent if not Superstitious that no part, so much as the bending of a joint might be left unwashen. This was done in the presence of a Triumvirate, or three chosen witnesses solemnly assisting as Godfathers; not without the nature of a Court for more solemnity, with explication of the Law over the Baptized as he stood in the Lavatory, and that by these overseers leaning over him, suscepturi, as they were about to take him up out of the water: Twice for failing both those greater and lesser commandments were so repeated. Before which the Competens (as the word was used after in the Christian Church for him was ripe for baptism, or stood in vestibulo pietatis, as G. Nazian. phrased it) was in the first part of the same continued business of initiation by Circumcision, if not Baptism itself) to declare his sincere intention to keep the Law, and every syllable thereof, upon which condition only he was admittable, for if he made exception but of Any, the least, there was a stop, and no farther proceeding; nay, the very hardest things were culled out to be proposed, say Munster and Maimonides, that if a man were not very resolute, he might be diverted or repelled. Serious and solemn praemonition there was also of the weightiness of the business in hand, the worthiness of the Law (and the received particulars thereof) the preferment of the change by submitting to it, the dignity of those persons into whose society there was intended Co-optation, de justorum etiam mercede, de poena iniquorum, de futuro seculo, and such other things (resembling a repetition of the Articles of what was then in their Belief or Creed) All, much in the sort that afterwards the first Christian Ministers took up to set forth their Sacrament of Initiation into Christ his Church ( sc. not without interrogation, stipulation, promise, vow, surety, confession of faith, profession of purpose of good life, &c. of which more hereafter) and it may be perhaps no vain or frivolous conjecture to suppose they borrowed much of this manner from them; not scorning to adorn the holy Church of Christ with the lawful spoils of the former Synagogue, or to set forth the administration of that Sacrament which was of Initiation into the inherited faith of old Father Abraham, by the grave and decent ornaments they found and could without superstition borrow and bring along with them from the sons of Abraham; As I know not how Levies former sacred use could profane or make any way unlawful unto followers what was in itself morally grave and good before, or that the costly Tabernacle or magnificent stately Temple could make it sinful to us to worship God in Temples made with hands, fairly built, or serve him in our best, and with our best, though as good as what Aaron or Solomon dedicated, Or that we must offend by keeping the places of our nearest and solemn approaches to God's most holy presence clean and free from all noisome pollution, because of what Israel was commanded to take care of about that place where the GLORIOUS PRESENCE promised to discover itself in the Camp, Deut. 23.12, 13, 14. But this by the way; I return. The party so circumcised as before, (if a man) and whether man or woman, so as but now baptized, When he had according to the Text alleged for it, Exod. 24.5. added the last Ceremony, which was

3. Oblation or offering sacrifice, They now counted him a perfect Regenerate man, Dead to his former estate; alive to God, formerly a stranger, now their own, not of the Reprobates of the World, but of the Commonwealth of Israel; In a word Renate and Born Again in the full and utmost import of that strange word, and thereby estated in all the honor, happiness, blessing, privilege, their alliance or religion could promise, or a Recovered, Redeemed, Sanctified, Saved man, expect in Remuneration of the works of true Belief in this or the other world. Besides which, some access of temporal privilege was thought to accrue, consequent upon so solemn and ceremonial a change, as The name of an Hebrew, no small honor, The freedom of that Nation, which might bring no small benefit, To live under their Law, sub alis Majestatis divinae, so they were wont to expound, To be favourably tried by that Law, in sundry cases, To be secure of divers shameful punishments, To borrow of a brother- Hebrew, without Usury, &c. Yet so as the chief good expected lay on the other side of invisible and spiritual, which Religion could bring to the soul; and this no less then to be born to Heaven, and new-come hopes of as much Good as a Saved Soul might reap here or hereafter.

CHAP. V.

NAY yet farther and to come to the thing nearest, whereas this REGENERATION in the full sound and sense of the word might seem to speak out a thing so unlikely, that, to make it passable, some moderating trope had need to be cast for and brought in, to make that which they believed, seem probable, and it be enough for men to be as 'twere born Again, though fully they were not, This they disclaimed as short of what they would and was, and in the proper Notion of the word without help of a figure they took the Proselyte to be in reality and truth indeed so Born. Wonder may be at the thing, and almost at my assertion, but whosoever will consider these three things, they yet believed, partly making, partly belonging to a true birth, will not think much to embrace farther persuasion they might also believe the Birth itself (to which they did belong, or of which they were, and which could hardly have concomitancy or participation of any other) As,

I. A new name obtained by virtue hereof, as of one newly come into the world.

II. A new relation or kindred, at least, as of one Dead, an obliteration of the old.

III. The man himself, (the foundation of all) changed, at least, to the Soul, the chief and denominating part. This was Much; Yet all this I believe, they believed.

1. The Regenerate (circumcised-baptized-offering) Proselyte was thought worthy, (as a man newly come into the World) of a New name; (as, Philip or Alexander was called David or Solomon; Haman or Holofernes, Moses or Benjamin, and so of the rest; a fair Preface and omination of a real and individual change. For Nomina are Notamina, as one says, are or should be, the revealing discoveries of veiled Existences, or Nota rerum, as Cicero, the outsides of Things wherein they appear to our apprehension, or Nomen quasi Novimen, so Festus, to make known a Being. Where therefore the Name is changed is a presumption for the thing, Why else should the Name to declare, or indeed bely, that it is so? But hereof I am not over confident. 'It is more assured,

2. He had a new relation or kindred, at least was dead to his old; So that his Father that begat him was no longer of his alliance, nor, which is more strange, his Mother that bare him. His Brethren, Sisters, or whatever former relations he had by affinity or consanguinity, natural or accidental all ceased and vanished presently; what need be said more? he being so now dead to All he was, that he had nothing now left of his former Natural-Nature. Insomuch that if a Gentile had loved his own Sister, or one whom by Law of Nature (things so remaining) he might not come near, He needed but by due rites be made a Proselyte of Jerusalem, and then he might take her to himself, whom before he could not, as now of no kin, (at least, consanguinity or nature hindered not) for by his new birth all was new, by the effect of those rites in Regeneration all former Relation, the closest of all, even that of consanguinity ceasing, (Like as upon the same ground the Perfecters of Aquinas allow a man to put away his wife, if of a Pagan he become a Christian, as being therewith Regenerate by Baptism alone, for, Generatio unius est corruptio alterius, say they, and by This that the former Pagan is, by being converted, now made new, He is and ought to be reputed Dead to what he was before: Not to speak of lesser changes, or lesser effects of This) Stories give, when sometimes the Plague was at Athens, it was so malignant and direly mortal, that if any fell sick, he was given over for Dead, if he did chance to recover, his friends welcomed him as from the Regions of Death, Neque seipsum autem novit neque propinquos, as says the Historian, He was neither Himself, nor knew any of his former Friends, even so the Renate Proselyte Hebrew was more then in danger, quite dead in this change, He had shook off all his Relations, and lost his very blood and kindred. Scaliger upon Festus, informs of another custom among those Athenians, that When one of theirs had been so long absent in the War, that he was thought to be dead, and his Friends had from their love celebrated his obsequies, if by chance after he revived, and came to life, in their opinion, as he had been in himself always, and were desirous to converse among them, They yet suffered him not, prius quàm per sinum laxae stolae mulier eum dimitteret, tanquam denuo renasci videretur, (fol. 128.) and he was called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as one that was crept into the world of New, and was once again born of a Woman; What was here in fiction or supposition, was thought more Real and in effect by the rites spoken of, sc. that the convert was truly dead to former state and had now a resuscitation to a second true life, being born Again of Water, whereto our Savior added in His, Baptism of Water and a new spirit or life added thereto, sc. of Water and the holy Ghost. And hence, from belief of a true death, it followed by the Hebrew Law, that if the natural and legitimate brother died, leaving a rich inheritance which according to course of Law and rules of Succession, should have devolved and come upon his brother, as of next blood, yet could He not as the Law word is, succeed, because he was now none of the kindred he had been of, but Dead and out of the Family, and had lost his inheritable blood, whereunto the inheritance would have drawn; Neither (for the same Reason) could his brother Gentile succeed him, for that they were now of several Families, yea Nations; His going out so took all along that it left nothing with him, not so much as sparks of Native kindred, They were not now of the former house of their legal and earthly parents. And, by the way, some such thing as loss of Kindred, to some purposes, even upon a Death supposed by change of state and in religion too, both our Civil Laws have taken notice of as possible, and made use of upon occasion, and Others of the death and following Regeneration. For, among those six sorts of men, who, if they sue, judgment shall be demanded, whether they ought to be heard and answered? The Oracle of our Common Law maketh the fifth to be, lou un home est enter & profess en Religion, where a man is entered and professed in Religion, for if he be, and complete by vow, &c. and then sue any action real or personal, the Tenant or Defendant might show that such a one was entered into Religion in such a place, into the Order (as of S. Benet, &c.) and this shall be sufficient to stop the proceeding, by a modest and mannerly way of asking Whether such a one be a fit person to be answered? The reason whereof the same with the changed Proselyte before, because says the Law, Such a one is dead in Law, Quant une home entra en Religion, & est profess, il est mort en ley, & son fits ou auter cousin maintenant lui inheritera auxi bien si come il fuit mort en fait. His son or kinsman entered as if he were dead: He might have made a Will, appointed Executors, and those Executors (he living) should have had action for any true debt, (things remaining thus) as if he had been dead; or if he had made none, the Ordinary was to enter as in case of him had clearly and forever left all here, and was gone to another world. This dead man revived in his Cloister might there both enter upon the actions of a New life, and manage them, sue and be sued, purchase, possess, buy, sell, in another new created right, as Master of his house, Trustee for his College, &c. by that well laid and most profitable distinction of Proprium in communi, Lording it so over Lordships, and having nothing yet possess all things: But for anything he had before, it was lost and found, gone and come, departed from him forever, with all title to it, and accrued to another: for he had been in saeculo; He was now not secular, His very kindred took as little notice of him, as he of them, Benefit, prejudice, loss or gain was nothing to either, not to a Couzen, Brother, or Father; for he was now gone off clear, and only intwisted with his new spiritual relations. There is a twofold death says the Commentator there, A death indeed, and a civil death or death in Law, Mors civilis & Mors naturalis, and therefore to oust all scruples, Leases for life are ever made during the natural life, &c. Of which supposition our Papinian has enough.

This for Our Civil Law; Now for that is more commonly so styled, Neither hath been forgotten there, nor sparingly remembered this civil death. For by such title is called, the loss of being free of the City, and plain servitude, and confiscation, and deportation or carrying away to some desolate Island; Insomuch that it was needful to note, that where death was mentioned without apposition, it was not meant of Civil but natural death, as possibly some might understand; whence the Divine takes notice, with other, of one kind of Death, Eorum qui capite diminuti sunt, vel de gradu honoris decidêrunt. Further, a very Regeneration, and under that title, as consequent of some change of state, Justinian was not unacquainted with. For, writing to the General of the East about the legitimation of natural children, he willeth (among other ••• ngs) that, If a man have Such by one of Servile condition, and after set her free and marry her, & jus eis (to her and her children) aureorum annulorum petierit, (sc. of the Emperor himself, who only could grant this honor, the utmost of the Patrons Power was to allow the use of one made of Iron, in token of some lower Freedom: but if he sue to the Emperor for jus aureorum annulorum) & REGENERATIONIS, & inter ingenuos secundum justos reduxerit modos, &c. Then both the children to be to all purposes (as of inheritance, &c.) legitimate, and their mother and them restored in state to such freedom as if they never had been Servile. Which Petition the same Emperor after willing of his Grace to release and grant of course (without special suit) or rather to be had without granting, he useth the same words, that the manumised should have— Ex ipsa manumission aureorum annulorum & regenerationis jus—ut sint quidem liberi & ingenui, the right of the Patrons yet saved, which expression is again of the same grant in the Novel ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 vocat Justinianus, says Brissonius ) and after he boasts the diffusivenesse of his goodness herein to be comparable with Antonine and Theodosius, who granted such favors of course, formerly restrained to suit, as he did now again, aureorum annulorum & Regenerationis Jus, to the manumissed by virtue of their manumission; Not to insist on that change of Bene-Nation in the same Novel, and the Patron described as Pater there, a very new Father, by adding somewhat to the first natural Birth in the Pandects. It was like to be an occasion of some wonder to meet with, in Tertullian, and speaking of things out of the Church) a very Regeneration, and that in Pagan Baptism: but there it is. And if we consider how great a Lawyer he was, we may cease to think it strange he should make use of a word readiest at hand in his own art, or they to borrow a term they were best acquainted with the use of in their own professed Civil Laws. He or they might derive, (besides what they had as Christian) from similitude in their own Paulus, Modestinus, Ulpian, Papinian, &c.

Thus a loss of kindred, change of state, by death, civil, and the great remove of a Regeneration, ours and other Laws have left expressed, as in Israel; but these were most but Tropes and Figures; In England, Rome and Athens, the person remained still the same, or but with accidental alteration, the expression allusive, Only at Jerusalem there was no wonder made of a Being sent of new (antedating, in fair resemblance, the present transubstantiation of the Church of Rome ) and really, essentially, formally they held the Proselyte to Be changed. For,

3. To come to the third sign, effect, or rather caus of Regeneration, (the ground of the whole) the very change of the regenerate Man, They did believe him indeed to be so essentially, and formally, and really changed, A New man to be brought into the world, (without which that variation of kindred before could not have been) At least for the better and chiefer part, which we know by an usual trope to be put for the whole. For, (Credit Judaeus apella!) It is strange that I shall tell you, yet they believed it, That the Regenerate Convert Proselyte had by virtue of their Ceremonies miraculously working, a new soul charmed down into Him, with abolition of the old; Corruption and succeeding-Generation are Nothing else in Nature but induing the same Matter with a New Form, This they believed in this case to be, to induce the very title of most substantial change by Generation.

They went no farther; For the visible body was seen still remaining, As the Papists allow (they Must) the outward Form, and cover of Bread and Wine in the consecrated host, and in sensible things most men will belive their senses: But, for the Soul, This they believed to be both gone and come; the old one removed, no inquiry whither, a new one succeeding, they saw well from whence; That either annihilated or sent back to its former Mansion and This immediately procured and sent down from Heaven. Some controversy it may be their Schools have of the procreation of those souls there, and no less uncertainty of their Emanation and infusion into their Proselytes with us, and even ridiculous are the fabulous brawls of the Cabalists, touching their production from I know not what both invisible and incredible generations: But for the main they consent, that such New Souls are Made, Sent, Transfused, Infused, and each circumcised and by other due rites initiated Proselyte both attended by one, and from thence readily informed. Now we know that the soul is the preeminent, leading, chief part, by all belief; and Denomination has been used to derive itself from it accordingly: Nay, some have said it is not the chief, but the whole. Anima cujusque is est quisque, as the Philosopher, it individuates the species, it is the Man; and therefore in Scripture Arithmetique, so many Souls, and So many Men have went for one, and convertible terms of equal latitude both of sense and signification. In the Ship with Paul were two hundred seventy six souls, We do not believe them without bodies, or but Men, Act. 27.37. Joseph invited his Father, and all his kindred into Egypt, even seventy five souls, their Tabernacles of mortality were not sure left behind, Acts 7.14. By like numeration the same linage of Jacob passes together, Exod. 1.5. and in parcels, Genes. 46. The sons of Zilpah were sixteen souls, v. 18. the sons of Leah three and thirty souls, ver. 15. the sons of Rachel fourteen souls, ver. 22. the sons of Bilhah seven, ver. 25. All together threescore and ten souls, at ver. 27. infallibly So many persons, by interpretation of the same Moses, Deut. 10.22. A saying some have, that Lux est vestimentum Dei, the light we see is the shadow and outward covering of what (being Divine) we cannot see; Semblably have others thought that Corpus est vestimentum animae, the Body nothing else save the outside or clothing of the soul, wherein it is appareled to be discernible by us the case or cover; and as these accessory artificial garments are to our natural bodies, so that natural habit to preserve and cherish the soul. The instrument, or as it were working hand thereof, to perform operations abroad, so others: Who though they are crossed by Aristotle and his Followers, making the Body a constituting part, yet for number are there enough in the other scale to sway it this way, and it passes that the body is appurtenant, the soul the essence and perfection of humanity. If then the soul be granted change as before (so much the more eminent and denominating part) an easy and gentle trope will soon traduce and bring along the Whole, the man is not but changed: Nay, if that soul be itself the Whole, what need any trope at all? The man is completely newborn by it, there needs but this infusion or transformation made good, and by it the Man is New made completely.

In short, as a Wolf made a Sheep, a Lion, a Lamb, a Vulture a Dove, or an Earthly man made Heavenly, so every Native Israelite looked upon the Proselyte Gentile coming over to him, and the inspiration of a new soul might well effect this Regeneration, which was not without the compass of their firm belief.

And thus has the lamp of the Sanctuary enlightened the things of the Sanctuary, Jerusalem discovered its own affairs; Whence probably may we know the things of India, but from India? Or what but a Star from the East bring certain intelligence of the wonderful things there done and believed? The Subject chosen and here spoken of by our Savior, had many as it were underpillars, upon which the knowledge thereof was to be raised and is to be held forth, we have lighted upon some in their proper Seoene, and among the people spoken to, by which best guess may be made of what was spoken to them. As that such a New birth was, what it was; how it was: of Proselytes, the sorts of them, the rites of making them, the effect of those Rites, and at top of all, a REGENERATION as the knot in which they met, the center at which they aim and do prove the thing effectually, clearly.

All this known in the Scripture times; as the Lectures of the Schools, and practice of the Synagogue: which may give some reason why our Savior (meek and gentle though he were, a bruised reed, should have had from Him no further violence) did yet lay so heavy an increpation as after at ver. 10. upon his Rabbi Pupil Nicodemus, Art thou (saith he) a Master in Israel, and yet knowest not these things? Each word hath its weight. An Israelite, a people of knowledge! A teacher there, and yet not taught! A Master, as 'twere of higher Form, and yet knowest not, art utterly ignorant! Of These things, which all do or may know! Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that leadest, art thou blind? Can anything excuse thy Doctoural ignorance, thy graduated insufficiency? Art thou Israel's Teacher, and yet understandest not what is taught thee? But it is no unusual thing for ambitious men to over-leap desert; seeking Rabbinical both titles and preferments, without ever looking after those qualifications and sufficiencies may deserve those titles, or striving to furnish themselves with those noble and rich endowments of Learning, worth and goodness, can alone become their dignities, or make the wearing of their preferments well beseem them. Rabbi -Ruler Nicodemus is here so dark that he sees not things near at hand, a guide so blind he cannot follow in his apprehension what is plainly taught him, a Master scarce a Scholar, nay, not a Scholar, yet a Teacher; to make way for desert of severe reproof, and the weight of as much indignation and shame as could be laid on from exprobration of an undeserved title, Art Thou! a Master! in Israel! and yet knowest not things commonly and vulgarly known!

And this a better way (as to me it seemeth) of speaking out indignation, and bringing home reproof, sharpening it that it might bite (as very likely by his way of expression, our Savior meant) with quickest severity, then of others who go their several ways, and yet can hardly piece out things to any likely consequence, or words so fitting Grammatical coherence; Especially for what next follows, I speak what I know, (thou also mightest) and testify what I have seen: (every day gives instance:) and If I have spoken unto you of these lower earthly things at hand, and ye credit not, How would ye if I should mount up aloft to invisible? But of these and some other hereafter. Conclude in present, by giving due praise and honor unto our most glorious and most gracious Lord God, by whose gracious favor it is that we have leave to meet in these Courts of his House, to learn the mysteries of his Counsel and Will, who bless the opportunities to us, &c.

CHAP. VI.

AND as to the first; our Savior by all consents instituted two Sacraments, that is, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord; By one we are brought unto Christ, by the other kept to him (declaratorily;) By one we live, by the other we are kept alive: Now as touching the latter probable conjectures have been already made of its Original and how our Savior took it up, Not instituting and framing it whole a new, but raising it out of and grafting it (as 'twere) upon the stock of another rite of his Nation in use and practice long before; That use or custom was of a Grace cup ( Poculum benedictionis they called it) usually served in after meat, which our Savior (it appears out of the holy Story) refused not to partake of, and out of This made, or consecrated it Into his Sacrament of the remembrance of his Death, (whence 'tis called Poculum benedictionis, 1 Cor. 10.16. even after consecration, by the old secular name it had before it came to be Religious:) Now since our Savior (very likely) did derive and compose his confirming and strengthening Sacrament (to declare Christian Communion) out of the bones and as it were praexistent materials of what was ( Hebrew at least, though not Religious) in use before, What hinders but that his beginning or initiating Sacrament (whereby we enter Christian Communion) may entitle itself to a like Original and derivation, And, by adding to that Baptismal washing was in use for helping to initiate Hebrew Proselytes before, the grace of the holy Ghost, He might So make that Baptism for remission of sins, and matriculation into his Church, which, if for its proper work and end it hath Regeneration thitherward, That (as you have heard before) was no less believed to be the effect (as from a partial cause) of former Proselyte Baptism.

I do not say These things were so, for now I speak only conjecturally, and by way of problem, (This speak I, not the Lord) Nor doth the supposition they were so, imply or infer Christ's new-born Baptism to be the same with that in use before, that is, the same and no more. But, the same, And more, what hinders but it may be? the Same heightened to a farther degree of Honor and Power, sc. by Christ's consecration? Hebrew Baptism (in a word) Now by Christ Christened? and that with as great likelihood as a Complement may be made a Divine mystery, a grace Cup raised to an holy Sacrament, and that Mystery, that Sacrament advanced yet higher, and to the very highest of honor and some veneration, sanctified and set upon our holy Communion Table. Nay, for this reason I take it more likely, because That was before but a mere civil business, and so needed a farther translation even of the whole kind, (a very Metamorphosis) to make it religious, whereas Here needed no such thing; no transire à genere ad genus, or to raise from profane to holy, because all was sub eodem genere under the same head of Religious before: A Rite of Religion? yea, a rite of Regeneration, yea, a Rite of Baptismal Regeneration, and in some sense (believed) Sacramental too; to wit, as far forth as anything among God's own people Then was Such, As questionless some things were, Circumcision for instance, and this as far forth as Circumcision, being that in Sacramental work did bear a joint half part with it.

Neither doth this derogate from the honor of this Sacrament (in mine opinion) but rather add thereto, nor detract from it but rather give esteem, Nor make it infamous as Jewish, if the pedigree should settle and hold thence, but rather add to its commends, as coming from the stock of Abraham, the house of Israel: Other things boast of that extraction, the other Sacrament, for instance, glories of an Hebrew Original, this is left Christian enough that even this determination leaves it in the highest, safest way Christian, by Christ the Author, Neither is it any Sacrament to Us but by His Divine appointment, HIS allowed, bestowed, instituting, constituting grace creating, advancing, setting it where it is, and whatever it can in Religion and to Us, That only so to do erecting and enabling it. This translates and metamorphoses the whole kind, and to advantage of honor and preferment enough, though it come of Jewish parents, that Jesus appointed it who was the son of Mary, and by us believed the Son of God; whose work and authority could do it alone by the efficacious power of his word even regenerating Baptism, and of an old, decayed Dead Ceremony raising and reviving it to a Sacrament of Life. The whole engraffed Church of Gentilism, as now it stands, was at first set upon or rather set into that stock whereon Judaism formerly flourished, Rom. 11. to bring forth fruit unto God, and may not rather the less then little branch of a Rite or Ceremony.

In which derivation of some things from ancient time, rather then framing or creating all anew seems done somewhat like that which Gregory the great after counseled here in England, at first Plantation of the Gospel, Baptism with other Mysteries; Who willed the Pagan Temples not to be destroyed, if fair, but converted, and the feasts not to be abolished but transferred; The former, that people might be gently led along, and by their wills, to worship where they had used, & verum Deum cognoscens & adorans, ad loca quae consuevit familiariûs concurrat, as his Order hath; The other, that by like reason men may be brought on by degrees, ascending by stairs what they could not at once, and by retaining somewhat of that they loved and had, they might the more easily, willingly, smoothly and peaceably, but full as surely be brought on to what they had not. For, (let rigid men opine what they will, their Opinion will never have work in order to the change of Things) Duris mentibus (and very sure, such churlish and intractable dispositions all savage, untaught, barbarous, whether Nations or unconverted Men have) simul omnia abscindere impossible esse non dubium est; quia is qui summum locum ascendere nititur gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus elevatur, (as the Learned Historian goes on to give the reason with the fact) and he instances in JEHOVA (Our great LORD GOD of Israel ) who took those very rites (he says) and sacrifices he found in Egypt, and sanctified them, being superstitious before, for his own people's service, in his own Land, by his own Law, to be used in the most holy Service of Himself, and in his own city & temple of Jerusalem. Their former profaneness held no antipathy to keep out his more powerful sanctification, rushing in by force, nor their ill use or worse Masters could lay any bar against his claim or possibility of acceptance of what he chose, but that he might have, retain, use and be worshipped by that, which, before he laid his holy hand upon it, had been profaned to the worst even Egyptian Idolatry. The like might Christ do after in this matter of Baptism, sooner giving form then making matter, rather taking what he found for his purpose at his own Jerusalem, then fetching from Arabia, or elsewhere, and placing it there, or Creating it whole anew; Nor was it so much as a Feast or a Temple, a little farther to consecrate a religious rite, for Him was Master of all Religion and had power so to do.

And we may be the better persuaded of this derivation (rather then Creation, which usually passes) if we consider the similitude and resemblance is between these we here take liberty to call the Primitive and Derivative, Original and Abstract; or the same in one Religion, and the same in another, for the same end; for there was the same Name common to both, the same Rite used in both, the same End proposed of both, and the like Ministration as to the Manner, and Persons admitted or admittable. The Name was, (and is) Baptism; the Rite, Washing or Purification by water; the End, a New Birth, to be thereby Born again or admitted to a new Religion, (questioned once whether Circumcision, the old Partner should not be also retained among Christians for the same purpose? Acts 1 • .) and for the ministration both as to the Manner and the Persons, Things may not be thought they could have been more like, then (as 'tis described by them) these were, the old Baptism in days of old, and our New at first, as it was when it was fresh and New. For, (to forbear enlarging on the first things, as touched at before, and confine to the last) as to the Manner of old Baptism, this we make no doubt to affirm it was itself, that is, Baptism; the whole body covered in water, and some placed in it up to the chin. Buxtorftus gives us the like of another washing, for purification of women post puerperium, which was so exact, a Ring must not be left on the finger, a bracelet on the arm, or chain on the neck, &c. If the Lavatory had any mud at the bottom or other filth, a fair clean stone must be chosen to tread upon, that water might miss no part at all; tandem aliquando coguntur subtus aquas se totas emergere, &c. And the like exactness was (as I believe, in all, so) sure in this initiatory purification. Corpus etiam integrum abluendum (saith our Author, from Maiemonides) & cavendum ne corporis particulae ulli maneret quid quod ejusdem ablutionem impediret, Nothing must interpose to hinder the water from any part, as scurf, scab, spittle, gore-blood, loose skin, &c. or if it did, all was as good as nothing. Now view the Christian side. The word used by Christ, his Apostles the Pharisees, All in the New Testament was, both the same was used when all this was required, and of the same impor • to BAPTIZE and BAPTISME, signifying Mersion or Ablution; and this whether we regard institution, execution, order, performance, Rule or practice, whether in Gospel or Epistle. Christ the best instance and safest pattern, pattern, sanctified this Ordinance by is Example in the River of Jordan, the known greatest of all the Country; whether all the people came from Jerusalem, Judea, and all the coasts round about, who were Baptized in Jordan likewise confessing their sins. Save once in Aenon, near unto Sabim, and that because much water there, John else did not usually Baptize anywhere; and, if Expositors be not mistaken, near or at the very place where Israel passed before by miracle; there needed no less to make the depth fordable. Philip and the Eunuch rode together till they came in their way to (5) water, and there they went (6) down into the water, and came up out of the water: which Circumstance noted and expression used of our Savior before, Matthew 3.16. When he was baptized, he went up out of the water. (Remember God-fathers were at first called susceptores, and some of their office questionless in that other periphrasis of Levantes de sacro fonte ) Whereunto St Paul's speech of alusion must needs have respect in divers places; especially Rom. 6.4. and Coloss. 2.12. We have in our ordinary Bibles an Illumination from which there cannot be apostasy with any hopes of return, Heb. 6.4. The Fathers and those of best judgment understand there by Baptism, the terms having been used promiscously: Now that the Syriac gives, Atqui non possunt illi qui semel ad Baptismum descenderunt renovari, &c. as rendered by Tremellius, and his reason with clearness explains all, Nam immergebantur aquis. Add hereto that first name of the Baptisterium 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , sc. locus ubi natare possumus, (as among other interpretations, Scapula gives this one) a washing pool, and Lavacrum a bath; that ancient Canon of our ancestor-Mercians, with the reason thereof, that Water should not be poured on any ones head, but he be merged, because Christ had been so in Jordan; and the practice of our first Grandfather Christians, upon whose separation from Paganism by this rite, (which we may presume to be understandingly, not formally ministered at first) we read still of their attendance at Rivers: As in Yorkshire, Vir Dei Paulinus, that man of God found employment for 36 days together from morning to evening in baptizing the Country people that came in from all parts (after the King and his Family had led the way) in the River of Gleni; In another Province and not far from York, ten thousand in a day in the River of Swale, some tradition whereof remaineth among the neighbor inhabitants to this day, as I learned of them; In Nottingham -shire the King being present, many in the River of Trent, not far from Southwell; venerable Bede who gives the Relation, had it from one he knew and trusted much, who had it from one of the proselytes that then came over. Lastly, take in the avouched use of the Easterlings to have ministered no other way; those of Arabia to know our (to baptize) by the word Amada 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which imports to stand, from their standing in the Rivers, (which the son of Azalkefat hath left us in the very translation of the Gospels;) Even Calvin, and Bellarmine (the more is the wonder) in this agreeing; Besides Aquinas his Tutius est per modum immersionis baptizare, repeated, and the practice of the Church to be made good by the best Records, sc. that (as Cunradius Dietericus grants it was, though he do not think it fit it should have been) till the time of Constantine Copronymus about the year 740. (who from a shameful disgrace to this Sacrament, got that name) yet, till then, men used to go into the water and there stand, Vestibus exuti, nudi, &c. Lay I say these things together and compare, and face does not more fully and proportionally answer face in water, nor anything its like, then the manner of washing proselytes and our Savior's Sacrament instituted, with the practice in purest times, do picture, express, lead, follow, set forth, exemplify, and in all things correspond, comply with and resemble one the other; of which many other things might be alleged, and more then very many, but that I am willing to borrow incautelous forbearance from the Apostles, amputare occasionem eorum qui volunt occasionem: It was both and all but Sacred Sacerdotal washing, and for the manner alike on both sides of the Covenant.

So for the persons on whom it was to pass: which on Israel side was even to Minor's offered by their parents or the Country; and the most general received practice of Gentile believers hath been since to suffer little children to come unto Christ, and not forbid them, as of whom is (in right) the Kingdom of God. For, as to the former, I find, those that would be proselytes to the Synagogue (being under years of consent, the male a day under thirteen, the female a day above twelve the parents of the child, or the Country would offer any other, and this consent of theirs interpreted to supply the consent of him that otherwise could not, because it tended to the good and benefit of the receiver, quia in commodum ejus (baptizati) res cessit, says their Law, as otherwise perhaps it should not: Much as in our Law, a man or Corporation may be a legal actor to benefit, and the act valid enough, as it would not have been if it had tended to prejudice; and not only a man, but a child by ours, and other Laws may do, where it cannot suffer, and receive and hold in hand strong enough, what yet it hath not power, if it would, to part with, by wise and very conscionable provision. So there, to bring one to Israel and to be sub alis Majestatis divinae (as their word was) tended to benefit and great advantage of the Receiver, and therefore that which passed on children, or was conveyed to children, unless there followed after-revocation, was counted valid and firm enough, it could come to no less: And even in like manner in the Christian Church, whose wisdom and charity hath been all along so free and provident as to offer to baptism, and to receive and esteem for baptized, to all purposes and constructions, those who were so far from consenting, that they have no present sense at all, nor after memory of what others charity doth then even pour upon them for their eternal good; for the thing here no less tends to open benefit of the simply patient: And this, I say, hath been so all along, and from the first dawning of the fallible Church, so far off as in Origen's days, he acknowledged and embraced it for a Tradition Apostolical then, allow it but any reasonable time to grow up to desert of that reputation, and we shall soon pinch hard upon St John in his banishment, yea upon St Peter and St Paul in their travels; Truth is, generally I believe it hath been received through Christendom in its largest diffusions whether to time or place, though the most general rules are forced to admit of some derogatory exceptions.

Thus have we Paedobaptism upon both sides of the double testament. Doubt may be, and upon the matter, hath, of the bridg or means of conveyance from one to the other: Whether by virtue of any command of our Lord himself in scriptis directly given? or by equity of example found after in the practice of his servant Apostles? or by derivation and necessary consequence from other truths laid down upon other occasions? (as, the parents being within the Covenant, their children's (thereby) at least parental holiness faederal sanctification, native title to the seal, as the circumcised had the eight day under the Law, &c.) which three have been the opinions of those that become the Doctrine even of this Circumstance of a Rite (for it is no more) in the sacred Text, and would have none bottomed elsewhere: Or, whether (no warrant supposed any way written) as to such an appendant or but appurtenant of a Rite (the Right itself having first passed by clear command) that which so belongs thereto, and is but of the manner, may not be conveyed safe and sure enough from hand to hand by successive and continued practice, and the Church be entrusted to give along with security so small a thing, scarce a thing, to avoid multiplying commands; which hath been used to be called Ecclesiastical Tradition, and is laid hold on by divers, and some Protestants in the business? But of this controversy, which I cannot be ignorant to have been on foot a long time, and yet to be, prosecuted with zeal enough, and too much bitterness, by those have interested themselves, I leave the abettors to their several opinions and disputations; let them sit and vote as they please, for the bridg or manner of conveyance, I interpose no farther then I have cause for the both sides: that there it was, and here it is, it had being before the Gospel, and hath had ever since the Gospel (though they that rely on simple tradition may perchance hope to gain hereby not a little advantage on their side; for if it were so indeed that infants were, upon what grounds or maxims soever, baptized into the Law, and this so usual that nothing more, this known, rendered it the less needful to give or require express order for every days practice, or to waft over by cumbersome strength of precept what the force of custom would fairly and gently but surely enough carry on along with it, especially for a circumstance, when the main was secured by Command, And withal there might be Rules and received Orders then on foot, to carry on the business with light, strength, security and evidence enough, since lost Grant I say, the thing done, a glance, or but intimation, or but covert supposition might give as much evidence as might reasonably be expected in such a business from so small a Volume as the New Testament is, where we have but a very short draught of all the sure Theology in the world: As here in England what a small account have we of infant-baptism for about 500 years ago as to doctrine or practice, which yet questionless was, and how much less will be a thousand years hereafter, when time shall have eat out the prints that are now legible in many things, that setteth her teeth into everything? Things unusual claim their notice, strange come upon the Record, dark, doubtful, uncertain, of hard belief, use to take up room of vindication into clear and open light, else books must multiply in infinitum; and as to our particular of what passed under Christ, we more then guess that all was not written of him, by that supposition we know who used, that if 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all that was, should, the world could not contain the books that should be written. Jo. 21.25.) But of these I say, I interpose no further then I have cause, the fact on both sides, and the similitude of their and our initiating rite thereby; even those that could not consent were admitted, before, since, under our Savior, to the Synagogue, and the use of Christians hath been (we know in part) from the beginning, to take into the Ark Noah and all his Family, not the youngest left out to perish in the water, but saved by the water, as is St Peters saying, and mine in his sense: 1 Pet. 3.21.

So the parallel stands fair, and our baptism comes from Israel, because in so many regards like theirs; as primitive and derivative, original and extract, as was said before, type and antitype, the same and the same: that Jerusalem from the East which giving us one, had the other, being the likest to afford both mother and daughter.

Which admitted, as I see not but it may, there is neither impossibility, improbality, nor (of weight) inconveniency, Thereon would follow two other things to be yet super-induced by way of Corollary, sc. 1. That it is not so credible as commonly believed, nor gold so good as Currant through Christendom, that our Messias, or his anteambulo John Baptist, at the soonest, was the very first that ever introduced this rite of Religious Baptism into the Church or into the world; There was no such thing before, These Master builders not only raised it up to that hight (of value it justly has, and use it serves for) but laid the first corner stone thereof, as is with confidence enough delivered, by Marlorate, Maldonado, Illiricus, Brencius, Polyd. Virgil, and diverse others both Historians, Treatisers, Commonplacers, Schoolmen, and both Fathers and their children of every generation, who drive on with one consent (the more is the pity) the same mistaken way: But is it so? No; it is not so: There was a rite, of Baptism, in Religion, for regeneration, I step one foot farther, and for renovation, institution, initiation into new faith and profession, before Jesus (the son of a Virgin) was born in Bethlehem in the land of Judea in the days of Herod the King, or his elder servant and next Herald practiced (to make way for his Master, to come) in Aenon, or anywhere else: and for this there is proof enough, full, home, pregnant, plentiful, though not Scripture-proof (and yet such as Scripture contradicts not neither) as good as the world uses to afford in like case. Far be it, I should be overlavish to grant the adjective of Christian regeneration, Christian Baptism; That, such and Ours (by which alone we hope, so far as Sacraments may, admission into the new Jerusalem ) began I believe with the New Testament, and has the form authoritatively ordered from him that could alone, and did, our highest Prophet, and Savior▪ and Redeemer, Matth. 28.19. Thus, or to this, baptize not till now, or then. But for Baptism (or religious washing, at large, for the words are the same) a Rite, Seal, Means, Ordinance (believed) of engraffing to a new Faith or Religion, not without regeneration intercedent (though not ours) This was both in the world before and in the Church, Our Savior did but transfer not bring up, dispose not create, order, appoint, metamorphose and sanctify a new, not raise to being, that which both had been and had been holy before, making it to us the Laver of regeneration and gate of spiritual (a degree of eternal) life; as breaking of bread was before it became a pledge of Christian Communion, and as the rainbow had a being in nature, before God appointed it to be significative to the world, by judgment of good Philosophers-Divines, Genes. 9. and thereby a kind of Sacrament to give sensible pledge and assurance of what it is there set for. In short, Baptism was before, our Master brought in ours, it had a being, He made it our Sacrament, washing was in use, he new washed and sanctified it, and made Baptism (taking in his own name) to be Christianing, which God grant it may be to all the welcome and willing partakers thereof wheresoever; the gate of heavenly life here, and of heaven itself in the Heaven of heavens hereafter. Amen, Amen.

Secondly, Hence may be made a discovery of the gates of new and old Zion of equal wideness, the door of the Synagogue as broad as the Churches, and either wide enough to let in (Sacramentally) both sexes; I mean by a solution of the great doubt, hitherto so much tossed, but to or toward satisfaction so little determined of rationally and resolved, sc. How women were taken into the old of Moses, or Jehovah's Covenant? Macherae petrinae eundem heic fuisse usum quem & in maribus praeputandis, die scilicet octavo, juxta praeceptum Abrahae datum, Nemo sanus puto affirmabit; imprimis de Israeliticis foemellis, DEI popularibus, JEHOVAE peculio, quarum vel circumcisionem, vel excisionem, vel concisionem nullibi commemorat sacra pagina, vel in lege vel exemplo; si res ipsa forsan possibilis: That they were admitted, yea circumcised, as some have been apt to think, in their males, of not much less absurdity; considering they were one half of whole mankind: That they were admitted without ceremony, as strange: or that they were not admitted at all. It remaineth therefore, if neither by their own circumcision, nor in their males, nor but by some rite, nor by any other, by BAPTISME which passed on men, which might pass on women, which was fit to pass on them, which nothing hindereth the likelihood it might pass on all, and most likely on women, who had many such special consecrations appointed by the Law, nothing is this way inconvenient, nothing absurd, nothing improbable; Modesty is taken care of, all fitted in to wonderful consent of Things: and above all, the Church succeeds the Church, the New Testament the Old, and while with us both men and women continue to be baptized, of which 'tis certain men's succeed what was under the Law, it will remain a strong visible, real, lasting argument of weight, that both came together, and that our baptism of women (of which we have no special command) comes from the Hebrews, and theirs went before ours. Greedy endeavors had been before to compose things to similitude and likeness; whence (at hand) the Lord's Supper was made to piece out the Passover, to us; and our Baptism, Circumcision, (which yet could be put in part, since one half was never circumcised) I leave all to think how much fitter it will be, to compare not only Baptism with Baptism, but that which doth now pass on both sexes with that which both heretofore might, and the likelyer did for what since follows: and upon terms of how much disadvantage should we be willing to take up but a likelihood that the women of Israel were entered by water, which is after followed by such another known piece of the same, as (the first admitted) will put all believers in a livery, men, women, of now, and heretofore, all into the same ceremonious dress of Sacrament like themselves, the sons and daughters of faithful Abraham.

I acknowledge the whole, as to any succession, whether of women's baptism or men's, to be altogether new, and utterly different from all or the most that have written or spoken on the Argument before me, whether fathers or their posterity, whose opinions and confident determinations have still went on upon this supposition with concession as undoubted, that our Baptism for admission doth succeed among the Hebrews, what? not a Baptism (which hath not been thought of) but their first and great commanded ceremony of entering into Abraham's Family and the visible Church by Circumcision; and that this is the gate to let into Christian Communion, as that did (and in succession to it) into the Jewish Synagogue, for which I could cite of books, and in them dictates, enough: But I refer myself to indifferent judgment, whether this be not a more probable origination and succession, itself to itself, rather then to circumcision, another thing, Baptism to Baptism for the same end of regeneration believed by both, then Baptism to what is merely heterogeneous and of another nature (especially since this was always fit to have passed on women to let them in with the other Sexe, as still 'tis known with us it doth, the other nor did, nor well could) and I am persuaded as 'tis to me clear, so it will be to others, at least very probable, after they shall with a new and free judgment have digested these considerations. The rather for that 'tis observable the growth of the Church to have been all along, both at beginning and ever since, most successful among the gentiles, and they, 'tis like (in love of their own, would rather choose to take up or continue that, for what end soever, which could fairly derive itself by inheritance from their own, and which had wont to pass on their Ancestor-proselytes, then what must graff itself, were it but for succession, upon what had passed upon their envious, and 'tis well if not envied adversaries: As, how Jewish circumcision hath been counted all along and in all expositions, is well enough known; in so much that the Nation seems properly enough described by it, and deciphered, Galat. 2.7. & Ephes. 2.11. even by Calvin's interpretation of those places.

Dr. Godwin went so far to acknowledge a kind of initiatory purification by water used by the Jews of old, without which no proselyte was admitted to the Church: (though he disclaim it to be sacramental) and that my premises: Polydore Virgil (who had been likest to have lighted upon it in prevention, writing purposely de rerum inventoribus, or how things took their beginning) taking it in hand, derives it from Moses and the Synagogue, which was my conclusion, Ego vero dixerim, saith he, Mosen primitus rationem baptizandi ostendisse, quippe qui baptizavit sed in aqua solum, id est, in nube & mari: Quod, teste Gregorio Nazianz: & baptismi Johannes & Christi exemplar fuisse constat, quando ista omnia à Deo proficiscebantur. Of which sort the Fathers have much, and others: But premises and conclusion neither of them, I think, laid together, or scarce any other; I modestly propose, let the learned judge.

And this the first probable discovery, upon former grounds, of the original of our Baptism, with what would follow thereon: the second followeth.

CHAP. VII.

QUAERE 2. Of the Original of Godfathers in Baptism.

TOuching certain Assistants that have been usually required at the administration of this Sacrament among Christians for like believed Regeneration; the expectation of the World, and continuance of Ages, has not improperly styled them (for so they were thought to be) GODFATHERS. About whom much hath been said (besides what hath been seen done) by many, and not the least doubt of them is of their Original, which if well searched into, might, as in other things, let in much light toward ending many controversies, hanging now in miserably perplexed, both obscurity and uncertainty. That they have been in the largest diffusion of C • rcumstance, both to time and place, in all AGES, and of all CHURCHES, appears by the Records left; the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Greek Church; Susceptores & compatres, in the Latin, and among our Saxon Ancestors at their first illumination by Christ's saving truth, godfaeder & godsun besides Councils, Schoolmen, Historians, Civilians, Canonists, Ritualists, Catechists, Adversaries, Friends, abroad, at home, and generally all sorts of Writers, which may be thought to have had occasion to mention them, who have not forgotten them. Now may not a more probable origination of them then hitherto (indeed scarce thought on before) be made out, by deriving them from the like assistants, at the same rite, by the same ceremony, for the very same end of regenerating men to new Religion, though the Jewish way? (as first Christianity throughout was nothing else but Judaismus reformatus, as the learned style it, or the corruptions of Moses and the Prophets reformed by Jesus of Nazareth and his Discsples) and they be thought to be taken up in succession of the Triumvirate before spoken of, to be that Triumvirate continued, without whose presence or assistance necessary, none were ever regenerate unto the Church of Israel?

As, by the way, our making the business clearly voluntary, in all forms, or according to all Directories of Christian Baptism, that I have met with by repeated Questions or Interrogations proposed to the Baptized, and exacting full answer, Scrutinia the ancients called them, or sifting them for their consents (for Religion should be of all other most free and at liberty, to force men profess what they do not believe, what is it but to fill the world with Atheists and hypocrites? in a business so near us of Salvation, everyone should be allowed to choose for himself and not according to another's Interesse: Faith is the gift of the holy Ghost, I can believe but what I know, nor should I be forced to seem to believe anymore then I list, because I can believe no more or otherwise then my forestalled judgment shall lead my faith and persuasion) with mutual stipulation between him and God's Minister, the result whereof is by St Chrysostom and others styled Confaederatio cum Deo, or entering solemn league and Covenant with the God of Heaven: Our Blessing from him, or praying for him, which the Hebrews called to Bless, (and they are not far asunder, Blessing being in a sort the calling down or giving of God, & prayer chiefly to invoke and procure his presence, assistance or blessing) Our enjoining him moreover Abrenunciationem seculi, in Martyr Cyprians phrase and and others, both fathers and their children, no age or almost another having left it out, Admitting the baptized to be One of Us only upon holy condition of public engagement from that day forever: for reformation and amendment of life, whatever he hath been before, that now henceforth he seriously promise and sacredly vow to forsake the Devil and all his works, (branded crimes and heinous offenses, nay) the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked world, Gaming, racing, Stageplays, light and wanton songs, pranking with Jewels, &c. so far the fathers extended the meaning of this Article of agreement) and all the sinful lusts of the flesh: Renunciasti Diabolo & operibus ejus, mundo ut luxuriae ejus, ac voluptatibus, as grave St Ambrose made bold after to remember the baptized and hold him to his Bargain: Lastly, to believe in God and to serve him (accordingly) which the Catechumene was after taught to have accomplishment in [to keep God's holy will and Commandments, and to serve him truly all the days of his life,] without which no Baptism, or whereinto this did lead, and publicly and solemnly engage,

These, and more, and the whole grave and ancient dress of this most holy Ceremony had Sacrament, as it was appareled and set forth in elder days by those ancient and holy Fathers (in their ministration) and martyrs, who lived and died in and for the truth of Jesus Christ, confessedly before the growth of superstition, I believe it would be no impossible thing to render it the fruit of labor, encouraged with impunity, and assisted by due means of furnishing out so important and needful a search, to prove, That they derive themselves (probably) from a fair parity and resemblance of the like doings, proceedings, undertakings, performances annexed to a kind of Sacramental Baptismal initiation into the truth on the other side of the Covenant. And as it is most certain they have been in all ages (much, for that hath been said before) and states of the Church, and to have come from the beginning, so that they were before likewise, even before our Savior's incarnation, in that other Hemesphere of the true believing Synagogue, which was enlightened by the face of God from Moses and the Prophets. Which if, how likely they must not but have been to come through his and his Apostles hands? And if this, of what rare use and consequence it would be (being well proved) is left to judge, though for the weightiness is hard, in few words to determine, or many.

Certainly for 1200. or 1400. years such Interrogations, Responsions, Vow, Promise, Profession, Confession, &c. with sureties, and the interposition of divers other such requisits and performances, of solemnity and use enough, have been continued (beside the bare and simple act of Baptizing) by order: And if nearer the fountain and up to the very well head (as far as books and lights of information help us to see) and also beyond; if on this side of the Cross and the other, and on both sides nearest, how unlike is it but the best interceding times of our Savior and his Apostles might have them likewise, and both take and give them? take them with one hand from the times before, and convey them (with Baptism again) to the times following? They being in themselves such things as are not evil, but grave and good, of no evident or probable iniquity in use or consequence, and so far from superstition (unless men's opinion make them so, as by enhancing their necessity, or ascribing to their effects, &c. ) that they tend openly to edifycation, and the better, handsomer, fuller, if not faster inocculation or grafting wild men into that holy stock which is Christ's mystical body, the Elect company of most holy Believers, his beloved Church. For how handsome is it, if those few who have the hap or rather happiness to be brought into the fold with Christ's little flock, disclaim his enemy (the roaring Lyon) upon their entrance, and have with them sureties ( fide-jussores is St Augustine's common title, Sponsores & promissores in others) that they do and will ever after defy and Renounce that Satan, those malign, opposite, adverse powers, that are most contrary to him? as by all concessions and confessions, the Devil, the World, and the Flesh are most notoriously such and undeniably. Of what great obligation must it needs be to hold men fast and close in, ever after to the Christian Law, when, (and at the very admission) the admitted shall enter upon no other terms but express and avowed undertaking, condition and promise, that he will ever after keep thereto? How complete must it needs make the present action cannot but speak itself out of being Baptized into the Faith of Christ, if the heads or articles of that faith be then and there distinctly repeated and rehearsed as the particular covenants of that Indenture or Agreement, solet enim plus timere quod singulariter pollicetur, quàm quod generalis sponsione concluditur) to which the hand and seal of public and deliberate consent, are then and there to be affixed? As accordingly, how frequent and wonderful-powerful use, the (4) Fathers (that well understood these things, before time and negligence had frozen them into dull and useless forms) made of them in their holy and divine tractates and Sermons, ad populum Christianum, is known to all those very well that have read their Works.

I said, some few appendants of Baptism: But might I not as well, more and the most of old Christianity to have been in the several particulars as so many branches slipped off from the elder Synagogue, and transplanted to the ornament of new Zion, Christ's Catholic Church? the rather for that S • Augustine doubted not HER Truth to be coaevall with the world, and clothed only with a new name of late, for substance, to have been since the beginning. For, speaking of that the immortal soul hath to trust to to convey it hence to God, Ea est nostris temporibus Christiana religio, saith he, quam cognoscere ac sequi, securissima & certissima salus est; That can do this alone which we now call Christian Religion, the surest guide to know and follow. Which later date (now he after expounds to be meant only of the Name, not Thing, Secundum hoc Nomen, non secundum rem cujus est nomen, Nam res ipsa quae nunc Christiana Religio nuncupatur, erat & apud antiquos, nec defuit ab initio generis humani, quo usque ipse Christus veniret in carne, Undo vera religio quae jam erat, caepit appellari Christiana. Cum enim post resurrectionem ascensionemque in coelum coepissent Apostoli predicate, & plurimi crederent, primùm apud Antiochiam, sicut scriptum est, appellati sunt discipuli Christiani, Act. 11.26. Propterea dixi, Haec est nostris temporibus Christiana religio; non quia prioribus temporibus non fuit, sed quia posterioribus hoc nomen accepit. For that we call Christian Religion (his meaning is) was of old, never but among mankind since the beginning, till Christ, of whom it was NAMED Christian, For when after his death and resurrection, his Apostles preached him and were believed; Then were men called Christians first at Antioch: And therefore said I, the Christianity of our times, not because it was not sooner, but of later times was begun to be so called. So indeed: Truth is from the beginning; coaevall with the world: Gospel truth the light and glory of all ages, from the same point of duration with the Sun of the Firmament: But not of equal brightness; for it hath shined sometimes dimmer, sometimes clearer, as the same Father again, sometimes under veil, sometimes revealed, as Type or Reality, Shadow or Substance. Nor is that but worthy of all acceptation, as rooted in truth, and grounded on much observation all abroad, of the singularly judicious H. Grotius, fit here to be called up to be heard speak again, Pleraque veteris Christianismi à Judaeis, most of Christian is borrowed from Judah and Jerusalem. It had been to be wished (as he was most able) that he had, while he lived, set himself on work about traduction and to imbody the particulars: No inquiry could be more useful then what might have produced satisfaction, in our darkest times (because remote from the first spreading of light) about what is pregnantly insinuated in Rom. 11.17. the grafting in of that Olive Tree which is wild by nature, the Gentiles, upon the stock, or instead of the broken branches of decayed Israel, that once most fertile and truebred natural Olive Tree; wherein it yet stands & florishes by faith of that truth, the unbelief whereof in that wretched infidel, both brake him off at first, and makes him yet continue a dead and sapless stick fit for the fire. Which till, and from better abilities, answering the difficulty, shall please God to set some fitter hand on work, to go through with it, let the needfulness and usefulness excuse this essay.

Where (omitting, though not but remembering, what we have under our hands, of the Hebrew parentage of our two great Sacraments (Let first be called to mind what I somewhere read in the exchange of Letters between Dr. Hammond and Dr. Cheynell, sc. that Confession of sins, Prayer, Lection. Benediction, and the whole ordered form of Divine public service, is said there to have come into the Church from the Synagogue, for which is alleged the famous Morney du Plessy, lib. 1. de Missa. cap. 3. Then, to fit the body with a head not unanswerable, add that the title of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (which in itself betokens public employment or service, and by first Christian Governors was laid hold of to denote their public sacred service) is from the old by the New Testament conveyed to our later days; yea is in the new both of the new and old, and from both, through the current of ages, conveyed down to ours. (Nor offers this any cross to whatever is or seems established now: for a new Directory is nothing else but an Established Order for Public Sacred Service or Liturgy, and the old Liturgy was nothing but a public agreed on Direction for sacred Service or Worship; both to further unity and consent in the things of HIM is ONE, and long since used as expository one of the other.)

For, as to the Old first, in that translation the learned observe our Savior and his Apostles to have been more conversant then in their own native original, because therewith their allegations are found better to agree, then (as it is come to us) their Hebrew edition, the public service of the Temple there (most what Sacerdotal as well as Levitical, and spiritual in offering Prayer, Praise and Sacrifice, as well as corporal in works of outward servility) is delivered out unto us by the title of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as these places do evince: Num. 8.22, 25, 26. & chap. 18. ver. 7.21, 23, 31. 1 Chron. 6.32. cap. 24. ver. 3, & 19. & cap. 28. last, 2 Chron. 8.14. cap. 31.2, 4. & cap. 3, 10, 16. Sapient. solom. 18.21. Sapient. Sirack 50.21. 2 Maccab. 4.14. To do either work is worded to us 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Exod. 28.35, & 43. cap. 29.30. cap. 30.20. cap. 35.19. & cap. 38. last, Num. 8.6, & 31. cap. 4.3, & 26. cap. 16.9. cap. 18.7, 21. & 23. Deuteron. 10.8. & cap. 18.5, & 7. 1 Chron. 6.32. cap. 23.13, & 27. 2 Chron. 5.14. cap. 13.10. cap. 23.6. cap. 29.11. cap. 31.2. & cap. 35.3. Nehem 10.35. Ezek. 40.46. cap. 42.14. cap. 43.19. cap. 44. ver. 15, 16, 17, 19, & 27. & cap. 45.4. Daniel 7.10. Joel, 1.9, 14. & cap. 2.17. Besides the Wisdom of Sirach. cap. 4.15. cap. 45.19. & cap. 50.15. & 1 Maccab. 10.42. Even as Philo tells us the Priests had in the Temple, Bread (unleavened) and Salt (unmixed) thereby different from others, and it was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a reward of their Ministry or public service they performed there. And Joachim the high-priest, and all they that waited before the LORD, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , offered the daily sacrifice and prayers and voluntary donations of the people with their loins in sackcloth, Judeth 4.15. But above all, in 1 Chron. 16.4. where the following verses give upon record the manner how the Priests did perform this work of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or public Ministry: to wit, by Confessing with a loud voice and praising the LORD, the God of Israel, and saying, O confess unto Jehovah and call upon his Name, make known his works unto the People, &c. as it followeth, (and is a composition of the fifteen first verss of the 105. Psalm, joining thereto the whole 96, and the last of the fourth paragraph or book of the Psames, according to the Hebrew division, which is with us the 106. Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel forever and ever, and let all the people say, Amen ) whereon is recorded soon after, ver: 37. They thus praised Jehovah and left there before the Ark Asaph and his brethren, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to Minister thus over against the Ark of JEHOVAH from day today: Nor is any doubt but they continued so doing from age to age, for so long after as Simon the son of Onias his time (whose story is within 200 years before Christ) the wise son of Sirah hath left described the then service of the Temple much according, sc. by Psalmody, Prayer, Prostration; and all the parts of worship till the honor of the Lord was given complete, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and they had finished all his service. cap. 50.20, 21, &c. Further, by another conjugate the Agent in all this work (as by and by in the New Testament) is styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Ezra 7.24. Nehem. 10. ult. & Esa. 61.6. (a plain prophesy of Evangelical times, Vos autem Sacerdotes DEI vocabimini, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) and with application both to Priests and Levites, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Jerem. 33.21. as in the Egyptian Philo, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , their Ministers of sacred things quenched their thirst with water, being forbidden wine: and a little before, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , None might minister but who was spotless, lib. de victimis. pa. • 53, 654. yea 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 were the Vessels, works, and appurtenances of that service, Num. 4.12, 26, 32. cap. 7.5. 2 Chron. 24.14. & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , wherein they were performed, Exod. 29.30. cap. 31.9. cap. 35.19. cap. 39.1, 4.1. & Ezech. 42.14.

In the New, referring to the Old, are three places, Luc. 1.21. the days of Ministration of Zechariah the father of John Baptist were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Every Priest stood daily ministering and sacrificing till St. Paul's time, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Heb. 10.11. and all the Vessels of Ministry were sprinkled with blood, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , cap. 9.21. Besides what a most judicious Traveler brought us home word of, that the Hebrews retain at Rome their Liturgies to this day. S. Edwin Sands, Relat. fol. 10. pa. 1, 2.

In the New Testament, of the New, St Paul continues and boasts and writes the more confidently to the Gentile Romans, because he was to them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , such a Minister of Jesus Christ, presently expounded, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , employed in the sacred work of the Gospel, chap. 15.16. The Antiochian Prophets and Doctors being met together, and [serving the Lord and fasting] (Beza expounds, Teaching; Chrysostom, Preaching; the Syriac, Praying; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is the Original) the Holy Ghost called for a separation and Ordination▪ Act. 13.2, 3. Gamaliel's Scholar if he should spend his blood, was ready to rejoice in that Sacrifice, joined thereto the public Ministration of the Philippians faith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , cap. 2.17. for so St. Chrysostom read the place, tom. 6. N. Test. pa. 81. to omit, that Christ disdained not the import of that title, Heb. 8.2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Minister of sacred things; whence his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ver. 6. Behither and on this side the Scripture, things are well enough known.

A whole heap of borrowed titles is together in Mr. Seldens notes on Eutychius, num. 10. pa. 16. who is speaking of imposition of hands for ordination to public Office, which as we have, so he there makes good we borrow from the alleged storehouse, with other: Animadvertendum autem est (saith he) quem admodum nomina officiorum sacrorum, ut Patriarcha, Presbyter, Apostolus, Diaconus, Primas & Episcopus in Christianismum ex Judaismi veteris usu 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , jam dictis satis respondentium, manarunt (unde & sacerdotum, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Levitarum etiam nomina nostris aptârunt majores) Ita & ritum sive presbyterorum sive aliorum (ut Patriarchy heic, which he is speaking of) creandorum hunc, ab Ebraico fonte, uti alia non pauca, tùm ex institution, tum ex imitatione▪ manasse. Both Patriarch, Elder, Apostle, Deacon, Primate and Bishop, all their titles of Office from Jewry, Look we upon some of the particulars.

The Hebrews were not without their Patriarch, for he is mentioned often. Eliezer the son of Zichri was such over the tribe of Reuben, Saphatias the son of Maacah over the tribe of Simeon, Hashakiah the son of Kemuel of the Levites, and so every other tribe had his one in David's Politie, 1 Chron. 27. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all Patriarchs of their said tribes, ver. 22. In that liber censualis (like our Domus-Dei book) which the Kings of Israel and Judah kept by them, cap. 9.1. were many more; some of their names after remembered, Salom, and Jemnaa, and Elo, &c. so many in all that verse 9. they are nine hundred fifty and six, all Patriarchs of their families or circuits, as in the Spanish edition of the Septuagint, (to which Septuagint, remember, I refer all along, as where the title is found without Traduction) others are in cap. 24.31. 2 Chron. 19.8. cap. 23.20. & cap. 26.12. and were continued even among them to Christian times by the fair mention is of them, in Epiphanius, Haeres. 30. num. 4, 11. God, Theodos. tit. de Judaeis. L. 14. & Consideremus Patriarchas Judaeorum, &c. in Hieron. Commentar. ad Es. 3. tom. 4 pa. 13. But when left off among the Hebrews, taken up by the Christians, much about the year 430, if Mr. Blundle be not mistaken, in the preface of his late Apology against the Biships, pa. 18. I should think much sooner.

The title of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was among them much more often. I do not say for a person that had Ecclesiastical praeeminence, but for that which the word does import, a Governor, an Overlooker, a Superintendent (in which sense the verb 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is so frequent, as none more) as the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 were among the Lacedemonians, to oversee that absolute Power did not corrupt into Tyranny, and as Cicero had it commended unto him by Pompey: Ego negotio praesum non turbulento. Vult enim me Pompeius esse, quem tota haec Campania & maritima ora habeat 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ad quem delectus & negotii summa referatur, lib. 7. ad Atticum. Epist, 11. And some like inferior Offices in the Civil Law, Episcopy qui praesunt pani & caeteris vaenalibus rebus quae civitatium populis ad cottidianum victum usui sunt. Digest. de muneribus & honoribus. L. 18. Sect. Irenarchae: like Clerks of the Market to look to provision. As, for instance, in Num. 61.14. Jud. 9, 28, 4 Reg. 11.18. 2 Chron. 34.12, 17. Nehem. 11.9, 22. Job. 20. ult. and in the language of those times to foreshow what was to come, Et dabo principes tuos in pace, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Isaiah, 60.17. Sure a prophesy of Evangelical times, fulfilled in those had this title undeniably, in all the later Scriptures of the New Testament: Yea 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. Num. 4.16. who was before 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , princeps super principes Levitarum, in the distribution of their Offices, cap. 3.32. and whose Office is there 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , superintendentia totius tabernaculi, as Nobilius translates, the oversight of all the affairs of the travailing Temple, the Tabernacle. Ad the Original (for these have been hitherto but the Septuagint's translations of 1 Maccab. 1.53. and the office of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the prognostication of Psal. 108.7. So alleged thence in that very word in the fulfilling thereof, Act. 1.20. about a subtitute for Judas: So translated (advisedly) by Th. Beza, Et Episcopatum ejus accipiat alius (for although the title were originally Doeg's in the Psalm whence 'twas alleged, and as Forester or chief shepherd, in so good a place and thence to be removed; no more: yet 'twas fitly enough relative (saith he) to and of an Apostle, Solent enim pastorum, ovium, & gregis vocabula saepissime ad ecclesiasticam administrationem transferri, for which the Apostle that makes the allegation gives a fit instance in one of his Epistles, Ye were all as stray sheep, but now are returned, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to the same person, Shepherd and Bishop of souls, 1 Pet. 2.25.) And lastly, so understood by F. Feu-ardentius in his notes on Irenaeus, lib 4. cap. 44. who speaking there of that text before (and alleged by his author, Dabo principes tuos in pace, & Episcopos tuos in justitia, Esa. 60.17.) Atque hinc (saith he) manifestum est antiquissimam esse vocis Episcopy mentionem: ut etiam ex Psal. 108.8. & ex prophetis per Apostolos traducta sit ad Ecclesiae praefectos & principes, Annotat. 7. pa. 383. His author (remember) both read and understood the word in that import; St Jerome commented on it in a sense according, lib. 17. in Es. tom. 4. pa. 203. and before them both Clemens Rom. A multis enim temporibus de Episcopis & Diaconis scriptum est, sic enim alicubi ait scriptura: Eorum Episcopos in justitia constituam & Diaconos in fide, as I find him alleged: And it is a rule with me, to prefer often a seeming fair interpretation of the ancients, though not irrefragably true, before that commends itself by more probability of later date, because I know they not only loved truth as well as we, but had one help to see what it was, which we have not (irrecoverable from the jaws of time) from advantage of the height of station upon which they stood. Nay, God grant they loved it not better, who did so much for it; We can hardly let alone what they at much cost of care and pains and wealth, procured to leave as it was. Nor have the later Hebrews decried this title, or forgotten it, even in this our land; for I find Mr. Selden alleging it from the rolls in the Tower, (those Records cannot deceive, or be suborned) sc. Sacerdotium communitatis Judaeorum Angliae ab Henrico tertio Eliae, Episcopo dicto, conceditur; uti ab Edwardo primo Hagino filio Deulares: in his notes on Eutychius, num. 10. pa. 34.

But here all along I say nothing (mark this well) of that great question now on foot, and disputed eagerly at push of pike, and wherein indeed is the only question, Utrum Episcopus sit major presbytero jure Divino? This is another thing, the praeminence or difference; that if a Constable be, he shall be presently allowed to be greater then a Justice of Peace or a Chairman above the whole Committee: But the existence or being, that such a title, degree, order, and trust, hath been and ought to be in all times and places of the New Testament; This I believe no one will deny, but he that is ready to offer violence to the sacred text, to raze the Tables of Zion's Eternal Covenant, and to deface and mutilate that fair body of truth, that (in beauty and majesty, derived from above) shines for our light and conduct from the glorious leaves of the New Testament of the Son of God. For there we have it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , expressly, in all the elements of letter and syllable: Act. 20.28. Phil. 1.1. 1 Timoth. 3.2. Tit. 1.7. 1 Tim. 3.1. Act. 1.20. Whatever the Jurisdiction prove, this is the Title: the Life is in the Power, the doubt only Praeeminence, and of this I say nothing.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 are yet more obvious then both: it may seem toward superfluous to collect or suggest; their evidence and frequency is such in either Testament. I believe they came first from Egypt; for there we have them before in Israel. Gen. 50.7. With Joseph went to solemnize his fathers funeral, the Servants of Pharaoh and the Elders of his house and the Elders of the Land: Not (adding consideration what after followed, Moses the Lawgiver his Marryage with Jethro's daughter the Priest of Midian, the familiarity that after grew between father and son in law thereby, the advise that was asked and given and taken about the whole frame of State, Exod. 19. and in a word, the influence the Politicks of Egypt are observed by the learned to have had on the constitutions of infant Israel ) may this conjecture or derivation seem altogether absurd or unreasonable. But among Jacob's posterity we have sure the Elders of Israel, and the Elders of the People, and the Elders of the Congregation ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as 'twere Church-Elders with us:) as Levite. 4.15. The Elders of the Synagogue shall lay their hands upon the head of the Bullock: the like is Jude 21.16. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : And Solomon as 'twere, called the Elders of Israel to Church to the dedication of the Temple ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) 3: Reg. 8.1. 2. Paralip. 5.2. which phrase is again, 2 Maccab. 12.35. more and in official signification may be seen in Exod. 17.5. cap. 18.12. cap. 19.7. cap. 24.1, 9, 14. Num. 11.16, 24, 25. cap. 16.25. Deuteron. 31.28. ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 — 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) Josh. 7.6. cap. 8.10. cap. 24.1. Jud. 8.14. Ruth. 4.2, 3, 9, 11. 1 Reg. 16.4. 2 Reg. 17.15. 3 Reg. 20.8, 11. 4 Reg. 6.32. cap. 10.1, 5. cap. 23.1. cap. 19.2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . (as Isaiah. 37.2) 1 Paralip. 11.3. cap. 15.25. cap. 21.16. 2 Paralip, 5.3. cap. 34.29. Ezra 3.12. cap. 10.8. Whosoever did not come according to the counsel of the Governors and Presbyters, his Estate to be sequestered, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and himself excommunicate from the Church of the Captivity. Continued yet farther in 1 Maccab. 12.35. & cap. 14.20. The collection of these made up a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Eldership, Exod. 3.16, 18. cap. 4.29. cap. 12.21. Levite. 9.1, 3. Num. 22.4. (even in Midian, whence Jethro was, of whom before, and Moab) Deuter. 5.23. (official still) cap. 19.12. cap. 21.2, 3, 4, 6, 19. cap. 22.15, 16, 17, 18. cap. 25.7, 8, 9. Judith 4.7. cap. 11.11. cap. 15.9. 1 Maccab. 12.6. 2 Maccab. 1.10. cap. 4.44. & cap. 11.27. continued to after both resurrection and ascension of the son of God; for in the persecution raised against the Apostles, Counsel is taken with the SENATE as 'tis fitly translated, or Eldership, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Acts 5.21. Nor, if we believe two of the likeliest witnesses, Philo and Josephus, was the Nation in other Countries without them, as far as Galilee and Alexandria. Ita 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Judaeorum Alexandriae habitantium mentio est apud Philonem. Ipse Josephus simili Senatorum numero (sc. 72) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Galilaea constituit, cum in ibi bello praefectus esset, says H. Grotius, ad Matth. 5.21. pa. 83. And as to the persons they remained no less, for we have them Matth. 15.2. cap. 16.21. Mar. 8.3. cap. 14.43. cap. 15. 1. Act. 23.14. cap. 25.15 (as Judaical still) A collection of them gave Authority to persecute Paul for his conscience. Acts 22.5. A presbytery 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , banded and bandied against our Redeemer: Luc. 22.66. made out in description to be Chief Priests and Scribes, And might be so styled ( of the People or ruder sort in opposition to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that more civilized collection in Towns, as Grotius thinks, (as 'twere a Rurall Deanry) And lastly, since the infallible times, amongst those deprived by one Joseph their Hebrew Apostle, Epiphanius (who had been of the Circumcision) reckons up Rulers, Priests, and Presbyters; which, he says, he had information of from that very Apostle himself, in haeres. 30. cap. 11. pa. 135.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , our Deacon was among them no less. I say not always in a sacred sense, as of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 before, (remember, nor were they clearly in Church orders at first by Acts 6.) but for, at large, Ministers: And yet this succession may as well pass (and of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 too) as that of Presbytery, Sacerdotes (or by what name soever we call those are above Deacons with us) to follow upon those who were but among the Jews Presbyters or Elders, no more; who were not (strictly) of the Priesthood, the sons of Aaron, but mere Lay, of a different both extraction and ministration, and so needed a farther consecration (as the Priests had not) by imposition of holy hands; as well as to design the party, to limit and guide the hoped fruit of present Invocation for somewhat to be poured out from above to enable to a new and extraordinary work, which the sons of Aaron were supposed not to want from the inherited purity of their blood. And thence also we ordain by imposition of hands those we take from amongst men, not as the Priests were, Exod. 29, by anoiting and sacrificing, but as the secular Elders commonly were) according to our pattern, Acts 13.3. 1 Timoth. 4.14. 2 Timoth. 1.6. and their pattern of preceding Elders. Though this be not commonly heeded, but our holy orders thought fit to be graffed only upon a stock of the same, no heterogeneous root will serve the turn, but only the sacred Priesthood of the Law to settle our holy ministration upon; as is with confident and public solemnity enough delivered us in the Decree: But it is not so, witness the name; and what could be more? continued form of ordination; which gives Presbyters to succeed Presbyters, Elders Elders, not Priests or Levites; and as in these, why not in Deacons likewise? That word of Office, attendance, or ministration is in three places, Esther 1.10. cap 2.2. & cap. 6.3. The Office itself in 1 Maccab. 11.58. young Antiochus gave to Jonathan 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , golden vessels and a service, which might be the sacred function in the former verse. granted, here actually given, the military power being reserved for his brother Simon in the verse following. For continuance to after times, among other Ecclesiastical officers and Ministers deprived by the severity of Joseph their Apostle, some mentioned by Epiphanius were Azanitae; which he hath not only interpreted to our hand, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Deacons or Ministers, but the word itself seems to be an easy and gentle inflexion of that title was given to like officers, for they had their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 who had care of collection and their treasury which was the first original office of Deacons. The very knowing and judicious H. Grotius says the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 were all one, as in Epiphanius his indifferent interpretation, and that they were both the just translation of Chazanim: This if, we have them plain in the Hebrew form of our Savior's time; for he delivered the book to one (having read his text) who was there pro more according to the custom, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Luc. 4.20. a minister: and Barnabas and Saul had such a John attendant, Acts 13.5. Jgnatius presseth the Deacons of his time, to be pleasing in all things, for as much as they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Epist. ad Trallian pa. 66. Philo speaks of the attendance of the Essenes, the forefathers of the Christian sect, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as free they do servile offices: lib. de vita contemp. pa. 696. and a little after, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. after the waiters are set ready for attendance, there is wonderful silence, &c.

An Apostle hath been of much note in our Church: there might be allusion thereto in Ahijahs answer to Jeroboams wife, I am a sad messenger, or Apostle to thee, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. 3 Reg. 14.6. and in that contrary mission of Evil Angels, or by evil angels, Psal. 78.49. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The brethren, the glory of Christ, are styled, the Apostles of the Churches, 2 Corinth. 8.23. and Epaphroditus was such, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an Apostle and Minister, as 'twere with relation to such known office of Hebrew stamp and power. That certainly they had such, we are beholding (out of Scripture) to Epiphanius, a learned one of their own, born and bred both with and of them, who has left us a full description. He tells us they were a kind of Co-assessors with their Patriarch, to assist at all times with counsel, and to be sent abroad if need were upon weighty affairs: as to collect tenths, gather first fruits, administer discipline, &c. a kind of Visitors and Receivers. Joseph of Tiberias he there speaks of, and was well acquainted with, was one, who used his trust and power with much severity, to the displacing of many scandalous Priests, Elders and Deacons under his jurisdiction, in Haeres. Aebionit. n. 4. & n. 11. tom. 1. pa. 128. & 135. The credit of an imperial law will seldom deceive us; Honorius & Arcadius make express mention of them — Archisynagogi five presbyteri Judaeorum vel quos ipsi Apostolos vocant (sc. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) qui ad exigendum aurum atque argentum à Patriarcha certo tempore diriguntur, &c. (much to what was in Epiphan. ) in C • d. Theodos. lib. 10. tit. 8. L. 14. alleged by Mr Selden on Eutychius, pa. 16. Grotius gives them the reddition of the same word, and their office of the same nature, from the most proper repository of the Talmud: Proprie autem vocabantur in Talmudicis libris 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 qui decimas atque alia percipiebant, atque ad Levitas deferebant. Of their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (which word we have in Scripture, Acts 1.25. Romans 1.5. 1 Corinth. 9.2. Galat. 2.8.) and other things of them he hath enough from Philo of Alexandria, Ignatius of Antioch, Julian the Emperor and others, to whom their persons and Offices might be as well known as a Bishop or Arch-Deacons is amongst us; in his notes on Matth. 10.1. whereto I remit.

As to the number,, tis like they were twelve, (while the State stood in power.) We read, (That being the number of their Tribes) often of the Heads of their Tribes, as Num. 7.2. cap. 25.14. Deuteron. 5.32. cap. 33.5. Josh. 14.1. cap. 19.51. yea both 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Deuteron. 31.28. & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Deuteron. 29.10. & Josh. 21.1. (whose power was next to Regal, in Dr Hammonds Power of the Keys, cap. 5. sect. 13.) which, allowing a due Symmetry and proportion, and that everybody has one head and no more, will give that product exactly: as indeed they are by number, tale and name in the first of Numbers, from ver. 4. cap. 7.4. cap. 13. from ver. 3. to 17. and in Josephs Hebrew Antiquities, twelve are chosen and sent to view Canaan, one of every tribe, lib. 3. cap. 13. The very same number, to one, which Christ sent after to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the twelve tribes of his Nation, Matth. 10.5, 6. Over whom he promised they should one day sit, as so many Judges on their so many thrones, Matth. 19.28. Luc. 22.30. In imitation and commensuration whereto his Jerusalem Apostle directs to the twelve tribes scattered abroad, Jam. 1.1. So was it, for a while, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into a City of the Samaritans enter not, Matth. 10.5. But after enlarged to All Nations, Matth. 28.19. ratified and allowed, Acts 13.46, 47.

The great Court of Sanhedrim is famous; raised by Moses, (to take off a great part of the Monarchical burden from himself in the beginning of their State, as appears Num. 11.24, 25, &c. ) continued by his successors, renewed after the Captivity, and never but carried along through all the variations of their State, and course of their affairs to the end of their Commonwealth, to have as it were Parliamentary influence upon all persons, estates, affairs and things: It consisted of 70 chosen men, as usually, though more truly of 72, to teach in six Twelves, or six out of every Tribe (like as Ptolomyes translators were of the same number for the same reason by best authority, though commonly propter rotunditatem numeri, and more ready conformity to common use of speech in an article Number, they are called the SEVENTY:) And as it were in extraction from that Sanhedrim, Jesus of Nazareth chose • o, say some, 72, give other both Greek and Latin texts of Luc. 10.1. & ver. 17. (the Eastern and Western agreeing to dissent in the same point both fathers and their children; a new probable reason of which diversity the premisses may perhaps afford a better light toward. then hitherto or any before) that they might be his Sanhedrim, or a kind of Collegiate and Congregational assistants, by whose furthering advise and help, or seeming countenance and authority, he might the better carry on his great work of building a Kingdom of God in the holy Nation, wherein he lived under the like representative; a part of whose work is cut out and left there in open view upon plain Record, that they might go before his face by two and two to make way in every place and City whereunto himself was also to come. And the phrase of the text may there the better bear this interpretation (of a meant Sanhedrim ) if we shall observe, that though some translations add boldly the word Disciples, to distinguish from the Apostles before, others continue the word of Apostles, (corrupting by a kind of Sacrilegious addition, at pleasure equally and on both hands) yet if we view the best Originals of Greek and Syriac, taking in the most authentic old Latin, with the chief of Fathers, as Ambrose, Jerome, Bede, &c. in their translations or commentations, We shall in them have no such limitation by any appropriation to what subject soever, but a bare septenary or seventy two without anymore, as well in verse 17 as verse 1. leaving at loose as to the substantive; and an indifferent unforestalled judgment will as soon take an offer of so many Elders for a Sanhedrim, as any sort or thing else. The rather for that the Fathers of the Council of Neocaesaraea, having occasion in their 13 Canon to compare with them the Chorepiscopi of the ancient Church, as Zonaras and Balsamon understand, the old translator thought good and made bold to add the word Seniores, as there meant: Chorepiscopi vero sunt 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ad exemplum septuaginta seniorum: (whether he meant and referred to the seventy our Savior chose as the other side of his comparison, or the elder bench of Moses Sanhedrim? is left to judgment: Zonaras and Balsamon understand as I say:) And Baronius proving that Seniores & Presbyteri were all one in the first Churches, doubts not to aver, both that either of these titles were those Seventys; That it could not well be otherwise; All the Fathers were of that opinion; Nay and reason (he goes on) must give they were upon that stair of eminence and distinction. For, All the believers were called Disciples, (the general title in Acts 6.1, 2, 7. chap. 9. ver. 10.19, 25, 26, 36. especially chap. 11. 26, &c. ) This was the lowest style) Deacons, the first preferment were made out of them: Acts 6.) So that unless we will allow those were SENT, with special Commission, to be Laborers in making way for the best Teacher, having Power mixed with Threat, (He that heareth you heareth me, He that refuseth you, me also) and this so effectual that it quelled, in execution, the very devils, To be of the common lowest style, and flat level with the meanest of the people, We must at the least grant them this step of exaltation above Disciples (for Deacons were not yet in being) & (joining in the number) a very great likelihood of a Seigniory or Sanhedrim, which methinks the whole frame and complexion of the place to everyone that looks upon it not prepossessed cannot but give. In farther confirmation both whereof, and of the former branch of succeeding Apostleship: comes in very fitly the strength and concurrence of the learned and most learned H. Grotius, Synedrium (saith he) quod â Mose-constitutum est, ad cujus exemplum hos Christus elegit, quomodo Apostolos ad exemplum phylarcharum, fuisse capitum 72, Judaei nonnulli prodiderunt, &c. in Annot. ad Luc. 10.1. pa. 711. and of Mr Calvin upon the same place: (double strength even of assistance, conduceth much to immovable firmness) Tenendum est memoria quod de Apostolis duodecim diximus: Quot florente populi statu fuerant tribus, totidem delectos fuisse Apostolos quasi Patriarchas, qui membra laceri corporis in unum colligerent, ut inde prodiret integra ecclesiae restitutio. Non absimilis in Septuaginta ratio fuit. Scimus Mosen, quum oneri non sufficeret, septuaginta sibi ascivisse judices, qui populum unà cum ipso regerent, Numer. 11. This ( Synedrium or Sanhedrim ) the captivity of Babylon ruined, the return thence raised, Herod's tyranny had now dissolved, and as the return from Babylon, was only a type of a better redemption, videtur nunc septuaginta adventus sui praecones eligere Dominus, ut instaurationem collapsi status promittat. Comment. in Harmon. Evangeliorum, pa. 42. Yet more, the title of the New Testament (from the contents) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with the conjugates of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. are in the Septuagint's of 2 Reg. 18.26, 27, 28. 4 Reg. 7.9. Psalm. 63. 12. & 39.10. Joel 2. ult. That signal appellation thereof, Rom. 10.15. is borrowed by the learned Apostle from Isaiah 52.7. Our Savior's of Luc. 4.18. from the syllables of Es. 61.1. The title of the collection of believers of the N. Testament 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , our Savior and his Apostles (with their followers) might with far more likelihood take up where they found it in their own Bibles (of daily use) in the septuagint, then from those trivial, vain shallow, frivolous grounds of gramatical signification and derivation, (as of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to call from others, as God's people were: which yet may have been of consideration at first) As, that there it was, for a congregation, of God's people, sometime met to serve him, we have from Deuteron. 28.1, 2, 3 8. & cap. 31.30. Judic. 20.1, 2. 1 Reg. 17.47. 3 Reg. 8.14, 22, 55, 66. 1 Chron. 13.2, 4. Ezra. 10.1, 8. Nehem. 13.1. Psalm, 21.23, 26. & 25.12. & 67.28. & 88.6. & 149. 1 Joel 2.16. Sapient. Sirac. 24.2. cap. 25.15. & cap. 50.15. besides 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to call an Assembly, or the congregation to Church, Levite. 8.3. as David called his worthies under that phrase, 1 Chron. 28.1. & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , call the people to me, as 'twere to Church, that they may hear my words, on that which was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Congregation or Church-day, Deuteron. 4.10. The title, thing, degrees, use of excommunication or separation from the Church, by 1 Exclusion 2. Anathematization 3. utter devotion or final distermination, which among the Hebrews was raised by the degrees of Niddui, Cherem, Schammatha, but by the septuagint was styled, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , This graduation might by the Scripture from thence be traduced and brought down along to our Consistories. In John 1 • : verse 2. we have exclusion from the Synagogue foretold, (which was before in cap. 9. • 2. & cap. 12.44. as Hebrew ) In Rom. 9.3. Gal. 1.8. 1 Corinth. 12.3. & cap. 16.22. it is worse, plainly accursed. In 1 Corinth. 5.5. & 1 Timoth. 1.20. the highest devotion, or giving up to the Devil. The progress of the Greek Church was by one step more, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as in the Fathers and Counsels at large; of the Roman by one less, Excommunicatio major, & minor, as in the Decree. Caus. 3. Quest. 4. c. Engel-trudam. All, no doubt from the Levitical Anathemata and Anathematizations, with which we cannot be unacquainted from Deut. 7.26. cap. 13.15. & cap. 20.17. Josh. 6.20. Jude 1.17. cap. 21.11. 1 Reg. 15.3. Ezra 10.8. and other places: though with some difference. Of which succession and comparison, that I may not seem to walk by mine own light, enough may be seen in those that have carried the Torch before me. Polyd. Virgil. de rerum inventor. lib. 4. cap 12. Bez. annot. Major. in Roman 9.3. Godwin. Antiq. Hebr. lib 5. cap. 2. Selden, de Jure nat. & gentium, lib. 4. cap. 7, 8, 9. Hug. Grot. annot. ad Luc▪ 6.22. and a late learned and useful tract of the Power of the Keys, cap. 4. sect. 5 • , 53, &c.

A learned Italian had the last age intended to write a treatise of this argument (besides what was done this way, or let fall by the way, by Petrus Galatinus ) He takes occasion by the ceremony of a Christians change of garment, upon renouncing his old state in Baptism, à toga ad pallium, as the word was in Tertullian. This Pallium was borrowed, saith he, from Jewry, as appears by the frequent mention, in Deut. • 2. 1 Esd. 9. Ester 8. Canticles 5. Isaiah 28. Zach. 13. Hence, facile adducor, ut credam, Apostolos, cum in inculto solo magnam sementem Christianae religions facerent, hujus indumenti genus, Christianis tradidisse; pro certo habens, ea omnia, quae fidei non repugnabant, à nostris hominibus in ecclesiae exordio retenta esse, (very reasonable) ut suave Christi jugum dura daemonis servitute oppressis faciliùs imponeretur. Sicut de more festumac solennem sabbati diem laete agitandi, aliisque Hebraeorum ritibus in Diario nostro Ecclesiastico demonstrabimus. Joseph. Vicecomes, de ritibus Bapt. lib. 2. cap. 22. pa. 149. Whether he wrote that book, I know not; I could find none by enquiry: He was well persuaded howsoever of this derivation, and very reasonably. For why should more changes be made, then needs? or heretofore should have been? There was work enough to separate the dross and fan the chaff: why should any of the coarsest corn be thrown away? or good metal, though not the finest, as gold purified seven times in the fire?

To conclude: The President of the Divines assembled at Westminster hath licensed since the beginning of this Parliament, and is by the Author thought worthy of special observation, that, The pattern from whence most, if not all the Customs in the Churches were taken, was, the Custom of Israel in the Old Testament: And this may be one special reason (he thinks) why the providence of God thought not fit to commend them to writing, — because the pattern was at hand to reform, if, &c. as before, pa. And he instances, in 1, A seventh day for God's service. 2, Places deputed thereto. 3, Directions for Church-censure, of which but now. 4, Woman's having leave to partake of a second Sacrament, from the Passover. 5. Baptizing all, Infants, because whole houses, &c. Treatise of Paedobaptism, pa. 9. It were not hard to drive on the conjecture yet much farther: Materials offer themselves, with plenty, probability and pliability enough on both sides of the parallel, to stretch forth the lines to exceeding much length on both sides of the parrallel: for Salvation is from the Jews, saith he is Savior both of Jew and Gentile: John 4.22. Many things happened to them, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says the profound learned Apostle, • Corinth, 10.11. and the Law had a shadow of things to come, Hebr. 10.1. What could be more expedient then to find out the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that must exemplify those types? (as St Peter says our Baptism does in some things, 1 Epist. 3.21.) and the body whereto the things thereof were shadows? The Law (future) was to proceed from Zion, Esa. 2.3. and Jerusalem is the Mother of us all, Galat. 4.26. (Questionless the first, highest, and fittest ruling Metropolis, to us Christians, (it should be so of all the world, as one of the Fathers sometimes styled her:) I believe we have more of either then we commonly imagine or understand, and that as well belonging to Politye as Religion, to war as peace, both of stabiliment and ornament, in Church and State. Mr Selden hath much in his late learned book dispersed all over, reducible to that of the eight chapter, Nec disciplina illa (Christianae) apud eos (Christianos) alia, quàm Judaismus vere reformatus, seu cum fide in Messiam seu Christum rite conjunctus. New Christianity was nothing but old Judaism, reformed and purified: and H. Grotius most excellently (with whom I began) Christiani veteres (qui, ut saepe notavimus, omnia proba Judaeorum instituta libenter sequebantur) hos ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) vocabant 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. They followed the most that was good, and this: (He is speaking of the degrees of Excommunication.) And summing together much that I have said, in one of his last pieces, Nimirum, Christiani (saith he) omnes mores probabiles, quos apud Judaeos receperant, sequebantur, coalituri, scilicet cum Judaeis si ipsi Evangelium non respuissent. Inde nomen 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , inde 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 iidem qui 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 & episcopus qui: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 inde excommunicationes, absolutiones, impositiones Manuum, panis & vini communicatio, baptismus. The Christians took in what they could of their Hebrew forefathers: thence the name of Elders, Deacons, the head of the congregation or the Bishop: thence Excommunication, Absolution, laying on of hands, Communion by bread and wine, and Baptism.

And the rites of Baptism too, as was said before, the way of Baptism, besides the thing itself: particularly a succession to their Trium-virat in a sort of like Assistants retained at first and continued ever since through the Christian world. To whom at last to return (after much digression, 'tis hoped, without any transgression) that they do so succeed as was proposed, two things make it yet more likely. 1. Their continued name, even to us. 2. Their remaining use.

1 As to name, that had been with the Hebrews, and remains to us GODFATHERS; with other or less respect, They nor mentioned nor We, it hath passed through Jewry and Christendom, a strong argument of their mutual parallelisme, when the distinguishing name shall continue without change to hold us to the same expectation. For us, the case clear, and proved in assertion: For Jewry, I have it from Mr Lightfoot of Staffordshire, He from the Gloss on the Talmud, which alleging, as before, for the Baptism of Chrildren in the Court of Three, Those Three (says the gloss, and He from it) become a FATHER to the Baptized, and he is a Proselyte by their hands. And Mr. Selden much to the same, fetching his Merchandize (like King Lemuels Lady) from far, I mean, everywhere adorning his pages with the rich spoils of Babylon and Jerusalem, Baptizare solent, quia non fit proselytus sine circumcisione & Baptismo; ex sententia domus Judicii. Sci licet Triumviri Baptismo ejus praesunt, secundum jus ad Baptismum illorum attinens, cui necessarii habiti sunt Triumviri, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , & ita fiunt ei PATER. Atque is per eos fit proselytus, &c. They become a Father to him, and he is a Proselyte by their means. By words we know things: they are the habit wherein they are dressed and served out to our understanding, necessary for conveyance at any distance of time or place: as the Pictures of our minds or apprehensions of what is real, and thus made transmittable, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which we can draw to send over what necessarily corrupts or passes, to the view of distance, or memmory of Posterity. Of what REALL and inward conformity to the things from which they are drawn, I inquire not. It is a hard question, perhaps too hard for our dull intellects. (When any such serious and very quick proposals are made, as dull of apprehension as our bodily eyes are to lay hold of a passing and vanishing Angel; something we guess at, but cannot reach it) An voces habeant à natura REALEM aliquam congruentiam cum rebus? Whether Words are not so extracts, and as it were Emanations by way of Radiation from things, that they partake and still retain some what of from whence they came? a kind of species being first reflected from them on our minds, thence on our speeches or books, which are our Words? The question is proposed by Abraham: Vander-Mylius in his Lingua Belgica, cap. 15. pa. 59. and there may be some such thing as he after speaks of, Naturali quadam vi sua congruunt Nomina NATURAE rerum, quas significatu suo & forma EFFIGIANT: Words are the proper and commensurate SHADES of things, more then denoting, decyphering, describing, and delineating the proportions of their Natures and Beings: according as Marsilius Ficinus hath left there remembered from the wise Plato, Sunt quaedam IMAGINES Nom •• Rerum, per quas RES IPSAE agnoscantur: they are a kind of Pictures or Casements through which things are discerned; not only emergent and deduced from them, but resembling and con-natural with them. As if they be, then are they not of mere voluntary imposition, as commonly passes, that White might have been as well styled Black, or Light, Darkness, for their REALL, correspondence hindereth, and would keep things that are like, together. But this enquiry I pursue not. Of whatsoever relation or consent, The NAME I find was here the same continued: and if, Why, but to the end all grant all names serve for, sc. to wrap up and to convey, if not to signify and delineate the same thing to us? As, a man doth import always a man, a Father, not a Son or a Daughter, and Light, itself and not Darkness.

2. As to their use and power, they who do mention, do so make mention of them as if they had the nature of a Court, to give legal and more solemn admission to Jewish hopes; Such a Court they were, styled, acknowledged, used, owned; And therefore Baptism could not be regularly and legally administered on the Sabbath or other Feasts, because they were a kind of Non-le days, as we had some in the Universities, and are at Westminster, wherein Courts might not sit (Though if the things were done, the received rule took place, Multa quae non fieri debent at facta valent, as if a Priest of the Roman Church marry without license in forbidden times, the Act is valid, though the thing should not have been done; the knot is fast though there were a fault in tying; or if himself had been married, (being secular) his issue was legitimate and should have inherited with us, though it were a fault in him to contract, his faulty contract wa • not void, but voidable) Now in some Christian Writers, and those not of meanest account, our Susceptores were so set out as might render them very well capable of this comparison, the Schools telling us that they stood and offered for the whole Church, as a Court represents, in few, a Community; one of their ancient names, retained by St Augustine, is Offerentes, a kind of Public Presenters, expounded by himself, that they did offer for the Church, Hers their act; and lastly ours by all accounted very profound and judicious Mr Hooker describing them, as if they stood forth instead of the body of the Congregation to further and approve what God's Steward and Vicegerent does in admitting or taking in a new member into Christ's holy congregation Some make them to have been only a kind of Witnesses (and style them so) to come and see, as Polydore Virgil who ascribes their institution to about Anno 150 after Christ, to prevent that which the Church hath all along so carefully declined, and interpreted ill done if it hath more then once been attempted to be done well, that is (in times of persecution) Rebaptization; whom many follow, or lead, or have lighted of themselves upon the same or very near the same way: But it seems somewhat unlikely that the times of peace and quietness should go on to continue so long to call for, even in times of peace, what had been needful, and therefore had been needful because the times had been of trouble, as if a winter garment no summer beams should prevail to have laid aside, nor ever, that which had been once required: Reason would there should have been somewhat more at first to raise and with power carry along (which also might as a cause accompany) that which hath with so much constancy gone on and been conveyed through times and ages, continuing to call for them and bear them out with their continuance; which whether consisting with these conjectures laid down, is left (with whatsoever else I said) to judge some had stumbled so far before in this dark way of search and traduction that they had lighted (very near) upon a kind of assistants at Circumcision (mistaken to have led the way to Baptism, as before) who had resemblance and in whose succession they thought these Offerers followed; taking occasion by an unlikely text (as to me it seemeth) of Isaiah 8.2, 3. Where is mention made of faithful witnesses required and assisting at the naming ) not circumcising, though they often went together) of the Prophets son Maher-shalal-hash-bash, and two Priests, they are supposed to stand forth as Godfathers, Uriah & Zachariah: But I refer myself to indifferent judgment, whether this be not a more probable origination from like assistants at the same rite of very Baptism, rather then circumcision, a thing heterogeneous (if we were agreed of derivation from the synagogue) and of another nature; and if there be any difficulties as to the number, or our taking in the other sex, &c. these are either of no weight, or they will soon dispel or vanish. As to the number, Time having possibly wrought that change; divers times and diverse Laws producing like diversity in their limitations or permissions, (though with us the number held for three, by our ruling Constitution, of which hereafter. And for women offerers and undertakers. 1. There may have been none at first: I do not remember to have found mention of them very early: and great inquirers yield it doubted, Whether or no they ought to be? 2. I read of some women that went into the water with women at their initiatory washing into the Law (besides the Triumviri standing and looking aside) And in the Christian Church at first were some of the same sex, commonly thought to have assisted at the Baptism of women; as Saint Paul's widows, 1 Tim. 5. and Phoebe, styled Ministra, (Rom. 16.1.) from some such ministration. But this last I should guess to be no more nor other then some devout zealous convert, whose good affection to the cause of Christ moved her (by all the credit the postscript can give) to do the good office for St Paul to carry this Letter to Rome for him; and he in lieu could not but afford her name a friendly and honorable remembrance with other his friends and assistants; and as in the first place (which she deserved) so by the merited title of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (that's the word in the text) which might be fully enough rendered Ministra in any kind; 'It is not said, Sacred, and 'tis used for profane or any servant or service elsewhere. She was latrix hujus Epistolae, observed by Corn. à Lap. on the place. 3. At the naming of a woman child about the end of 40 days (which was as her circumcision the eight day, when the name on males was imposed, peradventure her purification by water accompanying, sure 'twas the time of her mothers purification) there was one called Susceptrix under this very title, in Buxtorfs Synagogue, Jud. chap. 2 page 96. But enough hereof.

I was going on to drive on the conjecture farther, That forasmuch as Christ came to fulfil all righteousness, Matth. 3.15. John we may presume a Priest not irregular or incanonicall, and such things usually were required, even to the particulars mentioned, that therefore there passed on him what on others, and he had at least what all: But —

In that which is, I crave I be not mistaken, as if I went about to disturb things howsoever settled, or reduce and bring back what POWERS have or shall think meet to cast away: Privat hands are too daring that would meddle with Churches and men too bold that shake States. Nay I acknowledge these things according to present grounds and rules of proceeding can have no force that way, where a regulation of all is held forth simply by Scripture, which here is not pretended (that from Isaiah. 8.2. being but a forsaken conjecture; and of Christ in Jordan owning itself but as a modest proposition; The incongruities of others wholly rejected) But, It delighteth some to look back the way they have travelled or hath been travelled, when themselves have forsaken that way, There may be use of the knowledge of some things left, It may please to recount upon what grounds (and But upon what grounds) things have passed reaching to ourselves, or all may pass if but for the reason alleged in the license of Mr. Tombs his late book, The strength being here imbattelled and the better known for opposition. Whatever it be, I submit it to the censure of everybody, yea if need be, Correction; or, farther, Rejection; Though I had rather find Conviction, or Approbation. It is far enough from the precious foundation, and so, if it should prove hay, stubble, or other rotten and corruptible stuff, ex qua non struitur firmum aedificium, as Beza, unserviceable for the proposed end of meant edification, yet the Worker should be himself safe and free enough by the past vote of a leading and infallible Christian Casuist, the Work proving unprofitable. For, Other foundation can no man lay, says he, then Jesus Christ and him crucified: And if any (keeping to that) shall trouble himself fruitlessly to build hay, stubble, wood (things unprofitable merely, not otherwise noxious, for the speech is of mistaken informers, not malignant depravers) the fire of severe censure shall try what it is: if it had been of proof, able to hold out trial, there is reward in justice for the Worker: Else he may suffer loss, (of his perishing work) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but himself shall be safe, though not without fire or searching trial, which shall pass farther even upon all, in the great critical day, when Judgment shall be given of all the world. Whence in the texts of sundry Editions it is, Dies Domini declarabit, not some time or other, but The day of the Lord shall make declaration of all things secure till when, I go on in my way.

CHAP. VIII.

QUAERE 3. Of the difference between John's and Christ's Baptism.

WHereas long controversy hath been between the wrangling regiments of Polemick Writers and a question so eagerly disputed between Calvin and Bellarmine, and their followers of the Protestant and Pontifician part, What was the difference between the Baptismes of John and Christ? (as differ they did certainly, and more then a little; They that say least, grant yet a circumstantial difference) May not a more likely way be found out to satisfy all difficulties and end this controversy, then hitherto hath been, if for ground we presume what was said before, of the initiating of Hebrew Proselytes by Baptism for regeneration, and then add,

That the holy Priest John's Baptism even of our Savior himself (besides many other, which might give him the name of BAPTIST) was nothing else but the ordinary exercise of that sacred Power, which in the Priestly execution and according to the first intent thereof, was given to consecrate proselytes in to the profession of the Law, whereas Christ came after and added thereto the Holy Ghost, (look in Jo. 1.33. Act. 1.5. & chap. 11.16.) and so made up our new Christian Sacrament, by raising it so much higher then it was before, (Baptism by water) as Baptism by water is lower then ours hath been ever since, Baptism by that and the Holy Ghost? (heed well to which purpose that large discourse is in Act. 18. from ver. 24. to chap. 19. ver. 7. Certain, they which had the height of Johns Baptism never yet heard of Holy Ghost; this, if nothing else, certain.) So they baptized both, one as a legal Minister, the other as an Evangelical: one to the Synagogue, the other to the Church: one into the name of GOD, JEHOVAH, ONE; the other into the same ONE, and THREE: the first, into the LAW ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a form remembered by St Paul, 1 Corinth. 10.2. and would be warily heeded, as containing more then is under common observation) the other, into the GOSPEL ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Galat. 3.27. or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Rom. 6.3. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Acts 19.5. (in the primitive Church it was, Into the death of Christ) or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. Mat. 28.19. not IN, but INTO that capital doctrine or head Article of all the Christians Faith, the name of FATHER, SON & HOLY GHOST. In brief, the common effect of eithers Baptism might be, A regeneration intended (and believed no less to proceed from the old Baptism, sc. partially) but the specifying difference of those common regenerations, that whereto either did tend; The one to let into the Temple, the other into the Church, the one to captivate to Mount Sinai, the other to make free of M. Zion, the one to matriculate into Moses and Aaron, the other into Christ and all Privileges, Rights, Happiness Christian; And the reason of those different issues the Power given, that Power exercised, and the way and means whereby either proceeded, which (besides other places before) is plainly and clearly set down under Johns own hand of acknowledgement, Mar. 1.7. I indeed baptize with water, but when he cometh who is mightier then I, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost: ('tis added elsewhere, and with fire: ) View also to which purpose and compare Mat. 3.11. Luc. 3.16. John 1.26. Act. 19 4.

That last place seems indeed to contradict; as if John baptized no less into Christ (in his baptism of repentance) telling the people they should believe in him that was to come after himself: but the Original well heeded and texture of speech gives no such thing, but the evident or probable contrary. For, the Ephesians had not yet heard of the Holy Ghost (that gift to be poured out in the later days ) No! says the Apostle: Whereunto then were ye baptized? They say, Unto Johns Baptism: (yet, it seems, nothing of that inspiration) ye might indeed, replys St Paul, ver. 4. for John did baptize (a kind of baptism, sc. of repentance, or some change of mind; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a transmentation, such a regeneration) but this not effectual to the end now spoken of: which being, of the Holy Ghost, that, (or light so much as that it was) he nor had nor gave: And therefore he went farther (to strike the matter home) saying unto the people, They should believe on him that should come after (that is, on Jesus Christ ) And when they heard this they were baptized INTO the name of the Lord Jesu, (ver. 5.) and so obtained their desire. This although it be not the usual, is, I doubt not, the true and natural meaning of the place, giving the right sense, grounded upon a genuine, unforced, free offer of the words; and withal affords a new and better ground to raise answer to the Anabaptists, (who hence (not altogether irrationally) derive color of Rebaptization after Christian baptism complete (if Johns Baptism of Christ were such) or at least after some kind of holy Baptism precedent which Protestants, that say Johns Baptism and Christ's were all one, I do not see how can deny to be complete) then other, or former, various, dark, uncertain interpretations, diversions, distortions possibly could. And moreover, other (I believe, all) places of Scripture treating on this argument might be better brought in to correspond then those senses others various, incoherent, and sometimes contradictory interpretations have been forced to put upon them. Aquinas was put to use of his best wits, and had much ado to make things cohere, or in any tolerable sort piece together; and let him take heed of but as nimble, strong, rational, Logical opposition: Those that led or follow of either side, are troubled no less to bring things about, or comply with their own: Veritas simplex, error multiplex, and it is not much like they are all of the right who agree chiefly to cross one another.

Ob. I confess some difficulties do spring out of this new way, but withal not no likelyhoods to countervail; Divers things flatter to a more then probability, but some sour oppositions would again cross and overturn all. The chief I foresee is this. That our Savior was an Hebrew (Hebraeus ex Hebraea, by one side at least, though not Hebraeus ex Hebraeis, as Paul, which was the most noble) and so not capable of proselytisme, who yet was baptized, Mat. 3. & Mar. 1. The whole people no less, dwelling about Jordan, who came and were received, Matth. 3.5. & Luc. 7.29. and those other of Act. 19.4. yea the very Scribes and Pharisees, the inside of that Nation, (as many understand Matth. 3. though a very learned man stand on the contrary part, from Luc. 7.30, 31.) Nay and Ludolph. de Saxonia, appropriates Johns work of Ministry to the Hebrews only.

Answ. But these difficulties I take to be easier soluble by leisure, wit and industry, then divers other in weightier matters (even about Baptism, and this very part of Baptism) or if not, I do now but propose and not determine. As if we should say.

1. That Baptism commonly taken to have been in-itiatory only of the Gentiles, may, not impossibly nor very improbably have been taken in with Circumcision to enter or Matriculate into the Law. The Scripture says nothing to the contrary; and the Scripture does say, All the Fathers were baptized, 1 Corinth. 10.2. and in what form, from him was likeliest to know, the learned Apostle in the same place, who says 'twas 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , INTO Moses, the very form (mutatis mutandis) after used by Christ, and is or ought to be continued by us to this day. Add that in the Old Testament the Text alleged for the Gentile, may seem at least, as authoritative for Abraham's Seed, if not more, for the Persons there washed were Israelites, and if, in-itiated: And in the New, our Savior desires Baptism, even of John the Baptist, to fulfill all righteousness: How to fulfill what was never expected or required? (Near whereto St Cyprian had observed somewhat, for giving the reason why the form was changed in that of the Hebrews by St Peters Council, Acts 2.38. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus: he says it was, quia jam legis & Moysi antiquissimum Baptisma fuerunt adepti, they had been as it were baptized into the name of God, or the Father before: Whereupon Pamelius making his Comment says, there is allusion to that of Moses remembered, 1 Corinth. 10.2.

Or if it be answered, This cannot be, for circumcision was always administered in infancy, sc. the eight day by letter of the text in rule and practice, whereas the people were of full age, coming from Jerusalem, Judea, and the Country about Jordan, Matth. 3. Luc. 7. our Savior also of 30 years, by all consents ( Luc. 3.23.) They needed not, well could not therefore be or be thought to have been baptized: May it not hereto be replied.

2. That though this additional did or might belong to circumcision of old, to bear a part with it in its believed work, yet delay of it might creep in in after times, As of imposition of hands for confirmation in the Christian Church, which though by one of the best texts alleged for it ( Acts 19) it went with Baptism at first, and both did but give so much grace of the Holy Ghost, as might complete Christians (I speak after the manner of men) yet in after times that was delayed both in rule and practice, and men might have, nay had hands laid on them after 30 or 40; why not in Baptism in like manner? Time hath produced many strange alterations, in Sacraments, of Sacraments, (that is more then timing them) and in this very Sacrament of Baptism: And as for delay of time for ministration, The Circassians defer it till the eighth year, the Anabaptists (or rather Antipaedobaptists, who sure have somewhat to say for themselves) would have none come so soon, St. Ambrose delayed till he was chosen Bishop, many others til ripe or old age, and (that which is more considerable to our purpose then all the rest, and I believe very considerable) Those Christian Nations which, as 'tis like from their going together at the first (as shall be said more hereafter) join circumcision and Baptism for matriculating into the Christian profession to this day, yet put off the later for a time. Circumcision passes the 8th day as in the Law, and as they have tradition for practice, from those who delivered them over both the rite and the Law: But Baptism is delayed about a quarter of a year; to the eightieth day in females, to the fortieth in males, (just the limitation of time for the mothers purification by the Law, Levite. 12. to which there was annexed her Baptism or exact washing;) To omit that is alleged from Pet. Ricius and others, that the Hebrews themselves do not add Baptism to Circumcision the same day, as should seem, but stay till the child is whole. Circumcision itself, notwithstanding the plainest Letter of the Law for the 8 ^th day precisely, was yet omitted once for forty years together in the Wilderness, as may be seen in Josh. 5.5, &c. And may not then much rather an alteration creep in of timing that, which never was restrained under any certain bound and limit of time, nor itself was more then darkly commanded?

But grant, Neither of these. Regularly or practically none of Abraham's seed were ever baptized, nor should have been, (though Gamaliel's Scholar himself an Hebrew, and writing as St Jerome was wont to say, Hebraeus Hebraeis Hebraice, in that Epistle mentions Baptisms in the plural, as well known among them, chap. 6.2.) but grant, nor sooner nor later the holy seed ever needed or had this purification, yet

3. Might not so famous and noted a holy Prophet as John the BAPTIST ( then whom among those born of women there arose not a greater, Matth. 11.11.) and in a business of BAPTISM, begin? making the best use he could devise of that rite he was so eminently entrusted a Minister of before, toward that regeneration even of them he saw was needful to enter them in to the new and approaching Kingdom of God? The work itself (of entrance) he might not be able absolutely and perfectly to perform, as needed and full out, but howsoever he might do what he could, let them to the door by his Water Baptism, leaving the rest to be supplied and perfected by him that could, even let them quite in; by giving to water the gifts of the Holy Ghost. So being the fore-runner of Christ, Luc. 3.4. the Angel of his face Mar. 1.2. and to prepare the way of the Lord, Matth. 3.3. (who meant to make more of this outward rite, even a sanctifying Sacrament, the Key of Heaven door complete on Earth, to let into the congregation of Zion ) He might begin, by God's appointment and Christ's approbation, to sanctify that Rite anew and farther, whereof he had been long an entrusted Minister, by letting it have operation upon the holy seed, and so give it some small advance, a partial consecration toward what it should be after complete, by conferring what he could make it, upon the holy circumcision: To which purpose he administered it even most solemnly, and with famous care; though with this reserve and still mentioned reference farther, When HE cometh, of whom I so often speak, and of whose shoo-strings I am not worthy to ty or untie, HE shall do more, But I have done what I could.

4. This may be: but I find myself a little in the dark: Too far with confidence would not do well; and yet the holy text methinks heeded and not prejudged, sounds all along much this way. When behold light shineth in the darkness, and I am led by the hand to behold clear truth or fairest probability. 'It is by him I dare trust, who assures from the Rabbin's that no less Israel was baptized then Edom, both had their initiation by circumcision and Baptism both, yea all Nations by all three, and with omission of none they came over and were engaged to the Law. Tria adhibebantur initiamenta saith he (no fewer) sine quibus nec ipsi Israelitae, foedus illud, juxta receptam ipsorum sententiam, primo inierant, Nimirum Circumcisione, Baptismo & oblation. And a little after, Tribus initiamentis inierant Israelitae foedus, which were as before: and elsewhere, (as to this) — quo (Baptismo) tum parents ipsorum, ut volunt ipsi, tum proselyti Judaismo initiabantur, Besides what since and by others. So that now the objection vanishes, all clears up; the Hebrew seed might be baptized as well as any other, for they were: Christ and the people; All about Jordan; the very Scribes and Pharisees not left out; and this by a work of Johns ordinary Ministry. By Text, Tradition, Custom, or howsoever it was thought to be enjoined and accordingly observed, It was so.

Ob. I may not but take notice of what is of late published for granted, which would imply a cross hereto, sc. That that whole nation was baptized once for all in Sinai, no repetition was of this rite to them or any other; Circumcision was indeed hereditary and to be renewed in Posterity, but Baptism was such a personal act, as passing on any man, the virtue thereof was continued to his whole line, nor needed ever after be repeated in Gentile or Israelite. But,

Ans. 1. This is only said. 2. No authority produced for this variation, nor perhaps can be. Indeed the Law says, Every male child shall be circumcised the eight day in your generations, Genes. 17. Not, you and your posterity wash your garments, in Exod. 19. But then withal the Gospel says but, Baptize all Nations, Matth. 28.19. and yet this carries for a succession: Why not that of Horeb? 3. There was equal necessity, (necessitate rei) for both, and equal authority, of Jus Divinum: Why should it be, Circumcise a man and his seed, and Baptize, but not again? 4. The several intentions of these rites are in granted view; One, to let into the Covenant with Abraham, The other, to the Law of Moses: Was not Israel still to be let into both? as sure to Moses's Covenant, as to Abraham's? and the seal as necessary? and to be repeated? 5. Take the best, Real Comment: Those Judaizing Christians (Ebonites and Cerinthians heretofore; Habassines, and Egyptians, &c. of late) who retain circumcision and Baptism both, with the rites; whence should they have the repetition of them, but from whom they had the rites? Sure, they yet baptize the baptized, as well as circumcise the circumcised. 6. Is any text or order to be produced for our varying from what was always used? We see what is done: the rite itself of washing is known to come from Jewry: the succession from what was Apostolical: No reason of change can be assigned: or time. Therefore what we do, as hath been done always, and no change can be assigned, (at the first chiefly, when change was to be made,) Very likely we take and continue as it had been before and always; else show the variation: or would the Catholic Church have been so presumptuous as to alter and continue what no reason appears, or authority for, or that ever it should have been altered! Wherefore, (Pace tanti viri dixerim) I oppose not, but propose, May it not have been thus? May not the posterity of the baptized have been ever as now (and as equal strength of reason always would they should) baptized, as well as the sons of the circumcised, circumcised? Was not an admission to Moses as fit and necessary and successively, as unto Abraham? and the seal of that admission? Might not Jewry pattern out, To baptize of the baptized, to Aebion and Cerinthus, Egypt, Ethiopia, &c. as well as To circumcise of the circumcised, which we see done? Or, if not, I am mistaken: (which is not much: nor unlikely: and I ask pardon:) But if, then might Israel be baptized; into their Law; Scribes, Pharisees▪ and all, even our Savior not excepted; for usually of that Nation men were: And so, the objection above vanisheth, of the unlikelihood of that Nations Baptism; and the difference may have been newly aright stated between John 's Hebrew, and Christ's Christian Sacrament.

Ob. If it be said, This may yet seem strange, that born, professed, natural Israelites should need, or be capable of, any new translation, as into the Law, &c.

Answ. 1. As to the plea of Nature, remember they must be also circumcised, or else they were not within the Covenant.

2. As to their possible translation, remember what before of Christians deferring the undoubted Ordinances of God, as Baptism: which might be here put off.

3. Or John might here a little vary. He might be an ordinary Minister of Proselyte-Baptism, and called therefore, the BAPTIST, and as such baptize multitudes, all that came: But to his own Nation he might think good to alter; And change toward the Kingdom of God, that rite which ere long was thitherward to be wholly varied and changed.

And this might both reasonably startle the high court of Inquisition at Jerusalem, and give the occasion why their doubt by their messenger) should come forth in that form we see it does, in that reply of theirs to his former answers, Jo. 1.25. Why baptizest thou then (say they) If thou be neither Messias, nor Elias, nor a Prophet. They could not, 1, Question him for baptizing, that is, in any sort, (the rather being of the Priests line, the Son of Zacharias, Luc. 1.) Washings and for purification being with them and their Nation so usual as nothing more. (Remember of them what but now enough; and add what ordered for Priests and Levites; by divers places of the Epistle to the Hebrews, continued to Evangelical times.) Nor could they, 2. Trouble him about Baptizing Proselytes, for the same reason, and from what they saw every Priest do every day. 3. Some have thought, it was from Scripture, by tradition or otherwise (howsoever) received, that Baptism should precede, or in some way or other belong to the Kingdom of the Messias, and therefore they desire to know, how he, having denied himself to be such (in the reply before) could then take upon him such a Ministration as did not belong unto him. But these heed not, 1. The names of Elias and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ( any prophet, in the text) whose degree might have born out the business as well. 2. What but now of Baptismes, various, of sundry sorts, for sundry ends, open, visible, every day. It remaineth therefore that neither Baptism, nor of Proselytes, nor as belonging to the Messias could any way trouble or give ground of reasonable doubt (which have been the things thought) But the new way (likely) Why Abraham's seed? Why thus? distorting the old ceremony to a new frame or end, or making to or toward something it had not (having no authority or power extraordinary to bear out so bold or perilous innovation!) These, say they, thou hast disclaimed already, tell us how then thou canst, justify thy new way, So, thus, in this manner Baptizing, whereas thou art neither Messias, Elias, nor (eminently) a Prophet. This seems to make the doubt reasonable, gives the bottom of the business fit to trouble an high Inquisition, and withal involves or permits answer to (or thitherward) the cross objection, that Christ's fore-runner the Baptist was not a baptizer of Proselytes (to the Law) because he baptized his own Nation; yes he might be both, he might do both; And here (which might well trouble the Inquisitors for heretical pravity) be changing the one into the other, that formerly used into now-introductory to the Kingdom of God.

Ob. If it be farther said (in objection to the main at first) Those Baptismes were equal, one reaching as far as another; for Johns was for remission of sin, what needed or could Christ's or any other do after anymore?

Ans. St Augustine answered long since, Spe dimissa fuisse peccata Baptismo Johannes, Christi Baptismo reipsa dimitti: Johns gave hope of forgiveness, Christ's reality; Or I send farther to that Father and others, with whom that doubt found long since both mention and satisfaction.

Ob. Or if it be urged lastly, they were not in Scripture, show thence such things as these.

Answ. I proposed them not as such. Not as found in Scripture, or borrowed of Scripture, but agreeing with Scripture, furthering, I hope the interpretation of Scripture, as well bottomed there too, as many currant opinions, even about Baptism, and in the Originals, But if offering any contradiction to Scripture, I am ready not only invertere stylum to raze out all presently, but to be the first shall cast off the remainder whither it deserves.

There can only remain a seeming to cross our own, or possible thwarting Protestant determinations in these. Whereof yet can be neither doubt nor fear. For, 1. As to Protestant Churches, they have not, as far as I know, made any determination at all, I mean in their Articles, Orders, Acts, Convocations, or whatever is of public account▪ Particularly, I assure myself, not the Church of our Nation; And for private men, they may vary, Why not? with like liberty, in things not publicly determined, on all sides? Though I seek no such refuge, I need not, for, 2. I aver nothing. I bind not on other men's shoulders the weight of one line, or burden their faith with one assertion. All I do, is, in humility, and as a lover and seeker of truth, to propose with modesty, the fruit of mine own conceptions to view and judgment, and which mine own thoughts have suggested and whisphered at least for probable truth: ( dissero non assero, as he said) If to any they seem otherwise, the looker on has his leave and choice, whether to take or leave; but no reason to blame me who meant but to lend him my hand to lead (nor force) him to that I apprehended the righter way. Another may with the same leave and love embrace that fancy or opinion which is the child of his own teeming brain, and so by the collision of differing or opposed judgments that truth chance to be struck out to light, which otherwise might have lain hid in perpetual darkness. Times of reformation have been reasonably looked upon as affording liberty of disquisition; in order to the work in hand &c.

I confess I had been once like to give entertainment to another opinion of Johns Baptism, not touched at before, as far I know, by any, much favored by the glances of the text throughout, and meetly well agreeing with the beliefs, usages and customs both of Jewry▪ and abroad (which was the reason why I liked it:) Although it be not true, it may have of truth in it, and therefore I shall not think much to set it down; Let the probability of things all along be my excuse; it is this.

That Johns Baptism might be nothing else but a very solemn and penitential washing, such as the Jews (after much fasting and prayer) used for purification from their sins, Washing of the body shadowing and signifying, if not furthering and operating the inward purity and cleanness of mind and soul, (as many have been apt to think, and those very, very many) or a kind of atonement with Heaven (for which there was time and rite, and very Ablution appointed by the Law) or reconciliation with God and his Church: In a word, the rite of a very set and solemn Penance (if we may borrow a word from beyond sea). And for all this are more then flattering glances of the text if the words and coherence be heeded and judged of without prejudice. As, John the person, ministering, his austerity of life like a penitentiary; the people's coming to him, as about such a business; their confession of sins; for remission of sins; and to avoid future wrath; the Pharisees coming with the rest, a venomous and viperous generation that had most need (though not all of them; Some let the simple people go before them in accepting this council of God for their justification ) And the righteous son of God should have been repelled, as in whose spotless perfection, a business of that nature could take no place. But above all, the constant and repeated word of Baptism of Repentance, Baptism for Repentance, He preached saying, Repent, and (what more fitly consequent and attendant to all these, then what he also used and pressed? saying) Live not now as ye list any longer, but bring forth fruits worthy Repentance and AMENDMENT of life. With which the poor people were so taken and terrified, as it were thunder-stricken with fear and amazement, that neither pleasure nor fear of their past sins can offer any rub, but in they come, thick and threefold; paleness is in their cheeks, and the word of terror on their lips (even of those that were compuncti corae suo, Acts 2.38. Wounded at the heart,) Men and Brethren! Alas! Men and Brethren! Now: what shall we do? A confused multitude comes in and cries out first, What shall we do? The cheating Publicans (toll-gatherers, tribute-mongers, purveyers, excisemen, Customers, &c.) and what shall we do? (They had not wont to make such conscience of their ways, or doubt of gain; Lucri bonus odor quâlibet ex re, as he said; but now they will be bounded by rule, and that rule the strictest, of Religion: What! Now: Any thing! ) The ravenous, rapacious, greedy, plundering Soldiers with iron sides and harder hearts, whose swords had wont to be their rule, and their power their Law, have now a case of conscience to propose to a Prophet; Vivitur ex rapto is laid aside, & Rara fides pietasque viris qui bella sequuntur, become to them as bad as heresy; their spirits are mollified and hearts softened, their consciences ductile, to follow or take any impression. And What, say they, shall we do? To which they receive such answers severally, as may teach others (to whose guilty souls the salve of like wholesome and saving counsel might come fitly applicable) the proof of repentance to this very day. To the closehanded parcimonious people; Be not so saving and distrustfully, fearfully covetous, but Give alms of that is yours, and never turn the face from any in want, and then the face of the Lord shall not be turned from you. To the Officers of the Customs, receivers, deceivers; Leave off those hooks from between your fingers, Wash off that birdlime wrongs all you touch with your hands, 'It is an injurious Chimistry that meddles not with anything of another's, but it extracts and purloyns somewhat for itself, Do not plunder instead of take, and make public power a stalking horse to creep to private unjust gain, but take that belongs to you and be therewith contented. To the rude and Masterless Soldiers, Remember that ye also have a Master in heaven, Do not tyrannize instead of Rule, and spoil instead of Protect; grating, exacting, worrying, fliecing, that the poor afflicted people may look upon you as so many wolves sent to guard the sheep, or bears and lions to oversee the quiet fold; your profession is honorable, do not disgrace it by unsuitable actions, staining the beauty of your Nobility by unlawful deeds, and casting dirt upon the face of your own glory: Trouble or misinform against none, but get your pay and be contented. These were the parts, works, fruits, effects of Johns Baptism, and do they not all look much like or toward a business of Repentance?

The rather yet for 4. things more. Because, 1. Most practical Divines have looked upon John, as a severe Prophet, a legal teacher, a Minister of the Law, a terrifyer of consciences, the needle going before the thread one that carried the axe, &c. 2. For what Joseph the son of Matthias hath left of his whole dispensation; himself an Historian, a Jew and a Priest; it so fell out, of the same tribe and line; and not only so but of some nearer alliance, as being of the highest course of 24 with Zacharias the Baptists Father, living in (or near) the time of his tragedy, (not above ten years difference) and one that had tried the same severe course of institution by Eremiticall life which John did in the Wilderness, even to a Baptism of himself in a penitential way, who gives this account. Divers were of opinion (saith he) that Herod's Army miscarried for the execution of John, sir named Baptist: For he had done this man to death, who was replenished with all virtue, and who exhorted the Jews to addict themselves thereto, and to execute justice towards men, and piety towards God. Exhorting them to be baptized, and telling them that that Baptism should at that time be well pleasing to God, if they should renounce not only their sins, but if to the purity of their bodies they should annex the cleanness of their souls, re-purified by Justice. 3. I have somewhere read a Question, to which I never saw, or could frame to myself an answer clearly satisfactory in the affirmative, Whether it can be proved by holy Scripture that John ever baptized in or into the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost? Which I piece out a little farther, Or into Moses? or Christ? or for initiation any way? No question of his Baptism; the text is clear for that: but whether to this end? keeping to Scripture: or where may it be found? It hath been otherwise generally Received: But this was Delivered: and all know how low the credit of bare Tradition is now grown in most Parts of Christendom. Divers opinions may have been no better then pious presumptions; Religious mistakes, which having had the hap to meet with able defenders, (Divinity Readers or Writers) at first, have by degrees prospered into Axioms, and almost Articles of Doctrine; having yet little of credibility, very little of Truth, Nothing of solid Scripture at bottom, but a strong faith, holpen by inclination to tread in the steps of the Wise and Learned, hath carried them currant along and made them (like Jerusalem ) Ezek. 16. prosper into a Kingdom: May it not have been so here? 4. Take in the large reign of that opinion, that water ( quick and living water, as before) had power in itself in Nature to purify the conscience from dead works: I do not say, it was so, or St John thought so, but thought it was so, all abroad, both within and without the pale of Jewry, which might bring multitudes to Jordan, though upon erroneous account, and John took occasion thereby to exhort them to serious and real repentance; nor was he himself altogether free from error, as appears by repelling One it was just should come, Matth. 3.15. and as to our Savior he might conform to custom, in what he absolutely needed not, as John told him; or take the best of what had some mixture of error or superstition. Sure this Gratious enlivening quality, was all over the East believed to be in water to sanctify and make clean the spotted soul.

The Pythagoreans thought purity to be attainable hereby, and so did the Pharisees among the Jews, in Titus Bostrensis. The Egyptians and Persians had their frequent Bathings whence they thought themselves to be freed from guilt and cleansed: So did the Samaritans; who were, (that it might seem no less then very usual) like the Ebionites in Epiphanius, who reverenced some Deity in the waters, Washing themselves as well winter as summer, to sanctify themselves thereby. The like thought may have born sway with Tertullian, when he commended the liquid Element as in nature, and from the beginning, the habitation of some divine spirit, & dignum Deo vectaculum, a fit convoy for a Deity: and with Io. Damascene (another of ours) that from the beginning the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, whence it had a cleansing power seen in washing away the sins of the old world. Cicero giving the reason why the old Law (continued to Iustinians time) was, that he that had killed his father should be sewed up in a sack, with a dog, an ape and a viper, &c. and so cast into a river or the sea, alleges; The sack was to preserve the cleansing waters, Ne, cùm delati essent in mare (parricidae) ipsum polluerent, quo caetera quae violata sunt, expiari putantur, as Coelius Rhodiginus: which he farther clears by that the Scholiast on Aristophanes expounds some verses of that author, about ones coming to the sea and washing there, by Mos erat antiquis illic expiare pollutos, the antiens were wont so to purify the unclean: as Plato in his journey to Egypt, taking with him Euripides who fell sick by the way, He was cured by the Priests washing; whence Plato was wont to say, The sea washeth off all Inconveniences. in Diogenes Laert. lib. 3. in vita Platonis. The Druids had their expiations, lustrations, sanctifications, often washings and cleansings, without which nothing was well, orderly or truly done or performed in their services: As Sybilla Cumana rinsed herself in pure running water before she addressed herself to her prophesies. The ancient use (saith Sophocles ) was, those that had stained their hands by murder, to wash them clean in water, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for what less, then to take off the stain of guilt? the cleansing of body and mind, of hand and soul they thought went together. And Soudas expounding that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says, so were believed to have expiation those were guilty of bloodshed: acknowledged by Tertullian, and so understood by Joseph. Vicecomes. But especially and above all the rest were the Hemerobaptists. We may expect somewhat more then ordinary of them, when Daily washing had soked into their name; as such there were and so they used. They thought else no one could attain eternal life, saith Epiphanius; and Baronius, No living without washing and rinsing, and thereby cleansing, yea sanctification. This they did every day, both morning and evening, winter as well as summer, says Epiphanius again, upbraiding, that their practice did confute their hope, and their doing their believing: for since they washed and did it daily, the repetition bespake the insufficiency, and the renewing it the day after declared really the imperfection of what was done the day before. Nor may we withdraw all respect from the giddy-witted Poets? Some truth they let fall by the way in pursuit of their vainest fictions, their materials were commonly sound where their plot was but a figment, a golden web, when the piece but a toy or a fancy; for what brain-sick Rhapsodist would ever have supposed speeches that could not have been spoken (truly?) or things that could not have been done? or words empty of all sense? or that to be, which neither was not could, nor was ever heard of? Virgil thus brings in his Aeneas bespeaking his aged parent:

His bloody hands might not meddle with what was religious, till clean and cleansed by living water. (for I purposely retain that epithet. ) Would another fall out with less then a shadow? said Ovid: sure some were then persuaded that it was so; that the deepest die of worst offense might be washed off in the neighbouring brook. And Seneca gravely: Can Tanais, Nile, Rhysni, Tigris or the golden sanded Taio make clean a guilty hand; they cannot. To omit Catullus. The more Eastern Ganges was left out in Seneca's enumeration, but his virtue is supplied by the belief and present recourse of ours, or the last age. For thither do people resort, if we may credit him that brought it us from the banks side, in multitudes, with assured hope that as many as wash and bath themselves in that River, be they never so great sinners, have all their sins forgiven them, and that they are thenceforth pure and clean from a • l sin, as if they were new come into the world as shall be said anon. And indeed it is believed all over the East, saith another, Whence the Grecians kept always a pot of water at the door, where a dead man lay unburied, to sprinkle and cleanse, as well at going in as coming out, the like they had at their temple door, for the same use, ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 they called it) and by their Alcoran it is no less appointed to be used by the Mahumetanes. Lastly, (as if there were still a natural persuasion inherent in the mind of Man, of some such natural force and power inherent in Water, to hold forth means of purification reaching to the soul) it is observable, that not only the Heathen washed at their Temple-door as Baronius hath from Herodotus, Cicero, Persius, &c. (and from the relics of that opinion finding consent in the mind of man may have grown up the sprinkling with Holy Water among the Papists as they enter the Church:) but also their Temples obtained both place and name from vicinity of Healing springs. Notandum quod Pagani sive Gentiles circa fontes templa sua facere solebant, vel saltem ibi aquam habebant, per cujus aspersionem purificari credebant, & inde Delubra vocantur, quasi Purificantia, says Durand: (Which when I read it comes into my mind, to compare, the situation of our English Churches, most of them upon tolts or hillocks, near springs or water-brooks; no doubt the sanctified successors of Pagan places of worship, there before used; and it was easier to consecrate then to erect, indeed Natural to continue Religious what had in any sort been devoted to God) which, with little variation, his successor Jo. Beleth took up from him: and Servius, Delubrum à diluendo, locus ante templum ubi aqua currit: The word Delubrum is not properly a temple, but a place by, of running water.

Thus in much diffusion all abroad it hath prevailed that Water sanctifies, Jordan was holy, and Ganges or any other brook, They are Pure and have operation effectual upon the soul to Purity. Not yet that the thing is so, or Truth will bear it out, or the profound and only heavenly Maxims of the most holy Christian faith, whose tender eyes are rather for the contrary, though he use Water most religiously. For, St Peter (in whose time such opinion might be stirring, and his full intent to give thereto just and even opposition) tells us that a washing, Baptism, our Baptism (the true 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to the Deluge, not to the Ark, as commonly construed, the Neuter article will not bear that, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the figure to which water now saith, but of what sort? not the putting away or rincing off the filth of the flesh, which is that natural ablution may, but somewhat internal, and which the element cannot reach, the inward stipulation, or purgation, the answer or satisfactory declaration in a good man's behalf of a good conscience by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of the type perhaps it had been otherwise presumed, and that the old world was morally cleansed by the flood. Ac primum quidem Diluvii baptisma excindendi peccati causa contigit, as in Jo. Damascene, de fid. orthod. lib. 4. cap. 10. Of the eight sorts of Baptism this was the first, and so operative: Unde illud celebre, apud Graecos, (has Grotius on Matth. 3.6.) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as but now from Plato in Diogenes Laertius. But is it so? no, it is not so: The Element cannot do it in present Christian belief, but somewhat internal and spiritual reaching farther, not Washing but Baptism, to be regenerate, and renewed or born again of water and the holy Ghost. And accordingly they are made distinct by the author to the Hebrews, Cleansed as to the heart internally from an evil conscience, as well as washed externally to the Body in cleansing or pure water: and the like partition is in St James, Wash your hands, O sinners ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , purify them) but that not enough, Cleanse also your hearts, ye double minded: and the former again, That service which was performed by the worshippers under the first Tabernacle, could by no means perfect, as to the conscience, those that brought, though it were both gifts and sacrifices, for it did consist only in meats and drinks and divers outward washings and carnal ordinances, Justifications of the flesh, which must expect a time of review or following reformation; these were but shells and shadows. Nor any other but this, might that pure and heavenly, spiritual doctrine, in His meaning, be, our Savior took up, to contradict the gross and carnal traditionaries of the Pharisees; They cried out, Wash all, and so purify; Hands, Cups, Tables, Platters, else nothing but unclean: He, Obey the Commandments, Honor Parents, look all be sound within, for nothing that goes in, or is applied to, or is conversant about defiles the person, or sanctifies, but what issues out FROM WITHIN (Evil thoughts, Adultery, Murder, Rapine, Covetousness, &c.) these carry the stroke in profanation or sanctification, as is express in Mar. 7. When he was invited to dinner by one of them, who wondered so great a Prophet went not His washing way, according to the orders of the ancients, HE sits him down to dinner and without any preparatory ablution (of which he had no regard at all as to piety or impiety) excuses by return of sharp reproof, Ye Pharisees think to make all whole thus, but ye go a wrong way to work, as 'twere washing a cup or platter without, when the inside remains corrupt and naught (the pot is clean, but the meat is poisoned: Or, ye wash YOUR outsides, your bodies, as far as water can reach, when your insides, your hearts, are full of mischief and naughtiness ) Begin within, study righteousness, DO GOOD, Give of what you have in charity, and then all shall be clean to you, whether supposed sanctifying water hath been used, or no: Luc. 11.38, &c. Matth. 15.1, &c. And elsewhere, and still blame laying upon the same branch of the distinction 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ye outside hypocrites, Woe be to you, ye bestow care enough about that grosser part your Ceremonies can reach, ('tis your Religion) thinking withal they reach piety and work it; but for that wherein is the life, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , This is left as foul, as to which to due means of sanctification hath been applied. Ye blind guides, first regard to cleanse 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the inside or heart by real and sincere inclinations to holy virtue and goodness, and then for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , be there Lustration, or not (ye put so much, and enough, and all holiness in) This will come in the rear of things less regardable and considerable, Matth. 23, 25, &c. Otherwise ye do but paint a wall, or white a Sepulcher, wash over with a few empty and superstitious Rites that slabbered outside, whose heart or inside (whither such outward linitives cannot reach) remains nasty, and full of — and — not fit to be named. The sum, we disagree in this: ye say, water is Holy, wash and be clean; I say, Sanctify yourselves, BE YE Clean; for bodily exercise profiteth little. So, of those times the gravest Philo, who having required as by their Law, exactness of Lustration beyond ordinary (as not of water alone, with which other worshippers were content, but) by ashes admixed, and which does help farther, yet concludes for internal beauty and purity of mind as that is more lovely and amiable in the eyes of him that sees all. And of the same clime the not unadvised Mahomed, of whose Divinity one half was cleanness, he laid the foundation of all in purity: But when this comes to be expounded, his followers distinguish of 4 sorts, Corporal, Mental, and some other reduced to them, of which the chiefest is the inwardest: Washing the shel, Soul-purity the Kernel. And sad complaint is made of those are superstitiously careful (it is no better) of the Body to be washen, shunning to draw near who is in that regard profane: whereas quod intus est, desolatum est & oppletum vitiis, that which is within is overrun with vices, fraud, hypocrisy, disdain, pride, ignorance, &c. all being inverted, the first last, the last first. Among Christians Epiphanius (of that Country still; and they are like to have learned and taught best those things came out from them) strikes home against the Hemerobaptists before spoken of, telling us It is not sea and river, fountains and great depths, nor the whole congregate force of the mighty Limbick of Nature could afford to Wash and cleanse a spotted soul: and to the Aebionites, others under the same influences, Who used frequent Bathing themselves, ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and thought to have benefit of being cleansed by them ) But objected them to the disgrace of Peter and the rest of the Apostles, He raises direct and full confutation from our Savior's Dialogue in the thirteenth of John, He whose feet are washen is whole clean, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and so needs no further, required, used, superstitious ablutions: not to insist on Maiemonides, who rangeth outward purification much behind inward and sincere purity. And hence it was that Tertullian call those without the Church very appositely viduas aquas, the Pagans yet both used and relied on: that is, destitute of Angel and holy Ghost, as Rigaltius on the place; whereas by our Holy use

And some sage Philosophers have confessed as much as comes to this emptiness or viduity. He is pure only that knows no ill of himself, said Menander in Clemens Alexandrinus, with rejection of all insufficient elementary Lustrations. And the Tragaedian, What's any ones bane but his Conscience? that himself has knowledge he has done amiss? for, indeed, There is no true purity but innocence. And Epicharmus excellently, Be thy mind clear within, little needs thy body the purification of water. Much more of which nature may be seen in the same Clemens Alexand. Strom. 4. pa. 531. Clemens Roman. Epist. 4. ad Jul. & Julianum: in Tertullian, Arnobius, and his Scholar Lactantius: in Cyril. Hierosol. Cateches. 5. pa. 239. Chrysost. in Timoth. • . tom. 6. pa. 453. Gregor. Nyssen: de Baptismo Christi, tom. 3. pa. 363. Basil. lib. de Sp. Sancto, cap. 5 tom. 2. pa. 323. Ambrose. lib. 1. de Sacram. cap. 1. Titus Bostrensis in Luc. 12. Gratian. de consecrate. distinct. 4. Ca. Verus baptismus. and lastly, in the Eastern Cyril, who is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : Water, 'tis true, may wash the body, but somewhat quicker, inward, spiritual must reach the soul. in Cateches. 3.

Thus the world hath been divided, and though the Many be on the contrary, Truth, as received by Christians, and some other the gravest, especially such as hearken to Scriptures, seems to be on this part, That not Nature but Grace, the power of the holy Ghost not any outward Element can purge the Conscience from dead works, to be acceptable and clear in the sight of God. Howsoever, the other prevailing, over the world, even the East, might bring in store to Johns Baptism, that dwelt about Jordan and were willing to have their sins forgiven; which made them ready to try, what they thought could do them no harm, with more pliable forwardness then the Syrian General before in the same River, with forced neglect of his own Abanah and Pharphar. Sin in the burden of the soul, that hangeth on and presseth down, and sticketh close, and woundeth deep: Industrious care would do much to be rid of fear, to draw on hope that it shall dread no grief, from suffering pain (as well as bearing loss) which having begun knows no other bound but to Be Eternal: Upon which account many might be willing to try what would but color for toward redemption to Free and Safe; and from that Baptism, which in nature cleansing, was thought to reach a little farther, to within, and did here own the sure name of, for Repentance or change of mind ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by divine imposition) from that they now had, which they knew to be bad enough. So that Johns Baptism, these probabilities favor, might be, not of initiation to Religion, but cleansing and purification in Religion: So meant and so used; not for the Water sake, but for the Ordinance of God's sake, which in the Law had appointed such purification for sin by (or with, or not without) Water.

Which admitted, (as why may it not? the frame of other Truths is hereby well enough sorted in with, as well of sacred Oracles as abroad; nor is confirmation wanting form them, as well as compliableness) in the Holy story, this would seem yet farther capable of one improvement more, as to HIM our eyes are most upon, our blessed Savior; To whom such Lustration might not unfitly serve as preparative to his Entry into Holy Orders; The time whereof was now at hand, and St Matthew hath so related, as if presently he were so actually admitted. This sure: We find him soon after preaching, Matth. 4.17. Luc. 4:17, &c. and choosing his Disciples ( Andrew, Peter, James and John) Matth. 4, 18, 19. (as if till now he had no power) Immediately he betook himself to the Wilderness, Matth- 4.1. Luc. 4.1. from the solitariness whereof John returned next, before his stepping forth to the Work of Preaching and Baptizing: Matth. 3.1. Luc. 3.1. Such public Ministers of sacred things were wont not but to be washed, in fulfilling the letter of the Law, Exod. 29.4. with water. And, HE was now of fit age, sc. about thirty, Luc. 3.23. the ripe season for public employment and by the Law again, Num. 4. ver. 3, & 37. 1 Chron. 23.3. besides St Jerome's preface to Ezekiel: tom. 4. pa. 330. So that it should seem, if not for Initiation as before, but for Purification as even now, in one advanced more for INAUGURATION to most sacred Office (sc. to be supreme Priest, Prophet and Pastor of his Church) might, as to Christ, the work of Johns Baptism serve and be intended; With less solemnity men not having been, nor needing to be let out from Privat to Public in the Church, then they were at first admitted and let into it; each being assumption into a new State, (not but always ceremonious and with much formality, as 'twere in a Regeneration) and whereto once the ceremony of WASHING was requisite, and that, Jure Divino.

Although I resume and adhere fastest to my first, Not Of Repentance, but of Repentance and More, not only of Purification, much less Inauguration, but for Initiation into the Law, (as Christ did into the Gospel) was John a Minister of SUCH holy Baptism; Legal, as Christ was of Evangelical.

CHAP. IX.

QUAERE 4. Why Circumcision should have been brought into the Primitive Churches, and is yet retained in many.

WHereas Circumcision as well as Baptism had been long used for initiating or regenerating Proselytes to the Jewish Religion, and 'tis like our Savior took in his Sacrament of admission from one of them, as before: And, Whereas ye know more, there was so long and tedious a vexing controversy in the Primitive Church, which troubled even the Apostles themselves, by occasion of some devout Pharisees, zealous of the traditions of their fathers, and other false brethren crept in privily to spy out the new gained liberty in Christ, Whether Disciples of this sect were not, as others formerly, to be circumcised after the Law of Moses? May not the reason of the doubt be more fairly then hitherto deduced from what before, and Be; Because our Savior had already taken in one rite of Baptism to matriculate the advenae into his Religion, the other was now as needful for the same purpose? and as Circumcision and Baptism had went hand in hand Both to one thing, (not One, but Both) to perfect Hebrew Proselytes, so 'twas as needful they should now continue to join for completing the admission of Christians? the rather because the new Religion did seem to promise as much as the old (which ought to be performed) in matters of substance, and therefore it should do very ill to scant it in Circumstance or Ceremony.

Nothing is more certain then the devout and zealous managing of strong attempts to bring in that second rite: the holy Story lays it down at large in several places obliquely or by the way, directly and as of full intent in one whole chapter of Acts 15. where poor Christendom contributed all the force it had to establish a firm Decree, and in that first general (and only Apostolical) Council that ever met (as far as we know) the Fathers consulted not chiefly, but only about this business: Nor do I remember to have met with a more likely and sitting state of the doubt occasioning the meeting then this, sc. to determine Whether Circumcision were not now as necessary to welcome advenae into Christian Religion, as it had been, joining in with Baptism? or Whether old friends might part here, and (which the Council thought fit) Baptism be enough, without Circumcision?

A way of stating the doubt that hath not been altogether without mention before: for, though I have not observed many to look so deep, yet One (and in our own language too,) hath lately proposed the Question directly (a very learned man, whose Sermons are Sermons ) and He assigns the reason of the Councils meeting, somewhat otherwise, yet somewhat toward this, thus:

There were (saith he) two sorts of Proselytes, Some of a lower degree, Proselytes of the gate Proseliti domicilii, admitted without any ceremony; and there were other made perfect Hebrews, Proselytes of Justice, and by consequent circumcised: Now the doubt was, of these two, to whom or whether, Christians should conform? Whether to the lower, to be made without any ceremony at all? or to the other, of the Covenant; who being circumcised, if Christians were to conform to them, they must needs be circumcised also? And he interprets the Council met to determine for the former sc. that Christians needed no more initiation then those of the lower sort, who were entered without any Ceremony at all: Not of the higher, who were only circumcised, and therefore Christians needed not, because to them they were not to hold conformity.

But I crave leave to dissent from so learned a man who (it seems to me) mistakes a little: for this could not be the doubt, to which sort Christians should conform? to those made with, or without Ceremony? For this the Master of Religion had more then in part determined before, by his admission and command of Baptism, whereof they could not be ignorant: But if to the perfecter (as he had already implied order in ordering Baptism) then, how far forth to them? whether that taken in already would be enough, to Wash and be clean? or whether there needed as aforetime, to wash and circumcise? and so to make complete Christians by the complete use of both those ceremonies that had formerly went to the completing those came over the highest Proselytes to the Hebrew Law? This, if it might have been had, would have pleased the Jews well, especially the more learned Pharisees, zealous of the traditions of their Fathers; had been of fair pretext to keep old friends together, whose parting implied and was a change in Religion; and many other things might have been thought of, and no doubt were: But against them all the Court determines, for a non-necessity of the Questioned rite: Circumcision would have been the earnest of all Moses, the Harbinger of the Law, the first link of that chain would have brought in all Leviticus. Therefore what Christ had ordered and appointed was to be rested in as sufficient; the observance of his Law, duty and burden enough, and his followers madeover unto him and consigned fast and sure enough by the single use of his own appointed Baptism.

This I take to be the state of the case and ground of that doubt takes up so much place, and finds so often repetition in the story and doctrine of the later times of the New Testament, which if I have so determined as none before me, it might be for want of the same grounds; and what light hath guided me to where I am, I humbly think, may guide in some measure others also.

And farther yet, into the reason of one thing more, still upon the Stage (the Quod sit whereof hath exercised the pens of many, but for the Cur sit, I have not found so much as an Enquiry attempted) sc. Why so many of old, of late, and now, both do, and did retain Circumcision with Baptism for consigning over believers into the profession of the faith of Jesus Christ? They were and are abroad many, and 'tis like will be to all times to come, who did and do so: Whence this conjunction? Whence, but from that they did go together at first? they were found together, and so taken, and kept; even in flat contradiction of an Apostles Jerusalem Council General, many would and will do as their ancestors have done before them. They find, Circumcise, in the plain letter of the Law of faithful Abraham, as well as Wash after into Moses Law, and therefore they will retain both, Circumcise and Wash after, which is natural, rather then Wash only, having had no occasion by Circumcision.

For who they were, as to times past. Mr. Rogers applies it to commendation of Believers in England, that, in matter of Baptism, We do not defile the Ordinance of Christ by any unnecessary supervenient additions, but profess adversaries to the Nazarenes who with the Jews were Circumcised and with the Christians baptized, referring to St Jerome s Epistle unto St Augustine, de haeresibus. No such Epistle do I find in St Jerome, but an Epistle he has, wherein he makes mention of these Nazarenes, writing unto St Augustine, not as Christians, but as Jews (it may be they were such, or in greater part) and of some other we acknowledge for Christians branded with the same error as Cerinthus and those Poor Ones (for so their names gives them) the Ebionites. St Augustine himself has them all three together: to the former Cerinthus and his Cerinthians, adding Merinthus and his Merinthians, (if at least these be not the same; Epiphanius doubteth, in Heres. 25. sect. 8.) and to the later the Sampseans and Elceseans, as near of kin, out of Epiphanius. Who has them indeed, in haeres. 28, & 29. tom. 1. pa. 110, &c. and St Augustine elsewhere remembers with the Nazarenes, the Symmachians.

Nearer home of later times, divers both Eastern and Southern Christians, upon their grounds, go on in that tract, to this day: And, by the way, we are not lightly to esteem the judgment or practice of those present Sufferers for our common Savior: Though I doubt we do undervalue them and their sufferings, who love their Christ as well as we, do many things for his sake, obey his will to the light of their knowledge, and suffer willingly many o • those losses and inconveniences, which we, if the case were ours, would free ourselves from, upon terms worse agreeing with our common foundation then they do: For they maintain a life in the midst of persecution, hold it out in flames, forsake not if they be undone and ruined as to this world, part with the fruit of their bodies in hope of the salvation of their souls, and bear cheerfully along the discouraging burdens of infamy, pain, loss, disgrace, &c. all which they might be freed from if they would turn with him whose name is Peter, and renounce their Dear, Beloved, most honored Savior; Living as well as we, (if they would) who make too little use of our peace and plenty but to grow fat and wanton, and being got on the warmer and quieter side of the hedge, having little else to do, fall first a sporting and playing, and then a quarrelling and fighting with one another. They do not so, but meekly and gently take up Christ's cross and follow him, arming themselves with the like mind as, he who suffering in the flesh ceased from sin, and enduring the cross despised the shame, and is now sat down at the right hand of God; giving the greatest evidence of their love to their Master, that they do for Him, and bear for Him, and forbear for His sake, Suffering, anything, or the lost of anything, and count all dross and dung that they may win Christ, and be found in Him. They follow step by step, that Captain of their Salvation, not made perfect but by SUFFERING; and yet they retain still a harmless rite they think they may hold from Abraham and Solomon.

The Jacobites a numberless number of Christian professors, dispersed over Syria, Cyprus, Palestine, Mesopotamia, &c: (God grant they be so many indeed, and that reports fill not our working fancies with dreams of more happiness in the communion of Saints then is real, by their forged multitudes; I hope the best) Britenbachius says they are dispersed (thicker or thinner) over forty Kingdoms, yet they circumcise, saith another, both Sexes hath a third alleged by a fourth, and Dr Heylin confirms, who wrote since them all.

The Copti, Cophti, Aegophti, or Christians of that Land Egypt, do the like; (there are that fetch their appellation from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Scindo, relating hither, to cut off) or did, if they have not lately left it by persuasion of the Popes Legat, about Anno 1583. as Mr Brerewood thinks they have; but Mr Purchase who wrote since gives the continuance, and that they do, as their ancestors were, wont, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the words of Strabo: lib. 17 de Aegiptiis. which I may not English.

The Abbyssinians, or mid-land Ethiopians inhabiting a large continent, holding proportion, some say, with all Europe, though others contract to a less scantlet of Spain, France, Germany and Italy (as if, it is not yet to be despised; The rather because Truth is there under profession, not (as in other places) under persecution, the Scepter declaring for the Cross, the public Power uniting all one way, and so God having succor and favor from the things of this world. But, here again I pray, Intelligence flatter not, interposing an Optick Glass which multiplies the species, and creates us but deceit, by show of more happiness then is, in our best Religious communion; such dealing were injurious, a friendly unkindness a courteous wrong; and Pia Fraus herself is but a gaudy strumpet in her best Holy day robe; Christ and HIS cause nor have, nor need, nor would, nor anything but abhor and detest her, with all her devices and imaginations) The holy Gospel is there both professed and protected, Baptizing in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, says Maginus, yet they circumcise too, say others, And one that was very like to know gives, They believe their Ancestors had it and kept it from Solomon: for when their Queen went to Jerusalem to be acquainted with his wisdom, (and perhaps rites) she brought back this as one of the chief flowers of the Nation, which her Posterity retain: though our Eusebius, go a little higher and fetch it from Moses. Who (as he learned from Artapanus) going to manage a War in Ethiopia in behalf of his foster-father Cenephra, while he lived in Egypt, so wan by his discretion and the attraction of his person, for beauty incomparable, upon that Nation, that they were content both Priest and People to retain the rite of his Religion ever since. More I believe I have read of though I cannot upon the sudden turn to chap. and pa. believing in Christ and deriving (they meant) all from him, not abhorring that rite, himself not disallowed but accepted.

Mr Brerewood endeavors to render it in some of these, a Custom rather National then Religious: As of the last Habassines, that they are descended of the ancient Ethiopians, who (as Herodotus ) did circumcise; or of the Arabians, who came of Ishmael, Abraham's son by Keturah; and so of the rest: and their own Priest before cited (who, one would think, should best know their own) that they observed it, for a reason in Religion indeed, but in love, honor, and remembrance, professing imitation of our Savior: Luc. 2.21. But

They have taken in Baptism from Jerusalem, (say the same of the Nazarenes and all before) Jerusalem had wont to circumcise as well as Baptize: Even the Apostles times were troubled then about a conjunction thought expedient; they would not have been troubled about trifles: Might not the reasons for their union to continue inseparable, praeponderate and bear sway in the scales of their Judgments who sat at stern, as Church-Governors then, and by tradition or traduction, long continued derivation be brought down through other times to us? Notwithstanding the decree of Acts 15. for we know how usual it hath been (I do not say, should be) for whole Nations, whole Churches to reject (or retain) what other whole Nations or Churches in Canons and Councils, yea Epistles or Gospels have thought as fit with like liberty and Religion to determine of otherwise: witness the Church of Rome compared with ours, and other instances enough: And, as to that book and that chapter, and that Council and very decree, 'tis known we make no conscience of eating of blood, though under the same prohibition there with circumcision (so we find it, and distinguish who can) Harlotry and Idol-sacrifices, placed also in the same range of, One as 'tother rejected or allowed.

So for Mahomet: we have it from our own story (written when was much intercourse hence with Jerusalem) that he useth both circumcision and baptism; we have it from other, that he had conversation as well with Abdalla the Jew, as Sergius the Nestorian Monk, and borrowed of both: Might it not be like, if he loved baptism the better to sit the Christian and serve his own turn therewith, that he took up the pair where he had them together in the Hebrew Law, rather then anything hitherto said by others? Wherein he agreed also with many Christians? and so the same storehouse furnish each shop, Jerusalem the Holy City, or CITY of RELIGION, be the Mother of all? Most Masters of Religion have loved and used to coin as little as they might; or if they must, their high judgments have led them to new stamp, only that metal had wont to go under other signature for tried and currant before▪ as in planting of gardens, desire is to borrow slips from the neighbouring plots of like soil, or in making a posy the flowers are commonly gathered from divers beds and walks, owing little to the maker but the disposal or composition: For it is easier to dispose then provide, to compose then to give being, to borrow then to raise and create; and in anything shall please the people (never but jealous of change) a safe rule and of great use, To innovate as little as may be, especially in the dearest and closest interest of them All, about matters of Religion.

To conclude this point: we have found this conjunction of Rites for initiation both in Scripture (as interpreted) and since, dispersed over Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Syria, &c. of late and before, both in Christendom and without and beyond; May they not have come both together wheresoever we find them (from where it is confessed they Both were, and whence most other things of the same kind amongst us, are allowed and confessed to have come? and They, We, All, (who would have joined circumcision and Baptism, or have, or do) fetch all from Jerusalem, the Grand-mother of Religion? and particularly from Proselyte-admission? whereabout was my fourth Quaere, and in my fourth inference or promised derivation.

CHAP. X.

Sundry other dark Texts enlightened, alluding to a Regeneration.

I Add a fifth; more then I promised. And hence also a true, natural, genuine unforced interpretation of sundry dark allusions (yet remaining dark) and seeming hard expressions of divers places of the later Scriptures, especially in St Paul's mysterious Epistles, hardly if at all possibly intelligible but from these prestructions. That great Master of Christian Religion was we know also a learned Hebrew, an acute Pharisee, a Doctor of the Law, of Gamaliel's College, and being expert in all the Customs and Questions of the Jews, (which height he was after glad to meet in his learned Judge Agrippa ) spake, no doubt, and wrote according to that knowledge in himself, which in the tendry thereof did still presuppose a Regeneration. How shall we understand what he spake, without having first learned those grounds upon which he spake? How shall we possibly attain to the proper and genuine meaning of those words (he has left his sense wrapped up in) without a foreknowledge of those things, from which he derived the use of those words? and without a presupposition both of which knowledge in him, and foreknowledge of them in us, we can neither imagine how he should have spoken as he did, nor can we possibly apprehend him? As, the frequent reflections of his pen upon generation spiritual, parents not natural, born to God, and a blessed New creature: The Old man also he tells us is dead and buried even by Baptism alone (Circumcision, for some obligations attending, or other inconveniences, was it seems then left out) and a new man raised up instead thereof: nay such a prevailing and universal change, that (as the Hebrew of his Renate Proselytes Old things were passed away, and all things become new New kindred (in God) new (heavenly) relations, a new name, Saul called Paul ) new faith, new hopes▪ a new mind, a renewed conversation: I say THEREFORE and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, aliens from the life of God, &c. But be ye renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new man framed to a similitude of God in righteousness and the holiness of truth. Lye not one to another: He that stole, give it over: Lay all bitterness aside and wrath and malice, and Be ye followers of God as his dear children, &c. Ephes. 4.17, 18, &c. A new FORM; what could be more? and that is in Rom. 12.2. (not a transfiguration but a Transformation) I beseech you, Brethren, by God's mercies, that in reasonable service you offer yourselves to God a sacrifice, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your minds 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which is somewhat light, and of the outside, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a very Metamorphosis. As the Corinthians are said to be so translated to God's Image, 1 Corinth. 3.18. (a thing done) and My little children, of whom I travel till this FORM of Christ be brought forth in you. Galat. 4.19. In regard whereof the foreknown of God are said to be predestinate to a Con-Formity to the image of God's Son▪ Rom. 8.29. who was before (as is elsewhere said) the first Draught as it were of the invisible God, They, (the elect Romans ) but (in their New making) Conform and like to HIM, and so He being before, and they after, and but after him, He hath in all things the priority or preeminence, as Colos. 1.18. or, as here, is hereby made the first born of many brethren. From which TRANSFORMATION, by the way, (in various expression so often pointed to, and must therefore have had much Reality both in itself and common belief and from the truths depending thereon, (but those consequences overstrained, as the manner is) Might those perverse disputers, men of corrupt minds, that lived in those morning days, draw color of their claimed Liberty, indeed open and boundless wild Licentiousness, who questioned (as appears by the Apostles often questioning them) the dissolving of all bonds, natural, moral, political, economical and of all worldly obligations, by coming over to their new and regenerate freed condition. If we look into 1 Corinth. chap. 7. Ephes. 5. Coloss. 3.1. Timoth. 6. Ephes. 5. & 1 Pet. chap. 2. We shall there find servants ready to forsake their Masters, women to divorce their husbands, children rising up against their parents, subjects against their liege Lord's, All champing irefully upon the bit, and ready to take up the words of the Psalm, Let us break their bonds, and cast away their yokes from us, All whatsoever that have held the world in quiet and kept us in duty and subjection, Whence but from that change sounding in their ears, and treasured up in their hearts, They were not now what they had been? They were Dead to the world, Alive to God, a chosen generation, a peculiar people, Born again, the SONS of the most High, and must they yet be held in by their old rotten bonds of corrupt carnal relations? Which made the caution needful (and hence we have its just place and use) taken up in the Epistle to the Galatians, (to keep all in order and due bounds) ye have been called unto Liberty, grant that; but not such a liberty as may give occasion to the flesh, or fleshly men to follow the swinge of their exorbitant desires, to what they list, and unbounded appetite may crave, but in love still to serve one another; and by another Apostle to the same sense, As free (so ye are) saith St Peter, only use not your new liberty (justly claimed and freely granted) for a cloke of maliciousness, or licentiousness to anything, but as becomes the servants of God, those would not shame a heavenly relation, honoring all men, loving your own fraternity, fearing God, obeying your King, and submitting to all human orders for God's sake, &c.

1. Use not your due liberty as a cloke, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : in a metaphor taken from sordid men; who though their cloths be underneath torn and vile, yet if they get a handsome cloke to cast over, they walk the streets in appearance neat; the vileness is covered but the sordidness remaineth: So, many are apt to abuse Holy Religion and just Liberty, to be a cloke and cover of their licentious, wild, unbridled passions and corrupt affections; envy, malice, pride, covetousness, ambition, revenge, and the whole heap of troublesome and cursed sins sedition, insurrection, sacrilege, disobedience to POWERS, which is, as the sin of witchcraft ) those reigning spirits, their dominiering lusts within are subtle and active enough to tempt them to; they have not their Christian liberty unless they may withhold their Tithes, pull own Churches, destroy societies, discompose States, subvert Government, obey whom they list, do what they list, think, speak, act as they list: But do not ye do thus saith the Apostle, Ye have not so learned Christ or the freedom of his Gospel, if ye have heard of him or been taught of him as the truth is in Jesus, to put off that old man corrupt according to such erroneous lusts, and put on the New, created in righteousness, that giveth everyone his own, and True holiness: O be not so impious to profane a shrine to cover a strumpet, to wrap up an Idol in Aaron's holy robes, to make Religion a stalking horse to come (unsuspected) at corrupt, carnal, seditious, sacrilegious ends, Let it be abomination and as the sin of witchraft, to make sanctity a cover of iniquity, fair liberty, for anything that is foul 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as a cloke.

2. And, as a cloke of Maliciousness; not Malice, a particular passion, as usually translated, and commonly understood, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of Naughtiness in general, an ill disposition, or Habit of wickedness: so observed and suggested by learned Dr Sanders, so translated by him there and by others from the Septuagint in divers places and that which is only rendered by that unusual abstract in the Civil Law from Malus, Malitas, the head or comprehension of all evil; and as in the Vulgar of Matth. 6 34. Sufficit diei Malitia sua, sufficient for the day is the mischief thereof, any ill or inconvenience; do not abuse your privilege to such design, your granted liberty by real change to an occasion or color of ANY Evil As elsewhere, when it was questioned, May a new-born Christian put away his old wife? No: nor a woman her husband, but if the infidel will depart, let him, or her, depart: Let every soul continue subject to the higher powers: Children obey your parents, still: Wives your Husbands, Servants your Masters And if any have believing Masters, let them not despise them because they are now brethren, but do them service because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the same benefit, as a man had rather serve a friend upon the same stair of common goodness, then an adversary, or an enemy; The sum, Be ye clothed in humility, in honor preferring one another, not scandalizing the Gospel, remaining in the same state ye were called with God, submitting to each other in his fear, and under all old carnal relations remaining still ready in love to serve one another. This was the needful doctrine, upon all changes allowed, which the Apostles preached; which changes (to go on) we have not in St Paul alone. For,

In St Peter we have births proceeding from a double semination: One corruptible, as of the flesh, but this (natural) lasts not, another supernatural, as from immortal generation; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whereby somewhat is quickened which abideth forever. In St John is a second and beyond-and-after-natural Generatio 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , out of the RIGHTEOUS one, as 'twere from God above; The consequent whereof is there is consequence of discourse continued in the next chapter, To be the Children of God in present now, to those were the complete sons of men before, and whatever they shall be hereafter (which is unknown, chap 3 ver. 2.) And the seed of that Divine birth is said after to remain, as an antidote against ill, or inward receipt at the heart to hold antipathy and keep out the working of temptations that they may not close in and generate unto sins, ver. 9. All this, even out of GOD, chap. 1. ver. 1, & 18. Besides the like intimation and expression, even to words and syllables in the Gospel of the same Apostle: As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God: who were born (to this estate) not of blood, nor of the lust of flesh or men, but of God.

These are in Peter, Paul, John, abroad: nearer home I chiefly insist on the 10. ver. of this present chapter; the coherence whereof seems not so well made, the sense given, nor deduction of consequences followed, as these things (in my understanding) may give ground for. The usual interpretation is this: That Nicodemus, (a great Master in Israel knew not, (as well how could he?) the great mystery of Regeneration, (revealed only by whisper from heaven, which he had not) Hence he, (destitute of that revelation, which was not in his power) makes an answer childish and grossly carnal, (which yet no one can suppose how he should have mended) talking of entering into his mothers womb, (to which his invincible ignorance as inevitably led him) and being thence born again: whence our Savior reproves him sharply, Art thou a Teacher of Other, a Master in Israel and yet thus ignorant? But how do these things hang together? That our Savior (meek and gentle) should dispose to blame him (who would do nothing without reason) for ignorance of that, he nor did know, nor could know, nor any other could well tell how he should! in a mystery of Religion to be revealed, dropped only from heaven, which instillation, inspiration 'tis granted he had not! Might he not well have answered for himself, Ye call me Rabbi and Master, and ye say well. for so I am, but how can I speak, in that I was never taught, or know these things unless someone (from above) show me? Such revelation I have not, why am I blamed for that I never could have? can I take what was never sent, or receive what was never given? If this must come from God, and he gave it not me, how am I (though I have it not) blamed, or but excused! Whereas in the other way, blame comes home, inexcusable, unanswerable, unavoidable; sc. That he was blind where he might see, an ignorant professor of what he might know, destitute of the knowledge of his school, the tendries of his associates, the light then upon the stage, the learning of his place: from whence he might have had instruction of the whole business, but he a trewant or a drone neglected even the usual tendries of his own Religion, offering him what as a Doctor he refused, the doctrine of a Regeneration. And thus our Savior's increpation comes home indeed, the blow lights hard and smarts as he intended it: Art thou a Master in Israel, and knowest not these things, thou shouldest, mightest, oughtest know! thy Liturgy, thy Breviary, thy Catechism, thy profession! the badge whereof in thy professing ignorance doth but blazon thy folly, and in thy long robe (that lying outside) thy ridiculously incongruous simplicity and duncery! So the Scholar might have known, otherwise our Savior would not have blamed him for want: and that without impossible Revelations, which were never accounted in man's power, and so should be out of reach of blame: for the learning of his own Schools might have been in this his sufficient instruction, the doctrine extant (to have been furnished therewith) a shield of strength to keep off this increpation. And so this place, not (as usually alleged) affording instance of what is after, in 1 Cor. 2.16. The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolisness unto him; neither can he skill, for they are spiritually discerned. for by the ordinary acquirable knowledge of his own School he might have come to notice of them by study and industy, as a Schoolman to the opinion of Scotus and Thomas, and a Priest to his rites by his own rituals.

The co-herence moreover would thus be well made out and carried along with clearness of sense to some verses following. Dost not thou a Master know these things? 11. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak what we know, thou mightest, and testify what we have seen, it is every days object, and yet, seemeth it strange to you? ye receive not our testimony. 12. If I have spoken unto you earthly things, within reach of every days sense, and ye apprehend not or believe not as out of reach, How would ye believe if I should strain higher, to speak of those things, from whence I am and whereto I could ascend, heavenly things? 13. Whereunto 'tis hard for any other to climb in apprehension; for No man hath ascended or can ascend up to heaven to understand things there ( ascendere in coelum dicitur, qui arcana coeli penetrat, saith Grotius on the place) save he that came down from heaven, from the bosom of the Father, even the son of man that is now in his contemplation and omniscience in heaven. 14. And as Moses lift up the Serpent in the Wilderness heretofore on high, so must the Son of Man be thither from whence he is lifted up again, that whoso believeth on him may not perish, but have everlasting life. Thus are the words chained together fast and close, in a handsome coherence of sense as well as Grammar: Thus they enlighten one another, still supposing a Regeneration known upon earth and visible (as was said at ver 11. We testify what we have seen ) So is offered to us all of a piece, light and clear, (not to speak of others miserable distortions, and incongruous, inextricable perplexities) and in a word, This makes the text together look like itself, the word of God and sense A diligent inquiry would I believe find out many other (consider of Jam. 1.18. & 2 Cor. 3.8, &c. ) which interpreters have hitherto tormented themselves in vain to give any tolerable interpretation of, and after all have scarce left handsome Allegories of those the holy Ghost meant for notable Elegancies; The places are rich in deep sense and profoundness of matter, but the well hath been hitherto stopped, there have wanted to draw the riches forth. What I have now laid before you, I commend unto the blessing of that GOD to continue, who hath I hope hitherto guided both my heart and tongue: if all or any may conduce to the guiding if it be but of one benighted soul, or enlightening of any obscure and clouded text of Scripture, I have then of my pains and search abundant recompense. Ye also some, of your tempted patience, which if not accustomed to such length or thorny difficulties, you may the rather bear for once with that is not usual: Consider what I have said, and the Lord give you understanding in all things.

And thus, with my sands run, I am at last arrived at the end of my way, whence 'tis usual to stand still and look back: Remember therefore, &c.

All which yet I desire to have taken as offered, and accepted as intended, non tam asserendo quam disquirendo, in the words of my great author, that I meant to propose only to attention and judgment, not so much with the confidence of a peremptory resolver as the modest haesitancy of a seeker and yet learner; and as One that had rather doubt of many things he thinks he knows, then over rashly determine, or impudently pronounce and contest for those things he thinks there is the least cause to doubt. The way was untrodden, where as it was not impossible to err at first, (nor improbable) so should it not be unpardonable, there to have stepped awry, where scarce any had set a foot before. It had been, easier to take on in the beaten road, as the fashion is, to skim the top, and by laying together by helf of a Concordance those places of sacred writ where Born and Again are mentioned, to have heaped together such Materials, and hammered out such a form of doctrine as those places, severally and jointly, would have afforded: But the vein of precious metal lies lightly deeper, the surface of the ground there is often dry and barren, and to lay a sure foundation of true interpretation, it may be needful sometimes to dig deeper then the very text in its originals, The Scriptures are, I confess, light of themselves, and have from heaven to guide our souls into the ways of peace, but if they chance to burn dim (as in many hard places they must be confessed to (do or have their light eclipsed by any interpositions, (worst of the rubbish contracted by time) the light of a candle there may not be despised for help, to light us at least up to their sense, nor the snuffers of the Sanctuary (made though they were of profane gold from Ophir ) to trim the light, to quicken its brightness, to make it shine clearer, direct farther, guide surer then otherwise of itself, it would or could: And for this the things delivered have, I hope, here some use. I say again, it had been easier to have been the following Chariot, to have traced others, to have kept the beaten path, when not only the comfort of society might happily have lightened some burden of the way, but the directing feet of passenger before have preserved from error, and guided surer and safer those that were to follow after: But this liked not me. This had been but to repeat others toughts, I esteem it more to add of mine own; as counting it more answerable to the desire and expectations of good men, and greater advantage to truth, to be the author of one new thought, then the continuer or repeater of twenty: which is more then to trade with the old stock, to lay in by addition somewhat of new store, to make a beneficial and fruitful increase of what is already come in, and to set up a new mark or stand as it were, to direct yet farther into the terra in cognita of divine mysteries, then past discoveries or intelligences have, or could have brought us acquainted with. But a grain of truth is precious, yet more, of Christian truth, most of all, in the profoundest, obscurest, richest, divinest mysteries thereof; toward discovery whereof these things I hope may afford some light: and so leaving all to your consideration, meditation, application, conclude, as I use, by giving due praise and honor to our most glorious and most gracious Lord God, by whose gracious favor it is, that we have thus leave to meet in his house, to inquire and learn the things of his council and will; who bless the opportunities to his own allowed ends, that we may proceed from knowledge to knowledge, from virtue to virtue, from faith to faith, til we be perfect in Christ Jesus our Savior: To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be honor and praise everlasting. Amen.