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ACTS Chap. V.

ANanias and Sapphira set up as everlasting monuments to all generations of God's just indignation against the despisers of the Spirit of Christ. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Spirit of Messias was in honorable mention and esteem in the Nation, in their common speech, though they would not know him when he was revealed. Now the sin of this couple was first covetousness, but especially presuming to play false, and yet thinking to go undiscovered of that Spirit which wrought so powerfully in the Apostles. That cursed opinion that denies the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, runs parallel with this sin of Ananias and Sapphira to a hair.

Peters warrant for this execution we may read in that passage, John 20. 22, 23. He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins ye remit they are remitted, and whose sins ye retain they are retained. How? To forgive sins absolutely? this belongs only to God. Was it to forgive them declaratively? This seem too low a construction, and too restrained: It seemeth therefore the most proper meaning of this donation, that he now endued them with power, to avenge what sins the Holy Ghost [now received] should direct them, to avenge, with bodily plagues, giving up to Satan, or with death: and again to remit such penalties as they should be directed to remit, and they should be remitted. The Holy Ghost whom they had received then with so peculiar a power, Ananias and Sapphira do here plainly vilify, and affront directly; therefore an execution of such power upon them was as proper and direct. But be it whether it will, that Peter took his warrant originally from thence, or had it instantly by some immediate revelation, as the judgment was fearful, so his executing of it was remarkable, showing at once his assurance of the pardon of his own lying against his Master, when he can and dare thus avenge a lie against the Holy Ghost: and also his just zeal and activity for the honor of his Master whom he had denied.

It is said in ver. 12. They were all in Solomon's porch, which was the East cloister of the mount of the Temple, and in part of it did the Sanhedrin now sit, and the Apostles not afraid to act so near them: But at last they are apprehended and imprisoned, but miraculously enlarged, and preaching in the Temple again: and thereupon convented before the Council. Gamaliel, Paul's Master was now President, and continued in this dignity till within eighteen years of the destruction of the City. He pleadeth here for the Apostles, not out of any love to their persons or doctrine, for he lived and died a downright Pharisee: but partly because he saw the Sadducees at present the chief agents against them, and chiefly because the miracles they wrought were so plain and convincing, that he could move no less then what he did. And yet for all the fairness of this man at this time, yet did he afterward ordain and publish that prayer called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The prayer against Heretics, meaning Christians; framed indeed by Samuel Katon, but approved and authorized by this man, President of the Sanhedrin [then at Ja •• eh ] and commanded to be used constantly in their Synagogues, in which they prayed against the Gospel and the professors of it. Taanith. fol. 65. 3. Maym. in Tephil. per. 2.

ACTS CHAP. VI, VII.

THE seven Deacons [as they are commonly called] chosen by occasion of the Hellenists murmuring against the Hebrews about neglect of their widows. The Hebrews were Jews the inhabitants of Judea, and the Hellenists those Jews that lived in other Countries dispersedly among the Greeks: Not only in Greece, but almost in all other Countries, which the conquests of Alexander, and the continuance of the Syrogrecian Monarchy after him had filled with Greeks, as all Countries also were filled with Jews.

In all the Jews Synagogues there were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Parnasin, Deacons, or such as had care of the poor, whose work it was to gather alms for them from the Congregation, and to distribute it to them. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 There were two that gathered alms for them and one more added to distribute it to them. Maym. in Sanhedr. per. 1. R. Chelbe in the name of R. Ba bar Zabda saith, They appoint not less then three Parnasin. For if judgment about pecuniary matters were judged by three, much more this matter which concerneth life is to be managed by three. Jerus. in Peah fol. 21. col. 1. That needful office is here translated into the Christian Church: and the seven are chosen to this work out of the number of the hundred and twenty that are mentioned, Chap. 1. 15. and that company only was the choosers of them, and not all the Believers in Jerusalem. The reason why the Hebrews neglected the widows of the Hellenists may be supposed, either because they would stick to their old rule, mentioned once before, That a widow was to be maintained by her husbands children. Talm. in chetub. per. 11. Maym. in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 per. 18. [compare 1 Tim. 5. 4.] or because the Hebrews of Judea had brought in more into the common stock for the poor, by sale of their Goods and Lands, then those that had come from foreign Countries had done, they not having Goods and Lands so ready to sell. All that had been brought in hitherto, had been put into the Apostles hands, and they had been burdened with the care and trouble of the disposal of it: but now they transfer that work and office to the seven, solemnly ordaining them by Imposition of hands into it, and here only, the Imposition of the Apostles hands confers not the Holy Ghost, for these men were full of the Holy Ghost before.

Stephen an eminent man among them, is quarrelled by certain of the Libertines, and the Hellenists Synagogue. Libertini 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 are exceeding frequently spoken of in the Jews Writings. And the Alexandrian Synagogue [one of the Hellenists ] is mentioned in Jerus. in Megillah. fol. 73. col. 4. and Juchas. fol. 26. who tell, that R. Eliezer bar Zadoc took the Synagogue of the Alexandrians that was at Jerusalem, and employed it to his own use.

When they are not able to overpower him by argument and disputation, they take a ready way to do it, by false accusation, and conventing him before the Sanhedrin: where being accused of vilifying Moses, and speaking of the destruction of that place, he is vindicated, even miraculously, before he pleadeth his own cause, by his face shining like the face of Moses, and bearing an Angelical aspect and Majesty; for indeed he spake but what was spoken by the Angel Gabriel, Dan. 9. 26, 27.

In his Apology, he speaketh to the heads of his accusation, but somewhat abstrusely; yet so as to them to whom he spake to be well understood, his discourse being according to their own Rhetoric and Logic: To what was laid to his charge, for vilifying Moses, and saying, his customs should be changed, he rehearseth in brief the whole history of Moses, and shows he was Orthodox to him; but yet he driveth all to this, that as the times before Moses were still moving and growing on to settlement in Moses, so when Moses himself had settled all he had to do, yet he pointed them to a Prophet yet to come, to whom they should hearken as the ultimate Oracle, which was this Jesus that he preached to them. And whereas he was accused for speaking of the destruction of the Temple, he first shows, that fixedness to this or that place, is not so much to be stood upon, as appears by the flitting condition of the Patriarchs [whose flittings he giveth the story of at large] and by the moving condition of the Tabernacle before the Temple was built: And when the Temple was built, it was not because God would confine himself to one place, for the most High dwelleth not in Temples made with hands, ver. 48. &c.

He inserteth two or three sharp and true accusations of them, whereas theirs of him had been but false and causeless. As, that their fathers had persecuted those tha • foretold of Christ, as they did him for now preaching him, and they followed their fathers steps; nay went further, for they had murdered Christ, whereas their fathers had but murdered his Prophets. And whereas they were so punctual, about the Ceremonious rites given by Moses, they neglected the moral Law, which was given by the disposition of Angels.

This cuts them to the heart, that they pass a rancourous and furious sentence of death upon him: but he hath a sight of the high bench of Heaven, God and Christ at his right hand, their judge and his: A most fit prospect for the first Martyr.

They cast him out of the City and stone him for blasphemy. For these were to be stoned. He that went in to his mother, or to his fathers wife, or to his daughter in Law, or to a male, or to a beast: and he that blasphemed, or that committed Idolatry, &c. And the place of stoning was out from the place of Judgment, [nay out of the City, as the Gemarists resolve it] because it is said, Bring him that cursed, out of the Camp. And A crier went before him, that was to die, proclaiming his fault. Sanhedr. per. 6. & 7.

When he was come within four cubits of the place of stoning, they stripped him naked: only covered his nakedness before. Ibid.

And being come to the very place, first the witnesses laid their hands upon him, Maym. in Avodah Zarah per. 2. and then stripping off their coats that they might be more expedite for their present work, first one of them dasheth his loins violently against a stone that lay for that purpose: if that killed him not, then the other dasheth a great stone upon his heart, as he lay on his back: and if that dispatched him not, then all the people fell upon him with stones. Talm. ubi sup.

Steven in the midst of all this their fury, and his own anguish, gets on his knees and prays for them: and having so done he fell asleep. The Jews do ordinarily use the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to signify Dying, which properly signifies sleeping, especially when they speak of a fair and comfortable death: which word Luke translates here. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 All that were stoned were also hanged up upon a tree. Talm. ubi sup. Whether Steven were so used is uncertain, but it is evident that he had a fair burial, and not the burial of a malefactor.

[CHRIST. XXXIV] ACTS CHAP. VIII.

A Great persecution followeth the death of Steven: in which Saul was a chief agent, Scholar of Gamaliel [President of the Sanhedrin ] and it may be the busier for that. In Talm. Bab. Sanhedr. fol. 43. col. 1. they say, Jesu had five Disciples, Mathai, Nakai, Netser, Boni and Thodah, and they are urging reasons there, why they should all be put to death, &c.

All the hundred and twenty Ministers mentioned, Chap. 1. 15. are scattered abroad [only the twelve stay at Jerusalem as in the furnace to comfort and cherish the Church there in so sad a time] and they preach all along as they go, and so Satan breaks his own head by his own design, for by persecution by which he had contrived to smother the Gospel, it spreads the more.

The first plantation of it mentioned, is in Samaria, and that according to Christ's own direction, and foretelling, Act. 1. 8. Ye shall be witnesses to me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, &c. He had forbidden them before, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any City of the Samaritans do not enter, Matth. 10. 5. but now that partition wall that had been between, is to be broken down. Of all Nations and people under Heaven the Samaritans were the most odious to the Jews, and a main reason was, because they were Jews Apostates. For though the first peopling of that place, after the Captivity of the ten Tribes, was by Heathens, 2 King. 17. yet upon the building of the Temple on mount Gerizim, such multitudes of Jews continually flocked thither, that generally Samaritanism was but a mongrel Judaism. They called Jacob their father, expected Messias, had their Temple, Priesthood, Service, Pentatuch, &c. And to spare more, take but this one passage in Talm. Jerus. Pesachin fol. 27. 2. The Cuthaeans all the time that they celebrate their unleavened bread feast with Israel, they are to be believed concerning their putting away of leaven: If they do not keep their unleavened bread feast with Israel, they are not to be believed concerning their putting away of leaven. Rabban Gamaliel saith, All the Ordinances that the Cuthaeans use, they are more punctual in them then Israel is. It is an unhappy obscurity that the Hebrew Writers have put upon the word Cuthaeans, for though it most properly signify Samaritans, yet have they so commonly given this name to Christians, as the most odious name they could invent to give them, that in the most places that you meet with it, you cannot tell whether they mean the one or the other. In the place cited, it seemeth indeed most likely that it means the Samaritans, because it speaks of their keeping the feast of unleavened bread, and using the Ordinances of Israel: unless it speak of those Jews that had received the Gospel and become Christians, and were fallen to their Judaism again, and joined that with their Christianity, which very many did, as we shall have occasion to observe hereafter.

Simon Magus taketh upon him to believe and is baptized: The naming of him calls to mind the mention of one Simon a Magician that Josephus speaks of, Antiq. lib. 20. cap. 5. who was a means to entice Drusilla from her former husband to go and marry Felix the Governor of Judea, this might very well be that man. And it minds of a passage in Tal. Jerus. in Jebamoth fol. 13. col. 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 I cannot but render it, The Simonians came to Rabbi, and said to him We pray thee give us a man to be our Expositor, Judge, Minister, Scribe, Traditionary, and to do for us all we need. I know what 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is in Tal. Bab. in Cholin. fol. 15. But certainly 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 means some people, but whence so named, there is no disputing here.

Philip baptized Samaria, and did great wonders among them, but could not bestow the Holy Ghost upon them: that power belonged only to the Apostles; therefore Peter and John are sent thither for that purpose. They laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost: Not upon all, for what needeth that? Or what reason was there for it? The gifts of the Holy Ghost that were received, were these miraculous ones, of Tongues, Prophesy, &c. Acts 10. 46. & 19. 6. Now of these there were but these two ends, 1. For the confirmation of the doctrine of the Gospel, such miraculous gifts attending it. And 2. for instruction of others: for Tongues were given indeed for a sign, 1 Cor. 14. 22. but not only for a sign, but for edification and instruction, as the Apostle also showeth at large in the same Chapter. Now both these ends were attained, though they that received the Holy Ghost were not all, but only a few and set number: nay the later not conceivable of all, for if all were enabled miraculously to be Teachers, who were to be taught? The Imposition therefore of the Apostles hands, mentioned here and elsewhere, and those passages, These signs shall follow those that believe, they shall cast out Devils, they shall speak with Tongues, &c. Mark 16. 17. Repent and be baptized everyone of you, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, Act. 2. 38, &c. were not upon all that believed the Gospel, and were baptized: but upon some certain number, whom they were directed by the Holy Ghost to lay their hands upon, as those men that God had appointed and determined for Preachers and Ministers to the people, and who by the Imposition of the Apostles hands, receiving the Holy Ghost, were by those gifts enabled to understand the language and sense of Scripture, and to be instructors of the people, and to build them up.

Candaces Eunuch, having been at Jerusalem to worship, and returning back is converted by Philip. [Of Candace Queen of Meroe in Ethiopia, see Strabo lib. 17.] He met with him in the way that lead from Jerusalem to Gaza the desert. Of this place Strabo again lib. 16. speaketh thus, Then is the haven of the Gazaeans: above which, some seven furlongs, is the City, once glorious, but ruined by Alexander 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and it remaineth desert. Diodorus Siculus calls it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The old Gaza, lib. 19. for another was built at the haven by the Sea side, called sometimes Maiuma. Sozom. Eccles. hist. lib. 5. cap. 3. and afterward Constantia, named so by Constantine after the name of his sister: as saith Euseb. de Vit. Constant. lib. 4. cap. 28. or as Sozomen, of his son Constantius.

Whether this Eunuch were a Jew or a Proselyte is scarce worth inquiring: his devotion is far more worth spending thoughts upon, which brought him so long a journey, and employed him so well in his travail, as in reading the Scripture. He is baptized in the name of Jesus, ver. 37. and [as it may well be conceived] takes ship at Gaza, and is the first, that we find, that carried the profession of Jesus into Africa. The mention of which, may justly call our thoughts to consider of the Temple built in Egypt by Onias, and the vast numbers of Jews that were in that and the Countries thereabouts, and yet how little intimation there is, in the New Testament Story, by whom or how the Gospel was conveyed into those parts.

Philip is wrapped by the Spirit from Gaza to Azotus, which were 270 furlongs, or 34 miles asunder, as Diodorus. Sicul. ubi supra, measures.

ACTS CHAP. IX. from the beginning to Vers. 23.

THE conversion of Paul: A monument of mercy, 1 Tim. 1. 14, 16. A Pharisee, a persecutor, a murderer, yet become a Christian, a Preacher, an Apostle.

He consented to Stevens death: and after that he gets a Commission from the chief Priests, and makes desperate havoc in Jerusalem, Act. 8. 2. & 22. 4. & 26. 10.

We find all along this Book, that the chief Priests are not only the busiest men in persecuting of the Gospel, but in many places it is related so, as if they were the only men and had entire power in their own hands, as a peculiar Court, to give Commissions, to judge, condemn and execute: as it hath been and is the opinion of some, that there was an Ecclesiastical Sanhedrin distinct from the Civil.

It is true indeed that there was in the Temple a Consistory only of Priests, which sat in the room called Parhedrin, and Liscath Buleute, The Chamber of the Council: but these sat not there, as Magistrates over the people, but only as a Consistory, to take care of the service and affairs of the Temple, that nothing should be wanting, nor nothing slacked that was required about it, or that conduced to the promoting of the service of it, and their power extended not beyond that virge. Any other Concessus or Consistory of Priests alone, then this, I believe cannot be shown in any records of that Nation, and this is far from the power and constitution of a Sanhedrin. The Talmud indeed in Chetuboth per. 1. Halac. 5. speaketh of a Beth din, or Consistory of the Priests which required four hundred zuzims in dower or jointure for a virgin: Which seemeth to assert this as a peculiar Court, invested with distinct power from the other. But the Gemarists, especially the Babylonian do make it plain, that no such thing can be inferred from this action: for they tell us that the Priests determined this business of four hundred zuzims dower to their own daughters, only for the honor of their Tribe and blood: So that this was not any act of judicial power binding others, but an act of consent among themselves to keep up the credit of their Function and Families. But here is not time and place to discuss this point [a matter of no small Controversy] further then what may give illustration to the subject before us.

How to understand therefore this judicial activity of the chief Priests throughout this book, the Evangelist hath given us a rule betime in the story, Chap. 4. ver. 5. Where he shows that the whole Sanhedrin is to be understood, of which the Priests were a great, if not the greatest part, and were in this cause the busiest men. In case of necessity, there might be a Sanhedrin, though never a Priest or Levite was of it, for so is their own Canon, namely if fit men of either rank were not to be found; but in common carriage, and experience they were the greatest and most potent number, as whose profession and Function bespake studiousness and pleaded honor. In all the New Testament we meet but with these men by name, of all the Sanhedrin. Annas, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, Gamaliel, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea. And how many of these were not Priests? Gamaliel indeed was of the Tribe of Judah, and of the Progeny of David, being grandchild of Hillel. But as for all the rest, some of them were undoubtedly of the Priesthood, and the others more probably so too, then of any other Tribe: Of Annas and Caiaphas there is no question: And if John, Acts 4. 6. be the eminentest John that was then among them, it means Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai, who was now Vicepresident of the Council, and he was a Priest as Juchasin tells us. And if Nicodemus be the same with the eminentest Nicodemus of those times of whom Avoth R. Nathan per. 6. and Talm. bab. in Cetubboth fol. 66. make mention [as we have no cause to think otherwise] then was he by their plain description a Priest likewise. And so was Joseph of Arimathea, if his style and title 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 be to be understood according to the common speech of the Nation, as there can be no reason why it should not be so understood. And as for Alexander, of whom is least evidence, it is not worth spending so much time upon as to discuss, since these already mentioned may be witness enough.

In all the busy stirring therefore of the Priests in this story of the Acts of Apostles, as Chap. 7. 1. & 23. 2. and about this Commission of Saul, we are not to take them as a distinct and separate power from the Sanhedrin, but as a part of it, and such as whose Function and interest, as they thought, did most of all the other urge them to look to the prevention of this growing evil of the Gospel, as they did, as heartily, as erroneously repute it: and therefore the story doth more especially pitch upon them as the most stirring men. And so Paul himself doth help to interpret Luke's relation. For whereas Chap. 9. 1, 2. it is said, Saul went to the high Priest and desired of him letters to Damascus, he who best could tell how this should be understood, explains it thus, Chap. 22. 5. Of the High Priest, and of all the estate of the Elders I received letters to the brethren, &c. The words of all the estate of the Elders determine the point we have in hand, and the other words to the brethren, call us to the consideration of another: and that is, how far the Sanhedrins decrees and injunctions had power and command over the Jews in foreign Lands. By producing the words of one of their Acts we shall better judge of this matter and understand the words to the brethren, both at once.

In Talm. Jerus. Sanhedr. fol. 18. col. 4. they say thus, For the three Countries they intercalated the year for Judea, and beyond Jordan and Galilee. For two of them together they did it, for one alone they did it not. There is a story of Rabban Gamaliel and the Elders, that they sat at the going up to the Temple, and Jochanan the Scribe sat before them: Rabban Gamaliel saith to him, Write. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 To our Brethren that dwell in the upper South Country 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And to our Brethren that dwell in the lower South Country, Peace be multiplied to you. We give you to understand that the time of setting forth your tithes is come, &c. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And to our Brethren of Galilee the upper, and Galilee the lower, Peace be multiplied unto you. We give you to understand that the time of setting forth your tithes is come, &c. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And to our Brethren of the captivity of Babel, of Media, of Greece, and the whole captivity of Israel, Peace be multiplied unto you: We give you to understand, that since the Lambs are yet little, and young Pigeons small, and the time of the first ripe ears is not yet come, that it seemeth good to me and to my fellows to add thirty days unto this year. And the very same is related again in Maasar sheni fol. 56. col. 3. By which we see that when Luke saith, that Saul had the Sanhedrins letters to the brethren, he speaks but the very language that such letters used to speak in: and by this we see also, that their letters missive to their brethren in foreign Lands, were rather Declarations then Commands: For it was not so much the awe of the Sanhedrins power reaching to those remote places, that kept the whole Nation to obedience of their decrees, as it was their innate and inured ambition to be held and kept a peculiar and distinct and conform people, and their devotedness to their Law and Worship, the great Oracle of which they held the Sanhedrin to be, in all ages. Such letters may we conceive were these to the Synagogues at Damascus, not imperious, but declarative and persuasive: which before Saul had delivered [who was now 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Apostolus Synhedrii magni ] he is converted and designed for an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

He saw Christ, ver. 17. 1 Cor. 9. 1. though he saw him not: for as Israel at Sinai saw the Lord, not in any representation, but only his glory, so did he Christ in his glory, and a voice. And so they that travelled with him heard the voice, ver. 7. in its terrible sound, but they heard it not, Acts 22. 9. in its articulate utterance, so as to understand it, [the like to that in Joh. 12. 29.]

At three days end he receiveth his sight, and Baptism, and was filled with the Holy Ghost, ver. 17, 18. but how he received the last is somewhat obscure: whether before his Baptism or upon it, by immediate infusion as they did Chap. 10. 45. or by imposition of Ananias his hands; which if he did, as it was extraordinary for any besides an Apostle to confer the Holy Ghost, so could not Ananias do, or think of doing this, without an extraordinary warrant: Whether way it was, he is now so completely furnished with all accomplishments for his Ministry, that he confers not with flesh and blood, that is, not with any men, nor goes he up to Jerusalem, no not to confer with the Apostles, Gal. 1. 16, 17. but hath the full knowledge of the Gospel, and full assurance of his knowledge that it was right: And so he begins to preach in Damascus.

[CHRIST. XXXV] [CHRIST. XXXVI] These two years Paul spendeth in Damascus and Arabia, and Damascus again, Gal. 1. 17.

[CHRIST. XXXVII] ACTS CHAP. IX. from Vers. 23. to Vers. 32.

AFTER three years from his Conversion he cometh to Jerusalem, being driven from Damascus by a machination of the Jews, who had wrought with the Governor to apprehend him, but he is let over the wall in a basket, 2 Cor. 11. 32, 33.

He goeth up to Jerusalem to see Peter, Gal. 1. 18. but at his first coming thither, the Disciples are afraid of him, till Barnabas makes way for his entertainment, Act. 9. 27. His going to see Peter is to confer with the Minister of the Circumcision, himself being appointed Minister to the Uncircumcised: And how Barnabas who was to be his fellow should come to be acquainted with him before any of the rest we can hardly find out any other way to resolve, then by conceiving he had some intimation from God of his own Apostleship among the Gentiles, and Paul's with him.

He stayeth at Jerusalem but fifteen days and seeth none of the Apostles, but Peter and James the less, Gal. 1. 18, 19. He preacheth boldly there, and disputes so vehemently with the Hellenists that they go about to kill him, Act. 9. 29. But why him, rather then Peter, James, Barnabas, and others that were now at Jerusalem? We may answer, Because he himself was a Hellenist, one once of their own College, and the more zealous he was now against them, the more incensed were they against him, for an Apostate, as they accounted him: and now he that with them had contrived the death of Steven, is forced by them to fly for his own life.

[CHRIST. XXXVIII] [CHRIST. XXXIX] [CHRIST. XL] ACTS CHAP. IX. from Ver. 32. to the end. And CHAP. X. all. And CHAP. XI. to Vers. 19.

THE Stories succeeding to ver. 19. of Chap. 11. as they are of a doubtful date, because neither the Historian here, nor any other part of. Scripture hath fixed the determinate time of their occurring, so is not the limiting of them to their year or time so very needful; if only it be secured, that they follow in time to those preceding that we have spoken to; and that we may be assured of their order, though we cannot be of their precise time. And this is easy to resolve upon, without much debate. The last verse of the former Section, informs us of a peace and rest come to all the Churches, and the beginning of this brings in Peter [as in this calm] passing through all quarters preaching and confirming them. And that this could not be but after the times of the stories mentioned hitherto, appeareth by this, that though it is true indeed, that Peter was abroad in Samaria upon the conversion of it, yet he was returned again to Jerusalem, Chap. 8. 25. and was there three years after, when Paul comes up thither.

This therefore is a new voyage, in which he doth three great things, healeth Aeneas of a Palsy at Lydda: raiseth Dorcas from the dead at Joppa; and openeth the door of the Gospel to the Gentiles in Cesarea.

Aeneas is a name that we find in the Jewish Writers. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 R. Samuel the son of R. Aeneas, is mentioned in Jerus. Jebamoth fol. 6. 2. And Lod or Lydda they speak exceeding frequently of, and produce remarkable stories and memorials of it. And indeed the quarters of Peters present walk, compared with the Hebrews records concerning these places, may well claim some observation. For when he is at Joppa he is in the middle, as it were, of those places which in a little time after this [nay it may be at this very time] were two of their greatest and eminentest Schools.

At Jabneh on the one hand of Joppa did the great Sanhedrin sit long: both before the destruction of Jerusalem and after: for when it began to be unsettled and to flit up and down forty years before the destruction of the City, its first removal from Jerusalem was hither: and here sat Gamaliel, Paul's Master, with his Sanhedrin a good space of time, and for ought can be said to the contrary, it might very well be there at this time when Peter was at Joppa.

Now as the Jews called that place Jabneh so the Gentiles called it Jamnia, and how near it was to Joppa you may guess from these words of Strabo, lib. 16. This place [speaking of Joppa ] was so populous that out of the neighbor Town Jamnia, and other places thereabout, it was able to raise 40000 men.

At Lydda on the other hand of Joppa, were most famous Schools, and eminent men as well as at Jabneh. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . It was a Town that wanted little of the bigness of the City. Joseph. Antiq. lib. 20. cap. 5. It lay West of Jerusalem a days journey off, as the Talmud seats it and measures, in Maasar Sheni per. 5. hal. 2. It was in Judea: And thereupon four and twenty of the School of Rabbi came thither to intercalate the year, but an evil eye came in upon them, and they died all at one time. Jerus. Sanhedr. fol. 18. col. 3. For they might not intercalate the year but in Judea, Maym. in Kiddush Hodesh per. 4. but upon this mischance they removed that business into Galilee. Here it seems the Sanhedrin sat also sometimes, or at least they had a great Bench of their own, for there is mention of stoning ben Satda at Lydda on the eve of the Passover, Ibid. fol. 25. 4. To reckon the stories and eminent men belonging to this place were endless, at the least it is needless here.

But the mention and gender of Saron which is also named with Lydda, Act. 9. 35. may plead excuse if we allege one or two Talmudic passages for the clearing of it, Jerus. in Sheviith fol. 38. 4. From Bethoron to Emmaus was hilly, from Emmaus to Lydda plain, and from Lydda to the Sea vale.

Idem in Sotah fol. 18. 4. R. Jochanan and R. Eliezer went from Jabneh to Lydda and met with R. Joshua in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Bekin.

Gittin per. 1. hal. 1. He that bringeth a bill of Divorce from a Heathen Country must be able to say, In my presence it was written and sealed in my presence: Rabban Gamaliel saith, Yea he that brings one from Rekam and Chagra. R. Eleazar saith, Yea he that brings one from Caphar Lodim to Lod. Rabbi Nissim upon the place saith thus: Caphar Lodim was out of the Land, near to Lod, which was within the Land, and it was so called because Lyddans were always found there.

Jerus. in Beracoth fol. 3. 1. They brought a chest full of bones from Caphar Tobi and set it openly at the entering in to Lod. Tudrus the Physician came, and all the Physicians with him, &c.

Besides observing, that Tobi is the name of a man [ Rabban Gamaliel's servant. Beracoth per. 2. hal. 7.] as Tabitha is the name of a woman in the story before us; the word Saron being of the masculine gender, it plainly tells us that it is not the name of a Town, but of the plain or flat where divers Towns stood, and among others it may be these mentioned.

ACTS CHAP. X. all the Chapter.

LIttle inferior to these places for Learned men, was Cesarea upon the Sea, and beyond them for other eminencies. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Doctors of Cesarea are of exceeding frequent and exceeding renowned mention in both Talmuds: and by name R. Heshai the great; R. Achavah, R. Zeira, R. Ada, R. Prigori, R. Ulla, R. Tachalipha and several others. It was anciently called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Stratons tower, but sumptuously built and beautified by Herod the great, in honor of Caesar, it was called Cesarea. It was mixedly inhabited by Jews and Gentiles, and much of an equal number; and most commonly well fraught with Roman soldiers, because the Governors residence was ordinarily here.

Of some of these Bands was Cornelius a Captain: a man come to an admirable pitch of piety, and it is hard to imagine how he came by it: For that he was not so much as a Proselyte, is apparent, in that they at Jerusalem cavil at Peter for going to him, as to a Heathen. And whether he were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A sojourning stranger as they called some, is not much material, since by their own judgment 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A sojourning stranger was as a Gentile to all purposes, Jerus. Jebamoth fol. 8. col. 4. Whencesoever he learned faith in Christ, his full knowledge of Christ he learned from Peter: he having a warrant by vision to send for Peter, and he a warrant by vision to go to him.

Here the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven committed to Peter so long ago, Matth. 16. do their work: opening the door of faith first to the Gentiles, which never was shut since, nor ever will be whilst there is a Church to be upon the Earth. Jonah at Joppa, and Simon bar Jonah there, both sent to the Gentiles, compare together.

Upon Peters preaching, the Holy Ghost falls upon those Gentiles that were present, to the amazement of those of the Circumcision that had come with Peter: for they had not only not seen the like before, but had been trained up, while in their Judaism, under a maxim of a clean contrary tenor, which taught them That the Holy Ghost would dwell neither upon any Heathen, nor upon any Jew in a Heathen Country. Cesarea was [as the Jews reputed] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 between the borders: that is, a place disputable whether to account within the Land or without, or indeed both, Juchas fol. 74. And so were also other places upon this Western border of the Land, the great Sea shore: as Acon or Ptolemais, Jerus. challah fol. 60. col. 2. Askelon, Idem Sheviith fol. 36. 3. and divers others, but all things computed, no fitter place in the Land could have been chosen for the beginning of this great work of bringing Jews and Gentiles together into one bound, then this: not only because this City was both Jew and Gentile, within the Land and without, but also, because here was the Roman Court the chief of the Gentiles, and the mentioning of Cornelius his being of the Italian Band, hinteth such an observation.

The Holy Ghost at this its first bestowing upon the Gentiles, is given in the like manner as it was at its first bestowing upon the Jewish Nation, Act. 2. namely by immediate infusion: at all other times you find mention of it, you find mention of Imposition of hands used for it. But here it may be observed withal, that whereas the fruit of this gift of the Holy Ghost was, that they spake with Tongues, verse. 46. it confirmeth that which we spake at Chap. 2. viz. that the first fruit of this gift of Tongues was, that they that had it, were enabled to speak and understand the Originals of the Scripture: And here it appeareth more plainly then there: And more plainly still in those twelve at Ephesus, Acts 19. 6. And those that spake with Tongues in the Church of Corinth, 1 Cor. 14. For to what purpose was it for them to speak there with Tongues where they all understood the same Language? It was not to gibber and talk in strange Language that men might admire but not understand, but it was for edification of others, yea and for edifying of himself that so spake, 1 Cor. 14. 4. He that speaketh a Tongue edifieth himself: How? What could he speak in any strange Language to his own edification, which he might not as much edify himself by, had he spoken it in his own native Tongue? But only that this is meant, his ability by the gift of Tongues, to understand and speak the Original language of the Scripture, was both for his own edification and the edification of others. Suppose one in the Church of Corinth could speak Persick, Arabic, Ethiopic, &c. and did chatter these Languages among them; he could not possibly speak anything in those Tongues [though interpreted] that could edify the people anymore, then if he spake it in his mother Tongue: But if he spake and understood and uttered the Original language of Scripture, that if interpreted, would edify: and he could not speak in his mother Tongue, unless taken from thence, what he might speak thence.

Peter returning to Jerusalem is taken to task by some of the Circumcision for going in to the Gentiles and eating with them: a thing of unspeakable detestation to the Jews: Hence those allusions: Let him be to thee as a Heathen, Matth. 18. With such a one no not to eat, 1 Cor. 5. We find not any such quarrel at Peter and John for going down to Samaria, though the Samaritans were as odious to the Jewish Nation as people could be, but they were neither uncircumcised, nor Idolaters: both which, especially the latter, bred their detestation of the Heathen.

[CHRIST. XLI] ACTS CHAP. XI. from Vers. 19. to the end of the Chapter.

AS Cesarea the seat of the Roman Governor of Judea, first seeth the door of faith opened to the Gentiles, so Antioch the seat of the Roman Governor of Syria, first heareth the name Christian. These of the hundred and twenty Ministers [mentioned, Acts 1. 15.] that had fled upon the persecution raised against Steven, went preaching up and down first as far as the bounds of Judea extended: then some of them stepped out, as far as into Phaenice, Cyprus and Syria, but all this while dealing with the Jews only. At last some of them at Antioch 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 spake to the Hellenists ver. 20. Here the word Hellenists is of doubtful interpretation: only this is doubtless in it, that it means not Jews, as the word doth, Acts 6. 1. for it is set in opposition to them, ver. 19. Doth it mean Proselytes then? That it cannot neither, for they were reputed as Jews to all purposes. Means it Heathens? Yes, that is undoubted it doth, both by the scope of the story here, and by the quarrel urging these believers at Antioch to be Circumcised, Chap. 15. But why then should they be called Hellenistae rather then Hellenes? Some conceive, because they were become 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Proselyte sojournours, meaning that they had forsaken their Idolatry: as Cornelius had done his, though he were not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a Proselyte circumcised: But what if these were native Syrians by pedigree and language, could they then for that be called Hellenists or Greeks? The word therefore must mean, that they were such as were Syrogrecians; Antioch itself indeed having been once the head of the Syrogrecian Empire: Hellenes or purely Greeks they could not be called [though it will not be denied they spake that Language] because they were not only no inhabitants of that Country, but not altogether of that blood: but such as were of a mixture of Syrian and Greek; the progeny of the old plantations and infranchisments of the Syrogrecian Monarchy. Whatsoever their title Hellenists includeth, they being undoubtedly Heathens, it showeth that these Ministers preached to them, understood of the liberty given to preach to the Gentiles, and the passage betwixt Peter and Cornelius, or they durst not have been bold to have gone beyond the partition wall without their warrant: And the readiness of the Church at Jerusalem to send Barnabas to them, shows that they also were satisfied in this matter, and so this evidenceth that this story was after that about Cornelius.

Their sending Barnabas, and his fetching Saul to the same work with him, giveth some confirmation of that which was touched before, namely that it is very probable that Barnabas knew of his own being designed for a Minister to the uncircumcision, and of Paul's being joined with him in that work, a great while before they were sent away from Antioch upon it: They now spend a whole year in the Church there, and there the Name Christian is first taken up, and that in a Gentile Church. Antioch of old had been called Hamath, but now it bare the name of one that had been as bloody a persecutor of the Church and truth: as the Church of Israel had ever seen, Antiochus. The very name of the place may raise a meditation.

ACTS CHAP. XII, XIII.

HERE we meet with some scruple in Chronology, and about the precedency of the story in these two Chapters: for though the actions in Chap. 12. be laid first, and that very properly, that the story of Peter may be taken up together, and concluded before the story of Paul come in, which is to be followed to the end of the Book, yet there may be just question whether, the sending of Paul and Barnabas from Antiotch to preach among the Gentiles, which is handled in the beginning of Chap. 13. were not before some, if not all those things related in Chap. 12. And the question ariseth from these two scruples. 1. Because it is doubtful, in what year of Claudius the famine was, that is spoken of Chap. 12. 28. And 2. because it is obscure, how long Paul and Barnabas staid at Antioch after their return from Jerusalem, Chap. 12. 25. before they were sent away among the Gentiles. But about this we need not much to trouble ourselves: since as to the understanding of the stories themselves, there can be little illustration taken from their time: save only as to this, that the public Fast in the Church of Antioch, may seem to have some relation to some of the said stories mentioned before, as coincident with them, or near to them, namely, either the famine through the world, Chap. 11. 28. or the persecution in the Church, Chap. 12. We shall not therefore offer to dislocate the order of the stories, from that wherein they lie, the Holy Ghost by the intertexture of them rather teaching us, that some of them were contemporary; then any way encouraging us to invert their order. Only these things cannot pass unmentioned, toward the stating of their time and place, partly of coincidency, and partly of their succeeding one the other, and which may help us better to understand both.

• 1. That whereas Dion the Roman Historian lib. 60. hath placed a sore famine [at least at Rome ] in the time of Claudius, in his second year: Josephus carries it, Antiq. lib. 12. cap. 2. as if the bitterness of it at Jerusalem, were in his fourth, which Euseb. in Chron. determines positively; both may be true; for, for famines to last several years together is no strange thing in History, Divine or Human, nor in experience in our own age.
• 2. That Herod Agrippa's murdering of James, and imprisoning of Peter could not be before the third year of Claudius: for Josephus a witness impartial enough in this case, informs us, that Claudius in his second Consulship, which was indeed the second year of his reign, made an Edict in behalf of the Jews, and sent it through the world, and after that sent Agrippa away into his own Kingdom: Now his Consulship beginning the first of January, it was so next impossible that those things should be done at Rome, and Agrippa provide for his journey and travel it, and come to Jerusalem, and murder James and apprehend Peter, and all before the Passover, (unless he hasted as it had been for a wager) that he that can believe Peter to have been imprisoned in Claudius his second year of Consulship and reign, must exceedingly straiten the time of these occurrences, to make room for his belief.
• 3. In the third year of Claudius, therefore, are those stories in Chap. 12. to be reputed; only the last, about Herod's death, in the beginning of his fourth, for a Passover in his fourth Herod lived not to see.
• 4. It may be observed that Luke hath placed the going up of Paul and Barnabas with the alms of the Church of Antioch to the poor of Judea, before the murder of James, Chap. 11. 30. but their return thence, not till after that, and Herod's death, Chap. 12. 25. not that thereupon we are necessarily to think that they staid there so long, as while all those things in Chap. 12. were acting, but that by that relation the story of Paul and Barnabas is begun again, and we may very well conceive, for all that postscript of Luke after the story of James his Martyrdom, Peters imprisonment, and Agrippa's death, their return to Antoich, and going from thence among the Gentiles, Chap. 13. to have been at that time while some of the things in Chap. 12. occurred.

We will therefore take the Chapters up in the order in which they lie, and only carry along with us in our thoughts, a supposal that some of the stories in either might concur in time. And because we have found here some need to look after the Years of the Emperor, which we have not had before, and shall have much more, forward, especially when we come up to the times of Nero, it may not be amiss to affix their Years also, as they went along concurrent with the Years of our Savior.

[CHRIST. XLII] [CLAUDIUS. II] The famine begun: the Church of Antioch send relief into Judea.

[CHRIST. XLIII] [CLAUDIUS. III] ACTS CHAP. XII. from the beginning to Ver. 20.

JAMES beheaded by Herod, for so doth the Jews Pandect help us to understand these words, He slew James with the sword. Talm. in Sanhedr. per. 7. hal. 3. They that were slain by the sword were beheaded, which also was the custom of the Kingdom; that is, of the Romans.

The ceremonious zeal of Agrippa in the Jewish way, bending itself against the Church, may be construed as a Jewish act, wicked, as upon the score of that Nations wickedness and guilt.

The underling condition in which they had lain all the time of Gaius [he having no good affection to that people] being now got loose and aloft knows no bounds: and being somewhat countenanced by the Edict of Claudius, they cannot be content with their own immunities, unless they seek also the suppression of the Christian Church. Though Claudius his Proclamation had this special clause and caveat, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that they should not go about to infringe the liberty of other men's Religion. This unbounded encroaching of theirs did within a little time cause the Emperor, who had now made a Decree for them, to make another against them.

Peter designed by the murderer for the like butchery, escapes by miracle: and the Tyrant before that time twelve month, comes to a miraculous fearful end.

ACTS CHAP. XIII. from beginning to Vers. 14.

THE Divine Historian having hitherto followed the Story of the Church and Gospel as both of them were dilated among the Jews, and therein pitched more especially upon the Acts of Peter and John the singular Ministers of the Circumcision, more peculiarly Peters: he doth now turn his Pen, to follow the planting and progress of the Gospel among the Gentiles, and here he insisteth more especially upon the Story of Paul and Barnabas the singular Ministera of the uncircumcision, more peculiarly Paul's.

There were now in the Church of Antioch five men which were both Prophets and Teachers, or which did not only instruct the people and expound the Scriptures, but had also the Prophetick spirit and were partakers of Revelations: For though Prophets and Teachers were indeed of a distinct notion, 1 Cor. 12. 28. Ephes. 4. 11. and their abilities to teach were according of a distinct original, namely the former by revelation, and the latter by study, yet 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , [which phrase may not pass without observation] according to the state of the Church then being, they not only had prophetic Teachers, but there was a kind of necessity they should have such, till time and studdy had enabled others to be Teachers, which as yet they could not have attained unto, the Gospel having been so lately brought among them.

Among these five, the names of Barnabas and Saul are no strangers to the Reader, but the other three are more unknown.

• 1. Simeon who was called Niger: If the word Niger were Latin, it might then fairly be conjectured, that this was Simon of Cyrene, the Moorish complexion of his Country justly giving him the title of Simeon the black; but since the Patrionymick, Cyrenean, is applied only in the singular number to the next man Lucius, and since the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was then used among the Jews in several significations, as may be seen in Aruch, we shall rather conceive this man a Cypriot from Chap. 11. 20. and as Barnabas also was, Chap. 4. 36. and his surname Niger whatsoever it signified, used to distinguish him from Simon Peter, and Simon the Canaanite.
• 2. Lucius of Cyrene: Held by some and that not without some ground to be Luke the Evangelist: which it is like hath been the reason, why antiquity hath so generally held Luke to be an Antiochian: true, in regard of this his first appearing there under this name Lucius though originally a Cyrenian, and educated as it may be supposed in the Cyrenian College or Synagogne in Jerusalem, Chap. 6. 9. and there first receiving the Gospel. In Rom. 16. 21. Paul salutes the Roman Church in the name of Lucius, whereas there was none then in Paul's retinue whose name sounded that way but only Luke: as we shall observe there.
• 3. Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch. Juchasin fol. 19. mentioneth one Menahem who was once Vicepresident of the Sanhedrin under Hillel, but departed to the service of Herod the great, with fourscore other eminent men with him: of whom we gave some touch before: It may be this was his son, and was called Manaen or Menahem after the father, and as the father was a great favourite of Herod the great the father, so this brought up at Court with Herod the Tetrarch the son.

As these holy men were at the public ministration with fasting and prayer, the Holy Ghost gives them advertisement of the separating of Paul and Barnabas, for the Ministry among the Gentiles. A mission that might not be granted, but by such a divine warrant; considering how the Gentiles had always lain behind a partition wall to the Jews: For although Peter in the case of Cornelius had opened the door of the Gospel to the Heathen, yet was this a far greater breaking down of the partition wall, when the Gospel was to be brought into their own Lands and to their own doors: When God saith, Separate them to the work whereunto I have called them, it further confirmeth that it was and had been known before that they should be Ministers of the uncircumcision.

The Romish glossaries would fain strain the Mass out of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the Rhemists think they have done us a courtesy, that they have not translated it to that sense: whereas, besides that the word naturally signifieth any public ministration, the Holy Ghost by the use of it seemeth to have a special aim, naimely to intimate to us, that this was a public fast, as well as another public ministration. Public fasts were not ordinary services, and they were not taken up but upon extraordinary occasions, and what the present occasion might be, had been a great deal better worth studying upon, then how to make the Greek word speak the Mass which it never meant.

How public fastings and days of humiliation were used by the Jews, and upon what occasions, there is a special Treatise in the Talmud upon that subject, called Taanith, and the like in Maymony, that beareth witness: and it was no whit unsuitable to the Gospel, upon the like exigencies to use the like kind of service and devotion: And the present famine that was upon all Countries might very well minister occasion to this Church at Antioch at this present for such a work, for we cannot but suppose that the famine was now in being.

Whatsoever the occasion was, the Lord, in the midst of their humiliation, pointeth out Paul and Barnabas, for an employment of his own, who were but a while ago returned from an employment of the Churches: And so the other three Simeon, Lucius, and Menaen, understanding what the Lord meant, and having used another solemn day in fasting in prayer, lay their hands upon them and set them apart by Ordination. According as the ordaining of Elders among the Jews was by a Triumvirate, or by three Elders. Sanhedr. per. 1. halac. 3.

This is the second Imposition of hands since the Gospel began, which did not confer the Holy Ghost with it [for these two were full of the Holy Ghost before: and this is the first Ordination of Elders since the Gospel, that was used out of the Land of Israel. Which rite the Jewish Canons would confine only to that Land. Maym. Sanhedr. per. 4. Which circumstances well considered, with the employment that these two were to go about, and this manner of their sending forth, no better reason I suppose can be given of this present action, then that the Lord hereby did set down a platform of ordaining Ministers in the Church of the Gentiles to future times.

Paul and Barnabas thus designed by the Lord and ordained and sent forth by this Triumvirate and guided by the Holy Ghost, they first go to Seleucia: most likely Seleucia Pieriae, of which Strabo saith, that it is the first City of Syria from Silicia, Geogr. lib. 14. to which Pliny assenteth, when he measureth the breadth of Syria, from Seleucia Pieriae to Zeugma upon Euphrates, Nat. hist. lib. 5. cap. 12. The reason of their going thither may be judged to be, that they might take ship for Cyprus, whither they intended, for that this was a Port, appeareth by what follows in Strabo, when he saith, That from Seleucia to Soli is about a thousand furlongs sail: and so it is plain in Luke's Text when he saith, they departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus: where let us now follow them.

Cyprus was a Country so exceeding full of Jews, that it comes in for one in that strange story that Dion Cassius relates in the life of Trajan. The Jews [saith he] that dwelt about Cyrene, choosing one Andrew for their Captain, slew the Greeks and Romans, and eat their flesh, and devoured their inwards, and besmeared themselves with their blood, and wore their skins. Many they sawed asunder from the head downward, others they cast to wild beasts: many they made to slay one another, so that there were two hundred and twenty thousand destroyed in this manner. There was the like slaughter made in Egypt and Cyprus, where there also perished two hundred and forty thousand. From whence it is that a Jew may not since come into Cyprus: and if any by storms at Sea be driven in thither, they are slain. But the Jews were subdued by others, but especially by Lucius whom Trojan sent thither. This was the native Country of Barnabas, Act. 4. 36.

Although these two Apostles were sent to the Gentiles, yet was it so far from excluding their preaching to the Jews, that they constantly began with them first in all places where they came.

They begin at Salamis, the place next their landing, and there they preached in the Synagogues of the Jews, having John Mark for their Minister.

From thence they travailed preaching up and down in the Island, till they come to Paphos which was at the very further part of it, toward the Southwest Angle. There they meet with a Magical Jew called Barjesus, and commonly titled Elymas, which is the same in sense with Magus: Such Jewish deceivers as this went up and down the Countries to oppose the Gospel, and to show Magical tricks and wonders, for the stronger confirming of their opposition. Such were the vagabond Jews exorcists, Act. 19. 13. and of such our Savior spake, Matth. 24. 24. and of some such we may give examples out of their own Talmudical Writers. And here we may take notice of a threefold practice of opposition that the Jews used in these times and forward against the Gospel and the spreading of it, besides open persecution unto blood.

1. Much about these times was made the prayer that hath been mentioned which was called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The prayer against Heretics, which became by injunction one of their daily prayers. Maymony speaketh the matter and intent of it in his Treatise Tephillah, in these words: In the days of Rabban Gamaliel, Heretics increased in Israel [by Heretics he meaneth those that turned from Judaism to Christianity] and they troubled Israel, and persuaded them to turn from their Religion. He seeing this to be a matter of exceeding great consequence, more then anything else, stood up, he and his Sanhedrin, and appointed a prayer, in which there was a petition to God to destroy those Heretics: and this he set among the common prayers, and appointed it to be in every man's mouth, and so their daily prayers became nineteen in number. Perek. 2. So that they daily prayed against Christians and Christianity.

2. The Jews had their emissaries everywhere abroad, that to the utmost in them cried down the Gospel, preached against it, went about to confute it, and blasphemed it and Christ that gave it: Of this there is testimony abundant in the New Testament: and in the Jews own Writings.

And 3. they were exceeding many of them skilled in Magic, and by that did many strange things, by such false miracles seeking to outface and vilify the Divine miracles done by Christ and his Apostles: and striving to confirm their own doctrines which opposed the Gospel, by backing them with such strange and wondrous actings. Juchasin speaks of Abba Chelchia, and Chamin, and Chamina Ben Dusa, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 men skilled in miracles, fol. 20. And the Jerus. Talmud speaks of their inchantings, and magical tricks in Shabb. fol. 8. col. 2. & 3. Sanhedr. fol. 25. col. 4. nay even of their charming in the name of Jos • . Shabb. fol. 14. col. 4.

Paul miraculously strikes Elymas blind, and enlightens Sergius Paulus with the light of the Gospel. This was at Paphos where old superstition dreamed of the blind God Cupid. Doting Elymas grope for thy fellow. The first miracle wrought among the Gentiles is striking a perverse Jew blind, which thing may very well become an Allegory.

From Paphos they go to Perga in Pamphilia, and there John departs from them and returns to Jerusalem: but what was the occasion is hard to conjecture. Whether it were that he heard of Peters trouble and danger that he had been in at Jerusalem, and desired to see him, for that he had some special interest and familiarity with Peter, may be collected from 1 Pet. 5. 14. and in that Peter was so well acquainted at his mothers house, Act. 12. 12, &c. Or whether in regard of this his relation to Peter the Minister of the Circumcision, he made it nice to go among the Gentiles into the thickest of which he saw they were coming every day more then other. For at Paphos where they had last been, was a Temple of Venus, and at Perga, where they now are, was a Temple of Diana. Strab. lib. 14. Pomp. Mela. lib. 1. cap. 14. Or whatsoever the matter was, his departure was so unwarrantable, that it made a breach betwixt him and Paul for the present, nay it occasioned a breach betwixt Paul and Barnabas afterward. And so we leave him in his journey to Jerusalem, whither when he came, he stayed there till Paul and Barnabas came thither again.

[CHRIST. XLIV] [CLAUDIUS. IV] ACTS CHAP. XII. from Ver. 20. to Ver. 24.

HERODS death was in the beginning of this year, the fourth of Claudius or near unto it, according as Josephus helpeth us to compute, who testifieth that the third year of his reign was completed a little before his death. Vid. Antiq. lib. 19. cap. 7. He left behind him a son of seventeen years old, in regard of whose minority, and thereby unfitness to reign, Claudius sent Cuspius Fadus to Govern his Kingdom. His daughters were Berenice sixteen years old, married to Herod King of Chalcis her fathers brother: And Mariam ten years old, and Drusilla, six, who afterward married Felix.

[CHRIST. XLV] [CHRIST. XLVI] [CHRIST. XLVII] [CHRIST. XLVIII] [CHRIST. XLIX] [CLAUDIUS. V] [CLAUDIUS. VI] [CLAUDIUS. VII] [CLAUDIUS. VIII] [CLAUDIUS. IX] ACTS CHAP. XIII. from Ver. 14. to the end of the Chapter. And CHAP. XIV.

AT the fifteenth Chapter we have some fasmess of the time, viz. in what year the Council at Jerusalem, as it is commonly called, did occur; which certainty we have not of the times of the occurrences henceforward thitherto: so that since we cannot determinately point any passage to its proper year, we must cast them in gross under this gross sum of years, and distribute them to their proper seasons by the best conjecture we can.

From Perga in Pamphilia, Paul and Barnabas come to Antioch in Pisidia, and on the Sabbath day going into the Synagogue, are invited by the Rulers of the Synagogue, after the reading of the Law and Prophets to speak a word of exhortation to the people: But how could the Rulers know that they were men fit to teach? It may be answered▪ By former converse with them in the City, and it is very like that the Rulers themselves had drunk in some affection to the Gospel by converse with them, which made them so ready to urge them to preach: For it is not imaginable that this was the first time that they had seen them: not that they came to Town that very day, but that they had had some converse before.

Paul preacheth: and the Synagogue broke up, and the Jews gone out, the Gentiles desired that the same words might be preached to them in the week between, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : namely on the second and fifth days of the week following, which were Synagogue days, on which they met in the Synagogues as on the Sabbath day: And which days, their Traditions said, were appointed for that purpose by Ezra. Talm. in Bava Kamah. per 7. R. Sol. and Nissim in Chetubboth per. 1. in Alphes. Their preaching on those days had so wrought, that on the next Sabbath almost all the City was gathered together to hear the word: and many of the Gentiles receive it, but the Jews stirred up some female unbelieving proselytes against them, and some of the chief of the City, so that they drave them out of those coasts, and they shaking off the dust of their feet against them go to Iconium. This Ceremony enjoined them by their Master, Matth. 10. 14. was not so much for any great business put in the thing itself, as that even from a tenet of their own, they might show how they were to be reputed of. It was their own Maxim, That the dust of a Heathen Country or City did defile or make a person unclean. Tosaphta ad Kelim per. 1. hath this saying, In three things Syria was like unto any Heathen Land: The dust of it made a person unclean, as the dust of any other Heathen Country did, &c. So that their shaking off the dust of their feet against them, was to show that they reputed them and their City as Heathenish.

ACTS CHAP. XIV.

AT Iconium they continue long, and with good effect, but at last they are in danger of stoning, and thereupon they slip away to Lystra and Derbe Cities of Lycaonia, and to the region that lieth round about: That region Strabo describeth lib. 12. where among other particulars he tells that Derbe lay coasting upon Isauria, and in his time was under the dominion of Amyntas. At Lystra or Derbe Paul converteth Lois and Eunice, and Timothy, and as some will tell you, here, or at Iconium he converteth Tecla. For healing a Creeple they are first accounted God's, but presently by persuasion of some Jews, Paul is stoned, but being reputed dead, recovereth miraculously. From thence they go to Derbe, and return to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, and ordain Elders in those Churches. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ver. 24. is improperly rendered here Per suffragia creantes Presbyteros: for so they could not do; there not being a man in all these Churches fit to be chosen a Minister, or qualified with abilities for that Function, unless the Apostles by Imposition of hands bestow the Holy Ghost upon them, which might enable them: For the Churches being but newly planted, and the people but lately converted, it would be hard to find any among them so thoroughly completed in the knowledge of the Gospel as to be a Minister: but by the Apostles hands they receive the Holy Ghost, and so are enabled. It is true indeed, the Greek word in the first sense denoteth suffrages, but that is not the only sense. And so doth the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the proper sense signify laying on of hands, yet there was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ordination that was without it. Maym. in Sanhedr. 4. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 How is ordination to be for perpetuity? Not that they lay their hands on the head of the Elder, but call him Rabbi, and say, Behold thou art ordained. &c.

[CHRIST. L] [CLAUDIUS. X] ACTS CHAP. XV.

WE are now come up to the Council at Jerusalem. The occasion of which was the busy stirring of some, who would have brought the yoke of Mosaic observances upon the neck of the converted Gentiles. Multitudes of the Jews that believed, yet were zealous of the Law, Act. 21. 20. and it was hard to get them off from those Rites, in which they had been ever trained up, and which had been as it were an inheritance to them from their fathers: This bred this disturbance at the present, and in time an Apostasy from the Gospel of exceeding many. Antiquity hath held that Cerinthus was the chief stickler in this business; but whosoever it was that kindled it, it was a spark enough to have fired all, had it not been timely prevented.

Paul and Barnabas who had chiefly to deal in the ministration to the Gentiles, are sent from Antioch to Jerusalem to consult the Apostles about this matter. This is the same journey and occasion that is spoken of Gal. 2. Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me. And I went up by revelation, &c. Not but that he was sent by the Church as Luke hath asserted here, verse. 2. but that the Church was directed by revelation to take this course for the settling of the question, namely to send up to the Apostles at Jerusalem. And hence we may fix the time of this business, if it be resolved from whence the beginning of these fourteen years is to be dated, namely whether he mean fourteen years after his first conversion, or fourteen after his former journey to Jerusalem, mentioned Gal. 1. 18. which he took three years after his conversion. The later is the more undoubted, upon these two observations. 1. It were exceeding obscure, and is exceeding unagreeable to Scripture accounting, to reckon the later sum of fourteen years from the time of his conversion, and not from the number or time that went next before, which was his being at Jerusalem three years after he was converted. 2. His scope in that his discourse is, not to show barely what journeys he took to Jerusalem after his conversion, but to show how long he preached among the Gentiles and abroad out of Judea time after time, and yet when he came to the Apostles to Jerusalem, they found no fault with him, nor with the course he took in his Ministry. After I was converted I went not to Jerusalem to consult the Apostles, but went into Arabia, and back again to Damascus, and so preached up and down, one utterly unknown by face to the Apostles; yet when after three years thus doing I came up to Peter the Minister of the Circumcision, he was so far from contrarying the course that I had gone, that he gave me fifteen days entertainment. And after that time I went through Syria and Silicia, and abroad among the Gentiles, yet after fourteen years employment in this kind, when I went up to Jerusalem again, I found fair respect with the Apostles and they gave me the right hand of fellowship. This drift of the Apostle being observed in that place, which cannot be denied, if his main purpose through the whole Epistle be observed, it evidently stateth the time of this journey to Jerusalem to be seventeen years after his conversion.

When Paul and Barnabas came to Jerusalem, they applied themselves singularly to Peter, James and John the Ministers of the Circumcision, and imparted to them the doctrine, and manner of dealing that they had used among the Gentiles, Gal. 2. 2. And this they did that they might clear themselves of all false rumors, that might be laid to their charge [as if they crossed the doctrine and mind of the Apostles] and that they might have their judgment and concurrence along with them. With Paul there was Titus, who hitherto had been uncircumcised, all along in his attending and accompanying Paul: and even now at Jerusalem, though he were before the Apostles of the Circumcision, yet was he not forced to be circumcised there neither; because there were some false Brethren who lay upon the catch to observe and scandal the liberty of the Gospel that the Apostles used, and they were unwilling to give way to them in any such condescension, lest they should have wronged the Gospel. For though Paul allowed the Circumcision of Timothy, and though even these Apostles persuaded Paul to use some of the Mosaic ceremonies, Act. 21. 24. for avoiding offense to the weak, and for the more winning of those that were well satisfied, yet would they not yield an inch in any such thing to these catchpoles that lay upon the lurch, to spy out something if it might have been whereby they might have disgraced the Gospel.

Well: the result of the Apostles conference is, that the three of the Circumcision, neither detracted from what the two of the uncircumcision had done already, nor added anymore things to be done by them hereafter: But they agree that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Heathen, and they themselves to the Circumcision: desiring only that though they went among the Gentiles, yet they would remember the poor of the Circumcision, which they consented to, and all was well concluded betwixt them.

But they that urged for the imposition of Moses his yoke would not be so satisfied, but the matter must come to a public canvass, and so the Elders also met together with those Apostles to consider of it.

Peter would have none of Moses burdens laid upon the Gentiles, because he himself had seen them to have been partakers of the Holy Ghost, in as free and full a measure, as they had been that had been most Mosaical. Paul and Barnabas affirmed that they had seen the like, and therefore what needed the Gentiles to be troubled with these observances, seeing they were so eminent in gifts of the Spirit as well as they of the Circumcision and what could these add to them. But James findeth out a temper betwixt those that would have all these yokes imposed, and those that would have none, that so the Jews might have the less offense, and the Gentiles no burden neither. And that was, that the Gentiles might be required to restrain from eating things offered to Idols, and strangled, and blood, and fornication. The three first were now become things indifferent [however strictly they had been imposed by the Law before] Christ having by his death done down the partition wall, and laid these things aside as useless when there was to be no distinction of meats or Nations anymore: yet because the Jews were so glued to these things that the tearing of them away suddenly, would in a manner have fetched up skin and flesh and all, therefore the whole Council upon the motion of James think it fit that the Gentiles should thus far Judaize, till time and fuller acquaintance with the Gospel might make both Jews and Gentiles to lay these now needless niceties aside.

The Jews about these things had these Canons among many others.

Avodah Zarah. per. 2. These things of Idolatry are forbidden, and their prohibition meaneth the prohibition of their use. Wine and vinegar used in Idolatry which at first was wine, &c. And flesh that was brought in for Idolatry is permitted to be used [ viz. before it was offered] but what is brought out is prohibited.

And bottles and cans used in Idolatry, and an Israelites wine put in them are prohibited to be used.

Maymon. in Avoda Zarah per. 7. A beast offered to an Idol is forbidden for any use: yea even his dung, bones, horns, hoofs, skin: yea though there were only a hole cut in the beast to take out the heart, and that alone offered. Divers other things used in Idolatry are mentioned and prohibited.

The observing of all which helpeth to clear the distinction of the words used in the Text, namely 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for these properly were not one and the same thing, for every 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , bu •… contra, every 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . For divers things were used at an Idolatrous offering, which themselves were not offered, as knives, dishes and the like, which cannot be called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and yet by these traditions were profane and unclean, and prohibited to be used.

About not eating of blood, they expounded the prohibition of the Law in that point, unto this purpose, He that eats blood to the quantity of an olive, if presumptuously, he is to be cut off, and if ignorantly, he is to bring a sin offering. Talm. in Cherithuth per. 1. & 5. Maym. in Maacaloth Asuroth per. 6.

By things strangled their Canons understood anything that died of itself, or that was not killed as it ought to be. And he that eat to the quantity of an olive, of the flesh of any cattle that died of itself, or of any beast, or any fowl that died of itself, was to be whipt, as it is said, Ye shall eat no carcase: and whatsoever was not slain as was sitting, is reputed as if dying of itself. Talm. in Zevachin per. 7. Maym. ubi super per. 1. Therefore they had their rules about killing any beast that they were to eat, of which the Talmudic Treatise Cholin discusseth at large.

Now as concerning fornication, it is controverted, first whether it mean bodily or spiritual: and secondly, how it cometh to be ranked among things indifferent [as the other named were] itself being of no such indifferency, whithersoever is meant, the one or the other. The former certainly is not meant, for the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 reacheth that to the full, and more needed not to be spoken to that point: The later therefore is meant: but why named here with things indifferent? Not because it was indifferent as well as they: Nor because it was so very offensive to the Jews as were the other: for they made but little of fornication themselves, according to the common taking of the word fornication: but fornication here seemeth to translate their word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that meaneth with them marriages in degrees prohibited: which the Gentiles made no matter about: and so the Apostles would bring the convert Gentiles under obedience of the Law, Levite. 18.

Before we part from this Council, as it is commonly called, we may thus far take notice of the nature of it as to observe, that it was not a convention premediated, and solemnly summoned, but only occasional and emergent, and that it was only of those Apostles and Elders that were at Jerusalem, at the instant when the matter from Antioch was brought thither, and the other Apostles that were abroad were not fetched in, nor indeed needed any such thing: for the message from Antioch required not so much the number of voices, as the resolves of those Apostles that had especially to deal with the Circumcision: and whom the Antiochian Church doubted not to find ready at Jerusalem.

The matter being determined, Letters are dispatched, with the Decrees, unto the Churches by Paul and Barnabas, and Judas and Silas: they come to Antioch and there abide a while: and at last go their several ways, Judas to Jerusalem, and Paul, Barnabas and Silas away among the Gentiles.

It was the agreement between Paul and Barnabas on the one party, and Peter, Jame • and John on the other, that those two should go among the Gentiles, and these three among the Circumcision, Gal. 2. 9. James abode at Jerusalem as the residentiary Apostle of that Country, Gal. 2. 13. Act. 21. 18. and there at last he suffered Martyrdom. Peter and John went abroad among the Jews dispersed in foreign parts, so that at last you have Peter at Babylon in the East, and John at Patmos in the West, and by this we may guess how they parted their employment between them.

When Paul and Barnabas are to set forth, they disagree about Marks going with them. Barnabas being his uncle, would have had his company, but Paul denied it, because of his departure from them before. Mark it seemeth was at Antioch at this time [and it may be a quaere whether Peter were not there also, Gal. 2. 11.] and when the contest twixt Paul and Barnabas was so sharp that they part asunder, Barnabas taketh Mark and Paul Silas, and go their several ways, and it is questionable whether they ever saw one another's faces anymore. Only Paul and Mark were reconciled again and came into very near society, as we shall observe afterward.

[CHRIST. LI] [CLAUDIUS. XI] ACTS CHAP. XVI.

PAul and Silas having travelled through Syria and Silicia, come to Derbe and Lystra: there he Circumciseth Timothy, whom he intended to take along with him and to breed him for his successor in the Ministry after his death. Timothy was a young man of very choice education, parts and hopes, and some remarkable Prophesies and predictions had been given concerning him, what an instrument he should prove in the Gospel, which made Paul to fix upon him, as one designed for him from Heaven.

They set forth an • travel Phrygia and Galatia, and when they would have gone into Asia and Bithynia the Spirit forbad them, because the Lord would hasten them into Macedonia unto a new work, and such a one as they had not meddled withal till now, and that was to preach to a Roman plantation, for so the Text doth intimate that Philippi was, ver. 12. and ver. 21. and so saith Pliny, lib. 4. cap. 11. He had indeed been always in the Roman dominions, but still among other Nations, as Jews, Greeks, Syrians and the like, but we read not that he was in any City of Romans till here. And his going to preach to that people is so remarkable, that the Text seemeth to have set two or three notable badges upon it. For that Nation lieth under so many sad brands in Scripture, and lay under so great an abominating by the Jews, that the Gospels entering among them, hath these three singular circumstances to advertise of it. 1. That the Spirit diverted Paul from Asia and Bithynia to hasten him thither. 2. That he was called thither by a special vision, the like invitation to which he had not in all his travels to any other place. 3. The Penman doth not join himself in the story till this very time. For hitherto having spoken in the third person, he and they, as He came to Derbe, ver. 1. They went through the Cities, verse. 4. &c. he cometh now to join himself, and to use the word We and Us. After he had seen the vision immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us, verse. 10.

Yet was this City mixed also of abundance of Jews living among them, as that people was now dispersed and sowed in the most places of the Empire, from Rome itself Eastward, however it was on this side: On the Sabbath, by a river side where the women it seemed used their bathings for purification, and where was a Synagogue, they preach and convert Lydia a proselytess, and she is instantly baptized and her household before she go home, for ought can be found otherwise in the Text: from whence we may observe what believing gave admission to Baptism to whole households. In this Roman Colony it is observable that the Synagogue is called proseucha, and that it is out of the Town.

Paul casteth out a spirit of divination, and is thereupon beaten and imprisoned he and Silas, but enlarged by an earthquake, and the Jailor is converted: and he and his family instantly baptized. After a little while Paul and Silas depart, having laid the foundation of a very eminent Church as it proved afterward: from which Paul in his Epistle thither, acknowledgeth as many tokens of love received, as from any Church that he had planted: and to which he made as many visits afterward. When he departeth he had ordained no Ministers there for ought can be gathered from the Text, and it may be, he did not, till his return thither again, which was the course he had used in other Churches, Acts 14▪ 23. He speaketh of divers fellow-laborers that he had there in the Gospel, both men and women, Phillip 4. 3. which cannot be understood of preaching, but that these being converted, they used their best endeavor to persuade others to embrace the same Religion, &c.

ACTS CHAP. XVII.

PAUL and Silvanus, and Timothy come to Thessalonica, where they make many converts, but withal find very much opposition. In three weeks space, or very little more, they convert some Jews, many Proselytes, and not a few of the chief Gentiles: women of the City: which number, considered with the shortness of the time in which so many were brought in, and the bitterness they endured from the unbelieving, made their piety to be exceedingly renowned all abroad, 1 Thess. 1. 6, 7, 8.

Persecution driveth the Apostles to Berea another Town of Macedonia, Plin. l. 4. c. 10. there they found persons better bred and better learned then that rabble mentioned ver. 5. that they had met withal at Thessalonica. The Jews called their learned men 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 filii nobilium: it may be Luke's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ver. 11. translates that: The rabble from Thessalonica brings the persecution hither also, so that Paul is glad to depart to Athens, but Silas and Timothy abide at Berea still.

At Athens there was a Synagogue of Jews and Proselytes, ver. 17. so that it is undoubted the Scholars of the University had heard from them the report of the true God; therefore Paul is not so much cried out upon, for telling them of the true God in opposition to the false, as for preaching of Jesus crucified, risen and glorified, which neither they nor even the Jews Synagogue there, had ever heard of before: for this he is convented before their great Court of Areopagus, where his discourse converts one that Bench, Dionysius.

ACTS CHAP. XVIII.

FROM Athens, Paul cometh to Corinth. Urbs olim clara opibus, post clade notior, nunc Romana colonia, saith Pomp. Mela. lib. 2. cap. 3. A little view of the City may not be useless. It stood in the Isthmus, or that neck of Land that lay and gave passage betwixt Peloponesus and Attica: upon which Isthmus the Sea pointing in, on either hand made Corinth a famous and a wealthy Mart Town, by two Havens that it had at a reasonable distance from it on either side it, the one Jochaeum, at which they took shipping for Italy and those Western parts: and the other Cenchraea, at which they took shipping for Asia: Merchandise arriving at these Ports, from those several parts of the World, were brought to Corinth which lay much in the middle between them, and so this City became the great Exchange for those parts. It lay at the foot of a high promont called Acrocorinthus, or the Pike of Corinth. The compass of the City was some forty furlongs or five miles about, being strongly walled. In it was a Temple of Venus, so ample a foundation, that it had above a thousand Nuns [such Nuns as Venus had] to attend upon it. The City was sacked by L. Mummius the Roman General, as for some other offense that it had given to that state, so more especially for some abuse shown to the Roman Ambassadors there. But it was repaired again by the Romans and made a Colony. Vid. Strabo lib. 8. Plin. lib. 4. cap. 4.

Paul coming hither findeth Priscilla and Aquila lately come from Italy, because of Claudius his Decree, which had expelled all the Jews from Rome▪ Of this Decree Suetonius speaketh, as he is generally understood, In Claudio cap. 25. Judaeos impulsore chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit. Claudius expelled the Jews out of Rome, who continually tumultuated because of Christ. In some copies it is written Christo, but so generally interpreted by Christians in the sense mentioned, that we shall not at all dispute it. The same quarrel was got to Rome with the Gospel, that did attend it in all parts of the world where it came among the Jews, they still opposing it and contesting against it, and so breeding tumultuousness.

The Apostle here, in a strange place, and out of monies, betaketh himself to work with his hands for his subsistence; as also he did in other places upon the same exigent. His work was to make Tents of skins such as the Soldiery used to lodge in when they were in the field: Hence the phrase, Esse sub pellibus. This Trade he learned before he set to his studies. It was the custom of the Jewish Nation to set their children to some trade, yea though they were to be students. What is commanded a father towards his son? To circumcise him, to redeem him, to teach him the Law, to teach him a Trade, and to take him a wife. R. Judah saith, He that teacheth not his son a trade, does as if he taught him to be a thief. Rabban Gamaliel saith, He that hath a trade in his hand to what is he like? He is like to a Vineyard that is fenced. Tosapht. in Kiddushin per. 1. So some of the great wise men of Israel had been cutters of wood. Maym. in Talm. Torah. per. 1. And not to instance in any others, as might be done in divers, [ Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai that was at this instant Vice-president of the Sanhedrin, was a Merchant 4 years, and then he fell to study the Law. Juchasin fol. 21.] Paul had power and warrant to challenge maintenance for preaching, as he intimateth many times over in his Epistles, but there was not yet any Church at Corinth to maintain him, and when there was, he would take nothing of the Gentiles for the greater honor and promotion of the Gospel. See 1 Cor. 9. 6, 11, 12.

He frequenteth the Synagogue every Sabbath, and there reasoneth and persuadeth divers both Jews and Greeks. But when Silas and Timothy were come from Macedonia, he was pressed in spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ, they having brought him tidings of the great proficiency and piety of Macodonian Churches, namely the Philippian and Thessalonian. See Act. 17. 14. 1 Thess. 1. 8. & 3. 6. upon whose example he was the more earnest to bring the Jews of Corinth on; but they oppose and blaspheme: whereupon he and Silas and Timothy set to work to build up the Gentiles there. The converts in this place were Crispus and Gaius, and the household of Stephanas, 1 Cor. 1. 14, &c. and Epenetus, Rom. 16. 5. He is called the first fruits of Achaia, and so is the household of Stephanas, 1 Cor. 16. 15. converted at his first coming thither. He now sets upon a new task having the Lord's encouragement by a vision by night, and so he stayeth at Corinth a year and an half.

In the time of this his abode there, he writeth THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS, which was the first Epistle that he wrote.

The poscript affixed to that Epistle doth date it from Athens [as it seemeth] because of that passage in Chap. 3. 1. We thought it good to be left at Athens alone: whereas 1. There was a Church in Achaia when Paul wrote this Epistle, Chap. 1. 7. now there was none there while Paul was at Athens, for from thence he went to Achaia, and began to plant the Church at Corinth. 2. Timothy and Silas were joint Writers with the Apostle of this Epistle, Chap. 1. 1. now if they were with him at Athens whilst he abode there, which it may be they were, at the least one of them, 1 Thess. 3. 1. yet was not the Epistle then written, for it is questionable whether Silas was there, and Timothy went a messenger thither, and returned again before this was written, Chap. 3. 6. The time of its writing therefore was when Timothy and Silas with him returned from Macedonia and came to Paul at Corinth, Act. 18. 5. and Timothy who had been sent thither purposely, gives a comfortable account of their faith and constancy. So that this Epistle was written from Corinth, somewhat within the beginning of the first year of Paul's abode there.

In it, among other things, he characterizeth the condition of the unbelieving Jews, Chap. 2. 15, 16. for the Thessalonian Church from its first planting had been exceedingly molested with them.

He saith, The wrath is come upon them to the utmost: which whether it mean passively, that the wrath of God lay so heavy upon them, or actively, that in their vexation and anger against the Gentiles, that was come upon them, that was foretold for a plague to them, Deut. 32. 21. it showeth that that Nation was now become unrecoverable: and so he looks upon it as the Antichrist in the next Epistle, as we shall observe there.

Paul abiding still at Corinth, a tumult is raised against him, and he is brought before the tribunal of Gallio the Proconsul, who refusing to judge in matters of that nature, [because the Jews themselves had power to judge such matters in their own Synagogue] the people become their own carvers, and beat Sosthenes even before the Tribunal. This Gallio was brother of Seneca the famous Court Philosopher, Nero 's Tutor: and of him Seneca giveth this high Encomion in the Preface to his fourth Book of natural Questions. I used to tell thee [saith he to his friend Lucius ] that my brother Gallio, whom no man loves not a little if he can love no more, is not acquainted with other vices, but this of flattery he hates. Thou hast tried him on all hands. Thou hast begun to praise his disposition—He would go away. Thou hast begun to praise his frugality, He would presently cut thee off at the first words: Thou hast begun to admire his affability and unaffected sweetness—For there is no mortal man so dear to any, as he to all—And here also he withstood thy flatteries, insomuch that thou criedst out, that thou hadst found a man impregnable, against those snares that everyone takes into his bosom. And again in Epist. 104. Gallio, saith he, when he was in Achaia and began to have a fever, he presently took ship, crying out, that it was not the disease of his body but of the place. To him he Dedicates his Treatise de Beata Vita. See more of this Gallio, Tacit. Annal. 15. Sect. 11.

From Corinth in the time of his present abode there [but whether before this tumult before Gallio or after, is not much material] Paul writeth THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS▪ whilst he and Sylvanus and Timothy were there together, Chap. 1. 1. as they had been at the writing of the first.

The exceeding much trouble and persecution that this Church had suffered from the unbelieving Jews from its first planting, Act. 17. 5, &c. 1 Thess. 1. 6. & 2. 14. & 2 Thess. 1. 4. gave the Apostle just occasion whilst he was present with them to discourse with them, and to inform them, concerning the condition and carriage and end of that Nation: that they might be settled and resolved to bear all whatsoever they should suffer from that accursed people and generation: and here he taketh up the same discourse again for their further establishment.

Besides outward molestation and affliction of their bodies, there were false teachers that troubled their minds, and especially with these two puzzles. 1. To make them to doubt what became of them that died in the faith and profession of Jesus: for whereas the Apostle handles the matter of the resurrection in the former Epistle, Chap. 4. 14. I cannot suppose that he doth it to them as to men of the Sadducee opinion, denying the resurrection, or as to men that had never heard of the resurrection before, for all the Jews, set the Sadducees aside, did assuredly believe it: but because that the opposers of the Gospel had buzzed to them their lost condition after death, for their revolting from the Jewish Religion, and becoming Apostates [as they reputed it] to the Gospel. The tenth Chapter of the Treatise Sanhedrin that names certain sorts of people that must not inherit the world to come, gives us good cause to suppose that this was no small terror that those envious opposers would perplex the minds of those withal, who had forsaken the Jewish Religion, and betaken themselves to the profession of Christ. The Talmudic place cited speaketh thus, All Israel hath a share in the world to come, as it is said, Thy people shall all of them be righteous: But these have no share in the world to come, He that saith, The resurrection is not taught in the Law, and that the Law is not from God, and Epicurus. Now by Epicurus they mean not luxurious ones, as the word Epicure is commonly used by us, but as the Gemara explains it there 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 One that despiseth their Doctors: and elsewhere they yoke it with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Apostates. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Apostates and Epicures. Rosh hashanah per. 1. and so they brought all that started from the vain doctrine of their traditionaries under this title, and under that terror of having no share in the world to come. 2. They went about to perplex the mind of these converts with urging how near the day of the Lord was. The Scripture, and the Apostle had spoken of the day of the Lord's coming, when he should come to take vengeance of the Jewish Nation for their wickedness and unbelief: and these would terrific this Church with inculcating the nearness of it, pretending for this, partly revelation, and partly the words or writing of the Apostle. The aim in this terror was to amaze the new believers and to puzzle them about what to hold, and what to do in that sad time, which they pretended was ready to fall upon their heads. The Apostle resolves that there was some good space of time to be before, for there was to be a falling away, and the man of sin to be revealed.

The phrase The man of sin and child of perdition, is plainly taken from that place, Isa. 11. 4. With the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked one: and the Apostle makes it clear that he referreth to that place, by using the very words of the Prophet, at ver. 8. Whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth. The Jews put an Emphasis upon that word in the Prophet, The wicked one, as it appeareth by the Chaldee Paraphrast, who hath uttered it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 He shall destroy the wicked Roman: And so the Apostle puts an Emphasis upon it, and translates it the Man of sin: And in that Christ is introduced in the Prophet, as having a special quarrel and vengeance against him, he is called the son of perdition, or he that is so certainly and remarkably to be destroyed. It is true, this meaneth the Roman, as the Chaldee, and our Protestant Divines by the warrant of John in the Revelation do interpret it: but in the first place and sense it meaneth the Jewish Nation, which proved Antichrist, as well as Rome ever did, and as far as Rome ever did, and before Rome ever did, and as long and longer then Rome hath yet done. As Jews and Rome joined in the murder of Christ, so are they joined in this character of Antichrist, but the Jews to be understood first: See ver. 7. the mystery of iniquity was already working when the Apostle wrote this Epistle, which cannot possibly be understood but of the Jewish Nation, and so it is explained again and again, 1 John 2. 18. & 4. 3. & 2 Joh. v. 7, &c.

The several characters that the Apostle gives of the Man of sin, agree most thoroughly to that generation and Nation, and so the Scripture plainly applies them to it.

• 1. There was a falling away in that Nation of multitudes that had embraced the Gospel. See Matth. 24. 12. Christ foretelling it, and Paul from thence, 1 Tim. 4. 1. by the later times that he there speaks of, meaning the last days of Jerusalem and the Jewish state, as the phrase is used in that sense abundantly. Such apostasy may be observed hinted in the Epistle to the Galatians, to the Hebrews, Colossians, Rev. 2. 4. 2 Tim. 1. 15, and to spare more, observe the conclusion of that Parable, Matth. 12. 43, 44, 45. So shall it be with this wicked generation. The Devil once cast out of it by the Gospel, but returned by their Apostasy.
• 2. How this Nation was the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the great opposer of the Gospel, needeth no instance to any that hath read the New Testament. And he that reads the Jewish Records, shall find evidence enough of it, of which we have given some brief account at Acts Chap. 13.
• 3. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Which exalts himself against everything that is called God or worshipped: were it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Against God, it were most true, to the very letter, their Scribes in the Temple of God itself, sitting and setting up their traditions above the commands of God, Matth. 15. 6. But how they exalted themselves against everything called God, or the Magistracy and those that were set over them, we may observe in such passages as these, 2 Pet. 2. 10. They despise government, &c. Jude v. 8. They despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities, &c. and in their own stories to endless examples.
• 4. As for the fourth mark mentioned, verse. 9. namely his coming after the working of Satan with all Magical power and delusion, our Savior had foretold it of that generation, Matth. 24. 24. compared with verse. 34. of that Chapter: and it is abundantly asserted by Scripture, by Josephus, and other of their own Writers, as we have given some examples before.

Now what the Apostle meaneth when he speaketh of one that letted [ verse. 6. And now ye know what withholdeth, and ver. 7. He who now letteth will let ] is of some obscurity; we may without offense give this conjecture. As the term The day of the Lord, is taken in Scripture especially in this double sense, for his day of judging the Jewish Nation, and for his day of judging all the world; so are we to understand a falling away, and a Man of sin of the Jewish Nation before the former, and a falling away and Antichrist, betwixt the former and the later. This last is readily concluded upon, to be the Papacy, and he that letted, to mean the Imperial power: but what was he that letted in the former, that the Antichrist among the Jews was not revealed sooner? I should divide this stake betwixt Claudius the Emperor [who by his decree against the Jews in Rome, Act. 18. 2. give a check by the appearance of his displeasure, to all the Jews elsewhere that they durst not tyrannize against the Gospel whilst he lived as they had done.] And Paul himself who by his uncessant travelling in the Gospel, and combatting by the truth everywhere against the Jews, did keep down very much their delusions and Apostasy whilst he was at liberty and abroad, but when he was once laid up, then all went to ruin, as see Act. 20. 29. 2 Tim. 1. 15, &c.

Paul when he departs from Corinth, leaves a Church fairly planted there, but how soon and how miserably it grew degenerate, we shall meet with cause to observe before it be long. He cometh to Ephesus, and striving to get up to one of the Feasts at Jerusalem, he leaves Priscilla and Aquila there. Thither, ere long, cometh Apollos, an excellent Scriptureman, but one that knew only the baptism of John, but they instruct him better. Not that these Tent-makers turned Preachers, but that having had so much converse with Paul, they were able in private conference to inform him better then yet he knew, from what they had learned from Paul.

ACTS CHAP. XIX. from Vers. 1. to Vers. 19.

OThers at Ephesus there were, that were no further gone in Christianity neither, then the knowledge of the Baptism of John: Paul asks them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost? They answer, We have not yet so much as heard whether the Holy Ghost be: In which words they refer to a common and a true tenet of the Nation, which was, that after the death of Ezra, Haggai, Zacharias and Malachi, the Holy Ghost departed from Israel and went up: Juchas. fol. 15. and they profess they had never yet heard of his restoring. And it is very probable, that they had never heard of Jesus; whom when Paul had preached to them, they embrace; and the Text saith, they were then baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus. Not that they were rebaptized, but that now coming to the knowledge of the proper end of Johns baptism, namely to believe in Jesus as ver. 4. they own their baptism to such an end and construction. For 1. What need had they to be rebaptized, when in that first baptism they had taken, they had come in to the profession of the Gospel and of Christ, as far as the doctrine that had brought them in could teach them? It was the change of their profession from Judaism to Evangelism, that required their being baptized, and not the degrees of their growth in the knowledge of the Gospel, into the profession of which they had been baptized already. How many baptisms must the Apostles have undergone, if every signal degree of their coming on to the perfect knowledge of the mystery of Christ, might have required, nay might have admitted a new baptizing? 2. If these men were rebaptized, then must the same be concluded of all that had received the baptism of John, when they came to the knowledge of Jesus: which as it is incredible, because there is not the least tittle of mention of such a thing, so is it unimaginable in the case of those of the Apostles that were baptized by John; for who should baptize them again in the name of Jesus, since Jesus himself baptized none? Joh. 4. 3. 3. These men had taken on them the baptism of repentance, and the profession of Christ, in the baptism of John, that they had received: therefore unless we will suppose a baptism of faith, different from the baptism of repentance, and a baptism in the name of Jesus different from the baptism in the name of Christ, it will be hard to find a reason, why these men should undergo a new baptizing.

And if it should be granted [which is against reason to grant,] that these men were really rebaptized, yet were not this a warrantable ground for rebaptization now, in regard of these main differences betwixt the case then and now. 1. That great controversy then on foot, about, Whether Jesus were the true Messias or no, which caused their rebaptization, if they were rebaptized. 2. The visible conferring of the Holy Ghost upon them, upon their baptism if they were rebaptized: as being a main induction of such a thing, if such a thing were, that the name of Jesus might be so apparently glorified, upon their being baptized in the name of Jesus: which indeed was equally glorified, when they received those gifts upon their acknowledging of Jesus, and owning their baptism that they had of old been baptized with, as a badge of that acknowledgment, though not baptized again.

[CHRIST. LIII] [CHRIST. LIV] [CLAUDIUS. XIII] [CLAUDIUS. XIV] ACTS CHAP. XIX. from Ver. 9. to Ver. 21.

THE Apostle hath a long time to stay at Ephesus: in which he first begins for the space of a quarter of a year to dispute in the Synagogue: and then when divers were hardened and believed not, he separated the Disciples, and disputed daily in the School of Tyrannus: Hitherto what converts there were to the Gospel, they resorted still to the public service in the Synagogue, where Paul reasoned daily for the truth of the Gospel: but finding dangerous opposition, he gets away the Disciples from thence, and in the School of one Tyrannus they are a particular Congregation.

In these great Towns where there were many Jews, both in Judea and elsewhere, they had a Synagogue and a Divinity-School: This Divinity-School they called Beth Midrash, and thither they used to go every Sabbath day, after they had been at the Synagogue: whereupon they had this for a common proverb, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : From the Synagogue to the Divinity-School. In the Synagogue they had prayers and reading of the Law, and plain Sermons of Doctrine, exhortation and comfort: In the Divinity-School were discussed and taught, dogmatical and controversial points concerning the difficulties of the Law, and other high matters. And hence it may be those different titles and administrations of Pastor and Teacher, Ephes. 4. 11. and He that teacheth, and he that exhorteth, Rom. 12. 7, 8. took their pattern: if Pastor mean one of the Ministerial function.

In the time of this stay of Paul at Ephesus, He fought with beasts there after the manner of men, 1 Cor. 15. 32. which seemeth to be understood, of a proper 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or fighting with wild beasts in the Theater, as was the barbarous and bestial custom of the Romans and those times. For 1. Observe in the hubbub of Demetrius, Paul's companions are hailed presently into the Theater, ver. 29. as if there the people had that that would take a course with them. 2. Observe that the Asiarchae or Theater-Officers are Paul's friends, as having knowledge and acquaintance of him and with him before. 3. Demetrius his uproar which was the greatest danger that Luke hath mentioned of him, was not till after he had written his Epistle to Corinth, in which, he speaks of fighting with beasts, and therefore that could not be meant. 4. The phrase 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 doth seem clearly to distinguish it from any combat in a borrowed sense. 5. The trouble that befell him in Asia, by which he was pressed above measure, and even despaired of life, 2 Cor. 1. 8, 9. cannot be understood so well of the tumult of Demetrius, for we read not of any hand laid upon Paul in it, as of some other danger nearer dearth.

In the latter year of these two above written, which was part of Paul's last year at Ephesus, on the 13th day of October of that year, Claudius the Emperor dieth, and Nero succeedeth him: a wretch whose memory is not worth looking after, unless it be for detestation: yet must we in our further progress of viewing the actions of Paul, and ranking his Epistles, be beholden to the Chronical observation of his years.

Paul himself saith to the Elders of Ephosus, By the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone▪ Acts 20. 31. And yet Luke in this Chapter specifieth only two years and a quarter, ver. 8. 10. The comparing of which two sums together, doth help us to measure the time of his abode there mentioned from ver. 20. and forward. Namely that he spent three months in disputing in the Jews Synagogue: and two years in the School of Tyrannus: and three quarters of a year after, in going up and down Asia. The expiration of his three years was about Pentecost in the first year of Nero.

[CHRIST. LV] [NERO. I] ACTS CHAP. XIX. Vers. 21, 22.

PAuls thoughts of going to Rome, do argue the death of Claudius, who had banished all the Jews from thence, Acts 18. 2. and that by the coming in of Nero, a new Emperor, that Decree was extinct, and freedom of access to Rome opened to them again: For it can be little conceived that Paul should think of going thither, when he could neither find any of his Nation there, nor he himself come thither without certain hazard of his life: as the case would have been if Claudius and his Decree were yet alive. It is therefore agreeable to all reason, that the death of Claudius, and the succession of Nero was now divulged, and Paul thereupon knowing that it was now lawful again for a Jew to go to Rome, intendeth to take a farewell journey and visit to Macedonia, Achaiah and Jerusalem, and then to go and preach there.

Claudius died the 13th day of October, as was said before, and Nero instantly succeeded him. A Prince of so much clemency and mansuetude in the beginning of his reign, that Titus the Emperor afterward used to say, that the best Princes exceeded not the first five years of Nero in goodness. And Seneca, if he flatter not the Prince, or his own tutorage of him, gives him this among many other Encomiums of him, Lib. de Clementia, which he dedicates to him: Potes hoc Caesar praedicare audacter, omnium quae in fidem tutelam{que} tuam venerunt, nihil per te, neque vi, neque clam, reipublicae ereptum. Rarissimam laudem, & nulli adhuc principum concessam concupisti, innocentiam: Nemo unus homo uni homini tam charus unquam fuit quam tu populo Romano, magnum longum{que} ejus bonum.

It must be some space of time before Claudius death could come to be reported at Ephesus: it is like, the new year after the Roman account, might be stepped in. Whensoever it was that Paul heard the news, and that a door of access to Rome was opened for the Jews again, he sets down his determination to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost, and then to set for Macedon, and back to Jerusalem, and then to Rome. Upon this resolution he sendeth Timothy and Erastus into Macedon before him: appointeth them to call at Corinth in the way, and intends himself to stay at Ephesus till they should come thither again to him, 1 Cor. 16. 10, 11.

Between Vers. 22. and Vers. 23. of this XIX CHAP. of the ACTS, falleth in the time of Paul's writing THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

He being now at Ephesus, and having set down the time of his removing thence, namely at Pentecost coming, 1 Cor. 16. 8. He had now been at Ephesus well towards three years, and had met with many difficulties; yet had so prevailed by the power of the Gospel, that not only all along hitherto many people were continually converted, but even now alate, many conjurers, and such as used magical Arts, devoted themselves to the Gospel and their books to the fire, and became the renewed monuments of the power and prevalency of the divine truth. This was that great and effectual door opened to him, of which he speaketh, 1 Cor. 16. 9. and which occasioned his stay at Ephesus still, when he had sent Timothy and Erastus into Macedonia, Acts 19. 21. In the time of which stay there, Stephanas, and Fortunatus and Achaicus, come from Corinth, 1 Cor. 16. 17. with Letters from the Church to Paul, 1 Cor. 7. 1. and he upon their return, returns his answer in this Epistle sent by Titus and another, 2 Cor. 12. 18. Some Postscripts have named Timothy for the the bearer, antedating his journey to Corinth, which was not in his going to Macedon, but in his return back, and when this Epistle had already given them notice of his coming that way, 1 Cor. 16. 10.

Apollos when Paul wrote this Epistle was with him at Ephesus, and was desired by Paul to have gone along with the brethren to Corinth, but he would not, 1 Cor. 16. 11. it may be because he would not countenance a faction there by his presence, which was begun under his name. The Church was exceedingly broken into divisions, which produced very doleful effects among them. These several enormities raged in that Church, though so lately and so nobly planted, and all originally derived from this first mischief of faction and schism.

1. A member of the Church had married his fathers wife, yea as it seemeth 2 Cor. 7. 12. his father yet living▪ which crime by their own Law and Canons deserved death: For he that went in to his fathers wife was doubly liable to be stoned, both because she was his fathers wife, and because she was another man's wife, whether he lay with her in his fathers life time, or after his death. Talm. in Sanhed. per. 7. & Maym, in Issure biah. per. 1 & 2. And yet they in the height of the contestings they had among themselves, did not only, not take away such a wretch from among them, nor mourn for the miscarriage, but he had got a party that bolstered him up and abetted him: and so while they should have mourned they were puffed up. His own party in triumph that they could bear him out against the adverse, and the other in rejoicing that in the contrary faction there was befallen such a scandal. Or both as taking this Libertinism as a new liberty of the Gospel. The Apostle adviseth his giving up to Satan, by a power of miracles which was then in being. So likewise did he give up Hymenaeus and Alexander, 1 Tim. 1. 20. The derivation of this power we conceived at Act. 5. [in the case of Ananias and Sapphira ] to be from that passage of Christ to the Disciples, John 20. 22. He breathed on them and said, whose sins ye retain they are retained, &c. and so were the Apostles endued with a miraculous power of a contrary effect or operation. They could heal diseases and bestow the Holy Ghost, and they could inflict death or diseases, and give up to Satan. Now though it may be questioned, whether any in the Church of Corinth had this power, yet when Paul's spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ went along in the action, as Chap. 5. 4. there can be no doubt of the effect.

2. Their animosities were so great, that they not only instigated them to common suits at Law, but to suits before the tribunals of the Heathen, which as it was contrary to the peace and honor of the doctrine of the Gospel, so was it even contrary to their Judaic traditions: which required their subjection and appeals, only to men▪ of their own blood, or of their own Religion. The Apostle to rectify this misdemeanor, first calls them to remember, that the Saints should judge the world, and this he mentioneth as a thing known to them, Chap. 6. 2. and it was known to them from Dan. 7. 18, 27. And the Kingdom and Dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom shall be given to the people of the Saints of the most High. How miserably this is misconstrued by too many of a fifth Monarchy, when Saints shall only Rule, is to be read in too many miseries that have followed that opinion. The Apostles meaning is no more but this, Do you not know that there shall be a Christian Magistracy? Or that Christians shall be Rulers and Judges in the world, and therefore why should you be so fearful or careless to judge in your own matters? Observe in what sense he had taken the word Saints in the former verse, namely for Christians in the largest sense, as set in opposition to the Heathen. And he speaks in the tenor of Daniel from whence his words are taken, that though the world and Church had been ruled and judged and domineered over, by the four Monarchies which were Heathen, yet under the Kingdom of Christ under the Gospel, they should be ruled and judged by Christian Kings, Magistrates and Rulers. Secondly, He minds them, Know ye not that we shall judge Angels? ver. 3. Observe that he says not as before, Know ye not that the Saints shall judge Angels? But we. By Angels it is uncontrovertedly granted that he meaneth evil Angels the Devils: Now the Saints, that is all Christians that professed the Gospel were not to judge Devils, but we, saith he, that is the Apostles and Preachers of the Gospel; who by the power of their Ministry ruined his Oracles, Idols, delusions and worship, &c. Therefore he argueth, since there is to be a Gospel Magistracy to rule and judge the World, and a Gospel Ministry that should judge and destroy the Devils, they should not account themselves so utterly uncapable of judging in things of their civil converse, as upon every controversy to go to the Bench of the Heathens to the great dishonor of the Gospel. And withal adviseth them, to set them to judge who were less esteemed in the Church, ver. 4. Not that he denieth subjection to the Heathen Magistrate which now was over them, or encourageth them to the usurpation of his power: but that he asserteth the profession of the Gospel, capable of judging in such things, and by improving of that capacity, as far as fell within their line, he would have them provide for their own peace, and the Gospels credit. We observed before, that though the Jews were under the Roman power, yet they permitted them to live in their own Religion, and by their own Laws to maintain their Religion: and it may not be impertinent to take up and enlarge that matter a little here. As the Jews under the Roman subjection had their great Sanhedrin, and their less of three and twenty Judges, as appears both in Scripture, and in their Records, so were not these bare names, or civil bodies without a soul, but they were inlivened by their juridical, executive power, in which they were instated of old: So that though they were at the disposal of the Roman Power, and Religion, and Laws, and all went to wrack when the Emperor was offended at them, as it was in the time of Culigula, yet for the most part, from the time of the Romans power first coming over them, to the time of their own last Rebellion, which was their ruin, the authority of their Sanhedrins and Judicatories was preserved in a good measure entire, and they had administration of justice of their own Magistracy, as they enjoyed their own Religion. And this both within the Land and without, yea even after Jerusalem was destroyed, as we shall show in its due place. And as it was thus in the free actings of their Sanhedrins, so also was it in the actings of their Synagogues, both in matters of Religion and of civil interest: For in every Synagogue as there were Rulers of the Synagogue in reference to matters of Religion and Divine worship, so were there Rulers or Magistrates in reference to Civil affairs, which judged in such matters. Every Synagogue had Beth din shel sheloshah, a Consistory or Judicatory, or what you will call it, of three Rulers or Magistrates, to whom belonged to judge between party and party in matters of money, stealth, damage, restitution, penalties, and divers other things which are mentioned and handled in both Talmuds in the Treatise Sanhedrin per. 1. Who had not power indeed of capital punishments, but they had of corporal, namely of scourging to forty stripes save one. Hence it is that Christ foretells his Disciples, In the Synagogues you shall be beaten, Mark 13. 9. and hence had Paul his five scourgings, 2 Cor. 11. 24. So that in every Synagogue there were Elders that ruled in Civil affairs, and Elders that labored in the Word and Doctrine. And all things well considered, it may not be so monstrous, as it seems to some, to say it might very well be so in those times in Christian Congregations. For since, as it might be shown, that Christ and his Apostles in platforming of the model of Christian Churches in those times, did keep very close to the platform of the Synagogues: and since the Romans in those times made no difference betwixt Jews in Judaism, and Jews that were turned Christians, nor betwixt those Religions: for as yet there was no persecution raised against Christianity, why might not Christian Congregations have and exercise that double Function of Ministry and Magistracy in them as well as the Jewish Synagogues? And if that much controverted place, 1 Tim. 5. 17. should be interpreted according to such a sense, it were neither irrational, nor improbable. Nor to interpret Paul speaking to such a tenor here. Only his appointing of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the less esteemed in the Church to be appointed for that work is of some scruple: what if it allude to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A Committee of private men? Of which there is frequent mention among the Hebrew Doctors. See Maymon. in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 fol. 253. col. 1.

3. It was the old Jewish garb, when they went to pray, to hide head and face, with a veil, to betoken their ashamedness and confusion of face wherewithal they appeared before God: And hence is the conjunction of these two words so common in their Writings 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 He veiled himself and prayed. And this for a current rule, The wise men and their scholars may not pray, unless they be veiled. Maymon. in Tephillah per. 5. To which let us add that of Suetonius. in Vitell. cap. 2. Lucius Vitellius, saith he, had an excellent faculty in flattering: he first set afoot the worshipping of Gaius Caesar for a God: when returning out of Syria, he durst not go to him but with his head veiled, and then turning himself about, he fell prostrate.

Again it was the custom of the Jewish women, to go veiled, or their faces covered, whensoever they went into public. A woman, saith Maymony, may not go into public 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 if she have not a veil on. In 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 per. 24. And this the Talmudists call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Jewish Law: and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The garb of modesty. Chetubboth per. 7. and Alphes. ibid. Where they say that that those women transgress the Jewish Law that go forth unveiled, or that spin in the streets, or that talk with every man.

Now in this Church of Corinth, the men retained the Jewish custom that they prayed veiled, or with their head and face covered, but the women transgressed their Jewish Law, for they went unveiled and bare faced into the public Congregation, and their reason was, as it seemeth by the Apostles discourse, because they, in regard of their beauty and comely feature, needed less to be ashamed before God in his worship then the men. The Apostle reproves both, and argues that if the man pray veiled, who is the Image and glory of God, then much more should the woman, who is but the glory of the man. But he cries down the man's praying veiled, as dishonoring his head; and exhorts that the woman have power on her head, because of the Angels, cap. 11. 10. The word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which we observed instantly before, out of Maymony signified a woman's veil, doth also signify power or dominion: and accordingly the Apostle speaketh, Let the Woman have power on her head: But what means he by, Because of the Angels? I should answer, Because of the Devils: for these he had called Angels also, a few Chapters before, viz. Chap. 6. 3. And his words may be construed to this sense, that Women should not expose their faces openly in the Congregation, lest the Devil make a bait of their beauty, and thereby entangle the eyes and hearts of the men, who should be then better employed, then gazing and longing after beauty. There are, that by Angels understood the Ministers, and interpret it, that Women should be veiled lest the Ministers eyes should be entangled by their faces: which exposition if it be admitted, it may speak for the admission of that also which we give, which provides for the eyes of the whole congregation as well as of the Ministers.

4. In the same eleventh Chapter he also blameth their disorder in receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the height of their heats and contestations. Wherein they did not only not discern the Lord's body, a Symbole and tie of communion, but they even transgressed that rule now Christians, which those of them that were Jews would not have done in their Judaism. It was then a Canon current, and binding amongst them, that none should eat and drink in their Synagogues, and none should sleep, Jerus. in Megilla fol. 74. col. 1. Maym. in Tephillah per. 11. and Gloss. in Maym. in Shabb. 30. But now as they ate and drank the Bread and the Cup in the Sacrament, in their Churches, and that warrantably, so did they also presume unwarrantably to eat their own common Suppers there, and that only in defiance one of another, the rich to outface the poor, and one party another with their good commons; some banketing and feasting to the full, whilst others sat hungry by and looked on. [See how 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ver. 21. signifies in the LXX, Gen. 43. 34. Cant. 5. 1.] Thus did they eat and drink judgment to themselves in the Sacrament, whilst they would receive the symbol of communion and yet show such signs and evidences of disunion at the very instant: And the Lord accordingly overtook some of them with evident judgments, weakness, sickness and death, avenging at once upon them the indignity done to his Sacrament, and the indignity done to their brethren. Much like surfeiting Nabal's case and end.

5. And as the people were thus irregular in this part of worship in their public assemblies, so were their Ministers faulty in others, namely about the managing of spiritual gifts there. The pretence to the Spirit [where indeed it was not] hath always been the great usherer in of all error and delusion: And to this the very unbelieving Jews pretended, and often backed their pretences with magical impostures: and of this the Apostle speaks, Chap. 12. 3. No man speaking by the Spirit of God, as these men took on them to do, can call Jesus accursed, as they called him. And on the other hand, some that had spiritual gifts indeed, failed in the using of them to the edification of the Church, but put them forth sometimes for their own vain glory: and such was their miscarriage which he taxeth, Chap. 14. They that from that Chapter would ground a preaching by the Spirit now, sure do little observe what they do to build upon an example which the Apostle reproveth: and they infer from a place much mistaken.

There were indeed the extraordinary gifts of tongues and prophesying in the Church of Corinth, but who had them, and what had they in having them, and how used they them? 1. It was not every or indeed any private member of the Congregation that had them, but the Ministers only, and by these very gifts and imposition of the Apostles hands by which these gifts were conferred, they were inducted into the Ministry and enabled to it. The learned Reader will observe the difference that in ver. 16. is made betwixt him that spake with the tongues, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A private man, that sat by. 2. It was not to gabble with any tongue that is called speaking with a tongue [for to what edification possible could it be for any Minister in Corinth to speak Persick, Coptick, Gallick or any other strange language in that Congregation where all of them understood one and the same language?] but it was to understand and speak the Originals of Scriptures, as was touched before, and to be able to unfold them, and so to prophesy or preach to the people. Observe these passages in the Chapter: He that speaketh with a strange tongue edifieth himself, ver. 4. And, I would you all spake with tongues: Now how could a man edify himself by speaking in some strange remote language, when he might speak or understand the very same thing in his own mother tongue? And what were they better, if they all so spake, unless it were, that thereby they were the fitter to look into all human learning? But he or all of them that were able to understand and speak the original language of Scripture, might thereby edify themselves, and therein speak and understand what they could not in their mother tongue. 3. It appears by the Apostles discourse that these men used these gifts irregularly, confusedly and for their own vain glory, which he rebukes and rectifies.

6. There were also in or crept into this Church, those that were either down right Sadducees in denying the Resurrection, or that though with the Pharisees they acknowledged it, yet denied it of those that had forsaken their Judaism, and so would exclude all Christians from it: Upon this the fifteenth Chapter discourseth so fully and divinely that nothing can be more.

Those that this Church sent to visit Paul at Ephesus, brought with them a Letter from the Church, in the which they desired to be resolved about some doubts: as

• 1. About marriage, and a single life; what they should do in that case, since their Judaic Laws had always laid marriage upon them as a binding command. This they reckon the first command of the 613. Vid. marg. ad tripl. Targ. ad Gen. 1. And this their Canons did so strictly bind on as a duty, that they say that he that lives to such an age and marries not, transgresseth a preceptive Law. Maym. in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 per. 1. In this case the Apostle saith, Praeceptum non habeo; that he accounted it no such command, but everyone was left to his liberty: according as he could contain, or not contain. And in his stating this case, how he speaks the language of his Nation, and how far he comes towards their opinions, or goes from them, the learned may observe, by comparing the beginning of this Chapter, with Maymony in his Treatise 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 especially fol. [ apud me ] 251. & 248. & 249.
• 2. About cohabitation of man and wife, when the one party was a Believer or a Christian, and the other party an unbeliever or an Heathen. And here he concludes that the children, if either parent were a Christian, were holy, ver. 14. that is, Christians, and not to be reputed as Heathen Children. It is the very phrase that his Nation used about the Children of Proselytes, that were born after they were proselyted; they were said to be born 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in holiness, that is within the Religion, not in Heathenism.
• 3. About eating things sacrificed to Idols, and communicating in such things; a dangerous stumbling block of old, and particularly forbidden by the Council at Jerusalem: Of this he speaketh at large, and from the nature of Idol-sacrifices, and from the Nature of the Sacraments he showeth how far they should be separate from such communion with Idolatry. He speaketh of all Israel's being baptized unto Moses in the Cloud and Sea, and so separate from all Egyptian and other Idolatry and Profaneness; and our baptism speaks the like separation. The Jews say Moses was sanctified by the Cloud, Jerus. in Joma fol. 28. col. 2. and Paul speaks here the same of all Israel, Chap. 10. 2.
• 4. About Ministers maintenance under the Gospel, Chap. 9. which he confirmeth, and showeth that Peter and the rest of the Apostles and their Wives and Families were so maintained, Chap. 9. 5, &c.

He concludes the Epistle with a sad execration upon Whosoever loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ, let such a one be Anathema, Maran Atha, Chap. 16. 22. that is, let him be accursed or destroyed: Our Lord cometh. In which that he in the first aim and intention meaneth the unbelieving Jews, may be observed upon these four considerations. 1. Because the Jews of all men under Heaven were and are the greatest haters of Christ. Pagans indeed do not love the Lord Jesus, because they know him not, but again because they know him not they hate him not. The Turks love not Christ as Christians love him, but again they hate not Christ as the Jews hate him. The word Jesus here carries the Emphasis to level this execration at them: they pretended to love Messias or a Christ, but openly profess hatred of Jesus. 2. Because the Apostle here useth such Dialect, as that he speaketh in the very Jews language in the words Maran Atha. He had spoken in Greek all along the Epistle, and Greek all along his Epistles, and that here alone he should use a Syriac phrase and not translate it, it doth evidently show, that his speech referreth more especially to the Jewish Nation. So Jeremy in Chap. 10. v. 11. threatening and cursing the Chaldean Idolatry, doth in the Chaldean language; one clause of which he useth not throughout his Prophesy beside. 3. The Jews of all men did chiefly or only call Jesus anathema, as Chap. 12. 3. and as they are not ashamed openly to confess in their Talmud; therefore against them of all men first and chiefly is this Anathema aimed 4. This is agreeable to what the Scripture speaks copiously in other places: as Isa. 65. 15. You shall leave your name for a curse to my chosen, &c. Malac. 4. 6. Lest I come and smite the Land with a curse, &c. The most pious and charitable Apostle could wish himself to be Anathema for that Nation, on condition that they might believe and be saved, Rom. 9. 3. but since they will not believe, and do refuse salvation, and hate the Savior, he forgets consanguinity for the love of Christ, and dooming and devoting all whomsoever, that loved not the Lord Jesus Christ to destruction, he intends them in the first place who were his chief haters.

The words Maran-atha are held by some to be of the form of the highest excommunication; Sic signatur, say they, species extremi Anathematis, ac si diceretur, Maledictus esto ad adventum & in adventu Domini: And withal that Maran atha is the same in sense with Shammatha: but this utterly without the warrant of any Jewish antiquity [whose language it is] at all. I believe it is impossible to show Maran atha for a form of Excommunication or execration in any of their Writings, nay very hard if not next impossible to show the words Maran atha in their Writings at all in any sense.

The phrase in the Apostle refers first to Christ's coming in vengeance against Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation, as the execration is first to be pitched upon them: Maran atha, Our Lord cometh. Many and dreadful things are spoken of this his coming in the Scripture, of which we have spoken in several places as we have come along. So that in this sentence he doth both justly doom this unbelieving and wretched Nation to their deserved curse, and doth withal in this phrase intimate that the doomed curse was near approaching, in the Lord's coming in vengeance against them. Now though we construe the words in such an application to the Jews, it is not exclusively, but that their sense reacheth also to everyone that loveth not the Lord Jesus of what Nation soever, and the Lord will come in time to make him an Anathema.

There is some obscurity in a passage in Chap. 5. 9. both of Sense and History: I wrote unto you in an Epistle not to company with Fornicators: 10. Yet not altogether with the Fornicators of this world, &c. Where first we have to inquire what it is that the Apostle doth here forbid them, and then, when it was that he wrote this Epistle that he speaketh of. There are two things that are here prohibited; one, when he wrote that which he speaketh of, namely, that they should not company with Fornicators; and the other now when he writes this Epistle, viz. that they should not eat with such: the latter he had permitted till now, though he prohibited the former, which let them well observe that understand by eating the receiving of the Sacrament.

Besides what communion was among the Jews in sacris, there was a twofold companying or communicating among them in civil things; the one more common, the other more near and peculiar: Their more common was, eating together at the same common table: For even such eating they accounted of, as of a communion, under a rule: and hence no eating with Gentiles for any Jew, Act. 11. 3. nor with Publicans and sinners for any that were of the stricter sort of Religions: therefore Christ is cavilled at for it so oft in the Gospel. The other was that communion or associating, which they called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the former of which comprehended their near joining in partnership, deputations and the like, of the which the triple Talmudic. Tract Bava, and Maymonies of Shittuphin and Silluchin, do treat at large. The later comprehended their combining in joint interest and association, in the use of any common Court or Cloister where many dwelt together: of which the Treatise Erubhin is a large discourse and obscure enough. Now the Apostle in the former prohibition 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , seems to forbid this nearer communion: that if any that is called a brother or a Christian, be a Fornicator, &c. they should not associate with him in any such conjunction as partnership, deputation, employment, cohabitation or common interest, &c. But upon the hearing of this horrid fact and example of the incestuous person, he heightens his prohibition, and now forbids, that they should not use so much as that common society with them, as to eat with them at common tables: which was to set them at the utmost distance, even at the same that the Jews did the very Heathens, for with them they might not eat.

Now how to understand 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is of some difficulty. Some conceive it means an Epistle, which was sent before this, and which was lost. Which is an exposition somewhat hard to digest. Certainly it is gentler and more warrantable, yea even by the rules of Grammar to render 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to such a sense as this, I wrote, or had written, or was writing in this Epistle that you should not company with Fornicators, &c. but now hearing and weighing this high offense of the incestuous person, and the danger of such an example, I sharpen my style, and now forbid not only your near associating with such, but even the common fellowship of eating together at common tables, which was as much as that which is spoken, Matth. 18. 17. Let him be to thee as an heathen man.

ACTS Chap. XIX. from Ver. 23. to the end of the Chapter.

PAUL had determined to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost, because of a great and effectual door that was opened to him, and he was earnest to embrace that opportunity, 1 Cor. 16. 9. but before his determined time of departure thence came, and as it seemeth not long before, Demetrius, with the rest of the Silversmiths raise a tumult against him as the great impairer of their profit, by crying down the worship of Diana and other Idols. These men used to make silver temples of Diana, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or little models, as it seemeth, made after that Temple fashion: which they that came to Ephesus to worship, bought, either to consecrate to the Goddess, and to leave there in her Temple, or rather to take away with them home in memorial of that Goddess. Tully in Verre •• speaks of Aedes Minervae posita in fano Apollinis. And Dion Cassius lib. 36. of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. A little Temple of Juno set upon a Table looking toward the East, did of itself turn towards the North. And in lib. 40. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c.] The Eagle [saith he, meaning the Roman ensign] was a little Temple, and in it was set a golden Eagle: such a one pitched in everyone of the Roman Legions, and it never stirred out of the winter quarters, till the whole camp did remove: this Eagle fixed on the top of a spear one man carried: the lower end of the spear being sharp that it might be stuck into the ground. So that it seems the Roman Eagles were not flying Colours like ours, but a golden Eagle meddal wise enclosed in a little fabric like a Temple: of such a kind were these silver Temples of Diana, namely a little silver shrine made after the fashion of the Temple and the Goddess in it.

The great Temple was reputed one of the seven wondrous fabrics of the world: It was hundreds of years in building at the charge of all Asia, before it came to its last excellency and perfection. And as hither had been the conflux of the cost of all Asia toward the building of it, so when it was built, hither was the conflux of all Asia 's superstition. And as from hence it may be gathered how great a work it was to plant the Gospel in this center of Idolatry, so doth Demetrius readily observe, how great a detriment is like to accrue to him and his fellows by the Gospels destroying that Idolatry, as daily it did. Hereupon they raise a tumult against Paul, which is not only promoted by the Idolatrous Heathen, but by the Jews also, though upon another score. In the hubbub there is mention of Alexander, whom they drew out of the multitude the Jews putting him forward. And he heckned with the hand and would have made his defense unto the People, but when they knew he was a Jew they would not hear him, ver. 33, 34. And Paul in his second Epistle to Timothy, who was at Ephesus when he wrote to him, saith, Alexander the Copper-smith did me much evil, 2 Tim. 4. 14. I think there is little question to be made but that Alexander mentioned in both places is one and the same man: especially if we consider that he that Paul speaks of was of Demetrius his Profession a Copper-smith. Now whereas Luke saith the Jews put him forward, and he would fain have made a speech in his defense to the people: it is easy to guess what the subject of this speech would have been: Namely that whereas the Heathens everywhere looked upon the Jews as the great opposers and enemies of their Idolatry, and the Jews and Alexander were very apprehensive, that the eyes of the Ephesians was on that Nation as the enemy of their Diana, and so they feared the tumult might have fallen upon them, they put forward Alexander to make their Apology, who if he had had liberty to have spoken would have laid load upon Paul and his company, and have excused the Jews: but thus it pleased God to provide for the Apostles safety, that the tumultuous people would not hear what Alexander would have said: which would have laid all the blame on Paul.

ACTS CHAP. XX.

IT was his resolution to have stayed at Ephesus till Pentecost, had he had no disquieture or disturbance there, 1 Cor. 16. 8. Now though it be not certain how long it was before the time that he had fixed for his departure, that the tumult there did pack him away: yet this is apparent, that when he came thence, he had the whole summer before him, and in that summer he travelled these journeys, and thus was his progress.

• 1. From Ephesus he setteth for Macedonia, ver. 1 & 1 Cor. 16. 5. from whence though he had been driven some five years ago by persecution, Act. 16. as he is now from Ephesus, yet had he received so many evidences of the Macedonians faith towards God, and pledges of their tenderness and love towards himself, Philip. 4. 15, 16. that he is not only resolved to venture himself again amongst them, but he holds himself engaged to revisit them, and to bestow his pains again among them for their further proficiency in the Gospel. At his departure from Ephesus he leaveth Timothy there behind him, though in a dangerous place and time, yet necessity by reason of false teachers that were ready to break out, so requiring it, 1 Tim. 1. 3, 4.
• 2. By the way as he goes he makes some stay at Troas: where though he had fair success in his Ministry, yet not finding Titus whom he expected to have met withal from Corinth, he makes not long stay there, but sets away again speedily for Macedonia, 2 Cor. 2. 12, 13.
• 3. It was in his thoughts whilst he was at Ephesus, to have touched at Corinth, in this his journey, and to have made some stay there, 2 Cor. 1. 15, 16. but thus missing of Titus at Troas, and neither from him, nor yet from any other receiving intelligence how his Epistle that he had written thither took with them, he thought it best to go by, and not to call there at this time, because he doubted he should have a heavy and comfortless meeting with them, 2 Cor. 2. 1, 2.
• 4. Being come into Macedonia he finds some troubles there: fightings without, either from false brethren, or from open enemies: and fears and unquietness within lest all should continue at Corinth, as he had herd of it: but at the last Titus cometh and refresheth him with the desired and welcome tidings that all was well there, and that his Epistle had had that happy issue and effect among them that he longed for, 2 Cor. 7. 5, 6.
• 5. Whilst he stayeth in Macedonia and those parts, he preacheth especially in those places where he had been before, namely Thessalonica and Philippi; and now was the time also that he dispersed the Gospel as far as to Illyricum, of which he speaketh in Rom. 15. 19.
• 6. At this time whilst he was employed in these Macedonian climates, he writeth, as may be concluded upon these observations, THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY;
  • 1. It is apparent from 1 Tim. 1. 3. & 3. 15. that that Epistle was written after Paul's setting out from Ephesus for Macedonia, and yet when he was in some thoughts of returning shortly for Ephesus again.
  • 2. Now it cannot be conceived to have been written when he was going towards Macedonia, for then was he but newly parted from Timothy, and it is not likely he would so write to him when he was but newly come from him.
  • 3. Nor can it be conceived to be written when he was coming back again from Macedonia into Greece, for then he was going to Ephesus in his own determination, and might have been his own messenger, and had needed no Epistle sending at all. And besides he intimates in Chap. 3. 16. that it might be, he might stay a little long before he came to him: Therefore it cannot but be concluded that this Epistle was written whilst he was in Macedonia or the parts there abouts, at this time that we are upon.

It is something strange that there should be so various and roving conjectures about the time and place of the writing of this Epistle where there is so plain a demonstration thereof in the Epistle itself, if studiously compared with these times and voyages of Paul that are before us. The Arabic dateth it from Athens: supposing it, belike, at the time of his perambulation of Greece, of which there is mention in ver. 3. of this Chapter: the Syriac from Laodicea: some Greek copies add from Laodicea Pacatiana: which mistake belike grew, because there is mention of an Epistle from Laodicea, Colos. 4. 16. of which we shall speak and show the mistake when we come to the time of that Epistle. The Rhemists suppose this Epistle to Timothy was written at Paul's first imprisonment in Rome; when he was dismissed and set at liberty, but how erroneously, will appear when we come to observe the time of the second Epistle.

Paul had bestowed much pains and a long time with the Church of Ephesus being present with it: and he takes much care of it now he is gone thence: partly because of the eminency of the place, and partly because of the sickleness of some, who were ready to warp from the sound truth and doctrine received, to heresy and foolish opinions. For the keeping down of these therefore that they should not overgrow the Church, he leaveth Timothy there, when himself departeth; choosing him for that employment above all other his followers, because [as was said before] some prophetic predictions had sealed him for a singular and extraordinary instrument in the Gospel, 1 Tim. 2. 14.

He had two works to do in that City: first to prevent rising Errors and Heterodoxies, and secondly to direct and order the Orthodox aright in Worship and discipline: not as any Diocesan Bishop [for he stayed but a while there, and what he did, he did but by the Apostles direction,] but as one that Paul had found sound, bold, blameless, painful and, faithful.

Among the Jewish Churches that received the Gospel, there grew in time a very epidemical and dangerous Apostasy, either totally from the Doctrine of the Gospel, or partially from the purity of it, as we have frequent occasion to observe upon several passages that we meet withal as we go along: and this backsliding from the Doctrine and Profession of Christ once received, was the topping up of the iniquity of that Nation, and was a forerunner and a hastner of their destruction and casting off.

The first principles whereby their false teachers did prison them towards this recidivation, were, puzzling them with idle fables, intricate genealogies, and especially nice curiosities, and needless obligations of the Law: Their fables that were likeliest to serve their turn for this purpose [as near as one may guess upon view of the whole heap in their Talmudic • Records] may be supposed to have been those strange legends that they 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 related of the wondrous sanctity, devotion and facts of some of their Pharisaical and legal righteous ones, and the wondrous gallantry and golden days that they conceited in a carnal construction of the times of Messias.

Their endless genealogies which the Apostle speaketh of Tit. 3. 9. and mentioneth together with these fables, 1 Tim. 1. 4. were not any of the genealogies of Scripture, holy and divine, but their long and intricate pedigrees that they stood upon, to prove themselves Jews, Levites, Priests and the like, thereby to interest themselves in claim to all those brave things that they persuaded themselves belonged to a Jew as a Jew, upon that very account: And to these we may add the long genealogy and pedigree of their traditions which they derived by a long line of succession through the hands of I know not how many Doctors: of which the Talmudic Treatise Avoth, is as a Herald. And if we will construe the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Juchasin, Genealogies, in the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Aserah Juchasin Ten linages, that they speak of that came out of Babel at the return of the captivity, I am sure we may find endless questions wherewithal they puzzeled men's minds about them; as Vid. Talm. in Kiddushin per. 4. Alphes. ibid, &c.

And as for their making their baits of the Law for the catching and withdrawing of simple souls either totally from the acknowledging, or at least from the simplicety of the Gospel, it is very obvious in the Epistles of Paul and the other Epistles how they wrought, and how they prevailed: the witchery of old customs and long use, and the gawdiness of a Ceremonious Religion, helping them to speed in their designs, and forwarding their deceivings.

Such canker began to break out in the Church of Ephesus: whose creeping and infecting, it is the first and great work of Timothy to prevent, and to fill the ears of his hearers with sound doctrine and admonitions, which might keep such deceit and infection out. And answerably it must be his care to settle the Church in such a salubrious constitution of Worship, Ministry and Government, as that it should not be ready to sway and incline to such dangerous seductions. Hereupon doth the Apostle lay a divine Directory before him, concerning their manner of praying, choosing and ordaining of Ministers, approving Deacons, admitting widows, and regulating the people, that nothing could be wanting to the healthful temper of that Church if they receive and embrace these applications: In the most of which prescriptions he useth exceeding much of their Synagogue language, that he may be the better understood, and reflecteth upon divers of their own Laws and customs, that what he prescribeth may imprint upon them with the more conviction. He calleth the Minister Episcopus, from the common and known title The Chazan or Overseer in the Synagogue: Aruch in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . He prescribeth rules and qualifications for his choice, in most things suitable to their own cautions in choosing of an Elder: Maym. in Sanhedr. per. 4. He speaketh of Elders ruling only, and Elders ruling and laboring in the Word and Doctrine: meaning in this distinction, that same that he had spoken of in Chap. 3. Bishops and Deacons. Both these in the common language then best known, were called Elders, and both owned as Rulers. Yea the very title that they usually termed Deacons by [ Parnasin ] was the common word that was used to signify a Ruler. The Jerusalem Talmud in Peah. fol. 21. 1. speaking of the three Parnasin or Deacons that were inevery Synagogue, hath these two passages, which may be some illustration to two passagesin this Epistle. They appoint not less then three Pernasin in the Congregation: for if matters of money were judged by three, matters of life much more require three to manage them. Observe that the Deacons Office was accounted as an Office that concerned life, namely in taking care for the subsistence of the poor. According to this may that in Chap. 3. 12. be understood. For they that have used the Office of a Deacon well, purchase to themselves a good degree. A good degree towards being entrusted with souls, when they have been faithful in discharge of their trust concerning the life of the body. The other passage is this, R. Haggai whensoever he appointed Parnasin [Deacons] he urged the Law upon the People, saying, All rule that is given, is given from the Law, &c. And here you may likewise observe, that Deaconship is called Rule.

We observe before, that it were not so monstrous as it might seem, if by Elders that ruled only we should understand a Civil Magistracy or Bench in every Congregation, as there was in every Synagogue; but since the Apostle nameth only Bishops and Deacons, his interpretation here is best taken from and within himself; and to understand the Elders that ruled only of the Deacons, which were called both Elders and Rulers, as well as the Ministers: and in the Jews Synagogues were professed Scholars: The Talmudic place now cited tells us that R. Eliezer one of their greatest Rabbing was a Parnas, or Deacon in a Synagogue. The Episcopy or Ministers are titled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that labored in the Word and Doctrine: which most properly is to be understood distinctly thus, which labored in the Word, and which labored in teaching: and the former to denote their laboriousness in study to enable them to teach, and the latter their laboriousness in teaching. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is but the common phrase of the Jews turned into Greek 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [See the Syriac here] by which they mean a great student in the Law. Among multitudes of instances that might be alleged, I shall produce but this one out of Jeruslin Maasar sheni fol. 56. col. 2. R. Jonah paid his Tithes to R. Acha bar Ulla, not because he was a Priest 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 but because he labored in the Law, that is, was a great student and an able teacher. They that suppose that the tithes under the Law were paid only at the temple, and to maintain the Priests in the ceremonious worship there, and upon this conceit look upon them only as Levitical, are far deceived: for as some were indeed paid at the Temple upon such an account, so others and that the Greatest part, were paid to the Priests and Levites in their 48 Universities, Josh. 21. to maintain them whilst they were studying there, to enable them for the Ministry, and to teach the people, for which they were designed, Deut. 33. 10. Mal. 2. 7. and when they were dispersed through the Land, into the several Synagogues to be Ministers in them, tithes were also paid for their maintenance there.

He speaketh of provision to be made for poor Widows, even much according to the Jews own rules, that they went by in their Synagogues, which herein were good. The Talmudic Treatise Jevamoth speaketh of this matter at large, and see Maym in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 per. 18. & 20. The Widows he allows to be taken in, to be maintained of the public stock, he would have not to be Widows by divorce, nor Widows young; but of 60 years of age, and of grave and holy qualifications: Not that these were to vow the vow of continency [as see what a miserable ado the Rhemists make upon the place] but that they must be such as were likely to bring no more charge then themselves upon the Church, nor bring any shame or reproach by the lightness of their lives to it, and might be serviceable in their places, to attend upon strangers, to wash their feet, &c. But as for younger Widows, their age and those times were dangerous, when the Nicolaitan doctrine without [which taught communicating with things of Idolatry and Fornication, and mixing and marriage indifferently with heathen] meeting with the heat of youth within, might make such to wax wanton against Christ, and deny the faith and marry with heathens: or at least to bring charge upon the Church if they continued in it.

He enjoins prayers to be made for all sorts of men, whereas the Jewish custom was, to curse the Heathen, and to pray for none but themselves and their own Nation. He calls the Church the pillar and ground of truth, Chap. 3. 15. the very title by which the great Sanhedrin was ordinarily styled. Vid. Maym. in Mamrin. per. 1. the observing of which may be of good use for the explanation of it here.

After some stay in Macedonia, and preaching up and down in those parts, Paul turns back again, and goes for Greece, Act. 20. 2. and by the way visiteth Crete and there leaveth Titus, Tit. 1. 5. thinking that he should presently after a little stay in Greece, have set towards Jerusalem, and that Titus should have stayed there till further time: For if what hath been spoken lately concerning Titus be considered, how Paul sent him with his first Epistle to the Corinthians, and that after their parting at Ephesus upon that occasion, they never met till Titus cometh up to him, when he was come from Ephesus to Macedonia, 2 Cor. 7. 5, 6. it will readily resolve, that in that first journey to Macedonia he left him not in Cree • , for Titus and he were not yet met again since their parting at Ephesus. And that he left him not there at his second coming up to Macedonia [namely after his travelling in Greece, and when he was prevented of his intended journey into Syria, Act. 20. 2, 3.] it is apparent also by this, that instantly upon his returning from Greece and from his prevented journey, he sendeth for Titus to come to him upon warning, Tit. 3. 12. which two particulars jointly observed do make it plain that he left Titus in Crete when he came back from Macedonia in his journey into Greece, and when he intended after his perambulation of Greece to have gone for Syria, but the lying in wait of some Jews for his life, turned him again to Macedonia.

In his return thither, or upon his coming there, he writeth THE EPISTLE TO TITUS.

It is not much material to controvert whether he sent this Epistle in the way as he went towards Macedonia, or when he was come up into Macedonia; it is enough to know, that it was in the scantling of time, either in his journey thither, or instantly upon his coming there. The postscript hath dated it from Nicopolis, because of his words in Chap. 3. 12. Come unto me to Nicopolis, for there I have determined to winter: from which words, as the affixer of the postscript hath gathered some ground to date it thence, so others have gathered better ground, to hold that it was not dated thence, because he saith not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Here, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 There I have determined to winter: as if he were not yet come thither.

Who first planted the Gospel in Crete may be an endless inquiry: certain it is that some Cretans were present at the first pouring forth of the Holy Ghost in the gift of tongues, Acts 2. 8. but whether they embraced the Gospel and returned with it into their own Country, is an inquiry as endless: Whether Barnabas ever preached there we may question also, but when we have done all we can never resolve. It is more then probable that Paul was there himself, from that expression I left thee in Crete, but his stay there when he left Titus could not be long, as is easily cleared from the time of his journeys lately mentioned.

Whether he had been there some time before, or whether he had sent the Gospel thither by some of his Ministers, or however it came there, there wanted something to the constituting of the Church, which he leaveth Titus to accomplish: And his work is just the same that he left Timothy at Ephesus for, as is easily seen by laying together the two Epistles, viz. to stop the mouth of the Heterodox, and to direct and advise the Orthodox in Doctrine and Discipline, and to ordain Elders and Ministers in the Churches.

This matter of ordaining Elders hath made the postscripts of the Epistles to these two men to entitle them Bishops, the one of Ephesus, and the other of Crete, who how little they stayed or settled in either of these places, he readeth but dimly that seeth not.

The Apostle in this Epistle urgeth him to dispatch the business that lay before him, that upon notice from him, he might be ready to come up to him to Nicopolis: a City that bare the name and badge of the Victory that Augustus obtained against Anthony. Dion. Cass. pag. 426. & 443.

Titus according to his appointment came to him, and when winter began to draw over, and Paul began now to think of journeying ere it were very long, he sends him upon an employment to another place: which because it was when winter was going off, we must place it in another year.

[CHRIST. LVI] [NERO. II] A New year being now entered, and Paul intending for Syria as soon as the spring was a little up, he sendeth Titus before hand to Corinth, to hasten their collections for the Saints in Judea, that they might be ready against Paul should come thither. And with Titus he sendeth two other brethren, and by them all he sendeth THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

The proof that it was written and sent at this time and in this manner, is plain by these places and passages in it: Chap. 9. 2, 3, 4. I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia: Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain; lest haply they of Macedonia come with me, &c. Chap. 12. 14. Behold the third time I am coming to you. Chap. 13. 1. This is the third time I am coming to you. And Chap. 8. 16. But thanks be unto God who put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you. 17. Being more forward of his own accord he went unto you. 18. And with him we have sent the brother whose praise is in the Gospel. 22. And we have sent with them our brother, whom we have often times proved diligent in many things, &c.

Who these two nameless persons should be, will require some inquiry. The later I suppose was Erastus, both because his diligence had been approved before, Acts 19. 22, &c. and also because it is said Erastus abode at Corinth, 2 Tim. 4. yet he not named among Paul's retinue when he set out for Asia, Act. 20. 4. because he was gone to Corinth before.

As for the other brother whose praise is said to be in the Gospel, that very phrase and expression hath caused many to conceive, that it was Luke, and that the words mean, Who is famous in all the Churches for the Gospel he hath written: whereas [besides that groundless strictness that is put upon the words, limiting them to the writing of a Gospel, which according to that most usual manner of speech, are rather to be understood of his renowning in preaching the Gospel ] it is apparent by the words of Luke himself, that he went not either before Paul to Corinth, as this brother spoken of did, nor did he go before Paul to Troas as the rest that are named by him did, but he went in Paul's company: for observe his speech, These tarried for us at Troas: And we sailed away from Philippi, &c. The words Us and We do plainly associate the penman himself with Paul at his setting out, and show that he was none of those that were sent before.

Others therefore do guess that this brother that went along with Titus, was Silas, because it is said, Who also was chosen by the Churches to travel with us, &c. Which very thing which they use for an argument to prove it