Works

§ And showeth him all things that himself doth.

By showing is not meant barely discovering or revealing, but imparting and communicating: As Psal. 4. 6. Who will show us any good: that is, who will bestow any good on us? Psal. 85. 7. Shew us thy mercy: 1 Kings 2. 7. Shew kindness, &c. that is, grant and vouchsafe it. And such is the meaning of Christ's words here, that the Father doth grant and communicate to him, as the Administrator of the New Testament, the same power and activity that he himself exercised under the Old. To do and act in the same divine Authority, and in the same miraculous power, that he himsel used and acted in, doing whatsoever pleased him.

§ And he will show him greater works than these, &c.

It was a great work that Christ had done, in healing a man of so long diseasedness and it was a great matter that he had assumed, when he granted such a dispensation with the Sabbath, and yet he must do greater things than these, before he had done, namely, raise the dead, and change the Sabbath day. It is said in verse 16. The Jews did persecute Jesus because he had done these things on the Sabbath day: These things, that is, healed the man, and commanded him to bear his bed: In answer to those two particulars, our Savior speaketh in this expression greater works than these: and in the two next verses he showeth what greater works those are, namely, raising the dead and power of all Judgment. If any will take the clause, in comparison with the works that the Father had done in the Old Testament, as that he would vouchsafe the Son to do the like, nay greater than these, there may be an innocent construction made of it, for we read of greater miracles done by Christ than done before, but in that he instanceth in the two particulars, verse. 21, 22. it argueth that he speaketh not of doing greater works than the Father had done, (for the Father had done those two works that he instanceth in) but of doing greater works than those that he had done already, for which he was now upon his answer: He had healed a long continued disease; but as the Father raised the dead, so would he raise dead as he thought good, and he had only granted a dispensation for a particular action on the Sabbath; but the Father had committed all Judgment about the affairs of men into his hand; and he might alter the Sabbath if he pleased, and he would do it. Now whereas he referreth these his great works to no higher end in this his speech, but only this, That ye may marvel, he proposeth not this as their ultimate end, for that end you have in verse 23. but he proposeth this only as a fruit of those works that he should work, that they should be to the astonishment and conviction of these that now accuse him, though not to their entertaining of him and believing, Parallel to that Acts, 13. 41.

This relateth to what is spoken of God in the Old Testament, Deut. 32. 39. and to what he did in the Old Testament, by the Ministry of his Prophets. He proclaims himself God alone, in the place cited, because he killeth, and maketh alive, and he raised some dead by the means of Elias and Elisha, &c. Now (saith Christ ) as the Father or God whom ye acknowledge this great Agent in the Old Testament showeth this power, and so thereby shown himself to be God alone: even so the Messias in the New Testament is invested with the very same power to raise and quicken whom he will, that all men should honor the Messias, the Administrator of the New Testament, as they honor the honor the Father, the Administrator of the Old: For to this tenor (that I may say it again) doth he speak all along this Chapter, parallelling the Father and the Son, not in regard of their equal Diety and Divine power as God, but in regard of their dispensations to the sons of men under the two Testaments. As how is it possible to understand this passage in hand, As the Father raiseth the dead, under any other notion, than as is mentioned, when verse. 17, 18, 19. do clearly ascribe the general Resurrection to the Son?

This is but the same in sense and substance with those many places of Scripture, where the Lord setteth up Christ as King and Lord of all things: as Psal. 2. 7, 8. &c. Psal. 89. 27. Isaiah 9. 6, 7. Heb. 1. 2, 6. &c. Dan. 7. 13, 14. Isaiah 42. 1, 2. &c. Jer. 3. 9. Mat. 28. 18. Rev. 16. 19. &c.

It pleased the infinite wisdom of God to use this most divine and mysterious dispensation, that the Son of God should become the Son of man, and this God-man, the Lord Christ should be set up the head of all Principality and power, Col. 2. 9. and King and Ruler and Judge of all things. And this dispensation the Scripture ascribeth to divers reasons.

1. To Christ's natural and essential interest, as I may express it, for he was the only begotten of the Father, and so necessarily the heir of all things, Heb. 1. 2.

2. To God's love of the Son, because he laid down his life for man's redemption, Joh. 10. 17. Philip. 2. 8, 9. He became obedient to the death, &c. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him.

3. To God's willingness and contrival that man should have the utmost means of the knowledge and for the honoring of God that was possible, namely, by revealing his Son in human flesh, yet in the highest evidence of Divine power, Matth. 21. 37. Heb. 1. 1. When men for all the means that he had used for the bringing of them to the knowledge of himself, yet would not know God, nor worship him as God, but doted after God's that were visible, the Lord sends his own Son in visible shape, and in visible demonstration of his Divinity in that he raised himself from the dead, Rom. 1. 4. and setteth him up as Lord of all things, to be worshipped as God blessed forever, and in and through him the Father to be worshipped who sent him.

4. The Scripture holdeth out Christ as the arm of the Lord, Isaiah 53. 1. & 40. 10. the Combatant and Champion against Satan and all the Lord's enemies, Gen. 3. 15. Revel. 19. 11. &c. And the Lord hath set him up to reign till all these enemies be put under his feet, 1 Cor. 15. 24, 25.

5. God hath given him authority to execute judgment, Because he is the Son of Man, John 5. 27. which we shall speak to when we come to that verse.

The great design of the blessed Trinity was, to reveal itself the eternal God-head to be worshipped Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity: In the times of the Old Testament the Father was worshipped and acknoweledged, dispensing indeed his administrations by the Son, the Angel of the Covenant and the Arm of the Lord, but himself more especially owned, as the Fountain and Original of all Divine dispensations, as Psal. 2. 6. &c. Exod. 23. 20, 21. Prov. 8. 22. Isaiah. 42. 1. &c. Under the New Testament the Son was visibly exalted, and set up as the Lord to whom every knee should bow, and every tongue confess, in that he gave the Gospel as the Father had done the Law, subdued Satan, triumphed over death, ascended visibly by his own power into heaven, and did as visibly pour out and send down the Holy Ghost which he had promised: That as all men had honored the Father under the Old Testament, so all men should equally honor the Son under the New. The Arian in denying the God-head of Christ, and his coequality with the Father, is not only injurious to his person, but also contradicteth the highest and greatest design of heaven, for Christ's exalting: And the Jews, Turks, and whosoever take upon them to honor God, and acknowledge not Christ, their undertaking is but vain, since they honor not the Son whom he hath set up and exalted over all.

These words and those in the verses following, have their rise from verse 21. and lie in connection with the sense of those words, and are in explanation of them. There he had said, that, As the father raised the dead, so the Son quickeneth whom he will, and in these verses he speaketh to that point, and in this verse he showeth how he quickeneth spiritually, and in the following how he quickeneth bodily, and both his assertions he setteth on with this asseveration, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

The matter of this verse seemeth to be taken from those words in Isaiah 55. 3. Incline your ear and come unto me: Hear and your soul shall live: Upon which last words Ibn Ezra giveth this gloss, It meaneth that the soul abideth though the body die, or it meaneth that the Messias shall revive those that turn to the Law of God. And so likewise do other Jews confess there, that those words, and the context before, do speak of the teaching of the Messias.

Our Savior in the verses before had pleaded his equal acting as he was Messias, with God the Father as he shown himself in the administration of the Old Testament: that as the Father raised the dead by Prophets then, so he quickened whom he pleased: and as the Father had judged, so now he had committed all Judgment unto him: and here he cometh on with a third parallel, and that is, that as the Father had given the Law, or the Word of the Old Testament, so he should give the Gospel the Word of the New: And as it was life to hearken to the Work of the Father, Deut. 30. 15. 20. so he that heareth his Word hath life everlasting, &c. He was the Word of the Father, that came out of his bosom to reveal him, Joh. 1. 18. He was the great Teacher promised and expected, Deut. 18. 15. Acts 3. 23. and sealed and proclaimed, Matth. 17. 5. 1 Pet. 1. 17. He was to be the destroyer of the works of Satan, the hearkening to whose word had been man's confusion, and therefore it would not only be their piety to hearken to him who revealed the Father: nor would it be only suitable to their expectation, who looked for the great Teacher and were resolved to be taught by him, but it would be eternal life, and everlasting healing to the Soul, against those wounds that hearkening to the words of the Tempter had made in it.

Now in that he saith, And believeth on him that sent me, 1. He doth most properly center the ultimate fixing and resting of belief in God the Father: For as from him, as from the fountain, do flow all those things that are the objects of Faith in its living and moving, namely, free Grace, the gift of Christ, the way of redemption, the gracious promises, &c. So unto him as to that Fountain doth Faith betake its self in its final repose and resting, namely, to God in Christ, as 2 Cor. 5. 19. and he doth hereby more clearly open that mystery of God in Christ, than if he had spoken only of believing himself, or only of believing the Father. 2. There are some that conceive that he speaketh of believing him that sent him, rather than of believing him himself, that by this humble reference of all to God, he might make his speech more accceptable to the hearers. 3. Compare this passage with Exod. 20. 19. and Deut. 18. 16, 17, 18.

His expression of passing from death to life, seemeth to refer either to the doom upon Adams not hearkening to the voice of God, thou shalt die the death: or to the codition under which every man is left by the Law, namely, under a curse: from which, hearkening to the voice of the Gospel is deliverance. Or it may be it is spoken in some parallel to the case of the man healed, for he by hearkening to the Word of Christ received health of body, so whosoever heareth his Word obtains life of the Soul: And thus doth Christ still make good the word that he had spoken to the man for a dispensation with the Sabbath: and argueth that he might do such a thing, because he was to give the Law and Word of the New Testament, as the Father had done of the Old: and showeth that though violation of the Sabbath deserved and had been punished with death, yet obedience to his Word and Command, was discharge and a passing from death to life.

1. These words are most generally understood, as aiming at those dead that Christ raised by his voice or word to life again, as saying to Jairus daughter, Talitha Kumi, to the widows son of Naim, Young man arise, and to Lazarus, Lazarus come forth: And being taken in such a relation, the connection of them to the words going immediately before lieth thus. Christ had spoken there of his spiritual reviving, whosoever should believe his Word, and here he either produceth a proof and evidence, of what he had there spoken, or else alledgeth it as another wonder and virtue of his power, that by his voice he would raise those that were bodily deceased. And he ascribeth this reviving to the hearing of his voice, partly because he had ascribed the spiritual reviving to the hearing of his Word, and partly to distinguish his rasing of those dead from the raising of those that were revived under the Old Testament: for they were not raised by a word, but by other applications, 1 King. 17. 21. & 2 King. 4. 34. & 13. 21.

2. It was the opinion of the Jews, that there should be a resurrection in the days of Messias. The Chaldee Paraphrast glosseth Hos. 6. 2. thus, He will revive us in the days of consolation, Luke 2. 25. which are to come in the day of the Resurrection of the dead. And Hos. 14. 8. thus, They shall be gathered out of their captivity, they shall sit under the shadow of their Messias, and the dead shall revive, and good shall be multiplied on the Earth. And Isaiah 49. 9. I give thee for a Covenant to the people, to raise the righteous that lie in the dust. And Kimchi on Isaiah 26. 19. The Holy blessed God will raise the dead at the time of deliverance. And in Jer. 23. 20. In that he saith, Ye shall consider it, and not, They shall consider it, it intimateth the Resurrection of the dead in the days of the Messias. And on Ezek. 37. It may be God shown Ezekiel the vision of the dead bones reviving, to signify to him, that he would raise the dead of Israel at the time of deliverance, that they also might see the deliverance. Ab. Ezr. in Dan. 12. 2. The righteous that died in the captivity shall revive when the Redeemer cometh, &c. And this was so far the opinion of the Nation that they understood the term The World to come of the state of glory, and yet of the days of Messias, as shall be shown when we meet with that phrase: Now there was a Resurrection in the days of the Messias accordingly, not only of those three that have been named, but also of divers Saints whose graves were opened and bodies arose, Mat. 27. 52. And if the words that we have in hand be applied to the raising of dead in a bodily sense, they may most properly be pointed to that Resurrection, which was so parellel to the expectation of the Jews; and Christ asscribing such a matter to himself, doth prove himself to be the Messias, even they and their own opinion being Judges.

3. But the raising of the dead, is taken in Scripture also in a borrowed sense, namely, for the reviving and quickening of those that were dead in trespasses and sins, &c. as Ephes. 2. 1. And that sense doth seem more agreeable to this place, because our Savior in the verse before doth apparently speak of such spiritual reviving. The calling in of the Gentiles to the Gospel, is called a Resurrection in divers places of the Scripture: as Esa. 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live, together with my Body they shall rise: awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the Earth shall cast out her dead: What dead these are that were to rise with Christ's body from the dead, is not so much intimated in that passage of the Evangelist, The bodies of divers Saints arose, Matth. 27. 52. as in that saying of our Savior, There shall no sign be given them but the sign of Jonah the Prophet: By which he doth not only signify his own death and Resurrection, but he doth also gall the Jews with an intimation of the calling of the Gentiles upon his Resurrection, as the Ninevites were called upon Jonahs Resurrection out of the grave of the Whales belly. And that dew of his that should enliven men as the dew doth herbs, is the dew of the Doctrine of the Gospel, as Deut. 32. 2. And so likewise Hos. 6. 2. speaketh to the very same tenor, of Christ's raising the dead in a spiritual sense, upon his own Resurrection which was on the third day: And so is the Resurrection in Ezek. 37. plainly expounded in that very chapter, to be in a spiritual sense, and so the Apostle construes it, Rom. 11. 15. Amd the calling of the Gentiles is styled the first Resurrection, Rev. 20. 5. &c.

That Christ meaneth the dead, and the raising of the dead in this sense in this place, might be argued upon these observations.

• 1. Because throughout his speech hitherto and some steps further the scope of his discourse is, namely, to prove his all powerful rule and disposal of the affairs under the Gospel, equal to what the Father had under the Law, of which the calling of the Gentiles was one of the most eminent and remarkable.
• 2. Because, as was said before, his very last words preceding, were of passing from death to life in a spiritual sense, which argues that he intends the same sense here.
• 3. In that he ascribeth reviving to his Voice here, as he did there to his Word.
• 4. Because he distinguisheth upon hearing his voice, The dead shall hear it, and as many as hear it shall live: which is applicable a great deal more fairly to the bare, and to the effectual hearing of the Gospel; than to dead in corporal sense.
• And 5. lastly, Because there are so great things spoken of the calling of the Gentiles in the Scripture, and of Christ's work about that matter, and their Heathenish condition so expressly called death, and their embracing the Gospel a resurrection, that when Christ is speaking of his actings in the New Testament, and useth such words as these before us, we may not improperly apply them in that sense: It would have prevented many controversies, and not a few errors, if the Phrases the last days, and the day of the Lord, and the end, and new Heavens, and new Earth, and the dead raised, &c. had been cautelously understood, and as the Scripture means them in several places: But as for the raising of the dead in the verse in hand, it needeth not very much curiosity to fix it to either of those as a determinate sense, since taken either way that hath been mentioned, it carries a fair construction most agreeable to the truth, and not very disagreeable to the scope and context.

It is needless to dispute here how far the second person in the Trinity may be said to have or not to have his being of himself: for the words do not consider him simply as the second person, but as the Messias God and Man, as is the tenor of speech all along: And in this acceptation we may give the words this construction.

1. That they are a Paraphrase upon the name Jehovah, which betokeneth God's eternal being in himself, and his giving of being to the Creature: and that they mean, that as the Father is Jehovah, so also hath he given to the Son the Messias, that name above all names, as Philip. 2. 9. to be owned and worshipped for Jehovah, having life in himself, as being the eternal and living God, and having the disposal of life in his power as being the God of all living.

2. That as the Father is the eternal and immortal God, so also is the Messias; and though he stand there before the Sanhedrin in human appearance, yet should he never see corruption, as Psalm 16. 10. but declare himself mightily to be the Son of God, and to have life in himself, by his raising himself from the dead, Rom. 1. 4. Being the first and last, He that liveth though he died, and is alive for evermore, Amen, and hath the Keys of Hell and death at his disposal, Rev. 1. 17, 18.

3. As the words before may be applied to Christ's raising from the dead those that were either bodily or spiritually deceased; so these are a reason and proof of that assertion, because as the Father hath the absolute disposal of life in his own power, so hath he given to the Messias the same disposal.

By this passage it is apparent in what sense our Savior useth the term The Son, and The Son of God, all along this discourse; namely, for the Son of God as he was also the Son of Man or the Messias.

There hath been some scruple made (as was mentioned before) upon the reason given of Christ's authority of Judging, namely, because he was the Son of Man, which will be removed, by rightly stating the sense of the Son of Man, which we may take up in these three particulars.

1. The Phrase the Son of Man, may be taken to signify simply A Man, and then the words are to be understood in this sense, He hath given him authority of judging, because he is a man; and then is the reason current and apparent under this construction.

First, Because the Son of God humbled himself and became man for the redemption of man, therefore the Lord hath given him authority to be judge of man, as Phil. 2. 8, 9.

And secondly, He hath given the Messias authority of judging, because he is man, that man might be judged by one in his own nature, as Act. 17. 31. He hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

2. The title, The Son of Man, which our Savior so oft applieth to himself in the Gospel, doth not speak him barely A Man, but it owns him as that singular and peculiar seed of the woman, or Son of Man that was promised to Adam to be a repairer of ruined mankind, and the destroyer of the works of Satan, (as the term hath been cleared before.) And in this construction, the reason of Christ's authority of judging because he was the Son of Man, is yet cleared further: namely, because he was the Son of that promise, the Heir of the world, and Redeemer of mankind, and Destroyer of Devils; therefore the Lord did give authority to him to be Lord of the World, and Judge of Men and Devils; to destroy the Serpent and his seed that were his enemies, and to perfect and save the holy seed that should believe in him and obey him; and to do and order all things here in this world, that were in tendency either to the one or the other end.

3. The Messias is thus charactered, in Dan. 7. 13, 14. Behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of Heaven, and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him.

Upon which words R. Saadias glosseth thus, This is Messias our righteousness. But is it not written concerning the Messias lowly, and riding upon an Ass? Because he shall come in humility and not in pomp riding upon Horses. And with the Clouds of Heavens, meaneth the Angels the Host of Heaven: this is the abundance of greatness which the Creator shall give unto the Messias, &c. Our Savior in the words that we are upon, seemeth to point at those words of Daniel: and whereas it was confessed by the Nation, that the Son of Man there spoken of, to whom all Dominion was given, was the Messias, he doth here plainly aver that it was himself; and that all Authority and Judicature was given him because he was the Son of Man.

Observe how purposely he changeth expressions: In ver. 25. He speaketh of raising the dead by the voice of the Son of God, and here, of executing judgment, because he is the Son of Man; not only that he might assert the two natures in the Messias: but also that he might distinguish the double power that was in himself, natural as he was God, and dispensed as he was, and because he was the Son of Man.

At what? Cyril thinks, At the healing of the diseased person; and he reduceth the words to this sense, Think not the curing of this disease so great a matter, for I can, and once must raise even all the dead, and judge all the world. But for ought we find they were as much filled with indignation at that cure, as with wonder. Therefore it seemeth more likely that their marvailing must rather refer to the words of Christ that he had now spoken, than to the work that he had done. For comparing his person that they saw standing before them, with the power and acting that they heard him speak of, it is no wonder if they wondered at his words, and it is probable they did little believe his power, See verse. 38, 40, 41, 42.

But how doth he satisfy their wondering and unbelief any whit by the words which follow? Had they believed these things that he had spoken hitherto, then might it have been proper to have added this about raising all the dead: but when they believed not the former, to what purpose was it to bring in this for confirmation, when they would believe neither this nor that?

Answ. 1. Christ was to speak in his authority, and the guilt of their unbelief was to rest upon themselves.

2. They could not deny him for a Prophet because of his miracles, Joh. 3. 2. and he would wind them up to believe that he was the great Prophet.

3. It was a proper proof of his power and authority to judge all men, to assert that he had power to raise all men from the dead, and to bring them to judgment. And those that did believe his former words, would believe these and see the arguing pregnant: but those that would believe neither, are left highly inexcusable, having heard Christ so fully and plainly asserting himself to be the Messias, as in all the Gospel he doth it not plainer.

4. Here we may add one thing more about the term the Son of man, for the clearing of that clause before, He hath given him authority of Judging because he is the Son of man.

It is observable that as the Jews do most constantly call Christ the Son of David, both in the Scripture, as Matth. 21. 9. & 22. 42. Luke 18. 38. and infinitely in their writings, so doth Christ most constantly call himself the Son of man; and that title is only used by himself and in his own speeches: The reason of this his different styling himself from their common title of the Messias, may be conceived to be, partly because whereas they under the term the Son of David, did conceit the Messias for an earthly King, as David was, he in his term the Son of man, would contrary them in that opinion: and partly because by that title he would show what relation his office should have towards all men, even towards the Gentiles as well as the Jews; whereas they expected the Son of David, a King of the Jews only, or at the least, especially: For it is true he was indeed the Son of David, and so the Jews had first interest in him: but withal he was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Son of man, promised to Adam, and so whole mankind had interest in him: And his arguing in verse. 27. may be understood not only in reference to his authority of judging, but also in regard of the generality of that authority; that as in ver. 25. he was to raise even the Gentiles from their dead condition to the life of the Gospel, so in verse. 27. he had authority and dominion given him throughout all the Word, even among the Gentiles, and that because he was the Son of man, or the seed promised to Adam, in whose loins the Gentiles were as well as the Jews when that promise was made, and whose Mediatorship concerned them as well as the other. And if these words be taken up in such an interpretation, this confirmation of them by asserting his power to raise all the dead, cometh on thus: Marvail not at these transactions that I speak of with the Gentiles, as to raise them by the Gospel, and to execute Judgment even through all Nations, for I am to raise the dead of all Nations at the general Judgment, and that by the Testimony of the Scripture itself, Dan. 12. 2.

These words do so directly speak the sense of that place cited in Daniel, though they differ something in expressions, that it is little to be doubted that they were spoken from thence.

An Angel to Daniel is there relating the grievous times that Israel should undergo under the persecution of Antiochus, and because at that time the cursed Doctrine of the Sadducees, which denied the world to come (a desperate Doctrine in times of persecution) should be at a great height and entertainment, therefore with the prophetic story of those times, he doth join the Doctrine of the Resurrection, and of everlasting reward, for the staying of the hearts of those that should live and suffer under those bitter days, and to arm them against fear of death and suffering for the truth.

I might be observed how Christ in this speech which he maketh before the Sanhedrin, which consisted of Pharisees and Sadducees, doth meet with both their Heretical principles, with a cutting doctrine: Against the Pharisees doting upon Traditions, he holdeth out his own word, as the great oracle of truth to be believed, ver. 24. and against the Sadducees denial of the Resurrection, he holdeth out the Doctrine of that in this verse, and his own power to be the Author and effector of it. But this I do but note by the way.

These words might also be applied to a spiritual Resurrection as were the former, (and so coming out of graves meaneth, Ezek. 37. 12.) the words of the verse following being only translated and glossed thus, And they shall come forth, they that do good after they hear his voice in the Gospel, to the Resurrection of life: And they that do evil after they hear the Gospel, unto the Resurrection of damnation: But they are more generally understood of the general Resurrection, and so will we take them; And that the rather because this sense is so exceeding suitable to the method that Christ useth in this speech. The main scope of his oration is to justify himself to be the Messias, and from that very notion, to justify the thing that he had done about the Sabbath. His Speech he divideth into these two heads.

• 1. To show what his work and authority was as he was the Messias. And
• 2. To show what testimony there was of his so being.

The former which he prosecuteth hither, he handleth in these several particulars; His power of miracles to the highest demonstration of Divine Power, equal with the Father, verse. 19, 20, 21. His absolute authority of ordering all things, verse. 22. His Divine Worship under the New Testament, as the Fathers under the Old, verse. 23. His being the Teacher of his Church and preacher of the Gospel, verse. 24. His calling of the Gentiles, verse. 25. His raising of himself from the dead, and having the disposal of life and death in his own hand, verse. 26. His universal dominion over all, verse. 27. His being the powerful raiser and Judge of all at the general resurrection, verse. 28, 29, &c.

All that are in the graves, ] In Daniel it is, Many of those that sleep in the dust, &c. that is, The many, meaning All: Not that all the dead are in graves, for some were drowned, some burnt, &c. but because the grave is the most common receptacle of the dead; and because the Jews did ordinarily render the word Sheol, which betokeneth the place and state of the dead generally, by the grave, as see Targ. Jonath. in Gen. 37. 35. & 44. 29. &c. & Buxtorf. in voice 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 significat (Sheol) in genere locum corporum humanorum post mortem, unde communiter pro Sepulchro, &c.

Shall hear his voice. ] We might here intricate ourselves in a dispute, whether there shall be an audible voice of Christ at the general resurrection, or whether the hearing of his voice do mean the feeling of his power only, (as some do understand it) to the expense of that time, which might be better improved in preparing against that time come: These Scriptures speak about that matter, 1 Cor. 15. 52. The Trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised. 1 Thess. 4. 16. The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God. 2 Pet. 3. 10. The day of the Lord will come as a Thief in the night, in the which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise, &c. But as for that Text which is commonly produced to the same purpose, Mark 24. 31. He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, &c. It plainly speaketh only of Christ's sending his Ministers with the Trumpet of the Gospel to fetch in people to the Faith; for verse. 34. saith that this and the other things spoken with it in the verses before, must be accomplished before that generation that was then alive should pass.

It is not to be doubted but the coming of Christ to Judgment, will be in the dreadfullest state and terror that heart can conceive, (and the terror of that day of accounting for all actions, may well be guessed by the terror of the day of giving the rule of all actions, Exod. 19, & 20.) and that the Lord shall then utter his voice, his mighty voice; it is not to be doubted neither, but this in thunders and dreadful and majestic noises, (for such are called the voice of God ) rather than in any articulate sound of words: The Talmud in Sanhedrin fol. 97. cited before, speaking of Voices and Thunders that should be a little before the coming of the Messias, the Gloss there saith, These are the voices of the Son of David.

I shall leave it to the Readers own thoughts to make the most feeling and dread commentary upon these words that he can, towards the awing of his heart to a preparedness against that dreadful time when it shall come.

Our Savior seemeth in these words to allude to two customs and traditions of the Jews, and to plead with them from their own principles.

1. The Talmudic tract Sanhedrin, speaking concerning men's inquiring of the Judicatories in matters of difficulty, hath this Tradition: They ask first of the Sanhedrin in their own City 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 If they had heard it, they resolve them. If not, they go to a Sanhedrin near their City 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 If they had heard it they resolve them: If not, they go to that in the gate of the Mountain of the House 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 If they had heard it they resolve them, &c. Perek. 11. where by the words, if they had heard, they mean if the Sanhedrin had heard by Tradition what was to be the determination of such a matter, they judge accordingly: but if they had not heard, then the last recourse was to the great Sanhedrin of 71. which was the very Treasury of Traditions. Christ being come now before the Sanhedrin, seemeth here to speak to them according to their own rule, As you judge according as you hear and receive by Tradition, so I judge as I hear: meaning, either as he had heard and received from the Father in the divine and secret Counsels between them, or rather as he received intelligence and warrant for his actions from the Word of God; doing those things that were there written of him: And the words immediately before, I can do nothing of myself, being understood of him as God-Man, may be easily understood, and without straining, in such an exposition.

2. Rambam in his tract about 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Messengers and Partners, and the Talmudists occasionally in the Treatises about Contracts, Espousals, and Divorces, &c. conclude this for a Maxim, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 That a Messenger that doth that upon which he was sent, all his acts are good in Law: And 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A Messenger that transgresseth against the words of him that sent him, his act is nu •• : upon this very ground Christ's arguing here is clear and pregnant, and cometh home to their own position: My judging is just, because I being sent of the Father, do not mine own will, but do the errand that he sent me upon and do his will. And to this sense may we also interpret his words in verse. 24. for the fuller clearing of them, He that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, because his words were but the words of him that sent him, the Doctrine of the Gospel, being but the same with the Doctrine of the Law and Prophets.

This he speaketh also according to their own grounds and manner of proceeding in their Courts: Though he did bear witness of himself, yet his witness was true, Joh. 8. 14. but in their Judicatories, a man was not to be witness in his own cause, but he stood or fell by the witness of others: And so not true here, is to be understood ad modum recipientis, they would not accept it as a current testimony in his pleading for himself to bear witness of himself; therefore in the verses following he produceth other witnesses on his behalf, and this verse is but a transition to the second part of his oration, which was to produce proof that he was the Messias: he had in his discourse hitherto, declared his power, authority, and actings, as he was Messias. But I know (saith he here) that what I say of myself will not be a current Testimony with you, therefore I shall produce you others to witness of me, as John the Baptist, verse. 33. the works he wrought, verse. 36. the Father, verse. 37. the Scriptures, verse. 39. and particularly Moses, in whom ye trust, verse. 46.

This is John the Baptist, as the verses following do explain this: to whom they before whom Christ is now pleading, had sent to inquire, as Joh. 1. 19. and he gave testimony concerning Christ, then near at hand: Now in that he saith, I know that his witness is true, it will admit of a double construction: either I know that his Testimony is current with you, and will pass for sufficient; or though you should sleight his Testimony, as invalid, yet I know it is true. And though I need no human testimony, yet do I refer you to his Testimony, that if it would be, I might bring you to be persuaded and to believe that I am what I take on me to be, that ye might be saved.

Here is a glorious and eminent testimony concerning John who was yet alive, though now that burning and shining candle was put under the bushel of an unworthy prison. It is familiar with Scripture to denote the Ministry of the Word and Ordinances in the Church, under the notion of the Lamps or Candles burning in the Golden Candlestick, as Zech. 4. Revel. 1. & 11. &c. And according to that tenor of speech doth our Savior speak here concerning the Baptist, &c.

The latter part of the verse, which is the more difficult, ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light, is variously understood. By some thus: Ye were taken and affected with his holiness and exemplary life, but his Doctrine and testimony concerning me, ye cared not for: By others, to this sense. You were content to entertain and rejoice in the doctrine of John, for a while, but would none of the true light when he is come whose light lasteth forever. But by others thus and more near the purpose, Though John were so bright a candle, yet ye cared for his light but for a while.

It appeareth by the story of the Gospel, that upon the first breaking forth of this light, it was entertained with exceeding great and general applause and affection, as see Matth. 3. and Luke 3. and the people received John as a Prophet, Maith. 21. 26. But did the Sanhedrin so also? (for to them Christ is speaking) And if they did so, what caused them to cast him off? Answer, It is evident by Luke 7. 30. that these great Doctors and Rulers of the people, refused Johns Baptism, and yet it is as evident by these words, that they rejoiced in his light for a while: which contrary carriages are to be considered with these respects: When the Ministry of John first appeared, it shown itself in so high a demonstration of power and holiness, that the Nation, especially the learned that were most observant, could not but rejoice to see so much dawning of Prophesy appear, which had been so long nighted, and so fair a sign of the coming of Messias which was expected about that time: For though John did no miracles, Joh. 10. 41. which might proclaim him for a Prophet, yet was his Doctrine so powerful and convincing, his conversation so admirably holy and religious, his admonitions so free and fearless, his speech so to the glory of Christ, and not of himself, and the concourse to him so general and wonderful, that it could not but be a rejoicing to them to see so much hopes towards the answering of their long and longing expectation of Messias coming: especially when now they looked that he should shortly appear, Luke 19. 11. and when they also looked for a great change upon his coming, (such a change was Johns baptizing and his doctrine.) But when they found not in John those mistaken carnal characters that they looked after, as that he was neither very Elias from Heaven, nor one of the Prophets from the dead, nor Messias himself, and when they found his doctrine to tend to so dangerous an issue (as they held it) as to the crying down of their self-righteousness of which they so much triumphed, and of their Pedegree-Privileges, and to the alteration of their frame of Religion, then is John the Baptist lost in their repute, and he scandaled to have a Devil, Matth. 11. 18. Observe that Christ saith not Ye were willing to walk in his light, but to rejoice in it: yea and to rejoice in it exceedingly, for so the Original word importeth: Not that they took any holy content, or had any joyful inclination to reform according to the Doctrine that John preached, but that they hoped those glorious times of the Messias that they looked for, did now begin to appear in this new risen Prophet, and that they should see and have their share in those pompous and brave businesses that they had fancied to themselves at Messias his coming: It seemeth by Joh. 1. 19, 20, &c. that they had looked upon John with such thoughts and conceit a great while together before they put him to trial who he was, namely from his first beginning to Preach and Baptize, till after Christ's forty days of temptation was finished in the Wilderness, which was above seven months: conceiting that it was possible that this was the Messias, Luke 3. 15. (and to this conceit it is that John gives his first No, Joh. 1. 20.) but when they found not all things answering their low and carnal apprehensions concerning the Messias, Johns light was no more regarded by them.

Here is the second witness that he produceth to prove himself to be the Messias, namely the undeniable testimony of his great works, which he calleth a testimony greater than Johns, partly because John did no miracles, partly because these miracles that he did, carried with them more pregnant conviction than the words of John: It might be some question quoad rem ipsam, whether the testimony of John were not as Divine a Testimony, as the witness of Christ's miracles, but he speaketh as referring to the influence and validity of them towards the convincing of the people.

The faithless Jews, for the evading of the undeniable force and argument of Christ's miracles, have found out two cursed and damned tergiversations, and they are these.

1. That the Messias when he came should do no miracles at all: this position is asserted in the Talmud in Sanhedrin in that famous Chapter called Helek, where the Gemarists do speak exceeding much concerning the Messias and about his coming: And from thence it is produced by Maymony in Melachin Umilcha moth per. ult. The wretched deceivers having this poor shift to answer to all the miracles that Christ did, which indeed were infinite.

To which they have also 2. joined another, more visibly blasphemous than indeed this, but both rancorous alike at the heart, and that is, That what miracles Jesus did he did them by the power of the Devil: as Matth. 12. 24. The Pharisees said, This man casteth not out Devils but by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils. And so the Talmudists in the Treatise Shabbath, fol. 104. Did not the son of Satda (so they title our Savior, and there is a blasphemy in it) bring Sorceries out of Egypt?

What the unprejudiced opinion of the people was in these two points, we may observe in John 7. 31. And many of the people believed on him, and said, When Christ cometh will he do more miracles than this man hath done? In which they conclude fairly and plainly against the two blasphemous and rancorous opinions that have been alleged and assert, That Messias when he came should do miracles; and that the miracles that Jesus did were suitable to those of the Messias: the Scripture spake the former, and his miracles themselves the latter, so plainly that it was not reasonable, but brutish and devilish to deny either: And when our Savior in the beginning of the verse calls his works, The works which the Father had given him to finish, he both showeth that his works were from God, and that God had appointed that the Messias should do such works, Isaiah 53. 10. The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand: It was the Lord's pleasure, and he performed it accordingly.

The works that God gave appointment and authority for the Messias to do, were indeed the actions of his whole life, for he was doing the Will of God continually, but those that he meaneth more especially here, when he saith they were given him to finish, may be reduced to these three heads, His fulfilling the Law in the holiness of his life, his Preaching the Gospel, in the demonstration of abundance of the Spirit, and his working miracles for the good of the people: There was none of these three taken singly, but they did resplendently bear witness of him, that he was the person, he took on him to be: much more did they give an undeniable testimony of him, being considered altogether: The Phrase To finish seemeth to reflect upon that Prophesy in Esa. 42. 4. He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the Earth: Wherein is foretold that the Messias should accomplish and finish whatsoever in the work of his Mediatorship he should undertake: And the title that God puts upon him in the first verse of that Chapter, My servant, declareth that his works were given him to finish by the Father.

1. The holiness of his conversation was so exact, that we need not to go to Testimony of Scripture that doth so highly celebrate it; he himself doth challengethe Jews, who were sufficiently captious, to accuse him of sin if they could, or to find any mote in his holiness, and do their worst.

His lowliness, meekness, zeal, and earnestness to do good, and all these acted in an unfading constancy and in the highest activity, and that to the continual hazard of his person, might be illustrated to this purpose if it were needful. As Johns extraordinary sanctity was the greatest testimony that raised him in the hearts of the people: for miracles he did none, and his Doctrine and Baptizing they could not tell so well what to say to, as to his holiness which was so visible: So Christ in this kind had a testimony beyond him, and as far beyond him, as real and cordial holiness is beyond Ceremonial: For though it is true indeed that John was really and cordially holy, yet that Sanctity that the people admired in him, was in his external and Ceremonial strictness of raiment, diet and conversation.

2. His Doctrine and Preaching was so parallel to the predictions of the Old Testament concerning the Doctrine that was to be revealed by him, it was so high in discovery of the things of Heaven, it was so clear in opening the hard things of the Law, it was so convincing of the Errors of their false Teachers, it was so Divine in its tenor, it was so gracious in his mouth, and so piercing in the hearts of the hearers, that where willful malice and mischief had not blinded, they could not but confess, That never man spake like him, Joh. 7. 46.

3. His miracles were done in such power and number, without difficulty or restriction upon men and Devils, healing all diseases, and denying healing to none that sought it, and all this when working miracles had been dead so long, and in all this he seeking no glory to himself; these gave a testimony so fully of a virtue above human, nay above Prophetick, that where again malice and mischief had not blinded, they could not deny, that the Messias could not do greater miracles than he did, Joh. 7. 31.

This is the third Testimony that he produceth for himself, namely the witness of the Father: which may be taken either for the testimony which God had given him of old in the Law and Prophets, or a late by a voice from Heaven when he was baptized: If we understand the words in the former sense, then the context following, Ye have neither heard his voice, &c. may be taken thus, Though God hath never to your eyes nor ears born witness to me from Heaven by any sensible demonstration and evidence, yet hath he given abundant testimony of me in the Word of the Scriptures: But if we take them in the latter sense, than the context speaketh to this tenor. Although it be a most rare thing to hear any audible voice, or to see any visible appearance of God from Heaven, and you never heard or saw any such thing in your Generations, yet for my sake and to bear witness of me there hath been such a voice and appearance: Or if we understand them jointly both of the Testimony that God gave of the Messias in the Old Testament, and of the witness that he gave by a voice from Heaven, the sense of the words following ariseth to this, The Father of old in the Scriptures, and of late by a voice from Heaven hath born witness of me, but as ye never heard his voice from Heaven, nor saw his shape, so neither do you regard nor retain his Word since ye believe not him whom he hath sent.

Besides those reasons that have been alleged already out of the words of the verse itself, to prove that the verb 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is to be rendered in the Indicative sense, Ye search, rather than Search ye, these considerations may also be added for the confirmation of that construction.

1. That Christ is speaking to the Doctors of the Sanhedrin, the most acute, diligent and curious searchers of the Scripture of all the Nation. Men that made that their glory and employment: and howsoever it was their arrogancy that they thought their skill in Scripture more than indeed it was, yet was their diligence and scrutinousness in it real and constant even to admiration▪ It was exceedingly in fashion among the Nation to be great Scripture-men, but especially the great Masters of the Sanhedrin were reputed as the very Foundations of the Law and pillars of instruction, as Maymony stiles them in the treatise Mamrim, cap. 1. And therefore it cannot be so proper to think that Christ in this clause, sets them to the study of the Scripture, upon which they spent all their wits and time already, as confessing their studiousness in Scripture, yet showeth them how unprofitably they did it and to little purpose.

2. They did exceeding copiously and accurately observe and take up the Prophesies in Scripture that were of the Messias, and though they missed in expounding some particulars concerning him, yet did they well enough know that the Scriptures did testify of him abundantly.

3. The word that is used 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which betokeneth a narrow search, seemeth to be intended purposely to answer the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which they themselves ascribe to themselves in their unfolding of the Scriptures.

4. It was their conceit that the skill and knowledge in Scripture was now in its flour and prime amongst them, having been restored by Hillel who died about the twelfth year of our Savior's age, even as Ezra had restored the Law when it was forgotten. Juchasin. fol. 55. And let us take a scantling of the rest of the Doctors now present, by this testimony which is given of two of them, namely of Rabban Gamaliel the old, and Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai who were both of the Sanhedrin at this time: From the time that Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai died, the beauty of wisdom failed, and from the time that Rabban Gamaliel the old died, the glory of the Law failed, &c. Sotah. per. 9. So that these things considered, and the verse next following looked into, the speech of our Savior in these words appeareth, not to be intended so much to urge them to whom he speaketh to the study of the Scripture, as to speak to them in such a reproof as this, for studying the Scripture they knew not how, Ye search the Scriptures and they are the very things that testify of me, and Yet ye will not come unto me, &c. which is much to the same tenor and effect that those words are to Nicodemus, Chap. 3. 10. Art thou a Master in Israel, and yet knowest not these things?

Now in that he saith, In them ye think to have eternal life, he denieth not that eternal life is to be had in the Scriptures, nor doth he that thinketh to have eternal life in them think amiss, but yet he taxeth the Jews grounds and principles upon which they went, about this matter. They thought that the very study and knowledge of the things in the Scripture was available to Salvation by the very work wrought. And as they thought that the people that did not know the Law were cursed, Joh. 7. 48. so they reputed that they that were skillful in the Law, had blessedness enough by that very thing though they went no further: It were easy to show, how they placed the fruit and efficacy of all duty in opere operato, even as the Romanists do about their devotions. How the repeating of their Phylacteries, saying over their prayers, resorting to their Synagogues, &c. were reputed by them as enough done, if they did but do the outward formal work: And as concerning the bare study and knowledge of Scripture, and the bare historical belief of them, how far they rested in that, we need go no further than to Rom. 2. 17, 18, 19, 20. &c. Jam. 2. 19. &c. otherwise it might be shown out of their own Authors copiously what was their opinion in this point.

In what he addeth, They are they that testify of me, the Emphasis may not be passed unobserved. He saith not only they testify of me, but, they are they that do it: as intimating that the Scriptures are the great, singular and intended witnesses of Christ, the fullest and the highest testimony of him, as 2 Pet. 1. 19. And ye study and search them curiously (saith our Savior,) and they are they that do abundantly, and were given purposely to testify of me, and yet ye will not come to me: Ye think of having eternal life in the Scriptures, now this life is only to be had by coming to me, and not by the bare searching of them, and yet ye will not come to me. And thus doth Christ read unto us,

• 1. The dignity of the Scriptures, as his choicest witness.
• 2. The end of them, himself.
• 3. Their work, to bring men to him.
• 4. And 4. the fruit of all, Eternal Life.

He had said, that he received not testimony from men, before verse 34. and now he speaketh of another matter: He had copiously asserted himself for the Messias in the former part of his speech, and had shown what Divine testimony he had that asserted the same in the latter part; and now he cometh to show the end and manner of his actings and demeanor, namely, not to receive honor from men, or that he might be glorified with any worldly glory, but that he might seek the glory of God, and the glory which is of God only: as the 43 & 44 verses help to explain his speech here: In verse 43. he saith he came not in his own Name but in his Fathers, and that doth teach us to construe the words that we are upon, That therefore he sought not to magnify his own Name with any human or mundane honor, but that he sought God's glory. And in verse 44. he opposeth seeking honor from men and the glory which is from God, as things contrary and inconsistent, and therefore when he saith here, I receive not honor from men, he disclaimeth all human glory and ambition, though he had spoken of his equal power and dignity with the Father before, and of the high testimony that was of him: And he may be conceived to speak this the rather,

1. Because of the conceptions that the Nation had, of the Messias coming in an earthly pomp and glory.

And 2. because of his words that he had spoken immediately before, And ye will not come to me, &c. which he would clear from any carnal or ambitious sense, which might be put upon them, as if he desired to make himself the head of a party. No saith he, it is not honor from men that I look after, but the glory of God, and to approve myself to him, &c.

There needeth no much curious insisting upon the manner of expression, whether to take the verse as it lies verbatim before us, or to make only the sense of it (as some do) I know that you have not the love of God in you: To take it either way it is very sharp and cutting, and carries a smart and a sad, but a most deserved censure in it, compare Exod. 3. 19. Revel. 2. 2, 7. 13. 19. &c. Joh. 2. 25. &c. The juncture of these words with the former (for the word but relates them thither) is first to be looked after, and then the intent of the words themselves. Our Savior had said before that he received not either testimony from men, or glory from men; but that he had his witness from God (for this is plainly expressed) and that he received honor from God (for that is included:) But he concludeth that they for all this would neither receive that Testimony that God had given of him, nor would they regard him himself, nor the honor of God that he looked after, and all because they had not the love of God in them.

Were the love of God in them, they would receive him whom God sent, to whom he bare witness and to whom he gave honor, but I know you (saith he) that ye have not this love in you.

Herein 1. He taxeth their great hypocrisy, who pretended so much religion, and so much love of God and godliness, when as there was indeed no such matter in them.

2. He meeteth particularly with their pretended zeal about the Sabbath, which they charged him that he had violated, and showeth that howsoever they took upon them so much forwardness in that cause of God, yet did it not proceed from any love in them that they bare to God; for they seemed to call the Sabbath a delight, but they did not delight themselves in the Lord, as Isa. 58. 13, 14.

And whereas he saith, He knoweth them, that they are devoid of this love.

1. It may be understood in opposition to the apprehensions of others concerning them, who were deluded with their fair outward shows, and thought they had abundance of piety and the love of God in them, but he knew them that there was no such thing.

2. He speaketh this as the Messias the knower of the heart, and their hearts if they had any stirring in them could not but witness with him that he spake to purpose.

3. He might speak this from that visible evidence and experiment that they gave continually of their want of the love of God, in accepting the persons of men, and disregarding those that came in the name of the Lord, as he prosecutes this argment in the verse following: And thus the Lord is come to his own Temple, as a Refiners fire and Fullers sope, a searcher of hearts and a discerner between dross and silver, betwixt him that loveth the Lord and him that loveth him not, Mal. 3. 2. Judging the great Judges of the Sanhedrin, and charging most justly upon them, who were the great examiners of witnesses, for despising the witness of God, and who were to be custodes utriusque tabulae, that the sum and tenor of the first Table, the love of God, was not at all in their hearts.

1. Here is a proof and confirmation of what he had said before, that the love of God was not in them, for they received not him that came in the name of God.

2. He seemeth to foretell, how ready they should be to embrace false Prophets and false Christ's, which would arise abundantly amongst them after they had refused the true Messias, as Matth. 24. 24. as, to omit all other instances, Rabbi Akibah the very head of the Sanhedrin in his time, became even Armor-bearer to Ben Cozba a false pretended Messias, who drew many thousands into error and ruin in the time of Adrian.

3. He showeth that their principles carried them necessarily to despise those that were sent of God, and to embrace them that came in their own name, because they looked after and regarded human glory.

And upon this point our Savior Christ differed from all false Prophets, and false Christ's, that had appeared either before or after him, because he sought not the praise of men, but of God. The falsest cheats that came, took upon them to come in the name of God, even as he did; and yet he saith they came in their own names, because they sought their own glory and worldly advancement, which he did not. Ben Cozba made wars, obtained great victories, stamped coin in his own name, and looked only after worldly pompousness: But our Savior came poor and lowly, sought nothing of this world, and ascribed all he did to the glory of him that sent him.

How these great ones looked after the praise of men, not caring to approve themselves to God, it is intimated in the Gospel many times over, Matth. 23. 5. All their works they do for to be seen of men, Joh. 12. 43. They loved the praise of men, more than the praise of God, &c. Now this ambitious humor of theirs was as far contrary to believing in Christ, as could be possible; For their high thoughts and his lowly condition were not consistent, or of capacity to suit together: since they that were all for vain glory and the praise of men, did think it scorn to be Disciples to one of so mean a condition as he appeared, Compare James 2. 1, 2, 3. &c. Seeking the honor that cometh from God only, is so to approve heart and ways before him, and unto him, as to have his approval, Euge bone serve, &c. See Rom. 2. 29.

As Elias did Israel, Rom. 11. 2. and Isaiah did, Chap. 6. 5. Coals (saith Rabbi Solomon) are mentioned concerning Isaiah and concerning Elias 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 because they spake accusation against Israel: the one called them a people of uncircumcised lips, and the other said, they have forsaken thy Covenant, &c.

Our Savior in the verses before, had justly taxed these men for divers guilts; as, for want of the love of God, for unbelief, for defect of the Word in them, for ambition and seeking the praise of men and not of God; and upon all these he might take occasion to accuse them to the Father: But the special thing that he aimeth at, in these words that we are about, is their refusal of him whom the Father had sent among them: as verse. 38. Him ye believe not. verse. 40. Ye will not come to me. verse. 43. I am come in my Fathers name and ye receive me not, whereas another coming in his own name ye will receive, &c. And for this might he deservedly make a return of their contempt of him, to the Father which sent him, by praying and complaining to God against them, but Think not that I will accuse you, &c.

Did they think of any such thing? Or did they regard whether he accused them to God or no?

Answ. 1. There might be places alleged out of their Talmudical writers, in which they bring in the Messias sometimes complaining against his generation, and it is their confession, that in the generation when the Son of David should come 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 there should be accusations against the Scholars of the Wise, Cetuboth in Gemar▪ ad fin.

2. It might be supposed they measured the temper of Christ, by their own dispositions, or by common human manners. He was now before the High Court, from which whither should he appeal if he be wronged by it, but to God? And so would passionate and mere men be ready to do, and pray to God against, and they might judge that he would be of the same temper and practice. But

3. Our Savior's meaning is, that he needed not to accuse them to the Father for disregarding him, though the Father had sent him, for they had their accuser already, even Moses in whom they trusted.

Not the person of Moses accusing them, but his doctrine: As when the Apostles are said to sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel, it meaneth, by their doctrine, and not in their persons: They trusted in Moses doctrine, as looking to be justified by the works of the Law: whereas his doctrine tended all along to drive men to Christ. And therefore a just accusation lay against them even in his writings, which mainly aimed to show justification by Christ, when they taking on them to be so observant Scholars of Moses, yet utterly disregarded and refused him, whom Moses had clearly, chiefly, and solely proposed as the main and ultimate end of his Law. And so our Savior in these words doth apparently aver the Law of Moses to be a doctrine of Faith.

CHAP. I.

THE Scripture the Word of Knowledge, beginneth with the Story of the Creation, because first, the first step towards the knowledge of God is by the Creature, Rom. 1. 20. Secondly, the Story of the Creation pleadeth for the justice of God, in planting and displacing of Nations as he pleaseth, since the Earth is his own and he made it. Thirdly, the Resurrection is taught by the Creation, and the end of the world from the beginning, for God that made that to be, that never was, can much more make that to be, that hath been before, namely these our Bodies, Heaven and Earth, Center and circumference created together in the same instant, and clouds full of water (not such as we see made by evaporation, but such as are called the Windows or Cataracts of Heaven, Gen. 7. 11. 2 Kings 7. 19. Mal. 3. 10.) created in the same instant with them, verse. 2. The earth lay covered with waters, and had not received as yet its perfection, beauty and deckage: and that vast vacuity that was between the convex of those waters, and the concave of the clouds, was filled as it were with a gross and great darkness, and the Spirit of God moved the Heavens from the first moment of their Creation in a circular motion, above and about the earth and waters, for the cherishing and preservation of them in their new begun being, v. 3. Twelve hours did the Heavens thus move in darkness, and then God commanded and there appeared light to this upper Horizon, namely to that where Eden should be planted [for, for that place especially is the story calculated] and there did it shine other twelve hours, declining by degrees with the motion of the Heavens to the other Hemisphere, where it enlightened other twelve hours also, and so the first natural day to that part of the world was six and thirty hours long, so long was Joshua's day, Josh. 10. And so long was our Savior clouded under death.

Vers. 6. When the light began to set to the Horizon of Eden, and the evening or night of the second day was come, God commanded that the Air should be spread out instead of that vacuity, which was betwixt the waters upon the Earth, and the waters in the clouds, and in four and twenty hours it was accomplished, and the Air spread through the whole universe with the motion of the Heavens. In this second days work it is not said as in the rest that God saw it good, because whereas this days work was about separation of waters, they were not perfectedly and fully parted, till the waters which covered the Earth were couched in their channels, which was not till the third day: and there it is twice said that God saw it good once for the entire separation of the waters, and again for the fructification of the ground.

Vers. 9. In the new created Air the Lord thundered and rebuked the waters, Psal. 104. 7. So that they hasted away and fled all westward, into the channels which the Lord had appointed for them. And still as they flowed away, and dry land appeared the Earth instantly brought forth Trees and Plants in their several kinds. This production was only of the bodies and substances of them, for their verdure and maturity was not till the sixth day: And now was Eden planted with the bodies of all trees fit for meat and delight, which by the time that Adam is created are laden with leaves and fruit.

Vers. 14. The Moon and some Stars created before the Sun: She shone all the night of the fourth day in her full body, and when the Sun appeared in the morning, then was her light augmented, yet her body obscured from the World till the sixth day at even, which was her prime day, and she shown her crescent and gave light to Adam, who was but newly got at that time out of the darkness of his fall, by the luster of the promise.

Vers. 21. Whales only of all brutes specified by name, to show that even the greatest of living creatures could not make itself.

Vers. 25. Beasts wild and tame created, and all manner of creeping things, and the World furnished with them from about Eden as well as with men: of clean beasts were seven created, three couples for breed, and the odd one for Adams sacrifice upon his fall, but of unclean only one couple for the propagation of the kind.

Vers. 26. Man created by the Trinity about the third hour of the day, or nine of the clock in the morning.

CHAP. II.

The three first verses, that treat of the institution of the Sabbath, are according to their proper Order of time, to be taken in at the end of the third chapter.

Vers. 4. &c. On the morning of the sixth day a mist, that had gone up from the Earth fell down upon it again in rain or dew, and watered the Earth, with which watering the trees and plants budded to maturity in a trice: this dew being as a natural cause thereof, yet the effect being withal exceeding supernatural, because • o speedy.

Vers. 7. Of the dust of the Earth thus watered, God created the body of man, and to this the Psalmist alludeth, The dew of thy youth, Psal. 110. 3. And into that Earth so prepared, he breatheth the Spirit of Life and Grace, Ephes. 4. 24.

Vers. 10. Eden watered by a river that overflowed it once a year, after the manner of Nile and Jordan; Chap. 13. 10.

To Adam thus created and made Lord of the creature, the Lord himself bringeth the creatures to receive their names, which he giveth to them agreeable to their natures, and that at the first sight, showing at once his dominion over them, and his wisdom, among them all he seeth no fit match for himself, but by seeing everyone of them mated, and that they came before him by pairs, he is brought to be sensible of his own want of a fellow: which thereupon God provideth for him out of his own body of a rib, which part of him might best be spared. And thus the Creation endeth in the making of the woman.

CHAP. III.

The woman thinking it had been a good Angel that spake in the trunk of the Serpent, she entereth communication with the Devil: who perceiving her both to add and to diminish to, and from the Commandment that was given them, groweth the more impudent to tempt, and seduceth her by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, as 1 John 2. 16. And she persuadeth her husband, and so they both are fallen on the very same day that they are created, Gen. 9. 1, 2, 3. Psal. 49. 12.

Christ is promised before the man and the woman are censured: and they are questioned also before they be sentenced, but so was not Satan, for God had mercy in store for them, but none for him. The curse is not upon man himself but upon the Earth, to teach him to set his affections on things above and not on the cursed ground, and not to look for an earthly Kingdom of Christ on this Earth which the Lord hath cursed.

Adam apprehendeth and layeth hold upon the promise by Faith, and in evidence of this his faith he calleth his wives name Eve or Life, because she was to be the mother of Christ according to the flesh, by whom life should come; and of all believers that by faith should live in him, for an outward sign and seal of this his Faith, and for a further and more lively expression of the same; God teacheth him the rite of sacrifice, to lay Christ dying before his eyes in a visible figure: And with the skins of the sacrificed beasts God teacheth him and his wife to clothe their bodies. And thus the first thing that dieth in the world is Christ in a figure.

At the end of this third chapter imagine the three first verses of Chap. 2. concerning the Sabbath to be observed, to come in, and suppose the texture of the story to lie thus. Adam thus fallen, censured, recovered, instructed and expelled Eden on the sixth day, the next day following he by God's appointment keepeth for a Sabbath or an holy rest, and spendeth it only in divine duties. Now the reason why it standeth in the place where it doth, Chap. 2. Is partly because Moses would lay the seven days, or the first week of the world altogether without interposition, and partly because he would show by setting it before Adams fall, that had he persisted in innocence, yet must he have observed a Sabbath.

The seventh day or Sabbath is not bounded in the Text with the same limits that the other days are, for it is not said of it as it was of them, The Evening and the Morning were the seventh day, because a time should come when it should have a new beginning and end, and though to the Jews it was from Even to Even, yet from the beginning it was not so expressed.

CHAP. IV.

Cain and Abel twins of one birth; and first was born he that was natural, and after he that was spiritual.

The faith of Abel appeared in the very materials of his sacrifice; it being of slain beasts and so a representation of the death of Christ: for this, it is fired from Heaven, and Cain's is not, though his dry ears of Corn were materials far more combustible. Cain and Abel were both their own Priests, for it cannot be proved that Sacrifices were ever offered but upon emergent occasions, till the Law fixed it for a common service: and he that had such an occasion, had liberty to be his own Priest, even under the Law, as it appeareth by Gideon, Manoah, &c. and then much more was that liberty before.

The word Sin, in verse. 7. seemeth rather to signify an offering or attonment for sin than punishment: For first God cometh not to deject Cain lower than he was, but to raise him from his dejection, as it appeareth both by his deigning to give him an Oracle from Heaven, and also by the words wherewith he beginneth. Secondly, If the words, Sin lieth at the door, intend sudden Judgment ready to devour him, what dependence can the words following have with these? If thou do not well, thou shalt certainly be punished, and thy brothers desire shall be subject to thee: for this were to threaten poor Abel more, or at least as much as Cain. Thirdly, The Original word Chateath as it signifies Sin, so also doth it the sacrifice for sin, as Hos. 4. 8. 2 Cor. 5. 21. And all along Leviticus, and it was the custom, according to which Moses speaketh as best known, to lay the Sacrifice at the Sanctuary door.

Vers. 14. Cain sensible of his punishment though he was not of his sin, beggeth of God, that he might die to ease him of it, Therefore let any one that findeth me kill me, but this God denieth to him reserving him to a lingering punishment: and Cain being assured of long life, giveth himself to all sensuality, to sweeten it as much as he can, and this is the way of Cain, Jud. verse. 11.

Vers. 23. Lamech in horror of Conscience for his Polygamy, which now began to be examplary to the general corruption of the world, acknowledgeth his sin seventy times greater than Cain's, and his desert of punishment proportionable: for Cain had slain but one man and but the body, but he by his evil example had killed old and young and their very souls: and therefore he maketh his complaint to his two wives that had brought him to it.

CHAP. V.

A Chronicle of 1556 years: and all the years are reckoned complete but only Noah's five hundredth year, in verse 32.

Vers. 3. Seth born in Original sin: the Father of all men in the new world after the flood, Numb. 24. 17.

Vers. 23. Enoch liveth as many years as be days in a year.

Those that lived nearer the flood lived the longer, unmarried because they would not generate many children for the water.

Vers. 29. Noah a comforter, because in him liberty should be given to the World to eat flesh.

CHAP. VI.

In the general corruption of the World, Noah the eighth person in descent from Enoch, in whose time profaneness began, as 2 Pet. 2. 5. Escapeth the abominations and desolation of the times.

CHAP. VII, VIII, IX.

The flood: the Beasts in the Ark live without enmity, which showeth how the words, Gen. 3. 15. about enmity with the Serpent, are to be understood, the Serpent and Noah are now friends each to other: this is alluded to, Isaiah 11. 6, 7. Noah is in the Ark just a complete and exact year of the Sun, but reckoned in the Text by the Lunary Months. Universal darkness all the forty days rain. The door of the Ark under water: The Ark draweth water eleven cubits. The waters when they came to abate while they lay above the Mountains, fell but one Cubit in four days, but far faster afterward. After their coming out of the Ark for a whole half year together, Noah and his family, and all the Creatures live upon provision that was still in the Ark, for they came out just upon the beginning of Winter, when there was neither grass corn nor fruits till another spring: The forbidding to eat flesh with the blood, condemneth the Doctrine of Transubstantiation.

CHAP. X, XI.

Seventy Nations dispersed from Babel, but not seventy Languages: the fifteen named in Act. 2. were enough to confound the work, and they may very well be supposed to have been the whole number. Sem as he standeth in the front of the Genealogy of the new world, hath neither Father nor Mother named, nor beginning of days nor end of life. Nahors life is shortened for Idolatry.

CHAP. XII.

Abraham at 75 years old receiveth the promise, and cometh into Canaan and just so many years did Sem live after Abraham's coming thither, and so might well be Melchizedek in Chap. 14.

Vers. 6, 7. Abraham buildeth an Altar near, if not upon Mount Gerizim the hill of blessing: and verse. 8. Another Altar he buildeth near unto, if not upon Mount Ebal, the hill of cursing, Deut. 27. And so taketh possession of the land by faith in the very same place, where his sons the Israelites did take possession of it indeed, Josh. 8. 12. &c. 30.

Vers. 11. When he is ready to enter into Egypt whither famine drave him, as it did his posterity afterward, he is afraid of his life in regard of Sarah, who being a white woman would soon be taken notice of by the Egyptians who were Blackmoors. This was one main enticement to Josephs Mistress to cast an eye of lustfulness upon him, because he was a white Man and she a Moor. Of the same complexion was Pharaohs daughter whom Solomon took to wife: of whom that in the first and literal acceptation is to be understood, which spiritually is to be applied to the Church, Cant. 1. 5, 6. I am black but comely: and I am black because the Sun hath looked on me, and that Psal. 45. 13. The Kings Daughter is all glorious within: for she was a Blackmoor without.

Vers. 20. Pharaoh plagued for Sarah's and Abraham's sake who was an Hebrew Sheepherd, giveth charge to the Egyptians, making it as it were a law for time to come, that they should not converse with Hebrews nor with foreign Sheepherds, in any so near familiarity as to eat or drink with them, which the Egyptians observed strictly ever after, Gen. 42. 32. & 46. 34.

CHAP. XIII.

Abraham and Lot quarrel, and part in the valley of Achor: and this is at the very same time of the year that Israel came into the Land, viz. in the first month of the year, or Abib.

CHAP. XIV.

Noah in the blessing of his son Sem, maketh him in a special manner Lord of the Land of Canaan, Gen. 9. Hither therefore came Sem, and built a City, and called it after his own peaceable condition Salem: here he reigned as a King, but so quietly and retiredly as that he was a Priest also. In this sequestration of the father from worldly cares and affairs, Elam his eldest son and heir apparent, though he were seated far distant in the East, yet it concerneth him to have an eye to Canaan, and how matters go there, for the land by bequest of his grand-father Noah, descended to him as by the Common Law. This title bringeth Chedorlaomer an heir of Elam from Persia into Canaan, when the five Cities of the plain rebel. Into this war he taketh three partners younger brothers of the House of Sem, Amraphel of Arphaxad, King of Chaldea, Arioch of L • d, King of Ellasar bordering upon Babylonia, and Tidal of Assur King of Nations, and late built Nineveh. These four thus banded together, and all children of Sem, and all in claim of his land against the usurping Canaanites are resolved to march over and so they do, all that Country both within Jordan and without. Their first inroad is upon the Rephaims that lay most North and lay first in their way; and so over run, the Zuzims in Ammon, Emims in Moab, Horites or Hivites that were Troglodytes or dwelt in the rocky Caves of Mount Seir in Edom, as Jer. 49. 10. Obad. ver. 3. And all the Canaanites South-East and full South to Hazezon Tamar a point below the dead Sea: There they turn in to the land of Canaan properly so called, and as they had subdued all the Countries from North to South without Jordan, so now they intend to do from South to North within. And so they did: but when they were come to Dan the North out-going of the land, Abram overtaketh them and conquereth the conquerors, and now he is doubly titled to the land, namely by promise and by victory. This Sem or Melchizedek observeth upon his return with triumph, and perceiveth that it was he and his posterity to whom the Lord had designed that Land in the prophetic spirit of Noah, and had refused the heirs that were more apparent in Common Law and reason: and therefore he bringeth forth bread and wine the best fruits of the land, and tenders them as livery and s • isin of it, to him, whom he perceived that God had chosen and pointed out for the right heir.

CHAP. XV.

All fear of claim by any of Shem sons was now past, because of the late conquest, but only of Aram the youngest, who had no chalengers or children; in the war of him was Eliezer descended who was Abraham's chief servant, and whereas the title by Shem resignation, was to descend to Abram and his heirs, Eleazar was like to be next if Abram had no child of his own. When this jealousy somewhat troubleth Abram, God removeth it by the promise of a Son of his own Loins: and by a Covenant with sacrifice, even of all manner of creatures that were to be sacrificed.

CHAP. XVI.

Abram assured of a son of his own body (but not whether by Sarah or not) taketh Hagar to compass the promise, she wearied out by Sarai 's strictness, is travailing to her own Country Egypt, and by the way hath a vision of the Angel of the Covenant, which was strange to her to have visions out of Abram's house: therefore she called the Name of the Lord that spake unto her; Thou art the God of vision: for she said, Did I here also look after a vision, in a place so far distant from Abram's family? And the well also where he spake unto her was called, The well of the lively one of vision.

CHAP. XVII.

Circumcision instituted in Hebron, and about the time of Easter, the place and time of the year where and when the Baptist was born, who was to bring in Baptism instead of Circumcision. Abram and Sarah upon Circumcision, saith Rabbi Menahem, were as new creatures, and therefore also must they have new names.

CHAP. XVIII.

The three Persons in the Trinity in the shape of three men appear to Abraham and dine with him, and eat the First flesh that is mentioned eaten in all the Scripture. Abraham beggeth for Sodom till he thought he had been gotten within the compass of righteous ones in Lots family, and then he ceaseth.

CHAP. XIX.

The Son and the Holy Ghost come into Sodom to destroy it, and now they are called Angels, because they were sent, by the Father. Lots wife is struck dead with lightning, and stiffened and fixed in the place where she stood, and of a salt and brackish smell, and therefore called a pillar of salt: Sodom destroyed by a strange fire, and the memorial of so great a Judgment preserved to this day by as strange a water; Jordan before that time had an issue further, but from that time it pleased God to stop it, and to lay that valley up on a fatal pool. Lot had two Daughters at the least that perished in the fire and brimstone, as well as he had two that escaped. It is observable how soon after the institution of Circumcision those Cities came to destruction, which so hideously abused that member, wherein the Covenant for the land was sealed.

CHAP. XX. XXI.

Abraham flitteth into the Land of the Philistines, that Isaac might be born out of the Land of Canaan properly so called for the greater mystery to his birth. God himself cometh in visible form, as chap. 18. Sarah hath once a greater measure of the Spirit of Prophesy than Abraham, namely in the matter of casting out the bond woman and her son. There is good probability of Ishmael's salvation. Abraham consecrateth a grove at Beersheba, that he might have hallowed wood, for his sacrificing fires, as well as holy fire for his sacrifices.

CHAP. XXII.

Abraham passed through ten temptations, and the sacrificing of his son the last and greatest.

CHAP. XXIII.

When Rebeceahs son is risen in the last Chapter. Sarah sets in this. The first foot of Land, and all the Land that Abraham hath in Canaan in possession is only a place of burial: God by this very thing drawing him, and his to look after the spiritual part of the promise.

CHAP. XXV.

At what time Abraham married Keturah is uncertain: the Text hath laid it after Isaac's marriage, because it was fit that all the actions of Abraham which any whit concerned the promise, should be handled first and together, before the other which either did not at all or did it the less. But that Abraham was married to this woman, long before Isaac's marriage or Sarah's death, is probable upon these conjectures. 1. He that held it strange to have a son at an hundred years old, it is not like he would marry at an hundred and forty. 2. In chap. 24. 36. when the servant is to make the match for Isaac, he saith that Abraham had given all his estate to Isaac, which had been unnecessary to mention, had he had no more children but Ishmael who was gone from his house long before.

Abraham's disposing of his sons into the East Countries or Arabia, was not upon usurpation, but upon just claim by conquest, chap. 14. All these Countries were of the Land of Canaan, and of the promise, and therefore are circumcised ones seated in them instead of Canaanites.

When the Text hath recited these sons of Abraham and their settlement, it bringeth him and Ishmael to their graves: Not that they died before the birth of Jacob, and Esau, as the Text hath laid it, for Abraham lived till they were fifteen years old, and Ishmael till they were at their climacterical year of sixty three, but now hath Moses no more to say of them, and therefore he concludeth their story at once. Esau born all hairy over like a Kid, but of a reddish color, and therefore they called him Esau, Factus, made, and perfected already, as having both his beard and pubes as soon as he was born.

In a sore year of famine in the Land, Esau selleth his birth-right for want of meat.

CHAP. XXVI.

The famine that had caused him to part with his birth-right causeth Isaac his father to part out of the Land of Canaan. The Philistines ( Africans by descent, Gen. 10. 14. and tawny like them) do soon espy the beauty of Rebekah a white woman.

CHAP. XXVII.

Isaac being arrived at the age of one hundred and thirty seven years, at what age Ishmael his brother had died, by his example, beginneth to think of his own death, and to dispose himself for that. He sendeth Esau to hunt for venison for a trial, whether he should bless him or no; for missing of venison before, he had lost his birthright, and if he miss today as he did then, it would be a sure sign that he must lose the blessing: And so though Isaac had passed away the main blessing at unawars, yet when Esau cometh home sped of a prey, he seeth that it was the will of God he should have some blessing, and so blessed him also. Esau's garments in which Jacob obtained the blessing, were the garments of the Priesthood which belonged to the first born.

CHAP. XXIX, XXX.

Jacob stronger than three men, and rolleth away the stone from the wells mouth alone, which they could not do with all their strength united: he is deceived by Laban by a suborned person, and embraced Leah thinking he had embraced Rahel, as he deceived his father by a suborned person, taking on him to be Esau when he was Jacob: He serveth in hardship in his marriage week, and bringeth festivity to others but labor to himself; Joseph, Zebulun and Asher were in their mothers wombs at the same time, but Joseph born last; Dinah was not born in these seven years, unless she were a twin with Zebulun. Reuben about • ive years old following the reapers findeth Mandrakes and bringeth the Apples thereof to his mother, for which poor rate Jacob is in manner sold for a time by Rahel.

CHAP. XXXI.

Rahel stealeth Laban's Teraphim for a civil use: to preserve the memory of some of her ancestors whereof they were the pictures, and which Laban had impiously Idolized.

CHAP. XXXII.

Jacob for distrust in the Promise so far, upon Esau's approach, that he sendeth him above a thousand cattle of all sorts, of which he had vowed the Tithes to the Lord, and before he paid them, is met by the way by the Lord, and in danger to be killed by him: but by prayer and supplication he prevaileth with the Lord, and escapeth only with a lame leg. This lameness of Jacob was not reputed to him for a maim, but like the honorable scars of a valiant Captain, for a special dignity. For at Bethel he exerciseth the part and office of a Priest, which if his halting had been reputed for a may • , he had been disabled to do, and his posterity in all succeeding ages, reserve the honorable memory of this his lameness, in not eating the sinew that shrank. That was the first Ceremony that distinguished Israel for a peculiar people, because with this his lameness Jacob is first dignified with the name of Israel. Circumcision differenced them not from the other seed of Abraham, by Hagar and Keturah, but this curiosity in meats first beginneth Judaism. They refrained not to eat the joint where the sinew was, as a leg of Mutton or of Beef, for the legs of the Passover were to be eaten, Exod. 1 • . 10. but they spared the sinew. And that not in abomination or abhorring of it, but in honor and special respect, because it bare the memorial of their first naming Israel: The portion of meat that Elkanah gave to his beloved Hannah, Manah Ahhath Appaiina the portion of representation may not unfitly be understood of this joint, and the same piece of the meat did Samuel reserve for Saul, in honor, The Cook took up the leg, 1 Sam. 9. 24.

CHAP. 33, 34.

Shechem an Hivite by original, chap. 34. 2. is an Amorite by habitation, chap. 48. 22. So Anah the Hivite by descent, chap. 36. 2. Beeri the Hittite by habitation in one place, chap. 26. 36. and an Horite by habitation in another, chap. 36. 30, 24.

Judah was not at the murder at Shechem, but at Chezib upon the borders of the Philistines, married and resident there, many miles distant.

CHAP. XXXV.

The Proselytes of Shechem admitted to Jacob's family by Baptism, for circumcision to the Shechemites was become deadly.

Benjamin born by the strength of the promise, verse. 11. for Jacob was now past the natural vigor of generating, and therefore he justly calleth his name Benjamin, the son of the right hand.

CHAP. 36.

Strange alteration of names in this Chapter, from what they are in others, Judith, Chap. 26. 34. called Aholibamah because of her Idolatry. Anah her father, Chap. 36. 2. an Hivite by original, is Beeri an Hittite, Chap. 26. 34. because he dwelt among them about Beer-la-hai-roi. Bashemath, Chap. 26. 34. is Adah here, to show God's dislike against Esau's matches Mahalath, is Pashemath to show the Canaanitish qualities of a daughter of Ishmael.

Compare this genealogy in this Chapter with the same in 1 Chron. 1. and Timna which is here a woman and a man's concubine, is there made that man's son, for the Scripture useth to speak short in known stories.

CHAP. 37.

When the Text hath dispatched with Esau the hater of his brother that lost his birth-right by his own fault, it falleth upon Joseph the hated of his brethren, that obtained the birth-right by the fault of another. He feeding the flocks with his brethren joineth in company with the sons of the handmaids, for Leah's children cared little either for them or him. Among them where he thought to have respect, he found hardship, for they made him as their slave or servant, Vehu nagnar, and he was a servant with the sons of Bilhah and Zilphah, verse. 2. This evil report of his brethren's usage of him he told his father, whereupon he made him a coat of divers colors as a badge of the birth-right which his father intended to confer upon him, that his brethren for this should respect him the more. But this procureth their greater hatred, Reuben only excepted who sought his good though he had gotten his birth-right, which showeth that the incestuous man was now become a penitent and holy.

CHAP. 38.

Judah punished in his children and his own shame for the sale of his righteous brother. He was married about eight years before Joseph was sold, being then not above twelve years of age if he were so much. Therefore the words in the beginning of the Chapter, At that time, have not so much any reference to the exact time of Judah's marriage, as to the miscarriage of Er and Onan, which befell not long after Joseph was sold, and so teach of his requital in his children for the sale of his righteous brother.

CHAP. XXXIX, XL, XLI.

Joseph made a slave: his Blackmoor mistress lusteth after his beauty and whiteness. By the interpretation of other men's dreams he is promoted as by the relating of his own he was sold into misery. Pharaoh giveth him a new name after their Oracular God Baal Zephon, Zophnath Paanea.

CHAP. XLII.

Josephs words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 verse. 15, 16. not an oath by the Creature but an apprecation and prayer for Pharaohs life: So let Pharaoh live as ye are spies, as Lev. 25. 36. helpeth to explain the verb.

CHAP. XLVII.

Pharaoh having never seen so old a man as Jacob, nor so grave a head nor so gray a beard in all his life, in admiration asketh him no other question but concerning his age.

CHAP. XLVIII.

The birth-right which Jacob intended for Joseph before his sale is conferred and confirmed upon him, when Ephraim and Manasseh are taken by him for his sons, as Reuben and Simeon: and hence came Ephraim to be first born among the Tribes, and therefore Moses chooseth Joshua one of that Tribe for their conductor into Canaan.

CHAP. XLIX.

Jacob blesseth everyone of the Tribes, verse. 28. therefore in his words to Reuben, Simeon and Levi, which are the most bitter, we must find a blessing or we lose his sense. His words also concern the future events of the Tribes, as much or more than the twelve Patriarchs that stood before him, verse. 1. These ground-works being then thus laid for the understanding of these his last words as necessarily they must, let it be tolerated to touch upon some of them of the most difficulty, as far as Grammatical construction, and truth of history will warrant and justify.

Reuben thou art my first born, my might and the beginning of my strength. There is a remnant of dignity for thee, and a remnant of strength: For so the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifieth many times in the Bible, and so was Reuben dignified in leading the Van in the wars of Canaan, Josh. 4. 12. And so had he a residue of strength in being frontier against the Hagarens, 1 Chron. 5. 10.

Vers. 4. Unstable as water in affecting the Priesthood; Numb. 16. 1, 2. and in refusing of the Land of promise, Numb. 32. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Leave no remnant of thine instability, &c.

Vers. 5. Simeon and Levi brethren, their traffickings are instruments of cruelty, for their pretence of trading with Shechem they made an instrument to execute their bloodiness.

Vers. 6. For in their anger they slew a man, as for their will they would hough an ox. For they used Circumcision, as a means to master and murder me, as if they should have cut the sinews of an Ox to bring him under to their will.

Vers. 13. Zebulon shall dwell at the haven of the Seas: the Sea of Galilee or the lake of Genezaret East, and the Sea of Phoenicia or the Mediterranian North-West.

Vers. 14. Issachar is an Ass of bone couching down between two burdens of the Kingdom of Phoenicia on the one side, and the Kingdom of Samaria on the other.

Vers. 22. Joseph is a son of fruitfulness, his fruitfulness in sons shall be by the well: In daughters it goeth even to the Enemy. This Interpretation of that part of Josephs blessing be referred to the censure of the learned Reader as conjectured at, rather than boldly averred, and that upon these considerations. First, That there is a plain Antithesis betwixt Ben and Bavoth, and therefore is to be construed accordingly of sons and daughters. Secondly, That the word Ben is by his place in regimine, but by his vowel not, so is Porah by his last letter in regimine, but not by this place: and therefore both of them to be rendered something answerable to this their double condition. Ben-Porath, Joseph is a son of fruitfulness, here they have the due of their place, and Porath Ben fruitfulness of sons: here they have the due of their vowels and letters. Thirdly, That Porath also is to be understood in the latter clause, Porath Bavoth, fruitfulness in daughters. Fourthly, That Shur signifieth natively in Hebrew an Enemy, Psal. 92. 12. and it is but from the Chaldee idioms that it betokeneth a wall. Josephs fruitfulness in sons then did chiefly show itself by the well of Shechem, where Joshua of Joseph aslembleth all the Tribes as Prince over them, and there also Jeroboam of Joseph raiseth up that house to a Kingdom. From these words of Jacob the inhabitants of Sychar had their warrant to maintain, that their well was Jocobs well, and that his sons and cattle drank of it. For it might not have been digged of a thousand years after Jacob was dead and gone, for ought any Samaritan alive could tell, if he fetched not his authority from these words of Jacob, who having given that portion of ground to Joseph, Gen. 48. 22. doth here intimate that there was a well in it, and besides that well in his house should rise to honor. His fruitfulness by daughters you may see in Judge. 21. where the daughters of Jabesh Gilead and of Shiloh, both of Joseph, make up the breach of an hostile Tribe the Tribe of Benjamin, or else it had decayed.

CHAP. I.

THE Scripture the Word of Knowledge, beginneth with the Story of the Creation, because first, the first step towards the knowledge of God is by the Creature, Rom. 1. 20. Secondly, the Story of the Creation pleadeth for the justice of God, in planting and displacing of Nations as he pleaseth, since the Earth is his own and he made it. Thirdly, the Resurrection is taught by the Creation, and the end of the world from the beginning, for God that made that to be, that never was, can much more make that to be, that hath been before, namely these our Bodies, Heaven and Earth, Center and circumference created together in the same instant, and clouds full of water (not such as we see made by evaporation, but such as are called the Windows or Cataracts of Heaven, Gen. 7. 11. 2 Kings 7. 19. Mal. 3. 10.) created in the same instant with them, verse. 2. The earth lay covered with waters, and had not received as yet its perfection, beauty and deckage: and that vast vacuity that was between the convex of those waters, and the concave of the clouds, was filled as it were with a gross and great darkness, and the Spirit of God moved the Heavens from the first moment of their Creation in a circular motion, above and about the earth and waters, for the cherishing and preservation of them in their new begun being, v. 3. Twelve hours did the Heavens thus move in darkness, and then God commanded and there appeared light to this upper Horizon, namely to that where Eden should be planted [for, for that place especially is the story calculated] and there did it shine other twelve hours, declining by degrees with the motion of the Heavens to the other Hemisphere, where it enlightened other twelve hours also, and so the first natural day to that part of the world was six and thirty hours long, so long was Joshua's day, Josh. 10. And so long was our Savior clouded under death.

Vers. 6. When the light began to set to the Horizon of Eden, and the evening or night of the second day was come, God commanded that the Air should be spread out instead of that vacuity, which was betwixt the waters upon the Earth, and the waters in the clouds, and in four and twenty hours it was accomplished, and the Air spread through the whole universe with the motion of the Heavens. In this second days work it is not said as in the rest that God saw it good, because whereas this days work was about separation of waters, they were not perfectedly and fully parted, till the waters which covered the Earth were couched in their channels, which was not till the third day: and there it is twice said that God saw it good once for the entire separation of the waters, and again for the fructification of the ground.

Vers. 9. In the new created Air the Lord thundered and rebuked the waters, Psal. 104. 7. So that they hasted away and fled all westward, into the channels which the Lord had appointed for them. And still as they flowed away, and dry land appeared the Earth instantly brought forth Trees and Plants in their several kinds. This production was only of the bodies and substances of them, for their verdure and maturity was not till the sixth day: And now was Eden planted with the bodies of all trees fit for meat and delight, which by the time that Adam is created are laden with leaves and fruit.

Vers. 14. The Moon and some Stars created before the Sun: She shone all the night of the fourth day in her full body, and when the Sun appeared in the morning, then was her light augmented, yet her body obscured from the World till the sixth day at even, which was her prime day, and she shown her crescent and gave light to Adam, who was but newly got at that time out of the darkness of his fall, by the luster of the promise.

Vers. 21. Whales only of all brutes specified by name, to show that even the greatest of living creatures could not make itself.

Vers. 25. Beasts wild and tame created, and all manner of creeping things, and the World furnished with them from about Eden as well as with men: of clean beasts were seven created, three couples for breed, and the odd one for Adams sacrifice upon his fall, but of unclean only one couple for the propagation of the kind.

Vers. 26. Man created by the Trinity about the third hour of the day, or nine of the clock in the morning.

CHAP. II.

The three first verses, that treat of the institution of the Sabbath, are according to their proper Order of time, to be taken in at the end of the third chapter.

Vers. 4. &c. On the morning of the sixth day a mist, that had gone up from the Earth fell down upon it again in rain or dew, and watered the Earth, with which watering the trees and plants budded to maturity in a trice: this dew being as a natural cause thereof, yet the effect being withal exceeding supernatural, because • o speedy.

Vers. 7. Of the dust of the Earth thus watered, God created the body of man, and to this the Psalmist alludeth, The dew of thy youth, Psal. 110. 3. And into that Earth so prepared, he breatheth the Spirit of Life and Grace, Ephes. 4. 24.

Vers. 10. Eden watered by a river that overflowed it once a year, after the manner of Nile and Jordan; Chap. 13. 10.

To Adam thus created and made Lord of the creature, the Lord himself bringeth the creatures to receive their names, which he giveth to them agreeable to their natures, and that at the first sight, showing at once his dominion over them, and his wisdom, among them all he seeth no fit match for himself, but by seeing everyone of them mated, and that they came before him by pairs, he is brought to be sensible of his own want of a fellow: which thereupon God provideth for him out of his own body of a rib, which part of him might best be spared. And thus the Creation endeth in the making of the woman.

CHAP. III.

The woman thinking it had been a good Angel that spake in the trunk of the Serpent, she entereth communication with the Devil: who perceiving her both to add and to diminish to, and from the Commandment that was given them, groweth the more impudent to tempt, and seduceth her by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, as 1 John 2. 16. And she persuadeth her husband, and so they both are fallen on the very same day that they are created, Gen. 9. 1, 2, 3. Psal. 49. 12.

Christ is promised before the man and the woman are censured: and they are questioned also before they be sentenced, but so was not Satan, for God had mercy in store for them, but none for him. The curse is not upon man himself but upon the Earth, to teach him to set his affections on things above and not on the cursed ground, and not to look for an earthly Kingdom of Christ on this Earth which the Lord hath cursed.

Adam apprehendeth and layeth hold upon the promise by Faith, and in evidence of this his faith he calleth his wives name Eve or Life, because she was to be the mother of Christ according to the flesh, by whom life should come; and of all believers that by faith should live in him, for an outward sign and seal of this his Faith, and for a further and more lively expression of the same; God teacheth him the rite of sacrifice, to lay Christ dying before his eyes in a visible figure: And with the skins of the sacrificed beasts God teacheth him and his wife to clothe their bodies. And thus the first thing that dieth in the world is Christ in a figure.

At the end of this third chapter imagine the three first verses of Chap. 2. concerning the Sabbath to be observed, to come in, and suppose the texture of the story to lie thus. Adam thus fallen, censured, recovered, instructed and expelled Eden on the sixth day, the next day following he by God's appointment keepeth for a Sabbath or an holy rest, and spendeth it only in divine duties. Now the reason why it standeth in the place where it doth, Chap. 2. Is partly because Moses would lay the seven days, or the first week of the world altogether without interposition, and partly because he would show by setting it before Adams fall, that had he persisted in innocence, yet must he have observed a Sabbath.

The seventh day or Sabbath is not bounded in the Text with the same limits that the other days are, for it is not said of it as it was of them, The Evening and the Morning were the seventh day, because a time should come when it should have a new beginning and end, and though to the Jews it was from Even to Even, yet from the beginning it was not so expressed.

CHAP. IV.

Cain and Abel twins of one birth; and first was born he that was natural, and after he that was spiritual.

The faith of Abel appeared in the very materials of his sacrifice; it being of slain beasts and so a representation of the death of Christ: for this, it is fired from Heaven, and Cain's is not, though his dry ears of Corn were materials far more combustible. Cain and Abel were both their own Priests, for it cannot be proved that Sacrifices were ever offered but upon emergent occasions, till the Law fixed it for a common service: and he that had such an occasion, had liberty to be his own Priest, even under the Law, as it appeareth by Gideon, Manoah, &c. and then much more was that liberty before.

The word Sin, in verse. 7. seemeth rather to signify an offering or attonment for sin than punishment: For first God cometh not to deject Cain lower than he was, but to raise him from his dejection, as it appeareth both by his deigning to give him an Oracle from Heaven, and also by the words wherewith he beginneth. Secondly, If the words, Sin lieth at the door, intend sudden Judgment ready to devour him, what dependence can the words following have with these? If thou do not well, thou shalt certainly be punished, and thy brothers desire shall be subject to thee: for this were to threaten poor Abel more, or at least as much as Cain. Thirdly, The Original word Chateath as it signifies Sin, so also doth it the sacrifice for sin, as Hos. 4. 8. 2 Cor. 5. 21. And all along Leviticus, and it was the custom, according to which Moses speaketh as best known, to lay the Sacrifice at the Sanctuary door.

Vers. 14. Cain sensible of his punishment though he was not of his sin, beggeth of God, that he might die to ease him of it, Therefore let any one that findeth me kill me, but this God denieth to him reserving him to a lingering punishment: and Cain being assured of long life, giveth himself to all sensuality, to sweeten it as much as he can, and this is the way of Cain, Jud. verse. 11.

Vers. 23. Lamech in horror of Conscience for his Polygamy, which now began to be examplary to the general corruption of the world, acknowledgeth his sin seventy times greater than Cain's, and his desert of punishment proportionable: for Cain had slain but one man and but the body, but he by his evil example had killed old and young and their very souls: and therefore he maketh his complaint to his two wives that had brought him to it.

CHAP. V.

A Chronicle of 1556 years: and all the years are reckoned complete but only Noah's five hundredth year, in verse 32.

Vers. 3. Seth born in Original sin: the Father of all men in the new world after the flood, Numb. 24. 17.

Vers. 23. Enoch liveth as many years as be days in a year.

Those that lived nearer the flood lived the longer, unmarried because they would not generate many children for the water.

Vers. 29. Noah a comforter, because in him liberty should be given to the World to eat flesh.

CHAP. VI.

In the general corruption of the World, Noah the eighth person in descent from Enoch, in whose time profaneness began, as 2 Pet. 2. 5. Escapeth the abominations and desolation of the times.

CHAP. VII, VIII, IX.

The flood: the Beasts in the Ark live without enmity, which showeth how the words, Gen. 3. 15. about enmity with the Serpent, are to be understood, the Serpent and Noah are now friends each to other: this is alluded to, Isaiah 11. 6, 7. Noah is in the Ark just a complete and exact year of the Sun, but reckoned in the Text by the Lunary Months. Universal darkness all the forty days rain. The door of the Ark under water: The Ark draweth water eleven cubits. The waters when they came to abate while they lay above the Mountains, fell but one Cubit in four days, but far faster afterward. After their coming out of the Ark for a whole half year together, Noah and his family, and all the Creatures live upon provision that was still in the Ark, for they came out just upon the beginning of Winter, when there was neither grass corn nor fruits till another spring: The forbidding to eat flesh with the blood, condemneth the Doctrine of Transubstantiation.

CHAP. X, XI.

Seventy Nations dispersed from Babel, but not seventy Languages: the fifteen named in Act. 2. were enough to confound the work, and they may very well be supposed to have been the whole number. Sem as he standeth in the front of the Genealogy of the new world, hath neither Father nor Mother named, nor beginning of days nor end of life. Nahors life is shortened for Idolatry.

CHAP. XII.

Abraham at 75 years old receiveth the promise, and cometh into Canaan and just so many years did Sem live after Abraham's coming thither, and so might well be Melchizedek in Chap. 14.

Vers. 6, 7. Abraham buildeth an Altar near, if not upon Mount Gerizim the hill of blessing: and verse. 8. Another Altar he buildeth near unto, if not upon Mount Ebal, the hill of cursing, Deut. 27. And so taketh possession of the land by faith in the very same place, where his sons the Israelites did take possession of it indeed, Josh. 8. 12. &c. 30.

Vers. 11. When he is ready to enter into Egypt whither famine drave him, as it did his posterity afterward, he is afraid of his life in regard of Sarah, who being a white woman would soon be taken notice of by the Egyptians who were Blackmoors. This was one main enticement to Josephs Mistress to cast an eye of lustfulness upon him, because he was a white Man and she a Moor. Of the same complexion was Pharaohs daughter whom Solomon took to wife: of whom that in the first and literal acceptation is to be understood, which spiritually is to be applied to the Church, Cant. 1. 5, 6. I am black but comely: and I am black because the Sun hath looked on me, and that Psal. 45. 13. The Kings Daughter is all glorious within: for she was a Blackmoor without.

Vers. 20. Pharaoh plagued for Sarah's and Abraham's sake who was an Hebrew Sheepherd, giveth charge to the Egyptians, making it as it were a law for time to come, that they should not converse with Hebrews nor with foreign Sheepherds, in any so near familiarity as to eat or drink with them, which the Egyptians observed strictly ever after, Gen. 42. 32. & 46. 34.

CHAP. XIII.

Abraham and Lot quarrel, and part in the valley of Achor: and this is at the very same time of the year that Israel came into the Land, viz. in the first month of the year, or Abib.

CHAP. XIV.

Noah in the blessing of his son Sem, maketh him in a special manner Lord of the Land of Canaan, Gen. 9. Hither therefore came Sem, and built a City, and called it after his own peaceable condition Salem: here he reigned as a King, but so quietly and retiredly as that he was a Priest also. In this sequestration of the father from worldly cares and affairs, Elam his eldest son and heir apparent, though he were seated far distant in the East, yet it concerneth him to have an eye to Canaan, and how matters go there, for the land by bequest of his grand-father Noah, descended to him as by the Common Law. This title bringeth Chedorlaomer an heir of Elam from Persia into Canaan, when the five Cities of the plain rebel. Into this war he taketh three partners younger brothers of the House of Sem, Amraphel of Arphaxad, King of Chaldea, Arioch of L • d, King of Ellasar bordering upon Babylonia, and Tidal of Assur King of Nations, and late built Nineveh. These four thus banded together, and all children of Sem, and all in claim of his land against the usurping Canaanites are resolved to march over and so they do, all that Country both within Jordan and without. Their first inroad is upon the Rephaims that lay most North and lay first in their way; and so over run, the Zuzims in Ammon, Emims in Moab, Horites or Hivites that were Troglodytes or dwelt in the rocky Caves of Mount Seir in Edom, as Jer. 49. 10. Obad. ver. 3. And all the Canaanites South-East and full South to Hazezon Tamar a point below the dead Sea: There they turn in to the land of Canaan properly so called, and as they had subdued all the Countries from North to South without Jordan, so now they intend to do from South to North within. And so they did: but when they were come to Dan the North out-going of the land, Abram overtaketh them and conquereth the conquerors, and now he is doubly titled to the land, namely by promise and by victory. This Sem or Melchizedek observeth upon his return with triumph, and perceiveth that it was he and his posterity to whom the Lord had designed that Land in the prophetic spirit of Noah, and had refused the heirs that were more apparent in Common Law and reason: and therefore he bringeth forth bread and wine the best fruits of the land, and tenders them as livery and s • isin of it, to him, whom he perceived that God had chosen and pointed out for the right heir.

CHAP. XV.

All fear of claim by any of Shem sons was now past, because of the late conquest, but only of Aram the youngest, who had no chalengers or children; in the war of him was Eliezer descended who was Abraham's chief servant, and whereas the title by Shem resignation, was to descend to Abram and his heirs, Eleazar was like to be next if Abram had no child of his own. When this jealousy somewhat troubleth Abram, God removeth it by the promise of a Son of his own Loins: and by a Covenant with sacrifice, even of all manner of creatures that were to be sacrificed.

CHAP. XVI.

Abram assured of a son of his own body (but not whether by Sarah or not) taketh Hagar to compass the promise, she wearied out by Sarai 's strictness, is travailing to her own Country Egypt, and by the way hath a vision of the Angel of the Covenant, which was strange to her to have visions out of Abram's house: therefore she called the Name of the Lord that spake unto her; Thou art the God of vision: for she said, Did I here also look after a vision, in a place so far distant from Abram's family? And the well also where he spake unto her was called, The well of the lively one of vision.

CHAP. XVII.

Circumcision instituted in Hebron, and about the time of Easter, the place and time of the year where and when the Baptist was born, who was to bring in Baptism instead of Circumcision. Abram and Sarah upon Circumcision, saith Rabbi Menahem, were as new creatures, and therefore also must they have new names.

CHAP. XVIII.

The three Persons in the Trinity in the shape of three men appear to Abraham and dine with him, and eat the First flesh that is mentioned eaten in all the Scripture. Abraham beggeth for Sodom till he thought he had been gotten within the compass of righteous ones in Lots family, and then he ceaseth.

CHAP. XIX.

The Son and the Holy Ghost come into Sodom to destroy it, and now they are called Angels, because they were sent, by the Father. Lots wife is struck dead with lightning, and stiffened and fixed in the place where she stood, and of a salt and brackish smell, and therefore called a pillar of salt: Sodom destroyed by a strange fire, and the memorial of so great a Judgment preserved to this day by as strange a water; Jordan before that time had an issue further, but from that time it pleased God to stop it, and to lay that valley up on a fatal pool. Lot had two Daughters at the least that perished in the fire and brimstone, as well as he had two that escaped. It is observable how soon after the institution of Circumcision those Cities came to destruction, which so hideously abused that member, wherein the Covenant for the land was sealed.

CHAP. XX. XXI.

Abraham flitteth into the Land of the Philistines, that Isaac might be born out of the Land of Canaan properly so called for the greater mystery to his birth. God himself cometh in visible form, as chap. 18. Sarah hath once a greater measure of the Spirit of Prophesy than Abraham, namely in the matter of casting out the bond woman and her son. There is good probability of Ishmael's salvation. Abraham consecrateth a grove at Beersheba, that he might have hallowed wood, for his sacrificing fires, as well as holy fire for his sacrifices.

CHAP. XXII.

Abraham passed through ten temptations, and the sacrificing of his son the last and greatest.

CHAP. XXIII.

When Rebeceahs son is risen in the last Chapter. Sarah sets in this. The first foot of Land, and all the Land that Abraham hath in Canaan in possession is only a place of burial: God by this very thing drawing him, and his to look after the spiritual part of the promise.

CHAP. XXV.

At what time Abraham married Keturah is uncertain: the Text hath laid it after Isaac's marriage, because it was fit that all the actions of Abraham which any whit concerned the promise, should be handled first and together, before the other which either did not at all or did it the less. But that Abraham was married to this woman, long before Isaac's marriage or Sarah's death, is probable upon these conjectures. 1. He that held it strange to have a son at an hundred years old, it is not like he would marry at an hundred and forty. 2. In chap. 24. 36. when the servant is to make the match for Isaac, he saith that Abraham had given all his estate to Isaac, which had been unnecessary to mention, had he had no more children but Ishmael who was gone from his house long before.

Abraham's disposing of his sons into the East Countries or Arabia, was not upon usurpation, but upon just claim by conquest, chap. 14. All these Countries were of the Land of Canaan, and of the promise, and therefore are circumcised ones seated in them instead of Canaanites.

When the Text hath recited these sons of Abraham and their settlement, it bringeth him and Ishmael to their graves: Not that they died before the birth of Jacob, and Esau, as the Text hath laid it, for Abraham lived till they were fifteen years old, and Ishmael till they were at their climacterical year of sixty three, but now hath Moses no more to say of them, and therefore he concludeth their story at once. Esau born all hairy over like a Kid, but of a reddish color, and therefore they called him Esau, Factus, made, and perfected already, as having both his beard and pubes as soon as he was born.

In a sore year of famine in the Land, Esau selleth his birth-right for want of meat.

CHAP. XXVI.

The famine that had caused him to part with his birth-right causeth Isaac his father to part out of the Land of Canaan. The Philistines ( Africans by descent, Gen. 10. 14. and tawny like them) do soon espy the beauty of Rebekah a white woman.

CHAP. XXVII.

Isaac being arrived at the age of one hundred and thirty seven years, at what age Ishmael his brother had died, by his example, beginneth to think of his own death, and to dispose himself for that. He sendeth Esau to hunt for venison for a trial, whether he should bless him or no; for missing of venison before, he had lost his birthright, and if he miss today as he did then, it would be a sure sign that he must lose the blessing: And so though Isaac had passed away the main blessing at unawars, yet when Esau cometh home sped of a prey, he seeth that it was the will of God he should have some blessing, and so blessed him also. Esau's garments in which Jacob obtained the blessing, were the garments of the Priesthood which belonged to the first born.

CHAP. XXIX, XXX.

Jacob stronger than three men, and rolleth away the stone from the wells mouth alone, which they could not do with all their strength united: he is deceived by Laban by a suborned person, and embraced Leah thinking he had embraced Rahel, as he deceived his father by a suborned person, taking on him to be Esau when he was Jacob: He serveth in hardship in his marriage week, and bringeth festivity to others but labor to himself; Joseph, Zebulun and Asher were in their mothers wombs at the same time, but Joseph born last; Dinah was not born in these seven years, unless she were a twin with Zebulun. Reuben about • ive years old following the reapers findeth Mandrakes and bringeth the Apples thereof to his mother, for which poor rate Jacob is in manner sold for a time by Rahel.

CHAP. XXXI.

Rahel stealeth Laban's Teraphim for a civil use: to preserve the memory of some of her ancestors whereof they were the pictures, and which Laban had impiously Idolized.

CHAP. XXXII.

Jacob for distrust in the Promise so far, upon Esau's approach, that he sendeth him above a thousand cattle of all sorts, of which he had vowed the Tithes to the Lord, and before he paid them, is met by the way by the Lord, and in danger to be killed by him: but by prayer and supplication he prevaileth with the Lord, and escapeth only with a lame leg. This lameness of Jacob was not reputed to him for a maim, but like the honorable scars of a valiant Captain, for a special dignity. For at Bethel he exerciseth the part and office of a Priest, which if his halting had been reputed for a may • , he had been disabled to do, and his posterity in all succeeding ages, reserve the honorable memory of this his lameness, in not eating the sinew that shrank. That was the first Ceremony that distinguished Israel for a peculiar people, because with this his lameness Jacob is first dignified with the name of Israel. Circumcision differenced them not from the other seed of Abraham, by Hagar and Keturah, but this curiosity in meats first beginneth Judaism. They refrained not to eat the joint where the sinew was, as a leg of Mutton or of Beef, for the legs of the Passover were to be eaten, Exod. 1 • . 10. but they spared the sinew. And that not in abomination or abhorring of it, but in honor and special respect, because it bare the memorial of their first naming Israel: The portion of meat that Elkanah gave to his beloved Hannah, Manah Ahhath Appaiina the portion of representation may not unfitly be understood of this joint, and the same piece of the meat did Samuel reserve for Saul, in honor, The Cook took up the leg, 1 Sam. 9. 24.

CHAP. 33, 34.

Shechem an Hivite by original, chap. 34. 2. is an Amorite by habitation, chap. 48. 22. So Anah the Hivite by descent, chap. 36. 2. Beeri the Hittite by habitation in one place, chap. 26. 36. and an Horite by habitation in another, chap. 36. 30, 24.

Judah was not at the murder at Shechem, but at Chezib upon the borders of the Philistines, married and resident there, many miles distant.

CHAP. XXXV.

The Proselytes of Shechem admitted to Jacob's family by Baptism, for circumcision to the Shechemites was become deadly.

Benjamin born by the strength of the promise, verse. 11. for Jacob was now past the natural vigor of generating, and therefore he justly calleth his name Benjamin, the son of the right hand.

CHAP. 36.

Strange alteration of names in this Chapter, from what they are in others, Judith, Chap. 26. 34. called Aholibamah because of her Idolatry. Anah her father, Chap. 36. 2. an Hivite by original, is Beeri an Hittite, Chap. 26. 34. because he dwelt among them about Beer-la-hai-roi. Bashemath, Chap. 26. 34. is Adah here, to show God's dislike against Esau's matches Mahalath, is Pashemath to show the Canaanitish qualities of a daughter of Ishmael.

Compare this genealogy in this Chapter with the same in 1 Chron. 1. and Timna which is here a woman and a man's concubine, is there made that man's son, for the Scripture useth to speak short in known stories.

CHAP. 37.

When the Text hath dispatched with Esau the hater of his brother that lost his birth-right by his own fault, it falleth upon Joseph the hated of his brethren, that obtained the birth-right by the fault of another. He feeding the flocks with his brethren joineth in company with the sons of the handmaids, for Leah's children cared little either for them or him. Among them where he thought to have respect, he found hardship, for they made him as their slave or servant, Vehu nagnar, and he was a servant with the sons of Bilhah and Zilphah, verse. 2. This evil report of his brethren's usage of him he told his father, whereupon he made him a coat of divers colors as a badge of the birth-right which his father intended to confer upon him, that his brethren for this should respect him the more. But this procureth their greater hatred, Reuben only excepted who sought his good though he had gotten his birth-right, which showeth that the incestuous man was now become a penitent and holy.

CHAP. 38.

Judah punished in his children and his own shame for the sale of his righteous brother. He was married about eight years before Joseph was sold, being then not above twelve years of age if he were so much. Therefore the words in the beginning of the Chapter, At that time, have not so much any reference to the exact time of Judah's marriage, as to the miscarriage of Er and Onan, which befell not long after Joseph was sold, and so teach of his requital in his children for the sale of his righteous brother.

CHAP. XXXIX, XL, XLI.

Joseph made a slave: his Blackmoor mistress lusteth after his beauty and whiteness. By the interpretation of other men's dreams he is promoted as by the relating of his own he was sold into misery. Pharaoh giveth him a new name after their Oracular God Baal Zephon, Zophnath Paanea.

CHAP. XLII.

Josephs words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 verse. 15, 16. not an oath by the Creature but an apprecation and prayer for Pharaohs life: So let Pharaoh live as ye are spies, as Lev. 25. 36. helpeth to explain the verb.

CHAP. XLVII.

Pharaoh having never seen so old a man as Jacob, nor so grave a head nor so gray a beard in all his life, in admiration asketh him no other question but concerning his age.

CHAP. XLVIII.

The birth-right which Jacob intended for Joseph before his sale is conferred and confirmed upon him, when Ephraim and Manasseh are taken by him for his sons, as Reuben and Simeon: and hence came Ephraim to be first born among the Tribes, and therefore Moses chooseth Joshua one of that Tribe for their conductor into Canaan.

CHAP. XLIX.

Jacob blesseth everyone of the Tribes, verse. 28. therefore in his words to Reuben, Simeon and Levi, which are the most bitter, we must find a blessing or we lose his sense. His words also concern the future events of the Tribes, as much or more than the twelve Patriarchs that stood before him, verse. 1. These ground-works being then thus laid for the understanding of these his last words as necessarily they must, let it be tolerated to touch upon some of them of the most difficulty, as far as Grammatical construction, and truth of history will warrant and justify.

Reuben thou art my first born, my might and the beginning of my strength. There is a remnant of dignity for thee, and a remnant of strength: For so the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifieth many times in the Bible, and so was Reuben dignified in leading the Van in the wars of Canaan, Josh. 4. 12. And so had he a residue of strength in being frontier against the Hagarens, 1 Chron. 5. 10.

Vers. 4. Unstable as water in affecting the Priesthood; Numb. 16. 1, 2. and in refusing of the Land of promise, Numb. 32. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Leave no remnant of thine instability, &c.

Vers. 5. Simeon and Levi brethren, their traffickings are instruments of cruelty, for their pretence of trading with Shechem they made an instrument to execute their bloodiness.

Vers. 6. For in their anger they slew a man, as for their will they would hough an ox. For they used Circumcision, as a means to master and murder me, as if they should have cut the sinews of an Ox to bring him under to their will.

Vers. 13. Zebulon shall dwell at the haven of the Seas: the Sea of Galilee or the lake of Genezaret East, and the Sea of Phoenicia or the Mediterranian North-West.

Vers. 14. Issachar is an Ass of bone couching down between two burdens of the Kingdom of Phoenicia on the one side, and the Kingdom of Samaria on the other.

Vers. 22. Joseph is a son of fruitfulness, his fruitfulness in sons shall be by the well: In daughters it goeth even to the Enemy. This Interpretation of that part of Josephs blessing be referred to the censure of the learned Reader as conjectured at, rather than boldly averred, and that upon these considerations. First, That there is a plain Antithesis betwixt Ben and Bavoth, and therefore is to be construed accordingly of sons and daughters. Secondly, That the word Ben is by his place in regimine, but by his vowel not, so is Porah by his last letter in regimine, but not by this place: and therefore both of them to be rendered something answerable to this their double condition. Ben-Porath, Joseph is a son of fruitfulness, here they have the due of their place, and Porath Ben fruitfulness of sons: here they have the due of their vowels and letters. Thirdly, That Porath also is to be understood in the latter clause, Porath Bavoth, fruitfulness in daughters. Fourthly, That Shur signifieth natively in Hebrew an Enemy, Psal. 92. 12. and it is but from the Chaldee idioms that it betokeneth a wall. Josephs fruitfulness in sons then did chiefly show itself by the well of Shechem, where Joshua of Joseph aslembleth all the Tribes as Prince over them, and there also Jeroboam of Joseph raiseth up that house to a Kingdom. From these words of Jacob the inhabitants of Sychar had their warrant to maintain, that their well was Jocobs well, and that his sons and cattle drank of it. For it might not have been digged of a thousand years after Jacob was dead and gone, for ought any Samaritan alive could tell, if he fetched not his authority from these words of Jacob, who having given that portion of ground to Joseph, Gen. 48. 22. doth here intimate that there was a well in it, and besides that well in his house should rise to honor. His fruitfulness by daughters you may see in Judge. 21. where the daughters of Jabesh Gilead and of Shiloh, both of Joseph, make up the breach of an hostile Tribe the Tribe of Benjamin, or else it had decayed.

SECTION I.

FROM the giving of the promise to Abraham, Gen. 12. to the deliverance out of Egypt, and the giving of the Law, were 430 years, Exod. 12. 40. Gal. 1. 17. This sum of years divided itself into two equal parts, for half of it was spent before their going into Egypt, and half of it in there being there. Two hundred and fifteen years were taken up before they went into Egypt, thus: From the promise given to Abraham, to the birth of Isaac, five and twenty years; compare Gen. 12. 4. with Gen. 21. 5. From the birth of Isaac to the birth of Jacob, threescore, Gen. 25. 26. from thence to their going down into Egypt a hundred and thirty, Gen. 27. 9. The other two hundred and fifteen years they spent in Egypt, namely ninety four, before the death of Levi the longest liver of all the twelve Tribes, and a hundred and twenty one betwixt his death and their deliverance.

For Levi and Joseph were both born in the seven years of Jacob's second apprenticeship, Gen. 29. & 30. Levi in the fourth, and Joseph in the seventh, so that there were three years between them: Now Joseph when his Father and brethren came down into Egypt, was nine and thirty years old. Compare Gen. 41. 46. 51. & 45. 6. And then was Levi forty three. And Levi lived an hundred thirty and seven years, Exod. 6. 16. out of which those forty three being deducted which he had spent before their coming down into Egypt, it appeareth they were in Egypt ninety four years before his death: And those ninety four being deducted out of the two hundred and fifteen, which they spent in that land, it appeareth also that a hundred twenty one years passed betwixt his death and their delivery, and till his death they felt no affliction, Exod. 1. 6, 7, 8.

SECTION II.

THESE two Psalms, are the oldest pieces of writing that the World hath to show, for they were penned many years before the birth of Moses, by two men that felt and groaned under this bondage and affliction of Egypt, Heman and Ethan, two Sons of Zerah, 1 Chron. 2. 6. In Psalm 88. Heman deploreth the distress and misery of Israel in Egypt in most passionate measures, and therefore titles his Elegy, Gnal Mahalath Leannoth, concerning sickness by affliction, and accordingly he and his brethren are called the Sons of Mahol, 1 King. 4. 31. In Psal. 89. Ethan from the promise, Gen. 15. sings joyfully their deliverance, that the raging of the Red Sea should be ruled, verse. 9. and Rahab or Egypt should be broken in pieces, verse. 10. and that the people should hear the joyful sound of the Law, verse. 15.

Object. But David is named frequently in the Psalm, who was not born of many hundreds of years after Ethan was dead.

Answ. 1. This might be done Prophetically, as Samuel is thought to be named by Moses, Psal. 99. 6. for that Psalm according to a rule of the Hebrews, is held to have been made by him.

2. It will be found in Scripture, that when some holy men endued with the Spirit of God, have left pieces of writings behind them, indicted by the Spirit, others that have lived in after times, endued with the same gift of Prophecy, have taken those ancient pieces in hand, and have flourished upon them, as present, past, or future occasions did require. To this purpose, compare Psal. 18. & 1 Sam. 22. Obadiah, and Jer. 49. 14. and 1 Chron. 16. and Psal. 96. and 105. and 2 Pet. 2. and the Epistle of St. Jude. So this piece of Ethan being of incomparable antiquity, and singing of the delivery from Egypt, in after times, that it might be made fit to be sung in the Temple, it is taken in hand by some divine Penman, and that ground-work of his, is wrought upon, and his Song set to an higher key; namely, that whereas he treated only of the bodily deliverance from Egypt, it is wound up so high as to reach the Spiritual delivery by Christ, and therefore David is so often named from whence he should come.

SECTION III.

THEY were Hebrew Midwives, but Egyptian Women. For Pharaoh that in an ungodly Council had devised and concluded upon all ways, whereby to keep the Israelites under, would not in such a design as this, use Israelitish women, who he knew were parties in the cause against him; but he intrusteth it with women of his own Nation. They are named for their honor, as Mark 14. 9. that wheresoever the Gospel or the Doctrine of Salvation should be Preached, this faith and fact of theirs should be published in memorial of them.

The Midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for they are lively, &c. These words of theirs, proceed from the same faith, from whence had proceeded their work of charity, the children's preservation. And so far are they from being a lie, that they are so glorious a confession of their faith in God, that we find not many that have gone beyond it. And the things they spake of, so far from false, that they were most admirably and miraculously true and really done. They saw in very deed the immediate hand and help of God, plainly and really shown to the Hebrew women in their labor, and that whereas other women naturally in that case are weak, fainting, and long in pain, these were strong, lively, and soon delivered. For as the strength of the promise shown itself in the Males of Israel, in that, the more they were pressed under servitude, and afflicted, the more were they able for generation, v. 2. Act. 7. 17. So did the strength of the promise show itself upon the women, in that they were delivered of their children with a supernatural and extraordinary ease and quickness: Therefore the Midwives boldly stand out to Pharaoh, to the venture of a Martyrdom, and plainly tell him, that since they were not in travel as other women, but lively, and strong, and had soon done, it could be nothing but the immediate hand of God with them, which hand they are resolved they will not oppose for all his command, lest they should be found to fight against God. For this confession so resolutely and gloriously made before Pharaoh, and for their fact answerable, God made them houses, because they feared him, verse. 21. that is, married them into the Congregation of Israel, and built up Israelitish Families by them.

SECTION IV.

MOSES was born when his mother by the course of nature was past child-bearing: For if Levi begat Jochebed at an hundred years old, which is hardly to be conceived, as