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CHAP. XXIX. Of Letters.

THAT the Hebrew Tongue was from the foundation of the World, none deny, but whether the Letters be so ancient, some question. Some hold that those Letters that God wrote with his own Hand in the two Tables, were the first Letters that ever were written. The studious Pliny thinks, that among the Assyrians, letters have been always, but Gellius thinks they were invented in Egypt by Mercury, and others think among the Syrians. If we examine Pliny well, we shall find him true in the first and last, however in the middle. If the Assyrian Tongue were the Chaldee Tongue (as most like it was) then were those Letters from the beginning of the World: the Hebrew and Chaldee Letter, being all one, unless the Assyrian differed from both. If you take Syrian in the sense that Theodoret does for Hebrew, then Pliny speaks true, that Letters were first among the Syrians. For Theodoret calls the Hebrew Tongue Syrian, as the Gospel calls the Syrian Tongue Hebrew, Joh. 19. 20. But Pliny concludes that Cadmus first brought Letters into Greece out of Phoenicia. Justin Martyr saith, that Greece thinks so herself. Athanasius holdeth the Phoenicians for the first inventors of Letters. That the Phoenicians and Syrians first found out Letters, is a received opinion in Clemens Alexandrinus. Eupolemus thinks that the Phoenicians received Grammar from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians. And Euphorus thinks that Cadmus was he that conveyed them. Chaerilus in Eusebius makes Phoenicians and Jews all one. For he nameth Jews in Xerxes army, and names their Tongue the Phaenician, his words be these:

In English thus.

These Phoenicians (if you will call them so) or Jews, were the first that had Letters. But the Jews were not Phoenicians indeed nor their Tongue the same, yet for bordering of their Countries, the Poet makes them all one. The Phaenician is not now to be had, unless the Punic or Carthaginian, and Phaenick or Phaenician, were all one (which most like they were.) And then some few lines of the Tongue are to be found in Plautus his Paenulus; which as Pareus saith, can little or nothing be made of. Eusebius speaks of Sancuniathou, that wrote the Phaenician History in the same Tongue, but more of the Language he saith not: But to the matter. That Letters were so long in use before the giving of the Law, I am induced to believe upon these reasons.

First, Josephus is of this mind, that Letters were before the Flood. And the Scripture cites Enochs Prophesy, which whether it were written by him or not, is uncertain: yet if there were any such thing, those many places which we find of it in Tertullian, Clemens, and others, do argue, that so much could not punctually be kept by word of mouth.

A second reason to move me to think of Letters before the giving of the Law is, to think of Josephs accounts in Egypt, which seem almost impossible without writing.

Thirdly, But omitting that, I cannot see how all Arts and Sciences in the World should then flourish, as (considering their infancy) they did without the groundwork of all Learning, Letters.

Fourthly, Again for the Jews, upon the writing of the Law to be put to spelling (as they that had never seen letters before) and not to be able to read it, had been a Law upon the Law, adding to the hardness of it.

Fifthly, Nor can I think, that when Moses saith, blot me out of thy book, that he taketh the Metaphor from his own books (which it is probable he had not yet written) but from other books which were then abounding in the world.

Sixthly, The Egyptian Chronicles of so many thousand years in Diodorus and Laertius, I know are ridiculous; yet their carefulness of keeping Records I have ever believed. The Greeks were boys to them, as it is in Plato, and Moses was Scholar to them or their learning, Act. 7.

Now I cannot think that this their exceeding Human Learning was kept only in their brains, and none in writing. Nor do I think that if it were written, that it was deciphered only in their obscure Hieroglyphics, but that some of it came to ordinary writing of familiar letters.

CHAP. XXX. Of the Hebrew Tongue.

WHO so will go about to commend the Hebrew Tongue, may justly receive the censure, that he of Rome did, who had made a long book in the praise of Hercules: This labor is in vain, for never any one dispraised Hercules. Other commendations this Tongue needeth none, than what it hath of itself, namely, for Sanctity it was the Tongue of God, and for Antiquity it was the Tongue of Adam: God the first founder, and Adam the first speaker of it. In this Tongue were laid up the Mysteries of the Old Testament. It begun with the World and the Church, and continued and increased in glory, till the Captivity in Babel, which was a Babel to this Tongue, and brought to confusion this Language, which at the first confusion, had escaped without ruin. At their return, it was in some kind repaired, but far from former perfection. The Holy Scriptures viewed by Ezra, a Scribe fit for the Kingdom of Heaven, in whose treasure were things New and Old. In the Maccabean times all went to ruin, Language and Laws and all lost: and since that time to this day, the pure Hebrew hath lost her familiarity, being only known by Scholars or at least not without teaching. Our Savior's times spake the Syrian, Kepha, Golgotha, Talitha, and other words do witness; In aftertimes the unwearied Masorites arose, helpers to preserve the Bible Hebrew entire, and Grammarians, helpers to preserve the Idiome alive; but for restoring it to the old familiarity, neither of them could prevail. For, the Jews have at this day no abiding City, no Commonwealth, no proper Tongue, but speak as the Countries wherein they live. This whereof they were once most nice is gone, and this groat they have lost. As the man in Seneca, that through sickness lost his memory, and forgot his own Name; so they for their sins have lost their Language, and forgot their own Tongue. Their Cain like wandering, after the murder of their brother, according to the flesh, Christ Jesus, hath lost them this precious mark of God's favor, and branded them with a worse mark: Cauterio conspirationis antiquae, as saith Saint Bernard in another case. Before the confusion of Tongues all the world spake their Tongue and no other, but since the confusion of the Jews, they speak the Language of all the World, and not their own. And that it is not with them so, only of late, but hath been long; Theodoret beareth witness in these words, Other Nations (saith he) have their children speaking quickly in their own mother Tongue. Howbeit, there are no children of the Hebrews who naturally spake the Hebrew Tongue, but the Language of the Country where they are born. Afterward when they grow up they are taught the letters, and learn to read the Holy Scripture in the Hebrew Tongue. Thus Theod. in quaest. on Gen. 59. 60.

About this their training up of their Children, and growth of Men, in their own Tongue and Learning: a Rabbin hath this saying in Pirke Auoth. Perek. 1. Ben He (he saith) At five years old for the Scripture, at ten for Mishneh, at thirteen for the Commandment, at fifteen for the Talmud. At eighteen for Marriage, at twenty for Service, at thirty for Strength, at forty for Understanding, at fifty for Counsel, at sixty for Old age, at seventy for Gray Hairs, at eighty for Profoundness, at ninety for Meditation, at one hundred he is as Dead and past and gone out of the World. The Jews look for a pompous Kingdom, when Messias the Son of David shall come, whom they watch for every moment till he come, as it is in the twelfth Article of their Creed, in their Common Prayer Book. He shall restore them (as they hope) a temporal Kingdom (and of that mind, till they were better taught, were the Apostles, Acts 1. 6.) and then their Tongue shall revive again, as they surmise. But the divine Apocaliptick writing after Jerusalem was ruined, might teach them what the second Jerusalem must be, not on Earth but from Heaven, Apoc. 21. 2. But to return to their Tongue.

The Characters, we now have the Hebrew Tongue in, Scaliger thinks are but of a latter hatch, and not the same that the Jews used from Moses, till the destruction of the Temple. For, that they used the Phaenician or Cananaean Character, which now is called the Samaritan. How truly I refer to the Readers judgment.

The Character we now have is either a set or a running letter: the first, the Bible is ordinarily Printed in, in the latter the most of the Rabbins.

The whole Tongue is contained in the Bible, and no one book else in the World, contains in it a whole Language. And this shows that the Scripture speaks to all sorts of people, since it speaks of all sorts of things. This Language is (as God said the Jews should be, if they would keep his Law.) A lender to all, and a borrower of none. All Tongues are in debt to this, and this to none. The Eastern most especially must acknowledge this. Some men in the East (saith Origen) reserve their old speech, (meaning by likelihood the Hebrew) and have not altered it, but have continued in the Eastern Tongue, because they have continued in the Eastern Countries. No Eastern Tongue that I have heard of, is Hebrew now, so that what to say to Origen I cannot tell, unless he mean that those that have continued in the East, have kept nearest this holy Tongue, because nearest the holy Land: this to be true is known to the meanest Learned. In their speech it is apparent, and by their writing confirmed. All of them have learned from the Hebrew, to write from the right hand to the left (or as we usually call it in England, to write, and read backward: The China and Japan writing excepted, which is indeed from the right hand to the left, but not with the lines crossing the leaf as other Tongues do, but the lines down the leaf. A strange way by itself.

Again, most of the Eastern Tongues do use the Hebrew Character for quick writing, or some other end. The Chaldee letter is the very same. The Syrian though it have two or three kinds of its own, yet is content sometime to take upon it the Hebrew Character. The Arabian doth the like, especially the Jews in Turkey use in hatred of Mohammedans, to write down their matters of Religion; in the Hebrew Character, though in the Arabian Tongue. So do the Christian Arabians for the same cause in their holy things, use the Arabian Tongue, but Syrian Letter. And I take a place in Epiphanius to be meant to this purpose, also about the Persian Tongue. His words out of another are these, The Persians besides their own Letters do also use the Letters of the Syrians: as in our times many Nations use the Greek, though almost every Nation hath a proper Character. I refer to the Reader to judge whether he mean not that the Persians (as other Countries about them did,) did use the Hebrew Character for their quick writing: which is called Syrian by Theodoret.

To speak of the grace, and sweetness, and fullness of the Hebrew Tongue, is to no purpose to relate, for even those that cannot read this Tongue have read thus much of it.

CHAP. XXXI. Of Vowels.

EAstern Tongues, especially the Hebrew and her three Dialects, Chaldee, Syrian, and Arabian, are written sometimes with vowels, sometimes without: with, for certainty, without, for the speedier writing: we have Hebrew Bibles of both kinds. The Septuagint it seems translated by the unpricked Bible, as St. Jerome in his Commentary upon the Prophets seemeth to import, and as to any one that examineth it is easy to find. Instead of all other places in Gen. 4. 7. it is apparent: where the seventy Translators reserving the Letters have strangely altered the Vowels.

The Hebrew hath it thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Halo imtetibh Seeth, weim lo tetibh, lappethahh hhatath robhets, which is in English thus, If thou do well shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou do not well, sin lieth at the door: they Translate it as pointed thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Halo im tetibh seeth, weim lo tetibh lephatteahh hhatatha rebhats. Which is, If thou do well in offering and do not well in dividing thou hast sinned, be quiet. This, follow with one consent, the Greek and many of the Latin Fathers: They could not thus translate, because they knew not the Text, or because they wanted pointed Bibles, but on set purpose to hide Pearls from Swine (as the best Learned think.) But that they did always miss on set purpose (where they missed) their many lapses seem to deny: but sometime they mistook the unpricked Text, and so misconstrued. A vowelled Bible they might have had but would not.

Some there be that think the vowels of the Hebrew, were not invented for many years after Christ. Which to me seemeth to be all one, as to deny sinews to a body: or to keep an Infant unswadled, and to suffer him to turn and bend any way till he grow out of fashion. For mine own satisfaction I am fully resolved, that the Letters and Vowels of the Hebrew were as the Soul and Body in a Child, knit together at their conception and beginning: and that they had both one Author.

• 1. For, first a Tongue cannot be learned without Vowels, though at last, skill and practice may make it to be read without. Grammar and not Nature makes men to do this, and this also helped out with the sense of the place we read.
• 2. That Masorites should amend that which the Septuagint could not see, and that they should read righter, than the other (who were of far greater Authority) I cannot believe.
• 3. Our Savior in his words of one Jota and one small kerai not perishing from the Law, seems to allude to the least of the Letters, Jod, and the least Vowel and Accent.
• 4. Lastly, It is above the skill of a mere man to point the Bible; nay, scarcely a verse as it is. The Ten Commandments may puzzle all the World for that skill.

CHAP. XXXII. Of the Language of two Testaments.

THE two Testaments are like the Apostles at Jerusalem (when the confusion of Tongues at Babel was recompensed with multiplicity of Tongues at Zion ) speaking in different Languages, but speaking both to one purpose. They differ from each other only in Language and time: but for matter the New is veiled in the Old, and Old reviled in the New. Isaiah in his vision, heard the Seraphim cry Zeh elzeh, one to another, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of tsebhaoth. So the two Testaments like these two Seraphim, cry Zeh elzeh, one to another, the Old cries to the New, and the New echoes to the Old. The Old cries, Holy is the Lord that hath promised, the New answers, Holy is the Lord that hath performed. The Old says, Holy is the Father that gave the Law, the New saith, Holy is the Son that preached the Gospel, and both say, Holy is the Holy Ghost that penned both Law and Gospel to make men holy. The two Cherubims in Solomon's Temple stood so that with their outmost wings they touched the sides of the house, and their other wings touched each other. So the two Testaments, one way touch the two sides of the house, and the other way touch each other. In their extent they read from the beginning of the World to the end, from in the beginning, to come Lord Jesus. In their consent they touch each other, with He shall turn the Heart of the Fathers to the children, Mal. 4. 6, and He shall turn the heart of the Fathers to the children, Luke 1. 17. Here the two wings join in the middle. Tertullian calls the Prophet Malachi, the bound or skirt of Judaism and Christianity, a stake that tells that there promising ends, and performing begins, that Prophecying concludes, and Fulfilling takes place: there is not a span between these two plots of holy ground, the Old and New Testament, for they touch each other. What do the Papists then when they put and chop in the Apocrypha for Canonical Scripture, between Malachi and Matthew, Law and Gospel? What do they, but make a wall between the Seraphim that they cannot hear each others cry? What do they but make a stop between the Cherubims that they cannot touch each others wing? What do they but make a ditch betwixt these grounds that they cannot reach each others coasts? What do they but remove the Land mark of the Scriptures, and so are guilty, of, Cursed be he that removes his neighbors mark, Deut. 27. 17. And what do they but divorce the marriage of the Testaments, and so are guilty of the breach of, that which God hath joined together let no man put asunder. These two Testaments are the two paps of the Church from which we suck the sincere milk of the Word. One pap is not more like to another, than are these two for substance, but for Language they vary in color. The Old (as all can tell) is written in Hebrew, but some foreign Languages are also admitted into Scripture, besides the Hebrew, as foreign Nations were to be admitted also to the Church besides the Hebrews. A great piece of Ezra is Chaldee, because taken from Chaldee Chronicles. Those parts of Daniel's visions that concern all the World, are written in the Chaldee, the Tongue then best known in the World, because the Chaldeans were then Lord's of the World. The eleventh verse of the tenth of Jeremy is in the same Tongue, that the Jews might learn so much of their Language, as to refuse their Idolatry in their own Language. Other words of this Idiom are frequent in the Scripture: as I take two names given to Christ (as Bar the son in Psal. 2. 10. and Hhoter the rod of Jesses stem, Isa. 11.) to be natively Chaldee words, and for that they do show the greater mystery, viz. that this Son and this Rod should belong to Chaldeans and Gentiles, as well as to Jew or Hebrews: Infinite it is to trace all of this nature and Language. The Arabian is also admitted into Scripture, especially in the Book of Job a man of that Country: whether Philistine Phrases, and other adjacent Nations Dialects, be not to be found there also, I refer to the Reader to search, and (I think) he may easily find: of the eloquence of some pieces above others, and the difficulty of some books above others, those that can even read the English Bible can tell. I would there were more that could read it in its own Language, and as it were talk with God there in his own Tongue: that as by God's mercy Japheth dwells now in the tents of Sem, or the Gentiles have gained the preeminence of the Jews for Religion, so they would water this grafting of theirs into this stock, with the juice of that Tongue, thereby to provoke them the more to Jealousy.

CHAP. XXXIII. Of the New Testament Language, or the Greek.

THE Greek Tongue is the key which God used to unlock the Tents of Sem to the sons of Japheth. This glorious Tongue (as Tully calls it) is made most glorious by the writing of the New Testament in this Language. God hath honored all the letters by naming himself after the first and the last: as Homer shows the receipt of all the Grecian ships, by showing how many the greatest, and how few the least contained. Javan is held both by Jews and Christians to have planted the Country. The Tongue is likely to be maternal from Babel: The Jews upon Genesis the forty ninth, think that Jacob curseth his sons Simeon and Levies fact, in one word of Greek Macerothehem, that is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 their swords: but all the Chaldees and other Translations render it better, their habitations, Gen. 49. 5. The ancientest Heathen Greek alive is Homer, though the Tongue was long before, and Homers subject of Ilias treated of in Greek verse by Evanders Wife of Arcadia, as some have related. Homer watered the Tongue, and in succeeding ages it flourished till it grew ripe in the New Testament. The Dialects of it familiarly known to be five. The Attick, the Jonick, &c. The Macedonian was something strange, as appears in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. 5. Especially their devout Macedonian, or about their oraisons. How God scattered and divulged this Tongue of the Greeks over the World, against the coming of Christ, and writing of the New Testament, is remarkable. Alexander the great with his Macedonians, made the Eastern parts Grecian. The Old Testament at Ptolomaeus his request, translated into Greek, was as an Usher to bring in the New Testament, when Japheth should come to dwell in the Tents of Sem. The Jews used to keep a mournful fast for that Translation, but as Jews mourn, so have Gentiles cause to rejoice. In like sort, for the preparation for the Gospel of late (which as far as Antichrist his power could reach, lay depressed, but not overwhelmed;) the Greek Tongue at the sacking of Constantinople by the Turks, was sent into these Western climates; that we might hear Christ speak in his own Language, without an Egyptian to interpret to us, as Joseph had to his brethren: What need we now to rely upon a Latin foundation, when we have the Greek purity? Never did the Turk any good to Christianity, but this, and this against his will, but God worketh all things for his own glory: And we may say of the poor inhabitants of Grecia, as of the Jews, by their impoverishing we are enriched.

As Athens in old time was called the Grecia of Grecia, so the New Testament for Language may be styled the Greek of Greek. In it (as upon the cross of our Savior, in the title) are three Tongues, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Greek the foundation, of the other two some few additions. In the Greek Master Broughton hath given learned rules and examples of the kinds of it, viz. Septuagint, Talmudic, Attick and Apostolic. The Hebrew or Syrian (for so that word Hebrew in the title of the cross must be understood) is easily found out even in Translations. Latin there is some in the Gospels, but not much. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Census for tribute. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a ward or watch, Matth. 28. 11. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 spiculator, Mark 6. 27. which word is used by Targum Jeruselamy in Gen. 37. of Potiphar, that he was Rabh Sapulachtaria: Princeps spiculatorum. And some other words of the Latin Tongue, which Language in our Savior's time the conquest of the Romans had scattered in Jerusalem: and in the parts adjoining, and so may one find some Latin in the Syrian Testament: and abundance of Greek.

CHAP. XXXIII. Of the Chaldee and Syrian Tongues.

THE Chaldee and Syrian Tongue was once all one, as appeareth in Gen. 31. 47. Ezra 4. 7. Dan. 2. 4. In Character indeed they differed, they of Babylon using one kind of letter, they of Syria another: This was that that nonplust the Babylonian wizards about the writing of the wall, so that they could not read it, though it were in their own Language, because it was not in their own letter. In after-times the very Languages themselves began to vary: as the Chaldee in Daniel, and Onkelos and Jeruselamy and Jonathan, and the Syrian in the Testament do witness. The Paraphrasts do much differ between themselves for purity of speech, and all far short of the Bible Chaldee. They are very full of Greek words, and so the Syrian: a relick of Alexanders conquests: some think they find some Greek in Daniel. Montanus himself renders Osphaiae 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 all along. Four kind of Characters is the Chaldee to be had in, or if you will the Chaldee in two, and the Syrian in two. Our Bible and Paraphrasts and Rabbins Chaldee is in the Hebrew letter, and the other kind of letter is the Samaritan. The Syrian hath either a set letter, such as we have the New Testament imprinted in, or their running hand, such as the Maronites use in their writing for speed: there is no great difference betwixt them, as you may see by their Alphabet.

CHAP. XXXV. Of the Arabian Language.

THIS is the most copious of the Hebrew Dialects, and a Tongue that may brag with the most of Tongues from fluency, and continuance of familiarity. This Tongue is frequent in Scripture, especially in Job, a man of that Country: How other parts of the Bible use it, I think may be judged by the nearness of Judea and Arabia, and of the two Languages. In this one thing it differs from its fellow-Dialects and its Mother Tongue, that it varieth terminations in declining of Nowns, as the Greek and Latin do, and that it receiveth dual numbers, in forming Verbs, as doth the Greek. Of the largeness of the Alphabet, and difference from other Alphabets, and quiddits of the Tongue, or indeed anything of the Tongue, I cannot say, which I have not received of the most Industrious and thrice Learned (both in this and other the noble Tongues) Master William Bedwell, whom I cannot name without a great deal of thankfulness and honor: To whom I will rather be a Scholar, than take on me to teach others. This Tongue was Mahomads Alcoran written in, and is still read in the same Idiome under pain of death, not to mistake a letter, which is as easily done in this Tongue as in any.

CHAP. XXXVI. Of the Latin Tongue.

THIS is the first Idiom of our Grammar Schools: A Tongue next the sacred Tongues, most necessary for Scholars of the best profession. Whether Latin were a Babel Language I will not controvert pro & contra. Sure I dare say, that what Latin we read now, was not at Babel: if we may believe Polybius, who saith that the Latin Tongue that was used in Junius Brutus time was not understood in the time of the first Punic War, but only by great Scholars. So much in few years it had degenerated. The old Poets compared with smooth Ovid and Tully show much alteration. This spacious Tongue once almost as big as any, and as large as a great part of the World, is now bounded in Schools and Studies. The Deluge of the North (the treasury of Men) overwhelmed the Roman Empire, scattered the Men, and spoiled the Latin. Goths, Vandals, Lombards, and the rest of the brood of those frozen Climates, have beaten the Latin Tongue out of its own fashion, into the French, Spanish, and Italian. But some sparks of their hammering are flown into other Languages of the West: So that most Countries hereabout may own Rome for a second Babel for their speech confused.

CHAP. XXXVII. The Language of Britain near a thousand years ago. Ex Beda lib. 1. de Hist. Angl. Cap. 1.

BRitania in praesenti juxta numerum librorum, &c. Britain in my time (saith Bede) doth search and confess one and the same knowledge of the High Truth, and true sublimity in five Tongues, according to the five Books wherein the Law of God was written: namely, in the English, Britain, Scottish, Pict and Latin Tongues: And in the nineteenth Chapter of the same Book, he saith, that when Agustine the Monk came from Gregory the great to Preach the Gospel in England, he brought with him Interpreters out of France to speak to the English: That Language it seems was then usual in England, but whether the French that France speaks now, is a question. William the Conqueror took great care and pains to have brought in his Tongue with his Conquest, but could not prevail.

CHAP. XXXVIII. Jonathan the Chaldee Paraphrast his conceit of Levies choosing to the Priesthood: translated out of his Paraph. on Gen. 32. 24.

AND Jacob was left alone beyond the foord, and an Angel in the likeness of a man strove with him and said, Didst thou not promise to give Tithe of all that thou hadst, and behold thou hast twelve sons, and one daughter, and thou hast not tithed them: Out of hand he sets apart the four first born to their four mothers (for saith the margin, they were holy because of their primogeniture) and then were eight left: He begins again to count from Simeon, and ended in Levi, for the tenth or tithe. Michael answereth and saith, Lord of the World this is thy lot, &c. thus the Chaldee. On whose words, if they were worth Commenting on I could say more.

CHAP. XXXIX. Of the Jews abbreviature. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

THIS short writing is common in all their Authors. When they cite any of the Doctors of their Schools, they commonly use these words, Amern rabbothenu Zicceronam libhracah, in four letters thus: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 thus say our Doctors of blessed memory. But when they speak of holy men in the Old Testament, they usually take this Phrase Gnalau hashalom, on him is peace, in brief thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Thus when they mention Moses, Solomon, David, or others, this is the memorial they give them. The Arabians have the like use in their Abbreviation of Gnalaihi alsalemo: on whom is peace. The words in Hebrew want a verb, and so may be construed two ways: On him is peace, or on him be peace. The learned Master Broughton hath rendered it the former way, and his judgment herein shall be my Law. To take it the latter way, seems to relish of Popish superstition, of praying for the dead: which though the Jews did not directly do, yet in manner they appear to do no less, in one part of their Common Prayer Book, called Mazkir neshamoth, the remembrancer of Souls: which being not very long, I thought not amiss to Translate out of their Tongue, into our own, that the Reader may see their Jewish Popery, or Popish Judaism, and may bless the Creator, who hath not shut us up in the same darkness.

CHAP. XL. Mazkir neshamoth: or the Remembrancer of souls: in the Jews Liturgy: Printed at Venice.

THE Lord remember the soul (or spirit of Abba Mr. N. the son of N. who is gone into his world: wherefore I vow (to give) Alms for him, that for this, his soul may be bound up in the bundle of life, with the soul of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, and Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, and with the rest of the righteous men and righteous women, which be in the garden of Eden. Amen.

The Lord remember the soul of Mrs. N. the Daughter of N. who is gone to her World. Therefore I vow, &c. as in the other before. Amen.

The Lord remember the soul of my father and my mother, of my grandfathers and grandmothers, of my uncles and aunts, brethren and sisters, of my cosens and consenesses, whether of my fathers side, or mothers side, who are gone into their world. Wherefore I vow, &c. Amen.

The Lord remember the soul of N. the son of N. and the souls of all my cosens and cosenesses, whether on my fathers or mothers side, who were put to death, or slain, or stabd, or burnt, or drowned, or hanged for the sanctifying of the Name of God. Therefore I will give Alms for the memory of their souls, and for this let their souls be bound up in the bundle of life, with the soul of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah and Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, and with the rest of the righteous men and righteous women which are in the garden of Eden. Amen.

Then the Priest pronounceth a blessing upon the man that is thus charitable, as it followeth there in these words.

He that blessed our father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Aaron, David and Solomon, he bless Rabbi N. the son of N. because he hath vowed Alms for the souls whom he hath mentioned: for the honor of God, and for the honor of the Law, and for the honor of the day: for this the Lord keep him, and deliver him from all affliction and trouble, and from every plague and sickness: and write him and seal him for a happy life, in the day of Judgment: and send a blessing and prosper him in every work of his hands, and all Israel his brethren, and let us say Amen.

Thus (courteous Reader) hast thou seen a Popish Jew interceding for the dead: have but the like patience a while, and thou shalt see how they are Popish almost entirely, in claiming the merits of the dead to intercede for them: for thus tendeth a prayer which they use in the book, called Sepher Min hagim shel col Hammedinoth, &c. which I have also here turned into English.

Do for thy praises sake. Do for their sakes that loved thee, that (now) dwell in dust. For Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's sake. Do for Moses and Aaron's sake. Do for David and Solomon's sake. Do for Jerusalem thy holy Cities sake. Do for Zion the habitation of thy glories sake. Do for the desolation of thy Temples sake. Do for the treading down of thine Altars sake. Do for their sakes who were slain for thy holy Name. Do for their sakes who have been massacred for thy sake. Do for their sakes who have gone to fire or water for the hallowing of thy Name. Do for sucking children's sakes who have not sinned. Do for weaned children's sakes who have not offended. Do for infants sakes who are of the house of our Doctors. Do for thine own sake if not for ours. Do for thine own sake and save us.

Tell me gentle reader 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. whether doth the Jew Romanize, or the Roman Judaize in his devotions. This interceding by others, is a shrewd sign they have both rejected the right Mediator between God and Man, Christ Jesus. The profane Heathen might have read both Jew and Papist a lecture in his, Contemno minutos istos Deos, modo Jovem propitium habeam, which I think a Christian may well English: let go all Diminutive Divinities, so that I may have the great Jesus Christ to propitiate for me.

CHAP. XLI. Of the Latin Translation of Matth. 6. 1.

ALms in Rabbin Hebrew are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Tsedhakah righteousness, which word the Syrian Translator useth, Matth. 6. 1. Act. 10. 2. and in other places. From this custom of speech, the Roman vulgar Translateth, Attendite ne justitiam vestram faciatis: One English old manuscript Testament, is in Lichfield Library, which hath it thus after the Latin: Takith hede that you do not your rightwisnes before men to be seyne of hem, ellis ye shullen have no mede at your fadir that is in hevenes. Other English Translation, I never saw any to this sense; nor any Greek copy. It seems the Papist will rather Judaize for his own advantage, than follow the true Greek. The Septuagint in some places of the Old Testament, have turned Tsedhakah Righteousness, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Almsdeeds, or little or to no sense. As the Papists have in this place of the New Testament, turned 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Almsdeeds, by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Righteousness, to as little purpose. In the Hebrew indeed, one word is used for both: Tsedhakah for Almsdeeds, which properly signifies Righteousness; upon what ground I know not, unless it be, to show that Alms must be given of rightly gotten good, or else they are no righteousness: or they are called Zadkatha in Syrian, Hu ger zadek le mehwo, they are called righteousness, because it is right they should be given, and given rightly. The Fathers of the Council of Trent speak much of the merit of Alms; whom one may answer in the very words of their vulgar, Attendite ne justitiam vestram faciatis. Take heed you do not make them your Justification.

CHAP. XLII. An Emblem.

A Wall in Rome had this picture. A man painted naked with a whip in one hand, and four leaves of a book in the other, and in every leaf a word written. In the first, Plango, I mourn; Is the second, Dico, I tell; In the third, volo, I will; and in the fourth facio, I do. Such a one in the true repentant. He is naked, because he would have his most secret sins laid open to God: He is whipped, because his sins do sting himself: His book is his repentance: His four words are his actions: In the first he mourns, in the second he confesses, in the third he resolves, and in the fourth, he performs his resolution. Plango, I mourn, there is sight of sin and sorrow; Dico, I tell, there is contrition for sin and confession; Volo, I will, there is amending resolution: Facio, I do, there is performing satisfaction.

CHAP. XLIII. Mahhanaiim. Gen. 32. 2.

AND Jacob went on his way, and the Angels of God met him: And Jacob said when he saw them, This is the Host of the Lord, and he called the name of the place Mahanaim.

The word is dual, and tells of two Armies and no more, what these two Armies were, the Jews according to their usual vein, do find strange expositions. To omit them all, this seems to me to be the truth, and reason of the name. There was one company with Jacob, which afterwards he calls his army; and there was another company of Angels, which he calls the Army of God. These are the two Armies that gave name to Mahanaim; two Armies, one heavenly, and the other earthly: and from this I take it, Solomon compares the Church, * to the company of Mahanaim: for so the Church consisteth of two Armies, one heavenly like these Angels, which is the Church triumphant, and the other travailing on earth like Jacob's Army, which is the Church militant.

CHAP. XLIV. The book of Psalms.

THE Psalms are divided into five books, according to the five Books of Moses: and if they be so divided, there be seventy books in the Bible; the unskillful may find where any one of these five books end, by looking where a Psalm ends with Amen, there also ends the book. As at Psal. 41. 72. 89. 106. and from thence to the end.

These may even in their very beginnings be harmonized to the books of the Law.

In the Jews division of the Scripture, this piece of the Psalms, and the books of the like nature, are set last: not because they be of the least dignity, but because they be of least dependence with other books, as some of them being no story at all, and some, stories and books of lesser bulk, and so set in a form by themselves. The Old Testament books, the Jews acrostically do write thus in three letters 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 every letter standing for a word, and every word for a part of the Bible. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 for Aorajetha, or Torah, the Law: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 for Nebhiim the Prophets: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 for Cethubhim, or books of Holy Writ: this division is so old, that our Savior himself useth it in the last of Luke, and verse. 44. All things written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets and the Psalms. By the Psalms meaning, that part of Cethubhim, in which the Psalms are set first.

CHAP. XLV. Of the Creation.

TWO ways we come to the knowledge of God; by his Works and by his Word. By his Works we come to know there is a God; and by his Word we come to know what God is. His Works teach us to spell; his Word teacheth us to read. The first are as it were his back parts, by which we behold him a far off: The latter shows him to us face to face. The World is as a book consisting of three leaves, and every leaf Printed with many Letters, and every Letter a Lecture. The leaves Heaven, the Air, and Earth with the Water. The Letters in Heaven, every Angel, Star, and Planet. In the Air, every Meteor and Soul. In the Earth and Waters, every Man, Beast, Plant, Fish, and Mineral: all these set together, spell to us that there is a God, and the Apostle saith no less though in less space, Rom. 1. 20. For the invisible things of him, that is, his eternal Power and Godhead are seen by the creation of the World, being considered in his Works. And so David, Psal. 19. 1. It is not for nothing that God hath set the Cabinet of the Universe open, but it is because he hath given us Eyes to behold his Treasure. Neither is it for nothing that he hath given us Eyes to behold his Treasure, but because he hath given us Hearts to admire upon our beholding. If we mark not the Works of God, we are like Stones that have no Eyes, wherewith to behold. If we wonder not at the Works of God, when we mark them, we are like Beasts that have no Hearts wherewith to admire. And if we praise not God for his Works, when we admire them, we are like Devils that have no Tongues wherewith to give thanks. Remarkable is the story of the poor old man, whom a Bishop found, most bitterly weeping, over an ugly Toad: being asked the reason of his Tears, his answer was, I weep, because, that whereas God might have made me as ugly and filthy a creature as this Toad, and hath not, I have yet never in all my life been thankful to him for it. If the works of the Creation would but lead us to this one Lecture, our labor of observing them were well bestowed. How much more when they lead us far further.

CHAP. XLVI. The time and manner of the Creation.

MOSES in the first verse of the Bible refutes three Heathen opinions: namely, theirs that thought the World was Eternal, for he saith, in the beginning, &c. Secondly, theirs that thought there was no God, for he saith, Elohim created. Thirdly, theirs that thought there were many gods, for he saith, Elohim he created Heaven and Earth. The fird word in the beginning may draw our minds and thoughts to the last thing, the latter end, and this thought must draw our affections from too much love of the World, for it must have an end as it had a beginning. I will not stand to comment upon the word Berishith in the beginning, for then I know not when to come to an end. To treat how the divers expositors labor about the beginning of the world, is a world of labor. How the Jerus. Targ. translates it, In wisdom, and is followed by Rabbi Tanchum, and many Jews: How Targ. Jonath. useth an Arabian word, Min Awwala, a primo; Onkelos, in primis or in principio: Jarchi in principio creationis creavit. How Basil the great, Saint Ambrose, and hundreds others do interpret this, is a work endless to examine. Satisfied am I with this, that the world and all things had their beginning from God, that in the beginning created Heaven and Earth. Some of the Jews do invert the word Bereshith, and make it Betisri that is in the month Tisri was the world created. This month is about our September, and that the world was created in this month (to let other reasons alone) this satisfies me, that the Feast of Tabernacles which was in this month, is called the end of the year, Exod. 23. 16. And this I take to be the reason, why the Jews began to read the Bible in their Synagogues, at the Feast of Tabernacles, viz. that they might begin the lecture of the Creation, in Gen. 1. at that time of the year that the world was created.

The manner of the Creation shows the workman powerful and wise. The making of the Angels concealed by Moses, lest men should (like those heretics in Epiph. ) think they helped God in the Creation. For if their day of their Creation ( which was in most likelihood the first) had been named, wicked men would have been ready to have taken them for actors in this work, which were only spectators. Therefore as God hides Moses after his death, so Moses hides the Creation of them, lest they should be deisied, and the honor due to the Creator given to the creature. God in framing the world, begins above and works downward; and in three days he lays the parts of the world, and in the three other days, he adorns those parts.

The first day he makes all the Heavens, the matter of the Earth, and comes down so low as the Light.

The second lower, and makes the Firmament or Air.

The third lowest of all, and makes distinction of Earth and Water.

Thus in three days the parts, or body of the World is laid, in three days more, and in the same order they are furnished. For on

The fourth day the Heavens, which were made the first day, are decked with Stars.

The fifth day the Firmament, which was made the second day, is filled with Birds.

The sixth day the Earth, which was laid fit the third day, is replenished with Beasts, and lastly Man.

Thus God in the six days finished all his work of Creation. For the ten things that the Chaldee Paraphrast saith, God created on the evening of the Sabbath, after the World was finished: I refer them to their Authors to believe them.

R. Jarchi on Gen. 2. observes, that God created one day superior things, and another day inferior: his words are to this purpose.

On the first day he created Heaven above and Earth beneath. On the second day, the Firmament above. On the third, let the dry Land appear beneath. On the fourth day, Lights above. On the fifth day, let the Waters bring forth beneath. On the sixth, he must create both Superior and Inferior, as he had done on the first, lest there should be confusion in his Work, therefore he made Man of both, his Soul from above, and his Body from beneath.

R. Tanchumah shows how the making of the Tabernacle harmonizeth with the making of the World: The Light of the first day answered, by the Candlestick, for Light the first work; and the spreading of the Firmament, like a curtain, answered by the Curtains the second work, and so of the rest.

Everyone knows the old conceit of the worlds lasting six thousand years, because it was made in six days: and of Elias Prophesy among the Jews, of the world ending, at the end of six thousand: which Prophesy of his is flat against the words of Christ: Many believe these opinions, yet few prepare for the end which they think is so near.

God hath taught us by the course of the Creation of the old world, what our proceedings must be, that we may become a new Creation, or new Heavens, and a new Earth, renewed both in Soul and Body.

• 1. On the first day he made the Light, so the first thing in the new Man must be Light of Knowledge, so saith Saint Paul, Heb. 11. He that cometh to God must know that he is.
• 2. On the second day he made the Firmament, so called, because of its surness, so the second step in Mans new Creation must be Firmamentum Fidei, the sure foundation of Faith.
• 3. On the third day, the Seas and Trees bearing fruit: So the third step in the new Man is that he become Waters of repentant Tears, and that he bring forth Fruit worthy of these Tears. Bring forth Fruit worthy of Repentance, saith the Baptist, Matth. 3.
• 4. On the fourth day, God created the Sun: that whereas on the first day there was light but without heat; now on the fourth day, there is light and heat joined together. So the fourth step in the new Creation of a new Man is, that he join the heat of Zeal with the light of his Knowledge: as in the Sacrifices fire and salt were ever joined.
• 5. The fifth days work, was of fishes to play in the Seas, and the souls to fly toward Heaven: So the fifth step in a new creature is, to live and rejoice in a Sea of troubles, and to fly by prayer and contemplation to Heaven.
• 6. On the sixth day, God makes man: and all these things performed, man is a new creature. To reckon them altogether then, as S. Peter does his golden chain of virtues, 2 Pet. 1. Add to your light of Knowledge, the firmament of Faith, to your Faith, Seas of repentant Tears, to your Tears, the fruitful Trees of good Works, to your good Works, the hot Sunshine of Zeal, to your Zeal, the winged souls of Prayer and Contemplation; Et ecce omnia facta sunt nova. Behold you are become a new Creature.

As the Bible begins, so it ends with a new Creation, of a new Heaven and a new Earth, and a new Paradise, and a new Tree of Life, Apoc. 21. unto all which, O thou whom my soul loveth, say come.

CHAP. XLVII. Of the fall of Adam.

THE fall of Adam was the death of himself, the death of us, and the death of Christ. At his fall were three offenders, three offenses, and persons offended. Three offenders, Satan, Adam, Eve: three offenses, Ignorance, weakness, and malice: three persons offended, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Eve sinned of Ignorance, and so sinned against the Son, the God of knowledge, and she was forgiven; and so S. Paul sinned, and was forgiven, 1 Tim. 1. 13. Adam sinned of weakness, and so sinned against the Father, the God of power, and he was pardoned; and so S. Peter sinned, and he was pardoned, Matth. 26. But Satan sinned of set malice, and so sinned against the Holy Ghost, the God of love, and he was not forgiven: For he that speaketh against the Holy Ghost, shall never be forgiven, Mark 3. 29. And in God's censuring of these three, Gen. 3. He questioneth Adam and Eve before he sentenceth, because he had mercy for them, nay more, he promiseth Christ before he inflict punishment: but for the Serpent, he never questioned, because he would show him no mercy. God left Adam to his own free-will, and suffered him to fall, quia sciebat se, &c. because he knew how to turn that fall of his, to his salvation. When Lazarus died, Christ was not there, that the raising of Lazarus by Christ might be the more glorious; So when Adam fell (as I may say so) God would not be there (for he left Adam to his own free-will) that the repairing of Adam through Christ might be the more glorious. Hereupon one sings, O foelix lapsus. Unhappy was the fall of Adam, since by his fall we all fell, but yet happy was that unhappy fall, since it must be recured by Christ. Joseph suffered his brother Simeon to go into prison for a while, that at last he might bring him out with greater comfort. So God suffered Adam to go into Satan's Newgate for a while, that at last he might bring him out with greater comfort. The day thou eatest hereof thou shalt die, there is the prison; And the man took and eat, there Adam goes into prison: The seed of the woman shall break the head of the Serpent, there Joseph delivers Simeon out of prison, God brings man out of Hell through Christ. Whereupon a Doctor in admiration, questions, utrum mirabilius, homines justos creare, an injustos justificare: whether is more admirable, that God created man righteous, or that he justified man, when he had made himself unrighteous? Whether was more miraculous, for God to make man of nothing, or to repair him from worse than nothing? Wonderful he was in both, in his first and his second creation, for Justificatio est secunda hominis creatio, man's Justification is his new creation.

CHAP. XLVIII. Ophitae Evia.

SOme Heretics in Epiphanius think themselves beholden to the Devil, for his pains that he took to overthrow Adam: for they used to worship a Serpent, because (say they) he brought knowledge into the world. Clemens Alexandrinus doth partly think, this conceit was got among the Heathens: who at their Feasts of Bacchus used to carry a Serpent, as it were in procession, and to cry Evia Evia. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. And Evia (saith Clemens ) if it be asperated Hevia, it signifies in the Hebrew Tongue, a female Serpent. Where the good man calls the Chaldec Tongue, the Hebrew: For in the Hebrew I do not find such a word for a Serpent: But all the Chaldee translations of the Bible in the third of Genesis and diverse other places, do use the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Hivia for a Serpent: which I take to be the word he means.

CHAP. XLIX. Of the Greek Translation of the fifth of Genesis.

HOW the Septuagint does add hundreds of years to men's ages before and after the Flood, few Scholars but they know. This bred the difference of computation of the times, while some followed the Hebrew, some the Greek, Hence came two notorious doubts. About Methuselah living after the Flood, who died a month or two before. And of Sem his death before Abraham's birth, who lived as long after Abraham came to Canaan, as Abraham was old when he came thither, viz. seventy five years. And so might well be Melchizedek. The Greeks had a great deal of stir where to put Methushelah all the Flood-time for fear of drowning: At last some laid him on the top of Noah's Ark, and there he was all that watery year. The Jews lay Og the Giant there also (as the Chaldee Paraphrast upon the fourteenth of Genesis ridiculously observeth:) Whose words (for your fuller sport) I will not spare to set down. The thirteenth verse be renders thus in Chaldee. And Og came who was left of those that died in the Flood: for he rode upon the Ark, and was as a covering upon it, and was nourished with Noah's victuals, but he was not preserved for his own sake or merit, but that the inhabitants of the world might see the power of the Lord, and say: Did not the Giants in old time, rebel against the Lord of the world, and he destroyed them from the earth, yet as soon as these Kings make war, behold Og is with them, Og saith with himself, I will go and show Abraham, Lots case, that he is taken prisoner, that so he may come to rescue him, and may himself fall into their hands: He goes and comes to him about the Passover day, and finds him making unleavened cakes, then he told Abraham the Hebrew, &c. Thus far the Chaldee: of whose conceits here, and in one thousand of places more, and so of his Nation the Jews; I know not whether to say, Risum or fletum teneatis amici? But to return to my purpose. The Greek Bible makes Methushelah live fourteen years after the Flood, their reason of this their addition of years, many render, which I omit. But S. Agustine saith, some fall short of this man's age. In three Greek books, saith he, and one Latin, and one Syrian book, all agreeing one with another, Methuselah is found to die six years before the flood. So Agustine in Civ. Dei, lib. 15. cap. 13. Such differences may incite men to apply themselves to the Hebrew Text, where is no falsifying nor error.

CHAP. L. Upon the words: The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head.

THE New Testament affords a rich Commentary upon these words, in the Gospel of Saint Luke, who in his third Chapter, shows how through seventy five generations. Christ is this seed of the woman, and in the fourth Chapter, how through three temptations this seed began to bruise the head of the Serpent: where the Reader may observe, how the Devil tempts Christ, in the very same manner that he had tempted Eve, though not with the same success. All the sins of the world are brought by Saint John to these three heads, Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, 1 John 2. 15. By these three Eve falls in the garden: She sees the tree is good for meat, and the lust of the flesh enticeth her; she sees it fair to look on, and the lust of the eye provokes her; and she perceives it will make her wife, and the pride of life persuades her to take it. By these three the Devil tempts Christ; when he is hungry, he would have him turn stones into bread, and so tries him by the lusts of the flesh: He shows, and promiseth him all the pomp of the World, and so tries him by the lust of the eyes, and he will have him to fly in the air, and so tempts him to pride of life. But as, by these three, the Serpent had broken the head of the woman, so against these three the seed of the woman breaks the head of the Serpent. David Prophecied of this conquest, Psal. 91. 13. The Dragon thou shalt tread under thy feet: The very next verse before this, the Devil useth to tempt Christ withal, but to this he dare not come, for it is to his sorrow.

CHAP. LI. Jewish hypocritical prayers, reproved by our Savior, Matth. 6. 5. Because they love to stand praying in the Synagogues and corners of the streets.

THIS Sermon upon the Mount, is much in reproof of the Jews Talmudical traditions, by which they made the Word of God of none effect. This verse reproveth one of their tenets, for their high-way Oraisons: for which they have this tradition in their Talmud. Rabbi Josi, saith, On a time I was walking by the way, and I went into one of the deserts of Jerusalem to pray, then came Elijah, of blessed memory, and watched me at the gate, and stayed for me, till I had ended my prayer: after that I had ended my prayer, he saith unto me, Peace be unto thee Rabbi; I said unto him, peace be upon thee Rabbi, and Master. Then said he to me, my son, wherefore wentest thou into this desert; I said unto him, To pray; He said to me, Thou mightest have prayed in the way. Then said I, I was afraid, lest passengers would interrupt me: He said unto me, Thou shouldest have prayed a short prayer. At that time I learned of him three things; I learned that we should not go into the desert; and I learned that we should pray by the way, and learned, that he that prayed by the way must pray a short prayer. Thus far their Talmud maketh them these Letters Patents for Hypocrisy; fathering this bastard upon blessed Elias, who was not a high-way prayer, or one that practiced his own devotions in public: for he was John Baptists type for retiredness.

CHAP. LII. Israel's affliction in Egypt.

OF Israel's being in Egypt, many Heathen Authors do touch, though everyone a several way, and all of them the wrong. Josephus against Appion is angry at their fables about it. Of the famine that brought them thither (if we take the want of Nile flowing to be the natural cause, as most like it was) there seems then to be some remembrance of those seven years in Seneca, in his natural questions; where he saith, Per novem annos Nilum non ascendisse superioribus saeculis, Callimachus est Author: that is, Callimachus writes, that in old time Nile flowed not of nine years together: where he outstrips but two of the number. But of Israel's affliction in Egypt, I find the Heathens silent. God had told Abraham of this their hardship long before, and shown him a token of it, by the fowls lighting upon his carcasses, Gen. 15. A type of Israel's being in Egypt, and of Pharaoh's being plagued for their sakes, was, when Pharaoh suffered, for taking Sarah from her husband, and keeping her in his house: as it is, Gen. 12. How long they were in that land, few there be but know: but how long their affliction lasted, is uncertain. Probable it is, that it was about an hundred and twenty years, the time of the old Worlds repentance, and Moses his age: This is to be searched by Levi his age, which within a little one may find certain. All the generation of Josephs time die, before they are afflicted: as all the generation of Joshuas time die, before they fall to Idolatry, Judges 2. 10. The reasons why God should thus suffer them to suffer: whether it were to fit them for the receiving of him and his Law, or whether it were to whip them for their Idolatry: or for some other cause, I dare not enter too near to search: this I see, that when the foundation (as it were) of the visible Church is laid thus in affliction, the Church cannot but look for affliction, whilst it lives in the Egypt of this World. But as Israel increased under persecution: so does the Church, for even when sparsum est semen sanguinis Martyrum, surrexit seges Ecclesiae: Nec frustra oravit Ecclesia pro inimicis suis crediderunt, & qui persequebantur: Aust. Ser. de Temp. 109. To omit the Jews fancy, that the Israelitish women bare six at a birth, and to omit questioning whether faetifer Nile, the drinking of the water of Nile, which (as some say is good for generation) did conduce to the increasing of Israel, I can only look at God, and his work, which did thus multiply and sustain them in the furnace of affliction. Si Deus nobiscum quis contra nos? God had promised this increase to Jacob, as he fled to Haran, Gen. 28. in a dream from the top of Jacob's ladder. And here he proves faithful who had promised.

CHAP. LIII. Israel's Camp: according to the Chaldee Paraphrast his description, Numb. 2.

THE Chaldee is precise about pitching Israel's Camp: I have not thought much to translate a whole Chapter out of him, that the Reader may see (at the least) his Will, if not his Truth.

Numb. 11. 1. And the Lord spake to Moses and to Aaron saying,

2. Everyone of the children of Israel shall pitch by his Standard, by the Ensigns whereto they are appointed, by the Standards of their fathers shall they pitch over against the Tabernacle of the Congregation round about.

3. The Camp of Israel was twelve miles long, and twelve miles broad, and they that pitched Eastward toward the Sun-rising, the Standard of the Camp of Judah four miles square, and his Ensign was of three party colors, like the three Pearls that were in the breastplate (or rational) the Rubies, Topaz, and Carbuncle, and in it was deciphered and expressed the names of three Tribes, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon, and in the middle was written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

Arise O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And in it was drawn the picture of a Lions whelp, for the Prince of the children of Judah, Nahshon the son of Aminadab.

4. And his host and the number of them, seventy four thousand and six hundred.

5. And they that pitched next him, the Tribe of Issachar, and the Prince that was over the Army of the Tribe of the sons of Issachar, Nethaneel the son of Tsuar.

6. And his Army and the number of (his) Tribes, fifty four thousand and four hundred.

7. The Tribe of Zebulon, and the Prince that was set over the Army of the Tribe of the sons of Zebulon▪ Elijah the son of Hhelon.

8. And the Army and their number of his Tribe, fifty seven thousand and four hundred.

9. All the number of the host of Judah were one hundred eighty six thousand and four hundred, by their Armies they went first.

10. The Standard of the host of Reuben shall pitch Southward, by their Armies four miles square, and his Ensign was of three party colors, like the three stones in the breastplate, the Emeraud, Sapphire and Diamond, and in it was deciphered and expressed the names of three Tribes, Reuben, Simeon, Gad, and in the middle was written thus:

Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord. And in it was drawn the picture of a young Hart: but there should have been drawn in it a Bullock, but Moses the Prophet changed it, because he would not put them in mind of their sin about the Calf: And the Prince that was set over the host of the Tribe of Reuben, was Elitzur the son of Shedeur.

12. And his host and the number of his Tribe, fifty nine thousand and three hundred.

13. And the Tribe of Gad and the Prince that was set over the host of the Tribe of Gad, Eliasaph the son of Devel.

15. And his host and the number of his Tribe forty five thousand and six hundred.

16. All the number of the host of Reuben, one hundred fifty one thousand four hundred and fifty, by their Armies: they went second.

17. Then went the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and the host of the Levites in the Camps, and their Camp was four mile square, they went in the middle, as they pitched, so they went, everyone in his rank, according to his Standard.

18. The Standard of the Camp of Ephraim by their hosts, pitched Westward, and their Camp was four mile square, and his Ensign was of three party colors, like the three stones in the breastplate, a Turkey, an Achat, and an Hamatite, and in it was deciphered and expressed the names of three Tribes, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, and in the middle was written:

And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day, when they went out of the Camp, and in it was drawn the picture of a Child. And the Prince that was set over the Army of the Children of Ephraim, was Elishama the son of Ammihud.

19. And his host and the number of his Tribe, forty thousand and five hundred.

20. And next him the Tribe of Manasseh, and the Prince which was set over the host of the Tribe of the Children of Manasseh, Gamliel the son of Pedah tzur.

21. And his host and their number of his Tribe, thirty two thousand and two hundred.

22. And the Tribe of Benjamin and the Prince that was set over the host of the Tribe of the Children of Benjamin, Abidan, the son of Gideoni.

23. And his host and their number of his Tribe, thirty five thousand and four hundred.

24. All the number of the Camp of Ephraim, one hundred eighty thousand and one hundred, by their Armies, and they went in the third place.

25. The Standard of the Camp of Dan Northward, and their Camp four miles square; and his Ensign was of three party colors according to the three stones in the breastplate, a Chrysolite, Onyx, and Jasper, and in it were deciphered and expressed the names of three Tribes, Dan, Naphtali, Asher, and in the midst was written and expressed

And when it rested, he said, return O Lord to the ten thousand of Israel, and in it was drawn the figure of a Serpent, or Arrow-snake, and the Prince that was set over the host of the Children of Dan, Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai. From thence to the end of the Chapter, he goes on just with the Hebrew Text, so that I will spare further labor about Translating: only I must tell the Reader thus much, that the Pearls he speaks of, I have not punctually followed the Chaldee in rendering their names, but have followed the Geneva Bible, which was at that instant the only English Bible about me. As also for perfect and future tense, I find the Chaldee confused, and for this I have been the less curious.

CHAP. LIV. Of Job.

ABOUT Israel's being in Egypt, Job lives in Arabia: a heathen man and yet so good: and so St. Gregory saith, his Country is purposely named, that the goodness of the man may be the more illustrated. His times may be picked by the genealogy of himself, and his friends that come to see him. And God in the first and second Chapter saith, that there was not a man on earth like him for goodness: which is a sign that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, were not alive, nor Moses: but in the times 'twixt Joseph and Moses, Israel corrupt themselves with Egyptian Idols, and in Israel (the likeliest place to find a good man in) is not one to be found like Job. Thus when Israel idolizes, and the Church begins to fail in Jacob, God hath one in Arabia that hath a little Church in his house. It is not amiss for everyone for his more watchfulness to mark, that Satan knows Job as soon as ever God speaks of him.

When the Angels appear before God, Satan the Devil is among them. So When the Disciples are with Christ, Judas a Devil is among them.

Pharaoh in Egypt is afflicted by God. His afflictions harden him against God. Job in Arabia is afflicted by the Devil. His afflictions harden him against the Devil.

Jobs Children feasting overwhelmed by an house. The Philistines sporting, overwhelmed by an house, Judge. 16.

Job is afflicted as the soldiers, 2 King. 1. by fire.

As the Ziklagites, 1 Sam. 30. by Captivity.

As the Egyptians with loss of Children, Exod. 12.

And as the Egyptians with boils, Exod. 9.

And which was not his least cross, like Adam, with an ill counseling wife.

Job hath three with him when he is changed by affliction. So Christ hath three with him when he is changed in transfiguration: which three as they were by Christ when Moses and Elias, Law and Prophesy told him in the mount of his departing which he should accomplish at Jerusalem, Luke 9. 31. So these three were with him when he began to accomplish these things, Matth. 26. 37.

CHAP. LV. Egyptians Deities, ex Athenae. Deipn. Lib. 7.

ANaxandrides in his book of Cities, turning his speech to the Egyptians, saith thus:

Thus does one Heathen Idolater deride another, because he worships (as the other thinks) the more ridiculous Deities. The very Heathen could deride and scoff at their vain gods. Dionysius was most notorious this way: and knavish in this kind was the Painter, who when he should have drawn the picture of such a goddess for a Grecian City to worship, he drew the portraiture of his own sweet-heart, and so made her to be adored: And indeed what man could have held laughing, to have seen (as my Poet saith here) an Egyptian on his maribones adoring a Dog, or praying to an Ox, or especially to see him mourning and howling over a sick Cat: fearing lest his scratching God should die?

CHAP. LVI. Of the Law broken▪ by Adam.

THE Law was Adams lease when God made him tenent of Eden: The conditions of which bond when he kept not, he forfeited himself and all us. God read a lecture of the Law to him before he fell, to be a hedge to him to keep him in Paradise, but when Adam would not keep within compass, this Law is now become as the flaming sword at Eden gate to keep him and his posterity out: Adam heard as much in the garden, as Israel did at Sinai, but only in fewer words and without thunder. The Law came more gently to him before his fall, but after his fall, comes the thunder with it.

Adam at one clap breaks both the Tables and all the Commandments.

• 1. He chose him another god when he followed the Devil.
• 2. He idolized and deified his own belly, as the Apostles phrase is, his belly he made his god.
• 3. He took the name of God in vain, when he believed him not.
• 4. He kept not the rest and estate wherein God had set him.
• 5. He dishonored his Father which was in Heaven, therefore his days were not long in that land which the Lord his god had given him.
• 6. He massacred himself and all his posterity.
• 7. From Eve he was Virgin, but in eyes and mind he committed spiritual fornication.
• 8. He stole that (like Achan ) which God had set aside not to be meddled with, and this his stealth is that which troubles all Israel, the whole world.
• 9. He bare witness against God, when he believed the witness of the Devil above him.
• 10. He coveted an ill covetousness (like Amnon ) which cost him his life and all his progeny.

What a nest of evils here were committed at one blow? The pride of heart and desire of more knowledge (like Haman's ambition) overthrew us. This sin was hatched in Heaven by the wicked Angels, but thrown out with them, and never will come in there again. Hence is this sin so lofty because it affects its first nest. It is not for nothing that Blessed are the poor in spirit, are the first words in Christ's Sermon, Matth. 5. 3. but because the proud in spirit were the first sinners.

CHAP. LVII. Of the Law given at Sinai.

WHEN Israel is got from the hard service of Egypt, God binds them apprentice to a new Master, himself. Their Indentures he draws upon Mount Sinai: a place where Moses before had kept a flock of sheep, now he keeps a troop of men. In the Delivery of the Law there, if you will stand with Israel in your place you may consider many passages.

CHAP. LVIII. Why the Law was published then and not before.

AT Sinai was delivered no new thing, the Law in some kind was known before. Sacrifice was used by Adam in the garden, when the body of the beasts went for an offering for his soul, and the skins for a covering for his body: Cain and Abel learn this part of worship from their father. The division of clean and unclean beasts is known to Noah, when they come to him for their lives as they had done to Adam for their names. Abraham when God made a covenant with him, Genesis 15. Divides and divides not his beasts and fowls, just as God commands, Lev. 1. 6. 17. and so of the rest. Fathers could teach their Children these things as they themselves had learned them of their Fathers. But when men began to multiply, and multitude to be more wicked, than would they not be so easily bridled by a Law, whose author they knew no more of, but their Fathers: And when men lived but a short time in comparison of the first men, and so could not see the full settling of the Law in their houses: And when God had fetched him a people out of Egypt, and laid the foundation of a glorious Church, with signs and wonders, then he thought it fit for their restriction, as also for their distinction from the Heathen, to give the Law from his own mouth, the more to procure reverence to him: For Heaven and Earth must needs hearken when the Lord speaketh, Isa. 1. 2. And thus did the Heathen fain they received their Laws from a Deity that was never seen, and yet their Laws were the better observed for that reason.

CHAP. LIX. Of the place where it was given, and manner.

GOD gave the Law in Arabia: so wicked Mahomet gave his Law in Arabia; A worse and a better thing no one Country every afforded. God gave his Law in Sinai, a bushy place as it seems by the name, agreeable to the giving of so perplexing a matter. Carry along with thee (gentle Reader) as thou readest the Scripture, thus much care (at my request) as to mark that the Law of Moses was given in two places, Sinai, and the Tabernacle, as also to consider that some part of this Law did only concern the Jews, and some part did also concern all the World. The Ceremonial Law that concerned only the Jews, it was given to Moses in private in the Tabernacle, and fell with the Tabernacle when the veil rent in twain. The Moral Law concerns the whole World, and it was given in sight of the whole World on the top of a mountain, and must endure as long as any mountain standeth. The Judicial Law (which is more indifferent, and may stand or fall, as seems best for the good of a Common-wealth) was given neither so public as the one, nor so private as the other, but in a mean between both.

The Law on Sinai was with fire and trumpets, so shall Christ come with fire and trumpet at the latter day, to take an account how men have kept this fiery Law, as it is called, Deut. 33. 2. Fiery, because given out of the fire, as the Jerusalem and Babylonian Targums hold: though I think there is more meant by the words than so: for it is Eshdath, which may be rendered the fire of a Law.

CHAP. LX. Of the effects of the Law.

THE letter of the Law is death: but the Spirit giveth life. The Jews stand upon the letter, and think to gain life by the works of it, but them the Apostle frequently confuteth. And I take the aim of Christ's Parable, Matth. 20. about the penny to extend to no less. Some came into the Vineyard at the Dawning of the Day or the Age before the Flood, and some at the third hour, or in the time before the Law, and some at the sixth and ninth hour, or under the heat and burden of the Jewish Law, and some at the last, under the Gospel: Those under the Law plead for merit, we have born the heat and burden of the day: that is, costly Sacrifices, sore Ceremonies, &c. To whom the Master answers that his penny is his own, and if he give it, it is not for their merit, but his good will. St. Paul calls the Law a School-Master, and so it is indeed: and such a School-Master as that that Livy and Florus speak of in Italy, who brought forth his children that were trusted with him, to Hannibal, who if he had not been more merciful than otherwise, they had all perished. So they that rely upon the works of the Law, are in fine constrained by the Law to come to Christ, who more merciful than the Law, does deliver them. And if you well weigh it, you shall find that as the whole Law, so every part from one to another, brings us to Christ. The Moral Law shows us what we should do, and with the same sight we find that we cannot do it: This makes us to seek to the Ceremonial for some Sacrifice or Ceremony to answer for our not doing it: There we see that burning a dead beast is but poor satisfaction for the sins of men living, and that outward purifyings of men's selves can avail but little to the cleansing of a soiled soul: this then delivers us to the Judicial Law, and by it we see what we deserve, and thus in fine we are constrained to seek to Christ Jesus, for there is no other name whereby we must be saved. The Parable that our Savior propounds in the tenth of Luke, I think tends somethink to this purpose. A man (saith he) went from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, and they robbed him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed leaving him half dead. A certain Priest came that way, and when he saw him he turned aside. A Levite came that way, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. But a good Samaritan came, (as the Text imports) and pitied him, and salved him, and lodged him, and paid for him. Such a one is man fallen among Satan, Sin and Death, and by them stopped, stripped and striped. Satan dismounts him off his Innocency that should sustain him: Sin strips him of all Righteousness that should array him: Death strikes him with guiltiness and wounds him. Here is a man in a woeful case, and none to aid him. By comes a Priest, that is, first come the Sacrifices of the legal Priesthood, and they may pass by him, but they do not, nor they cannot help him. By comes a Levite, that is, the Ceremonies of the Levitical Law, and they may pass by him, but they do not, they cannot help him. Or by comes a Priest, that is, the Angels may see him thus, but they let him lie, for they cannot help him. By comes a Levite, that is, Men and the World may see him thus, but they let him alone forever, for they cannot succor him. But by comes a good Samaritan, that is, our Savior himself, who is called a Samaritan, and is said to have a Devil, and he pities him, salves him, lodges him, and pays for him. He pities him in very bowels, therefore he says, as I live I would not the death of a sinner. He salves him with his own blood, therefore tis said, By his stripes we are healed. He lodges him in his own Church, therefore the Church saith, He brought me in the winecellar, and love was his banner over me. And he pays for him what he deserved, therefore he saith, I have troad the Winepress alone.

It is said in the Book of Kings that when the Shunamites dead child was to be raised, Elisha first sent his staff to be laid upon him, but that did no good: but when Elisha came himself, and lay upon him, with his mouth to the Childs mouth, his eyes to his eyes, and his hands to his hands, then the Child recovered. So when man was dead in trespasses, and sin, as it is, Eph. 2. God lays his staff or rod of the Law upon him, but what good did this toward his recovery? Even make him to long the more for Elisha or Christ, who when he came, and laid his mouth to man's mouth, and kissed humanity in his Incarnation, and laid his eyes to his eyes, and his hands to his hands, and suffered for man's actions at his passion, then is man recured. God in the book of Isaiah when he is to send a Prophet to Israel, says thus, Mi eshlah: whom shall I send, or who will go for us? Isa. 6. 8. Upon which words the Jew Kimchi paraphrases thus: Shalahti eth Micah, wehem maccim otho, Shalahti eth Amos, wehem korin otho Pesilusa, I have sent Micah, and him they smote, I have sent Amos, and him they called a stammerer. Whom shall I send or who will go for us? Then says Isaiah, Behold I am here, send me. Imagine that (upon the fall of man) you saw God about to send the great Prophet not to Israel alone, but to all the World, nor only to teach, but also to redeem. Suppose you heard him thus questioning, whom shall I send to restore fallen man? And who will go for us? Should I send Angels? They are creatures and consequently finite, and so cannot answer mine infinite Justice. Should I send man himself? Alas, though he once had power not to have fallen, yet now hath he no power to raise himself again. Should I send beasts to sacrifice themselves for him? Alas can the burning of dead beasts satisfy for the sins of all men alive? Whom shall I send, or who will go for us? Our Savior is ready to answer with Isaiah, Behold I am here, send me. Here am I that am able to do it; send me, for I am willing. I am able, for I am God; I am willing, for I will become a man. I am God, and so can fulfil the Law which man hath broke. I will become man, that so I may suffer death which man hath deserved. Behold I am here, send me. Then as one of our Country Martyrs at his death, so may we sing all our lives; None but Christ, none but Christ: None but Christ to cure the wounded travailor, None but Christ to raise the dead Shunamite, None but Christ to restore decaid mankind, None but Christ that would, None but Christ that could. No Angel, no Man, no Creature, no Sacrifice, no Ceremony, that would and could do this for us, which we could not do for ourselves, and say for us I have trod the Winepress alone.

When the Ceremonial and Judicial Law have thus brought us to Christ, we may shake hands with them and farewell, but for the Moral, as it helps to bring us thither, so must it help to keep us there. For Christ came not to disannul this Law, but to fulfil it. He does not acquit us from this, but furthers us to the keeping of it. What else is the Gospel, but this in milder terms of Faith and Repentance: which is, since we cannot keep this Law, yet to strive to keep it as we can, and to repent us for that we have not kept it, and to rely upon his merits that hath kept it for us. Thus as love to God and to our neighbors was the sum of the Old, so true faith and unfeigned repentance is the total of the New. This was the tenor of Christ's first words after his Baptism, Mark 1. 15. and of his last words before his Ascension, Mark 16. 16.

CHAP. LXI. Of the Ten Commandments.

THE Ten Commandments may be called the Word of the Word of God: for though all Scripture be his Word, yet these in more special be his Scripture, to which he made himself his own Scribe or Penman: upon these Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets, and these Commandments upon two duties, to love God and to love our neighbor. A shorter and yet a fuller Comment needs not to be given of them, than what our Savior hath given, Luke 10. 27. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself. The four Commandments of the first Table he expounds in four words.

The Lord thy God, there is the Preface, I am the Lord, &c.

Thou shalt love the Lord, &c. with all thy

Heart for the First Commandment.

Soul for the Second Commandment.

Strength for the Third Commandment.

Mind for the Fourth Commandment.

If we need any further Exposition upon this Exposition of our Savior's, it is easy to find: as, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine▪

Heart for it he hath Created.

Soul for it he hath Redeemed.

Strength for it he hath Preserved.

Mind for it he hath Inlightned.

And therefore thou shalt love him with all thine

Heart without Only talking and no more.

Soul without Dissembling,

Strength without Revolting.

Mind without Erring.

This is the first and the great Commandment, and the other is like unto this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. This adds great light to the second Table, for half of the Commandments of that Table want an object whereupon to fasten the duty. The first hath one, Honor thy Father, &c. the last but one, hath one, thou shalt not witness falsely against thy neighbor: And so the last hath, Thou shalt not covet ought of thy Neighbors. But Thou shalt not kill, steal, and commit adultery, these have no object, viz. none named whom, from whom, and with whom we must not kill, steal, nor adulterate: because we must make ourselves also the object here: and reflect the Commandments upon ourselves, as thus: Thou shalt not kill, first not thyself, and secondly, not thy neighbor, and so of the rest. The Jews have been too bold in adding too strict an object, as you may see in their explaining these three precepts. And some Heretics have been too nice in giving some of them too large a one.

The fifth Commandment in the Ten, is with a Promise, and the fifth Petition in the Lord's Prayer, is with a Condition.

I omit the exquisiteness of the pricking of this piece of Scripture of the Commandments extraordinarily: Some special thing is in it.

The Jews do gather six hundred and thirteen Precepts Negative and Affirmative to be in the whole Law, according to the six hundred and thirteen letters in the two Tables, and so many veins and members in a man's body. The order of these Precepts they have set down in the margin of the Pentateuch with the threefold Targum printed at Hannow, and in Sepher Hahhinnuch. I had translated some hundreds of them into English, which I thought to have finished, and presented to the view of the Reader, but I find, that without the Jews Comments upon these their Divisions, they can hardly be understood: which to bring withal, is a pains of no small time and labor. These my Observations and Collections in my Reading, accept gentle Reader, and the slips pass over with a gentle Eye, as slips of Youth: which more mature years may recure, if God prosper and second. To whom I commit myself, and commend thee, and to whom be all honor and glory for evermore.

TO THE READER.

I Could with as little pains and travail have journeyed to Jerusalem to have taken a view of the Temple, had it now stood, as this hath cost me to survey it by the Eyes of others in their Writings, as I have done: And for all my labor, how I shall speed in the acceptance of the Reader, I must leave it to the common doubtful fate of Books, being neither willing to beg it, nor to despair of it. If I have come short either of the worth of the matter treated of, or failed the expectation of the Reader, the difficulty of the Subject may plead my Apology, and my desire to benefit, may lighten my censure.

There is hardly a harder Task in Study than to describe Structures and places not seen, and at distance; and the Scripture hath hardly a more obscure description of anything than of this Fabric. In that I have added so much of Jewish intelligence about it, it is because I find not where better information (after the Scriptures) is to be had. I know they hear as ill as any Men for their Writings, and that very oft not without very good cause; yet give them leave to tell the story of their own Customs and Antiquities as soon as another Man: and if you will not believe them what they say, to produce others that speak more credibly in the matter in hand I believe will be next impossible.

I shall not plead for them in all they Write, lest I should be like unto them; in things of Historical nature, I cannot but give some credence to them, as being likely to be the best Recorders of their own Antiquities.

It is well known to the Studious how much light hath been held out by some Learned Men towards the explication of abundance of difficulties in Scripture, by the discovery of the Jewish Customs and Antiquities, to which the New Testament speaketh and alludeth exceeding copiously and frequently: I need not go far for examples of Learned Men that have been choicely happy in such illustrations: A matchless pair in our own Nation, second to none in any Nation whatsoever, Mr. Hugh Broughton in the last Generation, and Mr. Selden in this, may be instances sufficient? Now though it is far enough from my thoughts and hopes to dream of achieving to the least degree and measure of their skill in these Studies, and their happiness in such explanations: yet can I not but from such encouragements of experience in others, go on with the more delight in the perusal of such Monuments myself, not without hope that I may reap some profit by them to myself, and hold out something from them which may not be altogether useless to others.

What may redound of this kind out of this present Volume, I must leave to the Readers censure, and not be my own judge: This I hope I may say of it without arrogance or falsehood, that this Subject hath scarcely been so largely handled in our English Tongue heretofore, and that what is here produced out of Jewish Records, doth for the most part carry so fair possibility and probability with it, and is so little dissonant either to Scripture or reason, and so cons • nant to Josephus, whose credit is commonly reputed above Talmudical, that if on the one hand there is not undeniable ground to believe it, neither is there on the other hand, undeniable ground to gainsay it.

I had undertaken a Task of a far larger Time, Toil, and Volume, and the same way of Workmanship that I have done this; namely, from Scripture, and from Talmudical and Jewish Writers, to have given a Description of the Land of Canaan; so far am I satisfied of the benefit of these Authors, if dexterously managed. And certainly if my judgment do not much fail me, exceeding singular use might be made of them in such a Work, and hundreds, or rather thousands of Learned Rarities as to that Subject produced out of them, not to be found in any Authors but themselves, which tend not a little to the illustration of the Chorography and Story of that Land: But when I had spent a good large time and progress in that Work, I found that I was happily prevented in that Subject by a more Learned and Acute Pen ; which though it went not the same way in that Work that I had done, yet was it so far before me both in progress and in accuracy, that I knew it would be lost labor for me to proceed further. Hereupon I left off that Task, lest I should actum agere, and diverted my thoughts to this survey, because of a promise which had a tie upon me for something of this nature.

With the working up of this piece, I also drew up a large Map of the Temple structures, according to the verbal Description of them in this Volume, the sight and comparing of which would have made the things here described a great deal more easy and pleasant to be understood, could it have been published; but I have not yet met with the faculty and fortune of bringing it to that issue: and I thought to have suppressed this Tract till that also might have come forth with it; but I have been overcome to let it out, partly by the importunity of others, and partly by this Reason of mine own, that it might not be amiss to try what acceptance this Treatise will find, before I add more pains and charge for the engraving of the Map. If any of my Learned Friends upon perusal of this Tract, shall think the publication of that may be material, I shall be ready to embrace such animation, and use my best endeavor to effect the thing, if it will be effected.

CHAP. I. Of the Situation of Mount MORIAH: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

M ORIAH the Mountain of the Lord's House, from whencesoever it had its denomination (about which there are various conjectures) it is certain, it had its designation for that use and honor to which it was employed, by fire from Heaven, and of old time, by Abraham's offering up his So • Isaac there in a figure. Some are of opinion that it was called Moriah from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Instruction, because from thence there went forth a Law and Doctrine for all Israel: others conceive the name to have been derived from the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Mor, which betokeneth Myrrh, and spicery, because it was to be the only place of offering▪ Incense; others from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Morech jah, The Lord will be visible, because the Son of God was to appear there in human flesh. And so they all repute, that it carried a notation predictive, 〈◊〉 referring to something that was to occur there in time to come. But if we will apply the Etymology of it to that time present, when it and the Country about it, and first take that name of the Land of Moriah, we may construe it, The Land of a teacher of God, (as John III. 2.) or the Land of the Lord my teacher, as being the Territory of Sem, or Melchizedek, the great Teacher of the ways of the Lord, (while the Canaanites round about did walk in blindness, and were led by Teachers only of delusion) and the Land which the Lord his teacher had designed to him in the prediction of his Father Noah.

This Mount was so seated in the midst of Jerusalem, that the City lay 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in form of a Theatre round about it. On the South lay Jerusalem itself built upon Mount Acra, and Acra naturally higher than Moriah, but much levelled by the Asmonean Family in the time of their reign, and the valley betwixt, well raised and filled up with Earth, that both the Temple might over-top the buildings on Acra, and that the coming up from the City to the Temple, might be the more plain and easy, compare Luke III. 5. On the North side lay Mount Zion, furnished with the gallant buildings of the Palace, Court, and City of David. These two Mountains Acra and Zion, and the Cities built upon them (the London and Westminster, City, and Court of the Land of Canaan ) did so decline and descend upon their South-East and North-East points, that on the East and West of the Temple they met and saluted each other in a valley, having also a deep valley betwixt them and the Temple on every side, but only on the South, where it was the less deep, because of the levelling, mentioned immediately before.

Although this Mount Moriah were not so high of itself as the two Hills on either side it, yet was it of a great pitc • and steepness, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A strong heap, ••• ep, and deep •• every side. And it was a discerning note of a young male ch •• d, That he was bound to appear before the Lord, at the three Festivals, if he were once come to be able, to go up the Mountain of the Temple holding his Father by the hand.

This Mount fell so in the division of the Land, that part of it was in the lot of one Tribe, and part of it in another; For most part of the Courts was in the portion of Judah, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Altar, Porch, Temple, •• d most holy place were in the portion of Benjamin. And that part that lay in the portion of Judah was made hollow under 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 • ith arches built upon arches underneath, (saith Maimonides ) because of the Tent of defile •• nt.

Now this that he calleth the Tent of defilement, might very well be supposed to be a Sink, or common Shore, made under ground, and arched over for the conveyance of all the filth and wash of the Courts away, (and that there was such a thing we shall see hereafter) but he explaineth himself in another place, and saith that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 All the Mountain of the house (that is the outmost space) and all the other Courts were hollow under, because of an abyss or deep grave. Now the Talmudicks do use to call a Sunk, unseen or unsuspected grave, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 an abyss grave, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Gospel language, Luke IX. 44. And so they call an unseen or unknown uncleanness, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 An abyss of uncleannesses, and they oppose to it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 An uncleanne known of. Wherefore that they might be sure that there should be no graves secretly made in any of the Courts of the Temple, by which they might be defiled, they arched all the Courts under ground, so as that there were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Arches upon arches (as my Author expresseth it, which he explaineth in another place, in another story of the like nature) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 One arch set upon two arches, so that the feet of an arch stood upon two arches that were under it. And so it was either impossible to bury above the Arch for want of soil, or if it were possible to bury below the arches, it was deep and far enough from defiling.

CHAP. II. The measure of the floor of the Mountain of the Temple. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

THE compass of the •• oor of Moriah did increase by time and industry (somewhat, though not much) above what it was when Solomon first began the Temple there: For whereas David by divine direction had built an Altar, and God by divine Fire upon it, had fixed that very place for the place of the Altar of the Temple; the Mountain possibly in some part of it, might want here and there somewhat upon the edge of it, by bendings and windings in, so that the square for all the Courts which was intended, and which was to be measured from the Altar as from the standing mark, could not run even, but did meet with some small hiatus through the want and pinching in of the hill in certain places: whereupon Solomon and the succeeding generations, were still increasing the spaciousness and capaciousness of it, by filling up the valley or precipice where the want was, insomuch that the compass and space of it at the last, under the second Temple was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 five hundred cubits upon five hundred cubits: that is, a perfect square of five hundred cubits upon every side, two thousand cubits in the whole compass about: And this square piece of ground was enclosed with a Wall. Not but that there was some more space upon the floor of the Mount than barely this measure, for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Mount was far larger than five hundred cubits square, but only so much was taken in for the holy ground.

This number of five hundred cubits upon every side of the square, is so agreeable to the number of Ezekiel, that that helpeth to confirm and justify this proportion and account: and although his large measure, do differ far from this of ours, yet doth his cubit measure and state the cubit that we have in hand, so well, that it would be very hard, if not impossible otherwise among the various sizes of cubits that we meet withal, to determine anything of it. For we find mention of the common cubit of five hand breadth, of the middle of six, of the cubit half a fingers breadth larger than the cubit of Moses, and the cubit half a fingers breadth larger than that: but Ezekiel hath stinted his cubit to be a cubit and a hand breadth (that is the common cubit of five hand bredths, and one hand breadth over;) And so the Jews conclude upon the same measure in this received Maxim: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The cubit by which the Temple buildings were measured was six hand bredths, but the cubit by which the Vessels were measured was but five.

The hand breadth therefore being the four fingers breadth as they be laid close together, which make but three inches, the cubit of six hand bredths, (which is the cubit we embrace here) ariseth to eighteen inches or just half a yard, and so by this computation, the five hundred cubits upon every side of the square was two hundred and fifty yards, and the whole compass of the Wall was a thousand yards about.

Josephus hath allotted a just furlong to every side of the square: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and so hath made the whole compass to be exactly half a mile about, reckoning according to the common cubit, and according to the measure best known among the Greeks and Romans, for whom he wrote.

And now if any one will take up the full circuit of the wall that encompassed the holy ground, according to our English measure, it will amount to half a mile, and about one hundred sixty six yards. And whosoever likewise will measure the square of Ezekiel, Chap. XLII. 20. he will find it six times as large as this, Chap. XL. 5. the whole amounting to three miles and an half, and about one hundred and forty yards, a compass incomparably larger than Mount Moriah divers times over; and by this very thing is shown that that is spiritually and mystically to be understood.

The description of the Temple and City, that he hath given in the end of his Book, as it was a prediction of some good to come, so was that prediction true, thus far according to the very letter, namely that there should be a Temple and a City newly built: and so it was a promise and a comfort to the people then in captivity, of their restoring again to their own Land, and there enjoying Jerusalem and the Temple again, as they had done in former time, before their removing and captivating out of their own Country: But as for a literal respondency of that City and Temple, to all the particulars of his description, it is so far from it, that his Temple is delineated larger than all the earthly Jerusalem, and his Jerusalem larger than all the Land of Canaan. And thereby the scope of the Holy Ghost in that Ichnography is clearly held out to be, to signify the great enlarging of the spiritual Jerusalem and Temple, the Church under the Gospel, and the spiritual beauty and glory of it, as well as to certify captived Israel, of hopes of an earthly City and Temple to be rebuilt, which came to pass upon their return under Cyrus.

Yet had this his space of the holy ground its bounds, though they were exceeding large; but when John in his Revelation is upon the measure of his Temple, this outer Court or space is left boundless, and not measured nor enclosed at all, and the reason is given, because that Court was given to the Gentiles, and they should tread the holy City (as men trod God's Courts when they came to worship) two and forty months, Rev. XI. 1, 2, 3, &c. still clearing the reason of the Prophetical enlarging of the holy ground, which was to denote the abundant and numerous worshippers of God which should be under the Gospel.

The Wall that encompssed and went about the square of the holy ground, was of very fair stone, and it was five and twenty cubits, or twelve yards and an •• lf high, that is, as one stood within the compass of it, in the holy ground; for without it stood over a very deep and sharp precipice, and so there was an exceeding great height from the bottom of the trench beneath, to the top of the wall, but within it was no higher than five and twenty cubits, and that height is carried about whole the square.

Now whereas it is a very common Tenet amongst the Talmudists that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Eastern wall was six cubits high and no more, it is not to be understood of the whole East side Wall, for that was five and twenty cubits high as well as the rest, but it is to be understood only of the Wall or Battlement that was just over the East Gate: and so it is explained by some of them thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 For whereas the Priest that was sprinkling the blood of the red Cow upon Mount Olivet, was to look directly by this East Gate, upon the Gate of the Temple, and whereas the floor of the Porch of the Temple was two and twenty cubits higher ground than the floor of this East Gate, and so the Priest looking from Olivet through this Gate could not see above the eighth step before the Porch, Therefore it was needful that the Wall that was just over the East Gate should be low, that what he could not see through the Gate he might see over it.

CHAP. III. The East-Gate of the Mountain of the House 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Shushan Gate. The Prospect of Mount Olivet, and part of the City before it.

IN the surveying of the Gates and Buildings that were in this outmost Wall, and virge of the holy ground, we will begin at the East quarter which faced Mount Olivet, and in which side of the square there was only one Gate: this and all other the Gates, both in this Wall and in the other that encompassed the Courts were twenty Cubits high and ten cubits broad, as the Hebrew Writers do constantly reckon.

In which account they and their Country-man Josephus, who wrote in another language, do not differ (although that his constant measure that he gives of all the Gates, be thirty cubits high and fifteen cubits broad) but they do in this diversity explain the thing the better. The height of the whole Gate-house of every Gate, or of the pile where the Gate was set, was thirty cubits, and so it rose five cubits above the Wall, but the very entrance of the Gate, or the door of it, was but twenty cubits high. And so the very breadth of the entrance of the doors of every Gate was but ten cubits, but the cheeks of the Gate on either side was two cubits and an half, and so the breadth of the whole pile, was fifteen cubits in all: The height of this East-Gate only came short of the rest, four cubits, for it rose but six cubits above the entry or light that was passed through, whereas the rest did rise ten, and so it rose but one cubit above the height of all the Wall, whereas the rest did five; and the reason was given immediately before, because the Priest that burned the red Cow on Mount Olivet might look over it upon the Temple; for so they conceive that command bound him when he sprinkled ber blood. He shall sprinkle of her blood directly before the Tabernacle of the Congregation seven times, Numb. XIX. 4. Observe Christ and his Disciples, having gone out of this Gate from the Temple, now sitting upon Mount Olivet before this Gate, and looking back on the sumptuous building of the Temple, and Christ discoursing concerning their ruin, Matth. XXIV. 1, 2, 3, &c.

This Gate stood not just in the very midst of this Eastern Wall, as if it had two hundred forty five cubits of the wall on either side it, but it stood more toward the North, because it was to stand directly in the front, or over against the Porch of the Temple. Now the Altar being pitched and fixed so by a divine appointment, that the Mountain did not allow an equal space of ground on either side it, they were forced to build the Temple so, as to stand in its proper parallel with the Altar, and to cast the Courts so, as that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The greatest space of the Mount was on the South, the second on the East, the third on the North, and the least Westward.

Upon this East Gate was pourtraied and pictured the resemblance of the City Shushan, the royal Seat of the Persian Monarchy, and the Gate itself, at least some part of it was called by this name, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Talmud saith, There were two sorts of cubits in Shushan, the Palace, one which exceeded the cubit of Moses half a finger, and this was upon the North-East corner, and the other which exceeded that, half a finger more, and that was on the South-East corner. Now the Gloss explains it thus, That Shushan the Palace was a room in the East Gate where Shushan was pourtraied. And the reason of that Picture is given by some to be, That Israel might see it and remember their captivity in Shushan: By others, Because when they came out of captivity, the King of Persia commanded to picture Shushan upon the Gates of the House, that the fear of that Kingdom might be upon them. But here Abraham Zaccuth doth move a just query. The Kingdom of Persia (saith he) and Shushan lasted but a little while after the second Temple was built, namely, about some thirty four years, and then how came it to pass that that picture continued there all the time of the second Temple? But there are some that resolve it thus▪ That the Children of the Captivity made this portraiture, that they might remember the wonder of Purim, which was done in Shushan, Esth. IX. 26. and this is a good resolution: So he.

This Gate is called the Kings Gate, 1 Chron. IX. 18. not for any special or ordinary entrance of the King through it (for his common coming in, was at the clean opposite quarter, namely on the West-side) but it is so called, because King Solomon built it and the rest of the Wall that way, at an extraordinary pains and charge, fetching up the foundation with huge stones, from the bottom of the deep valley that lay under: of which anon.

But before we part from this Gate, let us stand a little in it and take the prospect that is there before us Eastward, for the better understanding of some places of Scripture, that speak of the places thereabout.

Mount Olivet faced Jerusalem, and the Temple, and Zion upon the East, winding likewise Northward, so as that it faced Zion also something upon the North. Betwixt Jerusalem and it, was the valley of Hinnom or Tophet, where was the horrid and hideous practice of their irreligious Religion, of butchering their Children, in causing them to pass through the fire, or burning them to Molech. For Solomon had built an high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab in this hill that was before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the Children of Ammon, 1 King. XI. 7. namely on the right hand of the Hill, as you looked upon it from Jerusalem, 2 King. XXIII. 13. In this Text of the Kings it is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Hor Hammashchith, instead of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Har Hammishchah, The Mount of Corruption, instead of The Mount of Unction, or of Olives, the Holy Ghost branding the fact, and the place for the fact, with so visible and notable a mark of distaste and displeasure at it. To so great a contrariety to what he once was, when he was himself, had Solomon's Idolatrous Wives bewitched him, that as he had built a sumptuous Temple on Mount Moriah to the true God, so they persuade him to build an Idolatrous Temple to their abominations on Mount Olivet, in the face of the Temple, and • ffronting it. The valley beneath this accursed Idoleum, was called The valley of Tophet, and the valley of the Son or the Sons of Hinnom, Jer. VII. 31, 32. and XIX. 6, &c. The valley of Tophet, that is, The valley of Drums, or Tabers: from the noise that was made with such kind of instruments to drown the cries and shrieking of the burning Children: And the valley of the Sons of Hinnom, that is, the valley of Children of shrieking and roaring; from the woeful cries of those poor Children frying in the fire. This was probably that which is called the valley of the carcasses, or the dead bodies, Jer. XXXI. 40. of which name the Chaldee Paraphrast in that place hath given this reason, Because the dead bodies of the Camp of the Assyrians fell there: and to which Josephus also giveth testimony when he relateth that a place was called The Assyrian Camp. And here may we give a check a little to the peremptoriness of Rabbi Solomon upon the Text of Jeremy, lest he grow too proud, who glosseth the fortieth verse thus, The valley of dead bodies is the valley where the carcasses of the Camp of Sennacherib fell: and the valley of the Ashes, is the pla •• whither they carried the ashes forth, which was without Jerusalem: These places they shall bring within the City even within the walls: And this Prophesy is to be accomplished in the last redemption in despite of the Heretics, for it was not accomplished under the second Temple. By Heretics he virulently meaneth Christians, who deny any other Messias yet to come, and that there shall be anymore an earthly Jerusalem. For he would construe those words of the Prophet strictly according to the letter, as if there should be a time when these valleys should be walled within Jerusalem, really and indeed; whereas the Prophet in mentioning of those most defiled and polluted places to be taken into the City, meaneth only the bringing in of the Heathens, who had been polluted with all manner of defilement of Idolatry and other abominations, into the spiritual Jerusalem which is above, or the Church. And yet if we would follow him even in his literal construction, we might show, out of his own Authors the Talmudists, how Bethphage, the Town that stood even in these places mentioned by the Prophet, though it stood out of the Walls of Jerusalem, yet by their own confession it is reckoned as a member or part of Jerusalem: and so was that prophecy literally fulfilled by their own Chorography at the coming of our Messias; But here is not a place for such disputes.

This was the prospect that you had before you on the right hand as you stood in the East-Gate of the Mountain of the Temple; namely a part of Mount Olivet divided from the City Jerusalem by the valley of Tophet, and by the valley of Ashes; on the side of the valley, near Jerusalem stood the Town Bethphage, and on the Hill on the further side of the valley over against it, stood Bethany, renowned for the raising of Lazarus from the dead there; and for our Savior's frequent resort thither, and ascension thence.

Directly before you, was the place upon Mount Olivet where they used to burn the Red Cow into purifying ashes, when they had occasion to do such a work: and thither went a double arched Cawsey, of the same manner of arching that we have mentioned under the Temple Courts: and for the same caution, namely for security against graves, by which the Priest that went about that employment might have been defiled, and so the work marred.

Upon your left hand as you stood, ran Mount Olivet still, and the valley betwixt you and it and all along on the East point and on the North side of Zion, was called the valley of Kidren, of famous memory and mention in Scripture, 2 Sam. XV. 23. 2 King. XXIII. 6. John XVIII. 1, &c. At the foot of the hill, beyond this valley you might see Gethsemany or the place of the Oil Presses, whither they brought the Olives they had gathered upon Mount Olivet to be pressed, and the Oil got out. And there it was whither our Savior went after his last Supper, and where he was apprehended, having supped that night, as it is most likely, in Zion or the City of David.

CHAP. IV. Of the two South-Gates: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Gates of Huldah.

AS the East quarter of the enclosing Wall, did face Mount Olivet, so did the South quarter face Jerusalem the City itself; For take we the whole City, either built upon seven Hills as Tanchuma asserts it, or upon three, Acra, Moriah, and Zion, as it is commonly described, or add Bezetha and Ophla if you will, the situation of it will be found thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 That the Mountain of the Temple will be found lying Northward of Jerusalem, and Zion Northward of the Mountain of the Temple. And thus do the Jews in their Antiquities generally seat it, and that not without sufficient warrant of the Scripture. For how can those words of the Psalmist, Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole Earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the North, Psal. XLVIII. 2. be more properly and plainly interpreted than as Ibn Ezra doth interpret them; Zion on the North side of Jerusalem? And those words of Ezekiel, He set me upon a Mountain, by which was the frame of a City towards the South, Ezek. XL. 2. who can give them a sense more genuine and proper than Kimchi hath done, when he saith The Mountain is the Mountain of the Temple, and this City is Jerusalem on the South?

On this side therefore that faced Jerusalem, or that looked South, there were two Gates that were called The Gates of Huldah, and they were so placed, as that they were in an equal distance from the two Angles of the Wall, East and West, and of the same distance one from another. And so is Josephus to be understood when he saith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The fourth part of the Wall was towards the South, and had Gates in the middle; that is, the Gates were so set, as that there was an equal space betwixt Gate and Gate, and betwixt either Gate and the corners of the Wall.

From whence these Gates did take their name to be called The Gates of Huldah, is hard to determine, whether from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Huldah, which signifieth a Weesel, of which creature the Hebrews write many Stories; or from the Syrian word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which translateth the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , To creep into, 2 Tim. III. 6. or from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 This, or hither is common ground, or from the Prophetess Huldah, who was of so great esteem in her time among the Jews, as that they say there was never any buried within Jerusalem, either Man or Woman (unless of the House of David ) but only she: or from whence else they were denominated, it will not countervail the labor to search, nor is it very hopeful to find.

We shall not need to spend time in describing the form, fabric and dimensions of these Gates, since these and the rest of the Gates were all suitable to that in the East quarter which we have described before, saving that their Gate-house was higher, and that they were not charactered with the picture of Shushan as that Gate was. Let us therefore only take the prospect as we stand in either of these Gates before us, towards the South upon which they opened, as we did in the other toward the East.

What Streets, Houses, Turrets, Gardens, and beauteous buildings were to be seen in Jerusalem as it lay before you, may better be supposed in so goodly a City, than described: only if you will observe the situation of it, or how it lay, you may view it situate thus. It lay upon the Hill Acra, which rising in the middle, descended with an easy declining towards the East and West, and with a descent also toward the North or toward the Temple. Upon the very highest pitch of the Hill, and from whence it had a fall either way there sprang the sweet and gentle Fountain Siloam, without the City, and ran to either end of the City, both East and West in a contrary channel; as it made toward the East, it left the Fullers field upon the right hand, and saluted the Sheep-Gate on the left, and so turned, Eastward and fell into the Pool called Solomon's Pool, which may well be supposed to be Bethesda. As it ran Westward, it coasted along the broad Wall, the Tower of the Furnaces, the Valley-Gate, and Dung-Gate, and after a while fell into the Pool of Siloam.

CHAP. V. Of the West-Gates Shallecheth or Coponius, Parbar, Asuppim.

IN the Talmuds Survey of the Temple, there is but one Gate mentioned or spoken of upon the West quarter, but Josephus doth mention four, and that agreeably to the Scripture. Not but that the Talmudists did very well know there were so many Gates upon this quarter, but they reckon only those by name, that had Guards kept at them, whereas Josephus reckons all that were in being: His words are these; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . On the West quarter of this outmost bound, there were four Gates: The first leading to the Kings Palace, the valley between being filled up for the passage: Two others went into the Suburbs, and the other into the other City, having many steps down into the valley, and many up again to the pitch or coming up. We will survey these Gates particularly, and take them in the order that he had laid down, beginning first with that Gate that led to the Kings Palace.

CHAP. VI. The North-Gate. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Tedi or Tadde.

ON the North-side, to which we are now come, there was but one gate (as there was but one on the East quarter) which was situate just in the middle of the wall between the East and West end of it, but how to give it its right-name there is some dispute. Some write it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Teri with r, which signifieth moistness or purulency, because that they of the Priests, whose seed went from them by night, went through this gate to bath themselves from that uncleanness. But the reading of old, hath been so resolved 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 with d Tedi, or as some vowel it Tadde, that Pisk, Tosaphoth ad Middoth goeth about to give its Etymology. He mentions a double notation: namely, that either it betokens 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 obscurity and shamefac'dness, because of its rare use and passage, and because the Priests that had suffered Gonorrhaea by night, went out through it to the Bath with some shame and dejectedness: Or that the word refers to Actors or Poets, and he produceth a sentence in which by its conjunction with another word, it seems so to signify, for other sense I know not to put upon it. The sentence is this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Tragedians and Poets used it before the chief of the Captivity. But what sense he would make of this Etymology, I do not understand. But be the notation of the word what it will, the Talmud setteth two distinguishing marks upon the Gate itself, for which it was singular from all the rest of the gates that we have mentioned. The first is, that it had not so fair a rising Gate-house and chambers above it as the rest had, but only stones laid flat over it, and the battlement of the wall running upon it and no more. And the other is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 That it was not a common and ordinary passage in and out, as the other Gates were, but only a passage upon occasion; the uselessness whereof we shall have occasion to look at again ere it be long.

The Mount Moriah did afford some space of ground upon this side, without the Wall and compass of the Holy ground, which it did upon none of the sides beside; for here was built the large and goodly Tower of Antonia, which we shall survey by and by, whereas on everyone of the other sides the incompassing Wall that closed in the Holy ground, did stand near upon the very pitch and precipice of the hill. So that looking about you as you stood out at this Gate, this Tower Antonia stood on your left hand and spoiled your prosect on that side, and you could see nothing that way but it. Before you was Mount Zion, and the goodly buildings of the Kings Palace and other houses; upon the bending toward the East angle, was the place called Ophel or Ophla, the habitation of the Nethenims, Neh. III. 26. and when Ophla was turned East, then was there the horse-gate and water-gate before the Temple.

Thus lay the Mountain of the Lord's House, encompassed with the City round about, and enclosed with a fair and high Wall which separated it from the common ground: On the one side of it lay Zion the seat of the King, on the other side Jerusalem, the habitation of the people, and the Temple and its service in the middle between, even as the Ministry is in mediation betwixt God and his people. That Wall that encompassed it, had eight gates of goodly structure and beauteous fabric, all of one fashion, save only that the North and East gates were not topped, the one in height, and the other in fashion, as the other were. At all these gates were Porters by day, and at five of them were guards by night, as we shall observe hereafter: the access to them on the East and West was by a great ascent, but facilitated by steps or causeys for the people's ease, and for the coming up of the Beasts that were to be sacrificed, of which there were some that came up daily. On the South side the ascent was not so very great, yet it had its rising in the like manner of access as had the other. On the North what coming up there was, it was more for the accommodation of the residents in the Tower Antonia, than for the entrance into the Temple, the North gate Tedi being of so little use, as hath been spoken.

At any of the Gates as you passed through, the entrance if self, through which you went, was ten cubits wide, twenty cubits high, and twelve cubits over, six of which cubits were without the Holy ground, and six within: and as you entered in at the East gate, had you seen the ground before any buildings were set in it, or anything done to it, but only the building of this Wall, you might have seen the hill rising from the East to the West, in such an ascent, that the Western part of it was very many cubits higher than where you stood, as we shall have occasion to observe as we pass along.

This bank was once well stored with bushes and brambles, Gen. XXII. 13. and afterward with worse briers and thorns, the Jebusites, who had it in possession till David purchased it for divine use and structure, that we are looking after: Here was then a poor threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, but afterward the habitation of the God of Jacob: A place and fabric as sumptuous and eminent, as it was possible for man, and art, and cost to make it; the glory of the Nation where it was, and the wonder of all the Nations round about it; but in fine, as great a wonder and monument of desolation and ruin, as ever it had been of beauty and gloriousness. Before we step further toward the survey of it as it stood in glory, we must keep yet a while along this Wall about which we have been so long, and observe some buildings and beauties that joined and belonged to i • , besides the Gates that we have surveyed in it alread.

CHAP. VII. The Tower ANTONIA. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

UPON the North side and joining up to the Western angle (but on the outside of the wall that we have surveyed) stood the Tower of Antonia, once the place where the High-Priests used to lay up their Holy garments, but in aftertimes a Garrison of Roman Soldiers for the awing of the Temple. When it served for the former use, it was called Baris, (it may be from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ad extra, because it was an outer building) but when for the later, it bare the name of Antonia: Herod the Great having sumptuously repaired it, as he did the Temple, and called it after the name of the Roman Prince Antony. It stood upon the North-west point of Moriah, and was a very strong and a very large Pile: so spacious a building with all its appurtenances, that it took up two furlongs compass. The rock it stood upon, was fifty cubits high, and steep, and the building itself was forty cubits above it; it was four square, encompassed with a wall of three cubits high, which enclosed his Courts, and had a Turret at every corner, like the white Tower at London, but that it was more spacious, and that the Turrets were not all of an height, for those at the North-East and North-West corners were fifty cubits high, but those on the South-East and South-West were seventy cubits high, that they might fully overlook the Temple. It had cloisters or walks about it, and Baths and lodgings and large rooms in it, so that it was at once like a Castle and like a Palace. There was a passage out of it into the North and West Cloisters of the Mountain of the House (of which we shall speak next) and by that the Roman Garrison Souldies went down at every festival of the Jews, to take care against tumuls and seditions in those great concourses of the people: And the Governor of this Tower is called the Captain of the Temple, Acts IV. 1. Luke XXII. 52.

Hyrcanus the High Priest the first of that name, took up this place for his Mansion, and for the laying up of his holy garments, and so did his successors after him: and Herod when he repaired it and called it Antonia, he suffered the High-Priests to lay up, and to have the keeping of the Robes here still, and so did Archelaus his Son after him. But when the Romans put Archelaus from his Kingdom, they took the custody of these garments into their own power, but yet they let them lie in the same place, till Vitellius the Pro-Consul of Syria (in the time of Tiberius ) coming to Jerusalem, and well pleased with his entertainment there, upon the Jews Petition restored the keeping of those robes to them again. Howbeit they enjoyed not that privilege very long, but in the time of succeeding Emperors and Governors the custody of them was taken from them again.

And now that we have seen Antonia on the outside of the North wall, let us come in again at the North gate Tedi, and look a little more upon that, as we come through it. We observed before, the name of this gate to signify Hiding or obscurity, and as for the nature of it, we saw that it was in a manner altogether unfrequented: Now two things may be conjectured toward the reason and cause of both these; as 1. The insolency of the Roman Garrison might make the people have but little mind to come that way, and it might be to them, Porta Taedii, a gate of grievance; for let us cast out a Latin Etymology, so near a Latin Garrison. And 2. a reason why it carrieth hiddenness in its name, Josephus seemeth to give in this passage 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , because the hill Bezetha did shadow the Temple on that North side, and spoil its prospect, whereas no other side of the square had any such cloudings.

CHAP. VIII. Cloisters along this outmost Wall within. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

THUS hath the outmost virge and bounds of the Mountain of the House been laid before us; Now there is a thing that deserves our pains and observation again in another survey, and that is, the Walks or Cloisters that were along the Wall within between gate and gate round about.

The Talmud in one place expresseth it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Porticus duplicata, and so Josephus 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; which both the Talmud in another place and also Maymony do utter more largely 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 It was all stoored or roofed over, and one p • rch was before another.

The word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is so plainly the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that I make no scruple to render it by that word in Greek and by Porticus in Latin, but how to translate any of them into our English Tongue, is of some doubtfulness, because our word Porch by which they are constantly rendered, doth not reach to their sense in our English use, but is commonly taken in another. For what Kimchi saith concerning the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that it meaneth the same thing that by the Language of the Talmud is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The house of the gate, is also most true concerning the proper signification of the English word Porch, for that most ordinarily and commonly is taken among us for the building over or before the house door. But these words that we are about, do signify Cloister-walks or rows, where men used to walk or sit free from rains and weather, the one side open, supported with Pillars, and all floored, or covered over head.

So was this large compass along the Wall, it was double Cloistered round about (for give me leave to use that word, till I find a better) having a roof or floor over head, which lay almost as high as the top of the Wall, save what was left for the Walls battlements: and it was supported with a treble row of Marble Pillars (the inmost row joining to the Wall) and it was distinguished by the middle row of Pillars into a double walk. We need not go far for a copy, the stately new building ( Piazza, walk, cloister, call it what you will) at the West end of Paul's, may very well be our pattern. For it was much about that height, twelve yards and an half; it joined on one side to the Wall, as that to the Church, and was born up with gallant white Marble Pillars: It was thirty cubits, or fifteen yards broad; either walk, half that breadth Pillars and all, and had battlements above the leads, both at the wall, and on the other side, as that at Paul's is crested on the outside. Where buildings stood out into the Mountain of the House (as we have observed they did) there these Cloisters were carried accordingly: being either cut off at the building, if it stood thirty cubits out, or the one half or more of the Cloister cut off if the building were narrower, and the rest of the Cloister carried on before it.

Only upon the South side of the Square there was some difference of the Walks or Cloister from what was in the other parts.

For here was the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Cloister Royal as Josephus calls it, and of which he makes a very large and eminent description to this purpose:

1. That it was treble walked or rowed all along from East to West, whereas the Cloisters of any of the other sides were but double.

2. That this whole frame was born up by four rows of Pillars that stood even one against another, the inmost row joining to the wall as it was on the other sides.

3. The inmost and the outmost Walk of these three (that is, that that was next to the Wall, and that that was outmost towards the open space of the Mountain of the House) were equal in height and breadth with the Walks or Cloisters on any of the other sides, namely fifteen cubits high and fifteen cubits broad apiece: but the middlemost walk was two and forty cubits and an half broad and fifty cubits high, and so the two rows of Pillars that stood on either side of this middle walk were fifty cubits high, so that the roof of this walk was as high again as the roof of the walks on either side, and these altogether were as the upper and lower Leads of a Church, and everyone of them had a crest or battlement round about: Finally the whole Fabric was so gallant and sumptuous, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that it is incredible, saith my Author, to those that never saw it, and an amazement to those that did.

4. Had one stood at the top of the highest Leads at either end and looked down, there was so steep a trench or valley under 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that to look down it would make one giddy, and he could hardly see to the bottom; and Josephus proclaimeth this fabric to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , one of the goodliest works under the Sun.

Now through this gallant Southside Cloister, did, and that very deservedly, bear the name of The Cloister Royal 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , yet is not this the same with that, which in the Scripture is called Solomon's Porch, of which there is mention, John X. 23. Act. III. 11. for that (as the same Josephus giveth us intimation) was upon the East side of this square (that we have in hand) and not upon the South, his words are these 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : The people persuaded the King Agrippa (the second) to repair the East Porch or Cloister: Now this Cloister was in the outmost space of the Temple: standing over an exceeding deep valley: raised upon a Wall of 400 cubits which was made of square white stones of 20 cubits long, and 6 cubits high apiece, the work of King Solomon who first built the Temple.

His meaning about the foundation of this East wall and cloister he tells elsewhere to this purpose, that Solomon to find room enough this way, was put to fill and bring up a part of the deep trench with such great stones, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and upon this strong foundation, so brought up from the bottom of the valley, he built this Porch, or Cloister that we have in mention.

Now when the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian, and all the buildings ruined, yet this great and wonderful foundation that Solomon had brought up so high as to equal the floor of the Mount, was not ruined or pulled down, but continued still; and in aftertimes, the Porch or Cloister of that Eastern quarter, was built upon the same foundation of Solomon's: and from that it took and bare the name still of Solomon's Porch; and the East gate here, upon the same occasion was called the Kings Gate, as was said before.

And now to take a Prospect of this place, and wall, and buildings, and Cloisters that we have spoken of at one view: By many steps, or at the least by a great rising, you were to come up to any of the gates that have been mentioned, let the East gate (or the gate of Shushan ) be conceived for our entrance. The Gate-house or threshold was twelve cubits over, six without the doors and six within; being got within you saw the great square within, most stately double cloistered round about on every side, but only on the South, where the cloister was treble: on the West side were four gates, on the South two, on the North one, and one on the East where you came in: and at all these gates more or less buildings. In five of these gates (namely in the East gate Sushan, the two South gates Huldah, the North gate Tedi, and the West Shallecheth ) was a guard kept of the Levites by night for the safety and honor of the Temple, and so there was in every corner of this great square within.

These gallant and sumptuous Walks thus round about the whole compass, were for the people to stand, walk or sit under, in heat or rain, or according as they had a mind or occasion: And so it is said that our Savior walked here, Joh. X. 23. the Apostles James and John stood here and the people about them, Acts. III. 11. And there were benches set by the walls round about for people to sit down when they thought good: And therefore D. Kimchi Interprets 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a bench on which men sit: And R. Nathan makes it to be the same with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which he saith, is benches on which men set down their wares, and on which they sit themselves.

CHAP. IX. Tabernae Shops: The great Sanhedrin sitting thereabout.

THERE is very frequent mention in the Talmuds and Talmudical Writers, of a place in the Mountain of the house which was called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Hhanoth or Hhanijoth, which the learned in these Antiquities, do commonly render by the Latin word Tabernae: which though in that Language it be a proper expression of the Hebrew word, yet cannot we so properly in English render it Taverns: because, that, in our usual acceptation, that word is taken for houses where Wine only is sold; whereas these were shops where Wine, Oil, Salt, Meal and such like things were sold, which were in constant use for Sacrifices and Offerings in the Temple. And Rabbi Nathan relateth that there were Clerks of that Market appointed to look to the weights and measures of these Shops, and to see the Shopkeepers did not sell too dear.

But the most famous thing concerning these Tabernae that the Jews speak of, is, that the great Sanhedrin sat here, having removed hither from the room Gazith the place of their common sitting. The story hereof is dispersedly mentioned in the Talmud in several places, particularly it is thus at large in the Gemara of the Treatise Rosh hashana per. 4.

Rabbi Johanan saith, The divine glory had ten flittings: 1. From the Mercy seat to one of the Cherubs. 2. From that Cherub to the other. 3. From the Cherub to the threshold. 4. From the threshold to the Court.