The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, To the reader
TO THE READER.
I Shall not trouble the Reader with any long discourse to shew how the Scripture abounds with transposition of stories; how the holy Ghost doth eminently hereby shew, the Majesty of his style and Divine wisdome; how this is equally used in both Testaments; what need the student of Scripture hath, carefully to observe those dislocations; and what profit he may reape, by reducing them to their proper time and order. I shall only in brief give account of what I have done in the ensuing Treatise, which refers to that way of study of the New Testament.
Some years ago I published The Harmony, Chronicle and Order of the Old Testament, observing what transpositions may be observed there, the reason of their dislocating, and where, in Chronicall account, is their proper time and place: and accordingly manifesting the genuine Order of the Books, Chapters, Stories and Prophesies through the whole Book. The New Testament being Written and Composed after the very same manner of texture, requireth the like observation, and having made the Assay upon the one, I could not but do the like by the other. I have therefore first observed the proper Time and Order of the Texts of the Evangelists, and how all the four may be reduced into the current of one Story, and thereby evidences taken out of them themselves. I could willingly have published the Text it self in that Order, for so I have transcribed it from end to end, and so I offered it to the Press, but found its passage difficult: So that I have been forced to give directions for the so reading of it only by naming Chapters and verses. It would have been both more easie and more pleasant to the Reader, had the Text of the four been laid before him in severall Columes, but his examining and ordering it in his own Bible by the intimations given, will cost more labour indeed, but will better confirm memory and understanding.
The Acts of the Apostles, do not much scruple the Reader with dislocations, but the taking up of the times of the Stories, is not of little difficulty, and yet in some particulars, of some necessity: These are observed where most materiall, according to what light and evidence may be had for them, either in the Text it self there, or elswhere. Especially I have indeavoured to observe the times of the writing of The Epistles, both those that fall in, in those times that the Story of The Acts of the Apostles handleth, and those that were written afterward. For the fixing of some there is so plain ground from the Text that the time is determined certainly; for others, we are put to probability and conjecture, yet such ground to build conjecture on, that I hope there hath not been much roving from the mark. I must stand at the Readers censure.
I was unwilling to have medled with The Revelation, partly because I have no minde to be bold in things of that nature [I see too much daring with that Book already] and partly, because I could not go along with the common stating of the times, and matters there: yet being necessitated by the nature of the task, that I had undertaken, I could not but deal with the Times and Order of things spoken of in that Book: and that could not be done neither, without some speaking to the things themselves: which I have conjectured at [referring all to better Judgements] by the best propriety of the Language and Dialect used, I could observe: where literally, and where allusively to be understood.
Now because it would have been but a tedious task for the Reader, only to study upon the meer dislocations, and the ordering of them, or only to be pondering how to lay all in their right current, I have not only gone the way before him, but have shewed his way all along with variety of observations; as not obvious [for such would have but added one tediousness to another] so I hope not unprofitable, nor without his delight.
I have not set my self to Comment, but in a tra…sient way to hint the clearing of some of the most conspicuous difficulties, and that partly from the Text it self, and partly from Talmudicall collections. Of which later I have alleadged very many, and the most of them I hope not impertinently, but for usefull illustration. For though it is true indeed that there are no greater enemies to Christ, nor greater deniers of the Doctrine of the Gospel, then the Hebrew Writers; yet as Cerah's Censers, and the spoils of David's enemies, were dedicated to the Sanctuary service, so may the Records, to be met with in these men, be of most excellent use and improvement to the explication of a world of passages in the New Testament: Nay multitudes of passages not possibly to be explained, but from these Records. For since the scene of the most actings in it, was among the Jews, the speeches of Christ and his Apostles were to the Jews, and they Jews by birth and education that wrote the Gospels and Epistles, it is no wonder if it speak the Jews Dialect throughout, and glanceth at their Traditions, Opinions and Customs at every step. What Author in the world but he is best to be understood from the Writers and Dialect of his own Nation? What one Roman Writer can a man understandingly reade, unless he be well acquainted with their History, Customs, Propriety of phrases and common speech? So doth the New Testament, loquitur cum vulgo: Though it be penned in Greek, it speaks in the phrase of the Jewish Nation among whom it was penned all along, and there are multitudes of expressions in it which are not to be found but there and in the Jews Writings in all the vvorld. They are very much deceived that think the New Testament so very easie to be understood, because of the familiar doctrine it containeth, Faith and Repentance. It is true indeed, it is plainer as to the matter it handleth, then the Old, because it is an unfolding of the Old: but for the attaining of the understanding of the expressions that it useth in these explications, you must go two steps further then you do about the Old, namely to observe vvhere and how it useth the Septuagints Greek, as it doth very commonly, and when it useth the Jews Idiome, or reference thereunto, which indeed it doth continually: A Student well versed in their Language and Writings would finde it no great difficulty to translate the New Testament into Talmudick language, almost from verse to verse, so close doth it speak all along to their common speech. The allegations that I have produced of this nature in this present Tract, I have done but cursorily, as not writing a Comment, but a running Survey of the Times, Order and History of the whole New Testament: So that it may be many of them may not speak to every Reader that full intent for which they are produced, and which, would I have spent time to have been their Interpreter [but I was willing to avoid prolixity] I could have made them to have spoken plainly. What I might have done in this kinde I shall shew but by one instance [which let not the Reader think tedious here, since I have avoided tediousness in this kinde all along hereafter] and this is by a Comment in the way we have been speaking of but upon one verse, and that is the 22d verse of the 5th Chapter of Matthew, which I have picked out the rather, to make an exercitation upon, because it is generally held by all Expositors, that in it there is a plain reference to something in the Jewish Customs, which is the thing we have been mentioning.
Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of Iudgement, &c.
The sense which is ordinarily given of this verse in the construction of many Expositors, is made to referre unto the three sorts of Judicatories among the Jews: the lowest consisting of three Judges, the middle of twenty three, and the supream of seventy one. With which allusion and explication I cannot close, upon these three Reasons: 1. Because the lowest Judicatory to which they apply the word The Iudgement, had nothing to do in capitall matters: and so the conclusion of the verse before cannot be understood in this verse, The murderer shall be in danger of being judged by the Iudicatory of three, for they judged no such thing; and answerably the first clause in this verse, where the same word The Iudgement is reserved, cannot have the same application. 2. The word foreign is used only in the second clause, and it will be hard to give a reason why the middle Sanhedrin should only be so called [as that interpretation makes it to be] when all the three, and most eminently the highest, did bear that name. 3. To apply Gehenna ignis to penalty inflicted by the highest Sanhedrins, as divers do, doth cause so hard straining [as may be observed in the severall allusions that are framed of it] that it is very farre from an easily digested and current sense. I deny not indeed that Christ in the verse alluded to something of the Jews practises, in some point of Judicature, but unto what, I shall defer to conjecture, till its course come, in the method, in which it seemeth most genuine to take the unfolding of the verse up, and that is 1. To consider of three words in it; which also are to be met in other places, and so carry a more generall concernment with them, then to be confined unto this verse, and those are, Brother, and foreign, and Gehenna. 2. To consider of the three degrees of offences that are spoken of, namely causeless anger, saying Raka, and calling Thou fool. And 3. to consider of the three penalties denounced upon these offences, viz. Iudgement, The Councill, and Hell fire.
1. The word Brother, which doth so constantly wrap up all professors of the Name of Christ, in the signification of it, in the New Testament, may not unfitly be looked upon, by reflexion upon the sense of the word Neighbour in the Old Testament, as that was commonly interpreted and understood by the Jews: By using the word Neighbour [saith Rabbi Nathan] he excludeth all the Heathen, Aruch. in foreign. And let this passage of Maymony be well weighed: It is all one [saith he] to slay an Israelite and to slay a Canaanite servant: he that doth either must be put to death for it: An Israelite that slayeth a stranger sojourner is not put to death by the Sanhedrin for it, because it is said, If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour [Exod. 21.14.] and it is needless to say, he is not to be put to death for a Heathen. And it is all one for a man to kill another mans servant, or to kill his own servant, for he must die for either, because a servant hath taken upon him the Commandments, and is added to the possession of the Lord. In Rotseahh, &c. per. 2. By which it is apparent that they accounted all of their own Religion, and them only, to come under the title Neighbour; to which opinion how our Saviour speaketh you may observe in Luke 10.29, 30. &c. So that in the Jewish Church there were those that went under the notion of Brethren, that is, Israelites, who were all of one blood; and those that went under the name of Neighbours, and those were they that came in from other Nations to their Religion: They shall no more teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, Jer. 31.34, &c. Now under the Gospel, where there is no distinction of Tribes and kinreds, the word Brother is ordinarily used to signifie in the same latitude that Neighbour had done: namely all that come into the profession of the Gospel, and it is so taken also, as that had been, in contradistinction to a Heathen: Any man that is called a Brother, 1 Cor. 5.11. If thy brother offend thee, &c. Let him be as a Heathen, Mat. 18.15, 17.
2. foreign, which our English rendereth, Is in danger of, translates the word foreign and foreign, which are as ordinarily used among the Jewish Writers, as any words whatsoever: as foreign Guilty of death. foreign Guilty of cutting off, &c. Every page almost in either Talmud will give you examples of this nature.
3. Gehenna: It is well known that this expression is taken from foreign The valley of Hinnom, of which, and of the filthiness and abominableness of which place, there is so much spoken in Scripture. There was the horrid Idol Molech to which they burnt their children in the fire: And thither, as D. Kimchi saith, was cast out all the filth and unburied carcases, and there was a continuall fire to burn the filth and the bones. In Psal. 27.
From hence the Jews borrowed the word, and used it in their ordinary language, to betoken Hell: And the Text from which they especially translated the construction, seemeth to have been the last verse of the Prophesie of Isaiah, which by some of them is glossed thus, And they shall go forth out of Ierusalem into the valley of Hinnom, and there they shall see the carcases of those that rebelled against me, &c. Vid. Kimch. & Ab. Ezr. in loc.
It were endlesse to shew the frequency of the word in their Writers: let these few examples suffice. Chald. Paraph. in Isa. 26.15. Lord thou wilt drive all the wicked to Gehinnom. And on Isa. 33.14. The wicked shall be judged and delivered to Gehinnom the everlasting burning. And on ver. 17. Thou shalt see those that go down to the Land of Gehinnom. R. Sol. on Isa. 24.22. They shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in prison foreign, They that guilty of Ge…innom into Gehinnom. Targ. in Ruth 1.12. Be thou delivered from the Iudgement of Gehinnom. Midras Mishle fol. 69. Do you think to be delivered from the Iudgement of Gehinnom? Baal Tur. in Gen. 1.1. Because of the Law, they are delivered from the Iudgement of Gehennah, &c. See the phrase, Matth. 23.33.
And now we have done with words, let us come to sentences, and consider the offences that are prohibited, which are easily acknowledged to be graduall, or one above another. About the first, viz. Causelesse anger, there needeth no explanation, the words and matter are plain enough.
The second is, Whosoever shall say to his brother Racha. A nickname or scornfull title usuall which they disdainfully put one upon another, and very commonly: and therefore our Saviour hath specified in this word, the rather because it was of so common use among them, and they made no bones at it. Take these few examples, A certain man sought to betake himself to repentance [and restitution.] His wife said to him Rekah if thou make restitution, even thy girdle about thee is not thine own, &c. Tanchum fol. 5. Rabbi Iochanan was teaching concerning the building of Ierusalem with Saphires and Diamonds, &c. One of his scholars laughed him to scorn. But afterward being convinced of the truth of the thing, he saith to him, Rabbi, Do thou expound, for it is fit for thee to expound: as thou saidest so have I seen it: He saith to him Rekah, Hadst thou not seen thou wouldest not have beleeved, &c. Midras Tillin. fol. 38. col. 4. To what is the thing like? To a King of flesh and blood who took to wife a Kings daughter: he saith to her, Wait and fill me a cup, but she would not: whereupon he was angry and put her away: She went and was married to a sordid fellow: and he saith to her, Wait and fill me a cup: She said unto him, Rekah, I am a Kings daughter, &c. Idem in Psal. 137. A Gentile saith to an Israelite, I have a dainty dish, for thee to eat of. He saith What is it? He answers Swines flesh. He saith to him, Rekah, even what you kill of clean beasts is forbidden us, much more this. Tanch. fol. 18. col. 4.
The third offence is to say to a brother, Thou fool, which how to distinguish from Racha, which signifies an empty fellow, were some difficulty, but that Solomon is a good Dictionary here for us, who takes the term continually for a wicked wretch and reprobate, and in opposition to spirituall wisdom: So that in the first clause is condemned causelesse anger; in the second, scornfull taunting and reproaching of a brother: and in the last, calling him a reprobate and wicked, or uncharitably censuring his spirituall and eternall estate. And this last doth more especially hit the Scribes and Pharisees, who arrogated to themselves only to be called foreign Wisemen, but of all others had this scornfull and uncharitable opinion, This people that knoweth not the Law is cursed, Ioh. 7.49.
And now for the penalties denounced upon these offences, let us look upon them, taking notice of these two traditions of the Jews, which our Saviour seemeth to face and to contradict. 1. That they accounted the command Thou shalt not kill, to aim only at actuall murder. So in their collecting of the 613 precepts out of the Law, they understand that command to mean but this, That one should not kill an Israelite: Vid. trip. Targ. ibid. Sepher Chinnuch ibid. Maym. in Rotseah: per. 1. And accordingly they allotted this only violation of it to judgement. Against this wilde glosse and practise he speaketh in the first clause: Ye have heard it said, Thou shalt not kill, and he that killeth or committeth actuall murder, is liable to judgement, and ye extend the violation of that Command no further; but I say to you, that causelesse anger against thy brother is a violation of that Command, and even that maketh a man liable to judgement. 2. They allotted only that murder to be judged by the Councill or Sanhedrin, that was committed by a man in propriâ personâ. Let them speak their own sense: A murderer is he that kils his neighbour with a stone, or with Iron: or that thrusts him into water or fire out of which it is not possible to get out again, if the man die he is guilty, foreign [foreign.] But if he thrust him into fire or water, out of which it is possible to get out again, though he die, yet he is quit. He sets on him a dog or a serpent, he is quit: He intended to kill a stranger and kils an Israelite; To kill a little one, and kils one of stature: To hit him on the loins, and such a blow on the loins could not kill him, but it misses the loins and hits him on the heart and kils him: he is quit. He intended to hit him on the heart, and such a blow on the heart was enough to kill him, but it lights on the loins, and such a blow on the loins was not enough to kill him, yet he dies: he is quit. He intended to strike one of stature, and the blow was not enough to have killed one of stature, but it lights on a little one, and there was enough in the blow to have killed a little one, and he dies, yet he is quit, He intended to hit a little one, and there was enough in the blow to kill a little one, but it lights on one of stature, and there was not enough in the blow to kill one of stature, yet he dies: he is quit. R. Simeon saith, Though he intended to kill one, and kils another, he is quit, &c. Talm. in Sanhedr. per. 9.
Any one that kils his neighbour with his hand, as if he strike him with a sword, or with a stone that kils him, or strangles him till he die, or burns him in the fire, seeing that he kils him any how in his own person, lo such a one must be put to death by the Sanhedrin: But he that hires another to kill his neighbour, or that sends his servants and they kill him, or that violently thrusts him before a Lion, or the like, and the beast kils him: Any one of these is a shedder of blood, and the guilt of shedding of blood is upon him, and he is liable to death by the hand of heaven, but he is not to be put to death by the Sanhedrin. And whence is the proof that it must be thus? Because it is said, He that sheds mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed. This is he that slays a man himself, and not by the hand of another. Your blood of your lives will I require: This is he that slays himself. At the hand of every beast will I require it: This is he that delivers up his neighbour before a beast to be rent in pieces. At the hand of man, even at the hand of every mans brother will I require the life of man: This is he that hires others to kill his neighbour: In this interpretation requiring is spoken of all the three, behold their judgement is delivered over to heaven [or God.] And all these manslayers and the like, who are not liable to death by the Sanhedrin; if the King of Israel will slay them by the Iudgement of the Kingdom and the Law of Nations, he may, &c. Maym. ubi supr. per. 2.
You may observe in these wretched traditions a twofold killing, and a twofold judgement: a mans killing another in his own person and with his own hand, and such a one liable to the judgement of the Sanhedrin, to be put to death by them as a murderer: And a man that killed another by proxy; not with his own hand, but hiring another to kill him, or turning a beast or serpent upon him to kill him. This man not to be judged and executed by the Sanhedrin, but referred and reserved only to the judgement of God. So that from hence we see plainly, in what sense the word Iudgement is used in the later end of the preceding verse, and the first clause of this, namely not for the Judgement of any of the Sanhedrins, as it is commonly understood, but for the Iudgement of God. In the former verse Christ speaks their sense, and in the first clause of this, his own, in application to it. Ye have heard it said, that any man that kils is liable to the Judgement of God; But I say in you that he that is but angry with his brother without a cause, is liable to the Judgement of God. You have heard it said, That he only that commits murder with his own hand, is to be judged by the Councill or Sanhedrin as a murderer; But I say to you, that he that but cals his brother Racha, as common a word as ye make it, and a thing of nothing, he is liable to be judged by the Sanhedrin.
Lastly, He that saith to his brother, Thou fool, wicked one, or castaway, shall be in danger of hell fire. foreign. There are two observable things in the words. The first is the change of case from what was before: there it was said, foreign, but here foreign. And hereupon S. Petit in his variae Lectiones lib. 1. cap. 1. professeth that he cannot wonder enough, that Expositors should not observe this variation: and what he himself maketh of the observation of it I shall not insist upon, but referre the Reader to his own words. Surely he little mindes the Greek Text that sees not this in it, and there needs not any farre fetched Exposition to satisfie about it: It is but an Emphaticall raising of the sense, to make it the more feeling and to speak home: He that saith to his brother Raka shall be in danger of the Councill, but he that saies Thou fool, he shall be in danger of a penalty even to hell fire. And thus our Saviour doth equall the sin and penalty in a very just parallel. Injust anger, with Gods just anger and judgement: Publick reproach; with publick correction by the Councill: And censuring for a childe of hell, to the fire of hell. 2. It is no said foreign, To the fire of hell, but foreign, To a hell of fire: in which expression he doth still set the Emphasis higher: And besides the reference to the valley of Hinnom, he seemeth to referre to that penalty used by the Sanhedrin, of burning: the most bitter death that they used to put men unto: the manner of which was thus: They set the malefactor in a dunghill up to the knees: and they put a towell about his neck, and one pul'd one way, and another another, till by thus strangling him they forced him to open his mouth. Then did they pour scalding lead into his mouth, which went down into his belly and so burnt his bowels. Talm. in Sanhed. per. 7. Now having spoken in the clause before of being judged by the Sanhedrin, whose terriblest penalty was this burning, he doth in this clause raise the penalty higher, namely of burning, but in hell: not a little scalding lead, but even with a Hell of fire, &c.
The greatest part of the New Testament might be observed to speak in such reference to something or other commonly known, or used or spoken among the Jews, and even the difficultest passages in it might be brought to farre more facility then they be, if these references were well observed. There …re divers places where Commentators, not able to clear the sense for want of this, have been bold to say the Text is corrupt, and to frame a Text of their own heads; whereas the matter skilfully handled in this way, might have been made plain: As we have given experiment in this kinde in some as we have gone along, and divers others might have been instanced, but our work was not now to write a Comment.
August 28th 1654. I. L,
THE HARMONY, CHRONICLE AND ORDER OF THE New-Testament.
The First Part. viz. The HARMONY and ORDER OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS.
SECTION I. LUKE Chap. I. Ver. 1, 2, 3, 4. LUKES Preface. His warrant to write his Gospel.
IN compiling the four Evangelists into one continued current and story, this Preface that Luke prefixeth to his Gospel, may very fitly be set before them all, as a generall Proem to the whole.
If he wrote his Gospel, neer about that time, when he wrote his Acts of the Apostles, it was not till Paul had now worn out his two years imprisonment in Rome, or thereabout, Acts 28.30. which was twenty seaven years after Christs ascension: by which time the Gospel had been carried by the Apostles who were eye-witnesses of Christs actions, and by the Disciples, who were Ministers of the word, through the most parts of the world.
From these mens Sermons and relations, many undertook to write Gospels, partly for their own use, and partly for the benefit of others: which thing, though they did lawfully and with a good intent, yet because they did it not by inspiration, nor by divine warrant; albeit, what they had written were according to truth, yet was the authority of their writings but humane, and not to be admitted into the divine Canon. But Luke had his intelligence and instructions from above, foreign, ver. 3.
SECTION II. JOHN Chap. I. from the beginning to Ver. 15. CHRISTS Divinity shewed: and the fitnesse of him, the Word, to be incarnate.
AFter the Preface, this portion doth justly challenge to be ranked first: for it not only treateth of Christs Divinity, which is first to be looked after in his story, but it also sheweth, how proper it was for him the second person in the Trinity to be incarnate, rather then either of the other persons: 1. He being the Word by whom the world was created, and therefore fittest by whom it should be redeemed. 2. The Word in whom the promise of life was given, ver. 4. and so most fit by whom life should be brought. 3. The substance of that word of promise, that shone as a light throughout all the old Testament, in the darknesse of the types, figures, prophesies and mysteries there, and the darknesse of those obscure dispensations comprehended it not, but that it gave light and shone in that obscurity: and they could not comprehend it, it being a light to break out in a far greater lustre th…n they affoarded.