see his Annot. on Lev. iv. 2, which Faustus Socinus also holdeth, Prælect., cap. 22, p. 144. But to me the contrary is plain from Lev. vi. 1-8, where we have atonement to be made by trespass-offerings for wilful lying, perjury, fraud, robbing, or violence, which made the Septuagints, ver. 2, for commit a trespass, to read, despising, despise the commandments of the Lord. And whereas Mr Ainsworth confirmeth his opinion from Heb. x. 26, " For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins," I answer with Calvin, Beza, Hemmingius, and others upon the place, It is not meant of all sins done wilfully (which to hold were a most dangerous and despairing doctrine), but of a total defection from Christ and the truth. And now, to return, there is nothing, Lev. v. 2, to exclude a trespass-offering for one who should in his uncleanness wilfully go to the sanctuary, or touch an holy thing; but there is this reason why it should not be excluded, because in that very place, ver. 1, he that did wilfully, for favour or malice, conceal his knowledge, being a witness in judgment, was yet admitted to bring his trespass-offering.

3. The Apostle, 1 Cor. v., gives us some light concerning the cutting off, for (as ver. 6-8) most manifestly he pointeth at the purging of all the congregation of Israel from leaven, Exod. xii. ; so ver. 13, when he saith, "Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person," he plainly alludeth to Exod. xii. 15, 19, "Whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation (or church) of Israel." Theophylact on 1 Cor. v. 13, observeth the Apostle's allusion to the old law of cutting off, and Maccovius (otherwise no very good friend to church discipline and government), Loc. Com. disp. 22, proveth that excommunication was transferred from the Jews to us by Christ himself, Matt. xviii., and that the cutting off mentioned in the law is no other thing than that which the Apostle meaneth when he saith, "Put away from among yourselves that wicked person.'

4. The cutting off a soul from among his people did typify or resemble eternal death and condemnation; in which respect Peter doth some way apply it to the days of the gospel, that every soul which will not hear Christ the great prophet "shall be destroyed

from among his people," Acts iii. 23. So Vatablus on Gen. xvii. 14, "That soul shall be cut off," that is, shall not be partaker of my promises, and of my benefits; so that as J. Coch, Annot. in Sanhedrim, cap. 9, saith well, death inflicted by the hand of God is less than cutting off, Nam exterminii post mortem poena luitur. The same thing Gul. Vorstius confirmeth out of Maimonides, Annot. in Maimon. de Fundam. Legis, p. 127; and Abrabanel, de capite Fidei, cap. 8, saith that "the greatest reward is the life of the world to come, and the greatest punishment is the cutting off of the soul." Now this could not so fitly be resembled and shadowed forth by the cutting off from the land of the living, either by the hand of God, or by the hand of the magistrate, as by cutting off from the church, and from the communion of saints by excommunication, which is summum futuri judicii præjudicium, as Tertullian called it, and foreshoweth that "the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous," Psal. i. 5. But God's taking away of a man by death, in the phrase of the Old Testament, is not a cutting off from, but a gathering of him unto his people; yea, it is said of wicked Ishmael when he died, he was gathered unto his people; and as for the abbreviation of life, and the untimeliness of death in youth or middle age, that both is now and was of old, one of the things which come alike to all, to the good as well as to the bad. As touching the capital punishment of malefactors by the hand of the magistrate, it being founded upon the very law of nature, and common to all nations without as well as within the church (so that very often those from whom a malefactor is cut off are not so much as by profession the church and people of God), it cannot so fitly resemble the separation or casting out of a man from having part or portion of the inheritance of the saints in light.

5. Dr Buxtorff, Lexic. Chald. Talm. et Rabbin., p. 1101, tells us that this difference was put between him that was guilty of cutting off, and him that was guilty of death: Reus mortis, ipse tantum, non semen ejus : pœna excidii comprehendit ipsum et semen ejus. Now if the punishment of death was personal only, and the punishment of cutting off comprehensive not only of them but of their seed, how can this agree so well to anything else as to excommunication; espe

cially if that hold which Godwin in his Moses and Aaron, lib. 5, cap. 2, tells us, that the children of excommunicate persons were not circumcised.

6. Mr Selden, de Jure. Nat. et Gent., lib. 7, cap. 10, tells us, that the Hebrew doctors themselves do not agree concerning that cutting off in the law. He saith that R. Bechai and others make three sorts of cutting off: 1. A cutting off whereby the body only is cut off, which they understand by that phrase, Lev. xx. 6, "I will cut him off from among his people;" and this is untimely death, Psal. lv. 23, "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days." 2. They say there was another cutting off, which was of the soul only, Lev. xviii. 29, "The souls that commit these things shall be cut off from among their people." By this cutting off, they say, the soul ceaseth to have a being, the body not being taken away by death before the natural period. 3. They make a third kind whereby both soul and body is cut off, Num. xv. 31, "That soul shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him," whereby, say they, both the body is destroyed before the natural time, and likewise the soul ceaseth to have a being. But whatsoever any of the Hebrews fancied in their declining latter times concerning that second kind of cutting off (which Mr Selden doth not approve, but relate out of them), I am confident it was only the degenerating notion of excommunication, and that very fancy of theirs is a footstep thereof, which may make us easily believe that the more ancient Hebrews in purer times did understand that such a cutting off was mentioned in the law by which a man in respect of his spiritual being was cut off from the church of Israel, while his natural life and being was not taken from him; yea, Gul. Vorstius Annot. in Maimon. de Fundam. Legis, p. 60, showeth us, that some of the Hebrews acknowledge nothing under the name of the cutting off, but that which is the cutting off of the soul only; but if there be so much as some cutting off mentioned in the law which concerneth a man's spiritual estate only, it doth abundantly confirm what I plead for, and I shall not need to assert, that everywhere in the law excommunication must needs be understood by cutting off. Some understand the cutting off in the judicial or civil laws to be meant of capital punishments, and the cutting off in the ceremonial laws (which were

properly ecclesiastical) to be meant of excommunication, or cutting off from the church only; if anywhere the cutting off be excommunication, it sufficeth me, or whatever it may signify more, or be extended unto, if excommunication be one thing which it signifieth, then they who think it signifieth some other thing beside excommunication are not against me in this question.

I shall conclude with that in the Dutch Annotations upon Gen. xvii. 14, "that soul shall be cut off from his people." The annotation Englished saith thus, That man shall be excommunicate from the fellowship of God's people. This kind of expression implies also (as some do conceive) a bodily punishment to be inflicted withal by the magistrate. They hold determinately and positively that it signifieth excommunication, whether it signify some other thing beside, they judge not to be so clear, and therefore offer it to be considered.

It is but a poor argument whereby Bishop Bilson, Of the Government of the Church, chap. 4, would prove the cutting off not to be meant of excommunication, because it is applied even to capital offences, such as the law elsewhere appointeth men to be put to death for, as if it were any absurdity to say, that one and the same offence is to be punished sub formalitate scandali with excommunication, and sub formalitate criminis with capital punishment; and who knoweth not that a capital crime is a cause of excommunication, which is also sometimes the sole punishment, the magistrate neglecting his duty. If a known blasphemer or incestuous person be not cut off by the magistrate, as he ought by the law of God, shall he therefore not be cut off by excommunication. If he had proved that all the causes of cutting off in the law were capital crimes, he had said much; but that will never be proved.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE CASTING OUT OF THE SYNAGOGUE.

We read of a casting out of the church, which was pretended to be a matter of conscience and religion, and such as did more especially concern the glory of God, Isa. lxvi. 5, "Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified." Such was the cast

ing out of the synagogue mentioned in the gospel, Job ix. 22; xii. 42; xvi. 2, Arias Montanus, de Arcano Sermone, cap. 47, expounds it of excommunication from church assemblies. So the Magdeburians, cent. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7, and Corn. Bertramus de Repub. Ebræor., cap. 7, Godwin in his Moses and Aaron, lib. 3, cap. 4, et lib. 5, cap. 2. Wherein the interpreters also upon the places cited do generally agree-Erasmus, Brentius, Tossanus, Diodati, Cartwright in his Harmony, Gerhardus, &c. So likewise Mr Leigh out of Paulus Tarnovius, ȧrorvváywyos dicitur ejectus e cætu sacro ecclesiæ, excommunicatus. See Critica Sacra of the New Testament p. 391. So doth Aretius, Theol. Probel. loc. 133 (though cited by our opposites against us), he saith, though it was abused by the Pharisees, yet it showeth the ancient use of the thing itself, that there was such a discipline in the Jewish church; it is not much material to dispute which of the degrees of the Jewish excommunication, or whether all the three were meant by that casting out of the synagogue. Drusius and Grotius expound John ix. 22, of niddui, Gerhardus expounds John xvi. 2, of all the three, niddui, cherem, and schammata. It is enough for this present argument, if it was a spiritual, or ecclesiastical censure, not a civil punishment. Mr Prynne, Vindic. p. 48, 49, tells us: First, this casting out of the synagogue was not warranted by God's word, but was only a human invention; Secondly, as it was practised by the Jews it was a diabolical institution; Thirdly, that it was merely a civil excommunication, like to an outlawry, whereby the party cast out was separate from civil conversation only, or from all company with any man, but was not suspended from any divine ordinance; Fourthly, that it was inflicted by the temporal magistrate; Fifthly, that in the Jewish synagogues at that time, there was neither sacrament nor sacrifice, but only reading, expounding, preaching, disputing, and prayer, so that it cannot prove suspension from the sacrament. To the first I answer, it was not only warranted by the cutting off mentioned in the law, but Erastus himself gives a warrant for it from God's word. He saith, p. 315, the casting out of the synagogue was vel idem vel simile quidbiam with that separating from the congregation, Ezra x. 18. To the second Aretius hath answered, The best things in the world may be abused. To the third I offer these eight considera

tions to prove that it was an ecclesiastical not a civil censure.

1. The causes for which men were put out of the synagogues, were matters of scandal, offences in point of religion, and we read of none cast out of the synagogue for a civil injury or crime, it was for confessing Christ, John ix. 22; xii. 42, then counted heresy, and for preaching of the gospel, John xvi. 2.

2. The synagogical assembly or court was spiritual and ecclesiastical, as Ludoviens de Dieu noteth upon Matt. x. 17. We read of "the rulers of the synagogue," Acts xiii. 15, among whom he that did preside and moderate, was called "the chief ruler of the synagogue," Acts xviii. 8, 17, names never given to civil magistrates or judges. Therefore Brughton makes this of the rulers of the synagogue to be one of the parallels between the Jewish and the Christian church, see his Exposition of the Lord's Prayer, p. 14, 16. As for that assembly of the Pharisees which did cast out or excommunicate the blind man, John ix., Tossanus upon the place calls it senatus ecclesiasticus; and Brentius argueth from this example against the infallibility of councils, because this council of the Pharisees called Christ himself a sinner.

3. The court of civil judgment was in the gates of the city, not in the synagogue.

4. Such as the communion and fellowship was in the synagogue, such was the casting out of the synagogue; but the communion or fellowship which one enjoyed in the synagogue was a church communion and sacred fellowship in acts of divine worship, therefore the casting out of the synagogue was also ecclesiastical and spiritual, not civil or temporal. The end was sacred and spiritual, to glorify God, Isa. lxvi. 5, to do God good service, John xvi. 2, in that which did more immediately and nearly touch his name and his glory. Though the Pharisees did falsely pretend that end, their error was not in mistaking the nature of the censure, but in misapplying it where they had no just cause.

5. Mr Prynne himself tells us, p. 49, that this excommunication from the synagogue was of force forty days (though I believe he hath added ten more than enough, and if he look over his books better, he will find he should have said thirty), yet so as that it might be shortened upon repentance. But, I pray, are civil punishments shortened or lengthened according to the parties repentance? I know church censures are so, but I

had thought the end of civil punishments is not to reclaim a man's soul by repentance, and then to be taken off, but to guard the laws of the land; to preserve justice, peace, and good order; to make others fear to do evil; to uphold the public good. The magistrate must both punish and continue punishments as long as is necessary for those ends, whether the party be penitent or not.

6. How is it credible that the Holy Ghost, meaning to express a casting out from civil company or conversation only (which was not within, but without the synagogue), would choose such a word as signifieth the casting out from an ecclesiastical or sacred assembly (for such were the synagogues in which the Jews had reading, expounding, preaching and prayer, as Mr Prynne tells us)? Christ himself distinguisheth the court or judicatory which was in the synagogue from civil magistracy, Luke xii. 11, "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers." Magistrates and powers are civil rulers, supreme and subordinate, but the synagogues are distinct courts from both these.

7. Our opposites cannot give any other rational interpretation of the word orvváywyos. Erastus, p. 315, confesseth it is very hard to tell what it was. He gives three conjectures: First, that it was some ignominy put upon a man, which I think nobody denies, and it may well stand with our interpretation. Secondly, he saith not that it was a separating of the party from all company, or society with any man (for which Mr Prynne citeth Erastus with others), but a pulling away, or casting out of a man from some particular town only, for instance, from Nazareth. Thirdly, he saith, it seems also to have been a refusal of the privileges of Jewish citizens, or the esteeming of one no longer for a true Jew, but for a proselyte; but that a proselyte, who was free to come both to temple and synagogue (for of such a proselyte he speaketh expressly), should be said to be made ἀποσυνάγωγος, it may well weaken, it cannot strengthen his cause.

8. In Tzemach David, edit. Hen. Vorstius, p. 89, we read, that when the sanhedrim did remove from Jerusalem, forty years before the destruction of the temple, there was a prayer composed against the heretics. Hen. Vorstius, in his Observ., p. 286, showeth out of Maimonides that it was a maledictory prayer appointed to be used against the heretics of that time, who in

creased mightily, and that R. Sol. Jarchi addeth this explanation of the word '' Minim, the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. Dr Buxtorff, Lexic. Chald. Talm. et Rabbin, p. 1201, collecteth that this maledictory prayer was composed in Christ's time, and against his disciples. Surely it suiteth no story so well as that of the decree of casting out of the synagogue, John xii. 42.

If

After all these eight considerations, this I must add, that I do not a little admire how Mr Prynne could cite Godwin's Jewish Antiquities, lib. 5, cap. 2, for that opinion, that the casting out of the synagogue was not an ecclesiastical but only a civil censure. he had but looked to the page immediately preceding, he had found this distinction between the ecclesiastical and civil courts of the Jews. "The office of the ecclesiastical court was to put a difference between things holy and unholy, &c. It was a representative church, hence is that, dic ecclesiæ, Matt. xviii. 17, Tell the church, because unto them belonged the power of excommunication, the several sorts of which censure follow." And so he beginneth with the casting out of the synagogue, as the first or lesser excommunication, or niddui, and tells us among other effects of it, that the male children of one thus cast out were not circumcised.

To Mr Prynne's fourth exception the answer may be collected from what is already said. We never find the temporal magistrate called the ruler of the synagogue, nor yet that he sat in judgment in the synagogue. The beating or scourging in the synagogues was a tumultuous disorderly act : we read of no sentence given, but only to be put out of the synagogue, which sentence was given by the synagogical consistory, made up of the priest or priests and Jewish elders; for the power of judging in things and causes ecclesiastical, did belong to the priests and Levites, together with the elders of Israel, 1 Chron. xxiii. 4; xxvi. 30, 32; 2 Chron. xix. 8; and, therefore, what reason Mr Prynne had to exclude the priests from this corrective power, and from being rulers of the synagogue, I know not. Sure I am the scriptures cited make priests and Levites to be judges and rulers ecclesiastical, of which before. As for the chief ruler of the synagogue, Archysynagogus errat primarius in synagoga doctor, say the Centurists, cent. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7, and if so, then not a civil magistrate.

To the fifth I answer, 1. If there was an

exclusion from reading, expounding, preaching and prayer, then much more from sacraments, in which there is more of the communion of saints. 2. He that was cast out of the synagogue might not enter into the synagogue, saith Menochius in John ix. 22, therefore he did not communicate in prayer with the congregation, nor in other acts of divine worship (which how far it is applicable to excommunication in the Christian church I do not now dispute; nor are all of one opinion concerning excommunicate persons' admission unto some, or exclusion from all public ordinances, hearing of the word and all), I know Erastus answereth, the word synagogue may signify either the material house-the place of assembling, or the people-the congregation which did assemble. And some who differ in judgment from us in this particular, hold that when we read of putting out of the synagogue, the word synagogue doth not signify the house, or place, of public worship (which yet it doth signify in other places, as Luke vii. 5; Acts xviii. 7), but the church or assembly itself. But I take it to signify both jointly; and that it was a casting out, even from the place itself, such as that, John ix. 34, kaì è¿éßaλov ȧvròv Ew," And they cast him out," or excommunicated him, as the English translators add in the margin; besides I take what it is granted -it was a casting out from the assembly or congregation itself. But how could a man be cast out from the congregation, and yet be free to come where the congregation was assembled together? O! but he must keep off four cubits' distance from all other men. And was there so much room to reel to and fro in the synagogue? I do not understand how a man shall satisfy himself in that notion. But I rather think Bertramus speaks rationally, that he that was excommunicate by niddui was shut out ab hominum contubernio atque adeo ab ipsius Tabernaculi aditu. de Rep. Jud., cap. 7, which niddui he takes to be the same with casting out of the synagogue. He that was cast out from men's society must needs be excluded from the public holy assemblies, and from the place where these assemblies are. Whereunto agreeth that which we read in Exc. Gem. Sanhedrim, cap. 3, sect. 9, A certain disciple having, after two-and-twenty years, divulged that which had been said in the school of R. Ammi, he was brought out of the synagogue, and the said rabbi caused it to be proclaimed, This is a revealer of secrets.

3. It is more than Mr Prynne can prove, that the sacrament of circumcision was not then administered in the synagogues. The Jews do administer it in their synagogues; and that John was circumcised in the synagogue some gather from Luke i. 59: Venerunt, They came (to wit to the synagogue) to circumcise the child." For my part, I lay no weight upon that argument; but I see less ground for Mr Prynne's assertion.

As for that which Mr Prynne addeth in the close, that those who were cast out of the synagogue might yet resort to the temple, he hath said nothing to prove it. I find the same thing affirmed by Sutlivius de Presbyt., p. 25 (though I had thought Mr Prynne's tenets of this kind should never have complied with those of Episcopal men against the anti-episcopal party); but neither doth Sutlivius prove it: only he holds that the casting out of the synagogue was merely a civil excommunication; and his reason is that which he had to prove,-that Christ and his disciples, when they were cast out of the synagogues, had, notwithstanding, a free access to the temple. To my best observation I can find no instance of any admitted to the temple while cast out of the synagogue. I turn again to Erastus, p. 314, to see whether he proves it. He gives us two instances,-first of Christ himself, who was cast out of the synagogues, and yet came into the temple. But how proves he that Christ was ȧroovváyayos? For this he tells us only quis dubitat,-who makes question of it? I am one who make a great question of it, or rather put it out of question, that Christ was not cast out of the synagogues; for what saith he himself, John xviii. 20, "I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whether the Jews always resort.' Christ was cast out of the city of Nazareth, in the tumult, by the people, Luke iv. But here was no consistorial sentence; it was not the casting out of the synagogue of which our question is. The other instance which Erastus gives helps him as little. The apostles, saith he, were cast out of the synagogue, and yet immediately went to the temple and taught the people, Acts iv, and v. And how many synagogues was Paul cast out of? 2 Cor. xi. yet he is not reprehended for coming into the temple.

Ans. I find nothing of the synagogue in those places which he citeth. It was the

E