judged, who were not admitted to the ordinances of worship in the court of Israel, even as the prohibition of reading atheistical or heretical books, Sanh. c. 11, sect. 1, was not violated by the council's reading or searching of them for a judicial trial and examination; as is rightly observed by Dionysius Vossius, Annot. in Maimon. de Idol. p. 25.

And now, having taken off the two principal objections, we shall take notice of such scriptures as either directly, or at least by consequence, prove that notorious and scandalous sinners were not admitted into the temple or to partake in the ordinances.

1. God reproveth not only the bringing of strangers into his sanctuary, who were uncircumcised in the flesh, but the bringing of those who were uncircumcised in heart, that is, known to be such; for de secretis non judicat ecclesia, Ezek. xliv. 7, 9, such ought not to have had fellowship in the holy things. "No stranger, uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel." It is a law concerning proselytus domicilii, proselytes who, having renounced idolatry, and professing to observe the seven precepts given to the sons of Noah, were thereupon permitted to dwell and converse among the children of Israel (of which more elsewhere). Such a one ought not to be admitted into the sanctuary, or place of the holy assemblies, there to partake in all the ordinances with the church, unless he be both circumcised in flesh, and also in regard of his profession and practice, a visible saint, or one supposed to be circumcised in heart. The disjunction nor tells us, that if he were either uncircumcised in flesh, or known to be uncircumcised in heart, God did not allow him to be admitted to communion with the children of Israel in all public ordinances.

2. There is a law, Deut. xxiii. 18, forbidding to bring the hire of a whore into the house of the Lord; and that, because it was the price of a whore, how much more was it contrary to the will of God, that the whore herself, being known to be such, should be brought to the house of the Lord? For propter quod unumquoque est tale, id ipsum est magis tale. This argument is hinted by Philo the Jew.1

1 De Monarchia, lib. 2, Proinde recte honeste que vetitum est alicubi, ne merces meretricis inferatur in sacrarium. Atqui nummi per se carent crimine, sed quæ hos accepit una cum suo quæstu est abominabilis.

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3. The Lord sharply contendeth with those who did steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and yet presumed to come and stand before him in his own house. Is this house, which is called by my name, saith the Lord, become a den of robbers in your eyes?" Jer. vii. 9-11. A den of robbers is the place which receives robbers; and (saith Vatablus upon the place) as robbers, after their robbing, come to their den, so do these, even after their stealing, murdering, &c., come to the temple. To the same purpose is that challenge, Ezek. xxiii. 38, 39, "Moreover this they have done unto me, they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths. For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it." But God would not have the temple to be a receptacle for such. When Christ applieth that scripture, Jer. vii., against those who bought and sold in the temple, Matt. xxi. 12, 13, he makes it clear that the temple was made a den of robbers, not only as it was made a place of gain, or a den where the robber's prey lies, but even as it was a receptacle of the robbers or thieves themselves; therefore he is not contented with the overthrowing of the tables of money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, but he did also "cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple;" that is, he would neither suffer such things nor such persons in the temple; yea, though it was only in the utmost court, or the court of the Gentiles, as Grotius and Mr Selden think, how much less would he have suffered such persons in the court of Israel? Philo the Jew doth also apply what is said in the prophets, of God's hating the sacrifices of the wicked, even to the excluding of profane men from the temple.1 Mr Selden, de Jure Nat. et Gent., lib. 4, cap. 5, doth so explain that casting out of the buyers and sellers out of the temple that the argument in hand is not a little strengthened thereby. He saith truly, that those who were cast out had polluted and profaned that holy place, ideo et ipsi, ut qui tum criminis aliorum participes, tum suo infames pariter, sie templum seu montis templi locum illum ipsis

1 Lib. de Victimas offerentibus. Nam veri Dei templum non pater profanis sacrificiis. Tali homini dicerem, oobone, non gaudet Deus centenis boum victimis, etc.; mavult pias mentes, etc.

permissum profanabant, ejiciendi. He holdeth also that this which Christ did was done ex jure patrio, to wit, ex zelo tarum jure; and that else it had been challenged by the priests and scribes if it had been contrary to the law or custom. Zealots, that is, private persons zealously affected, were permitted to scourge, wound, yea, kill, such as they saw publicly committing atrocious wickedness, by which the holiness, either of the name of God, or of the temple, or of the nation of the Jews, was violated. So Mr Selden showeth out of the Talmudists, ibid. cap. 4. Now (saith he) zelotarum jure, our Saviour, though a private person (for so he was looked upon by the priests and scribes), did scourge and cast out the buyers and sellers. If so, then certainly such wicked and abominable persons were not allowed to come to the temple; and if they did, they ought to have been judicially, and by authority, cast out; for that which was permitted to private persons, in the executing of justice or inflicting of punishment, out of their zeal to the glory of God, was much more incumbent to such as had authority in their hands for correcting and removing the profanation of the temple in an authoritative, judicial, and orderly way.

4. The Levites had a charge to let none that were unclean in any thing enter into the temple, 2 Chron. xxiii. 19. Now, this is like that, 1 Cor. v. 11, "with such an one no not to eat:" an argument from the denial of that which is less, to the denial of that which is more. So here it was a necessary consequence, if those that were ceremonially unclean were to be excluded from the temple, much more those who were morally or impiously unclean. For, 1. The legal uncleanness did signify the sinful uncleanness; and the exclusson of those that were known to be legally unclean from the temple, did signify the excluding of those who were known to be grossly and notoriously unclean in their life and conversation, which shall be abundantly confirmed afterwards. Therefore Bertramus de Rep. Ebr., cap. 7, saith rightly, that the Levites had a charge to keep from the temple the unclean, aut etiam alio quovis modo indignos, or those also who were any otherwise unworthy. 2. Godwin, in his Moses and Aaron, lib. 5, cap. 2, makes a comparison between the three degrees of the Jewish excommunication and the three degrees of excluding

the unclean, Num, v. 2, which parallel if we please to make, then as for any of the three sorts of uncleanness, the touch of the dead, issue, or leprosy, a man was excluded from the camp of God or the sanctuary; so it will follow that even those who were cast out by the niddui, or lowest degree of excommunication, were for a time suspended from communion with the church in the ordinances. 3. The Levites were appointed to put a difference not only between the clean and the unclean, but between the holy and unholy, Lev. x. 10; or between the holy and profane, Ezek. xxii. 26; xliv. 23. By clean and unclean, I understand persons or things that were ceremonially such; by holy and profane, persons that were morally such.

5. I prove the same point from Psal. cxviii. 19, 20, "Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them and I will praise the Lord. This gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter." The Chaldee saith, "The gate of the house of the sanctuary of the Lord." The gates of God's sanctuary are called "gates of righteousness, ," saith Ainsworth on the place, "because only the just and clean might enter into them." We read also that it was written over the gates of some of the Jew

ish synagogues, "This is the gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter." Vatablus upon this place thinks that David speaks by way of antithesis to the former pollution of the sanctuary by Saul and other wicked persons, who, by coming to the house of God, had made it a den of thieves.1 But now the righteous shall enter in it. The righteous, "for to such (saith Diodati), and not to profane persons, it belongeth to enter in there."

heavenly Jerusalem. But certainly there is an allusion to the sanctuary and the holy hill thereof in Jerusalem, as to the type of that which is spiritual and eternal, which Jansenius upon the place noteth; and the prophet here teacheth the people so to look upon those offences from which men were excluded from the sanctuary, as to learn what kind of persons are true members of the church, and who not; who shall be allowed to communicate in all the ordinances of the New Testament, and who not; who shall be received into everlasting life, and who not and thus, by the type, he holds forth the thing typified. Gesnerus upon the place, thinks that communion with the church in this world is meant in the first words, "Lord, who shall sojourn (so the word is, jagur, in the Hebrew, rapokhoe in the Greek) in thy tabernacle" (the name of tabernacle fitly expressing the moveable and military estate of the church in this world); and that reception into the church triumphant is meant in the following words, "Who shall dwell in thy holy hill ?" which noteth a permanent and durable estate. The Chaldee Paraphrase expoundeth the whole of such as were thought worthy to be admitted into the house of the Lord thus, "Lord, who is worthy to abide in thy tabernacle, and who shall be worthy to sojourn in the mountain of the house of thy holiness?" So Psal. xxiv. 3, the Chaldee readeth thus, "Who shall be worthy to ascend unto the mountain of the house of the sanctuary of the Lord ?" So that the thing alluded unto in both these places is, that the priests and Levites did admit none to the sanctuary but such as had the marks or characters there enumerated, so far as men can judge of these marks, that is, so far as they are external and dis

cernible.

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7. The same thing seemeth also to be alluded unto, Psal. 1. 16, “ Unto the wicked (the Chaldee adds, that repenteth not and prayeth in his transgression) God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant in thy mouth." It is spoken to a scandalous profane man, ver. 18-20, who yet will needs take upon him a form of godliness. Where Philo the Jew speaks of him that blasphemed the name of the Lord,1 he

1 Lib. 3, de Vita Mosis: quem ne honoris quidem gratia fas est nominari ab omnibus, sed a solis optimis et purificatis hominibus.

addeth, that it was not lawful for all men to name the name of God; no, not for honour or religion's sake, but only for good and holy men. And this gives me occasion to add in conclusion a farther confirmation out of the Hebrew doctors. They held, that an Israelite turning an heretic (that is, denying any of their thirteen fundamental articles) was to be as an heathen man; and did therefore permit a Jew to lend to him upon usury, even as to an heathen. Mr Selden, de Jure Nat. et Gent., lib. 6, cap. 10. They held that such a one (an heretical Israelite) had no communion with the church of Israel, see Tzemach David, translated by Hen. Vorstius, p. 67; Abrabanel, de Capite Fidei, cap 3, dub. 5; et ib., cap. 6. They esteemed an heretical Jew more heretical than a Christian, and did excommunicate him even summarily, and without previous admonition. See Buxtorff, Lexic. Chald. Talm. et Rabbin., p. 195. Moses Maimonides, de Fundam. Legis., cap. 6, sect. 10, tells us, that if an Epicurean Israelite had written a copy of the book of the law, it was to be burnt, with the name of that Epicurean wretch, because he had not done it holily, nor in the name of God. They who did imagine the Scripture itself to be polluted and profaned when it came through the hands of an Epicurean or heretical Israelite, no doubt they thought the temple polluted and profaned, if such a one should be suffered to come and worship in it: from all which it appeareth how much reason L'Empereur had to say, that they did not admit an heretic into the inner part of the intermurale, or that part of the temple which divided between the Israelites and heathens.

If any man shall ask what I mean to infer from all this: Must all profane persons be kept back from our churches and public assemblies, and so from hearing the word? I answer, God forbid. The analogy which I understand is to hold between the Jewish and Christian church is this: As profane persons were forbidden to enter into the temple, because of the sacramental and typical holiness thereof (for the temple was a type of Christ), so profane persons are now much more to be kept back from the sacrament of the Lord's supper, which hath more of sacramental signification, mystery, and holiness in it, than the temple of Jerusalem had, and whereby more ample evangelical promises are set forth and sealed unto us. And as profane persons might of old come

into the court of the Gentiles, and there hear the word preached in Solomon's porch (where both Christ and his apostles did preach, John x. 23; Acts iii. 11; Acts v. 12, which porch was in the utmost court, that is, the court of the Gentiles, of which elsewhere out of Josephus), but might not come into the court of Israel, nor have communion in the sacrifices; so profane obstinate sinners are to be excluded for their impiety from the church communion of saints, though they may hear the word, as heathens also may do. Now, that the temple of Jerusalem had a typical sacramental resemblance of Christ, may appear plainly in divers particulars: 1. As the glory of the Lord dwelt in the temple within the oracle, above the ark and the mercy-seat, and at the dedication of the temple, the cloud of the glory of the Lord did visibly fill the whole house; so, in Christ, the fulness of the godhead dwells bodily, as the Apostle speaks. 2. As the great God, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, was yet pleased to dwell on earth, by putting his name in that place; so notwithstanding of the infinite distance between God and man, yet they are brought near each to other, to have fellowship together in Jesus Christ. 3. God revealed his will that he would accept no sacrifices from his people, but in the temple only, after it was built; so God hath revealed his will, that our spiritual sacrifices cannot be acceptable to him except in Jesus Christ only. 4. The people of God were bound to set their faces toward the temple of Jerusalem when they prayed, 1 Kings viii. 30, 48; Dan. vi. 10, so are we bound in prayer to look toward Jesus Christ with an eye of faith. 5. As there was an ample promise of God to hear the prayers which should be made in that place, 2 Chron. vii. 15, 16, so hath God mised to hear us and accept us, if we seek unto him in and through Jesus Christ. 6. God said of the temple, "Mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually," 2 Chron. vi. 16; so he said of Christ, "This is

pro

my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 7. There was but one temple; so but "

one Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ," saith Paul. 8. As the temple was appointed to be a house of prayer for all nations, Isa. lvi. 7, and the stranger, as well as the Israelite, might come and pray in it, 2 Chron. vi. 32; so Christ is a propitiation, not for the Jews

only, but for the Gentiles; and whosoever believes on him (Jew or Gentile) shall not be confounded. 9. "Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee," saith the prophet, Psal. lxviii. 29; so because of Jesus Christ (who hath got a name above every name, and hath received all power in heaven and earth) shall kings submit themselves and bow the knee. 10. Glorious things were spoken of Jerusalem, the city of God, but the temple was the glory of Jerusalem; so glorious things are spoken of the church, but Christ is the church's glory. Other like considerations might be added, but these may suffice.

CHAPTER X.

A DEBATE WITH MR PRYNNE, CONCERNING THE EXCLUSION OF PROFANE, SCANDALOUS PERSONS FROM THE PASSOVER.

That which Mr Prynne in his Vindication, p. 15, 16, pleadeth for his opinion from the law of the passover, may be (as I conceive) with no great difficulty answered, and I shall do it very shortly (being to insist further in answering Erastus, who said much more for that point which deserveth an answer). First, in answer to our argument from the keeping back of the unclean, Num. ix., he saith, "That all circumcised persons whatsoever had a right to eat the passover, &c., being bound to eat the passover in its season, except in cases of necessity, disability, by reason of a journey, or of legal uncleanness only, not spiritual, as is clear by Exod. xii. 3, 43-50; Num. ix. 1-15; Deut. xvi. 16, 17; Ezra vi. 19-21; 2 Kings xxiii. 21, 22; 2 Chron. xxxv. 6, 7, 13, 17, 18, where we read that all the people and all the males that were present received the passover, not one of them being excluded from eating it."

Ans. 1. If it was so, doth not this make as much against himself as against us, unless he will say, that the analogy must hold so far, that all baptized persons whatsoever, none excepted (if it be not in cases of necessity or disability), how scandalous, impenitent, and obstinate soever they be, ought to be admitted to the Lord's table? So there shall be no excommunication at all (which yet himself granteth); for if any baptized person (though such as Mr Prynne

himself would have to be excommunicated) shall be shut out from the church, and from all public ordinances, and so from the Lord's supper, because of his obstinacy and continuance in some foul scandal, after previous admonitions in so doing, we shall, by his principles, do contrary to the law of the passover in the point of analogy. 2. The texts cited by him prove that men were debarred for legal uncleanness, but there is not one of them which will prove that men were debarred only for legal uncleanness, and no man for moral uncleanness. Yea, one of those texts, Ezra vi. 21, tells us, that those who were admitted to the passover were such "as had separated themselves from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the Lord God of Israel." That moral uncleanness, I mean, known profaneness or scandalous sins, did render men incapable of eating the passover, I shall prove anon by divers arguments, unto which I remit Mr Prynne.

That which he objecteth from 1 Cor. x. I am to answer also distinctly by itself. His second reply is, "That those who were legally unclean at the day appointed for the passover, so as they could not then receive it, were yet peremptorily enjoined to eat it the fourteenth day of the second month, &c., Num. ix. 11, 12, he must not be suspended from it above one month."

Ans. The scripture cited proves no such thing, except upon supposition that they be clean the fourteenth day of the following month. And what if any of them were in the second month also unclean by the touch of a dead body or otherwise? Were they not kept off in the second month, as well as in the first? Is it not plainly said of the second passover, ver. 12 (the very place cited by himself), "according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it?" and one of those ordinances was the keeping back of the unclean.

Thirdly, he saith, that he who was legally unclean was kept back neither by the priest nor magistrate, but by those of the same family, as ver. 6, 7, imports: "And the true reason (saith he in his text) why his uncleanness did seclude him from eating the passover, was because it quite excluded him out of the camp for a time (not tabernacle or temple), and so, by necessary consequence, from the house wherein he was to eat the passover," &c.; and, by like reason, it debarred him from all other ordinances.

Ans. 1. The text, Num. ix. 6, 7, tells us, the unclean were kept back, but by whom they were kept back, it tells not. That it was neither left free to the unclean person to eat of the passover, nor to the family to admit him, but that there was an authoritative restraint, I prove by this argument: He that was unclean, and before his cleansing did eat of the flesh of the peace-offerings, was cut off from among his people, Lev. vii. 20, 21; therefore he that in his uncleanness did eat the passover was to be cut off also. No man will say that there was any less punishment intended for the pollution of the passover than for the pollution of peace-offerings. And if the unclean were not permitted under the law to eat of the flesh of the sacrifices, or if they did, they were cut off, shall not as great care be had to keep the body of Jesus Christ (which was signified by the flesh of the sacrifices), and the blood of the covenant, from being trod under foot by dogs and swine?

2. Neither is there any such reason in that text, Num. ix., as the excluding quite out of the camp those who were unclean by a dead body, and so, by consequence, from the passover. Nay, the text rather intimateth that they were in the camp, for they came before Moses and Aaron on that day when the passover was kept, and said, "We are defiled by the dead body of a man, wherefore are we kept back," ver. 6, 7. I hope Moses and Aaron were not without the camp. I know the lepers and some other unclean persons were put out of the camp, but there is not one of the texts cited by him which gives the least shadow of reason to prove that the unclean by the dead body of a man were quite excluded out of the camp, except Num. v. 2. And if he will believe the Hebrew doctors, and others upon that place, there were three camps, the camp Israel, the camp of the Levites, and the camp of Divine Majesty. The unclean by the dead were free (say they) to be in the first two camps, and were only excluded from the third1. However, it is agreed that some unclean persons were excluded from

of

1 Vatablus in Num. v. 2. Tria secundum Hebræos castra erant. Castra nempe Dei, id est tabernaculum: castra Levitarum, et castra Israel. Leprosi ab omnibus arcebantur: impuri per fluxum a primis duobus excludebantur. Pollutus vero propter cadaver solum a tabernaculo ecclesiæ arcebatur. Godwin, in his Moses and Aaron, lib. 5, cap. 2, citeth Paulus Fagius for the same thing. See also Mr Weymes' Christian Synagogue, p. 135, 136.