Part 16 (1/2)

But no such thing can be drawn out of the word _hannilvim_, which is taken from the radix _lava_, signifying simply, and without any adjection, _adhaesit_, or _adjunxit se_. But let it be so, that the text meaneth only such as were to adjoin themselves to the religion of the Jews, yet why might not the Jews have taken upon them a matter of civility, not only for themselves, but for such also as were to be joined with them in religion.

Could there be nothing promised for proselytes, but only a matter of religion?

Alas! Is this our antagonist's great Achilles, who is thus falling down and succ.u.mbing to me, a silly stripling? Yet let us see if there be any more force in the remnant of his reasons.

For a third, he tells us that it is expressly termed a _rite_ and a _ceremony_, at verses 23 and 28, as the fathers read them.

In the 23rd verse we have no more but _susceperunt_, as Pagnini, or _receperunt_, as Tremellius reads it: but to read, _susceperunt in solemnem ritum_, is to make an addition to the text.

The 28th verse calls not this feast a rite, but only _dies memorati_, or _celebres_. And what if we grant that this feast was a rite? might it not, for all that, be merely civil? No, saith the Bishop, ”rites, I trust, and ceremonies, pertain to the church, and to the service of G.o.d.”

_Ans._ The version which the Bishop followed, hath a rite, not a ceremony.

Now, of rites, it is certain that they belong to the commonwealth as well as to the church. For _in jure politico, sui sunt imperati et solemnes ritus_, saith Junius.(846)

Fourthly, saith the Bishop, they fast and pray here in this verse (meaning the 31st), fast the eve, the fourteenth, and so then the day following to be holiday of course.

_Ans._ The Latin version, which the Bishop followeth, and whereupon he buildeth this reason, readeth the 31st verse very corruptly, and no ways according to the original, as will easily appear to any who can compare them together. Wherefore the best interpreters take the fasting and prayer spoken of verse 31, to be meant of the time before their delivery. Now, after they were delivered, they decreed that the matters of their fasting and crying should be remembered upon the days of Purim, which were to solemnise that preservation, _quam jejunio et precibus fuerant a Deo consequenti_, as saith Tremellius.

But Fifthly, saith he, with fasting and prayer (here), alms also is enjoined (at ver. 22), these three will make it past a day of revels or mirth.

I have answered already, that their fasting and praying are not to be referred to the days of Purim, which were memorials of their delivery, but to the time past, when, by the means of fasting and prayer, they did impetrate their delivery, before ever the days of Purim were heard of, and as touching alms, it can make no holiday, because much alms may be, and hath been given upon days of civil joy and solemnity.

If the Bishop help not himself with his sixth reason, he is like to come off with no great credit. May we then know what that is?

Lastly, saith he, as a holiday the Jews ever kept it,-have a peculiar set service for it in their _Seders_, set psalms to sing, set lessons to read, set prayers to say, good and G.o.dly all,-none but as they have used from all antiquity.

_Ans._ 1. The Bishop could not have made this word good, that the Jews did ever and from all antiquity keep the days of Purim in this fas.h.i.+on.

2. This manner of holding that feast, whensoever it began, had no warrant from the first inst.i.tution, but was (as many other things) taken up by the Jews in after ages, and so the Bishop proveth not the point which he taketh in hand, namely, that the days spoken of in this text were enacted or appointed to be kept as holidays.

3. The service which the Jews in latter times use upon the days of Purim is not much to be regarded. For as G.o.dwin noteth out of Hospinian,(847) they read the history of Esther in their synagogues, and so often as they hear mention of Haman, they do with their fists and hammers beat upon the benches and boards, as if they did knock upon Haman's head. When thus they have behaved themselves, in the very time of their liturgy, like furious and drunken people, the rest of the day they pa.s.s over in outrageous revelling. And here I take leave of the Bishop.

_Sect._ 10. Thirdly, We say, whether the days of Purim were inst.i.tuted to be holidays or not, yet there was some more than ordinary warrant for them, because Mordecai, by whose advice and direction they were appointed to be kept, was a prophet by the instinct and revelation of the Spirit, Esth. iv. 13. _Non multum forta.s.se aberraverimus_, saith Hospinian,(848) _si dicamus hoc a Mordochcaeo et Hesthera, ex peculiari Spiritus Sancti instinctu factum_.

Bishop Lindsey believeth(849) that they had only a general warrant, such as the church hath still, to put order to the circ.u.mstances belonging to G.o.d's wors.h.i.+p, and all his reason is, because if the Jews had received any other particular warrant, the sacred story should not have pa.s.sed it over in silence.

_Ans._ Thus much we understand from the sacred story, that the Jews had the direction of a prophet for the days of Purim; and that was a warrant more than ordinary, because prophets were the extraordinary ministers of G.o.d.

_Sect._ 11. Fourthly, As touching the feast of the dedication of the altar by Judas Maccabeus, 1. Let us hear what Cartwright very gravely and judiciously propoundeth:(850) ”That this feast was unduly inst.i.tuted and ungroundly, it may appear by conference of the dedication of the first temple under Solomon, and of the second after the captivity returned from Babylon. In which dedication, seeing there was no yearly remembrance by solemnity of feasts, not so much as one day, it is evident that the yearly celebration of this feast for eight days, was not compa.s.sed by that Spirit that Solomon and the captivity were directed by; which Spirit, when it dwelt more plentifully in Solomon, and in the prophets that stood at the stern of the captivity's dedication, than it did in Judas, it was in him so much the more presumptuous, as having a shorter leg than they, he durst in that matter overstride them, and his rashness is so much the more aggravated, as each of them, for the building of the whole temple, with all the implements and furniture thereof, made no feast to renew the annual memory, where Judas only for renewment of the altar, and of certain other decayed places of the temple, inst.i.tuted this great solemnity.”

2. The feast of the dedication was not free of Pharisaical invention. For as Tremellius observeth out of the Talmud,(851) _statuerunt sapientes illius seculi, ut recurrentibus annis, octo illi dies, &c._ Yet albeit the Pharisees were called _sapientes Israelis_, Bishop Lindsey will not grant that they were the wise men of whom the Talmud speaketh; for, saith he, it behoved those who appointed festivities, not only to be wise men, but men of authority also.(852)

But what do we hear? Were not the Pharisees men of authority? Why, saith not Christ they sat in Moses' chair? Matt. xxiii. 2. Saith not Calvin,(853) _In ecclesiae regimene et scriptura interpretatione, haec secta primatum tenebat_? Saith not Camero,(854) _c.u.m Pharisaeorum praecipua esset authoritas_ (_ut ubique docet Josephus_)? &c.

Doth not Josephus speak so much of their authority, that in one place he saith,(855) _Nomen igitur regni, erat penes reginam (Alexandram) penes Pharisaeos vero administratio_? And in another place,(856) _Erat enim quaedam Judaeorum secta exactiorem patriae legis cognitionem sibi vendicans_?

&c. _Hi Pharisaei vocantur, genus hominuum astutum, arrogans, et interdum regibus quoque infestum, ut eos etiam aperte impugnare non vereatur?_

There is nothing alleged which can prove the lawfulness of this feast of the dedication.

It is but barely and boldly affirmed by Bishop Lindsey,(857) that the Pharisees were not rebuked by Christ for this feast, because we read not so much in Scripture; for there were many things which Jesus did and said that are not written in Scripture, John xxi. 25; and whereas it seemeth to some, that Christ did countenance and approve this feast, because he gave his presence unto the same, John x. 22, 23, we must remember, that the circ.u.mstances only of time and place are noted by the evangelist, for evidence to the story, and not for any mystery, Christ had come up to the feast of tabernacles, John vii., and tarried still all that while, because then there was a great confluence of people in Jerusalem. Whereupon he took occasion to spread the net of the gospel for catching of many souls.