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EXERCITATION III.

1. The time of the writing of this Epistle to the Hebrews. The use of the right stating thereof. 2. After his release out of prison, Before the death of James. Before the Second of Peter. 3. The time of Paul's coming to Rome. 4. The condition of the affairs of the Jews at that time. 5, 6. The martyrdom of James. § 7. State of the churches of the Hebrews. 8. Constant in the observation of Mosaical institutions. 9. Warned to leave Jerusalem. § 10. That warning what, and how given. Causes of their unwillingness so to do. § 11. The occasion and success of this Epistle.

§ 1. THAT was not amiss observed of old by Chrysostome, Praf. in Com. ad Epist. ad Rom. that a due observation of the time and season wherein the Epistles of Paul were written, doth give great light unto the understanding of many passages in them. This Baronius, ad A. C. 55. N. 42. well confirms by an instance of their mistake, who suppose the shipwreck of Paul at Mileta, Acts xxvii. to have been that mentioned by him, 2 Cor. xi. when he was a night and a day in the deep; that Epistle being written some years before his sailing towards Rome. And we may well apply this observation to this Epistle unto the Hebrews. A discovery of the time and season wherein it was written, will both free us from sundry mistakes, and also give us some light into the occasion and design of it. This there, fore we shall now inquire into.

§ 2. Some general intimations we have in the Epistle itself, leading us towards the discovery of this, and somewhat may be gathered from other places of Scripture; for antiquity will afford us little or no help herein. After Paul's being brought a prisoner to Rome, Acts xxviii, two full years he continued in that condition, ver. 30. at least so long he continued under restraint, though in his own hired house. This time was expired before the writing of this Epistle; for he was not only absent from Rome, in some other part of Italy, when he wrote it, ch. xiii. 24. but also so far at liberty, and sui juris, as that he had entertained a resolution of going into the east, so soon as Timothy should come unto him, ch. xiii, 23. And it seems likewise to be written before the martyrdom of James at Jerusalem, in that he affirms that the church of the Hebrews had not. yet resisted unto blood, ch. xii. 4. it being very probable that, together with him, many others were slain. Many great diffi

culties they had been exercised with, but as yet the matter was not come to blood, which shortly after it arrived unto. That is certain also, that it was not only written, but communicated unto, and well known by all the believing Jews, before the writing of the second Epistle of Peter, who therein makes mention of it, as we have declared. Much light, I confess, as to the precise time of its writing, is not hence to be obtained, because of the uncertainty of the time wherein Peter wrote that Epistle. Only it appears, from what he affirms concerning the approaching of the time of his suffering, ch. i. 13. that it was not long before his death. This, as is generally agreed, hap pened in the thirteenth year of Nero, when a great progress was made in that war, which ended in the fatal and final destruction of the city and temple.

§ 3. From these observations it appears, that the best guide we have to find out the certain time of the writing of this Epistle, is Paul's being sent prisoner unto Rome. Now this was in the first year of the government of Festus, after he had been two years detained in prison at Cesarea by Felix, Acts xxiv. 27. xxv. 26, 27. This Felix was the brother of Pallas, who ruled all things under Claudius, and fell into some disgrace in the very first year of Nero, as Tacitus informs us. But yet by the countenance of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, he continued in some regard, until the fifth or sixth year of his reign, when, together with his mother, he destroyed many of her friends and favourites. During this time of Pallas' declension in power, it is most probable that his brother Felix was displaced from the rule of his province, and Festus sent in his room. That it was before his utter ruin in the sixth year of Nero, is evident from hence, because he found means to keep his brother from punishment, when he was accused for extortion and oppression by the Jews. Most probably then Paul was sent unto Rome, about the fourth or fifth year of Nero, which was the fifty-ninth year from the nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ. There he abode, as we shewed, at the least two years in custody, where the story of the Acts of the Apostles ends, in the seventh year of Nero, and sixty-first of our Lord, or the beginning of the year following. It is presumed, that he obtained his liberty in that year. And this was about thirteen years after the synod at Jerusalem had determined the controversy, respecting the obligation of the Gentiles to observe Mosaic institutions, Acts xv. Presently upon his liberty, whilst he abode in some part of Italy, expecting the coming of Timothy, before he entered upon the journey he had promised unto the Philippians, ch. ii. 24. he wrote this Epistle. Here then we must stay a little, to consider what was the general state and condition of the Hebrews in those days, which might give occasion to the writing of it.

4. The time fixed on was about the death of Festus, who died in the province, and the beginning of the government of Albinus, who was sent to succeed him. What the state of the people at that time was, Josephus declares at large in his second book of their wars. In brief, the governors themselves being great oppressors, and rather mighty robbers amongst them than rulers, the whole nation was filled with spoil and violence. What through the fury and outrage of the soldiers, in the pursuit of their insatiable avarice; what through the incursions of thieves and robbers in troops and companies, wherewith the whole land abounded; and what through the tumults of seditious persons, daily incited and provoked by the cruelty of the Romans; there was no peace or safety for any sober honest men, either in the city of Jerusalem, or any where else throughout the whole province. That the church had a great share of suffering in the outrage and misery of those days, (as in such dissolutions of government, and licence for all wickedcommonly falls out), no man can question. And this is that which the apostle mentions, ch. x. 31-34. "Ye endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst ye were made a gazingstock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods." This was the lot and portion of all honest and sober-minded men in those days, as their historian at large declares. For as no doubt the Christians had a principal share in all those sufferings, so some others of the Jews also were their companions in them; it being not a special persecution, but a general calamity that the apostle speaks of.

§ 5. One Joseph, 'the son of Cabias, was in the beginning of those days high priest. He had been put into that office by Agrippa, who not long before had put him out. On the death of Festus, he thrust him out again, and placed Ananus, or Ananias, his son in his stead. This man, a young rash fellow, first began a direct persecution of the church. He was by sect and opinion a Sadducee, who of all others were the most violent in their hatred of the Christians, being especially engaged therein by the peculiar opinion of his sect and party, which was the denial of the resurrection. Before his advancement to the priesthood, their afflictions and calamities were for the most part commoa unto them, with other peaceable men. Only the rude and impious multitude, with other seditious persons, seem to have offered especial violence unto their assemblies and meetings, which some of the more unsteadfast and weak began to omit on that account, ch. x. 25. Judicial proceeding against them as to their lives, when this Epistle was written, there doth not appear to have been any; for the apostle tells them, as we before

observed, that as yet they had not resisted unto blood, ch. xii. 4. But this Ananus the Sadducee, presently after he had been placed in power by Agrippa, taking advantage of the death of Festus, and of the time that passed before Albinus, his successor, was settled in the province, summons James before himself and his associates. There to make short work he is condemned, and immediately stoned. And it is not unlikely but that other private persons suffered together with him.

§ 6. The story, by the way, of the martyrdom of this James, is at large reported by Eusebius out of Hegesippus, Hist. Eccles, lib. 2. cap. 23. in the relation whereof, he is followed by Hierome and sundry others. I shall say no more of the whole story, but that the consideration of it, is very sufficient to persuade any man to use the liberty of his own reason and judgment, in the perusal of the writings of the ancients. For of the circumstances therein reported about this James, and his death, many of them (as his being of the line of the priests, his entering at his pleasure into the Sanctum Sanctorum, his being carried up and set by a great multitude of people on a pinnacle of the temple) are so palpably false, that no colour of probability can be given unto them, and most of the rest seem altogether incredible. That in general this holy apostle of Jesus Christ, his kinsman according to the flesh, was stoned by Ananus, du ring the anarchy between the governments of Festus and Albinus, Josephus who then lived testifies, and all ecclesiastical historians agree.

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§ 7. The churches at this time in Jerusalem and Judea werę very numerous. The oppressors, robbers, and seditious of all sorts, being wholly intent upon the pursuit of their own ends, filled the government of the nation with tumults and disorders. The disciples of Christ, who knew that the time of their preaching the gospel unto their countrymen was but short, and even now expiring, followed their work with diligence and success, being not greatly regarded in the confusion which was raised, while the nation was rushing on to its fatal end.

§ 8. All these churches, and the multitudes that belonged unto them, together with the profession of the gospel, were addicted zealously unto the observation of the law of Moses. The synod indeed at Jerusalem had determined, that the yoke of the law should not be put upon the necks of the Gentile converts, Acts xv. But eight or nine years after, when Paul came up to Jerusalem again, ch. xxi. 20–22. James informs him, that the many thousands of the Jews who believed, did all zealously observe the law of Moses; and moreover judged that all those who were Jews by birth ought to do so, and on that account were like enough to assemble in a disorderly multitude, to inquire into the practice of Paul himself, who had been ill report

ed of amongst them. On this account, they kept their assemblies distinct from those of the Gentiles all the world over; as amongst others Hierome informs us, in his notes on the first chapter of the Galatians. All those Hebrews then to whom Paul wrote this Epistle, continued in the use of Mosaical worship, as celebrated in the temple, and in their synagogues, and in the practice of all other legal institutions whatever. Whether they did this out of an unacquaintedness with their liberty in Christ, or out of a pertinacious adherence unto their own prejudicate opinions, I shall not determine.

§ 9. From this time forward, the body of the people of the Jews saw not a day of peace or quietness: tumults, seditions, outrages, robberies, murders, increased all over the nation. And these things, by various degrees, made way for that fatal war, which, beginning about six or seven years after the death of James, ended in the utter desolation of the people, city, temple and worship, foretold so long before by Daniel the prophet, and intimated by our Saviour to lie at the door. This was that day of the Lord, whose sudden approach the apostle declares unto them, ch. x. 36, 37. "For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." Mixgor over over a very little while, less than you think of or imagine, the manner whereof he declares, ch. xii. 26-28. And by this means he effectually diverted them from a pertinacious adherence unto those things whose dissolution from God himself, was so nigh at hand; which argument was also afterwards pressed by Peter, 2 Epist iii.

§ 10. Our blessed Saviour had long before warned his disciples of all these things; particularly of the desolation that was to come upon the whole people of the Jews, with the tumults, distresses, persecutions and wars which should precede it, directing them to the exercise of patience in the discharge of their duty, until the approach of the final calamity, out of which he advised them to free themselves by a timely flight from Jerusalem and all Judea, Matt. xxiv. 15-21. This, and no other, was the oracle mentioned by Eusebius, whereby the Christians were warned to depart out of Jerusalem. It was given, as he says, Tois doxinois, to approved men amongst them. For though the prophecy itself was written by the evangelists, yet the special meaning of it was not known and divulged amongst all. Their leaders kept this secret for a season, lest the people should have been exasperated, and the servants of Christ obstructed in the work which they had to do, before its accomplishment. And this was the way of the apostles also as to other future events, which being foretold by them, might provoke either Jews or Gentiles, if publicly divulged, 2 Thess. ii. 5, 6. But now when

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