The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.

Reason of the Order.

ABOUT the proper time, place, and order of this story of Christ and the Sama∣ritan woman, there is some difficulty and diversity of opinion: None question∣ing whether it do naturally follow the story of the third Chapter: but some doubting whether this journey of our Saviour into Galilee was after Johns imprisonment, yea or no: but conceiving it rather to have been before, and supposing that this voyage is not the same with that in Matth. 4. 12. Mark 1. 14. (where it is said that when Jesus heard that John was cast into prison he departed into Galilee) but it was before that, and before John was committed unto prison. Ammonius among the Ancients appeareth to be of this opinion, and Grotius among the modern, to mention no more. But Augustine, Jansenius, Alapide, Chemnitius, and divers others do rank this story and voiage after Johns shutting up, and that immediately after (old Tatianus only hath placed it a good while after,) and so have undoubtingly made this journey into Galilee, and that in Mat. 4. 12. but one and the same. And indeed if the story, and time of it be precisely weigh∣ed, it will not only be clear, that this journey into Galilee is the very same mentioned by Matthew and Mark in the places cited, but it will also give some illustration to that story in them, and shew the occasion and proceeding of that his journey.

For, 1. Whereas those two Evangelists have laid Christs journey into Galilee upon Johns imprisonment the very next thing to the story of his Temptation, John hath told us of a journey thither, betwixt the temptation and Johns commitment, and that Christ continued there in Galilee some space: Now to imagine another journey thither again, and that a twelvemonth after the former, and this also before John be imprisoned, will make that place in Matthew and Mark exceeding hard, if not impossible, to be under∣stood. 2. If this voiage in John and that in them be not the same, and both after Johns imprisonment, in what time and place will it be possible to bring that story in those two Evangelists into being? Let it be supposed, as some will have it, that John was yet abroad and not yet imprisoned when Jesus undertaketh this journey into Galilee: well: this Chapter bringeth him to Galilee and the next, to Jerusalem again: and then when, and where, and how shall we take in Johns imprisonment after? It is true that there are, that have found a place to thrust it in, but we will not spend time in that dispute, let but the present section and the subsequent till the next Passover be seriously observed, and I suppose there will be evidence sufficient by their very contexture to clear this order.

2. The words of John that relate the occasion of Christs journey into Galilee, compared with the words of Matthew and Mark, speak but the very same thing, though the terms and expressions do somewhat differ. Those two Evangelists say, the one of them, That when John was put in prison, the other, That when Jesus heard he was put in prison, he departed into Galilee: And what can the words of John (when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard, &c. he departed into Galilee) mean else but the same occasion? For what matter was it, though the Pharisees heard of the multitude of Christs Disciples never so much? Why surely because he had heard, that

John had suffered because of the multitude of his Disciples, and was shut up in prison: and so might he himself be in danger, if he stayed in Judea, to be quarrelled by the Pha∣risees for the same business. And let it be but considered why John and the numerousness of his Disciples should be mentioned here, but that they are of concernment, and have some relation to this story.

So that these things being well weighed together, the order and texture of the story appeareth to be natural and genuine as we have laid it.

Only one scruple and objection may lie in the way about it, and that is this: why Christ should go into Galilee even into Herods mouth, for there he resided, if Herod had but newly imprisoned John, this was to flee from one danger into another, from an uncertain danger from the Pharisees who had never wronged John, to a certain danger by Herod who had newly imprisoned him: Answer, Herods quarrel against the Baptist was not so much in regard of his doctrine, as meerly a personal quarrel about Herodias, and as was mentioned before, for fear of innovation. It is said that Herod heard John gladly, and did many things according to his doctrine, Mark 6. 20. and therefore there was no danger of preaching the Gospel never so near Herod, if the matter of Herodias be not medled withal, and many Disciples be not gathered; and what our Saviour should do in those particulars, his Divine Wisdom needed no instructor to inform him: And as for the dan∣ger of being suspected of innovation by gathering Disciples as John was, his dispersing his Disciples and his flitting from place to place, would make their number the less sensible, whereas Johns abode in one place, caused all his Disciples to resort unto him, and so their multitude was the more visible. When our Saviour sees his time, he collects his Dis∣ciples and is followed by the multitudes, and let Herod the Fox frown and fret and plot and spare not.