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.

I. Concerning the Occasion, Reason and Method of his undertakings in Harmonizing the NEW TESTAMENT.

THE Original cause of those Books of Harmony, that this excellent Man pub∣lished at several times, was an ardent Love of the Holy Scriptures; which put him upon an earnest search into them, that, if possible, he might at length arrive to a true and sure understanding of them. This account he gives of himself. * 1.1 It was neither arrogance nor rashness, that made me employ my self in these obscu∣rities, but a studious mind, breathing after the knowledge of the Scriptures, and something restless, when in difficult places it knew not where to fix. And that he might read the Scriptures with the better advantage, this was his constant course in his private use of them, to take the Bible before him, and to read it according to the proper Order of its Times and Stories: always carefully observing where the method of it is direct, and where transposed, and how and where to place those transpositions. This, as he some∣where tells us, he proposed to himself, and practised many years together. By which he gathered no little help for the apprehending the right sense of those Holy Pages. This encouraged him not only to proceed still in that method himself, but seriously to recom∣mend it unto others: And for the helping and furthering all pious Students of Holy Scriptures, he resolved to communicate this his Course by publishing an Harmony for the use of all. And now he bends all his Study and Thoughts to do this fully and exactly, so as it might answer the Religious and good ends he intended it for: Vast and long pains it cost him: for the Course of his Studies was employed in elaborating (to use his own most true expression) the Harmony of the four Evangelists. And both Nature and Providence assisted him in this noble intended Work. For he was naturally of a stronge and hail con∣stituion, and his lot fell to be seated in a private Country Living, free from noise and secu∣lar business, and importunate Visits. Here in his beloved Study, built by himself in the midst of a Garden, he plods hard at it night and day, and for divers years allowed him∣self but some few hours in the night for sleep.

And the Scheme he drew out and propounded to himself for the method of this great and useful work was,

• I. * 1.2 To lay the Texts in that Order, that the nature and progress of the Story doth require.
• II. To give his reasons for his so disposing them.
• III. To give some account of the difficulties of the Language in the Original, as he should meet with them.
• IV. To clear and open the sense all along. The way that he took in prosecuting these two last, was to examine Translations in divers Languages, to alledge the various Expo∣sitions, and Opinions of Commentators both Antient and Modern, and also of others, who spake to such and such places occasionally: and then lastly, to pass his own con∣jecture of the probability or improbability of them. Which seemed to be the same course that the Learned Doctor Pocock afterwards took in his late admirable Commen∣tary upon Micah and Malachi.

To all this he designed a large Preface: which should contain Prolegomena of divers things fit to be known, introductory to such a Work. Where he purposed to treat large∣ly and freely upon these five things. (Oh! that it had pleased God so to have disposed his future occasions and opportunities, that he might have accomplished these his useful and brave Designs!)

• I. To fix the certain year of our Saviours birth.
• II. To dispose in their proper places all the dislocations of Texts and Stories in the Old Testament: which are exceeding many. That such dislocations in the New Testa∣ment might be thought the less strange.
• ...

• III. To make a Chorographical Description of the Land of Canaan, and the places ad∣joyning: Which would help to the clearer understanding of much of the Story of the Gospel. And
• IV. A Topographical Description of Jerusalem, and of the Fabrick of the Temple: to facilitate divers passages in the Gospel of no small obscurity. And
• V. To give some History of the State and Customs of the Jews, in those times when the Gospel began, and was first preached, out of their own Authors.

What an excellent Book would this have been? And this he set himself roundly and in good earnest about, and had chosen him a Patron, viz. A Noble Man of his own Country, to whom to dedicate the whole. For this Work he had laid in many materials and made a good progress in it: in so much that he foresaw it was like to swell to a great Volume. This began to discourage him; not his own pains, that he saw by what he had already done would be very great; but the injurious Press, that in those times refu∣sed any thing, but what was very brief. This put him upon a new labour, namely, to contrive how to Epitomize and Abbreviate what he had written; and to send out his Studies piece-meal into the World; as he did afterwards. Whereby his Method was broken, many of his useful Notions suppressed by studying brevity; and all that after saw the Light, but a kind of confused Harmony. Whereas what a Noble and excellent Treatise would it have appeared, if it had been digested, according to the Authors first project, into one just Volume. Indeed had it pleased God to lengthen out his life some∣time longer, we might possibly have seen all his pieces compiled and digested into a Me∣thod by his own Hand, and reduced probably in such an Order, as he had originally de∣signed them. For upon the resort of some Booksellers to him, and their desire, that he would revise and prepare all his formerly published Works, he gave them his promise that he would consider their proposal. But his death prevented the bringing this to any effect.

But it may be some satisfaction to all those that value Doctor Lightfoot, and his Learn∣ing, that though the World enjoys not this Labour in the Method and Perfection it was at first intended, yet he lived so long as to impart to us, at several times, the sum and sub∣stance of it. For to look back upon the design of that Harmony and Preface before men∣tioned. Of the four parts, whereof the Harmony was to consist, the two last, namely, the explaining of the difficulties of the Language, and illustrating the sense, are effected in part in his last and best Labours, The Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations: and we la∣ment only, that his leisure, or his Life, permitted him not to have gone through all the Books of the New Testament, in that Method, as well as the Four Gospels; the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and some part of the Acts of the Apostles, and a scrap of the Romans. And the two former parts of the said Harmony, namely the Order of the Texts, and his Reasons for so ordering them, we have in his Three Harmonies after∣wards published, and especially in his last published in the year 1655. The chief thing we want here is the full Text of the Four Evangelists, laid down before us in its true Order of time. And this he had transcribed curiously and exactly, from end to end, by his own Hand, in that Order and Series as things occurred. Whereby those four Divine Historians were reduced into one compleat Story, and might have been read with far more ease, and pleasure, and understanding. But he offered it to the Press, and found its passage difficult; because it would swell the Book too much, as he tells us in his Epistle before that Book. This M S. lyes in a private Hand, and may hereafter (if occasion serve) see the Light.

As for the five Parts of the Preface designed, the two first were compleated and pub∣lished long since by him, Annis 1644 & 1647. And for the two next, the Land of Ca∣naan is Chorographically described, and the situation of Jerusalem and the Temple in some measure shewn in his Disquisitions prefixed before his several Horae Hebraicae, and in his distinct Treatise of the Temple. And this last Edition of his Works exhibits all this in three Maps, one of Jerusalem, another of the Holy Land, drawn according to the Doctors own judgment, and a third of the Temple it self, accurately drawn by the Doctors own Hand upon Vellam, and now Printed from that Original. This Map he mentions in his Epistle before the Prospect of the Temple. Which it seems he himself had a good conceit of, (athing he seldom had of his own performances) so as he would fain, for the excellent use of it, have had it published with the Book, but it would not then pass. Hear his own commendation of it. He calls it, A full, plain, punctual, and exact Prospect and Description of the Temple; its Situation, Dimension, Platform, Fabrick, and Furniture both within and without: the Walls, Gates, Courts, Cloisters, Chambers and Buildings, that were about it: the Altar, Lavers, Stations for Men, Slaughter places for Beasts, and all the Offices belonging to it. A Delineation so copious and plain, in all the par∣ticulars of that holy ground, that had it had the hap to have come to the publick view, I should not have feared to have made the Reader the Judge, and Censor upon the nature and use of the

thing. (He seldom speaks so confidently,) but the Hap of becoming publick is not happen∣ed unto it. Though now at last by good hap it is.

But however the World has at length gained this Map so long suppressed, yet his Cho∣rographical Description of Canaan, and the places adjoyning, is irrecoverably lost. You will be the more sensible of the loss of it, if you will hear what the Design of it was, and what pains he had taken about it. Take it from his own pen in one of his Epistles, He intended to describe the Land of Israel in a way somewhat new indeed and untrodden, and, as he believed, unattempted: he means, out of the Writings of the Jews. For he had observed three sorts of things, that might be picked up out of the Talmuds, and other Jewish Authors (if dextrously managed) in reference to the Land of Canaan. I. In exceeding many passages, when they come to speak of places of the Land, that are men∣tioned in Scripture, they either describe them, or shew their situation, or distance from such or such places. II. They give us abundance of names of Cities, Mountains, and other places in that Land. Which names are neither to be found in the Scripture, nor Josephus; nor in the Heathen, or Christian Records, that speak of the places of that Country; but in these Judaick Writers only. But yet carry a fair probability, and rational Evidence, that there were such names and places. III. They relate many choice, eminent and remarkable stories, occurring in such and such places, which are not to be found in any Records, but their own: and of singular illustration both of the situation, and of the story of the Land and Nation. Now the taking notice of passages of this nature had been his course for many years together, as he had occasion to read the Talmudical Writers. So that he had gathered a great stock of these Rarities, as he styles them, for the use of his Chorographical Work; even to the bulk of a great Volume. In so much that what he saith of his Book of the Temple, That it cost him as much pains to give that description of it, as to travail thither, is as much, or more true of this. The unhappy chance, that hindred the publishing this elaborate piece of his, which he had brought to pretty good perfection, was the Edition of Doctor Fullers Pisgah Sight; Great pity it was, that so good a Book should have done so much harm. For that Book handling the same matters, and preventing his, stopped his Reso∣lution of letting his labours in that subject see the light. Though he went a way alto∣gether different from Doctor Fuller, and so both might have shewn their faces together in the World, and the younger Sister, if we may make comparisons, might have proved the fairer of the two. But that Book is lost utterly, save that many of his Notions are preserved in his Chorographical pieces put before his Horae.

And for the last thing (whereof that Preface was to consist) namely to give some Historical account of the affairs of the Jews; that is done in part in his Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles published Anno 1645. and in his Parergon, Concerning the Fall of Jerusalem, at the End of the Harmony, Anno 1655. But alas! these are but light touches of their story, rather than any compleat and full account thereof. But such as they are we must be glad of, and contented in the want of the rest. Indeed the Jews History from the beginning of the Gospel downwards for some Centuries would have been as excellent and useful, as the subject would have been rare and unusual. And a thing of that difficulty also, that the modest Doctor propounds it to others rather than dares to undertake it himself. For we find in one of his Epistles Dedicatory* 1.3, He re∣commends it to some able pen to continue the story of the Jews, where Josephus and Egesippus end theirs, and where Jerusalem ended her days, until these latter times, out of the Jews own Talmud and Writings; for the illustration of the Truth of those predictions of Scripture that foretel their doom, and for the evidencing that justice, that hath ever since haunted them for the murder of the Righteous One, whom they crucified.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Ep. before his Hor. Hebr. upon 1 Cor.
• * 1.2

  Vid. Ep. to the Harmony publish. 1644.
• * 1.3

  To the Earl of Essex, Anno 1645.