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.

§. Of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

This title of The Son of God, is proclaimed of Christ from Heaven, at his baptism, when he is to begin to preach the Gospel, as it is said here to be the Gospel of the Son of God. And it was necessary that so much should be intimated and learned concerning him, as the author of the Gospel, Because 1. The Gospel was the full revealing and opening of the will of the Father. 2. The overthrow and ruine of the Rites and Ceremonies of Moses. 3. The admission of heathen and strangers to be the Church and people of the Lord, whereas Israel had been his peculiar before. 4. It was a Doctrine of trusting in another, and not ones self for salvation, and who was fit for doing the three former, or for being the object of the latter, but Jesus Christ the Son of God, who came from the bosom of the Father, was the substance and body of those shadows and Ceremonies, might raze that partition wall, which in the giving of the Law himself had rear∣ed, and did not only preach the Doctrine of the Gospel, but also fully perform the Law.

Vers. 2. As it is written in the Prophets.

It seemeth by the Syrian, Arabick, Uulgar Latine, Victor Antiochenus, Origen cited by him, and others, that some Copies read, As it is written in Esaias the Prophet: and so Jansenius thinketh it was so written by Mark himself, but purposely changed by the Do∣ctors of the Church, as we read it now, to avoid the difficulty which the other reading carried with it.

But, first, it were a very strange and impious, though an easie way of resolving doubts, to add to, or diminish from the Text at pleasure, as the Text shall seem easie or difficult: This is not to expound the Bible, but to make a new one, or a Text of ones own head.

Secondly, In ancienter times then any of theirs that are produced, which read, In Esaias the Prophet, it was read as we do, In the Prophets, as Jansenius himself sheweth out of Irenaeus, lib. 3. chap. 11.

Thirdly, The one half of the words alledged in the Text, are not in Esay at all, but in Malachi: and the first half also, for that is considerable. For though sometime the New Testament in Allegations from the Old, do closely couch two several places together under one quotation, as if they were but one; yet maketh it sure, that the first always is that very place which it takes on it to cite, though the second be another: as Acts 7. 7. Steven alledgeth a speech of God, as if uttered to Abraham alone; whereas it is two several quotations, and two several speeches tied up in one; the one spoken to Abraham indeed, but the other to Moses, almost four hundred years after; and that to Abraham is set the first, for he is the subject whereupon the allegation is produced.

Fourthly, It is a manner of speech not used in the New Testament, to say, it is writ∣ten, or it is said in such or such a Prophet, but by him. We find indeed, It is writ∣ten in the Law, Luke 10. 26. And, It is written in the book of Psalms, Acts 1. 20. Yea, It is written in the Prophets, Joh. 6. 45. but no where that it is written in a single Prophet.

Fifthly, To read as we do, As it is written in the Prophets, agreeth with the ordinary and usual division of the Old Testament, by the Hebrews, into 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Oraietha, Nebhyim, Chetubbim. The Law, the Prophets, and the Holy writs; approved and followed by our Saviour, Luke 24. 44. and alluded to by the Evangelist here.

[Before thy face, &c. Thy way before thee.] The former is neither in the Hebrew, nor in the LXX at all: the latter is in them both, but clean contrary, for they both have it, The way before me.

But, first, The Evangelists and Apostles, when they take on them to cite any Text from the Old Testament, are not so punctual to observe the exact and strict form of words, as the pith of them, or sense of the place; as might be instanced in many particulars: so that the difference of the words would not prejudice the agreement in sense, were there not so flat difference of person, as me and thee.

Secondly, The Majesty of Scripture doth often shew it self in requoting of places, in this, that it alledgeth them in difference of words and difference of sense, yea, sometimes in contrariety, not to make one place to cross or deny another, but by the variety one to explain and illustrate another, as in corresponding places in the Old Testament might be shewed at large, as Gen. 10. 22, 23. cited, 1 Chron. 1. 17. Gen. 36. 12. compared with 1 Chron. 1. 36. 1 Sam. 25. 44. paralleled, 2 Sam. 21. 8. 2 Chron. 3. 15. with Jer. 52. 21. and very many other places of the like nature: wherein the Holy Ghost having penned a thing in one place, doth by variety of words and sense, inlarge and expound himself in another. And the same divine authority and Majesty doth he also use in the New Testa∣ment, both in parallel places in it self, and in citations in it, from the Old. So that this difference in hand, betwixt My face, in Malachy; and thy face, in Mark, is not contra∣dictory or crossing one another, but explicatory or one explaining another, and both together do result to the greater mystery. For Christ is the face or presence of the Fa∣ther: and so is he plainly called, Exod. 33. 14. and in Christ, the Father came and reveal∣ed himself among men: and the words in both places, both in the Prophet and in the Evangelist, are to be taken for the words of the Father; in the one, spoken of the Son, and in the other, to him: In Malachy thus, Behold I send my Messenger before me to prepare the way before my face; that is, before the Son, as he is in his own nature, the very brightness of the glory of the Father, and the express image of his person, Heb. 1. 3. and in Mark thus, to prepare the way before thy face, that is, before thee, O Son, when thou comest to undertake the work of Redemption, and to publish the Gospel. And this change of persons in Grammatical construction is usual in the Hebrews Eloquence and Rhetorique; as 1 Sam. 2. 23. My heart rejoyceth in the Lord, I rejoyce in thy salvation. There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee, &c. Zech. 12. 10. They shall

look upon me, whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him: and 14. 5. The Lord my God shall come, and all the Saints with thee.

Luke 3. ver. 1. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar.

This Tiberius was the third Emperor of the Romans, the son of Livia, the wife of Augustus, and by him adopted into the family of the Caesars, and to the Empire: A man of such subtilty, cruelty, avarice, and bestiality, that for all, or indeed for any of these, few stories can shew his parallel: And as if in this very beginning of the Gospel, he were produced of such a constitution, to teach us what to look for from that cruel and abo∣minable City, in all ages and successions.

Now Tiberius his fifteenth was the year of the world 3957. And the time of the year that John began to Baptize in it, was about Easter, or the vernal Equinox, as may be con∣cluded from the time of the Baptism of our Saviour. For if Jesus were baptized in Tisri or September, as is cleared hereafter, he being then but just entring upon his thirtieth year, as the Law required, Numb. 4. And if John being six months elder then our Saviour, as it is plain he was, did enter his Ministry at the very same age, according to the same Law, it readily follows, that the time mentioned, was the time when he began to Preach. It was indeed Tiberius his fifteenth when John began to baptize, but it may very well be questioned, whether it were so when our Saviour was baptized by him: For the exact beginning of every year of Tiberius his reign, was from the fourteenth of the Kalends of September, or the eighteenth of August, at what time Augustus died: Sueton. in Aug. cap. 100. That fifteenth of the Emperor therefore, in the Spring time of which John began to baptize, was expired before September, when our Saviour was baptized, and so his baptism is to be reputed in the year of the world 3958. which was then but newly begun, and in the sixteenth year of Tiberius, but newly begun neither, unless you will reckon the year of the Emperor, as the Romans did the year of the Consuls, from January to January: But this we will not controvert, nor cross the common and constant opi∣nion of all times, that holdeth our Saviour to have been baptized in Tiberius his fifteenth.