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.

§. His floor.

If these words and those that follow, be applied to the whole Church in all places, and at all times in general, the application may be very profitable and pertinent, as giving

warning to all men, to bring forth the fruits of repentance, for fear of the judgement to come, and so the end of this verse may be of the same use with the end of the ninth to all men whatsoever; but that by the floor of Christ in this place is meant the Church of Israel, or the nation of the Jews alone, may be concluded upon these obser∣vations:

First, That the title given, His floor, is but the very Epithet of Isaiah, that he giveth to Israel, Isa. 21. 10. Oh my threshing, and the corn of my floor: which though some Ex∣positors both Jewish and Christian apply to Babel, yet let the Reader upon common reason, and serious examination be the Judge.

Secondly, Because the phrase of fanning of that Nation betokeneth their final de∣solation, Jer. 15. 7. I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the Land: and the Ba∣ptist seemeth in these expressions his fan and his floor, to have reference to these two Prophets.

Thirdly, Because the words being thus appropriated to Israel, they have the more agreement with the verses preceding, which tell of the wrath to come upon that Nati∣on, and of the ax already laid to the root of that tree.

Fourthly, The phrase of throughly purging, which the Greek word importeth, [and the same word is used both by Luke and Mark] denoteth a final separation of the Wheat and chaff, and an utter consumption of the wicked, and this being spoken only to the Jews, and to those Gentiles that were mingled with them, they cannot so fitly be ap∣plyed to any thing as to that Nation, and their utter desolation; for God had often pur∣ged them before; but now their thorough purging is near at hand, when Christ by the fan of the Gospel shall have sifted and tried them, and found them out, who was Wheat, and who was chaff. And,

Fifthly, This Exposition is consented to, even by the Jews themselves, the more anci∣ent of whom have held, that the coming of Christ should be the final desolation of their Nation. So doth their whole Sanhedrin confess, Joh. 11. 48. This man doth many mi∣racles, and if we let him alone, all men will believe on him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and Nation. And to the same tenor of confession is that collecti∣on of the Talmud cited ere while from the last verse of the tenth Chapter of Isaiah, and the first of the eleventh, where the fall of the forest and Lebanon, and the coming of the branch out of the stem of Jesse, are laid together. And to the same purpose doth the Chaldee Paraphrast render Isa. 66. 7. Before her pains came, she was redeemed, and be∣fore the pangs of her birth, Messias her King was revealed. A Text from which Rabbi Samuel bar Nachaman in Bereshith Rabba concludeth that the destruction of the Temple, and the birth of the Messias should be near together.

And lastly, that this verse, as it was spoken only, so also is to be applied only to the Jews, may be somewhat inferred from the Titles given to the parties spoken of, wheat and chaff, which both grow from one root, and come up upon the same stalk: resembling fit∣ly both the believing and unbelieving Jews, or the godly and wicked of them, both de∣scended from the same National Original. And to back this observation, it is observable, that whereas our Saviour maketh his metaphor of Wheat and Tares, because he would only shew the difference betwixt the righteous and the wicked, the Baptist doth his of Wheat and chaff, because he would not only shew the same difference in condition, but also their agreement and identity in Nation.