tirement, or open stages of its publication. In order to this, I have chosen your honour into a new relation, and have endeared you to this instrument of piety; that if you will please to do it countenance, and employ it in your counsels and pious offices, it may minister to your appetites of religion; which as they are already fair and prosperous, so they may swell up to a vastness large enough to entertain all the secrets and pleasures of religion, that so you may add to the blessings and prosperities which always dwell in that family where you are now fixed, new title to more, upon the stock of all those promises which have secured and entailed felicities upon such persons who have no vanities, but very many virtues. Madam, I could not do you any service but by doing myself this honour, to adorn my book with this fairest title and inscription of your name. You may observe, but cannot blame my ambition, so long as it is instanced in a religious service, and means nothing but this, that I may signify how much I honour that person who is designed to bring new blessings to that family which is so honourable in itself, and for so many reasons dear to me. Madam, upon that account, besides the stock of your own worthiness, I am

Your Honour's most humble

And obedient Servant,

JER. TAYLOR.

THE LIFE

OF OUR BLESSED

LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.

SECTION XIII.

Of the Second Year of the Preaching of Jesus.

1. WHEN the first year of Jesus, the year of peace and undisturbed preaching, was expired, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem:'' (this feast was the second passover he kept after he began to preach; not the feast of pentecost or tabernacles, both which were passed before Jesus came last from Judea: (whither when he was now come, he finds an impotent person lying at the pool of Bethesda, waiting till the angel should move the waters, after which, whosoever first stepped in was cured of his infirmity. The poor man had waited thirty-eight years, and still was prevented by some other of the hospital that needed a physician. But Jesus seeing him, had pity on him, cured him, and bade him 'take up his

'John, v. 1, &c.; Iren. lib. ii. c. 10.

bed and walk.' This cure happened to be wrought upon the sabbath-day; for which the Jews were so moved with indignation that they sought to slay him. And their anger was enraged by his calling himself the Son of God, and making himself equal with God.

2. Upon occasion of this offence, which they snatched at before it was ministered, Jesus discourses upon "his mission, and derivation of his authority from the Father; of the union between them, and the excellent communications of power, participation of dignity, delegation of judicature, reciprocations and reflections of honour from the Father to the Son, and back again to the Father. He preaches of life and salvation to them that believe in him; prophecies of the resurrection of the dead by the efficacy of the voice of the Son of God; speaks of the day of judgment, the differing conditions after, of salvation and damnation respectively; confirms his words and mission by the testimony of John the Baptist, of Moses, and the other Scriptures, and of God himself." And still the scandal rises higher; for in the second sabbath after the first,' that is, in the first day of unleavened bread, which happened the next day after the weekly sabbath, the disciples of Jesus pull ripe ears of corn, rub them in their hands, and eat them to satisfy their hunger. For which he offered satisfaction to their scruples, convincing them, that works of necessity are to be permitted even to the breach of a positive temporary constitution; and that works of mercy are best serving of God upon any day whatsoever, or any part of the 1 John, v. 19, &c.

2

• Suidas, Voc. Σάββατον.

day that is vacant to other offices, and proper for a religious festival.

3. But when neither reason nor religion would give them satisfaction; but that they went about to kill him, he withdrew himself from Jerusalem, and returned to Galilee: whither the Scribes and Pharisees followed him, observing his actions, and whether or no he would prosecute that which they called profanation of their sabbath, by doing acts of mercy upon that day. He still did so: for entering into one of the synagogues of Galilee upon the sabbath, Jesus saw a man (whom St. Jerome reports to have been a mason') coming to Tyre, and complaining that his hand was withered, and desiring help of him, that he might again be restored to the use of his hand, lest he should be compelled, with misery and shame, to beg his bread. Jesus restored his hand as whole as the other in the midst of all those spies and enemies. Upon which act, being confirmed in their malice, the Pharisees went forth, and joined with the Herodians, (a sect of people who said Herod was the Messias, because by the decrce of the Roman senate, when the sceptre departed from Judah, he was declared king,) and both together took counsel how they might kill him.

4. Jesus therefore departed again to the seacoast, and his companies increased as his fame: for he was now followed by new multitudes from

1 Evangel. Naz. quod S. Hieron. ex Hebr. in Græcum transtulit. "Ημισύ με τέθνηκε, τὸ δ' ἥμισυ λιμὸς ἐλέγχει· Σῶσόν με βασιλεῦ, μεσικὸν ἡμίτονον.

Sic Tertullianus, Epiphanius, Chrysostomus, et Theophylactus, et Hieron. Dialog. advers. Lucif. uno ore affirmant.

Galilee, from Judea, from Jerusalem, from Idumæa, from beyond Jordan, from about Tyre and Sidon; who hearing the report of his miraculous power to cure all diseases by the word of his mouth, or the touch of his hand, or the handling his garment, came with their ambulatory hospital of their sick and possessed; and they pressed on him, but to touch him, and were all immediately cured. The devils confessing publicly, that he was the Son of God, till they were, upon all such occasions, restrained and compelled to silence.

5. But now Jesus having commanded a ship to be in readiness against any inconvenience or troublesome pressures of the multitude, went up into a mountain to pray, and continued in prayer all night, intending to make the first ordination of apostles which the next day he did, choosing out of the number of his disciples these twelve to be apostles; Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, the sons of thunder, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James, the son of Alphæus, and Simon the zelot, Judas, the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot. With these descending from the mountain to the plain, he repeated the same sermon, or much of it, which he had before preached in the first beginning of his prophesyings; that he might publish his gospel to these new auditors, and also more particularly inform his apostles in the doctrine of the kingdom: for now, because he saw Israel scattered like sheep having no shepherd, he did purpose to send these twelve abroad to preach repentance and the approximation of the kingdom; and therefore first instructed them in the mysterious parts of his holy