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any deadly thing, it should not hurt them; that they should lay hands on the sick, and they should recover.' And the event was accordingly, "for they went forth and preached every where, the Lord worketh with them, and confirming the word with signs following." When Paul and Barnabas came up to the council at Jerusalem, this was one of the first things they gave an account of, "all the multitude keeping silence while they declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them." Thus the very "shadow of Peter as he passed by cured the sick:" thus "God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul; so that from his body were brought unto the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." So that, besides the innate characters of divinity which the Christian religion brought along with it, containing nothing but what was highly reasonable, and very becoming God to reveal, it had the highest external evidence that any religion was capable of the attestation of great and unquestionable miracles, done not once or twice, not privately and in corners, not before a few simple and credulous persons, but frequently and at every turn, publicly and in places of the most solemn concourse, before the wisest and most judicious inquirers; and this power of miracles continued not only during the apostles' time, but for some ages after.

commission. For seeing God only can create, and control the laws of nature, produce something out of nothing, and call things that are not as if they were, give eyes to them that were born blind, raise the dead, &c. things plainly beyond all possible powers of nature, no man that believes the wisdom and goodness of an infinite being, can suppose that this God of truth should affix his seal to a lie, or communicate this power to any that would abuse it, to confirm and countenance delusions and impostures. Nicodemus's reasoning was very plain and convictive, when he concludes that Christ "must needs be a teacher come from God, for that no man could do those miracles that he did, except God were with him"* The force of which argument lies here, that nothing but a divine power can work miracles, and that Almighty God cannot be supposed miraculously to assist any but those, whom he himself sends upon his own errand. The stupid and barbarous Lycaonians, when they beheld the man who had been a cripple from his mother's womb cured by St. Paul in an instant, only with the speaking of a word, saw that there was something in it more than human, and therefore concluded that "the Gods were come down to them in the likeness of men."+ Upon this account St. Pault reckons miracles among the Ta onμela Tou aπoorods, the signs and evidences of an apostle; whom therefore Chrysostom brings in elegantly pleading for himself, that though he could not show, as the signs of his priesthood and 10. But because, besides miracles in general, ministry, long robes and gaudy vestments, with the Scripture takes particular notice of many gifts bells sounding at their borders, as the Aaronical and powers of the Holy Ghost conferred upon the priests did of old; though he had no golden crowns apostles and first preachers of the gospel, it may or holy mitres, yet could he produce what was in- not be amiss to consider some of the chiefest and finitely more venerable and regardable than all most material of them, as we find them enumethese unquestionable signs and miracles: he rated by the apostle || only premising this obsercame not with altars and oblations, with a number vation, that though these gifts were distinctly disof strange and symbolical rites; but what was tributed to persons of an inferior order, so that one greater, raised the dead, cast out devils, cured the had this, and another that, yet were they (probably) blind, healed the lame, making the Gentiles obe- all conferred upon the apostles, and doubtless in dient by word and deed, through many signs and larger proportions than upon the rest. First, we wonders wrought by the power of the Spirit of take notice of the gift of prophecy, a clear eviGod. These were the things that clearly showed dence of divine inspiration, and an extraordinary that their mission and ministry was not from men, mission: "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of nor taken up of their own heads, but that they prophecy." It had been for many ages the sigacted herein by a divine warrant and authority. nal and honorable privilege of the Jewish church; That therefore it might plainly appear to the world and that the Christian economy might challenge that they did not falsify in what they said, or de- as sacred regards from men, and that it might apliver any more than God had given them in com-pear that God had not withdrawn his Spirit from mission, he enabled them to do strange and miraculous operations, " bearing them witness both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost." This was a power put into the first draught of their commission, when confined only to the cities of Israel: "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." But more fully confirmed unto them when our Lord went to heaven; then he told them that "these signs should follow them that believe; that in his name they should cast out devils, and speak with new tongues; that they should take up serpents, and if they drank

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his church in this new state of things, it was revived under the dispensation of the gospel, according to that famous prophecy of Joel, exactly accomplished (as Peter told the Jews) upon the day of pentecost, when the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were so plentifully shed upon the apostles and primitive Christians: "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: It shall come to pass in the last days, (saith God,) I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." It lay in general in

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revealing and making known to others the mind of pretend, that this interruption is an unseasonable God; but discovered itself in particular instances, check to his revelation, seeing he may command partly in foretelling things to come, and what himself; for though among the Gentiles the proshould certainly happen in after times: a thing phetic and ecstatic impulse did so violently press set beyond the reach of any finite understanding; upon the inspired person that he could not govern for though such effects as depend upon natural himself, yet in the church of God “the spirits of agents, or moral and political causes, may be fore- the prophets are subject to the prophets," may be seen by studious and considering persons; yet the so ruled and restrained by them as to make way knowledge of futurities, things purely contingent, for others. This order of Christian prophets, conthat merely depend upon men's choice, and their sidered as a distinct ministry by itself, is constantmutable and uncertain wills, can only fall under ly placed next to the apostolical office, and is frehis view who at once behold things past, present, quently, by St. Paul, preferred before any other and to come. Now this was conferred upon the spiritual gifts then bestowed upon the church.apostles and some of the first Christians, as ap- When this spirit of prophecy ceased in the Chrispears from many instances in the history of the tian church we cannot certainly find. It continued apostolic acts; and we find the apostles' writings some competent time beyond the apostolic age. frequently interspersed with prophetical predic- Justin Martyr, expressly tells Trypho, the Jew, tions concerning the great apostacy from the faith," the gifts of prophecy are even yet extant among the universal corruption and degeneracy of man- us:" an argument, as he there tells him, that ners, the rise of particular heresies, the coming of those things which had of old been the great priantichrist, and several other things, which the vileges of their church, were now translated into Spirit said expressly should come to pass in the the Christian church. And Eusebius, speaking latter times: besides, that St. John's whole book of a revelation made to one Alcibiades, who lived of Revelation is almost entirely made up of pro- about the time of Irenæus, adds, that the divine phecies concerning the future state and condition grace had not withdrawn its presence from the of the church. Sometimes by his spirit of prophecy church, but that they still had the Holy Ghost as God declared things that were of present concern- their counsellor to direct them. ment to the exigencies of the church, as when he 11. Secondly, they had "the gift of discerning signified to them that they should set apart Paul spirits," whereby they were enabled to discover and Barnabas for the conversion of the Gentiles, the truth or falsehood of men's pretences, whether and many times immediately designed particular their gifts were real or counterfeit, and their perpersons to be pastors and governors of the church. sons truly inspired or not. For many men, actuThus we read of "the gift" that was given to ated only by diabolical impulses, might entitle Timothy "by prophecy, with the laying on of the themselves to divine inspirations, and others might hands of the presbytery;" that is, his ordination, be imposed upon by their illusions, and mistake to which he was particularly pointed out by some their dreams and fancies for the Spirit's dictates prophetic designation. But the main use of this and revelations or might so subtilely and artifiprophetic gift in those times was, to explain some cially counterfeit revelations, that they might with of the more difficult and particular parts of the most pass for current, especially in those times Christian doctrine, especially to expound and ap- when these supernatural gifts were so common ply the ancient prophecies concerning the Mes- and ordinary; and our Lord himself had frequently siah and his kingdom, in their public assemblies; told them that false prophets would arise, and that whence the "gift of prophecy" is explained "by many would confidently plead for themselves beunderstanding all mysteries and all knowledge;" fore him, that they had "prophesied in his name." that is, the most dark and difficult places of Scrip- That therefore the church might not be imposed ture, the types and figures, the ceremonies and on, God was pleased to endue the apostles, and it prophecies of the Old Testament. And thus we may be some others, with an immediate faculty are commonly to understand those words, "pro- of discerning the chaff from the wheat, true from phets" and "prophesying," that so familiarly oc- false prophets; nay, to know when the true procur in the New Testament. "Having gifts differ-phets delivered the revelations of the Spirit, and ing according to the grace that is given to us, when they expressed only their own conceptions. whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to This was a mighty privilege, but yet seems to me the proportion of faith;" that is, expound Scrip- to have extended further, to judge of the sincerity ture according to the generally received principles or hypocrisy of men's hearts in the profession of of faith and life. So the apostle elsewhere, pre-religion; that so bad men being discovered, suitascribing rules for the decent and orderly managing ble censures and punishments might be passed of divine worship in their public assemblies: "Let upon them, and others cautioned to avoid them. the prophets," says he "speak two or three," that Thus Peter, at first sight, discovered Ananias and is, at the same assembly, "and let the other judge;" Sapphira, and the rotten hypocrisy of their intenand if, while any is thus expounding, another has tions, before there was any external evidence in a divine afflatus, whereby he is more particularly the case; and told Simon Magus, though baptized enabled to explain some difficult and emergent before, upon his embracing Christianity, "that his passage, "let the first hold his peace; for ye may heart was not right in the sight of God; for I perall" that have this gift, "prophesy one by one;"ceive," says he, "that thou art in the gall of bitthat so, thus orderly proceeding, "all may learn, terness, and in the bond of iniquity.' *** Thirdly; and all may be comforted." Nor can the first the apostles had the gift of tongues, furnished with variety of utterance, able to speak on a sud

1 Cor. xiii. 2.
#1 Cor. xiv. 29-31.

↑ Rom. xii. 6.

Acts viii. 21-23.

den several languages which they had never of Rome, in defiance of it, can so openly praclearnt, as occasion was administered, and the ex- tise, so confidently defend their Bible and divine igencies of persons and nations, with whom they services in an unknown tongue; so flatly repugconversed, did require. For the apostles being nant to the dictates of common reason, the usage principally designed to convert the world, and to of the first Christian church, and these plain plant Christianity in all countries and nations, it apostolical commands. But this is not the only was absolutely necessary that they should be able instance wherein that church has departed both readily to express their minds in the languages of from Scripture, reason, and the practice of the first those countries to which they addressed them- and purest ages of Christianity. Indeed there is selves; seeing otherwise it would have been a some cause why they are so zealous to keep both work of time and difficulty, and not consistent Scripture and their divine worship in a strange with the term of the apostles' lives, had they been language; lest by reading the one the people first to learn the different languages of those na- should become wise enough to discover the gross tions before they could have preached the gospel errors and corruptions of the other. Fifthly; the to them. Hence this gift was diffused upon the apostles had the gift of healing, of curing diseases apostles in larger measure and proportion than without the arts of physic; the most inveterate upon other men: "I speak with tongues more distempers being equally removable by an almighthan ye all," says St. Paul; that is, than all the ty power, and vanishing at their speaking of a gifted persons in the church of Corinth. Our word. This begot an extraordinary veneration Lord had told the apostles, before his departure for them and their religion among the common from them, "that they should be endued with sort of men, who, as they are strongest moved power from on high;" which, upon the day of with sensible effects, so are most taken with those Pentecost, was particularly made good in this in-miracles that are beneficial to the life of man. stance; when in a moment they were enabled to speak almost all the languages of the then known world, and this as a specimen and first-fruits of the rest of those miraculous powers that were conferred upon them.

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Hence the infinite cures done in every place; God mercifully providing that the body should partake with the soul in the advantages of the gospel, the cure of the one ushering in, many times, the conversion of the other. This gift was 12. A fourth gift was that of interpretation, or very common in those early days, bestowed not unfolding to others what had been delivered in an upon the apostles only, but upon the ordinary gounknown tongue. For the Christian assemblies vernors of the church, who were wont ❝ to lay in those days were frequently made up of men of their hands upon the sick," and sometimes "to different nations, and who could not understand anoint them with oil," (a symbolic rite in use what the apostles, or others, had spoken to the among the Jews, to denote the grace of God,) and congregation; this God supplied by this gift of "to pray over," and for "them in the name of the interpretation, enabling some to interpret what Lord Jesus;"* whereby, upon a hearty confession others did not understand, and to speak it to them and forsaking of their sins, both health and pardon in their own native language. St. Pault largely were at once bestowed upon them. How long this discourses the necessity of this gift, in order to gift, with its appendant ceremony of unction, the instructing and edifying of the church, see- lasted in the church is not easy to determine: ing without it their meetings could be no better that it was in use in Tertullian's time, we learn than the assembly of Babel after the confusion of from the instance he gives us of Proculus, a Chrislanguages, where one man must needs be a bar- tian, who cured the emperor Severus, by anointing barian to another; and all the praying and preach-him with oil; for which the emperor had him in ing of the minister of the assembly be to many altogether fruitless and unprofitable, and no better than a speaking into the air. What is the speaking, though with the tongue of angels, to them that do not understand it? How can the idiot and unlearned say amen, who understand not the language of him that giveth thanks? The duty may be done with admirable quaintness and accuracy; but what is he the better, from whom it is locked up in an unknown tongue? A consideration that made the apostle solemnly profess, that "he had rather speak five words in the church with his understanding, that by his voice he might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." Therefore "if any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be but by two, or at most by three, and let one interpret" what the rest have spoken; "but if there be no interpreter," none present able to do this, " let him keep silence in the church, and speak to himself and to God." A man that impartially reads this discourse of the apostle, may wonder how the church

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great honor, and kept him with him at court all his life; it afterwards vanishing by degrees, as all other miraculous powers, as Christianity gained firm footing in the world. As for extreme unction, so generally maintained and practised in the church of Rome, and by them made a sacrament, I doubt it will receive very little countenance from this primitive usage. Indeed, could they as easily restore sick men to health as they can anoint them with oil, I think nobody would contradict them; but till they can pretend to the one I think it unreasonable they should use the other. The best is, though founding it upon this apostolical practice, they have turned it to a quite contrary purpose; instead of recovering men to life and health, to dispose and fit them for dying when all hopes of life are taken from them.

13. Sixthly; the apostles were invested with a power of immediately inflicting corporal punishments upon great and notorious sinners; and this, probably, is that which he means by his "operations of powers," or "working miracles;" which surely cannot be meant of miracles in general,

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things." To what has been said concerning these apostolical gifts, let me further observe, that they had not only these gifts residing in them. selves, but a power to bestow them upon others; so that by imposition of hands, or upon hearing and embracing the apostles' doctrine, and being baptized into the Christian faith, they could confer these miraculous powers upon persons thus qualified to receive them, whereby they were in a moment enabled to speak divers languages, to prophesy, to interpret, and do other miracles, to the admiration and astonishment of all that heard and saw them. A privilege peculiar to the apostles; for we do not find that any inferior order of gifted persons were intrusted with it. And therefore, as Chrysostom well observes, though Philip, the deacon, wrought great miracles at Samaria, to the conversion of many; yea, to the conviction of Simon Magus himself, "yet the Holy Ghost fell upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus;" till Peter and John came down to them, who having "prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost, they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost." Which when the magician beheld, he offered the apostles money to enable him, that on whomsoever he laid his hands, he might derive these miraculous powers upon them.

being reckoned up amongst the particular gifts of the Holy Ghost; nor is there any other to which it can with equal probability refer. A power to inflict diseases upon the body, as when St. Paul struck Elymas, the sorcerer, with blindness; and sometimes extending to the loss of life itself, as in the sad instance of Ananias and Sapphira. This was the virga apostolica, the rod (mentioned by St. Paul) which the apostles held and shook over scandalous and insolent offenders, and sometimes laid upon them: "What will ye? shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and the spirit of meekness?"* Where observe, says Chrysostom, how the apostle tempers his discourse: the love and meekness, and his desire to know, argued care and kindness; but the rod spake dread and terror; a rod of severity and punishment, and which sometimes mortally chastised the offender. Elsewhere, he frequently gives intimations of this power, when he was to deal with stubborn and incorrigible persons: "Having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled; for though I should boast somewhat more of our authority (which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction) I should not be ashamed; that I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters." And he again puts them in mind of it at the close of his epistle: "I told you before, and foretel you, as if I were 14. Having seen how fitly furnished the apospresent, the second time; and being absent now tles were for the execution of their office, let us I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and in the last place inquire into its duration and conto all others, that if I come again I will not tinuance. And here it must be considered, that spare." But he hoped these smart warnings in the apostolical office there was something exwould supersede all further severity against them: traordinary, and something ordinary. What was "Therefore I write these things being absent, lest extraordinary was their immediate commission being present I should use sharpness, according to derived from the mouth of Christ himself; their the power which the Lord hath given me to edi- unlimited charge to preach the gospel up and fication, and not to destruction." Of this nature down the world, without being tied to any partiwas the "delivering over persons unto Satan for cular places; the supernatural and miraculous the destruction of the flesh," the chastising the powers conferred upon them as apostles; their body by some present pain or sickness, "that the infallible guidance in delivering the doctrines of spirit might be saved," by being brought to a the gospel; and these all expired and determined seasonable repentance. Thus he dealt with Hy- with their persons. The standing and perpetual menæus and Alexander, who had "made ship- part of it, was to teach and instruct the people in wreck of faith and a good conscience;" he de- the duties and principles of religion, to administer livered them unto Satan, "that they might learn the sacraments, to constitute guides and officers, not to blaspheme." Nothing being more usual and to exercise the discipline and government of in those times, than for persons excommunicate, the church; and in these they are succeeded by and cut off from the body of the church, to be the ordinary rulers and ecclesiastic guides, who presently arrested by Satan, as the common-ser-were to superintend and discharge the affairs and jeant and executioner, and by him either actually offices of the church to the end of the world. possessed, or tormented in their bodies by some Whence it is that bishops and governors came to diseases which he brought upon them. And in- be styled apostles, as being their successors in ordeed this severe discipline was no more than dinary; for so they frequently are in the writings necessary in those times, when Christianity was of the church. Thus Timothy, who was biwholly destitute of any civil or coercive power, shop of Ephesus, is called an apostle; Clemens to beget and keep up a due reverence and of Rome, Clemens the apostle; St. Mark, bishop regard to the sentences and determinations of the of Alexandria, by Eusebius, styled both an apostle church, and to secure the laws of religion and and evangelist; Ignatius, a bishop and apostle. the holy censures from being slighted by every A title that continued in after ages, especially bold and contumacious offender. And this effect given to those that were the first planters or rewe find it had after the dreadful instance of Ana-storers of Christianity in any country. In the nias and Sapphira; "Great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these

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Coptic calendar, published by Mr. Selden, the seventh day of the month Baschnes, answering to our second of May, is dedicated to the memory of St. Athanasius the apostle. Acacius and Paulus, in their letter to Epiphanius, style him "a new apostle and preacher:" and Šidonius Apollinaris writing to Lupus, bishop of Troyes, in

France, speaks of "the honor due to his eminent 2. The particular time of his birth cannot be apostleship." An observation which it were easy recovered, no probable footsteps or intimations enough to confirm by abundant instances, were it being left of it: in the general we may conclude either doubtful in itself or necessary to my pur-him at least ten years older than his Master; his pose; but being neither, I forbear.

ST. PETER.

SECTION I.

married condition and settled course of life at his first coming to Christ, and that authority and respect which the gravity of his person procured him amongst the rest of the apostles, can speak him no less; but for any thing more particular and positive in this matter I see no reason to affirm. Indeed, might we trust the account, which one (who pretends to calculate his nativity with ostentation enough) has given of it, we are told

Of St. Peter, from his Birth till his first coming that he was born three years before the blessed

to Christ.

THE land of Palestine was, at and before the coming of our blessed Saviour, distinguished into three several provinces, Judæa, Samaria, and Galilee. This last was divided into the upper and lower. In the upper, called also Galilee of the Gentiles, within the division anciently belonging to the tribe of Naphthali, stood Bethsaida, formerly an obscure and inconsiderable village, till lately re-edified and enlarged by Philip the tetrarch,* by him advanced to the place and title of a city, replenished with inhabitants, and fortified with power and strength; and in honor of Julia, the daughter of Augustus Caesar, by him styled Julias. Situate it was upon the banks of the sea of Galilee, and had a wilderness on the other side, thence called the desert of Bethsaida, whither our Saviour used often to retire; the privacies and solitudes of the place advantageously ministering to the divine contemplation. But Bethsaida was not so remarkable for this adjoining wilderness as itself was memorable for a worse sort of barrenness-ingratitude, and unprofitableness under the influences of Christ's sermons and miracles; thence severely upbraided by him, and threatened with one of his deepest woes: "Wo unto thee Corazin, wo unto thee Bethsaida," &c. A wo that it seems stuck close to it; for whatever it was at this time, one who surveyed it in the last age tells us, that it was shrunk again into a very mean and small village, consisting only of a few cottages of Moors and wild Arabs; and later travellers have since assured us, that even these are dwindled away into one poor cottage at this day. So fatally does sin undermine the greatest, the goodliest places; so certainly does God's word take place, and not one iota either of his promises or threatenings falls to the ground. Next to the honor that was done it by our Saviour's presence, who living most in these parts frequently resorted hither, it had nothing greater to recommend it to the notice of posterity, than that (besides some other of the apostles) it was the birth-place of St. Peter; a person how inconsiderable soever in his private fortunes, yet of great note and eminency as one of the prime ambassadors of the Son of God, to whom both sacred and ecclesiastical stories give, though not a superiority, a precedency in the college of apostles.

virgin, and just seventeen before the incarnation of our Saviour. But let us view his account.

Nat.

est

ab orbe coud.
a diluvio
U. c.

AN.

AN.

AN. 4034 Octav. August. Herodis reg. (20 S 2379 a lo ejus consul 24 ante b. virg. 734a pugna Actiac. 12 ante Chr. nat 17

When I met with such a pompous train of epochas, the least I expected was truth and certainty. This computation he grounds upon the date of St. Peter's death, placed (as elsewhere he tells us) by Bellarmine in the eighty-sixth year of his age; so that recounting from the year of Christ sixty-nine, when Peter is commonly said to have suffered, he runs up his age to his birth, and spreads it out into so many several dates. But alas, all is built upon a sandy bottom. For besides his mistake about the year of the world, few of his dates hold due correspondence. But the worst of it is, that after all this, Bellarmine (upon whose single testimony all this fine fabric is erected) says no such thing, but only supposes, merely for argument's sake, that St. Peter might very well be eighty-six (it is erroneously printed seventy-six) years old at the time of his martyrdom.So far will confidence, or ignorance, or both, carry men aside; if it could be a mistake, and not rather a bold imposing upon the world. But of this enough, and perhaps more than it deserves.

3. Being circumcised according to the rites of the Mosaic law, the name given him at his circumcision was Simon, or Symeon; a name common amongst the Jews, especially in their later times. This was afterwards by our Saviour not abolished, but additioned with the title of Cephas, which in Syriac (the vulgar language of the Jews at that time) signifying a stone, or rock, was thence derived into the Greek, IIerpos and by us, Peter: so far was Hesychius out, when rendering Herpos by 8 tvwv, an expounder or interpreter; deriving it from the Hebrew word which signifies to explain and interpret. By this new imposition our Lord seemed to denote the firmness and constancy of his faith, and his vigorous activity in building up the church, as a spiritual house upon the true rock, the living and corner-stone, chosen of God, and precious, as St. Peter himself expresses it.* Nor can our Saviour be understood to have hereby conferred upon him any peculiar supremacy or sovereignty above, much less over the rest of the apostles; for in respect of the great trust committed to them, and their being sent to plant Christianity in the world, they are all equally styled Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. viii. c. 3, p. 618; Matt. foundations. Nor is it accountable either to

xi. 21.

+ Matt. xi. 21.

* 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5, 6.

+ Rev. xxi. 14.

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