rum," or "most holy of all," but the "sanctuary," | if the judgments of God like a flood come rolling or "holy place," whither the priests of the Aaron-in upon a nation, when the sluices are plucked up, ical order might come. Prayer was his constant and the Moses taken away that before stood in the business and delight; he seemed to live upon it, gap to keep them out? "Elisha died, and a band and to trade in nothing but the frequent returns of of the Moabites invaded the land."* In short, converse with heaven; and was therefore wont he was the delight of all good men, in so much to retire alone into the temple to pray, which he favor and estimation with the people, that they always performed kneeling, and with the greatest used to flock after him, and strive who should reverence, till by his daily devotions his knees touch, though it were but the hem of his garment; were become as hard and brawny as a camel's. his very episcopal chair, wherein he used to sit, And he who has told us, that "the effectual fer-being (as Eusebius informs us) carefully preservvent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," ed, and having a kind of veneration paid to it, himself found it true by his own experience, hea- even unto his time: loved and honored, not by his ven lending a more immediate ear to his petitions; friends only, but by his enemies; the Jews in their so that when in a time of great drought he pray-Talmud, mentioning James as a worker of miraed for rain, the heavens presently melted into fruitful showers. Nor was his charity towards men less than his piety towards God; he did good to all, watched over men's souls, and studied to advance their eternal interests; his daily errand into the temple was to pray for the happiness of the people, and that God would not severely reckon with them: he could forgive his fiercest enemies, and "overcome evil with good:" when thrown from the top of the temple, he made use of all the breath he had left in him, only to send up this petition to heaven for the pardon of his murderers: "I beseech thee, O Lord God, heavenly Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

7. He was of a most meek humble temper, honoring what was excellent in others, concealing what was valuable in himself; the eminency of his relation, and the dignity of his place, did not exalt him in lofty thoughts above the measures of his brethren, industriously hiding whatever might set him up above the rest. Though he was our Lord's brother, yet in the inscription of the epistle he styles himself but the "servant of the Lord Jesus, not so much as giving himself the title of an apostle. His temperance was admirable; he wholly abstained from flesh, and drank neither wine nor strong drink, nor ever used the bath. His holy and mortified mind was content with the meanest accommodations; he went bare-foot, and never wore other than linen garments. Indeed, he lived after the strictest rules of the Nazarite order; and as the mitre, or sacerdotal plate, which he wore upon his head, evinced his priesthood, which was rather after Melchisedeck's, or the priesthood of the first-born, than the Aaronical order; so his never shaving his head, nor using unguents, his habit and diet, and the great severity of his life, showed him to appertain to the Nazarite institution, to which he was holy, (says Hegesippus,) or consecrated from his mother's womb. A man of that divine temper that he was the love and wonder of his age, and for the reputation of his holy and religious life was universally styled James the Just. Indeed, the safety and happiness of the nation was reckoned to depend upon his prayers and interest in heaven, which gained him the honorable title of Oblias or Ozliam, the "defence" and "fortress of the people;" as if, when he was gone, their garrisons would be dismantled, and their strength laid level with the ground. And so we find it was, when some few years after his death the Roman army broke in upon them, and turned all into blood and ruin. And what wonder

cles in the name of "Jesus his master;" yea, the wisest of them looked upon his martyrdom as the inlet to all those miseries and calamities that soon after flowed in upon them. Sure I am, that Josephus particularly reckons the death of this St. James as that which more immediately alarmed the divine vengeance, and hastened the universal ruin and destruction of that nation.

8. He wrote only one epistle, probably not long before his martyrdom, as appears by some passages in it relating to the near approaching ruin of the Jewish nation. He directed it to the Jewish converts, dispersed up and down those eastern countries, to comfort them under sufferings, and confirm them against error. He saw a great degeneracy and declension of manners coming on, and that the purity of the Christian faith began to be undermined by the loose doctrines and practices of the Gnostics, who under a pretence of zeal for the legal rites, generally mixed themselves with the Jews; he beheld libertinism marching on apace, and the way to heaven made soft and easy, men declaiming against good works, as useless and unnecessary; and asserting a naked belief of the Christian doctrine to be sufficient to salvation. Against these the apostle opposes himself, presses purity, patience, and charity, and all the virtues of a good life; and by undeniable arguments envinces that that faith only that carries along with it obedience and a holy life, can justify us before God, and entitle us to eternal life. Besides this epistle, there is a kind of preparatory gospel ascribed to him, published under the name of IIPTEYAгTE'AION, (still extant at this day,) containing the descent, birth, and first originals of Christ, and the virgin Mary; at the end whereof the author pretends to have written it at a time when Herod having raised a great tumult in Jerusalem, he was forced to retire into the wilderness. But, though in many things consistent enough with the history of the gospel, yet has it ever been rejected as spurious and apocryphal, forged in that licentious age, when men took the boldness to stamp any writing with the name of an apostle.t

* 2 Kings xiii. 20.

+ The character given of St. James by Josephus and others, affords a very valuable, because undesigned testimony to the truth of the gospel. He was not only devout, but singularly pure and upright of truth have any thing to do with the moral chain his conversation; and if the perception and love racter, he was thus especially qualified for determining what degree of credit ought to be given to the claims of Christ.

ST. SIMON THE ZEALOT.

were continually prompting the people to throw off the Roman yoke, and vindicate themselves into their native liberty; and when they had turned all ST. SIMON the apostle was, as some think, one of things into hurry and confusion, themselves in the four brothers of our Saviour, sons of Joseph the mean while fished in these troubled waters. by his former marriage, though no other evidence Josephus gives a large account of them, and every appear for it, but that there was a Simon, one of where bewails them as the great plague of the the number; too infirm a foundation to build any nation. He tells us of them, that they scrupled thing more on than a mere conjecture. In the not to rob any, to kill many of the prime of the catalogue of the apostles he is styled Simon the nobility, under pretence of holding correspondence Canaanite; whence some, led by no other reason with the Romans, and betraying the liberty of their that I know of than the bare sound of the name, country; openly glorying, that herein they were have concluded him born at Cana in Galilee; as the benefactors and saviors of the people. They for the same reason others have made him the abrogated the succession of ancient families, bridegroom, at whose marriage our Lord was thrusting obscure and ignoble persons into the there present, when he honored the solemnity high-priest's office, that so they might oblige the with his first miracle, turning water into wine.- most infamous villains to their party; and as if But this word has no relation to his country, or not content to injure men, they affronted heaven, the place from whence he borrowed his original, as plainly descending from a Hebrew word which signifies zeal, and denotes a hot and sprightly temper. Therefore what some of the evangelists call Canaanite, others rendering the Hebrew by the Greek word, style Simon Zelotes, or the Zealot so called, not (as Nicephorus thinks) from his burning zeal, and ardent affection to his master, and his eager desire to advance his religion in the world, but from his warm active temper, and zealous forwardness in some particular way and confession of religion before his coming to our Saviour.

2. For the better understanding of this we are to know, that as there were several sects and parties among the Jews, so was there one, either a distinct eect, or at least a branch of the Pharisees, called the sect of the Zealots: they were mighty assertors of the honor of the law, and the strictness and purity of religion, assuming a liberty to themselves to question notorious offenders, without staying for the ordinary formalities of law; nay, when they thought good, and when the case required, executing capital vengeance upon them. Thus when a blasphemer cursed God by the name of any idol, (says Maimonides) the Zealots that next met him might immediately kill him, without ever bringing him before the Sanhedrim. They looked upon themselves as the successors of Phineas, who in a mighty passion for the honor of God, did immediate execution upon Zimri and Cozbi: an act which was "counted to him for righteousness unto all posterities for evermore;"t and God was so well pleased with it, that he made "with him and his seed after him the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for Israel." In imitation whereof these men took upon them to execute judgment in extraordinary cases, and that not only by the connivance, but with the leave both of the rulers and the people; till in after times, under a pretence of this, their zeal degenerated into all manner of licentiousness and wild extravagance, and they not only became the pests of the commonwealth at home, but opened the door for the Romans to break in upon them, to their final and irrecoverable ruin; they

and proclaimed defiance to the Divinity itself, breaking into and profaning the most holy place. Styling themselves Zealots, (says he) " as if their undertakings were good and honorable, while they were greedy and emulous of the greatest wickedness, and outdid the worst of men." Many attempts were made, especially by Annas the highpriest, to reduce them to order and sobriety. But neither force of arms, nor fair and gentle methods could do any good upon them; they held out, and went on in their violent proceedings, and joining with the Idumeans, committed all manner of outwhen Jerusalem was strictly besieged by the Rorage, slaying the high-priests themselves. Nay, man army, they ceased not to create tumults and factions within, and were indeed the main cause of the Jews ill success in that fatal war. It is probable, that all that went under the notion of this sect were not of this wretched and ungovernable temper, but that some of them were of a better make, of a more sober and peaceable disposition. And as it is not to be doubted but that our Simon was of this sect in general, so there is rea

son to believe he was of the better sort. However, this makes no more reflection upon his being called to the apostleship, than it did for St. Matthew, who was before a publican, or St. Paul's being a Pharisee, and so zealously persecuting the church of God.

further mention appears of him in the history of 3. Being invested in the apostolical office, no the gospel. Continuing with the apostles till their dispersion up and down the world, he then applied himself to the execution of his charge. He is said to have directed his journey towards Egypt, thence to Cyrene, and Africk, (this indeed Baronius is not willing to believe, being desirous that St. Peter should have the honor to be the first that planted Christianity in Africk) and throughout Mauritania and all Libya, preaching the gospel to those remote and barbarous countries. Nor could the coldness of the climate benumb his zeal, or hinder him from shipping himself and the Christian doctrine over to the western islands, yea, even to Britain itself. Here he preached and wrought many miracles; and after infinite troubles and difficulties which he underwent. (if we may believe our authors, whom, though Baronius in this case makes no great account of, yet never scruples freely to use their verdict and suffrage when they give in evidence to his purpose,) suffered

seigniories and dominions of it, but heavenly and angelical, and would finally take place in the end of the world; when coming with great glory, he would judge the quick and the dead, and award all men recompences according to their works. The issue was, that looking upon the meanness and simplicity of the men, as below his jealousies and fears, he dismissed them without any severity used against them; who being now beheld not only as kinsmen, but as martyrs of our Lord, were honored by all, preferred to places of authority and government in the church, and lived till the times of Trajan.

3. Eusebius relates, that soon after our Lord's ascension, St. Thomas despatched Thaddeus, the apostle, to Abgarus, governor of Edessa, where he healed diseases, wrought miracles, expounded the doctrines of Christianity, and converted Abgarus and his people to the faith: for all which pains, when the toparch offered him vast gifts and presents, he refused them with a noble scorn, telling him, they had little reason to receive from others, what they had freely relinquished and left themselves. A large account of this whole affair is extant in Eusebius, translated by him out of Syriac, from the records of the city of Edessa. This Thaddeus St. Jerome expressly makes to be our 5. St Jude left only one epistle of catholic and St. Jude, though his bare authority is not in this universal concernment, inscribed at large to all case sufficient evidence; especially since Eusebius Christians. It was some time before it met with makes him no more than one of the seventy dis- general reception in the church, or was taken nociples, which he would scarce have done, had he tice of. The author, indeed, styles not himself an been one of the twelve. He calls him, indeed, an apostle, but no more does St. James, St. John, nor apostle, but that may imply no more than accord sometimes St. Paul himself. And why should he ing to the large acceptation of the word, that he fare the worse for his humility, only for calling was a disciple, a companion, and an assistant to himself the "servant of Christ," when he might them, as we know the seventy eminently were. have added not only "apostle" but "the brother Nor is any thing more common in ancient eccle- of our Lord?" The best is, he has added what siastic writers, than for the first planters and pro- was equivalent, "Jude, the brother of James," a pagators of Christian religion in any country to be character that can belong to none but our apostle; honored with the name and title of apostles. But, besides. that the title of the epistle, which is of however this be, at his first setting out to preach great antiquity, runs thus, "The general Epistle the gospel, he went up and down Judæa and Ga- of Jude the Apostle." One great argument, as lilee, then through Samaria into Idumea, and to St. Jerome informs us, against the authority of the cities of Arabia, and the neighbor countries; this epistle of old, was its quoting a passage out and after to Syria and Mesopotamia. Nicepho- of an apocryphal book of Enoch. This book, callrus adds, that he came at last to Edessa, where ed the "Apocalypse of Enoch," was very early Abgarus was governor; and where the other extant in the church, frequently mentioned, and Thaddeus, one of the seventy, had been before passages were cited out of it by Irenæus, Tertulhim. Here he perfected what the other had begun; and having, by his sermons and miracles, established the religion of our Saviour, died a peaceable and a quiet death; though Dorotheus makes him slain at Berytus, and honorably buried there. By the almost general consent of the writers of the Latin church, he is said to have travelled into Persia, where, after great success in his apostolical ministry for many years, he was at last, for his free and open reproval of the superstitious rites and usages of the magi, cruelly put to death.

4. That he was one of the married apostles sufficiently appears from his grandsons, mentioned by Eusebius, of whom Hegesippus gives this account. Domitian, the emperor, whose enormous wickedness had awakened in him the quickest jealousies, and made him suspect every one that might look like a co-rival in the empire, had heard that there were some of the line of David and Christ's kindred that did yet remain. Two grandchildren of St. Jude, the brother of our Lord, were brought before him; and having confessed that they were of the race and posterity of David, he asked what possessions and estate they had: they told him, that they had but a very few acres of land, out of the improvement whereof they both paid him tribute, and maintained themselves with their own hard labor, as by the hardness and callousness of their hands (which they then showed him) did appear. He then inquired of them concerning Christ, and the state of his kingdom, what kind of empire it was, and when and where it would commence. To which they replied, that his kingdom was not of this world, nor of the

lian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, and others, some of whom accounted it little less than canonical. But what, if our apostle had it not out of this apocryphal book, but from some prophecy current from age to age, handed to him by common tradition, or immediately revealed to him by the Spirit of God? But suppose it taken out of that book going under Enoch's name; this makes nothing against the authority of the epistle; every thing, I hope, is not presently false, that is contained in an aprocryphal and uncanonical writing; nor does the taking a single testimony out of it any more infer the apostle's approbation of all the rest, than St. Paul's quoting a good sentence or two out of Menander, Aratus, and Epimenides, imply that he approved all the rest of the writings of those heathen poets. And indeed nothing could be more fit and proper than this way, if we consider that the apostle in this epistle chiefly argues against the Gnostics, who mainly traded in such traditionary and apocryphal writings, and probably in this very book of Enoch. The same account may be given of that other passage in this epistle, concerning the contention between Michael, the archangel, and the devil, about the burial of Moses's body, no where extant in the holy records, supposed to have been taken out of a Jewish writing, called the "Dismission of Moses," mentioned by some of the Greek fathers, under the title of "Ascension of Moses," in which this passage was upon record. Nor is it any more a wonder, that St. Jude should do this, than that St. Paul should put down Jannes and Jambres for the two magicians of Pharaoh that opposed Moses, which he

must either derive from tradition, or fetch out of some uncanonical author of those times, there being no mention of their names in Moses's relation of that matter. But be these passages whence they will, it is enough for us, that the Spirit of God has made them authentic, and consecrated them part of the holy canon.

and yet all this while was a man of vile and corrupt design, branded with no meaner a character than thief and murderer: to let us see that there may be bad servants in Christ's own family, and that the wickedness of a minister does not evacuate his commission, nor render his office useless and ineffectual. The unworthiness of the instru6. Being thus satisfied in the canonicalness of ment hinders not the ends of the ministration: this epistle, none but St. Jude could be the author seeing the efficacy of an ordinance depends not of it; for who but he was the brother of St. James? upon the quality of the person, but the divine ina character by which he is described in the evan- stitution and the blessing which God has entailed gelical story more than once. Grotius, indeed, upon it. Judas preached Christ, no doubt with will needs have it written by a younger Jude, the zeal and fervency, and for any thing we know, fifteenth bishop of Jerusalem, in the reign of with as much success as the rest of the apostles; Adrian; and because he saw that that passage, and yet he was a bad man, a man actuated by "the brother of James," stood full in his way, he sordid and mean designs, one that had prostituted concludes, without any shadow of reason, that it religion and the honor of his place to covetouswas added by some transcriber. But is not this ness and evil arts. The love of money had so to make too bold with sacred things? is not this entirely possessed his thoughts, that his resoluto indulge too great a liberty? This once allowed, tions were bound for nothing but interest and adit will soon open a door to the widest and most vantage. "But they that will be rich fall into extravagant conjectures, and no man shall know temptation and a snare." This covetous temper where to find sure footing for his faith. But the betrayed him, as in the issue, to the most fatal end, reader may remember, what we have elsewhere so to the most desperate attempt, ayros To TaνTWU observed concerning the posthume annotations of avociratov, as Origen calls the putting Christ to that learned man. Not to say that there are many death, the most prodigious impiety that the sun things in this epistle that evidently refer to the ever shone on, the betraying his innocent Lord time of this apostle, and imply it to have been into the hands of those who he knew would treat written upon the same occasion, and about the him with all the circumstances of insolent scorn same time with the second epistle of Peter, be- and cruelty. How little does kindness work upon tween which and this there is a very great affinity a disingenuous mind! It was not the honor of both in words and matter; nay, there want not the place, to which, when thousands of others some that endeavor to prove this epistle to have were passed by, our Lord had called him, the adbeen written no less than twenty-seven years be-mitting him into a free and intimate fellowship fore that of Peter; and that hence it was, that with his person, the taking him to be one of his Peter borrowed those passages that are so near peculiar domestics and attendants, that could diakin to those in this epistle. The design of the vert the wretch from his wicked purpose. He epistle is to preserve Christians from the infection knew how desirous the great men of the nation of Gnosticism, the loose and debauched principles were to get Christ into their hands, especially at vented by Simon Magus and his followers, whose the time of the passover, that he might, with the wretched doctrines and practices he briefly and more public disgrace, be sacrificed before all the elegantly represents, persuading Christians heart-people, and therefore bargains with them, and for ily" to contend for the faith that had been delivered to them;" and to avoid these pernicious seducers as pests and firebrands, not to communicate with them in their sins, lest they perished with them in that terrible vengeance that was ready to overtake them.

ST. MATTHIAS.

no greater a sum than under four pounds, to betray the "Lamb of God" into the paws of these wolves and lions: in short, he heads the party, conducts the officers, and sees him delivered into their hands.

2. But there is an active principle in man's breast, that seldom suffers daring sinners to pass in quiet to their graves: awakened with the horror of the fact, conscience began to rouse and follow close, and the man was unable to bear up under the furious revenges of his own mind: as inST. MATTHIAS not being an apostle of the first deed, all wilful and deliberate sins, and especially election, immediately called and chosen by our Sa- the guilt of blood, are wont more sensible to alarm viour, particular remarks concerning him are not the natural notions of our minds, and to excite in to be expected in the history of the gospel. He us the fears of some present vengeance that will was one of our Lord's disciples (and probably one seize upon us. And how intolerable are those of the seventy) that had attended on him the scourges that lash us in this vital and tender part? whole time of his public ministry, and after his The spirit of the man sinks under him, and all death was elected into the apostleship upon this supports snap asunder: as what ease or comfort occasion. Judas Iscariot, (so called, probably, can he enjoy, that carries a vulture in his bosom, from the place of his nativity," a man of Kerioth," always gnawing and preying upon his heart? a city anciently situate in the tribe of Judah) had which made Plutarch compare an evil conscience been one of the twelve, immediately called by to a cancer in the breast, that perpetually gripes Christ to be one of his intimate disciples, equally and stings the soul with the pains of an intoleraimpowered and commissioned with the rest to ble repentance. Guilt is naturally troublesome preach and work miracles, "was numbered with and uneasy; it disturbs the peace and serenity of them, and had obtained part of their ministry;" the mind, and fills the soul with storms and thun