Lysias interpose in the business, and rescue Paul from the hands of the Jews, was the Jews' design to put Paul to death, under colour of judging him according to their law, which was the pretence made by Tertullus, Acts xxiv. 6. Now in that which was to be punished either by death or so much as by bonds, Lysias conceives the Jews to be no competent judges, therefore he brings Paul into the council of the Jews not to be judged by them, but to know what accusation they had against him. For the same reason Paul himself did decline going to Jerusalem to be judged there; no, not of matters concerning the religion and law of the Jews, that accusation being so far driven on as to make him worthy of death. His accusers, saith Festus to king Agrippa, "brought none accusation of such things as I supposed, but had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive; and because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem and there be judged of these mattters," Acts xxv. 18-20. This Paul had declined, ver. 10, "I stand at Cæsar's judgment-seat, said he, where I ought to be judged." And why, but because his cusation was capital, even in that which concerned the law of the Jews, and he knew the Jews at that time had no power of capital judgments? Some have alleged this example of Paul for appeals from presbyteries or synods to the civil magistrate, by which argument themselves grant that the Jewish sanhedrim, then declined by Paul, was an ecclesiastical, not a civil court.

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5. Besides all this, Erastus' opinion is strongly confuted by that which Constantinus L'Empereur, Annot. in Remp. Jud., p. 404-407, proving that the Jews, after the thirtieth year of Christ, had no power of punishing with death, for proof hereof citeth a passage of Abodazara, that forty years before the destruction of the temple, the sanhedrim, which had in former times exercised capital judgments, did remove from Jerusalem, quum viderent se non posse judicia capitalia exercere, when they perceived that they could not exercise capital judgments, they said, Let us remove out of this place, lest we be guilty: it being said, Deut. xvii. 10, "according to the sentence which they of that place shall shew thee;" whence they collected, that if they were not in that place, they were not obliged to ca

pital judgments, and so they removed. And if you would know whether, he tells us out of Rosch Hasschana, they removed from Jerusalem to Jabua, thence to Ousa, thence to Schaphrea, &c. He that desires to have further proofs for that which hath been said, may read, Buxtorf. Lexic. Chald. Talmud. et Rabbin., p. 514, 515, he proves that judicia criminalia, criminal judgment, did cease, and were taken away from the Jews forty years before the destruction of the second temple. This he saith is plain in Talmud Hierosol. in lib. Sanhedrim, cap. 7; in Talmud Babyl. in Sanhedrim, fol. 41, 1; in Abodazara, fol. 8, 2; in Schab., fol. 15, 1; in Juchasin, fol. 51, 1, Majemon, in Sanhedrim, cap. 14, sect. 13. He cites also a passage in Berachos, fol. 58, 1, concerning one who, for a heinous crime, even for lying with a beast, ought to be adjudged to death; but when one said that he ought to die, it was answered, that they had no power to put any man to death. And this, saith Dr Buxtorff, is the very same which the Jews said to Pilate, John xviii. 31. Now this power being taken from the Jews forty years before the destruction of the temple and city, which was in the seventy-first year of Christ, his death being in the thirty-fourth, hence he proveth that this power was taken from the Jews near three years before the death of Christ; and I further make this inference, that since the sanhedrim, which had power of life and death, did remove from Jerusalem forty years before the destruction of the temple (for which see also Tzemach David, edit. Hen. Vorst. p. 89), and so about three years before the death of Christ, it must needs follow that the council of the priests, elders and scribes, mentioned so often in and before Christ's passion, was not a civil magistracy, nor the civil sanhedrim, but an ecclesiastical sanhedrim; whence also it follows, that the church, Matt. xviii. 17, unto which Christ directs his disciples to go with their complaints, was not the civil court of justice among the Jews (as Mr Prynne takes it), for that civil court of justice had then removed from Jerusalem, and had lost its authority in executing justice. J. Coch, Annot. in Exc. Gem. Sanhedrim, cap. 1, sect. 13, beareth witness to the same story above mentioned, that, forty years before the destruction of the temple, the sanhedrim did remove from its proper seat (where he also mentions the ten stations or degrees of their removing), and Jam tum cessarunt

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judicia capitalia, saith he, now at that time the capital judgments did cease. Thus we have three witnesses singularly learned in the Jewish antiquities. Unto these add Casaubon, exerc. 16, anno. 34, num. 76. He holds that though the council of the Jews had cognisance of the offence (for otherwise how could they give a reason or cause when they demanded justice), in which respect the council did judge Christ to be guilty of death, Mark xiv. 64, yet their council had then no more power of capital punishments; which, saith he, the more learned modern writers do demonstrate è Juchasin, and from other Talmudical writings. He addeth, that this power of putting any man to death was taken from the Jews some space before this time, when they said to Pilate, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death;" for this power was taken from them, saith he, forty years before the destruction of the second temple, as the rabbinical writers do record. I have thus largely prosecuted my last argument, drawn from the New Testament, mentioning the council of the priests, elders, and scribes; and I trust the twelve arguments which have been brought, may give good satisfaction toward the proof of an ecclesiastical Jewish sanhedrim. The chief objection which ever I heard or read against this distinction of a civil sanhedrim and an ecclesiastical sanhedrim among the Jews, is this, that neither the Talmud nor the Talmudical writers mention any such distinction, but speak only of one supreme sanhedrim of seventy-one, and of other two courts, which sat, the one at the door of the court before the temple, the other at the gate which entereth to the mountain of the temple. There were also courts in the cities where capital cases were judged by three-and-twenty, pecunial mulcts by three.

Ans. It must be remembered that not only the Talmudical commentators, but the Talmud itself is much later than the time of the sanhedrim, and the integrity of the Jewish government; yea, later by some centuries than the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem: so that the objection which is made is no stronger than as if one should argue thus, There is no mention of elderships constituted of pastors and ruling elders (without any bishop having pre-eminence over the rest), neither in the canon law, nor decretals of popes, nor in the book of the canons of the Roman church; therefore, when Paul wrote his epistle to the church of

Rome, there was no such eldership in that church, constituted as hath been said. But if the ecclesiastical government, either of the church of Rome or of the church of the Jews, can be proved from Scripture (as both may), it ought to be no prejudice against those truths, that they are not found in the writers of aftertimes, and declining ages. Howbeit there may be seen some footsteps of a civil and ecclesiastical sanhedrim even in the Talmudical writers, in the opinion of Constantinus L'Empereur, and in that other passage cited by Dr Buxtorff out of Elias, of which before: and so much concerning an ecclesiastical sanhedrim among the Jews.

If, after all this, any man shall be unsatisfied in this particular, yet, in the issue, such as are not convinced that there was an ecclesiastical sanhedrim among the Jews, distinct from their civil sanhedrim, may nevertheless be convinced, not by the former arguments, but by other mediums, that there was an ecclesiastical government among the Jews distinct from their civil government; for it belonged to the priests, not to the magistrates or judges, to put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; and the priests, not the magistrates, are challenged for not putting difference between the holy and profane, Ezek. xxii. 26; and this power of the priests was not merely doctrinal or declarative, but decisive, binding, and juridical, so far as that, according to their sentence, men were to be admitted as clean, or excluded as unclean; yea, in other cases, as, namely, in trying and judging the scandal of a secret and unknown murder, observe what is said of the priests, Deut. xxi. 5, “ By their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried;" yea, themselves were judges of controversies, Ezek. xliv. 24, "And in controversy they shall stand in judgment, and they shall judge it according to my judgments. Where the ministers of the gospel are principally intended, but not without an allusion unto, and parallel with the priests of the Old Testament, in this point of jurisdiction. Suppose now it were appointed by law that ministers shall separate or put difference between the holy and profane, that by their word every controversy concerning the causes of suspension or sequestration of men from the sacrament shall be tried, that in controversy they shall stand in judgment, and judge according to the word of God, would

versions upon Pirke Rabbi Eliezer, wonders how any man can imagine that an apostate, a blasphemer, or the like, was admitted into the temple. For his part, he thinks some excommunicate persons were absolutely excluded from the temple, and that others, for whom there were hopes of reconciliation, were admitted into it. Drusius and Johannes Coch3 hold that there were such excommunicate persons among the Jews as were removed from church assemblies, and were not acknowledged for church members. Schindlerus describeth their excommunication to be a putting away of an impenitent obstinate sinner from the public assembly of the church, and so a cutting him off from his people. Arias Montanus expounds their casting out of the synagogue to be an excommunication (such as in the Christian church) from religious fellowship. So do the Centurists plainly, where they do purposely show what was the ecclesiastical policy and church government of the Jews; they make it a distinct question, whether the Jews in Christ's time had any civil government or magistracy. Cornelius Bertramus thinks that to the Jewish niddui answereth our suspension from the sacrament, and that

1 Animad in Pirke, p. 169, Quis enim dicat apostatam, blasphemum aliaque sacra capita intra templum fuisse admissa? etc. Certe si quibuslibet excommunicatis permissum fuisset in trare templum, tum multo mitior Judaicæ synagogæ disciplina esset statuenda, quam veteris Christianæ ecclesiæ.

2 Quest. et Resp. lib. 1, quæst. 9, Solebunt autem veteres (Judæi) si quis gravius deliquerat, primum eum movere cætu ecclesiastico: si non emendabat se, tum feriebant anathemate: quod sine tum quidem redibat ad frugem, ultimo ac postremo loco samatizabant.

3 Annot. in Exc. Gemar. Sanhedrim, cap. 1, Qui simpliciter excommunicatus est (menudde) est ille quidem separatus a cætu, ita ut pro vero membro ecclesiæ non habeatur.

Lexicon Pentaglot. p. 655.

Excommu

nicatio, cum quis se non emendans cætu ecclesiastico movetur, et ex populo suo excinditur. Where

he also mentioneth the three distinct kinds of excommunication,-Niddui, Cherem and Schammata. Ibid. p. 1076. '17 remotio, excommunicatio, ejectio ex cætu piorum, illa anathematis species, qua quis immundus ab hominum contubernio, aut qua aliquis a cætu ecclesiastico removetur ad tempus, a lege præscriptum.

5 De Arcano Sermone, cap. 47, Ejectio autem e synagogæ, communicationis abnegatio est, et abalienatio a religiosa consuetudine, quæ a nostris recepto jam verbo excommunicatio dicitur.

6 Magdeb. Cent. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7, Judicabant dogmata et promulgabant eorum damnationes, una cum personis quæ quidem res nihil aliud quam publica excommunicatio erat, John ix. 22; xi. 47, 48; xii. 42. Et infra. Extra synagogam fieret, hoc est excommunicaretur.

to their cherem answereth our excommunication from the church, and that the Jews had the very same kind of excommunication by which the incestuous Corinthian, Hymeneus and Philetus, and the Emperor Theodosius were excommunicated.1 Constantinus L'Empereur, Annot, in Rempub. Jud., p. 370-378, holdeth the same thing which Bertramus holdeth concerning the Jewish excommunication, and which hath now been cited. Godwin, in his Moses and Aaron, lib. 5, cap. 1, speaketh of the ecclesiastical court of the Jews, unto which, saith he, belonged the power of excommunication; the several sorts of which censure he explaineth, cap. 2, namely, niddui, cherem and schammata; after all which he begins, cap. 3, to speak of civil courts of the Jews, a distinct government.

Grotius, annot. in Luke vi. 23, compares the Jewish excommunication with that which was exercised by the Druids in France, who did interdicere sacrificiis, interdict and prohibit from their sacrifices impious and obstinate persons; yea, those who were excommunicate by niddui, or the lesser excommunication, he likens to those penitents or mourners in the ancient Christian church, who were said to be ἐν προκλαύσει, qui non cum cæteris orabant, &c. He tells us the ancient Christians did in divers things follow the Jewish discipline, and, among others, in excommunication. He cites the same passage of Tertullian which is cited by Mr Selden, concerning a shutting out a communicatione orationis, et conventus, et omnis, sancti commercii, which is as full and high a description of the ecclesiastical censure of excommunication as any can be; so that the Jewish excommunication being paralleled with that excommunication which Tertullian speaks of, and which was practised in the ancient Christian church, what more can be required in this particular? And here I cannot but take notice that Mr Prynne doth very much mistake and misrepresent Mr Selden,

1 De Repub. Ebr. cap. 7, Legis sanctio triplex, etc. Prima est aversatio, amolitio et amandatio, etc. Secunda est devotio extremo cuidam exitio, excommunicatio: quando videlicet aliquis excindi dicebatur ex populo suo, et in eo amplius non censeri (ut jam supra exposuimus) ex majore aliquo delicto. Atque hoc puto esse &xoavvάywy, fieri, etc. Primæ illæ speciei respondet quod in ecclesiis nostris vocamus prohibitionem seu suspensionem a sacramentis: secundæ excommunicatio publice facta.

as if he held the Jewish excommunication to have been no more but a shutting out from civil company or fellowship, whereas he clearly holds (lib. 4, de Jure Nat. et Gent. cap. 9, p. 522), that he who was excommunicated by the Jewish cherem, was put away and cast off from fellowship in prayer, and from all religious fellowship, even as Tertullian speaks of excommunicated persons in the church.

Lud. Capellus in Spicilegio, upon Job ix. 22, speaking of the common distinction of the three degrees of the Jewish excommunication, doth plainly bear witness to that which I plead for, namely, that there was a Jewish excommunication from communion in the holy things. I confess he understands the cherem and the schammata otherwise than I do, for he takes the cherem to be nihil aliud, nothing else than the forfeiture of a man's substance for the use of the sanctuary (whereas it is certain there was a cherem of persons as well as of things, and the formula of the cherem, which shall be cited afterward, contain another thing than forfeiture), and schammata he takes to be the devoting of men to death, and that being shammatised they must needs die, (and yet the Jews did shammatise the Cuthites or Samaritans, as we shall see afterward, whom they had not power to put to death). However, he speaks of the niddui as a mere ecclesiastical censure, and therefore tells us it was formidable to the godly, it being a shutting out from communion in the holy things, but not formidable to wicked men, which must be upon this reason, because wicked men did care little or nothing for any censure or punishment, except what was civil; he granteth also that niddui was included in the other two, so that in all three there was a shutting out from the holy things.

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I must not forget the testimony of my countryman, Mr Weymes, in his Christian Synagogue, lib. 1, cap. 6, sect. 3, par. 7, They had three sorts of excommunication; first the lesser, then the middle sort, then the greatest. The lesser was called niddui; and in the New Testament they were called άorvváywyn, put out of the synagogue; and they hold that Cain was excommu

1 Harum trium excommunicationis specierum vel potius graduum, secunda primam, tertia utramque includebat. Prima piis quidem Judæis erat formidabilis, quia per eam a sacrorum communione submovebantur, at qui minus pii erant ea non magnopere movebantur.

nicated this way. The second was called cherem or anathema; with this sort of excommunication was the incestuous person censured, 2 Cor. ii. The third schammata: they hold that Enoch instituted it, Jude, ver. 14; and after, these who were aπorvváywy, put out of the synagogue, were not simply secluded from the temple, but suffered to stand in the gate, &c. ; these who were excommunicated by the second sort of excommunication, were not permitted to come near the temple; these who were excommunicated after the third sort, were secluded out of the society of the people of God altogether."

And thus I have produced fifteen witnesses for the ecclesiastical excommunication of the Jews. I might produce many more, but I have made choice of these, because all of them have taken more than ordinary pains in searching the Jewish antiquities, and divers of them are of greatest note for their skill therein.

In the next place, let us observe the causes, degrees, manner and rites, how the authority by which the ends and effects of excommunication among the Jews, and see whether all these do not help to make their excommunication a pattern for ours. For the causes: There were twenty-four causes for which a man was excommunicated among the Jews. You may read them in Buxtorff's Lexicon Chald. Talmud et Rabbin, p. 1304, 1305; Mr Selden, de Jure Nat. et Gentium, lib. 4, cap. 8; J. Coch, Annot. in Excerp. Gem. Sanhedrim, cap. 2, p. 147. Divers of these causes did not at all concern personal or civil injuries (for such injuries were not accounted causes of excommunication, but were to be punished otherwise, as shall be proved afterward), but matters of scandal, by which God was dishonoured, and the stumbling-block of an evil example laid before others. One cause was the despising of any of the precepts of the law of Moses, or statutes of the scribes; another was the selling of land to a Gentile; another was a priest not separating the gifts of the oblation; another, he that in captivity doth not iterate or observe the second time a holy day; another, he that doth any servile work upon Easter eve; another, he that

1 Buxtorf. Lexic. Rabbin. p. 2463 ex Pesachim fol. 50. Qui vespera Sabbathi et aliorum dierum festorum operas serviles facit, infaustum illud quidem est, neque videt signum benedictionis, sed non