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PART the THIRD.

CONTAINING

A Defence of the Literal Story of JESUS's caufing the BARRENFIG-TREE to Wither away,

AND

His Turning the WATER into WINE.

T is a True and a well-known Obfervation of the Lord Bacon, that a little Philofophy inclines Mens Minds to Atheism, but that Depth in Philofophy brings them about to Religion again: and it may as juftly be faid, that a flender Acquaintance with the

Scripture furnifhes Men with Doubts and Objections, from which a thorough Knowledge of it would foon ease them. A greater Inftance of this can fcarcely be given than in the fix Difcourfes not long fince publifhed upon our Saviour's Miracles, in which every Intelligent Reader must be at a lofs, whether he should moft admire the Boldness or the Ignorance of the Author; for thro' the Whole there appears fuch an Unacquaintedness with the Jewish Hiftory, Customs and Forms of fpeaking, as fhews that there are Arts which Mr. W is not enough Mafter of; and fuch a want of Sincerity in his Quotations and Applications of them, as fhews that there is an Art which he is too much Mafter of.

IN oppofition to what he has fo boldly advanced in those Dif courfes, my firft Part began (where every Rational Apology for the Truth of the Chriftian Revelation fhould begin) with fhewing by Direct Proof, that Jefus did truly Raife himself from the Dead, as he had foretold; that the profefs'd Witnesses of his Refurrection could not poffibly be Deceiv'd in this Matter, the Evidence which they had for it being fuch as excluded all Miftake, upon any Suppofition whatever; and that there is as ftrong Proof of their not intending to Deceive us by a Falfe Teftimony, as any Fact is capable of receiving, nay more than any other Fact in the World ever did receive.

AND this fure Foundation being laid, the Confequence, which was then drawn from it, feems clear and undeniable, viz.

that

that if Jefus wrought this One Miracle, which muft be allowed to have been the greatest that could be wrought, it is Unrea fonable, it is Perverfe, not to allow the Reality of the Other Miracles which the Evangelifts afcribe to him: And therefore all Objections raised against the Literal Story of them, (if they could be answered no other way), yet might receive a fatisfactory Answer by saying, that the Miracle being a True one, it is highly Improbable that any of the Circumftances, with which the Story of it is told, were otherwife. Things may feem ftrange and difficult to Us at fuch a distance of time, and this is eafily accounted for; but there is no account to be given, why the Evangelifts fhould, in relating a Real Miracle, add fuch falfe Circumstances to it, as would help to deftroy its Credit. that the Question comes to this, whether an Apoftle or Mr. W. is to be Believed; an Apostle who was Eye-witness to the Fact, or Mr. W. who was no Eye-witnefs, and whom in feveral other Inftances I have proved to be a Falfe Witness.

So

WITH this Evidence then in hand I enter'd (in my fecond Part) upon a particular Examination of the two firft Miracles of Jefus, which Mr. W. had objected to, and I endeavoured to clear the Literal Story of them from all the Difficulties which he had loaded them with: and in the course of this Enquiry I now and then set before him fome Inftances of the Difingenuity of his Quotations from the Fathers and others, that he might at leaft fee that he was discover'd, and never expect that his bare Word fhould pafs for Current in any Argument hereafter.

MY prefent Design is to do the fame by two more of the Miracles, which he has endeavoured to expofe; but as I am not bound to follow the Order in which he has plac'd the Miracles, (a Thing of no weight either to his Caufe or Mine), I have fingled out thofe which he profeffes to have treated the moft Ludicrously, and which I thought to want the most help towards vindicating the Literal account of them. I fhall therefore without further Preface enter upon

III. THE Story of (p) Jesus's curfing the Fig-tree, not defpairing to convince even Him, that it was neither an Abfurd, Foolish and Ridiculous, nor a Malicious and Ill-natur'd Act, as he has been pleas'd in his mannerly way to call it, in Difc. iii. p. 4.

THE Reader may not be at leifure enough to approve of a Solemn Answer to every Trifle; and therefore I fhall confine myfelf to fuch Objections made by Mr. W, against the Literal account of this Miracle, as are of moft Weight, and may feem to deserve some Confideration; and they are thefe Three.

HOW could Jefus expect to find Fruit upon this Fig-tree, when the time of Figs was not yet? p. 6.

(p) See St. Matt. xxi. 19, &c. and St. Mark xi. 13, &c.

D 4

WHAT

WHAT Legal Right had he to the Fruit, if he had found any on the Tree? P. 8. and

WHAT Right had he to fmite the Tree with a Curse, when it was none of his Property? p. 8.

IS. THE firft of these Questions has indeed something Material in it, because as St. Mark xi. 13. reports this Fact in our Tranflation, there is more room for Cavil than in any other Inftance which Mr. W. has fingled out to quarrel with: St. Mark's words are thefe, And feeeing a Fig-tree afar off having Leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon; and when he came to it, he found nothing but Leaves, for the time of Figs was not yet. AT firft fight any Candid Reader would imagine, that the Paffage was fome how misunderstood, and that the Evangelift, who writes fo good fenfe in the other parts of his Gospel, would not have write downright Nonfenfe in This.

AND therefore I fhall endeavour to clear up this Matter; for the doing of which I fhall fhew two things, viz. that at the time when Jesus went up to the Fig-tree, it was a Season to expect to find ripe Figs in Judea; and fecondly, that the words of St. Mark may be understood fo as to be confiftent with this Circumftance.

WHOEVER reads the Gofpels carefully may be convinc'd that the Day, on which Jefus wrought this Miracle on the Figtree, was about the eleventh of the firft Jewish Month called Nifan, or Tuesday before the Paffoever: Mr. W. indeed fays, that (q) there are no grounds from the Text to think fo; but there are grounds from that Text compar'd with others, and the Proof of it is fo plain that none but one, whofe Understanding is perplex'd or his Will depraved, could well mifs it: For it is well known, that the Jews kept the Paffover on the fourteenth day of their Firft Month, Nifan; which (being a Lunar Month, as all their Months were, and therefore beginning with the firft appearance of the New Moon) began fometimes Earlier, and fometimes Later in the Year; if the Year be confider'd purely as Solar, as it is among Us: And to this fhifting of Nifan in the Solar Year We have endeavoured to adapt the keeping of our Eafter, in Commemoration of our Saviour's Refurrection, upon the Sunday next after the fifteenth of the Jewish Month Nifan; and therefore with Us Eafter falls fometimes as Early as the 22d of March, and fometimes as Late as the 25th of April.

THE Point then to be enquir'd into is this; Whether about three days before the Paffover, or about the eleventh day of Nifan, there used to be any Figs in Judaa fo Ripe, as to be fit for gathering and eating.

THAT Some Fruits of the Earth were then Ripe, we may be Sure: For (r) Jofephus fays, that at the time of the Paffover

(+) De Bello Jud. lib. 4. c. 7. x 7 xαрπ@v

(9) Pag. 29. τὸς ἀκμαίος ἁρπάσαντες, δε

fome

fome Jewish Robbers made an Excurfion from the Caftle of Maffada, and carried off all the Ripe Fruits belonging to the Town of Engaddi.

WE find alfo, that the Month Nifan was called Abib, or rather was described by its being the Month of Abib, i. e. of the growing Ripe of the Fruits of the Earth: And the Jewish Harveft always began in their Month Nifan; for by comparing Jo'fhua, chap. iii. 25. and chap. iv. 19. together, it appears that on the tenth day of their firft Month Nifan, the Ifraelites paffed over Jordan, and it then (s) overflowed its banks, which (as is there faid) is ufed to do all the time of the Harvest.

AGREEABLY to which, mention is made in Levit. chap. ii. and chap. xxiii. of the First-Fruits, which were to be offer'd up to God on the morrow of the Sabbath, which followed the Paffover. A Sheaf of the Firft-Fruits was to be waved before the Lord; and, to make a Meat-offering of those First-Fruits, the Green (Abib Ripe) ears of Corn, (i. e. of Barley, which was the fooneft Ripe) were to be dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.

THE Cafe was, that the Barley and many other Fruits were always Ripe in Judea at the time of the Passover; if the Jews found (before the Month of Nifan began), that there was no likelihood of their being Ripe about the time of the Paffover, or fourteenth of Nifan, they were wont to intercalate a Month, calling it Ve-adar or Adar over again, and placing it between the laft Month Adar, and the firft Month Nifan. By the help of this it always happen'd, that their Barley and earliest Fruits were Ripe at the time of the Paffover: (t) On the second day after it began, the folemn offering of the Firft-Fruits (before mention'd) was made in the Temple; till this was done, (u) no Few was allow'd to reap his Barley, or gather his Fruits into his Store-houfe; and as foon as this was done, the Harvest and Ingathering began in Judea; which continued for fifty days without any or with very little Intermiffion, the Wheat-Harveft following immediately after the Barley-Harveft, as appears from Ruth ii. 23. and from 2 Sam. xxi. 9. And at the end of those days, viz. on the day of Pentecoft, called the Feast of the Har

(s) This overflowing of Jordan was probably occafioned by the latter rain (as the Scriptures call it), which always fell in Judea a little before the time of the Harvest, and therefore came very seafonably to plump their Grain and Fruits, before they were reap'd or gather'd.

(t) Thefe Circumstances are Confirm'd by Jofephus in Antiq. Jud. lib. 3. c. 10. τῇ δαιτέρα 7 Αζύμων ἡμέρα, έκλη δ ̓ ἐςὶν αὕτη καὶ δεκάτη, 7 καρπῶν, ὃς ἐθέρισαν, (ε η ψαν το πρότερον αὐτῶν μεταλαμβάνεσιν καὶ Ἡ Θεὸν ἡγόμενοι τιμῶν δίκαιον ἐν πρῶτον, παρ' ο τ απορίας τέτων έτυχον, τὰς ἀπαρχὰς αὐτῷ επιφέρεσι τρόπον τόνον &ς. (u) Levit. xxiii. 14.

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vest,

weft, Exod. xxii. 16. the Jews offer'd up two Cakes made of New Wheat, which were the First-Fruits of the Bread spoken of in Levit. xxiii. 17. and (x) with this Offering their Harveft was closed. THE defign of mentioning these things is, to fhew when the Harvest began in Judea; the Ufe of which Obfervation will appear in what follows.

WE come now to enquire, whether it is likely, that Figs were Ripe (as fome other Fruits were) about the time of the Paflover, when our Saviour is faid to have fought for them: And indeed there feems to be little Difficulty in the Cafe, if we only Suppofe, that in Judea they cultivated that Sort of Fig-trees, which the Greeks diftinguish'd by the name of Bigoes, and the Latins of bifera, upon account of their regularly producing two Crops of Figs in the Year: Of thefe (y) Pliny mentions two Sorts, the White and the Black, and describes them as having one Crop Ripe at the time of Harvest, and the other at the time of Vintage: The Figs, which are most common with Us, both the White, and what our Gardiners call the Blue (the fame with Pliny's Black), are of that Sort, tho' the fecond Crop comes but feldom to perfection in England. If then the Fig-trees in Judea were of this double-bearing fort; and if they kept pace with the Harveft and Vintage, as Pliny defcribes them to do, the first Crop would generally be Ripe at or about the time of the Paflover, i. e. at the time of the Jewish Harveft, and fome few forward Figs of that Crop a little Earlier; and then fome of the fecond Crop might well have accompanied the Grapes, which the Spies brought out of Canaan, upon their Return from fearching the Land.

BESIDES (2) Jofephus tells us, that at the End of the Winter Herod befieged Ferufalem, and that, after a Siege of five Months, it was taken in the third Month, i. e. the Month Sivan, which answers to the last half of our May, and the first of our June, (or at lateft) to thelaft half of our June and the first of our July: Count then back from thence, and you will find that the Winter ended, and the Spring began in Judea about the middle of our January, or (at the lateft) about the (a) middle of our

(x) See Fuller's Mifcel. Sacr. lib. 3. C. II.

() Nat. Hift. lib. 15. c. 18. Sunt præterea eadem ferotinæ & præcoces, bifere, alba ac nigra, cum messe vindemiâque maturefcentes. On which F. Hardouin's Note is This; Sunt præterea (inquit) biferæ, alba nigraque quæ & ferotinum eædem cum vindemiâ, & præcocem pariter cum mele ferant.

(x) Compare what he fays De Bello Jud. lib. 1. cap. 17, 18, with what he fays in Antiq. Jud. Lib. 14. c. 16. Edit. Hudson.

(a) Rather about the middle of January, than that of February; for in Italy, which lies not fo much to the Southward as Judea, the Spring according to Ovid began on February 9.

Quintus ab æquoreis nitidum jubar extulit undis
Lucifer, & primi tempora Veris erunt.

Faft. ii. 149.

February.

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