1. Publicans are, even then, when compared with, yet distinguished
from, the heathen; "Let him be to thee as an heathen man and a
publican," Matt. xviii.; which two terms, I think, must not here be
applied to one and the self-same man, as if the heathen was a
publican, or the publican a heathen; but to men of two distinct
nations, as that publican and harlot is to be understood of sinners
of both sexes. The Publican is not an harlot, for he is a man, &c.,
and such a man as has been described before. So by publicans and
sinners, is meant publicans and such sinners as the Gentiles were; or
such as, by the text, the Publican is distinguished from: where the
Pharisee saith he was not an extortioner, unjust, adulterer, or even
as this Publican. Nor can he by "heathen man" intend the person, and
by the term publican, the office or place, of the heathen man; but by
publican is meant the renegade Jew, in such a place, &c., as is yet
further manifested by that which follows. For -

2. Those publicans, even every one of them that by name are made
mention of in the New Testament, have such names put upon them; yea,
and other circumstances thereunto annexed, as doth demonstrate them
to be Jews. I remember the names of no more but three, to wit,
Matthew, Levi, and Zaccheus, and they were all Jews.

(1.) Matthew was a Jew, and the same Matthew was a publican; yea,
and also afterwards an apostle. He was a Jew, and wrote his gospel
in Hebrew: he was an apostle, and is therefore found among the
twelve. That he was a publican too, is as evident by his own words;
for though Mark and Luke, in their mentioning of his name and
apostleship, do forbear to call him a publican (Mark iii. 18; Luke
vi. l6); yet when this Matthew comes to speak of himself, he calls
himself Matthew the publican (Matth. x. 3); for I count this the