Exercitation 16

Other Considerations proving the Messiah to be long since come. Fluctuation of the Jews about the Person and Work of the Messiah. Their state and condition in the world for sixteen Ages. Promises of the Covenant made with them of old. All fulfilled to the expiration of that Covenant. Not now made good to them. Reason thereof. The Promise of the Land of Canaan failed. Of protection and Temporal deliverance. Spirit of Prophecy departed. Covenant expired. Jews exceptions. Their prosperity. Their sins. Of their fore-fathers; of themselves. Vanity of these exceptions. Concessions of the Antient Jews. Folly of Talmudical Doctors. Traditions of the Birth of the Messiah before the destruction of the second Temple. Tradition of the School of Elias; about the worlds continuance. Answers of the Jews to our Arguments, by way of concession. The time prolonged, because of their sins. Vanity of this pretence. Not the Jews only but the Gentiles concerned in the coming of the Messiah. The Promise not Conditional. Limitations of time not capable of conditions. No mention of any such condition. The condition supposed overthrows the Promise. The Jews in the use of this plea, self condemned. The Covenant overthrown by it. The Messiah may never come upon it.

To the invincible Testimonies before insisted on, we may add some other § 1 considerations taken from the Jews themselves, that are both suitable to their conviction, and of use to strengthen the faith of them who do believe. And the first thing that offers its self to us, is their miserable fluctuation and uncertainty in the whole Doctrine about the Messiah ever since the time of his coming and their rejection of him.

That the great fundamental of their profession from the days of Abraham, and that § 2 which all their Worship was founded in, and had respect to, was the promise of the coming of the Messiah, we have before sufficiently proved. Until the time of his coming, this they were unanimous in, as also in their desires and expectations of his Advent. Since that time, as they have utterly lost all faith in him, as to the great end for which he was promised, so all truth as to the Doctrine concerning his Person, Office and Work plentifully delivered in the Old Testament.

In their Talmud. Tractat. Sanedr. they do nothing but wrangle, conjecture and contend about him, and that under such notions and apprehensions of him as the Scripture giveth no countenance to. When he shall come, and how, where he shall be born, and what he shall do, they wrangle much about, but are not able to determine any thing at all; at which uncertainty, the Holy Ghost never left the Church in things of so great importance. Hence some of them adhered to Barcosby for the Messiah, a bloody Rebel; and some of them in after ages to David el David a wandring Jugler, and Moses Cretensis, and sundry other pretenders have they given up themselves to be deluded by (as of late to the foolish Apostate Sabadia with his false Prophets, R. Levi and Nathan) who never made the least appearance of any one character of the true Messiah, as Maimonides confesseth and bewaileth. The Disputes of their late Masters, have not any thing more of certainty or consistency, then those of their Talmudical Progenitors. And this at length has driven them, to the present miserable relief of their infidelity and despair, asserting that he shall not come until immediately before the Resurrection of the dead, only they take care that some small time may be left for them to enjoy wealth and pleasure, with dominion over the Edomites and Ishmalites, that is, Christians and Turks under whom they live, as yet full of thoughts of revenge and retaliation in the days of their Messiah. Now whereunto can any man ascribe this fluctuation and uncertainty, in and about that which was the great fundamental Article of the faith of their Fore-fathers, and their utter renuntiation of the true Notion and Knowledge of the Messiah. But to this, that having long ago renounced him, they exercise their thoughts and expectation about a Chimoera of their own Brains, which having no substance in its self, nor foundation in any work or word of God, can afford them no certainty or satisfaction in their contemplation about it?

§ 3 Again, The state and condition of this people for the space of above sixteen hundred and thirty years, gives evidence to the truth contended for. The whole time of the continuance of their Church, State and Worship, from the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, to the final destruction of the City and Temple by Titus, was not above sixteen hundred and thirty years, or sixteen hundred and forty upon the longest account, allowing all their former Captivities and intermissions of Government into the reckoning. They have then continued in a state of dispersion and rejection from God as long as ever they were accepted for his Church and people, what their condition has been in the world for these sixteen Ages is known to all, and what may be from there concluded, we shall distinctly consider.

§ 4 When God took the Jews to be his people, he did it by a special and solemn Covenant. In this Covenant he gave them promises, which were all made good to them to the utmost date, and expiration of it in the coming of the Messiah. And they principally respected these three heads. First, That they should possess the Land of Canaan, and there enjoy that worship which he had prescribed to them (see Exodus 6:4; chapter 34:10, 11; Leviticus 26:8, 9; Deuteronomy 18:18; chapter 29:13; Psalm 105:10, 11). Secondly, That he would defend them from their adversaries, or if at any time he gave them up to be punished and chastised for their sins: yet upon their repentance and supplications made to him, he would deliver them from their oppressors (Deuteronomy 30:1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Nehemiah 1:9; Deuteronomy 32:35, 36, 37; 1 Kings 8:34). Thirdly, That he would continue prophets among them to instruct them in his will, and to reclaim them from their miscarriage (Deuteronomy 18:18). The whole Pentateuch, all their divine writings are full of promises about these things. And as we said, until the time limited for the expiration of that special Covenant, they were all made good to them. That it was to expire, themselves are forced to acknowledge, because of the express promise of a new, or another Covenant to be made not like to it (Jeremiah 32). The land given them by inheritance, and the place designed for the worship of God therein, were continued in their possession, notwithstanding the mighty attempts made by the nations of the world for their extirpation. And when at any time he gave them up for a season, to the power of their adversaries, because of their sins and provocations, as to the Babylonians in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and afterwards to the Graecians or Syrians in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes: yet still he foretold them of their condition, promised them deliverance from it, and in a short time accomplished it, though it could not be done without the ruin of other kingdoms and empires. The oppression of the Babylonians continued but seventy years; and the persecution of Antiochus prevailed only for three years and half. Prophets also he raised up to them in their several generations: yes, in the time of their great distress; as Jeremiah at the time of their desolation: Ezekiel and Daniel in Babylon: Haggai and Zechariah, in their poverty after their return, which dispensation ceased not, until they pointed out to them the end of the Covenant, and told them that the Messiah should come speedily and suddenly to his Temple (Malachi 3:1, 2).

§ 5 The present Jews (I hope) will not deny, but that God is faithful still, and as able to accomplish his promises, as he was in the days of old. Let us then enquire whether they enjoy any one thing promised them in the Covenant, or any thing relating thereunto, or have done so since the days wherein, as we have proved, the Messiah was to come. (1.) For the country given to them by Covenant, and the place of God's worship therein, the whole world knows, and themselves continually complain, that strangers possess it, they being utterly extirpated and cast out of it. It is with them all, as it was with Abraham before the grant of the inheritance was accomplished, they have not possession of one foot in it in any propriety, no not for a burying place. Their Temple is destroyed, and all their attempts for the restoration of it, which God so blessed of old, frustrated, yes ceased. Their daily sacrifice is ceased, and whatever they substitute in the room of it, is an open abomination to the Lord. We need not insist on these things. The stories of their ruin, exile, vain attempts to recover their land, of their forefathers, of the utter pollution of the places of their worship are known to themselves, and all men that take care to know anything of these things. Where is now the Covenant of the Land of Canaan? Was it to be absolutely everlasting? From where comes it to pass, that the great promise of it does utterly fail? Was it to expire? What period can be assigned to its duration, but only that of the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of a New Covenant in him? Is not the denial hereof, the ready way to make the men of the world turn atheists, and to look upon the Scriptures of the Old Testament as a mere fable, when they shall be taught that the promises contained in it, were but conjectures, deceitful words, that came to nothing.

Again, How are they delivered from their adversaries? § 6 How are they defended from their oppressors? There is not a known nation in the world, wherein they live not, either openly or privately, in exile and banishment from their own land. About their oppressions, and against their oppressors they have cried out, and prayed after their manner for many generations. Where is the protection, the deliverance promised? If the time be not yet expired for the coming of the Messiah, why are they not delivered? What word is there in the Law, or the Prophets, that they shall not be delivered out of temporal distresses any other way but by the Messiah? Has it not been otherwise with them? Were they not delivered from former oppressions and captivities, by other means? Could not God of old have dispossessed the Romans of the Land of Canaan, and afterwards the Saracens, and can he not now the Turks, as easily as he did the Babylonians, Persians and Graecians? If the Covenant of those promises be not expired in the coming of the Messiah, what account can they give of these things?

Further, where are the Prophets, promised to them? Can they name one since the days of John Baptist, whom they owned for a Prophet? Has any one among them pretended to any such thing, whom the event, and themselves thereon have not discovered to be an Impostor? Such was Theudas, and Moses Cretensis, with some few others. Is it not strange, that they who never long wanted a Prophet in their streights and difficulties, and sometimes had many of them together, should now in their utmost misery, wanderings and darkness, be left utterly destitute of any one for a thousand six hundred years, and upwards? It is the general confession of all their Masters, that they have left the Holy Ghost, or Spirit of Prophecy. After the finishing of the second Temple, they say, and they say truly, that Prophecy ceased. [illegible]; says Saadias Haggeon on Daniel the 9th. Israel had no Prophet after the finishing of the second house, but those who enjoyed the Bath Kol. But what is now become of that Bath Kol also for a thousand six hundred years? Is not all pretence of Revelations utterly departed? What then is become of that Covenant wherein it was promised to them? Yes, we know that they have not only left the Holy Ghost, as a spirit of Prophecy; but also as a spirit of grace and supplications; so that besides a few superstitious forms repeated by number and tale; there is no such thing as prayer among them; as some of their late Masters have acknowledged.

What reason now can be assigned of this state and condition of things, but only that the Covenant wherein the good things mentioned were promised to them, had a time limited to it, when it was to give place to a new one of another nature. And this the Jews acknowledge is to take date from the coming of the Messiah. God is faithful, unchangeable, able to make good his promises and his word to the utmost. The present Jews are no less Jews of the carnal seed of Abraham, than their forefathers were. It cannot be then but that the Covenant made with them, until the coming of the Messiah, is long since expired. And therefore also, that he is long since come.

Two things in general, the Jews reply to these considerations, the one, as they have occasion and advantage, the other, openly and constantly. The first which they only mention, as they have occasion, is the prosperity of some of their Nation in this or that Country, with the honor and riches, that some of them have attained to. To this purpose, they tell us stories of their number and wealth in the East, out of Benjamin Tudulensis and others, with the riches of some of them in the Western parts of the world also. But themselves know that none of these things, not one of them, was promised to them in the Covenant that God made with them upon Mount Horeb. All the promises of it respected the Land of Canaan, with their preservation there, or return there. What they get abroad in the world, elsewhere under the power and dominion of other Nations, befalls them in a way of common providence, as the like things do the vilest wretches of the earth, and not in a way of any especial promise. And therefore when Daniel and Nehemiah, with others, were exalted to glory and riches among the Babylonians and Persians, yet they rested not therein, but pleaded the Covenant of God for their restoration to the Land promised to Abraham. And to suppose that the wealth of a few Jews up and down the world, gotten by Physick, or Usury, or farming of Customs, is an accomplishment of the promises before insisted on, is openly to despise the promises, and the Author of them?

But it is pleaded, secondly, by them, That it is for their sins that the coming of the Messiah is thus retarded and prolonged. But it is not about the coming of the Messiah, directly and immediately, that they are pressed withal in these considerations; that which we enquire about, is their present state, and their long continuance therein, with the reason of it; only aiming to find out and discover the true cause thereof. This, they say, is because of their sins; and this also in general we grant, but yet must further enquire, what they intend thereby. I ask therefore whether it be for the sins of their forefathers, who lived before the last final dispersion, or for their sins, who have since lived in their several Generations, that they are thus utterly forsaken. If they shall say, it is for the sins of their forefathers, as Manasseh plainly does, Quest. 43. in Gen. p. 65. and sundry others of them do the same, then I desire to know whether they think God to be changed from what he was of old, or whether he be not still every way the same as to all the promises of the Covenant. Supposing they will say that he is still the same, I desire to know whether he did not in former times, in the days of their Judges and Kings, especially in the Babylonian Captivity punish them for their sins, with that contemperation of justice and mercy, which was agreeable to the tenor of the Covenant. This I suppose they will not deny, the Scripture speaking so fully to it, and the righteousness of God requiring it. I desire then to know what were the sins of their forefathers, before the destruction of the second Temple, and your final dispersion, which so much, according to the rules of the Covenant, exceeded the sins of them who lived before the desolation of the first Temple, and the captivity that ensued; for we know that the sins of those former were punished only with a dispersion, which some of them saw the beginning and ending of; the duration of the whole of it not exceeding seventy years, after which they were returned again to their own Land.

But the captivity and dispersion which has befallen them upon the sins of those who lived before the destruction of the second Temple, as they were in their manner and entrance much more terrible, dreadful and tremendious then the former; so they have now continued in them above twenty times seventy years without any promise of a recovery. God being still the same that he was, if the Old Covenant with the Jews be still in force. The difference between this dispensation must arise from the difference of the sins of the one sort of persons, and the other. Now of all the sins, which on the general account of the Law of God, the sons of men can make themselves guilty of, Idolatry doubtless is the greatest: the choosing of other Gods is a compleat renunciation of the true one. And therefore comprised in it all other sins whatever, for casting off the yoke of God, and our dependance on him as the first cause, and last end of all, it does that in gross, and by whole-sale, which other sins do only by retail; and therefore is this sin forbidden in the head of the Law, as intimating, that if the command of owning the true God, and him alone, be not adhered to, it is to no purpose to apply our selves to them that follow. Now it is known to all that this sin of Idolatry abounded among them under the first Temple, and that also for a long continuance, attended with violence, adulteries, persecution and oppression, but that those under the second Temple had contracted the guilt of this sin, the present Jews do not pretend; and we know that they hated all appearance of it. Nor are they able to assign any other sins whatever, wherein they went higher in their provocations, then their progenitors under the first Temple. What then is the cause of the different event and success between them before insisted on? It cannot be, but that either they have contracted the guilt of some sin, wherewith God was more displeased, then with the Idolatry of their fore-fathers, or that the Covenant made with them is expired, or that there has been a coincidence of both these; and that indeed is the condition of things with them. The Messiah came, in whom the carnal Covenant was to expire, and they rejected and slew him, justly deserving their perpetuall rejection from it, and disinheritance.

§ 11 Sometimes they will plead, that it is for their own sins and the sins of the generations that succeeded the destruction of the second Temple, that they are kept thus long in misery and captivity. But we know, that they use this plea only as a covering for their obstinate blindness and infidelity. Take them from this dispute, and they are continually boasting of their righteousness and holiness, for they do not only assure us that they are better then all the world besides, but also much better then their fore-fathers, as Manasse plainly affirms in the place before cited, and that on the day of Expiation, that is, once a year; they are as holy as the Angels in Heaven. There are therefore one or two things which I would desire to know of them, as to this pretence of their own sins, which on another account must also be afterwards insisted on.

First then, whereas it is a principle of their faith, that all Jews excepting apostates are so holy and righteous, that they shall all be saved, have all a portion in the blessed world to come, from where is it that none of them, are so righteous as to be returned into the Land of Canaan? Is it not strange, that that righteousness which serves the turn to bring them all to Heaven, will not serve to bring any one of them to Jerusalem. This latter being more openly and frequently promised to them then the former. I know not how to solve this difficulty; ipsi viderint.

Again, repentance from their sins is a thing wholly in their own power, or it is not; if they shall say, it is in their own power, as generally they do; I desire to know why they defer it? The brave imaginations that they have of the levelling of mountains, the dividing of rivers, the singing of woods, and dancing of trees, of the coaches and chariots of kings to carry them, as also their riding upon the shoulders of their rich neighbours into Jerusalem, the conquest of the world, the eating of Behemoth, and drinking the wine of Paradice, the riches, wives, and long life that they shall have in the dayes of the Messiah, do make them as they pretend, patiently endure all their long exile, and calamitie. And can this not prevail with them for a little repentance, which they may perform when they please, with a wet finger, and so obtain them all in a trice? If they are so evidently blind, foolish and mad, in and about that which they look upon as their only great concernment in this world, have they not great cause to be jealous, lest they are also equally blind in other things, and particularly in that wherein we charge them with blindness? This it seems is the state of these things. Unless they repent, the Messiah will not come; unless he come, they cannot be delivered out of their calamitie nor enjoy the promises. To repent is a thing in their own power, which yet they had rather endure all miseries, and foregoe all the promises of God then take in hand, or go through with it. And what shall we say to such a perverse generation of men, who openly proclaim, that they will live in their sins, though they have never more to do with God to eternity. If they shall say, that repentance is the gift of God, and that without his powring forth his Spirit upon them, they cannot attain to it, then I desire to know from where it is that God does not give them repentance, as he did to their fore-fathers, if the Covenant continue established with them, as in former dayes? From what has been discoursed, it does sufficiently appear that the state and condition of the Jews has been such in the world, for these sixteen hundred years, as manifests the end of their special Covenant to be long since come, and consequently the Messiah, in whom it was to expire.

There is one of them, a nameless person, not unlearned, who has written somewhat § 12 lately in the Portugal language, which is translated into Latin by Brenius the Socinian, who gives so satisfactory an answer in his own conceit, to this argument, that he concludes, that every one who is not obstinate, or blinded with corrupt affections, must needs acquiesce therein. His confidence, if not his reasons, deserves our consideration, especially considering that he offers somewhat new to us, which their former masters did not insist upon.

That then which he returns as an Answer, to the enquiry of the Causes and Reasons of their present long captivities and miserie, is the sins of their fore-fathers under the first Temple. The greatness of these sins, he says, is expressed by the Prophet Ezekiel, Chap. 16.48. As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your Sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as though hast done, you and your daughters. To which he adds, Isa. 1:9. where mention is made again of Sodom. So that this Captivity is to them, in the room of such a destruction, as Sodom was overthrown withall.

But it may be said, that these sins what ever they were, were expiated in the Babylonish Captivity, and pardoned to them upon their return. So that now they must suffer, on the account of their sins committed under the second Temple; to which he replyes, that this exception is of no force. Nam liberatio e Babilone nihil aliud suit, quam exploratio, qua Deus experiri voluit, an cum restitutione Regni & Templi possint abbreviari, & expiari enormia ista, quae commiscerant, adulterii, homicidii, & Idolatriae peccata; sed pro antecedentium debitorum solutione, quam prestare debuerunt, nova insuper debita accumulaverunt. For the deliverance from Babylon was nothing but a tryal, whereby God would make an experiment, whether with the restitution of their Kingdom and Temple, these enormous sins of Adultery, Murder and Idolatry which they had committed, might have been cut off and expiated, but instead of a discharge of their former arrears, which they were obliged to, they heaped up new debts by their sins. Thus he. At their deliverance out of Babylon the people had no discharge of their former sins by the pardon of them; but were only tryed how they would afresh acquit themselves, with a resolution in God, that if they made not satisfaction, then for those sins, to charge the guilt of them again upon themselves and all their posterity, for all the generations that are passed, untill this day. But First, This is plainly a fiction of this mans own devising. Let him produce any one word, from the Scripture where it treats of these things, in the least giving countenance thereunto; or let him shew, how this procedure is suitable to the Justice of God, either to the general notion that we have of it, or as to any other instance recorded of it in the Scripture.

But if these men may fain what they please, there is no doubt but they will justifie themselves and maintain their own cause.

Secondly, Why did none of the latter Prophets whom God granted to the people, after their return from Captivity; as Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi let the people know, that this was the condition of their return into their Land, but only require of them to walk answerable to the mercies they had then received.

Thirdly, As the very nature of the dispensation did declare, that God having purged out the Rebels of the people, and destroyed them with his sore judgements, had forgiven their sins, and was returned to them, in a way of mercy and grace never to call over their forepast iniquities any more, so the Prophets that treated concerning that dispensation of God, do in places innumerable assert the same, and plainly contradict this imagination.

Fourthly, God punisheth not the sins of the Fathers upon their children, unless the Children continue in the sins of their Fathers. This he declareth at large, Ezek. 18. Now what were the sins of this people under the first Temple before their captivity? Our Author reckons Adultery, Murder and Idolatry: It is no doubt but many of them were Adulterers, and that sin among others was charged on them by the Prophets; but it is evident that their principal ruining sins were their Idolatry, and persecution or killing of the Prophets. And God by Ezekiel declares, that in and by their Captivity, he would punish and take away all their Idolatry, and Adulteries even from the Land of Aegypt, or their beginning to be his people (Chap. 23.11, 27). Now were the Jews, that is, the body of the people guilty of these sins under the second House? It is known that from all Idolatry they preserved themselves, which was that sin, that in an especial manner was their ruine before; and for killing the Prophets, they acknowledge that after Malachi they had none, so that none could be persecuted by them, but those whom they will not own to be Prophets: But,

Fifthly, Suppose that all those under the second House continued in the sins of their fore-fathers, which yet is false, and denyed by themselves as occasion requires, yet what have the Jews done, for sixteen hundred years since the destruction of that House? They plead themselves to be holy, and in application of the Prophecy (Isa. 53) to themselves, proclaim themselves innocent and righteous; at least they would not have us to think that the generality of them, are Adulterers, Murderers and Idolaters: from where is it then that the punishment of their Fathers sins lyes so long on them? What Rule of Justice is observed herein? What instance of the like dispensation can they produce? For our parts we affirm, that they continue to this day in the same sin, for which their fore-fathers under the second House were rejected and destroyed, and so know the righteousness of God in their present captivities and miseries. Besides,

Sixthly, They say they abhor the sins of their fore-fathers, repent of them, and do obtain Remission of sins through their observation of the Law of Moses; Wherein then is the faithfulness of God in his promises to them? Why are they not delivered out of captivity? Why not restored to their Land according to express Testimonies of the Covenant made with them to that purpose? There is no color of truth nor reason therefore in this evasion, which they invented to countenance themselves in their obstinate blindness and unbelief.

But our Author yet adds an instance, whereby he hopes to reinforce and confirm his former answer: says he, Deus per manus Salamanassani decem tribus in captivitatem passus est abduci in regiones nobis incognitas sexcentis fere annis ante destructionem Templi secundi, hoc [illegible] ante presentem hanc nostram captivitatem, necdum in hodiernam hanc diem in terram si[illegible]am reversae aut dominio suo restitutae sunt, quae omnia speciali Dei Providentia nobis ita ev[illegible]nerunt ne quis causam hujus nostrae captivitatis speciali alicui peccato sub secunda domo commisso imputaret: Cum decem tribus qui tum absuerunt captivitatem pati debent sexcentos annis longiorem. God suffered the ten Tribes to be carried captive by Salamanasser into countries unknown to us six hundred years before the destruction of the second Temple, and our present captivity: neither are they yet returned to their own land, or restored to their former rule, all which things have happened to us, by the especial providence of God. That none might impute the cause of the captivity to any sin committed under the second Temple, seeing the ten Tribes that were then absent must endure a captivity six hundred years longer. Neither will this instance yield them the least relief. For (1.) it was before granted that the sins under the second Temple were even greater than those under the first, from where the punishment of them was revived, which is here denied, manifesting that this is an evasion invented to serve the present turn. (2.) Whatever is pretended, no impartial man that owns the special relation of that people to God, and his covenant with them, can but grant, that their present rejection is for some outrageous sins breaking the covenant under the second Temple, and continued in by themselves to this day. (3.) The case of the ten Tribes, after they had publicly rejected all that worship of God, and all that government of the people, which was appointed to type out, and to continue to the bringing of the [illegible] Messiah, is different from that of the other Tribes, to whom the promises were appropriated in Judah, and in the house of David; so that their rejection implies no disannulling of the covenant. (4.) As all of the two Tribes came not up to Jerusalem at the return from the captivity of Babylon, so very great numbers of the ten Tribes appear so to have done, which being added to those multitudes of them, which before that had fallen away to Judah, partly upon the account of the worship of God, partly upon the account of outward peace, when their own land was wasted, makes the condition of the body of the people to be one and the same; and these men committed, and their posterity continue in the sins on which we charge their present dispersion and captivity. (5.) The remnant of that people dispersed among strange nations, seems voluntarily to have embraced their manners and customs, and utterly to have forgotten their own land, whereas those with whom we have to do, daily expect, desire, and endeavour a return thereunto: so that neither does this evasion yield our present Jews any relief, and we may return to the notions of their more ancient masters.

For a close then of these considerations, I shall add some of the confessions of the Jews themselves, which the evidence of the truth contended for has at several seasons extorted from them. And this I shall not do, as though they were of great importance in themselves, or to us, but only to discover their entanglements in contending against the light: for the present masters of their unbelief, are more perplexed with the convictions of their predecessors than with the plainest testimonies of the Scripture. The authority of their predecessors being equal with them to, if not more sacred than that of the word of God itself.

First then, being pressed with the testimonies before insisted on out of Haggai concerning the glory of the second Temple, and the coming of the desire of all nations thereunto, they have a tradition that the Messiah was born the same day that the second Temple was destroyed. The story indeed which they make it up with, is weak, fabulous and ridiculous, and he who is offended with the citation of such things out of their Talmudical Doctors, is desired only to exercise patience until he shall be able himself to report from them things more serious and of greater importance; and yet from them must we learn the persuasions and convictions of the ancient Jews, or be utterly ignorant of them. Be their stories what they will also, the powerful convincing evidence of truth, and the miserable shifts that the poor wretches are put to, to keep off the efficacy of it from their minds do sufficiently appear in them.

The Tradition mentioned, they give us in Tractat. Bezaroth. distinct. Hajakorr; in § 14 these words; [in non-Latin alphabet], Rabbi Joden in the name of Rabbi Ibbo said, the Messiah was born in the day that the house of the Sanctuary was destroyed; and the story they tell to this purpose, is as followeth: It came to pass, that as a Jew was plowing, his Ox before him lowed, and there passed by him [in non-Latin alphabet], an Arabian, and he heard a voice saying, O Jew the Son of a Jew, loose your Oxen for behold the house of the Sanctuary is destroyed; the Ox lowed the second time; and he said, O Jew the Son of a Jew, Yoke your Oxen, for behold Messiah the King is born, he said to him, what is his name, he answered [in non-Latin alphabet], Menachem, that is, the Comforter. And in Bereshith Rabba on Genesis 30. they have a long story to the same purpose. [in non-Latin alphabet], vel, [in non-Latin alphabet], Rabbi Samuel the son of Nachman said, as Elias of good memory was walking on the way, on that very day that the house of the Sanctuary was destroyed, he heard, [in non-Latin alphabet], the voice from Heaven, crying to him, the house of our holy Sanctuary is brought to destruction: when Elias of good memory heard this, he thought the whole world should be destroyed, he went therefore and finding [in non-Latin alphabet], men plowing and sowing, he said to them the holy blessed God is angry with the world, (or all this generation) [in non-Latin alphabet], and will destroy his house, and send his children into captivity among the Nations of the world, and you are solicitous about this temporal life. [in non-Latin alphabet], came forth again and said to him, Let them alone, for to Israel is born a Savior; he said to the voice, where is he? the voice said to him in Bethlehem Judah; he went, and found a woman sitting in the door of her house, and her Child lying in its own blood before her: he said to her, my daughter have you born a Son, she said to him, yea; he said, and why does it lye so long in its own blood? she said to him, because of the great evil; for on this day wherein he is born, the house of the Sanctuary is destroyed; he said to her my daughter be of good Courage, and take care of the Child, for great salvation shall be wrought by his hand, and she was streightway encouraged, and took care of him. In the process of this story they tell us, that this Child was carried away by the four winds of Heaven, and kept in the great Sea four hundred years, of which afterwards. I doubt not but this Tale is hammered out of the second of Luke, about the appearance of the Angels to the Shepheards, and their finding his Mother in a stable. All the use that I intend to put this confession of theirs to, is to urge the present Jews with a conviction, and acknowledgement of their fore-fathers that the Messiah was to be born under the second Temple.

§ 15 Again, They have a Tradition out of the School of one Elias, a famous Master among them of the Tannarei or Antetalmudical Doctors which they have recorded in the Talmud Tractat. Saned. distinct. Chelec. about the continuance of the world, which is as follows, [in non-Latin alphabet], It is a Tradition of Elias that the world shall continue six thousand years, two thousand void (which the gloss of Rabbi Solomon Jarchi reckons from the Creation of the world, to the Call of Abraham) two thousand to the Law (from there to the destruction of the second Temple) and two thousand to the dayes of the Messiah. It is incredible how the latter Rabbins are perplexed with this Tradition of their Masters, which is recorded in the Talmud as sacred. In the account they give in Shebet Sehuda of a Disputation they had with one Hierom a converted Jew before the Bishop of Rome, they know not how to disintangle themselves from the Authority of it. The summ of their answer is, that the next words in the Tradition are, that that time is elapsed, because of their sins; but as others have already manifested that that gloss is no part of the Tradition, but an addition of the Talmudists, so we shall immediately manifest the vanity of that pretence. Others of them say, that it sufficeth to maintain the truth and credit of the Tradition, if the Messiah come at any time within the last two thousand years. But besides, that even they also are now drawing towards their period, not a fifth part in their computation of that space of time remaining, so this gloss is directly contrary to the very words of the Tradition. For as two thousand years are assigned to the world before the Law, and two thousand to the Law, which they reckon from the Call of Abraham to the ruine of the second Temple, so the two thousand years allotted to the time of the Messiah must begin with his coming, as the other portions do one of them with the Creation, the other with the Call of Abraham, or else the space of time above sixteen hundred years between the expiration of the second two thousand years, and the third, must be left out of the computation. And the time limited for the duration of the world extended above sixteen hundred years, beyond what is allotted to it in their Tradition.

§ 16 Many other the like concessions and acknowledgements has the evidence of truth wrested from sundry of them, which having been collected by others we shall not trouble the Reader with their recital: these that have been insisted on, may and do suffice to make good the Argument in hand. And so we have fully demonstrated the second thing proposed to confirmation; namely, that the true Messiah is long since come, and has finished the work allotted to him. Now whereas we have in our passage vindicated the Testimonies insisted on from the particular exceptions of the Jews; it remaineth for the closing of this Discourse, that we consider the general Answer which they give to the whole Argument taken from them all.

That which they principally insist on is, a concession with an exception, rendring § 17 as they suppose the whole useless to our purpose. They grant therefore that the time fixed on, was determined for the coming of the Messiah; but add withal, It is prolonged beyond the limited season, because of their sins; that is, that the promise of his coming at that season was not absolute, but conditional, namely on supposition that the Jews were righteous, holy and worthy to receive him. Thus to the Tradition of Elias before mentioned, determining the coming of the Messiah upon the end of the second two thousand years of the world's duration; they add in the Talmud, Tractat. Saned. distinct. Cheleck. cap. 11. these words as an exception, [in non-Latin alphabet], because of our sins, those days have exceeded the time, all that is past. And again they add in the same place; [in non-Latin alphabet], Rab. said, all times appointed are finished, and this matter is not suspended, but upon account of repentance and good works. And nothing is more common with them than this condition, if they deserve it, if they repent, the Messiah will come, the time is already past, but because of our sins he is not come. If all Israel could repent but one day he would come. This is the sum of their answer. There was a time limited and determined, for the coming of the Messiah; this time is signified in general in the Scripture to be before the destruction of the Second Temple, and the utter departure of scribe and law-giver from Judah; but all this designation of the time was but conditional, and the accomplishment of it had respect to their righteousness, repentance, good works, and merits, which they failing in, their Messiah is not yet come. To this issue is their infidelity at length arrived. But there are reasons innumerable, that make naked the vanity of this pretence. Some of them I shall briefly insist upon at present, and more fully afterwards.

First, we have before proved, that not the Jews only, but the Gentiles also, even § 18 the whole world was concerned in the coming of the Messiah. The first promise of him concerned mankind in general, without the least particular respect, to any one peculiar people (Genesis 3:15). The next solemn renovation of it to Abraham extends the blessing wherewith it was to be attended to all the kindreds of the earth (Genesis 12:3; chap. 18:18). The whole restriction of the promise to him and to his posterity consisted only in the designation of them to be the means of bringing forth that Messiah, who was to be a blessing to all nations; and when Jacob foretells his coming of Judah (Genesis 49:10), he declares who were to have an equal share in the blessing of it, together with his posterity; to him, says he, shall be the gathering of the people. The same course do all the succeeding prophets proceed in. They every where declare, that the Gentiles, the nations of the world, were equally concerned with the Jews in the promise of the coming of the Messiah, if not principally intended, because of their greatness and number. In mercy, love, compassion, and philanthropy did God provide this blessed remedy for the recovery of mankind, (both Jews and Gentiles) out of that misery whereunto they had cast themselves by sin and apostasy from him. The time of exhibiting this remedy to them, he promised also, and limited, stirring them up to an expectation of its accomplishment, as that whereon all their happiness did depend. Shall we now suppose, that all this love, grace and mercy of God towards mankind, that his faithfulness in his promises, were all suspended on the goodness, righteousness, merits and repentance of the Jews? That God who so often testifies concerning them, that they were a people, wicked, obstinate, stubborn and rebellious, should make them keepers of the everlasting happiness of the whole world? That he has given the fountain of his grace and love, which he intended and promised should overflow the whole earth, and make all the barren wildernesses of it fruitful to him, to be closed and stopped by them at their pleasure? That it should be in their power to restrain all the promised effects of them from the world? As if he should say in his promises, I am resolved out of mine infinite goodness and compassion towards you, O you poor miserable sons of Adam, to send you a Savior and a Deliverer, who at such a time shall come and declare to you the way of life eternal, shall open the door of Heaven, and save you from the wrath that you have deserved, but I will do it on this condition, that the Jews an obstinate and rebellious people, be good, holy, righteous and penitent; for unless they be so, the Savior shall not come, nor is it possible he should, until they be so, this of themselves they will never be, nor do I intend to make them so. If they can persuade us, that God has thus placed them in his throne, and given his grace and truth into their hands to make effectual, or frustrate at their pleasure, and suspended his good will towards the residue of mankind on their obedience, whom he testifies to have been always stubborn and disobedient, they may also hope to prevail with us to believe, that they only are men, and all other beasts, as some of their Talmudical masters have affirmed. At present we find it by blessed experience, that their wickedness has not made the truth of God of no effect.

§ 19 Secondly, When God limited and foretold the time of the coming of the Messiah, he either foresaw what would be the state and condition of the Jews as to their repentance and good works, or he did not? If they say he did not, then besides that they deny him to be God, by denying those essential attributes of his nature, which the very Heathen acknowledged in their Deities, they also utterly overthrow all the prophecies and predictions of the Old Testament: for there is not any of them but depend on a supposition of the prescience of God; and this is nothing but to countenance their unbelief with perfect Atheism. If they say he did foresee, that their conditions and manners, would be such as the event has proved them, from where he must also know that it was impossible, that the Messiah should come at the time limited and determined; I ask to what end and purpose he does so often, and at so great a distance of time, promise and foretell, that he should come at such a time and season, seeing he knew perfectly that he should not so do, and so, that not one word of his predictions should be fulfilled? Why I say, did he fix on a time and season, foretell it often, limit it by signs infallible, give out an exact computation of the years, from the time of his predictions, and call all men to an expectation of his coming accordingly, when by his foresight of the Jews want of merit and repentance, no such thing could possibly fall out? God who is [in non-Latin alphabet], does not deal thus with the sons of men. This were not to promise and foretell in infinite veracity, but purposely to deceive. The condition then pretended, cannot be put upon the promise of the coming of the Messiah without a direct denial of some, and by just consequence of all the essential properties of the nature of God.

§ 20 Thirdly, there is not in the whole Scripture, the least intimation of any such condition, as that which they pretend the promise insisted on, to be clogged withal. It is nowhere said, nowhere intimated, that if the Jews repented, and merited well, the Messiah should come, at the time mentioned; nowhere threatened, that if they did not so, his coming should be put off to an uncertain day. We know not, nor are they able to inform us from where they had this condition, unless they will acknowledge, that they have forged it in their own brains, to give countenance to their infidelity. Before the time allotted, was elapsed, and they had obstinately refused him, who was sent, and came according to promise: there was not the least rumour of any such thing among them. Some of their predecessors invented it to palliate their impiety, which so they may do, they are not solicitous what reflection it may cast upon the honor of God. Besides as the Scripture is silent, as to any thing that may give the least color to this pretence, so it delivers that which is contrary to it, and destructive of it; for it informs us, that the season of the coming of the Messiah shall be a time of great sin, darkness and misery which also their own masters, in other places, and on other occasions acknowledges. So (Isaiah 52 & 53), (Jeremiah 31:32, 33), (Daniel 9:24), (Zechariah 13:1), (Malachi 3:4). He was to come to turn men from ungodliness, and not because they were turned so before his coming. There can be no place then for this condition.

§ 21 Fourthly, the suggestion of this condition, overthrows the rise of the promise, and the whole nature of the thing promised. We have before manifested, that the rise and spring of this promise, was mere love and sovereign grace: there was not any thing in man, Jew nor Gentile, that should move the Lord to provide a remedy and relief for them who had destroyed themselves. Now to suspend the promise of this love and grace, on the righteousness and repentance of them to whom it was made, is perfectly to destroy it, and to place the merit of it in man, whereas it arose, purely from the grace of God. Again, it utterly takes away and destroys the nature of the thing promised. We have proved, that it is a relief, a recovery, a salvation from sin and misery that is the subject matter of this promise. To suppose that this shall not be granted, unless men as a condition of it, deliver themselves from their sins, is to assert a plain contradiction, so wholly to destroy the promise. He was not promised to men, because they were penitent and just, but to make them so. And to make the righteousness of Jews or Gentiles the condition of his coming, is to take his work out of his hand, and to render both him and his coming useless. But this figment proceeds from the [in non-Latin alphabet] of the Jews; namely, that the Messiah is not promised to free them from their own sins, but to make them possessors of other men's goods; not to save their souls, but their bodies and estates, not to make men heirs of Heaven, but lords of the earth; which folly has been before discovered and disproved.

Fifthly, the Jews on several accounts are [in non-Latin alphabet], or self-condemned, in the use of this plea or pretence. Their great sins, they say, are the cause, why the coming of the Messiah is retarded. But first, what those sins are they cannot declare. We readily grant them to be wicked enough, but withal we know their great wickedness to consist, in that which they will not acknowledge; namely, not in being unfit for his coming, but in refusing him when he came. They instance sometimes in their hatred one of another, their mutual animosities, and frequent adulteries, and want of observing the Sabbath, according to the rules of their present superstitious scrupulosity. But what is all this to the abominations, which God passed over formerly in their nation, and also fulfilled his promises to them, though really conditional. (2.) Take them from the rack of our arguments, and you hear no more of their confessions, no more of their sins and wickedness, but they are immediately all righteous and holy, all beloved of God, and better than their forefathers. Yes, (3.) on the day of expiation, they are all as holy, if we may believe them, as the angels in Heaven. There is not one sin among them, so that it is strange the Messiah should not at one time or another come to them on that day. (4.) They have a tradition among themselves, that the coming of the Messiah may be hastened, but not retarded. So they speak in their gloss on Isaiah 60:22. I the Lord will hasten it in its time. Tractat. Saned. [in non-Latin alphabet] Rabbi Alexander said, and Rabbi Joshua the Son of Levi, it is written in his time, and it is written, I will hasten it, I will hasten it if they deserve it, and if they deserve it not, yet in its own time; and this they apply to the coming of the Messiah. (5.) They assert many of them, that it is themselves who are spoken of in the fifty-third of Isaiah, and their being causelessly afflicted by the Gentiles; now he whom the Prophet there speaks of, is one perfectly innocent and righteous, and so they must needs be in their own esteem, supposing themselves there intended. So that this pretence is known to themselves to be no more.

Sixthly, this plea is directly contrary to the nature of the Covenant, which God promised to make at the coming of the Messiah, or that which he came to ratify and establish, and the reason which God gives, for the making of that Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31, 32, 33). The foundation of the New Covenant lies in this, that the people had disannulled and broken the former made with them. Now surely they do not disannul that Covenant, if they are righteous according to the tenor of it, and unless they are so, they say the Messiah will not come, that is, the New Covenant shall not be made, unless by them it be first made needless. Again, the nature of the Covenant lies in this, that God in it makes men righteous and holy (Ezekiel 11:19). So that righteousness and holiness cannot be the condition of making it, unless it be of making it useless. This then is the contest between God and the Jews: he takes it upon himself, to give men righteousness by the Covenant of the Messiah; they take it upon themselves, to be righteous, that he may make that Covenant with them.

Lastly, if the coming of the Messiah depend on the righteousness and repentance of the Jews, it is not only possible, but very probable that he may never come. Themselves conceive that the world shall not continue above six thousand years. Of this space, they do not suppose, that there is any more than five hundred remaining; the time past since the expiration of the days determined for the coming of the Messiah, is at least sixteen hundred years. Seeing that they have not repented all this while, what assurance have we, no, what hope may we entertain, within the four or five hundred years that are behind. Greater calls to repentance from God, greater motives from themselves and others they are not like to meet withal. And what ground have we to expect, that they who have withstood all these calls without any good fruit by their own confessions, will ever be any better. Upon this supposition then, it would be very probable, that the Messiah should never come. Nothing can be replied hereunto, but that God will either at length effectually by his grace, give them that repentance, which they make necessary for his coming, or that he will send him at last, whether they repent or no: but if either of these may be expected, what reason can be imagined, why God should so deal at any season concerning which he had made no promise, that the Messiah should come therein, and not do so at the time concerning which he had so often promised and foretold, that he should come therein.