A DEMONSTRATION OF THE MESSIAS In which the truth of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION is proved especially against The Jews PART I. By Richard Kidder AUGUSTIN Epistol VOLUSIANO Venit Christus complentur in ejus Ortu Vita Dictis Factis Passionibus Morte Resurrectione Ascensione omnia Praeconia Prophetarum LONDON Printed by J. Heptinstall for B. Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill MDCLXXXIV To the Right Reverend Father in God Henry Lord Bishop of London one of the Lords of His MAJESTY's most honourable Privy Council My LORD THE following Discourse such as it is I do with all humility present to your Lordship The argument it treats of commends it self and challengeth regard from all the Disciples of Jesus The design of it is to prove our Jesus to be the Messias This is a truth of the greatest moment and as such was much insisted upon by the first preachers of the Christian Religion and deservedly placed in our ancient Creed in the head of the other Articles of our Christian faith and next after the Article in which we own the belief of a God And whatever defects there may be found in the following Tract yet as I am certain that I have chosen a most excellent Subject so I have pursued it with a sincere and honest intention If any should find fault with this well-meant Discourse and condemn me even for that for which I am not able so much as to accuse my self it shall be so far from creating me any trouble that it will not surprize me as any thing that is new and strange is wont to do Whatever my mistake or my faults may be I shall be so far from being pertinacious in either of them that no man shall be more welcome to me than he who shall assist me in discharging me from them Nor do I desire to live any longer in this world than whiles I am disposed both to find the truth and to follow it I think my self more especially obliged to give your Lordship an account how I spend my time And that consideration moved me to prefix your Lordship's name to this following Discourse But that was not the onely motive which induced me to it All that have the honour to know your Lirdship have great cause to bless God for you The Clergy of this great City are very sensible of their happiness They look upon your Lordship as a great Blessing and a good presage The Jews have a saying in their books that when the Shepherd is angry with the sheep he placeth over them a blind guide Those who are under your Lordship's care justly look upon you as bestowed upon them as a token for good they think themselves favoured greatly in your Lordship by the great Bishop and Shepherd of their Souls I was willing to take this opportunity of testifying my most unfeigned thankfulness to God for your Lordship That God would long preserve your Lordship and assist and prosper your endeavours for the good of his Church that he would pour upon you the blessings of this life and preserve you to the unspeakable glory of the next is the most hearty Prayer of My LORD Your Lordship 's most dutifull and obedient Servant Richard Kidder THE PREFACE IT is said of our blessed Saviour upon his healing a withered hand when the Jews watched him whether he would heal on the Sabbath-day that they might accuse him that he looked round about on them with anger being grieved for the hardness of their hearts Mark 3. v. 5. He looked on them with anger and with compassion at the same time Thus have all the sincere Disciples of Jesus been affected towards that people ever since our Saviour's time and very fit it is that they should imitate their great Lord and Master He that loves his Lord and his holy Religion cannot but be moved with some degree of anger when he considers how that people persecuted Jesus and his followers and have ever shewed an unplacable hatred against the incomparable Religion which they planted in the world They do in their books which we have in our hands reproach our Blessed Saviour and with great bitterness disparage and calumniate those holy writers which give us an account of our Saviour's birth of his life and Doctrine and these practices of theirs have been an occasion of many evils which have befallen them and have drawn upon them the anger of the Christian States or Kingdoms where they have lived Nor is it strange at all that Christians should be moved with some degree of indignation against those men who Scoff at that Jesus whom they worship But how excusable soever this indignation be yet it ought to be attended with pity and compassion This we may learn from the example of Jesus who was grieved for the hardness of their heart and did to the last breath pray for these men who had no pity or compassion upon him And the Apostle of the Gentiles who had been greatly persecuted by the Jews was so far from being unconcerned for them that he most solemnly professeth that he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart upon their account And so great was his charity that he could wish himself accursed from Christ for their sakes Rom. 9.1 2 3. And whatever opinion Christians may have entertained concerning the conversion of the nation of the Jews it must be granted that it is our duty to doe all we can toward the gaining so good an end And whatever is done to this purpose by any Christian States or particular Persons however it may miss of its desired effect will not fail of a reward It is very well known where the Jews are obliged to hear the Sermons or Lectures of the Christians And there are those charitable persons in the Church who would much rejoice to find them under the same obligation in other States and Christian Kingdoms also A lecture for this very end and purpose might have good effects For though it be not effectual where it is used yet it is no hard thing to assign very considerable reasons how that comes to pass Thus much is certain that if we would gain the Jews it will become us to doe all in our power to that purpose And though some men have other obligations yet every Christian is obliged in his dealings with them to use them with great humanity to trade with them with exact Justice and simplicity and to adorn our Religion by an exemplary life and conversation For the following discourse I am to acquaint the Reader that I do not send it abroad as a just Tract designed onely against the Jews Had this been my design I should have taken other Methods I intended the advantage of the Christian Reader also and hope that the younger among them may receive some benefit thereby It is our common Christianity which I here defend and I have attempted to explain some difficult places of the holy Writ which have
and therefore could not be done by his assistance and power Mar. 5.7 Matt. 12.29 They were a torment to the Devil and when Satan was cast out it must be granted that it was done by a power superiour to that of Satan himself Our Lord cast the Devil out of the bodies of men and did by thus confirming his Religion destroy the Kingdom of Satan in the world He is forced out of his ancient possessions and no longer suffered to delude the silly world as he had done before in his Oracles and by his Idolatrous worship and superstition Our Saviour turn'd him out of his Temples and threw him out of the bodies and hearts of men 4. I come in the next place to consider with all possible care and application the works themselves which Jesus did with the circumstances and adjuncts which attended them And I perswade my self that the more we consider them the more we shall believe that they were divine and consequently a good proof that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God 1. They were most stupendious works Joh. 11. He raised the dead and one that had been dead four days and was interred He cured the most inveterate and Chronical diseases Mar. 5.25 Luk. 13.13 Joh. 5. Joh. 9. Matt. 8.3 15. ch 9.25 ch 8.6 13 16. ch 14. ch 12.13 ch 21.19 and such as were beyond the help of art A woman that laboured twelve years of an Issue of bloud that had wasted her estate upon Physicians without success he cures her with the touch of his Garment He cures another that had a Spirit of infirmity eighteen years that was bowed together and could in no wise lift up heo self He heals another with a word of his mouth who had an infirmity eight and thirty years And restores one to his Sight who was born blind He cures the Leper and Peter's Wife's Mother that was sick of a Fever and two Blind men with a touch Cures the Paralytick and dispossesseth the Demoniacks with a word of his mouth He multiplies a few loaves and Fishes to the relief of five thousand and the fragments are many when the first store was small He cures the withered hand and with a word of his mouth dryes up the barren fig-tree The Devils obey his word he treads on the Waters as on a pavement and checks and controlls the uncertain winds and the raging Sea He restores to health and raises to life with a word of his mouth or a touch of his garment The dead hear his voice and he does these mighty works without delay and without labour He did not doe as Elisha did 2 King 4.33 2. His works were various and of several kinds He might have been presumed to have had some particular skill or gift had he onely cured one disease But here 's no room left now for suspicion Matt. 4.23 24. ch 9.35 For he healed all sorts of diseases restored the blind cleansed the lepers governed the sea and winds and makes the grave give back its dead All this could not be imputed to any particular gift or skill Joh. 9.32 It was never heard that any man let him be never so great an Oculist opened the eyes of one that was born blind It must be granted that here was the hand of God 3. These were works of mercy and kindness also Plin. which speaks them to be from God The Heathen could say Deus est mortali juvare mortalem To doe good speaks a divine principle and likeness The Jews had no cause to suspect that our Saviour was assisted by the Devil the enemy of mankind He might have confirmed his Doctrine by terrible miracles he chuses to doe it by great acts of mercy and relief He might have shaken the pillars of the earth cast a veil upon the luminaries above and confirmed his Doctrine by thunder and lightning by tempest and thick darkness and other terrible effects of his power and displeasure But our Lord delighted in mercy and his miracles were so many acts of mercy and relief He confirms his words and relieves the afflicted at the same time and makes joy and gladness where-ever he comes He cleanseth the lepers restores the blind and lame and raises the dead while the poor have the gospel preached unto them What great joy must this make where-ever he comes to them who were sed and restored and dispossessed how much joy must this needs bring to the persons relieved and to all their friends and relatives He exerts his power to relieve not to grieve or afflict mankind His miracles were so many proofs of his mercy as well as of his power It was an argument of power to dispossess a Demoniack but to the possessed it was a great act of compassion 'T was a great power that multiplied the loaves and fishes but it was bounty too to doe it for the hungry multitude There is required an infinite power to raise a dead man but 't was a great act of compassion also to raise the onely Son of the widow of Naim Luk. 7. His turning water into wine was an act of mercy and relief It was a poor wedding we suppose where the provision was spent while the guests remain and in such cases men are generally ashamed that they are not able to entertain their friends He manifested his glory when he did it and his kindness also It is a God-like thing to be great and good to use power as our Lord did his to the rescue and relief of the poor and of the miserable Our Lord went about doing good 'T is the Devil the great enemy of mankind who goes about seeking whom he may devour Our Lord 's very miracles were acts of great mercy and relief It is true our Lord cursed the Fig-tree and destroyed the herd of Swine Vid. Dr. H. More Mystery of Godliness Book 4. chap. 8. But then it is to be considered that the Fig-tree was barren to say nothing of the aenigmatical meaning of that passage and the Swine which were drowned were unclean by the law of Moses Besides in both he confirmed his Doctrine and gave great assurance of his power And it appeared in the case of the Swine that the Devils had no power to hurt those creatures without his leave 4. Our Lord's miracles were done publickly and not in a corner Matt. 9.8 ch 12.22 23. Luk. 7.11 12. Joh. 5. Luk. 4.33 Joh. 11.45 Our Lord did not shun the light When the Paralytick was cured the multitude were witnesses of the cure And when the blind and dumb was healed all the people were amazed When the Widow's Son of Naim was restored to life there was much people with Jesus When the man was cured that had been 38 years under his affliction 't was done in the City of Jerusalem and at a festival when all the tribes were there The Demoniack was dispossessed in a Synagogue and when Lazarus was raised many of the Jews were
office too mean for us in which we may do any good office to one another Here is enough to extinguish for ever all our ambition and pride and contempt of our poor Brother Nothing that we can do can be called a great condescension after this humiliation of the Son of God IV. Of resignation to the will of God This our Lord was the most conspicous mirrour and example of He was a man sin onely excepted like one of us sensible of hunger and thirst of pain and sorrow and these things pained his flesh as they do ours His soul was sorrowfull and very heavy His sweat was like drops of bloud great was his agony and his sorrow beyond expression He saw before his eyes a most painfull and a most shamefull death He is about to drink a most bitter cup. These things were grievous to his humane nature and therefore he prays that if it were possible this cup might pass from him but after all he submits himself to the will of God Not as I will but as thou wilt And how instructive is this to us We sinners may be ashamed to murmur when our Lord resigned himself Well may we submit under our little and deserved evils when he that was without fault resigned himself up to God Mat. 26.39 V. Of the greatest Charity to Mankind Greater love than this hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friend This is the highest flight of friendship and we have but a very few examples in our books of such a Degree of Charity Some few I'll grant have done this none have gone beyond this besides our Lord Jesus For he died for his Enemies and for the Ungodly This example should constrain us to do good to all even to evil men and to our greatest Enemies Rom. 5.6 VI. Of the greatest fortitude and the truest courage He bore witness to the truth with his bloud and was stedfast in the profession of it to his last breath The most sharp and shamefull death the most barbarous usage and treatment could not prevail upon him to deny the truth or to fall into an impotent passion and revenge himself He does in cold bloud chuse rather to dye the worst kind of death than to quit the profession of the truth or to destroy his Enemies This is indeed an argument of true greatness of mind We are much mistaken in our conceit about Valour or fortitude To Forgive an Enemy and to chuse to dye rather than to do an evil thing speaks a generous and a great mind and is a certain proof of Courage and true Fortitude But he is a man of a weak mind who will do an evil thing to save his life and revenge himself upon him that affronts him or does him wrong Revenge speaks a defect of wit and courage The meanest creatures they are who are peevish and waspish and prone to bite him that toucheth him Leniter qui saeviunt sapiunt magis Anger resteth it in the bosom of fools Non est magnus animus quem incurvat injuria They are but little and feeble folk that are ruffled by every injury or calumny The more impotent and weak any creature is the more easily provoked and nothing is a more certain sign of a narrow and mean soul than is revenge Quippe minuti Semper infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas Ultio continuò sic collige quòd Vindicta Nemo magìs gaudet quà m faemina c. Well so it was our Saviour shewed great Courage and resolution and hath given us therein a great example of Christian fortitude and resolution I shall now make some application of what hath been said I. What hath been said may serve to recommend to us a suffering condition which Christ hath sanctified by his own Sufferings When we suffer we are like the Author and finisher of our faith It becomes us not to be dismayed with our sufferings who profess a faith in a crucified Redeemer For by sufferings our Religion was planted by sufferings it grew up and prevailed in the World This was the way in which Jesus went before us into his glory And if we suffer with him we shall likewise be glorified together It is no little comfort to us to think that our Lord hath led us the same way and that he did overcome the world after this manner which is indeed the noblest conquest of it II. We may hence be exhorted to a frequent mediation of the death and sufferings of Jesus Christ Form what hath been said it appears plainly that we are nearly concerned in these things For Christ did not suffer upon his own account but upon ours and we are very much concerned in the benefits of his death 1. As we expect our pardon upon the account of his merit and satisfaction He was a sacrifice which made attonement and expiation for our crimes as he died for our Sins 2. As we hope for an eternal inheritance upon the account of the death of Christ who hath made way for us by his death and by death entered himself before into an eternal inheritance 3. As we are confirmed in the truth of his holy Religion by the Testimony of his bloud with which this new covenant between God and man was ratified and confirmed 4. As we are constrained by the glorious example he gave us in his sufferings to patience and charity and self-resignation c. of which he hath given us the most powerfull example III. We may hence be exhorted to a frequent and diligent partaking of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which is appointed as a standing memorial of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ We ought not onely to embrace but welcome all these opportunities as those which lead us to the contemplation of Christ's death upon which our hopes to depend It is an unspeakable privilege that we are admitted to this favour And had we the due sense which we ought to have upon our minds of the love of God in giving us his Son and the love of our Lord in giving up himself to death for us and the unspeakable benefits which thence accrue to us we should need no words of persuasion no law or secular interest to invite us to the doing of that which is so plainly our duty and so much our interest to doe Our spiritual hunger and thirst are the onely safe and lasting principles as well as the acceptable ones from whence we ought to be moved If our souls be once possessed with an ardent love of God and our Blessed Saviour we shall not make excuses and shall be so far from that that it will not be an easie thing to stay away and nothing less than a violent detention will keep us back And thus I have from the sufferings of Jesus made it appear that he is the Christ Before I proceed to speak to the resurrection of Jesus I shall say something of his Burial Of the Messias it was foretold
chains and death it self cannot stop its course It must needs be a good cause that bears up against all the malice the meanaces the punishments that a wicked world could devise or inflict Aye and that persons of all sorts and degrees should seal this Doctrine with their Bloud too young as well as old rich as well as poor people as well as their Teachers women as well as men those that were remote and far distant from one another Nemo gratis malus It cannot be imagined that so many persons of all sorts and so remote from one another should conspire and consent together to bear witness to a lye That they should venture their lives and all that which the world calls good upon an untruth Certainly no man can be so fond as to believe this This Martyrdom of Christians and the growth of Christianity under it is a good proof that Jesus is the Christ and that the Religion of Jesus came from God For certainly had it not been from God it could never have born up from so small a beginning against so mighty an opposition And therefore it was a wise speech of Gamaliel to the men of Israel who were so forward to persecute the first preachers of the Gospel I say unto you says he refrain from these men and let them alone for it this counsel or this work be of men it will come to nought But if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it lest happily ye be found to fight against God Act. 5.38 39. And this he well perswades from the destruction of Theudas and his Complices and also of Judas the Galilean and those that obeyed him To which may also well be added this that whoever since hath pretended himself to be the Messias or his forerunner hath been so far from perswading it that he hath indeed come to nought and miserably cheated and abused his credulous followers Thus we know that about two and fifty years after the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans Buxtorf Lexicon Rabbime in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there did arise a certain man that pretended himself to be the Messias and was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Son of a Star alluding 'tis like to the prophecy Num. 24.17 but this man was destroyed by Adrianus with many thousands of the Jews besides So that now the Jews are not ashamed to call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Son of a Lye Maimon Epistol ad Judaeos Massilienses Maimon tells us of another who deceived the poor Jews under a pretence that he was the forerunner of the Messias who having boasted vainly that he should rise again after his death in token that he came from God was beheaded by a certain Arabian King and so perished and left the Jews that gave him credit in great calamity and distress It were a very easie thing to give in an account of the cheats and impostors who have arisen in the several ages of the world Euseb Eccl. Hist l. 4. c. 6. Hieron Catal. Scrip. Eccl in Agrippa Origen contra Cels p. 44. Vorstii observat ad Gantz p. 292. Juchasin fol. 38. Zemah David p. 150. under a pretence of being the Messias or his forerunner by whom the Jews have been miserably imposed upon and deluded from time to time This is reported not onely by the Christian writers but by the Jewish also The Jews have often been frustrated in their expectations and the cheat hath quickly been discovered And they have for many Generations expected their Messias in vain There hath appeared no man under pretence of the Messias or his forerunner but he hath soon come to nought And no wonder for a lye though it may prevail for a while will not obtain long The heat of persecution will fetch off its paint and false colours 'T is truth alone that can endure a Trial. Facile res in suam naturam recidunt ubi veritas non subest A lye may for a little while out-face the truth and prevail upon the easie and credulous part of mankind especially where it meets with no severe and potent opposition but when once the Authours of a forgery are discovered when they are brought to punishment who contrived the cheat and were the abettors of it then it falls to the ground and spreads no farther It hath not power enough to stand up against so great a violence But Christianity prevailed in spight of all the malice and force and combined endeavours of the Devil and all his instruments to root it out CHAP. X. The CONTENTS What was predicted of the Messias was fulfilled in our Jesus This appeared in the birth of Jesus in his Office and Character in his Works in his Sufferings and Resurrection and the spreading of his doctrine The adoreable providence of God in bringing Events to pass This shewed in very many particulars This is a farther proof that Jesus is the Christ IF what hath been said before be duly considered we shall upon sufficient evidence conclude that our Jesus is the Christ and that the Christian Religion came from God Not that I have said all which might have been said in so weighty an argument but that which hath before been insisted upon is sufficient to convince a lover of truth That there was a Messias promised and described in the old Teslament is not contested between the Christians and the Jews nor do the Jews deny that Jesus lived and that he suffered by the hands of their forefathers as we say he did We believe the writings of the old Testament which the Jews themselves acknowledge to be Divine Neither they nor any man living hath any just cause to call in question the authority of the books of the New Testament which give us an account of the birth and life of the miracles and doctrine of the death and Resurrection of the Ascension and intercession of Jesus Here 's nothing reported in these books in it self incredible nothing that is light and trifling nothing unbecoming God nothing against good manners but we have the same reasons to believe the truth of these things which we have for any other History which we do believe without doubting The same we have and much more Allowing then but the truth of the matter of fact which we have no shadow of reason to call in question it will abundantly appear from what hath been said that Jesus is the Christ For there was not a word that fell to the ground which was predicted of the Messias but it was fulfilled in our Jesus There was nothing so minute or small but it was accomplished and fulfilled Let us to this purpose recollect those particulars mentioned before and consider their exact accomplishment in our Jesus I will begin with his birth We find that the first promise which was made of the Messias was under the Character of the seed of the Woman Gen. 3.15 And this Woman was to be a Virgin also according to