Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
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A60477
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Christian religion's appeal from the groundless prejudices of the sceptick to the bar of common reason by John Smith.
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Smith, John, fl. 1675-1711.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing S4109; ESTC R26922
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707,151
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538
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brought them out of Egypt which Covenant they brake and promising to erect a new Priest-hood not after the order of Aaron but Melchisedech From both which common places the Apostle argues strenuously Heb. 8. and 7. when he saith the new he maketh void the old where the Priesthood is changed there must of necessity be a change of the Law The Old Testament points out him that is to be a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech as to come of the Tribe not of Levi but Judah which Topick the Apostle pursues and applies to the blessed Jesus who according to the Prophecies that went before of him sprang of the Root of Jesse came from the loins of David and was the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah of which Tribe none by the Law were to be made Priests but of the Tribe of Levi and that therefore the Levitical Law was prescribed against in the Prediction of Jacob and in the preheminence of this Melchisedokian Preist before the Aaronical hinted by Melchisedech's Blessing and receiving Tithes of Abraham while Levi was yet in his Loyns almost four hundred years before that Law which assigned Levi to the Priest-hood And lest this Law which assigned Levi to that Office might be interpreted as vacating Melchisedech's the Apostle observes that long after Aaron had been made a Priest and that without an Oath that Kingly High Priest after the order of Melchisedek was made a Priest by Oath Hebr. 7. 17. 18. In the Old Testament Malac. 1. 11. God expresseth his dislike of Levitical Sacrifices and Ordinances in comparison of another Sacrifice and Service that was to be exhibited A point acknowledged by the Jewish Rabbies who upon these Texts have these reflections Psal. 69. Laudabo nomen dei placebit deo super vitulum novellum cornua producentem ungulas This is the new worship that shall be given to God in diebus Christi saith Aben Ezra A worship will please God better than the Oxe which Adam sacrificed Qui perfectus erat de terra creatus a perfect Oxe answerable to one three years old the day he was created having hoofs and horns saith R. Solom Than that three years old Oxe of the Peace-offering or so large as he can push with his horns or so great and comely as he makes men contend about him saith R. David all center here that the most choice Legal Sacrifices are not comparable to that spiritual Worship which should be introduc'd in the days of the Messias Without relation to which legal observances were not good nor such as by which they should live Ezeck 20. 25. God protesting he never spake to their Fathers touching Sacrifices and Oblations abstracted from that end of the Law Jerem. 7. 22. and chiding them for treading his Courts for making many and fervent Prayers for offering Incense for bringing their Oblations and burnt Offerings without having an eye to the spiritual part of worship and to Christ the Life and Spirit of all acceptable Worship Isa. 1. Of which imperfection and faultiness of the first Covenant the Apostle takes notice as that which made way for the second Heb. 8. 7. In the Old Testament God promiseth that under the Kingdom of Messias he would take Priests and Levites out of all Nations Isa. 66. 21. that strangers should be Israel's Pastors Plough-men and Labourers in the Vine-yard Isa. 61. 5. What must then become of the Law prohibiting any but the sons of Aaron to approach the Priest's Office to minister in the Sanctuary Levi must lose his Plough when Messias makes Gentiles put their hands to his and therefore there is much more of ingenuity and correspondency to their own Prophets than in modern Jews in that story of the Jerusalem Gomarists told by R. Judab of a certain Jew who being at Plough and hearing an Arabian telling him that Messiah was born presently loosed his Oxen and sold his Plough and Gears Lightfoot Harm pag. 9. Lastly for to instance in all the Topicks of this tendency would put me upon transcribing the greatest part of the Prophets and the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Old Testament we are told That Jerusalem it self the Temple the place elected by God for Legal Worship should become a perpetual desolation within a few years after the coming of Christ That Rook's Nest as they had made it should be pulled down Dan. 9. 26. and then sure the whole brood of those callow and imperfect Rudiments annex'd to it laid in it must fall to the ground That a time would come when the true Jove would shake that his lap wherein his grand Seer the Eagle-eyed Moses had laid the Eggs of his Ceremonial Laws Haggai 2. 6. I will shake not the earth only but the heavens that is as St. Paul Heb. 12. 27. expounds that Text not only the Vanity of the Gentiles but the Jewish Religion though of Divine Institution so far as it is to be shak'd Or which comes all to one The heaven that is the heavenly Sanctuary the Temple God's Court the place of his Residence where he dwelt between the Cherubims That Sion would be ploughed up Micah 3. 12. Sion shall be ploughed as a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the Lord's house as the high places of the Forrest This the Chaldees alledg in behalf of Jeremy Jer. 26. 10. and the Rabbies observe the accomplishment of it then when Turnus Rufus ploughed up the place of the Temple Dr. Lightfoot Vespacian 2. paragr 1. and what must become then of the whole Crop of the Temple-Ceremonies which had been there sowen and of the Eggs there deposited That Jerusalem the dish wherein Levitical services were to be served up should be turned up-side-down and wiped as a man wipes a Dish 2. King 21. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It shall be turned upside down upon the face thereof What can that portend but the spilling of the Cates So that to a considerate Spectatour it cannot but be matter of highest admiration to see that blinded Nation groping for the door when the house is fallen flat to the ground and like a company of dispersed Ants whose hill is digged up carrying their Eggs in their mouths above this sixteen hundred years not knowing where to lay them but expecting still their old Ant-hill should grow up again out of the dust wherein it has lain all that while not considering that by this time their Eggs must needs be grown addle Alas what a spirit of slumber hath divine Vengeance powred upon them seeing they still persist in denying that Holy and Just One after Moses hath so peremptorily and palpably denyed them after God hath pull'd them from him and hedged up their way to his Law by an absolute impossibility of observing it The Temple wherein the greatest and most eminent part of that Law was only performable being by his irresistible hand demolish'd and kept from being again erected in spight of all the attempts of
particulars as Symmachus in that conference tell Lamprius that he had transcribed all those things out of the Mysteries of the Hebrews § 7. The same Author de solertia animalium interweaves the Story of Deucalion with the mention of a Dove which being sent out of the Ark by her returning gave notice that the Flood was not yet allay'd and by her not returning when she was sent out the second time signified that the Waters were abated This Story of Noah's Ark and the Flood saith Josephus antiq lib. 1. all Gentile Writers mention Berosus the Caldaean Hieronimus the Egyptian Muaseus also and many more and Nicholas Damascenus lib. 96. The History of Eden's Apples and the Serpent is manifestly recorded by Hyginus in his Poeticon astronomic titulo serpens That of Balaams Ass is plainly couch'd in his Story of that Ass which Bacchus rode upon to the Oracle of Dodona which spake with Man's voyce and disputed with Priapus about Nature titulo Aselli And that of Sampson's conquering the Philistines with the Jaw-bone of an Ass which God shewed him as plainly in his relation how that Hercules being opprest with multitudes of Barbarians and having spent all his Arrows Jove taking pitty of him procured a great many Stones to lay at his feet wherewith he defended himself and put the Barbarians to flight titulo Ergonasia Menander in the Gests of Ithobal King of Tyre Ahabs Contemporary speaks of that Drought that happened in Ahab's Reign Joseph antiquit l. 8. cap. 7. The same Author contrà Appionem lib. 1. sheweth how the Truth of the Jewish Histories was attested to by forreign Writers even of such Nations as most hated and emulated the Jews and produceth the Tyrian Annals in confirmation of Solomon's building the Temple of his being aided therein by Hiram of his wise Questions and Answers there being then when Josephus wrote in the Tyrians hands many Letters which Solomon and Hiram wrote one to another for which also he alledgeth the History of Dius concerning the Phenicians But I refer my Reader for fuller satisfaction in this point to that excellent Defender of the Jewish Antiquities Josephus himself who not only in his Discourse against Appron but in his Jewish Antiquities lib. 1. prosecutes this Argument quoting Abydenus writing the same Story that Moses doth touching the Flood And Marethus Berosus Molus Hestiaeus Hieronimus Egyptius the Phenician Chronicles Hesiod Hecataeus Elaricus Acasilaùs Ephorus and Nicholas affirming that the Ancient Heroes lived 1000 years for that they being the friends of God and using a more wholesome Diet than could he had after the Flood must in Reason be supposed to live longer than their Successors and besides that they might find out Arts profitable for future Generations as Astrology Geometry c. they had a longer life bestowed upon them seeing it was not possible that they could observe the several Faces of the Stars in less than six hundred years which space is therefore called the great year of Revolution And Abydenus for the proof of Moses his History of the building of the Tower of Babel And Sibyl for the Confusion of Languages thus speaking When men were all of one Language they attempted to build a Tower that might reach up to Heaven but the Gods beat down the Tower with Tempests which from the wonderful Confusion of Tongues was called Babel And Hestiaeus making this mention of the Plain of Sinar The Priest who escaped sacrificed to Jove in the Vale of Sinar and the Language of men being confounded they began to inhabit divers parts of the World But I am weary of transcribing consult Josephus and Eusebius de praeparatione Evangelica lib. 9. cap. 1. whose title is that many forreign Writers have admired the Jewish Nation Cap. 2. The Testimony of Haecateus Cap. 3. The Testimony of Clearchus to Jewish Antiquities Cap. 4. That many forinsick Authors agree with the Truth of the Hebrew History CHAP. X. The Adversaries forced upon very great Disadvantages to their own Cause by reason that they could not for very shame resist the Evidences brought in defence of sacred History § 1. Christ accused of working by the Prince of Devils that Accusation withdrawn in open Court and this Plea put in against him that he made himself a King and therefore was an Enemy to Caesar. § 2. Petty Exceptions rebound upon the heads of their Framers § 3. The Modern Scepticks half-reasons too young to grapple with old Prescription § 4. Christ's Works God's Seal to his Mission § 5. The present Age as able to judge of the Nature of those Works as that was wherein they were done § 6. Aheistical exceptions against particular points of Religion an Hydra's head yet they all stand upon one neck and may be cut off at one blow by proving the Divine original of Religion § 1. THese are all the kinds of Testimonies that Matters of Fact are capable off and so full and impartial as I am sure our Modern Disputers cannot produce the like for the probat of any Matters of Fact except those which we have account of in the Gospel I might therefore here conclude But that I may leave the Sceptick without not only all possibility of Reply but of Excuse for his Pertinacy if he hath the face to question the validity of this Argument I shall add this weighty Consideration That the Adversaries of the Christian Religion in their discoursing upon that Subject were put upon exceeding great inconveniencies meerly upon this Reason because they could not for very shame resist those Evidences were brought in defence of the Evangelical History To begin with the Jewish we find the chief of them consulting what they should do to hinder the Progress of the Gospel when they saw such notable Miracles effected by Christ and his Disciples as could not be denyed and fore saw that the whole World would run after them if some stop were not put to this rowling Stone The first Obstacle they lay in its way was the calumniation of those great Works as being done not by the Finger of God but the Hand of Beelzebub But whatever Prestigiator was read of in any History so qualified as Christ was the Institutor of a Society accomplish'd with all Gravity and Virtue a Praeceptor of most sincere and true Doctrine as Eusebius challengeth the Pagan Objectors Demonst. Evang. 3. 8. The only colour of a proof they bring for this for their Fables of Christ's going into Aegypt to learn Magick of his having the Tetragrammaton sown in his Thigh have not the least shew of Probability was the seeming Contradiction betwixt the Law of Moses and of Christ it being on all hands confess'd that Moses was sent of God and assisted in the Wonders he wrought in confirmation of his Mission by a Divine Power and therefore what Christ did in proof of his Doctrine must needs be as they blasphem'd by a Diabolical But when he attempts at the araignment of our Saviour and