and Grace it will yield men no satisfaction which makes them constantly turn aside to other means and wayes of knowing and serving God This being so eminent in the Jews and the Medium they have fixed on to supply that want which they suppose to be in the Scripture but is indeed in themselves proving to be the great Engine of their hardening and obstinacy in their Infidelity I shall first declare what it is that they intend by the Orall Law and then briefly shew the absurdity and falseness of their pretensions about it though it must not be denyed that it is one of the most Antient Fables that is credited amongst any of the Sons of men at this day in the world § 6 This Orall Law they affirm to be an unwritten Tradition and Exposition of the written Law of Moses given unto him in Mount Sinai and committed by him to Joshua and the Sanhedrim to be by them delivered over by Orall Tradition unto those who should succeed them in the Government of that Church It doth not appear that in the dayes of Christ or his Apostles whilest the Temple was standing that there was any stated opinion amongst them about this Orall Law though it is evident that not long after it began to be received by the body of the People Nay it is evident that there was no such Law then acknowledged For the Sadduces who utterly reject all the main Principles of it were then not only tolerated but also in chief Rule one of them being High Priest That they had multiplyed many superstitious Observances amongst them under the name of Traditions is most clear in the Gospel and it doth not appear that then they knew whom to assign their original unto and therefore indefinitely called them the Traditions of the Elders or those that lived of old before them After the Destruction of their Temple when they had lost the life and spirit of that Worship which the Scripture revealed betaking themselves wholly unto their Traditional figments they began to bethink themselves how they might give countenance to their Apostacy from the Perfection and Doctrine of the written Law For this end they began to fancy that these Traditions were no less from God than the written Law it self For when Moses was forty dayes and forty nights in the Mountain they say that in the day time he wrote the Law from the mouth of God and in the night God instructed him in the Orall Law or unwritten Exposition of it which they have received by Tradition from him For when he came down from the Mount after he had read unto them the Written Law as they say he repeated to Aaron and Eleazer and the Sanhedrim all that secret instruction which he had received in the night from God which it was not lawfull for him to write but in especial he committed the whole to Joshua Joshua did the same to Eleazer as he did to his Son Phiâ—eas after whom they give us a Catalogue of several Prophets that lived in the ensuing generations all whom they employ in this service of conveying down the Orall Law to their Successors The High Priests also they give a place unto in this work of whom there were eighty three from the first Institution of that Office to the destruction of the Temple Joseph lib. 20. cap. 18. From Aaron to the building of Solomons Temple thirteen from thence to the Captivity eighteen all the rest take up the troublesome time of the Apostacy of their Church unto the finall ruine of it their Rulers being many because of their wickedness as themselves observe The last Person whom they would have to preserve the Orall Law absolutely pure was that Simeon whom they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Just mentioned by Jesus the Son of Syrach Chap. 50. And it is very observable that the latter Jews have left out Simeon the Son of Hillel whom their antient Masters placed upon the Roll of the Preservers of this Treasure supposing he might be that Simeon who in his old age received our Saviour in his arms when he was presented in the Temple Luke 2.25 a crime sufficient among the Jews to brand him with a perpetual ignominy neither are they alone in turning mens glory into reproach and shame After the destruction of the Temple and City when the evil Husbandmen were slain § 7 and the Vineyard of the Lord let out to others the Kingdom given to another Nation and therewith the Covenant sanctified use of the Scripture the remaining Jews having lost wholly the mind of God therein betook themselves to their Traditions and as I said before began to fancy and contend that they came from God himself whereas their Predecessors durst not plead any thing for them but that they came unto them from thâ—m of old that is some of the Masters of preceding Generations Hereupon a while after as I have elsewhere shewed at large one of them whom they call Rabbi Judâ— Humâ—si and Hakkadosh the Prince and the Holy took upon him to gather their scattered Traditions and to cast them into form order and method in Writing that they might be unto the Jews a Rule of Life and Worship for ever The Story of his work and undertaking is given us by Maimonides in Jad Chazacha the Authors of Sedar Olâ—â—n Halicoth Olam Tzemach David and many others and they all agree that this their great Master lived about the times of Marcus Antoninus two hundred years or thereabouts after the destruction of City and Temple This Collection of his they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mishne or Mishnaioth being as is § 8 pretended 〈◊〉 repetition of the Law in an Exposition of it indeed a farrago of all sorts of Traditions true and false with a monstrous mixture of Lyes useless foolish and wicked The things contained in it are by themselves referred to five heads 1. The Orall Law received by Moses on Mount Sinai preserved by the means before declared 2. Orall Constitutions of Moses himself after he came down from the Mount 3. Constitutions and Orders drawn by various wayes of arguing 13. as Rambam tells us out of the written Law 4. The Answers and Decrees of the Sanhedrim and other wise men in former Ages 5. Immemoriall Customs whose original being unknown are supposed to be divine The Whole is divided into six parts noted with the initial letter of the word which § 9 signifies the chief things treated on in it As the first by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 z that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zeraim Seeds which is divided into eleven Massicktot or Treatises containing all of them seventy five Chapters The second by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 m that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moad or appointed feasts which is distributed into Twelve Massicktot containing in them eighty eight Chapters The Third by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Women and is distributed in
seven Treatises containing seventy one Chapters The fourth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nezikim about loss and dammage and is divided into eight Massicktot whereof the first is divided into three parts called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first middle and last port or entrance containing in them thirty Chapters whereunto forty four are added in the following parts The fifth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kodoshim of Sanctifications and is divided into eleven Books containing ninety Chapters The sixth with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Teharoth of Purifications in twelve Books and one hundred twenty six Chapters Unto this Mishnae of R. Juda they annex the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tosiphot or additions of § 10 Rabbi Chaiah his Scholar expounding many passages in his Masters works to them a more full explanation of the same doctrine of the Mishnae which they call Baracetot is subjoyned being the Collection of some Antitalmudicall Masters About three hundred years after the Destruction of the Temple R. Johanan composed the Hierusalem Talmud consisting in Expositions Comments and Disputes upon the whole Mishnae excepting the last part about Purifications An hundred years or thereabouts after that Rabbi Ase composed the Babylonian Talmud or Gemara thirty two years they say he spent in this work yet leaving it unfinished seventy one years after it was compleated by his Disciples And the whole work of both these Talmuds may be referred unto five heads For first they expound the Text of the Mishnae 2. Decide Questions of right and fact 3. Report the Disputations Traditions and Constitutions of the Doctors that lived between them and the Writing of the Mishnae 4. Give Allegorical monstrous Expositions of the Scripture which they call Midrashoth and 5. Report Stories of the like nature § 11 This at length is their Orall Law grown into and in the learning and practising of these things consists the whole Religion and Worship of the Jews there being not the most absurd saying of any of their Doctors in those huge heaps of folly and vanity that they do not equall unto nay that they are not ready to preferr before the Written Word that perfect and only Guide of their Church whilest God was pleased with it In the dust of this confusion here they dwell loving this darkness more than light because their deeds are evil Having for many generations entertained a prejudicate imagination that these traditional Figments amongst which their crafty Masters have inserted many filthy and blasphemous Fables against our Lord Christ and his Gospel are of Divine Authority and having utterly lost the spiritual sense of the written Word they are by it sealed up in blindness and obdurateness and shall be so untill the vail be taken away when the appointed time of their deliverance shall come A brief discovery of the falseness of this fancy of their Orall Law which is the foundation of all that huge building of Lyes and Vanities that their Talmuds are composed of shall put an end to this Discourse § 12 1. The very Story of the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai sufficiently discovers the folly of this imagination This Orall Law the Jews are ready on all occasions to prefer before that which is written and do openly profess that without it the other is of no use unto them I desire then to know whence it is that all the circumstances of the giving and teaching of the less necessary are so exactly recorded but not one word is spoken of this Orall Law either of Gods revealing of it to Moses or of Moses teaching of it to Joshua or any others Strange that so much should be recorded of every circumstance of the less principal lifeless Law and not one word of either substance or circumstance of that which is if these men may be believed the very life and soul of the other Maimonides in Jad Chazaka tells us there is mention made of it in Exod. 24.12 I will give ye saith the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Law and Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he is the Written Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Orall when the next words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I have written that thou mayest teach them the Written Law being on several accounts expressed by both those terms and no other How know they that any such Law was given to Moses as they pretend What Testimony Witness or Record of it was had or made at the time of its giving or in many generations for two thousand years afterwards § 13 2. Did their Fore-fathers at any time before the Captivity transgress this Orall Law or did they not If they say they did not but kept it and observed it diligently we may easily see of what importance it is that the most strict Obsâ—evation of it would not preserve them from all manner of wickedness and what an hedge it is to the Written Law when notwithstanding the obedience yielded unto it that was utterly despised and neglected if they shall say that Law also was broken by them I desire to know whence it comes to pass that whereas God by his Prophets doth reprove them for all their other sins and in particular for contempt of his Written Law the Statutes Ordinances and Institutions of it he no where once mentioneth this their greater guilt of despising the Orall Law but there is as universall a silence concerning its transgression as there is of its giving and institution Can we have any greater evidence of its being fictitious than this that whereas it is pretended that it is the main Rule of their Obedience to God God did never reprove them for the transgression of it though whilest he owned them as his Church and People he suffered none of their sins to pass by unreproved especially not any of that importance which this is by them pretended to be of 3. Moses was commanded to write the whole Law that he received from God and did so accordingly Exod. 24.3 4. Chap. 34.28 Deut. 31.9 24. Where was this Orall Law which they say was not to be written when Moses was commanded to write the whole Law that he had received of God and did accordingly This New Law was not then coyned being indeed nothing but the product of their Apostacy from the Law which was written 4. The sole ground and foundation of this Orall Law lyes in the imperfection of the Written Law This is that which they plead for the necessity of it The written Law extends not to all necessary cases that occurr in Religion many things are redundant many wanting in it and hereof they gather great heaps of Instances so that they will grant that if the Written Law had been perfect there had been no need of this Traditional one But whom in this matter shall we believe a few ignorant Jews or God himself bearing witness that his Law is perfect and requiring no more in his Worship but what is in that Law prescribed
supream Principles of things a good one and a bad one Thus for the most part the first Question of a Romanist is How do you know the Scriptures to be the Word of God and then the next word is the Cabala the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orall Law Tradition these are the Foundation of it And in their progress they fail not to assert two Principles both borrowed from the Jews First That the Scripture is imperfect and doth not give us a full and compleat account of all things that are to be believed or practised that God may be glorified and our own souls saved Secondly That what is delivered therein can no way be rightly and truly understood but by the help of those Traditions which they have in their custody But although these are good usefull Inventions and they are men that want not Ability to find out what is conducing unto their own advantage yet they cannot be allowed the Credit of being their first Authors seeing they are expresly borrowed of the Jews § 19 Fourthly When these two Laws the Law of God and their own do come in competition the Jews many of them do expresly prefer that of their own invention before the other and that both as to certainty and use Hence they make it the foundation of their Church and the only safe means to preserve the Truth So are we informed by Isaac Corbulensis in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do not think saith he that the written Law is the Foundation for the Foundation is the Orall Law For by that Law was the Covenant made as it is written according to these words do I make a Covenant with thee Exod. 34.27 where he takes his Argument from that Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wresting foolishly as they do all his Orall Law from those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie nothing but according to nor are any other words intended but those delivered to Moses and written by him And these he adds are the Treasures of the Holy Blessed God For he knew that Israel should be carried Captive among other People and that the Nations would transcribe their Books and therefore would not commit their secret Law to Writing It seems these things were left them in secret Tradition because God was not willing that any besides themselves should know his Mind and Will but they have at last shewed themselves more full of benignity towards mankind than they would allow God to be in as much as they have committed this Secret Law to Writing And to this purpose is their Confession in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Golden Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is impossible for us to stand or abide upon the Foundation of our holy Law which is the written Law unless it be by the Orall Law which is the Exposition thereof Wherein they not only declare their Judgements concerning their Traditions but also express the Reason of their obstinate adherence unto them which is that without it they cannot maintain themselves in their present Judaism And so indeed is the case with them innumerable Testimonies of the Scriptures rising up directly against their Infidelity they were not able to keep their station but by an horrible corrupting of them through their Traditions On this account it is a common thing with them in the advise they give unto their Disciples to prefer the Study of the Talmud before the Study of the Scripture and the sayings of their Wise men before the sayings of the Prophets and plainly express an utter disregard of the Written Word any farther than as they suppose the sense of it explained in their Orall Law Neither are they here forsaken by their Associates The principal design of all the Books which have been lately published by the Romanists and they have not been a few hath been to prove the Certainty and Sufficiency of their Traditions in matters of their Faith and Worship above that of the Written Word § 20 Fifthly There are some few remaining among the Eastern Jews who reject all this Story concerning the Orall Law and professedly adhere unto the Written Word only These the Masters of their present Religion and Perswasion do by common consent brand as Hereticks calling them Scripturists or Scripturarians or Biblists the very name of reproach wherewith the Romanists stigmatize all those who reject their Traditions These are their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Biblists or Scripturarians and every where they term them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hereticks and endeavour to prove them guilty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Heresie in the highest degree Some of them would have them to be the Offspring of the old Sadducees to deny the Resurrection and the World to come as men care not much usually what they impute unto those whom they esteem Hereticks But the falsity hereof is notorious and so acknowledged by others and confuted by the Writings of the Karaeans themselves Yea the Author of Cosri affirms that they are more studious in the Law than the Rabbins and that their Reasons were more weighty than theirs and lead more towards the naked sense of the Scripture But this is that which they charge upon them namely that rejecting the sure Rule of their Traditions they run into singular Expositions of the Law and so divided it and made many Laws of it having no certain means of Agreement among themselves So saith Rabbi Jehuda Levita the Author of the fore-mentioned Cosri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Karaeans multiply Laws according to their own Opinion which he inveighs against them for after he had commended them And the same is objected against them by Maimonides on Pirke Aboth As though it were not known that the greatest part of their Talmud the Sacred Treasury of their Orall Law is taken up with differences and Disputes of their Masters among themselves with a multitude of various Opinions and contradictory conceptions about their Traditions Thus deal the Romanists also which their Adversaries this they charge them withall They are Hereticks Biblists and by adhering to the Scripture alone have no certainty among themselves but run into diversities of Opinions as having deserted the unerring Rule of their Cabala when the world is filled with the noise of their own conflicts notwithstanding the pretended relief which they have thereby It remains that we consider how these Traditions come to be communicated unto others out of the secret Store-house wherein Originally they were deposited This as I have elsewhere and partly before declared was by their being committed unto writing by Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh whose collections with their Expositions in their Talmud do give us a perfect account if we may believe them of that secret Law which came down unto them by Orall Tradition from Moses And something like hereunto is by the Romanists pretended Many of their Traditions they say are recorded in the Rescripts of Popes Decrees of Councils and Constitutions of the Canon Law and the like sacred means of
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with that clearness evidence and perspicuity as it is now by the Apostles and Preached unto all It is only then the degrees of the manifestation of this mysterie as to openness plainness and evidence that are asserted by the Apostle above all which of the same kind went before but the discovery of it absolutely is not denyed And thus much was necessary in our passage to secure our own interest in the mercy treated about § 33 We may now return a little again unto the Promise given unto Abraham In the pursuit hereof his Posterity was separated to be a peculiar people unto God Their Church-state the whole Constitution of their Worship their Temple and Sacrifices were all of them assigned and appointed unto to the confirmation of the Promise and to the explanation of the way whereby the blessed seed should be brought forth and the work that he should perform for the removal of sin and the Curse and the bringing in of everlasting Righteousness as shall elsewhere be manifested Moreover unto this Deliverer and Deliverance to be wrought by him with the nature of it and the means of its accomplishment by what he was to do and suffer do all the Prophets bear witness The full manifestation hereof seeing it requires an explication of the whole Doctrine of the Messiah concerning his Person Grace and Mediation his Offices Life Death and Intercession the Justification of sinners through his Blood and Sanctification by his Spirit with all other Articles of our Christian Faith all which are taught and revealed though obscurely in the Old Testament would take up an entire Volumn and be unsuitable unto our present design But three things in general the Prophets give Testimony unto him by First By preferring the promised relief and remedy above all the present Glory and Worship of the Church directing it to look above all its enjoyments unto that which in all things was to have the pre-eminence Se◠Isa. 2. v. 2. Chap. 4. v. 2 3 4 5. Chap. 7. v. 13 14 15. Chap. 9. v. 6 7. Chap. 11. v. 1 2 3 4 10 c. Chap. 32. v. 1 2 3 4. Chap. 35. v. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Chap. 40. v. 1 2 3 4 5 9 10 11. Chap. 42. v. 1 2 3 4. Chap. 49. v. 18 19. Chap. 51. v. 4 5 6 7. Chap. 59.20 21. Chap. 60. Chap. 61. v. 1 2 3 c. Chap. 65. v. 17 18. Jeremiah 23. v. 5 6. Chap. 30. v. 9. Chap. 31. v. 31 32 33 34. Chap. 32. v. 40 41 42. Ezek. 40. c. Dan. 7.27 Chap. 9. v. 24. Chap. 12. v. 1 2. Hos. 3. v. 5. Joel 3. v. 18. Amos 9. v. 11 12 13 14 15. Obad. v. 21. Micah 4. v. 1 2 3 4. Chap. 5. v. 1 2 3 4. Habbuk 2. v. 14. Hagg. 2. v. 6 7 8 9. Zechar. 2. v. 8 9 10 11 12. Chap. 3. v. 8 9 10. Chap. 6. v. 1◠13. Chap. 9. v. 9 10 11. Chap. 14. v. 3 4 20. Malach. 1. v. 11. Chap. 3.1 2 3. Chap. 4. v. 2. Which places although but a few of those that occur in the Prophets are yet too many to be particularly insisted on But this they all teach with one consent that there was in the Promise which they assert and confirm an Excellency of Blessings far exceeding in Glory and Worth and in advantage unto Believers all that which they outwardly enjoyed in their Peace Prosperity Kingdom and Temple-Worship Now this can be nothing but the Spiritual and Eternal Deliverance of their Persons from sin Curse and Misery with the enjoyment of the Favour of God in this Life and Blessedness hereafter in his Presence for evermore And this in particular is expressed and declared in many of the Promises directed unto especially those which concern the making and establishing of the New Covenant which is that we are in the demonstration of Secondly They do the same in the Description they give of the Person that was to be this Remedy or Relief and of the work that he had to accomplish for that End and Purpose For the former they declare that he was to be the Son of God God and Man in one Person Psalm 2. v. 7. Psalm 110. v. 1. Isa. 9. v. 6 7. Jer. 23. v. 5 6. Zech. 2.8 9 10. and in sundry other places is the same mysterie intimated whereby the Church was farther instructed how God would joyn with the nature of man in the seed of the Woman for the Conquest of the Old Serpent and the destruction of his works And for the latter as they declare his sufferings in an especial manner even what and how he was to suffer in the bruising of his heel or bearing the effect of and Punishment due to sin Psalm 22. Isaiah 53. Dan. 9. v. 24 25. so his teaching ruling and governing of his people in their Obedience unto God by him untill they are saved unto the uttermost as the great Prophet and King of his Church is by them fully manifested Psalm 2. Psalm 22. v. 25. Psalm 45. v. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17. Psalm 68. v. 17 18. Psalm 72. Psalm 89. v. 9 10 11 12 13. Psalm 96. Psalm 97. Psalm 98. Psalm 99. Psalm 110. Isaiah 11. v. 1 2 3 4 5. Chap. 9.6 7. Chap. 32. v. 1 2. Chap. 35. Chap. 40.11 12. Chap. 42. v. 1 2 3 4. Chap. 45. v. 22 23 24 25. Chap. 49. v. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. Chap. 50. v. 4. Chap. 59. v. 16 17. Chap. 61. v. 1 2 3. Chap. 63. v. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Jerem. 23. v. 5 6. Micah 4. v. 2 3. Chap. 5. v. 1 2 3 4. Zechary Chap. 2. v. 8. Mal. 3.1 2 3 4. as in sundry other places Yea herein all the Prophets greatly abound it being the principal work that God raised them up for and inspired them by his Holy Spirit in their severall Generations as Peter declared 1 Epist. 1. v. 10 11 12. Thirdly They did also by taking off the Expectations of men from looking after relief and deliverance by any other way or means whatsoever Psalm 40. v. 8 9. Add hereunto that the whole Fabrick of the Tabernacle and temple-Temple-Worship was contrived appointed and designed in Infinite Wisdom unto no other End but to instruct and direct the Church unto this Promised Deliverer and the Salvation to be wrought by him as shall God assisting abundantly be manifested in our Exposition of the Epistle unto the Hebrews Thus do both the Law and Prophets bear witness unto this Promised Deliverer and § 34 the Deliverance to be wrought by him And this is He whom the Jews and Christians call the Messiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to annoint with oyle Those who were peculiarly of old consecrated unto God in the great Offices of Kings Priests and Prophets were by his Appointment so to be annointed at least some
Quotations with the places in the Old Testament from whence they are taken Some had endeavoured an Analysis of the several Discourses of the Author with the nature and force of the Arguments insisted on by him The labours of some were to improve the Truths contained in the Epistle unto Practice others have collected the difficulties which they observed therein and scanned them in a Scholastical way with Objections and Solutions after their manner Others had an especial design unto the Places whose sense is controverted amongst the several Parties at variance in Christian Religion all in their way and manner endeavouring to give light to the intentions of the Holy Ghost either in particular passages or in the whole Epistle The helps and advantages in the investigation of the mind of God which by their labours might be obtained I looked on as a great encouragement to undertake the same work with them and to promote the light of truth thereby But on the other side no small objection unto the whole work and design did hence also arise For it might seem to some altogether needless to ingage in that which so many had already gone through with to the great profit and edification of the Church And nothing can or ought more justly to weaken and take off the resolution of any in this kind of endeavours than that they are needless For what ever is so will also thereby be useless and because useless burthensome This consideration I confess did for a long time deter me from executing my purpose of casting my Mite into this Sanctuary But yet after I had made a through perusal of all the Comments Expositions Annotations or Observations on the Epistle which by any means I could obtain I returned again upon sundry considerations unto my former thoughts and resolutions For first I found the excellency of the Writing to be such the depths of the Mysteries contained in it to be so great the compass of the truth asserted unfolded and explained so extensive and diffused through the whole body of Christian Religion the usefulness of the things delivered in it so important and indispensibly necessary as that I was quickly satisfied that the Wisdom Grace and Truth treasured in this sacred Store-house are so far from being exhausted and fully drawn forth by the endeavours of any or all that are gone before us or from being all perfectly brought forth to light by them as that I was assured that there was â—eft a sufficient ground and foundation not only for renewed investigation after rich Branches in this Mine for the present Generation but for all them that shall succeed unto the consummation of all things For if we find it thus in Humane Sciences that no Ability no Industry no Combination of the most happy Wits for their improvement in former Ages hath precluded the way unto persons of Ingenuity and Learning to adde considerably in several kinds unto their respective advancement nor shall the sedulity of this present Age in the furtherance and adorning of them be ever able to bring them unto any such perfection as to condemn succeeding Generations unto the slothful and servile drudgery of the meer perusal of their Dictates and Prescriptions and so by the use of their Inventions leave unto others only that of their memory how much more must we grant the same in things Divine and the spiritual knowledge of them whose stores in this life are absolutely inexhaustible and whose depths are not fully to be fathomed Again it is evident that the principal things asserted and taught in this Epistle such as is the Doctrine of the Person and the Priesthood of Jesus Christ have received a more eager and subtil opposition since the labours and endeavours of the most in the Exposition of it than they had done before And as this renders the vindication of the places wherein they are taught and asserted necessary so it is not unknown unto those who are conversant in these kinds of studies what advantage may be obtained in the investigation of truth by the opposition that is made unto it especially when that Opposition is managed with a curious search into every word and syllable which may seem to give countenance unto it as also in the sifting of every tittle and particle that stands in its way which course of procedure the enemies of the Truths mentioned have with much art and industry engaged themselves into But that which most of all took off the weight of the discouragement that arose from the multiplied endeavours of learned Men in this kind was an Observation that all of them being intent on the sense of the words as absolutely considered and the use of them to the present Church had much over-looked the direct respect and regard that the Author had in the writing of this Epistle to the then past present and future condition of the Hebrews or Church of the Jews Looking at these things as dead and buried of no use in the present state of the Church they did either wholly neglect them or pass them over in a light and perfunctory manner Nor indeed had many of them though otherwise excellently well qualified a competency of skill for the due consideration of things of that nature But yet those that shall seriously and with judgment consider the design of the Writer of this Epistle the time wherein he wrote it the proper end for which it was composed the subject matter treated of in it the principles he proceeds upon and his manner of arguing will easily perceive that without a serious consideration of them it is not possible to come to a right comprehension in many things of the mind of the Holy Ghost therein Many Principles of Truth he takes for granted as acknowledged amongst the Hebrews during their former Church state and makes them a foundation for his own Superstructure many Customs Vsages Ordinances Institutions received sense of places of Scripture amongst the Jews he either produceth or reflects upon and one way or other makes use of the whole Mosaical Oeconomy or System of Divine Worship under the Law unto his own purpose The common neglect of these things or slight transaction of them in most Expositors was that which principally relieved me from the fore-mentioned discouragement And this also was that which at length gave rise unto those Exercitations which take up the greatest part of the ensuing Book Some of them are indeed indispensibly due to the work it self Such are those which concern the Canonical Authority of the Epistle the Writer of it the Time of its writing the Phraseology of the Author with the way he proceeds in the Quotations of Testimonies out of the Old Testament and some other of the same tendency the residue of them were occasioned meerly by the consideration before insisted on Some great Principles I observed that the Apostle supposed which he built all his arguings and exhortations upon not directly proving or confirming the Principles
See Psal. 19.8 Prov. 30.5 6. Deut. 4.1 2. And this perfection of the Written Law though it be perfectly destructive to their Tradions not only the Karaei among themselves do earnestly contend for but also sundry of their Gemarists do acknowledge especially when they forget their own concernments out of a desire to oppose the Gospel And to this head belong all the Arguments that Divines make use of to prove the perfection of the Scripture against the New Talmudists in Christianity 5. God every where sends his people to the Written Law of Moses for the Rule of their Obedience no where unto any Kabal Deut. 11.32 and chap. 10.12 13. Chap. 28.1 Josh. 1.7 8. Chap. 23.6 2 Chron. 30.18 Isa. 8.20 If there be such an Orall Law it is one that God would not have any man to observe which he calls none to the Obedience of nor did ever reprove any man for its Transgression And many more Arguments of the like nature may be added to prove the vanity of § 14 this pretence And yet this Figment is the bottom of the present Judaical Religion and obstinacy When the Apostle wrote this Epistle their Apostacy was not yet arrived at this rock of offence since their falling on it they have increased their blindness misery and ruine Then they were contented to try their cause by what God spake to their Fathers in the Prophets which kept open a door of hope and gave some advantages for their Conversion which are now shut up and removed untill God shall take this vail away from their faces that they may see to the end of the things that were to be done away By this means principally have they for many generations both shut out the § 15 Truth and secured themselves from Conviction For what ever is taught and revealed in the Scripture concerning the Person Office and Work of the Messiah seeing they have that which they esteem a Revelation of equall Authority herewithall teaching them a Doctrine quite of another nature and more suited unto their carnal Principles and Expectations they will rather rest in any evasions than give way to the Testimony thereof And whilest they have a firm perswasion as they have received by the Tradition of many Generations that the written Word is imperfect but an half Revelation of the mind of God in its self unintelligible and not to be received or understood but according to the sense of their Orall Law now recorded in their Talmuds what can the most plain and cogent Testimonies of it avail unto their Conviction And this hath been the fatall way and means of the grand Apostacy of both Churches Judaical and Christian. How far that of the Jews was overtaken with it in the dayes of our Lords Conversation on the Earth the Gospel doth abundantly declare and how they have brought it unto its height we have given now some brief account That of the Roman Church hath been the very same and hath at length arrived unto almost the same issue by the same degrees This some of them perceiving do not only defend the Pharisaical Opinion among the Jews about the Orall Law and Succession of their Traditions as consonant to the pretensions of their own Church but also openly avow that a very great number of their several respective Traditions are either the same or that they nearly resemble one another as doth expresly Josephus de Voysin in his Proaemium to the Pugio fidei of Raimundus Martini And because it is evident that the same have been the way and means whereby both the Judaical and Roman Church have apostatized and departed from the Truth and that they are the same also whereby they maintain and defend themselves in their Apostacy and refusal to return unto the Truth I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 manifest their Consent and Agreement in this Principle about their Traditions and Authority of them which have been the Ruine of them both First The Jews expresly contend that their Orall Law their Mass of Traditions was § 16 from God himself Partly they say it was delivered unto Moses on Mount Sinai and partly added by him from Divine Revelations which he afterwards received Hence the Authority of it with them is no less than that of the Written Word which hath all its Authority from its Divine Original and the usefulness of it is much more For although they cannot deny but that this and that particular Tradition that is Practice Custom or Exposition of any place of Scripture was first introduced expressed and declared at such or such seasons by such Masters or Schools amongst them yet they will not grant that they were then first invented or found out but only that they were then first declared out of the Cabalistical Abyss wherein they were preserved from their first Revelation as all of them agree who have written any thing about the nature propagation and continuance of their Orall Law And this is the perswasion of the Romanists about their Cabal of Traditions They plead them to be all of a Divine Original partly from Christ and partly from his Apostles What ever they have added unto the written Word yea though it be never so contrary thereunto still they pretend that it is part of the Orall Law which they have received from them by living Tradition Let one Convention of their Doctors determine that Images are to be adored another that Transubstantiation is to be believed a third add a New Creed with an equall number of Articles unto the old let one Doctor advance the Opinion of Purgatory another of Justification by Works all is one these things are not then first invented but only declared out of that unsearchable Treasure of Traditions which they have in their Custody Had they not inlaid this Perswasion in the minds of men they know that their whole Fabrick would of its own accord have long since sunk into Confusion But they highly contend at this day that they need no other Argument to prove any thing to be of an Heavenly Extract and Divine Originall but that themselves think so and practise accordingly § 17 Secondly This Orall Law being thus given the Preservation of it seeing Moses is dead long ago must be enquired after Now the Jews assign a threefold Depository of it First The whole Congregation Secondly The Sanhedrim and Thirdly The High Priest To this End they affirm that it was three times repeated upon the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai as to what of it he had then received and his after additions had the same promulgation First It was repeated by himself unto Aaron Secondly By them both unto the Elders and Thirdly By the Elders unto the whole Congregation or as Maimonides in Jad Chazakah Moses delivered it unto Eleazar Phineas and Joshuah after the Death of Aaron by whom the Consistory was instructed therein who taught the People
as occasion did require What the People knew of it is uncertain but what they did so was quickly lost The Consistory or great Sanhedrim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they call it the House of Judgement of Seventy and one was more faithfull in its charge Hence Rab. Moses in the same Book Tractat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Rebells or Transgressors teacheth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The great Consistory or House of Judgement at Jerusalem was the foundation of the Orall Law These are the Pillars of Doctrine from whom Statutes and Judgements went forth unto all all Israel And he afterwards affirms with what Truth may be easily judged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whilest this great Consâ—story continued there was no dissention in Israel For not only the famous differences between Hillel and Shammai with their Disciples which involved all the Schools Scribes and Lawyers among them arose and were propagated whilest that Consâ—story continued but also the Atheistical Sect of the Sadduces rose unto that height and interest as to obtain the Presidentship in the Sanhedrim its self But the High Priests are those whom they fix upon as the principal Conservators of this Orall Law To this End they give us Catalogues of them from first to last that by their uninterrupted Succession we we may be secured of the incorrupt preservation of their Original Traditions Only it may here be added by the way that they bind not themselves precisely in all their Religious Observances unto this Oral Law whereunto they assign a Divine Original but ascribe an Authority unto the Sanhedrim and the High Priest to constitute things of themselves in the Worship of God besides and beyond the word For whatever they pretend of their Orall Law when they come unto particular Instances they would fain educe the Constitutions of it from some Word or Letter or manner of Interpretation of the Scripture its self But those Constitutions of the Consistory and Wisemen they ascribe unto their own Authority Some of these are recounted by Maimonides in his Preface unto Jad Chazaka as the Reading of the Book or Roll of Esther with Fasting lights on the Feast of Dedication The Fast on the seventh of Ab. or July various Mixtures and Washings of hands things plainly of that nature which our Lord Jesus condemned amongst them And it is observable how he frees them from transgressing that Precept Deut. 12.32 Thou shalt not add unto this word by this Constitution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For saith he they say not that the holy blessed God hath commanded these things that there should be such Mixtures that the Book of Esther should be read with fasting for if they should say so they should add to the Law but thus we speak such and such a Prophet or the Consistory commanded and appointed that the Book of Esther should be read with fasting to celebrate the Glory of the Holy Blessed God in our Deliverance and so of the rest It seems then they may add what they will of their own so they entitle not the Name of God to their Inventions by which means they have set themselves at liberty to multiply superstitious Observations at their pleasure which they had actually done in the dayes of our Saviour and thereby made the Law of God of none effect In all these things are they followed and imitated by the Romanists In the same manner do they lay up the stock of their Traditions In general they make the Church the repository of them although they do not so distinctly explain the way and means whereby they were committed thereunto as the Jews do Unto the Sanhedrim Councils are succeeded in the same Office But their Nature Work Authority Assistance and Use are so variously disputed amongst them that nothing of certainty from them or by them singly considered is to be obtained It is the High Priest or Pope that is the Principal Conservator of this Sacred Treasury of Traditions Upon their Succession doth the certainty of them depend And whilest there is a Pope at Rome the knowledge of the new Orall Law will not fail as the Old one did not whilest the Jews had an High Priest though in the pursuit of it they Crucified the Messiah and continue to reject him unto this day Besides like the Jews they content not themselves with what they pretend to be of antient Tradition but assume a Power of making new Constitutions in the things of God whereby they would have us to think they do not violate the prohibitions of adding because they ascribe them not unto the Word of God but to the Authority of the present Church Thus far therefore they are fully agreed Thirdly The Jews in favour and unto the Honour of these Traditions affirm that the § 18 written Word without them is imperfect and not to be understood but as it is interpreted by them This they are constant unto and earnestly contend for Aben Ezra in his Preface to the Law discourseth at large of five several wayes of the Interpretation of it but concludes at last that the whole written Law of Moses is founded on the Orall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this is a sign unto us that the Law of Moses is founded on the Orall Law which is the joy of our hearts so apt are they to rejoyce in a thing of nought To the same purpose are the words of another Famous Master amongst them Rabbi Bechai in Cad Hakkemach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Orall Law is the Foundation of the written nor can the Written Law be expounded but by the Oral By this being the Foundation of the Written Law they intend that the sense of it is so enwrapped and contained therein that without the Explications thereof it cannot be understood And to this End Manasse one of their late Masters expresly disputes that in many things it is defective and in some things redundant so that it is not able to give us a full and clear direction in the things of God without their Traditional Explications and in the confirmation of his opinion he instanceth in sundry Precepts and Prohibitions that he would prove so obscure as that no Obedience can be yielded unto them in a due manner without the help of the Cabala which because for the most part his Exceptions from them are Childish Cavils and have been answered by others shall be here passed over This they are arrived unto this is the common perswasion of them all and we shall yet hear what farther Progress they have made And herein are they imitated by their Successors Their Orall Law also is made by them the foundation of the Written As those Hereticks of old who having got some Sophistical Cavils about Evil where ever they met with any one not of their mind they presently fell upon him with their Vnde maluâ—n whence had evil its Original so thinking to bring them to the acknowledgement of two
wrought by Christ and the Tradition delivering them down unto us This also the Jews plead concerning the Miracles § 61 of Moses They were say they openly wrought in the sight of all Israel and that they were so wrought the Testimony of Israel in succeeding Ages is next the Writings its self the best and only witness they have of them And wherein doth our Testimony come short of theirs Nay on both accounts of their first notoriety and succeeding Tradition it far exceeds what they have to plead For as the Miracles of Moses were wrought openly so the most of them were so only in the sight of that one People whom he had under his own conduct in a wilderness remote from any converse with other Nations and that in those dark times of the world wherein men were generally stupid and credulous as having not been imposed on by the delusions which the following Ages were awakened by The Jews also lay no greater weight on any Miracles then thâ—y do on those which were wrought in the wilderness of Midian which had no witness unto them but that of Moses himself But the Miracles of Jesus were all or most of them wrought before the eyes of multitudes envying hating and persecuting of him and that in the most knowing daies of the world when Reason and Learning had improved the light of the minds of men to the utmost of their capacity in and upon multitudes for sundry years together being all of them sifted by his adversaries to try if they could discover any thing of deceit in them And although his personal Ministry was confined to one Nation yet the Miracles wrought by his Disciples in his Name and by his Power for the confirmation of his being the Messiah were spread all the world over so that all mankind were filled first with the report of them and then satisfied with their truth and lastly the generality of them with faith in him which they directed unto The notoriety therefore of his Miracles far exceedeth that of those of Moses And for the means whereby the certainty of them is continued unto us whether we respect the number of persons confirming it or their quality or their dis-interest as to any carnal advantage or their suffering for their Testimony it is notorious that the Jews condition confined meerly to themselves is no way to be compared with it So that we may truly say that no Jew can possibly on any rational account give credit unto the Truth of the Miracles wrought by Moses and deny it unto them wrought by the Lord Jesus § 62 But yet there seems somewhat further necessary in this case Though there were Miracles wrought by our Saviour yet they might be every way inferiour unto them wrought by Moses and so not sufficient to testifie unto a Doctrine and Authority removing and abolishing the Laws and Customs instituted by Moses And this the Jews of old seemed to have had respect unto in their endless tumultuary Calling after Signs and Miracles And hence though the Lord Christ sometimes pleaded with them the works that he wrought leaving them to stand and fall according unto the evidence of them Joh. 15.24 chap. 10.37 As also did the Apostles afterwards Act. 2.22 unto the astonishment of all and satisfaction of the less obdurate Job 7.31 chap. 12.37 Yet both he himself constantly refused to gratifie their curiosity and unbelief when they required any Sign or Miracle of him Matth. 12.38 39. chap. 16.4 Luk. 11.29 And the Apostle expresly condemneth the whole principle in them as that which in the preaching of the Gospel was not to be gratified nor much attended unto 1 Cor. 1.22 But yet neither is there any strength wanting unto our Argument on this account also For although it be not at all necessary that he who comes with an after-Revelation of the will of God reversing any thing before established should be attested unto with more Miracles or those that are more signal then he or they were who were the instruments of the first Revelation of things to be repealed seeing no more is required but that he be sufficiently evidenced to be sent of God which may be done by one true real Miracle as well as by a thousand yet the wisdom of God hath so ordered things that the Miracles wrought by the Lord Jesus did on many accounts exceed those wrought by Moses as by a comparison in some particular instances will appear First The number of them gives them the preheminence The Jews contend that § 63 there were seventy six Miracles wrought by Moses whereas those of all other Prophets as they observe amount but unto seventy four for so do they lay hold on every occasion to exalt him who yet judgeth and condemneth them To make up this number they reckon up sundry things that happened about his birth and death far enough from Miracles wrought by him or in the confirmation of his Ministry They add also every extraordinary work of God that fell out in his daies to the same purpose Be it so then that so many Miracles were wrought by Moses as we are far from diminishing any thing of the Glory of his Ministry yet what are those compared unto those wrought by Christ and his Apostles in his Name and by his Power and Authority Those that are recorded of his own are not easily reckoned up and yet those that are written are far the least part of what he did perform and that in the space of three or four years whereas those of Moses were scattered unto the whole course of his life for an hundred and twenty years Thus John assures us that he did many more signs besides those that are written chap. 20.30 31. and that his Testimony is equal unto that of Moses we have proved before He adds that the world could not contain the Books that might be written of his Miracles chap. 21.25 by which usual hyperbole a great multitude is designed Nor did the Writers of the Story of the Gospel agree to give an account of all the Miracles that were wrought by the Author of it but only to leave sufficient instances on record of his Divine Power in the effecting of them For this end they singled out some works that were occasionally attended with some Disputes or Preachings tending unto the opening and confirmation of the Doctrine of the Gospel Thus upon the coming of the Disciples of John unto him it is said Luk. 7.21 In that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues and of evil spirits and unto many that were blind he gave sight The particular stories of none of these are any where mentioned nor had that season been at all remembred but upon occasion of those Persons who were sent unto him the present works which they saw being made the ground of that answer which he returned unto their Master v. 22. Go tell John the things which ye have seen and heard how that the blind
10.17 18. This being performed by him after the dissolution of his humane nature in the open visible separation of his body and soul in which state it was utterly impossible that that nature should put forth any act toward the retrievement of its former condition manifested his existence in another superiour nature acting with power on the humane in the same Person And this one Miracle was a sufficient vindication of the truth which he had taught concerning himself namely that he was the Messiah the Son of God And though any should question his being raised again from the dead by his own power yet the evidence is uncontrollable that he was raised again by the power of God without the application of the means and Ministry of any other whereby the Holy and Eternal God of truth entitled himself unto all that he had taught concerning his Person and Office whilest he was alive And this leaves no room for haesitation in this matter For this being granted none will deny but that he was the Messiah and what principles we proceed upon for the proof of it unto the Jews hath been before declared § 68 Unto what hath been summarily recounted we may lastly add the continuance of the miracles wrought by his power after his leaving of this world and his Ascention into Heaven And there is in them an additional evidence unto what hath been insisted on For whereas the miraculous works that were wrought by himself and his Disciples whilest he conversed with them in the flesh were confined as we observed before unto the Land of Canaan those who afterwards received power from above by his Grant and Donation continued to assert the like mighty works and miracles all the world over so that within the space of a few years there was scarce a famous Town or City in the world wherein some of his Disciples had not received the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost And this also distinctly confirms him to be the promised Messiah for whereas the Isles of the Gentiles were to wait for and to receive his Law it was necessary that among them also it should receive this solemn kind of attestation from Heaven § 69 Now from what hath been spoken it appears not only that the Miracles wrought by Jesus were sufficient to confirm the Testimony which he gave concerning himself namely that he was the promised Messiah the Son of God but also that they were so much more eminent then those wherewith God was pleased to confirm the Ministry of Moses in the giving of the Law that the Jews have no Reason to doubt or question his Authority for the reversing of any Institutions of Worship which they had formerly been obliged unto To close this Argument I shall only manifest that the Jews of old were convinced § 70 of the truth of the Miracles wrought by the Lord Jesus and therein a little discover the variety of those pretences whereby they attempt to shield themselves from the natural consequence of that conviction 1. For those who lived in his own dayes see Matth. 18.11 12 13 14. Joh. 7.31 Chap. 19.16 24. Acts 4.16 Acts 19.13 Neither did they at any time dispute his works but only the power whereby they were wrought of which afterwards 2. The fame and reputation of them was such amongst them that those who made an Art and Trade of casting out of Devils used the invocation of the name of Jesus over their possessed which the notoriety of his exerting his Divine power in that kind of works induced them unto See Acts 19.13 They adjured the Spirits by the Name of Jesus whom Paul preached observing the miracles that he wrought in that name For they being ignorant of the true way and means whereby the Apostle wrought his miraculous works after the manner of Magicians they used the name of him whom he preached in their Exorcisms as it was ever the custom of that sort of men to intermix their charms with the names of such persons as they knew to have excelled in mighty works And that this was common among the Jews of those dayes is evident from Luke 9.49 which could no otherwise arise but from a general consent in the acknowledgement of the works wrought by him 3. We have also hereunto the suffrage of the Talmudical Rabbins themselves the most malitious adversaries that ever the Lord Jesus had in this world They intend not indeed to bear witness unto his miracles but partly whilest they relate stories that were continued amongst them by Tradition partly whilest they endeavour to shield their unbelief from the Arguments taken from them they tacitly acknowledge that they were indeed wrought by him This I say they do whilest they labour to shew by what wayes and means those Prodigies and wondrou◠works which are recorded of him were wrought and effected For they who say this or that was the way whereby such a thing was accomplished do plainly acknowledge the doing of the thing it self Greater evidence of their self-conviction it is impossible they should give in or need we desire First In the Talmud its self they have traditional stories of miracles wrought by the § 71 Disciples of Jesus and by others in his name which although they are like the rest of their Narrations foolish and insipid yet they evidence the Tradition that was amongst them from the forementioned conviction Thus in Aboda Zara they have a story concerning James who lived longest amongst them It happened they say that Eleacer the Son of Dama was bitten by a Serpent and James of the Village of Sechaniah that is Bethany came to cure him in the name of Jesus the son of Pandira but R. Ishmael opposed him and said it is not lawful for thee thou Son of Dama So owning that Miracles and Cures were wrought by James in the name of Jesus And in Sabbat Hierusal Distinct. Schemona Scheraticin they tell us that the Son of Rab. Jose the Son of Levi had swallowed poyson a certain man came and communed with him in the name of Jesus the Son of Pandira and he was healed but when he was gone out one said unto him how didst thou advice him he said by such a word the other replied tha◠it had been better for him to have dyed then to have heard that word I mention these things only to shew that they were never able to stifle the Tradition that passed among themselves concerning the Miracles wrought by Jesus and his Disciples But this conviction more evidently discovers its self in their endeavours to assign his § 72 mighty works unto other causes so that they may not from them be forced to acknowledge his Divine power and the presence of God with him And there are two pretences which they make use of The first is that of their fore-fathers Mat. 12.24 They would have the Devil to be the Author of them and that he wrought them by Magical Incantations This they pleaded of old and this
people and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation neither shall they learn war any more This Prophesie is in the same words repeated Micha 4.1 2 3 4. where there is added unto the close of it But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree and none shall make them afraid And the like things are spoken of in sundry other places of that Prophesie § 14 In this we agree with the Jews that this is a prophesie of the time of the Messiah of his Kingdom in this world and do willingly subscribe to that rule of Kimchi on the place on those words in the last or latter days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In every place where there is mention of the last days the days of the Messiah are intended which we have formerly made use of We also consent unto him that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the teacher that shall from Jerusalem instruct us in the Law and will of the Lord is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Messiah the King which manifests him to be a Prophet no less then a King and he also is the Judge that shall judge among the Nations Only we differ from them in the Exposition of the Mountain of the house of the Lord which they take to be mount Moria we the worship of God it self And whereas both of us are necessitated to depart from the Letter and allow a Metaphor in the words for they will not contend that the hill Moria shall be plucked up by the roots and taken and set on the tops of other mountains they know not where nor can they tell unto what purpose any such thing would be so our interpretation of the words which admits only of the most usual figurative expression the place being taken for the worship performed in it on the account whereof alone it was ever of any esteem is far more easie and natural then any thing they can wrest the remainder of the words unto supposing mount Moria to be literally understood And in this sense we affirm the first part of the Prophesie to be long since really and to the full accomplished For whereas the worship of God before the coming of Christ was confined unto the Temple at Hierusalem attended unto by one poor small enslaved Nation and that in such outward contempt and scorn that it was no way to be compared with the glory of the false worship of the Nations and the compliance of multitudes of people unto it the mountains being far more visible conspicuous and stately then that at Hierusalem upon his coming and giving out the Law of God unto the Nations of the world the most the greatest and the most glorious of them consented unto the acceptance of it and with one consent gave themselves up to the worship of the God of Jacob whereby the worship of the true God was not only exalted and made more conspicuous then the lofty hills and high places of the world wherein they worshipped their Idols but the most eminent mountains of the whole earth as that of Diana at Ephesus and of the Capitol at Rome were destroyed and deserted and the glory of the worship of God was lifted up above them So that what the Jews think to plead for themselves doth indeed in a manifest and open Event wholly evert their unbelief But avoiding the consideration hereof that which they principally insist upon is the Peace promised under the Kingdom of the Messiah which as it seems to them is not accomplished Yea saith one of them Men are so far from heating their swords into Plow-shares that within a few hundreds of years new instruments of war never heard of in the world before have been invented among them who pretend to believe in the Messiah And this as they think makes it appear that really he is not as yet come into the world the vanity of which pretence may easily be discovered from our former Rules which we shall briefly make application of unto its removal For first The temporal outward Peace of the world if any such thing be here § 15 intended is not the principal part matter or subject of the Promise but only an accessory unto it the chief part of it which concerns the spiritual worship of God is evidently and openly fulfilled That which is temporal for the times and seasons of it is left unto the sovereign Will and Wisdom of God for its accomplishment Neither is it necessary that it should be fulfilled amongst all Nations at once but only amongst them who at any time or in any place effectually receive the Laws of God from the Messiah What ever then of outward peace is really intended in this promise as it hath in part already received its accomplishment as we shall shew so the whole shall be fulfilled in the time and way of Gods appointment 2. That the words are not to be understood absolutely according to the strict exigence of the letter is evident from that complement of the prediction of that in Micah Every one shall sit under his own vine and fig-tree there being many not only persons but great Nations in the world that have neither the one nor the other 3. The Jews themselves do not expect such peace upon the coming of their Messiah War great and terrible with Gog and Magog they look for which also the Scripture mentions and that with Amillus is their own faith or fancy only it may be they would have no body to wage war with but themselves For whereas they tell us that all Nations shall come with their controversies to be ended by the Messiah at Hierusalem and by that means prevent war among them I suppose they will not do so untill they are subdued and those Nations broken in pieces which will not serve them which what ever expedition they fancy to themselves may take up at least half the Reign of their Messiah if he should live an hundred years about which they differ yea plainly and openly great wars and desolation of the enemies of the children of God are fore-told under the Messiah Isa. 63.1 2 3 4 c. 4. I shall not much insist on that universal peace which God gave unto all the known Nations of the world at the coming of Christ in the Reign of Augustus though it look more like an accomplishment of this Prophecie then what the Jews imagine therein but because it was only coincident with by the Providence of God and not an effect of his coming I shall pass it by only as a diagnostick of the season wherein the Prince of peace was to be born and was so accordingly But I say 5. That Christ at his coming wrought perfect peace between God and Man slaying the enmity and difference which by reason of sin was between them This alone absolutely and properly is peace without this all other outward quiet and prosperity is ruinous
Jesus of Nazareth setting aside that knowledge and worship of God which was in Judea a little corner of the earth and that also by their own confession then horribly defiled and profaned the whole world especially the greatest and most potent and flourishing Nations of it in particular the whole Roman Empire especially concerned in these predictions was utterly ignorant of the true God and engaged in the Worship of Idols and Devils and that from time immemorial 2. That although the Jews had taken great pains and compassed Sea and Land to make Proselytes yet they were very few and those very obscure persons whom they could at any time or in any place prevail withall to receive the knowledge or give up themselves unto the Worship of the God of Israel of converting People or Nations unto his obedience they now entertained the least hopes 3. It is manifest to all the world that not only upon the coming of Jesus but also by vertue of his Law and Doctrine all the Old Idolatry of the world was destroyed and that whole fabrick of Superstition which Satan had been so many Ages engaged in the erection of was cast to the ground and those Gods of the Earth which the Nations worshipped utterly famished Hence it is come to pass at this day that no People or Nation under Heaven doth continue to worship those Gods which the Old Empires of the World adored as their Deities and in whose service they waged War against the God of Israel and his people And all that knowledge that is at this day in the world of one true living God and the reception of the God of Israel for that true God however abused as it is by some Mahumetans and others it did all originally proceed from the Doctrine of Jesus Christ whom these ungrateful people hate and persecute Had it not been for him and his Gospel the true God the God of their fore-fathers had been no more owned in the world at this day then he was at his coming in the flesh and yet these poor blinded creatures can see no glory in him or in his Ministry 4. The Lord Jesus Christ by his Spirit and Word did not only destroy Idolatry and false Worship in the world but also brought the greatest and most potent Nations of it to the Knowledge of God that in comparison of what was past it covered the earth as the Waters cover the Seas This the Jews saw and repined at in the flourishing times of the Roman Empire when the Lord was one and his Name was one in the whole earth as that Expression is used in the Scripture 5. The Way whereby this Knowledge and Worship of the true God was dispersed over the face of the earth and spread its self like an mundation of saving waters over the world was by such a secret energy of the spirit of Christ accompanying his Word and the Ministration of it that it wholly differed from that operous burdensome and for the most part ineffectual way of teaching which was used by the Priests Levites and Scribes of old there being much more of the efficacy of Grace then of the pains of the Teachers seen in the Effects wrought and produced according to the Words of the Promise Jerem. 31.34 6. In this diffusion of the knowledge of God there was way made for the Union Agreement and joint Consent in Worship of those that should receive it For both the partition wall between Jews and Gentiles was removed and both people did actually coalesce into one body worshipping God with one lip and shoulder and also an holy and plain way of spirituall Worship was prescribed unto all that should or did embrace the Law of the Messiah 7. Notwithstanding all that hath been already accomplished yet there is still room and time left and remaining for the further accomplishment of these predictions so that before the close of the Kingdom of the Messiah not one Tittle of them shall fall to the ground And thus also the open Event known to all the world doth manifest the due and full accomplishment of these Promises making it unquestionable that the Messiah is long since come and hath fulfilled the work that he was designed of old unto Neither are the Exceptions of the Jews of any force to invalidate our Application § 19 of these Promises Two things they object unto us First the Idolatry that is yet in the world especially among Christians Secondly The differences in Religion that every where abound amongst men For 1. We have shewed already that these and the like Predictions are to have a gradual accomplishment not all at once in every place It is sufficient that there is an everlasting foundation laid for the destruction of all false Worship which having had a conspicuous and glorious Effect in the most eminent Nations of the world sufficient to answer the intention of the Prophecy shall yet further in the appointed seasons root out the remainder of all superstition and Apostacy from God 2. For what concerns Christians themselves it cannot be denyed but that many who are so called have corrupted themselves and contracted the guilt of that horrible iniquity which they charge upon them But this being the crime and guilt of some certain Persons and not of the whole society of the Professors of Christianity ought not to be objected unto them And I desire to know by what means the Jews suppose that themselves and the Nations of the world shall be kept from Idolatry and false Worship in the dayes of their Messiah if it be because their Messiah shall give such a perfect Law and such full instructions in the mind and will of God that all men may clearly know their duty we say that this is already done in the highest degree of perfection that is conceivable but what if notwithstanding this men will follow their own vain reasonings and imaginations and fall from the rule of their obedience into will-Will-worship and Superstition what remedy have they provided against such backsliding if they have none but only the pressing upon them their duty to the Law Word and Institutions of God we have the same and do make use of it to the same end and purpose If they shall say that their Messiah will kill them and slay them with the sword we confess that ours is not of that mind and desire them to take heed least in the room of the holy humble merciful Kings promised the Church they look for and desire a bloody Tyrant that should exercise force over the minds of men and execute their revenge and lusts on those whom they like not 3. This Apostacy of some Professors of Christianity into false Worship Idolatry and Persecution is foretold obscurely in the Writings of the Old Testament it self but most plainly in those of the Gospel or Revelations made by the Lord Christ unto his Apostles concerning the state of the Church unto the end of the world so that from thence
of Heber keeping their first Seat not accompanying the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sons of men Gen. 11.2 3 4. those wicked Apostates who went from the East to find a place to fix the Seat of their Rebellion against God Broughton contendeth that Vr was in the Vale of the Chaldaeans that is in Babylonia a very little way or some few miles from Charan averring that Stephen cannot otherwise be defended who affirms that he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charan But as this defence of Stephen is needless seeing as we have manifested he took Mesopotamia in a large sense as others did also giving the same Extent unto it with Assyria the denomination arising from the most eminent and fruitful of these Regions So the removal of a little way or a few miles answereth not that decription which the Holy Ghost gives us of journey Gen. 11.31 And Terah took Abraham his Son and Lot the Son of Haran and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the Land of Canaan and they came unto Haran and dwelt there There design was to go unto Canaan And as the Vra which was in Babylonia was scituated on this side of Euphrates as Pliny testifies So that Abraham could not go from thence unto Canaan by Haran but he must twice needlesly pass with all his family over Euphrates so the expression of their journying to Haran will not suit unto any imaginary Vr within a few miles of it Nor is it any weight that it is called Vr of the Chaldees whose proper seat was in Babylonia and not extended much farther Eastward seeing if the Chaldees as is most probable were called Chasdim as they are constantly from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chesed the Son of Nachor the Brother of Abraham there must of necessity be allowed an Hystorical Prolepsis in the words and that is called Vr of the Chaldees from whence the Chaldees were afterwards to have their Original who in time possessed Babylonia and the parts adjacent Whilest Abraham lived with his Progenitors in Vr there is no doubt but he § 7 was with them infected with much false Worship and Idolatry For so Joshua affirms expresly that they served 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chap. 24.3 even those whose Worship God afterwards prohibited in the first Precept of the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there shall not be unto thee other Gods those or such as those whom they served beyond the flood Other Gods are all false gods The Jews imagination about the discovery made by Abraham of the true God his renunciation of all Idolatry thereon with the breaking of his Fathers Images and his being cast for that cause by Nimrod into the fire all about the forty fourth year of his Age I have considered and exploded elsewhere And all these figments with that of Harans being consumed by fire in the sight of his Father they witedraw from the supposed signification of the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they would have to signifie fire Gen. 11.28 but as where it relates unto the Chaldeans Vr of the Chaldees it is apparently the name of a place a Town or Country so it rather signifies a Valley then fire And those words Isa. 24. v. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate in the Text Wherefore glorifie ye the Lord in the fires may be better read as in the Margen in the Valleys which better answers unto the following words And the name of the Lord God of Israel in the Isles of the Sea At what year of his age he left Vr with his Father is not expressed But it is apparent that it was towards the latter end of the life of Terah Even after the death of Haran his Eldest Son and that Nahor and Abraham were married to Milcha and Isca his daughters and Sara had continued barren some remarkable space of time Gen. 11.28 29 30 31 32. From Vr therefore with his Father and the rest of their family he removed to § 8 Haran with a design for Canaan Gen. 11.31 Where this Haran was scituated we before declared Stephen calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 charran and so do the Latin Writers Assyrias Latio maculavit sanguine Charras sayes Lucan of the overthrow of Crassus's Army near that place And it may be pronounced either way in the Original from the ambiguous force of the Hebrew Cheth which seems best expressed by Charan How long he stayed here is uncertain as was said before That it was not very long appears from his marrying and the barrenness of Sarah before he came thither And yet that they abode there some years is no less evident from Chap. 12. v. 5. Abraham took Sarai his Wife and Lot his Brothers Son and all their substance that they had gathered and the souls or Servants that they had gotten in Haran and they went forth to go into the Land of Canaan It is not the work of a few dayes or moneths that is here described This gathering of substance and getting of souls was a business of some years of how many it is uncertain What was the design of Terah in his attempt to go for the Land of Canaan is not absolutely certain The especial Call of Abraham unto that Countrey could not be the bottom of it for it is most probable yea indeed undeniable that this he had not untill after the death of Terah It was therefore an act of theirs in answer to the Providence of God in a subserviency unto that future call that he might be in more readiness to yield obedience unto it then he could have been in the Land of Vr Whether Terah did meerly seek a new habitation in a Country less peopled then that of his Nativity which doubtless then was the most populous part of the world as being near the place where mankind first planted after the flood or whether he might be instructed in the antient promise that the posterity of Canaan the Son of Cham who had then possessed the Country called after his name should be servants unto the seed of Shem from whom he was a principal descendant I know not In answer to the call of Abraham it could not be for he was called to leave his Fathers House Chap. 12.1 and not to bring his Father with his houshold with him and that at the seventy fifth year of his age when Terah was dead But what ever was the occasion of it the Providence of God used in it in the serving of its designs towards Abraham And here in Haran If I may be allowed to conjecture it is probable that God gave him light into the evil of those Superstitions wherein he was educated revealed himself as the only true God and so prepared him for his Call unto the tedious journeying and long peregrination that ensued thereon § 9 When his Father Terah was dead and himself seventy five years old Chap. 12.14 God called him to himself and entred
worn about them They are sanctified in the Law and in a word the Targum on the Canticles Chap. 8. v. 3. tells us that God chose them above all people because they wore the Phylacteries So just cause had our Lord Jesus Christ to reprove their hypocrisie superstition and self-justification in the use abuse and boasting of these things Mat. 23.5 All their works they do for to be seen of Men they make broad their Phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments This about the borders of their garments was an after Institution yet because of its answerableness unto this we may add it in this place To this purpose God gives his command Num. 15.38 39 40. Speak unto the Children of Israel and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a Ribband of blâ—w and it shall be unto you as a fringe that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and that you seek not after your own heart and your own eyes after which ye use to go a whoring that you may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God which Law is repeated again Deut. 22.12 Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy Vestures wherewith thou coverest thy self These 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 locks or fringes made of thread fastened unto the wings or skirts of their garments with a Ribband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a blew colour which how to make at present the Jews confess they know not but suppose it was made with the blood of a Fish called Chalazon mixt with Vermilion had vertue and efficacy from the institution of God who alone is able to bless and sanctifie things in themselves indifferent unto Sacred Use to the keeping of their hearts in a due reverence unto himself and their eyes from wandering after false Worship and Superstition which being now removed and taken away the things themselves are among the present Jews turned into the greatest superstition imaginable Their principal vanities about these things having been represented by others out of Maimonides his Treatise on that subject need not here be repeated The last appointment of God occasioned by the mercy solemnly remembred in the § 22 Passover was the dedication of all the first-born Males unto himself The Law of this dedication is recorded Exod. 13.12 13. and the manner of its performance is farther added Numb 18 15 16 17. Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh which they bring unto the Lord whether it be of men or beast shall be thine nevertheless the first-born of man shalt thou surely redeem and the first firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem and those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem according to thine estimation for the mony of five shekels after the shekel of the Sanctuary which is twenty Gerahs But the firstling of a Cow or the firstling of a Sheep or the firstling of a Goat thou shalt not redeem they are holy thou shalt sprinkle their bloud upon the Altar and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire for a sweet savour unto the Lord. The whole dedication of the first-born Males is distributed into three parts 1. Children who were to be redeemed with five shekels twenty Gerahs to one shekel that is about twelve shillings of our mony 2. Clean beasts such as were appointed to be offered in sacrifice on other occasions as the Kine the Sheep and the Goats These were to be offered unto God in a Sacrifice of burnt-offering without redemption or commutation after they had been kept a month with the dam. 3. Vnclean beasts whereof an instance is given in the Ass which were either to be redeemed with mony by an agreement with the Priest or to have their necks broke at the choice of the owner And all of this to call to remembrance the mercy of God in sparing them and theirs when the first-born of man and beast clean and unclean in Egypt were destroyed For hence a peculiar right of especial preservation arose unto God towards all their first-born and this also not without a prospect towards the Redemption of the Church of the first-born by Jesus Christ. Heb. 12.23 And this gave a period to the first dispensation of God towards the Church in the § 23 posterity of Abraham for the space of 430 years With the provision and furniture of these Ordinances of Worship they left Egypt and passing through the Red-sea came into the Wilderness of Sinai where they received the Law and were made perfect in the beauty of Typical holiness and worship Unto these Ordinances succeeded the Solemn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or giving of the Law on § 24 Mount Sinai with the Precepts and Sanctions thereof mentioned in several places by our Apostle as chap. 2.2 For if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward Chap. 1O 28 He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses Chap. 12.18 19 20 21. For ye are not come unto the Mount that might be touched and that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words which they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more for they could not endure that which was commanded and if so much as a beast touched the mountain it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake ver 25. They escaped not who refused him that spake on earth And in other places Three things must be explained in reference unto this great and solemn foundation § 25 of that Judaical Church state which our Apostle treateth about in this whole Epistle First The Preparations for it Secondly The Manner of the giving of it Thirdly The Law it self For the preparations for it they are either more remote or immediately preceding it The former were those temporary occasional instructive Ordinances which God gave them at their entrance into the Wilderness before they came to receive the Law on Sinai The first mentioned of this nature is Exod. 15.23 24 25 26. And when they came to Marah they could not drink of the waters of Marah for they were bitter therefore the name of it was called Marah And the people murmured against Moses saying What shall we drink And he cried unto the Lord and the Lord shewed him a tree which when he had cast into the waters the waters were made sweet There he made a Statute and an Ordinance and there he proved them and said If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God and wilt do that which is right in his sight and wilt give ear to
unto the remainder of his Ministry These brief remarks being given upon the preparation for and the manner of the giving of the Law we shall summarily consider the general nature of the Law and its Sanction in our next Exercitation Exercitatio XX. What meant by the Law among the Jews The common distribution of it into Moral Ceremonial and Judaical by them rejected The ground of that distribution 613 Precepts collected by the Jews Reasons of that number Of these 248 Affirmative 365 Negative Twelve Houses of each sort First House of Affirmatives concerning God and his Worship in twenty Precepts The second concerning the Temple and Priesthood in number 19. The third concerning Sacrifices in 57 Precepts The fourth of Cleanness and Vncleanness 18. The fifth of Alms and Tithes in 32 Precepts The sixth about things to be eaten in seven commands The seventh concerning the Passover and Festivals 20. The eighth of Rule and Judgment in 13 Precepts The ninth of Doctrine and Truth whose commands are 25. The tenth concerning Women and Matrimony in 12 Precepts The eleventh of Criminal Judgments and Punishments in eight Precepts The twelfth of civil Judgments in 17 Precepts Censure of this Collection Negative Precepts in 12 Families 1. Of false Worship in 47 Prohibitions c. THe Law it self and its Sanctions are the next thing that our Apostle makes § 1 mention of in the Oeconomy of the Judaical Church By this Law he especially understands the Law given on Mount Sinai or partly there partly from the Tabernacle the Type of Christ after it was erected The Jews by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Law generally understand the whole five books of Moses as they are also called in the New Testament and all Precepts that they can gather out of them any where they refer to the Law wherein they are not to be contended withall This whole Law is generally distributed into three parts First the Moral Secondly § 2 the Ceremonial Thirdly the Judicial part of it And indeed there is no Precept but may conveniently be referred unto one or other of these Heads as they are usually explained That which is commonly called the Moral Law the Scripture terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 34.28 The words of the Covenant the ten words from whence is the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Law of ten words or precepts all which in their substance are moral and universally obligatory to all the sons of men That part of the Law which the Scripture calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgments Exod. 21.1 determining of Rights between Man and Man and of punishments upon transgressions with especial reference unto the interest of the people in the Land of Canaan is by us usually termed the Judicial Law And the institutions of Ceremonial Worship are most commonly expressed by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole system whereof is termed the Law Ceremonial The Jews either acknowledge not or insist not much on this distinction which § 3 is evidently founded in the things themselves but casting all these parts of the Law together contend that there is amongst them 613 Precepts For the numeral Letters of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denote 611 of them and the other two which as they say are the two first of the Decalogue were delivered by God himself to the people and so come not within the compass of the word Torah in that place whence they take this important consideration namely Deut. 33.4 Moses commanded us a Law that is of 611 Precepts two being given by God himself compleats the number of 613. There is none who sees not the vanity and folly of these things which yet is a part of their Oral Law whereunto as hath been shewed they ascribe more oftentimes then to the written Word it self Of these 613 Precepts 248 they say are Affirmative Precepts because there are as § 4 they affirm which I leave to our Anatomists to judge of so many distinct members or bones in the body of a man And 365 Negative Precepts because there are so many days in the year man being bound to keep the Law with his whole body all the year long both which numbers make up 613. And lest this observation should not seem sufficiently strengthned by these arguments they add that which they suppose conclusive namely that in the Decalogue there are 613 Letters if you will but set aside the last two words which in common civility cannot be well denied unto them § 5 These 613 Precepts they divide or distinguish into twelve Families according to the number of the Tribes of Israel that is either general part into twelve First the Affirmative and secondly the Negative And although their distribution be not satisfactory for many Reasons and hath been also represented by others yet for the advantage of the Reader I shall here give a summary account of them § 6 The first Family which hath Relation to God in his Worship consists of twenty Precepts which I shall briefly enumerate as those following without any examination of their stating of them and due fixing to their several stations 1. Faith and acknowledgment of God's divine Essence and Existence Exod. 20.2 2. Faith of the Vnity of God Deut. 6.4 chap. 32.39 3. Love of God Deut. 6.5 chap. 10.12 4. Fear of God Deut. 6.13 5. Acknowledgment of God's Righteousness in Afflictions Deut. 8.5 6. Prayer unto God Exod. 23.25 Deut. 11.13 7. Adherence unto God Deut. 10.20 8. To swear by the name of God Exod. 6.13 Deut. 10.20 9. To walk in the ways of God Deut. 28.9 10. To sanctifie the Name of God Levit. 22.32 11. Twice a day to repeat that Sanction Hear O Israel Deut. 6.7 chap. 11.19 12. That we learn and teach the Law Deut. 5.1 chap. 11 8. 13. To wear Philacteries or Tephilin on the head Deut. 6.8 14. To wear them on the arm in the same place 15. To make Fringes Numb 15.38 39 40. 16. To put Writings of the Scripture on the posts of our doors Deut. 6.9 17. That the People be called together to hear the Law at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles Duet 31.12 18. That every one write him a Copy of the Law Deut. 31.19 19. That the King moreover write out another for himself as King Deut. 17.28 20. That at our eating of meat we give thanks or bless God Deut. 8.10 This is the first Family which though it sometimes fail in educing its precepts from the Word yet good use may be made of the observation in reducing these things to one certain head § 7 The second Family of the first general Head of Affirmative precepts contain those which concern the Sanctuary and Priesthood being nineteen in number 1. That a Sanctuary Tabernacle or Temple should be built Exod. 25.8 2. That being built it should be reverenced Levit. 19.30 3. That the Priests and Levites always keep the Temple and no others Numb 18.2 4. That the work or
not our Neighbour in our heart v. 17. 31. That none put an Israelite to reproach v. 17. 32. That none exercise revenge on his Neighbour 33. That none bear ill will in their mind v. 18. 34. That the Mother and its young be not taken together Deut. 22.6 35. That a Scall be not shaven Lev. 13.33 36. That the signs of Leprosie be not removed Deut. 27.8 37. That the place where the Heifer is beheaded be not tilled Deut. 21.4 38. That a Sorcerer be not suffered to live Exod. 22.18 39. That a new Married Man be not bound to go forth to War Deut. 24.5 40. That none be rebellious against the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem and their Doctrine Deut. 17.11 41. That nothing be added to the precepts of the Law 42. That nothing be taken from them Deut. 4.2 43. That we speak not evil of the Judge nor of the Prince of the People Exod. 22.28 44. That none speak evil of any in Israel Lev. 19.14 45. That none curse Father or Mother 46. That none strike Father or Mother Exod. 21.17 § 29 The Ninth Family of Negative Precepts concerns Feasts and contains Ten Prohibitions 1. That no work be done on the Sabbath Exod. 20.10 2. That none go out or beyond the bounds of the City on the Sabbath Exod. 16.29 3. That no punishment be inflicted on the Sabbath Exod. 35.3 4. That no work be done on the first day of the Passeover 5. That no work be done on the seventh day of the Passeover Lev. 23.7 8. 6. That no work be done in the Feast of Weeks v. 21. 7. That no work be done on the first day of the seventh moneth v. 24 25. 8. That no Work be done on the day of Expiation v. 30. 9. That no work be done on the first day of Tabernacles 10. That no work be done on the eighth day of release v. 34 35 37. The Tenth Family of Negative Precepts is concerning Chastity and affinity and § 30 purity in twenty four Precepts 1. That none uncover the nakedness of his Mother 2. Of his Fathers Wife 3. Of his Sister 4. Of the Daughter of his Fathers Wife Lev. 18.7 8 9 11. 5. Of the Daughter of his Son 6. Of the Daughter of his Daughter 7. Of his own Daughter v. 10. 8. Of a Woman and her Daughter 9. Of a Woman and the Daughter of her Son 10. Of a Woman and the Daughter of her Daughter v. 17. 11. Of a Fathers Sister 12. A Mothers Sister v. 12.13 13. Of an Vnkles Wife v. 19. 14. Of a Daughter in Law v. 15. 15. Of a Brothers Wife v. 16. 16. Of a Wifes Sister she being living ver 14. 17. Of a married Woman Exod. 20.13 18. Of a separated Woman Lev. 18.19 19. That none commit the sin of Sodomy v. 22. 20. That none uncover the nakedness of her Father 21. Nor of the Brother of her Father v. 7.14 22. That filthiness be not committed with any Beast by a Man 23. Nor by a Woman Lev. 18.23 24. That none draw nigh to a prohibited Woman Lev. 18.6 The Eleventh Family concerns Marriages in eight Prohibitions 1. That a Bastard § 31 take not an Israelitess to Wife Deut. 23.2 2. That no Eunuch take a Daughter of Israel v. 1. 3. That no male be made an Eunuch Lev. 22.24 4. That there be no Whore in Israel Deut. 23.17 5. That he who hath divorced his Wife may not take her again after she hath been married to another Deut. 24 4. 6. The Brothers Daughter marry not with a stranger Deut. 25.5 7. That he divorce not his Wife who hath defamed her in her youth Deut. 22.19 8. He that hath forced a Maid shall not divorce her Deut. 22.29 The Twelfth Family concerns the Kingdom and is made up of four Precepts § 32 1. That no King be chosen or a strange Nation Deut. 17.15 2. That the King get not himself many Horses v. 16. 3. That he multiply not Wives 4. That he heap not up to himself Treasures of Silver and Gold v. 17. This is the Account that the Jews give of the precepts of the Law and both the § 33 number of them as also their distribution and distinction which they have cast them into are part as they pretend of their Oral Law which may easily be improved unto a conviction of the vanity of it For whereas it is evident that many of these precepts are coincident many pretended so to be are no precepts at all and sundry of them are not founded on the places from whence they profess to gather them yea that in many of them the mind of the Holy Ghost is plainly perverted and a contrary sense annexed unto his words so it is most unquestionable that there are sundry Commands and Institutions especially in about and concerning Sacrifices that are no way taken notice of by them in this collection as I could easily make good by instances sufficient it is evident that that Rule cannot be of God whereof this collection is pretended to be a part But as I have said before because there is a Representation in them of no small multitude of commands especially in things concerning their carnal Worship it was necessary that they should be here represented though they have been before transcribed from them by others My principal design herein is to give light into some passages of our Apostle as also to other expressions concerning this Law of Commandments contained in Ordinances in other places of the Scripture The Censure our Apostle gives of this whole System of Divine Worship Chap. 9. § 34 v. 1 10. The first Covenant had also Ordinances of Divine Service and a worldly Sanctuary which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal Ordinances imposed on them untill the time of reformation is very remarkable Let any one cast an Eye upon this multitude of commands about meats and drinks washings and outward carnal observances which are here collected and he will quickly see how directly and pertinently the description given by our Apostle is suited to their services And that not only as to the manner and multitude of them but also as to their natures They are carnal things and could by no means effect the great spiritual glorious and eternal ends which God had designed proposed and promised in that Covenant unto whose administration they were annexed until the time of Reformation should come Hence elsewhere as Coloss. 10.20 He calls them the rudiments of the world Ordinances about touching tasting and handling about meats and drinks things outwardly clean or unclean all which perish with their using § 35 A little view also of the multiplicity of these precepts and the scrupulous observances required about them and their circumstances will give light into that of another Apostle Acts 15.20 Calling the Law a yoke which neither their Fathers nor themselves were ever able to bear For although the weight of this yoke did principally consist in the matter of it
King 6.23 28. 2 Chron. 3.11 12 13. § 19 And this was that appearance of his Glory which the Lord God of Israel granted unto his Church of old which though it were beautiful and excellent as appointed by himself yet was it but carnal and worldly in comparison of the Heavenly and glorious mysteries of the Gospel especially of him who being obscurely shadowed out by all this preparation of Glory was in himself the real brightness of his Glory and the express image of his Person as shall further be declared on chap. 1.3 Exercitatio XXIII Of the Office of the Priesthood the High Priest in particular The most illustrious Type of Christ. The Call of Aaron unto the Priesthood Things concurring unto his Call and Separation unto his Office The Garments prescribed unto him Ordinary Extraordinary The Nature of the Office of the High Priest What he performed himself alone What with the Assistance of other Priests What with the Assistance of Priests and Levites His blessing the people His judging of them The succession of these Priests How many served under the Tabernacle How many under the First Temple How many under the Second Temple The disturbance of this Succession Fatal End of the Aaronical Priesthood THe principal Glory or all Mosaical Worship consisted in the Person and Office § 1 of the High Priest The Scripture calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Great Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Priest with his Attendants of the same Family was the hinge whereon the whole Worship of the Judaical Church depended and turned And therefore our Apostle doth undeniably prove that the Law of Commandments contained in Ordinances was to be changed because there was a promise of raising up a Priest that was not of the House of Aaron nor of the Tribe of Levi which the observation of the Law in the Worship of God could not consist withal Heb. 7.11 12. Now this High Priest being in his Person and his Office the Most Illustrious Type of the Messiah and his Office and the principal means whereby God instructed his Church of Old in the Mysterie of the Reconciliation and Salvation of sinners most things concerning him are expresly and at large handled by our Apostle and must God assisting come under our consideration in the several places wherein by him they are insisted on I shall therefore here only in these previous discourses give a brief account of some such concernments of his Person and Office as will not directly again occur unto us What was the state and condition of the Priesthood in the Church from the § 2 foundation of the world untill the time we now treat of by whom that Office was executed how they came unto it and wherein it did consist I have declared elsewhere The Foundation of an especial Priesthood in the Church of Israel is laid Exod. 28. v. 1. Provision being made of Holy Things God proceeds to supply the Church with Holy or Dedicate Persons for their Administration The first thing expressed is the Call of the High Priest Hereof there are two parts First Gods Revelation and Authoritative Constitution concerning it Secondly His actual Consecration The former is expressed Exod. 28.1 And take thou unto thee Aaron thy Brother and his Sons that they may Minister unto me in the Priests Office Aaron was the Elder Brother of Moses born three years before him Exod. 7.7 and was now eighty four or eighty five years of Age when God thus calls and appoints him to the Office of the Priesthood With him all his Sons all the Males of his Family were dedicated unto the Service of God in their successive Generations And in this Call unto his Office he was a Type of Christ who entered not on his Priesthood but by the Designation and Authority of the Father Heb. 5.4 5. Secondly Unto the compleating of his Call there concurred his Consecration or Separation § 3 unto God at large described Exod. 29. In general it is expressed v. 1. by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render to Hallow that is to sanctifie to separate unto God in the Work of the Priesthood This is general expression of his Consecration for what we afterwards translate to consecrate v. 9.29 respects only one particular Act of the whole work or Duty Now the parts hereof were many which may briefly be enumerated First There was their Manuduction their bringing to the Door of the Tabernacle chap. 29. v. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou shalt bring them nigh the Word used in all sacred Approaches and Dedications to God The Priests themselves were made a Corban Secondly They were washed with water v. 4. Thou shalt wash them with water After this the Priests on all occasions were to wash themselves at present this being a sacred action and they being not as yet consecrated it was performed towards them by Moses who at this and other times discharged the Office of an Extraordinary Priest Thirdly Being washed they were cloathed with the Holy Garments v. 5 6. of which afterwards Fourthly The High Priest being cloathed was anointed with the Holy Oyle poured on his Head and running down over all his Garments v. 7. Psalm 132. v. 2. The making and use of this Ointment prefiguring the Unction of the Lord Christ with all the Graces of the Spirit Heb. 1.6 are declared Chap. 30. v. 25. Fifthly Sacrifices of all sorts were offered unto God 1. The Mincha or Meat-Offering 2. The Chataath or Sin-Offering v. 13 1 4. 3. The Hola or whole Burnt Offerings v. 18.25 4. Shelamim or Peace-Offerings v. 25. 5. Tenumoth and Tenuphoth Heave and Wave-Offerings v. 25 26. 6. Nesek or the Drink-Offerings v. 40. So that in the Consecration of the Priest all Sacrifices also were as it were a-new consecrated unto God Sixthly In the use of this Sacrifice there were five Ceremonies used belonging in a peculiar manner unto their Consecration 1. The Filling of their Hand Ver. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This we have rendred Thou shalt consecrate them as though their Consecration was some peculiar Act distinct from these prescribed Ceremonies But that which is thus expressed is only one of them or the putting of some parts of the Sacrifice into or upon their Hands to bear to the Altar which being the first Action in them belonging to the Sacerdotal Office for in all the former passages they were meerly passive is sometimes by a Synecdoche used for Consecration its self 2. The putting of Blood upon the Tips of their right Ears and upon the Thumbs of their right Hands and the great Toes of their right Feet v. 20. intimating their readiness to hear and perform the Will of God And this blood was taken from one of the Rams that was offered for a Burnt-Offering 3. The sprinkling of them with blood from the Altar and the Anointing Oyle together upon all their Garments v. 21. The Imposition or laying of their hands on the
Eli blessed Hannah 1 Sam. 1.17 Thirdly His work also was to Judge the people 1. In things concerning the House and Worship of God Zech. 3.7 2. In hard and difficult cases he joyned with the Judge or Ruler in judging between men according to the Law Deut. 17.12 3. He was always a member of the Sanhedrim This I know is denied by some of the Jews but it seems to be warranted from Deut. 17. v. 8 9 10 11 12 13. § 9 Being thus appointed in his Office a Succession also therein was designed namely by the First-born Male of the eldest Family or Branch of the Posterity or House of Aaron But the tracing of this succession in particular is greatly perplexed for it is no where directly given us in the Scripture for that space of time wherein the story of the Church is recorded therein Different names are also in several places given unto the same persons as seems most probable Besides Josephus who is the only approved Writer of the Jews in things of this nature is either corrupted in some passages on this subject or doth palpably contradict himself The Postalmudical Masters are so far from yielding any relief in this matter that by their jarrings and wranglings they render it more perplexed Neither have those amongst our Writers who of old or of late have laboured to trace this Succession been able to agree in their computations Four or five differing Catalogues I could give in that are contended for with some earnestness I shall not therefore hope in this brief account of things which I am confined unto to give light unto a matter of such intricacy and perplexity I shall therefore content my self to give the most passant account among the Jews of this Succession in general with some few observations upon it and so close this discourse § 10 It is generally agreed after Josephus that the whole number of High priests from Aaron inclusively to the destruction of the second Temple was eighty and three For though in the Babylonian Talmud some of them reckon up above eighty High priests under the second Temple alone yet the more learned of the later Jews as the Author of Tzemach David ad Millen 4. An. 829. expresly prefer the authority of Josephus above them all Of these eighty three thirteen administred before the Lord under the Tabernacle or whilst the Tabernacle built by Moses in the Wilderness was the sacred seat of divine Worship and Ordinances Of these the first was Aaron the last Abiathar who was put by the Priesthood by Solomon a little before the building of the Temple And in this Succession there was but one interruption namely when Eli of the House of Ithamar the younger son of Aaron was preferred to the Priesthood It is probable that he had been second Priest in the days of his Predecessor and was doubtless admitted unto the Office upon the reputation of his Holiness and Wisdom And it may be that he whose right it was to succeed of the House of Phineas was either uncapable or judged unworthy § 11 In the first or Solomon's Temple there administred eighteen High Priests whose names are recounted by Josephus lib. 11. cap. 4. lib. 20. cap. 9. Of these the first was Zadock the last Jehozadeck who was carried into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar 1 Chron. 6.14 though I question whether ever he administred as High Priest only he was left at the destruction of the City and Temple after the death of his father Seraiah Nor was there any known interruption in this Series of Succession being carried down in a right line from the House of Phineas by Zadock § 12 The remainder of the number before mentioned served under the second Temple being multiplied by the tumults and disorders which the people then fell into The first of them was Joshua the son of Josedech the last one Phineas or Phananias made High Priest by the seditious Villains a little before the last Siege and destruction of the City And this succession or that during this season had interruptions many and great The first mentioned by Josephus was after the death of Onias the fourteenth High Priest from the building of the Temple when Antiochus first put in Joshua who was called Jason the brother of Onias and afterwards displacing him thrust in Menelaus into his room After a while he puts out this Menelaus and placeth one Alcimus of another Family in his steed After this Alcimus the Family of the Machabees or Hasmoneans took on them the office of the High priesthood Their race being extirpated by Herod Ananus a private Priest was by force and power put into the place And from this time forward to the destruction of the Temple there was no order observed in the Succession of the High Priest but persons were put in and out at the pleasure of the Rulers either the Romans or the Herodians For Hyrcanus being taken prisoner by the Parthians and Antigonus the son of Aristohulus his brother being taken by Herod and Sofia and crucified at Antioch by Marc. Antony in whom the race of the Hasmonaeans ended vile persons were put in and out at pleasure some for a year some for a month one for a day some for a longer season until the whole Nation Church and State rushing into its final and fatal ruine in their Rebellion at Hierusalem they thrust out Matthias put in by Agrippa and chose one by lot to succeed him when God to manifest his disapprobation of them caused the lot to fall upon one Phananias a meer Ideot who knew nothing of the place or office which they called him unto with whom ended the Church and Priesthood of the Jews Exercitatio XXIV Sacrifices the principal Worship of God Three sorts of them 1. Of the Brazen Altar 2. Of the Sanctuary 3. Of the most Holy place Respected by the Apostle All sacrifices of the Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every Corban either Isha or Terumah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of six sorts 1. Hola 2. Mincha 3. Chataath 4. Asham 5. Milluim 6. Shelamim A second distinction of fire Offerings Either Zebach or Mincha These distinctions and differences explained at large The matter of all sacrifices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first particular sacrifice The rise use and direction of it Vse of it among the Heathen What of antient tradition what of their own invention The manner of their sacrifice The end of it To make Expiation or Attonement what Seasons and occasions of this sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A meat-offering The use of that name general particular The matter of this offering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the drink offering The matter of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peace offerings Reason of the name Things peculiar to this kind of sacrifice The use of it among the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sin-offering The name and causes of it Sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what The persons to offer this sacrifice The annointed
it for the most part by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as doth our Apostle Chap. 10.6 that which is wholly consumed or burnt as this was all but the skin For the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned v. 8. and Chap. 8. v. 20. and no where else in the Scripture rather signifies the whole trunk of the body after the head was cut off then the fat of the Cawl as we render it And it is not unlike but they might make use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because the beginning of it answers in sound unto the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that they were at a loss in expressing the names of the particular Sacrifices hath been declared But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to ascend and because things that do so do disappear and seem not to be it denotes also to consume or to be consumed and from either of these significations this Sacrifice which was wholly burnt may take its name § 19 In the Manner of this Sacrifice it is observable that he who brought it was to put his hand on the head of it v. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and put his hands upon the head of the Burnt-Offering lay them on that the Beast might seem to bear and sustain them so we after the Vulgar Latin Manus suas his hands in the Original his hand And the Hebrews are divided whether he laid on only one hand his right hand or both Chap. 16. v. 21. Where the High Priest was to perform this duty in the name of the people it is said expresly that he shall put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both his hands on the head of it whence most conclude that both the hands are here also intended But this seems rather to be an Argument unto the contrary For in saying that the High Priest who was to offer for himself as well as the people in his performance of this work shall lay both his hands and when a private person did it he shall lay on his hand the Holy Ghost seems to intimate a difference between them in this action And this Ceremony was observed only when the Offerings was of Beasts not so when it was of Fowls or Birds And when the season of the Sacrifice was stated by Gods prescription for the use of the People the Priest was to perform this duty The meaning of the Ceremony was quod illorum capiti sit typically and representatively to impose the sin of the Offerer on the head of the Offering to instruct us in the bearing of our sin by Christ when through the eternal spirit he offered himself unto God Secondly The Beast now a Corban by being brought unto the Altar was to be § 20 slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 5. He shall kill the Bullock that is say some he that brought the Offering was to kill it For say they those that killed the Offering are distinguished from them that took the blood of it and sprinkled it on the Altar 2 Chron. 29.22 So they killed the Bullocks and the Priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the Altar But those slayers seem not to have been the People but the Levites who were to assist the Priests in their Service Numb 8.19 and who in all greater Sacrifices did the outward work of killing and slaying See 2 Chron. 35. 10 11. as also it is said expresly that they slew the Paschal Lamb 2 Chron. 30. And unto this killing of the Bullock or Kid or Lamb answered the wringing off of the head of the Bird if the Burnt Offering were of Fowls which is expresly said to be done by the Priest v. 15. And of him that kills the Offering v. 5. it is said he shall flay it and cut it into its pieces v. 6. which was the work of the Priests and their Assistants The place where it was to be killed was on the North side of the Altar v. 11. And when it was killed the blood was taken or wrung out and sprinkled about the Altar v. 5. which sprinkling of blood was used in all Sacrifices of living Creatures as eminently prefiguring our sanctification or purifying of our hearts from an evil conscience by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ Heb. 9.14 Chap. 12.24 The Beast being killed was slayed and opened made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 § 21 naked and opened which our Apostle alludes unto Chap. 4.13 Afterwards it was cut into pieces v. 6. which pieces were salted Chap. 2.13 and then laid in order on the wood upon the Altar v. 8. as also were the legs and inwards after they were washed v. 9. As our bodies in our approach unto God are said to be washed with pure water Heb. 10.22 The everlasting fire typing out the eternal Spirit through which Christ offered himself unto God Heb. 9.14 being applyed by the Priest unto the Wood the whole was incinerated Psalm 20.3 continuing to burn it may be all night long though no Sacrifice was to be offered but by day which made them watch for the morning Psalm 130.6 The differing Ceremonies in killing and offering of the Fowls are clearly expressed in the same Chapter The End of this Offering was alwayes to make Attonement So the Text § 22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. It shall be accepted for him to make Attonement for him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes One Quod latinè vertitur expiare hoc est Deo aliquem commendare it is to commend any one to God A sense which neither will the word bear nor the nature of the thing admit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is alwayes to be accepted and for what end shall the Sacrifice be accepted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to appease attone to make attonement for him as we shall shew elsewhere not absolutely this it could not do Heb. 10. 1 2 3. but in a Representation as they were a shadow of good things to come v. 11. There are reckoned up eighteen times wherein this kind of Offering was to be made § 23 by express Institution the annumeration whereof belongs not unto us in this place Nine of them refer unto particular occasions and emergencies the other nine had their fixed seasons occurring daily monethly or annually Only we may observe that of this kind of Offering was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the juge sacrificium or continual Sacrifice which was offered Morning and Evening with whose final removal or taking away the Church and Worship of the Jews utterly ceased Dan. 9.27 And as it had a precise command for its being offered Morning and Evening continually so in the constant acknowledgement of God therein in the vicislitudes of Night and Day there was such a suitableness to the Light and Law of Nature in it that it prevailed among the Heathen themselves in their Idolatrous Services witness that of Hesiod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let Offerings and Sacrifices burn At Evening and at Sacred Lights return And
in the Faith is here aymed at These in general were the Hebrews the Posterity of Abraham and the only Church of God before the promulgation of the Gospel who in those dayes were distributed into three sorts or parties 1. Some of them believing in Christ through the Gospel were perfectly instructed in the Liberty given them from the Mosaical Law with the foundation of that Liberty in its accomplishment in the Person Office and Work of the Messiah Acts 2.41 42. 2. Some with their Profession of Faith in Christ as the Messiah promised retained an opinion of the necessary observation of Mosaical Rites and these also were of two sorts 1. Such as from a pure Reverence of their Original Institutions either being not fully instructed in their Liberty or by reason of prejudices not readily admitting the consequences of that Truth wherein they were instructed abode in their observation without seeking for Righteousness or Salvation by them Acts 21. v. 20. 2. Such as urged their observation as indispensably necessary to our Justification before God Acts 15.1 Gal. 3.4 The first sort of those the Apostles bare with in all meekness yea and using the Liberty given them of the Lord to avoid offending of them joyned with them in their practice as occasion did require Acts 16.3 Chap. 21.23 24 26. Chap. 27.9 1 Cor. 9.20 whence for a long season in many places the Worship of the Gospel and Synagogue Worship of the Law were observed together James 2.2 though in process of time many disputes and differences were occasioned thereby between the Gentile and Jewish Worshippers Rom. 14. The other sort they opposed as perverters of the Gospel which they pretended to profess Acts 15.5 Gal. 2.13 14 15 16. Chap. 4.9 10 11. Chap. 5.2 And of these some afterwards apostatized to Judaism others abiding in a corrupt mixture of both professions separated themselves from the Church and were called Nazarenes and Ebionites 3. Others far the greatest number of the whole people persisted in their Old Church-State not receiving the salvation that was tendered unto them in the preaching of the Gospel and these also were of two sorts 1. Such as who although they had not embraced the faith yet were free and willing to attend unto the Doctrine of it searching the Scriptures for a discovery of its Truth and in the mean time instantly serving God according to the Light of the Old Testament which they had received and in these was the essence of the Judaical Church preserved to its final dissolution Acts 17.11 Chap. 28.22 23 24. 2. Such as being hardned in their Infidelity blasphemed scoffed at and persecuted the Gospel with all that professed it Acts 13.45 50. Chap. 15.19 Chap. 17.5 1. Thess. 2.15 16. Rom. 11.7 8 9 10. whom not long after the vengeance of God overtook in their total destruction Now our Apostle vehemently thirsting after the salvation of the Hebrews in general Rom. 9.1 Chap. 10.1 having all these several sorts or parties to deal withal he so frames his Epistle unto them that it might be suited to all their Good in their Conversion Instruction Edification and Establishment as their several conditions did require the latter sort only excepted who being under judicial blindness were cast out of the care of God and his Acts 13.46 51. Hence in part is that admirable contexture of this Epistle which Peter ascribes unto his eminent wisdom 2 Pet. 3.18 As it is indeed evident from the story that he did excell in applying himself to the various Principles Capacities and prejudices of them with whom he had to do The Lord Christ having set him forth as a great example of that diligence zeal and prudence which he requires in the dispensers of the Gospel Divine reasonings instructions exhortations promises threats arguments are so interwoven in this Epistle from the beginning to the end that all to whose hands or hearing it should come might every where meet with that which was of especial and immediate concernment to themselves unto which of the sorts before mentioned soever they did belong And this Principle we must have respect unto in that intermixture of Arguments to prove the Truth of the Gospel with Exhortations to constancy in the profession of it which we shall meet withall The several conditions of those to whom the Apostle wrote required that way of proceedure Hence no one Chapter in the Epistle is purely dogmatical the first only excepted nor purely Paraenetical For though the design that lyes in view and is never out of sight be Exhortation yet far the greatest part of the Epistle of taken up in those doctrinalls wherein the foundations of the exhortations do lye both interwoven together somewhat variously from the method of the same Apostle in all his other Epistles as hath been observed that to the Galatians which is of the like nature with this only excepted II. A second thing to be previously observed is that although those to whom the Apostle wrote were of the several sorts before mentioned yet they centered in this that they were Hebrews by Birth and Religion who all agreed in some common Principles relating to the subject he treated with them about These he makes use of unto them all For though the unbelieving Jews did deny or did not yet acknowledge that Jesus was the Christ yet they also consented unto or could not gainsay what in the Old Testament was revealed concerning the Person Office Dignity and Work of the Messiah when he should come that being the faith whereby they were saved before his appearance Acts 26 6 7. Vpon these genoral Principles wherein they also agreed and which were the general perswasion of the whole Judaical Church the Apostle layes the foundation of all his Arguments And hence he oft times takes that for granted which without this consideration should we look on any of those to whom he writes under the general notion of unbelievers would seem to be the thing principally in question And therefore have we at large already manifested what was the avowed Profession of the sounder part of the Judaical Church in those dayes concerning the Messiah which the Apostle here and elsewhere in dealing with the Jews built upon Acts 26.22 23 27. Chap. 28.23 Chap. 13.16 17 c. which the Reader must have constant respect unto III. In urging Testimonies out of the Old Testament he doth not alwayes make use of those that seem to be most perspicuous and apposite to his purpose but often times takes others more abstruse obscure and of less evident consequence at first view And that upon a double account First That he might instruct the Believers amongst them in the more abstruse Prophecies of the Old Testament and thereby incite them to the further search after Christ under the Mosaical Veil and Prophetical Allegories whereby he is therein expressed aiming to lead them on towards perfection Chap. 5.12.6.1 Secondly Because most of the Testimonies he makes use of were generally granted
by the Jews of all sorts to belong to the Messiah his Kingdom and Offices and his design was to deal with them chiefly upon their own concessions and principles As we have some few other helps remaining to acquaint us with what was the received sense of the Judaical Church concerning sundry passages in the Old Testament relating unto the promised Christ so the Paraphrases of Scripture that were either at that time in use amongst them as was the Greek Translation amongst the Hellenists or about that time composed as the Targums at least some parts of them will give us much light into it What of that antient sense appeareth yet in the corrupted Copies of those Translations which remain being considered will much evince the reason and suitableness of the Apostles Quotations And this is needful to be observed to refute that impiety of some as Cajetan who not being able to understand the force of some Testimonies cited by the Apostle as to his purpose in hand have questioned the Authority of the whole Epistle as also the mistake of Hierom who in his Epistle to Pammachius rashly affirmed that Paul did quote Scriptures that were not indeed to his purpose but out of design to stop the mouths of his Adversaries as he himself had dealt with Jovinian which was very far from him whose only design was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to promote the Truth in Love IV. He takes it for granted in the whole Epistle that the Judaical Church-State did yet continue and that the Worship of it was not yet disallowed of God suitably to what was before declared concerning his own and the other Apostles practice Had that Church-State been utterly abolished all observation of Mosaical rites which were the Worship of that Church as such had been utterly unlawfull as now it is Neither did the determination recorded Acts 15. abolish them as some suppose but only free the Gentiles from their observance Their free use was yet permitted unto the Jews Acts 21.20 22 25 26. Chap. 27.9 and practised by Paul in particular in his Nazaretical Vow Acts 21.26 Which was attended with a Sacrifice Numb 6.13 Nor was Mosaical Worship utterly to cease so as to have no acceptance with God until the final ruine of that church foretold by our Saviour himself Mat. 24. by Peter 2 Ep. 3. by James also Chap. 5.6 7 8 9. and by our Apostle in this Epistle Chap. 10.37 Chap. 12.25 26 27. was accomplished Hence it is that our Apostle calls the times of the Gospel the world to come Chap. 2.5 Chap. 6.5 the name whereby the Jews denoted the State of the Church under the Messiah proper unto it only whilest the legal administrations of Worship did continue Thus as de facto he had shewed respect unto the Person of the High Priest as one yet in lawful Office Acts 23.5 So doctrinally he takes it for granted that that Office was still continued Chap. 8.4 5. with the whole worship of Moses institution Chap. 13.11 12. And this dispensation of Gods patience being the last tryal of that Church was continued in a proportion of time answerable to their abode in the Wilderness upon its first Erection which our Apostle minds them of Chap. 3. c. 4. The Law of Moses then was not actually abrogated by Christ who observed the rules of it in the dayes of his flesh nor by the Apostles who seldom used their liberty from it leaving the use of it to the Jews still but having done its work whereunto it was designed and its obligation Expiring ending and being removed or taken away in the death and resurrection of Christ and promulgation of the Gospel that ensued thereupon which doctrinally declared its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uselesness God in his Providence put an end unto it as to its observation in the utter and irrecoverable overthrow of the Temple the place designed for the solemn exercise of its Worship so did it decay wax old and vanish away Chap. 8.13 And this also God ordered in his infinite wisdom that their Temple City and Nation and so consequently their whole Church-State should be utterly wasted by the Pagan Romans before the power of the Empire came into the hands of men professing the name of Christ who could neither well have suffered their Temple to stand as by them abused nor yet have destroyed it without hardning them in their impenitency and unbelief V. That which is proposed unto confirmation in the whole Epistle and from whence all the Inferences and Exhortations insisted on do arise and are drawn is the Excellency of the Gospel and the Worship of God therein revealed and appointed upon the account of its manifold relation to the Person and Offices of Christ the Mediator the Son of God Now because those to whom it is directed did as hath been declared some of them adhere to Mosaical Ceremonies and Worship in conjunction with the Gospel others with a preferency of them above it and some to a relinquishment of it especially when they once found its profession obnoxious to Persecution the Apostle institutes and at large prosecutes a comparison between Moses's Law and the Gospel as to their usefulness and excellency in reference unto mens acceptation with God of the one and the other as also of the Spirituality Order and Beauty of the Worship severally required in them And herein though he derogates in no respect from the Law that which was justly due unto it yet on the accounts before mentioned he preferreth the Gospel before it and not only so but also manifests that as Mosaical Institutions were never of any other use but to prefigure the real Mediatory work of Christ with the benefits thereof so he being exhibited and his work accomplished their observation was become needless and themselves if embraced to a neglect or relinquishment of the Gospel pernicious This comparison wherein also the proof of the positive worth and Excellency of the Gospel is included omitting for weighty reasons intimated by James Acts 21.21 by himself Acts 9.25 Chap. 22.19 20 21. all Prefatory salutations he enters upon in the first verses of the Epistle and being thereby occasioned to make mention of the Messiah from whose Person and Office the difference he was to insist upon did wholly arise he spendeth the residue of the Chapter in proving the divine excellency of his Person and the Eminency of his Office as the only King Priest and Prophet of his Church on all which the dignity of the Gospel in the Profession whereof he exhorts them to persevere doth depend He then that would come to a right understanding of this Epistle must alwayes bear in mind 1. To whom it was written which were the Jews of the several sorts before mentioned 2. To what End it was written even to prevail with them to embrace the Gospel and to persist in the Profession of it without any mixture of Mosaical Observations 3. On what Principles the Apostle deals with
of old spoken unto the Fathers in the Prophets hath in these last dayes spoken unto us in the Son whom he hath appointed heir of all by whom also he made the worlds THe Apostle intending a comparison between the Mosaical Law and the Gospel referreth it unto two Heads First Their Revelation and Institution whence the Obligation to the Observance of the one and the other did arise and Secondly Their whole Nature Vse and Efficacy The First he enters upon in these words and premising that wherein they did agree distinctly layes down the severals wherein the difference between them doth consist both which were necessary to compleat the comparison intended That wherein they agree is the Principal Efficient Cause of their Revelation or the Prime Author from whom they were This is God He was the Author of the Law and Gospel He spake of old in the Prophets he spake in the last dayes in the Son Neither of them were from Men not one from one Principle and the other from an other both have the same Divine Original See 2 Tim. 3.16 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19 20 21. Herein they both agree Their difference in this respect namely of their Revelation he refers to four Heads all distinctly expressed saving that some branches of the Antithesis on the part of the Gospel are only included in the opposite expressions that relate unto the Law Their difference First Respects the manner of their Revelation and that in two particulars 1. The Revelation of the Will of God under the Law was given out by divers parts that under the Gospel at once or in one dispensation of Grace and Truth 2. That in diverse manners this one way only by the Spirit dwelling in the Lord Christ in his fulness and by him communicated unto his Apostles Secondly The Times and Seasons of their Revelation that of the Law was made of Old formerly in Times past This of the Gospel in these last dayes Thirdly The Persons to whom the Revelation of them was made That was to the Fathers this to us Fourthly And principally the Persons by whom these Revelations were made That was by the Prophets this by the Son God spake then in the Prophets now he hath spoken in the Son The whole stress of the Apostles Argument lying on this last instance omitting the prosecution of all the other particulars he enters upon the further description of this immediate Revealer of the Gospel in whom God spake the Son and layes down in general 1. The Authority committed unto him God made him Heir of all 2. The Ground and Equity of committing that great Power and trust unto him in those words by whom also he made the worlds whereby he opens his way to the farther declaration of his Divine and incomparable Excellencies wherein he is exalted far above all or any that were employed in the Revelation or Administration of the Law of Moses and the holy Worship instituted thereby All these particulars must be opened severally that we may see the intendment of the Apostle and the force of his Argument in the whole and some of them must necessarily be somewhat largely insisted on because of their influence into the ensuing Discourse I. That wherein the Law and Gospel do both agree is that God was the Author of them both About this there was no difference as to the most of them with whom the Apostle treated This he takes for granted For the Professing Jews did not adhere to Mosaical Institutions because God was their Author not so of the Gospel but because they were given from God by Moses in such a manner as never to be changed or abrogated This the Apostle layes down as an acknowledged Principle with the most that both Law and Gospel received their Original from God himself proving also as we shall see in the progress of our Discourse to the conviction of others that such a Revelation as that of the Gospel was foretold and expected and that this was it in particular which was preached unto them Now God being here spoken of â—n distinction from the Son expresly and from the Holy Ghost by evident implication it being He by whom he spake in the Prophets that name is not taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 substantially to denote primarily the Essence or being of the Deity and each person as partaking in the same nature but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting primarily one certain Person and the divine nature only as subsisting in that Person This is the Person of the Father as elsewhere the Person of the Son is so signified by that name Acts 20.28 John 1.1 2. Rom. 9.5 1 Tim. 3.16 1 John 3.16 Chap. 5.20 As also the Person of the Holy Spirit Acts 5.3 4. 1 Cor. 12.7 11. Col. 2.2 So that God even the Father by the way of eminency was the peculiar Author of both Law and Gospel of which afterwards And this observation is made necessary from hence even because he immediately assigns Divine Properties and Excellencies unto another Person evidently distinguished from him whom he intends to denote by the name God in this place which he could not do did that name primarily express as here used by him the divine nature absolutely but only as it is subsisting in the Person of the Father From this head of their Agreement the Apostle proceeds to the instances of the difference that was between the Law and the Gospel as to their Revelation from God of which a little inverting the order of the words we shall First consider that which concerns the Times of their giving out sundry of the other instances being regulated thereby For the First or the Revelation of the Will of God under the Old Testament it was of old God spake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 formerly or of old Some space of time is denoted in this word which had then received both its beginning and end both which we may enquire after Take the word absolutely and it comprizes the whole space of time from the giving out of the first Promise unto that End which was put unto all Revelations of publick use under the Old Testament Take it as relating to the Jews and the rise of the time expressed in it is the giving of the Law by Moses in the Wilderness And this is that which the Apostle hath respect unto He had no contest with the Jews about the first Promise and the service of God in the world built thereon nor about their Priviledge as they were the Sons of Abraham but only about their then present Church Priviledge and claim by Moses Law The proper date then and bound of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of old is from the giving out of Moses Law and therein the constitution of the Judaical Church and Worship unto the close of publick Prophecie in the dayes of Malachi From thence to the dayes of John Baptist God granted no extraordinary Revelation of his Will as to the standing
considered The summ is that the end of their Church and State being foretold to be a perpetual desolation Dan. 9.27 the last dayes being now come upon them they might understand what they were shortly to expect and look for The end of the Jews being a People a Church and Kingdom was to bring forth the Messiah whose coming and work must of necessity put an end to their old station and condition Now because herein is enwrapped the most infallible demonstration that the Messiah is long since come the Apostle mentioning the last dayes to intimate that upon necessity he must be come in them I shall further open his design in this matter but with briefness having been large on this head in our Prolegomena and for their sakes who by any difficulties may be deterred from the consideration of them God having from the foundation of the world promised to bring forth the seed of the woman to work out the Redemption of his Elect in the Conquest of Satan did in the separation of Abraham from the rest of the world begin to make provision of a peculiar stock from whence it should spring That this was the cause and end of his Call and Separation is evident from hence that immediately thereupon God assures him that in his seed all the Kindreds of the earth should be blessed Gen. 12.1 2 3. Chap. 22.18 which is all one as if he had expresly said unto him for this cause have I chosen and called thee that in thee I might lay a foundation of bringing forth the promised seed by whom the curse is to be taken away and the blessing of everlasting life procured as Gal. 3.13 14. For this cause was his Posterity continued in a state of separation from the rest of the world that he might seek an holy seed unto himself Numb 23.9 Mal. 2.15 For this cause did he raise them into a Civil Regal and Church-State that he might in them type out and prefigure the Offices and Benefits of the promised Messiah who was to gather to himself the Nations that were to be blessed in the seed of Abraham Gen. 49.10 Psal. 45. Hos. 3.5 Ezek. 34.23 And all their Sacrifices did but shadow out that great expiation of sin which he was to make in his own Person as hath been already proved Things being thus disposed God promised unto them that their Civil Political State their condition as a peculiar Nation and People should be continued until the coming of the Messiah Gen. 49.10 Ezek. 21.27 And this was made good unto them notwithstanding the great oppositions of those mighty Empires in the midst of whose devouring jaws they were placed with some such short intercisions of the actual administration of Rule amongst them as being foretold impeached not the Promise They lost not their Civil State untill he came unto whom was the gathering of the Nations After that though many of the individuals obtained mercy yet their being a Nation or People was of no peculiar use as to any special end of God Therefore was it immediately destroyed and irrecoverably exterminated From that day God in a wonderful manner blasted and cursed all their endeavours either for the preservation of what they then had or for its recovery and restauration when lost No means could ever retrive them into a People or Nation on the old account What may be hereafter on a New God knows The End of the dayes was come and it was to no purpose for men to endeavour to keep up that which God having accomplished the utmost of his design by and upon would lay aside And this season was fully evidenced to all the world by the gathering of the people to the Shilo or the coming in of the Nations to partake in the blessing of faithful Abraham Mic. 4.1 2. Of their Church-State there were two Principal parts The Temple its self and the Worship performed in it The first of these as was the Tabernacle was set up to typifie him in whom the fulness of the Godhead should dwell bodily and the latter the same Person as he was himself to be the great High Priest and Sacrifice Both these also were to be continued until the coming of the Messiah but by no endeavours afterwards Hence was that Promise of the glory of the second House built after the Captivity and restored by Herod because of his coming unto it who was signified by it Hag. 2.9 Malach. 3.1 He was to come whilest that Temple was standing after which it was to be of no more use And therefore Ezekiel describes a third spiritual Temple to succeed in the room thereof The condition of their Sacrifices was the same Therefore Daniel fore-telling the coming of the Messiah four hundred and ninety years after the Captivity adds that upon his death the daily Sacrifice must cease for ever and a total desolation ensue on all the things that were used for the end accomplished Dan. 9.24 25 26 27. The Nation State Temple Sacrifices being set apart set up and designed for no other end but to bring him forth he was to come whilest they were standing and in use after which they were none of them to be allowed a being upon their old foundation This is that which the Apostle pointed at in mentioning the last dayes that they might consider in what condition the Church and People of the Jews then were To discover the evidence of this demonstration as confirmed in our Prolegomena I shall here also briefly add some considerations of the miserable entanglements of the Jews in seeking to avoid the Argument here intimated unto them by the Apostle It is a common Tradition among them that all things were made for the Messiah whereby they do not intend as some have imagined the whole old Creation but all things of their Church State and Worship So the Targum Psal. 40.8 in the person of the Messiah I shall enter into life eternal when I study in the volume of the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that was written for my sake By the Law they understand their all All depended on their Messiah all was written for him They see by experience that there was a coincidence of all these things in the last dayes when Jesus came No sooner had he done his work but Scepter and Scribe departed from Judah They ceased to be a Church and Nation The Temple which the Lord whom they formerly sought came to was destroyed their Sacrifices wherein they trusted caused to cease and the Nations of the Earth were gathered into the faith of Abraham From that time they have no more been a people nor have had any distinction of Tribes or Families Temple Priesthood or Sacrifice nor any hope of a retrivement into their pristine condition Let us then see what course they do or have taken to countenance themselves in their infidelity Two wayes to relieve themselves they have fixed on 1. Granting that the Messiah was to come to their Government and
Apostolâ—cal Exhortation Covet the best gifts 1 Cor. 12.31 As first the gift of Wisdom and knowledge in the Word and Will of God 1 Cor. 12.8 1 Cor. 2.7 1 Tim. 3.15 1 Cor. 1.5 Secondly the gift of Ability to manage and improve this wisdom and knowledge to the edification of others Heb. 3.13 chap. 10.25 Rom. 15.14 1 Thes. 5.11 Thirdly of Prayer And many more might be added of the like usefulness and importance IV. 3. To close our considerations of this part of the Lordship of Christ there remains only that we shew him to be the Lord of all Spiritual Eternal things which in one word we call Glory He is himself the Lord of glory 2 Cor. 2.4 and the Judge of all Joh. 5.25 In the discharge of which Office he gives out Glory as a Reward unto his followers Matth. 25.32 Rom. 14.10 Glory is the reward that is with him which he will give out at the last day as a Crown 2 Tim. 4.8 Joh. 17.2 And to this end that he might be Lord of it he hath 1 purchased it Heb. 9.12 Eph. 1.14 Heb. 2.10 2 Taken actual possession of it in his own Person Luke 24.25 Joh. 17.5 22 24. And that 3 as the fore-runner on whom he will bestow it Heb. 9.20 And this is a short view of the Lordship of Christ as to things Spiritual V. Ecclesiastical things or things that concern Church Institutions Rule and Power belong also unto his Rule and Dominion He is the only Head Lord Ruler and Law-giver of his Church There was a Church state ever since God created man on the earth and there is the same reason of it in all its alterations as unto its Relation to the Lord Christ. What ever changes it under-went still Christ was the Lord of it and of all its concernments But by way of instance and eminency we may consider the Mosaical Church state under the old Testament and the Evangelical Church state under the New Christ is Lord of and in respect unto them both 1. He was the Lord of the Old Testament Church state and he exercised his Power and Lordship towards it four ways 1. In and by its Institution and Erection he made framed set up and appointed that Church state and all the Worship of God therein observed He it was who appeared unto Moses in the Wilderness Exod. 3.5 Act. 7.32 33. and who gave them the Law on Mâ—unt Sinai Exod. 20 Psal. 68.17 Ephes. 4.8 and continued with them in the Wilderness Numb 21.6 1 Cor. 10.9 So that from him his Power and Authority was the Institution and Erection of that Church 2. By prescribing a complete Rule and form of Worship and obedience unto it being erected as its Law-giver to which nothing might be addâ—d Deut. 7.4 12 32. 3. By way of Reformation when it was collapsed and decayed Zech. 2.8 9 10 11 12 13. Maâ— 3 1 2 3. 4. By way of Amotion or taking down what he himself had set up because it was so framed and ordered as to continue only for a season Heb. 9.10 Deut. 18.16 17 18. Hag. 2 6 7. Isa. 65.17 18. 2 Pet. 3.13 Which part of his Power and Lordship we shall aâ—terwards abundantly prove against the Jews 2. Of the New Testament Evangelical Church state also he is the only Lord and Ruler yea this is his proper Kingdom on which all other parts of his Dominion do depend for he is given to be head over aâ—l things unto the Church Ephes. 1.22 For 1. He is the foundation of this Church state 1 Cor. 3.11 the whole design and plat-form of it being laid in him and built upon him And 2. He erects this Church-State upon himself Matth. 16.18 I will build my Church the Spirit and Word whereby it is done being from him alone and ordered in and by his Wisdom Power and Care And 3. He gives Laws and Rules of Worship and Obedience unto it when so built by himself and upon himself Matth. 28.18 Acts 1.2 Heb. 3.2 3 4 5 6. And 4. Is the everlasting constant abiding Head Ruler King and Governour of it Eph. 1.22 Col. 2.19 Heb. 3.6 Rev. 2.3 All which things are ordinarily spoken unto and the ends of this Power of Christ fully declared VI. He is Lord also of Political things All the Governments of the world that are set up and exercised therein for the good of mankind and the preservation of Society according to Rules of Equity and Righteousness over all these and those who in and by them exercise Rule and Authority amongst men is he Lord and King He alone is the absolute Potentate the Highest on the earth are in a subordination unto him That 1. He was designed unto Psal. 89.27 And accordingly he is 2. Made Lord of Lords and King of Kings Rev. 17.14 Chap. 19.16 1 Tim. 6.15 And 3. He exerciseth dominion answerable unto his Title Rev. 6.16 Chap. 17.14 Chap. 18.16 17 18 19 20. Psal. 2.8 9. Isa. 60. Mich. 5.7 8 9. And 4. Hath hence right to send his Gospel into all Nations in the world attended with the worship by him prescribed Matth. 28.18 Psal. 2.9 10 11 12. which none of the Rulers or Governours of the world have any right to refuse or oppose nor can so do but upon their utmost peril And 5. All Kingdoms shall at length be brought into a professed subjection to him and his Gospel and have all their Rule disposed of unto the interest of his Church and Saints Dan. 7.27 Isa. 60.12 Rev. 19.16 17 18 19. VII The last branch of this Dominion of Christ consists in the Residue of the Creation of God Heaven and Earth Sea and Land Wind Trees and fruits of the earth and the Creatures of sense as they are all put under his feet Psal. 8.7 8. Ephes. 1.22 1 Cor. 15.27 So the exercise of his power severally over them is known from the story of the Gospel And thus we have glanced at this Lordship of Christ in some of the general parts of it And how small a portion of his glorious power are we able to comprehend or declare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By whom also he made the worlds The Apostle in these words gives further strength to his present Argument from another Consideration of the Person of the Messiah wherein he also discovers the foundation of the Preheminence ascribed unto him in the words last insisted on By him the worlds were made so that they were his own Joh. 1.11 and it was meet that in the new condition which he underwent that he should be the Lord of them all Moreover if all things be made by him all disobedience unto him is certainly most unreasonable and will be attended with inevitable ruine of the Truth whereof the Apostle aims to convince the Hebrews Now whereas the Assertion which presents its self at first view in these words is such as if we rightly apprehend the meaning of the Holy Ghost in it must needs determine the Controversie
He is as a Good so a glorious Master one that sits at the Right Hand of God 3. Great is the spiritual and eternal security of them that truly believe in Christ. Of all which severally afterwards Verse IV. THE design of the Apostle as we have now often shewed is to evince the necessity of abiding in the Doctrine of the Gospel from the Excellency of the Person by whom it pleased God to reveal it unto us This he hath done already in general in that Description which he hath given us of his Person Power Works Offices and Glory whereby he hath made it evident that no creature whom God was pleased at any time to make use of in the Revelation of his Will or the Institution of his Worship was any way to be compared with him Having proceeded thus far in general he descends now to the consideration of particular instances in all those whom God imploied in the Ministration of the Law and constitution of Mosaical Worship and takes occasion from them all to set forth the Dignity and incomparable Excellencies of the Lord Christ whom in all things he exalts First then he treateth concerning Angels as those who were the most glorious creatures imployed in the giving of the Law The Hebrews owned yea pleaded this in their own defence That besides the Mediation of Moses God used the Ministery of Angels in the giving of the Law and in other occasional instructions of their forefathers Some of them contend that the last of the Prophets was personally an Angel as the signification of his name imports Holy Stephen upbraiding them with their abuse and contempt of their greatest priviledges tells them that they received the Law by the disposition ordering or ministery of Angels Acts 7. v. 53. And the Targum interprets the Chariots of God with the thousands of Angels Psal. 68.18 19. of the Angels by whose ministery God taught Israel the Law This then might leave a special prejudice in their minds that the Law being so delivered by Angels must needs have therein the advantage above the Gospel and be therefore excellent and immutable To remove this prejudice also and further to declare the Excellency and Preheminence in all things of him who revealed the Gospel the Apostle takes occasion from what he had newly taught them concerning the Exaltation of Jesus Christ at the Right Hand of God to prove unto them out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament that he is exceedingly advanced and glorious above the Angels themselves whose concurrence in the Ministration of the Law they boasted in and to this purpose produceth four signal testimonies one after another This is the design of the Apostle which he pursues and makes out unto the end of this Chapter and that we may rightly conceive of his intention and the meaning of the Holy Ghost in the whole we shall before we consider his Proposition laid down in this fourth verse or the ensuing confirmations of it enquire in general what it is in Christ which he compareth with and preferreth above the Angels and wherein it is that he so exalts him The comparison entred on between the Lord Christ and Angels must be either with respect unto their Natures or unto their Dignity Office Power and Glory If the comparison be of Nature with Nature then it must be either in respect of the Divine or Humane Nature of Christ. If it should be of the Divine Nature of Christ with the Nature of Angels then it is not a comparison of Proportion as between two Natures agreeing in any general kind of being as do the nature of a man and a worm but a comparison only manifesting a Difference and distance without any Proportion So answereth Athanasius Orat. 2. and Arian But the truth is the Apostle hath no design to prove by Arguments and Testimonies the Excellency of the Divine Nature above the Angelical There was no need so to do nor do his Testimonies prove any such thing Besides speaking of Angels the other part of the comparison he treats not of their Nature but their Office Work and Employment with their honourable and glorious Condition therein Whereas therefore the Apostle produceth sundry Testimonies confirming the Deity of the Son he doth it not absolutely to prove the Divine Nature to be more excellent that the Angelica◠but only to manifest thereby the glorious condition of him who is partaker of it and consequently his Preheminence above Angels or the Equity that it should be so Neither is the comparison between the Humane Nature of Christ and the Nature of Angels For that absolutely considered and in it self is inferiour to the Angelical whence in regard of his Participation of it he is said to be made lower than the Angels chap. 2. The Apostle then treats of the Person of Christ God and Man who was appointed and designed of God the Father to be the Revealer of the Gospel and Mediator of the New Testament As such he is the subject of the ensuing general Proposition as such he was spoken of in the words immediately fore-going and concerning him as such are the ensuing testimonies to be interpreted even those which testifie his Divine Nature being produced to demonstrate the Excellency of his Person as vested with the Offices of the King Priest and Prophet of his Church the great Revealer of the will of God in the last days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ipse tantum praestantior suit Bodesian and he was so much more excellent at tanto potior factus est Tremel And he is made so much more better at ipse toto excellit or as De Dieu at hoc totum excellit And he wholly excelleth or in all things he excelleth Vulg. tanto melior facius angelis the translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by melior is blamed by Erasmus Beza Vatablus and is generally deserted by the Expositors of the Roman Church And it is hard if not impossible to find melior in any good Author used in the sense that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here and else-where constantly applied unto Ours render the word Better made better to avoid I believe a coincidence with that which they express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by more excellent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly nobilior potentior praestantior excellentior more Powerful Able Excellent as to Love Honour or State and Condition as in that of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Eustathius multo potentior more powerful able to prevail or more excellent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 factus effectus made was became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 differentius different which is sometimes put absolutely for the best things or things far better than other things that differ the best things Make to differ to prefer make better 1 Cor. 4.7 Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excellentius more excellent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
a Degree intimated being made so much more c. now our conceptions hereabout as to this place are wholly to be regulated by the Name given unto him Look saith the Apostle how much the Name given unto the Messiah excels the Name given unto Angels so much doth he himself excell them in Glory Authority and Power for these Names are severally given them of God to signifie their state and condition What and how great this difference is we shall afterwards see in the consideration of the Instances given of it by the Apostle in the Verses ensuing 4. The Proof of this Assertion which the Apostle first fixeth on is taken from the Name of Christ. His Name not given him by man not assumed by himself but ascribed unto him by God himself Neither doth he here by the Name of Christ or the name of the Angels intend any individual proper names of the one or the other but such Descriptions as are made of them and Titles given unto them by God as whereby their state and condition may be known Observe saith he how they are called of God by what Names and Titles he owns them and you may learn the Difference between them This Name he declares in the next Verse God said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee It is not absolutely his being the Son of God that is intended but that by the testimony of the holy Ghost God said these words unto him Thou art my Son and thereby declared his state and condition to be far above that of the Angels to none of whom he ever said any such thing but speaks of them in a far distinct manner as we shall see But hereof in the next Verse Some by this excellent Name understand his Power and Dignity and Glory called his name above every name Phil. 2.8 but then this can no way prove that which the Apostle produceth it for it being directly the same with that which is asserted in whose confirmation it is produced 5. The last thing considerable is How the Lord Christ came by this Name or obtained it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he obtained it by Inheritance as his peculiar lot and portion for ever In what sense he is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heir was before declared As he was made the Heir of all so he inherited a more excellent Name than the Angels Now he was made Heir of all in that all things being made and formed by him the Father committed unto him as Mediator a peculiar Power over all things to be disposed of by him unto all the ends of his Mediation So also being the Natural and Eternal Son of God in and upon the discharge of his work the Father declared and pronounced that to be his Name see Luke 1.35 Isa. 7.14 chap. 9.6 His being the Son of God is the proper foundation of his being called so and his discharge of his Office the Occasion of its declaration so he came unto it by Right of Inheritance when he was declared to be the Son of God with Power by the resurrection from the dead Rom. 1.3 This then is the sum of the Apostles Proposition and the Confirmation of it A Name given by God to that end and purpose doth truly declare the nature state and condition of him or them to whom it is given But unto Christ the Mediator there is a Name given of God himself exceedingly more excellent than any that by him is given unto the Angels which undeniably evinceth that he is placed in a state and condition of Glory far above them or preferred before them I shall only observe one or two things concerning the Hebrews to whom the Apostle wrote and so put an end to our Exposition of this Verse First then this discourse of the Apostle proving the Preheminence of the Messiah above the Angels was very necessary unto the Hebrews although it were very suitable unto their own principles and in general acknowledged by them It is to this day a Tradition amongst them that the Messiah shall be exalted above Abraham and Moses and the ministring Angels Besides they acknowledged the Scriptures of the Old Testament wherein the Apostle shews them that this Truth was taught and confirmed But they were dull and flow in making Application of these Principles unto the confirmation of their faith in the Gospel as the Apostle chargeth them Chap. 5.11 12. And they had at that time great Speculations about the Glory Dignity and Excellency of Angels and were fallen into some kind of worshipping of them And it may be this Curiosity Vanity and Superstition in them was heightned by the heat of the Controversie between the Pharisees and Sadduces about them the one denying their Existence and being the other whom the body of the People followed exâ—lting them above measure and inclining to the Worship of them This the Apostle declares Col. 2.18 treating of those Judaizing Teachers who then troubled the Churches he chargeth them with fruitless and curious speculations about Angels and the worshipping of them And of their Ministry in the giving of the Law they still boasted It was necessary therefore to take them off from this Confidence of that Priviledge and the superstition that ensued thereon to instruct them in the Preheminence of the Lord Christ above them all that so their thoughts might be directed unto him and their Trust placed in him alone And this Exaltation of the Messiah some of their latter Doctors assert on Dan. 7.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I behold until the Thrones were set placed exalted as in the Original Chaldee and as all old Translations Greek Latin Syriack and Arabick render the words however Ours read untill the Thrones were cast down affirming that one of those Thrones was fâ—r the Messiah before whom all the Angels ministred in obedience Secondly It may not be amiss to remark that the Jews have alwayes had a Tradition of the glorious name of the Messiah which even since their utter Rejection they retain some obscure remembrance of The name which they principally magnifie is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metatron Ben Vzziel in his Targum on Gen. 5. ascribâ—s this name to Enoch when he was translated he ascended into Heaven in the word of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his name was called Mitatron the greâ—t Scribe But this opinion of Enoch being Metatron is rejected and confuted in the Talmud There they tell us that Metatron is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince of the world or as Elias calls him in Thisbi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince of Gods Presence And in the first mention of this Name which is Talmud Tract Saned cap. 4. fol. 38. they plainly intimate that they intended an uncreated Angel by this Expression And such indeed must He be unto whom may be assigned what they ascribe unto Metatron For as Reuchlin from the Cabbalists informs us they say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
his own likeness and Image are hereby made partakers of such inestimable Benefits as indispensably call for rejoycing in a way of Thankfulness and Gratitude This the whole Gospel declares and therefore it needs not our particular improvement in this place And if this be the duty of the whole Creation it is easie to discern in what a special manner it is incumbent on them that believe whose Benefit Advantage and Glory was principally intended in this whole work of God Should they be found wanting in this Duty God might as of old call Heaven and Earth to witness against them Yea Thankfulness to God for the bringing forth of the first-born into the world is the summ and substance of all that Obedience which God requires at the hands of believers IV. The Command of God is the ground and Reason of all Religious Worship The Angels are to worship the Lord Christ the Mediator and the ground of their so doing is Gods command he saith Worship him all ye Angels Now the command of God is twofold 1. Formal and vocal when God gives out a Law or Precept unto any creature superadded to the Law of its Creation Such was the Command given unto our first Parents in the Garden concerning the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and such were all the Laws Precepts and Institutions which he afterwards gave unto his Church with those which to this day continue as the Rule and Reason of their Obedience 2. Real and interpretative consisting in an impression of the Mind and Will of God upon the nature of his creatures with respect unto that Obedience which their state condition and dependance on him requireth The very nature of an intellectual Creature made for the Glory of God and placed in a moral dependance upon him and subjection unto him hath in it the force of a Command as to the Worship and Service that God requireth at their hands But this Law in man being blotted weakned impaired through sin God hath in mercy unto us collected drawn forth and disposed all the Directions and Commands of it in vocal formal Precepts recorded in his Word whereunto he hath superadded sundry new Commands in the Institutions of his Worship Wiâ—h Angels it is otherwise The ingrafted Law of their Creation requiring of them the Worship of God and Obedience to his whole Will is kept and preserved entire so that they have no need to have it repeated and expressed in vocal formal Commands And by vertue of this Law were they obliged to constant and everlasting Worship of the Eternal Son of God as being created and upheld in an universal dependance upon him But now when God brings forth his Son into the world and placeth him in a new condition of being incarnate and becoming so the Head of his Church there is a new Modification of the Worship that is due to him brought in and a new respect unto things not considered in the first creation With reference hereunto God gives a new Command unto the Angels for that peculiar kind of Worship and Honour which is due unto him in that state and condition which he had taken upon himself This the Law of their Creation in general directed them unto but in particular required not of them It enjoyned the Worship of the Son of God in every condition but that condition was not expressed This God supplies by a new Command That is such an Intimation of his Mind and Will unto them as answers unto a vocal Command given unto men who by that means only may come to know the Will of God Thus in one way or other Command is the Ground and Cause of all Worship For 1. All Worship is Obedience Obedience respects Authority and Authority exerts it self in Commands And if this Authority be not the Authority of God the Worship performed in Obedience unto it is not the Worship of God but of him or them whose Commands and Authority are the Reason and cause of it It is the Authority of God alone that can make any Worship to be religious or the performance of it to be an Act of Obedience unto him 2. God would never allow that the Will and Wisdom of any of his Creatures should be the rise Rule or measure of his Worship or any part of it or any thing that belongs unto it This Honour he hath reserved unto himself neither will he part with it unto any other He alone knows what becomes his own Greatness and Holiness and what tends to the Advancement of his Glory Hence the Scripture abounds with severe Interdictions and Comminations against them who shall presume to do or appoint any thing in his Worship besides or beyond his own Institution 3. All Prescriptions of Worship are vain where men have not strength to perform it in a due manner nor Assurance of Acceptance when it is performed Now both these are and must be from God alone nor doth he give strength and ability for any thing in his Worship but what himself commands nor doth he promise to accept any thing but what is of his own Appointment so that it is the greatest folly imaginable to undertake any thing in his Worship and Service but what his Appointment gives warrant for And this should teach us in all that we have to do in the Worship of God carefully to look after his word of Command and Institution Without this all that we do is lost as being no Obedience unto God Yea it is an open setting up of our own Wills and Wisdom against him and that in things of his own especial concernment which is intolerable boldness and presumption Let us deal thus with our Rulers amongst men and obey them not according to their Laws but our own fancies and see whether they will accept our persons And is the Great and Holy God less to be regarded besides what we have our own Inventions or the Commands of other men as the ground and reason of our doing it we have nothing but our own or their warranty for its Acceptance with God and how far this will secure us is easie to judge We might hence also farther observe V. That the Mediator of the New Covenant is in his own Person God blessed for ever to whom Divine or Religious Worship is due from the Angels themselves As also that VI. The Father upon the account of the Work of Christ in the World and his Kingdom that ensued it gives a new Commandment unto the Angels to Worship him his Glory being greatly concerned therein And that VII Great is the Churches security and Honour when the Head of it is worshipped by all the Angels in Heaven as also that VIII It can be no duty of the Saints of the New Testament to worship Angels who are their fellow servants in the worship of Jesus Christ. Verse VII HAving in one Testimony from the Scripture expressing the subjection of Angels unto the Lord Christ signally proved his main Design
by interposing after his usual manner in this Epistle subservient Motives Arguments and Considerations tending directly to his principal end and connatural unto the subject treated on Thus the main Argument wherewith he presseth his preceding Exhortation unto attendance and Obedience unto the Word is taken ab incommodo or ab eventu pernitioso from the pernitious end and event of their disobedience thereunto The chief proof of this is taken from another Argument à minori and that is the confessed Event of disobedience unto the Law v. 2. To confirm and strengthen which reasoning he gives us a summary comparison of the Law and the Gospel whence it might appear that if a disregard unto the Law was attended with a sure and sore revenge that much more must and would the Neglect of the Gospel be so And this comparison on the part of the Gospel is expressed 1. In the Nature of it it is Great Salvation 2. The Author of it it was spoken by the Lord 3. The manner of its Tradition being confirmed unto us by them that heard them and the Testimony given to it and them by signs and wonders and distributions of the Holy Ghost from all which he infers his purpose of the pernitious Event of disobedience unto it or disregarding of it This is the summ of the Apostles Reasoning which we shall further open as the words present it unto us in the Text. The first thing we meet with in the word is his subservient Argument à minori v. 2. wherein three things occur 1. The Description that he gives us of the Law which he compares the Gospel withal it was the word spoken by Angels 2. An Adjunct of it which ensued upon its being spoken by them it was firm and stedfast 3. The Event of disobedience unto it every transgression of it and stubborn disobedience had a just recompence of reward How from hence he confirms his Assertion of the pernitious Consequence of neglecting the Gospel we shall see afterwards The first thing in the words is the Description of the Law by that Periphrasis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word spoken or pronounced by Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a word very variously used in the New Testament The special senses of it we shall not need in this place to insist upon It is here taken for a system of Doctrine and by the addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as published preached or declared Thus the Gospel from the principal subject matter of it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 1.18 the Word the Doctrine the Preaching concerning the Cross or Christ crucified So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here the word is the Doctrine of the Law that is the Law it self spoken declared published promulgated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Angels that is by the Ministry of Angels It is not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he from whom the Law was given that the Apostle intends but the Ministerial Publishers of it by whom it was given The Law was given from God but it was given by Angels in the way and manner to be considered Two things we may observe in this Periphrasis of the Law 1. That the Apostle principally intends that part of the Mosaical Dispensation which was given on Mount Sinai and which as such was the Covenant between God and that people as unto the priviledge of the promised Land 2. That he fixed on this Description of it rather than any other or meerly to have expressed it by the Law 1. Because the Ministry of Angels in the giving of the Law by Moses was that by which all the prodigious Effects wherewith it was attended which kept the people in such a durable Reverence unto it were wrought This therefore he mentions that he might appear not to undervalue it but to speak of it with Reverence unto that Excellency of its Administration which the Hebrews even boasted in 2. Because having newly insisted on a comparison between Christ and the Angels his Argument is much strengthened when it shall be considered that the Law was the Word spoken by the Angels the Gospel was delivered by the Son so far exalted above them But the manner how this was done must be a little farther enquired into That the Law was given by the Ministry of Angels the Jews alwayes confessed yea and boasted So saith Josephus one much antiente◠than any of their Rabbins extant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We learned the most excellent and most holy constitutions of the Law from God by Angels The same was generally acknowledged by them of old This Stephen treating with them takes for granted Acts 7.53 You received the Law by the disposition of Angels And our Apostle affirms the same Gal. 3.19 It was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator a word of the same Original and sense is used in both places though by ours variously rendered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This then is certain but the manner of it is yet to be considered First then nothing is more unquestionable than that the Law was given from God himself He was the Author of it This the whole Scripture declares and proclaims And it was the impious Abomination of the Valentinians and Marcionites of old to ascribe the Original of it unto any other Author Secondly He who spake in the name of God on Mount Sinai was no other than God himself the second Person in the Trinity Psal. 68.17 18 19. Him Stephen calls the Angel Acts 7.30 38. Even the Angel of the Covenant the Lord whom the people sought Mal. 3.1 2. Some would have it to be a Created Angel delegated unto that work who thereon took on him the Presence and Name of God as if he himself had spoken But this is wholly contrary to the nature of all Ministerial work Never did Embassador speak in his own name as if he were the King himself whose person he doth represent The Apostle tells us that the Preachers of the Gospel were Gods Embassadors and that God by them doth perswade men to be reconciled in Christ 2 Cor. 5.20 But yet if any on that account should take on him to personate God and to speak of himself as God he would be highly blasphemous Nor can this be imagined in this place where not only he that speaks speaks in the Name of God I am the Lord thy God but also elsewhere it is frequently affirmed that Jehovah himself did give that Law which is made unto the people an Argument unto Obedience And the things done on Sinai are alwayes ascribed unto God himself Thirdly It remains then to consider how notwithstanding this the Law is said to be the Word spoken by Angels It is no where affirmed that the Law was given by Angels but that the people received it by the disposition of Angels and that it was ordained by Angels and here spoken by them From hence it is evident that
Divine Wisdom and Grace From this fountain they all proceed and the living waters of it run through them all The Times the Seasons the Authors the Instruments the manner of their Delivery were all ordered by the manifold Wisdom of God which especially appears in the dispensation of the Gospel Ephes. 3.9 10. The Apostle placeth not the Wisdom of God only in the Mystery of the Gospel but also in the season of its promulgation It was hid saith he in God v. 9. that is in the purpose of God v. 10 11. From the Ages past but now is made manifest and herein doth the manifold Wisdom of God appear Were we able to look into the depth of any circumstance that concerns the Institutions of God we should see it full of Wisdom and Grace and the neglect of a due consideration thereof hath God sometime severely revenged Lev. 10.1 2. Thirdly There is in them all a Gracious Condescension unto our weakness God knows that we stand in need of an especial remark to be set on every one of them Such is our weakness our slowness to believe that we have need that the Word should be unto us line upon line and precept upon precept here a little and there a little As God told Moses Exod. 4.8 That if the children of Israel would not believe on the first sign they would on the second So it is with us one consideration of the Law or the Gospel oftentimes proves ineffectual when another over-powres the heart unto obedience And therefore hath God thus graciously condescended unto our weakness in proposing unto us the several considerations mentioned of his Law and Gospel that by some of them we may be laid hold upon and bowed unto his mind and will in them Accordingly Fourthly They have had their various Influences and Successes on the souls of men Some have been wrought upon by one consideration some by another In some the Holiness of the Law in others the manner of its Administration have been effectual Some have fixed their hearts principally on the Grace of the Gospel some on the Person of its Author And the same persons at several times have had help and assistance from these several considerations of the one and the other So that in these things God doth nothing in vain nothing is in vain towards believers Infinite Wisdom is in all and infinite Glory will arise out of all And this should stir us up unto a diligent search into the Word wherein God hath recorded all the concernments of his Law and Gospel that are for our use and advantage That is the Cabinet wherein all these Jewels are laid up and disposed according to his Wisdom and the counsel of his Will A general view of it will but little satisfie and not at all enrich our souls This is the Mine wherein we must digg as for hid treasures One main reason why we believe no more why we obey no more why we love no more is because we are no more diligent in searching the Word for substantial Motives unto them all A very little insight into the Word is apt to make men think that they see enough But the Reason of it is because they like not what they see As men will not like to look farther into a Shop of Wares when they like nothing which is at first presented unto them But if indeed we find sweetness benefit profit life in the discoveries that are made unto us in the Word about the Law and Gospel we shall be continually reaching after a farther Acquaintance with them It may be we know somewhat of those things but how know we that there is not some especial concernment of the Gospel which God in an holy condescension hath designed for our good in particular that we are not as yet arrived unto a clear and distinct knowledge of Here if we search for it with all diligence may we find it and if we go maimed in our Faith and Obedience all our dayes we may thank our own sloth for it Again whereas God hath distinctly proposed those things unto us they should have our distinct consideration We should severally and distinctly meditate upon them that so in them all we may admire the Wisdom of God and receive the effectual influence of them all upon our own souls Thus may we sometimes converse in our hearts with the Author of the Gospel sometimes with the manner of its delivery sometimes with the Grace of it and from every one of these heavenly flowers draw nourishment and refreshment unto our own souls Oh that we could take care to gather up these fragments that nothing might be lost unto us as in themselves they shall never perish IV. What means soever God is pleased to use in the Revelation of his Will he gives it a Certainty Stedfastness Assurance and Evidence which our faith may rest in and which cannot be neglected without the greatest Sin The word spoken was stedfast Every word spoken from God by his Appointment is stedfast and that because spoken from him and by his Appointment And there are two things that belong unto this stedfastness of the Word spoken 1. That in respect of them unto whom it is spoken it is the foundation of Faith and Obedience The formal Reason of them and last Ground whereunto they are resolved 2. That on the part of God it is a stable and sufficient ground of Righteousness in proceeding to take vengeance on them by whom it is neglected The punishment of transgressors is a meet Recompence of Reward because the word spoken unto them is stedfast And this latter follows upon the former For if the word be not a stable firm foundation for the Faith and Obedience of men they cannot be justly punished for the neglect of it That therefore must be briefly spoken unto and this will naturally ensue as a consequent thereof God hath as we saw on the first Verse of this Epistle by various wayes and means declared and revealed his mind unto men That Declaration what means or instruments so ever he is pleased to make use of therein is called his Word And that because originally it is his proceeds from him is delivered in his name and Authority reveals his mind and tends to his Glory Thus sometimes he spake by Angels using their Ministry either in delivering his Messages by words of an outward sound or by Representation of things in Visions and Dreams and sometimes by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost enabling them so inspired to give out the word which they received purely and entirely all remaining his Word still Now what wayes soever God is pleased to use in the Communication of his Mind and Will unto men for their Obedience there is that stedfastness in the Word it self that Evidence to be from him as make it the duty of men to believe in it with faith divine and supernatural and that stability which will never deceive them It is I say
the Contemplation of his Excellencies for which end they were created Here therefore infinite Wisdom infinite Grace infinite Goodness and infinite Holiness discover themselves in that contrivance of salvation which solves all those difficulties and seeming contradictions keeps entire the Glory of God's Attributes repairs the Honour lost by sin and reduceth the whole Creation into a new Order and subserviency to the Glory of its Maker Hence this great Projection and design is called the Wisdom of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that wherein he was pleased principally to lay open the fountain and spring of his eternal Wisdom Rom. 11.33 1 Cor. 1.24 And not only so but the manifold wisdom of God Ephes. 3.10 That is infinite Wisdom exerting it self in great and unspeakable variety of means and ways for the accomplishment of the end designed Yea all the Treasures of wisdom are said to be laid out in this matter and laid up in Christ Jesus Col. 2.3 As if he had said that the whole store of infinite wisdom was laid out herein And thus though God made all things in wisdom yet that which he principally proposeth unto our consideration in the creation of all things is his Sovereign Will and Pleasure joyned with infinite Power For his will or pleasure were all things created Rev. 5.11 But in this work of contriving the salvation of sinners he minds us of the counsel of his will Ephes. 1.11 that is the infinite wisdom wherewith the Holy Acts of his Will concerning it were accompanied And the mystery of his good pleasure wherein he designed to gather up all things into one head by Jesus Christ verse 10. Certainly the product of infinite and eternal Wisdom of the Counsel of the Will of the most Holy wherein the Treasures of it were laidout with a design to display it in manifold variety must needs be Great very Great so great as cannot be conceived or expressed Might we here stay to contemplate and admire in our dim and dawning light in our weakness according to the meanness of our apprehensions of the reflections of it in the Glass of the Gospel the Eternity of this contrivance the transactions between Father and Son about it the Retrievment of the lost Glory of God by sin and ruined creation in it the security of the Holiness Righteousness Veracity and Vindictive Justice of God provided for in it with the abundant overflowings of Grace Goodness Love Mercy and Patience that are the life of it we might manifest that there is enough in this Fountain to render the streams flowing from it great and glorious And yet alass what a little what a small portion of its Glory Excellency Beauty Riches is it that we are able in this world to attain unto How weak and mean are the conceptions and thoughts of little children about the designs and counsels of the wise men of the earth and yet there is a Proportion between the Understandings of the one and the other but there is none at all between ours and the infinite depths of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God which are laid out in this matter we think as children we speak as children we see darkly as in a glass and the best acting of our faith in this business is humble Admiration and holy Thankfulness Now certainly it is not in the capacity of a creature to cast greater contempt on God than to suppose he would set all his glorious Properties on work and draw forth all the Treasures of his Wisdom to produce or effect that which should be low mean not every way admirable And yet unto that height of impiety hath unbelief arrived amongst many of them unto whom theGospel is and hath been preached as to reject and contemn the whole mystery of it as meer folly as an empty notion fit to be neglected and despised So hath the god of this world blinded the eyes of men that the light of the glorious Gospel should not shine into their minds But when God shall come to be admired in all them thatbelieve on the account of this design of his Grace and Wisdom they will with astonishment see the glory of it in others when it shall be too late for to obtain any benefit by it unto themselves Secondly The Salvation preached in the Gospel is Great upon the account of the way and means whereby it was wrought and accomplished or the great effect of the infinite Wisdom and Grace of God in the Incarnation Mediation and Suffering of his Son Thus was it wrought and no otherwise could it be effected We were not redeemed with silver and gold and corruptible things 1 Pet. 1.18 No such price would be accepted with God Salvation is more precious than to be so purchased Psal. 49.6 7. But it may be it might be effected and brought about by the Law which was God's own Institution either its Precepts or its Sacrifices might effect this work and Salvation may be attained by the works of the Law But yet neither will this suffice For the Law is weak and insufficient as to any such purpose Rom. 8.23 nor would the Sacrifices of it be accepted unto that end Heb. 10.7 8. How then shall it be wrought is there none worthy in heaven or earth to undertake this work and must it cease for ever No the Eternal Son of God himself the Word Power and Wisdom of the Father the brightness of his Glory and the express image of his Person he hath undertaken this work This renders it Great and glorious that the Son of God in his own Person should perform it it must assuredly be great salvation which he came himself to work out And how doth he do it by the mighty word of hispower as he made all things of old No this work is of another nature and in another manner must be accomplished For 1. To this purpose he must be Incarnate made flesh Joh. 1.14 made of a Woman Gal. 4.4 Though hewere in the form of God and equal to God yet he was to humble and empty himself unto and in the form of a man Phil. 2.6 7. This is that great mystery of godliness God manifested in the flesh that the Angels desire to look into That the Son of God should take the Nature of Man into subsistence with himself in the same Person which was necessary for the effecting of this salvation is a thing that the whole Creation must admire unto Eternity And yet this is but an entrance into this work For 2. In this Nature he must be made under theLaw Gal. 4.4 obnoxious to the commands of it and boundto the obedience which it required It became him to fulfillall righteousness that he might be our Saviour for though he were a Son yet he was to learn and yield obedience Without his perfect obedience unto the Law our salvation could not be perfected The Son of God must obey that we may be accepted and crowned The difficulties also temptations and
world though usually by that expression they intend the World of future bliss But the world here intended is no other but the promised state of the Church under the Gospel This with the Worship of God therein with especial Relation unto the Messiah the Author and Mediator of it administring its heavenly things before the Throne of Grace thereby rendring it spiritual and heavenly and diverse from the state of the Worship of the Old Testament which was worldly and carnal was the World to come that the Jews looked for and which in this place is intended by the Apostle This we must farther confirm as the foundation of the ensuing Exposition That this then is the intendment of the Apostle appeareth First From the limitation annexed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning which we treat This is the world whereof he treats with the Hebrews in this Epistle namely the Gospel-State of the Church the Worship whereof he had in the words immediately foregoing pressed them unto the observation of And not only so but described it also by that State wherein the miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost were given and enjoyed And the mention of them in the words directly preceding is that description of the World to come which the Apostle in these words refers unto concerning which we speak And the Tradition of this New World or the Restauration of all things under the Messiah was one of the principal Reports of Truth received among the Jews which the Apostle presseth them withall Some suppose that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we speak is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have spoken and would have it refer unto Ch. 1.6 But what the Apostle there intendeth by the World we have sufficiently evinced and declared The World there by an usual Synechdoche is put for the habitable earth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Son of God made and came unto John 1.11 Here a certain state and condition of things in the world about which he treated with the Hebrews is intended Besides they who would thus change the word Grotius Crellius Schlictingius by the world Chap. 1.6 understand Heaven it self the state of Glory which is not here insisted on by the Apostle For Secondly He treats of that which was already done in the crowning of Jesus with Glory and Honor as the words following do manifest This crowning of him was upon his Ascension as we have before proved at large Then was not the state of Glory made subject unto him because it was not then nor is yet in being And therefore they who turn we speak into we have before spoken are forced also to pervert the following words and to interpret he hath made all things subject unto him he hath purposed or decreed so to do both without cause or reason The World whereof the Apostle treats was immediately made subject to Jesus that is the Church of the New Testament when God anointed him King upon his holy Hill of Sion and therefore in the Psalm is there mention made of those other parts of the Creation to be joyned in this subjection that have no Relation unto Heaven Thirdly The Apostle doth not treat directly any where in this Epistle concerning Heaven or the world of the blessed to come he frequently indeed mentions Heaven not absolutely but as it belongs unto the Gospel world as being the place of the constant residence of the High Priest of the Church and wherein also the Worship of it is through faith celebrated Fourthly The Apostle in these words insists on the Antithesis which he pursueth in his whole discourse between the Judaical and Evangelical Church-state for what ever power Angels might have in and over things formerly this World to come saith he is not made subject unto them Now it is not Heaven and Glory that he opposeth to the Judaical Church-state and Worship but that of the Gospel as we shall find in the progress of the Epistle which is therefore necessarily here intended Fifthly If by the World to come the eternal blessed state of Glory be designed to begin at or after the general Judgment then here is a promise that that blessed estate shall de novo be put in subjection to Jesus Christ as Mediator but this is directly contrary unto what is else-where revealed by the same Apostle concerning the transactions between the Father and the Son as Mediator at that day 1 Cor. 15.28 And when all shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him who put all things under him that God may be all in all Which words if they do not absolutely assert the ceasing of the Kingdom of the Mediator but only the order of all things unto Eternity in their subjection unto God by Christ yet they are plainly exclusive of the grant of a new Power or Authority unto him or of a-new making subject of all things unto him Adde unto all this that the Apostle proves the subjection of this world unto the Lord Christ and not unto Angels by a testimony expressing directly the present things of this world antecedent unto the day of Judgment From what hath been discoursed we conclude that the World to come here expressed is the State and Worship of the Church under the Messiah called so by the Apostle according to the usual appellation which then it had obtained among the Jews and allowed by him until the Mosaical Church-state was utterly removed And he afterwards declares how this comprized Heaven it self also because of the Residence of our High Priest in the Holiest not made with hands and the continual admission of the Worshippers unto the Throne of Grace This is the subject of the Apostles Proposition that concerning which he treats Concerning this World the Apostle first declares negatively that it is not made subject unto Angels The subjecting of this World to come unto any is such a disposal of it as that he or they unto whom it is put in subjection should as the Lord of it erect institute or set it up rule and dispose of it being erected and judge or reward it in the end of its course and time This is denied concerning Angels and the denial proved tacitly because no such thing is testified in the Scripture And herein the Apostle either preventeth an Objection that might arise from the power of the Angels in and over the Church of old as some think or rather proceeds in his design of exalting the Lord Jesus above them and thereby prefers the Worship of the Gospel before that prescribed by the Law of Moses For he seems to grant that the old Church and Worship were in a sort made subject unto Angels this of the World to come being solely and immediately in his power who in all things was to have the preeminence And this will farther appear if we consider the instances before mentioned wherein the subjection of this World to come unto any doth consist First It was
disordered by sin but are now all recollected and brought into order under one Head Him hath he given to be Head over all things unto the Church verse 22. The whole Sovereignty over all the whole Creation that is committed unto him is only for this end that he may be the more perfect and glorious Head to the Church He is that Head on which the whole body hath its orderly and regular dependance Ephes. 4.15 16. The head of the body the Church Col. 1.18 The head of every man that is of every believer 1 Cor. 11.3 Ephes. 5.23 And this is every where proposed both as our great Honour and our great Advantage To be united unto him subjected unto him as our Head gives us both honour and safety What greater honour can we have than to be free-men of that Corporation whereof he is the Head than to be subjects of his Kingdom What greater safety than to be united unto him insâ—parably who is in Glory invested with all Power and Authority over the whole Creation of God every thing that may do us good or evil 2. That he is our only Head The Church is so put in subjection unto the Lord Christ as not to be subject unto any other It is true the Members of the Church as men on the earth have other Relations in respect whereof they are or may be subject one to another Children unto Parents Servants unto Masters People unto Rulers but as they are Members of the Church they are subject unto Christ and none other If any other were or might be an Head unto them they must be Angels or men As for Angels we have it here plainly testified that the Church is not made subject in any thing unto them And amongst men the Apostles of all others might seem to lay the justest claim to this Priviledge and Honor. But they openly disclaim any pretence thereunto So doth Paul 2 Cor. 1.24 We have no Dominion Rule Lordship Headship over your faith any thing that concerns your obedience to God and your Worship but are helpers of your joy And again saith he We preach not our selves but Jesus Christ the Lâ—rd the only Lord and our selves your servants for Jesus sake 2 Cor. 4.5 And Peter as it should seem foreseeing that some who should come after would pretend unto such Preheminence warns the Elders that they should not think themselves Lords over Gods heritage 1 Pet. 5.3 And this they did in pursuit of the instructions and charge which their Lord and Master gave them Matth. 23.25 26 27. where he warns them that they should neither think of Dignity nor Dominion over the Church but apply themselves with all Humility unto the service of it for which he else-where addes his reason namely that all his Disciples have one Lord and Master and no more Joh. 13.13 Matth. 23.9 10. And it is a woful confusion that the Papists run themselves into in this matter For first they put the whole Church into subjection unto a man whom they call the Pope the common Father and Master of Christians the Head of the Church and then subject both him and it unto Angels in the Adoration and Invocation of them the greatest subjection possible when the Scripture assigneth one only Head of the Church expresly even the Lord Jesus and fully declares that it is not put in subjection unto Angels at all But to pass them by the Lord Christ is not only thus the only Head in general unto the whole Church but also unto every individual Believer in the Church The Head of every man is Christ 1 Cor. 11.3 He is so to every believer respectively and severally and that in both those senses wherein he is an Head that is according to the natural and metaphorical use of the word For 1. He is the only Head of Vital Influence to the whole Church and every member thereof As from the natural Head all influences of life for subsistence motion acting guidance and direction are communicated unto the whole body and to every member thereof so from the Lord Christ alone as he is the spiritually vital Head of the Church in whom are the springs of life and all quickning grace there are communicated unto the whole Church and every believer therein both the first quickning vital principle of life it self and all succeeding supplies and influences of grace for the enlivening strengthning acting guiding and directing of them This himself declares by comparing the Relations of all believers unto him unto that of branches unto the Vine Joh. 15.2 4. which have no life but by vertue of their union unto the Vine nor sap for fruitfulness but what is derived therefrom which he teacheth expresly verse 5. Without me saith he ye can do nothing And this the Apostle lively sets out unto us in the similitude of the natural body Col. 2.19 And this placing of all fulness in the Lord Christ as the Head of the Church that thence the whole and every member of it might derive needful supplies to themselves is fully taught us in the Gospel Hence the Church is called the fulness of Christ Ephes. 1.2 3. or that whereunto Christ communicates of his All-fulness of Grace until it comes unto the measure or degree of growth and perfection which he hath graciously assigned unto it And none I suppose will contend but that the Lord Christ is the alone and only Head of the Church in this sense It hath not a spiritual dependance on any other for grace There is indeed I know not what monster lies in the Opinion of them who take upon themselves to confer grace unto others by vertue of such things as they do unto them or for them but this we do not now consider If any man think he may have grace from any but Christ alone be they Angels or men let him turn himself unto them but withall know assuredly that he forsakes the Fountain of living waters for broken cisterns which will yield him no relief 2. He is the only Head of Rule and Government unto the whole Church and every member thereof This Rule or Government of the Church concerneth all that Obedience which it yields unto God in his Worship And unto an Head herein it is required that he give perfect Rules and Laws for all things necessarily belonging thereunto and to take care that they be observed And here a great contest ariseth in the world The Papists in behalf of their Pope and others under him contend to be sharers with the Lord Christ in this his Headship and fain they would perswade us that he himself hath appointed that so it should be The Scripture tells us that he was faithful in the whole house of God as was Moses and that as a Lord over his own house to erect rule and establish it and himself when he gives commission unto his Apostles bids them to teach men to do and observe all that he had commanded them And accordingly they
tell us that they delivered unto us what they received from the Lord and command us not to be wise above what is written But I know not how it is come to pass that these men think that the Lord Christ is not a compleat Head in this matter that he hath not instituted all Rules and Laws that are needful and convenient for the right discharge of the Worship of God and Obedience of the Church therein at least that somewhat may be added unto what he hath appointed that may be much to the advantage of the Church And this they take to be their work by vertue of I know not what unsealed warrant unwritten commission But to adde any thing in the Worship of God unto the Laws of the Church is to exercise Authority over it dominion over its faith and to pretend that this world to come this blessed Gospel Church-state is put in subjection unto them although it be not so to Angels A vain and proud pretence as at the last day it will appear But you will say Christ gives his Laws only unto his whole Church and not to individual believers who receive them from the Church and so he is not an immediate Head unto every one in particular I answer That the Lord Christ commits his Laws unto the Churches ministery to teach them unto believers but his own Authority immediately affects the soul and conscience of every believer He that subjects himself aright unto them doth it not upon the authority of the Church by whom they are taught and declared but upon the authority of Christ by whom they are given and enacted 3. It appears from hence that as he is our only Head so he is our immediate Head We have our immediate dependance upon him and our immediate access unto him He hath indeed appointed means for the communicating of his grace unto us and for the exercising of his Rule and Authority over us Such are all his Ordinances with the Offices and Officers that he hath appointed in his Church the first whereof he requires us to be constant in the use of the latter he requires our obedience and submission unto But these belong only unto the way of our dependance and hinder not but that our dependance is immediate on himself he being the immediate Object of our Faith and Love The soul of a believer rests not in any of these things but only makes use of them to confirm his faith in subjection unto Christ. For all these things are ours it is appointed for our use and we are Christs as he is Gods 1 Cor. 3.21 22 23. And so have we our immediate access unto him and not as some foolishly imagine by Saints and Angels and by him to God even to the Throne of Grace 4. This priviledge is greatly augmented in that the Church being made subject unto Christ alone and cast into a dependance upon him he will assuredly take care of all its concernments seeing unto him only doth it betake it self The Church made it of old part of her plea that she was as one fatherless Hos. 14.3 that is every way helpless that had none to relieve or succour her And the Lord Christ giveth this as a reason why he stirreth up himself unto the assistance of his people because there was no man that appeared for their help no Intercessor to interpose for them Isa. 59.16 Now God having placed the Church in this condition as to be oft-times altogether Orphans in this world to have none to give them the least countenance or assistance and the Church it self chusing this condition to renounce all hopes and expectations from any else beside betaking it self unto the Power Grace and Faithfulness of the Lord Christ alone it cannot as it were but be a great Obligation upon him to take care of it and to provide for it at all times They are members of his Body and he alone is their Head they are Subjects of his Kingdom and he alone is their King they are Children and Servants in his Family and he alone is their Father Lord and Master and can he forget them can he disregard them Had they been committed to the care of men it may be some of them would have fought and contended for them though their faithfulness is always to be suspected and their strength is a thing of nought Had they been put into subjection unto Angels they would have watched for their good though their Wisdom and Ability be both finite and limited so that they could never have secured their safety and shall not the Lord Jesus Christ now they are made his special care as his Power and Faithfulness is infinitely above those of any meeâ— creature excel them also in care and watchfulness for our good And all these things do sufficiently set out the Greatness of that priviledge of the Church which we insist upon And there are two things that make this Libâ—rty and Exaltation of the Church necessary and reasonable 1. That God having exalted our nature in the Person of his Son into a condition of Honour and Glory so as to be worshipped and adored by all the Angels of Heaven it was not meet nor convenient that it should in our persons when united unto Christ as our Head be made subject unto them God would not allow that whereas there is the strictest union between the Head and the Members there should be such an interposition between them as that the Angels should depend on their Head and the Members should depend on Angels which indeed would utterly destroy the Union and immediate entercourse that is and ought to be between them 2. God is pleased by Jesus Christ to take us into an holy communion with himself without any other medium or means of communication but only that of our nature personally and inseparably united unto his own Nature in his Son And this also our subjection unto Angels is inconsistent withall This order of dependance the Apostle declares 1 Cor. 3.22 23. All things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods As there is no interposition between God and Christ no more is there between Christ and us and in and by him alone do we relate unto God himself And this should teach us 1. The equity and necessity of our universal obedience unto God in Christ. He hath freed us from subjection unto men and Angels that we might serve him and live unto him He hath taken us to be his peculiar ones his lot and portion from whom he expects all his Reverence of Glory out of this world And he hath left us no pretence no excuse for the neglect of any duties of obedience that he requireth of us We cannot plead that we had other work to do other Lords and Masters to serve he hath set us free from them all that we might be his If a King take a servant into his family and thereby free and discharge him from being liable unto any
22 23. But also that he should appoint and erect a Civil Government and Magistracy with supreme power over the lives liberties and estate of men to be exercised as occasion required v. 25 26. Which alone and no other was the building of the City mentioned by Gabriel for it is not walls and houses but Policy Rule and Government that makes and constitutes a City § 23 And it is very considerable what a conviction of the necessity of this work was then put upon the spirits of the Governours of the Persian Empire for the King himself he calls Ezra the Scribe of the Law of the God of Heaven owning him therein for the true God for he who is the God of Heaven is God alone all others are but the dunghill gods of the Earth v. 12. Again he declares that he was perswaded that if this work was not done there would be wrath from Heaven upon himself his Kingdom and his Son v. 23 The seven Counsellors they joyn in that Law v. 14. And the mighty Princes of the Kingdom assisted Ezra in his work v. 28. So that no command that concerned that people before or after was accompanied with that solemnity or gave such glory unto God as this did Besides the whole work of the Reformation of the Church the restitution of the Worship of God the recollection and recognition of the sacred Oracles was begun carried on and finished by this Ezra as we elsewhere at large have declared All which considerations falling in with the account before insisted on makes it manifest that it was this and no other Decree that was intended by the Angel Gabriel and from thence unto the death of the Messiah was seventy weeks or four hundred and ninety years the just and true limitation of which time we have been â—nquiring after § 24 I declared at the entrance of this discourse that thâ— force of our Argument from this place of Daniel against the Jews doth not depenâ— on tâ—â—s Chronological Computation of the time determined All then that I aimeâ— at it was to vindicate it in general from such perplexities as whereby they pretend to render the whole place inargumentative And this we have not only done but also â—o stâ—â—ed the account as that they are not able from any records of times past to lay any one considerable objection against it or which may not be easily solved Return we now to what remains of our former designed discourse Exercitatio XVI 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 unto the expiration of that Covenant Not now made good unto 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 unto 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 overthrâ—ws the Promise The Jews in the use of this plea self condemned The Covenant overthrown by it The Messiah may never come upon it UNto the invincible Testimonies before insisted on we may add some other § 1 considerations taken from the Jews themselves that are both suitable unto their conviction and of use to strengthen the faith of them who do believe And the first thing that offers its self unto 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 fundamentall of their profession from the dayes of Abraham and that § 2 which all their Worship was founded in and had respect unto was the promise of the coming of the Messiah we have before sufficiently proved Untill 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 unto 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 uncertaintie 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 unto 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 hath driven them to the present miserable relief of their infidelity and dâ—spair asserting that he shall not come untill immediately before the Resurrection of the dead only they take care that some small time may be left for them to â—njoy 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 dayes 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 unto 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 foundâ—tion 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 hath been in the world for these sixteen Ages is known unto all and what may be thence 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 unto them unto 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 unto them See Exod. 6.4 Chap. 34.10 11. Levit. 26.8 9. Deut. 18.18 Chap. 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 chastized for their sins Yet upon their repentance and supplications made unto him he would deliver them from their Oppressors Deut. 30.1 2 3 4 5. Nehem. 1.9 Deut. 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 Deut. 18.18 The whole Pentateuch all their Divine Writings are full of Promises about these things And as we said untill the time limited for the expiration of that special Covenant they were all made good unto 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 unto it Jer. 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 unto the power of their Adversaries because of their sins and provocations as unto the Babylonians in the dayes of Nebuchadnezzar and afterwards unto the Graecians or Syrians in the dayes 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 ruine 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 unto them in their several Generations yea 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 reâ—â—rn which dispensation ceased not untill they pointed out unto them the end of the Covenant and told them that the Messiah should come speedily and suddenly unto his Temple Mal. 3.1 2. § 5 The present Jews I hope will not deny but that God is faithfull still and as able to accomplish his Promises as he was in the dayes 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 dayes wherein as we have proved the Messiah was to come 1. For the Countrey given unto them by Covenant and the place of Gods 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 restauration of it which God so blessed of old frustrated yea ceased Their daily Sacrifice is ceased and whatever they substitute in the room of it is an open abomination unto the Lord. We need not insist on these things The Stories of their ruine exile vain attempts to recover their Land of their Fore-fathers of the utter pollution of the places of their Worship are known to themselves and all men that take care to know ought of these things Where is now the Covenant of the Land of Canaan Was it to be absolutely everlasting Whence comes it to pass that the great promise of it doth utterly fail Was it to expire What period can be assigned unto its duration but only that of the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of a New Covenant in him Is not the denyal 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 meer 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 How are they defended § 6 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 cryed 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 hath 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 unto them can they name one since the § 7 daies of a John Baptist whom they owned for a Prophet hath any one amongst 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 wandrings 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